Evotional.com - Mark Batterson

I lied. The Ethiopia post wasn't my last. Here is a short blurb I wrote for a magazine article about NCC and church planting. Just thought it'd be worth blogging. These are the kinds of things we talk about and think about on the staff level, but I think blogging is a way I can let NCCers "in the loop" so to speak. The more NCCers who have a strong sense about who we are and what we're called to do the healthier we'll be as a church. Blogging is one way everyone can become an "insider" so to speak. I think blogging is about sharing inside information. So here's a little history and philosophy of ministry.

Movie theaters @ metro stops throughout the Washington, DC area. That's our vision in a nutshell. I went into church planting with the traditional mindset: buy or build a building as soon as possible. But doing church "in the middle of the marketplace" has become part of our DNA. We love doing church in movie theaters (theaterchurch.com). We currently have four services in two locations--the movie theaters @ Union Station (four blocks from the Capitol) and Ballston Common Mall in Arlington, VA. Our next location will target the Northwest quadrant of DC. We also do a monthly worship event in the largest nightclub in DC and we're currently building a three-level coffeehouse on Capitol Hill as a place where the church and community can cross paths. Theaters, nightclubs, and coffeehouses are what sociologist Ray Oldenberg calls "third places." We feel called to redeem those third places and turn them into worship spaces.

NCC is a multi-site church. We will continue utilizing video technology to launch new locations around the DC area. But we're also committed to planting autonomous churches. We're taking a both/and approach. Two years ago we created a "church planter in residence" staff position. We launched our first church planter (Scott Aughtmon, Pathway Church) in Palo Alto, California in 2005. We immediately brought another church planter in residence on staff (Josh Karrer) who we'll launch in 2007. At some point we'll develop a church planting school in DC. In the medical world there are hospitals and teaching hospitals. In the church world there are churches and teaching churches. We feel called to be a teaching church. That's what being a church planting church is all about. It is about raising up and releasing the next generation of church planters.

I think the most important and most difficult role of a leader is creating culture. We've been very intentional at NCC about remaining a movement. We structured our bylaws to avoid becoming a bureaucracy. Meeting in rented facilities keeps us mobile. And we have an incredibly creative and innovative team that loves to experiment with new ways of doing church. All those factors have contributed to our momentum as a church. But bringing on a church planter in residence is one of the best things for our culture because we're always in the process of training and launching church planters. It keeps us from becoming stagnant. Too many churches are centripetal. They are unhealthy because they are ingrown. Planting churches fuels the centrifugal force and keeps us from becoming self-centered as a church.