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)

1. Active Listening
2. 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!

All I can say is WOW!  We had a great weekend at the Greenhouse Conference, with Neil Cole and Ed Waken!  It was packed out like never before – over 100 people went through the intensive training weekend, preparing each of them to implement simple strategies for relational outreach, reproducible discipleship, and organic church planting.

Of course, the absolute best part of the weekend was spending some quality time with friends in the Underground, and reconnecting with other leaders across the Chicagoland area. Shared meals, coffee breaks, sharing dreams… nothing from the front of the room can compare with connections made there.

Check out these photos of our time together!

The “fire hose” of content that we received this weekend might best be unpacked in a series of blog posts.  I find that’s the best way I learn, so if you missed the conference, here’s your place to tune in!

*** Keep in mind – there were actually TWO conferences going on at the same time this weekend.  Greenhouse Story 1, and Story 2.  I went to Story 2, so these posts will be looking primarily at what was said at that conference.

Organically Multiplying at Every Level

CMA Resources, the organization that presents the Greenhouse Conference, sees their purpose as

facilitating church multiplication movements by focusing resources on reproducing healthy disciples, leaders, churches and movements.

Story 1 focuses mostly on resources for making disciples that make disciples… Life Transformation Groups are one of their strategies – what we call the Micro Layer of the Onion.

Story 2 then is left to talk about Leadership, Churches, and Movements.

Organic Leadership

Organic Leadership starts as a seed planted within yourself.  Unless you are personally seeing Christ’s life transforming power within you, whatever else you do will be disaster.  Your “organic church planting” will be more like “sowing the wind, and reaping the whirlwind.” (Hosea 8:7)  The choice to participate with God in cultivating organic churches across your city and region is to commit to being a certain kind of person; filled with the Spirit, a humble, authentic walk with Christ, always growing and changing, and empowering and serving others.

There are two kinds of people in the world – people who have the adventures – and people who only read about them.  Dive right into this life – let it immerse you.  At the end of your life – know that you have run the race well, and that adventure was not a book on a shelf, but a lifestyle well-lived!

Not sure if you’re out in the bush or only reading about the victories of others?  Do a quick check of your own life — Do any of these characteristics describe your plateau?

Avoids relationships of accountability // Infrequent application of God’s Word // Looking for greener pastures // Joy and love replaced with resentment and fear // Faults are in others, not so much in yourself // Compromising previous personal ethical standards // Sticking to areas of expertise, rather than risking new areas of learning // Talk more than you listen // Christian life for you is mere a routine.

The Right Kind of Authority

There’s a lot of resistance against the word “authority” in our culture today.  Even “power” in any form is suspect.  But is there a godly form of power?  What does it look like?

There’s a clip from Braveheart where William Wallace is speaking with the Princess of Wales says, “I understand that you have recently been given the rank of Knight.”

William repsonds, “I’ve been given nothing.  God makes men what they are… a lordship, title, gold…that I should become Judas?”

The Princess replies, “Peace is made in such ways,”

William: “Slaves are made in such ways!”

William is making known the temptation in all leaders – to take on the title and the gold and the power and make it their very identity.  Positional Power is never as power as Relational Power — anything William wanted, the Scots would have given him, died for him, because they saw his courage and personal contributions to the cause they all believed in.

Too often, we take our leaders from a shrinking pool of fish.  What Organic Leadership challenges us to is to reorient our recruitment for leaders from the very harvest field we are trying to reach!  Jockeying for the few of us that have been seminary-trained and groomed for maintaining a single congregation will never make a major dent in transforming our world for Christ.  It must become a living movement, made up of local leaders straight out of the harvest field.

So what do Organic Leaders do?

They are a lot like Organic Farmers!

Tending:  the work of leaders to create a Christ-centered environment in which healthy famly life and ministry can occur freely and fully.

Harvesting: is a result of intentionally developing disciples, leaders, churches, and missional teams. Here leaders are multiplied with personal mentoring that has a long range view of one’s whole life.

Propagating: is the extension of the whole gospel via ordinary disciples and apostolic teams into the sectors of city life, across a region, and globally among unreached peoples.

It is no secret that this is the most neglected and forgotten layer in the Church.

It is also in this layer that lies the secret to everything – the pathway to a spiritually vibrant community life.

In the first layer we considered the power of a life centered on God.  While the Christian walk is never private, it is inherently personal; inviting each heart to pay attention to the love and power of God in their life.  Learning to cultivate a unique, organic relationship with the Divine is what produces the unyielding stream of life that Jesus promises in [youversion] John 4 [/youversion].

As John Donne has aptly stated, “No man, is an island.”  We cannot thrive as humans while separated from others.  Nevertheless, there is a neglect of the Micro Layer, especially in the West, where individualism and mass corporatism reign supreme.  We are a highly narcissistic bunch, and unfortunately, this makes truly engaging the lives of one or two others very difficult, if not impossible.  We want it to be “all about me” making “empathy,” “teamwork,” and “community” good ideas only…but ones that are never realized.

