Post-Christian America & the Urgency of Church Planting

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Jul 4, 2007 in Church, Church Planting, Culture | 11 comments

A while back I recall seeing the Did You Know? Shift Happens video and wanted to create one for church planting and the state of the church in America. So here it is, just in time for us to celebrate July 4th Americans! (I've compiled statistics from a variety of sources such as Planting Missional Churches, Christianity Today, Barna, stuff from Tim Keller and other books. All-in-all I hope it is a powerful call to the church to support church planting. If you are interested in the statistics, they are all located at Church Planting Resources: The State of the Church in the U.S.) Enjoy.  Watch Church Planting in a Post-Christian U.S. >

UPDATE: I've had several requests, so a Quicktime file is available for download at Church Planting Resources .

Goodmanson 3-Year Anniversary

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Jul 1, 2007 in Church, Culture | 4 comments

It was on July 1st, 2004 that I made my first post @ Goodmanson.com.  In the last 3 years there have been hundreds of posts and thousands of comments.   To celebrate:

1. I loaded up a new website design.

2. I re-organized the Article page based on categories for the top posts. Now you can find posts based on categories like the Gospel & Self,  Church, Mission & Ecclesiology, Church Planting & Ministry, Technology & the Church or The Future Church.

Thanks for participating in the conversation…

Acts 29 Sonoma Retreat – The Network & Defining Missional

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Jun 29, 2007 in Church, Church Planting, Culture | 1 comment

I returned last night from the annual Acts 29 pastors retreat where we spent most of the week in Sonoma. It was great to see friends and spend time with other church planters from across the country. A couple things came from the conference, which I may post on more:

1. Acts 29 re-organizing from a network to a movement.  Leadership, structures and vision are all adjusting to reflect this.  Some exciting news is that John Piper & Tim Keller will return to speak at Acts 29 bootcamps.  (Tim Keller's is the month after his new book is supposed to come out in March, 2008: In Defense of God: Doubting Your Doubts (Hardcover).  Start reserving your tickets now!

2. Ed Stetzer (pic of us @ Jonathan Herron's blog ) spoke on the history of the word missional which traces it's origins from three streams of thoughts: missio dei, mission & missionary.  He presents why we may all use the same word, yet it means radically different things for emerging churches, evangelical camps and the reformed community.  So when Tim Keller speaks about being missional it is not the same thing as when it used by John Franke or Alan Roxburgh.  He plans to publish a paper on this soon which will be extremely helpful for the missional conversation. 

3. Scott Thomas and then Driscoll did a State of the Union address on the network.  More changes will be coming soon…

Re-thinking Work – The Need for the Church to reclaim the Cultural Mandate

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Jun 26, 2007 in Church Technology, Culture | 4 comments

The cultural mandate calls us to be stewards of the world and cultivate it for God's glory.  This includes our work.  Yet, churches have largely left work to the domain of the 'secular world'.  There are two reasons I believe this occurred, first Western Christians are shaped by an enlightenment, Platonic dualism worldview  (creating a false secular/sacred divide).  Secondly, we have a limited view of the gospel.   When the gospel is reduced to just individual salvation, the fullness of God's redemptive plan is not understood.    The evangelical world had focused almost exclusively on the great commission at the cost of seeing their entire life as part of God's plan. If we broaden our gospel understanding, how does this change the way we think about work?

First, it should change how we think about our job.   The themes of creation/fall/redemption are a pattern we must examine our work by.   For example, here are conversations I've had with people regarding their work:

Insurance Broker - God provided for man in creation placing him in the garden, because of sin, death/disease entered the scene.  An insurance broker seeks to bring peace in the face of sin by providing people with health care so they can be taken care of in a time of need.  This is redemptive work bringing shalom to a broken world.

Merchant Service Account Exec – (Provides credit card processing at a company that eliminates banks as the middle-men so they offer significantly lower rates).  In the garden we should have shared and taken care of one another.  In the OT God forbids the Jews from charging interest to one-another.  Because of sin, we don't want to help others in need and charge high interest rates (and because of sin people abuse credit.)  Lower interest rates seek to reduce the consequence of the fall as best as possible.  It is trying to reduce the impact of the fall.

It is important for Christians to see their work as valuable as they act as agents in this mandate. Are churches encouraging Christians to think this way?  How would it change for Christians if they connected their work to God's redemptive plan?  

