Church Transfusion: Releasing Organic Life Into Established Churches

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?

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

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?

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

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

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

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.