As I continue to read and reflect on Roxburgh and Boren’s book Introducing the Missional Church (Baker, 2009), I find that I appreciate the metaphor of the missional life being a “missional river.” The currents of this river is described as involving mystery, memory, and mission (p. 39).
Stated is that “entering the missional waters is not about strategies or models; it is about working with the currents that shape our imagination of what God is doing in the world” (p. 39). In focusing on mystery, it becomes clear that in our rationalistic way of trying to understand the world, understand God, in order to make sense for us these things that are beyond our full understanding, that we are often uncomfortable with mystery.
Both in the Old Testament and the New, Israel’s existence and those who made up the early church – even those who make up the church today, cannot be explained by “human action or preference.” The mystery that we are called to immerse ourselves in is that God is a choosing and acting God – God chose Israel, God in Christ chose the first disciples, and God through the present working of the Holy Spirit draws people into living relationship with God through Jesus Christ. The rhyme or reason for this choosing is in God and not dependent upon our actions or status – God is the one who chooses, and as Roxburgh and Boren state, “the mystery is that God has chosen to act, and we cannot and will not find any explanation beyond his choosing and acting” (p. 42).
The purpose, however, for the mystery of God’s choosing is not to make us more privileged or more favored than others in the world – but rather, and this is key, we are “chosen by God to represent him for the sake of the world” (p. 42). I am reminded of a line in The Fiddler on the Roof, where Tevye remarks to God, in the midst of the struggle and suffering associated with being God’s people, that he had enough with the “blessing of being chosen” and wondered if God might choose another people for a while.
Though there is blessing in being chosen, being chosen to represent God for the sake of the world can often make life more difficult for us because we are called to give voice, act, and in all that we are and do to demonstrate what it is to be a people living under the reign of God. Living as God’s people is not about being more successful than others as it is about being a people who demonstrate what human life looks like when it is lived under God’s rule – no matter whether we experience worldly success or not. It is not about “become a Christian and have everything become marvelous in your life,” it is about being a people who live out the new reality of being human in a very different kind of way – being human in the ways of God.
In this sense, this makes “church shopping” obsolete, because church shopping is about our choosing. Yet, to live as God’s people, we need to recognize the mystery of God calling and choosing us so that we might live demonstrating God’s purposes in the world, rather than our own. As Roxburgh and Boren state: “Those called into the church did not choose to join a voluntary society; they are called and chosen by God. They are called to be a sign, witness, and foretaste of God’s [present and] coming kingdom. To participate in the missional journey is to embrace this mystery [of being chosen] and allow this reality to overwhelm and supersede the pressing matters of being a successful church or growing the church, which seems to dominate our imagination” (p. 42).
Simply put, the mystery is this: We are chosen to accomplish the purpose of God and to demonstrate human life that is shaped by God’s reign; it is not about our success, it is about God’s redemptive purpose, God’s redemptive mission being accomplished in which we are called and chosen to participate through Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And one last point – our living as ones called by God is not for the purpose of dividing or separating us from others, or for us to see ourselves as more right than others, but rather to give evidence through our living under God’s rule, of God’s desire to call all people into relationship with him in order for all to be re-created into a new humanity.
Next week: Continuing Reflections on Introducing the Missional Church
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Vol 1:19 Further Reflections on "Introducing the Missional Church": Missional Imagination and Scripture
A few weeks back I mentioned that I was reading Roxburgh and Boren’s book Introducing the Missional Church (Baker, 2009). Well I have gotten deeper into it and it worth some time reflecting on it further.
The back end of the book focuses on the missional change model which Alan introduced with Fred Romanuk in The Missional Leader (Jossey-Bass, 2006), but with added insight and clarity.
However, I would like to offer a few short reflections over the next few weeks – beginning from the first parts of the book. As I mentioned I am asking my Church Board to read through and discuss this book as part of our discerning what it for us as a community to be missional. One of the key areas that Alan and Scott Boren lead us to grasp is that being missional is not so much about defining and categorizing as it is being open to be led by the Spirit in developing our missional imagination.
Just as the kingdom or reign of God cannot be defined, but imagined, so to being missional is more about imagining than it is about developing strategies and models for us to follow. It is amazing that Jesus taught about the kingdom of God in parables, helping hearers to grasp “pictures” of the kingdom – pictures stay with us longer than words. Likewise, being missional is about getting into the flow of the Spirit, or the missional river as Roxburgh and Boren put it, which open us up to God, to see what God sees, and to see what God is doing and saying in the neighborhoods around where we live and worship.
Developing our missional imagination is a journey in which we begin to visualize the way God moves in our world in the presence of the Spirit – if we set aside our agendas and open ourselves to be captured by the redemptive activity of God in the world. Scripture has a foundational role in developing our missional imagination. Listen to what they express:
“Scripture does not so much define reality as invite us onto a journey in which we discover the world God is creating. This can make us restless and confused. If we persist on this journey into the strange world of the Bible, it will form our imaginations in radically new ways; it will change how we see the world. This happened to the Hebrew people when they were called out of Egypt. Its meaning and shape had to be discovered along the way. They may have thought it would be a simple matter of tracing a well-traveled line on a map and getting to the Promised Land, but God had different things in mind. In the desert God shaped a people with an imagination that couldn’t be taught or defined in Egypt” (p. 39).
