MacFrazier.com

The personal opinions of a New Christian pastor entrepreneur geek punk.

Service Evangelism

May 5

Posted by Mac in Strategy | 1 Comment

A major component of the outreach approach at New Way will be “Service Evangelism”. This is different from (but may technically include) “sevant evangelism”. Servant evangelism is the doing of natural charity for strangers as an act of outreach. Service evangelism (my own term) describes not just doing good works of charity for strangers, but actually inviting strangers to help do those good deeds with the church community. (The recent World Vision Caregiver Kit program is a partial example of this sort of outreach.) Evangelism—when looked at as handing out invitations to the Lord’s wedding feast—is not only declaring the truths of the New Church, but also inviting people into the life of the church, which is a life of doing good. By thus marrying truth with good in our outreach efforts, we are acting as not just the lungs, but also the heart for the surrounding community.

[This is from the Launch Plan for New Way Church in Austin, TX. Yesterday I shared the Marketing Philosophy. Tomorrow I’ll post something on Ratios.]

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Marketing Philosophy

May 4

Posted by Mac in Strategy | 2 Comments

Tagline: “New Way Church: Welcome to Christianity 2.0”.

We cannot be the 1st mover in the “Christian church” category in Austin, obviously, so our goal is to create a new category: “Christianity 2.0”. We will sacrifice market leadership in whatever areas are necessary in order to focus on our unique values and offerings. We will focus on opposite characteristics and not on similarities with category leaders / first movers. The goal is to communicate our differences in a compassionate, non-argumentative way to those who are looking for something different.

Advertising will focus on the “New Way” brand, appealing to people who are spiritually minded but view traditional christianity as outdated and no-longer in synch with postmodern reality. E.g., “Imagine a New Way of seeing God”, “No satisfied Christians here”, etc. Affiliation with the “New Church” umbrella brand will be clear. “New Way” draws on early apostolic Christianity’s original name, “The Way”, while also subtly evoking a more eastern, wholistic approach to spirituality. By tagging the brand with “Christianity 2.0” we emphasize the “New” in “New Way” and “New Church” in a way that appeals to postmodern tech-savvy adults looking for something more than just another flavor of old-school organized religion.

[This is from the Launch Plan for New Way Church in Austin, TX. Yesterday we talked about the commitment to No Premature Real Estate. Tomorrow I’ll explain Service Evangelism.]


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No Premature Real Estate

May 3

Posted by Mac in Strategy | 2 Comments

Another new component of this church planting model is the avoidance of long-term commitments to real estate. New Way Church will be technically nomadic for the first many years of its existance. This not only reduces costs significantly, but it also helps in a number of other ways. There are a number of different ways of doing this. Primary venues (following recent studies of successful church plants) include movie theaters, school auditoriums, and other community centers. Currently we are looking at the Regal cinema at the Gateway Mall.

New churches often become hyperfocused early on on building programs. The good thing about a building program is that it gives the community a goal. But there are costs that come with this goal.

First, it is a self-serving goal and so tends to turn a community inward. Second, it locks the church in with regard to worship gathering size far too early. Third, it saps all the financial, emotional and physical energy of the congregation, preventing that energy from being used on more outward-facing programs. Fourth, it creates a long-term burden—in the form of maintenance and sometimes debt service—that not only draws money and energy away from outward-focused programs, but (when debt or additional grants are involved) it robs the congregation of an important sense of self-sufficency, making them into wards of the denomination. Finally, building programs encourage a “work hard today, so eventually everyone can stop working so hard altogether” mentality. The building of a building has no obvious followup goal to inspire and lead a community. Better long-term goals include things that will always need repeating—like sponsoring the planting of daughter churches. (See “Daughtering”, below.)

[This is from the Launch Plan for New Way Church in Austin, TX. Last week: Street to Kitchen. Tomorrow: Marketing Philosophy.]

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Street to Kitchen

Apr 30

Posted by Mac in Strategy | 2 Comments

Using an adaptation of the “Foyer to Kitchen” model of church program planning, no new program will be started that does not have a clear goal that assists in progressing participants a step closer to experiencing the Lord in His Second Coming. We call this “street to kitchen” because we feel that the church’s behavior in the public commons is as significant as its behavior with those who have entered its doors. So the metaphorical progression is Street -> Foyer -> Living Room -> Kitchen Table.

[This is from the Launch Plan for New Way Church in Austin, TX. This is after a long hiatus of posting. Last post was on the Crowd to Core model. Next week I will post a section titled No Premature Real Estate.]

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How to Love

Apr 25

Posted by Mac in Sermons | Comments off

Message Outline

[Bryn Athyn Family Contemporary worship gathering, Bryn Athyn Church School, Bryn Athyn, PA, 2010.04.26, 0930.]

Introduce:

  • I am in love, and full of love, and it brings me joy.
  • My most painful moments have been because of love.

Connect:

  • Love is important
  • Lord is Love
  • But HOW do you love?

Instruct:

Love Defined (DLW 47)

  • To feel another person’s joy as if it is your own.

Three Parts to Love (TCR 43:1)

  • Outside of oneself
  • Be more at one with them
  • “Bless” them from yourself

The Secret to Love (John 15:1-17)

  • The Lord is the root of love
  • Keeping commandments improves love
  • Love others the way the Lord loves us: sacrificially

Apply:

  • Repent: work on your own spiritual growth
  • We are first attracted to ourself in others, but must then learn to love the OTHER in others.
  • Practice selfless listening: still mind, attention to body language, prayer.

Inspire:

  • When you love, you bring the Lord into people’s lives.

Divine Revelation about Love

Divine Love and Wisdom 47

Divine love and wisdom cannot but be and have expression in others it creates. The essence of love is not to love self, but to love others and through love to be conjoined with them. It is also the essence of love to be loved by others, for thus is conjunction achieved. The essential ingredient in all love consists in conjunction; indeed in it consists its life, which we call pleasure, gratification, delight, sweetness, bliss, happiness and felicity.

Love consists in willing what one has to be another’s, and in feeling the other’s delight as delight within oneself. That is what it is to love. In contrast, to feel one’s own delight in another, and not the other’s delight within oneself, is not to love; for this is loving self, whereas the first is loving the neighbor.

These two types of love are diametrically opposite each other in nature. Both indeed conjoin, and to love what one has in another-in other words, to love oneself in another-does not appear to undo that conjunction; but in fact it does so undo the conjunction that the more anyone has loved another in this way, the more the other eventually hates him. For such a conjunction gradually becomes undone of itself, and love then turns to hatred to the degree that it does.

True Christian Religion 43:1

The essence of love is loving others who are outside oneself, wanting to be one with them, and blessing them from oneself. Two things – love and wisdom – constitute the essence of God; but three things constitute the essence of God’s love: his loving others who are outside of himself, his wanting to be one with them, and his blessing them from himself. The same three constitute the essence of his wisdom because in God love and wisdom are united, as was just explained. It is love that wants those three things, however, and wisdom that brings them about.

John 15:1-17

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.”

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