Alan Hirsch :: Feeds

the pharisees: them is us

In Matthew 23:29-32 Jesus blasts those who are determined to maintain the illusion that they represent Israel’s righteousness (the pharisees) because of their failure to acknowledge the role of the prophetic in their midst. Here is a powerful series of comments on this text by Stanley Hauerwas in his fantastic commentary on Matthew (highly recommended).

This is a sobering list of failure and judgment, with descriptions of hypocrisy and failure in which we cannot help but see ourselves. It is surely the case, for example, that many are kept from entering the kingdom by the lives we lead as Christians. Our problem is very simple–we simply do not know how to live as a people who believe that Jesus is the resurrected Lord. the joy and freedom that should name the lives of those freed from the demons become lost amid attempts to make our difference depend on matters that do not matter. We become adept at praising the prophets of the past, having lost the ability to discern the prophets among us.

Jesus describes the scribes and the Pharisees as “blind guides”. That they are blind is not unrelated to their desire to be guides. Those who would lead others often fear those they lead, and in particular they fear hurting those they lead. They think it is their task to make the life of those they lead secure. Yet a people who depend on prophets can never live lives of safety. A people required to remember that they area people whose forebears have murdered the righteous cannot live lives of safety. Those who would lead too often must hide from themselves what they know to be true because they think that those whom they lead cannot bear the truth. The blindness of the Pharisees and the scribes is a blindness that threatens the church no less than any people. The only difference between the Pharisees and those who would lead Jesus’ people is that the latter lead a people who have no reason to fear the truth.

Jesus’ condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees is sobering, but we dare not overlook the fact that the criticism Jesus makes of the scribes and Pharisees assumes that the people he is calling to be his church will need to be a people like the Pharisees and scribes. He even says that he will send prophets and scribes to the synagogues and towns of Israel. The church will need persons called to positions that help the church avoid hypocrisy through agents of direction to keep before the church the vision of the kingdom; the church will needs agents of memory to help the church read its scripture and tradition; the church will needs agents of linguistic self-consciousness to guard the church from mental laziness; the church will needs agents of order and due process to isnure unity and encourage participation in the decisions of the church (quote from Yoder, 1984,28-34)

Each of these agents will be tempted to hypocrisy. There is no guarantee that ensures we will lives lives of integrity. Hypocrisy can be avoided only if the church is a community capable of truthful speech. If such a community is missing, then those who would lead are doomed. Jesus’ condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees is severe, [but his]…description of how those called to help Israel live faithfully have come to lead false lives is suffused with pathos. His condemnations are harsh, but what could be worse for the scribes and Pharisees, like any of us, to get the lives they think they wanted.

Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew: Brazos Theological Commentary of the Bible (Brazos; 2006) 199-200

A stroke of (Apostolic) Genius

Missional church requires a missional ministry and leadership system.  For the most part, the Christendom church obscured the need for a fully fledged missional leadership system because the self understanding of the church became fundamentally non-missional. Because all citizens were deemed to be Christians all what was really needed were the pastoral and teaching ministries to care for and teach the congregation. These were eventually instituted as offices in the church and became the principal metaphors for church leadership. The net effect is that the whole system weighted itself in favor of maintenance and pastoral care and that these became hegemonic in practice and therefore and both fragmented and distorted the total mission and ministry of the church in favor of only part of its calling.

A direct consequence of this was that the apostolic, the prophetic, and the evangelistic, ministries and leadership styles were marginalized and effectively ‘exiled’ from the church’s official ministry and leadership. This is not to say that these ministries have totally disappeared. Far from it: many within current and historical church life have exercised these ministries without specifically being tagged ‘apostles’ or ‘prophets’, but by and large these lacked formal legitimacy and recognition and they have tended to be exercised outside of the context of the local church, denominational systems, and seminaries. This ‘exiling’ in part gave rise to the development of parachurch agencies and missional orders, each with a somewhat atomized ministry focus. E.g. the Navigators arose out of a calling to evangelize and disciple people outside of the church structures because the church was not effective (or interested?) in this. Sojourners emerged to represent the social justice concerns that the church by and large ignores. World Vision as an Aid and Development agency, etc. But in these were generally initiated and maintained the APE type leadership styles. This divorce of APE from PT has been disastrous for the local church and has damaged the cause of Christ and his mission.

In order to understand the different nature of each of these ministries we need to briefly explore the core task/functions of each, the effect when it monopolizes and dominates in isolation from the others, and the effect when it is integrated with the other ministries. The easiest way to do this is within a comparative table. It is as follows…

hirschey in ye olde england

Just so that all my English mates are interested, I am coming to England with the Together in Mission folks (a number of events including their summer school) and will be doing something with the Baptists in Bristol. As far as I am away, these are open events. Feel free to contact the folks involved. Info on the WEBA event is here… forgotten-ways-info-form

missional the new emergent?

This blog is part of a global syncroblog of over 50 bloggers initiated by the Blind Beggar. The aim is to explore the current use/overuse/misuse of the term ‘missional’. Actually this is timely because I have been chewing on this for a long time and am increasingly alarmed about the potential damage that can be caused though incorrect understanding and use of the word. I have hesitated to write or blog about this because of the sometimes nasty controversy surrounding the whole ‘emerging church’ phenomenon. But sadly, this controversy is precisely where the blurring is taking place–from both sides of the debate. I certainly don’t want to be seen as further marginalizing a group of brothers and sisters that are searching in some way for a place to stand and for a faith that they can believe in. But I believe that this discussion is now unavoidable.  What triggered this post is a recent conversation that I had with Ed Stetzer. He said to me that he had spoken to Tim Keller and Tim had expressed concerns that missional had become the new emergent and that the term had become almost useless and that we had to now think about discarding it. My reply to him was that I was equally concerned about this and that as far as it depended on me that this would not take place on my shift!!

Words carry meanings and the blurring of words leads to a blurring in clarity and understanding. Biblical truth in particular is inextricably bound to the right use of words as images are often suspect conveyors of truth in Hebraic worldview (see Ellul, The Humiliation of the Word) . Part of the role of theology is to guard the meaning of words–to maintain truthful speech in the community of faith. In light of this, the word ‘missional’ carries a very distinct, and I would argue irreplaceable, meaning/s. Why I am so fussy about this word is because I believe it carries the full weight of the hope for the church in the West. I wholeheartedly believe that the recovery of the missional idea of God and Church is critical to the survival, let alone the growth, of Christianity in the West. Much is at stake here! The reason for this is that ‘missional‘ is a word that gives us a perspective on the very nature of God. It has direct links to the doctrine of the Missio Dei…the understanding that God is a ’sent one’, a missionary–a redeemer by his very nature). This has profound implications for the Church’s fundamental stance in relation to the world in which we are called to live. Missional church requires that we, following the Missio Dei, are in turn a missionary, a ’sent’, people. The church emerges out of the mission of God in the world, not the other way around. The way I phrased this in The Forgotten Ways was to say that “…it was not so much that the church has a mission but that the mission has a church.” Another paragraph from The Forgotten Ways…

