Yesterday I posted on “The End of Church Planting?”
Today I continue with the article that started this conversation titled, STOP FUNDING CHURCH PLANTS and Start Funding Missionaries.

Here’s the idea presented in David Fitch’s article:

Send teams of young couples into an under reached neighborhood with just enough funding to cover their housing and health (if needed) with a commitment to stay for a decade. The funding gives them stability while they integrate into the field by finding employment etc. This neutralizes the funding crises — trying to create a sustainable church organization before the funding runs out.

Here’s the author’s conviction:

“I believe that you put three or more quality leaders together in one place for ten years you will have a new expression of the gospel i.e. a church in each context. Gospel as a way of life will take root. Many will brought into the Kingdom.”

Here’s his vision:

“Imagine what could happen if we funded 100’s of such teams.”

Years ago I was taught a simple 5 step process for getting things done:

(1) Think big
(2) Start small
(3) Build on your successes
(4) Pray
(5) Never Give Up

The author is thinking big. He is also grappling with at least four facts:

(1) High-impact, entrepreneurial leaders are rare
(2) The entrepreneurial models that depend on entrepreneurial types are monopolizing the field and reducing creativity on mission for the rest of us
(3) The culture has changed
(4) The funding on high-impact churches runs out really fast and the sources for this funding are drying up.

He believes a major obstacle in the way of a church planting movement is the financial weight and social distance of a professional clergy.
So, here is what he wants:

“STOP FUNDING TRADITIONAL CHURCH PLANTS and instead fund missionaries to inhabit contexts all across the new mission fields of N America.”

Once the author threw the word “traditional” in there, I suspect he pulled every reader back.

Here’s what he means by traditional:

“Traditionally denominations have funded church plants. They do this by providing a.) a full time salary plus benefits for three years, and b.) start-up funds for equipment, building rental etc. to a well-assessed church planter (read entrepreneur). The goal is a self-sustaining church in three years paying its own pastor’s salary and assorted sundry costs of running the church’s services. The costs are astounding, perhaps 300-400,000 dollars or more to get a church plant going.”

I’ve known hundreds of church planters and can tell you that this is not the “tradition” most planters come from. But it is easy to see the author’s point here. In his world, denominations fund huge franchise expansion projects and these often don’t work because the field is changing. He believes church planting models must change. While not throwing out the baby with the bath water, Nick Boring, National Director of Vision 360, a Church Planting organization, agrees:

“Change is constant and it is gaining momentum – church planting will always be changing or it will lose momentum.”

Up to here, I think everyone would agree that we have to be creative in our approach to mission. Here’s where I think we need to step back even further. What does the author mean by “missionary”?

A MISSIONARY MOVEMENT

If the church is apostolic, that is, “sent out”, then every Christ following person is a missionary.
Are we to fund every Christ following person?

A part of the problem here is the church. We accept members into our church, but maybe this is wrong.
Perhaps, rather than accepting members, we should commission every new convert to Christ as a missionary.

One church that does this is Mosaic in Los Angeles. The lead cultural architect of that congregation,
Erwin McManus, likes to say something like this: the issue is not location but vocation. If you are called by Christ, you are on mission. The rest is just geography.

Every person and every team is on a self-funded mission.

I think that the author’s idea of deploying such teams is not only possible, I think it’s already happening. Where ever you have a believing home, there you have a center for world mission. The rim of fire, the cutting edge, of the Christ following mission then is located in the living room of those homes in those places where Christ is not known.

Another part of the problem is the Seminary itself. I have often said that seminaries tend to graduate people who need the church rather than people the church needs. A component of this is that seminary does not make anyone marketable except for within the church. What’s more, this propagates the false idea that in order to lead a church you need a seminary degree.

When a young person tells me they feel called to the ministry, the first thing that comes to my mind is, I hope you’re passionate about biology, or neuroscience, robotics, or nano technology, business or design. The second thing I think is that there is no such thing as “the” ministry. There is no special caste of Christ-following people who are “Ministers”. All believers are ministers and every Christ following person is called to ministry and mission.

