Bright Wings

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with Ah! Bright Wings.

November 12, 2009

Pilgrim Homemakers: One Church, Many Campuses

There is a passage in the New Testament that talks about being aliens and strangers- yet, in the opposite way that the writer of Hebrews uses the idea. Paul says in Ephesians 2:19-22, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are now fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

So, in relationship to the world and its philosophies, desires, and things we are to be ‘aliens and strangers’. But in relationship to Christ and God our Father and this new household he has called together, this new citizenship, this spiritual temple. So we are to be at one and the same time ‘pilgrims’ (wanderers) and homemakers- members of a growing, thriving, household. Isn’t it sadly the opposite with many Christians? Often in relationship to their things, to temporal desires, they are at home; yet, in relationship to Christ and to His family the Church –they are aliens. We want to be just the opposite: pilgrims in the World for the sake of the world; at home with the church for the sake of the church!  How do we grow as a church home, yet keep our pilgrim heart?

We are growing as a church family. When I came in 2001 we were around 400 in attendance on a Sunday morning. Now in 2009 we are at 1200 in attendance on a Sunday morning. In 9 years we have tripled in attendance. Since our fellowship group model of church life launch a few years back we have 29 fellowship groups around the city with hundreds of our people involved in biblical and intimate fellowship. We believe ultimately that the numeric growth of a church is a sovereign dynamic. It is God who saves people, God brings people, and God grows churches. But the spiritual growth of the church is a non-negotiable. We are accountable to God for how we attend to these spiritual realities. The wonderful thing is that as we are committed to God, honoring and biblical strategies for spiritual growth, these will often give way to God-honoring strategies for reaching the hundreds of thousands of lost people that God has placed at our doorstep.

We want to be able to capture this season in the life of our church with a new ministry facility in the heart of a new neighborhood that we believe is a wonderful opportunity. And we also believe God has blessed us with health as a church, with Godly leadership, biblical preaching and wonderful Christ exalting musical worship, a radically committed family of members, and a vibrant and joyous body life. We want to give all this to the city of Tallahassee through the gospel!
And we will have to be bold and strategic! When we move in to our facility in January we will already be at 70% capacity! We will within 2010 need more children’s space, youth space, admin space, adult ed space and on and on. And we DO want to make more space and move to more space. We want to keep growing! We want more people to hear about Christ. We want more people to join and grow with our church family!

We don’t believe that God is calling us to tear down that facility in 2011 and build a bigger one to do it.

We don’t believe that planting another, separate church in another part of the city is what God is calling us to at this time. (We are committed to church planting. We have poured massive amounts of money, energy, and love into planting Fellowship Raleigh in N.C.; I serve on the advisory board to two church plants with our denomination). So- what do we do?

Local Church: Non-Negotiables

Let’s look at that famous little description of the church in Jerusalem after Pentecost in Acts 2:41-47.  I think we can get a picture of what we might call ‘pilgrim homemaking’ in this passage. I believe that Luke writes with both a ‘descriptive’ and ‘prescriptive’ purpose – how things in fact were, and how things in fact should be. (Read Acts 2:41-47)

But not ‘prescriptive’ in any sort of rigid and detailed sense (it doesn’t tell us what church buildings look like, there is no Sunday morning order of worship, there is no detail about instrumentation in worship, no cap in attendance, etc.). I believe there are a lot of ways to be strategic and yet faithful to the heart of God’s Word.  Luke here is ‘principally prescriptive’- there are principles of worship and body life that are to be pursued and applied in all manner of ‘styles’ and situations as a church grows and spreads geographically, culturally, and strategically. 

Let’s note a few things about the realities of this church:

• It was very large (many thousands of people): church size is neither good nor bad. You might not prefer a large church, but that is merely preference. You might prefer a small church, but that does not make small churches bad. People often turn their preferences into spiritual or biblical ideals – this is wrong.
• The church gathered in a larger corporate settings for ‘koinonia’ (for teaching by the apostles)
• The church gathered in smaller home settings for ‘koinonia’ – fellowship, sharing, caring, growing
• There were ‘spiritual’ non-negotiables that bound the church: biblical leadership, biblical teaching, the Lord’s Supper and prayer, sacrificial stewardship, gathering corporately/assembling together
• There was a spiritual ‘life’ and ‘heart’ non-negotiables that bound the church: devotion; awe/reverence/holy fear; brotherly love; joy; generosity

The elders of Four Oaks think there is a principle of ‘church growth’ that is important here. It is important for Four Oaks to grow ‘corporately’ – under unified leadership, receiving unified exhortation and teaching, being mobilized as a larger body to impact the World. The high priest accused Peter and the church in Acts 5:28 of ‘filling Jerusalem with your teaching’. We want to be a force- a mobilized body of believers filling Tallahassee with God’s Word and the good news of Jesus Christ.

But, we also want other ‘church growth’ principle illustrated her in Acts 2.  We want believers growing intimately – growing in day by day one another-ness from home to home. This means sharing our homes, our families, our lives in a way that brings accountability, sanctification, joy, and real spiritual transformation.

United Church/Many Campuses

As we grow in our corporate, weekly gatherings and as we grow in our home to home fellowships we want to pursue the NON-NEGOTIABLES we discovered here in Acts 2 in terms of what we do: biblical leadership, biblical teaching, celebrating the ordinances of Lord’s Supper (and baptism), stewardship, and gathering in large and small settings. And we must continue to pursue those NON-NEGOTIABLES in terms of what our hearts look like, who we are: devotion; awe/reverence/holy fear; brotherly love; joy; generosity.
Over the past year the pastors and elders have become convinced that God is leading us to move into this facility as a ‘ministry hub’ that will be leveraged to reach the whole city.

We believe we can faithfully grow as a church family as outlined above by existing as one united church family meeting weekly in corporate gatherings in many campuses/communities.
We don’t believe that this strategy is really any different than what we pursue now through our fellowship group model for church life: we gather on Sundays in two services, yet spread out geographically in three communities (North, South, West) for other gatherings, and for weekly fellowship group meetings. Large corporate worship, intimate fellowship group life.

We are prayerfully seeking God’s provision and open doors to begin strategically opening a campus in either the South or West communities within 12-18 months of moving into our new facility. This would not be ‘another church’ or a ‘church plant’. This would be Four Oaks Church: under Four Oaks leadership, under Four Oaks preaching (either through utilization of technology, or preaching teams, or both), using Four Oaks resources. But, it would be a Four Oaks Lord’s Day Gathering on a South Campus or a West Campus. We would hope by God’s grace and provision that we would put worship gatherings throughout the city over the next 2/5/10/20 years that anyone living in the Tallahassee/Leon county area would not have to leave their communities in order to gather with their church family for corporate worship. It is my hope and prayer that this would extend into the greater six county neighboring region that represents half a million souls.

You will have a lot of questions about this, no doubt. I’ll be getting into more about what this might look like in the next two weeks and beyond. We are going to grow as a family- we want to do it strategically and biblically. We want to continue as pilgrims – but grow in our homebuilding as brothers and sisters and fellow citizens.  The elders and pastors believe whole-heartedly that this strategy (one church with many campuses) allows us to do that. It will take devotion on your part. It will require biblical teaching and spiritual health. It will take much prayer. It will take bold leadership. It will take sacrifice. It will take great generosity. But- I believe with all my heart that it will lead to glad hearts, awesome praise, gospel proclamation, rebirth and salvation.

Let’s not walk into a temple built by human hands on Jan. 10th.  Let us remember the exhortation of Hebrews 13:13-16 - “let’s go to [Jesus] outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

posted by Erik Braun