In Part 3 of the book (Who we are as Individuals) the author states that “The only safe generalization about Americans today is that ‘how they look’ is no longer an indication of ‘how they act’.”

The has used ‘psychographic analysis’ to segment Americans into five statistically distinctive categories.

Here are the five segments of Americans from Luntz:

1. Thirty percent of Americans are “Relationship People”. This is the largest segment of the American population, it’s also the youngest. To them, relationships can mean friends, family, or spouse. Their whole idea of the good life is to be with someone all the time. They get their satisfaction out of interacting with other people. They don’t care as much about jobs or careers. They are generally satisfied with their life today, but very nervous about tomorrow. They don’t save; they spend, and they enjoy spending on other people as much, if not more than, on themselves.

2. Twenty-five percent of Americans are “Spiritual People”. This is the oldest and most female-oriented of the five segments. What unites them, in addition to the importance of religion and prayer, are the principles of simplicity and efficiency. They don’t need or want to spend money to be happy. They have older cars and TV sets; they don’t have TiVo or satellite radio. They’re not just late adopters, they’re non-adopters because stuff doesn’t matter to them. If Relationship People are the loudest group, Spiritual People are the quietest. They tend to do things in their spare time that don’t require other people, such as reading and listening to music. They appreciate the outdoors (they are environmentalists) and they have a respect for natural beauty.

3. Eighteen percent of Americans are “Health People”. They’re younger than average, more male than female, and they’re the segment most likely to participate than to observe. You won’t just meet this segment at the gym or on the basketball or tennis court – you’ll find them shopping at Whole Foods and having a snack at Jamba Juice. They’re similar to the Spiritual segment in their desire to be outdoors, but they’re parallel to the Relationship segment in their desire to be with others. They are the most physically active of all the groups and put a lesser emphasis on career and financial success.

4. Twelve percent of Americans are “Control People”. These people can be very unpleasant to be around. For them, it’s not about money; it’s about more time and less hassle. They have everything planned out. Their intensity is similar to the Health segment, but while the Healthy are engaged in physical activity, Control People are engaged in mental or intellectual activity. Control People want to be doing something other than what they’re doing; they think today is awful, but tomorrow is going to be great. This is the flip side, demographically, of the Spiritual segment in that these people are almost exclusively under 50 and more male than female. They’re the mirror image in another way: Stuff matters. Their stereo is high-end, and their TV screen is huge. In fact, everything is bigger; they want the newest and the best of everything. They’re willing to spend money, and they work longer hours than the other segments to be able to afford it.

5. Eleven percent of Americans are “Financial Security People”. The fastest-growing segment, these people are always unhappy and dissatisfied, and in the current economic mess, they’re downright miserable. They judge themselves by how other people judge them. Their reputations mean more to them than they do for any other segment. They’re the opposite of self-satisfied; they’re almost self-loathing. They have a ton of material goods, but they buy things to make a status statement rather than to enjoy them. They tend to be older and wealthier than average, although you’ll find plenty of people in their 30s in this segment. They own; they don’t rent or lease because they want whatever it is to belong to them – and they’re dissatisfied when they can’t have everything they want when they want it.

An additional four percent of Americans don’t fall neatly into any of these five categories.

Now let’s think about our churches and communities.

• How do the people in our church fit into these categories?
• What about our communities? How do our church activities address their orientation?
• How do our messages help each category become more Christ like?
• Do we provide ways for them to process their faith with similar people?

One thing that becomes clear is that each category looks at life, faith, and the world through different lenses or frames. Do we help them see Christ without distortion?

By Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman

Harvard Business School Press, 2007

Summarized by J. Melvyn Ming

“… leadership can no longer exist only at the top of the organization, but must also be distributed throughout the organization and shared with teams”[1]

“Leadership … must be pushed from the executive level to the operational level, with rapidly flowing dialogue between them”[2]

“The X in X-Teams underlines the point that an X-Team us externally oriented, with members working outside their boundaries as well as inside them.”[3]

The shift from a singular reliance on command-and-control leadership to more of a distributed leadership mind-set requires additional dialogue and alignments up and down the organization.[4]

X-Teams Defined

X-teams are externally oriented, adaptive teams that emphasize connections to those outside their area and the organization.

Components of X-Teams

X-teams are set apart from traditional teams by three components:

1. External activity
2. Extreme execution
3. Flexible phases

1. External activity

• High levels of external activity are key
• Outreach may be role of leader or any member
• External activities:

1)   Scouting—lateral and downward searches through the organization for knowledge and expertise

“They need to know where critical information and expertise reside, both inside and outside the organization.”[5]

2)   Ambassadorial activity—aimed at managing upward

3)   Task coordination—managing the lateral connections across functions and interdependencies with other teams and units

2. Extreme Execution

• Three fundamental concepts:

1) Psychological safety

“… the teams culture must support a frank exchange of views. Such ‘psychological safety’ means that all members feel the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking. It means that team members feel free to express their views, even controversial ones.”[6]

2) Team reflection

“…team members need to take time to reflect on their actions, strategies, and objectives.”[7]

“Members set aside time to think about their big picture, where the team is going, and how things can be done better; and they lean on each other in that effort.”[8]

3) Knowing what others know

“Knowing what others know enables a team to connect islands of expertise into a system in which the right members work on the right tasks at the right time.”[9]

• Tools for Extreme Execution

1)   Integrative meetings

2)   Participatory and transparent decision-making process

3)   Shared guidelines (Heuristics)

4)   Shared timelines

5)   Information Management Systems

3. Flexible Phases

“X-Teams change their core tasks over the team’s lifetime.”[10]

1)   Sense making

“Understanding the context in which a team and its members operate.”[11]

2)   Relating

Developing key relationships within and across organizations.

