NID New Starts

Interesting Quote

Three of us are attending a church planter's conference with 3000 others from all over the USA and beyond.  The top thinkers, writers, and practitioners are here, as well as some very passionate people who are either in some stage of planting a church or in an established church that desires to plant a new church.   One of the topics involved a discussion of why most churches never get serious about outreach.  Here's an interesting quote given by one of our presenters that caused the crowd to react as if he had caught us.  Know what I mean?  Here's the quote.  "People don't change till the pain of staying the same grows greater than the pain of change."  He said we have created a multi billion dollar industry to keep the church the same and insulate the people from pain so they don't have to change.  He claims people in church are hurting for (translated as, willing to die for) our preferences when we should be hurting for (willing to die for) those who are dying and going to hell.  To go along with this, he also said, "the church is also more interested in the barn (the building) than in the harvest."  So how is it at your church?  Can you relate to either of the quotes?

Leaving a Lasting Legacy

Someone once said, "Failure is succeeding in something that really doesn't matter."  How much of our ministry efforts and time are spent on things in the church that really doesn't matter.  I know when I was in the parish if we had one more meeting about the color of the carpet for the mother's room or what snacks to serve at the ladies day tea I was going to scream.  I just kept thinking, "How does this increase the kingdom?  How will this lead one more person to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ?"  So was the work I was doing a failure?  By God's kingdom standards, YES!  By investing more time and energy in the Great Commission we can leave an eternal lasting legacy.

New Starts Workshop

About Our Father’s Business

Helping congregations discover their missional DNA!

Saturday, June 14, 2008
9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Immanuel Lutheran Church
2317 South Wolf Road
Hillside, IL 60162

8:30 a.m.	Registration & Coffee
9:00 a.m.	Opening Devotion
9:30 a.m.	New Starts Assessment
10:00 a.m.	New Starts Vision
11:00 a.m.	Leadership
12:00 noon	Lunch
12:45 p.m.	Discipleship
1:30 p.m.	Restarts as New Starts
1:45 p.m.	Congregation Next Steps When to apply for an Ablaze Grant?
2:45 p.m.	Q & A
3:00 p.m.	Head for Home!

 

Click Here to Register

Summertime & Living is Different!

The Chicago baseball teams started playing ball in earnest earlier this past week.  That means summer can't be too far behind ... I hope!  Many churches "scale back"activities during the months of June, July and August because of vacation schedules.  While that's not all bad, summer can also be a time when visitors come to your church.  We certainly prepare for visitors at Christmas and Easter, but what about during the summer?  My questions are ...

Do you do anything special during the summer to reach your community?  Share your success stories!

Do you do anything special to keep your members connected during the summer months?

Share some of your thoughts and insights!!  Thank you!

The Truth About Revitalization

A leader is a dealer in hope. -Napoleon Bonaparte

One misconception about the Revitalization process being promoted by Synod is that it is to get rid of bad pastors.  The truth of the matter is that revitalization is about giving Hope to stagnate congregations.  We are trying with revitalization and ReFocus to assist pastors be change agents to bring Hope to their congregations and ultimately bring true hope to their unchurched neighbors.  Hope in the biblical sense of a confidence in the promises of God. 

Don't Shut the Door!!

I'm at a conference and the speaker just reminded us of something as he was going through his presentation.  He asked us who shut the door of the ark.  Remember Noah and the ark?  Noah didn't shut the door!  God did.  Noah's job wasn't to shut the door.  That was God's job.  Isn't the same true for us.  No, we aren't building an ark.  But we are to obey the Lord and be His missionaries in a Post churched world.  Instead of shutting the door on the unchurched; in other words, expecting them to come to us, we are to go to them.  We need to realize they won't just come walking into our buildings seeking Jesus on our terms.  Instead, to be real missionaries, we need to take the Gospel to them.  We are to permeate their world, learn their language and culture, and build relationships with them so they can experience the genuine love of Jesus.  This is also why we can take a new start into a different area than our church campus.  A new start can happen in a school, in a Starbucks, a hotel, a daycare center, an exercise place, a local pub/restaurant or wherever unchurched people hang out.  And no, it just doesn't have to happen on a Sunday morning.  Don't shut the door on the unchurched by expecting them to always come to us and be like us.  We don't live in a churched world anymore.  Instead, let's be motivated by God's love and Good News for us and respond by being His missionaries; and with the power of His Spirit, may we permeate their world and culture with that same love and Good News that they may also end up as reproducing disciples of Jesus!!

