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Organic Church Blogs Neil Cole Neil Cole
Organic Church Blogs Neil Cole Neil Cole
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Organic Church Pioneers Remembered
George Bernard Shaw once quipped, "One out of one people die, that's a startling statistic!" Sobering, to the point, and real. I remember hearing a radio spot while driving that was advertising for a funeral home. A deep, trusting voice said, "If you should ever die..." I remember swerving as I laughed and said, "If?!" There's no "if" we all die sometime. It is appointed for every man to die.
This Organic Church movement is so young, yet already we have lost several pioneering leaders. It seems like only a couple years ago that we were just a handful of friends sitting around a fire chatting about what could be, and now some of the faces are noticeably absent.
The first Greenhouse training Paul Kaak and I ever did together was in 2000 in Oxnard, CA. We had about 25 of our own leaders there, two of those leaders have gone home already: Brian Ollman and Mark Palmer. I miss them.
Brian was a spark of creativity in our movement that always stretched us to think outside of the box. He was always coming up with a new creative idea. He was a magnet for young creative people that were looking for a place to unpack their art. We are coming on the one year anniversary of his home going.
Palmer (he preferred to be called by his last name) had a real heart for reaching young people that were not connecting with the conventional church.
For that reason he called his church the Landing Place, it was a place where people could come and connect with God, one another and a mission.
Yoshito Ishihara was one of the cutting edge leaders of organic expressions of church in Japan and he recently went home to be with our Lord after battling cancer. Josie seemed to laugh so easily and so infectiously. The church he led is unusual in Japan, it is full of freedom, joy and is very expressive of that joy. It is also larger and younger than most. This is a legacy of Josie. He was a father to many. I miss him too.
We actually teach that death is a part of life, so we shouldn't be shocked when it happens, but some how we still are.
There are others that have passed on (3 people from my own church in the last ten years). There will be even more. I remember C.S.Lewis speaking about the casualties of WWII and remarked that there were not more deaths in that generation than any other...because the death rate for every generation is the same--100%. Nevertheless, death is always too soon for those you love.
We do not mourn as those who have no hope. We have a very real hope and confidence in a great reunion. We already miss our friends, but the seeds they planted are already bearing fruit. We are grateful for their lives, and I for one, hope to live better for having known each of them.
I think that each one of these friends would challenge us to live our lives each day as if it were your last. Live well every day friend. I just completed a book (to be released March of 2011) that follows the life of a leader who finishes well. Finishing well is not something we do at the end of our life, it is what we do every day of our life. Live so that you will finish well, or die trying.
I often ask myself what would be left behind if I died today. Being prepared for death seems rather morbid, but it is actually a very wise thing to do (Ecc. 7:1-2). Are you living your life so that the end is better than the beginning? Will others prosper because of the investment of your life? What will remain after you go? Are you ready to meet God? What will it take to be prepared so that when you go others carry on the work? I'm not talking about life insurance, a funeral plot and a will, I'm talking about the seed of your own spiritual life bearing lasting fruit for eternity.
I have seen fruit from these men that will bear more fruit. I have loved each one and look forward to seeing them again. None of them were perfect, but Jesus' love for them was perfect, and it still is. That love of Jesus was the best part of their lives and it is that love that will bear fruit in all our lives.
Pressing on,
Neil
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Listen up Sheep: The Fold vs The Flock
I found this brilliant passage in an article by the late F.F. Bruce recalling a powerful teaching from E.H. Broadbent. The article by Bruce was addressing the things that went wrong with the Jerusalem church, one of which was legalism. So many of us look to the Jerusalem Church as the model we wish to emulate, but many things went wrong with that church. There are far more healthy examples in the NT than the mother of all churches.
I wanted to pass on to you this important lesson about sheep in a flock vs sheep in a fold:Many years ago I (F.F.Bruce) heard E.H.Broadbent speak on the fold and the flock in John 10. He pointed out that the sheep in the fold are kept together by the surrounding walls while the sheep of a flock are kept together by the shepherd. Moreover, the number of sheep that any fold can contain is limited, while there was nothing to hinder the sheep which the good Shepherd led out of the fold having their number increased by the adherence of those ‘other sheep’ that had never belonged to the original fold. But, he went on, developing the parable, some of the sheep argued that in spite of the care and devotion of their Shepherd, they would feel safer if they had walls around them, and so they started to build some. But, said Mr. Broadbent, ‘sheep are not good builders.’ Some of the walls they built were effective enough in a way, but so restricted that they shut most of the flock out; there were other walls, on the contrary, which were comprehensive enough, but so badly constructed that they let several wolves in too, with predictable consequences. The moral is that the people of Christ need no walls to keep them together. We may learn valuable lessons from the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, but Nehemiah’s wall is not a model for churches to follow.
We simply must let the Great Shepherd lead us and stop building walls. Bruce went on to apply this to the Jerusalem church as it grew more "zealous for the law":"The Jerusalem church, however, as time went on became increasingly concerned with ways and means of keeping the wrong type out. It was not so in the beginning, then the presence of God’s holiness among the believers was so manifest that ‘none of the rest dared join them’ Acts 5:13. There is a certain plausibility about the affirmation that ‘separation from evil is God’s principle of unity’, but it is not really so; God’s principle of unity is positive, not negative; it is the principle of unity in Christ; and separation from evil is a corollary of the principle, not the principle itself."
