on February 8 2012

I’m a Pastor. Do I lead as one “ahead” or as one “among”?

I’m a pastor. Is my job to:

a.) lead everyone individually into the Christian life that I am already living? or

b.) to lead everyone into joining in life with God and His Mission wherever that might lead?

If it is a.) I am in trouble. Because I now have the pressure to have a perfect life so that having achieved that I can now give it to someone else. Here I am. Take a look at me. Here’s how to do it.

If it is b.) then I take an altogether different posture. I can reject the posture of “I am ahead of you.” Instead, I lead not as one who is “ahead” but as one who is “among.” We are in this together and, out of my gifts, I am inviting you to join in a journey together into the depths of life with God and His Mission. Let us journey together and along the way, there will be things you learn from me and there will be things I learn from you.  It is true, I have been walking along this way for a while. I am embedded in a direction. This however does not mean I will always be perfect. It does mean that I have been put on course in an unswerving direction.  I have been walking this direction and God has proven Himself again and again as Lord in and through Jesus Christ. But I cannot be everything to you and I will not be perfect in this endeavor. We must be in this together. God has found me in Christ and God has found you too in the same way. Yes? Then let us join in this journey together.

To continue on with model b.), We each have gifts. I don’t have everything. I cannot do everything. I am very limited actually. I may have been given certain gifts for leading, and teaching (let’s say). To the extent they are recognized in the community and given authority by the Holy Spirit out of my submission to Christ, I offer these gifts to my community (I think ordination recognizes, tests, and facilitates the gifts within the history of Christ). But you have been given gifts as well. I need you as much as you need me. The church body needs you as much as it needs me. We, and I emphasize “we” are the body. And God will use “us” to build up His Kingdom visibly in this place until He returns.

This model of leading (model b.)) requires character and direction. In this way I guess you could say I am leading from “ahead.” But I must grow too in my character. I must receive constructive truth-telling into my life. If I can’t do that, then I should expect no one else to either. Because I am growing too.  Because leading “among” requires modeling “growth.” It requires growing into new territory. The minute I stop growing is the minute I am disqualified for ministry. Likewise, if I take a different direction, a direction of rebellion against God, a refusal to repent when in sin, or if I fall having given myself over to sin in a way that reveals I have lost my direction in Christ, then these things as well disqualify me to lead in my respective gifting. This model of leadership requires character and direction. Part of that character is the posture of leading humbling as one “among.”

Applying this to Preaching

In a recent conversation with a pastor/leader of a missional community we were talking about the struggle of preaching regularly. Here the pastor (I use the title “pastor” as applied to those recognized to lead in N American church whatever gifting they might have) discussed how he struggled with his interior life (not to be confused with his thought life). He found himself asking “Am I measuring up?” “Am I in sync with God?” “Am I living the life I am calling other people to?” To me, this pastor was revealing the leading from “ahead” model of leadership (articulated above) so often embodied by American church. This is the temptation to preach from the posture from above the congregation, as one with all the answers. We all fall into this temptation. It forces us to be somebody we are not in the pulpit and elsewhere. The temptation is to put on a front. And you do this every week, and you’re killing yourself to try to come up with some original insight each weekend for the sermon. This, I assure everyone reading this post, is the death of leadership in Mission.

But following the leading “among” model our job is to listen to what is going on each day in the lives of people around us and in our communities and then to reflect theologically, out of Scripture so as to interpret for our gathering what God is calling us to as a people. This is the gift of preaching! We are given a text to preach within the lectionary. Study of this text is important for preaching (it goes without saying). But meeting with one, two or three people every week, listening carefully to what is happening and reflecting with them about what God is doing in their lives and in their neighborhoods, will be the source material for the sermon. It provides the material from which to reflect on via Scripture. Yes, preaching is about understanding the text well. But it is also listening to God and discerning through the text what God is calling us into as a people. This is leading from among, missional preaching, or contextual theology. It is one of the leadership tasks so essential for the birthing of communities in mission.

Many pastors would disagree with this approach. Mark Driscoll for one has said (in this video here) he’s an introvert and therefore doesn’t want to know anyone is his congregation, just let the Spirit lead and guide him to say what needs to be said in his sermon. This I contend is leading from ahead versus leading from among. This kind of preaching, I contend, will tend to draw a crowd of people who are like you and already get your language and style. This kind of preaching, I contend, tends to decontextualize. The attempts to contextualize from ‘above” always lead to efforts to be more “relevant.” Thus it’s really more marketing than embedding in a context.

So here is what I suggest. If you’re struggling in your teaching/preaching ministry to “come up with” a sermon for this week, have a cup of coffee with people in your community and listen carefully. Take someone out in your neigborhood to a bar or coffee shop and listen carefully. Read the text from Scripture before and after, do the work of study. But it’s that cup of coffee that the Holy Spirit will use to give context and energy for the sermon.  and you’ll have a sermon. Make it a weekly, monthly rhythm!

Agree? Disagree? Am I wrong about leading “from ahead” decontextualizing  preaching?

 

 

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Filed under Mark Driscoll,Missional,Missional Leadership 21 Comments

on January 19 2012

The Mark Driscoll Fiasco: What the Latest Flap Teaches Us About The Neo-Reformed Movement

You can stop reading this post if you think I am going to review Mark and Grace Driscoll’s book Real Marriage. I have a much more boring post in mind.

Driscoll’s Real Marriage book is to the NeoReformed what Rob Bell’s Love Wins was to the Emerging church last year. They both stir up humongous sales with a media frenzy and in the process reveal the “cracking” (to use Scot McKnight’s word) taking place within the mainline N. American protestant evangelical church. As with Bell’s book, so also with Driscoll’s book, each brouhaha (to use Bill Kinnon’s word) reveals something of the theological pulse driving their respective movements.

This time the Driscoll fiasco revolves an interview done by the Driscoll’s about their book with Justin Brierley on the British radio program Unbelievable (here’s the podcast of the entire hour-long interview with Mark Driscoll). There was a “dust-up” on the interview. Driscoll was offended. He then calls it “the most disrespectful, adversarial, and subjective” interview he’s ever had. And now it’s all over the internet driving up sales of his (and his wife’s) new book.

