New Paradigms for Cultural Engagement: A Review of "To Change the World."

This week, I'm at the Exponential conference in Orlando, the largest gathering of church planters in the world. As is usually the case with conferences of this nature, much time is being spent emphasizing the importance of cultural exegesis and contextualization. Being surrounded by these themes all week reminds me of the vociferous nature of the debate surrounding all these issues.

Recently, I wrote a book review that is scheduled to be published in the forthcoming issue of The Great Commission Research Journal. The book I reviewed contains one man's take on how the church needs to adjust its approach to mission in the West in order to make a significant impact. James Davison Hunter's book is a mind-bending read, and a great "iron-sharpening" tool for followers of Christ who are truly looking for ways to have more influence on an increasingly post-Christian world in the United States and Europe.

James Davison Hunter is the LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture and Social Theory at the University of Virginia, and also serves as the Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He is also the author of Culture Wars and The Death of Character.

Hunter’s latest volume is the product of roughly ten years of research into the subject of cultural engagement. It consists of three major essays that address the Christian mandate relative to culture, issues of change, power and conflict related to this mandate, and a suggested model for accomplishing this mandate respectively. A Christian himself, Hunter states, “I find many perplexing disparities between the Christian faith that I have come to know and what I see acted out in the world” (ix). His ultimate goal in this volume is to reconcile the Christian responsibility for world-changing with a western form of Christianity he perceives to be largely impotent at accomplishing this goal.

In Essay One, Hunter contrasts the Scriptural mandate of leading culture with the common view of culture he believes fails at this task. On the one hand, “human beings are, by divine intent and their very nature, world-makers” (3). On the other, “the dominant ways of thinking about culture and cultural change are flawed, for they are based on both specious social science and problematic theology” (5).

With these corollary propositions in mind, Hunter examines the view of culture held by most within Evangelical Christianity—namely, that cultures are, at heart, driven by ideas and worldviews. He credits (or blames, depending on the reader’s perspective), conservative Christian figures such as Chuck Colson and James Dobson, and progressive Christians such as Jim Wallis for this popular view. He laments the practical result of this philosophy of culture, believing “it is not an exaggeration to say that the dominant public witness of the Christian churches in America since the early 1980s has been a political witness” (12).

Hunter confronts this common view by stating that cultural values are shaped in a much more complex fashion, not only dependent on ideas, but also artifacts, history, and dialectical interdependence, and are generated within networks that are eventually guided by unprecedented leadership. In contrast to the “great man theory” of leadership, Hunter believes that the aforementioned networks are “where we do find the greatness of a Martin Luther or John Calvin, a William Wilberforce, a Dorothy Day, a Martin Luther King, and so on” (38). Building on this theory of cultural development, Hunter contends that “the deepest and most enduring forms of cultural change nearly always occur from the “’top down’” (41). In short, lasting cultural shifts rarely happen at the popular level, but instead take place within networks of institutions led by cultural elites. He then examines these claims against the measuring stick of Christian history, tracing how the development and growth of Christianity (from its first century Jewish roots to the European Barbarian conversions to the Reformation to the Great Awakenings to the present) followed the pattern he describes in the first four chapters. He ends the first essay by seeking to balance the inherently despicable nature of elitism with the equally disturbing picture of cultural egalitarianism, with a view toward laying the groundwork for a church that “exercises itself in all realms of life, not just a few” (95).

In Essay Two, Hunter critiques what he perceives as the misuse and abuse of power—and in particular political power—by the three most commonly identified expressions of Christianity in America, the Christian Right, the Christian Left, and the neo-Anabaptist movement. Hunter suggests that what binds a diverse society together is power, and that in democratic environments, “the final repository of legitimate force is found in the state” (101). As a result, these various fragments of diverse society, including those identified as “Christian” tend toward the use of politics, a pattern that Hunter believes has been common in the west since the time of the New Deal. He states that “Slowly, often imperceptively, there has been a turn toward law and politics as the primary way of understanding all aspects of collective life” (108). Hunter further illustrates how this “turn toward law and politics” has negatively affected what he identifies as the three primary streams of Christianity in the West.

Where the Christian Right and Left are concerned, Hunter believes that both have resorted to the “selective use of scripture to justify political interests” (147), and that the primary goals of each group, which through a more fully-orbed understanding of Scripture should be viewed as complimentary, are ironically divided through an identically applied realpolitick. Hunter then compares the approaches of the Right and Left with the view of the neo-Anabaptists, who seek to essentially disengage from all aspects of political life. Yet in the end, Hunter presents neo-Anabaptism as itself “a political theology that reinforces rather than contradicts the discourse of negation so ubiquitous in our late modern political culture” (166).

Hunter concludes the second essay with a challenge to fresh thinking about the issue of power from a theological perspective, leading the reader inevitably to the third and final essay in which he envisions a “postpolitical witness” (184). In this final essay Hunter posits a vision for a fresh Christian encounter with culture that evolves beyond the current paradigms of engagement and toward what he describes as “faithful presence.” Beginning with one’s own local community and branching outward, Hunter describes the possibility of Christians making a decipherable mark on the world in which they live.

Self-critique is always a painful business, and as a Christian Hunter speaks well to the apparent failures of his faith as it is often applied in the West. His encouragement to move beyond mere political engagement is timely, and his revelation that culture is primarily changed at the level of the elite—though this be an unpalatable truth to an Evangelical Christianity that is largely grassroots—is poignantly accurate. At the same time, his comparison of conservative and progressive versions of Christianity cloud over his failure to distinguish cultural and evangelical Christianity. He is correct to point out that many in the Christian Right and Left do not hold to a holistic understanding of their faith, but in the process he neglects the possibility that neither of these approaches is genuinely Christian.

Perhaps what is missing in the midst of thorough definitions of “left,” “right” and “Anabaptist” is an equally thorough understanding of “evangelical.” It seems apparent to this reviewer that the author’s focus on the social and cultural is certainly more accurate than his treatment of the theological, which results in the occasional abuse of terminology that is first and foremost theological in nature.

Additionally, Hunter’s understanding of current approaches to cultural engagement is at times overly -simplistic. His use of the term “always” to describe the approach of Christian conservative action, for example, seems a broad generalization hardly compatible with a scholarly work of this magnitude (219). Likewise, though he is familiar with precedent literature such as Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture, he appears to confuse Niebuhr’s own categories of engagement. For example, he describes Calvin’s views on cultural engagement—which in reality were philosophically close to his own—in terms that when examined resemble more closely the views of cultural interface held by Tertullian (231). Such may be the cause for Hunter’s assumption that any attempt by the church to build God’s Kingdom “this side of heaven is to begin with an assumption that tends to lead to one version or another of the Constantinian project” (233). Such categorical confusion also appears as Hunter unveils his own model of cultural engagement, which places great emphasis on disengagement with almost all things political and thus, seems strangely reflective of the neo-Anabaptist view which he finds insufficient.

Two final concerns where this book is concerned involve a relatively vague description of the meaning of “faithful presence,” and an overly pessimistic view of the result of this presence. In an anti-climactic conclusion, Hunter contends that if the reader takes to heart and applies the principles he suggests, “it is possible, just possible, that they will help to make the world a little bit better” (286). Such a statement, in the end, betrays an underdeveloped eschatology, and a negative understanding of the power of the church as the presence of Jesus in culture.

Still, the book’s shortcomings are overshadowed by the positive challenge toward an alternative route of cultural engagement for the church. The overall thesis of Hunter’s work—that God’s people must move beyond “culture wars” toward a more productive path to world impact—will well-serve the follower of Christ who rises to the challenge to become a “culture-maker.” Hunter gives ample evidence that the current approach to cultural engagement is not working, and grounds his primary emphases firmly in history, social science, and Scripture. The church will be better and more effective for heeding the exhortations of this book.

It is certain that Hunter would find a military analogy for his book to be an ironic thing indeed. Nevertheless, one moment in military history does serve as a great object lesson for what Hunter aspires to communicate. On the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate General James Longstreet tried in vain to convince Robert E. Lee to pull back from the current battle lines and head south to re-engage Union soldiers on ground of their choosing. Lee refused, believing not only that his Army of Northern Virginia could successfully overwhelm Union forces at the center of their lines, but also that any sign of pullback indicated a retreat from battle that Lee found unacceptable. Longstreet’s response was that he was not asking for retreat, only redeployment. The subsequent bloodshed that day vindicated Longstreet’s appeal.

James Davison Hunter has written a comprehensive analysis of the current state of Christianity in the West and its failure to be the global force for good that Jesus demands. His call is essentially to back away from the current “lines of battle,” to get a realistic and practical view of the world as it is rather than as we wish it would be. Many who are heavily involved in the current “culture war” approach to extending the influence of Christian faith will see his book as a call to retreat. To be sure, some of the solutions he suggests are vague, others simply not practical. Still, his overall point is worthy of strong consideration. Christians should take a fresh look at how the spiritual battlefield has manifested itself in our current culture and “redeploy,” lest American Christianity meet with its own Pickett’s charge.

