"I no longer believe in evangelism. To be postevangelistic is to live our lives in Christ without a strategy but with the compassion and the servant posture of Jesus Christ. We do not do evangelism or have a mission. The Holy Spirit is the evangelist, and the mission belongs to God. What we do is simply live our lives publicly as a community in the way of Jesus Christ, and when people inquire as to why we live this way, we share with them an account of the hope within us. We are to love one another, and that creates its own attraction. Taking care of the sick and the needy creates all the evangelism we need."
- Karen Ward (quote from the book Emerging Churches by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Online Prayer Labyrinth
While I was searching for some ideas for this coming Sunday - the last Sunday of our message series on prayer - I came across a very cool website that has an online labyrinth of prayer activities that you can do/experience. I am going to attempt to go through all of them this week - the one that I stumbled across was #10 in the labyrinth, where you can light a virtual candle and pray for someone.
Go here and check out this great prayer resource.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Re:Generation
Next month, we will be starting up Element again. Although there have been some changes, and I have no idea who is left to participate and help (besides a few), I'm still excited about it. I've decided to go with the theme for the entire year called "Re:Generation". This post is to help explain a little as to what that means.
Re:generation is a wordplay that has kind of stuck with me for about 7 years or so. There was a youth ministry in Colorado called "re:generation ministries", and I've liked the idea since. Two thoughts:
1. Regeneration is a real word. If you look it up in the dictionary (or in this case dictionary.com), it's defined in this way: "Spiritual or moral revival or rebirth." Over the last few months, this idea of a spiritual rebirth or revival has really resonated with me. (Hence the title of this blog - "vita renavatio", or "life reborn")
2. When you start thinking about the "re" part of "re:generation", you begin to realize that there are a lot of interesting words that begin with those two letters, words that have real spiritual significance: reformation, reunion, revival, restoration, repentance, and one of my favorites, revolution.
This year in Element, we are going to take a look at a number of these re words and figure out what it takes to be a generation of people called by God in the world and in the time we live in. Here is the schedule for the first three months:
February 18 - Re:Focus
March 11 - Re:flect
April 15 - Re:volution
If you've been to Element, you know that each one has been different, and you never know what to expect. This will continue with the Element gatherings of 2007. A great passage for those who attend Element, who I'm beginning to call the Re:Generation (regardless of age):
3 Who may ascend the hill of the LORD ?
Who may stand in his holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear by what is false. [a]
5 He will receive blessing from the LORD
and vindication from God his Savior.
6 Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek your face, O God of Jacob. [b]
Selah
Psalm 24:3-6
(By the way, the Japanese symbols on the guy's hand on the graphic does mean something. A Buddy Jesus doll to whomever can guess what it means. Hint: It's an Re word.)
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
What If?
I love the T.V. show 24. Absolutely love it. Season 6 is looking like another incredible day in the life of Jack Bauer. This season has raised some very interesting questions in my own head concerning terrorism and the United States' right to respond. Then I read a fantastic article in The Christian Century that asks the question, "What if?" What if President Bush and the rest of the leaders of our country responded differently to the 9/11 attacks in New York and The Pentagon? Just reading the made-up Presidential address gave me goosebumps, and made me wonder what would have happened if we responded in this way:
My fellow Americans: We have been hit. The attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon have damaged every one of us. We are filled with anger and rage, for in 200 years our country has never experienced such an attack from the outside.
So everything in us cries out for revenge. Should we give in to this cry? It would be the easier way. And I am sure you would support me if I mobilized our troops to hunt down the terrorists and those who helped them wherever they are hiding.
But I propose to take another route. It may baffle you—even infuriate you—at first hearing. But I ask that you consider it with care.
The assaults have shown us something we needed to know: we are vulnerable. Yes, we are an open country. We are a nation linked to other nations around the globe. Therefore, strangers can come into our country. They can hijack airplanes and steer them into high-rise buildings. Of course, we can improve our security measures. But the fact of our grave vulnerability remains.
The experience of this immense cruelty is, at the moment of such great suffering, also our moment of truth about the vulnerability that we share with others. For we can now empathize with other people who live through civil wars for years and even decades. We can now grasp how people feel when their cities have been bombed into heaps of smoking ashes. (And sometimes those bombs are ones that we have built and delivered.) All this we can now feel with a special intensity.
What follows from this kind of knowledge that we have bought with so much grief? Should we try to close this window of vulnerability? To do that would turn our country into a prison. It would betray a heritage that we need to honor at all costs, namely, that we live as a free people in a free land. And we intend to keep it that way.
