Living The Word

by John Kimball, CCCC Director of Church Development

The CCCC Church Development process is not a program. A program is something you implement over a specified period to learn a particular method or to accomplish a particular outcome. Instead, our process is really more akin to the total transformation of a church and her ongoing way of life (think “gene therapy”). What we teach has a starting point, but its implementation is ongoing.

I recently read Brad Young’s Meet the Rabbis: Rabbinic Thought and the Teachings of Jesus. This is a great book for many reasons, but one is the very point we are making. A rabbi’s influence is not to simply teach scripture, doctrine and history, but rather to rightly apply those things so that the disciple’s life is transformed. The rabbi’s emphasis is not on the knowledge itself, but on the outcome to which the knowledge leads: a changed life. For example, the rabbinical teaching about righteousness (and also Jesus’ teaching, by the way) is not just about a state of being that we inherit from God, but rather a tactical approach that leads a person to think righteously, act righteously and live righteously (e.g., personal care for the poor and widows). What the rabbi teaches is not fully “known” by the student until there is clear evidence in the way the student relates to and serves both God and fellow man.

American churches seem to rely on various programs for life and ministry. But programs are at best only tools — they are never to be the focus. Our God-given focus is on the transformation of people. We have easy access to Bibles, various studies, theologies, commentaries and the like, yet see very little change within our congregations and communities. In some churches, there are folks who have been “saved” for decades and they are still just as spiritually immature and fruitless as the day they walked the aisle. People want the pastor to “feed” them rather than maturing to where they can “feed” themselves. Conflict and impurity are ever-present realities in most American congregations. And our society looks more toward Washington, DC for solutions and leadership than they do the Church. Why? Because our approach is often to teach people to know rightly rather than to live rightly.

The CCCC Church Development process is about transformation on many different levels. Its ultimate emphasis is on the impact the local congregation can indeed have on her community and world through the changed lives of her congregants. It’s not a 6-step or 13-week program; rather, it’s a total overhaul of the way a church applies the incredible truth of scripture and bears Jesus’ fruit.

Want to know more? Why not give our office a call at (651) 739-1474.