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Rice Lake, Wisconsin and West Orange, New Jersey are two entirely different cities.  One is a rural farming community, total population ranging from 8,000 to 15,000 depending on how far out you count.  Rice Lake was settled primarily by Scandinavian and German immigrants, and is almost entirely Caucasian.  As a bedroom suburb of Manhattan, West Orange is a bustling place filled with all kinds of people – including many recent immigrants from Africa, Europe, South America, etc.  In the past month, I had the privilege of visiting a thriving church in each of those places, and though their environments could not show a more striking contrast, those churches share some vitally important characteristics.  I can best describe it by the T-shirts proudly worn by many of the Rice Lake members of Red Cedar Community Church that declare, “I love my church!”  The Life Christian Church folks in West Orange did not wear similar shirts, but if they were available, I am quite certain they would sell out.  I feel like I am still glowing from the warmth, joy, delight, unity, and love in both communities.

Many of us who coach and advise churches dig deeply into issues of strategic planning, staff alignment, clarity of mission and values, design of ministry plans, fiscal concerns, spiritual formation assessment, and on and on it goes.  All of those things matter, but after visiting these two churches I sometimes wonder if we make all this more complicated at times than it needs to be.  The bottom line is that anyone walking into Red Cedar or Life Christian Church would be drawn to a contagious culture of love and grace. It is unmistakable. You can almost smell it. And I believe that is what is propelling both of these churches to flourish against some difficult odds. Mother Teresa said:

“We do not need to carry out grand things in order to show

a great love for God and for our neighbor.

It is the intensity of love we put into our gestures that

makes them something beautiful for God.“

Of course, all of us want to know how to create a community marked by love and joy.  I am not sure there is a secret formula for that, but I do sense that the roots of such a culture are grounded right where they should be – in the outrageous grace of God whose love fills us with so much wonder and awe that we cannot help but show it.  The attenders of Red Cedar and Life Christian Church do the simple things really well – they welcome each person with a spirit of inclusivity; they worship with abandon and joy; they treasure the authenticity of their humble leaders who guide them to truth and model the love of Jesus; they serve with a sense of privilege that they get to be a small part of what God is doing in the grand adventure.  Just like Jesus told us, others will be attracted to the Father by how we love one another. It is not all that complicated…and all of us can do this.  Would the attenders at your church proudly wear a shirt that declares, “I love my church?”  I sure hope so.

Nancy Beach| Slingshot Coach

12% isn’t actually a math test; instead it captures a startling statistic I heard. In the last 15 years the church in the west has spent $110 billion on land and facilities and in that same time church attendance has decreased 12%. If true, our strategy to strengthen and expand the Church is failing. Even if the numbers aren’t accurate empirical evidence tells us church attendance is in decline and the church has spent significant dollars on recourses to reach the lost and grow the congregation. I know of three churches personally that have spent over $75 million in capital improvements the last 12 years and 2 of the 3 have actually declined in attendance. I hate to break the bad news, something isn’t working. Sure we can blame it on the composition of our cities changing, the lack of margin people have, or the reality that we are living in a post-church/post-Christian world. There are many excuses…The reality is the current model and paradigm isn’t working. We are familiar with the cliché “if it’s not broken, then don’t fix it.” In the west it seems that we have embraced the model if it’s broke throw a lot of money into it and it will be fixed. How’s that working?

First, you must know, I’m a raving fan of the church and I love the church! Second, my thoughts are aimed at looking at the current state of the church through a different set of lenses…I will get to that shortly. I’ve been captivated by the book of Acts lately. As I’ve read Acts and focused on it, I’ve realized that Acts says nothing about planting and building churches, however Acts is the blueprint for church growth and church planting. What I’ve really focused on is a simple model for church growth that Acts presents. Ready? Here it is…Reach lost people, disciple them and new churches will start and churches will grow. Acts doesn’t present a church planting strategy…It only presents a transformation strategy. It’s that simple. It’s not linear, built on several purposes and it’s pretty cost effective. Acts presents more of a “hear and obey” model as opposed to a “learn, grow and go” model. Which brings me to my next point, have our western models, paradigms, processes emerged as the greatest barrier for expanding and strengthening the church? Maybe another way to ask it since the Holy Spirit is a common denominator in all church growth movements, especially in Acts. Have western models, paradigms, processes become a barrier for the Holy Spirit to do his greatest work?

Now to my point, It seems obvious the western model of start a church, service or campus, reach lost people and then “disciple” them isn’t effective and we’re losing obvious spiritual ground. Well, Acts presents a model that is working in many places globally. It’s simply; convert and disciple people and churches and faith communities will naturally get started. In fact, in places where the church is exploding and expanding there is no real church planting strategy, the strategy is to basically see people come to Jesus and disciple them. When this happens, churches just start and churches just grow, much like we see in the book of Acts. Here is another way to look at it; Kingdom, Disciple, Society, Church. Let me briefly capture what that looks like:

Kingdom: Having a better understanding of the difference between a “church framework” and a “Kingdom Framework”? How do you plant, start, lead a church based on Kingdom principals and not “church” principals?

Disciple: Disciple, not the preacher, is the lowest common denominator.  How do you make disciples who make disciples?

Society: Every society, no matter how tribal or advanced, is built with common domains. Every church mobilizes their members locally and globally into these domains to transform society. In doing this the church becomes the missionary.

Church: Producing disciples that engage in society leads to the church emerging. It is a natural result.  The models are multifaceted.

Interesting isn’t it? So, here are 5 simple things to ponder and questions to ask:

1. Change your focus from being the biggest or best church in the city/area to churching the city/area.

2. Learn from the global church. Unfortunately most books, conferences, etc. focus on western models of church growth. Put on a new set of lenses and your learning hat and discover how the church is expanding and growing globally.

3. Look at your current model of discipleship and ask tough questions about its ability to produce disciples who produce disciples.

4. Read the book of Acts and ask questions like how did the church multiply? What do I learn about church growth? What happened in Acts that’s not happening in my church?

5. Personally and corporately shift to a model of hear and obey. Observe how your existing model creates barriers form this happening in your life and the life of your church.

I hope this helps and my heart is to help you. Let me know how I can serve you as you digest this stuff!

Chris Lagerlof