Dear Terry (and those receiving copies of this letter),
When we left in 1980 to
attend
It would be a huge answer to
our prayers and I know to many of the other Florida pastors if we could have a
statewide summit that would include any interested pastors here and as many
national leaders and interested parties as possible to assess and evaluate our
potential for restoring our health and being able to reproduce more healthy
churches here.
It would be important to
have such a face-to-face, interactive meeting with as many as possible, as I
believe some of our difficulty has been due to a lack of collective
communication and a unified direction from top to bottom and vice versa. Our
hope would be that such a summit could be held as soon as possible
(January/February? – very nice here then!). Also if it would help facilitate
things, I would be willing to come up there to meet with you and any others
(Tom A.? Tim B.? Jim S.? Ron B.? Tony W.?)
We are having a statewide
ministerium next Tuesday (
We will let you know the
results of our meeting next week. If you have any questions or insight for us
to consider please contact me. We are praying for a massive outpouring of God’s
Spirit on an area and a state that is in much need of the gospel message. We
look forward to hearing from you as things progress.
Thanks again for your
concern and friendship!
God Bless you!
Dear Terry (and those
receiving copies of this letter),
Our ministerium met on
Tuesday,
All (unanimous!) were very
encouraged and willing to participate in a cooperative effort to what we will
call for now:
As it is set up now, the
entire ministerium is considered the District
As a district we want very
much to pursue developing a strong relationship with interested parties to
accomplish the above. Our plan is for the sub-committee to meet soon (this month?).
And begin to develop a strategy for reaching the different areas of the state
that we would communicate to you (any input from you and others are
appreciated). I (John Nelson) would be the primary communication funnel in
order to keep things focused and moving forward. I will keep our district and
all other parties informed as we move forward.
With regards to a
forum/summit with us and interested national, other district and church leaders
as we had talked about, it was suggested at our meeting that the best
opportunity might be at the South Focus Retreat on February 26-28.
Thanks again for your
interest and willingness to participate with us!
God Bless You!
John & Bonnie
A Vision
for Church Planting in
January
2007
Introduction:
I want offer one possibility of
vision for outreach and church planting to a short list of co-laborers in the
Gospel. Now the disclaimer: It is an unsolicited view held unanimously by a committee
of one – me. I love tending and shepherding in the Sebring GBC, and I am
burdened about the state of the
Before I attempt to outline any
vision for outreach of the FGBC, I want to bore you with a few notes of a
biographical nature in order to help you understand my frame of mind and
ministry outlook. When I assess my own ministry gifts and ideas, I conclude
that I am not as much a Pastor as I am a missionary in my mode of operation. I
had the delight of serving Jesus in
From my arrival back in
My first instinct was to take a map
and begin to look at how we could plant new churches, make disciples and raise
up new ministries. I saw great willingness to do this on the part of the men in
our ministries, but they simply were fighting “life support situations” in
their own churches. People in ICU don’t normally plan with much enthusiasm. I
had no time to really embrace their situations as I was consumed with my two
jobs (I work for Global Vision Outreach, Inc. as International Director and Senior
Pastor at Sebring Grace). God knew I needed time to adjust to the turf here and
rethink some of what I probably would have initially suggested. I believe now
is the time to move ahead with some thoughts, so I am sharing this with you.
As a result of serving in
Small is
significant
Ron Klaussen of RHMA (Rural Home
Missions Association) likes to quote Francis Schaeffer’s statement: “Places big
and small are important to God!” One of the reasons he has made that a theme is
not many others are saying it. So much focus today is on the mega-church and
the big city, that the American church may have lost its balance. I believe
these places are important to God,
but a huge chunk of people in this world just don’t live in places that will be
reached by the mega-church. Small towns dot the landscape of the globe, and
they need to be saved and discipled just as much as those in more urban areas.
There are less than 2% of all
churches that are MEGA in size. For every one large population center, there
are hundreds of small towns. Many places of ministry are SMALL, and many
churches are SMALL. Most ministries even in the city are actually quite small. For
every one preacher speaking to thousands on Sunday there are thousands
preaching and teaching to a few people. Most classes are small and most ministry is in small settings.
