58. The Harvest is Plentiful

35 And Jesus went about all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness. 36 But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a shepherd. 37 Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the laborers are few. 38 Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest. Matthew 9:35-38

The Harvest Demographic

Look at the kind of people Jesus ministers to in Matthew 9. Blind, mute, demon possessed, social outcasts (issues of blood) etc. The helpless and harassed, distressed, without a shepherd = some who cares for them, protects them and guides them to refreshing places of rest and nourishment. All of this points to the demographic of people who Jesus points to as being where the Harvest is. It is sort of Matthews way of doing what Luke does in highlighting Jesus attraction to the outsiders/poor, broken hearted, oppressed, captive etc. Luke talks a lot about the Holy Spirit. I think there is a connection here in that you can not minister to this demographic with out empowerment from the Spirit. We can not, and do not do this kind of thing unless God is empowering us to do it through the Spirit of Jesus.

The Harvest is Plentiful

There is no shortage of people in any community who are in this condition. If they are not in your community, they are on the other side of town in another community. We know where they are, because we choose not to go there for our own safety or comfort. And if it is not a specific place, it is that specific type of person that you run from, that you intentionally avoid because it makes your life more complex. It makes your view of reality a bit more fuzzy. Engaging them forces you to engage a part of yourself that you would rather ignore. The pat of you that has not been softened by God love. In essence, "those people" obligate you in more ways than one. They force you to step out of your world and into theirs. As Paul reflected on the Harvest in Corinth, he said not may of you were wise, strong, noble. Mission flows out of intimacy with Jesus, but if we are not careful, the Jesus we are intimate with may not be the Jesus of the gospels. If Jesus was intimate with the poor, brokenhearted, oppressed and the captive, then would it not stand to reason that intimacy with Jesus would place me in proximity with the same kinds of people? Who ever claims to follow Jesus must walk as he walked. This is coming from one of the most imtimate followers of Jesus.

The Workers are Few

It is not a surprise then, this being the case, that he says "the workers are few." This is not the demographic we are naturally drawn towards. We do not gravitate towards these kinds of people naturally. This is why Jesus says to pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers. The word "send out" is in the greek ekballow. It means to thrust out violently, to draw out with force. Some people will not go into the Harvest field unless God moves,thrusts, throws them into it. Like a bird kicking the babies out of the nest, sometimes Gd has to thrust us into the Harvest field, because on our own, we will be in other fields or in no field at all. If we want to get to the real reason why the workers are few, it is because we do not pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers into the field! Lets pray!

The Lord of the Harvest

The Harvest fields are not an environment of shade and rest. They are where the work takes place. Sowing, weeding, harvesting, all of this is hard work. I don't want to sound masochistic or anything like that. I am not one to glorify tough situations for toughness sake. I am only highlighting the fact that sometimes the Harvest environment is overwhelming and seems impossible. Imagine having to hand pick and harvest some of the massive corn fields, or better yet, hand pick a 15 acre farm of snap beans! As Paul says, we are not sufficient to this task. (II Corinthians 2:14-16), but God makes us sufficient. (II Corinthians 3:1-6) He is The Lord of the Harvest." It is His harvest, not ours. We are only the workers in the field. We go in weakness and dependence, like going out with no money or a place to stay, (Luke 10:4).

Meditating on this passage has so many insights into our relationship with Jesus and mission. It is probably one of the most challenging verses I am confronted with when I think of being intimate with Jesus and letting that intimacy generate a missional life. I am writing some pretty challenging reflections. I am praying that the Father will empower me to live into these principles so I will not be guilty of intellectualism.

57. Stockholm Syndrome

Derek Webb has come out with a new album this month: Stockholm Syndrome. There is a psychological development that sometimes happens when some one who has been abducted begins to develop affections for their abductor.



The sanctification process is about becoming more like Jesus, which means we begin to reflect, more and more, his ethical and functional glory. (Reflecting his form will come at the resurrection Phil. 3:20-21) . Ethical glory is relational, and functional glory would be his missional impulse.

So what does Stockholm Syndrome look like for a disciple. I think John hits on this when he says "Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity."

Developing affections for your abductor sound ridiculous, impossible. But it happens, and it is a great metaphor for the subtle process that can happen if we begin to let our love become re-directed and re-formed by our own selfish wants. The systems and values of the world are deceiving, and sometimes we do not know how far we have fallen in love with them. Secret romance would be a good term. We need prophets to help jolt us into reality, call us away from our false lover and point us back to our primary relationship, where true and satisfying love can be enjoyed.

56. Discipleship....

Discipleship is a process and a journey towards Jesus. This journey is marked by various milestones along the way. These milestones are characterized by events, experiences and engagements that allow us to, and are a result of our, participation in his life, death and resurrection.

Participating in his life, death and resurrection means a Re-Alignment with, Re-Enactment of, Re-Entering into and Re-Engagement under the story of Jesus. The Story of Jesus can be described as a story of:

FAITH: Jesus trusted in the Father to vindicate him, and his way of living. Jesus was faithful to his identity and mission and the Father was in turn faithful to him by raising him from the dead. Discipleship then is Re-Aligning of our trust away from the systems and values of this world towards trusting in the ways of God and allowing that trust to inspire us to participate in his mission.

