‘It’s just totally – IMPOSSIBLE!

I just love these quotes!

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” — Ken Olson, Founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), arguing against the PC in 1977.

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” — Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.

“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered.” - Albert Einstein, 1932.

“The cinema is little more than a fad. It’s canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage.” -– Charlie Chaplin, 1916.

“The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad.” — The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903.

“Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.” — Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” — Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio in 1921.

It seems that whenever we try to predict the future based on our paradigms of the past we are usually, hopelessly short sighted! Joel Barker in his book “Paradigms: Business of Discovering the Future”  suggests that there are three qualities organisations need to survive in the rapidly changing world of the twenty-first century:

Firstly they need excellence – that is creating goods or service of genuine quality for the people they serve. This will be the non-negotiable ‘ticket’ to the game, but it will not be enough. Ask yourself: “Does what we produce provide quality, significance, and delight for those we serve?”

Secondly, they need innovation – the capacity to keep on improving and advancing the potential of original idea. Think how each generation of smart phones builds extra features or lower price. Ask yourself: “Do we keep evaluating, fine-tuning, hearing feedback, and improving what we do?”

Thirdly, and most importantly, the successful organization demonstrates anticipation. That is the creativity and imagination to embrace the future! The new possibilities, needs and context – before anyone else does! Ask yourself: “Are we prepared to walk out of our comfort-zone; let go cherished trophies; experiment with the new; risk failure; and celebrate the prophet or the radical?” in other words, an openness to explore new paradigms.

A TIME LIKE NO OTHER

Picture a time of incredible change and rapid progress! The certainties of yesterday  are lost in the progress of today. As one writer enthuses: “Let the great world spin forever down the ringing groves of change!”

Another significant national leader says in a speech: 

“Nobody, however, who has paid any attention to ... our present era, will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end, to which, indeed, all history points ... the unity of mankind [sic]. ....
The distances which separated the different nations and parts of the globe are rapidly vanishing before the achievements of modern invention, and we can traverse them with incredible ease; the languages of all nations are known, and their acquirement placed within the reach of everybody; thought is communicated with the rapidity, and even by the power, of lightning. ...” 

A key political commentator looks back: 

“ It is nowadays not easy to recollect how wide was the intellectual gulf which separated the young generation ... from their parents. ... The young men [sic] of the time grew up with the new ideas and accepted them as a matter of course... Our parents lived in an intellectual world which bore no relation to our own; and cut adrift as we were from the intellectual moorings of our upbringings, recognising as we did, that the older men were useless as guides in religion, in science, in philosophy ... we also felt instinctively that we could accept nothing on trust from those who still believed that the early chapters of Genesis accurately described the origin of the universe, and that we had to discover somewhere for ourselves what were the true principles of the ... science of sociology...”

The time I write of is one of great upheaval, discovery, technology and meteoric change. The old world and its ways are being swept away. A breathtaking and new global economy is being birthed. New injustices and also fresh opportunities are evolving. 

Fresh expressions of church are urgently needed and being launched – movements of brave, young and radical followers of Christ who raise the hackles of the traditional religious bureaucracies they are leaving! 

I write, of course, of the mid eighteen-hundreds. 

Seizing the Day!

The church is being pushed more and more to the margins of society. It no longer assumes a role as the arbitrator of societal values and regulator of cultural norms. Though many lament the loss of close relationships with cultural structures, a return to the past is not possible.

Just as the children of Israel had the options to search for the old paths during its Babylonian exile or to look forward to a new and different future, so the church is confronted with the same options. It is this massive cultural shift and unstable social realities that demand a new role for the God’s people. They have huge implications for our ministry.

Walter Brueggemann, (who has recently passed away)  describes our time as one in which an old imagined world is lost, although still powerfully cherished. It is a time of bewilderment and fear because there’s no clear understanding of how to order our common imagination differently or better. He says:

I believe we are in a season of transition, when we are watching the collapse of the world as we have known it . . . the value systems and the shapes of knowledge through which we have controlled life are now in great jeopardy. One can paint the picture in very large scope, but the issues do not present themselves to pastors as global issues. They appear as local, even personal, issues, but they are nonetheless pieces of a very large picture. When the fear and anger are immediate and acute, we do not stop to notice how much of our own crisis is a part of the larger one, but it is." Walter Brueggemann, Hopeful Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press), 45-46.

