Creating a Church to Change Culture

Posted by D. Goodmanson on May 15, 2007 in Church, Culture, Triperspectivalism | 3 comments

Lately churches have spoken a lot about being relevant to the culture.  For many churches, this was a necessary first step.  We had to begin by taking a missionary posture to understand the prevailing worldview and the ideological shifts that occurred in the last decades.  Sadly, many churches have not even begun this process.  For many of those that have changed, we are seeing new forms of church being expressed, new missional postures, great dialog with non-believers and a real intentionality to live as 'reformissionaries'. 

So now many of you have relevant churches,  what do you do?  What are the next steps for your church? 

Here is one area I believe Christians need to grow.  The Christendom Ghost (meaning the view that America is a Christian nation) is quickly disappearing. The reality we enjoy of morality, law and order are all based on this ghost that will be gone in a generation or two.  Being relevant is only one part of our calling, we also need to be a witness to a lost world.  Pastors and lay leaders need to train the church in triperspectival apologetics. Let me unpack these three apologetic perspectives:

Coherence (Normative):  We need to understand 'how we can know truth' and the framework through which all reality makes sense.  For Christians, we must be saturated with the  Biblical story & worldview and Presuppositional apologetics.   Often reformed or Calvinists focus on this area heavily.  (Further blog posts on worldview: Gospel, Story, Worldview, and the Church’s Mission, The Urgency of Reading the Bible as One Story in the 21st Century, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity)

Correspondence (Situational): Science is the king of the day.  For example, evolution theory is the dominant framework that corresponds to reality.  Often non-believers use these evidences to dismiss Christianity to the place of values/preferences which are quite separate from scientific 'facts'.   Christians need to understand evidences and understand how creation and the resurrection are central to the correspondence of the Christian worldview.  Often Armenians champion this angle.  Yet we must know that evidences are not enough.  To quote David Fairchild, "Unbelief is not the absence of something it is the presence of something else, namely a spirit of opposition. It isn't merely intellectual; it is emotional. This attitude of opposition and disturbed emotions drives us to be hateful of the Gospel." (source: Sermon Understanding Unbelief )

Correlation (Existential): Christians ought to understand correlating impact of people's worldview (including their worldview created by their evidential arguments).  Often people's worldview comports to their emotional needs.  People accept what they want to live how they want.  Most people are walking contradictions in this realm. For example, a strict naturalist who rules out metaphysics still longs for love, hope & meaning.   Any story but the Biblical story must be shown for how the worldview wrecks havoc on how the adherent lives or worldview. (Read: Trilogy – Three Essential Books in One Volume by Francis Schaeffer)

I say all the above with one caveat, as Christians it is much more important that we are about 'Thesis' rather than 'Antithesis'.  We need to live out the gospel positively to show the strongest apologetic of the gospel.

Credits: Much of this came from a conversation with Tom Moller. 

Missional Eldership – Leading a Transformational Community

Posted by D. Goodmanson on May 12, 2007 in Church, Church Planting, Leadership, Ministry Design, Triperspectivalism | 8 comments

Traditional/Centralized forms of church government destroy a church's mission.  At Kaleo Church we continue to re-think the form of our church and our church's ecclesiology for the sake of the gospel. As we do, we must also consider how we ought to lead, in light of a move from being a 'traditional, Constantinian Church' to a church designed to transform San Diego.

First, here are the reasons why we must re-consider traditional 'CEO' mentality churches shaped by Western ideas.  As a note this includes both CEO/Sr. Pastor churches as well as those who lead as a plurality of elders.  Traditional/Central led churches will… (see Traditional Church Leadership diagram)

1. be limited by it's leadership to be on mission.  This is because of the top down leadership which is a vote/control/power position.  The church creates a bottleneck where all decisions must go to the center to be processed by the few in order for action to take place.  The church will be limited by the leaders ability to make timely decisions on a frequent basis.  The overall organization is limited in scope based on what the leaders can support. 

2. significantly impair discipleship of their people.  The church creates a substantial 'pastor/leader' and 'laity' distinction where the people are trained to function as second-tier Christians.  Knowledge is centralized rather than teaching and sending people to make decisions and apply the gospel to diff't situations.  For example, one local church I know of would not let several young men who were passionate about starting a college ministry do so, because they were not seminary trained.  This church may be a great 'teaching' church but their people will not be discipled to apply this knowledge on mission to change their city.

3. have natural resistance to reach the margins of society.  Being the beautiful mess taxes the leadership because they will take on the counseling load or other challenges brought on by being missional.  It is easier to create a great family atmosphere where everyone is ok than invite broken people into the Kingdom.

4. cultivate consumeristic programs rather than equip people for transformation.  Ministry must be program driven because Christians are not freed to apply the gospel to transform the city.  Programs can only deal with problems, people on mission can transform a city.  

