Purpose Driven Church

The Purpose-Driven Church
Summary, applications to HBC, and questions

Introduction:
Rick Warren has become well-known in the USA and over here. He played a major rôle in President Obama’s inauguration, leading prayer, for example. The reason for this reputation is a combination of factors. First, he has proved an outstanding church leader, seeing the Saddleback Community Church from its start through successive phases of growth and adaptation. Second, he has developed, explored, explained and promoted clear-cut principles which are clearly both biblical and practical in this book, The Purpose-Driven Church (hereafter: PDC), in a way which makes them clearly open to use by other Christians who are inspired by this vision and programme. Third, these principles have the added advantage of being broadly-based, rather than one-sided. This saves this programme from being yet another supposed panacea, which suggests that all our church problems will be solved if only we invest massive effort in one side of church life, whether a new form of evangelism, discipleship plan, fellowship group programme, new forms of worship, whether music, arts, interaction or whatever, or even a new call to practical love. It embraces all five of these and more, saving the church that runs with it from an unsustainable imbalance. Fourth, the approach of Warren and Saddleback is sympathetic, attracticve, winsome. I well remember a local minister and colleague, who had had a sabbatical about a decade or so ago in the USA, spending half his time in the steps of Martin Luther King in Alabama, etc., and the other half in Saddleback. Saddleback Community Church is affiliated with the Southern Baptists, and my colleague expected to be put off by finding a narrow, brash fundamentalist church, hyped by sales pitch. He was very pleasantly surprised to find instead a sympathetic and caring approach throughout the church and what it was doing, and reported back to our local ministers’ group that it was a church he would be very happy to be a member of. This intrigued me. Fifth, Warren also adapted the approach of PDC (with its integration of the Great Commission and the Great Commandments, as five major strands of church life, each promoted) for the individual Christian, as a course for Lent (or whenever) in the book The Purpose-Driven Life – known generally as “40 Days of Purpose”, and most HBC members will remember this course being very helpful here. After an introduction, this gave five weeks to each of the five strands. The widespread benefit of this book by so many Christians and churches across the world has added to Warren’s international repute. And by and large, churches that have run with this course have found it has strengthened and deepened them in clear ways.
Rather than simply repeating the five major principles of PDC over five weeks, in the five weeks of Lent 2009 (through sermons and Life Groups), we follow instead the course of the book, which has five different parts. These open up the ‘big picture’, help us to see how to become a purpose-driven church, how to reach out to our community, how to bring in a wider crowd, and how to build up the church.
I trust that working through this book together will not only have a similar benefit to  40 Days of Purpose for each of us individually, but also help us as a church to work together on ways to help our church develop a longer-term integrated strategy for church life rooted in the application of our Lord’s command to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbours as ourselves, and his call to go into all the world, making disciples, baptising and teaching them, assured of our Lord’s presence with us to the end of the age.
Anthony Thacker

