So, if there are cat paths on the lawn, and those cat paths represent the different ways that groups come together, and if the art of church planting is to find how to develop rather than ignore the cat paths, were still left with a basic question:
How do we grow that leadership?
A church might have a very strong visionary leadership that doesn't gather the team very effectively. It might have a team but no natural leadership; tending towards shared or corporate leadership that reverts to a friendship group. Or the team might be difficult to define.
But how do you grow the leadership?
One widely used method is the eldership board. This holds the overall leader accountable, weighs direction, ensures funding and oversees the overseer. I have never had a particularly high view of this pattern, because I don't see it in the Bible. The elders of the church, as far as I can see were more accountable to the Titus style apostolic representative than they were to a board of any kind. I have often pilloried the idea of Anglican PCCs as leadership of any kind.
But here we are in the Antioch network with Anglican style upwards accountability. And that means next to none. No one to rebuke, challenge, to genuinely hold us accountable, who really understands the mistakes we make on the ground. Anglican bishops have long since become managers allocating resources and their archdeacons firefighters rather than a genuine accountability system.
So do we need to look down? Do we need 'deacons' in the church? Do we need to appoint 'elders' in the network in the same way that New Frontiers do? What is certain is the 'leadership couple + 4' pattern that we used in TCC isn't what's happening so far, and perhaps has a limited Biblical basis.
So do downward accountability? PCC anyone?
Thursday, 14 February 2019
Saturday, 2 February 2019
Busting platitudes
I've been reading a few different things on reaching the poor - a four simple steps email from someone in greater Manchester, Francis Chan's Letters to the Church and this rant (?)from the Bishop of Burnley.: https://www.blackburn.anglican.org/storage/general-files/shares/Resources/Talks%20articles%20and%20sermons/Hope_for_the_Poor_-__P_article__Word_document_.pdf
All of them are, in their own way, fine. But they aren't how to, they're what to books.
There's a critical lack of proper, informed material on what will help grown the church. My urban ministry lecturer at college didn't have a model in mind, and came back the next week to suggest Eden in Manchester. But for all the brilliant things they do, I wouldn't say Eden had got church planting right. Steve Timmis and Tim Chester wrote 'Total Church' by their own admission, too early, before they could really ground what they were saying in experience. Inner city ministry groups tend to be academic theology seminars full of guilt, self-hatred and jargon.
That's we do a few things.
1) Be totally clear about what we're trying to do. Plant small churches that plant small churches among the urban poor.
2) Learn. New Frontiers podcasts are great. These are grounded in observed reality. But we need to keep learning what makes a difference for ourselves. We need coaching, mentoring and thinking based on the Bible. . The battle for the hearts and minds of the inner city is intense. Read, reflect pray.
3) Communicate as clearly and succinctly as possible. Repeatedly.
4) Be humble: don't listen to our own propaganda, be tough enough to take criticism. Follow Jesus wherever it goes.
All of them are, in their own way, fine. But they aren't how to, they're what to books.
There's a critical lack of proper, informed material on what will help grown the church. My urban ministry lecturer at college didn't have a model in mind, and came back the next week to suggest Eden in Manchester. But for all the brilliant things they do, I wouldn't say Eden had got church planting right. Steve Timmis and Tim Chester wrote 'Total Church' by their own admission, too early, before they could really ground what they were saying in experience. Inner city ministry groups tend to be academic theology seminars full of guilt, self-hatred and jargon.
That's we do a few things.
1) Be totally clear about what we're trying to do. Plant small churches that plant small churches among the urban poor.
2) Learn. New Frontiers podcasts are great. These are grounded in observed reality. But we need to keep learning what makes a difference for ourselves. We need coaching, mentoring and thinking based on the Bible. . The battle for the hearts and minds of the inner city is intense. Read, reflect pray.
3) Communicate as clearly and succinctly as possible. Repeatedly.
4) Be humble: don't listen to our own propaganda, be tough enough to take criticism. Follow Jesus wherever it goes.
Friday, 18 January 2019
Why do we do that?
When I first went to Mauritania I was briefed on the quarterly reports. These were huge pieces of deep number crunching and narrative that our overstretched volunteer staff were sending to USAID. And we were behind with them, and it was a stress. And when's the deadline? I asked. Well, there wasn't one, technically. We weren't obliged to send them in. We never sent another quarterly report.
Janice and I have been reading Francis Chan's 'Letters to the Church'. Here's really radical about asking 'what do we do on Sunday?'. Read scripture aloud. Spend as much time praying as you do preaching. Break bread more often. It sounds like the Bible!
When we first went to TCC, we reviewed everything, including Sunday, with the team there. We looked at the aims, and came up with something like: to teach the word of God, to express the vision of who we are as a community, to pray, to worship, to be a point of invitation. TCC had borrowed patterns from Platt and we tried to think how we needed to be a little different.
We in Hope Church have maybe been borrowing patterns from TCC. We've had great worship leading. Good teaching. People have grown in their gifts. But how can we reach those aims in the paragraph above. Are we missing something? Or am I being too restless? How can we tweak things to speak of the kingdom?
I know y'all don't comment too much on this, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this...............
Janice and I have been reading Francis Chan's 'Letters to the Church'. Here's really radical about asking 'what do we do on Sunday?'. Read scripture aloud. Spend as much time praying as you do preaching. Break bread more often. It sounds like the Bible!
