Grass Roots Podcast - Episode 20 - CGGC Leadership Initiative

I have spent the last five years in the CGGC like a guy who stumbled upon a sleeping bear in the woods. I froze and have kept my eye on the bear, for the bear, if it notices me, could devour me. Then I started backing away slowly. I have not participated much regionally or nationally, though I've been told by both regional and national directors that I am welcome and would be appreciated at both levels.

Over the past five years, I have become a fan of Reggie McNeal, a former southern baptist denom official in South Carolina, who I believe understands the exact change that the North American church needs to make and who articulates it in a way that churches at large can get a handle.

So while attending IMPACT as a breakout leader (teaching Reggie McNeal's three shifts for the church), I overheard that Reggie was coming out to consult. Rather than a desire to be helpful denominationally, I selfishly have sought opportunities to sit in the same room as Reggie (and I wasn't disappointed). So I asked if I could sit in and was warmly welcomed.

The results caused me emotional confusion. I left hopeful, passionate in fact about the idea of participating in this leadership initiative, hopeful that this could be a prescription for renewal in this denom that I do truly love. Confused, because I've been wary of the bear, pulling me away from what is most important for me -- local ministry.

My fear is that the people who need to be involved in this initiative are also people who have stumbled across the bear and who also have been slowly backing away. I hope these are the people who listen to our podcasts. These (you) are all people who I have found to be intelligent and reflective and I would love to have a conversation with you about the pros and cons of this initiative. But since I can't, I did have a conversation with Lance Finley, Fran Leeman, and Bill Sloat about it. I thought the conversation was helpful. I think it might be helpful to you to listen to it and get some feel for this initiative, which Lance incredibly optimistically would like to roll out in January.

I am not an official representative of this leadership initiative. I'm just a pastor who loves our denom and who heard something that sounds hopeful coming around the bend. This recorded conversation was a frank and honest evaluation of what we know so far.

We invite your feedback.

Download: Podcast - GrassRoots - Episode 20 - CGGC Leadership Initiative

I made a compressed version that plays about 20 minutes shorter. It is the same as the other, just plays faster.

Download: Podcast - GrassRoots - Episode 20 - CGGC Leadership Initiative Compressed

Podcast Download: Episode 19 - Missional Renaissance - Chapters 3 & 4

Bill Sloat and I will be at IMPACT in a few weeks with a breakout discussing Reggie McNeal's Missional Renaissance. Here is a 30 minute podcast on chapters 1 & 2. Hope you will join it.

Take a look through the following quotes and put the one that strikes you most in a comment (either good or bad) and tell us why.

If you right click on the podcast, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

Download: Podcast - Episode 19 - Missional Renaissance ch 3 & 4

I made a compressed version that plays about 10 minutes shorter. It is the same as the other, just plays faster.

Download: Podcast - Episode 19 - Missional Renaissance ch 3 & 4 Compressed



Chapter 3 – Shift # 1 From an Internal to an Ministry External

Instead of having an evangelism strategy, I urge congregations to have a blessing strategy. – p 47

I usually challenge them to “bless three people this week.” … And make sure one them doesn’t’ deserve it. – p 47

“How can I ask God to bless you?” (That question was not random on his point. At the conference where he and I met, we had talked about using these words to open up spiritual conversations because they reflect the heart of God and the heart of Jesus). – p 48

When I coach leaders who want to begin incarnational modes of church, I warn that if they begin with an attractional approach, the tail will always wag the dog. – p 52

In the attractional model, worship easily becomes the show, perpetuating the unwarranted and mistaken notion that what happens when the church gathers represents the vitality of its mission… The true vitality of a congregation rests in the abundant lives of its participants and in the blessed lives in the community it serves. – p 52

In the incarnational approach, attractional components point back to the mission in the world. The worship gathering for instance celebrates life beyond the gathering. Followers of Jesus gather to share tales of God’s work in the world. – p 52

The missional church is made up of missionaries, who are playing the big game every day. They live their lives with the idea that they are on a mission trip. … they have the quality of “abundance” that comes only from living a life of an intentional blessing agent of the kingdom. – p 54

Missional Jesus followers believe that the way they demonstrate love and service will intrigue people to pursue getting to know the God who inspires such service. Using the life of Jesus and the early years of the church as their reference point, they maintain that an authentic expression of faith requires Jesus followers to adopt an intentional life of blessing people. This they believe demonstrates the heart of God for people. – pp 56-57

The traditional church is and has been institutional for centuries. It focuses on its institutional goals, a church-year calendar, a place to belong, and a member culture. it is centralized in buildings and cared for by people hired to look after it. The staff of the institution develop and administrate its programs while attempting to meet constituents’’ service needs and expectations. In return, the members support the institution with the resources of prayer, time, money, energy, and talent. Church is just one part of life.

The organic church is… pp 57-58

Nothing less than a total conversion from the institutional model will suffice… The pain comes when the reality of what it takes to “do church” has very little to do with Jesus. The miracle occurs when the leader finds the courage to change the scorecard to reflect an incarnational expression. – p 58

One pastor making this journey has determined to interview people every week during his sermon to talk about their challenges and successes. – p 58

Sherri engages with some fellow teachers in a “prayer and share group.” … “That group is my church.”… The typical church doesn’t count this; in the missional church, this is what really counts. – p 60

My hope is that existing churches will see their way clear to expand the bandwidth of what they recognize as church to include these missional communities. Most congregations could sponsor dozens of these without ever harming their “bottom line” in terms of attendance and participation. – p 64

Once we see what God is doing “out there” in the world, it changes everything we do “in here” in the church. – p 65

Podcast Download: Episode 17 - The Forgotten Ways - Chapter 7 Revisited

Download: Podcast Episode 17 - The Forgotten Ways Chapter 7 Revisited

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We set out with the intention of talking about Chapter 8 of The Forgotten Ways but first wanted to respond to Dan Horwedel's comments on our chapter 7 podcast. Before we knew it, our time was up. So this is a revisit to chapter 7 - Organic Systems.

