Contrary to what many may think about the Midwest, Indy is not your typical “burnt-over-evangelical-midwestern-district.” As a matter of fact, only about 15% of folks in the metro area claim to be an evangelical Christian. According to a study of U.S. urban centers, Indy ranks dead last in church planting efforts per capita. As a guy who grew up 2 hours south of here, I am absolutely thrilled about the possibilities for a gospel movement here in this great city.

Having said that, we are now in the process of praying for the Spirit to draw a team of missionaries together that will eventually help us launch Soma Church. Qualifications include:

• You love Jesus
• You love Jesus’ mission more than your own expectations of church
• You love Indianapolis (and the world)

If you know anyone who lives in the Indianapolis area who loves church planting or would be open to having a conversation, feel free to point them our direction. Here is our contact info:

Download our prospectus

Email: info@somaindy.com

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Web

Thus, I was excited to hear recently that the JSB has been expanded into a curriculum with 44 lessons for churches, complete with commentary by Tim Keller and DVDs to enhance the teaching experience. This is a goldmine for family ministry!

HT: Jared Wilson

God’s gracious involvement aside, if you wish to grow a contemporary church following good church growth principles, there are several things you must do and constantly improve upon:

• Expand the building to allow for growth
• Ensure excellent preaching in contemporary style dealing with subjects that relate to the life of the hearers
• Develop an inspiring worship experience (here limited to “praise & worship”) by having an excellent band and positive worship leaders
• Make certain you have excellent parking facilities, with car park attendants, to ensure minimum inconvenience in finding a parking space
• Ensure excellent programs in the critical area of children’s and youth ministry. Do so and people will put up with less elsewhere in the mix.
• Develop a good program of cell groups built around a Christian education model to ensure pastoral care and a sense of community.
• Make sure that next week is better than last week, to keep the people coming.

This is what church-growth practitioners call the “ministry mix.” Improvement in one area benefits the whole, and constant attention to the elements of the mix will ensure growth and maximize impact. The problem is that it caters right into consumerism. And the church with the best programs and the “sexiest” appeal tends to get more customers.

Let’s test this: What do you think will happen if elements of the mix deteriorate or another new church with better programming locates itself within your region? Statistics right across the Western world where this model holds sway indicate that the vast majority of the church’s growth comes from “switchers” – people who move from one church to another based on the perception and experience of the programming. There is precious little conversion growth. No one rally gets to see the problem, because it “feels so right” and it “works for me.” In fact, the church is one the decline right across the Western world, and we have had at least forty years of church-growth principles and practice…We plainly cannot consume our way into discipleship…Consumption is detrimental to discipleship.

I know that many churches will study or have studied this Gospel-saturated book, so I wanted to help by submitting some resources from our preaching planning team. Enjoy!

Commentaries We are Using:

• The Message of Acts by John Stott (my personal favorite)
• The Book of Acts by F.F. Bruce (NICNT)
• Acts by Darrell Bock (Baker Exegetical)
• Evangelism: Studies in Acts by Tim Keller

Acts Preaching Outline (PDF)

Notes from Acts 1-4:

• Message 1: Uprising Intro
• Message 2: Pentecost
• Message 3: Community
• Message 4: Peter & John, Part 1
• Message 5: Peter & John, Part 2

Companion Children/Family Ministry guide to Acts 1-4 (Uprising)

Watch videos from the series at http://www.fbcwpb.org/Podcasts/Series/uprising.html

I’ll end with one of my favorite quotes from Stott on the Holy Spirit in Acts:

Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, even impossible. There can be no life without the life-giver, no understanding without the Spirit of truth, no fellowship without the unity of the Spirit, no Christlikeness of character apart from his fruit, and no effective witness without his power. As a body without breath is a corpse, so the church without the Spirit is dead. (Message of Acts, 60)

God be thanked for the simplicity of the gospel. The longer I live, the more I bless God that we have not received a classical gospel, nor a mathematical gospel, nor a metaphysical gospel; it is not a gospel confined to scholars and men of genius, but a poor man s gospel, a ploughman’s gospel; for that is the kind of gospel which we can live upon and die upon.

It is to us not the luxury of refinement, but the staple food of life.