HOPE: Jesus believed another world was possible, and his life gives us a window into what this other world looks like. Justice, healing, and new creation are just a few words that describe this other world. The rule of God was breaking into the world in a new way through Jesus, and his life is a symbol of this new reality. His death lets us know before hand how the 'world' tends to react to those who live radically compassionate lives. His resurrection is proof that God is involved in creation and that he will one day complete his work of making things right. Discipleship then is Re-Enacting the life, death and resurrection of Jesus so that we become a sign and a symbol of this new reality called the Kingdom of God.

LOVE: Jesus lives in community with the Father and the Spirit. This original community is described as Love in the scriptures. Discipleship then is learning how to Re-Enter into that original community of the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit. As we learn how to live in community with the Trinity, we are empowered to live in community with each other. This means we learn how to be weak and vulnerable, faithful, honest, and others centered.

POWER: Jesus lived in a world of violence and foreign occupation. Power, as in our day, was defined as being able to get what you want. Jesus re-defined power as the capacity to love. He engaged his world with a fierce, unconditional love. He served other people with uncontrollable freedom. Discipleship then is Re-Engaging the world under the Lordship of Jesus, using our resources and influence to bless others. We learn how to use power in non-violent ways, effecting justice, peace and goodness.

55. Principles for a Co2, church of Two (or Three)

The following is an adapted version of John Whites thoughts on simple church and Co2.

Foundational principles for Co2

1. Only fact you need to know for simple church - Jesus is present when we meet in His name. (Mt. 18:20) This is central to everything.

2. Only skill you need to master for simple church - how to listen to Him (and do what He directs). It’s His church and He is the leader (Mt. 16:18). Key principle in Jesus’ life (and ours): find out what the Father is doing and do that. (Jn. 5:19)

3. Simple church = a vibrant family of Jesus. Vibrant means full of life, healthy, transformational. Not just a meeting but 24/7 family like relationships.

Some practices that help us function this way…

1. SASHET. Principle: intimacy is the result of mutual self disclosure. “Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down.” (Romans 12:15, The Message)

This practice helps us grow towards being what Eldredge calls a “fellowship of the heart”. “We check in regularly with one another… out of a desire to watch over one another’s hearts (p. 200). …God is calling together little communities of the heart, to fight for one another and for the hearts of those who have not yet been set free. That camaraderie, that intimacy, that incredible impact by a few stouthearted souls – that is available. It is the Christian life as Jesus gave it to us. It is completely normal. (p. 202)” Waking the Dead

Share one or more words that most describe the present condition of their heart. (Each person shares at the level of vulnerability they are comfortable with.) Use the acronym SASHET as a starting place: Sad - Angry - Scared - Happy - Excited - Tender. (or other) (No advice giving here.) For instance, “I’m checking in today as sad, excited and tender and here’s why…” After sharing, each person expresses their commitment to the community by saying, “I’m in.” The benefit of checking in like this week after week is cumulative as trust and safety grow.

2. Listening to Jesus. After checking in (SASHET), take 10-15 minutes for everyone to listen to Jesus. What does He want to say about what was just shared? What does He want to share with individuals? With the whole group? What direction does He have for ministering to each other or to the world? Listen for His heart. Come back together and share what you heard with the group. Be tentative: "I think this is what He is saying..." Freedom to fail. Weigh what is said. Goal is to "strengthen, encourage and comfort". (1 Cor. 14:1-3) Keep practicing. Your ability to hear gets better with practice.

We have found Mark Virkler’s Four Keys to Hearing God’s Voice helpful here…

1. Quiet yourself

2. Fix your eyes on Jesus

3. Listen for spontaneous thoughts

4. Write what you hear

A short written explanation of the Four Keys is found here: http://www.cwgministries.org/Four-Keys-to-Hearing-Gods-Voice.htm

We also found value in watching as a group (DVD) Virkler’s 10 lessons on the subject http://www.cwgministries.org/index.htm

A note on spiritual practices. As Dallas Willard writes: “We meet and dwell with Jesus and his Father in the disciplines (or practices) for the spiritual life.” (xi) The Spirit of the Disciplines Practices are valuable for both individual lives and for group life. The three practices above are not absolutes. They are merely tools to help us towards the kind of Kingdom life that we desire to live. See 1 Tim. 4:7-8.

Alan Hirsch comments on spiritual practices in The Forgotten Ways: “We would not develop a philosophy of ministry per se (for their churches), but rather a covenant and some core practices. Behind this thinking was the belief that when we talk about core values, the appeal is to the head. I have yet to see a set of core values in any church’s philosophy that I cannot agree with. They are, in some cases, little more than “motherhood statements” in confessional communities. What we wanted was to covenant ourselves to a set of practices that embodied the core value and demonstrated it. Each group (and therefore the majority of the individual members of the group) had to be engaged in a healthy diet of spiritual disciplines – the only way to grow in Christlikeness that we were aware of.” P. 46-47

54. CO2: An Embryonic, Viral Community

Been listening in on a conversation from Lk10.com, a community of practice for church planters. What if church was not defined by buildings or worship services? If we could no longer have buildings tomorrow, what would Christianity look like in America. Could we survive? I shudder to think about the answer to that question here in America.


