Authenticity, Franchisee’s and the Death of Church Plants

“Authenticity is the thing consumers respond to the most,” says Diego Scotti, Vice President of Global Advertising for American Express.

Jim Gilmore writes:

In the Agrarian Economy, the dominant purchase criteria was Availability (price being set by supply-and-demand, and only influencing the quantity of materials purchased in the marketplace). In the Industrial Economy, Cost became the dominant driver of purchases as Mass Production made more and more goods affordable to the masses. In the Service Economy, Quality come to dominate, with the performance of offerings became most important as consumers increasingly rely upon others to perform certain activities on their behalf. And now, in the Experience Economy, in an increasingly unreal world of staged places and mediated events, consumers want Authenticity.

Those businesses trying to compete in the experience economy  with an industrial or service economy mindset will die a painful death. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for Starbucks demise. Apart from terrible coffee they attempted to provide an experience but in a mass produced environment. It seems to me that Franchisee’s and authenticity cannot coexist. Perhaps this is a reason for the attraction to the local growers markets which are springing up all over Sydney which create an impression of being a more authentic grocery experience to Woolworths or Coles. (This is not to say that all franchisees are in decline. Last week I took my car to get new tyres from Bob Jane T-Mart. But this was because they are operating within the industrial economy where cost is the dominant driver of purchases, not the experience.)

Applied to church planting, particularly within an existing denominational structure, the team must be wary of becoming a franchisee of an organization, whether that be Anglican, Presbyterian, Acts 29, en:trust, Geneva Push etc. Whilst they will seek to learn from and be supported by their organization, embracing an organizational mindset will be disastrous.  The church planting team should be thankful for their elders in the faith, but authentic to scripture, authentic to their calling and authentic to their missiological understanding of culture. The team even within a denominational setting, should see themselves as somewhat independent from the organisation. They should not be paralysed by the sluggishness with which the denomination moves towards mission. They should not expect financial investment from the organisation. They should get on with the mission, prayerful that the denomination would change, and being the kind of change that is required. Should the denomination have no cash for mission—the team will raise their own. Should the denomination have no demographical information on mission—the team will research their own. Should the denomination have no people for mission—the team will develop their own. One of the dangers of being a denominational church plant is waiting to receive strategic direction and support from the organization. Church plants will rejoice should they receive some, but get on with mission should none be provided. In doing so they will be authentic to their calling.

God help us!

Church at the Pub

CT Studd, a hero of mine, once said:

Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell

Last year, while watching stand-up comedy at a pub in Glebe, I couldn’t help noticing that stand-up venues would make a great venue for church. They are a comfortable and relaxed, have good facilities (food, drink and amenities) and are natural meeting places for people in our city. They are  setup so that all the chairs, couches, stools and tables face a small stage from which a person speaks for 30 minutes. Perfect!

At the same time as this began to dawn on me, I heard about Guy Mason who planted a church in the James Squire Brewhouse in Docklands, Melbourne. It surprises me that so few churches have used pubs as a venue for church planting. Well not really. A columnist in the Sydney Morning Herald wrote:

A paper prepared by the NSW Parliamentary Library Research Service for the 2003 NSW summit on alcohol abuse outlines the costs: alcohol played a role in 50 per cent of cases of domestic violence and sexual violence, 37 per cent of road injuries, 44 per cent of injuries resulting from fire, 47 per cent of assaults and 16 per cent of child abuse cases. It was a factor in more than one-third of homicides. More than 3600 people were dying each year from alcohol use and about 72,000 were hospitalised. The last time it was calculated at the end of the 1990s, alcohol misuse cost the community $7.5 billion a year.

Christian’s hate the abuse of Alcohol and the harm it inflicts on the innocent, so we reject pubs as a place to be used for by Jesus to build his church.

I am a fan, however, of the three-fold approach to engaging culture: reject what is evil, receive what is good, and redeem what is broken/lost. Though we lament and reject Alcohol abuse, we seek to redeem its use in moderation, receiving it as a good gift from God to his world. Hence, hold church in a pub may be a good way to begin to redeem something which is so often abused.

The last two Sunday nights I visited two pubs between the City and Bondi.

The first was The Light Brigade in Paddington. It  was almost empty at 9pm when we visited one Sunday night. The girl behind the bar said that its quite a slow season for pubs at the moment. She said their upstairs bistro is not open on a sunday night, but is able to be rented during the week. I told her my plans to plant a church in a function room at a pub and she said some pub owners would like it because pubs are fairly empty on a sunday night, and at present the season is fairly slow.

The second was The Local Taphouse in Darlinghurst. This pub surprised me, because despite what the bar lady said at The Light Brigade, this pub was packed on a Sunday night with Stand-Up Comedy downstairs, and a busy upstairs restaurant and bar. This pub defineately wins the points for the best range of Beers on tap, and for being very artistic birdcages hanging from the roof.

Over the next coming months I will be joining a group of young guys who are dreaming to creatively transform the City with the story of Jesus. Please join us or pray for us.

Because the tomb is empty.