The Institute of Evangelism

Every Church an Evangelizing Community!

Ryan Sim

About Ryan Sim

In 2008, Ryan launched the Institute's web site, and continues to maintain and develop our web and social media presence. Ryan has been engaged for several years in supporting the Institute and has served as a parish priest, church planter and strategy consultant.

Exponential Liveblog – Ken Blanchard

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The first plenary speaker this morning was Ken Blanchard, founder of Lead Like Jesus. He shared his story of coming to faith as a leadership consultant and author, when he learned “everything I had taught and written about leadership, Jesus already did.” He described these stages of leadership development, with stories of Jesus forming his disciples in this way:

  • Enthusiastic beginner
  • Disillusioned learner
  • Capable but cautious contributor
  • Self-reliant achiever

A few other soundbites:

  • Jesus wants to give us a heart attack
  • Who would have put their money on a Jewish rabbi and his 12 inexperienced followers?
  • Servant first, leader second
  • Jesus first, others second, you third
  • If you mention Jesus, he does all the marketing/work
  • Eternal life as not real attractive to those whose lives aren’t working right now.
  • 5 habits of leading like Jesus
    • Solitude
    • Prayer
    • Study of scripture
    • Small vulnerability group
    • Remember God’s love
    • Go to an ego-anonymous meeting and get over it.

Exponential Liveblog – Francis Chan

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This morning’s two sessions with Francis Chan were the last of the Exponential pre-conference. Chan is the high-profile lead pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California. Just two days ago, however, he announced his resignation, and this topic dominated his powerful message.

Chan shared his upcoming transition as a response to Jesus’ call to deny himself and simply trust in the Lord again. He looks forward to “serving in obscurity” and “being a human” again. He says Sunday’s announcement made for a rough day, but was so thrilled with his wife’s part of the announcement that he played it on video. She described feeling a “gravitational pull to safety” for her and her family, but will push against it in order to follow Jesus out of the suburbs, and into the inner city. Chan suspects his resignation will lead him to inner city Los Angeles, but plans to do prayer walks in other major cities first, as well as spending time in Thailand to fight human trafficking.

He describes this as a return to following Jesus as the Bible describes. He laments the contemporary Christian ability to take Jesus’ commands metaphorically, particularly the Great Commission. He illustrated this beautifully describing a scenario where, if he told his daughter to clear her room, she might respond by saying “Dad, I’ve memorized your command” or “I’m having friends over to discuss how making disciples might look in my life.” Chan wants to move on from this disobedience, so that he and every Christian can identify whom they’ve discipled in response to Jesus’ command.

He describes the church as a “system that makes it okay to disobey” commands like the Great Commission. He says he instead feels called to “humble myself to give a picture of Christ”. He goes on, “I’m not called to be an awesome megachurch pastor, but am called to be a picture of Christ.” He takes inspiration from the story of Vaughan, a youth pastor whose trips to impoverished villages are described by youth as “the closest thing I’ve every experienced to walking with Jesus”. He realized, “my life does not look like Jesus. I can rationalize and justify it, but…”

Chan was a convicting speaker, not least because he was actively living out his message. He is sacrificing the fame, fortune and safety of suburban megachurch ministry to follow Jesus. He “wants to go back” to a childlike faith. “If I read the Bible for the first time, I would never conclude I needed to pray some prayer, but I would conclude I need to follow Jesus. If I read the Bible on a desert island, I’d never decide I needed to start a Sunday service, my priority would be discipleship.

We then watched the first public screening of the new BASIC video series, watching the session on the “fear of the Lord.” Chan convincingly recaptured the fear of the Lord as the beginning of faith, and the responsibility that “teachers” of faith have to model this, and all Jesus’ way of life, to our congregations. “We can’t get mad at the people, we’re the leaders.”

Lots to ponder, hearing Chan’s teaching, and seeing him live it.

Exponential Liveblog – Matt Chandler

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The second speaker at Monday’s RightNow pre-conference was Matt Chandler. Before this conference, I knew little about Matt except his recent cancer diagnosis. Matt pastors The Village Church in Texas.

He began with a warning that much of what passes for Christianity today is actually a Moralistic Deism. He says this has occurred because the gospel was simply assumed, and church culture focused on teaching about sanctification at the expense of justification. He defines the former as a process, where we join with God to become more and more like him, and less like us. He countered this by preaching through the book of Ephesians when he first arrived at The Village Church, at the time a church of 160 people, and now numbers in the thousands.

