Leadership Changes

Youth With A Mission (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Recently, YWAM has undergone a leadership restructuring, from that of a corporation, with corporate titles, to that of a family, with family-style relational leaders. The former Global Leadership Team is now the Global Leadership Forum. They recognize YWAM is not a hierarchical institution; instead it is a movement with a flatter and more egalitarian eldership. YWAM has many groupings and leadership structures, in many different cultures.

The University of the Nations, on the other hand, is an institution with a hierarchical structure including formal titles, such as President, Provost, Dean, and Centre Director.

Actually, the terms can be a bit confusing. There are nuances of hierarchy and other “social games” organizations and cultures play. Hierarchy is involved in virtually every large organization. A pure democracy or egalitarian culture is impossible in large organizations. Small organizations can be more egalitarian. However, there are always elders in any culture who have spiritual, intellectual, and social authority, even in small groups.

When a structure is high grid and high group, it is hierarchical. But if the group is not high in priority and the grid (or structure of authority) is very high at the top (where a decision is not or cannot be made without the top leader), then it is less hierarchical and more authoritarian. From the way I read Darrel Guder and other contemporary theologians’ discussion of Church & Mission, I see a rejection of the authoritarian leader and a call for a flatter organization with higher group involvement. Therefore, they are actually calling for a kind of hierarchy for some of the issues and egalitarian game for much of the other issues in the church culture. As I read the Scriptures, including Jesus’ own words, I see the servant leader who goes so far to say, “It’s better for you that I go away.”

Yes, he actually left the hope of the nations to a bunch of uneducated misfits, all of whom still did not understand him or his mission even after they were filled with the Spirit. That’s the kind of leadership the Triune God has modeled for the Church.

So, Servant Leadership is a lifestyle, which may or may not have positional authority in an institutional hierarchy. As our YWAM Foundational Values says: “A servant leader is one who honors the gifts and calling of those under his/her care and guards their rights and privileges.”

In other words: If you are a visionary leader, be visionary for the people, releasing them to pursue the call of God, and remove the obstacles that prevent them or bind them to some structure. Release them to relationship with God, with themselves, their families, their neighbors, their community, their world.

I think the issue may be less about hierarchy and more about leadership style. Perhaps what Guder and the others are saying is that the single leader culture will, of necessity in a fallen world, produce transactional leaders rather than transformational leaders. Jesus spoke of these two kinds of leaders in Matt 20:25, the worldly carnal leader and the leader of the kingdom. (Note: I am getting much of the following from one of the servant leaders I most admire. He is Tom Bloomer, Provost of the University of the Nations.)

Transactional leaders emphasize rules, have a low tolerance for diversity, emphasize hierarchy and departments, withhold information as a method of control, announce rather than process decisions, require loyalty more than truthfulness, talk about accountability without being personally accountable, and use vision to manipulate.

Transformational leaders, on the other hand, possess vision that is liberating, reproduce personal initiative with trust and encouragement at all levels of the organization. Their official outspoken goal is to encourage everyone to fulfill their callings. They promote creativity and diversity, at every age level. Therefore, divergent and creative people feel welcome and stay. They do not lead with rules, but with principles and they encourage people to apply them as they see fit. The leader is not seen as superior to the others. They have a high respect for every individual. Information is share opening with everyone and everyone is truly accountable. Truth telling is encouraged. And all participants are involved in decision-making. Not all decide (that would not help the organization to work), but all can speak out, contribute, and participate. Therefore structure is deemphasized. The structure is subtle and flexible, changing as necessary and as the organization grows.

If we truly are Christian and our organization, the institutional churches we lead, is truly modeling kingdom leadership, then there will be no transactional leadership. There can be no transaction in love. To fail to lead as kingdom leaders, and therefore lead as transactional leaders, will produce Christians who live as though they have a contract with God; they bargain with God in their prayers, their service, and their giving. When bad things happen in their lives, the question what they did wrong or why God would not fulfill his end of the bargain.

Transformational leaders grow churches & missional communities under the radar, quietly, and without seeking control over what emerges. They truly release what grows. Paul said it very clearly, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow.”

Closing thought: The nations were under hierarchical spiritual authority (Eph. 6:12, Col. 1:16) and Jesus came to break the power of that diabolical control. Jesus broke those powers as a lamb that was slain. He broke those demonic powers when he died on the cross, not when he ascended to heaven to receive all authority. Jesus did not seize power; he was given power. And then he gave that power to us. How do you think he wants us to lead his Church & Mission?

Equipping Leaders: Listening, Learning, Teaching

Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach: The Power of Dialogue in Educating Adults (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002), by Jane Vella, will challenge you to adopt principles of listening, learning, and teaching, useful for leadership, relationship, and ministry.

Vella educates adults; however, she does not simply teach. And she does not merely stick to her own cultural group. She facilitates learning in many cultures and for many different groups, mostly community development projects.

I’m personally very familiar with this kind of work and many of the places and people Jane Vella writes about. Vella’s books are important to me because my goal for summer outreach teams of interns is for the students to have the best learning experience of their lives. I want students to gain a deep revelation of who God is, His love and grace for the world, and their calling to engage the world in response to His amazing grace. Vella refers to this kind of learning as the ‘quantum’ concept, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

To teach effectively, we must listen.

To teach effectively, we must listen.To truly listen, we must ask open-ended questions.

Our Student Mobilization Centre (SMC) team is in the process of writing their own job descriptions. This is a very open process, requiring each of the members to engage, initiate, and define their contribution to the whole. That process and this book has helped me realize I need to be even more effective at listening and giving open questions when teaching.

Open questions need to be put to the ‘safe’ environment; they are usually best when posed in small groups. For example, when I teach I ask participants the question,

“What was your best learning experience?”

When forming small groups to process questions, Vella encourages teachers to define learning tasks and follow through on them so that the participants truly participate in the learning process. Defining the learning task is done when we apply Vella’s Assessment Principles, which is simply done by asking questions.

Applying Vella’s Principles

#1. WWW

Who needs What and defined by Whom? or ‘WWW’

Vella’s key assessment principle is the question:‘Who needs What and defined by Whom?’  This assessment is best accomplished by building questions into the application process, either before or immediately after acceptance to a training program or internship. Prayer for participants and decisions about what should be emphasized in a training experience can be made with greater effectiveness when we ask the right questions, keep record of responses, and assess the information gathered. This WWW assessment is not only for training; it is also an important leadership tool for assessing the needs and capacities of our team, their staff and their projects.

2. Safety

SMC Summer Internships

Field Ministry Internships (FMI), a principal program of the SMC, is a serving/learning outreach project for university student teams. Students integrate their field of study with a cross-cultural ministry over an eight-week summer intensive. Jane Vella, her books and other web resources for Dialogue Education, have  confirmed that many of the aspects of our FMI program help students gain that quantum learning experience.