Why Maryland Should Grant In-State Tuition Benefits to Illegal Immigrants

If you want to see tempers flare up quickly on both sides of a volatile issue, just start a conversation about illegal immigration. If ever there was an example of an issue where the fringe elements on each side are permitted to dictate the terms of debate, immigration fits the bill! Unfortunately, those who believe this issue is as simple as choosing sides between Republicans and Democrats--or between CNN and FOX News, fail to understand the deep complexity of the issue at hand. What's worse is that followers of Jesus, for the most part, don't appear to have realized that God speaks much in His Word about how just nations are to treat the alien and stranger from another land.

The latest manifestation of this unfortunate shouting match is now occuring in my state. This week, the Maryland legislature is considering a bill that would grant in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants. As usual, reactions to this bill have been predictably strong and shallow. On the far left are those who are simply content to ignore the law. On the far right are those who have confused respect for the law with the worship of law. Since I have written on this issue in a more comprehensive fashion before (here, and here), this post will be relatively short. But as much as my politically conservative friends might lament my position here, I feel compelled to give a rationale for why I do believe this bill should become law in Maryland:

1. From a financial point of view, the reason we grant "in state" vs. "out of state" tuition has to do with whether students and their families have actually contributed financially to the public University system in a given state. Unless I am mistaken, I believe this legislation stipulates that the families of illegals have to pay income taxes in Maryland before their children can qualify. If this is not true, then I would join others in opposition to its passage. Those who aren't paying taxes in MD should not have "in state" rates for the same reason my kids won't get in state tuition if they choose to attend JMU--because our family doesn't pay income taxes in Virginia and thus, we don't contribute to the public support of James Madison University. If they pay taxes in Maryland, they have contributed to the public support of our institutions of higher learning. Thus, I have no problem with them receiving the same benefits as my family.

2. From a practical point of view, we have to remember that in most cases, we are talking about the children of illegals, who were brought here by their parents, thus having their illegal status chosen for them. We might rightly call them victims of their parents illegal choices. Since we aren't living in an ideal world, and consequently will continue to live with these individuals among us, we should ask a very simple question: Would we rather them remain uneducated, possibly start down a spiral toward volitional criminal activity themselves, and take from our society, or would we rather offer them the opportunity to contribute to our society?

3. Finally, from a Christian point of view, those who claim the name of Christ must speak first and foremost as His followers, not as Republicans or Democrats. Anyone with the ability to read and common sense can clearly see that our current immigration situation represents the epitome of mistreatment of "aliens and strangers," and embodies the very kind of unjust law that Christians should oppose with all our might. As one who works with immigrant Pastors (our Association of churches worships every Sunday in eight different languages) and helps them legally navigate the nightmare that is the USCIS, I can readily testify to the fact that when our pastors try to obey the law (as they should) and do the right thing, they are jerked around, malligned, and in some cases, even abused by the system, while simultaneously, thousands every day cross our borders illegally. In short, our current immigration system does indeed reward lawbreakers, but it also punishes those who try to obey the law, and makes victims out of the children of both groups. This is unjust law by any standard! Isaiah 10 contains strong words for those who would write and support such law, and as a Christian, I am forced by my obsevations of our current situation to favor extending grace to the children of illegals. But more than this, I believe evangelical Christians should join with President Obama in calling for comprehensive reform of this ungodly mess that we call immigration law.

I certainly welcome any comments, counterpoints, and respectful disagreement here. But we must remember that this issue is far more complex than the talking heads in either political party have made it out to be.

Passing the Baton: Ensuring an Ongoing Church Planting Strategy

This is my last installment on the subject of how to facilitate effective church planting in the Baptist Association. This post also covers a key piece to the puzzle if you want a church planting emphasis to outlast your own ministry as a Director of Missions.

At this point in the game, you have created a culture that understands the Great Commission neccesity of church planting. A system of recruitment, assessment, training, deployment, and support is in place. The cooperation of state, national, and network partners is in place, and you are beginning to see the Kingdom advance that always ensues when new churches are planted to penetrate lostness. Now comes the hard part: You have to give it away!

I love church planting. But its been more than six years since I've started a church, and my stories started getting old a couple of years ago. Were I to start another church today, the learning curve would be steep even with my prior experience. Culture shifts so rapidly and quickly now that it is simply impossible to keep pace with the constant change in approaches to church planting without actually planting a church. The church planters we have in the field however, are still neck-deep in their experiences. Sponsor churches likewise are actually riding the waves of change as I write. As such, the best way to ensure an ongoing and plausibly perpetual church planting strategy is to turn the entire strategy over to the planters themselves.

We are currently in the middle of this process now, and have begun to develop a "Parent Church Network" (PCN). All members of this network have recently planted a church themselves, or they have parented a plant and demonstrated through that experience that they know what they are doing. Though I'm technically still in the driver's seat, the goal is to have the lion's share of the operation, policy-making, budgeting, etc. turned over to the PCN within the next two years.

This doesn't mean I won't be involved. On the contrary, I will continue to "start fires" in this area by expanding partnerships between churches, church plants, pastors, church planters, church planting networks and other denominational entities. But the process will be governed by those who are actually doing the work. If I get hit by a bus, they can always replace a catalyst, but the overall process should not have to suffer in the event that the DOM is removed from the picture.

But the greatest reason to turn church planting over to the planters is given by Bob Logan: He states that church planting movements "that reproduce quickly and spread among the people, can best be led by grassroots movements of ordinary believers doing what Jesus called them to do."

Currently, one of our planters who serves on our Association's Executive Board is working alongside me in anything related to church planting. My goal by the end of the year is to help him build a team that will oversee this work in MMBA. One awesome part of this is the people we have identified to date to join this team. One is a former moderator who has served as pastor of his church for more than 30 years, and who has helped us plant four churches. Another is the pastor of one of those church plants. Yet another is a planter currently starting a church with the support of the church that was itself started by our former moderator's church. Literally, we have three "generations" of folks who believe in church multiplication serving on this team. Our great hope is that they will lead future church planting in central Maryland, and anywhere else in the world where our member churches are called to go.

If those planting churches are to have any sense of ownership when it comes to the Association, you have to grant that ownership. So don't be afraid to hand it off! As I said earlier, their experience is more recent than mine, so they will know better than me how the next generation can be successful. For my part, I'm honored to have played a role in bringing them to this point, and I'm giddy with excitement over how God will use them as our network of churches moves forward.

If you are a Director of Missions, a church planter trying to start a CPM within your association, or a local church pastor with similar passion, I hope this series has been helpful to you, and that it will be helpful to your Association. With 258 million lost people living in the United States, the roughly 1000 Baptist Associations can serve a vital and role in reaching those people by helping plant new churches--or they can become totally irrelevant. I pray you choose to go forth and multiply!

Tom Elliff Speaks to the Parents of Missionaries

Ideas, as Francis Shaeffer once said, have consequences, and this statement is never more true than when contemplating the result of promoting Christian missions in your own home!

Recently, my denominations International Mission Board commissioned another batch of missionaries to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. During the commissioning sermon, preached by new IMB President Tom Elliff, Dr. Elliff addressed the concerns of parents whose promotion of and passion for missions had now manifested itself in their son or daughter answering the call to go to the uttermost, and often dangerous, places of the world. The IMB article quotes Dr. Elliff as follows:

New IMB President Tom Elliff spoke specifically to missionaries’ parents. As a former missionary and father of two missionaries, he said the parents may be thinking, “Why is my son or daughter being called to the mission field?” Elliff believes the answer begins with the reality of hell.

“Hell is an actual place. It’s an awful place. And it’s an always place. There’s never a moment where a person who spends eternity in hell will say, ‘Well, I’ve about got this handled.’ No — there’s always as much out in front as there is behind.

“There are soon to be 7 billion people on this globe. Over half of them have very little access to the Gospel. [These new missionaries are] saying, ‘Well, not the ones that I meet. Not the people where I’m going, no sir — I’m going to share the name of Jesus with them.’”



You can find the article in its entirety here.

To Fund or Not to Fund: The Question of Financial Support in Church Planting

Former President Ronald Reagan had a particularly narrow philosophy when it came to the idea of government funding. He expressed it in three propositions that he felt accurately reflected the disposition of the federal government: 1. If it moves, tax it. 2. If it keeps moving, regulate it. 3. When it stops moving, subsidize it.

Its probably appropriate after an illustration like that to point out clearly that I do NOT believe denominations are in the same category as the federal government. At the same time, the former President's humorous example does appropriately call us toward thinking rightly about money and its use when on mission. Where church planting is concerned, it is of high importance that our strategy for funding an effort be as contextualized as the overal strategy itself. Otherwise, we run the risk of providing "help that hurts." In light of this observation, I want to dedicate this post to a discussion about how to think rightly about funding new churches.

