Tag Archives: Church Growth

Apr 06 2013
1 Comment
Christianity, Discipleship, Evangelism, Faith, Jesus, Manchester, Prayer, Religion, Theology

Why the Great Commission has stopped me ‘Evangelising’ and ‘Discipling’ people.

Matt 28:16 So the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain Jesus had designated. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. Then Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Jesus here is sending people out to tell people about Him. To be witnesses for him. WITNESSES. Unfortunately, this whole ‘witnessing/evangelism’ idea can become about formulas, or something that makes people feel guilty because they’re not good at. They don’t like the idea of handing out leaflets out in the street or going door to door. If that IS your thing great, but a lot of people rule themselves out because they think witnessing has been turned into processes of mithering people. Or trying to argue.

I saw a status on Facebook that read ‘”I will now become a Christian on the basis of your arguments and dogmatic presentation of key doctrines.’ Said nobody, ever.”

And I know people who’d say they follow Jesus 100% but… they don’t know enough Bible or enough answers to all the clever objections people come out with, and they don’t want people to think they’re arrogant so they think they’d better not get involved either. But that’s not how this started.  From that day on the mountain till now, it’s not what you know, it’s WHO you know.

By the way, that means it’s not being arrogant either, because Christians DO have knowledge that most people don’t have, but it’s a different kind of knowledge. It’s not ‘I know something you don’t know.’ It’s SOMEONE. Because of Easter Sunday, because of Jesus being ALIVE – it’s a person you’ve met. And you have the dignity to share that you know Him.

I tried to sum this up in a tweet this week and just about squeezed it into 140 characters. Because of the resurrection, evangelism isn’t convincing someone of something you know, it’s introducing someone you know wants to meet them. 

Now literally, Jesus says. ‘Therefore, GOING – make disciples…’ We have made it a command, so people feel guilty and might do it. You have to say it in a dramatic deep voice.‘Therefore GO!’

But it’s not a command. It’s the present participle to be technical, like ‘As you go…’ Like it’s the most natural thing in the world. ‘As you go, make disciples.’ That’ll be the natural spin off from people interacting with you. Because Jesus is with you always as you go. But we somehow made this natural thing a list of techniques to get stressed out about or Bible passages to memorise, to make CONVERTS. Jesus didn’t ever say make converts. He says ‘make DISCIPLES.’

What does that mean?  Disciples?

l plates

LEARNER.

That’s all it means. Whenever you see the word disciple in the Bible, you could translate it straight as ‘Learner.’ They had the L plates on.

Jesus sent them out into the world, with L plates on. What a responsibility he put in their hands! Jesus had written no books, built no organisation; there were no physical buildings they owned, no monuments left to commemorate Him. He entirely placed the future of His earthly work in the hands of His disciples. His LEARNERS. He had no other plan. He HAS no other plan!

While I’m shooting sacred cows –  I’m disturbed that the church has made DISCIPLING a new kind of industry in the last 5 years or so. Jesus came to make profound things simple and the church always does the opposite of that.

Everyone’s doing conferences or writing books with plans and formulas to ‘disciple’ people. As if it’s a verb – not a noun.

He disciples him, she disciples her – we all get in these little groups where this person knows more than this person; so I get to disciple you or to be discipled by him or her. And the extreme end of it is where someone gets to feel very important and wise for being ‘a discipler,’ while someone else – the disciplee, gets controlled.

I’ve read many of those books and been to the conferences. Of course there’s good stuff in it too, and it’s a reaction to laissez faire methods which meant people didn’t mature in faith. But something still makes me a bit uneasy. Because I don’t think lots of what they write about there, has little to do with what Jesus was talking about here.

I had a great chat the other day with someone who was asking about whether I should be their ‘covering’ – and we ended up agreeing that’s probably Jesus’ job. All authority has been given to HIM after all. He’s the head. We’re all the body.

The creeping danger is we end up becoming or gathering or making disciples of MEN rather than disciples of Jesus. Because like evangelism and a lot of other things we’ve made ‘discipling’ seem very complicated. It’s not really.

Christianity isn’t complicated! It’s not EASY, but it’s not complicated.

These notes form part of my talk for tomorrow morning at Ivy Manchester (Kingsway). I’ll be more constructive than this – promise. There’s probably just enough here to get some people annoyed enough to download the full talk which will be available on our website next week. http://www.ivymanchester.org/podcasts

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Nov 19 2012
2 Comments
Bible, Christianity, Jesus, Men, Theology

TRUE MATURITY Colossians 2 – Ivy Grow Group Notes

We are doing a series in the evenings where I’m going through Colossians a chapter at a time and I AM LOVING IT! Why not plan to get along to Ivy Didsbury and dig into this fantastic letter further soon? If you really can’t – I bet you’d get a lot out of the podcasts which are free at www.ivymanchester.org

I’ve called the series INSIDE -OUT

Principally that’s because Paul was INSIDE, writing OUT to the church a Colosse. He was in prison. He wrote various letters while he was in prison, some to churches he founded – and this one to a church he didn’t found but it was a kind of church plant started by a man called Ephaphras who Paul led to follow Christ then sent home to start a church in his home city.

One day Ephapras visited him in prison and gave the low down on things in Colosse. The church had started out really well and grown fast. BUT there were problems. Big concerns about one or two voices in the church that were trying to drag people away from simple devotion to Jesus.

We don’t know how many of these teachers there were, it may have just been one powerful, super-spiritual, deeeeply persuasive voice that was saying to be a real Christian, you had to learn ‘the philosophy…’ – a system of inner secrets for the Deeper Life.

Read Col 2:1-5

This talks about ‘persuasive words’ that can deceive us.

Discuss: How do we go deep, without going under? What I mean is, how do you strike a healthy balance as a Christian between wanting to study and grow, without becoming super-spiritual? 

