Touchstones for Missional Communities

Some good missional stuff from Alan Hirsch via Future Travelers:
•Every believer contains within themselves the potential for world transformation.
•Our goal is that every believer is a church planter and every church a church planting church
•Are we in the “people of God mode” or “professional mode?”
•How can you improve on Jesus’ plan of discipleship? He said, “Die.”

.•If we don’t get Jesus right, we create a toxic system, that produces toxic people.
•If you want to reproduce, you have got to be “reproduce-able.”
•With disciples you can go places, with consumers you can’t.
•We must act our way into a new way of thinking not vice versa.
•We engaging a people group, we can’t preempt the gospel with our version of church (structure).
•The church is a “scratch and sniff” experience of the Kingdom.
•Incarnation is how the God engaged the world. He doesn’t overwhelm us, he invites us.

 

Or as I might put it:

Once you truly follow the loving and liberating Jesus, you inevitably are oriented toward others beyond yourself and your comfort zone, and you have such inherent potential for transforming the world; you all do; you don't have to be a special trained or ordained person, in fact that might be something to overcome.

I would now use mission planter and every mission is a mission multiplier. church is one way to bring about the mission.

People not programs, not professional concerns

To live abundantly means to die to who we have been, to continually empty ourselves so God in community can bring us toward our fullest selves. missionaries, even progressive ones, need a theology of the cross.

Yes, getting Jesus right, taking scholarship and theology seriously, not just one's own experiences which are often designed to make Jesus fit our conveniences and culture; Jesus deserves an educated, always growing disciple. There are spiritually toxic people; they come in all traditions.

It starts with you, but doesn't end with you, but how you can help grow others; health begets growth; you can't grow or help others grow without health.

Consumers want to stay in place and make things about them and for themselves; disciples can't wait to get on the road, trying to catch up with Jesus who is always going ahead of us to Galilee.

Act and then reflect; don't wait until you think you have everything figured out and have your great vision and action plan; small acts of justice done with great love trumps our best systems.

Church is people to be filled not boxes on an organizational chart to be filled.

The church is to imitate and initiate the beloved community; but I can't improve on that scratch and sniff metaphor.

God sends, moves into the poor neighborhood, acts like leaven and mustard, emerging from within to change the whole; not attractional, top down, not the way an Empire behaves; church needs to be made in "the likeness of God".

The foundation for the missional church: the water to take the red pill

Funny what you wake up thinking sometimes; this morning it was this: God is active in the world; base assumption or missional communities won't make sense; our mission is to join up with God's mission; we don't create church to create and contain and convey God and God's mission; we try to create church, or should, to try to catch up with what God is doing in the world; God's covenant with the world is the foundation for our various covenants such as the one with a church body; the church is to be made in the likeness of God (nod of sorts to William Ellery Channing); what kind of God is the church depicting if it is a come to us rather than a go to them church? of course i trust you have your google translator set as you need for God<==>. 

New From Alan Hirsch: Inside His Head and Writings: Also, Can the Liberal Church Be Apostolic?

What's in my head?

by Alan Hirsch on Friday, 30 December 2011 at 17:05

Many people ask me whether there is some reason and logic of my various writings or whether they are random reflections on various subjects related to the missional church. Given that with the publication of The Permanent Revolution in February, I have completed my “library” of missional books, I thought that it is well worth explaining the rationale for my authorship to this stage. So for those who are interested, this is how it goes….

