Ned Reflects on “Relevance” Conference
By the time you receive this I will be off to China and Thailand to connect with two of our missionary couples. I would sincerely appreciate your prayers toward these days. Before I go, I thought I’d pass on some reflections regarding a one-day conference I recently attended entitled, “Relevance.” It’s put on yearly by the largest of the mega-churches in the Twin Cities area-Eaglebrook, in the northern suburbs. It is presently hosting 13,000 folks on three different campuses. Incredible, right?
Here’s how I got to this conference. Upon my return from the April ARC Conference in Toledo, Sue picked me up at the airport and I invited her to Buca, a nice Italian restaurant on our way home. At the end of our meal, the waiters sang “Happy Birthday” to another table and Sue noticed that they were singing to Dick Peterson, the man that took over for me in my first shot as a pastor in 1975. Dick was there with his wife, Donna, and his son, Dale. Now Dale was one of about a half dozen kids in the first youth group I led in 1974, but now had become the lead administrator and liaison to other churches in the area from Eaglebrook. In fact, Dick is the pastor of seniors at Eaglebrook.
So Dale invited his former youth leader to attend the conference gratis with any companion I chose. I accepted and went out to Eaglebrook a few weeks later with no desire to be at ANY conference but with a mild curiosity about the mega-church dynamic. Bill Hybels was going to be there for a few sessions and I like his stuff.
Some other time I’ll share my reflections on the mega-church experience (more positive and helpful than I anticipated) but for now I’ll synopsize the three talks I heard from the Eaglebrook staff:
1) Bob Merritt, sr. pastor, on “Why Relevance Is Important” – 4 truths from Luke 9:57-62
a) Catching fish is our mission.
i) We can so often be consumed by pastoral functions that we neglect this mission centrality.
b) Catching fish is urgent.
i) If your church hasn’t caught many fish lately, what can you do to raise the urgency factor?
c) Catching fish is personal.
i) The leader must have a heart to catch fish.
d) Catching fish involves sacrifice.
i) We have to give up the things that hinder the catching.
2) Jason Stroud, teaching pastor on “Green is Growing; Ripe is Rotting”. Relevance means knowing the world you’ve been sent to so that you can effectively engage it on the mission of God
a) Face reality
i) “Facts are our friends.” – Henry Cloud
ii) What needs to improve either personally of corporately
iii) Great leaders must be great listeners.
iv) Can you name four people who can help you face reality?
b) Be careful with your language
i) Is it engaging or are you speaking over people’s heads?
ii) We need to do theology in common language (a la Jesus vis-à-vis the Scribes).
c) Connect with the human condition.
i) Engaging people’s hearts and minds
ii) #1 responsibility – pose a problem or raise tension that connects with the human condition
iii) Keep asking questions.
iv) Put yourself in the shoes of a skeptic.
v) Use story.
vi) Preach for application – what are people struggling with?
The temptation is to stop taking faith-filled risks. The goal is not to get to the end of your life and have God say, “You lived the safest life possible.”
God loves FAITH – we are not called to live a safe and comfortable life.
3) Jason Anderson, teaching pastor on “Nothing Stays Green Forever”
a) Commit yourself to see change through to the end
i) Keep casting the vision.
ii) Go “all in.”
b) Face your reality.
i) What are your gaps?
ii) We can’t see our own gaps very well.
iii) Need to hear from people farther down the road
iv) Need to talk to people who don’t go to church
c) What results do you want?
i) Look through Acts 2:42-48 and let that inform the results you should desire.
ii) Keep casting the vision of results.
Whatever else one might feel about the mega-church approach, I cannot fault them at all for the consuming desire to reach souls for Jesus. We could no doubt have some good debates about discipleship and ecclesiology and community, but I was genuinely taken with their “no holds barred” approach to winning souls for Jesus.
Have a great summer. I’ll be sending out a note regarding my sabbatical so that you can pray that God gets after me with the clarity of His Word and the grace of His Spirit.
In Jesus,
Ned