Front note: I may have overspoke a bit on the people who have expressed concern. It has been out of love and kindness and generosity. We have had WONDERFUL brotherly/sisterly conversations full of love and kindness (with a few exceptions.)

♥️ To those of you who have passionately and with a pure heart shared your concern about my notes and posts, and feel like I am being unreasonable. And who says that you can plant a church, run Sundays, see it grow, and have rich, small, discipling communities and missional DNA while running four services at the three campuses. I love the local church, and I love the Body of Christ! Passionately! I’m not saying this from a critical heart or any deep wounds! REALLY! I’m trying to help heal a broken system.

It sounds convincing! It really does. But what I’ve seen over and over for 20 years is…

Gather the masses, tell them to invite someone to church - they do, and it is super awkward for those they tell b/c it happened outside of relationships. So the church ends up being a few people raised in church and a dozen or so from the church down the road that they helped plant 12 years ago.

But the service and the music get better b/c leaders invest so much time in progress, but they don’t have time to have dinner with their neighbors b/c they are at band practice and leadership meetings. But b/c the show gets better, more people leave smaller, less energetic churches to come hang out at the cool place.

The messages are great, but the people in the pews don’t learn to feed themselves b/c they pay the pastor to do that for them. But more people leads to a greater need for more space and parking. So, the church takes out a mortgage to meet consumer needs, and then the bills start piling up. The church consultant says you need better musicians and sound equipment. So the practices get longer and more frequent.

The most committed in the church work harder and harder to make Sunday happen and they no longer have time to host small groups in their home because they are at church with all the other Christians on Saturday night and Sunday Morning and afternoon for the 4 services.

But the good news is that the services are growing and the church needs to raise funds to build a new children’s wing. So, the people pool all their money together that they were giving to missions to build the new building, which draws more people in.

Then the pastor is not doing enough to meet the needs of the people so more staff and more giving. The committed members get overwhelmed b/c all the people feel like they are giving all they can to volunteer and donate to the growing needs of the church, so they give the staff a raise to do the work of the ministry. But, the staff can’t handle it anymore, so they start to burn out. A few of them don’t want to stop working together, so they go into business as real estate agents and move on.

Then the original plant team starts talking about the church down the road that has more resources and a really great worship band. They’ve paid their dues and are exhausted, so they move on and let someone else take up the slack for a while.

Meanwhile, the small group ministry has 27% of the church in “small groups.” The new seminary graduate professional discipleship minister asks around to find out why. The leaders all say that the church members are exhausted for being at church Sat night and Sunday, and Wednesday for meetings and Thursday night for rehearsal, so they don’t have time or energy to come to another event each week. And it’s easiest to come let the preacher preach and ask all the people around me to come to a church they don’t feel relationally connected to where all the members are talking to one another.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, the senior pastor is working 70 hours a week, trying to keep the original vision of disciple-making and home groups intact while also keeping Saturday night and Sunday morning running. He is so exhausted he begins to look for relief and turns to quick fixes and instant gratification with sins x, y, z. An elder finds out, and the team decides they just can’t have a pastor who is not living right. So they send him on Sabbatical for 3 months to see if he can get his act together. He fails and the team decides they’re going to have to look for a new pastor.

So, they put together a job description that Jesus nor any other passionate missional human being could possibly fulfill.

Friends! I love the Body of Christ and the Church of Jesus! I really do. I am not saying all these things to criticize, but to help heal. To help get back to the Jesus pattern of disciple-making, where more time with fewer people produces greater results.

❤️‍🔥 I LOVE YOU ALL! ❤️‍🔥