On February 25-27, 2008 Resurgence hosted our National Conference titled Text & Context at Mars Hill Church's Ballard Campus. In this twelfth and final main session from the conference, watch as Darrin Patrick talks about what it takes to cast a vision and lead a church plant.

On February 25-27, 2008 Resurgence hosted our National Conference titled Text & Context at Mars Hill Church's Ballard Campus. In this eleventh session from the Conference, watch as Jeff Vanderstelt lays out a biblical vision for missions, ecclesiology and preaching the gospel to as many people as possible.

On February 25-27, 2008 Resurgence hosted our National Conference titled Text & Context at Mars Hill Church's Ballard Campus. In this twelfth and final main session from the conference, listen as Darrin Patrick talks about what it takes to cast a vision and lead a church plant.

On February 25-27, 2008 Resurgence hosted our National Conference titled Text & Context at Mars Hill Church's Ballard Campus. In this eleventh session from the Conference, listen as Jeff Vanderstelt lays out a biblical vision for missions, ecclesiology and preaching the gospel to as many people as possible.

1. WORLD CITY-CENTERS ARE GROWING IN POWER AND CONNECTEDNESS
   
   1. Globalization is making major world cities more powerful than ever. Why?
      • The mobility of capital means national governments are now virtually powerless to control the flow of money in and out of their own economies, thus greatly decreasing their influence in general. The cities are the seats of multi-national corporations and international economic, social, and technological networks. 2) The technology/ communication revolution means that national governments are powerless also to control what their people watch or learn. As a result, it is the culture/values set of world-class cities that is now being transmitted around the globe to every tongue, tribe, people, and nation. NY and LA are now far more influential in forming the culture of, say, teenagers in rural Indiana or rural Mexico than are the national or local governments or civic institutions. Sum: This is the first overall major erosion of nation-state power in 800 years.

1. Characteristics of Global City-Center Culture
   Can we speak of the marks of city-center culture, if there is not only such diversity of ethnicities but even diversities of worldviews? Yes. City-center culture is a "salad bowl" with two dominant ingredients—modern and postmodern worldviews—interacting and blending in different ways.
   1. The city center is a culture of expertise. People who live in city centers are usually highly skilled and highly educated. Ministry implications: a) Artistic quality is very important. Amateurish art and music will not go over well, especially with the high percentage of center-city residents who are themselves artists. And the postmodern "turn" emphasizes the visual, graphics and embodiment. b) Communication needs to be very high in quality and be highly intelligent. There is a surprising amount of anti-intellectualism within the evangelical world. People have noticed for years that campus fellowships at Ivy League schools are very anti-intellectual and pietistic (A-I-P). In general, however, such A-I-P will not reach the people who tend to "make it" and stay put in city centers.
      

B. Ministry Marks of Effective City-Center Churches

1. Contextualize the gospel so traditional, modern and postmoderns "get it" and are challenged. The basic worldview of a person or a culture is an answer to the question: What is really wrong with the world (or people or life) and how can it be fixed? Every culture has a worldview story. The job of the missionary is to enter sympathetically into the worldview story of the culture yet challenge and retell the culture's story so they see their story will only have a happy ending through Jesus.
   

3. Create a "missional" mindset that shapes Christians and includes non-Christians together.

In Acts 2 and I Cor. 14:23ff we see nonbelievers attracted and challenged by worship. We learn 1) nonbelievers are expected in worship, 2) nonbelievers must find worship challenging and comprehensible, not comfortable. In city centers where there are a mixture of worldviews, it is crucial to include both Christians and non-Christians in the same service—even in many of the other meetings and ministries of the church. It's not best to segregate them (ala Willow Creek) or exclude them (as the typical conservative church does.) Why?

Nearly all books and lectures on this subject outline how to plant a particular kind of church – either a particular denominational model or some other kind of model that works in a specific environment. But what are the principles for any church plant?

Here are 5 elements I think you've got to have!

1. Locating
You need to live in or very, very close to the community of people you are trying to reach.

Some of the most heart-breaking church plant failures involved folks who simply would not follow this incarnational principle. Jesus didn't commute from heaven every day, he moved in!

CITY-FOCUSED: Acts 16-19
This is the fourth crucial principle of ministry for the 21st (and the 1st!) century.

We should not ignore the rest of a nation, but we should focus our efforts on large cities in the greatest way possible. We have noted that now there is a mobility of ideas, people, and capital unprecedented since the Pax Romana, and this leads not only to globalization and pluralization (again) but urbanization again. As Wayne Meeks put it - travel during the Pax Romana was easier than it ever had been and ever was again until the 19th century. And when that happened, cities rose again. The works of Wayne Meeks and Rodney Stark have shown that the rise of early Christianity was largely an urban phenomenon. Globalized cities became furiously multi-ethnic and international and thus became more enormously influential and central than their nations - essentially they were city states. Why? Antioch was really a United Nations, with Asian, African, Jewish, Greek, and Roman section. From Antioch there were powerful networks that led back into three continents. Capital and culture flowed back and forth through those networks. And thus Paul's mission strategy was remarkably 'urban-centered'. So should ours be.