John White has coined the term CO2, which means church of two. The most foundational expression of church is two (or three) people meeting together to share their heart, listen to Jesus and pray. Most churches were started in this way if you think about it. This is sort of an embryonic form of church. It is where life begins and it is where we learn to process, interpret and nurture spirituality. What if we decided to pair up with someone and do this on a daily basis? What if we took Hebrews 3:13 seriously and shared our heart through SASHET and listened to Jesus through VIRKLER, and prayed the Luke 10:2b prayer, both in the CO2 and through prayer walking?

I would say that a viral, embryonic community would begin to take shape. I am doing this once a week with someone right now, but I am feeling the call to step it up to a daily thing. What is these CO2's intentionally looked for ways to pair up with others? This would be making disciples would it not?

Then, what if these CO2's began to meet weekly with other CO2's, ate a meal together and prayed for each other?

Then what if these groups met with other groups once a month?

I think this would be a very interesting project to be a part of. I think that I will begin to listen to Jesus on this one.

53. Prayer

I have been reading a book lately by Steve Hawthorne called Prayer Walking. This book is so inspiring! Early on in the book he talks about Abraham as the first prayer walker. What a fascinating perspective. Walking around the land that God has given him. Over looking Sodom and pleading for God's mercy on them. Establishing public places of worship. Living in faith that one day he would see his children in this land that God promised.

I have never been much on the idea of "possess the land", but I can buy into the idea of God promising us "children", children in the faith. Abraham walked around to view the land and thought of God's promise that he would give him a family to inhabit this land.

Prayer is one of those things that has a way of pushing us into so many other places of God's heart and life. Prayer is sort of a front door if you will to spirituality. When we walk through it, we see a different environment. Our vision changes. We change.

As I think bout making disciples in Clarksville, one of the most important things we could "transmit" to a new disciple is dependence on God in prayer. I have been convicted lately that this is not a foundational part of my "walk" with God and a new disciple would not "cathc" this from me. I would love for my walk with God to be a prayer virus. This needs to be a part of our culture in Ikon.

52. U2 and Eschatology

Saw this cool article on U2's music and their views on eschatology. You know their new album is called "No Line on the Horizon." This is actually a reference to the blending of Heaven and earth, which is exactly what God will do in the eschaton. No line means God's will is done on earth as in heaven. This will not totally happen till the future, but we give snapshots and previews of this in the here an now. The church is a sign and a symbol of the coming reign of God. We see the line between heaven and earth all around us. Sometimes we get a glimpse of the future though when we see compassion, forgiveness, or justice. When the line between heaven and earth gets blurry, we know the Spirit is present, for it is the Spirits role to create these blurry scenes where the difference between the now and the future of God collide, giving us a taste of the future.

51. U2 and Justification

For those of you who like U2 out there, there new album has a kick'n song called Magnificent.

They have a sequence in this song that talks about justification. Wanna hear it, here it go....

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent

Some people say that this is their most spiritual song yet. I personally think "Where the Streets have No Name" is their most spiritual one. Anyways, later on in the song, they repeat this stanza, with a subtle distinction that is hard to pick up from the song. In fact, every web site I looked at that displayed the lyrics to this song totally missed this distinction and wrote the second stanza down wrong. Here is the second stanza:

Justify till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent

Did you catch it? Instead of justified, it is justify. I think Bono has been drinking from the well of NT Wright! The idea behind this distinction is that justification is a setting to rights what has gone wrong, and this setting to rights, or rectification, is on all levels. Creation, personal, spiritual systemic etc. The concept is that God sets things right in us through the gospel, and then we go around in the world, co-operating with him in setting things right in the world. By dying and rising with Christ, we are rectified, or justified. Then the journey begins of dying and rising with Christ our whole lives. In doing so, we begin to play a vital role in setting this world to rights. Not in our own strength or power. No, it is through the dying and rising of Christ, the gospel, that this happens. Yet it is the gospel that pushes into the world where the Spirit flows through us in compassion and love. The "setting things to rights" is what the community of the gospel proclaims and embodies. It is doing some theology!

50. Calling

We had a discussion tonight in our group about what we felt God was calling us too. Calling was defined sort of in two ways. Strongly speaking, it is something you feel like God wants you to pursue, and you may feel disobedient to him if you do not do it. Sort of a phone call. On a lighter note, calling is something you feel drawn to or oriented towards because of your values, gifting and passion. Sort of like a text message. Here are some of the things people in our group feel called to.

