Dive into this system of working out where disciples are at: sleeper (uninterested non-Christian), seeker (interested non-Christian), consumer (uninterested Christian) and disciple (interested follower of Jesus). Daniel Im is the Senior Pastor of Beulah Alliance Church in Edmon.

What We Discuss

  • How do we preach to these four types of people mentioned in the system
  • The process of ongoing steps (how I want to keep discipling people), first steps (how I need to get people started) and next steps (where do I want people to get to)
  • Ongoing Steps: gathering, growing, giving, going
  • First steps: what is the clear pathway for someone who is new
  • Next steps: discover, deepen and deploy

Tool Box

Credits

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Transcript

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service.

0:16

G’day.I’m Scott Sanders.Welcome to The One Thing, a podcast designer give you one solid practical tip for Gospel centre ministry every week.Now The One Thing is brought to you by Reach Australia.We want to see thousands of healthy evangelistic multiplying churches and this podcast is part of that.

0:32

We want to see teams learn together, gather around some of the topics and some of the people and use this podcast as a, a place to learn and grow and interact with what leaders are doing not only here in Australia, but also around the world.And I’m, I’m really excited to have today’s guests on with us.

0:50

Daniel Imm.But for now, you’ve pressed play on the one thing that a cycle ship opportunity.Today’s podcast is brought to you by the Reach Australia Team development Programme.Running over two years, this intensive programme helps ministry leaders and ministry teams develop personally and professionally.

1:07

If you’re interested in the team development programme from Reach Australia, even if it’s early days for you, get in touch, head to the Reach Australia website and look under Healthy Churches.And now back to the podcast.As I read through it, it seemed very much like a, a reflection on your hope for a Beulah church member, your hope for someone who is, is, is asleep and outside the church and, and what it might look like for them to move in it.

1:34

It’s, I guess very different to say a, a simple church book which which seems generic and research based and has lots of principles.You, you’ve got principles, but it seems very much to be driven by you’re reflecting on Beulah and your, your current sort of position.Now what?Why did you write the?Book now that’s that’s such a astute observation because for me the the stuff of the book right was really wrestled out of leading through the pandemic, leading out of the pandemic and just realising that the pandemic very much.

2:07

I mean, I didn’t want to write a pandemic book, but realising that there is a significant part where just like 911 has forever changed the way that we go to airports and fly on planes and it still hasn’t changed right.It is still directly affected the way that you go on and off a plane and all the airport.

2:26

Everything is directly related to 911.The pandemic has that sense to it, right?But what I didn’t want to do is I didn’t want to write a post pandemic book.So instead, yes, like you said, there is definitely the stuff of Beulah that was the working ground out of it.

2:44

But what I did instead was I tried to go as far back as I could to a, a shaping, a paradigm shaping friend or a paradigm shaping event on the, on the church in the West that still affects us today.

2:59

And, and as I was doing that, and as I was trying to go back as far as I could, I, I landed in the 50s and the 60s to the church growth movement.And when I started reading not books written about the church growth movement in the 90s and 2000s and etcetera, when I started reading the primary books, the primary text in the 50s, in the 60s, in the 70s, and I started doing that literature review to see what I could dig out of all that.

3:25

That’s when it was this, Oh my goodness, we are still following all of these precepts in so many ways.And that’s dude, man, that’s 70 years ago and, and, and no, and no one talks about that, right.

3:41

But there was this sense where how are these ideas still prevailing?What are some of the assumptions we are still adhering to when we are literally in a world that is fundamentally different than it was in the 50s and. 60s, yeah.So again, this that was probably the most challenging part of the book for me.

3:59

Again, as you say, the the church growth movement was a long time ago.And you know, it’s been rightly critiqued in miss, you know, in the missiological frame, It’s been rightly critiqued in the theological frame.And in some you know, and even in the research, you know, frame in terms of just the Willow, you know, the Willow Creek study, you know.

