Planting a Church Using Storyline - Ty Gibson

welcome to ministry in motion where we explore best practices for your ministry in the 21st century our guest pastor ty Gibson will help us to explore the power of planting churches but not just any church and not just planting them in any way he will share why and how he is planting churches using the story of the gospel what's unique about it what's new how is it working you don't want to miss it stay tuned [Music] [Applause] [Music] dieeee welcome to ministry in motion glad to have you Mosca to be here you are a church planter I am and that's something new I knew you were pastoring but you are a church planter tell us why you decided to plant a church and there were there were a number of reasons that converged okay first of all we live in a university town so we thought you know we need to position ourselves so that we can speak with relevance to this this segment of our city we have 26 27 thousand students in in Eugene Oregon when Nike was founded and yeah and where Apple corporation was named and where LSD was invented this is Eugene Oregon okay so it's a university town and we thought we need to position ourselves to speak with clarity and relevance to the university segment of our of our town secondly we really began to feel convicted that we needed to reframe the way we relate to the surrounding community so we backed up a pretty significant step and said okay what what is it that's necessary for being the church in our particular culture sure and and what is unnecessary you know I love that because sometimes you can go to a new place or work in a new area and you cookie-cut the same thing everywhere yeah so I'm glad that you you dug deep and say hey what is special what is deaf how do we reach these people yeah well God became incarnate so so this is this is this is the ultimate effort on the part of the most transcendent person in the universe who in every way is different than us and he became like us to reach us amazing yeah amazing well tell us a little bit about kind of a big picture story here you are planting a church in Eugene Oregon and and it's a unique community it has and I would say little knowledge I have it's not necessarily the most religious community it's very it's actually an antagonistic toward religion Eugene is extremely secular and it's not just that people aren't Christian the idea of Christianity arouses people's worst fears because because in in liberal Eugene when I say liberal I mean socially in politically liberal Eugene OR again sure the idea is that Christianity is synonymous with right-wing politics and so people automatically associate just the brain yeah yeah I mean there's a there's a popular bumper sticker in our area that says Jesus called the other day said he wants his religion back you know the idea is that Christianity has been hijacked for political ends and this is how they view it they feel like hey something something is not right about this and so they're they're resistant so it's very secular yeah I got together with about nine people and we said let's let's just plant a church is that what you started yeah nine people okay we got together and we just began meeting and inviting people and doing events on campus um that were more socially conscious um in in in a more religious environment like maybe the Bible Belt or something it's still effective I suppose to just send out an invitation in the form of a brochure and invite be hey come to us and we've got some things to tell you right well not in Eugene you don't didn't invite me hey come to us because we want to tell you something right yes we're coming to you because we want to be with you we want to do life with you we want to add value to this community we want to live our lives alongside you with you as members of the human community that you're a part of and so so it's not it's not hey come to us it's like Jesus said go right so we're going to people rather than just mailing them brochures and hoping they come is there a special challenge in that situation you know you're pastoring in a Western culture and and I want to go back just for a moment you you used nine people mm-hm is that any significance to that number of the will do this with you wonderful wonderful yeah so you did an empty of the churches out no we sort of started yeah we specifically said to ourselves into the surrounding churches actually before we did it we met with all the the local pastors and we said hey we we just want you to know that this is this is evangelistic this is an effort to reach people who don't know Christ don't know the gospel and so we're not just setting up a new thing for people to church hop that's not that's not worry interested so so people do church hop some people come over and and we always have the same conversation with them we say hey go back to your church wherever you're from they need you there sure go be a part of whatever is happening there and give your energies and talents their only unbelievers are allowed to come here some of them do not obey yeah so we're trying to reach people who don't know people that were raised like I was raised because I wasn't raised with Christianity Wow well how are you intentional about the DNA of the church plant okay how because a lot of times we come with very churchy ideas and it sounds like you're trying to do a new thing yeah yeah so what was the intention about the DNA of this church plant what makes it different well it's it's it's different or or putting forth an effort to be relevant in a number of ways first of all it's called storyline um people say well that's an odd name for a church why didn't you call it you know Calvary Church or something some biblical word is a storyline well storyline it's called storyline for two reasons number one because that's an acknowledgment on our part that that scripture is a narrative it's a story it's not it's not a Greek book it's a Hebrew book it's not it's not propositional statements it's a narrative that's unfolding from Genesis to Revelation with characters and plots and in the interactions and so we're going through the Bible as a narrative in our teaching format secondly storyline acknowledges that human beings are fundamentally narratives in process themselves I mean Ivan you're a story in process you have a history and you know that that is behind you and you're creating a future in the moments and hours and days that you live and so we're saying hey God is a God of story I love that and you have a story and here's the clincher we want to know you we want to know your story rather than saying to the community hey we have something to tell you we're saying hey would you tell us wow we're flipping the script in the direction of reaching out and saying hey we want to know you tell us your story and we believe that God is in the process of telling a story that you may want to be a part of that's a lovely approach and I think a biblical approach mm-hmm when we come back I want to talk to you about this whole