For example, to help students feel ‘safe’ we form small teams of 4 to 7. During the first few days in the host country, we typically send small teams out on a scavenger hunt in order to expose them to the new surroundings and help them learn how to get around with some measure of independence. However, this exercise is also a bonding experience that takes place within the safety of their small team.

 Another reason for small FMI teams is that they may integrate well as a short-term team on a long-term field project. In this way, the students also gain a greater level of participation in the serving/learning process. The students design their own field projects on site as they learn to observe and listen to nationals and long-term project leaders. They are taught to assess the needs of the long-term personnel and projects while they are serving.

The safety challenge for FMI is the uncertainty of a cross-cultural experience. This challenge is overcome when FMI participants are safely embedded into the long-term project team. Within that safe environment for learning, FMI participants become more deeply involved in the learning process, which raises the creativity and energy level. Participants are therefore offering more of themselves in service and learning more about the contribution God has specifically called them to make during their summer internship, and perhaps, over the course of their lives.

3. Listening: Student Participation in the Assessment

Applying the Assessment Principle is a leadership challenge. We set the example of Listening and we invite our participants into the Learning process by giving them a Leadership assignment: Participate in an Assessment.  

Before reading Vella, FMI was structured with four phases:

1. Orientation – an intensive seminar, like a mini-Discipleship Training School, and project preparation.
2. Cultural Awareness – the first few days at the site of the field project, getting acquainted with the new surroundings/people, including a scavenger hunt.
3. Ministry - while serving the field project, participants write a proposal for a 5-year ministry project.
4. Debriefing – the final few days reporting, saying good-bye to new friends, and evaluating.

I have since added a fifth phase, an Assessment Phase, just after the Cultural Awareness phase and before the Ministry phase. The assessment of the project was originally assumed by the FMI leaders. However, students had little appreciation for that important phase. To better equip the student participants for leadership in learning, we now require them Listen and to document their Assessment before writing their project proposal. By doing so we are showing more respect to the field project and the community they serve. We also show more respect to the FMI students, giving them more opportunity to participate and take responsibility for their project proposal.

Summary

These are only three principles, however Vella’s books outline 7 steps for course design (PDF download). I commend this amazing teacher and her principles to you as you develop training in your context. Pay particular attention to the key words, RESPECT and ENERGY, which are at the top of my list of priorities for equipping students for the life-work and calling.

If you or your group would like to learn to apply these principles for outreach and training, please contact me. If you would like to know more about the Field Ministry Internships program, and the Student Mobilization Centre network of Youth With A Mission‘s University of the Nations, send me a note.

I am expecting quantum changes as we train emerging leaders for every arena of society in response to Christ’s command to ‘make disciples of all nations’. (Matt. 28:19)

Fatherhood and the Future

There’s no day in my life that has had more impact on the future of this world than the day I became a dad. Really. When my first child was born, everything changed for me and my future, but it also changed for a future I will not see. The day I became a dad changed history. Future generations will be changed, either positively (or negatively), through my children, and their children…and so on.

We were in Hawai’i in a little block-walled clinic on the Big Island the day our first boy, Justin, was born. Yes, Justin is ‘Hawaiian’ and his birth certificate looks just like Obama’s. I will never forget the intense emotion of holding my wife’s hand at the moment she was giving birth. I made the mistake of offering my left hand with my wedding ring. She squeezed very hard and my ring pinched. I was tempted to say, “Mary, that hurts.” But of course, that’s not what you do. (Hint to expecting fathers: Take off your ring or offer your right hand.)

Father Knows Best

This has me thinking today about what Mom’s already know best: There is no future without the pain of anticipation in the present moment. Every major decision or purposeful act in life, has painful consequence. Living life with purpose is difficult; you must forego easier options, less painful choices. Fearing the pain may lead to the failure to act or decide. But that also has consequence, a delay of living with purpose. A delay of fulfilling a greater purpose, a greater contribution to this life. The future is shaped by those who decide, those who make sacrificial choices, not for themselves, but on behalf of a future generation. Father’s make sacrificial choices in hope that their children will make choices that will please them.

Sadly, there is a deep pain that father’s can carry into the future too. My own dad went through plenty of pain with me when I was a boy, especially my teen years. My mom and dad broke up in the late 60′s and my four brothers and I were, there’s no other word for it, brokenhearted. The result: we all carried the pain. We failed to communicate and I ultimately turned to rebellion.

My choices produced a lifetime of strained relationship with my dad. My utter failure in so many categories when I was younger has made it difficult for my dad to forgive me. I also know I am not the only cause of the pain of those past years. Nonetheless, I know my choices in life, including those choices after I met Jesus, have been different than what my dad would have chosen for me, especially my call to serve as a faith missionary.

The Call

Whether I make him proud with my life choices or not, I know my life has been shaped in part by my dad’s commitment to do the right thing. Doing the right thing, as a father or as any leader in any organization or any nation, will require courage and a willingness to be misunderstood. This is why I regularly teach the biblical doctrine of vocation or calling. I will be teaching again this week in our University Discipleship Training School in Madison, Wisconsin. Beginning with the example of Fatherhood and Motherhood, we need to teach calling, which extends into every sphere of society. Understanding God’s calling and leading by example is so urgently needed in our society today.

Leaders must be willing to make the difficult choices on behalf of their community. For example, here in Wisconsin, we have Gov. Walker and the duly elected legislature making difficult budget choices on behalf the community and future generations. The US Congress is facing the same difficult choices, requiring leadership and an understanding of calling that transcends party and politics. Making the decisions required will cause pain in the present; certainly those making the difficult decisions are facing terrible accusations and threats. Like a father and mother paying down a household debt, elected leaders need to balance the State and Federal budgets. Today’s challenges require leadership that chooses to trust and not control those they serve. Like the trust I must now have for my adult sons, Justin and Nathan, our society needs leaders who trust members of the community, other leaders in the private sector, to take risks, create wealth and jobs, and thereby serve their community.

May we all walk worthy of the calling.

As a dad, I know there is probably no more difficult calling on planet earth (probably second to being a mom.) This Father’s Day, I sent my dad a note thanking him again for the many ways, even through the pain of a broken home, he sacrificed and made good memories for me and my brothers. Thanks dad!

Cultivating Communities of Practice

Cultivating Communities of Practice, by Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002), is one of several required books I read for Fuller Theological Seminary‘s MA in Global Leadership. The following are my reflections:

I have a great interest in how organizations, particularly those with Christian leadership, work and how they respond to change. This book is rich with practical insight as to how non-profit organizations, churches, and christian ministries may develop in a globalized society.

