"A Different Kind of Church"

On our postcards that we print up from time to time, it says, "Pathway Community Church is a different kind of church. We offer a relaxed, friendly, authentic atmosphere where people can come and check out the message of Jesus for themselves. Come join us at Pathway Community Church!"

Pastor Brent pointed out to me that it seems every church wants to promote itself as "a different kind of church." After all, you never hear a church that says, "Hey! We're a church just like all the other ones. Come to the church that's no different."

And yet, I believe we are a different kind of church. What is it that makes us different? I think several things:

First, a relaxed atmosphere. This is a church where people really can come "as they are." I was talking with a new couple in our church recently, and the wife told me that as a kid she had always heard that it didn't matter what you wear to church. But that message was always undermined by the fact that you (of course!) couldn't wear jeans or shorts or play clothes. In other words, it didn't matter what you wore, as long as you dressed up in clothes you would never ordinarily wear otherwise. Clothing certainly isn't everything, but it is something. This is a church that really does let people be who they are--in how they dress, how they talk, what their needs are, and what's going on in their lives. We don't get embarrassed or ashamed of people and their problems or their needs.

Second, a friendly atmosphere. This is a church that goes out of its way to welcome people--all people, not just the regulars or the ones who are already "in." All churches are friendly to the people who are already part of the church, but many--while friendly to one another--are cold and aloof to outsiders. Literally every single person who has gone through the Journey Class 101 that I have taught (well over 30 people) has commented about the genuine friendliness of the people here being one of the main things that attracted them and caused them to keep coming back. We value people, we remember their names, we go out of our way to recognize them and show them that they matter to us. We have a greeting time in the service every week--that's by design--because it impresses people when they are noticed and warmly welcomed. Some people are stunned to learn that a church might actually be glad they're there.

Third, an authentic atmosphere. We talk about real problems--the kind that real people have in their real lives--and what God has to say about them in his word. We talk about Real Faith and what that looks like lived out in Real Spirituality, Real Community, and Real Story.

The more I talk with people outside our church, the more I realize just how rare these qualities are. Almost everyone has had some experience with churches and/or church people, and the overwhelming majority of those experiences are extremely negative. Most churches in America today are unhelpful, unwelcoming, uptight, and inauthentic; they do not share "good news" in a way that it can be recognized as something good. It's not that people have refused to give the church a chance--it's that they tried it and found it to be a total waste of time.

We definitely do some things that are unusual here--our themed series, the fact that I preach in jeans, incorporating secular music and movies, and zany skits--but that's not what makes us a different church. All that stuff is just externals. The real difference is in our philosophy, our strategy, and the way we engage people as legitimate conversation partners who are worthy of being convinced of the truth instead of being lectured and threatened with the truth.

Pathway Community Church is a different kind of church. I hope you're taking the opportunity to share that with the people that God has placed in your life. That's not just a slogan--it's really true. We work hard to create an atmosphere where people can come and really experience God speaking to their hearts and lives--where people can come and check out the message of Jesus for themselves.

Annual Meeting & Celebration

We had our annual all-church meeting & celebration on Saturday night. The menu was great--soup, spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, and lots of desserts. The game time was fun (for example, I learned that Carissa Courtney has eaten three meats you can't buy at Meijer--venison, alligator(!) and bear I think). We also saw a slideshow that highlighted some of the great things that have happened in our church in 2007.

But the highlight of the night was being able to hear from Tom Blaylock, our denomination's Director of Church Multiplication, and Gordon Kettel, the founding pastor of Imagine This, a United Brethren church plant in Grand Ledge.

Tom relayed his own personal experience planting a church in Williamston, as well as his desire to find pastors and churches that are interested in working to plant new congregations. Our vision is one that is extremely exciting to him. He said that so many churches get locked into seeing just their own issues that they fail to see the fields that are ready for harvest all around them (Matthew 9:36-38). He also talked about the LEAD Team concept and one of the LEAD Teams that is already up and functioning.

Gordon shared about his own experience being a part of two church plants. They both took a lot of work, and one involved traveling from west of Lansing (where he lives) to the Detroit area (where the church plant was) each week. However, after stepping back for a period of rest, he felt that God was calling him to plant a church in his own area, and eventually God led him to the Grand Ledge community. Gordon also shared some of the great successes they are seeing (including whole families coming to faith in Christ), some of their key minsitries, as well as some of their challenges. It was truly an inspirational and affirming evening.

After Gordon shared, Tom called me up extemporaneously to lay hands on me and pray for me and our church. That was an extremely moving time for me personally. It's always encouraging to be endorsed and supported by someone in a leadership position.