Podcast Download: Episode 16 - The Forgotten Ways - Chapter 7

Download: Podcast Episode 16 - The Forgotten Ways Chapter 7

If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

Chapter Seven Quotes – Organic Systems

The main stimulus for the renewal of Christianity will come from the bottom and from the edge, from sectors of the Christian world that are on the margins. – Harvey Cox, Religion in the Secular Society, p 179

The most probably assumption is that no currently working business theory will be valid 10 years hence… And yet few executives accept that turning a business around requires fundamental changes in the assumptions on which the business is run. it requires a different business. – Peter Drucker, “A Turnaround Primer”, p 179

…as we grew and began to operate in the classic church growth mode it became increasingly harder to find God in the midst of the progressively more machine-like apparatus required to “run a church.” With numerical growth, it seemed that we were increasingly being drawn away from the natural rhythms of life, from direct ministry, and that our roles seemed to become more managerial than every before. But the mechanization of ministry was not only felt by the leadership of the church; the people in the church were increasingly being programmed out of life and therefore less engaged in active relationships with those outside of the faith community. – p 182

Living systems whether organic in form (e.g., a virus, a human being) or systemic organizations (e.g., the stock market, a beehive, a city, or a commercial enterprise, even crystal formations), seem to have a life of their own and possess a built-in intelligence that involves an aptitude for survival, adaptation, and reproduction. – p 182

…we need to move the system toward the edge of chaos; that is, it needs to become highly responsive to its environment. The assumption here is that if it will not deal with real issues facing it, the system will not adapt and will thus perish in the context of any significant adaptive challenge. – p 184

…because systems exist in a mass of disordered information, the task of leadership here will be to help select the flow of information and focus the community around it. Not in order to dominate and try to predetermine the outcome, but rather to supply accurate and meaningful information to the system so that it can in-form itself in response to it. – p 184

So religious institutionalism happens when in the name of some convenience we set up a system to do what we must do ourselves so that over time the structures we create take on a life of their own. A classic example is churches outsourcing education to external organizations. Initially these training organizations exist to fully serve the grass roots. However, over time they increase in authority, eventually becoming ordaining bodies whose imprimatur is needed to minister. As the provider of degrees, they become increasingly more accountable to the government bodies than they do to the mission of the church. But the net result for the local community is that not only do they become dependent on an increasingly powerful and cloistered institution, they also lose the ancient art of discipling and educating for life in the local setting. The local church as a learning and theologizing community is degraded as a result. – p 187

As far as I am aware, no historical denomination has ever been able to fully recover its earlier, more fluid and dynamic movement ethos again. – p 188

It is perfectly true to say that most groups that have impact on either a local, national, or international level almost always begin with a form that sociologists call a movement. – p 191

Most transformational organizations, religious or otherwise, are launched with a certain ethos and energy that starts with a seminal vision/idea and swells like a wave to impact society around it. – p 191

We must constantly subject our institutions to prophetic critique, because it is the prophet, in his or her simple call to faithfulness to God alone, that is most aware of the dangers of the claims that institutions make on faith. – p 195

Since Constantine, it seems that we have simply got it all mixed up. – p 196

Podcast Download: Episode 15 - The Forgotten Ways - Chapter 6

Download: Podcast Episode 15 - The Forgotten Ways Chapter 6

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This chapter is on Apostolic Environment. Rather than directly discussing the book, we talked about the role of Apostles in leadership today. It is worth a listen.

Podcast Download: Episode 14 - The Forgotten Ways - Chapter 5

Download: Podcast Episode 14 - The Forgotten Ways Chapter 5

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Chapter Five Quotes – Missional-Incarnational Impulse

It is the thesis of this chapter that unless we embrace this mode, we will in effect lock up the genius of the apostolic church, namely, to seed and embed the gospel in different groups’ cultures and societies and to thus sow the seeds of rapid multiplication. – p 128

The missional-incarnational impulse is, in effect, the practical outworking of the mission of God (the mission Dei) and of the Incarnation. It is thus rooted in the very way that God has redeemed the world, and in how God revealed himself to us. – p 128

Darrell Guder concludes, “We have learned to speak of God as a “missionary God.” Thus we have learned to understand the church as a “sent people.” “As the Father sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21; cf. 5:36-37, 6:44, 8:16-18, 17:18). As God sent the Son into the world, so we are at core a sent or simply a missionary people. – p 129

Therefore, a genuine missional impulse is a sending rather than an attractional one. – p 129

The evangelistic-attraction pattern is only generally effective within m0 and m1 contexts of mission and less effective in genuinely missional contexts where the church has to reach beyond significant cultural barriers. – p 131

This is easily corrected – just embed mDNA, let go, and stop insisting on attractional church. We will have to learn to trust the kingdom of God to do the job of scattering, watering, and growing the seeds (1 Cor 3:6-7). But as simple as it sounds, it’s a hard lesson for control freaks to learn. (footnote) – p 131

…we can identify at least four dimensions that frame our understanding of the Incarnation of God in Jesus the Messiah. They are

Presence: … Jesus was no mere representative or prophet sent from God; he was God in the flesh.

Proximity: God in Christ has approached us not only in a way we can understand, but in a way that we can access…

Powerlessness: In becoming “one of us,” God takes the form of a servant and not that of someone who rules over us…

Proclamation: Not only did the Presence of God directly dignify all that is human, but he heralded the reign of God and called people to respond in repentance and faith… -- p 132

To say the Incarnational should inform all the dimensions of individual and communal life is surely an understatement. In becoming one of us, God has given us the archetypal model of what true humanity, and by implication true community should look and behave like. …

Presence: The fact that God was in the Nazarene neighborhood for thirty years and no one noticed should be profoundly disturbing to our normal ways of engaging mission. Not only does it have implications for our affirmation of normal human living, it says something about the timing as well as the relative anonymity of incarnational ways of engaging in mission. There is a time for “in-your-face” approaches to mission, but there is also a time to simply become part of the very fabric of a community an d to engage in the humanity of it all. Furthermore the idea of presence highlights the role of relationships in mission. …

Proximity: Jesus mixed with people from every level of society. …

Powerlessness: In seeking to act in a Christlike way, we cannot rely on normal forms of power to communicate the gospel but have to take Jesus’s model with absolute seriousness (Matt 23:25-28; Phil 2:5ff) This commits us to servanthood and humility in our relationships with each other and the world. …

Proclamation: The gospel invitation initiated in the ministry of Jesus remains alive and active to this very day. A genuine incarnational approach will require that we be always willing to share the gospel story with those within our world. … We are essentially a “message tribe,” and that means we must ensure the faithful transmission of the message we carry through proclamation. – p 133-134

Incarnational ministry essentially means taking the church to the people, rather than bringing people to the church. – p 135

Addison notes that preexisting relationship are a critical factor for the exponential growth of a movement. “New religious movements fail when they become closed or semi-closed networks. For continued exponential growth, a movement must maintain open relationships with outsiders. They must reach out into new, adjacent social networks.” – p 141

Many established churches are also adapting to the new conditions by totally reworking their buildings and resources to allow for more genuine participation by the broader community around it, for example, sports venues, learning centers, cafes, and medical centers. – p 141

Many established churches are also adapting to the new conditions by totally reworking their buildings and resources to allow for more genuine participation by the broader community around it, for example, sports venues, learning centers, cafes, and medical centers. – p 141

The leader of Missio, Hugh Halter, says it this way:

We move from an “attractional model” to an ”incarnational community” approach.

