This is a guest post by Peyton Jones. Jones is the founding Coach of New Breed Church Planting UK/USA and is currently planting an urban church for Refuge HB in Long Beach, CA in addition to coaching multiple planting teams. Peyton is also the author of upcoming book Church Zero about A.P.E.S.T. ministries (Publisher: David C. Cook. Release date: April 1st, 2013). You can follow him on twitter here
When a young guy expresses that he wants to go into ministry, it’s usually assumed that he’s gunning for a pulpit ministry. He’s told that he’ll need to buckle down for a lengthy term at seminary and a hefty bill to pay the price. On the day he graduates, he somehow doesn’t feel any more qualified to minister to people than when he went in. He’s had his nose buried in texts, but like Spurgeon once said,
“He’s at home among the books, but at sea when it comes to men”.
Many seminary grads who once dreamed of “tearing it up” for Jesus come to the realization that at the end of their seminary term they have no idea how to do what Paul did in the book of Acts. They can alliterate points, protect Christian orthodoxy, yet they are unable to do the most important thing that Paul did…plant a church.
Paul was not a Pastor. Sure, he did pastoral things, but Paul was a front-line church planting missionary. The New Testament model of ministry is about EXPANDING outwards, wherein most of our churches today are about building upwards…getting a bigger widescreen; a better website; a larger parking lot; more comfortable sanctuary seats…and don’t forget multiple services!
So if Paul wasn’t a Pastor, what exactly was he? The Greek term apostolos means “sent one” or missionary. In other words, he was a man on the move. Like a gospel Navy Seal, Paul would infiltrate a culture, and with deadly efficiency, complete his objective, nail his target, and “whoosh!”, he was gone. On to the next one! The glass slipper of a mega church would never have fit the apostles travel worn soles. Paul would rather plant churches “where Christ has not been named” than to stay in on spot.
Don’t get me wrong. There are mega churches in the New Testament; Jerusalem and Antioch among them, which God used to send out missionaries throughout Judea, Asia Minor, and beyond. Simply put, they were sending agencies.
In contrast to Paul, the apostle James was a “sending apostle”. He stayed put and deployed others to strike out into the darkness.
When New Breed first started up, Dai Hankey and I were convinced that we were both “serial planters” and that we’d always be on the move like Ronin. Nonetheless, Dai stopped “walking da’earth like Kane from da Kung Fu” and began training up multiple planters from his church planting headquarters.
He adopted Paul’s method towards his third missionary journey, wherein he established a church planting hub in Ephesus, through which the 7 churches of Asia were planted by his padawans in under three years (Acts 19:10).
The difference between Dai and a Pastor is that Dai’s focus is on raising up others who will duplicate what he’s done in order to rapidly facilitate a vast number of church plants. This is in contrast to many pastors who are trying to loving shepherd those that already in the church. The pastor’s role biblically is to love and grow those in the fold. The apostle is called to go and plant more churches!”
I’ve been thinking that we need more gospel special forces operatives in the Kingdom of God…at least that’s what I think most guys going into seminary hoped they’d be when they got out.
And I’m pretty sure that if we focused on training apostles as much as we do pastors, things would start to look a whole lot more like the book of Acts.
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Ah Peyton great stuff. I would be inspired to add that learning the doctrine and ‘doing the stuff’ take place primarily ‘on the job’ not in seminary. Also I would like your permission to end the life immediately of anyone who in response to the question ‘Hows the Church doing’ respond by saying ‘we’ve had some new seating and we fixed the roof’ !!! Keep on keeping on Peyton!
A great fresh look at what the church was, has become and should be.
Amen.
I find the part about going to seminar a lot like those in the business world.
Those who really want to start a business, such as Gates, Jobs, and a plethora others, you just do it. In some cases they dropped out of college to start their businesses.
In today’s Christian world, we are concerned about where our Pastor attended college and seminar, but it’s a good thing God doesn’t require a degree to serve him.
Great point man!
Amen. It seems that the U.S. church body (collectively) is suffering from this inward focus to the degree of minimalizing real outreach and missions. These are not meant to be merely another program or area of ministry that “those other people” handle, but needs to be in the heart of the individual follower of Jesus who is willing to talk to his neighbors and the store cashier about the Gospel. I often wonder what would happen if we took away the buildings and comforts of our consumer Christianity. I’m afraid it might effect me more than I would like to admit. Lord help us focus on what truly matters in Your kingdom.
