MovementsEverywhere

Looking Back for the Future

2008-05-29T16:07:00.005-04:00

"The further back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." - Winston Churchill

Churchill was a big believer in how history can inform current decisions. Nowhere do I believe this is more true than the church. The start of the church is the best place to be informed on the future of her direction.

Unfortunately, it is common (and easy) to read our own traditions into the formation of the church in the early days, and assume we are doing what they did back in the day.

This never hit me until I read Wagner's Acts of the Apostles, and I was blown away by his different perspective. Not that I agree with all of Wagner, but how he saw different and beyond my presuppositions. It opened my eyes.

Here are a few things that are intriguing from then to now.

There are no pastors in the book of Acts and yet this is our primary leadership structure.
There are no women pastors (no pastors at all), but women play a key role - even as prophets (Acts 21)
There is no systematic theology, or exegetical teaching.
Miracles are common - even expected as the gospel moves forward in power.
God speaks to people directly
New believers got baptized fast - when they decided to follow.
THE Apostles where not the only apostles (Acts 14).

There is more, but these are a few that I did not see because my tradition blinded me to what was really being said (btw - this is the same type of thing that got our boy Luther to post his 95 burs in the saddle on the door at Wittenburg).

Einstein on Influence

2008-05-17T08:50:00.003-04:00

Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others, it is the only means.
- Albert Einstein (here sporting his 'regular guy at the beach' look).

General George S. Patton gave his version of 'management by walking around by saying - "no good decision was ever made from a swivel chair."

Listening to God

2008-05-15T23:05:00.004-04:00

Sometimes (ok, often) my posts are kind of pointed and overly mission focused. I guess that is why I named this the rant. I wanted to speak freely - but sometimes it may be too much.
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So that is to say, that the massive key to this whole thing is transformed lives and listening to Jesus. All the missional goobly garp in the world aint gonna make a hill of beans if this is not happening. This is the essence of discipleship (in my book).

On transformation - unfortunately we (the west) have gotten ourselves into program / attendance bind. We measure spiritual growth by who is showing up and how sweet the event went. I was a church planters conference recently and one of the key questions batted around in the halls was . . . 'how many you running?' They joked about this up front . . . but it is painfully how we have learned to keep score in western Christianity.

On listening to Jesus - there is a subtle but destructive force in the west that says that God ONLY speaks through scripture. What a bummer. Now I agree that he is not going to say anything that contradicts scripture, but to say that he cannot speak to me directly really undermines the whole idea of a relationship with him. What a bummer if my wife wrote me a letter when I married her and it contained all the information I would ever get in regard to her communication with me. No, I believe that it is key that we know, understand and practice listening to his voice. Then he will guide us in real time toward what we need to do.

Can you think of respected person in scripture, major or minor, who did not HEAR from God? . . . . me either. I believe this is key to what it means to be a disciple.

Dangerous and possibly hard to learn and teach . . . but absolutely key. If the young people get a hold of hearing his voice and doing what he says . . . all this talk is pointless and the craziness of a Jesus movement will blow us away.

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I had to come back on and add this. If we taught this, we would never have to do placement again. We could allow the HS to place staff simply by telling them where he wanted them to go. You may think this is crazy, or would not work, or that the whole USCM would end up in Ohio . . . but this is exactly what we do internationally. No one gets placed in Kazakstan! You have to hear from Jesus and then you work the system to get there. It would be cool to set that system up for the whole of the US.

Leading My Friends

2008-05-14T18:10:00.004-04:00

"Management is about how the job gets done. Leadership is determining what the job is and moving people toward getting it done." - Larry Winget

Larry is a business dude / speaker / consultant who does not mince words. Here I think he is on to something that we should be aware of. It is not about the how.

On DJs blog there is a good discussion of the four laws, but in reality it does not matter what the tool is . . . any tool will do. Invent some more. What matters in leadership is what the job / goal is and then the ability to build systems that unleash and empower people to get it accomplished. Is this the way we handle students on campus? or do we micro them with some 'training' and tools and then program our way forward.

Or, in leading, do we hold high the vision for the campus or city (this equates to the 'job') and then move them toward getting it done by believing in them, serving them and facilitating their dreams for their campus. How do we do it? Let these young inspired leaders figure that out . . that is half the fun of the mission.

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On the broader picture . . . is this how we treat our staff organizationally? Of late, I have felt a whole lot of how and not so much what. All to often I think upper management believes the problem is on the local level and then tries to inform solutions (or like me in ESM . . . borrow some solution from another location and feed it to the whole). The reality is, most local leaders are leading bigger on the local level than any of the upper management ever did at the local level. It is, in fact, a different world - larger schools, broader geography and then the crazy ethnic landscape as well.

Crazy as it may seem, I believe the Cru system is built upon a strange unanimity that is debilitating. It is built to have poor leaders consuming coaching energy and forces good leaders to operate below what they could actually produce without having to navigate the system.

It is built to level the playing field and 'train' everyone to do much of the same things in the same ways. Oooops. The world (and the kingdom) simply do not work well that way. This is why DNA discussions and such are kind of boring and pointless.

"Please . . tell me what you are wanting me to accomplish (results), measure and reward me, and then let me make all the primary decisions (with who, where). Then we will see some new and awesome things begin to emerge."

The manager at Mickey Dees gets to hire his own fry cook . . . why cant the local leader put together his own team (without negotiating it with anyone above I might add).

Ideas?

2008-05-12T18:50:00.003-04:00

So here are some wakjob ideas:

Launch 50 churches out of your current campus ministry (small little viral things with 21 year old elders and you as the master apostle - thats with a little 'a' in apostle btw). Tell the students that you will gather weekly to worship and train, but you want them each to start a simple viral church . . . . and you can show them how.
Start teaching students to baptize new believers and each other - push full obedience to Mt 28 baby! Forget decisions . . . measure disciples (those who are taking obedient steps) and baptisms.
Never speak at a meeting again - only lets students share what is on their heart in the mission each and every week. Let mission inform theology and worry about the messes as you move ahead.
Define the whole ministry in 5 words. Win, Build, Send, Campus, World.
Identify 50 clubs on campus and get a rad group of believers to join each one. Use a weekly meeting to 'rush' for each identifiable group. Infiltrate baby!
Form a non-profit on your campus and start hiring your own interns and staff. Or, get a local church to hire them for you.
Initiate more service projects than any other group on campus . . . and make sure to invite the whole campus to each one.
Never meet with someone one on one again. Only in small groups and only with someone besides you leading the discussion.
Start a covert underground Xtian sect that does radical stupid things . . . don't let anyone know about it except the first 10 people you invite in. See if you can grow it by adding and multiplying new believers only. Commit to never making a Tshirt.
Never get a new believer involved with what is already going on . . . really . . . only help them start something new in their existing community (like Zaccheus or that Ethiopian dude).

Any more? Sure you cannot do them all, and these may all be kind of lame. But if someone does not do something really really different . . . then we will continue with the exact same thing we currently have now.

Change Please

2008-05-12T17:53:00.005-04:00

From my demented perch, change and leadership go hand in hand. If you are not leading positive change, then there is another word for what is going on . . . management.

Now, there is nothing wrong with good management, but I am not sure that is what we aspire to in mission. We usually enter a city or campus setting with the desire to render things different that what they currently are. This we understand - we role up our sleeves and tackle what needs to be done. But the rub is that often times we look behind us, or simply put new window dressing on current practices, and we end up with the same things we have gotten in similar locations (again, not bad at all, but not real change). This is ok if you are going from UCLA to UC-Davis, but may prove painful if you are going to Istanbul or Moscow.

Again, nothing wrong with doing what we know works well, but it simply will never get us anything different than what we are currently aware of. And I believe we are desperately in need of something radically different. The books of Acts was not a revamp of the existing synagogue system, but a whole new format for connecting with God. (new wine skins!)

A few weeks ago I was sitting with Alan Hirsch and a few others over dinner. Alan made a side comment (which are always awesome) about the need for some people in the west to simply go uncorked in experimentation. Not with a better band, or more stories in their speaking . . . but some stuff simply not heard of. What should they do? I don't know . . . . that is where the wild experimentation could really take root. This is where I believe the young and the restless of this generation will make their mark (so us old dudes best get out the way).

What are some ideas?

Dan Tocchini on a roll

2008-02-28T19:12:00.003-05:00

My good friend Dan Tocchini has cranked up his blog. Worth checking out for sure.

Along with his wife Aileen, they established the Association For Christian Character Development (ACCD), Global Life Works (GLW) and Culture ROI (CROI). All of these organizations are dedicated to the work of transformation in different parts of our world.

For the past 15 years ACCD has been focused on Christian Character Development and has trained over 30,000 individuals around the world. I first encountered Dan in the spring of 2007 at one of these training. He has blessed me every since.

Valentines Day

2008-02-14T16:54:00.002-05:00

Today I kidnapped my daughters for a Daddy lunch date. Taelor is 10 and Addie is 8. We went to Firehouse subs (a favorite for them). What a joy to have wonderful daughters!

Deb Hirsch on Distorted Views

2008-02-08T14:38:00.001-05:00

Opening night of the Organic Church Conference, Deb Hirsch (the better looking of the Deb and Alan tandem) gave a great overview of how our distorted views in Western Christianity prevent us from engaging the Kingdom in a powerful way.

She listed seven categories on opening night of the Organic Church Conference. More than one caught me off guard. These bullets do not do it justice.

Distorted view of Jesus - not so meek and mild and patsy, but a confrontational subversive anti-religious radical.
Distorted view of Self - not as the center but as part of the whole
Distorted view of Others - not scum bag sinners but created in the image of God
Distorted view of the World - not expendable but redeemable
Distorted view of Love - not shallow and temporal, but sacrificial and committed
Distorted view of Family - not small and nuclear, but across blood lines and multi-generational
Distorted view of Money and Consumption - basically, we are way to friendly with money and its effect on us.

Deb statement on money really hit me. Especially about money having key qualities of deity (and therefore worshipable). Qualities like offering security, being omnipresent and wielding power. This is definitely the God of the West. Forget the threat of Islam, mammon has us in its grip.

Organic Church Conference - CA Style

2008-01-14T22:15:00.000-05:00

Early registration is coming to a close so time to pony up and get out to the Organic Church Conference in beautiful Ontario CA (I am making that last part up). This should be a good time with Neil Cole, Alan & Deb Hirsch, Wolfgang Simson, Tony & Felicity Dale and a few other simple church hoodlums. The dates are February 8-10 . . . a great place to connect, learn and dream. Hope to see you there.

Sadness

2008-01-13T13:07:00.000-05:00

Last month was quite sad. Linda used to joke with me that I had two sad times a year - sometime in middle spring, and then some point in the NFL playoffs. But of late, I have come into my own with this crazy emotion. December has been a sad month.

