200. Mastery and Originality in the missional task of the church Part 2

In Part 1 of this series on Mastery and Originality, we talked about the need to for the church to have a balance between mastery and originality in order to remain effective in it's missional task.
Ideally, when someone launches out and experiments with innovative forms of mission, they develop a sense of mastery in that particular strategy or model and become an effective practitioner. This is how models or methods of any kind are born. Depending on certain variables, that model may get replicated in other contexts. It would look something like this.

This journey from experimenting towards effectiveness is what the success stories are made of. We all love to hear these kinds of stories. They inspire us to innovate and experiment ourselves. If they can do, we can do it too. This journey, as the squiggly line depicts, is not easy, and often times filled with discouragement, ambiguity, disappointment, and frustration. But to cross that line into sustainability and effectiveness is sweet indeed. It's something every pioneer longs for. It deserves to be celebrated and taken note of.

So what happens when you experiment and things don't work out? What happens when you pour your heart and soul into a venture and you don't achieve what you wanted to achieve? We don't hear many stories about this kind of journey. For one, those who go through it are rarely excited about sharing it. There is a certain shame involved with being "that guy" who sets out on that journey and doesn't land the ship on the other side. Questions like "What's wrong with me?" and "Why me?" and "Where is God in all of this?" are some of things that go through church planters minds when their experiments turn out to be just that, an experiment. These are tough questions that don't settle down with easy answers.

I want to suggest several things to keep in mind if you are "that guy" (no gender bias here :-) or you know someone who is "that guy."

1. If you felt called by God to launch out into the frontier and experiment with a missional venture,  just because it didn't work out does not mean God did not call you to walk with him on that journey. None of the apostle Paul's churches are still around today, and yet his influence is undisputed. God goes with us into every calling, even if it doesn't turn out like we wanted.

2. Failing at an experiment does not mean you are a failure. No one likes to experience failure, but when we do, it tends to reveal the source of where we draw our identity from. If the core of your identity is drawn from what you do FOR Christ (doing), then experiencing a failure will rock your world. Our identity is fundamentally who we are IN Christ (being). God can use our failures to anchor our identity in Christ.

3. There are big "F" and little "f" failures. Little "f" failures are when you don't achieve what you set out to achieve. Big "F" failures are when you choose to stay at the settlement because of fear or down right laziness. This is perhaps one of the most important things for  people doing apostolic ministry to embrace. We are to be faithful to the One who calls us into the frontier. Faithfulness, in and of itself, is Success with a capital "S". The ultimate Failure is disobedience to the One who calls. Framed this way, I will take a little "f" over a big "F" any day.

4. Learn from the experiment. It requires a good dose of humility to look back on your efforts and say "If I had to do it again, I would do ________ differently." Doing this will position you to learn valuable lessons from your experience. This is where the Father will redeem your experiment and be able to cultivate a level of mastery in you for the next venture.

5. Talk about what you have learned from the experiment. This is another way the Father will redeem your experience of failure. You develop a level of authority out of your experience of failure that can not be found any other way.

6. Just because you did not achieve what you wanted to achieve, does not mean nothing was achieved. As a leader, you are the custodian of the vision, which is often larger than life....and it should be. However, when that vision doesn't come to pass, it is easy to write off the venture as being completely worthless. Regardless of whether or not you achieved your goal, God will still use the soil you tilled, the weeds you pulled, the seeds you planted, watered and tended for His kingdom purposes. Influence is not measured by the leader, but by those who have been influenced. This explains why people who walked with you will always see more good coming from your efforts than you will.

7. It's not over. Just because you experienced failure does not mean your future is sealed. You can take what you have learned from your experience, increase your level of mastery, and move forward into the future with greater levels of wisdom and maturity. The Lord can use anyone who is willing to learn. The trajectory would look something like this.

It is during that phase of expiring that the Father can raise our level of mastery. Most of the things you will learn on the frontier will have a lot to do with your own spiritual formation as a leader as well as issues related to structure, strategy, and sequence for implementing your vision. However, learning from failure is different than learning from success by way of focus. When you learn from failure there are typically specific practices, postures or processes you can clearly point to that contributed to the failure. This makes learning from failure really focused....and painful.

Success, on the other hand, is often not so revealing as to what the contributing factors were. I remember hearing a guy get up and explain the success of his church plant with really vague and cliche phrases like "we prayed really hard" "made sure people were committed" and "small groups were a big priority." I thought to myself, "Every church planter I know does this!" The factors that contribute to a successful venture are not necessarily apparent on the first round because many of the factors are often concealed from the planter by virtue of their default assumptions of what makes a church plant successful. This makes learning from success a tricky affair. It often takes others experimenting with those same "factors" in similar contexts to expose those factors as being peripheral to what makes a venture successful.

8. Don't be afraid to let "it" die. If you did not achieve what you wanted to achieve, you should name it, and let it die. You should let the venture expire. You then, should enter into a season of abiding (John 15) where Jesus can re-build and re-store your vitality for the next assignment. Experiencing failure can tear you down, especially the last phases of the venture where you have to watch it die and fade away. But Jesus is the source of life, and if we are willing to abide in Him, and let his words abide in us, we will find the love and joy we need to move into the future with hope and confidence. It is during a time of pruning that we can draw from the Vine in deeper ways, positioning us to bear fruit that lasts.

In the next post, I will talk about some of the practical things I have learned through my most recent failure in church planting. For the past 5 years I have experimented with planting churches using the house church model. I call it a failure because I did not achieve what I wanted to achieve. God still used our efforts, people were changed, healing took place, and we saw God build bridges where none existed. But as the leader, I had a vision of starting a network of multiplying house churches. I did not achieve that vision. So I have to own that, learn from it, and share with others what I have learned so those who are open to it, can learn from my experience. This is part of what it means to be a pioneer. You share your journey, pitfalls and all, and in so doing, you can help others chart a better course into the future. 

199. Mastery and Originality in the missional task of the church Part 1

In The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church, we talk about the trended decline of Christianity in the West. This decline has prompted a surge in church planting over the past decade. However, most church planting in the past decade has been shaped by the prevailing paradigms and practices (algorithms) of the conventional church. As the algorithm goes, you throw up a sexy worship service, provide a dynamic children's ministry, get a "wow" speaker, and market like crazy (I sarcastically oversimplify, but humor me). This conventional model of church planting has experienced a certain level of "success." However, if truth be told, most of these plants typically attract a certain demographic of the already Christian population, otherwise known as the churched/de-churched folks. All in all, you cant knock this kind of venture because it often restores back sliders and ends up mobilizing resources for kingdom impact in the long run. Kingdom impact is a good thing no matter how you slice the pie. So I am not one of those purists who says this kind of church planting is useless or irrelevant. It clearly has a place in the churches task, and I respect those who are called to do it. 

However, we have to own up to the music here. The current algorithms of church planting will only reach a certain demographic of people. In order to reach people we are not currently reaching, we will have to do things we are not currently doing. Most church planting organizations stick with the prevailing model because they have developed a level of mastery in executing the current church planting algorithm. And who can blame them? Considering the amount of money involved in most church planting ventures, the proven efficiency of it all is quite alluring to all involved. 

