Here’s some response off the top of my head:
1. Teams: From our conversations, and what I’ve read this one was probably strongly detrimental. I know my network is still trying to figure out how to create leadership teams for missional plants. So far it has been relatively easier to do this in Europe, as our workers can raise full-time support. For US side, I personally have found it much harder to fund-raise to keep our team from all having to work full time.

2. School/Work: awfully tough to be sustainable when you’re working bi-voc AND going to school. I think the bigger key to the bi-vocational thing is how much time can be alloted to other endeavours.

3. Preaching/Teaching: I’m not sure I know quite specifically what your goal was, but I assume you were highly adverse to just recycling a bunch of people from other churches. The different modes of preaching/teaching is a good filter in this regard. I guess compared to a “classic” church plant, it might retard growth, but I’m not sure the type of growth it would cause is really that useful.

4. Not providing solutions to every problem: Like preaching/teaching, I think this can serve as an excellent filter, but like you with our current project, I’ve become frustrated with how people don’t just rise to the challenge to address these sorts of things. I think a big question for all of us to ask is how we cultivate a willingness in people to take things on and offer solutions without worry of them being perfect (in this case even when we’re for non-traditional plants, I think traditional church has tarnished a lot of our ability to imagine different solutions to the type of programs we face, to me I’m wondering if this doesn’t need to come out as almost giving people permission to feel a bit like a heretic, but I’m thinking out loud here and would need more time before I’d articulate that the way I’d like.)

Thanks for going through this Jason, as it finishes, I may start pointing some people towards it to take a look as I think it can be really helpful for people who are starting to look at the church planting process.

Reading the first post in this series, I had a long conversation with God because I thought, “Are we just propping up a corpse.” In some ways, maybe, but in others we thrive. We have made some of the same decisions listed here and would like to respond to each one.

- We didn’t recruit a team.

We did. Along with my wife and I, another couple made the move with us. They left after a year in and we have yet to fill the hole they left. We are not actively recruiting people, but other people have stepped up into various roles using there own gifts. Even though the whole dynamic changed and we are still finding our stride, we are committed to God’s mission in the world together.

And it just takes time, discipling new believers is, well, a process and we are committed to that process (not to say that you all were not).

- We didn’t establish secular work beforehand

We had to. We committed from the beginning that none of our pastors would receive a salary from the church in order to free up that portion of our budget for missions. We own a coffee shop which, in the current economic climate, has been a struggle to say the least (we are currently a total of 3 months behind on rent, but have been blessed with a gracious landlord – not sure how much longer this will last though).

- We didn’t wait until I finished school

I’m currently in seminary at Fuller, but owning my own business allows me to take the time I need for school. However, I realize that often times school takes precedence over pastoring our crew.

- I didn’t preach or teach

I do – not to create loyalty or pack a pew, but to ground our people in the Word. I often teach dialogically as a guide on the side rather than a sage on a stage.

We also eat a meal at every gathering – it is central to our worship experience. This meal, however, is not a potluck. I do all the cooking. I love to cook. Besides potlucks are to hard to organize and someone always forgets and waits to last minute and ends up bringing tacos from Taco Bell.

- We refused to provide a ready-made solution for kids

In our gatherings, there is usually a low roar from our kid’s corner. It takes some time for the parents getting used to, but once they realize it is not a distraction to our teachers, then they are able to relax. Our solution to the discipleship question is that we equip and resource parents to teach there own children. We probably spend more time doing this than anything else.

- I refused (it really was just me) to provide a musical worship experience

We don’t refuse music, but do not provide that experience nor are we actively seeking someone who will. Your right. There needs to be a fast from the “typical white, contemporary, soft-rock concert experience that passes for worship.”

- We didn’t advertise

We do not either other than keeping up a website.

Our local expression of the Church has a very long way to go. If we did a pro and con list we could probably find more pros than cons to shut the whole thing down. Yet if we made the same lists for areas where people are thriving and we, as a community of faith, are coming to deeper understanding of what it means to follow Jesus in this world we would find more pros than cons to keep on trucking.

