Church planting - Dave Lawton

I think we are going to change the world! No really...

 

One of my great joys is to journey with the gang at Alabaster house. I really love these guys!

Starting with 5 young radicals I remember going to pray in parks at night with them as they started to dream of reaching broken kids with the gospel. Passion was high. So was their faith. There was no resource, no big budget, just big hearts. A few years later we stand in awe of all that God has done. Many kids and young adults have encountered a loving Jesus community, come to faith, been baptised. I am always hearing stories of broken people discovering Jesus. It's messy, edgy and fun. As a community of 60 to 70 they are now beginning to multiply new churches. They dream big and work on reaching one person at a time.

What have I learnt from them? Lots. Here are just a few reflections...

It all started when Mike Grechko grabbed a bunch of them and began to pour his life into them. He gave them vision and challenged their thinking. Go Mike! This is when I began to catch up with them. The power of life on life mentoring and encouragement is vital.

They are thicker than thieves. They have built a friendship that obviously goes deep. They birth things in prayer and faith. Deep friendship and passionate spirituality is a strong part of their DNA.

I firmly believe in the 20 somethings. We have to hand the Church to them and watch what God does. They dare to believe, they are not encrusted with traditions, they have passion and energy. As Vicky said to me last week...

'I believe we are going to change the world... no really!'

I reckon they just might...

It's that simple!

Church planting is not complicated.... it is simple and easily caught. Especially when we redefine Church planting as making disciples in the harvest and gathering them together where ever you are. Jesus simply said go, or as you go, make disciples. It is the calling of every disciple to obey Jesus in this way. Once people have caught it the explosive dynamics are going to take many by surprise. Here is a note from my friend Gabi, Who responded to a recent post on the blog. Gabi has caught it.

Thank You Dave!

It is so exiting we do not need to do much.   I just felt on the weekend that I should start something in my workplace which is a residential house . I have already asked the residents and they happy and open to have something on 2 weekly basis  maybe on Sundays or Saturdays like some worship and bible reading and of course eating  ... I was so encouraged again during the conference. I think we must making disciples where ever we are and I find people really open for the "good news" and fellowship, we must take advantage of that.

gabi

Church planting with no Mission?

USA today reports on the decline of Christianity in America saying 'So many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists. In a nation that has long been mostly Christian, "the challenge to Christianity … does not come from other religions but from a rejection of all forms of organized religion," the report concludes.' 

{check out the report above...it has a very cool interactive graph }

Maybe this explains something I have been perplexed about. When I meet and hear some of the best and fairest of Church planting guru's from the US I hear a lot about leadership and Church planting. Don't get me wrong, I love and respect many of the great leaders the US has produced. Even so, I hear very little about engaging a lost culture with the 'good news' and scant about how to make disciples out of the lost. I am left with a gnawing hunger for more, an unsettled sense that we are missing something big.

It is perhaps because Church planting in the US has, by and large, engaged in a culture that does not seem to be lost and far away from God [Note to self - Perceptions are often deceptive, especially for those within the picture]. I for one thank God for the Church in the USA and it's global leadership of the last 100 years. But maybe because it has had such strong Church that the primary question of mission {Preaching the gospel, making disciples} has slipped off the radar. Church planting becomes about the better leader running the better program and drawing as many as possible to their venue.

Multiplying Churches can soon sound like Church planting with no mission. The question soon becomes 'Could you lead a Church of 60 or 100?'... Not 'could you reach the lost?' While leadership is good and important our teachers from the US usually are creating a very high bar, allowing little time for the empowerment of every believer to reach the lost. The focus is all wrong.

However Church planting movements formed in the crucible of the hardest and most unreached peoples share a completely different story. The first question is not about leadership or the Church, but the Gospel of Jesus. How do we preach the Gospel to these people? How do we deal with a totally different world view? Then it is a question of making followers, disciples. How do we create obedient followers of Jesus who will in turn preach the gospel and make more disciples? The explosive Church of the third world has arisen out of the Gospel penetrating such difficult situations that their story starts to look like the book of Acts all over again. Ordinary believers are empowered by the Spirit of Jesus, the Gospel spreads virally and organically, the Church is on fire and simple.

