Tonight, I'm reviewing the message I'll share at Two Rivers, where I serve as Interim Pastor. I love the people there, and am happy to be able to serve the body and work along side them. The Tennesean (our Nashville paper) recently did a story on Two Rivers focusing on its healing and movement forward. If you aren't from around here you probably don't know the details, but it has had some rough days.

Over the last few weeks we have looked at the relationship of the church, the kingdom of God, and mission. I want to bring these ideas to a close this week and move onto a new theme beginning next week. Please join the conversation in the comments. I enjoy the discussion!

The Church on Mission for the Kingdom

We may now see how when everything becomes mission, nothing is mission. The church does not point to a reality in itself, but rather to the kingdom of God and the reign of Jesus Christ. The church stands for something more elemental and invasive than itself. Because the kingdom is more all-encompassing and far-reaching than the church, the church must be recognized as a servant to Christ's kingdom.

I had a great time at Saddleback last week, and not just because it's in California. Where it was sunny. And warm. And very sunny!

As is my custom, I like to blog a bit about the service. First thanks to Rick Warren for inviting me to preach in the weekend services. I think there were 22 services where I spoke (that's not a typo-- it's twenty-two), though I only preached 4 times. You can see the video of that service here. (By the way, if you would like to hear about how Thom Rainer and I used to "despise" each other, you will want to watch the message.)

I am very pleased that my friend Alan Hirsch will be joining us in the conversation leading up to missionSHIFT this summer (July 12-15 at Ridgecrest). Alan has been one of the leading voices in calling the church to live missionally and he will play a significant role in guiding the discussion regarding the Missional Manifesto.

I asked Alan if he could stop by the blog and answer a few questions about all things missional and what is happening in his life and ministry right now.

Ed: What do you see in the church that is giving you hope that we are doing better at engaging in God's mission?

Continue reading Missional Mondays: Introducing Alan Hirsch.

Back in August of '09 I shared a bit about the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), a new conservative Anglican organization that broke away from the Episcopal Church (The U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion) over controversies related to the authority of Scripture and homosexuality. But this is not just a group of conservative theologians who are trying to maintain orthodox theology, they are also working hard to stay on mission, which has led them to set a lofty goal for such a young fellowship of churches; to plant 1000 churches in the next five years! I have the privilege of speaking at the Anglican 1000 gathering, February 22-23, in Plano, TX.

Vince Antonucci is the founder and lead pastor of Verve, an innovative new church for the unchurched on the Las Vegas strip. Vince's passion is creatively communicating biblical truth to help people find God. He is also the author ofI Became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt.

Vince is also part of The Verve Foundation, which does community service to meet needs on and around the Vegas Strip.

His new book, Guerrilla Lovers, is another encouragement to the church to love in "deed and truth." I was happy to have the chance to ask Vince a few questions about the book. He'll be on the blog today answering your questions in the comments.

Today I want to introduce you to Linda Bergquist. She will be speaking at the missionSHIFT conference this summer. We are also excited to have her voice as a part of framing the Missional Manifesto.

Linda and her husband Eric live in San Francisco, California. She is a New Church Starting Strategist and the co-author of "Church Turned Inside Out" from Leadership Network (2009).

I have known Linda (Dr. Bergquist ) for many years. When I was a professor (oh so long ago) she took several of us on a tour of the marginalized communities where God was at work in the Bay area. She has a passion for people on the edge of society and the change that the gospel brings. You can find out more about her work in San Francisco at her site Plant Churches with Us.

To introduce her to you, I asked Linda to answer a few questions about herself.

We often hear of interfaith events and organizations, but is it possible for three very different religions to hold on to their beliefs, maintaining their differences, and still learn about one another? Bob Roberts, Pastor of Northwood Church in Keller, Texas, thinks so, and worked with local Jewish and Muslim leadership to pull off a three day "trialogue."