Of course, the discussion itself presupposes that funding IS NECCESARY for a healthy church planting environment. Any Baptist Association or state convention that is chincy when it comes to the direct funding of new churches has already betrayed what it really thinks about God's mandate to extend His Kingdom exponentially. If you don't plan financially for new churches, it says a lot Thankfully, I'm not in that kind of environment. In 2011, roughly 14% of our Association's budget is dedicated to the direct funding of new churches, and another 14% is set aside in a reserved fund for strategic expenditures related to church planting. Additionally, we work with a state convention that, as far as I'm concerned, is unparalleled in its financial commitment to starting new churches. Still, it is not enough to just to have money for church planting. You need to spend it wisely. And contrary to the popular belief of church planters (who all think you can never have enough money. I should know, as I was once one of those guys!), you CAN over-fund. And when you do, you hurt the mission.

I learned this lesson the hard way after first coming to Maryland. With the financial resources at my disposal at both Associational and state levels, together with the generous spirit toward church planting displayed by both of those entities, I figured we could take over the world! After all, my own church planting experience involved "shoe-stringing" almost everything, so as a planter I was always thinking "if I just had more money." Well, now I had it, and was fairly free to grant it to church planters in Maryland.

As a result, we funded very heavily early on, and the result was that in the first two years we had three failures. One of those was a church that had been planted prior to my arrival on the field. But the other two were planted on my watch, and they were our two most heavily funded plants. One of them never even reached the point of a launch service!

I should probably state at this point that there were many factors involved in the demise of these new churches. At the same time, the exorbiant amount of money we invested in them was a huge issue, primarily because once the denominational funding began to dry up the church quickly died. We had funded them to the point that they had become over-dependent on the denominational system. After some intense research into these failures, we made major changes in the way we funded new churches. Thankfully we were able to learn from our mistakes, and no church planted in our Association since 2007 has failed.

So how do you determine how much is too much? The following are some guidelines related to healthy levels of funding for a new church:

1. View Church Plant Funding as an Investment, not as Wellfare.. Before church planting was as sexy as it presently is in the ministry world, those who started new churches were essentially considered the wellfare-recipients of the clerical class. When I served as Senior Pastor of an established church, I "earned" a "salary." But when I left that church to start a new church, I began to "receive funding."

The way such expressions were made betrayed a view that church planters were simply receiving aid so that they could pay their bills. To be sure, I was happy to have a way to pay the mortgage with the support I received. But ultimately, that financial help resulted in a healthy, evangelistic and reproducing church. In other words, the "investment" paid off!

When denominational entities and other supporters of church planting see funding as nothing more than a way of supplementing someone's income, we tend to view such funding as wellfare. This perception yields two corollary and tragic results. On the one hand, those on the front lines of apostolic ministry are treated as though they are taking something they have not earned. On the other hand, pity sometimes becomes the motivation for continued funding of a failing effort simply because we feel sorry for the guy whose church planting effort is failing, and we in effect end up burying the talent God has given us to multiply.

Funding should be seen as an investment in the multiplication of God's Kingdom . . .no less! When our planters are raising funds, I encourage them to encourage others to "invest in this group of people who, as a majority, don't know Jesus" rather than "support me and my family."

Investment also expects a return. If we see no fruit, then we "re-invest" God's money in a way that yields the Kingdom advance He expects. Obviously, this won't look the same in every context. Not every new church is destined to become a "mega-church," and thus, we can't judge success in a uniform way. I once had a church planting leader in another state convention tell me that if the planter hadn't reached 100 people by the end of his first year, he would cut his funding. I responded by saying "I'm glad you aren't overseeing church planting nationally. Otherwise, you would kill 80% of the new work we do in the United States."

But if we are investing in this way, and with this mentality, we will determine in advance what "success" looks like, and judge according to that standard. Conversely, we will not fear putting every dollar neccesary into Kingdom multiplication. In short, viewing funding as an investment means MORE dollars given to church planting, not less.

2. Allow for Scalability during, and Sustainability after the plant. For many years, the standard practice for church plant funding was what I call the "two years and out" approach. Essentially, we would fully fund a church planter for two years, and by year three he was on his own. When you think "scalability," this is NOT the picture you should see!

Part of every church planting strategy should be a plan to offset giving from the outside. No church that is perpetually dependent on outside sources of income can ever be truly autonomous, or truly self-propogating. Funding streams should be scalable, meaning that they should reflect a gradual decrease that is commensurate with the projected increase in internal giving.

But funding should also reflect sustainability. No church planter should be compensated more in the beginning of the church planting effort than the target group he is reaching is estimated to be able to pay him when supporting entities pull out. For example, in central Maryland, the "bottom-line" support package for a full-time, and fully-funded church planter is never less than $60K annually. Due to the high cost of living in our area, this is actually a very modest compensation package for someone considered full-time. But if the receptor culture he is reaching with the Gospel does not possess the financial ability to pay at this level, then the planter should start working bi-vocationally, and plan on remaining bi-vocational. A congregation of 80-100 hispanic immigrant agricultural workers is a huge win in our area, but that church will never be able to pay $60K a year to its pastor. For the funding to produce a sustainable strategy, these things must be taken into account.

3. With Rare Exceptions, Tangible Results should Precede Heavy Funding. Certain church planting networks like Acts29 already have policies like this in place, and require a baseline threshhold of core participants before member churches coalesce to grant financial support. At a minimum, most church planters should demonstrate the ability to pull together a leadership team prior to funded deployment. There are obvious exceptions to this rule, but for the most part, guidelines should reflect these expectations. Make sure a planter is faithful with a few things before granting him stewardship over many dollars.

For the most part, our culture makes way too much of the monetary, and unfortunately, many of our churches have been enculturated into this way of thinking. The result is "tight-wad" misering disguised as "prudence" on the one hand, and over-zealous but undiscerning waste on the other. We want to be good stewards of any resources God grants us to plant churches. Being a good steward means we take care of those who are doing the work, but not in a way that handicapps them in dependency. When it comes to planting churches, give generously, give intelligently . . .give strategically!

Repost: Making Love and the Glory of God

Pastor Douglas Wilson correctly and graphically observed a couple of weeks ago that our culture is doing to sex what people who chew with their mouths open are doing to food. God's plan for human sexuality looks markedly different, and has a distinctly different goal than the plans for sex that have been mapped out by the world. In light of these observations, I decided to repost a blog I wrote several years ago reviewing a book on this subject edited by Justin Taylor and John Piper. Almost five years later, I still commend this book enthusiastically to married couples, and to those who aspire to marriage. The book can be ordered here.

Following Jesus and having great sex are two concepts that, unfortunately, are rarely viewed as belonging together. The hijacking of human sexuality by a sinful culture has certainly caused a raw perversion of one of God's good gifts to us. But while the world is largely responsible for contaminating sex, the church, with its ample prudishness, is equally responsible for perverting what God has to say about this powerful subject.

But John Piper and Justin Taylor have just edited a superb new book that introduces us afresh to what God has to say on this matter.

The book, Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, has an obviously "Piperian" bent, as is indicated by the title. Among the assumptions laid out in the first part of the text is that the act of sex, like any other human act, has as it's ultimate purpose to glorify God. Piper, along with Ben Patterson of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, do a masterful job in Part One at communicating the close relationship between the goodness of sexuality and the glory of God in Jesus Christ. For those who have read Piper's other works, the central theme of the chapters he writes are no different from all the other books he has written. But two reciprocal points presented by Piper undergird the rest of the book. First, Piper contends that "sexuality is designed by God as a way to know God more fully," and second, "knowing God is designed by God as a way of guarding and guiding our sexuality." In short, this intense physical experience was created by God to point to an even more intense spiritual reality.

Echoing Piper in the conclusion of Part One is Ben Patterson, who asserts with Biblical authority an axiom that will be novel to many Christians: "Pleasure is God's idea, and God is the devil's enemy. The devil actually hates pleasure, because he hates the God of pleasure." As a result, all sexual perversion, from pornography to fornication and adultery, to homosexuality, should simply be seen as a cheap Satanic replication of God's intended design. Says Patterson: "The devil's grand strategy against pleasure is to twist it, to get us to misuse it." Patterson presents a very candid conversation in which he is transparent enough to describe his own struggles with sexual temptation, and how God has helped him to overcome them.

So what happens when God's sexual gift is misused? Moreover, what can be done to heal the deep hurt caused by its misuse? Al Mohler of Southern Seminary and David Powlison of Westminster Seminary address these questions in Part Two. Powlison provides what in my estimation is the most insightful chapter of the entire book, which deals with how sexual brokennes may be healed. Powlison's wisdom points the reader to the fact that most sexual sins have something other than sex as their root. Using examples from his own experience as a Christian counselor, Powlison unveils the multiple avenues through which Satan leads both men and women into sexual sin.

