Toolbox For Faith

I’m at a conference this week on the Open Source Church, a book by Landon Whitsitt.  As a part of the conversation, the group lifted up a number of practical ideas for inviting people to share their ideas as a part of a discussion.

Here are the ideas that were suggested by the group.

- Mutual Invitation - invite people to speak to a question and when you have said your peace then invite someone else.  Questions of clarification are welcome, but not debating.  Once information is out there from everyone then you can discuss.

- Getting a sense of the meeting, sitting and silence to wait for a sense of the Spirit - Quakers

- Frame discussion in a way that welcomes dissension

- Asking the group to question assumptions

- Ask what are the holes, what are the unintended consequences

- Delay decision where appropriate, not be too quick to make big decisions

- Create time for reflection

- Naming the demon - this is my idea, but I want your ideas and every question is helpful

- What time are you having your meeting?  The proper setting is important.  Helpful sequencing of agendas and possibly limiting time for discussion.

- Make sure that opinions are valued.  Give people time to write down their best ideas and give people the freedom to say “No”.

- Emphasizing servant role of minister and leadership, try not to go to our area of expertise as a way of limiting discussion

- As leader speak last

- Provide a list of options as a starting point for a discussion

- Gather information from the grassroots by working in progressively larger teams (team partner, then several teams) and then Yes voting

- Have people go around to discuss what the idea would look like if it was implemented as a way to help us really see what we are doing

- Affirm characteristics like intellectual integrity in daily interactions with people to create openness and honesty

- Bounce ideas around through email

I am working my way through a wonderful new book entitled, The Open Source Church by Landon Whitsitt. When I ordered the book, I assumed it would be a call for congregations to share their resources and ideas with the world - a call to post everything online and freely give it away for the building up of the body of Christ. What I discovered as I read was much more valuable. Whitsitt applies the principles of Open Source Software to the Gospel and the church. He uses these principles to highlight the freedom of the God’s love in Christ Jesus and to lift up an organizational paradigm for churches that encourages drawing on the wisdom of the community in place of experts. Here are a couple of experts that touch on his ideas and writing style.

“I believe that as the people of God, we have an opportunity to proclaim a timeless truth: To proclaim Jesus Christ is to proclaim freedom, and to proclaim freedom is to proclaim Jesus Christ. . . . The church in many places has changed from an institution that teaches postures, approaches, and behaviors that lead to freedom to an institution that teaches postures, approaches, and behaviors that will maintain itself. . . . But the gospel is not concerned with maintaining structures or preserving doctrine. The gospel is concerned with freedom.” (pg. 10-11)

“Congregations should quit trusting and expecting that pastors know everything about how to conduct the business of the church. A pastor’s area of expertise is actually quite narrow. If we continue insisting that pastors be our resident church experts, we will find that our expectation causes more problems than it solves. If we continue trusting one person to expertly address all areas of church life, things will begin to fall apart. A better (and I would argue, more faithful) plan of action is to begin tapping into the wisdom of the priesthood of all believers.” (pg. 81)

I am still processing all of what Whitsitt has to say and trying to figure out what it can mean for me and my congregation, but I’d highly recommend the book to anyone looking to explore alternative leadership models.

I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to participate in a webinar presented by The City with Reggie McNeal, author of books like The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church. The webinar was entitled, “Changing the Scorecard for Church.” I was extremely impressed by what Reggie had to say. He emphasized the need to be a misssional church, the need to be faced outward in mission and his belief that we need to stop measuring program participation and start measuring the impact our ministry is making.

Here are my notes of a couple of the questions that were asked and his answers.

If historically we have been church centric, what are the shifts in thinking in the local church that need to take place to be a missional church?

1st Shift - move from internal thinking to external thinking. For example, how much of the spending plan is consumed by “putting on Sunday worship.” Congregations need to begin to believe that our core activity is to be turned outside - to bless the community. Our call is to bless everyone who is not part of us - to bless the rest of the world.

2nd Shift - move from a program driven model to a people development agenda. (Most difficult in his opinion) We have been very good at manufacturing programs. Pastors have been good at producing sermons. The metrics by which we measure our progress and success are tied to program participation. If we switch to a people development agenda, then we begin to ask questions like “How are the people?” “How are their lives growing and improving?”, instead of asking how many people showed up for the program. McNeal says several times that he is not against programs, he is more interested in what the point is - what the goal is than what the program is.

3rd Shift - move from church centric program leaders to leaders of a movement. Requires a shift to a community orientation. We have been really good at inside the building stuff, but in today’s world we need to because missional leaders in the community, not simply in our congregations.

Changing the scorecard. How do you decide what to measure and how do your measure it?

The metric needs to grow out of the soil where you are planted, the context and what you believe God is calling you to do. Work your metrics backwards from the results you are trying to achieve. You may not be able to measure the long-term outcome, but you can figure out how to measure progress and engagement.

Many years ago at a workshop, Lyle Schaller suggested a question that I have found invaluable over the years. He said always ask, “What year is it?’ when analyzing why certain actions occur in a parish. That question has helped me enormously in understanding the congregations I have served and it have been central in planning a strategy for that congregation to grow forward in faith and service.

When I have thought of this question at the congregations where my wife, Cheryl, and I have been worshipping over the past weeks, the results are puzzling. The congregations appear to have asked the question “What year is it?” in mission outreach but have stopped there. All of the congregations have looked at their communities today and appear to have a wonderful understanding of needed 2010 outreach into their communities. But in most other areas, they have taught me that they are using ideas that haven’t been useful since our society was a church culture in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

I am still attempting to figure out why this has happened—that only the mission outreach is 2010 and so much of the remainder of the congregational life is lost in the past. Perhaps it is due to the current recession that has caused so much change in the lives of many, many people but I am not sure. Please let me know if you have any brilliant or even semi-brilliant explanations.

Dr. Callahan wrote the following nearly 15 years ago in his book, “Building for Effective Mission,” but I when I came across it again last week, I was struck by how absolutely true it is. We are at our best as a people of God when we live as a mission movement, not as an institution.

Welcome to one of the greatest ages of mission the Christian movement has ever seen. Welcome to the first century. Welcome to the twenty-first century. Welcome to a mission time. . . . This is no longer a churched culture. I encourage you not to mourn its passing. Do not long for a return to those days when going to church was the thing to do. The church is never at its best in a churched culture.

The church is at home in an age of mission. . . . When church going was a staple of social conformity, the church was nonetheless ill at ease and out of place. Despite all the cultural status conferred on it, the church was restless and uncomfortable in a churched culture. Yes, it has enjoyed its prominence as a cultural institution and the pedestal on which it was perched. Yet the church has realized, albeit dimly, that it is not called to be admired by the world. Intuitively it has been restless to serve, not to be served.

Whenever the church accepts the perks and the prestige, it becomes a slave of the world. It is no longer a servant in the world. It becomes beholden to the world. The danger is that it will be distracted from its mission and become a pleasant irrelevancy in the culture. Its voice becomes muted, its message muffled. The good news of joy, wonder, grace and hope is stifled.

When the church allows itself to become a pleasant irrelevancy, it becomes simply an amiable activity for those few who may have an occasional interest. The culture can then simply ignore the church.

Fortunately God invites the church to mission direction, not worldly distractions. And, fortunately, the church retains a latent memory of how to share the mission. The church that endures beyond a churched culture is a church that knows best how to live in an age of mission. With God’s help, the church rediscovers its beginning and thus lives out its true identity as servant in the world.