Missional church is a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the church’s true and authentic organizing principle is mission. When the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God’s purposes in and through his people. [82]

This is clearly not the same as the core ideas that inform the terms ‘emerging church’ or ‘Emergent’ (the organization that largely represents it in the US at least). Whilst some people in the emerging church are deeply concerned about organizing around missional ideas, And while there are certainly aspects of missional approaches throughout the movement, the same can be said for all churches, including the church growth movement which is is opposed to. in my opinion what is expressed through Emergent, the Alt-Worship movement, and what has been called Post-Evangelicalism, is not by-and-large a missionary movement, but is rather what I would call a renewal movement. That is, as far as I can discern, its primary concerns lie largely in interpreting theology and worship for the post-modern situation. Therefore, for many who can no longer hold to modernist understandings of the faith, it is a deadly serious search for a ‘place to stand and believe’ or else abandon the faith altogether. But at bestthe emerging church movement is about contextualizing theology and spirituality for a particular cultural context at the dawn of the 21st Century. At worst, it is simply a reaction against both Evangelicalism and a Western church captive to a distinctly modernist cultural understanding of itself. And let it be said that I believe that many of its concerns ought to be heeded, although I do believe it sometimes overreaches itself and discards many hard-won, and profoundly significant, theological insights passed on to us in the historical, orthodox, understanding of faith. As for me, I am happy to call the so-called ‘emergents’ friends and fellow travelers, I personally do not feel the need to question the inherited theological tradition as many of its adherents do.

All this to say that I do not believe for a moment that “missional is the new emergent”! Emerging forms of the church must always be subservient to the missional purposes of the church. We can use the term, as I do in my writings, the “Emerging Missional Church”, but the emphasis should always fall on the term ‘missional’. Actual mission must precede any new cultural understandings that the church might develop of itself. The Emerging Church has a certain validity as a renewal movement, but renewal movements come and go, the Missio Dei however, is something that must have abiding implications for the Church’s theology, lest we lose the irreplaceable redemptive core inherent in the Christian view of the world. My advice to ‘emergents’ is therefore, don’t emerge before you have a mission.

And my advice to all you folks on both sides of the debate that mix up the term, be warned! What you are doing is only making it harder for the Church to come to grips with its deepest sense of call and purpose in this time and place–no less! You are therefore mucking around with what could be one of the most significant ideas that the Church has to grapple with if we are going to survive, let alone thrive, in the 21st Century. For God’s sake, be clear in your use of the term or can I suggest that you stop using it.

To guard against a further degrading of the word, I want to suggest (as I did in The Forgotten Ways) that we combine the term ‘missional’ with the associated term ‘incarnational’ to come up with the term missional-incarnational. Its clunky I know, but the combination of these two words I believe captures far more completely a sense of the Church’s deepest theology and missionary calling in the world. It is laden with profound theological, and therefore missiological, meanings. If ‘missional’ carries the sense of being ’sent’, then ‘incarnational’ gives definition to the nature of that ’sentness.’ If ‘missional’ means being thrust into the world as witnesses to the redemption that is in Jesus, then ‘incarnational’ shows us that we ought to engage the world in the same way that God did in and through the Incarnation of the Word in Jesus the Messiah. We must go into the world to reach people, but we ought to stay and abide in order to communicate the Gospel relationally and meaningfully in any given context. Mission always sets our Agenda and Incarnation must always describe our Way.

field of dreams part iv

In passing it is worth noting that one important reason why we should be suspicious of hierarchical top-down notion of leadership is because we know from history and from human nature that institutional systems confer social power and concentrates it at the top. The problem is precisely because of human nature that we should be very wary of such power in human hands. It almost always corrupts and damages the relational fabric that constitutes the church. Very few people can handle it and not be altered by it—perhaps only the great. History is quite clear of that. At least we should learn this from the Lord of the Rings trilogy where the ring of power exercises a powerfully alluring and corruptive power on those who wield it. Besides, the servant/slave image of leadership (dis)qualifies all forms of top-down power leadership and establishes the bottom-up servant approach (Rom.1:1, Tit.1:1, etc.) Jesus could not be more explicit when he says to his disciples, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves” ( Luke 22:25-27.) Snyder is right when he says that “The New Testament does not teach hierarchy as the principle of either authority or organization in the church” and that “Jesus seems to be opposed to both the abuse of power and the hierarchical structure on which (such) power was based.”

But there are powerful metaphors that help us to avoid the alluring notions of top-down coercive power; ones which aid us in understanding our task of creating environments where missional church can arise. At Forge Mission Training Network, we like to think of ourselves as midwives to a new dream. Our stated mission is to ‘help birth and nurture the missional church in Australia and beyond.” And while this describes is our own particular calling, the idea of being midwives is both a very biblical and humane image of leadership and I recommend it to you here as describing the actual mode of leadership which informs all authentic apostolic influence. A midwife aids and assists in the birth of a child. All that he/she makes sure that all the conditions are right for a healthy birth—the birth is the result of things beyond the midwife’s influence. It is interesting that Socrates called himself a midwife and that he saw his role as helping others discover the truth for themselves. This he did by the constant use of questions which drove the learner to their own insights and observations. Jesus is very ‘midwifey’ through his use of questions, stories, and parables.

But perhaps one more image of this quality of leadership is needed to pin this concept down in our minds, and this is the image of a farmer. A good farmer creates the conditions for growth of healthy crops to develop by tilling the soil, replenishing it with nutrients, removing weeds, scattering the seeds, and watering the field. He/she is wide open to natural rhythms of nature which are out of hihe/sher control and so they are reliant on God for the sun and rain. The seed itself, if given the right conditions, will flourish in this type of environment and produce good crops. All that the farmer does is to create the right environment for this mysterious process of life to take place.

Apostolic ministry works in precisely the same way. Paul even alludes to similar organic processes in 1 Cor. 3:5-8 when he says “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field….” In fact the bible is laced with organic images that engender an ‘ecological view’ of church and leadership (seeds, ground, yeast, body, flock, trees, etc.) If we remodeled our leadership and churches with these organic metaphors in mind we would develop a more fertile communal life. And organic view of church is much richer because it is truer to, and more consistent with, the inner structure of life and cosmology itself.

field of dreams part iii

The problem with such forms of CEO-type leadership is that it tends to be disempowering to others, and when, for various reasons, that leader should leave the group; it tends to leave the organization weak and under-developed. This is the very thing that apostolic influence is at pains not to do—rather apostolic ministry calls forth and develops the gifts and callings of all of God’s people. It does not create reliance, but develops the capacities of the whole people of God based on the dynamics of the gospel. In a word it involves empowerment. Jim Collins, in his study of outstanding organizations actually says that dominant charismatic leaders are one of the greatest hindrances to an organization moving from being good to becoming great.

