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/

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.

I imagined this as a “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” question so I could use my “phone-a-friend” option. Here is the million pound/dollar question again:

• As Geoffrey becomes a more missional and less institutional, being, should he:
A) Leave the denomination and begin something new?
B) Stay in the denomination and learn to expect less?
C) Try to live in both worlds?
D) Create something bigger than A, B, and C?

Thanks to those who took my “call” – I see that “B” was definitely not an option for you.

Before I tell you what my preference is, let me share some of my thinking.

First up, here’s something that caught my attention as I was shaping my question, this from the closing of Len Sweet’s book, So Beautiful, in which he describes the MRI life (Missional, Relational, Incarnational):

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

I like this a lot.

Secondly, here’s how it joined up with some of my other reading and thinking. I’ve been slowly reading through Jeremiah, following the prophet through his many years of not being listened to by his own people. Finally, the things that he has warning the people of Jerusalem and Judah about happen. The city falls and the people are taken into exile, and the only ones left in Judah are the poorest of the poor.

The Babylonians heard his message, though, and quite liked it (Jeremiah 40:1-6) and they offer the prophet his freedom. His options are: to leave his people; stay with them in Judah; or, leave with those you are going into exile.

What would you recommend he does? It’s not unlike the question I asked, above.

I was intrigued by Jeremiah’s choice. Of the two groups of Judeans, the one he picked were the least hopeful of the two: he decided to stay with the poorest of the people in Judah. (It was hardly the easy ride, being taken into

When I chose the title of whispering in the wind for the last article (what is a whisper in the presence of the wind?), I was thinking of Elijah on the mountain of God, after fleeing from Jezebel and her threats. Hiding in a cave, God promises to pass by and there follows a powerful wind, an earthquake, and a fire.

Apparently Elijah doesn’t hear God in any of these, but then, ‘After the fire came a gentle whisper’ and Elijah went out to meet with God.

The Hebrew, often translated as “gentle whisper” is more accurately translated as thin silence, but just what is this? My imagination wonders about a tear between heaven and earth, a place where two worlds meet and become one, and perhaps the thin silence is like the quietest breathing of God’s name: Yod, Heh, Vah, Heh. (We may return to Elijah to explore something more that he discovered.)

We too are whisperers of God’s name, thin silences, sometimes almost inaudible in the institutions we are part of. We sense that we are part of these but do not belong. We do not wish to, nor dare we play by the rules of organisation or institution. We are not rule-breakers either, but we breathe the deeper, more primitive sounds and consonants and vowels of faith, love, and hope to all we meet and through all we do. We know that if we are silenced in these God-rhythm breathings, then we become a part of that which we are called to change, and we may become only wind or earthquake or fire.

There is no archetypal missional leader; there is only one thing we hold in common: to discover and to be (fully) the person God has made us to be (I want to explore this more in my next article). We long to live in dynamic relationship with God with every breath we breathe; we understand ourselves to be fearfully and wonderfully made and are humbled by this; we intuitively follow our dreams; and our daily aim is to immerse all we are into the Spirit, that our life might become a force of nature.

We then increasingly see life as one; we make the invisible visible, and the visible invisible. It is not about church and world, it’s not about reaching the church and reaching the world; it is about reaching the human, wherever the centredness of their lives are found – whether ideology, consumerism, me-ism, idolatry, addiction, church, or whatever.

We know it is in reaching out beyond ourselves we feel most alive, but more: we are experiencing more for ourselves of what it means to become more human (the process we traditionally call salvation).

I therefore choose “D” – largely unimagined and not well known, but I hope bigger and more hopeful as a dream than A, B, and C.

What do you think?

It was a long event so I had to leave before the end, and it was some time later that one of the ministers from this church saw me and thanked me for taking part. She went on to mention that some of the people there asked who was that young man and that what I shared was like a breath of fresh air.

I had to smile, not because I enjoyed the praise in any way, but because I am fifty years old and people have been saying things like this throughout my ministry. After 26 years as a minister in plenty of churches, I’ve concluded that, whilst people enjoy a little fresh air once in a while, it’s a lot different to having to experience the fresh all the time.

