An Epistle on Church Planting

What a beautiful way to express these ideas. Thanks Jason!

That was an innovative, creative, and non-traditional article regarding the subject of church planting.

The epistolary style of the article lacks connection with reality. The author has set up an imaginary scenario. It seems to me that the stark contrasts presented rarely exist. For example - “He will think that his success hinges upon his strategic skill, his financial backing, his technological capability, his cultural competence, or a thousand other things, rather than faithfulness to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ and love for his neighbor.” I’ve known dozens of church planters but have never met any like this. Yet all church planters have to think strategically as soon as they determine the need for another church where they are planting. I’ve not met any church planters who weren’t active in raising financial support or interested in using technology (web presence, Faceboook, etc) to make people aware of the church plant or understanding the context in which they are planting. There is no “rather than.” This is not an either/or. There is all the preceding things and faithfulness to the revelation of God.

I would ask whose tradition is being followed in the following statement. “A traditionalist will never say that you can grip your teaching tightly and hold your methods loosely. A traditionalist will never say that as long as your doctrine is right, your methods are immaterial.” It is not that the Bible does not provide direction in our methods. Yet, to invest our methods with the same certainty of the Bible message has no biblical support. The message cannot be altered. Our methods should be held loosely in the sense that they can be changed unless one really believes he has found the Bible method for church planting.

I think it’s often a matter of emphasis. True, few would say “I’m depending on my demographic data, technology and strategies rather than faithfulness to the revelation of God…” And I also don’t know any church planters who would say that. But those who do it without really ever intending to are not that hard to find.

I’ll agree that method and message are not the same thing. Neither are they cleanly separated, as many suggest today. Method is message also. It’s pretty easy to defend the tech., the strategies, the studies, etc. if you take them one at a time. Sort of like it’s easy to defend a trillion dollar federal budget. Every single item by itself sounds so important and necessary. But when you step back and look at the whole… it’s often not hard to see—in many cases—that a genuine focus on the power of the gospel and the work of God is missing.

If indeed it’s the power of God through His word that does the work, the other stuff is—as I’ve suggested elsewhere—almost trivial. I say “almost” only because wisdom is part of godliness as well, and Paul clearly did some thinking about the practical aspects of his methods (“all things to all men” etc.). But his emphasis was constantly on Christ and Him crucified.

I agree that this article can be a good warning to church planters that are tempted to chase after every fad when it comes to church planting. However, it also appears to be a justification for doing church planting that is rooted in a nostalgic tradition of generations past. I have seen countless fundamentalist church plants start and fail in the inner-city all over the midwest because these church planters believed they were being faithful to the scriptures and “embracing permanent things and eternal values” when all they were doing was transplanting their own traditional cultural preferences which resulted in creating a host of cultural barriers that turned people away from Jesus. The offense wasn’t the cross, the offense ended up being the church.

Dear Joel, (how’s that for innovation) :-)

Ya, that was my first impression too. I think oddly this “epistle” is an apt metaphor for the church planters’ side of the discussion. Why do we have to call this an “epistle”? Why use an outdated (Greek/Roman)? formula? The grammar and structure of the post really connects to people who have read a lot of St. Paul - but why can’t I just call it a letter and start off “Dear”? If I plant my own church, can I just write “letters” to “Dear____”? Will you be mad at me for varying from your tradition if I contemporize the epistle format while emphasizing the Gospel to people who won’t recognize and appreciate literary similarities to Paul? - Is that the kind of departure from the tradition of the apostles that you’re talking about?, will you call me an innovator that is driven by popularity, and defiling the sacredness of the epistle format?

Please forward this to your people, tell your fam I said “hi”, :-0

—Sam

[Steve Davis] The epistolary style of the article lacks connection with reality…I would ask whose tradition is being followed in the following statement. “A traditionalist will never say that you can grip your teaching tightly and hold your methods loosely. A traditionalist will never say that as long as your doctrine is right, your methods are immaterial.” It is not that the Bible does not provide direction in our methods. Yet, to invest our methods with the same certainty of the Bible message has no biblical support. The message cannot be altered. Our methods should be held loosely in the sense that they can be changed unless one really believes he has found the Bible method for church planting.