I wondered as I read this book how Youth With A Mission‘s Student Mobilization Centre might create truly life changing learning spaces for students and leaders who participate in our ministries.

One trend I have observed helps me see the way forward. In recent years several international conferences, training courses, and outreaches have been convening around points of passion and global human need, like water, women’s issues, slavery, and children at risk. YWAM International and other Christian missions agencies have also begun to look at a new mapping paradigm for global strategy called Project 4K wherein the map is divided into about 4000 geographic units, Omega Zones, highlighting those areas still requiring engagement.

What appears to be needed is a new cross-platform, multi-disciplinary team approach to properly engage each of those geographic regions.

Through the Student Mobilization Centre‘s School of University Ministries & Missions, we are equipping field leaders who will be able to coordinate multi-disciplinary field project teams. During the past 15 months, we have presented this 12-week training program in India, USA, Korea, and Colombia.  I leave today to teach on Missional Collaboration for the final week of the school. Participants in the SMC school learn how to collaborate with leaders and communities to harmonize outreach teams to serve broad-based long-term community development project goals while mobilizing students for field based learning.

YWAM’s University of the Nations operates according to what Wenger, et al conclude in Communities of Practice; that is, “useful knowledge is not a downloadable commodity.” It requires participation.

The best learning experiences are in the context of relationships, especially those experiences with others that at the same time unfamiliar and familiar. In my experience, students learn best when taken out of their familiar culture to serve and learn in a context that challenges their expectations and status quo learning experiences. They also learn best if put in a situation where they are challenged to work together with those who share their skill set, academic training, and/or missionary goals.

By cultivating these communities of learning and serving, I believe we will ourselves learn how to do world missions and how to participate as a global church in the twenty-first century. By developing this field project model of university ministry, placing students as interns into a wide array of community development projects with national leaders who require their service, we will all learn, we will become a community of practice.

By requiring students as part of their internship to research and write about their cross-cultural serving-learning experience, we will thereby share knowledge gained both with the field project leaders and with the universities and professors that sent the students. These project teams will help us steward and share the knowledge gained. These long-term community development field projects could serve as “laboratories” for curriculum development as well as cross-disciplinary field project leadership development.

By working together across cultures toward a big vision of collaborative ministries, leaders of missional communities, churches and organizations, will increase their ability and speed generating and implementing creative ideas for community development, evangelization, and training.

To accomplish this, we will need to form missional communities in university settings, and cross-platform, multi-disciplinary, communities of practice at field sites where internships may be hosted and field project staff leadership may be trained.

The most essential element of this field-based learning community is the authentic cross-cultural ministry that must be the foundational intent and the fruit of the project.

Where missional communities of practice exist, the witness of the Kingdom of God will be evident in a much greater way, both in the university and at that field projects’ community. These communities of learning and leadership equipping may in turn affect a change in the whole of the Christian missionary enterprise through an integrated development model of field ministry and leadership equipping.

This book is ‘salty’. I am thirsty for more with each page turned. Even more so, I am hungry for the practical outworking of this vision within the context of my own life and ministry. That is why I am developing a seminar and a 12-week course on Missional Collaboration. The challenge to me is to deliberately form communities of practice in my ministry context, the universities of the world.

God of the Empty-Handed: Key 2 of 4

Key #2: A Kingdom View of the Poor.

“Line up!” shouted the man who climbed out of the Ford Econoline 350 box truck. “Stand back! Stand de vuelta!” Clowns, balloons, and face painting helped attract people from the nearby pueblos. The dry wind swept up the grey dirt as the crowd of people from Cuidad Juarez, and the surrounding Mexican border squatter villages, gathered to receive clothes, food, and other donated items. Obediently, the people stood in line and waited for the man to open to back of the truck. I have no doubt the man and the others with him had kind intentions, however my heart sunk as I watched these people reduced to pitiable passive recipients of American excesses.

The truckload of donations was part of an outreach ministry of a church on the El Paso side of the Rio Grande. It was the summer of 1990. We were in Juarez for six weeks with our Field Ministry Internship student teams of Youth With A Mission‘s Student Mobilization Centre. On this hot July afternoon, we were assisting the American group that came to plant a church. We were asked to conduct simple health examinations, primary health care, in a makeshift medical clinic. This personal contact also gave us opportunity to ask if we can pray for the children and their families.

However, the oversized sound system and overzealous worship leaders made it difficult to pray, let alone conduct any thorough examinations in the clinic. The loud and raucous singing and music was giving me a headache.

I stepped out of the clinic to observe the open air meeting. The music continued as young American evangelists, many with clown outfits, went into the audience to pray for the sick.

Please understand, I am a firm believer in prayer and God’s power to heal.

But this disturbed me.

A small Mexican child, obviously frightened by the clowns laying their hands on him, was crying and reaching out toward his mother. Others were surrounding “Mom” and praying for her. The noise and confusion even had me anxious to leave. I wondered what this child and family would think of Jesus after this traumatic day.

This brings us to the second key to ministry among the poor.

Christian ministries will always reflect their leadership’s view of the poor, their understanding of the nature of poverty. That view may be less biblical and more the prevailing view of the surrounding culture.

What is your view of the poor?

The way we approach our ministry to the poor communicates value, either positively or negatively. No matter how many dollars or valuables we donate, our posture and attitude in what we do and say communicates far more than what we give.

When Christians reach out to the poor, we too often unintentionally communicate what we think of their value.

This is what the poor “hear”:

“We are complete, you are not.”

Simply put, the goal of our outreach to the poor should be to avoid communicating that lie. Our goal should be to identify with the poor in our mutual recovery of identity in relation to God’s creative design and purpose.

How do we do that?

In order to communicate value to the poor, we must first communicate value to the volunteer serving alongside us in ministry to the poor.

This is why we emphasize “Calling” in our university student ministries and outreaches. If our outreach emphasizes the discovery of vocation in the life of the volunteer, the Christian participant in ministry to the poor, then we will effectively communicate the value of the design and purpose of God to the community in which we minister.

Then we will fulfill the commission to preach the good news to the poor.

Our aim is the same as that of Jesus’ public ministry:

“And He opened the book and found the place where it was written, ^‘THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED,  TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.’” (Luke 4: 17-19)

Our goal is to ‘set free’ the poor from their destructive relationships so they may enjoy Shalom, a Hebrew term for peace, completeness, and welfare. All of us are called by God to an abundant life of healthy kingdom relationships.

The way we reach this goal must begin with the right posture, the right attitude. We must begin by demonstrating a servant heart, the nature of our servant King Jesus.

In our outreach to the Poor we must represent a kingdom community, demonstrating the biblical story and representing God’s identity and purpose in our relationships.

Our outreach should portray the kingdom of God, which represents the character of God in all the various expressions of his callings.

