lifeasmission

2010 Ecclesia National Gathering Reflections

February 20, 2010 // 16907 Comments »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2010/02/2010-ecclesia-national-gathering-reflections/2010+Ecclesia+National+Gathering+Reflections2010-02-20+16%3A53%3A41JR+Rozko

UPDATE: Be sure to check out what other bloggers are saying about their experience at this gathering.

Dave Fitch here and here, Ben Sternke, J.R. Briggs, Todd Hiestand, Drew Hart, and Geoff Holsclaw (not quite real).  I’ll add more as I become aware of them.

John Chandler is in.

Here’s Geoff Holsclaw’s real one.

Bob Hyatt provides his reflections here.

Jason Salamun, new to Eclclesia, reviews his time here.

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The missional community Amy and I are a part of, Life on the Vine, is a part of Ecclesia,

a relational network of churches, leaders and movements that seek to equip, partner and multiply missional churches and movements.

Before I offer some reflections on the national gathering that just concluded, I wanted to mention a few of the unique features of Ecclesia that compel me to appreciate this network more than others.

The Kingdom of God.  As opposed to one particular understanding of the gospel, Eccelsia finds unity in Jesus’ message of the Kingdom thus making room for those who articulate the good news in different ways.

Relationships/Partnerships.  Through and through, Ecclesia is relationally driven. They exhibit no desire for the network to be central, but rather labor to facilitate relationships and partnerships between leaders and churches.

Affirmation of Women.  We still have work to do in this area, but especially at this years gathering which featured a husband wife team as keynote presenters, we put on display what I hope continues to emerge as as a stated value for the importance of men and women partnering in ministry.

I could probably add more, but on to the reflections I go.

Dallas Willard and Bob & Mary Hopkins were the speakers for the main sessions. Todd Hunter was supposed to be there as well, but needed to cancel for personal and understandable reasons.

Dallas was brilliant.  Wisdom seemed to pour out of this man as he spoke.  His main theme through the week was “knowledge.”  He wasn’t speaking of the intellectual/factual sort of knowledge, but the relational/experiential sort. His aim seemed to be that we would be known not just for what we do, but what we deeply, personally, and powerfully know to be true about God and life in God’s Kingdom.

One of the topics Dallas took up in a break out session was that of religious pluralism.  Central to that conversation was the issue of homosexuality.  As he so often does Dallas reframed the trajectory of the conversation by commenting,

I think homosexuality is a disastrous lifestyle, but heterosexuality ain’t doing so good either. And if it weren’t for the failings of heterosexuality, homosexuality may not be such a huge issue.

This is what Dallas does best.  He brings a frame of reference that just isn’t on the radar for so many people.  For Dallas, the main issue is always is our nuanced journey into Christlike character as opposed to simple doctrinal statements or moral judgments.

Bob & Mary Hopkins were equally excellent. Mainly they talked about the functioning of teams and incarnational/contextual issues of church planting and ministry.

They shared from their years of experience with church planting and equipping church leaders and teams in the UK.

Everything that Willard and the Hopkins’ had to say was insightful and helpful, but I don’t think it was my favorite part of the week.  My favorite part of the week was the consistency and pervasiveness of voices from within the network.  A big part of this was the size of the gathering – capped at 200.  But more than that, the structure of the gathering featured panel sessions, extended Q&A sessions, and specific opportunities for us to hear, both as a large group and via breakout sessions, from those who are leading local churches within the network.

I may have some more thoughts that surface later, but for now, here’s the twitter stream (#eng2010) from the conference as well as the live blog we used.  The audio from the conference should be available soon and I’ll be sure to let you know when it is.

Posted in LOV, church planting, conference, ecclesia, kingdom, leadership

Reflections on the Missional Learning Commons

January 18, 2010 // 15971 Comment »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2010/01/reflections-on-the-missional-learning-commons/Reflections+on+the+Missional+Learning+Commons2010-01-18+18%3A46%3A45JR+Rozko

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

Missional Learning Commons

January 8, 2010 // 1590No Comments »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2010/01/missional-learning-commons/Missional+Learning+Commons2010-01-08+17%3A48%3A03JR+Rozko

This afternoon Amy and I are joining about a dozen others from our church community as attenders at a Missional Learning Commons in Ft. Wayne, IN.