A good response Steve and quite fair. Expanding further regarding the problem with this epistolary method is that the method supposes an elevation of the author’s thoughts so that they are postured in an equivocation of sorts with Scripture itself leaving the author without the obligation to present a theological argument from the real Scriptures.

[Joel Shaffer]… rooted in a nostalgic tradition of generations past. I have seen countless fundamentalist church plants start and fail in the inner-city all over the midwest because these church planters believed they were being faithful to the scriptures and “embracing permanent things and eternal values” when all they were doing was transplanting their own traditional cultural preferences which resulted in creating a host of cultural barriers that turned people away from Jesus. The offense wasn’t the cross, the offense ended up being the church.

I have a few questions for you, Joel, and Steve and others who speak often in these terms.

To make things more concrete, can you tell me what some of these “traditional cultural preferences” are, and what the “nostalgic tradition of generations past” would include?

On one hand, I’d agree that if we’re talking about outdated pop music of the 40’s and 50’s—well, if one’s going to use popular culture at all, it should be up to date popular culture I suppose. Are we talking about the tradition of wearing the best clothes you’ve got to worship? Sitting in pews rather than theater seats? Generally frowning on body piercing and tattoos? I’m just not clear on what the traditions are that are supposed to be keeping so many in urban settings from believing the gospel.

Second, are you saying that cultural details are keeping folks from the gospel rather than the offense of the gospel itself in these situations? It’s not hard to argue from Scripture that cultural issues matter and that we’re not being thoughtful if we insist on Jewish ways among Greeks, etc. But these are ethnic matters, and even in these cases, I don’t think Scripture suggests that culture is what keeps sinners from turning to Christ so much as the gospel itself, which smells like death to them. (2 Cor. 2:15-16)

I just continue to find the whole “we’re failing to win the lost because we’re too traditional” narrative very implausible given that sinners are “dead” and “alienated” and blinded by the “god of this age” in the first place.

I think you make an excellent point, Aaron. Those who are take issue with a conservative approach to ministry and church planting, when they use certain examples as “proof” that it “doesn’t work,” are usually referring to ministries that are using music or other “traditions” that are neither relevant nor good. They are, as you say, simply outdated pop forms.

They conveniently fail to recognize other truly conservative church planting efforts that have been quite successful, such as Redeemer Presbyterian in New York, a church that uses a formal liturgy, classical worship led by a string quartet, and yet is bursting with young families. Or perhaps the church planted by Jason himself in Colorado.

But the most disturbing part of such critiques is the underlying pragmatic presuppositions. “But does it work?” they ask.

I really wish folks like this would stop calling themselves “conservative,” because everything coming out of their mouths contradicts basic conservative principles.

I think the burden of specificity stands with Jason Parker. What are these traditions? Are we talking hymnals? or tolerance of sin? - Obviously there’s a difference - but I don’t think us commenters can speak with any finality to what the article is talking about. -

I continue to find the whole “anti-innovation” narrative implausible because lots of traditions were brought into existence by flawed people like we ourselves, and the Gospel is bigger than our own traditions.

[ssutter] I think the burden of specificity stands with Jason Parker. What are these traditions?

And herein may be where the problem of this novel, epistolary attempt to address issues, sits, it ends up attempting to stand on its own without a clear alluding to Scripture as to what supports the premises it is hopes to forward. My initial comment was only toward the epistolary format but if we are exploring the contents of the OP…

I, myself, am quite conservative but I cannot deny the point Davis made in critiquing the value of the “epistle”. But if one wishes to move from that point to the real epistles and the rest of Scripture, I echo what Aaron said:

[Aaron Blumer] I don’t think Scripture suggests that culture is what keeps sinners from turning to Christ so much as the gospel itself, which smells like death to them. (2 Cor. 2:15-16)

While there may be certain realities regarding understanding that, it isn’t changing culture but bringing the gospel to culture, therefore we ignore or allow many cultural exoticisms and so on, ultimately we must grasp that as we bring the gospel to such complex and often diametrically different cultures, it isn’t our embrace or ignorance of such cultures that truly are the offense to those rejecting the gospel, rather it is Christ and the message. Often those pointing to unrelated issues as some cause for ill-effecting their reception of the gospel often are people just finding excuses and source to blame so they may hide their real reason, their rejection of the truth.

