When I replied I thought it would should that I was directly repling to Curch Seal's last reply.  Not that I don't like any other of the posts but my comments were focused in response to his. 

Will- I thought the whole point of this thread was to sit on the beach and talk about where Rooftop is going so we know if we want to get on the boat.  Or are we off the beach now floating waiting for some wind?   

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Rob Weissler

Three thoughts come to mind:

 1. Too esoteric?  Will, how long have you known me?  Esoteric dreaming is what I do best! 

2.  But seriously, like Rob, I am a little confused by your response.  What I'm understanding your post to say is that "it isn't the time to discuss where our destination is, it's time to ACT NOW to start traveling to get there."  But if the final destination isn't clear, how does one determine which direction to travel? (In other words, when you say "act now," what specifically, do you mean?)  To use another analogy, it seems like we should draw up a blueprint before we start building the house.  

3. Re: the prevalance (sp?) of ex-Rooftoppers on this issue.  Is it possible that current Rooftoppers are afraid to publically voice their opinions/concerns for fear of being seen as trouble-makers standing in the way of the elder's vision?  Is there more Rooftop could do to foster an atmosphere of open, civil discussion of differing opinions?  One thing I've long suggested: hosting more "discussions on issues" to complement the ever-expanding line-up of seminars and classes.   I know this isn't the first time Rooftop has been disappointed in the lack of independent feedback from members of the congregation on an issue/topic/elder nomination, so maybe the church could take steps to show the congregation it's ok to question its leaders.  I know it happens on this blog sometimes, but I'm not sure that message is out to the general church population, many of whom came from religious backgrounds where the leaders ruled with a more iron hand. 

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Andrew Smith

Now, that was an esoteric post!

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Andrew Smith

"I didn't come here to start any trouble, I just came to do the super bowl shuffle."..... Sorry, slipped into song there.

 I obviously didn't get to attend the introductory meeting, and I've witnessed multiple Matt Herndon boat analogies, so my question is just an effort to understand it.  It sounded like starting a denomination to me, so I figured it was a fair question that would elicit a response that would help me understand it more.

Between Rob and Will's answers though, it now sounds to me like the Where Statement is, "We're going to plant another church somewhere else and support that church from this location through its infancy in whatever way makes sense."  Traditional church planting is done just like that, with a group of people breaking off intentionally from the mother church to form the core of the new church.  Often times this core will start out as a small group based in the geographic area and grow from there.  From what Will seems to be saying, I think he might agree with that.  Avoiding boat and explorer metaphors, it sounds like Rooftop simply wants to start another similar church in a different geography and what that church will look like is up for debate still.  That's fine, and logical, it just seems like the Where statement is more specific than that.

 On a different note, Rooftop will always be my church home in some respects.  Every time I go back and see those TVs that we hoisted up there together, I think of how much of myself I've got invested there.  I'm glad Rooftop is in capable hands.

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ChurchSeal

I write as one who is admittedly a Rooftop Noobie.

So here is my two cents worth, which because of my Noob status maybe worth a quarter pence. Some of these thoughts relate specifically to the Where Statement, some to the posts on the forum topic.

- it is unequivocally necessary to have a mission (purpose) statement and vision (where) statement - I can understand why people question the necessity of such statements.  How many people in our culture, when asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?", have extreme difficulty in answering that question.  I state that as one who struggled with that question for a long while, way past college.  We all tend to be meanderers. We all could use more than a little focus. Mission and Vision statements bring things into focus. Let me rephrase that, GOOD mission and vision statements bring things into focus. So what does Rooftop want to be when it grows up?  I think your mission and vision statements answer that question.

 - Praise God your mission statement passes the 3 AM Test.  What is the 3 AM test you ask?  If someone woke you from a dead sleep at 3 AM, slapped you in the face and asked "What is the mission of Rooftop Community Church?" Could you answer it? Better yet, can you answer it in one short sentence?  The mission statement of Rooftop provides people with such an answer. I have seen many confuddling mission statements produced by churches, organizations and businesses.  This past summer, when I read Rooftop's mission statement, I had two immediate responses: 1) Amen! 2) They get it!  I know, having listened to Matt's series on the Big Six (thank you Sermon Archives), that there was a struggle whether the mission statement was specific enough or good enough. Personally, its great, don't touch it.  As to the specificity, your vision statement serves that purposes.  Your vision statement should flesh out the details of the mission/purpose statement.