Yet our mission still stands: to penetrate un-reached people groups and places with the gospel, make disciples, and form new, self-propagating expressions of the ecclesia. If getting better and better at applying the existing algorithm (mastery) will only make us more efficient at reaching a certain socio-cultural strata of the population, then no matter how efficient we become, we will, in the big scheme of things, remain ineffective. We will not achieve our mission. This is a problem. 

In order to effectively achieve our cross-cultural, geo-ethnic mission, we have to open ourselves up to developing new algorithms. In essence, we have to move away from mastery and move towards originality. Stepping away from the existing algorithms and their predictable outcomes means you will experience a dip in efficiency. It will take more time, more resources, more energy. Success will be delayed, and sometimes even denied. To illustrate the interrelationship between mastery and originality, I came up with this matrix.

High levels of mastery and low levels of originality amount to efficiency. Efficiency is good, but only if all variables are static. If your surrounding environment shifts or increases in complexity, relying on your mastery of previously formulated algorithms will, over time, lead to a devolution and expiration will be on the horizon. Blockbuster Video stores are case in point. With the onset of netflix, and then redbox, Blockbuster was being faced with a serious shift in the marketplace. Their inability to innovate and adapt put them out of business. They were efficient, but not effective.  Without originality, your organization will become irrelevant and outdated, no longer able to engage the complexity of it's environment.

On the other hand, an entrepreneurial venture that lingers too long in experimentation without developing a level of mastery in the skills needed for a sustainable venture will also devolve and expire due to a lack of momentum and depleting resources at all levels. Perpetual originality in the absence of mastery leads to brinkmanship. Engaging in entrepreneurial ventures with significant levels of risk and innovativeness requires a certain kind of wisdom and discernment to know when to embrace the reality of failure and go back to the drawing board. 

Every organization/venture, if it wants to be effective, has to wrestle with finding a balance between developing a level mastery in their current operations and practices while at the same time cultivating a certain level of originality in their approach to achieving their mission. To engage in one, without the other, is to seriously compromise the long term viability of the organization/venture. If we are willing to navigate the landscape of mastery and originality we will open ourselves up to the Missio Dei who calls us into the frontiers of unreached people groups to pioneer missional-incarnational-attractional-communal-instrictional (APEST) forms of ecclesia.

Christianity in the West stands at the cross roads in this hour.  Apostolic ministry is not the solution to all our problems, but it does present us with the potential for a new beginning in the churches task to penetrate different people groups and places with the gospel and form new expressions of kingdom communities. It is our contention that those gifted as apostles are the one's most likely to engage the challenges associated with originality and experimentation, thus catalyzing an environment where a permanent revolution can emerge.

In the next post I will talk about how to deal with failure on a personal level when an experiment with originality fails. Even in the midst of failure, God can bring a level of mastery to the fore that can be leveraged for future ventures.   

198. Discipleship and Imitation Part 2

If we are willing to let Jesus be our primary point of reference for what it means to make disciples, then discipleship is fundamentally about imitation. Jesus said every disciple who is fully trained will be like his teacher. (Lk. 6:40) Without imitation, then making disciples will drift into information giving. Information and teaching are good, but lets not make the act of teaching synonymous with making disciples. (Even the great commission in Matthew 28 draws a distinction between these two activities by using two different words for making disciples and teaching)

If disciple making is fundamentally about imitation, then it would be helpful to know what essential components need to be in place in order for imitation to take place. I think they can be boiled down to the following: 1.) Physical Proximity 2.) Relational Frequency and 3.) Situational Variety.

1. Physical Proximity: You may be able to coach someone over the phone or through the internet, but you can not disciple them through this medium. Why? Because in order to truly disciple someone they have to have access to the patterns and practices of your life. They have to literally be around you so they can observe your life and learn to imitate the parts of your life that are worth imitating. This requires physical proximity so you can share the same space and synchronize portions of your life for real, in person interaction.

2. Relational Frequency: Even if I have physical proximity with someone I am discipling, if I dont open up the rhythm of my life to them in both an organized and organic way, then they will not have adequate exposure to my life. People can only imitate what they have been exposed to. As a general rule, I have an organized meeting once a week with those I am discipling where I go through tools called LifeShapes crafted by 3DM. I also have organic times where I spontaneously invite people over or we do life together over meals or recreation. This happens, ideally, on a weekly basis. A weekly organized meeting and a weekly encounter on the fly. Most months the rhythm is checkered for the organic times, but the organized huddle is week in and week out.

3. Situational Variety: the people I am discipling need to encounter me in multiple scenarios and contexts. If I only meet with people in a classroom setting, then lets be honest....I am not discipling them, I am just doing some really up close teaching and coaching. Discipleship means I invite them into the rhythms of my life. They need to seem me hug my wife, pray for people in the Walmart parking lot, witness to people at the local court house. They need to see me in church settings, in entertainment settings where I just chill, have fun, and hang out. So here it is in a diagram.

Making disciples the way Jesus did it requires us to have a level of intentionality and openness with our lives. People do not get discipled on accident. We disciple people by inviting people into the rhythms of our life and saying to them "Follow me as I follow Christ." We have to be strategic with our time and the way we organize our lives so that the people we are investing in not only have access to us, but have access to us in different scenarios and contexts. I think this is what Jesus is getting at when he says that a disciple who is "fully trained" will be like his teacher (Luke 6:40.) Without these 3 components being a part of the discipling relationship, then imitation will be only one or two dimensional. There will be a lack of exposure, and consequently, a lack of imitation. By definition, this translates into a lack of discipleship. 

197. Discipleship and Imitation Part 1

Discipleship is one of those words that means so many things to so many different people. It really does depend on how many people you ask as to how many explanations you will receive. Two reasons come immediately to mind for this kind of ambiguity. First, there is a functional difference between being a disciple of Jesus (follower), and making disciples of Jesus(follower and leader). Making disciples of Jesus is clearly a broader function than being a disciple, and should take place, ideally, after one has been discipled by another.

For example, the 12 were disciples of Jesus for 3 1/2 years, but did not become disciple makers till after the ascension. However, notice they did not cease to be disciples when they became disciple makers. No, they merely matured into their role as disciples by imitating Jesus, the disciple maker. They became little Jesus' and called people to follow them in a discipling relationship. They were merely imitating the one who previously discipled them.

Secondly, the cultural distance between us and Jesus' first century, Palestinian, 2nd Temple Judaism context creates a little bit of a blur for us.  If you wanted to become a disciple of someone in Judaism (in Jesus' day  you would follow a rabbi), you knew exactly what you were getting into. You would literally follow the rabbi (teacher) around and attempt to integrate every facet of the rabbi's life into your own life. You would try to develop and acquire the knowledge, skills, rhythms and practices of their life. Your basic aim was to BE who the rabbi was. The nature of this disciple-rabbi relationship was a part of the very fabric of their culture. It was in this particular historical environment that Jesus called people to be his disciples. (In some ways, I think this relational structure of rabbi-disciple that was built into the culture of that day was part of the "fullness of time" mentioned in Galatians 4, buts that's another post :-)

We, on the other hand, do not live in a culture where discipleship is a part of the visual fabric of our society. The closest thing we have to discipleship is the concept of apprenticeship in which someone seeks to learn a trade like welding from someone who was traditionally called a master craftsmen. But even this current practice of apprenticeship falls short as it is typically only experienced in the technical college, classroom setting, for a brief moment. When compared to how Jesus defines and demonstrates what it means to "make disciples" the language of "apprentice" gets really close, but doesn't fully capture the meaning of the relationship.

