Sorry about the delays! Let's get into it.
Chapter 8 is long - very long. It's a chapter with 10 points. Fortunately, we can break them down into small groups of points. Tonight we'll check out the first two.
The overarching idea of the chapter is this - how does the purpose of the church affect the way it does things? The point in business and in other organisational structures where plans tend to go to weeds is in the APPLICATION (or lack thereof). My friends will know that I am fond of the joke "What is the difference between theory and practice?" (the answer being "In theory there IS no difference . . . ").
The ten points of this chapter are 10 areas of application.
10 Ways to be Purpose Driven:
1) Assimilate new members on purpose.
The strategy used by Warren at Saddleback involves the Circles of Commitment diagram (as seen in my last posting). The idea is a continual process of moving unchurched people from community to crowd (for worship), then moving crowd to congregation (for fellowship), then from congregation to committed (for discipleship), then from committed to core (for ministry), then moving the core back out to the community (for evangelism).
Warren suggests growing the church from the outside in. This challenges what I learned at Student Life, though only in order rather than in substance. Tradtionally, you start with a core group, and grow a ministry team, followed by a larger group, yada yada yada.
The problem with this approach? By the time the core has become discipled enough to be of any use, they have often lost contact with the community and may well be afraid of interacting with those outside. He quotes Peter Wagner in calling this condition "Koinonitis". I like that. But I don't actually like the concept, because I recognise it all too well - it's Church as I have experienced it much of my life! Whilst we do have a desire for mission, it is comfortable as we are, and it's hard to stoke the fire. We are very much in a condition where we are all core and nothing else. Everything the church does is done by the same people. Most of us have few unsaved friends, at least that we talk to in an average day.
It's bad fitting so neatly into an illustration, when that illustration is a "do not do" rather than a "do"!
Fortunately, Warren has a potential remedy. "A church with this problem needs to learn how to develop the other four circles."
He discusses the start of Saddleback. I have to admire his chutzpah. They focussed entirely on the community, specifically the unchurched. This involved meeting hundreds of people door to door. He deliberately sought out people who didn't go to church and surveyed their needs. He developed relationships.
The next step was a letter to the community announcing the beginning of the church, sent to 15,000 homes (wow!), and this letter was based carefully on the results of the survey. Advertising was key because they didn't actually know enough people to rely on word of mouth.
Pause here - we could do this! This is where the profile we've built from Carols could come in handy - we could go around to people saying "the people that run Carols at MPPS", and discussing the relaunch of Sanctuary.
Resuming, the next task was to take that crowd and introduce them to Christ. He uses the image of a rocket launching off the pad, and recognises that this took a lot of energy. In the first year of the church proper, most of the sermons were simply "God's plan for your life" and similar gospel messages.
Then in the second year of the church's existence, Warren worked on turning the crowd into a congregation. This year the sermons were on "Why do we have Church anyway?" and similar.
The third year was all about raising the commitment level. Series on growth were the order of the day. Now, this was still present previously; but now it was the focus.
From here on the idea was to give people the opportunity to get involved in ministry. The idea was communicated that a non-ministering Christian was a contradiction in terms.
It was at this stage that there formed a recognisable core, and staff were added to assist him in the other processes needed.
The starting point is ASSIMILATING NEW MEMBERS.
Warren defends the slow speed of growth. I say I'd LOVE to have growth like he had, even at the start! Given that I have laboured for years with little or no obvious growth, I'd be delighted to move slowly but surely and obviously!
2) Program around your purposes.
Choosing or designing programs should reflect each of your purposes. Remember that each circle corresponds to a particular purpose of the church. So far, so good. But here's the scary bit - "Kill any program that doesn't fulfil a purpose. Repace a program when you find one that does a better job than the one you're using."
This is a hard lesson for me because I dislike change. For example, to me it would be natural to have a youth group come hell or high water, regardless. If I were told "Youth group isn't doing anything, kill it," I'd struggle!
But if this is correct, then there's no point in having a program unless it is fulfilling a purpose!
An interesting concept he has here is "bridge events". Our carols would fit this description - community wide events that make the unchurched in the community aware of the existence of the church. These are for the Community.
For the crowd, he has Seeker services.
For the Congregation, it's small groups.
For the Committed he has the Life Development Institute, which is an intensive Bible study program.
For Core is the SALT meeting.
NO SINGLE PROGRAM, no matter how great it is or how well it has worked in the past, can adequately fulfil all the purposes of the church.
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