I’ve read some remarkable stories of the Church being the Church throughout history, taking steps to not only “win souls” but to change the world they inhabit. I’ve read of churches standing up to their elected officials to challenge and thwart injustice. I’ve read of churches being secretive and subversive in communist countries working to not only spread the gospel but to care for people and love their neighbors in remarkable, sacrificial ways. I’ve read of churches working against the status quo to topple the entities that perpetuate a standard of evil no one has before noticed, all the while announcing that God has come in a new and unexpected way. And I’ve read of individuals who, with a spark of imagination, stepped up to ignite movements that not only announced the Kingdom but sparked something truly transformational in their context because of the Gospel.
These stories feel few and far between in our present day American Church context. Why?
Have we somehow managed to short-circuit the collective imagination of the American Church? Have we somehow managed to short-circuit the collective imagination of our local communities in favor of the one big idea presented by the senior leader? Has the pendulum swung so completely to the other side that we land square in the realm of the individual versus the potential of the community? Have the egotistical needs/desires of the one truly outweighed the hopes and dreams of the many?
Robert Orben, the former speech writer for President Gerald Ford, once remarked: “We have enough people who tell it like it is, now we could use a few who tell us like it can be.” I wonder if we have lent our ear to the realist, to the deconstructionist, the devil’s advocate for a bit too long. I wonder if our collective voice has become one of pessimism and despair, pushing so hard against the grain of what is happening in the Church that doesn’t fit our personal preference/style that we we have flattened our imaginations. The Church has become the great piñata of late.
Where has our wonder gone, Church? Where has our wonder of God vanished to (or been banished to)? Have we stashed our collective imaginations and the power of the Holy Spirit working through us to accomplish all that we could ever ask or dream, off to the side in order to experience a more comfortable existence? When did safety and security become our priority? And when did the Church become the safety zone?
Our collective imagination, that imagination that once challenged us to take risks and step out in faith has been drained from our hearts and relegated to the jungle of the streets while we watch it dry up from the comfort of our seats. Why are we okay with this?
It’s past time for us to once again engage our imagination, to enlist our imaginations into what God is doing all around us and begin dreaming about what could be possible when we partner with him to bring heaven to earth.
“Sunday is the key that explains to the world and to the church why we are the church. In our Sunday worship Christians serve the world by showing the world that God has not left us alone and that we have good work to do. Our work is worship. Worship is the work God does with us to show the world a manner of life that could not be known had not God vindicated Jesus in the resurrection. Sabbath is a weekly reminder that we are created for no better purpose than to praise God and enjoy God forever.
In simply withdrawing from what the world considers its “important business,” in taking time to do nothing but worship in a world at war, in celebrating an “order of worship” in a world of chaos, Christians are making a most “political” statement. It takes courage to take time to worship God in a world where we are constantly told that it is up to us to do right, or right won’t be done. Sunday is that holy time when Christians perform one of our most radical, countercultural, peculiarly defining acts-we simply refuse to show up for work. Sabbath is how we put the world in it’s place. This is how we take over the world’s time and help to make it God’s time. It’s how we get over our amnesia and recover our memory of how we got here, and who we are, and in whose service we are called.”
“The gospel is socially embodied in the people called the church. As its members we are incorporated and engrafted into the body of Christ by our baptism, by our receiving of the Lord’s Supper, by our hearing and doing of his Word, not by a chatty and sentimental private relationship with our divine buddy.”
Ralph C. Wood, Preaching and Professing
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There has been a great shift in the church, a shift that I believe Wood is raging against with his statement above. It is a shift away or rather a pull away from the church–away from community and into a secluded individualistic faith that disallows communal discernment and testing. This, I believe, is extremely dangerous and detrimental not only to faith, but to the living body of Christ (a.k.a. The Church).
This move towards “chatty, sentimental, private relationships with our Divine Buddy” is a fairly recent move in the faith of Christianity, experiencing its heyday during the rise of Evangelicalism; itself a rage against a lackluster experience of God beyond the church and into our everyday lives. It arose out of a belief that there was a lack of deep faith within the church. Hence, daily Bible reading, journaling, prayer, quiet times, and the like sprung up along with devotionals with flowery language talking about “God being as sweet as apple-pie.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
Wood’s quote, his rage, represents a pendulum swing–and a lot of hyperbole to get his point across.
We mustn’t walk away from experiencing relationship with God/Jesus on an everyday basis in how we pray, in how we approach and understand Scripture, in how we journal, but at the same time we absolutely must be sure to continually engage with the community of believers. Faith is not an individualistic expression. You see, the church is the engine God designed to be the change in the world. It isn’t about you, rather it’s about us. It’s about us doing life together and bringing about change together in the name of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Wood is raging against individualism in favor of the empowered body of Christ, the engine of change God designed us to be. Because together we can do so much more than we can on our own. This is what it means to be the church.
A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed by Tim Fong for the Mass Ignition podcast about innovation in the church. We talked specifically about the arts and the key factor that art plays in any movement.
A few of the things we talked about:
How someone who is not innovative came up with what seems innovative
How to get ideas to bubble up
What is the source of fear for churches to venture into the arts
This past weekend IKON launched our newest endeavor in creating a stronger sense of community and a greater arm for making a difference within the city of San Francisco. There was a special buzz in the air as Jarrod shared our vision for Families (our understanding of small groups), their importance and the potential impact that together we can have in the lives of the people around us.
It’s been an exciting 6 months for us as a community as we have grown faster than we anticipated and are launching Families sooner than we thought! Our team has done a tremendous job of getting everything set and squared away as we venture into a new reality together as a community. I couldn’t be more proud of this team and of our community for how passionately we’re embracing the Jesus mission in the city of San Francisco!
