Rick Warren recently confided that after spending his early days trying to make his small church big, he has been spending the past few decades helping his big church think “small.” As larger churches adopt the missional mindset gleaned from the church planting movement, they regain their ability to infiltrate their communities without spending more money or employing more programs.
2. Infiltration Is More Effective Than Intimidation
Established churches manage a large group of people, ample resources and power, like battleship-wielding admirals. Their churches grew during an era when launching massive full frontal assaults from the decks of the church was highly effective at drawing crowds, filling stadiums, hiring big name bands and speakers and blasting gospel preaching over the airwaves. Now they are discovering that despite the church’s size and resources, this generation remains unreached. They’re not coming.
The reason church planters are so effective at reaching this generation is because they are less like battalions and more like Navy SEALs. They’ve had to dive over the railings and plunge into neutral waters. Getting wet is an occupational hazard of a Navy SEAL, as well as immersion. There is no bunker to take them to, so the church infiltrates the community. They are fast moving, light on their feet and low to the ground. They don’t move in big numbers. They don’t bring heavy artillery. They throw block parties, bring the church to their neighbors and replace the suspicion of church as religious big business displayed during a one-hour performance on Sundays with up-close, authentic relationships eating barbecue in the backyard with the neighbors.
Planters have been trained to harness the splinter cell approach to evangelism. Each individual in a missional community church plant is trained like a one-man/one-woman arsenal, armed to the teeth with spiritual weapons, carrying the C-4 to demolish enemy strongholds and liberate the captives. While established churches can bombard the enemy at the gates with powerful mortars, planters have been trained for infiltration and extraction. Church planters go where people already are. They don’t build a coffee shop in a building nobody but Christians goes to; they go to the coffee shop the unchurched already frequent. They join the conversations people are already having. They don’t need to creatively market sermon series from billboards. They join the local reading group and discuss books dealing with spirituality on the top 10 best seller list. They don’t just invite the dog walkers to their church with a doggie biscuit postcard; they walk their dogs with them.