Paul doesn’t seem to be a charismatic leader in Collin’s sense at all. He does not dominate, he is perhaps more parental (he uses images of both father and mother) in the way he works (1Thess.1-2, Col 1:24ff,). In fact in 2Cor.10:1 and elsewhere it seems that he so lacks charismatic ‘presence’ and that he constantly has to affirm his leadership by other means. In their observations about leadership dynamics, Pascale et.al. also note that the impact of adaptive catalytic leadership seems to have little to do with personality, charisma, or style. They point to some leaders in large organizations that could hardly have been called charismatic but who managed to move the organization into higher levels of learning and effectiveness in terms of the stated mission. Rather, they suggest that the adaptive leader works with an organization’s latent appetites which are already present in the organization but await articulation. The leader senses the dormant energy and then catalyzes it. Like seeding clouds with iodine crystals. An adaptive shift comes into existence, not because the leader has all the answers and subsequently rolls them out through the organization. Rather movement and adaptation takes place because of the interplay of sympathetic chords in the environment, the issues of the times, the organization’s members, and “…a leader who can express the challenge in a way that invites others into a dance that is being choreographed as it is performed.” It might be useful to recall the impact that a John Wesley had on his followers, the church, and the broader society around about him. He was a classic adaptive leader. Things just seemed to ‘happen’ because he awakened dreams and impulses that were already latent in the people he led and impacted.

Likewise, all the elements of Apostolic Genius are already there, latent in the very mDNA coding of the church, all that leadership needs to do it awaken under the power of the Holy Spirit. The apostolic leader calls this forth, he/she does not create it. Don’t get me wrong, there is real power and leadership in this, but it is of a different sort than that which the kings of the earth lord it over others (Matt.20:25-28. )

field of dreams part ii

This idea of ‘greatness’ (descibe din previous post) squares with Weber’s explorations on leadership: The ‘charismatic’ leader, in Weber’s thought, is the person who usually leads in times of mission, crisis, or development and always radically challenges the established practices by going to “the roots of the matter.” People follow such a leader because they are carried away by the belief in the manifestation that authenticates him/her and in so doing they turn away from established ways of doing things and submit to the unprecedented order that the leader proclaims. This type of leadership involves therefore involves a degree of commitment on the part of the disciples that has no parallel in the other types of established leadership. Once again, Jesus is our best example. The following he calls for so absolute that it is called discipleship—the process of becoming like him.

Consistent with the people-movement which it serves, apostolic ministry, based as it is on inspirational-spiritual leadership, involves an organic, relational, style of leadership influence that evokes purpose, movement, and response from those who come into its orbit. This is done on the basis of the apostolic person’s discernable calling, spiritual gifting, and spiritual authority. And like all great leadership, it creates a field of influence wherein which certain behaviors take place.

The universe in which we live is filled with fields of influence. Whist being invisible, fields nonetheless assert a definite influence on objects within their orbit. There are gravitational fields, electromagnetic fields, quantum fields, etc which actually form part of the very structure of reality. These unseen influences affect behavior of atoms, objects, and people. But fields don’t just exist in nature and physics; they exist in social systems as well. For example, think about the power of ideas in human affairs—a powerful idea has no substance, but one cannot doubt its influence.

In the last few decades, organizational behaviorists have begun to see that organizations themselves are laced with invisible fields composed of culture, values, vision, and ethics. “Each of these concepts describes a quality of organizational life that can be observed in behavior yet doesn’t exist anywhere independent of those behaviors.” They are invisible forces that affect behavior for good of for ill. We can ‘feel’ the vibe of an organization can’t we? Sometimes in a group of people, we feel obliged to behave in certain ways, even though no one has told us explicitly how to behave. To learn the impact of such fields, just look at what people are doing. They have picked up the messages, discerned what is truly valued, and shaped their behavior accordingly. So when the organizational field is filled with inconsistent messages, when contradictions inform the organizational culture, then invisible incongruities becomes visible through troubling behaviors.

What is remarkable is the entrance of true leadership into such a situation. With inspirational leadership the whole ‘vibe’ changes: things begin to become clearer, competitiveness is diminished, and people feel freer and more empowered to do their tasks and as a result the organization gains focus and energy. The converse is true and obvious: if leadership is or poor quality it creates unhealthy organizations. If it is good it creates healthy organization. We have only to reach into our own experiences to know the truth of this. Such is the power of a person who embodies vision and values—they bring inspiration, coherence, and a sense of direction and purpose to the people in their orbit. Leadership is influence. It is a field which shapes behaviors. This is the basis of authentic spiritual power and authority. Nelson Mandela is a great leader not because he was President of South Africa, but because long before he was president, he was a deeply moral person who embodied his personal code of freedom in his own life. It is the greatness of his life that gives his leadership substance and impact.

To conceptualize leadership as influence, think of a magnet and its effect on iron filings scattered on a sheet of paper. When the filings come into the orbit of influence of the magnet, they form a certain pattern which we all recognize from our school days. Leadership does exactly the same thing—it creates a field which in turn influences people in a certain way, just like the magnet’s influence on the iron filings. The presence of a great leader in a group of people changes the patterning of that group. For instance, Nelson Mandela’s appearance among a group of people will impact them in a significant way. His physical presence will be unmistakable and will change the social climate of the room. Apostolic leadership qualifies the mood of this influence, but the dynamics of influence operates in the same way. It is precisely this field, this matrix of apostolicity that is critical to the emergence of authentic missional church. Because it is the task of apostolic ministry to create environments wherein which the apostolic imagination of God’s people can be evoked, the spiritual gifts and ministries developed, wherein which the love and hope inspired by the gospel can be make known. For instance, John Wimber would have exerted just this sort of influence. Within two decades, Wimber altered the shape of evangelicalism and underscored the role of the Holy Spirit in mission and ministry in a way that has changed us forever. Just as we still feel the influence of a John Wesley even though none of us have met him. Influence is a field that changes behaviors.

Field of Dreams Part i

Having defined the function/roles of the apostolic person, we can now look at how apostolic ministry exerts its influence. Part of the resistance to the reception of apostolic ministry in our churches has been because at times when people who claim to be apostles have assumed that this involved a dictatorial approach to the leadership of the church. All too often, this has resulted in a disempowering of God’s people, and instead of seeing them mature and grow in the faith; they basically remain childlike and powerless, dependent on the autocratic and overwhelming paternal power of the ‘apostle.’ This is both a distortion and misrepresentation of authentic apostolic ministry. Apostolic ministry is authenticated by suffering and empowerment, not by claims of positional leadership with its institutional levers.

In our day I believe that the predominant, top-down, CEO concept of leadership has co-opted the apostolic so that many who claim apostolic title actually function like CEO’s. In the Scriptures the Suffering Servant/Jesus image informs and qualifies the apostolic role, not that of the Chief Executive Officer. Apostolic ministry draws its authority and power primarily from the idea of service, calling, and from moral, or spiritual, authority and not from positional authority. Perhaps a useful way of exploring the nature of apostolic authority is identify the distinctive form of leadership involved and see how this creates authority.