Here’s a short video that was put together by one of the artists within our community that explains just what a Family is all about… (man, we have some talented artists!)
Created as a collaboration between World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Ben Lee and Leo Burnett, “Space Monkey” carries a message about our planet, and features Ben Lee’s track, “Song for the Divine Mother of the Universe”.
This is a pretty interesting ad by the World WIldlife Fund that causes us to think about what the planet look like if we were to spend the next 65 years in space and then return…
Often times in the church our response to ads like this, or even a conversation about taking care of the planet is “This world is not my home, I’m just passin’ on through,” and we discard or disregard our communal responsibility to the resources that God has given us. Our poor theology has given us license to participate in the continual cycle of destroying the beauty within the world that God has created for us to enjoy.
Going green seems to be a new fad within our country (perhaps because evangelicalism has lost its grip on culture). In years past the month of April has been dedicated to celebrating green living by networks such as NBC by changing their logo green and doing more PSA’s to raise awareness of sustainable living within the world. But I wonder if it’s really changing the dialogue within our culture. I have the privilege of living in the second “greenest city” in the United States, San Francisco, just a smidgen behind Portland, Oregon as the greenest. Everywhere you turn there are recycling bins, compost bins, solar power, green spaces, rooftop gardens, etc… it’s at the forefront of conversation within our city. However, whenever I take a trip anywhere outside SF I find the conversation to be non-existent. Is “Earth Month” really doing much?
I think a lot of the challenge or resistance to this dialogue is as a result of our theology as a church (even though evangelicalism has lost its grip on culture, in a great majority of the country the reverberations of dominance are still being felt). This is a topic of conversation that the church should be leading the way in, yet our “evacuation theology”–this world is not my home, I’m just passing on through–causes us to be poor stewards of what God has gifted us and in turn push the conversation to the fringe as unimportant… If this conversation will gain any traction throughout the Church and if the Church is to lead the way, we must first move away from this “evacuation theology” narrative and towards the narrative of Scripture. We must move away from our understanding of the earth as resource to be used and abused because it’s going to be destroyed and begin to see it as a precious gift that God gave to us to reveal himself to us. I wonder what it would look like for us (the church) to change this conversation, to change our narrative and lead the way?
Something to think about: If God used General Revelation to communicate to us his presence and love (the use of nature and natural means outside of Scripture), then why would it not be a good thing to preserve this method of communication for future generations–not to mention ourselves?
Yesterday I posted the Top 10 Ways To Obliterate A Leadership Culture by Jon & Dave Ferguson. However, it leaves me wondering: “How do you nurture a culture that values and practices leadership development?” Well, thankfully enough Jon & Dave were so kind as to also write up a second list:
10 Simple (But NOT Easy) Practices for Creating a Leadership Culture
Make sure that leadership development is directly tied to the success of the vision. I know there is no way that Community Christian Church will ever be a church of 200 locations that has mobilized 100,000 3C Christ Followers without intentional and rigorous attention to leadership development. I know that our NewThing Network will never catalyze a movement of reproducing churches unless we prioritize leadership development.
Give leaders a dream worth sacrificing and trading their lives. The reason many churches do not attract leaders and in particular high-capacity leaders is that the church has not put before them a vision or dream so compelling that they are willing to trade their lives for it. Leaders want a bit hill!
Vision casting should include leaders in the details. When I share the vision of 200 sites in the Chicago area I always say it will come down to two things: Developing more and better artists and developing more and better leaders. I will also talk about the number of leaders it will take to accomplish this God-sized vision: small group leaders, ministry team leaders, Kids’ City leaders, Student Community leaders, etc. The trigger point for every new site is the rising up of a leader to become the campus pastor for that location. Leadership is in the details of the vision.
Tell stories of leadership development. Some of my favorite stories are the stories of some people who are now on our executive leadership team who started at COMMUNITY as an apprentice leader in a small group or a Kids’ City group. In time they became a leader of a group; then a coach; soon they transitioned to staff leadership and now they have as much influence at COMMUNITY as anyone. WHen you tell these stories other leaders think, “maybe I could do that too.”
Make known your leadership pipeline. I was at lunch the other day with a high-capacity leader and they told me that one day they would like to be on staff at COMMUNITY and then asked me how that could happen. I drew on a napkin the following: apprentice leader->leader->coach->staff. That simple explanation is our leadership pipeline. Some people refer to it as a career path. I see it as the way that a leader proves their faithfulness and expands their influence. If you want to create a leadership culture you should be able to write your leadership pipeline on the back of a napkin.
Make risk-taking a value. At COMMUNITY, risk-taking is not only a value; for us it is a synonym for faith. And risk-taking is attractive to leaders.
Success is measured in terms of leadership development. In the last few years we have developed a tool we call a dashboard. It comes out once a month and it gives us an update on how the overall church is doing and how each COMMUNITY site is doing. There are about a half dozen key indicators that we watch and one of the most significant indicators is the development of new and emerging leaders.
Reward faithful leaders. We try to reward people who faithfully fulfill their leadership capacity. There are lots of ways to reward leaders but the best way to reward an emerging leader is with greater influence and responsibility. This perhaps as much as anything will foster a leadership culture.
Use small groups to develop leaders. Small groups are a great and safe place to take risks on emerging leaders. It is a great place because the emerging leader knows these people and they are really rooting for him/her and will give them good feedback. It i a safe place because there are only 6-15 people in a small group.
Have high expectations, but easy entrance into leadership. Set the bar for leaders really high. Leaders want to be a part of something that is challenging and exceptional. But at the same time do not insist that a person has to be around for a long time to move into a leadership role. If an emerging leader will adhere to the leadership expectations they should be able to move into leadership ASAP!
