A thread at the seedstories site (www.seedstories.com) and a recent conversation with a dear couple who are serious followers of Christ but unconnected to any one local congregation, has me grappling with the operationalization of a fluid network movement. There are several challenges that we face in being the church as a fluid movement:
1. Detoxing from the default mode of institutionalism that most people in the movement have come from. Most of us have grown up in the church and still see the church as an organization that offers the world a variety of religious programs and experiences.
2. Grasping the concept of the kingdom of God and how it enters into every sphere of life rather than being relegated to the compartment of "my spiritual life."
3. Providing enough concrete structure so people can grasp what it means to be an organic and missional church and yet avoid the pitfalls of institutionalism and attractional ministry.
4. Engaging people who view life from a consumeristic point of view.
5. Equipping, empowering, and deploying a growing number of disciiples into every sphere of society: family, church, education, business, government, media, and arts.
Deep, concrete thinking on these matters is absolutely necessary so we can move out of the theoretical mode to the operational mode of thie church plant.
5 comments:
Since this post is about "concreteness" can you give some example of how you've seen this five challenges overcome or just attempted in some way?
Well, Jough, when I posted this, I was thinking more in terms of the challenges that I am facing now in my current church plant here in Ottawa. But I can give you a couple of examples from what we've done before.
1. Re equip and deploy disciples into the sectors of society (#5 in the post): In my previous church plant which I led hands-on for 8 years in Manila and continue to provide apostolic leadership today, we had several people who were business owners and entrepreneurs. I had to make sure that the applications of Biblical truth I preached on were practical and doable in the context of their businesses. It was important for me to be in relationships with these guys so that I understood their world. I personally did not have a background in business so I needed to make sure I was grounded in Scripture and the real world.
2. Re concrete structure (#3 in the post): What I am thinking of doing is to create an organic version of cell groups or what we might call "circles" starting with a core leadership circle. These circles would be the primary experience of the church that people in our movement would have.
I hope that these examples are concrete enough. I welcome your feedback to force me to be even more concrete. :-)
That does help, thanks. The image of overlapping circles seems much more natural than independent cells when talking about a social context. It also makes sense to use social words when talking about social contexts rather than borrowing a word from biology (even though the word "cell" is probably used to imply some "organism").
One more thing, would you mind elaborating on your experience with the use of "circles"?
I'll be posting something on "circles" soon.
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