Core Values Developed (Values Series 5 of 6)

Basically what we're going to be doing here is I'm just going to be preparing you for exercise number one, which we're simply calling “clarifying your personal core values.” Record your response to as many of the following questions as you can. It's the general spirit of this that is most important. We shouldn't take too much time with this, but instead of complete sentences, just record your thoughts in as many or as few words as you like.

What types of ministry are you really passionate about? What makes you weep? What makes you pound the table? What that means is what are you passionate about. What are your greatest criticisms of the church today? That will often give you insight into things you value. That's what I was talking about earlier, things you don't want to see repeated. What lack of ministry focus might or would cause you to leave a church, or, frankly, has caused you to leave a church? What do you want the major ministry strengths of your new church to be? You see the overlap here with primary purposes.

What specific reputation do you want your church to have in the community? I mean this in a healthy way, where we were talking about Sinclair Ferguson's church, it's just known in the community as a church where there is strong expository preaching. It doesn't mean that the other elements aren't there, but that question, what do you want your church to be known for, meaning in a healthy way. What do you consider to be the most essential ministries of the church?

I just arbitrarily listed several of these. Review this list. Place a check mark in front of each ministry core value for which you have a strong conviction or passion. Use the answers to the questions that I just shared with you to help you make your selections. Then record any other ministry core values that come to your mind that are important to you. What are your initial personal core values 

Usually I say six to eight. Since there are five ministry purposes already, those would be five core values, you could have three more, but there actually comes a place, just in terms of the human psyche, where you're so broad that you lose all sense of definition or specificity. I just want you to do your best now recording your initial personal core values.

You can go all the way up to eight if you need to, but as five of those line up with the primary purposes: worship and prayer, learning and discipleship, fellowship, evangelism, acts of mercy, and social activity. State each value concisely, one to three words maximum. The goal is not to say any more than one, two, or three at the maximum words, like church multiplication would be two; church renewal would be two; lay ministry mobilization, that would be three.

Then write a brief descriptive phrase, an explanation of that value, next to each statement. For instance, church multiplication. What is that value? You're planting this church, and one of the core values of this church and not just you, is church multiplication. What do you mean by that? What I mean is extending the kingdom of God to all nations through starting and multiplying gospels in our churches. That's what we mean by a value of church multiplication.

Let me encourage you to begin each description like that. Look at this next example from Bob Logan. His first core value is church planting. Notice the words: “extending the Great Commission to other regions through new churches.” Care groups, only two words: experiencing the Christian life in community while making a safe place for new people. Relevant worship, two words: touching the heart of God as we celebrate his presence and listen to his voice. Lay ministry mobilization, fair, three words max: faithfully serving the Lord with our talents and spiritual gifts. Outreach: extending. You see the use of the grammar here? You shouldn't feel locked into it, but it's often helpful because it can flow so well.

What I've done here is I've taken the primary purposes that we studied last time on the left hand side, and I have just simply put the word values next to each one. Worship and prayer, values. Learning and discipleship, values. Then notice, one to three words for describing each of the values, and then a description just like Logan's.

If you were to look back at Logan's description of the core value of outreach, that's his fifth core value, outreach. He writes, "Extending God's love and hope through the message of salvation to all people that CBC," initials for the church, "can reach." In this assignment, under evangelism, what Bob would do here is he would write the word outreach, one word, and then under the description, that would be his description, and you could actually take the ones that he listed and you can see all the primary purposes in his eight.

Then if there are any other personal core values, I don't want to exclude things like, we value risk-taking, or we value beauty, or we value excellence. Those are good values. I don't want to go to the other end of the pendulum. Whereas before, almost all core values were taught in that fashion. What rings your bell? Is it excellence? Is it beauty? Is it diversity? Is it simplicity? Is it harmony? Is it creativity? Notice I've given you a list of all these different words that you could use that might actually ring a bell with you. Whereas this used to be the only way that core values were approached, I don't want to go so far as to say you couldn't include one of these. In fact, you could include up to three of these using this model.

