Cole-Slaw

Heaven Must Be More Than This!

2012-02-08T15:01:00.000-08:00

I fell into a dream. I found myself in the heavens. A voice was speaking all around me. Clouds surrounded me. Was this what heaven will be like?

Much to my surprise I found myself sitting in a seat that was not meant for a man my size. In the back of the seat in front of me was a pocket with literature explaining a plan of salvation, and an envelope in the event I wish to cough up anything.

We were all seated in rows staring at the heads in front of us as someone up front was delivering a message that was of life and death importance. But as I looked few were paying attention. Some people were nodding off while others were conversing to themselves in hushed voices. Still others were sneaking a peak at their phones even though they’d been told to turn them off. The speaker went on with a well-rehearsed message with compelling hand gestures speaking of escaping an impending doom by following the light that beckoned us to our salvation but everyone seemed inoculated to the message having heard it so many times and never actually needing it.

The leader of this group assured all of us that he had received the correct direction and would get us all where we were supposed to be. He would do all the hard work while we just go along for the ride, because that’s what he’s paid to do–he’s a professional. Everyone seemed to trust this man implicitly and put the well being of their souls in his care.

There was an intense amount of scrutiny for all those allowed to be part of this group–all had to pass through a narrow way one at a time. Some were more important than others and received preferential treatment. They had been coming to this place for a long time and more frequently than most and had special reserved seats up in the front.

There were strange rules in this place that we all had to conform to with blind obedience. The rules seemed to carry a life or death importance, but about things that really didn’t seem that dangerous. In fact, I think these rules were made up a long time ago and just passed along in a system that is easy to add new rules to, but near impossible to eliminate any old ones. Many of the rules were outdated but we all kept them just the same. All of us were just waiting for the guy in charge to finally stop circling around and just bring this thing down for a landing so we could go home.

Suddenly I heard a voice coming from above my head, all of us heard it at once. It spoke with authority and said, “Bring your seat backs and tray tables up to their full and upright position. Please fasten your seatbelt low and tight across your lap. Turn off all your portable electronics and anything that has an on or off switch.”

I sure hope the real heaven is not like this.

Church: No Longer "Business" As Usual!

2011-11-14T14:19:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week I was asked what I think about the upswing in the trend of church mergers. I first responded with a question of my own: Do you want the real answer or the nice one? To his credit he asked for the real one and I gave it. You didn't ask, but here is my real answer...

"Merger" is a business term where two separate corporations consolidate all their assets to form one single and larger organization. Usually, this strategy is driven by greed–for money, influence and greater control of a market.

I mentioned to him that this is actually a symptom of a very serious affliction in the kingdom of God–the view of church as a business. The thinking behind a merger is that the church is a business with assets, employees, a board of directors and a commodity it offers to its constituents. This understanding of church is so prevalent that I imagine right now many are reading that last sentence and thinking it is a true description of what their church is today. Friends, that is how far removed we are from the New Testament.

Delving further into a false paradigm in an attempt to do it better is a bad idea. Why would you want to do something wrong better? I believe many of the new trends in church are just that. Franchising your church brand via multisite is a similar idea. Oops, sorry I just offended a bunch of my friends, didn't I?

But seriously, the idea of multisite is that we have a single church that meets in different locations. Some claim that this is very much like the New Testament. Yeah, that is very New Testament, in fact that is the body of Christ in general, isn't it? "One body...one Lord, one faith one baptism..."

But multisite carries more to it than this. It puts a single brand on the church, usually tied to a dynamic teacher or methodology (usually it's the teacher) and appeals to Christians as consumers looking for that brand of worship service. Sometimes they offer the same preacher but with a different style of music to appeal to a variety of consumers. This again is a symptom of a bigger problem–our view of church is screwed up. In many ways, this is a microcosm of denominationalism which brands a certain form of church and functions as a corporation. Of course denominationalism is not biblical either. Wherever competition exists for a market share we are in business not Kingdom work, and I'm afraid much of what is taking place today is more of the latter than the former.

What I said to the person who asked me about church mergers is that church is not a business, nor a building. It's not a weekly event to attend, nor just an organization or corporation.

In the Bible the church is not defined but instead is described with pictures: a flock, a field, a family, a body, a bride, a branch, a building made of living stones. Never is it described by the pictures we typically have today: a building (w/ and address made of the non-living stones with stained glass a steeple and a sign with a logo), a business, a school or a hospital. We have substituted an organic and life producing view for an institutional one that does not produce life but at best simply tries to preserve it and contain it.

Jesus faced a this same problem. Lets look at his response to a similar situation in Mark 11:15-18:

Then they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL THE NATIONS’? But you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.” The chief priests and the scribes heard this, and began seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching.

While examining this passage, my good friend and ministry co-laborer, Paul Kaak suggests we ask, "Why were they so fearful and so murderously angry?" Paul points out that Jesus' words were a double edged indictment. They had substituted their true calling for a false identity. They had become distributors of religious goods and services and had abandoned their true missional identity. Becoming takers rather than givers, rather than propagating the freedom of truth to all people without prejudice, they were now focused on preserving the institution financially and culturally at all costs.

We must be careful to not do the same thing. The predominate way of seeing the church today contains, conforms and controls the people. The biblical pictures of the NT are all about releasing and reproducing the life of the church.

Inorganic things can produce, but not reproduce. As Christian Schwartz points out so eloquently, "A coffee maker can make coffee (praise God), but it cannot make more coffee makers." Jesus intends for his bride and body to be fertile and for his branch to bear fruit. He could have used the pictures of a business or academic institution but he didn't, nor should we.

Jesus has great patience and shows much grace. I believe there is hope for our churches today. I am not suggesting that the vast majority of churches today are all wrong and need to shut down. I am simply stating that we need to stop seeing church through faulty lenses that corrupt our church practices. Lets not function like a business and start relating to one another like a body. Lets move beyond being an academic institution and start becoming a disciple making and reproducing movement. See church as a family on mission together rather than a once-a-week religious event to make me feel better for the week ahead.

Paul's Final Journey: an excerpt from Journeys to Significance

2011-10-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

The apostle Paul’s last arrest landed him in a damp and cold dungeon in Rome where he wrote his final letter, which we call 2 Timothy. In 67 AD Paul was executed by beheading, which launched him on his final journey home.

After traveling 15,000 miles (8700 by land) [1], enduring four shipwrecks [2], starting churches in seven or eight people groups (perhaps as many as ten) [3], writing 15 letters that we know of (13 of which are in the New Testament) [4], enduring multiple imprisonments and uncounted beatings, he ended his life almost alone. According to 2 Timothy, his last days were spent short on time (4:9), Cold (4:13), Lonely (4:11), rejected by his own spiritual children (1:15), abandoned by his son’s in the faith (4:10) and betrayed by someone he trusted (4:14). Nevertheless, in spite of so few that stood with him in the end, he was a success (4: 6-8).

The Mamertine Prison in Rome

My oldest daughter, Heather, and I visited Rome a few years ago. We landed early in the morning and knew we needed to stay awake all day if we had any hope of adjusting to the time zone. We dropped off our luggage and took a train into the city looking for one place: the Mamertine prison. This is where it is believed that Paul wrote 2 Timothy at the end of his life, hidden among some of the most famous ruins in the world. In preparation, we decided to read 2 Timothy every day while on the trip, which made the experience and the Scriptures come alive for us.

Looking up at the entrance and exit to Paul's prison in Rome

We descended into the Mamertine prison, also called Paul’s Prison. At one point, my head could touch the ceiling while I was standing on flat feet. I am just a little taller than 6’1” with shoes on. It is most often in places like these that God's real heroes are found.

Ironically, we visited the Vatican later that same day. Wow, what a difference a few hundred years can make for Christian leaders. Great riches of history adorned this palace, this religious city. The ceilings were way too high to touch, but they wouldn’t let you anyway as some are original Michelangelo masterpieces (the Sistine Chapel as well as the famous Dome of St Peter's Cathedral).

Both sites are impressive. My art background drew me to the Vatican, but my heart never left the cave. Being there and trying to imagine Paul in such a place at the end of such a heroic life changed me forever.

Heather and I looked at each other in the dim light with the smell of mildew and realized that this is the very rock where God inspired one of my favorite books of the Bible! Paul agonized over his few remaining days and the lasting impact of his life in this tiny place.

I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Neil, which place would you prefer as a Christian leader?” I am afraid too many of us choose the elegance and posh atmosphere of privilege before the cold, hard and unforgiving stone of Mamertine. But as I think of real heroes throughout history, most have lived their days in dark, marginalized places.

We, however, have taken to exalting those who make the most money and are the most famous, whether they be actors, musicians, athletes, or preachers regardless of their character. Real heroes, however, do not emerge from places of comfort, elegance and privilege, but are born from pain, hardship and trials. It is under the pressure of great conflict, conviction and challenge that heroes are forged. May we all choose the dark cave of obscurity over the posh privilege of the Vatican.

Paul’s Influence is found today, on the very screen you are viewing right now!!! He finished well.

“I have fought the good fight,” Paul says, “I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7). As I serve the Lord I am finding that there are fewer people than you would imagine who are able to say at the end of their life words like this. As I mentioned at the start of my book Journeys to Significance, “the only applause that really counts is at the finish line.” A true hero faces the finish line with strength, nobility, courage and faith. Though he may not have been celebrated at the end of his life, he was a success, and he would die the champion that he truly was. He would have no shame at the end of his final journey.

[1] Schnabel, Eckhard, Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies and Methods, p. 122. This is an outstanding resource as is the authors two volume work on early Christian mission.

[2] It is usually agreed that 2 Corinthians, where he mentions three shipwrecks (2 Cor. 11: 25), was written prior to the shipwreck mentioned in Acts, therefore Paul experienced at least 4 shipwrecks.

[3] Besides 1) Cyprus, Paul left behind indigenous church movements in the 2) Galatian region, 3) Macedonia, 4) Achaia, 5) Asia Minor, and 6) Illyricum (Rom. 15:19) in just ten years time. He also likely started works in 7) Arabia, 8) Tarsus, 9) Crete, and 10) Spain.
[4] Not in the New Testament are his actual first letter to the Corinthians which he mentions in the letter we now call 1 Corinthians (1 Cor. 5:9) and also his letter to the Laodiceans (Col. 4:16).

Don't follow the Piper with this Tune

2011-10-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

Last week John Piper put up a post on his blog Desiring God with a very energized attack of a statement from Alan Hirsch and Mike Frost's book The Faith of Leap. He readily admits to having not read the book but only the few sentences that bothered him. He never attempted to clarify with Mike and Alan and didn't bother to even read the entire chapter (let alone book) for context. He just rambled on in a doctrinal discussion, complete with a video statement as well, all based on his impression of one paragraph removed from any context.

The passage in question is below:

It seems correct to say that God took something of a risk in handing over his mission to the all-too-sinful human beings who were his original disciples—and all the sinful disciples beyond them. We wonder what Jesus must have been thinking on the cross, when all but a few powerless women had completely abandoned him. Did he wonder if love alone was enough to draw them back to discipleship? The noncoercive love of the cross necessitated a genuinely human response of willing obedience from his disciples. Given our predispositions to rebellion and idolatry, it is entirely conceivable that history could have gone in a completely different, indeed totally disastrous, direction if the original disciples hadn’t plucked up the internal courage to follow Jesus no matter where. (The Faith of Leap, pp. 36–37)

There were four things that Piper said were wrong about these sentences, each point filled with much content. They were...

false to the Scriptures;
built on a false philosophical presupposition;
damaging to the mission of Christ in the world;
and belittling to the glory of God.

Taken out of context one can see these points as perhaps a valid opinion, but I think that attacking them online without knowing the context and intent of the statement that is scrutinized is irresponsible.

From this point on I want to address Piper directly in my language…

Frankly, John, I believe a public apology is in order and anything less is weak. Not just an apology to Al and Mike, but to your readers who trust you to do the right thing and set a good example of how we are to communicate in the body of Christ. Surely you do not want a person of your caliber to take two or three sentences of your book out of context and without having read your complete thoughts then slam your theology onstage for all to read. That wouldn't be fair to you. Show your true leadership in this by taking responsibility for speaking out publicly before thinking. We've all done this at some point so I am sure you will receive a good response to such courage. I have admired you for years in the past and would respect you greatly for boldly taking the lead in this.

John, we need to do better. Next time, give Mike and Alan (or whoever is next) a call before you slam them in public. When Jesus said to go to your brother “in private” we can assume he didn't mean to blog it publicly. Read the book for crying out loud! If you find something wrong with what they believe ask them to clarify it. If it is a concern about how the flock will be led astray, ask them to do a dialogue online together and present both sides so that the people can learn to Think for themselves. There are better ways to do this than to post a public rebuke on a blog without even so much as an opportunity for comments on it.

I do not intend this to be a theological defense of The Faith of Leap, but I want to mention that there are other possible thoughts behind what Hirsch and Frost wrote.

There are places where the Bible describes God in humanistic manner to demonstrate something of His character that would normally be beyond our ability to grasp (one can argue the entirety of Scripture is this way–language is finite, God is not). This is not a slight on God or his attributes but on our limited cognitive capacity. This is different than Anthropomorphism where we reduce God and his attributes to our level. God does not have chicken wings (unless its for dinner), but He has the sort of protective heart that gathers his people much like a mother hen does her chicks under her wings. That is finite and poetic communication of an infinite being, not heresy. Moses describes God as changing His mind…is God indecisive, or are we unable to fully comprehend His being and so the author uses language to help us understand and relate?

There is a sense that because we have the godly capacity to choose to dare something even when the consequences can be harmful that this reflects something of God’s image–in which we are designed. Call it sacrifice, call it faith, call it a dare, but it is certainly a godly characteristic reflected in our finite perspective of the moment. Of course God is not weak, but then again, daring something is NOT weak but godly. Yes, God is sovereign and eternal and knows the end from the beginning…but he is also capable of fully living in the moment regardless of how he understands the future. That is why “Jesus wept” with those who were hurting at the loss of their brother and friend in John 11–even though he also knew that he would be having dinner with Lazarus that evening! In a circumstance where I–in my limited and selfish humanity–would be smiling, Jesus was weeping. Why? Because even though He is aware of the future, He is fully engaged in the emotions of the moment. We should all be more like this, not less.

All of this could very well be what Hirsch and Frost had in mind when they said, “it seems correct to say that God took something of a risk…” Notice that even the authors knew that it was not absolutely true so they clarified their description as something seen from our weak and human point of view. The language was not adamantly presented in absolute authority, but tentative and suggestive, reflecting that this is a possibility seen from our human point of view so that we can relate more to the concept that being daring is indeed godly (or Godlike). If from our viewpoint God can change His mind, certainly He can take a risk. From this perspective, such doesn’t take anything away from his attributes, but makes them more accessible and doable.

Give more grace and allow for more opinions. At the very least do a review of the entirety of the book and then add the critique in the midst of your review if it still stands, which would be more kind and ethical if you ask me. That is very much like Jesus if you read his "critique" of the Ephesian church... “I know your deeds…I have this against you.”

Note: I did attempt to contact John Piper’s ministry before posting this on my blog. I sent a copy of these comments, requested a response and indicated that if there was no response that I would then post this online to address a very public mistake. I was told that Dr. Piper would not be able to respond. I believe that this should be addressed and could not delay long as the internet world has a very short memory and the damage is immediate. As I mentioned above, Piper's blog does not allow for public comments (even screened ones) so this is what I was left to do after no personal response to my email. I felt it would be far better for Piper to first address the mistake himself but it doesn't appear that will happen.

A painting of a real organic church in action

2011-10-01T07:37:00.000-07:00

The following post is taken off of a friend's blog. Lindsay Ellyson is an organic church planter in Kansas City. You can check out her blog here.

paint me a mural; call it church

September 30, 2011 by Lindsay Ellyson

Let’s paint a picture.

Let’s paint a Puerto Rican single mom and her toddling half-Mexican daughter. Let’s add a teenage black boy. And his two sisters, one twelve years old, the other seventeen. Let’s paint a Nigerian doctor, and a white nurse who was raised in Hawaii. Let’s paint a white college student studying fashion, and a black one studying audiology. A Brazilian soccer coach, and his newly wedded dancer wife. A Colombian railroad worker. A black rapper. A white guy who owns his own computer business. A black teen mom who has been separated from her daughter. Let’s paint a half-Argentinean guy from California and his roommate from Kansas. And let’s add one more white girl into that mix.

Stroke that brush and depict them sharing a meal. Someone makes some soup. Someone brings some bread and cheese. Sandwiches are made. A pretty cake appears, and someone else traipses through the door with homemade mint tea in hand.

Let’s paint this small crowd sharing this meal in the living room of a two-bedroom triplex located on the border of the impoverished and crime-ridden part of the city. Let’s paint a scene where the fifteen-year-old black kid leads the whole group in remembering Jesus’ great sacrifice by offering them a broken piece of a pita chip dipped in glass of Coca-Cola. Stories are told from the week, stories of how the God who upholds the universe by the word of His Power invades each of their own little worlds.

Paint a book with words of life, and everyones hands held open on their laps. Paint understanding pouring out in the form of simplicity off the lips of the twelve-year-old. Paint tears in a few eyes. Paint light dancing in many hearts. Let’s be sure to paint smiles. And great sobs. And uncontrollable laughter.

Let’s paint the picture of these beautiful people praying for the sick in their midst. Show how some are healed immediately. Let’s not forget to add the scene where one girl’s leg is shorter than the other and grown miraculously on the spot. Paint the prophetic words that fly around the room, and the ones that fly across the city via phones and laptops. Depict the teenagers helping the single mom distract her little one, so she can have a twenty-minute break.

Paint that picture in such a way that we know that a few of those individuals have not yet made decisions to follow Jesus. And several just started following Him a few months ago. A handful more have known Him for just a couple of years. Only a few have really known Him long.

In the middle of the painting, show the highschool students breaking up fights at their strife-ridden schools. Show the Nigerian doctor sharing the good news of Jesus to a pregnant girl in his clinic. Paint the nurse praying fearlessly over each of her ill patients, at the risk of losing her job. Paint a few of the crowd driving their dear friend to the emergency room and taking her tiny kids home for the weekend. By the way, their friend is a stripper & addict with sickness ravaging her body. Let’s paint a scene where the computer business owner takes flowers to the eighteen-year-old while she recovers in the hospital after being shot in a drive-by shooting.

Paint these beautiful people crowded around a fountain nearby, as someone who just experienced the forgiveness of Jesus gets baptized by someone who has never baptized anyone before.

I wanted to paint a picture. I suppose we painted a mural. I suppose if we painted all this it would take up the whole side of one of these dilapidated buildings I can see out the back window that faces Troost Avenue. If we paint with broad strokes it might cover a few.

What shall we name this lovely mural?

Let’s call it church.

(Note: This is not a far-off dream. This is not a bunch of nice ideas. This is my present reality. I have personally experienced all of these things happening within the last month, both here with my local spiritual family and as I have spent time with spiritual families on the other side of the nation. I am in awe of what can happen when people begin to encounter the love of God for them. I’ve tasted the miracle that Jesus called “church.” And all I want is MORE. This times a million, doused with even greater hope, greater faith, greater compassion.)

Kingdom Causes (one of our Associate Ministries) is Changing its Name

2011-09-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

This just in from Kingdom Causes (one of CMA's associated kingdom ministries): Kingdom Causes, the So CA regional association of city transforming works, is becoming City Net. Our new name/logo represents our role as bridge builders among catalytic leaders and collaborative movements in cities throughout Southern California. The net is a web of connectivity, care and concern. Local congregations and other related ministries, organizations, leaders and neighbors are the knots. Our role at City Net is to connect and strengthen the relationships between the knots so that through collaboration and leadership development, community transformation deepens. We share God's heart for cities and our vision is to see a growing number of cities flourishing because together its' residents are building a better community for everyone. As an association of cities and catalytic partners, City Net has created a support network that allows city-level mobilization and partnership to develop and flourish. Our network of cities provides opportunities for shared learning, greater leverage and overall care and support.

For more information visit: CityNet

Threading Needles with Two Humped Camels

2011-09-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

Most church planting enterprise is focused in areas of higher education, income and status. One can speculate why that is. Perhaps it is because we need to find self-support for the church planter and the ministry quickly. Another reason could be that the church planter who chooses the location wants to raise his/her family in a nice neighborhood with good schools. It could be because we are trying to reach people that are most like us and the majority of church planting groups are white middle-class Christians.

I am not calling these motives into question in this post, but I do wish to question the strategy itself. You see, I believe that we focus a good deal of our resources and efforts to reach the least reachable, rather than the least reached. I believe that the self-sufficient nature of people in wealthy neighborhoods works directly against the influence of the gospel to spread from life to life.

One of the sayings in our movement is: Bad people make good soil...there's a lot of fertilizer in their lives. It is proven time and again that those who are hurting and broken are more receptive than those who are well off. It is also a whole lot cheaper to start churches in lower income areas.

Jesus said that it is harder for a camel (and he meant a literal camel) to fit through the eye of a needle (yes, he meant a literal needle too) than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Why then do we continue to spend billions of dollars trying to thread that needle with yet another two humped camel instead of bringing the gospel to people who know they need it?

I suggest that we should stop trying to force camels through needles and just look for those who actually need the redemptive atonement of Jesus. The gospel is always meant to be a choice. Jesus said "It is not the well who call a physician but the sick, I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

Can wealthy people come to Christ? Yes, of course...with God all things are possible. But the response will be less frequent and less contagious in wealthy neighborhoods. This is just a fact folks. You will be hard pressed to find any fast spreading movement among the wealthy. You will be equally hard pressed to find a fast spreading movement that didn't start with lower income people.

Is it wrong for some to reach out to wealthier neighborhoods? No I am not saying that. You will also find wealthy people involved with most of the movements in history. Often times, they are even the catalyst to get it rolling. There is indication that Paul and Barnabas were wealthy in the early days of Christianity, not the end. Count Zinzendorf, who is the apostolic leader that ignited the Moravian missional movement, was certainly well off, at the start. It is common to find wealthy people in the start of a movement, but not a lot of them. They may start wealthy, they usually do not die wealthy.

If you are called to the nice suburbs, is it possible to find good soil there? Yes it is. Believe it or not there is sin in the suburbs. Here are some practical ideas to find good soil for the seed of the gospel even in the suburbs:

Go for a ride-along with the local law enforcement officer...they are paid by your tax dollars to know where the good soil is. They know which homes have the domestic abuse cases, where the drugs are dealt, which bars have the most fights and which corner the disgruntled youth tend to hang out at.
Look for the signs of good soil. Yes there are signs...literally. A Going out of Business Sale sign may mean a good deal for you, but its a shattered dream for someone else. A foreclosure on a home is also some one's nightmare come true. A bankruptcy is a sign of some one's life turned upside down. If you pay attention you can find people that are hurting everywhere.
Twelve step recovery groups are filled with people who recognize they are enslaved to sin and are powerless to overcome it. They are asking a higher power for help. If you are an addict yourself, this is a great place to find people that are responsive to the good news of Jesus. You are welcome and considered family and you are encouraged to share your story with the group. If you are not an addict, this idea is not open for you.

Now an important word is necessary at this point. I am not advocating any sort of manipulative maneuver to take advantage of weak people. If that is what you are looking for I STRONGLY suggest you repent and change your whole outlook (Okay, now I am addressing motives).

What then am I suggesting? I am simply suggesting that you look for people that are in pain and love them as you would want others to love you. Sound familiar? That's Jesus. Don't go looking for a project for your church outreach program, look for someone who needs love...and love them. Even if they never attend your church–love them!

You see the idea is that we bring the powerful, life-saving presence of Christ to the very places where it is most needed. Does that sound like a radical strategy? Well, it shouldn't, it should be an obvious conclusion. Jesus died and rose again so that the hopeless can find hope and the helpless can find help. "If you love those who are like you, what reward do you have?" Find someone who needs help and love them the way you would want to be loved. Simple.

Our Logo's Symbolism Explained

2011-09-19T13:16:00.000-07:00

CMA is not about image. We are "anti-slick" as Ed Stetzer once called us. But I do want to say a little something about our logo. Why? Because symbols are important things in a movement. Whether it is a flag with stars and stripes, a single fist in the air, a stenciled image of a revolutionary on a wall or T-shirt, or even a swastika–a symbol can convey more than an idea or identity, it can provoke an emotive response.

For 13 years our logo has been on our resources but I've never taken a moment to explain its symbolism, this is that moment. I designed it years ago and just moved on. It has been with us this whole time and come to represent our movement, but I have not been sure everyone understood its complete symbolism.

The X is a symbol for multiplication (duh, okay you probably got that). In the negative space are dark arrows coming in. They fall into the background and form a cross and then produce arrows of light going out to the four corners (of the earth). The logo symbolizes transformation and multiplication by the power of the gospel and then going out on mission to the ends of the earth. It says a lot in such a simple image doesn't it?

We adjust our logo a little when we are addressing our training which we call Greenhouse. The bottom dark arrow becomes a house, a green house. It reminds me of Monopoly (we're not always playing games...but often are). Most of our organic churches meet in homes and Greenhouse is the name of our organic church training. If a life doesn't change at home it will never change the world. One of our sayings is: personal transformation precedes community transformation. It all comes together in a a symbolic image. We lightened the darks to accentuate the green house image.

I was trained as an artist and appreciate the simplicity and yet boldness of our logo. Many logos are bound to a time because of the style of the time in which it was created. I wanted a logo that would transcend the immediate and be relevant for a long time to come.

Black and white are not only bold and representative of light and darkness, but always are relevant, whereas color choices often reflect a style that may go out as quickly as it came in (remember Miami Vice?).

This logo symbolizes well the values of our movement–changed lives and homes multiplied to the ends of the earth by the power of Christ's atoning work on the cross. It is simple, bold and clean. Hopefully, now you will always see the symbolism when you see this logo and remember what our movement is all about.

Church Transfusion: Releasing Organic Life Into Established Churches

2011-09-16T13:38:00.000-07:00

My newest project is called Church Transfusion: Releasing Organic Life into Established Churches. We are offering a two day training, much like our Greenhouse, for those who lead an established church but would like to see more vital health and reproduction from organic church principles. There will also be a book forthcoming, published by Jossey-Bass in the Leadership Network series written by myself and Phil Helfer.

The Authors:

Phil is one of my oldest friends and the co-founder of CMA. One of the most radical organic thinkers on our CMA leadership team, Phil also happens to pastor a well established church of between 300-400 people. Because he is a Shepherd on our APEST (Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd, Teacher) team he will stay with his flock and has been a catalyst for much change. This one church has sent off four networks of organic churches over the last 15 years. He has learned in the trenches and paid the price to function organically in a traditional church climate.

Many might ask why I, a church planter, would write to established churches. Prior to starting churches, I led a well established church for almost a decade. During that time we raised up leaders from within and sent out church planters. I learned a lot in that context of what to do, and not to do, which not only informed my church planting, but will be pertinent to this book.