We limit transfer growth and build momentum from a spiritually curious culture.

We learn how to “enflesh” the gospel in ways that make sense to saints and sojourners.

We bring big values to a valueless culture: no need for “seeker services.”

We structure our lives as leaders, our money, and people in ways that propel missional activity. – p 142

Christology determines missiology, and missiology determines ecclesiology. This is just a smart-aleck’s way of saying that in order to align ourselves correctly as a missional movement, we first need to return to the Founder of Christianity and, having done that, recalibrate our approach from that point on. – p 142

Podcast Download: Episode 13 - The Forgotten Ways - Chapter 4

Download: Podcast Episode 13 - The Forgotten Ways Chapter 4

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Chapter Four Quotes – Disciple Making

“The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyze his reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief.” – T. S. Eliot – p 101

For instance, far from being “seeker-friendly,” by AD 170 the underground Christian movement had developed what they called the catechisms. These were not merely the doctrinal confessions they later became; they involved rigorous personal examinations that required the catechumen to demonstrate why he or she was worthy of entry into the confessing community. Not only could proposed converts lose their life, because of the persecution of the time, but they had to prove why they believed they should be allowed to become part of the Christian community in the first place! Many were turned away because they were found unworthy. This is contrary to the “seeker-sensitive” practice so prevalent in our day. And it was this element of vigorous discipleship that characterized the early Christian movement that was blighted by the deluge of worldliness that flooded the post-Constantinian church when the bar was lowered for membership and the culture was “Christianized.” – p 104

Apart from the very simple strategy to multiply organic, reproducing churches, Neil Cole of Church Multiplication Associates suggests that the key to their remarkable growth to 500 churches in a few short years essentially revolved around their resolute commitment to discipleship. he says of the early period “We started articulating this profound goal for CMA: ‘We want to lower the bar of how church is done and raise the bar of what it means to be a disciple.” – p 104

Steve Addison, a researcher of movements, discerns five phases in the transmission of ideas through missionary movements. In simple terms, these consist of;

White Hot Faith: By this he means a direct and personal encounter with the living God, followed by social renewal. …

Commitment to the Cause: The people who are touched in such a way by God give their lives to the cause as articulated by the movement. …

Contagious Relationships: Ideas travel like a virus. Powerful ideas like the gospel are passed on from on person to another. …

Rapid Mobilization: There needs to be an apostolic type of leadership and organization that develops to be able to coordinate and msximize the efforts of the adherents of the movement.

Dynamic Methods: It is significant that movements tend to use new, innovative methods and techniques to communicate their message. – p 105-106

I have come to the conclusion that for we who live in the Western world, the major challenge to the viability of Christianity is not Buddhism, … nor is it Islam, …. It is not the New Age…; in fact because there is a genuine search going on in new religious movements, it can actually be an asset to we who are willing to share the faith amidst the search. All these are challenges to us, no doubt, but I have come to believe that the major threat to the viability of our faith is that of consumerism. This is a far more heinous and insidious challenge to the gospel, because in so many ways it infects each and every one of us. – p 106-107

For all its failings, the church, up till the time of the Enlightenment, played the overwhelmingly dominant role in the mediation of identity, meaning purpose, and community for at least the preceding eleven centuries in the West. Its demise, or rather its forced removal, came about when two or three other major forces were on the rise. These were

The rise of capitalism and of the free market as mediator of value.

The rise of the nation-state as the mediator of protection and provision.

The rise of science as the mediator of truth and understanding. – p 108

…the church is forced into the role being little more than a vendor of religious goods and services. And the end-users of the church’s services (namely, us) easily slip into the role of discerning individualistic consumers, devouring the religious goods and services offered by the latest and best vendor. Worship, rather being entertaining through creatively engaging the hearts and minds of the hearers, now becomes mere entertainment that aims at giving the participants transcendent emotional highs… - p 110

Mark Sayers, a friend of mine, has noted that one of the most alluring religious appeals of consumerism is that it offers us a new immediacy, a living alternative to what heaven has always stood for in the Judeo-Christian tradition – the fulfillment of all our longings. We have at our fingertips experiences and offerings available only to kings in previous eras. – p 111

It seems then that we have two basic options before us: (1) We try to redeem the rhythms and structures of consumerism… (2) Alternatively, we must initiate a thoroughly prophetic challenge to consumerism’s overarching control on our lives. These two alternatives become our missional challenge and are each real live options. However my warning is that if we are going to sup with devil, we had better have a very long spoon… - p 112

One such group, called the Rutba House, have developed twelve practices, or marks, for a new monasticism to challenge the worldliness of the church. These are:

1. Relocation to abandoned places of the city
2. Sharing economic resources with fellow community members and with the needy
3. Hospitality to the stranger
4. Lament for racial divisions in church and society, combined with active pursuit of a just reconciliation
5. Humble submission to Christ’s Body, the Church
6. Intentional formation in the Way of Christ and the Rule of Community
7. Support for celibate singles alongside monogamous married couples and their children
8. Geographical proximity to community members who share a common rule of life
9. Care for God’s earth and supporting local economies
10. Peacemaking in the midst of violence – p 112

The question must take us back to the real significance and meaning of discipleship. If the heart of discipleship is to become like Jesus, then it seems to me that a missional reading of this text requires that we see that Jesus’ strategy is to get a whole lot of little versions of himself in and through his people in every place throughout the world. – p 113

But to be a follower of Christ does not mean to imitate him literally by mimicking him but to express him through the medium of one’s own life. – p 114

…the quality of the church’s leadership is directly proportional to the quality of discipleships. – p 119

The assumption in Hellenistic thinking is that if people get the right ideas, they will simply change their behavior. The Hellenistic approach therefore can be characterized as an attempt to try to think our way into a new way of acting. Both experience and history show the fallacy of such thinking. And it certainly does not make disciples. All we do is change the way a person thinks; the problem is that his or her behaviors remain largely unaffected. – p 122

Grass Roots Website

Fran built a website for Grass Roots. The podcast of our talks in Champaign can be found there under Podcast menu.