Al Mohler's chapter on the Christian response to homosexual marriage is both timely and straightforward. On the one hand, Mohler strongly contends that homosexual marriage "is a tragic oxymoron," and states that even the discussion of its possibility in the legislature "demonstrates that we are a civilization in crisis, because a great many barriers must be breached in order to put this question on the cultural agenda." But Mohler doesn't limit his challenge to those favoring homosexual marriage. He also takes dead aim at the overly simplistic rationale that is often used by evangelicals in their opposition to homosexuality (just one example of this contention: "We, as Christians, must be the people who cannot start a conversation about homosexual marriage by talking about homosexual marriage."), their lack of compassion and willingness to walk with homosexuals through the long and messy healing process, and their objection to the lifestyle based solely on the "yuck factor." The end result is a comprehensive and well-thought-out polemic for us to "speak the truth in love."

In Part Three, readers are introduced to the Biblical way that men are to view sex. Mark Dever, Michael Lawrence and Matt Schumucker each contribute to the chapter on sex and the single man. The reader will not be surprised at their basic view that "the first thing to say about sex and the single man is, there should be none!" However, the authors go further in describing how the church has often presented a truncated message on sex and singleness that has left single men physically pure, but emotionally and spiritually bankrupt. Without resorting to a new form of legalism, the authors encourage single men not only to save their bodies, but also their hearts, for their future spouses. (Wow, if I had only read this when I was 16 years old!)

C.J. Mahanney, President of Sovereign Grace Ministries in Gaithersburg, MD, concludes Part Three with an authentic and transparent look at a man's view of sex within marriage. Using the Song of Solomon as his primary teaching tool, Pastor Mahanney combines his scholarly mind and pastoral heart with his experience as a husband of more than two decades, and the result is a godly wisdom from which every husband will benefit. Principally, he speaks of the sex act as one of service to one's wife. Mahanney reveals the "elephant in the room" by addressing the "extremely common tendency for husbands to find satisfaction in lovemaking sooner than their wives." From 1 Corinthians Mahanney asserts that if a husband is having sex in a way that is honoring to God and his wife "I will take my thoughts captive during lovemaking, disciplining my body in order to focus primarily on giving to my wife sexually, rather than only receiving from her." Mahanney also speaks of the dichotomy between the sexual fantasy world hopelessly aspired to, and the reality of God's gift, and courageously calls Christian husbands back to reality in some quite humorous ways. Mahanney also speaks candidly (although not graphically) about his own experiences with his wife, and with the wisdom of a father speaking to sons, shares with younger Christian men how they can be servants to their one flesh in the bedroom.

In Part Four, Carolyn McCulley, media specialist for Sovereign Grace Ministries and a single woman, speaks in a straightforward way to other single women. Acknowledging the role of radical feminism in how single women now approach the subject of sexuality (and admitting that she herself was at one time an avowed feminist), McCulley laments the result: "When I read articles about the spreadsheets college women keep about their sexual activities, or when I watch how the Christian men I know struggle to avoid the parade of barely dressed women before them at a mall or restaurant, or when I have to turn over all ten womens' magazines at the grocery checkout because my nieces can now read the soft-porn headlines, I find I am more than shocked; I am deeply grieved. This is what feminism has done to improve the standing of women? It's a very poor trade-off, indeed." The alternative McCulley presents is a countercultural revolution of female sexuality. The rest of the chapter addresses practical ways that this can be accomplished, including relishing in the gift of singleness, and dodging sexual snares at the office. Along with the other contributors, McCulley offers her own personal experiences along with Biblical counsel to single women who desire to honor God and their future husbands with their bodies, and who want their bodies honored by others.

Carolyn Mahanney, the wife of C.J. Mahanney, concludes Part Four by speaking to married women on how to glorify God in the sex act with their husbands. She offers practical, Biblical principles of "Grade A passion" that, like her husband's teaching, commends an attitude of servanthood in the bedroom. Chief among these principles is that of training the female mind to anticipate sex, based on Song of Songs 5:10-16. For those who have lost their sexual passion and desire for their husbands, Mahhanney gives encouragement, stating that "God is able to renew your sexual desire, empower you to change, and revive you with hope."

The final part of this work contains information regarding how sexuality has been viewed in two different epochs of church history. Justin Taylor, Executive Editor of Desiring God Ministries, speaks in detail of Martin Luther's reform of marriage, and Mark Dever, Senior Pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Wahington D.C., sheds new light on the popular perception of how the Puritans viewed the act of sex.

In a sexually broken world informed more by radical sex education and Cialis commercials than the Word of God, the church has often been guilty of giving simplistic and anemic answers to the question of human sexuality. The authors of this book present a view of sex with the comprehensiveness and authority of the Scriptures themselves, and the result is a fully-orbed presentation of God's view of sex. And who better to speak to this powerful topic than the One who invented it? Maybe you have a perception of Christianity as overly-pruddish and ascetic, or maybe you are a victim of the combination of Satan's sexual snares and your own bad choices. Let me beg you to do an Amazon search of the reference below, because this book will point you to the right answers, and more importantly to Christ, who is the end-all, be-all answer to all things!

Developing a Support System for Church Planting

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been writing posts related to a presentation I gave to Directors of Missions at the NoBA conference at Southwestern Seminary in January on effective church planting in and by the Baptist Association. The streaming video of that presentation can be found here.

In the first of these posts, I described ways to effectively develop a culture for church planting. The reason developing a church planting culture is primary is simple: The best system in the world is useless if there is no passion to take advantage of it, and no understanding of why it exists.

At the same time, creating a passionate culture for multiplying churches without a clear road-map for how to get it done would amount to zeal without knowledge, and also accomplish nothing. The two go hand in hand. So for the next couple of posts I'll be dealing with the key pieces of the puzzle neccesary to assemble for an effective support system for new churches. Keep in mind that each of these aspects of the system are very involved. Multiple and lengthy posts could be dedicated to each one of them, so the purpose of this post is to simply give you the "big picture" of all the neccesary elements. So just remember that we are flying at 30K feet here.

1. Identified Mission Field. As a church planting leader, you should know where all the pockets of need are located in your area, and you should map those areas of need out in the following way:

Geographically: Ask yourself if there are areas and populations of people that are not sufficiently served by established churches. Remember also that this is a quite different question than asking "is there a church already in this area?" In many North American contexts, the assumption for some time has been that if there is a church in the area, then there is no need to plant a new church there. The fact is that there could be several churches in a geographic area--even healthy, growing ones--that are simply not reaching a huge segment of the population.

Ethnically and Linguistically: Our Association worships every Sunday in eight different languages. But more than 60 different dialects are used in my area. If your Association is within an area that has a high immigrant population, you need to discover who these people are, because it is highly likely that they need a church planted in their midst.

Worldview: The big way of defining this issue is simply by asking "how does this population segment view and process the world?" In our area, the close proximity to Washington D.C. means that we have a lot of people transplanted from other parts of the country who work for various branches and departments of the federal government. Many of them work for the Department of Defense, NSA, or NASA, and thus their background is very scientific, and their thought process is very linear. Many of our churches in this same area are--appropriately--well-suited to reach people like this. But those same churches won't do so well at reaching the artist who sits daily on the National Mall, or the lobbyist or speech-writer, each of whom sees the world a bit differently, and consequently processes information differently. This difference in thinking means that often a new church is needed.

Relational Affinity: We have to be careful here, because the "affinity-based" church has a tendency to segregate huge parts of the body of Christ from other parts of the body. Furthermore, the Scriptures bear out a universal church of people from every walk of life, worshipping Jesus with the same unity that is found in the trinity, and we don't want to be guilty of encouraging the very segregation that is antithetical to this divine goal. At the same time, you have to meet people where they are, and many times, they can be initially reached through the cultural bridge of relational affinity. Are there huge pockets of unchurched bikers in your area? Cowboys? Your Association should vigilantly watch for common interests that can form cultural bridges across which we can carry the Gospel.

The above markers will serve you well for identifying high priority areas for church planting. To successfully multiply the Gospel, you must not only know your message, but also to whom it will be communicated.

2. Church Planter Recruitment and Assessment. Many years ago Kevin Mannoia states that "planter identification is perhaps the most underrated factor in beginning a new church." Thanks to the advent of a myriad of recruitment and assessment tools, this is no longer an entirely true statement. Nevertheless, planter ID and development is a very important aspect to this process.

Of course, identifying church planters typically begins with a thorough assessment. The assessment process utilized by our state convention has been developed over the years by the cooperative efforts of state, Associational and local church partners and as such, is one of the most accurate and contextually applicable processes in North America. Through this process, we are allowed an inside look into the character, gifts, and abilities of potential church planters. At their core, assessments are behaviorally-targeted; meaning that they don't examine hypothetical situations in a planter's life, but instead what he has actually accomplished, and whether those accomplishments and behaviors are reflective of behaviors we know to be present in those who successfully start churches.