• The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church is really a foundational book and is considered seminal in setting the incarnational-mission conversation in the West. It really is scaffolding with which we can go about reconstructing our way of being along missional lines. It covers areas of incarnational mission, messianic spirituality, and innovative leadership, but redesigns these clearly along missional lines. I believe that the ideas therein are as valid as ever, and Baker is drafting a second, fully updated, edition as I write, so look for it. However, it is worth saying that it was written to help church planters to think like missionaries in the West as the assumptions behind the more formulaic church growth type approaches were no longer valid in our context. This has proved more and more true as we have advanced into the 21st Century. I have to admit that we (Mike and I) never expected the established church would take it seriously. The intended pioneering audience, along with the keen sense of urgency with which we wrote the book, can explain the overly revolutionary tone of the book…an element I correct somewhat in my later work On The Verge. http://amzn.to/vpedgL
• I consider The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church to be my centerpiece book…in many ways my magnum opus. The heart of this book is what can be called a “phenomenology of apostolic movement.” In other words, what factors come together to generate high impact, exponentially explosive, spiritually vibrant, Jesus movements in any time and context. Because of its systematic and somewhat comprehensive nature (it identifies a system of six elements called mDNA arranged in a dynamic system) it acts as the organizing ideas that guide the rest of my writings. As I have become more and more convinced of the validity of the core ideas laid down in this book I committed myself to elaborate on these in the six books that follow. Readers of my other works should always have this as the guiding reference work. http://amzn.to/vJ6Aam
• The book ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church (with Mike Frost) is all about the central and definitive role that Jesus plays in all movements that claim his name. It is a serious elaboration of the element (called an mDNA) in The Forgotten Ways which I tagged as ‘Jesus is Lord!’ In this serious book we explain why we believe that it is primarily Christology that must define the core nature, purpose, and mission of the church. We are a messianic movement after all. Therefore all renewal must in the deepest possible sense involve a recovery of the role and significance of Jesus for discipleship, spirituality, theology, community, and mission.
• My book Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship (with my beloved wife Deb) takes a somewhat different approach to the standard spiritual disciplines or teaching the ‘heads of doctrine’ approach to discipleship and formation. While not denying the validity of these, we suggest that certain things, ideas, and relationships intrude themselves into the God-relationship and block our capacity to be all that Jesus intended us to be. We believe that by identifying these hindrances, and moving beyond them, opens us up to becoming impactful followers of Jesus. Essentially it is an anatomy of modern idolatry and an exploration of what we call Shema spirituality—understanding the nature of dynamic monotheism, loving God with all that we are, and our neighbors as self. This book elaborates on the mDNA of discipleship and disciple-making. It is designed to be very accessible to Christians wanting to grow in their love of God. http://amzn.to/tHhRHB
• Right Here Right Now: Everyday Mission for Everyday People (with Lance Ford) is pretty much as the title suggests. As an elaboration of the mDNA of incarnational mission, it is a very practical book about how to get (and stay) engaged in everyday mission and make a Kingdom difference in the various arenas of life. Anyone should be able to read and engage the ideas in this book. In many ways it aims at activating the whole people of God (and not just leadership) into the missional equation. This is a huge missing piece in terms of movement dynamics. http://amzn.to/uggBnR
• My latest offering, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church is the book that focuses on the nature of ministry and leadership within (and for) apostolic movements. Coming out in Feb 2012, the book focuses on apostolic leadership in particular, but it does so within the broader context of fivefold gifting complex set out by Paul in his foundational work on ecclesiology…Ephesians. It's a big book in every way; weighty in content, unavoidable in its logic, and provides a strongly dissenting alternative to the prevailing forms of leadership in the church. It is likely to be a pretty controversial but will hopefully recalibrate the way we think about, and do, ministry and leadership in the 21st Century. It correlates to the mDNA of apostolic environment in The Forgotten Ways. http://amzn.to/sMYFLa
• My book On the Verge: The Future of the Church as Apostolic Movement, written with mega-church, multi-site, church planting movement leader Dave Ferguson, is all about organizational dynamics and change particularly as it relates to established, and relatively successful, forms of contemporary church (although it is by no means limited to them.) The book is thoroughgoing exploration of the nature of paradigms and paradigmatic change, change management and process, innovation of new forms and ideas, and of creating movement dynamics in large and complex systems. This is at least in part an elaboration on the mDNA of Organic Systems. http://amzn.to/uexUyl
• The Faith of Leap: Embracing a Theology of Risk, Adventure & Courage (once again with Mike Frost) started as a project to simply elaborate the mDNA of Communitas—that form of togetherness/communality that happens in the context of an ordeal, danger, risk, and challenge. But we soon realized that it meant that we had to look more deeply at the nature of adventure, risk, and courage and how it changes the equation of church, discipleship, spirituality, leadership, and yes…even our most basic theology. Its an exciting book with huge implications for how we ought to think of ourselves and how we should act in the world. http://amzn.to/sC6Vhp
• And lastly, but by no means least, there’s The Forgotten Ways Handbook: A Practical Guide for Developing Missional Churches. Written with the help of my old friend and collaborator Darryn Altclass, this book is meant to be as thoroughly practical as the primary text The Forgotten Ways is theoretical. It is a literal cornucopia of suggestions, ideas, practices, and possibilities that can embed missional ideas and a movemental ethos in local churches and organizations. Designed for group work and discussion, it is a great compliment to both the primary text and On The Verge. http://amzn.to/uldOSK