I’m thankful for you writing this postmortem. It has helped us look at our church with some fresh eyes.

First off, I know that several folks have already said this, but thank you for dissecting Ikon’s corpse. While my wife and I are currently planting a “tradition” style church (abet one with a missional heart), we know deep down that one day we will most likely be involved in planting a more non-tradition/emerging style church. As such, your autopsy is invaluable!!

Now on to the comments and questions. =D

a) “…underestimated the length of time…” – As I read your posts, I can’t help but smile in a sadistic, knowing kind of way. Having been apart of a church planting team for almost five years now (two years of those as a bio-vocational pastor), I know first hand the slow grinding pace of change. Eventually, God had to show me that I wasn’t the one in charge of growing the church or changing people’s behavior. I was just to follow His marching orders (i.e. love the people and model a different way of life); the rest was between Him and the people. This epiphany helped undermine the devils attacks and my own self doubts as my self worth was no longer depended on what others did or did not do.

b) Worship – While I understand the reaction against the “typical white, contemporary, soft-rock concert experience”, I find it hard to dismiss musical worship all together. Humans were created with both a logical mind and an emotional core. Music, whether it be good or bad, is a great way to express ones emotions. As such, in thinking back over the life of Ikon, do you think it would have been possible to include a musical expression of worship that would fit the culture of the people? If so, what style of music would have fit?

c) Liturgy – You have talked about doing lectio divina, lighting candles, and practicing meditation as part of your liturgy. While this is all and good, I can’t help but wonder if you where not trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Or in different words, thinking back, what type of worship/liturgy would have fitted the culture into which Ikon was located?

Note that I ask this last question out of a context in which I wish I could do more things like that. However, the Lord has shown me that the culture in which I am stationed at the moment is not ready for such things. As such, I have to be careful at how much I say or what I do as to not offend my brothers and sisters…. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m wondering if you didn’t approach Ikon with a list of things you don’t want to do because of the abuses you saw – rather then from what is God doing in this culture and place with all options on the table… (maybe you did…and if so, I apologize for my frankness…)

@Bryan

1. At this point I agree. If I were to do this again I would hold off on any kind of gathering until I had a solid core group of people who were solidly committed to the effort as partners.

2. I don’t know that this was really a big deal. I only include it because others seem surprised at my level of busyness.

3. Yes, I was concerned about recycling people from other churches. I was also concerned about creating too much dependency on me. In the end, we still struggled with both : )

4. You make some important point here Bryan. I think in our case the kids problem was really a commitment problem.

@Michael – Please don’t assume that just because we pulled the plug that you folks are in the same boat. That’s for each group to decide on their own. My “teaching” was probably pretty similar to what you’re calling the “guide from the side.” Sounds like you guys are doing a great job, so keep up the good work!

@Josh

a) Good comments. I always knew the development of the church would take longer than a more typical church plant, but for whatever reason I expected us to find leadership partners more quickly. In the end we are still “following marching orders.” That certainly won’t change just because we disbanded this group : )

b) Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against musical worship – just like I have nothing against food. But sometimes these things take the wrong place in our hearts and fasting is helpful. After a few months of learning to worship without being gluttons for entertainment I would have included just about any expression of musical worship that we could have produced authentically from within our group (including guitar led soft rock).

c) Great question. I probably misstated people’s response to this. Nobody rejected it. It’s just that it wasn’t a full enough expression of worship for most people (it was for me). If we’d had a better mix of creative gifts in worship then the use of lectio and other more liturgical elements would have been a great compliment. There’s quite a bit of cultural diversity in southern California, so most people are open to different things.

Hope that makes sense : )

Hi Jason, thanks for this post.

Like others, I heartily agree with your thoughts on the need to move away from “worship” being synonymous with “music”

Re: the potluck — at first read, I thought you were referring to a common meal, but in re-reading, I see you used it as a metaphor — so am I correct in assuming you were referring to cultivating a 1 Cor 14:26 atmosphere…and how hard it is to get people to participate in that?

