Last night, David Fairchild and I spent the evening with Bob Roberts.  He had just returned from Hanoi to speak at a conference here in San Diego.  He laid out a vision for how he believes churches will truly change culture, grabbing a piece of paper and pen he began to draw different diagrams of how this connected.  (These diagrams and the ideas will be included in his next book, so I'll leave that alone.) 

One of the larger parts of our conversation centered on the churches ability to transform society through Christians living their beliefs out in the 'domains' of society.  (Something I blogged similarly about in The Church as Movement – Organizing Decentralization and Transforming Cities - The Church beyond the Spiritual Box).  While most of the Western church is talking about being missional through engaging culture, we should be focused on changing culture.  Non-Western countries have been doing domain engagement for a long time.  Bob shared a story of South Korea and how the gospel radically changed that culture.  In both Ghana and South Korea Christians attempted to do mission through crusades and traditional means at about the same time in history.  This failed miserably in South Korea and so missionaries began to establish schools and health clinics.  Later, these became universities and hospitals.  It was through entering these domains, South Korean society changed.  The long-term difference of the gospel change in the cultures of Ghana and S. Korea are starkly contrasted based on this domain engagement in S. Korea.

Bob believes to truly redeem society Christians must engage these domains.  The primary thrust of this is done through community development.  (Kaleo Church has partnered with churches around the country to begin Re:Novo City Group aimed at this very idea.)  Planting churches is the means, seeing cities changed by the gospel is the goal.  

Read more about Bob Roberts Philosophy & Ideas on Mission, Church Planting & Being the Church > 

BONUS: Bob Roberts may be the Kevin Bacon of church planters/pastors.  Through him we can connect (within a few steps) to everyone in the world.  Here's a few examples of people he knows: 

Ed Stetzer, Bono, Nguyen Minh Triet (President of Vietnam), Condoleezza Rice (Secretary of State) & Abdullah Abdullah (former Foreign Minister of Afghanistan).  I could have mentioned dignitaries, business men (execs at Disney & Facebook), emerging guys, conservative pastors, church planting network leaders and other church planters.  But this guy is a connector.

I look forward to our continued relationship with Bob and his glocal vision. 

Session: Things that make (Steve Timmis) go 'Hmmmm…'

The first thing that makes Mr. Timmis go hmmm is the fascination with new ways of 'doing church'.   It doesn't take much to see a number of new books, blogs and conferences speak to the changing nature of the church.  (In fact, it's a subject I've posted on many times.)  Timmis quoted J.C. Hoekendijk, a Dutch theologian.  In Hoekendijk’s view, a keen ecclesiological interest was generally a sign of spiritual decadence.

"Our God is not a temple dweller. In the strict sense of the word he is not even a church god. He advances through time; ever again he lets the new conquer the old. He is not a God of the 'status quo,' but rather the Lord of the future, the King of the history of the world, and, as such, also Head of the church…We must maintain the right order in our thinking and speaking about the church. That order is God-World-Church, not God-Church-World" (J.C. Hoekendijk). 

Much of what Timmis sees in the contemporary fascination with ecclesiology is an obsession with the church itself.  Timmis warned that the emerging church, can in it's restoration attempt end up recovering the form of church rather than the heart.  As they lead the Crowded House (a house church movement) they see the nature of what they are doing as a gospel initiative not an ecclesiological experiment.  Timmis states, "Any non-gospel initiative is an exercise in self-indulgence."

Reflection: How is the nature of your church a gospel initiative?  

Session: Elders & the Local Church

One of the sessions Steve Timmis led at the Total Church conference centered around the challenge to plant missional churches and develop leaders fast enough to plant additional churches.  The Crowded House, Timmis' said, like many churches is leader hungry.  One of the Achilles heels of house church movement is the need for a higher leader ratio.  In fact, this same inability to find good leaders is a common rationale behind video venues or large churches.  In this, Timmis quoted Darrin Patrick (who is defending video venue strategy) who struggled finding people to plant churches (in the 250 people range) in his city:

One reason it didn’t work was that we couldn’t find enough planters with a heart for our area who could plant a self-governing, self-supporting self-reproducing church….I believe that there are few guys with the calling and requisite skill set to plant a reproducing incarnational/attractional church. This is evidenced by the 70% failure rate in church plants. I saw this in our own context as we simply couldn’t find the guys with the calling and skill- set to give people to. Now, this has not stopped us from planting locally as we just sent out an elder and people to plant about 45 minutes out in the burbs. We have another intern who hopefully will plant in the next two years. My point is that if your church is experiencing growth like ours, you cannot plant fast enough, chiefly because of the lack of called, qualified, church planters.  

