Texas Retreat #2

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.

Read This - Now!!

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.

Center for Missional Research

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."

Christendom in Europe

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.