Rather than hit each point, I’d like to offer an overall observation and question, after a story or two:

I’m an RN with a background in Orthopaedics. When you get a chance, look up “Bone Age” on Wikipedia for a primer. It is quite fascinating, and for me, God has used it to relate some of what we, in our endeavors here in Salem, are to be doing (or avoiding).

You see, skeletal structure is important, but is secondary to flesh in this regard. When a child is conceived, the few cells are not hard at all. A child grows from fleshy blobs into an organism that has some internal structures. Once the child is born, it still takes up to the late teens before all the bones are fully in place.

A number of years ago, a good friend’s daughter was about 3 years old when she was standing near a big heavy door at our old church building. Her dad walked through not realizing she was behind him. When she reached for the closing door, it closed and latched *on* her little fingers. She, of course, screamed like a banshee. When they opened the door, her fingertips were bent backward at an unnatural angle. By the time she got to the ER, her fingers were very swollen, but looked more normal. The MD who examined her and reviewed the x-rays pointed out that her bones in the tips of her fingers were really more like cartilage still, since she was so young.

Had she been older, it would have been a serious injury. At her age, and stage of skeletal development, she was completely fine…the next day!

It has been said that church communities are like this as well. We need some structure to hold things together, but when we hug one another it is not bone-on-bone, it is flesh-on-flesh.

I can’t help but wonder if you *had* more structure in place if the damage and devastation would have been even worse? Perhaps since you had never fully developed bones, your recovery will be quicker as well?

When I was first having talks of church planting, I was very emphatic that I wanted to *not* get a building or pay staff, etc. I wanted to start out as a group, and when the living room got too small, we’d get a second living room and ultimately have a network of groups. I told my pastor “Lots of church plants start there then end up getting a building and paying the pastor, etc. I don’t want to end up like that!” In his wisdom he said I had nothing to worry about: “Unless you are TRYING to get to that place, you’ll never end up there accidentally” =O)

Even in our initial plans though, there had been so much emphasized about leadership. Maxwell says “Everything rises and falls on leadership” (I strongly disagree, but perhaps that is for another time/post). And there is much head shaking at the idea of being a “leaderless” group.

But I wonder — here’s my observation/question: Were you too focused on structure, from far too early a point in time? Were you trying to birth a fully-boned child, when really what God intended was for a fleshy messy blob for awhile, and the bones would grow naturally?

Like a peach tree *straaaaaiininng” to produce peaches, we all know fruit is born in its own time/season.

Likewise with bones/structure.

We also planted without any core team. Now we are *so* glad we did, for a variety of reasons. But I am forever looking at ways and thinking of what it will be like when we have “this many people” and thinking through Jethro’s advice to Moses, etc. It is like Calvin & Hobbes coming back in from the snow to spend all day *planning* their snow fort — much easier to plan with crayons and a cup of Swiss Miss in front of a fire than to go out and really build the snow fort…

But I’m coming to realize that, for us, I need to completely let go of all of that stuff. A word given to us during prayer with some friends recently was telling along these lines: “I feel like God is saying to you: ‘Don’t build anything. Just love people”

In our letter to the Vineyard officially withdrawing our affiliation, I referenced Ps 127. I’m wondering if that resonates with you as well?

Blessings,

~ Keith

Jason: as decisions and decision-making go, this seems to be a mixed bag of the good, the bad, and the ugly (theme song whistled in the background: ooo-ee, ooo-ee, ooooooo…wah-wah-wah)

we’re probably going to make several of the same unorthodox decisions, although with some we’ve gone in a different direction (going with some friends, bi-vocation/income for a family, etc.)

@Michael: Thanks for sharing concerning the children. I think the “are my children being a distraction” is such a huge thing for parents, and if we can alleviate that weight it can be really helpful. lthough we once had a issue where someone said, it’s not the other kids, my own children are a distraction for me…

@Keith: the whole organic development of bones in us is really a thought-provoking and inspired thing to share…thanks so much!

