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?” I asked him.

“Because there will be dancing in the streets.”

Most of my life long reading has been about the future. So, I’m not sure when I first heard this phrase or was first exposed to the idea. Whatever the case I have seen “create the future” thinking rising from the background to the forefront among Christ following people. I suspect that Mosaic in Los Angeles played a large role in this. Mosaic understood itself to be the Research and Development arm of the Christ following movement, the office of the future, if you will.

As a city, Los Angeles is in the future. But the church in Los Angeles was stuck in the 50′s. In general 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 new future 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 added. 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 we should create? We have a story, the story of Christ, that serves as the future image towards which we shape the human story.

The best way to predict the future is to create it. Think outward and forward and join the process of making disciples of the nations in such a way that new communities of future faith emerge.

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

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, 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, the “nations” mean those who live without reference to the scripture and who do not yet profess faith in Christ). Jesus’ instructions stretch us to imagine the discipleship of the outsider. We tend to think about the discipleship of the insider. Ideally starting a new church is a process to accomplish the 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. In fact, according to a recent poll, 96% of mega church growth is transfer growth. (Hat tip to Bob Roberts for that stat).

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 start with new disciples and the aim is already being achieved even before there is a manifestation of a new kingdom community…which will inevitably  arise. 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

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?

——————————

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?

—————————————–

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

This is my response to your latest post: “Me and Alex McManus Take 2: A “both/and” I can live with!” I’m glad we agree with the notion that “both/and” trumps “either/or” in the case of church plants.

Also, thank you for explicitly stating your point, which according to you, I missed.
This helps keep the guessing to a minimum.

Here’s your point according to you:

“My point is that these two approaches – option 1 (entering humbly) versus option 2 (big footprint) – are really doing two different things contextually, and which option we do HAS NOTHING TO DO with how we are gifted. (In fact you might need to be more entrepreneurial in the option 1 than option 2). IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH OUR CALLING.”

In the end, I want to suggest that your point is based on Christendom assumptions, and that if we leave Christendom “behind”, we’ll find ourselves on a similar path.

MODELS VS PROCESSES

David, I think you originally compared apples and oranges. You were not comparing models: The Mega-church model vs The Missional-model. You were comparing a structural model with a process, the mega church model with a missional process. Then you ascribed an impolite, abrupt, inconsiderate process to the Mega-church model and all mega church launches.

But now as you focus in on the “preamble” of a church plant, things become clearer. Here’s a question for you: Is there any reason after a team enters a field –humbly, incarnationally, and with a view to learn the context– they could not go supernova and then be faced with organization questions that put a mega-church like structure on the table?

I think this very thing can and does happen.

In contrast to your point, I argue that the essential point is not the “option we do” but the “outcomes that happen” when leaders of differing gifts incarnate the gospel in the right way at the right time.

Thus, the “outcomes that happen” have EVERYTHING TO DO with how we are gifted, and this “giftedness” can inform what we try to “do”.

In an earlier article I recounted the young house church leader some 10 years or so ago who informed that he had decided on principle to not plant a mega-church.

Makes you laugh doesn’t it?

I informed him that that decision had probably already been made for him. Individuals don’t just chooses to be great, to grow big, to be whatever they want.

The calling to humility is universal, but gifting is particular.

In the same way — and, I totally agree with you here — denominations and church planting organizations must not simply default to the majority template, choose to “do” big, and then say to anyone who applies, here’s the plan. Their idea of what “going big” looks like has too much baggage, and the people who can pull this off too few. Again, it has everything to do with gifting…and a lot to do with timing and context.

BIG FOOTPRINT LEADERS A GLOBAL AND TRANSHISTORICAL PHENOMENA

In our experience, those few leaders with high-impact capacities make a big footprint…signs and wonders follow them, crowds grow, governments and the powerful take note, some grow in devotion to them…like Jesus…like in Acts 2…like in the modern era west of the 20th century…like in China…like in South Korea.

