How to Start a Lay Church, Principle XII: Do Missions Often. Receive Your Provision on the Road

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Pastor Foley

Here’s a gospel reality that has been almost completely lost to the church today:

Biblically, the message of the gospel and the messenger of the gospel are “joined at the hip.”

That is, failing to welcome the messenger with hospitality is the same thing as rejecting the message of the gospel—and Christ himself.

Christ embodies this in his own life. He places himself, defenseless, in a womb—the womb of a woman betrothed to be married, whose husband contemplates divorcing her quietly to avoid shaming her.

And throughout Jesus’ life, right up through his ascension to heaven, we see him daily seeking hospitality. Consider Matthew 8:20, where Jesus says, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Seeking hospitality daily was as much a part of Jesus’ evangelism approach as was his presentation of the message itself.

Jesus trains his apostles to follow the same approach: travel with nothing, relying on the hospitality of those with whom you share the message. Check out Luke 10:1-4:

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

It’s not because Jesus was a bad fundraiser that he sent out his messengers empty-handed. He could have made sure that his messengers were traveling wealthy philanthropists instead of seemingly needy beggars. But he had a purpose for sending out his messengers with nothing: In so doing, those willing to extend hospitality to his messengers—and thus to him—would be revealed. These hosts would be the ones to whom he himself would extend hospitality when they came to his own kingdom carrying nothing.

When we understand this principle, we can see the story of the rich young ruler in Mark 10:17-22 in a new light.

And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.'” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

If the rich young ruler goes out with money, of course everyone will receive him! They will receive him because by his very appearance they will believe that if they receive him they will receive some personal benefit. And that means the gospel message and the gospel messenger stop being identical: the messenger (whether he wants to or intends to or not) now becomes a messenger of wealth and power, not of the gospel.

Worse yet, when we as messengers bring our own provisions, we rob people of the opportunity to exercise their gifts of hospitality, which—since we’re messengers of Jesus—means we rob them of the opportunity to host Christ.

We see these problems due to “hospitality inversion” happen all the time. In nearly every way the gospel is shared these days, Christians are the hosts…and those that don’t know Christ are the strangers to whom the Christians are offering hospitality.

  • Western missionaries come into a poor area, and they are well received by the people there not because the people are responding to the gospel message but rather because the people there are responding to a different message: becoming a Christian will benefit you materially!
  • Churches spend money to reach out to “strangers” in the community, trying to get them to come to the church. And when they come, they give gifts to the strangers.
  • Christian ministries hold huge evangelistic rallies, with bands and balloons and burgers—and, of course, no admission fees.

Strange challenge that we face today: Christians have too much money to need to be hosted by anyone!

How different that attitude is from the Lord Jesus. He had all the riches of heaven, and yet—as we read in Philippians 2:7—he “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” He daily was subject to our hospitality—it was indispensable to how he shared the gospel.

So in the lay church, missions is the practice of sharing the gospel by letting our enemies do good to us—from hosting us in their homes to—as Thomas and Elizabeth Brewster taught us so many years ago in their phenomenal book, Language Acquisition Made Practical)—teaching us their language right there on the mission field when we arrive knowing no language other than our own. We let strangers host us as we come in the name of the Lord, and, in so hosting us, host the Lord and welcome the gospel.

So how do we learn to be hosted by strangers and enemies in this way? According to Luke 10, we let them practice on us! And Jesus gives us specific instructions on what to do when they welcome us, and what to do when they don’t.

But how can we, with integrity, still be rich (compared to the rest of the world) and yet go out with nothing?

Here, Christ is our exemplar. Though he possessed all things, he left all things and came with nothing except the message and love of his father, which he mirrored into the world.

In the same way, we who possess a lot can still leave it all—for an hour, for a day, or, ultimately, for a lifetime—as we go with nothing except the message and love of Christ, which we mirror into the world.

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How to Start a Lay Church, Principle XI: Tithe… But Not to the Lay Church!

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Pastor Foley

When I share the .W lay church model with folks, I find that consistently one of the biggest attractions is that we expect members to tithe, right from the get-go. That’s not your typical church recruitment draw, but our tithe is not your typical tithe.

Let me explain.

As Generous Church notes, 97% of the money donated to churches is spent on those who give it. That’s neither good nor biblical, and we Christians should be publicly spanked for that.