My take (and the angle I want to pursue) on the interview is that Driscoll’s “act” simply doesn’t translate well into the very post-Christendom context of Britian.  In fact the whole encounter reveals the Christendon assumptions that drive his theology. There are three missional “bugaboos” that he clashes with Brierley on. Each bugaboo represents a theological position we Missionals fear/resist because of the way these things work against mission.  In this interview, these bugaboos  are a.) Driscoll’s singular obsession with penal substitutionary atonement, b.) his commitment to hierarchical male authority in the church, and c.) his blind belief in the importance of preaching/successful preacher to the church’s identity. These bugaboos represent the Christendom assumptions behind Driscoll’s theology and way he operates. Yet I think we can make a case for interpreting Driscoll as  a symptom of the wider Neo-Reformed theological movement. So I think this episode reveals more than just Driscoll’s Christendom theology and mode of operation. I think it speaks to why the current Neo-Reformed revival and its theology will have a hard time leading missional–incarnational-externally driven church. So I put this theological psychoanalysis to the test before all my neo-Reformed friends. Let’s converse. Here goes!

(FYI: I’m riffing off of the account of the interview here and here, Driscoll’s response to the interview here, and Justin’s response to Driscoll as reported here).

1.) The Focus on the Substitionary Atonement. Towards the end of the interview, Driscoll asks Brierley if he believes in the penal substitutionary atonement. When Brierley affirms it as one of many ways to view the cross, Driscoll suggests he’s being cowardly about it.  Driscoll then insists on singular commitment to penal substitutionary atonement is essential to the success of the gospel.

To me this speaks to the singular focus on the penal subtitutionary atonement that is central in many parts of the Neo-Reformed matrix regardless of contextual considerations. Am I right? Driscoll is blind to contextual considerations concerning salvation. In other words, the atonement is many faceted (read McKnights Community of Atonement for example). One size does not fit all. It could be argued that penal substititionary atonement makes the most sense in Christendom, amidst a culture shaped under Medieval Catholicism, it’s theology and penitential system (Driscoll grew up Catholic). Moral guilt, you could say, was (and is) the singular Christendom condition into which Reformed theology was born. It is not however as universal in the West as it once was. If we insist on being locked into this one view of the atonement, we will in essence be narrowing our context for mission.

The atonement is wider, bigger and more multitudinous than substitionary theory. And the hurts and pains of the world we are engaging cannot be put fit into this one theory. I believe in the substitionary theory of the atonement. But it is limited. The work that God is doing in the world includes reconciliation, healing, restoration, justice, and the victory and authority of Christ over Satan, evil, sin and death. It is in short God at work through Christ making all things right.  A narrow focus on substitionary atonement disables the church from engaging the world outside Western Christendom culture. It discounts the manifold ways God in Christ has come to set the whole world right. Mark Driscoll can’t understand this. And so when he enters a post-Christendom context he gets frustrated.

Does not Drsicoll’s frustration then reveal the atonement myopia at the heart of the Neo-Reformed movement. Does it not reveal the weakness inherent in Neo-Reformed theology for those of us minsistering in post Christendom contexts (like Brierley’s Britian)? Does not his whole fiasco reveal how the singular focus on subtititionary atonement hinders missional engagement? Yes? no?

2.) The View that Authority is Hierarchical. Towards the end of the interview the issue of women pastors came up. It caused a bit of a flare-up in Driscoll’s intensity. Driscoll ends up suggesting that the reason why more people did not show up at Brierley’s church was because of a woman in leadership. To me, this has been a subtle persistent theme within Neo-Reformed ecclesiology: that men should be over women in authority in the church. Now it explodes on a radio interview in the UK. This I suggest is a Neo-Reformed habit learned and sustained in Christendom.

Authority in Christendom is viewed in hierarchical terms. Hierarchical patterns of leadership exist readily in established church systems where you have Christianized people who are already conditioned to respect clergy authority, where things can get done, goods and services distributed, decisions made, disputes arbitrated more efficiently among Christians who already submit. It is because of these ingrained habits of hierarchy that most Neo-Reformed views of church authority have struggles with women in authority over men (OK this is at least one of the reasons). Take hierarchy out of the authority question and it becomes much harder to interpret Scripture in a way that excludes women from leadership in the church.

In the post-Christendom world, authority is flattened in the church and pushed outward (Read this post for more info). Positional authority of anyone over someone else is not the way things work in the Kingdom (read Mark 10:42). Instead we work alongside each other out of our giftedness in the communities appreciating one another gifts and mutually submitting one to another in each one’s gifts (read Eph 4, Rom 12:3-8). The authority lies in one’s recognized gift. The idea that women are over men is as unthinkable as the idea that men are over women.

Flattened authority structures push leadership out amidst the organic work of ministry in context. Hierarchy pushes church ministry inward and upward for approval. Hierarchical authority inhibits dispersed missional engagement. Its structures will miss with people who submit to authority only as encountered via authentic relational engagement. Driscoll seems blind to these issues. He’s absolutely frustrated with Brierley’s inability to be impressed with the importance of top down male leadership. My question is: are these assumptions part of the larger Neo-Reformed movement as a whole and does this mean that the Neo-Reformed will always be inhibited somewhat from true missional engagement? (Can I say “just asking?”). It will always be a movement prone to attracting Christianized people who are already habituated to submit to a pre-established hierarchical (male) authority.

3.) The assumption that “success” is best measured by the number of people who show up to hear a male preacher preach. When Mark Driscoll finds out that Justin Brierley’s wife is a pastor and is questioned on the validity of a wife whose husband supports his wife’s leadership, Mark asks about the size and growth of his wife’s church.  He says among other things “You look at your results and you look at my results and look at the variable that is the most obvious.” In other words I have thousands in my church, and you have a few hundred. That proves female leadership is inferior.

To me this is more than blind Driscollian machismo. This reveals something deeper in the Neo-Reformed ethos. There is a tendency in the Neo-Reformed movement to put a large emphasis on the gathering to hear preaching. I believe in preaching! But I see its function differently in the mission of the church. For the Neo-Reformed – correct me if I am wrong – there is a confidence that non-Christian people will still come to church to hear a good sermon. There is therefore a default tendency in Neo-Reformed churches to see success in terms of the numbers of people gathering on Sunday to hear a male preacher preach. This is a missional bugaboo. Success in mission will not always look like big numbers listening to a preacher (has Driscoll ever heard of Fresh Expressions in UK?). I see preaching as formational for a missional people, not a place where mission actually takes place (although I am uncomfortable with making that split). As a result, though often unintentional, the Neo-Reformed movement often devolves into a male led preacher attracting already existing Christians to come hear a good sermon. It thereby mistrains the congregation to think this is what church and mission is all about. That’s perhaps an over-characterization. But is there any truth to it?

Again, I think Driscoll’s question about the size of his wife’s congregation is more than a slip of the Driscollian machismo, I think it reveals something at the heart of the Neo-Reformed movement that will hinder it in the formation of congregations for mission. What say you?