3)   Visioning

Creating a compelling picture of the future.

4)   Inventing

Designing new ways to work together to fulfill the vision.

The X-Team Support Structure

1. Extensive ties

• To engage in external activities, X-team members need to have extensive ties with outsiders

2. Expandable tiers

• X-teams operate through three distinct tiers that create differentiated team membership:

• Core members—carry the team’s history and identity
• Operational members—do the ongoing work
• Outer-net members—join the team to handle tasks that are separable from ongoing work

3. Exchangeable membership

• X-team membership is fluid
• People may move in and out of the team during its life or move across tiers

[2] X-Teams, p 47.

[3] X-Teams, p 6.

[4] T. Malone, The Future of Work. Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.

[5] X-Teams, p 65.

[6] X-Teams, p 92.

[7] X-Teams, p 96.

[8] X-Teams, p 97.

[9] X-Teams, p 101.

[10] X-Teams, p 118.

[11] X-Teams, p 121.

by Morten T. Hansen

Harvard Business Press, 2009

“good collaboration amplifies strength, but poor collaboration is worse than no collaboration at all.” (page iv)

Collaboration Traps: How Smart People Get it Wrong (pages 11-14)

1. Collaborating in hostile territory – where competition and independence are the culture.
2. Over-collaborating — thinking more is always better.
3. Over-shooting the potential value – thinking it will produce more than it will.
4. Underestimating the costs – how difficult it is to change cultures.
5. Misdiagnosing the problem – falsely looking only at surface issues.
6. Implementing the wrong solution – caused by #5.

Disciplined Collaboration (pages 14-15)

Defined:  Getting people to work together across departments, programs or functions.

Disciplined Collaboration: Three Steps (pages 15-18, 50-63)

Step 1: Evaluate opportunities for collaboration – “Will we gain a great upside by collaborating?”. Collaboration is a means to an end, not the end.

Step 2: Spot barriers to collaboration – “What are the barriers blocking people from collaborating well?”

1)   The not-invented-here barrier (people are unwilling to reach out to others)

• Insular culture – Communication mainly inside a group
• Status gap – Don’t want to cross status lines
• Self-reliance – Should fix your own problems
• Fear – Do not want to reveal problems

2)   The hoarding barrier (people are unwilling to provide help)

• Competition – Competition with colleagues and units
• Narrow incentives – rewards for own goals
• Too busy – No time to help others
• Fear – Loss of power if sharing knowledge

3)   The search barrier (people are not able to find what they are looking for)

• Company size – Big companies face search problems
• Physical distance – Distance makes search difficult
• Information overload – Too much information worsens the search
• Poverty of networks – Lack of links undermines search

4)   The transfer barrier (people are not able to work with people they don’t know well)

• Tacit knowledge – Difficult knowledge to transfer
• No common frame – Don’t know how to work together
• Weak ties – No strong relations to ease transfer

All four barriers need to be low before effective collaboration can really take place. Each one is enough to stop people from collaborating well.

Step 3: Tailor solutions to tear down barriers.

Three strategies to tear down barriers:

1)   Unification strategy – craft compelling common goals, articulate a strong value of cross-company teamwork, and talk the talk of collaboration to send strong signals that lift people’s sights beyond narrow interests and toward a common goal.

2)   People strategy – get the right people to collaborate on the right projects. People who simultaneously focus on the performance of their unit and across boundaries.

3)   Network strategy – collaboration runs more through interpersonal networks and less through formal hierarchies.

The best of Two Worlds – Decentralized and Collaboration (page 19)

Barrier Assessment (Page 64)

Solutions to achieving collaboration

1. Unify People – Create a Unifying Goal (pages 74-82)

Criterion 1: The goal must create a common fate

Criterion 2: The goal must be simple and concrete

How President Kennedy went from the main objective of demonstrating U.S. world leadership to landing a man on the moon.

Criterion 3: The Goal must stir passion

Criterion 4: The goal must put competition on the outside

2. Cultivate two-dimensional leaders (Leaders who deliver results in their own job and deliver results by collaborating across the organization (Pages 95-114)

3. Build Nimble Networks (Pages 117-123)

Collaborative organizations run on networks, those informal working relationships among people that cut across formal lines of reporting.

Six Network Rules (pages 123-136)

Network Rule #1: Build outward, Not inward.