Rather than taking an offering each Sunday, the lay church prepares to make our offering once a month, on the last Sunday of each month. A month’s preparation has a way of keeping the offering from being a tip for services rendered (literally).

And money is only one part of a member’s offering. In addition, we offer to the Lord each of the songs and each of the Scriptures we learned that month. (You’ll recall from Principle IV that in the lay church we learn–really learn–one song and one Scripture each week, introducing them in the meeting and then having each member practice them nightly in family worship.) We invite each member to offer a Scripture from memory or to lead us in one of the songs we learned. We encourage members to choose the Scripture or song which they found particular challenging or insightful during the month. They precede their offering with a short offering prayer, which helps them–and us–to remember that it is indeed an offering.

But money’s a big part of the offering, too, of that have no doubt. It’s just not money going mainly to the church.

That’s because while each member is expected to offer a tithe, only 30 percent of that tithe is given to the church. (Of that, a third goes to the .W church, a third goes to the Four Corners Conference of the Evangelical Church–our denomination’s regional conference of which we’re a part—or the Evangelical Church Missions program, in the case of our Korean congregation. The final third goes to the Evangelical Church denomination).

But 70 percent of each member’s tithe is consecrated at the altar…and then immediately received back again by each member, to be disbursed personally by that member as the church’s minister within his or her own sphere of influence.

Individuals then use that portion of the tithe to carry out whatever the Work of Mercy is that we’re doing that month. If the Work of Mercy is sharing your bread with the poor, they use the 70% to share their bread with the poor. If it’s healing and comforting, they use the 70% to heal and comfort.

Sometimes members give a portion of the money to an organization that ministers in that particular Work of Mercy, but the focus is really on encouraging the members to undertake ministry directly, in conjunction with that disbursement of funds.

That’s partially facilitated by the field trip that accompanies Offering Sunday each month. If the Work of Mercy for the month is evangelism, the church takes a field trip to do evangelism. If we’re giving away books or tracts or grocery gift cards to the poor–whatever is disbursed, that can come out of a member’s tithe.

Also in the Offering Sunday, each giver shares how they disbursed their 70% over the previous month. We borrow from the US Army something called an “AAR”—After Action Review. We ask each “giving unit” (might be one person or it might be a family—definitely include your kids in the giving decisions and the direct ministry; where else will they learn?) to answer the four questions below as they share about how they distributed their offering from this past month in relation to the Work of Mercy on which we focused:

  • Step 1: What was the intent?
  • Step 2: What happened? Why? What are the implications?
  • Step 3: What lessons did we learn?
  • Step 4: Now what? How can our giving continue in that Work of Mercy in the future?

Note that lay church members don’t get a tax deduction for the 70% they give, since it never goes into the church’s bank account. There’s something healthy and challenging about that—no earthly reward for giving except, well, giving well! And since most lay churches need not incorporate at all anyway, since what with the money flowing through them being pretty modest, maybe none of the tithe will be tax deductible. There’s a biblical ring about that, somehow.

In the lay church, the tithing message to potential congregation members is up front and clear:

Of course this Jesus discipleship stuff is going to involve a radical change in the way you spend your money.

But you can trust us to guide you in it well, since we’re not the beneficiaries.

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How to Start a Lay Church, Principle X: Use Volunteer Lay Pastors to Lead Local Churches

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Pastor Foley

It’s hard being a pastor in a traditional church setting. You have to be a theologian, a public speaker, a counselor, a manager, an event planner, a fundraiser, a mediator, a facilities manager, and about a hundred other things. No wonder professional training is needed and burnout is so high.

As we worked with the North Korean underground church, however–arguably in an infinitely more stressful environment–we didn’t find burnout.

Come to think of it, we didn’t find full time paid pastors either.

Instead we found a very different model—one which, the more we reflected on it, seemed to have more in common with the New Testament model than the Western model with which most of us are familiar.

It also seemed to be growing Christians to fullness in Christ on a much more regular (and rapid) schedule than anything we saw happening in traditional Western congregations–even though the environment in North Korea is anything but regular.

The North Korean underground church—along with other persecuted churches around the world and throughout history (not least of which would be the churches named in the New Testament)—has had to learn ways of worship that do not depend on full-time local church pastors. Fathers, mothers, and household leaders became the natural overseers of churches that met in homes. If pastors visit (which, in NK, they typically can’t), they supplement–not replace–the pastoral oversight of the family head or neighborhood lay leader.