So my friend Kathryn Taylor got some good advice from another good friend - David English, on sadness. David wrote:

There are things that cause us to be emotionally sad or feel something like that. Sadness is an emotion we feel when there seems to be no control we can exercise. It also happens when our expectations are not fulfilled. Sadness can control us and sometimes for a lifetime. It can be the predominant emotion that characterizes some people's lives. Sadness is not bad. Jesus was referred to as "a man of many sorrows."
Here is a process to deal with sadness: Low entitlement High gratitude Don't take failure personally Rest

Thanks David via Kathryn - I needed that.

Moltke the Elder - on Planning

2008-01-11T10:48:00.000-05:00

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy - Count Helmut von Moltke the Elder

I was able to spend a couple of hours with Ken Cochrum this past week. Ken is the director of the Global Campus Ministry with Campus Crusade. After serving for a number of years in Asia, he is back in the US hoping to give traction to campus ministry on a global scale. Ken is a good leader who understands movements and what it means to be driven on biblical principles. His passion is spiritual leadership and helping leaders lead well.

It was in this conversation that the Moltke quote came up.

Moltke's phrase (along with War is a matter of expedients) did not mean that he not believe in planning, but more that he saw strategy as a practical art of adapting means to ends - and doing so in a fluid environment forced leaders to act from goals and principles rather than prescribed methods or wishful thinking.

Helmut von Moltke (the Moltkenator to his friends) was the Purssian Army Chief of Staff for 30 years. He also had a mean cross-over dribble.

Blog with Candor

2008-01-07T13:26:00.000-05:00

I am perusing Small is the New Big, Seth Godin's offering from 2006, which as some nice nuggets (it is basically a collection of nuggets that you dont want to read all at once).

Seth suggest six things for leaders (CEOs) to make sure they have in order to communicate well via the blog craze.

Candor - speak the truth, don't try to snow me or pump sunshine up my . . . trouser leg.
Urgency - key to change is the introducing the angst that will help us want change.
Timeliness - must talk about something that is happening or needs to happen.
Pithiness - make it readable.
Controversy - don't embrace timidity and positivity - create some angst and edginess.

Many leaders I know in Christian organizations (including Campus Crusade where most of my leadership experience is from) are not very comfortable with any of these. Not verbally, and definitely not in written form. There is usually an attempt to minimize controversy, smooth over urgency and it is done by avoiding candor and embracing political speak, vision casting and sunshine pumping.

This does not serve us well when we need to embrace reality and move toward radical, substantial and lasting change. A healthy critique from leadership directed at the organization they lead, allows followers the satisfaction of knowing that leadership is aware of what is needed and is engaged in changing that reality.

Kiss the Pig

2008-01-02T14:00:00.000-05:00

My neighbor Frank, a all around awesome guy and one of the best neighbors anyone could have, hosts an annual kiss the pig party every Jan 1. You cook a whole pig over a pit and enjoy friends and neighbors while Michigan puts the wallop on Florida.

The theory on kiss the pig is this: If you kiss a pig on the first day of the year, not much worse is going to happen to you the rest of the year - you have already hit bottom.

Good time - thanks Frank and Jenny!

Minneapolis - TCX

2007-12-31T17:00:00.000-05:00

Cameron (our 12 year old son) took this picture of me at TCX - a student conference in Minneapolis. He was sitting front row with about 1400 college kids behind him. (If you think I look fat here, you should have seen me on the giant screen! I looked up and lost my train of thought while staring at the huge balding guy!)

The best part about being with these students is the white-hot worship. I feel this generation engages Jesus with a reckless abandonment that is refreshing and fun to be a part of. But it is also a generation of pain, suffering and disillusionment. In general, they are skeptical of religion, shun church as usual, and are moving rapidly away from the faith the way grandma did it. This is an incredible opportunity. From my vantage point, it seems like a major shift unlike anything we have seen in generations. There is a redefinition going on (for good and bad I might add) and it has the potential to reshape our nation and even the world.

I particularly talked to this gang about engaging the culture around them with the gospel. In a nutshell, taking faith on the offensive without being offensive. Taking Jesus to those who need him without carrying the baggage of religiosity and condemnation. I did this by looking at teachings of Christ and having the students interact with each other over situations and groups on their campuses (like - how do you be Jesus to the Gay/Lesbian/Bi-sexual club).

As spirituality and faith increases on campus, we (believers) have a tendency to form 'holy huddles' that cease to engage the culture around us and become a bit sanctimonious and isolated (and, as one non believer stated, 'just plain mean'). None of which reflects how Jesus operated (in fact, he was too busy ticking off the religious by serving and loving those who were deeply trapped by sin and poor choices).

The true beauty of university students is their naiveté and zeal. They really believe God will do what he has done before (and more), and it is not a stretch for them to act on those beliefs. So the day after I spoke, all 1400 hundred of these kids (yes, they are kids now!!) hit the streets of Minneapolis to give food and gifts to those in need and to share the good new with anyone who wanted to hear it. What a great group of young leaders to run with!!

One of the things I asked them was, in teams, to build a simple plan to 'be Jesus' to a group of other students on campus. In a week or so I will email the leaders on those campuses to see if there is any progress, or if students are attempting anything in their communities. I hope so. I pray that my speaking was not just another talking head with some decent jokes, but that some actions will take place that make big difference.

Rob Bell - Pay Attention

2007-12-13T15:38:00.000-05:00

Time Magazine did a great little piece on Rob Bell - may his tribe increase. I am really quite unfamiliar with his stuff (to my shame), but I like everything I see.

Go Rob Go. Re-invent for us all.

Great Plains and "The Way Forward?"

2007-10-23T21:20:00.000-04:00

I am in Estes Park at the Stanley Hotel with the killer GPI region of Campus Crusade for Christ - they are having a discussion on 'The Way Forward' - the new directional direction from the National Team of the campus ministry.

You can look at the PowerPoint here - but here are some questions being asked by these leaders?

What systems are in place for coaching these new teams - how does that look?
What thought is given to getting more people on the ground?
Tension between organizational control and expansion?
What is a missional team anyway?
Are we going to have the same success criteria?
Does this mean that the local level with have more authority?
How doest this look in partnerships on campus? Internationally?
The strategic priorities - what exactly are these?
Is this initiated at the local level / regional level?
Is this an expansion of scope / or just a serious allocation to scope?
Is there a bigger change coming? or is this it?

There seems to be a lot of confusion on missional teams. I love the GPI leadership is because they are honest about the confusion - and not trying to answer questions that they are not sure of the answers to. Good job.

Supernatural on Campus

2007-10-14T11:52:00.000-04:00

The speakers at Supernatural at UCLA are Banning Libscher, Jaeson Ma and Neil Cole. I dont know Banning Liebscher, but I am sure he is the reasl deal since he is hanging with Jaeson and Neil - this conference should be a good time.

Here is what it is about: Campus Church Networks presents "Supernatural on Campus" a college revival conference to equip and empower student missionaries to awaken a generation to the love of God, make disciples and move in signs, wonders, and miracles to transform their campuses for God's glory. Cool.

Texas Retreat #2

2007-10-08T12:21:00.000-04:00

On Sunday morning we tackled, in an interactive way, six principles of kingdom growth.

The Principle of Abide / Obedience (of being a disciple) (John 15)
The Principle of Sowing (the Farmer of Mark 4)
The Principle of Oikos (Households) (Matthew in Mark 2)
The Principle of “People of Peace” (the Samaritan woman of John 4)
The Principle of Apostolic Mission (The 70 in Luke 10)
The Principle of Mission Focused Prayer (Jesus from Matthew 9)

On hindsight, I think I tried to cram to much of this in and would be better served to space it out over the weekend. I had the whole group divided in teams of five representing their campuses. Each team had a big poster board and a scribe as they worked the process.

On Abide we covered divine truth, nurturing relationships and apostolic mission.
On Sowing, we worked through observations of the farmer, seed and soil.
On households they listed each 'tribe' they could identify on their campus
On POP we talked about the seed surfacing people who are ready to respond
On mission, each team spent 10 minutes building a quick plan to 'out themselves and the gospel' among a few of the tribes they had identified in less than a 48 hour period. This is where we spent most of our time.

By the end of the time, there were a number of good plans in place and a number of teams were really excited about what could happen. However, I must admit that it was a bit too rushed and I think many of the students where simply not thinking bold enough (or concrete enough). I could have done a better job pushing the boldness quotient.

Time will tell.

Texas Retreat #1

2007-10-07T11:45:00.000-04:00

I spent the weekend in the great state of Texas hanging with students from San Marcos, Houston, San Antonio, Laredo, Austin and Dallas-Ft. Worth at Camp Tejas near Giddings. The Cru staff from theses cities are doing a great job tackling the spiritual movements in all its complexities. Hats off to Erin, Ken, John, Lori, David, Sal, Lance, Mark, Cody, Becca, Doug and the rest. They are seeing some great things happen.

I continue to experiment (thanks guys) with the retreat format I used at UCLA last year - that is, to use the retreat for an interactive mission focused / training venue. Basically, assuming that the students that arrive at the retreat are the mission force for the schools they represent and that within them are the ideas to reach their fellow students.

On Friday I told my story and highlighted God's sovereignty and love. On Saturday night we got into 12 groups (by birthdays) and worked a simple process on the commands of Jesus (as compared to the commands of Jesus based religion). Jesus says obeying his commands will bring life and joy, so we wanted to see what those commands where, and then focus our conversation on what it would look like to live out this out on campus.

There is a sense of freedom that comes from obeying Jesus beyond (in spite of / without) adhering to the religious edicts of the day. All told, these students listed about 10 key commands of Christ. All very simple and doable and void of religious trappings and observable external rules. At the same time - simple to say but radical in practice. Things like 'love your enemies' are great on paper, but lived out can be a bit dicey.

I believe many of these students saw the implications of faith lived out this way. (and big time thanks to the Texas State Cru Band - they made a time of worship very strong and vibrant!).

Church Planting Movements

2007-10-03T13:15:00.000-04:00

I took the opportunity to re-read David Garrison's Church Planting Movements booklet. Not only is this little booklet very inspirational, it also provides a simple guideline to rapidly reproductive church planting. You can download a pdf of the booklet at the link above.

David identifies ten key elements in a CPM:

Prayer - the vitality of the missionaries personal life is key
Abundant Sowing - cpms do not emerge where evangelism is rare or absent
Intentionality - must be deliberately engaged in church planting
Scriptural Authority - Bible (not training or men) must be the guiding source doctrine, church polity and life itself.
Local Leadership - not the church planter, but the local leadership
Lay Leadership - key leaders emerge from the people being reached. They reflect the same demographic
Cell or House Churches - vast majority of the cpm churches are small. 10-30 meeting in homes or other locations not associated with traditional church.
Churches Planting Churches - "members have to believe that reproduction is natural and that no external aids are needed to start a new church." (or movement I might add).
Rapid reproduction - "When rapid reproduction is taking place, you can be assured that the churches are unencumbered by nonessential elements and the laity are fully empowered to participate."
Healthy Churches - worship, missions, evangelism, fellowship, discipleship are all taking place.

