Archivos de la categoría ‘3DM Discipulado’

Snapshot: The next 10 years in the American church

Publicado: noviembre 28, 2011 en 3DM Discipulado, Iglesia
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Mike Breen

 

Sabbatical can do funny things to people, can’t it? I’ve returned from mine and there are many things that I feel the Lord is bringing to the front of my mind (one of which I will begin a blog series on next week). But one of those things is simply wondering, as a Futurist, what the next 10 years of the American church will look like?

We’re seeing many things right now as we survey the landscape of the church:

  • The explosion and continued growth of the mega-church, particularly with multi-site churches
  •  The church seems to be getting smaller and larger. Either decline or stagnation or rapid growth in larger churches with very little in between (interestingly, we’re seeing this happen economically for Americans as well).
  • Increased polarization of theological pockets within the BIG “C” Church
  • Increased outworking of social justice
  • Church budgets in crisis and churches starting to explore alternative revenue streams and economic engines
  • Missional emphasis that, at least in my view, may already be wearing out as a fad and not as a way of life
  • I’m noticing an uptick of interest in the discipleship conversation. I wonder where that will go?
  • Continued assault on the nuclear family without the recognition that the extended family is actually the answer
  • Huge drop in attendance for Gen X and Gen Y
  • Rise in charismatic expressions (i.e. fastest growing segment of the American church right now)

That’s a very quick, snapshot overview of where we are today. There’s a lot of good in that and some things that aren’t so good.

Here’s my question to you: Where do you think the American church will be in 10 years? 

What will be happening? What will it look like? What worries you? Excites you? Where do you see it going? Where is God already moving and where do you think it’s leading?

The crisis in our seminaries

Publicado: noviembre 28, 2011 en 3DM Discipulado, Sociedad
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Doug Paul

Post image for The crisis in our seminaries

One of the really exciting things I get to do as the Content Director for 3DM is work with Mike on leading out initiatives on problems that many people see facing the Western church, start some discussion and actually do something about it. About a year ago, I met with a guy named JR Rozko, someone I’d met once or twice, but someone who since that fortuitous meeting has become a very good friend. We grabbed some coffee as he was in Richmond, talked a bit about our church, what he was up to in Chicago, etc. Eventually, our conversation drifted towards theological education…and the seeds of that conversation has led to some pretty amazing things as 3DM, TOM, Northern Seminary and other future partners are all in on this ongoing conversation. (All that to say…it never ceases to amaze me how something as small as one conversation can lead to something quite significant).

Here’s our schtick:

Undoubtedly there is a crisis facing the institutions that train our leaders for work in the church. Students leave seminary with crippling amounts of debt, leave feeling unprepared to lead the people of God in discipleship and mission in an increasingly post-Christian world and a staggering number of them will have left the ministry entirely within 5 years. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

However, the predominant thought is that because we’re shifting from Christendom to post-Christendom, our seminaries simply need to adjust to that cultural change and do a better job making seminary more affordable and accessible (which they definitely do) and probably change some learning styles (this is a gross-oversimplification, but these are probably the biggest ideas on their part). But what if there is something much bigger happening that we’re not seeing? What if we are missing the forest for the trees? What if we are the ones who created the crisis we’re in and not a shifting culture we must catch up to?

3DM and The Order of Mission are launching an initiative exploring some of these questions and offering a couple of preliminary steps forward (I say preliminary because it is impossible for one or two entities to fix all that ails the world of theological education, it will take a movement of various entities). We have written a formal whitepaper on this subject as well as a video to spark this much needed discussion.

Both can be viewed at: TheFutureofTheologicalEducation.com.

But here is the video that’s kicking it all off! Feel free to embed it anywhere you’d like to push the conversation out.

http://dougpaulblog.com

Why We Celebrate the Christian Calendar

Publicado: noviembre 28, 2011 en 3DM Discipulado, Iglesia, Iglesia Emergente, Misión Integral
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by BEN STERNKE

Post image for Why We Celebrate the Christian CalendarToday is the first Sunday of Advent, which is New Year’s Day for the Church. Today is when we start telling the story again, the story of how Jesus Christ fulfilled the story of Israel in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and how we now live with him by the Spirit and await his final return.Every year we tell the story again, basically because we need to immerse ourselves in it, because it is the true story of the world. It is the report of what God is doing in the world to redeem and restore all things, the proclamation of how God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.