Week 1: The Big Picture

a) The Saddleback Story
The first chapter tells the story of Saddleback – at least up to the time of writing (1995). Saddleback church did not exist before Rick Warren arrived in 1979. The chapter tells how he and his wife Kay felt guided by God to plant a church in Saddleback Valley in Orange County, California, and the inspirations and help he received beforehand from Dr Criswell, a well-known pastor from Dallas, and Herman Wooten, the Southern Baptist Director of Missions.
Starting with nothing, and moving very much in faith that God had called him to plant this church, he found a place to rent, starting rent-free for the first month! Other Baptist leaders became aware of his venture and volunteered financial support, and support also began to come in from people he’d never met. They wanted the church to function for all ages, and wanted to buy nursery equipment, spending their last food money on it, only to receive a cheque in the post for exactly the same amount.
They shaped their vision for a church aimed to attract unbelievers, seeking growth by conversion, not by transfers from other churches. This meant getting to know how unchurched unbelievers felt the hard way – by listening carefully, in a caring way, to lots of people. This approach, coupled with a home Bible study group, and an open letter to households led to many people turning up at the launch service, where he spelt out his dreams. Church membership classes followed, with the first batch of unbelievers turning to faith in Christ and being baptised.
As the fellowship grew they had to adapt by changing venue many times, reaching 10,000 attenders before having their own building.
b) The Hinckley Story
Hinckley Baptist Church (HBC) clearly has a completely different story, and we need to recognise that that makes an impact on who we are, and how our context for running with the ideas of PDC will feel different to Saddleback. In sum, our story precedes all current members, going back nearly 250 years! Consequently we enter a story with an existing history and set of experiences, which have helped shape the community here.
HBC operates as a town centre church, rather than as a local community church, in drawing people in from a radius of about five miles. Like many Baptist churches, our church is evangelical in ethos, and has incorporated many of the changes inspired or influenced by charismatic renewal, such as the use of worship songs led by a band, the (occasional) use of performing arts such as drama and now puppetry, the growing openness to prayer ministry and the like.
A big part of HBC’s story has been the benefit of pastors whose ministry has been affirmed nationally: Frank Cooke and Frank Goodwin, who both were voted to serve as President of the Baptist Union. But there’s been a painful downside too: there have been a number of major crises and difficulties often about two to four years into most pastorates here, and a pattern of very long gaps between ministers. The difficulties of the most recent such gaps have been offset by the realisation of the vision of Pathways.
The effect of this combination of factors means that many church members have assimilated good rôle models of church and ministry, but have also long experience of life without commonly agreed vision, aims and strategy (Pathways excepted), which has weakened our effectiveness.
The current situation therefore provides a great opportunity to build on the implementation of Pathways, with gaining an overall vision and purpose for the whole of church life through learning from and applying The Purpose Driven Church.
c) Growing Churches
Chapter 2 of PDC explodes certain ‘myths’ about growing churches. This is particularly significant in the USA where there are many well-known “megachurches”. Churches with 10,000 or more members or attenders don’t exist in the UK. But there are churches of some thousands now, so this trend is beginning to be reflected here. In practice, even if the scale is much less, the lessons are still relevant. And they are that contrary to what we might expect, the largest churches don’t grow so large simply because they only care about numbers. Sustainable growth will require churches to grow “warmer through fellowship, deeper through discipleship, stronger through worship, broader through ministry, and larger through evangelism.” (PDC, p.49.)
Other myths are that such churches grow at the expense of other churches: that’s true in some but not all cases; or that we can only have quality or quantity, but not both. Rick Warren rightly counters: “Quality produces quantity.” Christian Schwartz, in Natural Church Development reports how this has been proved in a scientific survey of thousands of churches across 32 countries in every continent: wherever measurable quality is high enough across the board, there will always be numerical growth.
Other myths disposed of are the supposed need for compromising the gospel for growth, or that growth automatically follows worthy, dedicated behaviour or faithfulness alone. Skills, learning and growth are also needed. A balance is needed to avoid polar errors of either assuming managerial skills are enough without the Holy Spirit, or devoted, prayerful service without learning how to be effective. He also has a good section on what we can and can’t learn from other churches and ministers (pp.66-71).

Questions

  1. Rick Warren says we need to develop so that church life grows ‘warmer, deeper, stronger, broader, and larger’. First of all, what experiences have you had, whether here in HBC or elsewhere, that helped in one or more of these ways?
  2. Rick Warren says ‘quality produces quantity’. Some people argue differently, perhaps thinking fellowship may be warmer in a small church that’s staying the same size numerically, than in a larger and growing church. What do you think?
  3. What parts of Saddleback’s story did you think was more interesting or useful to learn from?
  4. What parts of HBC’s story do you think we need to learn from?
  5. Do you think HBC can grow numerically? If so, what do you think will help us?

