Epic

I No Longer Fit

A couple of weeks ago I discovered the mother-of-all-Chinese Buffet's here in Columbus.  Not a good thing for my waistline.  My pastor and I had some great conversations over our food at this place shortly thereafter.  During that conversation I shared with him that though I still passionately believe in and feel called to the ministry of establishing new faith communities, I no longer fit the mold of an American church planter.

I interact with dozens of church planters across the country through blogs and message boards.  As I observe their conversations (I don't contribute much anymore) I can no longer relate to their ways of thinking, their priorities, their philosophies.  Here are some of the things that I once bought into yet now struggle with.

We Gotta Fill This Place!  The prevailing approach to church-planting today seems to center around the idea that a church planter needs to get as many people to come to his church as quickly as he can.  The faster your church breaks the 200, 500, 1000 barrier the better because that means you can balance your budget and will more quickly be able to add people to the payroll and move out of your temporary setting into a building or campus of your own where you can continue building more and more programs for people to come and consume.

Church planters seem to be focusing all of their time, energy, and resources on getting people to come to the church meeting for an hour each week.  The hope is that out of the multitudes that visit, some will stick, and perhaps some will even "accept Christ."  (I'll talk about this idea of "accepting Christ" in a future post.) 

The reality is that "the church" isn't what we should be leading people toward.  Jesus Christ is who we should be leading people toward and this happens most effectively during the natural rythmns of life Monday through Saturday.  The church will never fill an empty heart.  The church, comprised of faulty humans, will disappoint and disillusion at times.  Jesus Christ is the only answer for the human heart and he will never disappoint and disillusion us.  When we make "coming to church" the emphasis rather than "coming to Christ," then we leave behind a path littered with the disillusioned debris of "almost Christians." 

I fear that many church planters have it backwards.  In their mind, new Christians are the product of an effective church-planting effort when it is in fact the other way around.  A powerful, culture-changing new church is the product of radically devoted new Christians entering into community with one another. 

Come and See!  Most every church planting effort in America sets up a "come and see" system.  The idea is to gather the best band, assemble the best technology, do the best marketing, put together the best programs, and hope that people walk through the door on Sunday morning (and then contemplate suicide on Monday when they don't.)  What usualy ends up happening is that the majority of the people who come and stick are ones who come from other churches and stick because the new church is "cooler." 

Church planters seem to miss that the Biblical church is a church that goes into the lost world instead of sitting around waiting for the lost world to find it's way to it. 

The Gimmick-Driven Church  I think that the thing that sickens me most is the gimmick-driven mentality behind getting people to "come and see" and "fill this place."  One church planter I know produced a rap video to get people to come to their Christmas service.  The "rappers" (pastor included) dressed in Santa and elf outfits were throwing gang signs and bending over so the camera could zoom in on their shaking backsides.  For some reason they felt like this would be a "cool" way to get people to come to their Christmas service.  In reading a thread on a particular message board I read about churches that give away big door prizes to get people to come.  I'm not talking about prizes like a monogramed Bible or anything like that.  They're advertising stuff like, "Come to church, win a car!"

These are all acts of desperation.  Most church planters haven't awakened to the reality that Christendom is over and though people are becoming more and more spiritually aware they are also becoming less and less inclined to follow their spiritual quest through the doors of a church building.  Because of that reality, church planters who know nothing but the institutional come-and-see paradigm spend much of their time in panic mode resorting to whatever gimmicks they can get away with to "buy" church attendance, as if "church attendance" is really the point.

The Lord willing, I will be involved in the formation of new faith communities (I can't bring myself to call it church-planting anymore) in the very near future.  I believe that the faith communities I am involved in forming will begin with a handful of people of whom some will be pre-Christians and the others will be missionaries.  They will grow slowly as we focus on people who don't know God and patiently walk the journey of faith with them and then teach them to walk the journey with others.  They will gather primarily in public places and private homes rather than on a church campus.  And they will be led by a brotherhood of visionary, humble, and servant-oriented elders rather than through the implementation of a top-down governing structure.

