So what’s your ecclesiology? 

I wonder how many of you church planters really thought that through when you preparing to dive into your church planting adventure.

You have an ecclesiology, that’s inevitable but how intentional were you about thinking it through and forming the workings of it into you community life. 

Every once in awhile i will surf the internets looking at church websites, looking for things and ways of doing things that resonates with me. And almost ever church has a “mission statement”. (thank you Willow Creek) and just about every church has a list of their “core beliefs”. 

I’m not saying these things are not important, i actually think they are, they are very important. But often it’s interesting what a list like this or a mission statement will say about a particular communities ecclesiology.

For instance, ALMOST every church starts their LIST of beliefs…?(i don’t particularly like lists, maybe your catching on to that) ?… with a statement on their view of scripture. ?This really says a lot about what’s important to them, what they are trying to defend and build their community on. ?If we were a real bible believing and living community what might be the first thing on our list?  ?My guess is that it probably wouldn’t be the bible! What do you think? 

I could ramble on on on!

It just seems poorly focused and ecclesiologically misshapen to concentrate on some of these things and to order our communities the way we do. 

I’m reading a book right now about Anglican ecclesiology and  will probably share more about this in the days to come but the reading in general has just got me thinking about ecclesiology for the community planter. 

What do you think?

Peace & CHURCH
Erik 

I was pointed to a blog the other day by Thomas (ihajj.net) and i REALLY liked it! The post is by Chris Folmsbee and i just think he has some really solid things to say about youth ministry!

But the more i thought about it i think some of his idea are things we should really take to heart and aim for as church / community planters as well.  

Here is Chris’s link :: Youth Ministry: If I were to do it again…
(this is a must read if you in youth ministry for sure! So definitely go read the full post!)

I’m just going to share a few of the things he said that i think specifically apply to community planting.

// Act theologically before methodologically  
// Be more of a spiritual director than a program director
// Spend more time investing in interns/co-pastors
// Ask less of my volunteers and yet equip them more
// Celebrate the successes in the lives of students (people) with greater regularity and intensity
// Take students (people) on way more spiritual retreats
// Work hard to be more collaborative with the youth workers (pastors) in my city
// Take more time off to be with my wife and kids
// Be more intentional with a confirmation process
// Find time to laugh and play more
// Try to learn more from the staff instead of thinking I have all the answers
// Take the criticism of others more seriously and less defensively
// Meet with my spiritual director more often
// Take personal retreats more often
// Be way more missional and a lot less attractional in my approach or model
// Pray more and develop a team of people to pray with
// Call the students (people) to greater levels of holiness
// Spend a lot more time creating opportunities for students (community) to practice justice
// Allow the more artistic students (people) opportunities to express themselves and their love for God.
// Teach much more conversationally
// Try to enter into the joy, pain, loss, doubt, hurt, etc. of the students (people) and their families

As i went through this list i realized almost ALL of the things Chris put on his list would be healthy things for a pastor to incorporate as well. What do think? 

Peace
Erik

Sorry i have slacked on this blog! I am constantly think of things to post on here and running across resources that i think are interesting for the sake of conversation. But life is crazy! Working a couple jobs (kinda) and just running around i guess!

BUT i really am going to try and be more “regular” on this blog. At least once a week or so. So stay tuned and give us a shout. It’s always encouraging to know people are participating in the conversation.

Be Peace
Erik

” grant your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are preformed through the name of your holy servant Jesus. When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the work of God with boldness. Now the whole group of those who believed were of one hear and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. ”

[  ACTS 4:29-35  ]

I don’t know about you but this is what i want my community to look like and live like! 

I listened to a teaching by Shane Hipps a few months back. He spoke at Mars Hill in Grand Rapids (I listen to their pod-cast fairly often) and his message has really stuck in my mind. Then I saw this clip on a friend of mines blog :: Deadly Viper Blog :: so i decided to share. 

