Dream: (n) A wild fancy or hope

Vision: (n) The ability to see or plan into the future

What happens when a Pastor with a vision for a fast growing dynamic church collides with members who have a vision for a laid-back, I-know-everybody church? You end up with a pastor who has a dream, not a vision. You have a church with a pastor who is frustrated because the vision God gave him isn’t coming to fruition. You have two distinct churches inside one building, meeting at the same time.

Nobody in the church wants to say, “You know what, I’m fine right where we are.” No one wants to be seen as the complacent one because that is what got the Laodiceans in trouble. When the leadership stands up and talks about reaching out and talks about growth and filling the balconies, everyone nods. But what are they really thinking? Isn’t the proof in the pudding?

Somehow the pastor has to convey his God-given vision to the body of believers. It has to become the whole church’s vision, not just his. Until the congregation takes ownership of the vision and begins to live it, it will only be the pastor’s dream, not a direction for a vibrant ministry.

If the pastor has a vision for the church we, as members, must do everything we can to achieve that vision. We must come along side him and help any way we can. Our future depends on it. Look at the definition of vision: the ability to see or plan into the future. It is that vision that God uses to help in tough times. When things look down you always have that vision (plan, promise) to look at, like a road map, to find your way back to where God wants you to be as a church.

The same goes for a Sunday school class or a praise team. If the worship leader has a vision, goal, for the team, everyone has to come along side that vision and do their part to see it through. Individual needs have to be sacrificed, at times, for the good of the whole and for the sake of the ministry.

But what if the pastor or leader doesn’t have an understood vision for their people?

The Leader’s Vision

The Leader –pastor, Sunday school teacher, worship leader– has to have a vision that has been shared and is understandable. A strategic vision is imperative and has to be something all those involved can follow. It is o.k. to talk in lofty terms at times, but when it comes down to where the rubber meets the road, it has to be specific. Leaders can talk about reaching people, seeing our communities impacted, and developing healthy families, but somewhere along the way they have to share exactly how they are going to go about it. If they don’t, it just becomes rhetoric, church speak.

So, my prayer would go like this: Lord, as leaders, help us to know Your will for our churches. Help us to write that vision down so that the people may run with it. Lord, as laymen, help us to align ourselves with our pastor’s vision. Help us to lay aside our wants and needs and submit to Your will and Your way through our pastor and this ministry. Help us to have unity in the Spirit and peace in our church body. Amen.

Here are my thoughts, right or wrong.

The Emerging Church is simply what the “church body” as a whole is becoming, and how they are communicating the Gospel to the people. Every generation has, or is, an Emerging Church. Think back to the 70′s; what we now call a “contemporary church” was an Emerging Church. Styles and churches will always, hopefully, be emerging.

The Emergent Church on the other hand is a little different. It refers to a movement that is specifically targeting a group of people that have become disenfranchised with church as usual, or have no background at all in Christianity. Call it postmodern, post-Christian, post-whatever, we are in a society that has a generation of people who don’t know what “sanctification” is or what it means to be saved. Saved from what? Most traditional, and I don’t mean just music style, churches use language that requires a PhD in Churchese in order to understand what is going on. The Emergent Church, at its core, is about reaching people where they are, through methods that may seem unorthodox to traditionalists.

I think the reason the Emergent Church is getting so much negative press is because not every Emergent Church looks and believes the same way. It is very loosely defined and there are some in the movement that have put a bad taste in peoples mouths. There is a strong concern from traditional denominations that the E.C. (I’ll abbreviate because I hate typing) is watering down the Gospel to a point where sin is no longer preached on. They are afraid that the E.C. is putting so much emphasis on relationship that the fruit of that relationship is overlooked.

I belong to a traditional denomination and can understand their concerns. If the E.C. is concerned more about just getting people in the door than they are about them being viable believers than I think there is a serious problem. But from what I’ve seen and read most E.C.s aren’t watering down the Gospel to make it fit society, they are simply starting with the basics and presenting it in a way that non-traditionalists can relate. Look at this way. If a mainline denomination wants to preach on salvation they do it assuming everyone in there understands certain things. But what if they don’t? What if those assumptions are wrong? Then what happens is even though the message was basic it never hit its mark because the people that needed to hear it the most were lost from the beginning. In that sense I think the E.C. is doing a heck of a job.

But what happens if they (new believers at the E.C.) are only taught to start the relationship but are never taught or encouraged to grow and nurture that relationship? You’ll have a church full of believers whose faith is built on a weak foundation and they will resort back to what is familiar when things get tough. Same thing happens in marriages. Walking down the aisle is great and needed, but it takes time for the relationship to mature to a point where it can withstand a storm.

If the E.C. is going to make it they have to find a way to mix the style with strong discipleship and not be scared to say the hard things. It is a loving pastor who can preach on the hard things, knowing that he is going to offend some people. But they have to. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that they were to pursue holiness. Meaning they were to line up their lives with what God was telling them. In Ephesians, Paul encourages them (vss 17-32) to walk out their faith a certain way. He was clear that they, and we, were to be set apart from the world (or sin).