Brueggemann describes this transition as a troubling place to dwell, but it is exactly where we must dwell. There is no other time or place to which God has called us to live but this one.

Mary Jo Leddy describes it as a period when the great tapestry of religious life woven in Western Culture over several hundred years has unravelled and lies in tatters on the floor of our culture. She explains:

We are living through one of those historical in-between times when a former model of religious life (either traditional or liberal) is fading away and a future model has not yet become clear. One could be tempted to flee from the dilemmas of this moment to some more secure past, to the surface of the present, or to some arbitrary resolution of the future. These are real temptations and they can be met only with the faith that this is our hour, our kairos [Greek for “season” or “time”]. This is the only time and place we are called to become followers of Jesus Christ; there is no better time or place for us to live out the mysteries of creation, incarnation, and redemption. These are our times and, in the end, God’s time. Mary Jo Leddy, Reweaving the Religious Life (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications), 3.

This is our time. It is not a place for simplistic, dualistic, us-versus-them thinking. We have not left modernity behind, but we are in a place that seems so unlike the ethos, experiences, values, and attitudes of the last half of the twentieth century. The generations that led in that era are passing, but there are still many “emerging-age” leaders who work with all the skills, frameworks, and success of that passing time. The generations that might cultivate a new kind of future church are probably not even born yet. How will we respond as leaders to this challenge?

When we are planning a vacation, constructing a building, designing a program, organizing a sermon series, or planning a field trip to another country, then the framework of the past is a good way to proceed.

But when facing discontinuous change, it fails to address what is happening and, therefore, fails to innovate the emergent actions required. It is a process that assumes we are still in a stable environment that allows for rational control and prediction. It is based on the belief that we can, as we did for most of the twentieth century, define, determine, and design the preferred future we want and then align all the elements of our world—congregations, resources, money, people—to get where we want to go.

The problem is that it leaves leadership imagination unaltered. The environment is still treated as if it were a static, manageable plain rather than the turbulent, unchartable waters it is. A turbulent environment is not a knowable environment—we lose control and predictability in the midst of discontinuity and transition. This future is not predictable; it can only be discovered along the way. Therefore, leaders who want to cultivate church communities in transition must set aside goal-setting and strategic planning as their primary model.

Adaptive leadership in this context is not about forecasting, but about the formation of networks of discourse among people. It’s about the capacity to engage the realities of people’s lives and contexts in dialogue with Scripture. It is about building new connections. The Spirit of God will be in the midst of such dialogues, forming new patterns of communication, relationship, and action as God’s people. But it can’t be predicted and controlled from this side; the future emerges as people live in the ambiguities of transition. 

The shift in frameworks, skills, capacities, and habits required of leaders isn’t easy, nor will the road be smooth. People are complicated and organizations are complex. People’s emotional, inner, non-rational responses play a large role in the transition process. One can’t apply change strategies like programs or templates laid over a congregation.

Leadership in transition requires adaptive skills that innovate participative dialogue. Such leadership understands change as primarily an emerging process rather than carefully planned movements towards a predefined, preferable future.

Emergence cannot be imposed from above; it is cultivated through participation. Leaders must let go of the belief that more information, or more data, or some new program can re-establish control and result in a desired future. It’s a new world requiring new skills and capabilities.

The Procrustean Church and Pastor

BY MICHAEL T. COOPER ON PATHEOS.COM | 5 JULY 2024

Procrustes, the maniacal son of Poseidon, violently forced strangers to lie in an iron
bed. As the Greek legend is told, if the stranger’s limbs protruded over the bed, Procrustes amputated them. If the stranger’s body was too short, Procrustes stretched the limbs until he fit. In all cases, the forced conformity of the stranger’s body to Procrustes’ iron bed resulted in death. Ultimately, the hero Theseus forced Procrustes to make his own body fit to his bed and he subsequently died a similar death as his strangers.

