Not Letting "Handicaps" Keep Us From Being Missional

As some of you might know, my wife Becky, Director of Youth and Discipleship at Faith, Georgetown, fell while leading a senior high youth retreat on January 5th of this year. The result of her fall was a left ankle with multiple fractures and a right foot with a broken metatarsal bone. The ankle injury required a delicate surgical procedure to rearrange all the bone fragments with a titanium plate and 5 screws put in place to hold it all together. Becky's orthopedic surgeon shares a good prognosis, but a fairly extended healing process of one year. Many well meaning people have said, "Why don't you just take it easy? You deserve a rest..." and other well-meaning statements of encouragement.

Becky could have filed for disability, and focused all her attention on her own temporary "handicap" and everyone would have understood. But...that's just not how Becky views life and ministry. The day of her surgery she was in the office taking care of phone calls and making arrangements for classes and ministries she is responsible for. She did take off the day after surgery, but 48 hours later she was back for as many hours as she could stand without her foot swelling like a balloon. Becky sees the urgency of her mission as Christ's servant as just too important to let a wheel chair and two broken feet get in the way. Its not that she feels the church couldn't live without her; instead, as long as God gives her strength, she wants to be about his mission. If she waited to heal and walk with her own two feet, it would be 3 months or longer before she would be back in the game.

How about your church? What "handicaps" do people sometimes use for not considering church planting, evangelizing, or supporting Texas District or local missions. Congregations say things like "once we can afford our new staff person...or once we get our new Family Life Center paid for...or once we get past some issues of disagreement then we will become missional."

If we allow our congregational "handicaps" to be the excuse for not carrying out the Great Commission, we can always find a reason not to plant a church or share Christ with our community. If we wait until all is perfect in our congregations, we will always find some "broken ankle" that will keep us from serving. What "handicaps" do you want the Holy Spirit to help your church to overcome?

3.8 Million in 2007

"In the 30 seconds it took you to skim the headline and decide to read this post, somewhere in the world approximately 125 people were born, and 53 people died, 36 of whom did not claim to know Christ. In 2007, approximately 3.8 million people died who likely didn't know Christ."

That was the first paragraph of Editor Linda Lowery's column in the January/February 2008 Edition of "Outreach" Magazine. Statistics like that are always good for shock value as well as bringing home the point that the world is in urgent need of a relationship with Jesus Christ so that the eternal destination of multitudes can be changed.

However, I must sadly admit that while I find it easy to report those numbers, I struggle much more with translating that knowledge into real-time witnessing action in the circle of relationships God has given me. Because I spend the majority of my time working with churches, it becomes easy to spend all my time with those who are Christians already. When that's the case, the 3.8 million become a statistic that I feel dismay about but do little about personally. It's kind of like reading about the millions of children who go hungry every night around the world. The number is so big that I block it out as something I can't impact.

What would God have me do? As God opens my heart and mind, I see people all around me who need Jesus: a neighbor who grew up in a repressive church environment and has rejected the "institutional" church; my chiropractor who has expressed interest in spiritual things, and so many others. My wife, Becky has been faithful in an ongoing conversation with the guy who cuts her hair. This conversation has gone on for several years and I must confess she is more faithful than I in pursuing this witnessing opportunity. The bottom line for me is that I have to pray that the Holy Spirit would open my eyes to become very intentional in seeking opportunities to share the Gospel and be an inviter. I need to cultivate relationships with those who don't seem connected to God or any community of believers, genuinely caring about their eternal destinies.

When that happens, God can use me to have impact on whatever part of the 3.8 million come into my little world. When that happens in the lives of believers everywhere, the gates of hell are stormed, witnessing becomes part of everyday life, new missions are planted and more people get connected to God for eternity. How is God using you to impact the 3.8 million?