Rob Bell Interviews Shane Hipps About Technology from Deadly Viper on Vimeo.

Shane has a great perspective and his story gives him instant street cred! And in case he reads this, the iPhone give him more cred in my book, not less!

(you can listen to his message via the Mars Hill teachings page :: I think :: he spoke about a year ago, 3.29.08 and the message was entitled spirituality of the Cell Phone. If not i can get it to you, just let me know.)

Shane talks about the Idea of “The Medium is the Message”. 
He focuses on the fact that we are the primary medium that God uses to convey his message (the gospel) to this world. Jesus started us off (incarnation) and we are to continue being the medium.
I LIKE IT!  

I think we can also use this conversation to talk about community planting.
Your church is a medium and communicates thousands of messages every time a person enters your doors and spends time interacting with your community (building, people, services, sacraments, etc.)  

The the big question is :: What does your church communicate about God?
What do your people / your community communicate about God?

What are the things we can do to communicate the things we want?
And avoid communicating the things we don’t want? 

I think you get the drift?
Let’s talk about it.

The medium is the message. YES?

This is actually the post i just put on my blog :: www.erikwillitsblog.com
But i thought since it was about Lent it might fit here as well.

What are you and your community doing for Lent?
Anything? Why or why not?

It seems like a lot of church plants don’t really do the lectionary thing.
Any ideas on the why of that?

I would love to know if your a church planter and you do.
Please share.

Here’s my post…
—————————————————————
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Lent means a lot of things to a lot of people, to me it has meant for the past 4 or 5 years that i have practiced LENT a practice in prayer and fasting among other things.

I will further dive into my understand of LENT but i thought i would post a few helpful // interesting Lent Links that might help you get started!

First off, of course…

Wiki LENT
This is Wikipedia info on Lent. A good read with some helpful information.

Next is ehow LENT
a nice little “how to” for the beginning Lent observer.

One of my biggest question is always, “What should i fast from this year”.
In case you didn’t know, during Lent one gives up (fasts) or takes on certain things.
This is Yahoo answer :: what to fast from during Lent
Some interesting answers indeed; sweets, religion, computers, TV, and my personal favorite Lent als. To name a few.

I do believe this year i will be giving up my social media networks.
No facebook, twitter, VIRB, myspace, etc, etc.
i might go through withdrawals but i think it will be good for me.

I also plan on taking up the discipline of reading and praying everyday, first things.
Most every day i read and pray but most everyday it’s after breakfast, after some computer time, after whatever else. Often i even roll over and check my email via my beautiful iPhone and then play a game or to. Nerd, i know…
So the plan is to pray and read my bible first thing.

Here are some links to other who are fasting from social media.
and i thought i was the only one!

The facebook link to the social media fast group.
a funny concept if you really think about it.

A little article on Social networking fast :: from the marketing shift

This was another interesting fast i found while googling around.
Interesting :: The carbon fast

Peace and fasting!
Erik

Right now our house church is struggling through the best way to incorporate children into our community.  We are not big enough to have “programs” like children’s church or youth groups, and I am wondering if they are necessary in the first place.  Personally, I think it is problematic to consistenly separate children from the main flow of a church body.  I strongly disagree with the sentiment that children are “the future of the church” because I believe should be considered essential members of the church from the start.  Jesus certainly affirmed the validity of the participation of children in the kingdom of God.

Obviously, children learn in different ways than adults and see the world with different eyes.  So what do you do with kids?

My gut tells me that adults in the church should be more concerned about the type of people they should be to witness/model/mentor/disciple children.  Doing stuff is secondary, but how might this look?

The Bible does not have much to say on this issue.  I really like the Shema passage in Deuteronomy 6 (read it if you do not know it off the top of your head).  It seems to provide a model for partents/community members to mentor chlidren.  But how do you do this without becoming leaglistic about following a law?

