• Archive for January, 2010

    Transitioning Traditional Churches into Missional Ones

    January 29, 2010 // 24 Comments »

    A little over a week ago, my cousin-in-law Josh, asked how one might go about transitioning traditional churches into “something more missional at its core.”  Since I have banged my head against this wall for years in several different churches, my response will be a mixture of, “here’s where I failed,” and “here’s what I think is most helpful.”  For anyone who might have missed them, my posts on, “The Move: The Journey from Attractional to Missional,” and “What is Missional?” would be really helpful in understanding where I am coming from.

    I should say a few things at the beginning to help frame my thoughts.

    1) This is a wine skins issue (Mt. 9:17).  Anyone considering this topic who thinks (whether they realize it or not) that this is basically about getting new wine into old wine skins is destined for frustration and failure – I speak from experience!  Missional churches represent brand new wine skins, not just new wine.

    2) This takes a long time.  The most experienced people will tell you 8-10 years minimum.  When we are talking about changing the core identity of, not just a person, but a community, we have to expect a long hard road.  An apt analogy – God got Israel out of Egypt in pretty short order, but it took another 40 years to get Egypt out of Israel.

    3) No one person is capable of maneuvering this transition.  Solo pastors are dead in the water in this regard.  And this isn’t to say that the better way is having a team of top-down leaders – this will end up being damaging as well.  One of the keys to instilling missional DNA in a church community is inspiring and encouraging new imagination from the bottom.

    Those things being said, what does it take?  What might the process look like?

    My short answer is,

    A Spirit-guided intermingling of communal practices, teaching, and prayerful reflection.

    Here’s my slightly-longer expansion on those three things.

    I take for granted that fundamental to the distinctions of “traditional” and “missional” is a vision of what it means to be the church in Post-Christendom vs. Christendom.  My personal opinion (others may disagree) is that there is no point in talking about what it means to be a missional church until Christendom has been rejected as a cultural value. Thus, transitioning traditional churches to missional ones is a non-linear process of deconstruction and reconstruction.  Communal practices, teaching, and reflection are the tools which assist in this ongoing task.  It would be a (classically modern) mistake to think of this as a mainly intellectual enterprise.  Instead, in the integration of these things, deconstruction and reconstruction happen alongside one another.

    Since there is no universal model to apply to this topic, we are better served by asking general questions that need to be answered in specific contexts.  Here are some questions which I think would serve us well in maneuvering this sort of transition.

    – In both small numbers as well as large, what are the practices we can engage in as a community that will shape us into people and “a people” who think and act like Jesus?

    – As we try to be honest with ourselves, what things are we doing as a community that don’t seem to be contributing to our spiritual formation?

    – How do we incorporate space in our times together (in homes, in meetings, in gatherings) to intentionally reflect on and respond to what we sense God is speaking and doing in our community?

    – Who are those in our community who seem most gifted to teach (identified by the fruit of their teaching helping people become more like Jesus)? How can we encourage these people to engage with authors and speakers who are dealing with the subject of missional ecclesiology on our behalf?

    – How do we make incremental yet strategic changes in the percentage of money that goes to those things which ensure our security as opposed to those things which necessitate faith in the midst of great risk?

    Over and above questions like these, I would also suggest these sort of biblical principles for those who shoulder the responsibility for a transition like this:

    – Find people of peace who can be trusted and are willing to commit to the journey. Ask for their help.

    – Demonstrate servant leadership by being open, transparent, and broken.

    – Commit to structures of biblical conflict resolution.  Entrust to God’s care those who choose to leave (there will be many and this is not necessarily a sign of poor leadership).

    OK, there’s some initial thoughts.  I’m sure I’ll have more so I hope to continue the discussion by way of comments.

    Posted in christendom, church, community, leadership, missional, modernity, post-christendom, prayer, preaching/teaching, questions, spiritual formation, theology

    Networking & Generosity

    January 22, 2010 // No Comments »

    My wife, Amy, works for an organization that we both love, International Teams.

    Their main aim is,

    Bringing People Together to Help the Oppressed.

    To this end, they recruit, train, and mobilize people to serve on teams all around the world who are working to address some of the greatest challenges in the world today – things like urban poverty, human trafficking and slavery, and the needs of refugees.

    On occasion, I have the opportunity to use some of my skills and abilities to help them out with small projects.  In a couple cases, they have asked me to help build websites for various events and communication needs.  This is something I enjoy doing, but by no means am I professional.  The platform I know best is WordPress, so that is what I am inclined to use.  But, WordPress is designed to be a blogging platform, not as a website builder per se.

