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Interaction/Review- Tony Jones' "The Teaching of The Twelve"

“The Didache is the most important book you've never read,” starts Tony Jones, in his latest book, The Teaching of the Twelve: Believing & Practicing the Primitive Christianity of the Ancient Didache Community.

And while Tony's examination of this ancient Christian manuscript is engaging and thoughtful, I just don't know if I'd go quite that far. I enjoyed reading this book- well-written, I think well-researched... but the main premise is something I find myself wanting to push back against somewhat.

The Didache, according to The Teaching of the Twelve, records "a primitive Christianity" of about the same era in which the synoptic Gospels were composed, and seemingly unfamiliar with the theology of the Apostle Paul. 

And in that, it's a helpful look at some of the rhythms of the early church. The question, of course, is what can/does that early Christianity mean for us today?

Tony attempts to answer that question as he examines the Didache, by also looking at a small, modern community of Christians who call themselves the Cymbrogi- a house church of sorts which includes Trucker Frank, a friend we've gotten to know from some of Tony's other works. 

The Cymbrogi take from the Didache a very praxis-oriented approach to their walk with Jesus. They are in search of that primitive Christianity that "emphasizes how you live."

Tony writes, "The Didache's vision of communal life in Christ is powerful and potentially transformative. For the Cymbrogi, the Didache's primitive rhythms of faith have changed them personally. Each one of them I've spoken to has professed that the raw, organic Christianity that they find in the Didache and now attempt to practice is exactly what they've been looking for all along." Tony continues, "The Didache offers something of an alternative to what many know of Christianity. The real power of the Didache is its ability to remind us of what is truly important in Christianity: showing the love of Jesus to the world."

Okay... Here's where I start to wonder. 

Kimball's Missional Misgivings...

Dan Kimball, a fellow OutofUr contributer, has earned my respect in a number of ways. 

First, as the pastor of a successful "church within a church" he had the guts to admit that ultimately, it doesn't work. New wine in old wineskins never does. 

Second, I appreciate the balance he has brought to the emerging church conversation. Yeah- he's on the more conservative end of the spectrum, and let's be honest- it's a needed voice. (Who speaks prophetically to people more conservatively-minded? Liberals. And who speaks prophetically to people who are more liberally minded? Conservatives. See?)

And lastly, he always sends me comforting Facebook messages when I get myself into little brouhaha's, like over Tony Jones's recent comments on Beliefnet re gay marriage (a Facebook interaction that took place during my recent blog hiatus)

His recent post on Ur asks some good questions of the Missional Church movement. 

I'm all in favor of good questions. And furthermore, I think Dan is asking the right ones (e.g. are people meeting Jesus in "missional" churches).

A couple of thoughts in response, though. 

Dan writes:

"We all agree with the theory of being a community of God that defines and organizes itself around the purpose of being an agent of God's mission in the world. But the missional conversation often goes a step further by dismissing the "attractional" model of church as ineffective. Some say that creating better programs, preaching, and worship services so people "come to us" isn't going to cut it anymore. But here's my dilemma—I see no evidence to verify this claim."

I both agree and disagree with Dan here. 

When I was in the middle of conversations and thinking that eventually led to me leaving a megachurch and beginning this pub church experiment, I said (and still believe) this wonderful piece of obviousness: the megachurch is great at reaching the people it's reaching. And it's awful at reaching the people it's not. 

Deep, huh?

To me the question isn't "Is the megachurch done?" Clearly, it's not. 

To me, the question has always been, is something else needed to reach those the megachurch isn't (and can't), those the traditional, smaller evangelical church (like 1st Baptist or 2nd Methodist) can't?

And the answer for me then and now is an emphatic yes. 

I pastor a growing church (something like 60% this year) of people for whom the attractional, large-scale production church was a dead end. Many of them even attempted to be part of a large-scale missional church here in town (that rhymes with Montego Bay) and found that though they appreciated the missional emphasis (as do I- I think we have a lot to learn from them), the size and difficulty of getting "in" precluded their participation. 

Many of our folks are either coming back to Christianity, just starting out (yes, we have people meeting Jesus @ Evergreen), or are, not to put too fine a point on it, half-way out the door giving it one last shot with us. I've heard from people in ALL of those places on the continuum that the attractional, program driven church, or even large church in general just wasn't attractive to them.

And that's the key to this whole discussion. 

There's a group of people for whom the megachurch works just fine. I LOVE that there are churches where those folks can find community and find Jesus. But let's be honest, there are people for whom those communities don't make sense, and an alternative is needed. 

Here's my contention (and no, I can't prove it- we'll just have to wait and see)- The numbers of people for whom the megachurch "works" is probably going to shrink over the next couple of decades. Mega Churches will continue to grow and be used by God, but those who intentionally make themselves smaller through strategies like multi-site will grow the most. More and more people will seek out medium sized communities (bigger than the house church or small (≤40) church but not as large as big (≥400) or mega-churches), recognizing that what they long for is community and it's just easier (though never easy) to create in smaller churches. I think when they want to hear Driscoll or (shudder) Ed Young Jr, or others they'll just hit the pod/vodcast. When they want production, they'll throw on a Hillsong or Crowder CD. For worship, a couple of guitars and vocals will suffice. 

But not just smaller communities, these people will seek out communities that point to and hold up Jesus, that encourage, prepare and launch people out into missional living (so no, I'm not predicting the renaissance of the millions of corner churches that can't seem to crack that particular code). They'll want communities that run lean (so not many building programs), take care of the poor, and focus on relationship and relational health. 