Network Rule #2: Build Diversity, Not size

Network Rule #3: Build weak ties, Not strong ones

Network Rule #4: Use bridges, Not familiar faces

Network Rule #5: Swarm the target, Do Not go it alone

Network Rule #6: Switch to strong ties, Do Not rely on weak ones

an interview with author Dino Rizzo

Why did you write Servolution?
It was my hope to offer a fresh perspective on the ancient truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and that if someone wants to live a full, blessed life, they should understand that they are blessed to be a blessing to others.

Where did the ideas come from?
It has been a 16-year journey as a church, and for me it started even before that. After I gave my life to Jesus, I was a part of a church that believed the only way to accomplish anything in the Kingdom of God was to serve others.

Serving isn’t a new idea. All we are doing is trying to encourage people that they can and should engage the needs of hurting people around them. That may bring a new passion to people — I sure hope it does.
What have you learned on your journey?
I think the biggest lesson is that anyone can serve. Everyone can do something. And right along with that is the lesson that there are needy people all around us — all the time, every day we cross paths with people who are hurting, in need, and looking for answers. We all have someone in need around us, and we all have the ability to do something to serve them.

What are the big surprises?
Maybe it is less of a surprise and more of an amazement, but I am continually blown away by how much people have stepped up and owned this culture at Healing Place Church. They aren’t serving for recognition, or for a thank you from anyone. They serve just because they love to. The real surprise in servolution is the people — and that’s not just true for Healing Place Church — it’s true in tons of other churches that are engaging the needs in their communities.

Who is the book for?
It’s for anyone who wants to make a difference with their life. Pastors should read it, but we really encourage them to provide the book to their staff and leadership because it will give them a clear picture of the strategy of serving the community God has called us to reach. It means being willing to do whatever it takes, whenever it is needed — for the cause of the Gospel.

What’s the biggest challenge for leaders in starting their own servolution?
There is no substitute for servant leadership in this. As a leader, you have to do it yourself — to fully grab it — to touch it yourself. You have to dance with it for yourself. And then you’ll be able to say with

servolution [surv-uh-loo-shunn]
1: a culture that will change your view of the world and your perspective of the needs of those around you
2: actively pursuing the lost, the forgotten, and the poor to show them a God who is passionately in love with them
3: standing ready with one heart, saying, “I will serve others and show them the hope they can have in Jesus.”

conviction and confidence, “We can do it. We can change our community by serving others with the love of Jesus.”

What do you hope the reader takes away from the book?
I hope everyone who reads it comes away from the book convinced that if someone puts it into practice, Servolution can truly revolutionize their community through Jesus-style reaching out and serving the poor and hurting.

What’s one thing leaders can do today to start a servolution?
I would love to see us all open our eyes and look around us. The need is there. We just need to begin to see what others don’t see, and feel what others don’t feel, and hear what others don’t hear about our world.

from Leadership Network

http://www.pursuantgroup.com/leadnet/advance/jun09s1a.htm

The Shaping of Things to Come

Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch

“While some established churches can be revitalized, success seems to be rare from our experience and perspective.  We believe that the strategic focus must now shift from revitalization to mission, i.e. from a focus on the “insiders’ to the “outsiders”; and in so doing we believe the church will rediscover its true nature and fulfill its purpose.”[1]

“The church should define itself in terms of its mission – to take the gospel to and incarnate the gospel within a specific cultural context.”[2]

“… a church makes its mission its priority and perpetually asks itself, ‘What has God called us to be and do in our current cultural context?’“[3]

” … the missional church is always outward looking, always changing (as culture continues to change), and always faithful to the Word of God.”[4]

“Albert Einstein, one of history’s greatest thinkers, once noted that ‘the kind of thinking that will solve the world’s problems will be of a different orders to the kind of thinking that created those problems in the first place.’”[5]

“The church is in decline in almost every context in the First World.  The church is worse off precisely because of Christendom’s failure to evangelize its own context and establish gospel communities that transform the culture.”[6]

” … the emerging missional church must see itself as being able to interact meaningfully with culture without ever being beguiled by it. This is t he classic task of the cross-cultural missionary: to engage in culture without compromising the gospel.”[7]

“Essentially the early church was a missional movement to its core.  It understood that personal conversion implied the embracing on the mission dei – the redemptive mission of God to the whole world through the work of his Messiah.”[8]

“Christology determines missiology and missiology determines ecclesiology.”[9]

“It is necessary for the Church to rethink its stance entirely and to become a missionary church within the West.” – Martin Robinson[10]

“God is a sending God, with a desire to see humankind and creation reconciled, redeemed, and healed.  The missional church, then, is a sent church.  It is a going church, a movement of God through his people, sent to bring healing to a broken world.  North America is as much a mission field as any other nation or people group on the face of the earth.”[11]

“The missional church recognizes that it does not hold a place of honor in its host community and that its missional imperative compels it to move out from itself into that host community as salt and light.”[12]

“In the almost thirty years of my professional career, my church has never once suggested that there be any type of accounting of my on-the-job ministry to others.  My church has never once offered to improve those skills which could make me a better minister, nor has it ever asked if I needed any kind of support in what I was doing.  There has never been an inquiry into the types of ethical decisions I must face, or whether I seek to communicate the faith to my coworkers.  I have never been in a congregation where there was any type of public affirmation of a ministry in my career.  In short, I must conclude that my church really doesn’t have the least interest whether or how I minister in my daily work.”[13]

