Developing Active Christ Followers at Cornerstone Covenant Church: a Church Planting Strategy

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Ministry Focus Paper Approval Sheet

This ministry focus paper entitled

DEVELOPING ACTIVE CHRIST FOLLOWERS AT CORNERSTONE COVENANT CHURCH: A CHURCH PLANTING STRATEGY

Written by

CHRISTOPHER S. HUSHAW

and submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Ministry

has been accepted by the Faculty of Fuller Theological Seminary

upon the recommendation of the undersigned readers:

______Kurt Fredrickson

Date Received: November 27, 2012

DEVELOPING ACTIVE CHRIST FOLLOWERS AT CORNERSTONE COVENANT CHURCH: A CHURCH PLANTING STRATEGY

A MINISTRY FOCUS PAPER SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIMENTS FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF MINISTRY

CHRISTOPHER S. HUSHAW AUGUST 2012

ABSTRACT

Developing Active Christ Followers at Cornerstone Covenant Church: A Church Planting Strategy Christopher S. Hushaw Doctor of Ministry School of Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary 2012

This paper presents a church planting strategy aimed at influencing people to change from being “consumers” of religious goods and services to becoming active leader-participants, reflecting the Kingdom of God as lived out at Cornerstone Covenant Church (hereafter, Cornerstone). Whereas many contemporary models for church planting are consumer-driven, this study demonstrates that a leadership model with a missional focus for the community can be used to plant churches which develop maturing disciples of Jesus Christ. Part One first examines the demographic composition of California’s Coachella Valley, one of contrasts. Attention is directed to the core of church planting as “a missional expression of God's heart.”1 Part Two explores the backdrop of Cornerstone's ecclesiology. First, a literature review examines cultural trends and specific church strategies used to influence spiritual transformation. Next, the theological context of Cornerstone is explored in its ecclesiastical connection to the Evangelical Covenant Church. Lastly, attention is given to the theological background of church planting, as documented throughout the Bible. Part Three presents a blueprint for a church planting strategy at Cornerstone that will help people to adjust their Christian faith from one of passivity (consumerism) into active and involved participation (producing). These people participate in three-core practices: identifying with the life of Jesus; embodying true koinonia; and interacting with the surrounding community.2 This project represents six years of on-the-job research and development. Inspired by instructors such as Reggie McNeal and Eddie Gibbs, Cornerstone was planted in the winter of 2005, adapting the strategy described herein.

Theological Mentor: Kurt Fredrickson, PhD

Word Count: 288

1 Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church (San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009), 23.

2 Eddie Gibbs, and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2005), 43-44.

This thesis project is dedicated to Linda, Ashley, Christian, Jacob, and Natalie, my church planting team

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First of all, I give thanks and glory to our Lord for the opportunity to do this study.

I would also like to express sincere thanks to my supporters in Cornerstone Covenant Church for their prayers, encouragement, and support through the church planting project discussed in this paper.

My deep appreciation to my dear mentor, Dr. Joyce Wade Maltais. Her editing and counsel on this project proved to be invaluable, and this work would not have been possible without her assistance. Thanks to Kristie Savage for her professional editorial service.

My love and deep appreciation to Linda, my wife, for her prayer, patience, encouragement, editing, and support. She has been a great source of motivation. I want to acknowledge my children, Ashley, Christian, Jacob, and Natalie, who have endured the rigors involved in completing a dissertation. And thank you to my mother, Lorraine, who cheered me on from beginning to end.

iv CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ………………………………………………………. iv

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .…………………………………………………….. vi

INTRODUCTION …………………….…………………………………………….1

PART ONE THE MINISTRY CONTEXT

Chapter

1. UNDERSTANDING THE COMMUNITY CONTEXT: A RESORT MENTALITY ………………………………………….. 11

2. EXPLORING THE CHURCH CONTEXT OF CORNERSTONE COVENANT CHURCH: A CHURCH PLANTER’S MISSION …... 22

PART TWO THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

3. LITERATURE REVIEW …………………………………………… 37

4. EXAMINING THE THEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF CORNERSTONE COVENANT CHURCH IN PALM DESERT, CALIFORNIA………………………………… 57

5. A THEOLOGY OF CHURCH PLANTING STRATEGY FOR TRANSFORMATION………………………………………… 71

PART THREE MINISTRY STRATEGY

6. GOALS AND PLANS: CORNERSTONE’S THREE CORE PRACTICES ……………………………………….………. 88

7. IMPLEMENTING AND ASSESSING THE PROCESS …………. 113

CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………. 131

APPENDIXES …...……………………………………………………………… 137

BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………………. 158

v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure Page

1. Coachella Valley Family and Children Poverty Level ……………………... 14 2. Income by City in the Coachella Valley ……………………………………. 15 3. Age Distribution of the Coachella Valley ………………………………….. 16 4. Coachella Valley Ethnic Composition …………………………………...... 18 5. Map of the City of Palm Desert, the Church Planting Area ………………... 21 6. 2008 Cornerstone NCD Survey by Age Group and Gender ……………….. 31 7. Cornerstone Ministries Initiates, 2006-2007 ……………………………….. 32 8. The Three Core Practices Aligned with NCD Quality Characteristics …….. 35 9. The 6 Covenant Affirmations of the Evangelical Covenant Church………... 67 10. The Four Enduring Commitments of the Evangelical Covenant Church ….. 81 11. Pictures of Cornerstone’s New Campus, March 2011……………………... 113 12. The Three Core Practices Aligned with NCD Quality Characteristics …… 128 13. NCD Implementation Cycle ………………………………………………. 129 14. Progression of Cornerstone’s NCD Profiles and Resulting Initiatives ……. 131

INTRODUCTION

At the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century, the Church in

America finds herself moving through a massive challenge as the surrounding culture shifts from a Christian to a post-Christendom worldview.1 At the heart of the shift is a worldview that has captured the attention of Western culture, with a very sophisticated engine of media and advertising spending billions of dollars every year to manipulate the

Church’s identity and sense of worth.2 This prevailing belief defines the postmodern age and is known as consumerism. Consumerism has so influenced a generation that it appears to have even become the foundation for Christian faith in America.3

With the unprecedented growth of mega-churches in America over the past quarter century, what they have best created are consumers of religion who seem to have failed in passing the Christian faith to the next generation.4 With the adoption of consumer marketing techniques that are more akin to Wall Street advertising than calls to evangelism, mega-church leaders such as Robert Schuller,5 John Maxwell,6 and best-

1 Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church (San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009), xiv.

2 John Drane, The McDonaldization of the Church: Consumer Culture and the Church’s Future (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2001), 32.

3 Ibid., 32.

4 Eddie Gibbs, Church Next: Quantum Changes in Christian Ministry. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 11-12.

5 Crystal Cathedral, “History of the Crystal Cathedral,” Crystal Cathedral, www.crystalcathedral. org/about/history (accessed November 21, 2011). Considered the early founder of church growth techniques, for thirty-four years, the Robert H. Schuller Institute for Successful Church Leadership was attended by thousands of pastors and lay leaders (between 1969 and 2004) and noted to be a catalyst to the mega-church movement.

6 INJOY, “About INJOY: INJOY’s Mission,” INJOY Ministries, http://www.injoy.com/about/ history (accessed November 21, 2011).

selling author Rick Warren7 head movements that shift the understanding of leadership from pastoring to Chief Executive Officer. If the Christian Church is to resolve the questions of a coming generation and challenge the prevailing worldview of consumerism in America, it must find a responsive method for creating maturing followers of Christ founded on biblical discipleship rather than corporate business principles.

The early Christian Church was a contagious movement, growing like wildfire, not because it fed the appetite of religious consumers, but because it defined meaning and purpose for life in this world and for eternity.8 Alan Hirsch, in his book, The Forgotten

Ways, writes, “The church (the ecclesia), when true to its real calling, when it is on about what God is on about, is by far and away the most potent force for transformational change the world has ever seen.”9 Today’s culture has taken on a new face—in some ways, a more honest face—the face of consumerism. The term “consumerism” was first defined by Thorstein Verblen, pioneering American economist and sociologist during the indulgent Roaring Twenties. He famously argued that the chief activity of the population,

“conspicuous consumption,” contributes nothing to productivity in society except the

“waste” that people consume.10

7 Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church: Growth without Compromising Your Message and Mission (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1996).

8 Ibid., 82.

9 Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006), 17.

10 Thorstein Verblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Penguin Books, 1994 [originally published in 1899]). Verblen argued there was a basic distinction between the productiveness of "industry," run by engineers, which manufactures goods, and the parasitism of "business," which exists only to make profits for a leisure class.

Consumerism is therefore defined by what people consume. It is the search for meaning, identity, purpose, and belonging tied to the consumption of materialism and products. It can be seen as the secular religion of our day, with little challenge to its force and power to control the minds of a generation. At the heart of consumerism is a discipleship that fights for the hearts and souls of its consumers to exist for the pleasure of leisure and comfort.11 When the Church adopts this prevailing worldview, then it ceases to exist for glorifying God and instead “exists to serve me, the churchgoer.”12 The primary concern becomes whether or not the churchgoer’s needs (as he or she perceives them) are being met. Christians are reduced to consumers, and the Church is reduced to serving as a “vendor of religious goods and services.”13

With this in mind, as Hirsch argues, it appears that we are all disciples and no one ever stops being a disciple.14 There is a battle for the hearts and minds of today’s generation. If Christian leaders do not disciple for Christ in churches today, then such leaders are giving away their role to the culture-at-large. When the Church fails to intentionally disciple believers in Christ, then it fails at the foundation of what it means to be Christ followers. The simplest definition of Christian discipleship—getting at the core of what Christianity is all about—is becoming more and more like Jesus. At the heart of the gospel is the task of transposing Christ into a believer’s own daily existence. In short,

11 Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 114.

12 Tim Morey, Embodying Our Faith: Becoming a Living, Sharing, Practicing Church (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2009), 61.

13Darrell L. Guder and Lois Barrett, Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1998), 84.

14 Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 101-104.

using Hirsch’s language, the heart of the gospel is filling the world with lots of “little

Jesuses,” an actively Christ-like presence in every neighborhood and every sphere of life.

This is the “conspiracy of little Jesus.”15

Jesus challenged the pagan Hellenistic culture of his day by calling his disciples to an alternative lifestyle. He invited his followers to shift their worldview when he said,

“Dear friends, I urge you . . . to abstain from sinful desires. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God” (1 Peter 2:11-12).16 He invited his followers to a radical lifestyle that asks them to “die to themselves”17 and it is in this context that Jesus planted his Church—

“I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matthew

18:17-18, italics added).

Church planting movements are, at their foundation, based on a people with a mission that so believe in Jesus and his message that they are willing to commit their lives to deliver his message.18 They are forged in the context of a challenge, a task, or a mission that requires each person to get the job done. Casual friends become cohorts when the church planting team works together to challenge the world to do something that requires sacrifice. It is this belief that calls its members to bring Christ’s message to the world. And in the task of serving for this mission, a community is forged along the

15 Ibid., 114.

16 All biblical references are taken from New International Version, unless otherwise noted. In this verse, the Greek word translated “see” means careful observation over an extended period of time. This implies the believer’s lifestyle is consistent and genuine throughout.

17 When Jesus said In Luke 14:27, “And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple,” he was asking his followers to follow him to the point of death, even death on a cross.

18 McNeal, Missional Renaissance, 13-5.

way that requires that people love one another in a more profound way as they take up the challenge. This is the beginning of the process in which a church planting mission develops active and producing disciples of Jesus Christ. The Great Commission challenge of Jesus in Matthew 28:18 is to “go and make disciples of all the nations.” This defines the missional call of the church planting movement to virally reproduce Jesus through a movement of people, producing an alternative lifestyle to the prevailing of consumerism.

When I was invited to be a part of a church planting movement within the

Evangelical Covenant denomination, having already been attracted by the denomination’s missional focus on church planting, I joyfully accepted the challenge. As I drew a core group of leaders together, they agreed with me that, whereas many contemporary church planting models are consumer-driven, what God was leading us to plant was a church that developed maturing disciples of Christ while meeting the most pressing needs in the context of its community. Such a church would have a missional mindset for the community, with an intentional eye for the kind of discipleship that drew people from consumer religion as an end for life (that is, “what I can get”) to a radical discipleship that called people to an active, producing lifestyle that challenged believers to pick up their crosses to serve others in their community (that is, “what I can give”).

This study presents the church planting strategy for Cornerstone Covenant Church

(hereafter, Cornerstone) aimed at influencing people to change from being passive consumers of religious goods and services to becoming active participants who reflect the

Kingdom of God. The discipleship process for this church planting effort, the leadership decided, would involve three core practices: (1) identifying with the life of Jesus, (2) embodying true koinonia, and (3) interacting with the surrounding community.

In his dissertation, “Foundations of Discipling for Church Planting Movements,”

John Lo points out, “Starting movements as an ‘end game’ is crucial. This is because

Jesus comes not only to give individuals personal salvation, but also to start a missional movement that results in ‘this gospel of the kingdom . . . [being] preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations’ so that ‘the end will come’” (Matthew 24:13).19

Jesus’ words are strategic with that end in mind. John 10:10 explains that Jesus knew his purpose in life: “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life” (New Living

Translation). In this verse, John reminds his readers that Jesus comes not only to give individual personal salvation in eternity, but also that people might share his purpose to give their lives meaning in the here and now. Jesus’ words and deeds are aimed strategically with this end in mind. His choice of twelve disciples and the amount of time he spends training them, as well as his directives as to how ministry should take place, can be understood and interpreted with this knowledge of his end purpose.

The teaching strategy Jesus uses points to establishing the kingdom of God. By using common language and illustrations of his day, Jesus’ teaching methodology teaches using parables to speak of how the kingdom of God will be established.20 Matthew records Jesus’ teaching in chapter 13: the kingdom is to grow like seeds that are planted with a yield of “a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown” (Matthew 13:23). Or, the kingdom begins with the smallest seed, the mustard plant, and becomes “the largest of

19 John Lo, “Foundations of Discipling for Church Planting Movements throughout the Nations through Epicentre Church” (DMin diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 2011), 2.

20 Klyne R. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2008), 2.

garden plants and becomes a tree” (Matthew 13:32). It is God’s plan that his kingdom would grow like the nature of life itself: seeds that are sown grow.

Likewise, when growth does not happen, something is wrong. The seeds find poor soil (Matthew 13:19-21), or thorns in the ground prevent them from taking root and being fruitful (Matthew 13:22), or weeds are introduced by the enemy and choke out the seeds

(Matthew 12:24-30). The clear expectation is that the kingdom of God is to grow “until it is worked all through the dough” (Matthew 1:33). Jesus uses these parables to teach the manner in which the Church is to grow as a physical representation of God’s kingdom on earth. And the real purpose of seeds is to grow in order to produce fruit.21

The Gospels of the New Testament are, then, narratives of how God’s kingdom is established on earth through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In the Book of Acts

Jesus gives a clear plan for growing God’s kingdom on earth through his Church: “And

He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in

His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’”22 The Book of Acts continues the narrative of the kingdom’s growth in the period after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. In the increasingly gospel- hostile environment of first-century Judaism and the Roman Empire, the gospel did work

“all through the dough” (Matthew 13:33).

21 Ibid., 171.

22 In Acts 1:8 Jesus foreshadows the birth of the church planting movement through the physical presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

Part One of this paper first examines the demographic composition of California’s

Coachella Valley, one of contrasts. This demographic context focuses on the founding pastor’s challenge—to meet the needs of the diverse population in the Coachella Valley.

Next, attention is directed to the core of church planting as “a missional expression of

God's heart.” 23 The practice of church planting is an endeavor to implant the practice of gospel of Jesus Christ where it becomes an indwelling of God’s people in the particular place of the Coachella Valley, where Cornerstone was founded.

Part Two explores the backdrop of Cornerstone’s ecclesiology. First, a literature review examines cultural trends and specific church strategies used to influence spiritual transformation. Next, the theological context of Cornerstone is explored in its ecclesiastical connection to the Evangelical Covenant Church. It is here in the culture of the Evangelical Covenant Church where the inner presence of missions for a hurting and needy world and a deep desire for evangelism for those far from God is based. Lastly, attention is given to the theological background of church planting, as documented throughout the Bible.

Part Three presents a blueprint for a church planting strategy at Cornerstone that will help people to adjust their Christian faith from one of passivity (consumerism) into active and involved participation (producing) as the church plant abides within its community. These people participate in three core practices: identifying with the life of

Jesus; embodying true koinonia; and interacting with the surrounding community.24 The

23 McNeal, Missional Renaissance, 23.

24 Eddie Gibbs, and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2005), 43-44.

effectiveness of this strategy is measured through the Natural Church Development model, which takes into consideration variables such as church-wide attendance patterns, growth in community outreach, and responses to regularly administered church-wide surveys.

PART ONE: THE MINISTRY CONTEXT

CHAPTER 1

EXPLORING THE CHURCH CONTEXT OF CORNESTONE COVENANT CHURCH: A CHURCH PLANTER’S MISSION

Understanding the Community Context—A Resort Mentality

Cornerstone Covenant Church, the first church in Riverside County1 of the

Evangelical Covenant denomination, was founded October 8, 2006 in Palm Desert, in

California’s Coachella Valley. Located in the desert of Southern California, two hours from Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Tijuana Mexican border, the Coachella Valley offers a small-town feel with big-city amenities. “Snow Birds” from the Midwest and

Canada flock to “the valley” for its warm and dry year-round climate and to thaw out from their frozen parts and bask in the sunlight of the desert.2 The climate and weather are the key attractions of the Coachella Valley and have established its reputation as a

1 According to the County of Riverside Business Resource Guide, “Riverside County Highlights: the Heart of Inland Southern California,” Riverside County is 7,300 square miles, roughly the size of the state of New Jersey.

2 Coachella Valley Water District, “Groundwater Replenishment and Imported Water, 2010-11 Annual Review,” http://www.cvwd.org/about/groundwater.php (accessed October 1, 2012). The Coachella Valley Water Districts reports an average yearly rainfall of less than 3.5 inches and average temperature between October and May as 79 degrees.

destination resort, with over 130 golf courses offering recreation and relaxation for those able to afford the good life.3

As the various cove communities of the valley follow the contours of the Santa

Rosa Mountains to the southwest and the San Jacinto Mountains to the west, so does the economic base. On the far west side of the Coachella Valley, Palm Springs is known as a tourist mecca, and the center of the valley is populated by the golf courses and country clubs comprising the gated communities and resorts. The affluence and influx of tourism bring with them an economic gold rush. In her article, “Sunny Days for Agriculture,”

Janice Kleinschmidt writes, “People come to the Coachella Valley to swing a golf club, soothe their muscles in hot mineral water, lounge poolside at hotels, revel in the vibe at hip hotels, and absorb the desert’s natural beauty and resort culture. . . . They increasingly come for world-class events.”4 Traveling down the streets around Cornerstone, in the center part of the valley, a driver will see commercial shopping centers mixed with grand shopping areas mingled with gated neighborhoods and country clubs. However, proceeding to the east side of the valley, the driver will notice the landscape transition from tourism and resorts to farms and ranches in various representations of rural life.

While the valley attracts vacationers from all over the country and the world to its golf courses, tennis tournaments, and music concerts, another large industry is agriculture. Riverside County, roughly the size of the state of New Jersey and classified among the fifty highest populated regions in the United States of one million people or

3 Janice Kleinschmidt, “Palm Springs Economic Forecast,” Palm Springs Life Magazine, Financial Guide Annual 2011.

4 Janice Kleinschmidt, “Sunny Days for Agriculture,” Southern California Focus on the Coachella Valley Economic Development Report, 2010-2011, 6.

more, ranks twenty-third among all counties nationally in exports, valued at $11.5 billion and representing 100,000 jobs.5 Agricultural production is important to the Coachella

Valley’s economic base since, as indicated in the Wheeler’s Desert Newsletter, every $1 brought to an area by the farm economy increases overall output to the area by $3.50.6

Agriculture is the foundation for the majority of the “old-timer” residents, whose parents and grandparents came to the area as farmers and laborers transforming the eastern parts of the valley from a hot sandy desert into a green fertile place with a year- round growing season. Only 10 percent of the Coachella Valley residents were born or raised in the area, according to the 2000 census, a much lower percentage than found in most parts of the U.S.7

With the large agricultural industry, the eastern valley finds itself heavily

Hispanic, with the influx of migrant workers from Mexico, as well as a large Hispanic community seeking better jobs. The farming communities of Mecca, Thermal, and

Coachella are over 90 percent Hispanic and Spanish-speaking.8 An interesting contrast exists between the affluence of the tourist and resort communities of the west and central valley and the poverty of the east valley residents who service the valley with low paying jobs and agricultural goods (see figures 1 and 2).9 Cornerstone finds itself in the middle

5 County of Riverside Employment Development Annual Report, “2011 FOCUS on the Coachella Valley,” 4.

6 Wheeler’s Desert Newsletter, “Demographic Profiles - 2009/2010 Edition.”

7 Ibid.

8 Kleinschmidt, , “Sunny Days for Agriculture,” 6.

9 “2011 FOCUS on the Coachella Valley,” Country of Riverside Employment Development Annual Report, 4.

13 • The wide variation in the Coachella Valley’s 2009 incomes is seen in median incomes ranging from $134,615 in Indian Wells and $75,344 in La Quinta to the $39,475 in Coachella and the $36,933 in Desert Hot Springs (EXHIBIT 9).

• Six Coachella Valley cities exceeded $1 billion in total income in 2009: Palm Desert ($2.0 billion), La Quinta ($1.9 billion), Palm Springs ($1.7 billion), Indio ($1.4 billion), Rancho Mirage ($1.2 billion) followed by Cathedral City ($1.1 billion). Three smaller cities had less than $650 million in total income: Indian Wells ($620 million), Coachella ($412 million) and Desert Hot 28 Springs ($389 million) (EXHIBIT 10).

• In 2009, the share of families living in poverty in the Coachella Valley ($22,350 for a family of four) averaged 13.8% up from 11.0% in 2008. It varied from 23.7% in Coachella to of both worlds and is a meeting ground of ethnicity, age, and economic segments of the 1.5% in La Quinta. In this period, the share of Coachella Valley. the valley’s children in poverty averaged 29.2, up from 17.3%. It ranged from 34.6% in Coachella to 5.8% in La Quinta (EXHIBIT 11).

Figure 1. Family and Children Poverty Level

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Intergenerational Context

The nine cities that make up the Coachella Valley offer the beautiful setting for

Cornerstone. With a recreation and resort life that attracts people from all over the

country and other parts of the world, the valley draws various types of people. These

include people who enjoy resort-style amenities, professional sports, expanding

opportunities in higher education, and communities with dynamic social and cultural

events and organizations—a true destination resort.

While the valley caters to just about every age group, its three hospitals and

specialty care clinics, near year-round sunshine, myriad public and private golf courses,

easy-access hiking trails, gated communities, art galleries, dining options, and numerous

entertainment venues are especially appealing to seniors (see figure 3). A special issue of

the main local newspaper, the Desert Sun, titled “Where to Retire,” reviewed the

amenities which attract retirees to the Coachella Valley: good health care, a variety of housing options, cultural events, learning opportunities, outdoor recreation, a sense of community, and a relatively low cost of living.10 The Coachella Valley has all these in abundance, and seniors have been relocating to the valley for years. While many of the residences of these retirement communities live in the Coachella Valley part time, the volunteer presence, as well as the influx of income they bring with them, help to support the local economy.11

Figure 3. Age Distribution of the Coachella Valley

10 The Desert Sun, “Where to Retire,” November/December 2011 edition.

11 Ibid.

Two very large Sun City retirement communities of more than 8500 houses exist in the desert, one in Palm Desert and the other in Indio, and scattered through the center of the valley are “fifty-five and older” communities that have strict Home Owners

Associations with bylaws prohibiting families and children. In spite of this, however, families with children reside throughout. Though home to a variety of posh resorts, the

Coachella Valley embraces a laid-back, family-friendly attitude and atmosphere. The area boasts three separate school districts, with ten public high schools that span the valley and as many public libraries.12 Recreation for children and their families include Knott’s

Soak City Water Park, Boomers family entertainment center, a theme park featuring three

18-hole miniature golf courses, a minor league baseball park, numerous parks and recreation departments, and the desert’s Children’s Discovery Museum.

