sustain:if:able kiwi

where does the hope come from? words of mission in mission

Today is a transition day – flying from Maroochydore to Bathurst via Sydney; from Queensland Synod lecture to working for with New South Wales ELM centre (lay ministry training); from one-off talk to two days of rolling conversation around the theme of transformers.

Last night I talked with the Queensland Synod about a word of mission. (Update: summary and even audio are here).

It’s a (neglected?) part of Uniting church worship and I used it as a framework to explore my ministry experience with Opawa Baptist. What were the words of mission in our change process? What did we do in actual ministry practice as a result of those words of mission? What were the leadership understandings that helped our journey?

So I looked at

• the Pentecost story and the word of mission in Acts 2:6 people hearing “in their own language and how that helped shape our multi-congregational model.
• and the Parable of the sower (I used a children’s book, Bodge plants a seed, by friend Simon Smith as a encouragement to lead by nuturing green shoots
• and the story of Mary and Elizabeth, as a word of mission to Elizabeth’s to speak words of courage and life to the new things of God in our midst and for the church to be open to the unexpected innovation from Mary’s

And I reflected on the leadership understandings

• Roxburgh and Romanuck – organisational development diagram
• leadership as process and verb, not position and noun, and the 2009 NCLS resources that let us build leadership teams and invite us into shared processes.

At times as I spoke I felt that my attempt to weave the word of mission and the ministry practice and the leadership lessons were too ambitious for an hour lecture on a Saturday evening after a long day. I wished I could have been clearer, but alas, it is too late once one is speaking! And my powerpoints were not good enough. However, there was good group interaction and some thoughtful questions and some fascinating after-ward conversations.

May God’s peace rest upon the Queensland synod.

mission-shaped “Grow and Go”

One of the things that appealed about becoming part of Uniting College was their intentionality in training the whole people of God. It is this weird tension where one expression of ministry is more formal than in Baptist circles, and thus has more formalised training pathways. Which then leads to a deliberate focus on all expressions of ministry.

Which means that this weekend is the annual “Grow & Go” training weekend. Training for the whole people of God. Their is a key note address on the Friday. Then nine learning streams – all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Shared breaks mean lots of chances for mixing and networking. People are coming from all over South Australia.

This type of thing is a pastor’s dream – every year heading off with leaders, to train and encourage and inspire them – to build shared memories – to invite potential leaders. The trip back, dreaming together with new insights, ideas, resources and inspiration. Every year, building lay capacity. Superb opportunity.

This year the theme is ‘being a mission-shaped church’. 
If God’s purpose of redeeming and renewing the world 
brought the Christian church to birth, what does it mean 
for mission to be at the heart of who we are and what 
we do as the people of God?

I’m leading one the nine streams, exploring mission-shaped community. (Others are exploring themes like mission-shaped leadership, mission-shaped community, mission-shaped worship, mission-shaped preaching, mission-shaped witness etc.)

So I am using the NCLS framework:

and will focus on the Inspirational qualities – of vision, leadership, innovation, and the Outward qualities of service, faith-sharing.

mission that’s out of the valley 4: grounded in a local church community

(Last post in this series I promise. For the introduction go here, for the motivation go here for the material go here.)

5%.

Last week I blogged the fact that according to 2006 National Church Life Survey data, only 5% of Uniting churches had offered significant training at a congregational level for lay people in evangelism.

5%.

That’s not many. Which got me thinking about my ministry. You know, the old “reality” check – was I a leader in a community practising what I was/is preaching? So I shuffled through the following dates ….

2004 – Evangelism as process – I preached 2 sermons on the topic of evangelism. A good deal of energy resulted. A church community forum was held and as a result a number of new community contact initiatives were launched – including Koru, a youth programme and a family film night.

2005 and 2006 – Opawa’s energetic Evangelism Ministry leader, Hugh, used a video series to offer training in faith sharing. This happened once in the church foyer and a second time in a local home group

2007 – God at work – a 3 week course on “Where is God on Monday?” run by (then) Anglican ministry candidate, Nigel Wright, all the way from UK. About 25 Opawa folk participated, reflecting on being salt and light in all of life. As a result a God at work group formed and met regularly, keeping each other accountable in this area of faith-sharing mission.