So we say to the world: We will try to learn from this bitter lesson. There is no special status for the United States. We are, together with all other peoples, guests on this planet, finite and mortal beings who are connected to each other, dependent on one another.
Therefore, we must not regard our "American way of life" as a privilege to be defended at any cost against the rest of the world, but rather, we must maintain it in such a way that it can become a way of life for other peoples as well, if they so wish. A way that respects the variety of cultures and religions. A way to protect the rights of all peoples.
We are stunned by the hatred that reveals itself in these attacks. But we need to see the causes that enabled it to grow. We need to find possibilities to decontaminate the conditions that have contributed to the planning and execution of these heinous crimes.
This implies the acknowledgment—and this may well be the hardest task I ask of you today—that our vulnerability is also an expression of our failure to meet peoples in other parts of the world as honest brokers for their needs. We need to accept our share in the injustices that are causing so much suffering. The evil is not simply out there; it is also with us and within us.
For a long time we have held onto our sense of national innocence. But it now lies buried under the rubble of the Twin Towers in New York.
Why do I suggest this turn?
Not because we have suddenly become cowards, but because we have gained the insight that our security is linked to the security of all peoples, and that our peace is connected to their peace. The freedom we cherish so much cannot be had without their freedom.
Many of you will say in anger that we have lost our nerve, that we are capitulating to the terrorists.
That is not the case.
America remains the most powerful nation in the world. But we are powerful enough to admit our vulnerability. We are sovereign enough to take this unprecedented turn. And thus we are not allowing the terrorists to dictate our response.
Does this mean that we let them get away with their crimes? By no means! They are murderers, and so they must be brought to an international court. We are calling on all the peoples around the globe, who so overwhelmingly share in our suffering, to assist us in identifying and prosecuting the assassins and their supporters.
Since we have good reason to suspect that they are members of the Islamic religion, we are calling on Muslim lawyers to assist us. A fatwa by Muslim spiritual leaders would clarify that such crimes are incompatible with the spirit of Islam. Muslim experts could help us in setting up an international court to which we will surely bring our claims and proofs.
Terrorism is one of the great plagues of our time. We do not pretend to be able to eradicate it, least of all by waging a war against it. Because evil—and terrorism is evil—will not disappear from the face of the earth because we wish it away. It will stay with us as a threat and a temptation because it is in all of us.
This is a bitter day. Let us turn it into a day of truth and honesty.
What I ask of you today is a burdensome task, certainly heaviest for the families whose loved ones have lost their lives. But I am convinced that this is the only way to liberate ourselves and others from the vicious cycle of violence and counterviolence.
God bless America!
Although I did say my next post was going to try to answer some of the questions that I raised in my last post, I think that this article helps in my coming to understand what "love your enemies" really means.
My fellow Americans: We have been hit. The attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon have damaged every one of us. We are filled with anger and rage, for in 200 years our country has never experienced such an attack from the outside.
So everything in us cries out for revenge. Should we give in to this cry? It would be the easier way. And I am sure you would support me if I mobilized our troops to hunt down the terrorists and those who helped them wherever they are hiding.
But I propose to take another route. It may baffle you—even infuriate you—at first hearing. But I ask that you consider it with care.
The assaults have shown us something we needed to know: we are vulnerable. Yes, we are an open country. We are a nation linked to other nations around the globe. Therefore, strangers can come into our country. They can hijack airplanes and steer them into high-rise buildings. Of course, we can improve our security measures. But the fact of our grave vulnerability remains.
The experience of this immense cruelty is, at the moment of such great suffering, also our moment of truth about the vulnerability that we share with others. For we can now empathize with other people who live through civil wars for years and even decades. We can now grasp how people feel when their cities have been bombed into heaps of smoking ashes. (And sometimes those bombs are ones that we have built and delivered.) All this we can now feel with a special intensity.
What follows from this kind of knowledge that we have bought with so much grief? Should we try to close this window of vulnerability? To do that would turn our country into a prison. It would betray a heritage that we need to honor at all costs, namely, that we live as a free people in a free land. And we intend to keep it that way.
So we say to the world: We will try to learn from this bitter lesson. There is no special status for the United States. We are, together with all other peoples, guests on this planet, finite and mortal beings who are connected to each other, dependent on one another.
Therefore, we must not regard our "American way of life" as a privilege to be defended at any cost against the rest of the world, but rather, we must maintain it in such a way that it can become a way of life for other peoples as well, if they so wish. A way that respects the variety of cultures and religions. A way to protect the rights of all peoples.
