The Missional Church Network

NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER - MAYORS PRAYER BREAKFAST

2009-05-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

NEWTON —

The Mayor's Prayer Breakfast was held Thursday at the Newton VFW as part of the National Day of Prayer.

Click here for The Kansan Coverage

Awaken to Leadership, Evangelism & Creativity: Simulcasts - Tuesdays, May 26, June 30, July 28

2009-05-19T04:38:00.000-07:00

Awaken to Leadership: Leadership Development: 10:30 a.m. May 26
Awaken to Evangelism Leadership Development: 10:30 a.m. June 30
Awaken to Creativity Leadership Development: 10:30 a.m. May 26

Free
Inter-National Quality Simulcast Enrichment
Your Local Source for Leadership Development
Presented by the Missional Church Network Churches
and hosted by
Hillcrest Community Church
431 W 12th St, Newton, Ks 67114

Kingdom Class Awards honor Newton faithful

2009-05-19T04:33:00.000-07:00

Newton area leaders in service honored at banquet

Newton Kansan
Posted May 15, 2009 @ 11:27 AM

Click here to go to the original story on the Kansan.com

Photos included.

Photos of the Kingdom Class Awards Night - Honoring Humble Heroes - video links too :-)

2009-05-19T04:28:00.000-07:00

Click here for photo album

Click Here for video clips of the worship team and the awards videos too.

Newton Pastor dedicated to children, families

2009-04-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

By Cristina Janney
Newton Kansan
Posted Apr 24, 2009 @ 10:06 AM

When most kids his age were consumed by sports and first discovering girls, Doug Ingmire was discovering his passion. That is when Ingmire, the pastor of Newton Christian Church, first felt a calling to ministry.

And even though he was a child himself, he knew he wanted to work with kids.

“It is hard to describe a calling,” said Ingmire, 59, who has been a minister for more than 40 years. “I knew through preaching and teaching, God was saying something to me. The hard part was surrendering to that call.”

Ingmire said he knew he was being drawn toward the ministry, but at 12, he really did not know what that meant.

Today, Ingmire says working in the ministry, especially with children, refuels his soul.

“I just like kids. I like to hear their questions. I can work with them through their struggles,” he said.

Newton Christian Church last year, under the oversight of youth minister Jan Hastings, started the BLAST program for at-risk youth. About 20 students participate in the weekly afterschool program, which has included team-building games, life skills lessons and group trips to sporting events.

“We try to teach them not to take handouts, to learn to work hard, to respect, be patient and have manners,” Ingmire said.

Church member Pam Copper has known Ingmire since she was 16. Copper’s father was a minister and knew Ingmire when he was a youth pastor in Norton.

“He has a passion for youth,” Copper said. “He always has time for them. The kids always felt comfortable with him and could tell him anything — good or bad. He was their safe harbor in a stormy world.”

In addition to working in youth ministry, Ingmire has had an emphasis in marriage and family ministry.

Ingmire conducts workshops titled Malichi and counsels couples with his wife of 38 years, Janet.

The couple has three children, two grown. The youngest, Ethan, is a sophomore at Berean Academy.

The couple met during a Bible study when Doug was a student at Manhattan Christian College and Janet was a student at Kansas State University.

The night they met, Janet told her roommate she had met the man she was going to marry. Likewise, Doug told his mother he had met the woman he was going to marry.

Doug said he has been able to keep his marriage strong by going on regular dates and doing devotions with his wife. The couple steals away for lazy afternoons browsing in antique and old hardware stores or quick treasure hunts at the Et Cetera Shop in Newton.

“We just enjoy being together,” Doug Ingmire said. Janet said shared time, passion and interests have been the cement that has kept them together.

“We learned at an early age to communicate,” she said. “He had a ministry in Bellville, and we would travel long distances together from Manhattan. We spent a lot of time getting to know each other and asking each other questions.”

Doug said the best summer his family had was when they decided to do nothing — no soccer, no baseball, no summer camp.

“We just decided to take the summer off, and we did all our favorite stuff. We took the summer to all rebuild our relationships,” he said.

When offering advice to families, Ingmire tries to tell them to slow down and take time for each other.

“Busyness rapes relationship,” Ingmire said. “The truth is families are out of control. They are here and there. Priorities are critical. If we don’t plan time, someone will plan it for us.”

Janet said despite years of devoted service in the ministry and community, Doug’s legacy will be his family.

“I think he loves being a father and a grandfather to four and a fifth on the way,” Janet said. “He has always enjoyed his family. They are very important to him.

“His parents have been married for 60 years, and mine were married for 63 years,” she said. “I think he would say it is a legacy passed down from his parents. We both come from large families in which we were always loved. I think he wants to pass that down to the next generation.”

“We learned at an early age to communicate,” she said. “He had a ministry in Bellville, and we would travel long distances together from Manhattan. We spent a lot of time getting to know each other and asking each other questions.”

Doug said the best summer his family had was when they decided to do nothing — no soccer, no baseball, no summer camp.

“We just decided to take the summer off, and we did all our favorite stuff. We took the summer to all rebuild our relationships,” he said.

When offering advice to families, Ingmire tries to tell them to slow down and take time for each other.

“Busyness rapes relationship,” Ingmire said. “The truth is families are out of control. They are here and there. Priorities are critical. If we don’t plan time, someone will plan it for us.”

Janet said despite years of devoted service in the ministry and community, Doug’s legacy will be his family.

“I think he loves being a father and a grandfather to four and a fifth on the way,” Janet said. “He has always enjoyed his family. They are very important to him.

“His parents have been married for 60 years, and mine were married for 63 years,” she said. “I think he would say it is a legacy passed down from his parents. We both come from large families in which we were always loved. I think he wants to pass that down to the next generation.”

A big thank you to the Kids FUNd

2009-04-27T11:22:00.000-07:00

By Timothy Conner
Newton Kansan
Posted Apr 24, 2009 @ 10:27 AM
NEWTON —

A big thank you to the Greater Newton Kids FUNd for supporting such a diverse group of local charities for kids!

Hillcrest and Grace Community churches have partnered together to offer biweekly Wednesday night game nights for kids at the Newton Activity Center through the winter months when the skate park and playground are too cold to serve as gathering places for kids.

The program, called “RockeTown,” offers young people snacks, games, music, a word of encouragement and positive role models at a crucial age.

The grant funds will go a long way in allowing RockeTown to purchase new games and equipment, which keep the evening fun, interactive and, ultimately, relevant to the kids who participate in the activities.

On behalf of the RockeTown kids and youth, a big thank you, Kids FUNd, and all the Kids FUNd underwriters!

— Timothy Conner,

Newton

Pastors Prayer Summit 2009

2009-04-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

Link to the Prayer Summit Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsV5tKc7cIc

Local Heroes of Faith Honored

2009-04-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

Due to the recent winter storm, the Missional Church Network's Second Annual Kingdom Class Awards Banquet has been rescheduled for 6:00 p.m. Sunday, May 3rd at First Church of God's Family Life Center.

The banquet celebrates and encourages what the Missional Church Network calls "Kingdom Class" work in our community. Kingdom Class is seen as work that improves the community, is accomplished through broad cooperation across denominational lines, and reflects the character and heart of God for His people.

Awards in three categories include: Church, Ministry, and Individual.

In the Church category, RockeTown Youth Center will be honored. RockeTown is a collaborative effort between Grace Community Church, Hillcrest Community Church and the Newton Recreation Commission to provide game nights at the Rec. Center with games, snacks, music and encouragement in a positive, mentoring atmosphere.

Receiving the Kingdom Class Award in the Ministry category is Weekday Bible School. Newton's Weekday Bible School is celebrating its 85th year of ministry to elementary school kids and is a cooperative project of many local congregations, businesses in cooperation with USD 373.

Receiving the award in the Individual category, Tina Payne, the tireless and creative Executive Director of Health Ministries will be honored. Her tireless work to being together a broad coalition of support has led to the ongoing expansion of Health Ministries services to provide a broad range of medical care for people without insurance.

Master of Ceremonies for the catered evening will be State Representative Marc Rhoades. A special time of praise led by worship leaders from six area congregations and a Keynote message from special guest Steve Kelly, CEO of Newton Medical Center will also be highlights.

$10 tickets are available at Newton First Bank locations, and Hinz Motors in N. Newton.

Previous award recipients include the Heartland Pregnancy Care Center; the Harvey County Homeless Shelter; Hillcrest Church's UTurn Youth Ministry Skate Park Outreach which has grown to include one of this year's award winners, RockeTown Youth Center; Don Reynolds the first youth recipient, and Steve Kelly, speaker at this year's banquet.

###

For More Information: Timothy Conner 316-284-0997.

Mayors Prayer Breakfast on the National Day of Prayer

2009-04-21T06:34:00.000-07:00

The mayors of Newton and North Newton are hosting a third annual prayer breakfast from 7-8 a.m. on the National Day of Prayer, Thursday, May 7th at the VFW Hall. The event will start the day with prayer for our nation, state, county and cities, as well as local emergency personnel, families and schools, and churches.

Modeled after the annual National Day of Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. first hosted by Kansas' own President Eisenhower and Congress in 1953 and each year after, local organizers hope to inspire greater prayer for our community and country leaders while offering a time of reflection and inspiration.

Mayors Raquel Thiesen and Ron Braun will be hosts of the event, with prayer led by community leaders representing the various areas to be prayed for interwoven with special music, group singing and a refreshing breakfast. All are invited.

On behalf of the mayors, organizers from the Kiwanis, Rotary, and Lions Clubs, the Newton Ministerial Alliance and The Missional Church Network have received broad support for this third city wide event.

Tickets are available at all Newton First Bank locations for $10.

Questions: missionalchurchnetwork@gmail.com or call 316.284.0997.

Pastor's Prayer Summit - June 22, 23, 24

2009-04-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

“I praise the Lord for this summit. From the very start we experienced a great level of unity – how beautiful it was (Ps. 133). We were strengthened and encouraged by His Holy Spirit and I pray that overflows into our ministries and beyond.” - Pastor

Greetings in Jesus’ Name.

What a privilege to be called of God to His people here in Newton, and we rejoice at how He has been working in our midst. We are thankful for the Newton Ministerial Alliance and the Missional Church Network and the many expressions of working together that we share. We get to be thankful, but not satisfied! There is so much more. There are too many people here who have not yet responded to His love. There is not enough of heaven here in our part of the earth.

Do you believe God would want to draw the spiritual leaders of Newton, across denominational and racial lines, together to seek His face? What would happen if the spiritual leaders of our city got away for several days just to be in His presence and ask Him how He wants to impact our city through us?

We believe God has invited us to spend 48 hours away with Him at a Prayer Summit. We know that we all have busy schedules, but we believe this is something that will reap great rewards for each participant, each of our congregations, and our community.

We have invited Pastor Howard Boyd of International Renewal Ministries (www.PrayerSummits.Net) to help us in this process. In the past 17 years, IRM has assisted over 1500 Prayer Summits for spiritual leaders in more than 35 states and 20 other nations.

So, our request is that you mark June 22, 23, and 24 on your calendar as days that you are spending with other Newton shepherds - in the Lord’s presence.
Please don’t let anything keep you from responding with us to this special invitation from the Lord.

If you have any questions please contact Timothy Conner at 316/284-0997 or missionalchurchnetwork@gmail.com

SCHEDULE
Monday June 22 Arrive to share lunch together.
Wednesday June 24 Depart After lunch ~ recharged!

LOCATION: Crosswind Camp & Conference Center
8036 N. Hoover Road, Hesston, KS 67062-9322
620/327-2700 http://www.crosswind.ws

Cost: $130 Includes: 2 Breakfasts, 3 Lunches, 2 Dinners and 2 nights, hotel style, single beds.

TOTAL COST: The fee for our facilitator and his travel have been underwritten by a generous grant from the Mission America Coalition - dramatically reducing our costs! Scholarships are also available for any pastor unable to attend due to finances. Please call Timothy for information.

Kingdom Class Awards Ceremony & Banquet - May 3rd

2009-04-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

Cheering one another on to love and good deeds. Hebrews 10:24

A Second Annual
Kingdom Class Awards Ceremony & Banquet

The Kingdom Class Awards honor individuals, congregations and ministries in Harvey County who in the past year have modeled a Kingdom spirit: inter-denominational cooperation and "Be good news / Share good news" community impact.
Three awards will be presented at the banquet this year:

Tina Payne, Director, Health Ministries
RockeTown Youth Center (Hillcrest & Grace Churches)
Weekday Bible School, Celebrating 85 years of ministry!

And… a low key fund raiser for our work together through MCN

When: Sunday, May 3rd, 6:00 p.m.,
Where: First Church of God Family Life Center
Why: To celebrate the work of God through individuals and organizations who have demonstrated working together toward a Kingdom Class Community and to lift the vision for more God-honoring work in the years ahead.

Tickets $10 at Hinz Motors and Newton First Bank locations.

Banquet Also Features:
- An inter-denominational praise team of pastors and worship leaders from six churches will lead in a time or worship celebration!
- Steve Kelly CEO, Newton Medical Center, will be the Keynote Spreaker.
Steve lives out his strong faith as a businessman in ministry and shares his vision for Kingdom Class Community. Newton Medical Center is known throughout the region for excellent medical care with a caring and personal touch. Those who have dealt with Steve can testify to his integrity and passion for Christ. Steve was a Kingdom Class Award recipient last year!
- Video Presentations on each of our ‘09 recipients.
- Rep. Marc Rhoades, Master of Ceremonies

Please mark those calendars!

MCN Church Growth Simulcasts

2009-02-04T04:08:00.000-08:00

Every Other Month - at Hillcrest Community Church.
431 W 12th St, Newton

Each simulcast is free and open to any pastor and their invited guests.
Lunch after for any who want to go out for fellowship after wards.

