Identity Initiative for the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches by @DaveGuiles
Turning theory of church planting movements into practice by Steve Addison
Earlier this year Australian Missiologist Steve Addison did an interview with Dan Harding of Mission Platform. Dan asked about how Steve got interested in Movements and what he’s learning about turning theory into practice. This engaging interview has some good movement principles and good practices as well:
Reposted from Steve Addison’s Blog — Movements.net
Turning theory of church planting movements into practice.
Credible Field Study on Short-term Missions via Leadership Network
Crossroads Church in Cincinnati, OH, reports significant life impact in people who are involved in short-term mission trips, as measured by an increase in serving and giving.
Our happy conclusion is this: The outcome of our study shows a strong positive correlation between Crosssroads’ short-term mission trips and the way people invest their time and money.
They also take a shot at answering the “WHY” question as well. We should be thankful for a credible study on the impact of short-term mission trips.
Download this free report
to read about the “Five Windows of Spiritual Growth” and three factors of short-term missions that have positively impacted participants.
via Field Study: Crossroads Church Short-term Missions Leadership Network.
A Historic Wind is Blowing through the House of Islam
The latest Mission Frontiers. Available online. It’s free.
Contents:
God is Doing Something Historic – David Garrison
Why Are Muslims Coming to Jesus Like Never Before? – Robby Butler
Start a Disciple-Making Movement Among Your Muslim Neighbors – Paul Bartlett, Robby Butler
Any-3: Lead Muslims to Christ Now! – Mike Shipman
Guide Muslims to the Bible – AJ Hague
A Novice’s Guide to Fielding Common Muslim Objections – Shane Bennett
Kingdom Kernels: CPM Essentials On a Napkin – Steve Smith
Burk, Brasil and the Breaking Future
So this morning as I was praying, the Lord brought to mind the nation of Brasil. A large and important country in our world. I’ve been praying regularly for the church in Brasil to rise up and seize the opportunity afforded it by the World Cup being on their soil next summer.
I quickly shot off an email to my colleagues, Steve Bailey and Bruce Triplehorn who serve @EncompassWorld for that nation. I found out earlier this week that Steve was on the ground there, and I wanted them to both be sowing seeds and listening to what the Holy Spirit might be stirring up. We are praying for a coalition of leaders, churches and ministries who would be mobilized to the ministry opportunities of relational evangelism, discipleship and church planting afforded by the World Cup in Brasil.
As that email left my computer, another came in from Tom Julien (who I always listen to):
A faithful warrior has entered heaven with his eternal “weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17). What an example he was.
I quickly scrolled down in the email to find out who, and it was Bill Burk. “Amazon Bill” as he was affectionately known who served as a missionary taking the Gospel to the unreached along the Amazon river for 6 decades! I remember as a child hearing the stories of the Amazon Rain Forest and the Good News going to people who had never heard about Jesus! I prayed for Bill and Imogene as a youngster.
In these moments, I’m reflecting on how the future of missions is breaking open in these two happenings around Brasil. A few musings:
- Like Amazon Bill, we still need people who are crazy enough for Jesus that they’ll take the Gospel to the hardest places on our planet!
- I’ve been challenged by the hundreds of “Unengaged, Unreached People Groups” in our world, and Bill Burk was going to those people groups decades before that “title” was dubbed in missions circles.
- Our heritage @EncompassWorld and “our present” both are strong in taking the Good News to the unreached of our world!
- The unreached are not just in the jungle anymore, they are in our cities…in the Urban Jungle.
- The breaking future of reaching these unreached peoples in not just in solo, pioneer missionaries, but in coalitions of leaders, churches and ministries who will covenant together for the Great Commission.
My deepest sympathies and prayers go out to Imogene and the whole Burk family. They will miss their beloved here, and we all know that another “saint in glory stands.”
Press Release from Encompass World Partners
2007 Interview about Amazon Bill’s Legacy and his “Plumb Line” by GraceConnect
The Essence of the Church by Tom Julien cited by @JD_Payne
This post is a connection of 3 influential missiological thinkers in my life:
1) I saw this post on Kurt Miller’s blog (thechurchplanter) – @KurtMiller01 is my father-in-law and one of the sharpest thinkers about church planting in the USA.
