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Urban Church Planting - Lesson 8

Elements Required for a Dynamic Church Planting Movement

In this lesson, you learn about the elements required for a dynamic church planting movement, which aims to spread the Christian faith through establishing new churches. The course covers key elements such as prayer and spiritual warfare, contextualization, leadership development, and discipleship strategies. You will gain insight into the importance of understanding local culture, identifying and training leaders, and addressing challenges such as resistance and persecution, financial constraints, and maintaining unity and vision within the movement.

Don Davis
Urban Church Planting
Lesson 8
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Elements Required for a Dynamic Church Planting Movement

EV327-08: Elements Required for a Dynamic Church Planting Movement

I. Introduction to Church Planting Movements

A. Definition and Importance

B. Historical Examples

II. Key Elements of a Dynamic Church Planting Movement

A. Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

1. The Role of Prayer

2. Spiritual Warfare in Church Planting

B. Contextualization and Cultural Relevance

1. Understanding the Local Culture

2. Adapting Church Practices

C. Leadership Development and Multiplication

1. Identifying Potential Leaders

2. Training and Empowering Leaders

D. Discipleship and Evangelism Strategies

1. Effective Discipleship Models

2. Evangelism Approaches

III. Overcoming Challenges in Church Planting Movements

A. Resistance and Persecution

B. Financial and Logistical Constraints

C. Maintaining Unity and Vision


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  • In this lesson on Ecclesiology, you will gain knowledge and insight into the study of the church, including its nature, purpose, and organization. You will learn about the biblical images of the church, the Great Commission, the church's ministry, and its role in society. You will also explore the church's offices, governance, and accountability and discipline.
  • You will gain knowledge about what a Church Planting Movement (CPM) is, its importance, and its characteristics. You will also learn about the challenges of starting a CPM and the steps involved in beginning one.
  • You will gain a comprehensive understanding of alternative forms of spirituality, including an overview of different types and their characteristics, criteria for evaluating them, and the role of the church in responding to them. You will learn how to engage with alternative forms of spirituality in a Christian way that is both compassionate and truthful.
  • You will gain a comprehensive understanding of the role of tradition in urban church planting. By exploring biblical and historical examples of tradition and evaluating its positive and negative aspects, you will learn how tradition can be applied in the context of urban church planting.
  • This lesson provides insights on the significance of tradition in urban church planting, focusing on connecting with cultural context, balancing tradition and innovation, and applying tradition to foster relationships, community, and spiritual growth.
  • You will learn how church planting movements use different structures and religious authorities to balance authority and flexibility, develop local leadership, and adapt to challenges while maintaining growth.
  • Through this lesson, you gain insights on building a strong identity and crafting an effective strategy for successful urban church planting, focusing on core values, authentic culture, community outreach, leadership development, and adaptability.
  • Discover the key elements for creating a dynamic church planting movement, including prayer, cultural relevance, leadership development, and discipleship strategies, while addressing challenges faced along the way.
  • By exploring strategies for urban church planting, you gain practical knowledge on tailoring approaches for city contexts, building core teams, and implementing phased processes for long-term church success.
  • By studying this lesson, you learn to develop essential leadership qualities and skills, build a strong team, and address challenges in urban church planting effectively.

We will consider the factors and forces connected to a remarkable phenomenon of church planting movements taking place throughout the world today. At a time when definitions of the Church have become more and more loose and individualized, we will analyze all church plant and growth theories as they relate to the Nicene marks of the Church in the world. Using these marks as a representative of a legitimate biblical view of the Church, we will then discuss and investigate the connection between church planting and world evangelization, growth, and leadership development. You may also access this class at Tumi.org under the title, "Winning the World: Facilitating Urban Church Planting Movements."