“Instead of asking non-Christians to Come-To-Us, to our services, our gatherings, and our programs on our terms, the incarnational church seeks to infiltrate society to represent Christ in the world.”[14]

“It emphasizes the importance of a group of Christians infiltrating a community, like salt and light, to make those creative connections with people where God-talk and shared experience allow for real cross-cultural Christian mission to take place.”[15]

“If the attractional mode sees the world as divided into two zones, the “in” and the “out,” the incarnational model sees it more as a web, a series of intersecting lines symbolizing the networks of relationships, friendships, and acquaintances of which church members are a part.”[16]

“We believe the missional incarnational church will spend more time on building friendships than it will on developing religious programs.”[17]

“The missional-incarnational church is well aware of the importance of the web relationships, friendships, and acquaintances for mission.  Christian mission is a relational activity that happens through conduit of human relations.”[18]

“It’s helpful to think of the well-known Engel Scale in this regard.  See James E. Engel, Contemporary Christian Communications: In Theory and Practice (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1979), 77-83.  This scale identifies the usual process a person goes through in becoming a Christian, with zero being close to the center and -10 being far from it.  Although it’s a very cognitive model, and we think people move closer to the center through relationship, not necessarily just through knowledge, it’s a useful guide for thinking of people moving through a process:

-10  Awareness of the supernatural;

-9   No effective knowledge of Christianity;

-8   Initial awareness of Christianity;

-7   Interest in Christianity;

-6   Awareness of the basic facts of the Gospel;

-5   Grasp of the implications of the Gospel;

-4   Positive attitude to the Gospel;

-3   Awareness of the personal implications;

-2   Challenge and decision to act;

-1   Repentance and faith;

0   Regeneration.[19]

[20]

“If you could start it again from scratch, would you do it the same way?”[22]

“We would think like missionaries and spend more time listening to, eating with, and playing with the subculture or neighborhood we were trying to minister to.”[23]

“As missionaries we need to ask, ‘What is good news to these people (What are the existential issues these people are grappling with before God?)?’ and ‘What would the church look like for these people?’ The answers will give us clues as to what element of the gospel we need to communicate first.  The inventor of the stethoscope was noted as having said, ‘Listen to your patients.  They’re telling you how to heal them.’”[24]

“Now we are seeing such a dramatic fracturing of Western society into a range of subcultures, even in the suburbs, that one-size-fits-all is increasingly outmoded.  This is called the subculturization or tribalization of the West.  In fact, it could be argued that the megachurch in America thrives mostly in monochromatic baby boomer suburbs.”[25]

“The New Testament radically reshapes the language of priesthood, presuming all believers to be priests, able to make their lives sacrifices, and able to gain personal access to the grace of God.  There is no distinction in the New Testament between priests and laity, the sacred and the secular, the religious and the everyday.”[26]

” ‘The gospel says “Go,” but our church buildings say, “Stay.”  The gospel says “Seek the lost,” but our churches say “Let the lost seek the church.”‘  The medium is the message.  And more than that, once a building has been erected, the church program and budget are largely determined by it … Next time you attend a church service, listen to all the language that betrays a belief that we come into the church to ‘meet’ God.”   [27]

“‘The church is described as belonging not to the people by whom it is constituted … nor to the district to which they belong … but rather to the one who has brought it into existence (that is, God) or the one through whom this has taken place (that is, Christ).’”

- Robert Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community[28]

“So for Paul the church was the people gathered.  As to what occurred in such a gathering, we think Acts 2:42-47 provides a neat snapshot. In this window into the regular gathering of the believers we see three broad elements, all of which should be held in tension:”

[29]

“When we look at the snapshot of the first church in Acts 2, we see six features that seem to inform these three broad commitments:

Communion (in Relationship with Christ)

• God’s word – The development of opportunities where the Christian community puts itself in places where it can hear God speak. “Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles” (v. 43).  This sense of awe and wonder was generated not only by the miraculous.  (It seems that the early church sensed God’s presence even more keenly in their gathering than at other times.  From the rest of the book of Acts it is obvious that the first Christians sensed God and heard him speak in all manner of situations, but the gathered community did seem to expect a communal sense of God’s presence in their meetings.)  It was generated also by the apostles’ teaching and the breaking of bread (v. 42).
• Worship – Fro the first Christians, worship was the opportunity for them to respond to God.  Whether it was in homes or the temple courts (v. 46), they took opportunities to praise God and apparently did so in such a way as to find favor with the broader community.  There was also a strong sense of the immediacy with God in Christ.

Community (in Relationship with One Another)

• Learning – Often in the modernist church the emphasis is on teaching, but we find that the emphasis for the first Christians was on learning, that is, the formation of individuals and the Christian community as a whole into the likeness of Christ.  This was centered on the apostles’ teaching, the community of fellow learners, and the Christian love feast (vv. 42 and 46)
• Fellowship/friendship – This is the church as antireligion.  There seems to have been no differing echelons of involvement.  “All the believers were together and had everything in common” (v. 44).  Rather than instituting offices of priests, scribes, teachers, deacons, and so on, the first Christians unraveled traditional human religion  by refusing to build sacred sites, by not having altars, and by not ordaining people to a holy office.  It was a genuine community of friends.  From the beginning, it seems that this idea of the church being an organic network or web of friendship was assumed.