Overall Population

Once viewed as predominantly Caucasian, the Coachella Valley has become a diverse array of ethnicities. The 2010 Census reported that of the 373,100 people residing in the region, racial makeup was 51.8 % Hispanic, 41.8% Non-Hispanic White, 2%

Black/African American, 2.6% Asian/Pacific Islander, 1.6 % American Indian, and 1.3 % from other races. According to the County of Riverside Employment Development Annual

Report in 2011, an estimated half (50-60 %) of the percentage of residents are Latino.13

12 Ibid.

13 County of Riverside Employment Development Annual Report, “2011 FOCUS on the Coachella Valley,” 6F.

! Figure 4. Coachella Valley Ethnic Composition

The prominence of Native Americans of the Cahuilla tribe14 is represented in local life. Because of casino gambling and land ownership, the majority of local tribal members are in upper-income brackets. According to the Southern California National

Congress of American Indians, less than 5 percent of the area’s residents are Native

Americans.15 Even though the Native American population is small, it represents a powerful force in the valley’s political and economic life.16 African Americans are concentrated in Palm Springs’s northern and eastern ends, as well in small sections of

Indio and Desert Hot Springs, but local African Americans live everywhere in middle- class and wealthy areas and comprise less than5 percent of the local population.

Additionally, Palm Desert is the home of one thousand Tahitians, Pacific Islander people from French Polynesia.17

Within the neighborhood reach of Cornerstone church in a five-mile circumference, nearly 95 percent of the target area is comprised of Caucasian residents, and no significant change is expected over the next five years.18 As any biblical church, desiring to reach all people from all nations and reflect the full kingdom of God,

Cornerstone will be a church that targets intergenerational and multicultural ministry.

Guided by its missional mindset and mindful of the contrasts that exist in culture from

14 The Cahuilla tribe refers to the Agua Caliente band and the Cabazon/Twentynine Palms bands.

15 County of Riverside Employment Development Annual Report, “2011 FOCUS on the Coachella Valley,” 55F.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid., 43F.

one end of the valley to the other, Cornerstone will need to be intentional, reaching out beyond its neighborhood into the entire region of the Coachella Valley.

Population by Age

Like most communities in Southern California, the Coachella Valley is made up of an interesting mix of age groups. While the average age of the entire valley is thirty- five years of age, the area surrounding Cornerstone in the center of the valley, where many resort and “fifty-five plus” retirement communities are found, the average age is significantly higher.19 Because of where the church has been planted, there will need to be a thoughtful vision that extends the church’s intergenerational reach in its ministries and worship style. And yet to reach the coming generation, in a shifting culture which is more and more moving away from Christianity and traditional values, the message and reach of Cornerstone will be challenged in crafting a vision that will meet the deepest needs for a growing church. To do this there will be concerted effort to explain how a focus on biblical values of discipleship, rather than church growth marketing tools, will help transcend differences in age and culture to impact values and concerns for a multigenerational church.

Within the Evangelical Covenant denomination, no other churches have been started in the entire Riverside County (representing 7,206 square miles). While the population is growing rapidly, in the past six years there has only been one other denominationally sponsored church plant in the entire valley. Cornerstone will strive to fill that gap and reach a community that is growing rapidly.

19 See figure 3, “Age Distribution by city of the Coachella Valley.” Source: U.S. Census 2010.

The community context of Cornerstone is a study in contrasts. However, the unifying vision of this core group, “To Bring Lives to Christ and Christ to Everyday

Life,” highlights the church’s deep desire for all people from all regions to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The three core practices of celebrating life in Jesus, connecting with one another in fellowship, and contributing to the mission of serving the community will provide focus for the church as it pursues this goal.

T N RAMON RD

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Figure 5. The City of Palm Desert, the Church Planting Area within the Coachella Valley

CHAPTER 2

EXPLORING THE CHURCH CONTEXT OF CORNERSTONE COVENANT CHURCH: A CHURCH PLANTER’S MISSION

At the time of its founding, the Leadership Board and I (as the planting pastor) had one fundamental objective for Cornerstone: to grow a healthy church. In discussing plans for the future church, we began to realize that the correlation between church growth and church health was not always linked in the methodology of church planting.

We considered “church growth” models and eventually the “missional church” model.

The Church Growth Movement and the Missional Church Movement

The Church Growth Movement had been started in the 1960s by Donald

McGavran after his service as a missionary to India.1 From the perspective of both a missionary and an academic, McGavran strove to answer the question of why churches were growing in some parts of India while not in others. Using a social science approach, he attempted to answer four questions: What are the causes of church growth? What are the barriers to church growth? What are the factors that can make the Christian faith a

1 Gary McIntosh, Evaluating the Church Growth Movement: 5 Views (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 7-28.

movement among some populations? and What principles of church growth are reproducible?2

McGavran’s research of the 1960s grew into the modern church growth model.3

McGavran is credited as the founding dean of Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of

World Mission in September 1965, where the classical church growth movement was birthed.4 C. Peter Wagner, another former missionary serving as professor of Church

Growth in Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of World Mission, partnered with

McGavran to help pioneer the modern church growth movement. The principles of church growth that McGavran and Wagner pioneered at Fuller Seminary guided a generation of ecclesiastical structures emphasizing the Great Commission, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), over and above other biblical teachings such as the Great Commandment, “Love the Lord your God . . . [and] love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).

The popularity of the Church Growth Movement increased in the United States under the leadership of Peter Wagner and Fuller Seminary during the 1970s. Then the movement exploded onto the evangelical scene in the 1980s with mega-church practitioners such as Robert Schuller, Bill Hybels, and Rick Warren, who became the

2 Ibid., 15-16.

3 Fuller Theological Seminary, “History of Fuller Theological Seminary,” http://documents. fuller.edu/registrar/catalogs/Fall_2009/01_Introduction_To_Fuller/2_The_History_of_Fuller.asp (accessed October 1, 2012).

4 Bill Bishop, The Big Sort (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), 59.

faces of the popular movement.5 With this direction of church growth dominating

American evangelicalism, the mega-church obsession came to the forefront. Many are surprised to discover that before the movement, very little seems to have been written on how to organize a church for growth, welcome guests, or plan an outreach campaign. All told, the Church Growth Movement provided great new insights. The fundamental purpose, that of asking the question, “How can our church become more effective in reaching more people?” was sincere and sound. This movement, however, had its excesses, and rightfully, in some cases, its questioners.6

In their discussions about growing healthy churches, the Cornerstone Leadership

Board and I came to an important watershed moment: whether to copy the popular church growth methods or to become a missional church. In the missional church, the goal is not merely to plant a church focused primarily on growth; instead, the goal is to “plant a church that is part of the culture it is trying to reach . . . with the Good News of Jesus

Christ for the glory of God.”7 The Cornerstone Leadership Team wanted to avoid transfer

5 See Reggie McNeal, The Present Future (Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass, 2009), 20-22. McNeal identifies the important realities that church leaders must address including replacing "church growth" with a wider vision of kingdom growth. See also Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2003), 17-23. Frost and Hirsch argue for the creation of what they call “missional churches,” which are fundamentally different from traditional churches. They write, “The Come To Us stance taken by the attractional church is unbiblical. Jesus, Paul, the disciples, the early church leaders all had a Go To Them mentality.” These authors represent a sample of some of the major skeptics of the Church Growth Movement.

6 Some of the questioners of the Church Growth Movement include William Chadwick, Alan Hirsch, Reggie McNeal, and Leonard Sweet, among others, who identify a new era of missional church leadership. These authors have in common their recognition that the era of Christendom is rapidly closing or has already ended in western culture. Missional churches tend to reimagine themselves as being an alien subculture within a cross-cultural host community. In other words, the missional faith community views itself to be in a missionary field. With this mental model in mind, they begin to engage the community as a mission field.

7 Ed Stetzer and David Putman, Breaking the Missional Code: Your Church Can Become a Missionary in Your Community (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), 1.

growth, whereby believers move from one church to the next; the Leadership Team wanted to focus on conversion growth, whereby people far from God would come to a life-saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. This phenomenon of transfer growth, called

“sheep stealing” by William Chadwick, author of a book by the same name, is merely the shifting of believers from one church to another. Chadwick writes, “The predominant amount of new members to any one church are actually leaving other churches.

[Therefore], most of the growth in certain churches is due to ‘transfer growth’ and not to

‘conversion growth.’"8 When success is assessed only in terms of numbers, one gets a distorted view of health—a phenomenon Chadwick calls “cheap growth” since it requires no serious effort in either evangelism or discipleship.9 Chadwick continues,

Building a church on true conversion experience takes time, energy and resources; even when it is successful, developing a disciple who contributes to the ministry may take many more years. Transfer growth creates the illusion of kingdom growth for a few select churches. The problem is simply this: the growing churches are expanding at the expense of other churches. . . . Transfer growth by its very nature can occur only if there is transfer decline somewhere else. We can take it for granted that those on the elusive search for "better worship," "better preaching," or "better programs" will never rest in one place for long. Our consumer culture has impacted our people far more than they realize.10

Another questioner of the church growth movement, Reggie McNeal, calls for a

“missional renaissance,” a new era in which the missional church tracks the development of people and their spiritual health rather than their participation in programs and

8 William Chadwick, Sheep Stealing: The Church’s Hidden Problems with Transfer Growth (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2001), 10.

9 Ibid., 83.

10 Ibid., 69.

services. 11 In other words, it calls for a move from a consumer “come and see” model to a producing “go and dwell” culture. Missional churches move the focus from presenting church programs and contemporary music as entertainment to a focus on leading their churches as missionaries who are engaged in delivering the gospel message effectively to their communities.

Leonard Sweet’s book, SoulTsunami, offers a helpful classification for identifying the move of these new churches for a new day when he names them “Noah’s Dove

Churches.” Sweet defines them as follows: “Noah’s Dove Churches are faith- communities that, with boldness and courage, are scouting this new world after the sea change. They are bringing back . . . evidence of what works and what doesn’t. Noah’s

Dove Churches are slicing the sharpest leading edges of creative thinking and deep spirituality. They are the places to find out how to do ministry in the postmodern world.”12 The Christian Church at the beginning of a new millennium, according to

Sweet, focuses less on quantity of attendance and numbers and more on quality of discipleship at the local level. The decision made by the church planting Leadership

Board helped determine the kind of community Cornerstone hoped to become.

The Makeup of Cornerstone Covenant Church

Another factor in determining the type of church Cornerstone would become was my own personal journey as a pastor. By rediscovering my original call to ministry as being a call to evangelism and discipleship, I transformed my pastoral style. Where I had

11 McNeal, Missional Renaissance, 44-45.

12 Leonard I. Sweet, SoulTsunami: Sink or Swim in New Millennium Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999), 12.

previously been leading “consumer believers,” I moved towards producing active followers of Jesus Christ.

Back in 2004, I was questioning my call to ministry. Serving in a mainline denomination for a decade, one that pre-existed the American Revolution, I had fallen into the mold of “professional minister” prescribed by classic church growth methods.

Trying to comply with expectations, I was squeezing myself into the shape of a provider of goods and services for a consumer congregation. I was “playing church” devoid of much of the transforming power of Jesus Christ to change lives. I was losing the high calling that I aspired toward before entering seminary. In the words of one author, I had come to lead “a people who come together to be inspired to status-quo lives peppered with Judeo-Christian values” (italics added).13

Rediscovering my call to ministry meant going back to the heart-shaping process of God’s call upon my life when I entered into ministry. The message burned into my mind in seminary and during my first ten years of ministry was that to be “competent” in ministry is to satisfy the perceived needs of a people seeking religious platitudes. I found myself against what I was beginning to perceive as an alien culture (consumer-based

Christianity).14

While I had not yet come to define this battle, I found myself longing for something more. In 2004, at the Southern California Evangelism Conference that I

13 Michael Slaughter, Unlearning Church (Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, 2002), 29.

14 A biblical reference to identify this struggle would be the Philistine people being the most dangerous enemy to God’s people in the Old Testaments because of the influence, and therefore corruption, its culture had over the Hebrew people. See Genesis 10:14, Deuteronomy 7:1, 20:17, and 1 Samuel 4:1-10, to name a few.

organized for the Southern California Synod of the Presbyterian Church (USA), I was confronted with a sobering presentation by the keynote speaker, Dr. Eddie Gibbs, when he stated that “the day of the churched culture is over. The day of the mission field has come.”15 He went on to explain that we are facing a changing worldview in culture, philosophy, ideology, and practice, which are antithetical to the Christian message and perspective. He suggested that we are only a generation behind Europe in a transition of culture moving from modernity to postmodernity. At first hearing, Dr. Gibbs’s presentation seemed alarming, daunting, and overwhelming. A changing worldview would mean seismic changes in our models, modes, and methods for ministry. But that was a message of hope for me. It meant rediscovering my call to ministry for a new day and new possibilities, going back to the heart-shaping process of God’s call upon my life when I entered ministry. It meant moving from growing a program with marketing techniques for a consumer audience, to seeking to grow healthy disciples of Jesus Christ who would produce biblical practices and values of faith. But I found myself asking how this would be accomplished for a changing world.

Dr. Gibbs’s message of hope in face of seismic change emphasized the fact that the current ecclesiastical and cultural conditions can be beneficial to the Church’s divine purpose. To be sure, new paradigms will need to be embraced for a new millennium. Old methods and outdated assumptions about both culture and church would need to be buried at sea. In his lecture, he outlined three simple facts for this changing postmodernity landscape: (1) Our society is changing rapidly; (2) God calls us to meet

15 Eddie Gibbs, lecture on Emerging Church at the March 2004 Southern California Evangelism Conference, Palm Desert, CA.

people where they are with the love of Christ; so (3) we may need to change the way we

“do church.”16

It was during and after listening to Dr. Gibbs that my heart warmed and hope for rediscovering my call to ministry returned. To help me in this discovery, I followed Dr.

Gibbs and entered the Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller Theological Seminary, ready to take the necessary adjustments to navigate the changing landscape of culture and church. I had little concept of the massive changes that would result in my life and ministry to follow.

What can only be described as a series of divine miraculous events began to play out in the month after my first class in the Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller

Seminary. Friends, mentors, and even strangers approached me about the idea of my planting a church in the Coachella Valley. An anonymous benefactor gave a $75,000 donation for this start-up. A church leader called me regarding a dream she had the night before of my starting a church plant in the Coachella Valley. A former denominational president of the Evangelical Covenant Church, who I had never met before, shared that he felt God calling me to start an Evangelical Covenant church in the Coachella Valley.

Not least of all, Linda, my wife, who had previously rejected the idea of church planting, told me at that time she felt God’s call for us to start a church. These are only some of the examples of God’s miraculous interventions that happened within about a month’s time.

Shortly after, while continuing to take classes at Fuller Seminary, Linda and I attended the Evangelical Covenant Church's Planting Assessment weekend, where we

16 Ibid.

were confirmed and taken under care as new church planters. While the journey in the academic world began in 2004, I was invited to be the planting pastor of a new church in the Coachella Valley in 2005. Here I was able to connect my new theological mindset for a whole-life discipleship model into a new ministry.17

A Missional Church: Cornerstone Covenant Church

The founding Leadership Board and I agreed that, whereas many contemporary church planting models were consumer-driven based on modernity models of church growth, God was leading the church planting team to launch something different. God was calling us to start a missional church based on a discipleship process that involves three core practices: identifying with the life of Jesus, embodying true koinonia, and interacting with the surrounding community. The result of a such a church is one of moving believers from being passive “consumers” of church to becoming maturing, risk- taking disciples who multiply themselves and churches.

The church planting Leadership Board agreed upon these three core discipleship practices for the healthy start and growth of Cornerstone. We would engage the community with an “inside out” lifestyle, drawing people together around the great cause of Christ and living it out in extending ways into the community. This was the lifestyle modeled by Jesus when he commanded his followers to live out three imperatives: (1) the

Great Commandment (identifying with the life of Jesus): “[Jesus] said to them, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your

17 This story has been written about previously under the title, “Rediscovering My Call to Ministry: A Narrative,” October 22, 2006.

mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment” (Matthew 22:37-38); (2) the Great

Commitment (embodying true koinonia): “The second [commandment] is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:39); and (3) the Great Commission

(interacting with the surrounding community): “But you will receive power when the

Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem [home city], and in all Judea and Samaria [surrounding regions], and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The result of living out these three core practices was a healthy growth of the new church, moving believers from being passive “consumers” of church and striving to become maturing, risk-taking disciples who multiply themselves and churches. Part of realizing these healthy church plans was the review of the participation of the diverse and growing membership in relationship to age and gender (see figure 6 for the breakdown of Survey Participants by Age Groups and Gender age groups and gender of Cornerstone after the initial church Grand Opening launch).

100% 70+ 100% female 11.11% 61-70 male 90% 90% 51-60 11.11% 80% 41-50 80% 31-40 14.81% 59.26% 70% 21-30 70% -20 60% 60% 22.22% 50% 50%

40% 40%

30% 30% 29.63% 20% 20% 40.74%

10% 3.70% 10% 7.41% 0% 0% Age groups (in percent) Gender (in percent)

Figure 6. 2008 Cornerstone Natural Church Development Survey by Age Group and Gender

To encourage the healthy growth of disciples at Cornerstone from being passive

“consumers” of church into become maturing, risk-taking disciples, the Leadership Board began initiatives to involve the Cornerstone membership across three broad areas: (1) age and gender specific ministries, (2) intergenerational and intercultural participation, and

(3) home centered discipleship. Figure 7 lists some of the specific initiatives begun during the early days of the church plant.

Age Specific Ministries Intergenerational and Home Centered Multicultural Discipleship Participation • Children Neighborhood • Alpine Camping Outreach • Prayer Devotions Outreach: 5 Day (sending deserving kids to • 21-Day Devotional Neighborhood Camps summer camp from the • Adult Bible Study • Weekly Youth Group Boys & Girls Club, (Home Groups) • Youth Bible Study Jordan Outreach • Advent (Christmas) • Elementary & Jr. High Ministries, and Coachella Family Devotions Summer Camp Valley Rescue Mission) • Lenten (Easter) Family • School Backpack • Mexico Outreach Devotionals Giveaway (building homes for needy • Prayer Journals • Christmas gifts to needy families) children • Quarterly All Church • Adult Bible Study (Home Concerts of Prayer Groups) • Quarterly Church • Pillars Fellowship (65+ Banquet “Youth Group”) • Monthly All Church Picnics & Outreach

Figure 7. Cornerstone Ministries Initiatives 2006-2007

These three broad areas helped formed the foundation for Cornerstone’s membership and involvement. But more than involving participants, it provided the avenue for putting into practice the three core practices (identifying with the life of Jesus,

embodying true koinonia, and interacting with the surrounding community). It was through these ministry initiatives that Cornerstone began to see the movement of believers from being passive “consumers” of church to becoming maturing, risk-taking disciples.

Like the early Christian Church of the New Testament, in the first two years of planting Cornerstone it was a contagious movement, growing like wildfire. This growth took place not because it fed the appetite of religious consumers, but because it defined meaning and purpose for life in this world and for eternity.18 Church planting movements are, at their foundation, based on a people with a mission that so believe in Jesus and his message that they are willing to commit their lives to deliver his message.19 In the context of a challenge, a task, a mission that requires each person to get the job done, casual friends become cohorts working together, inspiring each other in the church planting team.

The task of church planting, which calls members to bring the gospel message to the world, sparks a believer to go deeper in his or her faith, causing one’s walk with Jesus to go deeper. In the task of serving in the mission of church planting, a community is forged along the way; this community requires a more profound love for one another because members were called to take up the challenge. This is the beginning of the process in which a church planting mission develops active and producing disciples of

Jesus Christ. The Great Commission challenge of Jesus in Matthew 28:18 is to “go and

18 Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006), 82.

19 McNeal, Missional Renaissance, 13-15.

make disciples of all the nations.” The missional call of the church planting movement at

Cornerstone was to be virally reproducing Jesus through a movement of people, producing an alternative lifestyle to the prevailing lifestyle of consumerism.

After the initial launch of Cornerstone into the community of the Coachella

Valley, the Leadership Board’s challenge became how to assess whether the ministry initiatives and efforts for growing disciples through its three core practices were taking shape. The Leadership Board had been appraising an assortment of assessment tools in an effort to select a measuring stick most suited for its discipleship efforts. After much consideration, the assessment tools of National Church Development (hereafter, NCD) were selected. In Chapter 3 of this paper, an extended critique of NCD is provided, discussing both its strengths and weakness.

In Dr. Bob Logan’s class at Fuller Seminary, titled “Missional Church Planting,” I had been introduced to the scholarship and research of Christian Schwarz, creator of the

NCS model. Schwarz presents missional leaders with biblical quality characteristics and principles which, when taken together, coalesce into a tool for assessing church health and growth. The Leadership Board at Cornerstone decided to adopt Schwarz’s NCD model as its tool for evaluating the health of the newly planted and growing church. The

Leadership Board invited NCD consultant Scott Horn to help implement this model at

Cornerstone. Figure 8 demonstrates why the Leadership Board felt united in selecting the

NCD model, warts and all, and how the eight NCD quality characteristics dovetailed with

Cornerstone’s three core practices.

8 Quality Characteristics of Three Core Practices of Natural Church Development Cornerstone Covenant Church I. Identifying with the life of Jesus I. Identifying with the life of Jesus (1) Empowering Leadership Celebrate: Our Relationship with God (2) Gift-Based Ministry "Love the Lord your God with all your heart (3) Passionate Spirituality and with all your soul and with all your (4) Inspiring Worship strength and with all your mind” - Luke 10:27 II. Embodying true koinonia II. Embodying true koinonia (5) Holistic Small Groups Connect: Our Relationship with the (6) Loving Relationship Church Love your neighbor as yourself." -Luke 10:27 III. Interacting with the surrounding III. Interacting with the surrounding community community (7) Functional Structures Contribute: Our Relationship with the (8) Need-Oriented Evangelism World “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations… and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” - Matthew 18:19-20

Figure 8. Cornerstone’s three core practices alongside NCD’s Quality Characteristics, creating the Cornerstone Implementation Plan

In the view of the Leadership Board, the NCD principles promised to be a powerful tool for planning, implementing, and evaluating Cornerstone’s ministry. Many initiatives of Cornerstone grew out of its NCD assessment process. Examples of these initiatives, which correspond to the desire to attend to the needs of “the least of these,” include feeding and clothing the poor and deserving in the community, raising funds for camp scholarships through its thrift shop, and interacting with the Coachella Valley’s migrant working community through afterschool programs.20 In Chapter 7, “An

Implementation Process and Assessment,” this tool and the outgrowth initiatives are

20 In Matthew 25: 40 Jesus reminds us of our call for justice, mercy, and compassion when he shares, “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

further discussed in how the three core practices were developed in this newly planted church.

CHAPTER 3

LITERATURE REVIEW

Chapter 3 examines literature pertinent to the major cultural shifts that have led from a Christendom worldview to a postmodern reality. Christian leaders can no longer assume that a searching world will be attracted by a “come and see” model in the

Christian Church. A critical focus of ministry must now be the discipling of the laity for ministry in the world, a “go and dwell” approach. This is the practical conversation within the church community and reflected in this chapter’s literature review. This ministry project strives to appropriate the insights of these missional conversations, moving toward a centered, balanced approach to ministry. These shifts mark the changes that guide Christian leaders towards a church planting model based on moving believers from being passive consumers of church to becoming maturing, risk-taking disciples who multiply themselves and churches.

