Great offer for evangelism training

Dear Partners in the Gospel,

Here is an extraordinary offer from Taylor Bodoh. Taylor leads the InterVarsity ministry for the three campuses in Tallahassee. In his talk at Synod he mentioned an outreach method that InterVarsity uses called "Groups Investigating God" (GIG). Many of us had our imaginations captured by this simple method of evangelism. Taylor is offering his time and expertise (and that of the FSU chapter) to do training in our congregations. Here is the offer in his own words:

I want to make myself available to any churches in the Diocese that would be interested in hosting a GIG Training event, or some other kind of evangelism training.  Here are a few seminar topics they could choose from:

• Using the Bible in Friendship Evangelism (GIG training)
• Owning the Great Commission: How to create a culture of evangelism?
• Launching Missional Ministries in your City
• Developing an Effective Small Group Ministry

I would be excited to share on any of these topics as they all relate very closely to my calling and experiences.  But even if I was unavailable, there are several people from InterVarsity Tallahassee who do a wonderful job leading GIG training, so we could easily send a team of two to do a church visit.  Please let the church leadership know that we would like to offer any seminars cost free besides any necessary travel costs, food, and a couch to sleep on.

By God's grace, may the Gulf Atlantic Diocese become synonymous with evangelistic fervor and fruit!

Taylor Bodoh  (taylorbodoh@gmail.com)

I hope that many of the congregations in the diocese will take Taylor up on his offer. If you want more info on Groups Investigating God, go to the InterVarsity website: http://www.intervarsity.org/evangelism/docs/GIG_guide.pdf.

I'm joining with Taylor in praying that our diocese would become synonymous with evangelistic fervor and fruit.

Peace,

Jim Hobby

Exponential Report #1

There is lots to share from Exponential 2011. Let me start with the main points from a workshop by Ed Stetzer (see edstetzer.com) on key systems in new churches.

1. Key systems require leadership by key leaders. A list of key ministry leaders:

• Pastor (possibly with a Secretary/Administrator)
• Worship Leader
• Pre-school/Children's Minister
• Assimilation Coordinator
• Outreach Networker
• Spiritual Gifts Mobilizer

2. Key systems that need to be lay led:

• Outreach
• Assimilation
• Children's Ministry

3. Other necessary systems

• Finances
• Facility
• Oversight (eventually)

4. Aspects of an OUTREACH system:

• Strategy: the ultimate goal of outreach is evangelism. Who is devising the strategy? What is the overall strategy?
• Events: What are our potential points of connection with the community around us? How do we maximize on Easter, Christmas, Summer, Mother's Day, Fall, Town/City events?
• Prioritization: What are we doing next? How are we going to use our resources?

5. Aspects of an ASSIMILATION system/process:

• The purpose of the assimilation system is to define the next steps in the discipleship/assimilation process.
• Think of the process being a funnel that leads to a reproducing disciple. What is the big end of the funnel? 
• For many congregations the big end will be our worship gatherings. So, the first people to be encountered by newcomers will be the ushers/greeters. And their first experience of our congregation will be hospitality (even before worship).
• The next experience will be our worship itself. During which we will ask them for their contact information in some way. By giving us this information visitors are giving us permission to contact them. This requires follow up. Suggested pattern: follow up call by a lay person on Sunday afternoon; follow up letter on Monday; follow up call by pastor on Thursday; possible call from a small group leader.
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St. Patrick

At the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord we pray these words, "...Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior...." In 433, God gave Patrick an opportunity to "boldly confess." High-King Laeghaire was lighting a huge fire to begin a festival during which all the people of his realm would extinguish their fires to symbolize that the High-King was the source of light and fire. But the feast happened to begin on Holy Saturday as the Church would be lighting the paschal fire. So Patrick boldly lit the Church's fire which shone starkly in the darkness in contradistinction to the king's fire. This created quite a stir in the kingdom and no little consternation in the king who called Patrick to his court for judgment. The king's wise men saw "that unless this rival fire was put out immediately, it would flood the whole country with its light and burn until doomsday" (Ester de Wall, The Celtic Way of Prayer, p. 18). On the way to meet the king (and possibly their doom) Patrick and the other monks sang (possibly composing as they went) what we now call St. Patrick's Breastplate. Stanza VI clearly reflects the context of story:

Around me I gather:
these forces to save
my soul and my body
from dark powers that assail me:
against false prophesyings,
against pagan devisings,
against heretical lying
and false gods all around me.
Against spells cast by women,
by blacksmiths, by Druids,
against knowledge unlawful
that injures the body,
that injures the spirit.