For the house church I have been thinking about just including children as much as possible in our main gatherings, but not worry about trying to gear everything toward children.  I also think it would be cool to match each kid up with a non-parental mentor who will be intentional about praying/meeting/teaching the child about what it means to live your faith.

Anyone have any thoughts or good ideas?

Well i really like the conversation that is going on below and it’s something that i am really thinking a lot about lately. So i want to hear more!

I would recommend you read the post below, maybe a couple of the comments and engage.

Here is a little video of Mark Driscoll talking a bit about denominations and what he perceives to be going on. I think he makes some good observations and brings up some valid points.

Maybe bringing the idea of “networks” in our conversation would be a good addition.
Myself, i wonder if network is just a good post-modern / post-denomination way of saying denomination. Anybody care to help us understand the difference between a network and a denomination? I’m sure we all have some ideas.

Anyway, check out the video and I look forward to hearing what you think.

grace and peace
Erik

I have been thinking about this issue a lot lately, the issue of denominations. There are a lot of opinions floating around out there and there is a bit of theological controversy surrounding those conversations (at least there is theological controversy in my head when I think about it.)

So here’s the deal, people don’t care about denominations anymore. That is just the fact of the matter. Loyalty is no longer a denominational issue.

Question :: is this a good thing or a negative thing?

I find evidence of this fact in conversations I have all the time.

[example #1]
I was talking to a couple friends recently at a coffee shop. One friend, who has visited numerous churches over the past year — most having a denominational affiliation that you would never know about from simple attendance —  she said she doesn’t really care about denomination as long as they aren’t the conservative denomination that she grew up in. But I think what she was really saying was that I don’t care about the denomination as long as I don’t know about it. The other friend specifically said that she wanted to go to a non-denominational church because she doesn’t “want to be affiliated with any specific denomination.” Those were her words. Both friends are in their mid to late 20’s and reflect a generation pretty well I believe.

[example #2]
I recently had a conversation with a really successful non-denomination church planting pastor. He has planted a couple churches and the one he is currently pastoring is doing extremely well numerically and financially (at least i think they are). I was telling him a little of my story and how I am really thinking about planting a community / church. The issue of affiliation came up and he simply stated that he wasn’t sure that being connected to a denomination was helpful. I really like this pastor, awesome guys and a great heart and his perspective about denominational affiliation also reflects our culture and the reality that denominations, in general, are rapidly shrinking, as he stated. He also simply stated that denominations probably don’t do much to actually help the church plant other than providing some money, some times. He kinda insinuated that they might actually do more harm than good as you are trying to reach an “un-churched” population.

It seems that, from his opinion and the opinion of many others, denominational affiliation is actually a negative thing these days.
Yea? 

Then I ran across this little tid bit on relevant magazine.com / their neue network.

My Church, Yes. My Toothpaste, Never!
Evidently, brand loyalty is pretty low among Protestants. A new study found that only 16 percent of Protestants would not consider attending a church outside their denomination. The poll, conducted by the Pew Research Group, also found that 51 percent of Protestants say while they prefer the denomination they’re in, they would be open to others, while 33 percent say they have no denominational preference whatsoever. By contrast, 22 percent of Americans are completely loyal to a specific brand of toothpaste.

And that’s our culture. My guess is that if you narrowed the age group of this poll to 20 - 30 / 35 the numbers would be even crazier.

So when thinking about planting a church should you even consider affiliating yourself with a denomination?

Pastors :: why did you or didn’t you affiliate yourself with a denomination when you planted your community?

Those are the big questions. At least in my brain.

[some other thoughts]
And then there are the theological / ecclesiological thoughts swirling around in my brain.
I have for the majority of my life been very loyal to a particular denomination. They recently kicked me out (that’s a whole other series of posts) and now I am not sure how to think through all these issues. I am thinking and praying about connecting myself with another denomination, which isn’t really about community planting but rather more about ecclesial connectivity for me but of course if I am going to plant a community this has to be thought about as well. bla bla bla…

The thoughts / issues could go on and on.

