John Simons

Missions: Why a Short Term Missions Trip?

In browsing the web the other day, I came across a post in which Bill the Reasoner claims Short Term Missions is No Missions. The author relies, in part, on an article about Band-Aid Approaches to Complex Problems from a site recruiting military personnel into full-time missions. While I agree with some of the premises to the article that he relies on, I still believe that there is a purpose to short term missions, with the right emphasis.

In short, Bill states that short term missions is a drain on funding, and that the primary effect of short-term missions is to entertain those who go on the trips. He concludes by claiming that because the people on those trips are not committed to the long-term effort and to church planting, that they are largely ineffective.
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Tags: Church Planting, Missions, short term missions

Church Planting - Encouragement in the Trenches

What is it about pastors and football analogies? Eric Taylor, a church planter in Auburn, AL has written a post comparing Tommy Tuberville to church planting.

Among his thoughts:

It’s amazing the difference a few weeks can make. Just a few weeks ago, Nick Saban was the second coming of Bear Bryant, now, listening to Sports talk shows… some folks are questioning his coaching ability. Of course when Auburn lost to South Florida and Mississippi State, people were ready to gas up the plane to go look for another coach. Now, after beating Florida, Tommy Tuberville is popular with the fans again. . . .

If you’re a church planter, you can approach what you’re doing in one of two ways: Like the fans do…or like good coaches do.

His advice is good whether you are a church planter, or just a member of a church plant. Check it out all of Eric’s thoughts here.

It’s just a shame that he is an Auburn fan.

Tags: Church Planting, encouragement

Learning from Church Plants

Not long ago, Drew Goodmanson wrote an article about what established churches can learn from church plants. Drew has several great points that can help both established churches and new churches as they think about how to keep their members active in reaching out.

Check out his post.

Tags: Church Planting, drew goodmanson

Church Planting: The New Evangelism?

Christianity Today has a new article out this week that suggests that church planting has become the primary means of organized evangelism today. The article suggests that the model in the 70s was primarily through large scale crusades, a la Billy Graham. In the 80s trends like Evangelism Explosion led to personal evangelism become the primary means to grow the church. The article talks about how many denominations now see church planting as one of their primary means of evangelism, particularly in minority and marginalized groups.

I am not sure that the article grasps the full depth of what is happening in church planting, but it provides a good introduction to what many churches are doing, and some of the challenges involved.

I definitely agree that planting new churches is important. I am part of a church plant. I think that churches need to be careful to think through why the are planting churches. As long as churches are planting new churches to reach people who need the gospel, or to provide good teaching that is missing in an area, then I am all for it.

Verbose Nomenclature

Over at Church Marketing Sucks, guest blogger David Zimmerman has written a series of posts about how the church looks to first time visitors. It is not clear from his posts whether his view of these visitors is that they are believers or unbelievers, so I am assuming that he is referring to both.

In his most recent post, Zimmerman talks about the need to avoid what he calls Verbose Nomenclature. In short, his post is about the necessity of avoiding what some call “Christianese,” those theological or church language terms that are foreign to those outside the church. He talks about the expression “Have a blessed day,” being a turn off to someone who is not a believer. He also suggests in a comment that words like “fellowship” are simply not good to make people feel included.
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