In Conclusion

I see in the Mark Driscoll dust-up with Justin Brierley a revealing of some of the Christendom habits deep within the Neo-Reformed movement although often covered over by the many good things they do. The fact that Mark Driscoll’s flare-up happens in the UK – a very post Christendom place – only reinforces my case.

Some have said in response, that Mark Driscoll’s church is in Seattle, the most post-Christendom city in the US. But here, in this post, he says boldly admits going to Canada or the UK is much harder to do ministry than even in Seattle. He states “You are in a cultural context that is more non-Christian, and even anti-Christian, than even the most liberal cities in the United States. I’ve taught across Scotland, Ireland, and England. Each one is more difficult to reach than my hometown of Seattle, which is one of the historically least-churched and most secular-minded cities in America. I’ve said for years that Britain and Canada are more secular and difficult than the United States.” He basically admits that he himself with his particular approach to ministry would have difficulty succeeding in his own approach to ministry. Does this then not reveal what I am saying here? Driscoll is largely dependent upon the harvesting of already Christianized populations in Seattle area (what’s left of them)? Is this then why he then goes with video churches to go capture other such populations elsewhere? Does this then reveal some things that my Neo-Reformed brothers have to examine about their own theological modus operandi? I genuinely ask these questions for the furtherance of God’s Mission in our times.

It may seem unfair to stigmatize the entire Neo-Reformed movement with the likes of a Mark Driscoll temper flare-up. But I’ve learned that these kind of escapades are the best places to look at the cultural forces at work in theology and poitics. For myself, Mark Driscoll is an irruption of sorts on the skin of the Neo-Reformed movement.  His flare-up, if closely examined, can reveal some of the theology at work and the forces behind these theological allegiances. How other leaders in the movement respond to him, like Tim Challies,  Justin Taylor, Kevin DeYoung, Tim Keller, Collin Hansen,  James McDonald, will reveal perhaps even more. Is Mark Driscoll just an outlier for the Neo-Reformed movement or is he the truth that lies at its core?

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Filed under Acts 29,Mark Driscoll,Missional,Missional Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership,Missional Theology,Neo-Reformed,Post-Attractional,Post-Christendom,Rob Bell,Soteriology,Uncategorized,Women in MInistry 116 Comments

on December 28 2011

DON’T BE AN EKKLESAPHOBE

It happens on facebook when I give the slightest indication the church is God’s instrument in the world. It happens frequently when I am speaking and assert that God has empowered the church to extend Christ’s presence in the world. It happens when I coach church planters that are missionally oriented and ask them when they gather for worship. It happens when I engage my missional friends on one of the variants of the formula “missiology precedes ecclesiology.” It happens each time I meet someone who has been abused by the traditional church. Each time there is a out-sized reaction against organizing people into practices traditionally associated with being the church (this is especially true of the public worship gathering, or the ordination of clergy).

OF COURSE IT IS TRUE that in many cases the local church has become stuck in paying for buildings, “hell-bent” on attracting people into worship services at all costs, authority structures that gum up the works via the hierarchical clergy. It is true that the Church has abused the eucharist, has tried to colonize whole people groups into a specific enculturated way of being the church, thereby making the gospel a piece of Western propaganda. It happens every time a mega church pastor exerts control over his behemoth enterprise for his/her own personal glory. It happens every time the church has used spiritual authority to abuse people so as to enrich its coffers and expand its enterprise. I think I’ve written enough on all these things to convince you all that I am well aware of these dangers. I’m no fan of what has become of the institutionalized church (especially its mega church consumerist varieties). If you don’t believe me, read The Great Giveaway for example.

But, unfortunately, this wise caution against organizing people into Christendom-tainted-functions of the church has turned into a phobia, an unhealthy fear. I call this ekklesaphobia. And I believe it is time to ask whether such an ekklesaphobia is hurting the furthering of fresh expressions of the gospel over N America as the missional movement matures into its third decade. I say yes.

This ekklesaphobia manifests itself in dysfunctional leadership that cannot recognize the Kingdom authority invested by Christ in the 5 fold gifting structure of  leadership (although hierarchy is still bad IMO). It manifests itself when we cannot understand the forming event of the Eucharist where the presence and authority of the Kingdom breaks out and forms a community of the King to spread reconciliation and renewal of all things. It manifests itself when we cannot see the formational effects of true worship (read chapter 15, p. 217 in NT Wright’s Simply Jesus to get a taste of what I am talking about). There are no missional people apart from the place in which these people are formed into His Mission. Anyone who thinks this can be done solely individually one to one does not get the nature of how sociality under the King shapes people into the Kingdom.  For all these reasons and more, I have a new phrase when I see signs of ekklesaphobia manifesting itself. I say “DON’T BE AN EKKLESAPHOBE.”

The sources of ekklesaphobia come from various places. I’ll just name 3 which I hope to expound upon in my next post. First, We’re afraid of repeating the colonialist mistake. Second we’re afraid of the protestant principle (a version of the ecclesial mistake of triumphalism in culture). Third, many of us have been abused by church authority and we’ll do anything to avoid that hell again :) . These fears lead us to throw out the practices (like worship, ordination, discipleship/baptism) by which God forms His people as the means to extend the presence of Christ in the world.

Of course, I have a fourth fear, and that is that once people are given permission to not fear the church practices anymore they will revert back to the default ways they have grown up with doing church. They will then repeat all the things that have gone wrong in N American ecclesiology these past 40 years (I’ve seen this way too often). I think therefore we must learn from each of these historical problems. So I will post some thoughts on each of these three fears in the next few weeks. Til then I urge people: Don’t Be an Ekklesaphobe :)

What do you think? Is there an eklessiaphobia in the missional church? What drives it? In what ways is it healthy? Is it unhealthy?

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Filed under Ecclesiology,Ekklesaphobia,Missional Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership,Uncategorized 34 Comments

on December 13 2011

Leading Your Local Church Into Change (and the Church at Large): The Immanuel (God is With Us) Way versus the Posture from Above

Here’s a thought that I have learned from political theory: When seeking to bring change to an institution/social group we should go the way of “immanent critique” (from within the system) instead of arguing for the change via a posture from above the system as if we have a privileged knowledge of the truth.  Terry Eagleton describes “immanent critique” as follows: “rather than passing judgement … from the Olympian height of absolute truth, it (immanent critique) installs itself within the present in order to decipher those fault lines where the ruling logic presses upon its own structural limits.” (Ideology: An Introduction 131). Immanent critique always seeks to ask questions from within, probe and submit, and push the logical implications of what we believe so that their truth or false contradiction is revealed.  This in effect describes the way the Spirit works in the congregation to break logjams. This is the way of God Himself sending the Son into the world to live among us. He entered in to work salvation among the broken systems and sin stricken lives of humanity. He did not impose a solution from above. This is the incarnation. This “immanent” way describes the way of Immanuel- God is with us. This is the way of patience, the persistent speaking truth in love, the mutual confession and discernment that continually typifies the apostle Paul’s admonitions to his churches in his letters..

