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Losing Zeal as a Church

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Paul warned them. What causes a church to lose zeal? Why fizzle after 30-40 years?

I stood there on the site of Miletus where Paul called the Ephesian leaders. It’s not a big place. The entire town was on a peninsula surrounded by water, a few hundred yards across. In the late afternoon cool, I could imagine Paul warning them. The magnificent center of missionary zeal and church expansion in Ephesus would be led astray, even from among the very leaders to whom he was speaking (Ephesians 20:17-38).

There were 3 epicenters of Christianity in the first century. Missionary expansion began in Jerusalem, then moved to Antioch and blossomed in Ephesus.

A few days earlier, I had walked the ancient town of Ephesus where Paul had visited several times and lived and taught for 2 years so that “all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord.”

Ephesus had about a 10 year run of excellence during Paul’s day then another 30 years or so under the leadership of John before his exile, according to tradition. But by the end of the first century when John wrote Revelation from exile on Patmos, the church in Ephesus was losing its zeal. They were still doing “church” but Jesus told them, “you have abandoned the love you had at first.” You don’t burn with my zeal for the lost like you did at first.

TheaterJesus’ warning was in my mind as we sat in the huge stone theater in Ephesus. Jesus must remain the center. Our core activity must remain telling others about the goodness of his kingdom. To cease telling others is to begin to die as a church.

Plumb lines

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When things go bad, it’s seldom because of a disagreement about the destination. It’s almost always a squabble over the day-to-day itinerary, the pace, or the best route to get from here to there. [Larry Osborne, Sticky Teams]

How do you build a team culture? Culture is about how we behave, why we behave the way we do in our organization or team. It’s more complicated that posters on the wall.

Rohan Dredge, in Creating and Discovering Culture, develops some ideas on creating culture. His point: “Listen deeply to what is already in the organisation and evaluate courageously who you need to be to accomplish your mission.” He proposed good parts of the process.

I was in an organization where the director gave a talk every year on the ethos of the organization. It was the first time I had experienced that kind of talk. It was a good part of the process and one which I continued when I became an organizational director.

But I think Larry Osborne has outlined an effective culture-shaping process in his book Sticky Teams: Keeping Your Leadership Team and Staff on the Same Page. The chapter is Staff Alignment and the topic is what Osborne calls plumb lines.

Here are some excerpts:

When things go bad, it’s seldom because of a disagreement about the destination. It’s almost always a squabble over the day-to-day itinerary, the pace, or the best route to get from here to there.

The most powerful tool I’ve found for overcoming these differences and for making sure that my staff is aligned in terms of their day-to-day values and decisions is something I call “ministry plumb lines.”

The purpose of plumb lines is to clarify how we plan to go about reaching the lost or glorifying God in this church at this time.

Effective leaders are almost always a little bit weird. They approach ministry and life a few degrees off center. That’s what sets them apart. They see and sense things that others miss. But sadly, most leaders have no tool to communicate their thought process or the unique values and perspective that drive their decisions. Again, that’s where the value of plumb lines comes in. It gives your staff and team something to gauge their own thought processes, assumptions, and decisions by. It gives them a track to run on.

If forced to choose between a great mission statement and a clear set of plumb lines, I’d choose the plumb lines every time. That’s because the devil and most disagreements are in the details. I find it relatively easy to get our entire staff headed in the same direction and aiming at the same goal. I find it much more difficult to ensure that everyone is taking the same route to get there.

I had wrongly assumed that alignment around our mission and goals automatically meant agreement about the best methods to get there.

What Osborne is talking about is creating an organizational culture that lives out the mission and values in daily decisions by every member of the organization. That’s culture.

Seeing an example of Osborne’s plumb lines in one area is very clarifying:

North Coast Church’s Plumb Lines for World Missions

  • Everyone needs Jesus. Since no one comes to the Father except through Jesus, we will give top priority to ministries and missions that actually bring people to Christ rather than those that focus solely on meeting physical needs.
  • All people are of equal value in the sight of God. Therefore, we will give top priority to ministries and missions where the harvest and return on investment is greatest.
  • The local church is God’s plan A. There is no plan B. Therefore, we will give top priority to ministries and missions that either plant churches or build up existing local churches.
  • Middlemen just get in the way. Therefore, we will not function as a middleman filtering communication or doling out financial support. Instead, we will encourage direct contact between our people and the missionaries and organizations they support. This will result in a less impressive missions’ budget, but it will produce far greater hands-on kingdom involvement.

Each begins with a cultural value statement then embeds that value of the church into a practical action. Osborne says this is how the church extends it’s values throughout the organization with consistency.

Who does your team need to be to accomplish your mission and how are you developing those values?

Getting to 4th generation church multiplication

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“If you are not getting to fourth-generation church multiplication, it is probably because you are going too slow.”

I sat back in my chair in the restaurant and thought about the boldness of that statement. I had been invited into this conversation with George Patterson by Jared Nelms and Koudjo Nenonene of The Timothy Initiative. George is a retired church planting missionary.

