New Forms of Church
I think we don’t just need new wrapping for the church in America– we need a brand new shape altogether. As I ponder my work with churches, I feel like the salt water taffy that I saw being shaped in Savannah recently– pulled and stretched over and over again. It is pulled out of shape by skilled experienced hands, hands that know what the end shape will be. While this is a rather glamour-less example, when compared to the Biblical example of the potter, its the same idea. The problem is, we have been pushed into shape by a cooky cutter called American Church Life, rather than being shaped by the pressure and tension of the Master’s hands. I think in many cases we assume what church should be like, and repeat or re-dress what others have done before us.
I’ve written about this in recent blog at http://www.shapevine.com/pg/blog/dmills1/read/18981/imagination-in-bondage if you would like to think with me some about this topic.
What should the primary shaping forces of the the forms and expressions of church– I think it is simple–whatever the best cultural expression is that FOLLOWS the mission. Mission first, kingdom impact in people’s lives first, then church forms itself in that setting. That’s a lot different than “build it and they will come.”
Awesome Ideation Experience
I had never been to an “ideation” meeting. I wasn’t really sure what it was. The compassion by design approach to starting Externally Focussed New Churches was on the list for the event, so I packed my bags and headed to Leadership Network in Dallas for a couple of days. I joined about 60 other leaders who had “ideas” of their own, and we had the privilege of spending a couple of days with folks from Leadership Network and John Handy, formerly of Mattell Toys to “ideate” my idea along with all the others.
I now know that ideation is a lot like “aeration,” the thing you do to aquariums to get oxygen back into the water. Our lives get to be like fish in a tank– and the air gets stale after a while. The infusion of creativity was incredibly helpful to put the compassion by design effort into a broader perspective and see how it connects to other ideas being birthed across the body of Christ.
I learned that you have to take your “ideas to the edge” in order to let them live. I will be doing some thinking about how to take our effort to birth externally focussed new churches to the edge– and I would love your thoughts. How far can we press this idea that churches should be birthed not in a formulaic religious process, but in the real experience of listening to others in needs assessment and offering meaningful and focussed service. Churches birthed in service are different.
Why wait until a church is grown up and then try to reinvent it as externally focussed
and valuable in the community?
Look for the top ideas to be posted soon on the Leadnet site, and top 12 announced!
First Compassion by Design Coaching Group Wrap Up
It has been my great privilege to walk along side a group of church planters over the past year as they “plant by serving.” That term refers to the process of intentionally growing churches in which the first touch on the community is about listening through needs assessment, and the reputation of the church grows through a season of service that starts even before the church launches– all of which builds a missional DNA into the fabric of a new church from the beginning. We have spent time together in person on several dozen phone conferences being challenged and being real about what it takes to create a church where the heart of Jesus for service is part of the core of our church. We are wrapping up the first group, and have completed the first quarter with the second group.
One of the planters said: “Thanks for doing this group, it has been really helpful to me in processing what God’s called us to do.”
It has been rewarding for me to walk with these courageous men as we have discovered some important things together about how to plant a different kind of church.
Big thanks to Stadia and Todd Wilson for helping to support this group coaching process. Over the next year we will shift to using Shapevine tools with online meetings and materials, and we will be certifying our first coaches so that I am not the only one leading groups.
Stay tuned as we share some of the audio clips from these times together.
A Rhythm Beyond Random
I have had this conversation with many pastors over the last couple of years. It goes like this:
“we started our church in outreach to the community using a kind of shotgun approach to service. We took on lots of different projects to get our name out there and to build a better attitude about the community, but now we are having a hard time shifting from the random approach to a more focused and sustained effort.”
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