The Procrustean bed became a metaphor for forcing someone or something to conform to an unnatural system. In many ways, we see this sort of systemic prejudice in the manner in which we do church. Perhaps, as we observe in early Christian history, the pastor- and building-centric church is such an iron Procrustean bed. 

The Procrustean “Pastor”

The rise of the term “pastor” in the historical development of the church occurs during the fourth century when the role of bishop and elders began to be described as shepherds (gr. poimen). The early history of the church shows us that some shepherds also served as prophets and teachers. While surprisingly absent as a prominent role in the first to third centuries, “pastor” has taken on an importance mostly solidified after the Reformation and especially after identifying 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus as “pastoral epistles” in the 18th century (Guthrie 1990, 17). 

TO READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE CLICK HERE

Managing Complex Change

Sam Cooke - A Change Is Gonna Come

A Change Is Gonna Come" is a song by American singer-songwriter Sam Cooke. It initially appeared on Cooke's album Ain't That Good News, released mid-February 1964 by RCA Victor.

The song was inspired by various events in Cooke's life, most prominently when he and his entourage were turned away from a whites-only motel in Louisiana. Cooke felt compelled to write a song that spoke to his struggle and of those around him, and that pertained to the Civil Rights Movement and African Americans.

On October 8, 1963, en route to Shreveport, Louisiana, Cooke called ahead to the Holiday Inn North to make reservations for his wife, Barbara, and himself, but when he and his group arrived, the desk clerk glanced nervously and explained there were no vacancies. While his brother Charles protested, Sam was furious, yelling to see the manager and refusing to leave until he received an answer. 

His wife nudged him, attempting to calm him down, telling him, "They'll kill you," to which he responded, "They ain't gonna kill me, because I'm Sam Cooke." When they eventually persuaded Cooke to leave, the group drove away calling out insults and blaring their horns. When they arrived at the Castle Motel on Sprague Street downtown, the police were waiting for them, arresting them for disturbing the peace.

The New York Times ran a report the next day, headlined "Negro Band Leader Held in Shreveport," but African-Americans were outraged. In 2019, then-Shreveport mayor Adrian Perkins apologized to Cooke's family for the event, and posthumously awarded Cooke the key to the city.

Upon hearing Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" in 1963, Cooke was greatly moved that such a poignant song about racism in America could come from someone who was not black. Cooke loved Dylan's song so much it was immediately incorporated into his repertoire. He was further influenced by the message of the dream in Martin Luther King Jr's 'I Have a Dream' speech at the civil rights march on Washington that year. Toward the end of 1963, according to Cooke, the Change composition came to him in a dream.

“A Change Is Gonna Come”

I was born by the river in a little tent 

Oh and just like the river I've been running ever since 

It's been a long, a long time coming 

But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.

It's been too hard living but I'm afraid to die 

Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky 

It's been a long, a long time coming 

But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.

I go to the movie and I go downtown 

Somebody keep telling me don't hang around 

It's been a long, a long time coming 

But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.

Then I go to my brother 

And I say brother help me please 

But he winds up knockin' me 

Back down on my knees.

There been times that I thought I couldn't last for long 

But now I think I'm able to carry on 

It's been a long, a long time coming 

But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.

Discipleship: A discussion starter - part: 1

The idea of discipleship is at the very core of the commission Jesus gave to that first little group of followers: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20).

What is discipleship? A disciple was someone who learnt from a teacher, but unlike our modern understanding, the image is not so much a student taking notes and passing exams, but an apprentice who watches and imitates the teacher so as to adopt their behavior and practice. Disciples became like their teachers.

The apostle Paul described this learning obedience like this: "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”  (Romans 12:2).

Disciples do not simply accumulate information in regard to the teachings of Jesus Christ but transformation (metanoia) toward Jesus Christ in every way - complete devotion to God. 

