It’s the phrase that keeps coming to me. The
struggles that we face at Jacob’s Well Church
do not relate to lack of desire or will. We do
have a little bit of money (not too much). But
when someone asks me what we need at the
Well, I’m not asking for money. It’s hands that
we need. And it’s not just us. Other church
planters I know face the same reality.
On Friday the 23rd of October, nearly thirty
other SDB leaders and I attended the Multiply
Conference for promoting church revitalization
and especially church planting. From the experi-
ence, I have taken a number of very important
lessons.
First, Seventh Day Baptists (and all other Christian
groups) can no longer pretend that people are
going to come and seek us out. One of the pre-
senters, the pastor of a once-fading mega-church
in the Pacific Northwest, told us that when he
took over the church, he “kicked” the church
members off the very large campus. He took a
men’s Bible-study group of fourteen guys, broke
it into two groups and got them to meet out in
the community. He got major push-back, but
ultimately it became a huge success. Shortly,
those two groups turned into twelve. Amazing!
There is so much more “entertainment” out
there than there has ever been before and there
is no longer a cultural expectation for Americans
to “do church” — so why should they? They’re
just not going to come to us. We have to go to
them. That means that all the activities that we
have done in our buildings for all these years
need to actually move out into the community:
your sabbath school classes or life groups; men’s
Bible studies; all of it. Take it out there and let it
grow. You can’t make an impact on a community
with which you never interact. It’s as simple as
that.
This also applies to church planting — something
that needs to be a priority for us. When planting
a church in a new area, we have to be careful to
get to know that community and its people. We
have to come to love them and contribute to
that community. It needs to see our faces out
there participating.
Second, leadership is not something that we can
expect to pop up on its own. Of course, there
are those who demonstrate leadership abilities
early on, but that can’t be all. Pastors in particular
are going to have to be intentional about pouring
their hearts into these young people. Love them,
rebuke them, keep them accountable, and even
be accountable to them. Do it on purpose. Leader-
ship is something that must be cultivated.
Third, we must be intentional about loving people
who are rejected by culture or even the rest of
the Church. It’s not been traditional for Christians
to be very accepting of people with earrings and
tattoos, folks who act differently or are in some
other way “undesirable.” Remember that these
are the very people Jesus would seek out during
Where We Go From Here
Reflections on The Multiply Conference in Colorado Springs
12
January 2016 • SR
“We Need Hands.”