Please note: the Church Growth Simulcasts last 90 minutes,
and are every other month, so mark your calendars!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Leadership Development & Training
Challenges to Marriage
with George Barna, Ted Cunningham and Michael McManus of Marriage Savers

Family is one of the most important and influential institutions in America, but co-habitation and divorce threaten its stability. This practical, hope-filled program will describe the research on people living together before marriage and provide strategies for changing this course. Discover proven methods for reducing divorce and fostering healthy, life-long marriages.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Church Growth & Development
Changes and Trends in Christian Media
with George Barna, Steve Hewitt, Eddie DiGarmo of Christian Computing Magazine

Technologies and media are constantly changing, and they will continue to change the way we do church! In this fascinating program, leaders will learn how to anticipate the changes and incorporate new possibilities. Learn how you can advance your church's ability to inspire and transform the culture.

MCN churches raised over 3,000 pounds through Canning Hunger

2009-02-04T04:04:00.000-08:00

Pastor Brian has reported that First Church of God collected 1,600 pounds for Canning Hunger!

Congratulation to the good folks at FCOG and Pastor Brian for stoking the fire!

I reported earlier that Grace collected 1,012 pounds and between All Nations, Newton Christian, and New Life, another several hundred was collected. PTL!

The Salvation Army sorely needed those supplies as their demand has grown while supplies dwindled, and thanks to MCN churches, we raised somewhere around 3,000 pounds.

Thank you to each of you! for all you help make happen to show the Love of Christ in so many ways!!

Alan Hirsch - Defining Missional - Leadership Journal

2008-12-16T15:31:00.000-08:00

From Leadership Journal Online

The word is everywhere, but where did it come from and what does it really mean?

Alan Hirsch | posted 12/12/2008

It has become increasingly difficult to open a ministry book or attend a church conference and not be accosted by the word missional. A quick search on Google uncovers the presence of "missional communities," "missional leaders," "missional worship," even "missional seating," and "missional coffee." Today, everyone wants to be missional. Can you think of a single pastor who is proudly anti-missional?

But as church leaders continue to pile onto the missional bandwagon, the true meaning of the word may be getting buried under a pile of assumptions. Is it simply updated nomenclature for being purpose-driven or seeker-sensitive? Is missional a new, more mature strain of the emerging church movement?

It's time to pause and consider the origin and meaning of the word that is reframing our understanding of ministry and the church. Alan Hirsch, a self-described "missional activist," also provides a concise definition of the ubiquitous term.

There are consequences when the meanings of words become confused. This is particularly true within a biblical worldview. The Hebrews were suspicious of images as conveyors of truth, so they guarded words and their meanings carefully. Part of theology, therefore, includes guarding the meaning of words to maintain truth within the community of faith.

This is why I am concerned about the confusion surrounding the meaning of the word missional. Maintaining the integrity of this word is critical, because recovering a missional understanding of God and the Church is essential not only for the advancement of our mission but, I believe, also for the survival of Christianity in the West.

First, let me say what missional does not mean. Missional is not synonymous with emerging. The emerging church is primarily a renewal movement attempting to contextualize Christianity for a postmodern generation. Missional is also not the same as evangelistic or seeker-sensitive. These terms generally apply to the attractional model of church that has dominated our understanding for many years. Missional is not a new way to talk about church growth. Although God clearly desires the church to grow numerically, it is only one part of the larger missional agenda. Finally, missional is more than social justice. Engaging the poor and correcting inequalities is part of being God's agent in the world, but we should not confuse this with the whole.

A proper understanding of missional begins with recovering a missionary understanding of God. By his very nature God is a "sent one" who takes the initiative to redeem his creation. This doctrine, known as missio Dei—the sending of God—is causing many to redefine their understanding of the church. Because we are the "sent" people of God, the church is the instrument of God's mission in the world. As things stand, many people see it the other way around. They believe mission is an instrument of the church; a means by which the church is grown. Although we frequently say "the church has a mission," according to missional theology a more correct statement would be "the mission has a church."

Many churches have mission statements or talk about the importance of mission, but where truly missional churches differ is in their posture toward the world. A missional community sees the mission as both its originating impulse and its organizing principle. A missional community is patterned after what God has done in Jesus Christ. In the incarnation God sent his Son. Similarly, to be missional means to be sent into the world; we do not expect people to come to us. This posture differentiates a missional church from an attractional church.

The attractional model, which has dominated the church in the West, seeks to reach out to the culture and draw people into the church—what I call outreach and in-grab. But this model only works where no significant cultural shift is required when moving from outside to inside the church. And as Western culture has become increasingly post-Christian, the attractional model has lost its effectiveness. The West looks more like a cross-cultural missionary context in which attractional church models are self-defeating. The process of extracting people from the culture and assimilating them into the church diminishes their ability to speak to those outside. People cease to be missional and instead leave that work to the clergy.

A missional theology is not content with mission being a church-based work. Rather, it applies to the whole life of every believer. Every disciple is to be an agent of the kingdom of God, and every disciple is to carry the mission of God into every sphere of life. We are all missionaries sent into a non-Christian culture.

Missional represents a significant shift in the way we think about the church. As the people of a missionary God, we ought to engage the world the same way he does—by going out rather than just reaching out. To obstruct this movement is to block God's purposes in and through his people. When the church is in mission, it is the true church.

Alan Hirsch is a missional activist and the author of The Forgotten Ways.

Weekly U.S.A. Church Attendance: The Sociologists Weigh In

2008-11-17T14:09:00.000-08:00

Weekly U.S.A. Church Attendance: The Sociologists Weigh In

by Andy Rowell, Doctor of Theology (Th.D.) student at Duke Divinity School. My areas of concentration are "The Practice of Leading Christian Communities and Institutions" and "New Testament."

November 15, 2008

Weekly U.S.A. Church Attendance: The Sociologists Weigh In

How many people attend church on a weekly basis?

There are two ways of figuring out the answer to this question. You could ask a representative sample of adults how often they attend church. Or you could go find a representative number of congregations and ask them to provide an attendance count. Both methods are used but neither is perfectly reliable. The problem with the first method is that people might lie or "misremember": Do they really attend as much as they say they do? There is evidence that people answer that they attend more than they actually do. The problem with the second method is that it is very difficult to get a representative number of congregations and to get them to count attendance in the same way. Need I mention that this is a difficult task? "There are more than 300,000 congregations in the United States." Mark Chaves, Congregations in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 3.

As you will see below, most sociologists stress that (a) self-reporting of church attendance has been relatively stable (around 35%?); (b) that the actual attendance is probably lower than what is reported; and (c) that it is difficult to declare based on the evidence how much church attendance has decreased if at all.

Here are two contemporary analogies which hint at the enormity of the task of detecting weekly church attendance rates:

(1) How do we really know that the U.S. economy is doing poorly? It is a massive thing and so every day different indicators are trotted out--some positive and some negative. Similarly, it is very difficult to tell whether the religious attendance is up because there are so many people and institutions involved.

(2) The second analogy is this: How do we know whether the U.S. population wants to elect a Democrat or Republican for president? Let's just look at the popular vote:

In 2008, 53% Democrat (Obama) to 46% Republican (McCain).

In 2004, 48% Democrat (Kerry) to 51% Republican (Bush).

In 2000, 48% Democrat (Gore) to 48% Republican (Bush).

As a country, there has been a small shift in the last eight years from Republican to Democratic presidential candidates. But we need to have a national election to precisely determine to what degree the country has shifted (or not shifted). Up until the last days, the result is in doubt.

Similarly, there are people who are stopping and starting attending church regularly in the United States but it is difficult to precisely determine how many. Like political beliefs, people's religious beliefs and practices do change but it is difficult to easily discern how much the entire country is shifting.

The best we can do is to

(a) look to national polls where there is a margin of error acknowledging their limitations (Gallup, Barna, Wuthnow, Stark); or

(b) check the attendance levels at some churches and try to make reasonable deductions (Olson, Chaves, Ammerman, Thumma, Stetzer).

Without further ado, here is what the sociologists say.

Most researchers are familiar with the following article that argues that reported numbers may not reflect the actual number of people who show up.

C. K. Hadaway, P. L. Marler, and Mark Chaves, “What the Polls Don't Show: A Closer Look at U.S. Church Attendance,” American Sociological Review 58 (1993): 741-752. (It is available as a PDF at the link and will only take you 5 minutes to read. It is easy to read and fascinating).

Nancy Ammerman writes,

"somewhere between 25 and 40 percent of the population (depending on which surveys you believe) showed up for services on any given weekend."

Nancy Ammerman, Pillars of Faith: American Congregations and their Partners (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 1.

Jackson Carroll cites the Gallup information (though he footnotes that it has its detractors),
"In tracking U.S. poll responses over time to questions about the importance of religion, church attendance, and self-reported church membership, we can see considerable stability over time. Although ups and downs in the trend lines are evident, they are, in general, remarkably stable."

Jackson Carroll, God's Potters: Pastoral Leadership and the Shaping of Congregations (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 38.

Scott Thumma and Dave Travis write,
"In addition, when phone pollsters ask self-identified Christians, 'Have you attended a religious service in the past seven days?' the figure is consistently around 40 percent, with a recent poll showing a quite optimistic figure of 47 percent. Recently, academic researchers Kirk Hadaway and Penny Marler have made very credible claims that this stated behavior doesn't match the reality found in actual congregations around the country. We generally agree with these researchers' findings that show actual attendance on any given week to be around 20 percent of the adult population. Nevertheless, we feel the larger percentage is still a significant measure of those in the population with a strong commitment to Christian religious practice, even if this practice doesn't include worship attendance every week."

Scott Thumma and Dave Travis, Beyond Megachurch Myths (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007), 4.

Stanley Presser and Mark Chaves write,
"Yet, existing evidence does not definitively establish whether attendance at religious services declined in American society from the 1950s to the present. We examine the trend in religious service attendance between 1990 and 2006. Evidence from several sources converges on the same answer: weekly attendance at religious services has been stable since 1990. However one reads the evidence about trends between World War II and 1990, the recent past has been a time of stability."

Stanley Presser and Mark Chaves, “Is Religious Service Attendance Declining?” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 46 (2007): 417.

Robert Wuthnow writes,

"A great debate has emerged around the topic of religious participation in recent years. Some observers believe it is declining. Others do not. Some argue that it is being replaced by more private expressions of faith--belief without belonging, as some writers describe it. Still others question whether religious participation can be measureed accurately at all. Perhaps people somehow want to be 'religious' badly enough to lie to pollsters about how often they attend.

Much of this debate is fairly easily resolved once we move from speculation to actual research. Overall, polls and surveys suggest that attendance at religious services among the full adult population of the United States has remained fairly constant for at least thirty years. Constant, but with perhaps some erosion in recent years. The reason some observers think religious participation may have declined more than polls and surveys suggest is that research based diaries suggests that it has. Diary studies ask people to record carefully what they do day by day and hour by hour. Thus, they require more thoughtful answers about what someone did, say, on a recent Sunday morning than is typically the case with a brief question survey. The trouble with these diary studies, though, is that they have not been conducted among very many people, and it is unclear whether the methods used over the past several decades provide comparable evidence. However, nobody claims that religious participation has been rising in recent decades."

Robert Wuthnow, After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 51.

Wuthnow's endnotes on page 260:

An excellent overview of the recent research is available in Chaves and Stephens, "Church Attendance in the United States," see also Chaves, "Abiding Faith."

Hadaway, Marler, and Chaves, "What the Polls Don't Show" is the source of much of the recent debate about the accuracy of survey data on church attendance; on diary evidence, see especially Presser, "Data Collection Mode and Social Desirability in Self-Reported Religious Attendance"; other useful contributions to the debate include Hadaway, Marler, and Chaves, "Overreporting Church Attendance in America," Hout and Greeley, "The Center Doesn't Hold," Hout and Greeley, "What Church Officials' Reports Don't Show," Smith, "A Review of Church Attendance Measures," and Marcum, "Measuring Church Attendance."

Rodney Stark writes,

In The Churching of America, 1776-1990, the authors [including Stark] reconstructed church membership rates, beginning in 1776 and ending in 1990 . . . The reason the book's title refers to the churching of America is because through the past two centuries Americans have become far more churched--an increasingly higher percentage actually belong to a local congregation.

Church attendance has held rock steady, except for the entirely understandable decline in Catholic attendance [after Vatican II relaxed its rules about attending Mass].

In recent years there have been a number of attempts made to minimize the actual rate of attendance in America, some of them remarkably impassioned . . . No one disputes that a significant number of Americans who tell pollsters that they go to church every Sunday, probably only go most Sundays and therefore that the consistent finding that about 35 percent are in church any given Sunday is a bit high . . . More careful studies by more qualified researchers suggest that the overstatement of church attendance is quite small, being only about 1.1 times the actual rate of attendance, so the average rate probably is around 31 or 32 percent."

Stark's approving reference at the end of the last quote refers to the article:

Brian M. D'Onofrio, Lindon J. Eaves, Lenn Murrelle, Hermine H. Maes, and Bernard Spilka, "Understanding biological and social influences on religious affiliation, attitudes, and behaviors: a behavior genetic perspective," Journal of Personality (67) (1999): 953-84.

Rodney Stark, What Americans Really Believe (Waco: Baylor, 2008), 12, 14, 17, 204.

David Olson writes,
"From 2002 to 2005, the yes answer to Gallup polls ranged from 40 to 44 percent. During that same period, the Barna Research Group reported similar findings: 43 to 47 percent of American adults surveyed said they attended church on the past weekend (Olson 26)."

Olson concludes based on his own research that "The research of the American Church Research Project shows that 17.5 percent of the population attended an orthodox Christian church on any given weekend in 2005" (Olson 28). He continues, "By using statistical modelings to calculate the frequency of attenders in the typical American congregation, the results show that 23 percent of Americans are 'regular participants'" (Olson 29).

