:: The Sweet Spot of Church Planting and Ministry: The View From 30,000 Feet

Dr. Gary Waldecker

Introduction

Since many people don’t feel they can take time to read a Theology of Church Planting, in this series of articles I will be presenting some results of my thinking about a theology of church planting, without showing where I got it all from the Bible.

Main Point

Here is my thesis for this article: The “sweet spot” for planting churches is found at the intersection of a Christ-centered 1) Message 2) Meeting, and 3) Motivation at both the individual and collective levels. The following diagram illustrates my main point:

This means that the message, the meeting and the motivation all need to be Christ-centered, and that all three must mutually influence each other for growth and consistency. Furthermore, this must be true both of individual team members and of their collective team, organizational and cultural realities. This is the high-level (30,000 feet) framework I use to analyze ministries. Following are key definitions, and then some obvious and some not so obvious implications.

Some Definitions

By “the collective” I refer to the fact that when people regularly do things together over a significant time period—as church planting teams do—a team culture is formed. A team culture is always more than the sum of its individual members. For example, individuals may be trained to do things differently—but unless the team culture supports those changes, such training will probably have little effect. In other words, the team culture does not “reside” so much in individuals as among them. How does this happen? Key ideas—often coming from the team’s wider organization, from its national culture, or from the team leader—become embedded or incarnated in team structures and habitual practices or ways of relating to each other and to others. These incarnated ideas give the group a “team smell” as it were. Individual team members are influenced by it, especially in the context of team activities. This is normal and could be positive or negative depending on the character of the team culture. The question is whether the team culture is such that it helps or hinders the church planting “sweet spot.”

By “message,” I mean core beliefs that make us tick—both as individuals and as an organization. Hopefully this is increasingly the gospel—by which I mean the story of Jesus as contained in the whole Bible. The message must be Christ-centered because according to Jesus’ words in Luke 24, the whole Old Testament (as well as the New) is about him.

I use the word “meeting” to refer to the ways in which we as missionaries and national associates—both individually and collectively—encounter both believers and unbelievers within the culture where the church is being planted. This is commonly referred to as contextualization.

I use the word “motivation” to refer to the reasons we do things that flow out of our character—whether individual or collective.

General Implications

The work of church planting is not just a technical endeavor that can be accomplished with enough of the right human and material resources. It is a very spiritual activity.

The gospel must be applied not only at the individual level, but also at the collective level. Of course, only individuals can believe the gospel. But they must learn to apply it not only to their individual lives and individual relationships, but also to the ways groups work together and the collective influence they create.

The “steps to church planting” need to be understood and undertaken within the context of this higher-level framework. Although church planting requires some linear elements, the key factors involve a complex spiritual dynamic that cannot be reduced to a linear process involving such (important) steps as 1) demographic studies, 2) making contacts, 3) evangelizing, 4) discipling, 5) creating ministry systems, 6) and training leaders.

Implications for Individual Team Members

It is very common for individuals to interpret the Bible through the lens of their personality and other strengths. This means they will tend to see more readily those parts of the Bible that agree with or affirm their personality characteristics and other giftedness. Although we may affirm belief in the whole Bible, in practice we may act on certain parts of it. So we must distinguish between espoused beliefs and real beliefs. The latter can be seen, for example, by how individuals use their time and resources. Maturity requires not only knowing one’s gifts and the strengths of one’s personality, but also the ways one has tended to depend on his or her giftedness/strengths to make one’s life meaningful. Anytime we depend on our gifts and strengths rather than on Christ to find a meaningful life, idolatry is involved. The idolatry involved in depending on our strengths instead of on Christ always impedes the mutual influence of message, meeting and motivation. As a result, growth and consistency among the three are also impeded.

Motivation is also highly affected by personality and other strengths. Selectivity in what we see in Scripture can affirm motivations that arise more out of personal strengths than out of a desire to worship and glorify God and love others. Those who are good at getting things done may be motivated by seeing results. Those who are good at understanding situations may be motivated by the appreciation others show for their insights. Even individuals whose personality is very relational can be more motivated by a desire for harmony than by a desire for God’s glory.