God is healer, communicator, builder, author, creator, artist, counselor, teacher, etc. Therefore, these vocations are representing God’s character in community.

Outreach is best when we represent the kingdom of God in a community of servants. We represent the character of God and the holistic and interrelated spheres of His ministry.

Ministry to the Poor requires a view of the poor and a vision of the kingdom of God.

In this series, I am referring to the book: God of the Empty-Handed: Poverty, Power, and the Kingdom of God, by Christian, Jayakumar.

The Open Secret

Lesslie Newbigin’s The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission is a tightly-packed book; it’s a summary of a four-year missiology course. I really like Newbigin. I joined many others who have followed his re-examination of our job as Christians, particularly in the Western world, which is:

“to learn what he [God] is doing in the world which is already his, not to introduce him to a world from which he is absent.” (1995:67)

Newbigin was a missionary for three decades. His practical experience shaped his theology, and not the other way around. Forged in the years of missionary service, Newbigin returned with a very different view of his own homeland, England, and the Church in the West. Newbigin paved the way ahead for the Church in an increasingly globalized and pluralistic world.

Before I read this book, I asked the following questions: (It’s a very good practice for reading; engage the author with your questions before you read.)

1. What key insights will Newbigin offer to my understanding the theology of mission?
2. What is the role of the local congregation?
3. How can I apply these understandings?

1. Newbigin’s key insights on the theology of mission:

If you have questions about the doctrine of election, the law, and the covenant of God, all of which have been distorted to the detriment of missions, you should read this book. Newbigin, like the apostle Paul, saw these issues as central to his call. The doctrine of election should be taught as a “fearful responsibility,” rather than defining an exclusive group. (1995:73)

Newbigin explains how the law, the Torah, exonerates God of all blame for sin. The biblical narrative shows how the law itself is insufficient. The law was “ordained by angels” (1995:75), a delegated authority which is limited. That law, like any “elementary principle”, was used by its angelic agency which ultimately gained control, a control from which humanity needed to be liberated through a spiritual battle:

“For though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” (2 Cor. 10:3-6)

(This notion of spiritual control through “elementary principles” or “stoichaea” is outlined in Paul’s letter to the Galatians and unpacked in chapter 16 of Newbigin’s book, “Gospel in a Pluralistic Society”.)

Newbigin fills out the unchanging nature of God’s Mission, which is:

“Proclaiming of God’s kingdom over all human history and over the whole cosmos” and “…the active agent of mission is a power that rules, guides, and goes before the church. The free, sovereign, living power of the Spirit of God.” (1995:56)

Probably my most important insight in Open Secret is that “significant advances of the church have not been the result of our own decisions about the mobilizing and allocating of ‘resources,’” Newbigin writes,

“The significant advances in my experience have come through happenings of which the story of Peter and Cornelius is a paradigm, in ways of which we have no advance knowledge. God opens the heart of a man or woman in the gospel. The messenger (the ‘angel’ of Acts 10:3) may be a stranger, a preacher, a piece of Scripture, a dream, an answered prayer, or a deep experience of joy or sorrow, of danger or deliverance. It was not part of any missionary ‘strategy’ devised by the church. It was the free and sovereign deed of God, who goes before the church…this mission is not ours but God’s.” (1995:64)

2. The role of the local congregation:

“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” (Jn. 20:21)

The Great Commission is not given to individuals, but to the Church which he has sent into the world. The role of the local church has been one of my greatest questions as a missionary. Why do so many churches behave competitively with their neighbors? What kind of leadership formation is needed to lead a community? What is the ultimate purpose, the fruit that we should look for in a church community?

Newbigin points out that Jesus explanation of the gospel was to be “introduced into history…in the form of a community, not in the form of a book.” (1995:52) It is the role of the local congregation to gather to celebrate “the centrality of the Lord’s Supper in the continuation of Jesus’ mission.” (2 Cor. 4:10 and Jn. 13-16) When we gather, we celebrate this “happening” in history and its continuation.

Rather than write a book (or give instructions for the writing of a book), Jesus instituted a community, which ‘remembers‘. The New Testament was written as an act of remembering, first the letters and then the gospels. The gospels were written a generation after Pentecost, when the only eye witnesses of Jesus death, burial, and resurrection were themselves dying off. When we gather to celebrate Jesus’ lordship over all creation, we remember. And as a community, Newbigin writes, we:

“enter into the stream of historical happenings and become part of its course. In other words, if it is true that God’s reign concerns history in its unity and totality…we must be related to it, and must share in its power, not merely by reading of it in a book or hearing it in a verbal report, but by participating in the life of that society which springs from it and is continuous with it.” (1995:51)

This participation in that community of faith, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, gives us the authority to be his witnesses in life of the surrounding society. We can rest with confidence in our authority as messengers of grace and judgment. We can, by virtue of the deposit of the Spirit of God, be the presence of Jesus in a community as well as the announcement of the in-breaking kingdom of God. (Jn. 13:20 and Mt. 11:25-30)

“The presence of the kingdom, hidden and revealed in the cross of Jesus, is carried through history hidden and revealed in the life of that community which bears in its life the dying and rising of Jesus.” (1995:52)

I have seen many churches today strive for some modern business success model of growth, but this is not the biblical model of the local congregation. Instead, it is simply through dependence on the Holy Spirit, and especially when there is evidence of humility, failure, brokenness, and foolish mistakes, that our witness is authentic and the Lord will judge us ‘faithful’.

“The real triumphs of the gospel have not been won when the Church is strong in a worldly sense; they have been won when the Church is faithful in the midst of weakness, contempt, and rejection.” (1995:62)

The New Testament provides little definition of the local congregation. The word “church” or “ecclesia” only appears in one of the gospels, Matthew’s Gospel, and only in relation to a discipline issue that apparently emerged. There is, however, plenty of instruction as to the leadership, character, and purpose of the congregation (mostly found in Paul’s letters). This gives an amazing flexibility for a community of believers to bear witness to the in-breaking presence of the kingdom.

3. Applications:

Newbigin offers a timely prescription for gatherings of believers today. He prescribes a missiological understanding of theology, rather than a theological understanding of mission. Part of my call, though primarily focused on student initiatives in missions, is also to work with gatherings of believers, especially in university communities, to work collaboratively following God’s mission. My work as a missionary has changed me and this book mostly confirms and clarifies those changes. Newbigin puts it this way:

“Mission (led by the Holy Spirit) changes not only the world but also the Church…There is a conversion of the Church as well as the conversion of Cornelius.” (1995:59)

So my role is becoming more and more involved in engaging and mobilizing local congregations and their leaders to work together in Christ’s Mission.

