Wednesday, August 26, 2009

What not to do...

Painfully funny...

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Changing the Scorecard pt 1

This book is extremely helpful for those seeking to bring about significant and lasting change to the church today. Some highlights from Reggie McNeal's Missional Renaissance:

Ch 1 -The Missional Renaissance

-Emergence of an Altruistic Economy
"It beckons the church to move from being the recipient of a generous culture (religious causes garner the largest percentage of charitable dollars -about a third) to actually being generous to the culture.... This explosion of good actually creates a chance for the church to gain relevance and influence. But only if the church is willing to get out of the church business and get over the delusion that the "success" of the church impresses the world." -p5
-Missional Shift 1: From an Internal to an External Ministry Focus
"Success in the internally focused culture is defined in terms of organizational goals.... In other words, the scorecard is tied to activity focused on the organization itself." -p7

-The Search for Personal Growth
-Missional Shift 2: From Program Development to People Development
"...the only real (emphasis his) guarantee is that the church will keep people busy." -p10
The shift from programs to people development is difficult for three reasons:
1) It's hard work and takes time "it isn't something you start and finish in a twelve-week course."
2) "...the shift from pursuing institutional goals and objectives to measuring the impact of ministry on people's quality of life calls for a dramatically new scorecard."
3) the ministry "professionals" or clergy are not prepared for a life of people development
"Typical clergy training efforts, including Bible colleges, seminaries, and denominational and parachurch ministries, prepare church leaders to teach the Bible, manage the church, ad grow a business." -p11 -project management (including the sermon) not people development. -we need to recalibrate

-The Hunger for Spiritual Vitality
"People moving into the unaffiliated (religiously) category outnumbered those moving out by a greater than 3-to-1 margin... this group has more than doubled in the last decade... 25 percent of all adults under age thirty are now in the unaffiliated class." -p13
-Missional Shift 3: From Church-Based to Kingdom-Based Leadership

-What's Next?
"...once you start down this path, it will ruin you to the old world." -I can't tell you how true that is!

Ch 2 -Missional Manifesto -for those of you who are familiar with Guder's Missional Church, much of this will be old hat. However, for others new to these concepts, it's a great overview of what "missional" means.

There is a big difference between "a" church and "the" church. "'A' church draws on centuries of thinking about a corporate something that exists apart for the people who make it up. This language fails to make a break with the Western, Constantinian, institutional view of what church is. Missional followers of Jesus don't belong to a church. They are the church." (emphasis his) -p19
"We try, then, to build great churches, believing that this is God's primary strategy to engage the world. Inevitably, this preoccupation leads to discussions of how we can "do church" better. Thinking about church in who mode focuses on what it means to be the people of God. The central task is developing great followers of Jesus, believing that God has created people to demonstrate his redemptive intentions to the world in and through them. This perspective frames an agenda so that the community of faith my encourage all its members to be faithful to God and to his mission as they live out being the church in the world." -p20

-The Heart of the Missional Church
"The problem is that the Western church veered away from this self-understanding (picture of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus) as rooted in God's mission and assumed other agendas.... [O]ne's understanding of the church becomes determinative for the church's agenda....:
1)From the Reformation heritage comes the understanding of church as 'a place where certain things happen.
2)A vendor of religious goods and services
3)A body of people sent on a mission." -p22-23

-A Missional Characterization
"The missional church is the people of God partnering with God in his redemptive mission in the world."... Our job is not to "do church" well but to be the people of God in an unmistakable way in the world. We are to be the aroma of Jesus in the cemetery of decaying flesh." -p24
"Church is not a part of life for the missional Jesus follower; it is a way of life with others who are on a similar journey." -25-26

-The Bible for Missional Eyes
"In this context (non-missional church), Bible study typically functions as a devotional aid and an instructive lesson applied to church people who find what they need for godly living." p26-27
On the other hand, for the missional church "...it becomes far more disruptive than informational. The Bible presents a call to action, not just a lesson to be studied." -p27
He then proceeds to work through a plethora of verses to support his claims:
Exodus 19:5-6; 1Peter 2:9; John 3:16; Matt 22:37-40; John 10:10b; Eph 4:13; 1Peter 3:15b; Matt 5:13-15; John 20:21b;

-The Plot Thickens
"The missional church's story sees the human drama and Gods' saga intertwined, on incomprehensible without the other. The following plot elements have helped give it shape"
1) People are created in the image of God
2) God is on mission
3) God's mission is redemptive
4) God's mission is always being persecuted in the world
5) God doesn't postpone his mission, waiting for the church to "get it"
6) God is up to something new
7) The people of God play an important role in the mission of God
8) The kingdom is a future that provokes a crisis
9) Missional expression can grow out of the current church, but it is not limited to the current church

-Shifting into Missional Mode
"So what specifically do you need to do to move into the missional movement?" -p38
The blogs that that follow will outline the three major shifts necessary for change.