Hi all.

This is just a note to say that I am going to take some time away from the blog. 

Reason: #1 I have too many lines in the water and I'm getting confused.  Not hard for a mere male who has problems multi-tasking.

Reason #2 I am a tad weary of too many writing projects and I don't feel I am doing a good job of the blog at the mo.  I don't want to make it anything less than a zesty blog, and it ain't that at the moment.

BUT, I am very active on Facebook ( or just dig out alanhirsch) and on Twitter (alanhirsch) and we have good conversations there, so come and join me there.  When I get some space and energy I'll fire the ole blog up again.  Debs is also being slack with her/our personal blog but will be cooking up some hot conversations closer to release of Untamed, so keep looking at A Taste For The Other. Debs can be found of FB by seaching debhirsch.  We both live in California.

Meanwhile, thanks a ton for being fantastic conversationalists.  Come and join the FB and Twitter mini-conversations (I must be getting more shallow eh?).

Before I sign off for now, just to let you know that the mPULSE test is about to go live.  I am very excited about this.  Its an online test that can be used to measure general missionality in a group/organization/church, but it is designed specifically for those exploring The Forgotten Ways approach to movements.  It measures the six elements of mDNA in a system.  Try it out here....And don't forget to check the Handbook out too.

Between rebellion and obedience lies the sloth of disbelief. Many spend our lives here, indecisive [Joshua 24:14 - 15], “hopping between two opinions” [1 Kings 18:21], at the gate but not going through it [Matthew 7:13 - 14], hearing the word but not doing it [7:21 - 27], forgetting who we are [James 1:22 - 25], “neither hot nor cold” [revelations 3:15], not actively obeying and thus passively disobeying.
-  Telford Work, Deuteronomy, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible, 41

Kurt Fredrickson and I are teaching our course THE LOCAL CONGREGATION AS A
MISSIONAL OUTPOST in Hawaii November 8-13. This class is for Fuller Doctor
of Ministry students and it is also available to pastors as a week long
continuing education event.  If you are interested contact Julia at
dmin-office@fuller.edu or 626 584 5315.

This is a great class exploring ways in which real, tangible, local
congregations can contribute to the good in their neighborhoods. This course
is about taking the gospel into the streets. It is about being a different
type of church.

This is an excellent artcle by Jim Collins ripped from his website >>>>>>

Almost by definition, an enduring great company has to be built not to depend on an individual leader, because individuals die or retire or move on. What's more, when a company's identity can't be separated from the identity of its leader, it can't be known for what it stand for. Which means it sacrifices the potency of being guided by its core purpose.

So the charismatic-leader model has to die. What do you replace it with? The task that the CEO is uniquely positioned to do: designing the mechanisms that reinforce and give life to the company's core purpose and stimulate the company to change.

Building mechanisms is one of the CEO's most powerful but least understood and most rarely employed tools. Along with figuring out what the company stands for and pushing it to understand what it's really good at, building mechanisms is the CEO's role—the leader as architect.

The old role is still seductive, though. Past models have glorified the individual leader, especially when he or she was an entrepreneur. And charismatic-style CEOs understandably find it hard to let go of the buzz that comes from having an intense, direct personal influence. But a charismatic leader is not an asset; it's a liability companies have to recover from. A company's long-term health requires a leader who can infuse the company with its own sense of purpose, instead of his or hers, and who can translate that purpose into action through mechanisms, not force of personality.

However hard the transition to architect might be, there are three issues, affecting every CEO, that encourage it—and eventually may even force it. One: time for creativity. Two: time span. And three: scale.

First, let's discuss creativity. As personally energizing as it is to have an effect on an employee and to touch his or her life, it's so energy absorbing that you're never left with enough time or spirit for real creative reflection or real creative work. Which is what mechanism building should be. The absence of that time is one great source of burnout.

The second concern is time span. Clearly, building a mechanism will have a much longer-lasting effect than leading by virtue of your presence. A mechanism doesn't depend upon you. If a truck hits you tomorrow, the mechanism will still be there.

The last concern, scale, is the most crucial. You can't build something really big just on charisma alone. At some point the scale is too great; you can't reach that many people. If you want something to really grow over time, you've got to build mechanisms that can touch everybody every day. What you get in the end is more reach, more power, the ability to affect more people. It's a leverage game

Here are insights from the book The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It by Paul Collier brought to us by David Mays.
 
Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, and former director of Development Research at the World Bank.  This book is based on a great deal of research.  According to Collier the world consists of 5 billion well off or rapidly getting there and 1 billion falling further behind.
 