Newbigin points out the ‘fact of Christ’ as a happening at one time and place showing that “God’s reign concerns history in its unity and totality.” (1995:51) We therefore all relate to this monumental event, and we must learn to share in its power in our witness to the wider world. The cross of Christ is:

“a happening, it is a part of history. It is located at a particular point of place and time in the whole vast fabric of human affairs.” (1995:50)

This book convicts me. I must confess that too often I have made missionary plans using my own ideas and my own strength, forgetting the most important thing about that mission. Though I know how to listen to the voice of the Lord, I often launch ahead without clear instructions. I must always remember the mission is not mine and it’s not the Church’s, it’s God’s.

This book has helped me learn afresh that as we learn not to depend on human ingenuity, we can demonstrate the “hope that is given by the presence of the Spirit who is the living foretaste of the kingdom.” (1995:64-65) We may not only announce the kingdom of God, we can embody it.

Becoming Wiki-Missional?

Wikipedia strongly espouses verifiability and a neutral point of view, but critics of Wikipedia accuse it of “systemic bias and inconsistencies”. They say “favoring consensus over credentials gives undue weight to popular culture” in its editorial processes.

From a vantage point of a missionary, I see an important similarity here to the argument that laity, those lacking credentials from a church denomination or seminary, have no business leading a church plant or Missional community. The argument goes like this: “Those untrained leaders could lead their people into heresy or false doctrine.” That was a major concern of the early church.

If reliability and accuracy are really the issue, and not the status of “experts,” then it’s worth noting that “an investigation in Nature (scientific journal) found that the science articles they compared came close to the level of accuracy of Encyclopedia Britannica and had a similar rate of “serious errors”.” In this Nature article, Alex Bateman and Darren W. Logan write:

“Ten years ago, it would have been inconceivable that a free collaborative website, written and maintained by volunteers, would dominate the global provision of knowledge.”

So then, should an “untrained” leader draw together a group of Christ’s followers and attempt to demonstrate and declare the gospel of Jesus by making disciples from within their specific people group, their neighborhood, workplace, or school? Could such a group represent an authentic church gathering?

For centuries leadership of churches has been left to “experts”, those with credentials, degrees, and funny hats. Concern for this issue was pronounced during the recent post-colonial period, after WWII, when newly independent nations opened the opportunity for multiplied thousands of new independent churches which resulted in the greatest expansion of christianity in history, especially the Global South (see Inter-Varsity article). Many attempts to train the multitudes of new church leaders in Africa and China, through programs based mostly in the West, such as TEE (Theological Education by Extension), could not keep up the pace of church growth at the end of the 20th century. At issue: what would come of these “younger” churches? Would they slip into heresy and error?

Perhaps a little humility is required as we respond to these questions. The church in the West has not been without error, despite her theological “maturity.” The early church had error, the Medieval church had error, and the Protestant church has had error. Some error is difficult to perceive from a purely Western mindset. What could be wrong with promoting individual choices for Christ, reducing the gospel message to “three steps” or “four laws”? Well, getting “saved” for heaven is not the kingdom message Jesus preached. And it’s not the gospel message Paul preached. Salvation is much more comprehensive, and not just a private decision. The West has exported this erroneous gospel message through the modern missionary enterprise for more than a century.

Examining the laundry list of error in Western theology would require several other posts, so let’s just humble ourselves long enough to accept our brothers and sisters in the now Majority church of the Global South, not as immature “younger” churches, but as full fledged churches.

Like the world of Wikipedia, we now live in a new, “flat” and globalized world (See Thomas Friedman’s popular book, ‘The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century’), where information, correction of error and validation of facts now spread instantaneously around the world. Whether we are ready or not, it is time to consider our ways, to search the Scriptures for understanding the way to reach our new world.

Jesus did not make it complicated and neither should we. It is simple to experience community with those you already have an affinity, a similar culture. People who already share interest and time together are more likely to worship together and work together on a mission of Kingdom expansion.

This is the approach to missions and church planting in India put forth in the 1930s by Donald McGavran, the late missionary statesman who coined “Homogenous Unit Principle“, groups which can be a culture or language, a tribe or caste, a clan or geographical unit. McGavran was studied church growth, proposing a church which is not sending mission so much as it is itself sent. With so many different cultures in India, McGavran saw the need to encourage many cultural expressions of church. The different people groups should not be forced into one church cultural mold, like your neighborhood mega-church. Could it be that McGavran’s approach would also now be appropriate for churches in the Western world?

Lesslie Newbigin, another great missionary statesman, spent over 30 years living as a missionary working with the Church of South India. When he returned to England, Newbigin noticed something: the Western world had become as pluralistic as India, with new “faith” in materialism. (See Newbigin’s book: The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society.) The West, especially Europe with the USA not far behind, had already lost much of its “Christian” heritage. Once vital Church structures in England are now nightclubs with names like “Ministry of Sin.” Newbigin saw the need to not only continue to send missionaries around the world, but also to receive missionaries to re-evangelize the post-Christian West. He suggested the formation and structure of Western churches require a new reformation in order to reach our Western society with the gospel. He and many of the leaders in world missions today, contend that the Church in the West must again become primarily a missions station sponsoring Missional communities among the people groups in our cities. The Anglican Church is championing “Fresh Expressions” of church formation for the communities in which it has been established for many hundreds of years.

What am I proposing? Three things:

1. First, I propose we learn humility, perhaps unlike or feeble attempts to humble ourselves in religious services, temporarily weeping at the altar and then returning to our comfortable lives behind our TVs, in our over-sized houses, and compressed lifestyles. We must humble ourselves, relinquishing our supposed rights to power, privilege, and too often prestige.
2. Second, like Wikipedia, we should learn to trust every believer to gain access, participate, and contribute to theological conversations. We should trust those with a desire to be a witness to their community.
3. Third, we should flatten our church hierarchies, eliminate the exclusivity of church “membership”, and commission believers to “go” into their world to plant simple church communities.

Imagine if Jesus could once again become the main focus of conversations and life in your neighborhood, your workplace, and on a your campus, perhaps it would also be possible for the message and works of Jesus to fill an entire city. No, I am not suggesting we merely “unite” churches (which tend to be organized in a competitive business model anyway). Unity is not something we create, it is something the apostle Paul exhorts us to “preserve”.

This vision for a new church-planting movement in our neighborhoods could only be realized if everyday believers, people like you and me, choose to go on mission in our sphere of influence, planting the church where you are through non-formal gatherings in homes, workplaces, and campus dorms. Of course, those with the status as “experts” may resist this missional movement for various reasons. But I am confident that the leaders whose hearts belong to Jesus will cheer ANY effort to reach our world with the good news.