Week 2: Becoming Purpose-Driven

a) What drives our Church?
Churches are sometimes driven by competing interests: “This results in conflict and a church that is trying to head in several different directions at the same time.” (PDC, p.76) Other churches are driven one-sidedly, by certain traditions, or by a powerful personality, by financial worries or building needs, by the existing programmes or special events, or even by the needs of the unchurched. The problem here is the one-sidedness. Every church needs finances, venues, programmes and events, and evangelism, and will have some traditions, i.e., things they’ve done before. The problem is when these drive the church.
We need instead to be purpose-driven. What this means is a ‘biblical paradigm’. This avoids the confusion of competing interests by sharing a common purpose, and avoids one-sidedness by means of being based on five major biblical purposes.
b) Healthy Foundations
Foundations aren’t visible, but they are vital – that’s as true for churches as buildings. Sustainable growth requires strong, solid foundations. Agreed purpose is vital to this; good ideas need to be filtered through our commonly agreed biblical purpose.
Warren reminds us that we can be efficient in sustaining activities without being effective as the frenetic activity is unproductive. The effectiveness needed is achieved by consistently reviewing our purpose, and so pursuing the right priorities in a focussed manner. This consistent approach will help attract people. Therefore it’s good to let new attenders know where our church is and is headed. Of course if we have clear aims it’s easier to work out if we are achieving them (or it should be!)
c) Defining our Purposes
If we are going to recover a sense of purpose that can be sustained in church, we are going to need to conduct serious Bible study, to help us recognise and adopt the clear sense of purpose we find in Jesus himself and his commands, and from the example of the churches of the New Testament. This process can’t be rushed and could very fruitfully be the basis of a series of future Life Groups. From that we could draw conclusions from which we could condense this into a single, memorable sentence. Saddleback’s experience in this led them to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission, and the sentence, “A Great Commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission will grow a Great Church!” From this, Warren derives his five tasks, five purposes: worship and ministry or service (from the commands to love God, and to love our neighbour; and evangelism, fellowship and discipleship (rooted in the call to make disciples, baptise and teach them). Though there are different ways to unpack Jesus’ Great Commission, I am sure that Warren’s conclusions, with equal weight given to evangelism, fellowship and discipleship (along with worship and ministry) are very helpful to the healthy, sustainable growth of the church, and can be found (as he suggests) not just in these two prominent Scripture passages (Matt 22:37-40 and 28:19-20), but throughout the New Testament.
d) Communicating our Purposes
Rick Warren has found a wide range of memorable ways to ensure his people do not forget the equally vital importance of all five foundations. Five beginning with the letter M for their purposes statement for example:
To bring people to Jesus and membership in his family, develop them to Christlike maturity, and equip them for their ministry in the church and life mission in the world, in order to magnify God’s name. (PDC p.107.)
Another version favours the letter P: “My church family gives me: God’s purpose to live out (mission); God’s people to live with (membership); God’s principles to live by (maturity); God’s profession to live out (minisitry); God’s power to live on (magnify). (PDC, p.117). The grid on page 199 shows these together with the letter E for the task (Evangelise, Exalt, Encourage, Edify Equip), the letter C for the target beneficiaries (Community, Crowd, Congregation, Committed, Core), the letter F for the the provision for living (Focus, Force, Family, Foundation, Function), S for the emotional benefit (Significance, Stimulation, Support, Stability, Self-expression). However, for his letter W you really (weally) do need to talk like “Wossy”! (Witness, Worship, Relationships, Walk, Work). But Wossy-speak with “Welationships” would also give us Wick Wawwen, so I’m not so convinced by that one!