Since 1980 world poverty is falling for the first time in history.  Most people are escaping poverty but a few countries, caught in four distinct traps, are not only falling behind but falling apart.  Aid does not work well in these places but there are things we can do.  Change must come from the bottom and primarily from within.  But neglect will pose a security nightmare for the world of our children.  (Preface)
 
[It was easier for me to understand the problems than the recommendations because the economics is a bit beyond my ken.  Therefore there are more notes on the situation than on Collier's proposals.  Dlm]
 
Chapter 1.  Falling Behind and Falling Apart: The Bottom Billion
The third world has shrunk and the real challenge is the countries at the bottom.  Aid is a development business by the big aid agencies, who don't find it safe and productive to live and work in the most difficult countries.  And it is development "buzz" generated by rock stars and celebrities with simple messages, slogans, images, and anger, sometimes characterized as "heart with no head."
 
But at the bottom the villains have the guns and the money and they usually prevail.  With hard work, thrift, and intelligence a society can climb out of poverty unless it gets trapped.  The four big traps are 1) conflict, 2) natural resources, 3) being landlocked (with bad neighbors), and 4) bad governance.  (5)
 
Seventy percent of these one billion are in Africa.  Collier refers to the problem as Africa +.  The + includes places like Haiti, Bolivia, the Central Asian countries, Laos, Cambodia, Yemen, Burma, and North Korea. (7)  These countries are small. Life expectancy is 50 years.  Infant mortality is 14% and long-term malnutrition is 36% (7-8)
 
The middle 4 billion have experienced rapid and accelerating growth.  (8)  The bottom countries are poorer than they were in 1970. (9)
 
China and India, who were poorer than many of these countries, broke free in time to penetrate global markets. (10)
 
"To my mind, development is about giving hope to ordinary people that their children will live in a society that has caught up with the rest of the world.  Take that hope away and the smart people will use their energies not to develop their society but to escape from it--as have a million Cubans." (12)
 
"Change is going to have to come from within the societies of the bottom billion, but our own policies could make these efforts more likely to succeed, and so more likely to be undertaken." (12)
 
Part 2  The Traps
Chapter 2. The Conflict Trap
73% of people in the bottom billion countries are in a civil war or have recently been through one.  (17)  Civil war reduces income and low income increases the risk of civil war. (19) Low income means poverty and low growth means hopelessness and available young men.  When the economy is weak the state is weak and rebellion is easier.  Sometimes rebel movements get finances from resource exporters in return for future deals.  (21)
 
"Rebels usually have something to complain about, and if they don't they make it up.  All too often the really disadvantaged are in no position to rebel: they just suffer quietly." (24)  Little relationship has been found between the risk of civil war and political repression or intergroup hatreds or income inequality or colonial history.  There is some relationship to particular patterns of ethnic diversity.  (25)
 
A civil war doubles the risk of another civil war.  "Civil war is development in reverse."  (27)  "Both economic losses and disease are highly persistent: they do not stop once the fighting stops." (28)  Usually there is a further deterioration in political rights.  "A rebellion is an extremely unreliable way of bringing about positive change." (28)  "The foot soldiers of rebellion, often do not have much choice about joining the rebel movement." (28)  "Gradually the composition of the rebel group will shift from idealists to opportunists and sadists." (30)  The kind of people most likely to engage in political violence are the young, the uneducated, and those without dependents. (30)
 
95% of global production of hard drugs comes from conflict countries.  Conflict provides territory outside government control for illegal activities to operate.  (31)
 
Three economic characteristics make a country prone to civil war: low income, slow growth, and dependence upon primary commodity exports. (32)  "Civil war leaves a legacy of organized killing that is hard to live down.  Violence and extortion have proved profitable for the perpetrators.  Killing is the only way they know to earn a living.  And what else to do with all those guns?"  (33)    
 
Chapter 3.  The Natural Resource Trap
Paradoxically, the discovery of valuable natural resources in the context of poverty constitutes a trap.  It often results in misuse of its opportunities in ways that make it fail to grow and results in stagnation.
 
Societies at the bottom are frequently in resource-rich poverty.  "The heart of the resource curse is that resource rents [rents = excess of revenues over all costs] make democracy malfunction."  (42)  "Oil and other surpluses from natural resources are particularly unsuited to the pressures generated by electoral competition." (43)   In the presence of large surpluses from natural resources autocracies produce much more growth than do democracies.  When there is plenty of money, leaders tend to embezzle funds, spend on large, pet projects and buy votes through contracts.  The corrupt win the elections.  Resources reduce the need to tax, undercut public scrutiny, erode checks and balances, and leave electoral competition unconstrained where parties compete for votes by patronage. (46)  Alternatively restraints raise the return on investment. (48)
 
Autocracies work with little ethnic diversity.  Diversity tends to narrow the support base of the autocrat and requires greater income distribution to the autocrat's group.  (49-50)  "Becoming reliant upon the bottom billion for natural resources sounds to me like Middle East 2." (52) 
 
Chapter 4.  Landlocked with Bad Neighbors
Geography matters.  Landlocked countries must export to neighboring countries or through their infrastructures to the coast.  Uganda is poor and Switzerland is rich because they are dependent upon their neighbors.  All countries benefit from the growth of their neighbors but resource-scarce landlocked countries must depend on their neighbors for growth. This includes about 30% of Africa.
 