Generally speaking, the Church in the West has only a tacit awareness of the Micro Layer – the communities of two or three.  Accountability groups became for many nothing more than sin-management sessions, and Catholic priestly confession took an important habit of the early church and distorted it, setting up an actual one-way wall that only invited one-way confessions.  In contrast, I believe that we are all priests, and we are all confessors. [youversion] 1 Peter 2:9 [/youversion]

Much of the burden of  spiritual formation has been left up to two people in the Western Church: the first is the pastor, who does what one can to spiritually nurture a crowd once a week, and second, the loner Christian whose spiritual life and struggles are not to be shared with anyone else for fear of rejection from the group.  This becomes particularly toxic when the pastor takes his own spiritual formation as privately as the rest of us – which results in many of the clergy scandals we’ve seen in the news of late.

But a quick skim through the relationships found in the Scriptures shows a different life.  David and Jonathan didn’t have the private-life reservations we Americans hold today.  They knew that life was best lived with a friend at your side.  Jonathan even made a vow of brotherhood to David in covenantal friendship, [youversion]1 Sam 18:3-4[/youversion].  Or what about Moses and Aaron – learning to lean on each others’ strengths to fulfill the will of God that bound them together for life.  Or Paul and Barnabas, who relied on each other to earn the trust of Jewish Christians and Gentile skeptics for the sake of the Gospel.  Or Peter, James and John – Jesus’ tight knit band of brothers.  That’s what we need – we need a band of brothers.

We need a fellowship of the heart that will fight for each other.  To be a place of sanctuary for another’s heart where they can feel safe to ask tough questions without fear of rejection, mutually confess sin, and realize dreams they could never achieve on their own.  Where the challenge of discipleship can be lived out on a practical level and practice the teachings of Jesus.  It is in the Micro Layer that we first experience God’s Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven…the hard work of peace-making, reconciliation, and loving/ serving/ submitting/ praying for one another.

It takes a church to raise a Christian.

This is the smallest unit of church – where the core elements of the Church’s DNA are first expressed: Divine Truth, Nurturing Relationships, and Aposotlic Mission.  I think of the Micro Layer as the most important part of the church.

Like leaves on a tree – they may be the weakest part of the organism, but leaves are where light enters in, and collectively they keep the tree healthy and strong.  If a tree has a strong trunk, but no healthy leaves, we assume the tree is sick and dying.  The same is true for a church – the massive worship gatherings may be strengthening to the church, but if marriages, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and soul friends throughout the crowd are not connecting with each other and inviting God to speak to them, there is something very sick about the church.  This is the power of the Micro Layer.

Why do so many avoid the Micro Layer?  Because it is easier to keep our masks on and hide in our shadows.  But the benefits of community ([youversion] Eccl 4:9-12 [/youversion]), accountability ([youversion] 1 Tim 5:19 [/youversion]), confession ([youversion] Matt 18:15-17 [/youversion]), flexibility ([youversion] Matt 18:20 [/youversion]), and especially reproducibility ([youversion] 2 Tim 2:2 [/youversion]) bring transformation to every child of God.

The Micro Layer is the “on ramp” for each disciple into living the abundant life Jesus promised and the earliest Christians experienced.

I’ve observed that many, when they realize this piece of their spiritual life is lacking, quickly get frustrated because there is no program to join or curriculum to follow.  At the micro level, there are only simple structures.  Below are a few examples of the Micro Layer in action:

• Life Transformation Groups – our organic church network attempts to make LTG’s a community practice.  It involves a same-gender group of 2-3 reading lots of God’s Word (25-30 chapters a week), confessing sin to each other while speaking forgiveness over each other, and praying for the lost.  The DNA of the Church in its most raw form.
• CO2’s – or “church of two.” In addition to LTG’s we are pushing marriages and families to take on the task of being the church together in a daily way.  It means listening to our hearts and sharing them honestly with one other person.  Using the tool of SASHET and VIRKLER we are “listening attentively to my heart, your heart and God’s heart.”
• Read up on the Anamchara from 6th Century Celtic Christians in Soul Friend.
• Read the Shack, and consider the “Micro Layer” found in the Trinity!
• Check out Centered by my friend and mentor Kent Smith.

Why would Jesus send his 70 disciples out to share his gospel in pairs?  Couldn’t he have spread his message further with 70 individuals rather than 35 pairs?  I think his decision reveals God’s desire for a the human heart – to have a companion for the journey.  Whether its Adam and Eve, Paul and Timothy, or you and me, as soon as one disciple of Christ joins another, they become an “incarnate capsule of the Kingdom,” “Jesus with skin on,” displaying the glory of God through redemptive relationship.

Imagine what would be different about the Church if everyone was in a covenant friendship with just one other Christian.  Just imagine…it would change the world.  The Micro Layer may be the hardest to find, and the hardest to keep – but for those who seek it – there is no doubt they will find it.  And lives will be transformed.