Perry went on a rant today about the labels we try to put on our ministries. He confirmed that NewSpring is a traditional, seeker-friendly, emerging, missional, attractional, purpose-driven church. And, in some respects, we’re none of those. (There, now just about everyone has a reason to hate us.) During his tirade, he offered this statement:
“We have a purpose…and it’s not to be a country club with a steeple on top that gives our community the middle finger and tells them to go to hell because reaching them would make us uncomfortable!”
He concludes by acknowledging that you can try to label us all you want, but our main objective is to be the church God designed us to be. We aspire to be a movement and not a label.
I love it when my boss just says what’s on his mind. The phrase “politically correct” is not in his vocabularly.
Check out the rest of his post. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
wow, just wow
no wonder NewSpring is growing
political incorrectness = authentic
priceless.
I love your ministry, I will continue to learn from you and I will continue to follow whats going on with you. I just don’t get how using phrases or terminology that we would not want our kids using is political incorrectness.
Sometime you guys are like a great movie that adds lines or scenes that are not neccessary. The movie would have been great with out all the slang or nudity.
To steal from Rob Bell (stealing from Marilyn Manson), sometimes it seems like “it’s all relative to the size of your steeple.”
For 20 years I stood outside giving the middle finger right back and feeling hollow. Now I’m on the inside of a church without a steeple (Northpoint) and instead of my middle finger I’m raising both arms in joy and fulfillment of Christ’s love in my life.
It does make a difference, I just wonder how many are willing to step back and take a look at the size of THEIR steeple??
My personal gratitude and thanks to God for men like Andy, Perry, Craig, you, Carlos, Jeff (Henderson), etc… for reaching out with open arms!
The only problem I can see is that you need to differentiate who you are as a church from other people. In some senses you need these identifier words to describe who you are and aren’t as a church. You can’t be a church to exist merely for the sake of doing so, if you were, why not join forces with the church down the street? Pool resources and staff. In the business world, marketing gurus call this product differentiation. What separates Duracel from Energizer batteries? What separates NewSpring from the church a few miles down the road? People these days no longer choose a church solely on its theological standings. Look at most theologically conservative churches in America and their “doctrinal statements” are virtually copy and paste to each others websites. You need these words to describe your culture you have created at your church. The reason people come back to your church (and mine) as opposed to others is partly because of these defining words.
jeremy, i want to agree with you, but i can’t. labels aren’t what keep people coming back to newspring. perry never uses these labels. as a church, we never use these labels.
i have some theories, though, on what keeps people coming back to newspring. primarily, it’s because we teach the unfiltered “truth.” nothing is watered-down. perry (and the other teachers) hold nothing back.
then there are some other elements of newspring that are very different from other ministries in our region. (i’m not saying those other ministries are wrong. we’re just different.) that includes different music, children’s ministry, media, environments, social networking, simplicity/focus, etc.
in other words, it’s the “message” and the “experience” that differentiates newspring and not the labels.
…at least that’s my theory.
tony
Great definition of what the church should be. Its time that we stop enjoying our comfortable environments and go out and reach the lost instead of condemning. Be a movement, not a mud hole.
I love the attitude and the authenticity. To Jeremy’s point above, I think it’s possible–and more effective–to differentiate your church using language that real people in your city use. How many un-churched or de-churched people are looking for an “emerging” or “missional” or “purpose-driven” church. No, they’re looking for a church that can address real needs in their lives, so a church should use their everyday language to communicate with them.
So if everyone hates you then why does anyone go to your church?
I enjoyed that post too. Perry’s awesome.
Although he stereotypes missional as being limited to social justice with little mention of Jesus. Most missional minds I know believe it’s advancing the gospel and making Jesus famous wherever God has placed us. Both bringing good news and being good news (like NewSpring).
It’s good to keep banging the missional drum to remind us of our great cause.
I should say upfront that we don’t have a steeple. And the steeple line is definitely funny.
My problem is that it seems to say that ALL churches with Steeples are giving the middle finger to the world. Seems to me that many are doing great ministry and work for God.
I thought one of Perry’s soapboxes was that traditional church critics should leave NewSpring alone. I whole heartedly agree. NewSpring is doing great stuff. But why shouldn’t the moratorium on criticism go both ways? There are some people who will only be reached by the gospel in a church with a steeple (as crazy as it sounds).
Just my two cents. Keep up the great work for the kingdom.
The only problem I have is that there are no steeples out here in the west coast that I can find other than the mormon temple… but, the middle finger thing still holds true. Our steeple out here is big media outlets that brainwash Christians into thinking its all about them and that they should be against the world. So, we might have more fruit and nuts, but believe it or not the Christian sub-culture warriors fight militantly those who try to reach people with methods that we use on the mission field every place else. Go figure.
I think a lot of the resolution to the perception those outside of the church have garnered is to get the butts (including mine) that have been in our pews/chairs for a long time to get their butts outside of the church and live a real life of service. To many of us just attended services instead of being servants.
The phrase “word and deed” come to mind. I don’t think the world cares about our labels. What they do care about is when our labels and our actions don’t add up. If all we have are labels then labeled is all we’ll get. We have to become an expression of authenticity. Paul said he did not come with clever words of man, but rather a demonstration of the Spirit. When our labels and our actions as the church become an authentic loving expression of the Spirit then people will be transformed. We worry too much about what everybody else is doing. Embrace the part of the body that you are and let your deeds be done in such a way that they line up with your words(labels) and people will glorify God, not the type of label you wear. And, we are not more authentic simply by not having labels.
smirking about that middle finger and country-club comment.
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