Chapter 5.  Bad Governance in a Small Country
Terrible governance and policies can destroy an economy with alarming speed.  Note President Robert Mugabe.  Governance matters, conditional upon opportunities.  Differences in opportunities can make a big difference.  Countries who have done better since 1980 have generally exported labor-intensive manufactures and services.  The government simply has to avoid doing harm.  Exporters need an environment of moderate taxation, macroeconomic stability, and a few transport facilities.
 
Why is bad governance sometimes so persistent?  Because some benefit.  The leaders of many of the poorest countries in the world are themselves among the global superrich.  They like it that way.  Many of them are simply villains.  But beyond villainy, there is a shortage of people with the requisite knowledge, brave reformers get overwhelmed by the resistance, and there is often not much popular enthusiasm for reforms.
 
Recent failing states include Angola, the Central African Republic, Haiti, Liberia, Sudan, the Solomon Islands, Somalia, and Zimbabwe.  The Democratic Republic of the Congo is borderline.  (69)
 
Turnarounds are rare because reformers are often suppressed and in danger.
 
Three characteristics encourage a turnaround: larger populations, higher proportion of people with a secondary education, and recent emergence from a civil war. (70)  Whether the state was a democracy or granted political rights did not seem to matter.  The impetus for change must come from the heroes in the society. (71)  The probability for a turnaround in any given year is 1.6%, so they are likely to stay as failing states for a long time.
 
Characteristics likely to help outside interventions to work:
higher income
larger population
greater proportion of population with education
Interventions less likely to work if
leader has been in office a long time
the country experiences a favorable shift in trade, and
if it recently emerged from a civil war  (72)
 
Part 3.  An Interlude: Globalization to the Rescue?
Chapter 6.  On Missing the Boat: The Marginalization of the Bottom Billion in the World Economy
It is not impossible, but difficult to escape from the black hole.  Globalization is helping the developing world grow faster than the developed countries, but it is causing the bottom countries to fall further behind because of global trade (to others), the flow of capital (out) and the migration of people (out).
 
In the past four years the average country of the bottom billion has at last started to grow, but at a slower pace than the other developing countries.  This means they will fall further behind.  (95)  "Let me be clear: we cannot rescue them.  The societies of the bottom billion can only be rescued from within." (96)
 
Part 4.  The Instruments
Chapter 7.  Aid to the Rescue
"Aid alone is really unlikely, in my view, to be able to address the problems of the bottom billion, and it has become so highly politicized that its design is often pretty dysfunctional."  (99)  "Aid does tend to speed up the growth process."  (100)  "The statistical evidence generally suggests that aid is subject to what is called 'diminishing returns.'  That is, as you keep on increasing aid, you get less and less bang for the buck…  When it reaches about 16 percent of GDP it more or less ceases to be effective." (100)
 
"The world has already conducted a natural experiment in giving the countries of the bottom billion a huge injection of budget support.  It is called oil." (101)  Nigeria, for example, has very little to show for it.  Well-intentioned support for the desperately poor country of Chad is likely to end up largely financing the army. About 40% of Africa's military spending is inadvertently financed by aid.  (103)  The allocation of aid goes far too much to the middle-income countries rather than the bottom. (104)
 
Aid as technical assistance can be of help in turning around failing states. (115)  When the opportunity for turnaround arises, It requires a lot of technical aid to help implement reform and then later, money for the government to spend. (116)  While most such efforts will fail, a few winners will make it overall worthwhile. (117)
 
Chapter 8.  Military Intervention
Military intervention has an important place.  Their own military is more often part of the problem than a substitute for external forces.  Besides expelling a foreign army (as in Kuwait), there are three important roles: "restoration of order, maintaining postconflict peace, and preventing coups." (124)
 
After success in Kuwait we intervened in Somalia.  The dramatic reports of 18 deaths in 1993 resulted in our pullout.  Armies cannot function at zero risk.  After the U.S. pull out, by 1995, more than 300,000 people died.  Since then we have no estimates.  After that we didn't intervene in Rwanda in 1994 when another half million died.  "So we should intervene, but not necessarily everywhere." (128)  "It would be relatively easy to make coups history.  We just need a credible military guarantee of external intervention." (131)
 
"The militaries of the bottom billion are running an extortion racket and our aid programs are the victim." (134)
 