2008 – Biblical pictures of witness – A four week preaching series that explored the themes of

• being a mate – sharing with friends
• having a yarn – announcing the good news
• crossing the ditch – incarnational mission

followed by Wednesday evening discussion evenings. (For more, see here.)

2009 – Mission collectives, including the living collective. This meet four times a year, led by a lay person, in their workplace, (See here for an overview and here for an example of a night). It sought to offer encouragement, resource, prayer, ideas in terms of faith sharing.

Why blog this?
First, it’s a list of dates that I found mighty encouraging, because it shows a regular, year by year commitment, to encouraging and resourcing faith sharing.

Second, it illustrates one way to look at leadership, not as a linear process, but as a spiral, rotating around certain themes.  Hopefully not a rut! but a spiral, building on what has gone before, learning from the past, recircling to allow new people to join, unavailable people to check in.

Third, it’s just one embodied example of what encouraging in faith-sharing can look like in a local community context.

Fourth, I hope it might spark you to think about what has happened in your context. Let’s share our ideas. What things have you seen done, or been part of, that would be ways to get beyond that 5%?

mission that’s out of the valley 3: evangelism as mission

• being a mate – sharing with friends
• having a yarn – announcing the good news
• crossing the ditch – incarnational mission

(These are highly Aussie phrases and they came to mind while reading Darren Cronshaw’s most excellent Credible Witnesses, Companions, Prophets, Hosts and Other Australian Mission Models, Urban Neighbours of Hope, 2006, and that give shape to the most useful Picturing Christian Witness: New Testament Images of Disciples in Mission)

Being a mate – sharing with friends
Look at how people find Jesus in John 1. It’s through friends – Andrew, Philip – who simply invite people to “see.” So mission that’s out of the valley starts with inviting people to see lives changed. It’s not words, but seeing lives changed.

And so a discussion question: How were you evangelised? How do you feel about that now? A chance to remind ourselves that overwhelming the gospel is transmitted through relationships. Equally a chance to share negative stories and so detox ourselves from

Having a yarn – announcing the good news
The book of Acts is interesting, for a third of the content is public speeches. There are 20 speeches in total and grouped together, give us a window into how the early church had a yarn/announced the good news.

An extremely useful exercise can be to place them alongside each other. Take Peter in Acts 2, Paul and Barnabas in Acts 14, Paul in Acts 17. Look at what resources they use in announcing, consider their punchline and analyse the response.

What do we learn? That there is no one way to announce the good news. The content changes, the resources used range from Scripture to creation to contemporary culture.

In other words, having a yarn is not about dropping a body of content on someone, it’s about starting with what makes sense in their world. This for me is where the gates of the cross becomes so useful.

For discussion: Does any gate make sense of how you find God? Or do you need another, 11th gate? Share that with the person beside you.

On Saturday a great burst of noise arose, as people shared how God found them. And I had great joy in giving them feedback: I see a whole bunch of people announcing the good news, in ways uniquely appropriate.

Crossing the ditch – incarnational mission
When I read the Zaccheus story I realise that mission happens in Zaccheus house. It is so easy to get caught up in thinking that mission is about people coming to us and our (church) space.

Mission as crossing the ditch is about going to Zaccheus home. Hang out with Zaccheus mates. We form a church at Zaccheus place, not our place. This changes the way be a mate – We join Zaccheus youth group. This changes the way we announce the good news – we start with what God is doing in Zaccheus world.

And if you want a contemporary example, check out the work of Richard Passmore, working with young people outside the church. (Hat tip Jonny Baker). He depicts mission as crossing the ditch in 5 stages:

• A Contacting Community – Through detached youth work
• A Growing Community- Through ongoing contact and residential
• A Connecting Community – Through undertaking a rite of passage committing to journey together
• An Exploring Community – Through connecting stories and life
• An Ecclesial Community – Through living together with a missionary DNA

And for a powerful example of announcing the good news in this context, check out his story of Abs and Flow. It’s a superb example of post-Christendom, Western, contextualisation.

My next post is about how this works in an ordinary congregation ..

For earlier posts in this series on mission that’s out of they valley, go here

mission that’s out of the valley (1 of 4)

Updated: for what I said –
1) in relation to mission motivation, go here,
2) in relation to faith sharing, go here,
3) in relation to practice at an ordinary church, go here.