I think the Emergent Church has a gotten a bad rap at times. Some of the leaders have some really freaky theology, but that doesn’t mean the whole movement is heretical. We, as the whole church body, are having a hard time engaging those in their 20′s and 30′s. If a church can present the Gospel, all of it, in a way that reaches them where they are then I don’t see the problem.

So, is the service we are starting going to be a Traditional, Emerging, or Emergent Church?

The answer is . . . yes.

Here is a description of the Emerging Church by Rick McKinley, the pastor at Imago Dei in Portland, Oregon. I don’t know much about his ministry but he explains the E.C. in an easily understandable way.
Click Here

A name really shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it is. It can define who you are trying to reach and say something about your approach to reaching them. We just have to make sure we put as much time into prayer and outreach as we do picking a name.

So, here’s to

NewLifeElevationWorldOutreachichurchNorthridgeNewwindSpring
RanchFirstChurchCommunity Center

I have a friend who was asked to consider leaving the church he was at to pastor another one. And he told me there were people on both sides with strong convictions about whether he should stay or go. When it came down to it, it was something only God could tell him.

That is the point I’m at right now. I’ve heard the good, the bad, and the ugly from people I respect and trust. I value input from those who have been there, but I’ve been given a vision (or burden) and only God can release me from that.

I do see a church plant in the not too distant future, but for now I have the opportunity to start what I can only call a “service plant”. On Saturday nights at 7 PM we will begin reaching out specifically to this generation. From the style to the format to the way we interact with people, it will be focused on those who don’t speak the “church language”. We will take nothing for granted. In Nehemiah the priest read from the Law and the people listened. But if you keep reading it says then the Levites (church workers) explained it to the people so they could understand it. We have to be able to present God’s word in a way that the people we are trying to reach can understand it.

It will also be a place of refuge for those already leading worship or prayer at other churches. It will be an atmosphere without all of the “rituals” we have to “do” on Sunday mornings: opening welcome, worship, special, announcements, tithe and offering, worship, message, benediction and/or altar service. There is a lot going on and it is hard for leaders to really let go of themselves because of the built-in restraints (time mostly).

It will be a progression, and it will evolve as it goes, but at the heart of it all will be a desire to spend time worshiping and praising our Lord and Savior, whether it is through communion, a praise team, or a pastor’s message, it will all flow together so that we can grow in Him.

Pray for us. Pray that we are doing His will and not ours. Pray that the leaders He wants involved will step up. Pray that my Senior Pastor and I will share a common goal and even though we may disagree on style of worship or how we present the Gospel, we will be like-minded in our goal to reach people.

That struck me as a simple but profound statement. The one I attend now is great at what they do, but it isn’t reaching the people God is calling me to. I am struggling with the thought that God is calling me to plant a church in South Carolina. But at the same time, I look around and don’t see any ministries resembling what is on my heart. There are some great churches with awesome men of God leading them, but even they aren’t drawing the people I feel called to. So maybe West Columbia does need a new church, just not a traditional church like so many of the others.

So this past week I set out to see exactly what that entailed. I outlined every verse in Nehemiah looking for the correlation between what God called him to do and what He is calling us to do. And I say us because I know I’m not alone, but I’m jumping ahead. As I read and wrote what each verse was saying literally, I also wrote what each verse, or section of verses, meant in our specific situation. It was stunning how the vision unfolded. At times it seamed almost scary that God could be so clear and understandable. We often think of God as being mysterious and secret, and in someways He is, but in other ways, or at least at times He is so clear it is amazing.

I’ll outline my whole vision sometime, but now is not the time. Suffice it to say I am still trying to figure out how to explain it to people. Every time I start to I get tongue tied. Not because I don’t know what I’m saying but because it is like trying to explain a feeling.

Over the last 2 weeks or so I have been hearing about more and more people in the same boat I’m in; they are frustrated with church as usual and believe there has to be more out there. I don’t think it is a coincidence that God is putting in our path people who are feeling the same way. It seems to be building steam. Every time I turn around someone else is sharing their heart for a deeper understanding of who Christ is and they just aren’t finding where they are.

To me it is exciting to see God moving. I know it is frustrating to be uncomfortable where you are, but that discomfort turns into excitement when you see God has His hand in your frustration. He makes us uncomfortable sometimes in order to move us where He wants us. And I don’t necessarily mean a physical move. It could be He wants you searching and, as it says in Acts, groping in the dark for Him. David was at odds a lot. But I think that kept him from getting passive and falling into complacency.

God is moving all over the world. In places and in ways 30 years ago would have been inconceivable. Here in West Columbia, SC He is at it again, and I believe when it is all said and done we’ll look back and see that our discomfort wasn’t something bad, it was a loving, caring nudge from a loving, caring, all-knowing God.