Again, to restate it, in regard to our churches and larger denominational organizations, this means that we will work patiently within our churches. We will work to push to the extreme the implications of our beliefs/ideas that congregations/organizations are holding so that the perverse contradictions once revealed (Zizek calls this “over-identification) draw us into repentance and reformation in the Spirit. For the Christian, this “immanent” way depends upon the reality of Immanuel – God is with us. It requires our confidence in the Holy Spirit’s work among us.

So the job of the change agent, whether that be a pastor, a regular church member, or the one who feels marginalized, is to

  1. Ask questions that push the full implications of the stated belief so that the obvious is revealed? When the belief is revealed to be inconsistent, even counter to everything else we believe, and of course Scripture, a time of self examination will be cultivated and nurtured from which change can happen.
  2. Sponsor activities, propose a group action, that is consistent with what we say we believe and when there is resistance, give space patiently for the antagonisms to be spoken. Let the antagonisms, fears and other false motivations reveal themselves. And in so doing, repentance will come, and those who are dug in won’t be able to handle the conviction and leave.
  3. Continually submit, repent, not as a tactic but as a reality. The change agent does not come from above bearing down on this congregation with a hammer that says I know everything and the rest of you are all wrong. It says I may be wrong, and through continual putting forth truth in love, submitting, we learn and grow and change and God moves us forward. This is the principle inherent in Matt 18:15-20.

It goes without saying, that this kind of leadership requires extreme patience and trust that God the Holy Spirit is at work in this body. It requires persistence and love because to walk this way can be really irritating unless we do it with love and a rejection of all control. It is to say I will be the instrument of God’s change not the dictator of God’s change. Such a change agent invites people into God’s work, not a controlled and manipulated “war.” Such a change agent always points to God and His Mission in the world and in our life together. Such a change process ultimately affirms that we are all seeking together the way forward into His mission. This is the way of Immanuel- God with us – the reality we celebrate together at Advent-Christmas.

What are the hurdles for you in entering this “immanent” way for change in your local church? To those who have left the church, did you forsake the “immanent” way? Why? Did you work for change from the posture from above and fail? I could give many examples of this kind of “immanent” leadership leading to change in churches and in our church.  But I’m trying to keep this short. If anybody understands what I just wrote here, could you tell us in a paragraph or two how this worked in your own leadership?

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Filed under Missional Leadership,Uncategorized 9 Comments

on November 21 2011

Why Missional Leaders Need to Get Over White Man’s Angst

Over the past 5 to 10 years, I have kept encountering a problem with young white missional leaders. At the risk of stereotyping, I find many young white missional leaders inflicted with a kind of white man’s angst inherited from the American post 60’s generation. Ever since the seventies (and probably a little earlier), once education opened up to everyone and the industrial society morphed into a service economy, middle to upper middle class families (majority of whom are white) have bred children to believe they could choose their careers. They could go to college, get some grad school, get good at something, and then choose a satisfying career path from which they would get their identity and prove their self worth. Many of this generation think that they have to have this figured out by the time they are say thirty.

This drives me nuts when these pressures are applied to ministry. Missional church planters/pastors viewing a life in ministry simply can not think this way. Not only is the economy NOT like this any more (no one has one job for a lifetime anymore), but ministry in general is not as well. We are caught in the shifts of post Christendom. Outside of the Christendom south (U.S.), and its enclaves in the north, ministry can hardly be viewed as the secure career path it once was. Even when there is this possibility, ministry is a poor long term career offering low pay, extremely long hours (in Christendom structures that is), susceptibility to lack of satisfaction (ministry as profession is hardest job I ever had) and good possibility of getting fired (or the pressure to keep everybody happy in your church so you keep a pay check). The only real career in ministry that works along these former ways of thinking is “the mega church pastor.” The “mega church pastor” is a limited skill-set (not many have it). And I wouldn’t wish that life on anyone. And yet, on and on it goes. Young white males, coming out of seminary, can’t deal with the identity crisis they get when they are asked to pursue another skill or vocation alongside the pursuit of ministry. Somehow, to dive in and learn another vocation for the long term that shall feed into one’s vocation of ministry – is a compromise.

Fellow pastor Geoff Holsclaw and I were talking about this yesterday and he called it “the white man’s place of privilege.” We (white males) are used to being masters of our own destiny. We are told we can do anything if we work hard enough. So to pursue a vocation other than ministry that shall be part of ministry is a compromise. It detracts from a singular focus on ministry. It throws open the future. It disrupts the question “will this job fulfil me?” because there is no way this question makes sense anymore when we enter into Kingdom life in this way.

And yet this is exactly the path I believe many of us are called into when looking at the church through the eyes of post Christendom.

In my experience, women and minority people in general have less of this angst for many reasons. The angst of the young white male is a recent development in history (where I grew up, in Hamilton ON, everybody’s dad was a steelworker, and everybody’s son was expected to be a steelworker, unless they became a pastor/missionary). Most people, prior to the 60’s were too busy responding to the immediate task of providing for family and needs. Planning a job/career was not on most people’s minds. Only the wealthy had this angst. Yet years later, as culture morphed into the service sector offering more choice, middle class white males felt the pressure first. “What career path will you choose?” “What are you going to make of yourself?” Then Caucasian women fell into this in the 80’s. Then various second generation immigrant groups coming into the country to fulfil the American dream felt this pressure. Other minorities, to the degree they have begun to enter into the economic mainstream of N America (including the black middle class), have also begun to feel this pressure. To all these groups, the temptation is to look at ministry as a career achievement track. On the other hand, minorities still caught within America’s poverty cycle, including much of Hispanic immigrant culture, still is driven by the need to find a job and take care of families much like it was in the early days of Euro immigration.

There’s a real sense that we are returning to these minority postures as far as the missional leader is concerned. We are in Newbigin’s words in a “missionary culture.” Christendom is shrinking. The established church culture is getting harder and harder to work in. Devoid of a secure career path in ministry, new missionaries must think in terms of “how am I going to feed my family?” They must be open to what lies in front of them, and respond to job opportunities openly, NOT FROM A POSTURE OF HOW WILL THIS AFFECT MY LONG TERM CAREER IN MINISTRY. Instead, take a job locally, band together in groups, and work out ministry in local contexts. And when, the demands of ministry require it, be prepared to go full time. But don’t think about that right now. You’ll get to that when you get to it.