I’m speaking to youth leaders from around Adelaide tomorrow, at a training day called Out of the valley. I was asked to speak about mission and as I’ve been reflecting, I want to focus on the sharing of faith. More evangelism, but still a subset of mission.  I hope to do a number of things

• free people from a 1 size fits all understanding of faith sharing
• help people grasp more of God’s story
• help people find their own unique story within God’s story.

(Update: according to 2006 National Church Life Survey data, the denomination least likely to have offered significant training at a congregational level for lay people in evangelism is .. yep, you guessed it, the Uniting Church! Only 5% of congregations in the last 2 years said they had offered congregational training in evangelism.)

Below is one of the tools I’ve just been working on. It offers 10 different ways people might understand the gospel. It’s based on Understanding the Atonement for the Mission of the Church but I’ve attempted to summarise (mangle) it in a few sentences.

What I hope it does is help people find an echo of their story and a way to link their unique story with a Biblical frame. I’ll let you know how it goes, but if you have time, I’d love to know which statement which might describe your experience. (For me it was, and is, the peace gate). If none do, can you sum that in a few sentences. (more…)

developing change leaders book review – Ch 3 What does it take to lead?

A book review of Paul Aitken and Malcolm Higgs, Developing Change Leaders: The principles and practices of change leadership development. Chapter one here. Chapter two is here.

Chapter three explores what is required to lead change effectively.

One helpful insight is the fact that they need to be able to operate both on the church and in the church, to both performing public skills (ensuring existing functions like preaching, pastoring and organisation) and backstaging (engaging support, working with resistance, influencing the future).

Key phrases keep appearing – “deal with ambiguity” (44), “deal with ambiguity, paradoxes and dilemnas” (45), “facilitative and engaging practices” (55)

The danger lights, especially in regard to some existing church change process, are there if we want to pay attention:

“Might not the continual search for the hero-leader be a critical factor in itself, diverting attention away from building institutions that by their very nature, continually adapt and reinvent themselves, with leadership coming from many people and many places and not just from the top. (45 citing Senge 2002, 64)

When, oh when will the church get over the search for the one dynamic, command/control type leader. When will it realise that their is no magic bullet, that leaders need “not follow a set or common approach to the overall change implementation process.” (49) Instead: “It is only by learning new things about ourselves, our relationships with others and discovering new ways of seeing reality that we can start to implement new [business] practices” (49)

Research of 84 leaders shows “that effective change leadership requires the leaders to have a high level of Emotional Intelligence.” (50)

Over 100 change leadership stories (when, on when might the church collect 100 change stories and use them as one of the data sets for reflecting on leadership. Could we be part of this with the Master of Ministry), showed three broad groups of behaviour, and a subset of behaviours:

• Shaping behaviour – lead by example, expect hard work and enthusiasm, personally persuasive, expecting accountability.

• Framing change – working with others to create vision and direction, explaining, educating and communicating on need for change, giving freedom for innovation within broad frameworks, changing how things get done as well as what gets done

• Creating capacity – developing the skills of others in implementing change, offer feedback and coaching, working across the organisation at all levels, ensure adaptation of reproducible systems.

The change stories indicate that while directive type leaders focus on the first, shaping behavior, this actually negatively reduces the likelihood of change. Yep reduces! By contrast, it is the last two – framing change and creating capacity – that bring long term change.

This data was reduced to four core change leadership principles:

• attractor – creates energy for change by connecting with others emotionally to embody the future, creates compelling story, weaves it to make sense of the life of the organisation, seeks good of the organisation above their own, able to adapt their leadership
• edge and tension – amplifies disturbance by telling truth, is constant in tough times, challenges assumptions, stretches people, grows talented people
• creates a container – holds the tension around the change by managing expectations, faces conflict, encourages, creates safe space to take risks, seeks alignment of resources
• transforming space – creates movement by showing commitment, is vulnerable in a way that frees people to new possibilities, breaks existing patterns and challenges systems.

I’ve just spent 3 days and over 20 hours with 15 students. The topic was change and the leadership question sat with me all week. How to develop these people? How to best use the time? Was this the best use of my time? Should instead have been researching change stories? offering ongoing and longterm coaching with a few leaders?

