Perspective

Countries go through uncertain and challenging times, and church plants do too (and a country’s challenges can often impact a church plant). It’s easy to pick up a media-driven sense of fear or worry and become focused on the challenges. But it is much better to focus on the opportunities. The sovereign hand of God is at work behind every cultural shift, every financial crisis, and every political change. Don’t become myopic about the challenges: look for the God-given opportunities that come with the challenges. (Yes, I’m preaching to myself…)

For us, two opportunities come to mind very quickly:

1. Spiritual sensitivity: financial difficulties are often spiritually profitable, as God peels away the veneer and reveals that riches truly are an uncertain place to fix your hope ( I Tim. 6:17).
2. Housing prices: two years ago no one on our team could have purchased a home in Menifee – the prices were outrageous. Now the opportunity may be there.

Those things are just the tip of the iceberg: what other opportunities does God have planned for us?!

Doctrine, Preaching, and Outreach

Three unconnected thoughts about the ministry here:

1. This past Saturday we had our second session of Bible Doctrine I in our Discipleship Institute. It is really hard work, but really a blessing to teach people doctrine in a direct format like this. It’s exciting to be far enough in to a church plant that we get to do this!
2. It doesn’t matter what part of the Bible you preach – it’s thrilling. I’ve now preached through Colossians, Hebrews, Genesis, I Peter, I-III John, and 60+ weeks on the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels, and every new expositional series ends up being thrilling. I know God already told us this, and He doesn’t need my affirmation. But I affirm it anyways from my own experience: Psalm 119:103 How sweet are your words to my taste, yes sweeter than honey in my mouth.
3. It’s great to be back to aggressively seeking and planning outreach. You go through “seasons” in church planting where you are able to do a lot, then you have to back off for a time for various reasons. Now that Pastor Eric is settled in, we’re able to head into a time where we are able to pursue doing more, and it is exciting.

Update from Eric and Alicia True

Available here: Trues Update for August, 2008

Church Plant #2

If you did not receive the recent email update about the plans for church #2, you can see it here.

Church Planting Challenge: Singles

Many fundamental church plants are planted in areas with lots of young families, and the churches produce advertising materials that primarily target families. I wonder why? I’ve been mulling over some of the possible reasons:

• The family unit is a God-given structure that is foundational for a healthy society and church.
• Families may be most likely to “put their roots down” in an area and provide long term stability for a church.
• We are eager for any evangelistic inroad we can find, and children often provide such an inroad with their parents.
• Advertising budgets are tight, and it’s hard to get excited about spending a lot of money on an ad campaign focused on a narrower target audience.
• Fundamental churches have traditionally placed a strong emphasis on high-quality children’s programs, and we obviously want to invite people to our strengths.

I’m sure other things could be listed, but that’s a start. Most of those reasons are probably valid, but the end result is that most church plants struggle to reach singles. Now, you might say: “Christian churches in general struggle to reach singles – it’s not just church plants of fundamental churches.” True. However, we come into church planting with a plan for reaching children and a plan for reaching families – but do we have any plan for reaching other social groups?

Many contemporary churches have focused their attention on singles. A stereotypical church has a Saturday evening alternative service targeted toward young singles. There is plenty to criticize about how these churches go about this, but we still should notice that they are trying to reach our beyond just families. What is our plan?

For church plants near colleges and universities, campus ministry may be a significant part of the answer. But what about church plants in locations like ours, where the nearest university is 30 minutes away? How do we meet the challenge of reaching out beyond just families?

Laypeople Are Church Planters Too

“As victims of Claudius’s edict, Aquila and Priscilla moved to Corinth where they continued their occupation as tentmakers (Acts 18:2-3). From a human perspective the founding and growth of the Corinthian church (to say nothing of the success of Apollos, Acts 18:24-28) were due in large part to the ministry of these well-informed and dedicated laypeople. These humble believers – and a host of others like them, both named and unnamed in the record, had a vital part in the planting of churches in the Apostolic Era. And this was as it was supposed to be.” (David J. Hesselgrave, Planting Churches Cross-Culturally)

Should we be willing to use the phrase “church planter” to describe church planting teammates other than the pastor himself? I know it’s just semantics, but I wonder if this might help communicate that there is much more to a church plant than just a pastor. Lawyers, graphic designers, accountants, prayers, piano players, youth leaders – aren’t they an integral part of planting the church? Maybe we should call them “church planters,” to help them remember how important they are!

Rethinking the Possibility of Bivocational Church Planting

“Paul’s strategy was to concentrate on cities located on major routes of communication and commerce. He utilized his tent-making ability to provide for both his own needs and the needs of some of his coworkers. He did not subsidize newly planted churches with monies from outside…. As he proceeded from city to city, Paul sought out relatives, friends, and business associates of people he had known in Antioch and other places. These contacts became bridges to bring the gospel into new places and among new peoples.” (David J. Hesselgrave, Planting Churches Cross-Culturally)

It is generally accepted that bi-vocational church planting is suicidal. Church planting is so demanding and time-consuming that a man just can’t work a regular job and plant a church at the same time. In general, this is true. But is the only other option a “missionary” model of church planting, where the church planter goes on deputation all over the country for years to raise the adequate financial support? Are those the only two options: suicidal bivocational church planting, or deputation-based missionary church planting?

I wonder if we shouldn’t rethink the possibilites of bivocational church planting. What if a bivocational church planter was:

1. Part of an internal church planting movement
2. Well-connected to other churches in the area
3. Sent out by a church within an hour’s drive
4. Well-prepared for church planting
5. Very familiar with his target area, including potential contacts (see the end of Hesselgrave’s quote above)
6. Aided by a well-supported team / core group
7. Provided with sufficient resources for startup
8. Only bi-vocational for a brief time period, hopefully a year or less

Is that still so suicidal? I’m not sure, but it’s worth considering…

Elder Retreat

My muddled brain has four comments about Friday and Saturday’s elder retreat:

1. It’s amazing how much there is to oversee in a church of 100 people.
2. It’s exhausting to work through all of the major issues related to the church in two days.
3. It’s joyous to work together with an elder team of like-minded men.
4. It’s thrilling to plan another church plant and be another step closer to our dream of a vibrant church planting movement from within Southern California.

New Pictures

New pictures at our lahope site here.

The Ethics of Renting Facilities

We’ve recently discovered that the Seventh Day Adventist church in Menifee is no longer being rented to the same church that has rented it for several years. The Lord allowed Eric & David to spend some time with the pastor. They are not certain if they will want another renter, but they are at least willing to consider it. In several ways this might be an ideal situation for us. It’s an exciting thing to pray about, at least.

But this raises a tough question – what should a fundamental Christian church be willing to support with their rental fees? I’m not necessarily excited about supporting the local SDA church. But then again, over the last five years we’ve poured more than $60,000 into the local public school district! Other pastors have rented from liberal churches, Masonic lodges, and even night clubs. Is there some sort of ethical line at any point here?