So while I appreciate Dan's pushback, I think it's a bit more complicated than what he's both depicted as the "missional" mindset and the way he's answering it. 

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe Osteen and Young Jr are on to something. 

But I doubt it :)

Okay- your turn- what do you think? 

80-20 and Organic church, pt 2

(pt 1 here)

For me, I'm finding great freedom in re-organizing how I do my people work. I'm coming to realize that for us to get to where I ultimately see us (one community spread out across the city, planting churches out of a base of 3-4 sites), we're going to need to not only grow past that 120 mark, but learn how to effectively develop and nurture leadership. The freedom has come, not in giving myself permission not to pastor/shepherd people, but in giving myself the freedom to refocus from spending 20% of my "people time" on leadership and 80% on very nice and very dependent people to focusing primarily on leadership, that is, spending 80% of my people time on those 20% who either do or will do (with a bit of investment) 80% of the work of ministry and 20% on the remaining 80% of people.

There's also freedom in the realization that really, 80% of the "results" I get in ministry come from 20% of my efforts. In other words, I'm doing a bunch of stuff that while yielding some results, in the bigger picture, don't yield much.

There's a lot I'm doing that I need  either to quit doing or give to someone else to do. Ferris' hypothesis is that with a little tweaking, one can earn 80% as much in 20% of the time. He proposes living a bit more cheaply/simply and "pocketing" the rest of the time with travel/vacations/side projects etc.

For the pastor, the idea isn't to work less (well, maybe for some it is- particularly those whose families have begun to have a hard time recognizing them), but rather to ask "What 20% of my effort yields most of my results?" and then "How can I restructure and reprioritize so as to spend most of my time doing that, and either stop doing or delegate the rest?"

Two dangers here. The first is that we would become completely mercenary with how we view people- and rather than seeing them as a shepherd does (occasionally leaving the ninety-nine for the one), we would view them as widgets who either produce or don't, and we would show them love and concern based solely on what they could do for us. May it never be. While I do need to reprioritize how I spend my time, and refer, delegate, etc. when people are in general need, even if I'm not personally moving to fill that need, I should make sure someone is. And occasionally, that someone is me. I think 20% of my people time needs to go to 80% of our folks, and since the very nice people don't need/want it, that leaves me with at least a couple spots on my dance card for some of those folks who always seem to need me and while not getting as much of me as they might want, nonetheless should still get something.

The other danger is that we'd see that vast number of people who are nice, but not really doing much in our church community as somehow spiritually immature or some kind of slacker. Now, that may be true in some cases. Maybe they really don't care much and are happy, in effect, to mooch spiritually off the hard work, sweat and sacrificial giving of others.

But I suspect that's not most people's issue.

What I'm coming to see is that many people are someone's 20%. That is, they may be in the 80% of folks in our community who don't make much happen, but that's probably not true in every area of their lives. Whether at work, in their extended family, in school or civic organizations, these folks are doing a lot that matters there. And that means they can't do it here.

I'm not sure what the solution is, or even if there is one. Maybe we encourage people to do seasons in their lives where they become more and then less involved. Maybe we  encourage people, rather than the usual church mode of ever-increasing involvement ("Something every night of the week!") to turn that around- get discipleship and training in missional living and then, as they grow, taper off involvement in church activities in favor of missional living in the larger community, with neighbors and non-Christian friends, seeking a good balance of time with people in the church who are Christ followers and time with people who aren't.

All in all, I'm still ardently set on organic ministry. I want to avoid doing the work of ministry that people should be doing for themselves, give them the freedom and responsibility to shape and form their community, and see more and more people live out their passions in advancing God's kingdom. I also still believe the staff-heavy, program-driven church is a failure and am happy to see churches like Willow Creek admit as much.

But somewhere between a laissez-faire, completely hands-off style of leadership and the visioneering, CEO, top-down style is a middle ground where the pastor is free to focus on developing leadership in a organic environment that encourages those 20% of folks who are ready, willing and able to work out their passions in terms of ministry, shape, guide and so own the ministry of the church. In this model, the pastor is a coach, who isn't calling all the plays, but who is, in a sense, recruiting the players- calling people to name their passions, encouraging them to live them out in and for the community, and resourcing them along the way.

80-20 and the Organic Church, pt 1

(Warning- thinking out loud post ahead. I may not believe everything here. Check back in a couple of months to see if it "sticks")

A couple of my ideals are in the process of dying. Well, not dying, exactly... but let's just say being reworked.

With a baseball bat.

For me, the promise of the non-programmatic, organic way of doing church was Legion. The death of the 80-20 principle (that organizational principle whereby 20% of the people usually end up doing 80% of the work). No more "programming" as a pastor.
Counseling, teaching... that was all I was going to have to do.

Yeah, right.

Two things have worked to shift my views here...
1. Passages in both The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and the Four-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris.
and
2. Reality.

It had been my hope in starting Evergreen to do church in such a way that the 80-20 thing got turned on its head. The picture in my mind was of a community where 80 of the people did about 100% of the work of ministry and the other 20 was comprised of new folks on a journey towards Jesus and just getting started, people recovering from significant hurt, or some other reason why we as a community would tell them "No- just rest right now. Don't feel like you have to do anything."

While I feel like we've been able to do that for those who needed it, and while a significant number of evergreeners (more than 20%, that's for sure) are working hard to see good things happen in our community, we're not really on track to turn that 80-20 thing upside down.

And that's okay.

The Dangers of Easter...

