Reflections on Origins 2010

This past weekend I attended the 2010 Origins Conference, an inaugural event from the people that developed the Origins Project. This conference is very unique in that it started with a day of service on Friday. Dave Gibbons made a comment in his keynote speech regarding the hypocrisy that is “Christian” conferences that “create a lot of hot air for two days while the surrounding city has no idea that 100, 1,000, or 10,000 Christians just gathered in their town.” Another unique aspect of this conference is that well-known leaders engaged in conversations about leadership, creativity, equipping, and activism with those in attendance. Their willingness to have lunch with attendees and accessibility in intimate breakout sessions proved their desire to see the Kingdom explode and not their “name” or “Christian Celebrity” status. It was truly a convergence of creative dreamers that are passionate about participating in how God is moving in America.

I walked away from the conference chewing on a few ideas. First, Dave Gibbons spoke about how church leaders must change their “metrics,” meaning the way we measure success. He argued that we still seem to judge the success of our church based on attendance, “Because if you had 100 show up one Sunday and 10 the next… you would worry that something is wrong.” He suggested that we should stop worrying about Sunday morning numbers and concern ourselves with Monday morning numbers. Furthermore, he encouraged us to shoot for a new number on Monday Morning, “zero.” He challenged church leaders, “your church is successful, on Monday morning, when there are zero widows in your area that are not cared for, and zero orphans without families in your town…”

Dave’s words captured the essence of the early church recorded in Acts 2:42-47 and Acts 4:32-37. Recently, at the world premier of BasicSeries, Francis Chan discussed the importance of these passages and their implications for the church today. It seems there is a movement of God afoot in America that is calling church leaders to stop worshiping at the altar of church attendance and start embracing humanity. I say “embracing humanity” and not “meeting needs” because I agree with a statement Dan Kimball made during lunch at Origins, “sometimes, I worry that we are raising up a generation of pluralists when we focus so much on service and lack an emphasis on the theology of the cross.”

The picture in Acts 2 and 4 does not capture a group of people merely running around meeting needs. Yes, there was “no needy people among them,” but that was because their love for Jesus moved them into devotion to each other. We need to strive for zero not by merely meeting the needs of orphans and single moms but by living in their lives. I think this is what Dan meant when he said in his keynote speech, “We need to love people enough that they invite us into their lives and we bring Jesus.”

The fear for leaders in established churches is that church members may get uncomfortable if we make changes in an effort to move the number to zero and love people who do not live in relationship with Jesus. Consequently, our Sunday morning numbers may go down, and as they do so will giving, budgets, and eventually salaries. The thoughts presented at Origins challenge the temptation to stay “safe” and ask  every church leader… are we really church leaders if we are not willing to risk our salaries to follow God’s dream for the church? Do we really need a huge budget, a ton of giving, and big Sunday morning numbers to bring that Monday morning number to zero? Or can (as Origins panelist, Mark Russell stated) “scarcity drive us to innovation.”

It seems that during a great American recession God is calling church leaders to get more creative and risk everything in an effort to chase after His real dream for the church as seen in Acts. I applaud how Origins 2010 challenged us to continue to do this, and I am thankful for what God is doing in and through so many churches.