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At the recent Acts 29 AMBITION conference at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY, I had the opportunity to sit down with Matt Chandler and talk about a number of topics.

In part two of our conversation, we discuss celebrity, diversity, burnout and the “one thing” he would tell church planters. As you would expect, Chandler does not disappoint.

Listen, learn, and link, tweet, facebook, blog…whatever. Help us get this great content out there to as many folks as we can. Don’t forget, there are 15+ more great interviews with church planters and movement leaders coming soon, including Dave Harvey, Ed Stetzer, and Darrin Patrick. I am humbled to have been entrusted with this amazing content.

Click here to watch Part 1 of this interview.

For more from Dustin Neeley, check out his ministry Church Planting for the Rest of Us.

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We are launching The Resurgence Training Center (Re:Train) to prepare leaders for ministry locally and around the world. Additional details and downloadable application form here.

How NOT To Be a Missional Church series: Click | View Series

The missional church movement has been good and bad. On a positive note, let’s focus on the bad. I want to suggest three ways to not be a missional church. In continuation of the series, this post examines some of the defects of social action-driven mission.

Social Action-Driven Mission

This approach probably creates the best community of the three mentioned in this series. A socially-minded and active church attracts socially-minded non-Christians. When my City Group recently cleaned five apartments from top to bottom for some homeless women and children, we all got a little closer. There’s something about being on a common mission—the sweat, the jokes, the empathy, and the memory–that unites folks. Creating a missional memory strengthens community and mission. It also raises questions with non-Christians you serve. But is social action enough?

1. Social action-driven mission isn’t unique to the church.

There are plenty of non-Christians engaged in social mission—serving the poor, the needy, the abused, and the homeless. They don’t need a church to engage in social mission. There are thousands of non-profits that can do this. What sets the church apart? If we are banking on social mission to be the unique contribution of the church, we’ll lose the game, and more importantly, the souls.

2. Social action doesn’t create new community.

Although social action mission creates community, it doesn’t create new community. Regenerated, new creation is the unique work of God the Spirit (Tit. 2.11; Gal. 6:15) through faith in the Son (Tit. 3:6-7; 2 Cor. 5:17). If we convert people to community and social mission alone, and not to Christ, we offer a very incomplete gospel. Regeneration is both social (Matt. 19:28) and spiritual (Tit. 3:5). The Spirit, not social mission, makes men new.

3. Social mission can lead to liberal church.

When we reduce mission to social action, we run the danger of becoming a socially-minded liberal church that neglects large stretches of the Bible requiring repentance and faith in Jesus. When missional communities focus on social mission alone, they disregard their evangelistic identity, gifting, and responsibility as the church of Jesus Christ, the Jesus who died and rose to make all things new—people and products, souls and society.

This series has attempted to identify some of the shortcomings in expressions of missional church. When mission is driven by events or evangelism, or social action, we engage in incomplete mission. When we engage in incomplete mission, we offer an incomplete gospel to our neighbors, towns, cities, and world. In a future series, I will take a more positive tack by exploring three areas that promote being a missional church.

This series is based on Jonathan Dodson’s talks at the LEAD ’09 conference.

Re:Train

We are launching The Resurgence Training Center (Re:Train) to prepare leaders for ministry locally and around the world. Additional details and downloadable application form here.

In a recent sermon Pastor Mark Driscoll called out young men for putting off manhood and extending their adolescence as “guys” rather than maturing into men. Watch this clip to see what he said:

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If you care about ministering to emerging adults (18-24 year olds), or guys (16-26 year old males), then the following books should prove helpful to you in understanding their world. These books are filled with the best and newest sociological research on the topics. They are not “how to” books on ministering to young adults. Rather, they are descriptive and will give you the lay of the land.

Book #1: Souls in Transition

Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults by Christian Smith and Patricia Snell

This book is top-notch research that tells the definitive story of the religious and spiritual lives of emerging adults, ages 18 to 24, in the United States. It describes the major influences on their developing spiritual lives and reveals how the religious beliefs and practices of teenagers are strengthened, challenged, and often changed as they move into adulthood.

Many of their findings are surprising. First, parents are the single most important influence on the religious outcomes of young adults. Second, participation in evangelization, missions, and youth groups does not predict a high level of religious vitality just a few years later. Third, the common wisdom that religiosity declines sharply during the young adult years is shown to be greatly exaggerated.

