Tuesday, July 31, 2007

"The Work and The Churches" by Nee

(Page 107)
One of the tragic mistakes of the past hundred years of foreign missions in China (God be merciful to me if I say anything amiss!) is that after a worker led men to Christ, he prepared a place and invited them to come there for meetings, instead of encouraging them to assemble by themselves. Efforts have been made to encourage the young believers to read the Word themselves, pray by themselves, witness themselves, but never to meet by themselves. Workers never think of reading, praying and witnessing for them, but they do not see any harm in arranging meetings for them. We need to show the new converts that such duties as reading, praying, witnessing, giving and assembling together are the minimum requirement of Christians. We should teach them to have their own meetings in their own meeting place. Let us say to them,

(page 108)
“Just as we cannot read the Word, or pray, or witness for you, so we cannot take the responsibility of preparing a meeting place for you and leading your meetings. You must seek out suitable premises and conduct your own meetings. Your meetings are your responsibility, and a regular assembling of yourselves is one of your chief duties and privileges.”

Many workers regard their meetings and the meetings of the church as one and the same thing, but they are not. (See chapter nine.) Therefore, as soon as a few believers are saved, we must instruct them to take full responsibility for their private reading, prayer, and witness, and also for the public meetings of the church.

As for ourselves, while we go on working and keep our work distinct from the work of the church, we must go and have fellowship with the believers in their various local gatherings. We must go and break bread with them, join with them in the exercise of spiritual gifts, and take part in their prayer meetings. When there is no church in the place to which God has sent us, we are only workers there, but as soon as there is a local church, we are brothers as well as workers. In our capacity as workers we can take on responsibility in the local church, but in our capacity as local brothers we go and meet with all the members of the church as their fellow members.

As soon as there is a local church in the place of our labors, we automatically become members. Here is the chief point to observe in the relationship between the church and the work—the worker must leave the believers to initiate and conduct their own meetings in their own meeting place, and then he must go to them and take part in their meetings, not ask them to come to him and take part in his meetings. Otherwise, we shall become settlers in one place and shall change our office from apostle to pastor; then when we eventually leave, we shall have to find a successor to carry out the church work. If we keep “church” and “work” parallel and do not let the two lines converge, we shall find that no adjustment will be needed in the church when we depart, for it will not have lost a “pastor,” but only a brother. Unless we differentiate clearly in our own minds between church and

(page 109)
work, we shall mix the work with the church and the church with the work; there will be confusion in both directions, and the growth both of the church and the work will be arrested.

“Self-government, self-support, and self-propagation” has been the slogan of many workers for a number of years now. The need to deal with these matters has arisen because of the confusion between the church and the work. In a mission, when people are saved, the missionaries prepare a hall for them, arrange for prayer meetings and Bible classes, and some of them go as far as to manage the business and spiritual affairs of the church as well. The mission does the work of the local church! Therefore, it is not surprising that in the process of time, problems arise in connection with self-government, self-support, and self-propagation. In the very nature of things, such problems would never have come up for consideration if the principles shown us in God’s Word had been adhered to from the very beginning.

Anyone who cares enough to be a Christian ought to be taught from the outset what the implications are. Believers must pray themselves, study the Word themselves, and assemble themselves, not merely go to a meeting place prepared by others and sit down and listen to others preach. Going to a mission compound or a mission hall to hear the Word is not scriptural assembling, because it is in the hands of a missionary, or of his mission, not in the hands of the local church. It is a mixture of work and church. If from the outset Christians learned to gather together according to the Scriptures, many problems would be avoided.

1932 - The Normal Christian Church Life by Watchman Nee
Pg 107-109 The Work and The Churches

Thursday, July 26, 2007

WHY ORGANIC? (part 6)

I have chosen the word, “organic” to describe a process that is not driven organizationally and operates through natural, God-given principles. Something that is natural, or organic may be compared to a living organism and should obey the laws of the creation mandate in Genesis chapter one to reproduce after its kind, when the soil and conditions are right.