notion of why spend time planting new churches yes when we have old or dying churches that need to be revived okay when we come back I'll deal with that all right if you're watching ministry in motion stay tuned [Music] welcome back you're watching ministry in motion and our guests is Ty Gibson and we're talking about church planting so ty there are littered throughout Christendom churches that are dead and so the old idea is stop planting new churches and revive the dead churches what do you think about that I think there there could be probably are individuals who are called to that they're gifted and called to to go into an existing church and to to give the blood sweat and tears I'm gonna emphasize that blood sweat and tears to to turn it around there are people called to that church planting though is is is vital we need in Western culture in North America Western Europe Australia New Zealand everything that could be considered as Western culture coming from the Enlightenment and and the Scientific Revolution you know that's the wake of culture that we're living in it's vital that we plant new churches for for a few reasons number one number one listen the world the world that the church was speaking to in the 1920s and 30s and 40s and 50s sure doesn't exist anymore it doesn't exist anymore okay we have a world a culture a matrix of reality a lens through which people are viewing life yeah that that is is is not commensurate with the methods that we're addicted to we're we're we're we have mastered approaches that are no longer speaking with clarity and relevance to the actual audience yeah and so so we know the numbers I mean are our own denomination regularly produces the numbers and and in Christendom as a whole the numbers the stats are regularly produced by the Barna Group and and other groups that tell us that the handwriting is on the wall that the church is dying in the West that people are bolting from Christianity and and wanting little or nothing to do with it more and more we speaking a lot now the millennial generation and and and how that their their general orientation to life is is not religious at all sure so we need to do one of two things Ivan we either need to say no the way we're doing it is sacred and you need to come to us and in other words use authority as our mechanism of soul-winning or evangelism or or we need to become like Jesus shoes the incarnation alum come where the people are you know we're we're trying to open we're trying to open rosebuds with a hammer yeah when sunshine is needed we're trying to evangelize with argument when the empathy is needed sure sure the the world in which we live is a world that needs to see the gospel with skin on it yeah and and that's what gives credibility mmm when we finally do open our mouth and preach we need to come alongside people and be be with them so for example in my own experience and my own experience two generations an evangelist came to our house and converted my mom and she got baptized on the premise of biblical authority okay she was from a generation where the Evangelist just see it right here it says oh it says that right in the Bible right oh okay and my mom agreed and agreed and agreed based on an authoritative text and an authoritative figure called the Evangelist telling her how it is so she believed without necessarily belonging first that's right right yeah she was she was the Bible had a an aura it was she never read it but it was the Word of God it was on the shelf she you know in and she knew that it was something she thought that it was something but my generates the same evangelist my mom sent him after me and the same evangelist came to me and began saying but the Bible says but the Bible says but the Bible says but for me it didn't have any any assumed Authority so I was like the Bible says what I don't know Shakespeare says Jane Austen says yeah the Iliad the Greek myths what do you mean it's just literature isn't it it's just it's an old book so it didn't have an assumed authority so what had to happen was another person came along and rather than approaching me with an authority orientation he approached me with an empathy orientation I don't even think he thought it through and knew what he was doing necessarily he just rather than quoting an authoritative source to me he began to reason with me and empathize with my questions about the nature of life and reality and then that's what opened me up to consider the Bible the Bible became authoritative to me because before I realized that it was authoritative I began to realize that there are things about life there are things about reality that I don't have the answers to with a purely naturalistic perspective sure so the Bible became authoritative for me but it wasn't now that's the world we live in right now in the West okay yeah you can't just go to the average person in our current culture and say the Bible says the Bible says the Bible says right you need to come alongside people build relationships so that you have a foundation of credibility once credibility is established then what you say actually has weight yeah so all of this is in the church planting mix that doesn't it needs yeah that's how we're doing church planting Ivan we're the church planting by entering into relationships hmm you know sometimes the church is just beginning to say hey we've been doing evangelism with apologetic arguments what about this discipleship thing what about the way Jesus did it sure it's like it's like a new idea oh maybe we should do it the way Jesus is did it well the way Jesus did it was that Jesus came alongside people had relationships with people so that his words had weight yeah because of the way he loved them so that's how we're doing story lines story line as I said as I said before we're not putting our foot forward saying hey we have something to tell you sure we're saying hey what do you want to tell us so who are you what's your story yeah so so help me understand I'm coming to your hmm wherever you're meeting yeah how do I get to tell my story well how do you find out about my story yeah well we we're very intentional about meeting people okay and as soon as we know somebody at all we invite them every every every church service for us is evangelistic so there's there's there's no Christianese spoken no matter where you are on the spectrum you come to story line and you're going to feel that you are the audience you're being spoken to and one of the things we do is we almost every Sabbath we have somebody come up sit down with me just like we're doing right now Ivan and here's here's the here's the people gathering the congregation we say I say to whoever this new person is I say hey so what is your name as it appears on your birth certificate they say their name and I say okay you were born and then what happened what are the defining what are the defining events of your life let me hold you right there and I want you to tell us more this is intriguing we're talking about church planting