Most churches have members that have been there more than 4 years. We do not. We have to continually siphon through the collegiate masses to find leaders to reach the campus. If we do not, we become a stagnant and youth groupy and fail to continually reach the whole - and fail to surface the kind of leadership we need for our future and that the kingdom needs on the whole. That's all I have to say about that.
The other day I asked a pastor friend of mine how he would lead if, every year, he lost 15% of his leadership base and the most mature member in leadership was 23 years old. He looked at me like I was wack.
As I have asked many pastors similar questions I get responses from "cant be done" to "why would you lead something like that." I have also heard "you would really have to concentrate on leaders" and "everything would have to focus on the hunt for new leadership." Exactly.
This is one of the reasons why we must avoid thinking like a traditional church. The very nature of our business is incredibly missional and apostolic. By that I mean that we are continually having to take turf year after year.
Even just to maintain, we have we must take new ground. Even though we are not moving geographically the ground is always moving underneath us. Not to mention the gaps on campus that already exist. We are also the kind of group that talks in terms of EVERY. Every student, every freshman, every campus, every culture. This is the language of an expanding missional organization. By our very nature, we must take turf. If we dont, we die.
This is why 'church envy' is very dangerous for us. We cannot function and act like a local church. We should not even try. We cannot simply teach well and maintain. I love the local church, but within their context the church has the ability to grow and maintain, and then possibly add to that growth. We cannot do that. We must aggressively take the land year after year after year - an in doing so we continually develop leadership for the kingdom. In this way we function as the leadership engine God has called us to be.
We are Joshua not Solomon. We are Paul not James.
Why 5000 movements? That is what we figure it is going to take to get the gospel relationally close to every student on our currently targeted locations. Over the next few years we need to rapidly increase our ability to launch and coach movements in all kinds of settings and flavors. We will need to see the Lord show up as we move forward with intentionality into uncharted waters. This will be our grand task if we are truly thinking of "everyone knowing someone who knows Jesus."
Over the last few weeks I have been reading The Shaping of Things to Come by Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch. A fascinating read - especially in regard to the advancement of the gospel to infect culture. What I love about this book is the missional flare. More on this later.