The Book's Content:

The first part of the book puts forth the idea that change is impossible with men, but possible with God. While there are many books available on church transition, we believe that it takes more than a assessment of where you're at, a new direction, a better set of bigger goals, a refined mission statement and a new logo and building campaign to truly change a church from within. As any who have read our material already know, the key to health, life and reproduction is in the DNA. If your church is already established and it obviously does not have a complete DNA is it possible to change? How do you change someone's DNA? Well, that is truly the realm of science fiction today...but so is the resurrection. With men these things are impossible, but with God all things are possible. This sort of change, however, is more than a church transition, it is a church transfusion. Healthy DNA must be released into the body to replicate, influence and even replace the unhealthy DNA from the inside out. The first part of this book examines what it takes to do this and presents several real examples of such churches that are each very different in their journeys to transfusion.

The second part of the book is about how to implement successful transfusion. Chapters cover practical subjects such as

Dying to live
The leadershift necessary
Detox from dependency issues
Releasing and empowering people
The price a healthy church must be willing to pay
Healthy disciple-making
How to pilot change in a "skunk-works" type project
How to reproduce rather than simply clone
New ways of measuring success
How to equip people for influence in the world (not just the church).

Like all our resources, this book will be chock full of real life stories and examples as well as the type of ideas that can only be forged in the flames of true experience. We will pull no punches. The book will tell the glory stories right next to the gory ones.

Church Transfusion should be released in 2012 from Jossey-Bass/Leadership Network.

Our first training opportunity will be Friday and Saturday, Sep 23-24, 2012 at Los Altos Grace Brethren Church in Long Beach CA. You can find detailed info and register for it here. There is still room available.

There will also be a half day workshop in Singapore Friday October 28th for those in S. Asia.

How Many Churches Did the Apostle Paul Start?

2011-09-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

Some have said that Paul only started 14 churches in his lifetime. If so that is a remarkable thing, but I tend to think there are more than 14.

I would assume that there are some churches started that were not necessarily mentioned as churches in the NT. For instance there is no mention of a church started in Athens, but there are households that began to follow Christ there, so we can assume that a church was born there. In Philippi there were two households that surrendered to the gospel (Lydia’s and the Jailer’s), so there could be two organic churches there. Some say that there is just one church in Philippi because Paul wrote a letter to them, but it is actually to the saints in Christ who are in Philippi. He wrote a letter to the churches of Galatia, how many of them is not mentioned. So numbering the churches Paul started is a challenge.

While he only started the Ephesian church in Asia, this one in turn started so many others that every person who lived in Asia heard the message of the Gospel. Does that count as only one church? How many churches were started in Cyprus on the first missionary journey? We know it is more than one. How many were left in Crete?

There are places we have no mention of a church but we know he was there preaching such as Illyricum (Rom. 15:9). Did Paul start churches while in Damascus? Well someone already did because he was on his way there to arrest them, so probably not. But when he went to Arabia he may have started churches. Some assume he was just on retreat listening to the Lord, but he was chased out by the officials, so we can assume he did some preaching (meditating on a rock is not usually that threatening to people).

Did he start churches while he was in Tarsus? Acts does mention churches in Syria (Acts 15:40-41) could it be that some of these started before he was sent from Antioch? Did Paul go to Spain? If so then perhaps he started churches there as well, but we do not know. He did go to Crete and started some churches and left Titus there to further establish the work.

He probably started close to 20 churches himself, with many more born out of those by his apprentice leaders. In Asia alone the NT mentions Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, Colossae, and Hieropolis. Ephesus was really a city full of churches meeting in homes and from that work all the others were started. So while starting upwards of 20 churches in one’s life is impressive, what is far more impressive is how many daughters, grand-daughters and great-grand-daughters were birthed from those. When Paul left earth in the end of his life he not only left some church plants, he left the DNA of a movement that would eventually spread to the extent that even the Roman Empire itself would surrender to Christianity (for better or worse). History was changed in dramatic fashion through this one man’s obedience.

I am discovering that simple obedience is a powerful thing in one's life. More powerful than spiritual gifts or personalities. Certainly more powerful than any program or strategy. In a day where we Christians are already educated beyond obedience, I find that what we need is not more education but simple obedience to what we already know. Follow Jesus today. Take one step at a time and leave the results and the destination up to the one you are following.

Every one reading this blog can also obey the same God as Paul and leave behind a lasting and vital work for the Lord of the harvest. Paul said, “Follow me as I follow Christ.”

A Lasting Lesson from a Notorious Atheist

2011-09-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

Today I turned 51. Most of the major transitional boundaries of my own life occur the first year of a new decade and this year seems to be as much. As I am reflecting on my own life and the journeys it has taken I felt that a lesson learned from the man who tried to declare that God is dead was in order. The following is from the last chapter of my book Journeys to Significance which came out last Spring.

Eugene Peterson who gave us TheMessage, has a book curiously named after a quote by the famous atheist, Friedrich Nietzshe, who declared that God is dead. The name of the book is A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. The quote, from Beyond Good and Evil says this:

“The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is…that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.”
“I have fought the good fight,” Paul says, “I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7). As I serve the Lord I am finding that there are fewer people than you would imagine who are able to say at the end of their life words like this. As I mentioned at the start of my book Journeys to Significance, “the only applause that really counts is at the finish line.”

My hope, prayer and passion is to remain faithfully obedient in the same direction and to finish well or die trying.

Pressing on,

Neil Cole

Toys are Illegal, Shoes & Shirts Required...Pants are Optional?

2011-09-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

San Francisco continues to astound me with their bizarre politics. They are not afraid to intrude with legislature even into the sacred relationship of parent and child. Last year they outlawed happy meal toys at McDonald's because a parent is not responsible enough to care for their child's diet so the government must step in. Now they are once again considering passing a law. This one says people that are nude in public must place a towel down before they place their naked butt down in public. Huh?

Yes, that is right, being completely nude in public is not something worthy of a law, just making sure that they don't put their naked cheeks on a public bench without a towel between. Does anyone else think this is a little absurd? Why does the city feel that it is fine to take toys from children but it's okay to expose children to their neighbors genitalia? How does a legislature get to the point where they make such extreme laws–on one side there is no freedom and on the other side too much? Can anyone seriously trust such a government?

In the LA Times article I read this morning they interviewed two guys smoking "medicinal" marijuana (perhaps they are nauseous because of the naked guy across the boardwalk). One said he doesn't go naked in public because he doesn't want to scare the horses...the horses! Yes, lets protect the horses.

"You'd think customers would have to have pants too!" says one citizen in response to a sign that reads: shirts and shoes required in a restaurant window.

In the legislature they have actually proposed that one could no longer go into a restaurant without clothing (or a Happy meal toy). I guess there are limits to even their excesses.

I have lived my whole life in California and I get a little frustrated as I travel around the country by the way people in the Midwest stereotype us Californians, so I'm a bit apprehensive about putting this out there where it can actually fuel such prejudice. But there it is...in all its glory. Yuck.

Mike Kim's Review of Oganic Leadership

2011-09-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

I thought this nice review would be of interest to some of you. I can say that Mr. Kim was able to understand the heart of why I wrote the book.

Neil, as a Church Planting Movements guy, has always been about simplicity and reproducibility. These values, to no surprise, come out here in Organic Leadership as well; but he uniquely directs them to the topic of Christian leadership. The result is a book unlike the run-of-the-mill, 10 steps book on leadership. He doesn't come across as a John Maxwell does where you feel like you have to buy more of his stuff or be like him or else fail. Nor does he come across as a typical Christian preacher talking about leadership with perfectly alliterated points that sound good but lack authenticity and personal stories of provenness in the real world. Instead, when you read Organic Leadership, it feels like he REALLY wants and needs you to be the leader God made you to be, so he'll tell you about the passing of his father-in-law, tell you about his "low point" of being a pastor AND a paper boy, and other things that a true spiritual parent would roll up his sleeves and tell you over breakfast. There is a different level of weight or authority that you will sense in this book, and I suspect it has to do with the fact that these are not just ideas, but the communication of a way of life learned over the years -- a way of life that he wants us to grasp for the times ahead.

The first section (120 some pages) is incredibly convicting and offers a prophetic critique of the way leadership is understood and practiced in the West. This is the underbrush that needs to be cleared away to go further in the organic leadership journey. We must get through this before we talk about tools and new paradigms. But be warned! Neil pulls the veil off the truth that most of us, leaders, have never contemplated: WE are part of the problem! Since many of us have never gone there before, I anticipate a feeling of discomfort during this section. Like me, you may have to stop reading at points in the book to pray, to repent or to contemplate further. Neil courageously asks us what most parishioners would never dare say to us. And for that reason, we need to listen all the more. Neil, coming from the organic point of view, asks new questions like: have you ever considered that the content, setting, frequency and manner of our "teaching" is actually having the opposite effect of what we want: stunting the church's growth?! Traditions like these go unquestioned in our evangelical cultures, but if they were indeed true, would we listen and change course? The whole section has a feel of a heavier and more radical version of J. Oswald Sanders' Spiritual Leadership where he asks such important questions like are you spiritually plateaued? are you acting more like Jesus or the Pharisees? But it's not coming from self-righteousnes or anger but out of a burden to see the world reached for Christ through leaders like us.

Once you get through these hard questions and topics, you will find an illuminating section on paradigms and perspectives that cause us to lead off center: like the unnecessary and unbiblical separation between secular and sacred or between clergy and laity. There is also a great section on starting leadership development with not-yet-Christian folks instead of with the usual more mature Christians we recruit. This part is worth paying attention to because it links leadership development to MISSION instead of to the shepherding of the local church where we develop or recruit existing leaders to our programs -- thereby creating no new leaders in the net cause! Neil humorously mentions that some of the best leaders of tomorrow are waking up with a hangover and in the wrong bed today! The playing field significantly widens without separating "evangelism" from leadership development; they become part of the same disciple-making activity. Sounds biblical, doesn't it?

After that is my favorite part, there is a fantastic section on mentoring. I think the price of the book is found here. It is filled with profundity and experience... and, again, elegant simplicity. I have "discipled" my share of people over the last 20 years, but never did I think to do it as he recommends -- with an eye towards obedience and multiplication over content. Neil gives advice like:

don't teach them anything new until they followed through on the last thing.
never teach a skill unless there is a felt need for it.
a skill is never learned until it is taught to another person

He simultaneously lowers the bar on mentoring while also raising it by taking us back to the way of Jesus and Paul. After reading this section, I immediately made changes in the way I was relating to a not-yet-Christian I am doing a Life Transformation Group with.

I also like the concluding section where Neil offers examples of new kinds of leaders in the movement who have given up traditional structures and roles for the sake of mission. Real life examples always help flesh out the multi-faceted look of what the author is describing and help open up our imagination to what the future holds for a new breed of leaders.

One final thing that I like about this book (and about Neil on the whole) is that he is not a mission deconstructionist who is just saying everything is broken. We don't need more of those! Neil Cole is very much a reconstructionist who is showing us a better way that 1.) he has lived out and seen reproduce internationally, and 2.) is actually rooted in Scripture. I think this is why he has been so readily embraced by people across the world as an ambassador of a more missional way. This reconstructionist orientation shows up in Organic Leadership quite often as he recommends [here it comes] simple and reproducible tools like the Seven Signs of Jesus from John's gospel, or Mentoring sheets that are profoundly simple, or Life Transformation Groups that are leaderless and multiply, or Truth Quest which teaches theology in community and with different points of view. Not a lot of Simple Church people are recommending alternative ways, but Neil is -- and churches across the world are multiplying as a result.

If you, like me, have long thought that something is off on the way that we "lead" in the church and long to know God's natural design for leadership that can truly transform the world, then I heartily recommend Organic Leadership for direction in this new way for a new time.

It's the Water that's Important...not the Pipes

2011-09-05T10:04:00.000-07:00

As a home owner, pipes have taken a more significant place in my life. A broken pipe is bad news. It has occurred to me, however, that the reason pipes are so important to me is that water is important to me. In fact, we don’t really think much about pipes until they break, but we think about water every day.

I am coming to see that much of what we give attention to in church leadership these days are pipes. Most of the programs, principles and practices of church growth and mission are really just pipes–conduits of living water. Whether they be small groups or Sunday school; seeker services or traditional services, mega-church or micro-church–they are really just different pipes.

Ministry pipes are of great significance, for without them we would have no way of bringing the life-giving water to a thirsty world. Some pipes are better than others. Some are stronger, some are more resistant to corrosion, some have a greater capacity for increased volume, but all pipes basically serve the same function–channeling water. All our methods are basically for one function–getting God’s word into people’s lives. We may disagree on which pipes are better, but we must agree on the purpose of the pipes.

A bad pipe can be very damaging. When a particular pipe is leaking you need to patch it or replace it. A rusty pipe can even pollute its contents, and so can a method of ministry that begins to take on the authority and permanence of God’s word itself. The water can be clouded by the faulty pipes and can cause sickness. My friend Wolf Simson says, "Programs are what the church does when it no longer has the Holy Spirit." A pipe is really good or bad based upon whether or not it connects people directly to Jesus rather than some other person's expertise.

My problem is that I tend to see the pipes as an end in themselves. Our methods are often seen as the needed ingredient to bring success to our churches. However, pipes are never an end in themselves. Water is the main thing, the pipes are to facilitate the getting of water. What would be the point of pipes that never tap into a water source? Often we design a ministry system thinking that it is going to be the final ingredient to prosperity for our church, but pipes don’t satisfy thirst…water does. In the same way, we can’t see our great strategies and plans to be the solution to our ministry, only a channel for the solution.

Someone once said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” People need pipes because people need water. We can’t live for more than a few days without water, but people have lived lifetimes without pipes. The power is in the wine, not the wine skins.

For example, meeting in a home rather than a church building is not the solution for the western church. It may be the best conduit for the solution–the longest lasting, greatest volume and cleanest–but it is not the solution.

“If any man is thirsty,
let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the scripture said, From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.”

--John 7:37-38

If I were designing a new system of pipes, I would start at the water source. Is our method connected to the source of God’s blessing? If when you turn the valve on nothing comes out, there is a good chance that the pipes themselves are fine, they simply aren’t tapping into the water source. Are we guilty of believing in the pipes rather than in Jesus–the source?

There is a very critical relationship between pipes and water. With perfectly good water and bad pipes, the water is wasted and even damaging. Likewise, perfectly good pipes are useless without water.

When the plumbing system of your church is working properly thirst is quenched and souls are cleansed. What is fascinating about having good pipes is that they go unnoticed, and even unappreciated. When a thirsty soul comes to your door for a glass of water and you give him the clearest, coldest most refreshing glass of water he has ever downed, it is doubtful he will remark, “My what nice pipes you have!” One test of good pipes is that they go unnoticed.

In fact if your pipes are drawing attention to themselves chances are there is something wrong with them. Pipes are designed to go unnoticed, they are not the main thing but a channel for the main thing. Pipes are hidden under floor boards and behind drywall. They are best if they are forgotten, useful, but forgotten none the less.

Too many of us are investing ourselves on celebrating our new and shiny pipes instead of using the water they were meant to bring. We go to seminars on how to break the 200 gallon barrier, read books on joints and valves, or listen to tapes about the benefits of copper over lead. We even advertise our pipes (as though anyone would choose a house because it has pretty pipes). We often need a reminder that pipes, while of great importance, never satisfied our thirst or washed our hands, only God’s precious gift of water can do that.

“Everyone who drinks of this water (H2O) shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I (Jesus) shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
John 4:13-14

Leadership Network Author Notes with Neil Cole

2011-09-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

This is an interview posted on 8/11/2011 by Greg Ligon in the Learnings Blog of Leadership Network's Website.

When you hear the word "organic" where does your mind head? To that tasty snack from Whole Foods marketplace? Or perhaps you immediately begin to think about the gardening that needs to be done in your yard. Well, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear "organic" is the Organic Church authored by Neil Cole in our Leadership Network Series with Jossey Bass. Neil's "claim to fame" (better stated as his deep calling for those of you who know him personally) is a call to help people know how to "plant the seeds of the kingdom where life happens and where culture is formed - restaurants, bars, coffeehouses, parks, locker rooms and neighborhoods." That's organic church. Key to the success of any endeavor, Kingdom or otherwise, is the strength of leadership. In Neil's latest book, Journeys to Significance, Neil charts a leadership course for organic church leaders from a look at the life of Paul. Enjoy the following insights from the life of the author.

Why is reading important to you, and how do you find or make time to read books and blogs?

We must always be learning and growing. You cannot lead people where you do not go, so if I wish to lead I must learn. I usually read in spurts. Certain seasons I get more reading done than others. Summer is a big reading time for me. It is usually the summer months where I read some novels, which is also important to me because reading needs to be fun if you want to engage in it. Usually the 3-4 months where I am writing a book is full of reading as well but that reading is very specific addressing literature that is current and relevant to the specific topic I am writing about. I have a pretty strong conviction that if the book I am reading doesn’t grab me in the first chapter I will not read the whole thing. Some books are research oriented and I do not need to read every page, but even then I will scan the whole book because context supplies meaning and then I focus on what is pertinent to my own needs. I usually read about 25 books a year, but I do not read in a very disciplined manner, so I may read 10 or 12 books in two months and then scatter the rest over the year.

What books are you currently reading that you would recommend to our readers?

The Faith of Leap is a good read by my friends Alan Hirsch and Mike Frost. I also really liked Skye Jethani’s new book With: Reimagining the Way you Relate to God. Tim Chester who co-wrote Total Church has a great little book that just came out on what seems like an obscure subject, but as you read the book you begin to realize how important it really is. The book is called A Meal with Jesus. My friend and co-worker, Ross Rohde has a new book coming out called Viral Jesus which is quite good. And my friend Jon Zens recently came out with a very profound work on the clergy myth called The Pastor has No Clothes. I read Love Wins to see what the fuss is all about. Those books I read in the last 3-4 months. Last summer I read the Hunger Games Trilogy and enjoyed it. I’m still looking for what fiction to read this summer…any ideas? Please no vampires or teenage love triangles; I’ve had enough of that!

How do you make time to write books or blog?

Wow, that is a hard question because I do not really do it very systematically. I have a family, travel two to three times a month, lead our non-profit organization (CMAResources.org) and coach a handful of church planters at any given time. Writing works around all of that. I am not a driven personality, I can accomplish a lot, but I am not living a driven life to get things done. I will throw a few things at you that address the question, but the reality is I just do what I need to do…today (and it all gets done if it is supposed to). First, I usually do not blog in the months I am writing my book. The day I released the pressure to blog every day was a good day! It usually takes me 3-4 months to write a book that can be acceptable to the publisher. That is usually full time writing yet still interrupted with travel for training that I do all over the world. I can’t write on a trip (except occasionally on the flight out when I am more rested). I see myself as an artist and always have (my undergrad degree is in art and I have illustrated some books), so I see writing as a creative outlet. I am a person that is more creative with a deadline, so I like deadlines…I also like editors, so I may be a little weird to some people. One weird habit that I may need to break at some point is that I cannot write a second book in the same location that I wrote a previous one in. Why? I don’t know. It’s just a weird quirky thing with me. My wife turned our daughter’s bedroom when she moved out and into a home office for me to write in. I wrote Church 3.0 in it. Now I can’t write another book in there! This is not a good habit. When I am in that space that book is what comes to mind, and I need to get to a new place to free my creative focus on a new work.

What is the “big idea” of your latest book in a Leadership Network book series?

Journeys to Significance is different from all my previous works; it is more narrative and tells the story of the apostle Paul’s life and mission. There are many breakthrough observations of how Paul did mission and how he continued to learn, adapt and improve with each missionary journey until he turned the world upside down and finished strong.

If leaders only had time right now to read one chapter of your book, which one would your recommend... and why?

Well, because the book tells a story it is hard to isolate one chapter. I am an author who actually puts a lot of creative thought into the preface and introduction of a book, so if you tend to skip them you are missing some of the best writing in my books. I would suggest you start there, and if that doesn’t grab you the book isn’t worth reading.

Learn from the Ant

2011-08-30T18:08:00.000-07:00

ANTS!!! It seems that no matter what I do they become more. They are in the kitchen, the bathroom, the dining room, the living room, outside, inside, upstairs, downstairs…they’re omnipresent!

The Bible says that we should “Go to the ant, (Prov. 6:6)” but I don’t really have to–they keep coming to me! It seems to me that I have a lot more than just patience to learn from these little pests.

Solomon tells us that we can learn a lot about hard work and diligence from the ant. This is true. I must have seen 10 billion ants in my life, but I have never seen one taking a coffee break (though I have seen them take coffee). I’ve never seen them throwing a Frisbee, watching a sitcom, or laying out getting a tan (though I once toasted a few with a magnifying glass). I suspect their life span reflects this workaholic attitude (and all that caffeine and sugar can’t be good for them)–but you got to admit they work hard and accomplish a lot.

The ant is able to carry something ten times its weight, but nevertheless, “they are not a strong folk (Prov. 30:25).” It isn’t hard to beat an ant. One on one, I will always win! An ant is nothing. I have single-handedly swooped down, and, without mercy, wiped out an entire population of ants simply with a wave of a Black Flag. Pure, raw, power! For a moment, I feel omnipotent…until I take out the next day’s trash. In spite of my superior, high-tech, 20th century, rose-scented chemical warfare…their baaaacck! I may pay the rent, the bank may have the deed, but there is no mistaking the fact that the ants own the land! Scientists have even predicted that a nuclear holocaust big enough to destroy all mankind would not put an end to these insects. So don’t believe anything Raid tries to tell you.

What is it that makes this huge little army so invincible? Are they smarter than us? No. Are they stronger than us? No. Do they have superior weapons? No. Do they have a more astute strategy than us? Well, maybe. They have a very simple (with the size of their brains it would have to be) yet unbeatable strategy. I see two things that make them invincible.

First, they multiply. “They prepare their food in the summer” (Prov. 30:25) and they multiply all year. For every two hundred I destroy, ten thousand are being hatched.

Second, they cooperate. A single ant is nothing, but as a corporate, cooperating and communicating colony they are undefeated.

We can learn a lot from the ant. If we cooperate we can accomplish more together than alone. If we multiply ourselves and our effort, we can also be undefeated. It seems to me this is God’s plan. We can each make a commitment this year to make one more reproducing disciple. Every pastor can have a Timothy. Each church can make plans to plant another church within the year. We can begin to prepare our missionaries now, in the nest, so that in the future we can unleash an army of disciples on an unsuspecting world. We can cooperate as a team, multiply our influence, and accomplish more together than we ever could as individuals. We too can infiltrate and influence this whole planet. If an ant can do it, why can’t we?

“Go to the ant…observe her ways and be wise.”

Proverbs 6:6

A Fresh Perspective on Paul: An Interview done on Ed Stetzer's Blog

2011-08-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

Neil Cole's new book, Journeys to Significance: Charting a Leadership Course from the Life of Paul, is out and aims at helping us understand the Apostle Paul and what he learned on the field as a missionary. This is really a book about the process of leadership development, and it is worth your time if you are leading in any capacity. Neil is the author of numerous books (many of which you have probably read or heard of), and is serving a group of rapidly multiplying organic churches that meet in homes, campuses and places of business all over the world.

Neil was kind enough to answer a few questions about his new book for us on the blog.

Can you describe how this book is different than your other books?

My previous books were all written to do two things, expose some unhealthy patterns in the way the church does ministry and reveal a more organic and healthy manner. These books all focused upon four areas that are part of my mission statement: to reproduce healthy disciples (Search & Rescue, Cultivating a Life for God), leaders (Organic Leadership, TruthQuest), churches (Organic Church and Beyond Church Planting) and movements (Church 3.0).

Journeys to Significance, while also addressing leadership, is written in a narrative form following the life of one of the greatest leaders to shape history-the apostle Paul. It is easy to read because it tells a dramatic story. It is also a leadership book because it draws principles of how God matures a leader from the story.

There are a lot of books written about Paul and leadership, why write another?

I found that in spite of the volumes written on Paul there wasn't a single one that brought to light some of the observations in this book. Most of the books on Paul's life view his missional strategies as being the same approach varied only by circumstance. What I found was that he is a great example to us of a missional leader who is willing to learn and improve with each venture.

I also was able to offer some plausible explanations for some long standing questions regarding the book of Acts, such as: why would Paul and Silas receive a beating in Philippi when they were both Roman citizens? Why did the Holy Spirit forbid Paul and his team from preaching the gospel in Asia on the second journey? There are a lot of simple explanations that make sense within Luke's narrative.

One thing that this book does as well is it gives a solid biblical framework for the expansion of apostolic mission-- and why it works.

What was the process you went through to write this book?

I have this value that I can't write a book on a subject that I haven't experienced myself. This book is about how a leader matures through the various phases of life, so I had to learn the ideas of this book first hand. It literally took me 16 years to write it. There is evidence of this on the internet where you can find early editions of articles or sermons I would give that touch on these ideas. Even my first publication with Bob Logan in 1995 (Raising Leaders for the Harvest) has a fragment of this idea in it. Even though I had these ideas about Paul and the book of Acts, I needed to walk some of the paths of maturation that Paul went though before I could write this book with any authority. Not that I have arrived at maturity mind you. I still hope to have many more years of learning, but I have experienced enough to back up my observations and not sound like a kid who doesn't know what he is talking about. Over the last 16 years, not only did I learn more about how a leader matures, but I also gained experience in mentoring others through various phases of growth and all of that adds substance to the book.

I calculated that I have read Acts at least 100 times in those 16 years as well. I have studied other people's works on Paul and Acts and stand on the broad shoulders of some great scholarship as well.

What is the big idea of the book?

Most see Paul as an expert teacher. I see him first as a great learner, and that is why he is such a great teacher...and missionary. The idea of this book is that God brings all leaders through some similar phases and processes of development, and Paul is no exception. So the main idea of the book is examining how Paul was prepared by God to change the world, and how each time he learned something he got better...as a person and as a leader. He is the one who challenges us to follow him as he follows Christ. Too often people immortalize Paul as a saint who can do no wrong, but when we do this we steal from him one of his greatest qualities-his ability to learn. We learn, along with Paul in this book, how to become a leader whose influence spreads further with each life-lesson until we finish well as he did.

What are some of the missional lessons Paul learned that we may also need to learn?

There isn't the time or space in this venue to explain all of them, but one that is very interesting is how Paul learned to do more by doing less. On his first journeys he did the majority of the evangelism work and left behind weak and immature churches susceptible to error (such as the Galatians). Near the end of his second journey he was instructed by Christ to stay in a place longer and find future leaders in the harvest fields. After this lesson he stayed a year and a half in Corinth and then 3 years in Ephesus. While in Ephesus Luke tells us that every person in all of Asia heard the message. Wow! Paul stayed in one place, did less and less of the actual work, but empowered others to carry the work on where he could not. It meant he stayed in one place longer, but after he left the church was not just viable and indigenous, but had already proven it could do the work without him. They were not dependent upon him. That is a leadership lesson that we definitely need today where so much is done by our leaders while the vast majority of the congregation simply receive and do little. Paul learned to do less so that others could do more.

Be sure and pick up Neil's book, Journeys to Significance

Rediscovering a Child-like Outlook

2011-08-27T23:12:00.000-07:00

When did bed time become a good thing? What ever happened to all those millions of excuses we used to offer for just five more minutes before we’d surrender to the sheets? When did a stick become just a stick rather than the shining saber that it used to be? When did it become blasphemous to walk on top of a wall instead of along side it? How come there are no more dragons to kill, or fair maidens to rescue?

When did the moon stop following our family car at night? Is it following somebody else now? Maybe we bored it too much. When did clouds stop forming circus animals and just start blocking the sun?

