Futurist and author, Rex Miller, walks the M audience through the “technological imperative” and the seismic shifts that are rocking culture.

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M is created by the International M network.
For more information about future M events …

Twitter: @theimn
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheIMN

And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter.

M is created by the International M network.
For more information about future M events …

Twitter: @theimn
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheIMN

And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter.

1) Social Entrepreneurs who start for-profit businesses that have a profoundly embedded social conscience in their DNA. Their concern is not just the “bottom line” but the net benefit they bring to their community.

2) Non-Profit Social Entrepreneurs who start social movements.

3) Spiritual Entrepreneurs who give shape to new communities of faith, hope, and love. A good number of the M network are “church planters”. A church planter is someone who starts a new church. We consider the activity of church planting a type of entrepreneurship that falls within the category we call Spiritual Entrepreneurship.

What is entrepreneurship?

According to the Meriam-Webster Dictionary, an entrepreneur is “one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.”

The word entrepreneur comes from an Old French word meaning “to undertake”. An entrepreneur is one who undertakes some task –in our usage here we mean a business or cause — with “initiative and risk.”

When we think of entrepreneurship we often think of those people who reach out to venture capitalists and secure millions of dollars of funding for some high-tech enterprise. But the young mom who is busy making and selling jewelry from home, the singer song writer who makes a living performing his music,  the “web guy” who freelances coding and designing are also, whether they know it or not, entrepreneurs. They have launched and are managing a small business. Not every entrepreneur starts with tons of capital. In fact, most don’t.

What is an entrepreneur like?

Entrepreneur and financial guru, Dave Ramsey writes, “Entrepreneurs, as a whole, are natural risk-takers. They are confident and know what it takes to get the job done. Nothing gets in their way.”

William Sahlman of the Harvard Business School says that Entrepreneurs are  not  risk seekers.  They are reward seekers and are more than happy to let others take the risk.

Two smart guys. Opposite ideas. Whatever the case about the psychology of an entrepreneur with regard to risk, all entrepreneurs whether through temperament or circumstance or need venture out into the world to get something done.

I have personal experience with entrepreneurs – people who see opportunities, take a step of faith, and get things done. Everyone in my immediate family (My mother, my two sisters, My brother, my first son) has launched and runs at least one business. Their composite persona has five remarkable traits. Each one shares to some degree or another in each of these traits. Let’s call this composite persona M. M is characterized by (1) the ability to see opportunities beyond the resources immediately available to them. She is (2) willing to work harder, longer, and do what’s necessary to survive and succeed. (3) M loves to create opportunity for others (in the form of jobs, experience, or community). (4) M does not know how to quit. She does know how to redirect. And, (5) M is generous to a fault.

These traits are not necessarily the traits of all entrepreneurs, just the ones I know really up close and personal. But I’d like to think that these traits tend to characterize the kind of entrepreneur that populates M.

Traits of an M Entrepreneur

M entrepreneurs see possibilities and opportunities. Their resources, no matter how small, are not a barrier for success but their launching pad. Their greatest resource is their personal energy, ambition, enthusiasm, vision, creativity, imagination, and love. To these there is no limit.  They think BIG and are willing to smart small. The only regret they’ll have is letting opportunities get away from them because they were too afraid to act.

M entrepreneurs are industrious. They know that working for yourself requires as much energy, attention, dedication as working for someone else…and much longer hours and more responsibility. Being an entrepreneur isn’t for those who are looking for an easier way to make money. But an entrepreneur thrives and has fun in the context of relentlessly pursuing opportunity and seeking the rewards of their ideas and labor.

M entrepreneurs are fueled by gratitude. They do not think the world owes them. They do not feel entitled. They feel grateful for the opportunity to express themselves by finding a need and filling it in their own unique and creative way. They work smarter and harder than others and LOVE creating opportunity in the form of jobs or experience or community for others.

Failure is part of life. M entrepreneurs are resilient and relentless in pursuit of their goals. Even when they suffer severe setbacks in life they operate with a knack for starting to move forward from exactly where they are without complaining or whining. They are a perfect example of that old saying, “If life gives you a lemon, take that lemon gratefully and sell and serve and negotiate like crazy until you have lemons to give away to others. After all, where would all those seafood restaurants be without the guys with the lemons? Lemons are indispensable.” It’s all about how you look at it.