Thanks Jason – your responses make perfect sense. =)

This has been helpful to reflect on, so thanks again Jason. Here are my thoughts/experiences from our context:

-Recruiting a team: This is the point I most regret. We had every intention of doing this, but the community formed organically (it became a church before we had pursued it intentionally). Since then we have not been able to build a team. First, there is no money (I don’t get paid by the church at all) and second, it is in the inner city, scaring many folks off. I live with a great deal of stress about this point.

-Being bi-vocational: I have served as a bi-vocational missionary for 17 years, so this piece was already in place for us. We also live VERY simply. We are by NO means poor, but have spent most years in ministry well below the official poverty line and lacked for nothing. This is a skill/value I learned from YWAM that I deeply appreciate.

-Preaching & teaching: We are committed to a community hermeneutic, but we also believe that God gifts each of us uniquely. So while I do lead in more dialogical formation, I also do a great deal of preparation in preparing a teaching. Further, I am not the only one who leads, encouraging others to do so too.

-Children: This has been a chicken & egg problem for us. No families will comes, explicitly saying they want something for their kids, but until there are kids there won’t be anything. Further, I resist the impulse to provide children’s programming as it has all too commonly been practiced- as a consumer-driven commodity. We are not against some form of solution, but like you said, we want it to emerge from the community.

-Advertising: We have a website & a Facebook group, but we use these for communication and conversation. No one comes to our church because of those mediums (in fact, we don’t post our meeting location & times online, as people come via relationship & most people in our community aren’t likely to find us online).

I do worry about the future. We’ll see where God leads.

Jason, thanks again for posting this stuff.

I just want to echo the part about being surprised at how “nobody really seemed interested in participating consistently to providing the solution.” I hope I don’t sound “complainy” but I really expected that if people had permission to take ownership in a church planting project that they would. Like you, I was surprised when that didn’t seem to be the case.

I’m not sure how much of this is people being formed by the dominant stories and values of consumer culture, and how much is just part of the way communities have always functioned/struggled.

We also have refused to do the advertising thing, except for a logo and website. I too share your cynicism about most “servant evangelism” stuff where you hand out bottles of water with church service times on it…

I do think that these kinds of “intentionally unorthodox” decisions have affected our “success,” so to speak (i.e. we haven’t grown as quickly as most church plants in our city do).

And I wonder if there will always be an inherently higher “mortality rate” in these kinds of church plants that attempt to occupy the liminal space (not sure if I am using that word correctly) of post-Christendom cultures…

Not to make too much of a martyr of you or me, I am reminded of Isaiah’s prophetic call, which was to preach God’s message to a people who weren’t going to listen. But Isaiah was called to do it anyway, despite the lack of “success” his ministry was going to see.

Also reminded of a quote Jon Tyson made at the 2009 Ecclesia National Gathering:

“If you’re young and you’re church planting, do not be the darling of the previous movement just because it’s easy and you’ll be successful. Embrace the pain of preaching to a culture that does not understand, that does not care, that does not want to hear. You’ll be of far more use to the kingdom of God preaching into the future rather than preaching into the past, where it’s easy to gather a crowd that’s already looking for consumer tidbits.”

umm….I’m slightly confused…I keep hearing folks referring to “servant evangelism” as a form on advertising. This seems a tad odd to me as I thought the point behind servant evangelism was NOT to promote a particular church – just to love and serve folks with no ‘strings’ attached… Has this heart been lost in servant evangelism?

@Josh – unfortunately I have seen many examples of the “servant evangelism as PR stunt” thing.

I’m sure some do engage in “the real thing” though. I’ve just seen it hijacked a lot.

