the Glocal Trekker Blog

I spent some time with some church planting heroes of mine--not the kind you can blast their name everywhere until we get to heaven. One guy trains guys all over the world and he had some incredible observations. Some of you know how I talk about starting with the society versus the church and focus on the disciple instead of the planter. That’s exactly what these guys do. He told me how our evangelism paradigm in the West has become a rescue mentality versus a redemption mentality. Well, as someone who is obsessed with the whole concept and practice of transformation, he was ringing my bell. Both realities are true. But, if you start from redemption instead of rescue, it impacts both your presentation and end game. This isn’t a western response but a global response that’s already happening on every continent and in many nations. It was exciting him paralleling some of the differences in the two and what happens when you start with redemption/reconciliation versus rescue.

The other planter is a non-anglo guy who’s about my age who lives in the East and is leading a church planting movement of nearly two million--just in the past 10 years. Not bad for not being a Texan! He now travels to other nations and teaches how to plant churches and is mentoring some movements globally. No one hardly knows his name, but God does. As I sat and listened to him, I was so moved. He has no books, he has no web-site or chat-room, video-room, conferences, articles, but man he has fruit! Who wouldn’t trade all their "stuff" for fruit?

There once were two cars. One came from the junkyard and one from a used car lot. The one from the junkyard was there with a lot of junk, nothing was new, nothing was primed, nothing was without rust, or holes, and nothing worked. So, it was really cheap. The one from the used car lot had been washed and waxed with her tires all armored! The motor ran, but not real good. The owner who got the car from the used car lot took what was there, cleaned it up, tuned it up, repainted it. The original motor was kept, because it was original, even though a newer one would be better mechanically. It really shined. Conferences were held and books were written on how to tune up and revamp that old car. Car Today even did stories on how the old cars were really going to steal the day because they changed everything--new chrome, new mirrors and stereos! It caught on, and people began to fix up those old cars! The owner of the car from the junkyard had only the chassis from which to build the rest of the car. Though not "original," it took just as much to overhaul it as to get a new engine, so the owner got a new engine. He put everything back together on that car based on functionality. The result – today one is in a museum and one is on a racetrack--guess which! Which car is for you? I guess it depends on what you believe a car was made for.