Chapter 9.  Laws and Charters
There are strikingly cheap and include both our own laws and international norms.  For one thing, western banks provide safe haven for the criminals from the bottom.  Most conduct is guided by voluntary norms enforced by peer pressure than by laws.  An international charter gives people something very concrete to demand.  (143)        
 
Chapter 10.  Trade Policy for Reversing Marginalization
"Trade policy is unusually difficult for people to understand…."  (159)  "Rich-country trade policy is part of the problem."  "We waste our own money subsidizing the production of crops that then close off opportunities for people who have few alternatives." (159)  "It is stupid to provide aid with the objective of promoting development and then adopt trade policies that impede that objective." (160)
 
Part 5.  The Struggle for the Bottom Billion
Chapter 11.  An Agenda for Action
Brave people in these societies struggle for change but the odds are against them.  Of the four instruments -- aid, security, laws and charters, and trade -- we are using the first quite badly and the others scarcely at all.  (176)

This is a book review on David Boyd's You Don't Have to Cross the Ocean to Reach the World: The Power of Local Cross-Cultural Ministry. HT to David Mays >>

David Boyd is a New Zealander who came out of New Life Center in Christchurch, New Zealand to start a church in Cabramatta (Sydney, Australia), perhaps the most multicultural local region in the world.  This is a dynamic multicultural church of 500 made up of more than 82 different ethnic groups.  David has traveled and ministered in many countries.
 
Boyd says missions should primarily be a function of the local church, not mission structures.  Churches should be multicultural.  Then the Gospel can cross cultural barriers within the church and bicultural people can be prepared to take the Gospel back to their ethnic groups in their homeland.  This is how the Great Commission can best be carried out.  [You probably have an immediate response to this.  How does your response change after you've finished the notes? dlm]
 
Although multiculturalism is accelerating, only 7.5% of the 300,000 churches in America are racially mixed.  (Foreword)
 
Introduction
The 21st century is characterized by movement from villages to cities, population decline in the developed world, and migration from underdeveloped to economically developed countries.  Migration is changing the face of the world.  People from all over the world are moving to the cities.  Most will be the "urban poor."  Therefore reaching the urban dweller is both the greatest challenge and the key to effectively fulfilling the Great Commission. (17-18)
 
Mission is not so much about sending people to the mission field as "enabling the Gospel to move across cultural barriers and take permanent root in other cultures." (20)  "The key to reaching the nations is first to reach the stranger who dwells among us.  This gives us the opportunity to develop connected communities that can cross any political, linguistic or geographical barrier." (23)
 
Mission is not so much people going to another country as it is the movement of the Gospel across cultural barriers.  (27)  Monocultural people have difficulty separating their culture from the Gospel.  This increases barriers to the gospel.  Bicultural people are better equipped to minimize the cultural baggage.  (29-30)
 
The only example of E2 or E3 evangelism in the book of Acts is Peter's visit to Cornelius.  And he was a very reluctant missionary who quickly returned home.  It seems the early Church impacted the world significantly using only E1 evangelism.  (32-3)
 
The Samaritans had many common cultural values with Jews that allowed the Gospel to penetrate with relative ease.  This community was impacted by Philip, a Hellenistic Jew.  (34)  Each of the documented cases of the Gospel crossing a cultural barrier involved a Hellenistic Jew.  (37)  The Hellenistic Jews understood Greek culture.  They had bicultural abilities.  By contrast most Western missionaries are monocultural.  (40)
 
The disciples were focused on a kingdom in which they would rule.  Beyond that they were focused on their own people, Israel.  They had a strongly monocultural worldview.  The Church built a community of strong relationships that flowed into caring and sharing.  But they did not focus on reaching the nations.  The first breakout came from persecution that unintentionally started the spread of the Gospel.
 
By contrast the church in Antioch was birthed out a people movement. (75)  It was a multicultural church and the leaders had a visionary attitude that intentionally responded to the mandate.  The leaders were predominantly Hellenists, not Hebraic Jews.  Intentional mission was initiated.
 
This church "created an environment where the ethne of the world and the church collided." Its multicultural leadership initiated a mission thrust to the whole Roman Empire. (82)
 
"This preoccupation with building ethnic churches and congregations has markedly reduced the availability of bicultural people within our churches."  When we do encourage immigrants to become part of an existing church, we fail to take into account the issue of the existing church culture.  Immigrants may feel marginalized and not fully part of the church.  To integrate may cost them their own ethnic identity.  By contrast, the Antioch church embraced many ethnic groups.  Multicultural leadership attracted bicultural people.  "The multicultural church has the greatest ability to develop bicultural people…." (94)
 
"In our missions today, we tend to send potted plants rather than transplants." (97)  By contrast, like Ruth, we are called into a new community and asked to identify with it totally.  If we have the attitude that we will go home when the job is done, we will never fully belong to the community.  (98)
 
Mathew 28:19 is telling us to go culturally, not geographically.  "God intends everyone to move out of his or her ethnic group."  (102)  The church is a family that functions with family values, rather than an institution with institutional values.  This makes a big difference in how we do discipleship.  As children live in families, they naturally pick up the values of that family. (103)  Discipleship is relational more than instructional.
 