@Kieth – Great examples, I like the bone metaphor! Yes, at this point – given that we came without an established team – I would say I was expecting too much structure too soon. Although, there are other complications that I’ll discuss in my next post. I should also say that I think it’s perfectly valid to plant with a team, rather than grow your own. That’s just not what we did. If you don’t, then I think you have to be prepared to hoe a tough row for a long time before solidifying.

Unless, of course, God moves things along faster! : )

Thanks!

@Jamie – Thanks for sharing your own approach to these points. It’s helpful to know where others are at and having been an admirer of Little Flowers for quite some time, it gives me a welcome peek into the inner workings of your community.

I should say that I don’t regret these decisions. Some might say they are the reason for the failure and I wanted to air that out – and they may be right. Still, we always knew we were going about this in a way that was unorthodox and, therefore, prone to a high probability of failure. Still, knowing something will probably fail is very different than believing it will.

Jamie, I think your concern at this point should be for where you and your wife getting the creative energy and emotional support that comes from genuine comrades. If you have that in your group, you’ll be fine. If not, you need to get it from outside the group somehow.

Hey guys, I come at this from the perspective of pastoring a traditional Vineyard church. I’m interested in these projects and missional efforts, but haven’t really experienced it myself. At one time, I thought I would be doing this kind of planting, but I have realized over time I’m not wired for it.

I think these kinds of dissections are important for people considering this kind of missional work, because it does require a certain type of gifting.

Primarily, I think the tentmaking aspect is key. This is the most important question, in my view. I think people should weigh the sustainability of their effort most before they start. That is, can you financially sustain a church planting effort for 5 to 10 years without being paid by the church? Do you have marketable skills to be bi-vocational? Do you want that? Specifically, can you make enough working 20 hours a week to provide a full time income, so you can give 40 hours a week to the church? Or, are you gifted with the ability to live simply? Can you live off of less than the average American family? Can you live off a minimum wage income? Etc. Those are the kinds of questions to ask yourself. If not, but you still discern a calling to do this, maybe you should spend some time developing this before you launch?

And, by the way, I think questions like liturgy, worship, preaching, etc. can be answered along the way if you are sustainable. Sustainability takes so much pressure off.

I think 10 or 15 years into the Emerging Missional Church conversation, we have seen that the more non-traditional expressions of church are extremely difficult to sustain financially. I have even seen this in what might be viewed as success stories. What most people don’t realize is that many pastors in many success stories are raising support like missionaries. The problem? It seems it is difficult to disciple people into tithers? Imagine that.

To be honest, I have not heard too many success stories of people wired with “typical” pastoral gifts attempting to be bi-vocational. The tension it creates is often so intense, it overwhelms the pastor. I think this is part of my discernment. I am wired to be a pastor. I need to give all my energy and resources to that effort, so I can do it effectively. I don’t think that is a bad thing. I know there are some out there arguing that pastors should never be paid. I just disagree with that I guess. What I have found, vocationally, is that no matter what I do, whether I am a Coast Guard Officer, or a retail manager, I pastored the people I worked with. I just finally came to terms with it, named it, went to seminary, and the rest is history.

What I find is that people who seem to be successful bi-vocationally are business folks who have the ability to make a significant amount of money without having to give much time or personal resource to their business work. i.e. consulting, sales, real estate, or other high income jobs. Or, as we see on the circuit, people like Dave Fitch, who are professional Christians in para-church ministries and can give part of their time to church ministry with tons of cross over b/w their two lives. Interestingly, people who are wired for business (entrepreneurs) tend to be wired to church plant. But, if I might be so frank, many entrepreneurial types aren’t very good at creating the infrastructure needed to shepherd or disciple people once they have been invited into the missional expression of church, no matter how creative or post-modern-ish that expression is. That entrepreneur (pioneer) needs to surround himself or herself with a team of people who have pastoral and nurturing gifts as well as administrative gifts, who will fill in some of the gaps to keep the thing together as he or she keeps pressing on into uncharted territory. A lot of times, in more traditional churches, these people are already around, because there is just a bigger pool of folks hanging out, b/c they are churched and attracted to the “white, attractional, modern rock worship, with a servant evangelism project afterwards thing.”