A couple of years ago, I read Alan Hirsch’s The Forgotten Ways, in which he writes that, as far as he can see, no previous movement of God has ever rediscovered its original vibrancy and energy. Now, I’m part of the Methodist church, which is right up there when it comes to the tables of most frequently quoted God-movements, inspiring many churches and leaders today, so when I heard this my heart fell. Having said this, Hirsch does include these words from Stephen Addison for those who seek to be apostolic figures in the denominations:

The apostolic denominational leader needs to be a visionary, who can outlast significant opposition from within the denominational structures and can build alliances with those who desire change. Furthermore, the strategy of the apostolic leader could involve casting vision and winning approval for a shift from maintenance to mission. In addition the leader has to encourage signs of life within the existing structures and raise up a new generation of leaders and churches from the old. The apostolic denominational leader needs to ensure the new generation is not “frozen out” by those who resist change. Finally, such a leader must restructure the denomination’s institutions so that they serve mission purposes.

You’ve probably already noticed the “furthermore,” “in addition,” and “finally,” in what Addison is saying and wonder whether it’s worth it staying in a denominational church, and whether it wouldn’t be easier just to begin something new.

One of the things I’ve been discovering as I’ve been becoming more of a missional explorer – something that happens when you’re involved in the IMN – is that I find life outside the denominational structures to be way more natural than life within them. Some of the marks of this include: the human story of which we are all a part, the human conversation that can begin once we become aware of this, who we are as humans, how I connect deeply with God, and, what is still a question: how then shall I worship?

So significant has been this movement that another question is forming: Is there a point in this journey, once reached, when and where it becomes more difficult to stay within the church then to form Christ-centered communities outside? Alex McManus makes a great point, one that in certain ways has haunted me all the years I’ve been part of Methodism: even if the institution loses it’s sense of mission, it doesn’t disappear.

This is a hot issue for me, and there are a few things I’ll be exploring: my own future; how it’s possible to be a missional leader in a traditional denomination; how missional leaders connect wherever they are working with God.

I welcome your input to all of this, and so, if I put this in the form of a “Who Want to Be a Millionaire?” question, and it’s time to call a friend, this would be it:

As Geoffrey becomes a more missional and less institutional, being, should he:
A) Leave the denomination and begin something new?
B) Stay in the denomination and learn to expect less?
C) Try to live in both worlds?
D) Create something bigger than A, B, and C?

So, as you’re the friend I’m calling; which answer would you choose, and why?

Geoffrey Baines
Senior IMN Operative
Scotland

We’ve included below, for your convenience, some of the questions (and challenges) that came from my articles that we will talk about on today’s show. Just click on the “read more…” link below.

If you’re reading this on a Friday between 11 am and 12 noon ET, you can hear the show live via phone — Call-in Number: (347) 308-8021 — or via internet on All Things M.

** The Four Turnings **
QUESTION: You wrote a series of articles on your blog a while back around the theme of four turnings that people need to go through. Can you explain a little bit more what these are and how they work together in practice?

QUESTION: “I think turnings 2 (community) and 4 (mission) are the most needed and yet the most difficult to see happen in an established church. More often Christians and Churches turn in on themselves, their comfort, their preference etc. I wonder if however its turning number one which is in fact the crucial one? Until we accept and live out the Lordship of Christ we will have little incentive to embrace the other other turns he calls on us to make.” (From James)

QUOTE: “Instead, we should invite new believers to enlist in some form of Christ following community that is engaged in some form of Christ following activity. [Whether the form is apostolic, entrepreneurial, traditional, emerging organic, etc matters little. What matters is the missional heartbeat of the commuity]. Here they will “feed” others, be a steward of everything they have and are for the sake of the world, enter into a dialogue, and to engage and enjoy the world. This community will be defined by its deeds and actions rather than by its creeds alone.” Alex McManus

QUESTION: Why is this so important? How does a leader of a church that hasn’t operated this way move towards this way of being the church?

