Reaching the Unchurched

May 14, 2010

Series: Church Planting

Categories: Church Planting

The Gospel and the Philippians

It's impossible to read Philippians without seeing the priority of the gospel. It dominates Paul's thinking, and his advice and direction to the church. Consider 1v.5 for example.

"I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now."

What is the nature of their participation? At the very least it refers to their faith, i.e. their acceptance of the gospel, and their appropriation of gospel truth. But it almost certainly means more. It must include their financial support of Paul, which is the presenting issue of the letter. In part, he's writing to thank them for their generous contribution to his needs.

But even that fails to do justice to the force of Paul's language. It's better to take it in the sense of "your co-operation in promoting the gospel. That does justice to the word koinonia. It also recognises the term euaggellion as a noun of agency which describes the act of proclamation, or the actual work of evangelism.

This gospel focus is maintained throughout the first chapter, cf. 1vv.7, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. But then look at v. 27.

"Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that I may hear you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind contending as one for the faith of the gospel."

The phrase "Contending" or "striving together" translates the word sunaqlew which occurs only one other time in the NT, and that is significantly at 4v.3, where Euodia and Syntyche are described as having "contended at (Paul's) side in the gospel".

What Paul is basically saying is the Philippians are to stand united in their struggle for the cause of the gospel in terms of its spread and growth. In fact, their struggle was Paul's struggle. Paul's task was their task!

This background, as replete as it is with the gospel, leads us into, and shapes our understanding of the material which follows. So, for example:

  • What is the "one purpose" in v.2?
    The gospel.

  • Why mention Timothy and Epaphroditus?
    Examples of gospel commitment, cf. vv.22, 30.

Why mention this?

Because in Philippians, Paul is writing to a local church, and both implicitly and explicitly he commends them for, and commands them to, a gospel focus. As he does in Eph.6 and the passage on spiritual warfare which Peter O'Brien refreshingly describes as the Pauline Great Commission! In other words, pro-active gospel ministry is the privilege and responsibility of the local church.

The Gospel and Us

But there is a further step to be taken. Even if we have established that, our task in this seminar is to address the issue of "reaching the unchurched".

And that is a specific task. However, it does arise out of a conviction that local churches have a continuing responsibility for:

  • the gospel

  • those ignorant of the gospel, both in terms of its truth and its power

But who should we be targeting? Clearly everyone without God is also without hope, and God is no respecter of persons. The city solicitor is as needy as the country doctor, who is just as vulnerable in eternal terms as the homeless wino under the railway bridge. So maybe it's a matter of definition. What do we mean by the term 'unchurched'? I'm not sure there's a definitive explanation as the etymology is rather uncertain and dubious! But what I mean by the term are those people who have rejected the idea of traditional church. Those people for whom established Christianity (in the temporal rather than the political sense) is an irrelevancy and a ridiculous anachronism. It's not even tangential to their thinking, because it doesn't even appear in the frame. It is so remote from their 'circle of life' that it might as well not exist. Cf. Biker Bob and his ballet lessons.

I speaking of those who's 'needs' are satisfied by:

  • feng sui

  • paint-balling

  • pot smoking

  • mountain climbing

  • house renovating

  • crack dealing

  • gym visiting

  • football playing

  • beer drinking

  • head crunching

  • motor bike riding

  • sex!

How might we reach these kind of people. And the marginalised and the despised, the drop outs and the rejects. Those on the fringes of society and even on the scrap heap of life.

These are not a minority. In the terms of my definition, the 'unchurched' account for a growing majority. I reckon it's at least an 80/20 split, and probably 90/10. We have to have the courage to admit that we're not proving particularly competent in this task of reaching such people. Our churches, by and large, are half-filled with people like us. People with some kind of Christian heritage, and for whom 'Church' still has some part to play, at least in the so-called rites of passage, or evokes some kind of residual respect. Even with our success stories, it seems that we're becoming increasingly skilled at reaching an ever decreasing circle of people. If the statistics are to be believed, all we're doing is taking a larger slice of a shrinking pie.

