Phil,
Thought you might be interested in what’s taking place here since you have been part of our effort to become prayer-driven as an association of churches. It’s reflected in the attached 2010 Ministry Plan. Previous planning has identified priorities and specific, implementation strategies, along with funding requests. A start-to-finish ministry plan.
This year we experienced a radical departure from precedent (and my normal mission strategizing “MO”). The team was unable to prioritize our core ministries and come to consensus about which one(s) our ministry plan should address. The emerging “breakthrough” is (seems to be) a holy reluctance to declare God’s will. And I think it is being birthed in a genuine desire to be in His will; to see and allow and get in on His moving in deeper, transforming way.
We are really trying to “wait and watch” and be as ready as we can for whatever He has to do to move us toward becoming “Not I, but Christ” churches .. “connected (associated) for Christ’s mission.”
2010 MINISTRY PLAN PROPOSAL The team was given one basic assignment: to constantly ask the assessment question, “What do we need to do at the associational level to enable our churches to be as faithful and effective as possible in five Core Ministries: Evangelism, Leadership, Ministry, Missions, and Prayer?” and then to conceive and coordinate strategies to accomplish the agreed upon answers.
In the first year of functioning in this way, 2008, Prayer was the Core Ministry selected to receive priority attention. A Prayer Ministries Team was enlisted which designed and implemented strategies that kept the urgency of prayer before all our churches; encouraged churches to grow stronger, more powerful in their prayer ministries; and coordinated association wide conferences and prayer ministries. This year, the Core Ministry: Leadership is receiving priority attention. The Leadership Learning Team is assessing leadership levels and considering how to encourage and facilitate our churches in developing effective Kingdom leaders.
As the planning team moved through this process in the ministry planning retreat for 2010, a priority Core Ministry did not emerge so easily or clearly. In fact, the task of identifying one or more to give priority status became so difficult it was not completed in the retreat. The team sought God’s will through personal and corporate prayer – and even by fasting.
Still, when the deliberations resumed, the lack of consensus continued. In fact, the results of praying and meditating, of meeting and discussing yielded the following result. For its 2010 Ministry Plan proposal, the team does not recommend that Evangelism be given priority attention; does not recommend that Leadership be given priority attention; does not recommend that Ministry be given priority attention; does not recommend Missions as the priority Core Ministry; does not recommend that Prayer be the priority Core Ministry.
More than one participant noted “the quietness” in the meeting, and one observed later that “God seems to be quiet in a number of places.” - which should bother us or at least cause us to ask “Why?”. When the quietness gave way to honest sharing, the realization began to surface that giving one or more of these Core Ministries priority was not the solution to our problem. Certainly, that was not because any or all were unimportant. Indeed, they are the heart of the church’s nature and assignment on earth.
The greater urgency that began to grow in the team’s awareness and conviction was a deeper need in our churches – indeed, in the universal Body of Christ in our day: obedience. One team member shared God’s personal word to him and extended it to our churches in the following way. There is little about any of these Core Ministries that we don’t or can’t under-stand, few situations where adequate resources and training can’t be secured. The real problem is doing them, obeying our Lord as and when He directs. The real challenge God puts to us is, “Release yourself to Me so I can work.”
The discussion led to a deeper sense that programs and resources, missions trips and projects, conferences and collaborative efforts are not the key. We need – and sense, yea, pray – that God is moving us toward a spiritual awakening in our lives deeper than most of us have ever known. It is awakening deeper than revival as we have typically experienced it, “Repent, return, so that you (we) might experience times of refreshing.” – times that feel good. What is needed is for we who are the church, Christ’s body, to be captured by the reality of who we are and therefore what we are to be doing!
The church is changing…too much by our default and by the world’s disregard. Research reveals that the number of Americans identifying themselves as “Christian” – who knows how functionally accurate that identification is – dropped by 10% over the last 18 years, while those claiming no faith has almost doubled, and the number claiming to be “nondenominational” believers has grown from 200,000 to 8 million, a 4000% increase…in 18 years. And our own backyard is just as dry and dusty. When our forty churches today, in a much larger population base, have basically the same enrollment, attendance, and baptismal numbers that the founding 22 churches did fifty years ago, something is greatly anemic!