How come I don't get a prize when I order a Big Mac combo? When did a cup of coffee take preference over a mug of hot chocolate with mounds of whipped cream, sprinkles, and a cherry on top? How come I can't have my dessert first and eat the rest only if I have room for it? When was it that I began to like vegetables?

Why do I have to eat chicken with a fork and a knife when I go out to a restaurant? If God had meant that, do you think He would have ever made the drumstick? Do you think they would call it a drumstick if we weren’t supposed to pick it up with our hands. What would Roll Over Beethoven sound like if Ringo had to hold his drumsticks with a fork and knife?

How come there are no pictures in grown-up books? Who says the black lines in a coloring book are better art than the colorful scribbles that go outside?

How come they don't carry silly string in hardware stores? So when did couch cushions become just couch cushions, rather than the fortress they were always meant to be?

I wonder, which is more mature, an "adult bookstore", or Toys R Us? How come now that we can actually afford our own pony, we'd rather buy a Dodge Colt, Ford Mustang or Bronco instead of the real thing? Are we, in reality, still just pretending?

And one question I just can't seem to find an answer to: when did work become more important than playing? It used to be that messing up the room was more desirable than picking it up. I wonder what would happen if some day at work we all just decided to play kick-the-can instead of the ridiculous "grown-up"(?!?) games we play at the office.

I can’t tell when it was that I changed, but at some moment I stopped seeing the world through the eyes of a child and started to think like a grown up. At that moment I lost something that I want back, not just innocence or naiveté, something more. I lost a way of looking at things with curiosity and inventiveness. I began to know the answers so I stopped asking the questions. Lately I’ve discovered that asking good questions takes more wisdom than telling good answers.

The artist Henri Matisse said toward the end of his prolific career, “I spent the first thirty years of my life trying to paint like an adult, and the rest of my life trying to paint like a child again.” Perhaps we should rethink this whole grown up thing and try seeing the creation through the eyes of a child once again. In fact, that seems to be the only way that makes sense to me. I can’t even imagine what new things we would learn and create if we did.

A 3 year old will learn more lifelong and life-enhancing content in the next year than I have in the last ten. And I think she'll enjoy the year a whole lot more than I will as well. We can learn a lot from children, if we'd let them be the teachers more often and we became the students again.

“Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 18:4

Lessons Learned in the Fields

2011-08-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

I was asked to describe what I would do differently if I were to start church planting again. Here was my response.

If I were to start over knowing what I know now, what would I do differently?

1. Begin in the Harvest and Start Small.
Don't start with a team of already saved Christians. We think that having a bigger and better team will accelerate the work, and it doesn't. In fact, it has the opposite effect. It is better to have a team of two, and the right two makes the work even better: and apostle and prophet together will lay the foundation of a movement. The churches birthed out of transformed lives are healthier, reproductive and growing faster. It is about this- a life changed, not about the model. Never forget that!

2. Allow God to Build Around Others
Don't start in your own home...find a person of peace and start in their home! Read Matt. 10/Luke 10...and do it!

3. Empower Others from the Start
Don't lead too much...let the new believers do the work of the ministry without your imposed control. Let the excitement of a new life carry the movement rather than your intelligence and persuasiveness.

4. Let Scripture Lead Not Your Assumptions
Question all your ministry assumptions in light of Scripture with courage and faith. There is nothing sacred but God's Word and Spirit in us...let them lead rather than your own experience, teachings, and tradition.

5. Rethink Leadership
The Christian life is a process. There is not a ceiling of maturity that people need to break through to lead. Set them loose immediately and walk with them through the process for a while. Leadership recruitment is a dead end. We are all recruiting from the same pond and it is getting shallower and shallower. Leadership farming is what is needed. Any leadership development system that doesn't start with the lost is starting in the wrong place. Start at the beginning and begin with the end in mind. Mentor life on life and walk with them through their growth in being, doing and knowing. The end is not an accumulated knowledge but a life of obedience that will be willing to die for Jesus. The process isn't over until there is a flat-line on the screen next to their bed.

6. Immediate Obedience in Baptism
Baptize quickly and publicly and let the one doing the evangelizing do the baptizing. The Bible doesn't command us to be baptized, but to be baptizers. It is absolutely foolish the way we hold the Great Commission over our people and then exclude them from obeying it at the same time! We need to let the new convert imprint upon the Lord for protection, provision, training and leading, rather than upon men.

7. Settle "Your" Ownership Issues
Stop being concerned about whether "Your" church plant will succeed or not. It isn't "yours" in the first place. Your reputation is not the one on the line...Jesus' is. He will do a good job if we let him. If we have our own identity and reputation at stake in the work we will tend to take command. Big mistake. Let Jesus get the glory and put his reputation on the line...He can take care of Himself without your help!"

This was originally from Organic Church, but has since been online in a few places, so I thought I'd post it on my own blog as well. Hope it helps.

My Foreword to Zens' The Pastor has No Clothes

2011-08-27T13:54:00.001-07:00

James D.G. Dunn highlighted a very serious problem when he noted, “some of the early statements regarding industrial chaplaincies…seemed to imply that the Church was not present in industry unless and until an ordained clergyman became involved on the factory floor.” The idea that clergy must be present in order for the church to exist and function is one of the most debilitating assumptions in the body of Christ. Too many in both the church and world believe that you simply can’t have church without a clergy person present.

We allow this most distressing lie to creep into our ways, thus becoming sacred, unchangeable dogma reverently referred to as “the pastor’s call” and “ordination.” The reality is this: the New Testament says nothing about clergy being different from laity; we are all “inheritance” (Greek: kleros) and we are all God’s “people” (Greek: laos). We are all a holy priesthood, everyone of us. In other words: the laity are the clergy and the clergy are the laity. There should be no distinction and separation that we commonly see today among those purporting to be the body of Christ. Instead of a priesthood of all believers, we end up with a “pewhood” of the disengaged spectators masquerading as the body of Christ.

Early in y Christian life, I was spoon-fed this doctrine of the few who are specially called, ordained to lead others. I believed I was one of those special people and went of to seminary to ne taught how to serve the church in this “holy calling.” I went through the process of licensure and ordination to reinforce this sense of being special. I remember wanting to settle the doctrinal foundation of the positional authority for the pastor once and for all, but was gravely disappointed by the glaring lack of Biblical support. But that didn’t deter me for, like my leaders before me, I found support in places where it was not to be found. I assumed much and read my own bias into the text many times over…and no one ever openly questioned it.

This was my life’s pattern until one day God finally broke through the clutter in my head with clear and profound truth. When the lie was uprooted and replaced with a truly Biblical worldview it changed everything. The implications affect every part of life as a follower of the King.

In reality, we misplace our faith by believing we need a person in charge more than we need the Spirit of God. We doubt that the Spirit is enough to lead a meeting and, instead, place hope in one leader to hear from God as if he or she can tell us what we need to hear. Thus, we bypass any common interaction with the indwelling Spirit of God and with each other. How absurd is it when we trust more in flesh than in the Spirit. In the end, we actually have so little faith in the Great Shepherd to lead us that He has become an absentee king delegating his responsibility to a few. This, of course, is not true. But it is the way we function. Ours is a problem of faith. Plain and simple, we do not believe He is capable or motivated to lead us.

In this thoughtful resource book, Jon Zens hits this issue hard with the following question: “Just think with me for a moment. If the senior pastors of the 1000 largest churches in America resigned tomorrow, what kind of religious chaos would ensue?”

I am grateful for Jon’s mind and pen, a gift to the organic church and the kingdom at large. His What’s With Paul & Women is outstanding! This book is equally an intelligent and well-studied contribution to a serious by over-looked issue we need to address as a body. As Jon states, “ The point is, in organic meetings the leadership of the Spirit is fluid and over a period of time involves everyone. If a group looks to the same person time after time to get things rolling and provide the essential content of the gathering, then the living Christ blossoming through all the parts is soured.”

I have been teaching similar ideas for a while now. One of the greatest ironies I encounter is in hearing pastors object that if we actually did church this way they would not enjoy the fulfillment of using their gift in the church. I then ask, “Should everyone else table their gifts so that the pastor can feel good about his own usefulness?” This is why Jon comments that, “Those who have had leadership positions in the institutional church must take their ambitions and history of being “up front” to the cross. They must take their proper place of being just a brother or just a sister among other brothers and sisters. If not, then the group will inevitably revert back to an institutional form, which usurps Jesus’ leadership.”

Again, this is a faith issue. Trust that the Spirit of Christ wants all of His body being fulfilled and used, even pastors and teachers. Yes, it may be fulfilled in a manner far different than our expectations, but fulfillment is always satisfying. It may be different, but it will not be disappointing.

In the Hans Christian Andersen fable, once the boy speaks up everyone realizes how foolish they have been and the ridiculous parade ends. Jon, though not a child, has nonetheless shouted out very clearly–“the pastor has no clothes!” It is time to stop the parade of vain and self-congratulatory cheers stirred on by some lying scam artist that has come to steal the wealth of the King, and go back to normal life…fully clothed.

–Neil Cole

Author of Organic Church, Organic Leadership,

Search & Rescue, Church 3.0 and Journeys to Significance.

Long Beach CA

P.S. If you would like to read more of what my thoughts are on this very important subject check out my book Organic Leadership.

Humorous Church Names Reposted for Fun

2011-08-27T11:23:00.000-07:00

“What’s in a name? A rose is a rose by any other name.”
—William Shakespeare

My friend and mentor, Bob Logan has an unusual collection. He collects church names he has come across in his travels over the years. Here are some actual names of churches he has encountered in his journey (with some commentary from yours truly):

Accident Baptist Church is obviously not Calvinist.
First Church of the Last Chance World on Fire Revival and Military Academy (in Dade City FL). These folks have the first and last word on just about any subject. I don’t even want to ask what sort of military they are training.
Greater Second Baptist Church in Chattanooga, TN, stands in contrast, I guess, to the not so great second Baptist church around the corner?
For those who do not want to commit all the way, you can go to the Halfway Baptist Church. On the other hand, Hell Hole Swamp Baptist Church in South Carolina is not a seeker sensitive church by any stretch of the imagination. You have to be really committed to attend this church; none of those “Halfway Baptists” will be found here. Of course everyone is welcome at Faith Free Lutheran. Like “sugar free” this is a church that contains no calories, convictions…or miracles.
Little Hope Baptist Church sounds a tad better than another church called No Hope United Methodist Church. Kind of makes you sad just saying it.
My personal favorite church name: Original Church of God, Number 2. I really can’t think of anything to add that could possibly be funnier than the name itself…except for perhaps number 3.
Boring Seventh Day Adventist Church is another one of those “truth in advertising” names, but this church goes the extra mile because the name of their pastor is Elder Dull. Perhaps there are more exciting ways to spend your Saturday?
Harmony Baptist Church in East Texas is a name that doesn’t sound so bad. The funny thing is that it is only a half-mile away from Harmony Baptist Church #2. I guess they are not so harmonious after all.
Battle Ground Baptist Church…aren’t they all?
Waterproof Baptist Church in Louisiana begs the question: does the baptism count if you’re water repellant?
Country Club Christian Church is in Kansas City, but you’re actually likely to find some of these in every city. This may be the fastest growing model of church in America.
James Bond United Community Church in Toronto, is of course “shaken, not stirred.” St. Martini Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, is also shaken, and not stirred and comes with an olive or a twist of lemon if you prefer. Of course the Lutherans can actually drink a Martini so I guess it isn’t such a stretch to name your church after one, or is it.
When Paul spoke of being all things to all people I doubt that he had this in mind: First United Separated Baptist Church. This church in Indiana needs to decide which it is, united or separated?
Hell For Certain is a church in Kentucky but for some reason they do not have too many visitors, no one wants to go there. Does their advertisement in the yellow pages read: Go to Hell For Certain, Sunday at 10 AM? There is also Hell Seventh Day Adventist Church, which is in Hell, MI. You could say: people are dying to go there!
Lover's Lane Episcopal Church is a very open church, but watch out if someone wants to show you the submarine races in the baptismal pool…their Episcopal, they sprinkle.

CMA is Leaving Our Offices & Going Underground

2011-08-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

“Meeting Neil Cole is, well, anticlimactic…I don’t mean to say that Cole himself is anticlimactic, but his surroundings. You see, Cole–and everything he shapes–is ‘anti-slick.’”

~Ed Stetzer

In 1998 while training leaders in Australia, I read a book called Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration by Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman. The book looked at some of the businesses that changed their fields and consequently society in radical ways by thinking differently and producing something that had never been seen before.

In the book the authors compared several company starts and portrayed some common qualities. Some of the companies they looked at were: The Walt Disney Co., Apple Computers, Lockheed’s SkunkWorks and Hewlitt Packard. Most were started in a garage or an abandoned warehouse on a rarely used lot or airfield. Interesting, all of these were started in California. From those unsuspecting locales the world was changed forever. Feature animation was born. The personal computer and printer was created. The stealth flight technology was invented. While other companies with greater resources and state of the art facilities were trying to create something earth shaking, these small bands of highly committed, creative and selectively chosen people were meeting in ugly places without any luxury and for little or no money. They were working for something more than a job or a successful business; they were literally shifting the history of mankind. The authors speculated such humble locales allowed for greater creativity because they were less distracted and comfortable and were frankly more desperate. But I think it may be more than that. God always delights to use simple and weak things to confound the powerful and wise.

Having always been an artist that desired to be creative and help people to view things from new perspectives, I read the book with keen interest and learned what I could. When we set out to start CMA in the Long Beach area, influenced by this book, we moved into some very humble digs. The CMA offices in Signal Hill are completely forgettable. There is nothing shiny or pretty about them. Today five church plants, a publishing and resource ministry, two city transformation ministries and a house of 24/7 prayer all share this small and unattractive workspace throughout the week. That’s quite a contrast to the multi-million dollar, shiny state of the art facilities found in every city that house only one church and, in many cases, for only one day a week.

I remember when I had a surprise visit from Dave Travis and Linda Stanley of Leadership Network looking for true church multiplication ministries to invite into the Burning Bush project. I think they saw our office and wondered how anything good can come from such a “modest” place. Actually, I wonder how something world changing can actually be initiated from a swank place, but I “think differently” (as Steve Jobs says). Linda and Dave actually came to appreciate our movement and became great friends and supporters of CMA, but I still occasionally hear them laugh about that first unimpressive meeting (we’re still not impressive).

Church history has proven again and again that true revival is ignited from the ground up, and never the top down. "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"

Ed Stetzer and his co-authors Elmer Towns and Warren Bird made our offices famous in the first chapter of their book 11 Innovations in the Local Church. It reads:

“[CMA’s] massive operation without (much of) a parking lot has a grand total of 1.5 employees but trains 2,000 people in 12 states and around the world. Not bad for a guy with a nasty hole in his couch.” [pp. 26-27].

We’ve seen God do a whole lot more since that time. CMA has trained

close to 45,000 people to plant organic churches. There are organic church plants in all 50 states and probably as many nations of the world. There is more than one Organic Church Planter’s Greenhouse (our current training mechanism) happening every week somewhere in the world with over 100 experienced church planters trained to present the material. We’ve innovated, piloted and developed new wineskins for church planting, disciple-making, leadership development and multiplication movements from that same nasty couch. We still only have one full-time employee and two part-timers. Some of our castaway resources that we helped to develop here and now sit on our famous “shelf of shame” are still highly sought after by others, such as the profile assessment system for church planter assessment.

After 13 years of fruitful world impact from the humble, oft overlooked offices found at the corner of 21st and Cherry in Signal Hill CA, CMA and all the associated local ministries birthed in and around it, are vacating this familiar location. Due to the economy and leading of our Lord we are letting go of this birthplace. Following our own values of being decentralized we will function more virtually and virally.

CMAResources will continue. From most people’s perspective little or nothing will change. We simply will have a new address (still in Signal Hill). Our stock will ship from different locations but who will really notice that? It is our associate ministries that utilize this space that will really be more affected than CMAResources, and we are most sorry for that.

We leave with gratitude for what God accomplished with a handful of highly motivated people eager to be a part of something new and global in significance.

For any interested, we will have a “Bon Voyage” party for any who have been part of the work that came out of this place on Saturday evening September 17,2011 starting at 6 PM. If you’ve been part of Awakening Chapels, CMA, Eternal Grace, Crossroads, Kingdom Causes (LB/Regional), MCTV, LoveHOP, Student Initiatives, Icthus, Passion Church, Campus Church Network, Student Church Ministries, the Light Christian Fellowship, TruthQuest or any of the other church planting networks and/or associated ministries that flowed from this place, you are invited to this event. We will have a barbeque in the parking lot and praise in the big room (I know, it's not that big). Bring your own meat and come with stories to tell and songs of praise to sing. All are welcome.

We leave with gratitude for what has been, anticipation for what will be, and a sense of sadness for leaving a very familiar place full of warm memories...and holy couches.

Influential Success is Not Always Measuring Positive Results

2011-08-24T12:35:00.000-07:00

It's not how many walk an aisle on Sunday in church that measures success, but how many walk with Jesus in the world everyday. For far too long the church has been afraid of the world and the affect it would have on her. In contrast, missional-minded people choose to have an affect on the world, not the other way around.

In a real sense, it is not our attendance charts, year-end reports and newsletters that tell of our success—but often it is the voice of those who are not even in the church...and may never darken her doorway. Sometimes the indicator of success sounds more like an insult.

Look at how Luke describes Paul and his band of missional disciples in Acts through the eyes of those steeped in the world system:

“…and when they had brought them to the chief magistrates, they said, 'These men are throwing our city into confusion,'” (Acts 16:20)

“…they began dragging Jason and some brethren before the city authorities, shouting, ‘These men who have upset the world have come here also; and Jason has welcomed them, and they all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.’” (Acts 17:6-7)

“…You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made with hands are no gods at all.” (Acts 19:26)

These are entirely different measures of success for the church than what we usually tally. Granted, we Christians hardly need excuse to be more offensive in the world than we already are. That's not the point, but when we actually mobilize God's people into the thick of the market-place and world system the true enemy will not respond softly. When we keep people side-lined in comfy sanctuaries the devil is hardly threatened.

Lobbying congress for a more conservative political agenda is hardly what our true purpose is, yet that is what the world sees of us. Jesus never did that, even though the people He was serving would have preferred that he do so. Instead, He simply transformed people and empowered them to make a difference in their portion of the world. The people he really insulted and offended were the highly conservative religious leaders. Al and Deb Hirsch ask a profound couple questions in their book Untamed:

“What is it about the holiness of Jesus that caused “sinners” to flock to him like a magnet and yet manages to seriously antagonize the religious people? This question begs yet another, even more confronting question: why does our more churchy form of holiness seem to get it the other way around?”

Is it possible that we are too nice to the wrong people and too mean to to the right ones? The true Jesus is not a safe and sterile, milk toast wimp, conflicted by a mission and a passive kindness—which Hollywood typically portrays and Christians are comfortable believing in. He said things that offended others regularly. He never carried the party line. Jesus shocked his foes, his friends and his followers with equal doses. While it was the Romans that crucified Jesus it was the leaders of His own religious faith that instigated the persecution. That is fairly consistent with radical spiritual revolutionaries. Ask any soldier or radical change agent, “friendly fire” isn't so friendly.

I believe that an indicator of influential success is determined by who you anger and who you do not. I think this barometer does not indicate that the Church of America is doing very well at all with influential success. As a result we experience very little real persecution.

Perhaps we are so rarely truly persecuted because we so rarely threaten to shake things up out in the world where we are really needed. Jesus promised that if they persecuted Him they would also do so to us. Paul wrote that all who desire to live godly will be persecuted. Perhaps we are not persecuted because we are not being like Jesus and are not living the sort of godly lifestyles that would merit such. Why would Satan persecute a church that has voluntarily taken herself out of the action where she can actually do some good?

“I get it!” came a remark from a pastor in one of Reggie McNeal’s D.Min. classes.

“I have been thinking all along about changing the church. You are talking about changing the world!”

Reggie concludes, “He did get it!” [McNeal, Missional Renaissance, p. 65]

We have got to set our sights on something much bigger than a church with thousands in weekly attendance. Contrary to what you thought, changing the church is not the idea of this blog. That is a small goal not worth fulfilling. We need to change the world. Anything less is demeaning of Christ’s sacrifice.

“Can the church stop its puny, hack dreams of trying to ‘make a difference in the world’ and start dreaming God-sized dreams of making the world different?”

―Leonard Sweet [Soul Tsunami, p. 16]

From Institutional Success to Influential Success in Acts

2011-08-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

When it comes to measuring impact there is a the transition that occurs in Acts worth noting. In the early chapters success was measured in precise numbers that were added to the growing local church (Acts 2:41; 5:41). Later, the success was measured by how “the word (message/voice) of the Lord was being spread through the whole region (Acts 13:49).” Once the church transitioned to become a more organic decentralized movement success was measured by how many churches were growing stronger in faith and being added to the movement on a daily basis (Acts 16:5). Eventually, when it became a rapidly multiplying movement, success was measured by the fact that “all who were in Asia heard the word (message) of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks (Acts 19:20).”

Did you catch that? It doesn’t just say that the word could be found in every place of Asia, as if The Gideons were there and left a free Bible in the nightstand—as incredible as that would be. It says that every person who was in Asia–Jew or Greek, man, woman or child–had heard God’s message. The Lord's voice was heard by everyone! Talk about reaching a people group! It doesn't tell us how many responded positively to that message, only that they heard it. In fact, we know that many responded very negatively (1 Cor. 16:9).

What I want us to see is that in a rapid exponentially building movement, measurement takes on a whole different form. As my good friend and coworker, Ed Waken likes to say, “It is not how many conversions that are made, but how many conversations that people have.” It is connections with the people that are measured. The results of those conversations are not measured because, frankly, that is not our success...we cannot control that nor take credit for it.

Unfortunately, we tend to measure what is outside of our realm of success. Perhaps we also tend to take credit for things that are not ours to claim. We are not responsible for our own salvation let alone the salvation of others...we never have been and we never will be. Our responsibility is to bring the presence, power and voice–in other words, influence–of our King to places where He is not seen, heard or felt. We need to let Him do what only He can do and let Him get credit for the results. Frankly, Jesus can do a whole lot more than just getting people to show up for an hour-long event once a week. His influence is over every area of one's life, which makes measurement with precise numbers seem trite and minimal in the end.

Influential success measures the presence and resulting impact of our being in the world and bringing the voice of our King. In a sense, even the rejection of that influence is a sign of our success. Institutional success needs objective proof that we have reached our stated objective as an organization. This is usually marked and measured by a business mind-set that feels the bottom line is the mark of an organization's success or failure. The problem is the kingdom is not meant to be a business or an organization. It is the reign of the King that is carried by ordinary people who are transformed into agents of extraordinary influence and (I believe) builds into the momentum of a movement. The kingdom brings change, it transforms someone's entire life...for their entire life. Such transformation is obvious and easily noted, but not quantitatively measured with statistical analysis. AND it is never complete, so success is not arrived at until the end.

We can measure process, or even progress, but not true success until the end. Because we all have the potential to fail and disqualify ourselves at any moment, and the only exam that actually counts is the final exam. Likewise, the only applause that really counts is the applause at the finish line. Any applause before that is encouraging, but not truly satisfying.

As we say in our movement, “You don't graduate until there is a flat line on the monitor next to your bed.” Until then you keep learning, growing and moving forward toward that point. If you are resuscitated, you've been held back a grade and you better try even harder to learn for the next opportunity to graduate. In other words, we need to finish well or die trying.

So influential success is measured moment to moment and is more about stories than numbers.

Measuring What's Important

2011-08-23T15:38:00.000-07:00

It used to be so easy to determine who was successful and who was not. Bigger was assumed to be better. We simply counted those attending and the dollars given and we knew if we were successful…or not. I suggest that those days are quickly evaporating, and that those standards never were an accurate measure of real success.

In Church 3.0 I said,

“In Church 2.0 we evaluated a church’s success by how many people attended and how much money they left there. Because Church 3.0 is a movement, success is not measured by how many people come but by how many go! We want to measure the church’s sending capacity more than its seating capacity. We ask: Is the message, the method and the mission spreading from one person to the next and then on to the one after that?” [Cole, Church 3.0, p. 169]

Our mission is to find and develop Christ followers rather than church members. There is a big difference in these two outcomes. The difference is seen in transformed lives that bring change to neighborhoods and nations. Simply gathering a group of people who subscribe to a common set of beliefs is not worthy of Jesus and the sacrifice He made for us.

We must shift from an institutional manner of measuring to an influential manner. Instead of the number question, we must look for the personal influence of the real church—the people. Many ask for benchmarks to measure success of the organization, as if that is measuring the church. It is not. The church is not the building, the organization, the programs or the event. You can measure all those things and still not measure the success or failure of the church, because the church is something else entirely. As Reggie McNeal likes to say, “Church is not a ‘what’ but a ‘who’.” The church is disciples in relation together on a mission—following Jesus into influence within the world. Once you factor that simple shift into the mix the entire equation changes. How do you measure influence of a person in relation to other people? That is a far better barometer of how we are doing as a church or a movement. As I said in Organic Church:

“Church attendance is not the barometer of how Christianity is doing. Ultimately, transformation is the product of the Gospel. It is not enough to fill our churches; we must transform our world. Society and culture should change if the church has been truly effective. Is the church reaching out and seeing lives changed by the Good News of the Kingdom of God? Surely the numbers of Christians will increase once this happens, but filling seats one day a week is not what the Kingdom is all about. We do Jesus an injustice by reducing His life and ministry to such a sad story as church attendance and membership roles. The measure of the church’s influence is found in society—on the streets, not in the pews.” [Cole, Organic Church, p. xxiii]

We lost count of the number of churches in our movement years ago. You cannot measure numbers of churches in a multiplication movement. Oh sure you can in the very early days where 2 become 4 and 4 becomes 8…and so on. Even with my mathematically challenged mind I can do that. But as the exponential growth curve rises suddenly old means of measurement are useless…impossible actually.

In The Starfish and the Spider, Ori Brafman and Red Beckstrom say,

“Counting the members of starfish organizations (decentralized organizations) is usually an impossible task. It’s not only that no one’s keeping track, but also that anyone can become a member of an open organization—or likewise withdraw their membership—at any time.” [Brafman, Beckstrom, The Starfish and the Spider, p.p. 50-51]

As we say at CMA: “if you are successful in a church multiplication movement than you can't count the number of churches. If you can count the churches than you are not a multiplication movement.” How’s that for a measuring stick? You’re success is determined by not counting. It reverses the whole conversation doesn’t it?

But we still want to know how we are doing. Success for the church is measured on the streets not in the seats. We measure human interaction and transformative stories. I am very proud of some of the work done by one of our associated ministries in my own hometown of Long Beach, CA. Due in large part to the efforts of Kingdom Causes LB homelessness has been reduced by upwards of 25%. That is success in anyone's book, but could that happen if we were content to merely count butts in seats and 10% of dollars in the wallets found in those butts?

What happens when we celebrate things that don’t matter and ignore the ones that do? I asked that very question on my Facebook page once and received a ton of interesting responses. Perhaps the saddest was the simple reply: “You get church.” Ouch.