Take Sheffield as an example. It has a number of thriving churches, and I often hear comments about how it seems to be a 'happening place'! Yet in a city of some 600,000 people, no more than 6,000 attend an evangelical (in the broadest sense of the term) church. Which is just 1% of the population! Just to make sure we realise what that means, let's turn the figures around. 99% don't attend an 'evangelical' church. If we assume optimistically (unrealistically!) that each of the 6000 attendees have gospel contact with 10 people, that still leaves 540,000 (90%) who are not being touched by the gospel. A significant mission field by any definition.

Surely we need to ask some radical questions. Not about the gospel, but about the clothes we dress it in, and how we present it to the world. Radical questions about the nature of church. We need to 'do' church in such a way as it:

  • enables people to hear the gospel

  • authenticates the gospel

This is essentially what we're trying to do in The Crowded House initiative. An initiative to plant a network of household churches. Specifically aimed at reaching those who have already rejected traditional church. Our modus operandi is encapsulated in the phrase: Mission through Community and Community in Mission. It is not an ecclesiastical experiment. It is a gospel initiative.

Let me tell you about what we're trying to do, and how we're trying to do it. I'll then conclude this first section with some implications for more established/traditional churches, before allowing plenty of time for questions and discussion.

The Crowded House

The first thing to say is that I'm not here to present a unqualified success story. Neither am I remotely suggesting that this is the next big thing to hit the church. This is not a Willow Creek. But it is a radical gospel initiative. It is a biblically faithful and culturally relevant model that takes both the issue of church and the imperative of the gospel seriously. We have seen conversions, but our primary success has been the number of 'unchurched' we are in contact with. For example, from a core group of 18, we had what I call 'extended relationships' with over 80 people, many of whom were 'unchurched'. Ironically, if there has been a failure it's been in our unwillingness or reluctance to jeopardise those relationships for the sake of the gospel. Maybe that's because none of those involved in the process have been, what you might call, gifted and natural evangelists?

But I think there's another reason: friendship evangelism! In fact, if I had my way, I would abandon the concept altogether. Of course I'm into friendship, but I'm into that regardless of whether or not someone responds to the gospel. And I'm certainly into evangelism. But what so often happens in friendship evangelism is that we build bridges with non-Christians, but then miss or ignore the opportunity to bring them across to God's side! We often become so intent on building the relationship that we decide not to get too heavy by talking about Christianity too early. We then begin to enjoy the relationship and value it so much so that we don't want to jeopardise it by talking about Jesus at all. Before we know it, we've left it so long we decide it's far too awkward and unnatural to introduce it at such a late stage!

Consequently, I have learned that:

  • We have to be intentional in our relationships

  • We have to maintain the conviction that men and women without Christ are
    truly lost, and that is a truly terrible thing

  • We have to be certain that it is only the Word of the Cross that is able to rescue and transform them

  • We have to be up-front in terms of who we are and what we believe.

The distinctive of The Crowded House is the way it sees church and mission as being two sides of the same coin, and seeks to work that out consistently.

Church without Trappings

Working with a minimalist definition of church has a number of advantages. We do it for two reasons:

  • 1. We're in a missionary situation;

  • 2. It's biblical!

Cf. the kitchen table. See Matt.18v.20; Acts 2vv42. Ritual; vestments; formality; AV language; traditional hymn sandwich; contemporary buffet meal. Within an evangelical context such as this, no matter how ‘high' our view of church, or traditional our preferences, it would be difficult to argue the case for any of these on the basis of the New Covenant. So often, the non-essentials, what I'm calling the trappings of church, are often significant barriers to the ‘unchurched'. These trappings are those things that invariably ‘trap' us in a distinctive sub-culture, and not only make it difficult for people to break-in, but more significantly, make it so unappealing that few people actually want to. It's not part of their world. It doesn't have significance in their world-view. It doesn't answer any of their questions. It doesn't meet any of their needs. Consequently, when we meet together as church we do so as ‘ordinary' people whose distinctive is that we're followers of Jesus.

Therefore we:

  • talk about him

  • talk to him

  • listen to him

  • commend him to each other

  • encourage one another to follow him

Church without Programmes

You might want to dismiss this as primitivism, or even dismiss me as a closet restorationist, but I don't get the impression that churches like the one in Philippi would have had an extensive programme of activities that they printed in a weekly bulletin or put up on the notice board outside the home of Epidermis!