They may not get the headlines, but it is where the majority of people are. We
need a strong sense of balance to a cultural value that screams that bigger is
always better. Again stealing from Ron, he pointed out recently that a thesaurus
supplied with his word processor exposes the bias. Look at these!
Is our culture prone to view bigger
as better? I think so. Yet, the Bible offers many illustrations to lead us to
conclude that God does not dole out the Spirit’s work based on the size of the
ministry. Further, we live in a time
that “despises the day of small things” when it comes to the size of the church
(just as the small foundation of the new Temple of Zechariah 4).
Some Conclusions
It occurs to me that many people
have concluded that
To reach into
One of the problems is financial,
but an equally difficult nut to crack is the distraction factor. John can set
himself of fire on the front lawn of his home and he will not make page one of
the local paper. In Sebring, we recently held a community festival and had 500
people register for door prizes. Pictures made the newspapers. Local radio
covered the event. It was a big splash because my pond is small. John can’t get
that kind of traction no matter what he does. Pastor Bob Coy, a friend of mine
for many years in
I believe any central strategy for Florida
GBCs will require that we first state clearly the kind of ministries we are
trying to build and what would make us define them as successful. At the
risk of being too bold, I will offer what I believe is a definition of a
“successful work” we are trying to produce.
I personally define success by the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
The issue isn’t how many people are out there Sunday morning, the issue is how
many are being discipled to make disciples and built into maturity. This
is a definition ala
The Vision
I believe we need to plant in the next few years, should the Lord tarry,
a series of churches in small towns that can have an impact on their smaller
community with the Gospel. I think it just makes more sense to try this in a
smaller area, since reaching 100 of 5000 in town is a different curve to work
then getting 500 or 1 million. I would like us to focus our resources on small
towns that have “Gospel gaps” (a town where they may have the requisite
Southern Baptist, Assembly of God, Church of God and Methodist Churches, but
you are not hearing any real “buzz” about the Gospel and none of the local
churches are experiencing astounding growth).
I believe we should deliberately look to small towns in
I am not arguing that “smaller is better” and I do not believe that we
should build only what must stay small because of our laziness or stinginess. Yet,
we need to strive to produce a series of churches in smaller towns where we
can make a difference in the area. Call this the “Walmart meets Jesus” philosophy, since Mr. Walton did it before us.
It can be also called the “Big fish in small pond” church planting effort.
Men, I have been in smaller works that blew me away with their warmth
and maturity. I have sat in home Bible studies in a number of countries that
would easily attract me back if I lived there. If we are looking for
professionalism and attractive buildings, they wouldn’t be our choice. But if we
wanted to see God at work, He is not especially reserved to larger churches - He
works in BOTH large and small settings. Spiritual
vitality is not limited by size, if it is the Middle Eastern churches may
never be large enough to make Christianity Today. Yet, the faith is alive, the
vibrancy is there, and people are effectively being discipled. Part of the
reason is they are not caught up in being “big
church wanna be” churches. They are focusing on what God can do in them and
through them, and not why it is less significant than Willow Creek. We need to
see small works that are self-sustaining as the backbone of our vision.
Mega-focus discourages the troops and makes them feel unsuccessful when
they are right in the heart of what God is doing. Pastor Randy Weekly (I call
him Randy the Elder and he calls me Randy the Younger) shared some time ago an
incredible number of missionaries and full time Christian workers that had come
through their local church. They struggle to keep the bills paid, but may be one
of our most successful and significant churches!
A Word from the Lord
When in Zechariah 4 the returning Jews were in the process of returning
and setting up their homes back in
One preacher recently taught: “They stopped building for 15 years and
figured it would be better to NOT have an inferior ministry - NO TEMPLE was
better than a SMALLER
Is the working of God’s spirit proportioned to the size of a ministry? Can
a small church be as spiritually vital as a large one? Can God complete the
development of believers in a smaller ministry setting?”
If you ever think we are too small
to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito!
THOUGHTS ON
Dr. Chuck Davis
But I sense the dawning of a new day, a new optimism and a new spirit. Could it be that God is going to do something great among us? I pray that is true and I am ready to jump on His bandwagon. As the leaders of the Florida District pray and plan for the vision and the ministry that will take us forward to an ongoing period of church planting, church growth and church revitalization I would like to express my thoughts in several areas. You can be the judge of their value and whether they are worthy of consideration.