Dr. Don Davis
Urban Church Planting
ev327-08
Elements Required for a Dynamic Church Planting Movement
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:00] I thought that I would really make sure that I gave you what I considered to be the most fundamental elements of of actually mobilizing a ministry or any ministry to really have church planning movements that are spoken of, like in Garrison's book. In other words, I think that we need to really look at the American situation and then look through the lands of Bonner and Kreider and more. And. And who was our other guest? And sort of ask is, is what is working in South Central? What is working in Central Asia? What is working in in Muslim countries? The things that that that are being spoken up. What is the likelihood that we could actually do those things in America? In other words, there are some of us who've given our entire adult lives practically to considering what are the particular elements, processes, directions that we need to have in order to have a dynamic movement. I must admit, I must tell you that this course, a big part of this course, was was drafted primarily. So I could just, you know, it'll sound so selfish, but so I could I could just have an opportunity to study the church plant movements of the world in depth and to do that in the most critical way that my own scholarship, you know, could allow. And I must admit that I have come to some conclusions. And I think that these last two classes should be about those conclusions. Of course, there are tentative conclusions. You know, I mean, I should say I should bracket what I say, but I believe what I believe here up to a point, or I should say, so far as I know, or I should even say that most important qualification to me, which is the most you know, it doesn't it sort of takes it inflates it deflates all the sort of potency of your argument. [00:02:13] But as far as I know, is as best as I can figure in my own opinion, I do think that there are some ways that we can really compare the research that we've done to the American inner city situation. And tonight, we're going to look at those. There are six things I want to cover, three before break and three I have to break. And I'd like to use Kipling's Little Limerick as a kind of a nice way to get into this Rudyard Kipling myth. Great, great author. I keep six on a serving man. He has this little poem. He says, I keep six honest serving man. They taught me all I knew. Their names were what and why and when and how and where and who. I send them over land and sea. I send them east and west. But after they have work for me, I give them all the rest. I let them rest from 9 to 5. For I am busy then as well as breakfast, lunch and tea for the hungry man. But different folk have different views. I know a person small. She keeps 10 million serving men who gets no rest at all. She sends them abroad on her own affairs from the second she opens her eyes. 1 million Hals, 2 million wears and 7 million wives. I think he was speaking of a little one, a little sister, a little daughter who was just filled with questions. I am convinced that you can ask these six serving men. To really help us understand the nature of movements. Let me let me situate us where we are. I think that we have studied through Garrison especially. We have studied a lot of the data that has to do with church planning movements from a Baptist variety all over the world. [00:04:02] You've done your reading, you've been able to see what that means. You've also been able to. Barna to sort of get a, you know, a sort of a king size by. Of American spirituality. Now, a sort of a sort of a unique view, but an important view of Cryder, who is really one of the most from what I can tell and from some of the others who write about him. Kreider is a real is a real, true church planner. Kreider is not kidding. He wrote a little book, but he is a very important person in the house church network movement. I mean, he has actually done it. He has pastored churches that have gone into this. And he is mentioned in many other people's works about the credibility that he has. So and the mall is just a good, tasty little nugget of. Biblical. Biblical McNugget is what I call more than just easy to read and quite biblical. But from everything that you've looked at, we should now be able to say, okay, I think we've got a picture. Now this week we have to ask, what is the meaning of all of that for the American inner city situation? If we want to raise disciples or be disciples or be in a church or see churches grow or mobilize churches, start new ones. And really what we want to do is sustain a movement to actually create a movement of churches. I'd love to see God do in the city. What what what he is doing in some of these places. There are many of us would like to see thousands and thousands of churches planted in urban communities. And so we have to ask ourselves, okay, what does all of this research and all of the Bible and all of the things that we have studied up to this point? In what sense can we use these insights to mobilize ourselves and others to do this in American inner city situations? Now, let me give you the fat of it right up front. [00:06:03] I think that the American inner city situation is different enough that we can't just would only apply all of the things that we've learned from any one of these offers. As a matter of fact, there are many of the elements that are true of the American inner city that they don't even talk about at all. And candidly, if they were to import those insights into their analyzes, it would dramatically change what they would have to say. They just couldn't, you know, I mean, from every one of them, quite literally, from Barner, from Garrison, from Crider and less for more, because he essentially sort of stated what the Bible says. There are three questions I took a I like Kipling's serving men. They they have taught me all I've known. They are very good not just for newspaper copy, but for just good critical thinking. I've dealt with essentially all of these questions of I ask myself, if God woke me up, threw Gabriel and Gabriel said, Don, I'd like you to start a church planning movement among the poor in urban America. I like it to be spiritual, vital. I'd like it to be multiplicative. Like I'd like us to. To touch thousands of neighborhoods, raise up hundreds and hundreds of churches that would outlive my lifetime. Or better yet, when I'm in my nineties, I could go back and actually preach in churches that still exist. Real longevity, real depth, real power. What are the issues with that? I dealt with the the why, the what and the who I believe up front. Then we'll take a break and then we'll deal with the others. The. Where the. The wind and the. Whatever the other one, the how the how's probably the thing. I am convinced that the how becomes pretty easy once you understand these other things. [00:08:08] And I truly do believe that the key to wisdom is not just getting knowledge, it's it's the ability to arrange this knowledge and to apply knowledge. And that is what I think that all of you now are in a position where you know enough about church planning movements in the world that you could really have. God wanted you to be a C, H Mason or Amy Semple McPherson or Richard Allen or, you know, if he wanted you to start a movement, you know enough about how they start now to really apply that to where you are. So let's go to this. And again, I am professing now I'm not revealing nothing. So all of this, I just want you to know I'm not going to try to I'm going to speak my mind now. So it's a wonderful thing to profess. We are done with simply evaluating what these books say. I want to give you what I think regarding church planning movements and what that means to to the poorest communities in America. The first question why aren't we consider the power of church planning movements for ministry and mission in today's inner city context? I mean, I think that that's an important question. Why do we want to see a church planning movement? Is that important? Why is it important? Well, a convincing yes, this is my answer. Convincing and compelling case can be made that American church and mission leaders must take seriously the responsibility to begin their church mobilization, church planning efforts in their own Jerusalem. And Judy is, rather than thinking about some areas of other place, that's the first thing or acts one. Jesus, wonderful words. That must have been amazing to hear our risen Lord say this. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria until the end of the year. [00:10:00] It sort of reminds me of the Great Commission, our Lord, in up a room when he said, All authority is in heaven, on on earth. It's been given to me in Matthew 28. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you and behold, I am with you. Are we even to the end of the age? I think that this has this command, when you juxtapose against James to fire gives us the clearest reason why we need to really think about church planning movements here. God says through James. Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters has not got chosen. Those who are poor in the world to be rich in fate and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him. There's no question in my mind entirely that Jesus of Nazareth wants us to go to the ends of the Earth. He has chosen the poor in a special way, to be rich in faith and areas of the kingdom and the American inner city is is immediately kicks into that. The American inner city, of the dozens of them there are there are easily, you know, depending on where you make the cut of there are there are well over 175 200 of major inner city contexts in America. There aren't that many cities in America, by the way, that are over 250. In population that's within the city limits. There is a regions of governance thing that I made for you. This are those. I mean, it's pretty amazing. The cities are listed in order. The cities that are actually listed here, I believe if this is the right one of our to me a graphics. [00:11:54] These are the cities here that are over 250,000 in America. I mean, you would think there are more. But quite literally what what has happened is that the city proper, like the city proper, L.A. proper, Boston proper, Miami proper is not that big. But around it is just unbelievable. As a matter of fact, the whole East Coast is nothing but city virtually from from from from up around, you know, New York, Delaware, all of those all the way stretching down for miles and miles on the East Coast. Same is taking place around the Great Lakes and on the West Coast, they're called agglomerations. Now, by the way, in urban anthropology, it's just sprawling, sprawling thousands. You get in a car, drive 70 miles an hour for hours and see nothing but city. That's what I'm saying. Whatever you call the cities, that's what it is. The American inner city of the some of the some of the most conservative estimates are between 33 and 40 million people who are who are really poor, I mean, well below the poverty line and in fact, are unreached at all. And America's inner city is different from a lot of the places that we read about up to this point, because it's not homogenous, it's mind numbing in its diversity in all of its levels of cultural and class difference. Oh, there is there's there are many reasons for this in the American situation, a massive new immigration has taken place since the eighties. Amazing how many people came into our country and are continuing to come here from immigration, both legal and illegal. The push pull theory, especially for the northern cities I've talked about that some in class, the first migration of African-Americans took place between World War One and two, where nearly 4 million blacks in the South were pushed out. [00:13:56] That's the theory. The push. The push is they were pushed out of the South because of racism and ostracism, and they were pulled by the lure of industrial jobs. The second migration, really, at least in African-American communities, is that they were they were frankly, many of them yanked themselves out of the most urban areas. There was there was the greatest there was one of the greatest brain drains in any community after the Civil Rights Act, the one of the most serious abandonments of the inner city by African-Americans, business, businesses, businessmen, professionals, educators, quite literally right up the street. Every notable black person in Wichita lived within a little place. You need to know that Secretary of state, attorneys, colonels, judges, they all lived here. When the society opened up, it exploded. These communities were just left to themselves. The African-American situation is a wonderful situation to understand what has taken place in the American city. The American city, especially the inner city, is sort of known by flight. And within that flight, there are well-worn historical divisions between cultures, between Koreans and blacks, Hispanics, poor whites. We saw that lived out quite literally in the Watts riots not too long ago. There is linguistic and ethnic differences. We talked about that. You can get your driver's license in L.A. in 23 languages. The dramatic class alienation that that that is a part of the American city impacts and affects lives in the urban poor neighborhoods throughout our country. Unbelievable unemployment and lack of education, dramatic levels of noninvolvement in political processes and community governance, economic separation between those living in the cities and those in the suburbs. It's not as bad as Mexico City, but it's but the gap continues to grow. And there's been a lack of government attention and care. [00:15:58] Perhaps you could see that in Katrina. What do you think are the chances that that would happen in Bel-Air or Beverly Hills? You know, it just let's just be candid about it. You know, it was because they were in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, most of them barely educated up to high school level and largely black, that something like that would happen. I'm not. Again, we could debate that, but I think that's a pretty, pretty rational approach. It's not either racial or anything like that. It really is, in fact, the case, the poor. If you if you just eliminate color altogether and say that the Katrina victims were green, it's just pretty plain that those who are poor are not going to have the same options as those who are not. That is just the case. They are raising levels of violence in the American city that that garrison never seems to say a word about in any any one of his chapters. If you read through the whole book. The. There is there are some really amazing stats coming about, about the level of the jurisprudential system of America and in the urban community, the police, the courts and the prison systems there. There are some stats that say that nearly one in three African American homes have some direct link to the jurisprudential system. Now, what that means is that they have somebody on probation or in prison or somebody is paying something like that. Now, I don't know what year and see it, but I didn't see any of that in any of his writings. Did you? I'm just using blacks as an example. I'm not. You guys are looking at me like I'm crazy, but I'm just. The point is, is that what Garrison talked about is not the American inner city. [00:17:46] Let's just be candid about that. I'd love to talk to him about that. To use, again, African Americans as an example. There are more African-American men in prison and in college. There are nearly 600,000 black men alone in prisons in America. There are no I don't know if you guys saw recently the Center for Disease Control actually placed black men on the endangered list, which is an extraordinary thing. It's extraordinary to me. Being a black man, you know what I'm saying? You know, being being extinct. But it's the case. The reality is that there is abandonment and benign neglect of the church in the American inner city. The difficulty of many ethnic churches to reach their own neighbors cross-culturally is the reason why we're an impact exists quite literally. It's not that. It's not that the black church, the brown church, the poor white church or other churches are poor. Don't say that they're not spiritual or not hungry. It's just difficult to cross barriers and to, in fact, be be effective in crossing those barriers. On your peach colored thing, I thought this would be something that you could use, something I've used to communicate differences. If you look at targeting unreached groups, there are many people who will say, given how many churches there are in the city, why would we even need to plant more churches? There are hundreds of storefronts and little churches and whatever. I think this is really one of the finest disappeared admission's frontiers. I'm trying to find the actual bibliographic thing that I could, you know, give the author credit, but graphically it makes it plain reading from left to right, top and then bottom. There are many different peoples in the city. You can quite literally see in close proximity in any urban American city this sort of situation. [00:19:42] You got your stars, your squiggles, your triangles, your squares, you got your circles, and they all live right close to each other. And there are many of the congregations are growing the way they ought to in the way congregations normally do. They grow in a homogenous way. Now, homogenous churches tend to reach out to people that are according to culture. That's just natural. There's nothing wrong with that. Let's not. But what it does is it leaves these unusual gaps right next door. You I don't know if you realize, but right up the street is one of the most fastest growing large ocean and Central Asian communities where we use our Bible clubs essentially in a in a 17th on hydraulic right across the way from St Mary's. That whole area is A's. Many of the people don't speak any English at all. Just go and knock on doors. Their kids do because they go to public schools, but there