Three big words summed up ‘The Philosophy’ – three isms in the ‘religious self improvement plan.’

These three things are very much still dangers for churches to take on…

Legalism, Asceticism and Mysticism.

Discuss – how do you define these words and how might they become a danger for Christians? 

My definitions of the three- (NB the practices themselves might not necessarily be wrong, it’s the heart intention that matters)

Legalism – do the right things. (Restrict Yourself) – included Circumcision

Asceticism – don’t do some things (Deny Yourself) – included fasting

Mysticism – (Exalt Yourself) – the way the mysticism worked at Colosse was that some wanted a few to add on learning some deep, deep things – so as to become the TRUE disciples. The spiritual masters. This would create an ‘inner circle’ within the church.

DISCUSS: 

If the Leader has time, please read my previous blog post to this – CS Lewis’ address on ‘The Inner Ring.’

How do we guard against cliques forming in church? 

Read Col 2:6-11

Paul here lists some marks of true maturity – and it’s not about some supposed spiritual experience, but about walking IN HIM.

 

Go through now down to verse 13 and notice how many times Paul uses the term IN HIM or IN CHRIST (his favourite way to describe being a Christian) in this chapter.

Underline them if you like to remind you of its importance. It seems it’s possible to be ‘In Christ’ but not maturing!

DISCUSS: What kind of thing would Paul list as evidences of truly maturing? 

Leader’s hint: I included Encouragement, Loving Unity, Keeping in Order, Steadfastness, and being Grounded, Growing and Grateful.

As NT Wright says in his brilliant book ‘Paul for everyone; Prison Letters’

Christianity isn’t simply about a way of being religious. It isn’t about a particular system for being saved here or hereafter, it’s not about a particular way to be holy…Christianity is about Jesus Christ. 

DISCUSS: Why don’t people have the right idea about Christianity? 

Assess: 

Whatever your list of ‘Marks of Maturity’ ended up pulling out, get everyone to rate themselves 1 -10 right now on them. 

Would the people who know you well say you’re becoming more like Jesus in that area now than you were a year ago? 

Pray: 

You are COMPLETE in Him! Pray that each person in your GG walks out in their every day life what this means, that Jesus is ALL of God, and He is ALL in you and he FILLS you completely with His love now. God wants what happened to Jesus to happen to you.

If you died with him (became his follower)

You will live forever with him – starting now – and that will never end. Rejoice!

Christianity isn’t prideful philosophical, theoretical knowledge to teach another about;  ‘you have to know what I know.’

It’s humble grateful relational and invitational – ‘come and meet the One who knows all about me and loves me’ – like the Samaritan woman discovered in John 4.

Commit to Pray for three people who need to come to know the One you know, that before the end of 2012, maybe at one of our Christmas events – they get to know the One we know.

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Oct 13 2012
Bible, Center Church, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, Faith, Father God, Friends, history, Ivy Manchester Grow Group Notes, Jesus, Liberation Theology, Message Trust, Prayer, Religion, Theology, Tim Keller

We don’t need Divine Rehab but Divine Rescue

CENTER CHURCH – Tim Keller 

(Ivy GG notes – much of this material comes from today’s Ivy GG Leaders Day; thanks so much to all who made time to attend and for all you’re doing at ‘the church that meets at your house.’)

I have been very inspired as I read Tim Keller’s latest book, Center Church.

Check out the video summary at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_ZWlPUmVug

I downloaded it on my Kindle and began to highlight in yellow important phrases and concepts as is my usual practice, but there’s so much there it ended with what looks like a Christian version of the Yellow Pages!

DISCUSS:

Do you read regularly or is that something you find hard to make time for? If so how might you overcome that challenge so you keep on growing?

What have you read recently that’s encouraged, inspired or challenged you?

I outlined my understanding of what I’d read in the book to our leaders as follows:

The ‘model’ of church isn’t what’s most important.

We have at one end (D.F.) the DOCTRINAL FOUNDATION. What we believe – and as a result of that there will be some things we don’t believe too). We have a central core of belief – the Gospel – that doesn’t change.

DISCUSS: What is ‘The Gospel’? What’s the Good News as your group understands it?

Look up the word ‘gospel’ now in a concordance. Have you covered any of the elements of what the Bible says the gospel is?

Keller is keen to stress the gospel is good news about what’s been done FOR us.

As I read I thought, ‘It’s not divine rehab but divine rescue.’

Optional question: How might we twist this message and make it either ‘Good things we out to try to do’ (RELIGION) or ‘We don’t have to  live holy lives because God will forgive us anyway?’ (IRRELIGION).  Keller says the gospel is neither of those two, but something entirely different; GRACE! 

At the other end we have (M.E.) the MINISTRY EXPRESSION(S) – What we DO because of what we believe. Our church services in the club, cinema, warehouse, your home – are all ministry expressions. What else can you think of that are ministry expressions?  Ministry Expressions CAN change – whether we like change or not, it happens all the time. Some people get frightened by the pace of change and might want Ivy to just go back to doing things ‘the way we used to do them.’ Here’s a picture someone just sent me of that that might look like:

(Consider this a caption competition! Thanks to Paul Nattrass’ Dad.

Comment at the bottom -winner gets a free copy of either of my three books they’d like) 

In the centre is our (T.E) THEOLOGICAL VISION. – Who we ARE (because of what we believe).

Around Ivy we’d call that our DNA I suppose, it’s what makes us distinctive.

You can download the DNA here  if you want to look at it in more detail but from the earliest days – even before we had the banner and the pram push down the street, Ivy was founded to be Relevant to people far from God, Confident in God, Welcoming because nobody’s perfect and all things are possible, Outward-Looking because our God is on a mission in the world and wants us to join him, and Adventurous because nobody ever really met with Jesus and stayed the same.