This is a time for working together in harmony for God’s kingdom growth. Our brothers in other harvest fields in the FGBC are willing to share their expertise and resources to help us in expanding God’s kingdom. Let us take what they have to offer and apply it in a culturally sensitive way to our harvest field so we can see people coming to Christ and gathered into new and existing local churches. God has given our brothers to us as a gift and you know the biblical admonition, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” (Just kidding about the biblical part). But I am serious about God’s gifts to us.
It is true that the majority of our
The Grace Brethren Churches in
-2- Thoughts
So on the chance of being misunderstood I offer this thought. Pastors, we need to evaluate whether we are in the proper place of ministry or not. We are all spiritually gifted. We all have areas in which we excel. But different ministry periods call for different ministry gifts. A church planter may not make a good long-term teaching Pastor. A teaching Pastor, without requisite planter gifts, may not fit into a church that needs to be restarted. A Pastor in a struggling church, who has no long-term vision for a church, the energy to see neither a vision through nor the gifts required to attain it, should seek God’s face for a new assignment. Some of our Pastors are undoubtedly mismatched in their assignments. They need to be where God can use them more effectively. Do we dare to evaluate ourselves and respond to God’s revelation concerning ourselves? Do we dare to have others evaluate our ministries and us and make recommendations concerning these things?
And how about a church evaluation? Is it time to close the doors for good or maybe a restart would be better? Do we need to change or add Pastoral personnel so we can do ministry better? What is our focus and what can we do to attain it? Is it time to have someone come in and perform an evaluative study (only if we truly are committed to change if it is needed)? I don’t need to list a litany of things here. You understand what I mean but do we have the courage to face reality whatever it is.
If a vision for church-planting in
GBNAM had a very basic strategy that it has been following since about 1994; about the time I became a Career Missionary with them. We want to see churches planted in World Class Cities (population of 1,000,000 or above with world-wide influence). To that end churches have been planted in
Another part of the GBNAM strategy is in planting Ethnic-American churches. In
-3-Thoughts
I might also mention that from the ethnic ministry among Haitians in
discussion of a
A third area GBNAM is working in is called Regional Initiatives. This basically covers all that is not “big city” or “ethnic.” For most GB Pastors this would mean small town church planting. The only plant we have in
A fourth area that is a piece of the GBNAM strategy is in Church Planter Training Centers. You will find various names for these centers but they all do one basic thing; they train church planters for ministry. Curriculums vary but they all have one thing in mind; produce men and women who can be part of a church planting team to start a new church. If we do not have trained church planters all the discussion and strategy in the world will not produce new church plants. We are not talking about educational degrees, ordination, titles or particular age groups. We are talking about people called by God and equipped with knowledge and skills to start a church.
In
Certainly Training Centers have to be part of any strategy introduced in
A final area that GBNAM has concentrated on is that of mother churches. We desire that every new plant have a mother church that can nourish, guide and partner with them. This has been extremely hard to accomplish over the past ten years in
-4-Thoughts
Lauderdale has been very successful as a mother church even though they are very small numerically. Three new churches will join the FGBC this year because of their efforts. The church has also been the instrument God has used to open up church planting in
where we have four
I do not believe the “lack” of financial resources is the problem. We all know the biblical verses attacking such thoughts. They are preached every week to our congregations. I believe the lack of vision and the lack of commitment to a sustained effort in church planting will lead to a lack of financial resources. And if we don’t exercise good stewardship with what God does give us why should He give us more?
God and God’s people deliver financial resources in a lot of different ways and not always through the offering plate on Sunday morning. We need to become more creative in sharing our message and needs and in opening avenues of opportunities for God to deliver the financial resources we need. I don’t think we have begun to tap the resources available to God’s work through the people who sit in our pews on Sunday morning and the people we know in our communities. Whatever strategy is put in place must also contain an adequate plan for funding the vision God gives us and that plan must be too big for us to accomplish on a human level without the supernatural provision and intervention of a great and mighty God. Maybe I am just preaching to the choir.