Commission (in Relationship with the World)

• Serving/giving – “Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need” (v. 45).  Generosity and hospitality were hallmarks of the Christian movement from the start.  And this took the form of costly and radical sharing.  As worthwhile as food drives and Christmas hampers might be, much of the church’s generosity is not terribly costly for the believers.  Selfless, humble, and gracious hospitality will mark the church as a unique source of salt and light in the community.  Clearly the early church, centered as it was on the apostles’ teaching about Jesus, saw generosity as an obvious expression of Christlikeness.
• Gospel telling/sharing – There is no mention in this passage that the believers were “preaching” the gospel as such.  But obviously their presence in the temple courts, their worship of God, their acts of service, and their commonality had significant impact.  Together with the public proclamation of the gospel by the apostles (v. 38) it reaped a great harvest: “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (v. 47).  This is the very model we have been advocating. The webs of friendships developed by socializing, sharing, and hospitality, together with prayer (v. 42) and the teaching of the apostles creates a potent community, fully incarnated and totally missional in its orientation.”[30]

“Essentially the idea behind the phrase ‘the medium is the message’ is this: we shape our tools, and then they shape us.  What McCluhan wanted us to look at was the reciprocal effect that our tools and technologies have on us.  They are not neutral things.  They impact us deeply – much more than we are wont to believe – and we would do well to really think about what effects they have on us.”[31]

“If we take seriously that the medium is the message, then there’s no way around the fact that our actions, as manifestations of our total being, do actually speak much louder than our words.  There are clear nonverbal messages being emitted by our lives all the time.  We are faced the sobering fact that we actually are our messages.”[32]

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world: and that is an idea whose time has come.”

- Victor Hugo[33]

“What we mean by organic here is simply that the church in all its expressions remains true to its essential nature as a dynamic, living organism as opposed to a mechanistic-style structure.  It also refers to the way a community is structured with a view to the interconnectivity and interrelationship between all aspects of its life, function, and purpose.” [35]

“Being more missional might actually mean doing fewer things.  There is a Latin American proverb that says, ‘If you don’t know where you’re coming from, and if you don’t where you’re going, then any bus will do.”  Some congregations are clearly riding too many buses!  What they need is not more flurry, but more focus.  Becoming disciplined about being a missional church can provide such a focus.”[36]

“Christocentric:  This simply means that Christ is center.  If something is Christocentric, then its organizing principle is the person and work of Christ.  This is in effect a synonym for our use of the term messianic.  This has implications also for our belief that the missional church will be a centered set, with Christ at the center.”[37]

“Christology/Christological:  Essentially Christology comprises the biblical teaching of and about Jesus the Messiah.  When we say Christology must inform all aspects of the church’s life and work, we mean that Jesus must be first and foremost in our lives and self-definition as church and disciple.  When the word is used as an adjective, it simply means that the element being described must be referenced primarily by our understanding and experience of Jesus the Messiah.”[38]

“Ecclesiology:  Classically this refers to the biblical teaching about the nature, life, and practices of the church.  We believe that our ecclesiology should emerge from our missiology, which should in turn derive from our Christology.”[39]

“Incarnational:  The Incarnation refers to the act of God entering into the created universe and realm of human affairs as the man Jesus of Nazareth.  In relation to mission it means the followers of Jesus similarly embodying the culture and life of a host culture in order to reach that group of people with Jesus’ love.  We also use the term to describe the missionary act of going to a target people group as opposed to merely making the invitation for unbelievers to come to our cultural group (the church) in order to hear the gospel.  We see it as a term that describes a missional stance taken by the church.  If the church is incarnational, its stance is always inclined to go forth and enter into the lives of a host community.  In this sense incarnational is different from attractional or extractional.[40]

“Missiology/Missiological:  Missiology is the study of missions.  As a discipline, it seeks to identify the primal impulses in the Scriptures that compel God’s people into engagement with the world.  Such impulses involve, among others, the mismo Dei (the mission of God), the Incarnation, and the kingdom of God.  It also describes the authentic church’s commitment to social justice, relational righteousness, and evangelism.  As such, missiology seeks to define the church’s purposes in light of God’s will for the world.   It also seeks to study the methods of achieving these ends both from Scripture and history.  The term missiological simply draws off these meanings.”[41]

“Missional:  A favorite term of ours – we use it to describe the church, leadership, Christianity, and more.  A missional church is one whose primary commitment is to the missionary calling of the people of God.  As such, it is one that aligns itself with God’s missionary purposes in the world.  A missional leader is one that takes mission seriously and sees it as the driving energy behind all the church does.  The missional church is a sent church with one of its defining values being the development of a church life and practice that is contextualized to that culture to which it believe it is sent.”[42]

[2] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), xi.

[3] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 7.

[4] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 7.

[5] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 7.

