What type of churches NOT to plant

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Apr 6, 2006 in Church, Church Planting, Triperspectivalism | 1 comment

To contrast what type of a church we should plant, here is the contrast of what not to plant….hmmm…more tri-perspectivalism. Most churches error toward one of the perspectives; Normative, Situation or Existential. Normative relates to authority and concern with ‘right thinking’ about doctrine. Situational is concerned with the world and culture around you. Existential is concerned with the person and their feelings/experiences. Here is what an error would look like in EXTREME cases:

Normative Church - Typically these are going to be hyper-orthodox churches who are heavy on doctrine and systematics. The pastor will be a PROPHET and the messages will have great information about the Bible. Typically people are more inclined to attend a debate about paedobaptism then evangelize [cause hey, they are hyper-calvinists].

Situational Church- Either this church has become so absorbed in the culture around them that in order to be ‘relevant’ they have lost any claim to Biblical authority. Or because they don’t like the culture around them, they have created their own subculture with it’s own language, mega-campus so you never have to leave the church because heaven forbid you talk to a ‘sinner’ and catch sin like a virus. The pastor will be a KING.

Existential Church- An existential church is willing to let go of God’s authority (the Bible) in order to offer cheap grace. This church never talks about repentance, hard doctrine but would rather talk about faith, forgiveness and unfortunately this all come without a Jesus as God or the cross. The pastor will be a PRIEST.

Now, the above are extreme cases, I’d say few churches fall into these. Most often a church will get two out of the three. Here are a couple examples of TYPICAL errors a church would fall into.

Normative/Situational- The church preaches messages that are ‘here’s God’s word, now go do it!’ Often a more guilt-centered. Service is joy-less and done from duty. People will have to put on a mask because they know they are not living the way that they are told they should. The preacher is the taskmaster. The preacher must remove themselves from too much interaction with the congregation, or they would discover he is a fraud.

Existential/Normative- My guess is that this is the least common combination. The pastor loves his people, teaches from the Bible but rarely helps the congregation apply it to their life. “They need to figure out how to apply these things themselves!” Right? When difficult teachings come, they are ‘tough love’ at this church. The preacher is the loving professor.

Situational/Existential- The ‘seeker sensitive church’ that preaches ten tips to being a better father. Little feel good messages that people can put in their back pocket and go try at home. Difficult teachings and doctrine is avoided at all costs. Program-driven to create a better experience for people. The preacher is a motivational speaker.

Not How or Why but WHAT type of church should you plant

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Apr 5, 2006 in Church, Church Planting, Triperspectivalism | 0 comments

As I posted earlier, the influence of Keller/Harbor/Frame and tri-perspectivalism is far reaching. It should be the very worldview that we filter everything through, we looked at its influence in church leadership development and preaching. Now, here is a take on how it influences WHAT type of churches you should plant.

First the NORMATIVE is that the church must view the whole Bible as the gospel. This means it is the gospel that is not just the entry into the Kingdom, but is the very way a Christian will grow in grace. Second, the SITUATIONAL impact is the gospel calls us to mission. We must plant churches that are on mission. We are a church 'for' the city/culture/people where God places us. We must learn the context, speak the stories, understand the myths, heroes and struggles around us. Mostly we must not be of, against or above but for the culture we live in. Lastly, our EXISTENTIAL stance is one of constant grace renewal through faith in Jesus Christ. We are motivated by grace (not guilt) and understand all challenges, problems and answers need the Gospel. I have 50 pages of notes from lectures Harbor (Doug Swagerty) and John Frame gave that go over these in much more depth. They go into the theology of ministry, including leadership development, preaching/teaching, administrating, counseling all through this framework….I'll ask Doug if it's ok if I post more about this stuff….

How Mutliperspectivalism shapes Church Leadership and how you staff a church

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Mar 18, 2006 in Church, Teaching, Triperspectivalism | 3 comments

Earlier I posted about how everything must look through normative, situation and existential perspectives. As John Frame wrote, “The knowledge of God’s law, the world, and the self are interdependent and ultimately identical” (The Doctrine of Knowledge of God, Prebyterian and Reformed 1987, p.89).

Further, we stated that Jesus perfectly modeled how we ought to live out these perspectives in the roles of Prophet, Priest and King.

Prophet – Jesus declared the norm/Word with authority
Priest – Jesus ministered God’s presence to the people perfectly redeeming them.
King – Jesus exercised God’s control.

As humans, each one of us are not a perfect balance of all three of these roles and most often tend toward one of these roles. You can think about what role is your strength

PROPHET strength – You are a visionary who has a burning desire to ‘preach the word of God’. You love to learn, read, study God’s Word and teach/preach it to the people. You see the normative standards declared by scripture and want all humanity to see this as well.

PROPHET weakness – A visionary leading people without a plan is going for a walk by themselves. As mentioned in this post, a Prophet can preach “Christ-centered” (norm, information) rather than “gospel-centered” messages. You can preach Christ and crush your people with the news, law and perfection of Christ.