We are stunned by the hatred that reveals itself in these attacks. But we need to see the causes that enabled it to grow. We need to find possibilities to decontaminate the conditions that have contributed to the planning and execution of these heinous crimes.
This implies the acknowledgment—and this may well be the hardest task I ask of you today—that our vulnerability is also an expression of our failure to meet peoples in other parts of the world as honest brokers for their needs. We need to accept our share in the injustices that are causing so much suffering. The evil is not simply out there; it is also with us and within us.
For a long time we have held onto our sense of national innocence. But it now lies buried under the rubble of the Twin Towers in New York.
Why do I suggest this turn?
Not because we have suddenly become cowards, but because we have gained the insight that our security is linked to the security of all peoples, and that our peace is connected to their peace. The freedom we cherish so much cannot be had without their freedom.
Many of you will say in anger that we have lost our nerve, that we are capitulating to the terrorists.
That is not the case.
America remains the most powerful nation in the world. But we are powerful enough to admit our vulnerability. We are sovereign enough to take this unprecedented turn. And thus we are not allowing the terrorists to dictate our response.
Does this mean that we let them get away with their crimes? By no means! They are murderers, and so they must be brought to an international court. We are calling on all the peoples around the globe, who so overwhelmingly share in our suffering, to assist us in identifying and prosecuting the assassins and their supporters.
Since we have good reason to suspect that they are members of the Islamic religion, we are calling on Muslim lawyers to assist us. A fatwa by Muslim spiritual leaders would clarify that such crimes are incompatible with the spirit of Islam. Muslim experts could help us in setting up an international court to which we will surely bring our claims and proofs.
Terrorism is one of the great plagues of our time. We do not pretend to be able to eradicate it, least of all by waging a war against it. Because evil—and terrorism is evil—will not disappear from the face of the earth because we wish it away. It will stay with us as a threat and a temptation because it is in all of us.
This is a bitter day. Let us turn it into a day of truth and honesty.
What I ask of you today is a burdensome task, certainly heaviest for the families whose loved ones have lost their lives. But I am convinced that this is the only way to liberate ourselves and others from the vicious cycle of violence and counterviolence.
God bless America!
Although I did say my next post was going to try to answer some of the questions that I raised in my last post, I think that this article helps in my coming to understand what "love your enemies" really means.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Love To The Third Degree (Part One)
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a pretty cool service at our church. It was the New Year's Eve service, and the senior minister was out of town, so we decided to do something different. We took the theme "Love God. Love Others." and developed a service based on the theme. We had the four people besides the senior minister who are on the leadership team each take one of the areas we are to love God with: our heart, our soul, our strength and our mind. And at the end, I talked about loving our neighbor as ourselves. I thought it was a great way to look at Luke 10 - we interspersed each devotional with music and video stuff.
But we didn't cover another area of love - one I didn't think about until the next day.
Loving God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind is a tough thing to do. To consciously devote our time to loving God in these ways is tough! And then, to realize that we are not to exist for ourselves, that we (both individually and the church) are called to exist for others - well, in the culture we live in today, that's a really really tough thing to do.
Jesus takes it even further, however. (As he's known to do) In Matthew 5, he tells us this:
43"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? (NIV)
We are commanded to love our enemies. What does that mean? And is it even possible in today's time? Who are our enemies? I guess you could make a case that Muslims are our enemies, at least the jihadist Muslims, because they want to wipe Christianity off the face of the earth. But what does it mean to love them? Does it mean I'm supposed to go to Libya and try to hug all the Muslims I can find?
And what about enemies here in America? Who are my enemies? Is an enemy someone who disagrees with me? Is it someone at church who rubs me the wrong way whenever I come into contact with them?
Chuck Swindoll, in his book Simple Faith, talks about this passage of Scripture: “In my opinion, Jesus’ words recorded in Matt.
5:38-48, are among the most unusual He ever uttered. The strange-sounding advice not only cuts cross-grain against our human nature, it also represents the antithesis of the advice most Americans are given. Nevertheless, His words are wise and His way is right. If we will only give them a chance, we will discover how true and – yes, once again – how simple His advice really is.”
Again, what does it mean to love an enemy? Does it mean I agree with their behavior towards me? Do I allow them to continue to trample on me?