There are also very useful assessment tools outside your denominational structure. For example, if you are planting in a highly urbanized area, investment in an Acts29 assessment would be worth your while. This network is governed by guys who are doctrinally sound, but have also demonstrated that they know what they are doing in the city. Similarly, if you are targeting a college campus for a new church, groups like the Aletheia Network will best judge the fitness of a potential planter in that context, because they specialize in planting on University campuses. Additionally, while you are getting to know people in these specialized networks, you increase the chances of finding the right person to start a church in this context, so interacting with people who have a focused passion for certain segments of the population is well-worth your time.

3. Parent/Partner Churches. I came to Maryland in 2005 with a singluar mandate: help lead the churches in our region to plant as many churches as possible. The first year we planted four. But the end of my second year in the field, we had doubled our output to eight. As I stood in front of our Association in annual session that year, 12 churches--one launching on average every two months--made me look really good, and made everyone in that room feel very good. That is, until a year later when almost half of them had failed!

So with the permission of our leadership, I commissioned a team to study our efforts, and when they brought back their conclusions, I honestly wondered whether I would stll have a job! Everything that came out of our office was either already out of business, or was weak and anemic. Thankfully, the response was more complex than a simple suggestion to "fire Joel." Instead, we looked closely at the churches that were still around, healthy and growing. When we did we discovered only one common denominator. Every single one of those churches were launched out of an established church which saw the success or failure of the mission as their own. In other words, when the Association led the way, the result was failure. When local churches led the way with Associational support, the result was strength, health and growth.

As a result of these observations, we enacted guidelines that require the serious investment of a local church before we will "pull the trigger" on any new church start. Aside from the fact that there was something thoroughly Biblical about this move, the practical results have been a joy to watch. Of course, we aren't planting as many churches in a year as we used do, but no church plant launched since 2007 (when we put these new guidelines in place) has yet failed.

I've already spoken at length to this need for sponsor churches, as well as how to involve sponsor churches in an earlier post, so I won't continue to belabor the point here. Still, it bears repeating that without church planting churches, your results will be mediocre at best.

4. Training/Coaching. There is much that could be discussed regarding the needs of church planters in this area. For now, I will simply suggest listening to your church planters and sponsor churches early on, and make determinations relative to ongoing training and coaching on the particular needs of each new church. Generic curricula like NAMB's Basic Training I are fine, but by themselves are not sufficient. "Real Time, In-time" training appropriate to the field is an absolute neccesity, as is utilizing coaching and training partners who know the field your people area in.

Many will notice the conspicuous absence of one very important aspect of any church planting support system in this post: funding. Rest assured, it is not my intention to ignore this critical component and in the process risk all the planters I work with getting angry with me. At the same time, much has been said about this issue over the years, and a myriad of opinions have been offered regarding what is "sufficient." With these facts in mind, I'm actually dedicating the entirety of the next post to this question. So in my next installment, I'll talk at length about a healthy philosophy of church plant funding.

Why Evangelicals Lost the Gay Marriage Debate

As I write these words, Senate Bill 116 is making its way through both houses of the Maryland legislature. Predictions are that both the Senate and House of Delegates have the votes necessary to send this bill—which effectively legalizes homosexual marriage in my state—to the desk of Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, who has said he will sign it into law. By this summer, Maryland will become the sixth state in the Union to legalize marriage between homosexual partners.

At the same time, evangelicals lost this issue a long time ago. In a recent USA Today article, Tom Krattenmaker astutely compares the current situation to the closing moments of a football game when the opposing team is so far out in front that there is no hope of recovery before the final seconds tick off the clock. Though I disagree with Krattenmaker’s proposal for evangelicals to simply “back off,” he is correct about one thing: Even with the Governor’s signature not already affixed to the bill, we have lost this ball game!

So the question going forward is simple: how did we arrive at this place? And is there a way to return our culture to previous thoughts about this issue when the playing field of dialogue is now so uneven? It is admittedly difficult—perhaps even impossible—to adequately respond in a 5-minute sound bite to why you would oppose two people who love each other being granted the same rights, recognition, and tax breaks as any other married couple. Further complicating matters is the fact that many of us have friends in the homosexual community whom we care about deeply, and on the surface, it just seems heartless to deny them the opportunities available to heterosexual couples.

If you are in favor of homosexual marriage and just read that last paragraph, you might think I’m sympathetic to the plight of a persecuted minority in our country. If you are an evangelical who just read it who thinks I’ve lost my mind, and you are wondering how on earth we ever arrived at this place, then you have stumbled onto my point. What mistakes did we make that have resulted in the current climate?

1. Our Early Treatment of the Homosexual Community. I’m speaking here of two things primarily: mistreatment and stereotyping. Let’s face it. For many decades the sum total of the evangelical church’s response to the homosexual community was “AIDS is God’s judgment on you!” Though we claim our authority is the Bible, we largely ignored what it says about all human beings being created in the image and likeness of God where homosexuals are concerned. As a result, an evangelical church—the one place where a homosexual struggling with his or her sin should have been welcomed—was the one place they avoided like the plague. We looked the other way when homosexuals were denied housing or employment or worse, when they were beaten and killed. We should have been the first to denounce such horrific acts of violence against any human being created in God’s image. Instead, we were largely silent.

Additionally, we tended to stereotype this part of our population as an aggressive minority intent on subjugating our children to sexual perversion of every sort and kind. To be sure, there is an identifiable group among homosexual ranks that walk around naked at parades, seek to radicalize school curriculum, and give support to organizations like NAMBLA. But this group represents less than 10 percent of the homosexual community. Another 20% of this population is represented by men and women who are genuinely struggling with their sexual orientation, believe it is sin, and want to find a way out. The majority in the middle are convinced that they are doing nothing wrong, but have no desire to do anything except live their lives and be left alone. Our problem is that we have treated the entire homosexual population as if they all belonged to category number 1.

These two issues illustrate a sub-human treatment of men and women for whom Jesus died. I understand that this sin begins with “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.” (Romans 1:18), but given the way we have communicated our message, is it any wonder they don’t want to listen to us?

2. Our Own Perversion of Marriage: Homosexuals may very well help our society finish off marriage, but they can’t be held responsible for starting this downward slide. That began decades ago, and continues into the present. Within the evangelical church, divorce rates are actually higher than outside Christendom. In addition, our refusal to practice church discipline and uphold the standards of righteousness expected of any follower of Jesus has resulted in rampant and unrepentant fornication and adultery within our own ranks. The Bible is clear regarding sexual sin, but our ambivalence within the church toward heterosexual sin betrays the absence of any moral authority to speak to this issue. Until we start treating heterosexual sin in all its forms within the church the same way we view homosexual sin outside the church, we can never presume the moral high ground. Judgment, the Apostle Peter says, begins at the house of God. (1 Peter 4:17)

3. Our Capitulation to the Idea of Marriage as a “Right.” The homosexual community has been largely successful in couching their agenda in the verbiage of “civil rights,” and the current marriage debate is also housed within this concept. If interracial marriage is permitted, for example, then what is wrong with two men or two women being wed to each other? I appreciate the response to this issue that has been made by my African-American brothers in ministry. They have spoken eloquently to the marked difference that should be noted between skin tone and behavior. At the same time, when discussing marriage, evangelicals have failed to point out that this institution isn’t about “civil rights,” and in fact isn’t about “rights” at all. Yet at some point, we allowed the other side to co-opt the idea that marriage is a right. Rather than speaking to who does and does not have a “right” to marry, evangelicals should point out that in fact, no one has a “right” to marital union. Marriage has historically been viewed as a status of privilege, and this truth is functionally proven by the fact that although a clerk of court may be forced by law to issue a license, no public official—minister, notary public, or judge—is required to perform the ceremony. This is currently true of heterosexual couples. A so-called “right to marriage” is not necessary for equality. Marriage has never been a “right,” even among heterosexual couples. If evangelicals want to turn opinion on this issue, this point must be made clear.



4. We allowed “tolerance” to be confused with “affirmation.” Tolerance, simply defined, is the power that keeps adherents to various points of view from killing each other. It is rooted in the idea that all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, and describes the endorsement of the ideal of treating each other with dignity and respect, regardless of our differences with each other. But toleration is not the same as affirmation. It is one thing, for example, for our society to “tolerate” an alcoholic by not killing him, getting him treatment when he seeks it, and in general treating him like a human being. But if we were to suddenly hold him up as an example of something healthy in our society, such action would not represent “tolerance.” but “affirmation.”