For what it’s worth, my own stab at this gave us five ships (Worship, Friendship, Ambassadorship, Fellowship, Discipleship – which formed the framework of my introductory sermon to this series!).
e) Organising around our Purposes
Organisation facilitates durability of fruit. Warren contrasts two effective preachers in the eighteenth century awakening, Whitfield and Wesley. Only Wesley’s work made a massive long-term impact, outliving him, because was also an effective organiser.
I certainly agree with Warren here, and can remember other cases, where great ministries flourish for the duration of the person – but don’t survive his or her departure. These include ministries of ministers. Richard Hamper went on to become a high profile Baptist leader, including great ministry in Queen’s Road Coventry with a massive youth club, and leading the Free Church Federal Council. I was also made aware of the fantastic impact of his first ministry: at Botley, Oxford, which by my time at Oxford in the 1970s was facing difficulties, but in the 1950s through Richard Hamper’s time flourished. He was a charismatic figure and the place was heaving with the number of young people during his three years there. But the ministry was not able to last.
I have also seen projects dive after the departure of the visionary who set them up moved on. For example some children’s projects, one of which was highly successful, attracting hundreds each time, but which only met one more time after its pioneer moved on. The organisation for each event was great and it all worked far better than even hoped. But without succession planning, the organisation to continue, it could not continue when its founder moved on. Another example also provides a bit of a corrective to all this. This children’s project was very well and heavily organised down to the last detail. But when the leader moved on after two or three years, no one else dared to take it on, and it closed for several years until new people came in who did not know and feel daunted by the previous experience.
This reminds us that the principle is not to maximise organisation but to achieve effective and durable organisation that enables good practice within church life to flourish and continue as new people work in or lead the organisation.
Rick Warren reminds us that many churches revolve around just one of his five purposes, with atmospherics to match: The soul-winning church with minister as evangelist; the experiential church with minister as worship leader; the family church with minister as chaplain; the classroom church, with minister as teacher; and the socially active church with minister as prophet or activist (or ‘social worker’, as he puts it). Many parachurch movements promote one of these five, sometimes as a panacaea for all the church’s problems. But if we are to remain healthy we need to balance all five purposes, doing so in our own way. Saddleback has integrated these five purposes into a sense of process and progress for people from beyond the fringe of the church into the active fringe and on to become committed members, who mature and become the core of the ministries and mission of the church. This process is built into a rotating four year programme for people, to help them grow. This process shapes the rest of the book and so guides our remaining three weeks of sermons and Life Groups following the book.
f) Applying our Purposes
This takes everything one step further: integrating all these purposeful intentions into every aspect of church life. This includes ten ways: growing new members on purpose (which requires building relationships with people who are not members, not even believers, and enabling these new Christians to grow in faith), designing church programmes in line with our purposes (which includes ending things that no longer help as well as starting new things that do); educating our people on purpose (not simply informing, but training for action); running small groups with focussed purposes; building up growing staff with deliberate tasks; structuring church life using purpose-based teams; preaching, building in a focus on the five purposes regularly and on purpose; budgetting on purpose; developping the church calendar with strategic purpose; and evaluating the effects of what we are doing on purpose.