At the invitation of Dave Fitch (who has blogged about this gathering here), I attended my first one of these in December of 2007 before Amy was in Chicago.  Last year Amy attended without me as I was in Kenya.  So, especially since we have committed as a couple to helping cultivate a new missional community in the next year, I am really excited for us to get to participate in one of these together.

Here’s what I love about this event.

A) It’s free.  And that’s not because it sucks.  It’s because the “business” of Christian resourcing needs to die.

B) It’s local.  The people who attend these every year have a real chance to stay meaningfully connected.

C) It’s not about personalities.  Those who speak, are more like conversation starters.  There is much more time given to dialogue than monologue.

D) There’s no hype.  No book sales, no t-shirts, no vendors.

It’s just a band of brothers and sisters who are trying get on the same page about the implications of a missional ecclesiolgy as Christendom continues to crumble here in the midwest.  It’s a living example of what I meant when I blogged about “The Power and Promise of Regional Gatherings for the Equipping of Missional Churches.”

Looking forward to a great weekend of connecting, discussing, dreaming, and praying.

Posted in Amy, LOV, christendom, church, conference, midwest, missional

Toward a Missional Vision of Theological Education: Character Formation

December 2, 2009 // 135110 Comments »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2009/12/toward-a-missional-vision-of-theological-education-character-formation/Toward+a+Missional+Vision+of+Theological+Education%3A+Character+Formation2009-12-02+20%3A13%3A38JR+Rozko

Previous posts in this Series:

Preliminary Thoughts | The Root of the Problem | The Fruit of the Problem | New Soil | Community Rootedness

In my last post I tried to make a case for the necessity of theological education of missional leaders being rooted in missional community.  With this as a contextual prerequisite, I would further suggest that the ultimate aim of a missionally oriented process of leadership training is the formation of Christlike character.

more of this artist’s amazing photography here

It is too naive to suggest that Christendom was wholly uncritical of the character of Christian leaders.  It is more accurate to say that there’s an inherent assumption within Christendom that if we can only ensure that our leaders believe all the right things, their character will follow suit.  This has turned out to be a deeply lamentable mistake.

It may be necessary for me to reiterate at this point that I am no anti-intellectual.  You would never find me downplaying the importance of continuing study, exposure to new perspectives and ideas, or deep, thoughtful reflection.  Instead, I would suggest that a missional vision of theological education will only value intellectual dimensions of training inasmuch as they contribute to the formation of Christlike character in missional leaders.  Therefore, we might expect a missional vision of theological education to…

1) Train leaders how to think as opposed to telling them what to think.   This is only possible when we humbly buy into the reality that our systems of truth are all fallible and trust that encouraging leaders to follow Jesus is preferable to warning them of the dangers of venturing outside of a particular theological grid.  Thus, through books, articles, media, speakers, discussions, conferences, etc., we may freely (and wisely!) expose leaders to various biblical/theological traditions and perspectives.  Where the rubber meets the (missional) road, so to speak, is in the questions we encourage students to ask of what they are being exposed to.  I won’t go into them here,* but I submit that a missional vision of what it means to be the Body of Christ inclines us to ask different questions of all that we learn than that of Christendom.**

2) Conjoin all intellectual study with missional practice. Only given the assumptions of Christendom could we have divorced religious study from community based missional practice and witness.  A missional vision of the church and theological education is characteristically and relentlessly incarnational.  Missional theology is nothing if not that which we come to know about God as we participate in God’s mission in the world through the Body of Christ.  In this light, I would suggest that each and every aspect of intellectual study find its place within a structure of missional practice which includes both personal and corporate spiritual disciplines.

3) Develop a community based assessment of a leaders process of character development.  When character formation is the central issue in the equipping of missional leaders, time frames are perfunctory.  It’s not one’s ability to make it through a process that qualifies them as a leader, but the manner in which they participate and their holistic development from start to finish.  It takes a community to discern these things.  As valuable as having the commitment and support of a community is to a leader in training, their willingness to speak the truth in love regarding their development is every bit as essential.  Incorporating various means of mentorship and scheduling regular checkpoints between leaders and communities are key components of a missional vision of theological education.