Our Easter gathering was good... Nothing really different or special in the gathering itself (other than that we did announcements at the end), just a good time of shaking off the sorrow of Good Friday and embracing the joy of the resurrection. We ended up having more people than we've ever had at a gathering, which was very cool, though it always surprises me when it happens (okay- it's a bit less surprising on Easter...)

But this weekend got me thinking... There are some dangers for the soul of a community surrounding Easter time.
And the soul of a pastor, I think.

I want us to be careful of how we think, talk and act around times like this last weekend.

Remember, Little Pastor- Easter is not a marketing opportunity. The resurrection of the Son of God is not an opportunity to pimp our programs or build our flock, even under the guise of "concern for lost". And it's not about me. (Please wait a minute while I repeat that a few times to myself... ) Heaven forbid we should ever do community in such a way that our main avenue for people coming to Christ is hearing the Gospel preached from the mouth of one person, rather than hearing the Gospel preached from the mouths (and lives) of the whole community. If, in your community, more people are becoming Christians on Sunday than during the rest of the week, I think you may have a problem.

Times like Easter and Christmas are dangerous for us in that we begin to see them as something different than what they really are for the life of a community. This is where the Christian calendar really helps, I think- focusing our communal life on the events of the life of Christ all year around, rather than seeing "two big outreach event Sundays!" every year in Christmas and Easter.

Yeah, a lot of people come to a Sunday service once or twice and year, and they are more likely to come on Easter than just about any other time than Christmas. And yes, the Holy Spirit is amazing, drawing people to Himself even through our goofy Easter pageants and songs (or, our smoke machines and laser shows, if that's your thing...).

The danger in giving in to the impulse to do something radically different and humongous big and special at these times is what we communicate both to our community and those we are inviting to become a part of our community. What we subtly communicate (and sometimes not so subtly) to our people is that their job is to invite people who are not in our churches to come on Sunday morning so that the Pastor and the drama team and the worship guy and the Holy Spirit can take a whack at them.

I know that's overstating, but believe me... I've been there. And that's what "event evangelism" communicates, I think. Further, it often (unintentionally) communicates that it's not the job of the average person to be introducing people to Jesus. Leave it to the pros with the degrees and the training and the gifts.

"You get 'em to church... we'll get 'em to Jesus!"

How disempowering is that for people?

I would much rather we both explicitly and implicitly communicate a model that looks more like befriending people, enfolding them into the rhythms of our lives, sharing the highs/lows and how our faith informs those with them, integrating them into home groups and movie nights and the big events of our lives... and how natural would it be after all that love and enfolding that they become a part of our community, even before they believe? And then... that they believe, having seen it lived and tested and the reality of a life of faith, as opposed to simply a special sunday morning where the band rocks extra hard and the pastor has a few more funny stories than normal?

Easter is dangerous for those of us who are trying to avoid an attractional model of church because the attractional model reaches its zenith... or maybe its nadir... every year at Easter as thousands of churches try to do "something special" in the hopes that their people will invite others to come and be bait-n-switched into a relationship with Jesus... and we, trying hard to do something a bit more simple and organic, are tempted to abandon the rhythms of our community in a misguided effort to "keep up."

Yeah... I said "bait 'n' switch" because that's what it is. More than simply communicate to our people that it's not their job, we communicate something to those we would love to see become part of our community... And it's not a positive message. In fact, if we're not careful, we could end up really disappointing some people. How?
By "offering" them less on subsequent visits. Less pizzazz... less oomph. I'd be kind of pissed off if the first week I went was Cirque Du Soleil and the next week was Phil and Ted's Bargain Rate Circus, you know?

I was super impressed to see another church planter dial it down a bit this year after hearing the disappointment of some people who came to Easter services last year and when coming back the next week were faced with a completely different (and less exciting) offering.

Look, I'm not saying we shouldn't take advantage of increased visitor attendance and preach the Gospel and hope that God does something amazing in people's lives...

I'm just saying that if that's your strategy- wait for someone to wander within range of your Gospel cannons and then fire on them in hopes of scoring a hit, or worse yet, doing some cool things in the hopes that they might be lured within range, then I think there a better way. Less defined, less able to be controlled by the pastors, less able to brag about at pastor's conferences or have a book written about it... but better. People loving people into your community and into relationship with Jesus.

It doesn't take mailers, banners, and Cirque Du Soleil every week. Just a bunch of loving, welcoming Christ followers. People who genuinely care. People who are seeking relationships with other people, and sharing life with them. A competent all-community gathering where things work well so as not to be a distraction from what God wants to do that morning, sure... but less of a focus on Sunday mornings as the center of community and more of a focus on the community and its revolving around Jesus Himself.

I remain convinced that what we win people with, we win them to.

update: Andrew Seely has some good and similar thoughts here

Good stuff on Organic Church from Drew

Drew, from Vox Church in Louisiana has some excellent thoughts on organic church... he writes about churches whose leadership initiate ministries and gather other people around them to keep them going:

What it has ended up promoting is churches whose leadership create and do ministry and their members get involved with it. Pretty soon, a consumer-mentality is born within the church members and they're waiting for the next leader to do something they like so they can jump on it.

For the sake of labels, we'll call these "staff-initiated" churches and no, they're not the devil. However, they are operating in the a Christian Church tradition in need of reform. For the sake of argument, not every church totally fits in this category, but down here, I believe most churches do this most of the time.

"Staff-Initiated" EXAMPLE: If elder Drew is leading a staff-initiated church, he and his staff would lay out the five-fold purposes of the Church and decide how their church will follow that. They would cook up some cool ministries with cool names and invite people to join them. The staff stays in control of the expression of the mission and vision of the church. If a church member decides to start their own ministry with their own expression, the staff-initiated church staff would either not allow it, or try to control it to fit into the church-established expression.