Questions

  1. To what extent to you think HBC is driven by competing interests, with individuals or groups driving particular programmes, and to what extent do you think we have the same purpose and are all pulling together in the same direction?
  2. “...it’s good to let new attenders know where our church is and is headed.” Where do we think our church is? Where do we think it is headed? Could we communicate that positively to a new attender who asked us?
  3. Rick Warren promotes five equally balanced dimensions to church life: Worship, Friendship, Ambassadorship (Evangelism), Fellowship, Discipleship. Do you find that helpful? Is there anything unhelpful about it?
  4. Which of these five purposes do you think we in HBC are strongest at, and which are we weakest at?

Week 3: Reaching into our Community

a) Who are we trying to reach?
No church can actually reach every different type of person. Part of the challenge of HBC and Hinckley generally is that we are a diverse community. As a town centre church we attract a socially diverse community. A larger city would tend to have several Baptist churches, not to mention many others from similar and different traditions, and they would vary, attracting different people.
Nonetheless we need to understand our community and the factors that shape people in and around Hinckley so we can effectively connect. Targetting can be seen in the Bible: Jesus mainly went “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”; later, while Paul mainly targetted his ministry to Gentiles, (though starting where possible with responsive Jews), Peter mainly focussed on Jews.
For us to target effectively we need to determine what our geographical focus should be, what the major social groupings are (the demographics), and what are the relevant sub-cultural factors. This will help us to understand people’s needs. This requires listening to people in Hinckley to register better how they tick. We need to determine people’s spiritual backgrounds, too. Rick Warren asks us to try personify our community – which they do as “Saddleback Sam”. How would we picture “Hinckley Hal” (or Hinckley Holly – if you prefer a female personification!)?
I have heard Hinckley described as “the nearest thing outside Lancashire to a Lancashire Mill Town”. While hosiery has all but vanished, this small-enterprise, industrious, plain-speaking, working culture has left its impact. Despite the loss of hosiery, Hinckley has not become an unemployment black spot. Indeed it can be argued that it has experienced a moderate but genuine degree of upward mobility or ‘gentrification’ (as the sociologists amusingly call it), reflective of growing aspirations. How the current recession will affect that is far too early to say.
b) Knowing those we can reach
Relationships are the key. Those we can reach will more easily include those we already connect with. So who attends? People who feel very different to everyone at HBC have substantial extra barriers to cross. The impact of leaders is also considerable. In HBC, expect there to considerable impact from the impact of those who lead the preaching, the worship, the life groups, the Alpha courses, and the Pathways Centre. People who give us a first look will usually encounter one or more of these, and either be put off or attracted. (Incidentally, that’s why core leaders need to be able to work together positively and supportively, for growth to be consistent and sustained.) Sometimes churches no longer match their communities. This is easy (and uncomfortable) to see in Leicester, where churches have often found it too hard to reach the communities as they have become largely Hindu, Sikh and/or Muslim, and most existing members have moved miles away, but commute back to their churches. Rick Warren suggests that in these challenging circumstances, such churches should still aim to build on existing strengths They might try to reinvent themselves – but it is hard and often very painful. For a mainly English congregation to reinvent itself as for example a Punjabi congregation, adopting all the cultural and sub-cultural changes necessary to make it work, has been done, but it is very challenging. More useful is the idea of starting new congregations. This has been adopted in particular by people reaching out to those who might be attracted by the approaches of “fresh expressions” appraoches to worship, for example. Even more obvious is the development of linguistic and ethnic congregations in our cities.
We also need to learn who might be spiritually open in Hinckley, and in what ways. Rick Warren advises us to pay special attention to people in transition – affected by major life changes, and by life’s upheavals and stresses.
c) Developing our Strategy
If evangelism is like fishing, then we need to learn about the ‘fish’. Fish vary, their circumstances vary and so on. We need to learn where and how people are responsive. We need to learn effective communication, which includes listening to unbelievers so we can understand what puts them off or what might help. Four things that can put people off is where they find sermons boring, people unfriendly, churches too centred on raising money, and too unhelpful in child care. In addition we need to learn to adapt so as to connect with the sub-cultures of the people we want to reach in our community. As communities are changing, our approaches need to change. As we develop new strategies, they will cost. HBC has discovered this recently, as our new strategies have included set up Pathways and seeking a fully trained Youth Worker, both requiring – and receiving – major extra financial commitment.

Questions

  1. How do you think Hinckley differs from other communities you have known?
  2. See the picture of “Saddleback Sam” on p.170. How would you picture “Hinckley Hal” (or “Hinckley Holly”)?
  3. Rick Warren mentions ten groups of people he finds are often receptive to pastoral care and outreach (p.183). These include people going through divorce, those coping with major marriage problems, and those with problem children. Do you feel these kind of people are easier or harder for us to reach out to?
  4. We need to reach different sub-groups in our Community. Teens and twenty-somethings have different needs for example, and different social lives. What different sub-groups are you aware of, and how do you think we might build relationships with them?
  5. To ensure the way we ‘do church’ helps such different sub-groups, Rick Warren suggests we might “offer multiple services or even multiple styles of worship”. Which different sub-groups might be helped in this way, and by what services or forms of worship?

Week 4: Bringing in a ‘Crowd’