- Of the four parts of the the vision/where statement, the Big Six is, to me, the most important. If you were to continually strive to solely meet the Big  Six Values you would exceed the imaginations of most people and churches. The Big Six will make you or break you.

- I think Rooftop does an excellent job of communicating both the mission/purpose statement and it's core Big Six values.  I knew within two Sundays what this church was about.  Based on a few things I have heard, you may not feel you communicate it all that well.  I think you do. 

- The other three elements of the Where statement: healthy sized, network, regional are all secondary goals subservient to the Big Six.  For without the big six, those three elements are mere statistical quantifications.  Anyone can have a healthy sized, network of regional widgets but so what? Someone earlier mentioned the franchise concept.  Without the big six, what you have is merely a franchise concept and nothing more.  However, these three secondary elements serve to push the Big Six out into the wider arena of the world.

- Regional - You know, to be honest, any church in a metropolitan area is pretty much a regional church.  Even in inner city churches, where you might expect a more localized population from the neighborhood, they still draw a fair percentage of people from the "region".  This is just the nature of the church in general today. Only Roman Catholic churches which maintain parishes have been able to hold on to any form of localization.   Protestant metropolitan churches are regional.  So I am not sure this element truly adds any real value to the vision.

- Network - The network concept is a funny beast.  Earlier someone asked what the difference was between a network and a denomination. Here's a twist: in some denominations there are network churches.  Weird, huh.  One example: Perimeter Church in Atlanta, GA started out building a network of churches. Perimeter belongs to a denomination, the PCA.  The PCA, being a Presbyterian denomination has a presbyterian form of church govt (of course!).  This form of government is meant to provide "connection" among churches within a region, thus is sometimes called a "connectional" form of government. Leaders from the churches in a region meet quarterly to share, fellowship, encourage, plan, etc (or at least that is what they should be doing.) Perimeter is interesting in that they were attempting a network of churches that, honestly, already belonged to a network of churches.  It's sorta weird.  This network of churches is now called "Neighborhood Congregations". It is essentially a mega church with smaller "house" churches.  Everyone worships at one central place on Sundays, but meets bi-weekly at their house church. What's my point? I guess nothing other than the network concept is a funny beast.

 - Broadcasting a message to other sites from the main site breaks the Value of Community.  Part of building Community includes having a pastor/speaker to interactively engage with in-person.

-Healthy-sized - A good way to say it. Having a number as a goal should be avoided. Plus the whole mega church thing is questionable in my mind. There is a difference between mega and large churches.  Large churches do provide a tremendous amount of resource to the Body of Christ.  I do think the larger you get a church, the greater is your responsibility to serve the wider Body of Christ.

 - A final thought as my wife says I am up too late again.  I was intrigued as to why there were not more current Rooftoppers replying to this forum topic (as has been already mentioned).  My thoughts: 1) Most people are not web forum or web blog participators. I would not be overly concerned by lack of input in this venue.  2) Of more concern is any lack of input at all whether in conversation, meetings, etc.  3) You should print the thread and hand it out as more participation does grow.

- Ok another final thought: healthy churches grow.  They grow in number and maturity. And thats the trick.  Doing both. Keeping in mind there is no real timeline to growth other than stating that we all know the differences between thriving and declining churches no matter their size.  To cover all aspects of growth you have to be healthy; to be healthy you have to be committed to the principles of a healthy church; and for Rooftop that means fullfilling the Big Six. That is why the Big Six is the most important item mentioned in the Where statement.

 
Noobly Yours (and please forgive that late night bad grammar),

Paul

 

 

 

Paul, I have to say that I agree with most of what you said; however, I disagree with the idea that a broadcasted message breaks the value of community.  On the contrary I believe that it is designed to support that the feeling of community in the church as a whole. The goal of the church I attend  is to have one church in three locations (four if you count the webcast).  Each location has its own pastoral and worship teams to engage with the campus they simply do not preach every Sunday. 