What is needed? The team senses that our churches need awakening to a desperateness for God deeper than most have known, an awakening to the reality that our obedience will never be adequate, certainly, as long as we think God is here to do for us, or even that we are doing something for God; awakening to the driving passion and guiding compass in the Apostle Paul’s life, “Not I, but Christ” – “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” We need to be awakened to the fact that Jesus died for our sin and was resurrected not just to intercede for us in eternity, not just to return to take us unto Himself for eternity, but He was resurrected to live His life through us right now in the presence and by the power of His Holy Spirit! Christ is our life – not only in eternity, but now on earth!
How will we do that? How can we encourage and help our churches to move from thinking of church as organizational structures, activities and privileges on brick and mortar campuses, to Christ living His very life through us day by day? We, your staff and team don’t know…yet! We don’t know what strategies will be needed…yet! We don’t know what the end-product will look like, particularly corporately or organizationally – even for individual churches.
We can share what we suspect and sense. We have no illusions. It will not be quick. It will not be easy. It will not painless. It will not unanimous, may not impact a majority, and may result only in remnant of radically obedient disciples of Jesus because they are readily available to Him – 24 x 7 – for Him to live His will and purpose through them. Churches may be a lot smaller and more like leaven in our communities, than like palace or search lights on a hill. But then, that’s rather Biblical, isn’t it?
We know that you cannot create this desired result via nice, simple, easy programs that can be packaged attractively, will work forever and accomplish what we want without changing anything or rocking anyone’s boat. We do know that prayer will be essential – there’s no way to access our Lord and Father God without it. Surrender…and therefore likely sacrifice will be essential. Jesus “emptied Himself” so that the Father could send Him – we will have empty ourselves before He can send us, before He can fill us and live through us!
What will we, the church, look like when we are readily available to be radically obedient to Him? We don’t know for sure, but I want to share something of how I think we will look and live, something of how I want to look like and live before my life on earth ends. Major Ian Thomas captures it in his book from years ago, The Saving Life of Christ. He gets to the heart of problem with a rather startling question…
Suppose God were to die tonight! Would it really make any difference to the way you live your Christian life tomorrow? For all you really count on Him as you go about your daily business, or even do your Christian work, would you notice any difference? Would it make the slightest difference next Sunday in the services your place of worship, if God were to die tonight? Would anybody know if nobody told them? Or would the whole machine grind on, with the people in the pew, the parson in the pulpit, and the special offering for the building fund? Nobody ever told them God was dead!
I am deeply grateful to those who introduced me to the Lord Jesus Christ as my Redeemer, but the one thing they did not make adequately clear to me…was that the Christ who died for me, rose again to live in me.
If you are born again, all you need is what you have, and what you have is what He is! He does not give you strength – He is your strength! He does not give you victory – He is your victory!
It is for you to be – restfully available to the Saving Life of Christ,…instantly obedient to the heavenly impulse. It is for Him to do! This is your vocation,…your victory!
The planning team is convicted that when we reach that depth of relationship with our Lord, all our anemia will disappear as we give priority in practice to all these vital Core Ministries.
What then is the proposal from the team?
Out of the quietness God seems to be issuing the challenge to associational leaders and to our churches to seek…
* To grow so desperate for God we will let Him lead where He will, let Him do what He wants to us, in us and through us.
* To grow “Not I, but Christ” spirits, readily available and radically obedient so that Christ can His life through me.”
* To “wait and watch” – through continued passionate prayer and faithful service – for God to show us how this should shape the strategizing, resourcing, facilitating, and implementing of our ministries at the associational level, as “Churches Connected for Christ’s Mission.”
We will put ourselves on God’s time table, believing He’s wanted and been waiting and watching for us to move in His direction much longer than we have.
Jim Cymbala, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle wrote, “God is attracted to weakness. He can’t resist those who humbly and honestly admit how desperately they need Him.”
May that be the spirit that grows in our churches so that He might make His power perfect or complete in and through our weakness.”
P. S. A couple of comments from pastors should interest you, both from large churches. One said to his staff last week, “We need to get rid of calendars and just seek Christ and what He’s doing.” Another believes God is doing in his church and the greater western church what Leonard Sweet has referred to as “rebooting the church.” Another pastor agreed with me – at lunch – that God may well be growing His church into an organism lean and “mean” enough for the pre-Christian climate that is growing in our culture.
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