A LONG WAY TO GO AND THE F WORD I [...]]]> In the first part of this article I explored something of what makes us the amazing people we are; how, when awakened, we become “forces of nature.” The bigger question for this column is: How can an awakened person live in an inherited or denominational church?

A LONG WAY TO GO AND THE F WORD
I have been on what I now see to be an odyssey for more than ten years. I want to be very honest though, for, although I have traveled a long way in thought and practice and relationship, I can’t hide the fact that I’ve got a long way to go towards being as missional as God is calling me to be.

Not long ago I heard someone say that our failures might be the platform for our humanity. I like that. I once read this advice in a Seth Godin Book: ‘Fail and Fail and Fail Again’. He was encouraging his reader to keep trying things, to take risks. I thought that would make a great title for a book if I ever wrote one!

Tim Heerebout responded to my last article, asking “Do you think an established church can ever be moved from the old mentality to really adopt this as a core value?” He allowed me to ask a question in return: “What would you say are the five most significant things for establishing a sustainable faith community?”

My thanks to Tim, who responded as follows:
1. Connection to Jesus
2. An understanding of how we’re to be involved in His mission
3. A map for the journey through discipleship
4. A radical commitment to community
5. A heart for serving the world

If Tim is right (and I think his list is powerful) then we begin to see the size of the task for the awakened person (and why there will be many instances of failure when different cultures clash). This next list shows the current state of many churches that have to be led towards Tim’s top-5:
1. Connection to (their) church and its doctrines
2. A limited understanding of mission which often sees the end result as a larger church (still doing things their way) or doing things for people that don’t connect them with a faith community.
3. An emphasis on the traditional ways (service attendance, membership, job-filling, financial giving) which tend to externalize faith
4. Deep community is an add on - “we” emerges out of “I” when it needs to be the other way around
5. Try to change the “sanctuary” and see how separated church and the world are

FAILED AGAIN
Just before Christmas I found myself reacting in a meeting to someone who wouldn’t work with the order things needed to progress to explore a mission opportunity. It became an argument and I got angry, so much so I felt it too deeply.  After apologizing to everyone, and to the focus of my anger, I knew I didn’t want to cover this over or carry on as normal. (It didn’t help when others of the meeting told me they would have strangled him.) My sadness over this resulted from my daily desire to be more open to God and his work in making me more like Jesus. Yet I “lost it,” and I felt the failure again. My response has been to begin an experiment.

Frank Laubach is one of my heroes of the faith, and inspired by - but not copying him - I have set out to be more present to God each day, and, (please God), to be made more like Jesus. I am sharing this here because I see this as being the central need for missional leaders who hope to be about all God wants of them, through all God has given them.

You can read about the experiment at: http://www.geoffreybaines@btinternet.com.

Last time I wrote how I was right in the middle of “it” - the denominational church. I can see how much of what happened in this meeting was the result of more than three years of frustration spilling over – I had not noticed how close to the surface it was until then.

ZOOMING
I think through my experience of the last few weeks, I have become more convinced of how important it is to know who we are, what we are meant to do, and how we connect with God. I am exploring how I can better make the contribution that only I can make … so watch this space. I believe the person I was arguing with has amazing talents and abilities too, but just as mine must be offered in the right places and ways, so must his.

There’s a great Marcus Buckingham line I’ve just been searching for in his books, but as I haven’t found it yet, I’ll just paraphrase: Never mind trying to put anything else into people; it’s hard enough trying to bring out what’s already in there – focus on the things that are already in there.

So my experiment includes focusing on “what’s already in there,” taking this as far as I can. Seth Godin calls this “zooming”: stretching your limits without threatening your foundation (Small is the New Big). This isn’t X-Factor (American Idol) Christianity; it’s the Philippians 2 kind. We enter the life we are meant to live in humility for the sake of others, and we find ourselves living a greater story. There are many others who will only get to live their greater stories when we live ours, living as only we can so that the gospel may enter the lives of others.