David T. Olson, The American Church in Crisis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 26-29.

But academic sociologists suggest church attendance is a bit higher though they acknowledge that it is very difficult to estimate. To my knowledge, Olson's work has not been reviewed by any sociologist and I have difficulty understanding his methodology.

See his research methodology page online and the one paragraph description of his methodology on page 16 of the book. I will reproduce here that paragraph and the paragraph before it which dramatizes the statistics so you can judge his methodology. At the end of each chapter, Olson notes that there is more information online about each chapter (e.g. chapter 1) but I did not find this to be the case; nor the statistics about birth rates (page 230, note 18 )--I got Page Not Found notices.

Here is the description of his methodology on page 16:

"In reality the church in America is not booming. It is in crisis. On any given Sunday, the vast majority of Americans are absent from church. Even more troublesome, as the American population continues to grow, the church falls further and further behind. If trends continue, by 2050 the percentage of Americans attending church will be half the 1990 figure.

For the past twenty years, the American Church Research Project (TACRP) has compiled comprehensive data on the state of the church in the United States. This research provides reliable attendance numbers for each of the 3,141 U.S. counties, for each state, and for the nation as a whole. The database includes attendance figures for more than 200,000 individual Christian churches, as reported from head counts conducted by each church. It also includes zip code and founding date of most of these churches. In addition, for the 60,000 churches that do not report attendance, their membership was multiplied by the denominations attendance-to-membership ratio. For the remaining 45,000 Christian churches that report neither membership nor attendance, a realistic estimate was developed by using a statistical model that factored in the population, growth rate, and average attendance of the churches' counties. The research includes all historically orthodox Christian churches but does not include nonorthodox Christian churches or non-Christian religions" (Olson 16).

What Olson seems to be saying is that: "Attendance is down in the churches for which I have records." This says something but one needs to be careful about generalizing to the entire American church.

See also:

Mark Chaves and Shawna Anderson, "Continuity and Change in American Religion, 1972-2006," in Social Trends in the United States, 1972-2006: Evidence from the General Social Survey (ed. by Peter V. Marsden; Princeton, Princeton University Press, forthcoming).

E. Brooks Holifield, “Towards a History of American Congregations,” in American Congregations, Volume 2: New Perspectives in the Study of Congregations (ed. by James P. Wind and James W. Lewis; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 23-53.

See my post:

October 16, 2008

On the use of surveys by church leaders

FIREPROOF First Responders Outreach Wrap Up

2008-11-14T04:29:00.000-08:00

With the full support of our local Police & Fire Chiefs and Sheriff,
Missional Church Network Churches
are purchasing the tickets for the movie FIREPROOF as a blessing for our
Harvey County First Responders and their spouses:

Newton, Hesston and Halstead Fire/EMS,
Harvey County Sheriff's Dept.,
Newton, Hesston and Halstead Police,
Newton Medical Center ER,
Harvey County 911 Dispatchers.

Our goals are to appreciate them,
to build into their marriages and lift up their spirits.

They will receive free popcorn and soda and if they like, a copy of the Love Dare book for free too!

Our daughter tells of a 7th grade boy who came to school telling everyone
"I saw the movie, I saw the movie FIREPROOF and it was AWESOME!"
"I got free popcorn and pop and went with my mom and dad
and they got the actual book that is in the movie too!"

Here's the final numbers - the real life stories are what matters most,
but we count and tract because people matter...

132 tickets used.
72 had names written on them (as requested) and 60 didn't - so this is a very partial count.
All 40 Love Dare books were taken - one per family.
Each book had a listing of MCN churches and an invitation to
find a church home if they do not already have one.

Of the tickets that had names:
Newton Fire/EMS - 8 families
Sheriff - 9 families
911 - 7 families
Newton PD - 3 families
ER - 2 families
Hesston PD - 1 family
Hesston Fire/EMS - 3 families
Halstead Fire/EMS - 2 families
Whitewater Fire/EMS - 1 family.
36 Families accounted for.

24 families were sent follow-up thank you note with a full color FIREPROOF Love, Marriage and Gospel booklets with a listing of churches and information about ordering the Love Dare books and Couples Bible study. I'm still working on getting the addresses for others.

Nice work!

Thanks all Who Helped Make XFest Possible

2008-07-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

Several hundred kids and their families enjoyed X-Fest at the Skate Park Thursday, Friday and Saturday, July 10-12, even with all the rain Saturday!

Thanks to the many churches, pastors, and business leaders who work together as teammates to connect with and serve our community!

This was a huge community effort. A great BIG thank you goes to our X-Fest Sponsors without whom the weekend could never have happened! Newton is enriched by having such great corporate and community citizens like the Best Western Red Coach Inn, Sonic, Pizza Hut, Long John Silvers, Dairy Queen and Jackie Chens III. Arlis Electric, Becky Wheeler RE/Max Real Estate, Mark Frazier and Edward Jones Investments, Farm Bureau Insurance, Master Plumbing, J & H Farm Equipment, Claassen Harware & Lumber, Grabers Ace Hardware, Hutton Construction, Esch Landscaping, Bud & Steve's Auto, Hendrickson Chiropractic, Hinz Motors, Conrade Insurance, Grant McKinney & Simmons Optometrists, The Chronicle Newspaper and NextGen Productions. The excellent support of the Newton Rec Center, Newton Medical Center, Newton Police, Fire/EMS and the Harvey County Sheriffs Department, the National Guard is also so appreciated, and the support of many anonymous individuals!

Eight churches supported the event: First Church of God, Grace Community Church, Hillcrest Community Foursquare Church, Kingdom Life Ministries, Koerner Heights Mennonite Brethren Church, New Life Assembly of God, Stone Creek Community Church and Newton Christian Church. Working together made greater things possible. Thank you to each and every one!

“XFest” ~ July 12, 2008 ~ Newton Skate Park

2008-06-27T06:52:00.000-07:00

Purpose Statement: To provide opportunities for youth to explore life options, choices, and careers through positive peer and adult relationships in a fun “XGames” atmosphere of skating, biking, games and music at the Newton Skate Park.

Many in the Newton business community and eight area churches are working to help make XFest possible.

Just the Facts:

Sponsor: The Missional Church Network, Newton.

Team: Area business and Community leaders, Newton Rec. Commission, Police,

Eight area churches, Sheriff, Churches.
Time: 2:00-6:00 p.m. Games, food, treats, booths, music. (Career & Choices Booths)

6:30 p.m. Pro Skate Demo with the Untitled Skate Team, Prize Drawings.

8:30-10:00 p.m. Celebration Concert with Repentance, from Wichita.
Place: Newton Recreation Commission Skate Park,

415 N Poplar St, Newton, KS 67114

Xtreme Careers: Police, Fire/EMS, Sheriff, National Guard/Army.

Xtreme Choices: Drugs & Alcohol or Not?

Premarital Sex or Not?

Ten Commandments or Not?

Contact: Timothy Conner: 316-284-0997; 316-215-1082 cell.

The Pro Skate Team will be working with area Kids the two evenings before XFest. Thursday to build relationships and “hang out.” Friday the pro team coach area kids in a skate clinic. Saturday provides the venue to show off area kid’s skills with a high powered skate and BMX “Jam Session.” This year: the band will be joining Friday evening as well – hanging out, building relationships, sharing musical tips and helping coach! The whole atmosphere will be positive, uplifting and inspiring.

Retreat Centers for Pastors and Missionaries

2008-05-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

A selection of retreat centers available if you are planning a retreat this summer of fall - or anytime!

Anchor Missionary & Pastor's Retreat
On beautiful Table Rock Lake, Kimberling City, MO
Contact person: Dr H L Goodman Founder/President
Website http://www.anchor-retreat.com/index.html
Email - drhlgoodman@cebridge.net

Wonderful Family atmosphere. Branson MO. nearby; Silver Dollar City (20 min. away); Family Shows (Branson); Table Rock Lake (Bass Pro holds many of their fishing tournaments here).
One-on-one time for pastors (if desired) with Dr Goodman, Counseling (if needed & wanted). Quiet and secluded.
Located in the beautiful Tri-Lakes area of Missouri and only 45 minutes from Eureka Springs AR. As much (or as little) as one would like to do while getting the much needed "R & R."

Dr & Mrs. H L Goodman
170 Deckard Lane, Kimberling City MO 65686
Phone (417) 739-1642
"Ministering To Those Who Minister"

http://www.pastorsretreatnetwork.org/

You're fed and blessed. Check it out!
Locations in Texas, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Others to consider:

Free Retreat Centers for Clergy

State	Organization	Website
CO	Eagle's Nest Ranch	www.eaglesnestranch.org

CO	Rocky Mountain Renewal	www.rockymountainrenewal.org
KY	Mary's Place	www.marysplace.org
IL	Deer Ridge Ministries	www.deerridgeministries.org
IL	Oakland Acres Hermitage	www.oaklandacres.org
MI, WI	Broom Tree Ministries	www.broomtreeministries.org
MI	Elim Retreats	www.barnabas.org
MI	Quiet Place Ministries	www.quietplaceministries.org
MN	Camp Lebanon	www.camplebanon.org
OH	Innkeeper Ministries, Inc.	www.hartcoservice.com/innkeeper/

Mission America Selects Newton as "Pilot City"

2008-04-22T18:28:00.000-07:00

Through the coalition building work of The Missional Church Network (MCN), in and around Newton, Newton has been invited to serve as a nationwide "Pilot City" for the Mission America Coalition's "Loving Our Communities to Christ" national initiative. Fourteen Pilot Cities were selected by Mission America, the largest coalition of church leaders ever assembled for the express purpose of evangelism. Each city was chosen because they have a proven track record of working to bring the Body of Christ together to love and reach their communities for Christ, and a desire to do even more.

For a year now, MCN affiliated churches in Newton have been implementing what they call Neighborhood Lighthouses. Lighthouses are people who are willing to pray for, reach out to care for, and share Christ with their neighbors using a "Prayer, Care, Share" model. Almost 200 Lighthouses have already formed in and around Newton and Hesston.

Commenting on the selection, MCN Coordinator Timothy Conner said, "The selection is an honor. Having our work recognized as a good model for others is truly an affirmation. But more than affirmation, it will provide a valuable three year consulting relationship with Mission America, a year round opportunity for networking with top national leaders, and also allow us the privilege of sharing our experience to help other communities through Mission America's national platform. We've a long way to go," said Conner, "but maybe we're just a little farther down the road and have something to share."

As one of fourteen cities selected nation-wide, and as the youngest ministry and the smallest city selected by far, Conner points out that Newton has a unique place in the overall effort: "to be a nation-wide model for the thousands of smaller communities who want to increase their ability to serve their community in such a way that the average person on the street would say that 'the churches are the best thing in their communities.'"

Making the selection was the Loving Our Communities to Christ project of the Mission America Coalition.

In response to Mission America's invitation in November 2007, a broad group of community leaders rallied to show their support for MCN to enter into a formal relationship with Mission America, and sent a collective letter of support. At Mission America's national meeting in Boston this month, Newton was formally introduced as one of the Pilot Cities. Conner was able to be there to represent the Newton ministry and begin networking and sharing ideas with national leaders.

Other benefits of becoming a Pilot City include "having our community be intentionally prayed for by hundreds of intercessors connected to the Mission America Coalition," said Conner and, "Lord providing, there may be some initial grant monies available to help build on our local strategy."

The Mission America - is a network of over 450 evangelical denominations and parachurch ministries, many with a national or global presence. www.missionamerica.org, www.missionalchurchnetwork.org.

Six Kingdom Class Awards were presented Saturday, March 8, 2008

2008-03-14T07:13:00.000-07:00

Six Kingdom Class Awards were presented Saturday, with a video highlighting each recipient's work. The award was an engraved bronze eagle on a wood base.

Kingdom Class Awards

I am working on getting the ministry videos and keynote on our web site.
I'll let you know when I do.

Here are the 2008 Awards:

MINISTRY

The very first Kingdom Class Award was given to the Harvey County Homeless Shelter, Penny Dugan director. The Shelter has served over 500 needy people in its 3 years of ministry, ministering the Love and Compassion of Christ to the "least of these." Now, seeking ways to expand their work and become even more effective in helping people not just get a hand out, but a leg up, this ministry is taking steps to truly be able to help people rebuild and restore their lives and truly give them a future and a hope.

MINISTRY INDIVIDUAL
The second award went to Rhonda Case of Heartland
Pregnancy Center for her amazing 17 years of work with young womenat a critical stage of their lives. This ministry is there when things are often scary and decisions of life and death hang in the balance. They have been a steadfast blessing to the community for seventeen years, and just recently have added a bold new direction with ministry especially to Fathers and Daughters and Dads and their Sons. Rhonda Case was originally nominated as a ministry individual, but it soon became evident that while the individual truly is deserving, it is fitting to give this award to the entire ministry. She would be the first to agree

YOUTH GROUP
The third Kingdom Award went to U-Turn Youth Ministry at Hillcrest Church. This is the Skate Park outreach which has led 50 middle schoolers to faith Christ! Although small in size have been mighty in impact. Inspired by a sense of calling from the Lord – they started with a case of water on a hot day, and have become the catalyst for an entire movement in our community that has involved their entire congregation, six community organizations - and - eight other churches – all focused on working together to reach the most un-reached English speaking
people group in our community. Pastor Doug Ingmire presented the award.

YOUTH INDIVIDUAL
Don Reynolds is a young man, open to the whispers of God.
He is a shining example of Paul's urging to Timothy to let no one look down on his ministry because of his youth. He started a bible study for other young men in his youth group. The group then branched out and into the community to reach kids that no one else was reaching by showing up weekly at the Newton Skate Park to take God's word and God's love to un-churched kids on a weekly basis. By being available to the Lord and faithful to His call, this young man has become an instrument the Lord has used to disciple and encourage other young men and women that would never be reached otherwise. Youth Pastor Mitch Boese presented the award.