We fuel what we celebrate. When we turn inward and hide in our own selfish bubble we lose a grasp of reality. We become deluded into a place of selfish consumerism and passive opinions that count for little more than the whining of a spoiled child. Our true north is lost and we spiral into a deeper and deeper level of deception as we invest more in what we think is success. We think we are doing well when in fact we long ago took the off ramp from God’s true missional agenda and are now lost in a maze of new programs for ourselves, for our organizational prosperity.

Jesus, of course would not be considered a success by our old standards, as he left behind only 120 disciples (Acts 1: 15). Apparently he neglected to attend the “How to Break the 200 Growth Barrier Seminar.” But he was never interested in large numbers of people coming, he was interested in a few that would go, be fruitful and multiply. This approach eventually rose to overcome the Roman Empire when no other strategy could.

Good Bye Dad: Cornelius "Corny" Cole III, October 12, 1930-August 8, 2011

2011-08-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

My father, Corny Cole, past away Monday August 8th at 3:00 AM after a long battle with Multiple System Atrophy. He was 80 years old and is survived by his wife, Linda, four children (Neil, Ryan, Francesca and Dominique) and four grand-children (Heather, Erin, Zachary and Rowan). He also has left behind two beloved brothers, Peter and Lucky Cole and their families

Dad was always an artist, especially a draftsman. He could draw, like no one else I have ever known (check out his work done in this video). Much of his career was within the animation field. He was also a teacher that was beloved by all his students. He taught at Cal Arts and also at USC, but even as a small boy I remember him driving to South Central LA after the Watts riots to teach life drawing classes. I would love to tag along and have his students draw sketches of my favorite super heroes. To be honest, dad's superhero drawings were a little too artistic for my elementary school taste, but I wish I had them now.

He and his identical twin brother, Peter, were also surfing legends in Malibu. I've been told that dad helped teach the original Gidget (Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman, whom the book, movie and TV show was based upon) how to surf. She traded him sandwiches for lessons (food was always persuasive to dad, but he was also very generous). Both Dad and Peter, as well as their younger brother Lucky were lifeguards on the beaches of Los Angeles, something I would later do as well. Here is my dad (left) at the beach in Malibu two years before I was born.

Peter went on to live in Hawaii and become a legendary big wave rider. My dad went to Hawaii briefly to surf the big waves as well, but couldn't leave his work in the art world which was based in LA. That's why I grew up in LA instead of Hawaii like all my cousins. The old photo to the left is Peter surfing at Waiameia Bay. Peter and Corny's younger brother Lucky (also a big wave rider) graduated from UCLA and started working at IBM before personal computers were even an idea plucked from Steve Jobs mind or Bill Gates was tall enough to look through a Window. Okay, maybe he's not that old, but he has always been ahead of the curve. Yes, I have always had good reason to be proud of my dad and uncles, they are pioneers.

This picture to the right is of my dad and Peter goofing off at Peter's home in Hawaii a few years ago when we were all out for my sister Dominique's wedding. "Womb-mates" is how they referred to each other. Born just 6 minutes apart, they were always competitive but also rejoiced in the other's success...as if it was their own. When I heard Peter tell dad near the end that he felt like a part of him was dying I wept. Even now I have tears in my eyes at the thought.

Corny and Peter were not just surfer's but true water men–they studied the ocean. Every time we drove near the coast my dad would read the currents and see where the swells were coming from. He would know which surfing spots would have the best waves. I learned to love the ocean and followed in their footsteps, first as a surfer, then as a lifeguard on the same beaches. I also pursued art and received my Bachelors in fine arts at CSULB.

My earliest memories are of dad hovering over a light board (funny, but the light was never "on") as he worked with mad genius on some animation–always flipping with his fingers between all the pages. Occasionally he would shout some expletive when he had drooled accidentally on the important work because he was breathing so intensely–lost with deep focus in an animated world within his creative mind.

For as long as I can remember he was an artist, a fine artist. Animation was a way to make a living and support his family so he did it, but he never saw himself as just an animator. He always refused to give in to the commercialization of the craft. What is very recognizable is that even the most mundane assignments became a creative challenge to him. He always did his work with excellence and passion, no matter what he was working on.

Dad's first animation job was at Disney as an "inbetweener" on Lady and the Tramp. This is an entry level job filling in the drawings "between" major character movements in animation with his primary role working on Tramp and the Siamese cats. He later worked for Warner Bros., Depatie-Freleng, UPA and many other production studios. He animated Coyote Road Runner, the Pink Panther, Mr. McGoo as well as Alvin and the Chipmunks. He worked on a few animated features: Gay Puree (with the voice talents of Judy Garland and Robert Goulet), The Phantom Tollbooth, Little Nemo, and Raggedy Ann and Andy (check out the scene with the Greedy) He did a spot for the animated film Heavy Metal, which was not included in the theatrical release but I believe it can be seen in a later DVD version. He also did a couple of TV specials for Flip Wilson. He did some titles for movies such as With Six you Get Egg Roll (staring Doris Day and Brian Keith) and even the notorious Flesh Gordon (Yikes, you probably want to avoid that one friends). He did a music video for the Beasty Boys but it never was shown to my knowledge. For many years he worked on his own project which has had a few different names and can be seen on YouTube as Heaven and Hell. Unfortunately the quality of the video online does not do the work justice. I always thought it was a very graphic representation of the fall and its effect on the world.

I was so proud when a short film he designed and animated that was narrated by Orson Wells won an Oscar in 1969, called Is It Always Right to be Right? That was also cool because he became a "member of the academy" and therefore received "thanks" every year by some very famous people. We would also get to see tapes of movies while they were still in theaters because dad had to vote on them. These were just a few of the perks of growing up in an animators home.

Some productions he worked on would go on to win Clio's (awards for advertising) and an Emmy. A few years ago he won the prestigious Windsor McCay life-time achievement award from the Annies (awards in the field animation). This picture is of dad, my brother (Ryan) and sister (Dominique) and my three kids at the Annies when he won the Windsor McCay award. He looked so dapper that day, which is not how he normally would be described (sorry dad, but true). He had a reputation for dressing, well, let's call it "creative casual."

Below is a video compilation put together by a long-time friend of our family and co-worker of Corny's, Bob Kurtz. Thanks Bob for compiling this.

My father was a softy in heart. When my brother and I were naughty kids (staying up way past our bedtime) he would stomp through the house with heavy steps to our bedroom and hollar at us. He would unfurl his belt and then proceed to forcefully whip...the foot of our beds. He could never really bring himself to spank us. We knew this was the way it was, so we were not really very scared, even though those impending footsteps would always get us to be quite and pretend we were sound asleep. Do not mistake his kindness with a lack of resolve, however. While I was in High School he realized he was drinking too much and he quit drinking cold turkey and never touched another glass of alcohol without the aid of any recovery support group or rehab. He quit smoking the same way. Both without a single relapse.

When the Cole family and all the relatives come together we have a tradition of telling Corny stories. He was a character and there are many stories to make us laugh. Some of his famous quotes are:

"Anarchy is better than no form of government at all."
"I'm so tired I could eat a horse."
It's a knife eat knife world out there."
While sending me to the market to buy something he called out before I left and said, "If they don't have any, don't buy any." I assured him I wouldn't.

These are just a few of the quotes. There are 80 years of stories that are far more elaborate and could easily fill a book. He never seemed to mind being the punchline at the party, because he never took himself too seriously...except when it came to art.

Art was the one great passion of Corny's life. He saw it as the ultimate purpose for his life. Many years ago my sister Francesca chose to drop her major in theater arts to pursue a pre-med degree (she's now a PhD in molecular biology). Dad, thought it best that she still take theater classes so she could have something to "fall back on" in case the other pursuit didn't work. Yes, he was a different sort of father than most people have. There will be a large retrospective show of my dad's work opening the second weekend of October in LA. We will also have a memorial at that time. Details will come closer to the event.

I always sort of felt like I disappointed my dad when I chose not to go into art but to follow my call in the Lord. Because my world-view varied from his I think he had a hard time swallowing what my life was about, but he always seemed proud of my family.

The truth is, however, that I have always seen myself as an artist. While I do not work with canvas or clay as much anymore, I try to approach leadership and church work with creativity and unique perspectives. I design new concepts and engineer new methods. I value reworking something until it is right. I try to write as an artist, by painting a picture with words, even when working in non-fiction. Perhaps, more than anything else, I have a driving sense to be authentic and not a hypocrite in what I do. At the end of the day, being real in what you pursue was important to dad, and that too has been passed down. It is more important to stay true to your art/convictions than to be successful or popular. That was my father's way in his art, my uncle's way in surfing, and I hope it is for me as well in my pursuit of Christ's kingdom. I think these qualities come from my father. I guess I inherited more than his name (I am Cornelius Cole IV) and love for the ocean.

Thanks Dad.

Small is Big

2011-07-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

I am a big thinker. Some people assume that because I do church in a small way I am opposed to big things, and this is vastly untrue. I will not be satisfied until the whole world is changed, and you can’t do that in a single church; but you can with many small ones. The way to effect global change is to start with the microscopic.

Seth Godin boldly declares, “Small is the new big.” Contrary to the way we usually think, the way to big is really to go small. Of course this is counter intuitive. So we generally try to make something grow bigger and end up doing less than we could. Jesus used the parable of leaven to show the effect of a small thing on a massive scale. He also often referred to the smallest known seed as having huge potential for earth-shaking results (Matt. 17:20).

In his hugely successful book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell identifies three characteristics necessary for an epidemic-type spread of a trend, an idea, or even a virus itself: “one, contagiousness; two, the fact that little causes can have big effects; and three, that change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment” (he calls this moment the “tipping point”). He devotes an entire section of his book to “the law of the few,” in which he cites example after example of how huge epidemic-type movements began with very few people. In fact, it is the only way they begin.

Not every small thing is powerful. It matters what is within the small package. A grain of sand and a grain of wheat are both small. One has the God-given potential to eventually feed the hungry world; the other can be the catalyst to create a blister or a pearl—but only once. The catalytic package of being small is not enough if the apostolic genius is not carried within each person.

Before we can change the world, we must be able to change a single life. We must change a life in such a way that the same life is able to do it all over again with someone else. This is best done in small ways that eventually affect the world. If you are looking to spread an idea virus by coordinating larger groups to do so, the whole process breaks down. If it is as simple and small as one life to another, the virus can spread easily, with every person carrying the contagion.

Why is small so big? Small does not cost a lot. Small is easy to reproduce. Small is more easily changed and exchanged. Small is mobile. Small is harder to stop. Small is intimate. Small is simple. Small infiltrates easier. Small is something people think they can do. Big does not do any of these things. We can change the world more quickly by becoming much smaller in our strategy.

Seth Godin even warns of moving from small to big too fast. If you outgrow the viral nature of your idea too quickly, you may corrupt the very things that make it contagious in the first place. You can shift from a viral approach to a more conventional means before the infamous “tipping point” occurs, and you will lose everything in the process.

Do not despise the day of small beginnings (Zech. 4:10), and do not be in too big a hurry to get past them.
_________________________
For a video on how multiplication movements start slow and small and then build in exponential momentum see this recent video from Exponential of April 2011.

[This post is an Excerpt from Church 3.0: Upgrades for the Future of the Church, which is a treatise on viral church multiplication movements.]

It's Not About Succession; It's About Sacrifice

2011-07-04T11:33:00.000-07:00

This morning as I read the paper I was struck by the contrast of two separate articles. This contrast speaks to the current state of the church in America today and addresses something that I think will soon emerge as a serious and debilitating illness in the church.

The first article was about some retired citizens in Japan that have formed a team called the Skilled Veterans Corp. They have formed this team to volunteer to enter the Fukishima nuclear power plant to instigate necessary repairs so that younger workers do not have to. The youngest on this corp is 60 and the oldest is 78. These are real heroes. They reason that they do not have as long to live as the younger generation and they feel some responsibility since they have benefited from the nuclear power for a longer period of time. They add that since their own cells reproduce at a slower pace they would take longer to contract cancer and die from it and likely will die sooner anyway. The truth is, they are willing to sacrifice their own lives so that the generation of their children do not have to. The website calling for volunteers states: "This is our duty to the next generation and the one thereafter."

A separate article was about the supposed fact that the Rev. Robert H. Schuller was voted off the board of directors for the Chrystal Cathedral. Later the church released a statement that he was not voted off the board, though he is no longer a voting member. Of note is that it was Schuller's son (who was ousted from the church a few years ago) that made the original comment, indicating that there is still plenty of drama at the Chrystal Cathedral even with out the Christmas pageant.

Just as this church was a forerunner in the mega church phenomenon, in my own opinion it is an omen that is visually picturing a coming problem that the American mega church must address and address soon. A few years ago Schuller retired and left the church in the hands of his son. Not long after that his son was fired and his daughter was placed in charge. The church has plummeted in attendance to the point where now it is hard to get a shot of the audience for the TV show because of so many empty seats. Even more striking than the low attendance is the high debt and lack of financial resources. The church has gone into bankruptcy and is selling off property and doing all it can to try and stay afloat as it rapidly sinks.

So what do these two articles have in common? Retiring leadership that is responsible for releasing the next generation. In one case, the fathers respond with heroic sacrifice for the sake of their children and grandchildren. In the other case the senior leadership does not adequately prepare the next generation and leaves a sinking ship in the hands of siblings in conflict all while their 84 year old father continues to try to grasp what power he still can until he is finally forced out.

Most mega churches in America remain led by their dynamic founding pastors. These leaders are getting older and in many cases have passed retirement age but still continue leading as if they are immortal. They are not and if they do not raise up the next generation and hand off the baton they too will see their ministry shrivel up and die like the Chrystal Cathedral.

Many of these dynamic senior leaders have children that have grown into leaders themselves, much like Schuller. While some have done well at releasing their sons, others are not doing as well. It is frankly a bit shocking that so many leaders have their sons take their place, like some sort of royal monarchy or family owned business. Billy Graham has Franklin step into his shoes. Jerry Fallwell is replaced by his son. Charles Stanley's influence is now eclipsed by Andy, even though it wasn't always a smooth transition. In fact, many of these successions have not gone well, such as the Schuller debacle. Just a stones throw away from the Chrystal Cathedral is Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa where Chuck Smith Sr. is wrestling with succession issues and from what I hear his own son, also a pastor and author is no longer a viable option.

To their credit they have raised children that are still following the Lord and leading in the church, and for that we should give honor. But the issue is that the way we have done church does not pass the baton well. The sort of leader that can build a mega church is not the sort of leader that does well at giving away the ministry to others, and therein lies the problem.

From my point of view, succession is not the real issue but simply a symptom of a bigger problem. The real issue is that the leadership of the previous generation is not passing the baton well because they are holding on to it for too long. The famous teachers are not producing the next generation of teachers, but rather are holding on to the influence which creates a dependency that does not reproduce. The center piece of an attractional format tends to become invaluable and irreplaceable. Those leaders, likely doing it all for good reasons, become the lynch pen of success and as such ironically become the vulnerable piece of a churches ultimate demise.

I personally believe that the mega church of today is far more vulnerable than she appears to be. Dependency upon a specific charismatic leader and the funds that such a leader draws is actually very crippling and will likely implode in many cases.

One remarkable scripture that we may have read dozens of times but not really considered in light of today's church leadership is a simple statement by Paul in his epistle to the Philippians. He says:

"So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure."

We are familiar with these words and perhaps even preached, heard or read messages about working out your own salvation and what that means. But how many of us took the time to consider the opening statement that this church was actually doing better in Paul's absence than in his presence? That, friends, is a huge statement and perhaps even an indictment against the current expressions of leadership found in most of our churches.

We do not need a succession plan as if the current leaders are so valuable that we must spend hours or even days trying to figure out how to replace them with other dynamic leaders that are equally as valuable and consequently vulnerable. What we need is a leader with a heart of sacrifice that is more concerned with his spiritual children's success than his or her own, and will lead in such a way that others are empowered to do even better than the previous leader. What we need is sacrifice, like those fathers in Japan, rather than succession.

A Prophetic Word that Did Come to Pass

2011-05-23T13:49:00.000-07:00

“In answer to your inquiry, I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”

~William Booth (Methodist preacher in the 1800's and founder of the Salvation Army)

This was a true prophetic word as opposed to Harold Camping's date-setting multi-million dollar campaign.

Aspire to live a religion full of the Holy Spirit demonstrated by love for widows and orphans. Desire Christ more than your Christianity. Repent and stop holding on to pain, hurt and unforgiveness. Without a changed life there is no salvation...walking an aisle, saying a prayer or raising a hand doesn't qualify you for heaven...only Jesus can offer regeneration and it involves a radical transformation. The kingdom of God is bigger than a Sunday service and is to be brought into all domains of society, even the political arena, but by mobilizing transformed agents...not legislative work or lobbying for conservative causes. There are consequences for sin and we should not damage people's souls by saying otherwise. There is forgiveness. There is hope. There is heaven for those who receive it...but it is not going to be forced on anyone...it is always offered as a choice.

May 21, 2011 6PM PST...is not the end

2011-05-21T15:15:00.000-07:00

"I'm waking up at the start of the end of the world, but its feeling just like every other morning before."
How Far We've Come
by Machbox Twenty

Well, like most others, I did wake up this morning and it did feel pretty much like every other morning before...except for the hot topic on facebook and twitter about Harold Camping's apocalyptic prophecy. The man is 89 years old, I have to wonder how many more false prophecies about the end does he have in him. Even most of his own family members and his media producer don't believe him anymore. Nevertheless many weak minded people did, and now they are hurt.

The thing is, the end will come and frankly this sort of stuff makes the true message of Christ's return sound like foolishness on a par with a guy walking the streets with a sandwich board sign saying "the end is near."

I tweeted a few days ago, "I'm not preparing for the end of the world on Sat May 21st, but today and every day." Actually, I think that is a better approach to Christ's return. I actually don't always succeed in living every moment with such intentionality, but I do think about my own mortality often and wonder what I would leave behind.

Live your life like this could be your last day...whether by rapture or by rupture...of a spleen, or a nuclear power plant, or even a blood vessel in your brain. In fact, this very day a funeral was held for a friend of mine so I guess the end is nearer than we think for all of us.

Solomon wrote many years ago "It is better to go to a house of mourning (a funeral) than to go to a house of feasting (a party), because that is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart." (Ecc. 7:2) While there are parties planned by atheists in the streets to celebrate the passing of another false prophecy we should realize that death awaits us all. George Bernard Shaw (likely an atheist of sorts himself) once quipped: "One out of one people die, that's a startling statistic."

It's not how we die that really matters but how we live before we die. The gospel is not just a get-out-of-hell-free card or eternal fire insurance. It is the good news that Christ is real, present and willing to heal and lead our lives now and forever. The gospel is as much about now as it is about then. Jesus came to bring love to the broken and lost, not condemnation. The condemnation we usually bring upon ourselves...or thrust upon others.

The Matchbox Twenty song quoted above makes a very pertinent statement..."Let's see how far we've come." Today pastors are debating the reality of hell. False prophets are announcing the end of the world. The church looks no different than the rest of the world, or worse. I don't think we've come that far really. In fact, the Thessalonica church of the first century was wrestling with some of the same issues. The Corinthians as well.

Tozer on Simple Church

2011-05-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

Margaret Feinberg put this in a post on her blog and pointed out that Tozer wrote this over 60 years ago. Today, in an even more complex world, people are starting to hear the call to simplicity.

"Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all. If we would find God amid all the religious externals, we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity."

–A.W. Tozer (The Pursuit of God, p. 17-18)

Dealing with Bullies in the Body of Christ

2011-05-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

A young organic church planter asked me how I deal with people who complain about my words and at the same time, manage to tactfully address sensitive issues in the church. Here is my response...

Hey Bro.

We live in a day where we publish thoughts instantly and permanently to thousands of people in little sound bites of 140 characters or less. And we do this several times in a single day! The potential for sin is enormous. The book of James talked of controlling the tongue, but today it is the thumb that gets us in trouble!

Actually, I have always tried to walk the fine line of attacking the system that subjugates, not the people caught in it. I have unfortunately said some stupid things with twitter that I wish I could get back. As of yet, I haven't violated my own belief, but have said things that are not really going to be helpful but merely inflammatory...those are the tweets I regret. I have also lived to see people cold toward me and I'm pretty sure it was something I said. This closes off a potential area of influence and relationship in the future. That is the cost of saying inflammatory things that are not truly helpful.

The truth is Christianity is a sub-culture that is accustomed to and values harsh statements but also is easily offended. Finding the balance is more art than science. Those who are bold in their course statements are heralded as heroes who stand up for what they believe without compromise.

At the same time, churches are full of people with the spiritual gift of offense. These people live out their religion as though it is their calling from God to police others and let them know how wrong they are, and in so doing are even more obnoxious than the people they criticize (sorry if I just offended you...not!). It is this reason more than all others that I am glad I no longer preach a sermon every week in church. I DO NOT miss that! I actually do hope I didn't offend my dear friends at the church I used to pastor...I wasn't thinking of you. Those who claim to follow the silent Lamb of God should be the slowest to offense, but are often the quickest to find it.

The church is a strange sub-culture that must be wildly confusing to those who are not within...I'm confused by it and I am a part of the church (though many would disagree with that last thought). Perhaps the worst part of this sub-culture is the idea that we do everything we can to avoid all offense because "that's what Jesus would do"...Oh Skubala (that's the ancient Greek word for Sh#@)! Jesus was an outspoken, even sarcastic, leader who was not afraid to step on the toes of those who were keeping others in bondage to an old system. He spoke boldly, clearly, publicly, even mockingly, at the Pharisees for their self-righteous world view.

Paul did as well. To those who felt everyone needed circumcision to convert to Christ he said in Galatians 5:12: "Hey if you want to get real religious, why stop at the foreskin...cut the whole thing off and be even more spiritual!" (my own paraphrase...but the point is there, no pun intended). Have I offended some of you yet?

If we work so hard to honor the status quo to keep the boat steady we will never turn it around and we will be destined to drift off course in our "happy" little boat. The truth is these people will find reason to get upset no matter what we say or do not say. The result is that we are still offensive and no closer to being 'happy" but also way off course. So speak the truth in love...in fact, shout it from the roof tops. Here are some thoughts to help shout the right things and deal with those who strike back...

The first thing to consider is the Scriptures. If the folks we know in the system are bible believers and the Scriptures are clear you can speak with authority–not your authority but the Bible's authority. Let the Scriptures speak for themselves...they are far better at it than we are (Heb 4:12). If the Bible is silent than we should be silent. That is actually where many Christian leaders blow it. If the people are claiming biblical authority for something that is not in the Bible than speak boldly and unapologetically against that. That said, claiming something as "biblical" or "unbiblical"can sometimes be overdone. It is perhaps better to simply ask..."Where is that found in the Bible?" I find it better to question the weight people put on things that are not in the Bible than the actual practice itself. Often a practice was born in relevance for a moment but after many years it became sacred even though it is not in the Bible. Honor the past usefulness, but raise awareness of the fact that it no longer has as much relevance and is not a biblical command. Emphasize freedom in the truth. Jesus said the truth would set us free, not make us religious slaves.

Second is to always move to relationship when a conflict (or potential one) comes up. Don't camp in the conceptual areas you disagree on...move to relational touch points and make the relationship more important than the issue, after all, we're supposed to be the most loving relational people...right? Ha!

Third, don't defend yourself when you are being attacked...it only hurts your stance and empowers the one attacking you. Your friends may step up for you...that always feels good. If not, your Father in heaven will be your advocate...though perhaps not for a long time. That said, you can clarify things when someone rises up against you to make sure that they are understanding what you meant. But once that doesn't work (and often it doesn't) don't slide into self-defense. Ed Stetzer likens it to wrestling with a pig in the mud, you both get dirty but the pig likes it.

The remarkable thing is that in all my experience of receiving hate mail it is always addressed publicly without actually addressing me in private first. It is amazing how people can police others on their view of the Bible and totally disregard the Bible in doing so. The point is that they are not truly interested in what is true or spiritual...it is usually motivated by hurt, jealousy, envy or a divisive spirit in their own lives. Some people find empowerment by attacking others. You can't win that argument, so leave it be. There are far more important things to be about, get on with those things.

Hope that helps some.

Pressing on,

Neil

Is there a Church Planting Movement in America?

2011-05-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

I have given my entire adult life to trying to discover the secret to starting spontaneous church multiplication movements. It has been an obsessive curiosity that has become a life calling. Unhappy with anything less, I have abandoned much in its pursuit. One of the things I figured out through many failures along the way is that the potent DNA of a movement is not found in books, seminars or with elite scholars or specially gifted personalities. The true ingredient necessary for a movement is not just in China, India and certain third world countries. No, the potent mix necessary to release a real spontaneous multiplication movement of God’s Kingdom is found in the most obvious but least expected place of all. All along, the secret has been under our nose! The ingredient most necessary to start a spontaneous movement of God’s expanding Kingdom is found in the heart of every follower of Christ. It is inside of you. It is inside of me. It has been in us all along, every one of us who follows Christ and is indwelt by His Spirit. The “mystery” is “Christ in you,” which is the true “hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). We have refused to see the potent seed within us and have actually prevented it from spreading without even realizing it. That’s an amazing thought when you let it sink in.

Inherent in the kingdom of God itself is the impulse of a movement. God Himself is missional and has been in pursuit of lost people since Genesis chapter 3. Missional impulse does not need to be manipulated or added to for a movement to happen, but simply released to be what it was made to be. We must get our confidence back in the Kingdom itself rather than in our strategies and mechanisms. How many times did Jesus shake His head and comment with a sigh of disappointment, “Oh ye of little strategy?” It is not more strategy, but more faith in the King and His reign that we need.

If indeed this is true, I am convinced that a true movement of God’s transformative kingdom can be released in any nation on the planet, including the US. I not only believe it is possible; I am convinced it is happening at this very moment.

There is definitely a movement in North America, but is there a Church Planting Movement (CPM)? I’m hearing a lot about the organic church movement lately because it has become very noticeable. Recently Newsweek, Associated Press, USA Today and Time mentioned it. Christianity Today also mentioned it. Even Brit Hume mentioned that he is part of a home church last year. ABC News sent a correspondent to one of our organic churches in New York recently doing a piece on the phenomenon. According to one of the above articles 7 percent of Americans are in a house church. Anyone reading this article knows that this was not the case just a few years ago. Some are saying that organic house churches out number traditional churches in many countries (that’s actually not news), and would be considered in the top three of the US church groups, alongside Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists...now that is news.

I am part of Church Multiplication Associates. We have grown from a handful of Christians in 2000 to having trained 40,000 people in how to make disciples from the soil of broken lives to form churches in these past ten years. We conduct more than one weekend training event every week somewhere in the world using a growing pool of 50+ experienced organic church trainers. With our trainings, and the multiple generations of churches started from them, we estimate the start of 2-4 churches every day, and that number is increasing annually. This is not counting the thousands who access our training anonymously though our many books or web content (www.cmaresources.org).

I’ve heard some experts say that we are not a CPM…yet. David Garrison, author of Church Planting Movements has consistently said so, though he is always careful to mention that if there is one we are it. Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird in their book Viral Churches that says that there is not a movement in the US, but that if there is one that is closest it would be us. Bob Roberts said in a blog post that we are not a movement.