Prayer is vital to anything that Christians wish to accomplish in life for God’s kingdom and without God’s blessing and help a church planting movement in
-5-Thoughts
Chuck,
I have read through your thoughts and appreciate what you have shared.
Regarding the assessment of your current churches, I
attended a seminar by Bob Humphrey called Fresh Start and he
really emphasized the need for assessments. He had tools for assessing
both the church and the pastor, because both are critical elements.
(www.startingfresh.org) Here in
Randall's
passion for small churches is so much like mine that it is scary! I can't
recall whether he was at my sermon at Conference last year but, if he wasn't,
we have arrived at the same passion through different paths.
Let me
raise this caution, however. While I think Randall is right that this
needs to be a major facet of your revisioning in Florida and will almost
certainly be a key component of your eventual strategy, it does not have to be
"either this-or this" it can be "both this-and this-and this-and this
. . . . There is not a scarcity but an abundance of resources available
to you. This has been a mistake of our GB thinking in the past--we have
tried to find THE ONE RIGHT WAY and focus on it to the exclusion of others.
In VisionOhio we have found that embracing a variety of approaches, strategies
and styles has led us to the numerical success we have seen since 1997 (24%
growth in Ohio--49 churches to 61 churches with seven more already slated to
get going in 2007--I am praying for 10!).
Don't get
me wrong--Randall's vision is a key part of why it is working in Ohio and I
think will have to be a key part of getting it going in Florida
again. I am fully behind it. It is just that, where you guys sit,
it seems like you have to choose--inland or coast, anglo or ethnic,
attractional or incarnational, etc. But there is not a scarcity--there is
an abundance! Vision, fraternity and prayer will unleash it. This
vision will be possible at the same time others are possible.
I think
what is needed next is a face-to-face Church Planting Summit for all interested
parties.
To
advance that cause, the Northwest Chapel Missions Ministry will offer a
$2,000 grant to our
The only
stipulations that we would make would be the following:
1. Chuck Davis be invited and be given a key role on the planning committee and program if he is able to attend.
2.
3. A
proposed written, transparent budget be submitted for approval to Pastor Martin
Guerena--Missions Pastor at Northwest Chapel. If the
4.
5. A
sincere effort be made to include as broad a participation as
possible--this is not the time for those secret personal blacklists and
petty resentments that so often characterize GB interactions. Neither is
it time for racial, gender, educational or economic discrimination in any
form. If you want it to have a Kingdom blessing, it must have a Kingdom
Spirit from the start.
In my
message at Conference last year (which may well be my last, I know), I
defined koinonia this way:
"When
it is not who owns it that matters, but who needs it."
Are we a
Fellowship (koinonia) or just a
bunch of hot air?
Wouldn't it be great to find out that it is the former and not the latter?
Thanks,
Randall, and all you
Thanking
God for you all,
Terry Hofecker
Randy,
Thanks for your information and
visionizing document. GBNAM will be glad to help in any way we can.
The GBNAM strategy in the past had as one of its three components what was
called “Regional Initiatives”. Essentially, this was a metaphor for “small
town” church planting. Through the years the Board of Directors of GBNAM
expressed concern that our “backbone” church planting was being neglected in
our promotions and publications for the sake of promoting cities and
ethnics. My opinion as a Board member then and as Director now is that if
this happened it was by accident, not by intention. I believe we need to
be at ministry in all 3 areas, but without question there is a need to get more
communication and support for regional initiatives. Regional initiatives will
take a larger place in our communication to the FGBC in 2007. However, in
my mind the real issue is not where we plant churches, but “who” will plant
churches. In any forum we have we must emphasize vision and present a clear
picture of what we want to do in order to create a focused prayer movement for
harvest workers. I believe church planters will respond to vision and I
applaud your energies in this regard. It would seem to me that unless God
raises an army of church planters and church planting teams any discussion of
geography will likely create frustration between and among those whose passions
are for a specific type of geography. Since the Great Commission covers
all geographies and all the ethnics within those geographies, let’s do our best
to create a conversation and strategy that reflects our gifts and those gifted
church planters He brings our way. I know this is your passion and in
light of Terry’s offer to initiate a conference please let me know how I can
help!
Tim