Contemporary Models of Church Planting

Pastor John’s initial success in Marin garnered him a teaching slot at the seminary, where he offered a course called Contemporary Models of Church Planting. I eagerly signed up for the class after John mentioned that it would be more “practical” than “academic,” which I translated as “an easy A.”

Once the class started, John began by carefully outlining the characteristics of Baby Boomers, a generation whose vast numbers and pot-addled minds apparently called for entirely new forms of church life. This generation was defined as all Americans born between 1946 and 1964. As it happened, Mimi was born in 1964, while I came along in 1965, the year “Generation X” (or “Slackers,” as many of us prefer to be called) arrived on the scene. This critical difference in our ages would, I quickly realized, allow me to drop statements like “You just don’t understand my generation” or “That’s just what I would expect from a Boomer” whenever Mimi and I had a disagreement.

But John also pointed out that not all Baby Boomers were alike, so each new congregation had to be carefully designed to fits its particular community. To discover the preferences of one’s target audience, John taught us to conduct brief surveys that could be used to assess the needs, likes, and dislikes of potential church members so that worship services could be designed accordingly. Our first class assignment was to design such a survey, use it to interview 5 unchurched people, and write a report on our findings. Keeping things simple, I focused on 2 key questions:

1. Why do you think most people in Marin don’t attend church?
2. If you were looking for a church to attend, what are some things you would look for?

The responses I got to this little questionnaire surprised me. Virtually all the respondents mentioned the wealth and fast-paced life of most Marinites as the key impediments to both church attendance and the development of a spiritual life. One interviewee named Darrel went so far as to describe American society in general as “greedy, status-oriented, sterile, and phony” and recommended starting a church with “a revolutionary attitude” that would spark a “cultural jihad.”

Based on these results, my best bet would have been to start a church which addressed such topics as Don’t Come to Us—You’re Already Way Too Busy! and Looking for Inner Peace? Lose That Bothersome Fortune! And there would have been plenty of biblical material to draw on, as everyone from Jesus to the crusty prophet Amos took a dim view of striving after riches. But even with my limited understanding of church planting methods, I knew that it was probably better to forego the “cultural jihad” and stick with a cookie-cutter approach.

Because, truth be known, there were very few differences between any of the seeker-sensitive churches that were springing up around the country. They all followed the same basic formula, and most of them were growing like gangbusters.

I Got Something You Need

Marin County is one of the most prosperous and beautiful parts of the U.S., if not the world. Most folks have plenty of disposal income and easy access to beaches, hiking trails, and redwood forests, so attending church on Sunday mornings is not a high priority. As a result, area churches like to steal a line from an old Van Halen song:

You may have all you want, baby,
But I got something you need.

According to the song title, David Lee Roth “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love,” and (I feel safe in saying) he ain’t talking about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ either. But at Mt. Tam Christian Community, we were.

The church was small and composed largely of seminary students, but there was a deep hunger to reach locals—convincing them that even with their BMWs and bay-front homes, we had something they needed. So it was big news when an actual Marin native wandered into the Mt. Tam’s cafeteria-turned-sanctuary on a Sunday morning. And shortly after I joined the church, an event of this nature occurred that sent electric waves of excitement through the congregation.

In keeping with our pastor’s directive to get out there and rub shoulders with non-believers, a seminarian named Mary signed up for a guitar class at the community college, where she met Alan. Alan had grown up in Marin and recently moved back home after finishing college. And like most Marinites, he possessed only the foggiest idea of what evangelical Christianity was all about. In short, Alan was the poster child for Mt. Tam’s outreach efforts, a perfect specimen of the type of godless individual we hoped to reach for Christ. So the faithful rejoiced when he accepted Mary’s invitation to church.

I was happy, too, but also a wee bit skeptical. Mary was quick to attribute Alan’s interest in Christianity to the inexorable work of God’s Spirit in the human soul, but I had a hunch that less mysterious forces were involved. The fact that Mary was a cute, guitar-playing blonde, I felt, may have played a significant role in Alan’s openness to church. Indeed, Mary could probably have lured young Alan to a basket-weaving convention—and needed no divine intervention to do it. So I figured that after 1 or 2 token visits, we would never see him again.

