We entered our core gathering phase on Feburary 4, 2007. We meet on Sundays at 10:30am and at 5:00pm in our house. I just finished a 2-part teaching on The BIg Story where we covered the entire story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Last Sunday we had 29 adults attending in the morning while there were 18 adults in attendance at the 5:00pm gathering.
It's important to remember that these meetings are not what our typical gatherings would be like. We will meet like this for the next few months so that I can better define what we are trying to do as a movement. We're also laying a strong foundation focusing on Jesus' way of life and his core message: The Kingdom of God.
My next steps here is to call out and start a leadership cohort much like Jesus did with the 12. We'll be starting a new series of teachings on Jesus' life and his core message this weekend. We'll be looking at Mark 1:14-15.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
What is a cohort?
The SOULNET movement is a growing network of "cohorts" that seep into the very fabric of society to inspire social and spiritual transformation. Here's more on what cohorts are and what they do:
COHORTS
cohort |ˈkōˌhôrt| |ˌkoʊˈhɔrt| |ˌkəʊhɔːt|
noun
1 [treated as sing. or pl. ] an ancient Roman military unit, comprising six centuries, equal to one tenth of a legion.
2 [treated as sing. or pl. ] a group of people banded together or treated as a group : a cohort of civil servants patiently drafting legislation.
• a group of people with a common statistical characteristic : the 1940–44 birth cohort of women.
3 a supporter or companion.
• an accomplice or conspirator : his three cohorts each had pled guilty.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French cohorte, or from Latin cohors, cohort- ‘yard, retinue.’ Compare with court .
What is a cohort in the SOULNET movement?
A cohort is a small group of people who meet for the purpose of inspiring and encouraging one another to live under the Lordship of Jesus in the power of the Spirit. They are committed to the practices of worship, discipleship, and mission.
Where do cohorts meet?
Cohorts can meet anywhere, anytime as long as the environment allows for fulfilling the purpose of the cohort.
Who makes up a cohort?
At its barest minum, a cohort consists of at least 3 people: a host, a facilitator, an information manager. These make up the 3 basic functional leadership roles of a cohort. You can assume that these functions can be fulfilled by even 1 or 2 people. But it’s best to have a minimum of 3 people to start a cohort so that the experience can be that much richer.
What do cohorts do?
When a cohort gathers they are committed to doing three things:
1. Worship: Cohorts can use a variety of means through which they can connect with God. The goal is to create an awareness of God’s presence in the group. This can happen through sharing communion and/or singing and praying, thanks-giving, reading personal poems, listening to a worship cd etc.
2. Discipleship: Cohorts inspire and encourage each other to live under the Lordship of Jesus by the power of the Spirit. This is facilitated by a series of core discussion questions(a):
[1] What do you feel God is doing in your life this week?
[2] What particular challenges have you faced or are facing this week? How can we apply the gospel in this?
[3] If any, share what God has been showing you in the Bible this week(b).
[4] How can we pray for you today?
(a) Cohorts can ask each other any one or all of the first 3 questions but should always ask question [4] and pray for one another. The goal is to discover and encourage what God is already doing in the lives of each cohort member and then celebrating that and/or applying the gospel to it.
(b) A Bible reading program can be implemented by the each cohort. A suggested reading schedule can come from the leadership cohort.
3. Mission: Cohorts should organize around a specific mission to demonstrate Jesus’ compassion, justice, and mercy. Examples of this are: volunteering in a local soup kitchen, visiting shut-ins, collecting and distributing clothes for the homeless, collecting toys for sick children etc.
**When a new person joins a cohort, they will be paired up with a learning coach to walk them through this new and exciting experience as a follower of Jesus. The learning coach models what following Jesus means and seeks to guide and encourage new people in the ways of Christ (worship, prayer, meditation, serving, and participation in the cohort).
Cohorts are based around these 5 Organizing Principles or Ways of Being:
1. Be active: Learn by doing and reflecting.
2. Be responsible: Take responsibilty for the mission and self-organize.
3. Be involved: Stay on mission by being involved in the cohort, celebrations, and community.
4. Be gracious: Include new people and expand each group.
5. Be genuine: Connect, discover, and encourage one another.
COHORTS
cohort |ˈkōˌhôrt| |ˌkoʊˈhɔrt| |ˌkəʊhɔːt|
noun
1 [treated as sing. or pl. ] an ancient Roman military unit, comprising six centuries, equal to one tenth of a legion.
