The First Step in New England
I’ve been thinking about steps lately.
Steps are the easiest way to lead someone to a specific place. Just like if I want to go to the other side of the road with the chicken, I need to start with the first step, so it is with many journeys of a spiritual nature – step by step.
I have been highly influenced by the teaching of Andy Stanley who talks about steps in the book, “The Seven Practices of Effective Ministry.” The book describes a path we take people on in leadership, and how a path that is narrow in regards to where you want people to be led, is more effective than offering them a hodge podge of choices. Please remember I’m a pastor, so most of my viewpoints tend to lean towards the church.
At Andy’s church, that path starts with a committed follower of Christ inviting their friends to a Sunday morning service, continues on to a connecting environment of some sort where individuals or families connect into a small group, the place North Point wants them to grow.
This is the philosophy my predecessor and I have taken on at the FC, but now I’m begining to ask a series of questions (after using the path for 3 years) as to whether its effective or not. I believe that small groups are the place where fellowship happens, and I think this is the most effective growing point for our church, but its the beginning thats making me wonder.
Why?
Because when someone in Andy Stanley’s church invites their friends to church, the odds are good that the person they are inviting has some sort of reference point from which to view this type of church. And that reference point, although it may not be the most flattering, probably brings visions of Sunday school songs like “Jesus loves me” and of the pastor bringing down judgment and moisture on those daring enough to sit close to the front of the sanctuary.
But when someone at Fellowship invites their friends to church, the odds are good that the person is thinking, “I’ve never gone to church, and I sure as hell don’t need to go now.” even if they like the person who is asking. Culturally speaking, it’s a giant leap for someone in New England to come to church, unless the head guy has the title “Father”, and even then, the perception intellectually is irrelevance.
So I’ve been processing and ideating, and I’d like to bring to you the new conceptual first step which focuses on community. New England loves its towns, and I think we could do a much better job being involved in the community at large than we do. What this looks like I don’t know yet, but I do know that it begins with a strong online presence, and continues as we, as a church, help make the unchurched aware that we exist.
If it were a path, I guess the first step would look something like this:
Instead of a fellowshipper simply inviting their friends to a Sunday morning service – first, a person becomes aware of the reputation of Fellowship Church through community outside of the church. This is much easier and cheaper to do (if we get creative) through the web 2.0. Thank you for teaching me Eric.
I’m processing a lot right now, and I’d like to you help me through this. I appreciate your community, input, and your ideas. So what do you think?
Related posts:
I think the thought of focusing on community is very exciting.
The internet… that’s interesting.
Wherever we choose to focus our energies, it will have demographic fall-out. What I mean is, if we spent all our time “marketing” at tractor pulls, assuming we’re succesful at attracting these people, we’ll end up with tractor-pull loving people in our seats.
If we spend our time on web 2.0 marketing, we’ll end up with people who:
A) have the money to afford computers and internet access.
B) have the time to use the internet for non-business purposes.
C) have the ability to use the internet.
and (perhaps most under-estimated)
D) View the internet in a certain way.
There’s a whole generation, I think, kind of stuck on what the web was capeable of originally. Among the possibilities they underestimate is the social, interactive ones. They are the sort who might research a topic via google but disdain facebook.
Every marketing decision the church makes carries similiar demographic repurcussions. The obvious challenge is to make the demographic we’re appealing to match with what we’re doing. Utilizing the web seems to me to be a pretty good match.
Great point – church is viewed as a mostly positive thing here in the South.
When you are ready to get your life back on track – after your wild college days are over and you start a family – that’s where you go.
Also, most people’s view of church is one that is Protestant. Most people grow up going to church.
“ideating”???????????? Nice, very Bushitation-like.
i’m glad you posted this. i’m finding it helpful in ‘ideating’ about some of my friends. i, like most Christians, have trouble finding the first step when trying to lead them to Jesus. (the ensueing steps are difficult as well)
Lately i’ve been focusing on something i believe the Lord gave me: much of the christian message these days is being perceived by the unbeliever as a self-help method of “fixing” one’s life or circumstances. i’m thinking of the myriad of responses like: “I’ve tried the Christian ‘thing’”, “Religion is a crutch I don’t need”, “My life if fine, I don’t need help”, etc. This line of thinking has grown out of a series of LG (life group) questions we tackled a number of weeks ago. i believe the questions focused around, “How has becoming a Christian ‘fixed’ your life?” (extreme paraphrase)
Then it occurred to me; Jesus never promised to ‘fix’ our lives, nor does he offer a contract whereby God miraculously remedies our situations. It isn’t like i personally didn’t know that. i’ve just been taking that for granted. In fact, that’s what offends me so much by the “Word-Faith Movement”. Somehow this notion that God will prosper you physically and materially has crept into the Gospel.
