​I’ve heard folks in my denomination talk about “high impact churches.” It's a phrase that's been out there for a few years, in particular an eponymous book by Linus Morris. His primary shift is thinking about church not so much as being situated in a geographic location but within large scale social network. This move was important a quarter of a century ago when Morris published with the rise of the internet and globalization. I think we've seen a cultural migration away from dislocation as a norm toward place-centered living. Anecdotally, people just are not transient as they used to be. People  tend to grow where they are planted. The trend is playing out during the last year. If people are moving, it is close to where they already are: 

"This local movement means that even for residents who did move further from an urban center, many remained part of the same regional economy. And most of those who moved further afield tended to stay within a radius of 100 to 150 miles."- "More Americans Are Leaving Cities But Don't Call It an Urban Exodus" -  Bloomberg News, April 26, 2021 The "same regional economy" is the same as a megaregion, which I written about elsewhere on this blog. People are moving but staying within a place called home. So, one's social network is the same as sharing a place: familiarity in particularity. 

My denomination leans toward defining high impact churches as those that start with a large core of attenders, around 200 (multiplynaz.org). These kinds of churches are also actively working toward getting people involved in the life of the church, usually through a system of discipleship groups. Much of the focus is building internal capacity for nourishing the faithful and reaching the like-minded. It's a consumer-driven approach to building the church. I was never really satisfied with these notions of what church should look. The cynical side of me thinks that the emphasis is on HYPE -- just trying to get people in the door and find ways to keep them around. The non-cynical side of me wonders if evangelism of attraction will actually lead toward discipleship: the true calling of the church is to make disciples.

In 2020, I read an article on 11 Traits of Churches That Will Impact the Future by Carey Nieuwhof that fleshed out what I think I mean by “high impact churches.” Nieuwhof wrote this article in 2013. It could easily have been written yesterday. It has given structure to what a high impact church might look like.

Nieuwhof’s thoughts on what these kinds of things that could be considered high impact churches bear repeating: 

“When you learn to say no to the preferences of some current members, you learn to say yes to a community that is ready to be reached.” 

“If you can’t make a decision within 24 hours, your process is too slow.”

“In fact, more and more larger churches will start embracing smaller venues, locations and partnerships to keep growing. A great number of smaller venues might be a hallmark of future churches making an impact.” 

“Get innovative and start looking at portable and non-traditional ways of growing your ministry.” 

“Churches that understand that embracing questions is as important as providing immediate answers will make an impact.”

“Churches in decline often think in terms of what they can get from people - money, time, growth, etc.”

“Churches that decide they will hold the message sacred but tailor the experience to an ever shifting culture will be more effective.” 

From Nieuwhof’s article, I narrowed my emphasis on eight aspects of high impact churches. When I see these concepts at work in a church, there’s a good chance they are making an impact on their community. These practices are not based on church size or financial capacity. I believe all of these descriptors need to be present for a local church to be considered a high impact church. If they are not all present, then these aspects become aspirations for what a church seeks to become in its community. 

outsider focus
Overview: Understands local context, knows the map, makes strangers into friends

Questions toward becoming outsider focused:
--Who lives in your neighborhood?
--What contribution does your church make to this neighborhood?
--Do they know your name? Do you know theirs?
--Do they invite you to participate in their lives?

partnership plan
Overview: Realizes they cannot go it alone, becomes connectional, seeks district oversight and guidance, leans on a prayer network, looks for local sources of funding, enters into a larger global family

Questions toward building a partnership plan:
--What organizations are doing what you think the church can/should be doing?
--How are you helping them do this work?
--What gifts does your church have to offer these organizations?
--If there is not an organization doing this work, how can your church start doing it?

leadership team
Overview: Rule of Four in team leadership, each position is a function, response-ability, self-perpetuating

Questions toward pulling together a leadership team:
--Who are the four people that are always there that dream big and make things happen?
--Who needs to be involved in the decision-making
--What are examples of tangible and memorable evidence of the trust that has been built between these leaders and the rest of the church?

adaptable ministry
Overview: No canoes (Tod Bolsinger), learns to say no to insiders to include outsiders, cultural shifts, does what is necessary, focused on a few ministries, inter-culturally sensitive

Questions toward implementing adaptable ministry: 
--How quickly can a ministry be started in church for the community?
--What is the ratio of active volunteers to regular church attenders?
--Where can be found written expectations for volunteers?
--How often is training held for new volunteers?
--What kind of gratitude is shown to volunteers?
--What are active ways the church reaches out to the marginalized - not like the majority of those already in the church?
--How are different languages and cultures from your community represented in your church?

flexible footprint
Overview: Little overhead, just in time planning, ready to move, costs in people. “Get innovative and start looking at portable and non-traditional ways of growing your ministry.” 