So how does this transfer to 'movements everywhere' on university campuses in the US and abroad. It seems that we have a few of these key elements, but we may unintentionally prevent a few others. Prayer, scripture, health and decent sowing exist. We have a degree of planting intentionality, but more of our efforts seemed geared toward growing what currently exists. We struggle to see movements start new movements (in Campus Crusade language, a movement correlates with what David calls a church) and we do not rely on student leadership over our direction and coaching. We have very little expectation that we could plant a new student group and then come back to find that it has planted six more. In my experience, this is basically unheard of . . . but it does not seem that far fetched if we expect it to be so.

Holmes on Talk

2007-09-21T19:09:00.000-04:00

I saw this quote and liked it: A good word for us blogger types.

Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both"

- Author John Andrew Holmes (American physician and writer. Best known for Wisdom in Small Doses (1927))

Galbraith on Change in Thinking

2007-09-17T14:58:00.000-04:00

Faced with the choice between changing our mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof. - John Kenneth Galbraith

I can raise my hand on this one - quite often over the last few years. Below is a brief list of radical thinking changes that I resisted, but later came to see as quite obvious.

Disseminated Leadership - upon joining the National Team of Campus Crusade a few years ago, I believed the best way to move ahead was to align every little niche group and tackle the direction together. Upon watching KCCC, and now Impact, it is obvious (to me anyway) that our best approach is to free leadership up to make primary decisions for their particular target. Duh! Good leaders with freedom usually generate great results.
Apostolic Functioning - Dave Patchin once told me that I 'prayed to receive catalytic' back in 1997. True. Before that, I had been fairly resistant to the chaos. Now, after looking at afresh at how the kingdom expands, I tend to lean more toward efforts of church planting movements . . . . which are highly catalytic in nature.
Volume over Precision - this relates to both things above, but, in a nutshell the best way to reach the world and have great churches / movements . . . . is to concentrate on having MORE churches / movements. If everyone is free to start one, inevitably you will end up with really good ones. (yes, this is the essence of capitalism and why the you never see Russian cars on the road).

btw - Gailbraith, who passed away in 2006, was an influential Canadian - American economist. His books on economic topics were bestsellers in the 1950s and 1960s. Now you know. (this was the only picture I found of him smiling - I am not sure if that is because he is an economist or a Canadian).

MLK on Friends

2007-09-09T14:47:00.000-04:00

This struck me as painfully true:

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends."
- Martin Luther King

Charisma - God on Campus

2007-09-05T14:35:00.000-04:00

The latest issue of Charisma has a cover article about God on Campus. It features some tidbits from Crusade, as well as many other quotes and comments about what is going on on campus. There are a handful of things striking to me from the article (which you can read here.)

The number of churches becoming engaged on the campus (something I know Leadership Network is interested in). This was not the case 15 years ago.
The rise of the supernatural (this article is in Charisma after all).
The free for all that college ministry - Crusade / IV / Navs date way back, but not there are many new players approaching the campus in many new ways.

Conclusion: Despite a huge dropout rate among the churched kids, God is up to something on the college campuses of the world.

Saint-Exupery on Goals

2007-08-31T19:34:00.000-04:00

"A goal without a plan is just a wish." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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Worse are plans that are not based in reality and boldness, but try to cover it by invoking the supernatural aspect of 'God choosing to move.' What I mean is this: God seems more accustomed to rewarding the foolish plans of the bold rather than the hopeful wishes of the passive.

Charging Jericho with a trumpet and a bunch of priests does not seem like a great plan, but it surely requires God to step in and do something dramatic.

To expect dramatic results without stepping out is more foolish than foolishly stepping out.

Pricey Moscow

2007-08-29T19:19:00.000-04:00

Moscow retains its title as the world's most expensive city. The order?

Moscow
London
Seoul
Tokyo
Hong Kong

New York? Entering at 15 and the most expensive city in the U.S.
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source: CNNmoney.com (survey done by Mercer Human Resources Consulting).

Camu on courage

2007-08-27T22:15:00.000-04:00

There is always a philosophy for a lack of courage
- Albert Camu

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Often times I feel I can easily talk my self out of difficulty by embracing a theological / biblical stance that limits possibilities, and therefore requires me to take little risk. I limit God because my possibilities are smaller than his.

We like the stories of miracles, but rarely do we take difficult action to see them take place - we don't risk in ways that only God can rescue us from.

Of course this plays out institutionally as well. We philosophize our way out of radical change based upon preconceived notions of ministry, success, risk, change and pain. We hope that incremental change will give us radical new results . . . but more often than not, our results are in perfect proportion to our risk.

Phil Cooke on Superstars

2007-08-21T18:06:00.000-04:00

"For years, ministry leaders have used a business model in managing their churches. It's a legitimate attempt to get religious organizations working at a more efficient level and trying to make them more productive. But ultimately that won't work. Writer and consultant Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, says a business ins driven by profit, but a nonprofit is driven by mission. The two cannot be confused."

- Phil Cooke, Ph.D., is a media consultant to ministries and churches worldwide. Find out more at www.philcooke.com.
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For years I had this ache in my gut (something stuck in my craw) regarding the Campus Crusade leadership model. Well intentioned as it is, I feel it falls short of expressing a viable leadership framework for this spiritual / mission focused endeavor.

Some people are bothered by the business language - that is not that big a deal to me. The two things that do disturb me are:

The inability of the model to account for a leaders' primal spiritual gifting. There is no reference point for how spiritual gifts influence how we think and operate. I don't care how much leadership model you digest, if you gift is primarily teaching, you will see the mission through that lens.
The institutional framework of the model (notice there is not category for entrepreneur) - the model is built from the perspective of running an organization (institution) not unleashing the chaos of a mission focused endeavour.

But maybe it is just me.

Walter Oetting on Church

2007-08-17T21:50:00.000-04:00

"If you had asked, 'Where is the church?' in any important city of the ancient world where Christianity had penetrated in the first century, you would have been directed to a group of worshiping people gathered in a house. There was no special building or other tangible wealth with which to associate 'church', only people!"

Walter Oetting, The church of the catacombs: The introduction to the surging life of the early church from the apostles to A.D. 250, based on firsthand accounts

A visit with Dan Tocchini

2007-08-13T15:53:00.000-04:00

Last Spring I attended at Breakthrough Training sponsored by Assocation of Christian Character Development. So this past week, Shannon Reeves and I traveled to the bay area to log some time with Dan Tocchini, the semi-controversial founder of ACCD. I say semi because Dan has taken some heat over the years . . . mainly because these trainings offered by ACCD are pretty intense, but also very life changing.

I would recommend them to anyone.

The time with Dan and Aileene was great - and the highlight was buzzing the California cost in with Dan and Shannon in Roger Vanderwindt's vintage 1950s Cessna.

This is Shannon and I beefing up the back seat. Shannon looks cooler than me because he is wearing sunglasses . . . but I can still take him.

Keoke is the Man

2007-08-11T15:28:00.000-04:00

Any time I can get anywhere near the west coast, I like to log time with Keoke King. Keoke is director of Metamore - Campus Crusade in the bay area . . . and a great thinker and dear friend.

On Wed I had a great time hanging out with Keoke in the city - we hit the de Young Fine Art Museum in Golden Gate Park and enjoyed the best cup of coffee I have supped. Meanwhile, Keoke challenge my ministry assumptions with well seasoned doses of reality.

One thing intriguing to watch with Keoke and his crew at Metamore is the G3 concept. G3s are a variation of Neil Cole's Life Transformation Groups wired for the student world. Great stuff. You can download more here:

Keokeo and his team also use myspace and other web stuff to plant new works. They are always moving and learning in the bay area.

TV vs Web

2007-08-09T15:21:00.000-04:00

Interesting info from my good friend Marilyn Adamson, Director of EveryStudent.com.
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A comprehensive survey in 12 countries of more than 7,600 young people ages 16-29 shows that 77% of today's online youth would sooner live without television than live without the Internet.

China has the most devoted young Internet users, with 87% choosing the Internet compared to 13% favoring television. In the United States the figures were 77% for the Internet and 23% for TV.

The survey was conducted by New Paradigm, a Toronto-based think-tank headed by Don Tapscott. The survey is part of a $4 million study of today's digital-savvy youth - whom Tapscott calls the "Net Generation (N-Geners)" - who have grown up "bathed in bits."

70% Dropout by age 23

2007-08-08T12:41:00.000-04:00

70% of surveyed Protestants stopped attending church by age 23, according to a survey conducted by Ed Stetzer and LifeWay Research. Seven in 10 Protestants ages 18-30 (both evangelical and mainline) who went to church regularly in high school said they quit attending by age 23. 34% said they had not returned, even sporadically, by age 30. This means about one in four Protestant young people have left the church. A phrase with 'No' and 'Sherlock' comes to mind at this point.

I read this report in USA Today and there is some good news listed in the report. No doubt this generation of dropouts will be the foundation for something new around the corner - probably something formatted quite differently from what we are seeing now. I doubt this generation will wait on religious leaders to figure this out for them. They are much more inclined to do something new and radical for themselves. Bring It!

You can read Ed Stezters blog here or check out LifeWay research here

Courage Leads

2007-08-04T15:01:00.000-04:00

“Men do not follow titles, they follow courage.”
- William Wallace in Braveheart.

Braveheart has some excellent scenes and some even better lessons. One of the best, is the difference between positional authority and recognized authority. In the story, Robert the Bruce has all the positional (organizational) authority, but simply lacks the courage and will to lead. He does not possess the courage to embrace radical change for a radical new (and better) future. Instead of leading, he recognizes trends (or hopes to) and intuits a particular response. In a sense, he tries to put a stamp on what is already going on . . . and hopes to get it right.

Wallace on the other hand sees the clear picture of desirable future and calls for courage for people to follow. The crux of this come when Wallace tells Robert the Bruce that he would follow him if he would step out and lead. If Robert would have simply stepped up he could have commanded great men. But he chose to play it safe.

Men followed Wallace - not because he had the position, but because he had the courage to lead.

This is a great picture of the future direction of the church in the west. It is an ancient way that lends itself toward the apostolic, bold, crazy leadership that attempts to change the future in God's name. This type of leadership is already evident in the church of the east, and now we are coming into it as well. Cool.

"Badges, we don't need no stinking badges."

JFK

2007-08-01T14:07:00.000-04:00

"The Bible is the common heritage of all men. It is the foundation upon which the great democratic traditions and institutions of our country stand. Recognizing what it has meant to the development of our American way of life, we can hope that other nations and societies will also find light and guidance in this book."

-- John F. Kennedy, in a letter to the Pocket Testament League, November 20, 1961

Korean Hostages - Korean Influence

2007-07-29T11:22:00.000-04:00

From Compass Direct News:
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In Seoul, Cho Hee-yong, a spokesman for the South Korean Foreign Ministry, said the Taliban’s captives were possibly members of the Saemmul Presbyterian Church in Bundang, a city just south of the capital.

