• Archive of "missional" Category

    Dr. Rozko?

    August 30, 2010 // 26 Comments »

    I have a decision to make.  Several months ago I wrote a post about Fuller pulling together a DMiss cohort around the topic of Anabaptist Perspectives in Missional Ecclesiology.  I applied to this program and it is scheduled to begin this November.

    In the meantime, I accepted a job here in the Chicagoland area at Northern Seminary which is pulling together its own DMin cohort around the topic of missional leadership.

    Of course each program comes with its own features and benefits.  Both programs are cohort-based and non-residential, but let me lay out some of the distinctives of each program and see what sort of thoughts and advice you might have to offer.

    The DMiss…

    The DMiss, like a PhD, is a research driven program.  The program moves from theological/missiological considerations to issues of context and culture, and finally, to leadership and change dynamics.  The final year is given to integration, assessment, and dissertation writing.  The cohort will be led, primarily, by Wilbert Shenk and James Krabill.

    The DMin…

    The DMin is a course driven program, the topics such as, “The Church in Post-Christendom, The Gospel and Culture, Missional Theology, and Misional Leadership.”  The program culminates in the writing of a thesis.  David Fitch is leading the cohort while Al Roxburgh and Craig Van Gelder will be involved as well.

    I think very highly of both of these schools and their programs.  I think both programs will do immeasurable good in equipping men and women for service in and to missional churches, but I go back and forth on which one is the best for me, at this time, given the larger scope of all that God is doing in my life.

    What sort of questions would you be asking if you were me?  What aspects of doctoral level education do you believe are most important and relevant?

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    Posted in Fuller Seminary, Northern Seminary, leadership, missional, theological education

    Viral Hope: Good News from the Urbs to the Burbs (and everything in between)

    April 7, 2010 // 5 Comments »

    Almost a year ago to the day, my friend JR Woodward asked me to contribute a post to a series he was doing on his blog.

    I was asked to answer the question,

    If your local city newspaper asked you to describe the ‘Good News,’ what would you write?

    I was living and pastoring in Memphis, TN at the time, a city broken and divided in many ways, so I was more than happy to participate.

    A year later, that series has morphed into a book, Viral Hope: Good News from the Urbs to the Burbs (and everything in between).

    The most exciting thing about the book, to me anyway, is that as I read these essays, I realize that I am privileged to personally know about 1/2 of these men and women who have a deep gospel hope for the place in which they live.  I’m almost as excited that this book marks the debut of Ecclesia Press, a new publishing division of the Ecclesia Network that I think has the potential to be a huge resource to missional church leaders by giving voice to those who are in the missional trenches, seeking to cultivate disciples and communities that join in God’s mission in the world.

    Here’s a blog post with links to the 50 authors of the book and their original posts.

    If you are looking to pick up 1-4 copies of the book, you’ll need to go to Amazon.  But, if you’d like to pick up 5 or more, be sure to go to the Ecclesia Press site to get discounts based on the quantity of your order.

    You can follow ViralHopeBook, EcclesiaPress, and EcclesiaNet on twitter.  Or, if you really wanna get crazy, you can follow me ;)

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    Posted in books, ecclesia, missional

    Alan Hirsch – Making Missional Marketable

    March 31, 2010 // 22 Comments »

    I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Alan Hirsch.  The book he co-authored with Mike Frost, The Shaping of Things to Come, was the first I read that began to help me understand the angst I felt with the attractional model of church so prevalent in the US.

    This is why I was so thrown a few days ago when I read that Alan Hirsch had asserted that American Christianity is the great hope for the Church in the West.  He made comments to this point in the opening remarks of his talk at a conference called “Verge” in Texas.  You can view the video (Session 2) here.  At one point he said,

    If we don’t win the battle of the decline of the church here in the states, then it’s not going to come from anywhere else.  We will win or lose the battle over here in the states.

    His rationale seemed to be that 1) the Church is the rest of the West is all but dead and 2) that Americans have a built-in entrepenurial (apostolic) sort of spirit.

    On this count, I was surprised and disappointed on 2 levels.

    First, he seemed to communicate a latent assumption that “the West” maintains a position of superiority in terms of global Christianity.  He admitted that Christianity is growing in non-Western parts of the world, but never suggested that our hope might lie in learning from what God is going there.

    Secondly, he referenced the American entrepreneurial spirit as the key factor in our ability to “win the battle of the decline of the church.”  I was blown away!  I was immediately reminded of a quote by Einstein, which, even more surprisingly, he referenced later, but totally misused,

    We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

    It is American entrepreneurialism that got us into the mess of creating a church system predicated on the cultural values of individualism and consumerism.  Relying on the same characteristic is hardly a promising solution.

