SOUTH HUTCHINSON, Kan. — As the North American church declines, people still love Jesus somehow.
But Jesus’ followers? Not so well-loved.

“They think we stick with our own,” said Hugh Halter, the keynote speaker at the third annual conference of Anabaptist Renewal Circles, which drew 73 people to Journey Mennonite Church July 28-30. “But Jesus was the most inclusive person the world has ever seen.”

Halter’s message fit the mandate of ARC, a national organization dedicated to spiritual renewal and mobilizing the Mennonite and Anabaptist community for mission.

Halter believes Christians ought to be as accepting as Jesus was. And as social.

He thinks they need to get out of the pews and throw a party.

“When you have a party, that’s just as spiritual as having a Bible study on the Book of Romans,” said Halter, an author and speaker who has grown churches by building “missionary communities” in Portland, Ore., Denver and now Alton, Ill.

His method: forming groups of friends who know how to have a good time.

“People are not going to believe unless they belong,” said Halter, who directs the mission organization Forge America. “The best way to help people belong is to create neutral space. It might be in our home or a coffee shop. Just be with people and don’t try to sneak-attack a prayer before a meal.”

He finds spiritual connections grow naturally from social connections.

“Let’s just bless people with no strings attached,” he said. “Jesus ­wasn’t nice in order to get people into church. You bless people just to show how good God is.”

Pharisee factories

Unfortunately, the church has taught “a theology of extraction from the world” rather than how to live like Jesus in the neighborhood. As a result, “we become Pharisee factories,” Halter said.

“We need a structure that moves, that doesn’t wait for people to come to it,” he said.

The primary structure for Halter is not the Sunday gathering but the missionary community.

“Jesus said he will build his church,” Halter said. “But the means of building doesn’t have to be Sunday morning church attendance.”

Halter said he built a network of 24 communities with 400 people, and for seven years nobody was paid to do ministry.

“This is not dependent on money,” he said. “You can plant a church without a dime, because you can immediately begin to engage the culture and fill up your house.”

Another conference speaker, Richard Showalter, affirmed that Halter’s call to a mission-focused way of life is for everyone, not just extroverts or those with special evangelistic gifts.

“We may or may not be a gifted public communicator,” said Showalter, a longtime mission leader from Irwin, Ohio. “God delights most in using people in areas of their lives where they are not particularly gifted” because then we know the results are from God and not our own abilities.

Eric Miller, campus pastor of Journey@South Hutch, spoke at the conference’s opening session.

Bigger than a reaction

ARC chair Nehemiah Chigoji, pastor of Upland (Calif.) Peace Church, said he prayed that God would use the organization as a channel of revival.

In an interview, Chigoji said ARC began in response to problems some participants saw at the 2011 Mennonite Church USA convention in Pittsburgh, including activism by advocates for LGBT people, such as recruiting youth to wear LGBT-affirming Pink Menno T-shirts.

“We started as a reactionary group, but our God is bigger than a reaction,” Chigoji said. “I hope the Holy Spirit will awaken us and revive us to stay in the Word. We want to mobilize for mission, to be instruments of peace in our communities.”

Jeff Linthicum, pastor of First Mennonite Church of Berne, Ind., said he saw ARC as “renewing and equipping the church to regain the radical roots of the early Anabaptists in mission.”