Indeed we need a new understanding of Scripture as Alan and Scott describe. Too often we see Scripture as only being prescriptive, a book of what to do, stories that do not connect with our own lives, unless we do the difficult work of applying it to ourselves (which we are not all that eager to do at times). Yet, in seeing Scripture as God’s Story and Vision, of God’s interaction with a people through which God chose to demonstrate a new way of being human in the world, we begin to discover in these relationships, encounters, struggles, a way of being open to God who is able to create new life in the midst of all that is dying and dead – enabling our imagination to be ignited and shaped, enabling us to see visions and dream dreams (cf. Act 2) of new ways of being human and humane in the 21st century. Scripture is more than a book to be studied, it is to open our hearts, ears, eyes, our lives to the re-creating, making new, presence of God in the world – a way of hearing and seeing that comes through the imagination more than it does our senses.
No matter how much we desire God in our lives, little of this desire will become reality unless we become a people who immerse ourselves in the Story and Vision of God (i.e., the Scriptures, the Bible). In immersing ourselves in Scripture, we are shaped by the Spirit of God to see not only more of God with our imagination, but we begin to be set free to imagine and to live into that imagination of what God is doing in re-creating humanity and the world. Also, we discover how we are being shaped and called by God to be an integral part of incarnating our Spirit-immersed imagination in ways which reorient the world in the way of shalom (peace, wholeness). Perhaps an ongoing prayer for our being open for our imagination to be shaped by the Spirit of God is pray for a passion to be immersed in the Bible – for it to transform our imaginations and the living out of that imagination in our lives.
Next week: Continuing Reflections on Introducing the Missional Church
The back end of the book focuses on the missional change model which Alan introduced with Fred Romanuk in The Missional Leader (Jossey-Bass, 2006), but with added insight and clarity.
However, I would like to offer a few short reflections over the next few weeks – beginning from the first parts of the book. As I mentioned I am asking my Church Board to read through and discuss this book as part of our discerning what it for us as a community to be missional. One of the key areas that Alan and Scott Boren lead us to grasp is that being missional is not so much about defining and categorizing as it is being open to be led by the Spirit in developing our missional imagination.
Just as the kingdom or reign of God cannot be defined, but imagined, so to being missional is more about imagining than it is about developing strategies and models for us to follow. It is amazing that Jesus taught about the kingdom of God in parables, helping hearers to grasp “pictures” of the kingdom – pictures stay with us longer than words. Likewise, being missional is about getting into the flow of the Spirit, or the missional river as Roxburgh and Boren put it, which open us up to God, to see what God sees, and to see what God is doing and saying in the neighborhoods around where we live and worship.
Developing our missional imagination is a journey in which we begin to visualize the way God moves in our world in the presence of the Spirit – if we set aside our agendas and open ourselves to be captured by the redemptive activity of God in the world. Scripture has a foundational role in developing our missional imagination. Listen to what they express:
“Scripture does not so much define reality as invite us onto a journey in which we discover the world God is creating. This can make us restless and confused. If we persist on this journey into the strange world of the Bible, it will form our imaginations in radically new ways; it will change how we see the world. This happened to the Hebrew people when they were called out of Egypt. Its meaning and shape had to be discovered along the way. They may have thought it would be a simple matter of tracing a well-traveled line on a map and getting to the Promised Land, but God had different things in mind. In the desert God shaped a people with an imagination that couldn’t be taught or defined in Egypt” (p. 39).
Indeed we need a new understanding of Scripture as Alan and Scott describe. Too often we see Scripture as only being prescriptive, a book of what to do, stories that do not connect with our own lives, unless we do the difficult work of applying it to ourselves (which we are not all that eager to do at times). Yet, in seeing Scripture as God’s Story and Vision, of God’s interaction with a people through which God chose to demonstrate a new way of being human in the world, we begin to discover in these relationships, encounters, struggles, a way of being open to God who is able to create new life in the midst of all that is dying and dead – enabling our imagination to be ignited and shaped, enabling us to see visions and dream dreams (cf. Act 2) of new ways of being human and humane in the 21st century. Scripture is more than a book to be studied, it is to open our hearts, ears, eyes, our lives to the re-creating, making new, presence of God in the world – a way of hearing and seeing that comes through the imagination more than it does our senses.
No matter how much we desire God in our lives, little of this desire will become reality unless we become a people who immerse ourselves in the Story and Vision of God (i.e., the Scriptures, the Bible). In immersing ourselves in Scripture, we are shaped by the Spirit of God to see not only more of God with our imagination, but we begin to be set free to imagine and to live into that imagination of what God is doing in re-creating humanity and the world. Also, we discover how we are being shaped and called by God to be an integral part of incarnating our Spirit-immersed imagination in ways which reorient the world in the way of shalom (peace, wholeness). Perhaps an ongoing prayer for our being open for our imagination to be shaped by the Spirit of God is pray for a passion to be immersed in the Bible – for it to transform our imaginations and the living out of that imagination in our lives.
Next week: Continuing Reflections on Introducing the Missional Church
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Vol 1:18 Being Missional in Preaching: Some Ways I am Trying to be Interactive
For a number of weeks now I have been experimenting with a different approach to preaching – an approach which is more interactive. It has led me to trust the leading of the Spirit more, especially in the midst of preaching because not all the notes I prepared (which I have whittled down to two pages – since I do not want to be glued to my notes) get used in what I have to convey, rather what is communicated from the congregation in the midst of this interaction shapes much of where the message goes.
