on October 28 2010

When it Comes to the Ministry – Money changes everything

Money change things. And so when we pastors accept money from our churches to do ministry it changes everything. This is to say the obvious. Right? More specifically, when we pastors accept money from the church:

1.) We as pastors(s) now have to worry about the income flowing into the bank account every Sunday. We have to have a responsible eye for the budget.  Which means you have to worry about people with big pockets being “happy” with your church. There is a dynamic set in place that changes what we say, how we interpret ministry, how we challenge our selves and community towards mission. Often, this dynamic stalls mission in the local church.

2.) We as pastors now come under performance review. Money changes the relationship between the pastor(s) and the rest of the congregation. There is now the inescapable reality that the pastor is being paid to provide something, some basic goods and services for Christians or maybe some growth in the bottom line for the church. The relationship between the congregation and pastors takes on the character of performance reviews. As a result, pushing the church outward where time and effort does not produce such measurables  gets thwarted. As a result, mission is stalled, even thwarted in this mindset.

3.)We as pastors begin to look at people differently – as viable “giving units.” A business mindset starts to take over the church. This dynamic undercuts and stalls mission  for obvious reasons and must be fought at all costs.

I contend however that all of the above does not mean pastors should never be paid. I even suggest there are many times when it is appropriate for pastors to be paid full time. I also contend that there must be ministry accountability within the leadership of the church. I contend however than in all this, the dynamics outlined above should be fought with all our might if we would shape communities of Christ’s people into mission.

How? I hope to offer my suggestions at the Missional Learning Commons coming this Saturday. In the meantime, what do you think? how do you handle these dynamics? Are these dynamics real in your church?  l will use any good suggestions (giving due credit of course) this Saturday!

______________

If you are thinking of coming last minute to  the Missional Learning Commons , there’s no more children’s supervision available (I don’t think). But if you’re WOK (without kids), just come on in.  It’s a non conference, meaning no paid speakers, and it’s free (except for 10 bucks that helps pay for children’s care). Check out some of the speakers here and here There’s 9 presentations – 12 minutes each – delivered in rocket fire format. And then discussion, questions, open session. best part? hanging out with other missional leaders for a day and a half. Do you need a lift, encouragement? I invite you to join us.

Filed under Missional Leadership,Missional learning commons,Uncategorized 16 Comments

on October 26 2010

4 Building Blocks for a Missional Ecclesiology (Leading a Church Into Mission): #1 Missio Dei

(HT Tall Skinny Kiwi on this image) A few weeks ago I was at Biblical Seminary teaching in their D Min program in Missional Leadership. It’s a great place – good people – and it was a highly charged class. In the class, I proposed a rubric for understanding the cultural shifts and theological assumptions that shape a church’s formation into Mission. I put forth 4 fundamental “building blocks” for shaping a church into Mission. They are theological/cultural ideas.  They are: 1.) The Church as part of Missio Dei, 2.) The Church’s Incarnational Engagement in the world , 3.) The Church as Witness, and 4.) The Church in Post Christendom. They are already familiar ideas to most of us who read missional literature. The student’s challenge was to understand their own church ministry in these terms and propose a plan on leading their ministries/churches into a missional engagment in their context (If you’re interested in pursuing this kind of theological/cultural study see here). The class gave me a chance to revise and further engage the implications of these key ideas. In the next four posts I’ll summarize each of the 4 ideas and how I think they need to be further examined. I’m looking for dialogue as to how these ideas have impacted the way you think about/ lead church.  Join me won’t you? Here’s the first idea: missio Dei.

Missio Dei

Jesus said to them, “As the father has sent me, so send I you.” When He had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Recieve ye the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgivene them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” John 20: 21-23.

Missio Dei – translated God’s Mission – communicates the now common idea that God is a missionary God, a sending God and that the church is an extension of the Trinitarian God’s mission in the world. As David Bosch famously wrote, “Mission [is] understood as being derived from the very nature of God. It is thus put in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity, not of ecclesiology or soteriology. The classical doctrine of the missio Dei as God the Father and the Son sending the Spirit [is] expanded to include yet another ‘movement’: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit sending the church into the world” (Transforming Mission, .390). In this classic statement, the church is redefined from “having a mission” to being part of God’s Trinitarian mission in the world. Missio Dei is important because it recovers the doctrine of the Trinity for the ways we see God at work in life and mission in the world. As Craig Van Gelder has said, when we lost the Trinity, it meant “losing the primary way Christians envision God’s active presence and engagement with the world , not only in the past, but in the present and future.”