I am not necessarily saying it is the right direction for Rooftop's expansion simply presenting the example of how one church successfully implemented what Rooftop is proposing. It is how they have chosen to deal with the manpower issues that multiple locations present. 

Church Seal- I was not a part of the  where statement creation I am just throwing out my thought, as you said it more simply, I think the where statement's final result will end up being a Rooftop Church plant.  I must say I like that option over all the other options listed in the where statement pamphlet of other options that were considered (I've read it a couple of times now if anyone hasn't they should). 

I think God (through Rooftop) really wants to reach out to the community of Afton.  We've settled into the neighborhood and now want to contribute to it.  God put us specifically there for a reason and we need to shine our big six-ness bright for Aftonians to see.   But as I see how great it is to be a part of a local church I get frustrated.  I spent almost 2 hours on sunday driving back and forth to the building for sunday morning service and then a meeting.  Debbie and I were very close to starting to look at some local (to us) churches.  Then the business meeting came along and after I asked my obligatory question about the budget we heard about the where statement. And so I have new hopes of trailer hauling and a location closer to my house.  (Yes us moving closer to the building has been considered but that didn't seem to make sense because as the where statement pamphlet points out we might only have a year left worth of space at the current building due to our always increasing population of kids and so I knew something else was going to have to happen).  I don't know where I'm going with this I guess I'm just sharing my thoughts (as was also mentioned in the where statement pamphlet-last page).     

Paul thanks for sharing your thoughts and I really think you should come to the Chilipalooza Saturday 1/19. 

          

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Rob Weissler

Wow.  There seems to have been some activity on this thread lately.  Good to see some more voices chiming in.  I have tons of stuff to say, so I hope this will be easy to follow:

1) Rob W. and Andrew:  Isn't the point now to "sit on the beach and talk" or to "draw up a blueprint before we start building"?  Well, not really.  The where statement is that blueprint, and the ramp onto the ship.  To use the Columbus anonlogy (thanks for the affirmation, Jason, now I know how Matt feels about these things), we've set sail to the west with a general idea of what we are looking to find.  Or in your analogy, Andrew, we're laying a foundation with a general floorplan in mind.  The point, though, is that we're not certain at all of what the future holds, and we are all open to what God brings to us, but we do know that we need to be moving in this general direction.  That being the case, there is certainly tons of room to discuss the final destination, but that discusion shouldn't stand in the way of forward movement.  Specifically, we know that we need to expand our congregational base, and with it our leadership pool and financial resources.  Those things have to happen regardless of whether we end up in China or the New World.  It's easier to do those things with a goal in mind, even if that goal is somewhat vague and open for discussion.

Simply put, let's talk about it while were on the boat, hoisting the sails.  There's plenty of time and room to change the heading once we're out to sea. 

2) Church Seal:  Yes, that's the basic idea.  There are some more frills to it at this point, but you've got the core idea right.

3) Paul:  It's great to hear the perspective of a "noobie" since it's the noobies that we need to buy into this the most.  We want people to walk in to Rooftop and say: "Wow!  This church has something going on!"  We need to know whether visitors and newer people are getting a sense of what we're really about and what we want to be as a church.  It is extremely encouraging to hear that we're getting parts of our message accross and that they resonate with people like you.  I would love to sit down and talk some more about your observations.

You are also right on about the core of this concept being the Big Six.  We've discussed it in terms of that being Rooftop's "DNA" and the where statement being a plan to replicate that DNA in other places.

4) Paul/Sarah:  Is broadcasting the message a problem for community?  Maybe, maybe not.  That's going to be one of the big topics of discussion when we get to that point.  I think we'd probably prefer not having to broadcast, but it's kind of a question of resources.

5) Rob: "I was not part of the where statement creation..." This sentiment is the one that I feel the worst about from this process.  We did a horrible job of making sure everyone felt included in teh formation stage.  I think I said explained at the unveiling that the SPC intereviewed a ton of people about a bunch of different issues that were taken into consideration.  We did the interviews, though, on a low-key basis, not explaining what they were for, and they were supposed to be more conversations than interviews, because we wanted to get a better understanding of what Rooftoppers liked/disliked/wanted more of/etc. without the context of long range planning skewing the information.  This was a mistake to some extent, because most people  (including you, Rob--I think I personally "interviewed" you) didn't know that they were "participating" in the process.  My bad.  If it helps at all at this point, I really see the final product to be a truly inclusive statement, because of how much emphasis was put on the information gathered.  But without a doubt, the process we used was not perfect, or really even close.