Don't miss our Discipleship Conference coming up soon! We will be hearing stories of discipleship focussed churches and learning core principles from experienced teachers. It will also be an awesome time to get to know each other and share about how we see God leading us. We’d really like you to join us. 

Friday 24 Feb 6:30pm - 9:00pm & Sat Feb 25 8:30am — 2:30pm. 

   - Cost: No charge, we really would like you to join us!

   - We’ll be meeting at Diamond Valley Baptist Church 
   - RSVP to our church office by 22 Feb 2023  Office: 0409 667 008 or office@dvbc.net

Adapt: Why success always starts with failure - Tim Harford

Building Planes - in the Air!

Changing a business or cultural group  or neighbourhood or congregations or any people-organisation is tricky because it has it's patterns, traditions, practices, processes and habits that are second nature. everyone intuitively just knows how it works - and it takes little energy, even if it's to always comfortable or useful. 

Any change or re-build feels uncomfortable and will cause a measure of anxiety or push-back. This video is an interesting parable about what its like hanging change. Sorry about the poor quality, but there doesn't seem to be a higher quality version around: 

29 Predictions of the Year 2000 from December 1900

Sometime we imagine that we are the first generation to hurtle through times of rapid change. But I wonder how our great grandparents pictured the new industrial, confident, 20th century panning out. As steel, electricity, radio-waves and motor engines began to appear, and the European powers hold on colonies that spanned the globe began to waver - what might life look like in the unbelievably distant 2000AD?

The Ladies Home Journal from December 1900 contained a fascinating article by John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years”. Mr. Watkins wrote: “These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible. Yet, they have come from the most learned and conservative minds in America. To the wisest and most careful men [sic] in our greatest institutions of science and learning I have gone, asking each in his turn to forecast for me what, in his opinion, will have been wrought in his own field of investigation before the dawn of 2001 - a century from now. These opinions I have carefully transcribed.”

Prediction #1: There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century. Nicaragua will ask for admission to our Union after the completion of the great canal. Mexico will be next. Europe, seeking more territory to the south of us, will cause many of the South and Central American republics to be voted into the Union by their own people.”

"And the Year is ...2020!"

This was an article I wrote for a panel discussion back in 2007. We were imagining the trends and the changes that might be emerging around us. Ridiculous, at one level, because the future always surprises us when it does arrive! But it was a helpful exercise in learning to observe and interpret more carefully what is happening around you. I wonder what would you add or subtract to this list? I think if I were re-writing it now, almost eight years on, I'd add in something about:

- The 'inter-culturalisation' of the Aussie church.

- An increase in many challenging and varied shapes and expressions of Kingdom community.

- A healthier fusion of proclamation and action.

- The rise of a more contemplative mainstream spirituality.

- An increasing ability to engage diversity without abandoning one's own framework.

- The return to a form of  local parish community and neighbourhood.

***   ***   ***

"And the Year is ...2020!"

OK! I admit it; I love Dr Who! I just love the idea that I can hop into the Tardis and instantly jump into the future ten thousand years or even a leisurely ten million years or so. ‘Trouble is that that’s easy compared with gazing a measly TEN years forward!

Last year, I was invited to be part of a panel discussion given the topic: “What will Church be like in 2020.” That’s a tough one! I’ll be getting close to retirement! Hopefully Collingwood will still be getting the ‘wobbles in September! The Olympics will be on! There will be a U.S. Presidential election. But what will be happening in our so-called ‘post-Christian’ western world? I wonder what we dream God will be doing? Here’s some of my wonderings: 

1. Twenty-Four Seven Discipleship 

The church of 2020 will have realized that powerful testimony comes from personal transformation! They will realize that our focus should not be about programs, but principles. As we live as disciples ‘obeying all I have commanded you’ so we incarnate the Gospel into our world. The church of 2020 will not focus on getting the vision and strategy right; and making the people fit into it. Rather they will understand that obedient consistent ‘holy’ living will mark a ‘culture’ that fascinates people to faith.

