We Don’t Have a Model

Why mission matters more than method in church planting.

Over the last few months, I’ve been able to talk with quite a number of people all over North America about our “model” at LIFT Church for planting churches and making disciples. We are introduced as everything, including models such as DMM (disciple-making movement), house church, microchurch, multi-site church, or just a student movement. To further muddy the waters, our “house churches” are called “Simple Churches,” which is yet another model for church that seems to be popular, though I have no idea what it is because I’ve never read the book.

Can I be honest?

We don’t have a model, and we don’t follow a model.

What we are doing didn’t come from reading books on church-planting strategy and trying to implement a strategy. What we are doing is simply a product of trying to figure out how to plant churches on every campus for the last 20 years.

We have borrowed ideas from all kinds of movements throughout history and across the world. While we do have a way of doing things in our church, I do not think of us as being committed to a particular model or school of thought with respect to methodology.

We plant churches that look like bi-vocationally driven house churches, but we pray that they mature beyond that. We leverage large events, small events, one-to-one discipleship, small-group discipleship, evangelism, large-format preaching, small-format preaching, and just about anything else that will help us make disciples. To quote the apostle Paul, “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”

Jesus Gave a Mission, Not a Model

Jesus didn’t give his followers a specific model for the church. He gave the church a mission.

Whatever models we find to frame our approach to disciple-making and church planting are merely contextual responses to that mission.

Virtually every movement that has inspired our thinking didn’t start with a model. They started with a mission that was relentlessly pursued over many decades. Yes, there are principles that can be distilled.

We spend a lot of time in church leadership circles trying to distill the strategies of communities that are working into repeatable models that we can train others to use. While there may be some value in that, in most cases I think it makes a grave error. The source of the power is not in the model or the strategy. The form of a church is not where the power lies.

It is easy to copy the form of a church and assume that because the model has been copied, the fruit will follow. This is just not true. There are churches of every size, shape, style, and format that are equally healthy or unhealthy. A church’s effectiveness in making disciples is less likely to be a direct product of the form and more likely to be a product of the mission, vision, values, and relationships that enable that form to function.

With that in mind, here are four places I would focus energy instead of focusing on the form or model of a church.

1. A Clear Mission Is the Starting Point

Broadly speaking, the mission to make disciples of all nations must be central. Disciple-making is one of the core mandates that separates churches from social service agencies.

As churches, we need to focus our mission down to specific people and places at particular times. Rather than fixating on the model to fulfill the mission, I think most churches would be better served by clarifying, with precision, what their mission actually is.

2. Relational Depth Enables Experimentation

Far more important than the forms we use to plant churches are the people we do it with along the way. If our relational roots are deep, we can innovate and experiment to find the particular forms that will help us reach the people God has called us to reach.

3. Values Are More Important Than the Model

Our values form the basis of the non-negotiable principles that allow us to experiment without drifting from our core identity. By having clear values and convictions that are cultural rather than tactical, we can experiment with all kinds of formats and models while remaining coherent and united as a church family.

4. Use Scripture as the Reference Point

Ultimately, Scripture is our reference point for what innovation in the church looks like. Almost every model can point to Scripture to explain why it is the best way. Of course, the inverse is also true. We can quickly claim that different approaches are unbiblical.

Instead of providing a rigid prescription for church life, the Scriptures give us a rich descriptive framework in which to operate. That framework has enabled the church to thrive in almost every culture, tribe, and tongue for 2,000 years.

Praise Jesus. He really is building his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Conclusion

My hope in this post is to encourage people to focus less on seeking out the silver-bullet model and spend more time thinking about how to faithfully form covenantal relationships rooted in the Scriptures that enable faithful obedience in fulfilling the Great Commission.

Next week, I will unpack some of the non-negotiables we hold as a community that frame our approach to innovation.

The week after that, I will share how we use theories around how the size of social groups creates different approaches to engaging people in disciple-making, and how each has an important role to fill.