The rapid and cataclysmic decline of Christianity in Australia has caused us to realise what we are doing is not working. Even with the advent of Mega Church and 'emerging' Church. We need to learn afresh. Church paradigms need to be challenged. Maybe with the startling report of the decline of the Church, our friends in the the land of General Motors and Lehman brothers will soon have to join us Aussies as learners once more. That together we will take our hats off in humility ask the true leaders of global Christianity where the Church is exploding ...

'how do we reach the lost?'

Ex-Catholic Dylan Rossi, 21, a philosophy student at the University of Massachusetts in Boston meditates. "I don't know anyone religious and hardly anyone 'spiritual,'" he says.

Photo and comment from USA today

Mark and Dharshi #2

Mark and Dharshi write...

 

"Have you ever heard the muslim call to prayer, or the melodic reciting of the Qur'an in Arabic? We were treated to an interesting adaptation of this recently while catching up with our Iraqi friend for dinner. In his past, he used to teach others how to recite the Qur'an in Arabic, singing the words loudly in musical sentences, much like the call to prayer from the minaret. However on this occasion, he volunteered to sing us the Biblical Lord's prayer. It was incredible. Spine-tingling. The hairs on our necks stood out as he sang out the Lord's prayer passionately in beautiful melodious Arabic, while we sat in wide-eyed silence at the table. To know that it was the Bible he was reciting was especially moving. It was only topped later as we read part of the first chapter of Luke together, he in Arabic and us in English. Thank you for your prayers for "M".

 

Churchplanting can be the most fulfilling, on the edge and fun place to be. These kind 'God moments' you can only get when you are making disciples in the harvest. You wouldn't want to miss this for the world!

Mark and Dharshi

Mark and Dharshi are living the dream of what it means to follow Jesus in Dandenong. They are part of a new move of apostolic teams daring to take risks to see a movement of simple Church in our nation. Their heart beats for a multiplying movement of disciples in the harvest. They are currently sharing the gospel and praying with numbers of people from the many nations represented in Dandenong. People from Zambia, Malawi, Burundi, Iraq and Sri Lanka. And there is only two of them!

Mark and Dharshi inspire me and refresh my passion for Jesus.

Here is their vision summed up in their latest prayer letter.

Here is our latest update in Dandenong.

Recapping our aim:

 

Our aim is to make disciples in the harvest, and see them also make disciples. The result being that, through prayer, building relationships and sharing the gospel, small communities will be established and continue to multiply. The main ways we are doing this are the methods Jesus described in Matthew 10 and Luke 10, meeting persons of peace in their own homes, leading to the gospel reaching their relational connections or oikoi (oikos).

 

I reckon that pretty well sums it up!

 

 

Small Groups host the Virus

      Lee Strobel writes....

I'm excited about the huge trend of believers starting small groups and inviting nonbelievers to join them. The Alpha Courseis taking this approach. A ministry on the East Coast, Neighborhood Bible Studies, was just kind of floundering. They have a new leader, Mary Schaller. Her vision is 25,000 groups, which have a new name, Q Place, in the next six years. We started these kinds of groups at Willow Creek. At one point, we had 1,100 nonbelievers in these groups. We found that if nonbelievers join one of these groups and stay with it, 80 percent come to faith.

 

80% is a big number!

 

If the Gospel is like a virus that spreads from person to person then maybe small groups are the best hosts of the virus. I firmly believe in the power of small groups. One of the truths that we are rediscovering from the non-western Church is that our models of 'what is Church' is often found wanting. By spending most of our time focusing on the one sacred hour on Sunday morning, we can be a Sunday morning, program orientated, building fixated Christianity. In doing so we have effectively contained the virus in quarantine and stopped the gospel becoming a pandemic. 

 

Many non-western Churches however gather anywhere and anytime they can, they study often in twos and threes... they are usually part of viral movements that spread and cannot be contained. These groups are simple, organic and led by 'untrained' and un-ordained men and women. . Though bound together by relationship, they also easily multiply.

