Transcript THE EMERGENT CHURCH - Center for Congregations

THE EMERGENT CHURCH
Center for Congregations
October 2007
Eddie Gibbs
Session 1:
What Is The Emergent
Church?
Sorting Through The Confusion
New approaches
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In doing Worship
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In doing Theology
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Radical orthodoxy; eclectic; narrative rather than
propositional
In doing Church
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Participatory and creative
Organic, not mechanistic
Phyllis Tickle:
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“Represents the convergence of the Liturgical, the
Evangelical, the Mainline, the Pentecostal and the
Contemplative.”
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Why now?
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Cultural context of comprehensive,
discontinuous change
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Crumbling of Christendom
Marginalizing of the Church
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Complexity and chaos theory
Compromised and enfeebled
Impact of the information age on controlling
hierarchies
Emergence of de-centered organizations
4
Spiders and Starfish
Vulnerable Spiders
Resilient Starfish
Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, The Starfish and the Spider:
The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
5
Problem of definitions
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EC does not consist of a single, cohesive
movement
Diverging/converging streams
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Fluid
Ground level initiatives
Different emphases
Continuously evolving
Kester Brewin: “A vision for Church that is organic,
networked, decentralized, bottom-up and always
evolving.”
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What is a ‘Missional
Community’?
Consists of followers of
Jesus who are seeking
together to be faithful in
their place and time
Ringwood, Melbourne
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Consumer Church
Paid Staff 2%
Volunteer
leaders 18%
The “consumer”
congregation 80%
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Missional Church
Paid Staff 2%
Volunteer
leaders 18%
Mission of the
Congregation in the
World 80%
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Identifying the streams
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Post Evangelical/Charismatic
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Missional Church
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Lesslie Newbigin, David Bosch
“Fresh Expressions” in traditional denominations
New Monasticism
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Discontent and disillusionment
Alt.worship
Intentional communities: Church of the Apostles,
Seattle; TOM, Sheffield
Independent Networks
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Neil Cole, Church Multiplication; J.R. Woodard, Kairos
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The bottom line
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Recognize that North America
represents and urgent and complex
missional challenge
The missional church does not HAVE a
mission, it IS a mission
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Archbishop Rowan Williams
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“It is not the Church of
God that has a mission,
but the God of mission
who has a church.”
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Characteristics of the
Missional Church
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Session 2:
Describing The Emergent
Church
Core Practices and Outcomes
What it is NOT
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Not youth church
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Not trendy church
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Something young people grow out of
Catering for an artistic elite
Not house church
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Reactionary and introverted
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Three Core Practices
1. Identify with the life of Jesus
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From reading Jesus through Paul to
reading Paul through Jesus
The reign of Christ has been
inaugurated
The Spirit has been outpoured
The Gospels lead to the Cross; they do
not begin with the Cross
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Three Core Practices
2. Transform secular space
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Concern for social justice and
community rejuvenation
From invitation to engagement
Holistic spirituality
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Challenging the sacred/secular divide
Life-embracing spirituality
Finding God in popular culture
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Barry Taylor
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Three Core Practices
3. Live as community
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Re-defining church
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Family and people
Community gathered and scattered
From casual and contractual to
covenantal
Anticipatory sign of the reign of God
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“Spring is here!”
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What’s the message?
Don’t
GO
to
Church
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Get the message?