M entrepreneurs are generous. They know that the world is connected in ways we cannot imagine. They know that touching someone with kindness and compassion spreads the love around the world. They know that people are more than objects to exploit for building profits, and that profits should be used to make people, families, and communities more human.

Are any of us perfect in these regards? Nope. We’re a mixed bag of obsessions and desires and compulsions. But to become these kind of people in the world is a worthy calling. So whether you’re launching a for-profit, or a social movement, or a non-profit, or a new community of faith, we at M salute you and ask that you embrace and advance these M traits into your world. “May the odds be ever in your favor”.

What do you think?

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M is created by the International M network.
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Create the future. I’ve been hearing some form of this idea since the 80′s. “The best way to predict the future,” it is said, “is to create it.”

I’ve been thinking about the future since I was 5 when my grandfather told me he would live to see the year 2000.

“Why will you live until the year 2000?” I asked him.

“Because there will be dancing in the streets,” he said.

That positive and hopeful image changed me. And when I heard and believed the gospel it reinforced the words my grandfather spoke. When I think about the future through the lens of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I see dancing.

Most of my life long reading has been about the future. So, I’m not sure when I first heard the phrase about the best way of “predicting the future”. Whatever the case, I have seen “create the future” thinking moving from the background to the forefront among Christ following people.

I lived in LA for some 20 years and, as a city, Los Angeles is in the future. But the church in Los Angeles was largely stuck in the 50′s. In fact, the church around the world as an institution is dedicated to preserving the past. Every Sunday we rehearse the things God did…in Israel, in the early church, in Jesus…in the past.

In church, we remember.

The book the church reads is an ancient one. True, many churches seek to apply ancient wisdom to the present moment, but the emphasis is always on bringing forward the past.

Because the Christ following faith is based on it’s history, we would never want to lose this emphasis on our ancient stories. We must remember.

And, because the Christ following faith announces a risen Christ who is with us on the great adventure to disciple the nations, we also want to keep the emphasis on our present experience of being with Christ. We must experience the reality of the Kingdom now.

But what of the future?

One place where the church actually faces outward and forward is through the disciple-making process we call church planting. (Part 1 of these thoughts on “What is Church Planting? touches on church planting as a disciple-making process ) Church planting is disciple-making process that anticipates and creates new communities of faith. In other words, church planters work to create future communities of faith with future new disciples of Jesus.

Because the audience for a new church is that population of people who do not yet follow Christ, we have the incredible opportunity to create future communities of faith that reflect God’s vision of the future. Too often our churches are more expressions of our immediate past than of His future.

To launch a new community of faith means that we can take what we’ve learned from the past and unlearn the bad stuff. We can create new future communities of faith that more clearly reflect the world changing stories we rehearse. Because old churches become rigid as they rehearse the old in their particular way, it is often far more difficult for them to enter into the future. Too often they are concerned with saving the past. But with new churches, this is not a concern. With new churches, we can create the future.

But according to what image do we form our ideas of the future that we are to create? We have a story, the story of Christ, that serves as the future image towards which we shape the human story. I suggest that Jesus is from the future. He is what and where the human story is going. The best way to predict the future is to create it. The best way to create a human future is to care about the things Jesus cared about, to love the ways he loved, to lead the way he led.

Remember the ancient stories.

Experience the reality of the Kingdom now.

Create the future.

What do you think?

IMN Resources
Missional Part 1:
Discipleship in the Way of Jesus by Alex McManus
$3.00
Purchase Now

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M is created by the International M network.
For more information about future M events …

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But often, when it comes to church planting, different images fill our minds. Consider these two scenarios.

Imagine that there are two church planting teams. One team, let’s call them Team A, works from the first premise below. Let’s call this “starting point A”. The other team, predictably, is Team B and works from “starting point B”.

A) We’d like to disciple the residents of a neighborhood.
B) We’d like to start a church for the residents of that same neighborhood.

How do the images that fill your mind differ when you read “starting point A” from when you read “starting point B”? How do you imagine that these two teams would approach their work? What things will they have in common? How might they differ?