The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church, by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch

Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch give a refreshing look at the implications of postmodernism on the nature and mission of the Church. The writers explain that the Age of Christendom is over, with its central influence in the life and history of Western

culture—and in their view, that is a very good thing.1 It means that the Church needs to take a new look at itself in the context of postmodern culture and make significant adjustments in thinking and approach to ministry. Frost and Hirsch contend that for too long, the Church has been “attractional” in its approach to mission, “dualistic” in its theology, and “hierarchical” in its ecclesiastical structure.2

Professing a strong commitment to biblical authority and faith, these writers propose that the Church’s ecclesiology be based on a strong missional philosophy, which, in turn, rests on a better understanding of the nature and mission of Jesus Christ. It is in understanding the significance of the incarnational ministry of Christ that the Church becomes truly missional, ultimately employing an equal and full complement of gifts divided between the apostolic, the prophetic, the evangelistic, the pastoral, and the teaching roles in the church.3

Frost and Hirsch make a very strong case for the Church being the vehicle for bringing the Gospel to Western culture. However, they argue that if the Church is to do this, it needs to undergo some changes: members “need to change the whole fiber of the church . . . [they] need revolution not evolution.”4 Frost and Hirsch argue for the creation

1 Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), 6.

2 Ibid., 18.

3 Ibid., 12.

4 Ibid., 33.

of what they call “missional churches,” which are fundamentally different from the traditional churches in which I grew up.5

Three factors are critical to understanding how churches are and how they should be. Frost and Hirsch say that traditional churches are “attractional, dualistic and hierarchical,” but that they need to be “missional, messianic and apostolic.”6 Traditional churches also tend to create sacred spaces that are fundamentally uncomfortable for not- yet-Christians. Then they set about drawing the not-yet-Christians into those spaces. The missional church, on the other hand, does not seek to attract people to it; rather, it “seeps into the cracks and crevices of a society in order to be Christ to those who don't know him yet.” 7 It does this through proximity spaces, shared projects, and commercial enterprises.

Another characteristic of traditional churches is that they are dualistic. That is, they believe that there is a separation between the secular and the sacred. Frost and

Hirsch encourage the Church to abandon this distinction between secular and sacred, and to adopt the attitude of Jesus, who saw all activity as part of his ministry.8 This means that the Church in the West must adopt a missionary stance in relation to its cultural context or die. This book may not be an easy read, but it offers one of the most convincing explanations of what needs to happen for the Church to survive and prevail in postmodern times.

5 Ibid., 67.

6 Ibid., 43.

7 Ibid., 73.

8 Ibid., 89.

Missional Renaissance, by Reggie McNeal

Reggie McNeal encourages us to roll up our sleeves and get dirty in the missional task. In his book, Missional Renaissance, he first lays the groundwork by describing the missional renaissance that is taking place as a missional manifesto. He writes,

The missional church is an expression of God’s heart. It serves as an indication of his continuing commitment to his redemptive mission in the world. Because God is on mission, the people of God are too. God is a sending God. Just as he sent his son and his Holy Spirit to the world, he is sending his people into the world. All sending share the same redemptive mission. The notion of “sentness” lies at the heart of the missional church because it reveals the heart of God.9

To think and to live missionally means seeing all life as a way to be engaged with the mission of God in the world. After establishing a scriptural base for missional living,

McNeal describes each of the three shifts necessary for a local church to live out its true missional identity.

The first shift, from “internal to external,”10 involves a change in the identity and way of life of the church, not merely an emphasis on certain activities. The second shift, from “program to people,”11 involves asking how people are doing in their missional development versus how the church programs are going. The third shift involves moving from a “church-based to a kingdom-based leadership.”12 He follows discussions of these shifts with a new way to think about and gauge success (a new scorecard) beyond the

9McNeal, Reggie. Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church (San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009), 20-21.

10 Ibid., 41.

11 Ibid., 89.

12 Ibid., 129.

attendance, budget, and buildings approach. McNeal argues that churches must shift from an internal to an external focus in its ministry. According to McNeal, the shift will redefine the target of ministry. He writes, “This entire book has been about shifting paradigms from a church culture to a missional movement.”13

This book encouraged me to continue to be a part of the missional renaissance.

McNeal moves beyond theory to giving practical help for the missional mindset. McNeal reminds the reader that the world, not just the Church, is the subject of God’s redemption and love.14 He also points out that the Church must move from a membership culture to a missionary culture.15 Finally, he states that the missional church tracks the development of people, versus the participation of people in programs.

McNeal’s book is filled with practical advice for living missionally. One example is when he identifies his approach to developing leaders in four different areas:

“paradigm issues” (how the leader sees the world), “micro skill development”

(competencies the leader needs), “resource management” (what the leader has to work with), and “personal growth” (the leader as a person).16 Missional Renaissance focuses on teaching believers how vital it is to develop transformational communities that cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in a culture that wants to squeeze believers into its mold. This book is a helpful resource to help congregations fully live out their God-given mission.

13 Ibid., 159.

14 Ibid., 44.

15 Ibid., 54.

16 Ibid., 158.

Church Next, by Eddie Gibbs

Eddie Gibbs, an Anglican priest and professor of church growth at Fuller

Theological Seminary, explains in his book, Church Next, the changing times in which we live and how the Church must adapt. Gibbs writes, “If we [the Church] do not understand the forces of change, we will be overwhelmed by them.”17 Gibbs provides an orderly and challenging treatise intent on helping churches transition to the present reality. This is the kind of book that a church council can read and discuss to help understand the shifting culture.

Postmodernism is an elephant-sized topic. Gibbs limits himself to discussing aspects which have immediate implications for the Church. Gibbs writes about the importance of engaging what he terms “the present” if the Church is going to fulfill its mission.18 According to Gibbs, the American Church is moving away from the market- driven approach of the previous three decades toward something more missional. This transition, Gibbs suggests, involves a move away from bureaucratic hierarchies to

“apostolic networks,” where “decision-makers are available when needed to make rapid decisions,” rather than the traditional hierarchical pyramid.19 Pastoral training must also transition from the model of the academic graduate school towards a mentoring model.

Gibbs explains, “At the heart of training must lie a thorough knowledge of Scripture, coupled with the exegetical skills to apply the Word of God to contemporary situation . . .

17 Eddie Gibbs, Church Next: Quantum Changes in Christian Ministry (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 19.

18 Ibid., 34.

19 Ibid., 83.

a much stronger emphasis on spiritual formation to ensure survival in a high-stressed and culturally hostile environment.”20 Furthermore, according to Gibbs, the Church must shift towards a new focus on community, spirituality, and holiness. The new paradigm for churches will move beyond the seeker-driven model that worked well for a few affluent and prominent churches in the 1980s.

Gibbs gives three outlooks in today’s churches: traditional, modern, and postmodern.21 A traditional church lives within the circle of the culture and expects people to come to it. A modern church occupies a separate circle from the culture and tries to interact with it. A postmodern church is in the center of a number of outlying patches with which it interacts. Each has been shaped by its culture.

Gibbs proposes a challenge to transform the church to meet its culture in nine ways. The church must move: (1) from living in the past to engaging with the present, (2) from being market driven to mission-oriented, (3) from bureaucratic hierarchies to apostolic networks, (4) from schooling professionals to mentoring leaders, (5) from following celebrities to encouraging saints, (6) from dead orthodoxy to living faith, (7) from attracting a crowd to seeking the lost, (8) from belonging to believing, and finally,

(9) from being generic church congregations to incarnational communities of transformed lives.22 This is a book that might work well as a discussion starter for groups of lay leaders. Gibbs seems to have this group in mind as he includes “implementation” assignments at the end of each chapter.

20 Ibid., 118.

21 Ibid., 217.

22 Ibid., 223. 43

The Present Future, by Reggie McNeal

The thesis of Reggie McNeal’s book, The Present Future, is that the church culture, as we know it, is passing away in North America. This is a good thing, explains

McNeal, because the Church has abandoned its missional covenant with God and is not living up to its reason for being. This book is about the rediscovery of mission. In it,

McNeal outlines six realities of “the present future” that must be addressed by church leaders who want to participate in a renewal of the North American Church. He contends that church leaders have been asking the wrong questions. To get the right answers and direction for the Church, leaders must ask the tougher questions.

Throughout the book, McNeal presents “the wrong questions” versus “the tough questions.” The first is, “The wrong question is: How do we do church better? The tough question is: How do we deconvert from Churchianity to Christianity?” 23 The second is,

“The wrong question is: How do we get them to come to us? The tough question is: How do we transform the church (and the world)?” 24 The third is, “The wrong question: How do we turn members into ministers? The tough question: How do we turn members into missionaries?”25 The fourth is, “The wrong question: How do we develop church members? The tough question: How do we develop followers of Jesus?”26 The fifth is,

23 Reggie McNeal, The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church (San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), 11.

24 Ibid., 26.

25 Ibid., 45.

26 Ibid., 73.

“The wrong question: How do we plan for the future? The tough question: How do we prepare for the future?”27 The sixth is, “The wrong question: How do we develop leaders for church work? The tough question: How do we develop leaders for the Christian movement?” 28 McNeal debunks these and other old assumptions and provides an overall strategy to help church leaders move forward in an entirely different and much more effective way.

McNeal concludes that the North American church is “living off the work, money, and energy of previous generations from a previous world order.” 29 He suggests that if something does not change, the current church culture in North America will soon cease to exist. It is important to note that McNeal plainly states that “the death of the church culture as we know it will not be the death of the church,” and that the “church culture has become confused with Biblical Christianity.”30 McNeal addresses this when he writes, “The point is not to adopt the culture and lose the message; the point is to understand the culture so we can build bridges to it for the sake of gaining a hearing for the gospel of Jesus.”31 McNeal’s suggested approaches to dealing with the realities of ministry in a postmodern context leave one with the impression that he has a low view of church membership. An essential part of spiritual formation is active membership in the

27 Ibid., 93.

28 Ibid., 121.

29 Ibid., 2.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid., 11.

local church—not for the sake of preserving the visible institution, but in recognition of the spiritual reality of Christ’s presence in the midst of assembled believers.

McNeal’s book challenges the Church of the twenty-first century to return to its first-century roots. In a day when the Church has become so easily distracted, McNeal, through his provocative six questions, calls the Church back to its Founder’s original mission to his followers—to win the lost. Rather than settling for the status quo, this book challenges pastors and leaders of churches to again understand the mission and calling of the Church in the twenty-first century.

The Forgotten Ways, by Alan Hirsch

In his book, The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch calls the Western Church back to its apostolic roots and into the missional call of creating authentic church planting movements. Hirsch writes, “The church (the ecclesia), when true to its real calling, when it is on about what God is on about, is by far and away the most potent force for transformational change the world has ever seen.”32 Arguing for a return to the easily- reproduced, decentralized apostolic church, he critiques the fads and excesses of the emerging church. Reminding his readers of the “forgotten ways” of the apostolic movement, which he calls the “apostolic genius,” Hirsch outlines the elements of the

“missional DNA,” or “mDNA,” for short. He outlines the characteristics that caused it to virally grow from a small group to an escalating spiritual movement in its first two

32 Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006), 17.

hundred years.33 Hirsch proposes that inside each believer is an mDNA that is yearning for a transformational expression of faith.34

In addition to offering historical accounts of Christian movements, including the first-century origins of the Church and the underground church movement in China, the book is also a handbook which Hirsch claims is largely for the missional practitioner.35

He builds his thesis with history, case studies, and Scripture, and his readers receive a fresh look at century-old truths. Describing the discipleship process of the mDNA church, he lays out the components of expanding gospel movements as “Christocentric

Monotheism,” “Organic Systems,” “Communitas,” “Disciple Making,” “Missional-

Incarnational Impulse,” and “Apostolic Environment.” 36 Defining these terms, Hirsch is careful to maintain a deliberately Christ-centered approach, mindful of his thesis: by recovering these “forgotten ways,” the Church will once again be positioned to experience the blessings that God has built into the genes of biblical church. Some

Christian scholars critique Hirsch for oversimplifying these movements, while missing the key point of renewal movements as an internal reaction to external persecution. This is certainly true of the underground church movement in China. However, he persuasively argues that such an “mDNA” is inside many of the great renewal movements of Christian history.

33 Ibid., 207.

34 Ibid., 76.

35 Ibid., 82.

36 Ibid., 84, 77, 101, 127, and 146.

Hirsch lays out the leadership challenge for an emerging church. He explains that the reach of any movement is directly proportional to the breadth of its leadership base.

And the leadership, in turn, is directly related to the quality of discipleship. Only to the extent that churches can develop self-initiating, reproducing, fully devoted disciples can they hope to get the challenge and task of Jesus’ mission realized. Mission, then, is the catalyzing principle of discipleship.37 On the whole, this book successfully embodies the transformational shift of the gospel for today’s mission. Stirring from beginning to end,

The Forgotten Ways can serve as a dictionary and best-practices manual for the emerging church and is a must-have for the church planting toolbox.

Planting Missional Churches, by Ed Stetzer

In Planting Missional Churches, Ed Stetzer represents a theologically conservative, culturally liberal perspective on church planting. He addresses several church planting subjects: in regards to preaching, his focus is on the centrality of biblical exposition; in regards to church leadership, he favors a plurality of elders; and regarding cultural streams, he suggests adopting some, rejecting some, and salvaging some.38

Stetzer’s thoughts are biblically saturated, as he deliberates over the church planting processes seen at work in the New Testament. He urges church planters to exegete their own cultures and discover how the church can most effectively be incarnated within specific regions or cities.39 In doing so, he simultaneously urges church planters to

37 Ibid., 119.

38 Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), 83-86.

39 Ibid., 20-22.

remain committed to theological orthodoxy and to jettison traditions of church that are bound to a previous culture.40

Stetzer gives a mission statement of sorts, in that this book is written to “inform, clarify, encourage, and persuade evangelicals to embrace church planting.”41 He argues that North America is no longer just the country seeking to do missions; it is now the mission field itself. Stetzer contends that North America is ripe with mission opportunities for sharing the gospel. And the most effective mission methodology for sharing the gospel is planting new churches. He further reminds the reader that the goal is not merely to plant churches, but to “plant a church that’s part of the culture it is trying to reach.”42

One of the common threads throughout Stetzer’s book is that “the goal of missional church planting is glorifying God, growing His kingdom, and developing healthy churches with new converts.”43 Stetzer realizes something that many Christian leaders overlook—the fact that church planting is needed in order to prevent denominational decline as well as a decline in the overall Christian population. This book will equip those with a passion for church planting with the ability to help change long- held objections to church planting that many hold. It will help its readers to teach people that church planting is not about competition, professionalism, or anything else other than

40 Ibid., 17-20.

41 Ibid., 14.

42 Ibid., 1.

43 Ibid., 5.

using culturally relevant methodology to reach people with the Good News of Jesus

Christ for the glory of God.

Planting Missional Churches is a church planting manual that all church planters should have on their bookshelves. It brings together a wide spectrum of church planting thoughts, visions, and concerns in an informative, culturally relevant way. Stetzer’s work encourages people to look beyond missions and become missional themselves. His work affirms the biblical basis for church planting and challenges the readers to search and discover how they can most effectively understand and learn their local cultures in order to bring the message of hope to those within the culture. This is the book to have for planting biblically faithful and culturally relevant churches.

Covenant Affirmations: This We Believe, by Donald Frisk

Donald Frisk summarizes well the Covenant Affirmations of the Evangelical

Covenant Church of America (hereafter, ECC) when he summarizes that they are

“communities that are deeply committed to Jesus Christ and passionately engaged in

Christ’s mission in the world.”44 In his book, Frisk charts the theology of the ECC’s affirmations with an eye on the historical roots of this Swedish immigrant denomination founded 1885. The ECC has its roots in historical Christianity, the Protestant

Reformation, the biblical instruction of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, and the great spiritual awakenings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These influences, together with more recent North American renewal movements, continue to shape its development and distinctive spirit. The ECC is committed to reaching across boundaries

44 Donald Frisk, Covenant Affirmations (Chicago: Covenant Press, 1981), 7.

of race, ethnicity, culture, gender, age, and status in the cultivation of communities of life and service.45

While his book reads as a textbook, it is rich with the historic beliefs of the ECC.

Founded in the struggle of the National Church of Sweden, it broke away to find the freedom of faith in the tradition of Pietistic and Reformation churches. Frisk writes, “The idea of a free church of committed believers—a church not under the control of the State and bound ultimately only to Jesus Christ its Lord—was vigorously promoted by the

Anabaptist wing of the Reformation and, later, by elements of the Pietistic movement. It is in this free church tradition, especially shaped by Pietism, that the Evangelical

Covenant Church stands.”46 The ECC adheres to the affirmations of the Protestant

Reformation regarding the Bible. It confesses that the Holy Scripture, the Old and the

New Testament, is the Word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct. It affirms the historic confessions of the Christian Church, particularly the

Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, while emphasizing the sovereignty of the Word of

God over all creedal interpretations.47

Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches, by Christian Schwarz

Wherever the congregation, Natural Church Development is a book advancing a process of theological reflection and practical application for assessing ministry. This system surveys a congregation’s perception of health and provides a process for

45 Ibid., 8-10, 130.

46 Ibid., 128-129.

47 Ibid., 25-26, 77.

implementing initiatives to help advance congregations as a whole and individuals in their discipleship. Natural Church Development lays out a model that reminds the reader to not “focus on numerical growth, rather to concentrate on qualitative growth.” 48 This model is for congregations that seek to engage in vital ministry in the world. It is for churches, large or small, working at improving their spiritual health and for leaders desiring a system for measuring, evaluating, and engaging in renewal.

In his book, Natural Church Development, Schwarz lays out a planning and implementing system for creating discipleship initiatives in the context of the local church. Schwarz gives missional leaders biblical quality characteristics and principles which, when taken together, unite into a tool for assessing church health and growth.

Natural Church Development is for congregations that are just beginning their life together, those that are actively engaged in worship and ministry, and those that are seeking revitalization and new vision—indeed, for every congregation that seeks to advance.

Schwarz’s book presents an overview for a systematic set of programs and services offered to facilitate both individual discipleship and church development and renewal. Christian Schwarz, head of the Institute for Natural Church Development in

Germany, has done statistical studies on thousands of churches around the world and has come up with what he calls “eight essential qualities of healthy churches.”49 (For a list of definition of these eight characteristics, see Appendix 1.)

48 Christian A. Schwarz and Robert E. Logan, Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches (St. Charles, IL: Church Smart Resources, 1994), 5.

49 Ibid., 22-37.

These eight quality characteristics are designed as a diagnostic system to be used by churches seeking qualitative growth. The eight characteristics of health include: (1) empowering leadership; (2) gift-based ministry; (3) passionate spirituality; (4) effective structures; (5) inspiring worship service; (6) holistic small groups; (7) need-oriented evangelism; and (8) loving relationships. 50 The NCD process helps a church survey its health in these eight areas, identify the weakest characteristic (what Schwarz calls the

“minimum factor”), and it gives tools for congregational leaders to create initiatives to build health in their identified minimum factor.

Schwarz illustrates this process in his book by using a word picture of a barrel with eight staves (see Appendix 1).51 Each stave represents one of the eight quality characteristics. The staves in the barrel only reach as high as the survey score of the characteristic. With this analogy, the barrel can only be filled to the level of the lowest stave. So to increase the capacity of the barrel, the height of the lowest stave must be increased. Focusing on the minimum factor does not mean that the attention given to the other seven areas decrease. All eight characteristics are vitally important to healthy growing churches. Focusing on the minimum factors helps to set timely priorities. Since all eight areas in the life of a church cannot be given the same amount of energy and concentration effectively, the areas that will yield the greatest long-range return on investment should receive first priority.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid., 53-57.

In summarizing these eight quality characteristics, Schwarz claims that, to a high degree of certainty, they are universally valid qualities, they can be transferred to all church settings, and each of these has a positive relationship with both the quality and the quantitative growth of the church. Schwarz gives a disclaimer that “no one single factor leads to growth in churches; it is the interplay of the eight elements as they relate to the growth forces.” 52

While Schwarz’s book, Natural Church Development, is an overview of his health model, it is also directed to individual discipleship. Complementing this introductory book, Schwarz lays out a whole life discipleship curriculum he calls, Color

Your Word with Natural Church Development: Experiencing All That God Has Designed for You to Be (Appendix 1 presents an illustration of this curriculum).53 In a series of five books, Schwarz lays out his discipleship curriculum. Not only does Schwarz lay out an effective discipleship curriculum for growing health with leaders and individuals, each of the five books includes a separate handbook that assists the church as a whole to implement discipleship, whether by individual church members, one-on-one discipleship, as a small group, in mentoring relationships, and even outside the church context in the community.

At Cornerstone, Schwarz’s book, The 3 Colors of Ministry, is being used to help individuals review and assess their personal development and lead them to take their next steps of faith. Testimonies from participants are that the curriculum has helped to

52 Ibid., 20.

53 Christian Schwarz, Color Your World with Natural Church Development: Experiencing All That God Has Designed for You to Be (St. Charles, IL: ChurchSmart Resources, 2005).

enhance individual spiritual development and practices of faith. The plan is to follow up with the next in the series, The 3 Colors of Love: The Art of Giving and Receiving

Justice, Truth, and Grace. This curriculum should further enhance Cornerstone’s story, and in the words of Kurt Fredrickson, give “a sense of meaning and hope to our lives . . . and the [further] promise of transformation.”54

Through much of the book, especially Part 1, titled “Eight Quality

Characteristics,” Schwarz cites his statistical research as his path towards healthy church development. In his book, Schwarz claims he has done statistical studies on thousands of churches around the world to develop these “eight essential qualities of healthy churches.”55 Through statistical studies, Schwarz measures the link between church health and church growth.

Noticeably missing are scriptural references for his recommendations. Schwarz’s writings are absent of a few principles that Scripture itself might hold as “quality characteristics.” For example, how might the role of preaching God’s Word influence the health of a church or to what degree is preaching a quality of its worship? What about the right administration of the sacraments of the Lord’s Supper or Baptism? What about

God’s call to compassion, mercy, and justice, or serving the poor, the widowed, and orphaned? Although acceptable and reasonable to some, Schwarz’s eight characteristics may seem to others as somewhat incomplete. Schwarz himself acknowledges this:

Some Christians think that the principles covered in [his system] are “not really

54 Kurt Fredrickson, “The Good News for Simi Valley, CA,” quoted in J. R. Woodward, ed., ViralHope: Good News from the Urb to the Burbs (and Everything in Between) (Los Angeles: Ecclesia Press, 2010), 46.

55 Schwarz and Logan, Natural Church Development, 22-37.

spiritual.” They don’t exactly fight them, and they might even use one of them from time to time, but, to put it mildly, they don’t get excited about them. Church growth in the power of the Holy Spirit does not mean ignoring God’s principles. It means putting those principles to work in our churches as much as possible.56

Perhaps a church could do the same as Schwarz’s NCD system with a simple practice of reading and following Scripture, and in the best tradition of NCD, leave the growth to

God.

In spite of its social science approach and excessive use of statistics, NCD provides a common language for congregations to follow as a model for individual discipleship, and a common system for church leaders to use for scoring and assessing ministry. Schwarz highlights in his book that the major emphasis is not on the size of the church, but on the life and health of individuals and the church as a whole.57

In the foreword to Schwarz’s book, Dr. Bob Logan, professor of church planting at Fuller Theological Seminary, writes, “Research results confirm what many leaders have know intuitively—that healthy churches are growing churches, making more and better disciples in loving obedience to Christ . . . and advises church leaders to read [the book], ponder it, and take the next steps to becoming a healthy, growing reproducing church!”58 Because the vision of Cornerstone in its starting weeks and month has included an “inside out” reach, that is to come together around the Word and reach out to dwell in the community, its “structural functions” and “need-oriented evangelism” embrace the social needs of our community. Such initiatives include creating a self-

56 Ibid., 126.

57 Ibid., 104-106.

58 Ibid., preface.

funding mission, like the church’s thrift shop that raises funds for afterschool programs in the migrant working community, the church’s prison ministry for which leaders provide

Bible studies and life skills classes, or compassion drives to give away food and survival packs to the homeless. These are the expressions that grow from NCD initiatives at

Cornerstone and the “go and dwell” vision of the newly planted church.