a) Jesus’ way of attracting crowds
If the ‘community’ (in this context) means the people completely beyond our church, the ‘crowd’ represents those who are attracted and/or connected with us to some extent.
Jesus’ secret in attracting crowds of people to listen included loving people, loving unbelievers. Putting it negatively, there will be no sustained growth if we don’t love the people we want to reach. Putting it positively, my own experience matches Rick Warren’s, that visitors who feel cared for are more responsive than those who feel ignored. That applies even more to new converts. This means open care, melting down barriers of cliqueyness. In some churches, some Christians don’t want new people to attend, as they might provoke unwelcome changes. The classic grotesque example of the visitor being told to leave the seat they are in, because “it’s my seat”still occurs in some churches: we must resist such selfishness, and foster genuine love. Similarly, we need to foster an atmosphere of acceptance, so visitors feel welcomed. The pastor needs to care for his or her people far more than anything else. We don’t preach at people we preach for them. Communication with visitors matters. We should write in an informal, warm way, not as if “drafting correspondence to British royalty” (p.215).
Accepting people as they are without approving of their life-styles is an important art. Rick Warren makes a typically Baptist distinction between the standards expected for members and attenders, restricting discipline to the former, basing this on 1 Cor.5: 9-12. He takes the example of cohabitation, where cohabitees attend, get converted and then get married (p.218).
Jesus also met people’s needs, and we need to learn how to help. We need to offer people “something they cannot get anywhere else” (p.220). This is not just spiritual, but also various personal and practical needs. Meet needs and the church will grow. So what are the needs of people in Hinckley? Some of Saddleback’s diverse ministries are show-cased.
Jesus’ teaching was practical and interesting. He met people’s needs – his Messianic vision was rooted in Isaiah 61 (see Luke 4), and this is all about helping the poor, the captives, the blind, the oppressed. Effectively helping people enables them to be receptive to the rest of the message. Preaching needs to play its part in this, helping to change lives, by its relevant practicality. The gospel message is not transformed into something else, but translated into something understandable, made simple but not simplistic. Story-telling is a vital part of this., as Jesus clearly knew. As for our culture, Rick Warren seeks to promote avoiding both the ‘rock’ and the ‘whirlpool’ – avoiding simply adopting what our culture says and changing biblical values, while also avoiding rejecting all cultural features (because they prefer different features usually from an earlier culture). Avoid sell-out; avoid isolationism. Instead, aim to be in today’s world without being of today’s world.
b) Worship as witness
Rick Warren points to ten convictions in worship that Saddleback hold dear, and which guide both their worship and the way it impacts on visiting unbelievers: only believers truly worship God; true worship does not require building or any supposed ‘correct “style”;’ unbelievers can watch the effect of worship on believers; it can help them if God’s presence is felt and the message makes sense; we should be sensitive to possible problems for unbelievers in our worship; seeker-services don’t need to dumb down; needs of believers and unbelievers often overlap; it’s better to specialise aims in services than take a scattergun approach; seeker-services supplement personal evangelism and mustn’t replace it; there’s no standard way of doing seeker-services; we need unselfish, mature Christians to be able to offer genuine seeker services.
c) Designing Seeker-Sensitive Services
If we want to be able to invite friends to a service which they won’t find unhelpful, we need to create services that can work for the unchurched visitor. This involves trying to make it easy to attend. Saddleback has various services (we have two), help for easy parking, Sunday School simultaneous with worship (so do we), and puts a map of the church on all advertising. This is a neat thing to do. In my previous church (Oadby) we paid the copyright dues to put a small Ordinance Survey map on the back of our Alpha flyers, but not elsewhere. Some people may be put off by HBC being challenging to locate, especially for people who are new to Hinckley. Our website includes directions, and since I spoke about this need, now includes a hyper-link to a Google map, showing how to find us.
Seeker services (“a service that is intentionally designed for your members to bring their friends to” – p.253) need to quicken the pace of services, cutting unnecessary “dead time” (where nothing is happening), and making sure elements (e.g. prayers) are short and to the point. Visitors need to be made comfortable – so make sure nothing plays to fears or embarrassments. Newcomers should be allowed to remain anonymous. A team of people to welcome greet and guide helps – in the car park as well as at the doors and inside. There need to be visible directions for loos, children’s rooms etc., and the premises should look bright and inviting (pp.264ff.). Rubbish needs to be cleared away, the place should look well kept. Lights should be bright and effective; heating must be comfortable. The sound system should be the best we can afford. Let there be many plants and greenery. Children’s rooms and loos should be clean and safe.
The atmosphere must be attractive, creating a sense of expectation, celebration, encouragement, belonging, help and liberation. A printed, intelligible order of service can help visitors have a sense of where things are going. Limit notices to reminding people of the printed notices, or major events that apply to everyone. And remember, all the extra work, indeed everything we do, we do for Jesus.
d) Selecting Music
Good music is vital. We can’t do everything, and need to decide what music helps Hinckley people in the main. Beware cultural élitism: today’s classics were often once considered “vulgar”, and hymns were originally seen as alien to Baptist worship (p.283). Saddleback settled for contemporary pop/rock as 96% of their people listen to it. What do HBC members listen to? What do our potential visitors listen to? Rick Warren suggests that we need to attend to and sometimes update lyrics to ensure they make sense to visitors for a actual Seeker Service. Also encouraging members to write new songs can help (within strict limits, I suggest, unless they are quality ‘performance songs’). But recognise many visitors, especially unbelievers may not want to sing, and should be put at ease with that.
e) Preaching for the Unchurched
Messages need to be pretty different if they are aimed for unbelievers and other visitors unfamiliar with church jargon. For a service with seekers in, we need to adapt. An expository style may help believers, but not many unbelievers. Use an intelligible Bible translation, made available. Plan titles of seeker services to appeal to the unchurched. Preach consecutively, building up in a series; be consistent, and be very careful who you invite to preach for your Seeker Service. Preach for commitment, giving people an opportunity to respond in one way or another. Spirit-anointed preaching is still vital (p.306).