The next chapters might answer these question, as they will turn to explore how to develop change leaders.

developing change leaders book review of chapter 2

A book review of Paul Aitken and Malcolm Higgs, Developing Change Leaders: The principles and practices of change leadership development. Chapter one here.

Chapter 2 The Challenge of change
This chapter explores the challenge of change. It provides a helpful diagram, linking change to what looks like a grief cycle – shock, anger, resistance, acceptance, hope. As with grief, people need time.

This includes noting the potential of resistance:

“Whilst resistance is generally perceived as being a negative within a change process, it is important to consider that resistance can be an indicator that change is having an impact. Furthermore, it surfaces the key issues and concerns which need to be addressed in order to ensure the effective implementation in the long run. Finally, resistance can play a positive role in surfacing challenge and insights which can prove beneficial in achieving the change goals or indeed discovering more appropriate ones.” (31)

Of course, to respond to resistance in this way, and be able to surface such positive possibilities for a change process requires a fairly unique skillset, far removed from “Well, this is what we have decided.”

It also depends on the approach to change, of which 5 are noted:

• Directive: the leader’s right to impose change, which has the disadvantage of breeding strong resentment
• Expert: generally applied to more technical problems, in which a specialist team leads
• Negotiating: accepts that those involved in the change have the right to a say in how the changes are made. It takes longer, but equally is more likely to last longer
• Educative: changing people’s hearts and minds. Again, takes longer but is more likely to last
• Participative: while driven by leaders, all views are considered as change occurs. Again, takes longer but has far greater by in.

They note the shift from linear and programmatic notions, to emergent notions of change, characterised by the appreciation of the entire system, the acceptance that change can start anywhere (and the larger the system, the more likely that large changes begin at the edge), leaders as facilitators instead of drivers of change.

They then analyse over 100 change stories to conclude that change was successful when:

• it was understood as complex
• processes were used that genuinely involve people
• change leaders have the skills to involve people.

re-framing the prodigal in regard to fresh expressions and established church

Ben Edson has re-written the parable of the Prodigal son/Waiting Father/Faithful son/absent prodigal daughter (choose your title with care, because each character opens up a different interpretive lens).

There was a mother who had two sons. The youngest one said to his mother, mother thanks for the years that you’ve looked after me, thanks for all that you’ve give me, but I think that you’ve got it wrong. I’m going to take all that I have inherited from you and go off to country foreign to you and experiment.

After being away for sometime the younger son started to recognise that he had been foolish and needed the love and support of the mother. He decided to go home back to the mother. He would say to her: I am sorry that I left you, your resources are so diverse, I miss you and I want to be part of your family.

The first part is here. The conclusion, offering 3 alternative endings

• the institutional church’s slow grinding to death of innovation
• the arrogance of fresh expressions
• an embrace between margin and centre

is here. It’s a wonderful example of re-framing and re-creating, and a fascinating use of Scripture.

Initially I loved it, the creativity, the multiplicity of endings. But now I’m not at all sure. When I have the words to name my unease, I’ll try to complete this post by explaining why … (more…)

fresh expressions regenerate discussion

re-generate is a series of pub conversations, begun in the creative mind of Craig Mitchell, providing an interactive space around the meal table for those wanting to be involved in being church that is thriving and connected to the culture. (I’ve been the speaker at a couple here in Adelaide, then hosted another with Jonny Baker in March).

There was another on Monday night, not with a speaker, but an open invitation to any Adelaide locals who have begun to create or lead a fresh expression, those who have an urge to do so, and those who have an interest in this movement to come and share their experiences and dreams.

About 20 people gathered. Over food we shared what had drawn us to the table. As the night evolved it seemed there were two groups of people: those looking for ideas or stimulus for their life of their congregation; and those already engaged who want to wrestle with issues like funding, sustainability, the journey to faith, developing leaders, etc.

The upshot was enthusiasm to begin a series of regular pub conversations based around participant questions (people add their questions to a bowl from which we could draw a topic for the following gathering – wonder who suggested that idea :)).

The next one is planned for early June (details coming) and will focus on two issues
– how to fund a fresh expression
– how to sustain a fresh expression

The hope is that it’s not just Uniting church and perhaps the fact that it’s question based from those who gather will help to include other denominations.