"So when Jesus told His disciples to go and make disciples, they knew exactly what they were to do.  They were to go and find others and make them a part of their family, to fully involve them in their lives and have them eat with them, travel, with them, go on holiday with them and become their brothers and sisters.  This was how they were discipled…."  (105)
 
"If we really wanted to obey the Great Commission, we would build multicultural churches in which cross-cultural communication would happen naturally." (106)
 
"God expects every believer to be involved and has made cross-cultural discipleship available and attainable to all."  (106)
 
"…missions should primarily be a function of the local church, not the mission field, and that the raising up of bicultural people for the purpose of fulfilling the Great Commission should be our major focus…." (107)
 
"We need to understand the motive content of people's perceived call.  The issues revolve around 'my' call and 'my' destiny, which is an individualistic Western cultural response."  "…but we need to remember that the primary issue is not 'my' call or 'my' destiny--it is that the unreached be reached!" (109)
 
Many monocultural people sense a call or burden for an ethnic group.  They assume God wants them to be "missionaries."  But they may not be equipped to be effective and we send them out to see them struggle.  Perhaps the better role would be to work with those who are potentially bicultural in our community, to invest in the lives of people who can go into cross-cultural situations.  (109-10)
 
"Paul…wanted to build visionary churches that would become launching pads for further Christian ministry to the province and beyond."  He focused on Greek cities where new ideas were accepted in a melting pot of people.  His goal "was to establish key centers in an area and then release their members to accomplish the task of evangelizing from that location." (114)
 
He focused on the Jewish community first, the places God had prepared, then the gentile proselytes, and third the gentile God-fearers.  This latter group was the most open to Paul's' message.  (119-20)
 
Paul was supported by the churches he planted, not - so far as we know - from the churches that sent him.  There was no financial dependency on the sending church.  (125, 126)
 
We have all the people groups of the known world in our cities.  The key is to embrace these strangers.  "We need to develop a biblical understanding and attitude to the 'stranger' among us."  (129)
 
People gather in situations where they feel welcomed.  We need to genuinely seek the welfare of these people as the Scriptures teach. (131)  We can tell how well we are doing by their desire to be part of us.  The principle of family says if we build genuine family relationships with the foreigners in our midst, we will see them integrated into our churches.  Family takes priority. (132)
 
"God wanted the stranger to be influenced by the values He placed in the Jewish nation.  Through this contact they would see the enormous blessings and benefits these values offered and would embrace them by becoming part of the inheritance of God in Israel.  Then they might return to their own land and influence the nations with these same values." (134-35)
 
"The New Testament teaches that our ethnicity is not to be a reason for creating division.  Rather, the gathering together of many races within the church is an incredible declaration of the redemptive plan of God and is the greatest visible expression of unity the world can see." (140)
 
"The most vital factor in fulfilling the Great Commission is not the mission machinery but the local church.  Until the Church takes seriously Jesus' mandate to reach all ethnic groups, and sees this as its main task at home, we shall never get the job done." (148)
 
"The local church must take ownership…to reach all ethnic groups within its sphere of influence." (149)  "The Church must effectively include people of diverse ethnic backgrounds." (149)
 
This kind of church will produce passionate bicultural Christians and take the Gospel across cultural barriers within the church and then into the immigrant cultures around us.  And bicultural Christians will be prepared to take the Gospel back to their own people group. The Gospel will spread naturally down kinship lines.  (150)  The Gospel will be much more readily received from 'insiders' than from 'outsiders.' (153)
 
Because there are representatives of any given ethnic group in many cities around the globe, the Gospel can move from the "rim" of these cities to the "hub," or homeland, of an ethnic group.  (154)  "We have found that immigrants have a passion for their people and are prepared to take the Gospel back to their countries.  Some go permanently, while others travel home to build up the church…." (156)

Folks, I have not posted for two weeks!! Reason?  I am homeless vagabond mooching around Melbourne without a computer to call my own.  I have not had a lot of time and opportunity to post.  I hope you will forgive me.  We return home early next week, so the blogging-malaise will continue. 

Stay true!

A

Sorry all for being so absent.  I am visiting my homeland and am a busy boy...think about having 16 Christmas DAys in a row and you you will get close to the experience!!  Anyhow, I have neglected my blogging duties and I hope you forgive me. 

Recently I got this manifesto developed by two friends Len Sweet and Frank Viola.  If you have read mine and Mike Frost's new book reJesus, then you will understand why I put it here.  I sign!

