Uncool People Need Jesus Too
UPDATE: This post was ill-advised on not written well. I’ve written a follow up to it that explains more of what I was trying to say – please go read it first and then read the original post.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE UPDATE FIRST.
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Through my work with the Acts 29 Network, I get the privilege of assessing a number of potential church planters each year. I also get to hear about dozens more from fellow pastors as well. When I guy comes in to get assessed, by the time he gets to the interview stage he’s already submitted a lot of paperwork. Resumes. Plans. Budgets. Demographic Analysis. Dental history. (Ok, just kidding on the last one).
And as I’ve looked at some amazing plans from church planters, I’ve started to notice a trend. They all sound the same.
It seems as the unique vision that God’s given so many church planters is almost identical. Phrases like “gospel-centered”, “missional”, and “cultural renewal” are littered throughout their proposals. It seems that the phrase “In the City. For the City.” or some variation of such has become church planting boilerplate.
Not only is the language the same, but so is the target group. It’s amazing how many young pastors feel that they are distinctly called to reach the upwardly-mobile, young, culture-shaping professionals and artists. Can we just be honest? Young, upper-middle-class urban professionals have become the new “Saddleback Sam”.
Seriously, this is literally the only group I see proposals for. I have yet to assess a church planter who wants to move to a declining, smaller city and reach out to blue collar factory workers, mechanics, or construction crews. Not one with an evangelsitic strategy to go after the 50-something administrative assistant who’s been working at the same low-paying insurance firm for three decades now.
Why is that? I can’t offer a definitive answer. It could be that God is legitimately calling an entire generation of young pastors to turn their focus to a small segment of the population that happens to look very much like they do.
Or it could be that we’re simply following in the footsteps of the church growth movement that we’ve loved to publically criticize while privately trying to emulate – we’ve just replaced Bill Hybels and Rick Warren with Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll.
Just thinking out loud…
Legit.
Good post Bill. It makes me appreciate my husband’s passion and calling even more.
Hey! I’m in Brenham! Don’t I deserve some “non-cool” points. Rural is the new urban; hickster is the new hipster!
Justin, you are most definitely the exception. I’m going to steal your “hickster is the new hipster line” too…
Bill thanks for the honesty. When can we be more about revitalization of the church than always looking to start something “new…”
I have been saying this for years! I wanto support the guys who want to reach the Dan and Roseann Connors of this world. Those who work crappy shift jobs at the plant or the mill, who drink cheap beer a dive bars and tail gate parties, who who shop at sears and not a boutique, those who drive old el caminos and caprices. You know the people who live for wrestling, monster trucks and bowling. Where there are alot more people than we are willing to admit.
Bill,
You knocked it out park. Thanks.
I left “of the” out on accident.
Thanks for the honest and provocative post. Which leads me to say that either a lot of us better start writing apologies to Bill Hybels and Rick Warren or start planting churches (in Houston terms) in the Fifth Ward.
I would submit that if re-urbanization wasn’t such the rage, many planters would be investing in the ‘burbs they so easily knock. But that’s another story…or post.
Thanks for calling a spade a spade (at least for what seems like are a large amount of people). What I’m grateful for are planters who’ve discerned the good in the church growth movement, understand their personal strengths and weakness, and seek to be as strategic as possible – to plant in the city, the suburbs and yes…even the sticks (Brenham)
1. Acts 29, almost uniquely, attracts the type of planter you’re talking about. If you look outside our network to the church-planting world at large, there are Cowboy Churches, and blue-collar churches, and retirement village churches being planted. Most of those guys couldn’t give two craps about A29, though.
2. I don’t know about the other planters you allude to – but I have to go to those that God has called/equipped me to reach. My heart really does break for the people you have described. I worked in a traditional Presbyterian church for a handful of years and loved those people with all my heart, but now I am filled with joy at the chance to reach the people that I do.
3. Reaching “the upwardly-mobile, young, culture-shaping professionals and artists” is not a walk in the park. Often these people (especially in the South) are not just indifferent to Christianity but openly hostile toward it. Many of these people are making decisions right now that will radically effect the rest of their lives (where to go to school, if I choose in fact to go; to get married or not; if not then whether to cohabitate or not; to have children or not; what career path will I pursue; etc). And a lot of these people may have cultural power at their disposal but many are broken on the wheels of living. Desperate. Turning to drugs/alcohol/addictive behaviors to soothe. First marriages ending in divorce. Kids getting shopped between two young parents that now live separately.