I think that with the above output, I have produced the necessary material that God has commissioned me to do at this stage of my life. I wholeheartedly believe that the form of the church that will advance the cause of Jesus in the 21st (and reverse the decline of the church at the same time) is that of the apostolic movement with all its spiritual dynamism and missional energy. But our imaginations have become so captive to a more static and more regulated form of the church. All these books, read individually, but especially when taken together, present a comprehensive, alternative, primal, vision of the church as a dynamic, high-impact, spiritually authentic, and sustainable, people movement in the Way of Jesus our Founder. 

Ron Robinson: What does being apostolic mean, hold out, challenge, the liberal progressive church? How do we free up our leaders to lead and start new ministries and stay networked and connected but not held back, controlled, discouraged, or timid in their risk-taking ministries? How important is a denomination, association? Do we let it be our ultimate allegiance, or God? How do we keep the best of our current ways but shift to a different way of being relational, empowering? Looking forward to the next book.

Worship Wagging the Dog?

A few thoughts from a facebook response of mine I wanted to elaborate a little more on: Can you imagine a Unitarian Universalist community without worship as the main act? Remember i am a uu christian asking this too :) But does worship drive the budget of time talent resources and money? What is the plus but also minus of that? What is set in motion because of it? Can worship be decentralized to drive the church to decentralize and move out of itself? How does worship reinforce that "our mission is to create a warm welcoming community for people like us who need us" and vice versa?

We have weekly worship; we will try to develop it up if possible as our community develops up as a missional monastery; I would love to offer worship every morning, noon, evening, and night; making it available to any who wish to participate regardless of whether they support us and our mission in other ways; in this way seeing worship in our abandoned places as an act of mission. We might even offer it in different ways depending on resources available.

But it will always be the last thing to get the focus of time, talent, and especially treasure; it will come as a response to mission for and with others in our area, as a response to learning and growing our souls and personal gifts and passions, as a response to the act of eating together and sharing our lives with ourselves and all others who come to the table with us; anytime we need to sacrifice worship in order to re-focus and re-energize for mission, discipleship, and community first, we will do it; worship without sacrifice, as Gandhi says, is a social sin.

In doing so, can we decentralize and take it out into the community in ways not envisioned or practiced now? worshipping at different times and different places is a good start; it makes it more as we say a party than a program; it keeps it from being a product. Can we make it a response that grows from the ground up by community leaders, instead of being a spectator sport led by paid professionals? How do we keep worship from pulling us into attractional church and away from incarnational church?

These are advent thoughts as I begin a new church year.

A Missional Thanksgiving Letter From a Monk Who Stayed

Here, we include the letter of deep thanksgiving and forgiveness and hope for a better world that was the last will and testament of one of the murdered monks who stayed and served in an abandoned place during the midst of a civil war in Algeria, portrayed in the movie Of Gods and Men which we missional progressives watched here this past Sunday together. A new deep meaning to what it means to give thanks.

