|
By MacKenzie Wood Hello there! My name is MacKenzie Wood and I am in my third year as an apprentice with Sojourn Campus Ministry at the University of Washington. Having recently graduated from college, I have been able to see the impact of campus ministry in my own life as a student, and now as a minister with Sojourn over the past few years. And it has been such a blessing! There have been ups and downs, and through it all, I’ve seen God work in my life and in the lives of students. I am originally from Yakima, WA which is about 3 hours east of Seattle. Before working with Sojourn Campus Ministry, I had been a student at the University of Washington (UW) and I had been really involved with campus ministry as a student! It was where I found community and a place to continue learning about God and growing in my faith. As I was approaching my last year of college, I felt that God had given me a heart for campus ministry and I wanted to stay and work with students at UW. After graduating in the spring of 2020, I contacted Sojourn Campus Ministry, because I had seen on their website that they had an apprenticeship program. After talking with them, they invited me to the program! I moved back to Seattle in September of 2020 (I had been home because of COVID) and I was ready to begin working with the campus ministry. Over the last two years, I have had the pleasure of working with Sojourn Campus Ministry. The 2020-2021 school year was a challenging one. The UW campus was almost completely remote. It was very difficult to meet new students and all of our bible studies had to be done over Zoom for the majority of the year. But through that time, God taught me how to trust Him day-by-day, persevere through challenging and uncertain times, and to love those God had put me with at that time. I learned a lot about prayer and about patience (especially with the 7 roommates I had at the time).  Then the 2021-2022 school year came around. We were so excited that students would finally be back on campus! Yet, a bit apprehensive, knowing that things could still suddenly change. Many students had graduated and we met very few new students the year before, so we had only a few students in the ministry at that time. It was hard to imagine how we would grow the ministry. But, stepping out in faith and trusting that God had work for us to do at the university, we began tabling in the Quad and passing out flyers. Over the first two weeks of school, we met many students, several of whom would come to be the committed members of our group. We met students who came from a variety of different backgrounds, and some who weren’t Christian, but were open and curious. And as we have begun building community together, we had weekly bible studies and nights where we took communion together and shared our testimonies. It was a blessing to watch as students opened up and shared the journey God has been taking them on. Now, as I finish out the third fall quarter with Sojourn, I am so grateful for all the students that are a part of our ministry and have been so excited to see how God is moving in their lives.  Lately, I’ve been reflecting on why campus ministry is so important. And these are the thoughts that have come to mind: 1. College campus ministry invites non-Christians to hear about Jesus, possibly for the first time. At UW and at many US universities, there are students coming from all around the world and from a variety of different backgrounds. Many students we meet come from a Christian background, but there are also so many who don’t! Some might be too afraid to enter a church, but we are able to meet them on common ground and share the gospel with them! 2. College is a time of learning new ideas. It’s important for students to see that God cares about the things that they are passionate about. Growing up in the church, it is easy to think that if you want to live a life serving the Lord, you have to work in church ministry. Sometimes, it can even feel like there is a struggle between wanting to serve God and wanting to pursue the passions they have. Many of the students we meet often see their studies as very separate from their faith and their relationship with God. As campus ministers, we get to invite them into seeing their passions and gifting as being intertwined with the call God has on their lives. They get to be challenged on their intentions for what they want to do, and lean in to being a part of what God is doing in the world, in whatever area of work or career. 3. Campus ministry invites the church into a bigger picture of what God is doing in their community. Campus ministry cannot function well without the support of local churches and local believers. Sometimes, it is hard to want to invest in students who are constantly coming and going, rarely staying longer than 4 years. It is hard to continually say goodbye. But the reality is, the things they learn in college will go on to impact them for years to come. And they will be the ones who go back to their homes and carry the gospel with them. More than that, we have the opportunity to learn from those who come from so many different backgrounds. And we are often challenged by the perspective of others, forced to wrestle with our faith and grow in our knowledge of God. It’s not always comfortable, but it’s important that we step into the uncomfortable so we can continue to grow. I myself can testify to the life-changing impact of campus ministry. It provided a community and a safe place to grow in my faith and ask questions. And it was for this very reason that I knew I wanted to work in campus ministry. College can be a time of great joy, anxiety, chaos, excitement, and discovery. And what a blessing it has been to be a part of this journey with students and point them to the One who sees them and loves them amidst it all. So, dear reader, I would like you to consider becoming involved in campus ministry! If you are a student, I would encourage you to consider becoming an apprentice with a campus ministry. And if you are a leader with a church or a campus ministry organization, I would encourage you to consider creating apprenticeship programs. What a great way to invite young people to serve their peers, learn how to become a leader, and grow in their faith.
