Church Planting: Counting the Cost (Timbo Fowler)

Kirk E. Miller

Church planter, Timbo Fowler, recently shared Aaron G. Loy’s post, Future Church Planters: Count the Cost, and wrote the following on Facebook.

(Warning: this began as a short post…it became a major mind and heart dump about church planting. Read at your own risk).

I was at a church planters conference the other day. It was good. I noticed some planters who had a plan, their wives were in it with them, and they are still about to face all the things in this article. They might make it. There are many variables, and it’s tough with the best of support (and the best of support is very rare).

I saw others, starry eyed, wives not really on board or not even present, with a deep love for the church, but ready to go be an entrepeneur for Jesus. Oh, boy. This is gonna be a rough ride. For these guys: don’t do it. I beg you, thee, thou, y’all, yuns, whoever will listen.

To all I say: count the cost. I am not being negative here. When I started planting years ago, only a fool would do it. Some Pastors would even mock it saying it was for “preachers who couldn’t cut it in a ‘real’ church.” Only a call from God would bring someone to be a church planter for the most part. By the way, many denominations and networks still functionally operate this way, as they recruit ministry novices (because they are cheap) who are set up to fail miserably. The land is littered with the damage of this mindset and its horrific effect on church planters and their families.

But now it’s cool to plant, and there are not a few “wantrepeneurs” who are motivated by some idea of how awesome it will be. It will be awesome, but not how they are thinking. It will kill “you.” Your pride, your self worth found in position, your ego, your “stuff” will all be held to the light and exposed. Jesus thinks that’s awesome, but you won’t find it in our church planting vision statements.

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Reflections (8/13/17)

Kirk E. Miller

The following are reflections are specifically in response to the recent “Unite the Right” rally in Charleston, SC, as well as potential nuclear threat between President Trump and North Korea.

This morning, as South City Church, gathers to worship God, we do so as people embedded in our society, a society torn and plagued by social sins of racism and threats of mass nuclear slaughter. Our worship cannot be removed or detached from our social context. Rather the God we worship and the faith we confess has bearing on our situations.

We grieve the effects of sin on ourselves and on our fellow-image bears. We grieve with a profound sense humility, knowing that we are equally culpable in evil. And we grieve knowing that sin is ultimately an affront to the glory of our God, a God of infinite worth and beauty; the God who created us for so much more — Himself.

We, as Christians, are a part of a much larger community — the Church composed of members from across time and space; a community who heritage and who make up consists of white people alongside people of color.

Today, as much as every other day, we have solidarity with each other. We are members of one body. To inflict one of us is to inflict one of our brothers and sisters. We cannot be apathetic.

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The Church: Myths and Misconceptions

Kirk E. Miller

The Church: Myths and Misconceptions (Part 1)
South City Church
July 30, 2017

Podcast link.

The Church: Myths and Misconceptions (Part 2)
South City Church
August 6, 2017

Podcast link.

These sermons are a part of a series on the foundational principles of South City Church’s philosophy of ministry. See all content from this series.

Martin Luther on Pastoral Study

Kirk E. Miller

Some pastors and preachers are lazy and no good. … They do not pray; they do not study; they do not read; they do not search the Scripture. …

[T]he [pastoral] call is: Watch, study, attend to reading. In truth, you cannot read too much in Scripture; and what you read you cannot read too carefully, and what you read carefully you cannot understand too well, and what you understand well you cannot teach too well, and what you teach well you cannot live too well.

Therefore, dear sirs and brethren, pastors and preachers, pray, read, study, be diligent. Truly, this evil, shameful time is not the season for being lazy, for sleeping and snoring. Use the gift that has been entrusted to you, and reveal the mystery of Christ.

–Martin Luther, What Luther Says: An Anthology, comp. Ewald M. Plass (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), entry no. 3547, 1110.

The Church for Mission vs. the Church for Consumption

Kirk E. Miller

The following is an excerpt from my sermon The Church: Myths and Misconceptions (Part 1) delivered at South City Church, 7.30.17.

The Biblical reason we join and are a part of a church isn’t because a particular church offers the “goods and services” we want and like — making the church into something like a business, and us into its customers or consumers. The church is a people, a community. And the reason we join and are a part of this church community is for the sake of advancing our collective Christian mission — together.

When we become consumers, church becomes about “what I get out of it.” And when that happens, what determines “how I chose to do church” (or, as we might say, where I choose to “go to church” — as if church is something you “go to”) is what suits my preferences, what I like, or what meets my perceived needs.

In such a model, the church becomes a place where I come to be served. The pastors and the staff are the ones who do the ministry (rather than everyone). “It’s their job. They’re the ministers,” we say. “My job is to receive and be served.”

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