StretchyChurch

Just found a new website as I was browsing Kairos Blog called Presbymergent. It’s a website for Presbyterians who are or who want to be part of the emergent conversation.

A couple of cool things I’ve discovered about the site so far:

• The site went live on January 26, 2007–that’s less than a week ago!–and they’ve already got all kinds of traffic.
• Anyone who registers is automatically set up as a contributor. That means that anyone can post an article (once it’s approved by the administrator, of course).
• They are currently covering some of the seminars and sessions from the Mainline Emergent/s conference.

Anyway, give ‘em a look-see and see what you think–especially if you’re a presbymergent!

Searcy and Thomas were pretty serious about having a strategy for your Launch. They defined a strategy like this:

A Strategy is simply a logical plan to get you from where you are to where God wants you to be.

They said that a good strategy will clarify and quantify what you’re trying to accomplish. And then they gave us Eight Key Elements of a Start-Up Strategy:

1. Purpose, Mission, and Vision Statement

• Purpose Statement – How you will do it.
• Mission Statement – What you will do.
• Vision Statement – What it will look like to do it.

2. Core Values

• What makes your church unique?
• The Core Values are the filters through which you do ministry and make decisions.
• Ken Blanchard says that no organization should have more than 10 values and as few as 5 or 6.

3. Strategic Aim

• States what the specific aim of your strategy is. What are you trying to do?
• “Our strategic aim is to effectively launch a new church in Great City, USA, on the second Sunday in September, 2007, with 300 in attendance and average 215 people in weekly attendance during the month of October.”

4. Major Objectives

              a. Preparation
              b. Pre-Launch
              c. Launch
              d. Post-Launch

• Eventually you will determine the specific tasks to accomplish each major objective.

5. Goals

• Goals have to be accomplished to achieve major objectives.
• Goals are a subcategory of Major Objectives.

6. Tasks

• Tasks are clear actions that have to be taken
• Determining specific tasks makes it easier to get people to help you. You can be very specific about what you need a person to do.

7. Calendar

• Put all the major objectives, goals, and tasks on a calendar

8. Budget

They made a special note that Objectives, Goals, and Tasks should be S.M.A.R.T.

S – Specific

• All of the statements in your strategy need to be written in as precise language as possible. Avoid generalities.

M – Measurable

• Make sure that you have some kind of gauge for measuring the accomplishment of each objective, goal, and task.

A – Attainable

• Break your statements into small enough bites that each one is realistically attainable. You can stretch, but don’t overextend!

R – Relevant

• Make each statement relative to the one that precedes it. For example, all tasks under Goal 1 should be directly relevant to Goal 1.

T – Time Bound

• Put a projected completion date on every task, goal, and major objective.

The third section of my notes from The Launch Conference is called Calling: The Call to Start a Church. This was probably one of the most significant sessions for me personally.

They started this section by asking this question:

“Do you know for sure that you are undeniably called by God to start a church?”

After giving us a few seconds to wrestle with that question, they began to talk about improper and proper sources of calling.

Sources of Improper Calling

• Unemployment (“No church will hire me, so God must be calling me to start a church.”
• Anger about something (e.g., about your denomination, about a church, etc.).
• Anger at your Senior Pastor (“I’ll show him [or her] how successful I can be!”).
• It’s easier than searching for another ministry position.
• Ego. A lot of pastors want to do something that will make them look good or important—like church-planting. (Ken Blanchard refers to ego as “Edging God Out”).
• Church-planting is kind of cool nowadays.

Sources of Proper Calling

• Prayer and Bible study.
• Surprise (i.e., God surprises you with the call to start a church; it’s not something you ever expected).
• Holy discontent (Admittedly, it can be hard to distinguish between holy discontent and frustration about something in your denomination or church).
• Strong burden for the lost.
• Godly counsel (others have confirmed that God may be calling you to start a church).

Next, they talked about The Four Calls of a Church Planter.

1. My call as to start a church.

• Keep a journal as you start the church and discern God’s calling. Later, when you get discouraged, looking back through this journal will be a source of encouragement to you.

2. My spouse’s call to start a church.

• If you’re married, your spouse needs to be called, too.
• Your spouse’s call may not come at the same time. It may come earlier than yours or it may come later.
• Since God has made the two of you one in marriage, God will speak to both of you. He won’t say one thing to one and something else to the other.

3. Our call to a specific place to start a church.

• God’s call to start a church is usually a call to a specific place.
• God prepares a place for you and prepares you for a place.
• When you go to that place, it will feel like this is what God created you for.

4. Our call to reach a specific people.

• In any place you go, there are many different kinds of people.
• God will call you to reach one of those people groups.
• However, just because you have the heart for a people group, that doesn’t mean you’ve been called to reach them. Your call may be to support someone else who is called. Or to find someone else who has been called.

And here are four questions they said to ask yourself as you consider starting a church:

1. Is your calling clear?
2. Has your calling been confirmed by others?
3. Are you humbled by your call?
4. Have you taken action on your call?

And then they concluded by talking about Answering the Call: Preparation. They discussed three ways in which we need to prepare to answer God’s call:

1. Prepare to lead.

• Growing churches have growing leaders. Make sure you’re always growing.
• All leaders are readers. In other words, read lots of books. Or listen to podcasts. Or listen to CD’s. Or wahtever way you best absorb information.
• A quote I liked: “God, help me become the leader I need to be to lead this church to the next level.”