    Over and above all these disappointments comes a more biblical/theological one, namely, that putting our hope in anything except for a willingness to sacrifice what is most dear to us, to listen to the voices of those on the margins, and to trust God with our future (which may very well mean the increasing marginalization of the church), is, in any sense, in keeping with God’s desire for the Body of Christ.

    There was a 2nd major part to Hirsch’s presentation that really made me nervous.

    He made the claim that the dominant expression of church in America, that of the seeker-sensitive/attractional model, has a market appeal to about 40% of the American population.  This yields what Hirsch called a “strategic problem” and a “missionary problem.”

    The “strategic problem” is that 95% of the churches in the US are seeking to become the kind of church that appeals to this same 40% of the population.

    The “missionary problem” is that 60% (and growing) of our population is being virtually ignored.

    So far so good, but at one point Alan was commenting on attractional types of churches that are “reaching” the 40% of the American population and said, “Those who do this well should strive to do it better.”  Not change what they are doing, just do more of the same, better.

    In affirming an attractional (or what he is now calling ex-tractional) model of church simply because it succeeds in drawing a crowd, he fails to critique the most devastating reality, namely, that these churches, on the whole, don’t make disciples. By and large, they facilitate the already pervasive nominal christianity that pervades at least 40% of the American population.

    Let me try to summarize my push back on what I am hearing and seeing from Alan Hirsch as of late.

    1) Putting our eggs in the basket (Easter week!) of the American church is futile, if not sinful.  This is exactly how we got where we are and trying harder ain’t gonna cut it.  It may very well be that God is at work killing off a defunct ecclesial trajectory and we would do better to repent and ask for mercy than to rely on any ability we think we possess to save the day.

    2) Alan is right, there is a descent portion of the American population that has some natural affinity with the sort of church which thrives in Christendom.  But, merely because people will respond to an attractional model of church does not make it ok.  A pragmatic victory is almost never a biblical one.  Attractional models of church are built on the cultural values of individualism and consumerism and, save for the grace of God, are incapable of yielding the sort of disciples the world desperately needs.

    I have a serious and growing concern regarding the temptation to make missional marketable.  The temptation is especially seductive to those who, like Alan, have a deep love for the church as the Body of Christ and want to see it thrive.  But, if God means for missional theology/ecclesiology to benefit the church, it will remain an invitation to repentance, sacrifice, and death.  This sort of invitation has never had much market appeal, especially in the US.

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    Posted in christendom, church, consumerism, culture, discipleship, individualism, missional, theology, western culture

    Anabaptist Missional Ecclesiology – Doctor of Missiology

    March 15, 2010 // 6 Comments »

    All good missional ecclesiology is owing to the Anabaptist tradition.  I came to understand that at some point in grad school and have only become more convinced of it since.

    This is why I want to let everyone I can know about an incredible opportunity coming up this fall.  Ever heard of a DMiss? If you haven’t, you need to familiarize yourself.

    The DMiss is an applied research doctoral degree designed for ministry practitioners as opposed to straight academics, but its focus is missiology – an increasingly vital dimension of study for those engaged in ministry within Post-Christendom.

    This fall Fuller Theological Seminary is launching an “Anabaptist Missional Perspectives Cohort” for those interested in the DMiss program.  From Fuller’s page on the DMiss program…

    The Doctor of Missiology degree equips leaders to effectively integrate theory into missional praxis within the global reality of the twenty-first century.  With this program, key leaders will continue their ministries in-context, attending a cohort-based seminar once a year for four years at Fuller’s campus, and interacting with a Fuller SIS faculty member.

    The DMiss program is designed for leaders with a minimum of five years of missional experience who desire:
    1. To assist mission leaders in context.
    2. To have direct impact on practical ministry.
    3. To maximize their leadership potential within their organizations.

    If you’re interested in anabaptism or missional ecclesiology, have already got a masters degree, are looking for some more education, and are convinced, like me, that the best forms of education are those rooted in a learning community of engaged Christian leaders, you really need to check out this program.  Deadline for applications is the end of May and if you hurry, you might even be able to get a refund on your application fee!

    Learn more about the cohort model of education here.

    Learn more about the program structure here.

    Let me know if you have any questions, I’d love to talk more about it.  And please forward this on to others you think might be interested.

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    Posted in Fuller Seminary, anabaptist, missional, theological education

    Missional Preaching Part 2: Preaching as the Proclamation of Biblical Truth

    February 12, 2010 // No Comments »

    In my last post I was making the claim that given a missional ecclesiology, the practice of preaching is a communal activity.  On top of this, I would like to suggest that preaching in missional churches seeks to proclaim biblical truth.

