Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Guidelines for Simple Gatherings

From Joel News:

"The simple church revolution is not about doing conventional church in a
home," says house church coach John White from Denver, USA. "It's not
'Honey, I shrunk the church!' It's not 20 minutes of singing, 30 minutes of
Bible study, 10 minutes of prayer and then refreshments. Or, any other
prepackaged way of meeting. Rather, it's about listening. Listening to the
Holy Spirit (and each other) and doing what He says." He suggests three
'centering questions' that will help house churches to live this out:

  1. What have you heard from the Holy Spirit this week that will help or strengthen the rest of us?
  2. As we are listening to each other, what is the Lord saying to us as family?
  3. What will we do about this, and how will we help each other?

Source: John White, Dawn Ministries via Joel News

Monday, October 30, 2006

Why Simple Ain't Stupid

I recently came upon this quote - read into it what you will about your current situation.

Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior.
Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.

Dee Hock quoted in “Getting Things Done” (David Allen), 68.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Vision and Action

"Vision without action is daydreaming, but action without vision is just random activity."
- Joel Barkers

Friday, October 27, 2006

Workin' for the Man

I have never met Sam Metcalf, but I think I would like him. Here are his tips on how to keep a young passionate leader in their proper place.

  1. Force them to go to school
  2. Give them too much money
  3. Tell them all the reasons why something can’t be done.
  4. Swamp them with paperwork and administration.
  5. Give them people to lead who are excessively needy.
  6. Limit their travel and keep them in mono-cultural contexts.
  7. Consistently correct them when they are provocative or prophetic in their communication.
  8. Make certain any initiative they take must go through multiple steps of approval.
  9. Insert “conserve” and “maintain” into all their conversations.
  10. Have someone who “gift projects” strong pastoral gifting supervise them.
  11. Tell them to stay when they want to go.
  12. Make certain they have plenty of rules and policies to live by.
  13. Give them a precise, detailed, inflexible job description.

Jump to his blog for more

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Natural Planting

Jay Lorenzen (smart person writing a blog) highlights three things from Tim Keller on natural church planting (movement launching).

  1. Church planters and movement builders must have the ability to give away and to lose control of money, members, and leaders.
  2. Church planters and movement builders must have the ability to give up some control of the shape of the ministry or movement itself.
  3. Church planters and movement builders must have the ability to care for the kingdom even more than for your tribe.

How we doin?

More in depth take here: http://onmovements.com/?p=174

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Fast

“If things seem under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” -Mario Andretti

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Charismatics grow globally in numbers and influence

From Joel News:

A new ten-nation survey of Pentecostal and charismatic Christians,
considered the fastest-growing stream of Christianity worldwide, shows they
are deeply influencing the Roman Catholic and mainstream Protestant
churches and are poised to make a big impact on global affairs. The poll by
the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 'spirit-filled'
Christians, who speak in tongues and believe in healing through prayer,
make up a significant percentage of the population of Brazil, Guatemala,
Kenya and the Philippines. The study also found that charismatic and
Pentecostal Christians increasingly are willing to bring their values into
public debates, which could shape government policies in the years ahead.

Full report:
http://pewforum.org/surveys/pentecostal/

Monday, October 09, 2006

Intrapreneur's Ten Commandments

How do you lead change in a big organization?  Here are 10 insights from Gifford Pinchot’s Intrapreneuring:  Why You Don’t Have to leave the Corporation to Become an Entrepreneur (I snagged Pinchot’s list from another book – Ten Rules for Strategic Innovation by Vijay Govindarajan & Chris Trimble).  

And unless you doubt, Crusade is a corporation with a history of success and defined ways of operating.  These apply very well.

  1. Come to work each day willing to be fired
  2. Circumvent any orders aimed at stopping your dream
  3. Do any job needed to make your project work, regardless of your job description
  4. Find people to help you
  5. Follow your intuition about the people you choose, and work only with the best
  6. Work underground as long as you can – publicity triggers corporate immune mechanism
  7. Never bet on a race unless you are running it.
  8. Remember it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.
  9. Be true to your goals, but be realistic about the ways to achieve them.
  10. Honor your sponsors.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Steve Van Diest: Crazy-Gnarls Barkley

Van Diest is out there - and learning something for us all! I love it!

Steve Van Diest: Crazy-Gnarls Barkley

Monday, October 02, 2006

Factors in Revival and Renewal Movements by Dr Paul Pierson

Here are some interesting factoids (or observations) about renewal movements.  If you are reading this from a Cru perspective, think about if from the perspective of us needing renewal as an organization.  Often times I think we believe we are still new and cutting edge, when in fact we are a 50+ year old organization that tends to operate out of an old denominational hierarchical methodology – how we formed was pretty cutting edge, but how we continue to function seems very to be from the tried and true camp – not from the new and risky.  (Possibly the best way to make these observations is to replace the words ‘church’ with ‘movement’ and see where it takes you).

Here are Pierson’s observations:

- They always begin on the periphery of the institutional church

- They are motivated by a transforming experience (grace) of God by an individual or group. The result is the desire for a more authentic Christian life that often leads to concern for the church and world.

- Face to face groups for prayer, Bible study, and mutual encouragement are important.

- New methods of selecting and training leaders become important. These are less institutional; more grass roots and lay oriented.

- There are theological breakthroughs, that is, rediscovery of aspects of the Biblical message that have been forgotten or overlooked by the Church; usually they involve a focus on the gifts of every believer.

- There is a leveling effect, distance decreases between clergy and laity, social classes, races, men and women, and denominations.

- The movement is countercultural in some ways, often because it reaches out to those who have not been valued by their society.

- Consequently there will be opposition by many in the dominant culture and church.

- There will often be manifestations of spiritual warfare. Such movements sense the reality of evil and the need to recognize the victory of Christ in the cross and resurrection.

- At times there will be unusual manifestations of the power of the Holy Spirit; healings, visions, glossalalia, miracles. etc.

- More flexible structures of church and mission will be needed and often emerge, different from traditional structures.

- The movement will be led to significant recontextualization of the Christian message, which will be communicated more widely by lay persons to those outside the church.

- New music is often a characteristic.

- Biblical concepts ignored by the traditional church but relevant to the hearers are often discovered.

- There will be a growing concern for the marginalized, often expressed in ministries of compassion.

- At a later stage this often leads to concern for broader social transformation.

- As the movement matures there will be concern for the renewal of the broader church.

- As the movement continues to mature many will see themselves not only as part of the particular movement but as citizens of the Kingdom of God, transcending their own movement.

- Finally, every movement is less than perfect and often messy at the edges and sometimes, at the center. This is inevitable as long as sinful humans are involved.