As you can see, I bring up more questions than answers right now. My next post will be a feeble attempt to try and answer some of these questions.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
When Good Men Do Nothing
I know I've shown this picture before, but I added a caption to it. This will be a daily reminder for me this coming year of what's really important.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
The Present Future, Chapter 3 (Part Two)
As I've mentioned before, McNeal doesn't mince words when it comes to what needs to be done in the North American church in order for it to survive and thrive in today's culture.
The first paragraph under the Tough Question category in this chapter hit me like a ton of bricks:
"If you are a church leader, be aware that when you head down this road toward developing a missionary force, you are going to do some significant soul-searching and ministry reprioritization. Your church budget may shrink. Your church calendar may get less crowded. You many not have as many meetings. You will lose control of the church ministry. You are going to be challenged not only to release ministry, you are also going to be challenged to release members from churchianity, to quit gauging their spiritual maturity by how much they "support the church." You may see them less, but you will exponentially increase your impact on their lives and your impact on the community where your church is located."
McNeal then tells a story of how he was commissioned to do some strategic planning for large churches, and when he mentioned the idea of impacting the community, he was met with blank stares. These pastors were expecting him to solve the problems within their own church - to help them develop strategies to get people to do church work. He adds, "This is what life in the church bubble can do to you. It shrink-wraps your vision down to the size of your church."
McNeal then goes into some more of what I call "church jargon" about what the problem is, which I won't bore you with but will instead very succinctly explain what he, as well as what Frost and Hirsch describe in their book The Shaping Of Things To Come, means. The church for too long has used the following formula to determine the focus and mission of the church:
ecclesiology ---> mission
In other words, churches start out with what they want their church to look like, what they want their services to look like, what they want Sunday morning programming to look like - and then their view of ecclesiology then determines the mission of the church. It's similar to what I posted back in the day (which I was surprised to find on a couple other blogs, since it really wasn't my idea, it was Dan Kimball's thought), which you can find here.
Here's what really should happen:
christology ---> missiology ---> ecclesiology
We first start out with looking at what Jesus did while he was here and what he taught his disciples. This then helps us develop our mission, which then helps us develop our view of church - based on the mission that Christ has given us.
This brings us to what I talk about in the other Kimball-inspired post, which you can find here.
Let's continue on with McNeal:
After the intellectual gobblety-gook, his suggestion is this: to release members to become missionaries, you have to do two things - create a culture informed by missiology and create venues where people can practice being missionaries.
He gives some examples, and then says this:
"These ministry efforts are not add-on things to do but are part of a community orientation that is fundamental to the church's mission. Releasing people to be missionaries will turn your congregation inside out. It will help people and families integrate their lives around their sense of mission by reducing the compartmentalization that plagues them. Rather than trying to attract people's leftover energies (after work, school, family and so on), release them to find and give expression to their missionary calling. Then watch the energy flow! The key is to have a practice of saying "yes" to people's ideas about ways to be on mission."
This paragraph reminds me of one of the first illustrations I read concerning the emerging church movement that really interested me and re-energized me. It was in an article by Christianity Today about the Emergent Church. In my next post, I will explain this illustration; this post is long enough.
The first paragraph under the Tough Question category in this chapter hit me like a ton of bricks:
"If you are a church leader, be aware that when you head down this road toward developing a missionary force, you are going to do some significant soul-searching and ministry reprioritization. Your church budget may shrink. Your church calendar may get less crowded. You many not have as many meetings. You will lose control of the church ministry. You are going to be challenged not only to release ministry, you are also going to be challenged to release members from churchianity, to quit gauging their spiritual maturity by how much they "support the church." You may see them less, but you will exponentially increase your impact on their lives and your impact on the community where your church is located."
McNeal then tells a story of how he was commissioned to do some strategic planning for large churches, and when he mentioned the idea of impacting the community, he was met with blank stares. These pastors were expecting him to solve the problems within their own church - to help them develop strategies to get people to do church work. He adds, "This is what life in the church bubble can do to you. It shrink-wraps your vision down to the size of your church."
McNeal then goes into some more of what I call "church jargon" about what the problem is, which I won't bore you with but will instead very succinctly explain what he, as well as what Frost and Hirsch describe in their book The Shaping Of Things To Come, means. The church for too long has used the following formula to determine the focus and mission of the church:
ecclesiology ---> mission
In other words, churches start out with what they want their church to look like, what they want their services to look like, what they want Sunday morning programming to look like - and then their view of ecclesiology then determines the mission of the church. It's similar to what I posted back in the day (which I was surprised to find on a couple other blogs, since it really wasn't my idea, it was Dan Kimball's thought), which you can find here.