“If the day comes, and it could be today, that I am a victim of the terrorism that seems to be engulfing all foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church, and my family to remember that I have dedicated my life to God and Algeria.

"That they accept that the Lord of all life was not a stranger to this savage kind of departure; that they pray for me, wondering how I found myself worthy of such a sacrifice; that they link in their memory this death of mine with all the other deaths equally violent but forgotten in their anonymity. My life is not worth more than any other—not less, not more. Nor am I an innocent child. I have lived long enough to know that I, too, am an accomplice of the evil that seems to prevail in the world around, even that which might lash out blindly at me. If the moment comes, I would hope to have the presence of mind, and the time, to ask for God’s pardon and for that of my fellowman, and, at the same time, to pardon in all sincerity he who would attack me.

"I would not welcome such a death. It is important for me to say this. I do not see how I could rejoice when this people whom I love will be accused, indiscriminately, of my death. The price is too high, this so-called grace of the martyr, if I owe it to an Algerian who kills me in the name of what he thinks is Islam.

"I know the contempt that some people have for Algerians as a whole. I also know the caricatures of Islam that a certain (Islamist) ideology promotes. It is too easy for such people to dismiss, in good conscience, this religion as something hateful by associating it with violent extremists. For me, Algeria and Islam are quite different from the commonly held opinion. They are body and soul. I have said enough, I believe, about all the good things I have received here, finding so often the meaning of the Gospels, running like some gold thread through my life, and which began first at my mother’s knee, my very first church, here in Algeria, where I learned respect for the Muslims.

"Obviously, my death will justify the opinion of all those who dismissed me as naïve or idealistic: “Let him tell us what he thinks now.” But such people should know my death will satisfy my most burning curiosity. At last, I will be able—if God pleases—to see the children of Islam as He sees them, illuminated in the glory of Christ, sharing in the gift of God’s Passion and of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to bring forth our common humanity amidst our differences.

"I give thanks to God for this life, completely mine yet completely theirs, too, to God, who wanted it for joy against, and in spite of, all odds. In this Thank You—which says everything about my life—I include you, my friends past and present, and those friends who will be here at the side of my mother and father, of my sisters and brothers—thank you a thousandfold.

"And to you, too, my friend of the last moment, who will not know what you are doing. Yes, for you, too, I wish this thank-you, this “A-Dieu,” whose image is in you also, that we may meet in heaven, like happy thieves, if it pleases God, our common Father. Amen! Insha Allah!"

(Written in Algiers by Dom Christian of Abbaye Notre-Dame de l'Atlas, December 1, 1993; two years prior to his murder)

It isn't enough just to be mission or purpose driven....

If the mission has the church, if the mission creates the church, instead of the other way around, then it matters what the mission is....

Getting churches to move from spending time trying to create a mission statement and living in mission is a good first step, but it isn't enough...

Is your church's mission to get more people to think alike? In hopes that this alone will create a beloved community? Is it to attract those who already think alike, e.g. are already religious liberals or spiritual progressives, but just don't know yet about your church, or just don't know yet about all the benefits they could receive from being a member of your faith community?

Do we want our churches to grow as echo chambers? Do we think we can best change our world by having bigger churches of the like minded religiously? Do we put our trust in an approach that thinking will lead to action, just as we do that worship will lead to mission?

Or, or, is the mission that calls our church into being more than this? Very much different from this. Not to get bigger so we can put on more programs and better worship to grow liberal minds. But instead our mission is to grow the soul of the neighborhoods and lives around us, outside of us, and as we do that, in relationship with those very different from us, we trust that what guides us and inspires us will grow too.

All of our efforts and struggles seem to come down to choosing between the kind of mission we have, not just that we have one.

And then the next question is, why do we choose one mission over the other? The same as why do we choose one location for our church over another? Do we make our decisions based on what is best for ourselves, for our churches, or for what is best for that living spirit of life that may be in and among us but also transcends us, calling us to go where we don't want to go, to love those who no one wants to love?