DNA is important in how you replicate. Spend some time discussing our DNA.

Read John 20:10-18

Notice: Jesus said, “Go…and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 

Tell the people next to you, ‘You have your Father’s DNA!’  We don’t need divine rehab but divine rescue has happened so now his Divine DNA is at work in you!

PRAY for one another.

Pray for me!

Pray for our church, and especially the new ‘Ministry Expression’ at Ivy Sharston – and please plan to join us for its launch Sept 21st 4pm at the Message, Lancaster House, Harper Rd, Sharston  M22 4RG

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Jul 06 2012
Church, REVIVAL

Graham Cooke – BRILLIANT THINKING: Leader’s evening at Ivy Manchester

GREAT start to our time this weekend, Graham spoke BRILLIANTLY about thinking BRILLIANT. Tomorrow at the Armitage Centre we’ll hear more. Excited to partner with our friends from Christ Church Harpurhey and Vinelife,

It’s not too late to book in – here.

Here’s my notes from tonight…

Around 25 years ago had 3 dreams:

1) a grey man in an old car was showing him round the grey city pointing out all the sin and problems in people, with a grey attitude. Depressing!

Dream 2 – grey man in slightly better grey car saying, ‘We are doing courses to help them’ – that was even more depressing.

Dream 3 – Bright young guy in a bright car, shouting encouragement that told them who they really were and it CHANGED the people! ‘This is how I see you – you’re going to be doing this!’ The city changed!

The church has an old vehicle being driven by an old man. The old man is the old man that was put on Jesus. We don’t need to do that.

God isn’t focused on the old man. He’s not focused on sin. Rom 6 – consider yourself DEAD to sin. His focus now is on RIGHTEOUSNESS, and now he’s only dealing with the new nature.

The OLD self is DEAD.
Speak and live out of the new nature. The old nature is buried! God’s not asking you to go grave robbing.

Jesus appeared to him in a dream saying, ‘Give me back my stuff!’
All that belongs to me- your fear, insecurity, sin – you’re stealing my stuff.

It’s not who you are. I can’t give you this, if you’re holding onto that.
God’s not asking us to work on it but to lay aside the old stuff. Put on the new man! Don’t babysit a corpse.

You don’t have to work that through – you have to lay it aside.

The problem in lots of churches is that everyone’s working on their stuff instead of rising up to be who they are.

2 Cor 5:17. If it’s true that Jesus didn’t just die for us but AS us, so you’re crucified with Christ. Then when you sin, you’re defaulting not to an old nature but a type of behaviour that hasn’t been replaced with something from the new nature?

Consider yourself DEAD to that.
The antidote to THAT is THIS being developed.

Transformation comes with the RENEWING of the mind. Working on my new self. My real self, in community with others who are doing the same.
It’s about learning how to be a REDEEMED community in a RECONCILED society. Because he is NOT holding their sins against them. He already put it on Jesus! So now the way is open for everyone to come for a taste of what they are really like. Enjoying our new nature! We don’t have any hang ups. We’re too busy being favoured, so nobody’s safe from a blessing, because we’re bringing you the Kingdom.

The Kingdom is a new man in a new vehicle.

When you deal with the old nature you have to do that for a long long time.
When God deals with the new nature he can give you a brilliant thought and if you think like Him and think about ourselves the way he thinks about us, that change can take place straight away.

When God looks at you, he sees nothing wrong with you – just what’s missing from your present experience of you and invites you to experience a miracle in that place.

When God comes, he always comes with a gift.
He says ‘That belongs to me…
and THIS belongs to you…’
New for old.

It’s easy to be prophetic when you know its new for old. He’s always going to take that old struggle and give you his new thing.

We all now people who say they’re speaking the truth in love but aren’t. Because they are just saying what’s True.
What’s true will put you in chains. The truth sets you free.
The truth calls people UP, not OUT.
It says,‘You don’t need to be like that – because this is who you are…’

‘You have an image problem? I don’t – because I see the image of God in you.’

You have a choice now, I can carry on that way or see who I am now. My true self.

We need to practise this in our communities in church and take it out so people discover who they are and what God wants to be for them. The fruit of the Spirit is more powerful than the gifts. Because it’s BEING not just DOING. The best sign and wonder is not a miraculous healing but people seeing you enjoying being loved by him. John 17. Develop loving communities that discover who they are in Christ and behave accordingly. Tell people, ‘This is who you are. You’re brilliant! Stay brilliant!’

We need a radiant idea of God and ourselves. I celebrate who he is.
I like myself then.

And then I see people differently, pray for them differently. And it’s the goodness and kindness of God that brings you to repentance.

Repentance = ‘What you’ve thought brings you to a place you don’t like? Think again.’

Our message?
Now you’re reconciled to God, he sees you different than you think. Start to think like Him.

Transformation is in the air, and it starts with ME.

Apostolic communities always think ‘ME FIRST.’ Let it be in me first. Our role is to be the beloved and let people see how much we’re loved. Everyone’s vulnerable to that!

Every one of us is known in heaven already.

cf. John the Baptist – not even known yet, but an angel comes along and prophesies who he’s going to be and how he’s known in heaven. God is going to release that identity, no just through prophecy but through scripture.

God told him to JUST read and study Ps 91., and keep on doing that. He did it for months. ‘For where I want to take you, I need you to live in Ps 91. This is your inheritance word.’ It’s all about warfare.

God does scripture different than us. He didn’t write it in a year, he doesn’t expect us to read it in a year. He wants us to find our inheritance in it.

Like Jesus did, when he read the ‘wrong’ scripture for the day, Isaiah 61. He says, ‘This is who I am and this is what I’m about.’ You know when you get a word like that. Every promise there is for you. Everything they had, you can have. How many of us have had experiences of scripture where it’s come over us and we’ve gone ‘Oh wow that’s me!’ Lay that alongside that scripture. You have permission to have that promise. You have permission to be that person.