Go ahead and write out these five to eight core values with their descriptions.

Core Values Shared (Values Series 6 of 6)

We're looking at developing your church core values in comparison to your personal church values. Your church core values are actually a synthesis of your personal core values with the personal core values of your church leaders and members. It's very important to recognize the critical nature of finding harmony and finding unity around the core values. It doesn't mean that every leader would say the same. That's just a primary sense that these represent why I want to participate in this church. Know what you will leave the group over. Know what you will leave the church over, if it's not there.

When you start thinking like that, you're not going to struggle so much with I got eight of these. You're going to pair it down to more like 2 or 3 that you’ll actually leave over. There might be 6 or 8 of these, but there are 2 or 3 of these, if they're not there, you're not there. This is what God's called you to do. What I'm saying right now is, don't make this mistake. If I'm a part of a church plant and they're not committed to church planting I'm gone. That's not who I am, that's not what I'm called to be.

The take away from this module is, do you know yourself? Do you know what those few things are that you walk away over? You have them. If you're like most emerging church planters, you haven't made it clear yet even to yourself what those are. That's really important to do that. There are two common mistakes that church planters make when trying to help develop their new church's core values. Number one: illegitimately trying to impose your personal core values on the new church.

Don't ask me to tell you specifically how you can know where that line is. I just tell you, you'll know. The chemistry is not there. It's just not working. You're continuing to try to impose something on people that they're really not open to, that's a huge mistake. Then, there's the other extreme: the passivity. Neglecting to communicate appropriately your personal core values to the church. It's a failure to recognize it when somebody pushes back. They just haven't had the opportunity you've had to be as exposed to these concepts. They're brand new.

That's why you come back to what I was saying earlier. Developing core values that are really core values and not just stated, takes a while. You will be pastorally wise when you realize that even when someone at first, even when you didn't find any commonality, you continue to listen well. Love well. Share the vision. You can't do it forever, but you will know whether they're receptive or not, in time. Do you know which extreme you're more prone to experience? If not, ask your spouse if you're married. They will normally tell you which one. 

Are you more prone to impose your core values or are you more prone to neglect to find common ground with peace at any price? Let me promise you, every one of you are in one of those two categories. The sooner you know which one you're in, the more you'll understand what real gospel-centered leadership looks like because it will take you out of your comfort zone and you will need Jesus at a deeper level, because you will be moving toward what you think is pushing you at a consensus and peace and trying to persuade or you'll be going the other way. You will be ministering normally out of weakness needing the Lord's strength. 

You've not completed your initial personal core values statement. Having gone through this process, even in a preliminary way, you've learned some of the practical ways to attain group core values. You're now prepared to lead others, especially your key church leaders, in the future through this process in order to develop your initial church core values. You can take this process that you just went through for yourself. You can actually take a group through this dynamic and move with intentionality toward consensus building from the beginning.

The development of your initial core values is only the beginning. It's a problem with all philosophy and ministry statements. Everything that we're developing here during this course, the greatest course is for church planters to think, "Oh yes, I remember that module on core values. Have you seen my list of core values? What do you think of it? Pretty good, huh?" This is not a static document. These processes actually never change. You realize that your core values although not normally in a dramatic fashion, but they will morph and they will shape, and they will change as the nature of the church changes.

As the ministry is developed, this process of developing core values is more dynamic than it is static. It's not just writing them down, but it's communicating them. Be ready to answer these kinds of questions. What are some ways that you plan to communicate your core values to your church attendees and members? What are some effective ways you plan to communicate these values to your ministry focus group, the people you are serving? What are some of the ways you plan to communicate your core values to new church leaders in the future?

There's a host of different methods and means of always keeping these values before people. Whether it's a small group ministry. Whether it's a part of worship. Whether it's a part of leadership development. Whether it's a part of basic discipleship. You use these resources to make your core values integrated and more systemic in your ministry as just an organic means of fanning the flame that will then manifest itself in the behaviors that are the what or the how that are answering the core value question of why.