So I am in the midst of being retrained in how I preach, as is the congregation – the congregation is becoming more open to becoming active participants rather than listening spectators. Here are some things I am learning or ways I am trying to be interactive.
1. I still spend much time in preparation. I read and reflect on the passages that shape the message that I am sensing the Spirit of God wants us to engage on a particular Sunday. I should let you know that my practice of preparation involves about 3 weeks. The first week, which is about 3 weeks in advance of the Sunday this message will be focused upon, I read through the Scriptures, do some exegesis, and I attempt to see what comes to the fore of my mind and heart as I meditate on these passages. The second week – about 2 weeks in advance, I prepare an outline, interact with other authors, ideas, engage in dialogue with others on the theme, etc. The third week – in preparation for the coming Sunday, I write out what I want to focus upon – in a two page format (landscape, front and back).
2. I try to focus on only one point now – the one thing I believe the Spirit of God wants us as a community to focus upon. This one point usually grows out of one particular passage, which in turn becomes the main focal passage. I have discovered that focusing on one concept, one idea, enables participants to grasp hold of it much easier and integrate it with their lives – which after all is what we are hoping that engaging God’s word together effects.
3. In having one focus, I seek to try to get at it from more than one perspective, realizing that different persons in the congregation may connect with one out of two or three perspectives, or help reinforce what is being expressed and discussed for others.
4. This kind of approach is very dependent upon the congregation coming prepared for the Scripture engagement on Sunday morning – which we are still in process of forming as a habit. I develop an Interactive Discussion Guide, which gets emailed to the congregation on Wednesdays, and is reproduced in the bulletin on Sundays for those who have not yet prepared or need to be refreshed on the theme for the day. I include the primary passages, the focal passage, a quotation for reflection, and 3 or 4 questions to guide their reflecting upon and engaging the text.
5. On Sunday mornings, during the time in which we plan on interacting with the text together, I pull up a bar stool and sit down in front of the congregation so that we are more face to face for a conversation. I begin with introducing the theme with a thought or two to get us focused on the one thing we are planning to engage that morning.
6. This focusing is usually followed up with a question which encourages the congregation to begin to voice their perspective on the theme. This may involve people expressing their thoughts out loud, or I have even used a 3-4 minute small group discussion and then have different groups share what they were talking about.
7. At this point, I pick up a particular direction I sense the dialogue is heading and incorporate what has been expressed into what I have prepared ahead of time. Most of the time I notice that I neglect to present about one-third to one-half of what I prepared in order to engage the dialogue the way it has been expressed. I still keep the focus on the primary point, but the congregation’s involvement raises new perspectives and questions which help reshape the way I was planning on presenting the message.
8. Usually, at some point, after the main point has been addressed, I ask the congregation to reflect upon how this might shape their living – and this begins another round of interaction. I realize that I need to give time for people to speak – you need to be comfortable with a minute or so of silence as people try to formulate their reflections in order to speak. There is also the fact that some are getting up the courage to speak out loud – depending on what I am noticing in terms of body language, etc., I may ask someone what is on their mind to assist in giving someone the courage to speak.
So I am in the midst of being retrained in how I preach, as is the congregation – the congregation is becoming more open to becoming active participants rather than listening spectators. Here are some things I am learning or ways I am trying to be interactive.
1. I still spend much time in preparation. I read and reflect on the passages that shape the message that I am sensing the Spirit of God wants us to engage on a particular Sunday. I should let you know that my practice of preparation involves about 3 weeks. The first week, which is about 3 weeks in advance of the Sunday this message will be focused upon, I read through the Scriptures, do some exegesis, and I attempt to see what comes to the fore of my mind and heart as I meditate on these passages. The second week – about 2 weeks in advance, I prepare an outline, interact with other authors, ideas, engage in dialogue with others on the theme, etc. The third week – in preparation for the coming Sunday, I write out what I want to focus upon – in a two page format (landscape, front and back).
2. I try to focus on only one point now – the one thing I believe the Spirit of God wants us as a community to focus upon. This one point usually grows out of one particular passage, which in turn becomes the main focal passage. I have discovered that focusing on one concept, one idea, enables participants to grasp hold of it much easier and integrate it with their lives – which after all is what we are hoping that engaging God’s word together effects.
3. In having one focus, I seek to try to get at it from more than one perspective, realizing that different persons in the congregation may connect with one out of two or three perspectives, or help reinforce what is being expressed and discussed for others.
4. This kind of approach is very dependent upon the congregation coming prepared for the Scripture engagement on Sunday morning – which we are still in process of forming as a habit. I develop an Interactive Discussion Guide, which gets emailed to the congregation on Wednesdays, and is reproduced in the bulletin on Sundays for those who have not yet prepared or need to be refreshed on the theme for the day. I include the primary passages, the focal passage, a quotation for reflection, and 3 or 4 questions to guide their reflecting upon and engaging the text.
5. On Sunday mornings, during the time in which we plan on interacting with the text together, I pull up a bar stool and sit down in front of the congregation so that we are more face to face for a conversation. I begin with introducing the theme with a thought or two to get us focused on the one thing we are planning to engage that morning.