Second, kingdom-mindedness would mean companies would re-org in effective ways to reduce waste, miscommunication, lack of delegation and responsibility.  Shouldn't distinctly Christian organizations be leading the way as it relates to employee satisfaction, customer service, etc?  In addition, these companies would re-invest back into the community.  What else would a kingdom-minded company look like?  (I'm excited that a member of our church is starting a job where he will provide consulting to companies that want to think through what it means to be kingdom-minded.  It will be interesting to see what develops from that.)

Lastly, work should play a bigger part of life in the church.  What would it look like for churches to be involved in enterprises, employing people, meeting needs, job training?  Doing all of this with the cultural mandate in mind?  Fortunately, there seems to be a re-discovery of the cultural mandate.  Hopefully this will broaden people's understanding of work beyond just a 'mission field'.  We will recognize that our job of cultivating the garden was given prior to the fall. Cultivating the earth was our primary mission.  Yet we know this redeeming process will not be completed until Jesus comes. 

Gospel, Mission, Kingdom, Imagination [External Links]

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Jun 21, 2007 in Church, Culture, Leadership, Ministry Design | 4 comments

Triperspectival Leadership Essentials (David Fairchild) – Examines three essential elements of leadership, character, competency and the often overlooked compatibility.  Also check out his recent posts on Gospel Worldview Questions & Gospel Diagnostic Questions.

Rick McKinley's talk @ the Q Conference. Here is one of his points from 4 ingredients of divine imagination:  (read more at Q – Rick McKinley, Church Relevance or Q day 3)

deeply transformed disciples.. it is not about church but movement. We can grow big churches full of undisciplined disciples, but they will not transform culture. Create a movement of transformed disciples. Truly transformed disciples don’t need permission or a program to reach people. They are a movement of God to release on the city.  Ask: Who in my congregation that has been so transformed by the Gospel, and talk to them about giving it all up and going on this crazy journey…

Some bloggers to check-out: Gospel Driven life (pastor), Hsu’s Views (city-focused campus crusades), Mike Edwards (church planter) & Buzzard Blog (church planter).

Telling Gospel Stories

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Jun 3, 2007 in Culture, Sermon | 3 comments

We speak in stories.  Stories are the way people share what they really think and express who they are. Stories are the web that holds together a person's true beliefs. It is through these stories that we interact and communicate.   They are the currency to exchange ideas and as such are more important than 'facts'.  In an age of informational overload, Daniel Pink writes in A Whole New Mind:

"When facts become so widely available and instantly accessible, each one becomes less valuable. What begins to matter more is the ability to place these facts in context…"

It is through these stories that we interact and beliefs are challenged. God reveals Himself primarily in story and Jesus often teaches through story.  Christians need to understand the importance of this, including a greater understanding of their own story.

Here are three aspects of story that every Christian ought to know:

The Worldview story (Normative) : The worldview story is the driving story of a person's life. It is the story that shapes their interpretation of all things. This may be the humanist story or a postmodern story but none-the-less it interprets all other stories and life experiences. A Christian can recall when they became a Christian. Their whole life changed. This is because their worldview story changed. Christians not only have the greatest story ever told, but also each of our individual stories only make sense connected to the grand story as revealed in scripture. (Read: STORY AND BIBLICAL THEOLOGY PDF by Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen)

Our Person Story (Existential) : Often Christians assume their 'testimony' is simply a resume like collection of facts about their 'conversion'. This is because many Christians have a wrong view of the gospel. If we see the gospel simply as the entry into the Christian faith, our testimony is reduced to this. As we grow as Christians, our personal story includes the continual grace renewal that the gospel brings. It is the idols that, by grace, lose their grip on our lives. It is the suffering that softens our hearts to love others. It is God using circumstances to sanctify us. It is our identity being changed and conformed to the image of Christ. This is the story we speak to others daily in both word & deed.  (Read: To Be Told…Know Your Story. – Dr. Dan B. Allender)

Mission & Story (Situational) : When your worldview changes and your very values and identity change, how you live will change.  Loving others and sharing your story will be a natural result of your understanding of the gospel story.  Anything less than this is a rejection of the Biblical story.  This is because in your worldview, you will see God as a missionary god and you as a missionary too.  Christians ought become great listeners as well as story tellers. We must re-think evangelism to be the sharing of our story, God's story and listening to others stories.

Listen to the Sermon: Telling Gospel Stories (MP3 & PowerPoint)