Grant - Mentor Youth (Social Justice) Creation Care - Communal Living

Phil - sustainability - The Harvest Network - Social Justice (Naz Garden) Facilitating and Building Community

Lana - Serving when needs arise (relational ambulance) College Ministry (CCSC)

Tiffany - The Harvest Network - Prayer

Jenna - Family - Mentoring New Moms - Sustainability, Simplicity, Natural Living - Serving Community (MOPS)

Tim - Start new Xian Communities - The Harvest Network - Pray4Clarksville.com -site under construction, Prayer walks and rides, Writing book

Amanda - Communal living (proximity). Being a Spiritual Mom

We decided to:

1. Share more often and more frequently about these things we are already involved in, and how God is working in and through us and other people as we answer our calling.Both in our group meeting times and in our relationships.

2. Pray about how we think there may be some things we can do collectively as a group in the areas our callings overlap.

3. Pray for workers to be thrust out into the harvest field.

It is so cool to have these conversations. It is the body of Christ in action. So Magnificent!

49. Out There

It is amazing what God is doing and saying through people all over this nation. every now and then you stumble on someones blog and you read their reflections about what they are involved in, what they see God doing, and what they see as being valuable and worth reproducing. It seems that God is unleashing a host of apostolic activity in America right now. Many of these voices are spread out and it is hard to connect the dots or even know where the dots are. It is a grass roots, bottom up thing, which tells me God is in charge of it and we are not.

Something I like about this movement is that it seems to be made up of people who despise "empire" styles of leadership. In other words, no one seems to want to control it, harness it or leverage it to build their own personal empire. It seems to be an empowerment movement. Some of this may be because the movement is being led from people with an apostolic gifting. We apostles hate doing the "pastor" thing. Don't stick us in the church cubicle, we need the wide open spaces of the frontier. We like the community, we just do not want to maintenance it.

I am thankful that these "new expressions" of christian community are surfacing. I often feel like there is not a place for me in the conventional style church. It is tough being on the fringe and not really having a support structure I also find it difficult to fit into my own faith heritage as well. The Church of Christ in my area seems so damn legalistic! There are definitely great Churches of Christ across the nation with a healthy theology, but for the most part, legalism seems to be the primary marker of the COC at this stage in the game It is sort of a double wammy, church expression and church tribe sort of put me out of reach for the time being.

It may sound like I am somewhat feeling sorry for myself. Honestly, sometimes I do sulk sulk and throw the pity party. The thing that keeps me on track is that I am on mission with the Father, and it is exactly where I want to be....out there on the fringe exploring the new frontier of apostolic activity.

48. Bus Ministry?

From time to time I visit several blogs of people who are involved in simple church expressions. One of those blogs is God Grown. Mark Willis is putting together a spiritual map of Chicago. I was inspired by some of the stories on the site and decided to start riding a public bus route once a week to pray for the people who get on the bus and the neighborhoods it rides through.

We went for the first time last week and it was........interesting to say the least. For one, we saw very different people. Second, the bus driver talked our ears off. Needless to say, we did not get much praying done. We will probably need to sit in the back of the bus next time!

It was great to get a pulse of the city and people who live in it. I am wondering if I need to get a "pray4clarksville" site going. I will put this to prayer.

A quick word on prayer. We do not have the power in us to see the Kingdom come. Prayer is a confession of our weakness and frailty. We are not the magicians of the Harvest. It is The Lord of the Harvest we need to be talking to. Dependency on God is a mark of apostolic activity.

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God...Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. II Corinthians 2-3

I wonder what would happen if people began to pray the Luke 10:2 prayer on-site with in-sight. Praying locally with love, all that stuff. Could God be leading you to pray more focused and intentionally for people? I think we all know the answer to that one.

47. Sex, Sin and Distortion

I am reading through James D.G. Dunn's book The Theology of Paul the Apostle. It uses the book of Romans as a template, or launching pad for discussing his theology. Dunn has this really cool insight about sex and idolatry I want to share.

"Paul thus sees the effects of sin principally in the distortion of humankind's two principal instinctual drives. It is not the sexual drive which is most fundamental. But just as the sexual drive can be sublimated and redirected into other channels, so the instinctive urge to surrender oneself to a greater can be sublimated and redirected. When it is thus cut loose from the truth of God, it becomes more a destructive than a creative force. And when it combines with the instinctive urge to create new life, the power for distortion of life and subversion of society becomes almost uncontrollable." WOW! This is some good stuff. I had all kinds of epiphanies as I read this.

1. Some of the most destructive things that have been done to and by humanity were empowered by a distorted understanding of God. Evil can be packaged in religion. This is a typical strategy of the enemy to pervert good into evil.

2. Our sexual drive can be channeled into unhealthy expressions, just as religion and worship can. The powerful thing about sex and religion is that a lot of times they can be very deceptive. unhealthy religion and unhealthy sex can, in the beginning, appear to give you what you are after. It takes some time for you to pick up on the fact that they are not truly delivering what they promise. You get just enough of God, just enough order in your life with bad religion that you think you have the real deal. You get just enough pleasure, just enough intimacy to think you have reached the climax of sexual experience. The truth is,religion and sex can be wonderful, if they are allowed to be channelled by God to their healthy expressions.

