The genius of Rainer and Geiger’s Simple Church, for me, is captured in two powerful, simplifying concepts. One is the insight that the church, practically, exists to accomplish just two things: to “go” and to “make disciples”.
What if we did all our ministry design, activity planning, preaching, teaching, and calendaring around these two objectives?
What if every program, ministry, and activity was evaluated through this lens?
What if we then summoned the courage to jettison … that’s right, to terminate … everything else?
Imagine a church fully committed to becoming the kinds of people who bring Jesus, in culturally-appropriate ways, to the surrounding populace. If that were true, how would we behave? What activities would be most important? What resource-draining commitments would we discontinue?
If God did give the clergy (Paul says: apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers) to equip Christians to minister effectively, what would predominate a pastor’s calendar? What would be removed?
In this blog, I’ll invite you to wonder with me about the first element of this first simplifying concept: Go
How might you pave pathways for your members to grow accustomed to ministering to those outside the family of Christ? What avenues would you proactively develop to help your people go into the community? How might you design apprenticeships for lay ministers to gather the experiences, understanding, and confidence to develop in their ministry out in the community? How much or how little of that training would be experiential? How much would be theoretical? When would classroom study be best? When would it only provide a haven to avoid the hands-on ministry to which the church is called?
How would you provide for repeated, sustained, long-term contact between your lay ministers and the same people, out in the community? Years ago I was told it takes seven positive, authentic connections with Christianity for a person to become a Christ-follower. Today, I’d guess is it’s more than that. How do we give the skeptical person (and in this environment, who wouldn’t be?) enough good experiences with us to begin to wonder if the view of Christianity they’ve held is fully reliable? What if the goal of our going is not to tell them anything, but to simply be the kinds of people to whom they can turn with their questions, consternations, and judgments when they are ready?
If so, what if the goal of our disciple-making is to develop the kinds of Christ-followers who move through the world in such a way as to catalyze these kinds of openings with those who are not following Christ?
It has been my privilege for the last several years to walk with pastors and their churches to do just that. In almost every case, we’ve walked through a cultural change process with lots of practical, actionable steps. Want to get in on it? Email me.