CHAPTER 4

EXAMINING THE THEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF CORNERSTONE COVENANT CHURCH

The ECC has its roots in the Swedish Lutheran tradition. Founded in the struggle of the National Church of Sweden, it had broken away, discovering the freedom of faith during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the tradition of the Pietistic and

Reformation churches.1 Historically, the Mission Friends had belonged to the Swedish

Lutheran division of the Church. It was from this group that the distinctive character of the ECC had grown, developing into a revivalist movement, the Swedish Mission

Friends, and spread to America. It is against this backdrop that Cornerstone finds its passion for evangelism and compassion for all people, including today’s immigrant groups, to bring even the furthest closer to God.

In Covenant Affirmations, Donald Frisk, respected Covenant historian and lecturer, wrote that a defining characteristic of the ECC was that it followed Luther’s teaching that grace is the work of God, and that it is “through grace that we are saved.”2

1 Karl Olsson, By One Spirit (Chicago: Covenant Press, 1962), 6.

2 Frisk, Covenant Affirmations, 113.

The Mission Friends believed they represented the “right evangelical order” as proposed by Martin Luther because they allowed only born-again Christians into their fellowship.3

Karl Olsson writes in his textbook on the history of the ECC, “The fellowship of the church in its first 40-50 years was dominated by the salvation context. At its best, it was a drawing together of believers into a true koinonia, the aims and actions of which were heavenly.”4

The demand for a purified church and for a communion limited to the converted moved from English nonconformists of the seventeenth century to the Dutch Praecisists.

From this area, the evangelical renewal probably reached the Lutheran Church in

Germany and the early roots of German Pietists. In these early years, the father of

Pietism, Philipp Jakob Spener, published his best known work, Pia Desideria (Pious

Wishes). After his critical evaluation of the state of the Church, Spener presented his program for a renewal of spiritual life in six points:

[1] An intensive study of the whole bible (preaching must be supplemented by small group home conventicles where the whole bible is studied). [2] The spiritual priesthood of all believers (the whole church, and not just the ministers, are responsible for the life of the church). [3] The practice of Christianity, not just its doctrine. [4] The limitation of doctrinal polemics. [5] An emphasis upon practical piety in theological education. [6] Simplicity and direction in preaching with an emphasis on edifying the listener.5

Spener’s principles meant the transfer of spiritual authority from the clergy to the converted laity and from the establishment to the laity-led home group conventicles. In

Germany, and later Sweden, Spenerian Pietism remained a spiritual movement within the

3 Ibid.

4 Olsson, By One Spirit, 520.

5 Ibid., 11-12.

established Church. And yet, the explosive character of Spener’s proposals was clear.

While he may not have intended separation, his principles laid the foundation for it.6 The foundation of the ECC was built on these seventeenth-century Pietistic struggles for religious identity.

Within the American melting pot of immigration in the nineteenth century, the

ECC began to emerge through the Mission Friends, so-called because of their emphasis on mission work. A law was passed by the Swedish government that made it mandatory for all citizens to participate in communion. This law placed Swedish Pietists into a dilemma: Mission Friends had either to participate shoulder-to-shoulder in a ritual which they regarded as too inclusive to be the Lord’s Supper, or risk legal action by refusing to commune. In response to this law, the Swedish Mission Friends had three possible solutions: remain members of the Lutheran state church with its clergy but have their own communion; form communion societies with the help of sympathetic state ministers; or become separatist and split from the Lutheran state church. Those Mission Friends who immigrated to America chose the third.

The Mission Friends who had emigrated from Sweden to America sought religious freedom and a desire for a revival that would restore, as Olsson writes, the “true evangelical faith, the Pietist theology which questioned the shortcomings of the state church and advocated a revival of devout Christianity.”7 This theology influenced the doctrine of the Mission Friends by offering a clear pathway towards revival. During the

6 Ibid., 14.

7 Ibid., 8.

sixteenth century, Pietism emerged because a focus on doctrine had replaced a focus on

Christ as the center of their Christian faith.8 The influence of Pietism inspired the Mission

Friends in America to become non-doctrinaire, focusing solely upon the Bible for their beliefs.

Inspired by their previous struggles for religious freedom in Sweden, they were eager to define how they would express their faith in America. The concerns of the

Mission Friends would be threefold: to keep a pure congregation, to maintain distance between those who had been born again and those who were not, and to hold a strong stance on Scripture. These were the principles that distinguished Mission Friends from other denominations. Instead of a creed, the Mission Friends made the Bible their final authority on questions of faith.

It may be interesting for twenty-first century Covenanters to learn about the controversy sparked by P.P. Waldenström, one of the most influential founders of the

ECC. In highlighting their struggle of the Mission Friends for identity, Waldenström pointed out some misunderstandings of faith in his treatise, God’s Eternal Plan of

Salvation. Waldenström underscored five main misunderstandings: “1) Faith in Christ and faith in the Bible are not the same; 2) Faith is not the same as having a correct doctrine about Christ, there must be faith in Christ; 3) Believing in the forgiveness of sins is not the same as having faith in Christ; 4) Faith does not require a particular view of the atonement; and 5) Faith in Christ is not the same as faith that one is saved.9 An inner trust

8 Ibid., 8.

9 Ibid., 10.

that Christ is the Lord and Savior and a deep trust in God’s saving grace were the attributes of faith for the Mission Friends. This faith, experienced, offered humanity the means to salvation.10

In 1872, Waldenström published his sermon on the atonement titled, “Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity,” which caused controversy in Sweden. This sermon emphasized the central role played by Scripture amongst the Mission Friends; in it,

Waldenström rejected the satisfaction theory of atonement, which was advocated by most evangelicals at the time. The satisfaction theory of the atonement taught that God’s wrath required the death of Jesus so God could be reconciled to humanity.

With the Mission Friends taking sides in the atonement question, the rupture with the Augustana Synod (American Swedish Lutheran) became irremediable. The Mission Friends had previously been known as neo-evangelicals and separatists, as sectaries and fantasts. Now, by their espousal of the feared and hated Waldenström, they became quite simply heretics. It is impossible within the limits of these pates to sketch adequately the fury and scope of the conflict and its disastrous effects.11

While investigating the atonement, Waldenström found that the expression “God reconciled in Christ” was not in the New Testament.12 The theory of the atonement proposed by Waldenström argued that sinfulness created a separation between humanity and God. Instead of God being reconciled to humanity, Waldenström argued, humanity had to be reconciled with God. The atonement controversy would play a key part in developing a separate identity for the Covenant in America in the Free Church tradition.

10 This is a very general look at the influence of Pietism on the ECC. For a more in-depth look see Frisk, Covenant Affirmation, 8-9.

11 Olsson, By One Spirit, 257.

12 Ibid., 110.

Waldenström’s view on atonement received harsh criticism from many in the

Swedish community, who accused him of destroying the gospel and denying the

Augsburg Confession, the Lutheran confession of faith. Waldenström accused his critics of betraying the Lutheran principle that Scripture was the final authority in spiritual matters.

Up until the 1870s, many of the Mission Friends did not want to separate from the state church. Some of the state church’s policies regarding issues like communion troubled the Mission Friends, but they were not ready to separate and hoped to bring about change from the inside. The state had previously ruled that communion had to be served in one of the state-owned churches in order for it to be considered legitimate.

During the “Uppsala Communion Case,” in 1876, some members of the Mission Friends held communion in a chapel that was not owned by the state. After hearing the news, the

Swedish government charged the Mission Friends with violating the law. After this incident, the Mission Friends decided to define their ecclesiology.13

Defining its ecclesiology proved to be difficult for the Mission Friends because two of its most prominent leaders, Waldenström and E.J. Ekman, did not agree on issues like baptism and whether the Mission Friends should separate from the state church.14 In

August 1878, a compromise was finally reached at the Third Ministerial Conference among Mission Friends, which led to the establishment of the Swedish Mission Covenant

13 Scott E. Erickson, David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church (Philadelphia: Coronet Books, Inc., 1996), 143.

14 Ibid., 143. Ekman believed that adult baptism was the right doctrine to form a church while Waldenström supported infant baptism. On the issue of separation, Ekman wanted to break with the Swedish state church and Waldenström wanted to stay involved.

(the original denominational name of the Evangelical Covenant Church). That same year,

Waldenström and some others met in order to write a statement of their ecclesiology, which stated that the church was a communion of saints and a local gathering of believing Christians. The Covenant came to a compromise on the issue of baptism and accepted members who had been baptized as either infants or adults. In America, in 1885,

Swedish immigrants who were members of the Mission Friends decided to follow suit and formed an association of churches based on “theological and structural freedom, a representative form of church governance, and Biblical primacy, among other issues.”15

The Constitution of the original Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant of America (the birth name of the Evangelical Covenant Church) stated that “the object of this Covenant is to work for the propagating of the Gospel of Christ and development of Christian life and cooperation of the individual churches in harmony with the teachings and example of

Christ and His Apostles. This Covenant is a union of Christian churches and societies, whither such societies are composed of churches or individual Christians.”16 Thus their desire to hold on to traditional practices while allowing the flexibility for variation in interpretation was crystalized and the ECC was formed.

Three important factors helped define the ECC. First, the Covenant did not adopt any creeds as conditions of membership. Frisk writes, “In the context of accepting this

New Testament and ideal church principle, C.V. Bowman, president of the ECC from

1927 to 1932 wrote, ‘There naturally followed the surrender of any established

15 Erickson, David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church, 145.

16 Olsson, By One Spirit, 319.

confessions (creeds) as conditions for membership in the churches.’”17 As Waldenström said in defense of his theory of the atonement, creeds were dubious points of doctrine and the Bible needed to be the final authority.

Second, the ECC adopted the Bible as its only authority. The preamble for the constitution of the ECC, passed in 1885, states, “This Covenant confesses the word of

God, the Holy Scriptures, the Old and the New Testament, as the only perfect rule of faith, doctrine, and conduct.”18 The Bible became the sole authority for issues of faith in the ECC. However, freedom did not mean that one could openly contradict the teachings of the Bible (that is, a commitment to be biblical, yet not holding to any doctrinal statements).

Third, the ECC also faced the question of whom to allow into the church. Should they be so inclusive that non-believers could join, or should they adopt a confession of faith and become entirely exclusive? The ECC wanted to allow freedom in doctrine, but did not want such an open congregation that non-believers were granted membership.

Bowman said that the local church should be exclusive in allowing only believers to become members, but not so exclusive that members could not disagree on controversial doctrines.19 That made the ECC inclusive and exclusive; inclusive in the way it allowed for a wide variety of interpretations to enter the church, but exclusive in that only confessing, born-again believers were granted membership. Frisk writes, “That the

17 Frisk, Covenant Affirmations, 13.

18 Evangelical Covenant Church, “Covenant Affirmation” booklet, introduction (Chicago: Covenant Publications, 2001), 1.

19 Ibid., 80.

Christian church is a voluntary fellowship of spiritually alive people on the foundation of a common faith in Jesus, love, and mutual confidence; and that this fellowship shall be open to all who believe in Jesus and evidence this in a Christian life, independent of their doctrinal views as long as these do not contain a denial of the word and authority of the

Holy Scriptures.”20

Today, the ECC has held to its Pietist roots and free church tradition. The ECC is non-creedal, viewing the entire Bible as the believer’s creed to confess, build our beliefs upon and wrestle with together in search of the truth and biblical faithfulness. The longstanding credence of the ECC is to agree to disagree, and still remain unified around the larger mission of the church to reach the lost with the gospel of Jesus Christ. This essential belief is summed up on what the ECC refers to as the Covenant Affirmations which include the affirmation of (1) the centrality of the word of God; (2) the necessity of the new birth; (3) a commitment to the whole mission of the Church; (4) the church as a fellowship of believers; (5) a conscious dependence upon the Holy Spirit, and (6) the reality of freedom in Christ.21 The following chart illustrates the “Inside Out” pattern for these six Covenant Affirmations.

20 Frisk, Covenant Affirmations, 25.

21 Covenant Affirmations, 7.

Figure 9. An illustration of the six Covenant Affirmations of the Evangelical Covenant Church.

We affirm the centrality of the word of God. We believe the Bible is the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct.22 The dynamic, transforming power of the word of God directs the church and the life of each Christian. This reliance on the Bible leads us to affirm both men and women as ordained ministers and at every level of leadership. It is the reason we pursue ethnic diversity in our church and is the inspiration for every act of compassion, mercy, and justice.

We affirm the necessity of the new birth. The Apostle Paul wrote, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). New birth in Christ means committing ourselves to him and receiving forgiveness, acceptance, and eternal life. New

22 From the Preamble to the Constitution and bylaws of the evangelical Covenant Church.

birth is only the beginning. Growing to maturity in Christ is a lifelong process for both individuals and communities of believers. God forms and transforms us—and it is through people transformed by Christ that God transforms the world.

We affirm a commitment to the whole mission of the Church. The early

Covenanters were known as “Mission Friends”— people of shared faith who came together to carry out God’s mission both far and near. Mission for them, and for us, includes evangelism, Christian formation, and ministries of compassion, mercy and justice. We follow Christ’s two central “Inside Out” calls. The Great Commission sends us out into all the world to make disciples. The Great Commandment calls us to love the

Lord our God and our neighbors as ourselves.

We affirm the Church as a fellowship of believers. Membership in the

Covenant Church is by confession of personal faith in Jesus Christ and is open to all believers. We observe baptism and Holy Communion as sacraments commanded by

Jesus. We practice both infant and believer baptism. We believe in the priesthood of all believers—that is, we all share in the ministry of the church. We also affirm that God calls some men and women into professional, full-time ministry. The church is not an institution, organization or building. It is a grace-filled fellowship of believers who participate in the life and mission of Jesus Christ. It is a family of equals: as the New

Testament teaches that within Christian community there is to be neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).

We affirm a conscious dependence on the Holy Spirit. The Covenant Church affirms the Trinitarian understanding of one God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The

New Testament tells us that the Holy Spirit works both within individuals and among

them. We believe it is the Holy Spirit who instills in our hearts a desire to turn to Christ, and who assures us that Christ dwells within us. It is the Holy Spirit who enables our obedience to Christ and conforms us to his image, and it is the Spirit in us that enables us to continue Christ’s mission in the world. The Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts to us as individuals and binds us together as Christ’s body.

We affirm the reality of freedom in Christ. The Apostle Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). This freedom is a gift of God in

Christ, and it manifests itself in a right relationship with God and others. It is not a private gift to be used selfishly, but is given to serve the community and the world. For

Paul, this freedom means that we are set free from the power of those things that on their own tend to divide. United in Christ, we offer freedom to one another to differ on issues of belief or practice where the biblical and historical record seems to allow for a variety of interpretations of the will and purposes of God.

We, in the Covenant Church, seek to focus on what unites us as followers of

Christ, rather than on what divides us. The six Covenant Affirmations remind us to keep our eyes on the essentials. Could we make a longer list of doctrinal positions and seek agreement on all of it to be “orthodox”? I suppose, but our ECC heritage holds on to the maxim: “In essentials, unity; non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

Along with other Swedish immigrant groups with a Pietistic background, including the Baptist General Conference and the Evangelical Free Church, the ECC also used its Swedish heritage as a way to separate itself from other American denominations.

When Swedish immigrants arrived in the United States, they faced the common problem of culture shock experienced by foreign immigrants, so they sought ways in which they

could keep their Swedish heritage alive. The ECC was “formed in order to give a religious identity to this group among Swedes in America. . . . The Mission Friends sought their own Swedish-American religious identity and culture within the diverse

American environment.”23 They held to traditions, but were not rigid, so long as the gospel was preached. Olsson writes,

The Covenant church was not a temple but a listening post [for the gospel]. It was a place where people assembled to hear God speak in song and word and to see God act in the salvation of soul. During these [beginning] years the educational ministry of the church also was designed to win souls. The essence of the Sunday school instruction was to reach children about Jesus, which meant dealing them to Christ as Savior.24

Swedish ethnicity not only played an important role in the formation of the ECC in America, but it also influenced the formation of a free church. In America, Swedish immigrants, freed from their earlier imposed supremacy of the state church in Sweden, encountered the idea of an independent church. Scott E. Erickson wrote, “The Mission

Friends did not adopt confessionalism by remaining tied to the [Swedish Lutheran]

Agastana Synod, nor did they join the Baptists, Methodists or Free. Their free-church heritage provided the basis for the founding of an ethnic independent denomination.”25

Later, it would be their immigrant identity that would drive their Pietistic ties to reach into other immigrant groups in the twentieth century, but not before their exclusive use of Swedish language would be questioned. In the first forty to fifty years of existence, the Swedish-speaking denomination would be challenged by third- and fourth-generation

23 Erickson, David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church, 73.

24 Olsson, By One Spirit, 519.

25 Ibid., 98.

Swedes who had acculturated into American society. The test was to break out of the

Swedish immigrant identity and become truly an American multicultural church, gladly embracing all people. With its immigrant roots, the ECC was uniquely positioned to identify with the challenges of other immigrant communities in America, and thus positioned itself as a truly missional community in its church planting vision. Today, the

ECC finds itself as one of the fastest-growing denominations in America and identifies itself as a truly multicultural denomination. Patricia Miller, “Could We Learn from the

Evangelical Covenant Church,” writes,

From having almost no churches that were ethnic or multi-ethnic, the ECC reports that 22.8% of its churches are now ethnic or multi-ethnic. Ethnic and multi-ethnic churches are growing three times as fast as the denomination as a whole. In 40 years ECC membership has doubled, from 66,000 to over 130,000, with weekly attendance higher than the membership making the ECC one of the fastest growing churches in America.26

Now in the second decade of the twenty-first century, Cornerstone has been newly planted in Southern California’s multiethnic Coachella Valley within the Covenant family of churches. It has been planted with the seeds of its Pietistic roots of the Swedish

Mission Friends. It grows from its Covenant DNA with a deep desire for all people to know the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, an independent and free domination from doctrines or confessions which relies solely upon Scripture and, like its Swedish roots, inspires this church plant to reach other American immigrant groups with the gospel.

26 Patricia Miller, “Could We Learn from the Evangelical Covenant Church,” We Confess Newsletter, April-June 2012.

CHAPTER 5

A THEOLOGY OF A CHURCH PLANTING STRATEGY FOR TRANSFORMATION

The purpose and strategy of church planting can be understood simply by reading the pages of the Bible. Church planting can be seen in the context of God’s larger mission for establishing his kingdom on earth—God’s ultimate purpose for his covenant people.

As quoted in the Introduction of this paper, Lo points that “starting movements as an ‘end game’ is crucial. This is because Jesus comes not only to give individuals personal salvation, but also to start a missional movement that results in ‘this gospel of the kingdom . . . [being] preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations [so that] the end will come’” (Matthew 24:13).1 Jesus knew his purpose in life: “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life” (John 10:10). In this verse, Jesus comes, John reminds his readers, not only to give individual personal salvation in eternity, but also that we would share his purpose to give us meaning in life in the here and now. Jesus’ words and deeds are aimed strategically with this end in mind. His choice of twelve disciples, the amount of time he spent training them, and his directives as to how ministry

1 Lo, “Foundations of Discipling for Church Planting Movements throughout the Nations through Epicentre Church,” 2.

should take place can be understood and interpreted with this knowledge of his end purpose.

Jesus’ teaching reveals to his strategy for establishing the kingdom of God. In the common language and illustrations of his day, he uses the teaching methodology of parables to speak of the establishment of the kingdom of God.2 Matthew records Jesus’ teaching in chapter 13: the kingdom is to grow like seeds that are planted with a yield of

“a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown” (Matthew 13:23). Or, the kingdom begins with the smallest seed, the mustard plant, and becomes “the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree” (Matthew 13:32). God’s plan is that his kingdom would grow as seeds that are sown grow.

The gospels of the New Testament are narratives of how God’s kingdom is established on earth through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In the book of Acts, Jesus gives a clear plan for growing God’s kingdom on earth through his Church: “And [Jesus] said to

2 Klyne R. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Wm. B Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2008), 2.

3 Ibid., 171.

them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’”4 The book of Acts continues the growth of God’s kingdom reaching from

Jerusalem to the end of the earth and until his return.

The expectation must be that God’s continued desire and plan are for his kingdom to grow. A kingdom cannot grow if no churches are planted. It follows then that kingdom values will fail to transform individuals and their communities where there is no church planting. The planting of Cornerstone was engaged as a discipleship process of growing individuals and God’s kingdom using three core practices (identifying with the life of

Jesus, embodying true koinonia, and interacting with the surrounding community). The desired result was the transformation of believers from being passive consumers to becoming maturing, risk-taking disciples.

The Gospels paint a picture of a Messiah carrying out the will of his Father. Jesus the Son says, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you have me to do” (John 17:4). Jesus the Savior promises his presence to his people as they continue this mission (Matthew 28:20). The verbs Jesus uses in Matthew’s gospel—“send,” “go,”

“proclaim,” “heal,” “cast out demons,” “make peace,” “witness,” “teach,” and “make disciples”5—help his hearers and readers to grasp the missional nature of his Church. The people of the Church are “God’s missionary people in a local context” called to his

4 In Acts 1:8, Jesus foreshadows the birth of the church planting movement through the physical presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

5 David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991), 83.

purpose to establish and grow his kingdom.6

This missionary purpose stems from the very nature of God. As Jurgen Moltmann contends, “Mission is not primarily an activity of the church, but an attribute of God. God is a missionary God. . . . Mission is thereby seen as a movement from God to the world; the church is viewed as an instrument for that mission. . . . There is a church because there is a mission, not vice versa.”7 According to David J. Bosch, “Mission is not primarily an activity of the church, but an attribute of God. God is a missionary God.”8

God’s involvement in mission is not peripheral to who he is, but it stands at the center of his relationship with humankind. His declaration of purpose is heard in the Garden with the first promise that fallen creation would be redeemed (Genesis 3:15). The Old

Testament God reveals a God whose pursuit of his people is passionate and unending. As the biblical narrative unfolds, God’s purpose of reconciling the nations to himself is unrelenting. The New Testament narratives of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and return are at the crux of history, looking into the very heart of God. In his love, God sent his Son into the world that the world might be saved through him (Romans 5:9-10). Frost and

Hirsch declare, “God is a missionary—he sent his Son into our world, into our lives, into human history.”9

6 Charles Van Engen, God's Missionary People: Rethinking the Purpose of the Local Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1991), 27.

7 Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclsiology (London: SCM Press, 1977), 64.

8 Bosch, Transforming Mission, 389-390.

9 Frost and Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), 39.

A Biblical Pattern for Church Planting

Paul’s missional call to church planting as the mode for carrying out God’s mission to the Gentiles was remarkable. Acts 14:21-23 describes a strategy that serves as a model for missional church planting through three distinct parts: identifying with the life of Jesus, embodying true koinonia, and interacting with the surrounding community.

The three core practices in Cornerstone’s church planting plans follow this pattern.

The Apostle Paul’s first missional call was to preach the Good News: “They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples” (Acts 14:21).

The preaching of the gospel was backed up by the transforming potential of the Holy

Spirit. The result of their preaching gave several examples that whenever faithful preaching was carried out, conversions resulted. Wherever Paul went throughout his ministry, he exerted tremendous zeal in preaching the gospel, and people were won to

Christ. When people entrusted their lives to Christ, they became his disciples and followers. At Cornerstone, this practice is called “identifying with the life of Jesus.”