4. You reach who you are. It’s just a simple principle of contextualization. This is authentically who I am. It’s harder for me to relate to “Saddleback Sam” – the surburban, white collar folks that have experienced no open brokenness or real addictions.
5. I have a lot of grace for Hybels and Warren. I don’t down them for targeting their appeal to a certain people group. I may disagree with some of their methods (and question if those methods will work for newer generations), but I do what I do now because those men laid the ground work during the 80’s and 90’s.
Just some thoughts. Love you, homey.
It can also be argued that reaching the urban mobile creatives will, in effect, reach the rest of the world. It is the “upstream approach” to culture. This isn’t just an idea within the Church, either. Read Richard Florida and you’ll quickly see that the businesses and startups are trying to “reach” the same demographic.
The problem isn’t that everyone is trying to plant an urban church; the problem is that everyone is trying to plant a white church in the city. Urban centers for 20- and 30-somethings are all the rage, but they want the style of worship they are accustomed to, thus the church plant with small groups, modern worship music, and a white pastor that writes a lot of books.
As a kid that grew up in a dying rural town that had once boomed with coal and clay mining, I can tell you that the church per capita rate is through the roof. In my tiny hometown, the churches built during the town’s highest population are still around, struggling to get by. There are more Methodist churches than I can count on one hand. Areas like these don’t need new churches, they need new vision for the churches that exist. Any pastors that do bring this vision to their struggling body are hitting all kinds of resistance from established members unwilling to even consider combining with another.
Now I live in Chicago, and I’ve seen plenty of church plants pop up in my mostly Hispanic/African American neighborhood and insist on doing things ‘their’ way. It’s mind-boggling. In a neighborhood that is less than 5% white, these young plants continue to have on overwhelmingly white body. They’re thriving too. But they’re thriving mostly with people from outside of the neighborhood. Their ‘community’ starts and ends on Sunday mornings.
Luckily, I found an 8 year old plant that is at least trying to do things right. It strives to reach the neighborhood that has been disenfranchised by years of ethnic-centric churches. When I show up Sunday morning, I know that the leaders are striving to build a true community church; one that both represents and supports the neighborhood and its residents. I would be pretty upset if someone were to pull together a proposal for a church plant similar to mine and be told that ‘everyone is doing it.’ Sadly, it seems like most plants are instead creating their own sub-community within long-established areas.
I aspire to be A29 and I have no intention of aiming for the hipster demo. Mainly because I believe God has called me to go after what I was saved from: the culturally religious. How, when or where, only He knows. And I agree with JMac, if God calls you to those people, you better aim true and strike hard regardless of popularity.
Great post, though, really liked the perspective.
As someone who is on the outside of A29 looking in I think there is a perception among us that A29 only accepts the hip urban artsy planters. If we don’t use terms like “missional”, “gospel-centered”, and “in the city for the city” we’re really not cut out for the A29 team. At the Louisville bootcamp I saw lots of guys getting assessed and it seems like they all were trying to fit that mold, and if you’re at a place like Sojourn what do you expect? A29 is cool people reaching the cool people, or so it seems.
And just to follow that up – I love A29 and hope to be part of the “cool team” one day.
JMac hit it back into the park.
Thanks for the thought-provoking post, Bill. To be fair, I’ve assessed quite a few guys who don’t fit that profile. I love what Subash is doing among Indians in Dallas. But you have a point.
Perhaps the onus is on-us. Can A29 mobilize more strategically, in Texas and beyond? I’d also like to see us mobilize for unreached peoples.
A Regional that is International in focus? A Regional that pushes workshops to specific sectors of urban life?
If we really are a missional network, our mission will become so particularlized that we’ll have trouble keeping up with all the profiles and target groups.
Bring it Lord.
Jeremy W – In response to Acts 29’s perception in the larger body:
I agree. And sometimes that reputation is unfortunately deserved.
A lot of times, however, I think it’s the wider culture that only celebrates the “cool” pastors – the Driscolls and Darrin Patricks.