My main point in this conversation has been, let’s not allow the Christendom mindset and bias against corporate, centralized, consumer-oriented structures (that I perceived in your articles) to remove from our vision the possibility that some leaders go supernova…and make a big footprint…and that that is good. Why would we handicap their vision and imagination, and the spread of the gospel, just because we’re fed up with mega-churches?

Besides, the mega-church, as we know it, is only one way to organize a movement. There may be hundreds of ways to bring order to a movement. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Ok, before I move on. I must make explicit here that entering a context humbly is not an option for anyone regardless of strategy or model. So, rather than making humility the possession of the missional model, I make it a foundation for mission and ministry without regard to model. Humility is about discipleship, not models.

In sum: Everyone must enter a field humbly, a few may go nova, and that’s good.

So, David, I may disagree with your point, but am I getting closer to understanding it?

I think that the reason you’re quick to deemphasize the “big footprint” is a Christendom mindset forged in a world of mega-church marketing sizzle and “celebrity success”. I say, let’s leave Christendom behind. Leaders and churches went nova in the non-christian worlds of Korea…and China…and in Jerusalem in Acts 2. There were no professional clergy in those contexts, nor people who had grown up in church, yet they went supernova. There’s something missing in your approach if it doesn’t permit –even aspire towards –these kinds of things. I think a system should provoke optimism and hope, not surrender just because culture isn’t Christian anymore. (By the way, I don’t perceive you this way. In fact, I perceive you as strategic and positive…very strategic).

You mention in your article:

With option 2 we enter a context  by announcing (launching) a large worship service. Here we offer every kind of Christian goods and service… We announce we’re coming with postcards and advertising. We offer services to the community to meet needs on a massive scale. We make a “large and positive footprint.” This is how we go to already Christianized peoples (in some way) who need to be called into the gospel anew. These people are already familiar with the gospel (raised Catholic, or Lutheran or traditional Bible church in their childhood and left). They may even recognize the habit of going to church from their parents. They need to get past the perceived  cultural irrelevance of their church experiences of the past. This approach still works for these people. They will come. This is attractional in its very nature (don’t see how you can get past this) and this WILL attract the Christianized masses who still have lingering memory of their Christian cultural upbringing.  The people above (in option 1) however, will generally not be attracted to this (and please, I know there will always be examples of the few coming from totally non-churched backgrounds  in the mega churches. I speaking about the majority of people who flock to big positive foot print churches.)

I so agree. The movements lauded at the big church planting or leadership conferences and the speakers highlighted there are often those that are able to assimilate the most people who already believe. That’s why it’s hard to get excited about what they do. But reaching post Christians is not a mega church problem only. Post Christian people are not attracted to organic churches or missional churches either. So many “missional” movements are a bunch –usually a “small” bunch– of already committed people who don’t want to be or don’t have the skills to be in other kinds of churches. They are rarely, in my experience, any better at incorporating post Christians into their lives than are members of Mega churches. In fact, often they are worse.

MORE ABOUT ATTRACTIONAL MODELS*

I think, the confusion so many have around this idea is that we have misused the English language by making the “attractional church” a bogey man. Everywhere in culture at large, the word “attractional” and “attraction” is a positive. You have to enter a small subculture of the Christian ghetto to actually find people for whom “attractional” is evil. My next couple of articles will draw this out (and I’m speaking on this at M –http://theimn.com). I think when we fix this pecadillo against language, some of our blurred vision will begin to go away.

In my work as a futurist, I think about scenarios, alternative futures, and I look at trends. I think you are totally correct in saying that the “market” for the Presumptuous Model –that assumes that if you announce a new church people will come– is shrinking. But the market is not what drives us, it is the gospel. The gospel wants to spread like wildfire, regardless of the disposition of the market.

