Sunday, December 21, 2008

the trap of technique

Now that I've finished that pesky ordination exam, I'm back to reading and studying stuff I really enjoy reading. I'm on "Planting Missional Churches" by Ed Stetzer. I pulled a great quote out this morning.

“If new churches can avoid the trap of technique, they can engage the changing culture effectively with the unchanging gospel of Jesus.” - Ed Stetzer

This may feel particularly poignant to me because I've fallen into the trap of technique before, at great cost to the people and ministry I was leading at the time. However, I feel a big pull among the American church - at least the leaders whose circles I frequent - from technique-driven ministry to relationship-driven and Spirit-lead ministry.

I know this is a "duh" kind of statement to make, but if you're in church leadership, you know the tremendous temptation to take what a "successful" church in another city is doing and try and replicate it in yours. For those of us who are wired for success, whatever that means in church, it's a huge temptation.

Thankfully, as I enter a season of coaching church planters, God has settled my spirit down to know (and teach others) that the Holy Spirit loves a given community or people group much more than we and will always guide us toward how to share the gospel effectively with said people. It's not about growing churches and church for the sake of growth, but looking for ways to help the Holy Spirit do what He's doing anyway.

2 comments:

Shawna said...

mm. right on.

leaders who are trained by you will be might ones indeed. i'm excited.

Addison Roberts said...

the trap of technique seems to be rather dangerous but going outside of it is so very scary...good blog