I was sitting around a living room this past Friday with some people in our missional order dinner group and I told my story. It is a winding swerving crazy story from all counts. I weaved through a financial services occupation in which I became very good in the financial services industry. I engaged a wide open future knowing I would need to get very good at one thing where I could earn a living, and that would serve me well in the rest of my life in ministry. These jobs provided not only a salary but a vision for understanding the world. Yet, as I look back, I was basically put in a position to discern what God was calling me to do each step of the way. There was no master plan. I rejected the singular career in ministry early. I did not have the luxury of choosing a career path in ministry or teaching. Instead God led in and through many different journies. I was involved in church ministry when God led us to start a community. I pursued a PhD when I applied and it was largely paid for.  One thing led to another. By placing one foot in front of another each step along the way, God led to the shape of ministry he had for me. I think this is the way of the future, because the established church and seminary teaching are shrinking as options by the day.

The missional movement needs to come to grips with the young white man’s angst whether we are white, male or not. It is probably too late for the older generation. But the younger generation needs to reconceptualize what ministry will look like. We need to understand seminary differently. A whole new world of ministry is opening up, a revolution of sorts. And the next wave into the missionary context of the West demands flexible bi-vocational cultivators of the gospel. They will inhabit locales for many many years as missionaries leading missionary communities.  I’ve done it. It is not only possible, it is a wonderful intense way to live the gospel driven life .

What say you? Is the missional movement got white male angst in it? Have you got this white male angst? Even if you’re not white? if you’re not male? Can you relate? Is this angst holding the movement back? Holding you back? How? Comments please!!

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NOTE ON THE WHITENESS OF MISSIONAL MOVEMENT: In this piece I am discussing the angst of many white young leaders. Truth be told, much of the leadership in the missional movement is white (Caucasian). There are reasons for this. Over here I have argued (against Soong Chan Rah who to my knowledge- has never really addressed this issue) that the missional movement is a rejection of the consumerism, individualism and affluent Christianity most associated with the white evangelicalism of the post WW2 generations. This is where most of the missional movement originated from in N America. Most minorities, having yet to enter that mainstream economy, and in many cases coming to the United States for the express purpose of participating in this American affluence, can hardly see this affluence etc. as something to be resisted. They cannot relate to the terms as laid down by the missional movement for a new economics. This I admit is changing. The recent downturn in the economy is causing many to at least rethink the anti-Christian formation within the promise of United States capitalism.

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Filed under Missional Leadership,Uncategorized 19 Comments

on November 1 2011

“The Fifteen Hour Rule”: A Challenge to All Church-Planters – Quit Working More Than 15 Hours!! (on your churches)

The idea of the singular professional pastor running a church doing all 18 spiritual gifts (depending on how many you read in the NT etc.) has fallen out of favor. No one believes this is possible any more. This is a relic of the hierarchies of Christendom where such consolidation made organizational sense (if not ecclesiological sense).  Any pastor trying to do this will expire from burnout. It is a denial of the Holy Spirit’s work in the body (I Cor 12). (Should we then get rid of the M Div degree as well?)

Of course mega churches are able to keep the hierarchy going by building massive staffs which employ full time specialists in each gifting, and then they employ huge cadres of volunteers for massive programs which they then call “gifts.” (which is a complete misnomer – but that is a subject for another day. On this kind of false volunteerism read Bill Kinnon here and Jamie Arpin Ricci here). But this is another story of the prolongation of Christendom past its time.

Why then, WHY WOULD WE think about planting a new missional church with a singular leader/pastor at the head of the ship?  The only reason is if we are comfortable with the notion that we can recruit enough already existing Christians to be subservient to said singular leader and form a Christendom organization for managing and distributing Christians goods and services to them. But is this church planting or church reconfiguring? Is this Mission or Marketing?

This is why, when planting a missional church/community I prefer the leaders implement “the 15 hour rule.” The “15 hour rule” says that NO PASTOR/LEADER CULTIVATING A NEW MISSIONAL COMMUNITY SHOULD WORK MORE THAN 15 HOURS A WEEK ON MISSIONAL COMMUNITY ORGANZIATIONAL FUNCTIONS (including preaching, organizing, leadership, etc.).

Of course, this is heresy in the traditional world of evangelical church plants. Most assume the new pastor works 15 hours per week just on the sermon.  Over against this traditional model I believe “the 15 hour rule” works to do the following:

 1.) It says no one pastor/leader can nurture a Christian community. It requires a minimum of 3 pastor/leaders who know the inter-relationship of their giftings according to the Eph 4 APEPT schema – Apostles/Prophets/Evangelists/Pastors/ Teachers. These pastors must work together in mutual submission to one another modeling the life of submission one to another in Christ. I’m of the mind, you put three mature leaders who know their giftings in one place for ten years who can lead out of mutual submission to Christ and His Mission, and you will have a fresh expression of the gospel (not dependent upon already existing Christians) in that place 10 years later.

2.) It promotes bi-vocationalism. This is obviously a bi-vocational model where each pastor has a job sufficient to provide a level of support which can sustain these three pastors together in the work for 10 or more years to come. Yet this also reinforces the idea that to do bi-vocational ministry as a singular pastor is VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE!! To do bi-vocational ministry – 15 hours a week max – requires at least three leaders together on the ground, praying, discerning, leading.

3.) It prevents any pastor from thinking the work of the Kingdom is dependent upon how hard he/she work. Instead, I have 15 hours to give and that’s it.  It is God who will do this work not me. I do not have to worry about results, people in the pews, offerings because by and large I am being supported in and through a job and a community. I can exercise the patience necessary to see God work among new and unreached peoples.

4.) It promotes an active body dependent upon the Spirit discerning what God is doing. Because every one in the community sees “the body” modeled by the pastorate, this kind of leadership automatically fosters a “body mentality” in the rest of the church that regularly depends upon the Spirit. We become participants in the rhythms of God’s grace in His Spirit, no meglamaniacal leadership that has predetermined goals (financial and otherwise). The community therefore becomes the arena in which and around which the Spirit can work. Leadership does not control the organization. It fosters an organization of a different kind, an organization that post facto the Spirit facilitates what God is doing.

5.) It says that there should be more than one preacher, teacher. If it is true that it takes 15 hours of prep for a good sermon, then we need to rotate it among the three pastors (and others gifted as well) so that theoretically the fifteen hours are spread out over a longer period of time than one week. This keeps the mission from being centered around one personality.  It keeps the preaching grounded in the mission and life of the community (not a single person studying 20-30 hours a week for the most brilliant exegesis).

