reflections on church planting as kingdom living

9 Comments

1. ron — November 8, 2007 #

   Makeesha, thanks for the heads-up…looks like a great read, I’ll have to add to my list.

2. Geoffrey — November 8, 2007 #

   I hate computers! I had a beautiful comment going, and for some reason. . .bloop! It was all gone! It was too long so I shall try to be shorter.

   First, I think the dichotomy the author attempts to create between churches that look to the Gospels and those who look to other parts of the Bible (he mentions Acts and something else) is false. There is a good reason Jesus only “mentions” the Church twice in the Gospels. Those were additions to Jesus’ sayings made by those seeking to justify themselves, perhaps; or, perhaps they were reading back in to something Jesus may have said and reinterpreting it in light of their then-present reality. Jesus was no Christian, but a revolutionary Jewish Messiah, and we Christians are called to carry on this revolution - a revolution of freedom, love, radical acceptance, and (most important in a world awash in powers and principalities) the rejection of power as a tool for advancing the Kingdom. All the power the Church should wield is summed up by the dying cry of Jesus on the Cross.

   Having said that, while I know the Church (and that is a general term I use to refer to all denominations) is compromised in many ways, seeking to trust in some Spirit-inspired sense that we know and can do better without all those institutional problems that hamper the simple message of the Gospel - this is just more of the kind of denominational metastasizing that hampers the work of the Kingdom. I am no more happy with the institutional Church than you appear to be; seeking to be Martin Luther, or John Calvin, or even Francis Asbury, however, only complicates an already complicated problem - the issue of authority, which, it seems is the silent issue never addressed in the quotes to which you link.

   I think that is an issue that needs to be addressed if something more than just schism is to be pushed.

3. Mak — November 8, 2007 #

   I guess I took it a totally different way. The way I heard it was that he was advocating that church planters have their focus on the life of Jesus, not that they ignore everything else.

   I’m also not sure what you’re saying in your last big paragraph - can you maybe rephrase?

4. Geoffrey — November 8, 2007 #

   Taking the arguments presented in the excerpts to their logical conclusion, the end result is schism, or as we in the United States like to call it, denominationalism. I would reiterate that the dichotomy presented by the author of Church Planting is false. While there are many things wrong with the institutional church, basing criticism upon such a false reading of the situation can only read to trouble.

5. Mak — November 8, 2007 #

   I haven’t read the book. But while you might be reading the excerpts that way, as a church planter and missionary I do not.

6. brad brisco — November 9, 2007 #

   Geoffrey, I have read the book and I believe Murray’s book is the best theology of church planting out there. He insists that church planting be place within a theological framwork rather than a pragmatic one. He argues that we must begin with the triune, missionary nature of God and let that determine/influence our ecclesiology, not the other way around. Unfortunately however 99% of church planting books do the latter. I wish someone would have recommended Murray’s book much earlier in my church planting journey.

7. Geoffrey — November 9, 2007 #

   Again - I think the dichotomy presented in the excerpts is false. There is nothing “unpragmatic” about fostering a new church community within a particular theological framework. Indeed, how else can it be done?

   Of course, I have no experience with the huge, non-denominational mega-churches that have sprouted up in the past twenty years or so. Willow Creek is a good example of a bad example, but I know of it only second-hand. Most of the growing churches, and new churches, with which I am familiar are rooted firmly in a theological and ecclesiological tradition, yet are also very practical about achieving growth without over-extending themselves, financially, physically, or communally. I do not see a conflict here, unless one has ever taken seriously the nonsensical “church growth” literature that abounded throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s.

   When I was in seminary, in the early 1990’s, the UM clergy magazine, Circuit Rider, published an article on the then faddish concept of “Seekers”. The author made many “suggestions” about ways the church should change in order to offer something “comfortable” to those who might be interested in “spirituality” but be turned off by “churchiness”. Among the suggestions were the removal of the cross from the altar; singing popular songs rather than either traditional hymns or praise music; using texts other than the Bible for preaching; calling it a “lecture” or “talk” rather than “sermon”. One of the professors was so enraged by it, he contacted the editor and wanted to know what in the world he was thinking. I honestly thought it was a parody piece, until I remembered that the hierarchy of the United Methodist Church does not have a sense of humor.

   The challenge, it seems to me, is moving away from all the so-called experts who think they know what they are talking about to the kind of community-based model already familiar from the work of base communities in the liberation theology movement in Latin America. We do not need to adopt the shallow Marxism of the liberationists to see in their practical work a model to be followed. As long as we do not become wedded to models, and follow the guidance of the Spirit at all times - the word will continue to be preached, the Kingdom will continue to be embodied, and new communities will continue to emerge that embody the best of what it means to be Church.

8. brad brisco — November 9, 2007 #

   It certainly isn’t fair to Murray to go on this small sampling of his book. I wish I had the book in front of me but it is at another location.

   However I will say that Murray is a VERY important corrective to the vast majority of church planting books and conferences, actually it could be said of most church conferences in general. Many church planters go to a “field” to plant with a model/approach/type of church in their mind rather than it really being driven theologically and missiolocally. (Again I was once very guilty of this.) Many planters go to the latest church planting conference and learn a new or tweaked model of church planting and then they say to themselves “I am going to plant that kind of church.” Like it or not the truth is that it is driven by pragmatism. We can say “oh I have thought theologically and that has influenced my missiology” but I have been around enough to know and see that that simply isn’t the case many times.

   It funny how many times I have heard people say “well Murray’s book certainly isn’t a how-to book on church planting.” To which I say PRAISE GOD! There are enough of those out there.

9. Mak — November 9, 2007 #

   Thank you brad for engaging this - since I haven’t read the book I don’t really have much to say to it.