Download: Lance Finley on Catalyst 2008

Lance Finley went to Catalyst 2008 in Atlanta. I interviewed him to get the highlights.

Download: Podcast Episode 11 - Lance's Reflections on Catalyst Conference

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Notes on Lance Finley Interview

Seth Godin - website - Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

Jim Collins - website - Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, Non-Profit addendum

Andy Stanley - website - Three things at the heart of influence.

Forgiveness
Family
Finances

Dave Ramsey

5 Enemies of Unity
1. Poor communication
2. Gossip
3. Unresolved Disagreement
4. Lack of shared purpose
5. Sanctioned incompetence

Andy Crouch - Director of Christian Vision Project - website

Responses to Culture
1. Condemn
2. Critique
3. Consume
4. Copy
5. Cultivate
6. Creating

Gabe Lyons - website

Podcast Download: Episode 10 - The Forgotten Ways Chapter 2

If you haven't listened to a podcast, you don't want to miss this one.

Download: Podcast Episode 10 - The Forgotten Ways Chapter 2

If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

We have moved into a discussion of The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch, which explores "reactivating the missional church" and explores the missional DNA which exists in all churches, planted there by the Holy Spirit.

I would love to have you in on the discussion. If you have any posts, comments, or questions about chapter 3 or 4 of The Forgotten Ways, leave them in the comments here or make a new post if you want.

Here are my notes for the Chapter 2:

The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch

Chapter 2 quotes

“Bill Easum goes on to note that every organization is built upon “an underlying systems story.” He points out that “this is not a belief system. It is the continually repeated life story that determines how an organization feels, thinks, and thus acts. This systems story determines how an organization behaves, no matter how the organizational chart is drawn. It’s the primary template that shapes all other things. Restructure the organization and leave the systems story in place, and nothing changes within the organization. It’s futile trying to revitalize the church, or a denomination, without first changing the system.” [Unfreezing Moves, p 31] Drilling down into this systems story – the paradigm, or mode of church – is, Easum suggests, one of the keys to change and constant innovation.” – p 54

“The movement that Jesus initiated was an organic people movement; it was never meant to be a religious institution. We must allow this new-yet-ancient systems story to seep into our imagination and reform all our practices.” – p 54

“Martin Buber, a profound commentator on prophetic religion and religious movements, warns us about the dangers of religious institutionalism when he notes that “centralization and codification, undertaken in the interests of religion, are a danger to the core of religion.” This is inevitably the case he says, unless there is a very vigorous life of faith embodied in the whole community, one that exerts an unrelenting pressure for renewal on the institution.” – p 55

“People now identify themselves less by grand ideologies, national identities, or political allegiances, and by much less grand stories: those of interest groups, new religious movements (new age), sexual identities (gays, lesbians, transsexuals, etc), sports activities, competing ideologies (neo-Marxist, neofascist, eco-rats, etc), class, conspicuous comsumption (metrosexuals, urban grunge, etc), work types (computer geeks, hackers, designers, etc) and so forth. On one occasion some youth ministry specialists I work with identified in an hour fifty easily discernible youth subcultures alone (computer nerds, skaters, homies, surfies, punks, etc). Each of them takes their subcultural identity with utmost seriousness and hence any missional response to them must as well. – p 61

“To reach beyond significant cultural barriers we are going to have to adopt a missionary stance in relation to the culture. And partly that will mean adopting a sending approach rather an attractional one, and partly it will mean that we have to adopt best practices in cross-cultural mission method. – p 63

“A major part of the problem is that although largely dechurched people do come to faith in Jesus through Alpha, it seems that they still don’t want to “go to church.” It’s that darn “Jesus yes. Church no” phenomenon again. People will come to faith in small, intimate communities of friends but generally don’t want the organized-religion part of the deal. This swapping of agendas has sometimes been perceived as a “bait and switch” strategy, which is generally considered unethical in the commercial world.” – p 63

“We must not abandon Christendom, for in it are God’s people, but it needs a fundamental change, a conversion if you like, if it is to become genuinely missional. This change is possible, but not without major realignment of our current thinking and resources. And because Christendom is so deeply entrenched in imaginations and practices, this shift will certainly not happen without significant political will to change. It will be resisted by those with the most significant vested interests in the current system.” – p 66

“It is time to (re)discover a new story of the church and its mission. Enter the emerging missional church (EMC). This form of ecclesia is genuinely creative, because it does present a fundamentally alternative imagination to the predominant one. And it is ancient, because as we shall see, it looks, feels, and manifests itself as very similar to the original apostolic one.” – p 67

“They are rich in conversations around spirituality, life, Jesus, God, faith, discipleship, and mission – conversations that try to include those outside the faith… There is a rediscovery of Christology and the person of Jesus as the center point of faith, rather than all the highly stylized dogmas and creeds that have defined the Christendom mode. On the whole it is very much a fringe movement – there is no sense that they have a central role in society at large – and yet it seems to committed to faith in the public sphere.

“Gibbs and Bolger list the following, more spirituality-focused, characteristics of the churches in the movement.” – p 68 [from the Table of contents of Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures]
• Identifying primarily with Jesus
• Transforming secular space
• Living as community
• Welcoming the stranger
• Serving with generosity
• Participating as producers
• Creating as created beings
• Leading as a body
• Praying, “Thy will be done”

“Somewhere in the genesis and genius of these diverse groups is hidden the future of Western Christianity. To dismiss them is to throw away the seeds of our survival.” – p 69 [Quoting Gerard Kelly in Retrofuture: Rediscovering our Roots, Recharting our Routes]

Podcast - Episode 9 - The Forgotten Ways - Chapter 1

Download: Podcast Episode 9 - The Forgotten Ways Chapter 1

If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

We have moved into a discussion of The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch, which explores "reactivating the missional church" and explores the missional DNA which exists in all churches, planted there by the Holy Spirit.

I would love to have you in on the discussion. If you have any posts, comments, or questions about chapter 2 or 3 of The Forgotten Ways, leave them in the comments here or make a new post if you want.

Here are my notes for the Chapter 1:

The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch

Hirsch divides chapter one into threes of his journey with the church.

