Pastors Need Non-Christian Friends

I have a confession to make. The longer I worked in ministry, the fewer people I led to Christ. Actually, it happened somewhat quickly. I started spending all my time with Christians.BY ANDREW ALESSOAt one point I couldn’t identify any real friends that were in my life who didn’t go to church.Preaching was still a fruitful evangelistic activity for me, but I didn’t like who I had become. I couldn’t even preach with true conviction and empathy about evangelistic disciple making because I wasn’t doing it.I think my preaching became less relatable to the unchurched over time.The truth was that my life in the Christian bubble was a choice to live in sin. And when I moved into a role that required me to preach less often, the weight of this unconfessed guilt wreaked havoc on my soul. For a season, I wasn’t very fun to be around and I didn’t fully love ministry any more. It was no one’s fault but my own.So, when we started Thrive LA Church I just wanted to begin by being friends with as many non-Christians as possible.I wanted to unashamedly invite others to follow Jesus in the context of unconditional friendship. I coached basketball at the park. I started a secular book club on MeetUp and eventually became a city organizer for them. I started inviting the people I met into my life for meals and board games. I wouldn’t say I’ve been awesome at it, but I’ve invited my own friends to church and I’ve been re-acquainted with the joy of praying with friends to accept Christ.I feel like I’m living in obedience to God for the first time in a long time.Here’s the beauty of the vision, but also the challenge: When I do those things I’m not being a pastor, I’m just being a Christian. Ephesians 4 tells us the job of church leaders: To equip the saints for the work of ministry. God calls pastors to mentor a whole church of evangelistic disciple-makers.These two callings go together. You can’t give away something you don’t have. Spending half my time in the community and the other half training leaders to do the same has been the most fulfilling season of ministry in my entire life.But it takes time to lead someone from skeptic to follower of Christ, and from follower of Christ to ministry leader and evangelist.I realize now that I didn’t spend enough time at the beginning recruiting Christians to our team who were already trained and committed to personal outreach.As I manage the growing demands of our church I can feel my commitment to personal evangelism slipping away. I’m in a new season that involves preaching every week, facilitating our leadership pipeline, meeting for weekly discipleship conversations, planning outreach festivals, etc. I feel the strain of more responsibility and relationships than I have time to develop. I need to share the load in our church with mature believers to continue living a full Christian life.I have to do what it takes to keep modeling the mission as I lead our church.Friend, are you a disciple that makes disciples? Are you living in obedience to the great commission? Can you name the people you are leading to Christ and the people you are imparting this lifestyle?You can’t give away something you don’t have, but I can tell you, it’s worth finding.

Planting a Church in LA (Part 2): Majority Honestly Doesn't Know God Loves Them

This September, Thrive LA Church in Silver Lake will celebrate our 1 year-anniversary.BY ANDREW ALESSOEditor’s Note: Andrew Alesso, 29, is the pastor of Thrive LA located in the Silver Lake area. The church opened its doors just 9 months ago. Alesso is writing about his experience in an exclusive TogetherLA series, Planting a Church in LA. This article is the second in a series. You can read the first of the series, A Young Pastor's Story, here.I decided on the name Thrive while having brunch with my sister on a quiet Saturday in West Hollywood.“What do you think that God feels about you?”“I don’t believe in God.”“I know. That’s fair. But if you did, then what would you guess?”“Well, I feel really bad about myself when I go to church. I guess he’s mad at me or maybe he’s just ashamed of me.”It hit me like a ton of bricks.Two days before, another friend had already told me that the name “Encounter Church” made him feel like we were going to attack him. I guess I already assumed that most middle aged, gay men don’t feel welcome in evangelical churches, but brunch with my sister drove it home with incredible clarity: The vast majority of people in our city honestly don’t know that God loves them.Or, as another new friend put it after I shared the gospel with him, “God’s justice and standards make sense to me…. I just never would have guessed in a million years that Christianity is about loving your enemies.”I discovered that if we were ever going to lead our neighbors to faith in Jesus, then our church had to help them believe that the God of the Bible is actually for them and His laws are actually for their benefit! That’s why our mission is to invite our neighbors to belong, contribute, and thrive in the family of God as we make Jesus our savior and king.Our neighborhood has been known as a church plant graveyard because of all the new churches that have failed to get off the ground. As one local said about our plans, “I wouldn’t think that people around here are interested in church.” It’s our job to build a church for people who don’t want to go to church. If I thought God hated me, I probably wouldn’t want to spend Christmas with him either!That’s why we’re committed to building an inclusive family where people can belong no matter their story, and find purpose in contributing to the common good. We want to see people of every background loving their city and empowering others to invest their talents for Jesus.[bctt tweet="We want to see people of every background loving their city and empowering others to invest their talents for Jesus. - Pastor Andrew Alesso, Thrive LA" via="no"]We’re praying that our community would genuinely want us to be here to minister. And guess what? God is paving the way. It’s slow work, but he’s opening doors and changing lives. God loves our neighbors. We just need to come along for the ride.