And in spite of those daunting powers cast against him, Patrick sang of the presence of Christ and the power of the Trinity calling on the whole created order. He and his companions went to the king in the Name and Power of the true High-King.

Where do we need to be lighting our fires in the darkness?

Anglican 1000 Summit - Final (maybe) Thoughts

Anglican 1000 was (again) a remarkable experience of encouragement and insight. Gathering with over 300 leaders from all over the United States and Canada, all of whom are trying to align their hearts, minds and imaginations with God's mission, was uplifting and inspiring. Here are a few of my take aways:
1. There was a consistent call to ground our efforts in the mission of God, to yoke ourselves with Christ, to find our life and strength in Him. This call challenged me to take more seriously my own private prayers and the role of intercessors.
2. Another recurring theme was the creative tension between tradition and innovation/contextualization. It is not enough to mindlessly repeat the patterns of other times and places (whether those patterns are "the way we have always done it" or the hottest program from some successful church somewhere). We are called to plant kingdom outposts that reflect God's heart and will within the guidance of our Anglican tradition (all 2,000 years of it!).
3. Creativity, innovation and risk-taking need to become our friends. If we are going to succeed in planting 1000 churches in 5 years, we will need start many more that that. Some plants will fail to thrive. Some will fail find roots. But if we wait until we are sure that none will fail, we will fail.
4. Planters need support and guidance. But they don't necessarily need doctorates in missiology. We need to think through how to identify, deploy and train planters (often in that order). Creativity and innovation needs to be applied particularly to this area.
5. I love that we are not alone in all of this! To know that brilliant, godly women and men are all focusing their best efforts on planting churches is inspiring. I look forward to developing on-going cooperative relationships with these folks over the years.
6. I encourage you to go to Anglican 1000 next year for encouragement, inspiration, challenge, growth, celebration. It is a remarkable experience.

Anglican 1000 Summit - Post #6

Bp. Todd Hunter: Final Plenary of the Conference - Anglican Ecclesiology


1. Ecclesiology is NOT the starting point. To understand the Church we must understand God's mission (intention, kingdom). But to understand God's mission we must know God Himself. Therefore, theology (including Christology, pneumatology, etc.) is the foundation.


2. Along with orthodoxy (right believing) and orthopraxis (right living), we need to introduce the idea of orthopathy (right imagination). There are many folks whose belief system is accurate but whose imaginations have yet to grasp God's story. They believe without passion. How do set people's imaginations on fire?


3. God's story starts in eternity past with the divine community engaged in mutual love. This community then creates with some end (telos) in mind. So before Genesis 1:1, God had an intention for creation. The whole story, then, is moving to that end (telos), the complete establishment of the kingdom of God (note the image of the throne in Revelation, for example) and unity with His people.


4. Sin (hamartia, missing the mark), then, is setting aside God's intention for our own. Repentance is reorienting our lives towards His intention. Eternal life is experiencing the fulfillment of that intention.


5. Congregations are outposts of God's kingdom first and foremost. Only secondarily are they franchises of a brand. Mission needs to define the shape of our congregations. We must not allow the shape (our structures and activities) to define our mission. The shape needs to be flexible within the channels of our tradition.

Anglican 1000 Summit - Post #5

Some highlights from Bp. Todd Hunter's first plenary, "Missional Anglican Church Planting":


1. "You came to faith because someone planted a church." Every Christian that has ever lived can say the same thing.