21st Century Ministers

A few weeks ago, I stood at the back of the little village church in Grasmere in the Lakes District. This is surely one of the most quintessential of little English villages! The poet William Wordsworth who lived in here for fourteen years, described it as "the loveliest spot that man hath ever found."

The little stone church has been there since 642. It’s one of the oldest chapels in England. With its high wooden pews, stained glass windows, pulpits, organ, fading hymn books and other pieces of typical church paraphernalia  it looked and felt and even smelt “Churchy.” I had the sense of being whisked back in my imagination to every archetypal memory of childhood associated with being in “Church.”

The Writing's on the Wall

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE A MOVEMENT?

Introduction

One of the things that younger Christian groups like to assert about themselves in contrast to the older, maybe more institutional groups is that their group is a ‘movement.’ “We are a movement not a denomination!”

I believe that the need to self-identify in this way demonstrates that a group is actually no longer a movement with a future orientation but an institution looking back over its shoulder. Like most of the religious movements spawned out of the industrial revolution around 200 years ago, the ‘moving’ has been done and the descendants are now a mainstream denomination.

The past can be a terrible burden for a group who’s predecessors have distinguished themselves by prophetically and courageously leading out of a dysfunctional paradigm to a new and healthier paradigm. The descendants of pioneers will tend to preserve and then institutionalize their glorious past and so become unable to let go of it. They become paradigm-settlers who self-identify by their founders actions. Ironically, these children of ‘movement-makers’ tend to be somewhat resistant to change! Truly, movements become machines which become monuments.

This tendency needs to be acknowledged if we are to engage our current context and once again ‘move’ forward as we discover where God is leading us.

What makes a Movement?

The well known ‘Dancing guy video’ encapsulates the essence of a movement. A lone guy in a park stands and dances with rapt enthusiasm to toe-tapping music amidst the crowd of lethargic picnickers sprawled across the lawns. At first there is amused indifference to the loner. Then another brave soul joins in followed by another who drags a couple of mates with him. Soon there is a small merry band whooping like there is no tomorrow! More faces to to gaze longingly at them wondering if they dare jump up too. A few more dart sheepishly into the fray. Suddenly a tipping point is reached and masses of picnickers catch on that dancing rather than lazing is the accepted behaviour. Soon those remaining prone are hurrying to join in and avoid looking out of touch. The paradigm has shifted totally from resting to moving!

A social (or religious or scientific) movement happens when social behaviour shifts from a prevailing and dominant paradigm towards an emerging paradigm. 

Steve Addison says: “A movement is a group of people pursuing a common cause. Movements are characterized by discontent, vision, and action. For good or for evil, movements change the world.”

The birth of a new paradigm is always chaotic. There will resistance by entrenched interests. There is no guarantee whether any of the fledgling ideas jostling to emerge will grow into the new paradigm. 

Those early movement leaders are non-conformists or prophets who lead from the margins. It takes great courage to follow them. It takes significant energy and sacrifice to follow in their footsteps because the new paradigm is not yet fully formed - it may still fail.

Often there are competing or diverging factions or camps who will struggle fiercely amongst themselves for primacy. There will be others at the movements’s margins in a loose coalition, but with differing trajectories one to the other.

Says Seth Godin: “An organization uses structure and resources and power to make things happen. Organizations hire people, issue policies, buy things, erect buildings, earn market share and get things done. Your company is probably an organization.

A movement has an emotional heart. A movement might use an organization, but it can replace systems and people if they disappear. Movements are more likely to cause widespread change, and they require leaders, not managers. The internet, it turns out, is a movement, and every time someone tries to own it, they fail. ... The trouble kicks in when you think you have one and you actually have the other.”

The British abolitionist movement beginning in the late 1700s was probably one of the first modern examples of a movement. The most famous movement was probably the American Civil Rights Movement propelled by the courage of Martin Luther King. Other social movements include women’s rights, peace, civil rights, anti-nuclear and environmental movements. More recently there has been the feminist movement, pro-choice movement, right-to-life movement, gay rights movement, animal rights movement, anti-globalization movement.