ORGANIZATION/BUSINESS
The fifth Kingdom Award went to a group which plans the Chisolm Trail Festival Sunday services in the park each year. When planning the events for Sunday, they have always worked hard to make sure that - even as the community was asked to come together and keep the celebration going - Sundays remained an inspiring day for the community to worship together and celebrate faith, family and freedom in the context of the larger weekend events. Pastor Jason Reynolds presented the award.

BUSINESS LEADER
And, the sixth Kingdom Award went to Steve Kelly CEO of Newton Medical Center for implementing Christian principles of ministry at NMC. Steve has positively impacted the community in ways no one but the Lord can truly count.
Exhibiting Kingdom Class qualities in everything he does, his personal touch and Kingdom mindset have given him a wide reputation for Godly wisdom and excellence among the pastors, business, and civic leaders of our community. Fellow businessman Mark Hutton presented the award.

It is obvious that God is doing great things in our community through willing servants who offer themselves to serve the Lord in this, our first mission field.

--
"We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit." A.W. Tozer

Monthly Leadership Series Simulcast with Erwin McManus

2008-02-25T11:09:00.000-08:00

Fourth Tuesdays of each month
~ Beginning FEBRUARY 26th ~ 11:00 a.m.

Join area pastors for

The Missional Church Network's

FREE Monthly

Leadership Series Simulcast

11:00 a.m.
Hillcrest Community Church

431 W 12th St, Newton

316-283-5035

(Map)

~ Lunch and discussion following for those able ~

Spiritual leadership is both art and science... so the leader must be both artist and engineer.

The demands that leadership places on spiritual leaders are definitely unique. In fact, too often we try to apply secular models to spiritual work, says Erwin McManus, author, pastor and teacher of CCN's newest leadership training series:

"True leadership affects the soul of the organization and the spirit of the people. The irony is that, while secular leadership has become blatantly spiritual, Christian leadership has become blatantly (and blandly) secular. We need to recapture the invisible aspects of leadership... In the end leadership is nothing less than spiritual."

Join CCN for this all-new monthly training experience led by one of the most creative and innovative leaders of our time.

Since the day that Erwin McManus came to faith in college, he has not followed the typical road of so many contemporary church-goers. Rather, He chose another "less civilized" one, following the path of Jesus in a passionate journey full of mystery, danger and untamed faith. This has been the vision and the passion fueling both his ministry and leadership.

Each monthly session is designed to give you and your leadership teams the spiritual nourishment that you need to sustain the demands of leadership and reconnect with God's vision and purpose for your life and ministry.

You'll receive:

Fresh, insightful, biblical teaching.
Powerful, real-life examples and applications.
Keys to unleashing your creativity to serve the world.
Encouragement for living with passion and purpose.

Recharge and renew each month with The Erwin McManus Leadership Series on CCN!

Erwin McManus is a writer, futurist, activist, artist and spiritual and cultural leader. He serves as the lead pastor and Cultural Architect of Mosaic in Los Angeles. Known around the world for its spiritual creativity and cosmopolitan diversity, Mosaic is a community of followers of Jesus Christ committed to live by faith, to be known by love, and to be a voice of hope. Erwin is the catalyst behind Awaken, a collaboration of dreamers committed to creating environments that expand imagination and unleash creativity. He is the author of An Unstoppable Force, a Gold Medallion Award finalist; Chasing Daylight; Uprising: A Revolution of the Soul (also companion The Uprising Experience life storyboard); The Barbarian Way; Stand Against the Wind and Soul Cravings.

Tuesday February 26	Soul Cravings
Tuesday March 25	Chasing Daylight
Tuesday April 22	The Barbarian Way
Tuesday May 20	Uprising
Tuesday June 24	An Unstoppable Force

Kingdom Class Awards Ceremony & Banquet Dinner.

2008-01-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

Really, really exciting news:

Please mark your calendars: Sat., March 8th

A First Annual
Kingdom Class Awards Ceremony & Banquet Dinner.

The Kingdom Class Awards will honor people, businesses and ministries in Harvey County who in the past year
have modeled a Kingdom spirit: inter-denominational cooperation and "Be good news / Share good news" community impact.
The awards will be featured and presented at the banquet.

(It is also be a low key fund raiser for our work together through MCN)

When: Sat. March 8th, in the evening, time still to be determined
Where: First Church of God Family Life Center
Why: To celebrate the work of individuals and organizations who have demonstrated working together toward a Kingdom Class Community! and to lift the vision for more God-honoring work in the years ahead.
How: Celebrate all finalists, select one award winner in each category to be revealed at the banquet:

- Church of Ministry
- Individual Adult at large
- Youth Group
- Individual Youth
- Business or Organization
- Individual Businessman or woman / organizational leader

Would you be interested in nominating people from your congregation or the community?
Please help us lift up the people you know who exemplify "Kingdom values" in their work for the Lord.
They will be encouraged and be an encouragement to many others!
Just email me with your ideas - - that is all it takes to get the ball rolling!

Mark Hutton of Hutton Construction, Wichita will be the Keynote Spreaker.
Mark lives out his strong faith as a businessman in ministry and shares the vision for Kingdom Class Community.
Hutton Construction is well known in Newton for construction projects at Grace Community Church, Trinity Heights Church and Newton Medical Center to name a few. Those who have dealt with Mark and Hutton Construction can testify to his integrity and passion for Christ.
An inter-denominational worship team of pastors and worship leaders from as many as six churches will lead in a time or worship through song. Very exciting!

More details to follow on what promises to be an amazing evening of celebrating what the Lord has and can do.
Mark those calendars!
And to protect the date, mark your church calendars as well!

--
Timothy >

Psalm 139:17 "How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!."

Acceptance Letter the the Mission America Coalition

2008-01-02T15:31:00.000-08:00

The Missional Church Network sent this acceptance letter to Mission America, signed by eighteen community leaders familiar with MCN's work. Some of you might enjoy reading it.

The Missional Church Network Mission America Coalition

333 Sutton Dr., P.O. Box 13930
Newton, KS Palm Desert, CA

67114 92255

December 7, 2007

Dear Dr. Cedar and Mission America’s Loving Our Communities to Christ Team,

Thank you for the invitation to have The Missional Church Network (MCN) of Newton, Kansas partner with the Mission America Coalition - for at least a three year period as a pilot city in the “Loving Our Community to Christ” (LC2C) framework. As members and active participants in the greater Newton community, we welcome and encourage this collaboration for the purpose of furthering the LC2C passion both organizations share - MCN locally, and Mission America nationally.

It is our hope that collaboration between MCN’s leadership team, Mission America facilitators, and the leadership from other Pilot Cities will help each of our communities pursue their unique “Kingdom Class” goals, and that this partnership will be an encouragement to Newton and other increasingly Kingdom-minded communities to help nurture cross denominational participation, the growth of participation in our local churches, spiritual maturity throughout our community and transformational community impact.

Timothy Conner Roger Scantlin Doug Ingmire

MCN Coordinator Pastor New Life Assembly Pastor Newton Christian Church

MCN Secretary/Treasurer MCN Round Table

Brian Curran Jason Reynolds Dave Reimer

Pastor First Church of God Pastor Hillcrest Community Foursquare Pastor Grace Community Church

MCN Round Table MCN Round Table Treasurer, Newton Ministerial Alliance

A.J. Wuthnow Jim Daily Steve Kelly

Harvey County Sheriff Newton Police Chief Newton Medical Center President/CEO

Joyce Truskett Brian Bascue Menno Isaac

Harvey County Clerk Superintendent, President, Newton Kiwanis Club

Newton Recreation Commission

Penny Dugan Russ Jones Brian Mills

New Jerusalem Missions Publisher, The Chronicle Newspaper Assistant Professor of Psychology Tabor College

Harvey County Homeless Shelter

Larry Lee Scott Miller Jim Horning

Pastor All Nations Pentecostal Pastor Kingdom Life Ministries Director of Student Ministries, Grace Community Church

President, Newton Youth Ministry Alliance

DRAFT: 2008 Focus & Process: Impacting our Community for Christ

2007-11-06T11:02:00.000-08:00

2008 Focus & Process: Impacting our Community for Christ

Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." Jeremiah 29:7

Foundational Principles:

Represent the character of God and provide credibility and authenticity to our proclamation.

Express the Being Good News / Sharing Good News and

So that the Churches are the best thing in the community ideals of the Network.

Major Goal:

Catalyze united, sustained effort toward “Kingdom Class Community.”

- Listen to the “Voices of the City” to humbly discern the greatest felt needs of the city.

- Identify a key goal to tackle together as the Body of Christ

- Draw community leaders into participation to draw together, and do together, what we could never do ourselves

Action Steps:

Pastors begin by seeing themselves and their congregations as Jeremiah 29 servants to the community.

Identify 3-6 influencers in each of the key sectors of the community

u Church u Family u Education u Politics / Law / Public Protection

u Media / News / Communication u Business / Finance u Entertainment / Arts

Develop questions to use in listening sessions. Possibly:

§ How long have you lived in this community, what first brought you here?

§ What is it about our community that expresses its greatest good… and why do you care?

§ If our success was completely guaranteed, what bold steps might we choose as a community?

§ What opportunities do you see to make this happen … and who do you think cares?

§ If there was one thing that hasn’t yet been said in order to reach a deeper level of understanding / clarity on our community, what would that be?

§ Are there any other people you feel need to be a part of this process?

Listening sessions with key leadership in each sector of the community

- Summarize finding by sector and across sectors

- Present summary findings back to participants / Check if what they are saying is being heard

Bring leaders together

o Would you be willing to come together one time to see if there is anything in our community that we can address together that we could not address alone?

§ Brainstorm top issues

§ Identify top obstacles to top issues

§ Select top goals

§ Narrow down to top five and then top goal

Pastor’s Retreat

- As servants, pastors meet to seek God for how to serve our community

§ Select action steps with 6, 12 and 18 month benchmarks

- Draw community leaders into participation to draw together, and do together, what we could never do ourselves

Recruit and expand the team

Time Frame:

- Three to six months beginning in January 2008. Eighteen months after inquiry process

Six Churches Launching Canning Hunger ~ Together

2007-11-02T09:04:00.000-07:00

All Nations launched this past Sunday. First Church of God, Grace, Hillcrest, New Life and Newton Christian all launch in November. So far 165 participating families across the greater Newton region are committed to connecting with 20 other neighbor households. That will mean a total of 3,300 household connections! If 85% of those participate, 2,805 households will mobilize to work together on an ongoing basis to end hunger in our community. If each household donates $6 worth of dry goods, that’s $16,830 worth of donations mobilized through our prayer, care, share strategy. Think of these connections as bridges being built that we pray will provide the opportunity to care for needs and share the gospel in a deeply compelling way!

MCN Report on the Mission America Annual Meeting

2007-10-13T08:16:00.001-07:00

This past week, Monday - Thursday James and I were in Kansas City MO, for the Mission America Annual Meeting.

Mission America is a network of over 450 evangelical denominations and parachurch ministries, many with a national or global presence. It was encouraging to be around a lot of folks who have spent many decades serving Jesus, in ways that have significantly impacted countless lives for Jesus' kingdom. It's cool to find out that these national and global leaders are really just humble servants of Jesus. Just like it should be!

I was there also for the Loving Your Communities To Christ (LC2C) initiative, representing Newton, Kansas and all small towns for that matter!

Misson America has committed resources to help the movement of prayer, care, share in a small group of the pilot cities. Newton being the only small town with a focused pray, care, share strategy is being considered for Pilot City status. I have taken first steps for application, and met with Mission America leadership while at the conference, and they are interested in Newton being a Pilot City - the first small city ever with such a distinction - and helping us take "next steps" toward being a model other smaller communities can learn from. Our next step will be to send a letter from the board officially asking to be a Pilot City.

It was great to be in a LC2C workshop track that focused on learning how to collaborate and develop partnerships in your city. Led by seasoned pros Phill Butler and Bill Sunderland from visionSynergy, this was a very practical time of hearing about time-tested principles of working together. Awesome stuff! Many good ideas.

If was definitely a benefit for me, as we work in the greater Newton area to call the church together - to love and bless the city and it was inspiring to be around others who are doing the same kind of kingdom work in their cities - all of us talking about the successes and the struggles.

Well, there's a little update for you all.

The American Church in Crisis

2007-10-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

Special Report: The American Church in Crisis

Attendance is down. The picture is bleak. New research reveals startling and sobering facts. What do they mean for you, your church and Christianity in America?
by Rebecca Barnes and Lindy Lowry from Outreach magazine, May/June 2006

Sundays are quiet in today's America. Banks and businesses are closed. Rush-hour traffic takes a rest. Most Americans have the day off. But the reason for the "holiday” is no longer about anything holy for a growing number of people who don't attend weekend worship services.

Most of us suspect that fewer people are attending church regularly. We need look no farther than our neighbors' driveways on a Sunday morning. And daily, we're confronted with our increasingly individualistic, secular and narcissistic culture. Those in professional church work have heard the rumors: Membership in mainline churches is steadily declining. Organic churches are on the rise with people trading sanctuaries for living rooms. Even online faith communities are growing. But do we know what's really happening in the traditional Church? And to what extent that will impact the future of Christianity in America?

For this special report, we talked to prominent researchers, missiologists and church leaders to identify church attendance trends in America, and to glean wisdom and learnings from the information. Special thanks go to church planting director and researcher Dave Olson (theamericanchurch.org), who generously provided his research. The facts he offers are sobering, as the title of this special report suggests, but they are nonetheless invaluable for church leaders of every denomination, congregation size, location, ethnicity and economic class.