3. I of course can not get away from an application to ecclesiology. Reification is when you treat something that is a product of human creation as if it existed all by itself apart from the activity of humans to bring it into existence. The best example of this is institutions. Institutions are created by people getting together to do things over a period of time. The oddity with institutions is that even those who create them can experience the institution as something that in turn acts back on them as a reality outside of themselves. They create an organization, and then experience that organization as an outside entity that in turn influences them and calls on them to promote and preserve it with their resources.

This plays into our discussion because in an effort to "create life" for God we start organizations. The thing about organizations is that we tend to treat them as if they are realities in and of themselves. We reify them and give them a concrete status. As such, it positions the organization to compete for loyalty to the ultimate reality, God. Institutions flirt with idolatry because they can easily supplant the reason for their existence. Institutions tend to gravitate towards self-preservation, a quality that is anti-thetical to Kingdom values of dying to self and giving away our resources to produce life. Institutions are great if they serve a purpose of being a catalyst for life, and not self preservation. It is a tension we must live with, but it is a tension we must be aware of if we are to allow God to use the natural for the supernatural.

46. "Making Disciples"

You know, going back to the basics can be a thrilling adventure, but it can also remind us of how forgetful we are. I can remember back in college teaching a class on what it means to be a disciple, and it wasn't until recently that I was reminded of this concept again. Like a freight train barreling down a railway, I was confronted with how axiomatic this idea of making disciples is and should be to Christian communities.

Mathew is the only gospel we find mentioning this phrase for Jesus last words. It hit me this morning as I was reflecting on it that Matthew, as someone who was primarily writing for Jews, framed the great commission in a "learning/mentoring" paradigm because learning Torah was one of the axiomatic pursuits of a covenant keeping Jew.

The only thing is, I don't think Matthew had learning Torah in mind. The Torah had become flesh and lived out it's full meaning in front of them. Making disciples meant making followers of Jesus. This of course involves learning from a cognitive standpoint. academia can be a great blessing or a subtle cursing as well though. If Jesus life and ministry is any clue about what it means to make disciples, then we can be sure the "learning" is embedded in a relational framework of modeling and exercise.....in other words outside the class room.

What if we filtered our ministries, our "church planting" and all that stuff that drives us through this lens of making disciples. I think it would be a healthy corrective to start here for several reasons.

1. It is process oriented. Jesus is not asking us to focus on numbers or levels of acheivement. He is asking us to make disciples. Getting into the numbers game flirts with treating people as projects and trophies. the goal is not just "salvation." It is to be a disciple, a follower. This changes the rules of the game for a lot of us.

2. It keeps Jesus at the center. Jesus is not asking us to "grow" the Kingdom. Not even to plant churches! Wow! Now this of course could all go back to semantics etc. Planting a church is sometimes short hand for creating a community of believers made up of either seekers or believers or both. But if you will allow me to make a distinction, planting a church and making disciples CAN BE two different things, although they do not HAVE TO BE. It is really all a question of where you start. If my goal is to make disciples, then a church will surface out of this process and activity. Too often planting a church is about gathering a crowd and being cool. Franchising if you will. Planting a church should be the by product of making disciples. Making disciples keeps us pointing people to Jesus, not just drawing them into our organization or building.

3. It keeps us focused on what matters, transformation. Conversion is about starting the transformation process. It is not about reaching the climactic point of the journey. Using this language of being a "making disciples" draws us away from a one time event and keeps our eyes on the journey of transformation. It implies an incomplete project, not a final destination.

44. Breaking New Ground!

Some of you know about the organization we have started The Harvest Network. We want to help people feed themselves. The motto is "Don't Buy It, Grow It." Up until now our main project has been with the Clarksville First Church of the Nazarene and helping them use their food pantry ministry and their property to create a Jubilee garden. Working with this church has a lot of benefits from a Kingdom standpoint I might add. Great people there.

We also have another focus where we want to help people start growing their own food in their back yard. This past Saturday me and Tiffany went to a low income neighborhood right next to the projects here in Clarksville and went door to door to create awareness about The Harvest Network, sort of a "here we are, use us if you want to start a garden." We knocked on this one door and their was a couple with 6 kids who want to start a garden! We met with them this past Tuesday night to help them plan their garden and this weekend we will be helping them to till it up and plant. This is our first family to work with as The Harvest Network and we are so excited.

Please pray for all of those involved for the Father to work his will into the situation.

43. Neil Cole on Organic Leadership

Isn't it great when you find out you are not crazy? I sometimes feel crazy when I think about "organic leadership" and simple church stuff. I know the power is in God and not a model, but our models come from somewhere: our values, paradigms and mostly tradition. Neil Cole has a great interview on Shapevine.com

He reviews his new book "Organic Leadership." It was sort of funny that he was saying some of the same things I was saying in a previous post about organic leadership. I'm not crazy after all!

42. God of Wonders

What is God brewing here in Clarksville? Honestly I don't know. Most of the time he does not let us know before hand. It sure would be nice to get the down low on his activity though. Especially where we fit into the picture. Me and Tiffany have been going back and forth about what God is up to and the implications for our purpose here in Clarksville.

One thing is for sure, we serve a God of surprises. I have been trying to trace God in our journey here in Clarksville and sometimes it is as clear as day what he is doing, and at other times I just want to tell him a few things, if you know what I mean.