Matt then shared two ways of telling the gospel in four points, both true, but often portrayed as if they are mutually exclusive. One is the gospel “on the ground” – beginning with the action of God, then humanity, then Christ, then response. The other is the gospel “in the air” – beginning with creation, then the fall, redemption and consummation. He skilfully reconciled these two as one gospel, both fully dependent on the atoning work of Christ. His entire talk was driven and connected by scripture passages, particularly here as he illustrated the fullness of the gospel with scripture about what we are saved “to” and “from”. I think this air-ground distinction will be helpful in teaching the gospel in Christianity 101.

In a later Q&A – he was asked about transformation of legacy churches. He shared a few principles from his arrival at the Village Church, particularly that elder saints be asked to help in transformation. He then told the story of an older church member who he enlisted to disciple and teach life skills to young men. After some time in this ministry, the man said, “as long as young men keep coming to Christ, I don’t mind the music.”

All around, best talk of the day, thanks to both the content and the man. They are clearly one and the same.

Some soundbites:

  • Thanksgiving (the day his cancer symptoms began) did not surprise God. God controls our cells, even the mitosis, everything that happens inside the cells.
  • Even on your best day you are a stench to God!
  • Justification – Saved by Christ, and Sanctification – Submit to Christ
  • The Discovery Channel tries to explain the resurrection every Easter, because there is something there that needs to be explained.
  • So many people can say Jesus died for their sins, but can’t say what happens next.
  • We are not building a ladder to heaven
  • We were created for glory, not fellowship. Fellowship is one part of glory, but not all.

A question for commenters: Is Moralistic Deism the prevailing religion in Canada? Or something else. Perhaps just deism?

Exponential Liveblog: Mark Batterson

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Today I am attending a pre-conference, before the main Exponential conference begins tomorrow. This particular pre-conference is organized by RightNow, a network that aims to help people become “Traders” by trading the life of a consumer for the life of mission, not later, or necessarily somewhere geographically distant, but “right now”.

The first speaker was Mark Batterson, who pastors NCC, a multi-site church in Washington DC that meets primarily in cinemas and subway stations, but also run DC’s largest and top-rated coffee shop, housed in a former crackhouse. Mark’s talk focused on the guiding passage of his ministry, Matthew 10. He shared the importance and implications of being called to mission. A few soundbites:

  • We don’t want just good ideas, but God ideas.
  • We often remember what we should forget, and forget what we should remember.
  • We don’t minister for God, but to God.
  • Why do we emphasize the image of Christ on the cross so much more than the image of the Lamb on the throne?
  • Insecurity is the curse of our pastoral tribe. Our authority comes from Him.
  • We don’t have the power to make the gospel relevant. All we can do is make it irrelevant, which is simply being irreverent.
  • We spend so much time learning about our target demographic in church planting, we neglect learning about who we are.
  • A few best practices:
    • Let vision define budget. They only increase their budget 5% a year, and draw up a separate wish/miracle list. New church locations are always wish list items. This is the God-sized vision. It avoids having to look at the budget every week to see if we can afford what we’re doing, and lets you rejoice when something new becomes possible.
    • Tweak the little things and mix up the routine.
    • Free market small groups
    • Redeem technology

    Exponential Conference Liveblog

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    Stay tuned! This week, Ryan Sim will be attending the Exponential Conference, the world’s largest gathering of church planters, and liveblogging here.

    New Web Site for Creative Communion Ideas

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    tabledtabled.ca is a site from Sarnia’ s Joe Manafo that will house creative communion ideas. to kick things off, Joe has posted a handful of experiences that were created for theStory, but as time progresses his hope is that it will become a resource that inspires creativity and a renewed appreciation for the eucharist. in addition, the long term plan is for it become a storage locker where new ideas and experiences are swapped, shared, and stored.

    God at the Pub – A Case Study in Fresh Expressions

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    On Monday nights in Toronto’s Bloor West Village, the Yellow Griffin Pub’s upstairs room hosts “God at the Pub”. A ministry of Runnymede Community Church for seven years, “God at the Pub” is the result of the church leadership’s fervent prayer and missional impulse to lower the “barriers to entry” posed by their traditional church building. By bringing the Alpha course, and a homegrown curriculum called “Jesus Who?” to this non-traditional environment, the church and its pastor, Mike Wilkins, hoped to share the gospel with the unchurched in their community. Has it worked? Is this a fresh expression of church, of evangelism, or something else?

