Will Mancini

Neue is a new quarterly journal by Relevant Media that just rereleased with a more readable magazine format and leadership savvy content. The tagline is “Ideas Shaping the Future of the Church.”  A very short article by Scot McKnight (his blog) was a particular jewel in this new issue. It doesn’t look like the content will be online anytime soon. Here are my highlights for the article Copycat Church:

In summary, Scot concisely and articulately connects the problem of copying methods and programs from other churches to a defining observation he has made in his career as a theologian and biblical scholar. He calls it his most important discovery of the last decade. In his own words:

For me the most important discovery in the last decade, of biblical and theological studies was two-fold: First, I realized that Jesus’s language was not sacrosanct for Paul and Peter and others.

 Second, I realized they were doing exactly what Jesus was doing. That is, Jesus wasn’t “imitating” anyone when he articulated the movement of God in terms of “Kingdom of God.”  He didn’t find this in Moses, or David, or Isaiah and restore it to its proper place, and the early Christian apostles didn’t “imitate” Jesus by expressing the Gospel with “Kingdom of God.”

The thrust of this article, carries the heartbeat of the ministry of Auxano and the book Church Unique: Every local congregation should think through their local context and their particular calling from God. And when they do, the articulation of their identity and direction will be stunningly  unique!  Scot’s emphasis is that even the inspired biblical authors didn’t copy each others words. Therefore, and even though we have the foundational revelation of Scripture, the Holy Spirit still creates new articulation of the Gospel through his people for different places and times. Here are some quotes from the article. 

• Imitation has its place, but one thing imitation doesn’t promise is results. Unfortunately a lot of church leaders don’t get that fact.
  
•  You can’t imitate Spirit-empowerment. You either have it or you don’t.
  
•  There is one thing that’s clear: There is no movement of God apart from God’s empowering Spirit.
  
•  The New Testament suggests that Spirit-empowered movements articulate the Gospel for a particular context for that day.
  
•  Spirit, context, Gospel, word. Those are the elements of a genuine movement of God.
  
•  The apostolic witness is the foundation of the Spirit-shaped truth of the Gospel. However, this does not mean that we simply puppet, or imitate the words of Jesus or Paul- for the New Testament does not do that itself.
  
•  What we need is less imitation and more discernment through God’s Spirit.

I am working with a small group of church consultants and thought leaders from different disciplines to integrate learnings from “movement phenomenology” into how we think and help the local church. The group is called “Future Travelers” and Alan Hirsch is leading our process. 

Below are links to other encounters I have had with Alan and some new nuggets from today:

• Alan’s primary thesis: Every believer contains within themselves the potential for world transformation.
• Our goal is that every believer is a church planter and every church a church planting church
• Are we in the “people of God mode” or “professional mode?”
• How can you improve on Jesus’ plan of discipleship? He said, “Die.”
• If we don’t get Jesus right, we create a toxic system, that produces toxic people.
• If you want to reproduce, you have got to be “reproduce-able.”
• With disciples you can go places, with consumers you can’t.
• We must act our way into a new way of thinking not vice versa.
• We engaging a people group, we can’t preempt the gospel with our version of church (structure).
• The church is a “scratch and sniff” experience of the Kingdom.
• Incarnation is how the God engaged the world. He doesn’t overwhelm us, he invites us.

RELATED LINKS

What are the Six Aspects of Movements?

My Single Favorite Quote from Alan Hirsch

Notes from Coaching at PGF Together

A Free E-Book with Contributions from Alan Hirsch

Here is the video from the Verge Conference on the six ingredients:

In this final look at applying Seth Godin’s Tribes to the work of church, I want to talk about tribal greatness. Jesus never rebukes his disciples for wanting to be great, but rather, shows them the different way of greatness in God’s eyes. In fact, we must never forget that even our Lord appealed to greatness when recruiting his team.  Do you remember Jesus persuading Peter, “Come on, I want you to spend the rest of your life fishing for men!” That’s a remarkable statement.

Why should your church be remarkable? Because Jesus is the most remarkable human being alive. And the gospel is the most remarkable message ever communicated. Your church is a unique expression of the body of Christ stewarding the gospel. That’s remarkable.

Enter Seth Godin’s insight on being remarkable. Allow your knowledge of Jesus and the gospel to collide with this Godin gold. It just might create some new insight or energy  for your team. Here are my four favorite quotes on tribal greatness:

#1 “The market wants you to be remarkable.”