In a relationship based on ‘inspirational’ or ‘moral’ leadership both leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality by engaging each other on the basis of shared values, calling, and identity. It involves a relationship between leaders and followers in which each influences the other to pursue common objectives, with the aim of inspiring followers into becoming leaders in the own right. In other words, influence runs both ways. Inspirational leadership ultimately becomes genuinely moral when it raises the level of human conduct and ethical aspiration of both leaders and led, thus having a transformational effect on both. In this view, followers are persuaded to take action without threatening them or offering material incentives but rather by appealing to their values. They use moral persuasion rather than material reward to influence their followers, appealing rather to higher values and calling. This can be clearly seen in the way Jesus develops his disciples as well Paul’s relationship with Timothy, Titus, and the other members of his apostolic team. But it is forms the basis of his letters to the churches.

Perhaps we can best call this type of influence ‘greatness.’ To be a great leader in this sense is to inspire, to evoke, and to nurture something correspondingly great out of those who follow. Through an integrated life, great leaders remind their followers of what they can become if they too based their lives on a compassionate notion of humanity framed by higher moral vision of the world in which we live. We seldom call a leader with significant technical or managerial ability ‘great.’ We don’t build statues to commemorate great bureaucrats, do we? And it is with understanding in mind that we can identify spiritual ‘greatness’ as the basic substance that provides genuine apostolic form of leadership with its authority. And it is the strongest form of leadership available because it awakens the human spirit, focuses it, and holds it together by managing the shared meaning. Like many leaders in the Chinese underground church, it has the power to hold vast movements together without much external structure. It’s the kind of leadership mythically reflected in the William Wallace character in the movie Braveheart. A man who the people willingly followed, not because they ought, or that he had some official position (he didn’t) but because he reminded them of their right to freedom and helped them obtain it at the cost of his life.

reggie mcneal: after dinner mint

You just gotta love Reggie McNeal. Here’s a video of the winsome southerner wooing a crowd into missional church.

an apostolic job description

At core, the apostolic task is about the expansion of Christianity both physically in the form of pioneering missionary effort and church planting, as well as theologically through integration of apostolic doctrine into the life of the individual Christians and the communities they were part of. But more than that, as custodian of Apostolic Genius, he/she is the person who provides the personal reference point as well as the spiritual context for the other ministries of God’s people.

So I want to suggest that there are three primary functions of apostolic ministry, illustrated as follows…

1. To embed mDNA through pioneering new ground for the gospel and church
As custodian (steward) of the DNA of Jesus’ people the apostle is both the messenger and the carrier of the mDNA of Christianity. As the ‘the one who is sent’ he/she advances the gospel into new missional contexts and embeds the DNA of God’s people into the new churches that emerge in those places. At heart the apostle is a pioneer, and it is this pioneering, innovative spirit that marks it off as unique in relation to the other ministries. “It is of special significance that those entrusted with translocal, apostolic, leadership are pioneers. The church is called to be a dynamic movement rather than a static institution. For that reason, its leadership is to be drawn from those on the front line of the expansion of the church.”

2. To guard mDNA through the application and integration of apostolic theology
But as custodian of the DNA of Christ’s people the responsibility of apostolic ministry does not end with pioneering missionary work. He/she is also mandated with the task of ensuring that the churches remain true to the gospel and its ethos. This aspect of apostolic ministry can be described as creating and maintaining the web of meaning that holds the movement together. Apostolic ministry does this by reawakening the people to the gospel and embedding it into the organizational framework in ways that are meaningful. It is out of this apostolic web of meaning that the movement maintains itself over the long haul. And it’s critical to trans-local mission. Watch what the biblical apostle does; they engage in missionary work, establish new churches, and once established they move off to new frontiers. But they also see it as essential to network the churches and exhort the disciples by traversing between them, cultivating leadership, and issuing guidance to ensure a correct apprehension and integration of the gospel message in the common and individual lives of the hearers. They are quick to weed out heresy and error—removing potential mutations in the mDNA.

All authentic apostolic ministry does this. They are not just hot-headed entrepreneurs; they are also working theologians—or at least ought to be if genuinely apostolic. This impulse to ensure doctrinal integrity is therefore another key characteristic of apostolic ministry, and without it we would not be here today as it forms the basis of the Christian faith. Whilst acknowledging that the unique teaching authority of ‘The Twelve’ was foundational and authoritative and comprises the base theology of the church, apostolic ministry throughout the ages has both these elements in them. Witness the ministry of a Patrick, John Wesley, Ignatius of Loyola, John Wimber, William Booth, William Carey, and the countless un-named apostles of the Chinese underground church, for example, and you will see this dual element of pioneer missionary and working theologian at work.

In light of these comments, we can see how Bishop John Shelby Spong, and his particular brand of DIY/designer Christianity is somewhat of a danger to us today. And am not just trying to be needlessly provocative here—this is a real live issue for us. Designer Christianity is a form of diluted, consumerist, and syncretized faith that, that in my opinion has in the context of postmodern pluralism and relativism, become a genuine threat to the Church in the West precisely because it distances us from the real vigor of our original and primary message. In many ways it has always been one of the major functions of apostolic ministry to keep the Gospel uncontaminated and so preserve it’s saving God-power for future generations (Rom.1:16.) This is just one of the reasons why such ministry is so vital today. There is no doubt in my mind as to how Paul would handle ‘Spongianism’; he would see it as a direct assault on the DNA of the gospel and therefore the church.

3. To create the environment in which the other ministries emerge
Ever wondered why in all the lists of ministries, that of apostle is always explicitly listed first? And why it is considered the most important of the ministries? (1 Cor.12:28f, Eph.4:11.) Or why in Eph. 2:20 Paul says that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets? This is not because of some hierarchical organizational conception of leadership, because such ideas of leadership did not exist in the New Testament movement (see below.) Rather, it is because it is the foundational gift that provides both the environment and the reference point for the other ministries mentioned in Scripture.

New Covenant Ministries International (NCMI) is a mission operating in Western contexts that bases its ministry squarely on this teaching about the foundational nature of apostolic ministry. They claim that they are not a denomination or grouping of churches, they see themselves simply as a group of people committed to advancing the Kingdom of God through mission and networking. They view themselves as a translocal apostolic-prophetic team held together by a common purpose and friendships. But in the process of their ministry they have planted hundreds of churches, network with hundreds more, and are currently working in over 60 different countries. And it only began in the early eighties.

Canadian missiologist Alan Roxburgh rightly says that apostolic ministry is”… foundational to all the other functions.” That is, it initiates the other ones—it constitutes their foundation. From apostolic ministry, the mDNA is embedded and distributed among the various other ministries which form the fivefold ministry of Eph.4—what I will call APEST (apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, shepherding (pastoral), and teaching/didactic.) The founding and developing of APEST is therefore a natural extension of the custodial nature of apostolic ministry. Drawing this out one could say that the apostolic creates the environment for the prophetic; the prophetic creates the environment for the evangelistic, and so on. Using the most comprehensive statement of ministry structure, that of Eph. 4:71-11, it would look something like this…

compelled by love

Here is an interview with my mates Ed Stetzer and Phil Nation about their book Compelled By Love. Its a well written and conceived book, written with a popular audience in mind, and one that takes a rather unique angle on the issue of missiology. To be honest, its not an approach that is normally taken by us males–namely that of love. But that’s exactly what makes it good. We so easily forget what its all about. Read on..