NOW LET US BE SURE TO RECOGNIZE that there will be times when “the fifteen hour rule” must go by the wayside. As the church grows, as one’s gifts become more fully recognized, as the fruit of one’s ministry dictates more devotion to the work on the ground in fostering the Kingdom, more hours will be appropriate. This happened all the time in the NT. But, I’m of the mind that every pastor, no matter how much he/she is working within the structures of the church, must always have the ability (i.e another job skill) to go back to “the fifteen hour rule.” Because it simply re-disciplines the church to be the arena of the Spirit from which it can participate in God’s Mission in the world.

Your thoughts on “the 15 hour rule”? Outrageous? Impractical? This Can’t Be Done?

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Filed under Church Planting,Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership,Uncategorized 42 Comments

on October 18 2011

“We Are Broken”: Overcoming the ideology that stymies the church’s encounter with the LGBTQ Community

Here’s a bold claim: the church should put aside all other declarations when it comes to engaging the LGBTQ issues of our day, and start by gathering around the affirmation “We Are Broken.”

I believe the LGBTQ issue is being ideologized in American culture as well as in the church ON ALL SIDES. A church’s or individual’s public position on the issue has literally become the moniker on whether you are in or out of the evangelical orthodoxy club. I understand why people on both sides would do this. There’s important things at stake. But ideologizing the issue: i.e making the LGBTQ into a concept that one is either for or against, extracting said concept from real lives and concrete communities, and galvanizing people around one side or the other, accomplishes nothing in the church for God’s mission.

Instead of all this, I suggest we start gathering people together around the affirmation “We are Broken.” Arriving at this posture, I suggest, is the starting point for the engagement of this issue. Of course it is the posture that must be re-inhabited by the community of Jesus Christ whenever she is confronted by any fork in the road that comes when a church body is confronted with a new and or conflictual issue in culture. This posture, labeled by the words “We Are Broken,” is always the starting point for the process of discernment in Christ. We come together under the common agreement “We are Broken” and then invite others to join in as we seek the way forward for healing, redemption and new creation.

Now I admit, big denominations and large mega churches are probably too far along the process of ideologization to go this route. When money is involved, when power is assembled, we gravitate towards hot button issues and get behind agendas. So, just maybe, it shall be the missional communities working in the neighborhoods who shall make way for a renewal of a different kind.

I therefore suggest that it might be up to missional communities, confronted with the issue of same sex relations  (or for that matter other points of disagreement over how we shall lives our lives together as sexual beings) to begin by gathering in this way. Begin a conversation around the question “are we broken?” Not “are you broken?” but rather “are we broken?” The leaders of such a conversation should start by admitting “I am broken.” If the church leaders have led a perfect sexual life and never encountered issues in their own lives of sexual brokenness, then they should not be leading this issue in their local churches.  They should look to others who have struggled with issues of sexual brokenness to lead. The discerning posture cannot begin until we all gather together in the place of “we are broken.”

By saying “we are broken” we are clearing the table. Arriving at our brokenness goes beyond whether one claims a heterosexual, bi-sexual, gay, etc. sexual orientation. When the leader confesses “I am broken” it forms the safety and the space by which we gather before the cross.  Frankly, regardless of whatever sexual orientation we inhabit, if you feel like everything is perfect in your life in this regard, there simply is no need to discuss your sexuality in the church. Taking all particular sexual sins off the table, can we agree, together that WE ARE BROKEN? The gathering of people before Christ is for the broken. And …. “we are broken.”

By saying this is the place where we start, we are not (nor should we) denying the 2000 years of history in Christ, it’s time worn understandings of sexual redemption in Christ. But these understandings need to be furthered into our lives through discernment of Scripture in the Spirit. God must work to extend the depths of these understandings into our lives. None of this can happen apart from the mutual submission to Christ that comes from the place of mutual confession “we are broken.”  By saying we are broken, neither are we denying the various understandings and histories of sexual identity each person brings. Again, we come with these histories and enter in to what God is doing here. But the LGBTQ person, and the rest of us, cannot enter in to this discussion if we cannot trust one another to be in the center of God’s work. This comes by first saying “we are broken.” Then we come to the cross, that place where we together confess our brokenness and come to submit our lives to what Christ would do.

Can we then agree among our missional communities that before anyone discusses this issue, goes public with a statement on the sexual issues of our day, before we get into the actual details, or any of the issues are to be determined, before we can even discern this among ourselves, before we can even examine ourselves before the Spirit, we must make way for a safe place that is comfortable, loving and supportive where we can mutually submit to one another and say “we are broken.” From here, we can love, care and have discernments about ANYTHING.  But most importantly, from here we can submit one to another to Christ, allow His gifts, his discernments to take shape in a group. God by the Holy Spirit can work here.

Again, this kind of unusual place will probably have to happen in small missional communities (where you can avoid the ideology). Because we live in one of the most sexual charged, excessively sexually focused, sexually abused, sexually broken cultures (compare U.S.A. to Africa or even Europe), we will need to make way for these kind of places.  And so to deal with any of this, we do not need a do’s and don’t’s list of what’s permissable and what is not. We need a place where the Holy Spirit can work in and among His people, a place of uncovering. Otherwise we will get no where in this mess.

So the first item for missional communities (and I would argue for the broader church as well) to accomplish in this day of controversy over sexual relations, is discuss how we can put ideology aside, and come together in small spaces where there can be redemption because “we are broken.”

Is this possible? Is this a pipedream?

Filed under Incarnational,LGBTQ Issues,Missional Leadership 33 Comments

on October 4 2011

Put off the Launch!! When Going Public (with your Worship Service) is a Bad Thing

The word “ecclesia,” used  in the New Testament over 100 times to describe the local gathering of Christians in each city, was a word that actually referred to the public civic assembly in Greco Roman culture. It was a very public gathering where people could gather and participate in the governing of their city.  Using the word to refer to the Christian church gathering then indicates a public aspect to it. The Christian assembly is the called-out ones in each city who seek to be governed by the Lord of the universe.

By using the word ecclesia, the NT emphasizes two different aspects to the gathering. There is its public aspect to the gathering. These people are called to gather together to witness to the Kingdom before the watching world. Yet there is also the unique aspect to this gathering amidst the culture. These people are called “out” in order to witness that Jesus is Lord and not Ceasar. The ecclesia is a calling to another way of being governed– the Kingdom of God – which is at work in the world. Going public then is essential to its witness in the community. Yet it shall not be attractional in the sense of appealing to people’s immediate tastes, preferences, conveniences or needs. This is about God’s Kingdom under the rule of Christ.