Read full post: Darrin Responds at Bob Hyatt

Timmis, upon reflection asked is the problem we face the leaders or the types of churches we are planting? When he examined Paul's missionary journey, Paul traveled through cities where people converted.  Paul returned in under two years and more likely after a couple months to appoint elders.  Timmis surmised that the problem then cannot be our leaders but the types of churches we are planting and the leader requirement necessary to run them. 

Is is because of our Western idea of church that we seek leaders who can create reproducible, incarnational/attractional churches that grow to 250+ in order to split and start over again?  Where do we read these requirement of elders in Timothy & Titus, asked Timmis.  These are two conclusions Timmis came to:

1. We need to re-think leadership in the local church.  Much of our leadership shortage stems from wrong assumptions.  Churches can appoint elders, who fulfill all that is required in Timothy & Titus.  This means we select elders by the grace evidenced in their life, not by the attractional qualities they hold.  How many of these guys are in your church right now?

2. Church Planters have a unique set of gifting that are best served planting churches.  (Timmis called church planters 'apostles') Since there are fewer of these 'initiators/gatherers'  they ought to do more missional church planting (often done in a team setting where people travel with them) to plant churches.  The skills these 'apostolic leaders' possess include: Visionary, Creative, Adaptable, Productive, Impatient - always wanting to move things forward, self-starters and a bit of a maverick.  These skills serve the planter well to create new works, but often these skills make them poor leaders of established churches.

Throughout the conversation, Timmis stressed that he was 'thinking out loud' and hadn't firmed up on these conclusions.  But I post this because these ideas are something we all will need to think through as we seek to change cities by the power of the gospel.

I returned last week from the Total Church conference in England.  (I wanted to post earlier, but was having some technical difficulty).  In attendance there were 50 church planters from around the world, many were hybrids, traditional churches looking to become more missional or house church movements.  The central theme was gospel & community.  Tim Chester led excellent morning devotionals that were portraits of Jesus life.  The first was dealing with Jesus came eating & drinking, dealing with messy community life reaching to the margins.  The second devotional was Jesus at the table, which sprang from the women washing his feet.  The final devotional dealt with Jesus' interaction with the men on the road to Emmaus.

Steve Timmis led mid-day sessions that sparked conversation.  Over the next few days, I'll post a few summaries on the sessions.  Some highlights of the posts to come:

Things that make Steve Timmis go 'Hmmmm…' -  Steve held a session where he brought up a few issues that churches have to think through and offered commentary on these.  I'll post a few of the ideas which included people's fascination with new ways of doing church, preaching workshops, gender specific ministry, video venues & big churches.

Leadership Development in the Local church - A discussion on developing leaders, church planting and the ongoing role of elders leadership in local churches.  

Sharing Lives - More on how the Crowded House makes decisions with the community in mind.  Something that will always rock our American sensibilities.  

I haven't posted in a while, but wanted to share some of what is going on:

Total Church Conference - Monday, David and I leave to England to participate in this conference.  We will be joined by kindred-spirits from Acts 29, including Jeff at Soma Community in Tacoma and James and team at Providence in Dallas.  (All of us are doing multi-site, multi-congregational missional movements).  You can read more about the Crowded House Values that shaped the concept of Total Church.  Or here is a quick summary from one of the authors, Tim Chester:

Two key principles should shape church life: gospel and community. Christians are called to a dual fidelity: fidelity to the core content of the gospel and fidelity to the primary context of a believing community. Whether we are thinking about evangelism, social involvement, pastoral care, apologetics, discipleship or teaching, the content is consistently the Christian gospel and the context is consistently the Christian community. What we do is always defined by the gospel and the context is always our belonging in the church. Our identity as Christians is defined by the gospel and the community.

While we are there we will be staying in the homes of people in the community.  I may be able to bring back a handful of copies of the book since I don't know if it has been released in the US yet.

Global Church Advancement (GCA) invited me back to do a couple sessions at their North America Church Planting Conference in Orlando, FL: January 28 - February 1, 2008. The North America Church Planting Conference is an inter-denominational training event designed to equip church planters, coaches and supervisors to start, grow and multiply healthy, gospel-centered churches that result in the spiritual, social and cultural transformation of entire cities and regions. Christian leaders from more than 30 countries, representing over 100 denominations and mission agencies, have taken this church planter training.

