We're Looking for D2 Christians

(with some of what I learned at churchplantingbc's Day With Hugh Halter)

Not that we think that Christians necessarily are at different levels, or statuses. But it can’t be ignored that not all who call themselves “Christian” are in fact disciples of Jesus, trusting in Him for their salvation and living their lives for Him. Beyond that, it’s apparent that some Christians are content with calling Jesus their Lord and Savior, attending church and maybe Bible study, raising their kids to fear God, and having a positive affect on people they come into contact with.  We call people who fit into this category “followers of Jesus”.

Then there are those who are a little bit more hardcore about their Christian lives. It could be said they’re somewhat more ‘radical’. This is your typical missionary, pastor, worship leader, etc. Those for whom Christianity is more than a label, but a way of life. Of course, I recognized a long time ago that not all radical Christians are in fulltime Christian service, and not all in fulltime Christian service are radical Christians. But some people receive the call to become a disciple with more intentionality. We call people in this category “apprentices of Jesus”.

Apprentices are those who take the directives of Jesus, particularly those of ‘loving your neighbour as yourself’ and ‘go and make disciples’, and ‘go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation’ seriously. They learn to ‘obey everything that’ He has ‘commanded’, particularly the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.  They are those who have not only made the decision to follow Jesus, but who have made the second decision to live out His mission.

First Decision Christians, or rather those who remain ‘followers’ and never become ‘apprentices’ of Jesus, tend to be consumeristic and protectionistic.  They want what’s best for them and theirs – the safest neighbourhoods, the best schools, the biggest houses, the most secure jobs, the best looking friends and family, no conflict, no messiness, to enjoy life in Christ.  In contrast, Second Decision Christians, or those who decide to follow Jesus and also make a decision to become like Jesus, will work to put the priorities of the Kingdom ahead of their own comfort, advancement, security, or image.

We love D1, or First Decision Christians. We know that they are our brothers and sisters in Christ. We serve them, pray with them, depend on them, love them, work for the Kingdom with them, learn from them, guide them, help them, and minister to them. But we are looking for D2, Second Decision Christians. We need them to work with us for the advancement of the Kingdom in Aldergrove. We need them to impact their friends, relatives, and neighbours. We need them to buckle in with us if Aldergrove is going to be transformed by the Gospel. We need them to work at their jobs with excellence, to befriend their neighbours and seek ways to serve their communities. We need them to open their homes to others, and to give of their time to Gospel Community that includes other D2 Christians, D1 Christians, pre-Christians, non-Christians, never-gonna-be-Christians, and those who think they are Christians but don’t follow or depend on Christ.

Discipleship involves community, mission, and worship. D2 Christians are continuously developing intentionally in all three of those areas. We invite you to develop in those areas with us, and to join with us, in developing a D2 Access Church.

Missional : Kindness?

I was recently asked, "when you say 'missional', do you really mean 'servant evangelism'?"

Now, I'm no stranger to servant evangelism. Steve Sjogren, the grand poo-bah of that stuff is as familiar a name to me as any treasured Christian writer. I've been following his work for over a decade. I was introduced to "Conspiracy of Kindness" back in 1998, when Pat Bjurling, the youth pastor at Christian Life Assembly where I was the youth intern, took out our youth group under the influence of Sjogren (I always thought there was a connection in their names; Bjurling and Sjogren) to one of the communities near our church to hand out packets of seeds, and to tell our neighbours that we were simply "showing God's love (for them) in a practical way".

Textbook Servant Evangelism.

I loved it. For me, it took off. At my first official post as youth pastor in Winnipeg, I took kids out at Hallowe'en to give out lightbulbs, showing that Jesus is the Light of the World (but what we said is, "to show God's love in a practical way" - don't want to divert from excellence!). Later, when my ministry took us to North Delta, I started a festival called "Explosion", which was termed "an Explosion of Kindness" in the local paper. The whole premise was a week of worship and servant evangelism (or simply, 'worship and service in our community'). Explosion grew 100% in year two, bringing in 25 youth to take part, and it hasn't stopped in the six years since I left North Delta.

Yes, when I think of missionality, I do tend to think 'servant evangelism'. But yes, I know that there's more to being missional than handing out seeds and light bulbs, painting houses and picking litter.

'Missional', I think, is more of an attitude. It's an awareness that just like those sent to the Philippines or Samoa (or even somewhere less exotic), those of us who live 'normal' lives here in Canada can and (if we're Christian) SHOULD be intentional about our mission, which is Jesus' mission: to seek and save the lost.

