Is it too easy?

Chapter Four - Three Simple Stories

I have been working my way through book 'Simple Church' summarising the chapters. Today we hit chapter four, you can find the previous summaries - chapter 1, chapter 2 & chapter 3.

This chapter looks at three churches using the simple method. The basis of the chapter begins with a discussion of Matt 16 when Jesus says

Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades will not
overpower it.

The church is something that is God given and therefore not even Hell can hold back the church, it is a powerful, intense and unstoppable movement. They then illustrate how gates that don't do fulfill their purpose (keep people or cars out or in) are useless. Their point about gates being purely a defensive mechanism is interesting. Therefore, the gates of Hell is always on the defensive never on the offensive - 'the church always has the ball'. The question they then ask from this is: 'how big a dent in the gates of hell will we make?' This chapter is showing us 3 stories that are causing big dents in the gates of hell

Immanuel church in Glasgow

They show that their contention - simple churches grow disciples - is working in Immanuel Baptist Church. There is clarity (connect, grow, serve); movement (through the connect, grow, serve), alignment (all the ministries adopt and actively use and promote the process) and there is focus (they use all their energy and resources into this process).

Numbers wise they have doubled in size from 150 to 300 over 2 years. But there are other benefits they outline - an increased morale, a sense of urgency to move people towards maturity, visible spiritual growth, conversions, better financial situation and and sense of unity.

Christ Church in Miami

Once again (as above) there was a group of pastors committed to simplifying the church and the church has been growing. There is clarity (connect to God, others, ministry and the lost); there is movement (actively seeking to move people to connect to God - others - ministry - lost); alignment (all ministry activities have the same process from the kids through to adults) and there is focus (they eliminated programs that didn't fit over the course of 2 years and it seems they made some tough calls!)

Northpoint Community Church

Northpoint began their life as a church committed to simple and have been the 'epitome of simple'. The church has had immense growth from a handful to sixteen thousand in ten years. They use the analogy of foyer, living room and kitchen. Once again the four elements of clarity, movement, alignment and focus.

The reason Northpoint is able to do things so well is because they have chosen
to only do a few things [...] they refuse to add programs or events that will
distract people from the simple process that God has given them.

These 3 stories have all engaged with a simple process that guides its ministry and is pushing back the gates of Hell.

My thoughts

Each of the above churches seems to be in a very healthy way. People are growing from infants to maturity through a simple process of discipleship. Each church is seeing people come to Christ for the first time. They have all had to varying degrees growth in numbers alone with Northpoint growing substantially. There is a degree of scepticism about large churches in Sydney as we prefer to grow churches by breaking off around the 150-200 mark to begin another church. I am fence sitting on this one at the moment.

But the stories are good, I do wonder if there are the stories of a simple church that is not growing?! But they probably don't sell books.

At this point it is hard to ignore the evidence. But it also seems all too easy a bit like the 'silver-bullet' talked about in various places.

The next portion of the book (Part 2) is about becoming a simple church but before we get there the next post will be about the book's use of Scripture so far.

Simplifying Simple

Chapter Three - Simple Church: An Extreme Makeover

The guts of this chapter is that there are many churches that need an extreme makeover. Just like in the TV show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition' the team sometimes knocks out walls, sometimes add rooms, or just update the colour scheme or even build a whole new house - the same is true for churches, some need tweaking while others need a total redesign. The redesign is one for discipleship to happen.

They then go on to make the case that church leaders are designers; we give people opportunities to encounter the grace of God. We design churches around the process of spiritual growth. We help provide the right environments to facilitate growth.

They then define what a simple church is:

A simple church is a congregation designed around a straightforward and
strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual
growth.

An unpacking of the above definition follows for the next few pages.

They go back then to the beginning of their journey towards writing the book and embarking on the simple church projects. A lot of the impetus for the book came from the research they did and the results from a survey done by a few hundred churches. The survey was called the Process Design Survey (PDS). The statistician then assured them that they had found something highly significant coming to this conclusion:

There is a highly significant relationship between a simple church design
and the growth and vitality of a local church ... So here is the practical
language: In general, churches that are vibrant and growing are simple. A simple
church strategy is effective and there are four basic elements, they must all be
present

An expanded definition is then given

A simple church is designed around a straightforward and strategic process that
moves people through the stages of spiritual growth. The leadership and the
church are clear about the process (clarity) and a re committed to executing it.
The process flows logically (movement) and is implemented in each area of the
church (alignment). The church then abandons everything that is not in the
process (focus).

Clarity --> Movement --> Alignment --> Focus

This is the BIG push of the book - these four words are what it means to 'go simple' so to speak. So don't read over there definition too quickly!

Clarity is the ability of the process to be communicated and understood by the people.

Movement is the sequential steps in the process that cause people to move to greater areas of commitment

Alignment is the arrangement of all ministries and staff around the same simple process

Focus is the commitment to abandon everything that falls outside of the simple ministry process.

My thoughts:
I really love these four words and how they work together. I am sold on the simple strategy however I am wary only because the book is written in an American context. Will it have the same results in the north west Suburbs of Sydney? I would dearly love to 'have a crack'. I would love for us to be in the position were the necessary stands out clearly to people, it means eliminating the unnecessary (most of which will be good things!) and sticking to the best. This is a decision that is constantly being made in ministry - all of life is ministry - we need a strategic and biblical way forward as to what we do and what we don't do.