6. This focusing is usually followed up with a question which encourages the congregation to begin to voice their perspective on the theme. This may involve people expressing their thoughts out loud, or I have even used a 3-4 minute small group discussion and then have different groups share what they were talking about.
7. At this point, I pick up a particular direction I sense the dialogue is heading and incorporate what has been expressed into what I have prepared ahead of time. Most of the time I notice that I neglect to present about one-third to one-half of what I prepared in order to engage the dialogue the way it has been expressed. I still keep the focus on the primary point, but the congregation’s involvement raises new perspectives and questions which help reshape the way I was planning on presenting the message.
8. Usually, at some point, after the main point has been addressed, I ask the congregation to reflect upon how this might shape their living – and this begins another round of interaction. I realize that I need to give time for people to speak – you need to be comfortable with a minute or so of silence as people try to formulate their reflections in order to speak. There is also the fact that some are getting up the courage to speak out loud – depending on what I am noticing in terms of body language, etc., I may ask someone what is on their mind to assist in giving someone the courage to speak.
9. After this time of interaction, I try to summarize and remake the main focus of the morning as it has been shaped by the congregation’s engagement. This is almost always something I have not prepared, but grows out of what the Spirit of God has been doing in our midst as we have engaged the text together.
Overall, I am still learning to become comfortable with this approach, comfortable with not saying everything I have prepared, comfortable with silence as people reflect, comfortable with giving space to the congregation to become comfortable in interaction. But I do not want to become too comfortable, because there is something about keeping it on the edge that makes this a work of the Spirit in our midst – unpredictable as to where we might head or a question that is raised, but intensely alive, but it allows for us to hear the Spirit speak through us as a congregation seeking to help each other grow in the way of Christ in the world, so that together we might participate with God in what God is doing in making all things new.
Next week: Further Reflections on Introducing the Missional Church
Overall, I am still learning to become comfortable with this approach, comfortable with not saying everything I have prepared, comfortable with silence as people reflect, comfortable with giving space to the congregation to become comfortable in interaction. But I do not want to become too comfortable, because there is something about keeping it on the edge that makes this a work of the Spirit in our midst – unpredictable as to where we might head or a question that is raised, but intensely alive, but it allows for us to hear the Spirit speak through us as a congregation seeking to help each other grow in the way of Christ in the world, so that together we might participate with God in what God is doing in making all things new.
Next week: Further Reflections on Introducing the Missional Church
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Vol 1:17 Being Missional in Preaching: Hearing the Voice of the Spirit in Our Midst
Missional leading that is concerned with cultivating missional awareness is also concerned with the congregation discerning the leading of the Spirit. What is the Spirit doing amongst us? What is the Spirit doing in the community into which we are being sent? How are we being equipped and empowered by the Spirit to participate in God’s mission in our ministry settings? These are key questions – for which I see preaching playing an important role in cultivating a congregation to become more deeply sensitive to the Spirit’s leading.
A former colleague of mine at Northern Seminary, Michael J. Quicke, taught a course entitled Leadership Through Preaching, which ended up becoming a book – 360 Degree Leadership, in which he argues that preaching is key to leading that brings about transformation. In addition, I believe that the kind of preaching that is key is one that involves the congregation in discerning together where God is leading us as a church to participate with God in God’s mission.
In a previous column I mentioned that leadership is about discerning and articulating the vision the Spirit of God is casting within a church community, seeing the people themselves as gifts the Spirit bestows to the community because it is their gifts and passions that give us a clue of how God is shaping us to be participants in God’s mission.
Since Easter I have been exploring a different approach to preaching – I even discovered it has a name – interactive preaching – though little is written about it. Basically, it is about engendering a conversation on Sunday morning so that we encounter God’s Word in a multi-voiced way, rather than God’s Word being expressed as a monologue – i.e., my being the sole voice in preaching.
It involves retraining me as well as the congregation, because preaching for centuries has been the primary profession of the clergy – this is how I was trained in seminary. But if we take seriously the priesthood of all believers (which the Reformation expressed, but did little practically to bring it about) then somehow what God is saying to us, how we understand Scripture, how we hear the Spirit opening us to Scripture, is to be a communal activity, rather than an activity limited to clergy.
This is still very new to me and I am making mistakes as I am learning to be more open to hear what the Spirit is saying to us through the Word of God. I also believe that we as a community are beginning to learn to engage Scripture, express insights that the Spirit brings in ways that are fresh and particularly relevant. Over the centuries preaching has involved one speaking and the rest listening, but interactive preaching is an attempt for each one of us in the community to take on the calling of being open to Jesus, being open to the Spirit, so that together we might be led in being sent out to participate with God in God’s redemptive mission. Mission and ministry are corporate activities, so why not preaching as well?
This was the way the early Anabaptists engaged Scripture in worship – together; this seems to be what Paul was getting at in 1 Corinthians 14 in which each one brings something with them to share in their gatherings, for some to prophecy, and others to speak in tongues and others yet to interpret – it involves the church being the Body of Christ – building up one another, being responsible for discipling one another. It involves a whole different attitude in how we come to worship on Sundays – rather than being about “being ministered to by the Word,” we instead having spent time in Scripture, come prepared to engage others, share insights in hearing corporately what the Spirit of God is saying to us, so that we might be obedient as a community to where and how we are being sent by God.