Oh Soo-in, a church official, confirmed that several members of the congregation — all in their 20s and 30s — had gone to Afghanistan hoping to do volunteer work in the southern city of Kandahar.

“The government contacted us about 20 of our church members who are traveling in Afghanistan,” Mr. Oh said. “All our church leaders are holding an emergency meeting, waiting for the final word from the government on what really happened to our youth members.”

With an estimated 12,000 Christian volunteers abroad, South Korea is one of the world’s largest sources of missionary activities. But their presence is not always welcome, especially in Muslim countries.

Last August, more than 1,000 South Koreans came to Kabul to attend a “peace march.” But most were quickly ordered to leave when Afghans accused them of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, and the government concluded that their presence was a security threat.

Roland Allen - right on it

2007-07-24T15:21:00.000-04:00

Ok, this is old news (from 1927 to be exact), but worth touching on again. From Chapter One of Allen's Spontaneous Expansion of the Church.

Many years ago my experience in China taught me that if our object was to establish in that country a Church which might spread over the six provinces which then formed the diocese of North China, that object could only be attained if the first Christians who were converted by our labours, understood clearly that they could by themselves, without any further assistance from us, not only convert their neighbours, but establish Churches. That meant that the very first groups of converts must be so fully equipped with all spiritual authority that they could multiply themselves without any necessary reference to us: that, though, while we were there, they might regard us as helpful advisers, yet our removal should not at all mutilate the completeness of the Church, or deprive it of anything necessary for its unlimited expansion. Only in such a way did it seem to me to be possible for Churches to grow rapidly and securely over wide areas;

What would happen if we removed ourselves from the work right now? Would Cru continue to exist on a college campus if we removed the staff? Just curious. Wouldn't be cool to plant a new work on a campus and then come back a year later to see that it had gone to 5 more campuses without your permission? How do we do that?!

Machiavelli on Lasting Change

2007-07-16T21:54:00.001-04:00

"Nothing is more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than achieving a new order of things."

Niccolò Machiavelli (from The Prince).

----
This is the daunting aspect of change. Making it stick.

I feel that human nature tries to minimize the risk of making it stick by lessening the degree of change that is actually needed. In other words, in order to make a change, we try to change less than we ought, and therefore do not achieve the full change we desire. We feel it is easier to make small change work, but in the end, small change does not get us the necessary change needed to accomplish our goals. (Kotter has made a living explaining this).

In the end, we often dream to small and therefore limit our ability to reach desired goals.

Change in the USCM

2007-07-15T15:36:00.000-04:00

I get back into it right as Campus Crusade is beginning their semi-annual gathering in Ft. Collins, Colorado. My good friend Sam Osterloh is one of the keynote speakers for the Campus gathering. He always has something good to say.

Rumor has it (from some decent sources) that there will be some dramatic changes over the next few years in the US Campus Ministry. I would love to see that take place.

As an aging organization, we tend to approach change in a temperamental incremental fashion. Meaning we want radical new results, but we don't want to risk much to get them. We (the US Campus Ministry) especially do not want to risk our current results - we would prefer to add to what we have without having to change much of what already exists. (there is a new wineskin speech in here somewhere).

About 18 months ago I made a pitch for a radical new approach - some thought I was smoking crack, others simply understood it as a pitiful cry for help. I still think it would work to get us to 5,000-10,000 movements. Spoiler Alert: It is built around self organizing teams with a wide range of flexibility, no geographic constraints and no hierarchy.

It is a bit lengthy and a bit too much 'proposal speak' but you can check it out here. (there is plenty of room for improvement - this is part creative thinking, part prayer and part caffeine induced hallucinations)

I would love your feedback if you take time to read it.

The Call

2007-07-12T17:50:00.000-04:00

Students (and others) are gathering to pray and fast and seek the Lord. Some of this is down right amazing. This from the CBN website.

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According to reports, more than 100,000 (mostly young) people packed the stadium where the Tennessee Titans play, to pray for repentance and the sins of the nation, organizers say.

The event was held on 7-7-07, as a symbol of seven being a covenant number in the Bible. Participants were challenged to repent and renew their covenant with God, while fasting and praying on the field.

The Call Nashville spokeswoman Julia Richardson said there was also music and prayer. The free event was designed to be more participatory worship than entertainment, she said.

NonWhite Americans

2007-06-26T19:55:00.000-04:00

The number of nonwhite Americans has surpassed the 100 million mark for the first time. One in three Americans are now black, Latino or Asian. (according to U.S. Census Bureau . . . . and they should know).

Out for the Month

2007-05-19T16:11:00.000-04:00

Linda and I (with kids in tow) will be traversing the good ol US of A so the blog will be spotty for a time. I should return to the blogosphere sometime in late June. I hope to post some of our adventures along the way - but I ain't promising nothin'.

Four Reasons We Struggle with Movements Everywhere

2007-05-18T18:38:00.000-04:00

I believe there are a handful of areas where Cru will need a significant paradigm shift in order to move forward in our stated vision of movements everywhere so that everyone knows someone who knows Jesus.

1. Apostolic Mission with a Catholic Organization Structure.
Movements Everywhere is a distinctively apostolic type vision. Take turf! However, our leadership structure is decidedly Catholic (not in theology mind you, but in hierarchy). I think this will prove a detriment to growth. From my warped point of view, the ME vision requires opportunities for leaders to move forward into uncharted waters, without having to seek permission from others in the system. See this for more.
(and please here me on this - we have no bad people in this structure - it is actually the structure itself that prevents the kind of growth we desire. I have served at every level of the organization and I can honestly say that I have worked with some of the most wonderful, godly and genuine people in the world - but the system, I think, works against us).

2. Apostolic Mission with a Pastor / Teacher Culture
Don't get me wrong. I live on good teaching and accurate theology. I want to think rightly about the scriptures in all things. However, in a Ephesians 4:11 mindset (Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, Teacher - APEPT) we cannot afford to gravitate toward being heavily pastoral. From my limited view, a leadership culture than leans toward shepherding and accuracy will be unable to move us to the risky behavior needed for movements everywhere. It seems we will be too concerned with things that have nothing to do with movements everywhere. For more on this read this.

3. Apostolic Mission with a Leadership Development Focus
I am probably way off my rocker, but it seems to me that you don't get leaders by focusing on leaders, you get leaders by focusing on the mission. Leaders are what bubble to the surface when the vision and mission are compelling enough to engage in risky behavior - thus needing leadership. As soon as we try to organize, program and teach our way toward leadership we are in trouble. Leaders are developed in the crucible of the mission focused adventure.

4. Bill Bright would struggle to join us now.
This may be goofy and anecdotal (who needs facts when you have a story!). In Bill's second year as a staff guy (the staff guy) he left Vonette in charge at UCLA and moved on to another campus to begin a new work. He did this because he could - and because he owned the next step of expansion. Staff cannot do this now. Well, technically they can go to another campus, but there needs to be 'coordination' and 'conversations' first. The idea of simply expanding turf on your own merrit is not something that we currently do outside of the organizational systems. In this day and age, if young Bill was wanting to go from UCLA to USC, he would need to talk to his current director, a regional guy, a metro guy, and various components of the HR world, and probably the director of the place he wanted to go. And still it would not be his choice. Rapid it is not. (some have said, "well, big deal - who is asking to do this anyway!" . . . . my point exactly).

Churchill on Change

2007-05-17T15:57:00.000-04:00

"Change is the price of survival." - Winston Churchill

Succinct and true. I often say change is synonymous with leadership - truly leading means that things must be changing. If not, we are simply managing what is. If that is our goal - fine, if not, it is time to step up and lead (lead change that is).

More By the Numbers

2007-05-16T17:24:00.000-04:00

I drudged this up from an old report I had on ethnic student populations.

There are approximately 613,000 ethnic minority students in the Northeast Region (Cru defined as all of NY, ME, MA, VM,NH,CT,RI).
There are approximately 484,000 total students on the 20 largest universities in the Great Lakes Region (OH,MI,IL,IN)

By the Numbers

2007-05-15T16:56:00.000-04:00

The March/April issue of Worldwide Challenge reports that the US Campus Ministry (of Campus Crusade) had 48,376 students involved for the 05-06 school year. It also says there are 4,133 staff.

A couple of things jumped out to me from these numbers. Fist - that is a lot of students and very encouraging. Praise God! In recent years Cru has been able to expand to locations that always seemed a bit out of our abilities. That is cool.

The second thing is that I think that staff number is a bit high. Bob Francis (national operations director) and I used to discuss how this number was determined. I think the more accurate tally is somewhere around 2,500 - but I must admit that Judy Nelson, editor or WWC, makes very few mistakes - so . . . .

The third thing that hits me is, that if these numbers are right, then Cru has a 1:12 student to staff ratio. If the number is 2,500 then the ratio is more like 1:20. Obviously this is not true on the ground and most of the movement sizes are considerably larger than this.

However, this may be a reflection of how bureaucratic we have become. Before we get to enamoured with the numbers, we must remember what Churchill said ("the only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself").

University Profs biased (really?)

2007-05-13T15:40:00.000-04:00

This is from National Review Online (but you gotta be a member to look at it - im not, but I received summary).

"Evangelical Christians have long complained that colleges are hostile to their faith. The San Francisco-based Institute for Jesish and Community Research recently surveyed 1,200 professors at a cross-section of schools, seeking their attitudes toward various religions. The study actually was designed to gauge anti-Semitism, but it found something else: 53 percent said they had "unfavorable" evangelical Christians."

Rick Hove and the boys at Christian Leadership Ministries have their work cut out for them.

College Costs

2007-05-11T15:24:00.000-04:00

There are more students in college than ever before, and the cost of tuition is higher than ever before. According to a recent briefing in The Week a four year degree is almost as expensive as buying a home.

At four year private schools the total for tuition, room and board, and books (plus) is $30,367. For state schools the average is $12,796. Over the past 10 years, the cost of public institutions has increased 50%.

Does it matter? According to the US Census Bureau an American with a high school diploma will earn, on average, just over 28k a year. With a bachelors degree the amount increases to over 51k and a masters degree can expect to make 78k.

Burt Bacharach on Words

2007-05-10T15:11:00.000-04:00

"A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the world you first thought of,"
- Burt Bacharach

How true it is.

I was really just looking for a way to work Burt Bacharach into my blog.

It is truly what the world needs now.

Five Reasons We CAN DO Movements Everywhere

2007-05-09T14:26:00.000-04:00

I believe there are a handful of areas where Cru is positioned well in order to move forward in our stated vision of movements everywhere (so that everyone knows someone who knows Jesus!).

