A Big One -- Read at own risk.

BIOGRAPHICAL ACTION PLAN FOR SEVERN RIVER CHURCH

A Paper
Presented to
Dr. Randy Walls, D. Min.
In partial fulfillment of the requirements of
PTHB 620 Church in Emerging Culture

Benjamin E. Rainey, Jr.
June 12, 2006

INTRODUCTION

On January 29, 2006 a public announcement was made at Pasadena Assembly of God church (PAG) in Pasadena, Maryland. The announcement was made that a new church would be planted six miles south in the town of Arnold, Maryland. It was an announcement of great excitement, and I was announced to be the church planter. On February 21, 2006 everything I thought I knew about church would be seriously challenged as I was introduced to the Emerging Church movement, and contemplated what impact it would have on this developing church.
Suddenly I was confronted with questions of theory and practice with which I had never before dealt. I was deluged with the weight of responsibility I carried in this plant and the significance of the repercussions of the foundational decisions. Decisions that affect the DNA of the church as an organization, and therefore affect all progeny be it converts, disciples, or future church plants.
I found myself wrestling with the postmodern world and what affect it had on my planting scenario. Tom Jones stated, “Where modernism has emphasized ‘newness’ and innovation, postmodernism asks us as Christian people to reevaluate, reconsider, renew, regenerate, and rehearse what it means to be the church.”[1]
What does it mean to be the church? Is it possible that for generations we have bought into a compromised system? I began to believe we had. It grew out of my own experience prior to the class I attended. It began in my home two years previous when I began a small group that had dynamics that I had never experienced in any of the church programs in which I had been involved in. There was growth in my life and evident growth in others as we met together intimately, openly.
The introduction to the Emerging Church was only the confluence of my experiences with others who had similar experiences. How would this change the foundational principles of Severn River Church (SRC)? This essay is prepared in order to share the story of SRC, and show as a case study how this church is being formed to fulfill its mission now and in the future.
Bill Easum addressing the modern mindset of church growth wrote, “With such a Life Metaphor [church as machine] all one has to do to make a better church is focus on creating a better functioning machine – a little oil here or a new part there does the trick.”[2] I believe that this cold application of ecclesiastical theory has led to an isolated church, impotent in its affairs.
Leading others to discipleship in community, and in fulfilling the mission of the church has become my primary challenge. In some ways it involves reeducating Christians how to be the church, but more importantly it is becoming a movement to show the world what it is to be a church.
There certainly have been struggles within the church regarding postmodernity and a movement called the Emerging Church. A critic writes, “The fundamental problem with the emerging church is that it rejects the authority of the word of God. Emergents prefer mystery to clarity; they prefer questions to direct answers. They prefer the journey to the destination. They question and undermine and insert doubt in the minds of young people who are already swimming in a sea of postmodern confusion.”[3]
It is not my intention to join the Emergent Network[4], a friendship involved in the conversation about the future of the church in the postmodern world. Instead, I just want a missional church, united and facing the world together; much the same way that the early church did.

THE CALLING

My calling began in 2001. I had become a youth pastor and was invited to attend a leadership summit. This summit concluded with an announcement by the event planner, Mark Morrow, that he would be leaving his church in order to plant a church in Williamsburg, Virginia.
I remember thinking that the idea of starting a church was a great fit for Mark, who I greatly admired, and began praying for him and his plant. I would call it an interest at that point, but in 2003 church planting grew into a burden. It was around that time that the Assemblies of God began an initiative called, “Every Church a Parent or a Partner”. I began to learn more and more about church planting and its effectiveness in spreading the gospel among the unchurched.
In 2004 the burden had become a fixture on my heart. I conducted an extended fast, praying for God to clarify whether church planting would remain a burden or if indeed God was calling me to church planting. It was during that fast that God confirmed his calling in me.
I immediately met with my senior pastor and shared my calling with him. He affirmed the call and we began pursuing a plant with the Potomac District’s approval and oversight. Our church board supported it and worked to organize a plan for the transition. It was a great step of faith for a church of 180 people.

