Reggie McNeal 2c
Sep 10th, 2007 | By art rogers | Category: Church, General Christian, Live Blogging, Missional, SBCUsing the 5 Questions is a great way to talk to anyone: church, family & lost.
Meaningful engagement will take place through shaped conversation.
An apostolic version of engagement is to send out people before they are ready and debrief them after. We’ve turned it into training, discipling and working that they never get out of the building.
If we do not change the scorecard, we will never change the result. We do what we reward. Conversions will not go up until conversations go up.
3rd shift
Church-based Leadership to Apostolic Era Leadership (AD 30)
We are in a pre- Christian Culture again. Less than 10% of bridgers/millenials have any connection to church.
In AD 30, you don’t have a church job, you are the leader of a movement.
It’s messy and you can’t organize it. You follow where God is leading.
Apostolic Era leaders are Kingdom Minded. No fiefdoms. Don’t have a call to a church as much as they partner with the church to reach the area to which they are called.
They are visionary. Willing to do what has not been done and see what others have not seen.
They are developers of people.
They are Spiritual. The stink of Jesus is on them.
They are Entrepenurial. They see opportunity. Only church people lament the disintigration of churched culture. These people shout that it is great because light shines best in darkness. Missional Church doesn’t limit itself to the money in the pew. There are pagans with money who want a better city and will help finance our engagement and we build a relationship with them as well.
We think money follows meetings. House churches make us nervous because we don’t know how to take the offering.
Money follows Mission. You start Mission, and Money will find you.
You’ve got teachers, you’ve got grant writers in your church. Get them to write grants for your engagement.
In AD 30, people don’t have a single income stream. Missionality creates ways to get people engaged and will find a way to get them through.
They are plural or team oriented.
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I like alot of what I’m reading, but I’m also reading alot that doesn’t really line up with what the Word says, or at least my understanding of the word. I’d love to have been there to ask questions. I’d love to challenge some of the interpretation of 1st century context that has been presented. I’m really not trying to be anti-missional. I just don’t hear anything new. I’ve been hearing this since I was a kid. We are on mission with God. That means we’re missional. We’ve trained people for years to go out and be Christ wherever they are. We have an elder who is here about half the time because he’s on mission. I just think that some of this is not true / verifiable / orthodox.
For instance, “An apostolic version of engagement is to send out people before they are ready and debrief them after. We’ve turned it into training, discipling and working that they never get out of the building.” I agree that we don’t send people out enough, but sending out novices is not what the apostles were. They walked with Jesus daily. We get people for a couple of hours a week. I like OTJ training, but there has to be training in the apostle’s doctrine.
Another instance, “We think money follows meetings. House churches make us nervous because we don’t know how to take the offering.” If house churches were rocking the world, I’d throw down and do it. I know of no house church that has flourished past a few years. That’s my problem with disconnected house churches. We do ministry through cell groups in houses, but they are all connected together on Sunday mornings.
Another instance, “Because of a challenge that the HS resides only in Christians, Reggie takes off on a tangent of speaking to God being at work beyond the church.” Well, the H.S. does not reside in lost people, but He does work in them or no one would ever be saved. I’ve never heard anyone go down this path.
Finally, “Surveyed room: 2 people in leadership Christians for less than 15 years. Chrisianity can’t survive with the leadership this mature. We are pharisees: come and get it church culture. Across denomInations, missional people have more in common with other missionals than those that don’t. The great divide in America is among those that “get it” & those that don’t. You are going to self opt in or out.”
The whole missional / emergent movement sounds like a movement of spiritual novices to me. I’m not saying that in a derogatory wary. I just don’t hear any respect for mature leadership in the movement. It is in many ways a protest movement. It is a get in or get out movement. The lines have been drawn by those in, and agreed upon by those out. I agree that many are just come and get it churches. That drives me crazy. But, please hear me. I am 45 years old, meaning that I’m automatically out. I pastor a church of mostly 25-55 year olds, meaning that most of us are out. The first church I pastored averaged 75 years of age. That church and the one I am in have done more innovative, get out and get people things than all the house-church friends I have. Granted, we need young leaders, but I don’t think young leaders want mature leaders. And, I’m going to ask one more time. Is anyone really reaching the lost? This is a “turn the world upside down” movement. Is it turning the world upside down?
Throughout the day, McNeal referenced Scripture. In fact, what he poked holes in was the many practices that the traditional church has that are without Scriptural basis.