6) Andrew: Does Rooftop "foster an atmosphere of open, civil discussions"?  I really like to think the answer is yes, but maybe my viewpoint is distorted.  Others have mentioned that the where statement was presented in a final, no discussion allowed fashion, which was very far from the intent.  You are correct that we as leaders do a poor job of communicating that we really do want other people's input, and there are some changes in the visibility and accessibility of the elder team in particular that will likely result from the implemention of the where statement.

7) Rob: I am incredibly excited to hear that the where statement has helped you guys decide to hang on at Rooftop in the hope of a closer location.  That's the idea.  We need a vision out there that keeps people interested and invested in the future af Rooftop, and praise God that it has succeeded initially in at least one case.

Will

 

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Will Joyce

Will you misunderstood me,

on your point 5) The reason I mentioned I was not part of the process was to point out that I did not know the intention of it.  I wanted to make sure no one thought I was speaking as someone who had authority on what was intended by the where statement.  I was not trying to voice a complaint about not being apart of it.  The SPC has accomplished a tremendous task, and probably had more input than any other committee at Rooftop.  

   

 

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Rob Weissler

I have a variety of random thought that I want to post – I’m a woman, so I can do this.  

First of all, when the Where Statement was unveiled at the State of the Roof meeting, I was excited about what could be done in St. Louis.  We still have a lot to do in Affton, but that doesn’t mean we can’t spread the wealth.

With that said, I think this is why you aren’t necessarily seeing a large number of current Rooftopper’s posting… a good majority of us were at the meeting.  We know what’s going on.  Perhaps they don’t feel the need to be discussing the nuts and bolts of it.

However, in my opinion, I think this forum has gotten off track or at least way too many years down the road.  After reading the posts, my excitement subsided after reading things about denomination, secondary theological beliefs, theological affinity, 'old guard church', non-fundamentalist, etc.  Through all the posts I kept thinking where is God?  Where is the Holy Spirit in all of this? I don't know what any of those things mean, but none of them peaked my interest - personally nor for Rooftop's future.

Will, I was very happy to see your post, because I think it’s more in line with where we should be at this point.  We have a lot of work to do!  A LOT!  As much as I dislike feeding Matt’s ego with boat analogies, I’ll follow suit… I don’t think we should be in the water sailing anywhere yet.  I think we we’re still building the boat.  And when I say we, I mean WE, all of Rooftop, not just Pastors and Elders.  We need to start some serious planning, if we haven’t already.  And if we have and I don’t know about it (since I’m one of the WE), I don’t think it’s serious enough.  There needs to be meetings and committees in addition to the SPC to get this going, fundraising and budget forecasting, and there weren’t any prayers for it at the last Prayer Meeting, which is means it’s not on peoples radar.

Which brings me back to the Holy Spirit.  A lot of what I’ve read of the forum is about what Rooftop is going to do and how they’re going to handle things.  Rooftop shouldn’t be doing anything but following the Holy Spirits guidance.  If everything works out like it’s written in the Where Statement – wonderful.  But, if God does a 180 and decides he needs us to do something else – even better.  I’m afraid if we start relying too heavily on the Where Statement, we won’t be able to hear God throughout this process.

That’s my two cents!

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Be happy and joyful!

I also have a variety of thoughts that I want to post.  I have no gender-based explanation for this behavior, but I sometimes carry on long conversations with my dog, so that may explain something.

Michelle, I think your warning is good.  It's important to have a prophetic voice reminding everyone not to lose God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit in the maze of ministry.  I did not personally get the feeling that any of the previous posters had necessarily "lost God" yet.  It may be because I know them and trust their individual connections with God.  That said, there's no reason to wait until it's already happened to point it out.  Better to say, "Hey, let's not lose God" than "Crap!  We lost God!"  Generally, things that are considered to be "a given" are then taken for granted and then forgotten.  So all of this is to say that though I did not personally feel that anyone had gotten to the "taken for granted" or "forgotten" stage of that slippery slope, 1) I could be wrong, and 2) even if I'm right, it's still good to articulate that which may (or may not) be a given.  So keep it up.