by Caleb Borchers Many of us have been in that place, maybe at 2am on a night where we cannot sleep, where we look at the latest doohickey an infomercial is selling and we are torn between our piqued curiosity and our cynicism. If that device actually can do everything the overly telegenic talking heads say it does, then I am so there! But more likely than not, they are selling me a bill of goods. The modern preacher needs to have a healthy dose of such skepticism. As we preach to an increasingly skeptical world, a sermon that shares Jesus without any thought toward doubt is going to come off as obtuse. The issue is exacerbated by the other sharks swimming around on the cable channels: TV preachers. Health and wealth gospel peddlers share a version of Jesus' message that sounds great but does not line up with the actual struggles of everyday people, much less Jesus’ own experience of suffering and rejection. To preach a gospel that always works, is always wonderful, and never costs anything is to become an easily dismissed caricature in our times. As I have preached over the years in our setting at The Feast Church, I have struggled with how to share the hope we have. I am painfully concerned about overselling what life in Jesus is actually like. When I look out at the pews and see families who have suffered unimaginable difficulties, it makes me timid. If I declare too strongly the benefit of following Jesus I imagine someone rising up and saying, “That’s not true! I have been a Christian 30 years and it hasn’t protected me from pain or tragedy!” How does a preacher avoid becoming a Hallmark cliché machine, while also holding out something better than the drudgery of a truly secular experience of our planet?  We are currently working through a series at The Feast Church on “Divine Interruptions.” The general theme is that God comes into our lives and interrupts them. Often the path of Christ is one that doesn’t go like we think it will. To highlight this in practical terms we are spending 10-15 minutes each week interviewing one of our members. We find a particular situation in their life where God interrupted their plans and we discuss it. I then offer a short thought on a biblical text that resonates with their story. It means about half the sermon prep for me, but more importantly we are giving witness to God’s work in our community. Only three weeks in I am generally amazed. With each person you see a life has been deeply touched by the hand of God. You also quickly discover that every person you know has a mountain of thoughts and experiences that you don’t know anything about unless you ask. What strikes me is how God-formed each story truly is. Circumstance after circumstance where people’s best moments are the fruit of divine interruption. This reality does not change when we talk with someone who dramatically converted late in life or with someone who was raised in a Christian home. As a preacher, I fear that all I preach is essentially country club membership. Join our church, come to some social events, do a little community service, make friends, etc. Christian faith is an add on to their lives, like getting a sunroof in your new Sonata. As we do these interviews that fear is eased greatly. When people give themselves to the Lord it truly makes a magnificent difference. While I am concerned about unfairly minimizing the beauty in my non-Christian friends’ lives, it is hard not to see that Jesus does make a difference. The quantity and quality of stories I hear from my Christian friends truly disarm my cynicism. When people truly hand their lives over to Jesus of Nazareth what you so often see is an incredible transformation of their entire person.  One of our core values as a church has always been “dialogue.” We think people learn better when they discuss things, not just listen to teaching. Usually, we put that core value within the context of non-Christians in conversation with Christians in an environment that allow struggles and doubts. As this series has continued, I realize more and more that dialogue is important within the family of faith too. At the very least, God does not get nearly the press God deserves! So often we experience providence and merely do not report it out. The result is a kind of spiritual isolation in what should be connected communities. Instead of all being encouraged by declaring the work of the Lord we sit back and kind of wonder if this Jesus stuff is really all it is cracked up to be. In summary, I would encourage Christians reading this blog to consider where the spaces of testimony are within your church. As traditionally non-charismatic communities, those of us in Churches of Christ really have not created space for this kind of communication. It happens a little in prayer requests, but those often turn into complaint sessions more frequently than praise fests. Many of our churches are far too protective of who gets behind a microphone. If we truly want the blessing of God, and to draw in those who are curious, we need to do more sharing. When we do we honor God’s work and prove that, yes, it really does work!