One thing I can bear witness to, God honors faith. The kind of faith in Hebrews 11. He honors the kind of faith that builds before you can justify the outcome. The kind of faith that sticks to morals when it costs. The kind of faith that orders your life around a sure principle of God. The kind of faith that just looks down right stupid to the outsider. We serve a God of wonders! And while he is beyond our galaxy, he is also present in us. If we can abandon our selfish preoccupation, and be lifted out of our own mode of self preservation, God fuses us with LIFE, FAITH, HOPE and LOVE, all from the Spirit. Faith is so given and taken for granted, and yet it is so axiomatic to our walk with God. I don't want to be ordinary. I don't want to operate out of fear or mundane expectation. I believe, help my unbelief.

41. New Gnosticism?

This is one of those words that you tend to hear about in lofty theological or philosophical conversations. Do not dismiss it too quickly though. It has remained hidden from us (no pun intended) for too long. The readers digest version of this word is, physical matter is bad and we need to escape form it. To go a little bit deeper, the human body is bad, and we need to escape from it. To go even deeper, it's what the Gnostic's of John's day were pitching to certain Christian communities. They said "We have the secret to escaping from this evil prison of the material body and the basic elements of the world."

Don't kid yourself and think this is only an issue that "they" had to deal with back in the NT times. No, this is alive and well today. Not necessarily in seed form, but definitely present. For example, it is full blown in how we view eschatology and what will happen when we die. N.T. Wright talks about this in his new book Surprised by Hope. Gnosticism has seeped its way into the root of our theologies, eschatology's, and especially our spirituality.

I want to offer a possible new form of gnosticism. A derivative if you will. Those of us in the simple church movement sort of pride ourselves in not being "institutional" or tied down with programs and structures. Some even say that programs are what you do when you don't know how to listen to Jesus! While I would not go that far, I can see the point behind the statement. There is no doubt in my mind that religion, programs, buildings and structure have a powerful tendency to take over and replace a relationship with God. They can be a crutch, a habit....lets be honest, an idol! That being said, the above mentioned things are not bad in themselves. Institutions, as Mark Willis recently said to me in a chat, boil down to this: People coming together to accomplish something, and doing that something over a long period of time. This is of course the readers digest version. But the point I am getting at here is that you can not escape institutions! Any kind of pattern or habitual habit, from a sociological standpoint, smells of institutionalization. Institutions, like our bodies, are not bad. Our bodies are fallen and have limitations and trappings for sure, but God is for our body and the earth, and will redeem them in the new creation. Institutions, while having some glaring limitations and downfalls, that need to be addressed and called out mind you, are still social realities. They, lik eour bodies, can be instruments of God and can be used by him for his glory. To be totally non-institutional is first of all, from a sociological standpoint naive, and from a theological standpoint, flirting with gnosticism. Institutions are an inevitable byproduct of human action, and they do not need to be escaped from indefinitely, but rather put to proper use. In short, they need to find their rightful place in the Kingdom. I have a few ideas about that rightful place, but God rules over all and will redeem all in the end.

Now I will be the first to say that the conventional style church needs to become self conscious and aware of its institutional limitations. To keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is a definition of insanity (thank you Einstein) Some structures do indeed constrict life and are even void of life. But maybe another approach is to ask ourselves, "What kind of structures allow life to permeate and flourish?" I will no doubt come out on the side of the organic approach to community and leadership, but this should not be too short sighted. We all speak from our gifting and personality. I do believe that organizations can set themselves up in ways that not only allow the life and vitality, already present in people, to flourish. But they can also play a role in nurturing that life as well. It is a reciprocal relationship. The challenge is to discern what structures do this in your context. So, I guess in the context of this discussion, I am an agnostic?

40. Staying Connected

Starting a Christian community from scratch is hard work. Even in the Bible belt, surrounded by churches and "Christians", there can still be a sense of, well, I will go ahead and say it, alone-ness. We at Ikon have been 8, 20, 12 and so on when it comes to numbers. We all have sort of transitioned into a more simpler form of Christianity for various reasons. I think a common thread that runs through the group is, we ant to focus on authentic community, spiritual formation, and following Jesus without the negative side of tradition and religion, and dare I say, too much institutional-ness.

Doing such a venture in such small numbers is a real challenge though. I have been reconnecting with some people from conventional churches and the fellowship has been great. We all need to be connected with our Jesus family. we also need to be connected with the church at large in some fashion. Starting this non-profit, The Harvest Network has been a great tool for me to step back into the conventional church circles and re-connect with some great folks. I am also seeing God work in all kinds of places. God works in people, regardless of their church model.

All that being said, I am refreshed by two groups here in Clarksville. Clarksville First church of the Nazareene and Mission Clarksville. Here's a shout out to two different models of church, with God working in both of them for His Glory.

We need each other, regardless of our philosophy on ecclessiological models. How's that for unity!