Questions toward having a flexible footprint:
--Who decides when a new ministry might begin? Or when it might end?
--How many “circles” or smaller groups of church folks meet outside of regular worship gatherings?
--Where are there places to meet for church folks to meet together beyond gatherings at church?

discipling culture
Overview: Multiple avenues, everyone involved, participatory, movement toward everyone discipling someone else 

Questions toward a discipling culture:
--What is the next step for a new believer in your church?
--How are these next steps communicated to new believers?
--How many members have actively taken part in making new disciples in the past year?
--What is considered essential knowledge and practice for disciples in your church? 
--Who or what criteria in your local church determine what is essential for making disciples?
--What does this pathway of disciple look like in your church? 

online presence
Overview: Social presence, connectivity: “Sure, face to face is deeper, but people will tell you things online they can’t muster the courage to tell you face-to-face.” 

Questions toward creating an online presence:
--Does your church have a website or Facebook page that is updated on a weekly basis?
--What are ways for someone to participate in a worship service or discipleship group even though they are online?
--What are ways people can be engaged via message or comment boards in an online environment?
--Who tracks online involvement in your church?
--What online resources available for discipleship opportunities, financial giving, registering for events or ministry sign-ups? 
--In what ways will someone be able to find out what is happening at your church this month by going to the website?

citywide engagement 
Overview: Planted to grow here not there, able to engage a transient society, has social awareness, recognizes their place in society, stones in a stream

Questions toward engaging the whole city: 
--In what ways does your church provide avenues to connect to the larger community around the church?
--How does the church find ways to meet with or partner with other churches even if it is just with other church pastors?
--How does the church offer its voice to concerns within the larger church community? 
--What markers in the church’s building, signage, website, and events that show evidence of its community’s presence?
--Where do people live that regularly attend, participate or have a connection to the church?

“give not get” mentality
Overview: Asks what the church can do for you not to what it can get from you : “Church that will make an impact on the future will be passionate about what they want for people - financial balance, generosity, the joy of serving, better families, and of course, Christ at the center of everyone’s life.” 

--What is the church doing for its community without any strings attached or return on investment?

N.T. Wright is offering a course that "have meant the most to [his] spiritual development." And, so, I began reflecting on what passages from. the Scriptures have shaped me. I'm not a fan of "life verses." They seem more like bumper stickers of wisdom extracted from their source and surroundings. The interest here is to get to the passages that have continually drawn us back over the years. I cannot really shake what they tell me about myself and the world I wish to inhabit. 

Here is the beginning of my list: 

Romans 1:16-17 NIV
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous will live by faith.'”

It's really verse 16 that jarred me loose. I was a new believer, at a youth retreat for the South Central Ohio District in Ripley, West Virginia. The speaker talked about this verse. It was later in the weekend that I sensed a calling to mission and ministry. So, I've always taken to heart the desire to not only be with those inside the group but also to be among the outsiders. This is really the verse that brings to life the whole notion of the doctrine of entire sanctification--"the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes" either it works for everyone or no one. One of the few either/or's in my spiritual lexicon.

Colossians 3:1-14 NIV
"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

"Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

"Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."

My first sermon in French was on this passage. It's just packed with the basics of Christian theology on the Incarnation - the heavenly becomes earthly - as well as the transformative power of the Resurrection that continually brings about a newness to daily life - la vie quotidienne. Even the mundane gets an overhaul. Especially the mundane, daily, boring makings of a life become something glorious in the hands of God. Moving toward Christlikeness makes us more like Christ and more recognizable to each other: "Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all." This is not only an individual transformation but it is witnessed in the whole of "God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved." The witness continues through the people as they "bear with", "forgive", "love" and all the one anothers that "binds them all together." They surely don't look alike but they are "unified" in the Body and Blood of Christ--here on earth as it is in heaven. 

I'll continue the list over the next few weeks, this is just a beginning. 

