Element Church Insider

You can read the other two parts HERE and HERE if you like.  I’ve been reading in Acts for my devotions and just saw a couple church related things that I thought I’d share.

#1  If you don’t want problems…don’t grow

#2  If you don’t want opposition…don’t preach the Gospel

#3  if you don’t like change…don’t pray for God to move

I’m amazed at how many Christians and churches say they are praying for revival, and dying for God to move in their churches and communities but are totally unwilling to embrace change.  How many people say they’d do ANYTHING to see their children or grandchildren know Jesus, but won’t let their pastors change the style of music or their methods of ministry to preach the Gospel and worship Christ in a way that connects with a new generation?  “Because, well, that’s the way we’ve always done it.  I met Christ through those methods and that music.”

Folks, when God moves THINGS CHANGE.  And sometimes IN ORDER for God to move He has to CHANGE THINGS.  If you don’t like change, don’t pray for God to move.

In Acts 1, it had been about 40 days since the resurrection and Jesus had appeared to the disciples on a number of occasions.  This was the last time He would see them, before literally, their world stinkin’ flipped upside down.  In Acts 1:4-5 Jesus tells them to “not leave Jerusalem” until the Holy Spirit comes upon them.  He was preparing them for EVERYTHING to change.  So they obeyed.  We find them, with bout 120 other believers, together in once place.  What were they doing?  Praying.  On the day of Pentecost the Spirit fell on the disciples and filled them with power.  EVERYTHING CHANGED!  They had 120 believers at that point.  That is larger than the average church in America today.  But they weren’t praying for God to keep everything the same.  They were pryaing for GOD TO MOVE and when God moves EVERYTHING CHANGES!

They couldn’t just hoard this new gift that was given, so Peter goes out and starts preaching.  3,000 were added as believers in one day.  WHAT?  120 to 3,000.  That meant that not all the believers knew each other anymore.  Peter was the preacher but he couldn’t minister to all 3,120 believers like maybe he/they could at 120.  The upper room wasn’t big enough now, they needed more space.  It worked before, but now there was no way.  When God moves EVERYTHING CHANGES!

Now people were meeting in homes all throughout the city.  People were sharing their own possessions.  They ate meals together.  Prayed togther.  Worshipped together.  They would meet in the synagogue or temple all together and then go back to their homes and minister to each other (can we say small group ministry?).  In Acts 6 we see a MAJOR shift in the leadership of the disciples.  They went from doing ALL the ministry needs to focusing on just  preaching and teaching. (Wonder how many comments they got on that decision)  EVERYTHING CHANGED!

Read through Acts and see how many times when God moved things changed.  The Jewish Christians had to welcome the Gentile Christians.  Churches began popping up all throughout the region so Paul and others traveled to minister to them.  The old law was being done away with for the age of grace.  The old Jewish system had to be adapted to meet the needs of the new Gentile believers.  EVERYTHING CHANGED!

If you don’t like change…don’t pray for God to move. BUT…but if the salvation of men and women and the transformation of their lives and the permiation of God into our communities is at the top of your priority list, then PRAY FOR THE MOVE OF GOD!  DESPERATELY pray for the move of God.  When God moves things change, but if we’re honest, they ALWAYS change for the BETTER.  At least in the eyes of the Kingdom.

Praying for God to move,

Jeff

Over the past year, I have grown increasingly weary of the labels we make for ourselves as the church.  We are a “traditional” church.  We’re “contemporary” (Which in my opinion, the contemporary church is fast becoming the new traditional).  We’re “missional” or “attractional” or “emerging”.  HUH?  I have a post HERE from several months ago, talking about “Why can’t we be both missional and attractional?”