It seems I am rambling a bit – but I am trying to get my mind and life more around what it means for a community to “preach” the Word to one another in an interactive way. I believe as we develop facility with this approach to preaching, the community I serve will become more deeply engaged in God’s Story and Vision (Scripture) and be continually transformed as a community that is sign, foretaste, and instrument of God’s present and coming reign. May we be open to hearing and expressing God’s word as a multi-voice community.
Next week: Being missional in preaching – Some ways I am trying to be interactive
A former colleague of mine at Northern Seminary, Michael J. Quicke, taught a course entitled Leadership Through Preaching, which ended up becoming a book – 360 Degree Leadership, in which he argues that preaching is key to leading that brings about transformation. In addition, I believe that the kind of preaching that is key is one that involves the congregation in discerning together where God is leading us as a church to participate with God in God’s mission.
In a previous column I mentioned that leadership is about discerning and articulating the vision the Spirit of God is casting within a church community, seeing the people themselves as gifts the Spirit bestows to the community because it is their gifts and passions that give us a clue of how God is shaping us to be participants in God’s mission.
Since Easter I have been exploring a different approach to preaching – I even discovered it has a name – interactive preaching – though little is written about it. Basically, it is about engendering a conversation on Sunday morning so that we encounter God’s Word in a multi-voiced way, rather than God’s Word being expressed as a monologue – i.e., my being the sole voice in preaching.
It involves retraining me as well as the congregation, because preaching for centuries has been the primary profession of the clergy – this is how I was trained in seminary. But if we take seriously the priesthood of all believers (which the Reformation expressed, but did little practically to bring it about) then somehow what God is saying to us, how we understand Scripture, how we hear the Spirit opening us to Scripture, is to be a communal activity, rather than an activity limited to clergy.
This is still very new to me and I am making mistakes as I am learning to be more open to hear what the Spirit is saying to us through the Word of God. I also believe that we as a community are beginning to learn to engage Scripture, express insights that the Spirit brings in ways that are fresh and particularly relevant. Over the centuries preaching has involved one speaking and the rest listening, but interactive preaching is an attempt for each one of us in the community to take on the calling of being open to Jesus, being open to the Spirit, so that together we might be led in being sent out to participate with God in God’s redemptive mission. Mission and ministry are corporate activities, so why not preaching as well?
This was the way the early Anabaptists engaged Scripture in worship – together; this seems to be what Paul was getting at in 1 Corinthians 14 in which each one brings something with them to share in their gatherings, for some to prophecy, and others to speak in tongues and others yet to interpret – it involves the church being the Body of Christ – building up one another, being responsible for discipling one another. It involves a whole different attitude in how we come to worship on Sundays – rather than being about “being ministered to by the Word,” we instead having spent time in Scripture, come prepared to engage others, share insights in hearing corporately what the Spirit of God is saying to us, so that we might be obedient as a community to where and how we are being sent by God.
It seems I am rambling a bit – but I am trying to get my mind and life more around what it means for a community to “preach” the Word to one another in an interactive way. I believe as we develop facility with this approach to preaching, the community I serve will become more deeply engaged in God’s Story and Vision (Scripture) and be continually transformed as a community that is sign, foretaste, and instrument of God’s present and coming reign. May we be open to hearing and expressing God’s word as a multi-voice community.
Next week: Being missional in preaching – Some ways I am trying to be interactive
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Vol 1:16 Reflections on What I'm Reading
The book written by several missional authors that helped establish missional understanding in the North American context is Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Eeredmans, 1998). It provided a theological foundation for understanding the need for a missional understanding of church in North America. Many readers struggled with how to apply Missional Church to their settings, asking the question, “what does a missional church look like?” In response the Gospel and Our Culture Network produced Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness (Eerdmans. 2004) which presented nine congregational sketches – churches that were very different from one another – to show how being missional was not so much about a particular model of church, but instead displaying a particular pattern in being the people of God who are sign, instrument, and foretaste of God’s present and coming reign.
Other helpful books on understanding missional over the years have been The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America (Eerdmans, 1996), StormFront: The Good News of God (Eerdmans, 2003), a recent collection of writings known as the Missional Church Series also published by Eerdmans, features titles such as, The Missional Church in Context: Helping Congregations Develop Contextual Ministry and The Missional Church and Denominations: Helping Congregations Develop a Missional Identity – to name two.
However, a recent book I have picked up is a great primer on re-understanding the importance of being missional. It seems that far too many have co-opted the term missional to mean what they want it to mean, such as being associated with church growth and attractional understandings of church, but all these dilute an understanding of what is meant by missional. Alan Roxburgh and Scott Boren have produced an excellent volume (so far at least since I just started reading it) on helping readers interested in understanding what missional is about to cut through all the pseudo understandings in order to help us rediscover the essence of being missional in North America. Their book is entitled, Introducing the Missional Church: What it is, why it matters, how to become one (Baker Books, 2009).
I am planning on having our Church Board read through this book together so that the community I pastor might come to more clearly understand why being missional is so important and in what ways we need to be open to being transformed so as to become missional in all we are and do.
Roxburgh and Boren take their readers on a journey to understand how missional is more of a metaphor than a model, how it is related to living as God’s people demonstrating the present and coming reign of God, how it reframes an understanding of church as being sent into the world, rather than being the community that sends. They talk about developing a missional imagination that is more rooted in a biblical imagination than a modern worldview. Missional is a fluid concept pictured better as a river than an idea to be defined. Missional is about participating with God in God’s mission, rather than our seeking God to bless our activities.