Richard Rohr (‘Adam’s Return’) writes of five elemental truths that are found in many cultures around the world when it comes to children moving into adulthood – (forming responsible and contributing humans). They are:
1. Life is hard
2. You’re not as important as you think
3. Your life is not about you
4. You are not in control
5. You are going to die

These five statements are true enough, but Jesus completes them: you might like to have a go at finishing each one off: Life is hard BUT …, etc.

A FEW QUESTIONS
Here are some questions to explore that which is already in you, needing to be brought out if we are to be forces of nature:
• How do you find yourself connecting with God, and how can you zoom this relationship?
• What are your amazing talents and abilities that energize you, formed and shaped throughout your lives?
• What are your dreams for making the world more human?
• The Holy Spirit has given you gifts to focus your life in service; what are yours?

What do you think?

The Na´vi [...]]]> By now most of you have seen James Cameron’s blockbuster movie, AVATAR.
The night I saw it I knew this movie would strike a chord with large audiences worldwide. I tweeted that anyone who saw the movie was going to want to live on Pandora, the home planet of the 10-foot tall, blue skinned Na´vi.

The Na´vi people are tall, thin, tribal, handsome and fiercely brave. Pandora, their planet, is as beautiful as it is dangerous. The Na´vi live in a ubiquitous communion with each other and their world. The conflict arises when an evil corporation (surprise!) from Earth wants to exploit large deposits of a treasured mineral located directly under the Na´vi’s ancient home.

Interestingly enough, CNN reports that audiences are experiencing depression after viewing the movie, with some even entertaining suicidal thoughts. Others are experiencing an increased disgust with humanity.

I mentioned to a new friend of mine how I felt that many viewers would want to live on Pandora. He said that he asked his wife to paint herself blue. To me, these are totally understandable responses. The Na´vi live in community. The Na´vi are exotic, wise, fierce, and sexy. Their planet, Pandora, is filled with cool flora and fauna. Life there is an adventure.

Ok, so the fantastical Pandora is cool. What’s not to like?
But thoughts of suicide? Anger with the humans?

Many of us feel a slight sadness when we finish a great novel, or when a favorite television series ends. But depression?

Still, perhaps there is something here that we should pay attention to. Sometimes we minimize the distance between the world we live in, the world “as it is”, and the world we dream of, the world as “it could be”. The Na´vi live in the kind of dense community we long for but cannot seem to find. They are exotic, fierce, wise, and sexy. We are not blue, not fierce, often confused, and mostly look awful in thong underwear. Their lush planet and colorful lives are filled with adventure. Our lives seem gray in comparison.

Here’s where it all began to break down for me. The CNN article tells us, “Compared to life on earth Pandora is beautiful and glowing utopia”.

What?

This is a line written by someone who never gets outside. Heck, you don’t even have to go outside. Get the Discovery Channel for God’s sake.

Perhaps part of the problem is that while we wished we could live on amazing fictional planets, we’ve never taken the steps to really live here on this planet.

We are estranged from each other and our world, but not because humans suck and the “world is dying” (as one of the depressed said of Earth). Our problem is that we lack a mission worth giving our lives to, something worth defending, something worth dying for. Without this we often feel an emptiness to our lives and routines. Another part of the problem is that we spend too much time being heroes in fantasy worlds and games. We live action packed lives vicariously through television and movies. Since I adore movies and TV let me qualify this. “Too much time” is a relative. Some of us live before our screens to the exclusion of a real world that is filled with amazing adventures, vicious predators, and lots of opportunities to die doing something really daring.

Just a couple of days before I heard about the “Avatar blues” I was listening to a new friend of mine, Steve, tell of his experience on a hunt in Africa. He and a mutual friend of ours, Terry, had fired on a Rhino and the behemoth charged them. Steve tells me that you could feel the ground tremble as this angered beast ran at them. Terry, he said, took two steps forward at the Rhino, ground trembling beneath their feet, cocked his gun, and fired.