The Dallas Morning News covered the story and explained,

Members of NorthWood and the mosque will attend the regular worship service tonight at Temple Shalom. On Saturday afternoon, the Christians and Jews will visit the mosque. Finally, on Sunday morning, the Jews and Muslims will attend NorthWood for worship.

After each gathering, the three clergymen will answer questions about the differences and similarities of their faiths

Since Bob is a friend, I contacted him for details. i preached at Northwood a couple of months ago during their church planting focus. I stayed over at Bob's house and we talked late until the night about his engagement with Muslims around the world. So, I know his passion for Muslims and evangelism.

When I saw his most recent idea (and Bob has them regularly!), I had questions and thought you might as well. So, I shot him some questions via email. Below is the interview. Feel free to discuss below and Bob will be dropping by the comments.

I'm a small groups guy. In fact, I've led conferences on 'em, led my churches to do 'em, been a small group leader myself, and been in 'em. I believe in small groups. Whether you're a church plant or well-established church, people in small communities is essential for individual spiritual growth as well as church health.

Yesterday on Twitter I wrote:

"Most likely place transformation & missional engagement will happen is in small community-- not large"

I also linked to a video on missional small communities here where I talk about small groups and their impact.

Small groups matter, but some churches are struggling with their groups because they are unaware that there are different ways of implementing them, and that how your small groups work (or don't work) will make a difference in your church. Choosing the one that is right for your church is vital.

Rick Howerton is my guest blogger today. He's been a campus minister, small groups pastor, senior pastor, and has planted a successful church, The Bridge in Spring Hill, Tennessee. As the small group specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources, Rick spends every day talking with church leaders preparing to start a small group ministry, doing small groups, or re-strategizing their small group ministry. He is also the author of multiple small group training resources and Destination Community: Small Group Ministry Manual.

There is a another world out there. It is a world that, honestly, I have never entered. I have a Wii and play it with my kids. I see all the commercials for much more interactive games than my Wii Bowling, but they might as well be commercials for woman's clothing. They mean very little to me because I am not in that world.

But, this is a big world. For example, the first-person shooter video game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, currently holds the record for the largest entertainment launch ever, bringing in over $550 Million in 5 days, outpacing the films "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," "The Dark Knight," and any music album for a release.

The recession is impacting churches and, as you might have guessed, churches are making hard choices. We did some research at LifeWay Research at the end 2009 surveying over 1,000 pastors. The folks at Christian Post have the story and you can read the full details here.

Here are some of the findings from our phone survey:

• more than a quarter of churches surveyed raised less money than in 2008.

• more than half said the poor economy was hurting their church.

• 70% reported increased requests from people outside their congregation for assistance.

• 3% were considering closing down.

Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today covered the story for today's print edition and asked me a few questions. Here's an excerpt.

"Churches have not yet entered the recovery," says LifeWay director Ed Stetzer. "Historically, they tend to recover financially when unemployment decreases, usually after the economy as a whole" recovers.

The story quotes pstos Brady Boyd of New Life Church (Colorado Spring) and Tony Merida (Temple Baptist).

How is the economy impacting your church and what are you doing about it? My observations is that many are doing just fine, others are keeping holding their own financially, but an increasing number are experiencing the impact to what many are calling The Great Recession.

The Barna Group has just released four themes they see from their research in 2009. Read the excerpts below, check out the full article here, and come back to discuss.

Theme 1: Increasingly, Americans are more interested in faith and spirituality than in Christianity.

Continue reading Barna's End of Year Review.

I am not a Pentecostal, but I appreciate Pentecostals. I have had the privilege of consulting with or speaking at several different groups and denominations in the Pentecostal and charismatic movement(s). Clearly, there are many wonderful charismatic and Pentecostal Christians doing some amazing things for the Lord. But, the movement has struggled lately with some... well... odd issues over the last few years.

I have not been particularly good at blogging my church experiences lately. I have pictures from a few churches and really need to share a few of them. Why? Because I think it is a good opportunity to point out what churches do. And, since most of my readers don't get go to some of the places I go, it is a good opportunity for us to learn from each other.

