Astoundingly Joyful, Amazingly Simple: The Meta Church: a 21St Century Innovation with a 1St Century Foundation!

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

1. A New Model

PART ONE

THE CONTEXT OF A META CHURCH

2. The Development Of The Meta Church At Washington Cathedral

3. Defining The Incarnational Gospel At Washington Cathedral

4. The History Of The Collaborative Method In The Northwest Milieu

PART TWO

BIBLICAL FOUNDATIONS

5. Ecclesiology Of An Evolving, Decentralized Organization

6. Theological Issues Behind Church Leadership In Acts

7. Eight Measurable Variables Of A Healthy Church Organism In The Book Of Acts

PART THREE

EVALUATION, REENGINEERING, AND LEADERSHIP FORMATION

8. Defining The Incarnation Of The Gospel At Washington Cathedral

9. The Quest To Reengineer The Meta Church

10. A Coaching Vision For Teamwork Leaders In A Meta Church

Conclusion

Bibliography

About The Author

Endnotes

Interviewed in this book:

Dr. Fulton Buntain (Life Center), Casey Treat (Christian Faith Center), Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill), Dr. Samuel McKinney (Zion Baptist), Dr. Joe Fuiten (Cedar Park Assembly of God), Dr. Scott Dudley (Bellevue First Presbyterian), Dr. Gary Gulbranson (Westminster Chapel), Dr. Patricia O’Connell Killen (Provost, Pacific Lutheran University), Dr. Robert W. Wall (Professor of Biblical Studies, Seattle Pacific University), Dr. James K. Wellman Jr. (Program Chair, University of Washington School of Comparative Religion), Ron Sims (Deputy Secretary of United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and Former King County Executive)

Despite my Master of Divinity degree and years as a Senior Pastor, the best education I received about church came from a Waffle House waitress who told me after trying several churches that church is like eggs. She explained you can scramble them, poach them, sunny-side, over-easy or over-hard them… but they’re all still eggs. So goes church. When churches go looking to be or do something different in the name of relevance, the changes are typically stylistic. And like the eggs, regardless of how it looks on the outside, it’s still church. The underlying premises that hinder growth and transformation are never addressed.

Insert Dr. Tim White, Senior Pastor of Washington Cathedral, and his book, Astoundingly Joyful, Amazingly Simple. His Doctorate degree from fuller notwithstanding, White’s book is born out of a 25-year education in the school of hard knocks in founding and leading Washington Cathedral into one of the most profoundly incarnational churches in North America. Astoundingly Joyful, Amazingly Simple is an invitation to break free from the institutional paradigm of church, and take on a new way of being in the world - being then gospel along the everyday paths of life and birthing the kingdom of God in our homes, streets, neighborhoods, communities and cities. Here’s my encouragement for any person reading Dr. White’s book. Come at it from a place of not knowing. In other words, set aside all those things you know about how it’s supposed to work and even all the ideas you currently have about how it could work, and be open to new possibilities.

Jim Palmer, author of Divine Nobodies, Wide Open Spaces, & Being Jesus in Nashville

Washington Cathedral is one of the few churches in America that model a creative ministry paradigm that will be necessary for impacting communities in the next generation. This book is not a how-we-did-it-so-you-can-too book. Rather, it is a lucid description of universal principles any church can use to better participate in Christ’s command to ‘. . . go, and make disciples’."

Dr. Charles Arn, Author, Church Researcher, Consultant, President, Church Growth, Inc. & Professor of Outreach, Wesley Seminar

I have never stepped foot in Washington Cathedral yet I feel like I’ve been going there for years in my heart. I’ve never met Pastor Tim White, but I feel he’s been a long time friend and mentor. I came away from his book, amazed, astonished, and joyfully filled with hope for the church in this new millennium!

Scott Wesley Brown, Pastor, Artist, Songwriter, Musicianary

We find many leaders with their recipe for a relevant and meaningful church, but very few give us the ‘map of the way’. Tim White’s experience and spiritual reality offers us that precious map. His tender heart and his long path as a leader, pastor and mentor is a reference for those who are thirsty and hungry for a pragmatic example.

Pastor Marcelo Almeida, International Director of Videira

Some writers create books as a way of teasing out theories and floating new ideas. If it’s the latest church-growth fad you are looking for, Dr. Tim White’s Astoundingly Joyful, Amazingly Simple is not the place to look! White grounds his book in practice not theory. He does not talk about principles that may work; he describes practices that do work… and Washington Cathedral, the church he planted with Jesus in 1984, is living, breathing proof. The secret that has kept Pastor White from caving under the pressures and criticisms that attend the life of every ministry leader is the secret every leader must learn to have any hope of survival. It has always, says White, been about following Jesus Christ. In a word, this is a book about following Jesus—something so simple and yet so elusive. Don’t be fooled by this book’s readability and practical wisdom. This is sound, praxis-based theology… and good theology always brings good things to life.

