Christian, nondenominational.

That’s how I’ve always defined myself. From childhood, through college, and for all of my years in ministry, I have always attended nondenominational churches. My churches have been a part of networks (like the Willow Creek Association, or the Alliance for Renewal Churches, with which Ember was associated), but never a denomination. Now, however, Breena and I attend LifePoint Church, which happens to be part of the Southern Baptist Convention. I’m certain that God finds this hilarious.

Today at LifePoint we had the privilege of hosting the SBC-Ohio’s annual evangelism and church planting conference, called Momentum. There were four plenary speakers, David Uth of First Baptist Orlando, Phil Hotsenpiller of Influence Church, Tony Merida of Imago Dei Church, and Michael Catt of Sherwood Baptist Church. (Sherwood is the church that produced the films Courageous, Fireproof, and Facing the Giants.) There were also several workshops, including one by my old friend Matt Pardi of H2O Church in Bowling Green, and another by Shane Tucker, the Worship & Arts Pastor (and my boss) at LifePoint.

I wasn’t planning on “attending” the conference because I was really there to work, but I did get to sit in on just about everything, so I really felt like an attendee. The first highlight for me was Tony Merida’s message, which was so good I pulled out my notebook and started taking notes. He was talking about endurance, and he made the excellent point that grace is the means of endurance. “If you are fatigued,” he continued, “then you are an excellent candidate for grace.” I am fatigued. My wife is fatigued. Like all parents of kids with special needs, we’re exhausted in just about every way you can imagine–physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, relationally. We’re just tired. It was restorative, if even in just a tiny way, to hear Tony say those words. On the flip side of that, though, I was challenged when he said, “It takes great discipline to be a pastor.” Ouch.

The second highlight was Phil Hotsenpiller’s breakout session on transformational discipleship. (I only went to this session because Shane wouldn’t let me go to his on Creative Process. I’m pretty sure he didn’t want me in there because he was going to be dogging on me the whole time.) My takeaway from this teaching was that it’s vital to challenge the minds of men. So much of what Phil said on this point resonated with me because getting people to think more deeply, more critically, and more creatively is a major driving force in all of my communication, whether on this blog, through the preaching I did at Ember, or the teaching I did while at Heritage. Using a teaching on Satan as an example of how he disciples men, Phil asked some very good questions that pretty much blew my mind, but he did it in the same way that I try to approach the Scriptures. The point he was getting at is that men need to be challenged, particularly intellectually, because they’ll get bored after 3 years of church. Amen, brother.

I really enjoyed my time at the conference, and know that God used it to speak to me in several ways. After attending a church planting conference, I’m surprised to find that I’m not jonesing to get back out there and plant again. It’s not that I don’t want to plant another church or be a lead pastor again; it’s that I know that the time is coming, but it’s not now. Even stranger, I’m totally content with that, which is how I know that God has me right where he wants me. This conference was wonderful to take in as an attendee/worker, but it also confirmed the contentment I’m currently experiencing as I pursue God in this pulpitless season of my life.

What’s next? I don’t know. But I’m happy to have spent the day with the Southern Baptists.

When I decided to go ahead with planting Ember Church in the fall of 2010, I was overwhelmed by the process. I knew there was a lot of work to be done, but I didn’t know where to start. I found a lot of books on church planting, but couldn’t tell which ones were good and which ones weren’t. I tried judging those books by their covers, but this turned out to be a bad idea. The old saying is true after all, I suppose.

It wasn’t until several months into the process that I finally picked up The Nuts and Bolts of Church Planting by Aubrey Malphurs, and I immediately wished I had read this book sooner. This book is exactly what it says it is: the nuts and bolts of a project that can often seem overwhelmingly complex and about as solid as water. Malphurs helps the reader get his hands on and head around the process of church planting.

The Nuts and Bolts of Church Planting demystifies the church planting process and gives new church planters (like myself) a plan and some solid direction for accomplishing their end of this task. He simplifies the ministry of the new church down to the overall mission of the Church, which is to make disciples. Keeping this mission in the front of your mind, regardless of how you frame it for your church, will keep you on track as you trudge through the difficult phase of church planning and planting.

As somebody who is doing this right now, I can’t think of a better book to give to church planters than Aubrey Malphurs’ The Nuts and Bolts of Church Planting. It’s simple, practical, readable, and comes with an abundance of support material (16 appendices!) to help guide you through this difficult process. If you’re thinking about planting a church, read this book first. If you’re on a church plant team, get it for your pastor! The more time you spend with this book, the more time you will save and the more frustration you will avoid in the church planting process.