We lay out seven facts about the American Church that will likely surprise you. You'll hear from a host of church leaders, including Bill Hybels, Kirbyjon Caldwell, George Barna, Bob Coy, David Anderson and Wayne Cordeiro. Plus, we talk to author/apologist Josh McDowell about the growing faith crisis affecting the next generation. We hope the information and insights will spur you to discover what they mean for your church, the unchurched in your community and the Church as a whole. We have a map—perhaps it will help guide the next steps of our journey.

To be sure, church attendance is a moving target. However, researchers continue to ask questions and apply their methodologies to assess the realities of church and faith in America. In the words of church planter and researcher Dave Olson, we hope to "paint an accurate and realistic picture of the complexities to help our churches have an influence in the future."

Here, we explore seven discoveries about the American Church and what they tell us about our ever-diversifying landscape and culture. What do these facts mean for your church?

7 STARTLING FACTS:

AN UP CLOSE LOOK AT CHURCH ATTENDANCE IN AMERICA

1. Less than 20% of Americans regularly attend church—half of what the pollsters report.

While Gallup polls and other statisticians have turned in the same percentage—about 40% of the population—of average weekend church attendees for the past 70 years, a different sort of research paints quite a disparate picture of how many Americans attend a local church on any given Sunday.

Initially prompted to discover how church plants in America were really doing, Olson, director of church planting for the Evangelical Covenant Church (covchurch.org), began collecting data in the late '80s, gradually expanding his research to encompass overall attendance trends in the Church. In his study, he tracked the annual attendance of more than 200,000 individual Orthodox Christian churches (the accepted U.S. church universe is 330,000). To determine attendance at the remaining 100,000-plus Orthodox Christian churches, he used statistical models, which included multiplying a church's membership number by the denomination's membership-to-attendance ratio.

The Numbers

His findings reveal that the actual rate of church attendance from head counts is less than half of the 40% the pollsters report. Numbers from actual counts of people in Orthodox Christian churches (Catholic, mainline and evangelical) show that in 2004, 17.7% of the population attended a Christian church on any given weekend.

Another study published in 2005 in The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion by sociologists C. Kirk Hadaway and Penny Long Marler—known for their scholarly research on the Church—backs up his findings. Their report reveals that the actual number of people worshipping each week is closer to Olson's 17.7% figure—52 million people instead of the pollster-reported 132 million (40%).

"We knew that over the past 30 to 40 years, denominations had increasingly reported a decline in their numbers," Marler says. "Even a still-growing denomination like the Southern Baptist Convention had reported slowed growth. Most of the mainline denominations were all reporting a net loss over the past 30 years. And at the same time, the Gallup polls had remained stable. It didn't make sense."

The Halo Effect

What Hadaway and Marler, along with Mark Chaves, author of the "National Congregations Study," discovered was at play is what researchers call "the halo effect"—the difference between what people tell pollsters and what people actually do. Americans tend to over-report socially desirable behavior like voting and attending church and under-report socially undesirable behavior like drinking.

Gallup Poll Editor in Chief Frank Newport agrees that the halo effect factors in to poll results. During a Gallup telephone survey of a random sampling of about 1,000 Americans nationwide, interviewers ask respondents questions such as, "In the last seven days, did you attend a church service, excluding weddings and funerals?" to determine their church-going habits.

"When people try to reconstruct their own behavior, particularly more frequently occurring on-and-off behavior, it is more difficult, especially in a telephone interview scenario," Newport says. But he stands behind Gallup's 40% figure: "I've been reviewing [U.S. church attendance] carefully," he says. "No matter how we ask the question to people, we get roughly 40% of Americans who present themselves as regular church attendees." He adds, however, that if you were to freeze the United States on any Sunday morning, you may find fewer than 40% of the country's adults actually in churches.

"Although about 40% of Americans are regular church attendees, it doesn't necessarily mean 40% are in church on any given Sunday," he explains. "The most regular church attendee gets sick or sleeps in. The other reason may be people who tell us they go to church but are worshipping in non-traditional ways, such as small groups, people meeting in gyms or school libraries."

A Disconnect

In another study surveying the growth of U.S. Protestants, Marler and Hadaway discovered that while the majority of people they interviewed don't belong to a local church, they still identify with their church roots. "Never mind the fact that they attend church less than 12 times a year," Marler observes. "We estimate that 78 million Protestants are in that place. Ask most pastors what percentage of inactive members they have—they'll say anything from 40-60%."

Even with a broader definition of church attendance, classifying a regular attendee as someone who shows up at least three out of every eight Sundays, only 23-25% of Americans would fit this category. Olson notes that an additional million church attendees would increase the percentage from 17.7% to only 18%. "You'd have to find 80 million more people that churches forgot to count to get to 40%."

Clearly, a disconnect between what Americans say and what they actually do has created a sense of a resilient church culture when, in fact, it may not exist.

2. American church attendance is steadily declining.

In 1990, 20.4% of the population attended an Orthodox Christian church on any given weekend. In 2000, that percentage dropped to 18.7% and to 17.7% by 2004. Olson explains that while church attendance numbers have stayed about the same from 1990 to 2004, the U.S. population has grown by 18.1%—more than 48 million people. "So even though the number of attendees is the same, our churches are not keeping up with population growth," he says.

Well-known church researcher and author Thom Rainer notes that the failure of churches to keep up with the population growth is one of the Church's greatest issues heading into the future. In a 2002 survey of 1,159 U.S. churches, Rainer's research team found that only 6% of the churches were growing—he defines growth as not only increasing in attendance, but also increasing at a pace faster than its community's population growth rate. "Stated inversely, 94% of our churches are losing ground in the communities they serve," he says.

Denominational Differences

A breakdown of overall attendance percentages by church type shows decreases across the board in evangelical, mainline and Catholic churches.

The most significant drop in attendance came at the expense of the Catholic Church, which experienced an 11% decrease in its attendance percentage from 2000 to 2004. Next, and not far behind were mainline churches, which saw a 10% percentage decline. Evangelicals experienced the smallest drop at 1%.

Though scholars are hesitant to definitively acknowledge a decline, they do say that attendance is not increasing: "There's no good evidence to suggest that overall church attendance has gone up in the recent decade," Chaves says, adding that he believes there has been a decline. He cites the watershed book Bowling Alone (Simon & Schuster) by Harvard sociologist Robert D. Putnam as his primary reasoning.

"I think church attendance is a close cousin to the other kinds of activities Putnam says Americans are doing alone—indicating that Americans have become increasingly disconnected from family and friends," Chaves says. "So if all those areas are going down and church attendance isn't, that would be odd."

He identifies various implications declining attendance may have for church leaders: "If this is the reality, then I see a trend toward people being less involved, while maintaining a connection to the church. Maybe a pastor used to be able to count on seeing someone every week, but what's now happening is that people's lives are busier and they're attending more infrequently. So church leaders can't count on these same people to teach Sunday school, serve on committees, etc."

Contradictory Research

Recent data from The Barna Group (barna.org) indicates just the opposite. Church attendance is actually growing, company President George Barna says—climbing slowly from 1996's 37% to 47% in 2006. His research shows that other core religious behaviors are also up. For example, Bible reading increased from 40% in 2000 to 47% in 2006.

"The data shows the number of unchurched people is unchanged—76 million adults," he says. "And 47% of Americans reported to us that in the last seven days, they attended a church service, excluding weddings and funerals." His research indicates that attendance at house churches has also spiked. That may explain, Barna says, why these core religious behaviors are up. "Nevertheless, people are seeking God."

Ed Stetzer, missiologist and director of the Center for Missional Research at the North American Mission Board (namb.net) of the Southern Baptist Convention, has found similar evidence of spiritual behavior occurring outside church walls. He recently finished a study on alternative faith communities, and found that a growing number of people are finding Christian discipleship and community in places other than their local churches. The study found that 24.5% of Americans now say their primary form of spiritual nourishment is meeting with a small group of 20 or less people every week.

"About 6 million people meet weekly with a small group and never or rarely go to church," Stetzer says. "There is a significant movement happening."

3. Only one state is outpacing its population growth.

Hawaii, where 13.8% of the state's population (1.3 million) regularly attends church, was the only state where church attendance grew faster than its population growth from 2000 to 2004. However, church attendance in Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee—all of which have higher percentages of church attendees than Hawaii—was close to keeping up with population growth in the respective states (see U.S. map on page 50).

In Hawaii, 6.3% of the population attended an evangelical church in 2004; mainline denominations accounted for 1.8%; and 5.7% regularly worshipped in Catholic congregations.

A few states break from regional attendance trends. Texas—in the middle of the Bible Belt and home to more than 17 of the country's largest churches—saw only 18% of its population (22.5 million) attend church on any given weekend in 2004, compared to surrounding states Oklahoma (22%), Louisiana (28%) and Arkansas (25%). And Florida (14.1%) had the lowest percentage of the Southern region (averaging 23%). Both Texas and Florida saw population growth (2000 to 2004) that was twice the national average.

Olson notes that states with very diverse cultures tend to have lower attendance numbers than the states surrounding them. "Most of our churches know how to address only one culture," he says.

A closer look at the states only found more decline between 1990 and 2000. Church attendance declined in more than two-thirds of all U.S. counties: Slightly more than 2,300 counties declined, and 795 increased.

4. Mid-sized churches are shrinking; the smallest and largest churches are growing.

While America's churches as a whole did not keep up with population growth from 1994 to 2004, the country's smallest (attendance 1-49) and largest churches (2,000-plus) did (see graph on page 52). During that period, the smallest churches grew 16.4%; the largest grew 21.5%, exceeding the national population growth of 12.2%. But mid-sized churches (100-299)—the average size of a Protestant church in America is 124—declined 1%. What were the reasons for the decline?

"The best way I can describe it is that a lot of people believe they're upgrading to first class when they go to a larger church," Olson says. "It seems highly likely that some of the people in those mid-sized churches are the ones leaving and going to the larger churches."

Stetzer agrees and adds that because today's large churches emphasize small groups and community, hoping to create a small-church feel, they offer the best of both worlds.

"There are multiple expectations on mid-sized churches that they can't meet—programs, dynamic music, quality youth ministries," he says. "We've created a church consumer culture."

As president of the Bridgeleader Network, David Anderson, senior pastor and founder of Bridgeway Community Church in Columbia, Md., has consulted with church leaders nationwide. In his work, he has observed that mid-sized congregations tend to lose the evangelistic focus they once had, and instead adopt what he calls a "club mentality."

"You have just enough people not to be missional anymore," he explains. "You don't have to grow anymore to sustain your budget."

As for why the smallest churches have kept up, Shawn McMullen, author of the newly released Unleashing the Potential of the Smaller Church (Standard), notes that smaller churches cultivate an intimacy not easily found in larger churches. "In an age when human interaction is being supplanted by modern technology, many younger families are looking for a church that offers community, closeness and intergenerational relationships," he says.

Olson points out that for a church of 50 or less, the only place to go is up. "They have a relatively small downside and a big upside. A church of 25 can't decline by 24 and still be on the radar. But it can grow by 200."

5. Established churches—40 to 190 years old—are, on average, declining.

All churches started between 1810 and 1960 (excluding the 1920s) declined in attendance from 2003 to 2004. The greatest attendance decrease in that period (-1.6%) came from churches begun in the 1820s, followed by the 1940s (-1.5%).

The numbers climb to the plus side in the 1970s, with churches between 30 and 40 years old showing a slight .3% increase. The percentage goes up significantly for congregations launched in the 1980s (1.7%) and 1990s (3%).

Established churches in decline are suffering from a leadership crisis, says Kirbyjon Caldwell, senior pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston. While his church is 50 years old, Caldwell says he has been there 25 years and in effect has made a "DNA change." The church has grown from a struggling congregation of 25 to 7,100 under his charge.

Reversing the decline, he says, was about the leaders of the church—both clergy and laity—deciding to redefine the congregation and meet the needs of the community.

Bob Coy, senior pastor and founder of Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale, points to a different crisis for established churches—one of relevancy, especially in light of today's young people searching for real truth and reasons for actions. "The emptiness of yesterday's liturgy has got to become relevant," Coy says. "The next generation is screaming for a relationship with God."

The declining numbers send a message to church leaders content with only building their own churches, Olson says: "I hear people say, 'Why do we need new churches? Why don't we help our established churches do better?' or 'Don't we have enough churches?' If we keep doing the same things, we'll continue to have the same results—decline. Established churches are the base, and new churches build on top of that. Using established churches to keep up with population growth is just not going to work."

6. The increase in churches is only 1/4 of what's needed to keep up with population growth.

Between 2000 and 2004, the net gain (the number of new churches minus the closed churches) in the number of evangelical churches was 5,452, but mainline and Catholic churches closed more than they started for a net loss of 2,200, leaving an overall net gain of 3,252 for all Orthodox Christian churches. "In this decade, approximately 3,000 churches closed every year; while more churches were started, only 3,800 survived," Olson explains. In the 21st century, the net gain in churches has amounted to only 800 each year.

10,000 More Churches Needed

Perhaps most telling is the fact that from 2000 to 2004, a net gain of 13,024 churches was necessary to keep up with the U.S. population growth. In reality, that means rather than growing with the population, the Church incurred a deficit of almost 10,000 churches.

The gap is a serious one for Christianity in America, as research and studies show that church plants are the most effective means of evangelism and church growth. "More evangelism happens through church planting than megachurches," Anderson says. He urges leaders to plant multicultural, missional churches.

Although ultimately, America will continue to see a great dying off of churches, Stetzer says he is encouraged to see a renewed interest in missiology and Christology, as well as churches that are striving to change themselves. "They're asking what a biblical church would look like," he says. But he advises church planters to customize their church to their community rather than copy an existing model.

"What's going to make an effective church plant in their community depends on what their community looks like," he explains. "Far too many pastors plant their church in their heads and not in their community."

Olson encourages churches, regardless of their size or expansion strategy, to either plant a church or work with other congregations to plant a church every five years.

