Two weeks ago I was graduating with my masters. One week ago I was back in the classroom. Yeah, I’m asking the very same question you are! “WHY!?!?”

ACU was “nice enough” to let me graduate 3 hours short of my degree, so long as I took and passed a summer one-week intensive course. I naturally picked a class right after my regular semester ended, to get the course completed as quickly as possible. I chose “Emerging Culture & Emerging Churches” with Dr. Chris Flanders. Flanders got his Phd from Fuller Seminary, and before that was a missionary and church planter in Thailand. Since he’s been in Abilene, he’s joined the chorus of professors describing the postmodern shift, but he alone seems to think that such shifts might at all change how and what church looks like.

The class was very engaging, and also very affirming. It helped me think through some of the principles of thought in postmodernity (reading philosophers like Derrida, Foucault, Caputo, etc) and then talking about what that might mean for communities of faith. We looked at churches trying to explore a post-foundationalist theology…all very heady, but also very interesting stuff.

One big take away was an axis continuum Flanders showed us from Mary Douglas. It looked something like this:

Grid and Group Theory:

The two axes, Group, and Grid, show the progress of institutions (which was defined as a coordinating group of any kind) as growing inevitably and increasingly higher in “Grid”. The higher you go in Grid, the more structure and levels of authority there are. The rules and roles are more clearly defined. The other axis, Group describes the degree to which the collective controls the individual and degree to which people are bonded to particular social units - the sense of “family” the group feels.

Church examples of each: Hierarchy (Catholic Church), Authoritarian (Roman Religion; Emperor is God), Individualism (consumerist mega-church Christianity), and Egalitarianism (Quakers).

At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about this chart. Hearing that communities, the longer they are together, always move “up grid” and wake up one day a huge franchised corporation did not settle well with me. But is it possible to be meaningful, to make a difference that matters, while not selling your soul? Where do you find the balance so that lives can be changed, while remaining as structurally flat as possible to keep remain centered on mission and people rather than on preserving the institution.

What if instead of a chain of command (a la Roman Catholic Church), there was a web of relationships. Individuals networked together for the common good. Organic, family-style churches networked together as a coalition in a local context. Servant leaders of these church networks that network together to work as a resource to one another and provide training for new leaders that focus on a region. As church networks grow, is this a potential way to go “up grid” without having to distribute power to individuals, but rather power to communities? What am I missing here? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Just a quick update late Sunday night to say we made it back from the weekend PRE-MAC retreat just fine.  We got back around 9pm Saturday, and invited the Fittz’s to stay at our apartment and send them off proper after breakfast this morning.  Daniel, the Fittz’s, Katrina and I had a great conversation about our team, about the church planter’s assessments we went through over the weekend, and what our next steps will be together.  I may have some reflections on the retreat later on.

Now if I can just bring my mind down from the clouds for long enough to finish a book and a 10 page paper for class tomorrow night.  Oi.

So what might leadership in an organic, Christ-centered network look like? When the “preacher”, “elder” and “deacon” as we have traditionally come to understand those terms have been uprooted, what might emerge from the soil? That is the question that we have been wrestling with lately, and there have been some interesting responses surrounding this that I thought I’d toss around.

Over the last few years, we have truly seen a wave of Christians leaving church-as-we-know-it and moving into a smaller, more intimate community of friends. They meet as the Church in their living rooms, parks, coffeehouses, and anywhere life happens. We’re also seeing the un-churched or the new believers skip right over institutional churches in favor of simply living life with God and friends.

But it usually stops there - from my limited research, at this point, no one has anything very developed on missional, organic leadership (save this guy) that extends beyond the local house church.

My instinct says that if this is to be anything more than a flash in the pan; if there is to be any type of meaningful spiritual nurturing happening, eventually, Christians in these churches realize that they must connect to believers outside of their own little group in order to thrive. That is where leadership comes in.

Followers of Christ realize that Christ is the ONLY head of the Church, and no one can be a mediator (priest) between Christ’s disciples and himself. If that is the case, if preachers and bishops and pastors and all that aren’t here to predigest God’s Word for us, or to function as judge for God, then what good are they?

They listen to Jesus, and do what he says.

It’s that simple, and its a project that will last for the rest of time.

Some leaders (like missionaries/apostles) will work as catalysts; spreading the vision for God’s New Life anywhere and everywhere they hear Jesus calling them. Paul lived and worked like this. He never pretended to be a church’s Father, (only God could fill that role). He made it clear that God broke through the barriers that separated man and God, and nothing could separate them again. Apostles will start new communities by looking for a “person of peace” (Lk.10, Mt.9) and plant inside them the seeds and the DNA of the Kingdom. Before long, they are moving on.

Apostles usually gather around them other leaders: prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. They work together as a team of missionaries to resource an emerging network that is spawned out of others who are listening to Jesus and doing what he says. Working around missional prayer, incarnational friendship, and pastoral discipling, a missionary resource team can participate in seeing a relational network of churches grow. Without preservatives, without burning out, without false structures…this is God’s family at work. (Eph 4:11-16)

As long as these leaders serve the people they are in connection with by providing resources and opportunities for deeper involvement in God’s family, they will be “organic leaders”. They are the nitrogen in the soil, whereas the seeds are the new communities that are birthed deep down within God’s good earth.