The reference to sending people out before they were ready was a reference to on the job training and was specifically undergirded with the story of Jesus sending out the disciples, two by two. McNeal was challenging the habit that the traditional church is in of training and training, but never sending out – at least without a program. That the best training happenes on the streets, and not in a discipleship class. This reference was specifically to engaging lost people.
The house church/offering comment was tongue in cheek and was intended to make a joke about us always trying to take offerings. It was not an endorsement of the house church movement, per se. He did talk about the house church movement and he said that it had never done much because it was always filled with crazy people or people who couldn’t get along with any other church, so they started one in their home. He did say, however, that things are changing there and our home groups are a part of it.
The guy really did argue that the Biblical view of the HS was that He resides in Christians – period. He also tried to peg McNeal as someone who believed that the HS only floated in space. McNeal gently corrected him to say that he believed the HS was resident in every Christian and was at work among the lost in the world.
The maturity issue, I think, you have got totally wrong. McNeal was pointing out that we weren’t bringing in new leaders, training them and letting them take us further. I think you are very wrong about the lack of respect of mature leaders. McNeal himself has to be in his 50′s and is in a long line of clergy dating back to chaplains in the colonial army. Not that that makes him mature, but he was also a pastor and then he served the NC state convention for years.
For myself, I think if there is something that the Mission Movement has a lack of respect for, it would be the the adherence to traditional practices for the sake of doing it like we always have. It is, as McNeal said, an entrepreneurial movement.
As to turning the world upside down, I don’t know that Missional is doing that, though I think it has potential and is our hope for the future of doing just that.
I do know that if less than 10% of bridgers/millenials are connected in any way to church, then I know that the traditional church in America is certainly not turning the world upside down.
One thing McNeal said in this respect was that if we don’t change the scorecard (the way we evaluate success) we aren’t going to change the outcome, which is not healthy, of late.
By the way, the 10% statistic was a quote from Thom Rainer – not exactly an “out there” anti-denominationalist.
Art,
Enjoy the time with Reggie. We had him come to our yearly leadership camp last year. His mind is both incredible and incredibly hard to follow. His books, The Present Church and Practicing Greatness are must reads in my opinion. He is very challenging whether you fully agree with his assessment of the state of the church today or not.
Cyle,
I will try to answer a few of your questions. As I alluded to above, Reggie can be hard to follow especially when he gets off into one of his tangents. His thinking flows so freely and randomly it can get a little crazy at times.
Question about sending: I believe Reggie is going back to the sending out of the twelve in Mark 6. The idea here is that Jesus sent them out to do the work of ministry before a great deal of formal training had occurred. Of course, at the end of the 3 years the time they spent with Jesus didn’t seem to help them stick around. Anyway, the twelve are sent out early on in the ministry of Christ, and given rather little instruction on just what they are to do.
I can’t help much with the money thing. He has a constant running joke among his talks about why churches are afraid of doing things off-campus. That joke is that we wouldn’t know how to take attendance and collect their money. The point of his good-natured ribbing is that doing things off campus requires faith that God will provide.
Finally, I would caution against lumping emergent, missional, protest movement, and house church all into one category. They are all vastly differing things. Some are expressions of others and some are purely for other reasons. Assuming that all movements or mindsets are the same as what is locally experienced does not give proper justice to the thousands out there who are staying true to the Bible and its expression. Often, the failure of an organization rests more squarely on the inadequacy of leadership than the biblicalness of its model. The reality is that the fastest growing religion in the world is Christianity. Unfortunately, that is not true of the U.S. Here it is receding at rapid pace.
Like I said, I don’t know how much it will help. I am speaking from the time I spent around Reggie during our leadership camp. He, much like all things, should be taken with a spiritually discerning eye. I would venture that simply because what an individual is propagating is different does not automatically disqualify it.
BCH
By the way,
I have actually sat in staff meetings at my church where the main reason given for not doing something off-campus was: How would we take an offering?
Thanks for all the comments on my comment.
Profess X, I’m not amazed at the question asked in your staff meeting, althought I guess I’ve been in a church that doesn’t ask those questions for so long that they do often take me aback.
Look, we’re not a normal SBC church and we sure aren’t a normal western Louisiana SBC church. I have paid the price for reaching the 25 – 50 crowd. Our church is 40% under the age of 18, and 80% under the age of 55. I won’t bore you with details. I’ll just say this. 60% of the bri/mill that were part of our church are still coming. But, they’re just coming. We are not reaching any unchurched in that generation until they have kids, and then we’re not reaching them. Neither is any other church in our area. When offered everything their generation says they want, they don’t jump at it. I’ve tried planting a house-church for that generation. They don’t want it. I’ve offered less than house church. They don’t want it. Over 50% of that generation moves away from our small town and we completely lose contact with them.