Wow….didn’t realize I was going to say all that. I have thought about this a lot as I have wrestled with God about my calling. I think this is something that needs to be talked about, blogged about, written about in articles, and researched for papers, books, etc. Sustainability? Who is doing it well? Where are good examples? I know Drew Goodmanson has done some stuff concerning this with Acts 29. Is there others?

@Ben – I didn’t know you were experiencing some of these things. Sorry to hear that. Two things: a) I live by the story of Jeremiah, which has some obvious similarities to Isaiah’s experiences and b) Love that Tyson quote.

Thanks brother.

@Josh – Well, all I can say i that I’ve been around a long time and seen servant evangelism done in a lot of different places. I was in charge of outreach and evangelism in a fairly big church for 4 years and I’ve never seen it done when it wasn’t used to promote the church. I’m not saying it’s all bad, or that people’s intentions weren’t sincere (they always are). But still, it’s a well-intentioned PR stunt.

Besides, in all seriousness, “no strings attached” isn’t really an accurate presentation of the gospel. There are huge strings attached, starting with repentance.

@Jason – Very well said! And I would agree with just about everything. I might add, that those who have succeeded with emerging churches are often more traditional than we realize and/or are significantly supported by a traditional denomination. I think that’s fine, but my point is that sometimes our perceptions are more radical than reality.

I’m fine with pastors being paid, and I’m glad you’ve raised that subject here. Although I will say that I believe the market for professional ministry is in bad decline, so I’m not sure the pursuit of full-time vocational ministry is prudent in the long run from either a pragmatic or missiological perspective.

For the record I’m not fine with professionalism in ministry, and I’m not fine with the idea of working 60 hours a week no matter how you slice it up. I don’t think we should be expecting people to sacrifice their lives on the alter of church structures no matter how they pay the bills. I know Paul would disagree, but then I disagree with Paul a lot these days : )

Drew Goodmanson has done a hell of a job pioneering both a church plant and a ministry-empowering business all at the same time. I have a ton of respect for that. But I have to admit I’m not a fan of Acts 29. I think the version of Christianity they’re peddling is just warmed over fundamentalism. In my observation, one of the best ways to carve out a market niche for a new church in America right now is to preach the revival of Christendom values (i.e. patriarchy, innerancy, conservatism) over-and-against the evils of culture and dress it up as “missional” (i.e. casual, edgy, culturally savvy, and an emphasis on evangelistic small groups). San Diego is a great place to do that because It’s a relatively conservative metropolitan area. Acts 29 should do well here.

Thanks again Jason!

@ “servant evangelism” – Thanks everyone for the comments. It breaks my heart to hear that it has been turned into a PR stunt.

While I know this is slightly off topic, I feel that it is worth sharing my view with servant evangelism as it seems that others have had a poor experience with it. My first exposer to servant evangelism was almost eight years ago. We would go door to door giving away gallons of milk to lower income families while asking if the folks had any prayer requests. We did not have any ‘church’ literature or business cards – in fact, we were told NOT to tell the people where we were from. We were to simply tell them that we are followers of Jesus and He loves them.

To me this captures the heart of servant evangelism – i.e. simply loving people and serving them while pointing to God and not any one particular church building/group. Granted, there were a few times when we did point folks to our church as the Lord directed, but this was a rarity.

@ “No Strings Attached” – By this I mean that the people being served or receiving the gift did not need to attend our church or receive Jesus as the Savior. We would simply serve everyone we saw and let God deal with the heart.

If someone wanted to know more – or if God prompted us – then we would go into greater detail about why we were handing out milk (for example). Even then, if they chose to reject us or our message, it did not mean that we took back our gift or stopped serving them. We loved them regardless of what they did or did not do.

This to me is servant evangelism.

@Josh — thanks for your comments. I’ve done some “kindness outreaches” (free light bulbs door to door, cleaning local businesses’ bathrooms, etc) and always preferred the version where we leave out where we’re from, and focus instead on the why.