We immerse ourselves in this story every year because our identities come from the stories we tell and the rituals we participate in. We immerse ourselves in this story because our culture loudly proclaims quite a few alternative stories that vie to tell us who we are, and thus claim our allegiance. Some of those stories (from McKnight’s The King Jesus Gospel):

  • Individualism — the story that “I” am the center of the universe
  • Consumerism — the story that I am what I own
  • Nationalism — the story that my nation is God’s nation
  • Moral relativism — the story that we can’t know what is universally good
  • Scientific naturalism — the story that all that matters is matter
  • New Age — the story that we are gods
  • Postmodern tribalism — the story that all that matters is what my small group thinks
  • Salvation by therapy — the story that I can come to my full human potential through inner exploration

We combat these competing ideologies by immersing ourselves in the True Story, which is another name for the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is why it matters what holidays we celebrate, and how we celebrate them. Our very identities are stake, because we live by the stories we tell ourselves. Thus it is actually a matter of life and death.

There’s nothing magical about celebrating the church year. There are plenty of lifeless churches that commemorate Advent “faithfully” (i.e. read the right Scriptures, fly the right colors, stick to the right themes). But the church year is essentially organizing time around the gospel story, which seems like a great idea to me, because the alternative to organizing time around the life of Christ is to organize it around something else, like when it’s time to shop, which is a disastrous way to live.

So may you immerse ourselves in the True Story once again, and have a blessed Advent! Come, Lord Jesus!

http://bensternke.com

What Powers Mission?

Publicado: noviembre 6, 2011 en 3DM Discipulado, Iglesia, Iglesia Emergente
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by BEN STERNKE 

Post image for What Powers Mission?After a wonderful final Learning Community immersion (“Establishing Centers of Mission”) with the 3DM team, I’ve been thinking about mission a lot. Not mission-as-project or mission-as-event, but real kingdom-of-God stuff: people becoming disciples of Jesus and joining with him in his work. What is necessary for real kingdom mission to flourish? What hinders it?This morning I was reading Andrew Murray’s wonderful little prayer primerWith Christ in the School of Prayer, and came across this gem of a quote, which deserves a slow, careful reading, because the implications for mission are astounding.

Now that Christ was leaving the scene and could only work through commissioners [his disciples], it might have been expected that the works would be fewer and weaker. He assures us of the contrary: “Verily, verily I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do he shall do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12). His approaching death was to be a breaking down of the power of sin. With the resurrection, the powers of the eternal life were to take possession of the human body and obtain supremacy over human life. With His ascension, Christ was to receive the power to communicate the Holy Spirit completely to His Body. The union–the oneness between Himself on the throne and those on earth was to be so intensely and divinely perfect, that He meant it as the literal truth: “Greater works than these shall he do, because I go to the Father.”

The most profound implication here is something that is emerging as a core value in our church plant: The Holy Spirit is not optional. I get uncomfortable when the missional conversation drifts toward talking merely about structures, strategies, paradigms, and models. It’s as if we believe that if we can just get our thinking straight, we could bring the kingdom on the strength of our elegant structures and radical models. We give lip-service to the Holy Spirit in that we assume he is working in and amongst all our planning, but I wonder if we need to make it a more explicit element of our practice.

If we are the truly the Body of Christ, then learning to operate every day in cooperation with the Head ought to be one of the first, most basic elements of training people to join with Jesus in his mission. The simple fact is that Jesus told us we could do nothing without him, yet we so stubbornly insist on trying! Because Christ has “gone to the Father,” he is able to communicate his power and presence “directly to His Body.” This is the only fuel for mission: the power of Christ. As we abide in him, we learn to allow his power to flow through us, and this is what changes the world.

Let’s admit it: we’re uncomfortable with this part of life in Christ, for a variety of reasons. We’ve seen it done badly. We don’t want to look foolish in front of others. We have more confidence in our intelligence than we do God’s power.

