Bill Easums Observations

More and more churches are reporting to me they are having conflicts over the sports schedule and the churches schedule. This has been a growing problem since the 80s.

Just recently I received an email from a client I’m coaching asking my advice on what to do with just such a problem.  In this case it was with the youth ministry- secular sports were taking kids away from the churches scheduled meetings. Here is what I told him.

 Why not see this as a missional opportunity and train your youth to be ambassadors for Christ and participate in the sport rather than being at the youth group. Instead of fighting it, or bad mouthing the sport for conflicting with church, equip the youth to participate in the sports as an ambassador for Christ.  Let them know their church is behind them if they will practice their Christianity in a way that it brings people to Christ and the church.

I think we place too high a premium on church attendance.   Most of our people spend too much time a church and not enough time sharing their faith with their neighbor. We have led our people to believe that attending church is the mark of a Christian. But it’s not. The mark of a Christian is what we do in our everyday lives.  So help your youth minister see that their participation in the sport is more important than being at church. If he has too, let him count them in attendance when they are gone for sports or for practice. But also encourage him to equip them to represent the church while they are there and to know that you, the youth minister, and the church support them being missionaries to sports.

That’s the way I would handle it.

There is an old myth that says it is best if lay people make the first call on visitors.  Well, that’s just what it is a myth. Up until a church reaches 500 or 600 in worship it should be the pastor. Many effective pastors like Adam Hamilton and yours truly did it within 24 hours.

Here is a four minute video of mine showing how to make this call to first time visitors.

Responding to first time visitors

This is a heads up about a great event coming September 9 called The Nines. This is its second year. The only change is that every video will be under 6 minutes and they will be from some of the best church leaders in the country – and yes I am one of the speakers. You can view this as an individual or they provide a package for viewing it in a group.   There is a free sign up or you can choose to get extra stuff at a nominal fee. Click here for the info.

I just finished writing a book titled “Preaching for Transformation.” I used Acts as the text, especially Acts 1:8 where the apostles (“Apostles” means “the sent ones” in Greek) were told they would be Jesus’ witness throughout the world when the Holy Spirit came upon them.God had a plan for the Apostles.  Let’s call it “Plan A.”

Plan A was for the Apostles to spread out and take the message of Jesus to the world.  But instead after the Holy Spirit came, they did what most churches are doing today – they hunkered down inside the comfort of their own four walls and began working on their organization (see Acts 6), never leaving Jerusalem. Plan A failed, but God always seems to have Plan B in the wings.

Plan B is seen in Acts 8:1 where it says a “great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles (“the sent ones”) were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.”  What “the sent ones” were not willing to do did not square with what God wanted.  I hope you see the sarcasm here. It’s like Luke hit the Apostles upside the head (remember, “Apostles” means “the sent ones” in Greek) and said ”You dummies. You can’t ignore God!” 

You see, God always intended for the Church to be on the move rather than hunkered down. God always intended for the message to be viral rather than tethered to a location.  God always meant for the church to be reaching out rather than reaching in.

Maybe it’s time to take notice and once again become the “sent ones” before God activates Plan B again. Or perhaps Plan B is already set in motion?  Have you noticed how many churches are dying? Sort of like the Jerusalem church.  It was dead and gone within 70 years, and before that Paul was collecting money for the Jerusalem church from the new churches birthed out of the Antioch Church.

You and I are here today because of the Church of Antioch. So why don’t we hear much about that church today? We hear a lot about Acts 2:42 where the life of the Jerusalem church is spelled out, but that text is before Luke tells us how ingrown the Jerusalem church became.  I have a hard time figuring out why so many churches want to embrace the four practices of Acts 2:42. Sure they are good practices, but all of them are focused inward.  None of them are reflections of Acts 1:8 where Jesus gave them his mandate for mission.  It took a desaster for the Apostles to leave Jerusalem and take up the mission Jesus had clearly laid on them.  Are we doing the same today?

Look at Acts 11:20 – “Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.”  That’s what Acts 1:8 is all about- telling people about Jesus.

So which church would you rather your churchbe like- ingrown Jerusalem or externally focused Antioch?  About 85% of established churches in the West need to decide before it’s toooooooo late.

Bill Easum
www.churchconsultations.com
easum@aol.com

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the growing use of the word “Missional” to describe the church. I’ve seen so many definitions of the word that it makes my head spin. Still I offer you another definition in the hopes of simplifying the issue.

A missional church is a baptized community of people called to live out the Christ and the Kingdom of God at church, home, work, and play. Rather than focusing on itself and its needs, the missional church focuses on engaging the world with the Gospel and being a sign that the reign of God is present, transforming the world.

Okay. Being missional is both a culture and an attitude. At the heart of this culture is a deep seated love for both Christ and the world. At the heart of this attitude is a passionate love for those who are not yet in love with Christ.The world rather than the church is the heart beat of this culture and attitude. 

So what are the implications of being missional?

1. Instead of nominating people to serve in some official capacity within the church people are commissioned to live out Christ at home, work, and play based on their giftedness.
2.  The surrounding secular community is the focus of ministry rather than the programs within the church.
3. Instead of a “build it and they will come” attitude the church understands it is a “we must disciple people where they are.”
4. Mission and evangelism committees don’t exist because everything and everyone in the church is involved in missionary and evangelistic activity.
5. Leadership is focused on making disciples instead of doing programs.
6. The prime directive of the church is to transform society not to insure that the institutional church is fed.
7. God is understood to be a missionary God who invites all people into His fellowship and sends out that fellowship to engage the world.
8. Missional churches are always asking “What is God up to in our city, and how can we be a part of it?
9. What structure a church has follows God’s mission rather than some predetermined form. 
10. Leadership is more collaborative than authoritative (does not mean the leader doesn’t lead).
11. Leaders function more as spiritual midwives, helping others birth their God-given gift, than as authoritative figures (let your imagination run wild on this one.