George went on to say, “To get to 4th generation church multiplication, go fast. When you go fast, people focus on obedience and on following the commands of Christ. When you go slow, people focus on knowledge and on getting the details right. Multiplication is usually a casualty.”

George was saying that rather than focus initially on depth of knowledge and the right details, which will come over time, focus primarily on obedience and on rapid reproduction immediately after salvation. This missional DNA is the health that will grow churches. Depth and maturity will result over time as healthy churches obey Christ and grow.

George emphasized baptizing as soon as practical and engaging new believers in sharing Christ with their family and friends immediately after salvation. George also talked about the basic commands of Christ that needed to be taught in the first weeks of a new church. He identified seven general commands of Christ that he sees demonstrated in the early church in Acts 2:37-47:

  • Repentance, belief, and receiving the Holy Spirit through regeneration.
  • Baptism
  • The breaking of bread in the Lord’s supper
  • Loving your neighbor and impacting the community
  • Prayer
  • Giving
  • Making disciples

George feels that these basic commands of Christ are crucial in the first few weeks of a new believer’s life and the early weeks of a new church’s life. He said, “If you are not teaching the basic commands quickly, Satan will rush in and fill the new believers with good things, biblical things that keep them from crowning Christ as Lord. The key is obedience to Jesus’ commands, not knowledge of doctrine or theology.”

If you would like to hear more from George Patterson, I found an excellent interview online courtesy of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Reaching 5 billion

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Over 7 billion people that share our planet today. About 2 billion of them claim to share our faith in Jesus Christ. Not all share exactly what we believe, but let’s keep it at 2 billion for a nice round number. That leaves 5 billion. They do not wake up each morning looking forward to walking through the day with the creator of all days. Many have never heard his name. Others have heard, but not in a way they can understand.

Paul shared this same concern when he wrote:

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

That is where Kay and I come in. We have been sent. And we are also in the sending business. What if we can mobilize the 2 billion to reach out to the 5 billion?

What would it take to develop a systematic outreach among the 5 billion in every language, every demographic group, every business? It would take a permanent group that meets regularly, that loves Jesus, and is committed to living righteously and telling others about him. This a church.

We have thought this through. Most rural villages are about 1,000 people in size. Most suburban neighborhood developments are about 1,000 people. Most urban high-rise apartments are grouped into about 1,000 people. So if we  put one of these missionally-focused churches among every 1,000 people, 5 million churches are needed among the 5 billion. We need them evenly distributed so there is a light among every cluster, so that the church of Jesus is available to every person that shares our planet.

That is why we have set a goal of 5 million new churches, a church in every urban high-rise, every suburban neighborhood, every rural village, and every digital community.

Kermet Seabourn’s Home Going Celebration: A Life Well Lived

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My Dad, Kermet Seabourn, passed away on May 16, 2014. His funeral service was May 20. I spoke at his funeral service on May 20 to honor my dad. Later, I also spoke at the graveside service (see my message here).

 

KermetSeabourn_300x450Today’s service is a celebration of my Dad’s life, a life well lived.

It was no accident that my Dad was born in Dallas, Texas on February 27th, 1930 and lived in Mesquite until May 16, 2014. It was part of God’s divine plan since before the creation of the world. In Acts 17:24-27 it says, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth, He from one man made every nation of men; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.”

Then in the 139th Psalm, verse 16 we find these words, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before there was yet one of them.”

In my Dad’s case, this was 30,759 days. And 24,279 of those days were spent married to my Mother, over 65 years. My Dad used those days well. We are all gathered together here today because he touched us in some way.

Today, we celebrate my Dad’s life and his celebration in heaven. For my sister Karen and me, our Dad was always our hero! Big and strong, but quiet and gentle. Safe. Reliable. Consistent. Dependable. Responsible. Not necessarily the fastest, but the one who would be there all the way to the end, when it counted.

Karen and I, and our spouses David and Kay, are so blessed to have had Kermet Seabourn for our Father and Father-in-Law.

One thing I learned from my Dad was straightforward responsibility. You keep your word. You say what you mean and you do what you say. Be responsible for your actions.

When I was about 10 years old, my cousin Steve Holcomb and I were plinking with our pellet rifles. Somehow, I’m not sure how it started; we began shooting at neighbor Jess Parker’s chickens. I was the better shot, and I nailed a hen in the head. It was all fun and games until that hen fell over. Steve returned to his home in east Dallas. Several hours later my Dad somehow learned about it and I was sent down to settle accounts with Mr. Parker. I remember it to this day. A man is responsible for his actions. My Dad taught me that. Even when it was embarrassing to him, you make things right, even when you’ve done something silly.

