Today we begin reading through the book Church Planting is For Wimps together. Why this book? Because our school has students who by God’s grace may be called as pastors and church planters. Since Mike McKinley has gone through the process of church planting (or more accurately church revitalization), I thought it would be helpful to lead a chapter-by-chapter blog discussion. Who is Mike? An admitted “no-name” who was asked by Mark Dever and Capitol Hill Baptist Church to help plant a church. If interested, feel free to read a brief interview that I recently had with him.
But I do not want to limit this discussion to our students. If you are interested in church planting or pastoring or if you feel like this book could help you in any way, please join us. Simply pick up a copy of the book and start reading!
So, let’s get started….
This week I wanted to cover both the Introduction and Chapter 1. Right up front I want to say that I love Mike’s personal and conversational writing style. I almost feel as if I am in the same room having a conversation with the author. I will try to be informal in this blog series as well.
In any case, I want to use Mike’s own words to explain the purpose of his book:
“You haven’t heard of me. There’s no obvious reason you’d want to read anything I have to say. I don’t pastor a large church…. I don’t have a particularly brilliant methodological insight that will transform your life or ministry…. Instead I want to share with you my story of planting a church…. The small victories and slow progress of the gospel in our lives and churches are actually spectacular evidence of God’s grace and exactly the things that make up part of his wonderful story of redemption” (11-12).
Amen! Finally, a book on church planting that is not based on “success” or rooted in contemporary church growth models. Instead, we have an honest and open look at a man who desired to build his church on the foundation of the Word of God and to be faithful in what it teaches.
Therefore we read a brief bio of the author and then enter into his story of deciding to work with CHBC on planting a church in the Washington DC suburbs. Mike is a Christian punk rocker with tattoos who has refused to buy into church planting for hip youngsters or to focus on the trendy part of the city where the wealthy young professionals live and drink. Instead, he is asked to go to suburbia (the last place on earth he wanted to go!) and plant a church in the county with the highest median household income in America.
I really appreciated Mike’s biblical refutation of the homogeneous unit principle and its contemporary cousin, contextualization. While I do not have a problem with a proper understanding of contextualization (and I suspect Mike doesn’t either), many today do use this concept as a means of intentionally targeting and appealing to a certain social demographic. But as he states:
“When we start churches intentionally designed to appeal to a certain kind of person, we fail to heed the biblical mandate to become all things to all people (1 Cor. 9:22). It seems like many churches want to embrace the first phrase without the second. We want to become all things to some people. The problem is, becoming all things to some people—say, by rocking the tattoos and turning up the music—often keeps us from reaching all kinds of people. After all, wooing one demographic (for example, urban young people) often means alienating others (such as older people or foreigners)…. It seems like we should intentionally plant churches that will, as much as possible, welcome and engage people who are different and diverse with respect to age, gender, personality, and nationality” (20).
Mike continues by providing some practical suggestions on how we should go about fostering diversity rather than homogeneity. Again, I find these ideas very helpful and can easily see how they would make a difference in the life of a new church plant.
Now it is your turn. What do you think?
John Divito
Member, Heritage Baptist Church
M.Div. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
CBTS Faculty fully subscribe to the 1689 Confession of Faith, hold an advanced
degree in their field of instruction, and possess significant pastoral experience.
