All organic, healthy things reproduce. In fact, in a sense, you are reproducing even as you read this! Your 10 trillion cells are “mitosis-ing” all over the place, and you might want to quietly ask them to find a room.
The Kingdom of God, like all living things, reproduces itself. Interestingly, this is done in stages developing from the smallest level to the largest.
So if churches, and disciples and even leaders are part of the Kingdom of God, why don’t we see more of them reproducing? Here’s a few reasons:
(1) They are trying to clone themselves. Ever see the movie Multiplicity? Michael Keaton makes a clone of himself to make life a little easier, but before long, his clone makes a clone, who makes another clone. And everyone knows what happens when you make a copy of a copy – its not quite as sharp as the original. (“I like pizza!”) That’s kind of what happens with franchised church plants. (Check out this 10 sec portion of the Multiplicity trailer to see what I mean!)
(2) In addition to scary clones, most churches are just not interested in multiplying! It’s too painful! It feels more like division than multiplication. It usually takes upwards of $250-$500,000 to plant a church in the first year. It is so difficult and complex its undeliverable!
And its difficult not just at the church level – discipleship is under attack from high-level curriculum and a culture that is religiously educated beyond their obedience, and leaders must now go through seminary for the better part of a decade…meanwhile we are only copying ourselves, we have forgotten its about reproducing Jesus.
Inorganic things may PRODUCE, but they can never reproduce. A coffeemaker may PRODUCE great coffee, but it can never make another coffeemaker.
Reproduction is FUN!
Imagine with me for a moment a world where reproduction was hard to hold back. Where you had to teach classes in school about abstinence and contraception. Not so hard to imagine, eh? People want to reproduce! Its fun!
Now imagine if disciple-making, like baby-makin’ – was just as fun. Imagine passing out “church planting contraceptives” or holding whole conferences on waiting to plant a church because people were so excited to get out there to do it! First, that’d be awesome! But I think that also gives us a picture of what I’m aiming for – where disciple-making, leadership development, and church planting becomes a veritable movement that cannot be stopped.
Mentoring
If Life Transformation Groups (LTG) as a part of the Micro Layer are the “wineskin” or infrastructure for reproducing Jesus-centered disciples, then mentoring helps reproduce Jesus-centered leaders, churches, and movements.
It’s important to remember NOT to put on the “mentoring hat” in an LTG. LTG’s are for peers – people who are mutually self-disclosing/confessing, etc. Mentoring should be done at another time, or risk the “priest/confessor” hierarchical relationship trap!
The two most central skills necessary to mentor well are: (Luke 2:46-47)
Active Listening
Asking Good Questions
If you simply spent the rest of your life working on these two skills, you’d be amazed at what would happen.
Through the lens of the above two skills, your mentoring style must be (1) Personalized to the person you’re mentoring, (2)Just-in-time (not “just-in-case”) — people don’t learn linearly like our good curriculum suggest. (3) It must also be “on-the-job” — people only learn to swim when they’re in the water, (4) and mentoring must be holistic – (a) skills — doing, (b) cognitive (knowing) — and (c) character (being). You can’t teach character – you’ll just get behavior modification. If you want to teach character, be a mirror and a model.
Men are looking for better methods, God is looking for better men. — E.M. Bounds
Also important to remember about mentoring is that the only way to really move forward in a mentoring relationship is through fruitfulness. If there is no fruit, then you are mentoring is a waste of time. This process of the bearing more fruit is a sign that the person being mentored is taking the mentoring seriously. While you cheer every person on, mentors invest in proveness, not potential.
Bifocal Vision
A mentor has the ability to see you both as you are today, and the person you are developing into. This allows her to view not only your personal development, but the influence you will have later on others. Not only is she mentoring your life, but she is considering the countless lives you will touch, the churches you will plant, and even the apprentices you will one day mentor. You know you’re a healthy mentor, not when you’ve successfully mentored someone into a godly life, but when they begin to mentor someone else in healthy ways.
