I’ve heard a lot of pastors teach on the Luke 6:38 paradox when they are about to receive an offering. The core principle in Luke 6:38 is “give and it shall be given unto you,” a concept that looks upside down from the perspective of conventional wisdom.  In other words, the way to have what you need is to give. And so, pastors encourage the people they lead to practice that principle and give…and for their convenience an offering plate soon appears before them making it easy for them to put the principle into practice.

What’s interesting to me is that too often, leaders who look to Luke 6:38 to motivate their people to give, do not practice the principle in the way they co-labor with Jesus in building His Church. I’m not referring to the way the leaders manage their personal giving. I’m referring to how their strategic plans align with this crucial biblical principle of “give and it shall be given.”

Here’s an example of what I mean. The conventional approach to staffing has been to go out and find the best proven leaders and hire them to serve on the leadership team of a local church. The hiring process is costly and fraught with potholes. When a really good staff person is hired, conventional wisdom says hang on to him/her. Keep them for yourself.

But Kingdom wisdom says you might want to give them away. Send them out to plant a church, be a missionary, help a struggling congregation get back on mission, etc. It doesn’t make sense I know. But the biblical principle seems to apply to more than just money in the pockets of the members. When we develop leaders and give them away, the principle is that more will be “given” to us. I’m not suggesting that every leader we develop must be sent away to honor the principle. But SOME of the leaders we develop should be planted as seeds to expand the Kingdom beyond the parameters of our immediate ministry context.

For what it’s worth, this concept is actually supported by research. Studies by “Natural Church Development” author Christian Schwarz conducted on churches that are intentional about sending indicate that “sending” churches tend to be healthier than “keeping” churches. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.

I’ve noticed that a lot of well intentioned leaders are making decisions about how to multiply based on “conventional wisdom” rather than being informed by “Kingdom wisdom.” Conventional wisdom is a product of human reason and cultural norms and when strategies are developed out of conventional wisdom they make sense to most people and usually, they work out in a satisfactory way. But “Kingdom wisdom” is different. Kingdom wisdom comes from God and quite often it runs contrary or perpendicular to conventional wisdom.

An example of Kingdom wisdom is the principle of “the first will be last.” From the perspective of conventional wisdom, the “first will be last” just doesn’t make sense. Believing that the “first will be last” requires faith. And if we really believe it, it will change how we act as in, we will cease focusing on trying to be first and let God place us where ever we can best be used.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going consider some common points of “conventional wisdom” I’ve heard from leaders in the world of church planting and multi-site approaches toward multiplying the church and contrast them with their “Kingdom” counterpart. Feel free to think with me via comments.

Conventional Wisdom: We honor God when we are efficient. Here’s how this common piece of conventional wisdom is often manifested. “Why should we go through the expense of starting another church when we can add X number of people by simply adding another worship service?” Underneath this line of logic is the concept that the goal of planting is simply to attract more people to church meetings. If more bodies in the pews is the goal, then it does make sense to simply add another service. That’s conventionally wise and actually does make sense.

But the problem is that efficiency is not necessarily a Kingdom value. Mary, the sister of Lazarus helps make this clear. Was it efficient when Mary poured the bottle of expensive perfume over the feet of Jesus? When Jesus stopped by for a visit Martha was consumed with practical (efficient) concerns, but Mary wanted to spend time with Jesus and Martha’s suggestion that Mary was wrong was not supported by the Lord. As far as I can tell, efficiency was never a guiding factor when Jesus made a decision about anything.

Kingdom Wisdom: We honor God when we are obedient. Efficiency may be right some of the time, but obedience is right all of the time. So here’s the Kingdom answer to the question “Why should we go through the expense of starting another church when we can add X number of people by simply adding another worship service?” Have you asked God what He wants you to do? Are you starting another service because a consultant told you it was the best way to grow your church? That may be efficient, but it’s not necessarily obedient. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not against adding services! It may very well be the right thing to do. But it needs to be right for the right reason, not just because it is consistent with conventional wisdom. Because conventional wisdom often runs contrary to Kingdom wisdom.

I’m on my way back from being in Southern California as the guest speaker at two powerful Korean churches. The first church I spoke at was Thanksgiving Church led by Pastor Young Kim. The picture to the left is me with Pastor Kim as he interprets for me. Pastor Kim is the District Superintendent of the First Korean District, a fellowship of 140+ Korean churches throughout the United States. Thanksgiving Church is a powerful church of 2000 folks committed to expanding God’s Kingdom through planting many new daughter churches. Pastor Kim has sent out two planting teams already. Next month Thanksgiving Church will plant number three and later this year they plan to launch number four.

The pastor of “number three” is Pastor Peter Cho. Peter and his wife Shenha have been working diligently to gather a “launch team” of English speaking Korean young adults to build a bridge to the extensive SoCal population of 2^nd and 3^rd generation Korean immigrants. Thanksgiving Church has been a great “womb” for them during their “gestation” phase and on the first week of September they plan to birth “Great Harvest Church” just a few blocks down the road from Thanksgiving Church. So, yesterday, I had the privilege of sharing a word of exhortation and encouragement to the launch team of Great Harvest. Read the rest of this entry »