Missional Leader

Have you ever seen those time-lapse films of flowers in the sunlight? They rotate and lean in a hypnotic kind of rhythm, following the source of light and warmth. Plants, biologists say, are “heliocentric.”

Actually, most of life works this way. Even life in organizations leans toward the energy. It doesn’t matter if it’s negative energy or positive, organizations lean toward the energy.

And so, in most churches I know, problems attract a LOT of energy. And the more we focus on the problem, the less likely that we will generate an adaptive or innovative response. Solutions become less likely the more intensely we organize around the problem. For those who work with addicts, we see this all the time. The greater the focus on the addiction, the less likely it is that the addict will find healing.

This is why “surrender” is such an important component of innovation and change in ministry. If you are old, like me, you may recall a film based on the true life story of an unusual medical student. He got the nickname “Patch” and the film is called “Patch Adams.” There is this funny and striking moment fairly early on in the story where Patch is sitting down with an older “patient” who is probably more sane than anyone in the psychiatric unit. This gentleman is trying to help Patch understand that his focus on problems is all wrong. He holds up three fingers and asks Patch, “How many fingers do you see?” Patch, looking just a big puzzled, gives the right answer. continue reading…

“The church is to BE a community of interpreters. The church interprets what is going on in culture by offering theologically thick descriptions that inscribe our everyday world into the created, fallen, and redeemed world narrated in Scripture. Hence the church also has to be a community of biblical interpreters whose task is to create forms of life that correspond to the biblical text in contemporary cultural contexts. The church, as a community of cultural agents, must be able to make its distinctive mark — the cross of Christ — on culture.”

Vanhoozer, Everyday Theology, 55.

My long time friend Roger Helland and I have nearly completed a book which will be published by IVP this fall. The title will be “A Missional Spirituality,” subtitle still in process.

As I was reading the revision of chapters 5-8 this morning I was struck by these paragraphs. These are penned by Roger and they are really a beautiful summary of this section, “practices of heart and soul.” “Practices” always move us beyond abstraction, and “shalom” is the perfect word to connect us with a wider theological vision.

“Imagine the scene. Assembled before King David is a vast crowd of Israelite officials and warriors summoned to witness his charge to Solomon—next king and Temple builder. It is a defining moment in Old Testament history. Hushed people listen. David advises, “And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts” (1 Chr. 28:9). The Hebrew term for wholehearted devotion is literally a “heart of shalom”—a whole and complete heart. A missional spirituality will seek to love God and people from the whole person not from isolated parts. Evelyn Underhill remarks,

“For a spiritual life is simply a life in which all that we do comes from the center, where we are anchored in God: a life soaked through and through by a sense of His reality and claim, and self-given to the great movement of His will. Most of our conflicts and difficulties come from trying to deal with the spiritual and practical aspects of our life separately instead of realizing them as parts of one whole.

“In many ways, a missional spirituality is about enlarging the size of our hearts. It’s, “moving from the preferential love (phileo) of friends and family, to the unconditional love (agape) that is wide and boundless. What prevents us from engaging [people] in greater depth and frequency is the size of our heart..”

For a longer excerpt (3 pages), click HERE.

About a year and a half ago I started thinking about a resource for existing groups and churches to begin equipping people for mission. I wanted something that was kingdom centered, theologically sound, incorporated a rhythm of practice, and was focused around both mission and community – discipleship on the road. I wanted it accessible, but challenging.

I wanted rhythm to be central to the design – what we establish as shared rhythm forms not just our spirits but our bodies, and if we neglect the latter we simply revert to established patterns. So I built the curriculum around seven weeks and seven days – a 49 day experience. Then I started adding appendices – so that reference to old and established, tried and trusted patterns would also be available: The Office, Lectio Divina, instructions for exegeting a neighbourhood, and more. Finally, I invited two experienced practitioners to have a look and offer feedback. Mark Anderson of YFC and Phil Wagler of “Kingdom Culture” were really helpful.

Obviously, this is a workbook/journal, but after some thought we called it a “Fieldbook.” It’s coil bound and has plenty of white space.

I had a chance to share it with a group of friends in Winnipeg and have had some more positive feedback. While the process will be most deeply appreciated by Anabaptist sorts, for any communities in transition from inward focus to outward engagement, this will be a helpful tool. You can order a copy from LULU.COM. I’ll make at least the introduction and first section available for download soon.

