I’m getting sick of the term ‘church planter’.  Really, we need to find new (ancient?) vocabulary.  We mean well, of course, but it must be offensive for God to see his creations giving themselves titles that belong only to him, and taking credit for works only he has done.  It’s as misleading as our twisted use of the words “church” and “worship.”  

Gospel planters.  That’s what we are as Jesus’ disciples. 

Church planter.  That’s what the Holy Spirit is (among other roles). 

If we’re going to see church planting movements we need to faithfully assume the roles we’ve been given and let God be God.

We lay a foundation, yet it is Jesus Christ who builds his church. 

We plant and water the seed, yet it is God who makes it grow.

How audacious we are to call ourselves ‘church planters’ and claim we will do what Christ alone can do – that is, make people into a new creation. 

[Thank you to my friends for showing me our biblical role as Gospel planters.] 

Categories: the why
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I remember how scared I was the first time I shook the hand of a “homeless” person. 

It was 12 years ago.  Potluck Sunday at the Hollywood Church of Christ (the church who sent our families out as domestic missionaries).  The preacher at that time, Daniel Rodriguez, had asked us all to invite a friend to the potluck.  Using Jesus’ parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 15, Dan encouraged the church folks to invite people who don’t normally get invited to church parties.  For example, in Jesus’ parable the Master who is preparing a feast tells his servant to “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.”  Later in the story the servant is even told to “make them come in.”    

So my newly wed wife said to me, “Phil, there’s some guys who look like they live on the streets hanging outside Radio Shack around the corner.  Let’s invite them to the potluck!” 

Nervous, I agreed, and we walked from the church building to go introduce ourselves to three men sitting on the curb.  One was flat on his back, passed out.  One I remember had a very swollen nose.  The other was old and feeble looking and went by the name Hollywood Al.  Hollywood Al and I shook hands – my first time touching someone I had labeled as “homeless”, and therefore feared.  God must have wanted me to overcome all my shock at once.  When I retrieved my hand it was covered in Al’s blood. 

Meredith and I took the three men into the church building and helped them get First Aid and clean up.   I scrubbed my hands.  A lady got really nervous at their presence and wrinkled her nose at the aroma they had brought into the church kitchen.  Boy she watched them like a hawk as they filled their plates with food.  It didn’t help that the passed out guy was now wide awake, incredibly drunk, and began singing his own rendition of the Star Bangled Banner at the top of his lungs.  (“Oh-oh say-ay-ay-ay, can you see-ee-ee-ee-ee, BYYYYYYYYYYYY the dawn’s early liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight….”)  I thought the lady was going to blow a gasket. 

That day was a beautiful day.  Friendships were formed.  News spread and more men from the streets came to church gatherings in the weeks and years to come.  One man named Kenneth became a brother in Christ and a dear friend, and was baptized there.  Another guy named Thomas liked to sit on the front steps and tell everyone how great the church is for loving people like him.  Today we are still friends with some of these guys. 

My whole perspective was altered from that one handshake and meal.  Something (or someone) that I had previously feared and averted my eyes from became a real person to me, someone I could learn from.  A human worthy of friendship not just my pity or my handouts.  I was forever changed. 

And it began with responding (or rather my wife responding) to a prompting from the Lord.  My wife simply took the Word of God seriously, and together we obeyed.  Fearfully, but we obeyed.  We loved.  My life hasn’t always been this way since.  But that’s what I keep getting called back to, and that’s what I want the rest of my life to be like.

Categories: stories
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Thoughts on strategy from a recent Way of Life Village gathering…

When we started out on this mission we told people why East Hollywood is a strategic place for us to share and demonstrate the message of Jesus Christ. People are closed to religion but open to spirituality.  Since so many people in E-Ho have relationships in other areas of the city and globe, as E-Ho residents discover the joys of surrendering to Christ they have the potential to share this new life with people in areas we could never touch ourselves.  For this reason, I still believe this place is “strategic.” (Only God knows what really will happen, though.)

But those of us in Way of Life Village also like to say that any place can become strategic as long as Christ’s followers are willing to arrange their lifestyles accordingly.

Does God call certain people to live and minister in certain cities and countries at certain times in history because “the fields are white for the harvest?”

If so, does that mean God has given up on the other places that aren’t “hot spots” right now in human opinion? 

Churches in the U.S. get excited about sending missionaries and church planters to foreign countries and our nations “inner city” neighborhoods. Yet many of these same churches lack zeal for missions done in their own communities where they could have the most influence.

God wants people to experience salvation in the United States and Asia. Outside the “10/40 Window” and inside it. In the bus stop of dusty Barstow (a small town in the California desert) and the urban ghettos of Los Angeles.

Paid missionaries and their sending churches and agencies will continue to ask themselves, “Is this a strategic place for us to be right now?” I support that thinking.

But I wish all Christians everywhere would ask themselves, “How are we living strategically in the place we’re in?”

The Great Commission as I understand it is not a divine order to send a few Christian missionaries away to a few “strategic places.” As I intrepret these words of Jesus, it is a call to live strategically and intentionally for the gospel, making disciples of all ethnic peoples as we go. Some of us will end up in other places of the world as we respond to this call. Others of us will stay right where we are. But for all of us, joining Jesus in mission will become a way of life.

Categories: the how
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[Minor editing to this article has occurred since it originally was posted.]

What we’re doing in LA is an experiment. Some churches don’t like to support experiments. 

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Categories: the how
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I’ve been meaning to write about this for a couple months.  There are some Bahá’í missionaries who come to our neighborhood every Monday night to convert all of us to the Bahá’í Faith

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Categories: stories, the how
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[formerly titled "Blast from the past"] 

I’ve written about a wandering young man I used to study the Bible with who pops in and out of my life about every 6 to 9 months or so.  I’ll call him Jeremy.  Thursday night he popped back in with a call to my cell phone. 

Jeremy’s not a teenager anymore.  He’s got a kid of his own now.  I asked him how all the homies are doing, but was saddened when he gave tragic reports on each of them. 

A former Hollywood resident, my friend still lives in the LA area but says he can’t visit me in Hollywood anymore because he has too many enemies here.  The last time he was in the neighborhood some of those enemies shot at him, so I suggested we get together in a neighborhood halfway between his and mine next week.  He liked the idea.  Only the Lord knows if it’ll happen.  I really hope so.

Categories: stories
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There are days when I am awed by how much I can understand and communicate in Spanish (not my native language).  By God’s Spirit I find myself navigating conversations light years beyond my level of competency.  But Saturday was not one of those days.    

Confusion.  Pure confusion.  I spent over four hours with a new Jesus-follower sincerely trying to listen to what was on his heart, and I could not.  Oh, it was so frustrating!!

Categories: stories
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