National New Church Conference (NNCC) Todd Wilson informed me there will be sessions on city transformation.  City transformation is something I've been very excited about.  Don't just plant a church or start a movement, change a city.   Plus, I'd love to hear Keller & Hirsch who both are main speakers.

Bob Roberts (GlocalNet & Vision 360 ) is flying into San Diego and I will be picking him up on the 11/8.  I look forward to spending some time with him.  He is one of the nations leading church planters and I would like to learn more from his experience as he engages his city and plants churches.

David and I continue to meet with the team from Strategic Focused Cities.  The Southern Baptists have selected San Diego as next on the list.  In addition, we have met with the local Vision 360 guy, where they are beginning to raise funding and seek to support, asess and fund church planters.

It's been a busy season with the city transformation movement we are starting called Re:Novo City Group.  A big piece of this initially is our Tentmaker concept.  We've trained four classes of Tentmakers, with our fifth shaping to occur in early November. I'd estimate 50+ people will be trained by the end of this year.

Lastly, Monk Development continues to expand our Ekklesia 360 Church/Ministry CMS.  Monk is now opening an office in South Africa for international sales, support and development.  I hope to make a trip there next Fall to meet with our new team.  

How do you lead a church as movement rather than a program-centered church? While most churches have a centralized program-oriented approach to ministry, we continue to explore how to be a decentralized church.  Why?  We want to transform our city and believe a centralized church is inadequate to address the challenge (read Leading a Transformational Community).  

How do we examine our ecclesiology and organize the church for decentralized movement?  We see the church as corporation, cause & community.  (You can read more about this at Leading a Transformational Community and Leading a Movement Not an Institution.)  Staff should be focused primarily on corporation issues.  We want ministry/outreach to come from and by the people of the church.  Here is how we plan to proceed:

First, we are going to ask that people pray about their calling.  (Kaleo recently preached a 3-part series on calling Kingdom, Calling, Suffering, Transformissional Calling & Transformissional Calling Part II)  A sense of calling is a critical element to address the postmodern apathy of today.

Second we are asking people to learn more about their gifting.  For our church we will have people fill out a Divine Design Gifts Assessment test created by Phil Douglass at Covenant Theological Seminary.  David Fairchild took it recently and it's a pretty elaborate gifts assessment test primarily used by people in seminary. 

Lastly, we are creating an equipping/mentor development program.  Ministry and outreach should be driven by the people of the church.  Inasmuch as people are being transformed by the gospel they will engage in outreach & ministry. (We believe You Can’t Program the Gospel.)  At Kaleo as people come up with ideas, they will propose these.  We will evaluate the ministry idea and provide guidance to ensure it fits our gospel/city transformation vision.  In addition, we will gather information to help hold people accountable whether it is an ongoing ministry or one-time event.  We also will assess the person to help understand how to best equip them and pair them with a mentor. This mentor will help them with vision/theology (normative), gospel encouragement/motivation (existential) and/or practical wisdom/coaching/resourcing (situational) as necessary.  Our goal is to train many of our missional community leaders & deacons to provide this ongoing relationship.  Elders will assist but will primarily focus on discipling people in the area of their calling/ministry. 

This means most of our leaders should be externally focused.  The leaders of the church should either (1) coach people in the church who feel called to engage in a new ministry.  Or (2) lead people by calling them to participate in active ministry areas. 

Our goal is to launch this in November.  People at Kaleo who want to participate would pray about calling and fill out the gift assessment in the month of October.  In early November we would unpack the gift test and explain the process to start new ministries.  Also in November we would hold a training for the mentors.  More to come…

It pays to be a church planter.  Church Planting Resources has a limited time offer of (requires registration):

50% off all purchases at Highway Video for a limited time! Biblically based and artistically inspired, Highway Video's top-quality sermon and worship videos edify believers and build bridges with unbelievers. With hundreds of finished-films and almost a thousand spiritual stock motion clips, Highway Video is widely recognized as a key innovator and leader in the church video market.

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Visit: Free Christian Audio Book Deal

25% off display orders at Group Imaging for a limited time!  Group Imaging manufactures a line of affordable displays for churches. Some examples of what their displays can be used for include (but aren't limited to); information tables, childcare, classroom, parking & directional signs. They make these displays from start to finish and have patented the designs for their stands. Group Imaging is able to make Roll-up displays from as small as 18 inches wide to as large as 7 foot wide and up to 10 feet tall. If you are in need of something larger then their Fold-up displays are the solution for you. These displays can be joined together to make a display of any width and going as tall as 16 feet. All of the displays are designed with replacing the graphic in mind without the use of any tools.