Don't look for me on the cover of any Christian magazines or in any lists of "The Top 100 Churches" or "The Ten Most Innovative Churches."  You won't see me on television or hear me on the radio or read about me in any newspapers.  You'll have to come to Columbus and look for me in coffee houses, neighborhoods, living rooms, and parks if you want to see what we're doing.

Boot Camp Chronicles; On Substance and Strategy

This post is going to be a little dis-jointed because I'm hurrying to crank it out before an appointment. Please bear with me.

I recently read on a message board these words (paraphrased) from a church planter:

"To make a church plant work you have to have state-of-the-art technology, a kickin' band, a massive marketing campaign, and a public launch of over 200 people."

When I made a subsequent post saying something like, "Ummm...AND intense prayer and fasting" I was chastised for my "condescending, holier-than-thou attitude."

If there is one thing that I most clearly learned from our church-planting experience it is this. The emergence of a new church is a supernatural occurence. What we are looking for when we untertake the task of planting a church is for something to happen that cannot be explained by human ingenuity. Almost anyone can gather a crowd and hold their attention with slick marketing, a good band, and flashy technology. Only God can raise up a passionately missional, reproducing ecclesia who are willing to give up their life for his Kingdom.

Do we need strategy? Of course. Any missionary worth his salt knows that to reach a people group they must, through the Spirit's guidance, develop a strategy that will communicate the truth of God in a way that can be heard and embraced. Church planters must understand who God is calling them to reach, exegete that culture, and develop a plan to speak the language of their tongue and their heart.

But there must also be an unexplainable supernatural force at work in our strategy and that supernatural force working on our behalf occurs as God responds to a heart that is devoted first to running passionately after his heart; as a deer pants for streams of water.

I am a strategy guy. Strategic thinking comes easy to me. And I definitely had a strategy for our church plant. Oh, I prayed all the time for God to do something through us that could never be explained by human ability. But honestly, I relied on my strategic thinking far more than I relied on God to do what only He can do.

What is the bottom line of planting a church? Simple. We want people to be drawn to us so that we can share the gospel with them, see them come into relationship with Christ, and disciple them. What is it that will draw them to us? Is it our marketing? Is it our band? Is it our speaking ability? Is it our strategic plan? Is it our building? I would say that some people will be drawn by these things and some good things might happen. But I would also say that a church plant built primarily on these things will be like driving a V-8 Hemi with only 2 cylinders hitting.

One morning during the spring of 2005, as God was in the process of deconstructing me, I was sitting in my office reading the scripture and praying. I don't know how I got to this book, but for some reason I turned to Zechariah and my eyes fell upon this verse that I'd never read before.

This is what the Lord Almighty says: "In those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, 'Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.'" ~Zechariah 8:23

Words cannot explain what I felt in the moment that I read this passage. It was almost as if I had just found the hidden key to a treasure chest. After all of the reading of church planting and church growth strategy books I had done the past few years, in that moment God said, "Dude, in this one verse is everything you need."

Yes, I'm pretty sure God actually called me "dude." But He was right! No surprise there. Check this out: In this one passage you see in simplest language both the strategy and the substance for any ministry to accomplish what God desires for it to accomplish. The strategy: You have to be going somewhere meaningful. The substance: God's presence with you is percievable by others. The result: People who are hungry for more than their present earth-bound reaility will come from the woodwork to take hold of you and go with you.

The people of Judah and Israel had been desimated. Israel was utterly destroyed and scattered by the Assyrians. Judah had been crushed and carried away into exile in Babylon. They were a broken, defeated, shamed people who had arrived in that state because they had forsaken the substance of God's presence among them. But God was saying to them that a day would come when they would turn their hearts back to the God of their fathers and in that day something supernatural would happen. Instead of being invaded by people seeking to destroy them, they would be invaded by hungry, hurting people who were desparate for the presence of God in their lives.

This is what church planting is. Every church planter is simply a broken, defeated, shamed person who has found forgiveness, restoration, victory, and glory in Jesus Christ and seeks to draw others into that reality.

Strategy without substance is hollow and devoid of supernatural power. Substance without strategy is unfocused and unfruitful.