That’s not fiction. That’s adventure. Earth is as beautiful, as dangerous, as lush a utopia as Pandora. There is a difference. Utopia means “no place”. That’s Pandora - no place. It’s not real. Earth, however, is real. You just gotta get out now and then.

I wonder what would happen if some of us actually got to live on Pandora? Would we spend our Pandoran days playing fantasy games in which we were Earthlings like Steve and Terry who actually went out once in a while and had adventures?

For Christ following people, Avatar is a reminder that in Christ we have a mission, and on that mission we will have adventures a plenty. We live in a real world of real splendor populated by real residents who are under attack. The cause is real. The risk is real. Because the cause and the risk are real, the conditions for dense communion with others exist. It’s up to us to step into it. So put the remote down. Here’s the call: Heroes Wanted in the fight for humanity and for the quest to save the planet. Safe Return Doubtful.

what do you think?

Have you ever reflected on your life and realized that at some point along your path you’ve forgotten what you set out to do?  Maybe you [...]]]> What is our point?  And by that question I mean to ask, where are we going?  What are we moving towards?  Is there a destination that we have clearly defined?

Have you ever reflected on your life and realized that at some point along your path you’ve forgotten what you set out to do?  Maybe you desired at one point to accomplish something great and noble, only to realize upon later reflection that you are no longer even moving remotely in the direction of the goal you set out to accomplish.

I’ve been there. At some point I always seem to lose focus. As the Gallup StrengthsFinder assessment says, people with strength of focus stay on track, they follow through.

Frodo, from JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, had focus.  Early in his life, as Tolkien described it, Frodo was adventurous.  Most of Frodo’s fellow hobbits were home-bodies.  They were, by and large, happy to cerncern themselves solely with their town, their garden, their food, and their hobbit hole. They happily lived in the present with few commitments and responsibilities.  Frodo was the exception. He would dream of traveling the world like his uncle, Bilbo, had done. He fantasized about it, pretending to be on epic journeys full of danger and glory.

Maybe for him, an agricultural environment wasn’t the best place to excel, because it wasn’t until Frodo embarked on a journey destined to change his life that his true strengths became apparent. When the day came that he was handed a quest, Frodo’s obsessive search for a mission became his greatest asset.

When Gandalf tasked Frodo with delivering the Ring of Power to Mount Doom it was then that Frodo discovered his true strength; focus.  And what did focus give him?  Focus gave him the drive to clearly see his goal no matter the potential distractions. Despite all the forces at work to distract and obstruct Frodo in his task, his focus drove him on.  His focus kept his goal first among his priorities despite hardship, time, enemies, hunger, pain, and imminent death.  In fact, his focus added value to enduring those hardships.  Each hurdle crossed was a rung on the ladder that led to the mountain in his sights.

Many of us struggle at times to keep a goal in our sights because of the many distractions we face, but someone with focus finds it easy to keep an eye on the prize.  They can be counted on to keep their vision clear.  They will assign value to actions and choices based on how efficiently they move them towards their final destination.  Their actions today are based on their goals tomorrow.  Like a bloodhound given a scent, there is only one end to their activity and that is when they find the source.  Until then, they are on the hunt.

You want to stay on track but have trouble wading through all those forces that pull most of us off the path?  Partner with someone like Frodo and they simply won’t let you forget where you are going.

10,000 HOURS In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell busts some myths surrounding those really talented people who seem to appear out of [...]]]> In this first of a two-part article, we continue our exploration of what it means to be a force of nature (more specifically, a force of creation), and begin to look at how this happens.

10,000 HOURS
In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell busts some myths surrounding those really talented people who seem to appear out of the blue to take their world by storm, be it via sport, music, computers, business, or politics, and so on.

I don’t want to spoil this book for you, because it’s a great read that I recommend, but I will share one of Gladwell’s illustrations with you, as I think what he discovered is both important and fascinating.

The influence of The Beatles on the popular music scene lives on even today, and they were thought to be a unique musical phenomenon when they first exploded onto the world scene. What we don’t see, though, is how they happened to be around the right age, with a number of years already under their belts (they formed in 1957), at just the time when a Liverpudlian entrepreneur happened to meet a German nightclub owner, who happened to be in London, searching for bands to play live music in Hamburg, Germany.