1. Goal Orientation
For much of its history, Campus Crusade has focused on accomplishing specific goals. Having been founded by a businessman (Bill Bright ran a candy company - if you are taking notes from home) - Crusade has a foundation of setting goals and moving accordingly. Sometimes we miss the mark, but we seldom miss setting a direction.

2. Strategic Resources
Along with goal orientation, God has granted CCC favor in order to generate resources. At the moment we may struggle with some institutional 'stuckness', but overall there has been the ability to throw good resources at good ideas (Jesus Film & EveryStudent.com).

3. Global Presence
Campus Crusade has a global footprint - so much so that we often use the term 'partner' in regard to stuff we are doing inside the organization. There is a large vast network that helps in coordinating efforts and accomplishing pieces of the vision.

4. Will to Succeed
As a whole, Crusade tends to be a driven organization (goals and all that). If we dream it, we usually move forward to help make it happen. Our tendency is to over dream and under pray (ok, speaking for me on that one).

5. Leadership Engine
Because of a university focus (which is increasing globally) we are able to generate people resources in the form of leaders. Students leave campus young, full of energy and ideas and able to make life altering decisions without being too encumbered (who in your church can take off for 8 weeks of missions activity this summer?). Students can do this.

In each of these categories I have listed, we have access to huge potential, as well as some major stumbling blocks to overcome. For instance in leaders - we must be able to create room for young leader to run wild with ideas, like those that came before them. The older we get as an organization, the harder it is for this to happen.

Bar becomes Church

2007-05-07T15:31:00.000-04:00

Ok, it did not become a church, but more of doubling as a place for people to be the church. Evidently more than 100 people turned up recently for the first night of Solace, a 'church in a bar', in Cardiff, Wales. There were no pews in sight, no talking heads, or three-hundred year old songs in archaic English - guests sat at round tables with drinks (fermented beverages?) in hand, chatting away as they listened to music.

Wendy Sanderson, one of the evangelists involved says, "Who in their right mind wants to give up their Sunday mornings to listen to some bloke ramble on for half an hour, telling everyone what to think, without providing any opportunity for argument or questions? We wanted to create a safe environment where people could meet, somewhere they are familiar with already, where they can have fun and learn about God. It's a way to make church relevant for people in the club scene. I think when church gets too religious, people on the outside are bound to remain on the outside because they can't find a way they understand in," she says.

And evidently this is not the only church in a bar in Cardiff.

It is always good to snag some news from JoelNews

Church becomes Mosque

2007-05-04T11:32:00.000-04:00

NY Times - Britain may continue to regard itself as a Christian nation. But practicing Muslims are likely to outnumber church-attending Christians in several decades, according to a recent survey by Christian Research, a group that specializes in documenting the status of Christianity in Britain.
---

Most of the time I am blogging about rapid expansion of Christianity - but every once in awhile you come across some chilling information - like this Methodist church in England becoming a mosque.

Not only is the decline of the church in the west quite eerie, but what is replacing it can be quite spooky as well. Situations like this are not as a result of large conversions of traditional Brits, but the massive growth of immigrant groups (in this case Pakistanis).

Fortunately this is a kind of 'adaptive challenge' that should re-ignite the church. And indeed this is happening in England in some reassuring ways. Only Jesus knows what forms this will take, but I hear of some exciting things happening on campuses - not a bad place to start.

5k

2007-05-03T22:33:00.000-04:00

What am I nuts? I just saw this picture of my son and I at this 5k in Orlando. Linda was going to run it, but had to bail out - so at the last minute (literally) I took her tag and ran the race. And of course I was in khaki shorts and a pair of sandals (but they were Keens, so not so bad). I finished the whole thing (but my boy beat me!). The big man can sweat!

StoryRunners

2007-05-01T09:04:00.000-04:00

StoryRunners is a group using some innovative (ancient actually) means to move the gospel ahead in distant places. The plan is to use the power of spoken Bible stories to convey the gospel to people for whom stories are a foundational part of their lives. This storying approach uses heart language and common learning style to provide them with an oral set of the Scriptures. Jesus never wrote anything - he simply conveyed it through stories and practice.

Why this method? - according to their stats the current situation looks like this:

6,000 people groups totaling
3 billion people who have not heard His message.
4.5 billion of the world’s population can’t or won’t read.
1 billion people have no Scripture and
millions of people do not have a written language of their own

In partnership with churches and mission agencies, StoryRunners trains teams of near-culture believers to live and work among unreached people groups so that they can:

lay a foundation for the beginnings of an oral Bible,
accelerate the spread of the gospel and
sow the seeds of church planting movements (I really like this point).

This is an incredibly intriguing project that seems much more incarnational than many of our older (or less old) approaches. This seems to capitalize on how the gospel naturally spreads from people to people.

Internet Evangelism

2007-04-29T19:55:00.000-04:00

"Sixty-four percent of Americans seek spirituality on the Internet, and as Christians, we need to be there for them," said Craig von Buseck, director of ministries for CBN.com.

The whole story here.

This is pretty profound, but I often wonder how the difference is showing up in real time. I continue to think that the Internet will prove to be an incredible church [movement] planting tool - and not just cyber churches, but real live churches based upon conversions made online. Tools like MyEveryStudent.com will continue to morph into tools that help new believers plant new simple churches / spiritual movements (without ever connecting to original forms). On a biblical front, very akin to the demon possessed man of Mark 5 heading back to the ten towns, or the Samaritan woman of John 4 in her own village.

If we apply Mark 4 (the sower) to the decisions that are being made on line, there should be hundreds of people instantly ready to multiply 30, 60, 100 fold. Very nice.

Neil Cole - Detox

2007-04-27T13:11:00.000-04:00

Linda, Stacie Fletcher and spent a wonderful evening with Neil Cole last night. I appreciate Neil's hard work and diligence in decoding simple, replicable and multiplying. When talking to Neil it becomes obvious that much of what we hope is multiplication is simply fancy addition.

One of the interesting points that Neil often brings up in our conversations is what he refers to as Detox. Part of moving ahead in simple replicable forms means individuals detoxing from what has become standard operating procedure in western Christianity (that can hamper our growth and obedience).

It involves listening primarily to God via the scriptures, prayer and silence (as compared to speakers and books).
It involves looking at the gospels (Jesus) as the key source of learning and mission.
It involves a paradigm shift in understanding the priesthood of the believer (as opposed to defaulting to a professional clergy class for guidance - we can do it, yes we can).

I am sure it involves other issues as well, but these stand out to me. And this is not to say that books and speakers and such is bad, but that we must move to our primary source being our own engagement with Jesus and scripture. This may sound obvious, but we are a Christian culture littered with many good and meaningful things - that may prevent us from hearing from God and then acting on it.

Tall Skinny Kiwi has left the building

2007-04-26T16:58:00.000-04:00

Andrew Jones (aka TallSkinnyKiwi) just walked out the door headed to the airport and then off to Denver - he was able to stay with us for 2 days during the church planting conference.

Andrew's perspective on church and mission is very refreshing and if you are not currently reading his blog, I suggest you add it to your list (he has been accused of being the Keizer Soze of the emergent church). Andrew has been blogging since the mid '90s and has tracked the advancement of the kingdom like few people I know.

Connections like this are life giving. Thanks Andrew!

Hirsch, TSK, IHOP and the USCM

2007-04-25T09:31:00.000-04:00

I mentioned earlier that Alan Hirsch was in the house last week. Alan was a featured speaker at 2007 National New Church Conference but he carved out time to hang out and connect as well.

On Wednesday morning I arranged a time for Alan (and TallSkinnyKiwi - Andrew Jones) to meet with part of the National Leadership Team of the US Campus Ministry (of Campus Crusade). Marc Ruter, Carrie Walker and Mark Gauthier joined us for some good conversation at our resident IHOP (observation - have you ever seen an International House of Pancakes in a country besides America?).

Alan was his usually drawing and sketching self and it was great to get these leaders connected. Andrew added tidbits of deep knowledge and overall it was a rousing good time (for a breakfast). I look forward to debriefing with Marc, Carrie and Mark.

ShapeVine

2007-04-24T10:34:00.000-04:00

This has some serious potential and I am excited about the possibilities.

The goal of Shapevine is to give missional leaders the opportunity to engage in live learning environments with a wide variety of authors and thought leaders. This will all happen via video cafes, podcasts and live Webinars - and they have already signed on the likes of Reggie McNeil, Carol Davis, Michael Frost, Neil Cole, Brian McLaren, Andrew Jones, Leonard Sweet, Tony & Felicity Dale and others. Very Nice - they are just getting rolling, but you can check it out here.

Test Time

2007-04-23T08:45:00.000-04:00

Linda and I had a grand time entertaining Alan Hirsch for dinner on Saturday night. Alan is in town for the 2007 National New Church Conference (1800 people out at First Baptist Orlando discussing and scheming on planting new churches). Scott & Lori Crocker joined us for dinner and processed life, church and the state of the western world (Alan - you know you love the car sizes in America!!).

Update: At The Forgotten Ways website there are some newly released tools that are worthy of mentioning.

As you know, I have been quite enamored with concept of APEPT leadership from Ephesians 4:7, 11-12 (Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, Teacher) (here or here for more). In my mind this gives us a much better context for leadership assessment than the current US Campus Ministry leadership model - mainly because this takes into account spiritual gifting, kingdom advancement and the inter action of leaders with primary motivational gifting.

This tool, developed by Alan in connection with some folks from Strength Finders, is a simple means to help leaders determine their leanings. It is clean, quick and cheap. If I was leading a local team I would have everyone take it in the 360 mode - and then lead a serious discussions on how the effects the way we move toward the mission.

This tool (www.theforgottenways.org/apest) will help reveal much about how you lead, why you lead that way, and what are primary motivating factors in your spiritual leadership.

Enjoy.

Facebook and Beyond

2007-04-21T19:28:00.000-04:00

A bit off topic, but this stuff has changed the world. My friends Rhett and Link just put this together - these dudes got some talents.

The Lid

2007-04-20T13:53:00.000-04:00

This is an old ad for PS2, but I think it illustrates a great point. I wonder how our lid has trained us?

And now page 104 [more disciple making]

2007-04-19T21:43:00.000-04:00

Hirsch goes on to say that he thinks we have lost the art of disciple making. He identifies three reasons as at least partly responsible:

We have reduced it to the assimilation of intellectual ideas
The abiding impact of cultural Christianity embedded in our understanding of church.
The phenomenon of consumerism pushes against a true following of Jesus.

This appears to me to be the values of knowledge, safety and comfort. As a result, we have lowered the bar for participation in the Christian community to the lowest common denominator.

Alan goes on to say that the phenomenal Jesus movements of the past operated against this type of intuition - the early methods seem to go directly against many of our basic church growth principles (and yet they grew much much faster and deeper). In fact, it was difficult to join, but not complicated.

Alan then leans on Neil Cole's often quoted line regarding this principle - 'We want to lower the bar of how church [movement] is done and raise the bar of what it means to be a disciple.'