All this to say it is important and essential to the witness of the gospel that a church eventually go public with its meeting. Yet, when starting a church, or as I like to refer to the process – seeding an expression of the gospel in a community – I think it best to move with caution when going public with the gathering. Take it slow. The time has to be right. Obviously, this goes against the majority of received wisdom on church planting where the so-called “launch” of the public gathering is actually viewed as the legitimating event, the founding moment – of the church plant. But I can think of at least 3 reasons to go slow.

 1.) Going public too early can derail discerning God’s Mission together in this community. When you go public before a culture of mission has been established, the community can get derailed by the newcomer Christians who “come” to your church gathering. As we all know, new church plants attract disgruntled Christians looking for something new. The new church seedling can get caught up into knitting these new folk into a cohesive body of Christ seeking God’s mission, not their own perceived wants and needs from a church. This can set back a church’s development into mission. My advice: Resist at all costs building a church body around disgruntled Christians. Instead, one by one, relationally, through prayer, the study of Scripture, the sharing of the communty’s gifts, and discerning the context, work out together what God is doing among you and in your context, seeking where God is calling you into, in the first years of your community’s life.  Then go public.

2.) Going public too early can change the focus of your gathering to numbers and success.  I can’t explain why, but for some reason when a gathering is opened to the public, and numbers of people show up, leaders start to concentrate on “how many.” If you are not well ensconced in your mission you can get immediately distracted and start focusing on the numbers coming on Sunday morning and how you can keep them coming. THIS ALWAYS DEFEATS MISSION. As Courageous Church pastor Shaun King said “I sold my soul for church attendance in our first week and I could never quite get it back.” See his story here. This automatically sets back the ecclesia formation that needs to take place as now we are focused on keeping people/Christian happy.  My advice: Resist at all costs the temptation to work to keep Christians happy and more people coming to your Sunday gathering. Focus on discipleship and mission. The church will be the outrgowth

3.) Going public too early can put the cart before the horse. A worship gathering should be a part of a rhythm of an already existing community. We should gather as part of a shared life the rest of the six days a week. It is a gathering and sending rhythm. There must be an integrity to our life together before we go public or else the Sunday morning gathering becomes a performance to attract people, as opposed to a coalescence for the celebrating of what God is doing among us and the shaping of our lives to understand it and participate in it.

It is very important to form good “political” habits in the founding of a new expression of the gospel. By “political” I mean the things that drive us to be together and live life together. There will be a correct time to go public but DON’T RUSH IT! Any stories out there of going public too early? Any other cautions we should consider when we go public with our church gathering in the world?

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Reminder! Oct 28 and 29 the Missional Learning Commons is coming to Chicagoland. We’re centering our presentations from real live missional practicioners on the issue of discipleship. What does the practice of discipleship look like in a missional church?? How do we cultivate a discipleship culture into God’s Kingdom? as opposed to just producing another program?  We will hear from and have discussions built around on-the-ground practitioners. Mike Breen and the team from 3DM will be hanging out with us to share some of what they have learned and help facilitate our conversations.

 You can register here to come to the Commons. It costs practically nothing (10 bucks) I pray God’s blessings on this year’s Missional Learning Commons!

Filed under Church Planting,Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership,Uncategorized 15 Comments

on August 18 2011

Me and Alex McManus Take 2: Here’s a “Both/And” I Can Live With!

The indefatigable Alex McManus responded to a recent post of mine (in which I responded to him) while I was out of the country last week. In his post, Alex disagrees with (among other things) my assessment of the “big and positive footprint” approach to entering a context to plant a church. I was contending, over against the “big footprint,” for a humble inhabitation of a context as the necessary pre-amble for planting a church. McManus responds:

“It is OK for something really good like the gospel of the kingdom to enter a context and make waves, to spread like wild fire, go to supernova. I also think that your proposal to go in quietly, vulnerably, delicately is also worth doing … often necessary. I think it is OK for people whose intent it is to announce the kingdom in a community to do so either way, according to the spirit that has been given them, and the dictates of the contexts they enter.”

In other words, Alex argues that it should not be an “either/or” but rather should be a “both/and.” There will be some, according to Alex, who because of the kinds of leaders they are, will enter into a context in a big way making a big and positive footprint. On the other hand, others, who don’t have that leadership gifting, will enter quietly vulnerability. Alex says we need both kinds of approaches to church plants.

Upon reflection I think I agree with the notion we need both kinds of church plants. But Alex, you still missed my point. My point is that these two approaches – option 1 (entering humbly) versus option 2 (big footprint) –  are really doing two different things contextually, and which option we do HAS NOTHING TO DO with how we’re gifted. (In fact you might need to be more entrepreneurial in the option I than option 2.). IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH OUR CALLING. Let me explain:

1.) With option 1, we enter a context humbly, vulnerably, listening first and then responding. We follow in the way of the incarnation ({Phil 2:5-11). We go as lambs  with no power or money (Luke 10:3-4). We do not set up our worship services and then expect people to come to our services and the many things we can give them. We do not assume we already know what their needs are. We inhabit a place first as servants to live, listen and learn. This is how we go to people who are outside the gospel who do not know our language, who do not respect our position inherently as professional pastors (without even knowing us). This is how we engage a community outside of the gospel for mission.

2.) With option 2 we enter a context  by announcing (launching) a large worship service. Here we offer every kind of Christian goods and service (children’s ministries, single adult ministries,  Alcoholics/Divorce recovery groups etc. etc. ). We announce we’re coming with postcards and advertising. We offer services to the community to meet needs on a massive scale. We make a “large and positive footprint.” This is how we go to already Christianized peoples (in some way) who need to be called into the gospel anew. These people are already familiar with the gospel (raised Catholic, or Lutheran or traditional Bible church in their childhood and left). They may even recognize the habit of going to church from their parents. They need to get past the perceived  cultural irrelevance of their church experiences of the past. This approach still works for these people. They will come. This is attractional in its very nature (don’t see how you can get past this) and this WILL attract the Christianized masses who still have lingering memory of their Christian cultural upbringing.  The people above (in option 1) however, will generally not be attracted to this (and please, I know there will always be examples of the few coming from totally non-churched backgrounds  in the mega churches. I speaking about the majority of people who flock to big positive foot print churches.)

So I agree with Alex McManus, there is a place for both approaches. It isn’t an either/or it’s a both/and. Yet both are valid but for different reasons! Option 1 will be post Christendom missional engagement of a context. Option 2 will be a Christendom engagement of already Christianized masses. This has nothing to do with gifting (in fact Option 1 takes as much if not more entrepreneurial gifting). It has everything to do with calling. This is a “both/and” that I can live with.

