What are we telling prospective missionaries and church planters?

I saw that a couple of young guys from the area I used to live were putting on a church planter workshop on Best Practices from the Frontlines of Church Planting and Church Leadership. I think their intentions are golden;and because of the denomination they’re coming from,I’m pretty certain it’s a good-will,Great Commission thing for them.  But looking over the schedule for the training gave me an opportunity to think through what I stand for.  And this post gives me an opportunity to verbally process it.

I have a problem with that phrase,“Best Practices,”but not for the reason why most would think.  In the secular business and leadership world,“best practices”is a buzz phrase for success-guaranteeing self-improvement based on reverse-engineering past “successful”corporations and their leaders. That is the backdrop of the vocabulary,and it fits the tee for the training billing.   As for content,they were sharing “best practices”of church planters in an attractional model that “worked”for them:how to get people to invite friends,how to gain traction,how to engage in your community,how to raise your family while planting,how to use vision to create culture,etc.  Though this is likely setting up all these attendees for some level of disappointment,let’s give a free pass on that and forget the potentially problematic promise of success in following a particular ministry formula.  My problem is actually more substantial than that.

It boils down to this:emphasis on best practices comes at the expense of what SHOULD be (yet isn’t) emphasized:GODLY CHARACTER-FORMATION.  Given the journey God has me on,I was sad to see that there was only one mention of anything touching the planter’s personal life:“dealing with hidden barriers in from our personal lives that prevent growth.” Just one personal life reference!  This is sadly disproportionate to its actual importance in spirituality,community and mission.  The funny thing is,since I left vocational pastoral ministry a year ago,God has been almost exclusively bringing up personal life issues in me that got passed over,unquestioned or excused since I was “the guy in charge.” I am learning that who we are in Christ is everything.  It is the foundation of all sectors of our lives in a way that our definition of the gospel,our theology,our ministry practices,our giftedness,our resources just never will be.   So I’m saddened to hear so much emphasis on practices and not on personal transformation.  From my point of view,most people who don’t last in ministry are not experiencing problems with inadequate methodology or practices.  They are experiencing blatant problems with their character and the infection that spreads in their relationships as a result.   Everyone says personal transformation is so important.  Everyone acknowledges that the bulk of Jesus’teaching from the Sermon on the Mount is about personal character in the Kingdom,but,strangely,no one is teaching that.  Instead,people are teaching breakout sessions on how to have rockin’worship,killer kids’ministry,can’t miss Sunday experiences,infrastructural systems and support raising.  Many of you know what I’m talking about.  We’ve seen it,been there,done that,and even taught it to others (Lord,have mercy.).

Even in CPM (Church Planting Movements) circles,I detect a similar pattern.  It’s not attractional,and the content substantially differs,but the emphasis is the same:reproducible PRACTICES and METHODOLOGY.   I think it’s a heck-of-a-lot better than the “launching large”stuff,but it still misses the part about WHO WE ARE.   Is there really anything more reproducible in practice and in real life than who we are?   Nothing has showed me this better than being a parent of three young children.  Anyone who is a parent knows that we ALWAYS reproduce mini-versions of ourselves.  I can “teach”my kids something through my words,but they will mostly imitate who I am and what they observe in me when I don’t realize I’m teaching “off-the-clock.” OUR CHILDREN ALWAYS LOOK AND ACT LIKE US –down to voice,tone,look,feeling,gestures…EVERYTHING!   The same is true with spiritual parenting.  Ever wonder why we cannot take someone where we haven’t been despite how hard we try? Whether we know it or not,we reproduce and clone ourselves.   And so our disciples will only go so far as we’ve come.  It’s pervasive and trans-cultural.  I know the religious answer is going to be,“we should clone Jesus–not ourselves,”but that’s naive and fails to understand the incarnational spiritual parenting dynamic that is so prevalent in the Scriptures —the very dynamic that had Paul say to take note of Timothy and Epaphroditus,to imitate him as he imitated Christ,and to tell Timothy to follow his example,pattern and teachings and pass it on to others who will do the same.  We disciple people through the filter of who we are.**    My concern about teaching BEST PRACTICES is that it completely bypasses who we are —as if doing the right things will lead to success and great fruit.  But when does that ever happen in real life,let alone ministry?  I think real life and the wisdom literature of Scripture show us a world where cause-and-effect is less operative than we care to admit.

So once again,I ask:why is this not being shared?  Or to flip the question,would prospective planters,pastors and missionaries really want to hear this?  Would they really want to hear that everyone may desert you,that you will be the “scum of the earth,”that you will have a laundry list of suffering and near death experiences,and that there is no security or accolades AT ALL in what you’re doing?   This,in my reading of apostolic ministry,is at the heart of the apostolic experience.

But don’t take my word for it.  Listen to an older,wiser brother of ours,Guy Muse,who has lived longer in a foreign land than on American soil.  He is someone who is “from the frontlines of church planting and church leadership.”  In his latest post,he talks about the inevitability of suffering for anyone wanting to follow Jesus or lead others to follow Jesus (in an apostolic way).    I wish more people like Guy were sharing this message;and I wish more young men and women were listening.

** –Even in attractional models,this is true.  When I was teaching up a storm as a pastor in the first organized church I planted,everyone’s spirituality and sociality was like mine:intense about the same things but also passive about the same things.   One day,after several years at it,I realized that the congregation was a reflection of myself —for better and for worse.   “Remote discipleship”in the attractional setting does not bypass that spiritual multiplication dynamic.  D.N.A. is D.N.A.  It always gets reproduced.