In my own context at Norwest we don't have heaps of clarity, our movement is implicit rather than explicit to people and even to me. We have begun the process of alignment but it is happening slower than what I ever thought. Our focus needs to be way sharper than what it is now. But I will be commending a basic (simple even!) process to people at a newcomers afternoon tea this Sunday - most likely stealing the idea of a house with a big foyer (3 congregations), moving people to the many living rooms (small group network) and then to the kitchen (serving in some capacity). Next post you will see where I have stolen it from as they survey three simple churches.....

Seeing Simple - Part 2

Chapter Two: The Simple (and not so simple) Church in Action

This chapter is all about helping us as readers to see the simple and not so simple churches in action. So they begin with a story about just having to be there - they have observed the simple church in action and they want us to be there too. We then get introduced to two churches that they visited - real churches but names changed.

1. First Church

A solid church with great programs. Staff are talented and popular. Church hasn't grown for 5 years, there is no major turmoil or rifts nor is there a crisis to promote any change.

Statements

There is lots - a mission statement, purpose statement, vision statement and strategy statement. Each is different from the next and long. Each ministry department has different statements. There is a degree of influence from Willow Creek in the the five 'M' words. It is unclear how all the statements fit together and unsure of the real focus of the church.

The Pastor

He moves between saying all is ok and looking really frustrated by everything. He hints that the church is disjointed and heading in multiple directions. He doesn't know what his desire for the church is though.

The Leaders

Each leader gives a myriad of responses to the question of what the focus of the church is however not one of them mentions any of the various mission, vision, etc, statements. None of them have been internalised.

The what and the how are very unclear for this church.

Programming
They have 8 major programs in 7 days! That is just for adults and doesn't include youth and childrens. It is clear that the programs are good so much so that the attention is divided. Every program is short on leaders and all complain that their program isn't publicised enough.

Numbers

They look to see how many people are attending each program. Each program is separated from the whole.

2. Cross Church
Only 20 yrs old, less well known on the landscape. People have come to Christ, been plugged into ministry and are contributing to the body of Christ.

Statements

There is only ONE statement, one overarching theme. It is short, it is adapted for each age group - 'loving God, loving people, and serving the world'. But is it the DNA of the church?

Pastor

He indicates that the church stands behind the statement. There is a fascinating dialogue on p38 between the pastor and the author.

Author: So, this is your purpose, right?

Pastor: I guess you could say that

A: Talk to us about your process. How do you make your purpose happen?

P: Love God, love others and serve the world is our process

A: I thought you said it was your purpose

P: It is both. Our purpose is a process.

A: Oh.

Interesting. Genius. Simple. Instead of a chasm of separation between their purpose and their process, the two are one in the same. Their purpose is their process.

They then share some of the history of how this pastor came to this conclusion and moved towards simplifying their church.

Leaders

The vast majority of the leaders speak freely about loving God, loving others, and serving the world. It is clear that it is the DNA of the church.

Programming

All programs are set up to move people through loving God - loving others - serving the world. Loving God is the weekend services. Loving others is to help people connect relationally in small groups. Serving the world has ministry teams engaging people in team ministry. Some focus on the church, others on the community. New people are told not to join if they don't want to serve. There are essentially only 3 main programs correlating with the loving God, others and serving the world.

Numbers

They evaluate people as to where they are at in the ministry process - worship service, small groups or ministry teams. They look at quarterly reports to see each if each process is increasing or decreasing.

The comparisons continue in terms of handling new ideas and staffing but you get the general drift of this chapter. They end the chapter asking, Is your church more like First Church or Cross Church?

My thoughts:

As a Pastor it is so easy to keep adding new things on to the agenda, new programs, new ideas, events but these don't always or even necessarily equate to growth in the life of a Christian or in the corporate life of the church. It is a very real challenge to keep things simple like Cross Church does. Once again this chapter is exciting me for the challenge of simplifying everything. This is not a new thought for where we are at in our church family. We need clarity, movement, alignment and focus which is the focus of chapter 3.

'Simplify man'

After hearing Andrew Graham briefly mention a book called Simple Church by Thom Rainer & Eric Geiger, I decided to have a read. I am almost halfway through and thought it would be good to write down some summaries of the chapters. So far it has been a really stimulating and thought provoking read.

Chapter One - The Simple Revolution has Begun

The opening chapter reassures the reader that this book is not about another church model. They then proceed to sell on the idea that simple is in and complex is out. They refer to some popular brand names to back it up - Apple (an ipod has one big button, the 'plug and play', their artwork is simple, they have cultlike followers), Google (the amount of white space screams simplicity) and he goes on to show other companies providing quality services with a high degree of simplicity.

Then comes a pretty big claim - they got 400 evangelical churches to complete a survey seeing how simple their church is.

• Growing and vibrant churches are simple.


• Complex churches flounder in growing disciples of Christ.

The qualify the statement by saying they are not looking to change doctrine or conviction. Or that simple is the new style or 'hip'. Simple churches are actually mimicking the world but doing the opposite as our world is complex. Nor is simplicity desired for pure pragmatic reasons.

They then spend some time theologically justifying 'simple'.

Jesus simplified, e.g. commandments down to the greatest. He offered a simple relationship compared to the Pharisees, 'my yoke is easy and my burden is light'. He decluttered the temple.

The conclusion of chapter one - 'perhaps we are losing ground not despite our overabundance of activity but because of it [...] To have a simple church, you must design a simple discipleship process. This process must be clear. it must move people toward maturity. It must be integrated fully into your church, and you must get rid of the clutter around it'.

My thoughts:

I love the ideas that are thrown up in the opening chapter. I think churches do tend towards complexity rather than simplicity and if you asked a group of people to write down what our church is about I'm positive you would get a large variety of answers.

Stay tuned for chapter two.....