    Now, don’t miss this. I don’t mean “proclaim biblical truth” in the fundamentalist, “The Bible says it, so that’s the end of discussion and you’re stupid if you don’t see it” sort of way that’s maddeningly common, but in the, “In faith, we proclaim this to be true about God and life in God’s Kingdom,” sort of way.

    Because missional churches seek to shape a people for mission in a Post-Christendom world, every activity of the community, including preaching, is meant to be a formative practice in this regard.  As Stutzman says in the paper mentioned previously,

    Missional preaching deliberately draws contrasts between the gospel message and the practices and values of American civil religion, aiming for conversion from habits shaped by participation in American democracy to habits formed through Christian discipleship.

    In preaching, missional churches seek to proclaim the truth of the reality of God’s Kingdom in the midst of every other competing reality.  The point of preaching for missional churches is not anthropocentric/therapeutic - meant to make people feel emotionally better.  Nor does it seek primarily to be relevant in order to captivate or entertain an audience.  It is not even so concerned with being exegetical or expository – patently cerebral types of communication.  Missional preaching is theocentric – it is a practice in which we look for God’s reality to intersect with ours and DO something in us and in our midst.

    So, for instance, each and every sermon preached at Life on the Vine features a rhetorical phrase of some sort.  This is a simple way to articulate the truth that is being proclaimed from the morning’s text.  The rest of the sermon, normally about 20-25 minutes since it’s not seen as more central than any other part of the liturgy, is spent, not unpacking a text, but proclaiming a biblical truth from that text that addresses us and calls us all to some response.

    For instance, this summer I preached from Genesis 49 and proclaimed the truth that,

    Our hope in the promises of God rests on God’s character, not ours.

    The aim in my preaching of this sermon wasn’t mainly to explain the text so that people could understand and try to apply it to their lives, but to proclaim the truthfulness of the text by calling out what it was DOING, namely, calling its hearers to believe, not believe by intellectual assent, but believe by ordering their lives around, this biblical truth.

    And the only way to get at this, is to call for a real response.  That’s our topic for next time.

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    Posted in LOV, church, community, corporate worship, liturgy, missional, post-christendom, preaching/teaching, theology, truth

    Missional Preaching Part 1: Preaching as a Communal Activity

    February 9, 2010 // 10 Comments »

    Not too long ago I offered a post on, “Preaching in the Missional Church.”  Basically it was an excuse to pimp this awesome paper by Ervin Stutzman of Eastern Mennonite University.  Apparently that wasn’t enough for my good friend Wess, who asked what missional preaching looks like ;)

    To try and do justice to Wess’ question, the importance of the topic and to make space for better discussion, I’ve decided to divy this up into three posts.  I’ve got in mind to describe three unique attributes of preaching in missional churches and then illustrating them by way of examples from Life on the Vine, the missional community Amy and I are a part of. (Dave Fitch, one of the co-pastors of LOV, offers some reflections on this same topic here.)

    In missional communities, preaching is a communal activity which seeks to proclaim biblical truth that calls for and invites a real response.

    In most churches, the task of preaching is the responsibility of one individual – 9 times out of 10, a man.  Not only does the task of preaching often remain unshared, but the scope of preaching does as well.  This reality conflicts with the communal nature of missional theology and ecclesiology.

    In missional communities, one of the central aims would be for a team of teachers, whose giftedness is affirmed by the congregation, to share responsibility not only for preaching and teaching, but for giving their time and attention to identifying and equipping other gifted teachers in the body.

    Life on the Vine is shepherded by a 3-person team of bi-vocational pastors.  Not only do they share teaching and preaching responsibilities, but they also facilitate what we call a “College of Preachers,” every summer.  This gives those who have (or at least want to discover if they have) the gift of teaching, the opportunity to use and explore this gift in a guided way.

    In addition, we follow the church calendar.  This means that we are all aware, well ahead of time, of those texts which will be preached each Sunday.  Whoever is responsible for the preaching portion of our liturgical service also facilitates a time of teaching and dialogue for an hour or so before the worship service.  This time gives the entire body the opportunity to speak to the text for the morning and it gives the preacher the opportunity to (re)shape their sermon in light of the insights, questions, and concerns of the body.

    I’ll speak to the issue of missional preaching proclaiming biblical truth next time.  For now, what are your thoughts on preaching as a communal activity?  Is this important to you?  Why or why not?  What might be other ways to achieve the same goal in different ways?

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    Posted in LOV, church, community, corporate worship, liturgy, missional, post-christendom, preaching/teaching, theology, truth

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