Write it out and read it out to the Lord, saying ‘I accept this upgrade in my identity.’ Because his resources are not tied to your behaviour but your inheritance. It’s not just about getting your needs met. That’s the baby end.

It’s to do with the inheritance. How God sees us. Your identity has glory, power, authority attached to it because he doesn’t do things by half. He sees us so differently. We get to declare, ‘This is who I am! I agree with God!’

Q. So how do we transition away from a Pastor/teacher foundation of church?

That foundation is not able to bear the weight of what God wants to build.
The apostle/prophet is the foundation.
There is no equality there. We’re equal in the sense of being loved, but not power.
teaching ministries go best with a prophet as best friend. You need partnership at all levels.
The apostolic and prophetic need to partner with pastoral ministry. Otherwise you have a ‘present/past’ pastoral ministry, that never moves on to future/ transformation.

Jesus has planned a transformational moment for us that can do 5 years work in 5 minutes! That’s why you need the prophetic and pastoral in there too.

Evangelists need to work with apostles and prophets. Because apostles and prophets are always trying to walk around the old stuff that’s in place, and because some apostles aren’t really they’re just freaky – and you have to pay to be their friend? Really!? Apostles produce sons, not associates.

I believe more in apostolic cities than apostolic networks.

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May 30 2012
Bible, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, Failure, Faith, history, Holy Spirit, Jesus, justice, leadership, Prayer, Religion, REVIVAL, Theology

@AlanHirsch – ReOrganise at #NWNLC12

Alan lives very near Azusa Street, where the Holy Spirit came up many very marginalised people, which went on to be a movement that changed the world. Jesus is the friend of the outcast and the sinners!

What practices stop the people of God being the people of God? Christianity got into China from Europe, and there were 2 million Christians, until Mao Tse Tung obliterated it. How? Threw out the leaders etc. Except for peasant people who were forced to rediscover themselves.

Compare that phenomenon with that of the early church. We have to ask, what am I doing that God has to take people like us out – to get what he wants done, done?

Don’t create systems that create dependences.

Go with the flow of what God wants done in us. He has what it takes. And he has given us agency!

We need to receive the gift of repentance, be immediately forgiven – then change our behaviours.

Rodney Stark & Roger Fink described how Methodism in the USA grew like mad, then plateaued – then dropped off a cliff.

It started with the Methodist circuit riders blazing trails. Radical pioneers.

Then they took them out and got them to study Latin, Greek and Hebrew, domesticated them.

And have been in decline ever since.

If it takes seven years to train in CofE as a leader – you have over-complicated it.

Our methodology is blocking us.

In China, 65% of the leaders are women. What does that tell us? 2 million to hundreds of millions in a very short space of time.

If I was the devil and I wanted to take the church out, I’d create an elite two -tier system with cleros (calling) being to clergy – rather than ALL God’s people being called. Yes, believe in leadership, but don’t take all the leadership on.

If you want to destroy a movement – don’t make it easily reproducible. The genius of Al Quaeda is that is so diverse – (I think there’s references to this in Starfish & Spider?).

Someone asks – ‘how do you make a case for the ordination of women?’

Well – what about making a case for ordination at ALL first off. It came out of Rome not the NT. It doesn’t honour Jesus to suppress anyone. Our practices are our problems.

The ‘Back to Jerusalem’ movement have this slogan: ‘Every believer is a church planter, every church is a church planting church.’ We all contain ecclesia…

So even if there’s only ONE believer left, he or she carries the seed to reproduce the whole movement. God got the whole universe going in a particular way. In every seed there’s a tree and in very tree there’s a forest – there’s POTENTIAL, contained. A spark has the potential for a fire.

This is how God sees us.

We need to see our churches like this.

The potential is HUGE!

It’s amazing what God can do with us. So a leader’s job is to bring EVERYONE into the game.

When we have thought of church planting, we have thought we have to extract people from the domains of everyday life. How about we rather plant church IN the domains of society, and let it break out in the arts and media and government.

Someone ask, ‘How do we control that?’

Trust God. He is able to lead!

God is not simply God of the church, but of all we are. We locate God in our structure (which is just one way to manifest His presence).

The best way to learn chess? Take the Queen out. Then you learn how to use all the other pieces.

Are we over-relying on the Sunday services? Even very good ones with great teaching.

To see how effective your sermons are, next week – ask, ‘What did I preach about three weeks ago?’

What if we put all that effort into disciple-making instead?

It takes time at the front end, but it’s the way of multiplication.

We believe in ‘the priesthood of all believers,’ but it’s largely a doctrine not a practice. As long as you’re wearing a collar it speaks louder than your words. You’re representing the institution. It’s very hard to get a person to understand something when their salary depends on not understanding it.

Look afresh at Ephesians, written as a general letter to a group of ordinary people, in various churches. This applies to everyone!  It’s Paul’s fundamental ecclesiology. Barth Jr called it ‘the constititional document of the church.’ And it was NOT written to leaders. This is for everyone.

Eph 4:1-6 UNITY (applies not just to early church but all time)

Eph 4:7-11

Grace was given to EACH ONE OF US.. (literally us all). Give = aorist indicative, very strong and applies to all 5.

To become… APEST – apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers..

So, ‘I wonder what I am?’

He’s given APEST – to build the church. To get us to Maturity.

It’s Jesus’ intention that we find our place in this framework.

Vs 12 – 16 applies to the church of all time, too – you have to torture the obvious meaning of the chapter to say the preceding verses don’t!

Why did we code out the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists?

How many times in the Bible do you hear the word Pastor? ONCE – here.

Apostles. gets used 80+ times.