is no connection at all. So you can, in fact, be in an American city, have churches at a robust reaching out to people of the same kind. And you have right clothes, literally. You can throw a rock to two whole populations that are unreached. That's totally different from winning people in a Guatemala, a little village of 438, whatever. Right. All together, it's very difficult. And none of our authors have really sort of address that particular thing. Well, we need to we we need to address that. The evangelical church in some ways, back on page two. Number four, the evangelical church is concentrated on foreign fields. There's more literature and more ink that has been splashed on the 1040 window where work quite literally the vast majority of unreached people live. It's completely valid and totally important of the estimations by mission groups that America is basically rich actually fuels this sort of difficulty. [00:21:45] The US Center for World Mission will actually say that America's reach it won't even discuss America. And yet the 40 million in these sort of areas represents one of the largest mission fields. America is third. In rank under India and China in the largest population of unreached people of any nation in the world. Which is pretty amazing when you think about it. There are many, many people in America who don't know Christ and have no connection. And it doesn't help us that mission leaders are saying America's reach, black, church reach black, poor, white, rich, white. Hispanics will reach the Hispanics. And so when you have that, you create this, this, this. And. Add to that the lack of unity and strategy among the American church to really join forces to unite new movements in American urban poor communities, just virtually I mean, I've been doing this a long time. I don't know of any sort of strategic, focused, inter connected movement of our missions organizations to really sort of win the American ghetto. That's just not the case now at that. So just on a pure basis to me that there are there are millions of unreached people right close by us. I mean, there are there are whole communities I was just reading the other day, there are whole communities in New York, in Chinatown, where where every province of China is actually represented. I mean, all them first, first generation folk. I mean, you could go to one little square block and minister to the entire to the entire representatives. It's like a Chinese. You know model you in or. You know I think it's like all of their their people are right there if that wasn't enough reason and I'm not I gave you the scriptures in order that you can spend time because we don't have time to go into we're asking the question, why should we be concerned about movements? Well, we should be concerned because there are 40 million unreached people there. [00:23:49] We should be concerned because God has a heart for the poor and there is a clear biblical mandate to care for them. And you can see that in the Scripture at least three ways. The Old Testament teaching about the poor. I gave you three representative text, Jesus's own unique identification with the poor. I gave you a couple of text in the in the early church is transparent commitment to the city the poor and the disenfranchized. No one can pick up the Bible and not understand that God has a commitment to the poor and for America, at least many of its many of his poor. It's not all there. There are many, many a rural poor. I hope that there's a world impact for rural America. I mean, because it really there are just there are there are there are millions of people who are poor in rural America. But but it is certainly plain that God is also committed to the poor in the city of the Old Testament as claim. The fact that God chooses is. You can see at the top of page three is not this fast. I choose to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed goes free. To break every yoke. Is not is not is it not? The fast that I choose to share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house when you see them naked to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh. God gives blessings on those who consider the poor. He says In the day of trouble in some 41, the Lord will deliver them. The Lord will protect Him or her and keep them alive. They'll be called blessing the land. [00:25:25] He won't be giving up to the will of his enemies. The Lord will sustain that person on their sick bed and an illness will be restored. God over and over says that He loves the poor so much so that he can see in Proverbs 19 that whoever is generous to the poor lends to him and he'll repay. Or you will find no one. No, none. To me, I've studied world religions. I haven't found a single person who has made this sort of unique identification with the poor that Jesus does. And Matthew 25, that what you do to the hungry, to the thirsty, to the stranger, to the naked, to the sick, to the one in prison. What you do to them is exactly what you do to him. His his identification with them is complete. He will say in that day, truly, I say to you as you did it or didn't do it, one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me over and over throughout the Gospels, you can see Jesus advocating, you know, go and give, sell what you have to the poor and and gather of treasure in heaven and come and follow me. He just links discipleship and distribution to the poor there as what is important there in the early church. Every time. I would love any Bible scholar here to see that every single time in Acts the Holy Spirit made a manifestation on God's people. There was just they sold their homes, they took care of each other, they gave things away. The most explicit act of God's own indictment and discipline of of some people in the new in the in the single new New Testament historical work in acts because of a couple of nice and so far who tried to play games with God about their generosity to the poor. [00:27:08] So let's make plain that in Old Testament, New Testament and Jesus life and through everything the Church, Dear God, is plain about His commitment to the poor. Don't neglect to do good and share what you have, contribute to the needs of saints and seek to show hospitality for the Ministry of Services, not just the playing needs of the saints, but also overflowing in many things. In many things, giving to God. And Paul could say that Galatians. So as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, especially the those or the household of say. If those two reasons are enough to explain why we should, we should at least think about planning churches in significant numbers among the poor in America City. Then we should look at the growing sense of hopelessness, nihilism and despair among America's poor. This is one thing that is really different from any of Garrison's things. Did you get any sense from anything Garrison read that that poverty or lack created some sense of despair or hopelessness, or that poverty was so crushing on people. Quite literally, the poor around the world are much poorer than the American poor. I mean, there is no question on that. You can't compare that the poverty here with the poor others. But when you add all of these other things, these failed social protests, the nihilism, the despair, the violence, the broken home. It really makes the American inner city one of the most difficult, toughest fields to make disciples anywhere. And this is totally important to understand. Again, I'm making I'm trying to answer the first question, why, Don? Why should we even consider planting churches and seeing the moon, the planet among America's urban poor? Well, on page four, there have been many failed protests. [00:28:54] The civil rights movement was great. It enabled those who have among minorities and women and other groups to really succeed. But it has done nothing. An underclass is much greater than it was when King actually walked the streets and and his compatriots did. The Great Society never worked. Lyndon Johnson in all of his great work to sort of establish things and many great programs and still to this day are being used to aid the poor. We still have millions of millions of people without health care and all of these things. The urban situation is not really being affected much by these things. Trickle down economics sort of to use a sort of pejorative rendering of Reagan's sort of economics to me as a total. I'm not here to be political or to get the right words. I'm just giving you these sort of things. You know, if we can if we can just do right by those with funds, they will in fact, do right by those that below No Child Left Behind. Let me while I'm picking on people, let me pick on on, you know, the Clintons and everyone. There's enough blame to go around on really everyone is what I'm saying. The heart of this is just to say that none of our recent initiatives since the cities to scratch the surface with the American city, the American inner city is actually getting worse. The underclass is is ballooning. Yeah, I don't know. One of the