Let me tell a few other stories:
Ray Ortlund is not cool.
But he loves and knows God. And has raised adult children that love him, love God, and are committed to the local church.
David Pinckney is not cool.
But he risked the ire of his community by loving a convicted child-killer, like Jesus would, by welcoming him to live in his home.
Chad Vegas is not cool.
But he loves his community and has, over the years, earned the deep respect of a group of people both fond of NASCAR and bad lite beer.
These are often times the un-celebrated stories of Acts 29 – uncool men who love Jesus, love their families, and have toiled faithfully for the good of their communities.
Bill,
Is there a category in Acts 29 for people who are planting churches among unreached people groups in America?
That’s another different of demographic – and a different kind of church plant probably – and one in which a pastor would be raised up (other than the initial planter).
Word.
JMac…
I disagree one thing.
Ray Ortlund is cool. He is rock-your-socks cool. Born in Cali = cool. Preaches like he does = very cool. The wise paragon of A29 = the coolest. May his tribe increase!
And here is where I do agree. The culture at large wants the “hip” pastor. And that’s where the problem is too. Young college-aged guys that I labor with see Driscoll, think he is Jesus’ crazy kid brother and do everything possible to emulate that (even trying to convince me to wear a Jesus BRB t-shirt when I was teaching through Revelation).
I think the problem is probably more perception of A29 rather than the reality. We see Chandler, Driscoll, Patrick and even you JMac and think, “Acts 29 is a network aimed at the trendy hip people.” I know that is not the reality, but the way the box on the outside looks.
Again I am grateful for A29 and the guys I know in A29 are sterling examples of humility in every regard, they would hang out with the lowest of low (and they do!) but to young, eager, ambitious young guys who look to A29 the end up being naive and think, “I gotta be trendy and hip cause Driscoll is.”
Please forgive my obvious grammatical mistakes and omissions in the above post… I was writing fast.
The idea that we should reach “important” people first — as a strategic bid at influence — is about as antithetical to the Sermon on the Mount as I can imagine.
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Jon makes valid points. But I like where Jonathan went with the elaboration.
What is Acts 29 doing, or what can they do, so that the Acts 29 Network looks less monochromatic?
Forget Acts 29 for a second. (You know I’m not A29 myself but I do think they’re the best thing going in missional church planting movements.) Let’s just talk about church planting movements. Why do they seem to conscientiously avoid New England? Or rural Wyoming or what have you?
A lot of young American believers would find missioning in Africa and Asia really “sexy.” But they wouldn’t move among dairy farmers in New Hampshire or Maine or ranchers in Montana. Not sexy.
New England is the least churched area of the United States. Why are church plants proliferating in everywhere BUT there?
This isn’t an Acts 29 thing. It’s an evangelical thing. We go where the customers are, where we perceive the ground will be easier to till. Not as individuals, maybe. But collectively, we need a radical reevaluation.
“I have yet to assess a church planter who wants to move to a declining, smaller city and reach out to blue collar factory workers, mechanics, or construction crews.”
You haven’t met Russ. He was called to the inner city, of our small city, to minister to the homeless and down and out, the blue collar workers and the mechanics. They are finding they are ministering to alcoholics and some mentally ill people downtown. The others who were called to this same plant were all encouraged to move into the city, closer to the neighborhoods they want to reach for Christ. They gave up comfort and have found much blessing. These young pastors left our church with God’s call on their life to do this and when we hear testimonies of how their church is progressing, it is amazing to see the growth in the *pastors* as they go and preach the good news.
I have to admit at one time I was in the crowd wanting to reach this demographic and now I am a pastor of a rural church completely different from the “cool” crowd. I know of a university town where the local Baptist missions director has people presenting to him all the time proposals to plant a church to reach the artsy,hipsters, and college students. He listens then ask them if they are willing to plant 15 miles out of town in the more rural areas where they actual need church planters and you can imagine the response he gets. This town also needs ethnic plants but everyone it seems only wants to target a few segments of society. I guess people also wanna plant where the money is whether they do it on purpose or not.
You could take this even further. It’s not just the uncool that need Jesus, it’s the marginalized uncool edges also. The uneducated, Walmart shopping, WWE watching, wife-beater wearing, COPS tv cameo folks are majorly underrepresented.