Teachers – we get told by James ‘not many of you should be!’

But isn’t it dangerous to release the APE?

Well the Shepherds and Teachers who have run the church so far have historically hurt people over doctrine a lot. Inquisition etc.

This is not a leadership text, it’s a ministry text.

Apostle = missio, sent. people who feel God pushing them out into the future, they’re boundary people. Could be Petrine (in system) or Pauline (outside system).

Prophets – sensitive to God, hear him, see him, speak for Him. Irritate everyone as result. They feel deeply for the poor.

Evangelists – recruiters to the cause, people buy in because of them.

Shepherds – Bring love and community.

Teachers - Bring wisdom and understanding. No sense of urgency. Systematic.

You need ALL FIVE to change the world.

These 5 are of course in the creation order – you see such people in all kids of organisations, but he’s given it to the redemption order.

Ministries are started by the generative (APE) – and sustained by the operative (ST – maintainers).

The problems are when the APES are exiled, and the STs take over. Every movement in decline takes this model.

Jesus has given us (the church) FIVEFOLD ministry so we might MATURE!

Jesus is all 5. We are meant to be His body. How else can we represent HIM in the world? You can’t run an organisation on having a HR department.

If you want a missional movement you have to have missional ministry to go with it.

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May 29 2012
1 Comment
Bible, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, leadership, Prayer, Work

@Alanhirsch – ReMission at #NWNLC12

Forge Mission Training Network is about training people differently for mission. A people movement for incarnational thinking.

Starts with the assumption that God has given us the answers we need. They are in us, if we reach deep.

We are inoculated in this culture. Lots of anti-bodies against the church keeping people from Jesus.

Someone said to him, ‘We can’t all be innovators!” Answer? You could be very innovative IF your life depended on it.

So think like a beginner, not an expert. We rise to the level of our incompetence (Peter principle). When you go out on a limb, you make a faith of leap.

You must have practitioners teach, because you cannot teach what you do not know, you cannot lead where you will not go. Don’t learn divorced from the context of their lives. Don’t extract people to teach, teach them where they are. (By the way this is why New Wine Training is fantastic!)

There is an accelerated decentralising of the church away from Christendom that has been happening. The church is no longer at the centre, so we have to think like missionaries again. And where you stand determines what you see. If you look at the edges and margins, that’s where we’re we are best anyway.

There are various cultural barriers to communicate the gospel, eg -

  1. Language – complex
  2. World view
  3. Race
  4. History

The culture has shifted on us, we’re living in a melting pot of culturally very distant and with varied barriers. We tend to want to reach to those nearest. But right in your back yard are people with significant sets of barriers. How do we get over or through them?

Attraction is fine for churches, unless in a missionary environment you are extracting them from their setting, which is there sphere of effectiveness.

Remember – We are the sent ones! When we’re asking THEM to come, we’re asking THEM to do the mission work. Coming to church is as strange for them as for you to turn up at a mosque.

So how do we become incarnational missionaries in the West?

The gospel travelled like a virus Jesus sneezed;

Missio = sent.

apostle = sent.

Why do we prefer Latin to Greek?

Missiology is to do with the doctrine of God, not the doctrine of the church.

It’s not that the church has a mission, but that the mission has a church.

God is a sending God! The Father sends the Son. The Spirit is a missionary spirit – and we’re sent too. Sentness authenticates us. We are a message tribe!

Read Galatians missiologically. Peter is hanging out with Gentiles and eating pig, having had the revelation of the pigs in a blanket. Pressure is put on him by the Judaizers. These guys need to be circumcised. And Paul has a fit – because he says no, they don’t have to take on a Jewish form, in a Galatian context. They need the gospel in the Galatian setting. This is all to do with incarnation.

God came among us, was in the neighbourhood for 30 years and nobody even noticed – what does that say about God? We’ve just made the incarnation about the baby. We’ve made it just about Christmas. But this is so subversive – he’s just THERE, without a cosmic light show to stun is into believing. Nobody saw it or got it. Why would you want to put formal Anglican churches in Africa, when they hardly even work here any more? Why put all that on them? Hot robes in boiling places?! What do we really need to put across and what do we need to levae behind to become missional and incarnational.

JESUS IS LORD – is simple enough a creed to help us discern what is right and true and protects us from syncretism.

He said ‘AS the Father sent me, so I send you.’ 

How was Jesus sent?

DOWN and DEEP. That’s how movements spread.

Fall in love with your city. Date it! That’s where incarnation starts, when we say, ‘You will be MY people.’ Moves us into the neighbourhood.

And you ADAPT there. If you take a highly standardised model, you’re self-limiting.

We are perfectly designed to achieve what we’re currently achieving.

If you’re declining it’s because you’re designed that way.

Pastoral organisations resist mission.

Britain is very multicultural. But we’re not reaching into and across the cultures. And we have to change our imaginations first.

How to engage in incarnational mission?

6 Ps:

PRESENCE – In Jesus God was FULLY present and identified with us.

PROXIMITY – He goes right were people are. Weddings, temple.

POWERLESSNESS  (Humility) learn from the people. They have much to teach you.

PREVENIENCE Full of Grace – and Truth – note the order…

PRIESTLY SERVICE

PATHOS – Incarnation of the heart. Just take their issues on you. Allow yourself to love who you are with.

PROCLAMATION – which the other Ps allow you to be able to speak into their lives. Don’t miss this one!

Examples?

Proximity – go where the people are.  First place is your home. Use it! Second place = your work. You spend a lot of life there. The third places, social spaces – your preferential place to hang out and gather.

Where is the church?

Your church becomes YOUR third place long enough, you stop connecting outside of it.

Prevenience – God has gone before. Preparatory Grace. Wesley had this as a cornerstone of his ministry. cf Convene – bring together. God is at work in every person, calling them to himself in Jesus Christ. all people have religious experiences, they just don’t know what to do with them. They are not Christophanies for them.

