So when does the fruitfulness begin?
Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies it remains just one seed. But if it dies it becomes much more.
~ John 12:24
Seasons change fast. It seems like just yesterday I wrote that my new job was finally enabling us to move confidently into a missional church plant with Ikon Community.
Today, I’m here to report that we have shut Ikon down.
More details later. The short version is this: we were simply unable to either internally cultivate or externally recruit a viable leadership core. In recent months we’d gained momentum with two experienced leaders showing interest, but a few weeks ago that changed suddenly.
That was a tough blow.
Losing these people caused us to re-evaluate everything. Over the past 18 months, internal leadership candidates had either balked or moved away and we’d exhausted our local network for recruiting potential external leaders. Ultimately Jenell and I decided we were unwilling to carry the burden of leadership alone.
Without the gifts and camaraderie of a well rounded leadership team we simply can’t grow in a healthy way to the level of a mid-sized group (40-50 people) with the critical mass necessary to share a creative liturgy and have an impacting local mission. In my mind these are the two things we needed in order to be more than just another small group, and these were the two things we were never able to either initiate (a creative liturgy) or sustain (an impacting mission).
We could have continued Ikon as a rogue small group or house church in the area, but frankly that has never interested us. Besides, for better or worse, Jenell and I have never had much patience for propping up corpses. It was time to bury this one. Hence, we will no longer be gathering as a group and we’ve shut down the church planting process with The Vineyard Community of Churches.
What more can I say?
The personal cost to undertake this effort – starting over two and half years ago and begun 2200 miles away – has been nothing short of enormous. Peering into the coffin is painful and confusing. After 17 years in professional ministry and a graduate degree from seminary, I don’t know what this change means for my ministry vocation. I don’t know what this means for our family’s worship life. Honestly, I don’t know what it means for my faith.
It feels like a death or a divorce. In the end I suppose it’s a bit of both.
I was like an angry drunk for about a week while processing this decision. Some of you may have noticed (I should stay away from Twitter when I get that way). It didn’t help that my wife was out of town at the same time. Sorry for that.
I’m good now. Surprisingly good actually.
Some final notes: 1) In a day or two I’m going to write a post-mortem for our missional church plant. With all the missional bravado out there I figure someone should write about failure. Who knows? Someone might learn from it. Hell, maybe even me. 2) As coincidence would have it Mike Breen sent me his book Launching Missional Communities. I was reading it the very same week I was wrestling with the decision to close Ikon. I told Mike I would review it here, and I aim to fulfill that promise. Perhaps a perspective of the book from this side of the church planting experience might be helpful.
Wow Jason. Thanks for sharing this. I’m sorry for your loss!
I’m glad you’re going to be doing an autopsy of sorts, because that side of church planting is one that leaders often struggle with alone. Out of shame and fear we find it difficult to talk honestly about our insecurities and struggles.
I also look forward to seeing what God does in the future for you guys.
Peace to you.