[6] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 14.

[7] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 16.

[8] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 16.

[9] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 16.

[10] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 17.

[11] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 18.

[12] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 19.

[13] William Diehl, Christianity and Real Life (Fortress, 1976), v-vi, quoted in Robert Banks, Redeeming the Routines: Bringing Theology to Life (Wheaton: Bridgepoint, 1997), 59, quoted in Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 20.

[14] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 42.

[15] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 42.

[16] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003) 44.

[17] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 44.

[18] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 47.

[19] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 48.

[20] Chris Harding, unpublished Youth for Christ policy document for staffworkers, Youth for Christ, Sydney in The Shaping of Things to Come, Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 50.

[21] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 52.

[22] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 62.

[23] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 63.

[24] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 63.

[25] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 65.

[26] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 68.

[27] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 69.

[28] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 76.

[29] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 77.

[30] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 78-79.

[31] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 150.

[32] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 154.

[33] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 165.

[34] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 209.

[35] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 210.

[36] James R. Krabill, “Does Your Church Smell Like Mission: Reflection on Becoming a Missional Church,” Mission Insight (Elkhart: Mennonite Board of Mission, 2001), 17.

[37] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 227.

[38] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 227.

[39] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 228.

[40] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 228.

[41] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 229.

[42] Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 2003), 229.

The Present Future: Six Tough Questions For The Church

By Reggie McNeal

Jossey-Bass. (2003)

Wrong Questions:

“The wrong questions reflect an approach to the future that focuses on solving yesterday’s problems. In my observation, most church leaders are preoccupied with the wrong questions.” (Page XVI)

Models:

“I believe the search for models can often short-circuit a significant part of a leader’s journey into obedience to God. The Bible is not a book of models; it is a record of radical obediences of people who listened and responded to the direction of God for their lives. The quality of leadership we need for the renewal of the orth American church required that we have people who are operating from a well-thought-out approach so they will know why that are doing what they are doing, not just copying someone else’s cool idea.” (Page XVII)

REALITY #1: The Collapse of the Church Culture

“The current church culture in North America is on life support. It is living off the work, money, and energy of previous generations from a previous world order.” (Page 1)

“…church culture has become confused with biblical Christianity, bith inside the church and out.” (Pages 1)

“… the world is profoundedly different that it was at the middle of the last century, and everybody knows it. Even the church culture. But knowing it and acting on it are two very different things. So far the North American church largely has responded with heavy infusions of denial, believing the culture will come to its senses and come back around to the church. (Page 2)

“… the number of Americans who have ‘no religious preference’ has doubled from 1990 to 2001, reaching 14% of the population.” (Page 3)

“Thom Rainier of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism at Southern Baptist Seminart reports some disturbing responses to the two frequently asked Evangelism Explosion questions (‘Do you know for certain that if you died today you would go to heaven?’ and ‘If you were to die today , what would youo say to God if he asked you why he should let you into his heaven?’). The interview included about 1,300 personal of each of four generational groups that Rainier identified and investigated (5,200 in all). Analyzing the responses for evidence that the respondencets were born-again (the evangelical definition of one’s being a Christian) yielded the following results: builders (Bornbefore 1946) – 65 percent; boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) – 35 percent; busters (born between 1965 and 1976) – 15 percent; bridgers (born between 1976 and 1994) – 4 percent. Those interviewed in the bridger category were at least seventeen years old.” (Page 4)

“Dawson McAlister, national youth ministry specialist, says 90% of kids active in high school youth groups do not go to church by the time they are sophomores in college. One-third of these will never return.” (Page 4)

“A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving because that have lost faith. They are leaving the church to preserve their faith. They contend that the church no longer contributes to thewir spiritual development. In fact, they say, quite the opposite if true. The number of ‘post-congregational’ Christians is growing. David Barrett, author of the World Christian Encyclopedia, estimates that there are about 112 million ‘churchless Christians’ worldwide, about 5 percent of all adherents, but projects that number will double in the next twenty years!” (Pages 4-5)

“The culture does not want the powerless God of the modern church” (Page 6)

WRONG QUESTION: How Do We Do Church Better?

“Church activity is a poor substitute for genuine spiritual vitality.” (Page 7)

Wrong Responses: Refuge mentality

“Evangelism in this worldview is about churching the unchurched, not connecting people to Jesus. It focuses on cleaning people up, changing their behavior so Christians (translation: church people) can be more comfortable around them.” (Page 9)

“Occasional when I do consulting for congregations I insist that the church leaders meet off-campus in a restaurant during Sunday church time. I ask the group to look around and then pose the question to them: ‘Do you think these people struggled with a decision this morning of whether to attend church or to for out for a sausage biscuit?’ Are you kidding? The church is not even on their screen.” (Page 9)

“You can build the perfect church – and they still won’t come. People are not looking for a great church. They do not wake up every day wondering what church they can make successful.” (Page 10)

“The church needs a mission fix.” (Page 10)

TOUGH QUESTION: How Do We Deconvert from Churchianity to Christianity?

