This is the final section on our series reflecting on the Greenhouse Conference (Story 2) that took place here in Chicago, Feb 19-21st.

In the previous section, we peeked into the petri dish of organic church cultures, the reproduction of disciples, leaders, churches, and movements.  We considered the particulars on preparing the soil for nurturing and harvesting leaders as they emerge in and for a local movement.  Leadership is especially important in the early days of a network’s formation, so that patterns that are woven into the fabric of the network will result in spontaneous reproduction of healthy leaders.

The Church has always been about glocal influence.  In gardening, this ever-spreading and multiplication is known as propagation.

All over the world (global) this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you (local) since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all truth — Colossians 1:6

For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. — Isaiah 61:11

“The Kingdom of God is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.” — Matthew 13:33

If the Church influences at the glocal level, what is its purpose?

The Church exists to bring glory to God and to bring God’s glory to all people.

That means indigenous worship, social justice, mercy, reconciliation, spiritual formation…holistic salvation!

Beginning with the End in Mind

Think about the destination, then make all your plans to get there.  For God, its about his creating a city – a living, organic city – and bringing it to earth where people of every tongue, tribe and nation are present and compose one diverse family…bursting with worship for God! (Rev 7:9-10)  With this picture of God’s dream in mind, how can we join God in his mission?

By cultivating a vibrant family of God’s from every tongue, tribe and nation in our part of the world. That is our mission.  Saturation church planting for the purpose of propagating God’s Kingdom in the hearts of each person on earth.  We dream that justice from heaven would pour out like a mighty river and that peace would be finally given a real chance. This stuff is what God has been about, and what the earliest church was intent on.

This is different than your typical “church plant” – this is about giving each people group on earth a in-life picture of Jesus-with-skin-on in their context.  With that said, we cannot continue to only propagate churches that reproduce like elephants — we need “rabbit” churches.

Watch this video for a good description of “rabbit churches” that exemplify saturation church planting.

Missionary Resources Teams

I’ve written elsewhere on MRT’s, even wrote a paper on the topic of Five-fold missionary resource teams… and Neil Cole ended Greenhouse by peeking at these teams.

Think of these teams as the catalysts in the chain reaction of gospel propagation – or maybe the connective tissue for energy to flow through.  They are the gifts of Christ to the Church (Ephesians 4:7-11), apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher.  These folks are not titles, offices, or even positions.  They don’t wear badges or funny liturgical gowns.  They are functions – and their function is to work together to equip those who have spiritual gifts to do the work of ministry (v16).

Much of the recent study on church leadership has come from (1) deeper study of the terminology itself (apostolos, etc), (2) the several brief passages that address the subject (3) doing bios on people in the New Testament that lived as examples of one of the five giftings (4) church history and (5) your own walk with the Spirit of God.

This does not kick out “elders, deacons and widows” from church leadership, it simply augments it to provide a fuller picture of God’s catalyzing force in his Kingdom.

Here’s a brief snapshot of each of the giftings:

Apostle: A sent one to lay a foundation for the expansion of the church with a specific God-given assignment. Helps the whole church say, “I can do this!”

• A sent one (apostolos) is often looking for new places and people to spread the Kingdom of God.
• Lays a foundation in a given region (Eph 2:19-22) and like a good foundation are not noticeable after the building has begun. Does not build on another’s foundation. (Rom 15:20-21)
• Identifies/empowers leaders quickly, and is often the one who will call out the other functions in the MRT. (1 Tim 1:18, Acts 14:23)
• Reads cultures and sees open doors for the message.
• Has a relational authority rather than positional.

Prophet: One who hears and speaks a specific word from God to a distinct person or persons.  Helps the whole church say, “I can hear from God!”

• Encourager, comforter, and strengthener. (1 Cor 14:3)
• Often speaks for God, and reminds others that God’s ways are higher than our ways. (1 Cor 14:25)
• Consumed by the truth – tells the truth without fear of consequence.  Can be a polarizing force in the church.
• Often unappreciated. (James 5:10)

These two are the “start and go” team – the “foundation” of the church.  They function as a start-up team that can initiate the momentum and get down all the needed systems for viral multiplication. (Eph 2:19-22) When the whole church can say with confidence, “I can do this!  I can hear from God!”  anything is possible.

The next three are the “stay and grow” team.

Evangelist: One who is called to passionately seek out opportunities to share the holistic gospel with others through word and deed, bringing them to relationship with Christ. Helps the whole church say, “I want that passion!”

• Good news-caster (euangelistes)
• Often more comfortable with lost than found (1 Cor 9:19-23)
• Makes opportunities to share the whole gospel (Col 4:5-6)
• Listens closely to the promptings of God (Acts 8:26)

Shepherd: One who has an overwhelming concern for the continuing care and formation of God’s people. “I can love these people!”

• Protects and cares for the flock. (Acts 20:28-31)
• Strengthens the weak and searches for the lost sheep.
• Helps feed the young Christians and models how to be “fed” directly by God.
• Values intimacy. (John 10:3, 13-15)
• Leads by example, and is trusted by the flock because he/she has relational authority. (1 Peter 5:1-3)

Teacher: One responsible for progressive growth in understanding and truth’s application. “I can feed myself and show others how!”

