Simple Church

While we've been dreaming and designing Connections Community Church I found myself often going invoking the word "simple." At first I was just used as an encouragement when the thought of launching a church seemed overwhelming, which it still does. Then I realized I was using it more and more as a value. In other words- it wasn't just an empty reassurance in light of a very different reality. No, we really did want to keep the church simple by design in it's mission, vision and process.
I kept trying to break things down to the essential elements, stripping down the fluff and the extraneous, and mapping out very clear course of direction. Even the other design elements came to take on this quality- keep the service simple, strip down the program, keep the website clutter-free.
So when I saw a book called "Simple Church" a few months ago I had to pick it up.
It was one of those reads that was a first very frustrating.
Why?
Because I was literally living and writing the book!
But then it became a tremendous encouragement. I wasn't the only pastor/church planter thinking these thoughts, having these feelings, coming to these convictions. That while planning, launching and being a church is in now way "simplistic," it can be, in a good way, simple.
What has been most helpful from the book was therefore not the stories and principles which I already know, but a common lexicon to speak about church in this way. Here is what they came up with:

Clarity- Movement- Alignment- Focus

Simple churches are abundantly clear on what they do and why they are doing it. This is clarity. They define it as "The ability of the process to communicated and understood by the people."p. 70
Simple churches know where people are going. "Movement is the sequential steps in the process that cause people to move to greater areas of commitment." p. 72
Simple churches are on the same page. "Alignment is the arrangement of all ministries and staff around the same process." p. 74
Simple churches know the target. "Focus is the commitment to abandon everything that falls outside of the simple ministry process."
It's awesome to work with a team that seems to truly get this.

So here's your test- can you remember and state the CCC mission? If so, we've already begun to do our job, and you already understand our vision, our mission and our process for ministry.