A Simple Tool
So all this mentoring/coaching stuff is fine and dandy…but how do I actually DO it? Neil Cole and CMA put out a little tool that has been helpful for them in their mentoring sessions – a Mentoring 2 Multiply Guide. Its a simple sheet of NCR paper on which you would write your notes from your mentoring session. Then at the end of the meeting, tear off the copy and hand your notes to the apprentice. (But don’t make a copy of a copy! See above). The key to remember in a mentoring session is that you are educing not educating. You are not pouring your skills and expertise into a bucket — you are drawing out what is already planted in the one you are mentoring.
Acorns…not buckets… That will keep you from feeling “used up” and it will encourage the apprentice to reach his/her own potential rather than becoming your clone!
MAWL Them
M odel
A ssist
W atch
L eave
That’s a great “pathway” for the process of mentoring leaders, and assisting church plants…to see a movement take off. This is a process of cultivating a catalytic-style of leadership. I pray for the day when church leaders do not end up on the evening news for bad-behavior – or end up in the fetal position as they resign to cynicism from a church they could not drag behind them to fulfill their personal ambitions. I am anticipating and already seeing the green-shoots of organic leadership – where a catalysis of love will flood the earth – and each of us will participate in the unstoppable movement of God!
Q&A: What’s the Difference Between Small Groups and House Church?
Apex Network, a house church network in Ohio, has started putting content on YouTube, specifically to answer questions posed to leadership at Apex about house church planting.
Check out this video as a discussion starter for the differences between small groups and house churches. With many similarities, there are some important distinctives to keep in mind.
Enjoy following your blog. we need to touch base sometime.
I was just thinking about this topic the other day. Came up with 5 differences between a small group (at least small group tendencies, some groups may be able to avoid the small group traps) and house church.
1. Like parent like child, small groups tend to inherit some of the same institutional shortcomings as the churches from which they come. They’re started at the decision of a minister and just begin with a group that is commonly even asigned to a group. House churches will tend to develop and operate a little more organically.
2. In my experience, small groups still fall somewhat into the attractional model of institutional churches. House churches will hopefully adopt a more incarnational and fluid rhythm.
3. Like this guys point about geography/demography, small groups tend to be more about maintenance, or relationships at best (but they’re relationships with people already part of the church). House churches have more of a missional focus.
4. Small groups tend to be either about a topical study or some may just be for the purpose of fellowship. House churches will include study, but it tends to be more flexible, taking as topics of reflection what arises in the lives of participants. House churches will also integrate fellowship with the study, as well as service, sacraments, and other aspects of our spiritual journeys. Thus they tend to be a more personal/life-based than topical.
5. Small groups tend to be characterized more by observation. Like the guy said, members come to focus on what the “leader” has to offer. House churches tend to be more participatory. Everyone knows it is important that they be an active part, and they’re eager to participate.
I hate to seem like I’m picking on the negative aspects of one (knowing there are exceptions), while highlighting the ideals of the other, but I really do think the two tend more toward those practices.
Anyway, just noticed the post and the topic was sort of fresh on my mind. hope to talk to you soon.
Thoughtful stuff, man! I appreciate your candor, and your willingness to admit the limitations of the “dichotomy” in the two models. I think its worth saying again – small groups and house churches are both made up of people – which are themselves contradictions. It doesn’t matter what you call the group, it can be vibrant and reproducing Jesus, or it can be stiff and dry. That said, I think your observations are spot on. There are simply a different set of “expectations” when one enters a small group versus an organic church, and expectations are a very hard thing to change once they are set. I am meeting pastors all over the region here that are asking how they can move their traditional church (or small groups program) toward more of the organic/ house church profile. I tell them that from my experience, they will probably hemorrhage a good bit of their members, simply because “that’s not what they signed up for.” In other words, they joined your church for specific expectations, and they will not hang around until you’ve convinced them fully that there are better expectations out there…
Great stuff man! Looking forward to more dialogue!
See above). The key to remember in a mentoring session is that you are 
chad are discussing. 
Katrina 12:28 pm on March 14, 2010 Permalink
I promise not to tell Ed Tufte about the infographics.