Our first plant attempt was actually in Denton, TX a city of 120,000 with little sex appeal. God blocked our efforts there via Acts 16 (the bible chapter, not some other organization) and sent us to Austin instead. What’s ironic is that as a city center planter going for the bohemian, relativist, quasi-Buddhist I feel like I am going for a hard area to reach, and early on I mocked all the guys going to the suburbs reaching ‘the easy people’ who attend because you have bigger LCD screens, rock music and a rad kids ministry. I have repented of that largely. I say largely because I secretly covet their resources.
City centers are so diverse, what if we looked at the city’s diversity and as a planter we developed strategies to plant missional groups in those various areas intentionally? What if we abandoned the homogenous attraction principle and brought people together who were of different classes, not just in the same room, but in and around each others business? Perhaps we could develop a worship style that leans less on a specific worship genre and mixed in some variety.
At the end of the day are planters planting in a location via a leading of the Spirit, or a leading of circumstances, like and dislikes? Just today a guy asked me to consider planting a church among an RV park. Maybe we should.
Not to be too much of a jackass, but isn’t it natural for aspiring entrepeneurs to want to imitate the successful ones?
“…by the time he gets to the interview stage he’s already submitted a lot of paperwork. Resumes. Plans. Budgets. Demographic Analysis.”
Sounds like planting a McDonald’s, not a church. If you start from a certain type of seed, chances are that’s the sort of plant (pun intended) you’re gonna get.
The far-too-honest truth is that the “trendy white urbanite church plant” is the only one that’s able to both preach a rough semblance of the Reformed flavor of the Gospel and keep those tithes and offerings rolling in.
In other words, if you’re forcing these guys to look at it from a “sound business practice” perspective, then you’re essentially forcing them to figure out how to make it a profitable business venture above all else.
Doesn’t this beg the questions:
Who do you recruit to be church planters?
And, more importantly, who do you promote to receive funding as church planters?
Does the “marketing department” need to “promote” the country parson and develop funding strategies to support planters in that model/mode? Not going to see many rural churches planted on the 3-years-to-self-supporting model. Donors want bang for their buck…even missions committees are often guilty of this.
ts wrong, but man, it is hard to raise capital when you say, “I just want to be a faithful pastor in a small town in the middle of nowhere.” Or, “I just want to pastor the people who aren’t the movers and shakers in my city.”
This post is pretty legit. However, it seems that there is a lot of bitter responses from the people who seem to believe that trying to reach the urban professional is trendy. It is almost as if the next cool movement will be to reach the “uncool” people. Perhaps it would be best to just drop the argument all together and focus on reaching the people the Lord has called you to. So many church planters seem to be focused on their iPhone, their blog, theIr Twitter, their social network, and their books more than they focus on serving the people in their context.
The real issue is whether or not church planters are being faithful to the Lords call. Cities are a big deal and young urban people are not the easiest to reach. So I say, who cares of young dudes are plantig to be cool. Let the Lord judge… Let the rest of us get to work.
How anyone can call ME cool is beyond me!
In financial terms, in order to reach out to blue collar factory workers, mechanics, or construction crews, a pastor will probably have to be bi-vocational. How many are willing to be tent-makers? Why is that?
I’ll agree. Tim, you are decidedly uncool. How have you then become the paragon of cool cats?
Bill, that would be another post all together.
That is a very interesting bit of news. One of the things I notice about so many in church is that they want their church to get out of serious error, and they pray and pray that God will heal the church. All the while they are expending all the energy they have to be that agent of change in said church until one day they finally give up. Then, instead of becoming a part of a church that is walking the talk (Kaleo, Founders Baptist, Baptist Church of the Redeemer, etc.), they go off to start their own thing from scratch, often moving to another country or city to do it. I’m not saying it is bad to plant new churches. I think planting new churches is a wonderful thing. I just don’t know why so many people waste so much of their time trying to change churches when they could be spending their energy changing the community and reaching it for the gospel from a church that is already healthy.
Wow. Great post and great feed back. I love what Bill is saying. “Lets not be quick to slam hybels and Warren and guys who model them, because it seems most of us are doing that with Keller or Driscoll.” good call! I planted in a hick town, I’m not cool, we reach the “misfit toys” it seems and we love it!. It’s so country out here that I hit a horse in my car.