Missional Church Fieldbook

In the spring of 1980 I was looking for a job. I crossed paths with a college friend who had just secured a summer job as a fishing guide. He planned to head up to Stuart Island in May to start training, and they needed more guides. I decided to head up to Stuart Island with him.

My first day training was eye opening. I thought the ocean was a large, predictable body of water. I found myself being ferried around in a small boat in tidal waters between islands. Imagine a river that flows north one day at 4 knots. The next morning you return to the same place and it’s flowing south at 6 knots. Hugh whirlpools spun off rocks, sometimes reaching two hundred feet across and fifty feet in depth.

Change was constant. The “terrain” of the ocean and its currents was unpredictable because of the islands, underwater obstacles, and the weather. While the phases of the moon offered us a guideline in terms of the time of maximum flow, even max flow varied by a few knots depending on where you were.

I could tell many stories from my eight seasons as a fishing guide, but what I want to do instead is flesh out a connection to missional leadership.

We live in a time where the landscape has become fluid. What was once predictable and stable is now like the rapids I faced on most days of fishing. One day 4 knots south, the next day 6 knots north. The settled and predictable ways of Modernity and Christendom have given way to plurality and fragmentation.

Maps are amazing tools. They allow us to locate ourselves in relation to the landscape, using features and indicators that rarely change. In Modernity we used internal maps to orient to the culture and to find our way forward. Moreover, when we made mistakes we could reference our maps to step back and start again.

That was then — this is now.

More..

The current issue of Direction (a Mennonite Brethren quarterly publication that goes back to about 1970) is titled “The Emerging Church: Critiques and Applications.” Some great reflections in this issue. I’ll list the articles and authors here and then offer some excerpts.

* The Air is Not Quite Fresh: Emerging Church Ecclesiology – Paul Doerksen
* Anabaptism and Emergence: Collision or Convergence? – Alan Stucky
* The Emergent Church: A Methodological Critique – Travis Barbour and Nicholas Toews
* Can Mennonite Brethren Be Missional? – Tim Neufeld
* The heart of God in the Heart of the City: Missional Vocation and the Urban Congregation – Cory Seibel
* Ancient Monasticism and the Anabaptist Future: A Tale of Two Reformers – len Hjalmarson
* Ministry Compass – Rick Bartlett

The current Volume is Spring, 2010, Vol. 39, No.1. Unfortunately it does not yet appear on the website. continue reading…

An Emerging Dictionary is not really a dictionary, but a syllabus and anthology: a collection of thoughts, organized alphabetically by virtue of a particular conversation.

Why not a roving, eclectic dictionary that is both ridiculously current and particular, rooted in the broad conversation on culture, the gospel, and change; and at the same time, nearly universal, broadly inclusive, referencing names, old and new, that are used in this conversation. Why not write the ABCs of the emerging and missional conversation: an anthology organized by alphabet?

Under A would be affections, ancient, apophatic, and attractional. And of course, one would have to reference Saint Augustine. Augustine has never been more relevant, with his thoughts on desire beautifully elucidated by William Cavanaugh. Augustine is the guy who quipped, Inquietum est ad nostrum. Those were his literal words, which in our clumsy manner come out as, ‘Our hearts are restless ‘til they find rest in you.’ In our consumer culture, desire itself has become a commodity.

Some names attached to these A words would be Robert Webber, Frost and Hirsch, Reggie McNeal, Jonathan Edwards, and Saint Gregory. Both Augustine and Saint Gregory are referenced in relation to the rediscovery of apophatic prayer, and the exploding interest in spiritual formation and ancient practices.

This week I am sharing the entire “A” section – you may download the PDF using this LINK.

And the page at the Publisher, Wipf and Stock.

I was sitting with a brother who mentors church planters, both in Canada and in Europe. He was concerned that too many groups have continued to clone American models rather than allowing the new works to be shaped uniquely by the Holy Spirit. The first question church planting agencies often want to discuss is governance. Who is in control? How does leadership function? What structures are in place? Of course, when you are throwing denominational money at something accountability is important. But sometimes — and often, in the case of complex systems — centralized control is counter-productive. Particularly when centralized control is driven by corporate measures: attendance, buildings, cash.

I was reminded of the “wine and wineskin” analogy in Matthew and Luke. It seems like we want to give priority to the wineskin – perhaps familiarity gives us a sense of security. Sometimes perhaps we don’t genuinely trust God or the people he anoints for the work, so we want control. Maybe it gives us a sense of usefulness, or justifies our position, to maintain that level of input from a centralized office. Cynical perhaps?

