I was interviewed for an article that ran in Arkansas largest paper last week. It has resulted in some interesting conversations and phone calls. I thought I would copy the article and put it in my blog so all 5 people who read my blog can see it.:)  I am going to spend the next couple of weeks expounding on my thoughts as it relates to denominations life and future.  There will be a lot of blogging going on regarding the subject of this article.  So if you get off on juicy-denominational bickering, stay tuned to your local blogosphere.

CHRISTIE STORM ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Areport urging Southern Baptists to re-energize efforts to spread the Gospel and plant churches will top the agenda at the denomination’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., next month.

The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report not only presses for a revival of evangelism in the face of declining baptisms but also outlines new responsibilities for the denomination’s missions organizations — the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board. It also calls for increased giving by all Southern Baptists.

Ronnie Floyd, pastor of First Baptist Church of Springdale and The Church at Pinnacle Hills in Rogers, is the task force chairman.

He said he believes the recommendations, crafted after a year of discussion across the country, reflect the wishes of Southern Baptists.

“We believe we have our finger on the pulse of the vast majority of leaders and people in the Southern Baptist Convention,” he said. “But June will tell.”

With 16.1 million members, the Southern Baptist Convention is the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. But membership has dropped in recent years. The number of Baptisms climbed slightly from 2008 to 2009, but have dropped sharply in recent decades.

Bloggers and commentators have dissected the report and many have voiced opposition to the changes online and in Baptist publications across the country. Even leaders within the denomination, including Morris Chapman, president of the powerful executive committee, have expressed concern with portions of the report.

Others, however, support the recommendations and think the changes will streamline the denomination’s efforts to reach the world for Christ.

“I think the report is crucial and essential to the future of our denomination, because the structure our convention is operating under is a model that is antiquated,” said Jeff Crawford, pastor of Grand Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Smith. “This report refocuses who we are and what the No. 1 focus of the church needs to be and that’s the Great Commission, taking the Gospel around the entire world.”

Crawford, 40, will attend his first convention annual meeting this year. In the past he hasn’t felt compelled to make the journey. This year is different.

“I find the Great Commission relevant,” he said. “I can get excited about the Great Commission and I think it will strike a chord with many other pastors as well.

“I think there’s a general consensus that we need to do something different. People can get nervous about what that means but I think everybody realizes we can do better and we need to do better.”

Crawford’s hope is that the report will unite convention members under one common goal — sharing the Gospel. He said the very relevance of the denomination is at stake.

“We can’t afford to be irrelevant,” he said. “We need to send a message that the denomination can be relevant and the right way is to make sure we are centered on the Great Commission.”

Thousands of delegates, called messengers, will gather June 15-16 in Orlando to consider numerous resolutions, elect a president and other officers and hear from the task force.

Floyd said as the 23 task force members met with Southern Baptists during the past year they found most are concerned about how the denomination of autonomous churches can pull together to reach the world for Christ.

“This is a very complex ministry that has to work really hard at cooperating with one another,” Floyd said. “This is about how we can do it better.”

In all, seven recommendations will be presented by the task force, including one to phase out the so-called cooperative agreements between the North American Mission Board and state conventions in seven years and establish a new strategy for partnership. That would mean state Baptist conventions will no longer receive funds for in-state missionaries and church planting efforts from the national mission organization. In Arkansas, that amounts to a loss of about $500,000, according to Arkansas Baptist News.

The Missouri Baptist Convention stands to lose even more — almost $2 million — and the executive board has expressed concern about several other aspects of the report. The group’s executive director, David Tolliver, will attempt to make a motion at the annual meeting to delay action on the report to give the entities involved time to study the impact of the proposed changes.

FINANCIALLY SPLIT

While Southern Baptists are generally united in wanting higher membership and more baptisms, they’re divided over how to split the money.

“We need to take some time to study the ramifications of their recommendations. I may be for every one of them once I fully understand what it will mean to Southern Baptists,” Tolliver said.

Tolliver will be one of many messengers attempting motions on various topics. He said there’s no guarantee he’ll even be acknowledged, but he’ll make the attempt.

Tolliver said he’s concerned about several components in the report, including a section proposing a new category of designated giving — Great Commission giving — which he believes will hurt the denomination’s Cooperative Program. Since 1925, the Cooperative Program has helped unite Southern Baptists in a spirit of cooperation. Local churches contribute to the Cooperative Program and state conventions fund their ministries with a percentage of the money and forward the rest to the executive committee to be disbursed among the various denomination entities.

As for the cooperative agreements, Tolliver said the report leaves the future of funding unclear.

