It's a TRAP!!!

I remember sitting in a meeting with a group church leaders staring at the budget. There was growing concern that we would not make budget that year. We decided to tighten our belts, limit our spending, and begin to let the church know that we needed money.

That night as I listened to and prayed for the men around that table it struck me that maybe there was a different way. As I looked at the budget nearly half of it was going to cover the expense of the building or items related to it. In other words, "overhead". This experience left a mark on me and has never really left me.

My family and a group of our friends have decided to go on mission together in Ypsilanti, MI and beyond. We dream of a movement of Jesus followers that are growing in the character and competency of Jesus through faithful discipleship. Our hope is to see a network of missional movements launched all over the world, beginning in Ypsilanti. 

From the beginning we realized that for this to happen we needed to be different. For us to be able to launch movements quickly we needed to be very focused on sustainability and replication. We couldn't do things the way that we did things in the 90s and early 00s. We had to change the game. The overhead had to go. Overhead just isn't sustainable. 

After that intense meeting with church leaders about the budget I remember dreaming about what it would like to have all that money that was being spent on a building freed up for other purposes. How many people could be hired and sent to various areas around the city to launch fresh works? Or, how much money could be invested in the local non-profit organizations or schools? The list could go on and on. 

When we launched the Antioch Movement in Ypsilanti we had sustainability as a value from the beginning. As a result our budgets have been created based on vision and mission. We are intentionally avoiding the "building trap". To have a building sounds great. But it's a trap. It becomes the motivator for activity as opposed to flexibly pursuing the mission. 

Buildings and the like are not bad things. Some day we want to have a building in Ypsilanti that is self-sustaining. 

Let's be clear, I am using the building as one example. We could include staging, lights, and effects. Sustainability can take a hit when you focus on the Sunday gathering as your primary avenue of mission. 

There was a great story that a friend shared about some big time pastors who brought a Chinese pastor to the States. They wanted to learn from him how he was able to grow his church at such an alarming rate. They toured him around to all their churches and showed off their sanctuaries and fog machines and stuff. The pastor was very impressed. Finally, they sat down over dinner and they asked him how he was able to attain such growth. He responded, "We give them Jesus." "What else?" they replied. "We just give them Jesus." "But what about the buildings, the fog machines, the lights?" "We just give them Jesus."

The story may or may not be exactly true, but I don't doubt the interaction happened. But, the point is clear. Many churches in the midst of their "stuff" miss their Jesus. In the name of "winning the lost" we forget to give them Jesus. We think by entertainment we can score a few souls. We come up with creative and new ways to get folks in the door. We talk use marketing strategies and learn about how to be more "sticky". In the church planting world we talk about "launching large" and all kinds of other stuff. 

Yet, in the midst of the noise we often miss Jesus. 

I love what Mike Breen said, "If you make disciples, you always get the church. But if you make a church, you rarely get disciples." 

This is the heart of the matter for sustainability and replication. As we move forward the church needs to get focused on building disciples. If we can do that, then the rest takes care of itself.