A young man came to me not too long ago and asked how to prepare himself for the ministry. I replied “can you tell me what area of ministry you feel drawn to?” He said, Oh I want to be a pastor, you know, work in the church, preach on Sundays, that sort of thing.” I paused and thought about his comments. I was at a loss; “do I first correct his obvious misunderstanding of the things of the pastorate, or shall I address my own aging perceptions?”
There is of course a paradigm. For many, the pastor is the guy standing I the box on Sunday, wearing the suit and tie, reminding you of the things of God, and trying to get people to help the many needy areas in his church. There is little doubt that this archetype is approaching extinction. In as much as the modern Evangelical church model is on the ropes and teetering, so too is the model of the stay at church pastor. Effective pastors are more and more men of motion.
With the advent of forces like social media, webcasting, and all the other new communication avenues used by churches, the essential nature of what a “church” is, is being challenged and reworked. In my own congregation I am seeing evidences of this paradigm shift every week. Using tools like webcasting, for example, we now know that more people watch us in the privacy of their own home, then actually attend our church services each week. Via Facebook I have come to understand that many people love to communicate with church leaders in an intimate way, but prefer to use social media vs. face to face contact. On Sunday after church services, many pastors (including myself) are used to getting rushed by church goers after the sermon, and they obviously want to talk, but the fact that others are all around squelches their efforts. Facebook steps in and provides a relatively safe counseling environment. Facebook becomes an extension of church.
Less and less do we see the bulk of church activity actually occurring in the church facility. People are craving contact, but they also appear to want privacy and to control the contact. What do trends like this mean for the future of the evangelical church? It appears that we pastors must adjust to how the essential nature of modern communication arena is changing. In short, we must leave the church building. We must embrace and use social media. We must send others out of the church building, both physically and via these social media outlets.
We are in the age of cyber apostles. 30 years ago churches could set up a beach day, and offer hot dogs and half the town would show up. Today people prefer to sit I Starbucks and use their laptops and Ipads to conduct 5 conversations at once. How do we reach these folks? I say some may be reached by the media outlet that these people have chosen; social media. We could ignore this trend and fall back on “not forsaking the gathering together of God’s people” but at what cost?
The modern pastor must be mobile. The effective ministry leader must take on the apostle mindset, even on the web. If they are called to the ministry, then they must regard the Biblical suggestion to leave the 99 sheep and go get the one stray. Every Sunday half of my group is at home watching us. We have begun dong things like having all the people in the church stand up, face the cameras, and wave hello or hold up signs to the home sitting attendees. We are sending out our young intern pastors as apostles in our city. They take media and Bibles into coffee shops, beaches, and the mall, and they bring church to where the people are.
This idea can ruffle some feathers. Some pastors may well measure their efficacy by offering or attendance statistics. We have been given a command by Christ Himself; go out and make disciples.. go to the four corners of the world…I am not sure the command requires that we drag these folks back into our little worlds. Perhaps these folks behave like splinter cells and once saved, reach people in their existing social structures. We may well live in a world where the most significant and transformative work to come from our ministries may well not be known to the pastor involved this side of Heaven.
Pastors must be willing to embrace the road, and the information superhighway. We must be senders, and if called, be willing to be sent. We must trust scripture enough to grasp the fact that many varied patterns of successful evangelism are presented in the book of Acts. From this we must discern that God is willing to use many different methods and tools to reach the lost. We must be willing to be different. We must not assume that God will do in our ministry what He is doing down the road, or on another continent. Being a sent one is often not as glamorous in the minds of some. Being a sent one is at times thankless, Spartan, lonely, and filled with times of self doubt. What is needed is for the modern Evangelical community to embrace the role of the sent one in all its forms. The role must be acknowledged, respected, budgeted for, and most importantly trained.
Awesome reflections Mark. Imagine if every believer adopted a coffee shop or public space like the Brits at their local pub. Each of them would be infiltrating a community and joining the rhythm of life there. I think that you’re describing Paul in the marketplace and it gets me all hot and sweaty just thinking about it. These areas, complete with technology are in fact the marketplaces of today. We’ve got to get out of our offices, or make our offices mobile. I think this is another blog I’m stealing for New Breed’s site. Thanks for your comments.
Peyton, your last comment reminds me of one of my favorite books. Have you read The Celtic Way of Evangelism?