Intro quotes

Phase 1: From Death to Chaos

“Everything in my education was geared toward maintaining the established, more institutional forms of the church. The vast majority of the subjects on offer were theoretical and were taught by theoreticians, not practitioners. So we had to learn on the run, so to speak. On reflection, perhaps this is the only way we really learn, but certainly at the time this was the way that God chose to somehow make a missionary out of me.” – p 31

“There was very little in the way of functional denominational strategy or successful models to refer to for mission in these contexts. So, in terms of approach, we decided that all we would do was build an authentic Jesus community where all who came our way would experience love, acceptance, and forgiveness, no matter what – we did know a little about grace as we had all experienced it so convincingly ourselves.” – p 31

“We attracted just about every kind of freak in the neighborhood, and soon people began to cluster in communal houses. We had no real outreach programs per se. We simply “did community” and developed a certain ethos based on grace for the broken.” – p 31

Phase 2: Becoming a Church-Planting Church

“Toward the end of this phase, we had begun to articulate something of the ideas that energized us, and we had developed something of a self-conscious “model.” We felt that we had to become a church-planting church with a regional organization.” – p 32

“SMRC was fairly unique, possibly even in world context, in that up to 40 percent of the community came from the gay and lesbian subcultures. What made this more unique was that we did not take a politically correct, pro-gay stance, theologically speaking, but graciously called all people into a lifelong following of Jesus, which for some would involve lifelong celibacy; others whose desire and will were strong pursued heterosexual relationships. We still remained committed to ministry on the fringes, only now it was to alienated young adults and gay people.” – p 33

“We then experimented with house churches in the working-class western suburbs of Melbourne, but sadly, for various reasons, they did not sustain.” – p 33

“The last missional experiment of this phase was for me (and I believe for the church as well) a decisive one. Over the years up to this point two critical things had taken place. First, SMRC, the “mother ship” so to speak, had settled down somewhat from the more heady days of wild and chaotic community. And second, we had become known as a “cool church,” and as a result lots of middle-class Christians, who for understandable reasons were alienated from the institutional church in various ways, had made their way into the community and settled down in it. So while maintaining its “groovy” and somewhat alternative vibe, South had inadvertently become safe and more self-consciously yuppie and, as a result, had lost something of its edge. Without anyone noticing, we had lost our original call and missional heart. – p 33


“The Christendom mode of engagement, what I will later describe as evangelistic-attractional, was simply not up to the type of missionary challenge presented to us by our surrounding context: a context that required more of a cross-cultural missionary methodology than the “outreach and in-drag” model we had been using to that point.” – p 34

“A combination of recent research in Australia indicates that about 10-15 percent of that population is attracted to what we can call the contemporary church growth model. In other words, this model has significant “market appeal” to about 12 percent of our population.” – p 34

“Demographically speaking, they tend to cater largely to what might be called the “family-values segment” – good, solid, well-educated citizens who don’t abuse their kids, who pay their taxes, and who live largely, what can be called a suburban lifestyle.” – p 35

“With these statistics in mind we can intuit that in America the current “market appeal” of the contemporary church growth model might be up to 35 percent (as opposed to 12 percent in Australia). But even if it is at this level of appeal, it is decreasing. It’s time for a radical rethink taking into account both the strategic and the missional implications.” – p 36

“The vast majority of evangelical churches, perhaps up to 95 percent, subscribe to the contemporary church growth approach in their attempts to grow the congregation, in spite of the fact that successful applications of this model remain relatively rare.” – p 36

“And that’s tragic, because it doesn’t seem to work for most of our churches and for the majority of our populations. In fact, it has become a source of frustration and guilt, because most churches do not have the combination of factors that make for a successful application of the model.” – p 36

“Thus in Australia we have the somewhat farcical situation of 95 percent of evangelical churches tussling with each other to reach 12 percent of the population. And this becomes a significant missional problem because it raises the question, “What about the vast majority of the population (in Australia’s case, 85 percent; in the US, about 65 percent) that report alienation from precisely that form of church?” How do they access the gospel if they reject this form of church? And what would church be life for them in their various settings? Because what is clear from the research in Australia, at least, is that when surveyed about what they think about the contemporary church growth expression of Christianity, the 85 percent range from being blasé (“good for them, but not for me”) to total repulsion (“I would never go there”). At best, we can make inroads on the blasé; we can’t hope to reach the rest of the population with this model – they are simply alienated from it and don’t like it for a whole host of reasons.” – p 37

“For Melbourne, where every third business has to do with food, and which has more cafes per capita than any other city in the world, we concluded that the missional church must seek to redeem the social pattern/rhythm of such spaces – reinvesting it with religious significance – and express what it means to be a people of God in a café-bar context.” – p 37

“How do we know we are being fruitful? With what measures will we as God’s people be weighed? How does God assess our effectiveness? (Is that not the inner meaning of judgment?) Because evidently he does (John 15:1-8; Revelation 1-3) and will (1 Peter 4:17) judge his people. – p 40

“A true encounter with God in Jesus must result in
• Worship, defined as offering our lives back to God through Jesus.
• Discipleship, defined as following Jesus and become increasingly like him (Christlikeness)
• Mission, defined as extending the mission (the redemptive purposes) of God through the activities of his people.” – 41

“But for us, the central failure lay primarily in our inability to “make disciples.” Our worship and mission were therefore enfeebled; they had no real foundations. I came to the horrifying conclusion that we had built much of SMRC on sand because we did not build it on discipleship (Matt 7:26).


Phase 3: From a Church to an Organic Movement

“We can’t seem to make disciples based on a consumerists approach to faith. We plainly cannot consume our way into discipleship.” – p 45

“We did transition the church over a two-year period by using a healthy model of change where all were invited to give feedback and participate. – p 48

Notes

My Note: The question here is “Where do you want to invest your relationships and your life?” The restaurant not to mention the classes would consume you, which would be ok if you and your family wanted to be consumed by it. The question is where and how do you invest your relationships to build outreach and discipleship?

My Note: Is he saying that for the foundation to be built on discipleship that the church must be built as an organic movement?

Grass Roots Podcast

I updated the post below with a link for the last podcast. You will have to wait a week for the next podcast. We are taking a week off. If you get a chance to read chapter 1 of The Forgotten Ways, post some of your thoughts here.

Podcast: The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch - INTRO

Download: Podcast Episode 8 - The Forgotten Ways Intro

If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

Our podcast discussion of The Present Future has ended, and we have decided to move into a discussion of The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch, which explores "reactivating the missional church" and explores the missional DNA which exists in all churches, planted there by the Holy Spirit.

I would love to have you in on the discussion. If you have any posts, comments, or questions about chapter 1 of The Forgotten Ways, leave them in the comments here or make a new post if you want. We will be recording the podcast on Thursday, Sept 11.