In reality neither wine nor wineskin has priority, but each contributes something unique.  Colin Marshall and Tony Payne remind us, in The Trellis and the Vine,

“The vine of Christian ministry is people; the trellis is the various organizational structures that exist for the health of the vine. So vine work is “the work of watering and planting and helping people to grow in Christ”, while trellis work has to do with “rosters, property and building issues, committees, finances, budgets, overseeing the church office, planning and running events.” The warning the authors offer repeatedly is that our tendency in Christian ministry is to let the trellis work take over the vine work (p. 9).”

The diagrams that follow are borrowed and reproduced with slight changes from Mike Breen and Bob Hopkins, “Clusters.” Clusters are mid-sized missional communities, usually 25-75 persons. They function as both sodality and modality – as community, and missionary band. And they correspond roughly to the “social space,” one of the four distinct and necessary social groupings identified in the research of Joseph Myers. Mike and Bob argue that cluster size communities are the missing piece in the life of the local church. Groups this size are best at developing leadership and significant connections and grow more rapidly than any other size group. continue reading…

er.. and everything in between!

This project began in a synchroblog initiated by JR Woodward last .. spring? I had the honor of being the first to post some reflections on the gospel and its meaning for my town of Kelowna. The requirements were simple: what would you say if you could write 300 to 500 words on the Gospel in one of the major papers of your town?

Well, we had some outstanding posts.. many, in fact. And these were all collected by JR at DreamAwakener and published in a book by Ecclesia Press. My copies arrived today, and now I am doubly honored. My post is the opening chapter, following the introduction by JR.

What are people saying about Viral Hope? Here is Andrew Jones:

“ViralHope is a refreshing book for a church that needs to be refreshed. JR Woodward, like a symphony conductor, brings together dozens of distinct voices that sing into harmony the sweet voice of hope in both the urban centers and suburban crawls.”

And here is Eugene Cho: “This book so deeply encourages me because it reminds me, you, us, and the rest of the world that no one monopolizes or owns the Gospel but rather the Gospel owns… and liberates us.”

The book is selling well – it is rather a unique effort.

Wikiklesia Volume 2, Taking Flight: Reclaiming the Female Half of God’s Image through Advocacy and Renewal, explores the changing views and perceptions of women’s roles and status both in faith community and throughout the world. In this collaborative volume, we hear from a wide diversity of established and bestselling authors, theologians, bloggers, leaders and practitioners, pastors, artists, entrepreneurs and a former U.S. president, offering a fresh approach to the theme of gender and gender roles amidst post-industrial tsunami’s in society and economy. This changing landscape is not one the church can fail to negotiate and hope to successfully navigate the future. Will it react, engage in unremitting theological debate, or will it act by seeking the high ground of integrity, balance and harmony in the awareness of God’s call. Is it possible?

ABOUT WIKIKLESIA: The award winning Wikiklesia Project, is a ground breaking, ecclesial publishing experiment in personal participatory media and on-line collaborative publishing. This project has created a non profit, between – publishing paradigm based on collaboration over copyright. The model is flexible and nomadic, exploring new publishing paradigms that not only create streams of information and narrative, but which have the potential to generate social movement as well as raise money for charities.

That covers the press release. The completed volume is 17 chapters and 290 pages. I’m sure many of you will have this volume in your hands shortly. I contributed a short chapter titled, “Leadership Lenses, Jungian Archetypes, and Gender.” Here are what some others are saying about this effort.

“Taking Fight is an important project that brings together a rich array of diverse voices to discuss the issues facing women in our world today. It is refreshing and challenging to read a book like this that provides strong theological groundings, historical perspectives and examples from today’s world that are both instructive and insightful. I would highly recommend this book.”
Christine Sine
Executive Director Mustard Seed Associates

“Wow. I found Taking Flight to be a thoroughly captivating book from the first page. It is thoughtful and provoking, relevant but never reactionary. It is full of Scriptural precedents and historical background while offering prophetic insight as to what’s coming up next. So
many issues of great importance and all of them dealt with fairly and passionately.”
Andrew Jones, The Boaz Project

“Taking Flight lives up to its title! The collaborative nature of this project gives witness to the power and creativity of a Christ-centered community rather than futile discursive matches. When grounded in Christ, it is possible to soar in hope that men and women serving together can be reconciling forces in a world desperately needing our full attention and contributions. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it!
Dr. MaryKate Morse
Author, Making Room for Leadership and Professor at George Fox Seminary