THRIVE – On the Greening Edge of Change: Church Multiplication Feels Good
Seven Things I learned about reproduction…
1. It’s Messy
2. It’s Expensive
3. It’s not an Option
4. It’s Opposed
5. It’s Impactful
6. It Blesses the Reproducer
7. It Feels Awesome
Christology, Ecclesiology, Missiology
Originally uploaded by aaronklinefelter
I like it. Though I’m wondering about Christology and a Trinitarian understanding of God.
nice.
Doug McClintick
Mission - we all have the same mission (God’s).
Why do we exist?
Vision is a Process – with people. Vision is a preferred future of where we are going.
Where are we going?
Values are the DNA, the atmosphere, not right or wrong, unique
How are we going to do it?
Strategy – What are we going to do?
Book: The Power of Vision by Barna
Quote from Barna: “Vision for ministry is a clear mental image of a preferable future imparted by God to his chosen servants and is based on an accurate understanding of God, self, and circumstances.”
Randy Weener
8 Quality Characteristics
All 8 must be functioning well – water can only rise to lowest plank of the barrel.
So, I’m sitting in the breakfast room at the Ramada in Grand Rapids, Michigan and reading USA today and I find this article by Mark Hall (youth pastor and part of the band Casting Crowns that a bunch of the students at my school like). It is a good article, but I wonder what teens think of it?
Want to understand your teen? Look online – Opinion – USATODAY.com
I’m also wondering what are some good (actual, not theoretical) uses of social networking tools for church planting and discipleship.
Jesus is the first generation of leadership.
The church is responsible to train its leaders (not seminaries or others).
Question: “How did the New Testament Church train its leaders?”
It is simple/basic – the church is responsible to train leaders to lead the church.
The harvest is ready – don’t have time to send folks away (to seminary) for 4 years.
Find your “Timothys” and pour into them. Then tell them to do the same.
This is really “normal Christianity” – every believer reproducing believers, every church reproducing churches.
We’re in grand rapids safe and sound.
They just showed this image on PowerPoint as an analogy for the American church at present:
Next week Sarah and I (and the kids) are headed to Thrive Church Planter training up in Grand Rapids put on and hosted by the RCA.
Thrive blog
RCA Church Planters blog
RCA Thrive description
I’m tired…. about to go to bed, but I am very excited about going. Just getting away from Cincinnati for bit will be good.
I went up to Columbus tonight and met with the Church Multiplication Team for the Lake Erie Classis of the RCA. Good times, good food, good new comrades in the Kingdom.
Our car (the one with the working headlights) doesn’t have a working radio and we seem to have lost our cell phone. So…. it made for a quiet ride up and back. On the way back I thought about some DNA-ish issues that I’d like to see part of this church plant. Here’s what I came up with (what do you think?):
That we would be a Generative Community. We would create together, innovate, imagine, dream, make stuff up, improvise. Certainly we would engage in the arts – visual, film, music, etc… but we would also be generative in how we formed our community and shaped our lives. We create culture as well as swim in it and respond to it. We birth new churches, baptize new believers, and train indigenous leaders.
That we would be a Sent Community. We do not exist for ourselves. We are sent into the world as the People of God, ambassadors for the King and His Kingdom. We don’t “Go” as though we are compulsive or under obligation. Rather we are sent just as the Father sent the Son and together they sent the Spirit. The Triune God sends us into our neighborhoods and city.
That we would be a Worshiping Community. We live and gather as a People who actively, passionately, habitually, and obediently worship the Triune God. We unapologetically worship – we don’t sugar-coat, water-down, or dumb-down. To borrow a definition from my friend Eric- “Worship is habits of ritual and social action with which we experientially and thankfully acknowledge God’s supremacy and simultaneously train our souls to embrace him more deeply.”
That we would be a Practicing Community. We engage in our faith-living. We believe deeply and live passionately. But our passion is not a candle burning at both ends or a flash of a firecracker that burns out just as quickly as it is lit. No, our living and our passion are done with consistency and contentment. We live normal lives. It is in our normalcy… our mundane-ness, our simple living that we find the transforming power of the Spirit. Our practice (think “praxis”) of our faith in Christ is contiguous with our presence in Christ. It is not “doing” over “being” and it is not “just being” - rather it is thoughtful, Christ-present action in and through us as Christ-centered people.
And then these came to me this morning:
That we would be a Human Community. We are a People of God for actual people. Our life together is lived in such a way that regular folk can participate and engage. We aren’t about making super-heroes or uber-Christians. When we gather – big or small – we do so in such a way that we welcome the stranger. Size-matters – it really does. Bigger isn’t always better, sometimes it isn’t even just bigger. Knowing and being known are essential.
That we would be a Sustainable Community. We want this thing to thrive and breathe long-haul, long-term, years and years, decades even. Personally, I’m tired of quick fixes and short-lived commitments (if you can even call them “commitments”!). I want a long obedience in the same direction. Our community would live that out. We are anti-burnout.