The doctrine of missio Dei changes the way we understand the church’s identity, its very sociality, its reason for being. Mission is no longer something we Christians do as part of our duty as members of the church. It is something God is doing of which we are invited to participate in. The harvest is plentiful, God is already bringing it to fruition, yet the laborers are few, we must participate. (Luke 10).

The Potential Pitfalls

Many years have passed since missio Dei achieved prominence in the IMC meetings in 1952 and the writings of people like Bosch and Moltmann.  Its re-shaping of the church’s identity has been profound. Looking back however, over the recent 15,20 years of missional literature, there have been two potential pitfalls. To over simplify, there has been the tendency to a.) “backload” the missio into the sending of the Son, and/or b.) “frontload” the missio into the Spirit’s work in the world. The modus operandi of the church then CAN become either a.) the following of a “personal Jesus” (or even “a Wild Messiah”) as individuals into mission (Hirsch and Frost) or b.) the joining of individuals in with justice movements in the world (Moltmann?). In either case there is the possibility that the church gets dispersed out of existence losing the wherewithal for political formation. With a.) the church becomes a post facto work after individuals have been working in a context, and in b.) the voluntarist church gets dispersed into the world’s struggle for justice. Now admittedly, this is less of a problem as long as there is already a church from which to recruit individuals for this missional involvement. As long as there is a church, individuals will go forth into mission. As the church diminishes however in the West, the problem becomes more acute,  where will these individuals/or groups come from that follow the Wild Messiah or enter justice movements in the world without the political formation of the church which shapes these individuals into the church as mission?

This is admittedly controversial. For there are those who suggest that to argue any political entity called the church in Mission, is to devolve back into the church for church’s sake, the church as territorial, the church as fighting for its continued institutional survival. I don’t think so. I suggest the church as a place for the formation of a people is integral to its participation in God’s Mission. What do you think? Need the church’s formation as a viable social way of life work against its participation in God’s mission. Why? Why not? How has missio Dei changed the way you lead church?

—————-

Reminder!!! Last week to sign up and join us at the Missional Learning Commons Unconference this  Saturday! And join us for some good conversation and hang-out time Friday nite too.

Filed under Uncategorized 9 Comments

on October 21 2010

One Day – Nine 12 Minute Rants – Leading to 9 Conversations About Stuff We All Need to Talk About

What this post is about is the upcoming Missional Learning Commons Non Conference – at least my take on it. We’re gathering for a day of twelve conversations at the Lindner Center at Northern Seminary. We start at 9 a.m.. Each of the practicioners talks for twelve minutes, basically summarizes their thoughts/experience in a rant (what more can you do in 12 minutes?). Then we have a discussion about it – flesh it out, take comments and questions. It’s wide open. The goal? To encourage each other in hearing and engaging with what others are doing on the ground in missional communities. The topics are about typical challenges and questions we’re all facing on the ground in leading/shaping missional communities.The topics and speakers are

1. Cyd Holsclaw: Discipleship in Disguise – Doing discipleship “missionally” as part of everyday life (i.e. not as a program).

2. Michael Novelli: The intersection of Biblical Narrative, Dialogue and Spiritual Formation – story telling as part a discipling community.

3. Mark Van Steenwyk: Missional Discipleship in the Shadow of Empire – how sharing the gospel is a form of resistance to unjust social structures.