KING strength – You know how to take a vision, organize and implement it. A king understands systems, planning and organization.

KING weakness – Without the proper vision or gospel-centeredness a system is worthless.

PRIEST strength – A priest has a tremendous understanding of the needs of the people. They can rally the people, help solve interpersonal problems and counsel.

PRIEST weakness – Without proper understanding of the norms (God’s Word) and how to apply it, a priest will only be dealing with felt needs.

Most people have one dominate area (Prophet, Priest or King) and a secondary area of strength. For example, many of the church planters I know are Prophets and then either King’s or Priests. Yet some people are just one (Prophet/Prophet). This leads to all sorts of interesting combinations:

King/King – Heavy systems, organizing, running adminstration. A manager.
King/Prophet – Vision to take a big picture to actionable steps and implement it.
King/Priest – A coach who can also help show people practical steps to take in a counseling situation.

The problem many churches face is that the pastor hires other people just like him. A strong Prophet tends to gather other strong prophets and as such, may have other leaders, pastors who are prophets. What is best for a church, is if a pastor understands his own strengths and hires people who have other strengths. This is where (1) pastors needs to understand and assess themselves and (2) pastors need to understand how to ask the right questions and behavior based scenarios to discern the strengths of those they plan to hire. Of course, pastors need to always be working on their greatest areas of weakness. The good news is that Christ performed each role perfectly, and a pastor through prayer can seek God’s grace in the areas or their weakness.

(Tri) MultiPerspectival Preaching

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Mar 15, 2006 in Church, Sermon, Teaching, Triperspectivalism | 0 comments

The Reformissionary had a post pointing to Keller’s writings on Informational vs Experiential Preaching, which brings up a great illustration of how to apply multiperspectivalism in preaching. Here is the quote:

The “informational” view of preaching conceives of preaching as changing people’s lives after the sermon. They listen to the sermon, take notes, and then apply the Biblical principles during the week. But this assumes that our main problem is a lack of compliance to Biblical principles, when (as we saw above) all our problems are actually due to a lack of joy and belief in the gospel. Our real problem is that Jesus’ salvation is not as real to our hearts as the significance and security our idols promise us. If that‚Äôs our real problem, then the purpose of preaching is to make Christ so real to the heart that in the sermon people have an experience of his grace, and the false saviors that drive us lose their power and grip on us on the spot. That‚Äôs the “experiential” view of preaching (Jonathan Edwards.)

Multiperspectivalism Application: The difference of ‘Christ-centered‘ preaching (norm, information) versus ‘gospel-centered‘ preaching (which uses a multi-perspectival approach) is HUGE. You can preach Christ and crush your people with the news, law and perfection of Christ. (I’ve seen a number of FUNdamentalist pastors do this.) It is only gospel that brings hope. Here’s how the perspetives play out in gospel preaching:

Norm: the “news” in the Bible (NOT advice which implies works)
Situation: The change of identity, worldview
Existential: The application of grace/hope

You can see this in one of David Fairchild’s recent sermons on Biblical Masculinity. (David is working through this at a level far beyond my meager brain. He should be releasing a series of articles about this and why going beyond tri to mulit is necessary to see through a series of lenses in the norm, situation and existential views. Piper fans have already seen some thought of this in his ‘doctrine’ feeding ‘passion’ to ‘Christian living’ which is part of the triperspectival view.)

How Multi-perspectivalism and Tri-Perspectivalism should shape your Worldview

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Mar 15, 2006 in Church, Teaching, Triperspectivalism | 0 comments

In many circles there is a greatly increased buzz about multiperspectivalism. Conversations stemmed from fellow Acts 29 pastors, Dick Kaufman, David Fairchild, amongst others. This is a worldview influenced by John Frame‘s tri-perspectivalism.

John writes: “The knowledge of God’s law, the world, and the self are interdependent and ultimately identical” (The Doctrine of Knowledge of God, Prebyterian and Reformed 1987, p.89). “Human knowledge can be understood in three ways: as knowledge of God’s norm, as knowledge of the situation [environment], and as knowledge of ourselves. None can be achieved without the others. Each includes the others.” (p.75) (NOTE: Frame’s work will filtered through a tri-perspectival view does not actually unpack *perspectivalism. Suggested reading: Symphonic Theology: The Validity of Multiple Perspectives in Theology

Normative: the Word, authority
Situational: the World, environment
Existential: our self

Let’s look at this through Jesus as a Prophet, Priest and King. These offices were perfectly fulfilled in Christ and reflect a tri-perspectival worldview.

Role
Prophet - Jesus declared the norm/Word with authority
Priest - Jesus ministered God’s presence to the people perfectly redeeming them.
King - Jesus exercised God’s control.

Future Applications: (to unpack this a bit more, I will post applications discussed at a pastors meeting about how this impacts (not how or why, but) what types of churches you should plant, how you should hire for church leadership and an application of dealing with sin.