Charles J. Conniry, Jr., PhD, Vice President and Dean, George Fox Evangelical Seminary/George Fox University; author, Soaring in the Spirit: Rediscovering Mystery in the Christian Life

As a career Marine Corps officer and commander with two combat tours in Viet Nam, I know and recognize leadership and commitment when I see it and I see it loud and clear with Senior Pastor Tim White whom I have known and served with for over 20 years. This spiritual leader has a not only a remarkable vision but a commitment to it that has already produced significant advances and growth in his meta church perspective. I served on his staff as both a staff pastor and Executive Pastor for approximately 10 years and was extremely impressed with his prevailing fortitude in the face of adversities. I have served with great and inspirational senior military officers and I place Pastor Tim White up there with the best of them. As his Executive Pastor I helped to develop infrastructure for this growing church family and pastoral staff and was especially involved in the creation and incorporation of the five non-profit foundations and still serve on one of these as the Executive Director. His meta church concept cuts across cultural Christian religions and brings us all together in a remarkable sense of Christian unity and purpose. I would follow Senior Pastor Tim White into any battle he chooses as I am already confident of the successful outcomes.

Erskine Austin, Colonel, USMC (Ret)

Just in time for an age in which so many leaders are looking for creative ways to be the church, Tim White and Washington Cathedral have risen up—not to show us a new way, but to show us dozens of new ways. As we used to say about my home state in the deep South, Come visit us. We’ve got so many ways; you are bound to like some of em. As you visit Astoundingly Joyful, Amazingly Simple you’ll encounter ways of being the church that you never imagined, and you are bound to rejoice in some of them."

Joseph Castleberry, Ed. D., President Northwest University

In a multicultural society where people every day are moving to different countries for different reasons, the systems of the church should offer the opportunity for all people, regardless of race or language, to be able to continue gathering together and knowing more about Jesus. This can be achieved using the system of the meta church, just as Washington Cathedral has done under the direction of Pastor Tim White for 35 years. The methodology of the meta church of Washington Cathedral is a useful tool to present Jesus in a new and effective way for our time.

Jeony Ordoñez, Lead Pastor of Amor y Vida & Founder and Director of Project AFE

It was Pastor Tim White’s vision to build a great caring network that drew me to Washington Cathedral. As a physician I have sought opportunity in the church to act on Christ’s great commission to love our neighbor, and to do so in act and deed. In my opportunity in developing Mercy Corps we applied the concepts Pastor White describes in this book by performing relief and development among war refugees and victims of natural disasters by working with the recipients rather than doing for them. This is what the very early church did. Sergi Kurdikoff describes such a church in communist Russia in his book The Persecutor and explains how the Russian church survived when the KGB was attempting to destroy it. Such an approach requires relinquishing control to the Holy Spirit for unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain. Psalms 127:1

Raymond E. Vath, MD (Ret)

Before discussing Tim White’s book Astoundingly Joyful, Amazingly Simple, I would like to endorse Tim as an excellent example of what a Christian Pastor should be: dedicated to God, dedicated to his family (three grown children, two sons-in-law and one grandchild), dedicated to his church and his incarnational church family.The extent and diversity of his academic and experiential background certainty provided the groundwork for the evolution at Washington Cathedral. I have known Tim White since the early 90s, when we were part of a wonderful group of pastors and preachers from around the United States know as CUGM (Churches Uniting in Global Mission) and have followed his successes throughout the years, since then. Now for the book! It is, truly, a love story of Tim’s vision and dedication to creating a place to worship and serve God which is developed on Biblically sound principals, and clearly shows God’s guidance and intervention as the project developed. As a matter of fact, it becomes quite clear that this is more than just a project; it is a God inspired mission to establish a church that is relevant to the times and the times to come. A model, if you will, of the worship center of tomorrow, fully and completely incarnational. His incorporation of sections on ecclesiology, theological issues and Holy Scripture, show a strong reliance on, and guidance by our Lord God.

Rev. Dr. Bill Bennett, Executive Pastor, Crystal Cathedral Ministries

This book will introduce you to the mind, heart and love of a warm and endearing pastor, Dr. Tim White. For 16 years we have shared our journeys together. In both Schuller’s International School of Christian Communication and CUGM, we learned from our experiences of supporting, uplifting and encouraging each other along the way. You will find in Tim a genuine and authentic man who is truly open to new ways in which God calls us all to grow and use challenges to help God build his people up along the journey.

Rev. C. Lou Martin, Pastor, Saint Clare Roman Catholic Church, Baltimore, Maryland

Tim White is my hero. As I have had the privilege of being in a growing friendship with him over two decades of ministry, he has been a model of quiet, joyful consistency—living a style of leadership characterized by the (surprising) combination of a humble, personable accessibility and a persistent ability to articulate and implement a unique and remarkable mission. If this book were just words on a page, those words would be worth reading. But it is more than that. It is the transcript of the real-life, historical fulfillment of a radically-contextualized vision for what the church can and should be in the twenty-first century. In all of my reading, I have not come across a work that probes a church’s vision, and the biblical and theological underpinnings of that vision, in anything near this depth. Dr. White tells a compelling and transformative story. This is a worthy read, well worth your time.

