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John Lee Bishop was the Founding and Senior Pastor of Living Hope Church for 20 years, one of the fastest growing churches in America with campuses in the northwestern United States, Hawaii, and New Zealand—until John’s journey took an unimaginable turn that led him into the depths of addiction, crime, and federal prison. Today, he dedicates his life to sharing his story of hardship, restoration, and hope with audiences around the world, and he serves as the Lead Pastor of New Life Friends Church in Vancouver, Washington. He earned a Masters of Arts in Evangelism and Transformational Leadership from Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. He and his wife, Michelle, have been married for more than 40 years and have three adult children and eight grandchildren.

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Dangerous churches are willing to put everything on the line for the one thing that matters most; reaching lost people. Through probing questions and amazing stories of God's grace, John Bishop confronts church leaders to embrace what matters most to the heart of God, whatever the cost. Most churches naturally gravitate to what is safe and familiar. Church leaders who take risks are bound to fail, and fear drives us to continue in our comfortable, but ineffective patterns. But reaching out to a lost world was never meant to be easy.Jesus promised his followers that they would have trouble in this world. Dangerous churches are churches that are willing to risk everything---comfort, safety, and the security of the familiar---for the sake of the one thing that matters most: reaching out to people who may spend eternity separated from the God who created them.God wants us to live on the edge of our margins, walking by faith and not simply following scripted methods or programmed patterns. Dangerous Church takes you back to the Book of Acts and reminds church leaders that the heartbeat of the church is not found in agendas or human plans, but in pursuing the mission of God and reaching out to a lost world. Learn what can happen when church leaders abandon their fears and begin to live a dangerous faith. Dangerous Church is part of the Leadership Network Innovation Series.

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Dangerous Church

ZONDERVAN

Contents

Foreword by Rick Warren..................................................9Acknowledgments..........................................................11Introduction: Is Your Church Dangerous?..................................131. From a Moment to a Movement...........................................252. What's Wrong with the Church?.........................................353. When Churches Get Stuck...............................................454. When Plans Fail Churches..............................................575. The Potential of Failure..............................................636. Couch Evangelism: It Begins with You..................................777. Jesus Isn't the Problem — We Are!...............................838. The Smell of Church...................................................959. Stop Doing Stupid Things..............................................10110. Communicating to Go Somewhere........................................11111. When We See Jesus and Want Hand Sanitizer............................12512. Jesus Would Hire Who You Haven't.....................................13713. Mistakes Made and Lessons Learned....................................14714. Purple Salt: Becoming a Church That Gets Noticed.....................15515. Breakthrough Faith: Creative Evangelism..............................16116. The Blessing of Betrayal.............................................17117. You Are a Mighty Warrior.............................................17918. Go Back the Way You Came.............................................185Conclusion: The Worst Day of a Leader's Life.............................195

Chapter One

MY DAD DIED WHEN I WAS FOUR YEARS OLD, and even as a young child I was marked by bitterness and anger. Not only did our family never attend a church; I never wanted to go to church! I had little contact with Christians in my youth and saw even less need for the church in my life. All this worked great for me — that is, until I met a gorgeous, five-foot-tall blonde who forced me to quickly reevaluate my willingness to go to church. When you meet someone like that, things change quickly! If she wants you to go to church, you go to church, whenever, whatever, and however she says. At the time, I made an outward decision for Christ, a decision that had very little to do with my heart. I wasn't living surrendered to Christ, and honestly, I was more interested in sealing the deal with the girl of my dreams than following Jesus Christ. But I was given a simple ultimatum: "I can't marry you unless you are a Christian." Without hesitating, I asked her, "Where do I go to do that?" In my mind, becoming a Christian was no different than joining the Boy Scouts or becoming an Elks club member. Let's get some Jesus, grab the tux, and get on with the honeymoon. Jesus was nothing more than a line on my checklist for realizing my future dreams.

So I went to church, I prayed a prayer, but I never truly surrendered my heart, my plans, and my will to Christ. I was your typical twenty-five-year-old guy focused on pleasing myself. I was a living, breathing illustration of the person Jesus describes in Matthew 7: outwardly religious, willing to do the church thing, but lacking a real relationship with Jesus. Sadly, when the time came for the man described in Matthew 7 to finally stand before Jesus, he heard Jesus say the four most frightening words in the Bible: "I never knew you" (Matt. 7:23). His story was my story. I was acting like a Christian, but I didn't really know God. I knew about him and was even doing things for him, but in all my knowledge and activity I had somehow missed the person.

By God's grace, I had a tragic accident that nearly ended my life. I know that sounds unusual, but it truly was a gift of God's grace. I was taking a martial arts lesson, engaged in full-contact sparring with an old friend, and was kicked twice in the nose. At the time, it didn't seem like a big deal — except that I had severed a main artery and was bleeding out my nose and in my throat! By the time I finally got home, I couldn't stop my bloody nose. My wife drove me to the hospital, and I passed out in the waiting room. Doctors discovered that I had already lost almost five pints of blood. They called in a specialist to examine my injuries, and to this day I remember his name: Doctor Faust. You don't forget people who save your life!

That day, had I died, I would have faced a Christless eternity. Despite my regular attendance at church and my religious activities, I did not have a relationship with Jesus Christ. As I began to consider the reality of my death, the life I was living, and the many ways I fell short of God's standard, it was all too much for me. I thought of my little two-year-old son, standing by the bed, who would never see his daddy again. I pictured him growing up, as I had, without a father — bitter and angry at his life and at God. And I desperately wished for a second chance, an opportunity to do things differently.

So there I was, lying on my deathbed (or so we thought at the time), and the medical professionals with all their skill and wisdom could not stop the bleeding. In that moment, we called a pastor to come and pray with us. His name was Neal Curtiss (again, you don't forget people who save your life). I'd never given the church a dime, and I really didn't even like the church, but Pastor Neal answered the call at 2:00 a.m. without hesitating and came to pray for me.

I know it's a bit of a cliché to say this, but it's still true: people don't care what you know until they know that you care. Neal's act of grace and kindness, visiting me in the hospital and praying for me at two o'clock in the morning, catalyzed the beginning of my journey to God. Though I almost lost my life, my family, and everything that mattered to me, I thank God often for that day. It was a hard lesson to learn, but I experienced firsthand that our accidents, failures, and tragedies can also be divine opportunities. The loss of something dear to us can end up saving our life in the end. I have learned that even when I can't see the end and don't know how things will turn out, God is still faithful. I didn't need or want God in my life, and I certainly didn't want him to ruin my plans. Little did I know that God wasn't going to give up on me. He wasn't interested in bringing incremental changes to my life. Instead he chose to use an event that would teach me that he loves me. Looking back, I clearly see that my "accident" that day was less accidental and far more purposeful than I ever could have imagined. God had a plan for me, a plan that was just beginning to unfold.

I started going to church again, but something had changed in me. I began to listen at a different level. After only a few weeks, I joined a small group led by Pastor Neal. Neal was straight with me and asked me up front if I thought I would go to heaven if I died, and without hesitating I said no. I knew the truth in my soul, and I wanted things to be different. So on that day — October 4, 1988 — I asked Christ into my heart. But it was more than an empty prayer this time. As I cried out to God to save me, I sensed an insatiable desire to walk with Jesus, to...