Church, Defined
The church is still the church regardless of how it gathers. One definition of church is defined is:

“Any group that meets regularly for spiritual nurture, worship, or instruction, with an identified leader and aligned with the message and mission of the Church of the Nazarene, may be recognized as a church and reported as such for district and general church statistics.” Board of General Superintendents, December 8, 2015

There are five minimum characteristics for a local church to be a church.
 
“Any group that
(1) meets regularly for
(2) spiritual nurture, worship, or instruction,
(3) with an identified leader and
(4) aligned with the message and mission of the Church of the Nazarene,
(5) may be recognized as a church and reported as such for district and general church statistics.”

Let's compare a description of the New Testament church from the Book of Acts to the five characteristics of a local church: 

 Acts 2:42-47 (NRSV) compared to BGS ruling 2015

42 They devoted themselves [meets regularly] to the apostles’ teaching [identified leader] and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers [spiritual nurture, worship, instruction].
43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. [Identified leaders]
 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. [aligned with the message and the mission]
 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, [recognized as a church]
 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. [reported as such for district and general church statistics] (thanks to John DeMuth for thinking this through with me)

There are right and wrong ways of meeting as house churches, according to church planter Steve Brenmer (2012). 

What house churches do right: Intimacy, accountability, offers freedom and flexibility, outward-focused (with an emphasis on reaching neighbors, and meets with intentionality (know why they are doing what they’re doing).

What house churches do wrong: Still needs physical space to meet, turns inward-focused, no longer brings in new people, no longer makes disciples and just hangs out, becomes arrogant in that this smaller gathering is the only legitimate way to meet together as the church. 

How are house churches different than small groups?
Small groups are focused on one thing: fellowship, Bible study, gender groups, or a service project.
House Churches are focused on being the church: worshipping, learning, serving as an extension of the Body of believers gathered together

Where should house churches meet? 
Geography - ZIP code, housing development, apartment complexes, direction from the gathered church
Why geography? Same schools, same grocery stores, travel time, needs to be a focus on gathering for being the church not around lesser reasons, Keep the purpose in focus

Why not affinity groups or groups of friends? See the point about house churches being inwardly focused. Rarely will this kind of group invite an outsider that isn’t already closely connected to someone in the group. This group also is so focused on the ancillary reason they are meeting together, such as a book club or women’s group, and not why they are meeting together as the church.

Make the Body local. Find where the Body already is. Let the Church move into the neighborhood.


Who meets in the house church?
Around ten adults. Jewish synagogues require at least ten heads of household. The same applies here. 

A church of 50 might have two churches of 18 to 25 people or three groups of 15 to 18 people.

Those involved in house church include: The designated (trained) leader appointed by the pastor/board as a lay preacher, the host family, children/youth activity volunteer, and any other guests. 

For COVID-19 precautions - Suggest no more than 10 persons at a time in a room or backyard gathering. Children might go right into a lesson time in a separate space rather than gather with the whole to limit numbers in a single space at one time. Masks recommended (and may be required by the host family).

Remember that everyone is a guest. Household rules need to be honored by the guests


When does a house church meet? 
Options include: 

• Concurrent with the Sunday morning broadcast service
• Sunday afternoon or evening (watching a rebroadcast)
• Another weekend night or weekend time

Suggested time frame is 90 minutes from arrival of guests to departure of the last family

Example: 
4:30 p.m. Arrive at the location
4:45 p.m. Begin the time together whether it is singing together or sharing praises with one another, including listening to the worship portion of morning’s service, listening/singing along with a Spotify playlist, etc.), lead by a single guitar or piano, no more than three songs
5:00 p.m. Announcements and allow children’s and youth activities to begin in other rooms
5:05 p.m. Listen to the sermon together. Feel free to pause for discussion
5:30 p.m. Pause for response, accountability, and prayer. Feel free to make smaller groups for prayer if space allows. 
5:45 p.m. Gather for snacks, finger foods, and fellowship 
6:00 p.m. Begin departing 

More COVID-19 precautions - Consider not serving food. Limit the gathering time to 45 minute to avoid the need for restroom usage.Also, singing may not be wise in a small, confined space. Other options include someone playing an instrumental or ensemble together, reciting a poem, memorizing and reading hymns together interspersed with prayer, Bible reading and reflection (e.g. lectio divina). 


How does the house church stay connected to the primary local church? 

The designated leaders are trained, accountable to, and appointed by the pastor and staff. A local church board might confer a local minister's license to each house church leader.

