What is an Every Nation Church?

"What is the key to empowering next generation leaders, and not seeing them eventually run off and do their own thing?"

I have been asked many versions of the above question countless times.

My answer is always something like this: before you empower leaders, you have to establish exactly what you are empowering them to do. In other words you have to be crystal clear about your mission, vision and values. If you are not clear about what you are building or where you are going - when you empower leaders, they will run full speed ahead in the wrong direction.

But, when you are clear about where you are going and what you are building, you can confidently empower next gen leaders, knowing they know what to do and where to go.

While having breakfast with my friend,  Mel Mullen, during the International Apostolic Summit last week, we had an interesting conversation about what kind of church we are trying to lead. We both expressed that we don’t always fit in the standard “Charismatic” box.

If we are not traditional Charismatic churches, then what are we?  In response to Mel's question about what kind of churches Every Nation is planting, here’s what I said:

"We want to plant churches (and campus ministries) in every nation that are Christ-centered, Spirit-empowered and socially responsible, and we want to do it in a way that is culturally relevant."

In my next few reluctant leader blogs, I want to explain what I mean by each of these ideas:

Christ-centered

Spirit-empowered

Socially Responsible

Culturally Relevant

Comments

[Clayton Bell]

Pastor Steve,

This was a very interesting blog to read, as a long-time EN member. I've never heard that description before. Do you see this description as something EN is evolving into, or has always been and just never been expressed in this way?

I would also love to hear your description of what social responsible looks like for an EN church.

Thanks for the great blog post.

[Dave Hess]

Hey Pastor Steve! I serve as an ENCM campus minister in Tallahassee, FL and just wanted to say that I have really been enjoying reading your blog. You have had some really interesting posts recently. I am particularly excited to hear your thoughts on "What is an Every Nation Church" in upcoming posts!

[Toby T]

Well if the local church isnt Christ centered and Spirit empowered it isnt a church really. The characteristic of the church is that it is the expression of Christ. And specifically related to these days, it is definitely not the expression of culture. Culture began with the fallen man. So "planting" any so called churches that are culturally relavent is simply participating and cooperating with the fall.

There is no culture in the church, no greek, no jew, no slave nor free man, no barbarian, no scythian but Christ is all and in all !:)

[pageman]

love the CSR (corporate social responsibility) part, I'm now tryting to teach this in my ITETHIC (ithethic.pbwiki.com) class - I'm trying to use C.K. Prahalad's Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid as one of the textbooks! BTW, CSRSME just hosted the first ever Asian Forum for Solidarity Economy (asianforum2007.net) which discusses how socially responsible investors, producers, distributors and consumers can come together as part of of an alternative "socially responsible" economy - I'm glad to know that CSR is now articulated into the EN vision :)

[Serge Solomons]

Ps. Steve, I am an EN pastor in Namibia and want to thank you for insightful posts. I always look forward to reading and learning from what you write, suggest and clarify. Blessings

[Dave H]

Will we get to read more soon on "What is an Every Nation Church?" soon ... I keep checking back hoping for more on that since you first posted on it but so far nothing more...i'm excited to hear you develop the rest of your points on this topic!

[Objective]

I find your definition of an EN church to be "worryingly woolly" (excuse the pun). Let me look at the first one (time does not permit more). Whilst I totally agree we must be Christ-centred, in today's world that is too vague. New agers talk all the time about a "Christ consciousness", so they would say that they are "Christ-centred". It would be far more helpful to state, for example, that we are bible-centred (not "bible-based" as that is, once again, too vague). Also, are we really Christ-centred? That would rule out all the "man-centred" approaches to church that are proliferating in the West, such as "seeker-sensitive" or "purpose-driven" churches. What am I getting at here? There is a war raging in the church right now, and it is over the issue of truth. Whilst there are good and bad in both camps, and whilst this is a generalisation, there are, on the one hand, those who are contending for the faith and are biblical and God-centred in their theology and approach to church and then, on the other hand, are the "liberal" and man-centred "Christians" who will form part of the great apostasy (departing from the faith) which the Bible says will happen in the end times (Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy), unless they repent. Against this backdrop, I find the EN description of a church dangerously, and even naively, broad. There is too much scope for an apostate church to exist under the umbrella of EN. We should stop focusing on "core values", "empowerment", business models and church growth, and get back the Bible. It must be God's mission using God's method (the gospel proclaimed through expository preaching). The gospel is always relevent as man's one true need always was, is and will be salvation.

[Roger Simon]

I am always searching for meaning in my beliefs which is very difficult due to all the technology. I came across a post, The First Question, which asked, "What is the first question in the Bible?

Before man was created, there were no questions. The first occurs in the Garden of Eden. The man and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit. G-d calls out to them, “Where are you?”

This post gave me a lot to think about it can be found at http://projectshalom2.org/StoryTour