THE VISION

The vision came together as I began praying. The Lord began to show me where to go and what to do. We picked a location half-way between Pasadena and Annapolis, called the Broadneck Peninsula. It is where I grew up, and is a fascinating area rich with history and growing in its significance to affect the future of Maryland.
Our vision is that SRC will be a strategic location from which to launch a movement of churches. We will target Annapolis and its outlying communities; we will change this area and affect the spiritual destiny of Maryland.[5]
I believe that this area is in need of a Pentecostal church, missionally focused, authentic in its community to accomplish that vision. Robert Webber said, “We encounter Jesus through the church as it embodies truth. Conversion is not merely embracing an intellectual idea; it is taking one’s place within the body of people who confess Christ and seek to live out the kingdom of Jesus. Thus one does not merely know intellectually but one knows holistically in community.”[6] The mission is, of course, an echo of the great commission of Christ. I think that every church’s mission statement should be roughly the same. Our mission statement states it this way, “The mission of SRC is to become a significant church in the greater Annapolis area; making disciples, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey God’s word.”[7]
This is the mission of the body of Christ. Visions change. The mission will not, until the return of Christ. SRC is built on three guiding principles, that we see intrinsic in that mission: Community, Transformation, and Leadership Development.

THE TARGET

Our area is a steady one. It is not a growth area, like other Maryland counties. Home to 107,000 residents, the peninsula serves as a bedroom community for Baltimore, Annapolis, and Washington D.C. This community is trending older according to a 2005 census review.[8] Currently the majority of the population is between 20 and 45, however the 35 to 45 contingent, the largest segment, are about to move into the older bracket by 2010 thus showing an aging trend. The average age in our target community is 40.2. They are evenly distributed between men and women. This area is very mobile with the average family owning 2 cars, and having children attending elementary or middle school.
Affluence above national standards is derived from the majority white collar workforce and education levels. Anne Arundel County is the third highest educated county in Maryland with one out of five residents holding a graduate degree. These things contribute to the high transience rate, with families moving into and out of the area every five years, on average. Racially this area is predominantly white at almost 90%.
We will be targeting the residents of our target area. To zero in on any one section of our demographic is arrogant and irresponsible. I believe that we will naturally build affinities for our community, but to exclude any segment of our population, including those often overlooked by other churches is not missional.
The target is people whether it is the fifty-something owner of the local coffee shop, the blue haired kid working his counter, the forty-something African-American facilities manager at the college SRC rents from, or the homeless man on the street corner. My heart for ministry beats for all of them. God has called us to all of these. We need to watch for what God is doing and jump on board with that. He has us meeting on a community college campus; we’d better be reaching out to those students. God has even given us a member of our launch team who is a student there. We’ll pursue it for the sake of the mission.

THE CHURCH

The journey for us as a church so far has been a good one. It began with two informational meetings at PAG in the month of February. These meetings were held for the whole congregation, and we offered an invitation for anyone that wanted to come to SRC to attend a pre-commitment meeting at my house. A group of about twenty participated.
This is a unique group, and clearly put together by God. We have three couples over forty and six couples under thirty, one single, two children, and two teens. One couple is relocating from Pennsylvania to serve as our youth pastors. One couple was educated at Lee University and is currently stationed at the United States Naval Academy with a call to chaplaincy. One couple came out of a pastor’s home and knows what “ministry in the trenches” is really like. Many of the others are recent converts and add a lot of freshness and excitement with a vision for growing ministry roles.
Coming out of the pre-commitment meetings, I conducted personal interviews with each of the above, and we set ourselves to meet for two fellowship meetings in May. At these meetings we focused mainly on community, causing one person to comment that he was unsure what we were really accomplishing, only to see it made clear in the second gathering. There was such a growing bond that he really understood what was happening.
We have since begun meeting in a weekly small group. Michael Watkins wrote a book for business leaders called, The First 90 Days. In regards to start-ups he stated, “The prevailing mood is often one of excited confusion, and your job is to channel that energy into productive direction, in part by deciding what not to do.”[9]
Our weekly small group in the months leading up to our launch is specifically designed to cover our core values as a way to nail down the basics. We want to focus on our mission. We want to determine what God has called us to do and do only that.
Allowing God to orchestrate us is the benefit of being a missional church. “The old paradigm taught that if you have the right teaching, you will experience God. The new paradigm says that if you experience God, you will have the right teaching.”[10] We want to peel away the layers of church norms that have built up over the years in search of the New Testament church experience recorded in Acts 2:42-47.

