By John Mueller Nowell
Over the years as I have talked to clergy and lay leaders in existing congregations, I have often made the following observation: When congregations have been in existence for 20 years or more they tend to reach a plateau of perceived self-sufficiency, and their primary ministry focus tends to turn inward (on the needs of members) rather than outward (on the needs of the community members around them). When that begins to happen, the congregation’s hospitality is extended primarily to people who show up on Sunday morning and look, sound and smell like them. Now this is not necessarily a conscious decision, but it is a reality. Sure the congregation may continue to support “missions” by sending a portion of their money away to allow someone else to do ministry on their behalf (and that is a good thing), but they no longer understand themselves to be the ones sent by God to do God’s work in God’s world across the street.
Congregations involved in intentional missional ministry empower their members to explore what it means to be those sent by God in Christ’s name. Those congregations begin to realize rather quickly that ministry today is indeed a cross-cultural missionary enterprise.
Congregations that understand that God is sending them into the communities around them do indeed begin to take on the look, and sound, and smell of those to whom they are sent.
This reality was wonderfully reinforced in a story that a minister friend, Jackie Qualls, recently told me. The context of the story is built within the Southside Church of Christ in Mineral Wells, Texas, a congregation involved in the Partnership for Missional Church (PMC) process…a congregation that is working hard to understand what it means for them to be missional where they are located and live into that vision. Here is Jackie’s story in his words:
On Wednesday nights our building has begun to smell different. This new smell was not a pleasant one at first. God's "preferred future" for our congregation was to reach out into our own backyard to the people in our community that no one else wanted. One of the ways this call is being answered is in a Wednesday night tutoring ministry in which around 40 students from kindergarten to high school are bused to our building and are met by their own personal tutor/mentor that range in age from high school teens to 77. Most of the children that come to be tutored/mentored live in households that are below the poverty level. They are dirty, full of energy, and are not "church broke."
Helen (not her real name) is in third grade and never misses Wednesday night tutoring. Helen's family does not have running water at home and because of this she is always dirty. To make things even worse for this sweet little girl, she also wets her pants several times a day. There is a very unique smell to her and most of the kids that come. Every Wednesday she runs off the bus and into the building because she can't wait to get started. She is very affectionate and gives everyone a big hug. At first, the smell was overwhelming in a negative way but now it's different. We are not only accustomed to the unique smell, but we welcome it. This smell has become for us the smell of Jesus, "for whatever you did for one of the least of these . . . you have done it for me." God is showing us that He uses broken things. He chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.
On Wednesday nights our building smells different and when we smell that smell it brings a smile to our faces because we know Jesus is near.
“The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone, the Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes." (Ps 118:22-23)
WOW! Makes me wonder: What would happen if all congregations would allow God’s Spirit to use them to reach out to the children around them who are not “church broke”? What would happen if more congregations could associate the smell of poverty with the smell of Jesus? What would happen if I allowed myself to be sent into situations where a dirty, sweet third-grader named Helen would want to give me a hug because she knows I love her and I am a person she can trust to love her too? Would I let her? Would I hug her back?
John Mueller Nowell is director of client services at Church Innovations.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Experimenting on the Journey of Spiritual Discernment
The Second Year in the Partnership for Missional Church
By Jannie Swart
This article is a continuation of the newsletter series on the Partnership for Missional Church (PMC) and gives a brief overview of the second year of PMC.
The first year of PMC focuses on the growing sense of awareness in the local congregation that cultural change is necessary. Through deep listening, the local congregation discovers partners on its journey of spiritual discernment. The second year takes the listening and discovering into a phase of experimenting. The focus shifts from the imaginations and actions of the early adopters and innovators in the congregation to those thoughtful, progressive leaders who can get things done and who are willing to take risks and experiment.
Beyond Grand Plans to Experimenting
The natural tendency for congregations is to move very quickly into a mold of strategic planning for the future. So many times we want to start addressing the challenges and fixing the problems by borrowing from visioning models and long-range planning tools. However, in CI’s more than 17 years of experience working with congregations, we’ve discovered that they often “hit the wall” in this approach, because it does not consider some important dynamics in congregations’ cultural change. In the second year of PMC, we deliberately focus on these dynamics and the polarities that come with them.
The Polarity between Early Victories and Long-Term Change
The second year in PMC focuses on cultivating an environment in local congregations where it is possible to manage the important dynamic between those who can achieve immediate success and change in the congregation and those who understand the long-term, deep, cultural engagement needed. It helps congregations to empower both the sprinters to achieve early victories and the long-distance runners who can endure the challenges of long-term change. Congregations need both the sprinters and the long-distance runners on the journey of spiritual discernment if they want to move beyond merely becoming armchair critics of their cultural environment to achieving effective change for the sake of God’s mission in that environment.