Ministry Purpose Introduction (Purpose Series 1 of 5)

What are the church priorities in ministry? This is up there on the charts in the category of mistakes that could be life-threatening to a church. The concept is that there are certain non-negotiable purposes given to us in scripture that no matter what culture, no matter what context, no matter where you are geographically, these are non-negotiable God-given purposes that are to be in the church.

There are a lot of things in a lot of churches in a lot of different cultures that can be in one and not be in another. We're actually talking about those things that must be in any church, in any culture, and in any context to be healthy, to be biblical.

The concept here is every one of us individually, in light of what we'll look at (these biblical purposes that must be in a church) those are actually biblical purposes or ministries that should be manifested in our lives personally as well. Normally, if you are not very consciously aware of which of these particular priorities are areas of passion and you're drawn to and you're attracted to, and other ones, quite frankly, you're not drawn to.

A big part of this is that old Greek axiom, "know yourself." Do you know which of the biblical non-negotiable purposes are really your area of passion and focus and interest because of your unique background and ministry experiences?

I can tell you right away, of these biblical priorities, of these biblical purposes, I can tell you one that lights my fire. I can tell you one that excites me, or if not just one, we can usually find two in the list of priorities of purpose. When you're beginning to gather a core group around you and your goal is to establish a church that has all of these purposes as a part of the church, you better be acutely aware of what those purposes are and what your propensity is toward naturally developing and what it is not. That's the big idea.

We begin by actually looking at "what are those purposes?" Now, please don't take too seriously the number here, five. Notice that even these five categories have two in each one of them. Don't get locked into the categorization paradigm that's here, but do get locked into the principle that there are certain biblical priorities that are essential for every church. We're going to use

1) worship and prayer

2) learning in discipleship

3) fellowship and community

4) outreach and evangelism

5) mercy and social concern

Notice preaching is not there. Notice leadership development is not there. I'm saying that to you so you get the big idea and not grab hold of the specific five categories because these five purposes of the church are clearly set forth in scripture. All churches, as I said, all cultural contexts must always have these purposes as a priority.

These purposes should also be seen as vital signs of a healthy church. This will carry you forever in church ministry if it's implanted deeply in your heart and mind now. When one or more of these purposes are neglected, the church will become unhealthy, but when all of these purposes are given appropriate emphasis in the ministry of a new church, that church will normally grow and make a kingdom impact on the world normally.

It's not a formula, but normally when churches focus on a healthy manifestation of these biblical purposes, God normally shows up, lives are changed, societies are changed.

Every year my wife schedules a physical examination with our general practitioner. She knows I hate it, but every year I go in and I have this physical and it takes a while. He takes tests, and he pokes and he prods, and he analyzes, and he gets lab reports on me, and then I have to come back a second time after I do all the lab reports and has this little printout.

Now, I want you to think about what he does. Notice a parallel here. He has learned as a physician what are the vital signs of a healthy human being, cholesterol, blood pressure levels, weight and height. His job is to understand what those vital signs are, and then when I come in once a year, he checks me versus these vital signs.

It's fascinating, the shift from the era of the Reformation to the era of the Puritans. The Reformation pastors were the preachers and the teachers, and in the era of the Puritans that followed, there was more of an emphasis among the Puritans on the pastor as a physician of the human soul. The pastor wasn't just a preacher or a teacher of sound doctrine against the Roman Church. It wasn't all about just orthodoxy, but in this new era, there was more of a focus on the pastor as, yes, teacher and preacher, but also as physician of the human soul. That's where a lot of this rich Puritan literature comes from with John Owen and others.

The vision I want to cast here for you is that you actually become a physician for the health of the church. Your task is not to focus on growth. Your task is to focus on health. Those who focus on growth, how much money is being given and how many people are attending, inevitably fall. Church planters who focus on health normally succeed, and that's because of this simple principle: healthy churches grow. I hope you've already seen in the botanical universe, in the biological universe. God has designed the ecclesiastical universe the same way.