But we need to grapple with this issue and learn to flow in the power of the Holy Spirit every day, because even when we have the most elegantly-designed engine in the world, it won’t make anything move unless there is a constant supply of fuel pouring in. So yes, let’s design better structures. We need them! But let’s not forget that the fuel of mission is the power of God.

http://bensternke.com

A Word for Church Planters from Haggai

Publicado: octubre 24, 2011 en 3DM Discipulado, Iglesia, Misión Integral
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by BEN STERNKE

Post image for A Word for Church Planters from HaggaiThis morning I was reading the Scriptures from the Daily Office Lectionary and felt like God encouraged me with one of the passages from Haggai. I also felt like it might be an encouraging word for others out there who are planting new expressions of church. So if you’re doing the slow work of rooting a community of faith in discipleship and mission, this one’s for you!The context is the rebuilding of the temple after the exile, and the Lord has “stirred up the spirit of the whole remnant of the people” to work on the building the house of the Lord, a place for him to dwell on earth. They begin in earnest, excited about the vision and expecting great things.

But pretty soon discouragement sets in. The work is hard. They are remembering the good old days of the former temple. They’re really not sure anymore if it’s going to be worth it in the end. So God sends them a word from the prophet Haggai:

“Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? But now be strong… all you people of the land… and work. For I am with you,” declares the Lord Almighty… “And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.”

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory… the glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house… and in this place I will grant peace.”

I think it might be a message for discouraged church planters, too. Those who are trying to plant churches rooted in discipleship and mission are often discouraged at the immensity and slowness of the task. It would be far easier (in some ways) to gather a crowd of eager consumers and give them what they want each week. When people are leaving and finances are tight, it’s hard to resist the temptation toward spiritual feudalism, where we as leaders act as providers of goods and services in exchange for a better paycheck and more people.

We are trying to build on an entirely different foundation (discipleship to Jesus). The foundation is the most important part of any structure, but it’s slow, messy, difficult work that doesn’t yield a lot of visible progress at the end of the day. If we’re discouraged about “results” the temptation will be to cut corners on the foundation.

So the encouragement for me this morning (and maybe for you) is simple, and straight from Haggai:

“Be strong and work, for I am with you.”

Though it doesn’t seem as impressive as other ministries or what you were involved in before, be strong and work, for I am with you, and my Spirit remains among you. You are digging deep and building strong foundations for a house that I can dwell in, a community I can live among. And while things look small and insignificant now, the glory of what is coming will be greater than the glory of what was.

Keep building the foundations of a house for me to live in, because this is ultimately what the world needs and desires. When you build with discipleship and mission, you are building on the unshakable foundation of my kingdom, and it will stand. I will fill my house with glory in time – for now, be strong and work, for I am with you.

Why I’m not using the word “Attractional” anymore

Publicado: octubre 24, 2011 en 3DM Discipulado
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by Mike Breen

For years now, there have been ongoing discussions online, over coffee, at conferences, etc about the whole “Attractional vs. Missional” debate. Recently, the discussion has turned to questions about whether someone can be Attractional AND Missional. I’ve written a few blog posts on the subject, one of which you can find here.

However, as of today, I’ve decided that I’m done using the word “Attractional.” Why, you may ask?

The answer is fairly simple:

  1. “Attractional” has a slew of different meanings. The way I use it is different than the way others use it, making it seem like I’m either agreeing with people I wouldn’t agree with or criticizing those I would agree with just because of semantics.
  2. The lexicon is awash with diluted meanings. When I have a conversation about “Attractional” churches, I almost always have to have a pre-conversation that lasts for 10 minutes just so we can understand the terms of the conversation.

Sometimes we need to reclaim words, rescuing them and returning them towards their original meaning. Sometimes, we just need to stop using a word and let it die. “Attractional” is the latter. I think it needs to die.

This is what I believe:

  • I believe there is inherent value in gathering a large group of people (75+)  together to worship God, submit to the scriptures, tell stories of God moving in the community, share the Lord’s Supper, etc. We gather because, with one voice, we choose to worship our Risen Lord. We gather to be reminded that we are part of his story — his present and future Kingdom. And we gather so that we can scatter as missionaries to a world that is broken and in need.
  • I believe the value of worshipping God together as a community is enough on its’ own. If there was not one single person who wasn’t a Christian in attendance, it would be just as important for us as believers. Worshipping Jesus for the sake of Jesus must always be enough.
  • I believe that to sustain the scattered mission of the church outside of the large gathering there is the need for regular and rhythmic times of gathering together to remind us of the bigger story we are in, reinforcing why we live the missional life we do. I’m not saying it’s impossible to sustain Kingdom mission outside of it, but it’s very, very difficult. We gather, we scatter. We gather, we scatter.
  • I believe the worship gathering exists first and foremost for believers, for people who are intentionally growing in their relationship with Jesus. Yes, people who don’t know Jesus yet can come, but honestly, they aren’t our top priority in a worship service. Can they come to faith in a service? Yes. Should we provide opportunities for them to step more fully into a relationship with Jesus? Yes. Can a pre-Christian benefit from experiencing the worship of believers? Absolutely. But we need to understand that if the worship service is our primary place of mission we’ve already lost the battle. We may believe in the priesthood of all believers, but do we believe in the missionhood of all believers — outside the ‘gathering’?
  • I believe the worship gathering should always keep an eye on the shaping of the community for mission outside of the walls of the service. When they leave the gathering, believers should know they leave as missionaries and agents of the Kingdom. How is the church community shaping that reality for people?
  • I believe many who say they are advocates of the  ”missional church” have thrown the baby out with the bathwater and have rejected, out of hand, larger gatherings. To an extent I understand this, but the reality is that many missional churches struggle to grow, stagnate and fizzle out. Why? Because scattering is unbelievably hard and gathering sustains. It reminds us who we are. It shows us we are part of a bigger story that is reinforced when, upon looking around, we see enough people to remind us we aren’t alone in this. We hear stories of victory and redemption. It nourishes our souls and allows the wounds of the missional frontier to receive some healing. It is not the only place care happens, but it is an important one.

Humans are creatures of overreaction. We jump ditch to ditch quite easily. Many saw the issues and the inertia involved in becoming a Sunday-centric, worship service oriented community (and rightly so!). But know this: The reason the worship service became the center of evangelism and mission is because we stopped making missional disciples who understood the nature and purpose of scattering. We’re bad at discipleship and so we’ve gotten ourselves into this predicament. Scattering is the cake and gathering is the icing in the life of the church. We’ve become a fat church from eating a lot of icing. But don’t throw out the icing! Cake just never tastes quite  as well without it.

 

http://mikebreen.wordpress.com

Alan Hirsch: Communitas, Not Community | VIDEO

Publicado: octubre 1, 2011 en 3DM Discipulado, Iglesia Emergente, Misión Integral
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Why the missional movement will fail | Part 2

Publicado: septiembre 27, 2011 en 3DM Discipulado, Misión Integral, Teología
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Mike Breen

My last post, “Why the Missional Movement will fail” caused quite a stir in the past week and the overwhelming response seemed to require a followup post. So consider this PART TWO.

There were a few questions that emerged in online conversation because of this article:

  1. How am I defining disciple/discipleship?
  2. Am I separating mission from discipleship? Aren’t they part and parcel the same thing?
  3. Why am I making this complicated? Can’t we just do what Jesus says and stop talking about this stuff?
  4. What should we do about it?

WE’VE MOVED THE GOAL POSTS
Defining a disciple is fairly easy, in my view. The greek word mathetes is the word that scripture uses for “disciple” and it means learner. In other words, disciples are people who LEARN to belike Jesus and learn to do what Jesus could do. One great writer on discipleship put it this way:Discipleship is the process of becoming who Jesus would be if he were you.

A disciple is someone who, with increased intentionality and passing time, has a life and ministry that looks more and more like the life and ministry of Jesus. They increasingly have his heart and character and are able to do the types of things we see Jesus doing. We don’t have to look far in the New Testament to see this happening. Just look at the life of the disciples/ apostles and the communities they led…over time, they looked more and more like Jesus!

How did the church go from 120 people in an upper room to more than 50% of the Roman Empire in about 250 years? Simple. They had a way of reproducing the life of Jesus in disciples (in real, flesh-and-blood people) who were able to do the things we read Jesus doing in the Gospels.

Is that still the way we see Christians or have we moved the goal post? I have to wonder if we’ve changed our criteria to match the kind of fruit our communities are now producing. Many are now fine with Christians who show up to our churches, are generally nice people, do some quiet times, tithe and volunteer. Maybe they even have a little missional bent to them. These are all good things, but I don’t think this is the kind of “fruit” Jesus was referring to when he talked about fruitfulness in John 15. Would those kinds of people change the world like the early church did?

Probably not.