Designated leaders report the meeting times in advance and accurately to the pastor and church staff for promotion on the web site or social media. House Church leaders also track and report participation in the house church. They are also responsible for giving prayer requests and concerns to the pastor and church staff. 

Offerings are best handled through online giving opportunities. If cash and checks are given, designated leaders are to bring to the pastor and/or church office the following day. Or, mobilize the finance team/board members to collect the offerings and bring to the church office for accounting and deposit. 

The pastor and/or church staff may distribute announcements (written copies or weblinks to online videos), as well as give leaders the weekly discussion questions for the sermon/teaching times, and share prayer requests. 

Host families may display a yard sign showing connection to the primary church with contact info, websites, and maybe leaflets with take-home information. 

Board members could be asked to host or attend the house church gathering nearest them. One or two board members could volunteer to visit multiple house church gatherings as a means of accountability. 


What makes this “count” as going to church?
The BGS definition of church  as gathering for “spiritual nurture, worship, or instruction” is consistent with the message and mission of the Church of the Nazarene whether the gathering is in a church building, in a house, or anywhere else.

There will be three essential elements in every gathering (borrowing language from Neil Cole): 

• Dynamic truth in the message conveyed by the preaching and teaching
• Nurturing relationships in caring for one another during the gathering and throughout the week.
• Active missional connection in being fully present in neighborhoods, schools, public spaces in the county or city by “making Christ-like disciples in the nations” which is the mission of the Church of the Nazarene. 

How can house churches still feel unified as to the local church? 

• Consider incorporating drive-in worship services every month 
• Connect to participants via social media throughout the week. 
• Cards sent from the pastor and/or church staff to every participant every other week with a handwritten note and encouragement related to the message or sermon series.
• Commit to volunteer opportunities as a house church (park clean-up, food banks, school events, little league sports events, church-sponsored activities, packing crisis care kits), especially those related to projects identified by the primary church as important means of community engagement
• Commune and dwell together into a deep reflection with the same message or sermon series at each house church, enhanced with social media interaction throughout the week.

Rev. Amy Butler, minister at Riverside Church in New York City, wrote an opinion article at Religions News about the dying of organized and institutional Christianity in north America. Declines in church attendance and giving to traditional churches have not gone unnoticed. But, all is not lost. There is a sense in which there is something new, maybe better said, refreshing and not altogether different needs to happen. Her article is here:  https://religionnews.com/2019/10/30/christianity-as-we-know-it-is-dying-lets-welcome-the-new-life-ahead/

My district superintendent in South Texas asked for some thoughts on the article. So, here is something of what I sent this morning:

There are those are culturally part of Christianity…they go because they’ve always gone…and in the same way. Sunday morning worship for an hour, after dropping off children at their activity station, maybe meet during the week with a few families to watch a video lesson and discuss something related to life, faith, and the Bible, could be Sunday School or as it is called now, life group. Occasionally volunteer for some church-related event or service project nearby or abroad. And, they are gravitating toward big box non-denom Bethel-infused Baptist/Catholic churches: it's dark inside so sound and lights are on point, mostly great contemporary music, good coffee served by enthusiastic greeters, preaching focused on the "how" more than the "why." People have left others still sitting on pews and singing from hymnals after attending Sunday School. The veneer has changed but it's mostly the same, and folks go because they've always gone. Example: Recently, I met with a few leaders to talk shop, and one of them said, “People just won’t go to church unless it meets on Sunday morning.”
 
There are those who are just completely indifferent – NONEs and DONEs. They believe that they’ve been there and done that and there’s nothing really more to it. And, they refuse to go back. Youth group kids went on every ski trip and mission service project and retreat and summer camp  and ... then the adrenaline rush of youth ministry did not answer their questions, or even worse, question their answers as they entered adulthood and exited what James Fowler called a synthetic-conventional faith. It's a faith patched together from various teachings but not consistent or coherent (synthetic). It is a faith borrowed from parents, pastors, song lyrics, and bumper stickers or Pinterest boards (conventional). It's a meme-derived faith that makes sense in the moment but cannot be easily remembered, especially when life reveals itself as really, really hard. Example: A male parent of a trick-or-treater at pastor's house in one of our fastest growing locales in southern Texas, asked the pastor first thing after being invited to church, “So, is your church non-denominational?” They've been to youth group, and just don’t want to go back. They want to think about a faith that questions their assumptions and gives them hope when things don't look so good, and something to chase when they feel like what they have doesn't satisfy like they thought it would. 
 