The Power of a Transformed Congregation

I had the privilege to attend a worship service at an inner city congregation(St. Philip's) on Sunday.  They were beginning a new service to reach there community.  Proving that any size congregation can do a new start.  Now there were not a lot of community people there yet, you could feel the excitement and spirit of anticipation.  They were preparing themselves for their neighbors to come and join them.  They are catching a missional spirit, they are changing their DNA and returning back to their mission.  It is obvious that they are in line with the heart of God.  Here is a congregation that is truly Ablaze with a missional DNA.  They are preparing now to go out into the community to bring the life changing gospel to wandering souls in their community. 

Driving Force

What drives you?  What is your passion?  What would you rather do more than anything else?  What is the driving force that keeps you going and motivates you to not only persevere, but to make a positive difference?  In a new book I'm reading called, "Church Unique" (Subtitle: How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement), there is an interesting sentence in the beginning.  When talking about vision the author writes, ". . . this vision must create a stunningly unique culture inside the church that is inclined and motivated to penetrate the culture outside the church.  In other words, reaching the surrounding community should be innate, driven by the church's DNA rather than programming."  Did you catch that phrase about reaching the culture being innate, driven by the church's DNA?  Programs don't drive us to reach out to others.  Rather, we are driven by our relationship to Jesus and motivated by His undeserved love for us.  Because of this love for us we are driven out of gratitude to reach others with His same saving love.

What drives your church?  What is your church's passion?  What is the DNA of your church?  Is it all about reaching people inside of your four walls or all about reaching people who don't know Jesus?  What keeps your church going day after day, week after week?  Imagine a church on fire for reaching people who don't know Jesus.  What would that church look like?  Maybe it's time for a new, fresh vision of why we exist!

What's Home Plate?

One of the books I've recently read again is Creating Community: Five Keys to Building a Small Group Culture by Andy Stanley and Bill Willits.  One of the comments they make which really struck me is ...

The question (we) should be asking is not "Are we hitting the ball?" but rather "Are we getting closer to home plate?"  Have you decided what home plate looks like for your church?  (p. 73)

Those are really thought provoking questions, aren't they??  As an NID staff we've tried to identify home plate.  We define it as ... New starts launched by existing congregations as they plant new churches, develop multi-sites, or initiate a different venue at the same site targeting new people.  I'm going to push the analogy a little more ... which I know is always dangerous!!

Baseball is always played by a group of individuals, yet the score is only tabulated by the whole team.  What would happen if we looked at the NID as "one team" rather than individual congregations?  Is there a way that the individual congregations can help other individual congregations cross home plate?  Does it really matter which congregation crosses home plate as long as we have more new starts and more new believers?

It really is thought provoking!! 

Jesus Came for New Starts!

Yes He did!  He took our place on the cross and died our death in order to pay the price we owed Him for our sin.  Without that price paid we would be headed for eternal damnation.  Not a pretty sight!  Nothing could stop Him from doing everything necessary to pay that price for us.  Sin, death, and satan couldn't even hold Him down.  He rose from the dead not only victorious, but also offering the benefits of that victory (forgiveness, eternal life, etc.) to everyone through faith in Him.  That's a new start!!  Life is not the same.  Rather, we are continually transformed by God's Holy Spirit as the clothes of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience are put on (Colossians 3).  It's great to receive God's new gift of life and be forgiven and headed for heaven, but it's not a graduation!  Rather, we are motivated by His love to share this Good News and His love with others.  The idea isn't to receive and relax.  The idea is to receive and give.  Get creative.  How can you assist your congregation in reaching people in your neighborhood who desperately need the love of Jesus?  Should you just put a sign up and wait?  After all, why should I have to go to them?  It doesn't work this way.  We aren't supposed to be focused on ourselves but on how we can bring the love of Jesus to others.  New starts are about relationships.  That's why Jesus came and transforms us.  As we are a new start in Him, He works through us to effect others.  Yes, this may lead to buildings (permanent and temporary), worship, small groups, etc., but to keep the loop going, we need to get outside of our walls and comfort zones to share the love of Jesus so that more and more new starts will take place.