Weekly prayer meetings don't play a big part in what we do, neither do discipleship groups. For the simple reason that prayer and mutual discipleship are not programmes we put on, but should be an integral and ‘normal' part of our relationships. By not having a full programme, it releases people, including the leaders, to concentrate on:

  • getting involved in the lives of non-Christians

  • getting alongside the unchurched, and building relationships with them

  • introducing them to other Christians

  • creating and utilising opportunities

Unfortunately, many of the activities or programmes of churches are a distraction from the central task of making Jesus known. They absorb and pre-occupy us, and we become so embroiled in church activity that we're experts in religious duty. Which means that a conference like this becomes an opportunity to:

  • lament how busy we are

  • realise how out of touch with non-Christians we are

It's incredibly liberating to be able to look at your diary, and to see how relatively uncluttered it is, and therefore how much time there is available for getting on with the real business. It re-introduces us to spontaneity! The ability to do things on the spur of the moment for the sake of the gospel.

Church without Hang-Ups

Difficult to think of another way to put this. If we're serious about trying to reach the ‘unchurched' then we have to become a lot less cautious and fearful. Integral to the whole concept of reaching the ‘unchurched' is the initiative of reaching them. That lies with us. Which means the need to go where they are. And that often means into pubs. Some of our most effective work was done by regularly, week-by-week going into a local pub and making it our local. Sitting down with local people. Playing pool, dominoes, darts, even occasionally bingo calling. Building relationships and looking for
opportunities to talk about Jesus. Plenty of those, but also led to a couple of carol services in the pub, whilst it was open for normal business and everyone else was in there. The only concession was that they turned the jukebox off. As a result, dozens of people heard the gospel for the first time.

Church without Resources

Because we're planting household churches in a way we think is biblically faithful, theologically informed and culturally relevant, it means that we can operate with limited resources. Both in terms of people and finance. So we can be flexible and responsive. There is no major capital outlay, and a handful of people can get on with the task of being church and making Jesus known.

We have a young couple coming to work with us in September. They want to reach single teenage mums, and as we live next to a ward that is amongst the poorest 1% in the country, finding them is not going to be difficult. They'll need to work out how they're going to do that once they get into the area, but what happens when they start building relationships with them, and seeing them respond to the gospel? We plant a church there! We ‘send' this couple, and probably a couple more ‘mature Christians' and tell them to get on with being church and making Jesus known. You don't need a lot of rigmarole, red tape, or even strategy and careful planning. You just need to ask yourself what is the best way to get the gospel out to these people, and this kind of church planting will be the answer.

Church without props

I'm the first to admit that there's something very vulnerable about the way we do church. Because our structures are so minimal, we depend entirely upon relationships. That can be a weakness, but it can also be a strength. Consider Philippians again, and ch.2vv.14-16 in particular:

 "Do all things without grumbling or complaining that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding out the word of life"

The OT imagery lying behind this is unmistakeable, cf. Deut. 32 and the Song
of Moses. In Paul's thinking ‘church' had replaced Israel as that ideal society, living her ‘life under God' before an unbelieving world. And Israel as a nation had become submerged by the God-denying world around them. By her life together, the New Covenant People of God were to shine as lights, and in that they would ‘hold out the word of life'.

Structures are sometimes essential, often helpful and occasionally they function as props to give us a false sense of security, creating a false impression. Relationships are crucial to church, and church is vital to the whole process of evangelism. It's by our relationships that we model the gospel, and authenticate its claims. It's what Newbiggin meant when he spoke of the congregation as the ‘hermeneutic of the gospel'. Which is essentially what Jesus was describing in John 13v.35 and 17v.23.

Reaching the ‘unchurched' is not going to be done by the occasional foray into enemy territory. An S.A.S. style ‘incursion and kidnap' operation. Neither will it be done significantly by a covert specialists operating deep behind enemy lines. Or even evangelistic Rambo's, taking on the world on their own. It requires a group of people committed to one another and the gospel living out a godly life before a watching world, and in that corporate life, holding out the word of life, like a Galaxy bar to a chocoholic.