In fact, the church planter I mentioned earlier (the one that made a huge and positive footprint planted in Salt lake City), when asked why they were able to launch so “successfully”, answered, “We took our time.” Even though they went in looking to make a big footprint, and they are definitely structured like a mega church, they started incarnationally, relationally, sensitively, humbly. They did have a mega-church model in mind, but not the presumptuous model.

That’s why there will always be churches that go supernova–the gospel wants to spread and God keeps sending us women and men with the capacity to ignite and nurture mega movements.

A point of greatest agreement between us is that humility and incarnational living are non-negotiable missional imperatives. In the post Christian west, we must put our ears to the ground, read the signs, learn how to move from where we are to where we want to be. But we must not let Christendom force us to eliminate the possibilities…especially the powerful ones of new communities and movements of faith lighting up human history like super novas. I think this is something for which all of us hope for and of which all of us dream.

What do you think?

———————————————————-

Next Up: The Truth about the Attractional Model

*I’m speaking about this at M. Sept 28-29. Motown.

How a Leader Enters a Context

David Fitch writes that he agrees with almost everything I say, but feels that I missed his main point.

I would like to understand him, and his main point, better.

David offers three clues that demonstrate that I don’t get his point about church planting. I want to extend to him the benefit of the doubt because I can be slow. But, in my experience, when you have some one that takes an “either/or” position, it seems that you have to either “agree” or “you don’t get it”.

Since David’s article is about why I, Alex McManus, just don’t get it, I want to give myself every opportunity to understand things and him. So, I want to address each of the clues in two short posts rather than one long one. This makes for easier reading.

A Huge and Positive Footprint
David’s first clue that I just don’t feel him is my idea that a new church can make “A huge and positive footprint” when they launch. I gave K2 the Church as an example.

The main point David discusses here: How to enter a context.

David sees entering a context with a “big footprint” as “typical” of “mega church ways” and believes it “smacks” both of “taking up a power position in a context” and of “colonialist mission”.

Wow. All I said was they did something “positive”…oh yes, and “huge”. I didn’t say this to dismiss David’s strategy. I offered it as another good deed in addition to his ideas. I was adding a both/and option to his either/or framework.

But David proposes that we enter a context “meekly, humbly, vulnerably,…(and) incarnationally”.

Everyone tip toe around and say, “Sssshhhhhh.”

David goes on to say that the fact that the big footprint “approach is acceptable” to me “reveals” to him why I “don’t see the need for a new church planting strategy.”

Really? Now we’ve stuck a toe across the line.

Where to begin? I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony.

Revelation vs Just Reading

I want to tread lightly because David feels that his knowledge about how I think was “revealed” to him. But I would say, respectfully, that what was revealed to David about me here is 100% false. David is correct to write that I don’t see the need for “a” new strategy. But this misleads…The truth is that I see a need for many, many new strategies.

This is why I wrote about David’s article — I think his approach limits and reduces amazing possibilities of leaders of differing capacity, especially high-impact, entrepreneurial leaders.

I am not sure why this false information about me was revealed to David. In both concept and practice I have participated in a wide variety of church planting “strategies”.

And —this is key here — nothing…no thing…in my writings either with regard to David’s article or other wise indicates that I don’t see a need for new church planting strategies.

In fact, I embrace new strategies, even the one David proposed. I also embrace high-impact, risk-filled, adventurous attempts for the gospel.

See my articles:

Twin Trajectories: Mega Church and Home Church Networks and why we need them both — Part 1

Twin Trajectories: Mega Church and Home Church Networks and why we need them both — Part 2

In that sense, David, it’s not that I don’t see a need for “a” new strategy. It’s that I invite you to be open to not only your model and strategy but to the models and strategies of others too. It’s a big world and there’s room for a lot of new ways.

I think I’ll understand you better, if you explain to me how you can write — not from a revelation of any sort but from the two articles that I have written in response to yours here and here – that I don’t see a need for new church planting strategies. Until then, I have to agree with you David, I don’t get you, but I’m trying. Much love, though.