The problem with this is first, that it’s not true; and second, that it raises the expectation level. Ironically, it actually lowers them!!
Jesus came to ‘fix’ our relationship with the Father, to make peace with him.
How’s your relationship with God? That’s a nice first step…
I think you’re right — there’s a perfect marriage here. You can attract people by giving people the opportunity to get involved. If that works out, then you’ll have a church with a strong activist streak, and you won’t feel like you’re singlehandedly hauling the sleigh all the time. If people who have been touched by your activities decide to join up, all the better. But I think the key is getting activist Christians involved. Employing the web and distributing literature to local churches would probably be a good start. Easier said than done, but at the risk of sounding grandiose, I think this paradigm has the potential to change the face of contemporary Christianity.
I mean we already have a link to your blog on the Fellowship website right?
I don’t understand then, how can we have a more effective presence on the web than that? People visit the churches website, get directed to your blog, then find themselves irrisistably drawn to Bullard street on Sunday mornings. DONE.
I know I usually am just sarcastic on this blog, but that is because I think it is good for Marty to have someone around who thinks his ideas are terrible. I’m not saying they are terrible. I’m saying I think someone should always say they are.
But this is a real comment that I think is worth thinking about.
One of the things Fellowship and Marty focus on is being ‘intentional’. Everything has a reason, everything has a purpose.
Does this kill the organic nature of community?
That is my question.
I spent the weekend with Nora at her home church. Now I know if I say her church is awsome she will freak out and be like ‘dude my church is the most awsomest of all churches ever and CBF and Fellowship (THIS HAS BEEN EDITED BECAUSE SOMEONE WAS OFFENDED). But her church is awsome, and pretty amazing. And it is completely organic.
I’m gonna say some stuff, and it . . . well they are just thoughts. I think their is a natural flow in a christians life by which God re-routes energies directed towards him into channels to reach other people. What I mean is that in the new testament it seemed that people weren’t all up in other peoples faces (most of the time, yeah it happened) but were simply living their lives focussed on God. ‘As far as it is up to you, live at peace with all men.’ And as people entered into their lives they would minister to them out of the overflow of being foccussed on God.
Now I know as a leader you are in charge of giving your flock direction. But are their other alternatives to what you want to be focussed on as a church. Specifically in planning ‘strategically’ and trying to be ‘intentional’ in the effects you are seeking. I like what Garret said, and it has always been my experience as a Christian. Grow strong christians, and then god will use them however he sees fit where they are. How’s your relationship with God?
I know Marty personally, and I don’t believe this pertains to him but it is my perception of the general trends I see. I don’t like being ‘intentional’ because I believe it is a form of trying to switch cause and effect. If the cause is in me than I don’t need to try to force it, it will work its way out. Like loving someone. I can’t not love them. Because I love them. If I as a person were to try to be intentional it would be driven out of fear.
Fear. It destroys the organicness and the realness of people and community.
Back to Nora’s church and it being organic and amazing. No one is afraid. The people want to be there and keep showing up cause everyone there wants to be connected to the community where they find love. It feels like when you get too ‘intentional’ or ‘strategic’ that you are trying to trick people into showing up instead of trusting in prayer and fasting and the work of god in the hearts of the people around you to overflow in the community.
Truth is, for any man it isn’t about winning. It’s about how you play the game.
Arrgh!
I just had this whole comment written. And then it disapeared.
Bottom line:
I agree with about half of what Darren says.
He’s right when he points out that community is organic. And it’s worthwhile to worry about crossing the line between being strategic and being manipulative.
However, I think God most often works through us. I think we hear him most clearly when we pray, and fast and stuff. I further think that most of the time, when God works in the world he works through us. And finally, I think that most of the time when he works through us, he calls us toward being wise and strategic.