The following video is a glimpse into the mind of a blacksmith master craftsmen, Notice how he talks about his craft and how it is learned. Not from books, not from lectures, but by actually doing it. If you wanted to learn how to be blacksmith, you would need to apprentice yourself to a master craftsmen blacksmith. You would have to watch what he does, and then experiment with it yourself. You would need to imitate him.


In the next post, I will talk about the essential components that need to be in place in order for imitation to take place.

196. The Difference between Discipleship and Ministry

As I talk with various leaders, I am finding that there is typically a misunderstanding about the difference between ministry and disciple making. Describing the difference between disciple making and ministry is kind of like describing the difference between a square and a rectangle. A square can be a rectangle, but a rectangle is not necessarily a square. They both have four right angles and four sides, but only the square has sides of equal length. Applying this to ministry and discipleship, you can do ministry without making disciples, but you cant make disciples without doing ministry.

Think about it like this....Jesus could have taught every sermon and parable in his ministry without the 12 disciples being around. In fact, Jesus could have healed, spoke truth to the Pharisees, died for our sins, and rose form the dead...all by himself.  Jesus could have had a dynamic ministry without ever discipling anyone.

So why invite 12 guys to follow you around and give them access to your life? The answer is this: Jesus wanted to build more than a dynamic ministry, he wanted to build a movement. In order to build a movement that outlives the founder, you have to make disciples. Ministry is not enough.  Some churches have dynamic ministry going on, which is great! God will move in and among his people when we obediently serve people. But without disciple making, it will never be become a movement, and you will likely be limited in the amount of ministry you will be able to do as well. After all, who is going to lead those ministries? Who will lead new ministries? Who is going to minister to the people you reach through those ministries? Without making disciples, you will not be able to develop leaders, and without leaders, ministry can only go so far.

However, if you make disciples, then you will get more ministry, and the people who come into the orbit of that ministry will come into contact with people who can make disciples, and this will eventually lead to more ministry and missional ventures in the long run. Sounds simple, sounds cute and trite, but don't be fooled. This is really how it works.

195. The False Dichotomy between Leadership and Servanthood

It is becoming increasingly popular to create a false dichotomy between leadership and servant hood. As the logic goes, having an organizational structure that identifies someone as "the leader" is somehow tyrannical and loaded down with exorbitant pitfalls. Truly spiritual people and organizations use "mutual submission" and "team based models" of leadership, as the logic would ensue.

First, let me say that most of the blogs and talks I hear on this topic are, at best, looking to shape leadership around the sacrificial, servant based, kenotic (emptying of self) values of the cross outlined in Philippians 2. We have all experienced the ego-centric leader, power hungry and addicted to prominence. However, I think that the term leadership is broad and often eludes simplistic definitions, especially when we factor in the dynamics of organization and cultural context. I will not offer a definition of leadership here, I'll leave that to the exploration of the reader. I will however ask one question that I think deserves attention and may have the potential to draw this kind of false dichotomy out into the open and expose it for what it is. The question is this:

If you were to ask any of the 12 apostles during Jesus' ministry who "the leader" was, what would they say?

There is no doubt that they would have said. They all, without question, would have said Jesus. Jesus was "the leader" of the 12, and the 12 knew it. This was not just a Jesus thing, it was a rabbi thing. In other words, it was the nature of a rabbi-disciple relationship. There is a leader and a follower.

This may at first seem overly simplistic, but facing up to this reality that existed between Jesus and the 12 leads me to ask another follow up question:

When Jesus told the 12 to go and "make disciples", wasn't he telling them to now become "the leader" with a potentially new group of followers?

The answer in my mind is an obvious "yes." If discipleship is fundamentally about imitation, then when I am being discipled by another person, I am choosing to follow that person for a season. It is an incubation period where I learn how to be a leader by following a leader. If I am imitating the one I am following, then by definition I am imitating a leader...no? This means disciple making is fundamentally about leadership training. When it comes time for me to expand my role from one who is being discipled to one who is also making disciples, then I will, by definition, be "the leader" of those who are following me.

The problem with most discussions about leadership is that they often don't factor in the equation of disciple making. An organizational structure that includes "the leader" does not have to be tyrannical or abusive, or un-spiritual. If so, Jesus would have been all those things. No, leadership can be exercised in such a way that the power and authority afforded to the leader can be stewarded for the empowerment of those who are following "the leader." This is how Jesus did it, and he asks us to imitate him. This is why I think that the practice of making disciples is axiomatic to any discussion leadership.

I have been on a church planting team in Montgomery Al that was organizationally structured with "the leader" and other "co-workers" who synergized around the over arching vision and values of "the leader." We had staff meetings, argued, debated, shared perspectives, and sometimes hotly disagreed. At the end of the day though, when we could not agree, something had to give. As naughty as this may sound, "someone had to make a decision." And this fell to "the leader." We trusted his heart, as well as his openness to us, and the Spirit. If we didn't, we would not have "followed" him as a leader. He was accountable to us in areas of character, as we all were to each other. How could we not be? We shared our lives together and were in close enough proximity to each other to notice character flaws and address them when necessary.

This is not to say leaders don't need accountability structures and communal processes to season their leadership. This is deserves another blog post, admittedly. The point I am making here is that we don't have to throw the baby out with the bath water. What we need to do is learn how to lead as Jesus led his disciples. We can not improve on what Jesus did. He called people to follow him, trained them, and empowered them to become leaders themselves. He gives us the authority to do the same thing (Matthew 28:18-20). Only now, it is not just "follow me." Our fallen nature requires an exception clause: as I follow Christ.(I Cor 11:1) Our leadership is held to the same standards (if not higher) as those who follow us. We all follow Christ, but not all are making disciples. Those who are making disciples both follow Christ and lead others in doing so, only to make other disciple makers, which is to say, by definition, leaders. 

194. Review of Multiplying Missional Leaders by Mike Breen

Wisdom is demonstrated in not just knowing what to focus on, but  also knowing what not to focus on. This kind of wisdom only comes from years of practice in one’s field. It takes experimentation, failure and a track record of success and fruitfulness to develop this kind of wisdom. Not many leaders have been willing to pay that price.  

Mike Breen’s new book, Multiplying Missional Leaders: From half-hearted volunteers to a mobilized Kingdom force, offers us the rare opportunity to peer into the mind of a wise, seasoned missional leader. For the past 20 years, Mike has poured his life into developing Biblical tools and strategies that effectively train leaders to reproduce themselves while pioneering missional communities. The global movement of disciple making, leadership development and missional communities that he now leads is essentially the culmination of a lifetime of experimentation and unquestionable fruitfulness both in Europe and the U.S.

Reading his new book is like lifting up the hood of a car and seeing what the engine of a missional movement looks like. Concepts in the present day missional movement that tend to be stand alone topics are integrated and brought into meaningful relationship with one another.  Topics like the fivefold giftings of APEST in Ephesians 4, the role of leaders in defining culture, the need for both discipleship and leadership, the criteria for selecting and training new leaders, the role of of an oikos(household) for leaders of leaders, the importance of developing both character(who leaders are) and competence(what leaders can do) in leaders, as well as an organizational process (pipeline) for training leaders, are all woven together in complimentary ways that show how each part plays a role in moving towards a leadership culture. Finding a book that brings all of this together is a rare find indeed.

