Main Session 3 - On the Verge: Get It - Reggie McNeal

We have too many church planters. People say, “I feel called to plant a church.” Reggie, “I doubt it.” I know because they said “A church.”

Domains in society – horizontal columns - Politics, education, medical, social, business, arts, church – we invite people to our slice or silo subculture. And the only way we typically even engage the other slices is to lob missiles into them.

Church as a separate silo is Tower of Babel building – come join our tower and we’ll take you to heaven. Look at the church as being deployed all across and throughout these cultural slices.

Don’t plant A church, plant THE church.

Release people into all of society. Set loose the Christian politicians (both of them, I know I’m being generous), educators, business leaders, society leaders, medical professionals, artists and entertainers, etc.

Church – think who not what. It is a way of being in the world, not something I go to. I church at work, I church at home, I church on the athletic field, I church at worship. Everything where you are, the church is.

There are millions of people that will not accommodate their life rhythms to match our congregational modality which is the only way church shows up in our culture.

It’s going to take people like you to connect with folks that are never going to come to us.

City serve initiatives are a starting point for deploying Christians throughout our region and culture. But simply a starting point. How can we begin to equip and release people in their professions and communities to be the church there?

There are more Baptist congregations in SC than elementary schools. Just the Baptist churches in SC could adopt every elementary school in the state.

Good Samaritan is Jesus tool to move church people. Everybody in that parable met their scorecard objective and a clear conscience.

Jesus said, I’ve come to bring you life and life abundant. What if he was telling the truth and not just making Scripture.

Moving from a church centric-view to a Kingdom-centric view.

People will do what we make a big deal of.

Change the scorecard.

Change the language. Language will change the culture. We need to watch what we say.

When we say, “come to church” we’ve already created the wrong culture.

Missional communities are the missionary living incarnationally in a neighborhood or community.

Community of missionaries where the community comes together to support the individuals serving as missionary in their callings (social worker, nurse, attorney, politician).

If you want to plant THE church, begin to strategize how you can realize a network of missional communities in every crack and crevice of culture, how you can mobilize the existing church community to serve the community around us.

In Revelation, there is no church in the city. It is because God is with his people, the Kingdom, the Bride. There is no individual church. Jesus prayed, your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.