For example, I recently preached at Grace Nazarene Church in Nashville. The pastor is Ken Dove (and, yes, it would be great to have a name like "Pastor Dove.")

First a little about the Nazarenes. Wikipeida has a good introduction:

The Church of the Nazarene is an international evangelical Christian denomination that emerged primarily from within the Wesleyan-Methodist tradition of the 19th century Holiness movement. The denomination is commonly referred to as the Nazarene Church, and its members referred to as Nazarenes. The mission is "to respond to the Great Commission of Christ to 'go and make disciples of all nations' (Matthew 28:19)," In December 2006 this was expressed more succinctly as "to make Christlike disciples in the nations." This frames the global mission of the denomination. In 2009 the General Assembly indicated in its revision of Article XI of the Manual the means for accomplishing its mission: "making disciples through evangelism, education, showing compassion, working for justice, and bearing witness to the kingdom of God." Since 2001, the three "core values" of the Church have been identified as "Christian, missional, and holiness."

We are looking to connect with churches that fit in two categories in order to gather some fresh examples:

1. De-clergified Churches. OK, we made up a new word. Basically, we are looking for several churches that are utilizing the gifts and talents of people in their local church body to lead in ministry areas that were previously, or might typically be, paid staff positions.

2. Comeback Churches. We are looking for 15-20 churches that have started growing again (by conversion growth and worship attendance) after a significant period of plateau and/or decline.

If you know of churches that fit in either of these categories, and please specify if these churches are restarts (with new name and identity and relaunch). You can email their contact info back to us as soon as possible here: Research@lifeway.com

Of course, you can also post the information in the comments.

Today, Frank Viola comes by the blog and interacts for the day.

As I have written before, I like Frank. He is not a subtle man. He is calling for big changes. And, he loves Jesus. Those are some good qualities.

Now, if you have read my books and my blog, you also know that Frank and I have some pretty significant differences about an important subject-- ecclesiology. And, I believe that ecclesiology will be one of the defining issues in the evangelical conversation in the years to come.

I am so passionate about the subject, my next scholarly book will be on ecclesiology, probably out in 2012 (my missiology textbook comes out in 2010), so I am pretty concerned about this subject and have some firm convictions.

And, it is no secret to Frank that I found his last two books to be lacking in ecclesiology (as I see it in scripture), but I appreciated his passion for the church and God's mission in From Eternity to Here. His passion for the church and its mission comes through in From Eternity to Here. Whereas his other books seemed to want to deconstruct the church (in a way I found destructive), this one provides the reader with reasons to love the church.

I also see this when Frank writes against "churchless Christianity," something I was encouraged to see. He did so in two parts at Out of Ur:

While I'm here in Chicagoland, I wanted to take time to point you to a helpful website. Bill Yaccino shared this with me and I thought it was worth your time. Bill is the Executive Director of Catalyst, a network of congregations in Lake County, IL that collaborate towards greater Kingdom impact. (www.Catalystweb.org)

The site is a tool for organizing people to pray for their neighborhoods here in Chicago. You can also sign up and join others who are also praying for their block-- and you don't have to live here in Chicago. Take a minute to see how many people are praying for their neighbors all across northern Chicago at Pray4YourBlock.org

The guys behind it all want to encourage you to sign up at the website and...

1. Plant a virtual flag in your neighborhood.

2. Start a movement in your corner of the world by inviting dozens of others to do the same.

3. Use their attached bulletin insert to encourage your church or organization.

4. Finally, write about it and tell others.

Check it out here.

This is part 2 in my "Baptists come in 32,234 flavors series." For part 1, click here. Fear not, there will probably only be a total of three parts.

Wednesday: Southwide Baptist Fellowship and Independent Fundamental Baptists

Yesterday, I was supposed to be in Pensacola speaking at Southwide Baptist Fellowship. You can see the whole program here. In fact, I was supposed to be the entire morning program and they graciously sent a plane so I could make it from Nevada to Pensacola, but we hit severe weather and were forced to land in Albuquerque. (And, yes, it was as scary as it sounds.)

