You really don’t understand a church until you know what it’s made of.  Summer and I have visited a lot churches over the last year looking for what works and what doesn’t.  What makes a church successful is sometimes murky at best.  What churches do are so numerous, expensive and sometimes emotional that we easily focus on the urgent instead of the important.  Perhapes we could try a different approach.

Here are fives pieces of a church that we must pay attention and connect the dots:

NUMBERS are observational.  Normally churches scrutinize numbers for worship attendance or financial giving while valuable it’s the wrong focus.  We should ask why. Why did “x” amount of people worship?  What do people actually do? How many people participate? Who gave to what? Numbers are compelling to some churches, and ignored by others. Numbers are powerful, overlooked and sometimes mistaken for boring.  You don’t have to understand the what, you merely need to know the why. Numbers are the data that calculates if what you’re doing is compelling enough to count.

STORIES define everything you say and do. Stories are why people come and why they stay.  Every person, every volunteer, every ministry and every area in your church has and provides stories.  That’s because all we can work with as humans is stories. I want to reason that numbers and stories are the two building blocks of a successful church – the other three are built on these two.

EXPERIENCE is the physical manifestations of the story.  If your story is that you are cutting edge/missional/relational/vibrant, then your ministries better be. Average churches for apathetic people are a common story, but not one that spreads.  When in doubt, re-imagine the church.  Push it to be the story, to live the story, to create a celebrated experience.

INTERACTIONS are all the strategies the church uses to actually touch the seeker or attendee.  Interactions range from mail market pieces to billboards, from the way you answer the inquisitive parent to the approach you take to a rude comment card.  Interactions are the hero of being the church, because there are so many and most of them are so cheap.  Unfortunately, all lazy churches do is disapprove and disappear from culture.  Which creates an interaction that contradict your story, right?

CONNECTION is the highest level of enlightenment, the end goal.  Connection between you and the seeker, definitely; but hopefully a connection between seeker and God.  Great churches create community, groups of people who focus on a level of spiritual formation and meaningful personal interaction. Get the first four steps right and you may get a shot at this one.

Some questions churches must ask: Does this interaction lead to connections? Do our minitries support our story? Is the story pulling in numbers that demonstrate that it’s working?

In that light, what are you working on? If it’s not one of these five, not going to seriously change the dynamic of your church, why exactly are you bothering?  My guess is that your church spends almost all of its time on the interactions.

Then again, I’m just a church planter.

Okay, maybe we just feel legitimate but we officially have a website for Graceland. 

 www.GracelandPeople.com

The purpose of this website is for three types of people and a sub-group. Here the people this site is created for:

Prayer Partners //
Friends who believe in Graceland and know the power of prayer.  People who sign-up to be Partners will receive prayer needs and prayers answered by weekly emails and viewed on our website.

Mission Support //
Obviously one of the greatest needs of any new church is raising finances.  Much like a missionary we need to raise the funds needed to launch Graceland.  We welcome any and all amounts.  We need your support.  Please read about Graceland, and then, search your heart as to how you and/or your church might be involved.

Seeker //
The Seeker is the person who lives in Austin, exploring Christianity, and desires to know more about who Graceland People are.  Currently Graceland is hosting Seeker Life Groups that are geared toward people with questions and doubts about Christianity.   If you’re a seeker or a believer interested in Graceland and live in South Austin check out our website.

Serve with Action //
Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 4.9, “Two people can accomplish more than twice as one…” (NLT).  It takes the village to raise a child and it takes a community to start a church.  Not everyone is called to move or change where they worship.  But we know God has gifted and called some to do more then be a spectator, they feel called to serve. 

Speaking of someone who serves, I want to endorse a friend who designed Graceland’s website.  James Hafner has been a friend of the McCool’s for years now.  He is more then a friend because he has been apart of many important moments our life.  He photographed our first Christmas card in our home, Summer’s pregnancy pictures, and Tatum’s first professional shot - plus he has great taste in music.

If you’re looking for someone with a great eye for design, art, and color look to James and his new bride Elizabeth Hafner with Vignette.

Recently I started asking friends to pray for Graceland and this community in Austin.  For the most part we’ve had amazing support and encouraging words from people.  On the other hand, I’ve had a few that turned me down politely.  They don’t loathe me or reject what we are doing.  They turned down praying for us “if” we are Emergent.  I won’t spend our time defining what Emergent is because there are plenty of books and people dealing with that issue.  But none agree to what it really means.  Either you have joined the group who defines themselves as Emergent or you are a church emerging.  Graceland is not apart of the Emergent movement (theological ideas willing to be entertained), but we will be emerging, because I’m emerging (moving up and forward).  I look over my life and I’m not the same person at any level I was ten years ago.  I love that about me, I love that about God. 