2) Tom Julien wrote most of the content, and he is the Director Emeritus of my current agency Encompass World Partners. From the time we shared a meal at my parents home when I was a little boy, I’ve hung onto the wisdom he has spoken.
Those first two were plenty of reason to repost, but then as I did some more research, I realized that
3) missiologist J.D. Payne included this in his 2012 book Discovering Church Planting. I’ve learned from Payne in his merging of global mission & church planting over several years of collaborating with @CMAResources.
Sorry for the long intro, now to the content of “The Essence of the Church”:
“In his article, “The Essence of the Church,*” Tom Julien discussed the fact that many church planters often define the local church in terms of their cultural preference, which can lead to problems on the field. Julien admonished church-planting teams first to come to an agreement on what the local church is so they will know what they are planting.
“Our problem is that we identify the local church by her cultural and historic expression, more than by her biblical essence. To arrive at a clear definition of the local church we must make a distinction between the two. Sluggish thinking here will lead to differing assumptions in the church-planting team that will affect the basic principles of any church-planting ministry. The more focused we are on essence, the less attachment we will have to any particular cultural expression of the church. On the other hand, if the form or cultural expression of the church becomes our reference point, adapting to different cultural situations will create tension.
The New Testament reveals the church both in her essence and expression. With regard to the essence of the church, this revelation is given in images and presented as fact; with respect to the cultural expression of the church, this revelation is given as example and is descriptive rather than prescriptive…
Let us come back to our original question: “What is a local church?” We have said that a local church is a visible manifestation of the biblical essence. Most of us, however, need something more concrete to work with. It is crucial that every church-planting team agree on a working definition, in concrete terms, that grows out of essence, and not expression. This definition must include those elements that are indispensable to the identity of a church, and omit those that are not. This definition identifies the seed for church planting.
Here is an attempt at such a definition. Members of every church-planting team need to be unified with respect to what they are planting, even if it takes months of struggle to agree.
A local church is an organized body of baptized believers, led by a spiritually qualified shepherd, affirming their relationship to the Lord and to each other by regular observance of the Lord’s Supper, committed to the authority of the Word of God, gathering regularly for worship and the study of the Word, and turned outward to the world in witness.”
Questions to Consider:
- What do you think Julien meant by “If the form or cultural expression of the church becomes our reference point, adapting to different cultural situations will create tension”? Can you give an example of such tension?
- Do you agree or disagree with Julien’s definition of the local church?
- Have you and your church-planting team taken the time to agree on a biblical definition of the local church? f not, why not? How do you know you are all on the same page when you talk about church planting?
*Taken from Tom Julien, “The Essence of the Church,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly (April 1998): 148-149, 152.”
Photocopy original citation in Discovering Church Planting page 44
Photocopy original citation in Discovering Church Planting page 45
Kindle Version:
My Highlights from Leading Cross-Culturally by Sherwood Lingenfelter
One of the areas of great growth and learning for me since I’ve been with Encompass World Partners has been in cross-cultural relationships. One of the experts in that area, and former board member with Encompass is Sherwood Lingenfelter. I encountered his book Ministering Cross-Culturally and learned a lot!
I have poked around in Lingenfelter’s more recent book Leading Cross-Culturally primarily because of our implementation of coalitions which are an architecture for everyone everywhere to engage in mission! It will be best if multiple cultures are involved, and it will also be a stretching experience for everyone involved.
Last night I was transfixed by chapter 8 on “Power-Giving Leadership.” Lingenfelter walked through the sticky Paul, Philemon, Onesimus situation. What a beautiful example of Paul giving away his position and power and empowering Philemon to lead and be like Jesus. This study provides an excellent contribution to Biblical leadership!
Lingenfelter’s definition for the book: Leading cross-culturally, then, is inspiring people who come from two or more cultural traditions to participate with you (the leader or leadership team) in building a community of trust and then to follow you and be empowered by you to achieve a compelling vision of faith.