I came back from the recent leadership conference, and from outstanding deep conversations there, and read lots of comments from people around here pondering a church building move, and from others about minister moves, and listened to people talk about the struggles and resistance to change and various issues in their churches, and I kept coming back to these questions above: how would people answer when asked if their church should exist so people who have liberal religious beliefs can have a home, or so poor people can have a home?

This Thanksgiving, as every day, Jesus asks us: who is our family? where should we set our tables? who should we invite? This Christmas, Jesus asks us: whose birthday is it anyway we celebrate? where should our resources and gifts go? Or God asks us. Or that Transcendent Spirit of Life asks us. Or that moral center that makes us human animals human asks us. Definitely, we are being asked....

More interesting exportable research from Barna on young adults and church

Five Myths about Young Adult Church Dropouts

November 16, 2011 The Barna Group team spent much of the last five years exploring the lives of young people who drop out of church. The research provides many insights into the spiritual journeys of teens and young adults. The findings are revealed extensively in a new book called, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith. The research uncovered five myths and realities about today's young dropouts. Myth 1: Most people lose their faith when they leave high school. Reality: There has been considerable attention paid to the so-called loss of faith that happens between high school and early adulthood. Some have estimated this dropout in alarming terms, estimating that a large majority of young Christians will lose their faith. The reality is more nuanced. In general, there are three distinct patterns of loss: prodigals, nomads, and exiles. One out of nine young people who grow up with a Christian background lose their faith in Christianity—a group described by the research team as prodigals. In essence, prodigals say they have lost their faith after being a Christian at some time in their past. More commonly, young Christians wander away from the institutional church—a pattern the researchers labeled nomads. Roughly four out of ten young Christians fall into this category. They still call themselves Christians but they are far less active in church than they were during high school. Nomads have become 'lost' to church participation. Another two out of ten young Christians were categorized as exiles, those who feel lost between the "church culture" and the society they feel called to influence. The sentiments of exiles include feeling that "I want to find a way to follow Jesus that connects with the world I live in," "I want to be a Christian without separating myself from the world around me" and "I feel stuck between the comfortable faith of my parents and the life I believe God wants from me." Overall, about three out of ten young people who grow up with a Christian background stay faithful to church and to faith throughout their transitions from the teen years through their twenties. David Kinnaman, who directed the research, concluded: "The reality of the dropout problem is not about a huge exodus of young people from the Christian faith. In fact, it is about the various ways that young people become disconnected in their spiritual journey. Church leaders and parents cannot effectively help the next generation in their spiritual development without understanding these three primary patterns. The conclusion from the research is that most young people with a Christian background are dropping out of conventional church involvement, not losing their faith." Myth 2: Dropping out of church is just a natural part of young adults' maturation. Reality: First, this line of reasoning ignores that tens of millions of young Christians never lose their faith or drop out of church. Thus, leaving church or losing faith should not be a foregone conclusion. Second, leaving church has not always been normative. Evidence exists that during the first half of the 1900s, young adults were not less churched than were older adults. In fact, Boomers appear to be the first American generation that dropped out of church participation in significant numbers when they became young adults. So, in one sense, the Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) were part of the evolution of the church dropout phenomenon during the rise of youth culture of the 1960s. In addition to continuing the dropout pattern of previous generations, today's teens and young adults (identified by Barna Group as Mosaics) are spiritually the most eclectic generation the nation has seen. They are also much less likely than prior generations to begin their religious explorations with Christianity. Moreover, their pervasive technology use is deepening the generation gap, allowing Mosaics (often called Millennials of Gen Y) to embrace new ways of learning about and connecting to the world. Kinnaman commented on this myth: "The significant spiritual and technological changes over the last 50 years make the dropout problem more urgent. Young people are dropping out earlier, staying away longer, and if they come back are less likely to see the church as