A Message from Greece
It struck me yesterday that I do a great deal of writing about what I am thinking but very little writing on the specific vocation God has given me. By that, I mean what I am doing in my day job and what comes of it.
I have just received an email from Thessaloniki, Greece where Dave Travis, the CEO of Leadership Network, is celebrating the final day of our latest project which we call European Church Planting Leadership Community, a product of the boldness and entrepreneurial ingenuity of my longtime partner, Phil Anschutz of Denver.
This followed a weekend of staying up too late only to watch the Texas Rangers lose the World Series by failing to achieve just one more strike in the ninth and tenth innings. It was what the Dallas Morning News the next day called “a classic heartbreaker.” And then Sunday night, I stayed up to watch the Dallas Cowboys, who thus far in the season had the NFL’s best defense against the run suffer an epic meltdown, giving up 495 yards of total offense to the Philadelphia Eagles.
Sooo for that and several other reasons, I had been in a foul humor all day long at the office. I was reminded of a Bible verse from St Paul that said, “Let us not grow weary in well doing.” The rest of the sentence is “for in due time, we will reap a harvest.” And that is exactly what happened just in time to brighten my morning and give me a fresh start. Here is the message from Greece in the words of Dave Travis, who describes his CEO title Chief Encouragement Officer:
“Today I want to share with you some harvest stories.
The first part of this story began over a decade ago with the launch of our first initiative targeting church planting in the U.S. We called it our Burning Bush Project. We aimed to raise the spiritual temperature and leadership capacity of the entire system of churches in the U.S. by focusing on the key churches that had the capacity to plant LOTS of churches. They were from across the nation, represented multiple denominations and traditions, and differed in their methodologies. Some planted organic, small churches, others planted “heavy birth weight” churches.
All together, when we first assembled that group, they were starting around 25 churches per year among themselves. Within the first year, the 10 churches had planted 52, doubling their rate of church starting. When we closed the program in 2005 after six years, they had planted a total 1687 churches total over the six year process.
Even more remarkably, these churches continue to plant churches at a very high rate, five years after our intervention with them ended.
Just a few weeks ago I caught a report from Mars Hill Church and the Acts 29 Network which reported a total of 410 churches planted since their inception under Burning Bush One.
Redeemer, Tim Keller’s church in New York City, reports over 200 churches in 35 global cities.
The Association of Related Churches (www.arcchurches.com) reports they will plant 100 churches in the US next year alone. We helped to launch them as well.
Our engagement in this field helped to launch a revival of church planting interest and enthusiasm that now spans hundreds of groups that are modeling and mimicking the lessons learned in our project. (along with a path breaking book Viral Churches based on research from the project.)
But that is not the whole story.
Through the encouragement of a few visionary givers, we were challenged to take a similar approach in Europe. I was initially hesitant. We were excited about the challenge and possibility, but others said “Europeans won’t go for your pushy process.”
After doing almost a year of research and interviews we gathered our first group of church planting leaders in the Spring of 2007. We launched a second community seven months later. After a few years we cut back on the non performers to 17 solid teams that were beginning to multiply at high levels.
Before I tell you the results, I will tell you that all of our concerns were allayed early in our process. The teams we gathered caught onto our peer protocol process[1] very quickly. They embraced the way we pushed them toward greater accountability and a results orientation.
We focused not on mission agencies based in the US that had projects in Europe but “indigenous groups” in Europe that were already engaged in church planting. Some had some American partners along the way, but the leadership of these teams was European by heritage and mindset.
The same Leadership Community processes we work in North America work just as well and even better in some ways here in Europe. They get it.
They welcomed some insights from US leaders on their models of church starting but also formed partnerships and networks of their own surfacing and promoting the best European models.
They formed partnership and extension processes that began sharing with other churches in Europe what they were learning and doing further multiplying their work.
In fact, they have replicated much of our process into their own networks and countries.
OK, the punch line is that as of today, they have planted 1137 churches since our engagement with them began. A truly remarkable figure. They are churches of all sizes and types. Just as in our US project, some are smaller, more organic expressions and some are started with multiple hundreds of people from the very beginning. They represent countries and many of the denominations and traditions of Europe.
Just within the last 30 minutes, three of the team leaders have approached me and said: “I didn’t really understand when we started in 2007 how much this would mean to us. I was a little hesitant…but you need to understand something – you have unleashed a movement here in Europe. We have never seen something like this before. You have served us well.”
I don’t use the M word, “movement”, much. And I can’t claim that we have started anything. The vision rested in the hearts of the leaders here and we helped call it out and serve what God was doing in the church leaders here. We count it a high privilege to be able to serve in that way.
And now of course they are calling for more of Leadership Network. Having learned what we do and how we do it, the leaders here would like to see our Leadership Communities and Innovation Lab programs launched in Europe as well.
I don’t have all the funding for these programs secured yet and so we are being very cautious not to over promise.”
I have a plaque behind my desk just under a bronze bust of Peter Drucker that carries his quote, “The joy is in the results.” Plainly I praise God for this harvest of churches that reach multiple tens of thousands of people across the European context. You might sponsor a whole country of your own!
So What About You?
Let me say this gently: We would welcome financial help. There is no better deal. The leverage in the United States and Europe is without parallel. You might sponsor a whole country of your own!
[1] Leadership Network’s basic way of working these last 27 years has been what I call” putting the smart guys in a room together.” We find the people getting the best results – all innovator/entrepreneurs and they teach one another what works.