By Chandler Petray Introduction Hey! My name is Chandler Petray. I am twenty-three years old, and was born and raised in the Fort Smith area, Arkansas. I enjoy music, fixing things, computers, and nature. This year, I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith (UAFS) in May, got married in August at Mount Magazine State Park, and moved to Seattle, Washington in September. Needless to say, this has been a very exciting year for me and my newlywed wife, Briana.  Why Seattle? Briana and I both grew up together in Arkansas. Moving to Seattle was a big change for us: the weather (houses have no AC?!?!), culture, politics, amount of people, traffic, cost of living, religion, diversity, you get the idea. It practically feels like a different country, that just happens to speak English and fall under the domain of the federal government. The reason we moved to Seattle was for my new apprenticeship at Sojourn campus ministry. Sojourn has been serving the University of Washington (UW) campus since 2017, empowering students to live like Jesus. Founded and still under the leadership of Daniel and Holly Jarchow. During my undergraduate years at UAFS my life was changed by Lion’s For Christ (LFC) campus ministry, headed by Cade Richards. I learned what the Gospel meant for me (salvation), and what I should do in response to it (glorifying God). Towards the end of my stay at UAFS, I felt a calling and a desire to continue helping college students come to God. With the help and advice from Cade, Briana, best friend Zac Wolfe, and roommate Ben Sherer, and many more, I decided coming out to Seattle to do a two-year apprenticeship with Sojourn was what was best for me. What I Anticipate Learning: 1. Different Environment of the Pacific Northwest: Seattle A year ago, before I knew of this apprenticeship, if someone asked me what I knew about Seattle, I would have told them: Space Needle; lots of rain; big-tech; music; drug, housing, mental health issues; very liberal; beautiful nature; and “that’s where the Seahawks are from, right?” About this time last year, when Chris Buxton was helping me get connected to campus ministries looking for apprentices, I specified that I wanted to move to an area away from the Bible belt of the Southeastern United States, for I knew it would give me a greater learning experience in how to do ministry. The Pacific Northwest (PNW) is about as far away as you can get from the Bible belt and remain in the United States. 2. Switching From a Spiritual Consumer to Contributor During my time at UAFS, I was a student-leader in the LFC campus ministry. I would help plan/lead events, answer questions in group studies, and be an active member. However, the shift from student leader to apprentice can’t be overstated, and having to learn how to be a teacher/leader is a big responsibility. When I was a college student, my time at the ministry was my time with God. Now I need time that is set apart to just be with God, rather than just the time spent studying for upcoming events, and time with Briana and God. It’s important to keep growing closer to God individually, but it has proved to be a difficult adjustment. Another shift I am experiencing is in group discussion. In the past, I had no problem speaking, and would answer most questions thrown up during a discussion if no one answered. However, in my role now, I am letting the students answer most of the time, and discovering the knowledge of the scripture for themselves. My goal is to get to the point where in my answering, I don’t just slam-dunk the question, but I set it up, trying to help stimulate the conversation so that a student can slam-dunk it. 3. Biblical Knowledge, Books, and Application The goal of a campus ministry apprenticeship first and foremost, is to develop knowledge, skills, and experience to help become the best minister of Christ I can be. One very important development area is knowledge about scripture, truths, and other Christian topics. I grew up in a Christian household, but didn’t start seriously reading my Bible until just a few years ago. There’s still many books and scripture that I have yet to read, so I have been reading what hasn’t been read yet. Besides the word of God, there’s other resources to use as tools too. I have been reading some Christian books recommended to me, and just this past week I started a new one to help with our current Bible study group for the undergraduates, The Greco-Roman World of The New Testament Era by James S. Jeffers. I believe as a Christian it’s important to be well versed in scripture, and have pocket-verses to help ourselves, as well as those we are ministering to. Doing Kairos’s DiscoveryLabs has helped me tremendously with understanding what tools, knowledge, and skills a minister needs to be effective. Some ministry skills I would like to learn are how to read text not just for myself, but how it could help those I minister to. Another is making it easier to digest or tailored to what the people need.  Thanks For Reading! I hope you learned more about me, and my passion for campus ministry. I just started this two-year apprenticeship in September, so I still have a long way to go. However, I feel like I have already come so far this year. I hope other churches or organizations will create apprenticeship programs or seek out applicants, for this is one of the best ways to figure out if vocational ministry is the right choice for someone. You can find me on Facebook, and here’s my email if you want to reach out or have any questions: crpetray@gmail.com “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.” (Philippians 4:23)
“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel,” which means “God with us.” (Matthew 1: 23) You probably heard this verse recently. It gets dusted off with the Christmas decorations and shared in songs and pictures and sermons throughout December. And then, too often, it gets tucked away until the next Christmas. But Immanuel wasn't just the name of baby Jesus. It was the miracle of God made flesh. It was God dwelling with people. It was God come near.  God's presence. It's our theme for 2023. It has everything to do with life in Christ and everything to do with planting churches. Just as God came near to us, we draw near to people who don't yet know him. Just as Jesus was born in a crowded town in the midst of cultural turmoil, we take him to where the people are in the midst of whatever their messes are.  Travel with us this year as we explore the ways and places God makes his presence known. The challenge is to not only read or talk about God with us, but to practice dwelling where he dwells, seeing and interacting with people as he does, and discovering he has already inhabited all the places we will go.