There are a common characteristics to modern and historical movements. Here are a few questions to ask which may indicate whether you are part of a movement:

REFLECTIONS ON EXPONENTIAL 2011

I’ve just got back from Orlando in Florida where I attended the Exponential Conference – On the Verge. This was a huge Church Planting conference with four thousand people attending from around the (mostly) Western world.

In the next few weeks I’ll add further reflections to my blog as well as the Mission and Ministry website.

The Conference started with a member of the Exponential Band setting the stage with a stirring version of Bob Dylan’s anthem, The Times They Are A-changing. Verses two and three are particularly prophetic for our times:

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come preachers and pastors [sic]
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

In truth the Western Church finds itself on ‘the Verge’. Either we are on the verge of complete extinction – or we are on the verge of a new movement of God. Taken as whole, the decline of Christianity and the church in western contexts continues a-pace. More of the same is not likely to achieve significantly different Kingdom results; so something different is needed.

My first reflections of the Conference:

1.  I believe that we are beginning to get it!  For the first time at a large gathering, including senior ministers from U.S. large churches – the call I hear is that it’s no longer about building bigger, centralised, gatherings-focussed churches, but sending our people out as ‘missionaries’ into neighbourhoods that will never come to us. I recall Francis Chan the Senior Pastor of the Cornerstone Community Church telling about visiting poor and persecuted Christians in India and describing to them about how we do church in the middle-class West, and hearing them laugh-out loud in disbelieve at how ludicrous it sounds! Says Chan: "You go to a building, someone gives you a bulletin, you sit in a chair, you sing a few songs, a guy delivers maybe a polished message, maybe not, someone sings a solo, you go home ... When you read the New Testament, you see the Holy Spirit was supposed to change everything so that this gathering of people who call themselves Christians had this supernatural element about them..." Francis has moved on from pastoring this very large church to focus on building and releasing sacrificial followers of Jesus to live amongst their unchurched neighbours.

2. I believe that God is raising up leaders for the future: I was struck by how many passionate, articulate and competent leaders there were in their 20s and 30s leading and sharing to their generation from the front. My generation needs to heed the words: “Come preachers and pastors, please heed the call, don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall.”  New movements will often find greater resistance amongst the gatekeepers of what was once the movement, than from the world outside. Barton Stone as only 29 as a leader of the Cane Ridge Revival! Thomas Campbell wrote the Declaration and Address when he was in his mid-40s and Alexander was just 21. John Wesley was 32 when he began his work. Martin Luther was 34 when he nailed the Ninety-Five Theses to the Wittenberg Cathedral. Samuel Wilberforce was 21 when elected to parliament; and Mother Teresa was 19 when she arrived in India. Doug Nicholls was 29 when he started at the Gore St. Mission Centre.

 3. It’s not about ‘Church’ planting: Our future will not be about duplicating the thing we’ve done for the last few hundred years. Reggie McNeal and many others made the point that he gets very nervous if someone says to him: “I’m called to plant a church.”  The reason is that because alongside our other social silos like politics, commerce, sport, home, justice, education and so on, we Christians have added a new silo called ‘church.’ This is where people come to ‘get’ personal religion;  ‘do’ worship and ‘find’ religious succour. We need to re-imagine our role as being salt and light across all the other silos rather than being a new and separate silo. Says Reggie: “We have too many ‘church’ planters - we don’t need more church planters, but sowers of Kingdom across our cities. We plant Jesus and His Kingdom (Neil Cole) into the arenas of politics, commerce, sport, home, education, and every other field of human endeavour to be transformed. The people alongside us are not ‘church members’ attending to find fellowship - but a ‘band’ of subversive missionaries changing people and culture – who happen to discover koinonia as they serve. I wonder what would it look like to train and send out Jesus ‘agitators’ from our congregations?