A Magna Carta
for Restoring the Supremacy of
Jesus Christ
a.k.a.
A Jesus Manifesto
for the 21st Century Church
by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola
 
Christians have made the gospel about so many things … things other than Christ.
Jesus Christ is the gravitational pull that brings everything together and gives them significance, reality, and meaning. Without him, all things lose their value. Without him, all things are but detached pieces floating around in space.
It is possible to emphasize a spiritual truth, value, virtue, or gift, yet miss Christ . . . who is the embodiment and incarnation of all spiritual truth, values, virtues, and gifts.
Seek a truth, a value, a virtue, or a spiritual gift, and you have obtained something dead.
Seek Christ, embrace Christ, know Christ, and you have touched him who is Life. And in him resides all Truth, Values, Virtues and Gifts in living color. Beauty has its meaning in the beauty of Christ, in whom is found all that makes us lovely and loveable.
What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christianity is not an ideology. Christianity is not a philosophy. Christianity is the “good news” that Beauty, Truth and Goodness are found in a person. Biblical community is founded and found on the connection to that person. Conversion is more than a change in direction; it’s a change in connection. Jesus’ use of the ancient Hebrew word shubh, or its Aramaic equivalent, to call for “repentance” implies not viewing God from a distance, but entering into a relationship where God is command central of the human connection.
In that regard, we feel a massive disconnection in the church today. Thus this manifesto.
We believe that the major disease of the church today is JDD: Jesus Deficit Disorder. The person of Jesus is increasingly politically incorrect, and is being replaced by the language of “justice,” “the kingdom of God,” “values,” and “leadership principles.”
In this hour, the testimony that we feel God has called us to bear centers on the primacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Specifically . . .
1. The center and circumference of the Christian life is none other than the person of Christ. All other things, including things related to him and about him, are eclipsed by the sight of his peerless worth. Knowing Christ is Eternal Life. And knowing him profoundly, deeply, and in reality, as well as experiencing his unsearchable riches, is the chief pursuit of our lives, as it was for the first Christians. God is not so much about fixing things that have gone wrong in our lives as finding us in our brokenness and giving us Christ.
2. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his teachings. Aristotle says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Socrates says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Buddha says to his disciples, “Follow my meditations.” Confucius says to his disciples, “Follow my sayings.” Muhammad says to his disciples, “Follow my noble pillars.” Jesus says to his disciples, “Follow me.” In all other religions, a follower can follow the teachings of its founder without having a relationship with that founder. Not so with Jesus Christ. The teachings of Jesus cannot be separated from Jesus himself. Jesus Christ is still alive and he embodies his teachings. It is a profound mistake, therefore, to treat Christ as simply the founder of a set of moral, ethical, or social teaching. The Lord Jesus and his teaching are one. The Medium and the Message are One. Christ is the incarnation of the Kingdom of God and the Sermon on the Mount.
3. God’s grand mission and eternal purpose in the earth and in heaven centers in Christ . . . both the individual Christ (the Head) and the corporate Christ (the Body). This universe is moving towards one final goal – the fullness of Christ where He shall fill all things with himself. To be truly missional, then, means constructing one’s life and ministry on Christ. He is both the heart and bloodstream of God’s plan. To miss this is to miss the plot; indeed, it is to miss everything.
4. Being a follower of Jesus does not involve imitation so much as it does implantation and impartation. Incarnation–the notion that God connects to us in baby form and human touch—is the most shocking doctrine of the Christian religion. The incarnation is both once-and-for-all and ongoing, as the One “who was and is to come” now is and lives his resurrection life in and through us. Incarnation doesn’t just apply to Jesus; it applies to every one of us. Of course, not in the same sacramental way. But close. We have been given God’s “Spirit” which makes Christ “real” in our lives. We have been made, as Peter puts it, “partakers of the divine nature.” How, then, in the face of so great a truth can we ask for toys and trinkets? How can we lust after lesser gifts and itch for religious and spiritual thingys? We’ve been touched from on high by the fires of the Almighty and given divine life. A life that has passed through death – the very resurrection life of the Son of God himself. How can we not be fired up?
To put it in a question: What was the engine, or the accelerator, of the Lord’s amazing life? What was the taproot or the headwaters of his outward behavior? It was this: Jesus lived by an indwelling Father. After his resurrection, the passage has now moved. What God the Father was to Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is to you and to me. He’s our indwelling Presence, and we share in the life of Jesus’ own relationship with the Father. There is a vast ocean of difference between trying to compel Christians to imitate Jesus and learning how to impart an implanted Christ. The former only ends up in failure and frustration. The latter is the gateway to life and joy in our daying and our dying. We stand with Paul: “Christ lives in me.” Our life is Christ. In him do we live, breathe, and have our being. “What would Jesus do?” is not Christianity. Christianity asks: “What is Christ doing through me … through us? And how is Jesus doing it?” Following Jesus means “trust and obey” (respond), and living by his indwelling life through the power of the Spirit.
5. The “Jesus of history” cannot be disconnected from the “Christ of faith.” The Jesus who walked the shores of Galilee is the same person who indwells the church today. There is no disconnect between the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel and the incredible, all-inclusive, cosmic Christ of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. The Christ who lived in the first century has a pre-existence before time. He also has a post-existence after time. He is Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, A and Z, all at the same time. He stands in the future and at the end of time at the same moment that He indwells every child of God. Failure to embrace these paradoxical truths has created monumental problems and has diminished the greatness of Christ in the eyes of God’s people.