While Mike gives us a broad view of the essential components for multiplying missional leaders, you can rest assured that the principles he lays out are not grounded in theory or trendy new speak.  No, this book has been written by a seasoned leader who has extracted these principles from scripture and enacted them on the ground in the real context of a post-christian culture. Mike Breen has focused the wisdom and success of the last 20 years into a rich, yet profoundly simple, format that brings together both the principles of scripture and the wisdom of experience into an integrated, systemic, process oriented approach to leadership development.

 All in all, this book will help bring clarity to areas of leadership that, up until now, have remained foggy, fragmented, and overly fixated on either or thinking. It brings a refreshing kind of wisdom that can only be found in seasoned practitioners who have walked the line and done the hard work of experimenting, learning from failure, and crafting their hard earned insights into useful principles that can serve the next generation of leaders. Save yourself some time, heart/head ache, and unnecessary failure and read this book. You, and those you lead, will be glad you did.

193. Apostolic Ministry and the Entrepreneurial Orientation Part 1

In our book The Permanent Revolution, me and Alan Hirsch spend a bit of time taking about the entrepreneurial orientation of apostles. The staple quality of entrepreneurs is what sociologists call "opportunity recognition." That is, entrepreneurs have an innate ability to recognize opportunities for either making money or advancing a cause. Where some see deficits, entrepreneurs see an opportunity for development. Where some see gaps, entrepreneurs see opportunities for growth. Where some see vacancy, entrepreneurs see opportunities for ventures. You get the idea.

Another staple quality of entrepreneurs is their ability to take risks. Entrepreneurial people have a certain tolerance for risk and ambiguity. They like the idea of launching out into the unknown and get a unique satisfaction out of making it to the other side, despite the odds. The destination sometimes is just as exciting as the journey itself.

As "sent ones", apostles have a God given drive to launch out and start new things. They thrive on the idea of taking risks and pioneering new ventures into unknown territories. This is a gift, one that should be celebrated and embraced.

However, like all giftings form God, they have to be exercised under the Lordship of Christ and go through a process of maturing and filling out. One of the common mistakes that immature apostles often make is responding to opportunity without a clear word from the Lord to do so. Just because you recognize an opportunity does not mean you should respond to the opportunity. On any given day, I will be driving through my city and think of several businesses I could start. I could list off to you the restaurants that are not in my city, the services not being offered in my city by various vendors and companies in other cities. I will see a trailer park and think, I could probably start a church there...who could I get to do that with me. I will drive by a huge city park with about 15 soccer fields while a soccer tournament is going on and think, I need to start investing my time in that people group, I know I could meet a person of peace there. On, and on, and on it goes. Sometimes it is just fun to play with the idea in my head about how it could all  look, and then sometimes it is quite frustrating to me because I become disoriented with all the opportunity that surrounds me.

I want to share something about a word the Lord gave me about two months ago. The previous plant I was involved folded about 9 months ago partly because of team issues. As a result, me and my wife are in transition right now and waiting on the Lord to reveal to us what he wants us to do next. I was in my bed one night about two months ago lamenting to God about how long he was taking to reveal "whats next" for us. As I wined and complained, the Lord directed my attention to the story of Peter walking on the water. I began to meditate on this story and I felt like the Lord said something to me. It was a word of rebuke. He said that I needed to learn from Peter and start asking permission before I step out of the boat. As I began to abide on this word for the next month, the Lord began convicting me about how quickly I moved into this previous plant and did not spend enough time observing, reflecting and listening to the Father's voice on whether or not I need to move forward into this particular opportunity. We did have team issues that ultimately led the team to disband, but I the Lord spoke a clear word to me that I did not ask his permission to move forward into this opportunity. I just moved forward and asked God to bless it.

So how do you know if you should respond to an opportunity? This is really important question for apostles to engage in.  As I reflected on the story of Peter walking on the water, there were three particular elements to Peter stepping out of the boat. Recognize Opportunity, Request Permission, Respond Accordingly.

Here are some of my reflections on these three components.

1. Recognized the Opportunity: He saw Jesus walking on the water and thought to himself, I want to do that too! Jesus is on the water, why don't I join him there!

2. Request Permission: Peter said to Jesus, "If its you, tell me to come out to you on the water." Peter did not just assume Jesus wanted him out on the water with him. Just because we see the Lord working some where, doesn't necessarily mean he wants us to join him there. When we recognize an opportunity, we should first ask permission form the Lord to "step out of the boat."

3. Respond Accordingly: Peter heard one word form Jesus...Come. That's all he needed. The important thing to see here though is that he is responding to the voice of the Lord, not to the opportunity itself. Just because you recognize an opportunity doesn't mean you should respond to the opportunity. What if Jesus would have said "It is me, but don't come out. I will meet you on the shore. Keep your seat in the boat with the rest of the team." My guess is that Peter would have stayed in the boat. But then again, this is Peter we are talking about here :-)

So the proper flow is to move from recognizing an opportunity to requesting permission, and then to launching out. It would look something like this.

If apostles are "sent ones" then it implies someone else is doing the sending. There is an actor external to the apostle that is directing the apostle towards a specific opportunity. The apostle is not the one who sends themselves, it is God who sends the apostle. So in essence, apostles respond to the voice of the Lord, not to the opportunity itself. If we bypass "requesting permission" and go straight to "responding" then our apostolic ventures will take on a certain "opportunistic" feel to them. Instead of being led by the Spirit, we will find ourselves being led by our own cravings for adventure and novelty. Mission then becomes a tool for self-actualization and not a mans by which we worship-fully offer our world back to God.

Paul demonstrates this process of learning how to respond to the Spirit in Acts 16 when he is trying to figure out which direction he should be going for his next venture. The direction the Spirit gave in this instance was more indirect than direct. The Spirit directed them by forbidding them to go certain places, but He did not actually give them a direct word saying "Go to Macedonia." Instead, Paul had a vision of a man pleading with him saying "Come over to Macedonia and help us." Its interesting how Luke records the decision making process that they used. A vision comes to the principal leader of the apostolic band, but then Luke says we sought to go to Macedonia "concluding" that the Lord has called us to preach the gospel to them.  The impression I get here is that they deliberated on it and had to make a judgement call on what the Spirit was up to. The Spirit was closing all the doors around them, and then a vision of an opportunity in Macedonia came to Paul. The point of the story, among other tings, is that Paul was being sensitive the leading of the Spirit here. He was a man on the move, but he had a desire to move in step with the Spirit, not in step with his own agenda.

So what about you? Have you ever moved to quickly on an opportunity without seeking to hear form the Lord and get His permission? Next pot we will look at the implications of Peter's walking on the water, sinking, and coming back to the boat for apostolic ministry. 

192. Apostolic Ministry and Team Formation Part 3

So far, in the last two posts on Apostolic Ministry and Team Formation (part 1, part 2) we have looked at Acts 1 and 2 for indicators about the importance of unity for teams that are doing frontier work. Roughly speaking, the 11 apostles had the same vision, values, vehicles and vocabulary...the three generative building blocks of any culture. In order to keep this level of unity, they could not just add anyone to the team. the new team member needed to have alignment with those 4 V's. unity in these four areas were critical for the viability of the team and its missional venture.

So where did they get this idea of unity from? Is it something they crafted on their own, or are they imitating the strategy of their original leader, Jesus?