4. Our shape needs consideration: Many speakers, such as Mike Breen from the 3DM network talked about ‘Missional Communities’. Mike was for many years the vicar of St Thomas Sheffield in the UK, where he pioneered what he calls missional communities, that is, mid-sized groups of 20-50 people on mission together. Mike talked about early British church history. In the early 5^th century, Romans returned as missionaries. The first archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine, built the great Canterbury cathedral. Roman philosophy was attractional: “If you build it they will come.” But the Celtic missionaries, who came a little later, took a different view: “If you go you will reach them.” They got into their coracles and sailed out across North Sea, to northern Europe and beyond. Later as Roman and Celtic philosophies collided – they evolved into the ‘Minister’ movement – which transformed Europe. They melded together the ideas of large monastic or support centres for healing and formation, BUT these centres then send out missionary teams. Like strawberry runners they contextually infiltrated the villages and towns for Christ. Attractional and incarnational melded together. Several speakers spoke about the vitality of small-groups, house-churches and intentional missional communities of 30-50. These are mobile, highly relational and highly adaptive teams that can infiltrate the many new neighbourhoods and fluid networks that mark our 21^st century world. My sense is that our larger churches are going to need to learn to become ‘minsters’ that send and sustain a score of smaller and varied ‘parishes’.  How will we learn and adapt in our context?

5. Our measurements will need to change: Our language and our measures become a map that sets us in a particular direction. Language like: “Bringing our friends to church,” or “Going to church,” or “Church attendance was down last week,” or “ We go to Pastor so-and-so’s church,” or “We do outreach at our church,” or “Come to our church’s community programmes,” paints a mental image of church as a location and agency in which things happen. Here we measure attendance numbers, baptisms, age-spread, giving, building-capacity, technological excellence, mid-week groups, pastoral care satisfaction and sizes of church services.  What if our language and measures changed?  Rob Wegner who serves as a teaching pastor at Granger Community Church is working alongside Alan Hirsch in an innovative coaching program called Future Travellers is helping mega-churches become missional movements. “... We are not a church against the community. We are not a church that simply exists within the community. We are a church FOR the community. God told his people while in exile in Babylon to not simply live in the city, but to love it and work for its welfare.  The actual word used is shalom.  Shalom doesn’t just mean peace or a cease-fire of hostility. Shalom means universal flourishing. God’s people are to work for the economic, social, cultural, and spiritual flourishing of their city ...”. What if we began to measure: (1) the authentic friendships the church members were forming outside church programs, (2) the felt needs of the neighbourhood as expressed by them, (3) the identity of the disempowered and marginalised groups in our town, (4) the local agencies our people network with, (5) the actual issues people tell us they would like solidarity and help with, (6) the number of non-church people who share in forming our responses, (7) the daily prayers for our community, (8) the birth of faith communities indigenous to our neighbourhoods, and so on. You get the idea – our agenda might look quite different – but, it would be exactly the same as any good cross-cultural missionary’s usually is!

 Over the next few weeks I will be publishing further articles that talk about different aspects of church planting. The next one will be: Why on earth plant more faith communities in Australia -  of all places? The one after that: How to begin! How you too can be a 'missionary' in your own neighborhood. 


These can also be found on the Mission and Ministry 'Articles' page.

Roll up! Roll Up!

3000 - 4000 attendees shuttling too and fro from workshop to workshop to plenary system to loo break and then back through the common areas to pick up lunch bags, cans of soda, coffee, water, and a space to sit and chat makes for a permanent peak hour! 

Around all the corridors and common areas are sponsors and resource-ministry stalls staffed by friendly and helpful people, often with generous free hand-outs or interesting resources to sell.

To walk around watching the conversations at the stalls tells you a lot about the different dreams and stories the attendees and resource sellers hold. Here's a snapshot:

For these guys, below, marketing media are key. How important is 'hard media' to planting? Interesting how many were using the 'Win a free iPad' worm on their hooks!

 For this mob, compliance, legal, fundraising and insurance issues and consultancy were important. There DVD packs looked well produced. Is doing church inevitably about public events conducted by an incorporation of some sort?