Below are a string of some of what I found to be the best quotes in my reading so far:
The most important part of empowering new leaders is to support them in the early stages when they need help and to release them as soon as they can walk in the ministry by themselves. Consider the analogy of a toddler learning to walk: as soon as the child takes steps alone, we encourage the child to keep going. Some people are very cautious about releasing young leaders; this is a serious mistake. To release is not to abandon but to let the young leader learn to walk. It is vitally important that we allow young leaders to take halting steps, allow them to stumble, even fall, and then, as mentors, encourage them to get up and try again. We can always support them and help lift them up after they have fallen. But they will never be successful leaders unless we release them to play the game, to do the work for which we have equipped them.
The focus of power-giving leadership is to follow Christ and, in so doing, to lead others to follow Christ. In the patterns of “normal” cultural life, our power and skills may produce leaders but probably won’t produce followers of Christ.
“Giving Philemon the freedom to choose is also a vision to grow (‘I know you’ll do even more than I ask’). Part of empowering leadership is to remind people of who they are and the way their (potential) actions are consistent with their identity in the Lord”
The power-seeking leader uses position and authority to exert mastery over others. In this situation, Paul used a letter to engage in a power exchange with Philemon. He had Onesimus in his custody, and he could have easily written a different letter that would have asserted Philemon’s obligations to him and induced Philemon to release Onesimus to Paul without ever letting Onesimus out of his sight. Paul understood that if he took that tactic, it would be a false path to acquire something that he desired. He would pervert the relationship that God had given him with Philemon, using his position as the senior brother in Christ to advance his own selfish interest. In doing this, Paul would have, in fact, undermined Philemon’s faith and the work of the grace of God in their relationship together.
Jesus must become the center of who we are…
To restore our human psyche and relationships to the will and purpose of God, Jesus must become the center of who we are and replace our quest for power. Only as we are motivated by the Holy Spirit and through the living Word of God can we relate to one another within the structures of human society to accomplish the purpose of God.
I will first argue that we must put Jesus “in the place of power as a proper source of healing and will”
The task and the routines of daily work always erode our mission and vision for the ministry. They also erode our spiritual values. The question is not whether our values are eroding; team values are always eroding. The question is, what are we doing as leaders to renew our sense of mission, to restore our vision, and to renew the values that are critical for multicultural teamwork? Our hope for effective leadership and ministries lies in aligning ourselves with the mission and work of God in a lost and broken world.
Leaders in particular must surrender their obsession to control and achieve, through worship at the cross.
While the process will be difficult, with periods of intense testing and struggle, building covenant community is a process of refocusing from doing what we want to being the people of God.
In the end the work of the kingdom depends on our obedience to the King. God cannot rule in people who are disobedient and in conflict with one another. God rules as we obey God and love one another.
Every leader who expects and hopes to be effective in leading cross-culturally must give repeated attention to the mission, the vision, and the values that are essential to kingdom work. Every team meeting should include some intentional renewal of mission, vision, and/or values. As soon as that component of the team is lost, the mission and the vision will be lost to the routines and the pressures of doing our daily work. Every case study that we have considered here has suffered because of a loss of mission, vision, and/or values among the people who were part of the multicultural team process.
Saying, “I was wrong,” is more powerful than saying “I’m sorry.”
One of my colleagues, Janice Strength, notes that saying “I was wrong” is far more powerful than saying “I am sorry.” She notes that we often push children to say “I am sorry” when they and we know they are not. To acknowledge “I was wrong” is to take responsibility for the action we have done.
I remind students in my classes that we are first emotional creatures and only secondarily rational. As we respond to crises or stressful situations in leadership, we rarely operate based on reason and rational processes. When things get tough, we first respond emotionally—frustration, anger, fear, disappointment, and betrayal. These emotions often get the best of us, leading us to seek power to protect ourselves, which in turn undermines the will and purpose of God.
I remember praying, “Please remove this person from leadership and give me someone else who can do the job more effectively.” God’s answer to this prayer was, “Absolutely no; don’t you understand my work?” I learned over a period of time that God loves weak people and that God intends leaders to work with the people whom God gives to them.
