Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Church Multiplication

Preface to the Korean Version of Planting Missional Churches

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The book I co-authored with Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches (2nd edition), is now in Korean! A huge thanks to 설훈 and 요단출판사 for their work to translate our book.

I had the opportunity to write a new Preface for the Korean edition. Here’s what it says in English:

I am who I am today because of church planting. My love for Jesus is stronger, my faith is rooted deeper, and I believe my ministry has experienced a greater measure of fruitfulness because of the church plant I grew up in, and the church plants I’ve been a part of.

My parents (Byongnam and Soonim) immigrated to Canada in the 1970s from South Korea. They brought their faith in Jesus, their love for the church, and their desire to start afresh and anew to Canada. Because of a desire to be in community and on mission, they helped plant the church that I grew up in, The Philadelphia Church of Vancouver.

Growing up, I didn’t know anything else. Of course you would start new churches to reach new people. Of course you would sacrifice your time, talent, and treasure to help the church grow. Of course you would have people over to your house to fellowship, worship, study the Bible, and pray. Of course you would be incredibly welcoming and evangelistic to reach the lost. Of course life would revolve around the church.

I didn’t know that Christians lived any other way. I didn’t know that for many Christians, faith is a once or twice a month commitment if it suits their schedule. I didn’t know that some could call themselves Christians simply for the social benefits that it gives them. I didn’t know because church planting was my all and everything.

The first two churches I served in were church plants. The third church was a global church planting church. And the church that I’m now the Lead Pastor at, Beulah Alliance Church in Edmonton, Canada, has planted over 30 churches in its 100 year history.

I love church planting because it’s one of the most powerful means of spreading the gospel. Ed Stetzer and I are convinced that church planting is, and will always remain, a key part in the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

Now while Ed and I worked on this book together, we’ve chosen to write the rest of the book in first person and in Ed’s voice. However, since I’m a second-generation Korean Canadian, and this is the Korean translation of the book, we decided that I, Daniel Im, would write the preface.

So before we get into the book, let me end this preface with a story about a heroic church planter.

He rises up early in the morning—earlier than anyone else like Jesus did (Mark 1:35)—to pray and seek God’s face for the salvation of his city. He single-handedly raises more than enough finances to cover all of his church plant’s expenses for five years because of his earnest faith in our Father who gives us our daily bread (Matthew 6:10). His church plant quadruples in size every single year because of his anointed preaching and dynamic worship services (Acts 2:41-47). Every month, he plants church after church after church because the fields are ready for harvest and he’s cracked the code on rapid multiplication (John 4:35).

Do you know anyone like that? Is this who you want to become? This person sounds incredible, don’t they? Intimacy with Jesus and fruitfulness in ministry—what else would you want as a pastor?

The only problem is that it’s a myth!

Now let me clarify before you close this book, or throw it away.

I’m not saying that intimacy with Jesus and fruitfulness in ministry is a myth. I’m saying that the individualistic heroic church planter who single-handedly accomplishes and grows their church plant because of their own skills and abilities is a myth! Growing spiritually and ministering effectively is not a solo endeavour. And the key to success isn’t charisma and a master plan. 

The path to planting missional churches that multiply for God’s glory is one that can only be taken together with others, with Jesus as the Head, and the Holy Spirit’s empowerment. And that’s the path that we want to take you on in this book. So let’s get started.

Daniel Im

Edmonton, Canada

If you are interested, you can pick up a copy of the book here.

What is Your Church’s Posture Toward Jesus?

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*** If you’d like to dig deeper into the content of this article, I want to invite you to pick up a copy of my newest book, The Discipleship Opportunity: Leading a Great-Commission Church in a Post-Everything World. In this book, I unpack everything in this article in a deeper and more thorough manner. ***

Take a look at this quadrant that I’ve been developing over this past year.

Where would you place yourself and the people in your church?