But I was wrong. Though it took several months and a boatload of prayers, Alan eventually became one of us. A bona fide believer. At his baptism, the excitement was palpable as Alan slipped beneath the waters of a backyard swimming pool. We were happy for him, of course, but we were probably a little happy for ourselves, too. Because if one smart, unbelieving Marinite had joined us, then others might follow.

Maybe, like Diamond Dave, we had something they needed after all.

Rating the Straw Men

So I just finished The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. (Disclaimer: I am not promoting this particular book, though I do promote reading books with a perspective that differs from your own.) At one point, Dawkins lays out a 7-point belief scale, with #1 representing strong theism (100% certainty that God exists) and #7 representing strong atheism (100% certainty that God does not exist). Dawkins' own "rating" is between 6 and 7, and his stated goal for this book is to move people toward that end of the spectrum.

This was frighteningly reminiscent of The Engel Scale I learned about in seminary, which rates an individual’s Christian faith (or lack thereof) on a scale from -12 to +4. The -12 value represented a posture toward God like that of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, while the highest rating was basically reserved for missionaries in Kazakhstan. The idea, I guess, was that even nudging someone to a -5 (Experience of Christian love) signified progress. Then Billy Graham or somebody else who knew what they were doing could take them the rest of the way.

But here's my problem with both of these scales. Once you set out to move people toward some predetermined position, the temptation becomes overpowering to present only the evidence that supports said position, while dismissing conflicting evidence (or creating "straw man" versions of that evidence). I'm sure Dawkins would say that he is honestly weighing all available evidence, and maybe he is—but some of the pictures he paints of religious belief have the whiff of straw about them.

Of course, Christians do the same thing. To cite a trivial example, I just heard a radio show presenting "scientific" evidence for a 6,000 year-old earth by discrediting radio-isotope dating. Talk about a straw man—this argument should audition for the Wizard of Oz. In the first place, scientists are well aware of the applicability and limitations of various forms of radio-isotope dating and would never use this technique in the way it was being presented. Secondly, I know of no scientists who are claiming that radio-isotope dating is the only (or the most compelling) evidence of the earth's ancient age.

Wait, did I just yank this poor schmoe’s comments out of context and erect a straw man of my own? Maybe so. But as far as I’m concerned, he’s welcome to remain at whatever Dawkins/Engel rating he currently inhabits. Just keep an open mind about it, is all I’m saying.

Baptist in Berkeley

One advantage of Golden Gate Seminary’s exotic location is that it gives Southern Baptist students hands-on experience with reaching a bizarre culture for Christ. Any lessons learned in Marin can then be applied to other alien locales like Papua New Guinea or France.

The school’s Evangelism 101 class sought to impart such practical knowledge by sending us out into the community to share our faith. Course requirements included write-ups of two "evangelistic encounters" in which we had to document our efforts to win lost Marinites to the Lord. A daunting task, to be sure, but the class provided plenty of preparation. We spent weeks analyzing the characteristics of rival belief systems such as atheism, Mormonism, and the New Age movement.

To be honest, this was my favorite part of the course. I enjoyed poking holes in other people’s beliefs and making snide comments like, "Why is no one channeling an ascended master named ‘Ted’?" But when the fun ended and we set off in search of evangelistic encounters, I found that hole-poking cuts both ways.

Somehow I hooked up with a group that was doing street evangelism in Berkeley, which is not exactly going after the low-hanging fruit, I realize. But folks in Berkeley did prove more than willing to talk about spiritual issues, even if their views were a little, well, "out there." Take Ronald, a middle-aged man who was sipping coffee at a sidewalk table. After I offered him a booklet with a 4-point outline of the New Testament, Ronald stated that he had already taken a class on the Bible in college. In his opinion, the gospels presented an entertaining but illogical account of Jesus’ life.

"Take the story of Jesus healing the man with a crippled hand," Ronald offered by way of example. "We are told that after seeing a withered limb become whole, the Pharisees immediately hatched an assassination plot. Does that seem like a reasonable response to an astounding miracle?"

Here I mumbled something about religious leaders protecting their own turf, but Ronald had plenty more ammo. It was tough to squeeze it all into one "evangelistic encounter" report, in fact.

I guess that’s the problem with poking holes. It’s only fun when you’re letting the air out of the other guy’s balloon.