United with Christ

United with Christ, (Romans 6:3-11) from Stacy Abernathy on Vimeo.

Who should send church planters?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about going. The best “going” scenario is “being sent.” Here’s a story of a man who was sent.

Sending starts with prayer. In Matthew 9: 35-38, we get the picture of Jesus looking out upon the people of this world in great need of hope and commands disciples to pray that the Lord send laborers out into that harvest. So now we disciples are praying that the Lord would throw laborers out there. Yes, “throw out.” The word Jesus used here is ek-ballō, which means to throw out. So the word here has the sense of sending with some amount of force to get the laborer out in the field. So who gets to be the victim of this prayer of the faithful disciples.

One such victim from our history is Saul, also known as Paul. You remember his story right? He aggressively persecuted Jesus' disciples, he got knocked down, blinded and confronted by the living Christ. There was indeed some force in that sending. Inasmuch as Paul had been victimizing the church, it's only fair that he became the victim of the faithful churhes' prayer?

Paul regularly referred to himself as an apostle. The word apostolos means “one who is sent.” However, it was actually several years before he was sent to the field.

In Acts 13:1-4, we find the story of Paul’s (and actually Barnabas’s too) entry into the field as we think of it. In verse 4 we read that the Holy Spirit sends him out. Here the word is ek-pempō, which, excepting the prefix, is a common word for sending. The prefix “ek” means “out.” So the Holy Spirit is the one who sends Paul out. We also find here that the Holy Spirit is not the only sending agent.

In verse 3 we find that the church also sent Paul. Antioch had become Paul’s home church. Paul had been teaching at Antioch for a whole year. You know how the church always loves to send their most gifted teachers right? Right! The word here for sending is different yet. It is apoluō. This word means to “let go” or “release.” It happens to be the same word used for a divorce. The church at Antioch released Paul with a blessing.

There’s one more type of sending that this victim of prayer seeks. For example, Paul wrote to the Roman church, a church that he had never visited, and asked them to send him (Romans 15:24). Paul explains that he plans to pass through their city as he seeks more places to do the work to which he was sent. This time Paul asks a church, not his home church and not a church that he had planted, to pro-pempō him. Pro-pempō means to “send supplied.”

All churches everywhere need to pro-pempō their victims of prayer.

Am I a Planter or a Launcher?

I grew up in rural Indiana. There in rural Indiana, against my druthers, I was a planter. We had a 60 acre farm and a 1/2 acre truck patch. Planting was a year-round project for me. Plow, disc harrow, plant, fertilize, herbicide, cultivate, hoe, walk the beans, pull the tomato worms, harvest the crop, glean the fields, shell the corn . . . you get the picture. Though planting requires caring attention, it also involves something that is completely beyond our control. In fact, you could put seeds in the ground and something happens whether or not you follow through for the best possible crop. It requires a miracle from God and his faithfulness to follow through with seasonal necessities that are only in his control.

To be honest, as a kid, I didn’t like planting. It took too much patience. If you’ve ever spent 10 hours at a time riding around in circles on an H-International tractor dragging a disc, you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

I grew up, went away to college and became a constructor. I became a launcher. It didn’t take nearly as much patience. On behalf of owners who needed buildings, I hired design professionals (i.e., architects and engineers), managed the design process, made a schedule, scoped the work, bid to contractors, contracted to winning bidders, and managed the construction. I pushed it all along the way. Patient I did not have to be; I just pushed harder.

Launches are engineering feats, whether in construction or otherwise. It takes careful engineering, a whole lot of resources, force and energy to pull off a launch. We might more readily think of a NASA shuttle project as a launch project. It requires a whole bunch of money, professionals and a huge payload of fuel to get it off the ground. In the beginning, it truly is a marvel to wonder at, but, in the end, it’s also a huge maintenance project.

Am I a planter or a launcher?

I suspect that what often occurs is a church plant and launched crowd. Planters move into their new communities and gather a tight group who are committed and buy into the vision and then together they engineer a crowd. From this crowd disciples are drawn, but at what maintenance cost? Is this any more effective than disciples making disciples?

Seth Godin writes, “People don't coalesce into active and committed tribes around the status quo.

The only vibrant tribes in our communities are the ones closer the edges, or those trying to make change. The center is large, but it's not connected.

If you're trying to build a tribe, a community or a movement, and you want it to be safe and beyond reproach at the same time, you will fail.

Heretical thoughts, delivered in a way that capture the attention of the minority--that's the path that works.”

Maybe Disciples making disciples in lieu of engineered crowds keeps everything at the progressive edge.

With What Kind of Body? (1 Corinthians 15:35-57)

What Kind of Body? (1 Corinthians 15:35-37) from Stacy Abernathy on Vimeo.

What kind of body will you have at your resurrection? Will you be wearing the clothes you were buried in? Will you be naked? Will you be a ghost-like spirit? Will you have a white robe, wings, harp and halo? Listen to this message to find out.

The Afterlife Door

The Afterlife Door, (Matthew 27:45-54) from Stacy Abernathy on Vimeo.

The Best Resurrection Sunday Yet

We did several normal things on this 2010 Resurrection Sunday. We had a sunrise service with prayer, two songs and a devotion as we stood in the graveyard, we ate a pitch-in breakfast, we had a worship service with participation from all age groups, my family shared lunch and the afternoon with my a family in our church who loves abundantly and readily, Tate and I even went to the driving range with a good friend who is helping us understand golf, but there was more today.

Today something happened that made me proud to be a part of this community of faith here at First Christian Church of Clemmons. Today 36 people went from our resurrection worship service to stand in a yard to sing resurrection songs to Becky and John Atwood and Sara Stewart. Becky has been very sick for a long time and unable to attend corporate worship services. So we stood in their yard and sang while they listened and participated from their porch. It's the kind of thing that really helps you experience what the church really is.