As we plant our churches, may we be faithful in understanding the culture around us. But my prayer is that people searching for God will be drawn to me not through my strategy but through the tangible substance of the presence of God surrounding me, my marriage, my home, and my ministry.

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphant procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing."

~2 Corinthians 2:14-15

technorati tag: church planting

Boot Camp Chronicles; The Matter Of Motive

Why do men plant churches? No this question is not about to followed by a cleverly divised punchline designed to illicit grins and giggles. It's a serious question that springs from my thoughts at about 5:30 this morning while I was praying. It's a question that fits well with this series of posts as the thoughts with which I'll answer the question are born out of another lesson I learned while planting our church in Illinois.

Yesterday I was reading the blog of another church planter friend of mine from Canton, Georgia in which he laughingly mentioned an observation made by one visitor to their church plant. The visitor made the tongue-in-cheek comment that it looked like a bunch of middle-aged men who couldn't find jobs so they started a church instead. Though that was a light-hearted conversation I think the comment does bring up some serious questions that we must consider. Why do we plant churches?

I believe that some people plant churches more out of personal need than personal fruitfulness.

There are some Christians who are just plain difficult and can't get along with other Christians. They hop around from church to church and then finally after years of ticking people off they just gather together a group of others like themselves and form a "house church" (and I use that term loosely) where they can get together every week and complain about everybody else.

There are some men who pursue church-planting ministry because they need to be significant in the eyes of others. They get a rush from the idea of dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people coming every week just to hear them talk. It fulfills a narcissistic desire to be the center of attention.

There are some men who plant churches out of a messiah complex. They have a need to be needed so they percieve the world around them to be devoid of any spiritual substance and believe that they alone have the vision that will bring revival.

I know of one young man who has no employable skills and openly admits that he has to plant churches because he can't do anything else. In the few years I have known him he has walked away from 3 failed church plants and is now hoping someone will give him money to try a fourth time.

The question of the day is, "Am I planting churches as a means to fulfill my own needs?"

If we will allow the Spirit of God to pull back the curtain and fully expose our hearts we'll see clearly if this is the case. And if we can come to the place of admitting this truth we can then begin to face the reality that any church planting efforts pursued with this motive will be about as easy to pull off as it is to get an apple tree to produce oranges.

We will not be successful in planting churches - or any other ministry for that matter - until we come to the place that every spiritual, mental, relational, and emotional need we have is being fully satisfied through intimacy with Christ. The source for meeting all of our needs is found in a Person, not in an activity. If we attempt to fulfill those needs through minsitry we'll repeatedly find that the ministry never becomes what it could and we remain despairingly empty.

"I am the vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." ~John 15:1-4

There are men who are called to plant churches. We who have that calling understand what I'm saying when I say that it is something we can't resist. We can't stop it. We have to do it. To us it feels like a moral imperative. In our sleeping and our waking we think about it, we dream about it, we talk about it, we write about it, and we often feel like we would rather die and go on to be with Jesus if we can't do this thing. So yes, it is a need. How do I then reconcile these seemingly contradictory thoughts?

If we who are called to church planting are abiding in Christ and finding the complete fulfillment of our needs in him alone, then a church plant will emerge from our lives as naturally as apples emerge from an apple tree. To understand this, go find a healthy apple tree and try to prevent it from producing apples. You can't do it. Apples will emerge and there's nothing you can do to stop it short of poisoning or killing it.

If we are approaching minstry with the attitude that this is the only thing that will satisfy the needs in my life, then a healthy ecclesia will never emerge from you life. Oh, you may gather some people together for a period of time. You may be able to do some things that look like ministry. But seeing a vibrant, healthy, multiplying church emerge is as likely as walking into that apple orchard and seeing oranges hanging from the trees.

I end with the words of David. May this be the singular driving motive in my life.

"One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

For in the days of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.

Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the Lord."