most amazing books I've ever read, a snippet. New York Times book a. A reporter is doing is done a fantastically interesting and intriguing piece on on the whole generation of urban poor kids who are now completely at home in the prison system. All their friends are associated with prison has no sense none of any sense of sort of fear or anything to go to prison is wonderful. [00:31:07] All their friends are in prison. They met there. They met their girlfriends during visitation time when when when their families were visiting their respective, you know, inmate dads or uncles or brothers. We have a whole situation now that has completely gone to put. So you can't just take anybody's model and just drape it on the American inner city situation. It won't work. It won't work. We have in other words, I think we have to see how sick the American urban situation really is in stark examples of this. To me, I could go on and on. I hope I'm not boring you, but it's pretty plain the breakdown of infrastructures and institution, housing and urban development, health care and quality of life. There's a lack of investment of deteriorating neighborhoods. I don't know if you guys just need to go to the inner city of Detroit. You've never seen anything like it or Saint Louis, quite, quite literally. Some of the old cities. The old ghettos. BLOCK after block after block after block of tenement. It just looks like a bomb. I mean, there are hundreds, hundreds of apartments and homes in Detroit that have absolutely no investment whatsoever. I mean, just block after block is amazing. I've been in urban communities a long time and I was stunned. I said, man, how long does this go? I mean, we've been driving for I mean, burned out. Just burned out. Empty. You can't no one wants to buy it. No investment in it, no business. I'm just telling you, when you think of communities like this and planning churches and planning outposts of the kingdom, it is not going to be easy to think about that. Broken public systems education. It's amazing. Marcus Garvey in Newark, New Jersey. [00:32:58] Marcus Garvey High School. Real close to world impact Newark. It's amazing to hear how many in a huge high school. Thousands. How many restrooms work, how many textbooks they have. You can choose any social indicator you want and the American inner city is in trouble. There's and really it's just like a just a spark away from the L.A. riots all over again. There are many who believe that. Add to that is probably the most significant thing. There are urban families breakdown, shattered, broken, neglected. It's decaying. It's alienation. Husbands from wives, parents with children, families from neighbors, neighbors from community. You know what is really intriguing if you look at the American situation. Some would say it used to be the African-American family were in trouble, but that's not the case anymore. It's all of them, the Hispanics, the poor whites. It's like it's just like the whole community is just unraveling. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of prison populations of America are from urban poor communities. If you can heal the urban poor in American cities, you would clean out the American prison system. I don't know if you realize that. I mean, America is certainly its whole jurisprudential system are urban, poor neighborhood folk. So if you add all of this up, here are the implications the US urban poor feel. It's one of the largest, toughest, most, most of and again, because of the Bible is one of the most reachable fields on earth. I don't know what you believe it is. It's it's large and difficult. Are they really the urban feel doesn't align to many of the other urban fields that we have talked about. Secondly, the extreme difficulties posed by diversity, violence, shattered family, spiritual alienation makes American cities really formidable gas. [00:34:56] There are you can walk the streets among the ports in Tokyo. Nobody will ever hurt you. There is no graffiti on the subways or very little. It's not dangerous. Do the same and do the same in Bed-Stuy. Do say. I mean, it's dangerous in any urban community. There are these factors that make our situation different. And so church planning movements targeted to reaching the world's laws have to seriously take advantage of the challenges represented by the American inner city. In other words, no matter what you read, let me tell you this no matter what book you read from anybody, don't you just drape that on the American city? What an American urban poor situation. I don't care how much you like. You're going to have to change that model if you're going to really deal with the situation that we're dealing with. Yeah. It feels good to profess like that and not simply summarize what Barnett said. Yeah. Anyway. I don't know what you guys think about that. That's a mouthful. I just wanted to establish the difficulty and intimidating. It is. It's valuable, it's important. But it is really different. Let nobody pretend that it is. I mean, inner city. Inner city. L.A. is not inner city. You know, even Amsterdam. It's not. It's the violence, the shattered homes, the lack of infrastructure. It just makes it a greater challenge. Now what you know, just to be sort of redundant, you know, what some people call redundant, I call Powell driving the truck. Helen, what what are the central distinct is at the bottom of page four of American inner city context. And how might that affect our understanding of church planning movements? I'm just repeating essentially the point, but but with greater gravity this time, if we can discern as we apply Garrison and all of these guys the particular specific elements in in American urban neighborhoods, then if we can discern them, we can that can greatly impact the ways in which we interpret and apply the various insights that we have learned about the nature of spirituality, missions, church planning, church growth and urban mission. [00:37:06] In other words, we need to really take these specific elements seriously. I love this text and first chronicles about some of David's fighting men, the men of Isiaka. We had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do. That is what I mean. In order to do so, a certain kind of mission, you need to know what you're about to do. And then with Paul's good word to us, who live in the city and love the city and love our neighborhoods. Look carefully, then, how you walk. Not as unwise, but as wise, making use of the best use of the time because the days are evil. Therefore, don't be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Y'all, let me just give you again. Let me just sort of bring a laser like focus on a few elements that make that are particular elements that we need to be aware of as we think of. Really. I want to spon I'm just telling you guys honestly, I want to spon urban church planning movements in America among america's inner cities. That's that's my job. I've written it into our actual mission statement. So as a director of an institute to train leaders for that, I need to understand what are the distinctive things I need to be aware of as I go forward in that there are at least four of them and I give you them here. It's plagued by deep rooted spiritual alienation. Quoting from Keats book, The president will impact the root cause of our alienation from God and from each other, saying the antidote to sin is a personal relationship with God through Christ. This leads to hope, reconciliation and healing. God usually initiates a personal relationship with an individual. [00:38:46] We notice it through his church. I think he's right. And I also believe that Keith is further right when he when he suggests that America is not a Christian nation. It's not at all in any way Christian. Less than 20% of of the population meet for worship on any given Sunday. You can choose any great city you want to all choose Miami. This is a high number. I've seen estimates as low as 2% of Miami. The population attend church and that's either Catholic or Protestant. Immigration has exploded in these places with 90% of the population being non-European. And so much of what is going on in the American city is that you have this influx of non Christianized people, they have their own religion. And so when you when you really start looking at that diversity and what it means, one out of seven people in the US don't even speak English at home. The diversity is indicative of the same kind of diversity and in some of the most unreached people, groups on earth, no less, we think that this is sort of an American problem. It's not the neglect of urban communities. This is just the way missions is. I just got to quote you something from the world. I think maybe it came out on the other page, the World Christian Encyclopedia, 419,000 Christian workers are serving God. This is as of 2000 outside of their home countries. This number includes missionaries of all traditions Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican, Independent and marginal Christian, which is a weird camp. Why would