Questions

  1. If someone said HBC was sometimes a bit ‘cliquey’, would you agree or disagree? Why?
  2. If we are to attract new visitors to seeker services, our premises “should look bright and inviting”. What places already do so, and what places do not? What should we do to “brighten up the environment”?
  3. “What’s the difference between a terrorist and a musician? – You can negotiate with a terrorist!” So goes the old joke. But why is music such a touchstone for controversy?
  4. What do you think are the things we would need to do differently if we were to aim at a true Seeker Service (as for example with “Back to Church Sunday”)?

Week 5: Building up the Church

a) Turning Attenders into Members
Outsiders may talk of ‘that church’; attenders of ‘this church’, but members of ‘our church’ – they have a sense of ownership, of belonging. Rick Warren’s observation of U.S. Church life, with church-hopping ‘lone rangers’, rooted in rampant individualism is increasingly true here, too. We need to recall the original Christian meaning of member-ship – members of Christ’s body.
We need to plan to help new members get fully incorprated. They need to know they will fit (it’s essential to be honest as to who we are). They need to feel welcomed, valued, appreciated and know what’s expected of them. Membership expresses commitment, with various challenges and benefits – unique today, helping engagement with God providing spiritual support; personal support from other Christians; resources to enable us to grow spiritually; a supportive context to exercise our gifts in service; and opportunities to fulfil our mission in Christ to reach family friends and others for him. Free-floating Christians are like children without a family.
Establishing a membership class is vital. Long length is not the essential requirement, but making sure everyone opts in – it is a requirement for membership to attend – and making sure it includes clear outlining of the commitments of membership. I agree with Rick Warren that “the senior pastor should teach this class, or at least a portion of it” (p.316). People need to hear his/her vision; and he (or she) needs to connect with all potential new members, especially at this point.
In Saddleback jargon, this is course 101. there it is a four hour single class. (I presume on a Saturday, not an evening!) For Warren the essentials in this opening salvo are answers to the questions as to what church is, its purposes, the benefits, requirements and responsibilities of membership, this church’s vision and strategy, its organisational basis, how a person can get involved in ‘ministry’, and how to become a member.
In HBC we have different contexts for this. One is the “new friends’ welcome tea”, an hour in which we open up the values, ethos, organisation and vision of the church, and how to become a member. I wonder if we could work on developing this to include some of the material I would include in the enquirer’s course (or discovery course). Currently, that’s a longer course to help people explore Christian commitment and open up the issues of baptism and church membership in a full enough way to give space for the range of questions people have. Obviously Alpha runs parallel with this, providing its helpful context for discovering Christian commitment, too. But Alpha can’t complete the deal on our church’s particular vision and our distinctive way of membership. That has to be done by us.
What is the next step after joining? Ensuring this is not a one-off expedition into commitment, but the start of a journey, which would include material to help people consolidate their initial commitments, and develop discipleship. I’m sure Warren is right that the initial commitments must include more than simply a desire to belong; it includes an acceptance of the gospel, commitment to the Lord, including practical commitments for example that of fellowship – a covenant of commitment to God and to each other. We need to develop events that make new members feel special.
It’s vital for members to develop friendships within the church – we belong if we have friends. That’s one reason why life groups are so important. That’s where people will care about you, and miss you. Communication is also vital. “People tend to be down on what they aren’t up on.” Communicate freely, openly and often.
CARE callers: “Contact, Assist, Relate and Encourage” – people ask: 1. How are you doing? 2. Any prayer requests? 3. Any need to report to the minister and church leadership?
b) Developing Mature Members
Spiritual maturity does not come automatically, and is not for some élite; it is not unlocked by some magic ‘key’, and is not head knowledge, but by lives changing; it is not some private matter, but interactive, and is more than just Bible study.
“Unforunately, churches are often held together by committees rather than commitment.” (p.343) Raise the commitment of leaders, aim for bigger commitment, not a lowest factor.
In Saddleback, “Class 201” aims to inculcate spiritual maturity, specifically by encouraging the following habits: time with the Bible, prayer, tithing, and fellowship. This is not a complete course, but a start, to begin to discover spiritual maturity; a vehicle.