THE CHALLENGE/REALITY OF THE POSTMODERN COMMUNITY

Our area is not a bastion of the stereotypical postmodern community. There are pockets and there is an increase in postmodern thought and lifestyle in Annapolis. However, as a missional church we wanted to engage the emerging culture in our area. We set about to do a video documentary regarding emerging views on spirituality. The project involved a short survey, followed by an invitation to participate in an on-camera interview. The results were not good. Only a few would participate in the survey and no one would go on camera.
The responses taught us a lot about our area. The overwhelming unity of answers was that spiritual answers were a private matter and that they were annoyed by being asked. One person who was asked politely if she was interested in taking the survey had us kicked out of the park in which we were canvassing. This was not the success for which we had hoped.
The unchurched in our area are decidedly so. There is a great distrust of church. This area is historically religious, but that has given way to nominalism, and that has jaded our target people. One day, while working on our statement of beliefs, I was wrestling with how the presentation would affect unchurched viewers. I struck up a conversation with a guy, 21, and asked for his opinion. He stated that he didn’t go to church. I told him that was why I felt he could help, since I was starting a church for people who didn’t go to church. Throughout the conversation he told me three other times that he did not go to church, and never really helped me with my project.
I believe there is an emergence occurring. It is an emergence of the unchurched. This area needs a church that is radically different from the norms of the stereotypical church. It needs one that intentionally engages the world outside its walls. I think our target people need to see the church in action doing what it says it is about, living missionally.
Some in the Emerging Church movement have started trends, mimicking the world in some ways. Art Lindsay penned the words, “Above all we need caution about tying our methods too closely to a passing trend like Postmodernity.”[11] I’m not interested in pursuing trends in methodology for the sake of trendiness. I’m in favor of using methods that connect with the unchurched in order to bring them to Christ. I think that the emerging generation is smart enough to know whether you are doing something for the sake of trends or whether it is authentically you, and to be cogent you had better be real.
We must not be a parasite in this community, looking to only take and provide for ourselves. We must provide for this community. I believe that the greatest impact we can have is through servant evangelism. In a survey regarding community needs with community leaders, the top needs cited by everyone were: care for the poor, teens and traffic. So our servanthood will begin in those areas. We have prioritized ministry to teens by bringing in Matt, our youth pastor, and will be working to help the homeless. While we’re probably unable to do much to alleviate traffic, we can distribute drinks at intersections prone to back-ups and beautification in the median strips. We must be a tangible force serving our community.