Many church plants of the last five years are intentionally smaller than those of the 1990s, he observes, because the younger generation is opting for smaller churches that offer a more intimate experience. "So we need to realize that if churches are going to be smaller, we'll need to start more of them to have the same impact."

7. In 2050, the percentage of the U.S. population attending church will be almost half of what it was in 1990.

So what is the future of the American Church? Does declining attendance mean declining influence? If present trends continue, the percentage of the population that attends church in 2050 is estimated to be at almost half of 1990's attendance—a drop from 20.4% to 11.7%. Olson's projections for the years leading up to 2050 are less than encouraging. He estimates a drop to 16.6% in 2010, and 15.4% in 2020.

He notes that while church attendance is projected to increase from 50 million in 1990 to 60 million in 2050, because the U.S. Census estimates that America will grow from 248 million in 1990 to 520 million in 2050, the Church can't keep up with population growth if it stays on its current course.

The prognosis doesn't discourage Anderson. "It encourages me that the harvest is greater," he says. "I'm somewhat comforted by the idea that Americans have left dead churches."

Caldwell echoes Anderson's positive outlook: "If anything, this information causes me to get fired up about what I can do to reverse these trends."

Coy, too, sees the projections as a call to action for church leaders: "If we've given the impression that church is an option, maybe we're the ones who are at fault," he says. But church attendance is only the beginning, he adds. "We have to get serious and begin to live it every day."

Clearly, the future looks less than bright for the Church in America; nevertheless, countless stories of transformed lives remind us that God is using, and wants to continue to use, the 330,000 U.S. Orthodox Christian congregations to draw others to Him and strengthen believers for His work in a hurting world. In the words of the late author Henri Nouwen, the Church maintains the vital connection to Christ:

"Listen to the Church," he writes in Show Me the Way (Crossroad). "I know that isn't a popular bit of advice at a time and in a country where the church is frequently seen more as an 'obstacle' in the way rather than as the 'way' to Jesus. Nevertheless, I'm profoundly convinced that the greatest spiritual danger for our times is the separation of Jesus from the Church. The Church is the body of the Lord. Without Jesus, there can be no Church; and without the Church, we cannot stay united with Jesus. I've yet to meet anyone who has come closer to Jesus by forsaking the Church. To listen to the Church is to listen to the Lord of the Church."

Rebecca Barnes, a freelance writer based in Louisville, Ky., frequently contributes to OUTREACH. Currently, she's at work on an article about the growing house church movement for our next issue. Lindy Lowry is editor of OUTREACH.

For a detailed explanation of the methodology behind the facts and statistics in this report, visit outreachmagazine.com. Information about individual PowerPoint presentations on church attendance in the nation, all 50 states and the 80 largest metropolitan areas are available at theamericanchurch.org.

Insights for Crisis: Bill Hybels
As founding and senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill. (willowcreek.org), Bill Hybels leads one of the largest and most influential churches in North America. To train church leaders, Hybels and his colleagues founded the Willow Creek Association in 1991, which now includes more than 11,600 churches nationwide.

I believe churches that are seeing a decline in attendance need a new vision—one that is clear and purposeful. We train church leaders all over the world, and we always say that if you can change a church leader, you can change a church; and if you can change a church, you can change a community, a state, a nation and, ultimately, the world.

But we don't talk much about church growth. We talk about churches reaching their full redemptive potential. Not every church can grow numerically. But that doesn't mean we can't attempt each year to do a better job of living out Acts 2 values.

Ask yourself: Is my church's concern for the poor increasing? Are we trying to bridge racial divides? Are we responding to the AIDS pandemic? Are we working to overcome systems that oppress people? Asking ourselves these questions and responding to them is part of what it means to be a redemptive faith community.

I continue to see and hear about churches asking these questions, so I'm not convinced the Church is in a downward spiral of any kind. It's possible some folks are trying various alternatives to the typical church gathering, but I fully believe that will gradually work itself out. The many teachings of Scripture are quite clear that professing Christians need to gather in local fellowships and not just attend church, but be the Church—to each other and to our community.

Less church attendance doesn't necessarily mean that people are less dedicated to knowing Christ or loving their families. To me, these are pace-of-life issues. The number of scheduled activities has bled way over into Sunday. We have people at Willow Creek who 15 years ago would be in church 50 weeks a year, simply because their lives allowed that kind of schedule. Now, baseball and soccer games are on Sunday mornings, and a lot of student activities happen over weekends.

So do we as church leaders say to people, "You're being bad parents"? I find that parents are generally bending over backwards to raise good kids. Do we warn them about inconsistency? It's complex. Less church attendance is an American culture issue.

Insights for Crisis: Kirbyjon Caldwell
Kirbyjon Caldwell is the senior pastor at Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston (kingdombuilder.com). Appointed to lead a congregation of 25 members in 1982, Caldwell has seen it grow to more than 7,000, becoming the largest United Methodist church in the nation and a model of holistic ministry.

When I was growing up, you could make the argument that Christian faith had a monopoly on society. It wasn't just on Sunday. When someone talked about the Lord on Monday, you knew which Lord, which God they were talking about. Now that's not the case. We're no longer a monopoly. Christianity is now in a competitive situation.

But for any local church, the real competition today is television, the Internet, shopping malls and other social options. The culture offers so many alternatives. Culture—not the "church across town"—is the local church's primary competitor.

We're losing ground. But this is not the time to say, "Woe are we." I believe this is an opportunity to really show up and make a difference for the Kingdom in Jesus' name. I don't care what their socio—economic status is—people are looking for hope for tomorrow, healing from yesterday and a home for today.

Our churches don't necessarily have to adapt who we are, but what we do. We must intentionally identify, predict and meet the needs of people—or else decline. It's a basic business and spiritual principle: When you don't adjust your methodology and strategy, you will lose market share—for pastors, that means members.

The best way for our churches to grow is for members to be so excited about what God is doing through their church that they want to tell others about it. Leaders, be they clergy or laity, have to decide: We will make a Kingdom impact in our community.

Insights for Crisis: George Barna
George Barna founded The Barna Group (barna.org) to research and analyze American culture and create resources designed to facilitate moral and spiritual transformation. His latest book, Revolution (Tyndale), explores a paradigm shift he believes is happening in the ways a growing number of committed Christians are experiencing and expressing their faith apart from the institutional church.

We're living in a time where spirituality and faith are hot. But it doesn't necessarily mean they're deep. In the last 25 years, I've studied and worked with thousands of local churches. I saw the decline, both in attendance and discipleship, and started doing research to figure out if anybody's life is being genuinely transformed.

Our research revealed that God is still active in the lives of millions of people. But among the people whose lives have been radically touched by God, the transformation was typically happening outside the local church. That helps explain why we have millions of people who want to be part of the Church—capital "C"—but fewer and fewer who are interested in the church—small "c."

These "Revolutionaries"—by definition, their faith is the highest priority in their lives—are seeking diverse and alternative forms of church, through affinity groups, homeschooling, house churches, the Internet and marketplace ministries.

We estimate that the percentage of Americans who express and experience their faith through the local church will drop from 70% in 2000 to about 30-35% in 2025. And the percentage of people experiencing their faith through an alternative faith-based community will increase from 5% in 2000 to 30-35% in 2025.

This revolution of faith is happening. Pastors should try to find a way for their church to cooperate with it. Whether that happens inside a building, at Starbucks or on the basketball court is irrelevant. Transformation is more about the commitment of your heart than where you hang out on Sunday morning.

Insights for Crisis: Bob Coy
As founding and senior pastor of Florida's Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale (calvaryftl.org), Bob Coy leads a growing and multicultural congregation of 18,000 people. Since planting the church 20 years ago, Coy has focused on discipleship and seeing true transformation.

I've never been impressed with our numbers. Even the larger churches in this country have not made the impact they think they have. I think most of us know that we're not changing the world.

So what do we do now? I believe we have to get serious about what God has called us to do—and be seen as a place that's doing, not just saying.

I believe we need to mobilize and ask ourselves some hard questions: What is our church doing in the downtown city? Is there a village in Africa where people are dying of AIDS? Are we just building big buildings? Jesus challenged us to pick up the cross, and it seems everyone wants a balsa wood cross with rhinestones. Emerging generations are looking for relevance; they know the difference between attending and being active.

We also need to return to the sufficiency of Scripture—the Bible is not just a great book, it's the best book. After doing the same thing for a long time, we start to look to other models instead of going back to the book. In the last 20 years, our churches have softened the Gospel into a watered-down opportunity to know the truth. We're less effective in declaring salvation.

Think about the "Got Milk?" campaign. No one messed with the product, just the packaging. My message to young pastors: Remind your congregation of what they have—the blood of Christ, salvation, heaven. If we go back to the product, the product changes lives.

Insights for Crisis: David Anderson
As founding and senior pastor of Bridgeway Community Church (bridgewayonline.org), David Anderson leads a multicultural congregation of 2,000 in Columbia, Md. He also serves as president of a cultural diversity consulting and resource organization called the BridgeLeader Network (bridgeleader.com).

I would love to see greater numbers of people in our churches, but the reality is that I'm not measuring spiritual temperature by church attendance. High church attendance does not spiritual growth make; it's only a partial indicator of a community or culture.

I continue to see a correlation between multicultural population growth and no church growth. Some 40% of Americans age 18 and younger are non-Anglo, and they perceive churches as archaic—the more unicultural the church, the more archaic.

If we stay on this course, the Church will become irrelevant, and spirituality will continue to grow as an independent connection to God. But we don't have to be in decline. People want to connect. When I consult with leaders, I always tell them, "If your Wal-Mart is multicultural, your church can be multicultural."

Unfortunately, most American churches today don't know how to reach outside one culture. We really haven't taught people in our congregations how to do multicultural evangelism.

When a church focuses on reaching all people in its area of influence, God gets behind it. His power breaks down barriers that keep people out of church. While there may still be a need for black, ethnic or immigrant churches, I believe the ones that are the most vibrant—the ones that reach out across racial and cultural lines—have an extra touch of God's power.

This content originally appeared in the May/June 2006 issue of Outreach magazine, the gathering place for ideas, insights and stories of today's outreach-oriented church leaders. For more ideas and information, visit outreachmagazine.com. For your free 3-issue mini subscription to Outreach magazine, click here.

Share: Sharing with Others the Jesus Way

2007-10-10T17:31:00.000-07:00

Mission America Coalition Annual Meeting 2007

Kansas City, Mo - October 10, 2007

Mark Mittelberg, Author, The Contagious Church, The Contagious Christian.

Share: Sharing with Others the Jesus Way

Jesus did personal evangelism.

Jesus equipped other people to do personal evangelism.

Jesus commissioned all of us to go and do likewise.

Tom Rainer, Southern Baptist Churches reports:

Ø On average it takes 86 church members a whole year to reach one person for Christ. .

Ø Half of all pastors made NO evangelistic efforts whatsoever.

Ø The numeric evidence is clear: the American Church is dying.

The question:

How do we close this gap in churches that have become cold and inwardly focused?

The Six-Stage Process

1. Live and Evangelistic Life:

It starts with US. How do WE rekindle the flames that always tend to grow cold.

Pray: Admit to God we aren’t where we need to be right now. Ask for forgiveness!

2. Instill evangelistic values. Lead it. Teach it. Demonstrate it. Disciple it. Discuss it. Inspire it. Pray for it.

3. Empower a leader. If its important, put a leader in charge of it.

4. Train people. They’ll do it if they’re ready, prepared, and practiced. Help people take baby steps toward the development of the skill. How many? EVERYBODY. Christ gave the great commission to ALL His followers. Take the training to THEM. To their small group. To their home… or even church-wide at one time in one process: preaching, teaching and cheer leading.

5. Mobilize the church. Unleash the gifts of the people. Unleash the passion of the people.

Lets do what it takes to lift the evangelistic value in the body.

===========================================

New edition of The Contagious Church is not off the press!

Get it and read it.

Care: Loving Our Neighbors Like Jesus

2007-10-10T12:49:00.001-07:00

Mission America Coalition Annual Meeting 2007

Kansas City, Mo - October 10, 2007

Sam Tillery, President, Pastors Prayer and Ministry Alliance, Santa Rosa, CA

Care: Loving Our Neighbors Like Jesus

#1 Thing we can do: Pray 2 Chronicles 7:14

¹⁴ If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Cause and effect process that is universal – across cities and cultures.

A right relationship with God leads to a right relationship with one another.

Unity, humility, prayer, holiness… are all processes that are as valuable as the events. .

Can we walk in a great commitment to the great commandment and not walk in the greater body of Chris?

1 Corinthians 1:10

¹⁰ Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Ephesians 1:15-16

¹⁵ Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
¹⁶ Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;

Wouldn’t it be great if people would hear about our faith in the Lord Jesus and all Christians everywhere? If they are, we’re going to have to get out of our little fortresses.

Jeremiah 29:4-7

⁴ Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon;
⁵ Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them;
⁶ Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished.
⁷ And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.

As your city prospers, so you will prosper. How can we complain about what is happening in our community? We are the ones responsible!!

Video:

Hope Works, Santa Rosa, an employment and mentoring service for gang members, modeled after a program in Fresno, CA. Local elected leaders saw that the Christian life works and wanted this demonstrated blessing for the anti-gang program.

Matthew 5:14-16

¹⁴ Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
¹⁵ Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
¹⁶ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Caring displaces darkness. Caring is Love, and caring opens the door to sharing the hope and power of Jesus Christ.

Caring for what they think they need, not what YOU think they need.

Government is posed with problems with no solutions. The elected leaders tell us to “come with solutions, and you’ll be listened to.”

Caring is a posture to serve. Caring gives us the right to be heard. Caring opens doors. Caring makes a way for God to move in incredible ways.

Video:

Promotes unity in the body of believers in Sonoma County.

Spring Clean, Kids Festival, and other projects of the Pastors Prayer and Ministry Alliance.

Pastors take trips to Israel to build relationships with each other and with Israel.

