Purpose Driven Planting

Have you noticed how skeptical people are these days? I have to admit, I’m one of them. We are a generation of skeptics. And we have every right to be. Not a day goes by where I don’t get another false claim or urban legend through my e-mail. And I’m the first to go check it out, whether it’s plausible or not, just because I don’t take things at face value. And just like you and I, the people around us have lots of questions when it comes to the church, relationships, current issues, and the Bible. And they aren’t likely to receive the answers we have to offer through the worn-out methods of the past.

In our unrelenting efforts to communicate the timeless message of the cross to our modern culture, we are continually faced with people who have raw, honest questions about the claims of Christ. Just this week, I had the chance to talk with a member of the crowd that attends The Connection Church (TCC) who told me he sees himself as a skeptic. In fact, he’s never before attended a church where he felt his questions were adequately answered. In the few months he has been attending TCC, he has taken the life-changing step of trusting in Jesus as his Forgiver and the Leader of his life. He is now at least listening to the answers to those questions he has carried for so long. How can a purpose driven church address the tough questions that the unchurched and the churched are asking in a creative, compelling way?

We are attempting to do just that with our new message series: F.A.Q.: Real Questions, Real Answers. During the three weeks of this series, we wanted to tackle the questions of our community with the same creativity that has infused our celebration services since our launch in September of 2004.

1) Discover the questions people are asking. In order to effectively speak to your community, you must know where they are coming from. What questions are people asking in your area? We collected questions from people through several avenues.

First, we advertised our new series through the local newspapers. We have found that newspaper advertising is effective in a smaller community. Kyle is a growing bedroom community of around 20,000 people located just south of Austin, Texas. We usually run ads for our message series in the two local papers. For these ads, in addition to the usual information, we also communicated how people can submit questions for this series.

We placed inserts in our weekly worship guides where people could write their questions and drop them in the offering baskets. An e-vite was created for our Web site that guests of our site can send to friends via e-mail to inform them of the series. And our electronic newsletter gave another reminder to people to submit questions.

The most important piece for gathering questions was through a simple form on our Web site where anonymous questions would be sent to our e-mail. The promotion on our Web site read:

No matter who you are, we have all asked questions about God, the Bible, the church, or simply life itself. In our new series, F.A.Q., our pastors will answer those most "frequently asked questions" submitted by YOU. You can be a part of this series by submitting a question that you have always wondered about by using the form below.

F.A.Q. will run March 12, 19, and 26.

Please type your question in the box below. Anything goes. Your questions will remain anonymous.

By collecting questions from people, they had an added investment in the series and it created a buzz worth talking about. It brought questions to the surface that we might not ever have known people were asking. This also allowed us to take the pulse of our community so we could plan this, as well as future message series.

Now, someone might ask: Is it okay to let the unchurched set the agenda for our services? The answer to that FAQ is absolutely YES. The church has too often been guilty of answering questions that people just aren’t asking. And the world has responded with a collective yawn. By speaking God’s truth into the questions people are asking, you already have their attention. This makes them more open to receive the answers. What you don’t want to do is to change your answers to make them more appealing to our culture. You can be relevant and totally biblical at the same time.

The questions we came up with for this series were:

1) Why does God let bad things happen to good people?
2) Where does my money go when I give it to the church?
3) Why do I still feel guilty after I ask for forgiveness?
4) What does the Bible say about the gifts of the Holy Spirit?
5) Why do you use secular music in church? Should I listen to any kind of music I want to?
6) What does the Bible say about homosexuality and gay marriage?
7) What does the Bible say about drinking?
8) What does the Bible say about divorce? What happens if I fall out of love?

2) Present your message in a creative way. So after we had collected the questions, we had to figure out how we could answer them with creativity. We decided to use a spinning wheel to randomly select the questions we would address in each service. This presented several challenges to our team as we planned for the series.

First, we had to design the wheel. We chose to make a prop that would stand around six feet high with colorful numbers where we could have people from the crowd participate by coming on stage and giving it a spin. There were eight numbers it could land on, each representing a different question people had asked. The questions were listed on our message notes in the worship guide.

This meant that I would need to be prepared for any one of the eight questions that the spinner might land on. Our media team had to have the power points and videos ready to roll for any random choice. If you use worship projection like EasyWorship, it is simple for the media team to change directions on the fly. I tabbed out my message notes so I could find the responses easily. I also included another teaching pastor in on the process so he was ready with some of the answers.

To set people at ease, we started each message with a disclaimer, where I acknowledged that people would not agree with all the answers that I presented. We wanted them to understand that there was grace at work in this process and we didn’t want to come off as legalistic in our answers to these hot topics.

Then we explained how we would choose the questions for the message. We had already asked a few people ahead of time if they would be willing to come up and give the wheel a spin. This allowed us to involve some people in our service that normally would not have participated. We played game show music and announced the “next contestant” over the sound system. When the wheel landed on a certain number, we moved into that question. It had the feel of planned spontaneity.

After dealing with the first topic, I asked a question that people had been asking on a lighter note such as, “Where does the pastor get his shirts?” Or “What’s the deal with the Easter event?” This lightened the mood, allowed me to catch my breath, and allowed us to address some areas that we needed to promote.

In each of our two weekend services, the messages were unique because of the random way the questions were chosen. The elements that remained the same were:

• introduction
• random question
• humorous question
• random question
• humorous question
• closing question

I closed with a specific question chosen ahead of time that wasn’t on the wheel so we could bring the service to an appropriate end. The closing questions were ones like: “Why would a loving God keep some people out of Heaven?” and “Why do I need to be baptized?”

3) Let God open hearts to his truth. I’ll have to admit I was a little worried about laying some of the more controversial questions out there. Many times, we avoid the hard truths so that we will be liked. However, you can speak the truth in love. That means being honest without being abrasive. When you say what needs to be said in a loving way, God’s Spirit can move his truth into hearts without causing collateral damage. When things are left undefined, you can certainly have more people along for the ride. But, at the end of the day, it is better to honestly address those tough questions and allow people to hear your heart on these issues. The fact is, people have these questions whether you are willing to answer them or not. It’s better to address them from a biblical point of view than to allow our culture to define the answers.

As a result of this series, people are beginning to see the church as a place where we deal with the real issues of the day and where we value honest questions. I found that people appreciated our efforts at addressing their questions whether they agreed with the answer or not. A series like this is a great resource that people can use to invite their friends and family with real questions to investigate the answers in a non-threatening environment.

They’ve got questions. You’ve got answers.

Cole Phillips is the lead pastor of The Connection Church in Kyle, Texas, a bedroom community of the growing Austin area (www.theconnectionchurch.org). Having earned his doctorate in church growth and evangelism, Cole is a student and experienced practitioner of growing high-definition churches. As a church planter in the trenches, he loves walking with others through the process of building dynamic thriving churches through the Purpose Driven Church Planting Network, a network of church planters that teaches and encourages church planters nationwide.