QUESTION: “mmmm…, this is both scary; yet…., sounds soooo right? As I embark on this church plant movement – what shapes it? What forms it? What income can I hope to make outside of the normal “paid clergy” areas as an aging 46+ yr old man? These are the kinds of thoughts and more that run through my head? Can you do both? Is it possilbe to have a “traditional” group who serves as the umbrella for what we think and know should be the norm?” (Rich, in response to turning to community)

** Conversion **
You wrote an article a while back that began with these questions: “How are women and men “saved”? Are we saved by cognitive acceptance of certain dogmas? Are we saved by the direction of our lives? Or both or neither.” You went on to focus on the story of Cornelius and also to talk about closed set and centered set thinking. Could you unpack these a little for us?

QUESTION: “Okay, so I get the wooing part from God. Once a Hindu, Muslim, or Pagan responds to that wooing and comes to Christ (the man standing on the horizon) what does he become?” You answered this by saying that he becomes human. This was followed up with another questions: “I am a bit fuzzy about what becoming “human again” really looks like if I am a Christ follower? If I understand you correctly are you saying that the process that is going to the same end is being human again? I thought being human was THE problem and not the GOAL?”

QUESTION: “I think that your observation about ‘Christianity’ and the west is an interesting one. i’ll have to find out more (and maybe try to find out first-hand) how well the term ‘Christ-following Muslim’ is accepted. if there is no lateral conversion (and i’m more than willing to agree to that), does the phrase ‘Christ-following Muslim’ really have integrity as a label? does it similarly work for ‘Christ-following Buddhist’ or ‘Christ-following Hindu’? the movement toward becoming human again i think probably causes us to rethink how quickly we want to identify ourselves using any religious membership tags.”

QUESTION: “Alex, I beg to differ on this blog. I think you are confusing labels (description) with who followers of Christ truly become (identity). Just because the term “Christian” didn’t come about until Acts 11 does not mean the concept of what a “Christian” is did not exist. Quite the contrary. It is because these Christ-followers’ behavior that eventually the name “Christian,” meaning follower of Christ in Greek and was originally a derogatory term, came about. So, what do Christ-followers become? By definition of original Greek, Christians.”

Peter has just visited the house of a gentile as instructed by God, according to Luke. (Acts 10)
Like many leaders his actions provoked an outbreak of criticism.

FIRST the uncircumcised believers in Jerusalem criticize him:
“YOU went into the house of uncircumcised men and ATE with them.” (Acts 11.3)

THEN, to their credit, they listen to Peter’s story:
“Peter …explained everything to them…” (Acts 11.4)

NEXT, they celebrate in God’s goodness and affirm Peter’s actions:
“When they heard this they …praised God.” (11.18)

This is where a lot of leaders trip. Just because they praised God doesn’t mean they now went and had pork chops with their gentile neighbors. The head that nods “Yes!” does not equal the heart that says, “Let’s go!”
What seems agreeable in concept often times turns out to be disagreeable in practice. Seeing where we need to go is one thing. Going there is another.

But let’s be grateful. At least they were moved to rejoice and became “deeper in the faith”. By “deeper in the faith” I mean perhaps just as useless in the faith but at least less of an obstruction to those who follow the gospel where ever it leads them.

Thus, FINALLY, most of them (probably) stayed home and did nothing about it:
“…telling the message only to Jews…” (Acts 11.19)

This last quote speaks of the those who had been scattered by the persecution. Those critics who had stayed behind in Jerusalem — don’t critics always seem to stay behind — most likely would have experienced even more pressure in the ancestral Jewish home to maintain the cultural and religious boundaries.

Now we get to the heroes:

“SOME OF THEM, HOWEVER…” (Acts 11.20)

Another place leaders trip is mistaking the “nodding heads” for “beating hearts” and expecting them to have “moving feet” (that is, feet that the apostle Paul would describe as “beautiful feet”, the kind that would be taken by the gospel where it wants to go.)

These “SOME” –as distinguished from “most of them” perhaps? — busted across the boundaries of culture and shared the gospel with the Greeks. They were an unstoppable force of “galloping horsemen” and “marathon women” announcing good news to the world.

Are you a church leader or a church planter that is trying to turn “nodding heads” into the “SOME OF THEM”? Maybe, instead, you should join the “some” and leave the happy and praising critics behind. They will be happy growing deeper and deeper in the faith until they burrow a hole so far into the earth’s interior they will never see day again. So tell them to go to their happy places, then take the ball of the gospel of Jesus Christ and smash through the wall that keeps the world enslaved in darkness.