I’ve gotta say, out of all the comments, Kellers is the best. And I’m not even a Keller fan really, (I hope A29 doesn’t shut down my assesment now, jk).
Aww man, now with all this attention Bill is getting I am never going to be able to meet up for lunch with him again!! He will be too busy hanging out with Tim Keller and Douglas Wilson.
Some good thoughts Bill,
however, I am wondering if we shouldn’t simply be structuring our methods, etc. to reach whatever kind of people we meet? In our little church plant, we are surrounded by steeples, and we have reached people of every kind–even though the area is mostly Dutch/Germanic. The percentage of unbelievers is astounding, and we have been able to reach those who get passed over by the “cool” churches. Yes, the area is a suburban/rural mix, but over time, the people we strive to minister to, and have ministered to are all different kinds. I think the whole model of overweighting the emphases of our methods based on demographics is flawed and wanting.
Thanks for writing this.
I drive 40 minutes (past tobacco fields and about 50 other churches) to go to Vintage21 in Raleigh. I would LOVE for someone to plant an A29 church near me, but when I mentioned it to a long-time member, they said something to the effect of “A29 only really plants in Urban centers.” Fuquay Varina needs Jesus, too!
I didn’t get a chance to read all of the posts when I posted my last entry, so I would like to expound on my original thought.
To be quite honest this entire critique now seems quite foolish to me. 15 years or so ago missiologists began to realize that the United States of America was becoming increasingly urban. The argument back then was, “Why did we abandon our cities to move into the suburbs?” Back then and even still today at some level planting in the suburbs was the popular thing to do. Very few people dared to go into the city to plant an urban church.
Perhaps God could just be doing something really unique whereby He is calling a generation of passionate young men to plant churches in the cities rather than focusing primarily on the suburbs? Perhaps this is not a bad thing at all? Perhaps it is actually a really good thing because the church has been primarily sectarian over the past 200 years in America? Perhaps this group of men that you speak of are the next movement in the church that God will use for His glory?
Now, I know that because the terminology sounds the same and there are certain buzzwords it is easy to label them as trendy or inauthentic. However, do you perhaps think that the “Solas” of the Reformation were trendy in their time? I would guess that the lingo was pretty trendy considering people still use it today. I have found that trying to point out what is “trendy” is a circular argument. One person says, “missional,” is trendy in an attempt to prove that perhaps they are much too enlightened to follow the bandwagon. However, this person has just revealed their own “trendiness” which is to be in the “enlightened” group who can identify and criticize the immaturity of everyone else.
Could it be that God is orchestrating something new in His church today? Would all of the negativity on this post look similar to people’s response to the Reformers in the days of the Reformation? I can hear them saying, “Why is it that everyone seems to be saying Sola deo gloria? Is God really raising up an entire generation of young men to reform the church?”
Bottom line, let’s just be honest about a few questions:
#1) Up until the mid to late 1990’s what did the church’s influence look like in American cities? Strong or weak?
#2) Is it true or false that people began to criticize the church because we had abandoned the cities?
#3) Did the church begin to strategize & coordinate plans to reach the cities?
#4) Is our nation becoming increasingly urban or not?
#5) Is it true or false that cities hold the most condensed population of human beings?
#6) Is it true or false that cities are predominantly secular and post-modern?
#7) Is it true or false that most evangelical churches in the cities are either dead or dying?
#8) Is it true or false that still to this day, despite the current uprising, that the majority of new churches are started in suburban elementary schools and movie theatres?
#9) Is it true or false that the apostle Paul himself would focus on starting new churches in cities?
#10) Is it true or false that Christianity was in fact an urban movement in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd century?
#11) Is it true or false that because Christianity was an urban movement that it was much more effective in spreading the gospel in a viral manner?
#12) Is it true or false that the majority of urban church plants don’t last longer than 3 years?
#13) Is the failure rate of churches in the city linked to the difficulty of planting an urban church?
#14) Is it true or false that we need thousands more churches in the city?
