Man, worlds colliding. This weeks episode of This American Life is about church planting (even with an appearance from Tim Keller): thisamericanlife.org/651/if-you-bui…
The first few minutes are exploring church planting's entrepreneurial nature, which has even lifted much of its language from Silicon Valley. Thread me:
Undoubtedly Silicon Valley values and phrases like, "high-conversion growth rate", "kingdom return-on-investment", "corporate renewal dynamics" can be helpful.
And undoubtedly, my church prospectus and fundraising didn't look *too* much different than an initial round of V.C. investment.
And it's certainly true that not all guys who are called to pastoral ministry are not called toward church planting--an entrepreneurial spirit is definitely helpful in starting something new.
But I am so thankful for some of the things that I've learned on the eve of our two-year anniversary of @ChristChurchABQ.
1) @JonathanDLeeman is right that churches don't launch, ships do--churches covenant together.
At what point did we cease to become a church plant and just become a church? I think on the first day that we met together and took the Lord's Supper. If that's right, we haven't been a church plant for nearly two years.
In Silicon Valley, it's hard to get people to download your app, and it's equally hard to get people to come to your new church, so the temptation is to make it worth coming to and checking out.
But if all of our effort is put toward a "Build it and they will come", first-Sunday launch event that is primarily meant to attract the unchurched as a less offensive on-ramp to Christianity, it certainly seems like we are deemphasizing what the Scriptures seem to be emphasizing
Praise the Lord, Christ Church is growing through conversion to Christ and in people moving to town, and it seems that people have (not shockingly) been attracted to the plain, old ordinary things that churches have been doing for centuries.
Namely centering our Sunday gathering around praying, preaching, and the Lord's Supper. In other words, new and innovative is both not necessary, nor even desirable(?).
But also in the Lord's providence, 2) I saw @MattSmethurst tweet this a couple of days ago: 
I think that God has gifted me in some entrepreneurial ways, but I'm not that confident that I would do well in Silicon Valley. I am lacking in *a lot* of ways that make a good start-up entrepreneur, and I've found so many weaknesses in my own ability as a pastor.
But "entrepreneurial" isn't a pastoral qualification, nor has God structured his church to rise and fall under one pastor. I am so *immensely* thankful for our plurality of elders at Christ Church, and that Clint, Kyle & Ryan are gifted and wired in different ways that I'm not.
Not to mention that I am so thankful for a church whose members would revolt if we ever stopped just preaching the Scriptures and Christ crucified.
So all of that continues to be reassuring (an on-going challenge and reminder) for me that this article is so true: thegospelcoalition.org/article/church…
"We may believe that what a church plant needs to be successful is the right frontman, a charismatic personality as the face of the church. But if you’re the product you choose to promote, you’re entering a lose-lose scenario."
"If you fail, you’ll have no one else to blame—and if your church takes off because of you, you’ll have built it on something other than biblical community. You will have won glory for yourself, not for God."
"Credit for the success of any church plant is a zero-sum game. After all, if we’re to be faithful church planters, we must agree with John the Baptist: “He must increase; I must decrease”".
Anyway, thanks @ThisAmerLife for bringing to the forefront some things that I've already been thinking about.
/fin
/fin