~Psalm 27:4-6

technorati tag: church planting

Boot Camp Chronicles; The Paradox of Vision

Anyone who has come anywhere in the vicinity of church-planting ministry has heard this word: vision. Church planters are vision driven. We have to be. We are in the business of being used by God to create something that doesn't yet exist. And before it can exist in a way that can be felt, touched, and experienced by others it must first exist within our minds. A church planter experiences the fully mature church in the stillness of his morning thoughts over coffee. Images of the soon-to-be church drift in and out of his awareness during meals with his wife or while driving to the store, or while half-heartedly watching his favorite sitcom. The church planter is utterly alone in an unexplainable emotional connection with a church that may not become reality for months or even years. Vision is the oxygen breathed by church planters. Yet, strangely enough, that oxygen that keeps the heart and mind and soul of a church planter alive can be the very poison that kills the newborn church once it arrives in the flesh.

Before planting our first church in Illinois the vision was fully formed in my heart and mind. I had read all of the great books like Visioneering by Andy Stanley and Turning Vision Into Reality by George Barna...and countless others. I wrote a vision document. I told everyone about the vision. The articulation of my vision opened all of the necessary doors for us to move our church plant out of my mind and into the lives of many other people. I was repeatedly encouraged by church planter colleagues to have the attitude that my vision is the prevailing vision and if anyone comes along who doesn't fully embrace and support it, to run them off. I had the vision thing down, and yet, I totally missed the point.

From day one I cast the vision to everyone who joined us in our ministry. I would say to people something like, "We are planting a church in this city that will serve as a catalyst for other inter-connected church plants. We are going to have a Community Care Center where we'll offer emergency pantries, computer classes, GED classes, etc. And we're going to create Christ-centered cottage industries to help the many unemployed in our city find jobs and learn to be entreprenuers." This vision was very, very real to me and several people gave their toothy nods of approval.

After two-and-a-half years of living, breathing, and casting this vision we were struggling just to grow the initial congregation beyond 60 people. And of those 60 people, nobody really embraced the full-grown vision I was daily proclaiming. I struggled to understand why. And then, during a 3 day prayer retreat in Kansas City, MO in March, 2005 the light went on. I came away from that retreat with this understanding:

It's not all about convincing people to rally around my vision. It's about creating an environment where every individual can catch a glimpse of and passionately pursue God's vision for their own life.

Wow! Here I was trying to give birth to a vision for a large, successful ministry that would touch all of Southern Illinois with the hope of Christ, yet people were walking into our sanctuary every Sunday who had no vision whatsoever for their own lives and "Where there is no vision, the people perish." People were "perishing" right under my nose while my eyes were set 5 years into the future.

The names have been changed to protect the innocent. I wanted people to embrace my vision for a church-planting movement but Lindsey lived day to day wondering if she could ever really overcome her clinical depression and the guilt of her past. I wanted people to help me create a community care center but Robert came in every Sunday wondering if there really was any purpose to his own life. I wanted all of Southern Illinois to know about our ministry for the glory of God, yet Denise wondered if she could make it a week without getting beat up by her dad. And sixty other stories just like this existed all around me while I stared longingly into the horizon.

The paradox of vision is this: God will give us a panoramic view of what he wants to do through us in advancing His Kingdom. It will be far larger than the moment. We will see it fully matured in our hearts and minds. It will energize and drive us. It will keep our hearts alive. Yet the only way we will see it become reality is by setting it aside and giving ourselves fully to the day-by-day work of helping every individual God brings across our path to catch a glimpse of their own personal vision, believe it can become reality, and pursue it with Godly wisdom and strength.

When we as church-planters give ourselves first to the nurturing of vision in the people God entrusts to us, we will then see our own God-ordained vision grow up strong and healthy all around us. Whereas if we keep our hearts and mind focused on the distant horizon while people perish at our feet we will find ourselves walking into that horizon alone.

technorati tag: church planting

Boot Camp Chronicles

I was recently reading a post on a friend's blog about his experiences while church planting.  I was amazed at the similarity between our stories.  Reading his thoughts inspired me to repost here a series I did on my old blog called "Boot Camp Chronicles."  If you are preparing to, in the midst of, or recovering from planting a church I hope this series of posts will speak to your heart.