2. What is Anglican Church Planting? Our church planting efforts live in the creative tension between innovation (to reach a particular culture) and continuity (with an ancient tradition). This creative tension is expressed in the Preface to the 1549 BCP. Our church planting is rooted in history, thoughtfully, freely and flexibly. We need to find the "islands of health and strength in our history." Anglicans have lots of church planting models to draw from in our history; some healthier and more effective than others. We need to learn from our whole past.


3. Some things in our Anglican treasure chest:
Catholicity
Biblical foundations
An unique pastoral/evangelistic ethos
Sweet reasonableness
Episcopal leadership


4. What is Missional Church Planting? To be missional is to find a new ecclesiology that starts with a God who is on mission. The mission of God creates the church. Therefore, we need to start with the kingdom of God and its implications for our life together, instead of starting with our "brand" and figuring out how to protect or expand its influence. Our congregations need to be outposts of the kingdom of God, communities with a certain shape, rather than franchises of a brand. We need to exist for others (expressing God's nature) rather than ourselves.


5. Some marks of the kingdom most applicable to church planting:
generosity
risk-taking
hospitality
prayer
evangelism
cooperation


6. Church planting is not a zero-sum game. Plant in clusters to reach a city.


7. Look to the pipelines. Seminaries will not be able to train all the church planters that we will need. So we need to think imaginatively about recruiting and training planters.


8. Focus on strengths not weakness. You cannot deploy a weakness to a positive end. So identify strengths.


9. Mt. 11:28f. - yoke with Jesus to recover our lives. Work with Jesus. Walk with Jesus. Watch and learn from Jesus.

Anglican 1000 Summit - Post #4

Tim Keller on contextualization.


Contextualization is:
- Adapting ministry to culture.
- Giving people God's answers to their questions in terms they understand; the answers are not necessarily the answers that they want to hear.
- Presenting the Gospel in terms that make it accessible/understandable (not the same as making it acceptable).


Everyone lives within a culture. It is difficult to see our own culture until we bump against different cultures.


Biblical resources for understanding contextualization:
-1 Corinthians 9:19-23. How do we keep the Gospel from being received as alien?
- There are several biblical motivations for coming to God in the Scriptures (for example, the fear of judgment, the burden of guilt, the beauty of truth, the promise of fulfilling unsatisfied longings, the desire for freedom, the attractiveness of Jesus' compassion, love, mercy).
- Compare Paul's preaching environments and his message: Acts 13 (Jewish); 14:14-17 (blue-collar pagan); 17 (philosophical/elite pagan).
- 1 Corinthians 1:22-25. Paul understands the baseline narratives of both Jewish and Greek cultures, challenges both, and then declares Christ as the fulfillment of both.


Principles of contextualization
- Getting the Gospel in the right order. Put what resonates with the culture up front. How do you get a pile of logs (truths that resonate) and stones (truths that challenge) across a river, given that you want to get all of them across? Lash the logs together and float the stones across on them. Lashing stones doesn't work.
- Finding the right emphasis. There are many images for sin and the Gospel. For example, sin is slavery, transgression, idolatry, etc. The Gospel is redemption, atonement, forgiveness, etc. Some emphases resonate more readily than others.
- Avoiding over-adapting (which dilutes the Gospel and makes it irrelevant) and under-adapting (which makes the Gospel alien and thereby equally irrelevant).


What would it look like for us to think like missionaries in our churches? Who are the people groups around us that are not part of our church and relatively unreached? What would we need to do to plant a church among them?

Anglican 1000 Summit - Post #3

This morning John Yates, Jr. and John Yates, III, led us in a reflection Psalm 63. They encouraged us to stay faithful in our private prayer/worship. David's intimacy with God allowed him to face a terrible time in his life with a profound sense of God's presence and protection. Though David was facing the possibility  of death, fear is not the motivation of the psalm; intimacy with God is. 


Like David, we need never be ashamed of being needy before the Lord. In fact,if we are not needy before the Lord, we are probably not doing His will. We need to remember that we are not God. It is not ultimately up to us. It is likely that we are asking to small.

