Andy Stanley posed the question in a recent leadership podcast . . . "What, in your industry, cannot be done? But if it could be done, would change everything?"
Seth Godin blogged about the same concept today. You can check it out here.
For me, I'm wrestling with the question of decentralizing the church. A question that I cannot even fully articulate yet, but goes beyond cell groups and multi-campus church. I know that I'm not the only one with this passion, but what I do have is God-given and I'm grateful to the core.
God has called me to plant a church in Tulsa Oklahoma. God has dropped plenty of "what if" questions in my spirit. I'll share some here. Your comments are very welcome, as always.
What if the weekend service was the secondary church experience and the connection group (home group) was primary?
What if all the "functions" of the church took place through the connection group and not the church office?
What if there was no physical church office?
What if we could reach thousands who have given up on church and their place in the body of Christ without ever purchasing a building or land?
What if we could, in time, mobilize hundreds (maybe even thousands) of connection groups to reach out to their neighbors and turn the city of Tulsa up-side-down with love and kindness?
What if we could do all this in Tulsa and then reproduce it in cities all over the united states and even the world?
What if I'm crazy? Very possible, but I don't care much. I'm realizing more and more that I'll need to be comfortable with being a weirdo. Thanks to my distant mentors Blaine Bartel and Craig Groeschel for reminding me that "cool" is not the end game, serving Christ is.
3 comments:
I met some pretty heavy resistance from potential church partners when it came to the idea of a decentralized church. A lot of "cathedral" style pastors have a difficult time wrapping their minds around what I called a "village church" model. When it comes time to start raising funds, you may need to think strongly about the kind of language you use to describe what you are doing. I think where you are headed is where the church needs to be in order to survive and thrive in the 21st century. But it is a hard concept to get people behind initially. You're a bit of a "futurist" in this respect. You may want to brush up on Malcolm Gladwell's stuff, since he deals with the kind of leadership you're venturing into. Again, any way I can help, you got my number.
Jason, I LIKE this idea. It goes with my idea of having a church with no walls...sharing the gospel with people out on the street.
We went to a church with a similar setup. It would be interesting to hear more specifics, but from our experience - from a practical standpoint - some of the things you mention can be extremely taxing and draining on your team (for example setting up a full nursery, sound system, stage etc) in a building you don't own every week. We were a part of a decentralized church (to borrow Dan's term) for 6 years.
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