by Caleb Borchers “Do you grind your teeth at night while you sleep?” Recently I have had to deal with a new challenge for me. I found out that I had a cracked tooth. Needless to say, I figured this out rather quickly and painfully! It was a bit of a shock for me, as I had never had any sort of major dental issues in my life. The pain I experienced was a constant drag and has been far more disrupting to my ability to function than I would have guessed. Overall, the experience has given me new found sympathy for the people I have served in church who deal with issues of chronic pain. It is so hard to function when you are hurting. The thing that took me off guard, and got me thinking, was the way that the pain was related to stress. In my case, when I get stressed out I tend to tighten up my neck and jaw muscles. The pain that was happening at the root of the tooth was close enough to those neck and jaw muscles that when I started getting stressed out there was a domino effect that caused my teeth to hurt. I would start to get worked up and next thing I know, zap, there comes the pain!  This domino effect of suffering was hardly enjoyable but it made me aware of myself in a way that I normally am not. My tooth pain became sort of an early stress alarm system. “Ow, my mouth hurts, what is going on…oh, I’m stressed.” Doctors have been warning the American public for decades now that our lifestyles of poor diet, too little exercise, and excessive stress are killing us. And far too often the stress goes unnoticed and is not dealt with properly. My wife is a massage therapist and other people’s stress damage literally helps us keep the lights on! So much of her work is overcoming the destruction stress is doing to people’s bodies. What I became aware of was something I should have already known: stress was creeping into my life all over the place, with shocking frequency. I am pretty disturbed by the ways in which the Christianity that I see practiced around me (and even in our church and my own life) is so distant from the spiritual life that Jesus describes. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Jesus describes a life where stress and worry do not have a place. Where we can rest easy. And then I look around at Christians who all seem to be haggard. Tired. Worn out. Burned out. Exhausted. We are so tired that even these promises or offers by Jesus feel like guilt trips. “Well Jesus, I am worried! The yoke doesn’t feel light! So what? Now I need to add the burden of not feeling the way I’m supposed to feel to my back?! It isn’t enough to live this hard life, but now I need to be ashamed that it feels hard!” I do not think that is what Jesus means to offer us by any means, but I understand why people feel that way. There is some sort of disconnection between our experienced reality and the way Jesus talks in these passages. Why is there the gap? What can we do about it? The simple, but frustrating, answer is that a lot of the yokes we carry are not in fact Jesus’ yoke. They are yokes of cultural expectations, issues from our family of origin, structures churches foolishly put in place, unresolved personal issues, and a bunch more. This is why Jesus asks us for a totality of our life, to let him be lord over all of it. Because as long as we keep control we pile our plates quickly with all the things that break us down. As churches we need to be really aware of this. What are we asking of people? I worked as a volunteer board member at a local non-profit. They would thank us profusely for the time we were giving to the organization. By my math, it was less than 5 hours a month. I grew up at a church that asked a minimum 16 hours a month, if not 20 to 25. Here at The Feast Church we try to balance those things out. While we want opportunities for spiritual growth and service, we know we have to maintain a calendar that doesn’t wear people out. Our structures too often do not appreciate the challenges of the modern family. Obsessing over continuing programs, upholding tradition, and boosting attendance numbers while also grounding our people into emotional dust is counterproductive.  Our personal lives are also a piece of this puzzle. Many of us are not really stressing about the current situation in front of us. Instead, we are re-experiencing hurt from decades ago or playing defense against a tragedy that will never come. Understanding our own mental health is important. I have appreciated the work of someone like Pete Scazzero, who has been urging the church to realize that all the spiritual programs in the world are not going to be able to move the needle if our emotional and psychological health is broken. We are whole people. As such, we need to see healing in all aspects of our lives. We have to consider, as Christians, better ways to live. Ways to live more lightly. I am convinced a major part of this is a stubborn refusal to accept that we are less important than we think we are. Many of us have a mental complex, born out of good intentions, that if we do not carry something it will fall and break. The world is full of sacred eggs, flying precariously through the sky, and it is only our own strength and courage which will manage to catch them before they become sunny side up messes all over the floor. My friend Jacob Parnell had excellent advice at the Pepperdine Bible Lectures for those who work in