It was an exciting night to be part of!

saying thanks: turning practices into missional life

This is a most excellent example of helping a community give thanks. It is a church wall at Church of the Trinity Uniting, Goodwood. People are being given (paper) flowers and invited to give thanks.

Over weeks the wall is growing, an emerging symphony of colour. Over weeks what people write seems to be deepening. Over the weeks, people are commenting they are finding themselves becoming more and more intentional about looking for reasons to be thankful in their daily lives. Good stuff. (The pastor, very wisely IMHO, is photographing the wall each week, planning to make it into a movie, to play at years end.)

This became an excellent learning moment in our Missional Church Leadership class (3rd gathering of 10). We were looking at ways to listen and I was talking about appreciative inquiry, the simple practice of saying thanks, as a window into where God’s Spirit might be active. And how the simple act of naming ie saying thanks, gives people an opportunity to further participate.

And at that moment, the photo got passed around and we admired the colour and the effective, yet creative way, of helping people worship.

What intrigues me is how this simple, yet intentional, worship practice might actually be part of the church’s ongoing intentional mission life.

For example: Why not take a note of the recurring themes. Then invite all those who gave thanks over a year to a gathering. Share with them the themes. Get people in groups around questions like what surprises you? Then ask them to think about ways the community could further develop this theme ie be yet more thankful. Perhaps they are thankful for family. Get them to brainstorm ideas, ways they could focus their energy on families. Record the findings and ask if any people want to part of giving their dreams legs.

Start a second year with a second wall. See what happens as you gather people intentionally around what they have identified as important and significant.

Such, I would suggest, is the task of missional leadership:
1. Invite people into missional practices
2. Mirror back to people what is emerging as the practices are lived.
3. Gather conversations about next steps: how then shall we live?
4. Record the findings and return to 1.

It was a great class! (Even without the learning that emerged as another student talked about farm gates. But that’s for another post.)

the use of art in growing a fresh expression: being church in a time of cultural change

Church as rugby club? Or touch team? I referred last week to this question, quoting an article by Kevin Ward, in which he explores changes in voluntary groups and ways people belong. (Kevin’s article is here, my post last week is here). As I wrote in the Sociology for Ministry lecture:

So, consider that alongside the decline in church, is a widespread decline in all voluntary associations: from Lions to labour unions, from political parties to bowling clubs.

In New Zealand in 1970’s about 400,000 people played rugby. By 1990’s it had plummeted to 100,000.

Why? Factors include authoritarian and controlling environment, rigid structures, high institutional overheads, dress code, conformist culture, lack of choice, repression of individual for sake of community.

At the same time, touch rugby, while only started in an organised sense in 1990, had by the year 2000 over 272, 000 registered participants.

Why? It is minimalist, gender inclusive. Individuals can choose their own team, while teams can choose their uniform and name. Time is limited and there is a high value on socialising and fun.

In other words, traditional structures based on long-term commitment and exclusive loyalties are less attractive than single stranded, less formal, smaller groupings.

It helped me make sense of a most stimulating Sunday afternoon I’ve just had at a Resurrection and Art seminar. It’s one of four Sunday afternoons being offered by the local Catholic Theological College, exploring Jesus passion and art; resurrection and art; Mary and art; Trinity and art.

Two hours, great visuals, a mix of history, theology and spirituality. Along with a nice afternoon tea. It was a most worthwhile afternoon.

I came away reflecting that here was an institution (Catholic Church) providing a way to play touch, resourcing people’s spirituality without requiring them to in any way be part of the institution.

What intrigues me is how this can be self-resourcing and self-starting. There were about 40 people booked, each paying $20 a session. Take out a bit for facilities (which would be unused in most churches at this time of day anyhow, the advertising (which is giving you profile even if no-one turns up), and the morning tea and you still have around 30 hours for a staff person to work up a lecture. That’s enough time to put together a pretty good talk.

(I tried to do this a number of times at Opawa, but the person I kept tried to lure to start the conversation was too booked up and I was too busy and the energy required by the Easter and Christmas Journey made other forms of creativity harder to initiate).

Do it for Easter/Pentecost. Do it again at Advent. Do it again on Waitangi Day/Australia Day, using indigenous art.