Core beliefs and motivation that arise more out of personal strengths than out of Christ-centeredness can easily lead to a “meeting” of the target audience that points people to one’s self—or maybe to themselves—rather than to Christ. Contextualization on the personal level means being (increasingly) freed from the need to act according to one’s personality and strengths, and thus to see more clearly under what conditions and in what situations one’s strengths can be a blessing to others. It also means being (increasingly) freed from the denial of one’s giftedness and strengths for fear of using them inappropriately. This does not give people the opportunity to be blessed by your gifts, and ends up pointing them to themselves and their gifts instead of to Christ.

A similar dynamic can often be seen within teams. Team members tend to interpret team plans through the lens of their own personality and strengths. It is not uncommon for team members to all agree on team plans and then each one goes out and does something a little different. This tension is usually strongest between the team leader and the rest of the team.

The more team members are not stuck in the need to use their strengths but heading in the right direction in terms of the Christ-centered integration of their message, motivation and meeting with others, the closer the team will normally be to the “sweet spot.” Also, the higher the level of integration of these three in team members, the closer the team will normally be to the “sweet spot.”

This might seem like a contradiction, but team members also need to be affirmed in their giftedness. When other team members ignore one’s contribution, or worse, take one’s ideas and repackage them as their own without any recognition, it is very discouraging. On one level we shouldn’t worry about who among us gets the glory—as long as Christ gets it. But on another level, team members should be eager to affirm their colleagues in their giftedness. Too many people aren’t using their giftedness to the fullest because they haven’t been encouraged. Because we tend to be unaware of the ways we over-depend on our personality gifts—and because it takes so long to find it out—the difference between idolatry on the one hand and using our gifts for the kingdom on the other isn’t always clear to us. But from God’s point of view there is a great chasm between the two and properly distinguishing them makes all the difference.

Implications for Teams

It is very common for teams to interpret the Bible through the lens of their organizational and national culture and its strengths. For example, the PCA culture gives a strong priority to the value of knowing correct doctrine—which is very Biblical. Our US culture gives priority to the value of efficiency and getting things done—which is also Biblical. This cultural influence means that team culture and habitual practices will tend to be organized around those parts of the Bible that agree with or affirm these cultural strengths. Although a team may affirm belief in the whole Bible, in practice it may act on certain parts of it. So we must distinguish between espoused beliefs and real beliefs. The latter can be seen, for example, by how teams use their time and resources. Maturity requires not only knowing one’s cultural strengths, but also the ways these have affected the design and implementation of ministries, and the ways the team might be depending on these strengths as embedded in team practices rather than on Christ. Anytime we depend on our gifts and strengths rather than on Christ, idolatry is involved. The idolatry involved in depending on our strengths instead of on Christ always impedes the mutual influence of message, meeting and motivation that are embedded in team practices. As a result, growth and consistency among the three are also impeded. The “sweet spot” becomes elusive.

Collective motivation is also highly affected by the strengths of one’s organizational and national culture. Selectivity in what we see in Scripture can affirm motivations that arise more out of cultural strengths than out of a desire to worship and glorify God and love others. For example, we may say sincerely we want to plant a church for God’s glory, but this motivation may be co-opted by a cultural motivation to see enough results that churches will keep giving and allow our organization/ministry to continue. Since the importance of results can be found in the Bible, we easily justify our emphasis as Biblical and for God’s glory.

Core beliefs and motivation that arise more out of cultural strengths than out of Christ-centeredness can easily lead to a “meeting” of the target audience that points people to one’s own culture—or maybe to theirs—rather than to Christ. Of course none of this is intentional because teams are generally unaware of this cultural influence. Contextualization on the collective level means being (increasingly) freed from the need to act according to one’s cultural strengths, and thus to see more clearly under what conditions and in what situations one’s strengths can be a blessing to others. It also means being (increasingly) freed from the denial of one’s cultural giftedness and strengths for fear of using them inappropriately. This false humility does not give people in the target culture the opportunity to be blessed by the cultural gifts of those who come from an outside culture, and ends up pointing people in the target culture to themselves and their own cultural gifts instead of to Christ. Contextualization also means generally designing ministries around the values of the target culture while at the same time avoiding the idolization of those values. So contextualization is not simply “doing things their way.”

