Felicity Dale in a recent post ask the question, WHY DON'T WE SEE A HARVEST? She list the following 15 possible reasons God's kingdom isn't advancing in America with His church:
1. We are so involved with other believers we do not have time for friendship with those who do not yet know Jesus.
2. We are fearful of being "contaminated" by too much contact with the world.
3. Lack of the "apostolic mission" part of simple church DNA.
4. Lack of prayer for the harvest.
5. Lack of training.
6. We do not "go and make disciples."
7. We are fishing in the wrong place, or to change metaphors, we are seeking to reap a harvest where either the fields are not yet ripe or little/no seed has been sown.
8. We invite people to come to our church (building).
9. When someone becomes a Christian, we extract them from their community to join ours.
10. We fail to work through a "person of peace."
11. We are not preaching the gospel of the kingdom
12. Lack of the supernatural.
13. Sequentialism
14. We do not train the new believer to pass on his story and what he is learning to his friends.
15. We scatter rather than gather.
You can read her entire post here:
http://ping.fm/cPeO3
What do you think? What have been your observations?
What are the implications for #sendportland and Portland Church Planting?
From her list, the following seem to be the biggest barriers in church planting: #12, #13, #14, #3, #10 and #9...... This is where we might begin to address some of our HARVEST issues in church planting. What about your church?
What won't work is believing we have everything we need now in a church planting system to grow the harvest. As I read one very popular viral book on planting, it seems to suggest our systems are in place. We just need more systems implementing their findings.
When I read, they seem to miss the point of addressing some of the critical issues above (granted, I'm only in the first few chapters). But as an example, on a chapter on Recruiting, Assessing and Training, these national spokespersons don't even address the RECRUITING issue! What? How do you write a chapter on recruiting and not address this primary issue. It seems to assume there are enough Christians to plant, we just need to rightly assess them and train them. Maybe. But we aren't raising up PLANTERS from the HARVEST in the HARVEST. We aren't "making disciples" in the HARVEST, and as a result, raising up "PLANTERS."
What do you think? What are you learning about your role in the harvest and planting churches (I rather plant the gospel with a person or team in a neighborhood/community and pray for people of peace to come to follow Christ, and; birth a gathering of believers and followers of the way of Jesus)?
What say you?
Can you think of any other reasons why we are not seeing harvest? Let us know!
1. We are so involved with other believers we do not have time for friendship with those who do not yet know Jesus.
2. We are fearful of being "contaminated" by too much contact with the world.
3. Lack of the "apostolic mission" part of simple church DNA.
4. Lack of prayer for the harvest.
5. Lack of training.
6. We do not "go and make disciples."
7. We are fishing in the wrong place, or to change metaphors, we are seeking to reap a harvest where either the fields are not yet ripe or little/no seed has been sown.
8. We invite people to come to our church (building).
9. When someone becomes a Christian, we extract them from their community to join ours.
10. We fail to work through a "person of peace."
11. We are not preaching the gospel of the kingdom
12. Lack of the supernatural.
13. Sequentialism
14. We do not train the new believer to pass on his story and what he is learning to his friends.
15. We scatter rather than gather.
You can read her entire post here:
http://ping.fm/cPeO3
What do you think? What have been your observations?
What are the implications for #sendportland and Portland Church Planting?
From her list, the following seem to be the biggest barriers in church planting: #12, #13, #14, #3, #10 and #9...... This is where we might begin to address some of our HARVEST issues in church planting. What about your church?
What won't work is believing we have everything we need now in a church planting system to grow the harvest. As I read one very popular viral book on planting, it seems to suggest our systems are in place. We just need more systems implementing their findings.
When I read, they seem to miss the point of addressing some of the critical issues above (granted, I'm only in the first few chapters). But as an example, on a chapter on Recruiting, Assessing and Training, these national spokespersons don't even address the RECRUITING issue! What? How do you write a chapter on recruiting and not address this primary issue. It seems to assume there are enough Christians to plant, we just need to rightly assess them and train them. Maybe. But we aren't raising up PLANTERS from the HARVEST in the HARVEST. We aren't "making disciples" in the HARVEST, and as a result, raising up "PLANTERS."
What do you think? What are you learning about your role in the harvest and planting churches (I rather plant the gospel with a person or team in a neighborhood/community and pray for people of peace to come to follow Christ, and; birth a gathering of believers and followers of the way of Jesus)?
What say you?
Can you think of any other reasons why we are not seeing harvest? Let us know!
Church planting like all other religions attempts we look for the “way” by doing the same thing everyone else is doing.
ReplyDeleteThere are few who wrestle with God and context to discover how to minimize the walls that keep lost people from hearing and responding to the Gospel.
Everyone is thinking others will do it and we blame others for not getting the job done.
We believe the lies that we do not have enough money, help, or skill thus the “how” question sabotages or best work. We get stuck asking “how” rather than doing.
We build a wall against the Spirit of Christ by judging others, holding onto personal sin, not controlling our lives, and violating each other. Eph. 4
Lastly, I am not sure those who are living in the moment ever see what they expect...a movement
I really like, "few who wrestle with God and context to discover how to minimize the walls....." Frank. Well said.
ReplyDeleteIt seems we have also made the "doing" really complicated. In face, if you polled a room of people asking them to "make a disciple" or "plant a church" most would not raise their hand BECAUSE we have made it to confusing, difficult, and etc., etc.
Thanks for the comment!