Ouch! Thanks Steve Addison for this delightful piece. May we all not sleep well tonight because we are appropriately disturbed! Some people point out that one of the most common ways to pray in the Psalms is "Help!" That is how I'm praying tonight!

Addison rightly urges risk and prudence in his comments. He has obviously seen thoughtless investments and lots of talk with no action.

I was inspired on the risk side by Brian McLaren in his Princeton Theological Seminary address entitled "The Church Emerging & Mainline Theological Education." He told a predominantly mainline audience that they should throw their money at creative, pioneering efforts. He said that instead of selling old urban church buildings to raise the endowment to pay denominational officials, we should be giving that church property to the most creative out of the box folks we can find. They may "fail" but they probably won't truly "fail." (For some people not lasting five years is a "failure" but it is not when we consider the outreach that has taken place. They are only really failures when someone loses their marriage in the process).

Let's invest in these creative pioneers who will cultivate fresh models of outreach. And if there are wise people like Steve Addison who can help us select the right people and guide them away from common pitfalls, that is all the better!

Having planted 2 churches I love it! Thanks for the post.

Wow! Now you're talking! What an awesome post! Only, I think you packed too much stuff into one post. You could take all 20 of your "how to" steps and spend an entire week on each one.

You have hit the descriptive nail on the head. Truly, our stagnant culture of church and our propensity to maintain the "status quo" of church life and politics are primary reasons for the virtual lack of an actual CPM in our land.

I think that the answer to making a real change in the cultural isolation of church in North America is to focus our efforts upon the next generation. We must help develop within our children and youth a passion to think differently, to think "outside the box," and to engage the world around them with creative Gospel methods. We must train our kids to plant churches! I have some ideas for doing just that. You can check them out at www.missionmpossible.net or join us in discussion at www.missionmpossible.blogspot.com . URL … please stop by and help give us some fresh ideas and insight.

Meanwhile, we must pray for this next generation. God is bringing together a great Church Planting Movement. He is already preparing the workers for it!

My favorite is number:

14. In the 1960’s change the word “missions” to “mission.” To usher in the new millennium change “mission” to “missional.” Around 2010 plan to change “missional” to “postmissional.”
Buzzwords make the movement! (I have a blog on Emerging Buzzwords and this is one of them)

I'd like to add a few of my own.

1. Get a more prominent tatoo.

2. Tell people in big churches that God doesn't honor big.

3. Kneel in prayer and ask God for his guidance. (Oops, sorry, this is supposed to be 'tongue in cheek')

4. Practice preaching in riddles so at the end of a service, no one knows exactly what you said.

Psalm 127:1 "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain."

Thanks for a great post. I work with Geoff Baggett who commented above with Mission M Possible, which raises up students in church planting. I also pastor a church. One of the concerns I have in mentoring church planters is that many of my guys who are just starting out already have plans for a worldwide ministry, are designing a church planting school, and are wanting to write articles and books on church planting their way. It feels to me that they are putting the cart before the horse and the horse may get dragged to death in the process. When we say "church planting" we need to reference the day to day forming of evangelistic relationships, the intentional making of disciples, and the establishment of biblical community. All else needs to be put to the side until we reach a stage when the culture of our church is a going culture, when there is a breadth of leadership, and when we are multiplying the local church into church plants elsewhere. Only then does a pastor/leader have freedom to write how-to books, give conferences and set up the world-wide church planting network. Church planting is hard work, and experts are very few and far between. Most of us would better serve the kingdom if we would stay in the trenches, getting up in the morning, taking our people to meet new people and telling them about Jesus.

"20. ...smoke and mirrors"

There exists in the church as a whole an unwillingness to express truth, to live truth, to even acknowledge truth's existence. The aforementioned list describes, sadly, what really is occuring in the American Church as a whole, and yet what gives me encouragement is when, with absolute clarity, a basic truth comes forth.
"Smoke and mirrors" is what we've been doing for so long that we are no longer capable of feeling our way out of the wet paper bag, much less tearing a hole in the wall to get out.
Now, to the larger question...how do we undo the mess we've created?

This posting difinetly offers some things to mull over. What distresses me is the fact that we North Americans often put the proverbial cart before the horse. Back in the book of Acts Jesus, before ascending to Heaven, "commanded [His disciples] not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised." A few verses later He says, "but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; you shall be my witnesses. . . ." We do not like to wait on God -- for anything, or for any period of time.

I wonder if, like Saul in the Old Testament, we are so overly concerned about 'doing something for God' (in his case, offering sacrifices prior to battle without the presence of Samuel), that we fail to wait on God for what He would have us do. God is not bound to our corporate American models of doing church (selling our product). He is not glorified by our blind 'just do it' attitude. Neither is He pleased with our status quo half-heartedness.

God will build his Church. We need to learn to listen, though, to how He would see this come about,and then faithfully and diligently act upon it. Unfortunately we tend to vascillate between one of the two extremes (i.e. we're more comfortable just doing nothing and call it waiting on God, or we invest quickly and greedily into the next alluring spiritual get-rich-quick scheme). Where is God in any of this?

Thanks for posting the article and for the encouraging comments.

Steve Addison
www.steveaddison.net

Wow ... so true it's hilarious, but I also want to weep because it hits so close to home. Good post, but it hurts.

Wow! I almost fell out of my computer chair on that story! Im not a church-planter,but a disciple of Christ, and have been greived at the commercialization of Christianity. Seems like whoever has the biggest church, and the flashiest clothes is the "New Christian". So everyone should desire a church like that. But what about what Jesus said? "where 2 or more gather in my name,there shall I be." Isnt that a church? Food for thought,people. Praise God for the small churches. At least I know who they are. I feel lost in a mega-church.

Very interesting comments. I am a church planter. I had no training for it when i did my theological degree. I never intended to be a church planter but that wasn't God's plans. We have broken the mould, we are doing church different, we run a cafe style. Three separate and distinct parts. Food and fellowship: Teaching adn Discussion: Praise and Prayer. yes we do get financial help from our National Church but we are not in North America. Down here in NZ we like to take the bit of fence wire we have, use whatever God has given and pray like crazy.
This is God's idea not mine and i just trust He will bring fruit. And even if He doesn't is it not a failure to not have tried?

So you're telling me that when I mourn over the thousands of churches that close every year, I should dry my tears and spend my time and effort (and money) recreating what's closing its doors down the street?

In the last church (just before I left), I did suggest that if they were not willing to spend all the savings to reach the thousand homes (and multiple hundreds of children), they should close the doors and give away the 250-seat auditorium and 5 acres of debt-free property.

God and I are having this conversation this week. Do I take early retirement from the well-paying job and take my materialistic kids into ministry? Do I take time for seminary or launch straight into saving a failing congregation?

Or do I sit back in my pew and let someone else spread the Gospel?

Should it really matter if a church is big or small? I mean in Acts the church grew in "large numbers" virtually overnight.

I don't think the answer is make the church smaller, or implement better programs to make it more commercial and appealing to a younger market.

What matters is how much do we love our Bridegroom Christ Jesus? How are we showing his kingdom to the world around us? That is the purpose of the church. Our chief aim should be not to debate endlessly in circles about how to fix the structure of a imperfect man-made church structure. Our chief aim and goal in life should be to bring glory to God and His kingdom.