“But if Southern Baptists decide to dissolve those agreements, I, frankly, will do that and we’ll begin to adjust,” Tolliver said. “We’ll live with whatever Southern Baptists want us to do.”

Floyd said the recommendations concerning cooperative agreements are an attempt to utilize the North American Mission Board more effectively. The proposal calls for “refocusing” the board by making church planting in North America the top priority. He said that requires moving funds.

“We need to move as much money as we can out of the South and into areas where Christianity isn’t known,” Floyd said.

Mike McDaniel, pastor of Grace Point Church in Bentonville, hasn’t attended an annual meeting in several years but is making the trek to Orlando this year. His congregation is similar to many others — it affiliates with the Southern Baptist Convention but also with other entities, including the Willow Creek Association, and supports them financially. The majority of the congregation’s contributions go to the convention. McDaniel calls these congregations neo-Baptists, those who no longer place the same value on aligning themselves with a denomination.

“Denominations are shrinking,” he said. “They are relics of modernism and we are in a postmodern culture … where we are anti-institutional.”

McDaniel sees the restructuring of the convention as an attempt to stabilize the denomination but he’s not sure the changes will foster a sense of cooperation, especially with the dissolution of the cooperative agreements.

“My conclusion is that it will create a competitive spirit,” he said. “It’s a fight for a bigger piece of a shrinking pie.”

WORLDWIDE REACH

McDaniel said changes to the Cooperative Program are needed because the current system is not efficient if the goal is to reach the world with the Gospel. Most state conventions keep more than 60 percent of their cooperative giving funds in state. He thinks the majority of funds should leave Arkansas.

“There needs to be prioritization on evangelizing the unreached peoples of the world,” McDaniel said. “If 60 cents of every dollar never left the state, did we really believe in global missions or did we believe in Arkansas missions?”

Ultimately, McDaniel said the denomination’s pace of change could be too slow for many churches.

“I’m afraid the more progressive churches loyal to good, sound Baptist doctrine aren’t waiting around for the slow giant to wake up and change,” he said. “They are moving on.

“People in our church aren’t waiting for the IMB and other SBC organizations to change and catch up with the times. They are getting seminary degrees … going on missions with pioneers. They are ready to go and they are not going to wait around five more years or so until the denomination can finally get going in the right direction.”

As for Floyd, he encourages Southern Baptists to read the report. It’s online at pray4gcr.com.

“Southern Baptists are very concerned about the future but the problem is they are not sure how to get there,” he said. “We need to build a compelling vision that rallies them to a better future. … We need to create a climate where change is acceptable.”

Having a spiritual communities where people can come and explore the mystical things of God while sorting through life’s complexities is necessary for everyone (whether we realize it or not).  We want to start as many of these communities as possible.  In a word, these spiritual communities are called a “Church.”  I didn’t come up with the name, Jesus did.  Not all churches are safe haven’s for exploration, but we want all those affiliated with GPC to be.  We use the Bible as our source of infallible and inerrant guide for all our spiritual communities.

We are in the process of launching  another GPC worship gathering in mid-town/lake area of Rogers.  We will share the one name, leadership, budget, vision and message as a unified body bringing our hearts together with those of Bentonville and Rogers.  I started with a list of reasons for a multi-site launch last week; but had too many reasons and needed to break it into two entries.

10 reasons why we are launching a missional 2nd GPC site (continued)
6. Multi-stie churches remove the limits of a 4-walled-church to see the church as community. The church’s walls aren’t limited to one building or address.  The church is a community, so the church should be a part of the community and not be defined by what goes on within 4 walls.  For the first five years of GPC existence, we were a portable church.  Many of our children knew the church was the community of people and not the building.  This is a more biblical idea of a church.  We are going back as we move forward.
7. Multi-site churches are  catalyst for 3-self church planting, not a hindrance.  One of my biggest push backs to multi-site was how I thought it would hinder 3 -self church planting.  Studies have confirmed that the multi site churches are more likely to plant churches than single campus churches.  84% of churches with multiple campuses have also planted  churches; only 74% of single campus churches have helped to sponsor another church plant (Viral Church, Stetzer).
8. Multi-site churches take a jack hammer to a mega church. Multi-site churches function as a smaller community so they can be nimble and be responsive to culture and people around them rather than be a huge massive institution that can’t adjust to change.  However, with the close affiliation between campuses it keeps the breadth of resources, talents, and depth of a larger church accessible to both.  In my doctoral research, I did a case study of Mosaic and their 9 campuses in the Los Angeles region.  Their pastor, Erwin McManus, said to me: “Mega churches don’t require empowering lay people.  They require a system that standardizes so that fewer people have to do everything in the decision-making process.” Multi-site churches, however, help the whole body of Christ to function and exercise their gifts.
9. Multi-sites enable people to go and plant churches while staying connected to the church they love. This will afford more members who feel a call to go and help plant a church to take a baby step, by leaving GPC Bentonville and going to GPC Rogers; yet, never having to leave their GPC family.  It is an in-between step to starting 3-self churches.  We need 15-20 families with a church planter’s heart that are ready to go and serve and worship on Saturday nights and labor to start a new campus with GPC’s heart and soul.
10. Mult-site churches enable different groups of worshipers in multiple communities to network and experience fellowship together. It is sad to say, but many times there is a disconnect between churches. Multi-site churches build a system of unity and working together, serving together as we serve one another, and serve our Lord.  It expands God’s community under one common heart and voice of the people, even if they are separated by miles.

