Third Article Church Planting

PDF file of "Third Article Church Planting"

Even a casual survey of the discussions and writings relating to contemporary church planting will quickly reveal that most church planting experts are convinced that the success of any given church plant is directly dependent upon either the abilities of the church planter or the effectiveness of the church planting method.  Most of the church planting tools, resources, models, books, conferences, etc. available to church planters today has been structured around one of these emphases or the other – with a few innovative approaches that seek to combine them in some fashion.  For the most part, anyone entering into the church planting arena today is going to be pulled in one direction or the other.  Practically speaking, they will find themselves having to decide to focus on either the church planter or the church planting method as the primary emphasis in their church planting endeavor.

Focus on the Church Planter

Those who support and promote the church planter as the essential ingredient in successful church planting have developed resources for evaluating and assessing potential church planters to hone in on those with the most promising attributes (and weeding out those who lack the requisite qualities) as well as programs to coach, guide, and otherwise develop nascent church planters into successful church multipliers.  This perspective of what it takes to successfully plant churches was expressed some years ago in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s leadership’s declaration that effective church planting was primarily dependent upon having the right person as the church planter.

Focus on the Church Planting Method

Meanwhile, those who support and promote the church planting method as the chief determinant of successfully establishing sustainable congregations have invested themselves in defining and refining methodologies of church planting that promise success to all but the most incompetent of church planters.  Of course, there is a great deal of disagreement as to which methods are most preferable and most effective.  Still, those who trust in methodologies find common cause in documenting, disseminating, and promoting their models for effective church planting – a perspective of church planting captured well in the title of Aubrey Malphur’s latest book on the subject, “The Nuts and Bolts of Church Planting: A Guide for Starting Any Kind of Church.”

First Article Church Planting

One could imagine that if these two camps within the church planting community were to combine forces and find a way to marry the right church planter with the right church planting process that success in church planting would be a foregone conclusion.  Yet the inherent deficiency in each of these approaches to church planting is only exasperated when they are combined.  That deficiency is the focus that these church planting approaches place on that which belongs to the First Article: the abilities and resources that God has given and made available to us that, as part of His creation, are also given and available to nonbelievers.  In other words, much of what is driving church planting in America today is based in psychology, anthropology, sociology, and other sciences rather than in theology.  Put another way, we are practicing First Article church planting not Third Article church planting.

Third Article Church Planting

In the Small Catechism, Martin Luther explains what we confess in the Third Article as “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”  As Lutherans, we understand that this Article excludes any human role, effort, decision, etc. in our salvation.  We rightly give glory to God the Holy Spirit for bringing us the gift of faith as just that: a gift.  We reject the use of the First Article resources of psychology, anthropology, sociology, etc. as effective means of creating faith in individuals.  Why then do we resort to these resources as the effective means for establishing, growing, and revitalizing churches?  Reading on in Luther’s explanation of the Third Article we find the same four actions of the Holy Spirit used to describe His sanctifying work in individuals used to describe His work in building the church, with one added action: gathers.  Clearly, we confess that it is the Holy Spirit who plants, grows, and revitalizes churches through His work of gathering.  But how does the Holy Spirit go about gathering His Church?

As Lutheran church planters we should confess in word and action that the Holy Spirit gathers His Church in the same manner in which He does all His sanctifying work.  Negatively, we say that this work is done “not by our reason or strength.”  This means that while we may make use of First Article resources for guidance, we cannot rely on them for church planting no matter how enticing, promising, or “successful” they may appear to be.  The guidance that they may provide must work in concert with and depend upon that which is above and apart from our reason and strength.  The First Article resources of which we do make use in church planting should facilitate that which the Holy Spirit has promised to use for creating and sustaining faith, namely His Means of Grace.

Third Article church planting is wholly dependent upon Word and Sacrament ministry.  According, it makes use of First Article resources only insofar as they enable and promote Word and Sacrament ministry.  Those who practice Third Article church planting expect the Holy Spirit to work when and where He wills.  They reject the idea that either the right person or the right method can produce desired church planting results.  They embrace the Holy Spirit’s work within the expectations that we develop through our First Article gifts and, especially, His work that defies those expectations as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the churches that we plant as He desires using the people and methods that He determines – all to His glory according to His plan and purpose.

SDG

@RevMAWood

Post-Church or Post-Churched?

There's no question that there has been a fundamental shift in the worldview of Western culture.  We are no longer a modern society, but what we have become is difficult to define.  The best handle that we've been able to attach to it is "postmodern",  a title that will undoubtedly change once we arrive at a destination and can stop describing what we are not.  As part of this cultural shift, the church has experienced a change in its role in our society.  In modernity, the church maintained an influential role in our culture.  But now, like society, the church is in the midst of an identity crisis. 

Attempts to describe the current situation of the church with a term or a title has proven to be as difficult as nailing down the new paradigms of our society.  Just as the culture's worldview is being described in terms of being "post" what it most recently was, the situation of the church is frequently discussed as being "post."  That might work well for the church, but only if we understand what it is that we are "post" of.

The most prevalent view of the current situation of the church in America is captured by referring to our culture as "post-church."  Unfortunately, that term is defined as widely as it is used.  For some it means that the church has lost its place of influence in our culture.  For others it means that the institutional church, especially the mainline denominations, are as good as gone even though they will continue to exist for some time.  Taken to its logical end, some use the term to describe the church as being in its death throes as it approaches an inevitable extinction.   Trends, statistics, surveys, etc. are frequently cited to support and promote one or another of these definitions of post-church.  Whichever of these definitions we end up settling on, we should be asking ourselves why we're planting churches if we truly are a post-church culture.

Thankfully, post-church does not accurately describe the current religious landscape of America.  With thousands of churches in communities throughout our nation, we obviously are not post-church as a culture.  Yes, there has been serious decline in membership, in attendance,  in financial support, and in the church's influence in American society, but these losses do not equate to being post-church.  Instead they reflect the reality that we as a culture are post-churched.

Understanding the difference between being a post-church culture or a post-churched culture is critically important to church planting.  If we truly are a post-church culture, planting churches would be a pointless waste of resources.  What purpose would more churches serve in a culture that has no use for churches?  It would make as much sense as producing 8-track tape players in our digital age.  No matter how many features you added to the player, how well you marketed the benefits of 8-track over MP3, or disparaged the social and economic consequences of digital media, the culture has moved on and will not ever return to the 8-track platform.  We are truly a post-8-track culture.  So, if we are genuinely a post-church culture, planting churches, even vastly "improved" and wonderfully marketed churches, is pointless.  And, logically, those arguing for planting of "culturally relevant" churches are to be pitied most of all in a post-church culture. 

Fortunately, we are not a post-church culture, but a post-churched culture.  This term captures the reality that a majority of Americans are not churched.  Some of the non-churched were once churched, but have left the church for one reason or another.  Others, an increasing majority, have never been churched.  Once we see that the loss of the church's influence in our society is not a direct result of our culture's worldview shifting from modernism but is a function of the decreased participation in the church by a steadily increasing majority of Americans -- that we are a post-churched, not a post-church, culture -- we can go about the task of planting churches that effectively engage the non-churched through Word and Sacrament ministry which transcends all cultures and cultural shifts.