The need for new paradigms of church planting and mission strategies. Part 1
Posted by Tom Hackett in Mission and Church Planting at 5:46 am | 
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In my posting I have to make it clear that I am coming at this topic from a mission perspective. I am a former pastor and currently a missionary for the past 25+ years. My heart is to see people touched by God and my passion is for the nations. When I analyze church and making the gospel available to all it is from a missionaries perspective in addition to wanting to have a valid expression of my faith in my personal life. With that being said…let’s get started.
From a mission perspective our current methods and forms of church planting seem to be lacking to say the least. When you think of the millions without a personal knowledge of or relationship with Jesus Christ it can be overwhelming.  How is the church going to do its job and go into all the world and establish the church at the pace things are going and under the lineal and hierarchal way things are designed?  In many societies our current mission and church planting models are not welcome or irrelevant. It must be that we need to be open to new ways of doing things.
How do cultures, cities, ethnic, and people groups function? When the Bible says that every tongue, tribe and nation will be before the throne of God what does that mean when we develop a church planting or mission strategy? I believe that “every tongue” refers to how a person hears something. The gospel has to be presented in a way that every person can hear. “Every tribe” refers to groups of people that hear things the same way and every nation is a gathering of tribes. How do we take the good news of God’s love to the nations? I believe the best way to do that is by allowing those closest to the tribes or in the tribes to reach out in their unique ways to speak in the appropriate tongue. Most misson models require that people learn how to “speak” our language and become one of us. I would like to facilitate believers of all tongues to reach their tribe and shape their nation. What i call The Alternative Church is a strategy that acknowledges, empowers, encourages, and facilitates people forming micro churches to speak the appropriate tongue if you will and to do missions without the constraints of traditional organizational dynamics. The church becomes free to express itself in a limitless number of ways to those who speak different languages and live in various tribes.
The Alternative Church and the Micro Church concept is a mission and church planting strategy that approaches the needs of a diverse and changing world. How helpful or beneficial is it to be critical of the “traditional” church or take the approach of complaining about how the current systems and organizational structures are not getting the job done? It seems a better approach to look ahead and consider the exciting possibilities of new expressions of the church as we discuss the topic of what the church might look like in the future? How is technology, globalism, social dynamics, and other big picture issues going to shape how we approach world evangelism and church planting?  How do you communicate with the different “tongues”? How do different “tribes” function and how can they be reached? How can a movement spread throughout a “nation”? How do organizational and social systems work? How does that affect how God has designed His church to function and expand? These and many other questions arise as we consider the need to rethink how “church” is done in the future.
What I envision is the acknowledging, empowering, encouraging, and facilitating of the Micro Church to live out in the social dynamics of each environment what it means to be a community of believers. I envision the influence of each life and small group expressing itself as a mobile, flexible, and creative expression of the church. As we unleash the power of the Micro Church to be active and involved in every dimension of society the gospel will be able to penetrate and influence all tongues, tribes and nations.
5th of January, 2007 at 6:05 am
great post… can you elaborate on how you see this being different from a church of healthy missional small groups?
i like your idea of tribe… as in not something only for people groups. in our shrinking world tribes could effectively be people of similar affinities or regions, etc…
5th of January, 2007 at 6:31 am
Lon;
Thanks for commenting. Regarding the difference between what I am suggesting and a church of healthy small groups…when it comes to mission strategy I am not aware of a movement to empower individuals and small groups to be missioinal in their approach. The models I am aware of are traditional (hierarchal and lineal) where organization and systems are the emphasis not the decentralized model I am suggesting. There is a lot more that I will be posting that will address this topic. For some time the traditional model of church life will continue to exist…maybe forever but the transition I see ahead is to a decentralized movement with empowering small groups as the way things will go. Wow; big topic. I look forward to the discussions.
Regarding the tribes concept. A few years ago I got involved with surfers when I was living in Mexico and started a mission organization called Surfers For Missions International. It is now an international movement and I can tell you for sure that surfers are a good example of a tribe. In any given country they are a subset of people that have their own language, customs, lifestyle, values, etc. They are just one of many many examples that show that there are tribes that need to be reached and they are not just defined by geography or other criteria that mission organizations have defined them by in the past.
Be Blessed; tom
7th of January, 2007 at 4:14 pm
As you already know I love the concepts. However there are a few things I would like to note.
1. The idea of “The Aternative Church” vs the “The Micro Church”, may be confusing as to what they are and how they are different. Is The Alternative Church” the name of an actual “chartered entity” that is one of the Micro Churches? I doubt it because you describe the Alternative Church as a “stategy” for church growth and development. OK, then consider using the word “alternative “in a non- titled way. For example one might say the “Micro Church will grow with alternative stategies than conventional means…” This would eliminate having to define what the “Alternative Church” is when you have already termed the “The Micro Church.”
2. OK, so i like the ideas of autonomy and independance. But using biblical concepts, how will the “elders and the deacons” look in this new structure and how will they govern such a group?
Food for thought…I love you Tom!
David
Tom Hackett’s response:
David;
Thank you for commenting.
Regarding the name(s) confusion…”The Alternative Church” is what I call the mission strategy. The “Micro Church” is what I call the individual groups which in their entirety make up the macro church. Each Micro Church would name themselves. Make sense?
Regarding elders, leadership or any teaching and training issues…The answer to all questions like this go to the idea that with local or community based resources (within the individual micro church) and outside resources (the internet and other resources generated by the network of the web community of micro churches) these topics would be researched and be worked out by each individual micro church. For example by researching how other micro churches handle the issue in addition to a web search on “elder and deaconsâ€? which produces thousands of resources for research and then application for each micro church to apply to themselves.
This is where placing the churches in the hands of God comes in. I trust that process. The same would be true of forming doctrinal or purpose statements for each micro church.
I address this topic to some degree in other posts: “The Alternative Church and Chaos Theory� and “Vine Age�. There will be more discussion on this for sure.
8th of January, 2007 at 7:51 am
Here is an interesting thought from an article titled “An Emerging Blur: Journeying Towards the Simplicity Beyond Complexity�
By Drew Moser
http://www.the-next-wave-ezine.info/issue95/index.cfm?id=18&ref=ARTICLES%5FEMERGING%20CHURCH%5F280
Theology: No longer is theological formulation contained in the world of academia. Blogs, open source theology, and e-zines (such as the Next-Wave) blur the lines between the formally educated and the ‘uneducated’. This results in a postmodern cry for theological formulation that is less systematic and more organic and contextualized. Theology now becomes not merely the task of a privileged few vocational theologians, but it is now the task of the local faith community as it seeks to embody the Story of God in its community. Grass roots movements are challenging the formal institutions.
8th of January, 2007 at 8:00 am
Some how a comment or two has been deleted from this post. Sorry; must have been the operator �. Here is a “micro church� (by my definition) that is an example of what I am talking about. Check out: http://www.mosaicsheffield.org
What I foresee is millions of these kinds of expressions that are contextually relevant to the world (tongue, tribe and nation) of each location or interest group. Web based communities can help acknowledge, empower, facilitate, encourage the development of micro churches all over the world and virtual world for that matter.
8th of January, 2007 at 10:04 am
Here are a couple of articles that address the condition of the traditional church that might be enlightening.
The Church has had its day Part 1: http://the-next-wave-ezine.info/issue96/index.cfm?id=19&ref=ARTICLES%5FCHURCH%20CULTURE%5F293
The Church has had its day Part 2: http://the-next-wave-ezine.info/issue96/index.cfm?id=19&ref=ARTICLES%5FCHURCH%20CULTURE%5F299