The second component on which Paul focused was to edify the new Christians:

“They returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith” (Acts 12:21-22). Paul went through Syria and Cilicia strengthening the churches and encouraging the believers. To Paul, encouraging was not a passive activity but one accomplished with a sense of urgency, pleading, and exhortation. At Cornerstone, this practice is called “embodying true koinonia.”

The third component of Paul’s missional ministry was seen through the process of establishing local churches. “Paul and Barnabus appointed elders . . . in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust”

(Acts 12:23). In the churches of Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, no infrastructure, organization, or leadership existed, and Paul, after helping to establish the churches, encouraged them to become self-governing. Paul contextualized the gospel for each community through his church planting journeys. At Cornerstone, this practice is called

“interacting with the surrounding community.”

Both an inside approach (“come and see”) and an outside approach (“go and dwell”) are included in Paul’s church planting pattern. At Cornerstone both are combined in the vision statement “Inside Out Church.” The emphasis is that embodying koinonia, a

Greek word translated as “fellowship,” leads believers from worship and identification with the life of Jesus, to partnering together through practicing faith in their contexts in the surrounding community. This is the heart of a church planting discipleship model.

A brief study of the Greek word koinonia is helpful to an understanding of early

Christians being called together in the journey of discipleship, despite cultural or ethnic difference. This word, which also represents the second of our three core church planting practices for Cornerstone, appears nineteen times in most editions of the Greek New

Testament. In the New International Version, koinonia is translated “fellowship” twelve times, “sharing” three times, and “participation” and “contribution” twice each. Other

meanings can be linked with it such as “sharing” or “partnering.”10 When koinonia is used in Scripture, it is evident that a partnership is involved between individuals and churches (2 Corinthians 8:4). Some of the attributes of partnership include intimacy (1

John 1:3), identification with others (1 Corinthians 10:16), sharing (Philippians 1:5), and fellowship (Galatians 2:9). Paul used the word koinonia in the context of the church in the journey of life together.

In his partnership with the Philippians, Paul emphasized the importance of having the same goal and mind in their fellowship together (Philippians 2:12; 3:12-17). The strength of koinonia partnership was evident in the shared vision of the ministry and was a radical lifestyle which stunned the on looking world. Bosch’s commentary on the early church states,

The revolutionary nature of the early Christian mission manifested itself in the new relationships that came into being in the community, the Jew and the Roman, the Greek and the barbarian, the free and the slave. . . . The women and the men accepted one another as brothers and sisters. . . . In fact, the Christian community in its faith was so different from anything known in the ancient world that it often made no sense to others.11

Missional partnership means equals are bound together in mutual confidence, unified purpose, and united efforts. The partners accept equal responsibility, authority, praise, and blame, and they share burdens, joys, and defeats. Koinonia partnership means joint church planting, joint oversight and legislation, and joint ministry programing. Only the closest bond in Christ enriched by humility, love, confidence, and self-giving will

10 Gerhard Kittel, Gerhard Freidrich, and Geoffrey W. Bromiley, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Theology, Vol. III (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), s. v. koinonia.

11 Bosch, Transforming Mission, 48.

actualize partnership. Koinonia partnership is a relationship rooted in missional identification with the church on the deepest level of fellowship, and in the sharing of mutual burdens, interests, purposes, and goals. Koinonia partnership is not circumstantial; it is a matter of life, health, and relationship. It is the very nature of the Christian faith.

Koinonia partnership is not optional; it is bound up in the very character of Christian fellowship and progress of expanding God’s kingdom. Experience of koinonia is the discipleship process that leads consuming believers (“come and see”) to becoming active, producing disciples of Christ

In their definition for the practice of koinonia, Frost and Hirsch point out that “the missional church is always outward looking, always changing (as culture continues to change) and always faithful to the word of God.”12 The Church needs local churches practicing koinonia partnership that are indigenous to the cultures they seek to reach, not

“badly fitted imports from somewhere else.”13

This will serve to establish the pattern for biblical discipleship and demonstrate how church planting is God’s design for reaching lost people and transforming them from consumer-believers to active, producing disciples. In an ongoing debate to the primary thrust of the missional church being either worship-centered or discipleship-centered,

Cornerstone’s desire is to embrace both. Its vision statement is a reminder: Cornerstone is an “Inside Out” church. That is, it is both inward-worshiping and outward-sending.

Cornerstone, in its three core practices, endeavors to break out of this debate to live out

12 Frost and Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come, 7.

13 Van Engen, God's Missionary People, 116.

Jesus’ three commands: to love God, to love neighbor, and to love the world.

Church Planting in the Evangelical Covenant Church Tradition

The ECC regards itself as a family of churches that have voluntarily formed a covenant to work together for the purpose of advancing the mission of the Kingdom of

God. The ECC’s 2011 Mission and Ministry Report asserts, “We are committed . . . to start[ing] and strengthen[ing] healthy missional churches, much in the same manner that the Apostle Paul started and continued to strengthen permanent worshiping communities.

We believe the local church is God’s basic unit to carry out his mission in the world.”14

While diversity exists in church planting styles throughout regions of the ECC, what is common among all Covenant churches is an emphasis on four essentials: (1) the authority of the Bible, (2) a strong sense of mission, (3) a willingness to work together with other churches, and (4) the necessity of new birth in Christ Jesus.15 These four essentials resonate with the beliefs of Covenant founders in the beginnings of the denomination in

America (see figure 10), as explained in the ECC’s membership handbook. All ECC congregations hold to the ancient Christian expression, “In essentials unity, in non- essentials liberty, in all things charity.”16 The four essentials define the ECC as “biblical”

(driven by the desire to follow the Holy Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, as the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct); “devotional” (driven by the desire to

14 The Evangelical Covenant Church in America, 2011 Mission and Ministry Report of the Evangelical Covenant Church (Chicago: Covenant Publications, 2011), 3.

15 The Evangelical Covenant Church in America, “The Preamble to the Constitution and Bylaws of the Evangelical Covenant Church” (Chicago: Covenant Publications, completely revised in 2001 and amended in 2011).

16 Ibid.

grow in relationship with Christ); “missional” (driven by the desire to reach people with the Good News); and “connectional” (driven by the desire to do all of this together as cooperating churches).17

Commitment Commitment Historical Influence Sentiment Summary

The Authority Protestant Where is it written? Biblical of Scripture Reformation

New/Deeper How goes your Pietism Devotional Life in Christ walk?

Evangelism/ Lost/found Moravian Mission Missional Compassion Hurting/helped

The Body of “I am a companion Founding Rationale Connectional Christ to all who fear me.”

Figure 10. The Four Enduring Commitments of the Evangelical Covenant Church18

In the tradition of the Pietists of the eighteenth and ninetieth century, the ECC’s history, distinctive, and theology have their character and expression in church planting.

The term “Mission Friends” was an early nickname given to Covenant people, and

Covenanters, as they like to call themselves, have from the beginning sought to build a culture of friendship in Christ, pursuing the mission of God together (again, this references the “Inside Out” idea). As the ECC describes itself, “The Covenant is not a

17 Ibid.

18 The Evangelical Covenant Church, Mission Friends: The Meaning of Membership, “Session One: The Mission of God” (Chicago: Covenant Publications, 2011).

church organization in the ordinary sense, but a mission society having churches as members. These churches have consolidated together because of the missionary spirit which led them to missionary enterprises long ago too large for any single church to undertake.”19 And in the words of its current denominational president, Gary Walters,

“The Evangelical Covenant Church from its beginnings has been in it together to see more disciples, among more populations, in a more caring and just world.”20 In their nearly 150-year life, the early history, theology and distinctives of these Covenanters continue to find expressions through church planting.

Over the past thirty years, the Evangelical Covenant Church has established itself as a church planting leader in the United States and Canada.21 During this time, the ECC established a church planting model which has five phases (discussed in Chapter 7 of this paper and illustrated in Appendix 3). This common model is provided in the ECC’s manual titled “Church Planting Training Manual,” in which the experience, training, and coaching of hundreds of churches are presented. It is helpful for starting churches to build their particular identities upon on a strong foundation.

The first “identity” discussed is “Classroom Churches.” These are congregations based upon the premise that believers gather for edification and scatter for ministry. The primary focus is to educate believers, equipping them to walk out the doors on Sunday

19 The Evangelical Covenant Church, Mission Friends: The Meaning of Membership, “Session Two: The Mission of the Evangelical Covenant Church” (Chicago: Covenant Publications, 2011).

20 Don Meyer, “Deeper in Christ, Further in Mission,” The Covenant Reporter, spring 2012.

21 Evangelical Covenant Church, “Chapter 10: Building on a Strong Start—Durability and Beauty,” in “Church Planting Training Manual” (unpublished handbook, presented at a church planting training workshop, Loveland, CO, April 2005).

morning and out into the world where they are the ministers. Their focus is didactic in approach with most of the Sunday worship service focused on teaching the Bible.

The second identity discussed is “Issue-Driven Churches.” These are churches which are set up around one or two crucial issues, such as advancing family values or opposing abortion. Everyone in the church is expected to hold an extremely strong view on the designated issue, and the common view is reinforced in every possible setting.

The third identity is “Community-at-Worship Churches.” These churches concentrate on gathering the community of believers for the purpose of worship. It does not matter whether the worship is liturgical, charismatic, or southern gospel, the focus is on experiencing the presence of God together.

The fourth identity is “Cell Churches,” which have many variations and can be either be large or small. They operate on two levels. The basic level is the cell, a small group, the primary point of contact for involvement. The second level is the celebration of worship, occurring as often as once a week or as little as once a month.

The fifth identity is “Generational Churches.” These are designed to reach a specific age group such as Gen-Xers or Millennials. These churches will implement a strategy that focuses on elements of generational sub-cultures like certain types of music, art, or media that attract potential members.

The sixth identity is “Seeker-Sensitive Churches.” These are similar to the

“community-at-worship” churches, with the exception that they are more sensitive to the needs of “seekers”—people who are seeking to find out about Christianity. Many religious terms are translated into language that non-Christians can understand. More

emphasis in worship is placed on performance than on participation. This model works well for reaching a consumer culture.

The seventh identity is “Program Churches,” which focus on providing services designed for youth, children, senior adults, recovering alcoholics, parents with troubled teens, divorce recovery, and the like. People find their way into the congregation through participation in programs. To start such a church requires the immediate implementation of one or two quality programs that will be added to as quickly as possible. This model works well when goods and services of the church can draw people in to meet their consumer needs.

The eighth identity is “Mission-Driven Churches.” These are congregations that find their impetus from their collective mission, such as the feeding of the poor or the resettlement of refugees from other countries. Their calling tends to be compassion-based engaged in helping the poor, the needy, or the disadvantaged. New people are welcomed and assimilated as they participate in the common mission.

Most churches are not pure examples of any one model. The genius of God’s plan is that each one develops and therefore has the vision, values, and passions of its core group leaders leading each in a particular outreach direction. In one sense, there can be as many church plants in a particular area as there are personalities of people allowing for a multitude of outreach and evangelistic opportunities in a community.

One church in the ECC, Bayside Covenant Church of Sacramento, California, under the innovative leadership of Pastor Ray Johnston, has planted over a dozen churches into the Sacramento area, some only miles from each other. In spite of their proximity, each one is vital in reaching its own people group within the same city. As the

local church planting personality takes root, the effective structures in the ECC church planting manual help build up the church plant involvement though the five-phased model.

Church Planting as Whole-life Transformation

Frost and Hirsch assert, “The task of every church plant is to understand the culture to be reached, and to bring the undiluted gospel to that culture in a form that will be dynamic, whereby the constant message of the gospel interacts with specific relative human situations.”22 This is the task of discipleship: to move into the world and contextualize the message of the gospel bringing the world to Christ. Cornerstone adopted the missional pattern for church planting to engage each believer in a mindset of a missionary.

In his outreach to humanity, our missionary God performs an unrepeatable feat of disciple-making when he takes on human form. He identifies with humankind in a way that we will never be able to identify with those we seek to reach, but nonetheless the model has been set. Furthermore, Jesus took on the particular cultural garb of his environment. He came not just as any human being, but as a Jewish male, wearing Jewish clothes, speaking Aramaic, and living by the cultural values of first-century Israel. Ron

Martoia jests that it would have done Jesus little good to come speaking French.23 By taking on the culture of first-century Israel, Jesus’ incarnation represents the method of

22 Frost and Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come, 83.

23 Ron Martoia, Morph! The Texture of Leadership for Tomorrow’s Church (Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, 2003), 17.

our missionary God entering a particular time and place.

To follow Jesus into new environments today requires his followers to imitate his humility, to be willing to surrender their preferences for the joy of the mission, and to adapt to those being reached. This is exactly the task of disciple-making for a church planting team. While a church plant can never become 100 percent acculturated, by its very nature of survival in starting and growing, it will either adapt and grow into its surrounding culture or find itself irrelevant and fade away. 24 In the words of the Apostle

Paul,

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23) [italics mine]

Contextualization is therefore a thoroughly biblical disciple-making concept. It was lived and taught by the apostles and continued in the post-New Testament church era as well. Church planting is the New Testament model for engaging believers into active, producing followers of Christ. The Church is best understood as a community of people on mission with God. The Gospels paint a picture of a Messiah who is carrying out the will of his Father. The Church, explains Van Engen, is “God’s missionary people in a local context.”25

24 Sherwood G. Lingenfelter and Marvin K. Mayers, Ministering Cross-Culturally (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1986), 24.

25 Van Engen, God's Missionary People, 27.

God’s people, we join in this missio Dei. We follow a missionary God, and we exist as his sent people, sent to establish his kingdom on earth through extending his church. “As the father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). God calls us out of the world, and then sends us right back into it to serve as his agents of redemption and transformation.26 This is in consonance with Cornerstone’s Inside Out vision and echoed by Brian McLaren’s reflection that “Jesus comes with saving love for the world. He creates the church as a missional community to join him in his mission of saving the world. He invites me to be part of this community to experience his saving love and participate in it.”27

In the process of church planting, believers are engaged in the opportunity to be truly missional and learn to think like missionaries. Planting churches engages believers in the opportunity to turn from being consumers of religion and to join the God of mission in his plan for establishing his kingdom on earth through his Church.

26 Darrell L. Gruder, Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998), 11.

27 Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan/Emergent TS, 2004), 108.

PART THREE: MINISTRY STRATEGY

CHAPTER 6

GOALS AND PLANS

At Cornerstone, the Leadership Board adopted three core practices in its model for church planting—practices that would engage believers to live out the mission of

God. These three core practices (identifying with the life of Jesus, embodying true koinonia, and interacting with the surrounding community) have grown from the ECC’s

Mission Friends heritage and have been the focus of the ministries of Cornerstone since its launch.

While Christians can state broadly that the main purpose in the Christian life is to carry out the mission of God in the world, more specifically, the heart of this mission is that of making disciples of Jesus, as given in his Great Commission: “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20) [italics mine]. Taken in the context of Matthew’s gospel, the command to make disciples is a broad one, carrying with it for each individual, the core practices of what a disciple is and does: (1) to commit to live the teachings of Jesus, (2) to interrelate as disciples with one

another, and (3) to dwell in the community, as sent by God.1 Those who undertake the task of disciple-making are disciples themselves, discovering what it is to live as Jesus’ followers. Like the Mission Friends, whose deep religious convictions led them to

America in the nineteenth century, so is Cornerstone a missionary community, carrying out its three core practices commanded by Jesus himself in his Great Commission and

Great Commandment.2 Jesus summarized these in Matthew 22: 37-40, saying, “‘Love the

Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew

22:37-40) [italics mine].

Through the action of planting a new church in California’s Coachella Valley, a core group of believers engaged in a mission that integrated its “come and see” and “go and dwell” branches into a disciple-making model. At Cornerstone, the vision to be an

“Inside Out Church” has been drawing believers together towards an identification with the life of Jesus, has been engaging believers in koinonia fellowship, and has been sending them out to the community to go and dwell, practicing these values. This is the discipleship process that engages believers in a life style that is active and producing. The next section of this chapter will explain the three core practices of disciple-making, the result of which moves believers from being passive consumers of religion to becoming maturing, risk-taking disciples of Jesus Christ, multiplying themselves and churches.

1 Bosch, Transforming Mission, 74.

2 Gibbs, Church Next, 71.

Core Practice 1: Celebrate—Identifying with the Life of Jesus

Scripture calls disciples together to worship. Hebrews 10:25 implores believers,

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together . . . but encouraging one another.” Something very powerful takes place when a disciple of Christ celebrates worship. Worship, at its essence, is the understanding that God is at once beyond and above us, yet at the same time near us. Paul reminds his readers that worship is a part of the transforming work of identifying with the life of Jesus when he writes, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of

God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:1-2).

The mystery of the incarnation of Jesus’ life (God becoming flesh) becomes real when one acknowledges that the transcendent God of the universe has come intimately near and when one engages God’s immanence. Because of this, Cornerstone’s Sunday worship gatherings serve as an important vehicle for disciple-developing.3 Even for those who have not yet committed themselves to Jesus, the worship gathering can serve as a powerful evangelistic tool, a beginning step for becoming a disciple.

Before disciples can effectively go and dwell in the community, they must first reflect the one, Jesus, to whom they are giving witness. For this reason, Cornerstone aspires towards an authentic worship. As the church comes together to worship, God

3 Erwin Raphael McManus, An Unstoppable Force: Daring to Become the Church God Had in Mind (Orange, CA: Yates & Yates LLP, 2001), 81, 177.

reveals himself in the reading and teaching of the Scriptures, sharing in the sacraments of communion and baptism, engaging in powerful prayer and participating in the warmth of fellowship. In Richard Foster’s words, “To worship is to experience Reality, to touch life.”4 One cannot truly worship without being changed. In this way, important spiritual formation takes place as God’s people worship. They identify with Jesus, decide to follow him, and become his disciples. Before a disciple can effectively “go and dwell,” he or she must be continually renewed with the deep and abiding identification with Jesus in worship.

At Cornerstone, worship leads to a response to God’s revelation. God’s clearest revelation occurs as the Bible is preached; this leads the congregation to respond through offering financial giving, singing or listening to music, prayer, taking communion, and benediction. As weekly worship is planned, the focus is to weave the different aspects of worship around the themes conveyed in that Scripture preached. The worship setting is one in which a deep commitment is made to foster a sense of sacredness in which recognition is given that Jesus is truly present, where God is encountered and where the congregation hears from him, and respond with full hearts.

The following eight worship activities are aspects of Cornerstone’s gatherings: teaching, preaching, music, prayer, communion, giving, story, and art. Some of these occur nearly every week (musical worship, teaching, prayers for the people of God, giving), while others are more occasional. All they represent a spectrum of what occurs at

Cornerstone’s corporate gatherings.

4 Richard Foster, Celebration of Disciplines: The Path to Spiritual Growth (San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers Inc., 1978), 158.

Teaching and Preaching

Jesus told his followers that part of disciple-making is “teaching them to do everything I command” (Matthew 28:20). For that reason, Cornerstone has seriously taken the role of the Scriptures as God’s revelation and the only source of authority, and therefore has sought to live lives of obedience to the Bible. As Doug Pagitt writes in

Reimagining Spiritual Formation, “We focus our efforts on trying to figure out if our lives could be relevant to the story of God, not if the Bible can be relevant to our lives.”5

This is primarily accomplished when the practices of our lives become a part of the greater narratives of Scripture. At Cornerstone, our “go and dwell” stories are a part of

God’s greater story, working themselves out in our mission to the community.

Music

Words, at times, fail to express what is in the hearts and minds of a person who is committed to following Jesus’ command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). Music and song open the door for the follower to express his or her heart when words alone fail. As the church worships in song, the hope is to meet God on a heart level, receiving his love and grace, and expressing the deep affections of the heart for him. In addition to utilizing modern praise songs, which are culturally and lyrically helpful, Cornerstone regularly uses hymns in a desire to be multigenerational. And in a time when many congregations are dropping choral music, Cornerstone has embraced a contemporary choir with ages thirteen to

5 Doug Pagitt, Reimagining Spiritual Formation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 123.

eighty. At Cornerstone, music allows for various opportunities to participate in acts of worship rather than to passively receive entertainment.

Prayer

Conversation with God stands at the center of the spiritual life. When Cornerstone comes together as a worshiping community, prayer is at the center. At each gathering, prayer is led by those leading worship and teaching, individuals present their needs to

God in response to the Scripture preached, and there is a station where people can go to receive prayer for needs they have. This station focuses largely on prayer for healing

(physical, emotional, and spiritual). While the great majority of evangelicals believe that

God still heals people, they often hesitate in asking him to do so. For many, this comes as a result of fear of failure or fear of not receiving the desired answer. Agnes Sanford explains, however, that normally God chooses to work through us rather than for us, and, in this matter of healing, he often requires our faith to pray on behalf of the sick person.6

St. Augustine revised his views of healing prayer when he realized how often God actually did bring miracles (he had personally seen seventy miracles by the time of his later writings); likewise, at Cornerstone we make prayer for healing a normal part of our worship experience.7

Communion

At Cornerstone, communion is celebrated monthly; stations are set up on both

6 Agnes Sanford, The Healing Light, rev. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972), 4.

7 Francis MacNutt, Healing (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1974), 298.

sides of the room where communion is waiting to be served. The members of the congregation (sometimes alone, but often with their families or friends) leave their seats during a responsive portion of worship and come forward to take the elements as they are ready to do so. Music, prayer, offering, and other activities are occurring during this responsive time as well.

Participation in the Lord’s Supper is a powerful form of worship with the capacity to contribute greatly to one’s spiritual formation. In an effort to avoid the errors of

Catholic theology in this area, many evangelicals have too often removed any sense of experiencing the actual presence of Christ; the Church is thus left with little expectation of actually meeting God. At Cornerstone, communion is a powerful time to both remember and experience the actual presence of Jesus as promised to his followers

(Matthew 28:20). Participating in the sacrament of communion is, as Stanley Grenz states in his book Renewing the Center, a “visual sermon symbolically proclaiming the Word of

God.”8

Jesus gave his church a meal of celebration and remembrance. One of the most significant acts of worship for believers is sharing in this communion together. In taking the bread and the cup, the follower of Jesus participates in and proclaims the death and resurrection of Jesus, remembering the price he paid that all would know him.

Giving

At Cornerstone, giving is a part of the worship and symbolizes a tangible response

8 Stanley Grenz, Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2000), 317.

and participation of thanksgiving to God, a critical means by which God shapes a disciple. In its annual budget, Cornerstone strives to model this giving by giving back a tithe of 10 percent of the budget back to the church planting movement in the ECC.

Additionally, in only six years our congregation has purchased and moved into a new facility to house twenty-seven thousand square feet of ministry.9 This move was a fulfillment of the ECC church planting model (see Appendix 3, the Seven Seasons of

Church Planting and Multiplication10).

Many are surprised by how often Jesus spoke about money. The grip disciples have on their possessions plays a very prominent role in their relationship to God. In

Scripture, followers of Jesus are marked by generosity, simplicity, and trust in a God who provides. The Cornerstone church family is truly a generous congregation. This generosity is best seen not by how much budget is allocated towards the church itself, but by how much is given away throughout the community (as will be discussed, to some extent, in chapter 7).

Story Sharing

The church has many voices. The individual stories of how God has worked and is working in and through individuals at Cornerstone are powerful. Regularly “Moments for Ministry” and testimonials are scheduled in the worship gathering to share stories of

God’s transforming work in people’s lives. There is a certain messiness in this valued

9 Moving into a new facility came as a result of working the NCD assessment tools and will be discussed in Chapter 7.

10 Evangelical Covenant Church, “Chapter 10: Building on a Strong Start—Durability and Beauty.”

practice. Most people are not polished in their delivery, and many do not yet have a happy ending. This kind of vulnerability (which is modeled in the preaching and teaching as well) is one way that brings a sense of authenticity to worship.