The hard part is this: We have to renew our thinking, repent of our fixed cultural habits, and begin to walk worthy of this calling. Church is not just something you attend…it’s something you are. Jesus said the Kingdom of God is within you; that’s true of every believer. The good news is within us.

We need break our individualistic mindset in order to see our world is not just one big community of individuals. It is hundreds of people groups, small communities put together to make up your city.

So I am proposing ‘simple churches’ or missional communities to be formed by two or more believers among these people groups. Missional communities are incarnational in that they arise out of and focus on the communities they desire to reach. Imagine multitudes of new small groups of believers in Chicago, LA, and New York, and in university campuses, businesses and suburbs in your area… Leaders need to find courage to once again be the church and release a new generation of churches in their most localized and organic form. This is what I propose: Form simple churches that are “Wiki-Missional.”

Interested?

Thoughts about Transformational Leadership

Last night I finally watched a DVD copy of the epic movie 2012. Wow! Fantastic. I came away believing the world could end in similar fashion, but I was unconvinced any inexperienced pilot could fly a plane quite like that!

What was most amazing to me about the movie was how the life of one divorced man with two children, Jackson, shaped the story of the end of the world as we know it. His contribution to society was a little book about human behavior when civilization ends. Writing about the City of Atlantis, the backdrop of  his book,  Jackson’s thesis is that people should care for others even when everything seems lost. His idea was that people should be, well, human. Jackson is a mostly unknown, unread author of a book that didn’t even sell 500 copies. And yet, his story shapes, defines, and becomes a key reference for the survivors of the earth’s almost complete destruction, which includes more than one Ark for survival of another flood of biblical proportions.

This notion of being human has me thinking. What do you suppose God intends for humankind, for eternity? Too many have a kind of non-faith; a belief that nothing has meaning. Personal survival, or escape, is all that matters. The secret survival plan of world leaders in the 2012 movie led to assassinations of those who asked too many questions. Their mission was “the survival of humanity,” but at what cost? The spiritist sees no meaning in the material world. Seeking salvation, they wait for their escape (or rapture), an elevated reality beyond all that which seems so meaningless. Whether you are a materialist or a spiritist, nothing has meaning without the Author who gave it meaning.

Think with me for a moment. If you were to write your five year plan, what would it include? What would be your priorities? Would it be to acquire more things? Accomplish more? Build more? Would it be to experience more? What would you expect of life? What would you expect if Jesus were here now walking with you in your neighborhood? If you could ask Jesus for one thing to make life complete, what would you ask?

Have you already asked? Are you disappointed that your prayers are not answered? God just didn’t respond to you? Have you been disappointed in your leaders, especially your spiritual leaders? Have you found yourself judging them, critical of their lifestyles? Are you seeking a spiritual life, an elevated life, separated from the world? Are you just hanging on for that glorious day that you see Jesus appear in the eastern sky, with hopes that he will take you away from this horrible existence? Could it be that you simply have the wrong expectations?

Jesus, the Author of life, is incarnate eternally; he’s in a risen body. We should stop and think of the implications. We should reread his words when he asks, “To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like?  They are like children sitting in the market-place and calling out to each other: “‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.’  For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners”.’ But wisdom is proved right by all her children.” (Luke 7:31-35)

Transformation is not triumphalism. It’s not vindication over all your disappointments, and all those who misunderstood you. It’s not finally being appreciated and thanked for all you did in this life. Transformation is a dependent humility in every moment of this life. It doesn’t matter if the world knows, or sees or understands. The only applause we are meant to seek is from the One with the nail-scarred hands. But to hear that applause requires humility.

Leaders are not called to inflict pain; they bear it. They do not absorb praise; they re-direct it.

Transformation of self requires the right expectations, which emerge from the right hopes, the right values and the right ideas.  God is not merely calling us to servanthood, vision-casting, or risk-taking. God is not merely calling us to motivate others or build teams or communicate strategic plans. God has not merely called us to stand before people and speak, however eloquently.

God’s call on the transformational leader is to a surrendered life, to Lordship. He’s called us, like John the Baptist, to “decrease, that Christ may increase.”

God is calling us to “BE”, before we “DO” anything. Yes, he calls us to pray and to expect miracles, but even more his call is to listen with a humble heart to hear the One with the nail scarred hands applauding our life and work. The call to transformational leadership is the call to be radically human.

DEMYSTIFYING REVELATION-JESUS’ PROMISE FOR HUMANITY (4 OF 5)

The revelation of a “new heaven and new earth” offers a destination, where Jesus will “dwell” with “his people” and all things are “new” (Rev. 21:1, 3, 5). Like John who was commanded to “come up here” (Rev. 4:1), Paul also claimed higher ground with his “revelations” (2 Cor. 12:1, 7) of God’s eternal plan. Paul emphasized the vision of one new humanity (cf. Eph. 2:15). Revelation exhorts the church to “wake up and strengthen what remains” (Rev. 3:2-3) in order that they may fulfill their calling to “reshape a humanity previously warped by sin.”

Jesus’ eternal nature, embodied in human flesh, implies a very human understanding of eternity, with limitations of embodiment. Just as John by implication, dramatically portrays the eternal nature of Jesus’ incarnation, he likewise implies the nature of the structures and spheres of life are eternal. The “harp” and “trumpets” imply the arts (Rev. 5:8, 8:2, 6, 13); “leaves for healing” imply health care and counseling (Rev. 22:2); the “scroll” (Rev. 5:1-9) and “golden bowls” (Rev. 5:8) imply the media; and “every tribe” implies that family will exist for eternity (Rev. 7:4-9, 13:7, 14:6). Education (cf. 1 Cor. 2:14) is implied where learning is present (cf. Rev. 3:9). And as the elders present their “crowns” (Rev. 4:10) in worship to Jesus, the King of Kings who became a servant of all, the model of governmental leadership is made plain for all eternity. Perhaps to communicate this point was not John’s intention. Little matter, the implication is evident. Revelation is a message of God’s rule, bringing peace and justice to all creation, every nation, and every structure of human existence, for all eternity in the new heaven and new earth.