What do you think?

Grace and peace
Erik

In the house church we started 09 by talking about the church and what it should be/look like.  House churches are pretty radically different from traditional churches, so I often get asked the awkward question of whether or not I also attend a real church, as if the house church is deficient in some way.  I thought it would be beneficial for our group to spend some time thinking through what a church should be, and we had a great discussion on it.

I thought I put below my response to the question below to start a conversation here:

It has become extremely cliché to say this, but it needs to be said - the Church is a people and not a building. For me, the Church is a community of people. It is not necessary for a Church to have a physical structure, a set meeting time, or a standard worship service. So what is necessary?

First, my picture of the Church is linked to what I believe about God. My fundamental understanding about God is that the name of God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This name of God has nothing to do with God’s gender and points to the fact that God is community. Within God’s self is a relationship. The essence of this relationship within God is love. I believe that creation is a spilling out of this loving relationship within God. It is no surprise to me that one of the basic human needs is to be in relationship with others. A church then, is a community of people linked together by love. Jesus said that the greatest commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor, or other people. I believe that you love God by loving other people (1 John 4:20 helps to make this clear – “If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”) So, the church is a community of people that loves God by loving each other. They look out for one another, they provide for one anothers needs, they pray for one another and care about the details of their life. Indeed, they are even willing to lay down their life for one another.

It is possible for a community of people to come together in loving relationships and not be a church, so what distinguishes this community? For me, the church is a community that observes the sacraments, particularly baptism and Eucharist. Not only do these sacraments distinguish the community into a church, they also inform the praxis of the church community. In baptism, we symbolically die and are raised to a new life. The baptized are given a new identity. I believe that this identity recreates the baptized into a new type of family. The church community, then, is a new type of family and is defined to the extent that they treat one another as loving family members. Also, important to baptism is the use of water. The water symbolizes a cleansing, and it also symbolizes new life. It is impossible to live physically without water. The church community then is a place where people can get fresh starts, to receive new life. Their participation in the church should signal a different type of living – a way of living that gives life instead of takes it or abuses it.

Church communities are also distinguished by their participation in Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper. A church community continually remembers the life of Jesus and attempts to bring that life into the present. Hans Kung, in his work The Church, explains how the observance of Eucharist informs the praxis of the church:

“So much is clear: the Lord’s Supper is the centre of the Church and of its various acts of worship. Here the Church is truly itself, because it is wholly with its Lord; here the Church of Christ is gathered for its most intimate fellowship, as sharers in a meal. In this fellowship they draw strength for their service in the world. Because this meal is a meal of recollection and thanksgiving, the Church is essentially a community which remembers and thanks. And because this meal is a meal of covenant and fellowship, the Church is essentially a community, that loves without ceasing. And because finally this meal is an anticipation of the eschatological meal, the Church is essentially a community which looks to the future with confidence. Essentially, therefore, the Church must be a meal-fellowship, a koinonia or communio, must be a fellowship with Christ and with Christians, or it is not the Church of Christ. In the Lord’s Supper it is stated with incomparable clarity that the Church is the ecclesia, the congregation, the community of God.”

Finally, the church is a community that engages and wrestles with Scriptures. I believe that Scriptures also inform the praxis of the church, but I get nervous when people claim to live according to the Bible. The Bible is a big and complicated book, and therefore, I believe a community is essential to reading and understanding the Scripture. In my experience, the overarching theme of the Bible is that God is a God who cares about the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized. This theme is most clearly seen in the life of Jesus, who directed his ministry toward the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized and chose to identify himself as a servant. Therefore, I believe that the direction of the church should always be pointed toward serving the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized.

My description here was not meant to be exhaustive in any way. I have left out a great deal, and indeed entire libraries have been written to define the nature church. In sum, I believe that the church is a loving community of people, who observe and look to the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist, with a direction toward serving the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized.