Obstacles to CPM
A Couple of blogs ago, on March 9, I wrote an article on Keys and Obstacles. At the end of the blog, I promised further discussion of the Obstacles to CPM, especially in the American context. In that last blog, I shared some things that came from David Garrison's important book, "Church Planting Movements" (2004). In this blog, I want to move into some new territory on this issue.
The basic concept that I am espousing here is that, church multiplication is natural and organic, and really should not be that complicated. I am suggesting that the church is a living thing (alive with the Spirit of God) and as such should naturally grow and multiply. The book of Acts tells of a growing, spreading, and multiplying church that moved from Jerusalem to Rome in about 30 years, and which literally shook the Roman Empire. In the midst of 10 persecutions, and without cars, trains, planes, phones, TV, or internet, the church experienced the greatest church planting movement in history and in less than 300 years had about 20 million believers!
Taking the parable of the sower seriously leads me to think that this was an example of the seed of the Word being sown into good soil that brought a 30, 60, and 100 fold harvest. The same thing is happening around the world where church planting movements are happening.
Often the question arises, can this kind of thing happen in the United States and Europe? Will CPM work in Western culture? Without downplaying the importance of culture (certainly CPM manifests differently in different cultures) I would suggest that the question itself illustrates part of the problem. I might suggest that the problem does not lie primarily in sinful western culture, but in the culture of the traditional church in the west. In other words, our problem is not the lost sinners and their culture (in fact that may be very fertile soil in which to plant the Gospel or as Neil Cole said, "Sinners make good soil, they already have a lot of fertilizer in their lives"). Our problem may be more the culture of the church in the West. A brief glance at the 21 critical elements of CPM (check out the blog on March 4) will illustrate that these do not describe the DNA of a typical western church.
So let's look at 3 obstacles to CPM in our Western context. If we can address these "stones in the field" the seed of the Word can do it's supernaturally natural organic work. In these 3 areas, I am going to use scripture from Matthew's Gospel to illustrate the issue.
STONE # 1: The Waning Authority of Jesus Christ in the Church.
A few years ago, during a period of renewal in my life, I became a devotee of some of the writings of A. W. Tozer. Tozer was a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor in Chicago and Toronto, and the author of many books (most of which were collections of editorials and articles that he had written). To anyone who is going through a spiritually dry period, I would really recommend the writings of Tozer. As he commented in one of his books, if his flame is not large it certainly was real and you can always get a spark of holy fire from his materials. One of Tozer's lesser known works, but one of my favorites is his small booklet called "The Waning Authority of Christ in the Churches: Is He Lord or Merely a Beloved Symbol?" I think the title says it all. Let me share a quote from this book (published most recently by Christian Publications of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, copyright 1995).
"Among the gospel churches, Christ is in fact little more than a beloved symbol. The Lordship of Jesus is not quite forgotten, but it has been mostly relegated to the hymnal where all responsibility toward it may be discharged in a glow of pleasant religious emotion."
With the exception of the reference to the hymnal, which is mostly a thing of the past, the words, written sometime before his death in 1963, are as true today as when Tozer penned them. He presses on in the book to apply this to church boards, mission boards and other seats of decision making in the visible church. His burden was to question how much of what we do, is in obedience to Jesus Christ. Do we merely tip the hat to him in an opening prayer and then go ahead and do what we think is best, or do we really engage with the Head of the church.
Let's look at the scripture that first mentions the word "Church" in the New Testament. Matthew 16: 13- 19
"Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets". He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
There is much more in this passage than we will examine now, but let's focus on this fact: Jesus is the issue! He makes it all "about" Himself. The church exists where Jesus is exalted into His rightful place as Son of Man and Son of God. The confession of Jesus as Christ is the foundation of the church. And in this context he calls it "my church" and says "I will build" concerning His church.
So here it is plainly: In the first mention of church in the New Testament, Jesus lets us know that:
1. He is the Center and the Foundation of the church
2. He is the Owner of the Church. It is His church.
3. He is the Founder and the Builder of His church.
My take home principle from this for CPM is that CPM is Christ Centered and Christ Controlled. Church growth and multiplication are works of Jesus Christ. He does work through His people and our obedience is important, but it is Christ Himself who does the work. And furthermore, it is Jesus Christ who remains the absolute authority in the church (whether this is recognized or not). He is the Lord of the church, and when the church does not operate in this way, it is hampered by the "stone" of the "waning authority of Christ in the church" and the seed cannot truly multiply.
But let me go on and be a bit more helpful here. It would be very legitimate to ask at this point what does that mean in practical terms. How does the church (or an individual believer for that matter) put Jesus in His proper place of authority?
My answer is the restoration of the authority of Scripture in our lives and churches. Jesus Christ is Lord, and our Lord's instructions are infallibly and inerrantly contained in the Scriptures. I believe a return to a proper understanding of the Reformation doctrine of Sola Scripture would be in order here. To be specific, to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord means to obey the instructions contained in the New Testament, both from Jesus Himself (the words in Red) and the Apostles who spoke with His authority (the Epistles).
(By Sola Scriptura, I do not mean that God only speaks in scripture. God speaks to His people in many ways, including the natural creation, circumstances, the voice of the Holy Spirit to each believer, the gifts of the Spirit, even supernatural ways such as dreams and visions. By Sola Scriptura, I DO MEAN that Scripture is the only absolutely authoritative way that God speaks, and that Scripture stands in judgement of all the other ways in which God communicates and either verifies or negates all others as genuine or spurious! Only Scripture is inerrant and infallible. Some have objected to Sola Scriptura and made the point that the church itself (or its leaders or magesterium) stand above the scripture. They would say that the church gave the scripture. My response to this is: that is nonsense! The church did not give us the scripture. God gave us the scripture (2 Timothy 3: 16-17). The church may have recognized what God had given, but the scripture stands in authority over the church and not vice-versa!)
So let's remove this stone from the field. The confession and lifestyle of Jesus Christ is Lord is the centerpiece of everything concerning the Church. He Himself is the absolute and only authority of the Church. His authority is communicated to us inerrantly in only 1 way: the Scriptures. A self discipline of Obedience Based Discipleship to the commands of the New Testament is the key to getting positioned for the flow of God's power into our lives that may result in CPM.....even in the West!
The basic concept that I am espousing here is that, church multiplication is natural and organic, and really should not be that complicated. I am suggesting that the church is a living thing (alive with the Spirit of God) and as such should naturally grow and multiply. The book of Acts tells of a growing, spreading, and multiplying church that moved from Jerusalem to Rome in about 30 years, and which literally shook the Roman Empire. In the midst of 10 persecutions, and without cars, trains, planes, phones, TV, or internet, the church experienced the greatest church planting movement in history and in less than 300 years had about 20 million believers!
Taking the parable of the sower seriously leads me to think that this was an example of the seed of the Word being sown into good soil that brought a 30, 60, and 100 fold harvest. The same thing is happening around the world where church planting movements are happening.
Often the question arises, can this kind of thing happen in the United States and Europe? Will CPM work in Western culture? Without downplaying the importance of culture (certainly CPM manifests differently in different cultures) I would suggest that the question itself illustrates part of the problem. I might suggest that the problem does not lie primarily in sinful western culture, but in the culture of the traditional church in the west. In other words, our problem is not the lost sinners and their culture (in fact that may be very fertile soil in which to plant the Gospel or as Neil Cole said, "Sinners make good soil, they already have a lot of fertilizer in their lives"). Our problem may be more the culture of the church in the West. A brief glance at the 21 critical elements of CPM (check out the blog on March 4) will illustrate that these do not describe the DNA of a typical western church.
So let's look at 3 obstacles to CPM in our Western context. If we can address these "stones in the field" the seed of the Word can do it's supernaturally natural organic work. In these 3 areas, I am going to use scripture from Matthew's Gospel to illustrate the issue.
STONE # 1: The Waning Authority of Jesus Christ in the Church.