The end result of all these factors; between 1960-62, The Beatles ended up playing something like 1,200 gigs, none of which was less than five hours. As you can imagine, this regimen demanded that they not only develop their own music, but cover other musicians’ work, and sample different musical genres.

Gladwell mentions that, in a survey of musicians, it had been uncovered that the most brilliant artists had some 10,000 hours (roughly ten years) of experience that made them stand out from the rest (a good musical teacher would probably have some 4,000 hours of preparation). From this finding, it could even be argued that Mozart didn’t begin composing his most exceptional pieces until he was around twenty-one (His approximate 10,000 hour mark).

A few more things that came out of the musical survey were: no one lacking musical talent could become a great musician - no matter how many hours they put in - and, no amount of talent without practice could produce a great musician. (I promise not to mention anything more from Outliers now.)

When you put all these things together: the raw talent The Beatles already had, their experience, being around at the right age at the right time when someone happened to be looking for a young band who could play long gigs, you can see how many factors can come into play to determine success.

MORE THAN WE THINK
Why am I telling you all of this?

I have met so many people who would say they have nothing to offer, that they haven’t had opportunities or any amazing experiences in their lives, that it’s always been a struggle. But when I finished reading Gladwell’s book, I found myself wondering if even these experiences – written off as toxic and perhaps even adding up to thousands of hours – might be used in such a way as to make a difference in the lives of other humans. What if there was some way of turning these experiences into something that could help others who find themselves in the same place now?

I have this thought that’s been nagging at me for some years now, that churches ought to be places which allow some of this stuff about “people with raw talent with particular experiences being in the right place at the right time and happening to meet the right people so they can make a remarkable contribution” to happen more often than anywhere else. The thing is, as I write this down, I am right in the middle of it; “it” being the life of an institutional church. And I think it’s more true that this kind of church is the last place where this convergence of people, talent, and experience can happen.

Perhaps many of those who may yet find that their lives can have purpose (the purpose God has for them) may not be people leading stuff, but people waiting to be led, and together with others, waiting to make a contribution for others that is simply remarkable (literally, something worth talking about).

I wear no rose-tinted glasses, and the last thing I can say is that the process doesn’t become easier as you become the person God made you to be. Just this morning I read the following from Seth Godin’s book, Tribes: “How was your day? If your answer is ‘fine’ then I don’t think you were leading. […] How can I create something that critics will criticise?”

AWAKENING THE MORE
Each day brings the reality of working out my decision to remain within a denomination and seeking to become a missional force. I find that it’s the tough experiences that I have had in this denomination that I find myself calling upon - like being spurred on to keep discovering things when so many are closed to the new and the different and the necessary. It’s about hoping this church is different from the ones that justified what they did to me and my family “for the good of the church” It’s about continually finding out what God really made me for. These are the times when I feel hope for the things that leaders of churches are supposed to do. If you were to ask me if I would swap my experiences for more pleasant ones, I think I would probably say no – I want to use them for something better.

All of this and more is why I hope the best for others. Perhaps, if I were to attempt to put into a nutshell what I must be about, it is this: to awaken the imaginations of others.

How about you? What MUST you do, so others might do what they MUST do?

What do you think?

(Watch out for part two …)

A couple of decades ago I began to collect ideas and images of the future. One of several descriptors I used to paint portraits of the future was this:The future is violent.

This seems more obvious today than it was 20 years ago, [...]]]> Thinking about the “future of  mission” (or of anything for that matter) requires imagination.

A couple of decades ago I began to collect ideas and images of the future. One of several descriptors I used to paint portraits of the future was this:The future is violent.

This seems more obvious today than it was 20 years ago, but it was obvious then too. The attacks on New York of September 11 made imagination less necessary to picture a violent future. And, given the fact that there were more terrorists attacks in 2009 than in any year since 9/11, I see no reason to project anything other than that the future is still violent.