I’ve been pleased to see legislative and judicial moves away from punitive results for homosexual behavior. Aside from the fact that I think our government has better things to do with its time than lock up consenting adults, the sodomy laws in our country set up a defacto hierarchy of sin whereby heterosexual misconduct was winked at while homosexual sin was worthy of attention by our penal code. Similarly, sexual behavior should, generally speaking, not be an employment issue. Ministerial employment notwithstanding, a homosexual should not be released from his or her employment for their sexual behavior any more than an adulterous husband should be fired for his last out-of-town tryst. Such a posture truly treats all sin equally and does not single out any particular group to be stigmatized. I’m thankful for evangelicals like Rick Warren, who have spoken to this issue with passion not only in our own country, but in other places like Uganda.
But a license to marry is not an extension of “tolerance.” It is instead the granting of societal affirmation. Our culture has historically affirmed marriage between a man and woman because of the inherent benefits this institution provides our society. The economic stability, emotional support, vehicle of sexual expression and ideal environment for childrearing that this man-woman institution has observably produced in our culture has resulted in our nation granting it a status of privilege. When a marriage license is issued, our society is in effect saying “we affirm this union because of the betterment of our society that we know will result.”

So when the homosexual community asks for the “right” to marry, they are asking for much more than tolerance. They are asking for the societal endorsement of their lifestyle. Regardless of whether you believe homosexual behavior to be a sin, the simple fact is that homosexual marriage is without a strong historical precedent and thus, its institutionalization by our government represents a radical approach to social engineering, the results of which will not be tangibly known or experienced for many decades. The “five-minute sound-bite” approach to this issue may make it seem as though the evangelical church is backed into a philosophical corner, but the truth is that the burden of legitimizing the radical redefinition of marriage to include two men or two women rests on those who would like to see homosexual marriage codified into our system of law. Tolerance is one thing. What the homosexual community is asking for is a quite different matter.

Evangelical Christians once spoke to the issue of homosexuality in a world that shared our opinion of the issue. Recent developments have proven that this world is now gone. The question now is how Christians can speak the truth in love in this new environemt. Admittedly, we did not use our cultural influence well when we had it, and our understanding of how to interact with the homosexual community has thankfully evolved. Our understanding of homosexual behavior as sinful must not change, but the way we communicate this truth and encourage dialogue must simultaneously demonstrate a clear compassion, and if neccesary, the willingness to be persecuted ourselves for the sake of those we strongly believe need the Gospel. We need clear and compelling arguments combined with genuine love for our homosexual friends. Anything less, and the "homophobe" label will stick for good, and perhaps deservingly.

Creating a Culture for Planting Churches, Part II

In my last post, I stressed the need for a culture-shift within Associations of churches that results in a high priority on the multiplication of churches. I'd like to continue on that theme today with a couple of additional steps that I think are crucial to developing this kind of atmosphere.

-Don't Give in to Resistant Churches. Changing a culture is a precarious undertaking in any environment, and when you seek the kind of substantive change neccesary for a organization-wide culture shift, it is inevitable that you will run into strong opposition. Baptist Associations are no exception to this reality and in fact, sometimes the opposition in this environment can be worse than in the corporate world.

When trying to create an environment in which new churches can be birthed, you will have churches (and regrettably, you will also have pastors) who, for whatever reason, don't like the new emphasis, don't want it, and will seek to undermine it. You should be nice to them. You should treat them like the brothers and sisters in Christ that they are. You should serve them selflessly as you would any other church in your network. When they call, you should pick up the phone. When they ask for help, you should provide it. But you should never, under any circumstances, allow them to influence this process.

The problem is that most Directors of Missions are like most pastors. We like to be liked, and we truly believe that the best way to facilitate cooperation is sometimes through compromise. The problem with compromise in this area (and I have the personal experience to back up my claim) is if you seek compromise in order to simply placate naysayers, you will accomplish nothing, and regardless of what you do, you won't make them happy anyway.

Think for a moment about how you would counsel a pastor dealing with a similar situation in his church. If there is some grumpy old guy sitting on the back row with arms folded who does nothing but incessantly complain, you would tell that pastor "love him, minister to him, serve him, but do NOT place him in a position of leadership or influence of any kind!" As an Associational leader, you should take the same approach with naysaying churches. When it comes to leading a culture-shift of any kind, applying "consensus leadership" will result in a grand total of nothing, and may even grant the greatest amount of authority to the most carnal congregation in your network. Don't go there!

-Intentionally Mix the Established and Emerging. One of the worst mistakes I’ve seen guys make who are trying to change the culture of their association is that they sequester the church planting types away from the established pastor types. For the most part, this action is unintentional, and occurs through hosting necessary events, training, and gatherings that are exclusively for church planters. And church planters need to learn from each other. But they do NOT need to find themselves totally cut off from the established church world, and especially from older men who have spent decades as pastors and have much wisdom to instill.

Additionally, if the “established” and “emerging” church world stay separated from each other, it becomes much easier to criticize and stereotype each other. The planters view the established guys as old, out of touch, trapped in the 1950s, and resistant to anything innovative. The established guys likewise, tend to view the planters as young, proud, bratty, and maybe even a little heretical. The more you can get these two groups together in the right context and circumstance (NOT a business session!), the better. If I am a pastor, and I have a real-life, flesh and blood church planter in front of me, and I’ve spent time with him, prayed with his wife and played with his kids, its going to be much harder for me to stereotype and criticize. In that same vein, if I’m a young church planter who senses that this older man actually cares about my mission and ministry, I’m much more inclined to slow down and listen and in the process, gain some much needed wisdom.

As a matter of regular practice, when our Association hosts a planter-specific event of any kind, there is always an open invitation issued to our Associational officers. Through getting to know each other in these contexts, the relationship between old and new churches has greatly improved over the past several years, primarily because both sides have learned to look past the style, dress, worship, and ministry model differences, and understand that each is simply trying to make Jesus known in his own context. This helps all sides see that the basis of a church planting culture is not methodological, but theological. It grows out of the healthy soil of a common understanding of who Jesus is, who His church is, and what He has commissioned His church to do. And that theological culture is built, first and foremost, in a relational way. So do everything you can to keep these groups together, not apart.

Taking care to implement these steps will, over time, result in a significant change in how the churches of your Association view church planting. Without that kind of passionate culture of advocacy, you will never produce an environment of church planting churches, no matter how sophisticated your support system.
At the same time, once you have helped create the passion necessary for this culture-shift, you will need to be able to give direction to it, which will require a support system at the Associational level. In the next two posts, I’ll speak to the non-negotiable components of an effective church planting system.

Creating a Culture for Planting Churches, Part I.

My maternal grandfather passed away when I was six years old. Even at that young age, my early experiences with him left an indelibly positive mark on me. Most of our time together was wonderful and usually involved going to baseball games or watching "Gunsmoke" re-runs. But there were a few unpleasant moments in our relationship as well. One of those would happen every time I followed him through his garden--walking barefoot through that rich South Carolina dirt that he had just churned up with his tiller. "Get out of my rows!" he would shout, and in retrospect, he had good reason to be angry. As a farmer, my Pa Pa understood well that no matter how well you farmed, the soil had to be right if you wanted crops. Environment means everything when you are trying to grow a living organism.

Likewise, when associations and networks seek to plant churches, a sufficient support system is invaluable. At the same time, the most sophistocated support system in the world is useless if there is no passion to take advantage of it and no understanding of why it exists. The environment in which the system exists matters, and if the culture within which you are trying to plant churches is not itself permeated by the priority of church planting, the result is usually failure.

So the first issue in ensuring effective church planting in your association or network is not an effective support system, but a passionate church planting culture. In this post, I'll briefly describe the steps in helping cultivate this kind of culture. For a more detailed and video-based description of this process, click here.

So what do I mean by "church planting culture?" Simply put, a church planting culture is an environment within which church planting is a high and non-negotiable priority. And the role of the network leader or Director of Missions is to catalyze the thinking that "we MUST do this . . .or we fail!" If the Baptist Association exists first and foremost as a missions organization (and that statement is a foregone conclusion as far as I'm concerned), and if the Biblically-defined and successful missionary task ALWAYS results in the multiplication of churches (another foregone conclusion, and if you don't agree, you've never read the book of Acts), the only accurate conclusion is that the Association that doesn't actively promote church planting is willfully leaving God's mission incomplete. For some these words may sound harsh, but this is the attitude that will permeate any association that is faithful to its missionary calling. The role of Associational leaders then, is to cultivate this kind of culture. Some simple steps toward this end are:

1. Read Together. Expose yourself, and other key pastors and lay leaders, to resources that reveal church planting as an essential part of the mission of God. Bibliographies abound containing resources like this, and in the past 15 years the increased popularity of church planting has caused those lists to grow exponentially. As you are mining those lists for resources your pastors and leaders will actually read, keep three distinct emphases in mind. First, expose your people to resources that describe, in full, the missionary task as defined in the Bible, which always results in converts, indigenous leaders, and new churches. Second, find resources that speak to the practical components of church planting. Such will give your leadership an initial blueprint of the kind of system that needs to be errected. Finally, expose pastors and laity in your churches to resources that focus on the local church as the primary vehicle for church planting. Repeatedly teach and emphasize that this is THEIR job. If you don't, the best you will get is an Association of well-wishers who hope this new church planting venture works out for you. And while that kind of attitude makes for great job security and probably even extra funding for the mission, it won't create the kind of environment I'm talking about. At the end of the day, local churches need to "own" their own responsibility to plant churches.