Bruce concluded with this poem from William Barclay to summarize how ugly the fold can get..."We are God’s chosen few,
All others will be damned,
There is no room in heaven for you:
We can’t have heaven crammed."
May we not be found in such a way. Follow Jesus outside of the camp (Heb 13:13).
From: Prof. F.F. Bruce, "The Church of Jerusalem," Christian Brethren Research Fellowship Journal 4 (April 1964): pp. 5-14
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Dr. Wagner's Cart Has Been Pulling The Horse for Too Long
For years missional leaders have repeated the refrain articulated by Dr. C. Peter Wagner that "The best means of evangelism under the sun today is church planting." I myself have even quoted Dr. Wagner in some of my earlier resources. This statement has become a banner for church planting in the US for the past 20 years.
The reason given for this statement is that new churches tend to be hungrier, evangelistically speaking, than their more established sisters. The very survival of the new church depends upon her outreach ability, so the people are more motivated to do evangelistic work. Statistically this is proven to be true as well. New churches do win more converts than long standing ones, but does that make the quote right?
In the past few years I have come to realize that Dr. Wagner got it backwards. We need to make a shift in our missional understanding:
The best means of church planting under the sun today is evangelism (gospel sowing).
You see, we have a great many people starting churches today but not necessarily doing any true gospel work. There are a number of fast growing churches that simply draw Christians from other churches to form new ones. I do not believe that such a practice is indeed the best form of evangelism or of church planting--but it can still fly the banner quoted by Dr. Wagner.
No, we must get back to seeing church as a fruit of evangelism not the other way around. The Bible never commanded us to plant a church or even instructed us in church planting. The gospel (the good news of the intimate reality, redemption and rule of Jesus daily) is the seed we plant, not a church. If we sow the gospel much, we will reap many more disciples and a whole lot more churches will be started as well.
Of course we must also shift to a more holistic understanding of the gospel and the kingdom of God than we have had. Simply throwing out a lot of tracts or shouting at people on a megaphone is not likely to reap spiritual disciples or churches. Jesus brought the kingdom with him to the people who needed it most in a very incarnational and transformational manner. That is what He instructed us to be about.
Stop planting churches, start planting Jesus. Don't build churches, that is not your job or mine. Jesus said, "I will build my church." What He told us to do is to "Preach the gospel," and make disciples (or followers) of Jesus. To risk being cliche: the horse must come before the cart. The seed must come before the tree, and the fruit will follow. Plant Jesus, and let him start the churches. Frankly, He is better at it than we are anyway.
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The 4th of July is losing its Appeal
It is the 4th of July, a celebration--yet I mourn.
As I returned from buying some sparklers and two tickets to the local fireworks show, I passed many empty houses with dead lawns, lock-boxed door handles and no window coverings. These are houses void of the dreams they once held, now full of nothing but broken promises. There seemed to be a house like that on every block. These homes are now owned by a bank that our government felt needed some assistance because they over extended themselves with loans...poor bank.
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Reading About Writing
I just finished and sent to the publisher my latest manuscript and found myself with unreserved reading time (a rare commodity these days). I decided to improve my writing skills so I picked up some books about the craft (much to my editor's good pleasure I'm sure).
I'm reading On Writing by Stephen King. I'm still waiting for a green glow and the evil clown to show up, but it isn't that sort of book. I've chuckled out loud several times while reading it but also doubted myself as a true writer more than a few. I want to go back and read some of my books and realize what I could have done better (now that would be a true horror story).
Someone asked Stephen King how he writes. His answer was, "One word at a time." I guess that is also how we get better as writers...one word at a time.
It is fascinating to read how other people write. I have much to learn. I need to find a steady balance between my travel, ministry, home and writing. I am not a very methodical person, so my balance will be different from others. So far, my writing pattern seems to be seasonal: summer and winter for writing, fall and spring for travel.
One of the strange things I have noticed is that I can't seem to write another book in the same place that I have already written one. I can tell you each place that my books were predominantly written and no two share the same space. It is like I draw a creative energy from the environment and it begins to reflect that book's unique personality, so when I try to write there again it doesn't work. I am just now discovering this, but of course that is something you wouldn't learn until you'd written a few books. I've written six so far (three other resources I've created are more like curriculum--those I can do anywhere). Imagine the difficulty of finding a new place if I wrote books as often as Stephen King! Considering my wife redesigned my eldest daughter's bedroom into a home office for me to write in after she moved out, this is a problem for even a writer with my own output. After Church 3.0 was done I haven't been able to write in the office again (save for blog posts and emails). Maybe I need to get over this idiosyncrasy and force myself to write in the same place. Perhaps this is just a rookie issue that can be overcome as a more seasoned writer. I wonder, does anyone else have this same little challenge? Any other theories about it?
Other books I am reading are: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White (a classic all should read several times over), The Elements of Story by Flaherty (which I think I will turn to often as a resource) and The Art and Craft of Storytelling by Lamb.