4. Helen Lee: The Kingdom Belongs to Such as These: Missional Living In and Through Our Children

5. Jason Lantz: If anyone doesn’t know how to manage his own family how can he take care of God’s church?

6. Ben Sternke: Sorry, We Can’t Come Because We Have Little League That Night

7. David Fitch: The Hazards of Being Paid to Pastor: Overcoming the Bad Dynamics of Money

8. David Fitch: Leadership is Submission: The Counter-Cultural Way of the Cross in Leadership

9. Amy Rozko: Global Perspectives on Missional Leadership:  Reflections and Observations from Cape Town 2010

This is all free except for 10 bucks to help with child care. There’s a Friday night casual meeting discussing James Smith’s book Desiring the Kingdom. We’re all just hanging out together that night. There will also be alot of time to meet, eat and hang out with fellow missionaries during the day on Saturday.  Find out more about the speakers and check out details here. Let people know via the facebook page. Think about joining us? eh?

Filed under Missional Leadership,Missional learning commons 5 Comments

on October 19 2010

On Why I’m Not Ready to Give Up On The Seminary Yet: Gary and Me Again

In the previous post, a lively discussion ensued when I suggested that “the kinds of pastors we need” for the future church of post-Christendom West will have to be missionaries, people who can lead differently, are capable of supporting themselves and immersing themselves in a given context. I suggested churches/institutions pour their resources into training missionaries – a different kind of pastor. On that post, we all agreed that theological education will have to change. The cost structures, contextual basis of  delivery methods, and amount of time devoted to study and ministry development all have to change. Yet some, in fact many, seemed to relegate seminary education to relic status – no longer making sense for the challenges we face in N America’s new post-Christendom.

Now I agree and disagree (full disclosure: I am a seminary professor). On the one hnad, certain kinds of seminary, following the rigid university models of Euro Christendom, definitely support and depend largely upon existing church structures. These structures make less and less sense although there is the possibility of “living off Christendom” to fund future missionary activity. Such “living off” however has to be discerned so as not to pollute future missionary work with Christendom based assumptions. On the other hand, whatever the future may hold, we will need educational organizations to train leaders into the teachings as passed on through the churches faithful. 2 Thessalonians 2:15. The grounding of the leader in the NT, OT, Systematic questions of theology, as well as the cultural issues of hermeutics IS EVEN MORE IMPORTANT in the West given the cultural challenges of epic proportion. We will need, for instance, to understand the implications of Pauline scholarship, the history of protestant interpretation of Paul, even to get at why we understand salvation the way we do and then to navigate (hermeneutically) the new territories for the salvation in Christ Jesus. It is doubtful whether unconferences, local institutes, church based teaching can meet the challenge. For centuries, even in the poorest of mission fields, seminary like institutions have been birthed to train leaders into the depths of the faith for its passing on.  Seminaries seem most positioned to play this strategic role in the furtherance of the gospel. They do however have to change! We at Northern are working on a 5 year M.A. CM Missional Church Studies program where you spend Mondays at the seminary only – one course, full library access, very low cost, for those who can drive in. This will lead to localized cohorts. Other seminaries are also reinventing!

On all of this, see the video below of Gary Nelson and I talking about these issues as filmed by Bill and Imbi Medri Kinnon and subscribe to their Missional Channel on Vimeo for more videos (alot of good stuff).

Nelson/Fitch – Theological Education in the 21st Century from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

—————————————-

P.S. If you want to join in discusssions about shaping your church for mission, and the challenges, come to  the Missional Learning Commons coming up. If you’re already coming, register, let others know via the facebook page. It’s a non conference, meaning no paid speakers, and it’s free (except for 10 bucks to help for children’s care). Check out some of the speakers here and here Quite a lineup!! Of course I’ll be speaking a couple of sessions on leadership and money, and leadership as submission. There’s 9 presentations – 12 minutes each – delivered in rocket fire format. And then discussion, questions, open session. best part? hanging out with other missional leaders for a day and a half. Do you need a lift, encouragement? new ideas? I invite you to join us. Check it out : the Missional Learning Commons .

Tags:

Filed under Missional,Missional Leadership,Missional learning commons,Uncategorized 5 Comments

on October 14 2010

The Kinds of Pastors We Need and The Future of Evangelicalism in N America

The future of the traditional evangelical church as I see it is:

a.) mega churches continuing to grow, consolidating what is left of the Christendom populations, providing a traditional church services to the shrinking masses of already existing Christians and lapsed Christians coming back into the fold,

b.) smaller churches of under 200 slowly dying and eventually closing, and

c.) the birthing of new missional communities through  either seeding new missionary communities or transitioning (the aforementioned) dying small churches into vibrant places of mission.