Each time, provide a set of art pieces as postcards. After a time, invite people to do more research on the artist and the theology and meet again to share their findings. Or simply to gather in a few weeks to reflect on how their artpiece as helped their journey. Slowly you are building a new community – being church in a new form in a time of cultural change.

developing change leaders: book review of chapter 1

While nearly 2000 books were recently written on leadership in an 18 month period, very few address the question:

How do we develop effective change leaders?

Such is the task attempted by business lecturers, Paul Aitken and Malcolm Higgs in their Developing Change Leaders: The principles and practices of change leadership development.

(Given that church’s and church leaders are meant to be into life change, I began to flick through the book. The more I browsed, the more intrigued I was, both by the clarity of the material, and by the extensive reading and practical case studies the author’s draw on. Thinking this might be a good resource, I opened my wallet.)

Aitken and Higgs use a key image, that of “sense-making” to argue that the challenge is not to find some yet to be discovered new golden bullet. Rather the challenge is to make sense of what we know. In chapter one, this focuses on the impact of organisational culture on leadership.

“In broad terms, our framing of effective leadership has shifted notably from the ‘Heroic’, leader-centric viewpoint to a more ‘Engaging’ one which focuses on working with followers to address the leadership of organizational challenges … In today’s complex environment, an approach to leadership which is more ‘Engaging’ appears to offer some useful pointers to more sustainable success.” (13-14, 20).

They suggest leadership is a triangle, made up of thinking, doing and being.

• thinking is about a range of intelligences – evaluating, decision-making, planning.
• doing is about the skills and competencies to envision, engage, enable, inquire, develop.
• being is about authenticity, integrity, will, self-belief and self-awareness.

They then suggest the same triangle for the organisation, in which

• thinking is in fact strategy
• doing is policies and practices
• being is culture, the social glue and the way things are done around here

This introduces the challenges of effective change. Research shows very clear links between an organisations culture and it’s performance. Other research shows that leaders have a strong impact on an organisation’s culture. This sets up chapter 2, which describes the challenges involved in implementing change.

being church in a time of cultural change

Flat out preparing for a class on changes in religion in Australia. Amid all the sociological theories and depression over declining numbers, the work by Kevin Ward back in 2002 stood out.

“One of the great points of hope for the church is that sociologists suggest we are moving away from an era of rampant individualism into a new communitarian era .. one in which people bring a strong sense of individuality and will therefore be marked by a high degree of diversity and variety … We urgently need to finds forms of church life that resemble a community of touch teams much more than they resemble the local rugby club … If we are willing not only to give the freedom for this kind of evolution to occur, but also to provide resources to foster it, we may find not only a form of church life that actually engages with and incarnates the gospel into the culture in which we are placed, but also, surprisingly, one that more resembles in essence the church we find in the pages of the New Testament.”

Probably the last thing exhausted ministers might want to read this side of Easter. But it does provide a window on the appearances of Jesus after the resurrection, that sense of impermanence and willingness to meet Thomas in a different way than Mary, in a different way than Peter.

implementing change and the potential of “Migration” days

Thunderbird (which I use for email) has a new software upgrade, planned for mid-April. I know this because they have just announced Migration Day, a 24 hour period when volunteers will provide real-time support to users via a chat room.

Now that’s a simple, yet stunning approach to change management isn’t it?

You know that change is disruptive. You know that people have different timestyles and lifestyles. You know that most people don’t like change. You know that change will be messy. To be honest, you do want to manage that change by encouraging people to kick tires and iron out kinks.

So why not give some time to the actual process of implementation.

A Migration day does this, signaling change, making time for it, providing expert help in it, building community around it.

I can think of so many ways a church or teaching place could use this concept

• a migration morning when you are introducing a new powerpoint system and the main tech people hang around with great morning tea and people who have been, or who might be interested, are invited to pop in
• an community open week if a church has a new building project to display. Community given free coffee cards and volunteers to show them around the building, explaining what has happened and how it could effect them, or people they might know.
• a change in a degree system, so a day in which people can gather to talk about teaching implications, tutoring demands, administrative implications.

Change is disruptive. I’ve seen lots of creative ways put into managing the the decision-making process. But there’s also the actual execution which takes time and effects morale. Migration days could be one highly effective change strategy in this regard.