Visit: Discounted Custom Displays for Church Plants  

When most people think of church, they envision a place where Christians gather on Sunday.  A building dominates the mind of both Christians or non-believers.  Today, the concept of church has been de-clawed of it's full of meaning.  The gathered people of God (who once overthrew the most powerful empire that ever existed, without political, military or economic power) are now house broken.   

Sadly, even most Christians have reduced the Church to a spiritual box.  It's a place where our spiritual needs are met.  We have compartmentalized our faith and removed it from the rest of our life.  This is something more of us are thinking through, not how do we grow our church, but how are we going to change a city.  At Kaleo Church we seek to re-capture a broader scope of being the church in our city.  Here are some ways we want to express being the church and seek to change our city:  (because of U.S. law some of these would be separate legal entities.) 

Launched

Metro Church Alliance - [Church Partnering/Kingdom] The Metro Church Alliance was created to facilitate partnerships between churches in local cities.  The San Diego Alliance is our relationship with several churches in San Diego to partner in the gospel to see the city changed.  We meet with other churches (12-20 pastors) once a month and seek to continue to broaden this.

Tentmaker Group - [Employment, Education, Resources & City Investment]  The Tentmaker Group allows us to fund church planter/planting but it also lets us re-invest in the city.  Part of our goal is to provide jobs in a company that will bless the city.  Many of the things we seek to do (stripper ministry, homeless work, etc) requires money.  The Tentmaker Group will be a company that use it's profits for the good of the cities we are in.

Kaleo Counseling Center -  [Counseling] This ministry seeks to provide gospel counseling to both people in but also outside of the church.  Counseling is the modern hope and we would like to be able to provide free (or low cost) counseling to those in need.

Church Bootcamp - [Church Planter Training] conferences to train church planters.  We believe church planting is the best way to change the city through effective transformation of individuals by the power of the gospel.

Church Planting Resources - [Church Planting Resources] A site to provide resources to assist church planters.

Developing

Think San Diego - [Social Concerns, Government/Politics, Society & Awareness]  Think San Diego will be a vehicle to create awareness to the issues surrounding our city/county.  The goal would be to influence thought on laws/voting, to help foster positive social activism and to present issues (eg. illegal immigration) through the lens of the gospel.

Imagine San Diego - [Mercy Ministries, Environment, Cause]  Imagine San Diego is an gathering of people to mercy ministry.  It will call businesses, leaders and churches to participate in city renewal.  We have begun to gather groups in other cities for the Imagine City Group, an umbrella non-profit other churches and cities can participate in.

Gospel @ Work - [Vocation & Stewardship] Gospel AT Work is is a ministry that will offer programs, groups, and ministries focused on integrating the Christian faith with our work.

Geneva San Diego Academy - [Education] Classical Christian Education to train the next generation with a gospel worldview.

San Diego Artist Forum - [Culture & Art] Engaging culture and the arts through the lens of the gospel.

the Courtyard - [Performance & Art] Events/Performances and shows hosted as a 3rd place to engage the city.

The Cloud Network - [Technology] Using technology and search engine optimization to connect & gather Christians and be on mission to the world online.

We believe it is important to provide potential church planters a new kind of missional training through the Tentmaker Group and discussions with the Porterbrook Network (created by the authors of Total Church and the pastors of the Crowded House.  They have put together a great 2-year program to equip a person to plant.  Porterbrook Curriculum pdf).  Our goals would be the following:

Planting a different kind of church

We want to create a different kind of church – one which is gospel-focused in every area of church life and at the same time emphasizes the centrality of the Christian community as the context for Christian life and mission. (source: Total Church Conference documents)

Equipping a different kind of leader

We want to equip missional leaders (eg see: Missional Movements, Plurality of Leadership) who are triperspectival.   This means we are equipping them NORMATIVE with gospel applied theology (not just theory/systematics), EXISTENTIAL we are applying the gospel to their lives to bring gospel transformation and SITUATIONAL we are working along side them as they do this in a real church planting context.

Sending for a different type of model

Through the Tentmaker connection, we want planters to leave with 3-5 years of their salary covered and with money to plant.  The model we want to send people with isn't to plant a church, but to start city movements that seek to address every area of life with the gospel. 