Strangers Next Door | Video by @JD_Payne
It’s Not Fair! by Paul Eshleman about Unreached, Unengaged People Groups
I had the privilege to interview Paul Eshleman, director of Finishing The Task last week. I got to ask him when God grabbed his heart about Unreached, Unengaged People Groups…you should listen int to what he says:
Podcast: This is Not Fair by PaulEshleman-Encompass (click link to open and play)
MP3: This is Not Fair by PaulEshleman-Encompass (click link to open and play)
(See also Paul’s Article on the Unreached)
My highlights from Western Christians in the Global Mission by Paul Borthwick
All of the following are direct quotes from the book by Paul Borthwick Western Christians in Global Mission: What’s the Role of the North American Church?
Miriam Adeney echoes the same call: “Our music and our worship must be multicultural, not simply because our society is multicultural, but because the future from which God is calling us is multicultural…. Not just so that those from other cultures may feel at home among us but also so that we may feel at home in God’s future.”
I believe that we in North America must take initiative in becoming more intentionally international and intercultural.Consider four actions: get to know the world, develop multicultural fellowships, view business as kingdom work and get connected to the global church.
“With two eyes and two ears and one mouth, try to observe and listen four times as much as you speak.”
…I have not yet heard any leader say, “Well, you really set the pace in teaching us how to be servants.” We in North America know how to be in control, but do we know how to follow the orders of those who will lead Christendom through this century?”
“For us in Africa, we think from a family paradigm. When we come together in partnership, it’s a partnership based on relationships (not tasks), and we stay partners for life.”
In a relational view of partnerships, I don’t need to have all the answers, all the money or all the ideas. We come together as family to chart the way forward. We need each other, as Andrew Walls suggests: “Crossing cultural frontiers constantly brings Christ into contact with new areas of human thought and experience. All of these, converted, become part of the functioning body of Christ. The full stature of Christ depends on all of them together.”
The greatest challenge in building effective partnerships between Westerners and non-Westerners is control.
Unfortunately, for the most part, the North American mission force talks a great game about partnership, but paternalism and colonial patterns still predominate. My sense is that the global church would love to partner but isn’t interested in the strings that are attached or the models of ministry we bring. Rather, they are looking for friends who model Christlike family…
“we who live middle-class lives in North America or Europe are living a lifestyle that is, materially speaking, “better than 99 percent of all the people who have ever lived in human history.”
On the one hand, we might raise and spend more money on short-term mission airline tickets than the annual budget of our host church; on the other, many in North America cannot grasp the reality of the poorer world without a firsthand visit. There is simply no substitute for going and visiting our Majority World coworkers in the kingdom where they live and serve.
The North American church must move
- from being primarily doers to primarily equippers
- from being in charge to being equal partners
- from ownership and control to “We own nothing, control nothing and count nothing as our own”
- from Western missionaries to global missionaries
- from unhealthy dependencies to indigenous self-sufficiency and the promotion of dignity
- from competition to cooperation (from an emphasis on “my” brand to a focus on “his” brand)•from agency-based missions to church-agency synergy
Faith in God is so important. Am I letting him direct my steps? Westerners (and I include myself here) are such driven people. We rely on statistics, we rely on technology, we rely on news and we rely on our experiences and gifts. But we are not always good at learning to wait on the will of God. I have learned and seen true faith in some of these leaders who are being persecuted and have nothing. They truly understand Paul when he writes, “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3:8).
It takes everyone to accomplish the mission, and the body is better because of that.
One of our slogans is this: “Building crosscultural relationships is easier if we accept the fact that 40 percent of the time we will have no idea what’s going on.”
The key issue, as we’ll see later under the topic of partnership, is building relational trust as we grow as a family. And just like a family, when one of us needs money, we might ask a brother or sister for help. But even if that brother or sister cannot respond, we’re still family!
Being in reciprocal relationship with brothers and sisters will force us to focus first on relationships rather than the creation of global strategies.
We need to learn to receive as well as give….we, the rich, go to help you, the poor, or that we, the educated, go to help you, the illiterate. We think that the word resource means money first and education second. Reciprocity teaches us that our brothers and sisters are rich in many other ways.
“Too often, we who go to serve on crosscultural short-term missions practice self-congratulatory servanthood. We live in the hut, eat the local food, endure the heat and use the squat toilet, all the time quietly congratulating ourselves on our willingness to serve.The irony is this: I might be feeling proud as I “sacrifice” my North American comforts to be with my Majority World family, but they don’t necessarily see me as a servant. They welcome me as a guest, but to them, I am just living the way they do all day every day, fifty-two weeks a year. I am not acting as a servant; I am simply a new member of their family.True servanthood is serving people in a way that they interpret as servanthood.”