2 [treated as sing. or pl. ] a group of people banded together or treated as a group : a cohort of civil servants patiently drafting legislation.
• a group of people with a common statistical characteristic : the 1940–44 birth cohort of women.
3 a supporter or companion.
• an accomplice or conspirator : his three cohorts each had pled guilty.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French cohorte, or from Latin cohors, cohort- ‘yard, retinue.’ Compare with court .
What is a cohort in the SOULNET movement?
A cohort is a small group of people who meet for the purpose of inspiring and encouraging one another to live under the Lordship of Jesus in the power of the Spirit. They are committed to the practices of worship, discipleship, and mission.
Where do cohorts meet?
Cohorts can meet anywhere, anytime as long as the environment allows for fulfilling the purpose of the cohort.
Who makes up a cohort?
At its barest minum, a cohort consists of at least 3 people: a host, a facilitator, an information manager. These make up the 3 basic functional leadership roles of a cohort. You can assume that these functions can be fulfilled by even 1 or 2 people. But it’s best to have a minimum of 3 people to start a cohort so that the experience can be that much richer.
What do cohorts do?
When a cohort gathers they are committed to doing three things:
1. Worship: Cohorts can use a variety of means through which they can connect with God. The goal is to create an awareness of God’s presence in the group. This can happen through sharing communion and/or singing and praying, thanks-giving, reading personal poems, listening to a worship cd etc.
2. Discipleship: Cohorts inspire and encourage each other to live under the Lordship of Jesus by the power of the Spirit. This is facilitated by a series of core discussion questions(a):
[1] What do you feel God is doing in your life this week?
[2] What particular challenges have you faced or are facing this week? How can we apply the gospel in this?
[3] If any, share what God has been showing you in the Bible this week(b).
[4] How can we pray for you today?
(a) Cohorts can ask each other any one or all of the first 3 questions but should always ask question [4] and pray for one another. The goal is to discover and encourage what God is already doing in the lives of each cohort member and then celebrating that and/or applying the gospel to it.
(b) A Bible reading program can be implemented by the each cohort. A suggested reading schedule can come from the leadership cohort.
3. Mission: Cohorts should organize around a specific mission to demonstrate Jesus’ compassion, justice, and mercy. Examples of this are: volunteering in a local soup kitchen, visiting shut-ins, collecting and distributing clothes for the homeless, collecting toys for sick children etc.
**When a new person joins a cohort, they will be paired up with a learning coach to walk them through this new and exciting experience as a follower of Jesus. The learning coach models what following Jesus means and seeks to guide and encourage new people in the ways of Christ (worship, prayer, meditation, serving, and participation in the cohort).
Cohorts are based around these 5 Organizing Principles or Ways of Being:
1. Be active: Learn by doing and reflecting.
2. Be responsible: Take responsibilty for the mission and self-organize.
3. Be involved: Stay on mission by being involved in the cohort, celebrations, and community.
4. Be gracious: Include new people and expand each group.
5. Be genuine: Connect, discover, and encourage one another.
Movement Leadership
Leading a movement is world's apart from leading a congregation. As a pastor of a congregation, it would be my duty to anticipate people's needs, provide programs and methods to meet those needs, to come up with ministries and delegate people to run those ministries.
But what I am finding is that leading a movement is less command and control and more of ensuring the DNA of the thing and then letting everyone loose. My role is less of turing chaos into order and more of leading our people to the edge of chaos. This means that once the DNA is imprinted on people, my job then is to lead them into places that are in disequilibrium, exposing them to need and then allowing them to rise up and meet that need through the unique expression of the movement's DNA through them.
In this way, ministry and mission emerge from the people rather than handed down from the top leadership.
Movement leadership then becomes concerned with the quality of discipleship and how people are living out the mission of Jesus.
But what I am finding is that leading a movement is less command and control and more of ensuring the DNA of the thing and then letting everyone loose. My role is less of turing chaos into order and more of leading our people to the edge of chaos. This means that once the DNA is imprinted on people, my job then is to lead them into places that are in disequilibrium, exposing them to need and then allowing them to rise up and meet that need through the unique expression of the movement's DNA through them.
In this way, ministry and mission emerge from the people rather than handed down from the top leadership.