In truth, I think we are pretty bad at making disciples in the Western church. Why? Because I look at the life of Jesus, the life of the disciples, the life of the early church and what they were able to produce with their fruit…and then I look at ours. When we read scripture and the texture of their lives and ministry, do we think that ours holds up to it? Even if we have a growing church, do the lives of the people we lead look like the lives of people we see in scripture? That’s the goal post we should be going after.

I’ve heard Dallas Willard say that every church should be able to answer two questions: First, what is our plan for making disciples? Second, does our plan work? I believe most communities have a plan for discipleship. I’m not convinced many plans are working the way Jesus is hoping they will — and that’s why we’re in trouble.

I think the fruit of our lives will reveal the root of our lives. So if we are creating disciples who are far from the people we see in scripture as the rule and not the exception, we must ask ourselves why this is the case and how we can change that reality.

“I’LL HAVE A CHEESBURGER WITH NO CHEESE, PLEASE”
Undoubtedly, one of the key components to being a disciple is to care deeply about mission. In Christendom, it seemed that people thought of discipleship as only an “inner” reality that sought the transformation of the individual and mission was left on the sideline. As we have come to re-embrace the mission Dei — the reality that the God of mission sent his Son as the great rescuer and we are to imitate him — I wonder if some within the “missional movement” are far more concerned with being missionaries/reformers than also seeking the transformation and wholeness that Christ is offering them personally.

What concerns me is that we have gone ditch to ditch. The reality is that both things are at work in being a disciple. The reality of living more fully in the Kingdom of God is that we are being back put together through God’s grace, conforming more to the image of Jesus, having his heart and mind, and the overflow leads to Kingdom activity. That is why Jesus says, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Apart from the active work of Jesus in our life we cannot produce Kingdom fruit. To engage in Kingdom mission without being equally attentive to our own personal transformation (through relationship with the King) is like asking for a cheeseburger with no cheese. It stops being the very thing we’re asking for! By the same token, to be a “disciple” while not actively engaging in mission as a way of life is asking for a cheeseburger with no burger. Both are necessary. To be a disciple is to be a missionary.

If we look at it objectively, we see churches with discipling cultures (that focus mainly on the transformation of individual self) and churches with missional cultures (which focus on the transformation of the world/people around us) and we often see tensions between these two camps.

One has a clue, but no cause. The other has a cause, but no clue. High mission/low discipleship church cultures have issues with Biblical literacy, theological reflection and deficiencies in character and Creed that, in the end, sabotage the very mission they’re about. Critics are rightly concerned that these kinds of churches are a hair’s breath away from heresy, with people largely not experiencing the depth and transformation of heart and mind Jesus invites us into. High discipleship/low mission church cultures have strength in the previous issues, but lack the adventurous spirit/ heart of compassion and Kingdom compulsion that so stirred the Father into action that he sent his only Son to a world he so loved. Their transformation isn’t leading to the place God is taking them. Critics are rightly concerned that these kinds of churches will turn into Christian ghettos, creating people who lob “truth bombs” over their high, secure walls, creating an “us vs. them” mentality. In both, something is disastrously off.

As humans, we are creatures of overreaction, choosing polarities rather than living in tension. The truth is, a TRUE discipling culture (as Jesus envisioned it) must have both. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and. We mustn’t choose between depth and breadth, but embrace the tension of having and shaping both in our communities.

CHARACTER AND COMPETENCY
At the end of the day, we can probably boil being a disciple down to two things: Character and Competency. We want the character that Jesus has and we want to be able to do the things that Jesus could do (competency). Discipleship is learning, over the course of our lives, to become people who have both. 

So how we are forming/discipling the people in our communities? This is only helpful if we’re truly honest.

  • Character: Are their lives characterized by grace? Peace? Love? Transformation? Patience? Humility? A deep relationship with the Father? A love of the scriptures? Can they submit?  Do they see the world through the eyes of the Kingdom and not the prevailing culture? (Obviously there’s a lot more, but you get the idea.)
  • Competency: Can they disciple people well who can then disciple others? Can they do mission well? Can they hear the voice of their Father and respond with action, with His authority and power? When they pray, do things happen as they did for Jesus? Can they read and teach scripture well? (Again, Jesus was able to do many things, this is but a short summary.)