Christian missionaries actually helped to preserve cultures and languages. According to Sanneh, rather than serving as a tool for Western cultural domination, the translation efforts of European and North American missionaries provoked: (1) vernacular revitalization: the preservation of specific cultures by preserving their language; (2) religious change: people were attracted to Christianity and a “God who speaks my language” over Islam, which is fundamentally not translatable; and (3) social transformation: the dignity associated with God speaking indigenous languages revitalized societies and laid the foundation for the eventual ousting of colonial powers.
…to grow as the global body of Christ characterized by
- interdependence rather than independence and individualism
- reciprocity, by which all members contribute to the benefit of the others (and all members realize that everyone else has something to offer)
- humility, equality and mutual respect, with a stress on honoring the less significant-seeming parts of the body
- learning and discovery together.
The common thread is this: God’s people, relying on God’s power and presence, go out and look for opportunities to share and demonstrate the love of Jesus to all peoples everywhere.
Jesus says to his followers “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you,” he affirms the same truth (Jn 20:21). We don’t need to ask if we are sent; Jesus says we are. What we need to ask is where and to whom.
In one respect, the big question is not “Where do we fit?” but “What is God doing?” Joining God in his global eternal mission is our first priority.
What’s the first small step of intentionality that you need to take to start expanding your global vision?
The common theme is this: intentionality. Without intentional efforts to build our diversity, we will find ourselves in isolated, monocultural churches and fellowship groups.
We in our peaceful North American surroundings often forget that sixty-five of the sixty-six books of the Bible were written either from or to a context of uncertainty, political violence, oppression, poverty, exile and military force.
Until the Western church can learn what it is like in the rest of the world, it can only be a spectator, not a participant.
Those of us who want to interact globally will have to suspend some of our theological judgments and listen to how someone from another land is hearing the Scriptures, experiencing the power of God or applying the Bible to daily life.
“Missions is now mutual exchange among multiple centers of influence and learning and resources traveling all directions, not only from here to there.”
Does the church in America have the humility to learn from us, or do they consider themselves to be the world’s teacher? Does the American church have the magnanimous spirit to work alongside us in genuine partnership that is based upon mutual respect and shared resources, or do they simply see us as their “partners” to fulfill their plans in our countries?
Even though the Western world has dominated Christianity for much of Christian history, Christianity is now primarily a nonwhite, non-Western, nonwealthy religion….Some estimate that 70 percent of the world’s Bible-believing Christians (as opposed to nominal or cultural Christians) now live in the Majority World.
5 Practical Ideas to Eat – Josh Reeves | @VergeNetwork
We often speak of living out our gospel identity in everyday rhythms of life (know the story, listen, bless, celebrate & suffer, eat, rest & work). In fact, much of what we do is not meant to add things to the schedule, but bring intentionality to the things we are already doing.
The following lists are a few practical examples of simple things you can begin doing to bring gospel intentionality to your schedule. Hopefully as you are reading through these examples it will spark ideas for your own life.
5 PRACTICAL IDEAS TO EAT
- Start a monthly dinner night at your house that has an open invitation for anyone that wants to to join and bring people.
- Find people in your church community who love cooking and get them to help others grow in their appreciation for fine food.
- Set a goal to have more meals with neighbors/coworkers than you are currently having. Talk it out with your MC and get advice one what is a good starting point.
- Make a schedule each month with the nights you want to host people for meals. Prayerfully consider who you will share a table with (neighbors/co-workers/MC family).
- Start a supper club with people in your neighborhood or network of relationships. Have each person in the club signup to host a night. Have the host share the recipe with the rest of the group when they come over. Spend time during the meal sharing things you are thankful for building in a rhythm of intentionality into your meals together.
CONSIDER – LEVITICUS 23, MATTHEW 6:11, 26:17-30, ACTS 2:46-47, ROMANS 12:13
Metaphors and the Church by Dave Guiles
Encompass World Partners director, Dave Guiles, has been doing some intriguing study and work on “Conceptual Metaphors” and how they play a significant part in developing concepts and behavior.