I clarify the above because we have decided not to use “Church” in our name.  We actually decided to refer to our community as Graceland People.  I have many reason why, one being people are the church and another being culture thinks of church as being a building and we are family, community, people, inhabitants of Austin – were more than a building.  We clutch the truth we are people of the Kingdom of God and this kingdom is among us.  Jesus was approached in Luke 17 by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you (or among you).  

The people of Jesus day had preconceived ideas of what the Kingdom of God would look like and act.  They were wrong.  Today many believers, churches, organizations have predetermined ideas of what church should look like and how the Kingdom of God rules.  They too are wrong.  I can’t say what Graceland People will look like in ten years, we are still emerging, but I can tell you it will look more like hands raised high then steeples with icons.

Yesterday I posted the first of three blogs about our mission at Graceland.  Just so I’m clear Graceland exist to be disciples, making disciples to change our world.  After being disciples we feel it’s our responsiblity to make disciples. 

As disciples of Christ we are called to make disciples.  At the end of his life, Jesus instructed his followers as they go, make disciples of all nations (Matt 28.18-20).  Discipleship as a journey means bringing people closer and closer to Christ.   It begins with a person accepting Christ, then loving Him, then loving His family, then to grow in Christ, then to serve Christ, and then to share Christ.  We don’t believe spiritual maturity is arrived through sermons but through practice.  Jesus had a process by which He took people from no faith to deep disciples.  The very first words of Jesus to His disciples are “Come and See.”  That is the entry point for faith.  There is no commitment level, simply be near and watch.  But Jesus never left them there.  Jesus took His disciples from the “Come and See” to “Come and Die.”  Discipleship is sequential, systematic, and processed.  Graceland is a church committed to seeing that people go from “Come and See” to “Come and Die.” We also recognize the need for combination.  People learn in different ways, so learning spaces need to be built and freedom given for natural discipleship.

These learning spaces are referred to as Spiritual Growth Environments. It’s widely debated the extent to which we are shaped by our gene pool (G) and/or our environment (E).  In light of the gospel and the process Graceland adopts for discipleship we suggest we are a mix of both our uniqueness and our surroundings.  So we will apply this theory to the spiritual growth at Graceland.

G x E = Spiritual Growth

G = (a mix of our “made in His image” + “being transformed into the image of Christ through the power of the Spirit”)

E = (our communities; disciplines; growth coaching; practices; spaces)

We understand we can not do much about “G” but we can do a lot about “E“.  So we will create spaces for spiritual growth, promote community within and outside church, practice and illuminate spiritual disciplines, and value growth coaching through Life Group Leaders.

I would love to read some feedback on discipleship.  What ideas do you have?  How are people discipled in your church? What others spaces would you include?  What experience could be considered?

Graceland will start in a home. If you’ve followed my blog long you probably assumed that much, but I’m just beginning to accept it.  For some reason I assumed the leadership would meet in a home until the church launched (whatever that really means) and a church born.  However, we are submitting to Him and truly believing God is going “old school” with us.  Someday (hopeful April 2009) we will meet in a larger location but for now we will be a home church.  This is nothing new, this is how the early church began (Acts 2:42, 44, 46-47, 5:42; Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 16:19; Col. 4:15).

The most exciting part of starting in our home is that it will be a Life Group (our form of a small group).  Starting a small group with other Christians is a fairly routine matter, but attempting to begin one with unchristian or de-churched people can seem overwhelming.  But we are not approaching this as people with all the answers – Jesus has those answers.  Augustine once wrote, ‘God is He who gives God,’ and we realize that we cannot give God but we can demonstrate openness and humility, creating a space where God can give God.  So we’re simply created a space where it is safe to ask deep questions and as a group, with the Bible as our source, find some answers.  We will not cheapen million-dollar questions with ten-cent answers.  The views expressed and the beliefs shared will run deep and cannot be altered with easy answers. But if we can be people who are open to God at all times and encourage others in this way of being – we will help to produce a clearing where God is free to give God.

Here is some attributes we hope are found in Life Group:

• The person of Jesus is intriguing to people.
• Learn to accept love and show love for others (John 13.35).
• Jesus found in the gospel and the lives of believers (John 20.31).
• The Holy Spirit is the pressure, not us (John 10.3).
• Appreciation for the Bible is increased (Heb 4.12).
• People feel they belong to something bigger than themselves.
• Prayer becomes captivating and absorbed.
• Natural place to invite friends, relatives, and work associates.
• Future Graceland leadership birthed.

Please be in prayer for us this week.  Friday, June 27^th from 7-8:30pm we will have our first official Life Group.  It’s very exciting and overwhelming – I’m so honored God would use us and our home.