When the evening was concluded, Gordon shared with me that he saw a lot of positive interaction as he shared his story--good eye contact, heads nodding, smiles. He said that he sensed a real enthusiasm for the vision to plant churches. I believe he's right. I sense a greater unity and support now for our misison, vision, and values than I ever have since coming here three years ago. It really is good to hear of the kingdom of God advancing and taking shape, lives being transformed and eternities changed. That's what it's all about. That's why we want to accomplish our vision--to make an impact on the 100,000 people in Jackson County with no church family.

I believe that as we stay committed to the task, dedicated to the work to which God has called us, keep building relationships and reaching out with the love of Christ to the people God has placed in our lives, we will begin to see the same fruit. God blesses and empowers those who are committed to lives of obedience to him.

Each of the elders on the ballot received the necessary 2/3 vote to serve. John Fisher and Mike DeKarske will continue to serve, and now Phil Criner will be added to the elders team as well. In addition, the proposal regarding how to amend the church structure passed unanimously. Thank you to all who participated in this great evening of celebration and thanks.

My First LEAD Team Meeting

Tomorrow (Tuesday), I'm going to be going to my first LEAD Team meeting. It's not our LEAD team--that's not assembled yet--but it's a LEAD Team that supports Gordon Kettel's church in Grand Ledge, MI, Imagine This LLC. Gordon, incidentally, is going to be one of our special guests this Saturday at our Annual All-Church Meeting & Celebration.

This LEAD Team is headed by Howard Matthews, of Homefront UB Church in Grandville, MI, near Grand Rapids. Howard is also a member of our denomination's Church Multiplication Leadership Team.

I'm hoping that this opportunity will help me learn more about what happens at LEAD Team meetings and give me the chance to rub elbows with some other pastors in our denomination who are working to plant new churches. The meeting lasts from 1pm Tuesday to 1pm Wednesday. Olive Garden has graciously given me Tuesday off to be able to attend. I will, however, be leaving early on Wednesday to report back to work at the restaurant Wednesday lunch.

I'm grateful for the invitation to come and be a fly on their wall, and I'm praying that God will help me learn everything he wants me to learn to make the greatest impact for him that I can here in Jackson!

FYI: This is the 53rd entry for this blog. One full year now of weekly communicating with you about the mission, vision, and values of our church. Thanks to all of you who read faithfully and pray regarding the needs of our church as we journey toward health and obedience to God's plan for us.

Also... wasn't that just the best Super Bowl you've seen in a long, long time? What a game!

State Of The Church

Today I delivered the annual "State Of The Church Address." Here are some of the salient points:

• We are making concrete progress toward our vision to become actively involved in church planting to reach the 100,000 people in Jackson County with no church family. So far, at least three other churches are interested in pursuing the idea to partner with us in the accomplishment of this vision.
• The vision is a bold, daring move, in that (as far as I can tell) there are no other communities in America pursuing an inter-denominational LEAD Team strategy, which is what we are proposing. This is an "impossible" task from a human perspective. Therefore, God will get all the glory when he causes it to happen.
• Even as we move forward in the vision for church-planting to reach the 100,000 people around us with no church family, we recognize that we ourselves are not doing our part. We are not being faithful to our stated mission and our core value of Real Story, which is proved by our anemic growth (up 9 people per week in 2007 to an average worship attendance of 125).
• If we are to be a truly effective church, we must change this aspect of who we are--we must become committed to personal outreach in truth and in reality, not in words, ideas, and good intentions.

For a long time, I have been torn between two different goals in my preaching: promoting our church's vision, and advocating for our church's health. I want to promote the vision as a means of improving our health--calling us to see the spiritual needs of the 100,000 people in our community who need to know about Christ. On the other hand, I want us to become more healthy so that we can effectively accomplish the vision. Obviously, the two messages go hand-in-hand, and yet I've wondered which is the more effective message for accomplishing both objectives.

I think I've erred on the side of promoting the vision to the detriment of calling us to health, and the result has been to lure us into a complacency. After all, the vision is a long-term project, and not something that has very much direct impact on us right now. I've allowed the vision to become our substitute for personal outreach, so that in the back of our minds we say, "We don't have to reach our friends and neighbors because we'll plant a church someday to reach people."

But that type of thinking will not fly. For one thing, it's just plain disobedient. Christ has mandated his church to go into the world and tell his message. If we refuse to do it, we sin. Second, we'll never get out of our financial crisis; we will never grow to the point that there are enough people to spread out the financial burden of two pastors (we'll always be overstaffed). At some point, we'll have to make the decision that we won't have two pastors anymore, and I don't think anybody wants that. Third, if we give away people and leaders to plant churches but don't reach out to the world around us, we'll eventally run out of people and leaders. We need to grow in order to even just tread water.

It's easy for me to see how I've made this mistake. The vision is positive; our unhealthy patterns are negative (I hate focusing on the negative). The vision requires little from us right now; to become healthy requires a complete re-orientation and re-direction of our hearts, minds, and lives, and the sooner the better (it's easy to preach sacrifice down the road). Finally, I have more personal and direct control over the progress of the vision, but church health depends on all of us (as much as I try to trust God, I still like being in control far too much).