John C. Bangs, D.Min., Associate Professor of Ministry Leadership Northwest University & Adjunct Professor of Ministry and Spirituality Fuller Theological Seminary

PREFACE

My mentor, Dr. Bruce Larson, once told me: A Church appears on the scene when people hear from human lips what could only be uttered by God.

Astoundingly Joyful, Amazingly Simple literally knocked me to my knees. My wife Jackie and I have spent our lives asking one question, Can we build a church in our ever-changing culture that would be as much like the church in Acts as we could make it? When we decided to move here to start Washington Cathedral we did not know anyone in the greater Seattle area. We had no guaranteed financial backing and we had never attended a seminar on how to start a church. My dad, who is a pastor, gave us these parting last words when we moved into the largest metropolitan area in the Pacific Northwest, I know you have both dreamed of this vision since you were teenagers, but I want to tell you that it is going to be a lot tougher than you ever imagined. I told my dad that I already knew this. But his eyes said, No, you don’t. Then he said, It is also going to be a lot more joyful than you ever imagined. I replied, I know. And of course he told me, No, you don’t. He was right on both counts; I didn’t know.

When we began our church, we started with one couple at our first service. The husband has since past away, but Mary Ann Ess still comes every week to worship. Our average attendance was 45 people, including children, the first year. Our total income was $9,000 the first year. It would be two years before the church could pay us a salary. It was not an auspicious beginning. The world was not in danger of a new church marketing organization telling people how they could be as rich and successful as we were for only $19.95. I went door-to-door to thousands of homes each year. And 28 years later I’m still going door-to-door. I found a love for meeting new families in the community that God had called me to meet and through this experience, God transformed me. I have spent countless hours in hospitals taking care of those without a faith or a church home, invited the homeless to live with us, and they have become like family. I’ve counseled those who everyone else had given up on, and looked for ways that we could show people a love they could not resist.

I believe that when people cross the line from being non-churched to committing their lives to Christ—that this is real church growth. And I believe that all evangelism is local church growth. But unless we get them involved in a healthy community of faith we can’t call it into heaven as real success. Today, so much of church growth is putting on the best show and getting people to switch churches. But I contend that no one becomes a Christ-follower because the Senior Pastor or Lead Pastor is so cool. I think no one becomes a genuine Christ-follower because the music is so awesome. I assume that no one becomes a genuine Christ-follower because they are touched emotionally at a service. I imagine that no one becomes a genuine Christ-follower because of a church’s great architecture. I consider that no one becomes a genuine Christ-follower because they are argued into the Kingdom of God by a superior intellect. I think the only way that anyone becomes a genuine Christ-follower is if they meet Christ themselves. Someone meets Christ when they see a miracle that they cannot explain away. In other words, if they look at the equation and it doesn’t make sense without putting God into it then they open themselves up to knowing God in a new way. If a seeker experiences a love, that can only be explained by the presence of Jesus Christ working through another fallible human being, then that miracle can open the door to an authentic faith in Christ.

The problem with that bold hypothesis is that this is a hard way to grow as a church. It is much more painful and complex than serving coffee at the door, having cool young leaders, or a slick marketing system. Maybe I should have named this book Surprisingly Painful, Amazingly Complex. Maybe not—perhaps there is more than first meets the eye.

A few years after starting the church I experienced some of the pain and complexity my father had warned me about. We were in a building program, costs were skyrocketing, and on top of that the city had just passed a zoning law that said we could not be a mega church and stay in the city unless we moved next door to the one mega church in Redmond. The pain continued when Pastor Wayne Meyers, an elder on our staff, whom I met for prayer with every week, died. His last words to me were, You are going to miss me more than you know. The pain continued when my most loyal supporter in the church, Bill Holmes, died. Bill was the pastor of the small group I attended. He was the chairman of our building program and always had my back. The pain continued when my best friend quit our staff and church telling me that he just did not believe in the dream anymore. And after getting into our new building, the situation became increasingly complex. During our first service in our new building, we had to turn away 200 people due to a lack of space. We had financial problems with cost overruns that left us on the edge of bankruptcy. Then, an older lady in our church, Emily Boyce, who was a dear friend, suffered a debilitating stroke. Though she was in her 70s, she thought she was my personal bodyguard, whose duty it was to make church an emotionally and spiritually safe place for myself and my family. Her stroke was another painful blow. With all of this going on in my mind, I found myself walking on the trail by the beautiful Sammamish slough. I was praying—asking Jesus to speak to me and this situation. Then, all of a sudden God spoke to me. I don’t believe it was an audible voice but I knew in my heart-of-hearts what His will was: Double your church now. I was stunned. Then He spoke again, Quadruple your church now. I almost staggered in overwhelming stress. Increase your church by ten-fold right now. I knew how hard it was to get a permit in our town and I knew that what I was hearing was against the zoning laws. I was at my physical, emotional, and spiritual limits. So I did something that I have never remembered consciously doing before in my life. I said, No! to God. I was so shocked; I said it out loud while I was walking on the trail, "No God! I’ve had all I can