    All the textbook prerequisites for reaching the unchurched seem to be present. A welcoming, neutral venue, good food and community, and accessible, biblical content that presents the great news of Jesus Christ. On opening night in September, there were 18 participants, 2 leaders, 3 visiting pastors (guilty as charged) and 1 bartender in attendance. Drink orders were taken immediately, nametags distributed, and participants struggled in their first small group exercise, deciding among the pub’s vast selection of burgers. The first night is free, but the $150 course fee, payable if you decide to stay for the ten week session, covers all the food and drink expenses. Yes, people are paying and committing up front to learn about Jesus, and to enjoy some great food and drink!

    After rushing to eat, Mike stood at the front of the room under a small projector screen to introduce the course. “Jesus Who?” is an exploration of Jesus’ identity, what Mike described to me as a “Pre-Alpha” course, to introduce the “who” of salvation history before the theology of salvation covered in Alpha. It’s designed to connect with those who are open to Jesus, but have little interest in organized religion. The course begins with some of the most universally accepted ideas about Jesus, as a teacher, rabbi, guru, friend and revolutionary, before dealing with more challenging aspects, like Jesus as master, Christ, Saviour and Son of God. The first week’s content was shorter than usual, and meant to get people thinking about how Jesus is portrayed in culture and media, and in their own minds. Normally there would be a half hour talk, followed by a half hour of small group discussion, but not the first week.

    DSCN2994Instead of small group discussion in the first week, Mike asked each participant to introduce themselves, and tell the group why they’ve come. Person after person introduced themselves, and nearly every person said they attended Runnymede Community Church, or were visiting from another church. Many of them were new members, and could be described as “de-churched” people exploring their faith once again. What was missing, however, was the demographic we could call “unchurched” – those with no past or present involvement in Christian faith and/or the church.

    Is “God at the Pub” a fresh expression of church? That is defined as “a form of church for our changing culture, established primarily for the benefit of people who are not yet members of any church. It will come into being through principles of listening, service, incarnational mission and making disciples. It will have the potential to become a mature expression of church shaped by the gospel and the enduring marks of the church and for its cultural context.”

    The first part applies – it was established to reach those who are not yet members of any church. However, those it was intended to reach (the unchurched) are no longer present. Past sessions have included unchurched people, and hopefully future courses will also, but none were present this time. Perhaps we can call “God at the Pub” a fresh expression of evangelism, since it explains the faith to new attendees at the church, and then feeds them back to the established congregation, with no intentional plan for a mature expression of church to arise in this context.

    “God at the Pub” is a creative, fun way to teach Christian basics. However, even with the barriers presented by traditional church buildings removed, it appears that there still exist other barriers to entry for the truly unchurched. It’s possible that the content, explaining the identity of Jesus, is still too advanced for the truly unchurched, and that a more general introduction to the “unknown God” of Acts 17 is in order. It’s possible that the icon of Christ used as the course’s logo and on posters turns people off, and they ignore the advertising. Another possibility is that “God at the Pub” has even more barriers to remove to truly reach an unchurched audience. It still relies on participants intentionally coming to a space set apart (the pub’s upstairs room), to commit to any pay for a complete session, and to join an unfamiliar group of people. A truly incarnational approach to pub ministry might arise downstairs, in the pub itself, with Christians sharing the content of “Jesus Who?” one on one, where people truly gather.

    DSCN2991The formative journey of fresh expressions describes a movement from loving service to community to discipleship to worship. “God at the Pub” jumps right in with community and discipleship. Loving service exists, but in the form of basic Christian education or discipleship, which likely meets the needs of those consciously wishing to explore Christianity. They are tapping into the needs of church members, those on the fringes of church, but not the dechurched (those with a history of Christian faith, but who have drifted away) or even unchurched (those with no such history). This reinforces the importance of “listening” to and knowing our communities before responding with any form of church, fresh or not, and that this listening must continue throughout the life of the ministry, as the community’s needs change and the church adapts its response.

    My congratulations go to Runnymede Community Church, Mike Wilkins and God at the Pub. This is a creative and fun extension of the church’s ministry, and has reached countless unchurched and dechurched people for Christ in the last seven years, and continues to engage and disciple newchurch members. As with every church, their challenge is to keep the gospel and the principles of incarnational ministry before them, and to constantly proclaim the gospel afresh in a rapidly changing world. “God at the Pub” is lightweight and nimble enough that I won’t be at all surprised to hear how God uses and adapts it transform lives for many years to come.

    Link: This article from the local community paper from the same evening.

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