a marginal Christian groups and missionaries, I guess. I guess you could. But you know, the US is the largest mission sending and receiving country on earth. I don't know if you guys know that we send nearly 118,000. [00:40:46] We we receive about 33,000. It's really interesting to know. So that little little villages, little, little places in Nigeria are sending missionaries to the Nigerians in New York City. I mean, they're just better. They're better able to reach them. But but but America, I'm just telling you, America is a mission field. You need to see it that way. It's huge, diverse. Now, most workers this is very important to know that most workers go to the least needy fields. This is just true all, all throughout the earth. Though over 60% of all people live in cities. The vast majority of people don't go there. The real demonstrated. Michael. Jeff. Jeff, Iranian. Jeff Jafari. That's his snake. The real demonstrated spending priorities apparently emphasize helping Christians become better Christians. He studied, by the way, tons of data and this is his analysis of what he can see in terms of Christian missionaries throughout the world. Of the real demonstrated spending priorities apparently emphasize helping Christians become better Christians rather than helping non-Christians consider Christ or helping Christians of one kind, either Catholic or Orthodox, become Christians of another kind, evangelical or Catholic or or charismatic and so on. Rather than helping those who have not heard the gospel here, you seem to me, is like shuffling. Most megachurches are shuffles. They got, you know, people who are alienated somewhere else are now going 10,000 strong to the to the bar and or whatever we want to call the churches that really that really win more people than any are all under 200 lighthouse will win more people per pound for pound it will win more people than Marshall ever dreamt of. You just need to know that. And so most of our work in Christian circles are turning Catholics into evangelicals or stuff like that. [00:42:40] That's what he's saying. It's not necessarily just going to those who are truly locals. If you look at America and you know, we don't have time, I wish we did. But the rise of spiritualism, relativism, circle, racism, new age, religions, it's really amazing. Spirituality without God is just as big as Oprah these days. Everyone's spiritual. No one is holding. You hear a lot about spirituality. You don't hear a whole lot about holiness. Holiness. Well, let's go on my time. My time is running out. Urban America's radical diversity is directly connected to racial, cultural and ethnic suspicion and conflict. Now, just so you know, there's been dramatic population growth. It's amazing. I study these things religiously. They're saying in the next 20 years we could have 9 million people on Earth. If you're the sum of these things, the explosions that are taking place, China has got its population under control, but India is just expanding. We could really we are going to have unusual population growth. We are about 6.3 billion now. In 1900, there were about 1.6 billion. We all think about that. You know, that's pretty amazing. That's not that long ago. 1.6 to 6 point, you know, in a hundred and few years. And recently look, in recently in 1970, there were only 3.7 billion. We've doubled since 1970. The population of the world, almost four times as many people in 2000 as is 1900 and most populous continent is Asia, with 3.6 million Africans, 7.84 million. Europe 1729 million. Latin American 590 million. North America 310 million. Oceana 310 million are 82% of the world's population are in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Yeah, I don't know if you know this, but the 1040 window was so important because quite literally within a handful of nations, the vast majority of lost people live. [00:44:46] So the 1040 is important. I'm not I'm not saying that that is a significant thing. But but but the issue here in America is that complex ethnic diversity in America is making this very, very difficult. And we can't turn out that many missionaries, hundreds of distinct languages are spoken numbering well over 60 million people have been drawn to urban areas, not all of them poor. You can see that race matters still. Race issues still matter. Just look at the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. All wounds remain unhealed, festering there, ready to be ignited. And the connections of genuine race and class conflict are poignant and complex in America between poor whites, Asians, Hispanics. To me, this really makes our work very difficult. Add to that, again, I have no the I want to quote you Philippians three to repeat the same thing to you. It's not difficult for me. It's an important for your mind and for your test. Let me just say that urban America is riddled with broken kinship relationships, decaying social networks. This is one of the most significant things that we as urban church planners and pastors have to deal with. Let me say this plainly. If you are an urban missionary and are not factoring in issues of the broken urban family in your strategy, you will not be effective. We just have to look at that. We have to find a way in the differences, the differences not only between the various ethnic groups. A real I just gave you a few anthropological roots of things people are in acculturated of their theological roots. We tend to place ourselves at the center of that and then drape that over family problems. Our differences at the bottom of page six, they were real barriers. [00:46:33] And I think that you can do there are at least three options. You can become paternalistic. You want to help the poor native syndrome. There's a lot of that sort of stuff. It's a bit. Neville an expression of assume superiority. These people need us. We need to help them. We need to help those South Pacific Islanders, you know, wear clothes and not expose themselves. That sort of it's not a harsh thing, but frankly, it is paternalistic. Their suspicion we can isolate and separate ourselves from people are different. There's a passive expression that took place in the segregation of during the sixties. We just are really I think in some ways it's very easy to just move away from them people and to be okay. And then the worst kind of form is quite literally the act of hatred, which I think many urban neighborhoods are just teetering on of just, you know, we're not we're certainly not where they were in bars or. Where they were in Bosnia or in Bosnia or Rwanda or whatever. But races and groups hate each other. You add to all of this dramatic rise of these things, I want to just reiterate one simple illustration that shows that the American situation is different. Was there a single line in any book you have read so far on gangs? Gangs. Now, gangs don't mean much to most people, but you're not going to plant churches in South Central or in other places, even in little places like Wichita and Tacoma. Without gangs, gangs are very, very powerful. Gang gangs are a great example of what is going on. Gang proliferation of the cities with population greater than 250,000 are 100. And 100% of them says that they have gang activity. [00:48:26] Now, get that, y'all. We're not talking about big cities like Saint Louis are out. We're talking about the littlest little places. Little quiet. Spokane, Washington, has gangs. Gangs are now franchising, just like businesses. They'll give a guy so much money, set him up in a house, set him up in the place. I mean, it's it's extraordinary. And frankly, some of the worst, most vicious gangs are not in New York, but in Waterloo are places like that. I mean, where they where they where they're serious money to be made and issues to be done there. There are there were in 2001. It's hard to measure, but there are estimates as low as 800,000 people in gangs. That is, I think, a low number. I think that there's 18,000 in L.A. alone, and many of the high profile gang incidents are the only way that many communities will even admit they have a gang problem. Well, just for time sake, I just want to I'll just leave you with this. The issues on poverty, again, I think that they're related there. Why should we do it? Because the cities are poor and God loves them. What are the elements? You just reiterate some of those things. The implications are at the bottom of page seven. The elements of the America's inner city must be factored into all discussions of church planning, growth, mobilization. If we're going to apply model and approach, we have to really apply to these situations. Now, an effective approach to church plan models in America's inner city has to address and meet head on these elements. In this context, if it's going to be effective, at least we have to think about it. We can't just sort of ignore it. We have to say, what? How do you plan churches in such a community? Let me just reiterate uncritical application of church planning models which fail to take into account these factors will only invite real failure in the