Spiritual moms and dads will naturally emerge from each of these churches, working with those God has entrusted to them. Usually, they will be the people who have been Christians the longest, though this might not always be the case. Working with a single faith community, these guides into Christ’s life will grow close with those in their spiritual family and transformation will happen!

–People still like Google because it offers services (like Gmail and collaborative online documents) for free. Even more importantly, they don’t take up your screen with pesky ads like some of the other websites that offer free content or services. They clearly are keeping their patrons first in mind, not their advertisers. In this way, Google is like the missionary leaders of the future. As long as missionary resource teams can function for the network, and not the other way around, you will see healthy growth.

–Leaders in traditional churches are like an exoskeleton, which allows for structure in an organism (good), but restricts how an organism can grow (bad). Endoskeletons function like leaders in organic church networks, serving “behind the scenes” and allowing the organism to grow and take its own shape.

The only way for Jesus to truly be the head of his Church, and yet to have leaders who guide networks to become the Bride of Christ that they were called to be is to allow leaders to simple be the PEOPLE they were called to be…deep listeners of Jesus Christ.

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SO! This is written as a draft - what do you think about it? Can leadership function in this way? Is it possible to have grassroots networks that don’t do the whole corporate heirarchy mess? Do people need human leaders at all? Fill me in and help me think this through!

Easter was great - we went up to Springfield, MO to hang with Trina’s family - they’re always a fun bunch; always lots of family drama to work through, but always plenty of laughs as well.

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Over the past few weeks, I have been feeling a real urge that something is not quite right with my ministry.  I have shared this concern with Miller, and he has been feeling it too.  He even wrote a post about it here.

One of the big lessons we’re learning when it comes to a simpler, more authentic model of God’s Church is that everyone is supposed to contribute to the Body, rather than sticking a sage up on the stage, keeping everyone else in the church passive.  What we have found frustrating is that as naturally gifted leaders wanting others in our house church to step up, we try to stay out of the limelight while being present each week for worship; however, everyone else seems to follow our example, and everyone ends up avoiding the limelight.

So right now I’m prayerfully thinking about what my role is as a missionary to Abilene.  Maybe I’m not supposed to be fully tied to just one church fellowship, but should be working throughout the network, meeting with other groups and helping start more.  We never notice Paul or Barnabas or even Timothy working with just one congregation, but they DO seem to stick to an area, helping churches grow.

It is another one of those big leaps of faith to not “meet” with the same church each week; I’m honestly a little nervous about it.  But it feels right.  It gives everyone else the opportunity in my “strategic absence” to step up and use/discover their own gifts!  And it frees me up to be the missionary I’m training/called to be.  And its not like I’m not going to be church with the people I have come to love, because “church” transcends the meeting, time, and space!

Leadership is not simply about a dominating presence calling all the shots; it is about eduction of those you have influence over.  Its about gently drawing out what is already latent or potential within those in your circles of influence.  My friend in Minnesota calls this “organic leadership“.  Go figure.

Any major hiccups in this next step?  Maybe - I can think of one or two - and I’m praying through them.  But maybe you have some good ideas for me too…

This past Saturday was spent in a leadership meeting like I’ve never experienced before.  I am a part of a group that has set its sights on seeing the whole city of Abilene reached for Jesus Christ; praying that each person will hear (and see) the Gospel in a way that makes sense to them.  For communities and organic churches that blossom out of such a dream, we are a resource team - helping cast vision and call out the giftings of Jesus followers here in this city.  It is a catalytic leadership - one that facilitates the emergence and development of vibrant families of Jesus without being used up in the process.

So what does an all-day retreat look like for such a group?  One might expect to see maps and charts of the city, strategies to touch the “non-churched”, and myriad other important ways to waste our time.  This past Saturday, we shared life stories, fears, dreams, and tears.  We took a walk, we went out for lunch…we described where God had placed us in the city, and what we felt we needed to do in response to that.  I felt relaxed and yet clear on what my next steps were.  I felt confident that living into these goals was possible, and not obligatory.  This was natural leadership, with a structure to still “get things done”.

Is it possible to live like this?  Is it possible that God may have a better plan for reaching the world than any of us?  Could it be that the best leadership happens through teams listening to Jesus, doing what he says, and helping others to do the same?  Can we finally set down our egos, and realize that “leaders” only do what they see the Son doing?  Anything beyond that is heresy.

There are some exciting things happening in the network here.  Its great seeing it all happen, even if I’m on the bleeding edge of the knife of innovation.  This in many ways will help people all over the country look on to see what missional leadership in the 21st Century looks like.  To me, it looks like modeling more than anything - a “Come, Follow me” kind of leadership - one that invites people out into the wild and unpredictable Kingdom.