The glaring problem is that God has called us all to live out and preach the gospel and He's given us specific ways to accomplishing it... To reform their own role, our churches' leadership should reflect God's calling on each person and their need to express it. By helping each person investigate God's calling on their life and encouraging them to follow it in their own way, the consumer mentality can be slowly wiped away from our churches. Christians can have a fuller understanding of their calling to be ministers of the gospel [1 Peter 2].

"Organic" EXAMPLE: Elder Drew and his staff wouldn't decide how their Church will be obedient to Christ. They would make it their job to encourage each of their church members to follow God's dream in any way He has called them. This is "organic" church where the expression is determined by those ministering. If a church member decided to start their own ministry with their own expression, the organic church staff would rejoice with them. In fact, the whole church would also have a role in encouraging and loving them in their endeavor. There's no power struggle because that specific power is already given away.

In organic church, leadership still has its Biblical place, but that place is a little more weighted toward servanthood than before, and calls for a relinquishing of style preferences. The hope is that as people begin answering God's call toward ministry, leadership could guide and give some structure as needed along the way. As an elder, I can tell you that is has been the biggest struggle for me with Vox Church and I haven't been entirely good at it.

In organic church, the church still has its Biblical place because it's not a to-each-their-own mindset. Many times God calls different people to the same ministry. The church would still function as a body- encouraging, sharing life with, teaching, confessing to, and correcting each other.

I write these things so that we can begin to have a different picture of our churches and of the Church. In particular, we can each understand our own role as ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When that begins to happen more and more, we will see the gospel lived out and preached in a way that pleases God.

church planting program?

I got an email awhile back from an old friend in response to an article I had done in our weekly email about desiring multiplication (planting other missional communities) for evergreen rather than just addition (getting bigger and bigger ourselves). His email said:

Bob, I always enjoy your writing and work.

However, in reading your most recent newsletter about missional = multiplication.... it kind of smells funny. What you are really saying is that a missional church really sets up a program and a value of planting churches...which is a PROGRAM no matter how you spell it or call it. Isn't it. What I find interesting about this movement is that it is really much of the same thing but trying so hard not to use old words. Believe me, to plant a church, whether you call it missional or whatever, is following a certain "way" of doing things which then is really a program.... right?

Well, not quite... but if so, okay :)

Here's what I mean-
When we say we are pursuing organic, non-progammatic ministry, it doesn't mean we are anti-structure or that there will never be anything at evergreen that resembles a "program." One of the things we mean by "organic" is this: Programs we have will be the result of ministry, not the means. In other words... structure is a result of needing to help and encourage and systematize something that's already happening, and just needs to have help to happen better. What we don't want to do is to become programmatic in the sense that we start with nothing happening and assume that if we draw up a plan, get a cool logo and name, put something on the calendar and buy the handbook from the megachurch that did it and saw thousands increase their giving... well, then we've got ministry!
We'll have programs at evergreen (someday!), but they'll be started by people who just want to expand what they are doing in ministry to allow others to participate with them... not by staff who see starting programs as their raison d'etre (that's an unfair characterization, I know... but there's some truth there).

In terms of church planting... we don't have a program, we have a strategy (or at least some hopes and dreams... does that count as "strategy?"). Saying that we want to multiply rather than simply add isn't programmatic in the least- it's a philosophical commitment to growing constantly, but remaining at a manageable, sane size for our community.

Programmatic church planting exists, believe me... and we're trying to stay away from that. There's no "package" plan for church plants out of evergeen (Do it this way and get results! Or even "Do it OUR way and get to put our logo on your website!"). I think it's just us saying "It seems right to us and (we hope and pray) to the Holy Spirit to send some of us out to start something new." And those new things will have an amazing amount of freedom to organically be and become whatever it is they need to be and become as they, as a community, listen to God and follow His leading. That's why we started (and are still trying to start) nextChurch- to encourage church planting by encouraging church planters... and one of the most discouraging things for church planters is to tell them how it must be done.

Okay- I'm not sure if I really answered your question. I think I need more coffee before really clear thinking/writing becomes a possiblity, but there you have it. Feel free to ask for clarification or tell me how off base I am :)

The unspoken Issue with Christmas on Sundays

So, here's my two cents (and plug for my personal ecclesiology/church philosophy!) on the big bru-ha-ha over churches cancelling their gatherings on Sundays.

(Full disclosure- we meet in a rented facility that is pretty much unavailable for us on days like Christmas. So, we're meeting Christmas Eve, 10:30pm-12:01 am... if it was available to us, we'd settle the matter as a community, though I'd probably be pushing for us to meet)

I'm just going to say it... It seems as though the real problem here, that no one will say out loud, is that churches have gotten too dang big and too dang complicated.

Once upon a time, having church on Christmas meant someone unlocking the door, turning on the heat and picking a couple of carols for the accompianist to play as the people sang. We could have a morning together as a family, worship together as a community, and go home for a beautiful Christmas dinner.

Nowadays, it's a little more involved.

There are a lot of unintended consequences to big church. One which the current debate serves to highlight is the fact that big church unwittingly pits church VS family. This is true in a lot of areas, but let's focus on Christmas...