The only bland thing about Wolfgang Simson’s The House Church Book is the title. From the first page he confronts the reader with a passionate and prophetic call for the Church to return to its biblical and first-century roots of form and expression. Whether you agree with him or not (and you’re likely to find yourself shouting “Amen!” on one page and crying foul on the next), Simson offers a compelling vision for how to move the Western Church forward.

Between the preface and the introduction you’ll find Simson’s “15 Theses Toward a Re-Incarnation of Church”, which is as rich and challenging as anything else in the book. Here are three of my favorites:

• Christianity is a way of life, not a series of religious meetings. “The nature of church is not reflected in a constant series of religious meetings led by professional clergy in holy places especially reserved to experience Jesus. Rather, it is mirrored in the prophetic way followers of Christ live their everyday lives in spiritual extended families, as vivid answers to the questions that society asks, and in the place where it counts most—in their homes.” (xiii-xiv)
• Time to change the “cathegogue system.” “The historic Orthodox and Catholic Church—that existed after Constantine in the fourth century—developed and adopted a religious system based on two elements: a Christian version of the Old Testament Temple—the cathedral—and a worship pattern styled after the Jewish synagogue. …Until today nobody has really changed the system. The time to do that has now arrived.” (xiv)
• A church is led by more than a pastor. “A pastor (shepherd) is an important member of the whole team, but he cannot fulfill more than part of the task of equipping the saints for the ministry. He has to be complemented synergistically by the other four ministries [of Ephesians 4:11] in order to function properly.” (xvi)

The two major themes of Simson’s book are: 1) The shift from organized to organic church, and 2) The application of the fivefold ministry (from Ephesians 4:11) to the leadership structure of the local church. These two themes come up again and again as he advocates for a smaller and broader church structure, one that is worked out, not in cathedrals or auditoriums or “sancti-nasiums”, but in living rooms and dining rooms and backyards.

As you have probably deduced from the book’s title, Simson advocates a return to the house church format, one that he believes is biblical and consistent with God’s intended plan for the Church. Shifting from megachurches to house churches is the shift from organized to organic church. Something happens, he says, when a group exceeds twenty people—it becomes an organization. “In many cultures twenty is the maximum number of people in a group that still feels like ‘family.’ Groups of this size and smaller still feel organic and informal, without the need to become formal or organized.” (3) Growing larger than twenty requires an artificial organizational structure be placed around the organism, which “chokes it, conditions it, and ultimately prevents relational and spontaneous fellowship.” (4)

What happens when your group exceeds twenty members? Time to multiply! It is through multiplication that the organic church grows—a model Simson sees working out in creation itself. The growth potential of the organic house church far outpaces that of the current megachurch, much like a rabbit can vastly out-birth an elephant. The numbers are staggering, as Simson estimates that a multiplying house church of 12 people can, by multiplying each church once per year over a period of 20 years with an attrition rate of 25% every 5 years, grow to over 165,000 house churches with nearly 2,000,000 people attending. (59)

The key to this growth is “the fivefold ministry” of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. One person cannot play all five of these roles, but the church desperately needs all five in order to be a healthy, multiplying body. Their task, according to Ephesians 4, is to equip the church to do the actual work of the ministry. “They are to be evangelistic, prophetic, teaching, pastoral, and apostolic trainers—not demonstrators, teachers, or one-man shows. An evangelist’s true fruit is not a convert, but more evangelists.” (62) The problem we have today, he warns, is that “instead of equipping God’s people for the ministry, [these people] are performing it for them.” (62) The solution is to change the leadership model from CEO to parent. “Leadership in the way we are used to seeing it in the business, political, or religious world is not really a biblical concept. But leadership in the form of parenthood is. After all, God is not simply a leader; He is a father.” (63)

Simson is calling for a reformation of structure—what he calls the Third Reformation. Our current models will continue to frustrate God’s plan for the Church. In order for the gospel to get bigger, the Church must get smaller. In order for believers to grow (and therefore their churches to grow), they must be exposed to the spiritual parenting of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. “Many Christians have reached a plateau in their lives because they have never really been exposed to the exciting variety of these ministries and are instead sitting ‘under’ the ministry of a one-size-fits-all ‘pastor,’ who is trying to embody all of the ministries himself. Many such pastors burn out quickly, and many traditional congregations are left wondering why things aren’t moving.” (70)

According to Wolfgang Simson, the way forward for the Church in the twenty-first century is to look back to our brothers and sisters in the first century and find in their congregational models God’s intended plan for his people. As long as we try to grow our congregations large, the individual Christians and the gospel itself will remain small.