In my hometown, 30 years ago, over 80% of them moved away. They headed for the city. They rebelled. Today, over 50% of my high school graduating class is back in church, walking with God. After high school, less than 10% of them were. Our longitudinal studies don’t go far enough back to show that this trend is anything different than has been happening in this nation for a very long time. The whole premise of decentralization of the church in order to reach this generation ignores the bulk of the Pastoral epistles. The argument that there were no pastors, no structure in the 1st century, and that what little there was cultural is to practice poor exegesis and hermeneutics.
The whole premise is this. If people aren’t coming to church, then it is the church’s fault. Is that a Biblical premise? Church is not a social club. This is not the Elks, or the Lodge. There are values that transcend culture. There are truths that transcend and shape Christian culture, if that culture is Scriptural. The generation that entered the holy land fathered a generation that forsook God. Scripture doesn’t blame their parents. It blames the generation that fell away.
I agree that there is alot that needs to change in the organized church. I also think that we must be very careful when we use the Bible to prove our points, and we should not draw the lines that have been drawn . . . are you in, or are you out . . . unless God draws the lines.
Cyle,
You say some things that have merit, but the stuff about the premise of the missional church is way off.
I can’t give you more right now, I have an appointment. I’ll try to write more tonight.
Art
Cyle,
The premise of the Missional church is not “if people aren’t coming to church, it’s the church’s fault.”
Actually, that’s a great premise for a traditional program oriented church. We must need new programs.
In truth, that’s what I see in your description of your church. You have “reprogrammed” to reach younger crowds, but younger crowds aren’t coming.
Missional is a move away from programs to people. In a program driven church, people exist to staff and fill the program. In a missional church, people development is the goal and programs aren’t the means of accomplishing it – people investing in people is the means.
The generation you are trying to reach isn’t being reached by programs, so reprogramming won’t bear any fruit, and you are seeing that.
Missional is not anti-church. Missional is pro-church engaging people. All missional is about is the church (the people) being church in the lives of the lost instead of attending a service in a building and going on about their business.
Is that new? Not at all.
Again, you seem to have some baggage as relates to what missional is and you are certainly confusing it with Emergent, which is different from emergent (little “e”). Also, Emergent is more “anti-church.”
Art,
You’re probably right about my connecting missional and emergent. And, I have had some really alarming conversations with some of the “leaders” of the emergent movement in this country. However, I hear some of the anti-church sentiment in the missional movement. My associate pastor, who has been one of the most black & white thinkers I’ve ever known, is fond of saying, “It’s not either-or, it’s both-and.” That’s what I think about when I think about church. I think that church is attending a service in a building and then it is also going about the business of being the church in the world. I think that one problem with the whole “attending church” issue is that we have made our meetings a time to reach the lost. I think the primary purpose of our meetings is to encourage one another to keep the faith, stir one another up to love and good works, and equip people to go out and be the people of God in the world; not necessarily to attract the lost.
The thing I react to is that I see that those who don’t want to “attend church”, by a huge margin, also don’t want to “be church.” I also think that in our desire to do everything that the world is doing, along with the insanity of busy-ness that follows that desire, that we are asking the church to stop being an equipping center. Church activities/gatherings are often blamed for being the culprit when it comes to “not having enough time to minister.” We want less time together and more time to ourselves, and that’s ok if we are being the church in the world, but most are not. That assumption is based on personal admission and by research.
I know, too, that it’s not just the bridger/millenail generation we are losing. It’s every generation. Could it be that a great deal of that is due simply to the fact that the love of many is growing cold because of godlessness, and that no amount of deprogramming is going to work?
Cyle
Cyle,
“…we have made our meetings a time to reach the lost. I think the primary purpose of our meetings is to encourage one another to keep the faith, stir one another up to love and good works, and equip people to go out and be the people of God in the world; not necessarily to attract the lost.”
I could not say a more hearty “Amen” than to this statement.
Also, “We want less time together and more time to ourselves, and that’s ok if we are being the church in the world, but most are not,” is incredibly insightful.
Simply deprogramming is no solution. The solution is to quit looking to programs and start engaging the world.
It is highly intentional. It is highly active. It is highly creative.
It never denies the gathering of the body, but the gathering of the body is the icing on the cake. The day to day ins and outs of connecting with people is the meat of the matter and where this culture will be changed when the whole body disperses from its meeting and spreads out like yeast in the dough.
Is that naive? Is it overly optimistic?
Maybe. But its what I’m shooting for.