At approximately 7:00 am on Friday, August 19th, 2005 I kissed Lynn goodbye, got in my truck, and drove 11 hours to Augusta, GA to begin a new life; in which Lynn would join me 60 days later after preparing the house to sell and preparing the children's ministry she was leading for transition. The previous Sunday I preached my final message at the church we planted three years earlier and afterward many of us went to my parents farm where I baptized a husband and wife and we all shared a final picnic together.

As I began down the highway on that Friday morning I was an emtional wreck. I was moving us to Augusta so I could financially support us with a job in a field to which I never thought I would return. I knew in my heart that God had called me to the church planting ministry, but as Illinois disappeared in my rearview mirror I had serious doubts that I would ever again plant another church. I was emotionally and spiritually spent and with every mile-marker I passed I tried to conjur up a vision for another church plant. Six-hundred mile-markers later I had experienced six-hundred failed attempts to reignite that passion, that dream.

The following months took me through an emotional and spiritual battle to understand some of the difficult things we had experienced in our church-planting journey. There was a lot of good that happened. Several people were born into the Kingdom during those years, several new friendships were formed, and several people who were previously doing life alone found a spiritual community. But there was also so much that happened that ripped apart my passion for ministry.

I'll refrain from speaking in detail about those painful moments out of respect for our friends from the church who read this blog. But there were so many "whys" during those years that I've struggled to understand these past months. There were many mistakes I made as a pastor that I had to learn from. There were many people I needed to forgive in order to free myself from the grip of bitterness. I am still struggling to forgive some.

Recently I have once again begun to feel the passion and dream the dreams that I feared were lost forever. Today there is coming alive in me a beautiful picture of what God desires to do through us. A picture of our ministry is emerging with a clarity that even surpasses the clarity of our dream five years ago. And there is also awakening in me a better understanding of all that we went through in Illinois.

Someone once said that church planters believe that God is going to use us to get the church plant done, when in fact, God uses the church plant to get us done (or something like that). I've come to understand that our 3 years in Illinois was my "Basic Training."

A few minutes before I came up to the reading room to write this I looked up "Basic Training" on Wikipedia. This statement about the purpose of basic training (also called "boot camp") captured me:

Some systems of training seek to totally break down the individual and remold that person to the desired behaviour.

If you've ever been through basic training in the military (which I haven't) you remember how intentional your drill seargent was in creating punishing circumstances for you to endure. Everyone comes into the military with their own opinions, ideas, attitudes and behaviors and the purpose of boot camp is to totally tear that person down and then rebuild them into a person that will function as part of a unit (body) and have far greater potential for victory on the battlefield.

Planting our first church was my boot camp. I shared with a new pastor friend of mine recently that when I began the first days of our ministry I knew everything there was to know about church planting. I read all the books. I learned all the strategies. I daily talked with a nationwide network of church planters. I had been mentored in a year-long full-time internship. There was nothing more for me to learn. But then 2 1/2 years in I realized, "I don't know the first thing about planting a church!" Oh, like I said earlier, a lot of good happened...but only by the grace of God. I was being torn apart in the process; to the point of a complete emotional collapse in March, 2005. And today, I understand that it was God who was tearing me apart for the purpose of remolding me into a man who in the next chapter of ministry would have far greater potential for victory on the battlefield.

I believe that the clarity with which Lynn and I are seeing the vision for our next church plant is the direct result of God's process of tearing me down and rebuilding me during our years in Illinois. In the coming days I'll continue this series of posts that I'm calling "Boot Camp Chronicles" and therin I will share some of the painful lessons I learned during our 3 year season of basic training.

If Only I Was Cool

Hello, my name is Bill Huffhine.  I am a church planter.  I am not, nor have I ever been cool. 

While growing up, all of the other kids had already been parting their hair down the middle and feathering their bangs for about 2 years before I caught on.  In the 8th grade I was still listening to Kenny Rogers and the Oak Ridge Boys while my friends were enjoying the tunes of groups like REO Speedwagon, Journey, and Foreigner.  I finally caught up in high school when listening to Kenny Rogers could get you beat up in the bathroom.  The guys were wearing "Stetson For Men," yet I was still splashing on my dad's Old Spice.