We are excited that so far 7 cities are represented in our Tentmaker Group launch, which is a key component in the plan.  The goal is the have this training in every city interested…

I highly recommend Making Room: Recovering Hospitality As a Christian Tradition by Christine D. Pohl, Author.  At the GCA conference, Martin Ban recommended this book and I see why.  Simply, this is another must read.  A few points:

• Christians should regard hospitality to strangers as an expression of the gospel.
• History reveals the importance of hospitality to the spread and credibility of the gospel.
• As Christians, identifying our self as strangers and sojourners is part of what it means to be the people of God.
• The New Testament portray Jesus as a gracious host, welcoming children and prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners in his presence.

Description: Although hospitality was central to Christian identity and practice in earlier centuries, our generation knows little about its life-giving character. Making Room revisits the Christian foundations of welcoming strangers and explores the necessity, difficulty, and blessing of hospitality today. Christine Pohl traces the eclipse of this significant Christian practice, showing the initial centrality of hospitality and the importance of recovering it for contemporary life. Combining rich biblical and historical research with extensive exposure to modern service communities–The Catholic Worker, L'Abri, L'Arche, and others–this book shows how understanding the key features of hospitality can better equip us to faithfully carry out the practical call of the gospel.

Making Room discusses Old Testament stories of Abraham welcoming angels, Jesus’ commandment to love those unable to reciprocate and the early church’s emphasis on sharing meals with the poor. More than a product or a service, hospitality may be a transformative spiritual practice. We are particularly encouraged to share ourselves with those not like ourselves—without requiring that they become like us to receive our attention and care. 

Here is an example of the cost of community/hospitality from Francis Schaeffer:

"Don't start with a big program. Don't suddenly think you can add to your church budget and begin. Start personally and start in your home. I dare you. I dare you in the name of Jesus Christ. Do what I am going to suggest. Begin by opening your home for community…

How many times in the past year have you risked having a drunk vomit on your carpeted floor? How in the world, then, can you talk about compassion and about community - about the church's job in the inner city?

L'Abri is costly. If you think what God has done here is easy, you don't understand. It's a costly business to have a sense of community. L'Abri cannot be explained merely by the clear doctrine that is preached; it cannot be explained by the fact that God has here been giving intellectual answers to intellectual questions. I think those two things are important, but L'Abri cannot be explained if you remove the third. And that is there has been some community here. And it has been costly.

In about the first three years of L'Abri all our wedding presents were wiped out. Our sheets were torn. Holes were burned in our rugs. Indeed once a whole curtain almost burned up from somebody smoking in our living room. Blacks came to our table. Orientals came to our table. Everybody came to our table. It couldn't happen any other way. Drugs came to our place. People vomited in our rooms, in the rooms of Chalet Les Melezes which was our home, and now in the rest of the chalets of L'Abri.

How many times has this happened to you? You see, you don't need a big program. You don't have to convince your session or board. All you have to do is open your home and begin. And there is no place in God's world where there are no people who will come and share a home as long as it is a real home." 

Since I did my session on Post-Christian World, here are a few add'l external links from the last day in the blogosphere that relate:

What do our church buildings witness to? "Our church buildings witness to the immobility, inflexibility, lack of fellowship, pride and class divisions in today's church." According to "Radical Renewal: The Problem of Wineskins Today" (Howard A. Snyder), post at Mark Moore's blog.

The Center for Christian Leadership is pleased to announce an upcoming conference, Beyond the Church Doors: Developing a Missional Mindset within Your Congregation, on March 31 and April 1, 2008, featuring Dr. Ed Stetzer and Dr. Alan Roxburgh. If your church is developing creative and strategic ways of engaging in missional ministry, we would like to profile your activities in our conference materials.

Take the Missional Church Survey online >>

Many North American churches today are shifting away from an “attractional model” of ministry designed to draw people into the church building to a “missional model” which involves training and equipping whole congregations to act as missionaries in their local communities. We would like to know how your church is engaging in ministries of compassion and service in order to further the gospel and impact the culture. …

We are compiling a list of stories that will inspire others to creatively engage in missional practices. Please share one or two of your church’s activities that have impacted your community. (HT: djchuang)

Also check out Inc. Magazine's newest issue, Fun! It's the New Core Value to continue to see how the culture shift is changing institutions.  