Aaron, I will address your second question first. Theologically, I am with you all the way. Being quite reformed in my theology, I believe that God elects, predestines some to salvation. God does the saving. Yes the unregenerate are entirely spiritually dead. And I realize that regeneration precedes faith in Christ. However, I believe that the nostalgic traditional fundamental churches have missed out on the harvest because they brought their cultural baggage to the ‘hood. So even as God calls out a “people for his name” in the inner-city, their (people from the ‘hood) gravitation has been more to churches that do not have a solid theological foundation, but often have translated the gospel and doing church in the culture of the people.

To answer your first question, I will give you two different scenarios which the fundamentalist church planter created barriers that were unnecessary.

#1 A traditional church planter that was quite successful in planting two GARBC churches (one rural and one suburban) attempted to plant a church in one of Grand Rapids’ center-city neighborhoods. He and his wife moved into the community, attempted to make contacts through door-to-door visitation and established a rented space for a worship service in a nice storefront that didn’t look like a store front. Since his wife was an accomplished musician (Graduated from a Bible college in the late 60’s with a music degree) trained in classical and sacred music, she helped her husband put together the music in the worship service. They were even donated an organ and nicely used hymnals. He was warned that the diverse neighborhood (1/3 African-American, 1/3 Latino, and 1/3 Caucasian) might not respond to their more traditional pattern of worship and outreach. However, they were determined to prove that what they had done since the early 1970’s would work in the inner-city as well. Unfortunately, it flopped. The only people who attended the church were the 10 or so workers from other churches that they recruited, with the exception of one convert, a 70 year old man that had gone to church when he was child, so the traditional style of music was normal for him. During that time, several people of color visited the church, but did not stay. The worship service was not done in the heart language of the people that lived in the community, but rather the heart language of the church planters and the helpers from the suburbs. (By the way, are church planters really modeling what it means to love their neighbor when they pattern their worship service after their own cultural preferences?) After three years, the church planting board transferred this church planting couple to a different ministry and replaced them with a younger man that had been volunteering with the church for a couple of months. Within a year, they had 40 or so neighborhood people attending the church (about 1/3 African-American, 1/3 Latino (more 2nd generation), and 1/3 Caucasian) which reflected the diversity of the community. When I asked him why so many neighborhood people were now coming, of course he attributed the growth to God, but that the outreach was more relational and the worship with a praise band was more culturally appropriate to the neighborhood. One neighborhood person of color that visited the church when it was more traditional even told him that the worship service felt like he was at a funeral. What we think of as reverence can be translated in other cultures (even in America) as a memorial service for a deceased loved one.

#2 This scenario deals with the “unwritten dress code.” During my younger years when I managed a transitional shelter for homeless men, I began taking three of them to a fairly new fundamental Baptist church plant in urban Grand Rapids. Because these men did not have dress clothes at the time, I also dressed casually to church so that they wouldn’t feel out of place. However, many people in the church did dress more formally (suits and ties) because they were taught in their younger years that you should dress your best for God. Although the church didn’t officially state that people needed to dress up for God, it was implied. That morning I ran into a church leader that had seen me earlier that week at a lunch appointment with an older business man who was a potential donor for our ministry. Noticing that I was more dressed up for that appointment than for church, the person snarkly remarked, “Oh….you will get dressed up for money, but not for God……” The homeless men that I brought to church couldn’t understand why my appearance was such an issue. One of them innocently remarked, “I didn’t realize that God had a dress code.” Nevertheless, they never accompanied me to that church anymore….even though I still was attending there. On one hand I am thankful that two of the three today are part of their respective local churches (that incident happened fifteen years ago) On the other hand, both of these churches they attend have some doctrinal and practical issues that I disagree with. Our fundamental church missed out on the blessing of nurturing new Christians and put me in a catch 22 position where I could only disciple them to a certain extent (because of my belief that real discipleship should be rooted in the local church).