If you had a young child and that young child seemed to be a little bit shorter than the other children in school, can you imagine how bizarre it would be to say, "Come here, little Johnny. I see you're about 2 inches shorter than the other children in your classroom. Your father and I want to have a talk with you. We want you to grow, and we're going to focus on you growing," or trying to talk to a plant, tell a plant, "Grow!" What does a parent do? What does a gardener do? You provide a context for health. You feed Johnny well, healthy. Johnny gets rest. Johnny gets exercise.

There are certain vital signs of health, and so it's critically important that you understand that's actually not only your role as a parent, but if you're a pastor or a church planter, you should be always analyzing. Now, you could be more specific and focused once a year if you want to, but you're always analyzing the health of the church in light of the vital signs. If you have this grid in your mind because you know what those vital signs are, then please understand this is not rocket science.

How do you lead a church to growth? You understand what the vital signs are. You compare and contrast that local church body, no mater how small or large, with those vital signs. You find those biggest areas of discrepancy and then you learn to focus, not on all of them, but on maybe one or two, do a few things well. That simple concept is actually a summary of how you lead a church to growth.

Now, what I want us to do is just take a brief survey of what these purposes are. Let's first look at a very classic passage of scripture that gives us one of the best snapshots of the early church that we see in the New Testament, Acts chapter 2:42-47.

They devoted themselves to certain things. They devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching. They devoted themselves to fellowship. They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and to prayer or the prayers. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to one another who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and they ate together with glad and sincere hearts. They praised God, and they enjoyed the favor of all the people, and notice the way this ends, "And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

I want you to see how many of the purposes you can actually find in this one section of scripture. This is an excellent exercise as you begin to teach about the primary purposes of this church that we are asking Christ to build in this place. Look at Acts 2:42-47, and see how many of these primary purposes you can actually find, and by that, I mean you could actually say, "In this verse in the first part or the last part, I see this purpose."

Biblical Purposes of the Church (Purpose Series 2 of 5)

What do you really envision this church looking like? Because if you think about it, what a church is, is a community of people that are doing these things. If you're going to start getting a vision for this church, it takes on these scenes: You're looking at a community of people worshiping. You're looking at a community of people praying. You're looking at a community of people devoted to the apostles' teaching. That is very visionary for the church itself. You would take the people much more deeply into the biblical foundations here.

I want you just to see what Tim Keller did several years ago, it was not actually widely published. It was a curriculum that he and Alan Thompson and some other leaders at Redeemer many years ago in New York City put together in the early years of Redeemer to help ground the church on these foundational purposes. I put it here as an example, almost like a little appetizer under each one of these to stir you up and to spur you on, and begin thinking about what this will look like. You seize the moment when you see these, and then you begin to think through not only what is this biblically, but what do I anticipate what will be what we'll call the demonstrations of these purposes in my unique ministry focus group, and through my unique giftedness and passions and skills.

Notice Keller, under Worship and Prayer, he writes, "The worship of the early church had corporate form." In verse 42, Paul literally says that they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Keller believes this is a reference to liturgy, to the service of the Lord's Supper, and to the discipline of the prayers, which were common at that time. He says it wasn't random. There was order. It had both an informal and a formal aspect. This is interesting. It happened both in homes and in the temple courts. He writes, "This surely means there was both informal worship, in the small group, and more formal worship in the large group." Interesting dynamic.

Second concept: Learning and Discipleship. Keller writes, "It was intense. They, again, remember, devoted themselves. Means high commitment to learning. Spirit-filled is not set over against the intellect. It was completely centered on the apostolic teachings. It was not learning in general, but rather the study of God's revelation as it came through the apostles." Already you see a devotion to prayer. You see a worshiping community, informally in homes, and in larger assemblies. You see a devotion to learning. Make sure to couple that with the Great Commission. It's learning to obey. It wasn't just learning doctrine, or learning Bible, or learning theology. But Jesus said to these apostles the apostolic teaching, he said, "Teach them to obey what I commanded you."