What many will find particularly helpful is how Smith and Snell describe the broader cultural world of today's emerging adults, how that culture shapes their religious outlooks, and what the consequences are for religious faith and practice in America more generally.

Book #2: Guyland

Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men by Michael S. Kimmel

This book is about “guys.” Guys are initiated into guyland sometime around high school and hopefully exit in their mid-20s. Kimmel paints a vivid picture of this depressing place populated by “almost-men.”

Young men are doing things very differently today than they have in the past. Guys are delaying the milestones of adulthood for a longer period of time, such as moving out of their parents’ home, getting jobs, buying homes, marrying, and having children. They are rejecting the traditional notions of mature masculinity by opting for vanity and narcissism. They follow Hugh Hefner's model of a life based on unrealistic and childish male wish fulfillment. Guyland celebrates and sustains guys’ failure to launch into the adult responsibilities of work and family.

Kimmel powerfully drives home the point that guyland defines “being a man” through consumption rather than production: video games, pornography, bars, parties, sports, the media, and other things. Guyland is filled with many of the most toxic elements of our culture: violence, hazing, drinking, drugs, pornography, emotionally detached intimacy, sexual harassment, and degradation of women.

It is clear why guyland is detrimental to both women and men. But Kimmel is hopeful. He discusses possibilities for change, addressing the importance of actively involved parents beyond their children’s high school years. He also provides stories of hope and bravery of individuals and institutions that have sought to address the problems associated with guyland.

Book #3: After the Baby Boomers

After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings are Shaping the Future of American Religion by Robert Wuthnow

Wuthnow offers a broad description of this demographic: “Young adults are marrying later, having fewer children and having them later, moving more often, going to college in higher numbers, living with more immigrant neighbors and therefore more ethnic and religious diversity, and living in the suburbs even more than their baby boomer parents.”

This plays out in the fact that 46 percent of those in their early forties attend church weekly while only 29 percent of people in their twenties do.

The biggest single social factor related to declining church attendance among younger adults is the postponement of marriage and children. Wuthnow explains: “Being married or unmarried has a stronger effect on church attendance than anything else. Children also make some difference. This means that the postponement of marriage and children continues to suppress church attendance at least until adults are in their early forties.”

While those in their early forties go to church more often, young adults in their twenties talk about religion with their friends more than any other demographic. Furthermore, Wuthnow reports that “core beliefs have remained remarkably pervasive and stable” over the past 30 years. This means younger adults are interested in spirituality and are sympathetic to essential Christian doctrine.

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Get the companion study guide to Pastor Mark's Trial sermon series in downloadable PDF form. Find out more.

How NOT To Be a Missional Church series: Click | View Series

The missional church movement has been good and bad. On a positive note, let’s focus on the bad. I want to suggest three ways to not be a missional church. In continuation of the series, this post examines some of the defects of evangelism-driven mission.

Evangelism-Driven Mission

These churches focus almost exclusively on evangelism. Their view of the gospel leads them to see social action as optional. For them, mission is synonymous with evangelism, and evangelism is highly programmatic. They focus on training individuals through evangelism training programs, apologetics, and use of evangelistic tracts. What’s wrong with learning evangelistic presentations, memorizing apologetic defenses, and using tracts?

1. Evangelism-driven mission is often answer-based and heaven-centered.

These churches train individuals and teams “How to present the gospel” in a brief period of time. Typically, these programs look for the person being evangelized to offer a specific answer. For example, “If you died tonight and stood before God and he said: ‘Why should I let you into my heaven?’ What would you say?” Notice that the questions are answer-driven. The goal is to get someone to say the right answer and to believe the right facts, like “Jesus died for my sins.” What we need is less belief and more faith.

In his new book, The Future of Faith, Harvey Cox makes a helpful distinction between belief and faith. He writes: “We can believe something to be true without it making much difference to us, but we place our faith only in something that is vital for the way we live.” We can believe without it making a difference.