But I’m not writing about violence today. I am hoping to provoke your imagination about the possibilities for creating a different future. It is the act of embodying this imagined future in the concreteness of “now” that makes for leading a missional life and adventure. Because of the huge space between the world “as it is” and the world as it will be, it is impossible to think about the future of our mission without thinking about the role of imagination.

The faculty of imagination is at the center of what it means to be human, and is often overlooked in our churches. In fact, more often than not, we consider the imagination the source of heresy, a playground for the the things that haunt the soul. I suggest that perhaps the imagination is also where we engage with God.

Think about it like this. The Bible is a book for the imagination and only the imaginative can begin to comprehend it. It describes a world that no one of us has ever seen. In that future world the lion lays down with the lamb, instruments of war are converted into agricultural tools, there is a harmonious community of nations, an Earth Tribe, so to speak, and God and man sit at the same table.

Imagination is the power to create space for the new, to see connections where there are none, and to act as if worlds not-yet-born are a fully functioning reality.

Religions are forged in the imagination.

Civilization is conceived in the imagination.

The future is born in the imagination.

Walt Disney is famous for the idea that “if you can dream it, you can do it.” He understood the power of the imagination. So must we. The people who follow Christ are an “imagine”-”nation”, a nation, a clan of imagineers, of seers. Like the characters in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, this nation is moved by compelling visions that are not fully realized but are fully imagined. In our traditions and in our churches we often value reason, intuition, sobriety. I think we should also value those who are inebriated with imagination that shapes the world towards the kind of future and world none of us has ever seen.

What do you think?

The art for this post is from Larry Price Art — http://www.larrypriceart.com/

I know this is a stretch for many of you because we so often think [...]]]> The gospel within human frameworks — We tend to use the term “human” in the negative: “Well, he’s only human.”
But what if we added to our mental vistas of humanity a positive idea of what it means to be human.

I know this is a stretch for many of you because we so often think of humanity as the problem. But what if being human is not the problem but the goal.

We strive to be less human and more divine. But what if the quest to become human was in our eyes (and in God’s) a very good thing. After all, God embedded His divine image upon the human. He declared his creative act of adding humanity to the whole of creation as “very good”. Humanity is not something good. It is very good. For the ultimate expression of this remember Jesus.

When Jesus calmed the winds and the waves, the disciples asked, “What kind of man is this?”

Now be honest, how many of us, at one point or another, have spoken to nature? I don’t know about you, but I speak to nature and usually nothing happens.

So, we turn to an episode like the one in which Jesus speaks to the winds and they obey him and tend to say something like, “Well, he’s the kind of man who is God.” For us, this explains why the wind obeys him.

But what if Jesus converses with the winds because he is human, like we are designed to become?

The Genesis story tells us that humankind is an embedded part of the natural world. We are created in God’s image to oversee this world of which we are a part. This function is what being made in the Image of God is for, according to the story.

Humans are a part of nature and designed to be a force of nature on behalf of God. The way Luke, one of the gospel writers, tells the story of Jesus, Jesus was a human characterized by an ultimate and intimate communication with God. He was the one upon whom the creative spirit rested and through whom the creative spirit works.

Jesus was not “only” human, he was The Human. In him we see what we were designed to be and what we will be: creatures living in intimate communication with God.

It’s not true of you that you are “only” human. That’s nonsensical like saying you are “only an ultimate mystery”. You are human — a creature capable of contact and communication with God, the creative force behind the universe.

So speak with the winds.
Anticipate what it is that in Christ we are becoming.

Are we becoming more like God?
Are we becoming human?
And, are these two questions ways of asking the same thing?

What do you think?

See you in the mystic…

Erwin’s reply is basically: focus on the things you [...]]]>
Navigating the Maelstrom…of Missional Leadership in Traditional Settings – I am listening to a podcasted Q&A session with Erwin McManus and UK church leaders as I write. One person asks: How do you go about discerning how you can make the best contribution [with your life]?