So I guess you could say that maybe my offense of the cross/church statement wasn’t entirely accurate. I guess I get frustrated at articles such as this one because it seems to spiritualize a traditional form of church planting and create a strawman argument against church planting methods that are different than what it was propagating.

By the way, I minister to Thugs….Primarily teens and young adult men and women within the hip-hop culture in the inner-city that are drug dealers, gang-members, single mothers, rappers, athletes….calling them to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Do you know what type of church my students would culturally connect best with? Here is an example of one. And it is a fairly new church plant in Philadelphia by a group of Christian Hip-Hop artists that also happen to embrace Reformed theology. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sABnKcNC5bA&feature=related Yet I am guessing that most fundamentalists on this site will write this off as a compromise to God’s holiness. Maybe even believe it to be an example of the evils that Jason’s epistle warns of. I find it interesting that all of my students understand the stark night and day difference between Holy Hip-Hop and Secular Hip-Hop, but to a fundamentalist outside observer it all looks culturally the same.

That should be enough red meat for everyone. sorry its such a long read……….

The medium affects the message, and I thought this was a very poetic way to communicate the gravity of these ideas.

I do not see, however, where the author is promoting suits and ties or the use of hymnals as being the traditions that should be passed down and honored, nor does he seem to be advocating a pin-the-church-on-the-map method of church planting. Of course there are some mechanics involved in church planting- the Bible clearly teaches us to count the cost and prepare ourselves in a reasonable manner for any task we approach. But there exists an extreme of going about church planting as akin to establishing a business, with data and marketing and business plans and loss/profit ratios. Like, ick.

Modern cultural practices can be taken into account without compromise, but IMO this is very difficult to do in some areas. There is no way to make the Gospel more palatable to the lost. And by the time some church leaders dress up the truth in a pink mohawk, ripped clothing, and labret piercings, it is unrecognizable, because the focus has left the Gospel message and instead is directed at the embracing of culture- which is what they are supposed to be rejecting, right? IOW, those who embrace modern culture often do so as a rejection of traditions, but it’s just trading one tradition for another, and the suit and tie that serves as a distraction is no better or worse than the current fashion trends that also detract from the efficacy and purity of the message.

I’ve found in dealing with folks that they respect honesty and compassion before they pay attention to your clothes, hairstyle, or music choices. I’ve yet to lead a young inner city woman to the Lord that asked me what radio station I listened to, nor did the heroin addict wonder why my husband doesn’t have an eyebrow piercing. They were in our house, saw our neighborhood, clothing, books.. it’s funny- they were too concerned about repairing their families and kicking their addictions to care about such trivia. What they did know is that we would bend over backwards to help them, and that is what reached them.

Joel, the errant presupposition beneath your entire argument is that culture is neutral and we choose cultural expressions merely out of “preference.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Culture is an expression of value; it is religion externalized. Cultures are not created in a vacuum, and there is no such thing as simply “choosing a culture based upon one’s preference.” Cultural “preference” is rooted in one’s worldview, in his framework for interpreting the world. And cultures are developed over time and through tradition. This is the “tradition” that Pastor Parker is addressing. He’s not speaking of some kind of arbitrary preferences held by white suburban middle-class yuppies. He is speaking of a way of viewing life, God, religion, and worship that has been passed on from generation to generation since the early church (with many hiccups along the way!). These traditions; these values; this worldview; this metaphysical dream; this “culture” includes ideas such as the reality of absolutes in the realms of truth, goodness, AND beauty; commitment to universals, mataphysical ideas to which everything should aim; and a desire to conserve those institutions and forms that reflect a recognitions and respect for this objective order. This is the culture and tradition to which Pastor Parker is directing our attention in church planting.

Culture matters to religion, because culture is the dish in which the gospel is presented. There are some dishes simply unworthy of such a sacred meal.

