Tuesday, January 31, 2006

An IM Conversation on Mission

IM conversations can be strange, and reading ones you were not involved in can be stranger. But, just for kicks I thought I would post this one.

I was sitting by the computer working on a who knows what, when one of the Campus Ministry regional leaders popped in and said hello. We ended up talking shop and what follows are our harried stream of consciousness - from the middle of an IM conversation.

You can follow along at home:

Me: So . . . why is it hard to fill these jobs?
Mysterious Regional Leader: our old guys love the field
and don't want to leave home b/c of kids still in high school
true
but what about the younguns
what is the word on the street - what is the take on the RD job?
more influence at the local level
not too many like the desk either
why is that? on influence
more contact with people
more of doing what you came on staff to do.
not sure, we have not talked details yet
-------
I feel like we have a bunch of soft ministries in the country these days
we're doing gather, build, send rather than win...
so how do we solve it?
get back to our distinctives,
kill the idol of "big"
quit measuring number of students involved
Amen brother
and sending the wrong message to the field
Amen and amen
is this something that you can speak into nationally
we do
I'm not hearing it
I'm hearing movements everywhere
more, more, more
not that movements everywhere is bad
Some of us would love to drop the IMB [we measure involved new believers] number and total involved and replace it with student multipliers as the key measurement
we're on the same page
our whole team is
it is mvts everywhere, but they are supposed to be evangelistic with leaders (spiritual multipliers)
Like XXX said, if our mvts look like what I am seeing, I am not sure I want them everywhere
yeah
XXX and I have talked about this . . - He and I are pretty much on the same page.
Now what do we do about it?

-------
we don't want to lose our big weekly meetings
we got ourselves into trouble by measuring number of staff and number at weekly meetings
and thus we don't want to offend
you are right
maybe you can write the new article, "you can't do small like you do big"
How about an experiment - Have a small RD team to move quick . . . . measure spiritual multipliers, decisions and gospel presentations - see what happens
you're a fun guy
can you see (other mysterious regional leaders) going for this
will national go for it
I know you will
I think you could push us toward it
Our system is built to get exactly what we are getting
you are right again
If we don't try something new we will continue to be frustrated with the results we are currently getting.
----------
just did a focus group at UofX with new students
and . . . .
and they give you the answer that we're about fellowship
for the most part
that stinks, but it does not surprise
we're doing a good job at building and sending need some work on winning
and our new staff are joining out of this and they think that is what their job is

you got it baby
so, if you push them on evangelism, some will leave
and maybe they should
so when I tell them their job is to share Jesus between 500-1500 times in their first 18 months on staff, they look at me like WOW.
big is valued though we may have to close a few campuses
small is better rather than keeping a dead boat afloat
what if we do [lose them]?
We will soon regain them because we will be getting evangelistic entrepreneurial people to join us
true
true
------
maybe this conversation has empowered me to close 5 or 6 campi
don't blame me! Before I would close something though, I would like to change what we measure, and be TENACIOUS about measuring it. If we don't measure big, but we measure decisions, then that will go a long way in changing what we are asking LL [local team leaders] to do.
-----
I think the changes of 92 were just on the surface
at least in our region

we're still close to being a dinosaur

I agree - I think I just realized this a few weeks ago myself
our winter conf made some changes, but the conf still felt the same
our problems now (evangelism mainly) are the same as they were in 92
yes
----

We went on to talk more about evangelism and such, but I am tired of highlighting stuff in green, so you will have to take my word for it.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Insightful...for sure. Being an HR type, I think we may need to start asking the new staff some different questions in the application process so they will be more aware of what we will actually be asking them to do when they hit the field. Maybe we could weed out some who don't really want to be a part of this thing.

Steve Van Diest said...

Shane,

You nailed it. This is where we have already moved. Our students cancelled our weekly meeting b/c it didn't allow us to go after our mission. It was becoming the "Thing" we do and not going out. We tend to talk about CCC/CRU/Fuel and not about Jesus. Now that we have decentralized our staff and CCC students are sensing God moving (not us), are talking about Jesus and the supernatural. It has been a blast. There is a fear that we are not the "Big" ones on campus anymore but we are having a blast. Our staff are released to do what CCC has always talked that we are (yet we always ran a big machine), evangelism and discipleship. Even those two things are convoluted. Evangelism is an event, surveys, not really getting into the lost world. It is leaving our fellowship and doing it to do one by one extraction of believers (we have just gathered) or non believers who now don't have any more non Christian friends (they live in our sub culture). Discipleship is not about selection and doing the mission but an ongoing consuming relationship.
I believe many staff in the 90's came on staff to shephered, lead bible studies, counsel not to be part of a radical spirit filled, supernatural, God powerful movement that requires white hot faith, total dependance on prayer, Spirit filled living and wild living. What we're aiming for is the supernatural, not the practical and proven.

Keep leading us (National Team and others) to go for it. Mark Spoke at SP Leaders Conf and made a statement from Matt 28; we're not to teach all of Christianity but just to teach those things Christ commanded. I think often we feel like we must be all things to all Christian students but in the same time we have lost our distinctives.

Tom Neslon about 8 years ago said something to me. He said, CCC is the Green Barets of the Christian world. You guys are a specialized trained group of warriors going after the lost. He says often we in the Church have worried more about who is bring ham buns and jello to the next potluck. Maybe we need to become more of the warriors again and not worry about all the other things we do.

Downside, we will lose our size in meetings and maybe even staff who are gifted in these other areas may leave staff. But I believe and have no doubt that we will gain a new generation of staff with out the heavy handed need for recruiting staff. They will see us for who we really are and say, man, I want to work for those guys.

Just some rambling early here in the altitude of CO.

Matt Mikalatos said...

Hey Shane-- When I was a CD in East Asia, my wife came up with this idea called "the kuai jar." Every week at our business meeting everyone would put coins in a jar for every person they had shared the gospel with. We had a goal for the year (one which was over the top size-wise) that forced us to come up with new ideas and to stay focused on sharing Christ. We still collected all of our other stats, of course (including spiritual mults) but after a while we realized that the stats that we all really remembered *as a team* were the number of people who had heard the gospel. The jar was a nice, physical reminder of the people who had heard the gospel, and at the end of the year we donated all the cash to summer projects.

Our second year we introduced the kuai jar into our Bible studies, too.

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