Here's what really should happen:
christology ---> missiology ---> ecclesiology
We first start out with looking at what Jesus did while he was here and what he taught his disciples. This then helps us develop our mission, which then helps us develop our view of church - based on the mission that Christ has given us.
This brings us to what I talk about in the other Kimball-inspired post, which you can find here.
Let's continue on with McNeal:
After the intellectual gobblety-gook, his suggestion is this: to release members to become missionaries, you have to do two things - create a culture informed by missiology and create venues where people can practice being missionaries.
He gives some examples, and then says this:
"These ministry efforts are not add-on things to do but are part of a community orientation that is fundamental to the church's mission. Releasing people to be missionaries will turn your congregation inside out. It will help people and families integrate their lives around their sense of mission by reducing the compartmentalization that plagues them. Rather than trying to attract people's leftover energies (after work, school, family and so on), release them to find and give expression to their missionary calling. Then watch the energy flow! The key is to have a practice of saying "yes" to people's ideas about ways to be on mission."
This paragraph reminds me of one of the first illustrations I read concerning the emerging church movement that really interested me and re-energized me. It was in an article by Christianity Today about the Emergent Church. In my next post, I will explain this illustration; this post is long enough.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
The Present Future, Chapter 3 (Part One)
Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself. I remember, it seems like many moons ago, posting about the book The Present Future, about how much I liked it and how the next several posts would be devoted to it. And now, several posts later, I'm finally making good on that declaration. Silly me.
Anyway, in case you have forgotten the first two chapters (I have), here is the basic theme of each chapter.
Chapter 1 dealt with the current church culture in North America, and how it is collapsing. The idea that "if we just do church better, people will come" doesn't work anymore. Well, let me rephrase that. If our mission is to reach unchurched people, just because we have better or more programs, a snazzier sound system, a more talented worship band, and culturally-appealing messages doesn't mean that "they will come". As McNeal says, a non-Christian isn't waking up on a Sunday morning thinking "What church out there can I bless with my presence?" They're not thinking about church at all. Just because we dig deeper in the hole we have already dug, it doesn't mean we'll find something. We might be digging in the wrong hole. We need to step back, examine what we're doing, and see if our mission - based on who we really are reaching and what really is taking place in our churches - is really our mission. As McNeal says, we need to recapture the mission of the church. "The movement Jesus initiated had power because it had at its core a personal life-transforming experience." Is the church of today more interested in getting more butts in the seats, or is it more interested in seeing transformed lives?
Chapter 2 dealt with the Church Growth movement, which has been happening in America since the 1970's. There are some good things about the church growth movement, and some bad things about it. As it has been noted by Barna and other research groups, the highest percentage of growth that a megachurch experiences is through people who are already Christians who are just transferring membership from a smaller church that doesn't meet their needs to a larger congregation that meets their needs in every way. This doesn't necessarily mean that the mission of these larger churches is to "steal sheep" from other churches, it's just a reality that happens. Again, McNeal hits on the reality that by doing things better, adding more programs, adding more staff, and putting more money into ministries within the church doesn't necessarily mean that life transformation is happening, or that the mission of the church to reach unchurched populations within its community is being fulfilled. The rest of his chapter deals with some of the same things I brought up this Sunday at church - does the Church have a reputation of loving others? Does the Church - and everything within the church (money, resources, gifted people) - exist for itself, or does it exist for the community and the world around it? As McNeal says, "This is what it's going to take to gain a hearing for the gospel in the streets of the 21st century - the smell of cleaning solution, dirty fces, obvious acts of servanthood."
So, now we are on to chapter 3, titled "A New Reformation: Releasing God's People".
The main idea behind this chapter is that for the Church to not just survive but thrive in the 21st century in the America, we need to decentralize ministry, get rid of the hierarchical structure of leadership within the church, and free up the people within our churches to be able to do ministry. This chapter exposes a major fallacy within the American Church: that the only "venue" that people can use their gifts, talents and resources is the church itself. Most of the giftedness training and recruiting is primarily to fill spots within the church itself. "Ministers have waged an enduring campaign to convince the laity to support church efforts with energy, prayer, time, talent and money." The wrong question in this chapter, according to McNeal is "How Do We Turn Members Into Ministers?" There are a couple of reasons why this is the wrong question.
First, getting all those church holes filled continues to be a more difficult proposition for staff members. McNeal attributes this to the idea that these staff members "don't get it." They view the recruitment difficulties as a motivational issue, which it's not. The problem is that there is a shift in how people decide how they will spend their lives, and "working for" an institution, whether it be a job, church or civic organizations is becoming less and less of an interest in people's lives. If the mission of an organization fails to capture the interest of someone, they will just move on.