Why aewn't many having a church gathering on Christmas? Because the hours and the work and the volunteers it takes to carry off the average mega church service, not once but twice or even three or four times for many congregations is untenable in the face of times like Christmas. Our productions have gotten so involved, so detailed and labor intensive (not to mention the fact that the average church Christmas play/production just about kills everyone involved) that most churches would rather take the "hit" of cancelling for a Sunday rather than trying to round up the volunteers to make it all happen.

C'mon and admit it- there are a lot of good defenses and apologetics for the mega church- it's not all bad, but the real reason you can't have church on Christmas is because the production just got too big, and the volunteers would rebel at having to "work" Christmas.

Am I wrong?

Another good reason to grow continually but stay relatively small and simple through church planting!

Okay... stepping off soapbox, sorry for the confrontational tone!!

unity!

Dave Asked:

hey bob.
wouldn't the ideal be for all churches to share the same vision (but not necessarily the same methedology to accomplish it) and for all churches to be working in concert?

obviously, that won't happen... but it would be ideal wouldn't it?

or why not?

Dave-

I think that would be great. It freaks me out that even the common vision of "Share Christ with people" isn't universally seen in all churches...

What I see though is that churches like Evergreen, churches like Seacoast, churches like Saddleback and Willow all share a common Vision (with a capital "V")- we want to introduce people to Jesus, love the world the way God does and be healthy communities where people grow into maturity.

I think that between the "Unless you do it exactly like me, you aren't a real church" and "Hey! Whatever!" lies the third option of, "As mature adults, let's discuss what's best long term for the health and soul of the Church that is within our sphere of influence."

Part of the challenge of the emerging church to American Christianity has been that we have said- Look, we know you've gotten great results by seeker sensitive and savvy marketing models... but we're not sure that long term, marrying Christianity to the American marketing machine is necessarily the best thing.

That kind of criticism, though hard to hear, is valuable, I think. If we can avoid the extremes of "Rick Warren is the Anti-Christ!" and also avoid rubber stamping whatever might be the Next Big Thing, we might be able to have some good, rational discourse on what best leads to maturing bodies and reaches people for Christ... which will no doubt entail a good number of models, but not anything and everything that people may come up with...

I think.

But that's not really what you are asking... dang it. Self-applied tangent.

Yeah- it would be great for more churches to share and recognize that shared vision. I think then you'd see more dead and dying congregations handing off their property to newer, vital communitues. You'd see more of us working together despite our theological differences...
You'd see what Jesus talked about in John 17!

The word that will replace "emerging"

What's the word that will replace "emerging"?

Organic.

I'll be both happy and sad to see this happen.

I'll be happy because I've long felt that "emerging" needed an upgrade. It just doesn't say much, does it? It's rather non-descriptive, that is, it says nothing about what it's meant to describe, how an "emerging" church functions, believes, etc.
Organic is descriptive... it gets to the heart of how and why we do things (or don't do them, as the case may be). "Missional" is even better, and though our Australian brothers like Michael Frost see what they are doing as being Missional Church and see the Missional and Emerging church movements as "kissing cousins" and really separate though related impulses, I tend to think "organic" will catch on here. It's more marketable... which is also the reason I'll be sad to see this happen. The American marketing machine will swoop in, grab hold of "organic" and within a year or two make it as absolutely meaningless as "premium" is now. (Andrew and I talked a bit about this when he was here...)

But I'm also happy because I believe in "organic" church much more than "emerging."

In fact, someone recently asked me about writing a book on organic church, something I've thought a bit about in the last year...

There are a couple reasons this hasn't happened.

The first is simply time. Between being a new husband, a new dad and planting a church (I even tried starting a doctorate last Fall...), the idea of writing a book has been perpetually on the back burner. My attention span is perfectly suited to blog articles and writing for ezines. I seriously doubt I'd be able to sustain focus long enough to complete a book (of course, I better get that sorted out if I ever want to finish a doctorate).

The second reason I haven't done this is that I really don't know yet whether or not it "works." When I describe the ideas that have gone into evergreen and how they are taking shape, people often ask how it's going. I generally tell them to ask me again in ten or so years.
The reason why we have chosen to pursue an organic strategy is more about long term health than short-term results. If it was the short term I was interested in, we'd just set up a Rock n Roll Worship Circus and as long as it was better than the one at the church down the block, I imagine we'd grow.

But I believe, and have gambled on the fact that refusing to do for people the ministry they should do for themselves, allowing the community to organize and structure itself according to its gifts and passions rather than according to my plan or that of some mega church pastor, creatively using the tension of our "not yet-ness" rather than rushing to fix it myself, and teaching the Scriptures but depending on the people to flesh it out in community will be healthier for our community in the long term and will lead to a more mature, less consumeristic group of Christ followers.
But I could be wrong. I really won't know for a long while...

The third reason I'm doubting the whole book thing right now is that it seems like other people are already writing the book I had in mind. There's Neal Cole's Organic Church and now, next year, Joe Meyer's Organic Community. I'm sure the first is great (I don't have it yet, but from what I've seen in reviews and such, many of our ideas are the same) and that Joe Meyer's book will be great as well- I loved "The Search To Belong." But as I said, more marketable... :)

So... with my short attention span, my too-full life (baby number two on the way now!), and other people beating me to the punch, will we ever see "Letters from the Organic Church"?

I guess we'll see...

But I'm sure we'll be seeing more of the word "organic", regardless.

(HT to Pam for bringing this up to me again!)

evergreen on the cutting edge...

Andrew Jones in a discussion of Web 2.0 leads into thoughts of emerging church 2.0 with:

Emerging Church 2.0 might be those emerging churches that are shaped by new media values rather than old media. They write blog posts rather than articles, PDFs rather than books, start churches without buildings, and lack a vertically hierarchical leadership structure. Hierarchy is modular and dynamic, rather than vertical and static. Any thoughts out there on this subject?