Many, if not most 20th century methods of church planting could be described as organizational rather than organic: architectural rather than agricultural. Generally, successful church planting in the american church model, requires a large amount of start-up capital ($250,000 according to one source), full-time, trained staff (i.e. a church planter, a senior pastor and a secretary) and an advertising budget, not to mentioned a qualified worship director and children’s ministries director. It is no wonder that the average church finds reproducing itself in a daughter church a daunting task!

Obviously, if a church planter envisions starting a dynamic, growing mega church, there is a greater need for capital resources, both in finances and qualified people in the early stages of the start-up. Only large denominations, already existing mega churches or highly focused church networks are likely to be able to gather sufficient resources for this kind of church planting. Independent, entrepreneurial church planters and smaller, congregational type churches are unlikely to have sufficient resources for this kind of church planting.

What to do? We have already seen the desperate need for new churches, as well as the evidence that we need for a new kind of church. Some would argue that there is a clear scriptural mandate that every church should have the capacity to reproduce itself, if it is a truly living organism, part of the body of Christ. How can a typical American congregation with 95 people in attendance reproduce itself?

The answer proposed in this paper is might be called “organic church planting.” It is church planting in its most simple and basic form. It relies on using natural, creation principles for growth and multiplication, rather than an organizational paradigm. The goal of organic church planting is not to build an organizational structure nor is it to gather a large number of seekers in a worship service. The goal of organic church planting is to recognize and penetrate receptive social networks with the good news of Jesus’ rule and to produce highly committed followers of Jesus within these social networks, who will gather together in Jesus’ name to love and serve one another and to be light and a living witness to the rest of their social network.

In organic church planting, worship services, music styles, meeting facilities are all determined by the needs and cultural customs of the targeted social network. Organic church planting among some Gen-x and millennial generation groups of young people may require meeting informally in coffee houses, worshipping with spontaneous debates and discussions, with music that widely varies from one group to another. For example organic church planting among Muslims may require prayer five times a day with a heavy use of poetry and spirited conversations in coffee shops.

One Rhode Island church planter from a Baptist background1 found that the most effective way to plant churches in the highly secular and intensely ethnic culture of New England was to begin with evangelistic Bible studies in the homes of people who were influencers of social networks. Using the home of the person with social influence as a base of proclamation, the entire network was often brought into fellowship with Christ.

This same church planter ran into major difficulties when he tried to incorporate these newly evangelized social networks into the local church. They tended to resist bonding relationally to the local church social network and tried to preserve their own “natural” social network. Often these family or social sub-structures disintegrated or caused church splits in the local church. The long-term solution that he finally discovered was to establish a new “church” in the social network itself, often the same home where the Bible study originated, rather than try to bring the new believers into an already existing church family.

1 The Rhode Island Fellowship of Church Planters. http://www.fcpt.org/fcpt/

Sunday, July 1, 2007

ORGANIC CHURCH PLANTING DEFINED (part 5)

Biblical church planting is not focused on getting people to commit to attendance to a weekly meeting. Nor is it focused on attracting disaffected Christians from other weekly meetings. Biblical church planting is focused on penetrating unredeemed social and family networks with the good news of the kingdom and calling people out of darkness into loving obedience to Jesus and into a committed relationship with other “Jesus” followers.

Transfer growth or new conversion growth?

Church planting that aims to draw “Christians” from other churches into a new church through nicer facilities, more contemporary music, better Bible exposition or excellent programming meeting “felt needs” is a more like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic than New Testament style church planting. One may successfully gather Christians together and call it a new church, but the overall church in a city or nation may suffer. Christians are moved around into different configurations and denominational brands, but the kingdom of God may not be advanced!

The purpose of church planting is not to provide a pastor with an income; the purpose of church planting is to find and convert lost people into committed followers of Christ and disciple them into a kingdom lifestyle that will be an attractive light to others in their same demographic social network. For that reason, in this paper, I am only dealing with church planting that focuses primarily on conversion growth.

Churches that are started with methods or strategies that seek to facilitate transfer growth from other churches rarely or never become effectively evangelizing churches and rarely reproduce themselves. On the other hand, churches that are started through effective and biblical (and relational) evangelism will likely reproduce and become effective in reaching out to secular people.