Living missionally means intentionality in relationships. Yes, we need to be careful here that relationships aren't JUST about conversions. The way I see it, Jesus was intentional about His relationships - who He spent time with, and why. Yet not everyone He spent time with chose to follow Him. Neither will those He brings into our lives. Our job is to love them, to care for them, to show them God's love in practical, and intangible, ways.

Missional living ALSO means intentional action. This gets a lot of criticism, even from people I admire. They say that if missional living becomes a service event, then it ceases to be a lifestyle. Well, I guess you could say that the same threat exists for worship. Worship, like missionality, is meant to be a 24-7, everyday life attitude, yet most Christians say that worship is an event, what happens before the sermon on Sundays. Sad, yes. But I'm not sure many would argue that we need to stop 'worshiping' on Sundays so that a worship lifestyle could be cultivated (note: Soul Survivor kind of did this for a season and it seemed to work out for Matt Redman...). Social Kindness events can be a conduit through which missionality is practiced, exercised, and encouraged, but no it isn't the be-all and end-all of what missional living is. That is, however, an important distinction to make.

Yes, a week of servant evangelism/social kindness/whatever is coming up with Access Church. Please stay tuned for more information. If you're into missionality but not into a week of serving others, by all means stay home. But if you want to bless the community of Aldergrove by showing God's love in practical ways, then we invite you to be involved with us.

We've received so much, so freely; that's why we're giving it away freely.

Access Mission Week

Please take note of the absence of the plural 's' following the word 'Mission'. This is NOT a 'Missions Week' like the sort that have become run-of-the-mill in many missions-oriented churches (God bless them!). We will NOT be standing up missionaries to foreign lands, night after night, hearing over potluck cream pie and bad coffee stories of orphaned children, slim getaways, and miraculous healings (as cool as those stories sometimes are!).
MISSION Week instead is a week of mission. I've been thinking of this for a while, and struggling with it.
Access Church NEEDS TO BE a 'Missional' church. We can't exist unless we are one. But how do we establish that ethos, that core value, that DNA right from the get-go. The threat, or the really good reason NOT to do a "Mission Week" can be read about here. Basically, mission becomes an event rather than a lifestyle. I understand that threat, and I get those who would criticize Access Church as being another event-driven-quasi-missional-but-really-not-so-much church plant.
My argument, however, is that to BECOME a missional community, we need to invite people to MISSION, not to some worship service program. Whatever we invite people to, however we start out as a church plant, is what will continue to mark us for years to come. Whatever we invite people to WILL HAVE TO BE AN EVENT - otherwise, what could it be?
"Hey do you want to come get involved in my church with me?"
"Sure... how?"
"well, we're really missional, which means intentionally loving people the way Jesus does, so uh... yeah..."
"okay, so how could I get involved?"
"well, yeah.. you could start by um... praying for .... uh, the people you work with..."
"okay, so how is that getting involved with your church?"
"um, well you'll be doing the same things we're... um I mean I'M... doing, and that's sort of like being involved.... ya gotta understand we're MISSIONAL, not ATTRACTIONAL, so we don't really have anything we're calling people to..."

I gotta be honest with you... whether you're trying to reach Christians or non-Christians, that's a really difficult way to start a church.

So, it's important, no ESSENTIAL, to have something to invite people to. The question is, 'what?' Most churches start with a worship service, build a group of people, who they then plan to take on mission in their community (ok, some churches don't have a grasp of mission, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt). That's OK. In fact, that's what we've been trying to do. And in a way, we'll continue to do something like that.

But what if the MISSION exists before the worship service? What if we start by bringing together people who really want to impact the people of Aldergrove, start by practically serving our town, and from there build worship and discipleship times?

So, there's where I get the dream of Access Mission Week. We can call people in Aldergrove to a week of loving others, serving others, giving freely as we've received freely, showing God's love in practical ways. We'll organize projects, like free car washes, litter pickup around the town, lawn mowing, dog walking, babysitting, yard cleanup, business exterior scraping and repainting... We'll make the name Access Church first synonymous with caring for the community, then associate it with FAITH, MISSION, and COMMUNITY.

When? I don't know yet. Who? People in Aldergrove, and hopefully Mission Teams (again, no 's') from other places. Am I crazy? Probably. Stay tuned for more information.