4:20

Kind of.As well.So in some ways you’re.Yeah, I think what was unsettling was you were you really kind of put the finger on what are the assumptions that we’re still believing and that still kind of come through as an Australian reading the book.I guess that assumption that, you know, I guess of course church and of course you’re going to reach kind of people and they’re going to grow like it’s kind of never, it’s kind of never been in my, you know, my, my, my worldview in, in some sense at least since since being at college and, and since university days, you know, Australia’s been, you know, in some ways post Christian for a while now.

4:57

They’re the client definitely has increased through the 90s and 2000s and and a significant decline in in the rise of the nuns and everything else.What what’s interesting is I guess, I guess you reflecting like as I was talking to you before kind of preparing for this, you know, the, the implied reader of this is a is an American, you know, my sense as an Australian reading it.

5:16

I read it going yeah, of course, like of course, of course people aren’t going to come to church.You know, of course, of course they’re going to walk in your door.Of course you got to be active about about reaching them.You know, like again, I talk about the church that you want to be the church that people know they don’t go to in Australia.

5:31

The problem is people just don’t know about us.So, so this is where I’m like, the church growth movement is helpful because it helps us go, OK, how can you actually, you know, make people aware of your church?So, so for me, you know, the, the, the, the two kind of real hard pit hard bits that you got got me were just the spiritual disciplines and the complete lack of spiritual disciplines.

5:52

And I guess focus on the lead pastor and, and his life as a leader that the church growth movement probably didn’t have.And then the other one was just the, I guess there’s that assumption in it that, you know, kind of if you build it, people will come, which again, I’ve never gone operate on that assumption.

6:11

But in some ways, like I, I kind of want to go back to the biblical literature and, you know, we’ve just done Matthew’s gospel and, and reflected on kind of the parables in Matthew 13 of the Kingdom.Like the sense you do get in the in the New Testament, Jesus talks about church is that it will grow and it will grow from this small thing into this into this big thing.

6:27

But, you know, that’s not necessarily in every context, not never, not definitely not in your church, you know, potentially.Well, anyway, I, yeah, you could see there’s a lot of there’s a lot of reflecting with you on it.But yeah, for you where, where else were you challenged, you know, in your current leadership now, I guess.

6:46

Yeah, Yeah, Scott, those are great, great observations.And what’s fascinating about that is we’re all in different contexts, right.And and every context for me, I was predominantly thinking about church in the West, English speaking audience and church in the West is obviously beyond the US and Canada.

7:06

So, so when I think about it from that perspective, and even from having worked with you and having been in Australia together in your context three years for three years in a row a few years back, there is definitely this sense where, yeah, maybe, maybe for some, there’s not an assumption, of course.

7:24

Church, but if you were to hone in on that other assumption of of course, growth, I would say that predominantly in the West, that is a that is an assumption that most of us live by that I’m not going to put my money into an investment thinking it’s going to shrink, right?

7:43

I’m not going to have self directed investments or by mutual funds or whatnot and and expect it to decrease, right?If it decreases enough, we’re going to pull it out because we want growth when it comes to our kids.A healthy child grows, right?

7:59

We would want our church members to be growing.So there is underneath the surface deeply embedded in us this sense of just generically speaking, yeah, of course, growth.Of course healthy things grow.Of course, the Kingdom of God, right.It’s like a mustard seed.

8:15

And then it’s going to grow yeast and, you know, in leaven in a bread and it’s going to grow.The the.The problem with that, though, is underneath the surface.This one statement from one of the church growth fathers, it I, I feel like we’re living according to it.

8:32

And there’s this shame or this guilt that rises up within us when we’re not growing because of this statement.OK, he said that a shrinking church is a sinning church.No one, no one would say that today.

8:47

I mean, you get you get cancelled if you said that today sort of thing.But, but back in the 50s, sixties, 70s, like one of the fathers of this entire movement said a shrinking church is a sinning church.And when you just think about it from that perspective and you’re preaching week in, week out, you’re leading locally.

9:05

And this week you have 50 people, right?And, and the next week you got 75 people.And then the next week, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re at 80 people.I mean, as a pastor, you’re on the moon, right?You’re like, wow, not only did people come back, but they brought their friends.

9:22

Like, this is working. Like we are reaching the lost. And like, this is this is of course, yeah. You don’t want to l