Here are my notes for the Intro:

The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch

Intro quotes

“I have to confess that I do not think that the inherited formulas will work anymore. And what is more, I know I am not alone in this view. There is a massive roaming of the mind going on in our day as the search for alternatives heats up. However, most of the new thinking as it relates to the future of Christianity in the West only highlights our dilemma and generally proposes solutions that are little more than revisions of past approaches and techniques. Even much of the thinking about the so-called emerging church leaves the prevailing assumptions of church and mission intact and simply focuses on the issue of theology and spirituality in a postmodern setting. This amounts to a reworking of the theological “software” while ignoring the “hardware” as well as “operating system” of the church. In my opinion, this will not be enough to get us through.” – p 17

And it’s not that reaching into our past is not part of the solution. It is. The issue is simply that we generally don’t go back far enough; or rather, that we don’t delve deep enough for our answers. Every now and again we do get glimpses of an answer, but because of the radical and disturbing nature of the remedy we retreat to the safety of the familiar and the controllable. – p 17

…missional ecclesiology is dynamite. Mainly because the church (the ecclesia), when true to its real calling, when it is on about what God is on about, is by far and away the most potent force for transformational change the world has ever seen. It has been that before, is that now, and will be that again. This book is written in hope that the church in the West can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, arouse and reengage that amazing power that lies within us. – p 17

Another feature of this work is the consistent critique of religious institutionalism. Because this could be unsettling to some, a word of clarification is needed to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings later on. I am critical of institutionalism not because I think it is a bad idea, but only because through my study of the phenomenal Jesus movements I have come to the unnerving conclusion that God’s people are more potent by far when they have little of what we would recognize as church institution in their life together. – p 23

Missional DNA (or mDNA) – Jesus is Lord, Disciple Making, Missional-Incarnational impuse, Apostolic Environment, Organic Systems, Communitas Not Community. – pp 24-25

Notes

Hirsch will explore this missional ecclesiology by examining the early church from AD 100 to AD 310 and the explosion of the Chinese church under intense oppression.

I have two criticisms of this book so far. One is the allusions to pop culture that “the power has been in us all along… we just didn’t know it.” I think it just plays to our arrogance. It may be true, but only as the Holy Spirit indwells us, each and every one of us. And Two, his use of academic terminology in the mDNA makes it hard to understand at a glance. I’m hopeful I can find clearer terms for his descriptions.

Grass Roots Healthy Reproducing Churches Podcast Episode 7

Issue for Discussion:How do we develop Leaders for the Christian Movement? New Reality Number Six: The Rise of Apostolic Leadership

Download: Podcast Episode 7 - The Rise of Apostolic Leadership

If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

Quotes from Reggie McNeil's The Present Future:

A new breed of church leader has been emerging that will meet the leadership challenges of what it will take for the church to become more missionally effective. In the last decades of the twentieth century, a new leadership genus began appearing on the North American church scene. This leadership type is what I and others have dubbed "apostolic leadership." This connotation seems appropriate primarily because the challenges to church leaders in the emerging twenty-first century parallel those that faced leaders in the first century (commonly called the apostolic era.) These include religious pluralism, globalism, and the collapse of institutional religion, accompanied by an increased interest in personal spiritual development. The focus of apostolic leadership is not on office or gifts (these are how people in the church culture deal with the term apostle), but on the content of leadership that responds to the new spiritual landscape by shaping a church movement that more resembles the world of Acts than America in the last half of the twentieth century. – pp 125-126

"Why is there so little return on investment for all the dollars and time spent on conferences and seminars to help us do better? Because we are training mechanics to work on machinery of the church industry when we need a new engine. We are training leaders to address the leadership challenges of a world that is quickly passing away." – p 121-122

Past-Present Leadership Motifs – Priest or Holy Person, Shepherd or Pastor, Educator or Wordsmith, Managers or Program Directors, Chief Executive Officer or Manager

"Apostolic leaders in the first and twenty-first centuries evidence distinctive characteristics. They are missional, meaning they order their lives around a missionary purpose. Apostolic leaders believe they are responsible for fulfilling the Great Commission. They are visionary; their efforts are energized by a vision of a preferred future, not just informed by a denominational program or the latest methodological fad. They are entrepreneurial, taking calculated risks to create markets for the gospel. Apostolic leaders prefer to work in teams. They plant churches in teams. They are not Lone Rangers. They often create and operate in what Warren Bennis calls "great groups." They release ministry to people and people for ministry. Their organizational "charts" (if they have them) are as flat as possible; they practice ad hocracy instead of establishing bureaucracy. They are genuinely spiritual. Their lives cannot be explained apart from the power of God. Apostolic leaders have a core value of cultural relevance. They come in both clergy and lay varieties." – p 126

Other leadership motifs require leaders to be competent to work inside the church. The apostolic leader's competency revolves around the ability to work outside the church in the world that is not a part of the church culture. Even operating in a church position (as many do), apostolic leaders measure their effectiveness by their impact beyond the church walls. – pp 126-127

Is anyone being brought into the kingdom? For them, even if all these other measures are showing high marks (and they are not unimportant to them) but no kingdom growth is occurring, they feel disobedient to the Great Commission. I am not suggesting that other leaders do not care about evangelism. Many do. However, it is possible to exercise previous leadership roles completely in the church bubble, and be considered successful in the church industry, while showing no significant kingdom growth. Apostolic leaders are all about kingdom growth, even in their pastoral care. – p 127

Who trains apostolic leaders? First and foremost, other apostolic leaders of "new tribe" churches. This group wants to learn from practitioners. Second, apostolic leaders learn a lot from the business culture. – p 127

Seminary curriculum is designed primarily to address skill sets for leadership functions other than the apostolic type. Classical seminary training was birthed to service the wordsmith-educator function. It has focused on biblical education with a few practical courses thrown in to help students prepare for priestly functions (administering sacraments) and shepherding aspects of ministry (pastoral care, psychology, and so on). In recent decades some courses targeting church administration and leadership have been added. – p 128

The journey to apostolic ministry is a difficult path for many, for some much like a deconversion. – p 129

The goal of a congregation's leadership development process is to create a core of leaders who are capable of strategizing, launching, and conducting a mission for expanding the kingdom of God. Contrast this to holding a leadership role in an organization that primarily makes demands of the leaders' time, money, talents, energy, and prayer for its own survival. – p 136

I am talking about nothing less than a leadership revolution. What is our best shot for pulling off a leadership revolution? What is the delivery system for developing leaders for missional renewal of the North American church? The answer: learning communities. The power of learning in community is undeniable. – p 136

Links:

Guests:
Fran Leeman, pastor of the Lifespring Community Church in Plainfield, IL, a growing suburb of Chicago.