Vision:Access

Faith | Mission | Community

This past Sunday, we 'launched' or 'unveiled' (or whatever other word you want to use) our vision for Access Church. The idea was that we would gather a group who might be somewhat interested in joining us, cast the vision, and see who sticks around. Our hope was to gain a greater 'core' of Aldergrove residents to join in the vision and mission of Access with us. Did it work? To a degree, yes. But I think that the real 'results' of the vision spiel (as I like to put it) will be seen in the lives of those who heard and were inspired, whether or not they join us at Access Church. To that end, I would like to make our vision spiel available to you, our faithful blog reader, to inspire you whether or not you ever enter into community with Access Church.

Our vision for what our church will become rests on the three pillars of faith, mission and community.

Faith is what comes first. A church that doesn't start with that isn't a church - it can be a service organization or a social club, but it's not a church. Our faith is more than a few creeds listed on the wall - it's a living faith which directs and reflects all that we do. Our faith is more than scripture memorization, a love for Old Testament stories, and a belief in a god. Rather, it's rooted in the Gospel of Jesus - and we see all of Scripture through the lens of that Gospel, as pointing to that Gospel, as telling the story of that Gospel. In the vision for Access Church, faith isn't separate from mission and community; rather, it gives structure and purpose to those other pillars. Our faith is in a God who stepped out of heaven to come to earth, in order to seek and save the lost (mission) and to bring reconciliation between God and man, man and man, man and himself, and man and creation (community).

Mission is essential to any church. A church without mission is nothing but a relic, a castle, a fortress for the faith. Sure, it defends its creed, but at the expense of living what it claims to believe - to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. Mission is about going into the world, living in the world, being involved in the world. What's the big deal? You ask? Aren't we all in the world? Yes, but there's a tendency for Christians to try their best to stay away from the world, to build up the fortresses and protect themselves and their loved ones from the big, dark world. But instead, Jesus told us that we ARE the light of the world. Our job is to take the light of Jesus into the dark world. We can no longer blame the darkness for being dark - we can only look at ourselves and ask why the light hasn't gone into those dark places. So the vision for Access Church is to be involved in our world, our neighbourhoods, our community, Aldergrove. It's not easy, especially in a culture where individuality and self-reliance are high values. We need to be bridge-builders between people, builders of community, not just between culture and the Gospel, but between people and people. We need to show God's love in practical ways intentionally. We need to give freely as we've received freely, to live generously.

Community has received a lot of lip service in a lot of places. Already I've mentioned it here. But a church that isn't a community isn't a church. This is the attractional piece to what it means to BE church - and attractional isn't bad when it's balanced with mission. How can we do mission together, if we don't have community with one another? What are we calling people to in inviting them to the Gospel when community doesn't exist? The vision for Access is that it will be a Gospel Community - one that involves Christians and non-Christians, one that's a movement, on a journey, one that's intentional and enjoyable and life-giving. Friendships between men, between women, and between men and women need to be central and purposeful. Somebody has said that friendships are the building blocks of spirituality - where relationships are stunted, friendship with God and spirituality is stunted. But Gospel Community goes beyond friendships. Somebody else has said that community is where your least favorite person lives. This kind of community takes commitment, and this kind of intentional commitment to community is what will mark Access Church as much as what we believe and how we live it out.

I dream of a community of restoration, of reconciliation. I dream of transformation in Aldergrove - economic, relational... people caring about their neighbourhoods in new and radical ways. I dream of recovery, of hope, of vision and purpose. I dream of Aldergrove in the nation's news as a community turned around, a source of light for all of Canada. This can happen as we embrace Faith, Mission and Community.

I dream of people swarming to the heart of downtown Aldergrove, the corner of 272 and Fraser, now known for violent acts and exploitation, and lifting up unshakled hands and voices in praise to Jesus, who has set them free from the oppression of sin, both in their personal lives and in their community.

Join us in dreaming and visioning a new future for Aldergrove, for what will happen when the Gospel impacts this town, as we live out our faith, mission, and community.

(to hear the Vision Spiel audio, click the title link or click here)

Churched or Un-Churched?

Sometimes I second-guess myself.

Lately it's been whether my calling really is to non-religious, non-'churched', non-Christians, or if I'm kidding myself and really I should stick to what I know - the churched crowd.  I mean, these are the ones I've been devoting my time and my life to for the past what, 7 years... more than that, really.  I know them, I jive with them, I'm not shocked at their behaviors (most of the time).  And as much as I don't like to admit it, I'm not that unlike them.  Let's face it, I am 'Churched'.