The influence on teams of organizational and national culture is more tacit than the influence of personality. It is thus much more difficult to detect. Different personalities within one culture challenge one another and thus we become more easily aware of the influence of our personality on our ministries. But when all team members are from the same culture there is no challenge from within. Even when there are some people on the team from a different culture, their voice is likely to be swallowed up in the cultural assumptions that are so deeply embedded in “the way we do things around here.” They don’t really have an equal voice, even though officially they do. It is very difficult to stand up to the crushing weight of cultural influences that come to bear on a team and its ministries. Of course, team members rub shoulders with people from a different culture—the target culture—everyday. But these outsiders are often in a relationship—church member or potential church member—that seems to demand respect for the degrees and positions of the church planting team members. It is not likely that challenges will come from them. That leaves the possible influence of church leaders from the target culture. Typically, however, our teams don’t actually work in ministry with such leaders. We may meet with them, and talk about things, but doing ministry together as both interface with the culture is not common. Most of the intercultural activity of our partnering occurs in “far from culture” situations—between four walls. Without this working together while interfacing with the target culture, it is too easy to co-opt the words of the other into one’s cultural frame of reference and misunderstand them. Actually doing ministry together would allow for a greater degree of mutual challenging. “Why did you do it that way?” we might ask. And they might reply, “That’s what I meant when I said such and such.” Actions help clarify the meaning of our words.

The more team members are not stuck in the need to use their cultural strengths but are heading in the right direction in terms of the Christ-centered integration of their collective message, motivation and meeting with others, the closer the team will normally be to the “sweet spot.” Also, the higher the level of integration of these three in team structures and habitual practices, the closer the team will normally be to the “sweet spot.”

This might seem like a contradiction, but the team needs to be affirmed in its cultural giftedness. Many teams have understood contextualization to mean “let’s do things their way and just hang back in the shadows.” Some churches have come to the conclusion that they should support only leaders of the target cultures because they know what they are doing. But these tendencies ignore the ways in which every culture makes an idol out of its strengths. It denies the mutual challenge both cultures need. Because we tend to be unaware of the ways we over-depend on our cultural strengths, the difference between idolatry and using our cultural gifts for the kingdom isn’t always clear to us. But from God’s point of view there is a great chasm between the two and properly distinguishing makes all the difference.

Some Examples

After every sermon I hear, I ask myself, “Who came across as the hero? Not long ago I heard a sermon in a PCA church that was technically—in terms of the words spoken—quite Christ-centered. I was surprised that it didn’t particularly move me, because Christ-centered sermons usually do. When I thought more about “Who came across as the hero,” the answer was “the man who knows how to take a seemingly legalistic passage from the Old Testament and show how it is really Christ centered and full of grace.” There is a sense in which the preacher himself came across as the hero because of this feat he had accomplished. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the sermon was actually set up that way. The preacher didn’t appear to be “under the influence of the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). I would like to have seen and felt that the preacher was himself moved by the great hero Jesus Christ—in awe of the aspects of Jesus’ glory highlighted by the words of the sermon. It would have given more credence to his words and would have met me in a way that pointed me to Jesus instead of to the preacher. Here we have a case of the message being Christ-centered, but the motivation and the meeting being out of sync with it.

However, a question remains: is this a problem at the individual level or at the collective level? Or is it at both levels? If the problem is at the individual level, then the solution is probably helping the preacher experience the gospel and apply it to himself more fully instead of just being able to explain it. For this purpose we might use Living in Grace or Sonship.

