When I met with Otto Wegner, he told me that he’s concerned about what happens next in the context of urban ministry. He’s seen a lot of people come to the city from suburban and rural communities, compelled by the need, but unfamiliar with the daunting challenges of ministry in urban settings. After years of steady success utilizing students and leadership raised up from the urban harvest itself as well as attempts and deploying imported leadership (leaders who come from suburban or rural settings) Otto is convinced that the most effective urban leaders are born and raised in place.

His challenge is having a enough skilled leaders to train the emerging “in place” leaders. All the “best” leaders are wooed away by great salary packages offered by large suburban churches. Otto wonders what happened to the “pioneers” and “barbarians” who founded this movement. Do the still exist? Neither he nor I would ever imply that the only valid ministry opportunities exist in urbanized settings. But the proportion of people “called” to safe and comfortable suburban settings compared to the smaller number of those willing to go slug it out in the urban places is out of balance. By definition, urban places are where most people are. Yet, oddly enough, it appears that most leaders are called to go where there are less people.

And so he wonders… is God still calling leaders to urban places? And we know that answer has to be “YES!” So where are they? Good question. I know where some of them are… guys like Jay Covert, Ken Brown and Chilly Chilton.  You’ve read their stories in this blog. We’ve got some great leaders serving in the tough, unforgiving urban places. But we need more.

Which brings us back to Otto’s question. He doesn’t think importing leaders from outside the urban context will work for the long haul. But he does believe he can import trainers of leaders to equip urban leaders to lead effectively. The combination of good leadership principles together with knowledge gained in the school of hard knocks will help these great testimonies of God’s grace to know how to rise up and lead their communities toward transformation!

So Otto has issued the call… if you are an experienced leader, he’s looking for your help to train leaders in place. He feels like he’s running out of time so if you feel like God might be pointing you in this direction, give Otto a call. You can connect with him through his website.

Last week, Otto Wegner stopped by my office and gave me a piece of his mind. It was good. Otto is a legendary missional church planter. He’s personally planted 12 churches and helped start numerous others. And he’s planted in very challenging contexts…mostly urban, often economically depressed. He’s the real deal. He plants churches that approach ministry holistically…cultivating health for the whole person- body, soul and spirit.

Yet he’s relatively unknown. One reason for his anonymity could be that he is not a self promoter. He’s definitely not interested in selling a bunch of books or DVD’s or creating a fan club. He’s just not about that stuff. But I think the biggest reason he is unknown is that he doesn’t have enough people showing up to hear him preach on Sunday’s. And so, we don’t care to hear how he’s “done it” because what he’s done is not what we dream about doing. Thus he’s unknown…

This reality reveals a root problem with how we think about ministry effectiveness. Let’s be honest. We do measure how effective a ministry leader is by how many people sit in a pew and listen to him/her preach on Sunday. Think about it… what conference/council/meeting have you been to in the last 10 years where the featured speaker led a church with fewer than a thousand sitting in the pews/comfortable padded seats on Sunday morning?

I have a friend who was seated next to Ted Haggard (pre-moral failure) at a meeting where Ted had been the featured speaker and had made a statement that if your church is reaching 1% of your community then it is a mega-church. My friend asked Ted a really good question… what do you call your church if it is reaching 12% of its community? Ted was immediately interested. “Is there such a church?” he asked. My friend responded, “I’m pastoring in a community of 1000 and 120 people attend our services each Sunday!” Ted laughed…”Oh, that’s different!” he replied.

Different? Really? I don’t think so. I would contend that raw numbers are not as relevant for measuring missional impact as personal and community transformation. “How is the Kingdom of God impacting the actual quality of spiritual and temporal life in a given community?” is a far more relevant question than how many people are showing up to hear me preach on Sunday!

Too often, our fascination with big large crowds, numbers and really good fog and light shows causes us to overlook the most important evidences of the Kingdom of God showing up in power. We rush off to conferences that promise to help us put more bodies in the pews and run right past the thousands of unsung heroes like Otto Wegner slugging away in tough places that are being transformed by the power of God.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not advocating the idea that the only effective churches are small. I’m simply saying that effective churches are transformational and that their communities would know it if they closed their doors. Transformation can be catalyzed by churches big and small. I’ve been to churches with thousands of attendees whose only visible impact on the community was creating traffic jams on Sundays. I’ve also been to churches with a handful of attendees who were making God’s power known in tangible and significant ways. In a way, size doesn’t matter as much as impact!

We’ve got to figure out how to measure and celebrate transformation. It’s not as simple as counting noses. But I think it will help us aspire to do the right things for the right reasons.

Jay Covert is a US Missionary multiplier in East St. Louis, Illinois. Three years ago, Jay arrived in East St. Louis with a lot of faith and little else. East St. Louis is a challenging place and most observers didn’t have much hope that Jay could be successful. This morning I received the following note from Jay.

“Hey UO Pastoral Friends,

We planted the UO Church in East Saint Louis on July 9, 2006 in a small one room store front building. For 2 years we averaged upper 30’s to mid 40’s in attendance then we were given the task and challenge to renovate and revitalize the Washington Park Church and replant a new work there all the while renovate an abandon building in ESL for our 3rd sanctuary expansion.

I had no reservation on launching the second work, I have been looking forward to this for a long time expecting for a great harvest but if today is an indication of what happens when a small church installs, releases and mothers a daughter church plant then wow!!! In just two shorts weeks we have grown triple in numbers then meeting on Sunday mornings 116 weeks in one place!

Pastor Tommy Smith @ Washington Park had 48 folks in service today, today we moved into our new sanctuary in East Saint Louis and it was pretty much a normal service BUT we had 69 folks in attendance. Praise God! We grew almost triple with 117 folks in attendance in two locations verses holding on to folks in just one location.

God is awesome and we believe the increase and harvest in these two cities is being released. Church Planting is vital if we are going to reach and change our communities all across Illinois. If a small inner city church in a very poverished city can do it then just think what your church can do with the resources God has given you………….”

Thanks for sharing this great news Jay! It proves once again that God is bigger than any challenge we face. I heard a great illustration the other day. A scarecrow indicates the presence of much fruit. Jay ignored the “scarecrow” and is finding a lot of fruit. America has thousands of harvest fields guarded by “scarecrows” of crime, poverty and economic challenge. It’s time for us to run past the “scarecrows” to the harvest. That’s where we’ll find Jesus.