Hirsch on Disciple Making

2007-04-18T22:12:00.000-04:00

From Alan Hirsch in The Forgotten Ways (pg. 103 if you are following along at home):

"It is interesting that when we really look at the dangerous stories of the phenomenal movements, at the most uncomplicated level, they appear to the observer simply as disiple-making systems. But the rather funny thing is that they never appear to get beyond this - they never move beyond mere disciple making. This is because it is at once the starting point, the abiding strategic practice, as well as the key to all lasting missional impact in and through movements." Amen and Amen.

Two observations.
1. In Crusade, I believe we would say this used to be our strong suit (along with evangelism).
2. I believe we have suffered as a movement / organization as a result of moving away from this staple and replacing it with complex issues of personal growth and theology (not bad, but maybe as essential).

It is interesting to me that over time our methods have become more complex and at the same time less effective. We think people need more information to grow and yet the rapidness of this growth seems to have decreased. Is this a false observation? Is this simply the aging of us as an organization? How are we missing this key component? Or are we?

Rutz on "Christians in Diapers"

2007-04-12T17:10:00.000-04:00

I loaned out (and apparantly lost) my copy of Megashift. Bummer - I will have to buy a new one. I copied this quote sometime in the fall of 2005. I think it is fitting (if not biting). (The comments in brackets are my additons).

Most people who are called Christians are spiritual babies. They can't even feed themselves. they have to be spoon-fed weekly by sitting passivley in a church service (weekly meeting). Trouble is, this only make the problem worse.

That is why improved sermons, bigger churches, and better trained pasotrs can't help. Quaker statesman Elton Trueblood once gave me a copy of his book The Company of the Committed, in which he lamented dumping all religious affairs onto the clergy (staff), this secularizing everybody else: "The basic trouble [with the traditional church] is that the propoesed cure has such a striking similarity to the disease."

I will be back on Alan Hirsch book and next steps in a day or so.

Expansion in Indonesia

2007-04-10T12:13:00.000-04:00

From Joel News: In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, thousands of new charismatic churches have sprung up. Most of these have a young membership, and there is a growing acceptance of women as leaders.

Indri Gautama, a former businesswoman of Chinese descent, is one of Indonesia's female church planters. She wants to see her nation transformed by Christ and says: "It seems like 60 percent of the disasters happening in the world are in Indonesia. God has allowed this so we will seek Him." Her 1,500-member Apostolic Generation Church that began in 2002, feeds hundreds of the city's poor every week, and it provided significant aid to victims of Jakarta's recent floods. Gautama believes her calling is to train a new generation of Christian leaders. "We have to be willing to take risks. We must adopt a kingdom attitude."

National prayer mobilizer Daniel Pandji says that more than 60,000 churches have been planted in Indonesia in recent years - so many that almost every hotel in Jakarta rents out meeting rooms to congregations that don't have their own buildings. Christians in 500 cities in the country have organized 'prayer altars' where believers are storming heaven for a national revival. "It used to be so hard to gather churches together," Pandji says. "But now we are in a season when churches want to come together for prayer."

Association for Christian Character Development

2007-04-07T15:10:00.000-04:00

Long time no post. The past 14 days have been filled with some meaninful life events.

Last weekend I was in Austin TX for 'Breakthrough' sponsored by the Association for Christian Character Development. It was an intense four days that I was talked into by my good friend Shannon. He said we would endure together - and indeed we did - and the Lord used it to surface all kinds of stuff in our lives. What a joy - if you ever have a chance to attend one of these events, I would highly recommend it. Here is how their web site describes the event I attended - and I agree.

"The Breakthrough Training, an intensive four day experiential training event, is an opportunity to discover the belief systems that prevent you from achieving the fullness of God's purposes for you in such a way that you can realign these beliefs with His purposes and calling in your life and become fruitful. You will experience a transformation in your ability to love others as Christ loves you, liberating your conscience to fulfill God's unique purpose for you with freedom, passion, and power."

The Web: Sex vs. God

2007-03-27T11:32:00.000-04:00

"The number of web pages dealing with God and religion is booming. Religion, in fact, is now nearly as popular an internet topic as sex: A search for "sex" on Google returns about 408 million hits; a search for "God" yields 396 million."

source: Washington Post

Bradbury on jumping off

2007-03-26T11:26:00.000-04:00

"Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Buid your wings on the way down.'' Ray Bradbury

I like this because it is descriptive of a certian leadership style - one that I find very satisfying. The way to grow leaders and find solutions is by jumping in - even (or especially) when there are few answers. Through a process of 'going' everything becomes clearer new methodologies are produced - in real time with real results (good or bad).

In my view, nothing develops leaders better than deployment.

New Orleans

2007-03-22T15:03:00.000-04:00

The last four days I have been in New Orleans with a number of student relief teams. It was great logging time with Kenny Miller, Chip Scivique, Kathyrn Taylor and Pete Kelly talking about the future of good news / good deeds within Campus Crusade.

NO is still a very hurting location. Many of the inhabitants have not returned, but it seems like life is slowly coming back.

I will be back on "The Forgotten Ways" in a few days . . .

Everglades

2007-03-17T22:01:00.000-04:00

I spent the better part of last week in the Everglades with my family - some needed rest and connection time with my crew. We had a great time and must have seen 300 gators. Very cool. Here is Cameron testing his bravery.

I will be back on the Hirsch discussion in day or so.

Bono's Acceptance Speech at the NAACP

2007-03-13T00:12:00.000-04:00

There is some very interesting Kingdom stuff happening here!

A Holy, Loving Critique

2007-03-10T14:44:00.000-05:00

This caught my attention. Again, nuggets from from Hirsch: (if you don't have the book yet, you can read the whole first chapter here).

A prophetically consistent Christianity means that we must remain committed to a constant critique of the structures and rituals we set up and maintain.
We should . . . understand it as a form of 'holy rebellion' based on the loving critique of religious institution modeled by the original apostles and prophets - "holy rebels" who constantly attempted throw off encumbering ideologies, structures, codes and traditions that limited the freedom of God's people and restricted the gospel message that they are mandated to pass on.
It is rebellion because it refuses to submit to status quo. But because it is holy rebellion, it directs us toward a greater experience of God that we currently have.
Vital movements arise always in a the context of rejection by the predominant institutions (eg. Wesley and Booth)
C.S. Lewis: "there exists in every church something that sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. So we must strive very hard, by the grace of God to keep the church focused on the mission that Christ originally gave to it."
We realize that the Bible sustains a thoroughly consistent warning against the centralization of power in a few individuals and concentration of it in inflexible and impersonal institutions.

Not that we want to be rebellious for the sake of rebellion, but I believe we must lovingly, graciously and genuinely question the forms and structures handed to us. What, if anything, hinder us? What would you change?

Or - think of it this way: If Cru were a denomination, what denomination would we be theologically? (A: some kind of reformed baptist kind of thing - with a latent charismatic undertow). Now structurally, if were a denomination, what denomination would we be? (think about our hiring, placement, reporting structures, etc?) What say you? How does this help us, hurt us and inform the conversation?

Jesus Is #1

2007-03-07T18:05:00.000-05:00

I have to admit, when I saw this as the central piece of Apostolic Genius, I was a bit disappointed. It seems rather simple - but that may be the very point. Lordship is both simple and radically difficult.

Summarizing this aspect is not easy. These snippets may help us to understand the primacy of "Jesus is Lord." [for Cru purposes, substitute 'church' with 'movement' for this to be relevant to our situation.]

What does all this practically mean for those seeking to recover Apostolic Genius in the life of the community of God?

it will involve (re)engaging directly the central confession of "Jesus is Lord" and attempting to reorient the church around this life-orienting claim.
it will also mean simplifying our core messages,
uncluttering our overly complex theologies,
and thoroughly evaluating the traditional templates that so shape our behaviors it and dominate our consciousness.

From Alan:

I have become absolutely convinced that it is Christology, and in particular the primitive, unencumbered Christology of the NT church, that lies at the heart of the renewal of the church at all times and in every age.

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Sadly history amply demonstrates how we as God's people can so often obscure the centrality of Jesus in our experience of church. There is so much clutter in our "religion," so many competing claims, that this central unifying claim that lies at the heart of the faith is easily lost. It is remarkable how Jesus can be so easily cast out from among his people.

So - what do we have that clutters our Christiology - and what should we do about it? What should we do about it organizationally?

Is It Really Like This?

2007-03-05T16:18:00.000-05:00

More from Forgotten Ways: This is a research quote from Sally Morgenthaler,

Despite what we print in our own press releases, the numbers don't look good. According to 2003 actual attendance counts, adult church-going is at 18 percent nationally and dropping. Evangelical attendance (again, actual seat numbers, not telephone responses) accounts for 9% of the population, down from 9.2% in 1990. Of the 3,098 counties in the U.S., 2,303 declined in church attendance.

Is this true? My take on stats like this is similar to Winston Churchill's ("the only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself"). On campus are we experiencing this decline? or is it a 'church' thing only? Would you say, from your observations, that the church is in decline in the west? Or are we moving ahead and progressively getting better and better at reaching students (and people) in all categories?

Most of Alan's book does not focus on the gap, but on what happened to make phenomenal Jesus movements happen. His findings are truly amazing and should inform the expansion of the church for years to come. I put this in my must read category - especially for those who are leading toward the rapid expansion of the kingdom (you will love it).

If you don't own a copy get one here.

You can hook up with Alan and his thinking here.

How Did They Do That??

2007-03-04T16:52:00.000-05:00

I am on my second read through of Alan Hirsch's fantastic book on movements. Alan does a excellent job of capturing the essence of 'movement.' He gathers insights by looking at the expansion of the NT church and the church in China and asking "How did they do that?".

So - how did they do it? (go 25k to 20 million in 200 years). Before you venture your guess, here is the reality of both situations.

Christianity was an illegal religion (at best tolerated, at worst persecuted)
No buildings
No Bibles (or very few)
No professional pastors, teachers or paid staff
No bands, seekers services, or youth groups (or flannel boards)
No seminaries, commentaries, bookstores or publishing houses
They made it hard to join!

Those are Alan's observations - here are my additions.

Few people could read (they could not have a 'quiet time' in the way we often teach)
No one had a college education
No mass communication (no email, phone, etc)
No strategic planning processes, no PrEFACE model, no Growth Model or Leadership Model.

Had enough? The growth was explosive - and without many things that we consider essential.

What gives? What is true of these situations that we are missing now? How did this initial movement move so fast, so furiously and so effectively?

The Winners Are

2007-03-02T21:58:00.000-05:00

The 5 copies of Alan's book, The Forgotten Ways go to:

Chris Newport at Texas Tech
Steve Baker of Philly Metro
Michael Brown at Bowling Green
Rick Pridey of the Sioux Empire Campus Team
Dave Lowe at UC Davis

Apostolic Genius

2007-03-01T14:21:00.000-05:00

Alan identifies six elements of what he has termed Apostolic Genius (defined as the unique energy and force that imbues phenomenal Jesus movements). There may be more, but there are never less.