BE
The
Church
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Six Outcomes
1. Welcome the stranger
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Inclusion with a view to transformation
The inclusive practices of Jesus
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A place at the table
Evangelization is a way of life, not an
event
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Becoming “good news” people
Invitation to join us on our life of pilgrimage
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Six Outcomes
2. Serve with generosity
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Social justice and community
involvement
Challenging the consumer culture of
exchange
The kingdom of God comes as gift, and
often as surprise
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Six Outcomes
3. Participating as producers
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From consumers to contributors
Providing each person the opportunity
to share their story
Encourage interactivity and dialogue
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Including all ages
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Six Outcomes
4. Create as created beings
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Each according to their gifts and passion
Creativity is participating in God
Includes all ages
Consists in bringing what one already has
Involves lighthearted playfulness
Provides opportunity to develop one’s
gifts
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Six Outcomes
5. Lead as a body
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John Adair: “situational leadership”
From stifling control to creative
freedom
Jean Lipman-Blumen: “connective
leadership”
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Mike Breen
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Low Control
High
Accountability
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Mutual
throughout the
team
Low
Maintenance
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Six Outcomes
6. Spirituality: ancient and modern
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Combining ancient and contemporary
spiritualities
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Church Fathers
Celtic spirituality
Medieval mystics
Liturgical tradition
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Lectio Divina
St. John of the Cross
Paraphrase of Luke 11:9
Seek in READING
And you will find in MEDITATION
Knock in PRAYER
and it will be opened to you
in CONTEMPLATION
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Appeal of Celtic Christianity
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Journeying and the solitary life – pilgrimage
Image and song – place for artist and poet
Trinity – unity in relationships
Presence of God – alongside and all around
Time – daily pattern; calls to prayer
Cross – focal point in the countryside
Saints – native and approachable
Praise – shared with whole of creation
Encountering dark forces – spiritual
confrontation
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Session 3:
Leadership Within The
Emergent Church
Why Traditional Models
No Longer Work
Common Traits
 Character: charisma is no substitute
 Mark of authenticity is the fruit of the Spirit
 Call: Sense of God setting the person apart
and going before them
 Bill Easum: “Obedient to a call greater than their
own lives.”
 Charisma: Gifts given prior and subsequent to

the call
Context: right person in the right place
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What’s Different?
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Attitudes to authority
Availability of information
Commitment to institutions
Two income families
 Fewer volunteers
Work schedules
 Longer hours
 Flexible schedules
Travel time to and from work
Single parenting
A recent survey in
the Wall Street
Journal revealed
that four out of ten
employees were less
than three years in
their job. Ten years
ago it was about 3
percent. 20-25
percent are temporarily out of work.
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Twilight of Hierarchies
The shift is now more than obvious:
from top-down vertical relationships
towards horizontal, consensual,
collaborative modes of getting people
together to make something different
happen
Harlan Cleveland, Nobody in Charge (p. 44)
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Confronting a Culture of
Conformity
A PEACOCK
in the land of
PENGUINS
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Barbara “BJ” Hately and Warren H. Schmidt
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Decision-Making and
Sense-Making
Warren Bennis, The Future of Leadership
“If I make a decision it is a possession, I
take pride in it, I tend to defend it and not
listen to those who question it. If I make
sense, then this is more dynamic and I listen
and I can change it. A decision is something
you polish. Sense-making is a direction for
the next period.”
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The Future of Leadership
Warren Bennis, The Future of Leadership
We need new leaders…
not just younger leaders,
but leaders with new
competencies; listen to
the under thirties and
over seventies.”
 Bill Easum, Leadership,On The Other Side
…many of today’s most significant leaders are
under 30 and we have never heard of them.
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Leadership Images
Conducting the Orchestra
Leading the Jazz Band
Max De Pree, Leadership Jazz
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Leaders Who Make “Music”
Max De Pree, Leadership Jazz, pp. 8, 9
“Jazz-band leaders must choose the music, find the right
musicians, and perform–in public. But the effect of the
performance depends on so many things–the
environment, the volunteers playing in the band, the need
for everybody to perform as individuals and as a group,
the absolute dependence of the leader on the members of
the band, the need of the leader for the followers to play
well.”
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Flexibility is the name of the
game
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Cannot form long-range plans for an
unpredictable future
Develop contextually appropriate planning
models:
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Alternative scenarios–”What if?”