missionaries and pastors and doubly real failure in the communities targeted and served by them. [00:50:33] Or let me put it this way. If we just, with real, genuine sincerity and love for Christ, go into communities and just sort of ignore these things, seems to me we're not operating in wisdom. That's the whole point. Why we're studying all of these things. How do I if I want to recall the original question. Gabriel has given me the chance to plant thousands of churches among America's urban poor. Well, how do I do that? Well, I have to understand these issues. The final thing before we take a break and have a I want to get your your. I want to I want to see what you guys think about this. I mean, hopefully the second part will not be so depressing. But frankly, if Garrison wrote a chapter on the American inner city, this is what he would have to say. I don't know if you would say it. I'm not quite sure how you would say who will be the central players in igniting, sustaining and multiplying vital church planning movements in America? That's a pretty good question, don't you think? Who are going to be the key players and how can we isolate them? This is what I think. In sync with all that we have learned of church planning movements abroad, all efforts toward creating, sustaining and multiplying vital, healthy church planning movements in America's inner city must begin and end. Well, aren't we surprised with indigenous leadership? Well. Let's let's just make that plain. If we don't train people homegrown, you're never going to reach the city. You're never going to penetrate these communities. Never. Now, that's my own view. Now, I'd like to discuss it as we you know, after I've very quickly rushed through this, the most effective evangelism follow up discipleship and church planning will be done by city people on behalf of city people through the resources of city people. [00:52:21] I mean, that's just that's what that's the conclusion I've come to. All of our attention, planning and effort must concentrate, therefore, on raising up urban men and women, urban families and urban young people who will reach their own neighbors and webs with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When they have preach the gospel to that city. This is this is here are some cross-cultural urban church planners and Acts 14 when they have reached when they preach the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to listen and Iconium into Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. There is a wonderful example of real urban missionary work. Guys, let me just give you the big the big things so you can see where we're going. ABC D Just for time's sake. A The God called called cross-cultural missionary to me is the most important person. So don't think that I'm saying that we don't need them. We need them more than ever. We need apostolic ministry. God, the Holy Spirit is going to call men and women across various and declare the good news. So the laws and you know, we read about this in Acts 13, Holy Spirit, all of these great titans, we're in the church of the Antioch Prophets and teachers Barnabas Simeon, Lucius Monaghan or Saul, you know, they were worshiping and the Holy Spirit set apart Paul and Saul and Barnabas. And after they had, you know, you know, for the work that he had called them to do after the oppressed and fasted, they had received the laying on of hands and they were sent all. [00:54:16] I am convinced that God is going to call specifically gifted, particularly called persons who are gifted in order to commence these sort of movements. I do believe that there is a place for us. I think they have to be gifted. I'm just being sincere in enough. I'm just. I'm just saying. I just think that just you need the role of gifted men and women who can and who can be entrusted with the good news to do faithful laboring. It cannot be underestimated or substituted by any technology model or effort. It's the way God has always done it. God will raise up men and women who in fact are like Paul, who don't account their life of any value and who receive the gospel and testify to it. Or in first Corinthians four, who are stewards of the mysteries of God, who have been given the Ministry of Reconciliation, who are who are doing the work of an evangelist in court or fulfill their ministry. Y'all, I am convinced that if we really have time to discuss Garrison, Garrison, Garrison, this book was worth one. Inside Alone for me is the emphasis on Indigenous leadership development. That's everything else in the book. I could, you know. But but everything that has happened in his data is happened because Indigenous people did it. What happens if you have no indigenous person to plant your church? Nothing. Nothing is going to happen now. We need to talk about that. If there are no indigenous people to take it over and to do it. I don't know in the long run how we're going to penetrate that that community. Can we train people to penetrate? Yes, I do believe we can do that. But ultimately, it's the indigenous home grown leader, elder pastor Bishop. [00:56:03] We asked to do it and that is until that all the scriptures attest. You know what's interesting about that in number four on page nine. Much of the training that we are giving now has little or nothing to do with urban context. Robert Camper would have one of the most amazing articles. This is some years ago, 1997. But it's theological education for urban ministry. He studied dozens upon his study of 169 Association of Theological School Schools. He studied, I think, 150, some of them. And of all of them, he studied scores of demon men programs, all kinds of teach in and MBA programs. And he said after looking at all of that, he said few will deny that in the United States. That though that the United States is an urban nation whose most profound problems on display daily in its metropolitan areas. Nonetheless, only one third of the Association of Theological School accredited seminaries in this country offer much less required courses concerned with urban ministry. It's like we're not training any of them to do any of it, which is an amazing thing. We exploding while communities and those who are in charge of training our folks doing very, very little. Well, folks. Yeah. Yeah. Come on, now. Yeah, well, that's. That's why. That's what, you know, what I would love about the Institute is when we break out of this sort of steel, steel sort of classic kind of education, and most of the real leadership development is done away from here and done in a way that we can really ground people in a nice, clean oriented theology that really is, in fact, a dog that hunts, but that is not bound by any of these text and outlines and things like that. [00:58:01] I just believe that, yeah, I really intend on being a part of planning, a planning this many churches. I'm just telling you this what we see at the Prison Fellowship, I'd like to be a part. I'd like to train thousands. I've told this to your uncle, my dear friend. Why should I just train to? I've been in urban ministry for 30 years. I'd like to see thousands of urban churches, all of them strong. And if you really take that seriously, how do you do that? Just sending them to the table and then to Gordon. And I mean, how do we do that? I mean, it's not going to work, guys. Even if you send them, there's nothing there for them. So let's just this is like reality time, you know, let's just get playing. Well, I am convinced that the greatest sort of work that we can do is through the oil cars. Guys, I've given you a thing. We'll take a break. For those of you who asked for this, this there was some some discussion we were asking about the way we would organize and structure a church planning movement. We're going to spend most of our time. In the next hour on how. You might say, Don, I know now that you really don't know what you're talking about. I don't know how you respond to what I've said so far. Let me see. Going up and then up and then over and then stop. This is a wonderful thing. I just thought that you guys would know that this if you read Garrison carefully, Garrison really made plain that the vast majority of the sweeping rapidity of the movements that are taking place in Cambodia and Sharif's example are happening through common kinship relationships, acquaintances and friendships and associates and connections. [00:59:52] This is why only indigenous people can win. This is why you just can't do it. How long would it take you to become friends to my cousin? You know, he's just not going to trust is going to take you too long. I thought it was sort of interesting since, you know, take my hat off to Barna. There is a survey, 42,000 people were sampled recently over here. They were asked who or what was responsible for your coming to Christ in your church. Look at those numbers there. One 1% came through special need walking and 2 to 3%. Pastor 5 to 6%. Visitation 1 to 2%. Sunday School 4 to 5%. Evangelistic Crusade a half percent. Church program 2 to 3%. Friend or relative 75 to 90%. That's