“In North America the invitation to become a Christian has become largely an invitation to convert to the church.” (Page 11)

“People may be turned off to the church, but they are not turned off to Jesus.” (Page 12)

“Church people sometimes get excited by this but fail to understand that people in the nonchurch culture don’t associate Jesus with the church. In their mind, the church is a club doe religious people where club members can celebrate their traditions and hang out with others who share common thinking and lifestyles. They do not automatically think of the church as championing the cause of poor people or healing the sick or serving people. These are things that associate with Jesus.” (Page 12)

“We need to recapture the mission of the church. In both Old and New Testaments we encounter a God who is on a redemptive mission in the world.” (Page 12)

“The church was created to be the people of God to join him in his redemptive mission in the world. The church was never intended to exist for itself.” (Page 15)

“The church is the bride of Christ. Its union with him is designed for reproduction, the growth of the kingdom.” (Page 16)

“The movement Jesus initiated had power because it had at its core a personal life-transforming experience.” (Page 17)

“They don’t trust religious institutions because they see them as inherently self-serving. So they are off on their own search for God.” (Page 18)

“The North American church has lost its influence at this critical juncture. It has lost its influence because it has lost it identity. It has lost its identity because it has lost its mission.” (Page 18)

“The correct response, then, to the collapse of the church culture is not to try to become better at doing church….The need is not for a methodological fix. The need is for a mission fix.” (Page 18)

“That’s the church’s mission: to join God in his redemptive efforts to save the world. People all around us are in darkness. They are going to die unless someone finds a way to say they. Trouble is, the church is sleeping on the job.” (Page 19)

REALITY #2: The Shift from Church Growth to Kingdom Growth

WRONG QUESTION: How Do We Grow This Church? (How Do We Get Them To Come To Us?)

“A Lilly study released in 2002 found that one-half of churchgoers attend churches in the top 10 percent if church size.” (Page 24)

TOUGH QUESTION: How Do We Transform Our Community? (How Do We Hit the Streets with the Gospel?)

“Churches that understand the realities of the present future are shifting the target of ministry efforts from church activity to community transformation. This is turning the church inside out.” (Page 26)

“The North American church culture is not spiritual enough to reach our culture.” (Page 27)

“The Pharisees’ evangelism strategy sounds eerlity familiar. Their approach to sharing God was, ‘Come and get it!’ In addition, that had contorted God’s message to moralism: ‘ You people ‘out their” need to straighten up!” (Page 28)

“Jesus’ evangelism strategy directly challenged the Pharisees’ approach. Instead of ‘Come and get it!’ it was ‘Go get em!’ Instead of withdrawing from people for fear of contamination, he ate with them” (Page 28)

“Jesus’ strategy was to go where people were already hanging out. This is why he went to weddings, oarties, and religious feasts day celebrations. Jesus loved being around people who were having fun!” (Page 34)

“What are we so afraid of ‘out there?’ … I think we are afraid of not knowing hoe to engage people in genuine conversation. I think we fear rejection. I think we don’t know what to say. I think we are unsure of what we have to offer to people. I think we are not that enthusiastic about being evangelistic because we feel we don’t have a compelling story. The power of the gospel is lost on church members who can sign off on doctrinal positions but have no story of personal transformation.” (Page 36)

“I am a disciple of Jesus. I am serving him bu serving you, because that’s what he came to do.” (Page 38)

“We need to go where people are already hanging out and be prepared to have conversations with them about the great love of our lives.” (Page 42)

REALITY #3: A New Reformation: Releasing God’s People

“The first Reformation was about freeing the church. The new Reformation is about freeing God’s people from the church (the institution). The original Reformation decentralized the church. The new Reformation decentralizes ministry.” (Page 43)

WRONG QUESTION: How Do We Turn Members into Ministers?

“This myoptic vision has resulted in ministry being defined largely in church terms and lay people often being viewed as functionary resources tog et church work done.” (Page 45)

“They have not been exposed to church leaders who are leaders of a movement, Instead, they are familiar only with institutional managers.” (Page 46)

“We have failed to call people out to their true potential as God’s priests in the world.” (Page 48)

TOUGH QUESTION: How Do We Turn Members into Missionaries?

“Nonbelievers are already worshiping, because people are built to worship something. Out challenge is to upgrade their worship to worship of the true God.” (Page 51)

“Only people without a missiology disdain attempts at being culturally relevant.” (Page 51)

“The point is not to adopt the culture and lose the message; the point is to understand the culture so we can build bridges to it for the sake of gaining a hearing for the gospel of Jesus.” (Page 51)

“You cannot be faithful to the Great Commission without being culturally relevant.” (Page 52)

“The reluctance to connect with people outside the church is just further evidence that the church culture in North America is a cultural phenomenon in America that is more about a particular religious culture than about Jesus or his mission.” (Page 52)

“Missiologist know that people must worship God in their own heart language.” (Page 52)

“Just when the church adopted a business model, the culture went looking for God. Just when the church embraced strategic planning (linear and Newtonian), the universe shifted to preparedness (loopy and quantum). Just when the church began building recreation centers, the culture began a search for sacred places.” (Page 59)

“The problem is that when people come to church, expecting to find God, they often encounter a religious club holding a meeting where God is conspicuously absent. (Page 59)

