DELIBERATE SIMPLICITY FOR THE CHURCH

If you have been in the church for very many years, you have probably, just like me, spent most of your time in traditional churches. Traditional churches, whether large or small, develop a multitude of programs and activities that attempt to provide ministry to anyone who might walk through the doors. Many traditional churches are structured around the members’ needs and ideas. New people must “fit in” to the style of the church if they are going to become members.

The traditional church carried over to the megachurches of the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Church was still carried on in very much the same manner, but many churches became much larger than they had been. The growth of the megachurches was based on our cultural fascination with size. Bigger was always better, and megachurches proved you could reach large numbers of people with big budgets, sprawling campuses, large staffs, and extensive programs.

During the current decade, we have begun to see more variety in the church than there has been for many years. Churches are meeting in a variety of locations, from converted warehouses and shopping centers to movie theaters to community buildings and schools. Some churches are purchasing these various facilities, while others are renting. Many large churches have gone to a wide variety of worship services and styles either within their building or at multiple locations. Some multi-site churches are renting facilities for their various locations, while others are building for the other sites or purchasing existing buildings. While traditional churches in the United States have one pastor who is the primary preacher for the church, many large and multi-site churches have a preaching team that shares preaching responsibility. Some churches are using sermons recorded on video in one service as the means of delivering the message at other services. This brief description only touches the surface of the variety of approaches that are being used in churches today.

Now Dave Browning, founding pastor of Christ the King Community Church of Skagit Valley in the Northwest, has published Deliberate Simplicity: How the Church Does More By Doing Less. Christ the King Church was launched in April 1999 and grew in two years to a thousand people meeting in hundreds of homes and several communities. Today, the church has various sites across the country and oversea. All of this has happened, as Browning relates in his book, by the congregation’s taking a very simple approach to the ministry of the church.

They stress that: “Less is more, and more is better.” Their success boils down to six factors that he presents chapter-by-chapter in the book: (1) Minimality – keep it simple; (2) Intentionality – keep it missional; (3) Reality – Keep it real; (4) Multility – Keep it cellular; (5) Velocity – Keep it moving; and (6) Scalability – Keep it expanding.

While all of these factors have application to every church, I do not have room to discuss them here; Browning’s book does a capable job of doing that. Allow me to simply whet your appetite by commenting on the first one: Minimality – keep it simple:

Browning emphasizes that they focus all of their energies on three things:

• 1. Worship
• 2. Small groups
• 3. Outreach

• As I read Browning, I found this to be a compelling challenge to the church. After all, every church comes together for worship. What would happen if we put a large part of our emphasis on leading the church to worship God in transforming ways? Every church has intentional or unintentional small groups. They are intentional when we deliberately develop small groups that have specific purposes and seek to recruit as many people as possible to participate in them; they are unintentional when people simply select which programs and classes to be part of, and those activities become their small group. What would happen if we would deliberately put our focus on developing small groups of various kinds that will enable people to grow closer to God and each other? The church’s mission involves outreach, especially in a secular culture. What would happen if every church would put a large amount of energy into reaching out?

Make your church simpler then. If you need to, reorganize your congregation to take on the simple, but most profound tasks of the church, and God will bless you far beyond what you can imagine. To go further with this idea, pick up Browning’s book and study it.