DEMYSTIFYING REVELATION-JESUS’ LEADERSHIP (3 OF 5)

JESUS’ LEADERSHIP
Jesus’ leadership is demonstrated in the incarnation through his integration of faith and commitment. Jesus warns “beware the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matt. 16:6, 11-12) whose influence, through Israel’s Temple and Torah, had become like pagan allegiance to principalities and powers (cf. Gal. 4:8-11; Rom. 5:20, 7:7-25). John’s audience, living within the Roman Empire, had witnessed idolatry taken to a new level, the deifying of the pagan state. Nero was the “symbol of political power that abuses its God-given authority.” Nero’s approach to leadership was the antithesis of Jesus, which is why he is characterized as the antichrist. Sadly, missionary endeavors at times have practiced variations of the conquest ethic of the Roman Empire, coercing conversion in the Name of Jesus!
What can we learn from Jesus’ leadership example and warnings to the churches in Revelation? While Paul encouraged churches to live in accord with civil law, John warns against becoming too comfortable. John’s churches appear therefore to be negotiating the margins of a corrupt society, seeking to avoid becoming “victims of social ostracism.” Christians today may also be ridiculed for their exclusivism and seduced into compromising their loyalty to Jesus. John’s churches may have been threatened with punishment for failure to participate in pagan idolatry, including sacrifice to Roman gods. The Nicolaitans, a religious sect with “Gnostic” tendencies in Ephesus and Pergamum, were denounced and “hated” for participating in syncretistic practices (cf. Rev. 2:6; 3:14-16; 3:20-24). How then should Christians follow Jesus’ lead in today’s society? Are Christians therefore to withdraw from trade guilds, dinner parties, legal transactions, political rallies, sporting events, and theatrical presentations? Was it openness to the surrounding Greco-Roman culture that Jesus rejected, or was it something else?
Participation, or lack of it, has profound impact on the character of a church’s witness. Perhaps Christians should witness to the servant-leadership of Jesus by demonstrating how it is possible to move with confidence through everyday life? Truth is “revealed supremely” in Jesus who was “obedient to the point of death” without considering his “equality with God something to be exploited” (Phil. 2:8, 6). John’s Revelation of Jesus has made plain the character of God who is willing to become a servant and die as a criminal in self-giving love.

See more at http://johnthenry.wordpress.com

DEMYSTIFYING REVELATION (Part 1 of 5)

The Book of Revelation is a unique New Testament apocalypse, often mistaken as a “mystery” to be decoded. Revelation has been dramatically portrayed in recent years as a predictive timeline of the end of the world. Apocalyptic literature has predicted the coming of the Messiah for centuries, before and after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The central message of Revelation, however, is not predictive. Rather than seek a timeline of eschatological events, Revelation confirms that the “great turning point” in history has already occurred. Revelation is a testimony of Jesus’ resurrection and sovereignty, which is “the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10). Prophecy is not primarily intended to predict future events. It is for the “upbuilding and encouragement and consolation” of the church (1 Cor. 14:3-4). John’s prophecy is exposing false teachings and denouncing idolatry, which result in the abuse of authority in every sphere of human society. This message to “seven churches” at the end of the first century is written as a warning to evoke a particular response, to “repent.”
The book of Revelation is an encouragement to the churches to “return” (Rev. 2:5), to “obey” (Rev. 3:3), to “beware” (Rev. 2:10), to “wake up” (Rev. 3:2-3), to “hold fast” (Rev. 3:11), to “listen” and to “open the door” (Rev. 3:20) in response to Jesus. While unveiling the glory and majesty of the risen “King of the nations” (Rev. 15:3) to his readers, John reveals Jesus’ hope for “the rest of humankind” (Rev. 9:20), that through the times of “wrath” (Rev. 16:1), all would have opportunity to repent. Revelation is demystified when we read it essentially as a prophecy, encouraging churches to be faithful to the testimony of Jesus, his incarnation, his leadership, and his promise for all humanity.

See more at http://johnthenry.wordpress.com
The Book of Revelation is a unique New Testament apocalypse, often mistaken as a “mystery” to be decoded. Revelation has been dramatically portrayed in recent years as a predictive timeline of the end of the world. Apocalyptic literature has predicted the coming of the Messiah for centuries, before and after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The central message of Revelation, however, is not predictive. Rather than to present a timeline of eschatological events, Revelation confirms that the “great turning point” in history has already occurred. Revelation is a testimony of Jesus’ resurrection and sovereignty, which is “the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10). Prophecy is not primarily intended to predict future events. It is for the “upbuilding and encouragement and consolation” of the church (1 Cor. 14:3-4). John’s prophecy is exposing false teachings and denouncing idolatry, which result in the abuse of authority in every sphere of human society. This message to “seven churches” at the end of the first century is written as a warning to evoke a particular response, to “repent.”
The book of Revelation is an encouragement to the churches to “return” (Rev. 2:5), to “obey” (Rev. 3:3), to “beware” (Rev. 2:10), to “wake up” (Rev. 3:2-3), to “hold fast” (Rev. 3:11), to “listen” and to “open the door” (Rev. 3:20) in response to Jesus. While unveiling the glory and majesty of the risen “King of the nations” (Rev. 15:3) to his readers, John reveals Jesus’ hope for “the rest of humankind” (Rev. 9:20), that through the times of “wrath” (Rev. 16:1), all would have opportunity to repent. Revelation is demystified when we read it essentially as a prophecy, encouraging churches to be faithful to the testimony of Jesus, his incarnation, his leadership, and his promise for all humanity.

Second Temple Judaism

So much changed after the first Temple was destroyed and the Israelites were sent into exile. The entire society and leadership changed during the years of captivity and the rebuilding of the Temple under Persian authority. No longer was it a Davidic kingdom. Rather, it had become a Hasmonean kingdom and the Second Temple was expanded and remodeled by Herod the Great. The Second Temple, during Jesus life and ministry, was only a shadow of the original.

Second-temple Judaism was more concerned with purity of kinship bloodline, reinforcing a Patron-Client political and extractive economic system, than it was in fulfilling her vocation and the covenant of Abraham, to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. Second-temple Judaism continued in captivity, a Client-kingdom under Roman rule.

Jesus’ message to Herod and to all of Israel, who was still completing the Temple at the time, was that they were “building their house on the sand.” They had failed to seek God’s rule, which Jesus came to announce. They failed to recognize their deliverer because their social and political system had become self-reinforcing, exclusionary, and corrupt. Those who sought political deliverance for Israel failed to see the extraordinary fulfillment of Israel’s destiny taking place through Jesus.

Breakthrough

I just read an article on leadership development in the church. The point of the article was that Jesus spent time with the few, as we read in Bob Coleman’s “Master Plan of Evangelism.” The important point I took away from the article is that developing leaders is done by modeling people to follow Christ’s example. The central act of Jesus is the cross; he modeled unrelenting surrender.

The “seed” Jesus refers to in John 12 is not only our willingness to die to our most favored activities; we must die to self, our egos. We must be willing to be of no reputation as we serve our pastor, Jesus.

The one thing to which leaders today need to die to is the image of the senior pastor. I am not a senior pastor. I am a missionary. Of course, Jesus is not only a pastor; he is also a missionary. Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, I send you.” We, the Church, are not only the sheep of his pasture; we are a sent people with a mission. God’s Church does not have a mission; God’s mission has a church.