These are Kingdom questions. These are Discipleship questions. Which is why I go back to the point that if you make disciples, you will always get the church, but if you make the church, you won’t always get disciples. If the people in your community are discipling people who can answer “yes” to those questions, you’re doing what Jesus asked you to do. You’ve sought first the Kingdom and the rest will be added. Look at it through this matrix:

Finally, discipleship is about faithfulness and reflection. We need to be faithful and obedient to the things Jesus has asked of us (when it comes to character and competency) and let him control outcomes. At the same time, we need to be reflective about whether we’re good at the things Jesus could do. Jesus is calling us to be faithful, but he’s also asking us to get better, in “his strength which so powerfully works through us,” at the Kingdom things he could do. If we’re not good at something, let’s just not say, “It’s OK, I’m faithful.” I’d argue that faithfulness also requires us being honest and reflective about whether we’re good at the things Jesus could do, seeking to become better. Faithfulness and reflection. It requires us living in tension. He wants both, and if we embrace both, we take the posture of a learner.

So what do you think? Am I way off? Am I missing something? Is this a fair assessment?

If you’re interested in how we’ve made these kinds of disciples, you can check out the book we released on the subject here.

Steve Jobs and your church / Steve Jobs y tu Iglesia

Publicado: septiembre 7, 2011 en 3DM Discipulado, Iglesia, Misión Integral
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Por Mike Breen

La semana pasada, Steve Jobs renunció como CEO de Apple y entregó las riendas a su ex director de operaciones. Ese día, el stock se redujo en 5%. En todo el mundo digital todos hablan  si Apple puede mantener su racha de victorias sin su líder visionario  de administrar en todo el mundo día a día de su compañia. He aquí por qué creo que no sólo va a capear el temporal, pero si siguen en:

Éstos que son los valores centrales de Apple:

Creemos que estamos sobre la faz de la tierra para hacer grandes productos.
Creemos en lo simple, no en lo complejo.
Creemos que tenemos que posesión y control de las principales tecnologías detrás de los productos que fabricamos.
Nosotros participamos solamente en mercados en los que se puede hacer una contribución significativa.
Creemos en decir no a los miles de proyectos para que realmente pueda centrarse en las pocas que son realmente importantes y significativos para nosotros.
Creemos en la colaboración profunda y la polinización cruzada de nuestros grupos, lo que nos permite innovar de una manera que otros no pueden.
No nos conformamos con nada a menos que no sea la excelencia en cada grupo en la empresa, y tenemos la honestidad consigo mismo para admitir cuando nos equivocamos y el coraje para cambiar.
Lo que Apple ha hecho es crear una cultura de innovación, el diseño y la colaboración. No hay duda de que Jobs es un genio y es responsable de la subida meteórica de Apple. Sin embargo, lo que ha hecho más que cualquier otra cosa (y probablemente no recibirá crédito hasta en este momento) es crear una cultura que siempre puede producir productos y servicios que han encantado a la gente en todo el mundo. Este empleo del ADN, es a través y por medio, en la vida de esa cultura.
Me pregunto si nosotros,  los líderes de nuestras comunidades eclesiales, estamos tratando de hacer el mismo tipo de cosas. ¿Estamos tratando de crear una cultura donde todo el mundo es un productor, donde la cultura de la comunidad es lo que nos sobrevivirá? El empleo del ADN del discipulado y la misión tiene una especie de media-vida que nace en el corazón y el alma de nuestro pueblo y nuestras comunidades para que tenga una vida  «propia».
¿Estamos tratando de crear ese tipo de cultura?

by Mike Breen

Last week Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO of Apple and handed the reigns over to his former COO. That day, the stock dropped by 5%. The talk around the digital world is whether Apple can keep up their winning streak without their visionary leader manning the day-to-day world of the company. Here’s why I think they’ll not only weather the storm, but continue on:

Here are Apple’s core values:

  • We believe that we’re on the face of the Earth to make great products.
  • We believe in the simple, not the complex.
  • We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make.
  • We participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution.
  • We believe in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us.
  • We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot.
  • We don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self-honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage to change.
What Apple has done is created a CULTURE of innovation, design and collaboration. There is no doubt that Jobs is a genius and is responsible for Apple’s meteoric rise. However, what he has done more than anything else (and probably won’t get credit for until now) is created a culture that can consistently produce products and services that have enchanted people the world over. It’s Jobs DNA, through and through, in the life of that culture.
It makes me wonder if we, we leaders in our church communities, are seeking to do the same kind of thing. Are we seeking to create a culture where everyone is a producer, where the culture of the community will far outlast us? Where the DNA of discipleship and mission has a kind of half-life that is born into the heart and soul of our people and our communities so that it takes on a life of its’ own.
Are we seeking to create that kind of culture?