The fact is according to statistics approx. 20% of all existing evangelical churches are heading into category a.) 80% into category b.) and there is alot of church planting going on (that I can’t quantify) that looks like c.). I am not optimistic that alot of transitioning is going on from churches in b.) category to becoming more like c.).  Does this experience jive with your observations? the statistics in your denomination?

If the above is true, the kinds of pastors we will need the most will be those who can lead category c.). We of course will still need the polished smooth speaker-CEO’s that can lead the largest of mega churches. These churches will continue to survive in providing the kind of church that fits in with the increasingly busy market driven lives of the traditional suburban evangelical. Whatever you might think of these forms of church life, the reality is that these large mega centers are good at making Christianity work for already existing Christians. They lack the flexibility however (and the cultural dynamic)to engage the many less affluent unreached contexts of the West. If the church is to engage the growing contexts of post Christendom West for mission, we will need more of churches in category c.) and pastors to lead these missionary enterprises.

These pastors will be:

1.)BE RESOURCEFUL – OFTEN ABLE TO EARN THEIR OWN LIVING

2.) COMMUNAL SHEPHERDS – CULTIVATORS OF COMMUNITY IDENTITY IN MISSION

3.) INTERPRETIVE LEADERS -  FUNDERS OF  IMAGINATION THRU SCRIPTURE FOR WHAT GOD IS DOING AMONG US AND AROUND US

4.) DIRECTORS OF SPIRITUAL FORMATION – SHAPERS OF PLACES THAT SHAPE OUR LIVES INTO CHRIST AND HIS MISSION

5.) LEADERS WHO GIVE AWAY POWER – DISPERSERS OF AUTHORITY AND LEADERSHIP INTO THE NIEGHBORHOODS

This all leads me to suggest that the church that is left in N America should throw the bulk of its resources in training pastors for the work of churches in category c.), or the work of transitioning churches in b.) to c.). Just as the Irish monastaries saved civilization from the takeover of the barbarians in the 4th century Western Europe, so it will be the spread of these kind of self sustaining missional communities over the continent to breed a new witness of the Spirit and the harvesting of a whole new generation of  Christians, participants in God’s Kingdom life. If you ask me, the N American church should spend a significant part of its resourses and efforts in training missionary pastors to lead these kind of missional communities to inhabit all the places deserted by the wealth of mega churches for here is where the life of the Spirit “in Christ” shall breath again, where God shall bring forth new life to transform our society until he comes. I said this all back here in this piece. This is my take on where seminaries should go, and where church resources should go before it is too late. What say you?

Filed under Missional Leadership,Uncategorized 41 Comments

on October 13 2010

Gary Nelson and Me on the future of the “Missional” Conversation

Bill and Imbi Kinnon are tireless is producing interviews and video materials promoting the missional cause. They do great work. Here they make me look good and of course being with Gary Nelson doesn’t hurt. In this video they catch Gary – pres. of Tyndale University College Toronto and important Canadian Missional author/thinker – and I chatting about the future of “missional” as a viable conversation for the future of the church. Gary engages what’s really important above all the posturing that comes with the word “missional.” It is interesting that I mention four ideas as the defining building bocks for a missional conversation: 1.) Post Christendom as the defining cultural position of the church in the West, 2.) Missio Dei, 3.) the Incarnational Logic of the church, and 4.) the idea of Witness as the primary mode of communicating the gospel in our post Christendom Context. I am about to blog about these four ideas as I have been rethinking them and the issues at stake. I must have been thinking about them back in August when we taped these interviews. Thanks to Imbi and Bill for taping these (there’s two more to come) and Gary for sitting down and chatting. I really enjoyed our time.

Nelson/Fitch – Missional – Does the word still have value? from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

Filed under Uncategorized No Comments

Webfonts HTML & CSS provided by FontsForWeb.com - free fonts download. See this Wordpress fonts(webfonts) plugin here