Lance Finley, Director of Youth and Family Ministries for the Churches of God General Conference, a denomination based in Findlay, OH

Bill Sloat, pastor of Faith Community Church, in Denver, PA, a small town in Lancaster country, PA, who also has a doctorate in church history, specifically revivalist history of the 1700’s and 1800's.

And I'm Brian Miller, pastor of The Crossover Church in Mattoon, IL, a town of about 20,000 in East Central Illinois.

Grass Roots Healthy Reproducing Churches Podcast Episode 6

Issue for Discussion: The Shift From Planning to Preparation

Download: Podcast Episode 6 - The Shift From Planning to Preparation

If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

After last week's episode, A Return to Spiritual Formation, I felt like an inexperienced swimmer who accidentally found himself in the deep end. Discipleship is the one thing Jesus told us to go and do, and it's the thing we put the least effort into. We counsel people. We hold worship services. We preach, which can have something to do with discipleship if we are intentional about it. But when I ask people if they were ever discipled, they almost always say, "No." or they say it was through a parachurch organization like the Navigators or Campus Crusade for Christ.

The temptation for me because of my personality is to "nail discipleship down," and I do hope we can at least give some better guidelines for discipleship. But before we make any pronouncements, let's let Reggie McNeal finish making his point in the last two chapters of his book, The Present Future.

Chapter 5 of his book is titled, "The Shift from Planning to Preparation." At first I didn't see that he was continuing to talk about discipleship. I would say that he started with planning because that has been a norm for churches in the last 25 years. They were encouraged to have a 5 and 10 year plan. But McNeal says those days are over.

Quotes from Reggie McNeil's The Present Future:


The Bible sounds a recurring theme: God wants his people to pray and to prepare for his intervention. It doesn't talk much about his people making plans and offering them up to him for his blessing (except in a negative sense -- see James 4:14, 15). -- p 93

The difference between planning and preparedness is more than semantics in the biblical teaching. God does the planning; we do the preparing. It is God who declares: "I know the plans I have for you," he says in Jeremiah 29:11. He does not say, "I am waiting for you to develop plans I can bless." -- p 95

Though vision does not arrive from consensus, it inspires consensus. A guiding vision helps with both routine decisions and critical choices. Vision informs budgeting, staffing, ministry direction, building architecture, and strategies for outreach. Vision gives content to your church's message. ... Vision can help reduce the number of decisions you have to make. p 96-97


I am moving more and more to a position that the pastor does not necessarily even need to be the chief architect of the vision. I have come to this position because so few pastors seem to possess this talent... The pastor must be willing to submit to the manifest vision of God as revealed to the leadership team. The pastor must agree with it down into his bones to the extent that he is willing to shift behavior and priorities to pursue the vision. The pastor must be able to communicate the vision with clarity and passion, even if he is not the key architect. p 100-101


Kingdom vision requires kingdom values to support it. Vision is the seed; values are the soil. I run into situations frequently in which the soil won't support the growth of the vision. Leaders who don't pay attention to clarifying values are often frustrated because they don't know why the vision goes nowhere... The clash between club member values and missionary values has claimed a lot of casualties. -- p 102


Links:

Guests:
Fran Leeman, pastor of the Lifespring Community Church in Plainfield, IL, a growing suburb of Chicago.

Lance Finley -- On Vacation. Lucky.

Bill Sloat, pastor of Faith Community Church, in Denver, PA, a small town in Lancaster country, PA, who also has a doctorate in church history, specifically revivalist history of the 1700’s and 1800's.

And I'm Brian Miller, pastor of The Crossover Church in Mattoon, IL, a town of about 20,000 in East Central Illinois.

Grassroots Healthy Reproducing Churches Podcast - Episode 5

Issue for Discussion: The Return to Spiritual Formation

Download: Podcast Episode 5 - The Return to Spiritual Formation

If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

Quotes from Reggie McNeil's The Present Future:
4. How do Develop Followers of Jesus?
New Reality Number Four: The Return to Spiritual Formation

A friend of mine once asked me, "What is this kingdom business you keep talking about?"

The kingdom is people," I replied. People are built to last. The Scriptures say that every other created thing is eventually gone. When the kingdom fully comes, people will finally realize their full potential as beings created in the image of God. Jesus hinted at this when he spoke about abundant life. To live abundantly is to borrow the future into the present. This means that helping people develop emotionally, physically, and relationally is all spiritual. There is no sacred-secular dichotomy when it comes to spiritual formation. It includes personal spiritual disciplines, but is also includes the stewardship of our relationships, our work, and our life mission. – p 73

How do we develop followers of Jesus? This question changes everything. – p 70

Christians (evangelicals especially) emphasize that our connectivity to God is through a relationship with Jesus. We talk about giving him our hearts or inviting him into our hearts. We use love language to talk about committing our lives to him. Then, as soon as the deal is done, we switch the language and go to head stuff. We pull out the notebooks. We go over what we believe, information about the church, and so on." – p 70

I think the solution is an abandonment of the church culture idolatry and a radical reintroduction of spiritual formation. - p 73

What if denominational reporting inquiries asked, "What percentage of your congregants feel they grew to be more like Jesus this past year?" What if church leaders asked each other, "How is God at work in your people?" or "Where do you see Jesus bustin' out?" – p 74

I am recommending that churches provide life coaching for people. We need to view this as spiritual formation. We cannot take the approach that we just need to teach people the classic spiritual disciplines, assuming that a person already has a developed center. We must attend to their self-awareness and life relationships…. Life coaching should happen whenever the person signaled they were ready. – p 77

An agenda for spiritual formation – worship, Apply Biblical truth to life and relationships, minister to others in Jesus' name, share the faith with pre-Chrisitans, cooperate and partner with other believers in the Mission of God. – pp 80-83

Evangelism that will introduce Jesus to this culture will flow from people who are deeply in love with Jesus. – p 82

Jesus facilitated spiritual formation in his disciples by introducing them to life situations and then helping them debrief their experiences. – p 85

Links:

Guests:
Fran Leeman, pastor of the Lifespring Community Church in Plainfield, IL, a growing suburb of Chicago.

Lance Finley, Director of Youth and Family Ministries for the Churches of God General Conference, a denomination based in Findlay, OH

Bill Sloat, pastor of Faith Community Church, in Denver, PA, a small town in Lancaster country, PA, who also has a doctorate in church history, specifically revivalist history of the 1700’s and 1800's.