ministry, particularly at small churches. Let some of them fall. And break. If they do and people are distraught, they will take up the cause of rebuilding that thing. And if no one notices, it wasn’t that big of a loss. Simplifying our lives is essential. Cutting back on the things we feel compelled to do for the things that are fruitful is something we all have to tackle. I certainly do not think being stressed out is a sin. It helps nothing to feel guilty about your stress. Still, I wonder if our underlying stress issues are a lot like any other health problem we have. If we suffer various ailments we eventually ask, “What is going on here?” We might change our diets, exercise routine, lifestyle, schedule, etc. It is not a sin to have achy knees, but that does not mean that there are not things one might do to try to deal with the issue so they can live a more joyful, pain free life. My guess is a lot of us are suffering from our stress and we do not even know it. For me, that obnoxious tooth sort of became a heavenly messenger. A really annoying angel. Each time it flared up I considered if the thing I was getting tense about was worth the pain. The answer was almost always no.
One of the best ways to become a healthy, successful minister is to serve in a healthy, growing church. Several church planters and campus ministers in the Kairos network have taken on interns and apprentices. Just as mentors poured into them, they are pouring into a new generation of kingdom workers. Today, Kathleen Short, ministry intern at Luminous City Church in San Diego, shares some thoughts from her first weeks of training. What do you hope to learn as a ministry Intern? I hope to learn more about Jesus, such as his story, his promises, and his way of life. I want to witness and be a witness to others in how Jesus is changing our lives. I want to improve in all aspects of life better through his way, but especially in relationships with others. I also want to learn how the church and ministry run and sustain as primarily a volunteer organization. I look forward to learning new tools and skills while continuing to practice the skills and gifts I already have. I can't wait to learn how I can help others do the same with their spiritual gifts. Lastly, is how we can best serve our community. How does your position as a ministry apprentice serve the church? I feel like my staff position is helping the church by sustaining its existence in a community that can greatly benefit from doing life and community with other believers. I also believe that what I bring to the church is not only a comprehensive set of skills that help multiple areas of the ministry, but also a different perspective on how we can best serve others in and outside of the church based on the variety of ways of serving others in my career. What are the most important things you've learned in your first couple months as a ministry intern? The most important things I've learned in my couple months as a staff is learning:
by Caleb Borchers After weeks and weeks of preparation, it was finally over. Several of the people in our launch team got together on the afternoon of our launch, back in 2015, and we had a little party. We were an exhausted bunch. In the lead up to launch, not only did we have the struggle of getting our systems in place, having our worship team ready, and writing the sermon, but we also had the blessing and challenge of getting a church building space ready that would be our home. For many weeks my wife and I got up, took our oldest to school, worked like crazy, picked up the kid from school, worked until bed, and threw some food down our throats somewhere in between. We simply went nonstop for weeks. I had this thought during the party that night years ago: “Now we just have to do it again, six days and 18 hours from now. On repeat. Forever.” I guess all jobs have a certain relentless cycle to them. Payroll has to get done each week. Bills never stop coming in. Quarterly and annual reviews happen like clockwork. But it feels like ministry has a special hamster wheel factor to it. Every Sunday 10AM comes and the church expects to have songs to sing and a sermon to ingest. As a church planter, I have been more involved in making that happen then someone in a larger established church may be. For much of our church’s existence I have had to keep tabs on not just my lesson but many other pieces as well. While at Easter we loudly proclaim, “It’s Friday…but Sunday is coming!” the preacher more sheepishly, ominously says each week, “It may be Monday morning, but Sunday is coming!”  We just celebrated our seventh anniversary as a church. 