The opposite of the worldview described above is the idea that every individual must be able to approach God in “his own language,” as if the fact that he speaks a certain cultural language in itself is justification enough. You’ll hear this kind of argument dressed in language of “diversity” and “authenticity.” Also contrary to a conservative idea of culture is the urge to be progressive, creative, and ingenious in our approach to Church, worship, evangelism, and the gospel.

This way of viewing the world and religion runs contrary to the Scriptures, contrary to creation, and contrary to the gospel itself.

We have the culture/gospel interaction completely backward, I believe. I was just listening to Ken Meyers the other day, who made this very point. The progressive way to do worship, church planting, and evangelism says that we must use the people’s “culture” to express the gospel to them. Again, this point of view fails to recognize the values deeply embedded within culture.

Rather, we must take the gospel and bring it to bear UPON the people’s culture. We must reshape their sinful culture to match with the metaphysical realities of Scripture. We must reorient their value systems so that noble cultural expressions BECOME their authentic expressions. An unbeliever should not come to a church service and say, “Boy, I’m comfortable with these cultural expressions. This is my language!” If it’s his language, then it is not the language of the gospel. Rather, he should come to a church service and say, “Boy, this is really different.” This will have one of two effects upon him. If God is not working in his life, he will think it strange and will be repelled. If God is working, he will be attracted to the beauty of the gospel and will soon learn to appreciate such a “strange” culture as his values and tastes are reshaped.

There are two steps to make this happen:

1. The gospel of God must be worked into their hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit.

2. They must be exposed to cultural expressions that best imbibe the truth of the gospel.

So you see why giving them the gospel using their culture runs completely contrary to the only thing that will change them. It’s like continually feeding a child cotton candy and expecting him to develop a taste for prime rib.

Will the church plant draw lots of unbelievers? No, because unbelievers are looking to be attracted by their own value systems and their own culture. Will the church grow by leaps and bounds? Will hundreds of people be converted? Well, frankly, that is up to the Holy Spirit.

You see, I truly believe that those who are so concerned about presenting the gospel in the “authentic” language of unbelievers by contextualizing the gospel in the “language” of the day are trusting in culture more than they trust in the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and the power of the gospel itself to save.

Now, I will add one caveat to all of this that I alluded to in my comment above. I do not know the particular situations mentioned above. It could very well be, and it has happened I’m sure hundreds of times, that a church planter will not use demonstrably good and fitting cultural expressions, nor will he use expressions rooted in the culture of the day, but he will rather use expressions rooted in cheap, commercialistic, pop forms of the turn of the last century. This, of course, defeats and motives of “contextualization” or “relativism,” but it also defeats any motives of presenting the gospel and worship in ways worthy of them. It’s a lose/lose for them.

Scott,

I don’t even know where to start. There are so many things I want to comment on that you say and assume about my position. First, you assume way too much about my worldview in respect to culture. I never said that culture was neutral……My Biblical framework in regards to culture views the world through the lens of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation…..which does not allow me to view culture as neutral. Therefore, your argument is more against a strawman than me……

By the way, I agree with you when it comes to reshaping a sinful culture to the metaphysical realities of scripture. However, it seems that what you hold to as “worldly” and what you hold to as “true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy, is different from mine and I believe it comes down to cultural preferences. By the way, just in case you might be tempted to assume that somehow I don’t know enough about music to fully critique it from a historical standpoint, I was also trained in classical and sacred music in which I got my undergraduate degree and I still have a love for it.

So your worship tradition isn’t influenced from your own cultural preferences? I am interested in your view, for example, of Black Gospel music within worship. Besides building upon the Christian tradition, it also blended elements of the Negro Spirituals, Jazz, and even R&B to what it is today. So would I be dumbing down or compromising worship if I incorporated elements of Black Gospel into a worship service, especially when most of my students are African-American? Should I abandon 150 years of its Christian tradition that godly African-American Christians developed even though it is culturally different than what you are advocating?

I have a few more comments to make, but I gotta go coach my son’s football team……