So if you’ve ever wondered how to plant a church, here’s everything you need to know in just 3 minutes.

This was the card we created and gave to every firefighter along with the meal we served them (if you’re interested in doing something like this, leave a comment below and I’ll email you the graphics for this card so you can print them off).

After one of our luncheons, the firefighters asked us if we wanted a ride in a firetruck. Uhh, of course!!

It was pretty sweet rolling through our neighborhood in a huge ladder truck. I found an extra helmet to put on to add to the “cool factor.”

The kids loved hanging out with the firefighters and learning all about their job and equipment.

All in all we were able to connect personally with and serve meals to all 50 men and women in all the shifts of our Westfield Fire Department over 3 days. These guys are the real deal. It was so much fun hanging out with them and thanking them for everything they do to keep our community safe.

Have you had a chance to participate in any kind of outreach to the civil servants in your community? What did you do?

We showed one of the videos we filmed when I spoke this past weekend at Life Bridge Church and the other two are getting some final tweaks. I was thrilled with how they turned out and can’t wait to share them with you!

In the meantime, here’s a few photos “on the set” of our first Imagine Church film shoot:

And here are a few stills from the finished video:

Can’t wait to share the rest with you!

“So Jesus returned to the boat and left, crossing back to the other side of the lake. The man who had been demon possessed begged to go, too, but Jesus said, “No, go back to your family and tell them all the wonderful things God has done for you.” So he went all through the city telling about the great thing Jesus had done for him.” Luke 8:37-39

With each of the 12 disciples, he told them, “follow me” and yet this man who had been healed by Jesus and begged to go with him was sent away. As a casual reader we look at this story and understand why Jesus did this. He wanted the story of the gospel spread far and wide and realized that this man was better suited to be an evangelist than a disciple.

But put yourself in Jesus’ shoes sandals for  minute. Just a few verses earlier his disciples – who had seen Jesus perform many miracles and had been personally mentored under his leadership – completely freaked out in the middle of a storm. You can hear the exasperation in Jesus’ voice when he asks them, “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25).

So here is this man who owes his life to Jesus and is begging him to follow him and become his disciple. Let’s say that you’re Jesus – you’ve been kicked out of towns, viewed by large crowds as a mere source of entertainment and miracles and even your own disciples haven’t figured you out yet – why the heck wouldn’t you want to attract some new disciples? Maybe this guy, after having experienced Christ’s healing power first-hand, will be able to show a little more faith and backbone than the 12 guys quivering in the bottom of the boat.

And yet Jesus sent him away.

As leaders, we have to remember that sometimes God will send us followers to help us in our journey. But sometimes, He will send us people – maybe even very talented and qualified people – that we will have to send out into their own ministry. That can be a painful decision, especially when good leaders are in short supply.

It’s all about building and growing God’s kingdom, not our own. Some will follow us, others will be sent out to attract followers of their own.

When God sends you an amazing leader that you have to send away, can you do it?

In the traditional understanding of the church today in Western culture, the church is a physical building, a place where people go to “do church” – whatever that means. It’s most commonly held on Sunday mornings and it’s “what you do” if you’re a Christian or fulfilling spiritual obligations.

We’ve taken this institution of the church and have dressed it up to make it attractive as we can to unbelievers. We use edgy marketing techniques to get people there and incorporate cool creative service styles and current music to keep them once they’ve come (none of which I have a problem with by the way). Most every week the pastoral staff or creative team sits down to evaluate the service and plan future messages. We ask tough questions about how effective our greeters were in making people feel welcome, how smooth the transitions were during the service and how many people made professions of faith. I wonder though, how often in these meetings do churches ask what I believe is the critical question, “How are we doing at making disciples?”

You see, nowhere in the Bible do you see Jesus telling his disciples to start churches. He does, however, give them a mandate to “go into all the world and MAKE DISCIPLES.” (Matthew 28:19) Disciple-making is our ultimate benchmark of success as a church – not attendance, offering, or even salvations for that matter (there’s a big difference between a person who has made a profession of faith and a disciple).