39. House Church Mega Church Hybrid?

I found a cool church in Kettering Ohio that has been able to pull off the House Church Mega Church model. At first I was a bit skeptical, but it seems like they allow the house churches to be autonomous and treat the Sunday gathering as a tool to celebrate what God is doing in the House Churches. I am so encouraged to see this happening there. I have often wondered what we would do if our house church began to multiply.

I would love to go visit them and see what it is like in real life. Outside looking in it looks pretty cool. Could this be a good approach if you value the big gathering? They even use the APEPT model for their leadership teams and such.

I plan on calling them to talk some about their model and their values. Here is a link to their web site. http://www.apexcommunity.net/

38. A Different Front Door

Thinking a little bit more about organic leadership and communities, I had an epiphany the other night in bringing these thoughts together with some other posts about institutions. Previously in another post I suggested that the role of institutions is specialization in Kingdom tasks. I recently talked to an old college buddy of mine whom I have not talked to in over ten years. Needless to say we have both changed a lot since then. Surprisingly though, he has been having some of the same thoughts I have been having about leadership and community. In fact, he is preparing for a church plant in the Atlanta area as we speak.

The cool thing about it though is that he is not going to do the traditional franchise model of church planting. Instead, he is going to "parachute" into a new area by starting a non-profit organization.

I have been having similar thoughts about church planting lately, but my conversation with him sort of helped me connect some dots. In order to share the good news in Clarksville TN, we need to develop relationships with people. Doing the house church thing can sort of make it challenging to do this. However, we have recently started an organization called the Harvest Network which will help people grow their own food in their back yard. My thoughts now a days are leaning towards the non-profit functioning as sort of a hub of relational activity and then as a result of those relationships, new vibrant families of Jesus would form. Sort of a spin off, or by-product of the non-profits activities

In other words, the non-profit is the engine that generates a meaningful, redemptive connection with the community. It is out of these relationships that new organic communities of the gospel can be formed in peoples homes, Starbucks, or anywhere. In the franchise model, traditionally speaking, you get a building to do church and attract people to the services. In this model (I am not sure what to call it) you may get a building, but it is for the purpose of serving people day in and day out through whatever services your non-profit will provide. The organizations service to the community would then be the catalyst to form relationships with the lost. If I were to diagram this, it would look something like this:

The only way to pull this off is to have intentional relationships with people outside the interests of the non-profit. These kinds of relational pockets and networks already surround a lot of the non-profit organizations. The apostolic role in this situation would be to facilitate communities out of these pockets, made up of individuals who are open to relationships and the gospel. In this model, the non-profit would appear to take the place of the conventional style institutional church, while having a lot of the same benefits that institutions bring to the table. The major difference is that the non-profit''s interests are not to draw people indefinitely into itself. The non-profit naturally creates the formation of organic communities, while the conventional style church traditionally sees organic communities as a crop to be harvested and gathered into the confines of the church. This model reverses that and does not see the non-profit institution as a final destination. The organic communities formed around it would instead be the fertile ground for the seeds of the gospel. The goal would not be to get them into the box, but to get the gospel to them right where they are, and better yet, to nurture their faith in that very context. You would not ask them to "come to church". You would ask to eat lunch, have a cup of coffee, pray with them. Share their story and pray.

37. Organic Leadership

Trying to lead in an organic community is a different bag of tricks. I have the ghost of former leadership paradigms always creeping in. I love this new environment of leadership though. Such an adventure. Most of all I like how it allows me to be me without manipulating other people in the name of Jesus. Great freedom here, but great challenges as well. Right now I am learning the art of community engagement. I never did much of this before in my ministry career. This is too my fault of course. I am now learning to be in conversation with the people I am trying to "lead" and it is a beautiful process. No more depending on charisma and personality. God and discernment, community and gifting, and most of all calling are prerequisites to leading people. All of this is a gift, skill set and discipline.

In trying to put my thoughts together on this, I created a diagram to sort of help myself distill my thoughts on this new way of approaching leadership. The following diagram represents the paradigm I was both formally, and informally trained to lead in.

The leader goes off and spends time with God and gets a vision from God, that oddly enough would also align with his or her own values, giftings and passions, or shortly put, their spiritual DNA. In turn, they would develop a strategy of how to accomplish this vision and turn to the community and basically say, "Here is my vision, are you with me or not?" As you can see, this puts a lot of pressure on the community. Not to mention it basically treats the community as a support structure for the leader. In other words, the community is there to follow the leader and serve his or her vision. (The vision of course being narrowly interpreted by a few for the many.) In raw straight forward terms, the leaders in this situation ends up harvesting the members energy, time and gifts for "their" vision. It assumes that the leader knows what God wants the people in the community to do. I could say a lot more about this model and its limitations, but I will stop here for time purposes. I will say however that there are times and situations when this model of leadership is appropriate, so don't get me wrong here.

There is another way of approaching leadership however. I will use the trendy word organic to describe it, but it really is a good term to use when explaining this different approach. The following diagram illustrates this.

As you can see, it starts with people being in conversation about their individual values, giftings and passions in a community setting. On an individual level, this approach provides a pathway to discover what God is up to and how I fit in with it in my own situation outside of a group dynamic. Community is a great place to discover and affirm your spiritual DNA. However, what happens if God is brewing things together where a pattern starts to emerge in a community with peoples DNA? This in my mind warrants a process of discernment on what a group can do collectively for God. This sort of creates a group dynamic for collective ministry efforts.