Extraordinary Prayer and Abundant Evangelism - Universal in Every Church Planting Movement

Les Puryear, a North Carolina Mission Planter in his blog "Joining God in His Work" reports that David Garrison who has spent years researching church planting movements in third world countries found that there are 2 universal elements to any church planting movement

The first is extraordinary prayer - not just the kinds that says "God bless our church planting efforts" but rather prayer to open the hearts of pastors, people and churches to have a passionate desire to share the Good News of Jesus with others and to plant new churches to evangelize and disciple those people.

The second is abundant evangelism. If prayer links a Church Planting Movement to God, then evangelism is its connection with the people.

"Essential to every movement is the principle of over-sowing. Just as nature requires a tree to drop thousands of seeds to produce a single sapling, or a human body to generate hundreds of eggs to yield a single baby, so it is with evangelism. In Church Planting Movements we find hundreds and thousands of people hearing the gospel every day and out of this abundant sowing, a growing harvest begins to take place."


"Conventional wisdom in the West has often taught a reasonable yet much less effective pattern of gospel transmission. "You must first earn the right to share your faith," goes the traditional model. "Once you have developed a friendship and demonstrated that you are really different, your lost friend will ask you what is special about your life. Then, you can tell them about Jesus."

I have taught this very concept myself. Garrison says this is a very western concept and not true. It certainly makes me sit up and take notice. I am still thinking about this. A passionate purveyor of Church Planting Movements denounced this Western model. "We teach that it's not about you or your earning the right to share your faith. Jesus earned that right when He died on the cross for us. Then He commanded us to tell others!"

That makes sense! It's Biblical. I still believe that I can be a more effective witness if I am willing to invest in the person as I begin to witness. That way I can share God's Word in ways that meet that person where he or she is. Also, the stronger the relationship I have with those who need to hear the Good News, the more urgent my witness becomes...because I want them to share heaven with me!

"If nature's principle of sowing abundantly to reap abundantly is true, then so is its opposite: if you sow sparingly, you will reap sparingly. ( 2 Cor. 9:6) This simple truth is so powerful and yet many well-intentioned missionaries accomplish every lofty ideal except this one. To remind them of the importance of abundant gospel sowing, many successful church planters have prominently displayed a one-page sign at their workstation which reads: "How many of my people will hear the gospel today?" If there's going to be a movement, then the answer must be in the thousands."

This means that attractional programs, outstanding worship, servant events in the community, etc. can only be that which supports the personal witness of church planting pastors, launch teams and members of new missions. It also must be a core value and behavior that is not allowed to fade when the church reaches a comfortable size. What do you think?

How Big Must Your Church Be to Plant a Church?

Phil Stevenson, Author of The Ripple Church, a book we have been giving to any church in the Texas District willing to explore the possibility of planting a church wrote the following in an article in 'The Pastor's Coach' available at www.INJOY.com several years ago:

"I want to address a myth about church parenting: the myth of attendance. It is the idea that only churches of certain sizes are able to parent churches. All churches need to be open to the opportunities to parent. It is not so much the size of the church as it is the size of the church’s heart. It is more about health than size. In fact, healthy churches naturally reproduce. Christian Schwartz in his book, Natural Church Development, states, "Hardly anything demonstrates the health of a congregation as much as the willingness--and ability--to give birth to new congregations."

Check your health, not your attendance sheet. Check your heart, not your numbers. Nothing can grow indefinitely. An elephant gets to a certain size and stops. A mouse grows and it stops. They are not the same size, but they are healthy. The only hope for the continuation of a species is not for a few to grow large, but for all to multiply. The same is true of churches. A few growing larger will not meet the need, but all multiplying can help sustain the species."

I am positive that Phil Stevenson is right! In Lutheran Churches in particular, there is this notion that big churches should plant churches. The truth is not many of them do either. I am thankful though, that more and more of churches, both large and small, in the Texas District, Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod are praying and pondering about when God might lead them to plant or partner to plant one or more new churches. Healthy organisms reproduce! The norm for Christ-centered, healthy churches is also to reproduce.

What ideas do you have for how this new surge in church planting energy might become a church planting movement in the Texas District? Please share any thoughts, no matter how random with us!