just the way it's going to happen. If we don't really win indigenous folk and allow them to penetrate, we'll never win it. It really it should make you excited as a missionary. It means that you don't really have to work with everyone in the community. It means that the Davises and the businesses could go to Miami and start a ministry. Right. Because all we have to do is find some people who mean business. And if they don't mean business, we don't find anybody. We're not going to penetrate that iceberg that they represent. We missionaries focus on the tip, not not not the bottom. It's just a very simple thing in the back of an hour or so. Yeah, I hear you. I just hear you. I think I'm not I'm not a slave to research, but I truly do believe y'all. You know, there are there are scholars who have proven this from the New Testament. If you look at the word Oikos or Ki, if you just wanted to do a study, trace those in the New Testament, the Philippians, how did Cornelius and his family come to look? Cornelius got his friends, you know, Mama Nim and all of them, and brought them to the meet. [01:01:56] You know, he just brought his friends. That's just the way the gospel works. You win your family, you bring your friends. It's why if we fail one person of peace. Can you imagine if we found a person of peace in Oklahoma? I mean, a solid brother who became who was saved? You know, y'all, I am from this community. I was dug out of this community. You know, my one my one regret is that I'm not completely unleashed and mission. I know most of the people. I know tons of the people in this community. I'm doing this very deliberately, but quite literally, I'm I'm ten yards boy from two miles up the street. That's where I grew up. I know most of this. Most of the folk people see me all below you. You know, in other words, I have I have natural links that I didn't even work for. You're just there and and truly, you can't get them. It took it would take you too long. Missionaries know that. And they focus in on those guys and give them on top of page ten. We're going to take a break. I promise. I promise. Page ten at the top, I just gave you why I think the way cost is so important is biblical Jesus in his apostles. You know, by the way, guys, the Billy Graham before we had Billy Graham. Billy Graham Association is more skilled in the Oikos Principle than any organ is more skilled than most missions organizations. Do you know why they they plan out their crusades three years in advance because they want to do what they call brother. And for most of what they do is, you know, they get all these churches involved and they make a list of the six closest people to you and begin to pray for them. [01:03:40] Send them a little note, go visit them. Most of the crusade are just friends who've invited their buddies alone. That's just. Graham is just brilliant to me. He's just following the Bible. He does what, what, what? What Andrew did to Simon and what Philip did to Nathaniel. That's just the way the gospel grows. It's biblical. There's no cold calling with it. It's the least threatening way of really winning. If you think about it, you actually people know each other. It's the truth is for him, to me, a lifestyle event and friendship evangelism, people are usually receptive to other members in their network. It's a built in resident mission feel. It makes follow up less strain if you can train the person to actually go, it allows entire family groups to be targeted and you can constantly reseed of new base. I'm just saying that it really works. Let me say a couple of things, because we're going to come back to these after break, guys. Who are the key players, the cross cultural missionary of the the indigenous leader, the oil costs of urban folk, healthy, vital indigenous churches. This I want to just give hats off to the Creator whatever is form, whether we're talking about a cell church based in community, a traditional church, a megachurch, a house church network, I want to affirm with greater and more control Barna, that you cannot ignore the Indigenous church and expect to see some church planning movements. Church will be critical in every dimension of urban church planning, regardless of the form. And there's not. Going to be, in my judgment, of a church planning movement that's going to have a long lasting impact and lessons, activities and structure make possible for vital local. The question for us when how homogenous and how self-identified and how clear is this group so we can go on to it? How many of y'all have seen eight mile? Have you seen Eight Mile? Just a few of us. [01:05:44] Eight miles risk. If you look at it. Don't blame me. It's a lot of cussing. Illicit sex is not it's not, you know, but it is, in fact, a pretty good snapshot of what the underground rap culture is like in Detroit you want to see. It is a huge community. Hundreds of people come out and there are all kinds of heroes and they have an identity, their own form of dress and customs and language. And, you know, why couldn't we have a Christian in there? My son. My son who died. Matt Matt Davis was one of the most powerful missionaries I've ever seen. I mean, he wasn't it wasn't deliberate. It was sort of it it grew out of his life. But but but had a remarkable thing. He he never drank at any of his concerts. Never. He never he never he he was he was the religious guy. He carried the drunk guys out. You know, at the end of the thing, it's hard to do that. It's hard to be around that. You know what I'm saying? It's not an easy call if you were going to be called to a group like that. And when folk in the neighborhood where you came from, Stacy in Hollywood there, I mean, and work with male prostitutes. That's that's that's sticky. You know what I mean? That's sticky cement. It's not going to be a clean, easy affair. It's going to be. But but should we do it? And Paul's question looms is, is that homogenous enough? Must be an ethnicity, must be a linguistic group. They have a language, a mile has a language. I mean, you know what I'm saying of. I think this is this is this is the purpose of this course is can we really identify groups and how do we approach those groups and how do we penetrate them in order to ignite? It's not us. [01:07:32] It's to ignite something that God Almighty can really burst into flames and it continue on. Yes. I mean, that vision has you have five. I'm convinced. I'm convinced of that. I'm convinced that. Garrison, I don't know about you guys, but Garrison transformed my thinking about this. I don't know what. God, just use him as a hammer to just put this into the thing. Garrison talked about thousands of churches being planted and none of them being planted by missionaries. Find any example where any of the missionaries did the work? Garrison is just a revolutionary to me. It says it either got the Holy Spirit will fall on the people in the city and something will happen there, or he won't and nothing will happen there. And that's what I think we have to really grapple with. We have to grapple with whether or not. You know, does God love the city or will he raise up some poles and some some some lideres and some others for the city? If he does, then the chances are that no one will be reached. And the churches that we plant will be great for those on the fringes, you know what I mean? They're just friends, folk who are sort of by cultural, but they're not really the town deep in the midst of the stream folk, you know, they're not they're people relate well to us. And this will be our last question before we take our break. You guys have been so patient with Jack and said it is just. I mean, you know, Jack is is articulate. He he he summarized our history and sort of brought us to where we are. And now. Okay, now what? I mean, what we're in. And I'm so happy that I don't have to solve that problem for ya. [01:09:25] May I just say that? No. There. You want to speak? Stand up and speak. Give us the authoritative word on that. You know, I mean, really, how do we in fact, this is as important as anything. Just say you have a church that you love, the people in that church. And that church is around people who are really different. You know, we're going to say essentially. It's going to be hard, quite honestly for for for us to read squiggles unless we go among square. And essentially what we've said is that, you know, black churches will reach black folk, Hispanic people won't new Hispanic folk, and, you know, other people will reach folk just like them. But what about all those Asians right across the street from saying Mary? What about all these people that nobody is thinking of or praying for? Reaching out to missionaries? Don't go to win the whole thing. They go to win one. They go to win a few and then they nurture those few and then they release those few. That's that's the answer to this. Or we can say, you know, we have a circle in our church. We sure do. We've had a circle our church for some time now. You know, the Wilsons come all day. You know what I'm saying? You know, let's take a break.