The Interested Disinterested Matrix - Daniel Im
FIGURE 1
  • SEEKERS are individuals who are interested in Jesus, but not yet Christian
  • CONSUMERS are individuals who are Christian, but not quite interested in Jesus
  • SLEEPERS are individuals who are spiritually asleep to Jesus—so they’re neither Christian nor interested in Him
  • And DISCIPLE-MAKERS are individuals who are both Christian and interested in Jesus

Do you remember the Engel Scale?

It’s a scale that represents an individual’s spiritual journey from non-Christian to Christian (see the horizontal axis in Figure 1). At the far end of the left side, you have someone who doesn’t know or understand the gospel. At the far end of the right side, you have someone who is living fully surrendered to Jesus—proclaiming the gospel in word and in deed. And the middle point is the point of salvation where an individual repents and confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in their heart that God raised him from the dead (Rom 10:9).

For the last few decades, one of the predominant models of ministry in the West was doing anything and everything to help people move along this line.

However, the problem with this model is that it’s linear—it assumes people are interested in Jesus. As a result, it assumes that non-Christians are interested in becoming Christian, which would make them SEEKERS. And it assumes that Christians are interested in fully living out the Great Commission to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19), which would make them DISCIPLE-MAKERS.

But as we’ve seen over the pandemic, not everyone is actually interested in Jesus.

When churches went exclusively online, there was less and less of a reason for non-Christians to “go to church.” Especially if they weren’t actually interested in Jesus…and the only reason they went was because of some sort of external or extrinsic motivational factor, like social pressure, a parent dragging them, or because they wanted to meet someone.

Although, to some extent, this has always been happening on one level or another, we’ve seen over the past year—en-masse—what happens when a non-Christian is disinterested in Jesus, and there’s no external pressure on him or her to “go to church.” They fall asleep spiritually; in other words, they become SLEEPERS!

We’ve seen over the past year what happens when a non-Christian is disinterested in Jesus.
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This is a major theme in the Scriptures—that though someone might look alive, they’re actually spiritually asleep.

“Besides this, since you know the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, because now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is nearly over, and the day is near; so let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” (Romans 13:11-12 CSB)

“Wake up, my soul!” (Psalm 57:8 CSB)

“Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” (Eph 5:14 NLT)

In the same way, when there’s no external pressure on a Christian to “go to church,” and someone is actually in fact, disinterested in Jesus, we see that they often drift into consumption mode and become CONSUMERS.

  • e.g. “If I miss out on this week’s service, no one is going to notice…I’ll just watch later I guess…”
  • e.g. Or, “Oh wow, look I can stream the service from _______ church, _______ church, and _______ church!!!”

When there’s no external pressure on a Christian to “go to church,” and someone is actually in fact, disinterested in Jesus, we see that they often drift into consumption mode and become CONSUMERS.
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So What?

Do you know that saying, “to focus on everything is to focus on nothing”? Or, “trying to do everything means you’ll eventually accomplish nothing?”

Well, I believe that’s true for ministry—especially in light of this quadrant. Trying to find a silver-bullet strategy that reaches all of these quadrants at once is like looking for the silver bullet—it’s a myth and it doesn’t exist. There are no silver bullets.

And then, to try to find a different strategy to reach each of these squares in an equal and unique way would also be ineffective, especially if you know what the 80/20 principle is.

So, in light of this quadrant and everything that’s happening in our increasingly post-Christian culture, where should our focus be?

Well, if you want to begin developing a culture of DISCIPLE-MAKERS in your church, then my recommendation is to focus on the interested, and here’s why:

  • The SLEEPERS (the disinterested non-Christians) have already left your church because why would they tune in online? And why would they wear a mask and put themselves potentially at risk by going to your service in-person? They’re asleep spiritually.
  • The CONSUMERS (the disinterested Christians) will keep on consuming whatever you put in front of them without giving back. And if they don’t like it, they’ll just change churches if they haven’t already done so! You can never satisfy consumers.

So, to begin developing a culture of disciple-makers in your church, you need to focus your preaching, programming, and plans on the interested! You need to focus on those who are SEEKING after Jesus, and those who are MAKING DISCIPLES of Jesus.