Ignorance of the Bible is increasingly common – even more so here than in the States. So we need to include Bible study groups deliberately designed for new believers. One such one that I personally think follows ideally after the Alpha course for brand new Christians is Nicky Gumble’s video course A Life Worth Living on Philippians. Warren recommends introducing five core books to new believers: Genesis, John, Romans, Ephesians, and James.
We need to encourage a spiritual perspective on life. In Saddleback this works out as a course opening up core teachings in a practical way. We need to promote strong Christian convictions. People’s lives are changed – for better or worse – by convictions, whether those of Hitler or Gandhi, Luther or Marx, Mandela or bin Laden. We need to live by and encourage positive, Christ-centred, Christian convictions to change the world for good. Above all this means encouraging people to honour and imitate the character of Jesus Christ.
c) Turning Members into Ministers
The church is a ‘sleeping giant’. If its members wake and realise our potential in Christ with dynamic, active members in a full sense then both church and world change. The biggest need is to help people graduate from spectators into active players, from just being members to those who know and fulfil their ministry.
Every-member ministry is biblical and is vital. Every member, not just a few; every ministry – God has a place for it; ministries must be inter-dependent; ministry as “SHAPE” (Spiritual Gifts; Heart; Abilities; Personality; Experiences), which we must be helped to discover. Then church needs to be aligned so that people aren’t so overwhelmed with meetings that they never exercise their ministries.
Warren has some interesting things to say about fostering new ministries without the encumbrances of votes, to avoid power-grabs and the like, and difficult votes. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to explain how people do get appointed. It looks as if it’s by him (see p.381) – though I’d be happy to be corrected about that! Fine if you’ve started the church. But an existing church already has structures and votes. The principle needs to be adapted and adopted in a way that can work in HBC: enable people to develop new ministries, but have an assumption that new ministries aren’t simply started without reference to the pastor. He (I!) can inform/involve others as appropriate. It’s clear that Warren’s real secret is light touch leadership which is not bypassed, rather than a free for all.
“Class 301” is Saddleback’s class to facilitate this process – it’s a class held monthly. This is another one off four hour session taught simultaneously with 101 and 201. This includes discovering your SHAPE and meeting with a church leader for an interview to determine their ministry and place to execrcise it, then be publicly commissioned to exercise this ministry. This is all about people, not programmes.
This needs to be followed by on the job training. New ministries should only start with some one with the ministry to make it happen. They have 3 guidelines: new ministries are not to be thrown back at the leadership to run; they must be compatible with our church’s beliefs, values and ethos of ministry; and avoid fund-raising, otherwise the church turns into a bazaar. A unified budget is needed, with leaders of ministries submitting financial needs in the overall budget. Also people need to be allowed gracefully to quit and move on, and we need to delegate authority with responsibility to them. Meanwhile, provide support – practical and personal.
d) God’s Purpose for our Church
Stick with fulfilling the purposes of the church, not worrying about the rate (or lack of it) of growth. Fulfil God’s purposes for our lives – like King David (Acts 13:36 – see p. 395).
And expect great things from God!
While this part of the book does not go on to outline “Course 401” – Discovering My Life Mission – with the Missions Covenant, it is noted earlier in the book (p.144).

Questions

  1. If someone asked what our church’s core values are at HBC, what would you answer?
  2. What aspects of you being welcomed and enabled to join the committed membership here at HBC do you feel are done well, and what aspects need to improve?
  3. How many friends do you feel you have within the church? Is HBC enabling friendships to develop enough?
  4. What courses, help and training do you feel we need to develop here in HBC, to enable people to gain spiritual maturity? What essential elements do you feel are missing or at least under-resourced here?
  5. What is my “S.H.A.P.E.”? What do we need to do in HBC to enable older and newer members to discover and use their gifts and experience, and enter the ministries that are right for them within the life of the fellowship, and indeed as Christians in the wider community?
  6. What would help us to be able to share our faith with those who are open to it?

Anthony Thacker

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Lent 2009