Priestly Service – Is our job to tell people how to behave? (He worked with a lot of people with various sexual issues and it was messing him up).

God said, ‘Well what do priests do?’ They act as mediators.

We introduce one person, to another (Jesus) – and then get out of the way. Guess what – you’ll  find he’s better at changing people than you are.

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May 29 2012
Bible, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, Faith, Holy Spirit, Religion, Worship

@Alanhirsch; ReDisciple – at #NWNLC12

the future’s so bright, he gotta wear shades..

The early church grew from 25,000 to 2 million in 200 years according to Rodney Stark. The Chinese church had a similar curve. What does that say about our church – it holds a mirror up to us. Last time we saw that these movements are obsessed with Jesus, who is Lord.

AND such movements are also always obsessed with disciple-making. If we are not, we’re weakest where we should be strongest. If we fail here, we fail everywhere. And in the West we have not done well! If we are not actively discipling, the culture will disciple us. We’ll be shaped by what’s advertised to get us to conform as consumers. We can’t be a church that advances the cause of Jesus without this.

What’s discipleship? Simply becoming MORE LIKE JESUS. and having communion with Him.

Jn 8:31-32

IF you hold to my teaching, IF you are really my disciples – THEN you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. 

It’s not just ‘truth sets you free’ – which is by the way the CIA’s motto. It’s about making disciples.

It took a long time to be allowed in to the early church you had to go through a catechism that could take years.

You raise the bar on discipleship

You lower the bar on how church is done (ecclesiology)

We’ve set up websites where you can just click on a mouse and you’re ‘saved.’ (??)

How about Jesus? He sets such a high bar the rich young ruler walks away because he won’t repent of his idolatry.

Jesus focused his energies on disciple-making. Because it’s critical to movements.

The fundamental of discipleship is to become like Jesus; the ultimate.

This EMBODIES our faith – (it’s not just a mind thing, notice). I’m to present my BODY as a living sacrifice.

Kierkegaard talked about ‘existence communication’= our lives speak what we believe. He hated Hegel’s platonic idealism, because his ideas were UNLIVEABLE – Hegel built this huge palace of ideas – but can you live in them? Can you live them out? He believed that all objective truth is only validated as such by your life. It’s not true for you really if you’re not living it out. Embodiment is critical!

Embodiment leads to exousia – authority. It comes out of you. Your authority comes out of who you are! It’s not a qualification or a seminary. It is all about who you are. If you’re not like Christ, you can’t have Christ-like leadership.

Start with Jesus. Then disciple like him.

We have to reframe evangelism in this. ‘It’s impossible to teach a man what he already knows.’

It’s also hard to convince a man when his salary depends on it.

We think we know what evangelism is. We pass on pieces of propositional knowledge, and  leave it with them. It’s all based on the Great commission- misunderstood.

Jesus said Go therefore and make disciples…

Where do you hear evangelism there?

It’s limited to that too often.

People who share life together naturally share stories, and just loving one another. Bringing out the imago dei which is always there. We disciple PRE ‘conversion’ AND

POST conversion. It’s about genuine loving friendship. Disciple people all along this line…

______________________X____________________________

PRE                                                                        POST

When were the disciples of Jesus ‘born again’? Peter got it wrong and tried to veer Jesus away from the cross days before it happened! according to our theology if he didn’t understand the cross he couldn’t be saved!

Don’t ‘do evangelism’, make disciples.

In the West we have been influenced in our epistemology by Plato. It’s all about ideals. the pursuit of knowledge, where we THINK our way into a new way of ACTING. So you go to conferences, uni, read books. But while we may get new thinking, we’re often stuck with the old behaviors.

The Bible never speculates on ontology (who God is and what He does) the nearest we get is Jn 1 – where it tells us he became FLESH anyway. You only get God when you know him through that. The Bible addresses our BEHAVIOURS first, not our ideas. Jesus takes his guys along with him, so they ACT their way into a new way of thinking. Our minds will catch up with our actions. When you address behaviours, you get new thinking. Dont dumb it down – but bring the action to the thinking.

Instead of listing core beliefs and then seeing how firmly people believe them, why not look at observable core practices.

Eg Michael Frost’s church in Australia, lots of young adults. they developed some core values embodied in behaviour

BELLS x 3 

Be a blessing in some way, could be simple or sacrifical. 1 to someone inside the community, one outside it, and one could go either way. To do 3 acts of blessing a week.

Eat x 3. One with community, one with others. One either way. open your home, your house – act of hospitality. You enfold others in. This invites reciprocity! Doesn’t have to be extravagant. Isn’t it interesting how every covenant in the Bible is linked to a meal. We’ve even made the communion a spooky sacrament. How clever of Jesus, who was accused of being a winebibber and glutton to say ‘this is how you remember me.’

Listen x 3. 3 reflective, contemplative prayer times. However you want to, paying attention 3 x 20 mins = 1 hour a week.

LEARN (x 3). With babies, you feed them on the breast, but there comes a point where they learn to make their own food! And feed others. There are lot of people in church, still on the breast. If you’re still breastfeeding at 20, you’re both going to jail. ‘I am well fed at this church’ = I’m dependent on it. Establish learning communities. Go through the gospels, Matthew to John, over and over. Read in various ways and paces. And/or stop reading rubbish:

porn – for men looking at private parts.

Social porn – for women looking at private lives.

People need to repent of both!!

end every day with prayer of Examen; ‘Where did I work with you?’ And ‘where did I resist you?’ Asks where God has been at work and join with him.

learn from each other

learn from teachers.

SENT – be commissioned by one another. Each person prayed for and sent out.

These common practice shape the community. People will come into the kingdom NATURALLY through these practices.