Anglican 1000 Summit - Post #2

Tim Keller spoke about revival. He defined it as the intensification of the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit; things like converting, anointing, equipping, and assuring. During a revival sleepy Christians wake up, nominal Christians get converted (and their testimonies electrify the church), and skeptical/secular people get attracted.


Just as Elijah prepared the altar and sacrifice to receive the fire of God, so there are things that we can (must?) do to prepare for revival:
1. Extraordinary prayer: kingdom-centered, city-wide, corporate, prevailing.
2. Recovery of the Gospel: the good news is taken off the shelf, dusted off and applied personally.
3. Formal and informal leaders become case studies in revival by sharing their testimonies.
4. Places are provided for people to process their experiences with the Holy Spirit.
5. Creativity: no two revivals are the same; methods change.


Where do we see God working in our diocese? Are we building our altars to make ready for the fire of God? Do we realize that the point is the fire?

Anglican 1000 Summit - Post #1

The Summit is off to a remarkable start with field reports and a plenary session with Tim Keller. Over three hundred people are here; all sharing a passion/interest in church planting. Lots of energy. Great balance of gray-hairs and twenty-somethings. 


Here are several common themes from the field reports (from Denver, CO, Charleston, SC, and Dallas, TX). 
1. A kingdom focus that highlights cooperative (i.e. trans-denominational) ministry that transforms individuals and cities.
2. Relational discipleship within social networks.
3. Clear focus on and cultural/world-view understanding of the group the congregation is trying to reach.
4. Commitment to expressing Anglican tradition in healthy and effective way. I think that this requires clear thinking about what is essential in the tradition, what is useful and what is valued because it is familiar.
5. Desire to have worship that will stir up white-hot faith.
6. High level of commitment and expectation for involvement.


What are the implications of those themes for us as a diocese?


Notes from Tim Keller's address:
1. "Movement" terminology has become very popular recently. Often, implicit is a denigration of "institutionalism." But the fear of institutionalism can lead us to avoid healthy structures that can keep the movement alive. Even Paul in the book of Acts (the consummate movement manual!) appoints elders.
2. The 19th century missionary movement produced indigenous churches that had the marks of the Church without an ability to reproduce, to be self-propagating. The external props of the Western agencies restricted rather than enhanced the "spontaneous expansion" of the Church (cf. Roland Allen). 
3. Healthy congregations/networks/denominations live in the tension between movement and institution. This is similar to the point that Salter and Smay make in their book, AND. Keller presented 4 areas of where this continuum/tension expresses itself.
- Compelling vision (movement) vs. rules and procedures (institution).
- Culture of sacrifice and celebration vs. rights, obligations, inward-focus.
- Innovation, risk, flexibility vs. predictability
- Leaders identified by results vs. leaders appointed through connections, tenure, etc.
4. Ways of maintaining movement dynamics in congregations/networks
- Constant spiritual renewal.
- Distinct, clear/simple, compelling vision.
- Culture of innovation. Receive ideas from within and invite perspective from other perspectives. It is important to respond to ideas generated from within.
- Organic systems for producing leaders. What is the leadership pipeline? How are leaders trained?
- Church planting. New churches are the best R&D department possible. They produce lots of energy and motivation.
- Seasons of "covenant renewal." Building programs, opportunities to re-capture vision, times of prayer, creative missional innovations, etc. A renewed call for self-sacrifice energizes.


I encourage you to check out the Anglican 1000 website (www.anglican1000.org).


More to come.

Unity with Lutherans: From Brent Evans

Our ultimate goal is to glorify God to enjoy Him forever.  God receives more glory from evangelism and from the increasing spiritual growth by His children, His sheep.  Giving Christians, and the lost, the opportunity to grow deeper through liturgical worship in doctrinally orthodox communities accomplishes both evangelism and spiritual formation.  With this said, consider uniting or establishing a partnership with the new Lutheran denomination.  Perhaps there are doctrinal or polity differences which prohibit unity, but I'm not aware of any.  Active partnership or unity will bring synergism for the common goal, glorifying God to enjoy Him forever through evangelism and spiritual formation.