But the numbers reveal the truth: no tangible fruit to point to. We haven't really accomplished anything. And I don't know about you, but I can't stand to pretend to do something without really doing it. I'm not satisfied with plausible deniability--"well, we tried to reach out, it just didn't work." The Bible says that we are to be judged by our fruit, not our intentions. It's all about real results, not vague, nebulous notions of "progress." I'm sick of getting closer. I'm tired of another year of building, getting ready to turn the corner, almost ready to do something significant. Let's be done getting ready and get started already! Let's just do it!

Let's rise up and be the church that God calls us to be! Here are some concrete steps you can take:

• Ask God to show you five people in your life you have direct contact with on a regular or semi-regular basis who aren't currently connected to a church.
• Begin praying for those five people every day. Pray for every need you are aware that they have--spiritual, financial, emotional, relational, etc.
• Share those names with your small group and have them start praying with you.
• Pray that God would help you love them more than you currently do, that you would love them the way HE loves them.
• Pray for (and look for) opportunities to talk about spiritual things--God, the Bible, church.
• Invite them to un upcoming message series that might line up with their lives, their interests, or their needs.

Money, Money, Money

I don't know about how things are in your home, but in the Hardaway household we receive multiple and frequent requests from individuals and groups asking for money. The Veterans of Foreign Wars and Asbury Seminary represent this week's contenders for our cash.

Interestingly, the church is no different. Most weeks we get calls from someone looking for help with a gas bill, rent, or food. These needs are met through our Share 'n' Care ministry. But we periodically also get requests from other agencies, groups, minsitries, and individuals to support them financially on an ongoing basis.

In our home, we have decided to give money only to Christian groups and individuals that purposely, strategically, and intentionally advance God's kingdom. While there are many worthwhile causes, our finances are limited. Since we can't support everything, we want to put our money where it will do the most good in the light of eternity. So we choose not to support the firefighters, the FOP, the VFW, the Red Cross, or the United Way--regardless of all the wonderful things they might do. We direct a tithe (10% of our income) to the church and give above and beyond that to other entities advancing God's kingdom.

The elders and I have tried to apply a similar standard for our church in examining the various ministry partnership opportunities that come to us. As a church, from the money that comes in, we give away a tithe (10%) to support other ministries in our backyard and around the world. According to the Acts 1:8 formula, we have Judea/Samaria partners (those who work in other regions of the United States, or who reach those we would not likely have contact with) and ends-of-the-earth partners (who work outside of our national/linguistic group). We understand that "Jerusalem"--the area of Jackson that we have contact with--is our responsibility.

Unfortunately, we can't even afford to support all the Christian groups and individuals who seek partnership with us--our tithe simply doesn't cover it. Therefore, we have adopted a second set of criteria--examining our partnerships through the prism of our Key Three: Real Spirituality, Real Community, and Real Story--as well as directing our money to ministries that are bearing fruit.

I am pleased to tell you that we have added three new minsitry partners for 2008:

• Imagine This, LLC is a new United Brethren church in Grand Ledge, MI. It was started in January 2007. LLC stands for Life, Love, Community. According to their website, the name communicates "that our lives can be radically impacted beyond our present thinking through a growing relationship with God. If you can imagine it, God has already seen it." This is PCC's first step into actively supporting church planting.
• Dove Counseling provides Christian counseling to the residents of Jackson County. Many who seek counseling at Dove do not personally have a relationship with Christ, yet nevertheless recognize their spiritual needs and desire a Christian perspective. Dove takes a holistic approach to counseling, seeking to meet the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of their clients.
• Ron and Sally Carraway have attended our church for about a year. They work for New Tribes Missions here in Jackson, but have agreed to return to the mission field (they served for 12 years in Papua New Guinea) to oversee the various ministries of NTM in Cambodia. They are planning to head out this spring.

While we wish we could do more, we are still excited to be a part of these great ministries. For a complete list of our ministry partners, please visit our website. It is our desire to be faithful stewards (caretakers) of God's resources, so we work hard to put his money where it will do the most good in the light of eternity. Every time you give to Pathway Community Church, you support the kingdom of God in exciting ways all around the world. Thank you for giving.

Jackson Church Planting

Last week (as I told you I would), I began contacting area pastors to meet with them about the possibility of joining us on a LEAD Team, whose purpose would be to jointly plant churches in Jackson County. I was able to talk with several, and even met with one already--Andy Merritt from rivertree community church. This is the new Wesleyan church plant that is meeting in the Plaza Cinemas on Wisner St. (you may have read the article about them in the Jackson Cit-Pat). They haven't even launched yet (their official launch is Feb. 10), but Andy was very eager to meet and talk about the common goal we have to reach this community with the good news of Jesus.