Implications

Despite appearances and reputation, I'm not entirely stupid! I know the vast majority of you are in very different circumstances, and I'm not actually asking you to drastically or dramatically change the way you do church. That would be unreasonable and, for many people, unhelpful. It would be so time consuming and problematical as to be self-defeating. And quite simply, it isn't necessary. There are people who will continue to be reached by traditional forms of church, and by established methods of evangelism, such as Alpha, DC, Seeker Friendly etc. In fact, there are people who will be reached by those methods who will not be reached by initiatives such as ours.

But the onus is upon us to reach the ‘unchurched', and to do that we need to think radically, expansively and sacrificially. In other words, if you came:

  • expecting some hints on sermon construction or content

  • a bit of advice on religious jargon

  • some ideas for events to reach the unchurched

You're going to leave very disappointed. And for that, I make no apologies! We're not talking about:

  • tinkering with the format

  • changing the detail

  • fluffing-up the duvet

  • turning-over the soil in the flower border

If we're going to have any chance at all in reaching the ‘unchurched' then we have to abandon our inherited models, and re-think our favourite strategies Allow me to provide a few pointers to the direction our thinking should take.

Lateral

Whatever systems you currently have in place, you do need to think laterally, and embark on initiatives that can run parallel to your existing structures and activities. Maintain them by all means. Employ, ordain or appoint (whatever you do in your tradition) someone to maintain them. If maintaining them helps provide you with an income and a platform then thank God for them.

People

Work with the resources you've got in terms of people. They are your primary evangelistic tool. Train them. Recognise leaders amongst them. Release them to start new projects. Identify some of your discontents, and give their head. They may be pains in the neck or wherever, but that could be because they see more clearly than you that your current structures are less than helpful. See them as a gift from God, and use them. If they continue to complain, whinge and be an all-round pain, at least you'll know that there is no substance to their gripes! If you've only got six people, work with the six!

Do not be beguiled by middle-class professionalism. This is wartime, and we want people with backbone, drive and passion to get on with the work, and to make mistakes. It is always true that if you haven't made mistakes you haven't tried hard enough.

Ditch ‘Church'

If you plant household churches, or start a meeting in a pub, or wherever is most appropriate, don't call them church plants, and then you don't even have to worry about diocesan politics. In fact, it could be argued that:

  • the term ‘church' is itself an unnecessary hurdle to the ‘unchurched'

  • for many Christians it carries with it so much baggage that its non-use would be a distinct advantage

Just refer to them as evangelistic initiatives. Everyone likes those, and that's what church planting is when all's said and done!

Learn to Map Read

Identify new areas that are significantly under-churched because they'll probably be areas where many of the people are unchurched. Find out something of the history, the composition, and then talk to people who've got some experience in working in those kinds of areas.

Research

Find out details about different sub groups in your community, e.g. prostitutes, young people, unemployed, ethnic minorities. Visit the community centres. Get a feel for what's happening. Go into the local pubs. Don't go in with a tract just to make you feel better and somehow justify your presence. Explore the dynamics, get to know the people, find out who they are, where they're coming from, their likes and dislikes, grumbles and passion. Unearth the questions that they're asking, before you start providing answers. Perhaps a more appropriate poster, given where many people are in our society, and given the biblical material is ‘Jesus is the question'?

Pray and Preach

Gather the information, and pray about it. Preach through Philippians, and persuade the people of the necessity and responsibility of reaching the ‘unchurched'. Pray for people with the ability and heart to undertake new initiatives. In other words, pray to the Lord of the harvest that he would send out labourers into the fields!

Conclusion

Because we are evangelicals, reaching the ‘unchurched' isn't an option. Because:

  • our own survival depends on it

  • the gospel imperative and biblical mandate require it

It's interesting that the writers of the Gospels have a unanimous view on this one. The people with whom Jesus was most associated in his ministry, and the people on whom he staked his reputation were the ‘unchurched' of 1st century Jewish society. Perhaps the world at large would be more willing to listen to our message if we actually did?

© The Crowded House, 2003