What we know and what we can do as leaders isn’t just meaningless w/o Christlike character, it’s actually negative, destroying the very nature of what it means to follow Jesus and participate in God’s mission in the world.  As Jesus was only worth following inasmuch as he said and did as God said and did, so too are his disciples w/o power and authority if they are not leading out of this sort of Christlike character.

This is all relates to the subject of my next post, the shaping of convictions.  Hope to have some helpful dialogue before then though, so let’s have at it!

*You can find a very helpful article on this subject here.
**In proposing this I readily (and happily) admit that we will always be coming from a particular (hermeneutical) vantage point.  I will explore this further in a future post, but the notion of some completely objective posture in the formation of leaders is neither possible nor desirable.

Posted in Jesus, bible, books, christendom, church, community, conference, discipleship, leadership, missional, modernity, preaching/teaching, spiritual formation, theological education, theology

The Scripture & Culture Seminar with Darrell Guder and Andy Crouch

October 24, 2009 // 1303No Comments »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2009/10/the-scripture-culture-seminar-with-darrell-guder-and-andy-crouch/The+Scripture+%26+Culture+Seminar+with+Darrell+Guder+and+Andy+Crouch2009-10-24+14%3A44%3A11JR+Rozko

Get in on this!

Here’s the twitter stream for the #ecclesia hastag
[iframe http://twubs.com/ajax360/embed/ecclesia/? 500 400]

Posted in church, conference, culture, leadership, missional, social networking

The Power & Promise of Regional Gatherings for the Equipping of Missional Churches

October 20, 2009 // 128211 Comments »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2009/10/the-power-promise-of-regional-gatherings-for-the-equipping-of-missional-churches/The+Power+%26+Promise+of+Regional+Gatherings+for+the+Equipping+of+Missional+Churches2009-10-20+14%3A04%3A39JR+Rozko

A bit of background to this post…

I used to want to be the next Rick Warren or Bill Hybels.  What student pastor in the late 90’s didn’t?  As I look back, my misaligned, youthful arrogance was fueled in large part by the national conferences I was attending.  Predicated on the modern notion that bigger is always better, these conferences communicated and celebrated the paradoxical and lamentable reality of “Christian celebrity.”

These conferences sprang up from and in turn sought to facilitate the modern megachurch phenomenon.  And, in my opinion, did/do more harm than good.  In the Christian world, when it comes to conferences, the national variety tends to capitalize on the “cool factor,” something that seems grossly out of place to me now for those who follow a crucified Savior.

At national conferences there are typically big name speakers, higher attendance and more bells and whistles.  (Maybe even a dude jumping into a foot of water from 35 feet up?)  National conferences, at least the better ones, can have value for inspiring people I suppose, but I would venture to say that regional gatherings possess far more power and value in terms of their ability to help shape and equip the church and her leaders.  Here’s just a few reasons why I say that.

• Relationships are more easily cultivated and sustained
• With greater ease and interest, topics of conversation move from the theoretical to the practical
• Traveling costs are much lower
• Conference costs are much lower (if not free like Verge LA which my friend JR Woodward (@dreamawakener) is helping to put together
• Conversations regarding context and culture gain more immediate traction
• The loss of the “cool factor” translates into a higher caliber of fellow attenders
• Virtually everyone gets to participate in meaningful ways
• There is greater access to gifted people who would probably never get invited to present at a national gathering because they are w/o book deals and cult followings
• There is no hype to distract from the more important issues being addressed
• Young and impressionable leaders aren’t made to feel inadequate or handed delusions of grandeur

For these reasons and still others, I am hopeful that we will see more and more groups who exist to strengthen the missional church and her leaders investing in regional gatherings.  And where and when national gatherings continue, my hope is that they will focus on supporting regional networks, leaving the hype behind.

Posted in church, conference, leadership, missional, modernity, networking, preaching/teaching, stewardship, sustainability, western culture