In organic communities, often times people may not have a homogeneous passion or calling. People may be called to vastly different directions in ministry. This is what can make house church and simple church sort of challenging if you have a conventional church background. You are so used to operating primarily on the collective, group dynamic level that you skip the personal discovery of gifts and calling etc. This leaves you sort of wondering if we should be "doing more" on a group level. (There is of course a place for serving as a group etc) Leadership in an organic environment is more like facilitating people to learn their gifts and operate in them. Leadership is not telling other people what to do for God, as if any of us know that for other people! When you do this, you actually end up cloning people after your own DNA. Cloning is when you take one persons DNA and try to reproduce it in another person. Everyone has different DNA when it comes to ministry direction. You do not pick your DNA and you can not clone people or communities after your own DNA. TO try and do this ends up being manipulative at best and spiritually abusive at worst. A more healthy approach is to nurture the DNA that is already there into healthy expressions so it can flourish into life giving forms.

Another contrast to the top down approach is the vision and strategy are open ended in this organic model of leadership. They are not tied to one persons perception of the situation. You do not arrive at a destination here. It is a constant journey which feeds off of your DNA and calling of God in the context of community. Any feedback on this?

36. Breaking New Ground. Our group decided to have a "Where are we? " or "Who are we?" discussion last night. We wanted to sort of call out some things that we see happening in our group as it relates to our values. It was a great discussion and brought some good clarity. Our hope is to discover who and where we are collectively so as to locate our selves oin the map per se. Some one asked "what is the map of?" That is a good question. I would now say that the map is a journey of being missional/incarnational. At the time I did not know what to say.

God is defninitely brewing some cool stuff in the group as a whole. Not to mention our own individual lives. This is actually the first real attempt to sort of organize ourselves for mission. So far it has been organic on steroids! While we still don't see a need to be organized for organized sake, I think it is good to sort of map out the terrain and explore what it looks like for us to do something collectively. I am excited!

35. Liberation baby!

After working for the man for almost three years, I am about to be liberated. On July 4th of all days. Work is one of those under explored topics that doesn't receive a lot of attention in the theological world. It is one of those topics that people just assume is a natural part of life and there is not much to be said about it. "Everyone has to go to work, if you don't, you are one of the lucky ones." I hate to say it, but full time ministry is seen as one of those lucky ones. I can say this because I was in full time ministry for over 10 years.

I think this is another one of those gaps that clergy laity creates, that is, the gap between the working class and "the luck ones." Don't get me wrong, full time ministry is definitely work, but it is a different kind of work. It has a totally different dynamic that a 9-5, or even sales. really there is nothing else like it, especially if you are in a majorly dysfunctional church.

That being said, it is still perceived as being a cushy job, and in some ways it is. A theology of work is often passed over because the ones doing the teaching are primarily the full time ministry people. The Sunday school teachers are sort of assigned their materials a lot of the time, or have other topics they like to explore.

So is there anything to say about a theology of work? Or is it just one of things that can pass under the lens of scripture and not really reveal anything? I think the concept of work is at the core of our experience. We spend most of our time at work. (Maybe this is why no one wants to study it!) A large portion of our lives revolve around it. The entire world does it. Most people are jaded about it, or don't like their jobs.

But work is actually linked to the origins of humanity. Genesis 2 and three don't just vaguely mention it, they make it a pivotal theme in humanities purpose. God gave Adam a job, to work the garden. This means work is not a byproduct of the fall. It is in our human design to work, and transform the creation, subdue it etc. However, after the fall, work took on a different flavor. It became tainted by a fallen world,one that became hostile to us. Actually, this negative side of work is rooted in the fall. So what does that tell us about work? Well, if you are in Christ, then work is supposed to be a part of the new creation. We should no longer regard work as apart of the old way of doing things. It has become new.

Some of you are thinking, "Yeah right, there is nothing new about my job! It sucks!" Well, this is precisely where the concept of new creation comes in. First, we are being redeemed from the curse, so it is not necessarily the existence of work that changes, but our attitude and perception of it is being aligned with God's agenda for the world.

I guess what I am trying to say is, no matter what kind of work we are involved with, we are sent into that environment by God to be salt and light. This in and of itself puts a new spin on work. While it does not absolve work of it's cursed flavor, it repositions us to approach work in a new light. And isn't this part of what Paul means in II Cor 5:17 when he says, we no longer see people from a worldly perspective....new creation.

I am about to become self employed, and I tell you what, this was a hard learned lesson for me to learn in this past 3years working for FedEx. They micromanage your day, it is somewhat monotnous, and you have to be out in all kinds of weather. Not to mentioin it isnot very intellectually engaging. Still, I was forced to process that part of my life through new creation. I would like to say I passed the test with flying colors. The truth is, I bitched and moaned a lot and enjoyed some what cycnical moments through all of it. I am glad that God was in my life through all of it, because I could have easily become a corporate zombie.