6. It’s possible to confuse “the cause” of Christ with the person of Christ. When the early church said “Jesus is Lord,” they did not mean “Jesus is my core value.” Jesus isn’t a cause; he is a real and living person who can be known, loved, experienced, enthroned and embodied. Focusing on his cause or mission doesn’t equate focusing on or following him. It’s all too possible to serve “the god” of serving Jesus as opposed to serving him out of an enraptured heart that’s been captivated by his irresistible beauty and unfathomable love. Jesus led us to think of God differently, as relationship, as the God of all relationship.
7. Jesus Christ was not a social activist nor a moral philosopher. To pitch him that way is to drain his glory and dilute his excellence. Justice apart from Christ is a dead thing. The only battering ram that can storm the gates of hell is not the cry of Justice, but the name of Jesus. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Justice, Peace, Holiness, Righteousness. He is the sum of all spiritual things, the “strange attractor” of the cosmos. When Jesus becomes an abstraction, faith loses its reproductive power. Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live.
8. It is possible to confuse an academic knowledge or theology about Jesus with a personal knowledge of the living Christ himself. These two stand as far apart as do the hundred thousand million galaxies. The fullness of Christ can never be accessed through the frontal lobe alone. Christian faith claims to be rational, but also to reach out to touch ultimate mysteries. The cure for a big head is a big heart.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with CliffsNotes for a systematic theology. He leaves his disciples with breath and body.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with a coherent and clear belief system by which to love God and others. Jesus gives his disciples wounds to touch and hands to heal.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with intellectual belief or a “Christian worldview.” He leaves his disciples with a relational faith.
Christians don’t follow a book. Christians follow a person, and this library of divinely inspired books we call “The Holy Bible” best help us follow that person. The Written Word is a map that leads us to The Living Word. Or as Jesus himself put it, “All Scripture testifies of me.” The Bible is not the destination; it’s a compass that points to Christ, heaven’s North Star.
The Bible does not offer a plan or a blueprint for living. The “good news” was not a new set of laws, or a new set of ethical injunctions, or a new and better PLAN. The “good news” was the story of a person’s life, as reflected in The Apostle’s Creed. The Mystery of Faith proclaims this narrative: “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” The meaning of Christianity does not come from allegiance to complex theological doctrines, but a passionate love for a way of living in the world that revolves around following Jesus, who taught that love is what makes life a success . . . not wealth or health or anything else: but love. And God is love.
9. Only Jesus can transfix and then transfigure the void at the heart of the church. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his church. While Jesus is distinct from his Bride, he is not separate from her. She is in fact his very own Body in the earth. God has chosen to vest all of power, authority, and life in the living Christ. And God in Christ is only known fully in and through his church. (As Paul said, “The manifold wisdom of God – which is Christ – is known through the ekklesia.”)
The Christian life, therefore, is not an individual pursuit. It’s a corporate journey. Knowing Christ and making him known is not an individual prospect. Those who insist on flying life solo will be brought to earth, with a crash. Thus Christ and his church are intimately joined and connected. What God has joined together, let no person put asunder. We were made for life with God; our only happiness is found in life with God. And God’s own pleasure and delight is found therein as well.
10. In a world which sings, “Oh, who is this Jesus?” and a church which sings, “Oh, let’s all be like Jesus,” who will sing with lungs of leather, “Oh, how we love Jesus!”
If Jesus could rise from the dead, we can at least rise from our bed, get off our couches and pews, and respond to the Lord’s resurrection life within us, joining Jesus in what he’s up to in the world. We call on others to join us—not in removing ourselves from planet Earth, but to plant our feet more firmly on the Earth while our spirits soar in the heavens of God’s pleasure and purpose. We are not of this world, but we live in this world for the Lord’s rights and interests. We, collectively, as the ekklesia of God, are Christ in and to this world.
May God have a people on this earth who are a people of Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. A people of the cross. A people who are consumed with God’s eternal passion, which is to make his Son preeminent, supreme, and the head over all things visible and invisible. A people who have discovered the touch of the Almighty in the face of his glorious Son. A people who wish to know only Christ and him crucified, and to let everything else fall by the wayside. A people who are laying hold of his depths, discovering his riches, touching his life, and receiving his love, and making HIM in all of his unfathomable glory known to others.
The two of us may disagree about many things—be they ecclesiology, eschatology, soteriology, not to mention economics, globalism and politics.
But in our two most recent books—From Eternity to Here and So Beautiful—we have sounded forth a united trumpet. These books are the Manifests to this Manifesto. They each present the vision that has captured our hearts and that we wish to impart to the Body of Christ— “This ONE THING I know” (Jn.9:25) that is the ONE THING that unites us all:
Jesus the Christ.
Christians don’t follow Christianity; Christians follow Christ.
Christians don’t preach themselves; Christians proclaim Christ.
Christians don’t point people to core values; Christians point people to the cross.
Christians don’t preach about Christ: Christians preach Christ.
Over 300 years ago a German pastor wrote a hymn that built around the Name above all names:
Ask ye what great thing I know,
that delights and stirs me so?
What the high reward I win?
Whose the name I glory in?
Jesus Christ, the crucified.
This is that great thing I know;
this delights and stirs me so:
faith in him who died to save,
His who triumphed o’er the grave:
Jesus Christ, the crucified.
—
Jesus Christ – the crucified, resurrected, enthroned, triumphant, living Lord.
He is our Pursuit, our Passion, and our Life.
Amen.