Now, let’s move on to the issue of how to enter a context.

Either/Or Again

Here’s the situation as David sees it.

EITHER we enter a context meekly, humbly, vulnerably…incarnationally
OR we enter smacking of Colonialist mission –what?– “mega church ways” –again, what?– and taking up power positions because we are so big and mighty.

OK, Either meek and mild, like David proposes.
OR, imposing ourselves on others, pushing people around, and pegging them into a program (“colonialist mission” and “mega church ways”?) like David says I propose.

Again, we’re not getting a lot of wiggle room from David. In his either/or framework (again), you either got to be flaccid or erect, black or white.

But the either/or framework David offers is an unbalanced seesaw made up of his point of view on the one side and an exaggerated, unbalanced view on the other. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Fitch is setting up a point of view that NO ONE believes and then beating it up and addressing me as if I believed it.

This returns to why I commented on Fitch’s argument to begin with. His original proposal was built on this kind of either/or framework and this is what I disagreed with. Here is the original premise: “A look at whether churches should expand through a missionary model rather than relying on professional entrepreneurial pastors to plant churches.”Do you see it? Either missionary model or professional entrepreneurial pastors. My response to this is here.

And now, again, David gives another either/or framework of dubious seriousness.

I propose a real either/or framework:
EITHER Meek and Mild as David proposes
OR Big and Bold as David opposes
OR Both as I propose.

The Main Point

David can try to explain his main point. I will explain mine.
Creating false either/or frameworks about models keeps us from looking at the main issues at stake. For example, leadership.

Leaders are different. (Think of the leaders whose causes went supernova — The Mega church Pastors (Warren, Hybels, etc) Paul Yonngi Cho, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Jesus, Mohammad, Aung San Sui Chi, Martin Luther King, Luther.)
Their styles vary.
Their contexts vary.
Their audiences respond differently.
The ways their passions spread vary.

It’s not healthy to try and fit everyone into one template…into “a” new strategy. In reaction to one church model that has fallen into disfavor, I think that’s what David may be trying to do. At least, that’s what I understood through David’s article, “STOP FUNDING CHURCH PLANTS and start funding missionaries. ” My own point of view, that I stated in my article, is that we are beyond a one-model-fits-all world.

In any case, leaders don’t enter a context as a strategy but as people with a strategy. They can drop the strategy–yours or mine. Who they are as people in relationship to the context determines which of many strategies will be effective. Some of these leaders…dare I say it …will have greater capacity, gifting, etc and may go supernova. They will make a huge and positive footprint.

I say, nice.
David says, Shhhhh.

For David, it seems, it’s about models. For me, it’s more primal than this. It is about humanity and the diversity of charisms and capacities given to leaders, the numerous ways human respond to them, and the variety of ways human community can structure itself.

Some people are designed to make a huge and positive impact within a context. Others come in quietly. I don’t want any system or ideology that tries to limit or restrict these kind of leaders to act for the kingdom using their gifts, talents, ambitions, and temperaments open to full throttle. When a system of thought limits the possibilities, suppresses the amazing, hammers down the nails that stand above the rest, it needs to be challenged.

Last Thing

When did making a “positive” and “huge” impact for the Kingdom impact become wrong?
Before you answer, take it in — “positive”.
I would think that when and if this ever happens, we would celebrate.
When did “positive” become wrong?

I notice that this didn’t seem to phase David.
He seem so against this attributing to it code words impregnated with negative feelings– “colonialist mission”, “mega church ways” and so on — that even with the possibility that it could be “positive” David didn’t even blink.
Did it not matter that it was “positive” because it was “huge”?
Is it intolerable that a team of Christ followers –whether colonialists or indigenous — would “bless” in the best of ways a large number of people at one time? Scandalous.