No Mission Without the Gospel of the Kingdom

Publicado: septiembre 7, 2011 en 3DM Discipulado, Iglesia, Iglesia Emergente, Misión Integral
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by BEN STERNKE on SEPTEMBER 6, 2011

Post image for No Mission Without the Gospel of the KingdomEarly on in my explorations of missional theology, I remember thinking that this stuff was so brilliant that all people really needed was permission to do it, and it would take off. I figured all this missional energy was just bottled up inside everyone and they were just waiting for someone to release them and bless them in it. I thought the reason people weren’t doing it was because they didn’t know they were allowed to.You probably know what’s coming. Excitedly I began giving people permission to live missionally, explaining why it made sense, illustrating the possibilities. And people basically nodded in agreement. Some even got excited with me. But nothing changed (including me). Even people who wanted to couldn’t find their way into a way of life that was naturally joining God in the renewal of all things as a matter of course. A deeper problem was manifesting itself, one that I was just beginning to understand.

As I’ve read and prayed and pondered and worked with people and discussed with others, I think I see more clearly now what the underlying issue is. I’ve boiled it down to a little axiom that I want to offer and explain. Here’s the axiom:

No mission without formation.
No formation without discipleship.
No discipleship without the gospel of the kingdom.

I think this gets to the heart of why mobilizing Christians and churches for everyday mission seems to take so long and be so difficult. Here’s why.

No mission without formation
Underneath the issue of mission was formation. As Dave Fitch has said, “missional people do not fall out of trees,” they have to be formed. More properly, they have to be transformed (“changed from one form to another”). The reason we weren’t seeing any sense of “everyday mission” was because people hadn’t been formed significantly into the image of Christ.

No formation without discipleship
But why hadn’t they been formed in this way? These were people who attended church services regularly, led small groups, taught Sunday school,worked in the nursery, even! Why wasn’t all this activity and service resulting in spiritual formation in the likeness of Christ? Because they had never fully intended to follow Jesus as his disciple, learning from him how to be like him. This gets to the heart of why some of the most beautiful and theologically-rich liturgies can sometimes produce some of the meanest people you’ll ever meet: event the practices, in and of themselves, don’t magically make us like Jesus. We must “enroll in the school,” as Dallas Willard says. I’ve written previously about how we do this. The truth is that we will not be significantly formed to look like Jesus unless we do so.

No discipleship without the gospel of the kingdom
So why don’t people become disciples of Jesus? Short answer: because they’ve never been ravished by a vision of the kingdom of God. In other words, they haven’t really understood or received the gospel of the kingdom. The “gospel” we’ve been predominantly preaching is a truncated version of the full vision of life in God’s kingdom that Jesus talked about (as did Paul and the rest of the New Testament writers).

The gospel is not primarily about dealing with our “sin issue,” it is about theinvitation to live with God in his kingdom right now. If this is the gospel we are responding to, then all the rest of the dominoes fall easily into place:

Responding to the gospel of the kingdom naturally leads to discipleship,because we very quickly learn that we don’t know how to live with God in his kingdom, but Jesus does. This is a very different way of life that we mustlearn from Someone who knew how to do it well: Jesus. We are with him, learning from him how to be like him.

This kind of discipleship to Jesus naturally leads to significant spiritual formation, because the Spirit transforms us as we follow Jesus in kingdom living. We start thinking and speaking and acting and loving like Jesus. His life gets “into” us more and more.

Our formation as disciples then naturally leads to everyday mission,because ultimately this kingdom life we are invited into is simply a matter of being involved in what God is doing in the world, joining with him in the renewal of all things.

So ultimately it seems to me that if we want to cultivate a movement of people and communities joining with God in the renewal of all things, we must begin by preaching the gospel of the kingdom: giving people a brilliant picture of life in God’s kingdom (both in our words and lives), and telling them the shocking news that they can step into the kingdom right now.

Any additional thoughts? Does this axiom seem to hold true for you in your situation?

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