So what do I think? The term movement can mean all sorts of things. We are definitely moving and, so far as I can tell, we are going in the right direction. We are out of control. No one can point to the person in charge, though there is a short list of the most influential leaders of the movement. No one can accurately count the number of churches within the movement. There is not a single organizational label that can be applied to this “movement;” it runs across denominational lines.

I believe there are a few reasons why people do not want to put the label movement on what is happening, and I will share these below with some of my own thoughts to why I think we are indeed a CPM.

Why Not in the US?

When one simply looks at the characteristics mentioned in Garrison’s work Church Planting Movements all the characteristics of a CPM are found in our current work in North America, so one has to investigate further to find the reasons for excluding the US from having an identifiable CPM. In my experience the best reasons given for these statements are usually summed up in three categories:

1. We have a much smaller percentage of growth through evangelism/conversion.
2. We lack multiple generations of churches beyond the third generation.
3. The lack of transformation of culture and society. If all three of these observations are true than I believe we are not a CPM. The question is: are these observations valid?

1. We are not seeing the conversion growth rate that Church Planting Movements are seeing in other parts of the world. This is true, but I question if that is cause to disqualify what is happening as a CPM. While I would wish that we would see more conversions, we are in a country where the predominant faith of the people is Christian. That has to change the way we view CPMs in the US when compared to nations where the gospel is a new idea introduced to a people with centuries of bondage to false ideas. While I am not really wanting a renewal movement as much as a true spiritual awakening of lost people, I for one, am not going to tell Christians that they cannot join us. To see the conversion growth rate found in China or India we would have to exclude Christians from joining the movement, and that is not healthy or realistic. That said this could easily derail the birth of a true movement if we spend all our time, resources and affection on the Christians that come in.

Church Multiplication Associates is seeing more than 25 percent conversion growth rate in the North American context that has a residual Christian understanding, which is pretty high in a Western context. A recent study of urban organic church movements rates the conversion growth higher, closer to 50 percent. Can we do better? Yes. Should we do better? I suppose, but “how do we do better?” is the real question. I am not going to tell Christians that they cannot be part of our movement, especially given that much of the transformation of lives we are seeing is from people who claim to have been Christians. I am also not going to start pushing evangelism with external drives that produce guilt-ridden evangelists and false conversions. I will just continue listening to the Holy Spirit and trusting Him as the only true evangelist to usher in the new life. Deepening the spiritual life of the disciples so that they are unable to keep quiet about their love of Jesus is probably the best way to mobilize evangelists.

2. Reproduction of churches must be beyond the third generation. Those who know me know that I myself say the same thing. It is not until we see fourth generation disciples, leaders and churches that we are truly a movement in my opinion. This is really an absolute mathematical equation, to see real multiplication each unit must be reproducing. If we are not multiplying we are not the movement we want to be. That said if we are multiplying, counting the churches and getting accurate information will be impossible, always leaving us vulnerable to pundits who sit on the sideline criticizing us.

What we have found out from an independent survey conducted by Ed Stetzer’s group is that we have a very high rate of reproduction (near 100 percent as 52 out of 53 churches surveyed in one account had daughter churches in that same year). 30 percent of the churches that have started churches in our movement have started 6 or more churches! 30 percent have also seen granddaughter churches started, so I would say that we are indeed seeing reproduction to the third generation and beyond.

In 2004, only five years into starting the first Awakening Chapel in Long Beach, CA I was able to track the growth of only this one church. After five years we found 75 churches started. There were five networks of churches that trace their roots to the first Awakening Chapel, which we began in 1999. We were able at that time to track the growth down to five generations of churches. I am still part of one of these churches that started in 2000 in the home of a drug dealer who began to follow Christ. This church is a granddaughter of the original Awakening Chapel. This one church has sent 40 people out to start churches all over the world. In the past year we have seen about 7 or 8 churches started and are easily spotting third and forth generation churches in just the past year. This sort of growth is not typical in the house church movement in the US today, but it is also not rare. Within CMA we can spot several networks that have the same type of reproduction occurring.

3. Transformation of society is the true mark of a movement. This I agree with whole-heartedly. As I have said to many who question our legitimacy as a movement, it will not be our contemporary critics and experts who will give us our validity, but future historians. I often think of the future historian and what their perspective will be when I look at things, it helps to gain a bigger and broader perspective.
David Watson has mentioned that it takes longer in contexts with traditional church presence for CPMs to get started. He also states that it takes about four years in developing nations for a CPM to go from initial missionary contact to a rapid movement, so perhaps in the US we are looking at a decade or longer to see the same type of exponential growth and transformation of society. Well, we are a decade in and all the major news outlets are beginning to notice something, so perhaps we are indeed at the beginning of a North American CPM.

If we truly saturate our society with vital followers of Christ capable of making disciples, the world will change. But of course, this will not be evident for a little while. I am willing to wait for it. There are ways to have a more noticeable impact immediately such as large social programs, political lobbying by a few motivated individuals, aggressive and vocal assertion of our values in society. We could do that, as others are, but I believe that simply connecting God’s children to their spiritual Father in such a way that they listen to His voice and courageously follow His lead will transform society in much broader, holistic and longer lasting ways.

I guess I am willing to say, we are a movement, but our best days lie ahead.

Hanging Great Weight on Thin Wires: Can Small Groups Become Missional and Make Disciples?

2011-05-04T10:16:00.000-07:00

Pastor Brian Jones tells of the response he got from one ‘nationally recognized’ pastor when Brian told him that he hadn’t figured out the whole small group thing yet. Brian said the pastor’s response was something like this:

“Well, Brian, that’s because they don’t work. Small groups are things that trick us into believing we’re serious about making disciples. The problem is 90 percent of small groups never produce one single disciple. Ever. They help Christians make shallow friendships, for sure. They’re great at helping Christians feel a tenuous connection to their local church, and they do a bang-up job of teaching Christians how to act like other Christians in the Evangelical Christian subculture. But when it comes to creating the kind of holistic disciples Jesus envisioned, the jury’s decision came back a long time ago—small groups just aren’t working.”[1]

It is true that we have been trying to make disciples in small groups for a few decades now and are no closer to seeing the world transformed by missional agents than before we started this experiment.

Groups don’t make disciples; disciples make disciples. It is my contention that for far too long we have placed the burden of sanctification on group meetings that were never meant to transform a soul, but to give transformed souls a place to join and interact in a healthy manner.

Your church is only as good as her disciples. A hot band, dynamic preaching, state-of-the-art facilities and wonderful programs do not make a great church if the disciples are simply consumers and unengaged in the grand work of making disciples. But if the disciples in your church are empowered and engaged in mission, than your church is strong and healthy, even if you do not have laser lights or fog machines. We have done things backwards for too long. We must reverse the order. We think that the solution to having good disciples is to make better churches, when in fact the way to have good churches is to make better disciples.

Correctly applying the activity and behaviors of discipleship in the correct grouping can make significant impact on the overall life of the church as well as her impact on society as a whole. The absence of key groupings robs the church of a needed interaction and participation in significant spiritual behaviors.

The Base Unit of Life: 2 to 3 People

Both the Old and New Testaments use the phrase “two or three” repeatedly. At least ten times “two or three” is suggested as an ideal size at which to conduct ministry. The Bible does not say “two or more” or “three or less,” but regularly “two or three.” The following are all strongest in groups of 2-3:

· Community (Ecclesiastes 4:9–12).

· Accountability (1 Timothy 5:19).

· Confidentiality (Matthew 18:15–17).

· Flexibility (Matthew 18:20).

· Communication (1 Corinthians 14:26–33).

· Direction (2 Corinthians 13:1).

· Leadership (1 Corinthians 14:29).

· Mission (Luke 10:1; Acts 13:2-4)

God has designed all of creation to reproduce at the level of two. If you cannot reproduce disciples at this level you are not likely to reproduce them at all. This grouping is the beginning of all life.[2]

The Family Unit: 12 to 15 People

Small groups of 12-15 are a much better size for caring for one another’s needs and feeling a part of an intimate family. It is small enough that all parts can intimately know one another, yet large enough to have significant diversity and shared responsibility for one another. It is a natural sized grouping to opperate as a spiritual family on mission together.

In the church, we often run into problems because we expect too much from this sized grouping. The Western church is littered with dysfuntional and disgruntled groups of this size. Viewing a group of 12-15 as the only one necessary and capable of doing all God desires of a church is like trying to be able to have the performance of a sports car yet carry the passenger load of a minivan combined with the toughness and luggage capacity of an SUV. You really cannot find such a car, or group of twelve. If we have strong life growth and accountability in the group of 2-3 then a group of 12-15 can relax and be the family it is meant to be. But when the only group we have for everything is this group of 12 we are expecting way too much.

A small group of 12-15 alone will not be able to accomplish the work of missional disciplemaking. But if disciple-making groups of 2-3 are already at work transforming souls out in the fields of life, then gathering those disciples into spiritual families will be far more productive. We need to put less weighted expectations on small groups and reorient the responsibility of disciple-making to the right context–a disciple in relation to another disciple. Small groups do not make disciples; disciples do. If your disciples are missional then your spiritual families will be missional, but, as we have all discovered, this will not work the other way around.

My book Church 3.0 has an important chapter on the variety of group sizes using the Scriptures, sociological theories of group dynamics and even some historical examples to determine what are the best sizes for the variety of demands and needs in Christ's kingdom.

[1] Brian Jones “Why Churches Should Euthanize Small Groups,” http://christianstandard.com/2011/01/why-churches-should-euthanize-small-groups/

[2] My book Ordinary Hero presents a thorough explanation of the power of groups of 2 or 3.

Ok, so I am glad that the number one terrorist is caught, but I have questions...

2011-05-03T12:39:00.001-07:00

They discovered that this may be the hide-out of Osama bin Laden back in August and now they execute an operation? Why such a long delay?

They decide they want a risky surgical operation to prove they got Osama and then dispose of the body right away in the sea?

Why does it take weeks to get DNA analysis normally but they can do it in just a few hours? This sounds more like a TV show than real life doesn't it?

They uncover loads of strategic intelligence that they can use to capture many more terrorists, but instead decide to announce this publicly right away giving the hot leads plenty of time to disappear? Why? After nearly ten years, couldn't a few days or even weeks be used to follow up on many of these leads?

This is the most important operation in US history re. the war on terrorism and they use a faulty helicopter that they have to blow up and leave at the scene? Perhaps reducing the budget on defense spending is a bad idea after all?

They find the number 1 most wanted criminal on the planet in a comfortable mansion in a city only a short drive from the capital and within walking distance from a military training school for officers in the Pakistani army? We give over a billion dollars in aid to this nation/ally?

Perhaps there are good answers for all these questions and I would love to hear them. I am glad that they finally caught bin Laden and that justice has been served. I just don't understand some of these things. They seem strange to me. The answers provided so far seem shallow and lack substantive solution.

I'm just asking questions...

A Short Story: A Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Part Four

2011-04-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

I wrote this short story several years ago, but because of the Easter holidays we dug it out again. I am reminded afresh of what this story is all about.

When you hear the passion story do you place yourself into the story some how? Do you identify with someone in it? Do you feel like you are Peter, denying Christ in the heat of inquiry? Are you like Simeon, helping out Jesus by lifting his burden a bit? Are you a mother, weeping for her child dying in the most unjust way imaginable? Are you Mary, the first to the tomb after He rose? Are you like Thomas, who won't believe until he sees the miracle for himself? You could be like Joseph of Arimathea who didn't boldly come out as a follower of Christ but was sympathetic to the cause and in the end invested in it. Maybe you once were one of the enemies who hated Jesus and His people and then saw a great light and now you are one of His strongest advocates like Paul the apostle.

Those are the good guys, but what about some of the bad guys? Are you Pilate, who can't fathom that there is an absolute truth and ends up tragically condemning Christ for us all? Are you one of the people mocking Jesus saying, "If you are the Christ, save yourself?" Are you an opportunistic Roman soldier hoping to win some garment in a game of chance? Perhaps you are like one of the thieves on the cross next to him and you find it easier to vent your hatred against someone else than actually face your own responsibility. Or you could be on the other side of the cross, calling out to the Savior with you last breath regretful for years of rebellion.

When it comes to the passion story, I identify most with Barabbas. His story is found in the following passages: Matt. 27:15-26; Mark 15:6-15; Luke 23:17-25; John 18:39-40. There is not a lot said about him. We don't even know whether to place him in the "good guys" camp or the other one, do we? Why would I identify with him?

I most identify with Barabbas because it was his cross that Jesus bore. Jesus died in his place. He was actually the one guilty and deserving of the punishment, but he was set free because the Savior took his place. That, my friends, is me. I am Barabbas.

"But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since by His blood He did all this for us sinners, how much more shall He do for us now that He has declared us not guilty? Now He will save us from all God's wrath to come." -
Romans 5:8-9 (Living Bible)

"I have been crucified with Christ: and I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the real life I now have within this body is a result of my trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
-Galatians 2:20 (Living Bible)

A Short Story: A Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Part Three

2011-04-29T13:46:00.000-07:00

"Why? He's done nothing! He is guilty only of unwavering idealism and speaking out against the party line. Why Him?"

It suddenly became clear to me. It was all a political ploy! My freedom was only convenient. Nobody wanted me to live, they only wanted Him to die!

I finally saw it...there was my cross.

My shame was mounting with every step of the procession. His agony was for me. He was not only carrying my cross, He was bearing my guilt. He was being executed in my place.

I couldn't look any more. I started to turn, but then, a gasp--a tiny whisper--thundered in my ears.

"Forgive them?" He said, "Father forgive them!"

"Oh, Lord, where is the justice? Where is the righteousness of this? He shouldn't be there. It should be me!"

Then He turned and looked at me, or should I say through me. His eyes pierced through my soul. He knew! He knew that I was to blame! He knew that it was my cross! He knew that I was the murderer!

But His face still had those words on it. Then He said them again, while He was still reading the headlines of my soul--"Forgive them."

I was wanted! I was loved!

The Jewish religious leaders didn't really want me? They only used me. In those eyes, in those words, I found the acceptance I had always desired; and from the one place I would least expect it.

I followed the group up the hill. I watched as the crosses were raised. I watched the men slowly die. I have seen good men die, but this man was different. He was more than a good man. He was the One, the innocent lamb of God, slaughtered for our sin.

I died that day. I too was crucified on that afternoon. The Barabbas that was full of hatred was put to death with the others. I finally found peace. I finally found justice. I finally found a cause worth living for. I found it there at the cross...my cross.

A Short Story: A Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Part Two

2011-04-29T13:45:00.001-07:00

"Get out here Jew," the guard grunted, but I just froze. "Why me first?" Was the thought that ran through my mind. Then I said to myself, "No. Lets get this over with. Let's just do it!" I still wouldn't move. "If You want me outta-here pig you're gonna have to drag me out!" I had nothing to lose, but nothing to gain either. There was no thrill in my rebellion now. He grabbed me by my hair and pulled me out of my cell. I could here my brother in the next cell. He was curled up in the corner, weeping like a baby. He used to be so callused and hard.

The hall just wasn't long enough. The soldier was walking too fast. The door opened too easily.

The bright light of the sun was not a welcomed sight to me. I just wanted to hide, to disappear and never be found. Even before my eyes could adjust, I already could hear a mob forming. Their voices were like jackals wining before a kill.

"Well, where is it?" I asked myself.

The guard unlocked my chains, but they were more welcomed to me than the spikes. "Where is it?" I kept thinking. "Where's the cross?"

Then it happened. I still can't believe it! The words are still ringing in my ears. "Get lost Jew." I just stood there. "Is this some kind of a twisted joke? I must have heard wrong." Then he said it again, "Get lost Jew, I don't want to see your ugly face. Go, or I'll make you wish you were crucified!"

That was all I needed, I was gone. I don't remember the streets, the plaza or the gate, I just remember running. I didn't know where I was going, but I was making record time! I just kept thinking that at any moment they would change their mind and come after me.

I would have kept on going but a distant noise stopped me. The approaching mob was an announcement of the spectacle that was about to pass by. I remember telling myself that it was stupid to stick around, but I couldn't move. I had been rehearsing this sight over and over in my mind, and now I had to watch. I was drawn to the scene as though it was the culmination of my life. I hid myself in the crowd.

The first thing I noticed was the angry roar of the audience. Their shouts and jeers passed right through my body. Their hatred was intense. I felt as though it was me they were angry with, but no one even noticed that I was there.

The mocking and cursing then became muffled in my mind, as if someone pushed the mute button. I began to pass through the crowd as if I were in a dream. As the noise of the onlookers became subdued, the grunts and dialogue of the central cast in this drama were amplified.

There was my brother leading the condemned. It was definitely him, but I could hardly recognize him with the strange look of terror on his face. This was a part of him I had never met.

All our lives we had run together. I had always assumed that we would die together, but an unexpected twist of fate intervened. I should be with him. My brother had always followed, and now he is the one to go ahead of me.

We both knew that this was a righteous execution. "Why am I not with him? There is no reason for my pardon!"

"Good bye my companion, perhaps we will be together again...with this pain behind us."

A terrifying shout filled with rage gave me a jolt of adrenaline. My attention was drawn to the next man in this parade of shame. He was my partner. His wrath was a familiar expression to me, only now it was magnified by the helplessness of his lot. He had always been a fighter, and he was still fighting. I used to envy his strength and intensity, but this time it seemed like a pitiful display. This was not just a performance for the crowd. It was obvious that his very soul was turned inside-out for all to see. There was nothing salvageable, nothing innocent or good, only poison and sin. He should die.

A shudder passed through my body as the realization came to me: This was me! As in a mirror, I saw for the first time the wickedness that was within me. I felt a terror run through me that made my previous fear seem insignificant. I am my enemy! I am the reason for my hatred and violence. There is no one else to blame. I have had no cause but sin. I have not run free as I once thought, but had always been a slave to my own evil. There was never any justice in my actions. I had escaped the only justice I ever would have met. I should be executed! I should be crucified!

"What?!? A third cross? Who is this? It can't be! The Nazarene!"

A Short Story: A Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Part One

2011-04-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

I always thought of myself as being brave, but when I heard the footsteps of the guard coming toward my cell, fear gripped me in a way that I never imagined. Everything inside me froze from the terror. I couldn't move, or speak. My stomach was in knots, and my breath was gone. I was hoping that my heart would stop so that I wouldn't have to face the inevitable horror outside.

I had been in that cell for almost a week. The cells on death row are always the worst but I hardly even noticed. All I could see was the cross. The chafing of the shackles was a constant reminder of the nails that would soon be pounded into my flesh. Their unrelenting hold on me never let me escape the permanence of my sentence.

I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes there was the cross. I would pace back and forth in my cell like a caged animal. "There's got to be a way out of this! This can't be happening! Is this really the end? Is this all my life is to be?" No matter how fast my mind raced, no matter how many times I walked around that cell--there was no way out! There's no Governor to pardon a Jew in this fascist government, especially one who rubbed out a Roman Centurion.

Before I was caught, I used to run with a group of revolutionaries. I guess you would call us terrorists. We prefer the term freedom fighters. We had a cause and were willing to go to extremes for what we believed. I was a thief and a murderer. There was always a kind of thrill when we would go out on a spree. As I watched the man's life flow from his body, I felt a kind of a high--a buzz that was better than wine. It was a release, as though I had finally gotten rid of the anger and hurt inside me. The next day my hatred was back, but even stronger, as though it fed on the violence.

I used to think that I was doing the noble and courageous thing. Now I see that I was just wasting what little and precious life I had. I knew that someday I would be caught. I knew that someday I would have to pay the ultimate price for my cause. I accepted that. But I always thought that it would be different from this. I thought that I would be brave and strong--a hero! I always hoped that when I checked out people would admire and remember me for my courage. I used to think that when I would die for my cause I would have the greatest rush of my life. The truth is, when I heard the keys jingle, the lock turn, and the door open, I felt only shame for having nothing good or clean to show for my life--only hatred and violence.

True Leadership Success

2011-04-05T15:15:00.000-07:00

The greatest test of a leader’s success is not how many people come to your preaching conferences or buy your books. The real test of your leadership is at the end of your life, your final exam. How you end is perhaps the most important part of your life. The apostle Paul took that test and passed it with flying colors. He became an example to Timothy and to us in the way he ended, and that is what the book Journeys sets out to demonstrate.

He did not end with a large following of people. At the end of his life many turned away from Paul. More than likely he had been arrested one too many times, so they began to doubt his character. There were also many scoundrels who slandered his good name, and after hearing it so often some actually began to believe it. Other leaders were perhaps more popular or demanded greater audiences, but Paul was faithful, fruitful and finished well.

The test of his greatness is demonstrated after his eulogy had long passed. The world that he lived in was changed for his having lived in it. What we know and experience today as Christians has his influence all over it. Even this blog post is the influence of his life well lived.

How many of us can claim greater fruitfulness in our absence than in our presence (see Phil 2:12)? One can even question whether you are a success if it only remains while you are present. All of us need a more long-range view of what success really is. I want my influence to go beyond driving distance to my church and beyond my eulogy. Paul had that kind of success.

It is not how many buy your books in the first month, but how many are still reading it 70 years later that determines your success as an author. It is not how well your child does in school today, but how well they raise their own children decades later that determines your success as a parent. It is not how many people attend your church today that determines your success as a pastor, but how many other pastors are left to lead the churches that remain when you have gone.

Jesus saw greater impact postmortem (and post resurrection) than he did during his days walking on the planet. In fact, he even said that his disciples would do greater works than he (John 14:12). Perhaps we are all too enamored with the signs of immediate success to take the time to take the long view.

The leadership of the previous generation that started all these mega churches is now about to take its greatest test. I wonder how well they will do. The founding leaders are getting older and now thinking about succession. Some are passing the baton to their children but many are not doing so gracefully.

Will your influence survive your own eulogy?

Journeys to Significance

2011-03-25T14:23:00.001-07:00

Journeys is a very personal book for me. I have been living with the concepts in it for over 16 years now. It has literally taken more than a decade and a half of experience and study, as well as reading the book of Acts over 100 times, to feel right about publishing these thoughts. Hopefully all the seasoning and maturing of the concepts in this book are evident. I wanted to write a book that could benefit leaders that truly desire to follow Jesus and grow in life so that their end is stronger than their start.

Because of this investment of my life, I feel very connected to this book.

Here are a few reasons why the book is valuable:

1. It provides a clear Biblical framework for apostolic movements using the book of Acts. There is some debate whether or not organic church results in movements. Some say movements are not a biblical idea. This book will answer some of that question with clear demonstration from the New Testament. It will be hard to argue with the idea that the NT church spread virally and became a movement in a short time. This book not only demonstrates that but provides insightful applications for how and why.

2. It provides a path that Christian leaders must follow to grow in significance and finish well, no matter what kind of leader you are or what kind of church you serve. Building upon the life-long research of a great scholar, Dr. J. Robert Clinton, you will see phases of leadership development that are consistent with most of our paths. You will also see what kind of processes we all must face to become the kind of leader God can use in significant ways. In a real sense, this book puts flesh and blood on Clinton's research and demonstrates clearly what a leader who finishes well must face. I was so grateful when Dr. Clinton gave me a positive endorsement. He said of the book:

"The strengths of this work, apart from the good overview of Paul’s life and ministry, are the post chapter sections dealing with lessons—first observations from Paul’s life and then often valuable personal lessons from the author’s life. Neil gives the best interpretation of Paul’s progress of ministry breakthrough insights that I have seen."

3. It provides potential solutions to questions in Acts that have not been satisfactorily answered in the past. This book will surprise you with observations that have not been given in other literature. Not all the solutions are dogmatic, but this book honestly deals with tough questions that typically are avoided. I have attempted to supply solutions that make some sense and add to the compelling narrative of Dr. Luke's book.

4. It shows that a mature leader can do less activity but accomplishes greater impact by investing in and empowering others and then releasing them into the work. You will be able to follow Paul's own learning curve and see how he discovered ways to reach people much more extensively and with more lasting results. His lessons become ours, as we follow Paul the way he follows Christ.

5. It makes Paul a real human leader that we can actually follow. Rather than a sinless-superhero that we cannot relate to, he becomes a person with the same kind of tests and temptations we all face and he can actually provide an example for us to follow. You do not have to be an apostle or a theologian to learn from Paul's example. Anyone who follows Christ will be able to learn from Paul's life played out so dramatically in the New Testament.

I do hope you like it.

Pressing on,

Neil

From the Inside Jacket of my New Book Journeys to Significance...

2011-03-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

"Finishing well is not something that you do at the end of your life—it is what you determine to do every day of your life. You do not finish well accidentally. Determine now that you will finish well or die trying, which, in the end, is really what it means to finish well." —From the Preface

Life is not just one journey; it is several journeys, each culminating in valuable lessons that build toward our final breath and eternal destination.

In Journeys to Significance, bestselling author and organic church leader Neil Cole takes us on a journey as we follow the life of the apostle Paul and learn valuable lessons about how God forms a leader over the course of his or her life. It's not about just reaching the end—it's about finishing well and keeping your eye on the ultimate goal, not on short-term wins or losses. Journeys to Significance provides valuable insights to help any leader (or aspiring leader) to build upon each journey so that finishing strong is not only possible, but is a clear and practical focus in the here and now.

The apostle Paul is one of the most pivotal world-changers in history. In Journeys to Significance, the story of Paul's life comes alive in an inspiring and helpful way and includes many real-life applications for the journeys we all must face. Cole adds fresh insights into Paul's missional strategies and the lessons he learned. Following Paul's lessons can increase a leader's impact and significance and contribute to a strong finish.

As the apostle Paul demonstrated over the course of his life, if we are able to courageously follow God's lead no matter what it costs, we will discover the true meaning of leadership—and we will finish well.

Journeys

2011-03-17T07:42:00.000-07:00

Life is not just one journey; it is several journeys, each culminating with valuable lessons that build toward our final breath and eternal destination.

My newest book has just been released, it is called Journeys to Significance: Charting a Leadership Course from the life of Paul. If you have read any of my other books and think you know what I have to say, this book will be a surprise. It is written in a different manner (more narrative) and does not have the deconstructive elements often associated with some of my other books. It is also one of the shortest books I have written and easy to read in a relatively short time. It is not about church as much as about those who live a missional life, regardless of your church affiliation or preference.

Following the life of Paul from start to finish this book shows how a person of influence is formed by God and shaped to have greater significance and ultimately to finish well. Any person who wants to make a difference in this world will find the book meaningful.

Not only does Journeys provide a unique understanding of Paul's story in Acts, but it also provides new vocabulary for all of us about how God forms us for a life of influence. One can identify with the various stages of life development that the book describes and understand what lessons are most important at those phases of maturity. Wherever you are on the formation of your life, this book will explain some of the basic life lessons for that stage and also shed light on what is to come if you courageously follow the path through the current journey you find yourself in. It is not so much prescriptive, as it is descriptive of leadership formation in general and of Paul in specific. It is practical without putting all leaders in a single box.

If you are a leader who desires to finish strong, you will find this book valuable. If you are interested in the book of Acts and the apostle Paul, this book will provide a fresh perspective and uncommon observations that will allow Paul to be more accessible as a flesh and blood example that you can follow. If you are a leader that is trying to figure out what in the heck God is doing in your current situation, this book may offer some helpful explanation. If you are a mentor to others and want to understand how leaders are formed and what is important at each stage of maturation, this book will grant you helpful insight. If you are interested in missional church movements this book will provide a biblical basis for how multiplication movements are catalyzed and spread.

