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I had lunch with a friend who is in a leadership role with a DMM organization (Disciple Making Movement). If you aren’t familiar, think of the house church movement, and add the mission of rapidly making disciples. Another important part of DMMs is they steer clear of theology because theology is just a distraction to… making disciples.
So hoping to start off on some common ground, I complimented my friend for focusing on discipleship, rather than impersonal mass evangelism. He jumped right into how successful his group was at multiplying churches all over the world. Like” you would not believe how fast we multiply”.
It’s tiresome. How many ways can evangelicalism find to focus on numbers-based growth instead of being the kingdom Jesus announced?
I brought up how, in looking for a new church, I want to focus on a mainline denominational church that is actually doing it right. His reply was that none of them are doing it right, and that the institution and liturgy are what are keeping them from impacting communities.
I would rather be in a “dead” mainline church praying, like Ezekial that these bones might live, than burn out trying to promote a Multi-Level-Marketing home church program. Because MLM is exactly what DMM feels like to me. 20 years from now, that corner Methodist church will still be there, and no one will remember what a DMM is.
A good article on DMMs:
https://gentlereformation.com/2021/06/29/disciple-making-movements/
Terry,
I’m neck deep in preparing a message on discipleship.
I am struck by how different most evangelistic messaging is from the narrative of Scripture and the tradition of the church.
Nobody told me what it would cost to follow Jesus…so when people find out that there is a cost they are unprepared to pay.
Michael – This movement is unusual in that instead of preaching they promote reading scripture and obeying whatever it says. Obeying scripture = Discipleship. I’m betting they avoid certain passages, sticking with just the Gospels and Acts, plus maybe Paul’s letters.
I’m not saying this might not work on the mission field, I just don’t think it’s sustainable. Plus it relies too much on a program/system. I also don’t believe any group that separates from the larger church body can avoid error. Just by saying you don’t believe in doctrines or creeds guarantees some wolf will come along and say “God’s telling me we are suppose to….”
Terry,
I read the article you linked….I think you’ve nailed some of the fatal flaws.
I do think obedience is more important than it is usually taught…but this kind of overemphasis is the breeding ground for abuse and abusive leadership.
Hrm … pumping into house church movements some Amway-esque “wretched urgency” approach seems to be what DMM is. The insistence that you’re not a disciple until you’ve made a disciple who makes a disciple was something I came across decades ago from a couple of people connected with International Church of Christ. It seems almost as though the lower the formal ecclesiology (and liturgy) the more inescapably multi-level marketing strategies get assimilated into church expansion drives in the United States.
Terry, it’s probably not going to lead to people asking about how many ways there are to interpret the nature of Leviathan in the final chapters of Job and I’m sure the whole axis mundi tradition of interpretation is off limits. 😉
WTH (cool if I use initials?) I’m going to steal that “wretched urgency” phrase. I get that some people are wired that way (Meyers-Briggs test, J vs P) but they don’t seem to understand that not everyone is motivated or can thrive in high pressure sales mode.
This is going in my great quotes collection:
“It seems almost as though the lower the formal ecclesiology (and liturgy) the more inescapably multi-level marketing strategies get assimilated into church expansion drives in the United States.” – WenatcheeThe Hatchet
My name got through. So much anonymity.
I got “wretched urgency” From Michael Spenser (Internet Monk) years ago. If you can dig up Internet Monk and search its archives you should be able to find it there. Wanted to make sure I got around to the attribution.
Wenatchee’ – I found the Michael Spencer article(s). I wish I’d heard that 50 years ago. Even at 14 years old, I knew something didn’t make sense when my youth group went to a local park to “witness to strangers”. I’ve known people who have a natural gift for engaging with strangers, and can sometimes steer a conversation to the spiritual. It’s a rare gift.
5 years I was asked to help with tech for a Good Friday service at a Baptist Church. The message was one of those “If you died tonight are you sure you would go to heaven?” types. Hadn’t heard that one for a long time.
Terry, you’d probably enjoy reading Michael Spencer’s book “Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality.”
Also, Terry, I’m sorry that it’s been so difficult to find a fellowship that keeps the main things the main things. So much of evangelicalism is a hype-filled show. So much of discipleship is not about speeding up but slowing down. I know of one church in So Cal that sounds like it might scratch your itch, but it’s all the way in Long Beach.
I know of another one in La Mirada.
Terry;
See if there is an EV Free Church in your area that checks all or some of the boxes. We’re currently being encouraged at one. Hope this helps.
JD
Hey, I go to Grace EV Free in La Mirada…
Thanks for the concern for me finding a new church. (On a future Open Blogging I might describe the journey with my current church.) I am wide open to an EV-Free church, but the two nearest me are not ideal. One is North Coast in Vista, the largest EV-Free megachurch in the world. I have lots of friends there, but I’m just not up for a 15,000-20,000 attending congregation right now. The next closest EV-Free church is the one my current church split off from around 2010.