To accomplish this, we introduce Missional Engagement Teams (METs) and Plunging Groups into this second phase of PMC. Through the discernment and action of both the METs and Plunging Groups, as well as the interaction between the learnings from both, local congregations start to engage themselves with those people in their environment to whom God is sending them and experiment with one or two particular aspects within their system for the sake of that engagement. The ultimate goal is to form new Christian community with those to whom God is sending the congregations and to bring about the cultural change necessary within the congregations’ system to develop and sustain this new, emerging community.
The Polarity between Technical and Adaptive Change
In achieving the above, congregations need both technical and adaptive change. There will always be the kinds of challenges on this journey that simply need change of a technical nature that entails the solving of an easily identified “problem” by using existing competencies in congregations. However, the more difficult part is to address the kind of change that is of an adaptive nature and which requires a deep engagement with the entire system of the congregations. This is the kind of change for which congregations do not have readily available answers or fixes and ask for an experimenting approach as the way of discerning how to deal with these challenges. The METs are intended for these kinds of experiments, but are doing it in such a way that any failure will not threaten the whole system of the congregations. During this period, congregations learn how to take risks and that it is fine to sometimes fail while experimenting.
The second year brings a willingness to move beyond the fear of failing to trusting God’s promises to the church, and therefore to be prepared to try something new for the sake of God’s mission in the world. Failing to risk is a guaranteed failure; trusting God’s promises of mercy and future for the congregation is the way of discernment in and through risk and failure.
By Jannie Swart
This article is a continuation of the newsletter series on the Partnership for Missional Church (PMC) and gives a brief overview of the second year of PMC.
The first year of PMC focuses on the growing sense of awareness in the local congregation that cultural change is necessary. Through deep listening, the local congregation discovers partners on its journey of spiritual discernment. The second year takes the listening and discovering into a phase of experimenting. The focus shifts from the imaginations and actions of the early adopters and innovators in the congregation to those thoughtful, progressive leaders who can get things done and who are willing to take risks and experiment.
Beyond Grand Plans to Experimenting
The natural tendency for congregations is to move very quickly into a mold of strategic planning for the future. So many times we want to start addressing the challenges and fixing the problems by borrowing from visioning models and long-range planning tools. However, in CI’s more than 17 years of experience working with congregations, we’ve discovered that they often “hit the wall” in this approach, because it does not consider some important dynamics in congregations’ cultural change. In the second year of PMC, we deliberately focus on these dynamics and the polarities that come with them.
The Polarity between Early Victories and Long-Term Change
The second year in PMC focuses on cultivating an environment in local congregations where it is possible to manage the important dynamic between those who can achieve immediate success and change in the congregation and those who understand the long-term, deep, cultural engagement needed. It helps congregations to empower both the sprinters to achieve early victories and the long-distance runners who can endure the challenges of long-term change. Congregations need both the sprinters and the long-distance runners on the journey of spiritual discernment if they want to move beyond merely becoming armchair critics of their cultural environment to achieving effective change for the sake of God’s mission in that environment.
To accomplish this, we introduce Missional Engagement Teams (METs) and Plunging Groups into this second phase of PMC. Through the discernment and action of both the METs and Plunging Groups, as well as the interaction between the learnings from both, local congregations start to engage themselves with those people in their environment to whom God is sending them and experiment with one or two particular aspects within their system for the sake of that engagement. The ultimate goal is to form new Christian community with those to whom God is sending the congregations and to bring about the cultural change necessary within the congregations’ system to develop and sustain this new, emerging community.
The Polarity between Technical and Adaptive Change
In achieving the above, congregations need both technical and adaptive change. There will always be the kinds of challenges on this journey that simply need change of a technical nature that entails the solving of an easily identified “problem” by using existing competencies in congregations. However, the more difficult part is to address the kind of change that is of an adaptive nature and which requires a deep engagement with the entire system of the congregations. This is the kind of change for which congregations do not have readily available answers or fixes and ask for an experimenting approach as the way of discerning how to deal with these challenges. The METs are intended for these kinds of experiments, but are doing it in such a way that any failure will not threaten the whole system of the congregations. During this period, congregations learn how to take risks and that it is fine to sometimes fail while experimenting.
The second year brings a willingness to move beyond the fear of failing to trusting God’s promises to the church, and therefore to be prepared to try something new for the sake of God’s mission in the world. Failing to risk is a guaranteed failure; trusting God’s promises of mercy and future for the congregation is the way of discernment in and through risk and failure.
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