If you answer those questions honestly, you cannot truly be frustrated with this new movement of church planters in urban areas. Rather, we should be rejoicing that God is sending men into the city to bring the gospel where a strong presence of the church has not been for some 50 to 75 years.
If we cannot rejoice over this, perhaps we are just cynical & bitter about something?
If the argument is that all of these young church planters are just following trends and not following the Lord, then that is up to Him to judge. (1st Cor. 4:5) If we just don’t like the trendy lingo that is being tossed around, let’s try to get over that. There will always be catchy ways to articulate the common truths that are disclosed in scripture. So rather than saying, “Gospel-Centered, missional, renewal, & In the City for the City,” should we rather say, “We are focused on God’s redemptive plan to restore mankind to Himself, through the sending of His son to die for our sins, so that we might also become ministers of reconciliation in the places where the light of God is most needed?”
Come on now. Let’s put down the cynical sword and begin to pray that God would use this generation of guys to be salt & light in the city!
I tend to agree with Trey.
Would we have been criticizing the apostle Paul for his efforts to focus on planting churches in the city rather than the rural areas of asia minor?
I do agree that the “Every Day Joe” needs to be reached as well. Maybe you aren’t assessing church planters for that demographic because people in those kinds of areas don’t get assessed very often. Maybe they just tell their friends & family they are starting a church then people start coming.
It would be silly to think that we should not focus on church planting new churches in the city.
We should really just focus on planting both kinds of churches.
I do think this is due, in part, to the particular demographic with whom you are most closely associated. However, I think there has been a hipster outreach movement within the church and lots of young, passionate christians want to get on the forefront of it.
By my observation, this outreach has been a response to several decades of the church refusing to engage culture, forming a “club” mentality where outward symbols are used to distinguish the saved and unsaved. This was a turn-off to generation X, and many realized the need to re-engage in a very targeted manner. It began in youth groups in the late 90’s.
The simultaneous trending toward a more creative, organic and expressive lifestyle by middle-class urbanites naturally fell in line with the current mood of the church, and many began to see a great opportunity for renewal.
I’m still formulating my personal opinion about the effectiveness and honesty of current practices. Thanks for the post.
I’m NOT a pastor or an aspiring A29 pastor, seminary student, or in such a situation as many of you are. However, I have become increasingly aware of the “missional” church movement over the last couple of years, and I have personally been encouraged by Keller’s teaching for almost 10 years now via involvement in several Bible studies that used his materials. So I have a pretty good sense of the playing field, at least as good as a relative outsider could have, I suppose. In addition, I have attended many types of church in my life – “Independent Fundamental Baptist” growing up, later EV Free, PCA, Bible churches, missional-focused churches, etc.
I agree with the multiple individuals who have been commenting here who alluded to the “sample” problem — the reason all the aspiring A29 pastors are targeting urban hipsters is because, well, they are urban hipsters who were drawn to A29 for this very reason.
A relatively myopic focus is not necessarily a bad thing — it makes sense that people would be called to things that they understand and connect with. A lack of an A29 pastor’s appreciation or understanding of NASCAR or Dairy Queen is no different than the following:
1) I have family members who have gone to churches that stick to the KJV and sing the same music Christians did 100 and 200 years ago. They look forward to pot-luck dinners on the church lawn and post the prior week’s attendance prominently on a board in the church or in their bulletin.
2) I was recently involved in a Bible study with some older, suburban mega-church men who are very acquainted with Hank Hanegraaf, the “Bible Answer Man”, love their NIV Bibles and if asked what the ‘ESV’ was they would probably think it’s a disease or business acronym. They would speak confidently of “free will” and the “sovereignty of God” in the same sentence.
Clearly, each group has been exposed to different things and their beliefs, convictions, and interests have been shaped accordingly. They may need to get out of their comfort zone from time to time and be exposed to new things, and above all, continue to be exposed to the TRUTH of the gospel which will help to correct theological error and clarify what in their life is tradition and what is actually foundational truths. It is the same with us, of course.
I am sure someone reading this has access to some demographic info from George Barna or others that further enlighten us as to church and denominational involvement, and professing Christians, in various parts of the country. I am sure that would confirm what we’re all saying — that there is need everywhere, and that the city has been especially neglected in recent decades and is now receiving extra attention. A good thing, no?