During my time in the Boy Scouts, my Dad helped lead Troop 108. He served as Scoutmaster for several years. During this time, a number of boys, including myself, reached the rank of Eagle Scout. Troop 108 produced the largest number of Eagle Scouts in Circle 10 Council during this time. My Dad and the other leaders created an environment that instilled a desire to succeed, that developed young boys into Eagles. My Dad created a wooden board with the name of every Scout under each rank. At each Court of Honor, Scouts would move their name to their new rank. The Eagle rank grew longer and longer. Today, this is called gamification and this board is called a leader board. My Dad didn’t know about these incentives, but he knew how to inspire young men to excel and to strive to reach for goals and to endure difficult camping environments and to push themselves on long hikes and to reach for high ranks and he succeeded exceedingly well. Many from Troop 108 are grateful.

During one of our Boy Scout activities, we were hiking in the Kiamichi Mountains in Oklahoma. I was 13 or so at the time. My backpack was filled with my share of the camping gear for our troop. It seemed to grow heavier as the miles dragged on and I was lagging behind. My dad dropped back to hike alongside me. He put his hand under my pack and lifted the weight a little. Notice what he did not do. He did not take my pack away. It was still mine to carry. Carrying my share of the load was still my responsibility. But my dad lightened the weight for a while. He helped with the load but left the responsibility squarely on my shoulders. My Dad knew how to grow Boy Scouts into men.

And there are many snippets of memories. Here are a few of them.

Whistling. He was always whistling. When he was outside working, you could locate him by listening for the whistle.

The smell of sawdust. He loved working with wood. He passed that love to me. He loved building things. He loved working with other men to create places for people to enjoy, whether a room or a church building or a set of cabinets.

Yes’s and No’s always MUST have a sir or ma’am attached. A “yes” without a “sir” would get a questioning look accompanied by silence. And a “yeah” was a death wish to whatever you might hope to ask him for.

Older people MUST be greeted by Mr. or Mrs. Never call an older person by their firstname. Never. Ever. You would have a discussion with Dad if you used an older person’s firstname.

“It’s not fair” never worked in the Kermet Seabourn household. Karen and I learned to obey rules that other families didn’t have even when we felt it was so unfair. Now, neither of us would trade that upbringing for anything in the world. We learned responsibility and dependability.

I want to let you in on a little secret, now that our Dad is gone. Daddy had the ability to play like he was mad sometimes when he was just trying to get to you. And he was very good at it. Karen and I would have our friends ask us, “Is he really mad or not?” Sometimes even we couldn’t tell. He had a couple of tells that we would watch for. A little twinkle in his eyes and the corners of his mouth would twitch a little when he was pulling our leg. And he was good! But then there were the times I would search his face for the give-away signs, hoping and hoping, but there would be nothing there. And then Karen or I would know, “Uh-oh. I’m in for it this time.” Fortunately, it was mostly Karen that got into trouble!

Apart from our Dad, Karen and I were very blessed to grow up with a rich set of family relationships. Until we were about 10 years old, Karen and I had 9 grandparents and great-grandparents living within 10 miles of our home. We saw them regularly. We had many aunts and uncles and great-aunts and great-uncles. And two of our great-aunts are here in this service today: my Mom’s Aunt Frankie and Aunt Bess!

Our Dad set the bar high. Karen learned what to look for in a future husband by watching her Dad. I learned how to love my wife by watching my Dad. With a 65 year success record, Karen and David and Kay and I are still in junior high school in knowing how marriage works. Watching our Mother and our Dad these last several years has been watching people who have an advanced degree in marriage and in following Jesus. Sitting in a hospital room or in the group home and watching our Mother and Father relate to each other was amazing.

It was amazing to watch the testimony these two had as medical personnel and caregivers interacted with them. I often wondered why the God of the universe would allow my Dad to go through the Alzheimer’s experience. I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that one of them is the testimony he and Mother had in the last 8 years.

Wherever their medical journey took them, they won the hearts of physical therapists, medical technicians, rehab specialists, and nurses. They were winsome. Uncomplaining. Positive. Quietly and graciously content. Medical professionals went overboard in helping them. They wanted to check up on my Dad, to provide assistance to him. They found reasons to be around them.

You see, when you spend your life serving others, growing close to Jesus, becoming more like him, you become a magnet. As we grow in life, we either become more bitter or more better. More sour or more sweeter.

So today, we are feeling the pain of separation. We were not designed by God to experience death. We were designed to live forever in a garden called Eden. What we are feeling today is the echo of the separation resulting from choices our forefathers made long ago and the sin that continues to indwell these bodies today. It is a reminder that we are not home yet. We are not living where we were designed to live. But Daddy is. He will never again feel what we are feeling today. And one day, we will never feel it again either, if we make a choice to accept God’s forgiveness as my Dad did long ago.

In Matthew 7, Jesus says:

So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit… Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

Jesus says that you know healthy trees by the fruit they bear. Even though in his later years my Dad’s body was decaying and his mind was imprisoned by Alzheimer’s disease, his life bore tremendous fruit.

Kermet Seabourn’s life was a life well lived.