Planting a Church in LA: A Young Pastor’s Story

Ecclesia Hollywood Asks, 'What Is Good News For LA?'

Since its beginning, and especially this month, Ecclesia Hollywood is on mission to discover and share the answer to the question: “What is good news for the people to whom we are sent?”The church announced a few weeks ago that every Sunday in May will be dedicated to hearing from a speaker hailing from a different part of Los Angeles. “Each will share about how God is bringing good news to the neighborhoods and social or professional networks where they live,” the church states on its website.TogetherLA recently interviewed Ecclesia Hollywood’s lead pastor, Jon Ritner, who shared that, halfway through the series, a common theme is emerging which is that “privatized personal faith” within local churches should instead be a faith that intersects with the culture around us.TogetherLA: Describe your current series at Ecclesia Hollywood.Jon Ritner: In May, we have been using our Sunday morning gatherings to ask “What is Good News for Los Angeles?” Since I am still new to the city, I have invited LA natives in each week to lead us in answering that question for the specific area in which they live. By the end of the series we will hear from leaders in East LA, Compton, Highland Park, and Hollywood itself who are each bringing a message from God’s Word and applying it through the lens of their local neighborhood. One of the common themes that is emerging, is how the local church must move away from our practice of a privatized personal faith and instead let our faith intersect with every area of culture around us.TLA: How did you personally get a passion for serving in Los Angeles?Ritner: My family and I moved from Brussels, Belgium to Los Angeles in the summer of 2015 to allow me to serve as Lead Pastor of Ecclesia Hollywood. During my time as a church planter in Post-Christian Europe, I saw how Europe’s rejection of institutional Christianity and its forms of church are forcing the body of Christ to reclaim its original first century roots as an organic movement of God's people living out God’s mission to redeem and renew all of creation through Jesus Christ. After 10 years on staff at an East Coast mega church building church programs, my time in Europe convinced me that the future of the American church will depend, not on services or programs, but on each follower of Christ taking responsibility to join God in his mission and flesh out Jesus in his or her own life. Rather than trying to get the world to come to a Sunday "church", we must be God's Church every day in the world around us.

TLA: What does your church do to stay on mission in LA?Ritner: At Ecclesia, we believe that each one of us is called to live as a missionary to the places where we have already been sent in our life; the places where we live, work, play and create. As missionaries, we are asking God to help us understand the context of our local neighborhoods and subcultures and then spiritually discern “What would the Good News of Jesus look like and feel like for these people in this place?” Then, we prayerfully join God in manifesting those elements of the gospel; such as beauty, justice, forgiveness, reconciliation, and radical love. We want to be midwives assisting God as He births His new Kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven.TLA: What have you learned about Los Angeles?Ritner: In my very limited exposure to Los Angeles, I have been heartbroken to learn of the city's tragic history of racism and ethnocentrism that has created deep cultural divides amongst its rich diversity of inhabitants. Whites only beaches and discriminatory housing policies are just some of the stains on our recent historical record, not to mention the resulting public outrage expressed in our two well documented riots. Sadly, too often followers of Jesus have divided along ethnic lines rather than standing together against injustice and the oppression of the marginalized in the city. Thankfully, there is great momentum through organizations like LA Voice, Covenant House, The Gospel Coalition LA, LA Church Planting Movement, and many others to work together for the common good to see our great city flourish as God intends.TLA: What do you see in the city in terms of "unity" among churches? Christians?Ritner: To our own deficit, Ecclesia is by no means a truly multi-cultural, multi-ethnic church. However, we live in a multi-cultural city and we want to be in partnership with churches and organizations who are engaging all over the city. We also want to be a prophetic witness in the industry of Hollywood and be sure that we are promoting cultural diversity in a sphere of culture that has traditionally been dominated by a narrow set of voices. It continues to be my prayer that God’s Kingdom would come in Hollywood as it is in Heaven!