A few years ago, during a period of renewal in my life, I became a devotee of some of the writings of A. W. Tozer. Tozer was a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor in Chicago and Toronto, and the author of many books (most of which were collections of editorials and articles that he had written). To anyone who is going through a spiritually dry period, I would really recommend the writings of Tozer. As he commented in one of his books, if his flame is not large it certainly was real and you can always get a spark of holy fire from his materials. One of Tozer's lesser known works, but one of my favorites is his small booklet called "The Waning Authority of Christ in the Churches: Is He Lord or Merely a Beloved Symbol?" I think the title says it all. Let me share a quote from this book (published most recently by Christian Publications of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, copyright 1995).
"Among the gospel churches, Christ is in fact little more than a beloved symbol. The Lordship of Jesus is not quite forgotten, but it has been mostly relegated to the hymnal where all responsibility toward it may be discharged in a glow of pleasant religious emotion."
With the exception of the reference to the hymnal, which is mostly a thing of the past, the words, written sometime before his death in 1963, are as true today as when Tozer penned them. He presses on in the book to apply this to church boards, mission boards and other seats of decision making in the visible church. His burden was to question how much of what we do, is in obedience to Jesus Christ. Do we merely tip the hat to him in an opening prayer and then go ahead and do what we think is best, or do we really engage with the Head of the church.
Let's look at the scripture that first mentions the word "Church" in the New Testament. Matthew 16: 13- 19
"Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets". He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
There is much more in this passage than we will examine now, but let's focus on this fact: Jesus is the issue! He makes it all "about" Himself. The church exists where Jesus is exalted into His rightful place as Son of Man and Son of God. The confession of Jesus as Christ is the foundation of the church. And in this context he calls it "my church" and says "I will build" concerning His church.
So here it is plainly: In the first mention of church in the New Testament, Jesus lets us know that:
1. He is the Center and the Foundation of the church
2. He is the Owner of the Church. It is His church.
3. He is the Founder and the Builder of His church.
My take home principle from this for CPM is that CPM is Christ Centered and Christ Controlled. Church growth and multiplication are works of Jesus Christ. He does work through His people and our obedience is important, but it is Christ Himself who does the work. And furthermore, it is Jesus Christ who remains the absolute authority in the church (whether this is recognized or not). He is the Lord of the church, and when the church does not operate in this way, it is hampered by the "stone" of the "waning authority of Christ in the church" and the seed cannot truly multiply.
But let me go on and be a bit more helpful here. It would be very legitimate to ask at this point what does that mean in practical terms. How does the church (or an individual believer for that matter) put Jesus in His proper place of authority?
My answer is the restoration of the authority of Scripture in our lives and churches. Jesus Christ is Lord, and our Lord's instructions are infallibly and inerrantly contained in the Scriptures. I believe a return to a proper understanding of the Reformation doctrine of Sola Scripture would be in order here. To be specific, to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord means to obey the instructions contained in the New Testament, both from Jesus Himself (the words in Red) and the Apostles who spoke with His authority (the Epistles).
(By Sola Scriptura, I do not mean that God only speaks in scripture. God speaks to His people in many ways, including the natural creation, circumstances, the voice of the Holy Spirit to each believer, the gifts of the Spirit, even supernatural ways such as dreams and visions. By Sola Scriptura, I DO MEAN that Scripture is the only absolutely authoritative way that God speaks, and that Scripture stands in judgement of all the other ways in which God communicates and either verifies or negates all others as genuine or spurious! Only Scripture is inerrant and infallible. Some have objected to Sola Scriptura and made the point that the church itself (or its leaders or magesterium) stand above the scripture. They would say that the church gave the scripture. My response to this is: that is nonsense! The church did not give us the scripture. God gave us the scripture (2 Timothy 3: 16-17). The church may have recognized what God had given, but the scripture stands in authority over the church and not vice-versa!)
So let's remove this stone from the field. The confession and lifestyle of Jesus Christ is Lord is the centerpiece of everything concerning the Church. He Himself is the absolute and only authority of the Church. His authority is communicated to us inerrantly in only 1 way: the Scriptures. A self discipline of Obedience Based Discipleship to the commands of the New Testament is the key to getting positioned for the flow of God's power into our lives that may result in CPM.....even in the West!
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