And I'm Brian Miller, pastor of The Crossover Church in Mattoon, IL, a town of about 20,000 in East Central Illinois.

Grassroots Healthy Reproducing Churches Podcast - Episode 4

Issue for Discussion: Turning Members Into Missionaries

Download: Podcast Episode 4 - Turning Members Into Missionaries

If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

Quotes from Reggie McNeil's The Present Future:

“The first reformation was about freeing the church. The new Reformation is about freeing God’s people from the church (the institution). The original Reformation decentralized the church. The new Reformation decentralizes ministry. The former Reformation occurred when clergy were no longer willing to take marching orders for their ministry from the Pope. The current reformation finds church member no longer willing for clergy to script their personal spiritual ministry journey.” – p 43

If you think this isn't hard, think again.

This reluctance to connect with people outside the church is just further evidence that the church culture in North America is a cultural phenomenon in America that is more about a particular religious culture than about Jesus or his mission.

God took a beating in the modern world.

The church in North America is thoroughly modern. It has reduced its understanding of spirituality to numbers that can be reported.

An honest search for God would lead the church back into the world.

Adopting a missionary approach will require changing the scorecard.

Links:
Pittsburgh Project
New Life For Haiti
Reggie McNeal Videos

Guests:

Fran Leeman, pastor of the Lifespring Community Church in Plainfield, IL, a growing suburb of Chicago.

Lance Finley, Director of Youth and Family Ministries for the Churches of God General Conference, a denomination based in Findlay, OH

Bill Sloat, pastor of Faith Community Church, in Denver, PA, a small town in Lancaster country, PA, who also has a doctorate in church history, specifically revivalist history of the 1700’s and 1800's.

And I'm Brian Miller, pastor of The Crossover Church in Mattoon, IL, a town of about 20,000 in East Central Illinois.

Grassroots Healthy Church Podcast - Episode 3

I thought this was the best podcast by far. Is anyone listening to them? If so, give us some feedback.

Issue for Discussion: The Shift From Church Growth to Kingdom Growth

Download: Podcast Episode 3 - The Shift From Church Growth to Kingdom Growth
If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

Quotes from Reggie McNeil's The Present Future:

"There were several things wrong with the church growth movement. A lot of 'growth' was merely the migration of Christians moving from one church to another. The most notable trend was the closing down of the mom-and-pop operations and moving to the mall and, even later, to the supercenter. … With rare exception the 'growth' here was the cannibalization of the smaller membership churches by these emerging superchurches." – p 22

“More energy expended on the church's survival or success is misplaced.”
“Churches that understand the realities of the present future are shifting the target of ministry efforts from church activity to community transformation.”
“The North American church culture is not spiritual enough to reach our culture.”
“The Pharisees' evangelism strategy sounds eerily familiar.”
“Religious people have always been a problem for God.”
“The consumer church sees resources plowed into community transformation as ‘diverted’ from the church.”
“We will see more and more people, in the church and out, who have the call, the ability, and the finances to resource their own ministry passions in the community.”

Guests:

Fran Leeman, pastor of the Lifespring Community Church in Plainfield, IL, a growing suburb of Chicago.

Lance Finley, Director of Youth and Family Ministries for the Churches of God General Conference, a denomination based in Findlay, OH

Bill Sloat, pastor of Faith Community Church, in Denver, PA, a small town in Lancaster country, PA, who also has a doctorate in church history, specifically revivalist history of the 1700’s and 1800's.

And I'm Brian Miller, pastor of The Crossover Church in Mattoon, IL, a town of about 20,000 in East Central Illinois.

Grass Roots Healthy Church Podcast - Episode 2

Guests:

Fran Leeman, pastor of the Lifespring Community Church in Plainfield, IL, a growing suburb of Chicago.

Lance Finley, Director of Youth and Family Ministries for the Churches of God General Conference, a denomination based in Findlay, OH

Bill Sloat, pastor of Faith Community Church, in Denver, PA, a small town in Lancaster country, PA, who also has a doctorate in church history, specifically revivalist history of the 1700’s and 1800's.

And I'm Brian Miller, pastor of The Crossover Church in Mattoon, IL, a town of about 20,000 in East Central Illinois. (I was around last week)

Lance, Bill and I are going to be in Findlay, OH on July 23rd to 26th at IMPACT, and Bill and I will be talking about the kinds of things we’re talking about here. So come and join us there.

Issue for Discussion: The Collapse of the Church Culture

Download: Podcast Episode 2 - The Collapse of the Church Culture
If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

Healthy Church Questions:
What's happening in people's lives around here that is significant and real?
Tell me what your passionate about? What makes your heart beat? What do you wake up in the middle of the night that is excited about your faith?
What breaks your heart in your community?

Revelation 2-3 - Seven letters (assessments) from God to John.
1. Ephesus - You've lost your first love. What do you love? How much do you love? Who do you love?

Grass Roots Healthy Church Podcast - Episode 1

Welcome to our first installment of the Grass Roots Healthy Church Podcast. It's our first one, so be forgiving on quality and content. There are a couple of reasons for doing this Podcast. One is that I just wanted to be able to have some good conversations with some sharp people who understand God's kingdom and how it grows. Another reason is that these kind of conversations help us focus on what is important in the Kingdom. It's easy to get distracted, easy to get discouraged, easy to become defensive and protectionist rather than expanding. And the final reason, and the way I hope to end each podcast, is to gain a few ideas about what a pastor should be doing to keep a church moving strongly into the Kingdom of God.

Guests:

Fran Leeman, pastor of the Lifespring Community Church in Plainfield, IL, a growing suburb of Chicago.

Lance Finley, Director of Youth and Family Ministries for the Churches of God General Conference, a denomination based in Findlay, OH

Bill Sloat, pastor of Faith Community Church, in Denver, PA, a small town in Lancaster country, PA, who also has a doctorate in church history, specifically revivalist history of the 1700’s and 1800's.

And I'm Brian Miller, pastor of The Crossover Church in Mattoon, IL, a town of about 20,000 in East Central Illinois. (I was around last week)

Lance, Bill and I are going to be in Findlay, OH on July 23rd to 26th at IMPACT, and Bill and I will be talking about the kinds of things we’re talking about here. So come and join us there.

Issue for Discussion: What is the model of the church?

Download: Podcast Episode 1 - What is the Model of the Church?
If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.

Links:
Glenn Smith
Adrian DeVisser
Bob Roberts
Reggie McNeal - The Present Future - Video of McNeal