However, the problem could also be at the collective level. To what extent have we as an organization over-depended on our strength—our well-developed doctrine—with the result that our denominational culture actually inhibits the expression of emotion from the pulpit? Is there a fear of falling into the excesses of the charismatic movement? There are many organizational factors that impinge in this way on well-intentioned and godly preachers—including the way pastors are trained for the ministry in highly academic settings with little intentional integration of God’s Word with ministry and personal growth. Seminaries should have big warning signs that say, “Do as we say, but not as we do.” This might seem too harsh a judgment, but I’m making a point: seminaries basically tell us what to believe and sometimes what to do. But they don’t model this. At least modeling ministry is not built into the structure of the seminary. Seminaries primarily model the effective transmission of information.

So it’s very possible that this preacher is a very godly man who by God’s grace understands the gospel and who is very emotional about it when he is alone with the Lord. Maybe our collective realities tend to suppress this emotional expression from the pulpit. A preacher can do it if he really wants to, but it’s like swimming upstream. Our collective motivation as expressed in organizational structures and practices may be more about maintaining purity of doctrine than about glorifying Christ for his greatness.

I have heard sermons in Pentecostal churches in Chile that have a very different problem. One preacher opened his Bible, according to him at the Spirit’s leading, and began to read the passage about the Roman centurion. But he obviously hadn’t prepared well, and was not taking the words too seriously. He began talking about how God wanted the believers in that congregation to “tighten their belts” and give more to the Lord. The congregation was lost because the passage was talking about a “centurión” not a “cinturón,” which in Spanish means “belt.” But he was very emotional about the whole thing and many people were moved. I heard another sermon that I thought was neither clear nor doctrinally sound. But the preacher told a moving story at the end—he even cried. The story didn’t affect me that much because I was so upset about most of the content. But as I was leaving I heard person after person comment on how good the sermon was. I finally asked someone, “What did you think was good about the sermon?” The answer was, “Didn’t you see how emotional he was?” Who comes across as the hero here? Not Jesus, I think. More probably it’s “the man who is moved emotionally as he preaches.”

Here we have a case of a possible good motivation (thinking the best) being out of sync with the message. And the message meets the hearers in a way that probably points them more to the preacher than to Christ. This could be an individual problem. It might be that the preacher doesn’t have a clear understanding of the gospel and is using emotion to manipulate people. After a number of years in Chile, I began to notice that if I added more emotion to my sermons, people would respond better. So I know it can be done. The solution here is to explain the gospel more clearly.

But it could also be a collective problem (or both). Many of the charismatic churches in Chile are built around the premise that “the letter kills.” The way people are trained for the pastorate, the way worship is organized—everything encourages people to express emotion. In this kind of collective environment, even a godly man who by God’s grace understands the gospel might be inhibited from laying out a clear and detailed argument from Scripture—for fear of being accused of being spiritually “dead.” He could do so if he wanted, but it would be like swimming upstream.

Many sermons I hear in the PCA are implicitly, but not explicitly, Christ-centered. The formula goes something like this: 1) Here is a problem, 2) you should do this about it, 3) you can’t do it in your own strength, 4) don’t trust yourself, but trust God (or sometimes Christ). There is nothing untrue about this formula, and even a short statement like “love one another” can be Christ-centered if the hearer can supply what is implicit. The problem is that this formula doesn’t explicitly bring out our hero Jesus to challenge cultural idolatry. This way of preaching is something like telling the Israelites to trust in God and not themselves as they face the threats of Goliath, without bringing out the hero David. Without this painting a detailed and exquisite picture of our hero—and there are so many facets to Jesus’ heroism applicable to so many different situations that we never just say the same thing about him in every sermon—we are not well equipped to resist the power of the flesh, the world and the devil that bombard us every day and from every quarter. In addition, the church in our day has in many ways become so captivated by the culture that people will tend to interpret sermons from within the storyline of our culture in which we are the heroes. So the hero becomes “the humble person,” or “the person who reaches out to the unlovely,” or “the successful businessman who gives a tithe,” or “the wealthy American church that goes to build a house for people who live in huts,” or “the pastor who builds a large and successful church and has so many invitations to speak that he can’t handle them all.” Of course it is readily acknowledged that we could never do this “in our own strength.” It is only through Christ. He gets a mention as our helper. But he is rarely portrayed as the hero. He rarely gets more than a few mentions. Nothing like the sentiment behind the hymn “tell me the story of Jesus.”