Adam and I were talking about it yesterday, and we were again venting about all the labels we have made when we are just called to be the STINKIN’ Church.  There isn’t a correct model.  There isn’t a name we should pursue OTHER than the BRIDE OF CHRIST…THE CHURCH!  But, we are humans and so we gotta foul everything up.  And we have done a masterful job at it again when it comes to “naming” our model of church.  Well, I hadn’t heard a “prominent” church leader share on this idea of it being possible to be “all” the models at the same time, not just one.  Perry Noble posted a blog about it this morning.  I think he NAILED it on the head.  You can read his post called “Terminology or Transformation?”  HERE.

I just want to be the church that GOD has called us to be.  Sure, when you are describing a way a church does things, some terms might help you get a picture of their method, but folks, we’ve put our METHODS far above the MASTER and it’s high time we start pursuing the MASTER first and foremost.  Is there a style that Jesus really prefers?  Even the most traditional church is NOTHING like the one Jesus went to in Jerusalem.  There may be some elements of EVERY style and EVERY label in our churches…but I just want to be THE CHURCH!

Trying,

Jeff

Please read the previous posts HERE and HERE!  These are just scribbles in my journal at this point and thought that blogging it would help me process it more.  The first two stages are Establish and Enhance.  The established church basically “made it” to the point that they could continue doing the exact same thing and ALWAYS exist just as they are.  The enhancing church is taking what is established and making ALL of it better.  Becoming more efficient and excellent in how they are doing ministry.  It leads to stage #3.

Stage #3 is Expand:  When a church begins to expand, they are going beyond making it better.  The expanding church wants to make sure they are reaching FULL impact in ALL areas of ministry for their community.

The biggest statement is “Whatever makes it bigger”:  Now that things are better, how do we make them bigger?  How do we reach MORE people?  How do we serve in MORE places?  How can we give MORE to missions?  How can we do MORE in our city?  Impact, influence, the SCOPE of the ministry is ready to go BIG but how do we do it?  The enhancing church, if they aren’t careful, can keep making things better without ever using better to be bigger.  I’m not JUST talking about “How many come to church”.  I’m talking about “How big of a stinkin’ dent can we put in hell?”  “How can we help meet REAL needs of REAL people in our community?”  How can our church of 200 make the BIGGEST impact?  What about 500?  1000?  2000?  I DO think that if a church makes it to the third stage, the results WILL be more people “coming” to church but that isn’t necessarily the goal.

The biggest question is “What more can we do?”:  Where else can we serve?  Can we take our existing serving opportunities and make them bigger?  What else does the city need?  What can we add to our experience to make it bigger?  Expansion mode, keeps the church in establish and enhance mentality ALL the time.  When you’re expanding, you’re constantly trying to establish  new things, enhance them then expand again.  Establish, enhance and expand again.  You’re ALWAYS willing to “do whatever it takes” and “make it better”.  Your consistently wondering “will we make it?” because expansion STRETCHES the church like nothing else.  It keeps the church ADVANCING!  It is risky and scary. But there is no better place to be.  If expansion doesn’t happen, a church will enhance itself to death and eventually just establish.

The biggest danger is “Let’s stay here!”:  “We’ve always done this so why would we change it, add to it, or take it away?”  Most churches are GREAT at getting here, and then they stay.  Keep everything running smoothly and efficiently, WHY ROCK THE BOAT?  “We don’t mind enhancing what we already have, but lets not go beyond that.”  It’s at this point where churches are in danger if being “ABOUT” the building and not use the building to be “ABOUT” the city, people or Kingdom.  There is NOTHING wrong with having a building, as long as you’re not ABOUT the building.  It’s at this stage that we are VERY comfortable.  We like where we are at.  We like who we are with.  And we like what we already do.  It’s just easier to stay here!  What we end up with is we keep enhancing OUR STUFF but our impact on the city stays the same.

I’ll tell you, THIS is where I am challenged the most as Lead Pastor of Element Church right now.  HOW do we expand our impact.  It’s our vision!  That GOD would so impact the Cheyenne area through Element Church that if it were gone the community would miss it.