Ed, you have written extensively about contextualization issues. Why write a book about “love” which seems to be a heart issue?
Ed: So much of what is written has only been the objective “How-to” of contextualization. The danger to which many have fallen prey is to do the right thing in ministry without any heart. God reaches out to us because it glorifies himself. His reaching, we are taught in scripture, is done through love.

Give us a sense of what biblical love looks like to you?
Philip: Biblical love is willing to die. Culture paints love as the building up of the heart and the completion of life. The Bible shows that the loving Great Shepherd dies for his flock. Biblical love is heroically sacrificial. It is not the caricature of romance held out to us in romantic-comedies.

How is this book different from what is currently being given to church leaders through conferences and the surrounding literature?
Philip: Most of what is out there is specifically addressed to church leaders. We wanted to give a view of missional living that is accessible to any believer who sits through a worship service.

How has church planting prepared you to address the issue of missional living and its motivation?
Philip: I grew up attending a growing traditional church. It was big, emphasized being big, and wanted to be bigger – but all on its own campus. Planting Lake Ridge Church has been a journey out of the church facility and into the homes of “far from God” people. It completely opened my eyes and heart to being a missionary to friends I’ve made in the neighborhood.

How does love relate to Missiology?
Ed: Without love, churches will not release people to go to the mission field. You have to love God enough to be obedient to him. You must love the world as Christ does in order to die for sin. You must love your neighbor enough to tell them the truth of their sin, aid in their time of need, and walk them (even ploddingly) toward the cross.

Your book has received a wide array of endorsements. Why do you think that is?
Ed: Probably because we begged. No – I think the real answer is because none of us believe we have “home-field advantage” any longer. We greatly appreciate your endorsement, Alan.

But, I think people as diverse as Alan Hirsch, Rick Warren, and Henry Blackaby all realize that the heart of God must be made known in the church (believers) if the mission of God is to move forward in our very spiritually-minded world.

Is this book a break from traditional ministry, contemporary ministry, etc.? I guess what I’m asking is: are you proposing a new paradigm for ministry?
Ed: The easiest answer is that we are proposing a shift back to the original paradigm Christ gave the church. It is the “as you are going” mentality of making disciples rather than the “go over there” and make disciples. Missional living is not specific to a form of worship or liturgy. But it is specific to the attitude an individual Christian or church takes.

exilio: a great resource for missional discipleship

For all those Michael Frost fans, here is a great resource that he and Pete Horsely (Forge NSW director) have worked on. It is a video based guide to the book to be used with with groups. Easy to follow, it is truly an excellent resource for developing missional disciples and mindset. All proceeds go to support the work of Forge NSW.

For non-Aussie or European/UK buyers, just check with Pete whether it will work on your video systems.

ahh, so this is what happened to the boomers

A bit of cultural history taking place before our very eyes…

made to schtick!

Here is a book review on Made to Stick:: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. This is an important book with some real insights for those of us wishing to communicate world changing ideas, organic church, and the Gospel. (HT David Mays)

Why do some ideas hang in your memory like burrs stick to your clothes while others are immediately forgotten? And how can we improve the chances of our ideas catching on? Brothers Chip and Dan provide fascinating success stories that illustrate practical ways to make memorable ideas. Chip is a professor of organizational behavior and Dan is a consultant and founder of Thinkwell, an innovative new-media textbook company. This is a complementary book to The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

Introduction
Some false stories circulate forever. Are they naturally more interesting? Or is it possible to make true and worthwhile ideas spread like these false ones? (5)

Research showed that a regular size bag of movie popcorn had 37 grams of saturated fat. So who cares? But Art Silverman came up with an advertisement showing a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, a Big Mac and fries, and a steak dinner with all the trimmings. Then the announcement followed. One bag or movie popcorn had more saturated fat than all of that! The shock made an impact. (6-7)

The point of this book is to help you to communicate your ideas so that they are “understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact–they change your audience’s opinions or behavior.” (8) These ideas may be the next strategic direction for your corporation or persuading donors and volunteers to participate in your non-profit cause. (9)

The oldest class of naturally sticky ideas is the proverb, an enduring nugget of wisdom. (12)

Six Principles for stickiness:
1. Simplicity. “To strip an idea down to its core, we must be masters of exclusion. We must relentlessly prioritize. Saying something short is not the mission–sound bites are not the ideal. Proverbs are the ideal. We must create ideas that are both simple and profound.” (16)

2. Unexpectedness. “We need to violate people’s expectations. We need to be counterintuitive.” “We can use surprise–an emotion whose function is to increase alertness and cause focus–to grab people’s attention.” “For our idea to endure, we must generate interest and curiosity.” (116)

3. Concreteness. “We must explain our ideas in terms of human actions, in terms of sensory information.” “In proverbs, abstract truths are often encoded in concrete language: ‘A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.’” (17)

4. Credibility. “Sticky ideas have to carry their own credentials. We need ways to help people test our ideas for themselves….” Ronald Reagan asked, “Before you vote, ask yourself if you are better off today than you were four years ago.” (17)

5. Emotions. “How do we get people to care about our ideas? We make them feel something.” “We are wired to feel things for people, not for abstractions. Sometimes the hard part is finding the right emotion to harness.” (17-18)

6. Stories. “How do we get people to act on our ideas? We tell stories.” “Hearing stories acts as a kind of mental flight simulator, preparing us to respond more quickly and effectively.” (18)

The Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something it is difficult to communicate that something clearly, simply, and powerfully to someone who doesn’t know it because we can’t re-create our listeners’ state of mind. We tend to be abstract and abstract doesn’t inspire. (20)

Talking about shareholder value communicates to company leaders but perhaps not to the employees. On the other hand, John Kennedy’s call to ‘put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade’ was a powerful idea that inspired a whole nation to a new level of scientific achievement. (21)

Chapter 1. Simple
“The first step is this: Be simple. Not simple in terms of ‘dumbing down’ or ’sound bites.’” “What we mean by ’simple’ is finding the core of the idea.” (27) ” ‘Finding the core’ means stripping an idea down to its most critical essence.” (28)

Two steps:
1. Find the core
2. Communicate the core using the checklist in this book. (28)

At Southwest Airlines the core is “THE low-fare airline.” (30)

“‘Burying the lead’ occurs when the journalist lets the most important element of the story slip too far down in the story structure. The process of writing a lead–and avoiding the temptation to bury it–is a helpful metaphor for the process of find the core.” (32)

The lead of Clinton’s campaign was “It’s the economy, stupid.” (34)

“Simple = Core + Compact” (45)

“Proverbs are simple yet profound.” A proverb is a short sentence drawn from long experience. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” “The proverb is short and simple, yet it packs a big nugget of wisdom that is useful in many situations.” (47)

“Great simple ideas have an elegance and a utility that make them function a lot like proverbs.” (48)

“People are tempted to tell you everything, with perfect accuracy, right up front, when they should be giving you just enough info to be useful, then a little more, then a little more.” (57)

Avoid the Curse of Knowledge by using analogies. “Skin damage is like aging.” (57) “Substitute something easy to think about for something difficult.” (61)

Chapter 2. Unexpected: How to get people’s attention and how to keep it.
The first problem of communication is getting people’s attention.” “The most basic way to get someone’s attention is this: Break a pattern.” (64) “Our brain is designed to be keenly aware of changes.” (65)

“Surprise gets our attention.” “Interest keeps our attention.” (65)

A television commercial for a new Enclave minivan describes the van’s features as the children look out the window. Suddenly, Wham! the van is clobbered by another vehicle. The commercial is really designed to get you to “buckle up.”