Ironically enough, Jesus modeled and taught this concept of unity to them at the very beginning of His own ministry. In Mark 3, Jesus goes up to a mountain and invites 12 disciples to join Him as a team. After he chooses them, he goes with them into a nearby house to get their grub on. The crowds sniff Jesus out once again and interrupt their meal together.

Jesus' family catches wind that that He has selected 12 disciples to form a special group, and they say, literally, "he has lost his mind!" His family starts treking up to Capernaum, but before they make it to the house where Jesus and the 12 are staying, the Pharisees show up and claim He is casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub. Jesus gives a discourse on unity exposing the fallacy of their accusation. Once His family arrives, some of the people in the house alert Jesus that his family is standing out side. After they traveled all that way, you would think Jesus would give them an ear...but he doesn't. Instead, he looks around at those in the house with him and essentially says "This is my family."

There are two things I want to pay attention to in this section of scripture that I think throw some light on how Jesus provided a model to the 12, from the very beginning, that unity is important for team members who are doing pioneering work.

1. Chemistry: Notice how Mark says that Jesus called to Him "those He himself wanted." This means Jesus chose people whom He had a personal preference for. The basic gist here, I think, is that Jesus liked the guys He chose. He wanted to be around them, and they wanted to be around Him. This is really important when it comes to teams doing frontier ministry together. There needs to be a certain level of chemistry between the leader and the team, as well as the team members themselves. Jesus chose two sets of brothers you know (Peter & Andrew, James & John.)  This should say something to us about the need for personal connections among the team members.

2. Location: This is more subtle, but I think it is key to the interpretation of the text. Mark says in 3:19 that the discourse on unity and the teaching on extended-family all takes place in a house. Now this would be peripheral to me if I didn't know that the word for "house" in the text is "oikos"....the N.T. word for what we would call an extended family of anywhere from 12- 70 people (12 being in the incubation phase.) Jesus teaching on unity is taking place in a physical structure (house) where the relational structure of oikos, extended-family, orbits. This plays into the next observation.

3. Entities: Jesus mentions 3 entities that can not stand if they are divided: kingdom, house, individual (Satan.) If we are looking at scale here, kingdom is macro, house is "meso" and the leader would be micro, in this setting it is Satan. At the very base level, the leader has to have unity within themselves. As James would allude to, he can not be a double minded man who is, by default,  unstable in all his ways. The leader of the oikos provides the point of reference around which the oikos/household can unify. A collection of oikos/households can eventually grow into a "kingdom."

4. Extended family: Jesus essentially says that his family is comprised of those who are seeking the kingdom. What a great thing to establish in the beginning of his ministry, right at the forefront of selecting his team to be with him and travel around with him. Jesus frames the nature of the community that is beginning to coalesce around him as an extended family/oikos/household.

Isn't it interesting that Jesus chose 12 guys to function as a team and the very first "sermon" he gives is on unity, followed by a description of the community as extended family, and it is taking place in a house (oikos).....hmmmm....I cant help but connect the dots here myself. Unity, Team, Oikos, House...it all adds up to a strategical moment for Jesus to, in his typical creative fashion, kill several birds with one stone. Both the location and the content of what Jesus says combine to give a graphic portrayal of what Jesus is expecting from his new team and how he understands the nature of their relationships with him and each other. They need to function like a household, like an extended family with a level of unity that can resist the pressures of the adversary.  

It is not by accident that Mark, in the composition of his gospel, affords literary proximity to Jesus' teaching on unity and the extended family with Jesus' selection of the 12...it is literally in the same textual block of his gospel. (It precedes his next teaching block of the parables on the kingdom in Mark 4.) As the first gospel, Mark is looking to resource the discipleship and mission of the early Jesus movement. In one chapter, he does what all story tellers do: he compresses multiple themes into one story that provides a dense survey of necessarily principles related to discipleship, mission, teams and extended family/oikos.

Jesus knew what he was doing, and so did Mark as he recorded it. We have here, in Mark 3, the founding event that would later resource the 12 as they dealt with team issues and the need for unity at the beginning of the venture. Like every good leader, Jesus began with the end in mind. he did things in such a way that his followers could look back on their experience and draw valuable principles to help them move into the future.

Well, this concludes my thoughts thus far on the need for unity in apostolic bands launching out to do pioneering work. The frontier is not easy. It is filled with challenge and adversity. Don't go into the frontier with just anybody. Go there with people you have chemistry with, people who have a sense of unity and alignment around the Four V's of vision, values, vocabulary and vehicles. Covenant together around these four things and lean on that covenant to get you through hard times. It is the "oneness" of covenant that makes kingdom work possible.

191. Apostolic Ministry and Team Formation Part 2

In the previous post, Apostolic Ministry and Team Formation Part 1, we looked at the qualifications Peter laid out in Acts 1 for adding a new team member to the ministry and apostleship of the "12."
Essentially, the qualifications deal with exposure. The new team member needed to have been exposed to the ministry of Jesus in its entirety.  They needed to have observed Jesus from beginning to end. Following Jesus all that time while he was coming in and going out among them meant they would have been exposed to Jesus' mission, message, methods and miracles, the essential components that propelled the ministry of Jesus into becoming a movement. Most likely, Mathias and Barsabbas were a part of the 72 that Jesus sent out in the limited commission.

Their exposure to the ministry of Jesus form beginning to end is positioned them to experience unity on the team. The unity they had as a team was not based just on feelings or affiliation. Because they had been exposed to the ministry of Jesus from beginning to end, they were essentially grounded in what Mike Breen refers to as the 4 V's of culture: Vision, Values, Vocabulary and Vehicles. Here is a brief break down of the 4 V's:

Vision: "This is where we are going."
Values: "This is why we are going there."
Vocabulary: "This is how we will talk about it as we go there."
Vehicles: "These are the patterns, processes, and procedures that will help us get there."

If we apply these 4 V's to Jesus' ministry, it could look something like this.

Vision: The kingdom of God
Values: God loves people
Vocabulary: The parables
Vehicles: Discipleship, mission, extended family (oikos), prayer etc.

I am ofcourse painting with a really broad brush stroke here, but you get the idea. The 11 apostles had a level of unity in these areas that, say, James the brother of Jesus, could not have. James was not with JEsus from the begining, so, his exposure to Jesus was limited.

Unity around the 4 V's on a team is essential whether on the frontier or back at the settlement. One reason they call the settlement the "settlement" is because these 4 V's have literally, already been "settled." At every settlement is a core group of leaders who covenant together around these 4 V's in one way or another. This is what allows the settlement to stay together. One key difference between the settlement and the frontier however is that not everyone at the settlement has to have full buy in to the 4 V's in order for the settlement to succeed. Every settlement has a core of leaders who guard (and sometimes propagate) the 4 V's through out the organizational culture. In addition to this inner core, there is an outer ring of people who do not necessarily have buy in to the 4 V's. Some in the outer ring do not even know about them. Still some do not even care about them! Yet the settlement still keeps going because there are a group of leaders who embody and guard those four generative components of the organizational culture.

