7 reasons why you would be wise to "re-think" the Franchised Church (part 1)

In response to the recent article in Leadership Journal that centered around my thoughts about video church, "franchising", North Point and church planting...here's a few things I would like to share as feedback and discussion points as I've digested the article and commentary that followed.  Disclaimer: These opinions are mine only and have nothing to do whatsoever with North Point Ministries, Andy Stanley or the leadership team here at Cumberland Church.  These are just my opinions, shared as one church leader to a group of others.  Thank you for allowing me to join in and continue the conversation with you.

With all of that said, here's my thoughts on "franchising the church"....

(1)  Contrary to popular belief, the New Testament does not present us with a specific system or model of church to follow.  Check it out, it's not there.  All of you that think that it's there are simply over-reading into the text.  In the NT, we discover what the early church DID -- not what church leaders are to DO. It's descriptive but it was never intended to be prescriptive.  Doctrinally, yes...they did give us guidelines and a form of church governance to use, but they NEVER gave us a road map to "do church" a certain way.  That's important to remember as we think and talk about the systems, or model of ministry, of our churches. 

(2)  Franchising Church is not about being a "McChurch", it's about following a "McSystem".  Franchising church isn't a doctrinal issue, it's a systems issue.  Franchising church is all about following a proven "system" or method of ministry. Period. That's it. Nothing more and nothing less. If you guys haven't heard Andy Stanley's message about this topic at the Catalyst Conference or the Drive Conference, then you missed it.  Check it out.  His talk on "systems" is awesome and it's what drove me to write the original article I did on "franchising church".  A couple of key points Andy drives home are... (1) God created and runs the universe through systems, (2) Preaching does not create behaviors--systems create behaviors, (3) Systems trump teaching or preaching every time, (4) Anytime you hear, "Well, our people just won't ___________" (you fill in the blank), you are listening to someone who doesn't understand the influence of systems and (5) The Bible says, "without vision, the people perish." Your church needs vision.  And vision needs systems.  If that's true, wouldn't it be wise to choose and implement one (in part or in full) that God is already successfully using in a community that closely resembles yours?  I certainly would. 

(3)  Church History tells us the "Franchised Church" works and that God uses it.  Church History is FULL of franchised models.  America was built on the franchised church. Think about it, it’s true.  Don’t believe me?  Check this out.  This is just a small list of church movements and denominations that sought to “franchise church” in the past 500 years and primarily the past 200 years here in America.  Truth is, most of us grew up in a successfully and strategically planned franchised church.

Got your interest?  Good!  I look forward to sharing #4 thru #7 with you tomorrow.  Let's pick it up then.

Eddie

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Comments

[Trenidy Davis]

It all rises and fall with what you said in step (1) "Contrary to popular belief, the New Testament does not present us with a specific system or model of church to follow." I heard Andy teach on this last year at Catalyst. Most churches are stuck because they do believe the Bible does present a prescription for doing church. This is often implied when someone says something like, "we want a first century church" or we need to "stay with the book". To be honest this is a huge shift for me. I'm still processing it, but I know if I do believe the bible is only descriptive of what happened, not prescriptive for us, then It will free me to be "unorthodox" with my approach to ministry. {By the way, no post in more than a week? I'm very interested in what y'all are doing.}