Side Note on Plurality of Elders:  I believe there is rock-solid Biblical case for the plurality of elders. (Suggested Reading: Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership) I don't see how a Sr. Pastor led church can ever overcome the above problems (much less the below suggestions), unless the church functions as a plurality of elders.  Elders have the privilege of being the under-shepherds of the church.  (Jesus it the one true shepherd.)   For some, this role of shepherding creates a picture of sitting around 'watching the flock' only. The elder should be responsible for leading the flock on mission, teaching them theology to deal with the paths difficulties and praying, counseling, watching out for those who are having troubles.  But all of this is done with the emphasis on mission.

What does it look like to have a decentralized plurality of elders leading a triperspectival church?  How can we raise the bar of discipleship and create a sent people who are adaptive and on mission to transform a community?  Here are a few thoughts: (see Leading as a Missional Eldership diagram )

The leadership needs to view the church triperspectivally, meaning the church is a Cause (Normative), Community (Existential) and Corporation (Situational).   It is in this way the eldership will make decisions that are centralized, de-centralized and delegated to people on mission.  These are how these decisions might be made:

Corporation:  Elders should make central decisions about issues of doctrine, vision and values. It is critical they are united in their stand on principle issues of doctrine/theology.  This is like Paul gathering with other early church leaders in Galatians to ensure there was unity on the gospel.  Central decision making on vision and values will be heavily influenced by the elders involvement in the body and the goal is to install elders who have been raised up in the church and confirmed they understand the churches vision/values. 

Community: Elders should delegate and disciple the community to handle the bulk of the counseling, gospeling of believers and the function of mission.  If a community comes to a problem they can't handle, they can involve a community leader and escalate it up to the Missional Community Leader and eventually to an elder.  The goal is to push the active life of the church into the community.  This is like Jethro's counsel to Moses but also viewed in NT church life.

Cause: Particular elders (or leaders such as deacons) will lead people out on mission on causes.  These leaders may be particularly acute at mercy ministry, evangelism, apologetics, teaching, etc.  These leaders should be actively creating disciples in a systemic leadership development process so that decisions are made at the fringe of the community as those involved in a cause encounter difficulty.  It is only when the run into problems that they cannot handle or that impacts the entire corporation that they escalate problems inward.

The goal of all of this is to create a highly adaptable church body that provides flexible leadership decision-making at the appropriate level and creates a culture of people on mission.  This certainly is going to require great trust and a willingness to let people fail.  It also will require letting go of some of the control and trusting that the Holy Spirit that is in the leadership is also in the entire church body. 

CREDITS: A lot of this is triggered by Hirsch's The Forgotten Ways and The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk as well as conversations with David Fairchild & Harbor Presbyterian.

A La Carte (5/10)

Posted by D. Goodmanson on May 10, 2007 in Church, Culture | 0 comments

Buzzard Blog: X-Ray Questions to identify your functional messiah/idols "The questions aim to help people identify the ungodly masters that occupy positions of authority in their heart. These questions reveal 'functional gods,' what or who actually controls their particular actions, thoughts, emotions, attitudes, memories, and anticipations."  From David Powlison's Seeing With New Eyes.  Read anything you can get from Powlison, the Tripp's or Ed Welch.

TallSkinnyKiwi: Pub Crawl for Jesus Churches urged to adopt-a-pub for a Pub Crawl in London.

Church Relevance: Evangelical Christians Disliked by University Faculty Sadly, the title could also be 'Evangelical Christians disliked by Evangelical Christians'

Leadership Development

Posted by D. Goodmanson on May 9, 2007 in Leadership, Ministry Design | 0 comments

At the monthly pastors meeting here in San Diego we discussed leadership development.  Dick Kaufmann noted that churches need both systemic and systematic leadership development. 

Systemic Leadership Development is using your entire organization (the church body) in the process of developing leaders.  This is organic and is often through inviting & involving people into leadership paths.  For example, a community group leader invites an attender to lead a portion of the meeting.  Over time this develops into an apprenticeship, which eventually leads to a new community group leader.

Systematic leadership Development is planning a process or system to develop people.  Formal education uses this model, or elder training would as well.  

As leaders are put in positions of responsibility, here are the four modes of managing them:

Delegating – What areas of responsibility do they have a handle on and only require my time when they need help or are having trouble?

Participating – What areas do they need my involvement, where I am available to discuss options they've come up with.

Coaching – Where do they need coaching to help grow and provide guidance.

Telling – Where do they need me to tell/do things to train them so they can learn to manage these on their own?

The goal is to have all areas fully delegated and only require your attention when the leader needs help. Dick said the best book he's read on some of these things is  Leadership and the One Minute Manager.  Lastly, you are constantly working on issues of Confidence or Competence.  The most dangerous person is a highly confident/incompetent person.  You want to grow the confidence of the competent to maximize potential.  

