so tell me, when you plant the next church- how will you know that you aren’t giving birth to a daughter who will welcome an abusive boyfriend?

you likened your relationship to the church as one in a battering relationship-

and believe me I feel the same love for the bride-

dysfunction gives birth to dysfunction.

So how will you give birth to something without teacing it to be abused if you remain in an abusive relationship w/the church?

How are you going to go from glory to glory with your feet stuck in mud?

This isnt meant to sound judgemental- I am honestly wondering.

The longer we stayed to change things from the inside ( with love and because all things are possible in Christ)………the more wounded we became; and the more we changed; not them.

Even though that unique church may seem extremely healthy, what bothers me about replication is the environment around it changes drastically. Thus why I like how Rob and the team at Mars Hill is very admanant about not following their approach.

I think Jane is right in many ways, and it is what worries me the most about the whole multi-site, church replication fad that seems to be happening across America. I mean really how different is it than a program from Willow or Saddleback that many of us cant stand.

I dont question Community because I dont go there, and I do believe in the work you are doing aaron, so dont take it as a total blast to them. They are just questions I wonder about going forward.

I think church plants and house churches are essential, I am just hoping we (as in this new generation of church) don’t think streamlining church into a factory line is an answer.

PS - Also not saying you are trying to replicate Community piece by piece, more just questioning the thought well this church is completely healthy my church I plant from that will be too.

Aaron ~

Thanks for jumping into the fray. Maybe I can do a of the fleshing out of some of Jason’s comments. In reproduction, one gives birth to children who often are so different, one would think they are from different parents. Reproduction allows individuals to grow up to be themselves, not clones of their parents.

What if a church has some bad DNA? Why pass it on?

Church planting and reproduction efforts of individual churches and church planting organizations are not he only way the church moves forward and begins more local assemblies. It also happens as a result of persecution and frustration, perhaps more effectively.

I am at a loss for words to explain how corporate style church gives me the willys. I think it is the thinking that we have things figured out and can systematize it and reproduce it like a McDonald’s franchise. Findings such as the Reveal study are indicating that the end result wasn’t what we hoped for.

What I mean by the environment is simply, Zion isnt Naperville, just as Lake Forest isnt North Chicago, just as Illinois isnt california and so on. So approaches that seem certain to work in one site may fail greatly somewhere else. We see this in denominations as a whole.

I grew up in the Free Methodist church and while that denomination is dying a slow death in the midwest, it is flourishing in the Northwest and some in the Northeast. Are their doctrines different? Nope the same.

I think the church will never die if Jesus is the core. Take our house church, 22 people from all age groups, from all walks of life, nothing we learned in the denominations or in one case no denomination backed our creation of our community. But yet we seem to be more and more amazed at the opportunities God has given us to serve and be served. It really has been amazing.

I also look at Willow to some extent. Some people I know rather well were on board with one of their mutlisite locations. However when it came to a point where there community was drastically different than that of Barrington, the mutli site focus (at least in the minds of this leader I knew) felt like it needed to stray from the main church. But through church politics and programming, that would not happen. Thus he left and is now at a different congregation serving as he thought in best light of that immediate community.

I worry when one church seems to have it “nailed” down then tries to replicate that in other locations that have a far different outreach than that of their own.

Glenn and I talked about the uniqueness of Lake County here last Friday. How you can take the train from state line and go from the blue collar worker, to a mixed ethnic lower income class, to a high latin american race, to an extremely poor village, to an armed forces stop, to a very upscale stop, all within the first handful of train stops. Amazing. Thus I believe many of the reasons churches are abundant in this little corner of the US and still populating.

I do believe in your work and do believe you to be on to something, but the conversation must be had on what I see as the current fad of multiplying your local church as an exact replica elsewhere. I think that have to be different just like the analogy of the body of Christ. The hand to the finger, to the leg to the foot, etc.

I am definitely intrigued to see how SF unfolds for you guys though, and I dont wish any bad will on you at all. Its not that, more just wanting to keep the conversation open on multi-site and church spin offs. I’m not sold on this venture yet.

Aaron,

I have a hard time…a REALLY hard time with Pastors who complain about how hard ministry is. I’ve been there…did the lock-ins, retreats, taken the heat at meetings, been blamed for one of my teenagers getting pregnant (not blamed for GETTING her pregnant, but blamed for letting a good christian girl go bad). I was in a traditional (as in 1950’s/60’s Bill Gaither livin’ - not truly traditional)church that was living in the good ole’ days completely irrelevant to the world around it. My job as youth/associate pastor was to keep the students under control, out of trouble, and have some kids saved every now and then.

So I left. I said ‘Screw you, I’ll get a secular job and make something happen, cause I’m better than this church, I’m going to go do something really important. So here I am, 4 years later, making more than twice what I made there. And I HATE it. You think churches are messed up? Try the coporate world. You think that church makes you participate in stupid rituals and useless activities? Try corporate. Try losing the right to be creative.

I would give almost anything to hear that calling again from God to be back in the church full time, but it hasn’t come and I don’t know if I ever will again…I don’t think I could take it in conscience, with my current church views.

And this is harder than any pain I ever felt in ministry. I used to complain about how busy I was, and how much I worked in ministry. Then, all of a sudden I was on the flip side - working 50-60 hours, raising a family, AND trying to attend all of the church meetings, band practices, and prayer meetings. It was much worse, and much more stressful.

I know ministry can be hard, but I also know that it’s easy to lose touch with the other side and to believe that your job is hard and more demanding than the rest of the world. Sometimes pride and arrogance slips in, sometimes it seems lke a good idea to just take off and get a job roofing, or in construction, or selling guitars….

i’m proud to journey forward with you. your friendship means more to me than you know.

pax.

oh, so it’s related to being a Cubs fan then, I take it?

I didn’t mean disrespect either. I did go on a personal rant related to my own experiences and I assumed that your experiences are similar, but I really meant it more as a way of saying ‘Please keep in mind that the pain and frustration only happen in the church.’ I hear a lot of Pastors who seem to think that all of the pain and anxiety they face in the church is something that people working outside of the church don’t deal with and don’t understand.

I’m glad to hear you are in a Church that is a part of helping you find healing.

Aaron ~

It’s been interesting to read the conversation going on here because I know all, but a couple of the people who have commented.It seems like kind of an old conversation/debate about multi site/house church,
institutional/organic,
professional/volunteer. I have pretty much lost faith in the institutional church, but not totally. There are some great things happening in some churches that humble and amaze me, and certainty don’t fit my paradigm. Part of the reason for my lose of faith in church as we have known it stems from my personal experiences, just like your confidence stems from your recent experiences. I like to challenge you because you can take it. I have always had a lot of confidence in you and wish you well. My conclusion:we each need to be true to our calling and love those who differ. Can I get an “amen”?