I’ve just begun The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church and to say I’m excited about it is an understatement. (The book is scheduled to be released February 28th, 2012, you can pre-order it now). There are a number of reasons why this book is timely and valuable for me:
(1) I’ve felt as we sought to sought to transition Kaleo Church (and for reference, I’m going to speak about Kaleo Church Linda Vista, not the other church plants that came from KLV) that there was something missing, a DNA that wasn’t being transferred to catalyze groups to mission. Further, I see many churches who are making the transition experience the same thing. They are starting small groups but giving them the name ‘missional community’ when in fact they are not.
(2) Secondly, I know a number of people who I see as apostolic (as defined by Hirsch). Often these people don’t feel connected to a local church because with its forms and functions they don’t know how they fit in. The existing church paradigm and church structures don’t know how to handle these people. So these apostolic leaders tend to pioneer relationships and begin to gather people. Unfortunately, because they are ‘mess-makers’ (my term) they can catalyze but without others they miss the fuller missional embodiment of the church to lost people.
(2) Lastly, in the last year or so my wife and I asked the question: What would it look like to pioneer a new work working under the submission of the local Kaleo elders? (In April 2011 I asked to be released from being an elder at Kaleo because I felt called to this endeavor.) We are early on but already we have seen God do amazing things and we hope to disciple Christians toward the mess this type of work brings. Thinking through what this looks like birthed out of the local church is something I’m excited to experience first hand.
So I hope to reflect, interact and challenge ideas from The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church in the weeks and months ahead. The book is nearly 450 pages so it may take some time to process. I’m almost done reading it for a first time but hope to circle back to a blog series on ideas that strike me so stay tuned!