So, if you need a refresher on understanding missional or have never really understood what it means, I invite you to read this book along with me.
Next week: Being missional in preaching – Hearing the voice of the Spirit in our midst
Other helpful books on understanding missional over the years have been The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America (Eerdmans, 1996), StormFront: The Good News of God (Eerdmans, 2003), a recent collection of writings known as the Missional Church Series also published by Eerdmans, features titles such as, The Missional Church in Context: Helping Congregations Develop Contextual Ministry and The Missional Church and Denominations: Helping Congregations Develop a Missional Identity – to name two.
However, a recent book I have picked up is a great primer on re-understanding the importance of being missional. It seems that far too many have co-opted the term missional to mean what they want it to mean, such as being associated with church growth and attractional understandings of church, but all these dilute an understanding of what is meant by missional. Alan Roxburgh and Scott Boren have produced an excellent volume (so far at least since I just started reading it) on helping readers interested in understanding what missional is about to cut through all the pseudo understandings in order to help us rediscover the essence of being missional in North America. Their book is entitled, Introducing the Missional Church: What it is, why it matters, how to become one (Baker Books, 2009).
I am planning on having our Church Board read through this book together so that the community I pastor might come to more clearly understand why being missional is so important and in what ways we need to be open to being transformed so as to become missional in all we are and do.
Roxburgh and Boren take their readers on a journey to understand how missional is more of a metaphor than a model, how it is related to living as God’s people demonstrating the present and coming reign of God, how it reframes an understanding of church as being sent into the world, rather than being the community that sends. They talk about developing a missional imagination that is more rooted in a biblical imagination than a modern worldview. Missional is a fluid concept pictured better as a river than an idea to be defined. Missional is about participating with God in God’s mission, rather than our seeking God to bless our activities.
So, if you need a refresher on understanding missional or have never really understood what it means, I invite you to read this book along with me.
Next week: Being missional in preaching – Hearing the voice of the Spirit in our midst
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Vol 1:15 Visioning and God's Mission (Part 4: Leading that Cultivates Mission)
Missional leading is different than the kind of leadership many of us have done or experienced. I remember a number of years ago when I stepped out of the pastorate to do doctoral studies, I found myself being on the other side of the pulpit. Sitting in the pew, I realized that the pastoral leadership in the church I was attending did not connect with me, nor as I noticed, those sitting next to me. As I reflected on this, I realized that this was the kind of pastoral leadership I had brought to my previous 11 years of ministry – this current style of leading did not connect with those I had been called to shepherd.
This began a ten year exploration of reframing the way I fulfilled my calling as pastor – and I came to discover that the kind of leading that is essential is one that cultivates God’s mission – and cultivation is quite different from the “CEO-type” model many of us have come to accept as normative.
Many of our models of leadership or leading have to do with exerting direct control or action to bring about particular outcomes. These models tend to view people as means to accomplishing such purposes, seeing people as “having gifts,” rather than being the gifts the Spirit of God has gathered together in a community. Seeing people as ones whom the Spirit of God is forming, calls for a different approach to shepherding the body of Christ – a more organic, relational approach, and though we are focused on a task of being sign, instrument, and foretaste of God’s present and coming reign, leading people cannot be a mere task.
Alan Roxburgh, in Missional Leader, gives voice to leading as cultivation.
“The idea of leadership as cultivating an environment is difficult to grasp because of our ingrained conviction that leadership is about providing solutions and strategies with predefined ends. Rather than the leader [or leaders] having plans and strategies that the congregation will affirm and follow, cultivation describes the leader as one who works the soil of the congregation so as to invite and constitute the environment for the people of God to discern what the Spirit is doing in, with, and among them as a community” (Missional Leader, 28).
He expresses that cultivating leading “releases the missional imagination of God’s ordinary people” (Missional Leader, 29).
I believe that leading that cultivates begins with realizing that the Spirit of God is already at work in our congregations; the Spirit is gathering the people who are uniquely suited to the mission for which we are being called and sent. Their particular gifts and passions reveal how God is equipping us as a community to participate with God in God’s redemptive mission.
Rather, than leadership receiving a vision from on high and then disseminating or “selling” that vision to the congregation (which I believe is more of an Old Testament model of leading), missional leading or leadership expressed through the servanthood that Christ expressed and modeled, focuses on discerning and expressing the calling and vision that the Spirit has placed among us through the gift of people the Spirit has gathered.
As shepherds give energy to developing relationships, discovering stories, gifts and passions of those whom the Spirit is gathering, leadership can begin to discern the visional patterns of what God is accomplishing in us and through us. As these patterns are expressed, vision is cast, but it is not a vision that has to be “sold” to the people, or for there to be “buy in” from the people, because this vision has already been rooted in the life of the congregation by the Spirit of God.
When Martin Luther King, Jr., expressed, “I have a dream,” he was not selling a dream, but was giving voice to the dream that was already in the hearts and lives of people – that is what made his declaration so moving. Likewise, when pastoral leadership discovers, for example, numerous musically-gifted people within their congregation, rather than saying, “hey, we’ve got a good pool of people to audition for filling existing ministry positions (seeing people as means), missional leadership begins to ask the cultivating and discerning question – “I wonder why God has gifted us with so many musically-gifted people; what is the Spirit of God saying to us regarding how we are to utilize music in participating with God in mission?”