And such a model is hardly a New Testament relic or an inevitable result of living in a country where being a Christian will get you killed. It’s the model that John Wesley pressed into service, first in England and then in North America, when the Wesleyan Revival produced the kind of converts in the kind of places that didn’t much mesh well with the prevailing church model. Wesley appointed band leaders, local pastors, and circuit riders to do the kinds of things that today have been centralized in one figure: the pastor. What such centralization may gain in efficiency it loses—dramatically—in promoting maturity.

Meaning: if the pastor preaches in your church every Sunday, it’s unlikely that the average church member will learn to preach.

If, however, the pastor stops by once every six weeks…or six months…or (as in North Korea) never, then it’s amazing how well other folks learn to preach.

And do theology.

And counsel.

And manage.

And plan events.

And fundraise.

And mediate.

And manage facilities (which, in this case, aren’t church buildings but rather homes and other public places specially re-tooled to host church worship; in our house, for example, we’ve got this giant altar table right about where a big screen TV would sit in most homes).

And do about a hundred other things that develop when volunteer lay pastors are used to lead lay churches.

Like help ordinary Christians grow to fullness in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In the early church, leadership wasn’t something you chose to “go into,” like a profession. It was something you grew into, as you grew to fullness in Christ and people recognized this about you—that you could help them grow in the same way. It’s what enabled Paul to say, in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”

So using volunteer lay pastors is more than a tactical model with strategic benefits (like keeping costs low, which it does, of course). Using volunteer lay pastors ensures that the lay church places the highest priority on each member growing to fullness in Christ. Also, by making sure that all local lay pastors are volunteers, the local pastor serves as a model for each member of the congregation to imitate–as they imitate Christ.

So does this mean bible school and seminary and ordination are obsolete? By no means. They make perfect sense for people moving beyond the oversight of a single lay church, to regional church oversight. It is only at the level of a regional leader that there should be any pay or seminary training contemplated. And that pay should be something like a stipend—just enough to offset costs, not enough to cause someone to aspire to the position as a means of supporting himself or herself.

Remember: lay churches are small—two dozen people would be splitting the seams of one. And the purpose of the lay church is to grow members to fullness in Christ so that each one can lead their own lay church…as a volunteer lay pastor.

So right from the outset, make clear that members are permitted only one year “in the nest” of your lay church. Each lay church is composed of lay church planters in training. Each attendee is a church in seed form and should be trained and treated as such not only from the very first Sunday they arrive, but from their recruitment (see Principle 1 earlier in this series, and also check out 2 Timothy 2:2).

Oh—and one more note: We don’t say to our lay pastors, “Share a message each week that you dig out of a devotional magazine or a small group study series you think might be useful.” The message that lay pastors are sharing each week is one that the church’s ordained regional leaders have written, focused on the Work of Mercy that we’re hearing and doing that month. It’s a process much like that of John Wesley, who supplied books of sermons to his lay pastors and directed them to preach those messages.

So lay aside the goal of creating a big lay church. There’s no need (or value) in creating a congregation bigger than the ones in the Bible. Even Romans was written to a cluster of several small lay churches. Keep the size small enough so that each person is leading the whole group in something each week.

And twelve months is enough time to go through one Whole Life Offering cycle—one month of preparation, ten months of focusing on one Work of Mercy each month, and then one month of reflection and celebration. Then each member heads out…to head up their own lay church!

This doesn’t mean that the groups divide, like in a small group model. It really does mean that each member—or family unit (like a husband and wife) is heading out to head up their own lay church. For each person (or unit), that new lay church will be drawn from the individuals in their sphere of influence who they’ve evangelized and already begun to disciple as a result of doing the word in each of the Works of Mercy in year one.

The “nest” doesn’t get tossed into the trash can, however. The lay church that graduates its members also graduates itself, becoming a leaders’ meeting. The meeting time moves off of Sunday morning (since the new lay pastors will likely be leading new groups then) and moves to, for example, in our case, a Tuesday night. The lay pastor becomes a regional pastor, using the leaders’ meetings to train each of the members to be lay pastors.

And so on it continues from year to year—a 2 Timothy 2:2 symphony.

Some might wonder if it’s a realistic expectation for ordinary Christians to become lay pastors in a year. After all, many traditional congregations go years without producing even one pastor.

But in places where Christians are persecuted (including most all of the churches in the New Testament), there’s a word for a congregation that goes years without producing a pastor.

Extinct.

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