Art

By creating an atmosphere for worship, providing visual expressions and symbols of the faith, and providing opportunities for members to share what they have created

(poetry, painting, music, or sculpture), art enhances the worship experience. Many times, artists have been incorporated into the order of worship to interpret and enhance the

Scripture preached. Craftsmanship and the creation of artwork are found in the Bible as a form of worship (Exodus 31:1-6). This is an additional medium as a form of helping

God’s people enter into worship (Exodus 30). The furnishings of the tabernacle, the beauty of the temple itself, and frequent visual events, from the burning bush to the spectacle of Pentecost, remind us that throughout Scripture, visuals help God’s people to experience God’s Word.11 Encouraging artistic creation and the appreciation of beauty as a part of making disciples is another function the worship gathering can serve.

Benediction

Each Sunday at Cornerstone, worship formally ends with a benediction when, by

God’s blessing, each person goes out into the world to be the church, to bless and serve others in the name of Christ, and to live in obedience to the teachings of Jesus. Early in my ministry, I was drawn to the saying attributed to Martin Luther that a congregation is

11 William Dyrness, Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2001), 84.

not dismissed after worship; it is dispersed. Clayton Schmit, in his book, Sent and

Gathered: A Worship Manual for the Missional Church, writes of the “Inside Out” purpose in worship: “In the final moment of worship, the gathered become the sent. They are not dismissed, as if worship were adjourned. They are sent forth in the enactment of

God’s mission in the local community and the world (worship in action).”12 In the benediction, worship redirects its focus from the liturgy of assembly (“inside”) to become the living liturgy of discipleship dwelling in the world (“outside”). In the words of Ernest

Southcott, “The holiest moment of the church service is the moment when God’s people—strengthened by preaching and sacrament—go out of the church door into the world to be the Church. We do not go to church; we are the church.”13

At Cornerstone, one of the three primary ministry structures is the worship gathering. Like all of Cornerstone’s ministry structures, the worship gathering is seen not only as an offering presented to God, but it is also recognized for its power and potential for further shaping into his image those who know Christ. In addition, it draws those who are far from God to faith. For those who are investigating the faith, the worship gathering functions as an experiential path for transforming consumer-believers seeking to be entertained into becoming active participants as Jesus Christ’s lifelong disciples.

Core Practice 2: Connect—Embodying True Koinonia

Ever since the day of Pentecost, the Church has been known as marked by the love and grace of Jesus. The depth and quality of this community made it attractive to

12 Clayton J. Schmit, Sent and Gathered: A Worship Manual for the Missional Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2009), 156.

13 Ernest Southcott, The Parish Comes Alive (New York: Morehouse-Barlow Co., 1956), 12.

those who would consider the claims of Christ, and the community itself had great shaping power in the formation of those who had committed themselves to following

Jesus. Building authentic community has a pivotal role in disciple-making. And so, expressions of community, such as small groups, mentoring relationships, and hospitality are Cornerstone’s second core practice. In this second practice, Cornerstone transitions from a focus on identifying with Jesus to partnering with one another in koinonia.

The church as community is central to Christian theology. It is reflected most fundamentally in the triune nature of God. At the heart of the universe, in God himself, one finds community. God never existed in relational isolation, but from eternity past, he has existed in joyful community as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This description pictures

God as a truly relational being and helps believers find themselves in God’s story. Out of this “cosmic dance,” God has created humanity for relationship with himself, to know him and join in with the rhythms of the universe. The Church stands as the earthly embodiment of this reality, beckoning the world to join the dance.14 As those who are now in Christ (Ephesians 2:6), the Church finds that the three-person God himself is the foundation for community.

Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper

This reality is reflected in the sacraments of worship. When Jesus commanded his followers to baptize disciples in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he was speaking of more than a ritual that initiates them into salvation (Matthew 28:19). The

14 Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2005), 52.

ordinance signifies a greater reality, namely one’s immersion life, a life that is now

“hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

Scripture proclaims that all believers have been baptized by one Spirit and into one body, that is, Christ’s body (1 Corinthians 12:13). In entering this new reality of immersion in the presence of God, followers of Jesus find themselves connected not only to God, but also to all others who have undergone this same baptism. The Church is the company of the baptized, made up of those who have undergone this same Trinitarian immersion. As Eugene Peterson states, “At the moment [of baptism] we are no longer merely ourselves by ourselves; from then on, we are ourselves in the community of similarly baptized persons.”15

In calling the New Testament churches to live in unity, Paul reminds them that they were parts of one body, that they had undergone the same baptism, and that whatever differences had existed between them before had been superseded by the work of Christ on their behalf (Galatians 3:26-28; Ephesians 4:3-5). Baptism also is a description of a “community in progress.” A church is made up baptized sinners in differing stages of spiritual progression, and will necessarily be an imperfect place.16

Grace is messy. The more graceful a church becomes, the more freedom people will feel to be real, and the messier church life will become. Speaking of her own baptism, Anne

Lamott humorously reminds her readers that we spend much of life trying to look good, act like put-together people, stay dry, and keep from slipping under. Baptism is “about

15 Ibid., 303.

16 Ibid., 312.

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surrender, giving into all those things we can’t control; it is a willingness to let go of balance and decorum and get drenched.”17

The connectedness of disciples in Christ is also reinforced every time the Lord’s

Supper is celebrated. In Holy Communion, followers declare that “life is found in communion with God and one another.”18 The early Christian community—who began their time by greeting one another with a holy kiss (itself a meaningful gesture of oneness and reconciliation)—worshiped in the knowledge that they were deeply united and that strains on relationships needed to be addressed. Paul’s admonition against participating in communion in an unworthy manner must be read in its surrounding context, primarily as a warning to those who would sin against the unity of the body (1 Corinthians 11:17-28).

The Role of Community

The New Testament describes the early Church as an identifiable group of people, not merely an abstract reality or invisible body. Those who would claim membership in the universal, invisible body of Christ without identifying with a visible community of

Christ followers are not living out a New Testament model of Christianity. Peterson writes, “We can no more be a Christian and have nothing to do with the church than we can be a person and not be in a family. It is part of the fabric of redemption.”19 Therefore, we must come together “inside” the body of Christ before we can go “outside” to dwell in the community; in order to be biblical, Cornerstone has chosen to be an “Inside Out

17 Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (New York: Pantheon Books, 1999), 231.

18 Gordon T. Smith, Supper in the Life of the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2005), 46.

19 Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing 1993), 8.

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Church.”

In addition, the Bible describes growth as disciples as dependent on being part of a community of believers. Spiritual formation is a group project (examples of this will be provided in Chapter 7). Paul speaks of believers reaching maturity and fullness in Christ only as they are all engaged in using the gifts God has given them (Ephesians 4:11-14;

Hebrews 10:25). If Jesus defined the greatest commandment as loving God and loving people, it would seem that much of the growth that God would work in the disciple cannot happen apart from life lived among other people they are learning to love. As stated in 1 John 4:20-21, “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: ‘Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.’”

Membership

Making a commitment to live and grow with others goes against the grain of our individualistic culture. Yet, at the same time, it resonates with a deeper place in us that knows all people were made to live their lives truly connected to other people. The younger generations especially are notorious non-joiners, and tend to be fickle as consumers of church. Their tendency is to live as “spiritual tourists,” picking up souvenirs as they move from one place to the next, rather than claiming a particular congregation as home.20

20 Wade Clark Roof, Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 176-177.

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Many churches seem to be advocating an ecclesiology which sees committed involvement in a local congregation in membership as unimportant, so long as the individual is committed in his or her walk with Christ and connects in some way with other believers. Belonging to an identifiable congregation would give way to the

“personal church of the individual” as each believer weaves together different options for his or her own life of faith. Contrary to this view, Todd Hunter points out that committed involvement in a congregation is vital to disciplemaking as a follower of Jesus. Hunter explains, “My Experience tells me that buildings are not the problem. Believers all over the world desire worship/training centers that allow them to move more quickly to advance the kingdom. . . . There is something very human about wanting a gathering place to worship.”21 Congregational gatherings must not be eliminated, but redeemed.22

This situation has prompted Cornerstone to take a “high bar” approach to church membership. Confronted with consumerism Christianity, Cornerstone chose to challenge potential members to a more serious commitment. Its hope is to use membership as a tool to make a “minimum standard” for the normal mode of what it means to be a disciple in the church community.23 Cornerstone desires that the normal Christian life be one which takes seriously the commitment to see Jesus transform its members, to serve him passionately, and to strive to do everything he has commanded disciples to do (Matthew

28:20).

21 Todd D. Hunter, Giving Church Another Chance: Finding New Meaning in Spiritual Practices (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010), 48.

22 Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2005), 106.

23 McManus, An Unstoppable Force, 200-224.

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In the Coachella Valley, where country club membership living is normal,

Cornerstone strives to redeem a biblical standard for membership. Ekklesia is the original

Greek word for “church”; literally it means “the called-out ones.” The word itself denotes being called out of something (the world) and into something else (the church). The cycle is complete when the “called-out ones” gather together around the person of Jesus (the first core practice of identifying with the life of Jesus), commit together to life in fellowship as members of Christ’s body (the second core practice of embodying true koinonia), and then are sent back into the world to dwell with compassion, mercy, and justice in and amongst the community (in anticipation of the third core practice of interacting with the surround community). At Cornerstone, we participate as members of

Christ’s body and anticipate Jesus’ promise as stated in Matthew 25: 34-36:

My father has blessed you! Come and receive the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world was created. When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, and when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was a stranger, you welcomed me, and when I was naked, you gave me clothes to wear. When I was sick, you took care of me, and when I was in jail, you visited me.

In seeking to be a partner member at Cornerstone, a person is pledging to live out his or her commitment to Jesus in a particular time and place, in the midst and with the help of a particular community of people. Cornerstone acknowledges that while as a church it belongs to the universal Church, God calls us to live out the faith in a particular local expression of the church. A commitment to that local body is required for a healthy practice of faithfully following Jesus. There is no lasting spiritual growth and no true love for God apart from brothers and sisters in Christ actually “doing life” together.24

24 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: A Discussion of Christian Fellowship (New York: Harber & Row Publishers, 1954), 23-24.

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Small Groups

Small groups become an important expression of community in this pursuit— doing life together. Small groups provide a safe place to investigate the claims of Christ with a community of people with whom a person can belong. Leonard Sweet observes,

“In the modern era, people came to church and asked, ‘Who is God?’ but today, if people come to church at all, they ask, ‘Who are God’s people? How does Christianity cash out in the community and practice?’”25 Inviting outsiders into small groups allows faith to become real. Gibbs writes, “In a small-group setting, unlike a one-time encounter, there is no time constraint to pressure people. . . . Individuals who have little prior knowledge of the gospel or exposure to Christian community especially need time to grow in understanding before they are ready to commit themselves.26

Much like worship gatherings, the approach at Cornerstone is to create a space for meaningful community to happen with believers. At Cornerstone, those who might not

“yet believe” have been welcomed into small groups. It is within these small groups that authentic Christian community develops and consumers of religion begin a transformation from getting (consuming) to giving to others (actively producing). The church begins to look like and live out authentic biblical community, as the Apostle Paul describes in Philippians 2:1-4:

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same

25 Leonard Sweet, Out of the Question . . . Mystery: Getting Lost in the GodLife Relationship (Loveland, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2004), 93.

26 Gibbs, Church Next, 202.

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love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

Hospitality

For Jesus, the banquet table was a very important symbol of the kingdom. Jesus modeled for his followers a radically inclusive “table fellowship,” in which he would regularly welcome notorious sinners, as well as the ethnically unacceptable (Samaritans and Gentiles), to eat and to enter into friendship with him.27 This practice was itself an embodied proclamation of the availability of the kingdom and the opportunity to receive the friendship and mercy of God. Probably the best known recipient of Jesus’ grace-filled hospitality is Zacchaeus, who stands as an example of those who were far from God and who recognize, in the meal, God’s invitation to them (Luke 19:1-10). Also, while making current disciples a part of these meals, Jesus was instructing them in the ways of the kingdom. Jesus’ followers would have understood that such inclusive fellowship was to be their way of living as well.

Cornerstone eats together often as an extension of living life together in koinonia.

The second core group meeting was a potluck, and since its beginning, the church has made efforts to eat together after worship every week. In addition to this, part of the hospitality ministry is to have families make a point of filling their tables with others, from inside and outside the church, on a monthly basis called “Dinners for Eight.” This simple ministry has been a key facet of assimilating into the church, as well as developing bonds between those in the church who might not naturally cross paths with

27 Sweet, Out of the Question . . . Mystery, 174.

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others, giving newcomers courage to join a small group and to foster more meaningful social relationships within the body.

This second core value is its expressions of community in Cornerstone. In small groups and through hospitality, people interact in meaningful ways and at different levels—reflecting the theological reality that followers of Jesus are deeply connected to one another through their shared connection to Jesus. Such examples of authentic community have great importance in the task of disciple-making. As Cornerstone connects into a community of people striving to become more and more like Jesus, the hope is that this growth moves people from being passive consumers of church to being producing, active follower of Jesus.

Core Practice 3: Contribute—Interacting with the Surrounding Community

Scripture has much to say about God’s heart toward issues of poverty and injustice. Biblical material can be summarized as follows: God cares deeply about injustice, does something about it, and much of what he chooses to do, he does through his people. Through the prophet Micah, God declares that what he requires of his people is “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with [their] God” (Micah 6:8). In

Amos 5:24, God proclaims his disdain for worship divorced from righteousness in the world: “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

Since the Church serves as a sign, instrument, and the world’s first taste of God’s kingdom, its mission must reflect God’s heart for the world. This will certainly mean the

Church joining God in his work of evangelization, as well as joining God in his work of compassion and justice. In the words of theologian Ray Anderson, “The mission of the

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church overrides its boundaries, spilling out into the world. . . . The church’s mission is not to build up an empire or kingdom but to disperse the mission of God through the lives of its members.”28 Both compassion and justice are vital, and as a church, Cornerstone is actively involved in the community to live out this call.

Compassion and Justice

On a local level, most of the social issues faced in the Coachella Valley would be considered issues of compassion rather than issues of justice, though some have deeper connections to the misuse of power. Such issues of justice in the Coachella Valley include immigration, housing for migrant workers, help for battered women and their children, education issues, homelessness, AIDS in the large homosexual resort community, and substance abuse. Scripture makes it clear that both compassion and justice are activities critical in God’s mission, and therefore the mission of the Church.

Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision, points this out his book, The Hole in Our

Gospel:

If church leaders do not have an outward vision to become salt and light in our world, to promote social and spiritual transformation, pursue justice, and proclaim the whole gospel, then the church will fail to realize its potential as an agent of change. It will become inwardly focused on meeting the needs of its members, to the exclusion of its nonmembers. It will be a spiritual cocoon, where Christians can retreat from a hostile world, rather than a “transformation station” whose primary objective is to change the world.29

The church’s mission, simply put, is to do all the good it can. The purpose of

28 Ray S. Anderson, An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 185.

29 Richard Stearns, The Hole in our Gospel (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009), 179.

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Cornerstone, as stated on the church website, is “Bringing Lives to Christ and Christ to

Everyday Life.”30 This directive involves evangelism and ministries of compassion and justice.

Compassionate Service

Early on, Cornerstone made its aim to make compassion and justice a normal part of congregational life. When it launched the grand opening as a church plant,

Cornerstone also launched Bargains Thrift Shop, its externally focused community service and self-funding project. With the help of sales and a volunteer army, the self- funding mission has helped create partners in the Coachella Valley’s large Hispanic community, which serves the Valley’s agricultural and resort/service industries.

Over the past six years after the planting of Cornerstone, the church has sent over twenty-five hundred children and youth to Alpine Christian Conference Center. Half of the children and youth have made decisions for Christ. In addition, Cornerstone’s outreach project has given away some $250,000 in used clothes, sponsored numerous families with clothes and furniture, and in the thrift shop volunteers have mentored hundreds of youth in the county’s delinquent youth community service program.

Cornerstone has made this one of its primary ministry structures for its outwardly focused ministry of compassion and justice. Its aim is to make the compassionate life part of the normal portrait of what a disciple of Jesus looks like at Cornerstone.

Evangelism

30 Cornerstone Covenant Church website, “Vision,” http://www.cornerstonehome.org/ ?i=14335&mid=2 (accessed November 1, 2012).

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Peterson observes that, in North America, the Christian’s primary method of bearing witness to the cross of Christ is verbal. The understanding of an incarnational life of action as evangelism has faded. Peterson writes,

[Evangelism] is carried out among us primarily by saying something. Such witness and preaching is commonly detached from a local context that is textured with ongoing personal relationships. . . . The language is largely formulaic, dominated by the rhetoric of advertising and public relations. This is a language suitable for crowds and strangers but of dubious usefulness in conveying anything personal, and Jesus’ work of salvation is nothing if not personal.31 In a pragmatic, consumer culture in which truth is determined in large part by whether or not something “works,” a faith must demonstrate its ability to make a difference in the world if it is to be considered at all. McManus writes, “For too long we have hidden behind the rightness of propositional truth and have ignored the question of whether or not [our faith] works.”32 Cornerstone’s outwardly focused ministries provided through its self-funding mission thrift store help its members to put feet on their faith while meeting some of the compassion and justice needs in their community. Gibbs and Bolger point out, “Those outside the faith are more interested in the ethics of Christians than their doctrine.”33 The result is that Cornerstone is able to use this core value to help move consumer-believers into active, producing disciples of Christ who reflect the heart of

God.

This pathway for moving consumer-believers into an active, producing lifestyle is important in Cornerstone’s discipleship model from its beginnings. There are some who will come to a new church gathering or small group. But others are more likely to

31 Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor, 216-217.

32 McManus, An Unstoppable Force, 58.

33 Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches, 124.

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respond to an invitation to participate in compassionate service through the many opportunities afforded through Cornerstone’s thrift store; this is a natural way to involve people who are not close to God.

The evangelistic function of compassionate ministry is much like that of worship: evangelism comes as a byproduct. Good compassion is good evangelism in this way. A consumer culture is savvy to what Frost and Hirsch term a “bait and switch” marketing approach, which seeks to sell religion and yet does not live out its message.34 In the consumer culture context of today, evangelism will have more to do with serving the world and less to do with getting one’s presentation right. In contrast to a salesperson, a servant does not present a product but gives himself or herself. The church must be about the business of calling those who follow Jesus to a way of life that brings about the reign of God on earth. Christian maturity cannot be defined as good Sunday attendance, regular devotions, and tithing. Rather, these and other means of disciple-making must be coupled with a deliberate practicing of the faith in concrete ways that benefit the world around us.

The world will be drawn to Jesus as the community of his followers become more and more like him. Cornerstone’s desire is to be a church that embraces its role as God’s missionary people, recognizing the critical importance of genuine spiritual growth taking place in its people. Bosch writes, “[The church’s] primary mission in the world is to be this new creation. Its very existence should be for the sake of the glory of God. Yet precisely this has an effect on the ‘outsiders.’ Through their conduct believers either

34 Frost and Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come, 156.

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attract outsiders or put them off.”35

Making compassionate service one of the primary ministry structures of the church brings the advantage of keeping the church outwardly focused. When ministry begins to serve the needs of only those within the body in a consumer-based religion, a type of ecclesial entropy seems to pull the church away from being a “go-and-dwell” church toward being a “come-and-see” church. Ministry to those within the church is an essential aspect of building authentic community, but if it exists without a missional focus, it becomes unhealthy. Cornerstone desires to have both inward ministry and outward mission to keep its members balanced. Anderson writes, “Mission without ministry can lead to imperialism. Ministry without mission can become narcissism.”36

Practicing compassionate service at Cornerstone helps its members to avoid these extremes and becomes a pathway to leading narcissistic consumer-believers to becoming active, producing disciples of Jesus Christ.

In June 2011, Cornerstone moved into its own church campus (see figure 11), as a part of its seven-stage growth plan (see appendix 3, Chart of Seven Seasons of Church

Planting & Multiplication).

35 Bosch, Transforming Mission, 168.

36 Anderson, An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches, 182.

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Figure 11. Cornerstone Covenant Church new campus, acquired June 2011 and Pastor Chris & Linda Hushaw at the Grand Opening of the new campus

The church campus is regarded not as a possession to be protected, but as an asset to be shared and used for the Coachella Valley. Currently the campus is being used for tutoring, a meeting place for a home-schooled children’s co-op, training courses for the unemployed and underemployed, classes developing résumés for job and life skills for employment, and a meeting space for local civic groups. The church facility may also host a proposed Hispanic college and seminary for training and educating prospective church planters, pastors, and church leaders. In addition, Cornerstone hosts the Coachella

Valley Ministerial Association for monthly prayer and luncheon. The property lives out the “Inside Out” vision of Cornerstone and is a springboard for serving the community.

Compassionate service at Cornerstone is an integral part of Cornerstone’s attempts to live out the mission of God, reflecting his love for a lost and hurting world.

As followers of Christ who desire to be shaped into his image, Cornerstone finds that a lifestyle of compassionate service is deeply significant in moving consumer-believers into being active, producing disciples of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, ministries of compassion and justice have a strong evangelistic effect on those investigating the faith, serving as a powerful tool for outreach to the community.

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CHAPTER 7

IMPLEMENTING AND ASSESSING THE PROCESS

The ECC presents its mission for starting new churches from inception to realization as a five-stage process (see Appendix 5). The church planting manual states that the pattern is a general flow developed and refined through the “experience of thousands of people, hundreds of successful church starts, and dozens of failures.”1 Its five-stage process acts as a general outline that can be used for church planting. It is lay- oriented and led, and provides a good model for developing active, producing disciples.

Phase 1: Discernment Stage

Much happened in the discernment stage of launching Cornerstone between the winter of 2005 and the fall of 2006.2 The first step in this journey of discernment was for my family and me to seek God’s guidance through prayer. The manual points out that the more that a church planting couple prays together about the vision and informs

1 Evangelical Covenant Church, “Chapter 1: The Need for New Churches,” “Church Planting Training Manual.”

2 This chapter, reporting on the church planting implementation of Cornerstone between the dates of June 2005 to September 2012, is presented in the first person.

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themselves of the process, the more they will experience together what God is calling them to do.3

In 2005, I was in the middle of discerning my call to plant a church. In what can only be described as a series of divine appointments, the Lord confirmed my call when I was assessed and approved by the ECC to begin my ministry. The final approval process consisted of a three-day event in which my wife Linda and I underwent a host of psychological and counseling assessments, preaching evaluation, case study simulations, and facilitated church planting group interaction by a conglomerate of conference superintendents and church planting directors. After a barrage of tests over the weekend,

I was approved as an Evangelical Covenant church planter under a three-year contract and assigned to a church-planting coach, Pastor Wayne Carlson, church planting director for the Pacific Southwest Conference, the denomination’s regional headquarters.4

Phase 2: Core Group Stage

Church planting training began in Loveland, Colorado for three of us—the church planting pastor (me) accompanied by two potential key leaders (Bob Wilmeth and Brian

Carnes) whom I had invited. Our intensive week-long training comprised exercises using the five-phased process for church planting. The next requirement was for me to attend a two-month residency in four active church plants, each representing a different

3 Evangelical Covenant Church, “Chapter 1: The Need for New Churches.”

4 The Pacific Southwest Conference is a mission region of sister ECC churches encompassing Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah with a vision to transform communities though resourcing ministry, planting churches, and developing Christian leaders

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developmental staging of birthing a church. I spent a week in each church, three in

California and one in Arizona.

