Organic

This is a blog I wrote for the East Avenue blog a few weeks back and figured I'd publish it up here too, seeing as how I have not been very active on my own blog in a while.  Maybe this will give everyone a little insight into why that is. 

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Church planting.  It’s an interesting phrase that we at East Avenue and in truth the Christian body in its entirety throw around.  Implicit in this phrase is the sentiment that what ever is happening is organic, that the church in its creation is an organic agricultural like process.  Like corn, but organically grown corn, not American chemically mass-produced corn.  However it seems that organic isn’t truly at the center of church planting, that many of us in the church planting world aren’t using the organic means but instead are using some kind of church based chemical compound to experience rapid immediate growth.

Maybe its big advertising budgets used to buy billboard space on I-15.  Or maybe its hip graphic work and “sick” videos plastered on some kind of cool flash based website with lots of awesome flash based things doing whatever flash things do.  Maybe its Pastors and leadership teams rocking lucky jeans and affliction t-shirts, or skinny jeans and organic wheat based v-necks that can be used a dietary supplement or toilet paper.  Sometimes its watered downed gospel, entertainment based worship, and impersonal community.

It seems that often these things actually do cause rapid growth; congregations with the biggest budgets do seem to grow the largest fastest.  But in agriculture chemically induced growth cause damages, it ruins soil zapping the nutrients right out of it, it damages the harvest meaning we don’t experience all of the richness God intended, and its simply not as tasty. 

The question that remains then is weather or not this same way of thinking can be applied to church planting.  What happens when we induce growth via fancy advertising, or cool graphic work, or easy Gospel?  Does it harm the soil, damage the harvest, is it as tasty as God intended?

When we force grow congregations, inducing size with manufactured attractions I think we damage the way our community views us.  Its not new to spend lots of money on making church attractive we have be doing that in a serious way well for a really long time.  People are getting use to the spectacle of church, and are beginning to fill that there isn’t a whole lot to back up our fancy graphic work.  Each time the world encounters an impersonal congregation or a weak Gospel they are robbed of the beauty and depth that the church can offer.  The more people experience this type of inorganic church the more they become hesitant to experience any church.  The soil is harmed, the harvest is damaged.

Not only does this type of church hurt those outside of it, it also robs its members of the richness the church can posses.  Without the depth of the Gospel and the realness of community church is just a social gathering, another club of many for Americans to participate in, another club that must fight for the support of its members.  But church isn’t a club or a social gathering, it’s implicitly a family, a place to not escape the imperfect of the world but to be immersed in it.  To experience the material, the dirty, and the odd of people and learn to love them and be loved by them, it’s a place to practice the way of Jesus, and to find the support to practice Jesus outside of this corky family.  It’s not easy to keep things real and dirty, we have a propensity to polish and shine, but the church isn’t clean shes dirty and imperfect and that’s exactly as God intended her to be.  But it is in this reality that the richness and depth of church can be experienced, the real tasty part of organic. 

This type of church isn’t always conducive to rapid growth, but I still believe its worth doing otherwise I wouldn’t.  It’s worth fighting against my own inclinations to grow big and fast, because that growth isn’t deep or rich.  Its worth learning every day how to make Jesus the very heart of the East Avenue community, because in Jesus is were depth and heart and soul come from.  It’s about choosing one now rather then many latter, being personal and fighting individualism. 

Its about trying to participate in resurrection, and I think it’ll be worth it in the end, because well, it already is.