When our first priority becomes getting people to go to church instead of making disciples we are missing the heart of what Jesus called us to do. Where along the way did we lose sight of our true calling? We’ve become great at starting churches that people want to go to. We have it down to a science. There are books and conferences for ways to enhance our creativity and pump up our services. Don’t get me wrong, I love creative service planning more than anyone and I want to see many people come through the doors of our church but I DON’T WANT THEM TO STAY THERE. I want them to move from Sunday morning worshipper to full-on disciples of Jesus, walking close enough to be covered in the his dust (if you haven’t already check out the amazing Nooma video called “Dust” about discipleship).

Disciples aren’t made on Sunday mornings. They can’t be manufactured through well-crafted programs. They are grown through intentional relationships with people who pour their lives into someone else and then teach them to do the same.

I love the church and I’m passionate about seeing it impact our culture but it’s a means to the end, not the end in itself. I’m planting a church in order to make disciples, not attenders. I’m excited about planting this church but I’m committed to growing disciples.

As we’ve spent time talking to people who aren’t currently in a church today, I’ve found many reasons for their lack of spiritual development – busyness of life, irrelevant messages, bad experiences. And of course, there’s the age-old turn-off: money.

We in the church have gotten quite good at asking for it. We’ve written books and created consultants to help us ask better and get more of it. We cloak the ask behind Christianese lingo by calling it a “Capital Stewardship Campaign” to make it sound less like what it really is: asking people for money.

Before I get any further, let me emphasize a couple of things. First of all, we need to be generous people in the church and give back to God what He has so richly blessed us with in both tithes and offerings. Second, there is nothing wrong with building church buildings or even stewardship campaigns for that matter.

That being said, I wonder if some churches would be better “stewards” of their “capital” by downsizing instead of upgrading? Do we really need a bigger structure or do we, perhaps, need to multiply to reach our city through multiple smaller communities of faith?

Sadly, many churches, in an attempt to reach more people, built large, elaborate structures that they are now dragging like a ball and chain behind them. Instead of opening up new opportunities for ministry, they have found that their ministry now consists of making desperate appeals on Sunday to bring enough in to pay the utilities.

Steve McSwain, a former minister turned religious skeptic, said in a column in the Huffington Post:

Go into many churches today, and instead of finding an institution interested in saving the world, what you may find is an institution vastlymore interested in saving itself.

Ouch.

While 40 million people died of starvation in the last decade, churches spent $10 billion on campuses. I just have to wonder, is there a better way to be the church today? How can we have built more churches over the last 50 years than any other country in the world and yet still be growing slower than countries where churches where hundreds of thousands of people meet in homes and portable structures?

Again, because I know that this is a sensitive topic let me again make it clear, I am not in any way condemning or pointing fingers at churches with large buildings. Some of my favorite churches to attend while travelling have multi-million dollar structures with projectors that cost more than my house. Some have even found ways of utilizing their building resources throughout the week.

I’m not in any way saying large buildings = bad and small portable churches = good.  I just worry that we’ve lost sight of what it takes to reach the unreached here in America. Have we made it difficult it is to find God among our theatrically lit stage and sprawling campuses? Has our need to pay the electric bill overtaken our need to reach the lost in our community? Do the people we’re called to reach come before the programs we build to get them there?

I don’t have the answers but I do know that these are the kinds of questions we need to be asking more of to find them.

Your thoughts?

While I’m not negating the need to cast a compelling vision, I wonder if we’ve perhaps placed too much emphasis on getting people to follow our vision instead of finding ways to help them achieve theirs? Erwin McManus, always the wordsmith, says it much better than I could:

We need to reclaim the movement of Jesus Christ – it’s not the place where people are forced to conform and be standardized, but a place where people are seen as unique and find their originality in Jesus Christ. I think those of us who have been entrusted as followers of Jesus must not simply cast vision and call people to it. We must create visional environments where those who work with us and serve under us have their dreams and visions ignited and set free.

Erwin McManus

Creating “visional environments” is a whole lot messier than simply casting great vision. It means that we need to spend time listening to those who serve alongside and under us. It means we need to discover their buried dreams and hidden passions and find ways to cultivate them.