Things are different on the frontier. There is no outer ring of people in the start up phases of frontier work. When doing frontier work, it is the job of the leader(s) to provide clarity in these 4 V's for those who will be joining the team. The pioneering team is a micro-settlement. They carry with them the DNA of the 4 V's that will lay the cultural foundation for the first extended family on mission. The leader(s) say "This is where we are going (vision), and this is how we are going to get there (vehicles)." The way the leader(s) talk about the vision and vehicles when questioned by potential followers will be a starting place for establishing the vocabulary and uncovering the values that steer the pioneering venture. The initial leaders of the pioneering venture are the initial core leaders that are essentially the custodians of the culture that will be seeded and embodied into the founding systems of the plant. There is no outer ring, the leaders are both the inner and the outer ring, making them the first ecclesia to be planted and propagated in the new field. If there is no unity at the core, there will be no unity period. And Jesus was really clear when he said a house (oikos) divided against itself can not stand.

When a team has clear, definitive unity around the 4 V's....watch out! This is a recipe for kingdom breakthrough! Listen to what Luke tells us in Acts 2:1-4. 

"When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."

The word for "one accord" in 2:1 is homothymadon. The word picture is a smoldering conviction, much like an ember or coal in a fire. So question....what happens when you blow wind on a collection of smoldering embers? They produce fire! This is exactly what happens on the day of Pentecost. The wind of the Spirit comes and catalyzes the unity that they already had as a result of the exposure they had to the ministry of Jesus. The Spirit did not work ex-nihilo. He was a catalyst of the training the apostles had already received as a result of their exposure to the discipling of Jesus. Once again, discipleship seems to be the foundational work that the Spirit utilizes to catalyze missional movements. 

Just so you know I am not stretching things here with the word "homothymadon" it would be good to notice that it is the same word used in Acts 15:25 where the apostles, elders and leaders in the Jerusalem council come to a unified decision (conviction) about the status of the Gentiles and the statutes that they will deliver to the churches planted by Paul and Barnabas. Unity here is not just surface level affiliations. They deliberated about this topic of the Gentiles, and they came to a place of unity as a group to where they could say they were all with "one accord" as to their decisions. 

When doing frontier work, it is absolutely essential that the initial team has "homothymadon," unified conviction as to the 4 V's. Initially, this is set forth by one or several leaders on the team. Those who join the team are essentially covenanting together around these 4 V's. They achieve a state of "oneness" that will hold them together as they traverse the rugged landscape of doing mission on the frontier. Just like any relationship, when times get hard, you lean on the covenant that holds the relationship together. When there is a disagreement among the team members apostolic band about one of the 4 V's, it can pose a real challenge to the viability of the missional venture. 

On the next post, I will explore a little bit more about why unity in the 4 V's is so crucial when doing frontier work. We will go straight to Jesus on this one, the pioneering leader of the movement we all belong to. 

190. Apostolic Ministry and Team Formation Part 1

Having the right people on the team of an initial church plant takes initial precedence over your cleverly devised plans of having strategic missional impact. The WHO really is more important than the WHAT. This is not to diminish the  importance of strategy for a new church plant. It's merely to say that there is a cart and a horse issue here going on between the WHO and the WHAT. The WHO is the horse and the cart is the WHAT. The people come before the plan.

So do we see any primacy being given to the WHO in the New Testament when it comes to apostolic ministry? We most certainly do!  How about when Paul and Barnabas have a parting of the ways when it came to the issue of whether or not John Mark should be included on the team for their next journey? This is clearly a dispute over the WHO.

The clearest example I can think of however takes place in Acts 1 when the 11 Apostles were assembled together with the 120. The issue of who was going to replace Judas as one of the 12 was front and center. Jesus had ascended and was no longer around (physically speaking.) The 11 Apostles were in the process of transitioning into their role as leaders of the movement Jesus started which put them in a new season of life and ministry. They were on the front end of something new...the very first "church plant" if you will . Success in this venture was highly critical to say the least.

Before we get to the heart of what Acts 1 has to say to us in relation to the WHO of church planting, I want to take note of several things that are helpful to keep in the background as we process Acts 1 from a church planting perspective.

1. The 11 Apostles did not have a WHAT yet. Yes they had been discipled by Jesus, but they themselves were a bit confused about how things were going to unfold. For all they knew, Jesus was going to restore the kingdom of Israel and they would all be promoted to sitting in the thrones that were promised to them by Jesus in Luke 22:29-30. They were doing a lot of praying and waiting, but they really did not know WHAT was supposed to happen next. They were only given instructions to wait.

2. They were not actually given instructions to replace Judas. This is a bit of conjecture, but the text does not reveal it to us, so I am making a leap here. But the point is, Jesus did not leave them instructions to replace Judas and fill the empty slot. Instead, Peter takes the initiative and says that they should find someone to add to their number. It is almost as if Peter is imitating the actions of Jesus when he spent all night in prayer and selected the 12 from among the other disciples. Make of this what you want, but I think it is worth noting that Peter assumes the role of a leader and makes a decision to add someone to the team. This is what leaders do.

Well, so much for footnote observations. Now for the meaty stuff.

Acts one has given me a really good framework to assemble some key principles when it comes to the WHO of church planting. The following are some principles I have formulated that may be helpful to those of you who are in the beginning phases of wrestling with the WHO and WHAT of a new apostolic venture.

1. Peter starts off by explaining how Judas betrayed Jesus and consequently left a slot open on the team. This may seem obvious, but it is worth noting: everyone knew that the team had clear boundaries about who was in and who was out. You did not join the team by accident or by mere association. The leadership team of the 12 Apostles was clearly defined by both a number and a name. In referring to Judas Peter says in 1:17 that "He was one of our number and shared in our ministry." Peter understood the team to be made up of 12 people and that those twelve were a part of a specific "ministry."  There was a clear line to be crossed if you wanted to be on the team. The same should be true of apostolic ventures today. Naming the leader(s) and being clear about who is in and who is out with respect to leadership helps give the community a point of reference by which to gauge themselves in relation to those in the community who are putting themselves forth as models for imitation. Leaders define culture because by definition leaders have followers, and this means imitation is taking place. Without imitation, a culture can not form, and leaders are the ones who step forward and provide a model for imitation. Without a clear number and name for the leaders in the community, the followers will be paralyzed and the culture will morph and mutate towards any or every influence that comes to bear on the community.

2. Perhaps the most important thing to glean from Acts 1 are the qualifications Peter sets forth about who can join the team. Peter is really clear about this. The new team member would need to have been with them from the time of John's baptism to the time in which Jesus was taken up from them at the ascension. What is Peter getting at here? Why did the new team member need to have been around Jesus for the 3 1/2 years of his ministry in order to be a part of the team? One of the critical issues Peter is dealing with here has to do with whether or not the new team member has had adequate exposure to the teaching, training and tactics that the other team members have had in relation to the founder of the movement. Think about it, you are about to add someone to a team of 12 people who have spent the last 3 1/2 years together. They have all been discipled into a certain way of living and leadership in the kingdom modeled to them by Jesus himself. Those 12 people are now going to be tasked with representing the leader and continuing the movement that he started. Jesus built a particular culture with and among the 12. To add someone into that mix of 11 leaders who has not been acculturated is a recipe for division, something you definitely dont want in a start up venture. Jesus clearly taught that a house divided against itself can not stand, and this new team member is essentially going to be joining the leadership "oikos" or "household" of the 12. When you are about to launch out into the frontier and set your face towards the enemy, you need a level of unity and oneness on the team that can withstand the pressures of pioneering work. Peter was making sure the new team member would be on the same page and that they would not be inviting someone into their leadership culture who had not been adequately exposed to their cultural ethos of leadership and discipleship. 