Could it be that we become so enamored with our ideologies –or so frustrated with ineffective ones –that we lose sight of basic things?
It is OK for something really good like the gospel of the kingdom to enter a context and make waves, to spread like wild fire, go to supernova. I also think that your proposal to go in quietly, vulnerably, delicately is also worth doing…often necessary. I think its OK for people whose intent it is to announce the kingdom in a community to do so either way, according to the spirit that has been given to them, and the dictates of the contexts they enter.

In this case, both/and trumps either/or. Some readers may misunderstand me to mean BOTH Missional AND Mega Church or Attractional. They would be wrong. This both/and means BOTH leaders with stealth, subverive gifts, quiet talents, and quieter dispositions AND leaders with explosive, disruptive, high impact energy. This is primal. Ways to enter a context are as diverse as are the leaders that enter them.

My thoughts on the next two “clues” that reveal to David that I just don’t get him are on the way…

All the best,

Alex

Here’s the idea presented in David Fitch’s article:

Send teams of young couples into an under reached neighborhood with just enough funding to cover their housing and health (if needed) with a commitment to stay for a decade. The funding gives them stability while they integrate into the field by finding employment etc. This neutralizes the funding crises — trying to create a sustainable church organization before the funding runs out.

Here’s the author’s conviction:

“I believe that you put three or more quality leaders together in one place for ten years you will have a new expression of the gospel i.e. a church in each context. Gospel as a way of life will take root. Many will brought into the Kingdom.”

Here’s his vision:

“Imagine what could happen if we funded 100’s of such teams.”

Years ago I was taught a simple 5 step process for getting things done:

(1) Think big
(2) Start small
(3) Build on your successes
(4) Pray
(5) Never Give Up

The author is thinking big. He is also grappling with at least four facts:

(1) High-impact, entrepreneurial leaders are rare
(2) The entrepreneurial models that depend on entrepreneurial types are monopolizing the field and reducing creativity on mission for the rest of us
(3) The culture has changed
(4) The funding on high-impact churches runs out really fast and the sources for this funding are drying up.

He believes a major obstacle in the way of a church planting movement is the financial weight and social distance of a professional clergy.
So, here is what he wants:

“STOP FUNDING TRADITIONAL CHURCH PLANTS and instead fund missionaries to inhabit contexts all across the new mission fields of N America.”

Once the author threw the word “traditional” in there, I suspect he pulled every reader back.

Here’s what he means by traditional:

“Traditionally denominations have funded church plants. They do this by providing a.) a full time salary plus benefits for three years, and b.) start-up funds for equipment, building rental etc. to a well-assessed church planter (read entrepreneur). The goal is a self-sustaining church in three years paying its own pastor’s salary and assorted sundry costs of running the church’s services. The costs are astounding, perhaps 300-400,000 dollars or more to get a church plant going.”

I’ve known hundreds of church planters and can tell you that this is not the “tradition” most planters come from. But it is easy to see the author’s point here. In his world, denominations fund huge franchise expansion projects and these often don’t work because the field is changing. He believes church planting models must change. While not throwing out the baby with the bath water, Nick Boring, National Director of Vision 360, a Church Planting organization, agrees:

“Change is constant and it is gaining momentum – church planting will always be changing or it will lose momentum.”

Up to here, I think everyone would agree that we have to be creative in our approach to mission. Here’s where I think we need to step back even further. What does the author mean by “missionary”?

A MISSIONARY MOVEMENT

If the church is apostolic, that is, “sent out”, then every Christ following person is a missionary.
Are we to fund every Christ following person?

A part of the problem here is the church. We accept members into our church, but maybe this is wrong.
Perhaps, rather than accepting members, we should commission every new convert to Christ as a missionary.

One church that does this is Mosaic in Los Angeles. The lead cultural architect of that congregation,
Erwin McManus, likes to say something like this: the issue is not location but vocation. If you are called by Christ, you are on mission. The rest is just geography.

Every person and every team is on a self-funded mission.