Check ‘On the Verge’ through this.

So…

List your key values

ask – what would it look like to embody them?

Choose a few, and don’t make it religious. Then make an acronym about it. (BELLS? PARTY?). Then roll it out.

We are deeply formed by the reformation. That has shaped our thinking so much. Luther came out of a panic attack and found a holy God. But not that many people in our modern cities are feeling like that every day. We have to make them feel bad about themselves before we make them feel better about themselves. Guilt is one aspect of our lives, but that’s not ALL. What connects for many more would be the call to have no other gods, and repent of your idols; everything that stops you coming to God.

Ask rather: Do you find sex has become a problem- controlled by that? Are you working and working but never happy?

Worship the real God!

Religion isn’t about us it’s about learning to love God with ALL I am, with my sexuality and possessions. All our vices are virtues gone wrong.

Dealing with idolatry is the basis for disciple-making.

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May 28 2012
1 Comment
Bible, Christianity, Faith, Jesus, leadership

@alanhirsch – ReJesus, session 1 at #nwlc12

What does it mean to be apostolic movements?

What’s common in such exponential impacting movements?

Movement thinking = every believer has the potential for world transformation.

That’s the only way to explain what’s happened in China, when the people of God get to play because the clergy were taken out of the way.

This is latent in us, waiting to be recovered.

We are living in ‘The Age of the Unthinkable’

We have to think like revolutionaries again. We’ve been too complacent and need to think like movements. Across Europe, we’ve seen what happens when the church doesn’t.

LEADERS ARE KEYS

Max DuPree; ‘The first task of a leader is to define reality.’

So, you as a leader set the idea for your people to lock or unlock them. You have the keys of the kingdom! (The Pharisees didn’t use them).

How we see things matters immensely.

We all have paradigms. Reality streams at us, our paradigms help us screen them.

Church has a Christendom paradigm. Paradigms shape the way we see. Choosing one deselects the other. The renewal of the church is first of all a reimagining. We need to dethrone Constantine as the emperor of our imaginations!

The church is on the back foot in every western setting as a result of that thinking. We need to rexamine 4 things.

  1. Our Christology
  2. Our Discipleship
  3. Our Mission

4) Our Structures

1. RE:JESUS 

Christology lies at the heart of the renewal of the Church.

If we’re ever unsure what we’re about- we must always go back to HIM. Christianity must manifest Him. cf. Kinnaman & Lyons – ‘Unchristian.’ People think the church doesn’t look like Jesus. If the church isn’t on about what he is on about – what are we doing?!

To the degree we get Jesus wrong, we create a toxic religion that produces

William Temple: ‘If your conception of God is radically false, the more devout you are, the worse it will be for you, better you be an atheist.’ 

It’s not so much that Jesus is like God – it’s that God is like Jesus.

Andrew says, ‘show us the Father!’ Jesus says, ‘I am the manifestation of Him!’

We are CHRISTian people. If we don’t reflect who he is, our legitimacy is in question.

We must radicalise to missionise!

We need refounding. To go back to our founder.

If you have buttoned up your shirt wrong, you have to undo, then redo again. What do we need to redo?

Are people looking at us and seeing Him?

This is a point for calibration.

X – M – E

Our Christology determines our Missiology which forms our Ecclesiology.

Our problem comes when our Ecclesiology comes to incorporate Jesus into itself. We make Jesus like us and domesticate him. Most churches = only about 2% care about mission.

Jesus has been subverted out of his own religion (Jacques Ellul). A lot of people are coming to church and not finding the Nazarene there.

Jesus and religion don’t mix!

Christianity minus Christ = Religion (what he came to save people from!).

The Pharisees had a lot to commend them. Loved scriptures and searched it. Believed in miracles. Prayer. Identity. Tithed.

AND they were the people most responsible for putting Jesus in the cross.

AND they were most like us evangelicals.

The closest party to what Jesus stood for were most responsible for killing him.

Religion kills us.

What would happen if Jesus came to your church?

Would we kill him again? Or run him out of town?

Pharasaism is a disease of faith. We need to be saved from that.

We re-create God in our own image.

The most common image people have of Jesus – is exactly what he wasn’t! He was divine/ordinary. People think he’s anglo-saxon, spooky, glowing, carrying lambs and cuddling kids or a bearded lady, with his sacred heart in his hand. No wonder people run from him. Who’s going to charge for him? Or he’s just the buddy who wants to take you as you are rather than calls you to die.

or the other guy's saying 'Did you drop this?'

Jesus?? No – I get that a lot… 

Dallas Willard says most of us think Jesus is a nice guy, but not very smart.

So – write down everything he says about money. Then go to the financial adviser and ask what he thinks. Who you will you follow?

We choose the financial adviser and end up with a false god.

We make him like us, to affirm what we think and believe.

Who’s the real Jesus?

He’s so much more than what we’ve made Him!

We are entering into a new day, when the church is going to be in the midst of huge crises, we have to do an audit on this question: Do we really reflect Him?

You’re not Jesus – if you think you are, take your pills. But let’s look like Him.

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May 25 2012
Bible, Faith, leadership, REVIVAL

When people say ‘What’s your plan?’ try this answer, ‘I’m trusting God.’

My notes below from a great talk given yesterday by Gary Clarke,  leader of Hillsong London.

We were hosted in Stoke at Breathe City Church, which is led by my mate the fantastic @mrjamesgalloway

We learn through trial & error.

Church growth isn’t one specific thing & if I keep doing that it will grow.

Rick Warren recently said people think of growing church like this… a small church is like a kitten that over time grows into a big lion.

No, it’s an elephant! A different thing all together! (I could reference you back to our itunes page and my talk on this at Ivy AGM in January about church sizes and cultures). 

Reading – 1 Sam 13;  Jonathan & his armour bearer

The Israelis were in a tight spot with nothing going for them.