Rock on... That's mostly us. Good to know we're on the cutting edge in some way :)

preaching @ evergreen

I guess we'll be talking preaching here at the ol' bob.blog for a little while. I began it this weekend with The Ballad of the Cowardly Preacher... and while I thought I had blogged on our way of doing sundays before, I guess I haven't... or at least I can't find it, so...


The Word of God is central to what we do on Sundays. It's in and through and over the whole thing. Yes, we try to communicate in such a way as to make sense to everyone- church, unchurched, formerly churched... But that doesn't mean we cherry pick it or seeker sensitive it...

A typical morning goes like this:

A welcome by someone (often me, though I'm trying to get more people to do this- other voices are good), wherein we talk about an aspect of the community- one of our core values or something we are trying to do or be. I think this is important as it not only orients the newer folks, but reminds the old hands.

We'll have a few moments of quiet, centering prayer... often accompanied by a reading (usually the whole group, in unison) of a Psalm.

After that, the fun begins.

We generally take passages in large chunks- either whole chapters or half chapters. It's pretty rare (and usually done for contrast) that we do just a couple of verses.

We work verse by verse through the whole passage. And we talk alot. For us, the sermon is (at least this is the ideal) the work of the community. We are teaching each other. Yes, as the "Teacher" I have a role- I keep it on track. I emphasize the correct points, correct the wildly wrong points (if no one else does... often the people do this themselves, lovingly and gently) and move things along when someone says something just kind of odd. I do the majority of the speaking, but I do my darndest to get others talking to each other as well. In this way, as a community, we wrestle with the Scriptures.

It works like this for me: I tend to think of the sermon in thirds. In the first third, it's difficult to get people talking, so we begin with review or intro, orienting ourselves to where we are in the text that day. A few, easier, more closed-ended questions to get people into opening their mouths. (Newer folks really can't believe they are allowed, nay encouraged to talk in church!) The first third ends up being a pretty even balance of me and them.

The second third, I try to bring out more of the them... open ended questions, examples of where they've dealt with or struggled with the subject matter of the text, what they think about any hard, interpretive issues... The second third is less me, more them.

The last third is almost all me. This is where I get on my horse and go... where I preach. I try to get at what I've heard God saying to our community through the week, as we've discussed, as I've studied... I tend, by body language, to discourage too much talking here, as we're usually getting towards the end of our time.

It takes us the whole morning, from right after the welcome to the closing blessing to get through this process.

So where's the worship, you ask?

What a silly question. It's all worship, isn't it?

If you mean, where's the singing though, that's a different story. We don't do the start-off-with-an-upbeat-get-'em-out-of-their-seats type thing... most of our music tends towards the quieter, more contemplative. And we sprinkle it throughout the morning. We'll work through the text until we come to a point where I know "We better stop and respond to God on this, or we're gonna miss it." We may do that once in the morning, at the end or in the middle.. or we may do it two or three times throughout... it just depends.

We really ant the community to be involved, beyond just Sunday morning as well... I try to post the week's passage on our forum during the week before, so people can meditate, process, ask questions, give insights... It's still a discipline we're learning as a community. Yes, I may be "the Teacher" of the community, but it doesn't mean I'm the only one. We teach each other. And while I give the elders and others a chance at the pulpit...err... music stand often, this method allows them to teach the community- through their example of participation, through the discussion on the forum, through commenst and questions in the group on Sundays.

It's not perfect- I did have to learn new skills in facilitating discussion (read: keeping things on track, keeping comments short, handling the very rare fly ball from left field...), and I had to learn how to say less so that others could say more.
I used to walk into the pulpit with four to five pages. Now it's three.

And yeah- I manuscript. It keeps me on track, and it keeps me on time. If I tried to do this without a manuscript, we'd be an hour over every week. I don't know where Mark Driscoll finds people willing to sit through an hour and forty minute sermon, but sheee-ooot... I just don't have that much to say :)

Anyway... more on this jive later. I just wanted to give some background as to where we are at as a community before diving into Doug's books.

For our non-evergreen readers... I'm wondering if any evergreenies or people who have visited would care to comment on our sunday mornings- good, bad, indifferent. Does it work? Props? Shortcomings? What think ye all?

and let's just lay it out...

Let's put it out there... when you choose to plant churches rather than simply getting larger and larger, when you choose 10 churches of 200 rather than 1 church of 2000, what are you really giving up?

Resources?

I think that 10 churches of 200 can resource the same ministry that one of 2000 can, if they stay relationally connected and work together. And, I believe they can do so with lower overhead. In fact, I'm betting on it.

I think what you really give up is power. Power and influence.


Would I love to sit atop a muti-million dollar organization? In many ways, yes.

But.

But, but, but...

That's not the goal.

And in fact, as I read the Gospel, choosing to cede power and influence in favor of relational connectedness just might be a more (careful here) kingdom-oriented choice.

Yes, I am glad to see certain mega-church pastors using their influence for the poor and the oppressed.

But.

It seems as if the church as a whole began speaking on certain things rather than relying on celebrity voices to inspire and move and make things happen... When we as pastors step back and refuse to do for the people what they should do for themselves, interesting things happen.

No, I'll never be in Time Magazine as an Influential Evangelical™. The mayor will never phone up for an opinion.