The strongest leaders, I believe, are the ones who can cast a vision for their team that allows everyone’s dream to grow and flourish, not just the leader’s. Regardless of your opinions about Obama, this one quote he made during his campaign sums up that kind of leadership perfectly: “I’m asking you to believe – not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington – I’m asking you to believe in yours.”

Your thoughts?

Like I said, I’ve observed a lot of different leadership models for new churches but one in particular intrigued me. There’s a church I’ve gotten to know where two pastors share the leadership responsibilities equally as co-pastors. If you would have asked me three years ago I would have said this model couldn’t work and might have even quoted something I’d heard repeatedly, “Anything with more than one head is a monster.” And yet I’ve seen this co-leadership model work quite well for this church.

A couple of disclaimers. First, I should note that both of these guys have been friends and worked together for over 10 years. After working together that long you’re definitely aware of any quirks or personality traits that could de-rail the relationship. Second, as with other models, this setup doesn’t work everywhere. As a matter of fact I would venture to say that they’re probably more of an exception to the rule. There’s a reason you don’t see many organizations with two CEOs.

And yet this leadership setup has intrigued me. Here are two guys who are each working together and playing to each others strengths to create a powerful leadership duo. The one is a big-picture visionary, eccentric, dynamic leader while the other is a former accountant, systems guy who keeps them grounded in reality and helps create a framework for implementing the big dreams they come up with.

As I was thinking about them the other day I had a hilarious mental picture of Bert and Ernie planting a church. On their own, each has their own quirks. Ernie was slightly crazy, carefree and obsessed with his rubber ducky. Bert was like the more mature older brother who helped balance out some of Ernie’s goofiness.

Regardless of the model you utilize in your church or organization there’s something to be said about finding people to complement your strengths. The best leaders surround themselves with high-level people who are skilled in areas that they aren’t. They look for strengths they lack in their leadership and personality make-up and then find people who can thrive in those areas.

Leaders who try to lead from their strengths without finding people to complement them in the areas where they’re weak will soon discover it’s about as challenging as running a race with only one leg.

Like Bert and Ernie. On their own, they each have their quirks but they’re great together, aren’t they?

Are you a Bert? or an Ernie?
Can you think of any Bert and Ernie leadership models you’ve seen? How do they work?

Of course, most churches would never call another church “the competition” outright. It’s just more of an unspoken posturing, the unconscious “sizing up” that happens when you see an ad for another church or read about a special event they’re hosting.

Sure, we know that we’re all on the same team but we don’t always play that way, do we? Especially when a new church pops up down the road that might pull some of “our” people?

Some churches get it though. Pastor Jeff Moore and First Presbyterian Church in Aurora, Illinois made this video to play at the grand opening of a new church launching in their community.

[ht: Todd Rhodes & Dave Ferguson]

I love this. Instead of feeling threatened or worrying how many people they were going to “lose” they celebrated the win of another church coming along side them to help them serve their community.

Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?

It was easy to get excited about the service just by walking in. CityCom secured the Indianapolis Central Library as their church location, probably one of the coolest venues I’ve ever been in for a portable church.

As soon as we walked up the steps and into the library we were welcomed by a team of happy greeters  directing us where to go. They were friendly, but not too friendly. By too friendly, I mean the kind of friendly where 15 people converge on you, hug you and act like you’re their long-lost brother. If you’ve ever been to a church like that you know what I’m talking about.

The kick-off series was called Imagine. The creative team did a great job of weaving musical and video elements into the morning from the opening notes of Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ on the keys in the beginning of worship to a video clip from the original Willy Wonka movie.

Worship was energetic and powerful. Songs like God of This City, while overplayed at some churches, were very appropriate in the worship set and sung with passion by the worship team who clearly believed that, “greater things are still to be done in this city.”

The launch team understands the value of today’s technology and utilized social networking tools like Facebook, Tokbox and Twitter in the weeks prior to the launch to help generate anticipation.

I’m so excited to see how God is going to use City Community Church to impact downtown Indianapolis in the weeks and months ahead and look forward to making it back very soon.