Southwide is part of a whole different stream of Baptist from the SBC-related state conventions I discussed yesterday. There are not three types of partnership (association, state, national) as in the SBC world. Southwide is part of the Independent Baptist movement. Wikiepedia explains:

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Baptist churches were awakened to the advancement of modernism and liberalism into national Baptist denominations and conventions in both the United States and the U.K.. Many local Baptist churches began to feel that the core elements and doctrines of the Christian faith, such as the nature of God, the infallibility of the Bible, the literal person of Jesus Christ as both God and man, the nature of the Trinity, the literal resurrection of Christ, and the need for Christians to be separate from worldliness were being watered down and abandoned. Although during the same time period mainline denominations were struggling with the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, many within these local Baptist churches felt that any association with Liberalism/Modernism even in the forum of debate was tantamount to compromise and was therefore unscriptural. As a result, many of these local Baptist churches separated from their former denominations and conventions and reestablished themselves as independent churches. Often within these Denominational churches more conservative elements would set about establishing new Independent Baptist churches instead of remaining within the denominational churches.

The movement is probably larger than you think-- around 14,000 churches. If it were a denomination, it would be about the size of the Assemblies of God.

Southwide is one of several "orbits" in the movement. There is no denominational connection among Independent Baptists, but there are certain "orbits," or points of connection. A friend of mine in the movement described it this way (indicating there was overlap between all the categories):

20% Independent Independents (might attend conferences, but not really connected to anyone)
20% Fellowship Independents (Baptist Bible Fellowship, Southwide, GARB)
30% College Independents (BBC, PCC, Hyles-Anderson, West Coast)
20% Conference Independents (Pastors School Hammond / Leadership Conference-- Paul Chappell)
20% Cause Independents (King James Bible, Conservative Music, Standards, Sunday School)

Southwide is in one of these orbits, but generally considered part of the "fellowship" orbit. The Wikipedia article has some issues, but contains some helpful information:

The Southwide Baptist Fellowship is made up of about a thousand churches. It is a member of the International Baptist Network.

Southwide is in a unique space in the Independent Baptist movement. Again, from Wikipedia:

Considered a conservative and "Fundamentalist" association of Baptist churches, the Southwide Baptist Fellowship is not as staunchly devoted as other Baptist Fundamentalist Fellowships to the concept of absolute autonomy (local church independence) or the essential requirement of the King James Version (KJV). Certainly, most member churches of the Southwide Baptist Fellowship are Independent Baptist and remain "KJV-only".

When it originated, the Southwide Baptist Fellowship was almost identical in teaching and outlook as the core of Independent Baptist Fundamentalism. It was heavily influenced by Lee Roberson and John R. Rice. Its hallmark code of behaviors (short hair on men, dresses on women, no mixed bathing, no movies, no contemporary music) and its theology of Dispensationalism were standard for Baptist Fundamentalism. Many of its members were openly antagonistic towards the Southern Baptist Convention and were outposken critics of SBC policies which, two decades ago, permitted a certain degree of liberal theology.

The Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) movement is, as you can tell from the article, in a bit of flux. Some are more open to working with different groups, but they still tend to be very conservative. It is highly unlikely that an IFB would have had me to speak at their meeting just twenty years ago. However, recently, I have spoken at Baptist Bible College and Seminary in Springfield and at Tennessee Temple. So, there is an increasing openness to different voices while still maintaining a conservative Baptist stance.

Most observers in and out of the movement would acknowledge that the IFB movement was much more influential in the 1970s than it is today. As an outside observer, I have been intrigued about how some are still thriving while maintaining traditional IFB beliefs and practices while others believe change is needed to engage contemporary culture more intentionally. In the next couple of weeks, I will interview a leader of the IFB movement and talk more about the its future.

Tomorrow, we look at Converge Worldwide / The Baptist General Conference / the old Swedish Baptists.