So, in between the two, I think there is a place for authentic Christian community. Those are loaded words and vague enough to not really mean anything. They are root concepts. I think it means “groups of believers with a designated leader that meet regularly for worship, discipleship, or service.” This is how my church defines church. Inside this definition are expressions of authenticity, something that reflects the original genius of the Body of Christ found in the New Testament (and Hebrew Scriptures and Early Church, and other historical epochs of revitalization. There have been times when the Church remembered itself: The Desert Fathers, Franciscan monastic movement, Celtic missionaries to Western Europe, Radical Reformers of Western and Southern Europe, evangelical movements like the Great Awakening in the US and the Methodists in England, and the rise of Pentecostals in Latin America and rapid church multiplication in Africa and Asia. I do not suggest replicating past movements but learning from them and not making the same mistakes and nurturing the best ideas and practices that history has to offer.

We have already made room for more organic and fluid expressions of gathered people. So, let's do it again by meeting in third spaces like coffee shops, ball fields, festivals, farmer’s markets, library study rooms, as well as homes, apartment complexes, and dinner churches that all fit this definition. See Kris Beckert's stuff at Fresh Expressions US. Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost have made careers on trying prune this garden of wilting flowers and unharvested fruit. These faithful and fruitful expressions of church may meet for a time, and then disperse, re-organize later, or move to another place but still find ways to be together as a people. It’s a little scary but not too much.

So, I think churches about to bloom look like this, for starters. 
Authentic - seeks to find the original purpose of God's people as a locally gathered people empowered by God's Presence. 

Christian - identified with biblical and historic Christianity: to be called, sent, broken, healed, to be serving, loving, living as Christ in their midst.

Community - gathered and identified as the "cultural expression of God's sacramental presence of God in their local context." (My definition of church, btw.)

What do you think?

The solidarity of brokenness is palpable in this seemingly random meeting. The willingness to risk making a fool of oneself by finding comfort in another person as wounded as ourselves is what makes these words so powerful. 

Loneliness may also be shared. This is the twist that pulls me into this song: "I could be lonely with you." This is the hope of every friendship, drawing us into another person. This song could easily be a prayer for our times, and definitely an anthem for recent months in my own life. 

My reading of Belden Lane's The Solace of Fierce Landscapes engages the idea that brokenness is part of what it means to be human:

There is a wholeness that comes only through brokenness. Healing does not need to happen before the wound. There is hope in brokenness, entered into through finding oneself alone and honestly appearing before the other. In this moment of clarity, loneliness finds a friend, and brokenness begins to collapse into something more complete. 

This morning I presented a training session on posmodern evangelism to over twenty church leaders from across the United States and from Kenya. The hope is to be humble enough to listen, draw near, and engage people in conversation along the journey toward Christ--the trajectory of grace through the threshold of faith. Below is the downloadable powerpoint file.

Later, I will be able to link to a video of the training session.

​Thanks to Black Dog Coffeeshop in Lenexa, Kansas for providing the necessary caffeine for an early Saturday morning. And, to the Lord, for pointing us all toward the Life we all seek.

Link to the video file on dropbox: CLICK HERE

broken by lovelytheband
Life to Fix by The Record Company
From This Valley by The Civil Wars
Sit Next to Me by Foster the People
The Joke by Brandi Carlisle
Friday I'm in Love by The Cure
Small Town by John Cougar Mellencamp
​Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
Round Here by Count Crows
Hunger by Florence + The Machine
Bad Bad News by Leon Bridges
Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra
Somebody to Love by Queen
Don't You (Forget About me) by Simple Minds
Learn to Fly by Foo Fighters
Even Flow by Pearl Jam
Sucker's Prayer by The Decemberists
Lightening Crashes by Live
Holding Back the Years - Simply Red
Everybody Needs Somebody to Love by The Blues Brothers
It's the End of the World As We Know It by R.E.M.
Your Bright Baby Blues by Sean Watkins, Sara Watkins
Refugee By Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Sweet Child o' Mine by Guns N' Roses
Wish I Knew You by The Revivalists
You Worry Me by Nathaniel Ratecliff and the Night Sweats
Soul To Squeeze by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Saturday Sun by Vance Joy
Revolution (featuring First Aid Kit) by Van William