Deconstruction

Shiloh Lohmann had been working as a youth pastor in Central Florida for eight years. His wife, Kim, was a public school teacher and children’s ministry co-leader at their church. For years they had been seeking God’s open doors for their young family of five to serve as international missionaries, and it finally happened. They expected the Lord to work mightily, but could not foresee all that lay ahead.

“We sensed … God was going to do some great things in us …. What we didn’t realize at the time was how much this experience was going to change us and our relationship to the Church.”

Shiloh and his family served as missionaries in East Africa, where they fell in love with the people of their city and learned to take their faith to a whole new level. While the Lohmann family saw their time there as a “wonderful experience,” they knew they were to return to North America.

“For the two years we spent in Africa, we were forced to walk intimately with Christ, and we relied primarily on Him as our Protector and Provider,” Shiloh said. “When it was time to decide if we were going to return, we felt God leading us back to the U.S. to use many of the things we had learned in ministry (in Africa), here in the States.”

As they adjusted to living again in Florida, Shiloh began to realize one of the reasons why the Lord had them come back.

“After returning to the States, we looked around us and realized that most Americans (Christian or otherwise) don’t have an intimate relationship with Christ, and rely primarily on themselves for their needs.”

Shiloh said it seemed as though churches were more focused on their programs and buildings than on meeting people where they are.

“God confirmed in our hearts that He used our time in Africa to prepare us for our mission in Florida,” he said.

Shiloh partnered with Ronnie Walker, pastor of First Baptist Church in Belleview, Florida, and began Fellowship Project, with the focus of equipping and encouraging followers of Jesus to “Love God, Love Others, and Live Sent.”

“If we can get those three things right, I believe we will see spiritual reproduction on a scale we haven’t seen before,” Shiloh said.

Therefore he developed resources like “2×2 Training” to lead people through a step-by-step deconstruction or disorientation process of how they view the purpose of the church and what it means to be a follower of Christ.

“God designed us to reproduce spiritually just as much as physically, and in fact gave us a personal responsibility to do so,” he said. “It is intended to be a very natural process or journey, not something difficult or uncomfortable.”

Shiloh and his family began their own ministry back in America by focusing on the families in their neighborhood. A picnic table in their cul-de-sac serves as a community gathering spot where Shiloh’s family has had opportunities to develop relationships and hold impromptu spiritual discussions. Together these neighbors share life through holiday celebrations and spontaneous cookouts.

“We have earned the trust of our neighbors enough that they come to us with many of life’s difficult questions,” he said.

Easter 2009 allowed the family to host a brunch and time of worship at its home, which led to bi-weekly devotional meetings. One neighbor requested he and Shiloh meet weekly to read and discuss the Bible. The two men have been getting together for about a year.

Shiloh also has been able to partner with local churches to provide seminars and training to individuals who want to reproduce spiritually. Thus far he’s led four cycles of training, each lasting four months. The results have been varied.

“Some of those who have gone through the training have had their lives changed, similar to Kim and I in our experiences overseas. Others have really struggled stepping out of their church buildings to walk like Jesus wherever they go,” Shiloh said. ”It is so easy to coast spiritually here in the States and let the ‘professionals’ do the ‘ministry.’”

Some of the ideas the training emphasizes include seeing the church as a “who” and not as a “what” (or place); not needing programs to lead others to Jesus; needing to play a continuing role in a new believer’s life after he/she prays a prayer of salvation, which only marks the beginning of his/her journey with Jesus; and practicing good stewardship as a church, which may mean getting rid of a number of things, including programs and buildings.

Written by Natalie Bunch. Natalie is a freelance writer for The Upstream Collective and lives in North Carolina. She served as a missionary writer based out of Prague, Czech Republic, from 2007-2009, and plans to return to full-time international mission work with her husband in a few years.