I started to write a post yesterday, but chose to not post it as it was more negative and reactionary than I’d like. Suffice it to say, I’ve found myself getting worn out and frustrated when I generally hear people talking about church planting.
It’s not that I’m against church planting, it is after all something that I care deeply about. It’s more that too often it feels that when I hear people talking about it, it’s usually about issues of form, what kind of worship, how will we preach and so on.
What I’m worried is that our conversations on church planting don’t have to do with actually seeing the faith expanded or connected to those outside. And I don’t think this is a purposeful thing, instead we get distracted on these issues of form-assuming that these are the things that will equip us to speak of the faith with those outside of the church. My contention is that if we are not very purposeful in our priorities, it’s very easy to allow good things to subvert our energies from being outward focused.
In that sense, for the church to have an outward impulse, I believe requires taking on an attitude of minimalism. An attitutde in which we purposefully limit good things that we might do for the sake of keeping mission as our central focus.
I’ve had to learn a similar approach in my life. I have a hard time saying no, especially to something that I think is a good thing. And because I don’t say no, I find myself being tired, and not having time to do the things I really care about – because my time is spent focusing on these things I’ve said yes to. One of the lessons that I’m learning personally is to be okay with saying no to something good for the sake of accomplishing what I want to accomplish.
I wonder if many of our failures in missional church aren’t similar. What if we have allowed our churches to take on similar personalities, finding it impossible to say no to anything good?
A while back, my friends Ryan and Laura were visiting Portland, thinking about moving here to be a part of our church plant. We talked quite a bit about approach to ministry and programs and how that would work in this church plant. I remember that in a moment of inspiration I had said that as a church we will start things and sometimes have to stop those same things, that it was even possible that those things would be good but take too much of our energy away from mission. Looking back, I think I was more right than I thought then. I really think that to be successful in this thing we call missional church, it will require a willingness to embrace minimalism in our operations and events.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Missional minimalism. I like that.
bryan, i appreciate your honesty about your busted church plant. i was also part of a failed plant, my wife blogged about it some here.
http://bit.ly/8NoIw3 i think our problem was that we initially started with a much more traditional idea of what the church would look like, something more like a postmodern service. as we slowly shifted and approached something more missional people couldn’t grasp our vision. im sure this is more our fault as we now realize the need for more growing and our own need for discipleship. your lucky to be in a city with some missional communities. Im curious what your advice would be for a family that desires “missional minimalism” but lives and works in an area that doesnt have a community like that?
Hi Dave, you are asking great questions, and to be honest I don’t know how great my answers will be to your questions.
I am lucky that it seems there’s constantly new energy coming into Portland, looking to church plant, but I find it interesting, our new community has formed mostly with people who have moved in. I’m fortunate enough to be plugged in with a missions organization that is able to see doing things in the states as mission as well, so we have had our new community begin to form out of a handful of people who have moved here specifically to take a missionary posture.
I guess my best advice to you would be one of two things: to become marginally involved in a church that gets the gospel, whether or not they get missional, but keep yourselves from feeling like you have to do every program and so on that they have. Or if you know a few other people traveling the same path, trying to figure out how to be missionaries in their own city, you just start hanging out doing a house church/small group sort of approach and have a rhythm of community with a group that are considering similar options.
Regardless, it’s a strange position to be in, I definitely recognize that. Our missional community is very much in the fledgling stage and it’s tough to tell what will happen with it.
Hopefully my ramblings can be of some sort of help to you