Processing,

Jeff

This is something I worked through a few weeks ago, and I shared with the Lead Team as well.  It isn’t completely formulated beyond the pages of my journal yet so I thought I’d get it up on the blog to keep processing it.  Since it’s not fully processed it’s a bit random.  I started thinking about Element Church.  We’re 16 months old, but we’ve already gone through several “stages” of church life.  It got me thinking about where we were going, and what we would be doing 16 months from now.  Then I started thinking about the fact that EVERY church, at some point, was a church plant.  Whether your 16 weeks, 16 months, 16 years or 160 years old, you started and ground zero.  LAUNCH SUNDAY!  So I began jotting down what I thought were the four stages of the church.  I’ll start with stage #1 today.

Stage #1 “Establish”: In the establish stage of the church you are concerned with very few things.  There are probably more but here are three

1.  Money  2. Consistency and 3.  Critical Mass.

Money is HUGE in the start up of a church.  It is not the ONLY factor, but it definitely helps in being able to launch big.  People have started churches with lots of money and failed miserably.  People have started churches with little to NO money and were HUGE successes.  Lots of variables go into that, I just know for us, and talking to other church planters, that when you are trying to get established it just simply takes money.  WHEN Element decides to plan another church or campus, one of my HIGHEST priorities is to resource that church plant team properly with finances.  Being a church plant that was properly resourced enabled us to do things that I think were a HUGE factor in the strong start we had.  Two paid pastoral staff, office assistant, office rental, marketing, outreach, equipment ALL were a part of our beginning because of money.

Consistency was one of my BIGGEST frustrations and concerns when we were being established.  Church doesn’t work without consistently committed people.  I was surprised (not sure why) at how many “AWESOME, we’ll be there!” responses we got from people that were at BEST hit and miss.  Mostly no shows.  In fact the people who became consistent were the biggest surprises for us.  You CANNOT become established until you have consistency.  Bible studies, service projects, prayer meetings, worship times DON’T WORK without consistency.  We started doing Unplugged services each Sunday in the Summer of 07 to start developing these consistently committed people.  Unplugged made the beginning of Element Church.  That leads to the other part of the Establish stage.

Critical Mass.  I don’t know what the magic # is, but there is something about a certain # of people that make a service “feel” better to people.  If you come to a church 0f 15, compared to a church of 50, something just “feels” different.  Critical mass is huge in the success of an early church.  It helps first time guests feel as if they don’t stand out as much.  It brings more enthusiasm and energy into worship.  It creates a greater sense that “something is happening”.

The biggest statement is:  “Whatever it takes!” When it is LITERALLY “This thing works or we move somewhere else”, you will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to make sure it works.  Sacrifice, time, work, money, effort, WHATEVER.  You work as if it depends on you and PRAY as if it depends on God.  UTTER DEPENDANCY ON GOD!  You realize the GRAVITY of what you are trying to do.  By the way, why do we lose that the longer our church is “established”?

The biggest question is: “Will we make it?” A great sense of wonder fills the establish part of church life.

The biggest danger is: “We’ll give in” Giving in to someone elses vision.  People WILL come to a new church to try and push their vision and agenda.  New churches attract disgruntled church goers who want to make THIS church what THEY think it should be.  This NEVER goes away in ANY stage.  DON’T GIVE IN!  Giving in to someone who has money.  “What if they stop giving?”  Who gives a crap?   Did they call you to do this or God?  Trying to be “another” church and not who God called you to be.  Just because it worked for… doesn’t mean it will work for you!

EVERYTHING in the first stage of a church is about “making it”.  Getting to a place where the church is sustainable.  Money is coming in.  Ministries are being performed.  People are being reached.  I remember the anxiety of the unknown.  SO MANY variables to getting established.  SO MANY expectations, whether realistic or not.  MAN, what is sad to me is that the next three stages are so often avoided by churches.  Establish is all they ever make it to.  It’s a danger for all of us.  Stage 2 – 4 coming.

Processing,

Jeff