 

GAD Church Planting Network Blog Now Embedded Within Diocese Website

The GAD Church Planting Blog is now found directly on the Gulf Atlantic Diocese Website at http://www.gulfatlanticdiocese.org/churchplantingnetwork.

Second meeting of Gulf Atlantic Diocese's Church Planting Network

Our time together encouraged me. It is amazing uplifting it is to gather with a roomful of people who are all wanting to manifest and extend the Kingdom of God. For those who were unable to make it, here is a summary of what we did (along with a few reflections).

Friday evening was devoted to touching base and praying for each other around a sumptuous dinner at the Athens Cafe. While several people who were with us for the first gathering were unable to join us, there were many new faces from all over the diocese. We all had a chance to meet new "partners in the Gospel" (see Phil. 1:5) and hear each other's dreams for planting new congregations.

Saturday morning we spent some time learning some church planting lessons from the master planter, St. Paul, as we studied Romans 15:14-21. Here are some of our observations:

1. It is a blessing to be part of a community (like CPN) that is "able to instruct one another" (v.14).
2. Church planting is a calling - one that formed much of Paul's understanding of himself - that has the gospel at the center (v.15). We saw the need to see Anglicanism as a tool for proclaiming the gospel (a means) rather than the an end in itself. Everything we do needs to be in the service of the gospel.
3. Paul's ministry consisted of word+deed+power - all three dynamics were crucial in seeing the gospel take root throughout Asia Minor (vv. 18,19).
4. Paul's ambition was to proclaim Christ where He has yet to be named (v.20). We reflected on the fact that our context (after 1,700 years of Christendom) is different than Paul's; though the secularizing influences in our culture are making the two contexts more and more similar. Given the differences, however, we saw that, for Paul, church planting (means) was about bringing people to faith in Christ (end). If ACNA plants 1000 churches in 5 years by gathering Baptists, Methodists and Catholics, we will have failed. Our goal is to enfold lost sheep, not shift the found ones around.
5. A corollary to #4. The leadership teams of church plants need to be people focused on reaching the lost rather than people looking to establish their vision of what a church is supposed to be, or worse, people whose anger at their former denomination has them bound up. Healed wounds can be conduits of ministry (2 Cor. 1). Oozing wounds never produce good leadership.

Fr. Jim Needham presented a provocative vision for a church planting order (think Daughters of the Holy Cross) that would help to raise up in each of our congregations the necessary resources for planting churches: passion, knowledge/vision, money, people. He wondered what the impact would be of an order with an intentional, accountable rule of life that included prayer (to produce passion/commitment), study (to enhance knowledge/vision), generosity (to help fund plants/planters), and personal evangelism (to extend the reach of the gospel). Those of us in the room felt like God was in this idea and wanted to see it move forward. Fr. Jim met with several people over lunch to discuss it further.

We spent some time prayerfully discerning next steps for each of our church planting efforts (Bob Logan's coaching guide for planters is invaluable here). With those steps clear in our minds we reflected on the internal and external obstacles to taking those steps. A number of folks came up to me afterwards and said that this was one of the best parts of the whole gathering. Going home with a sense of direction gave hope and encouraged action.

We looked at some upcoming opportunities (Anglican 1000 in Plano, TX, January 25-27; Exponential Conference in Orlando, April 26-29; Diocesan Anglican 1000 gathering in Jacksonville, May 6,7) and brainstormed some ideas for the Diocesan Ang 1000. Here's the list of ideas for workshops and presentations for you to add to:

1. How do we identify and train planters?
2. Personal evangelism training
3. Parishes having congregations model (East Africa and Chicago)
4. Using the internet in church planting
5. Leadership (lay) development in a plant
6. Tangible Kingdom/Missio model
7. Tangible Kingdom discussion group
8. How to throw a party for the unchurched
9. Church planting order
10. Strategic planning for church planting
11. Incorporating church planting into the DNA of a congregation
12. Anglican church planting movements (Anglicanism as a cpm) - Patrick, Celtic
13. Intercession: having a team on sight and how to pray for plants/planters
14. Testimony from folks involved in planting (esp. those who have come to faith)

For those of you who were there, what would you add?