2. Prepare to teach.

• You will be the primary voice for the vision.
• Listen to people who are great communicators.
• Have people evaluate your teaching.
• Our message is too important for people to miss it because we lack clarity in our communication.
• Videotape yourself so you can watch and evaluate yourself.

There you go. Coming up next—Strategy: Developing a Launch Strategy.

Tom Shadyac (pictured below) is cool. Tom Shadyac is the director of movies like Liar, Liar, Patch Adams, and Bruce Almighty. Tom Shadyac is a Christian.

His Christian worldview is fairly evident in movies like Liar, Liar, Accepted (which he produced), and especially Bruce Almighty.

But Tom Shadyac does more than include Christian themes in his movies. Tom Shadyac has started a non-profit bottled water company called HtoO, which stands for “Hope to Others.” 100%–not 50% or 75%, but 100%–of the profits go to charities like St. Jude’s Research Hospital, Habitat for Humanity, Operation Smile, The Salvation Army, etc. (Click here for a complete list of HtoO charities.)

I love the fact that Tom Shadyac is using his position in Hollywood not only to present a Christian worldview in his movies, but also to make a difference in the lives of those who are hungry, thirsty, sick, and outcast (see Matthew 25:31-46).

For some reason, my most recent post (Launch Conference, Part 2: Eighty Contrarian Ideas) showed up below my last post (Baby Watson #2). Anyway, click here for my second Launch Conference post.

Man, I’ve turned into a posting fiend again, haven’t I?!

Anyway, I’ve got great news! Some of you will remember that Robin and I had a miscarriage last fall. That was tough. But there’s always life after death, and today we got to see the first pictures of the new life that’s growing inside of Robin!

Introducing Baby Watson #2!!

Ok, next section from the Launch Conference….

These are the 8 Contrarian Church Launching Ideas. What that means is that these are ideas that are true of church planting, but don’t necessarily seem intuitive. Here are those ideas:

1. Your call to start a church is the most critical factor to the church’s success.

• It will be hard. You’ll feel like giving up at times. But the conviction of your call will sustain you.

2. Don’t be afraid to raise funds from other churches.

• Pursue all avenues for raising funds: individuals, churches, mission organizations, etc.

3. Build your new church from the outside in.

• Here, Nelson Searcy drew the five concentric circles that Rick Warren talks about in The Purpose-Driven Church. At the center is your Core group. Then moving outward: Committed, Congregation, Crowd, and Community.
• Don’t start by building your Core. If you do, they will become too inward-focused.
• Build up from the Community and move them in toward becoming the Core.

4. Resist the temptation to do everything at first.

• Don’t try to do everything when you start. You’ll spread yourself and your church too thin.
• Focus on doing one thing well—in the case of a new church, the weekend service.
• In the early days of the church, don’t do small groups.

5. Use 3-6 monthly worship services to build up to weekly services.

6. Don’t try to gather the churched; stay focused on the unchurched.

• Church planting is about reaching the unchurched.

7. You can start a church much faster than you think.

• You can start within 4-9 months of moving into the area God has called you to reach.

8. You can grow a church much faster than you think.

I found this cartoon over on CartoonChurch (which I discovered through Kyle’s link over on Vindicated). I thought it was great–definitely a “stretchychurch” concept.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

And we do this in the church, don’t we? Instead of helping people get on the lift, we look down on them for not yet having gotten on it.

The Launch Conference is over. And as I said, it was a really great conference!

A few days ago, I mentioned that I’m not yet sure if I’ll end up doing a church plant or go to an established church, but the great thing about this conference was that a lot of the information was absolutely transferable to an established church setting.

What I want to do is give you some of the notes from the conference. You may be asking, to quote Nute Gunray, “Is that legal?” In response, let me quote Darth Sidious: “I will make it legal!”

I’m in a bit of a giddy mood, I think…

Seriously, though, folks… Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas urged us to post as much of this information on our blogs as we want. They want this information getting out. In fact, one of the responsibilities of a leader, they said, is to share what we learn with other leaders.

So here goes… After some general opening comments on the need and significance of church planting, and following a summary of their experience in launching The Journey Church, Searcy and Thomas shared Three Key Launch Ideas. They are:

1. Launch large

• The larger the initial launch of the new church, the better the chance that the church will grow.
• “Large” is a relative term. In one region, 200 people might be a large launch, while in another region, a large launch might be 50. It all depends on the culture and the context of that area.
• “God’s dream for your church is bigger than your dream.”

2. Launch quickly

• The odds of successful growth increase for those churches who launch quickly. In other words, don’t get stuck overanalyzing your area or your target or whatever. Don’t wait two years to launch. You can launch successfully within 5-9 months.
• The longer you wait, the more excuses Satan will put before you not to launch.
• “There is always going to be a reason to postpone launching your church. Conditions will never be perfect.”

3. Launch from the outside in

• In other words, it’s possible to launch with only the pastor, the worship leader, and their spouses as the only Christians on the initial launch team.
• It is absolutely possible for the initial launch team to be made up largely of unchurched people.
• “It is completely possible to launch a church in which the only Christians on the initial team are the staff.”

There you go! Page 1 (technically, it’s page 6, but whatever…) of my notes from the Launch Conference. Stay tuned for 8 Contrarian Church Launching Ideas.

This is a pretty big issue these days. How should the church relate to homosexuals? I mean really relate to them in a way that is Christlike,

Ted over at Stragglingband has posted some compelling thoughts on this question. Check out his post here.