Having breathed new life into organizations, how do we sustain it? Paradoxically, the answer lies in ‘disciplines’.  This is what I have called ‘practices’ in earlier posts. The disciplines help organizations sustain disequilibrium, thrive in near-chaos conditions, and foster self-organization. If taken to heart, they can also foster changes at the individual level. Indeed, they must be internalized if their far-reaching benefits are to be fully realized. 

According to Pascale et.al., There are seven critical disciplines. These are:
1.    Infuse an intricate understanding of what drives organizational success.
2.    Insist on uncompromising straight talk.
3.    Manage from the future.
4.    Reward inventive accountability.
5.    Harness adversity by learning from prior mistakes.
6.    Foster relentless discomfort.
7.    Cultivate reciprocity between the individual and the organization.

Each of the seven disciplines can stand alone, but enormous power exists in the relationship among them.

From a previous blog.  but I thought this would be entirely appropriate given our topic on equilibrium. 

In reJesus, I have devoted a section to the exploration of the absolute and abiding role of Jesus in the life of faith and in the Christian community. I will eventually get to blogging around the book more systematically, but needless to say that I am now absolutely convinced that in order to ‘(re)find ourselves’ at any given point in time, we need to return to Jesus and constantly line ourselves up with what he was on about. He is the Founder after all.

Why do we need to constantly reboot back to Jesus? It seems to me that the problem is that his people have a nasty habit of pushing Jesus out of his own community. Of displacing him. Think this is wrong-headed? Well, even in the NT itself we have a scene of Jesus knocking at the door of the church asking to be let in (yes, Rev.3 is not about personal evangelism after all.) Question: What is he doing outside his church when he is meant to be Lord of the church?! It seems that it didn’t take long for the church to remove Jesus from his rightful place in his community.

But why do we do this when all our confessions call him ‘Lord?’ Well I think it is because Jesus is always very difficult to deal with, and religious-minded people really do struggle with his form of ‘religion.’ Actually what Jesus taught cannot properly be called religion at all, in fact Ellul rightly calls it ‘anti-religion’ precisely because it undoes all religion. It effectively dissoves any need for a complex mediating institution with all its priestly/churchly paraphrenalia, and opens up the God-relation to all who will repond direclty to its call. That’s why the religious folk hated him. He de-legitimizes everything they stand for (priesthood and institution) and opens it up to the people. they must take him out.

Here’s what I think: Christianity minus Jesus equalls religion. And this happens in more churches than we are given to believe. We marginalise Jesus all the time and in so many subtle ways. And we do this because dealing directly with Jesus (or God for that matter) is always a disturbing thing to a sin-wracked people who would prefer a stable, more controllable, religion. Like all living systems, churches seek equilibrium. We want to settle down. We want to bolt down the Revelation and make God understandable, accesable, and therefore more controllable–a ‘God-on-tap.’ Sociologists call this ‘the routinization of charisma’ (google that!) and it is written through the structures of all religions including our own.

But Jesus disturbs our equilbrium. He won’t be controlled. He won’t be handled only by priests and professional religionists. He won’t be domesticated. He is Lord! Yes, Jesus is our disequalibrium. And the way back to an authentic Christianity is simply to put Jesus back into the equation. Christianity plus Jesus equals World Transformation.