On the other hand, Great Commission Ministries (GCM) mobilizes missionaries to work in their local churches for the purpose of evangelism, discipleship and church planting. They train, employ and serve missionaries as they raise a team of supporters for their ministry.

For these guys its the software you'll need for your new church:

This group was cool - a mobile church - all the bits you need, sound systems, seating, lighting and even a portable coffee shop to accommodate the planter who hasn't yet got a fixed base!

This group can assess your planter's potential:

 These people help you to build a strong team. Teaming, rather than lone rangering is the key to planting sustainably:

World Vision was there, maybe reminding planters that the church is a means not an end:

And this lot can help us make disciples, mot just attendees:

There were seminaries with ubiquitous seedling images:

And South American focussed mission's trips:

Hugh Halter and Matt Smay run Missio - how to build and release missional communities, bigger than a small group, smaller than a congregation to serve a need or people group or neighourhood. I did find their seminar very helpful indeed, check it out:

 This organization can put together a kit of everything that a planter might need, including a guest services counter!

Everything you need to start a "Cinema Church:"

 Or to reach the 'unreached':

Or the poor:

Maybe you need data or better demographics?

Or perhaps you're just tired out by it all?

Can't remember what these little carrots were selling, but they drew a crowd!

We know these cool dudes! They are bringing together a whole new crew of missional practitioners, good stuff!

3DM led by Mike Breen is a brilliant resource in birthing mssional communities: '...Long before “missional” became a church buzzword lighting up the blogosphere (and on the lips of such evangelicals as Andy Stanley, Francis Chan, Alan Hirsch, etc), a church in England started doing things differently. They operated in a European culture that wasn’t friendly to Christians and they knew that if they were going to reach new people for Jesus, it wasn’t going to be in a church service. So they reinvented what church looked like. And as it turns out…it looks a lot like what we see in the early church...' 

 

Stadia bring planters, training, networking and sponsorship together into one network:

Church content management systems? Websites?

The Catalyst Conference is the largest gathering of young leaders in the country...

 The North east of the USA specifically?

 New Thing "...is to be a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches relentlessly dedicated to helping people find their way back to God..."

Remember Willow Creek?

Maybe ts books you need? There's some good Aussie titles right there!

You need to empower those you serve:

Biblical solutions - studies seminars and other resources for life issues people face:

According to Ed Stetzer and Thom S. Rainer, the authors of Transformational Church, "Too often we've highlighted the negative realities of the declining American church but missed the opportunity to magnify the God of hope and transformation."
Based on the most comprehensive study of its kind, including a survey of more than 7,000 churches and hundreds of on-site interviews with pastors, Transformational Church takes us to the thriving congregations where truly changing lives is the norm.

CRM envisions movements of fresh, authentic churches, pioneered by godly leaders, fired by a passion for their world, compelled to multiply their lives and ministry…so that the name of God is renowned among the nations.  CRM AUS Director, Steve Addison's new book on Movements was creating interest.

 More on websites for your new church:

And the Verge network partner in the Conference was there too. "We want to continue to advocate and champion movements of Missional Communities."

 What do you notice about this diverse group of sincere and passionate ministries?  

One thing I noticed both in the stalls and through the conversations was two diverging paradigms of what the mission and model was about. 

The one, a more traditional, attractional, worship-service based, program-event driven (maybe a building-centred) strategy - we are multiplying 'churches' of saved people led by 'leaders' ... 

The other a messier releasing of people to live and participate together in their communities as more organic, lay-driven, justice-bringing and grace-speaking movements that tumble into becoming what might be labelled churches, that multiply before they get too big and concrete (in either sense)

It also struck me that the pendulum is swinging fast towards the latter model!

I also observed that the established judicatories (denominations) tend to do the traditional way - slowly, carefully, within well controlled systems, but the latter is driven by younger, post denominational, networked leaders.

I wonder, will we need to dis-establish our systems to enfranchise God's emerging movement?