After the extensive summer training, I entered the next core group stage, searching for people who might share and confirm the church planter’s vision to establish a core group. A sure way of confirming a church planting call is the simple question, Are there any people willing to follow? The goal in this step is to find at least twenty to thirty motivated individuals. Without this core group, it would have been difficult to move on to the next step. In the first century, the Apostle Paul, my biblical example for church planting, would start a church by entering a city, looking for core supporters to begin a church.5

Where is such a core group to be found? I asked my friends, my children’s school families, and I looked around in my neighborhood. I walked door to door in the area we planned on planting. I handed out a “Thirty-second Survey” consisting of six basic questions: Are you active in a nearby church? What do you think is the greatest need in this community? Why do you think that most people don't attend church? If you were looking for a church in this area, what kinds of things would you look for? What advice would you give to us as we look into forming a church around here? Are you interested in receiving more information about this new church?

My first attempt at forming a core group was in August of 2005 when I met with six families from my previous ministry whom I knew personally and found to be missional in mindset and evangelistic in gifting. In addition, the conference church

5 “At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed” (Acts 14:1, italics mine).

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planting coach provided me with names of local Covenant people who subscribed to

Covenant publications in my area. Each of the initial invitees undertook to bring at least one other person, and some brought more. This initial core group numbered thirty-five adults plus their children.

Phase 3: Preview Stage

An important objective in this point of the life of our church plant was networking. A great portion of my time in the church’s first year was dedicated to networking with people. I told everyone I bumped into about our prospective church. I attended every local and city organization that was available to me—chamber of commerce groups, civic organizations, and religious networks. Another major portion of my time was devoted to training and commissioning the core group leaders to do the same. Within ninety days we grew from thirty-five adults and children in our core group to over seventy-five—too large for us to meet in living rooms any longer.

The focus, at this stage, was to organize a monthly gathering to invite the community to “kick the tires” of our new church through a preview worship service held at the local high school theater. This gave guests to our church plant an opportunity to check out the style and personality of our budding church. The pressure of this preview stage was to create structures around the young organization that would help connect those visiting. Important to this stage, in the words of my church planting coach, was to not allow the “concrete to harden” on the foundation of this new church too soon. The time spent on creating organizational structure would necessitate time away from telling the story and sharing the church’s vision with as many people as possible. Creating

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hierarchical structures could also suggest, negatively and untruthfully to potential seekers, that we were a closed group. An advantage for avoiding this negative perception would be to divert unhealthy power seizing by those seeking position. It was during this time that the three core practices began to embed and take root within our fellowship.

We held open houses with refreshments and fellowship, sharing our core values with our growing circle. Cookouts in the park were monthly events that helped us reach our surrounding neighbors and let them know we were starting a church. We challenged people who visited our core group meetings and preview services to consider whether this might be a place where God was calling them to grow and make a difference in their lives, their families, and in our community.

Following the ECC “Church Planting Training Manual,” the core group began meeting more often to plan the next stages of our growth. An important development during this time was growing consensus on vision. Just what kind of church was this going to be? In Proverbs 29:18, we are reminded, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”6 And in George Barna’s definition, vision is “a clear mental image of a preferable future imparted by God to His chosen servants and is based upon an accurate understanding of God, self and circumstances.”7 Put simply, vision had to do with what kind of church God was calling us to start, in our particular setting. Vision was the all- important topic for this preview phase of church planting. People wanted to know what distinguishing marks the new church would exist to deliver. We began to crystallize our

6 The King James Version translation. “Vision” here denotes prophetic vision or God’s revelation as more modern translations point out. The New International Version translates this verse, “Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint.”

7 George Barna, The Power of Vision (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1997), 28.

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vision of the three core practices for building active disciples (as described in figure 8 of

Chapter 2).

As wisely alerted by the church planting manual, the church faced its crisis of vision during this time. Training had led to expect that more than half of the church planting core would eventually fall away within the first two years. I was hopeful that this would not happen. But sure enough, a crisis of vision occurred in which competing dreams for our growing church plant caused some 50 percent of our core leaders to drop away.8 Hidden expectations of some of the people in the original core group began to surface that were contrary to our vision. The overarching question became: Do we exist to become a missional church for reaching the lost and those far from God in our community, or do we settle for being passive consumers of religious goods and services?

The common vision formulated early in the life of the church, along with my “stick-to- itiveness,” helped us weather this inevitable crisis of expectation. The key ingredient to withstanding this storm was the essential that, as pastor and key leaders, we were in agreement with our vision to foster and develop active Christ followers at our new church.

One of the most difficult tasks for our new church was choosing the name by which we would identify ourselves. It was difficult because of the many strong opinions on the matter. After no fewer than three meetings on this subject, the Core Group settled on a name with a biblical reference, Cornerstone Covenant Church, referring to our vision to be the first in a series of ECC church plants in California’s Coachella Valley.

8 Evangelical Covenant Church, “Chapter 10: Building on a Strong Start—Durability and Beauty.”

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At one of the early core group meetings in the fall of 2005, in order to help develop a sense of being official and creating permanency, we called our first business meeting. Guided by the ECC church planting manual, we passed the motion to officially declare ourselves a church. The motion declared, “Whereas, We have sought the Lord's direction through prayer and consultation, and Whereas, We believe that God has called us to organize a new Evangelical Covenant Church in [California’s Coachella Valley], and Whereas, We are committed to this ministry, That . . . this group constitutes a new

Evangelical Covenant Church, to be named Cornerstone Covenant Church.”9

Phase 4: Preparatory Stage

At the organizational meeting, the agenda was set by the core group, all of them

Coachella Valley residents, to elect a temporary chairperson, treasurer, and secretary.10

This leadership group became the temporary church council and accepted the responsibility of preparing the congregation for our Grand Opening. The temporary council also appointed Paul Larsen, a former ECC president and a resident of the

Coachella Valley, as an advisory member to the council. At their first meeting, the council adopted the denomination’s prototype copy for our articles of incorporation to file with the state, including a constitution and bylaws, giving non-profit status to the newly established church in the State of California.11

9 Evangelical Covenant Church, “Chapter 9: Administrating the New Church,” “Church Planting Training Manual.”

10 The temporary council comprised the chairperson, Albert Keck; treasurer, Bob Wilmeth; and secretary, Wendy Mitre. The pastor served ex officio on the council.

11 Cornerstone Covenant Church, “Articles of Incorporation, Constitution, and Bylaws,” June 2005.

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Becoming an incorporated non-profit religious organization allowed us, among other legal protections, the ability to receive tax-deductible donations and tax-exempt status. In addition to the articles of incorporation for the state of California, our affiliation with the ECC allowed us to be included in the denomination’s group exemption from

Federal Income Tax, facilitating our exemption from federal taxes under section

501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954.

At this point, I set out to establish an office location on our limited budget. This gave the church a mailing address, allowing the church to send out official letters, promotions and donation letters, as well as receiving mail and donations. I was able to acquire a donation of free office space from a Coachella Valley resident, Greg Solis, which included office furniture, telephone, computer, and copy and fax machines. We now had a seven-day-a-week presence in the community with meeting space.

While my cell phone was the primary phone for the church office (since most of the time I was meeting with people at Starbucks), we needed an official phone number so that our new church name would be included in the local phone book and Yellow Pages.

We were not able to give a physical address for our meeting location, but we were able to give ourselves one more step towards permanency and another avenue for outreach and for recognition by the community.

Interestingly, Cornerstone began when Yellow Page advertisements were on the way out, and website and Google searches were coming in. Early on in my church planting training and residency, a fellow church planter recommended a church website- building application, “Church Community Builder,” that included a database for record- keeping of contacts, events, and financial donations, and a webpage with unlimited pages.

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This website helped give us more visibility in our community than any other paid advertising. Included in the software was the ability to put our church at the top of the

Google search list; this had big payoffs for visibility.

Planning ahead to the next stage of launching our church, we worked with local city government codes creating sandwich signs with our church name and logo, advertising our upcoming worship time and location. We placed advertising signs at eight strategic street corner locations for maximum exposure. This was another helpful outreach tool to our community.

Once we had our incorporation, we were able to set up an account with a local bank, using our Tax ID number. Even from the early beginnings, receiving regular offerings was important to create buy-in and commitment. Setting up a checking account in the church's name enabled our church treasurer to carefully control the income and expenditures of the church.12 The church database system helped us to set up financial record keeping of contributions, which in turn helped us issue end-of-the-year giving statements.

According to the ECC church planting manual, the most effective way of planting a church is through a parenting church.13 Parenting, which involves the enthusiastic leadership of an established church overseeing a new church plant, usually requires the physical move of a group from one or more established churches to form a new church.

In our case, our parenting church, Rolling Hills Covenant, my wife’s home congregation

12 See Appendixes 10, 11 and 12 for a church budget and equipment worksheet.

13 Evangelical Covenant Church, “Chapter 2: Building the House of God,” “Church Planting Training Manual.”

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from ninety miles away, enthusiastically offered us spiritual and monetary sponsorship.

(This same mother church would eventually help us purchase our now permanent church campus). Their funding, along with the funding from the ECC and the Pacific Southwest

Conference, helped finance our church planting project over the initial three years.

Throughout this preparatory stage, we constantly reminded ourselves that no movement of God happens without concerted prayer. Each meeting was infused with prayer from beginning to end. Holding on to our Pietistic beliefs that it is Christ who builds his church and stirs the hearts of people toward rival, we believed the most important resource in our church planting process was the prayer ministry.14 Elizabeth

Larsen accepted the role of prayer ministry coordinator for our church and recruited a prayer team. She, along with her team of volunteers, prayed for our church weekly through this phase and on.

This Preparatory Phase, lasting seven months (March to September 2006) involved three main tasks: (1) core group gathering (organizing worship and outreach to the community); (2) weekly preparatory worship services (organizing Sunday ministry structures); and (3) visitor follow-up and assimilation (creating networks and enabling connections). Weekly preparatory worship services were organized as a way of inviting the community to our new church (which stresses the “Inside” of our “Inside Out

Church” vision). A preparatory service provided the benefit of helping to create a buzz about the new church; it gave time for us to work out the Sunday worship ministries (as

14 Jesus tells Peter, “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (Matthew 16:18).

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described below), and it provided a non-threatening venue to invite the community before the church’s Grand Opening.

Our desire for preview services was to give people a chance to hear our mission and find out the type of church we wanted to launch. We did this by creating a prototype

Sunday morning worship service, with the objective of inviting fifty new people to attend each week. We focused our efforts on word-of-mouth networking and personal invitations, using a simple business card describing our church (see Appendix 6).

In the preparatory service stage, we had the opportunity to develop our core ministries. We worked overtime to plan set-up and teardown of weekly worship services, planned for the Sunday morning children’s ministries, the style of worship music, the style of preaching that would characterize the personality of our new church, and the welcoming, hospitality, and follow-up activities that would connect folks to our congregation. At the end of each service, we collected survey cards to receive feedback about the service, help connect people to our church, and collect contact information for follow-up. (See Appendix 7 for an example of the participation survey.)

These preparatory services met at the local high school theater, our temporary home. While the theater accommodated almost 350 people with stationary seats, a larger setting than we needed, it gave us visible presence in our community and a safe and visible haven for guests to visit. During the week following the service, the core group had three responsibilities: (1) to follow up with visitors, inviting them to return; (2) to schedule and plan for the next worship service; and (3) to continue to network, with the particular objective of bringing in fifty new people to the next service (see Appendix 8).

Ultimately, we wanted to create net growth, which is calculated by multiplying the

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number of visitors by the retention rate, minus the backdoor people loss (see Appendix

9).15

The pattern was established. We gathered every week to pray, to hear God’s word, and to plan for the next event or service. Our goal was to enlist as many people as possible. We were discovering that starting a new church was even more labor-intensive and time-consuming than we had expected. However, the advantage we gained was to create a culture of evangelism and outreach from the beginning. Since there was no media advertising, the core group was “forced” to focus on extending personal invitations to their friends and acquaintances. Members of the growing core group were compelled to be active producers.

Phase 5: Grand Opening

We practiced the music, met hundreds of new people, defined the vision, and filled out the paperwork for our incorporation and 501(c)(3) status. Now we were ready for the Grand Opening series. Rather than holding a single Grand Opening Sunday we were able to string together a month of Grand Opening events, seeing each Sunday grow with more outreach and invitations going out weekly from our core group.

For the first Sunday of the Grand Opening, the church sent out a bulk mailing to fifty thousand homes, advertised in the main local newspaper, advertised on local radio stations, and extended personal invitations. Each Sunday built momentum, growing by at least fifty people, with total attendance growing by more than 250 people in over three

15 See Evangelical Covenant Church, “Chapter 7: Preview Stage—Framing,” “Church Planting Training Manual,” as well as Appendixes 8 and 9.

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months. Succeeding Sundays in the Grand Opening series became assimilation events— with barbecues, festivals, and special concerts.

At the same time that we launched our worship Grand Opening, we celebrated the opening of our self-funding mission project, Bargains Thrift Store.16 It was dedicated in

October 2006 to raising funds by collecting donations of clothing, furniture, books, and miscellaneous articles, the proceeds of which fund outreach and evangelism to children and youth of the community. This is an embracing of our third core practice, interacting with the surrounding community.

The Grand Opening series finalized the five-stage process of launching

Cornerstone. We had established our governance system, a nine-member Leadership

Board, and set out to live into our “Inside Out Church” vision of remaining in Christ, interacting with one another, and living out our faith into the community. By this time, our congregation was experiencing tremendous growth in ten Bible study groups of about nine people each. Each group, a microcosm of the larger congregation, was growing in its walk with Jesus Christ through Bible study, connecting in deep friendships and fellowship, reaching out to the poor, and serving the community. Establishing partnerships with Jordan Outreach Ministries, Community Boys & Girls Clubs, the

Coachella Valley Rescue Mission, and similar groups are examples of ways in which

Cornerstone began to establish itself in the Coachella Valley. Six months after our Grand

Opening, on Saturday, April 7, 2007, at the annual convention of the Pacific Southwest

16 Under the leadership of Todd MacKerron, member of the church planting core group, Bargains is a thrift store acting as the church’s self-funding mission. It is staffed by church and other community volunteers. Its purpose is to foster healthy families in the Coachella Valley.

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Conference in Modesto, California, Cornerstone was recognized and admitted as a member church in the ECC.

The target of the mission of planting a new church was to move believers from being passive consumers of church into becoming maturing risk-taking disciples who multiplied themselves as they joined in the planting of Cornerstone. Whether it was a commitment to pray for our church needs, leading music, hosting outreach events, setting up for worship, helping in the youth and children’s ministry, or facilitating small group

Bible studies, the core group participants were engaging themselves—their gifts and passions—in acts of service. This was one of the important results of planting our church; believers who had been used to receiving religious goods and services were now engaged in producing results for God’s kingdom. Church planting at Cornerstone was the disciple- making model that transformed believers into active producing disciples.

Assessment Tool—Applying Natural Church Development

After launching the five-phased Grand Opening of Cornerstone, the excitement of starting a new church eased and the actuality of sustaining and growing the new church sank in. The Leadership Team decided this was the time to begin to use the evaluation tool that would help measure Cornerstone’s ongoing health and continue to foster our three core discipleship principles (as mentioned in Chapter 2).17 As the chart in figure 12 illustrates, we had particularly embraced NCD because, in the view of the Leadership

17 Cornerstone, through the pastor’s leadership, chose to use the NCD system as a means for assessing and measuring church health and growth, as well as to provide a means to create objective, measurable, discipleship initiatives. This decision was made in part to fulfill the requirements for this final project, and in part as a result of reading Dr. Robert Logan’s book, Releasing Your Church’s Potential: A Natural Church Development Resource Kit for Pastors and Church Leader.

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Team board, it incorporated our three “Inside Out” core principles for developing disciples.

(1) Identifying with the life of Jesus. • Empowering Leadership • Gift-Based Ministry • Passionate Spirituality • Inspiring Worship (2) Embodying true koinonia. • Holistic Small Groups • Loving Relationship (3) Interacting with the surrounding community. • Functional Structures • Need-Oriented Evangelism

Figure 12. Cornerstone’s Three Core Practices alongside NCD Quality Characteristics creating the Cornerstone Implementation Plan

The implementation of NCD at Cornerstone was a five-step process (see figure

13). The first step (Get Ready) included gathering the Leadership Board for buy-in, recruiting a “Church Health Team” to guide the process, and prayer. The second step

(Survey/Evaluate) focused on the NCD diagnostic tool—applying the survey to thirty influential leaders.18 In the third step (Analyze), the church health team (appointed by

Cornerstone’s Leadership Team) analyzed the survey, focusing on the minimum factor

(mentioned earlier in Chapter 3). In the fourth step (Plan), the church health team developed a church plan for improving the minimum factor. This plan was presented to the Leadership Board with measurable, actionable goals to address three to five key

18 The three criteria Cornerstone used to select people to complete the NCD survey questionnaire are: (1) commitment to the life of the church, (2) active involvement in the church’s ministry, preferably in a leadership capacity, and (3) membership in a small group Bible study. NCD survey results are tabulated, providing a picture of the “state of the church” that the leadership used to identify strengths (maximum factors) and weakness (minimum factors) in Schwarz’s eight specific areas.

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initiatives for discipleship over the next twelve months. The fifth step (Implementation) was for the church health team to put into action that discipleship plan, with the help of the NCD coach. We have repeated this cycle every twelve months in order to identify individual and church-wide discipleship initiatives to increase church health. The goal was to involve the leadership and the entire congregation in implementing this plan for continued healthy and growing discipleship.

Figure 13. NCD Implementation Cycle

The NCD survey for Cornerstone was like taking a yearly health check-up. When visiting, the physician does not say, “You’re eyes are great, and the key to your overall health is to keep looking at more things.” Instead, the physician is more likely to point out the areas of personal health that are causing most vulnerable health risk. The physician will encouraged the patient to focus on improving the minimum health factor in order to improve his or her overall health. Similarly, NCD focuses on improving a

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church’s minimum quality characteristic in order to improve the church’s overall health.

Schwarz asserts, “We must restore the [church] to good health before seeking further growth in our areas of strengths.”19 All eight characteristics are important and necessary for church health, but focusing on the least healthy area helps set priorities that will result in the greatest improvement to the overall health of the church.

NCD affirms the uniqueness of each and every church, and it has a proven record of improving churches of all sizes throughout the world.20 Taking a survey alone will not improve a church’s health. It is what is done with what it learns that is important. Using the metaphor of the life-giving principles of healthy organisms, the NCD process guides a church through real change to promote real improvement in the church’s overall health and strength. This was the result at Cornerstone.

Appendix 15 measurably illustrates the dynamic progress of Cornerstone (as revealed in the eight quality characteristic survey scores between 2009 through 2012).

Appendixes 16A through 16D presents the results of Cornerstone’s eight quality characteristics profiling the same years 2009 through 2012.

Reviewing Results of Natural Church Development

As we review the NCD findings each year, we have been able to score the results of Cornerstone’s discipleship initiatives. NCD has provided Cornerstone with a system to measure discipleship initiatives from year to year. This guide has given Cornerstone measurable goals, helping to keep the church focused on the discipleship process of

19 Schwarz, Natural Church Development, 56.

20 Schwarz, Color Your World with Natural Church Development, 5.

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having believers move from being passive consumers of church into becoming maturing, risk-taking disciples. Figure 14 provides a picture of the dynamic progress Cornerstone has undergone over the past four years of assessing its health and growth, as well as the specific initiatives that resulted through the five-step NCD cycle.

Survey Maximum Minimum Church Health Team Profile Factor Factor: Discipleship Initiative

Loving Inspiring • Lay Participation in leading worship 2009 Profile Relationships Worship • Staffing Worship Directory Move from High School to permanent home. – Score 70 – Score 55 •

Loving Passionate • Small Group initiative to involve 110% involvement (initiation to the community) Relationships Spirituality 2010 Profile • All Church Spiritual Growth Initiative (church – Score 70 – Score 70 wide, small groups, and one-on-one discipleship) Notice the drop in scores in the 2011 profile, representing the emotional investment and Loving Passionate withdrawal in moving into our new church campus. 2011 Profile Relationships Spirituality • 21-day Scripture Reading Plan – Score 67 - Score 55 • Prayer initiatives through (adopting “Prayer House” model) • Monthly prayer initiatives through the year.

Loving Empowering • Communication to whole church Initiative 2012 Profile Relationships Leadership • Creating a “Compassion First” campaign to – Score 79 – Score 61 communicate vision and drive our “Inside Out” vision into the community.

Figure 14. Progression of Yearly NDC Profiles and Resulting Initiatives

Within the ECC’s congressional style polity, each church has the freedom to choose its own pathway for ministry in its loosely knit connections. While the Bible, in the ECC tradition, is “the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct,” and “the inspiration to pursue every act of justice, mercy, and compassion,”21 NCD provides one path. Schwarz, in admitting that NCD is not the only system for assessing church health, says, “In the very worst possible scenario, the church leadership would disagree with the

21 The Evangelical Covenant Church in America, “The Preamble to the Constitution and Bylaws of the Evangelical Covenant Church.”

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profile and throw it away. All they would lose would be a little bit of money—and they wouldn’t risk even that, because in such a case we would gladly return the fees!”22 NCD provides a system to stimulate church leadership to wrestle with, and ultimately subscribe to, discipleship ventures for their church, and therefore for individuals within the church.

The challenge for every Christian pastor and leader is seeking the renewing work of the Holy Spirit to continue to grow. It is easier to ride out the good things that we have already done than it is to constantly pray for and act upon God’s leadership to move us further on in ministry.23 The desire of the ECC to plant a church in California’s Coachella

Valley, and certainly the dreams and visions of the planting team of Cornerstone, were not to erect a building, but rather to build a mission outpost to the community. The ECC’s membership handbook states, “Covenanters have from the beginning sought to build a culture of friendship in Christ, pursuing the mission of God together.”24 From our inception, part and parcel of our heritage in the Covenant has been together to see more disciples, among more populations, in a more caring and just world.

The results of the discipleship endeavors at Cornerstone have been multiple.

Believers have come together in outreach events, community-wide Bible studies, and new praying and worshiping communities (identifying with the life of Jesus). People have been baptized into the fellowship of believers, creating committed lifelong disciples

22 Schwarz, Natural Church Development, 112.

23 Paul lays out the biblical mandate towards growing individuals and church’s toward growing and maturing fullness as Christ’s disciples when he says in Ephesians 2: 11-13, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 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.”

24 The Evangelical Covenant Church, Mission Friends: The Meaning of Membership, “Session Two: The Mission of the Evangelical Covenant Church.”

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joined in membership to the body of Christ. And believers have partnered together in outwardly welcoming acts of service and evangelism (embodying true koinonia). The results continue to be a church who lives its life together missionally in the community

(interacting with the surrounding community).

Cornerstone’s missional focus finds its way through our church and into our community, through our self-funding mission project at Bargains Thrift Shop providing low cost clothes and furniture to the valley, mentoring at-risk youth, and giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars of clothes to poor. Cornerstone’s missional focus is also evident through our outreach ministries to migrant working families in our agricultural community through tutoring, after-school programs, soccer league mentoring youth, and raising scholarships sending thousands of at-risk children to our Covenant Alpine

Campground. The secret of growing churches is not in the brilliance or talent of the church leaders or programs, but in the spark of God's life that lives within the church itself. As described Mark 4:26-2925, God has put the growth potential into every congregation. “We need to release this potential by removing barriers to growth and then the church will naturally grow all by itself.”26 And like the mustard seed that is planted and becomes “the largest of garden plants” (Matthew 13:32), for Cornerstone to continue to live out its purpose, it will need to continue to grow healthy like the mustard seed in its

25 Jesus said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26-29)

26 Robert E. Logan and Thomas T. Clegg, Releasing Your Church's Potential: A Natural Church Development Resource Kit (St. Charles, IL: Church Smart Resources, 1998), 6.

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“Inside Out” vision to create disciples who identify with the life of Jesus, embody true koinonia, and interact with the surrounding community.