• Facilitates learning of truth and a kingdom lifestyle.
• Mentors on a personal level with a “bifocal vision”. (2 Tim 2:2)
• Aims people in a healthy direction. (Phil 3:15-17)
• Loves to expose false assumptions and reveal actual truth. (2 Cor 10:5)

There is and will always be dialogue and guessing on the roles of the functions mentioned in Ephesians 4:11.  I recommend not turning this into a “personality test” where you pigeon hole someone into one category, where they are stuck for the rest of their lives.

Its important to remember that Jesus held all of these gifts in a perfect balance.  All of them are Christ-like – there is no “super-gift.”  And its important to remember that the goal of the MRT is to equip the whole church to be apostolic/prophetic/evangelistic/pastoral/didactic.

Our God is a multifaceted God, our goal is to live deeply into those endless facets, and to express our God’s glory in endless ways.  For his Glory!

Thy Kingdom Connected makes a case for the church in a world where Facebook has replaced the primary commons for people to connect.

Studies everywhere are bemoaning Generation Y’s unprecedented exodus from not just the church, but of Christianity. They posit that kids these days are just fed up with the church’s hypocrisy, its close-mindedness, boring worship events, and the like. The truth is – that the church has been like that for generations! That may be their explicit reason for leaving church, but if church has always been just as mind-numbing, why is it that this generation in particular is dropping like flies?

With this question in mind, consider the unprecedented use of smart phones, Web 2.0 technology and social media. Think about it – the very thing that people “went to church” for in past generations now is at your finger tips! Facebook is “My Kingdom, Connected.” My photos, my status, my events, my ‘friends’…”

And yet Dwight J. Friesen prepares us with new metaphors and language to connect us to a different kind of Kingdom. He plays in other fields of study, from biology, physics, mechanics, ecology…even knitting…and teases out rumors of God’s networked-Kingdom.

Missiologists and church planters could use new vocabulary to describe the fresh vision of God’s people in today’s world – and while Friesen’s language at times leaves you wondering if “there was a single English word in that last sentence…” he seems to invite his readers to explore a new landscape of metaphor and paradigm for living as a networked ecology of Christ.

I am an organic church advocate and practitioner, helping facilitate a network of faith communities meeting in homes, coffee shops, and other places life happens… I found great encouragement in Thy Kingdom Connected and found myself setting aside some of the metaphors and descriptors as a means of under-girding our theology and ecclesiology here in Chicago.

So often in theology and in church planting we pick apart models, theories, Scriptures, and just about everything else…leaving the issue just about as lifeless as a dissected frog in biology class. But Friesen takes a page from the “Science of Life” – asking the question, “What would it take to develop a theological vision that enhances life?” At the core of life-centered theology is one that cultivates life in context, rather than picks it apart – seeing theology and ecclesiology as inherently relational and therefore, not approachable as an “it” — as would have been done in the typical modern worldview — but as a “we” – and a dynamic, open-ended and even divine “We” at that. We are in the petri dish, we are in the linked network we are ourselves exploring.

In Friesen’s understanding of leadership, we are to engage our community the way Google engages its users. No one goes to Google for its own sake – it is a springboard to resources and information. Leaders too are a linking catalyst…a hub to the resources to the very best that God has to offer. This is more than the leader having a big library – this is cultivating a culture (ecology) of a organic, spiritual system, fully connected as an “all-channel network” — meaning giving not only your resources but pointing to each other as resources to access for strengthening the links of a church network. This is the nature of leadership – influencing the people-system for catalytic transformation.

I disagreed with Friesen’s approach (if not his content) regarding the Christ-Commons and Christ-Clusters. He seemed to say that Christ-Commons were regularly scheduled events whereas Clusters were serendipitous fly-by-night collections of Christians. I agree that there are both kinds of “groupings” in the Church – the folks walking to Emmaus on Easter may be to him what is known as a “Christ-Cluster” – which is fine – but to call that “the soul of the church” is a little much if you ask me. Spontaneous engagements with community and the Spirit is simply a natural overflow of family life together – which can happen in a regularly scheduled event or in an impromptu worship night at a friend’s house. People grow from both “quality and quantity” time together and with the Spirit.

Our network in Christ extends beyond our little crew that meets in my living room – it is more than our network of organic churches in Chicago. It is broader than the global church in our day, and reaches further back than Pentecost and beyond the 2nd Coming of Christ. It is the Church Universal – it is the Bride to Be. Entangled in the Network of God, who was, is, and is to come.

Thy, not My, Kingdom Connected!

And

And teaches us to say, “yes”

And allows us to be both-and

And keeps us from either-or

And teaches us to be patient and long suffering

And is willing to wait for insight and integration

And keeps us from dualistic thinking

And does not divide the field of the moment

And helps us to live in the always imperfect now

And keeps us inclusive and compassionate toward everything

And demands that our contemplation become action

And insists that our action is also contemplative

And heals our racism, our sexism, herterosexism, and our classism

And keeps us from the false choice of liberal or conservative

And allows us to critique both sides of things

And is far beyond any one nation or political party

And helps us face and accept our own dark side

And allows us to ask for forgiveness and to apologize

And is the mystery of paradox in all things

And is the way of mercy

And makes daily, practical love possible

And does not trust love if it is not also justice

And does not trust justices if it is not also love

And is far beyond my religion versus your religion

And allows us to be both distinct and yet united

And is the very Mystery of Trinity…

— Father Richard Rohr