Make sure your picture of learning here is not of somebody sitting there lecturing, and somebody else sitting there in a Plato kind of style of learning. It's much more of a Socrates style, much more of a Jesus style. They were devoted to learning how to obey Christ's command. The apostles were teaching them this. The question is, what's that going to look like? What's worship going to look like? What's prayer going to look like? Will you and others really be devoted to it? How will it be demonstrated?

He goes on: "Fellowship was intense. They devoted themselves to fellowship. Community was not something that just happened. They worked at it." What a statement to the spectator church in so much of the world today. They were devoted, not just to learning. They were devoted, not just to prayer. But they were devoted to this concept of koinonia, to this concept of fellowship and deep relationship in the gospel.

Keller writes, "They worked at it. It implies accountability with one another, a sense of responsibility to care and support and guide each other." It was daily. They did not just see each other on Sundays. They were involved in each other's lives, economic as well as spiritual. They had everything in common.

Outreach and evangelism. Their outreach was dynamic. Their conversions were daily.

Mercy and social concern. Their activity integrated both word and deed. Look at verse 44, it seems to indicate that economic sharing was mainly practiced within. This would reflect the Apostle Paul's teaching in Galatians 6:10, for Christians to do good to all, but especially to the household of faith. The concept was, in the church, in the Christian community, the biblical concept is there are no poor. Understand the difference, within the Christian community, within the church, the goal is clear, the elimination of poverty. Outside of the church, it's the alleviation. It's doing what you can to care for the poor. But inside the church it's the elimination of it. That's a significant question in terms of the role of sacrificial giving and the devotion to fellowship. Will it include the elimination of poverty among the covenant people of God?

This is designed to be an actual turning point where you begin to start dreaming of what this church will look like as you begin thinking about demonstrations of these purposes and what they might look like. In this section, we will explore practical ways to demonstrate the 5 priorities in your church, and this will manifest itself in your purpose statement at the end.

Imagine your church when it has reached the place where these purposes are all relatively healthy. What would those ministries look like? Key in on a vision of your church having reached the place that you see your church's devotion to regular worship and prayer as a way of life. What comes to your mind? How do you think that will be demonstrated?

Same thing with the next one: demonstrations of learning. You and the church will be committed to making disciples, this will be Christian education, discipleship, spiritual formation, and committed to developing leaders. This is where leadership development would come under this grid. Demonstrations of this would include; and then as you begin to think of that purpose, what do you anticipate?

I know you're committed to Christ-likeness, developing Christ-likeness in yourself and others. But what about Christ-like ministry patterns, not just personal character? In other words, are you committed to a ministry that is primarily focused on pouring your life into people? Or are you like most church planters and leaders, and the bottom line truth is, you're a program director?

You're a ministry program director. In terms of demonstrating learning and discipleship, and leadership development, you're not following the Master's method. You're not investing your lives in others who will invest their lives in others as a way of life. Here I'm not talking about simply taking people through discipleship programs or curriculum. I'm talking about moving into their lives, doing ministry together, and doing it with intentionality.

Are you like the majority of people in ministry? Are you a program administrator? Or are you following the Master's method? That's an interesting picture, when you think of the demonstration of these purposes that are here.

Then same thing with fellowship and community, as well as outreach and evangelism, and then of course, what about mercy and social justice? Never forget that the church plant, or the church, is meant to be like a kingdom outpost in the domain of darkness, planted in the midst of not only people whose hearts are dark and need the light of the gospel, but societal darkness and crookedness, and injustice, and poverty, that's just increasingly unparalleled. Will you bring good news to the poor? That's an important question.

By the way, the poor are not just homeless people who can't eat. Poor people are people who've had one or more of the four primary relationships in life broken. The relationship with God, that's poverty of spirit. Your relationship with yourself, that's often mental health. Your relationship with others. A homeless person is the ultimate poor person. A lost homeless person, no relationship with God, often mentally ill, often estranged from family, that's why they're homeless, and estranged from their relationship with creation or overworked. They have no work. So they are poor, because all 4 relationships are broken: relationship with God, relationship with themselves, relationship with others, relationship over creation. They don't know God. They don't have work. They don't have relationships. 