I also think that your description of us "spreading the wealth" is dead on.  There are lost and churchless people all over the city, some of whom are most likely to be reached by God through a church like Rooftop.  If they're north of 40, they're probably not going to come to Rooftop, though.  So let's bring Rooftop to them (as a tool for communicating God's love and truth to them, of course).

Yes, God could pull a 180 on us.  That can and does happen all the time in people's lives, so it could certainly happen with a church.  A very interesting passage in the NT is 2 Corinthians 1:15-17.  Paul is talking about how he had made some plans, and he did not do it lightly, but God kind of changed those plans.  And this is Paul we're talking about!  It seems that for Paul, a good course of action was to make plans, take steps to live out those plans, and be ready for God to change them.  I try to do pretty much anything with the attitude, "As far as I know, this is what I'm supposed to do."  And if God wants to inform me otherwise down the road, I need to be ready for that.  What's hard is not erring on one side or the other: On the one hand, it's easy to hold firmly to our plans and not hear God's leading if he calls us to adjust; on the other hand, it's tempting to sit around just kind of let the chips fall where they may, being too afraid of taking initiative, making plans, or getting out of our comfort zones, then calling it "trusting God."

Which brings me to a question that I have been wondering, that I ask to no one in particular and everyone in general.  It seems to me that a lot of people agree in principle with Michelle that "we need to start some serious planning."  But many of those people have suggested that, at this point, the serious planning that needs to take place is for us to firm up our foundations as a church before we take steps to multiply.  We need to do things like solidify the core, get everyone taking seriously the call to evangelize and to live out our Big 6 values, etc..  I guess what I'm wondering is how are these steps any different from what we should ALWAYS be doing as a church?  In other words, when the vision was presented at the SOTR and beyond, the suggested course of action to prepare for this vision seemed like things we should always be doing anyway.

Michelle said: "We need to start some serious planning, if we haven’t already.  And if we have and I don’t know about it (since I’m one of the WE), I don’t think it’s serious enough.  There needs to be meetings and committees in addition to the SPC to get this going, fundraising and budget forecasting, and there weren’t any prayers for it at the last Prayer Meeting, which is means it’s not on peoples radar."  These are the most vision-specific courses of action I have seen suggested for moving towards fulfilling our where statement.  Are they too much too soon?  Do we need to get our own act together first?  Can we do those things WHILE getting our act together?  Is our act already together?  These are my questions.  I'm curious to see what people think.

Rob, I wasn't sure about your long hair, but that picture of you in your avatar really changed my mind.  You look good, brother, you look good.

I appreciated Michelle's note and your response regarding the tension between making sure you're listening for God to guide you but not simply waiting around doing nothing in the meantime.  Sometimes God tells us to walk around the walls seven times before attacking a city and other times he just tells us to take the city.

God used my time in leadership at Rooftop to teach me a lot, but two things in particular that are relevant to this discussion:

1. Act, not just plan, based on what God is going to do.  I believe one of the biggest mistakes we made at Rooftop was not hiring an Associate Pastor soon enough.  We waited until God had done enough in terms of finances and attendance to justify one.  We knew God wanted us to grow, we just didn't trust God enough to actually step out in faith based on the assumption it would happen.  In the end, our biggest growth spurt was stunted by lack of staff and we nearly burnt out our lead pastor in the process.  To this day, the lack of a bigger committed core can be traced in part back to the days at The Heights when we were getting a great flow of visitors and fringe people, but were unsuccessful in turning that group into more core members.  I'm not suggesting a build it and they will come, but if the leadership of Rooftop is convinced that planting a new congregation is where God is leading you, then be careful not to repeat the same mistake.  Don't wait until all the finances are just so, the leadership is perfect, etc.  Go where you God is leading andHe, promises that He'll meet you there.