I think that the author’s idea of deploying such teams is not only possible, I think it’s already happening. Where ever you have a believing home, there you have a center for world mission. The rim of fire, the cutting edge, of the Christ following mission then is located in the living room of those homes in those places where Christ is not known.

Another part of the problem is the Seminary itself. I have often said that seminaries tend to graduate people who need the church rather than people the church needs. A component of this is that seminary does not make anyone marketable except for within the church. What’s more, this propagates the false idea that in order to lead a church you need a seminary degree.

When a young person tells me they feel called to the ministry, the first thing that comes to my mind is, I hope you’re passionate about biology, or neuroscience, robotics, or nano technology, business or design. The second thing I think is that there is no such thing as “the” ministry. There is no special caste of Christ-following people who are “Ministers”. All believers are ministers and every Christ following person is called to ministry and mission.

So, why didn’t the author go further? He could have written, “Stop Funding Church Plants AND Stop Funding Missionaries. Everyone is Already Funded through their jobs!”

This is a fundamental place to begin.

He could have gone on to argue that what we need to do is mobilize already successful business people, real estate agents, business owners, insurance brokers, school teachers to incarnate the kingdom in such a way that nonbelievers are brought to faith and new churches are started. In this sense even small groups attached to large churches can be seen as church plants, as can small groups or meetings that are not.

The key component and common element here is that we don’t fund everyone. We don’t fund missionaries.  We fund leaders. We fund catalysts, igniters, the obsessed, the ones who keep the rest of us in community, on task, and purposeful, the ones who show us the way forward. We may need new models for funding and new strategies for mission, but we still want to get behind those who sense a calling and who have a capacity adequate to the task.

I agree with Fitch, though, we do need new funding models. But even more importantly, we need to get the right people and train them in effective processes to help missional teams experience movement.

ALTERNATIVE PATHS TO EXPLORE

Here at Kensington Community Church, one of the multiple paths we’re exploring, in terms of funding, is

(1) Looking for indigenous leaders (rather than transplants) who
(2) Have created grass roots movement without outside funding and
(3) Have the capacity to go wider, farther, bigger and
(4) Are open to coaching and relationship

Another path we’re exploring is what we call Triple Threat Cultural Engagement process. (I should probably give this a friendlier sounding name).

This is a process that involves creating grassroots movement with and among all people including non believers by
(1) working with cultural creatives for the common good (The Creativity Lounge Network)
(2) producing a simulation of what following Jesus would be like (gaMes), and
(3) launching a new community of faith (church planting).

Like Fitch’s proposal, both of these path are in response to our changing contexts. They may work in some contexts and for a season, or not. But the basic goal here is create grass roots movement based on “boots-on-the-ground” practices rather than trying to impose a model top down. I think, in spirit, we are in synch with the ideas in the article.

Here’s another path…

Vince Antonucci, a formidable, high impact, church planter in his own right, has a young apprentice. The young apprentice wants to be a tattoo artist who eventually wants to open up his own shop. After that he may want to open up a tattoo shop in the artsy districts of other cities. Could he be a 21st century Paul? Could tattoo parlors be the catalyst for new communities of faith?

I say yes! And I also say that this young tattoo artist is an entrepreneur.

How about this for a path…

I’ve always thought Christ following Martial Arts instructors would be great church planters. I think it can still happen…What if we had a movement across the country of Christ following martial artists who want to start Dojo’s — spirit Dojo’s — where martial arts are taught, and it’s run like a business because it is, but the instructors also guide their students and community spiritually. They disciple them to become fully focused followers of Jesus, worshipers of the God if Israel. Could that not be a church? Could it not be ten thousand new churches?

(I’ve always wanted to send a call to all Jesus following martial arts instructors who know in their hearts that they are missionaries, pastors, evangelists, church planters to gather together for training on how to start and lead a new church).