But anyone in my church community can get on my calendar if they need to. My cell phone # is not a closely guarded secret. My sermons can be formed and shaped and influenced by what actual people in our community are dealing with. I know people's names. They know me. By intentionally choosing to remain small through church planting, I get to be their pastor.

And if I have to give up the powerand influence that comes with numbers to see that happen, well then, so be it. It's a choice I gladly make.


Sorry for the stream-of-consciousness ramblings. It's monday. :)

size matters...

I'm sure I've blogged on this before, but...

Another pastor once said a few things to me on the issue of size.

1st he said, "Don't make a moral issue of (church) size."

But I can't help it.

If it's not a moral issue, what is it?

Is it moral for a church to spend $55 million a year on their TV ministry? Close to $90 million to renovate a sports arena to house an out-sized congregation? At a certain point it simply becomes how many people can you fit into a room.

Alright- I have no idea of the hearts and motivations of those doing this stuff, so I can only tell you how we have chosen to do things.

From the beginning, we put a limit of the number of people we would have in our community. After that, it's just planting churches. And planting churches. And planting churches.

I hope we will always be growing, but the fact is, when you get over a certain size, the pastor is no longer pastor. I suppose you could call the head of a huge, corporate sheep farm a "shepherd." But if he or she spends all day in the office looking at numbers and talking "strategy", never works with actual sheep, in fact has fifteen layers of managment between himself/herself and the sheep... I just don't think that person should be called a shepherd.

So, if I want to do that which God has called me to do (pastor), then I must, out of necessity, limit the number of people I'm trying to shepherd. I know, I know, there are ways to "make a church smaller" even as it gets larger... I'm just not sure if I buy that anymore. And beyond just me personally being able to know the people in my care, even more importantly is the issue of the community being small enough that people can know, love and care for each other.

Can that happen in a huge church? Sure.

Is it harder? You bet.

Should we avoid making it harder if we can? I think we should.

So, we've said- at 200 we better be ready to plant a church. When we hit 250, we better be ready to send 50 of them off with their own pastor, worship pastor/team, etc. And then we do it again. And again.

Multiplication.


2nd, that pastor that was telling me a thing or two said: "The way to avoid 'selling out' is to do the things when you get larger that you did when you were small."

The things we are doing now involve individualized approaches to spiritual formation, dialogue and discussion on Sunday mornings, and a non-programmatic approch to ministry.

I just don't know how we'll do any of that over a certain size.


So, I'll take the second half of the advice, even if I can't take the first.

I'm not saying that everyone should see it the way we do, or do it the way we have chosen to.

But if you approach growth unthinkingly... if your strategy for growth is simply "bigger is better!" I would urge you to spend some time thinking, praying about and discussing this with your community.

Ask youself:

Do we want to plant churches and multiply?

At what size can we no longer do the things we are now doing that make this community special and engaging?

At what point do we lose the ability to move, react, change course simply because our size has gotten too large to allow for fluidity?

At what point are we spending more of our resources on maintanence and upkeep than on being missional?

pastor as protector in the organic church

Since the issues of the role of pastor in protecting and teaching have been weighing heavily on my psyche lately, I thought it might be good to take some time and think those issues through, particularly in regard to the organic church milieu.

I know what "protecting the flock" looked like in my past. It involved separating out those who didn't toe the doctrinal line, regardless of how secondary or tertiary the issue was. It generally involved shooting the wounded. It was about drawing in and out, lines and boxes...

In this new emerging church context, where we are attempting to do church organically, what does that look like?

I know for us, as we have progressed as a community, we have tried to see things (particularly the community itself) less as a bounded set (you are either in or out) and more as a centered set (you are either moving closer to the center, which is Christ, or you are moving farther and farther away).

We have attempted to define little doctrinally other than the essentials of the faith- creedal Christian orthodoxy is important to us. Your stand on the end times is not.Having an opinion on secondary and tertiary matters where there is a wide range of Christian thought is fine. Insisting that everyone else share it is not.

We have made room for people to ask questions and process issues without being handed prepackaged answers. We have tried to recognize that asking another question in return, helping someone to take the next step towards discovering the answer on their own may, in the long run, end up being more valuable than simply handing them the answer.

So, what place "protecting the flock?" With all this room for dissent and doubt, where does Paul's admonition (there's a great church word!) to "...beware! Be sure that you feed and shepherd God's flock--his church, purchased with his blood--over whom the Holy Spirit has appointed you as elders," come in? He says further, "I know full well that false teachers, like vicious wolves, will come in among you after I leave, not sparing the flock."

A few observations...
i think multiple metaphors are allowed. I like the biblical metaphor of shepherd. One I've been playing with in my mind a bit is pastor as gardener (e.g. 1 Cor 3:5-9)

If the church is an organic garden, if we do our job well, things will grow. The growth is not dependent on us as pastor/gardener, but rather, through our actions we either help or hurt. The growth comes from God.

The organic nature of it is that we realize the best way to let things grow is to let them take the shape they will take and grow at the rate they will grow. We recognize that the introduction of foreign elements (in the form of programs nurtured and developed in settings wildly different than our own) may not be the most helpful thing for us in the long run. We resist the temptation to (artificially) accelerate growth or control it. We plant, we water... we wait.

But what about weeds? What about pests?

It seems as though one of the principles of organic gardening is that doing too much is just as bad as doing too little. When pests arise, you do something... but you resist measures which may hurt as much as they help (pesticides, for example). The plant is useless if, though pest-free, it becomes poison.

I've seen some churches that become ruthlessly concerned about "pests" and become very poison in the process...