Jesus is Lord - at the middle is this simple but radical confession. This statement oversees all of life. (at first this seems logical, simple and kind of weak - but as you read more on these implication, you begin to realize the highly volatile nature of this radical confession).
Disciple Making - the life-long task of becoming like Jesus. Again, this sounds simple, especially with our preconceived notions of disciple making. Disciple making involved bringing every aspect of life into the likeness of Christ.
Missional-Incarnational Impulse - every missional movement shows the twin engines of outward thrust and a related deepening. This seeds and embeds the gospel in new locations / people / cultures.
Apostolic Environment - this is the type of leadership and ministry required to move ahead. Don't let the word apostolic freak you out - it simply means 'sent one', but the implications are huge.
Organic Systems - don't even get me started. Alan says, 'Phenomenal Jesus movements grow precisely because they do not have centralized institutions to block growth through control' - some one get me a tissue.
Communitas, Not Community - communities and bonds that come together in the context of a shared ordeal - or those that define themselves as a group with a mission that lies beyond themselves (and engaging in a risky journey).

Here is Alan's take - (this is where I stole the pretty picture).

So the question is . . . how we doin? In each of these categories there is a way that the church in the west has attempted to operated (Cru included) that stunts the functioning of apostolic genius. We must figure out what needs to change and then be courageous enough to change it (or to simply start something new).

I have my opionion (like that will shock anyone) - what about yours? Get the book. When you look at these 6 elements, where do we need to adjust? What are we missing? How do we change? What would you suggest as the next steps?

Over the next few posts, I will try to explore each of these ideas in various ways.

Read This - Now!!

2007-02-28T14:01:00.000-05:00

Alan has nailed it. There is nothing I have read over the past 5 years that better describes our situation and solution than The Forgotten Ways (thanks Alan!). I believe every Cru staff member should read this, digest it and allow it to inform our thinking on movements everywhere. He has something to say for all of us who are enamored with the concepts, practices and principles of rapidly expanding spiritual movements.

Alan started the discussion by asking, "How the NT church went from 25k to 20 million in 210 years?"

Or, the contemporary example of the body of Christ in China going from 2 million to 80 million in about 60 years. His findings are inspired, mind blowing, ancient and amazingly simple. I told Alan I felt like he putting words to my angst every time I turned the page. Over the next few weeks I hope to chronicle my findings, hopes and dreams based upon the fork that Alan is jabbing in my side.

If you are Cru staff (or not) please join me in the discussion.

J. Oswald Sanders on Caution

2007-02-26T15:21:00.000-05:00

A great deal more failure is the result of an excess of caution than of bold experimentation with new ideas. The frontiers of the kingdom of God were never advanced by men and women of caution.

- J. Oswald Sanders

NBC on Micro Church

2007-02-21T19:20:00.000-05:00

Here is an interesting take on simple church (micro in the piece) from NBC news. It is interesting to note that the small house church they highlight is conducting a 'service' very similar to a large church. There is music and teaching from up front and it seems a bit formal compared to the stories I have heard (and my own, limited personal experience). Still, it is an interesting feature you can check out here.

Joe in Mexico - The One Hour Launch

2007-02-20T20:54:00.000-05:00

This is a must read on God showing up. These guys in Mexico City are hoping to plant over 400 new movements / simple churches in the city on college campuses.

This is just the beginning.

Center for Missional Research

2007-02-19T17:30:00.000-05:00

Ed Stetzer is Missiologist and Senior Director of NAMB's Center for Missional Research. Here is an excerpt from some of his recent findings. This article is from 12/06 and you can see the whole thing here.
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"Over the last several months, we commissioned Zogby International to survey more than 3,600 people (1200 interviews on three occasions) about several issues, but particularly about their involvement in spirituality and alternative expressions of church.

We asked, "Do you meet weekly with a group of 20 people or less to pray and study scriptures as your primary form of spiritual or religious gathering?"

Remarkably, 26.3% of the 3600 Americans who were asked that question indicated that they did—as their primary form of spiritual or religious gathering.
Comparatively, in one of the three surveys, we cross-tabbed the number to those who considered themselves "born again." In that case, 42.1 % of those who identified themselves as born-again Christians said that they met weekly with a group of 20 or less people as their primary form of spiritual or religious gathering.

It should be challenging, exciting, and concerning that one out of four Americans consider their small or house group / church / synagogue / mosque to be their primary source of spiritual training. However, most of those who consider their small community to be their primary place of spiritual encouragement still attend church at a significant rate. Only a smaller percentage of those who attend a small spiritual community do not also attend church—but that is still a large number.

When we cross-tabulated the "small group" question with the "church attendance" question, we found that 50 out of 3,600 adults attend both a group of 20 or less and "rarely" or "never" attend a place of worship. If extrapolated, this is almost 1.4 percent of the American population and may represent the purest measure of those who are not involved in an organized church, synagogue, or mosque but still are involved in some alternative faith community like, in the Christian faith, a house church. That is about four million people—not a small number. Barna's people have estimated that a million Americans are involved in the "house church," or the Christian expression of the above trend."

Dallas Willard on Send

2007-02-18T20:36:00.000-05:00

“Jesus did not send out his students to start governments or even churches as we know them today. They were to establish beachheads of his person, word, power in the midst of a failing and futile humanity. They were to bring the presence of the kingdom and it’s King to every corner of human life…. Churches are not the kingdom of God but primary and inevitable expressions, outposts, and instrumentalities of the presence of the kingdom among us. They are societies of Jesus, springing up in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the furthest points of the earth as the reality of Christ is brought to bear on ordinary human life.”

Dallas Willard in Renovation of the Hear t

Five Developments WorldWide

2007-02-15T20:20:00.000-05:00

Acccording to research from Joel News - here are 5 key things developing around the world.

An unprecedented growth of the prayer movement worldwide;
God's Spirit being poured out in many places, marked by conversion and miracles;
Many new partnerships and networks are being formed on a city-, nation- and even continental level, linking prayer, saturation church planting and frontline missions;
More and more Christians, churches and ministries are engaging in a transformational process to bring godly change to their societies;
Radically simple and innovative forms of church are springing up in many places, reaching the unreached.

#5 is particularly intriguing. The simpler church gets, the easier it is to multiply churches. Nothing has more radical implications on movements everywhere than a simple and rapidly expanding form of church. I look forward to watching developments in this area.

Catalytic and Staffed Campus

2007-02-12T22:40:00.000-05:00

Ever since the structure change in 1991 (yes, that is 16 years ago) we have had this funky Catalytic / Staffed Campus division. (Catalytic schools have a staff coach from a distance, Staffed Campus has a dedicated team). So, last year about this time I embarked on a simple investigation. I wrote a Catalytic Regional Director with this question: "From all the students who come to your Christmas Conference, what is the CAT / Staffed Campus breakdown . . . And how does that compare to how the staff are allocated in region. In other words, what percentage of the coference are from Catalytic schools and then what percentage of the your staff are catalytic staff? – I am curious if it is about the same.

Here is his response:
"Got the final numbers on Cat students at the conference. There were 814 students from non-SC schools. If you take out the schools that Staffed Campus teams own there are still over 700 of the 1900 students. So, 1/3+ students …. ¼ of staff "

I copied our national CAT leader on the email and he gave me this reply:
"These catalytic numbers pretty much echo the average across the country…a few more in some regions…somewhat less in regions where we simply don’t have anything developed. Usually it works out to about 1/3 of the students with about 1/10 of the staff. Imagine if each staff were actually coaching 5 campuses instead of 2. On the sending side, however, the numbers still lag further behind the 1/3 number…but, they are improving somewhat each year."

Henri Nouwen on Listening

2007-02-09T22:24:00.000-05:00

Developing “ears to hear” God takes time. We all have strong resistances to listening. First of all, we find it very hard to create empty spaces in our lives and to give up our occupations and preoccupations, even for a while. We suffer from a fear of the empty space. We are so concerned with being useful, effective, and in control that a useless, ineffective, and uncontrollable moments scares us and drives us right back tot he security of having something valuable to do.

But even stronger than our fear of the empty space is our fear of actually hearing the voice of God! We know that our God is a jealous God who knows there is no other cure for our restlessness and deafness but finding our home in God. . .

Growing in faith requires a growing attentiveness to perceive where God is active and to where we are being led. One of the key questions in overcoming spiritual deafness and blindness is: Where is God active in my life or community right now?

Spiritual Direction by Henri Nouwen, 18-19

Tic Toc

2007-02-06T17:19:00.000-05:00

We can thank Jean Calvin for the Swiss watch. In 1541, he restricted the wearing of jewelry—a worldly vanity. This forced the goldsmiths and other jewellers to turn into a new, independent craft : watchmaking. By the end of the century, Genevan watches were reputed for their high quality.

For centuries the Swiss have been the world’s leading watchmakers. They invented the minute hand and the second hand. They continually improved the design and functioning of self-winding watches. In 1968, they had a 65 percent share of the world watch market.

Yet by 1980 their market share had collapsed to less than 10 percent. Between 1979 and 1981, 50,000 of Switzerland’s 62,000 watchmakers lost their jobs. Japan, which had less than one percent of the world watch market in 1968, was in the midst of developing world-class electronic technology. By the early 1980s the Japanese had 33 percent of the world’s watch market.

The Swiss were the world’s best at making self-winding watches with their gears, bearings and mainsprings. Those skills were now irrelevant. Mechanical watches were being replaced by electronic ones. The Swiss watch makers’ success and expertise had blinded them to a fundamental shift in the world around them.

Ironically, it was the Swiss who invented the electronic quartz watch! When Swiss researchers presented this revolutionary new idea to Swiss manufacturers in 1967, they rejected it. They saw no future for the concept. Confident it would fail, they allowed their researchers to display it as a novelty at the World Watch Congress that year. Seiko took one look and the rest is history.

See: “Future Edge: Discovering the New Paradigms of Success” (Joel A. Barker), 15-17.

Movement insight: Those with the greatest investment in the way things are have the most to lose when it comes to the need for change. Expect the breakthroughs to come from people who don’t have an investment in the way things are.

Tony & Lovie

2007-02-02T16:10:00.000-05:00

Making history - in more ways than one.

www.beyondtheultimate.org

Christendom in Europe

2007-02-01T18:02:00.000-05:00

According to British scholar and church planter Martin Robinson the time of Christendom (when the Church held an established position in society) is definitely over in Europe. "Christians have to learn to live as creative minorities, living out a Jesus-centered spirituality and discipleship," Robinson says. "We have to mobilise the capacity of the church to create social capital, and serve and transform society bottom-up, very much like the early church." He calls for an 'organic approach' to missions in which Christians combine a sensitivity to God's Spirit (where is He already at work and how is He specifically guiding us) with reaching 'people of peace' (people of influence in a given social network who are ready to receive and follow Christ) and a DNA of multiplication of small groups.