@Jason — I guess the question for me has become “How invested am I in what I think/thought the final ‘thing’ will/should look like? And how much do I need to die to that — and instead simply let Him build what He is building. And by extension, what am I doing that is getting in the way?”

Once upon a time I posted here about how I wanted to do things. Many of my general thoughts are the same, while some specifics have shifted. In the end, my desire is still in line with this excerpt (sorry for the long quote):

ON BEING MISSIONAL

Along those lines, I’ve been asking God and myself and others what life would look like if I moved away from the formal structured “church” meeting similar to what I’ve experienced in the past. What if I and some really close friends moved to a new place and:

1) Hung out with people — neighbors, coworkers, people in my bowling league, etc — in our day-to-day lives. What if we were real with them and went and fed the poor and helped the needy with them, and just in general shared our sorrows and problems and triumphs and joys with them, etc — whether they were following Jesus or not. And all of us (those following and those not following Jesus) just loved each other and got through life together. But these close friends & I also made sure that we intentionally…

2) Hung out with a small number of people who *are* following Jesus (but not on Sunday mornings or maybe not on weekends at all — they are just too awesome to not share with people who don’t know Jesus!) so we could pray for one another and share at a deeper level as the Holy Sprit led us, to walk out life in The Kingdom. Then as we all became closer and more like Jesus, including praying for others and healing people and the other stuff that would go along with helping the poor, etc and then…

3) Along the way, some of the folks from groups #1 & #2 would naturally mingle and get to know each other. The folks in group #1 would be drawn in by His presence among us, and flowing through us, so they would start hanging out in group #2 also – so that naturally and relationally, some of the folks in group #1 would start following Jesus too. And then over time, there would be more and more people in group #2, so that the group would (again, naturally) become two separate groups in terms of when/how/where/how they met — etc etc etc.

THING CHURCH?

So if I hung out with people in a pub, or in a park, or in my home, etc, that would be one thing — but I don’t want to go “plant a House Church” or a “Park Church” or even a “Pub Church” or anything like that. Do you see the difference in emphasis? In general, I don’t want to “aim” at any sort of formalized structured “thing” and call it “[Thing] Church” — does that make sense?

On the other hand I absolutely want to stay connected to other people (in other circles and settings) who are walking with Jesus in a way that shapes and forms me. I want to be connected to people who are “going to church” and stuff. I want to stay connected to an association of people who are all walking with Jesus together.

I think, if anything, occasionally attending the rituals in High Church liturgy (Episcopal, Lutheran, Catholic, Orthodox, etc) might be the least distracting for me. As long as they did not become rote, they could help provide an occasional “framework”, like a friend of mine has said — a “place to hang things once in awhile”.

By the time we were sent out to plant, we’d been so busy (I was leading the worship (ahem: music & sound and multimedia) ministry, we were leading a small group, my wife was the office administrator, and I was an (unpaid) Associate Pastor who preached once a quarter or so. We had all the usual meetings to attend, etc. Meanwhile, I was working 40 hrs/wk at my RN job. We finally got to the point where we said “We’re tired of not having any kind of normal life outside of church” (aka Christian Ghetto).

Now one of our mottos is “We don’t want to have any church outside of our normal life” (the other is “We’re hoping to become the kind of people we’d like to hang out with”).

(An aside — when I read my wife your postmortem timeline, her first response was “I feel so tired for them”)

Along our way, God has used Jer 6:16 and 1 Thess 4:9-12 to speak deeply to our hearts about rest, and the kind of life He has for us in Him.

So while we didn’t move away with “a few close friends” we did move away just the two of us, and over the past 3+ years He has continued to deepen that message to our hearts about resting in Him and allowing Him to build what He is building, and for us to simply do three things:

1) Learn to progressively receive more of His love (Eph 3:16-19)
2) In that place, learn to really love Him back and then
3) From the foundation of that relationship, love other folks along the way as He leads our paths to intermingle with theirs.