The list of ways just doesn’t end. I’m grateful for Fitch’s article for spurring on this decades long conversation. The opportunities for touching lives, restoring families, redeeming neighborhoods, and taking cities for God are right there in front of us. It’s right there.

The last thing I want to say is don’t stop PRAYING FOR AND FUNDING GREAT ATTEMPTS FOR GOD in church planting. Like Nick Boring said, church planting needs to acclimate to its new surroundings. Processes for advancing the gospel are evolving through our experimentation and creativity as we respond to an ever changing mission field. But a changed mission field shouldn’t keep us from taking risks, from thinking big, and from hoping and praying that some of the churches we start will go supernova and light up the sky with face of Christ.

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Join us for M. Sept 28-29. Motown.
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Day 1: Launching Large- the methods, motivations and madness of going big

Day 2: Primal, barbaric, apostolic, instinctual movement

Today I’m interacting with the research of Roger Martin, Dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, as written in the HBR issue titled, How Great Leaders Unleash Innovation. His particular piece, The Innovation Catalysts, describes how innovation happens at Intuit.

What happens when your company is not Apple and you’re not Steve Jobs? Intuit’s co-founder, Scott Cook, discovered that the grass roots of an organization could drive innovation.

Because of my work with social entrepreneurs, who architect Creativity Lounges or start new churches, I was particularly interested in the section, from Presentations to Experiments.

In my work with a church planting organization called Vision 360 Detroit, I am privileged to hear prospective church planters present their ideas and dreams for new churches. Some presentations are more polished than others, but in the end they are all presentations.

At Intuit, decisions about new products were made in the wake of Powerpoint presentations. If the pitch had sizzle, the product might get a green light. Then they made a shift. Rather than sit in an office, imagining what customers might want, and then creating sizzling presentations to sell the decision makers, why not have what Intuit calls a “painstorm”?

A “painstorm” meant that product designers would observe customers on the field with a view to discovering what their customers needs really were.

The application to church planting is obvious. The process we follow is…(1) We create imaginary churches in our brainstorming session and are inspired by them. (2) We sell ourselves on the absolute need for the church we imagine–Finally a church we can really enjoy, that is real, that isn’t about dead religion. (3) We feel the power of our idea. We imagine delighting audiences with relevant messages or fearsome messages that make their knuckles white as they grip the seat in front of them. (4) Then we project our feelings of joy and delight on the audience in that new field we hope to reach. After all, we’re all human, right? We all feel the same things, hurt the same ways.

But they are not moved by our songs, our morays, our biases, and sensitivities. They may hurt the same way, but you might turn to the country station and they might turn to Bach.

What makes sense to us, or makes us feel good is not what necessarily makes sense to them or makes them feel good.

Several years back I did a teaching tour called Makers of Fire. It was about the primal skills necessary to survive a new jungle. Besides the ability to Make Fire and the ability to get your bearings, an important basic tool is don’t assume. Just because it’s on a bush, red, and pretty doesn’t mean you can eat it. You must observe, test, learn the environment you are in.

For church planters this means that our drag and drop models of church planting may not work. You just can’t take what you know in what city and know it in your new one. You cannot take what you do in one city and transplant into another city and think it will feel like a native application. You must study the natives first.

This slows things down. It requires more experimentation. It’s risky.

Ok, but what does this have to do with team innovation?

Here it is: You don’t have to be a marketing genius, who goes to shiny city of the marketing gods and returns with the perfect product and process, to get the job done. The testing and tweaking of your grass roots innovators, those core group of people who are close to the ground, indigenous to the soil, those who already move and live and flow through the new environment can contribute to innovations that help your new church start in the right direction. The only people who know what kind of movement would touch them are the people you’re trying to reach. Listen to them. Observe them.  Create a mental map that begins with their dreams, preferences, and sensitivities. Build from there.

If you are a transplant to a new field, give yourself time to become a part of the field. Unless you have a remarkable cross cultural gift, this takes time. The farther the new culture is from yours, the longer it takes. In some fields, it may take generations.

