I have a question about a Recent Teaching

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[victoriawinnue]

Hello:

I know I am new to this sight and I am new to christianity. But I did go to church with my family and with my friends growing up as a child - so I know a little bit about what happens in a regular church. I am hoping you can help me with a question I have.

I've listened recently to some of the "Recent Teaching" tapes on the New Life Community church in Cedar Rapids website.

I hope you don't mind if I ask some questions. I am really confused. The pastor on the tape talks about "planting" churches which I really don't understand. What is "planting"?

He talks about people losing their jobs and losing good relationships. Why would this happen and why would this be a good thing? Does the church cause this?

Listening to the tape, he refers to the word "crazy" no less than 20 times, maybe 30 times, although honestly I didn't keep track.

Thank you in advance for any help you might be able to provide me. Here is the link if you would find it helpful in answering my questions:

http://www.newlifecr.com/sermons.php

Respectively Submitted,
Victoria

[EverAStudent]

Hello Victoria, and welcome to the forum.

To be honest, I do not have sufficient drive to listen to the teaching on the link you submitted.  Therefore, my comments will generally address the questions you have and will not be specific to that on the Cedar Rapids tapes.

"Planting churches" is a shorthand Christian phrase which means: to found a new church in a place or locality where there was never a church before.  It involves evangelism and being willing to meet in a very small group until the church can attract sufficient new members to grow to a larger size.  Most new church "plants" meet in rented buildings (life offices or empty stock rooms) until they can afford to obtain more permanent facilities.  GC is one "denomination" (like Wesleyan or Lutheran) among the many in the Protestant branch of Christianity.  When GC plants churches the churches are in the GC denomination.

Many GC members are very zealous and will voluntarily leave their established vocations to join a church planting team, which means the loss of a job (until they find a new one in the new location) and the loss of many friendships when they move away. 

I do not know how the speaker in Cedar Rapids uses the word "crazy," however in recent years many churches and denominations like to think of their love and service to Christ as being "crazy" in the eyes of the world.  While this may be a valid characterization on some level, it must be remembered that our faith is grounded in the historical reality of actual men, like Jesus, and is not a "crazy" or "irrational" faith.

Blessings.

[Neverbeengcm]

I listened to a little bit of both of the last podcast postings on the new life website(as much as I could take).   it appears as though the new life church is trying to start what they call "plant churches" in the area. "Plant Churches" are GCx attempts at opening up new churches in a target area.  This is at least the 2nd attempt at this effort in the last 2 years in the area (according to the online podcasts).  The first one must have failed.  Fortunately, there were not enough people in the Cedar Rapds area who were sucked into the web of the great Commission on their last attempt. It seems that the New Life Church believes that there are now enough high school and college aged kids in the target areas who are "ripe for the picking" (their words) in those target areas to start up new GC churches.  They don't have enough money for it right now.  So the New life Church will be on a major fund drive.  I assume every member is already giving at least 10% of their income to the church.  That will be hard on those loyal members of the new Life flock.

I hope some people in those areas in Cedar Rapids where these "plant Churches" are being targeted are able to warn the people of this new GCx plan to assimilate high school and college aged kids into these new churches. Think about how many families will lose their kids to the controls of these new churches.  Chritianity is a beautiful thing when the Bible is read and used in loving ways. I am sure there are plenty of wonderful churches in that same area where these kids in Cedar Rapids can go to have a chance to celebrate the resurection of our lord without having EVERY DAY of their lives controlled by church functions and GCx weekend camps.

I think the pastor is trying to be cool and hip by repeatedly using the word "crazy" in reference to their idea of opening up new churches in an area where there are already enough churches.  He sure says it a lot in the sermon. This new plan does not seem to be a sensible plan to me....but, that's me.