Add to this Jesus' words in Matthew 13: "Here is another story Jesus told: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as everyone slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. The farmer's servants came and told him, `Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds!'
    " `An enemy has done it!' the farmer exclaimed.
   " `Shall we pull out the weeds?' they asked.
    "He replied, `No, you'll hurt the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds and burn them and to put the wheat in the barn.' "

Jesus went on to give an eschatological meaning to this parable, so we don't want to take it too far...

But I guess I am beginning to synthesize all this in this way:
As one of those entrusted with tending this particular garden, I want to
1. be aware of and be constantly assessing the health of the garden. Does it need more water? More sun? What is out of balance that needs to be adjusted? And is there a healthy, organic way to accomplish that balance?
2. I want to avoid overly harsh measures which may seem to help in the short run, but in the long run damage the health of the whole system.
3. There's a difference between weeds and wolves.


gotta do more work on sermon/hit a couple of meetings right now. Anyone want to comment on the difference between weeds and wolves? :)

Am I getting totally off base here?

organic church pt 2

But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. Those who spoke Greek complained against those who spoke Hebrew, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve called a meeting of all the believers.
"We apostles should spend our time preaching and teaching the word of God, not administering a food program," they said. "Now look around among yourselves, brothers, and select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. We will put them in charge of this business. Then we can spend our time in prayer and preaching and teaching the word."- Acts 6:1-4

Over the next few weeks, in this space we're going to be laying out some thoughts on doing church organically.

One of the things that doing church organically means is this: the pastor(s) focus on what God has called them to do (pray, teach, counsel) while allowing the people to focus on what God has called them to do. The question, of course, is "What has God called us to do?"

This is the challenge- has God called us to meet the needs of the poor? Then who is our community will step up and do this? Has God called us to meet the spiritual and emotional needs of the children among us? Then who in our community will step up and do this?

I love that the very first pastors of the church left us this example: Do you want to see something happen? Then have at it!

In the garden that is the organic church, the leaders are the gardeners, watering, pruning, tending... the "fruit" comes from the people themselves. The leaders recognize that too much water, just as too little can kill a plant. Finding the right balance is a challenge...

I love that we have people who are stepping up and taking our community into AIDS hospices, to the homeless teens of Portland, into building a house for needy families. Thank you all for taking it upon yourself to live out our core value of justice!

Some areas where our community needs to consider the next step-
Kid's ministry. Right now, by and large, the people involved in kid's ministry are parents. Do we as a community want to allow this to continue? Or do we want to give these parents a little break, love, serve and teach the kids in our community even if we ourselves don't have any kids? If so, we probably need someone to put some structure in place- someone with organizational skills. You could help put volunteers in place even if you are not a "kids" person... think and pray about doing this...

Welcome coffees... have you noticed
a. a ton of new people
b. a lack of "welcome classes"?
The reason you don't see these classes is because... we don't have them. We (we made this decision together, and we can change it if we like) decided to go the more personal route of one-on-one coffees to welcome people and orient them to the community.
We need more people helping to make this happen. Please talk to Chris to find out more about helping.

I am so thankful for those of you helping to make the dream of evergreen a reality. Please continue to dig in and discover what God is asking us to do... and doing it!

organic church

I'm hoping to write a book this year on the organic church... as a step in that direction, I want to begin sussing out the concepts in our weekly email and in this space. Feel free to help shape the project by commenting questioning or just plain cheering :)

Entry one, containing no major revelations is this:

Over the next few weeks, in this space we're going to be laying out some thoughts on doing church organically.

No, we're not talking about a church with only natural ingredients, though that's a really good metaphor now that I think about it...
When we say "organic church" what we mean is this: we want our community to be an expression of who we are as a people, not a program we "borrow" from another church in another context. Though we share much in common with followers of Christ all around the world, our search for relationship with God is just that, our search. And it behooves us to express that in what we do as a church community.
So, while we want to respect those who have come before us ("history" is one of our core values, after all...), sometimes you really do have to reinvent the wheel.
When we were still in the dream phase of this thing people would ask "What will it look like?" I grew to love answering "I have no earthly idea." All I could say was that if a bunch of cloggers and bluegrass musicians showed up, well... we'd be the clogging church. If a bunch of skate punks showed up, we'd be the skate church. I wasn't out to niche target-market our community, and so felt great freedom to just sit back and watch what happened. I still feel that freedom...
This means- as a community, we have both the privilege and the responsibility to shape this community. More and more, we are singing our own songs. More and more, the art on our walls comes from our own artists. If we have a children's ministry, we won't be buying it pre-packaged from a large church somewhere, not that there's anything wrong with that... but the fact is, when we create it, we'll own it emotionally.

What we make, we nurture. What we buy, we merely consume.

While we may take inspiration and ideas from others, we have the freedom to make this church thing a unique expression of our search for God and our relationship with one another.
You just need to ask yourself- What's my contribution to what evergreen is becoming?

bearing witness...

So... I want to bear witness this morning.

It can be done.

You can do church without people tearing each other apart.

You can hear what God is saying and listen to one another as well... and perhaps even hear God through one another.

You can plant a church without a big chunk of dough.

You can have elders who love one another and love people and love hanging out with one another and whose meetings are not 4 hours of nails-on-chalkboard torture, but are actually fun times of talking about what's best for the community, what they hear people saying and desiring and how those two things go together really, really well.

You don't need a denomination, but you can connect with other churches in friendships and cooperation. It doesn't have to be competition.

You can do church and be a pastor without it killing you.

It can actually feed your soul.

But you might have to change some things...

I bear witness.