This is a different kind of leading – one that is rooted in servantship; one that recognizes that the Spirit of God is already at work among us; one that recognizes that leading involves cultivating the soil of the congregation so that what can grow is what the Spirit of God has already planted.
There is much more I can say on this – I teach a whole seminar on this in various theological settings. But the point I am making is that missional leading is leading that follows the lead of the Spirit – what the Spirit is already engaged in within our church communities, and in the communities in which the church lives out its presence. Are we about casting our own vision, or are we about having eyes and ears to sense God’s vision already planted among us to which we learn to give voice and cultivate communities to respond?
This began a ten year exploration of reframing the way I fulfilled my calling as pastor – and I came to discover that the kind of leading that is essential is one that cultivates God’s mission – and cultivation is quite different from the “CEO-type” model many of us have come to accept as normative.
Many of our models of leadership or leading have to do with exerting direct control or action to bring about particular outcomes. These models tend to view people as means to accomplishing such purposes, seeing people as “having gifts,” rather than being the gifts the Spirit of God has gathered together in a community. Seeing people as ones whom the Spirit of God is forming, calls for a different approach to shepherding the body of Christ – a more organic, relational approach, and though we are focused on a task of being sign, instrument, and foretaste of God’s present and coming reign, leading people cannot be a mere task.
Alan Roxburgh, in Missional Leader, gives voice to leading as cultivation.
“The idea of leadership as cultivating an environment is difficult to grasp because of our ingrained conviction that leadership is about providing solutions and strategies with predefined ends. Rather than the leader [or leaders] having plans and strategies that the congregation will affirm and follow, cultivation describes the leader as one who works the soil of the congregation so as to invite and constitute the environment for the people of God to discern what the Spirit is doing in, with, and among them as a community” (Missional Leader, 28).
He expresses that cultivating leading “releases the missional imagination of God’s ordinary people” (Missional Leader, 29).
I believe that leading that cultivates begins with realizing that the Spirit of God is already at work in our congregations; the Spirit is gathering the people who are uniquely suited to the mission for which we are being called and sent. Their particular gifts and passions reveal how God is equipping us as a community to participate with God in God’s redemptive mission.
Rather, than leadership receiving a vision from on high and then disseminating or “selling” that vision to the congregation (which I believe is more of an Old Testament model of leading), missional leading or leadership expressed through the servanthood that Christ expressed and modeled, focuses on discerning and expressing the calling and vision that the Spirit has placed among us through the gift of people the Spirit has gathered.
As shepherds give energy to developing relationships, discovering stories, gifts and passions of those whom the Spirit is gathering, leadership can begin to discern the visional patterns of what God is accomplishing in us and through us. As these patterns are expressed, vision is cast, but it is not a vision that has to be “sold” to the people, or for there to be “buy in” from the people, because this vision has already been rooted in the life of the congregation by the Spirit of God.
When Martin Luther King, Jr., expressed, “I have a dream,” he was not selling a dream, but was giving voice to the dream that was already in the hearts and lives of people – that is what made his declaration so moving. Likewise, when pastoral leadership discovers, for example, numerous musically-gifted people within their congregation, rather than saying, “hey, we’ve got a good pool of people to audition for filling existing ministry positions (seeing people as means), missional leadership begins to ask the cultivating and discerning question – “I wonder why God has gifted us with so many musically-gifted people; what is the Spirit of God saying to us regarding how we are to utilize music in participating with God in mission?”
This is a different kind of leading – one that is rooted in servantship; one that recognizes that the Spirit of God is already at work among us; one that recognizes that leading involves cultivating the soil of the congregation so that what can grow is what the Spirit of God has already planted.
There is much more I can say on this – I teach a whole seminar on this in various theological settings. But the point I am making is that missional leading is leading that follows the lead of the Spirit – what the Spirit is already engaged in within our church communities, and in the communities in which the church lives out its presence. Are we about casting our own vision, or are we about having eyes and ears to sense God’s vision already planted among us to which we learn to give voice and cultivate communities to respond?
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Vol 1:14 Vision and God's Mission (Part 3: What part of God's mission are we called to?)
So we begin to develop a sensitivity to see what God sees and in our daily openness to God we begin to notice what God is doing all around us in the lives of people – but we cannot participate in all that God is doing. So, what part of all what God is doing are we to be about doing, what part of God’s mission are we called to do?
So much of what we have been taught about church ministry has to do with seeing a need and filling it – but human need is not to drive our agenda for ministry, obedience to God and God’s call upon us is to guide our participation in what God is accomplishing.
Ray Anderson sheds light on this question for us.
“Christ’s primary ministry is to the Father for the sake of the world, not to the world for the sake of the Father. This means that the world does not set the agenda for ministry, but the Father, who loves the world and seeks its good, sets this agenda. This Christological, and actually Trinitarian, basis for ministry rules out both utilitarianism, which tends to create ministry out of needs, and pragmatism, which transforms ministry into marketing strategy” (Anderson, Theological Foundations for Ministry (1979), 8-9).
It helps us understand that because God loves the world, that our participating with God ensures that what we are about is a participation in the redemptive mission of God in the world – though we see needs all around us, we are called to respond to those people in need to whom God sends us. But is there a clue as to whom God is sending us?
