So, I took my two youngest sons to an “Easter Egg Drop,” which was put on by a local start up church. I would describe “AX Church” is a modern paradigm Emergent or Missional Church, though I’m not sure that is how they would describe themselves. I know their lead pastor, whom I referred to in a conversation with him today as just another average ordinary everyday radical.
I first met Cameron a couple of years ago during the earliest part of their church planting experience. In the time since, they have built a core group, held worship meetings which rival the attendance of most local well established churches in the area, and had some very successful and widely attended community events. While their methodology is quite different from that of the church I serve, I pray for them regularly and ask God to work through them. They are, for the most part, a young bunch of Jesus followers whose hearts are in the right place and put their money, time,and energy where their mouth is.
Today, as I held my sons hands in a crowd of perhaps 5 or 6 thousand people, watching the Easter Bunny descend in a helicopter onto a field at alocal elementary school – proceeding to dump thousands of plastic eggs – I was struck at the sheer size of what this local church plant, led by an early twenty something young man, armed only with the love of Christ, had done. Then I asked myself, “Self,” that’s what I say during internal dialogue... “Self, what exactly have they done?”
The Pharisee in me wants to be skeptical of what they have done and even some of the other things they are doing. There is a part of me that says, “How does this honor Christ? What does this have to do with the resurrection? To what extent is this directly ministry and to what extent will this facilitate future ministry?” For a fellow church leader and follower ofJesus, I think those are fair questions.
To be fair though, some would, and probably have, asked the same questions of my use of Christian comedy. While the comedy is clean, often about church topics, and some of the comedians I occasionally present do give a positive Christian testimony, the same questions apply. Does everything we do as a church have to be directly evangelistic and worshipful? Is everything my church does God-honoring? In what manner does coffee hour honor God, for example?
AX Church did collect several hundred names of people to whom they can later send invitations to worship events. They did offer a great witness of a church loving a community. They did sacrifice a great amount of time, money, and energy to make this thing happen with no strings attached. They told the community – nearly half of it in fact – “come have a good time on us. We love God and guess what, we love you too.”
My question to myself is “Self,” remember that’s how I address myself during internal dialogue… “Self, what have you and the rest of the more established – institutional– churches done lately to shower that kind of witness on nearly 50% of our immediate area?” Self didn’t have an answer.
I’m reminded of the story of a certain woman criticizing the great Preacher D.L. Moody with regard to his method of evangelism. His response was to ask her what method she used. She replied, “Well I don’t do evangelism.” His reply: “Then I like my way better than your way of not doing it.”
While we may differ with regard to our methods and manner of doing church, I like AX Church’s way of doing evangelism much better than the countless ways that many more well established churches in our area are presently failing to do it all. I’m going to continue to pray for my radical brothers and sisters in Christ and trust that God has great things in store for them. I’m asking God for favor in turning their crowds into groups of disciples; thier events into souls for the kingdom.
I’m hopeful that as this church matures, God will use these radicals to challenge the institutional, establishment, more traditional, churches to step out into traffic once in a while and risk our reputations and comfort for Jesus Christ as well.
The Pilgrim Pastor
