Read an Excerpt
The New Adapters
Shaping Ideas to Fit Your Congregation
By Jacob Armstrong, Adam Hamilton, Mike Slaughter Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2015 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63088-324-9
CHAPTER 1
THE VISION MUST FIT THE MISSION FIELD
God called me to be a missionary.
And then sent me to suburbia.
I was just sure God had somewhere exotic for me. Somewhere that would require one of those planes that land in the water to get there. I would probably have to wear an Indiana Jones hat. A beard would be a must. Rachel and I applied with a mission organization. We flew to Monterrey, Mexico, and saw where our placement would be. We cried as we considered how God might use us to reach that city with the love of Jesus.
We came home and told our parents, our kids, and our church that God was calling us to Mexico.
Then it all fell apart.
Everything that needed to happen for us to be able to go to Mexico unraveled before our eyes. Funding, language school admittance, denominational permissions. No, no, no.
I was confused.
Shortly after our last no (or not right now), I flew to the Church of the Resurrection for a denominational conference. While there I was approached by some leaders from my home conference who asked me if I had heard of the new church that was being proposed back in Tennessee.
I had not.
It would be in the Providence area of Mt. Juliet, a new urbanism development that would double the size of the city. "Have you heard of the area?" they asked.
I had. It was my hometown.
Then they told me I was being considered as the pastor to start it.
I was confused.
I got in my rented minivan (I drive a minivan all the time now, but back then it was a novelty) and went for a drive. I still remember the exit that I took off the interstate: Gardner, Kansas.
I pulled over and in a cornfield on the side of the road got on my knees and prayed. (I know it sounds Field of Dreams-ish; it was really kind of itchy.)
Why? I wondered. Why would God do all this missionary stuff in my heart? Why would God break my heart for Monterrey, Mexico? Why all of this if I am to go to my hometown and start a new church?
I heard God's voice in my heart say, Because I wanted you to have that heart for your town. I wanted you to cry over that city and instead you were on your way to becoming a fairly average religious professional. Well, I'm not sure God said it exactly like that, but that's what I heard.
Three months later I had moved and was the pastor of a new church with no name, no place to meet, and, oh yeah, no people.
It was a city that looked much different from Monterrey, Mexico. Financial poverty was harder to find; spiritual poverty was rampant. They spoke my language if I mean English, but they didn't speak Christianese or all the other church languages I had studied for so long. The people looked a lot like me, but they were diverse in the way they viewed God and in their experience of church.
What I realized is that I would have to learn from and listen to the people of Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, in much the same way I would have learned from and listened to the people of a foreign land.
I learned that I did in fact bring many preconceived notions of what they needed and what I wanted in a church. I learned that I knew them only slightly better than I knew the people of Monterrey, Mexico. I learned that a danger in church work is creating a church in my mind and assuming that it will fit the mission field to which I am assigned by God (and my denomination). I learned that no matter how savvy, well-read, and well-trained I may be, there is no substitute to learning, knowing, and loving the community to which I have been sent. The vision has to fit the mission field. I would have never dreamed of creating a worship service or a church experience in Mexico that fit my preferences. The music would have been indigenous, the dress would have fit the culture, and the language would have been understandable to the people of that place. Things that would in no way compromise the message would be shaped to fit the context. Adaptive work would be essential.
It is strange, then, that we regularly skip that step when we try to do ministry in areas where people look like us. One of the biggest mistakes I find in working with church planters and those starting new ministries in existing churches is when we create a vision that fits our preferences and likes and ignores those we are really trying to reach.
This usually happens when we skip the important step of listening to and learning from our community and simply create a cool experience for those we already have.
Listening to and Learning from Your Community
The vision must fit the mission field, and the first step to having this congruity is prayer. We must begin by asking God to show us what he sees in the communities to which we have been sent. When we get serious about reaching our communities, it is tempting to forget to pray. There is so much to do and there seems to be little time to do it in. When we become New Adapters who are willing to take risks and be courageous, one of the first things we often do is seek out ideas from the experts. We read the hottest books in church growth, missional church, evangelism—or whatever word is the buzz at the time—categories (thanks for reading this book by the way). We attend the conferences of the leading churches that we admire (this, too, is a good idea). And we forget to pray, like really pray.