Like Calvin said, first sentence in the institute, before you think that's a psychological babble thing, “know yourself,” first sentence in the institute. I don't know which comes first, knowledge of God or knowledge of self. I can't know God without knowing myself. I can't know myself without knowing God. They don't know themselves. Will you bring good news to the poor? If so, what will it look like? How will it be demonstrated?

I just want you to just take five quick stops, worship and prayer, learning and discipleship, fellowship, evangelism, mercy. Just get a little glimpse, five quick glimpses of what you think a demonstration might look like. Grab one or two other people, and just simply talk through these five areas and say, "Here's what I envision."

Demonstrations of the Biblical Purposes (Purpose Series 3 of 5)

A healthy church is one that strives to have all five purposes. Reflective ministry, that's been our foundation, but because of one, your unique gifts in ministry philosophy, two, the emphasis of the church's core group, they all have different emphasis and there are certain purposes that really resonate with them because of their background or experiences, just like you, and number three, the unique needs of the ministry focus group the church is trying to reach, churches often prioritize of emphasize particular biblical purposes.

If you think of this very similar to the biblical concept of spiritual gifts or giftedness, I think it will help you understand the dynamics that I'm trying to communicate here. For instance, the biblical concept of spiritual gifts is this: every follower of Christ is called, for instance, to teach; a parent to teach a child, but there is a spiritual gift of teaching. Everybody doesn't have this spiritual gift of teaching, but everyone does have the role of teacher in different contexts in life. Everyone is called to give, financially, everyone is called to give. Some people, according to Romans 12, actually have a gift of giving. Everyone is called to serve. According to Romans 12, some people are given a gift of serving.

When you think about that as a parallel, you then answer the question. "I have the gift of teaching. I don't need to show mercy, I don't need to give. I'm a teacher." If you don't fight against it, it will happen. It won't be that crass of a caricature. "I'm committed to discipleship, or learning, and I'm committed to mercy" and that you'd never say, or congregation would never say, that therefore, they intentionally neglect the others, but reality is, they do, and you will. Unless you are like a good physician, understanding the vital signs and keeping the health of that emerging corporate community in mind.

What are examples of health versus a lack of health, a sick church versus a healthy church, when it comes to these? Examples would be a strong mercy emphasis among the urban poor, one church might have this, and your church might not have it at all. That doesn't mean your church does not meet the criteria for having a vital sign of loving the poor, and showing mercy 

In other words, if your church plant or your church was evaluated, it would be evaluated as being healthy in that area, but it would not be evaluated as "Oh yes, I know that church. That's the church that has this radical focus on the poor." That can be a very healthy church, but it's just known as a church that is, like someone with a spiritual gift of serving, they are just gifted by God and called by God to be a servant. "We're all called to serve, but wow, do they serve!"

It's almost like we're all called to show mercy, but it's almost like that church is like a mercy church that God has sent to the poor in a very unique way. The danger with that is when people begin to think about their spiritual giftedness, the danger is they neglect all the roles. Every church, when you evaluate it, is very much like an individual follower of Christ. I have taken so many churches through evaluative processes, like church plants, it's a very brief time before you can figure out, if you look at these five purposes, what one or two really resonate with them, very much like spiritual gifts, it does appear that the way God normally works is not only through individuals who have unique giftedness, but it's very apparent throughout the history of the church and throughout missions, that God works through churches that often have unique areas of ministry focus, in light of the unique brokenness of a particular area, or the calling of that person, and those people.

There is, however, a big difference a healthy emphasis in any of these areas, we were talking mercy, and an unhealthy imbalance. A healthy emphasis is where you give strong emphasis to one or two purposes of the five we've been discussing to meet unique needs without neglecting the others. Unhealthy imbalance is where you are so focused on one or two of these purposes to meet unique needs, that you actually neglect the other purposes.