Jesus instructed his disciples to make disciples of the “nations”. (For our purposes here, let’s take the “nations” mean those who live without reference to the scripture and who do not yet profess faith in Christ). Jesus’ instructions to “disciple the nations” stretch us to imagine the discipleship of the outsider. In contrast, our practice is to program for the discipleship of the insider. Of all the kinds of things the church does, starting new churches should be understood as a process to discipleship of the outsider, but often it is not. It is conceivable, in the western context, to start a church and never disciple an outsider. According to a recent poll, 96% of mega church growth is transfer growth. (Hat tip to Bob Roberts for that stat). In fact, many churches that consider themselves “discipleship” churches even though they have little to no contact with outsiders.

At a recent Church Planting Training at Northwood Church in Keller, Texas, Bob Roberts stated, “We don’t plant churches in America. We plant worship services.” Starting a worship service may require a programming team and some stage talent, but need not require nor create disciples.

Starting a new church often results in a new worship service populated by the already convinced. But if we start with the discipleship of the outsiders, then the aim of the church planter is already being achieved even before a new church emerges…which will inevitably happen. The apostles did not go into cities to start churches, but to announce the kingdom… to get that “embodied” conversation going. When that conversation took root in the hearts of women and men, new communities of faith emerged.

Brian Hook, church planting pastor at Northwood Church in Keller, Texas, tells me that he believes ”… in the years ahead we will be talking disciple rather than church planting.” In fact, he takes it a step further. He’s thinking that “we could drop the term church planter today because, in America, it doesn’t always mean ‘disciple’”.

So, when we think about definitions for church planting, it may help us to think in terms of the process of disciple-making among outsiders.

What do you think?

IMN Resources
Missional Part 1:
Discipleship in the Way of Jesus by Alex McManus
$3.00
Purchase Now

M is created by the International M network.
For more information about future M events …

Twitter: @theimn
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheIMN

And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter.

The Wisdom of Teams

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Two of Kensington Community Church’s founding trio, Steve Andrews and Dave Wilson, introduce future church planters and spiritual entrepreneurs to the power of teaming with others.

One of the distinctive features of Kensington’s ministry is their team leadership. Check the website, as I did, when researching the church, and you’ll notice that there is no celebrity extended to the lead pastor.
Kensington is not only multi-site in structure, it is also plural in its leadership paradigm. To say Kensington tends towards decentralization may not be going far enough. Kensington is a multi-localized community with a plurality of leaders.

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We are abusing the English language.

Ask anyone “normal” how they feel about the words “attractive” or “attraction” or, even that unpleasant construction, “attractional”, and they will give you positive feedback.

Ask them for words that come to mind when they hear “attractional” and, after asking if that’s even a word, they will answer with words like “magnetic” and “winsome” and “chemistry” .

What’s up with normal people?

Women and men go on blind dates hoping to feel a chemistry. Restaurants want to attract people. Public speakers and salesmen want to be magnetic. Politicians want to be winsome. In general, the normal world has positive feelings about the word “attractive”.

You must travel deep and far into the underground lair of the Christian ghetto to find anyone for whom the words create negative feelings. But there, in this thin slice of the Christian subculture, you will find people, huddled together in their hipster support groups, who shudder when they hear the word “attractional”.

How did a word that has a generally positive vibe to normal people become, in our minds, a negative attribute of a church, leader, or movement?

Are we really against being attractive, magnetic, and winsome?

Yes.

According to our English.

But, while this is what we say and write, I don’t think this is what we mean.

SAYING STUFF WE MEAN

When someone writes that they are against the “attractional” model, I think they’re really against something like this:

The Ignored Model — the church that launches or exists and no one pays attention.  (I guess we could call this the unattractional model, but why?) This model goes hand in hand with the “Presuptious Model” below. This model has failed to grapple with the fact that people aren’t looking for churches with cooler worship. They’re not looking for churches of any kind, never even think about ‘em.

The Repulsive Model — the Model that does not attract but rather repulses people.
(Note: I guess we could call this the anti-attraction Model, or the Repulsional Model). The problem with the American church is not “attraction”. It’s that it’s too often ignored or disliked.

The Presumptuous Model — the assumption that if we transplant what “succeeded” there-and-then to this place here-and-now, the same things will happen. It presumes to know too much instead of beginning like a beginner and learning from the context.

The Consumer (or Program) Model – let’s offer products and programs for people to consume, and while they engorge themselves on our feed, some of them will join us and bring yet others. This model often focuses on the Sunday worship and the programs offered around this service but never break out into community, relationship, service, etc.