We want no fine words when the heart is heavy, neither do we need deep problems when we are lying upon the verge of eternity, weak in body and tempted in mind. At such times we magnify the blessed simplicity of the gospel. Jesus in the flesh made manifest becomes our soul’s bread. Jesus bleeding on the cross, a substitute for sinners, is our soul’s drink. This is the gospel for babes, and strong men want no more.

The “Family-Based” and “Family-Equipping” models have become quite popular in the last several years.  As the smoke of bloated budgets, attractional programs, and drop-off youth ministry cleared, many youth pastors began to rethink the effectiveness of a philosophy that rarely penetrated the doorposts of their families’ homes.

Additionally, the realities of a struggling economy are forcing churches to invest every dollar strategically in areas with the greatest return.  These factors have converged to create a new reality for family ministry, where focusing on parents is biblically/theologically, philosophically, and economically satisfying and necessary.

In response to these challenges, Family-Based ministry seeks to “keep the priority of the family at the forefront of our mission, to give families the understanding and tools they need to raise their children to grow to their legacy of faith.”[1] Rather than implementing a complete structural overhaul, the Family-Based approach is methodologically flexible and practically accessible for churches of any size: “We are not suggesting a radical change in programming. What we are suggesting is a fresh mind-set: Parents and family are crucial to faith development in every area of a ministry’s program.”[2] The Family-Based model maintains a great deal of continuity with traditional and historical youth ministry, recognizing the value of evangelistic venues targeted specifically at a youth culture that does not enjoy the luxuries of a traditional family structure.

Similarly, the Family-Equipping model attempts to reconceptualize the task of youth ministry: “Our goal? To engage our church’s leadership in a radical restructuring of priorities that would reengage parents in the spiritual lives of their youth and children.”[3] To accomplish this task, Family-Equipping churches (starting with the pastor) radically reorganize their ministry structures to reflect this parent focus, including staff, budgets, events, communication, and curriculum.  The Family-Equipping model casts off many of the encumbrances of traditional youth ministry, instead choosing to promote family offerings almost exclusively.

Very seldom does one observe athletes from different teams get together to “learn from each other.”   How often do you think Lebron and Kobe, Tiger and Padraig, or Machida and Silva sit down over a cup of green tea in a collaborative effort to share ideas for the mutual benefit of one another?  Probably not too frequently.  And, it would seem, justifiably so, for such an exchange would necessarily erode the competitive advantage one athlete or team enjoyed over another.

Sadly, men and women from different ministry “tribes” can be much like professional athletes.  We keep a safe distance from those on other teams, refusing to learn from them in order to keep our perceived competitive advantage.  We don’t read outside our own camp, instead choosing to parrot our favorite authors and publishers.  We caricature and oversimplify the positions of those with whom we disagree, demonizing them with cute slogans, platitudes, and pithy sayings gleaned from our favorite blogs.  We narrowly pursue the perfection of our own models of ministry, refusing to admit our own shortcomings and acknowledge the merits of other successful approaches.

This kind of thinking reflects a tacit immaturity, for we have much to learn from each other as we strive to accomplish the Great Commission in biblically-faithful and culturally-fruitful ways.

Family ministry is no different. Even a cursory look at the cultural landscape shows that we have our work cut out for us. Families are hurting, and they desperately need the redemptive power of the gospel to bring healing to situations that seem broken beyond repair.  Moreover, evangelical churches don’t seem to be faring much better: our families are experiencing divorce, moral failure, and despair at rates similar to the culture at large.  Those working with families need to learn from each other – we need to be sharpened, challenged, and refined by other models.

In what follows, I would like to suggest some ways that two of my preferred family ministry teams, “Family-Based” and “Family-Equipping,” can learn from each other in an attempt to more strategically and effectively reach more families for Christ.

While Chapman’s arguments are tired and mostly territorial, I thought it would be worthwhile to post a link to Danny Akin and Nathan Finn’s “white papers” response to Chapman. You can read the paper in its entirety here, but in the meantime I thought this quote was particularly on point in its relevance to the whole discussion around the GCR and the Cooperative Program:

We continue to believe that the key to a healthy future for the CP is not to bemoan designated giving, but for the CP to make a compelling case that it is the best means of
funding our Great Commission priorities.

BOOM!!