It wouldn't take you long to think through some of the characteristics of a church that had a healthy emphasis on worship. That would mean resources would go there, people would go there, time would be invested in this, that the worship experience, not just the preaching here, that the worship experience would actually be something that is a significant priority, so much so that you can tell. All I have to do is show up at a worship service, and I know how much worship is a priority in almost every church.

Unhealthy imbalance in the area? Most of their members, that's basically the experience. It's on a rhythm, sometimes weekly, sometimes not, but basically the whole experience of most of the people is simply come to that worship service, and that worship service is glorious, and you can have anonymity there. It just becomes the place where people just adopt a form of following Christ that manifests itself, not in a devotion to learning, or discipleship, or fellowship, or evangelism, or acts of mercy, but just a celebratory experience on a rhythm. It's almost like living from one spiritual high to the next. If you look for a discipleship, or you look for care for the poor, if you look for commitment to fellowship, it's often waning.

Just as a quick aside, I am not saying that large mega churches in cities that have hundreds, if not thousands, of people who do come to them, and that's all they do, are by nature, unhealthy. I've actually found many large churches where a senior pastor will say to me, "I can't help that all these people, they're not members. I can't help that hundreds, if not thousands, of people come in and out of here all the time, but I know there are acts of mercy for the poor. I know there are commitment to fellowship among the members. I mean, I know their commitment to discipleship."

Number two, the learning church. Usually a strong commitment to discipleship, usually a very strong commitment to expository preaching and teaching, often 30-45 minutes of in-depth expository preaching. The unhealthy imbalance is where doctrines and theology just becomes everything. I'll never forget going into a church once, and basically the entire worship service was a teacher. They had a few warm-up songs, and the teacher came out, and the teacher got on the platform and there were these big screens.

"We're going to look at the first six words of verse 14." They actually had, like they have in universities, this pull-up little desks. It was just like a classroom. They had a quick song at the end and the beginning. Then you began to study and examine the church, and you find out that it's a really unhealthy emphasis.

You just go down the line, the felt-need church: healthy emphasis on loving people well, versus the ingrown church. It's actually called, sometimes, a fellowship trust, just us for and no more spiritual navel gazers. If you're not proactively fighting it, people very naturally will gravitate, and those groups will become self-centered and they will lose an outward face. Breaking in to those churches, it's almost impossible. 

Same thing with the outreach, the soul-winning church. Healthy emphasis on evangelism, and seeing adults baptized. The other one is that you can have such an emphasis on evangelism, and reaching the lost, that you can be in direct violation of the big idea Jesus was communicating to Peter in the post-resurrection experience. 'Do you love me? Feed my sheep, tend my lambs.'

"Peter, you can show your love for me by how you tend, and shepherd, and care for my lambs." There are some churches that are actually too committed to evangelism, meaning they're putting energy into evangelism to the neglect of caring for the people of God, worship, and the other areas.

Same thing with the mercy church, caring for the poor versus just a mere social gospel.

It's a quick survey of the priorities, and you know, just intuitively, what's healthy and what's not. Most church planters are uniquely gifted for and passionate about one or two of the five priorities. This is why it's often difficult for church planters to establish a new church that has both a healthy emphasis on the ministry priorities that reflect that church planter's unique calling and gifts, and a healthy balance on all the remaining priorities, what we call the vital signs of the church.

The purpose of this exercise, for you to clarify one, or two at the very most, ministry priorities that best fit your unique calling and gifts, and understand how you can and should have both a healthy emphasis on these two that God has given you, and yet, a healthy balance on all the remaining priorities that we see listed here.

Emphasis and Balance in the Biblical Purposes (Purpose Series 4 of 5)

Most church planters are uniquely gifted for and passionate about one or two of the five priorities. This is why it's often difficult for church planters to establish a new church that has both a healthy emphasis on the ministry priorities that reflect that church planters unique calling and gifts, and a healthy balance on all the remaining priorities, what we call the vital signs of the church.