The Fortress Model — the attempt to keep the world out of us and us out of the world…hopefully we can hang on ’til Jesus comes. (We could also call this the “send no one” model)

The Inward Focused Model – this church focuses on who is already inside. Discipleship for them means greater knowledge of the Bible, or richer experiences of worship, but rarely ventures out into the world beyond the church. (See “vocational” church below)

But do we use use these kinds of phrases?

Nope. We say “attractional”.

In recent discussion, “attractional” –being magnetic — is generally set up against “missional” –being sent out– as in, The Attractional church vs The Missional community

This would make more sense, if we replaced “Attractional” with any of the suggestions above. In an older post, Bill Hornsby, offers an excellent replacement word for “attractional”.  What people mean, he suggests, when they say “attractional” church is the “vocational” church. The vocational church is a contented congregation with a career pastor who doesn’t have a calling but a job he loves. It is a true “come and see” church. It’s OK with the occasional visitor but they’re not going to do that much to attract anyone to anything. They don’t send anyone and they don’t attract anyone and they’re ok with that.

DON’T BE MISSIONAL UNTIL YOU’RE ATTRACTIVE (ALMOST) AND …YOU WON’T BE ATTRACTIONAL UNTIL YOUR MISSIONAL

Let’s start with Jesus. He was attractive and, while he offered no programs, he attracted immense crowds. If Jesus were in the world today, he would be accused of being the worst kind of “attractional” leader…the kind that attracts multitudes and then doesn’t take care of them.

“Come on Jesus,” the Christian ghetto would scold him. “What would Jesus do?”

Every now and then I’ll be in a meeting where leaders are discussing how to get their church members out of the church and into the world. Sometimes the last thing I want is Christians out in the field spoiling the harvest.

We need to coach our members and our communities to be more winsome, more attractive. All missional teams should be coached on how to be “attractive”…and attractional. There I said it. Imagine a band of missional people being sent out together and three years later it’s still just them…and maybe a few more Christians who also want to be missional.

I wonder, what’s worse?

A) An attractional leader and community (like Jesus and his disciples), that attract many, and don’t “disciple” them …or,
B) A missional community that sets out to disciple others but is unable to win over their intended audience or is, even worse, repulsive to the audience?

The best case scenario, it seems, is a “magnetic” missional band…or, the same thing said another way, a “sent out” magnetic team.

In either case, a sign that a community is attractional (like Jesus and his community) is the ability to both attract a following and attention, while winning friends, healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead, initiating new converts, and setting off enemies aplenty. A sign that a community is missional (like Jesus and his community) is, well, the same.

There’s the truth about the “Attractional Model”, as I see it.

What do you think?

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Up Next: Mega Churches and Missional Communities

Do this Now! — Join me, Erwin McManus, Dave Gibbons, Vince Antonucci, rex Miller, and others at M. Sept 28-29. Motown. (Register by Aug 25 and save).

Clue # 2) “A high impact entrepreneurial leader”
Clue # 3) “Mega attractional churches that do small groups in neighborhoods are already doing what Fitch proposes”

CLUE #2: HIGH IMPACT ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADER

David, you write that “the history of such “American” type leaders is that they are best at galvanizing and organizing people to create large organizations.

Often the leaders of mega churches are awful at galvanizing and organizing people into corporate structures. What they’re good at is casting vision and communicating to masses in a way they their audiences feel connected. The crowds they draw require them to figure out how to organize people.

You add:

“Such leaders lead to an attractional church built around the charisma of this single leader’s gifts. Again, this works well when marketing to existing Christians and/or those with Christian memory who can be attracted to Jesus through an atractive persona. Yet I suggest (and have suggested for years) this works against mission. It approaches culture on the power terms of a power figure. It forms hierarchy. Instead, I argue that we need teams of leaders to inhabit a community and cultivate mission in the fivefold giftings (Apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher organizer, evangelist). We must do this humbly and be among the context. The other works against mission”

Why does this “attractive persona” necessarily approach culture in the power terms of a power figure? Might your thinking here be so dominated by Christendom images that no other options are visible?

Why does an “attractive persona” necessarily form a hierarchy? Are there no other images that fill your mind when thinking about high impact leaders other than solitary, authoritarian Christendom images?

Why would “attractive personas” only work well to attract “those with Christian memories” to Jesus?