“Surprise makes us pay attention and think. That extra attention and thinking sears unexpected events into our memories.” (68)

Gimmicks don’t suffice. “To be satisfying, surprise must be ‘post-predictable.’ The twist makes sense after you think about it, but it’s not something you would have seen coming.” (71)

“Common sense is the enemy of sticky messages.” (72)

Keep people’s attention with a mystery story. Readers are drawn in as participants in solving the mystery. (80) “Mysteries exist wherever there are questions without obvious answers.” (82)

“‘Curiosity is the intellectual need to answer questions and close open patterns. Story plays to this universal desire by doing the opposite, posing questions and opening situations.’” (83, According to Robert McKee, a screen writing guru)

Curiosity happens when we feel a gap in our knowledge, like an itch. (84) First open knowledge gaps, then close them. Highlight a specific piece of knowledge they are missing, something someone else knows that they don’t. (85) “A little bit of mystery goes a long way.” (87)

“The way to get people to care is to provide context. Roone Arledge, founder of ABC’s Wide World of Sports, began giving background information about the city, the stadium, and the players, to generate interest in games outside the viewer’s locale. (92)

“The idea is that to engage students in a new topic you should start by highlighting some things they already know.” “‘Here’s what you know. Now here’s what you’re missing.’” (92-3)

In 1953, Masaru Ibuka, lead technologist for Sony was unable to convince his company to invest in building a transistor radio that would be the most technologically advanced radio in the world until he sold them on the idea of a “pocketable radio” - a preposterous and surprising but “sticky” idea. (94)

In May, 1961, the U.S. was clearly lagging being the Soviet Union in space. That’s when John F. Kennedy proposed his audacious idea: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth….” “…it will not be one man going to the moon, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.” (96)

Radios were big pieces of furniture, not items to put in your pocket. The moon was something to wish upon, not walk upon. These were audacious and provocative ideas. (96)

Chapter 3: Concrete
The fox who couldn’t reach the grapes concluded they were probably sour. “The concrete images evoked by the fable–the grapes, the fox, the dismissive comment about sour grapes–allowed its message to persist.” (99)

“Language is often abstract, but life is not abstract.” (99) “Abstraction makes it harder to understand an idea and remember it.” (100)

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has helped protect the environment by persuading individuals to buy a piece of land. It produced results “you could walk around on.” (100) Conserving land is an abstraction, but the message of buying a particular piece of land is concrete. (104)

“If you can examine something with your senses, it’s concrete. A V8 engine is concrete. ‘Highway performance’ is abstract. Most of the time, concreteness boils down to specific people doing specific things.” “Concrete language helps people, especially novices, understand new concepts.” (104) “Naturally sticky ideas are stuffed full of concrete words and images….” (106)

“Memory…is not like a single filing cabinet. It is more like Velcro.” “Your brain hosts a truly staggering number of loops. The more hooks an idea has, the better it will cling to memory.” “Great teachers have a knack for multiplying the hooks in a particular idea.” (110-11)

“It can feel unnatural to speak concretely about subject matter we’ve known intimately for years.” “But…our audience will understand what we’re saying and remember it.” (115)

A universal language that everyone understands is concrete. (115) “Concreteness creates a shared ‘turf’ on which people can collaborate.” (122)

It isn’t difficult to be concrete. We simply forget we are being abstract and that others don’t know what we know. (128)

Chapter 4. Credible
“If we’re trying to persuade a skeptical audience to believe a new message, the reality is that we’re fighting an uphill battle against a lifetime of personal learning and social relationships.” (133)

We often impute credibility to authorities: experts and, strangely enough, celebrities. “We trust the recommendations of people whom we want to be like.” (134)

Telling stories using real people is the most compelling way to get people to believe something. (135)

You trust your friend more than you trust an actor on a commercial. “The takeaway is that it can be the honesty and trustworthiness of our sources, not their status, that allows them to act as authorities.” (137)

Messages must also have “internal credibility.” Concrete details often lend credibility to an idea. “By making a claim tangible and concrete, details make it seem more real, more believable.” (138)

“Statistics tend to be eye-glazing.” “Statistics are rarely meaningful in and of themselves. Statistics will, and should, almost always be used to illustrate a relationship. It’s more important for people to remember the relationship than the number.” (141,143)

Best Illustration:
“Stephen Covey, in his book The 8th Habit, describes a poll of 23,000 employees drawn from a number of companies and industries. He reports the poll’s findings:
- Only 37 percent said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why.
- Only one in five was enthusiastic about their team’s and their organization’s goals.
- Only one in five said they had a clear ‘line of sight’ between their tasks and their team’s and organization’s goals.
- Only 15 percent felt that their organization fully enables them to execute key goals.
- Only 20 percent fully trusted the organization they work for. (144)

“Pretty sobering stuff. It’s also pretty abstract….. Then Covey superimposes a very human metaphor over the statistics. He says, ‘If, say, a soccer team had these same scores, only 4 of the 11 players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only 2 of the 11 would care. Only 2 of the 11 would know what position they play and know exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but 2 players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent.” (145)

“The soccer analogy generates a human context for the statistics. It creates a sense of drama and a sense of movement. We can’t help but imagine the actions of the two players trying to score a goal, being opposed at every stage by the rest of their team.” “It’s more vivid to think of a lack of cooperation on a soccer team–where teamwork is paramount–than in a corporation.” (145)

Chapter 5. Emotional
Seeing the masses paralyzes, but one face moves you. (165) People may feel paralyzed by the overwhelming scale of need. Analytical thinking paralyzes. But people are moved by the emotional appeal of one person’s plight. (167)

“For people to take action, they have to care.” “Donors’ respond better to individuals than to abstract causes. You don’t give to ‘African poverty,’ you sponsor a specific child.” (168) “No one wants to donate to the General Administrative Fund of a charity.” “…it’s hard to generate a lot of passion for office supplies.” (168)

“The goal of making messages ‘emotional’ is to make people care. Feelings inspire people to act.” (169)

“The most basic way to make people care is to form an association between something they don’t yet care about and something they do care about.” (173) “We make people care by appealing to the things that matter to them.” (177) This includes self interest or the benefit to them, (178-180) or their desire to accomplish something significant (186-188), or to their ideal identity, what appeals to “people like us” (190-199)

