Insourcing by Randy Pope

Author:Randy Pope [Pope, Randy; Murray, Kitti]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780310490685
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Missional

“Who do you think is the greatest pastor the United States has ever known?”

I ask pastors and leaders this question on occasion, and I almost always hear the same answer: Jonathan Edwards. Edwards pastored what I call a “three-strand church” — a church that includes three elements in balance with one another. First, his ministry addressed the “heads” of those in his care, with a goal of sound doctrine. Second, Edwards addressed the “heart.” Not content to fill the mind, he called for passion in worship and in the proclamation of the gospel. He understood that to encounter God in worship is an experience that goes beyond reasoning about truth: “It must be a more immediate, sensible discovery that must give the mind a real sense of the excellency and beauty of God.”9 Finally, Jonathan Edwards addressed the “hand,” leading his church to do acts of mercy and justice. Members of the church lived out in their communities the realities they affirmed in their heads and hearts.

These three strands are rarely found together in today’s churches. Most churches tend to emphasize one strand, often at the expense of the other two. Heads-only churches all too easily devolve into dead orthodoxy. Hearts-only churches can major on emotionalism without adequate declaration of truth. And hands-only churches may succumb to a bland liberalism that offers bread without offering the Bread of Life.

As I compared Perimeter with the balance promoted by Edwards, I realized that at best, we were just a two-strand church. We were doing a more than decent job challenging heads and hearts, but we were not mobilizing hands well. Chip Sweney, a member of our staff who was working with our junior high students at the time we were thinking about all of this, explains it this way:

In 2001, [Randy] explained a simple paradigm of a healthy church:

head (theology) + heart (passion) + hand (external ministry)

Randy shared with the Perimeter staff that he felt the church was missing this last key ingredient, the hand. He confessed his regret that our church was not strategically caring for those with significant needs outside of our own doors. As Perimeter neared the celebration of its twenty-fifth anniversary, he charged the leaders to devise a plan to engage with the community and serve its needs.10

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