ATTRACTIVE AND ATTRACTIONAL*

Attractive personas attract all kinds of human beings, not just Christians or “those with christian memories”. In fact, much of the confusion Christ following leaders and thinkers experience today is due to the way we have poorly employed the English language. Ask any normal person what they feel or think when they hear the words “attractive” or even “attractional”. Every normal person feels positive and thinks well of the terms. You have to go deep into the Christian ghetto to find people for whom “attractional” is actually a negative. But Christian leaders have embraced unbelievably inaccurate language blindly, end up with fuzzy vision, and even start arguing against something they’re actually for.

Well, it’s time to stop trying to be cool and make up our own dance moves.

Jesus was attractive…and attractional. Was being attractive against his mission? (David, you write that you’ve been saying this –not about Jesus but about “attraction and mission” — for years. Why?)

Did Jesus’ attractiveness create hierarchy?
Did Jesus’ attractiveness demonstrate he engaged culture in terms of power as a power figure?

Or, did Jesus’ attractiveness actually help his mission?

Just because someone is a high impact persona like Jesus doesn’t mean they engage with power as people of power.

CLUE #3: MEGA ATTRACTIONAL CHURCHES THAT DO SMALL GROUPS IN NEIGHBORHOODS ARE ALREADY DOING WHAT FITCH PROPOSES

David, you write that:

I would like to believe this is happening in mega churches but from my many observations, it ain’t. (Remember Wilowcreeks attempt at this?). Mega churches aimed at attracting can’t work against that orbit by decentralizing its people into homes.

Within mega churches reside entire legions of super heroes that hear the spirit and follow the spirit into the world …with or without the mega church blessing, but certainly within the big vision and ambitions for God of high impact leaders. You may not be able to get this from observation, but follow your intuition here. Amazing Christ followers drawn to leaders of great capacity and vision and challenged to follow Christ…what kinds of things do you imagine happen? Yes, some get trapped by the machinery. But not all…

SUPER HEROES ARE MANY AMONG US

Mike Schmitt is a member of Kensington Community Church, a mega church. He is a young guy, who works an ordinary job, attends a mega church, and he also founded a community barbecue in Detroit (see Elevate Detroit). It began as a barbecue for the homeless but developed into a barbecue with the homeless, and eventually into a barbecue for the community many of whom are homeless and many of whom are not. Without funding, training, or blessing, but certainly within the ethos of Kensington, Mike just started doing it. Before long a string of volunteers from Kensington realized here’s a guy that’s doing what we talk about. Others got involved, church and not so churched, Protestants and Catholics and people from the community.

Mike’s community barbecues have now spread to other cities and Mike now needs to figure out how to structure this movement, if at all. He walks around Kensington barefoot and looks like a tall blonde surfer dude who was transported from southern California and woke up in a largely black city with a spatula in his hands and burgers on the grill serving friends from all economic classes.

I can give you other stories from Kensington …and I suspect they probably exist at Willow Creek in spades too, though I don’t know much about that ministry, and every other mega church, but I know some of how the spirit works.

It’s true… a lion’s share of members of mega churches may not think for themselves yet. That’s also true of small churches. That’s a condition of our species that high impact leaders help break.

It’s also true that mega churches have an intense magnetic pull that works against decentralization. So do small churches…perhaps even worse because the vision is smaller. So do organic small groups…In fact, once people are connected, they are hard to decentralize regardless of structure.

David, An aside…you find it interesting that the churches I mention used video venues. That’s not accurate. Kensington has live teaching at all of its campuses. So does K2 the church…as does Mosaic. What’s interesting is why you would think they use video venues? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that). In fact, speaking of plural leadership, the founding Pastors of Kensington,  one of the best kept secrets in America, rarely speak at all even though they are still in the prime of their ministries. The same is true today at Mosaic.

David, I must totally agree with you, though, about the challenge of leadership development within the mega church. It is true that they can bury you in programs and productions. (So can mini churches). Allowing for the reality that being a part of the teams that execute programs and productions can lead to real community among participants, your point is still well taken. However, leadership development is a challenge for all of us regardless of structure. In some ways, a potential leader can grow in his capacity better at a mega church because it takes higher capacity leadership to lead one and great leadership tends to draw other great leaders from which one can learn.

But in the end, the goal is not leadership. The goal is discipleship. And here we are all learners and followers and I am always aspiring to learn from Jesus and from others clues to doing this better.

What do you think?

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*I’m teaching a session on this at M. Sept 28-29. Motown. For details and to register: http://theimn.com