Redefining Church Success: Dave Gibbons’ Journey of Pain, Power and the “Misfit” Church
How does one redefine church success? Looking at Dave Gibbons’ life, it is an interesting story.
The Roots of a Misfit Ministry
At the age of 14, Dave Gibbons watches police lights dance on the windshield of his mother’s car parked at their Tempe, Ariz., home.
Locked inside, Gibbons’ mother cries hysterically and holds a knife.
When their pastor shows up, he manages to coax her out.
Sobbing, nearly collapsing, she says to her son, “Your dad had an affair.”
A few months after issuing a strong denial, his father asks him to wash his car. Underneath a mat, Gibbons finds a card written by someone other than his mom.
The Idolatry of Control and Cultural Success
When Gibbons returns in 2006 from a year in Thailand, he reimagines Newsong Church through the lens of pain.
He comes to believe most churches, including his own, focus on a cultural definition of success void of the reality and theology of suffering. Call it an obsession with comfort or size or consumerism or playing to your strengths, the goal ends the same: the idolatry of control.
“The church often measures success the way the world does,” says Gibbons. “It’s always up and to the right. It’s a scaling through profits or numbers. It’s the exact opposite for Jesus, who descends and embraces the cross.”
After building one of the nation’s fastest growing churches in the multiethnic city of Irvine, Calif., Gibbons apologizes to his congregation of more than 3,000 people.
“I think I have created something that I’m not sure is after God’s heart,” he says. “At some point, it became all about the church and not about the people and their lives.”
RELATED “TOP 10 REASONS PEOPLE LEAVE THE CHURCH”
In his new focus to help equip people to live out their God-given destiny, Gibbons develops the working process he calls Flow, based on John 5: Jesus only did what he saw his Father do.
From a practical standpoint, Gibbons seeks a more accurate way to understand each person.
“Our main task shifts from church growth to developing our people,” he says. “We do that first through assessment, which I think is the most critical piece.”
Predominant church growth tools focus on gifts and personality but fail to take into account the power of pain to shape a life. A power, Gibbons believes, that can either fuel self-destruction or ignite a revolution.