First we should pray, and pray together. Nothing will substitute for a season of prayer among a group of Jesus followers who want to see God work in and transform their community. I am reminded of Nehemiah's prayer before he went to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall. Before he gathered his team and discussed tactics. Before he went to the king to ask permission. Before any of the action, he prayed. He mourned and fasted and prayed. There is no substitute for that spiritual work. It aligns our hearts and our ears and our eyes with what God wants us to do. So before you plan your worship service, before you discuss what to name it and who your drummer will be, ask God to give you a vision for your community and then ask God to give you ears to listen to your community. If possible, do this with a team of people who likewise want to see the church prevail in your town. I recommend these questions coming out of that season of prayer and discovery:
• What unique opportunities does your community present?
• What unique challenges does your community present?
• What are the hopes and dreams of the people in your community?
• What is breaking their hearts?
• What is breaking God's heart?
• What is unique about what you (your church) have to offer to your community?
When we were forming the people who would become Providence Church, we spent some time listening. Some months. Before we talked about worship style or where we would meet or what we would be called (exciting things that can be very distracting in forming something new), we listened.
We walked through the grocery store and through the neighborhoods on Sunday mornings at 10:00 a.m. (the hour most churches in the area met). If we truly wanted to reach people who weren't in church, well then who were these people and what were they doing? We rolled our windows down at the stoplights and listened to what type of music they were listening to. (Surprisingly, we heard no organ music. I know, it hurts.)
I learned quickly that my community wasn't as trendy as I had originally envisioned my new church to be. If I had mentally designed a cutting-edge church (and I had) in music, dress, and appearance, then I had been sent to the wrong place. I was not in a reclaimed urban area where hipsters were buying old run-down homes and visiting farmer's markets. I was in suburban America, where soccer and minivans abound (yes, I bought one). As we began to pray for and over our community, our hearts were turned toward who they were, not what we wanted to do.
Before we choose our tactics, we have to listen. The church planter from the 1980s will tell you to knock on every door in the neighborhood. The 1990s church growth expert would have you gather two dozen people to call everyone in the phone book. The early 2000s pastor would swear by the mass mailing that sends tens of thousands of postcards with smiling faces on them to every mailbox. Today, many neighborhoods prohibit soliciting, people don't have a home phone, and most of us throw away junk mail without looking at it. This is not to say these strategies shouldn't be employed, but learn your community before you start wasting time and money. All of these tactics have the same beautiful goal at heart: reaching new people for Christ and connecting them with the church we still believe in. But the difficult work you have been given is discovering how this can be done in your unique context.
I think this may be the most important work that New Adapters do. There was a time when the church sought to have the biggest voice in the community. We built a big sanctuary so everyone could hear our theologically sound preaching. We even built schools where all the children of the community could come. We had long hallways of educational space for adults so they could hear our sound doctrine. Today, though, I believe a key adaptation for a church that appears to be dying will be to move from the megaphone model of ministry where we are speaking all the right things to our people to putting the megaphone in our ear and listening real hard to what the people are saying. Of course what we have to say is of critical importance, but there come times when key adaptations are needed, and now is a time where listening must come first. Thomas Edison coined the term megaphone in 1878 with a new device to benefit the deaf and hard of hearing. The first megaphone was actually three funnels. Two funnels that were over six feet long were inserted in the ear to aid hearing. The third, a smaller one, fit the mouth to project the voice. We must move our megaphone from our mouths to our ears, at least long enough to hear what the people are saying.
In our listening and learning process we looked at demographic studies. It is not hard to acquire pages and pages of information on your community. These are not without merit. We learned that 33 percent of the people in our community are eighteen and under. This would shape how we thought about church and what we would do to reach out to our community. Make sure you include this type of study in your learning and listening stage, but don't stop there.
The true discovery of your context will not be found in a printout; it will be found as you live and breathe in it. Spend time in the coffee shops and beyond. Quick caution here: most of the time the people hanging out in coffee shops are pastors. Usually when I try to spark conversation with someone in a coffee shop who I think might be a prospect for our church, the potential convert ends up being a pastor! But the idea of visiting the "third places" in our community is key to learning your context. Every community has places for informal gathering outside the workplace and the home. Seek these places out. It may be the dog park, the softball fields, or the breakfast café. You need to know these places and frequent them. We still take time to send our staff out to our third places to listen and take notes. What do people look like? How do they dress? What are they talking about? Eavesdrop!
