When do you know its the right time to move on? Â In developing healthy communities centered on Jesus, a “community developer” or “church planter” has an interesting relationship to the church he (or she) is planting. Â He is both a part of the new community, and yet at the same time, he is very much different. Â He is meant to move on – to take the risk that the fragile and humble group that has gathered around Jesus is ready to withstand the harshest of times, and whats more, to charge forward against the gates of hell.
Many times the best thing a church planter can do for a church is to leave it – not out of anger, spite, or revenge for some past misdeed, but out of an interest to remove a sort of scaffolding to truly let the building be what it is to become.
At times I’ve felt a little like a grandma (I know, weird.) Â By this I mean that after a new couple has a child, often a grandparent will stay with the couple to help out around the house, teach a little bit of technique to sooth an infant’s cries, and simply be a loving presence. Â However, there comes a day – when Grandma returns home – and that’s when the real adventure begins.
The apostle Paul found this an extremely useful strategy for developing a faith community – to get out of the way! Â For Paul, he was in and out in as little as 9 days, and as long as 3 years. Â Similarly, Neil Cole describes in Organic Leadership that mentors and church planters should MAWL their proteges – MAWL stands for:
M – model
A - assist
W – watch, and finally…
L – leave.
It is that last one I have the hardest time with. Â Leaving. Â I never fully trust that the group can survive without me.
But as I write those words, what kind of perspective is that? Â Why do I think its up to me to keep some flywheel spinning, once its been spun? Â I’ll get my hand cut off trying!
Maybe a little humility and bravery is needed. Â Maybe part of what it means to see a vibrant family of Jesus in close reach of every person is not thinking that the family has to get it all right for years on end before the scaffolding can come off. Â Could it be that things actually work better through strategic absence of a leader rather than persistent, suffocating presence?
Leadership in the most basic sense is going first. Many of us want our leadership to look and feel glamorous – cresting a “leadership” hill to see the beautiful horizon before you and your adoring crowds applauding your valiant efforts.
But leadership usually means you have to “go first” into less desirable places.
For instance, if you want to be a leader in a community centered on Jesus, you have to die to yourself “first.” You have to take the first step to humility; apologize first, without prompting from others. Â Even if your part in the problem was only 1% – apologize for it; and be sincere.
You can’t lead others where you are not willing to go yourself.
That’s why Jesus didn’t take the exit ramp on the road to Golgotha. Â He led us right to the end of the journey – our own death. Â His is pure leadership – being willing to “go first.”
—
…But that’s not the final chapter – after the journey toward death is complete; we see Jesus striking out again. Â In the book of Hebrews, movement and leadership are central pictures – Jesus is nicknamed “the Trailblazer” (Hebrews 2:10) – and in chapter 13; after cresting Mount Zion (Chapter 12) he sneaks off – refusing the pomp and circumstance, and is out leading – outside the camp, outside the place of glory, to make us holy.
13 So let us go out to him, outside the camp, and bear the disgrace he bore. 14 For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.
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!
When do you know its the right time to move on? Â In developing healthy communities centered on Jesus, a “community developer” or “church planter” has an interesting relationship to the church he (or she) is planting. Â He is both a part of the new community, and yet at the same time, he is very much different. Â He is meant to move on – to take the risk that the fragile and humble group that has gathered around Jesus is ready to withstand the harshest of times, and whats more, to charge forward against the gates of hell.
See above). The key to remember in a mentoring session is that you are 
Katrina 7:23 pm on June 1, 2011 Permalink
Mark – nice post! When the human “leader” fades out, the true Leader appears…