Ever felt like that?

How do I get out of that?

We have to have that ‘this is what I can see’ – when nobody else can see it.

We have to have that inside of us, even if nobody else can see it I can. The leaders job = see it and get others to see it

Chapter 14 is when Jonathan steps out:  One day Jonathan son of Saul said to his young armour-bearer, ‘Come, let’s go over to the Philistine outpost on the other side.’ 

We are not supposed to be the ones who just camp out and average . Saul represents the average. There had been thousands in the army but they’d declined back and now hundreds of average were gathered under a pomegranate tree. Lots of people had deserted – some went and hid in caves, and some even went to the enemy.

Jonathan started to have something stir..

Vs 4 – he had to go!

Jonathan said to his young armour-bearer, ‘Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised men. Perhaps the Lord will act on our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.’

To do what? Not to fight the whole army but to check out the outpost, 25 men . He said, ‘I’m not sitting around waiting for something to happen.’

Notice that very important word - ’Perhaps..’

‘Do all that you have in mind,’ his armour-bearer said. ‘Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul.’

His armour bearer was with him ‘heart & soul.’ Ok – let’s go out on a limb. If it works we win, if not, we’re dead.

And they fought & won!

In that first attack Jonathan and his armour-bearer killed some twenty men in an area of about half an acre…

THEN. Suddenly!! 

God stepped in. There was panic! An earthquake! Victory!

And then Saul and the average guys, and even the ones who had gone to the pub joined in too.

Let’s start at the end – and work back through the story again.

At the end we have revival. The ones who had disappeared came back – because God had done something.

But…

What got God in?? What got God involved?

We are waiting for him to get in – and he’s waiting for us to give him something to get in on!

Notice the motivation here. When Jonathan speaks to his armour bearer, he says ‘God will bring victory to ISRAEL‘ in other words, it’s not about us.

And the armour bearer never gets named. He was willing to take a place where there is no recognition.

The pressure is on to be a name. We have this desire for prominence.

But when we attempt greater things for God it must be, ‘I’m doing this because.. the people need Jesus!’

God saw two people declaring an intent together to do something risky and he stepped in with them.

The people around you will stop you or propel you.

Question: Do you let other leaders know ‘I’m with you – heart & soul.’ ? 

If I’m going to see it happen, I’ve just got to get the right people around me. They’re not driven by their own agendas. Don’t put people around you who have their own agendas!

But here were just two people with unity – taking the same risk, ‘Trust God or die,’ and God said ‘I can do something with that!’ They did something small, but it was big to God, who sees the heart.

Notice also the armour bearer’s response: ’Do what you think best.’

Not, ‘Did you really pray about that?’

‘Did the elders approve?’

‘What does everyone else think?’

The board – were under the tree! This guy was really with him. We have to build these values into our lives.

Notice, Jonathan never said ‘God said’ – that gets bandied around far too much. And then if you got it wrong, God was wrong!?

No. He just said ‘Perhaps… maybe…’ 

‘Perhaps the Lord…’

Based on what? He was Saul’s son, he would know God was the one who parted the sea, trounced the giants etc. He had this personal conviction, ‘I know God and I know how he works. So I confidently take steps.’

Leader – it’s not the words you speak in vision, it’s the quiet confidence that says to others ‘She knows God, and how He works!’ People follow that.

Meanwhile, average is sitting under a tree praying for a revival. But Jonathan took initiative in the face of challenges.

The truth is, what he did wasn’t outlandish -  a 50/50 chance – but it sure looked like a big thing  to average.

The leader takes initiative but we need the right person followers. Will you follow right? We have to find people who can follow our initiative. Not just take their own.

And we don’t have to know everything first to be action oriented. We have to be able to say about some things – ‘that’s God’s problem.’

When people say ‘What’s your plan?’ try this answer, ‘I’m trusting God.’

The only thing we know about the future is ‘He’s in it!’

The only way we got here is that he got us here!

If you look back at what you came through, the mountains you faced don’t seem big anymore – when you look back at them. They go from insurmountable to insignificant.

This is where faith comes in.

As you take the giant on, he becomes food for you to fight the next one. Every step of the way there are giants and mountains to face! But if we can see the other side, take others with us, we’ll see that change only God can bring!

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Apr 21 2012
Bible, Christianity, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, leadership, Manchester, Men, Religion, Worship

The 5 Questions People Ask Before They’ll Invite A Friend To Your Church

CAN I INVITE MY FRIEND?

Thanks again to Richard Reisling!

Here’s what people ask before hand, before they will ever ask a friend to come along. In other words, if nobody is bringing anyone, here’s why…

Will they feel welcomed? = Hospitality. Whatever your ‘churchmanship/ style’ – the key word would be non -intimidating.

Will they fit in? = Compatibility. People innately pick up on large cultural and social gaps.

Can I feel confident in how the church service will turn out? = Unpredictability. If  those leading the services don’t give some form of consistency (in preaching and worship), I’m not going to invite my friend.

Will my friend get something out of it? = Relevance. How often do your people think, “I wish I’d brought Bill to hear that one…” The more often that happens, the more likely they’ll bring Bill along one week.

Will she understand it? = Comprehension (If an 8 year old can’t understand the sermon, a lot of adults are missing it). That sound too simplistic? Look at the parables – Jesus taught in practical illustrations!

Will anything that can seem strange to the unchurched be explained from scripture? = Interpretation. Are we spiritually sensitive enough that if something happens that would freak people out, some leader the up there will help everyone get a handle on what and why, like Peter did to the Pentecost crowds – ‘This… is that…’

Okay – if you’re involved in leading/ planning church services, give yourself a number on these; 0 —–to ———10. 

Then discuss with others how to improve at least one by a practical change in the next couple of weeks. 

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