Erwin’s reply is basically: focus on the things you are good at doing and which make the world a better place; also, the things you are good at that make you a better person: and, the focus on the things that you are passionate about.

We’re continuing our exploration of how those of us who are in traditional churches and denominations - and are becoming more missionally centred - can prosper and flourish. Last time I shared why I have chosen: not to leave the denomination; not to stay and expect less; and, not to try and live in two worlds (church and world). I choose something more than all of these, something yet to be given shape and form.

I quoted Len Sweet, who writes at the end of his book So Beautiful:

We were made to be more than men and women. Through the Spirit, we can become a force of nature.

Through the lens of Elijah’s mountain-top experience, I suggested that we are meant to be “thin-silence” people: living in proximity to humans wherever they are, in the way that God came close to Elijah. We perhaps want to be fire-people, or earthquake-people, or wind-people, but it was in the thin-silence that God broke into Elijah’s life.

I don’t think the question is: How do we become missional leaders? - as if there’s some stereotype. The question is: How do we become more missional? – the degree to which this happens in our lives will determine whether we become leaders of anyone or anything.

You must find the freedom to be you and I must find the freedom to be me. Your life is a result of the missional activity of God, who sought to give himself in creation. God is missional. Jesus is missional. The Holy Spirit is missional. And we who bear the image of God, we too are missional. Part of what it means to be human, then, is to be missional: to reach beyond our lives to bless the lives of others, so they too can reach out to others, to be fully alive. Then, the more we live out the possibilities to give God has created us for, the more missional we become.

Steven Hawthorne anchors this freedom well when he writes:

Passion is the heart set free to pursue that which is truly worthy. Those who set their hearts on that which is most worthy – the glory of God – live with joy-filled abandon. (Perspectives)

If God’s glory is seen as one side of a coin, the flip-side is our fully-realised humanity. I sometimes ask people: What is the purpose God has made you for within his creation-mission, which you will pursue for the rest of your life?

I think that maybe twenty percent of people know sooner-rather-than-later what do with their lives. There are lots of reasons why this might be: their particular talents and abilities; their environment and experiences; and how they have connected these up in order to move towards their future. It’s really more of a spectrum than a sharp 20/80 thing, but the important thing is that every person can take an intentional way; I know because I have been walking it for more than ten years. (And it’s the best; I have been more alive on this way then at any other time in my life. I really do believe the best is in front of us.)

Thin-silence people are true to who God has made them to be. Who they are emerges out of a conversation that they are engaged in with God. (It also emerges out of the conversations they have with others – we seriously miss the point of this in traditional churches and denominations, in which we mirror the individualistic culture of which we are a part.) Out of these conversations there emerge dreams. They do not know if the dreams have come from them or from God, and it doesn’t really matter because thin-silence people find themselves talking to God about these dreams, and God is asking questions and encouraging them to begin trying out the things they are passionate about, and he tells them he likes what they are dreaming and doing.

FOUR ELEMENTS AND A MYSTERIOUS COMPANY OF TEN
Here are four elements which have really helped me explore the missional life: Self-Awareness, Ingenuity (Creativity), Love, and Heroism. I see these four elements as being key to prospering as missional people in traditional churches and denominations.

A missional company of ten began living out these four elements some 350 years ago. Within a decade this small band had journeyed to four continents.

A growing self-awareness had allowed them to be honest and confident in what they could and could not do, what they were passionate about, and how they connected with God.

Knowing what they were meant to do with their lives allowed them to move quickly and creatively – they would say “Live with one foot raised.”

As they reached out to others with the love of God, they saw the image of God in the different peoples they met and they loved them thoroughly. This extension of love saw amazing creativity being released in different peoples, and they also expressed an openness to learn from them.

This way of living saw them on an odyssey of discovery and giving. It saw them living their lives in heroic ways for others.

Self-Awareness – Ingenuity – Love – Heroism: these mark our journey of becoming a force of nature for God. There are no shortcuts.

What do you think?

Next time I’ll begin to unpack some of this.