I believe there is!
It has to do with who we are as the body of Christ – and the gifts and passions the Spirit bestows on members of the body. Too often we have seen gift discovery inventories as ways to find people in our churches to fill the ministry opportunities we already have within our settings. This sees people within congregations as “tools” to merely engage in ministries that are already established in which we make the people “fit” the ministries of our churches.
But what if the people, their gifts and passions are the indicators of what God wants us to be involved in?
If God sets the agenda for ministry, and if we believe that it is God who calls and gathers the community of Christ to participate in fulfilling God’s mission, and if we believe that the Spirit of God bestows gifts for ministries and passion for ministry, then a key indicator to guide our mission participation is to take notice of whom God has gathered into the body of Christ.
Our discovery of one another’s gifts and passions enables us to see how God is “resourcing” or equipping us to participate in that part of what God is doing for which God is calling us and sending us. We do not have to do all of God’s ministry – after all there are other communities of Christ around us; we are called to do the ministry for which the Spirit of God equips us.
This means that we need to take a look at one another in a very different way – not in how we can use one another in ministry – but how inherent within each one’s life, passions, and gifts is the way God wants us to be involved in God’s mission.
As new people are gathered into the community, this mission expands or changes, and as people move on to other opportunities or callings, our mission changes as well. This is a calling to notice one another – because not only is God maturing us in Christ, but in this maturing process we are also equipped for participating with God in God’s redemptive mission in the world.
A book that first helped me begin to understand this was one written in the late 70s – Unleashing the Church: Getting People Out of the Fortress and into Ministry (Tillapaugh). The church described in this book began to see ministry and mission in terms of those God was bringing into their church. Rather than making people fit the ministry, ministry was seen as fitting those God was bringing into the church.
Our participating in God’s mission requires us to love and care for the people God has gathered in a different way – they not only have gifts, they indeed are gifts the Spirit is giving in the forming of Christ communities in order for these communities to participate with God in those aspects of God’s mission for which we are uniquely equipped and called. Noticing people as gifts puts ministry in right relationship with people – ministries flow out of the gifts, passions and callings of people, rather than people being mere “tools” for the performance of ministry.
May we see each other as a gift with which God has blessed us.
So much of what we have been taught about church ministry has to do with seeing a need and filling it – but human need is not to drive our agenda for ministry, obedience to God and God’s call upon us is to guide our participation in what God is accomplishing.
Ray Anderson sheds light on this question for us.
“Christ’s primary ministry is to the Father for the sake of the world, not to the world for the sake of the Father. This means that the world does not set the agenda for ministry, but the Father, who loves the world and seeks its good, sets this agenda. This Christological, and actually Trinitarian, basis for ministry rules out both utilitarianism, which tends to create ministry out of needs, and pragmatism, which transforms ministry into marketing strategy” (Anderson, Theological Foundations for Ministry (1979), 8-9).
It helps us understand that because God loves the world, that our participating with God ensures that what we are about is a participation in the redemptive mission of God in the world – though we see needs all around us, we are called to respond to those people in need to whom God sends us. But is there a clue as to whom God is sending us?
I believe there is!
It has to do with who we are as the body of Christ – and the gifts and passions the Spirit bestows on members of the body. Too often we have seen gift discovery inventories as ways to find people in our churches to fill the ministry opportunities we already have within our settings. This sees people within congregations as “tools” to merely engage in ministries that are already established in which we make the people “fit” the ministries of our churches.
But what if the people, their gifts and passions are the indicators of what God wants us to be involved in?
If God sets the agenda for ministry, and if we believe that it is God who calls and gathers the community of Christ to participate in fulfilling God’s mission, and if we believe that the Spirit of God bestows gifts for ministries and passion for ministry, then a key indicator to guide our mission participation is to take notice of whom God has gathered into the body of Christ.
Our discovery of one another’s gifts and passions enables us to see how God is “resourcing” or equipping us to participate in that part of what God is doing for which God is calling us and sending us. We do not have to do all of God’s ministry – after all there are other communities of Christ around us; we are called to do the ministry for which the Spirit of God equips us.
This means that we need to take a look at one another in a very different way – not in how we can use one another in ministry – but how inherent within each one’s life, passions, and gifts is the way God wants us to be involved in God’s mission.
As new people are gathered into the community, this mission expands or changes, and as people move on to other opportunities or callings, our mission changes as well. This is a calling to notice one another – because not only is God maturing us in Christ, but in this maturing process we are also equipped for participating with God in God’s redemptive mission in the world.
A book that first helped me begin to understand this was one written in the late 70s – Unleashing the Church: Getting People Out of the Fortress and into Ministry (Tillapaugh). The church described in this book began to see ministry and mission in terms of those God was bringing into their church. Rather than making people fit the ministry, ministry was seen as fitting those God was bringing into the church.
Our participating in God’s mission requires us to love and care for the people God has gathered in a different way – they not only have gifts, they indeed are gifts the Spirit is giving in the forming of Christ communities in order for these communities to participate with God in those aspects of God’s mission for which we are uniquely equipped and called. Noticing people as gifts puts ministry in right relationship with people – ministries flow out of the gifts, passions and callings of people, rather than people being mere “tools” for the performance of ministry.
May we see each other as a gift with which God has blessed us.
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