with Ty Gibson you're watching ministry in motion [Music] welcome back to ministry emotion we're talking about the special way of planting churches with Ty Gibson ty I love the storyline gospel approach and we're just dealing with some of the characteristics when we went off you were telling me that you bring someone up front and I have a conversation like this what does that do to that person or the congregation that you're trying to build a plant well it achieves two really important aspects of doing Church together first of all the person feels known okay second of all the people feel like they know them now conversations are going to occur because they keep the key feature the key feature of storyline is to build relationships and so we just met this person and so at the end of the at the end of the hearing their story I just say hey everybody this is Ivan Williams and everybody just welcomes them and and so we get to know each other but but it achieves something else it creates a foundation of vulnerability just ever-so-slight at this at this point vulnerability where people are accepted because of the foundation of storyline is this gospel concept of being fully known and fully loved this is what I preached over and over and over and over again from every angle I can figure out a way to preach it that that our healing as human beings comes about by being seen known and loved simultaneously so we see we see the pain that you've been through we've see the dysfunction we see the junk we see who you are as a human being and you're welcome here you're welcome here whatever you've been through whatever you're going through whatever's going on in your life II this is this is where you belong but storyline Ivan isn't just that that weekly service okay it's during the week when it's really happening so for example we're doing things that now we normally think of evangelism as you know sending out a brochure and preaching a series of me there's nothing wrong with that right before coming here I preached a series of meetings on the campus of UFO but it's a unique kind of meeting sure but for example on campus we do something called the Solidarity wall we build a massive wall on campus and we invite people from all over campus from students faculty to come and to do their their own graffiti messages in multiple colored pens whatever they can get artistic whatever to express their solidarity with those who have suffered sexual assault on campus sure or their outrage against those who do such things in the wall in a matter of a couple days is covered with beautiful messages of hope and healing and it stimulates a conversation on campus about this subject sure we also we also do a lot of medical and dental work for people who can't afford it this is this is happening you know during the week we invite people into our space only after we have entered their space and I want to emphasize that mmm say that again yeah we invite people into our space only after we have entered their space what does that mean so we're not we're not just saying hey come over here we've got the truth listen to us we want to tell you something that's we're saying hey no we we want to know you he what are your needs what's going on in your life what is what is life like where you are and we're entering into relationships with people that's authentic yeah yeah it's it's it's it's it's what one author called disinterested benevolence or what we might translate as No Agenda love yeah that's a new term I look at that you mentioned earlier tie that Jesus was incarnation --kw came he put on our flesh he breathed our air came to live with us yeah and the gospel is incarnation --all and as you plant this church as you're planting this church and I know you told me you're gonna plant another one in a city in the south yeah I'm and soon what what is the degree or the level of incarnation you know Jesus was a queue of eating with sin sinners by the then-known ruling Church yeah this man is hanging out with people that yeah but as you share the gospel as you plant this church are there any limits what's sacred what what changes you know what are the lines drawn if I could ask yeah yeah well well I believe I believe very strongly that that we need to make a distinction at least in our minds and understanding between between what would be regarded as moral imperatives and doctrinal orthodoxy whatever particular denomination you know our various viewers might be with there's a there are things that you you you won't compromise everything else should be compromised everything else okay okay there is no such thing as a sacred culture there is no such thing as a you know it's cultural narcissism the us to assume that my tastes and my perspectives on a cultural level yeah are somehow have their origin in the mind of God so so so everything everything should be available for critique and we should we should follow the example of Jesus and the example of Paul and Paul Paul very clearly said I became all things to all men that I made by all means winsome he's saying essentially I'm I'm not going to make sacred what isn't I'm not gonna draw lines in the sand that God hasn't drawn you mean I'm not going to traditions yeah yeah I'm not gonna yeah that's right I'm not gonna make moral issues out of what God has not made a moral issue about sure so so everything everything needs to give way to the person's need to encounter Christ except for the gospel itself being the imperative truths that IIIi believe the Bible is the Word of God and we shouldn't compromise the truths of Scripture but on a cultural level on a relational level everything else is up for critique and as far as far as I can see the Bible is is telling us that we need to deny ourselves for the good of the other and to deny myself is to deny myself culturally to embed myself in the culture of those I'm trying to reach ty we're all out of time man I'm sorry this is exciting actually buy to know what God is doing and we will be praying for you in Oregon you Ivan and wherever else the Lord is blessing you to plant churches yeah yeah I think that being with it thank you we just had a wonderful experience learning from pastor ty Gibson about the power of using the story of the gospel to plant churches we learned the gospel is powerful enough alone and we need to tell it in ways to impact our society church planting is essential even in the midst of dying churches and then finally we learn key characteristics of successful church planting especially in this Western culture let's keep building up the kingdom of heaven on earth through new church plants thank you for watching ministry in motion for this and other programs visit our website [Music] [Music]

Channel: Ministry, International Journal for Pastors

Views: 2,526

Rating: 4.9298244 out of 5

Keywords: Seventh-day Adventist, Ministry in Motion, pastor, Ty Gibson, church planting, Ivan Williams

Id: QLxBEtXj7Tc

Length: 25min 45sec (1545 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 18 2018