Bill Easums Observations

Well we have come to the end of this series. I hope it  has been helpful.

Perhaps you are asking, what can I do with all  of these conversations? Well, here are some places to begin.

1. Pay attention to the conversations going on today and see what you can learn from them. It may surprise you.
2. For those of you in spiritually alive congregations look for ways to mentor pastors in churches whose spiritual life is not so good.
3.  For those of you in dying churches, get out of there as fast as you can and quit wasting your life.
4.  Focus your people on the question - “What is it about my relationship with Jesus that the world cannot live without knowing?”
5. If you want your church to thrive in a pagan world you need to spend time with pagans. So get out of the office and help your members grow up spiritually.
6. Focus on growing people instead of growing your church.
7. Eliminate the missions committee and consider every leader a potential missionary to the West.
8. Focus on making your church so loving and warm people can’t help but grow.
9. Don’t encapsulate your people so firmly in church activities they lose touch with their pagan friends. Don’t extract them from the world.           
10. And above all, find ways to participate in the reproductive movements underfoot today.

The Primary Conversation of Our Time Becomes Clearer

Im coming to the end of this series and want to thank everyone who has contributed. Who knows you may find some of it in a book some day.

We are all indebted to the Emergent, Incarnational and Organic folks for so clearly calling to our attention the fact that Western Christianity is nowhere near what Jesus had in mind when he sent his disciples out into the world to build his church. We need to hear them. Moreover, we should be listening to why they feel so passionate about Western Christianity being either irrelevant or a counterfeit.  Doing so may help some of us change our ways or avoid some of the mistakes made by institutional churches.

Perhaps now you see why these conversations lie at the heart of thefuture of Western Christianity. If the basic mission of Christianity is not the health or growth of institutional churches but churches that contribute to the expansion of the Kingdom of God, then the vast majority of established Western Christianity is virtually dead. The acknowledgement of this condition is one of the reasons why this conversation is so important. If our churches were making disciples, transforming their communities, and actually bringing the Kingdom to bear on this earth, the conversation around the Emergent, Attractional, Incarnational, and Organic folks would not be necessary. But it is, and all of us had better take heart and listen to what God is saying in this conversation. 

However, the Emergent, Incarnational, Attractional, and Organic conversations are not the primary conversations in which we should be engaged.  The focus of our conversations should be on the multiplication of the Kingdom of God rather than the health or growth of the institutional church.  In the context of our society that means we must focus on what it means to be the institutional church that advances the Kingdom of God. As long as our society is based on institutions we can’t throw the baby out with the bath water.   

If we are listening to the conversation, we can’t help but be impressed by the enormous potential awaiting the church if it frees itself from its institutional bondage and becomes engaged in Kingdom ministries like churches planting churches, multiple-site churches, Organic churches, and yes, Incarnational ministries that leave behind the institutional church as we know it, and even the Emergent folks who ask all kinds of uncomfortable questions.

We are witnessing the birth of what I call the ‘Untethered Church”- the church free to be the church wherever two or three are gathered together, a pub, a night club, a strip mall, a neighbor’s home, a parking lot, a shooting gallery, a soup line, a biker club, a coffee shop, and even an institutional church whose primary mission is to those who aren’t yet part of the Kingdom of God.

The emerging world is shaping up to be wonderful riot of expressions of authentic Christianity. Something we haven’t seen for some time. The question is – Will you be a part of it? One more post to come on What Can I Do with these Conversations?

Well the house voted to bailout the economy. So here are my thoughts. I think you can find biblical basis for most of them.

1. this was a much for main street as for wall street. the vase majority of americans caused this mess, not just wall street.

2. its time we once again learned to live within our means.

3. its time to once again require 20% down before a person can purchase a house and we must do away with floating interest.

4. Its time for some CEOS and Bank Presidents to go to jail for telling people they can afford a $300,000 house when all they can afford is a $150,000 house.

5. Its time to either tear up our credit cards or pay them off every month.

6. its time to tithe to our church and to our retirement account (or start one if you dont have one).

7. its time to make sure what money we have is in an insured account.

8. its time to make contributions to our retirement account because the market will go up again some day.