So here are a few practical ways to begin developing a culture of disciple-makers in your church through your preaching, programming, and plans:

1. Preaching

This first point is all about being aware of who you are communicating to.

In the heyday of the seeker-sensitive movement, many churches focused predominantly on non-Christians. They would put on musicals, play secular music, do large outreach events, and preach felt-need sermons to try to interest non-Christians in Jesus, in order to eventually lead them to a decision of faith.

And while their focus was predominantly on non-Christians, I don’t know of any seeker-sensitive church that did this at the exclusion of making disciples—they obviously wanted the Christians in their church to be and make disciples! As a result, many of these churches created opportunities for Christians to dive deeper on Wednesday night because the weekends were for non-Christians. And for the Christians who took advantage of opportunities like these, many of them did in fact become DISCIPLE-MAKERS.

But what about the rest of the Christians who didn’t? They unintentionally drifted into becoming CONSUMERS, and then many of them subsequently either left their church for another church that would give them “meat,” or they just stayed and consumed because they were never challenged on the weekends to become a disciple-maker (See Figure 2).

The Interested Disinterested Matrix Movement - Daniel Im
FIGURE 2

Because the predominant paradigm was to focus either on non-Christians or Christians, this is what we got!

We either had seeker-sensitive churches that won many non-Christians to Christ, but ended up producing more CONSUMERS than DISCIPLE-MAKERS (see Figure 2). Or, we had churches who focused on Christians hoping to make disciples, but unintentionally ended up building a wall where evangelism was very weak or non-existent—and along the way, also ended up contributing to the problem of consumerism in the church (see Figure 3).

The Interested Disinterested Matrix Drift - Daniel Im
FIGURE 3

So what do you think your preaching would look like if you focused on the interested?

…which, in this new paradigm includes both non-Christians and Christians?

In preaching, you aren’t trying to convince the SLEEPERS to come to church with a topical series, nor are you trying to interest them in Jesus or the things of the soul (you aren’t ignoring them either). And regarding the CONSUMERS, neither are you catering to whatever they want or being content with having a low-bar to discipleship. Instead, you are preaching to those who have made the effort to come and worship together with you—to the interested who are there today.

Preach to those who have made the effort to come and worship together with you—to the interested who are there today.
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So on the one hand, you’re preaching to seekers who are interested in exploring life, faith, and meaning together with others (while also inviting them to cross the line of faith). And on the other hand, you’re preaching to Christians who are interested in knowing Jesus deeply and being known by him fully (while also challenging them to not just be disciples, but to become disciple-makers).

2. Programming

So if our focus is on the interested—both the interested non-Christians and the interested Christians—how do we approach programming?

In one of my previous books, No Silver Bullets, I present this paradigm to help churches understand the components they need to develop a discipleship pathway in their church (see Figure 4).

Figure 4

First Steps are all about helping newcomers take their first step at your church. So this could include a newcomers class or your guest services process. Next Steps are short-term, temporary experiences to help people take their next step at your church (In No Silver Bullets, I articulate three different types of Next Steps: Discover, Deepen, and Deploy Next Steps). And Ongoing Steps are the practices for spiritual growth that an individual will never grow out of. Ongoing Steps are all about helping people learn how to own the responsibility for their own spiritual growth and how to feed themselves. Essentially, Ongoing Steps help individuals grow into DISCIPLE-MAKING disciples.

So, when you consider designing programming for this quadrant, there are specific steps to focus on in each square:

  • For SEEKERS, you want to focus on First and Next Steps. First steps will help you meet these individuals, so that you can help them take their Next Step to Discover who Jesus is (perhaps through a class like Alpha), or to be deployed into a service opportunity.
  • For DISCIPLE-MAKERS, you want to focus on Next and Ongoing Steps. In a Deepen Next Step, you can teach things like spiritual practices or disciple-making tools to help these individuals learn to self-feed and own the responsibility for their spiritual growth. The point of Next Steps is to then direct them toward Ongoing Steps, so that they can continually grow as disciples who make disciples.
  • For SLEEPERS, there is no formal programming. Rather, the point is to equip and empower the DISCIPLES and DISCIPLE-MAKERS in your church family to pray and to neighbour well with those they live, work, study, and play with by living out paradigms like B.L.E.S.S.. You want to help your church recognize that just like Jesus partnered with Ananias to help awaken Saul from his spiritual slumber (see Acts 9), Jesus wants to partner with you and I to help awaken the spiritually asleep to new life in Christ. Jesus is the one who does the work of awakening and heart change, but he chooses to use us (see 1 Corinthians 3).
  • For CONSUMERS, there is no formal programming to reach them either. Instead, the point is to equip and empower the DISCIPLES and DISCIPLE-MAKERS in your church family to continually be in relationship with those in and around them, be available for God to use them, and to pray for the spiritual consumers that they know. But you should never try to appease the consumers in your church because it will never be enough. Instead of lowering the bar, you need to raise the bar and focus your programming on those who are interested, not disinterested. It’s the Holy Spirit’s role to awaken the disinterested, and it’s our role to be ready to partner with the Holy Spirit when the time is right (which is why we need to stay in relationship with those who are disinterested). By the way, the tell-tale sign to identify a CONSUMER is to look for someone who is jumping from one Next Step experience to another (they don’t want to enter into Ongoing Steps because they want everything done for them).

You should never try to appease the consumers in your church because it will never be enough.
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3. Plans

What does planning look like if our focus is on the interested—both the interested non-christians and the interested Christians?

Well, instead of focusing on people’s felt-needs, we need to re-learn and re-emphasize a robust Kingdom theology to be able to minister to our increasingly post-Christian culture. We need to recognize that the Kingdom of God is here, it’s growing, and it will eventually be everywhere like we read about in the parable of the mustard seed and leaven (Matthew 13:31-33).

So this means that Jesus is King—today.

And he is ruling as King over his Kingdom—today.

But today, his kingdom isn’t everywhere.

Yet his kingdom rule is continuing to grow.

And it will continue to grow until he is ruling as King everywhere!

As a result, instead of thinking that it’s our responsibility to change someone’s heart, move them across the line of faith, or guilt and shame them into a deeper relationship with Jesus, we need to trust that Jesus is King and the Great Shepherd who is watching over, and aware of all of his sheep—his found sheep and his lost ones too!

So our responsibility is to be like Ananias who was invited to partner with Jesus to awaken Saul to Himself. And we need to be like Ezekiel, who was invited to partner with God to awaken the dry bones. God is the one who awakens, so let’s focus on those whom he has already awakened—the interested (both the seekers and the disciple-makers)—and let’s be ready to partner with him to awaken the SLEEPERS and CONSUMERS when He sees fit.

God is the one who awakens, so let’s focus on those whom he has already awakened—the interested.
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So let me end with this question, when you look at this quadrant, who do you want your church to be full of?

And who do you need your church to be full of, in order to be a part of seeing God’s Kingdom come and His will be done in your city as it is in heaven?

The Interested Disinterested Matrix - Daniel Im
Figure 5

*** If you’d like to dig deeper into the content of this article, I want to invite you to pick up a copy of my newest book, The Discipleship Opportunity: Leading a Great-Commission Church in a Post-Everything World. In this book, I unpack everything in this article in a deeper and more thorough manner. ***

What COVID-19 is Revealing about Your Church

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Have you ever noticed that one of your arms is stronger than the other?

I find that most days, this goes unnoticed—it doesn’t matter if I’m lifting a box that came from Amazon, or setting up tables and chairs for an event. It’s only when I’m lifting weights at the gym—or these days in my makeshift home gym—that I recognize just how much my right arm is stronger than my left.

It’s not immediate though. I don’t necessarily notice it when I start bench pressing. It’s only when I get to my third or fourth set of reps that I start realizing the imbalance because the bar starts dipping slightly lower on my left side.

Let’s think about this for a moment.

Why do you think this is happening? Is it that my left arm suddenly got weaker? And that the weight lifting caused my muscles to deteriorate?

