Community Christian Church of Naperville, IL, has developed from a new church planted by college friends into a mega-church with multiple services on multiple campuses. In addition, they have developed The New Thing Network, whose mission is to be a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches. They are a church worth learning from.
The mission of Community Christian Church is “helping people find their way back to God.” They carry out their mission by leading people to become 3C Christ followers. They define a 3C Christ follower as someone who is growing in three experiences: Celebrate, which is primarily about our relationship with God; Connect, which is primarily about our relationship with the church; and Contribute, which is primarily about our relationship with the world.
In their book, Exponential, Dave Ferguson, pastor of Community Christian Church, and Jon Ferguson, teaching pastor of the church, describe the history and strategy of the congregation and New Thing Network, in order to lay out their strategy for starting a reproducing church movement. Instrumental in their process of developing reproducing churches and movements is developing communities of 3C Christ followers that “focus on serving people and are able to reach people who would never walk through the doors of our churches.”
So what is necessary to reproduce such communities? In their book, the Ferguson’s present some ideas and philosophies that have worked for them. Let me summarize some of them.
(1) Believe That Acts 1:8 Was Meant to Be Accomplished.
“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Jesus’ mission for the church as he presented it to his disciples was meant to be accomplished, and the Ferguson’s say it “can be accomplished.” Once we believe this, we will realize that “we cannot build facilities big enough or fast enough to keep up with what God wants to do.”
(2) Teach People to “Go” and Not Just “Bring.”
Most churches for many years have primarily used the “attraction” model of evangelism. That is, we encourage believers to invite people to church and we develop programs that will attract people to our services. While that is a legitimate way to reach people, we also need to find ways to go and reach people that will never come to our services and events, especially as our culture becomes more and more secular and resistant to the church. Community Christian even gives their people permission to skip their worship services to create opportunities to go and reach people. Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, in their book, And, suggest that both bringing and going are legitimate forms of evangelism for the church.
(3) Plant the Gospel Before Planting a Church or Starting a Group.
Communities of people on a mission “will go and live among the people with a readiness to serve them.” Author Alan Hirsch suggests that most churches operate from Ecclesiology (the church) to Missiology (the church’s mission) to Christology (the Gospel). Instead we should operate from Christology to Missiology to Ecclesiology. The early church started by planting the Gospel in people’s hearts and allowed the church and Christian communities to develop as people’s lives were transformed. We will need to operate with this model more and more in the future.
(4) Get Comfortable With Chaos and Failure.
Most of us who have served in the church for a long time will have difficulty with this idea because we have been trained to plan for success. However, the Ferguson’s say, “If we give our leaders permission to go out and start missional communities and churches that will reach people for Jesus, it will not be perfectly organized and it will certainly not be one hundred percent successful.” We should do everything possible to reach people with the Gospel, being willing to go outside of our comfort zones and take risks.
That is just a sampling of what the Ferguson’s suggest is involved in reproducing our churches and Christian communities. Their book is certainly worthwhile reading and learning from. Perhaps they can help you think through how to make your church a reproducing church.
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