365 Sundays! (Yes there is a 53 Sunday year in there, as weird as that sounds it is how calendars work.) That is so many weeks in a row. We had COVID and sometimes we had online church only. But there was some sort of content for our members every week 365 weeks in a row! I do not believe that a single one of those has come and gone without me having some role in preparations, somewhere along the line. Looking at it that way can make you a little bleary eyed. How do you discern an ongoing story through all of that? Early on, church plants have a clear, distinct story. The shape is pretty obvious. After a dreaming phase a team is put together, momentum builds, and the church launches! And even past that, there are celebrations of milestones like certain attendance numbers or staying alive after so many years or getting a new facility or financial independence. But like a person, those years start to fade in significance. What’s the difference between 43 and 44, for a person? Not much. I’m suspicious an 8 year old church isn’t that different from a 7 year old church. How do we continue to have a sense of direction and purpose? Church planters, when they are honest, will admit they have a bad little habit of patronizing established churches. It is usually subtle and not malicious. But we say things like, “We’re planting a church because we want to be mission driven. Instead of merely existing week in and week out, we are trying to inspire people to own their faith and be active in their community.” This, put more bluntly, might be something like, “Church plants are active and alive, unlike the old tired churches that just exist on life support week in and week out.” Now there is some reality to that all. It is much easier to get people excited to volunteer in Year 1 than Year 7. I’m experiencing that now. I cannot imagine year 78! Necessarily we give a lot of energy and attention to something in its neonatal stage, but that fades. Parents are not bad parents because they check in on their 52 year-old child a little less than a newborn. Churches transition into a stage where they just function without as much constant attention. If they don’t, they usually shutter because it is simply too much stress on whoever is keeping the plates spinning. All of this has me thinking about the “law of undulation.” This is a phrase C.S. Lewis discusses some in The Screwtape Letters. The idea, simply put, is that human beings go spiritually through natural cycles of growth and vitality, as well as natural cycles of drought and dryness. It is ingrained in the fact that we are subject to time. Lewis suggests that these phases are at least used by God, if not explicitly part of his design. After all, this is true of the seasons and weather. Undulation is a natural rhythm that helps us to find meaning. Undulation is a necessary part of our biology and psychology.  As Americans, we are allergic to undulation. I think that it is somewhat due to our economic/capitalistic values creeping into everything. Corporate America believes that everything should always be up and to the right. Growth, growth, growth. No company announces, “Our profits are exactly where they were last year, but that is plenty.” A culture that is never satiated will necessarily shudder at contraction. Instead we always want to see growth year over year. This is true of our spiritual life too. We think we should grow beyond last quarter in attendance, giving, maturity, and everything else! Lewis suggests that there are two different ways Satan might discourage us in undulation. Both are about rejecting the reality of ups and downs. On the one hand, some are tempted to think that high moments are the totality of faith. Such people cannot tolerate moments that are less than mountain top experiences. They feel they are slipping and in a foolish surge of energy try to force such ecstatic experiences. On the other hand, some will see their current state of low spiritual intensity as not a phase but the norm. They then look back on moments of intense spiritual experience and discount it as the folly of youth or false emotionalism. Lewis suggests that neither is helpful. We instead welcome these phases as necessary parts of our spiritual journey which God will, in the least, use to his purposes if not create in the first place. Any person or church that walks a journey of faith for some length of time will know this reality of undulation. Faithfulness over the long haul is challenging. Our faith can be a bit like a marriage where the passion of the early days can mellow into the depth of a quiet, confident connection. Allowing that season to be a maturing of our love and not negligence of it will always be an important balance to strike. Part of the work of maturing, as a believer and a community, is learning to accept and welcome the undulation God sends our way.
“It seems like there are already so many churches in America. Why do we need to plant new ones?” Good question! Attendance at most existing churches is on the decline. Why wouldn’t we just encourage them to be more active in reaching out to the unchurched? Fortunately, it’s not an either/or answer. It’s both/and. Established churches absolutely should continue to make every effort to make disciples of Jesus among all peoples. We at Kairos are dedicated to equipping churches to do this more effectively (more on that soon in an upcoming email). But making every effort also means that established churches should plant new churches for new people. Please consider-- 1. New churches are most effective at reaching younger generations. Typically, the older a congregation is, the more ingrained their traditions are in critical areas like worship styles, preaching, leadership, emotional responsiveness, and receptivity to outsiders. This can present a daunting barrier to those who aren’t used to the way things are done. Planting new churches allows for the possibility of developing new church cultures that are just as Biblical as the older ones, but feel more accessible to younger unchurched people.  2. New residents are almost always drawn more to new congregations.