How far from this picture is North America. According to the research we are already there.

OC Movement Quick Report

2007-01-31T15:46:00.000-05:00

I returned from the Organic Church Movement Conference excited, connected and sobered. The best part of the time was the people - this group represents a great collection of humble mission focused leaders - and some great new friends.

Big time thanks to Neil for hosting this event. It was nice to connect with Alan Hirsch and a number of other key leaders. Alan puts into words what many of us are experiencing in our gut.

Some observations from the time in Long Beach:

Pulling this off in the west (church planting movements) is still not an exact science, but there is movement. I appreciate Neil, Alan, Carol Davis, George Patterson, Wolfgang Simson and others who are informing my thinking.
Raise the bar of discipleship . . . .this is the most solid aspect of the OC Movement. I came away with a greater desire to follow the teachings of Jesus.
The best results seem to come from the parts of our culture that gave up on church a long time ago. Effective simple church movements start best when initiated in the hearts of the recent converts.
Mileage varies on starting OC movements in traditional settings - there seems to be a lot of frustration here.
Nothing screams of movements everywhere like this stuff. It is simple, free, and replicable. I look forward to the future.

Johring in Mexico

2007-01-29T13:14:00.000-05:00

This is from my good friend Craig Johring in Mexico City.
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Here in Mexico City we are off to fantastic start of the semester. A huge addition to our team this semester are three Mexican staff from Oaxaca. I met these friends when they were students seven years ago when I did a Stint in Oaxaca. Since that time they’ve been launching movements and coaching leaders on campuses all around the state of Oaxaca. It’s so great to have Mexican national staff on our team as we believe God for launching a movement in every department of the 400+ university campuses in this city.

We are geared up, organized, and ready to host the numerous Spring Break groups who are coming to Mexico City in March. Our Spring Break website is www.MexicoFocus.com. It’s not too late to join the party and be a part of a historic time of pioneering new movements on campuses in this amazing and incredible city.

Our seven-week Summer Project is called The Mexico Journey. Students and staff will spend the first 2 weeks in Mexico City launching movements. Then in teams of five they will fan out across the country to believe God for pioneering movements in places we’ve never been before. Right now we have 18 staff and students on board, and have room for another 50. The website for The Mexico Journey is:

If you like reading blogs and want to track the latest and greatest adventures here in Mexico City…
Joe Cross
Kamp Ed Blog

Yours,

-Craig Johring

OC Movement Conference

2007-01-26T19:33:00.000-05:00

Later today I will show up at the main session of the Organic Church Movement conference in Long Beach, CA (sponsored by CMAResources). I have logged the last 24 hours with some of the leadership of this movement and it has been fantastic.

I am here as a human sponge . . . and I look forward to hearing from:

Neil Cole (author of Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens and Cultivating a Life for God) will speak on: "Why didn't I take the Blue Pill: speaking candidly about the darkside of Organic Church"
Reggie McNeal (author of Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church, Revolution in Leadership: Training Apostles for Tomorrows Church, A Work of the Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders, and Practicing Greatness: 7 Disciplines of Extraorginary Spiritual Leaders, will speak about: "Qualities of a Missional Leader)
Alan Hirsch (co-author of The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church, and author of the newly released Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church) will speak on: "Forgotten Ways: Apostolic Church Planting Movements"
Ori Brafman (co-author of The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations) "Starfish Organizations: the unstoppable power of decentralized movements)
Felicity Dale (author of An Army of Ordinary People, Getting Started, and co-author of Simply Church) will speak on: "Mobilizing the other half of the army: Women in leadership roles"
Wolfgang Simson (author of Houses That Change the World) will speak on: "Thinking prophetically and acting apostolically"

The workshops will be good as well.

Neil Cole: Breakinig Free from the Institutional Mindset
Carol Davis: The GlobaLocal Church Having an impact on the world from the very start
Dezi Baker: Transformation of a town: a case study of organic, incarnational impact on an entire town
Tony Dale: How to hear and discern real prophecy
Wolfgang Simson: Organic Church Finances, Part One
Panel Discussion: Transitioning conventional churches to organic churches (four models)
Richard Flemming: Marketplace Movements
Eric Herron: Organic church worship
Alan Hirsch: Acting your way into a new way of thinking: Leadership and action-oriented learning processes
Jaeson Ma: Campus Organic Church Movements
Panel discussion on Organic Church in the Black community
Wolfgang Simison: Organic Church Finances, Part Two
Brad Fieldhouse and Eric Swanson: Transforming Cities from the grass roots
Debra HIrsch: Organic church and the tough questions of ministry in the gay community.

Should be fun.

Plant, Launch, Build, Grow?

2007-01-25T19:23:00.000-05:00

About a year ago, we had an interesting micro discussion on words during a US Campus Ministry National Team meeting.

Specifically, how do we describe moving ahead with movements. Do we launch and then build them? Or are they planted and then grown? And does it matter? Here are some observations.

Launch and Build seems man centric. We launch, we build.
The organic words lend more energy to the front end of the equation. We plant, but we cannot grow (any more than we can make corn grow). You plant corn and then it grows.
If we say build, it implies that we have to have a high degree of intentionality to make it work (I believe someone does, but is that meant to be us, or someone that comes from the harvest?).
Build implies a lot of work. You build houses, and barns and such. Growing involves watching and nurturing, but it happens via God energy. Again, I can water the corn but I don't build it.
Launch and Build sounds corporate and stoic. Plant and Grow sounds organic and simple.

At the same time, no one would argue that a campus ministry takes a lot of work. The question is, is that our work? Or is that the leadership work of the students involved. What does our work look like to care for the crop that is planted?

Lead Like a 5 Year Old

2007-01-24T11:52:00.001-05:00

Sometimes it is profitable to lead like you are 5 years old . . . . not the tantrum part, but asking a lot of 'why' questions?

When we question what we have, it forces us to think toward broader solutions.

Here are some of mine. So, if we are moving toward movements everywhere . . . . then . . .

Why do we allocate staff at all? Why don't we allow people to allocate themselves? (because everywhere is everywhere)
Why do we determine the number of summer projects? Why cant anyone lead one?
Why do I tell people where to go for the summer?
Why do we hire people on a national level and place them from a regional level but have them answer to people on a local level? Couldn't we do all of this from a local level?

Just a few things to ponder.

Ronk and the GC Global Prayer Movement

2007-01-23T22:06:00.000-05:00

Over the past few months I have been in a movement email dialogue with Steve Ronk, part of the Great Commission Global Prayer Movement. Here is a recent excerpt of wisdom:

"As you have probably read, most documented spiritual movements throughout history have been preceded with movements of prayer – a small remnant of people asking for God to do something in their church or community. I feel that a successful approach to prayer times asking for a spiritual movement need to focus on God’s will and desires, which are an intimate relationship with Him, surrender of everything to Him, asking Him to transform the individual into His image, which leads to God’s glorification and promotion (making God known). I feel that this focus of prayer should be sincerely and continuously prayed for the individuals, praying group, their church, community, city, country, etc.

(I feel that this is how God answers prayer requests. We tend to base our requests and requests for others on our will, needs and desires. God answers prayer requests based on His will and desires – intimacy, surrender, transformation, His glorification, and He being made known. We think our will, needs and desires can only be fulfilled through what God can do for us. God created us in such a way that we can only find fulfillment in Him.)

As the Holy Spirit transforms and empowers this praying group, God might draw more believers into the group – thus a movement can be formed. The new pray-ers need to be brought into the group, coached on this prayer approach, and continue praying for God’s will and desires. As this group goes out into their church and community surrendered, transformed and empowered, the lost will be drawn to them and Christ can be modeled and shared – thus a spiritual movement of multiplication can be formed.

All prayer and spiritual movements have to be empowered by God. We cannot create them, there is no magic formula, but I feel that the above approach can create the right situation that God may bless with His presence and power. The worse case scenario is that this group will be surrendered, transformed and empowered, which will lead to Christ being modeled, glorified and proclaimed."

Three Changes

2007-01-19T21:41:00.000-05:00

I think if we made these three changes in the US Campus Ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, it would greatly increase our effectiveness. Ready . . . hang on.

1. Allow local leaders to hire their whomever they want.
2. Allow a team to go anywhere in the context of the mission (in other words, anywhere there are students).
3. Allow a team leader to be anyone who can get two others to follow them (recognized vs. assigned leadership).

I have a few more additions, but I will hold off. A few things will happen with these changes. We will reduce our dependency on HR systems, we will free young leaders to move to open space and we be freed from any bureaucratic formations that hold us back.

Now, many will say we don't have the problem of people not being able to go where they want. To a degree this is true - in fact, if a young leader asked for a new role it would be considered (I asked to go to Duke, but that blasted Rick Hove scooped me). However, the system does not encourage this activity, but makes it a bit of an anomoly and somewhat presumptious. So then our systems and structures limit the types of leaders who desire freedom to succeed or fail on grand terms. If you want to be assigned something, then we are a great place to be. If you want to go crazy and take some insane turf, you had better get in line somewhere (is that to harsh?). Why did East Asia gather so many good leaders? Successful turf and wide open spaces. Leaders gravitate to the vacuum baby!

The above rules (and many others) are what the church at large operates off of. If you, me and someone's dog want to plant a church . . . . who is stopping us? We can do it in the back of some grocery store, a cigar shop or a brothel. The rules are gone and we gather who we need to gather to get er done. This is why you can drive from Orlando to LA on the back roads and never go through a town that does not have a church. It may not be a great church, but the open system allows them to form anywhere anyway and anyhow with anywho.

Wouldn't it be fun to capitalize on this power!?

For more thinking on this open system thinking read The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman & Rod Beckstrom

Opportunities

2007-01-17T18:26:00.000-05:00

Recently a old college buddy of mine accepted a new leadership role in the US Marines. I congratulated him on his promotion . . . and here is part of his response. Worthy insight.

"It is an awesome responsibility and will most certainly be the pinnacle of my career. I find it funny that it is something that I have aspired to for so long and when the moment unexpectedly came upon me, I hesitated. I actually debated not taking the job. It was some wise counsel from several mentors (my dad included) that showed me that I had a moral obligation to accept this responsibility. Part of my conviction was a quote by Winston Churchill..."

"To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour."

Boston

2007-01-13T17:03:00.000-05:00

I spent the end of the fist week of Jan in Boston. What a great place. From the hotel I walked over to MIT and strolled the grounds. It had a slightly more academic flavor the U of North Texas (Harvard of Denton County).

In Boston I was able to deliver two talks on my favorite subject. One was simply the principle of the Sower from Mark 4. I love how Jesus illustrates the role of the farmer and the work of the seed. That evening I was able to talk about God's heart and passion for the world. It is always fun to cruise through scripture and highlight the Great Commission sightings in both testaments. And since God is up to so much in today's world it makes it even better to tell the stories.

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