I have a few suggestions of where to start with the recommended reading here.

2. Expose the Association to Lostness in Your Area. In short, this means you need to have the statistics, be confident in their accuracy, and be able to translate the implications to your churches.

For example, if you envelop the collective geographic proximity of all 58 of our member churches, there are more than 1 million people living in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. region who have no relationship to Jesus Christ. By contrast, there are approximately 11,000 people worshipping in our churches every Sunday. To reach all of the non-Christians in my area without planting any new churches, our current churches and missions would have to grow, on average, by 17,000 people EACH. Since our largest congregation only runs about 600 on Sunday, and since facilities that can hold tens of thousands of people are at a premium in this area, the only tenable solution is to start new churches, and lots of them. I tell our folks often that if we started 1000 new churches next year, and each grew to 1000 in attendance, we would still not have reached everyone with the Gospel when you factor in projected population growth.

This is the sort of information you must communicate to the churches you serve. What are the demographic indicators in your area? You should know them better than local politicians and the Chamber of Commerce, and you should be able to translate them into the substantiation for new churches.

3. Involve Key Partner Churches. I came to Maryland in 2005 with a singular mandate: to help lead the effort to plant as many churches as possible in my region. The first year our Association planted four churches. By the end of my second year we had planted 12. At the time our Association only consisted of about 40 churches, so a 20% growth rate in one year made me look good, and it made our messengers at our 2006 annual meeting feel good . . .until two years later when roughly half of those churches no longer existed!

In reaction to this, our leadership commissioned a thorough study of our church planting efforts. What we discovered was that every single new church that originated from the Associational office was either already dead, or weak and anemic. Needless to say, I was wondering about my own job security at that point! Thankfully, our leadership also decided to look specifically at the churches that were still alive and growing by making disciples. The one common denominator of each one of these growing church plants was that they were birthed, not out of my office, but out of another local church.

So on the basis of personal experience let me plead with you: don't seek to do this on your own without local churches who are willing to own the process with you! A couple of months ago, we did another five year study. Since 2007, we have operated with the assumption that churches plant churches, and we simply empower their efforts. As a result, our success rate for all churches planted since 2007 is 100%. This sort of success is only realized when the mentality of the churches shifts from "we are helping the Association plant churches" to "we are planting churches and the Association is helping us do it."

If you are in an Association that has not seen a new church in some time and you are working with churches that simply don't know how to do this, keep in mind that your first partner churches don't have to be alligned with your Association. Use Biblically sound, evangelical churches who have planted other churches, and have demonstrated that they know what they are doing to work alongside your churches. The result will be knowledge added to zeal and over time, you will reap great results.

There are other important principles for developing a church planting culture as well, and in my next post, I'll be describing those principles. Then we will move on to describe the essential components of an effective church planting system, and finally, how to ensure an ongoing and scalable strategy for church planting.

Oh, and have I mentioned you can get the video version of these posts here?

The Strategic Role of Associations in Church Planting

As I mentioned in my last post, I'll be spending the next few weeks on this site talking about effective church planting in the local Baptist Association. For my readers who are not part of my denominational "tribe," please excuse some of the "insider" conversation that will neccesarily be a part of this discussion. It is my hope that my non-Baptist brothers and sisters will nonetheless learn some principles that they can take back into their own affiliations and more greatly emphasize church planting. The truth is that we need all evangelical denominations and non-denominational churches thinking deeply about these issues if we hope to change North America for Christ. But since my denominational home carries the label "Baptist," expect the next several posts to deal with issues within my own tribe.

Second, I fully realize that touting an organization you simultaneously work for as a "highly strategic" entity runs the risk of heavy bias and self-promotion. I also realize that not all Baptist Associations are strategic when it comes to starting new churches, and that some will never be. My purpose in this post is simply to point out why, of all denominational entities, the local Association can play a very strategic role.

Third, I don't want this post to be interpreted as "competitive" with other denominational entities at the state and national levels. One of the highly unfortunate results of the recent GCR conversations across our convention is that there has already been quite a bit of ungodly "one-upmanship," as "fans" of the various SBC entities have taken cheap pot-shots at other entities they perceive should just "get out of the way." This is not my intention in this post. On the contrary, there is no way for Southern Baptists to be unified nationally under a continent-wide strategic framework without the help of the North American Mission Board. Additionally, the specialists in areas like ethnic church planting and context-sensitive areas like urban ministry simply can't be afforded by most local associations and therefore, without the cooperation of state conventions, we might end up "flying blind" in many of our church planting efforts.

At the same time, the local Association has its own unique and very important contribution to make in the effort to start effective, disciple-making churches in North America. In particular, our proximity, flexibility, and accountability provide the opportunity for a rich environment within which new churches can be birthed.

1. Proximity: Simply put, our state convention has to keep up with more than 500 churches in Maryland/Delaware. And the further south you go, the tougher the job. The Baptist Convention in my home state of South Carolina serves the mission of more than 3000 churches! Our association, on the other hand, serves the mission of only 58 of those congregations. Where church planting is concerned, the reality is we have a greater proximity to our churches and thus, a greater propensity to develop the relationships neccesary to develop the culture within which new churches can be launched.

This is not to say that state and national entities can't also have strong relationships with churches. I am certain, for example, that the state staffer who directs Vacation Bible School has a much closer relationship than I do to many laity within our churches. But for the most part, when it comes to church planting, I am most keenly aware of the lay of the land in my association and thus, our association is in the best position to know which relationships can be best leveraged to facilitate more new congregations. My relationships with our 58 lead pastors have different degrees of intimacy and understanding. But of those in this group who are best equipped to help us plant churches, I can say I know ALL of them very well. And after more than six years in this part of the North American mission field, I know the importance of the relational dynamics between pastors and churches in this area when it comes to church planting.

I also know my field. Our churches are located in almost every kind of context that exists in North America, from the ultra-urban to "town and country," from southern Pennsylvania to College Park, from Baltimore city west to the Frederick County line. Within this area I can tell you the three most high impact sites that needed a new church yesterday. Not only can the local Association more easily keep up with high growth areas, it has the capability to know the internal psychographics of each area better than anyone else..

In short, our proximity to the mission field, to our churches, and to relationships gives Associations a high propensity for strategic influence when it comes to planting new churches.

2. Flexibility: Another aspect of Associations that make them a strategic church planting partner is a flexible structure. State Conventions and NAMB are, by neccesity, more beaurecratic. This is not a criticism of these entities, but simply an acknowlegement that the bigger you are, the more policies and procedures are neccesary in order to function consistently.

For example, when large sums of financial support are aimed by a single entity toward a new church, it makes sense that there would be tighter parameters around how those monies are invested for the sake of accountability. At the same time, creativity is always limited in such a scenario. This is where Associations, if they are structured properly, can help compensate.

One recent example in our own association will illustrate this well. We are currently targeting a high impact area for a church plant, and have a potential planter for the job. He has passed our assessment process, but desires to intern with a church planting network with whom we are partnered for this particular effort. The internship will require him to relocate and leave his current position on the pastoral staff of one of our churches, and he is now in the process of raising support for the internship. Typically, funding at all levels of denominational life only begins once the planter has actually been deployed to plant the church. However, Associational leadership discovered that because of this internship, the planter will deploy with a sizeable "hot core," all of whom will be supporting the new church financially. With this unique scenario came the opportunity to utilize a more creative approach to funding the entire church planting effort, and since Associational funding of such efforts is not captive to highly restrictive policies, but instead at the discretion of our Missions and Multiplying Churches Team and Executive Board, we were able to quickly aprove significant funding for this planter DURING his internship should he agree to plant in the high impact area we have targeted.

Additionally, strategic flexibility begins with a thorough understanding of what will be needed for effective church planting. Since every context is unique, it only makes sense to build the strategy from the Associational level.

3. Accountability: Much has been made over the past two years of the Biblical principle that "churches plant churches." I am thrilled to see this principle more practically "fleshed out" in the GCR reccomendations. And my strong belief is that the local Association can be the first resource utilized by local churches to start new churches.

For one thing, the local Association is the only entity in denominational life that is DIRECTLY responsible to local churches. Other entities throughout our SBC are neccesarily governed by Boards of Trustees. But local churches have the power to make the Association whatever they want it to be. Thus, if local churches with a passion for Kingdom multiplication desire to transform the Association into the effective tool that it can be in this area, they are free to do so.