Movement leadership then becomes concerned with the quality of discipleship and how people are living out the mission of Jesus.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
A Movement Whose Time Has Come
Following Jesus Christ must always be set in the context of competeting loyalties for our hearts. In the primal church, one was either loyal to Caesar or loyal to Jesus. Declaring oneself as a follower of Jesus had political ramification as much as social and religious consequences. I believe that this is as true for today as it was for Peter, Paul, and Martha.
Today, there are new Caesars who are vying for our hearts; new gods who seek to enslave us under their domain. Ultimately, these gods have dehumanized their followers and have dulled their senses in a deceptive trap leading to a life devoid of meaning and joy. It's time to identify who the gods of the 21st century are in western culture and declare a resistance movements against them. There are two major gods whose ideologies have captivated those in the West. And it is spreading to the rest of the world.
Religion
Religion is the oldest of these new gods. The ideology behind religion is that human mediators are needed to faciltiate a relationship to God. Religious ideology creates a caste system within its organization -whether it be Roman Catholicism, Protestant denominationalism, Mormonism and other christian cults, and Judaism, Isalm and other world religions. Religion creates a priestly caste that mediates it's adherents' spiritual transactions between their deity. While having a personal relationship with their deity is often spoken about, ultimately, the priestly caste is responsible for the spiritual well-being and nurture of their followers.
Religion also forces spirituality into the mold of morality. Followers are often ruled by a book or a set of codified behavior which is usually strictly enforced. Muslims have the Koran. Mormons have the Book of Mormon. Jews have the Talmud. And Christians treat the Bible as such even though the primal Christian movement that Jesus started had no Bible to begin with. Instead, an ethos of the Spirit of Jesus ruled primal Christians. They were known as followers of the Way not people of the Book. (more on that later)
A religious Christianity has positioned the church as simply a competing morality among the world's other moralities. The focus on rules and traditions has left the church empty and devoid of Life. Modern day Christianity -and other religions for that matter- have a form of godliness but lacks the power of Jesus and his Spirit. As one of several competing moralities, a religious Christianity ends up on the same playing field as all the other religions trying to impress people with their rules and traditions. When you look at the movement Jesus started 2000 years ago, Jesus wasn't even playing the same game as the others!
Several hundred years, an industrial revolution, and several economic evolutions later, religion continues to prevail in most of the world but another god has come to dominate the scene.
Consumerism
Consumerism is the god which puts our needs, wants, desires and dreams at the center of the Universe. Our North American culture has successfully discipled everyone in our society in this ideology. We are a market driven society where people are viewed mostly as consumers and less as contributors. The temples of this god dot the landscape as people daily drive in to these cathedrals of consumerism called "malls."
Consumerism causes people to be obsessed with safet, security, comfort and convenience. Ultimately, adherents to consumerism organized their lives around their god similar to when the tribes of Israel camped around the Tent of Meeting during their wanderings in the wilderness. Disciples of consumerism call these "the suburbs."
But evenutally, consumerism is as empty as religion. These suburbanites live boring, desperate lives. They seek to fill their boredom and depseration with extreme sports, cottages, vacations, hockey and soccer games for their kids...anything that will remind them that they are alive! But their souls cry of for something more. Think of popular TV shows like Friends, Desperate Housewives, UFC, WWE, CSI, Grey's Anatomy which provide vicarious experiences of excitement for these disciples of Consumerism.
It's time for clear-minded, joyful, passionate Jesus-followers to rise up and see these gods for what they are: Killers of the soul, thieves of joy, destroyers of life. It's time for a resistance to be formed. A resistance whose battlecry is "to live under the Lordship of Jesus by the power of the Spirit!"
SOULNET is a movement whose time has come. The Kingdom of God is near. Jesus is coming soon. And he will come on a white horse with fire in his eyes, a sword in his mouth and a tattoo on his leg that says "King of kings and Lord of lords." He will bring the gods of this age to their knees. But until that time, we must resist. We must stand firm against the gods of consumerism and religion.
SOULNET is an attempt to organize this resistance movement. Anyone who loves Jesus with all their hearts, who desire to live a life inspired by the Spirit of Jesus and who is committed to passionate worship, Gospel-centered discipleship and redemptive mission can be a part of this movement.
Disciples of Jesus...unite!
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