This reduction of the role of Jesus in sermons allows people to co-opt the story of Jesus into the storyline of our culture. In this way the body of Christ is allowed to get away with, for example, being too busy to be the body of Christ in the name of “keeping food on the table,” or “keeping my kids involved in all the activities at which they can excel.” Furthermore, how often do you see pastors and elders following the injunction of Ephesians 4:9ff to invest in the body of Christ so that they can do the work of ministry. Yes, they teach and preach, but what about a more holistic investment that actually results in people doing ministry. I’m afraid we don’t see it very often because pastors and elders are too busy “doing” the ministry to take time to invest in others so they do it. And church members are too busy to be invested in. I’m overstating my case because there are exceptions, but looking at the big picture, this is what I see.

The problem here is not so much on the individual level as on the collective level. The message is not explicit enough, with the result that the meeting of the message with people is domesticated. Godly people—who genuinely have a good conscience before the Lord—are not challenged to see the cultural idols for what they are because our preaching does not challenge them. I think most preachers feel there’s not that much to say about Christ—he died, he rose for the dead and he’s coming back, so we should trust him and not ourselves. So why do you have to repeat it in every sermon, they wonder, except to remind people not to trust themselves. Maybe their awareness of the Goliaths that are out there is dimmed, so they don’t bring out the true David.

Here is another example made up from my experiences working in Latin America. In this typical scenario, the US missionaries and the Latin Americas leaders working together on a church plant in Latin America get along very well with each other. The missionaries have been working in Latin America for 10-15 years and have adapted well to the culture in many ways. But no one seems to really like the team meetings they have together. The Latin Americans don’t like it because it is organized around efficiency. This precludes or at least inhibits what they consider to be important to a meeting like this: freedom to express feelings, or to “digress” into the peripheral issues that affect the core subject being discussed. In short, they would like to see it organized around the importance of relationships. But this takes more time than organizing it around efficiency. So, because they feel rushed, they probably won’t say what they really think unless the meeting is structured in this way. In their minds, this leads to less than ideal decisions. In fact, their voice is to some extent unintentionally inhibited. As a result the decisions will reflect to a greater degree the opinions of the US missionaries. The US missionaries don’t much like the meeting because the Latin American leaders are unusually quiet. The missionaries feel that outside of the team meeting format the Latin Americans are quite different. The missionaries, knowing how much the Latin Americans like fellowship, have tried to structure the meeting in a way that allows for more fellowship time afterwards. But for the Latin American leaders, fellowship is not just “dessert” to be enjoyed after the meat and potatoes, but should be an integral part of getting the work done. For the missionaries, efficiency leads to fellowship. For the Latin American leaders, fellowship leads to efficiency.

The problem here is not primarily on the individual level. Outside the context of this meeting format, they all get along with each other. It is the way the meeting is structured—not any individual tensions or problems—that causes the difficulty, dislike, and inhibiting of some ideas being expressed. Both groups believe they are being Biblical. Both have focused on certain aspects of the Biblical message—aspects that accord with their home cultures. As a result, the collective motivation is different in each group—get things done vs. make sure everyone is being taken into account. The “meeting” of the guest group with the host group is not contextualized. The solution is not simply to restructure the meeting along the host culture lines. That would be to ignore the fact that every culture makes an idol out of what it is good at. The solution is for each culture to examine the ways it tends to make an idol out of its strength. The meeting should be structured in a way that leads out with relationships, but that avoids the idolatry of relationships that often results in meetings that are way too long and that never get anything done.

In this situation we have an unproblematic individual level, while at the collective level two systems are clashing, each inadvertently pointing to itself instead of to Christ. Furthermore, the dominance of the US collective reality leads to a church plant that has a US feel to it. A small segment of Latin Americans (those who have business in the US or wish they did) will be attracted to the church plant. But the church will be unable to reach out to the masses of Latin Americans.