Dave’s research shows that real change takes place when we are successfully introduced to new metaphors. This is true because:
1) Metaphors organize the way we think,
2) Metaphors enable us to gain new insights,
3) Metaphors create identity, and,
4) Metaphors serve as a guide to future actions.
To help illustrate this important truth, Dave explored how the self-concept of the early church was formed through the introduction of three important conceptual metaphors:
THE CHURCH IS THE FAMILY OF GOD
THE CHURCH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST
THE CHURCH IS THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
“The success of the early Apostles in establishing churches in the diverse cultural soils of their world was directly related to their ability to lead new congregations into a clear understanding and acceptance of these metaphors. Because of their importance in revealing the true nature of the church, these can be referred to as ‘essence metaphors.”
Praying for the “New America”
On this eve of the “National Day of Prayer,” I wrote a little ditty for @LosAltosGrace and compelled folks to actually pray on this day… and even tried to create some white space to help it happen.
Then I was scrolling through my email and came across a forward article about our nation from a patriot in our @LosAltosGrace Church family. The title of the email article was “We Are Not Coming Back.” It caught my attention because it was written by a Rabbi…
It was written originally in the days following the 2012 Presidential Election (Read it on his blog here). It certainly talked about politics and was very insightful. The part that grabbed me was this paragraph:
Obama also knows that the electorate has changed – that whites will soon be a minority in America (they’re already a minority in California) and that the new immigrants to the US are primarily from the Third World and do not share the traditional American values that attracted immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a different world, and a different America . Obama is part of that different America , knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why he won.
The bigger question for me is not how the elections will go in this different and new America, but how can we see the Gospel and disciples of Jesus penetrate this different…and new America. This “new America” has long been rooted in our urban areas. I saw it for 8 years as I lived in downtown Columbus, Ohio. And now I’m living in one of the largest urban areas in the world…I’m still praying and wrestling with what is it gonna take?
This different or “new America” provides us with great challenges and opportunities for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let’s take our energy, prayers and creativity and leverage them toward seeing our Jesus draw many to Himself!
Many prayers in the next 24 hours will be made for “revival” and I’m in favor of that. But what about our prayers for the thousands of people in our country who have never had a “__vival”; that is a “first life with Christ”, been “born again” nor even known about Jesus. We must pray for these and for the church and Jesus’ disciples to sow the Good News!
We see the fields white for harvest. Isn’t that what we should see in this different and new America? God is bringing the world to us and let’s see Jesus bring the world to Himself through US.
The Story of His Glory by Steve Hawthorne
“The Bible is basically a story about God. When we turn to the Bible as a self-help book, we end up bored or frustrated with what seems to be a rambling collection of stories. What if the Bible is more about God than it is about us? How thrilling to discover that every element of scripture—the reports of events, the verses of distilled wisdom, the lyrical prophecies—converge in one central saga of one worthy Person.
“We’re used to the idea that the Bible is a true story. It’s so true that the story is still unfolding to this minute. We are used to hearing that the Bible is a love story. But we tend to see only one side of the love: how God loves people. If the main point of the Bible is that God is to be loved with heart, soul, mind and strength, perhaps it would be wise to read the entire story from God’s point of view. When we look at it all from God’s viewpoint, the grand love story finally makes sense: God is not just loving people. He is transforming them to become people who can fully love Him. God is drawing people as worshipers to offer freely to Him their love-inspired glory.
“God can be loved only when He is known. That’s why the story of the Bible is the story of God revealing Himself in order to draw to Himself obedient worship, or glory, from the nations. With God’s passionate love at the core, the Bible is truly the story of His glory.
“To trace the story of God as the Bible presents it, we need a grasp of three related ideas which define the story at every juncture… READ ON
Learning to Work in Team – Dare to Disagree: TED Talk
Most people instinctively avoid conflict, but as Margaret Heffernan shows us, good disagreement is central to progress. She illustrates (sometimes counterintuitively) how the best partners aren’t echo chambers — and how great research teams, relationships and businesses allow people to deeply disagree.
The former CEO of five businesses, Margaret Heffernan explores the all-too-human thought patterns — like conflict avoidance and selective blindness — that lead managers and organizations astray.