People today are longing for experiences that leave them changed. How do people in and around your congregation “taste and see” the fruit of transformation?  How do you show them what they want to believe is possible? Remember that God has set eternity in their hearts. (Ecc. 3:11)

#2 “Whatever the status quo is, changing it gives you the opportunity to be remarkable.”

The holy discontent behind the book Church Unique, is the epidemic of photocopied vision. As churches copy one another, there is a move toward incremental improvements that make everyone increasingly  generic.  Everyone copies everyone else not wanting to be without the key feature or best practice or new program. Eventually this evolution of “generic improvement” gets cluttered or stuck as an “overconstructed” ministry. Why not break from the pack and do something remarkable? Free yourself to be yourself.  Be original and truly creative as a steward of the gospel. What could you do to pursue “blue ocean” as the place of ocean-size opportunity where no one else is swimming.

#3 “We choose not to be remarkable because we are worried about criticism.”

Ultimately, the more remarkable an idea, a dream or a vision, the more likely fear will cripple us. Consider taking a fear audit.  If you as a leader, or your church as an organization, had nothing to prove or nothing to loose, what would you dare to do to be remarkable?

#4 “Tribes that work better when they’re bigger get bigger.”

Okay, reread this quote again until it makes sense. This quote, in my opinion, is the most important observation for the church in Tribes. Why? Because the growth of mega-churches and giga-churches (more than 10,000 in attendance) leads us to many conversations about the “best” size of church. Rather than talking about the benefits of small vs. big or organic vs. organizational, what if we talked about our local redemptive movement with this idea. How does reaching the next person in our church make our church better for each person? How does ____________________ (plug in your growth or multiplication strategy) enhance the effectiveness of the whole and for each individual. What could happen if we pushed the envelope of our thinking on this? Wow!

My daughter and I practiced her spelling bee words as I drove her to school this morning. Abby is a 10-year old. On the drive home, I pondered what Abby might do when she grows up. Every now and again you hear that most of the jobs today will radically change within a generation. Most of the jobs available to me today will not be for my 5th grader.

So what does that mean for church? What new jobs are we likely to see? How will the best practice staffing continue to evolve?

If we look in the rear view mirror we can observe a few trends in the last decade:

• The shift from senior pastor to “lead pastor” in describing the point leader
• The development of the “teaching pastor” and the increasing use of teaching teams
• The emergence of the campus pastor with the growth of the multi-site movement
• The ongoing importance of all things technology and media forging into top leadership

As I continue to visit with churches and watch the horizon, I believe that the trends above as well as others will keep fueling change. What will this look like ten years from now? Here are four new pastoral titles for the church of the future. I will provide some initial thoughts now and drill down with follow-up posts.

1. The Neo-itinerant – The Neo-itinerant is a strategic outsider who doesn’t work for one church, but many. There are many, diverse forms of the neo-itinerant emerging and each type will likely bring its own title. (See my post on Trends in Church Consulting.) This is the way the Auxano ministry works. We consider ourselves “navigators” as we leverage learning and bring specialized help as strategic outsiders in the area of vision clarity.
2. The Truth Jockey (TJ) – As the teaching function separates more and more from the leadership function, expect the use of team teaching and multi-media formats to find their full expression in the Truth Jockey. Why can’t a leaders mix the best teaching and the best teachers for his congregation’s time, place and life-stage?
3. The Community Catalyst – How will the small group functions as we know them today evolve? To understand the role of a community catalyst, think of the fusion between a barista, a personal trainer and a chamber of commerce help desk.
4. The Pastor of Story – As the organized church gets larger and more complex, and the organic expressions of church become more linked, we will need better “meaning-makers” who connect everything to the larger story of God, in a both a personal and local way.

Again, look for the follow-up posts as I explore these roles in greater detail. I would love to hear your initial thoughts and any creative new jobs that you have heard about or are thinking about.

I leave you with a final thought from Dan Pink, author of Whole New Mind: “The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers.” He describes these people as “artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, and big picture thinkers.”

Uncovering your Kingdom Concept is practice along the Vision Pathway to answer the question, “What can your church do better than 10,000 others.” In defining this reality for each church we look closely at Place (Local Predicament), People (Collective Potential) and Passion (Apostolic Esprit).

Jack Thomas is a church planter launching in urban Pittsburgh in May of 2010.  I not only love his cultural exegesis, but the succinct and quality way he is communicating his Local Predicament via video.

LifeStone Community Focus Video from Jack Thomas on Vimeo.