We had a great conversation and agreed that we would consider and pray about whether God would have us join together in this project. Here are some of the key things I learned about Andy and rivertree that are relevant to our own church and our vision:

• Andy was formerly on staff at Trinity Wesleyan Church, and that church in examining the needs of the county was struck by the fact that there are 100,000 people in the County with no relationship with a local church. Does that sound familiar?
• In trying to figure out how to meet the spiritual needs of the community, they discovered that church planting is the most effective way to reach people for Christ. That was the theme of my 2/11/07 post on this very blog--one of the five reasons we identified for pursuing this vision.
• Andy's district superintendent is a big supporter and promoter of church planting. In fact, he had challenged all of the zones in the West Michigan district of the Wesleyan Church to plant a church in a three-year time frame. rivertree community church is a product of that challenge.

One of the things I was able to tell Andy is that the Wesleyan Church and the United Brethren in Christ have already teamed up before to plant a church in Michigan. Sunfield UB Church (Sunfield, MI) and Impact Weslyan Church (Lowell, MI) worked together to start a church in nearby Portland. The church launched on October 6, 2006. For more information, you can check out the UB website.

This week, on Monday I am meeting with Bob & Mary Wyatt from Hanover-Horton Christian Center. The Wyatts are heavily involved in the Jackson Emmaus community. Emmaus is an inter-denominational spiritual renewal movement with communities in every state and countries around the world. They also head up the Jackson County Intercessors, a group that has been strategically praying for the spiritual needs of Jackson County and for Jackson's churches for several years.

On Friday, I'll be meeting with Kevin Cherry, the senior pastor at Heart o' the Lakes UB Church in Brooklyn. HOLUBC was originally planted with families from our church (at that time our name was Gethsemane UB Church) who accepted a call to help reach the people in the Columbia Lake area, and Kevin is the nephew of our founding pastor Herb Cherry.

I sense that God is doing incredible things, and I think it is so exciting for us to have the chance to be a part of it. As far as I know, there are no other communities in which denominations are coming together to compose a LEAD Team for strategic church planting. Please pray for these upcoming meetings and for God's continued leading and blessing.

Church Multiplication

As I related to you last fall, my plan in 2008 is to begin meeting with area pastors to ask them to consider joining us to compose a LEAD team. This is a team of churches that would share responsibility and resources for multiplying churches in Jackson County. Due to the holidays and the short week, I've not been able to get started yet, but my intent is to start setting up appointments this week. The elders and I have developed a list of about 20 different churches that we want to contact. We're hoping that in the end at least 4-5 will respond positively with a commitment to join us.

You'll be hearing a lot about the vision in coming weeks. The State of the Church Address is at the end of January (1/27), followed by the all-church annual Meeting & Celebration (2/9 at 6:30pm). I'll also be writing in this space quite a bit as the vision progresses. I would covet your prayers during this crucial time of gathering partners. If you would like to join the Prayer Posse and receive my weekly prayer email, please send me an email, and I'll add you to my list!

After I've finished meeting with the pastors on my list, Tom Blaylock, the Director of Church Multiplication for the UB denomination, will come and lead an informational meeting for the area pastors who have expressed interest (this will probably take place in March). He'll explain what a LEAD team looks like, what it does, how it works, etc., and he'll answer any questions that the pastors have. He'll also invite them to come to the first LEAD team meeting to check it out. If they come back to the second one, then they're committing to be in it for the long haul. After two years, if a LEAD team does the work it's supposed to, the result should be a new local congregation in Jackson County.

In April, the denomination is paying to send me to a 4-day church multiplication conference in Orlando, Florida, called "Exponential." (If you're going to learn about God, it ought to be near a beach somewhere--that's my motto!) This conference is built around II Timothy 2:2: "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others." This is the inspired advice of the apostle Paul to his protege, Timothy--that is, God's word in the mouth of an experienced church planting coach to a young church planter. This verse contains the necessary DNA for reproducing churches:

• Apostolic Vision
• Radical Disciple-Making
• Genuine Community
• Missional Impulse
• The Gospel

Each of the main sessions will center on one of these five necessary components for healthy church multiplication. In addition, there are numerous break-out sessions, where we can each individually choose specific aspects of church planting to focus on and learn about, depending on what we feel would be most helpful for us.

This is a great honor for me, and for our church. But more than that, it is a continued affirmation of God's blessing and direction for us, as he equips, enables, and empowers those whom he calls. He will give us everything we need to do it! I am confident that there will be much for me to learn, and I hope to pass on as much to you as I can. I am grateful that the denomination is investing considerable resources to help us accomplish the vision that God has given us to reach the 100,000 people in Jackson County with no church family through church multiplication.