a long-term part of their life. Today's young adults who drop out of faith are continuing something the Boomers began as a generation of spiritual free agents. Yet, today's dropout phenomenon is a more intractable, complex problem." [Note: See Myth 5 for more about how the dropout problem has changed.] Myth 3: College experiences are the key factor that cause people to drop out. Reality: College certainly plays a role in young Christians' spiritual journeys, but it is not necessarily the 'faith killer' many assume. College experiences, particularly in public universities, can be neutral or even adversarial to faith. However, it is too simplistic to blame college for today's young church dropouts. As evidence, many young Christians dissociate from their church upbringing well before they reach a college environment; in fact, many are emotionally disconnected from church before their 16th birthday. "The problem arises from the inadequacy of preparing young Christians for life beyond youth group." Kinnaman pointed to research findings showing that "only a small minority of young Christians has been taught to think about matters of faith, calling, and culture. Fewer than one out of five have any idea how the Bible ought to inform their scholastic and professional interests. And most lack adult mentors or meaningful friendships with older Christians who can guide them through the inevitable questions that arise during the course of their studies. In other words, the university setting does not usually cause the disconnect; it exposes the shallow-faith problem of many young disciples." Myth 4: This generation of young Christians is increasingly "biblically illiterate." Reality: The study examined beliefs across the firm's 28-year history, looking for generational gaps in spiritual beliefs and knowledge. When comparing the faith of young practicing faith Christians (ages 18 to 29) to those of older practicing Christians (ages 30-plus), surprisingly few differences emerged between what the two groups believe. This means that within the Christian community, the theological differences between generations are not as pronounced as might be expected. Young Christians lack biblical knowledge on some matters, but not significantly more so than older Christians. Instead, the research showed substantial differences among those outside of Christianity. That is, older non-Christians were more familiar than younger non-Christians with Bible stories and Christian theology, even if they did not personally embrace those beliefs. The Barna president described this as "unexpected, because one often hears how theologically illiterate young Christians are these days. Instead, when it comes to questions of biblical literacy, the broader culture seems to be losing its collective understanding of Christian teachings. In other words, Christianity is no longer 'autopilot' for the nation's youngest citizens. "Many younger Christians are cognizant that their peers are increasingly unfriendly or indifferent toward Christian beliefs and commitment. As a consequence, young Christians recognize that the nature of sharing one's faith is changing. For example, many young Christians believe they have to be more culturally engaged in order to communicate Christianity to their peers. For younger Christians, matters of orthodoxy are deeply interconnected with questions of how and why the Gospel advances among a post-Christian generation." Myth 5: Young people will come back to church like they always do. Reality: Some faith leaders minimize the church dropout problem by assuming that young adults will come back to the church when they get older, especially when they have children. However, previous research conducted by Barna Group raises doubts about this conclusion. Furthermore, the social changes since 1960 make this generation much less likely to follow the conventional path to having children: Mosaics (often called Millennials or Gen Y) are getting married roughly six years later than did the Boomers; they are having their first child much later in life; and they are eight times more likely than were the youth of the 1960s to come from homes where their own biological parents were never married. The author of the new Barna book, You Lost Me, Kinnaman asked several questions in response to conventional wisdom: "If this generation is having children later in life, are church leaders simply content to wait longer? And if Mosaics return, will they do so with extra burdens—emotional, financial, spiritual, and relational—from their years apart from Christian community? More to the point, what if Mosaics turn out to be a generation in which most do not return? "Churches, organizations and families owe this generation more. They should be treated as the intelligent, capable individuals they are—a generation with a God-given destiny. Renewed commitment is required to rethink and realign disciple-making in this new context. Mosaic believers need better, deeper relationships with other adult Christians. They require a more holistic understanding of their vocation and calling in life—how their faith influences what they do with their lives, from Monday through Saturday. And they also need help discerning Jesus' leading in their life, including greater commitment to knowing and living the truth of Scripture."