2. Vision matters.  I'll never forget the different vibe coming out of state of the roof's when Matt declared we had no vision versus when we left collectively pursuing a common next step, be it hiring staff, searching for a building, 50 DLTers or 125 small group members.  The vision should drive goals, and goals should drive actions (in the vein of what Michelle writes.... prayer, planning committees, giving and so forth).  Casting a vision for the church to launch its first new congregation Easter of 2010 is something that people can rally around.  North county folks (if it were to be in N. County) would be more likely to stick around (Rob W.) and potentially even invite their North County friends given the future state.  People interested in the vision either for church wide or for personal reasons could be encouraged to start giving above and beyond their ordinary giving to the future start up.  Geographically orientated small groups that don't end could be a point of emphasis in future church plant areas and so forth.  Concrete steps convince people that its not just some kind of statement nobody pays attention, but is rather the driving force behind church activities.

I guess the two points tie together (kind of wish I had 3, then it would feel more like a Rooftop sermon).    You know where God is leading you (plant another congregation), why not be more specific in your vision and then start acting on it in whatever ways you can?  If God wants Rooftop to plant congregations, then trust that He is going to provide what you need to get there (as opposed to what we did with the AP job).  The current vision seems to be more of a Reagan approach, trust but verify.... an approach that didn't serve Rooftop well in the past.  In addition,  Rob S.'s point that simply doing the Big 6, which we should already be doing and will continue to do after a church plant doesn't seem like much of a call to action (my interpretation of Rob's point, anyway) is valid.  Vision matters most when people can do something about it. 

Rooftop was never so alive in terms of community and spiritual fervor as when the building was being remodelled.  In terms of energy, time and money, Roofoppers never sacrificed more, and not just a committed few, but a broad swath of the congregation.  It was a common rallying point, and the magnitude and difficulty of the task only made the church come together more.  The opportunities to be a part of the solution were abundant, and so they were seized.  Starting a new congregation probably takes similar amounts of sacrifice.  Rooftop can do it and I hope the Where statement and leadership can rally the congregation in a similar manner.

 Sorry this is so long.

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ChurchSeal

Sarah,

I want to be sensitive to the larger topic of the forum so I will keep my response short.  My comment regarding the broadcasted message and the value of community is based on thoughts I have been having about the nature of church communities and the role of pastor/elders/deacons/leaders i.e. shepherds.  I do think there is something inherently integral between a shepherd and their sheep.  This relationship is critical and I think the church (in general) needs to do a little more thinking about it.  In today's electronic age, it is even a more crucial question.  There is much to be said theologically about the role of the shepherd but that is for another time and place.

While the broadcast message solves a pragmatic problem (the problem of resources), it does not solve an underlying deeper one (the problem of leadership i.e. shepherd development if you will).  The issue of leadership is a fundamental problem at most churches not just Rooftop.  I simply would hate to see a church use their precious resources to merely put up a projector and a screen than to use some of these resources to develop leaders (which is an outgrowth of a churches discipleship efforts). 

Paul
 

I've been wanting to post on this topic for a while, I just haven't taken the time.

So here are my two cents worth in the Where Statement: I feel it is completely appropriate and necessary to have an academic debate regarding the future of the congregation we all hold so dear, but it shouldn't cloud our real purpose as individuals or a church body.

Our purpose is to live Big 6 lives and reach others with the Gospel of Christ. Having said that if we devote too much of our time worrying about what Rooftop will look like instead of cultivating our own maturity in Christ and helping others grow more like Him then we may well never be at the place to start up Roof Twos and Threes and Fours. Biology 101 tells us that healthy cells multiply (yet another analogy!), so if we all focus on growing more like Christ the natural outcome will be growth.

As I said earlier we should have a plan and I think this one is a good one, but it shouldn't side track us in a quagmire of useless and engergy draining debate.

 OJ

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Quoth the Raven

So I'm a bit disappointed that no one has commented on this thread in almost a year. Am I just that good a speaker that no one can think of an affective comeback? I think not...Seriously, this is a thread discussing the purpose and direction of our church. Are we just that apathetic or do we just not understand the direction? In which case this is the perfect place to ask a question!

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Quoth the Raven