Ed, City Administrator, Santa Rosa shares his perspective of this working relationship between the city and the churches of the city.

Video:

COPE – Citizen’s Organizing to Prepare for Emergencies.

The Power of Evangelism Praying

2007-10-10T08:18:00.001-07:00

Mission America Coalition Annual Meeting 2007

Kansas City, Mo - October 10, 2007

Jane Hanson, President, Aglow International – now in 170 nations, just adding Iraq.

The Power of Evangelism Praying

Preview of new Movie especially for outreach to women:

Magdalena: Released From Shame, a film portraying how Jesus values women through the historical accounts of His interactions with them, seen through the eyes of Mary Magdalene.

www.Magdalenatoday.com

For more information on pre-orders, call (800) 432-1997

Genesis 3:15

¹⁵ And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

God was saying now forever and ever, she will be used to expose you again and again and again. Although this scripture was perfectly fulfilled in Mary’s birth of our savior Jesus, there is an ongoing fulfillment that comes through women as women are birthers. Women seek to give birth to the will of God in families, in cities, in nations. God was speaking that women will be his enemy through the ages.

This film is a tool you will want to use to speak into the lives of women, help them cast off the shame and see the significance of their role in the work of Christ, in their families, their city, their nation.

Isaiah 55:10-11

¹⁰ For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: ¹¹ So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

Whether its preached or prayed, its making a difference in the earth.

Prayer: changes things: the spiritual atmosphere, the circumstances, the people…

No immediate change in a situation does not mean there has been a denial of our prayer. It means we keep on praying.

Dearborn, Michigan, most Muslims in the U.S. – Aglow has been soaking the city in prayer and there is an unusual openness there to the things of God.

Prayer is the key that unlocks, is the water that soaks the ground for the seed to grow.

Taking dominion in the earth: God is using prayer to reach the lost and change cities.:

Powerful examples from prayer teams in Iran, Vietnam, Iraq, Moscow, Mongolia, Israel, Philippines… in prisons, city centers, churches…

Salvations, healings, miracles… through prayer, then care, then share...

Don’t neglect the women in your churches, and ministries!!

The Awesome Potential of Prayer-Care-Share

2007-10-09T18:50:00.000-07:00

Mission America Coalition Annual Meeting 2007

Kansas City, Mo

October 9, 2007 – October 11, 2007

Bishop Larry Jackson, Charlotte, North Carolina

====================================

Prayer-Care-Share:
A vehicle to use to advance our cities.

Simple, but powerful – if we use it.

Lets join Jesus in what He has already done.

He’s already prayed, cared, shared… He’s the forerunner…

The most important thing we can do is make the city happen.

The church is in the city for the city’s sake. Not the city for the church’s sake.

Jesus didn’t give us any churches. He will build HIS church.

When we start acting like its Jesus’ church – He will do more in the city than we can imagine.

Isaiah 62 – for the city.

Meditate on what the city will look like when God comes.

Don’t pray against the evil in the city – pray for the glory of God to come and invade our city.

You’ve been placed where you are because God chose to put you there.

You’re not going to work to get paid. You’re going to work to influence a generation!

We don’t have to analyze this! It’s a plan of God. We just have to do it!!

Why are we in the community – so we can be a light in the community!!!

If you really want them to come, we will establish a plan to go get them.

Do you know everyone in your neighborhood? That’s YOUR neighborhood. God placed you there to help win the community. Your assignment is where you are planted! To take care of every need you have in your community. Rock this nation!! Get you mind off of YOU!! Why do I even have to say this!!! You know its true. You know the only problem is we’re not doing it!!!

Psalm 37:25 - ²⁵ I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. ²⁶ He is ever merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed.

Matthew 6

My kids eat out of the fridge without asking me!

My kids believe that because it’s the Father’s they can have it.

God provided it for me!

²⁵ Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
²⁶ Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
²⁷ Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
²⁸ And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
²⁹ And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
³⁰ Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
³¹ Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
³² (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
³³ But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
³⁴ Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

We don’t just want a revival – because we can have a revival and it will just stay in the church!

We want an awakening!! That will transform the city! God wants your city transformed.

Seek God and His righteousness for your city.

When you see things get worse, its working!

When you catch a fish… does is lay sideways and just slide into your hand?

It fights, but you don’t give up… you start reeling it in!

We are fisher’s of men! You know this.

What would you do if you cannot fail? God has your back.

Jesus said “it is finished!”

MCN on Facebook

2007-10-09T13:15:00.000-07:00

Connect with MCN on Facebook,
the social networking tool on the web.
Search groups: The Missional Church Network
and feel free to look up Timothy Conner,
MCN Coordinator at Facebook.com.

Canning Hunger Launches November 2007

2007-10-04T04:39:00.000-07:00

Speed the Kingdom and learn more about your neighborhood on a Saturday morning than you have in years living there. “Canning Hunger” will open connections with neighbors ~ in a way that’s natural and comfortable ~ while doing what America expects the church to be doing: helping alleviate poverty and hunger.

We’ve started by praying. Now move into caring. Hang a Canning Hunger Door Hanger on homes close to ours. Then, we return to knock on each door, introduce ourselves, and repeat the message on the hanger.

Neighbors we’ve never met are receptive and cheerful. You collect the food, and take it to church. It’s comfortable on both ends.

The process is repeated in several months, and after a third visit, neighbors feel comfortable enough in your gradually developing relationship that up to two thirds would be willing to share a prayer request. At that moment, the relationship changes.

We can now pray and respond and follow-up on a one-to-one level in whatever way is comfortable. This simple process will open connections to meaningful conversation about spiritual things ~ in a natural, comfortable way.

Living “Sent”

2007-08-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

Living “Sent”

Missional is a way of living and being. Missional is the "activity of a missionary." Are you part of a local movement designed to explore that thought?

What would it look like if we truly to adopt the mindset of “living sent” in our neighborhood?

How would we act?

What would we do?

What would our priorities look like?
In Church and at home?

Journey with us in the Lighthouse Project as we hope to learn to express this way of living ...

Early Lighthouse Reports

2007-08-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

Early Lighthouse Reports

a One lighthouse used their list to invite neighbors to a barbeque at their place – just to get acquainted!
a One reports that they are planning a “Soup Night” where neighbors can drop in for a mug of fresh made soup.
a Another reports that they use their list when they walk for exercise, and then pray by name as they pass neighbors homes. This helps them learn names and connect them to the homes they live in.
a One has highlighted their closest neighbors on the list and added spouse and children’s names that they know and started praying by name for them too.

Tips on using your neighborhood prayer list:

a Place your list in a place that will allow you to see it and use it often.
a Choose who you want to pray for ~ and pray at least once every week.
a Make corrections, fill in any gaps, add spouse, children, pets... ages, etc. It can get messy – and that’s great!
a Let the guide help you learn names. Use their names whenever you see neighbors.

Passing a Leadership Baton at MCN

2007-08-20T09:02:00.000-07:00

MCN Update:

Yesterday, August 16th, as Pastor Jay Lewis readied for his move to Nashville today, he passed the MCN Secretary/Treasurer baton to Pastor Roger Scantlin . Roger, Pastor of New Life Assembly of God in Newton has been active in the work of the MCN for two years and has faithfully served on the leadership roundtable of MCN for over a year where his vision and willingness to work hard to make a real difference has been a tremendous asset. This past month New Life Assembly and Grace Community made local history when they shared one very successful VBS together.

It is a great pleasure to welcome Roger into his new role in the leadership of the MCN. It is also a great sadness to say goodbye to one of the MCN's great founding voices as Jay Lewis retires from vocational ministry. Jay's tireless support and "whatever it takes" attitude have been a large part of the MCN's success and growth these past two years.

To God be the Glory!

Uniting For The Harvest… X-Fest Hits Skate Park Target Beautifully

2007-07-30T10:23:00.001-07:00

Uniting For The Harvest…

Eight churches, fifteen businessmen and five community agencies united to deliver a compelling message of hope at the Newton Skate Park ~ and forty-six responded by trusting Jesus as the leader of their lives. This is exciting news!

But there’s more:

The next weekend, five of those churches shared inter-racial and cross-denominational worship and communion in a community service at the Park. Three of these churches have united to share a full time youth pastor and reach out to the young people in our community. Two of them are sharing a single VBS. Wow!

In this place for this generation . . .

Many congregations, traditions, denominations and customs working together: this is the Missional Church Network. This is you and me serving side by side, hand in hand and heart to heart in this place and for this generation in Jesus’ name.

The Lighthouse Project

As all this is happening, 197 people from seven of these congregations in the Newton area are starting to pray for their neighbors by name and lay the foundation for relationships that can have eternal blessings as “Lighthouses” in their neighborhood. Project is such a passive word. It’s really more of a movement. Movement implies motion, direction, and in the case of the Lighthouse Project, a strategy for Kingdom Growth. Projects come and go. Movements lead permanent lifestyle shifts!

Newton churches come together, form youth ministry

2007-06-05T06:43:00.000-07:00

Newton churches come together to form youth ministry

PUBLISHED: Friday, June 1, 2007
By: Cristina Janney Newton Kansan

Three Newton churches have joined forces to form a new youth ministry in Newton.

Starting this fall, Newton First Church of God, Newton Christian Church and The Journey will rotate having Wednesday night youth rallies at their churches for students in grades six through 12.

“We want to give students the idea this is what the Kingdom of God is all about — churches working together as the church, and that’s what is fun about it,” Doug Ingmire, pastor Newton Christian Church, said.

Youth from the groups will still meet in small groups from their home churches for Bible studies. All the students will use similar Biblical teaching materials.

“We will be able to have a greater dynamic and more synergy with more numbers, but the identity of our own home churches,” Brian Curran, pastor of the First Church of God, said.
All three churches are members of the Missional Church Network, and they concluded they could do more for the area’s youth if they came together.

“We can do more together then we ever could do apart,” Ingmire said.

Jay Lewis, The Journey pastor, said the new ministry will allow the churches to consolidate resources, facilities and volunteers. For example, The Journey does not have a gym, but the Church of God does. He said he was not aware of any such coalition being attempted in the Newton area before but hoped the partnership might spill over into other church activities.

“This will allow us to use our resources in other areas,” Lewis said. “It will allow us to be more effective in other areas by not reinventing the wheel.”

The ministry has hired Mitchel Diemer as a part-time pastor for the ministry. He is part-time pastor with the Newton Christian Church, and this cooperative effort will allow him to have full-time equivalent employment.

The youth ministry will be lead by a pastoral team at its inception, but the goal of the ministry’s creators is to hand over the reins of the group to adult and student leadership teams made up of members from all three churches.

A blog is in the works for the group.

The churches have several summer events planned for the new group, including a trip this weekend to Worlds of Fun and ice skating and pool parties later in the summer.

The students will attend camps with their respective churches this summer, but some consideration has been given to offering a camp experience the students involved with the new ministry could attend together next year.

In the fall, the pastors hope the youth could be involved in monthly mission projects in the Newton area and once a year in a larger mission project in an urban area or Mexico.
About 40 teens have signed up to attend the upcoming Kansas City trip, but the pastors said they hoped the ministry could swell to 100 before the end of next school year.

“Kids have a great influence and have a lot of friends,” Curran said. “They may not feel accepted at school or in the world. We can bridge the gap for these kids.”

The Missional Church Network

2007-01-24T06:33:00.000-08:00

VISION STATEMENT & INVITATION TO LEADERSHIP

We have seen the impact of working with other churches to serve our community and the positive effect it has had on our congregations -- and us as leaders. We are also convinced that if the body of Christ in a local community can come together in unity and mobilize around its common redemptive mission through Jesus Christ, it could become an irresistible force for good that would revolutionize an entire region.

The vision of the Missional Church Network (MCN) is to mobilize the body of Christ in our community for just this kind of spiritual impact. Through the MCN we are working on forging a functional network of evangelical church leaders across the area to serve and impact the region together. Believing that we have been called to re-energize the Church for mission, renew the hearts of God's people, restore the reputation of Christ in our community, and reconcile people to God in our region, our desire as spiritual leaders is to be catalysts for renewal and spiritual awakening – in our congregations, and throughout our community: mobilizing tools, resources, and events -- but most of all -- the body of Christ.

As congregational leaders, we tend to focus primarily on our congregation or our denomination. But as Kingdom minded people, we think about our congregations in context of the larger church body -- the body of Christ in our region. So we acknowledge that we are a part of the larger body and choose to value the unique contributions of other local congregations, ministries and organizations that are striving for greater Kingdom impact.

Throughout the New Testament, the church is described in terms of cities: the Church of Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, etc. The Lord sees many congregations - but one Church. This is confirmed theologically in 1 Corinthians 12, “for we are all baptized by one Spirit into one body... the body is not made up of one part but many.” Ephesians 4 states that "there is one body and one Spirit -- just as you were called to one hope when you were called -- one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all.” Jesus affirms this spiritually, in his prayer recorded in John 17, "Father, may they be one, as we are one.” As 1 Corinthians 12 reminds us, "When one part of the body suffers, we all suffer; when one part prospers we all rejoice.”

Therefore, we recognize that we have been called to a functional unity based on our spiritual unity in Christ, which is, in fact, the very basis for credible proclamation of the Gospel. Jesus prayed this for us in John 17, "May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent me.” These understandings have re-oriented our focus -- and reminded us that we are in this effort together!

We invite you to join with us as we intentionally shift from measuring attendance to measuring the impact, from encouraging the saints to attend the service to equipping the saints for works of service (from "serve us" to service,) from duplication of services and ministries to partnering with existing services and ministries, from separation from other congregations to fellowship with partnering congregations, from just being a minister in the congregation to being a minister in the community. Effective and sustained church-based community impact will show tangible results. If the Church is seeing significant Christ-awakenings, transformed lives and congregational growth; we should, over time, see a transformed community: reflected in lower crime rates, divorce rates, abortion, and poverty rates.