So, why didn’t the author go further? He could have written, “Stop Funding Church Plants AND Stop Funding Missionaries. Everyone is Already Funded through their jobs!”

This is a fundamental place to begin.

He could have gone on to argue that what we need to do is mobilize already successful business people, real estate agents, business owners, insurance brokers, school teachers to incarnate the kingdom in such a way that nonbelievers are brought to faith and new churches are started. In this sense even small groups attached to large churches can be seen as church plants, as can small groups or meetings that are not.

The key component and common element here is that we don’t fund everyone. We don’t fund missionaries.  We fund leaders. We fund catalysts, igniters, the obsessed, the ones who keep the rest of us in community, on task, and purposeful, the ones who show us the way forward. We may need new models for funding and new strategies for mission, but we still want to get behind those who sense a calling and who have a capacity adequate to the task.

I agree with Fitch, though, we do need new funding models. But even more importantly, we need to get the right people and train them in effective processes to help missional teams experience movement.

ALTERNATIVE PATHS TO EXPLORE

Here at Kensington Community Church, one of the multiple paths we’re exploring, in terms of funding, is

(1) Looking for indigenous leaders (rather than transplants) who
(2) Have created grass roots movement without outside funding and
(3) Have the capacity to go wider, farther, bigger and
(4) Are open to coaching and relationship

Another path we’re exploring is what we call Triple Threat Cultural Engagement process. (I should probably give this a friendlier sounding name).

This is a process that involves creating grassroots movement with and among all people including non believers by
(1) working with cultural creatives for the common good (The Creativity Lounge Network)
(2) producing a simulation of what following Jesus would be like (gaMes), and
(3) launching a new community of faith (church planting).

Like Fitch’s proposal, both of these path are in response to our changing contexts. They may work in some contexts and for a season, or not. But the basic goal here is create grass roots movement based on “boots-on-the-ground” practices rather than trying to impose a model top down. I think, in spirit, we are in synch with the ideas in the article.

Here’s another path…

Vince Antonucci, a formidable, high impact, church planter in his own right, has a young apprentice. The young apprentice wants to be a tattoo artist who eventually wants to open up his own shop. After that he may want to open up a tattoo shop in the artsy districts of other cities. Could he be a 21st century Paul? Could tattoo parlors be the catalyst for new communities of faith?

I say yes! And I also say that this young tattoo artist is an entrepreneur.

How about this for a path…

I’ve always thought Christ following Martial Arts instructors would be great church planters. I think it can still happen…What if we had a movement across the country of Christ following martial artists who want to start Dojo’s — spirit Dojo’s — where martial arts are taught, and it’s run like a business because it is, but the instructors also guide their students and community spiritually. They disciple them to become fully focused followers of Jesus, worshipers of the God if Israel. Could that not be a church? Could it not be ten thousand new churches?

(I’ve always wanted to send a call to all Jesus following martial arts instructors who know in their hearts that they are missionaries, pastors, evangelists, church planters to gather together for training on how to start and lead a new church).

The list of ways just doesn’t end. I’m grateful for Fitch’s article for spurring on this decades long conversation. The opportunities for touching lives, restoring families, redeeming neighborhoods, and taking cities for God are right there in front of us. It’s right there.

The last thing I want to say is don’t stop PRAYING FOR AND FUNDING GREAT ATTEMPTS FOR GOD in church planting. Like Nick Boring said, church planting needs to acclimate to its new surroundings. Processes for advancing the gospel are evolving through our experimentation and creativity as we respond to an ever changing mission field. But a changed mission field shouldn’t keep us from taking risks, from thinking big, and from hoping and praying that some of the churches we start will go supernova and light up the sky with face of Christ.

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Join us for M. Sept 28-29. Motown.
Register now and save.

Day 1: Launching Large- the methods, motivations and madness of going big

Day 2: Primal, barbaric, apostolic, instinctual movement