But let’s be clear. The market for option 2 is shrinking. There are less and less of the culturally Christianized left in N America and Europe. And so when we plant with option 2 in these contexts we end up competing against one another. In “market terms,” we end up competing for the leftovers of Christendom. For these reasons, in a post from two months ago, I suggested denominations in N America (and Europe) start funding Option 1 versus Option 2. I suggested we stop funding church planting and fund missionaries.

What say you? Do you buy this “both/and”?

To my bro Alex, thanks for provoking.
You’re a good man and I love you too.

Blessings on what you’re doing for the Kingdom!!

Filed under Church Planting,Missional,Missional Leadership,Post-Attractional,Post-Christendom 44 Comments

on August 8 2011

Stop Funding Church Plants 2: Three Clues Alex McManus Doesn’t Get What I Was Talking About (And I’m OK With That)

A month ago I wrote a post entitled “Stop Funding Church Plants and Start Funding Missionaries: A Plea to Denominations” which got some blog attention and an article written about it over at CT. I basically proposed that denominations rethink the way they fund church planting. Admittedly the idea was simple and probably already being done by many many people. The idea: Traditional church plants put themselves into the uneasy position of having to compete for already existing Christians due to certain numbers/financial expectations. For sure people get converted and the poor are served. Yet they end up largely reaching people who still consider going to church a reasonable thing to do on Sunday. These new churches upgrade Christian goods and services (worship experience, services to divorced, technology, etc.) around dynamic entrepreneurial leaders. All fine and good. Yet they largely don’t reach the growing post Christianized populations. (BTW I’m not saying there aren’t examples of people reached outside the Christian faith in these churches, but if the leaders are honest, it is a small minority.) So, after rehearsing this argument again, I proposed we need to encourage and nurture groups of three leader/leader couples to inhabit neighborhoods that lack a communal gospel presence. Put money here to help leaders get situated within contexts that lack gospel expression. This doesn’t happen naturally. It takes effort and support (some but not alot of money). Here, through inhabiting contexts we enter these places humbly, listening and engaging the places of hurt, need and spiritual poverty with the full orbed gospel.  I see this approach to/entrance into culture diametrically different from the approaches typically engaged by Western church – often typified by its mega churches.

Alex McManus, head of the International M Network, comments on my post here and here. I think Alex is generous with me. And I basically agree with almost everything he says. He argues for instance that leaders should be bi-vocational (saying we shouldn’t pay people for being Christians). He talks about successful entrepreneurs as being catalyst leaders. He argues passionately about “not needing to fund any missionaries because every one should be a missionary.” All these things I’ve lived and supported. So Alex and I agree on a lot of stuff, but largely I think he missed my point. After reading his posts, I strongly suspect that Alex (as well as many mega church/traditional church planters) doesn’t get that I am proposing a form of missional engagement that is different from what mega minded church “architects” see as mission.

There’s at least three clues to this in his posts.

1.)“A huge and positive footprint” In MacManus’s first post he talks about Kensington Community Church’s K2 church plant in Salt Lake City. He says “K2 hit the ground with a huge and positive footprint and established a significant mission point in a city.” I see the “big footprint” as typical of mega church ways. To me this smacks of taking up a power position in a context. We go into a context, offer all goods and services and tell people what they need. This smacks of colonialist mission. What I was proposing in “Stop Funding Church Plants” was that we (ala Luke ch. 10) enter a context meekly, humbly, vulnerably, dare I say incarnationally. To go in with a large footprint basically attracts people who already agree with us or who find what we have to offer attractive because of its power. Both I suggest work against the mission of the gospel to those who find themselves lost and totally outside the gospel. I am sure within Alex’s work there are plenty of churches doing otherwise. Nonetheless, the fact that this approach is acceptable to Alex reveals to me why he doesn’t see the need for a new church planting strategy.

2.)“A high impact entrepreneurial leader.” Again in his first post McManus is prone to extolling the virtues of high-impact entrepreneurial leaders. He is adamant that “Launching large, high-impact churches led by entrepreneurial leaders will end immediately following the death of the last born, high-impact entrepreneurial leader.” Yet I suggest the history of such “American” type leaders is that they are best at galvanizing and organizing people to create large organizations. Such leaders lead to an attractional church built around the charisma of this single leader’s gifts. Again, this works well when marketing to existing Christians and/or those with Christian memory who can be attracted to Jesus through an atractive persona. Yet I suggest (and have suggested for years) this works against mission. It approaches culture on the power terms of a power figure. It forms hierarchy. Instead, I argue that we need teams of leaders to inhabit a community and cultivate mission in the fivefold giftings (Apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher organizer, evangelist). We must do this humbly and be among the context. The other works against mission

3.) Mega attractional churches that do small groups in neighboroods are already doing what Fitch proposes. In McManus’s second post he says “I think that the author’s idea of deploying such teams is not only possible, I think it’s already happening. Where ever you have a believing home, there you have a center for world mission. The rim of fire, the cutting edge, of the Christ following mission then is located in the living room of those homes in those places where Christ is not known.” I would like to believe this is happening in mega churches but from my many observations, it ain’t. (Remember Wilowcreeks attempt at this?). Mega churches aimed at attracting can’t work against that orbit by decentralizing its people into homes. It is interesting that the two churches Alex mentioned in his posts are both large mega churches who use video venues as the means to extend their church ministries into various contexts (to be fair, Kensington plants other kinds of churches as well). It is my experience that the mega machine, the drive to attend church under the mesmerzation of the audience under a premier motivational speaker, detracts if not de capitates the leadership formation necessary to do what I am talking about in the neighborhoods. Generally speaking (did you hear me say “generally speaking”?) mega church takes you away from the neighborhood, trains people to think of ministry as production not relationships. It does not train leadership into local contexts in mutual submission to Christ leading together (out of their giftings) in the neighborhood.

So, in summary, I appreciate Alex McManus, the churches he mentions, the ministry of his brother Erwin. I love them all. Nonetheless, I think Alex didn’t get my point and I’m OK with that. No harm done!! I think what he does and the mega churches do is important. It reaches “the markets” of Christians, formerly Christianized populations for the gospel.” What I’m advocating for however is a ministry of a different kind. I am advocating for a kind of missionary presence that can reach the 60% of this country outside of those categories. It requires a different culture. A different approach that cannot be nurtured alongside mega operations simply because the ethos, the leadership, the social dynamics work against it.

Am I off here? Is McManus right? Can what I’m suggesting can be done by mega churches and mega conferences? I’m just asking? You tell me?

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CORRECTION: Erwin has rightly corrected me that both Kensington Community Church and Mosaic are large multi-site churches which do not use video venue screens to transmit the sermon via one single preacher. They use live preaching in each venue. I apologize for the error.

Filed under Church Planting,Incarnational,Missional,Missional Leadership,Uncategorized 40 Comments

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