Based upon a life-time of solid research by Dr. J. Robert Clinton as well as very thorough research from the book of Acts and the Pauline Epistles, this book provides real practical lessons for leaders in any stage of development. It has taken me 16 years of research, experience and lots of mistakes to write this book, and because of that it is very dear to me. I think you will find it fresh and challenging.

Frank Viola on Publishing

2011-02-24T12:03:00.000-08:00

Frank Viola and I agree on a lot of things, and differ on a few. Mostly, we emphasize different but equally important aspects of the organic nature of the church (my opinion at least).

His latest blog post to aspiring authors is outstanding. So I thought I would mention it here (with a link) and twitter it out there.

There is nothing in the post that I could possibly disagree with. I do sometimes think that self-publishing is the only way for some good, but unknown writers to get their foot in the door (worked for me...and him). Frank isn't disagreeing with this, just pointing out that self-publishing doesn't produce as good a product as going with established publishers (and he's right).

Because Frank did such a good job with this I do not have to write much on the subject–I couldn't say anything any better anyway. If I could summarize my own thoughts about writing books in two sentences it would be:

The best distribution means I know of is to write such a good book that people can't help but tell others about it. If you write one that needs a strong marketing system to get it out, than it may not be worth distributing (or writing) in the first place.

Now, because Frank is a good writer he has inspired me to add a bit to the conversation as well. Aside from what he says in the post, I would also suggest that any aspiring author do a few other things:

1. Journal. Write something every day! Blogging is good for this as well, but it may be helpful to also journal which is just for yourself.

2. Occasionally write poetry, even if it isn't any good and you are afraid to show anyone...it refines your use of the language.

3. Read, a lot. Do your homework, especially if you are writing non-fiction. There is a lot of unsubstantiated fluff out there presuming authority it should not. Don't add to the white noise just to see your name on a cover. Vary your reading. Read classics, biographies, journal articles, cutting edge books and blogs. Read non-fiction too because it exercises your brain's creativity muscles (you may argue that there is no such thing, but I just proved there is by imagining it!). Learning is more important than writing, because learning makes for good writing.

4. Write a lot knowing that your best work will not get written until after all the bad and "so so" stuff gets out of the way. Frank mentions to wait until your 40, which is not bad advice. Really it is better to not wait, but write (just don't publish a lot of it). If you wait until you are 40 you will have better life experience and wisdom behind your words, but you may not have the craft as well refined unless you practice before your 40. I can't imagine Frank would disagree. My experience tells me that those who are meant to write couldn't wait anyway.

5. Think about your book as a combination of two parts: content and craft. These must come together to produce a good book. You can transcribe and publish a sermon series and sell a lot of copies, but that doesn't mean you've written a good book, just hit a hot topic with funny anecdotes. Blend both good content and good craft and you will have a good book. We need more of those books than the former. It is one thing to say something that is good, it is also another to say something well. Give yourself to doing both.

6. Learn to value and desire good editing. This is an acquired taste because at first we may not like someone tearing up our creative work, but good editors will make you seem much smarterer than you really are.

7. Finally, know what makes for success in publishing. There are two very different kinds of success in publishing books. One is the quick sale of many books, the other is the slow burn that builds. I personally think that still selling the book 75 years later is better than selling 75,000 in the first five years, though most publishing houses would disagree with me. Write a book with this perspective in mind. Not every book will meet the second kind of success, and that doesn't make it a failure...but the best books do.

Here is the link to an outstanding bit of advice from an experienced author:

http://bit.ly/gDrnBb

Well done Frank!

Neil

Constantine & The Institutionalization of Church

2010-11-29T10:43:00.000-08:00

My wife and I spent a couple days in York, England recently. While there we saw a statue to Constantine erected just beside the main cathedral in the area--the York Minster. While beautiful and impressive in many ways, we were reminded by the cathedral of how far from the original intent of the church people had taken her.

The early church was organic and a movement for the first couple hundred years. Driven underground by waves of Roman persecution, it remained a viral movement that could not be contained or stopped. Though many tried to stomp it out all attempts only made it stronger.

All that changed in 313 AD when the emperor Constantine declared that the empire would not only tolerate Christianity but restore to the church all lost property. He was the first “Christian” emperor and Christianity went instantly from the margins to the mainstream and everything changed. Christianity became the state religion and the church did not change much from that point on. Our enemy, the devil himself, learned that if he cannot stop the church, he might as well join it and change it from the inside so that it is ineffective and less a threat. But for occasional breakouts of remnant expressions he succeeded. He used Constantine to launch this sinister attack.

Over the centuries, after Constantine, the Western church has evolved in many ways, but none have been a significant systemic change. There was the establishment of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodoxed Church and for hundreds of years there were very little changes. The Reformation split the Western church into the Roman Church and the volatile protestant church. But as an institution, in spite of the differences, the institutional system remained mostly unchanged. The Anabaptists were set lose by the reformation (and persecuted by it) but quickly would institutionalize as well.

Whether the church adapts to reach coal miners in the 18th century England or postmodern pilgrims in the 21st century, most of the changes have been minor shifts. Whether you are talking about high church or low, Pentecostal or Presbyterian the church has remained institutional in its approach. From Baptist to Brethren, from Mennonite to Methodist, the changes in the system are relatively untouched over the centuries. Music or no music? Pipe organ or electric guitar? Tall ceilings with stained-glass widows or meeting in a box building without windows, the actual system of church has gone relatively unchanged.

You have the priests or pastors, the Sunday service with singing and a sermon, the weekly offering, the pulpit with pews and the church building. These have been constants since the forth century. Even if you move the whole show into a house instead of a church building, if the system hasn’t changed you have only shrunk the church, not transformed it. Changing the style of music does not upgrade the system. Turning down the lights and turning up the volume is a simple patch to the same old system. Choirs and hymns or praise bands and fog machines, kneeling or standing the system is changed very little. Sermonizing with topical messages or expositional ones is not changing the system just making minor adjustments. Sunday Schools or small groups as secondary learning environments are not a systemic change at all, just a variation on the same old operational system.

Constantine was declared Caesar while in York in 306 AD. Today, near the spot where he was named the emperor is a statue of him beside a large cathedral, which I find quite symbolic. Constantine turned the church into an institution and in that state it remained for for 1700 years. He is now remembered beside a very institutional expression of what church is--the York Minster Cathedral. Today we are seeing a rapid shift back to organic and viral expressions of ecclesiology.

We should remember Constantine so as not to make the same mistake. We must begin to awaken once again to the true nature and expression of Christ's body, not as a building, a program, an event or an organization, but as a spiritual family called out on mission together. We must come to realize once again that the form of church is not the issue, but the way we relate--to God, one another and the world.

Just how sick we really are, Part 2

2010-11-28T09:33:00.000-08:00

A relationship should not be defined by a calendar appointment, a task to complete, or a roster in an organization. Relationships should transcend all of these things. Compare your relationship with your spouse, parent or child to such minuscule things and you will see that these connection points do not make a family but simply acquaintances or fellow members of a group...not familial at all.

The core of relationship is devotion to one another. The fulfillment of God's entire law is to love one another. This is a commitment to each other in the face of anything and everything. If simply not maintaining an ongoing meeting is enough to sever the relationship it was not a true relationship built on love, but on convenience. Welcome to Christianity in the world today, a faith of consumerism and convenience.

I look forward to my buddies (Hirsch and Frost) release of their book on liminal experience called The Faith of Leap (April 2011) which I believe with help us understand how relationships are affected by missional experience. You see, when a relationship is tested in an adverse situation where we need to come through for each other, it becomes real, deep and lasting. If it cannot even endure the cancellation of a regular meeting it is not a relationship of depth in any degree.

We no longer bring our relationships into environments where we simply must depend on each other for survival. Instead we limit what our relationships are to easily managed but not very deep activities that do not develop beyond the level of acquaintance. Ironically, the very thing that can forge a true, deep and lasting relationship--mission--is feared because it is seen as a threat to our weak but convenient relationships.

It is when we take our relationships into mission that they become stronger, not weaker. By avoiding mission under the pretext that regular meetings are necessary to maintain a relationship then we do not have relationships worth maintaining in the first place.

When the flaming missiles whiz past your ears and your brother or sister is the one watching your back as you watch theirs, you become connected in the depth of your soul. You need each other, and when you are there for one another the relationship becomes deep and lasting. As you sacrifice for each other's success, you have learned what love truly is.

The young men who stormed the beaches of Normandy under a barrage of bullets, and who lost many comrades, have come to know a deep relationship with brothers that endures a lifetime. They may not see each other every day, every week, or even every year, but still many keep connected more than 66 years later. Their lives are tied together, not by convenience but by a deeper experience that transcends meetings, tasks or membership. When you know that you are alive today because of this other person's sacrifice, you value the relationship at the depth of your being.

If you cannot even maintain a relationship after a regular meeting has ended then the relationship was not much. Convenience is not the foundation of the Christian faith. Love is.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Love is not always convenient, but it is always true and faithful and for the benefit of others.

Paul's description of what a community looks like in the face of opposition and for the cause of the gospel reveals what our relationships should actually look like:

Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have. (Phil 1: 27-30)

Just how sick we really are

2010-11-27T12:11:00.000-08:00

It has recently dawned on me that we really have no idea whatsoever what living in true community is. Perhaps the most telling symptom is found in the response so many of us receive when we speak of multiplying groups. It is quite common that people do not want to reproduce a group because they value the relationships they currently have and are afraid that if they start a new group they will lose the relationship. A recent review of Search & Rescue even mentioned that Life Transformation Groups foster short term relationships because they are to multiply frequently and discipleship must involve much longer relationships than LTGs promote.

Well, this is actually a glaring symptom of a much more serious issue: we do not have very good relationships! If our relationships cannot endure maturation and development over the years then they are weak and anemic.

For centuries church has been mostly defined by meetings. As a result we have settled into a superficial understanding of how we relate to one another that is completely limited to scheduled meetings together. The result is that we think if the weekly meeting changes the relationship is lost. This, my friends, is shallow and sick. A relationship is so much more than seeing one another at a weekly event. Church is so much more as well. I believe that church is to be a spiritual family on mission together, not a weekly meeting or religious event. We actually believe that when we send people out to start meeting in another group that we have lost or severely hurt the original relationships. Really? Is your relationship simply about meeting for a once a week Bible study, worship service or potluck? We must have stronger "ties that bind" than these.

Once we begin to see church as a family instead of a religious meeting everything changes. We are no longer restricted to a two hour scheduled meeting. Family is 24/7. Even when a child grows up and moves away they are still part of the family and thought of with affection and belonging, right? Of course. They will be missed and there may be more expensive phone bills, but the relationship is still strong and in tact. To be honest, when I look at old photos of my children as toddlers I miss them in that stage, but I am so glad I get to know them in all the stages of life. I look forward to the thrill of grandchildren, and I would never know this thrill if I somehow kept my own kids from maturing. And if children mature and become parents themselves, the family is stronger for it, not weaker. The fact that we are so concerned with a church giving birth to another indicates that we really do not understand church naturally--as a family. Imagine if you actually treated your own family they way we practice church. What would your family be like if you only saw each other once a week, seated in rows, with one person doing all the talking and another collecting the weekly offering. Then you sing a song and depart for the week not to see each other until the following meeting. That is not a strong family at all, nor is it a strong church.

I maintain strong relationships with people that have moved on to start new groups and reach new people. Our relationship matures over the years but doesn't diminish. We may begin to know each other in a Life Transformation Group, but when the group multiplies into two other groups our relationship has ended! No, in fact most of the time it matures into something better, not worse.

I think that the reason people cling to a group meeting with such desperation is because it is the closest thing to relationships in church that they have every known, which is quite sad when you think of it. We simply must develop stronger relationships that are not threatened by the thought of naturally birthing new generations. If in your own family you stuck together and never matured or allowed your children to grow into independent adults and parents themselves you would have an extremely unhealthy family. Grandchildren do not weaken familial ties, they tend to strengthen the family in almost every way.

Grow up church! Become the family you are meant to be. Celebrate the birth of the next generation and enjoy your grand kids! If you are too afraid to do it you will miss out on the best part of family.

A New Release is Coming, Well Sort of.

2010-10-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

Friends, if you bought Cultivating a Life for God, and then Search & Rescue, you will notice that some of the two books have the same basic message. Search & Rescue is an update on the original, but also written with a different audience in mind. When I wrote Cultivating I was writing for Pastors, missionaries and church planters. When I wrote Search & Rescue I was writing for ordinary folk in the church that need to be inspired to do something courageous for Jesus---make disciples. There is, however, new material in Search and Rescue and every chapter is mostly new, so we continue to have both books in print. I personally believe that the chapter on motivations of a disciple in Search & Rescue alone is worth buying the book even if you already read Cultivating a Life for God.

Now Ordinary Hero is about to be released. I want you all to know that this book is Search & Rescue being released as a paperback under a new title. It is not a new book. I originally wanted the Ordinary Hero title, but Baker decided to go with Search & Rescue with the first release. Now they are trying out the original title I suggested.

But one thing bothers me: it does not mention on the front cover that this is a re-release of Search & Rescue. For that reason, I am putting this out to the blog world so that you don't buy the same book twice. If you read Cultivating, then Search & Rescue and then bought Ordinary Hero, I am afraid you will think I am trying to sell the same book over and over again. I am not.

I think you will find that the new title fits the content of the book better. Ordinary Hero is a great book to get for family or friends that want to be inspired to live more heroically for Jesus. If you have read Search and Rescue, however, there is no need to get Ordinary Hero. If you have never read any of my books, Ordinary Hero is a great one to start with.

Getting to the Bottom of the Deep Church: A Review of Jim Belcher's Book, Part Two

2010-10-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

Jim Belcher, in his book Deep Church, sincerely feels he is offering a third way between the traditional and emerging church, but in the end it is just diving down deeper into the traditional church side of the pool. Which, by the way, is fine with me. Let me now share a couple concerns that I had with the book.

The first thing I struggled with is a dangerous idea espoused in the chapter on deep ecclesiology, though it is actually a running theme throughout the book. He summarizes the idea of a deep ecclesiology this way:

The Bible + Tradition + Mission = Deep Ecclesiology (p. 173).

Wow, see I told you he is honest (in part one of this review). Honesty aside, this recipe can produce a whole lot of bad stuff. This is actually the very formula that created the Pharisaical legalism that Jesus and Paul fought so hard against. The Old Testament (Bible) + the oral law or Talmud (Tradition) + Mission = Legalistic Judaizers. This formula can endorse doctrinal abuses such as purgatory, RC priesthood and sacraments, and even indulgences (selling a ticket to heaven) all with the same basis of authority.

The problem that Belcher will run into is that the creeds he considers the Great Tradition do not at all address church practice, which is actually where most of the frustration comes into play between the emerging and traditional churches. I do not find anything I object to in the three creeds he includes (I’m not too comfortable with the way the Athanasius Creed reads, but push comes to shove I agree with its content), so simply agreeing on these does nothing to bridge the vast difference Belcher and I have for what church is and how it works. At that point, Belcher is then forced to appeal to certain church fathers and practices that tend to have the greatest amount of acceptance by the church over the centuries. Frankly, I am very uncomfortable with that. We can all pick and choose which fathers we like best and it does nothing to bring us to consensus. We all find at the end of the day that church tradition lacks the authority needed to speak to the issues we are facing today.

The second thing I didn’t like was a blatant disregard of the Anabaptist non-creedal point of view. At first I wanted to just chock that up to naïveté, but as I kept reading Belcher proved to be too well read and thought out to be that ignorant. Perhaps in his devotion to finding a way to blend his passion for tradition with his learning in the emerging church world that he could only find a compromise in a world that accepts his Great Tradition. Unfortunately, there are many who are non-creedal doctrinally and that prevents such a compromise. Being non-creedal is actually a value for many, myself included. The Anabaptists wanted nothing to be held as authority but the word of God, and so even a well worded and agreeable creed is incapable of standing on the same ground as the bible. Scripture is universal truth that will not fade with time, but the doctrines and systems of men are not that way. As time progresses and culture shifts so does one’s perspective. Creeds are written by men in response to an historical context, and therefore bound by the culture in which they were written. They are not inspired by God and therefore by nature are capable of being erroneous, imbalanced or incomplete as we learn more things with progressive revelation. But perhaps more than that, when you put anything at the same level of Scripture two harmful things happen: the authority of scripture is weakened and the authority of the tradition is elevated to the status of the Bible. That is the most dangerous part, which leads to abuses over time.

Finally, I was a little put off by his reformed bias. Frankly, with the upsurge of reformed thinkers today there is a growing Calvinistic culture that borders on bigotry at times. Jim Belcher is not an arrogant or bigoted man, from what I read, but nonetheless the neo-Reformed view has left a residue on him that comes out at times. Perhaps the best example to demonstrate this is whenever he had nagging doubts about emerging church viewpoints, he called them “Calvinist misgivings.” What is wrong with this? Well trust me, having misgivings about philosophy that borders on (or crosses over into) relativism is not the exclusive territory of Calvinists! Calvinists are not the only ones smart enough to be troubled by this encroachment on truth.

This Neo-Reformed group consistently draws lines that become boundaries and are often as committed to their bounded-set as any staunch traditional church “heresy hunter.” To help illustrate this point I am going to use an example from a friend of mine--Mark Driscoll (I think he can handle the controversy).

When explaining the same categories of the emerging church mentioned in the first part of this post, Driscoll (one of the prominent leaders of the Neo-Reformed movement) actually added a forth category: the Reformers According to Mark there are reformers (not changing structure or doctrine & reformed), Relevants (not changing structure or doctrine, not totally reformed), Reconstructionists (changing structure but not doctrine) and Revisionists (changing doctrine). The Reformers, according to Drischoll are the same as the Relevants except they also hold to a reformed doctrine.

My question then is do we also want to have Reformed Reconstructionists and Reformed Revisionists because there are reformed folk in those “camps” too. Why not have Dispensational Relevants and Dispensational Revisionists as well? It is quite common for these guys (and yes it is almost exclusively men) to cite as their heroes Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Kyuper, Spurgeon, Lewis, Schaeffer, Keller and Packer and any other very intellectual leader in church history as if the rest of us can’t claim them as our heroes. As a protestant I can tell you I have benefited from these people and consider them fathers of my Christianity as well, even though I do not sign off on all five pedals of the Calvinist tulip.

This is the sort of attitude I am bothered by. Driscoll draws lines in as bounded-a-set as one can. He goes so far as to describe the Reconstructionists (he actually uses me as an example of this "camp") as on the same highway, but not in the same lane. “We’re not going to run them off the road or do any drive by shootings against them, but were not in the same lane.” Frankly, speaking as one of the Reconstructionists, that is not a healthy way to work together as the body of Christ.

Don’t confuse Drischoll’s strong Irish fighter stance (I can say that because he does, and I am also Irish and a fighter) with Belcher, because Belcher’s tone is conciliatory, friendly and respectful. But on occasion, I felt like he was unaware of how much his immersion in the reformed subculture has rubbed off on him in ways that might come across to others as a little insulting. I'm sure that I have the same blind tendency from an Anabaptist tradition, and if so we both need to talk, and work together, not draw lines and ignore each other. It is not enough to simply not shoot at each other in a drive by shooting.

Frankly, I like Mark and have considered him a friend for many years now. Two times in my life I can connect a radical change in my life to hearing Mark preach a message, so as far as I am concerned I am one of his friends, but I am not a full-fledged, card carrying, Calvinist. I hope that the neo-Reformers can accept that and we can work together to change the world, even if we do not appeal to the Great Tradition to do it.

The Gifted Teacher, Part Two

2010-09-22T17:54:00.001-07:00

All of us who have fulfilled the role of teacher are aware that we learn so much more by teaching than we ever did by being taught. In fact, one of the most frustrating realities of teaching is that you are not able to convey to the people all that you have been able to learn studying for the process. There is good reason for this. It is God's design for teachers to teach people to become teachers, for then they will learn the truths of God's word on much deeper levels.

This pedagogy has many benefits...

The people learn the truth on a far deeper level.
The people understand the truth, not just remember it.
The people are held to greater accountability to practice the truth they learned.
The people own the message, not just know it.
The people spread the core message to others, who in turn learn to own it and spread it themselves and the kingdom multiplies into a movement.

When you take a test you reveal what you remember from someone's teaching. When you practice what you have heard you demonstrate that your will is involved in the learning process and you are learning beyond a cognitive level. When you start to teach the subject to others you engage the lessons on a far deeper level and you have to reconcile the logic behind the facts, and not just remember the facts themselves.

When you pass on the lessons to others you demonstrate a greater level of ownership. Isn't that what we want? We do not want people who know facts about the Gospel, but apply them and then own them in the depth of their soul. We do not want only an audience, or even practitioners...we want agents of the Gospel. Change is not enough, we want change agents.

We have developed a learning system for systematic theology based upon this type of thinking. It is a one year learning process for proven leaders where they learn theology in a small community by teaching it in a highly reproducible manner. It is called TruthQuest and is available on our website. TruthQuest will not teach you what to think but how to think. The participants may not come out thinking the same as you, but they will come out able to think for themselves. I for one value that even more than simply agreeing with me.

http://www.cmaresources.org/node/80

Keeping it Real

2010-09-20T14:12:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a wonderful trip to France. Doesn't that sound romantic and adventurous? Well, it wasn't so much that, but it was good for my soul in a different sort of way.

First of all, it was for meetings with my peers and my denomination so I had to pay my own way and of course there was no honorarium. God provides.

I stayed in a room with lots of noise from my roomates. All night mosquitoes were buzzing in my ears and biting any exposed skin. My bed was broken and sagging in the middle. One night U2 songs started blaring at 4:00 AM (at least it was a good selection of music).

I have a stock of upgrades good for anywhere in the world in my United frequent flier account, but I didn't pay enough for my tickets to qualify to use them. Hmm? Airlines can be strange in the way they promise gifts that are not really gifts. I willingly sat in economy feeling that I do not want to become some spoiled traveler. As the trip progressed, the Lord made sure of that.

The trip home was long (24hrs) and uncomfortable. There was no audio in my seat entertainment system so I couldn't watch any of the movies. The batteries in my computer were depleted from usage on the train ride from Lyon to Paris. The passenger next to me consumed both arm rests, but that wasn't really enough for her, so her elbow was in my side for the most of the 9 hour flight. I was leaning into the aisle for air which meant being jarred awake occasionally by passengers, flight attendants and a service cart or two. In Chicago I was bumped from my last leg and sat in O'hare airport for four additional hours.

For all this discomfort I came home with $650 in vouchers for other flights (like I said, God provides). Isn't it strange that the reward for discomfort is to have the advantage of getting more...for free? I guess that's better than paying for it. The airline industry is really something else these days. They are masters at giving us less for a higher cost and convincing us that we are getting a deal.

Actually, I am glad for the trip for many reasons. Our meetings were in an old French Castle in wine country known as the Chateau de St. Albain. This is a special place in my own denomination's history, and it holds some important memories in my own life as well. I have had some of the most dramatic spiritual experiences in my life here on this property.

By God's sovereign hand two groups were at the same retreat site at the same time and in both groups were important mentors and life long friends. It was almost rediculous to consider such a "coincidence". Linus Morris, the founder of Christian Associates International was there with the other group. I went to High School with his daughter, Laina, and the two of them are the first people to ever share the gospel with me. Obviously it stuck. Phil Graf, an old buddy and now husband to Laina was also there. Dave DeVries, whom I have known for almost 20 years was also there with the other group.

In the group I was with Tom Julien was there who is a spiritual father to me in many ways. Tom first purchased this property 45 or so years ago and used it as a sort of L'Abri similar to Francis Schaeffer. Tom is an important mentor in my life and helped me discover what we refer to as the DNA (Divine Truth, Nurturing Relationships and Apostolic Mission) of church. He mentioned that this trip could be his last to the Chateau, but in my heart I do not believe it true. Either, way, this was an important trip for him and for the rest of us who were with him.

Some brothers that I rarely see but have deeply spiritual experiences with were also in the group I was meeting with. When I consider all of this I realize I would pay much more for such an opportunity.

Our discussions were rich with profound implications, which is usually not the case with denominational meetings. Church planting leaders from my denomination scattered all over the globe came together to discuss the releasing of the apostolic gift in missional church movements around the world. Wow, just that I could say that sentence is a miracle worthy of note!

From the Chateau I went to stay with my good friend Florent Varak in Lyon and share some teaching at his church there. Before the training time, however, I had the unique priviledge of sharing a lunch with his mother and father at their beautiful french home. After the delicious meal Florent and I had a remarkable discussion with his father, a spiritual seeker. I had strange feelings in this home, as if it was a French version of my own home. Beautiful artwork was all over and the home reminded me of my own childhood home, though it was larger and better kept. I felt a strong feeling of love for Florent's father and consequently I feel an even stronger kinship with Florent. Florent's two daughters and Lorie his wife were also with us and their affectionate banter really reminded me of my own two daughters and Dana. Their brother was away (at school) and my girls brother is also away (at Discipleship Training School with YWAM).

The travel was not easy, but the time was definitely worth it. So I am not complaining. When I realized that the apostle Paul's travels were far longer, far more uncomfortable and occasionally quite wet (shipwrecked 4xs) I understood that the discomfort in this travel was like traveling in luxury. Sometimes we just need a heavy dose of reality to sober us up and show us that we should not be spoiled divas. Entitlement settles in our souls with such subtlety.

God's grace is sometimes a splash of cold water in the face and I am grateful for it. It is also served at times with a delicious meal and meaty discussion in a beautiful home in the French countryside.

The Gifted Teacher

2010-09-16T23:48:00.000-07:00

Getting the message right is only a quarter of the task for the teacher. Communicating the message so that others understand the content only brings the teacher to half of his or her role. Seeing the content applied well in the listener's context is another 25% of the task of the teacher, but still only brings the teacher to 75% fulfillment of the task. 75% on an exam is barely passing, and certainly not a success. Releasing the learners to fulfill the task of the teacher themselves with other people is the only way a teacher can fulfill one hundred percent of the call of the teacher. It is also the only way to see the role of the teacher a catalyst for multiplication rather than a bottleneck for it.

When you are starting to pass the content on to others is when you have learned the content on its fullest level. To teach others best you must see the process through until the learners become the teachers.

I used to think that a great teaching gift was actually a bottleneck to multiplication. When a truly gifted thinker and communicator is at work people want to stay and listen to them and rarely feel that they can do it themselves...and reproduction ends. At one point in my own ministry I was tempted to dumb down my teaching for the sake of reproduction of ministry, but that is tantamount to being ungrateful for Christ's gifts and neglectful stewardship of His blessings. So how do we allow for great teachers and still have reproduction?

The gifted teacher is called to equip the saints for the work of ministry, not to do it for them. A true teacher is not simply to teach the saints, but to equip the saints to teach. Are all saints to teach? Yes, they are to teach disciples to obey all that Jesus has commanded them. We need teachers, but we need teachers that will truly fulfill their complete call. We should not settle for teachers that only go half way any longer. If you are a teacher do not be content to fulfill only a portion of your task.

