It’s all about the paradigm and it starts with me. That is what I am learning right now.
My name is Mark Fesmire. My wife and I moved to Lynchburg, Virginia in 1988 to start a church with two other couples. I am still here as the pastor of a somewhat non-traditional church in the midst of the Bible Belt. We meet in an 86,000 square foot former warehouse that we purchased in 2005. Up until then, we were a nomadic church meeting in a variety of rental situations. If you want to talk numbers, we would be a church of about 600. We have an active prayer team that is learning much about how to help people spiritually. We sent a team of Grace people to reach an unreached people group under a unique partnership with Reach Global, the sending arm of the Evangelical Free Church. That is an ongoing work. We have three pastors on staff, including me. From a number of typical church statistics we could be described as a success. But AHHHH, that is where the paradigm comes in. What is your definition of success?
For me, despite all the good things I just mentioned I was still bothered. We were not seeing people from outside our body becoming disciples of Jesus. Sure there were new people who came to us as new believers, but in most cases they were not people anyone in our church body had led to Jesus.
To understand my disappointment, you need to know the back story. From the beginning we had designed Grace to help believers to grow in their relationship with Jesus exactly so they could minister outside of our meeting place in all the places they lived, worked and played. But after years of doing church the way we have been doing it, I would say we only had marginal success. Sure, we saw people growing in Christ Likeness. We saw people dealing with struggles from their past. We saw some restored marriages and the like. But I was still bothered by how few people we were leading to Jesus from the community around us.
So when I heard Mike Jarrell talk at our Eastern District conferences three years in a row, I was struck by something he said. He said he found himself trying to preach people into being on mission and wasn’t leading people into being on mission. I realized that I was trying to do the same thing. I was telling people to live a certain way, but I was not actually living that way myself.
The second year I heard Mike speak I came home and tried to start a group that was outward focused. I failed. I couldn’t explain to others how to live this way. I couldn’t even really live it myself. This was why the last time I heard Mike speak I asked him a question after the session. Would you coach me? That began an amazing journey with Mike of changing my paradigms.
For starters, it is natural for “church” thinking to design meetings. In church settings, we have lots of meetings. We have worship gatherings, bible studies and small groups. So if we want to become missional, what are we going to do? We start a meeting. Yes. If I now call the meeting I have with two other believing couples in my dining room “missional”, we will now start connecting with people who don’t know Jesus and we will start making disciples. Right? (Did you hear the sarcasm in my voice?)
It took a 2 year long journey with Mike to begin to understand the nature of relationships. Slow down with Jesus, slow down with your family, and slow down with the people who don’t know Jesus. My wife and I joined a Tai Chi class at our Y. I slowly began to build some friendships. To be sure, many in our class already know Jesus. (Did I say we live in the Bible Belt?) But some don’t know Jesus. I am building relationships with them. It has taken time, but I am now starting to have conversations with people who don’t know Jesus.
For me this was a huge step. I had always wanted everyone in our body to live this way, but frankly wasn’t living this way myself. I was busy doing “church” work. Now I have some stories to tell. To be sure, I don’t share them on Sunday morning. We live in too small a community. I don’t want any of my friends to think they are projects. They aren’t. They are my friends.
This is why I say it starts with me and it starts with the paradigms. If your paradigm is that a pastor is supposed to build a congregation that shepherds believers, send missionaries to the harvest, teaches God’s word and has ministries for different segments of the body, then I could be considered a “success” by some. But if your paradigm is that a pastor ought to model life with Jesus that anyone can live, then you’d get a different answer. I wasn’t doing what I was asking and wanting others to do. I had to change.
I am not neglecting the blessing of God on all the other things that have happened at Grace during my 31 years here. There are many miracles to tell. There are a number of reasons we shouldn’t exist as a church.
But from one leader’s heart to another... for me, learning to live on mission meant I needed to first change the way I lived and then change my paradigm for what we would do together as a body. That has made all the difference. I have a long way to go. But at least I can see the path now.