We are working through an article by Scott Thomas on replanting an existing church, that is, renewing a church so that it grows and matures as a church plant does.
In the last post, I copied an outline from this article by Scott Thomas on how to replant an existing church. His outline begins —
1. Envision what the church could be if no pre-existing traditions existed. Dream big. Now add God to the equation. Dream again. Then dream short-term to see the immediate needs of the body.
Now, Thomas writes from within a denomination where churches are led by single pastors — and he’s writing to pastors. In a Church of Christ, he would be speaking to the senior leadership, typically the elders.
In a Church of Christ, a replanting cannot occur unless the eldership is squarely on board — and unanimously so. They can hire new ministers, but the ministers can’t hire new elders. The elders carry a virtual lifetime appointment, have the oversight of the congregation, and the vision must start with them.
Now, some elderships are humble enough that they might delegate the vision-casting to the ministerial staff or to a committee of members and be willing to adopt their vision. But normally the visioning begins with the elders.
And if they aren’t willing to participate in finding the vision (it’s God’s vision we seek, of course), it’s hopeless. They have to not only permit the visioning, they have to buy into it.
Now, the “vision” isn’t a vision statement. It’s not something you write; it’s something you see.
Nor is “vision” a big building or a room full of thousands of worshipers. That might be part of the vision, but it’s not the most important or the beginning part.
Rather, the vision should be: what does God want our members to be like. If we truly were to allow God to re-shape our hearts, what kind of people would we be? The scriptures say nothing about how to build massive buildings or organize massive programs of works. They say quite a lot about our hearts.
(Rom 2:29) No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.
(Gal 5:22-23) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
(Phil 2:1-7) If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And I won’t take the space to insert the Sermon on the Mount here. And countless other passages could be added.
No church can be the church God calls it to be until —
* It acknowledges the Spirit’s role is making us into new creations. We can’t do this on our own.
* We see the humilty of Jesus as our model for Christian living. Humility is not false modesty. It’s being willing to wash each other’s feet.
* We see good character and ethical living as an essential (“essential” as in “of the essence”) part of our Christian identity, that is, we no longer draw Kingdom boundaries based on what we know so much as who we are and what we do. We stop thinking: we are the people with the right positions! and change to: we are the people transformed by God’s Spirit to serve others! We must transform our thinking from insisting mainly on orthodoxy to orthopraxy. And orthopraxy (right practice) is about whether we truly love our neighbors in deed.
Now, that’s a vision!
And notice how such a vision re-aligns how we do church. No longer would we preach about the sins of the church down the road and no longer would church be about having the right patterns of worship and organization. Rather, the Gospels would be central to our teaching — because they show us Jesus and they give us Jesus’ ethical instructions.
And the endings of Paul’s epistles (you know, the parts where he tells us how to live) become the exciting climax of the book, rather than the boring stuff at the end. You see, Paul writes extraordinary, God-inspired theology and then — always — concludes with how to live it. But we get more excited about the theology parts than the how-to-live parts. The right vision re-aligns things the way Paul always meant.
Hence, to replant a church, you start with a new vision, and the new vision has to be the right vision. This vision is a vision given by God, and part of that vision has to be a church filled with re-created, Spirit-formed people who desperately want to be like Jesus.
And this means that the leadership empowers those who share this vision and un-empowers those with the wrong vision. The selfish, self-centered, unloving, and unforgiving have no seat at the table. They can’t be elders, deacons, or ministers. And their demands are rebuked, not met. They have no influence because they are not pressing God’s agenda — even if they are big givers, an elder’s wife, a minister … whatever. Rather, the leadership tests what to do and not do — not by who is asking — but whether the request reflects the character of God — the character God wants us to have.
If your leadership can’t do this, you can’t be replanted. Your new pot will be just as small as your old pot. It might be a prettier, better-marketed pot, but it’s still the wrong pot.