    So, what do you do when you’re doing work for a non-profit, but don’t have much of a budget to work with?  You look to network in the hopes of discovering people of generosity.

    Two groups have come through big time!

    iThemes, who builds premium WordPress themes, was kind enough to donate their Flexx theme to assist in the creation of the sort of sites that I am looking to build.

    A couple guys also got together and wrote a book called, “Digging into WordPress.“  It’s a tremendous resource for those who are looking to get to know WordPress from the inside out.  They were gracious enough to donate a PDF copy of their book.

    For a networker like me, who loves to help other people out when he can, it’s a huge encouragement to receive the help of others when it’s needed.  If you are in the market for a stellar WordPress theme be sure to visit the people at iThemes.  If you want to do some self-instructing in the world of WordPress, this book, “Digging into WordPress,” is a must have.

    Thanks to both these groups for being generous with their products.

    http://ithemes.com/

    Posted in blogging, networking

    Skribit

    January 20, 2010 // No Comments »

    In my constant quest to make this blog as interactive as possible, I’ve added a Skribit widget to the right where you can suggest topics for discussion here at lifeasmission.  Anxious to see what sort of suggestions you all might come up with.

    Posted in blogging

    What do Missional Leaders Think About the Future of Theological Education?

    January 18, 2010 // No Comments »

    While I really enjoyed writing out my own thoughts on a missional vision of theological education at the end of last year, I was really wanting to get around a bunch of missional leaders to get their opinions on some key questions.  Being at the Missional Learning Commons two weekends ago was a great opportunity to do just that.

    Here were the questions we wresteled with…

    1) What are the skills necessary for missional leadership which differ from those needed for  pastoral roles within Christendom?

    2) Currently, what are the most important resources that seminaries have to offer for the equipping of missional leaders/communities?

    3) What resources for the formation of missional leaders/communities are offered through other avenues?

    4) To whatever extent I feel prepared to live or lead missionally, the thing which has equipped me most in that regard is…

    You can see how people responded to those questions here.

    I also invited everyone who attended to do a brief online survey answering some different questions on the same topic.  If you’d like to participate, you can find the survey here.

    And of course, for the sake of discussion, feel free to offer any responses here in the comment section.

    Posted in leadership, missional, theological education

    Reflections on the Missional Learning Commons

    // 1 Comment »

    Amy and I had a great time at the Missional Learning Commons in Ft. Wayne two weekends ago.

    The theme of the weekend was,”Deeper Church.”  Essentially what that meant was having discussions about certain topics which surface when we stop thinking about church as a worship service with a host of corresponding programs and begin to embrace church as a way of life in which we are joining God in his mission of reconciliation and the restoration of all things.  Some may want to try and explain how these are really two ways of saying the same thing, but for the vast majority of people who have been involved in this conversation for any length of time, the differences are too real and too important to dismiss with semantic gymnastics.

    On Friday night there were maybe 30 people in attendance to discuss Soong-chan Rah’s book, The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity.  This conversation was continued as the topic of the final session on Saturday.  Both conversations were engaging and helpful.  While the book had clear shortcomings and oversights, it served as a springboard for us to ask the question, “Why are missional congregations so white?”  We see this as a problem because implicit in missional theology is the value for listening to voices from the margins of society – something which should be a no-brainer to those of us who regard Scripture (a book authored by those speaking from the margins of society!) as our guiding text.  Those who live on the margins of society have much to teach those of us who don’t and the longer our congregations remain socio-economically and culturally homogeneous, the more the Body of Christ, and by implication, the world to which we testify of an alternative reality, suffers.

    In light of that, we had discussions about the practices of deeper churches, what sharing the gospel means and looks like for deeper churches, and whether or not these deeper churches should have paid staff.  This session was led by a 3-person panel: Matt Tebbe one of the pastors of Life on the Vine who is bi-vocational, JR Woodward, who raises all of his support, and Bob Havenor, who was advocating for an up-paid approach to church leadership.

    Thanks to Ben Sternke who put the missional commons site together, you can find audio from all of the sessions here.

    If you are in the midwest and interested in the missional conversation, I hope you’ll consider joining us next year – details TBD.

    Posted in bi-vocational, books, christendom, conference, LOV, midwest, missional

    Blog Relocation

    January 11, 2010 // 1 Comment »

    Just a quick note to lifeasmission readers.  I am moving to a new hosting company.  I’ve never made a move like this before so I am not entirely sure what to expect.  Just wanted to let you know in case the site goes down for a time.

    As soon as everything gets transferred over and we’re up and running, keep your eyes peeled for some reflections on the Missional Learning Commons from this past weekend.  It was chalk full of great stuff!

    Posted in blogging

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