The Decline of the Western Church and the Call to renew your Church’s Ecclesiology

Posted by D. Goodmanson on May 6, 2007 in Church, Church Planting, Culture, Ministry Design, Triperspectivalism | 11 comments

The Western Church is in decline. Part of the challenge is the church is stuck in old models of ecclesiology based on Constantinian views of church.  The church is seen as a power structure seeking to 'attract' people from the outside to join.  This model is set to fail to change our culture, as author Alan Hirsch puts it:

A combination of recent research in Australia indicates that about 10-15 percent of that population is attracted to what we call the contemporary church growth model. In other words, this model has significant "market appeal" to about 12 percent of our population. The more successful forms of this model tend to be large, highly professionalized, and overwhelmingly middle class, and express themselves culturally using contemporary, "seeker friendly" language and middle-of-the-road music forms. (source: The Forgotten Ways)

In America, we may have a couple decades before we reach the 10-15 percent. Yet churches continue to try to one-up each other to create better programs, funnier messages, more creative marketing to capture people from this pool of seekers.  For example, Outreach magazine's June 2007 issue reported a seemingly encouraging statistic: 97% of Protestant churches reported doing something evangelistic within the year. (Source: Ellison Research's "Facts and Trends")  It was only when you dig deeper, the stat loses some punch:

• 70% did a Vacation Bible School
• 59% passed out literature such as tracts or magazines
• 56% held large events such as block parties and fall festivals

These are good things to do, but all of these are attractional-based evangelism that will reach people who share a similar worldview to Christians.  Meaning, when people hold a similar morality, view of absolutes and typically conservative background these events are effective.  For most others, they are ineffective.

In response to this, here are a few items I am thinking through: 

1. Corporate Gatherings are important to reflect the exaltation of Christ, just as mission moves us into a more incarnational mode.  We need multiple forms of gatherings to reflect the fullness of the church. I say this in contrast to some in the emerging movement who prefer to abolish larger corporate gatherings.  Yet, in stark contrast to most Evangelical churches the corporate gathering is not the center of the church universe.   Goheen writes: “There is a need to continue to struggle with communal patterns of ecclesial life that will enable the church corporately to be a preview of the kingdom. However, this should not be done at the expense of the mission of God’s people in their various and scattered callings. This continues to be the primary point of missionary engagement in Western culture.”   (HT: Brad Brisco) For a visual on this, view the Triperspectival Ecclesiology diagram. 

Triperspectival note: As Corporate gathering & Classes occur there is a greater emphasis on Normative (red circle).  Missional Communities and Home Groups have an emphasis on Existential (blue circle) while Tribal encounters (going with others to where non-believers live/meet) and being a missionary to people is more Situational (green circle).

2. You need to rethink the success of your church.  Too many pastors find their identity in the number of people that attend on Sundays.  Your church can have a great number of people attend on Sunday's but if this is where their connection to being the church ends, you may only be feeding the idols of consumerism.  Churches should spend much more emphasis on creating disciples to embody the gospel in daily life. Goheen quotes Newbigin as he writes: “I do not believe that the role of the Church in a secular society is primarily exercised in the corporate action of the churches as organized bodies in the political or cultural fields . . . On the contrary, I believe that it is [exercised] through the action of Christian lay people playing their roles as citizens, workers, managers, legislators.” (HT: Brad Brisco)

3. Bible Studies are great, but to reach people churches need to form missional communities.  Small gatherings of people who are a committed to a neighborhood.  It is these people who pray for the area, are deeply committed to the needs and express this in acts of love and mercy.  These people need to be an active hermeneutic of the gospel on display for unbelievers to see.  This paradigm will require active engagement in a neighborhood to build trust and reach those who are open or spiritually curious. 

4. Churches that aren't actively embodying the gospel to tribes of people will only reach seekers.  Hirsch calls mission going out and incarnation as going deep.  We need to develop a culture in our church of mission and pastors, elders and deacons need to model how to be incarnational to reach people groups who do not respond to attractional ministries.  We need to create a new missionary mindset in our people.  It will be these individuals living out the gospel who embed in tribes of people who will be able to reach those who doubt, hold to alternative faiths or even stand in opposition to the Christian message.  The more extreme the resistance, the more relational mission becomes and often is only able to be bridged by specific people who either come from a similar background or somehow develop a connection based on other extenuating factors.

For most traditional or evangelical churches moving from a Sunday event with some mid-week Bible Studies to a church who takes mission seriously will be difficult.  It will take people completely out of their comfort zone and require both great patience and love as Christians move into active relationships with non-believers.  This is difficult being many mature Christians have completely isolated themselves from the unbelieving world.  For many Christians there will need to be a complete shift in ideology and a conversion to mission in order for this to occur.  Sadly, churches who go through this process will end up losing people unwilling to follow their leaders as they follow Christ.  But ultimately this transition is critical for the Western Church to once again move to the margins of society where we began and were able to completely change the Roman world through decentralized missional living.