Therefore, through the Missional Church Network we:

1. Strive to share a clear idea of where we are going and a workable map to get there.

2. Desire to serve as catalytic, “Kingdom minded” leaders.

3. Seek to engage leaders from a diversity of the body of Christ, especially from the African American and Hispanic community.

4. Are committed to the transformational process of actively engaging in community-based as well as congregational-based ministry.

5. We’ll give priority to fostering spiritual vitality and relational strength with partnering pastors.

6. Strive to understand the holistic and comprehensive nature of authentic transformation.

7. Agree that we must mobilize believers and leaders from the marketplace to join us in this effort.

As leaders, we don't want to just “get involved” in a process, but help lead a bold, compelling vision… and launch a movement! We pray that together we may become more missional in thinking and serving as one Church -- many congregations and that the Lord will lead other area pastors to share the vision and impact of a local unified body of Christ.

We’d love to have your leadership alongside us!

Timothy Conner Coordinator, The Missional Church Network
Jay Lewis, Pastor, The Journey, Newton
Doug Ingmire Pastor, Newton Christian Church, Newton
Roger Scantlin Pastor, New Life Assembly, Newton
Brian Curran Pastor, First Church of God, Newton
Scott Miller Pastor, Fellowship of Kingdom Life Ministries, Hesston
Dave Reimer Pastor, Grace Community Church, Newton
Paul Wissink Pastor, St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, Newton
Mark Isaac Former Pastor,
Koerner Heights Church, Newton
Jason Reynolds Pastor, Hillcrest Community Foursquare Church, Newton

Congressional “Secularist” Quotient

2006-10-30T08:49:00.000-08:00

The Missional Church Network

Congressional “Secularist” Quotient

Secular Coalition rates secular quality of U.S. Congress

By: BOB ELLIS Dakota Voice
September 12, 2006

A scorecard of Godly and Godless congressional members is now available. Compiled by the Secular Coalition for America, the scorecards were based on ten key votes of the following type:

- allowing faith-based organizations receiving federal funds for secular programs to determine their associations based on like faith;

- allowing faith values to influence votes on science, marriage and military matters; confirmation of judicial appointees who don’t ascribe to the myth of “separation of church and state”;

- and votes that would limit the jurisdiction of federal courts in certain areas such as religious freedom.

Here in South Dakota, Senator Tim Johnson (D) was scored at 70% secular, while Senator John Thune (R) was found to be 0% secular. Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D) received a 40% secular rating.

Senators who scored perfectly secular scores were:

Richard Durbin (D-OH),
Evan Bayh (D-IN),
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD),
Paul Sarbanes (D-MD),
Edward Kennedy (D-MA),
John Kerry (D-MA),
Carl Levin (D-MI),
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI),
Mark Dayton (D-MN),
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV),
Robert Menendez (D-NJ),
Hillary Clinton (D-NY),
Charles Schumer (D-NY), Ron Wyden (D-OR),
Jack Reed (D-RI),
Patrick Leahy (D-VT),
Patty Murray (D-WA), and
Russ Feingold (D-WI).

Senators with a 0% secular rating were:

Jeff Sessions (R-AL),
Jon Kyl (R-AZ),
Wayne Allard (R-CO),
Mel Martinez (R-FL),
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA),
Johnny Isakson (R-GA),
Larry Craig (R-ID),
Mike Crapo (R-ID),
Chuck Grassley (R-IA),Sam Brownback (R-KS),
Pat Roberts (R-KS),
Jim Bunning (R-KY),
Mitch McConnell (R-KY),
David Vitter (R-LA),
Norm Coleman (R-MN),
Kit Bond (R-MO),
Jim Talent (R-MO),
Conrad Burns (R-MT),
Chuck Hagel (R-NE),
Ben Nelson (D-NE),
John Ensign (R-NV),
Pete Domenici (R-NM),
Elizabeth Dole (R-NC),
Mike DeWine (R-OH),
George Voinovich (R-OH),
Tom Coburn (R-OK),
James Inhofe (R-OK),
Rick Santorum (R-PA),
Jim DeMint (R-SC),
Lindsey Graham (R-SC),
John Cornyn (R-TX),
George Allen (R-VA),
Mike Enzi (R-WY) and
Craig Thomas (R-WY).

Overall, 36% of senators received a 0% secular rating while only 17% received a 100% secular rating; the rest were somewhere in the middle.

In the House, 162, or 37%, of the 435 members received a 0% secular rating, but only 7, or 1.6%, received a 100% secular rating.

While these numbers illustrate that there are more members of congress who aren’t afraid to honor America’s Christian heritage than those who would suppress it, they only constitute about 1/3 of the legislative branch. This could help explain why religious freedom and public acknowledgment of faith are on the decline in the United States.

The Secular Coalition for America is a nonprofit organization that seeks to “amplify the diverse and growing voice of the nontheistic community in the United States.”

Coalition members include the:
- American Humanist Association, the
- Atheist Alliance International, the
- Freedom From Religion Federation, and the
- Institute for Humanist Studies.

The Secular Coalition forAmerica is based in Washington, D.C. and lobbies Congress to secularize America is based in Washington, D.C. and lobbies Congress to secularize America.http://www.dakotavoice.com/200609/20060912_3.html

Rest and Reflection Action Plan

2006-09-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

The Missional Church Network

Pastors, how are we doing?
Are we:

Diverting Daily

In my attempt to take a daily quiet time for the purposes of gaining perspective and growing in my relationship with God, I am:

__ Doing well __Needing improvement __Doing poorly

My action plan is to:_______________________________

Withdrawing Weekly

In my attempt to take a weekly Sabbath day for the purposes of gaining perspective, physical refreshment, family health and growing in my relationship with God, I am:

__ Doing well __Needing improvement __Doing poorly

My action plan is to:_______________________________

Maintaining Monthly

In my attempt to take a monthly retreat day for the purposes of gaining perspective, concentrated prayer and listening and growing in my relationship with God, I am:

__ Doing well __Needing improvement __Doing poorly

My action plan is to:_______________________________

Abandoning Annually

In my attempt to take a yearly retreat of at least three days for the purposes of gaining perspective and concentrating deeply on my relationship with God, I am:

__ Doing well __Needing improvement __Doing poorly

My action plan is to:_______________________________

http:///

The Missional Church Network

2006-07-26T13:41:00.000-07:00

Newton Area Ministry Leaders with Wayne Jacobsen

The prayers at the end of our short 2 hours together said it all. "Thanks, Lord, for touching us today!"

Fresh bread is one of Subway's selling mottos and I always smell like that great Subway fresh bread after our meetings there. It lingers for hours ...and, its an appropriate smell for our time: fresh bread.

Someone has said that the Christian life is one beggar telling another where to find fresh bread. Wayne and the others there shared fresh bread - filling, tasty, nourishing...

Topics explored:

Living real. Living relationally. Living in the Love of our heavenly Father. Authentic community. Authentic living, etc.

False expectations. Religious systems that are counterfeits of the real thing, etc.

Wayne's Website:
http://www.lifestream.org/

Podcasts:
http://www.thegodjourney.com/

The Missional Church Network

2006-07-18T09:28:00.000-07:00

Blame Israel?

Hezbollah, formed in 1982, has been targeting Israel with terror attacks. Just recently they killed two Israeli soldiers and took others hostage. It is a terrorist organization that has been somehow able to participate in Lebanon's government. Iran and Syria are supporting their activities and they have been supplied thousands of missiles by Iran. At least 300 Americans alone have lost their lives due Hezbollah’s activities.

Israel is under attack by Hezbollah, and is defending herself. She has that fundamental right and responsibility. Think of it, even now, there are holocaust survivors who are in bomb shelters!

Still, many in the media spotlight have found it fashionable to blame Israel. Israel withdrew from Gaza to create the circumstance of peace. Israel withdrew from south Lebanon to create the circumstance of peace. They now have a thousand missiles fired from Gaza, and hundreds fired from south Lebanon. Blame Israel?

The scriptures tell us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and that those who love Israel shall prosper (Psalm 122:6). Petition the Lord for peace. Pray for divine resolution of ancient hatreds as you pray for Israel and her protection. Further, it is impossible to imagine the burden President Bush and Israeli leaders are carrying right now. They need to be prayed for daily. Let us pray that they will seek the Lord’s wisdom and counsel in all their actions on behalf of their country and in their personal and private lives as well. Stop and pray right now while you read this. Pray that our President and the leaders of Israel will not rely solely upon the strength of a nation's weapons and intelligence, but first to turn to the Lord, the source of all wisdom and strength. God, bless our Commander in Chief and God bless Israel.

The Missional Church Network

2006-07-06T21:04:00.000-07:00

The Missional Church Network

"This is a really rare thing," and "You guys don't know how much this means to me," and "Its so good to be able to know and work together with you all," are some of the comments alongside "sure, another pepsi would be great!" and "the dip is so good Lisa."

Six pastoral couples gathered at our home last Friday to cook out and eat good in the neighborhood - and get better connected to one another as we share the work of shepherds in our community. What a great evening! One couple even came on their anniversary and celebrated their special day with other shepherds. Blessings abounding.

Networking is a good thing. The food is great too!

On the horizon: coordinated web calendar, and a listing of share-able resources, curriculum, etc.

The Missional Church Network

2006-06-29T04:52:00.000-07:00

The Missional Church Network

Summer Concert of Prayer Season Kicked off.

New Life Assembly of God hosted our first Summer Concert of Prayer - a powerful time of worship through song and prayer!

2 Chronicles 7:14 and Acts 1:8 were keystone texts guiding us in thanksgiving, repentance, revival, personal ministry and mission to our Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Ends of the Earth.

Pastor Roger Scantlin and praise team under the leadership of Lori Scantlin had a powerful anointing and led flawlessly as worship in song kicked us off and wove through each section of united prayer.

Prayers were offered to the throne individually, in twos and small groups and then as a whole at appropriate times throughout the work of the evening.

Koerner Heights, Grace Community, First Mennonite, The Journey and New Life Assembly were all represented in a show of Christian unity that the Lord would love.

After the work of the evning, I asked a first time attender how he liked it. "Ok" was his reply as he had no words to describe it. Then I asked him, "Do you think we knocked on heaven's doors tonght?" "Yes, definately," was his reply! Again I asked, "Do you think this was the kind of work that the Holy Spirit would like to come be a part of?" "Yes" he said nodding his head repeatedly.

It truly was! Praise the Lord for allowing us to come together, and worship Him through such an important work for His work in our region.

We have a Sunday night concert planned in August, date to be announced, probably the last Sunday of the month.

Taste and see that the Lord is good... in Newton, Kansas!

2006-04-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

My family and I have lived in Newton, Kansas for four years, and love it.

If you were to come to Newton and wanted to taste something great, I'd recommend:

Taste – grilled burgers or hot dogs montly at the Newton skate park, grilled by men from Hillcrest Church while the Hillcrest youth group interacts with the skaters.

If you were to come and wanted to see something great, I'd recommend:

See - a whole slew of churches working together as a blessing to their community at Faith at the Fairgrounds, an annual gift to the community.

See scores of free haircuts given away by professional stylists. See fresh grilled hot dogs, nachos, cotton candy, given out to all - free of charge - and see kids having loads of fun on moonwalks, ponies, in games, getting tatoos and helium baloons along the way. See groceries just given away to anyone who has a need, and see live music, then stay for a special guest speaker(s) that will inspire and motivate. Faith at the Fairgrounds is a place to "see."

The Lord is good – Want to see how the Lord is good in Newton?
See "prayer shields" for pastors as members of their congregations cover them in prayer and their pastors pray back. See the prayer teams that the pastor's prayer teams have!
... the prayer ripples are speading across the globe! The Lord is good.

The Missional Church Network

NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER - MAYORS PRAYER BREAKFAST

Awaken to Leadership, Evangelism & Creativity: Simulcasts - Tuesdays, May 26, June 30, July 28

Kingdom Class Awards honor Newton faithful

Photos of the Kingdom Class Awards Night - Honoring Humble Heroes - video links too :-)

Newton Pastor dedicated to children, families

A big thank you to the Kids FUNd

Pastors Prayer Summit 2009

Local Heroes of Faith Honored

Mayors Prayer Breakfast on the National Day of Prayer

Pastor's Prayer Summit - June 22, 23, 24

Kingdom Class Awards Ceremony & Banquet - May 3rd

MCN Church Growth Simulcasts

MCN churches raised over 3,000 pounds through Canning Hunger

Alan Hirsch - Defining Missional - Leadership Journal

Weekly U.S.A. Church Attendance: The Sociologists Weigh In

Weekly U.S.A. Church Attendance: The Sociologists Weigh In

November 15, 2008

Weekly U.S.A. Church Attendance: The Sociologists Weigh In

FIREPROOF First Responders Outreach Wrap Up

Thanks all Who Helped Make XFest Possible

“XFest” ~ July 12, 2008 ~ Newton Skate Park

Retreat Centers for Pastors and Missionaries

Mission America Selects Newton as "Pilot City"

Six Kingdom Class Awards were presented Saturday, March 8, 2008

Kingdom Class Awards

Monthly Leadership Series Simulcast with Erwin McManus

11:00 a.m.Hillcrest Community Church 431 W 12th St, Newton 316-283-5035 (Map)

Kingdom Class Awards Ceremony & Banquet Dinner.

Acceptance Letter the the Mission America Coalition

DRAFT: 2008 Focus & Process: Impacting our Community for Christ

Six Churches Launching Canning Hunger ~ Together

MCN Report on the Mission America Annual Meeting

The American Church in Crisis

Share: Sharing with Others the Jesus Way

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The Missional Church Network

The Missional Church Network

The Missional Church Network

The Missional Church Network

Taste and see that the Lord is good... in Newton, Kansas!

11:00 a.m.
Hillcrest Community Church

431 W 12th St, Newton

316-283-5035

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