Choosing the right campus pastor to serve in this strategic position is paramount to the over all success of the campus.  Pete Finfrock is an amazing young man who we have been “grooming” for this position. He is graduate of Ecclesia Bible College and he and his wife Emily live in Rogers.  Emily is a teacher. They have been a part of GPC since our years in Bentonville High School.  They share a common vision for the city of Rogers and know they will lead and care for the people well.  Hear Pete preach Sunday May 16th at GPC, as we move forward as a church to be on mission in Rogers.

I have to admit I was a skeptic with the multi-site church model at first.  My first thoughts were negative due in part to what I had seen as  a “celebrity model” demonstrated.  A celebrity model multi-site approach is more of a way to promote a central figure and multiply mega churches, rather than reproducing new leaders and break off the mega-church into more of a community based church.

My skepticism has passed since doing some thorough research.  Once I saw there were many models of multi-sites rather than just the celebrity model that I have sometimes seen, my perspective began to change.  Once I had studied healthier models that were Kingdom minded with a clear missional involvement, and less mega church and attractional, my defenses came down.   (Attractional is simply a program- driven- come- and-see- what- we- do- approach).  I began to see some real upside for God’s Kingdom work in some powerful ways.  The following are some bullet point observations that speak to the advantage of churches using a healthy multi-site approach to launching churches.

10 reasons I am a believer in “Missional” Multi-site Churches…

1. Multi-site churches are a way of putting “local” back in the church.  With the advent of mega churches, the local church has been lost and the regional mega-church born.  When churches do multi-site, they are taking the church back down to a grass roots movement in a community and move away from  larger massive institutions.
2. Multi-site churches create space and opportunity for new leaders to be born and to become. Take for example praise teams.  Once a church has its polished worship band and team, the tendency is to simply work the most talented and  only develop back one or two talent spots for each position.  This leaves a lot of emerging talent on the side.  Multi-site forces every pastor and ministry leader to become a developer of people for future campuses and church plants.  Sounds a lot like a form of disciple making to me.
3. Multi-site churches foster a “going” ethos.  ”Missional” is a term over used and under-defined today.  If you want to sell a book or sound trendy, use the term “missional.” I even hated using the word to describe our version of a multi-site, but there are so many hybrids of the new method.  Though there are many dialects of missional, one thing is unanimous with missional churches – they “go.”  The biggest event isn’t the coming to church, but the going of the church.  They go to the under-developed and under-resourced; they go to the growing populations segments in need of a spiritual community.    Multi-sites create a culture where “going is good.”
4. Multi-site churches take the church to the people, instead of expecting the unchurched to come to them.  It is most important to build bridges to the unchurched.  Caring enough to go to the people and be among the people is more meaningful than saying come to us. People typically will travel as far to church as they travel to work (15-20 min in NWA).  It is beyond reason to expect an unchurched person to travel further than this to attend church gatherings.  Unchurched people won’t go out of their way to go to church.   Neither are the unchurched turned on to Jesus by a church’s polished performance.  Instead, the church living in the community, affecting the community mind, body and soul opens doors to speak into the lives of people far from Christ.
5. Multi-site churches are more efficient with God’s resources and effective in church planting .  A 3-self church plant (self supporting, self governing, and self sustaining) is the traditional form of church planting should still be a priority.  However, some church starts require subsidies of $150,000 or more before they can become self sustaining churches.  Multi-sites can be self-sustaining faster and with less money because the start up cost, logistical organization, legal papers for 501c3 status, and marketing functions are all shared by the launching campus as they have already established systems, processes,  and a name to help the emerging congregation.   Instead of crawling as a baby church, they are able to start walking and running quickly as a multi-site.

There are some things about multi-site churches that I am repulsed by.  However, My definition of what a multi-site church can and should be has been broadened. I now see its potential value.   Next blog post I will give the other 5 reasons I have gone from a skeptic to a believer in multi-sites.