I had an epiphany today.  I have always been a lap or two behind on the coolness track, which I now believe to be partially to blame for the fact that my first church plant did not grow into the hundreds and thousands.  With this new found understanding I wonder if I am doomed from ever having the experience of planting and leading a rapidly-growing church until I can find a way to boost my coolness quotient.

Being cool seems to be a very important quality when it comes to planting churches.  I mean look at these guys.  Can't you just feel the coolness as you look at their pictures?  Erwin McManus, who you see above and to the right is an incredibly cool guy.  He's fit and nice looking, wears these really cool black-rimmed glasses, and is incredibly artsy which is a cool thing to be in California where he pastors the very cool Mosaic.

Then there are guys like Mark Driscoll, who you see to the left.  Check this guy out.  He looks like the kind of guy who just walked off the assembly line and could kick your ass and make you feel happy enough about it to accept Jesus afterward.  He even cusses when he preaches, which I hear is becoming the really cool thing to do in really cool churches.  I tried it just then with my blog post.  Did it sound cool?

Here's a cool looking guy to your right.  His name is Mark Batterson.  He pastors a really cool church in Washington D.C.  I believe this guy is the one who puts on the "Buzz" conference which is all about how to "create buzz" about your church plant; which is really easy to do if you're cool because your own coolness is an incredible "buzz generator." People prefer to listen to cool guys talk about God instead of someone uncool like Jerry Falwell.

Perry Noble is the guy to your left.  Not only does he look cool, but he is cool because it looks like he is sitting down while preaching and teaching.  Sitting down is a really cool thing for preachers to do now, especially if there is a little cafe table next to them for them to sit their cup of coffee or bottled water on while they preach.  I remember back in the 80's I used to watch television preachers and none of them sat down.  Sitting down while preaching wasn't cool in the 80's like it is now.  In the 80's, the cool thing to do while preaching was to pace, scream, spit, and make crazy faces.  Kenneth Copeland was good at this.  He could pace, scream, and spit like a pro.  He could even do this thing with his eyes that made him look borderline psychotic, but that was okay because it was the 80's and things like that were cool in the 80's.  Today you have to sit and look mellow to be a cool preacher.

So as I think about planting another church, I'm torn.  I'm sure there are some things I could do to be more cool.  I could go on one of those shows like, "What Not To Wear" to learn how to dress cool.  I would need a second job though to pay for the fashions they recommend.  I could get my ear pierced again, but nobody seemed to think it was cool the first time I did it two years ago.  Tats are an option, but needles make me cry; which isn't a cool thing to do unless you're trying to impress a girl who thinks crying, sensitive guys are cool.  And my wife won't let me impress girls anymore.

I guess I'll just be me and hope for the best.  Maybe God thinks I'm cool enough that He will cause our next church plant to become more than I could ever make it become myself.

Affirmation

Today Lynn and I had lunch with our superintendent and the church planting director for the state of Georgia.  The purpose of our time together was for us to share the vision God has given us for Epic Church of Augusta and to listen for God's affirmation of the vision through these men to whom I have submitted myself.

God's affirmation came in a big way.  I wasn't sure how our thoughts and ideas about how to begin and lead a new community of faith here in Augusta would be received as we are pursuing a path somewhat divergent from the path of traditional church planting.  At one point in our conversation the superintendent said, "I'm more excited about a vision like yours than I am about traditional church planting proposals."

The short story is that both of these men have voiced their affirmation of seeing God's hand in our dreams and plans.  They've given their blessing for us to officially begin the work of developing a church planting team and forming our first house church gathering.

Tomorrow, August 7th, 2006 is Day One of Epic Church of Augusta. 

Paradigms

January 31, 1829
Martin Van Buren
Governor of New York

To President Jackson:

The canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as "railroads."  The federal government must preserve the canals for the following reasons:

One.  If canal boats are supplanted by "railroads," serious unemployment will result.  Captains, cooks, drivers, hostelers, repairmen, and dock tenders will be left without means of livelihood, not to mention the numerous farmers now employed in growing hay for the horses.