Or, is it that my left arm was already weaker from the outset? And when pressed, put under pressure, and tested, the true strength and health of my arm was simply revealed?

Friends, this global pandemic has not only pressed us to our limits, pressured us beyond our point of comfort, and tested us in ways that we never thought we could handle, but it’s also done the same to the church.

The church is being pressed. The church is being put under pressure. And the church is being tested.

Global pandemic or not, the church has always been a body of believers that are both scattered and gathered. We are called to scatter and share the good news of Jesus making disciples of all nations (Matt 28:18-20), but we are also called to gather regularly and be of an encouragement to one another (Hebrews 10:25). We are called to scatter and gather. Scatter and gather.

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Adaptive Decision Making, Change, and Leadership – Part 2

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Let’s pick up from where we left on in Part 1 of this series of articles on adaptive decision making, change, and leadership. Be sure to start by reading Part 1 if you haven’t yet done so.

Over the last century, here’s the reason most churches and organizations have been able to scale and support the growth that they’ve experienced.

It’s because of the modern day “scientific management model,” which rests primarily upon two elements:

  1. “Absolutely rigid and inflexible standards throughout your establishment.”
  2. “That each employee of your establishment should receive every day clear-cut, definite instructions as to just what he is to do and how he is to do it, and these instructions should be exactly carried out, whether they are right or wrong.”[1]

I’m not saying that these two elements run the shop in every church and organization today. I’m just saying that they are the foundation that modern day management theory—both inside and outside the church—has been built upon, and it doesn’t work anymore because…

  • You can’t just set it and forget it
  • You can’t just keep your head down, do your work, and expect to succeed and hit your goals
  • Your success isn’t wholly dependent on you
  • If the only time you talk about development is the annual performance review, you won’t grow
  • If the only time you connect with your volunteers and leaders are on Sunday or in formal training environments, they won’t feel connected
  • If the only things you do are the things on your job description, your team won’t win
  • In fact, if you’re not revisiting your job description multiple times a year, it will become outdated quick
  • And if the only time you talk with your team members is during official team meetings, your team will move too slow
  • And if you’re not changing your website every 2-3 years, watch out…irrelevancy is just around the corner
You can’t just set it and forget it anymore.

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Adaptive Decision Making, Change, and Leadership – Part 1

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Watch this clip of a traffic intersection.

As you were watching it, what did you think was going to happen?

When I first saw this clip, it reminded me of the T-bone accident I was in as a child. I don’t really remember much around the way it happened, or what I was doing when it happened, but as a child, I flew right into the windshield of our car.

It happened when we were on our way home from the airport after picking up my mom. She had just returned after visiting family in Korea. Someone ran a stop sign and boom. Just like that, my hopes of ever becoming a doctor or rocket scientist flew right out the window…or should I stay straight into the window?

Alright, so back to the traffic intersection.

This is a video from a computer simulation that the Autonomous Intersection Management project at the University of Texas at Austin was conducting. When Peter Stone, the professor heading up this project, discovered that “25 percent of accidents and 33 percent of the thirty-three thousand auto deaths each year in America occur at intersections, and 95 percent are attributable to ‘human error,’” he and his team wanted to do something about it.

But how is this chaos better? Doesn’t this seem like a T-Bone accident just waiting to happen, rather than a way to prevent it from happening?

The interesting thing about this simulation is that every car you see here is being driven autonomously. In other words, they’re all self-driving cars.

This being the case, you can actually plot the trajectories of each car long before they arrive at the intersection, which means there’s no need for the typical breaking, stopping, and accelerating that normally characterizes four way intersections. This also means that you can get rid of traffic lights and stop signs, since every self-driving car would be communicating, sensing, and noticing the other.

To self-driving cars full of sensors and cameras, this simulation makes complete sense. To us, it doesn’t—it seems like utter chaos.

And here’s the reason.

It’s because of a thing called, “mental models.”

[Read more…] about Adaptive Decision Making, Change, and Leadership – Part 1