About 13% of Americans move annually. That means that all of these people are “new” to their location. Research consistently indicates that the most effective way to reach these people for Christ is by planting new churches. Older churches gain 80–90% of their new members in the form of transfers from other congregations. New churches, on the other hand, gain 60–80% of their new members among people with no church affiliation. 3. New ethnic and cultural groups in a community are much more likely to seek out newer churches. The United States has the largest immigrant population in the world. Over a million people come into the US through this process each year. If we wait for these new people groups to become assimilated into the local culture and then try to bring them in through the door of established churches, it will take several years to begin to reach them. New congregations can be initiated with the view of being intentionally multiethnic from the very start. First century believers recognized that we should never put barriers in the way of people coming to Christ. Their approach was that “we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God” (Acts 15:19). If our passion is truly for the kingdom of God and not just our part of it, we must develop a culture of continually planting new churches for new people. Will you join us? by Patty Slack You can feel the change in the air–not just the crisp autumn wind, but the smell of burning leaves and cinnamon pinecones, the sight of neighbors on tall ladders stringing lights in bold outlines around windows and across roofs. It is a season of giving. This week, we give thanks, honoring our creator for the blessings of the year. We recognize that no matter our circumstances, we have reason to be grateful. It’s also a season of giving gifts. Despite my best efforts to push Christmas off until after Thanksgiving, the stores have already been decked with evergreen sprays and Christmas music for weeks. The next few weeks, I’ll enjoy considering the important people in my life and how I can express my love for each of them through a gift or a note or a personal visit.  Thirdly, for all the people who work with ministries and nonprofits, including all of us on the Kairos staff and many of our church planters, it is fundraising season. With the end of the tax year and our fiscal years coming soon, we are all aware of the fact that we really cannot do this work on our own. When I moved overseas as a missionary (more years ago than I can believe), I carried with me a healthy dose of shame to be asking for the money to help me go do the thing I wanted to do. As if to be worthy of support, I needed to be miserable. Or desperate. People and churches were generous and, though funds were often tight, God always provided one way or another for all we needed. After returning to the States, I had several years of working traditional jobs that paid an hourly wage. But last year I found myself in a position where obedience to God’s call and excitement about how we at Kairos are witnessing the movement of his Spirit meant asking people to support me. Let me tell you, it’s a terrifying place to be. Except… Time and time again in Scripture and in experience, I see that if God calls, he also provides. There are more scriptures than I can list that point to the importance of those who work for God’s purposes to be supported in their work. And here’s what else I’ve learned. God calls certain people to go. It might be missionaries or church planters or medical workers or apprentices or whatever. But these are not the only people God calls. He also asks people to send. Like the women who supported Jesus as he traveled or the churches that supported Paul on his missionary journeys, those who send are in partnership with Jesus just as much as those who are sent.  So, if one of us approaches you this season to talk about the amazing things we see God doing through Kairos, know these three things:
There’s no pressure. Just invitation. And then we’ll leave it between you and God to discuss if this is the work he’s calling you to support or he has something else in mind for you. Either way, we’re giving thanks for you.
