When I think of planting a new church…

Have you ever heard a three year old kid freak out because they want to put the star or the angel on top of the Christmas tree?  They whine and cry and whimper and demand to anoint the tree with a topper.

But, what if that obnoxious call to action came in July, long before December, the Christmas season, and a new doug fir freshly cut in our front living room? It’d kinda be weird wouldn’t it?  It’s just a thought really…

And so I wonder if trying to set up a church, an expression of the Bride of Christ, expressly appointed to live in organic relatedness as a many membered multi functioning physical incarnation of our Lord…whew…I wonder if trying to construct and produce that isn’t like demanding to put the tree topper on a Christmas tree before it’s been cut, long before December.

I don’t mean that comment in the ways that you may think. I’m not saying that it’s inappropriate to plant churches or form new congregations or any of that.  Really…I think there is a time and place for that.  And I’m not making this comment out of that ultra pious uber spiritual position that “man cannot build anything” kind of mentality.  I think that God has given us sanctified minds and has called us to be “co-workers” with Him. He calls ordinary fisherman to tend to his sheep as shepherds, he calls super spiritual religious elite to become foolish evangelists trekking the globe ministering to churches, he even appoints young men to raise up “elders” in congregations…I’m not challenging the fact that God uses women and men to do His work, we are as always His hands and feet.

No, what I’m saying has to do with an order to things…first things first…

Jesus came preaching the kingdom, right?  He came proclaiming a whole new way of arranging our lives around God’s priorities.  He came making the radical suggestion that God’s good dream was at hand, extremely near, and that it was accessible by those who were willing to violently reach out and take hold of it, becoming participants in God’s solution to a world corrupted by a downward spiral of fallen choices.  It seems that everywhere he went, Jesus was communicating God’s reign, God’s rule in the here and now.  This was His primary message.

Guess what he mentions twice?  The church.  2x, seriously.

And I’m not devaluing it by any means…rather I’m saying that if you look at the book of Acts, a collection of stories focussed on early believers, you find God’s ekklessia, His Church.  My point? The church comes out of the kingdom.

Allow me to further illustrate.  Jesus told a parable about a treasure and a field.  The man who wants the treasure must first secure the field. He must give everything he has for it.  Then, and only then does he gain the treasure.

This is an example of seeking the kingdom first.  As we give our everything–as our lives are radically changed into his image–a space is gained, a field is secured, a clearing is made…a clearing where something can be built upon.

Before the Church can be revealed in a locality or a church can be planted, there must be a space created for the possibility of it.  That space is opened up through the proclamation of the good news of His kingdom and the practicing of the instructions of the Master kingdom citizen, Jesus.  As we hear His words and practice them we are compared to “wise builders” laying a solid foundation for a building…that building is the church…

So…let’s make this really local and practical…before there is a congregation of people organically fitted together a space must be created where people can hear the words of Jesus and evaluate their lives in the light of that reality.  The kingdom must be proclaimed to a collective of individuals.  As they choose to respond as willing vessels to God the church very well may emerge…praise God if she does…

But…we start with the kingdom…creating a space for Him to speak into peoples lives and to be transformed into His image…

From the past 8 years of organic church…that’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned…learned the hard way…still…we learn.