All of the above are reasons I believe the local Association can play a vital role in the multiplication of new churches throughout North America. At the same time, I'll readily admit that not every local Association WILL play a vital role. For the realities I mention above to translate into new churches, the churches that make up Baptist Associations must have the right mindset. This requires a particular kind of culture to be cultivated within each association. In the next installment, I'll be speaking to this issue of how those who lead Associations can create a church planting culture within these vitally strategic networks.

Church Planting Systems and Baptist Associations

Two weeks ago I was invited to lead a session at the NoBA annual conference for Directors of Missions at Southwestern Seminary on Effective Church Planting in the Baptist Association. It was a privilege to talk with fellow Directors of Missions from across the country about their own efforts to facilitate church planting, and to learn from them regarding the real world issues they face in trying to cultivate a church planting culture. I was energized by their desire to do this better.

Since returning to Maryland I've received several requests for my teaching material, as well as bibliographic resources to help Associational servants do this work more effectively. In light of that interest, I've decided to dedicate the next few weeks to a blog series on the subject of church planting within Baptist Associations. My hope is that this will not only help Directors of Missions, but also local pastors and laity in churches who are passionate about seeing God's Kingdom multiplied in their own context.

In the first post, I will discuss the strategic role of the Association in denominational church planting, as well as some of the problems within denominational systems that can kill the desire and momentum for starting new churches. The Biblical pattern is that churches, not denominations, plant churches. At the same time, my very biased opinion is that Associations are in the best position of all denominational entities to empower local churches to fulfill this mandate. This is not to say that our friends at the state convention and North American Mission Board are irrelevant to the effort. On the contrary, we need ALL our partners on board for the undertaking neccesary to reach North America with the Gospel. But from a doctrinal, contextual, and ecclesiological standpoint, no one is more poised to help catalyze a movement of new churches among established churches like the Baptist Association.

In the second post, I'll discuss the neccesary work of creating a church planting culture in the Association. The best and most sophisticated support system on earth is useless if there is no passion to utilize it and no understanding of why it exists. Churches networked together in Associations must conclude that church planting is an absolute, non-negotiable neccesity. A culture of church planting understands that if an Association can't facilitate the work of churches planting churches, it has no reason to exist. I'll talk about ways to cultivate that sort of environment.

In the third post, I'll discuss the essential pieces for effective church planting strategy. I'll talk about the elements that constitute and define a "mission field," the neccesary elements of recruiting and assessing planters, and the neccesity of allowing parent churches to lead the way.

In the fourth post, I'll concentrate on a single piece of church planting strategy; funding. On the one hand, it takes money to accomplish the mission, and all the church planters reading would be very angry with me if I didn't raise this issue. On the other hand, financial support for a new church must be consistent with the strategy. Contextualization of financial support is every bit as important as contextualizing the overall strategy if you aspire to have a truly autonomous, self-supporting,and self-propogating new church.

In the final installment, I'll briefly talk about ways to ensure ongoing church planting strategy in the Association Obviously, the Director of Missions plays a vital role in catalyzing and facilitating this emphasis. At the same time, we want to "hand off" church planting to appropriate leaders in local churches, and eventually empower them as team members so that the mission continues should the DoM get run over by a bus.

My hope is that this series will be helpful to church planters, local pastors, church members, and Directors of Missions who want to see the Kingdom of God multiplied in their Association, and around the world. God willing, I'll see you in a few days with installment one.

Slander Among the Saints: John MacArthur, Darrin Patrick, and the Need for Godly, Older Examples

John MacArthur needs to repent!

That's a strong statement, I know. And before I explain why I feel this is the only appropriate response to his statements earlier this week about fellow Pastor Darrin Patrick, I should probably preface my thoughts with a few clarifications.

First of all, if you lean left theologically and you think you are about to read an attack on Dr. MacArthur's theology, save yourself the time and look for such attempts elsewhere. I love to hear Dr. MacArthur preach the Word of God. Early in my ministry, he was a shining example to me of Biblical faithfulness in the pulpit. I'm currently on my second, dog-eared copy of The MacArthur Study Bible. Although I have not always reached the same conclusions as he, I have for the most part learned much from his exegetical precision, hermaneutical skill and homiletical appeal. He is a faithful servant of Jesus, and I thank God for the incredible influence he has had on my own ministry.

Second, I write this post on my 39th birthday. While I'm not sure a guy who is now officially less than a year from being 40 can still be called a "young leader," I am writing from that perspective nonetheless. As such, I admit taht my initial reaction to MacArthur's words were more visceral than the words you will shortly read, primarily because I believe older men should set an example for younger men, and I believe Dr. MacArthur dropped the ball. Big time.

Third, this post isn't an attempt to defend Darrin Patrick or his book (which I have recommended highly to anyone aspiring to start a church, or even pastor an established one!). I'm certain Darrin can take care of himself. Furthermore, MacArthur's attack on its contents should be automatically suspect to any thinking person who discovers that this same work bears the endorsements of Albert Mohler, Mark Dever, and Tim Keller. This post isn't about the book. This post is about John MacArthur's responsibility to practice what he has so often faithfully preached.

The simple fact is that Dr. MacArthur ripped a statement from Patrick's book completely out of context and in the process, falsely accused a brother in Christ and fellow pastor of doctrinal error. Patrick's point in saying that young pastors and planters should develop their own theology was not to encourage reckless and niche-marketed doctine, and anyone who reads the context of his work sees clearly that Patrick emphasizes sound doctrine saturated with Scripture, and in the vein of historic Christian orthodoxy. His point was not to encourage pastors to create their own truth. His point was to encourage deep, Berean reflection on EVERYTHING one hears--even if it comes from the lips of your spiritual heros--and in the process to develop onesself theologically in a way that moves one closer to Jesus and more in harmony with the text of Scripture.

But MacArthur obviously read something very different into Patrick's words, and in the process reacted strongly:

"You know, there's a new book on church planting written by a guy named Darrin Patrick and it says if you want to be an effective church planter, develop your own theology.

You know when I read that I just almost fell off the chair. What? I mean, can you think of anything worse than to have some guy develop his own theology? This is ultimate niche marketing. Develop your own style, your own wardrobe, and then your own theology."

If you listen to the entire interview with Phil Johnson, a strange irony becomes apparent. Prior to this charge against Patrick, MacArthur was sharing how the thinking of theologians such as J. Gresham Maechen, B.B. Warfield, and Cornelius Van Til had helped him, in essence, "develop his own theology." In short MacArthur spends several minutes describing his own development as a theologian, only to conclude by blasting a younger pastor for doing exactly the same thing! Apparently, developing your theology is OK as long as its done in a way that doesn't include cultural relevance or efforts to contextualize the Gospel so that its offense is crystal clear to those who will hear it.

MacArthur's statement is the classic example of the "cheap shot," leveled in an attempt to emphasize in a negative way a point you are trying to make. But to make matters worse, MacArthur goes on to address the "buzz" created by his remarks by again arguing against a point that Patrick never makes; namely, that theology should be developed at least partially from the perspective of entrepreneurial business principles.

So here is my big suggestion: No more explaining or clarifying. John MacArthur should simply apologize to Darrin Patrick for misrepresenting Patrick's words in order to score points with his audience at Grace Community Church. John MacArthur should repent, and for several reasons:

1. It is the right thing to do: When you misspeak, you should correct yourself. When you mischaracterize someone else's position, your should rectify your mistake by simply saying "I got this one wrong." Yet admitting wrongdoing, or wrongthinking, is something that seems to come very hard for MacArthur. Listening to the podcast interview, I picked up on a subtle hint of this issue.

2. It sets the right example: Frankly, there are a lot of older men in ministry who preach repentance but do not practice it. From personal experience I can testify that many pastors and denominational leaders from the "builder" and "boomer" generations simply have a hard time admitting when they are wrong. Instead, they "explain" or "clarify," when a simple "I'm sorry" would suffice. Then these same men scratch their heads in bewilderment wondering why most younger men refuse to follow them. Thankfully, this is not true of some older men, and there are many who set the right example for the next generation. The fact is, young leaders are hungry to be mentored by older, godly men, but they need more than words. They need an example. (Hebrews 13:7)

3. It illustrates Grace: We don't have to always be right, but when we are wrong, we need to state it plainly and seek forgiveness from the One who IS always right, as well as others we may have offended. As followers of Jesus, we are trophies of the grace of God, and when we are transparent about our own mistakes, we display a supreme confidence in that grace.

Again, I love John MacArthur. My desire is to see him repent, not for any vindication on my part or anyone elses, but for the sake of greater cooperation with others who preach the same Gospel. We need men like John MacArthur. Spiritual fathers are rare, and over the years, he has been one of the best. I pray he does the right thing.