Rather than drag and drop a strategy, sniff. Trust the people who live and love there. Listen to your team as they interface with real people in real places more than you do to the figment in your brain.  Look for those who are experiencing relational breakthroughs. What are they doing? Test. Experiment. Improve. Repeat. (For a process, see, Two Launch Strategies with a Common Element for Church Planters: http://bit.ly/jsLvsX)

That’s why I often say, If you feel like planting a church, lie down until the feeling goes away.

What do you think?

_______

M. Sept 28-29. Motown. Day 1: Methods, Madness, Motivations of Launching Large   Day2: Primal, Barbaric, Apostolic Movement

Presenters: Erwin McManus (Mosaic), Vince Antonucci (Verve), Steve Andrews (Kensington), Dave Nelson (K2), Lorenzo Della Foresta (River’s Edge), Nick Boring,  Rex Miller (The Millenium Matrix).

REGISTER NOW

STRATEGY 2
In the world of consumer retail products the strategy is
(1) test the product and
(2) delay launch until product is really ready.
(3) Make sure all your systems are in place…manufacturing, distribution, etc.

What are the implications for Church Planters?

Last week I visited a new church in Detroit. They had about 50 ethnically and economically diverse people in attendance. They have baptized 21 adults in their 18 months of existence…not launch but existence. Three weeks ago, the church planter who is also an entrepreneur, launched a third-wave coffee house. Her church plant rents a space in the facility.

In terms of the church plant the thing that strikes me is how evangelism is at the heart of this new church. There are churches that launch with no converts. Zero.

The services themselves are not refined, polished, or excellent. They are something far superior to that. They are real, accessible, raw…probably right for a community of that size.

Several months ago, I visited a high impact church plant outside of Detroit. The first Sunday was amazing, and they maintained the energy and enthusiasm. They were able to attract people who did not know Christ and are doing a “back to back baptism bash”. Nice.

In looking at church plants, I often wonder what the teams believe their product to be. Is it the service? Is it relationships? Is it healing? Evangelism? Is it education? Empowerment? Entertainment?
All of the above?

Whatever your case, pick your product and run it through both strategies above.

STRATEGY 1

If you launch early, do you iterate often?

Iteration means the act of doing something again but not merely for the sake of doing it again. Iteration means to do something again for the purposes of moving the process or product towards the desired goal or result. Each repetition of the process is also called an “iteration,” and the results of one iteration are used as the starting point for the next iteration.

STRATEGY 2

If you field test a product before release, what are you picking as the product?

Is it the services–as in having preview services? Is the technology glitch free? Is the music hot enough? Are the graphics and video live enough? Is what happens on the stage dynamic enough.

Is it evangelism? I tweeted a while back, “How would what we do change if we could only launch new churches with converts?” Are you meeting people who do not know Christ and helping them find their way to faith?

Is it your assimilation processes? Are you ready to help people move from strangers to friends? Is your small group infrastructure ready to scale to accommodate explosive growth?

HYBRIDS
Most church planters do a hybrid of the two strategies, but with a belief that what they do the way they do it is exactly what is needed even if they don’t meet their goals nor achieve the results they want.

The thing the two strategies have in common are:

Iterate.
Test.

The first iterates after the release or launch. The second strategy tests before releasing or launching the product. Either way, the common element is that they put their product up against their desired audience and get a read on how their doing. Are they meeting their goals? Are they getting the desired response?

Who is your audience? Other Christians? Worship music fans? Fans of relevant preaching?
It’s essential for a church plant to get this one right. Luke, the writer from the New testament, indicates that new communities of faith followed the proclamation of the gospel among those who did not yet know it.

One way to think about the desired result is this: have we made a disciple of a nonbeliever?

Iterate and test until that begins to happen.

When you do this you are contributing to the most important work on planet Earth.

What do you think?

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?