Two.  Boat builders would suffer and towline, whip and harnass makers would be left destitute.

Three.  Canal boats are absolutely essential to the defense of the United States.  In the event of the expected trouble with England, the Erie Canal would be the only means by which we could ever move the supplies so vital to waging modern war.

As you may well know, Mr. President, "railroad" carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of fifteen miles per hour by "engines" which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring livestock and frightening women and children.  The Almighty surely never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.

I'm lying in a motel in Columbus, GA and in a little over 12 hours I will be proposing a "railroad" church planting vision in a "canal system" church world.  Should be an interesting conversation.

The Wave Intensifies

As I've shared before, our vision for church planting here in Augusta involves the formation of a network of house churches led by a unified brotherhood of elders.  House church networks were the earliest forms of church planting in the first three centuries after the Day of Pentecost.  It wasn't until the time of Constantine that pagan temples were converted into Christian meeting places and called "church."  House church networks continue to be a powerful ecclesial force in various places around the world, but have never been a significant expression of church life in America...until now.

At a recent church planters conference I asked a church planting "guru" his thoughts about the future of house churches in America and he responded by saying that house churches won't work in a significant way in this country.  Below is an excerpt from a June 27th, 2006 article on WorldNetDaily.com that I find encouraging...and a bit amazing.

A major announcement about house churches
Posted: June 27, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

---

The little guy is back. For the first time in 1,700 years, simple churches meeting in homes are once again a factor in human events.

In many countries, they're booming so strongly that critics and opponents can no longer brush them aside as a fringe movement. And as I documented repeatedly in "Megashift," home churches are producing millions of proactive Christians who now and then perform miracles (though the credit ultimately belongs to God, of course).

But this week, even I was shocked to discover how big our house church community in North America really is. Briefly stated, we're right about halfway between the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention (which is the second-largest denomination in the U.S.).

Check out the full article here:  A Major Announcement About House Churches

Beginnings

In a couple of weeks I will mark the one year anniversary of relocating to Augusta, Georgia (Lynn joined me 60 days later).  I came into this new season of life knowing that I wanted to take a year away from ministry to re-tune my heart to harmonize with the heart of God in all of life's contexts: personal relationship with God, marriage, community, church-life, and ministry. 

Over these past 12 months I have learned much about myself and about ministry.  I've been able to take off my pastor glasses and view church life as somewhat of an outsider.  This has given me deeper insight into the heart and mind of the person who is visiting churches in an attempt to find meaning in life as well as a better understanding of the person who has thrown up his hands and walked away from church all together convinced that there's nothing of value to be experienced there.

I've entered into conversations with atheists and agnostics to gain a deeper understanding of how someone can come to the place of totally denying God's existence or at best resigning themselves to the belief that if there is a God, he (or it) is unknowable.  I've been a Christian for 20 years now and it's easy to forget the ways in which I thought, felt, and believed as a non-believer.

It's been quite an educational (and painful at times) experience that God has used to form in Lynn and me a vision (I'm tired of using that over-used word) for what he wants to do through us.

Now that this year of re-orientation has passed we feel certain that God is moving us into our next season of church planting here in Augusta.  You've read much of our vision (there's that word again) through my blogs.  We're now about to begin taking deliberate steps into that season.

Next Sunday (August 6) Lynn and I will be in Columbus, GA meeting with the church-planting director for Georgia (Keith, our pastor) and the conference superintendent to set the plan in motion.  Over the coming months Keith and I will be drafting in written proposal form the plan for creating this new Christ-centered community.  And early next year the work here will be officially recognized as a church-planting project by our denomination.

Please continue to pray with us during these next 5 months.  I am praying specifically for God to bring together with Lynn and me a team of leaders united around the vision God has given us for Epic Church.  I am asking that this team begin forming now and be solidly in place by the beginning of 2007.

If you live anwhere in the C.S.R.A. (Richmond, Columbia, Aiken, Edgefield counties) and you sense a stirring to be involved with us in forming this new, missional, Christ-centered community I would love to hear from you.  Drop me an e-mail.