I attended Emerging 1 & 2 and Evangelism 1 & 2 today. Emerging Session 2 was led by Steve Treichler from Hope Community.  Some quotes:

"We are in the middle of the greatest worldview shift in 200 years and evangelicals have largely sheltered themselves from this transition."  (Meaning: we no longer understand our culture)

"The gospel is a chocolate covered waffle cone.  In 11 years of our church  I have never told our people, "'you should invite your friends to church.  We do  very little 'should'." (Meaning: If our people don't see the gospel as something to prize and share, our people don't get it.) 

Here are a couple quotes from Martin Ban who is currently the Senior Pastor of Christ Church Santa Fe.  These are from his session, Making Room: A Trinitarian Reflection on Evangelism and Cultural Engagement with the Gospel. This was an excellent session which impacted me particularly as it relates to how God has allowed us to be IN Christ.  I'll have to digest this for a bit, but here are two quotes that struck me (but don't really indicate the thrust of the message). 

"The gospel is not efficient."   (As it relates to loving others and being missional.

If our people learn a Systematic Theology of Grace it results in a reduction of risk (taken by people).  We need to teach our people a Kingdom view of Grace with enables them to take greater risks. 

Dan said one of his mentors was Dick Kaufmann (he also mentioned Frame, Keller, Schaeffer, Newbigin and others) so I liked him from the get-go.  Plus, he presented his session with a triperspectival understanding of evangelism.  Eg., He discussed things like the Logos, Ethos and Pathos in evangelism.  He's going to send out his presentation PowerPoint so I will refresh myself on a couple thoughts and post on these.  

We completed day 1 of the GCA Church Planting conference.  John Piper did a session encouraging the church planters and reminding them to be weary of church planting experts/formula's it is the Holy Spirit the preaching of the gospel.  The first sessions took place as well.  Afterwards, I had a chance to meet David Wayne (JollyBlogger) in person.  Bart Johnson, Larry Kirk, James Martin and I sat around a table at an ice-cream social talking about cessationists, creedo/paedobaptism and a sundry of other denominationalism topics SBC, PCA, EV Free.  All over a nice sundae. 

Ed Stetzer came over and gave me a hard time for my Missional - Missio Dei, Missionary or Mission post that got him in trouble over at Bill Kinnon's blog.  Stetzer's talk is now leading many in the emerging church to begin the overthrow of governments according to Kinnon (all in good fun people).   I realize my post didn't portray Stetzer's full intent, I apologize for the ease of the straw man argument with no substance.  Stetzer asked us not to post further, so we're left waiting for his article to come out…..  (no pressure Stetzer).  

Stetzer, David Wayne (JollyBlogger) and I plan on getting together tomorrow morning for an interview.   So if you have questions for Stetzer that you can post prior to 5am PST (when we meet!), post them. 

I'm putting the finishing touches on my GCA presentation, Communication in Our Post-Christian World:

The culture is changing and it requires new methods of communication.  This session will help you learn how to effectively minister in a post-Christian context.   Come learn the 1) five values of this Post-Christian generation, the 2) ten idols that enslave them and 3) effective ways to communicate the eternal and unchanging gospel message.

This is the first session for my Media & Message series.  Any of you planning on being there?  (Jollblogger is coming to the conference! btw- If you haven't, add his feed to your reader.)

As more churches & leaders begin to use triperspectivalism as a philosophy of ministry, there are a few dangers I wanted to warn against (these came up in an elder meeting at Kaleo):

Personality Test  - One of the dangers of triperspectivalism is using it as a personality test.  eg. "Oh, you are emotional, you must be a Priest."  This type of stereotyping is not only limiting, but also harmful.  As Christians we must hold to a 'already/not yet' tension in our understanding of self.  While, because we are not perfect, so that certainly there are areas we will tend to be weak in, it is crucial for people to know that Jesus Christ was the PERFECT Prophet, Priest & King on our behalf and has given us that identity.  If we have an area of weakness we can look to him, who is perfect in our weakness.  This also means that we cannot 'work' to grow in areas without it being done in a gospel/grace renewal by God.  

Reductionism - A second danger is defeating the very triperspectival emphasis by not seeing all three elements as co-existing.  I have seen people emphasize one area in such a way to eliminate the other two perspectives.  All three must be held together at all times.  For example, a counselor isn't just be a Priestly function, it must be grounded in God's Word (Prophet) and the counsel needs to be applied to a person's life (King).  

A word of caution is to know your audience when using triperpectivalism.  It may be something you reserve for people in leadership who won't be confused or prone to slip into one of the above errors because they understand the broader context of it's usage.  

View previous articles on triperspectivalism.