It has been way harder than I ever imagined, yet more freeing and relaxing than I’ve felt in many many years.

Merry Christmas Eve! Here’s to a God who loves us enough to come get us and rescue us from ourselves!

Looking forward to continuing the dialogue as you post the next few pieces.

Blessings on you and yours.

[...] Jason Coker is dissecting a failed missional church plant–his own. I was glued at his assessment in the aptly named: "Missional Postmortem: Intentionally unorthodox decisions that may have contributed to morbidity. [...]

@Josh – Thanks for sharing that story. Whatever we call it, that is a fabulous gift of kindness and service.

@Keith – That’s really good stuff, thanks for sharing. I’ll be honest, while I had a highly developed sense of vision, including structure, for Ikon I really don’t think I was terribly invested in the outcomes of the organizational aspect of what we were doing. I’ve always said that I’m open to whatever it becomes in terms of structure, and I was eager to see other people shape it. As I search my heart I find that I was (and still remain) highly invested in three things:

1) theological progressiveness,
2) ecclesiological holiness with respect to the marketplace, and
3) egalitarian collaboration at the level of “leadership” or “eldership”

I may be wrong, but I see these as values that contribute to the shape of a structure rather than concrete structural outcomes. Now, from a missiological perspective, each of these pose very serious challenges in my context (more on that in my next post), but at the end of the day we were able, to some extent, to exercise #1 and #2. We quit because I wasn’t able to enlist even one other person or couple to enter into #3 with us, and Jenell and I were no longer willing to continue carrying the responsibility alone. This was my fault, not the group’s. It came about as a direct result of certain decisions I made (very orthodox decisions) that made the burden unbearable.

[...] Jason Coker is dissecting a failed missional church plant–his own. I was glued at his assessment in the aptly named: “Missional Postmortem: Intentionally unorthodox decisions that may have contributed to morbidity. [...]

[...] started this postmortem with the timeline of our missional church plant and then covered certain unorthodox decisions that I thought should be taken into consideration. Today, I want to cover some factors that [...]

[...] Jason Coker is dissecting a failed missional church plant–his own. I was glued at his assessment in the aptly named: “Missional Postmortem: Intentionally unorthodox decisions that may have contributed to morbidity. [...]

[...] And what he has done in a recent series of posts is simply amazing. In these posts (here, here, here, here, and here), Jason reflects on the sorrows of closing down a church that he and his wife Jenell [...]

Jason,
I got linked to your blog from a David Fitch’s site. I know this article of yours has been around a while. I hope you get this.

I think you and your wife are HERO’S in the biblical sense of the Word for being willing to respond in naked faith to what you honestly perceived to be the voice of God. You left everything behind for Him and went like Abraham to a land you didn’t know of! And then it went (or seemed to go!) south.

I’ve been a pastor of a small, struggling “institutional quasi-emergent” church. I held and still hold many of the values that you took with you into planting Ikon. I found that no matter what I did the church and the people were just where they were spiritually and I could not change them. I hit many of the blocks you did on your journey. I’m not sure even now what God was really up to over those ten years. I have spent a lot of time after I left, and before, in confusion and pain before God.

This is a crazily tough time to be a “leader” in the church in the west, especially in America. I am so thankful to God that there are people like you and your wife out there willing to take these kind of risks out of love for God AND to be as transparent and humble about it so the rest of us can learn and grow with you.

So thank you and God bless you and your family! I’d be interested in knowing what He is doing with you next.

Hi Phil,

Thanks so much for the kind words. I’m a little overwhelmed by the response I’ve received to this series of posts, but I suppose that’s an illustration of your very point; it is indeed an odd and crazy time to be a church leader in the west.

You have been very open and transparent in your comments and I appreciate that as well. Blessing to you as you move down the road God has for you!

Thanks Jason. Much grace and peace to you.

[...] Intentionally unorthodox decisions that may have led to morbidity [...]