So, you’re a house church network?

So, you’re a micro church? 

That’s great, but what’s your model?

These are the standard questions I’ve come to expect in the last six years. Since moving to Allentown, PA to plant an experimental faith community in the region’s most economically disenfranchised zip code, curiosity around what it is that I actually do has been at an all time high. To be fair, in the early days—or, years—I didn’t quite know the answer to these questions.

It turns out that a cross-country move to a majority Latino neighborhood (as a white woman raised in majority white contexts with a few years of college Spanish in my arsenal) to pioneer plant at the onset of the COVID pandemic is not a very easy thing to label. Were we a house church? Well, for a period of time the “church” consisted of my husband and myself, and we weren’t allowed to leave our home. So, yes?  Were we a micro church? Sure! And we grew by 50% when I gave birth to my son a year into our planting journey!

Based on the characteristics of our early planting attempts, we could have classified as a simple church, a house church, a micro church, and a myriad of other things. So, when well-meaning pastors, planters, and potential supporters asked me about our model, you may understand why I found the question difficult to answer. I began to wonder why everyone was asking me this question, in particular? Out of all the things to be curious about, why the focus on the model?

Eventually, after a few years of fielding the “model” question, I finally asked a question of my own: Why are we always talking about models? 

The responses were illuminating:

• Well, how can we plant without models?
• Models enable us to scale and replicate.
• How can we talk about multiplication without talking about models?

Maybe you are thinking the same thing right now. If so, I want to reassure you that I’m not here to blow up the use of models in strategic missional thinking. I merely want to draw attention to what I think may be a subtle, but significant error that we make when we solve for model first. 

Its really an issue of two things: 

1. Our order of operations, and 
2. The assumptions that may be guiding us.  

Fleas From Dust?

Let’s take on the assumptions first, along with a quick and painless history lesson. You may remember from your elementary school science lessons that for a long period of time, the theory of spontaneous generation reigned supreme in the popular and scientific worlds. First formalized into a coherent theory by Aristotle, spontaneous generation theory held that life could form from non-living matter. Fleas from dust. Animals from mud. Maggots from rotting meat. Centuries of observation and less-than-rigorous scientific testing seemed to prove the theory true. Leave rotting meat out long enough, and maggots do in fact appear! (I seem to remember a “recipe for maggots” in one of my grade school textbooks.) Observe the ocean as the tide recedes, and lo and behold, scallops! 

In his first major work, Aristotle describes life coming into being in the following way:

“Of things that come to be, some come to be by nature, some by art, some spontaneously. But everything that comes to be (1) comes to be by something and (2) comes to be from something and (3) comes to be something.”¹Aristotle, Metaphysics. Source: http://data.perseus.org/texts/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0086.tlg025.perseus-grc1.

This way of thinking was considered common knowledge for over two millennia. It took Louis Pasteur’s thoughtful and elegant experiments to change popular and scientific thought. In his famous swan-necked flask experiment, Pasteur proved that new life only emerged where micro-organisms were already present and did not emerge spontaneously from non-living matter.  

Image Source: https://www.biorender.com/template/pasteurs-swan-neck-experiment

It seems to me that our fixation with “models” is somewhat Aristotelian. We are looking for the thing that can enable life to happen in our planting and ministry attempts. If we have the right model (a non-living thing), it will produce the kind of life we are praying to see in our neighborhoods and communities. Instead of recipes for maggots, we have recipes for multiplication. The underlying assumption is that life can come from non-life, as long as we have the right conditions or ingredients. This assumption biases our strategic thinking to look for external solutions in the form of new models and ministry programs first. We learn of a church or network that is thriving in some other context and believe that adopting their model in ours will be the fix we’ve been looking for—maturity in our congregations, desire and willingness to multiply, spiritual courage and kingdom generosity. We spend months (or years) of leading organizational change, galvanizing our communities, and adopting new approaches often to find that our gains are short-lived and hard to sustain. 

How many experiments do we need to run before we realize that the variable which determines whether a model will work or not is whether there is already life?

This approach to church planting, like Pasteur’s experiments demonstrated, suggest that only those environments “contaminated” by life will create new life? I must have met my own personal limit of failed model experiments by the time I arrived in Allentown, because the primary question that moved me was not “What is the right model for this community?,” but “Where is there already life in this community? Not “how can I bring Christ to this unreached neighborhood?,” but “Where is there evidence of Christ in this place already, and how do I join him there?”

This curiosity and discovery process brought me face to face with a myriad of personal assumptions, wounds, and immaturity. It challenged me to trust Jesus at his word when he said “Blessed are the poor,” and to second-guess all of my judgments and prejudices. It confronted my obsession with “success” and my long-time love affair with anxiety and control. It brought to the surface relational wounds that I had been coping with instead of healing from. It clarified something for me that I had known, but not yet lived fully: If I want this church plant to grow, then I must grow. If I want my neighbors to follow Jesus, then I must follow him. If I want my community to be restored and renewed, then I must be restored and renewed. If I want new life here, I must be filled with new life, myself. Let Jesus do that part, and then let him do the rest. 

If I want this church plant to grow, then I must grow. If I want my neighbors to follow Jesus, then I must follow him. If I want my community to be restored and renewed, then I must be restored and renewed. Share on X

Order of Operations 

Is that to say, then, that models aren’t important? That we should plant churches and multiply missional communities in random and inconsistent ways? Of course not. I’m just asking us to put the question of model in its proper place, rather in the same way that we approach solving a complex math problem. When we solve for x, we must be careful to do so in the right order, or else we will come to incorrect solutions. If x is a thriving, maturing community of disciple-making, I’m simply saying that determining the model comes later in the equation. Renowned missiologist and author, Alan Hirsch, offers a simple order of operations that can help us reorient our questions about model and mission:

C (Christology) + M (Missiology) = E (Ecclesiology)

This order of operations prioritizes Christ as the Living One from whom new life emerges. It places our ecclesiological models in a position of responsiveness to Christ and the mission of God to rescue and restore all of creation. And in this way, it has the potential to be good news not only to our neighborhoods and communities, but to us as pastors and planters. Perhaps we do not need to adopt the newest, trendiest models and programs. Perhaps we only need to be swept up into the life of Christ as we actually follow his ways and respond to his invitation to grow, heal, and be transformed. This approach to disciple-making and multiplication is based on the assumption that life can only ever come from life. It bets on the life of Jesus as the source of our own growth as well as the growth of our faith communities, both spiritually and numerically. It presumes that our primary responsibility as believers and leaders is to really live, and to live like Jesus. It challenges us to radical self-reflection and repentance over external projection and superficial changes. I believe that when we solve for this first, we experience a much more sustainable way of making disciples and serving Christ’s church than we may have thought possible.

If you haven’t already, I pray that you soon discover this life for yourself, and watch as it spreads in and through your community, in a mysterious and beautifully spontaneous way.

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Christ is the Living One from whom new life emerges. This reality places our ecclesiological models in a position of responsiveness to Christ and the mission of God to rescue and restore all of creation. Share on X

*Editorial Note: Ericka Henry has worked with Forge America, a longtime Missio Alliance friend and content partners. Forge America is a network of missional practitioners who join in the everyday mission of God. ~MA