The willingness to die to our reputations of churches led by a single senior pastor leader, a Jesus figure in the community, may be the most important breakthrough in the church, as a seed breaks under the earth, which is necessary to produce many new seeds for growth and release of leaders. This is the “way of Jesus,” modeling the way to bear much fruit.

Two-Person Team Leadership

Have you heard the saying, “anything with two heads is a monster?” I have. Oddly, I heard it from more than one pastoral candidate for a senior pastor position. Why would that become the mantra of church leaders, while at the same time leaders in almost every other sphere are engaging in shared leadership?

This came to my desk just today from the group called SocialEdge: “It can be a husband and a wife, a dreamer and a doer, or a tunnel-visionary and a detail-catcher, but there’s often terrific benefit to a two-person team approach,” writes this week’s host Charles “Hipbone” Cameron. They continue: “Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak at Apple, Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll at eBay, Bill Gates and Paul Allen at Microsoft, and maybe even Bill Gates and Warren Buffet when it comes to philanthropy…”

This raises a question for church leaders. If two people can make a formidable business team, should church leaders look to pair up? Might churches excel when there are two people with complimentary skill-sets at the helm?

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians reads: “The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (Eph. 4:11-13)

It appears the practice of shared leadership of the church began long ago. Where is that kind of leadership today? Why do leaders of churches insist on a single (male) leader at the helm when there is such clear evidence that this is not the ideal? I cannot answer that question adequately in this short post. I leave it with you to ponder.

Emerging Church Pattern #9: Leading as the Body

Leadership, which aligns a church community to a vision, can often fail to fulfill the purpose of the kingdom, aligning people in relationship, loving God and loving our neighbors. Natural leaders emerge when they are given the permission, especially as they are encouraged to exercise and grow in their spiritual gifts. Serving within the existing structure of a church, leaders will understand that humility in leadership is acknowledging one’s “own limitations as well as the gifting and the leadership authority and potential of others.” (Bolgers & Gibbs, Emerging Churches, p. 199) They know the leadership gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers are active in the Church today. Those gifted leaders are not limited to the ordained staff; they are the spiritual “fathers” and “mothers” in authentic community. They are also emerging leaders who are finding their place in the Body of Christ.

In this time of significant change, both within the church and in the broader culture, leadership becomes the crucial issue. We must set as a high priority the building of new leaders who will function as facilitators on teams. Team leadership is shared and not invested in one person. Leaders in an emerging church need not “set an agenda, but rather facilitate a process by which the community sets the agenda.” (Bolgers & Gibbs, p. 204) This shared leadership posture will support and foster a new kind of emerging church consisting of several smaller churches, Commission Groups, with “no control exerted over [them].” (p. 209)

Next week: Putting together the Nine Patterns of Emerging Churches

Patterns of Emerging Churches #3: Living as Community

Jacob’s Well, an emerging church community in Kansas City, has a mural with the constant reminder that, “the visible church is not to be the bearer of Christ’s message, but to be the message.” (Tony Jones, The New Christians, 2008: 178) To fully embrace this pattern, local communities must dismantle the idea of church as a place, and reform it with the clear understanding that church is a people with commitment to community. The gospel message is best presented through small groups with genuine friendships, authenticity serving, loving, and giving. “The ideal size for effective fellowship and ministry,” is where “reproduction is easiest and community, accountability, confidentiality, flexibility, communication, direction and leadership are strongest.” (Cole, The Organic Church, 2005: 100-102)

Not all members are typically in one of their church community’s existing small groups. Why? Because it is difficult for people “nurtured in a culture of modernity and the unlimited sovereignty of the individual” to make themselves vulnerable within authentic community. (Bolger & Gibbs, Emerging Churches, 2005: 92) Emerging churches recognize the gospels are stories of “missional formation experiences” within small communities. (2005: 105) For them church is less about meetings and places, than an expression of kingdom values in a witnessing community.

Next week’s Emerging Church Pattern: Serving with Generosity

Can Students Transform the World?

This question, “Can we transform the world through students?” calls for serious reflection regarding this generation, historical examples, biblical precedent, and issues of leadership credibility.The following reflection is an exercise I have undergone to refocus my own efforts and the ministries of Youth With A Mission’s Student Mobilization Centre.

 

First, we must ask, “What problem? What needs transformation?”
I believe the Glory of God is revealed as Jesus’ followers portray the truth of the gospel both by proclamation and by loving our global neighbor. The good news: There is a growing number of young people who are activated to help solve the world’s problems, poverty, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, etc. They want to serve among the poor and needy and make a difference. The problem: Those who desire to do something about global human need have little grounding in biblical truth; they either see little need or have insufficient understanding to proclaim the gospel.

Next, we must ask “What harm would be done if the problem isn’t solved?”
If this problem is not solved, a hopeful generation of emerging leaders may lose heart after facing the enormous global challenges without sufficient biblical christian worldview training. I see the urgent need to mobilize a new generation of student missions volunteers from every academic discipline who will learn to think biblically and who will preach and practice the gospel of the kingdom with relevance to the issues and needs of today.

Next, we need to consider the solution or solutions and why the solution(s) are desirable.

Why is it a good idea?
Jesus method of training was simply, “Come, follow me.” While classroom instruction has value, Jesus simply modeled his lifestyle and his followers experienced that life and learning while serving alongside him. Our solution for mobilization of today’s university students into short term mission projects complements the specialized training students are getting in universities. Our solution specifically engages the student’s worldview and motivation for service, providing a biblical framework, personal discipleship, and community involvement to help them relate personally with Jesus while they serve. The distinctive of our summer projects for students is the integration of the theoretical with the practical, the sacred with the secular, studies with service, the local with the global, and the personal with the corporate calling to make disciples of all nations.Students come to grasp the height, width, depth and breadth of God’s love for a needy world as they portray his kingdom through loving relationships in community.

We must also ask “Why is solving this problem relevant?”

More specifically, “Is this problem and solution relevant to you and to your community? Your church? Your ministry? Your profession? Your family?”

Our student ministries are designed with partnership in mind. Our Centre partners with student groups, church groups, professionals, and field projects.  I believe today’s Church must be both a sending and a receiving church, which means we must make our commitment to the developing world a more complete partnership between the sending and receiving communities. The Student Mobilization Centre invites new partners to participate in these community bridges of 21st century missions.

Finally, “Is our solution credible? Do we have some kind of track record of results?”

The Student Mobilization Centre facilitates practical opportunities for university students to integrate into working cross-cultural ministry situations related to their fields of study. Our Field Ministry Internships teams are short term learning-serving summer experiences for students and christian leaders. Students gain academic credit serving collaboratively with one of our many integrated development and church planting projects in the developing world. FMI students from over 100 colleges/universities in nine nations have participated on 75 teams in 34 countries since 1989.