Failure to Launch
At a recent half-day forum on Church Multiplication hosted by discipleship.org and Exponential, Todd Wilson, founder of Exponential, offered a compelling metaphor for church leaders to consider.
The Church as an Aircraft Carrier
Wilson explained a high-level overview of the basic functions of an aircraft carrier. On some carriers as many as 4,800 uniformed men and women count it their full-time occupation to sacrificially do whatever it takes to accomplish the mission at hand. Whether it be peeling potatoes, cleaning restrooms, or directing aircraft traffic, their job has a very clear "so that" attached to it.
Those 4,800 officers know their job exists "so that" the some 200 pilots and 120 air crafts on board might be deployed to their maximum potential, completing the mission imparted to them by their commanding officer. Life and death hangs in the balance and every part that makes up the whole matters. Every part knows it's purpose.
"Failure to Launch" is more than just a 2006 Matthew McConaughey film; it's an honest diagnosis of the state of the Church in America. The box office poster for the film reads, "To leave the nest, some men just need a little push." Stuck in a comfortable extended adolescence with often no thought beyond ourselves, the Church needs a push and then some!
Birthed as a movement, the Church in 2016 finds itself existing primarily as a monument. Far too many churches - certainly the majority of American churches - are experiencing a failure to launch.
The Church as a Cruise Ship
The harsh reality of the situation was revealed at the forum when Wilson asked the audience this question; "What do you call an aircraft carrier that never flies a plane?" Wilson, having fielded a few suggestions answered his own question saying, "I'd call it a cruise ship." A boat full of consumers, expecting to be fed and entertained by the crew.
An aircraft carrier that never launches a plane is not accomplishing it's purpose. It resembles the real thing in many ways. It has all the pieces. It has the capability to fly, given the right focus and direction, but it is not operating according to it's given mission. It has become something else, something less than it was intended to be.
A church that never plants a church is, likewise, not accomplishing it's intended purpose. The church was never intended as an end in itself. It's purpose is to accomplish God's mission in the world.
A Blueprint for Maturity: Parenthood
In Ephesians 4:11-16 Paul lays out a blueprint for the church. God's plan for the health and effectiveness of the church is for spiritual parents to lead spiritual children by the hand toward adulthood, leading others in turn toward maturity and reproduction, until the whole church family reaches maturity as a whole. This concept of maturity is vitally important because in this one word we may understand a world of implications. Without doing a Greek word study, just simply think about that word for a moment: maturity.
In nature the measure of maturity is reproduction. Not just that the raw materials for reproduction exist (a thing is fully developed), but that as part of the process and result of reproduction - creating new life after one's own kind - there is an education and wholeness and selflessness and responsibility that comes to bear. As parents, this new focus that's greater than ourselves cures us overnight of a hundred myopic ailments.
It is in birthing, caring for, raising, training, and launching a child out into the world that a parent becomes everything they were created to be. And it is in participating in this multiplying mission of God - making disciples who makes disciples, planting churches that plant churches - that we learn the fullness of joy we were created for.
3 "Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. 4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. 5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them."
Psalm 127:3-5a
God has not given us arrows for them to remain sheathed. God has given us arrows, and He has made us arrows, to be shot out into the world at the target He has given aim to. Our target is the Great Commission and it will not be accomplished in our generation with a monument mentality. God is awakening a movement in His Church to take aim at His mission.
Our Launch Plan
One day the knowledge of the glory of God will cover the earth as the water covers the sea. (Habakkuk 2:14) God's promised us that. His plan is to fill every nook and cranny of the earth with His presence in and through His people: The Kingdom of God. The question that remains is "Will we accelerate the coming of that day?"
Our desire at the City Church is to see a restoration of Biblical discipleship in and through the local church that sparks a movement that sends disciple makers, missionaries, kingdom-first business people, and church planters all over the world.
Love God, love people, make disciples, and multiply. We're committed to keeping Christ's mission our mission. We desire to keep the mission of the church simple. That's the beauty of Jesus' method. Unassuming and plodding as it seems, reproducing disciples and multiplying churches leads to real life that begets more life, and like a family it grows. Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is like a tiny mustard seed that when planted becomes the largest of all garden plants. (Mark 4:30-32) We're praying for planters to come alongside us and for God to grow His Kingdom in Huntington, in Appalachia, and to the ends of the earth.
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11 "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."
Ephesians 4:11-16