We need to redefine what it means to teach. It is not simply passing on content to others. I prefer to see teaching this way: facilitating the leaning of others so that they know, do and pass on to others the relevant and meaningful truth.

We in the Western church are educated beyond our obedience and more education is not the solution, we need more obedience. A couple of suggestions for the teachers out there: never teach a second lesson until the first one is done. A lesson is not done until it is being passed on to another.

What would the kingdom of God look like if we had more teachers like this?

Frank Viola & Neil Cole Interviewed Together By Keith Giles About Organic Church, Part Two

2010-09-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

This interview was very long so I am posting it in two parts...

Does the model of church really matter? Isn't it more important what fruit is produced or how the people in the church grow spiritually?

Neil: Well, I tend to agree with this statement, but...If reproduction and multiplication is desired, model of church is an important consideration. More complex models will not empower ordinary people nor reproduce easily. Another important consideration is that many models tend to usurp the leading of Jesus with our plans, personalities and programs.

The more scripted the church is the less spontaneity will be possible. We cannot expect Jesus to lead if we are all busy maintaining the script and all our time together is scheduled down to the fraction of every second.

This may step on a lot of toes but a performance with preaching on Sunday mornings (or Saturday for some) is not conducive to a changed life or a responsive body. If the body wants to have a gathering where they praise, preach and pass the plate, fine, but if that is your sole model of church and where you think the most important work is done and than you have a bankrupt model of church. Our society today is reflective of that bankruptcy, and we must make some changes now. It is the forth quarter and we are down by twenty...it is time for a shift. I believe that organic church is not a model but a mindset that can work in any model...but will work better in some models than others.

I also believe that any model that is built upon a hierarchy of leadership is probably less healthy in most aspects. When a few are responsible to hear from God and tell the rest what God is saying the church is separated from God by a middle-man and that is not what Jesus died and rose to birth. We are all priests in His kingdom and we all have direct access to God. None are more spiritual, more connected or more responsible for the advancement of the Kingdom, but all are agents directly connected to the King Himself.

Frank: For me, organic church is a shared-life in Christ; it’s not a model. It’s not about a new structure; it’s about a new relationship with the Lord Jesus. One that is real, intimate, deep, and corporate. A common remark that my co-workers and I hear from people who attend our conferences is, "I came here to learn how to ‘do organic church,’ and instead, I received a revelation of Jesus Christ."

The idea that church is an "event" or an "organization" was foreign to the New Testament believers. For them, the ekklesia was a community of people who lived a shared-life together in Christ and who gathered together regularly to express the fullness of Jesus. Their minds thought in terms of "us" and "we" rather than "I" and "me."

Their identity was tied to their union with Christ and their bond with one another. They pursued their Lord together, expressed Him together in regular meetings, took care of one another, married one another, and buried one another. Think of it as an extended household . . . a new polis (city) that is blind to race, social status, economic standing, etc. They were a new kind of humanity . . . a new civilization . . . the "third race" as the ancient Christians called themselves, where all earthly distinctions, separations, and barriers were not recognized.

The church was a colony from heaven . . . a community of "resident aliens" on this earth . . . the corporate manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself . . . a microcosm of the kingdom of God . . . the house of the living God where the heavens and the earth intersect and meet . . . the foretaste of the New Jerusalem and the aftertaste of the fellowship of the Godhead that has been going on from before time. In short, a local church that is functioning properly is Jesus Christ on the earth (see 1 Cor. 12:12). And therein do you have yet another definition of organic church.

For those who are burdened for evangelism and being missional to a post-Christian country (as the USA now is), the ekklesia – when she’s functioning the way God intended – is the greatest evangelist on the planet. There’s nothing that bears witness more to the reality of Jesus as the world’s true Lord than a group of believers who share their lives together and demonstrate what the kingdom of God looks like. This point is completely overlooked by those who would argue that the expression (structure) of the church doesn’t matter.

By contrast, today’s Christianity is very individualistic – this is true both in and outside the organized church. But authentic Christianity is intensely corporate and therein was their power and testimony.

A careful reading of the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles shows no distinction between being a Christian, being saved, being a disciple, and being a functioning member of a local body of believers. (I’ve discussed this point at length in another place where I added a plea to learn our history regarding modern discipleship methods.) Note that when Luke describes how Paul and Barnabas planted the church in Derbe, he says they preached the gospel to the city and "made many disciples" (Acts 14:20-21, NASB & NKJV).

The organic expression of the church in a given place is the true habitat of every child of God. Separating spiritual growth (“discipleship”) from the ekklesia (properly functioning) is like separating child-rearing from the family.

This again touches evangelism. One of the young men in an organic church that I relate to was a leader in a very large para-church organization that’s known for evangelism. About a year ago, he said to me after one of our gatherings, "I just go back from one of our leadership conferences and the more they talked about saving the lost, the more disinterested I was. I come to these meetings here and while nothing is said about evangelism, I’m so excited about my Lord that I want to share Him with others. There’s no guilt or duty in it at all. I’m fired up about Him."

Properly conceived, the ekklesia is the environment in with we live, move, and have our beings. While it will never produce perfect Christians who are beyond making mistakes (we will all make mistakes on this side of the veil), their depth in Christ is unmistakable. So for me at least, it’s not about a different model, but about a different habitat.

Those interested in learning more may want to take a listen to an audio excerpt where seven members of a fairly new organic church answered common questions about organic church life at a recent conference (Threshold 2010). The excerpt contains only one question that they answered (there were 7 questions in all). The question was: How has your relationship with Jesus Christ changed since you’ve been part of organic church life? People can listen to it here.

How do you define - and better yet practice - the idea of leadership in the model of church you promote?

Neil: Leadership is not about a position, an office, or a title, it is influence. Leadership is not functioning as a delegated decision-maker for an absentee King. We are servants that distribute empowerment rather than delegate it. Leadership is all about connecting people to the King and allowing them to listen and follow His word. We do not need more servant leaders; we need more servants...period. Many leaders don’t mind being called a servant; they just don’t like being treated like one. To lead is basically to go first and let others follow your example. Often in the NT the words, "go before" or "stand before" is used to describe our leaders, but unfortunately they get translated as being above or over the others.

There is a form of servant that exemplifies maturity and can point to spiritual children and even grandchildren in their lives. We need more of these servants in the body. Their role is to equip others to function in the likeness of Christ together. These are apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers (Eph 4:11). They do not do the work but equip others to do it. For example: Evangelists are not called simply to reach the lost, but to equip the church to do so. Teachers are not called to teach the saints, but to equip the saints to teach. All are saints, so of course evangelists evangelize, that gives their equipping even more authority and practicality (besides, I can’t imagine an evangelist who wouldn’t). A teacher is good at teaching, but needs to be very good at training others to teach. We need to rediscover this type of leadership if we are going to change ourselves, and then the world.

Frank: In my experience and observation, leadership in an organic expression of the church seems to fall into three categories:

1) It’s expressed through itinerant traveling ministry where Christian workers lay the foundation for a new church, equip the believers to know the Lord deeply, to function together, to build community, and to have open-participatory meetings where Christ is made the visible, functioning Head. Their leadership is strong in the beginning, but then it literally leaves and moves to the periodic. You find this sort of leadership all over the New Testament in the ministries of Paul, Peter, Timothy, etc.

2) It’s expressed by consensual decision-making where the believing community plans how they will pursue and reveal Christ week by week, how they will handle problems, and how they will take care of one another and serve the lost in their city.

3) It’s expressed by the different giftings that will organically emerge in the community in time. Eventually shepherds will emerge who will care for those with needs, overseers will emerge who provide oversight, teachers will emerge who will bless the church with the ability to unveil Christ from the Scriptures, exhorters will emerge and function according to their giftings, etc. In other words, each person will lead according to their unique gifting. In this way, all believers lead in their own way.

The goal of each expression of leadership is to lead the church to Jesus Christ, the true and only Head of the body.

The interesting thing is that in this type of church life, we don’t use labels or titles. So the reality of the gifts and ministries are present, but in most cases, we don’t earmark or point them out. (Sometimes those who are engaged in itinerant ministry will acknowledge who the overseers are, but this is dependent on the specific situation of a particular church).

In my experience, the believers in these types of churches are so busy pursuing and expressing the riches of Christ that “leadership” never comes up as an issue or subject. Jesus is their Head, and they seek to know and follow Him together. That’s about as much time they spend talking about leadership in the churches. It’s really a non-issue.

I have the impression that it was this way for the early Christians too. Just count the number of times the words "elder", "shepherd", or "overseer" are mentioned in the New Testament, and then count the number of times Christ is mentioned or referred to. That says volumes, I think.

Which scriptures would you point to as being reflective of your views concerning organic church?

Frank: I’ve come to the conclusion that there are only two subjects in the entire Bible: Jesus Christ and His church. Everything else can be juiced down to those two realities.

Someone may object by saying that God the Father and the Holy Spirit are the subjects of the Bible. But remember, the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ. God is Father because He has a Son. The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, and He has come to manifest and glorify Christ. Biblically speaking, there is no God outside of Jesus Christ. God is known in and through the Son.

Jesus Himself said that "all Scripture testifies of me." So Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 is an unfolding of Christ and the church on every page. I add "church" because the church is never separate from Christ – it is His body and bride. She is depicted through many of the types of the Old Testament, such as all the brides of the Patriarchs, the tabernacle, the temple, the nation of Israel, etc.

Jesus Himself incessantly talked about the church. In fact, He did so more than He did the Kingdom of God. If you’re only counting the word ekklesia you’ll completely miss this.

Jesus never used the word "Trinity" or "Godhead," yet every time He spoke of His Father and the Spirit, He was talking about the Triune God. In the same way, every time you see that little band of Twelve men and some women who lived in community with one another with Christ as Head, you’re looking at the prototype – the earthly embryo of the ekklesia – that Jesus Christ said He would build. And when the Lord spoke of the vine and the branches, “my brethren,” the light of the world, the salt of the earth, etc. He was referring to the church. If we understand what the Kingdom really is, we’ll discover that after the ascension of Christ, the Kingdom came in, with, and through the church.

So for me, it’s not a matter of going to certain proof texts to build a model for church. It’s seeing the whole sweeping, epic saga of the biblical drama from Genesis to Revelation. And that drama is all about the Triune God known and expressed through Jesus Christ and His eternal quest for a bride, a house, a body, and a family (which is the church). I unfold this thesis in From Eternity to Here, which seeks (in an admittedly frail way) to unveil the eternal purpose of God – the mission to which we are all called – throughout the entire Bible.

Once our eyes are opened to see His eternal purpose, we suddenly have a new Bible in our hands and a new vision of the Lord before our eyes. The Bible turns from black-and-white to Technicolor, and the Lord becomes infinitively greater to us.

Neil: Wow, um, all of them? All scriptures are profitable for training in righteousness. In our training, we point to the parables of Christ a lot (especially Mark 4). Jesus’ usage of the word church in Matthew is important to us (2xs). Ephesians is a powerful treatise on church for us as well. Acts is foundational of our view of a church multiplication movement. The letters to the seven churches in Revelation is also very important to us.

Have you ever met one another in person and/or read one another's books?

Neil: To my knowledge, we have met twice, emailed a couple times and talked on the phone once. I have read Pagan Christianity, How to Start a House Church, and Finding Organic Church. I skimmed Reimagining Church, but haven’t read it entirely yet. I think Pagan Christianity is Frank’s best work and we carry it in our online store. I am grateful that he invested the time to produce this seminal work. Thanks Frank. I have also listened to a couple of his talks online, visited his website a few times and read some of his articles.

Frank: We’ve met face-to-face twice at conferences, but we didn’t have much time together. So far I’ve read one book by Neil and several articles. We have a number of good mutual friends. I have a lot of respect for Neil and am thankful for his contribution to the body of Christ.

I’ve made this statement to a few people, but I’ll say it publically for the first time. I’d love to see a Summit that includes all those who are pioneering and influencing the missional church movement/phenomenon to be locked in a room together for 3 days. The first day would be an informal "get to know one another" time, very casual and relaxed. The next day, each person would have a solid hour to share their heart, their burden, their vision, and their present work with everyone else. A time of questions from the group and answers would follow.

We would all get to know one another better as people rather than from a distance as authors and speakers. If no homicides occurred during those 3 days :), it seems to me that the worst case scenario would be that we’d all better understand one another and what makes each of us tick. That alone would be worth the time, in my judgment. In the best case scenario, we’d all be sharpened, adjusted, and perhaps we’d even see some co-laboring going on in different degrees. And a lot of misunderstanding, assumptions, and confusion would disappear.

I am pessimistic that someone could actually put such a Summit together; but if they were able to, I’d move heaven and earth to attend and participate. (I’d even offer to help with the planning.)

Incidentally, Pagan Christianity is fairly well-known, but it’s not my most important or best work. It’s just the first half of a conversation – the deconstructive part. Its objective is to blow the rocks out of the quarry. But that’s all it does. Reading it by itself is like listening to the first fifteen minutes of an hour-long phone conversation, then hanging up the phone – never knowing what was said afterward. For this reason, Pagan was never meant to be a stand-alone book. It’s part of a multi-volume series. My most important and best book (hands down) is From Eternity to Here with Jesus Manifesto perhaps tied neck-and-neck.

What do you see as the most striking differences between your version of "Organic" church and the other person's version? Why does it matter?

Neil: Frank does not seem to be as favorable to multiplication movements as I am. I gather that he sees church taking a long time to mature to the place where it can give birth to another church, while I see reproduction as able to occur much faster. Ironically, we both point to Acts to support our point of view.

I believe Frank teaches that one must be part of an organic church to start one and that an apostle must be involved. I think that is probably one of the best ways, but not the only way. It seems to me that Frank teaches that apostles start churches and that not everyone can do it. I tend to go the opposite direction and teach that anyone can start a family. Not everyone is an apostle and not everyone can lay a foundation for a church multiplication movement, but they can certainly reach their friends and start a spiritual family. Anyone that has Christ in them has what it takes to start a spiritual family. Some families are less inclined to reproduce rapidly and start a movement, because an apostolic and prophetic foundation is necessary for this.

I also see that an apostolic foundation can be extended without the apostle needing to be present. Colossians, Hieropolis and Laodicea were begun by Epaphras but it was Paul who laid the apostolic foundation so he could write to them as their apostle even though they’d never seen his face (Col. 2:1-3).

I see maturity for people and the church to be a life-long process so I believe that the church can reproduce throughout that process, even in the first year. We have experience in this as well. I have personally started probably six or seven churches, but grand-parented and great-grand-parented dozens more. Our training has catalyzed the start of thousands of churches. The church I currently am part of has been in existence for ten years and sent off 35+ church planters all around the world. It has birthed other networks and has several generations of churches.

Frank emphasizes the spiritual life together connected to Jesus, and I admire that. We do as well, but we tend to emphasize apostolic mission much more in addition to the presence of Jesus and our nurturing relationships. I see church as the fruit of disciple-making, not the other way around. Our life together is better because each of us is connected to Jesus, each other and our mission to the world. We refer to this as the DNA of organic church, which stands for Divine Truth, Nurturing Relationships, and Apostolic Mission. We teach emphatically that all components of the DNA must be in every part of the church from the smallest unit of disciple in relation to another disciple. We teach that the components should not be supplanted, supplemented or separated. The organic life of the church springs from the DNA at work in the heart of disciples together.

Frank: I think the only way we can accurately answer that question is if Neil and I sat down for several hours to discuss our views, observations, and experiences.

I’m pretty convinced that Epaphras was a "sent one" who received training from Paul in Ephesus, then went back to his hometown in Colosse and planted a church there that met in Philemon’s home and in two other nearby cities in the Lycus valley. I detail this account elsewhere with documentation, but that’s a short riff.

Regarding church multiplication, I’ll simply say that I believe in the multiplication of the church (I usually call it "transplantation"). But I don’t regard it as a template or metric of anything.

In my experience and observation, as well as my study of the New Testament, a specific church should follow the Lord’s leading on when and how to multiply. Like so many other things in organic church life, discerning the season is imperative.

Consequently, when and how to multiply a church is more of an art than a science. It’s dependent on the art of hearing the Spirit and rightly perceiving the season. Thus it will differ depending on the season of a particular church’s life, the spiritual maturity and development of the group, the kind of foundation that has been laid, and many other variables. If these elements are ignored, multiplication can easily lead to quick dissolution of one or both groups. That’s been my observation anyway.

It’s also not wise to push toddlers outside of the home and expect them to reproduce. So again, I’m of the opinion that there’s a danger of making multiplication a method, a science, or even a goal. I believe the goal should be God’s eternal purpose, the heavenly vision that Paul labored under and that provoked him to plant and nurture organic believing communities.

Regarding church planting, I don’t believe that an organic church can only come into existence by the hand of those who are called to plant churches. Organic church life can occur spontaneously . . . and it often does. As I write these words, it’s taking place right now among numerous college campuses across this country. The students who are touching and tasting it don’t know exactly what it is (except that it’s glorious), and they are probably not calling it "organic church life." Yet the problem is that body life (the way I’ve been describing it) is extremely fragile, and it doesn’t last very long. It invariably dies within a short period of time. It either dissolves or it devolves into an institutional form and a clergy figure emerges to take it over.

Its chances of survival are much better if there is experienced outside spiritual input that knows how to center the group on Christ, help prepare and navigate it through the inevitable pitfalls, and give it the kind of equipping to sustain it in a spiritual way without human organization or control. This sort of spiritual input can take many forms, but the traveling ministry of broken, experienced, Christ-centered, humble, and non-sectarian itinerants who eventually leave the group to the Lord is one of the most common in the New Testament narrative. It of course isn’t a panacea (nothing is), but it can be a tremendous benefit.

As for the subject of movements, that’s too big of an issue to go into here, I think. And it’s quite complicated. (I plan to address it in the future.) I’ll just say that numbers don’t impress me at all. I grew up in a movement that stressed numbers and “counting.” The problem came with exaggerating the data (which is the scourge of virtually every movement – whether Christian or nonchristian). To get the "accurate/real" figure, you had to cut it in half and divide by two [Symbol] Einstein couldn’t be more correct when he said, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."

I believe this applies to the work of God.

All told, my impression is that Neil and I probably agree more than we may disagree. Both of us are often associated with "the house church movement," yet I get the impression that we share a common feature here. Neither of us makes the home our center. The living room isn’t our passion. As I’ve often said, meeting in a home doesn’t make you a church anymore than sitting in a donut shop makes you a police officer. :)

While a house has many advantages as a gathering place, there’s nothing magical about meeting in a living room. Not all house churches are “organic” (the way I’ve been using the word) – so "organic church" is not a synonym for "house church." I suspect that Neil would agree with this.

[END]
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If you have any further questions, please post them in the comments here at www.KeithGiles.com and Frank or Neil will respond when they can.

Again, comments will be moderated. Please do not take an argumentative tone, or attempt to respond to something that another commenter has posted.

I want to thank both Neil and Frank for taking the time to respond to these important questions and help provide more clarity on such an important topic.

Frank Viola: www.ptmin.org
Neil Cole: www.cmaresources.org

Frank Viola & Neil Cole Interviewed Together By Keith Giles About Organic Church, Part One

2010-09-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

WHAT IS ORGANIC CHURCH?

When I approached Neil Cole and Frank Viola about the possibility of hosting this interview on my blog, they were both in agreement about one thing: This is not a debate. It's a dialog between two brothers who see different sides of the same coin.

As you may know, both Neil and Frank are seen as thought leaders in the area of organic church. However, the very term itself isn't always very clear. Sometimes we need to stop and define our terms before we engage in a dialog so that everyone understands what we're actually talking about. That's the purpose of this interview between Frank and Neil. We hope to engage in an encouraging dialog concerning the Church.

I'm blessed to know both Neil (who wrote the forward to my book, "The Gospel: For Here Or To Go?") and Frank (who has been kind enough to correspond with me on occasion). So, as I began to see that both were attempting to talk about Organic Church in different ways, I thought it would be helpful to everyone if we could hear their perspective on certain terms and clear things up a little for everyone.

Since this isn't a debate, we're not seeking to declare a winner. Hopefully you will learn something from both participants engaged in this dialog. Comments are welcome, but they will be moderated. Both Neil and Frank have agreed to respond to questions in the comments section as much as they can.

Thanks,
Keith
**

What Is Organic Church?
An Interview with Neil Cole and Frank Viola

As simply as you can, define what "Church" looks like to you in practical terms. (Looking for an example of how an "Organic Church" would function - how a typical meeting might look - in your version of "Organic" church). What is your definition of "Organic Church"?

Neil: Many scholars attempt to describe church with a list of ingredients that they believe are found in the New Testament. Here is a typical list: a group of believers that gather together regularly and believe themselves to be a church. They have qualified elders and practice baptism, communion and church discipline and agree on a doctrinal foundation and have some sort of missional purpose.

I have no problem with these ingredients being a part of church, though not all of them are indeed biblical (no where in the NT does it say that we have to consider ourselves a church to be a church—that is a cultural reaction to calling bible studies or parachurch organizations churches. There are also NT churches that have not had elders appointed yet on the first missionary journey—Acts 14:21-25). I believe that this understanding of church is missing the most essential ingredient: Jesus! If we can define church without Jesus than we can do church without Jesus and that is a tragedy at best and treason at worst.

In CMA, we have defined church this way: The presence of Jesus among His people, called out as a spiritual family to pursue His mission on this planet. Church begins and ends with Jesus among us. All the typical ingredients listed to describe church were in the upper room in Acts chapter one but the church really began in Acts chapter two when only one other important ingredient was added: the Spirit of God showed up! God among us is what makes us any different from the Elks Club.

For us church functions like a family, and family is not just for an hour and a half one day a week. We eat together and live together. We do get together, but not only for serious meetings. We meet up during the week for coffee or a meal and hold each other accountable to following Jesus in Life Transformation Groups. My spiritual family often get together to reach out to others, at cafes or with release time outreach at elementary schools and in the marketplace where we all work. We also go to the movies or on hikes together during the week.

Church is not an event, a place or an organization; it is a family on mission together. We must emphasize this shift in understanding. As such we are not defined by a meeting, though we do meet. When we meet we do not have a routine that must always be done. But for the sake of helping people get a feel for the ebb and flow of our lives I will try to describe what our time is usually like when we do get together.

When we do have meetings, we do not presume to have an agenda, but to gather, listen to God and one another. We worship, sometimes with music. About half of the songs we have are original songs written by people in our movement. In our meetings we do not have a set list of songs that are rehearsed, but rather we sing the songs that He puts on people’s hearts as the Spirit leads. We sing until we feel like we have changed our perspective of things from having been in His presence. We may then keep singing if that is what He leads us to do, but often we share next what is going on in our lives.

We have a little poem (not the height of poetry by any means) that is usually said by anyone in the group to start the share time. We do this so that even young kids can lead in the church and when people start a new church they know what can get the interaction started:

Does anyone have praises or prayer requests,

A word from the Lord or a sin to confess?

We all share what God is saying and doing in our lives and we all pray for what is happening. This could be all we do for the entire evening as well.

We usually open the Bible, read a passage and discuss it. Right now we are going chapter-by-chapter through Acts but this is not routine and we often turn to something else at the leading of the Spirit. We do not have any preparation for this time, as we are not the ones in charge, Jesus is. Our time in the word, however, is not simply pooling ignorance because of the following reasons: 1. We are all listening to the Head of the church and He is not ignorant, and 2. Because of Life Transformation Groups, most of us are all reading large volumes of scripture throughout the week repetitively and in context, so our observations in the scriptures are actually quite insightful. The Spirit of the Lord working in each of us is the teacher, and we are all learners.

When a good question arises or even some false teaching, a leader of the group does not usually step forward and decide the issue for everyone. Rather, we pray and ask the Lord to help us out. Then we ask what insight the Spirit may have given to each of us. The body responds, not the pastor. This empowers everyone to react to false teaching or to find solutions to difficult questions, not just then but anytime. We are also quite comfortable with three little words: I don’t know.

We usually pray and sing and eat until it is time to head home. We may also watch the Lakers play a game or go to a movie. Hope that helps some. As you can see we are not set on a routine and do not have a formal agenda, though we do have some consistent but very flexible patterns.

Oh, and we do not have an offering that is passed in my own church. Some of the churches in CMA do, but we do not have that as a set responsibility of church. What we do have is generous people of God who give, not just money but property hospitality and time, to those who are in need.

Frank: I’m of the opinion that the New Testament only knows one kind of church, and it’s organic. The ekklesia is a living organism not an institutional organization.

I’ve been using the word "organic church" or "organic expression of the church" for over 16 years. And I give credit to T. Austin-Sparks for the phrase. For Sparks and I, an organic church is a group of Jesus followers who are discovering how to live by Divine life together and who are expressing that life in a corporate way.

Jesus said "as the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father, so he who partakes of me shall live by me." Paul echoed these words in Colossians when he said that the mystery of the ages is "Christ in you," and that "Christ is our life" (see also Gal. 2:20; Rom. 8:9-17).

Consequently, when God's people learn how to live by the indwelling life of Christ together, a certain expression of community life naturally emerges. So for me, the word "organic" has to do with life – God's life. The organic expression of the church comes up from the soil; it's not mechanical. While it has organization (or an expression) – as all living organisms do – the organization (or expression) comes about naturally from the life, not through human manipulation, religious ritual, or legalism.

Put another way, organic church life is very ancient. It precedes Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Instead, it finds its headwaters in the fellowship of the Triune God before time. When humans touch that fellowship together, experience it, and make it visible on the earth, you have the life of the ekklesia, i.e., organic church life
(1 John 1:1-3; John 17:20-24).

I left the institutional church 22 years ago and have gathered with numerous organic expressions of the church (completely outside the religious institutional system) ever since. I’ve seen a lot during those years – experimented with a lot, experienced some of the high glories of body life, the difficulties and struggles, and have made lots of mistakes as well. I'm still learning and discovering.

Regarding what an organic expression of the church looks like, here are some of its characteristics:

*The members meet often, not out of guilt or obligation, but because the Spirit draws them together naturally to fellowship, share, and express their Lord (ekklesia literally means an assembly or meeting).

*Jesus Christ is their living, breathing Head. The members make Christ profoundly central, preeminent, and they pursue and explore His fullness together. In short, the church is intoxicated with the Lord Jesus.

*They take care of each other, have open-participatory meetings where every member functions, make decisions together, and follow the Spirit's leading for outreach and inreach, both in their proper season.

*They are learning how to live by Christ and express Him corporately in endless variety and creativity to both the lost and the found.

*The condemnation and guilt is gone. The members experience the liberty and freedom that is in Christ, experience and express His unfailing love, and are free to follow Him out of genuine love rather than guilt, duty, obligation, condemnation, shame and guilt – the typical "tools" that are used to motivate God's people.

*They are missional in the sense that they understand "the mission" to be God’s eternal purpose, which goes beyond human needs to the very reason why God created the universe in the first place. And they give themselves wholly to that mission. (I'll speak more on the eternal purpose later.)

*After the foundation of the church is laid, it is able to meet on its own without a clergy or human headship that controls or directs it. The church can sustain herself by the functioning of every member; it doesn't need a clergy system for direction or ministry.

These features are contained within the spiritual DNA of the ekklesia no matter where or when she is born. For they are the attributes of God Himself, the source and headwaters of body life.