I think the metaphor of loving somebody is just about right on.
If I had a meeting and plotted strategically how to convince somebody that I loved them, even if I didn’t, this would be wrong.
But if I told myself I loved somebody, if I told my friends that I loved somebody, and I even told the special person I loved them, all concerned would expect some things from me.
They’d expect that I’d be wise, even strategic, with my time so that we could get together. They’d expect that I’d be strategic in creating environments that we could enjoy each other.
If I didn’t put the energy into this planning, it would be legitimate for anyone involved to say “Well, it’s easy enough to claim that you love them. But do you really?”
People can tell when you have an agenda, was Jesus’ agenda ever bigger than any one person?
When Jesus talked to people you think all they could heard from his body language and rhetoric is that he was doing all this stuff for his own reasons and he didn’t give a damn about them?
When earlier Garret talked about all the modern perceptions of the church today I think this would be a big one. That they don’t give a damn about me, they only care about their own agenda. To me being too intentional reinforces this principal to people (cause they can see it even if you are intentionally tyring to be casual) instead of reinforcing love.
Let’s face it, most congregations are navel-gazing and passive. I don’t think that’s for lack of character or compassion. People just need access to tools and environments that let them express their best selves. I think that’s what a church should be about.
There are two organic pieces:
1) Let the participants have input in the course of your ministry.
2) Bring in outside influences.
You don’t want a top-down, hierarchical paradigm. I mean, you’re not Catholic, right?
Wow, some great points guys. Sorry Nora, I had to edit that. I couldn’t throw Darren under the bus like that. And as for the other thing you said, obviously it was a joke, and I took it as such, but someone else who came along who doesn’t know you might not take it that way. Also…
Darren, meet Adam. Adam, meet Darren. You both graduated from the same college about 5 – 7 years apart.
you didnt edit it out of darrens post. what if someone comes along and thinks that’s a direct quote and that i am christian ayn rand?
Oh, no kidding. I knew a Darren who was ~5 years my junior and interested in religious issues. You’re not Darren T****y, are you?
I am Darren T****y.
Marty, how the @$%#@$ can you edit my post of the best line?!
Put it back damnit!!
Holy crap, I had a lot of respect for you, y’know.
I like Garret’s comment of our “fix” is our relationship with God, not our situation. Often times, God is seen as this vending machine that we can go to when we want something, rather than this person that we desperately need to be in relationship with. Yet on the other hand, there are many “vending machine” benefits of having a relationship with God. they may not be the things we think we need to be happy. sometimes He changes our understanding to realize it’s futile pursuance. yet, Jesus did say that he wanted us to experience life to its fullest. maybe we’re just looking at the wrong vending machine. one is full of candy bar that look good, but are made of impure chocolate and bad nuts, while the other one is full of healthy nuts and pure cocoa. one cost something, the other one is free. one we pursue to get, the other one we don’t care about those things even when they come or not because we too busy enjoying just being with God.
Could part of the problem be that Sin and consequence of sin seems to be an unspoken no-no in our day or some created manipulation tool used by the church rather than the truth of spiritual reality? I’m not saying we start with “you’re a sinner.” start with “how’s your relationship with God” and explain this whole Fall and sin and it’s affects on them personally and all mankind.
Helping Christians learn to really love God helps people learn to really love people. I know it may not be a measurable or strategic step, but creating this with the last step equips others to develop the first step in their own unique way in their own unique community?
I feel like I’m rambling, hope I’m making sense.
I’m not in a position to tell anyone how to find God, but let me just say that I’ve got to think fixing your relationship with God is an action verb. If your outreach isn’t improved by your soul-searching, what does that say about your progress?
Instead, I would think flexing your outreach muscles would be part of growing your relationship.
Ugh, I actually hit tab and accidentally posted. Who does that?
I actually wasn’t going to post that, because, again, I’m not in a position to lecture. But if the point being advanced is this rugged individualist notion that we should decide how to grow our outreach in a fellowship vacuum and that we should operate independently, without any kind of collective action, support, or leadership, I find the point unconscionable.