As a side note, think about what it would have been like to be James, the brother of Jesus at this gathering in the upper room. He was in the group of 120 and was likely there when this whole process was taking place. How politically incorrect it was that James the brother of Jesus was not chosen to be a part of the team!! He wasn't even nominated!!! Talk about an awkward moment!!! Jesus' own brother didn't even qualify to be one of the 12!!! This just goes to show that decisions about WHO are really important when it comes to doing frontier work!!! Like some other the other members of Jesus' family, James did not follow Jesus form the beginning and therefore did not have adequate exposure to Jesus as a leader.

This was not an indictment on James' capacity or competence as a potential leader in the Jesus movement. It was merely an issue of exposure and experience with the cultural architect of the movement, the revolutionary leader named Jesus. 

3. Just so we don't get the idea that it was all about a mastery of scripture (teaching) skills (training) or strategy (tactics), Peter mentions something in his prayer that tips us off to deeper issues related to character. Peter says that the Lord is the one who "knows the hearts of men." Not only was there issues of exposure to the 3 T's, there were also issues of whether or not that person had the right heart to carry the weight of that leadership position. Did they have the right character in order to represent the leader of the movement? Since they could not know the hearts, they relied on the Lord's providential power to select the right person to join the team...they cast lots. How should we understand and apply this to apostolic ventures and team issues today....you tell me :-) That's why there's a comments feature below.

4. Lastly, its interesting that while neither James nor Barsabbas joined the team, they both feature in Acts 15 (vs 13, 22) as critical leaders in the Jerusalem council. James still gave input among the other 12 apostles and leaders, and Barsabbas was still chosen as a "sent one" to be a delegate of the Jerusalem church and its decree for the newly planted Gentile churches. Not making the team does not limit your potential as a leader. It just means there is another time or team for you to join.

In the next post I will be going deeper into principle number 2 and the importance of unity teams doing frontier work.

189. The Life Cycle of Innovation by MissioNexus

I get the videologs on a regular basis form this guy. He is a really good thinker on systems, organization and missional fitness. This video is a jewel. He lifts up the hood and peers into the engine of innovation and how it relates to the church in the West.


Learning at the Speed of Life - April VLOG - The Innovation Lifecycle from ehdesign on Vimeo.

188. Apostolic Ministry and Discipleship Part Four

Apostolic Ministry and Discipleship Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,

This blog is basically dedicated to all things apostolic and missional discipleship. I rarely enter into personal reflection for two reasons. (1) I am an NT (mbti) and the personal side of things is not that appealing to me in a public venue. (2) This blog is a way for me to chronicle my learning in relation to the outworking of my apostolic vocation with a distinct emphasis on being and making disciples and the challenges that revolve around church planting. This focus lends my thought process to more of a strategic, rational, utilitarian side of things. In other words, this blog reflects more on the mechanical, logistical, paradigmatic, process oriented side of the apostolic venture.

However, I occasionally break out of the mold and populate this blog with personal reflections and observations in my own biography. This is one of those posts. So if you are a regular reader and keep coming back for the conceptual, paradigmatic nature of the blog, this post is a momentary detour from the typical genre on this blog. Consider it a discipline of personal reflection.

It was not till 6years ago that I "discovered" that my primary vocation in the body of Christ is that of being an apostle...one who is sent to pioneer new expressions of ecclesia in movemental forms. Oddly enough, the guy that helped me in this discovery is Alan Hirsch, the guy I just got done co-authoring a book with entitled The Permanent Revolution. His book The Shaping of Things to Come, for the first time in my life, afforded me the language and conceptual framework I needed to locate myself in the broader spectrum of the ministry callings in the body. After that discovery, I had this overwhelming sense that I needed to spend all of my time researching, studying, and living more fully into my vocational identity as an apostle. This is actually what launched me into a maven mode of accumulating the ideas that lead to the formulation of the material that became The Permanent Revolution.

Before I read The Shaping of Things to Come, I had already been a part of an urban church plant in Montgomery AL with an organization called, at that time, Montgomery Inner City Ministry (since then it has been re branded as Compassion 21) This ministry was seeking to plant a church in the most violent, crime ridden government housing projects in Montgomery. their strategy was to target the most darkest neighborhood in a city, plant a church there, and move on to other projects having taken the toughest ground first. This approach lit me on fire! I started out volunteering and ended up becoming a summer intern. I played the role of "Timothy" (ironically) to a guy named Jonathan Mosby, who was playing the role of "Paul" in the church plant.As an intern, I spent the summer following him around and imitating his methods and practices of evangelism and shepherding. (not to mention doing all the menial tasks no one else wanted to do. Jonathan always reminded me that the word "intern" means...its always "your turn") After the internship, I went back to college, graduated, did an one year internship for campus ministry in Tuscaloosa at the University of Alabama with the University Church of Christ with a a dude named Craig Kelley (who is now plating a church in Auburn California with Stadia called Gold Country Church.) At the end of the first year in this internship, I felt a strong calling on my life to go back to Montgomery Al and work full time with Jonathan, Ken Kilpatrick, and a guy named Lynn Briscoe to do what, upon hindsight, I would now call saturation church planting in the housing projects of Montgomery AL. I was hired on as an "evangelist" and assigned my own neighborhood in the toughest projects of the city...Trenhom Court. My office, my ministry, my evangelism, my spare time...all of it...was spent in Trenholm Court housing projects. It was there I learned the art of doing cross cultural evangelism and incarnational ministry. Translating and incarnating the gospel in ways that the hood could engage it and make sense of it was where the battle was to be waged in that context. I

Needless to say, I learned a lot. It was one of the most invigorating, enlightening, (and challenging) experiences of church planting/ministry I have had. I would not trade it for anything. Lots of hard battles, long hours, lots of tears, coupled with fatigue, exhaustion and a hard learned lesson on the value of sabbath are just some of the experiences that helped shape my character during that first church plant. It was not rare to having shootings in the neighborhood where I would have to take cover in someones house or behind brick stairwells. I learned how to do what we coined as aggressive benevolence where we proactively met needs of people we were working with (what I wold now call Persons of Peace) instead of functioning like a government agency in the community dispersing goods with no relational context. I learned how to be powerless and yet earn respect in a cultural context that prized violence, toughness, and essentially being a bad ass at all costs. I learned how to love people who were just down right wicked (child molesters, gang leaders) and believe in people who repeatedly struggled with failure (drug addicts, teenagers and kids struggling to make sense of life in a jacked up environment.) I learned to read the Bible differently...as a missionary....as an apostle. Really, I will never read the Bible the same again. There is something about the frontier and the edge that develops your hermeneutic beyond the more one dimensional reading that takes place at the center. Missional

As a student of the life of Paul, I am starting to appreciate that formative time when I was allowed access to some leaders who were obviously farther along than I was in doing church planting and evangelism in a cross cultural context. I wanted to be the hero in the beginning....I am just being honest. But what I really needed was not to be Batman, but to be Robin. To be the guy who learns form a more experienced person, a more mature person than me so I could one day be, not the hero, but a more mature and effective leader. essentially, I needed to intern, to apprentice myself to another leader who could provide a model for me to imitate.