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CONCLUSION

The Doctor of Ministry project discussed in this paper has presented six years of on-the-job research and development in this challenging task of planting the first

Covenant church in California’s Coachella Valley. In the planting of this church, the core planting team sought the important objective to become a church of risk-taking, producing disciples of Christ, not complacently accepting the roles of passive consumers.

To illustrate this objective, the consumer model—based on church growth marketing methods of the past quarter century for a western consumer culture—can be likened to a cruise ship. People who attend “cruise ship churches” often come to be entertained and catered to by the staff. Very little is expected of these church attendees.

In fact, they tend to rate the quality of their experience—the music, the sermon, and the way it made them feel—much like cruise ship passengers who rate their satisfaction with various aspects of their trip. The main goal of the cruise ship church is to keep the customers happy and the complaints to a minimum. Furthermore, leaders in a cruise ship church focus on their existing members, or on attracting prospective passengers/ customers/ members from their competition, rather than pursuing those far from God or inspiring others to do so. The cruise ship church is very much a consumer model. Very little in the church’s budget or calendar is spent reaching the lost or helping reach those in the community in need of evangelism, compassion, or mercy. In such a consumer model as this, there is very little incentive to get off the cruise ship and do anything else.

This paper has presented the “Inside Out” discipleship model that was adopted for planting Cornerstone Covenant Church in serving California’s Coachella Valley. To

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continue the illustration of a vessel, disciple-building churches are more like aircraft carriers, designed to equip and send all members on their God-given missions into the world, reaching and serving those who do not yet know Jesus. Much like the crew of an aircraft carrier, which exists to launch military planes equipped to carry out successful missions, the “aircraft carrier church” has a clear mission that is based on the three great biblical commands of Jesus in the New Testament.

At Cornerstone, members are reminded that the church exists for this “Inside

Out,” three-core mission, drawing people together around the great cause of Christ and living the mission out in extending ways into the community. This was the lifestyle modeled by Jesus when he commanded his followers to live out three imperatives: (1) the

Great Commandment (identifying with the life of Jesus): “[Jesus] said to them, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment” (Matthew 22:37-38); (2) the Great

Commitment (embodying true koinonia): “The second [commandment] is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:39); and (3) the Great Commission

(interacting with the surrounding community): “But you will receive power when the

Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem [home city], and in all Judea and Samaria [surrounding regions], and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The activities at Cornerstone, the annual budget, weekly sermons, monthly calendar events, outreach practices, and casual conversations revolve around this vision.

In the planning and implementation of this six-year-in-the-making church planting project, Cornerstone has been engaged in what Peter Wagner describes as “the

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single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven”: church planting.1 At

Cornerstone, the church planter and core group discussed and veered away from old assumptions of consumer-based church models built on programs, marketing, and advertising approaches. Instead, they embraced an overall strategy, laying the groundwork for a discipling church.

The Mission Friends heritage of the ECC reminds us that the Covenant is not a church organization in the ordinary sense. Rather, it is a mission society sharing four common “Inside Out” beliefs, the first two being inner directed and the latter two being outer directed. These four beliefs common to all Covenant churches are: (1) to be biblical—“We are a biblical people who desire to grow in our knowledge of God, to know about God through the reading of the Bible”; (2) to be devotional—“We are a devotional people desiring to know God”; (3) to be connectional—“We recognize and affirm that we are better together in achieving God’s great mission”; and (4) to be missional—“We are a missional people who intend to be about God’s priorities in the world.” 2 Simply stated, the four essentials of the Covenant are: We love God; we love

God’s word; we love God’s family; and we love God’s world. It was from these “Inside

Out” core beliefs that Cornerstone developed its three core practices for making disciples.

For the scorecard in helping us evaluate our effectiveness in the pursuit of encouraging discipleship, Cornerstone selected Natural Church Development. A significant criterion in the selection of the NCD system was the Leadership Board’s

1 C. Peter Wagner, Church Planting for a Greater Harvest: A Comprehensive Guide (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2002), 11.

2 Evangelical Covenant Church, Mission Friends: The Meaning of Membership, “Session Two: The Mission of the Evangelical Covenant Church” (Chicago: Covenant Publishers, 2011).

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perception of concordance between the NCD eight-quality characteristics and

Cornerstone’s three core principals. The synergy between the two validated each other.

NCD provided an assessment tool to identify needed improvements in the church’s discipleship ministries, encouraged Cornerstone’s creativity in developing discipleship initiatives and gave freedom for the church leadership to design its discipleship ministry according to its own context.3

Now in its sapling stage, the effectiveness of Cornerstone’s discipleship model continues to take root (as illustrated in the attendance and growth pattern charted in

Appendix 17). Like the mustard seed that is cultivated on its way to becoming a healthy plant, Cornerstone is fertilized with its commitment to live the teachings of Jesus, interrelating as disciples with one another, and dwelling in the community with acts of compassion, mercy, and justice. Reflecting its many discipleship initiatives in this paper,

Cornerstone, the first Covenant church established in California’s Coachella Valley, is becoming a healthy and growing expression of God’s love with future plans to multiply.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew

28:19-20).

3 Schwarz, Natural Church Development, 104.

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Appendix 1—Natural Church Development Illustrations The Eight Quality Characteristics Defined

The Minimum Barrel The minimum stave determines the amount of water the barrel can hold

Color Your World with Natural Church Development, 3-Color Trinitarian Compass

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Appendix 2—Growth of the Evangelical Covenant Church Chart

200,000

150,000

100,000

50,000

Source: Evangelical Covenant Church denominational website, Mission Friends: The Meaning of Membership, “Session One: The Mission of God,” http://www.covchurch.org/membership/ (accessed November 1, 2012).

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Appendix 3—Covenant Chart of Seven Seasons of Church Planting & Multiplication

pprentices

ts coaching & coaching

church

Ongoing CP movement CP leader(s) mentorsPeer in parenting church network Planting Church Institute Church planters, a interns & Intercessors unified a Develop visionstrategy & spiritual Implement dynamics renewal barriersOvercome & cultivateleadership Establish & recruiting systems assessment Establish training systems parenting EstablishCP systems & farm fundraising Develop movement for the Develop networks planting & movement Multiplying Church multiplication Establishing a church networks movements & (Multiply Fruitful Trees) multiplication movement

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

Steven Childers, Steven J. Allen Thompson L.

relocation relocation

ministries

munity presence Establishing a Locating emerging gospel construction team construction members intern, whether Determine (multiplying house/cell to churches) or when construct meeting facilit(ies) facilityFind adequate real estate and/or (rental or purchase) (Oversee fundraising for relocation and/or building construction) (Oversee building and/or construction process) locating the Repeat process (above) if when and/or necessary (Deepening Roots) Pastor mentors Peer Relocation & building Ministryleaders, apprentice, Intercessors Two Years & Ongoing Years & Two Copyright 200 Copyright

• • • • • • • • • •

to to

h (renewal (renewal h Ongoing entors

d the d churchto tension growth tension An Indigenous,An Growing xpansion growth xpansion

healthy, growing, growth planting & Pastor m Peer Apprentice/Intern cultural Cross missionaries Launch team Intercessors churchhealth Evaluate & growt dynamics) Establishchurch & growth goals health the churchto Lead e the church Lead internal growth the churchto Lead ex Lea bridging growth the churchto Lead growth organizational Leading church to

reproducing church (Fruit Bearing Tree)

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

- -

ing

leaders entoring

(Young Tree) healthy church

Ordained leaders

Pastor Coach &Elders deacons Leaders/Apprentice/Intern members Church Intercessors mentor Develop leadership philosophy & strategy mentoring Develop process for healthy disciples mentoring Develop process& for group ministry leaders mentoring Develop process for elder/deacons mentoring Develop process for pastors m Develop processes for movement Mentoring Centered Leaders Mentoring Gospel overseeing indigenous,

• • • • • • • • • • • • Two Years Two Ongoing &

s -

l oriented oriented

(Young Plant) One to Two Years Two to One Effective gospelEffective Church Church planter Coach Emergingleaders Apprentice/Intern Church members Intercessors frontline, Develop prayer kingdom gospe Develop preaching worship & transform Develop learning ational (allcommunities ages) authentic Develop caring community/cells need Develop ministriesevangelism (word& deed) lay & gift Develop ministries oriented emerging Develop structurefunctional emerging leaders

Centered Ministries Developing Gospel Developing ministries developed by

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

rking

ishtraining &

(Seedling) established Gathering a urch urch planter elationship(s) Ch Coach Core group Launch team Apprentice/Intern Intercessors Establ coaching r netwo Implement & (word & evangelism deed) nurture& Implement cellministries group & coregroup Develop team launch conflict Manage for vision values & unified Establishessential ministries(systems) public Launch worship/ministry www.gca.cc Gathering Six to Twelve Months Six Twelve to Worshiping community Worshiping Community with essential ministries

• • • • • • • • • • • • • V7.2, V7.2,

call

training

& models

ministry vision

(Seed) SEVEN SEASONS OF CHURCH PLANTING & MULTIPLICATION PLANTING OF CHURCH SEASONS SEVEN Preparing to church nfirm the Plant the Plant Church Church Church planter (Coach) Team)(Launch (Apprentice/Intern) Intercessors Co planter’s ministryDetermine group(s)focus area & Establishprayer support planting Begin & coaching Develop philosophy church a Design plan action planting church a Create proposal planting Establishfinancial base support tasks admin. Complete Preparing planter with a clear Six to Twelve Months Six Twelve to Qualified equipped & philosophy & strategy

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • Advancement Global Church Seasons People Processes Time Goal

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Appendix 4—Project Timeline

Pilot Project Timeline This five phase church launch stretched over two years, helped to identify our church vision and D.N.A., gave us a strong missional foothold in our community, and helped to establish our permanency as it opened doors for us to eventually become a “member church” of the ECC and, with our denominational help and funding, move into our own permanency church facility. The following is a general outline of our church planting pilot project timeline:

2005 • January - Church Planter and family begins Phase 1: Discerning and exploring their call to church plant • March - Church Planter and Spouse attend ECC Church Planter’s Assessment Weekend • April – Church Planter signs three year ECC Contract to Plant in California’s Coachella Valley, the first ECC church in Riverside County. • June to August – Church Planter travels to three separate church plants as a part of a church planter residency. • September to December – Begins Phase 2: Coalescing Core Group o We begin the “W” outreach model (Gathering Event, Core Group Meeting, Assimilation Event, Core Group Meeting, Gathering Event, etc.) o Core Group grows from pastor’s family, to 35+ core, to 75+) • December 24 - Phase 3: First Preview Worship (once a month worship service at the La Quinta High School Theater) 2006 • January to March – We continue using the “W” outreach model, Using once a month worship as our gathering event) • April – Phase 4: Preparatory Worship, began on Easter launching our church into weekly worship (before summer hits) • October – Phase 5: Grand Opening Series, kicking off our all church small group ministry, each one having an outreach “mission” in the community. • July – Church Planter completes Fuller Seminary Class: Beyond Church Planting with Dr. Bob Logan (Natural Church Development is presented as a health model) 2007 • January – Inducted as a Member Church to the Evangelical Covenant Church with 81 partner members and some 250 people involved. 2008 • January – Introduction of Natural Church Development system as our model for church health. 2009 • October – 1st Natural Church Development Survey given to the congregation (Minimum Factor: Inspiring Worship – score 55)

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2010 • July – Purchase of our property with the assistance of the Evangelical Covenant Church’s department of National Covenant Properties • August – 2nd Natural Church Development given to the Congregation (Minimum Factor: Passionate Spirituality – score 70) 2011 • Easter Sunday – Grand Opening Series moving us into our new Palm Desert Church Campus • August – 3rd Natural Church Development Survey given to the Congregation (minimum factor: Passionate Spirituality - score 55) 2012 • February – Plans discussed with our Conference to plant our first congregation. • May – 4th Natural Church Development Survey given to the congregation (minimum factor: Empowering Leadership 61)

143 !"

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Appendix 6–Preview Service Invite Card

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Appendix 7—Cornerstone Covenant Church Participation Survey

NAME ______ADDRESS ______

CITY & ZIP ______PHONE (H) ______PHONE (W) ______

We need you! We're in the process of forming a new contemporary church designed to share the good news with people in our area.

AND WE NEED YOUR HELP!

1. How did you hear about our church?  Friend  Brochure  Mailer  Other Covenant Church

2. Which qualities would attract you most to this church? Check all that apply  Interesting Biblical Messages  Friendly People  Youth Programs  Excellent Music  Quality Children's Programs  Singles Ministry  Small Group Bible Study  Couple's Ministry

3. Here are some "next steps."  I would like some more information. Please add me to your mailing list.  I would like some more information. Please invite me to an informal "open house" meeting.  I am here praying for the Bulls.  I am ready to have fun at the monthly socials, gym nights, and more!  Count me in! I have been looking for a church like this!  I would like more information about the Christian life.

4. Count me in! I am interested in helping launch this new church! Here are some areas I might be interested in helping (this is not a commitment form. It simply indicates your willingness to help. Contacts will be made as needs arise.)

Welcome Ministry:  I would like to help usher.  I would like to welcome people  I would like to work at the name-tag table.  I would like to help with coffee / food.

Scenic Engineering:  I would love to help setup and takedown.  I would like to help design a new worship stage area.  I would like to make a banner.  I would like to work with sound and technical stuff.  I would like to help store and cargo church equipment.

Other Excellent Options:  Children's programs.  Facilitating small group bible studies.  Drama Team member.  Musician / singer for Worship Team.  Jr. High Youth Worker.  Sr. High Youth Worker.

 Please add any helpful observations about this evening on the reverse side. Thank you!

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Appendix 8—Sample Open House

1. Refreshments/Mingle

2. Crowd Breaker

3. Ministry Presentation

∗Core Values

∗Stages Timeline

4. Three Level Survey Card

My Next Step

 I am Ready for More Information! Monthly newsletter and updates on coming events.

 I am Ready to Check it Out! I’m planning to attend upcoming core group

meetings to check things out.

 Count me in! I've been looking for a church like this, and I’m ready to become involved! Name ______

Address ______

Phone ______

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Appendix 9–Calculating Net Growth

148

Appendix 10–Analyzing Growth

issue al

Backdoor Loss Backdoor relationships of lack disillusionment conflict person private fatigue

Retention rate Retention worshipstyle quality worship experience children’s potential relational information ministry

X Analyzing Growth Trends

ies

Visitor Flow Visitor word of mouth strateg visibility

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Appendix 11—Church Planting Budget “Cash Flow” Chart (from the Evangelical Covenant Church “Church Planting Training Manual”)

ANYWHERE COVENANT CHURCH FIRST YEAR CASH FLOW NOTES

Income

Core Group - Expected income from core group New Attenders - Expected income from new contacts Appropriations - Income from ECC & Conference + any Churches Planting Churches Income Special Gifts - One time startup gifts raised from Church Planter contacts or other interested churches

Expense

Salary - Based on $40,000 per year Health Insurance - Based on $10,000 per year Pension - Based on $5,000.00 per year Auto Allowance - Based on 10,000 miles @ 40.5 cents per mile Office Equipment - Computer Office Rent - Beginning Third Month Utilities - Phone, electric, etc. Facility Rental - Previews starting December, Preparatory Worship starting March Church Insurance—Liability, workers comp, etc… CE - Children's church material Music - worship costs Launch Expenses - "Get the Word Out" campaign for Previews and Easter Office Supplies Pastor's Continuing Ed. Pastor's Conferences Pastor's Ministry Exp. Missions - ECC - 10% of local giving income - expected to begin second month of weekly worship Missions - Conference - 5% of local giving income - expected to begin second month of weekly worship

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Appendix 12—Church Planting Budget Worksheet (From the Evangelical Covenant Church “Church Planting Training Manual”)

Anywhere Covenant Church Preliminary First Year Budget

Giving Projections Core Group $42,000 New Attendees $19,000 Appropriations $50,000 Special Gifts $8,000 Total $119,000

Expenses Salary $40,000 Health Insurance $13,000 Pension $5,000 Auto Allowance $3,750 Office Equipment $1,000 Office Rent $5,000 Utilities $1,200 Facility Rental $11,100 Church Insurance $2,000 CE $1,000 Music $1,000 Launch Expenses $15,000 Office Supplies $900 Pastor's Continuing Education $1,130 Pastor's Conferences $1,065 Pastor's Ministry Expenses $1,200 Missions - ECC $6,100 Missions - Conference $3,050

Total $112,495

(Church Planting Budget Worksheet continued on next page)

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$900 $8,000 $5,000 $3,750 $1,000 $5,000 $1,200 $2,000 $1,000 $1,000 $1,130 $1,065 $1,200 $6,100 $3,050 $6,505 $6,505 Total $42,000 $19,000 $50,000 $40,000 $13,000 $11,100 $15,000 $119,000 $112,495 $119,000 $112,495 $313 $500 $100 $500 $100 $100 $100 $700 $350 $4,000 $3,000 $4,166 $3,334 $3,250 $1,250 $1,600 $7,536 $6,505 August ($1,031) $11,166 $12,197 $313 $500 $100 $100 $100 $565 $100 $700 $350 July $4,000 $3,000 $4,166 $3,334 $1,600 $4,131 $7,762 $3,405 $7,536 $11,166 $313 $500 $100 $100 $100 $100 $650 $325 $587 June $4,000 $2,500 $4,166 $3,334 $1,600 $7,122 $3,545 $4,131 $10,666 $313 $500 $100 $500 $100 $100 $100 $355 $100 $650 $325 $587 May $4,000 $2,500 $4,166 $3,334 $3,250 $1,250 $1,600 $2,497 ($1,911) $10,666 $12,577 $313 $500 $100 $100 $100 $100 $600 $300 $122 April $4,000 $2,000 $4,167 $3,333 $1,600 $3,000 $2,376 $2,497 $10,167 $10,046 $313 $500 $100 $100 $100 $100 $600 $300 $122 March $4,000 $2,000 $4,167 $3,333 $1,600 $3,000 $2,254 $2,376 $10,167 $10,046 $313 $500 $100 $500 $500 $100 $100 $100 $565 $355 $100 $550 $275 $4,000 $1,500 $4,167 $3,333 $3,250 $1,250 $3,000 $7,478 $9,667 $2,254 ($5,224) February $14,891 $313 $500 $100 $500 $100 $100 $100 $550 $275 ($204) $4,000 $1,500 $4,167 $3,333 $1,000 $3,000 $7,681 $9,667 $9,871 $7,478 January First Year Cash Flow $313 $500 $100 $500 $100 $100 $100 $700 $350 $6,000 $1,000 $4,167 $2,500 $3,333 $2,000 $2,110 $8,096 $5,572 $7,681 $13,667 December Anywhere Covenant Church Covenant Anywhere $313 $500 $100 $500 $100 $100 $500 $355 $100 $200 $100 $2,000 $4,167 $2,500 $3,333 $3,250 $1,250 $4,143 $8,667 $2,110 ($2,034) November $10,701 $50 $313 $100 $500 $100 $100 October $1,000 $4,167 $1,000 $3,333 $2,472 $6,167 $4,496 $1,672 $4,143 $0

$50 $313 $100 $500 $200 $100 $100 $1,000 $4,167 $2,000 $3,333 $7,167 $4,696 $2,472 $2,472

September Income IncomeTotal Expense Balance Previous Total Income Total Expense Flow Cash Balance New Core Group Core Attenders New Appropriations Special Gifts Salary Insurance Health Pension Allowance Auto Office Equipment Office Rent Utilities Facility Rental Insurance Church CE Music Launch Expenses Office Supplies Pastor's Ed. Continuing Pastor's Conferences Pastor's Exp. Ministry Missions - ECC Missions - Conference Total Expense

152 !!

"##$%&'()* Appendix 14–Equipment Needs for Church Planting !"#$%&'()*+'',-*./0*1*23%$415*+'6*78#048(from the ECC “Church Planting Training Manual”)

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153

Appendix 15—Natural Church Development Dynamic Progress Chart of Cornerstone’s Congregational Surveys (Scoring the 8 NCD Quality Characteristics between 2009 Profile 1 through current 2012 Profile 4) +8 Current Average Average © 2011 NCD International Profile 3 +12 +12 Loving Relationships +10 +10 Profile 2 Evangelism Need-oriented -0 Profile 1 Groups Holistic Small May-2012

+4 Service Low (35) !" Worship Worship Inspiring Page 4 of 18 +7 Effective Structures Cornerstone Covenant Cornerstone October-2009 Average (50) Average comparison +14 +14 Passionate Passionate Spirituality High (65) of +9 profile Ministry Gift-based

Last Change +4 NCD Leadership Leadership Empowering www.churchsmart.com 0 10 10 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 -10 -10

154

Appendix 16A—Results of Cornerstone’s 2009 Natural Church Development Survey al n o 50) i ( t

a n nt age r 65) 35) e ( r ( age t

r e n h rre I

e w v g u i 63.04 v D o A C H A L C N

2008

ups c i o 61 t r s li G o H ce i ile rv f ing Se

r o 20

f pi 55 r s o hip s n 10 I

r P e o

ag P t W n e es r ve i u t rr t c c 64 e u u ff r t E S c C i t s ty te li i a a n r u o t i i 59 r e ass t P Spi c a r a ed h ry t as s b - 68 t f Mini Gi y C t li a u ing r hip s r we e Q 63 o d a p e m L E 0 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10

155

Appendix 16B—Results of Cornerstone’s 2010 Natural Church Development Survey al n o 50) i t ( a

n nt r age 65) 35) e ( r ( t age

n r e I h rre

e w v g u i 77.86 v D o A C C H A L N

2009

ups c i o 72 t r s li G o H ile ce i f rv o ing Se

r r 40

f pi 70 s o hip P 9 s n

e r ag o t P W n e es rr r ve i u t t u c c 76 e u ff r t E S c C i t s i ty te li a r a n u o e t i i 70 r t ass c P Spi a r a h ed ry t as s b - 85 t f y C Mini Gi t li a u ing r hip s Q r we e 81 o d a p e m L E 0 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10

156

Appendix 16C—Results of Cornerstone’s 2011 Natural Church Development Survey al n o 50) i ( t

a n nt age r 65) 35) e ( r ( age t

r e n h rre I

e w v g u i 59.53 v D o A C H A L C N

2009

ups c i o 63 t r s li G o H ce i ile rv f ing Se

r o 41

f pi 56 r s o hip s n 10 I

r P e o

ag P t W n e es r ve i u t rr t c c 57 e u u ff r t E S c C i t s ty te li i a a n r u o t i i 55 r e ass t P Spi c a r a ed h ry t as s b - 62 t f Mini Gi y C t li a u ing r hip s r we e Q 57 o d a p e m L E 0 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10

157

Appendix 16D—Results of Cornerstone’s 2012 Natural Church Development Survey 67 Average Average Current High (65) (50) Average Low (35) 79 Loving Relationships 69 Evangelism Need-oriented © 2011 Christoph Schalk, Ian Campbell and Adam Johnstone 63 Groups Holistic Small 61 61 Service Worship Worship Inspiring Page 9 of 31 64 Effective Structures 69 Passionate Passionate Spirituality 71 71 Ministry Gift-based 61 61 Quality Characteristic CurrentCharacteristic Quality Profile Leadership Leadership Empowering 0 10 10 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20

158

Appendix 17—Projected Attendance Growth (based on current 2012 Quality Characteristics Profile) in 10 years Current Profile in 9 years © 2011 NCD International Profile 3 in 8 years Profile 2 in 7 years Profile 1 in 6 years in 5 years Page 7 of 32 in 4 years in 3 years in 2 years in 1 year Projected attendance growth Comparison between our consecutive survey averages — Startingservice with our current combined adult and child worship attendance. !"#$%&'"()"*+&",&-$*.()%+./"0&*1&&)"234"$5&,$6&%"$)'"6,(1*+",$*&%"(7"8(,&"*+$)"9:;:::"<+=,<+&%"1(,-'1.'&"$)$->%&'"%.)<&"?@@9A Today 165 0 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100

159

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