Our mental models are crucial to the learning
process
Just-in-time planning with prompt implementation
Understand “management” in terms of coping
mechanisms than control systems
Knowledge doesn’t necessarily come from
experience
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Characteristics of Effective
Leaders
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Aware of God’s call
Clear vision – analytical, strategic,
focused
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Demonstrate confidence and courage
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Able to influence, motivate, and mobilize
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Characteristics of Effective
Leaders
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Ambitious for others
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Consistent in follow-up
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Take risks – learning as they go
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Carry out damage control
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Session 4:
Structuring The Church for
Mission
Turning Congregations
into Clusters
Characteristics of emergent
systems
Kester Brewin
1. Open–change from within triggered by
the environment
2. Adaptable–radical reliance on our local
communities to survive
3. Learning–sensing what is going on
around it and processing this information
intelligently to make changes
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Characteristics of emergent
systems
4.
5.
Distributed knowledge–not top
down, centralized knowledge and
power
Servant leadership–complexity
theory provides us with a model of
leadership that has very little power
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Problems with inherited
congregations
1. Clericalism: chaplain to service the faithful
2. Controlled not releasing environment
3. Recipient participants rather than initiating
participants
4. Building centered rather than concerned with
building community
5. Sunday/Event centered: lost gathering power
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Four levels of human social
groupings (Joseph Myers)
1. Intimate Space
– prayer partners
2. Personal Space
– cell groups
3. Social Space
– Sunday service
4. Public Space
celebrations
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Impact of the Christendom
concept of “congregation”
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Church formed by Christendom, congregation is
all about a special religious event (service) in a
special building on one day of the week
Enshrines clericalism
Prevents the liberation of the whole people of
God on community-based belonging
1 Cor 11-14 only makes sense and come to life
with gatherings from 15-60 that do extended
family community
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Rediscovering biblical
congregation
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Bob Hopkins
“To understand clusters we shall need to
recognize that one of the principal weaknesses
of the western church is that we have lost
Biblical and sociological “congregation.” What
we now call congregation, we believe is
something different. This is particularly serious
because we define church as congregation and
it’s the word congregation that carries all our
assumptions about church.”
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Essence of Clusters
1. Typically composed of 2-6 cell groups
2.Sometimes clusters emerge from cell
groups and sometimes cells emerge from
clusters
3.Total of 15-65 people
4.Ideal size: 25-55 adults
5.Can be fully inter-generational
communities
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Essence of Clusters, ctd.
6. Defines a grouping within a specific
sociological, ecclesiological and
missional identity
7.Not just a strategy to re-structure large
churches
8.Vision and faith in the founding leaders
are key – so call it what they have
caught sight of
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Essence of Clusters, ctd.
9. Defined by mission: sets them apart, hold them
together, gives them identity and motivates
them
10. Small enough to share a common vision and
large enough to do something about it
11. Release a leadership explosion by lowering
the bar and releasing the motivation
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Essence of Clusters, ctd.
12. Leaders grow in key gifts and skills
based on high accountability and low
control
13. Give a key to evangelism and
multiplication
14. Create a networked church
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Three Dimensions of Clusters
1. Upward – embraces the liturgical or the entirely
spontaneous (Holy)
2. Inward – formal or informal meals; lots of
caring, prayer for one another, practical and
financial help (One)
3. Outward – vary as widely as neighborhood and
networks; listen to their chosen context to
identify the needs, aspirations, and social
patterns (Apostolic)
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any cluster can take action on wider social and
environmental issues
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Holistic Faith Community
UP
IN
OUT
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Mike Breen’s Summary
1. A place of identity, belonging and
ownership
2. A point of gathering
3. A context for training
4. Generate embryos for further church
plants
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Congregational Clusters
Part of wider expressions of church
OF
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Glue that holds cluster
members together
1. Purpose – mission focus
2. Values – community qualities
3. Agreed Language – name and story
4. Vision moves into Purpose and Values building
Community
5. Strong identity produces healthy clusters
6. Sifting process around purpose and values is
not only okay, it’s healthy
7. Develop a shared language
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Glue between Clusters
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Leadership Huddles: cluster Leader Support
Groups (Carl George)
Celebration: Gathering networked churches
(made up of 4-10 Clusters)
Matrix: Resourcing from the center: worship,
training, children, youth, finance,
communication (Boxes of resource material that
clusters may need during the week)
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