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 http://www.ldrteam.com/blog/21/ http://www.ldrteam.com/blog/21/#comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:18:00 +0000 Mel http://www.ldrteam.com/blog/?p=21 “Changing Metrics:
Churches discovering the benefits of measuring more than size”

I have always been fascinated by trying to measurer what is important to us. For several years I have concentrated on: 1) people baptized in water, 2) people in a relational group, 3) people serving and engaged with non-Christians.

Leadership Network has produced an interesting paper on what we measurer. Description: “Today, people in our churches—and especially young people—want to devote their lives to a cause that’s bigger than themselves,” observes Ken Fong, pastor of Evergreen Baptist Church in Los Angeles. “In our church,” he reflects, “we’ve had to change what we measure. We no longer use size as our primary metric. Instead, we spend time and effort analyzing the compelling intangibles of the Spirit’s work: devotion, love, and obedience.”

Check out the article at

http://www.pursuantgroup.com/leadnet/advance/nov08s2a.htm

I hope you find it stimulating.

Mel

“We worry too much about reaching people,” explained a recent “missional” convert. He explained that he had read my book and a few others and he wanted to be more about the mission of God and less about nickels, noses, and numbers. “We have to show the love of Jesus, not just tell people about him.” He was a convert to missional but was not as focused on seeing converts to Christ. And he is not alone.
Converts to a Cause

I continue to see movements gaining traction among Christians that do not seem to have many converts. In other words, they have recruits to their cause, but few converts to Christ. And I am concerned. I am concerned that in the name of “fixing the Church” we are not proclaiming the Church’s gospel.

You’ve seen it, too, among others—the emerging church wants to rethink structures; the missional folks want more social justice; the charismatic folks want more of the Spirit; Baptists want to convert the Presbyterians; the house church people want more authentic community; and the Reformed folks just want, well, I am not sure since they never seem happy.

I must confess I have an affinity with some of these groups. But, a change movement that does not produce converts is as useless as a systematic theology text at Joel Osteen’s church. Even if and when the cause is important, that is not enough for the church and its mission. Central to our task is to display the glory of God through His redemptive work through the redemption of those far from Christ.

Let’s Talk
An argument of sorts has arisen among some friends of mine that helps illustrate the point. Mark Driscoll, in his oh-so-subtle way, said that many in the emerging church “don’t have any converts.” Dan Kimball has expressed his missional misgivings about missional churches without conversions.

Several defenders have responded to the critics. But, the conversation can and should be much broader than “emerging” or “missional” conversations: I have heard it in charismatic, Calvinist, Baptist, and other settings. And, there are always defenders.

But, I believe defending is not the answer. It is never a good thing to be defending our lack of converts to Christ while we are busy converting people to our cause. To me, it is the difference between complaining and creating a new (and better) way.

For example, I have been identified with the missional conversation. I believe the church can and must identify with the missio dei and refocus its agenda around the purpose of God. Yet, I don’t want missional to mean attacks on mega and fast growing churches who are reaching people “wrongly,” while missional churches are reaching few “rightly.” (Now, take that last sentence and replace the word “missional” with the word “reformed”—still works. Now do it with “Baptist”—yep that’s 3 for 3. Need I go on?)

Now, I am not willing to say that a lack of converts is a sign of unfaithfulness. But, I am willing to say that too many change movements are not seeing lost people’s lives changed. And I think that is the wrong kind of change.

So, my Reformed friends, let’s not only read 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John (that is, John Calvin, John MacArthur, and John Piper), let’s go plant some more churches. My emerging church friends, let’s take a pause from the theological rethink and head into the neighborhood and to tell someone about Jesus. My missional friends, let’s speak of justice, but always tell others how God can be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” My house church friends, let’s have community, but let’s be sure it is focused on redemption. My Baptist friends, let’s focus more on convincing pagans than Presbyterians. And, my charismatic friends, let’s focus less on getting existing believers to speak in tongues and more on using our tongue to tell others about Jesus.

Now, I know the preceding paragraph will tick some of you off—and, I am trying to be a bit edgy while making a point. But, let me suggest you be less offended at my words and more focused on Jesus’ words: Go therefore and make disciples of nations.

If you are passionate about what you believe you will naturally want others to “get it” as you have. For example, you would not be a very good charismatic if you did not want me to be baptized in the Spirit. However, I think it is unhelpful that so many Reformed, emerging, missional, denominational, Baptist, house church, charismatic, and every other kind of Christian spends more energy persuading other believers than they do reaching non-believers.

So, let’s continue conversations about being “missional” or whatever, but let’s not do so if it distracts us from the mission. Instead let’s talk about these issues but not let them distract us from our main focus—showing and sharing the love of Jesus to a desperately lost world that needs a message of hope.

Showing a Better Way
If you want to convince me (and the body of Christ) to your cause, you must show me it is a better way. You must tell and show something different. You must not just protest what is, but you must show me what should be.

Ivan Illich was once asked if the way to societal change was best through revolution or through reform. He explained it was neither—at least if you wanted long term change. Instead, he said we need to tell an “alternative story” that is so compelling it draws others to the story.

So, tell your alternative story. Show me a way that is passionate about the cause and filled with new converts to Christ. If all you have are criticisms, concerns, or new ideas, but no new converts, that hardly seems a better path or an “alternative story.”

So, don’t defend your lack of converts, repent of it, weep over it, and resolve to change it.

Ed Stetzer is the President of LifeWay Research and co-author (with Philip Nation) of Compelled by Love: The Most Excellent Way to Missional Living. Ed is also an experienced pastor and frequent speaker. His other books include: Comeback Churches , Breaking the Missional Code , and Planting Missional Churches, and the forthcoming Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and Churches that Reach Them.