THE PREPARATION

In order for SRC to become the missional church God expects us to be, we will need to prepare ourselves to that end. The preparation must begin with me. As I look at my strengths and weaknesses, discerning the pastor God is shaping in me, I feel my greatest preparation priorities are in the following areas: leadership, higher education, and preaching/communicating.
Leadership books are a dime a dozen. What I have come to understand is that books are tools, some work in different circumstances. The Bible talks about the spiritual gift of leadership.[12] I believe God has gifted me for leading. I think this is important in light of the church plant. Ed Stetzer wrote, “Church Planters who are committed to communicate Christ, who are immersed in the postmodern culture, and who do not feel constrained by the traditional patterns of the ‘old church’ will be the best change agents.”[13]
If I am not starting a church to be a change agent, then I might as well walk away. I want to change the way the church exists and interacts. I want the community to be changed because of the church. I must develop myself to lead that change. The main thing that comes to mind is that Christ said, “Wisdom is proven right by her action.”[14] The fear of failure can be paralyzing and creates inaction. As a young leader the biggest step in leadership is taking wise action.
There are many disciplines with which I have not had experience. I’m learning at an accelerated rate now that we’re planting. I feel learning and education must be high priorities for my own preparation. I’ve promised my core team that I’m not the pastor today that I will be tomorrow. Education exposes me to think in new ways. I place a high value on education. The area in which we are planting requires it as well. The number of people with graduate degrees in the area continues to rise. In some ways I feel that I need education as a platform with this community.
Preaching is another area in which I feel gifted. It has been a strength that I enjoy and see great productivity with. Speech and rhetoric are areas of interest for me, and I am observing changes in speech from government to broadcasting media. I think that preaching is still the way God chooses to move men’s hearts toward Him. I place a high priority on developing myself as a communicator. But I want to go beyond moving rhetoric, I want the preaching of God’s word to transform the human life. Graham Johnson expresses what I feel, “When you know the right switches to flip, you may be tempted to preach in order to garner a response. But just because something works doesn’t make it right or biblical.”[15]
I want to grab people’s imaginations and take them someplace they did not expect to go, where they can gain a new perspective on God’s word.[16] I want them to be moved to grasp God’s truth. Art Lindsay asserts, “Truth is the decisive issue of our time, and the ability to communicate absolutes without absolutism is an essential precondition for the gospel (and other truths) to be heard.”[17]
In addition to personal preparation there are matters of corporate development. The launch team must come to the pace where they totally understand the mission of the church and embrace it. This will involve communicating it often, and modeling the mission myself.
We also need to embed the core values in our team. Core values are the non-negotiables that form the matrix for all ministries we do and decisions we make. If we don’t value these things we are not who we say we are. In these months leading up to the launch it is critical that we make these values equal our identity.[18]
We also need to prepare by engaging the unchurched. We are implementing an initiative called house to house. We are inviting unchurched friends and neighbors to our homes just to hang out and build relationships for a platform to share Christ this summer. Engaging the lost is the life of a new church. Robert Webber said, “Social Networking in a post-Christian world will primarily happen when people eat together in the home of Christians and in neighborhood communities where faith is shared. Eating has always played a central role in the Christian faith.”[19]
We’ve already had questions generated about how to share our faith with others. We’re striving to help people belong first which will lead to belief, and ultimately behavior changes.[20] It probably seems strange to some but I have an admitted unbeliever on my launch team. He comes faithfully to the meetings and shares about his journey towards Christ, but admits having not yet made a faith-decision in Christ. We believe he and others like him will come to Christ when they are engaged by our church community.
We need to prepare for our corporate vision-path. This is our strategy for Christian discipleship. It is taken from Acts 2:42-47. We believe when you boil it down the church met in large groups, small groups, and prayer groups.
We want our large groups to have an atmosphere of community. We want the atmosphere of the weekend gathering to be relational, connecting relationships through time and conversation together. I envision opening an hour before service in an environment where people chat and buzz about the church and their lives. After conducting the service, people will stay on the flip-side to enjoy being together.
Our service should be about an hour giving time to music, ministry (i.e. prayer stations for the sick and needy, the Lord’s Supper, giving, etc.) and a message focused to relevant to the unbeliever with life dynamics, and challenging to the believer with faith dynamics.
Small groups are a vital link. They are where our guiding principles (community, transformation, and leadership development) are really seen most vividly in action. Andy Stanley quoted John Ortberg as saying,
“This is why the experience of authentic community is so life giving. We are taking our place in the fellowship with Life himself. When I am in isolation, I am lonely. When I am in community, I experience what might be called ‘fullness of heart.’ The human heart is forever empty if it is closed in upon itself. In community – the divine community especially – a heart comes alive.”[21]

The fact is that in healthy small groups growth is facilitated in everyone. I have seen it in the groups I have led over the last three years. I think that our culture so isolates and alienates us from others that we are robbed of the growth that Jesus provided his followers. To be healthy a small group must operate in all three guiding principles.
Community: Small group should be a relational place where people enjoy being together. The pastoral care happens in this group. Facilitators know what is going on in the lives of their group members and provide personal care at the point of need. It’s a place for living life together, moving toward Christ. Small group cannot only be community gatherings. It must also include transformation and leadership development. This is a connection place for people. We believe that to grow larger, we must grow smaller. As we grow, this should be a place of relational starts and growth.
Transformation: When God's word touches the human life and change occurs, that's transformation. Transformation is the miracle in small groups. We should come expecting a miracle. People's stories need to be told, the stories of transformation provide the energy of the small group. Small group cannot only be transformation. It must also include community and leadership development.
Leadership Development: A vision to multiply requires constant apprenticing. Small group provides development through shared responsibility. The facilitator is expected to be watching for leadership characteristics in others and empowering them. Small group cannot only be leadership development. They must also include community and transformation.
Prayer groups are a significant missing piece in many congregations today. I believe in prayer and its power through God to change things. Part of partnership with SRC is a commitment to pray and have a prayer partner. No one runs alone. Each of us needs to be praying for someone else, and be prayed for by someone else. Jimmy Long said, “In the postmodern era the tribal group or community, not the autonomous self, is the essence of existence.”[22] Prayer groups are our connection to each other and God. They are our mobilization of the corporate prayer life of the church.