Okay, what would you add to this list to help those who don’t get it, get it?

Bill Easum
www.churchconsultations.com
easum@aol.com

I began reading seriously about the Missional Church in the 90s with books like God’s Missionary People by Van Egan, The Continuing Conversion of the Church by Guder. I resonated deeply with their writings and saw many of the things they wrote about being lived out in my ministry while a pastor as well as in the ministry of many of the great churches with whom God has privileged me to work over the past twenty years.

But in this decade many of the writings on the Missional Church have unintentionally opened up a huge can of worms that many books have exploited. The can of worms simply put is “Is there any validity to the institutional local church?” Books by authors like Frank Viola and George Barna have picked up on the can of worms and have basically denied the biblical validity to the institutional form of the church. I think theyhave gone  too far.

Although I still resonate with much of what is being written today on the Missional as well as the Incarnational Church (and much of Viola’s material), I’m turned off by the conclusions of many of these writers. I simply refuse to believe the only missional church is the one that abandons all forms of the institutional local church in favor of informal gatherings throughout the neighborhood.

That’s why I resonate with Roxburgh and Boren’s book Introducing the Missional Church.  They don’t throw the baby (local church) out with the bath water (Missional).

I’m a simple person, so I boil books down to their absolute minimum. When I do that with this book, here’s what I come up with – The Missional Church is one that asks a basic question –“What is God up to in our neighborhood,” rather than “How can we improve what we’re doing so we can attract more people to worship?”

In one of my seminars (I can’t remember which one) I shared this prayer with the group:

“God show us what you’re up to and run over us with it until we become a part of it.”

In my mind that’s being missional.

Anyone with any sense knows that Christianity is far more than any local church; it is a movement that wishes to transform the entire creation.  And one of the ways it does so is through the institutional local church. Even in the first few centuries before Constantine, local congregations began formalizing the entrance into membership which suggests the beginnings of a formal group of people.

Still, we should take to heart the critics of the institutional church.  They have much to teach us about what is wrong with 80-90% of the churches in the West. Those who have followed me over the years know that I was one of the earliest critics of the institutional church. As early as the 70’s I was seen by many as a maverick in my tribe (United Methodist Church). The title of my third book, Dancing with Dinosaurs, clearly stated how I felt about what Christianity had become.  But still I’m not willing to through the baby out with the bath water and neither should you.

Instead we should all take notice of the reproductive movement under way today- churches planting churches and multi site churches. Churches that reproduce themselves are rapidly taking the place of denominations and will become the norm by the midpoint of the 20^th century. Nay-Sayers take notice; the institutional local church is here to stay in the West; it’s just morphing into something you don’t understand. So pay attention.

Bill Easum
www.churchconsultations.com
easum@aol.com

When most people hear the word “missionary” they think of someone going off to a foreign country. That used to the case. But no more. Today, in the U.S., we are called to be “back yard missionaries” to our networks.

Today, only 30 percent of the missionaries being sent out in the world are from the U.S. In fact, Africa, Latin America, and Korea send out the most missionaries—most of them to the U.S. North America is now one of the least Christian areas in the world. Every day the gap between Christian and non-Christian grows.

During the final five years of the 1990s, world Christianity grew between 7 and 8 percent worldwide, compared to only 1 percent between 1965 and 1985. Currently 165,000 people are for the first time claiming Christ every day around the world. At the current rate, within just a few years one-half the world will be Christian. That’s almost four billion people! Yet in North America, Christianity continues to decline in actual numbers and percentage of the population.

In 1948, when Gallup began tracking religious identification, the percentage who claimed to be Christian was 91%. Today less than 75% of Americans claim to be Christians. 15% claim no religious affiliation at all and the number is growing every year. In 1972, Gallup measured 5% with “no religion.” According to CNN, “America is a less Christian nation than it was 20 years ago, and Christianity is not losing out to other religions, but primarily to a rejection of religion altogether…”If these trends continue by the mid-point of the 21st century it will be difficult to call the U.S. a Christian nation.” Already in the eyes of the world, the U.S. is one of the largest mission fields in the world. More missionaries are now sent to the U.S. than from the U.S. The last time I looked, the U.S. was the third highest nation receiving missionaries from other countries. Thus, those Christians who share their faith will be more like missionaries than they would like to think.

This is one of the most critical points in the story of the U.S. If we are going to transform our cities we must approach it as a missionary. Two metaphors I used in my book, Doing Ministry in Hard Times might help you explain this change to your congregation. In the book I contrast two metaphors – The National Park World and the Jungle World. The National Park world is characterized by Ozzie and Harriet and the Jungle world is characterized by Ozzy Osbourne. Your people have to realize that they no longer live in the 1950’s. Between 1954 with the advent of Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock and September 11, 2009, the world has experienced a radical break with the past. Not much will be the same ever again, including how Christians must live out their lives in the world.

Missionaries have to do three things to reach a strange and new culture. They have to learn a new language, culture, and technology. We understand the need for a missionary to learn Chinese if they are going to China.  We also understand the need to not shake hands if you are a missionary to Japan. We also understand if we are in the backwoods of somewhere we don’t whip out our PowerPoint.

The same is true in the U.S. to reach the new emerging world we have to think and act differently. We have to learn a new language (Rock n Roll); we have to learn a new culture (causal and post-Christian); and we have to learn a new technology (digital). We have to become back yard missionaries.

Like first century Christianity, Christianity today is in a more hostile environment than ever before and therefore Christians have to think and act like missionaries.

Bill Easum
easum@aol.com
www.churchconsultations.com 
www.BillEasum.com