Many Americans believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins, but it makes very little difference in their lives. They possess mere belief. This mere belief undermines the gospel. What we need is faith. Moreover, mere belief in the right answer baits people, not with Christ, but with heaven. It is heaven-centered, not Christ-centered. In evangelism-driven mission, Christ is subordinated to the treasure of heaven, instead of heaven being subordinated to the treasure of Christ. The goal is heaven, not Jesus. Answer-driven and heaven-centered evangelism leads to nominalism and distorts the gospel. Evangelism-driven mission can undermine, not advance the gospel.

2. Evangelism-driven mission can be defensive and fact-oriented.

Training in apologetics has its place; however, when our approach to non-Christians is driven by apologetics, we very often reduce people to projects. Apologetic mission can foster too much defense and too much offense because it aims at the head to the exclusion of the heart, to change someone’s mind, but not their lives. Just because someone agrees with our facts and embraces our logic doesn’t guarantee true conversion. We need to be prepared, not only to defend the faith, but to love people intelligently. Most objections to the gospel have existential and personal roots. If we can get beyond the arguments to the idols of the heart, we can show just how tremendously superior and satisfying Jesus is to whatever they love, desire, and pursue most!

3. Evangelism-driven mission is often outdated and fails to contextualize.

The methods used are often prepackaged and outdated. Evangelistic programs falsely assume that our listeners still understand the meanings of sin, Christ, and faith. But very often, they hear something very different, like legalism, moral teacher, and mere belief. When we fail to express the gospel in context and vocabulary that our listeners can understand, we fail to share the gospel. Christ dated and contextualized himself to all kinds of people so that his message would make sense and connect with their deep needs for redemption. Using packaged illustrations and methods assumes a one-size-fits-all, but the Incarnation reminds us that the gospel is much more personal and dynamic.

4. Evangelism-driven mission is individualistic.

This approach to mission trains individuals, not communities. It reduces the gospel to a conversation between two people, without focusing on embodying the gospel in communities. Statistics have shown that individuals are consistently converted to communities before they are converted to doctrines. Our methods are often doctrine-driven and individualistic.

Jesus prescribed a kind of communal evangelism in John 17, where our community is so redemptive and rich that it points people to Jesus. Paul called for a distinctive discipleship in churches that set the community of faith forth as an example, as salt and light in their cities, attracting others to them. Individualistic evangelism doesn’t create community because it doesn’t convert people to the church. It aims at converting individuals to a set of answers and to heaven. Evangelism-driven mission has very little to do with the Jesus of the Church, the Head of the Body.

To be continued.

This series is based on Jonathan Dodson’s talks at the LEAD ’09 conference.

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Prayer series: Click | View Series

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13)

There are several important things to look at when examining The Lord's Prayer and applying it to our own prayer lives.

1. Position. God is our Father in heaven and we are his children. He loves us and wants to take care of us. He is our divine parent. James tells us, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights" (James 1:17). Paul tells us that he is our Abba, father, which is Arabic and literally means "daddy." Prayer begins by understanding that God is our loving Father and we are his children.
2. Praise. The second part of the prayer is praise to God's name. "Hallowed" means to make holy. We are to make his name holy through praise and worship. In other words, prayer is an act of divine worship. It begins by acknowledging and praising God for his mighty acts and greatness.
3. Purpose. The purpose of our prayer should be to pray for his kingdom to come and his will to be done. Jesus himself told the Father, "Not my will, but yours, be done" (Luke 22:42). Prayer is not about coming to God with our personal agendas; rather, it is seeking his agenda for our lives. His ways are greater than our ways, and his plan is always better than our plans.



4. Pardon. No one is perfect except for Jesus. We are broken, fallen, and sinful humans who desperately need the forgiveness of God. In prayer, we must confess our sins before God. The Bible says, "He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). This is God's way for allowing us to continually come before him. We can come to God broken and stained, and leave cleansed and whole. Likewise, we should forgive others as God has forgiven us.
5. Protection. He leads us away from temptation and protects us from evil. We need to be reminded that there are spiritual forces of darkness in this world, and we need God's help to protect us. The first thing you should do every morning is to ask for God's protection throughout the day.
6. Power. The prayer closes in a similar way that it started, by acknowledging God's greatness. He is sovereign and in control. The kingdom, power, and glory belong to God! When we worship and praise God, it gets his attention. He loves it when his children worship him and acknowledge his greatness.

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