Secondly, turning members into ministers isn't motivating for people, because honestly people really don't want to be "ministers" if it means doing what people perceive ministers these days doing. As McNeal says, "On the one hand, when they see ministers being where the action is, helping people, turning lives around, partnering with God's work in the world, they line up. On othe other hand, too many church members view clergy as professional ministers who have been cranked out by the church industry to manage church stuff. They have not been exposed to church leaders who are leaders of a movement. Instead they are familiar only with institutional managers."
The tough question is this: "How Do We Turn Members Into Missionaries?" Which we will talk about in part 2.
Anyway, in case you have forgotten the first two chapters (I have), here is the basic theme of each chapter.
Chapter 1 dealt with the current church culture in North America, and how it is collapsing. The idea that "if we just do church better, people will come" doesn't work anymore. Well, let me rephrase that. If our mission is to reach unchurched people, just because we have better or more programs, a snazzier sound system, a more talented worship band, and culturally-appealing messages doesn't mean that "they will come". As McNeal says, a non-Christian isn't waking up on a Sunday morning thinking "What church out there can I bless with my presence?" They're not thinking about church at all. Just because we dig deeper in the hole we have already dug, it doesn't mean we'll find something. We might be digging in the wrong hole. We need to step back, examine what we're doing, and see if our mission - based on who we really are reaching and what really is taking place in our churches - is really our mission. As McNeal says, we need to recapture the mission of the church. "The movement Jesus initiated had power because it had at its core a personal life-transforming experience." Is the church of today more interested in getting more butts in the seats, or is it more interested in seeing transformed lives?
Chapter 2 dealt with the Church Growth movement, which has been happening in America since the 1970's. There are some good things about the church growth movement, and some bad things about it. As it has been noted by Barna and other research groups, the highest percentage of growth that a megachurch experiences is through people who are already Christians who are just transferring membership from a smaller church that doesn't meet their needs to a larger congregation that meets their needs in every way. This doesn't necessarily mean that the mission of these larger churches is to "steal sheep" from other churches, it's just a reality that happens. Again, McNeal hits on the reality that by doing things better, adding more programs, adding more staff, and putting more money into ministries within the church doesn't necessarily mean that life transformation is happening, or that the mission of the church to reach unchurched populations within its community is being fulfilled. The rest of his chapter deals with some of the same things I brought up this Sunday at church - does the Church have a reputation of loving others? Does the Church - and everything within the church (money, resources, gifted people) - exist for itself, or does it exist for the community and the world around it? As McNeal says, "This is what it's going to take to gain a hearing for the gospel in the streets of the 21st century - the smell of cleaning solution, dirty fces, obvious acts of servanthood."
So, now we are on to chapter 3, titled "A New Reformation: Releasing God's People".
The main idea behind this chapter is that for the Church to not just survive but thrive in the 21st century in the America, we need to decentralize ministry, get rid of the hierarchical structure of leadership within the church, and free up the people within our churches to be able to do ministry. This chapter exposes a major fallacy within the American Church: that the only "venue" that people can use their gifts, talents and resources is the church itself. Most of the giftedness training and recruiting is primarily to fill spots within the church itself. "Ministers have waged an enduring campaign to convince the laity to support church efforts with energy, prayer, time, talent and money." The wrong question in this chapter, according to McNeal is "How Do We Turn Members Into Ministers?" There are a couple of reasons why this is the wrong question.
First, getting all those church holes filled continues to be a more difficult proposition for staff members. McNeal attributes this to the idea that these staff members "don't get it." They view the recruitment difficulties as a motivational issue, which it's not. The problem is that there is a shift in how people decide how they will spend their lives, and "working for" an institution, whether it be a job, church or civic organizations is becoming less and less of an interest in people's lives. If the mission of an organization fails to capture the interest of someone, they will just move on.
Secondly, turning members into ministers isn't motivating for people, because honestly people really don't want to be "ministers" if it means doing what people perceive ministers these days doing. As McNeal says, "On the one hand, when they see ministers being where the action is, helping people, turning lives around, partnering with God's work in the world, they line up. On othe other hand, too many church members view clergy as professional ministers who have been cranked out by the church industry to manage church stuff. They have not been exposed to church leaders who are leaders of a movement. Instead they are familiar only with institutional managers."
The tough question is this: "How Do We Turn Members Into Missionaries?" Which we will talk about in part 2.
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