We see this same pattern in the life of Paul and Barnabas. Most apostles have a strong need for achievement and have a pretty strong appetite for adventure. When you put these two things together, then you have a recipe for pioneering leadership. However, the timeline of Paul's life reveals an interesting pattern as to how he evolved as a leader and what kind of evolutionary development took place that led him to become an effective church planter. Take a look at this time line below.

It is interesting to note that after his conversion, Paul demonstrated the same itinerant, zealous fervor in evangelizing that he demonstrated in his itinerant ministry as a bounty hunting Pharisee. However, whats interesting is that when he escapes Damascus through a hole in the wall and comes to Jerusalem, he undoubtedly does the right things i.e proclaiming Christ and convincing the Hellenist in the synagogues, but the way he went about doing it actually causes the church in Jerusalem some unnecessary drama and conflict. His boldness is a virtue until it emboldened the opposition unnecessarily. It's funny because the text says in Acts 9:30 that "When the brethren found out, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Troas." The word "sent" is actually "ex-apostelloed" which means "sent away" or even exiled. Ironic isn't it, Pauls first missional "sending" is actually characterized by being expelled from the Jerusalem church because of all the drama he was causing. 

What is really funny is that Luke is quick to tell us that the net result Paul being ex-apostelloed is this: "Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied." (Acts 9:31) So basically, even though Paul was bold, courageous, and pioneering, his style of leadership was not seasoned enough to navigate the unique challenges of proclaiming Jesus in Jerusalem context. Paul needed time away form the "center" to mature and formulate his ministry in a context more amenable to the phase of development he was in as a disciple and leader. That place was Tarsus for him. 


It's interesting to note as well that, as far as we know, Paul was not planting churches during his time in Tarsus. He was learning the art of evangelism and proclamation. However, notice that Paul is not being discipled by anyone yet... It is just Paul flushing out his impulsive desire to let everyone know about the Christ. We get a glimpse int the nature of his ministry in Acts 9:28 where it is characterized as "coming in and going out." This is a classic spatial pattern of an evangelists ministry in relation to the local community. It is like a bee leaving the bee hive, going out and gathering pollen, and coming back into the hive, just to leave and do it all over again. Paul spends the next 10 years in Tarsus.....that's a long time!!!! 10 years in his home town evangelizing. 

After about 10 years, for some reason Barnabas feels led to go and get Paul and brings him to Antioch. It is here that I believe Paul gets discipled by Barnabas in the context of a missional community. It is important to notice that almost 12 years have gone by since Paul's conversion. Paul may have popped out of the baptistry proclaiming Christ, but it was in a very raw, almost barbaric form that seems to have triggered unnecessary opposition and drama. Paul's apostolic ventures do not truly take shape until he has been discipled by Barnabas in a multi-cultural missional community (Antioch) that obviously had a been strongly shaped by prophets and teachers (Acts 13:1) 


The prophetic side of the Antioch community shows up not only in the description of the disciples there, but in also Barnabas's leadership characterized in Acts 11:23 as "encouragement" to "continue" with the Lord. The notion of encouragement is obviously a staple quality of the prophetic ministry (I Cor 14) as well as motivating people to remain faithful to their covenant with the Lord. The word "continue" in the text is the same word as "abide" in John 15. The principle of covenant oneness with the Lord comes to the fore here and is a classic feature of prophetic discourse and ministry in the O.T. scriptures. The prophet is looking to help close the gap between God and his people. Barnabas prophetically energized the community in Antioch and as a result, they experienced evangelistic fruitfulness. The impact of Barnabas's prophetic ministry actually translated into evangelistic impact, Luke says it like this "...and a great many people were added to the Lord." Addition, not multiplication, but this is the net effect of prophetic energizing around the gospel. Barnabas is basically a prophetic evangelist who is stirring the Antioch church towards covenant faithfulness to the Lord.  

Another sign of the prophetic nature of the Antioch community is their proclivity to meet the tangible needs of the Jerusalem church, that is, to do incarnational ministry. It seems that the Antioch church was a magnet for prophets because it says that "in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch." While there, a prophet named Agabus announced that a future famine was on the horizon. Like most communities with a significant number of prophets in it, they have a high intolerance to set idle in the face of a tangible need. They proactively take the initiative to send physical relief to the churches in Judea. They dabble in some social justice :-) 

If we zoomout for a moment and look at the evolutionary development of Paul's life, we see three things: (1) Paul had an intensive exposure to a prophetic leader named Barnabas for over a year (the word Barnabas literally means Bar=son of and Nabas = prophet in Hebrew). (2) Paul had an intensive exposure to how the prophetic ministry operated in a community, but he gained this exposure within the context of a discipling relationship with Barnabas. (3) Paul had significant exposure to a missional community which was predominantly comprised of prophets and teachers. In essence, Paul is a learner in this phase of his life, not a leader. It is not until Acts 13:13 that Paul appears to take the lead in his relationship with Barnabas. However, even here it is Barnabas that takes the lead on the first leg of their journey to Cyprus. Paul is still a follower and learner up to that point.  

Noticing this evolutionary development of Paul's life helps debunk our often misinformed notion that Paul was an effective apostolic leader and church planter from the beginning. This is definitely not the case. In fact, the exact opposite is true. His initial ministry was not apostolic at all. It was primarily evangelistic, and a coarse one at that. It is not until 10 years after his conversion that he enters into a discipling relationship with Barnabas. It is this strategic relationship, along with his immersion into a multi-cultural missional community, that cultivates Paul's potential as an apostolic leader. The pioneering, movemental history maker of Christianity  reveals a humble, slow start. 

How silly of us to expect people who have not been discipled to suddenly be effective leaders and church planters. How crazy of us to expect apostles to be wildly successful at planting missional communities when they have not had any exposure to missional communities or how the foundational ministry of the prophetic operates in a community. Barnabas, and the Antioch church provided a rich context for an apostle like Paul to be equipped and established for the adventurous and outright intimidating challenge of pioneering a movement of disciple making and missional communities across the North Western region of the Roman empire. Like all great leaders, their greatness was forged through frustration, failure, isolation, suffering and a period of time where they were trained and exposed other great leaders who invested in their development. 

Now back to personal reflections... 

I can see how I have greatly benefited from my exposure to people like Jonathan Mosby early on in what I now call my apostolic ventures. The more I reflect on my pathway of learning, the more I see the need for even someone like myself who, having co-planted in the past, "solo-planted" most recently, and am looking to lead another plant in the near future, to have adequate exposure to people and environments that have already demonstrated a level of competency and effectiveness in building a discipling culture and planting missional communities. This may sound foolish to some for me to say this as I have written what I hope to be a defining text on apostolic ministry. But I am not in the business of perpetuating the classic hero myth of leadership. We need to dispell this myth by truth telling. We have had enough of the false, unrealistic expectation of the solo-hero who appears out of no-where, fully formed and effervescently effective. Not even the greatest apostle was able to live up to this image. Paul's life tells an entirely different story.

As an apostolic leader, I want to be an example to other apostolic people and say that, just like Paul, we all need to be discipled and exposed to ways of being better apostles and leaders. The journey to becoming an effective apostolic leader may take 10 years, or 5 years.  It is different for everyone, but we are all on a learning journey. The important thing is that we remain open to learning and the leaders that we exposed to. We are disciples first, then apostles.