9. But in the end its time for the american consumer to wake up to the fact that you buy things only if you have the money. This seems like such a simple suggestion but it is the heart of all this mess. Another word for it is greed on both sides of the street, both Wall Street and Main Street. Now its time for all of us to get back to what we do best- be Americans and that means pulling together.

The Reproductive/Multiplication/Movement 

So far our we’ve looked at several conversations – Emergent, Incarnational, Organic,  and  Attractional/Incarnational.  Now it’s time turn to another major player in this ongoing conversation- the one, I think, which should be occupying most of our time and energy- the Reproductive/Multiplication groups. 

The primary difference between the effective attractional/incarnational folks and the Reproductive/multiplication folks is that the reproductive/multiplication leaders focus almost exclusive on the process of church planting and/or multiple sites as opposed to growing their own church. Their focus is not on their church but on advancing the Kingdom. I know most of the attractional/incarnational folks would say they believe in church planting, but that’s not their primary focus. Reproductive/multiplication leaders focus primarily on reproducing churches that reproduce churches. Reproductive/multiplication leaders also realize that Western Christianity is in the tube but aren’t willing to give up on the institutional church.

We are seeing leaders emerge whose primary mission is the advancement of the Kingdom rather than the growth of their church. This is what separates these pastors from all the others (I would have to say that Hugh Halter has a similar mission). The primary ways they advance the Kingdom is through developing church planting and multiple sites. Instead of a new faith or new Christians they are calling Christians back to the primary mission of the church- to “go make disciples.” 

The impact of this reproductive/multiplication movement is growing exponentially. One example is the recent Exponential Conference. Three years ago a group of reproductive/multiplication leaders, led by Todd Wilson, started a church planting and multiple site event called Exponential. Three hundred people attended.  This past April (2008), over 3,000 people attended the event. Church planting churches and multiple site churches are now one of the fastest growing segments of western Christianity. Many voices head up the Reproductive/multiplication movement. I can only mention a few. 

GlocalNet http://www.northwoodchurch.org/glocal/glocal.html is an organization founded by Bob Roberts, pastor of NorthWood Church http://www.northwoodchurch.org in Keller, Texas.  GlocalNet is establishing church planting centers all over the U.S.  Robert’s goal is to resource these centers so that far more churches can be planted than if his church continued to focus on church planting.  

Dave Ferguson, pastor of Community Christian Church in Naperville, Illinois  http://www.communitychristian.org, has developed New Thing http://www.newthing.org/index.htm, whose purpose is “to  be a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches relentlessly dedicated to helping people find their way back to God.”  

Wayne Cordeiro, pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu http://enewhope.org, has established New Hope International http://www.enhi.org for the sole purpose of raising up 21^st century church planters throughout the world.   

Todd Wilson, pastor of New Life Christian Church in Centerville, Virginia and founder of Passion for Planting http://www.churchplanting4me.com has joined with Dave Ferguson, founder of New Thing Network to form Leading Edge Ministries, (www.leadingedgeministries.org), an alliance of many leading organizations whose purpose it is to make it feasible for any church to take part in the church planting movement.  They offer all of the supporting resources and coaching for planting a church. 

What’s so interesting about Reproductive/multiplication leaders is that they openly embrace the Incarnational people. These leaders have made one thing clear- you don’t have to be incarnational or Emergent to spread the Good News.  They realize that reaching the world will take the combined effort of all forms of Christianity. 

The reproductive/multiplication leaders incorporate the best of the incarnational, the attractional, the organic, and the Emergent values. They believe we must plant as many churches as possible in as short a period of time as possible in any way possible. But their emphasis is not the institutional church; their emphasis is on planting churches that will plant other churches. The emphasis is not on the church but on the process of planting. These leaders also realize that in today’s world big may not always best, so they embrace the multi site route as well as the Emergent and Organic, and House Churches. 

My prediction is that Reproductive/multiplication leaders will do far more to shape the future of Christianity in the West than will all of the other voices taking part in this conversation.  

So here are my questions to the Reproductive/multiplication leaders. When are all of you going to get together and bring about one huge movement that will change the course of the world? What’s keeping you from forming a Reproduction Bank where people of all persuasions can donate money to the cause of planting church planting churches?  When are any of you going to truly become a movement?