Regarding your question about what an organic church meeting looks like, that’s really impossible to answer. The reason: authentic organic churches have an infinite way of expressing Christ in their gatherings.

Perhaps the best I can do is describe a few meetings that one of the organic churches that my co-workers and I are presently working with have had recently. None of these descriptions will do the gatherings justice, but perhaps they may give some impression of what a good meeting looks like (not all meetings are good by the way – some are unmentionable! :) ).

Last month, the church had a meeting that it prepared for over the course of a month. The church broke up into groups of 3 and began to pursue the Lord Jesus outside of the meetings during the week.

The members all came together at a scheduled day and time to worship, exalt, and reveal Christ. The theme of the meeting was Jesus Christ as the Land of Canaan. The meeting included a full banquet feast, which was really the Lord’s Supper (first-century style). The church feasted and then each group began to share Christ as the Land.

One group shared how the vine and the fruit of the vine were a shadow of Jesus. Another group shared Christ as the olive oil; another shared Christ as the milk and honey. Another shared Him as the wheat. Sprinkled throughout the sharing – which was incredibly rich – were prayers, declarations, songs, all of which were spontaneous.

This meeting went on for over 3 hours. It was a gully-washer. No human being led or facilitated the meeting. There were also elaborate creations and visual displays in the meeting place made by the church that went along with the theme.

I didn't attend this particular meeting, but the reports I heard were amazing. People were profoundly touched. Visitors who came were blown out of the water. They had never seen a group of Christians put Christ on display like that, and without anyone leading, giving cues, or facilitating. The depth of insight, richness, and reality of Christ coming through the believers was without peer. Jesus Christ was revealed, declared, unveiled, glorified, and made visible by the every-member functioning of His body.

On another occasion, each member of the church took a name of the Lord in Scripture. (e.g., Bread of Life, Lion of Judah, Sweet Rose of Sharon, the Great Shepherd, Alpha and Omega, The Branch, etc.). During the week the members sought the Lord concerning the name they selected and came to share Him together in the gathering. The meeting was electric. Christ was revealed in a multitude of different ways. New light was shed on each of His names, all pointing to His glorious Person.

Another meeting was a rather unique way of expressing the Lord through Colossians. The church had immersed herself in the book of Colossians for four months (in some very creative ways). They then planned a meeting where they reconstructed the Colossian church.

Each member acted out a character from the Colossian church. Some created their own names (some names were quite comical). Others played the part of some of the Colossians mentioned in the New Testament (Philemon, Apphia, Archippus, etc.) For weeks the church broke up into pairs to plan and prepare for the gathering. They then had an entire meeting where they reconstructed the situation in Colosse. If you had walked into that meeting, you were seeing the Colossian church dramatized. People even dressed up for their parts.

At the end of the meeting, someone who played Tychicus came into the gathering with a letter from Paul and read the whole letter to the church. Incredible light was shed on the letter, as it addressed all the problems that the Colossian church (through drama) was shown to have had. We all awed at the Lord as Paul presented Christ in this magnificent epistle.

I could multiply many more examples, but I hope you get the drift. Note that the people who are part of these churches aren't spectacular Christians nor are they professionally trained. They are "the timid, the weak, the lame, and the blind" . . . just like I am. Ordinary believers without any special titles, degrees, or formal theological education. In this way, they are much like the early believers we read about in our New Testaments (the exception being that most of us are able to read and write). :)

Some meetings are planned with a theme that the Lord gives the group (as the above examples). Other times the meetings are completely spontaneous without any planning or direction. But spiritual preparation normally takes place, else the meetings will be rather poor. The meetings are the overflow of the spiritual life of the community; hence, all the believers come to give rather than to receive. (In the institutional church system, this order is reversed.)

Again, these meetings have no leaders present directing, facilitating, or coordinating. The Spirit takes that job. I'll add that I've seen unbelievers visit these sorts of meetings where no one said a word about "being saved," and the unbeliever would fall to their knees and profess that "God is here, and I want to know Him!" Strikingly, this comes straight out of the New Testament (see 1 Corinthians 14).

Also, the churches have all sorts of meetings – some for decision-making, some where the men creatively bless the women and vice versa, some for the children, some for specific prayer, some for fun, some to share the gospel with the lost, some for spiritual training and retreats, etc. But everything is "in season." (The seasonal nature of the body of Christ is a special feature of organic church life. All life forms pass through seasons. This element is virtually unknown in organized Christianity.)

Note also that the churches I’m speaking of have been equipped to know the Lord together, to pursue Him together, to express Him with unlimited creativity, and to function in a coordinated way under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Part of this equipping is "detoxification" from a religious and institutional mindset, and being equipped to know Christ in profound depths. (One of the most common remarks that people make when they get involved in this kind of church life is, "I thought I knew the Lord well; but I now realize I didn’t know Him well at all.")

Thus the normative passivity that flows through the bloodstream of the typical pew-sitting Christian has been drained out of them. Instead, they’ve been captured by a vision and an ongoing experience with the Lord Jesus that has dramatically affected them. I’ve been changed by the experience. Yet what impresses me just as much or more than the meetings is the remarkable way the believers take care of one another in organic church life. But that’s another story.

As you understand it, how would you describe one another's definition of this same term? (I'm looking for how you two understand each other's positions here)

Frank: I’m really not sure as Neil and I have never discussed this. But my impression is that the term "organic church" for Neil boils down to rapid multiplication of Christian groups with the goal of trying to win lost people by going to the places where they spend their time. It also includes a method of discipleship in very small groups which includes Bible reading and personal accountability questions. This may or may not be accurate, but it’s my impression.

Neil and I have shared the conference platform on two occasions, and from hearing him speak, it seems to me that the major difference is one of emphasis. I also think he may emphasize the church scattered where I tend to emphasize the church gathered. But in my world, the church gathered is nothing like an institutional church "service." For us, the gathering of the ekklesia is related to God’s highest intention, i.e., His eternal purpose.

God has had an "eternal purpose" that’s been beating in His heart from the beginning of time, long before humans fell. That purpose is what provoked Him to create, and He’s never let go of it. The eternal purpose of God isn’t the salvation of humans or to make the world a better place. (Remember, the Fall hadn’t occurred when He created.) There was something else He had in His heart before He said "let there be."

That purpose has to do with obtaining a bride, a house, a body, and a family, all of which are by Him, through Him, and to Him. The purpose of God is not centered on the needs of humanity, but rather, to meet a desire in God Himself. So God’s end is to have a bride, a house, a body, and a family in every city on the planet. The ekklesia – properly conceived and functioning – indeed benefits humanity and blesses the world that God made; but His goal for her is higher than that.

Having Christ formed in us is an important aspect of God’s purpose (Rom. 8:28-29; Ga. 4:19). But for us, we don’t use any of the typical discipleship methods to accomplish this. Instead, we have learned how to encounter the Lord Jesus in Scripture together, to seek His face, to fellowship with Him, to be in His presence, and to share and express Him to one another.

This typically happens in groups of two and three during the week (sometimes in the early mornings), but also in the corporate gatherings. I call these groups "pursuit teams" – teams that pursue the Lord. The focus is not on us but on Christ. Paul said that we are transformed by "turning to the Lord" and "beholding His glory" – so that’s a large part of our church life experience (2 Cor. 3:16-18). In short, we experience together – in pursuit teams and as a church – perceiving and following the Lord’s indwelling life, allowing God to shape us by it. That, to my mind, is what spiritual formation/transformation is all about.

Watchman Nee once pointed out that when the Lord called people to His work, their God-given ministries were often prefigured by their secular occupations.

For instance, when the Lord called Peter, he was casting his net and bringing fish onto the shore. What was true in the natural ended up being true in the spiritual. Peter's ministry centered on fishing for men. His emphasis was evangelism, and he brought many lost people to Christ (just think of Pentecost in Acts 2).

When the Lord apprehended Paul, he was building tents. And his future ministry reflected this. Paul was more of a spiritual builder, a "master builder" as he put it in 1 Corinthians 3. His emphasis was to build the church into the fullness of Christ. So Paul spent most of his time grounding and enriching the believing communities to gather under the Headship of Christ, establishing them deeply into Christ, unveiling to them God's eternal purpose – or "the whole counsel of God" as he once put it.

When the Lord apprehended John, he was mending a torn net. We see in John’s later writings (1 John, 2 John, and 3 John) that he is bringing the church back to center . . . back to first things . . . back to "the beginning" of Christ as life, love, and light in a time when these elements had been lost. The tent that Paul built was falling apart during John’s day, so John prophetically began to repair it by restoring God's original thought, bringing His eternal purpose back into view.

So Peter casts the net, Paul builds the tent, and John mends the tent. All three men were Christian workers in the Lord’s vineyard, but each had a different emphasis and disposition.

In my observation, Neil is a lot like Peter. His major focus seems to going out to the sea, casting the net, and bringing the fish on dry land and encouraging God's people to do the same. Some have described my on-the-ground ministry to be more like Paul’s – the building of the tent – the constructive work of building the house of God to fulfill the eternal purpose "from eternity to here." By contrast, my writing ministry in books like Pagan Christianity and Jesus Manifesto are very much along the lines of John’s ministry of repairing the torn net.

Whether that’s accurate or not, here’s my point. The ministries of Peter, Paul, and John are not to compete with one another. Instead, they are to complement one another. The body of Christ needs the ministries of Peter, Paul, and John. And each person needs the other.

That's how the terrain looks from my hill, anyway.

Neil: From my reading, I assume that Frank and I are pretty close to seeing church as a body connected to the Head. Jesus is the main thing for both of us and we both emphasize that in our teaching. If there is a difference I believe that Frank exalts the purpose of the church and I tend to emphasize the purpose of disciple-making. Not that we don’t both teach both, but we do have our own priorities. These could be simply different focus rather than a difference of opinion. How organic church starts and multiplies is probably different in our minds.

Organic Church Pioneers Remembered

2010-09-01T14:37:00.000-07:00

George Bernard Shaw once quipped, "One out of one people die, that's a startling statistic!" Sobering, to the point, and real. I remember hearing a radio spot while driving that was advertising for a funeral home. A deep, trusting voice said, "If you should ever die..." I remember swerving as I laughed and said, "If?!" There's no "if" we all die sometime. It is appointed for every man to die.

This Organic Church movement is so young, yet already we have lost several pioneering leaders. It seems like only a couple years ago that we were just a handful of friends sitting around a fire chatting about what could be, and now some of the faces are noticeably absent.

The first Greenhouse training Paul Kaak and I ever did together was in 2000 in Oxnard, CA. We had about 25 of our own leaders there, two of those leaders have gone home already: Brian Ollman and Mark Palmer. I miss them.

Brian was a spark of creativity in our movement that always stretched us to think outside of the box. He was always coming up with a new creative idea. He was a magnet for young creative people that were looking for a place to unpack their art. We are coming on the one year anniversary of his home going.

Palmer (he preferred to be called by his last name) had a real heart for reaching young people that were not connecting with the conventional church. For that reason he called his church the Landing Place, it was a place where people could come and connect with God, one another and a mission.

Yoshito Ishihara was one of the cutting edge leaders of organic expressions of church in Japan and he recently went home to be with our Lord after battling cancer. Josie seemed to laugh so easily and so infectiously. The church he led is unusual in Japan, it is full of freedom, joy and is very expressive of that joy. It is also larger and younger than most. This is a legacy of Josie. He was a father to many. I miss him too.

We actually teach that death is a part of life, so we shouldn't be shocked when it happens, but some how we still are.

There are others that have passed on (3 people from my own church in the last ten years). There will be even more. I remember C.S.Lewis speaking about the casualties of WWII and remarked that there were not more deaths in that generation than any other...because the death rate for every generation is the same--100%. Nevertheless, death is always too soon for those you love.

We do not mourn as those who have no hope. We have a very real hope and confidence in a great reunion. We already miss our friends, but the seeds they planted are already bearing fruit. We are grateful for their lives, and I for one, hope to live better for having known each of them.

I think that each one of these friends would challenge us to live our lives each day as if it were your last. Live well every day friend. I just completed a book (to be released March of 2011) that follows the life of a leader who finishes well. Finishing well is not something we do at the end of our life, it is what we do every day of our life. Live so that you will finish well, or die trying.

I often ask myself what would be left behind if I died today. Being prepared for death seems rather morbid, but it is actually a very wise thing to do (Ecc. 7:1-2). Are you living your life so that the end is better than the beginning? Will others prosper because of the investment of your life? What will remain after you go? Are you ready to meet God? What will it take to be prepared so that when you go others carry on the work? I'm not talking about life insurance, a funeral plot and a will, I'm talking about the seed of your own spiritual life bearing lasting fruit for eternity.

I have seen fruit from these men that will bear more fruit. I have loved each one and look forward to seeing them again. None of them were perfect, but Jesus' love for them was perfect, and it still is. That love of Jesus was the best part of their lives and it is that love that will bear fruit in all our lives.

Pressing on,

Neil

Getting to the Bottom of the Deep Church: A Review of Jim Belcher's Book, Part One

2010-08-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

I have read Deep Church by Jim Belcher, twice—once in pieces and once from start to finish. The reason for this is that I immediately found chapters so intriguing I read them first, isolated from the rest of the book. I was actually shocked by some of the chapters conclusions, so I felt to fully understand the book I needed to start at the beginning and read it all the way through before I could really form an opinion of the book, so I did. It turns out that this exercise helped me to understand what Belcher was saying, and yet I found that my initial concerns were confirmed.

What got my attention was his bold embrace of tradition to define church as deeper. While many of us are trying to break from tradition, Belcher espouses that we need to get back to it in order to find a peaceful way to get along. But his idea of tradition is quite specific (or is it? more later on this).

The title of the book comes from a phrase C.S. Lewis coined in his book Mere Christianity. It is a Christianity that holds to the Great Traditions of the original creeds—The Apostles Creed, The Nicene Creed and The Athanasian Creed to be specific and this is what Lewis calls “Deep Church.” Honestly, after reading the entire book I still think that the title comes off as sounding arrogant even after all the explanation, as if those who do church this way are truly in the deep end of the pool while the rest struggle in the shallows. I must say, though, that Belcher himself does not come across as arrogant, for the most part.

First, I want to share some of the things I liked and then in my next post I will share a couple of things that I didn’t.

In an attempt to find a third way rather than be in either the emerging church camp or the traditional church side, Belcher takes a kind, respective and honest look at both sides. This is one of the things I greatly appreciate about the book and is quite frankly rare. In these days full of people shouting across the aisle at one another without ever really hearing what is being said this is refreshing. Belcher not only listens, but he is fairly articulate at espousing what each is saying before he offers his “deeper” alternative. He would actually make a good marriage counselor. In each chapter he begins with writing about what the emerging church is protesting over the traditional church, then covers how the traditional church counters before he finally settles the issue with his own alternative, which he refers to as Deep Church. He looks at truth, evangelism, the gospel, worship, preaching, ecclesiology and culture in this way.

When it comes to understanding the emerging church, he uses Ed Stetzer’s categories of Relevants, Reconstructionists and Revisionists. Relevants are those who are not changing how church is formed or structured and definitely not changing the doctrinal stance but merely working to make the church relevant to the postmodern world. Mark Drischoll and Dan Kimbal are offered as leaders of this type of church. Reconstructionists are questioning the old systems and structures of church but not the doctrines as much and Alan Hirsch, Mike Frost and Myself are offered as the type of leaders found in this camp. Revisionists are questioning our epistemology—how we understand and believe what is true/real. Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt are cited as leaders among this group.

Belcher also uses Hirsch’s and Frost’s idea of “bounded-set” verses “centered-set” to help forge a way of peacefully working together. A bounded-set is where those who are in and who are out are clearly defined by a well-established list of beliefs and practices. Only those who subscribe to the boundaries are allowed into the camp, everyone else remains outside. He thinks it is far healthier (and I agree) that we function in a centered-set manner where there is no in or out but we simply stay in close proximity to a central set of doctrines—core beliefs that we can all agree on—and allow open hands and discussions on the views that are not part of this core set. With this in mind, he offers a two-tier view of doctrines, the essentials and the nonessentials, as a means to be centered and get along.

We (CMA) have done this consistently within our own movement defining the core doctrines as “bullet doctrines”—those that we would rather take a bullet for than renounce. The non-bullet doctrines are those that we believe but will not take a bullet for (or shoot anyone over). With this in mind, we want unity in the essentials (bullets), liberty in the non-essentials (non-bullets) and love in everything (even for those who would pull the trigger). I find it interesting, and perhaps slightly inconsistent, that he suggests a centered-set approach but clearly defines the boundaries of the emerging church, dividing the whole thing into three camps with people that are in each one. Nevertheless, I can understand that he needed to make the book coherent to the reader and there is much confusion over what is emerging, what is emergent and who is doing what. So overall, this is helpful and makes the conversation more reasonable.

I found myself liking Belcher as I read, even though I often disagreed with his final suggestions. He is definitely likable and thoughtful. He has done his homework and I can tell he is a real thinker who enjoys learning. He actually comes across child-like in the way he enjoys discovery. His child-likeness is also evident in the somewhat naive way he believes that he will find a viable third way that will bring us all together to sing Kumbaya around the campfire of the Great Tradition. I can’t help but love the guy because he is so endearing in this child-like enthusiasm, idealism and optimism. I am confident that I would enjoy his company and we would have some great discussions around that campfire even if we do not agree on some of the non-essentials, so maybe he is not as naive as I first thought.

Another thing I liked about the book was Belcher’s honesty. He not only fairly treated both sides, but he was bold in his own embrace of tradition in order to maintain his church view, in spite of the fact that it is not always clearly taught in the Scriptures. Let me explain what I mean by this. In Christendom it is common for people on all sides to claim that their view is the “biblical view,” thus informing everyone that disagrees that they are not biblical. We even put scripture verses in parenthesis next to our comments to make sure everyone knows we are Biblical. Belcher is too smart to buy or sell this. In order for him to hold to a traditional view of what church is, and yet honestly deal with the arguments from the emerging side, he has brazenly chosen to appeal to tradition for his authority. In other words he doesn’t defend tradition against the attacks, instead he dives “deeper” into it by appealing to the more ancient traditions for the authority that the Bible does not provide for his church practices. Honest, yet dangerous. People think that my approach (non-hierarchical, non-controlling leadership) has dangerous implications should carefully evaluate what Belcher is appealing to for authority in his ecclesiology.

Belcher is unapologetically reformed. He is one of the many Neo-Reformed leaders that are increasing in the US. There are some great doctrines in the reformed tradition. Many of my closest brothers and coworkers are reformed, and my own denomination (Grace Brethren) has a strong and growing reformed influence over it. The reformed church however is full of structures, systems and ideas that are solid and inflexible practices, treated as doctrine but not really found in the Bible. In order to be truly reformed and also be honest, one has to deal with the many practices that are not found prescribed in the Scriptures. Okay, I will let you reformers fume a second and then I’ll give you a few examples. Are you ready yet? Whew, okay. The clergy and laity separation is a good first example. Lets stay with that one for a bit. Granted, the reformation brought the “priesthood of believers” back to the doctrinal round table, the practice established in the reformed church tradition has yet to actually release this important doctrine. Now, as I walk down this theological aisle you will see how more and more of what is dogma in the reformed church comes from tradition rather than Scripture. Watch: Ordination of pastoral leaders and presbytery is a very core doctrine in the reformed tradition and is hard to find in Scripture without some heavy handed manipulation. To say you cannot be ordained as a pastor without at least a Masters of Divinity degree from a specific reformed seminary is not a biblical idea, it comes from tradition, nevertheless it is carved in stone for most reformed denominations. The idea that only ordained pastors can perform baptism or communion is found nowhere in the bible, it is a tradition that has been well established and passed on as doctrine. Am I right? Is this making sense now? Be honest. Within the reformed tradition, church offices are established doctrine, though the idea of “offices,” in my opinion, must be imported into the Bible to make it stand upright. Elders and deacons and the fivefold gifts of Eph 4:11 are all found in the NT but to call them “offices” forces upon the biblical text ideas that are foreign to the inspired scriptures. If I were to ask for Biblical support for "offices" rather than functional roles, Van Til, Owen, Edwards and even Calvin himself would have a hard time doing so.

Belcher is an honest reformed theologian, so it is not a surprise that he appeals to what he calls the Great Tradition for authority for church practices and polity, which the New Testament does not provide.

In my next post I will look at a few of the more troubling concepts in the book.

Listen up Sheep: The Fold vs The Flock

2010-08-05T12:51:00.000-07:00

I found this brilliant passage in an article by the late F.F. Bruce recalling a powerful teaching from E.H. Broadbent. The article by Bruce was addressing the things that went wrong with the Jerusalem church, one of which was legalism. So many of us look to the Jerusalem Church as the model we wish to emulate, but many things went wrong with that church. There are far more healthy examples in the NT than the mother of all churches.

I wanted to pass on to you this important lesson about sheep in a flock vs sheep in a fold:

Many years ago I (F.F.Bruce) heard E.H.Broadbent speak on the fold and the flock in John 10. He pointed out that the sheep in the fold are kept together by the surrounding walls while the sheep of a flock are kept together by the shepherd. Moreover, the number of sheep that any fold can contain is limited, while there was nothing to hinder the sheep which the good Shepherd led out of the fold having their number increased by the adherence of those ‘other sheep’ that had never belonged to the original fold. But, he went on, developing the parable, some of the sheep argued that in spite of the care and devotion of their Shepherd, they would feel safer if they had walls around them, and so they started to build some. But, said Mr. Broadbent, ‘sheep are not good builders.’ Some of the walls they built were effective enough in a way, but so restricted that they shut most of the flock out; there were other walls, on the contrary, which were comprehensive enough, but so badly constructed that they let several wolves in too, with predictable consequences. The moral is that the people of Christ need no walls to keep them together. We may learn valuable lessons from the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, but Nehemiah’s wall is not a model for churches to follow.

We simply must let the Great Shepherd lead us and stop building walls. Bruce went on to apply this to the Jerusalem church as it grew more "zealous for the law":

"The Jerusalem church, however, as time went on became increasingly concerned with ways and means of keeping the wrong type out. It was not so in the beginning, then the presence of God’s holiness among the believers was so manifest that ‘none of the rest dared join them’ Acts 5:13. There is a certain plausibility about the affirmation that ‘separation from evil is God’s principle of unity’, but it is not really so; God’s principle of unity is positive, not negative; it is the principle of unity in Christ; and separation from evil is a corollary of the principle, not the principle itself."

Bruce concluded with this poem from William Barclay to summarize how ugly the fold can get...

"We are God’s chosen few,
All others will be damned,
There is no room in heaven for you:
We can’t have heaven crammed."

May we not be found in such a way. Follow Jesus outside of the camp (Heb 13:13).

From: Prof. F.F. Bruce, "The Church of Jerusalem," Christian Brethren Research Fellowship Journal 4 (April 1964): pp. 5-14

Dr. Wagner's Cart Has Been Pulling The Horse for Too Long

2010-07-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

For years missional leaders have repeated the refrain articulated by Dr. C. Peter Wagner that "The best means of evangelism under the sun today is church planting." I myself have even quoted Dr. Wagner in some of my earlier resources. This statement has become a banner for church planting in the US for the past 20 years.

The reason given for this statement is that new churches tend to be hungrier, evangelistically speaking, than their more established sisters. The very survival of the new church depends upon her outreach ability, so the people are more motivated to do evangelistic work. Statistically this is proven to be true as well. New churches do win more converts than long standing ones, but does that make the quote right?

In the past few years I have come to realize that Dr. Wagner got it backwards. We need to make a shift in our missional understanding:

The best means of church planting under the sun today is evangelism (gospel sowing).

You see, we have a great many people starting churches today but not necessarily doing any true gospel work. There are a number of fast growing churches that simply draw Christians from other churches to form new ones. I do not believe that such a practice is indeed the best form of evangelism or of church planting--but it can still fly the banner quoted by Dr. Wagner.

No, we must get back to seeing church as a fruit of evangelism not the other way around. The Bible never commanded us to plant a church or even instructed us in church planting. The gospel (the good news of the intimate reality, redemption and rule of Jesus daily) is the seed we plant, not a church. If we sow the gospel much, we will reap many more disciples and a whole lot more churches will be started as well.

Of course we must also shift to a more holistic understanding of the gospel and the kingdom of God than we have had. Simply throwing out a lot of tracts or shouting at people on a megaphone is not likely to reap spiritual disciples or churches. Jesus brought the kingdom with him to the people who needed it most in a very incarnational and transformational manner. That is what He instructed us to be about.

Stop planting churches, start planting Jesus. Don't build churches, that is not your job or mine. Jesus said, "I will build my church." What He told us to do is to "Preach the gospel," and make disciples (or followers) of Jesus. To risk being cliche: the horse must come before the cart. The seed must come before the tree, and the fruit will follow. Plant Jesus, and let him start the churches. Frankly, He is better at it than we are anyway.

The 4th of July is losing its Appeal

2010-07-04T12:10:00.000-07:00

It is the 4th of July, a celebration--yet I mourn.

As I returned from buying some sparklers and two tickets to the local fireworks show, I passed many empty houses with dead lawns, lock-boxed door handles and no window coverings. These are houses void of the dreams they once held, now full of nothing but broken promises. There seemed to be a house like that on every block. These homes are now owned by a bank that our government felt needed some assistance because they over extended themselves with loans...poor bank.

Reading About Writing

2010-06-24T15:57:00.001-07:00

I just finished and sent to the publisher my latest manuscript and found myself with unreserved reading time (a rare commodity these days). I decided to improve my writing skills so I picked up some books about the craft (much to my editor's good pleasure I'm sure).

I'm reading On Writing by Stephen King. I'm still waiting for a green glow and the evil clown to show up, but it isn't that sort of book. I've chuckled out loud several times while reading it but also doubted myself as a true writer more than a few. I want to go back and read some of my books and realize what I could have done better (now that would be a true horror story).

Someone asked Stephen King how he writes. His answer was, "One word at a time." I guess that is also how we get better as writers...one word at a time.

It is fascinating to read how other people write. I have much to learn. I need to find a steady balance between my travel, ministry, home and writing. I am not a very methodical person, so my balance will be different from others. So far, my writing pattern seems to be seasonal: summer and winter for writing, fall and spring for travel.

One of the strange things I have noticed is that I can't seem to write another book in the same place that I have already written one. I can tell you each place that my books were predominantly written and no two share the same space. It is like I draw a creative energy from the environment and it begins to reflect that book's unique personality, so when I try to write there again it doesn't work. I am just now discovering this, but of course that is something you wouldn't learn until you'd written a few books. I've written six so far (three other resources I've created are more like curriculum--those I can do anywhere). Imagine the difficulty of finding a new place if I wrote books as often as Stephen King! Considering my wife redesigned my eldest daughter's bedroom into a home office for me to write in after she moved out, this is a problem for even a writer with my own output. After Church 3.0 was done I haven't been able to write in the office again (save for blog posts and emails). Maybe I need to get over this idiosyncrasy and force myself to write in the same place. Perhaps this is just a rookie issue that can be overcome as a more seasoned writer. I wonder, does anyone else have this same little challenge? Any other theories about it?

Other books I am reading are: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White (a classic all should read several times over), The Elements of Story by Flaherty (which I think I will turn to often as a resource) and The Art and Craft of Storytelling by Lamb.