But for some reason, I really REALLY want to plant a church that is made up of predominately 'Un-Churched' (or rather, 'Non-Churched') people. Why is that?

Because I'd rather start with something new than try to fix something old.  I find myself in contexts where there are 'Churched' people around, preaching at them how they shouldn't be this way or that way, how religion is the anti-Gospel, how their righteousness needs to be repented of just as much as sinners' sin.  I'm trying to right a faulty Christian mindset that's protectionistic rather than missional, that's inward rather than outward, that's moral management rather than Gospel- and Jesus-centric.  I'm trying to undo years, sometimes lifetimes, of indoctrination.

But with the non-Churched, those who haven't had the same indoctrination, I get to instead preach the Gospel.  Sure, I still have lots of mindsets, worldviews, patterns, ideas, and practices to correct, but much of it isn't religion-based and therefore easier to deal with.

Yes, I love the church.  I love the Churched.  I really, really do.  There are people in my head right now who I love, and I don't see eye to eye with, yet I enjoy getting together and talking with them.  But I believe that my 'holy discontent' is to see non-Churched people 'get it'.  To see that spark of understanding, of the work of the Holy Spirit in their eye, to lead them to Jesus and His Gospel that's pure and true.  That's what I want to live for.

4 Lanes of Emerging Church (how we do church)

I'm definitely tracking with Emergent Reformers as Mark Driscoll describes it here. Especially the emphasis on reformed theology and charismatic belief and practice. What are your thoughts?

Diary of a Possible Church Planter

Nehemiah 2:2-3 And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad...

I got the bug years ago, and now it seems possible that it's time to act. The bug has matured. Twelve years ago I was a 19-year-old, interning at a large church in the youth ministry, and wondering why we couldn't do things a little bit differently to attract a little bit of a different demographic. I was frustrated and even angered at our cheesy christian clipart, our juvenile activities, and even our massive events targeted at our christian kids.

My youth pastor, the guy I worked under and learned from, had a lot of patience with me. He explained to me that our job as church youth workers (youth pastors) was to nurture the christian kids, whose parents were at 'big church' tithing their big bucks so that we could have a paycheck. He also told me at one point something that drastically and dramatically changed my life. He said, "you know Chad, you're not all that". As much as I was critical of the way things were, I was not the saviour. I wasn't called to be so then, and I'm certainly not called to be now.

Fast forward a few years. I'm married, I've had much, much more church experience both happy and sad, energizing and dissapointing. I have two boys of my own whom I'm terrified to bring up in the knowledge of God, and for the past 6 months at least, I've been 'sad' with what King Artaxerxes might call 'sadness of heart'. Really, it's been the same frustration I felt brewing over all those years ago.

Why do we do the things we do as Christians? Why do we say that we follow the One Who told us to go into the world, while we play it safe in our christian subculture? Why do we blame the darkness for being so bloody dark, when we who are the 'light of the world' refuse go bring light to those places? There's a school 3 blocks down the road from our church building that is notorious for being a 'dark place', and christians who want to keep their kids protected do all that they can to keep their kids away from that darkness - instead they send them to the same school most other christian parents send their kids to. So there's a conglomeration of light - which is practically not a light at all - and there's a school that gets darker and darker. And the christian parents say, 'see, I told you that was a dark place'... GAHH!


The youth ministry's been doing great. There's increasing group cohesion, missional mindset, leaders getting involved in the lives of kids outside the four walls, and excitement about what's to come. But still, there's been this 'sadness', this restlessness, this frustration, this whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

Darren, my lead pastor has recognized it. And after MUCH intense prayer and counsel and tears and anquish, has decided that the best thing for me and for the church would be to release me to find out what it is that could possibly alleviate the sadness, and do it. I'm ending my time here this summer.

My desire is to lead a church in fulfilling the great commission. I love our church, otherwise I wouldn't be so frustrated with her. But I have no option to lead her, and really, no desire to. Here I fellowship and worship, and she's a big ship to turn. I choose to leave that task to Darren. As for me, I need to find a church that I can lead into mission, a church that exists as much for the community around it as for the community within it. If no such church exists, then my desire is to plant - a thought that excites me ("yes, it's finally here!") and terrifies me ("am I really suited and ready?").

I'll keep you posted on our journey.