By Caleb Borchers Here at The Feast Church we recently celebrated our 7th anniversary as a church. That number surprises me a little. The nebulous nature of time around the pandemic certainly has not helped things. Getting ready for the big day I sifted through old photos trying to find some that tell the story of our church well. I was surprised by the number of people who I immediately recognized with fondness, but also somehow allowed to drift far from my consciousness. “I haven’t thought about that person in forever!” The reality of church planting is that the very best part of it, and the very worst part of it, is the coming and the going of people. I do not think that many outside observers, or even naive young planters, realize the emotional toll that comes simply from the revolving door of members that happens in a young church. It is easy to think of starting a church a bit like building a house. You lay a foundation, then frame the walls, then finish it out. While that metaphor may work in some ways, it has a very wrong assumption at its core. Once the concrete of a home’s foundation is laid, it doesn’t go anywhere. But planting a church means building a house in which, from time to time, the foundational blocks at the core of the home suddenly disappear. The builder must find a way to re-purpose another part of the house or bring in new materials all together, at the same time they try to work on a much later stage of the project. Each time this happens the house gets terribly unstable for a while.  Church plants somewhat naturally churn through people. Sometimes this is due to the nature of a plant. There are always members of a core team who are simply excited by new things. They joined because you were starting a new church and they will leave once it starts to no longer feel like a new church. It would be easy to be hurt by their departure, but you shouldn’t be. That entrepreneurial spirit is a God-given gift. You have to be thankful it will be used to help others like it helped you. Others leave for more painful reasons. They do not like something you do. They start behaving in ways that you have to engage and challenge, so they choose to leave rather than address the problem. Sometimes people just slowly drift from faith. Then there are the happier partings. Maybe some older parents want to be nearer to their grandchildren. Many church plants start with young families, and young families today make several major shifts in their career that often includes moving. Sometimes a family even feels called to do ministry elsewhere. If someone had a heart for ministry enough to join your plant, they are going to be more likely to have another call in their life. Necessarily church planters are people who see potential. In order to build a community that does not exist, one has to have an ability to intuit things that have not happened. So the people who are part of our churches we see both as they are and who they might be. If a church planter doesn’t look at a new member and dream about how they might be a leader down the road, they likely aren’t doing enough to develop leadership. As such, when someone leaves, it is always a heartbreak. Not only is that relationship changed and lessened, at least in terms of time together and shared life, but there is also a death. The things you imagined happening in the future die. That young mom will never be able to mentor other moms a decade from now, at least not here. That young man that was ready to lead a ministry a year down the road will not do so in this church. Those people aren’t lost to the Kingdom, but there is still a pain in not seeing how their story would have joined your own. Church planters have a somewhat unusual relationship with their church. When I talk to minister friends at established churches they share (lament?) that they are to some degree always outsiders. I hear a sentiment like, “I can not push too hard for this change, because this church has a history before me and will have a future after me.” In those settings, the preacher is often the one with the least history and future in the church, with frequent pulpit changes being relatively normal. Plants aren’t quite like that. At the very least, the planter has been around longer than anyone else! They also did not come to a church with a salary and benefits. Often they worked like crazy to fundraise enough to scrape by to pursue a dream. So in a plant there is often a feeling, accurate or not, that the planter is more invested in the church than anyone else. This also makes people leaving hard. You are so prone to take it personally. “They left because they didn’t believe in me or my vision as much as I do.” And that thought hurts because on some level it is true! It wouldn’t be fair or sensible to expect every person in the pew to have the same level of commitment as a planter who uprooted their family, moved to a strange place, and gave their lives to starting a church. But that reality still can feel lonely. Obviously new people coming are the flip side of the equation. They are the drug that planters get hooked on. The thrill of someone showing interest in your church is amazing. It is affirming to feel like your work to create a community with a certain set of values is actually meeting the needs of real people. You can see all the ways that these new people’s skills and passions can benefit other people. Seeing two people who do not know each other create a friendship, and then seeing that friendship blossom into caring for each other in hardship, creates a sort of pride that makes the journey feel worth it. Church planters in a way are obsessed with connecting those who are disconnected. Of course they love seeing that actually happen. More personally, many people by their thirties complain about how hard it is to form new friendships. In ministry there are so many opportunities to connect with someone new through your work.  I have a bad habit I am trying to break. There are times when I daydream about what our church would look like if everyone stayed. If every family that had journeyed with us over seven years were still here today, what would this place be like? The attendance numbers alone makes me so happy! In those moments I can become a bit overcome with sadness. The work done to help people in their faith feels wasted. That’s obviously foolish. That image should actually reinforce just how many souls have been strengthened. How many hours of teaching and worship have built up the body of Christ? Who is in a much better place in their faith today because of the trajectory that started in the church we planted? How many communities of faith around the country and world are benefiting from the work we put in? That should inspire us. “Caleb, I cannot remember many of the names of people I worked intensely with in Africa,” a missionary once told me when talking about these things. It was not that he didn’t love those people. It was more like a defense mechanism. “It is like my heart clears space out so that I have capacity for the people I’m serving now.” To some degree forgetfulness is necessary. It would be too much to bear otherwise. I still remember one of our daughters crying when a family said they were moving away. “Dad, why do my friends always leave?” The work of church planting is essentially giving your all to form relationships that are liable to end far earlier than you would like. There is a necessary revolving door of people. Our kids have also benefited from having so many people play some role in their childhood. The most thrilling and heartbreaking part of church planting is learning how to give your all to those folks when they are here and then say goodbye in as beautiful a way as possible.
|
Archives
February 2023
Categories
All
|