A MISSIONARY MOVEMENT

“What you must do is two things: create a culture informed by missiology and create venues where people can practice being missionaries.” (Page 61)

“This new Reformation, turning members into missionaries, will precipitate a crisis, both in individuals an din a congregation. Member values clash with missionary values. Member values are all about church real estatae, church programming, who’s in and who’s out, member services, member issues (translated: am I getting what I want out of this church?). Missionary values are about the street, people’s needs, breakibg down barriers, community issues (translated: am I partnering with God’s work in people?). One of these value sets will triumph over the other.” (Page 65)

“Persecution of church leaders in the North American context does not come from outside the church. It comes from inside the church.” (Page 66)

“Adopting a missionary approach will require changing the scorecard.” (Page 67)

REALITY #4: The Return to Spiritual Formation

“…we have turned our churches into groups of people who are studying God as though they were taking a course at school or attending a business seminar. We aim at the head. We don’t deal in relationships. And we wonder why there is no passion for Jesus and his mission?” (page 70-71)

WRONG QUESTION: How Do We Develop Church Members?

“We have made following Jesus all about being a good church member. The scorecard is all about church membership, church participation, and church support.” (Page 72)

TOUGH QUESTION: How Do We Develop Followers of Jesus?

“What percentage of your congregants feel they grew more like Jesus this past year?….How is God at work in your people? Or Where do you see Jesus bustin’ out?” (Page 74)

“I am recommending that churches provide like coaching for people. We need to view this as spiritual formation.” (Page 77)

“There is hardly anything more evangelistically powerful than a group of worshiping believers.” (Page 81)

“The devil knows more Bible than most church members in North America and can sign off on our doctrinal statements, but this knowledge has not transformed him.” (Page 81)

“Evangelism that will introduce Jesus to this culture will flow from people who are deeply in love with Jesus.” (Page 82)

“Jesus facilitated spiritual formation in his disciples by introducing them to life situations and then helping them debrief their experiences.” (Page 85)

“In the new world the place of learning has shifted from the classroom (academic model) to the living room (life learning).” (Page 86)

“The community of faith should be an environment where the number one pursuit is the development of human beings created in the image of God and redeemed into his family through Jesus.” (Page 91)

REALITY #5: The Shift from Planning to Preparation

WRONG QUESTION: How Do We Plan For The Future?

“I am not against planning. I am just suggesting that there is a dimension beyond planning that is critical for us to understand.” (Page 95)

TOUGH QUESTION: How Do We Prepare for the Future?

“Spiritual preparation has the goal of getting God’s people in partnership with him in his redemptive mission in the world.” (Page 95)

“The five elements of a spiritual preparation architecture are vision, values, results, strengths, and learnings.” (Page 96)

VISION

“.. people tire of visionless activity and organizations…” (Page 96)

“Vision captures commitment among people. It generates energy, fires up the imagination, and inspires excellent.” (Page 97)

“It is our job to discover what he has in mind, not to invent something he can get excited about.” (Page 99)

“To move beyond a program-based, activity-based approach to church life, church leaders increasingly will need to be able to cast a compelling vision of kingdom growth.” (Page 101)

VALUES

“Make no mistake about it: competing values sets do not coexist peacefully.” (Pages 102)

“How do you know what someone’s core values are? It involved more that what people say their values are. It’s what people do that counts. Values are demonstrated by behavior.” (Page 102)

I suggest to congregations that they can discover their values from three sources. 1) Start by asking people in the community to identify what the church stands for. 2) Ask people who have been part of the church for three to six months. 3) Rent some non-church people unfamiliar with the church to visit for two to four weeks, then debrief their experience. (Pages 102-103)

RESULTS

“Effective congregations keep score and they play to win.” (Page 105)

“I am convinced that the reason for much burnout, lack of commitment, and low performance in our churches among staff and members is directly related to the failure to declare the clear results we are after. We don’t know when we are winning.” (Page 106)

“What gets rewarded gets done.” (Page 108)

STRENGTHS

LEARNINGS

REALITY #6: The Rise of Apostolic Leadership

WRONG QUESTION: How Do We Develop Leaders for Church Work?

“We need transformational leaders who will help the church find a new expression in the emerging world.” (Page 125)

Apostolic leaders – They are:

è Missional

è Visionary

è Entrepreneurial

è They plant churches in teams

è They release ministry to people and people to ministry

è They are genuinely spiritual

TOUGH QUESTION: How Do We Develop Leaders for the Christian Movement?

Areas of leanring:

1. Paradigm issues (How do you see your world?)

2. Microskill Development

è Vision cultivation and casting

è Communication

è Team building

è Change and transition leadership

è Mentoring and coaching

è Corporate cultural management

è Conflict management and resolution

è Networking

è Project management

è Systems thinking

è Interpersonal relationships

3. Resource Development

4. Personal Growth

“It takes enormous courage to give spiritual leadership inn the North American church culture, because the church is increasingly hostile to anything that disturbes its comfort and challenges its club members paradigms.” (Pages 145)

]]> http://www.ldrteam.com/blog/book/feed/ 0