Questions: Is the house church model the God-ordained, biblical model of Church for all places and all times? How do small groups in large churches succeed or fail to live up to the house church model? Is the single-leader, pyramid structure of church leadership an acceptable model for God’s people? Is the fivefold ministry for today? If so, how would it look if it were implemented in your church?

Greg was as involved in the life of the church as anybody. He faithfully attended services. He served behind the scenes. He was involved in a small group. He even brought his friends and helped lead some to Christ. And then he was gone. Angry. Disappointed. Deeply hurt. And now Greg is the most ardent atheist I know.

It seems that our local churches are responsible for more hurt than healing. Whether that’s true or not, there are an awful lot of Gregs out there. Hurt. Bitter. Even to the point of unbelief. I’m sure we can all think of a Greg or two in our own lives.

Stephen Mansfield’s book ReChurch attempts to address those who have been burned by churches. With humor and common sense, he offers a tough love approach for people who have been victimized by a vindictive pastor, a controlling elder board, or a judgmental congregation. Though it may not be best-suited for folks like my friend Greg, who have taken their pain and turned it into a reason to not believe, ReChurch is an excellent book for those who are in the process of dealing with their church hurt.

Mansfield’s approach is that of a coach rather than a counselor. He is primarily concerned with what you do now that you’ve been hurt. How do you move on from here? He gives practical advice for how to forgive those who have wounded you. He takes a common sense approach to learning the lessons of the experience and finding wholeness after. He’s tough. There is no coddling here. He doesn’t tell you it was all their fault and you’re blameless in the affair. He encourages you to look into your own heart and find your contribution to the mess.

For the victims of church dysfunction, these words may be hard to hear. When we’re licking our wounds we want to be reassured that we’re perfectly innocent. It wasn’t our fault. We were just walking along, whistling a hymn and enjoying God’s creation, when we were blindsided by a pastor’s betrayal, harsh criticism from the elders, or rejection from a key church member.

But Mansfield won’t let you go there. The first question he tells you to ask as you begin your healing process is: “Of the things your critics said, what do you now know to be true?” (67) Sure your critics were mean. But were they right? Even just a little? ReChurch is full of difficult moments like this because Mansfield is convinced that our self-justification is keeping us from redemption and restoration.

This book is not what I thought it was going to be. I expected a book about how to deal with difficult people who happen to be pastors, how to navigate church conflict, or even how to survive the realization that your church (and the people in it) aren’t perfect. Thankfully, ReChurch is about none of those things, because none of that would help you to heal and eventually re-engage in church. What Stephen Mansfield gives us in ReChurch is a long look in the mirror at our own contributions to our church-related pain and a strong exhortation to forgive those who hurt us. This, he says, is the path to redemption and restoration.

Questions: Have you ever left a church because you were hurt, or known someone who has? Where are you with that pain, now? Do you think you were justified in leaving, or do you regret it? How do you counsel others dealing with church-related pain?

Maybe I was 12 years old. Or 13. Either way, I was deeply entrenched in the most awkward phase of my life when my giant Greek youth pastor, Mike Sares, asked me and a friend to appear with him on television. Our task was to prerecord a series of introductions for Christian music videos that would play at 4:00 in the morning on the local NBC affiliate. I was extremely nervous. It was the ‘90s. We didn’t get multiple takes. It was bad. “That was great,” Mike lied.

Shortly after that, Mike left Toledo for Denver. I hope it wasn’t because he realized that nobody in the youth group had the potential to become an on-air personality. If I had told him then that I would go on to graduate from Ohio State with a degree in Theatre and become a preacher, he probably would have looked at me askance and said in his deep voice, “Hmmm.”

Mike’s new book, Pure Scum, is the story of Scum of the Earth Church, which he started with a small gathering of young adults (including the late ska band Five Iron Frenzy) in downtown Denver. On the back cover of the book, the bio says that Mike “was hoodwinked by the Holy Spirit into pastoring the folks who became Scum of the Earth Church in Denver”. Hoodwinked by the Holy Spirit. That sounds about right.

They call it “church for the left-out and the right brained”. They reach out to Goths, punks, skaters and the homeless in the heart of Denver. They share a meal in the middle of their church service every Sunday night. They sent out my friend Joshua and his new bride Liann in a converted veggie-oil bus/mobile home to share the love of Jesus all over the country. This is how they do church; and it’s beautiful, authentic, and life-changing.