I would agree with post 17 in that as well as “soul-searching,” there has to be this outreach aspect as you grow in your relationship with God. Ties in with Jeff’s comments about love (which I really like). I’m not sure exactly what you’re saying in post 18, I would love for you to clarify “fellowship vacuum” and whether you’re saying being a rugged individualist as bad unconscionable or good unconscionable.
What is the goal?
Who are you ‘missing’ that you are trying to reach via web?
Who are you missing via web?
Compare your age to the average age in FC and ask yourself: are you reaching a target group, or reaching individuals for Christ? Are you losing people because of the web? do your congregants know of your web outreach? All of them? Really?
Just me, on the sidelines/back burner posing questions that i’ve heard fluttering around. Face to Face Authenticity, pastor… Face to Face – where does web 2.0 come in???
I always thought Darren was Darren T. Bell, not Darren T*****y (Twitty?) and I think you shouldn’t censor anything on this site (apart from snide comments like ‘so and so is gay’ and spam) if you really want to be a responsible blogger.
I have a lot to say too, but I think too much has been said already.
peace
[...] Yesterday I shared some thoughts I was having concerning steps toward reaching people for Christ in New England, and there was some great discussion that emanated from that conversation. One of the major differences that came up was the idea of intentionality vs. organicness of “church”, so I think I’ll write about that today. [...]
Re: Steve
Yeah, I should know better than to comment on issues I care about in furtive sessions while I’m at work. It doesn’t help that someone mentioned Ayn Rand. That just makes my hackles just go up.
I meant “bad unconscionable.” Mind you, I don’t have a problem with people who self-identify as rugged individualists. But to suggest that it’s for everyone or to discourage collective action rather than simply personally abstaining? That I’ll take issue with.
I certainly would never discourage collective action and I believe the whole church’s vision is built around community creating change. But somewhere, a person has to take personal responsibility for a part at times when the collective action is not assembled. If I stood for a cause to raise awareness for cancer but only did so when I hung with other people raising awareness for cancer, I would have to think the awareness then is only tied to how much the group collectively together can reach. What would happen if all individuals also found the opportunities and took them to express the awareness as they came across them during their individual lives. What I find somewhat interesting as we talk about this is that most people come up with ideas for other people to do. That’s my other problem with sticking with collective action only, is that usually 20% of the people do 80% of the work. I agree that there should be opportunities and strategic events for collective action but they are also times to train individuals to carry the vision to their area of influence that perhaps the collective could never have the opportunity to speak into.
Ouch!
didn’t mean to be an irritant! If i’d read your comment on my comment (wha?) before we met this morning, I would’ve totally been mortified… guess it’s good I didn’t see it until NOW – now I can go to sleep at 3 am knowing I irritated my own pastor!!! Gah – open mouth insert foot, chew, swallow, repeat! Sorry Pastor…
[...] I’m still pondering the thoughts of the last few days in my blog,and now I come to focusing a bit more on where I started: – The first step in New England. [...]
Pastor Marty,
Been a long time since I’ve been on your blog or anyother for that matter because I’ve been dealing with this
miracle God is working in mother-in-law at Rhode Island Hospital.
But as I fellow church leader in New England I felt compelled to share some of my own thoughts on what you shared here.
(Which is kind of an obvious statement because I’m posting on here…anywho…)
The thought I’ve been struggling with is why do we feel like the church’s role in its relationship with its members is
to be the one that evangelizes its members’ friends? While I do believe that the whole “invest/invite” is ONE way to
help evangelize the community, I believe it should be the SECONDARY way, not the primary way.
It seems like the model focuses on the goal of church attendance and not salvation. If the goal is salvation, then why put the emphasis on equipping people to do the work of the ministry? Let’s teach people how to reach people for Christ and
then if that isn’t having much impact – CLOSE the discussion with an invite to church. It seems like the “invest/invite”
model OPENS the discussion with an invite to church as the goal.
I know we all think about church growth, but what about focusing on Kingdom growth?
Here’s another thought I’d love to hear your thoughts on: What if there is greater attendance at small groups (because we’ve put the focus on kingdom growth through evangelism and discipleship as a life on life ordeal and not a church programming idea) than at church? Would that be accomplishing the goal?
Not trying to thread jack here…sorry about the long post.