CONCLUSION

We do not really know what tomorrow holds, accept that without a spirit-filled, missional church, our community will live another day without the life changing power of God. We’re assured that God doesn’t want anyone to perish.[23] He is more interested in this church being planted than we are. It was His Son who made the way and it was His Son that gave us the mission.[24]
Would Severn River Church qualify as an Emerging Church? I would say probably not. But I believe there are valuable lessons to be learned from that movement. Emphasis on mission, community, and the mobilization of ministries that do not just talk about reaching the lost, but actually do it, are all things that I have harvested from the conversation of the Emerging Church.
There are weaknesses, but there are in every system, and to focus on any system robs us of our missional focus. It is God’s call after all. He is going to provide everything we need in order to fulfill the mission and see the spiritual destiny of so many Marylanders changed for eternity.


Works Cited

Easum, Bill. Leadership On The OtherSide: No Rules, Just Clues. Nashville, Tennessee:
Abingdon Press, 2000.

Johnston, Graham. Preaching to a Postmodern World: A Guide to Reaching Twenty-first
Century Listeners. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 2001.

Jones, Tom. Church Planting From The Ground Up. Joplin, Missouri: College Press
Publishing Company, 2004.

Lindsay, Art. True Truth: Defending Absolute Truth in a Relativistic Age. Downers
Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

Schlueter, Ingrid. 02/23/2006. Emerging Apostasy. Available from
http://www.Worldviewweekend.com/secure//cwnetwork/print.php?&AritcleID=504 ; internet; accessed June 10, 2006.

Stanley, Andy, Bill Willitis. Creating Community: 5 Keys To Building A Small Group
Culture. Sisters, Oregon: Multmomah Publishers, 2004.

Stetzer, Ed. Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age. Nashville, Tennessee:
Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003.

Sweet, Leonard, Brian D. McLaren, Jerry Haselmayer. A is for Abductive: The Language
of the Emerging Church. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan,2003.

The Holy Bible, New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.

Towns, Elmer and Warren Bird. Into the Future. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book
House, 2000.

Watkins, Michael. The First 90 Days. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School
Press, 2003.

Webber, Robert E. Ancient-Future Evangelism: Making Your Church a Faith-Forming
Community. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 2003.
[1] Tom Jones, Church Planting from the Ground Up.(Joplin: College Press), 84.
[2] Bill Easum, Leadership On The OtherSide: No Rules, Just Clues. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 84.

[3] Ingrid Schlueter, (2006) “Emerging Apostasy” www.worldviewweekend.com/secure//cwnetwork/print.php?&AritcleID=504
[4] www.emergentvillage.com
[5] See Appendix A

[6] Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Evangelism: Making Your Church a Faith-Forming Community. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2003), 39.

[7] See Appendix A
[8] See appendix B
[9] Michael Watkins, The First 90 Days. (Boston: HBS, 2003), 67.

[10] Leith Anderson, A Church for the 21st Century. (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1992), 24-25; quoted in Elmer Towns & Warren Bird, Into the Future. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2000), 66.
[11] Art Lindsay, True Truth: Defending Absolute Truth in a Relativistic Age. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004.), 66.
[12] Romans 12:8

[13] Ed Stetzer, Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age. (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2003), 132.

[14] Matthew 11:19
[15] Graham Johnson, Preaching to a Postmodern World: A Guide to Reaching Twenty-first
Century Listeners. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2001), 61.

[16] Leonard Sweet, A is for Abductive: The Language of the Emerging Church. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 31.

[17] Lindsay, 20

[18] See Appendix A

[19] Webber, 58

[20] Ibid, 23
[21] John Ortberg, Everybody’s Normal till You get to Know Them. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 40; quoted in Andy Stanley and Bill Willits, Creating Community: 5 Keys to Building a Small Group Culture. (Sisters: Multmomah Publishers, 2004), 42.
[22] Jimmy Long Generating Hope: A Strategy for Reaching the Postmodern Generation. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1997.), 50, 147-48; quoted in Elmer Towns & Warren Bird, 60.
[23] 2 Peter 3:9

[24] Matthew 28:18-20