Chapter 6. Stories
“…stories are told and retold because they contain wisdom. Stories are effective teaching tools.” “…the right stories make people act.” (205-6)

Stories are like flight simulators for the brain.” “…the right kind of story is, effectively, a simulation.” “Mental simulation is not as good as actually doing something, but it’s the next best thing.” (213) “The more that training simulates the actions we must take in the world, the more effective it will be. A story is powerful because it provides the context missing from abstract prose.” Stories put “knowledge into a framework that is more lifelike, more true to our day-to-day existence.” (214)

Stories are also inspiring. “Inspiration drives action, as does simulation.” The best Subway commercial was about Jared who actually lost 250 pounds on a Subway diet. It was a great story: simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and a story! (222)

We don’t always have to create the sticky ideas. They are all around us. We have to train ourselves to spot them. It isn’t hard, but it isn’t natural. The Chicken Soup books are all about inspirational stories. The authors spotted and collected them. (114-25)

Epilogue: What Sticks
People remember stories but immediately forget statistics. (243)

“For an idea to stick, for it to be useful and lasting, it’s got to make the audience:
1. Pay attention.
2. Understand and remember it
3. Agree/Believe
4. Care
5. Be able to act on it

These translate into
1. Unexpected
2. Concrete
3. Credible
4. Emotional
5. Story (246-47)

Easy Reference Guide. p. 253 ff.

an evangelical manifesto

I like this document; It describes exactly why I can, and do, self-identify as an Evangelical. Some of the key points in the manifesto are below. However, it can be downloaded, along with a study guide here.

• First, to be Evangelical is to hold a belief that is also a devotion
• Second, Evangelical belief and devotion is expressed as much in our worship and in our deeds as in our creed
• Third, Evangelicals are followers of Jesus in a way that is not limited to certain churches or contained by a definable movement.
• Fourth, as stressed above, Evangelicalism must be defined theologically and not politically; confessionally and not culturally.
• Fifth, the Evangelical message, “good news” by definition, is overwhelmingly positive, and always positive before it is negative
• Sixth, Evangelicalism should be distinguished from two opposite tendencies to which Protestantism has been prone: liberal revisionism and conservative fundamentalism.
• Seventh, Evangelicalism is distinctive for the way it looks equally to both the past and the future.

my article on fivefold ministry in leadership journal

Right on topic and right on time. Here is an article I wrote for the recent copy of Leadership Journal. They did change my emphasis on it being ministry of all believers to being a leadership typology, but they did want to emphasize the leadership aspects. Your comments?

apostolic ministry in denominations??

“The apostolic role within established churches and denominations requires the reinterpreting the denomination’s foundational values in the light of the demands of its mission today. The ultimate goal of these apostolic leaders is to call the denomination away from maintenance, back to mission. The apostolic denominational leader needs to be a visionary, who can outlast significant opposition from within the denominational structures and can build alliances with those who desire change. Furthermore, the strategy of the apostolic leader could involve, casting vision and winning approval for a shift from maintenance to mission. In addition the leader has to encourage signs of life within the existing structures and raise up a new generation of leaders and churches from the old. The apostolic denominational leader needs to ensure the new generation is not “frozen out” by those who resist change. Finally, such a leader must restructure the denominations institutions so that they serve mission purposes.” - Steve Addison

if you want missional church, then…

On with the series of posts on the mDNA of apostolic environment; It is worthy to note again at this point that the church in the West is facing a massive adaptive challenge: positively in the form of compelling opportunity and negatively in the form of rapid, discontinuous change. These twin challenges comprise a considerable threat to Christianity locked as it is into the prevailing Constantinian (Christendom) form of church with all its associated institutional rigidity. We are in a situation of what Roxburgh calls ‘liminality’. Liminality in his view is the transition from one fundamental form of the church to another necessitating the apostolic role. Environments of discontinuous change require adaptive organizations and leadership. As the apostolic role is responsible and gifted for the extension of Christianity, so too the missionary situation requires a pioneering and innovative mode of leadership to help the church negotiate the new territory in which it finds itself. This is clear enough when we consider the Emerging Missional Church which relies heavily on an innovative pioneering spirit and is therefore fundamentally apostolic in nature. But it is equally true for established churches.

The apostolic person’s calling is essentially the extension of Christianity. As such he/she calls the church to its essential calling and helps guide it in into its destiny as a missionary people with a transformative message for the world. All other functions of the church must be qualified by its mission to extend the redemptive mission of God through its life and witness. The apostolic leader thus embodies, symbolizes, and re-presents the apostolic mission to the missional community. Furthermore, he/she calls forth and develops the gifts and callings of all of God’s people. Without apostolic ministry the church either forgets its high calling or fails to implement it successfully. Sadly, in declining denominational systems, such people are commonly ‘frozen out’ or exiled because they disturb the equilibrium of a system in stasis. This ‘loss’ of the apostolic influencer accounts for one of the major reasons for mainstream denominational decline. If we really want missional church, then we must have a missional leadership system to drive it—it’s that simple.

I am well aware of the various reactions that this subject can evoke. This is so partly because of the confusion between the unique role and calling of the original apostles and that of present day apostol-ic ministry i.e. a ministry gifting that further extends and substantiates the original apostolic work but does not in any way alter it. But another reason for negative reaction has been because many who have claimed ‘apostleship’ do it no justice and in the end discredit this vital role. Sadly church history is littered with false apostles.

The only conclusion from the research and study undergirding this book is that apostolic ministry is a distinct element of Apostolic Genius and because of this we need to find a way to understand and re-embrace it if we want to become a genuinely missional church. Quite simply; a missional church needs missional leadership and it’s going to take more than the traditional Pastor-Teacher mode of leadership to pull this off. Leadership always provides a strategic point of leverage for missional change and renewal. If this is conceded, then the question is what type of leadership is naturally follows. The natural answer is missional and therefore must include the idea of the apostolic. We simply have to get over our historical cringe in this matter if we are going to grow and mature as a missional movement (Eph.4:11ff). It no mere coincidence that all the historical denominations have by and large have rejected apostolic leadership find themselves in long term, systematic, decline in every context in the West. This chapter will therefore focus on why apostolic ministry is needed and why it is a irreplaceable aspect of mDNA.

what kind of leadership is this?

Returning to our series on TFW: I want to take up the theme of Apostolic Environment. But before we go there, let me just touch base with the question that started my journey to writing TFW in the first place. Its all about the remarkable Jesus movements of history. Ones that seem to grow exponentially without the normal resources that we take for granted. The question that bugged me then, and continues to do so now, is ‘how did they do it?’ One of the clear answers is that they didn’t do it without significant leadership. But that just merely begged a further question: ‘what kind of leadership?” We have all sorts of leadership and training resources today and yet we are in serious decline. So, what was/is the difference? It’s a good question and it begs an equally good answer in response.