I often find church planters paralyzed by the idea of hanging out in coffee shops and trying to grow a church by meeting people in public places. While I recommend being friendly and learning the names of the folks you encounter in your community, I don't think walking up to a stranger in Starbucks is the best way to meet new people. In a changing culture, New Adapters have to learn the best ways to encounter new people and form real relationships that lead to deep connections. We must take the time to form the kinds of relationships that allow us to invite people to encounter God.
A great way of doing this is identifying and meeting with people of peace. This technique employed in African church planting today is adapted from the teaching of Jesus about going out into the community and listening. When Jesus sent out the Seventy-Two into the neighborhoods to knock on doors and hand out brochures about the church (or something like that), he recommended looking for people of peace. "Whenever you enter a house, first say, 'May peace be on this house.' If anyone there shares God's peace, then your peace will rest on that person. If not, your blessing will return to you. Remain in this house, eating and drinking whatever they set before you" (Luke 10:57a). Instead of standing on the corner with a megaphone preaching in the hopes of drawing a crowd, look for people who, as Jesus says, "share God's peace." Every community has them. People who are connected with others in a peaceful way. Our church grew rapidly when we connected with one person who immediately connected us with twelve more. One example was connecting with the leader of a local moms' group. This group met once a week for much needed socialization for the mothers and play for the young children. These are the types of interactions that many new moms find in their church home. The moms' group was mostly women who didn't have a church home. Connecting with just one young mother in this group led to a dozen eventually coming to our church. You will learn about your community from the people of peace, the connectors, the leaders in your community. Find them, spend time with them, learn from them.
We also learn about our community by learning from other churches. No doubt there are other churches in your community that are being effective in reaching people. As we will discuss later in the book, we can't ignore the opportunities we have to connect with other Christians in our community. You can learn from them what they have already learned. You can learn why a Saturday service won't work or why a ministry to single people is a must.
There are many ways to listen to and learn from your community. These are just a few. But before we think about ways to shape ministry and adapt, we have to understand who we are trying to reach.
In short, we can't out-cool ourselves by becoming intoxicated on cutting-edge ideas or ministries that appeal to us. I often see Mike preach in jeans, Adam in a robe, and Olu Brown in a coat and tie. The message coming out of their mouths is the same. But they have been careful to adapt themselves to speak in a way that people can understand.
Olu Brown founded Impact Church in Atlanta in 2007. Atlanta had no lack of churches, but what Olu and his team sought to do was different. In fact, "doing church differently" became a mantra for them as they sought to reach people who weren't currently in church while also seeking to transform the community. What impressed me so much about Olu and Impact was their deep desire to reach people in their community where they are. They did not construct a church that fit their ideals and preferences but instead did the difficult work of carefully crafting worship, outreach events, and discipleship ministries that fit their unique urban Atlanta context. Impact does a lot of innovative and fun ministry, but their desire to do things differently really is the desire to do whatever it takes to reach the people God has called them to reach. This means that no matter where they have met, a public school, a major conference center, and now their beautifully renovated building, they have kept the vision that was forged through careful listening to and participation in the city of Atlanta.
As a church planter, Lia McIntosh had a vision in her mind of the kind of church she wanted to start in Kansas City. After coming to the community, though, and learning the needs of the people, she realized her expectations would have to change. After worshipping in a gym for nine months and hosting community outreach events—carnivals, sports programs, festivals, and so on—Lia found that people weren't showing up for church. Hundreds would come to a community event, but nobody came to her church. They would say, "We love your events, but where is your church?" "Well," she would say, "Church is right here in the gym." But they didn't feel it. For them, church could not be church in a school gym, no matter what Lia did to church up the environment. The congregation finally relocated into an existing church building where the congregation had dwindled and the church had been closed. The building was gifted to the new church. Then—finally—people started to show up. Lia says the biggest lesson they learned was they had "to be humble and willing to not have all the answers." My church has grown in school gyms, but Lia's context called for something different. Because she listened, she was able to adapt to reach the people in her community.
So, we must take the vision that we feel God has given us (our hopes and dreams for ministry) and the reality of the context that we learn from a season of listening (contextual reality) and discern a faithful purpose for our work there (a vision that fits the mission field).
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The New Adapters by Jacob Armstrong, Adam Hamilton, Mike Slaughter. Copyright © 2015 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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