I recently was part of a prison ministry weekend put on by a huge national ministry, and I had not been with such a diverse group of believers in a long time – charismatic pastors, biker guys and biker chicks, and a ton of people from rural areas. But their passion for Christ was so encouraging, and the prisoners were just as interested by them and attracted to them (and probably more-so) than to me and those who looked and sounded more like the urban, educated set. The diversity of the body of Christ is incredible — clearly we have very little in common on one hand, but very MUCH in common on the other.
Great post! Good thoughts! It’s HARD to serve in a church in the middle of nowhere when it seems like all the action is going on in the cool cities. It’s nice to have some encouragement in the form of posts like this from time to time. Uneducated farmers need to become gospel heroes through deeply theological and consistent exposition of the Word as well.
Just give me a couple more years!
I believe that my family is called to plant a very traditional church in our rural, unchurched/dechurched county.
Hip people don’t live in my county. Being ‘missional’ is going to involve a shirt and tie for me.
We just aren’t there yet.
But, if you want to help…
The fact you’re even asking for demographic make ups at all should be ringing alarm bells.
There’s nothing in the Bible about focusing efforts on particular people groups. Preach the Word. Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction.
I’ve been working on a church website recently (a church I used to attend) and I had no idea about its rich history.
The church was started by a 16 year old boy and 2 friends in 1874. The focused on the preaching and God honoured the rest. It wasn’t until 1894 they had means to build a church.
That church is still going strong to this day and has a myriad of attendees, kids, teens, students, mid 30s, 40s, 50s and the really elderly.
Excellent post and observations. I just asked the question on my blog…What about Saddleback Sandy and Sally? We’re all (traditional, contemporary and emerging) basically going after the same group of people….but what about Sandy and Sally…they don’t fit into our homogeneous group of look alikes. Thanks for asking the questions…
Glad that this has generated such great conversation. My only observation is this — this is not a new problem. All the way back in Galatians 2, we see Peter only ministering to those who were just like him (and Paul rebuking him for it). The problem isn’t the movement — it’s our still-sinful hearts.
Tim Keller,
You became cool when you spoke at Google !
Robert I Masters
@Natalie:
I (and others) do the exact same thing driving from Granville county to Durham to be a part of the Summit Church! I spoke to one of our planting pastors and he said, “Well, maybe God put your rural county on your heart because He wants YOU to do something about it.”
…just a thought
I am about to graduate from Southern Seminary in Louisville. I don’t go to Sojourn, though I appreciate much of what they are doing. I don’t own “urbanized” clothing and would not be considered hip or cool like Timmy Brister (much love Timmy).
What drives to consider church planting is a love for the Gospel and a love for the church. And I want the church today to match the church, NT.
I just got back from the A29 regional event at The Journey, where I stayed with John Ryan of Summit Community near St. Louis and talked church planting after midnight and then again in the morning.
Great guy. Honest. Gut level honest. Straightforward.
As an outsider looking in, I like that about A29 (gut level honest, no nonsense, Gospel-centered). I have the same questions that this article helpfully places out there.
A few questions (I’m hear learn):
1. Jon McIntosh: I had a class @SBTS w/ a guy looking to get involved in your Memphis plant. I hope you advance the gospel through it. it seems to me that Paul became all things to all people and sought to advance the gospel to all types of people not just the people he was like. If the power is in the gospel, not in contextualization, shouldn’t we desire to reach all types of people?
2. Everyone: the goal is to press the claims of Christ, to advance the gospel, to the all the lost, correct? So, cool/uncool, urban hipster, surburbanite, middle-aged moms … they all need the gospel.
I get that you should minister in a place where you can be effective. I get that.
But the point is to be blood-earnest about advancing the gospel to all people everywhere, right? And, to me, the NT lays out churches that are diverse in every way imaginable. Should that not be our aim?
I’m here to learn.
Your observation seems to be pointing to a manifestation of the homogenous principle (we like to be around those who are like us). I’m pastoring a church going on 80 yrs old in Espanola, New Mexico. Not a glamorous part of the world by any stretch of the imagination. If we were to follow the heart of Jesus in Matt 9:35-37, we would go to places that are not “culture-shaping” but where there is a lot of lostness and darkness that needs that light of the gospel.