 

If our job is to get the virus of the gospel out of quarantine.... could rediscovering the missional qualities of small groups be one of the keys?

Let's go and fail together!

Let's go and fail together! This is what Spenser, one of our team said, when I shared with them some of the vision I think God is giving us. We are focusing on the Western suburbs of Melbourne, the poorest and most needy and unreached part of the city. The more we prayed and heard from God, the more we have realised the the challenge is not simply to plant a Church, but to saturate the whole region with church planting. The real question has become how many Churches are needed? 200? 500? I shared that God is setting us up with such an audacious vision that we are bound to fail. And their response? It was 'Let's go and fail together!' It spoke of abandonment to God, of faith, of shooting for the stars.

I like what Theodore Roosevelt said...

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Leave the Gate Open!

Last Friday we visited one of our Church planters in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne. Katherine has just moved into one of the roughest areas of the city two weeks ago. Her car insurance has jumped by a huge amount simply due to the change of addresss! She is part of our team of pioneers who are being missionaries in our own city. When we arrived we found to our delight her neighbours already in her house. It was a great afternoon of sharing and praying with these new found friends who did not know Jesus. After they left we asked Katherine how did she make contact with them? After praying for contacts Katherine had simply felt the Holy Spirit say to her to 'leave the gate open'. She did. And to her surprise her nieghbours started to visit her. 

Katherine is an activated disciple living the dream of what it means to 'follow Jesus and change the world'. She is not just obedient in the big things, to pack up and move her whole life for the sake of mission, she is also listening closely to the Holy Spirit in the little things so she can reach the lost. I wonder how many of us simply need to listen to the Holy Spirit so we can all 'leave the gate open'?

Church Planting 'hard on marriages'

Colleen and I are in the beginnings of planting a Church in the Western suburbs of Melbourne. So that's why I noticed this comment by Cindy Nicholson from the Vineyard Movement.

'Church planting is not one of the easiest  things you could ever do with your life, and it is certainly one of the most challenging things you can do as a married couple. But in my experience, nothing beats -short of birthing or adopting babies - being right in the middle of seeing a new community of faith come into being, grow strong, and start to impact the wider community around it. It can be one of the most glorious things that a couple can ever experience together no matter how they have divvied up the job descriptions. There is just nothing like it. It is one of the unique privileges of getting called to Church planting as part of your life's work.'

Sounds like Church planting would be good for our marriage after all. Phew!

Rebellion is a good thing

Meet two rebels, Sheila and Joshua. They met and married in North India and then moved to another city where I met them on my recent trip there. When they had moved to work with a mission organsiation, Sheila noticed many Nepali's in that city and felt deeply especially for the Nepali girls trapped in prostitution. However her mission had a clear policy of working only in teams so did not allow her to begin a ministry amongst the Nepali community until she was able to gather a team. Sheila's problem was that she didn't have a team, so she went ahead alone and secretly began to reach out to these girls in her spare time. She faithfully served in her day job while after hours she began to reach out to these girls.

One by one these girls responded to the message of Jesus. Sheila and Joshua soon realised they would have to develop a discipling community around these girls to truly help them and rescue them from the virtual slavery that is often found in prostitution in India. So one night they drove around on a motorbike and invited nearly 400 Nepalis (all Hindus) together to share with them the good news of Jesus. Numbers responded and this secret Church plant was under way in earnest. It wasn't long before a pastor was raised up and Sheila began her second plant, and then her third and so on. All in her spare time. Finally it became to much to hide so she 'fessed' up to her mission about what had been going on. Would they please forgive her? She had gone ahead and planted nine churches!

The good news of this story is that many of those girls have now been rescued, as well as some of the young men who used to visit them. Numbers of them are now active believers in these new church plants, some have even married! Today Joshua and Sheila are a part of the leadership team in their mission helping CP teams amongst the unreached.

What would happen if we all started to rebel against the rules and policies that stop the gospel from spreading? I wonder what Jesus would do?