In every manifestation of Apostolic Genius there is a powerful form of catalytic influence that weaves its way through the seemingly chaotic network of churches and believers. There is no other substantial word for this catalytic social power other than to re-invoke biblical language and call it apostolic. And this is not just the power of the gospel/apostolic doctrine (as powerful as that is in sustaining the faith) but also that of a certain category of leadership, namely that of the apostolic person. I can find no situation where the church has significantly extended the mission of God, let alone where the church has achieved rapid metabolic growth where apostolic leadership cannot be found in some form or another. In fact, the more significant the mission impact the easier it is to discern this mode of leadership.

Apostolic leadership, as in all types of influence, is both identified and measured by the effect it has on the social environment in which it operates. And in these terms it is always present in periods of significant missional extension. Such people might not always call themselves ‘Apostles’ but the apostolic nature and effect of their ministry and influence is undeniable.

More soon…

my relationship with marilyn monroe

Well, it all started with my relation to Albert Einstein really. I’ve always loved Bertie, but when my sister-in-law did research, she proved that indeed, I am related to him. Here is the proof…

Now it seems that I am in turn related to Marilyn herself. I couldn’t believe me eyes. But to get the point you have to stand six feet back from the image. Spooky

values mapping: some scary insights

This map is a remarkable visual on the levels of individualism and secularism in various parts of the world. No real surprises, but it is interesting Sweden comes up the highest on both these scores. I was in Sweden over this last week and could not get away from the rather despairing feeling that if something is not done, and soon, we are seeing the last generation of Evangelical belief in that magnificent land. Europe is in deep trouble with the rest of us Westerners not far behind. Your thoughts?

Click on image to enlarge…

(The source of the map is from the World Values Survey)

interview with christianity today

Here is an interview I did for Christianity Today.

BTW, I apologize for not being able to blog as regularly as I would like to. My life has taken a decidedly busy turn and I find myself unable to get to the small and basic things. Not prouid of it, simply apologizing.

in memoriam

Having been on the road and not having access to the internet, I missed Holocaust memorial day. With the new rise of antisemitism and the British educational system removing references to the holocaust because it offended the delicate sensibilities of Islamic students, I feel that it is necessary to constantly remember, not just as a Jew, but because remembrance is an intrinsic part of biblical faith–we are so tied to history. Let us remember!

the multiplying church

I just got my hard copy of The Multiplying Church, by my good friend BobBob (Bob Roberts Jr.). I wrote the foreword for it and it is genuinely a good book by a great dude. Here is my foreword….

It was bono who once said, “”Dream up the world you want to live in. Dream out loud at high volume”. But it could easily have been Bob Roberts, the big-hearted, vision-on-steroids, huggy-bear, Texan who actually have ushered these words into the world. They just seem to fit the inimitable Rev. Dr. Bob Roberts Jr.. And boy, is he dreaming up a world for us to live in! Its called Glocal Transformation, and you had better hold on to them hats, because Bob’s vision is as big as it is stirring. And talking of Bono, the similarities are worth noting at this point because as far as I can predict, Bob’s ministry trajectory is increasingly taking him along similar paths of glocal nation-building and peace-making in the name of Jesus.

In his first book Transformation, Bob set out a vision for a discipleship that has the world, as well as the local church, in mind. His belief is that the transformed human must lead to a transformed humanity. As I see it, the primary focus in that book remained on the individual, but nonetheless he constantly pointed the reader outward to the world beyond the local church, city, and nation, to what he calls the Glocal world—the highly interconnected reality that all of us now have to live in. In Transformation, Bob envisioned a new way of engaging the Glocal to achieve glocal transformation. He rather cleverly called it “domain jumping” and it involves the willingness to join the Kingdom agenda within the different domains of life (e.g. education, politics, religion, economics, art, etc.) and not limit mission and ministry to the religious, or churchly, sphere. In Bob’s vision of the church, mission always seems to involves a seriously expansive agenda.

In his next book Glocalization, Bob developed these ideas further but focused the reader on the radically changing social, political, economic, and cultural, patterns of the world in which we are all called to live and love in. Drawing inspiration from early church history and the emerging church, and the church in the developing world, he called us to reconstruct a new missional operating system rather than a church program. He proposed ten major glocal issues that demand our attention: communicable disease, hunger, water and sanitation, corruption, migration and refugees, climate change, education, armed conflict, economy, and trade subsidies? Clearly in Glocalization Bob’s agenda has now moved beyond the narrow concerns of “the church” to that of God’s world in all its complexity.

In this book (The Multiplying Church) he lays out not only a vision of a multiplying (and multipli-able) church that can operate effectively in the Glocal context. And this turning of his attention to church planting movements has certain missional logic to it. For God’s church, when it is true and faithful, is by far and away the most powerful agent for the transformation of the world in human history. It is the next, and necessary, piece in the equation. But this is not just theory; Bob is at pains to suggest very practical ways in which we can actually begin the journey toward multiplication church planting. And make no mistake; we have a way to go in this regard. Most churches in the West are beginners when it comes to church planting, let alone in its exponential form. We know from history and experience that a genuine encounter with Jesus result the activation of people-movements that get to change the world. If we wish to transform this complex, glocalized, world in which we live, then multiplication church planting must become a vital part of the missional equation. There can be no dodging here: The 21st Century absolutely requires that we adopt a movement ethos and approach, and The Multiplying Church is Bob Robert’s valuable contribution to the missional agenda of God’s people in God’s Glocal world. We are in real need his guidance.

But what intrigues me the most, and what is perhaps of most importance in the work of Bob Roberts, is that the man himself is well worthy of study and emulation. Bob has an innate capacity to accumulate very important ideas and reconfigure them in ways that the average person can grasp. Make no mistake; he is a very well read, intelligent, “domain jumper” theologian himself. I have had wonderfully wide-ranging discussions with him on numerous occasions and he is disarmingly bright. But intellect aside, what is really distinctive about him is that as a genuine practitioner he does not stop at the ideas-in-themselves. His more primal instincts (thank God) are application as well as demonstration; and it is here where he makes his greatest contribution. He is a genuine apostolic pioneer—the real deal.

Quite honestly, it is exceedingly hard to find anyone comparable with Bob Roberts in the world today. Where does one find a charming, unsubtle, Texan engaging really effectively where experienced, delicately nuanced, diplomats fear to tread? Which Southern Baptist preacher do we know of that gets to meet prime ministers, presidents, warlords, political dissidents, mullahs, communists, or whatever, and somehow bring them together around tables to talk peace and justice? Which local pastor anywhere is involved in “nation-building” (his phrase) in ways that he is? And where do we find a paid-up conservative Evangelical like Bob addressing the glocal issues listed above with such practical, all-encompassing, compassion? And all this whilst at the very same time keeping the living message of Jesus, as well as active missionary church planting, at the center in the equation?

I ask again, who goes where Bob goes and who does what he does? And with the silence that flows from that question I rest my case: the man is worth listening to because God is doing something unique in and through him. We must pay attention.

BTW, Bob is blogging the contents of the book over at his site at glocal.net

my red bull addiction exposed…

Check this out.