I have a few churches I want to visit starting in July, after I help our small church close down for good. I appreciate any and all references. North San Diego County leans far right, and finding something between a Calvary Chapel and a progressive Disciples of Christ church might be a challenge.
I believe there has to be a church that is humble and Jesus focused in North County. Praying for your search.
Will be church shopping soon. We are moving to a midweek study in a home format. I have a choice between a big SBC church, a bigger no-denom pentecostal-leaning church, a new SBC plant, a well-established SBC church of older people, and a new ACNA plant. Or, since I will continuing to pastor a home church meeting during the week, I may opt for breakfast and Irish coffee at one of our favorite places.
I would like to identify 2 attributes that are essential for a faithful church:
1) Pastors should be held to the NT qualifications for pastors, and this should be enforced by an independent body/structure within the congregation or church institution. These qualifications include, without limitation, fidelity to the doctrine of the church and moral uprightness,
2) The church should have a published statement/confession of faith. I think the statement/confession of faith should include, but go beyond, the ecumenical creeds because today the church faces issues that were not in view when the creeds were written. Who can serve as pastor? Who can get married here? When are people baptized? What is the Lord’s Supper? What is the end times teaching? Etc.
Close behind would be: Are the people welcoming and friendly?
I have no quarrel with 1…depending on the definition of “the doctrine of the church”.
The church is simply God’s people gathered…making anything beyond the ecumenical creeds mandatory simply excludes Gods people with differing opinions.
I’m an Anglican…we don’t have to shut down our brains and simply recite the 39 articles on doctrinal questions…and I thank God for that.
Let me give you an example of what I mean: If I don’t want to have a transgender pastor or a congregation that celebrates gay marriage or a congregation that doesn’t reverently celebrate the Lord’s Supper in accordance with the words of Christ, then I would like to know up front what a prospective church teaches and practices.
The qualifications themselves are open to interpretation, and also must be read in historical context.
If it was just me right now, no wife and kids, I’d be at the most liberal church I could find. Would just like the chance to explore it all again and see if I cam to the same conclusions.
As is, we’ve landed at a big EPA church. Its a lot less conservative than the fundamentalist SBC I grew up in, but still triggers me on some points. that said, I’ve definitely heard from God a few times there, so we’ll keep going for the time being.
Jean,
There is probably a place for stating whether one has a traditional Christian sexual ethic.
Many of these other things come in conversation with the pastoral staff.
It works both ways…if a prospective member came asking me about my stance on culture war questions, I would immediately refer them to another church if it went beyond stating agreement with the creeds and holding a traditional stance, but with compassion. It would be a red flag that this person was a pain in the ass more concerned with owning the libs than knowing Jesus.
Josh,
What triggers you?
I’m interested in learning what things in particular people find difficult to accept.
LOTS of things. Most recently it was preaching on tithing from Malachi.
I don’t mind sermons on giving or generosity, but to claim Christians are bound to give 10% to a local congregation because Malachi says so is ignoring history, context, covenants…its just wrong, but its the generally what believing that the 66 books are the infallible Word of God has brought us.
Josh,
It’s fascinating to me that the 10% tithe still gets traction…it’s not a New Covenant requirement, as you know.
More fascinating to me is that telling people not to think or ask questions works with adults…
I was shocked on that one, because the pastor is a scholar. Maybe that was the trigger: He has to know better. But the church, and the lead pastor are very open and welcoming. I think they fancy themselves in the line of Keller.
I would be more able to stomach someone trying to make the case from Acts that Christians are bound to give 100%…but generally we prefer Malachi.
Josh,
I hear you…there so many places now where I know that pastors and leaders know that what they’re saying or supporting isn’t in line with either Scripture or tradition…which in my mind makes them simple grifters and wolves.
One of my biggest beefs is that a very large number of pastors of churches (and likely the majority) are simply not qualified per the qualifications given and required in 1 Timothy and Titus. PERIOD. We would never think of having our surgery done by an unqualified surgeon or our legal case represented by an unqualified lawyer. But the vast majority of church-goers don’t know or don’t care about the qualifications for pastors, elders, and deacons. So we have incompetents teaching ignoramuses and apathetic potted plants. Small wonder why the church in the US a dumpster fire and small wonder why “Christians” in the US are objects of derision, ridicule, and hostility.
Some other beefs off the top of my head:
1) Standard dispy end-times nuttiness and prognosticating.
2) Pentecostals that think the inane babel spoken in their services is actually a tongue (a language) and think the word of wisdom or knowledge in English afterwards is actually the interpretation.
3) Fog machines another marketing gimmicks to make church “cool”.
4) Flags in the church (regardless of the country).