The purpose of this exercise: number one, to clarify one or two at the very most ministry priorities that best fit your unique calling and gifts. Two: understand how you can and should have both a healthy emphasis on these two that God has given you, and yet a healthy balance on all the remaining priorities listed here.

Step number one. I want you to identify one or two at the most of the ministry priorities that you, not your core-group that you have or that you envisioned or your new church, that you are most passionate about and which best fit your unique giftedness and calling.

There used to be, years ago these spiritual gifts profiles or questionnaires to help people find their unique giftedness. There's an extreme there, but I would almost rather have that than what is most common, and that is almost a neglect of people in the church finding their one or two areas of giftedness and passion.

Being able to focus in the area of giftedness and passion, that's what Romans 12 is all about. That's what 1 Corinthians 12 is about. That's what 1st Peter 4 is about. That's what Ephesians 4 is about. About the members of the body finding their giftedness and working together, diversity and unity. At risk of doing kind of a parallel to a spiritual gifts questionnaire.

A little bit later in the curriculum, you'll see church ministry priorities by Tim [Keller]. A teaching church, what it looks like. A teaching, worship church, what it looks like. A teaching fellowship church, what it looks like. A teaching evangelist church, a teaching mercy church. Now notice, he took teaching and he just added the other four. Then he left teaching all by itself, and he did the same thing.

A worship church, and then a worship fellowship church. You see what I'm saying? No more do I want you to take this too seriously than Tim did. The goal here is so people will really get the idea that in these five areas that are non-negotiables is like the Greek axiom, “all truth is God's truth.” Do you know yourself? Do you know which one of these if you had to say one? I'm not camp, because someone always says "Well, I'm perfectly balanced and we should always strive for all those areas."

I want to say just imagine if somebody did that in a church. I'm going to serve and give and show mercy and teach equally with no connection to my unique giftedness. It's kind of like fighting with the law of gravity, you just don't win that fight.

This is what I'm asking you to do here: step number one, I want you to say or write down "What are the one or two?" Then number two, list the remaining three or four in order of what you believe best fits your unique giftedness and calling. If you selected learning, and just learning as your one emphasis, you might then list the remaining emphasis in this order. Outreach would be next, priority on my list, worships next, fellowship. Do you know yourself? Do you know which one or two you'd put first? Then, can you put the other ones? No one can fill this out for you.

Number three. Based on your list of ministry priorities above, what type of unhealthy, new church are you most likely to plant because of this? What would it look like? I have lost track of people that have told me "This is not fair that I didn't go through this exercise before I went into church planting. I planted the most unhealthy church. I'm not even there now because of this, and I was clueless about what I was even doing. I was just pursuing my passions." In other words, that one or two areas that really lit my fire, lit everybody else's fire, we went for it.

Either in your mind or on paper, I want you to put down what you are prone to plant as an unhealthy church plant, unless you're more aware of yourself and the biblical purposes.

Then, number four, the last part: record what you need to emphasize often against your natural propensities, gifts and passions in order to plant a healthy, new church that has a healthy focus on all five.

Once you've seen what you might create, now I want you to write what you're going to need to focus on to not deny your areas of passion, but actually plant a healthy church. You can have five vital areas that are healthy, but do all you can and tell me it's going to be perfectly balanced. I promise you one or two of those things are going to be areas of passion and they're going to mark your church. The sooner you know it, the better it is because you will focus on those other areas more, where naturally you wouldn't.

Let me give you some churches. St. Andrews Church, what would the Pastor of St. Andrews Church, what kind of church would he put here? Worship learning? Yeah, you see us worship and teaching. Our worship and preaching, what you learn is pretty critical.

What about John MacArthur on the other coast? What would you say? I mean they worship and its' biblical and they do outreach, that's a learning church.

I could show you other churches, they're mercy churches. I don't want you to think it has to be a combo, but I know if MacArthur was here, he'd say "Learning." R.C. would probably have to say "Worship and learning." I say that because it's okay to just be one. I won't let you be more than two because you've lost all distinctiveness.