When we first went to TCC, we reviewed everything, including Sunday, with the team there. We looked at the aims, and came up with something like: to teach the word of God, to express the vision of who we are as a community, to pray, to worship, to be a point of invitation. TCC had borrowed patterns from Platt and we tried to think how we needed to be a little different.
We in Hope Church have maybe been borrowing patterns from TCC. We've had great worship leading. Good teaching. People have grown in their gifts. But how can we reach those aims in the paragraph above. Are we missing something? Or am I being too restless? How can we tweak things to speak of the kingdom?
I know y'all don't comment too much on this, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this...............
Tuesday, 8 January 2019
Teach us to pray
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
What does it take for someone to go from unbelief into maturity, how do we go about helping them?
In a big church, you'll have a group of programmes, or a programme of groups, and you hope that people will connect with those groups and programmes and learn. Fair enough.
We're not a big church. The disadvantages of this can be obvious. But the advantage is that we can look out for one another, invest time into people, getting to know them and building friendships. Our programmes won't be as good, but our relationships can be stronger.
Those relationships can, and often should, have an intention: to help our friends grow closer to God. And prayer is a key component of that. In fact, if we don't put prayer into that friendship, we can accidentally end up communicating a Kingdom of talk without power.
It's really challenging, because most of think that our own prayer lives couldn't teach anyone anything. So ask other people to help you pray, as this disciple did. And help others to pray, with whatever you've got, as Jesus (who admittedly had a LOT) did.
Ask yourself the question: who can help me pray? And who can I help to pray?
Ends with famous Charles Spurgeon quote........."I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach."
What does it take for someone to go from unbelief into maturity, how do we go about helping them?
In a big church, you'll have a group of programmes, or a programme of groups, and you hope that people will connect with those groups and programmes and learn. Fair enough.
We're not a big church. The disadvantages of this can be obvious. But the advantage is that we can look out for one another, invest time into people, getting to know them and building friendships. Our programmes won't be as good, but our relationships can be stronger.
Those relationships can, and often should, have an intention: to help our friends grow closer to God. And prayer is a key component of that. In fact, if we don't put prayer into that friendship, we can accidentally end up communicating a Kingdom of talk without power.
It's really challenging, because most of think that our own prayer lives couldn't teach anyone anything. So ask other people to help you pray, as this disciple did. And help others to pray, with whatever you've got, as Jesus (who admittedly had a LOT) did.
Ask yourself the question: who can help me pray? And who can I help to pray?
Ends with famous Charles Spurgeon quote........."I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach."
Monday, 31 December 2018
Love must be sincere
We all learn in different ways. I sometimes think I learn by reading my environment and trying to think the opposite. So I grew up in wealthy, relatively Christianised suburbia and decided I wanted to go to poor areas with few Christians.
But after 30 years hanging out with like-minded people who believe in ministry to the poor, I developed another series of opposites.
Social justice, at least as it is widely understood, is not in the Bible.
We don't have to earn the right to tell people the gospel by being nice to them.
The church doesn't have to run social projects to be relevant or effective in outreach. There is no evidence that the New Testament church ran any social projects.
Being liked and being listened to are not the same thing.
'The poor' are not to be understood primarily as victims: the gospel to the poor is exactly that - the Good News of Jesus Christ. It doesn't promise the end of poverty.
The Kingdom of God does not come when incomes, health outcomes and education levels rise, good though those things might be.
The 'nots' though, are just that - negatives. They won't change the world. What will is Jesus. Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan is a story of spontaneous, radical generosity. A heart full of mercy. That heart of mercy is more powerful than justice, it makes every conversation about the gospel real and genuine, it is more human than any project, it is indifferent to whether we are liked, it calls the poor to 'do likewise' and it while it might make people better off, the Kingdom of God has already come when we live by it.
But after 30 years hanging out with like-minded people who believe in ministry to the poor, I developed another series of opposites.
Social justice, at least as it is widely understood, is not in the Bible.
We don't have to earn the right to tell people the gospel by being nice to them.
The church doesn't have to run social projects to be relevant or effective in outreach. There is no evidence that the New Testament church ran any social projects.
Being liked and being listened to are not the same thing.
'The poor' are not to be understood primarily as victims: the gospel to the poor is exactly that - the Good News of Jesus Christ. It doesn't promise the end of poverty.
The Kingdom of God does not come when incomes, health outcomes and education levels rise, good though those things might be.
The 'nots' though, are just that - negatives. They won't change the world. What will is Jesus. Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan is a story of spontaneous, radical generosity. A heart full of mercy. That heart of mercy is more powerful than justice, it makes every conversation about the gospel real and genuine, it is more human than any project, it is indifferent to whether we are liked, it calls the poor to 'do likewise' and it while it might make people better off, the Kingdom of God has already come when we live by it.
Thursday, 27 December 2018
Cat paths on the lawn
Cats don't make tracks. Sheep make tracks. But cats have made a path from the mentally vulnerable housing on one side of us to the church-turned-into-a-mosque on the other side. All it takes is the inmates of the supported housing to dig under our fence, and the cats have done the rest. It makes no sense but it's real.
Our sheep track is the eleven stage church planting loop. Our cat path is everything we've actually done so far. So just how far can you bypass key principles:
Find the leader first.
Build the team.
Lay the team and logistical groundwork.
Support, train, review, grow.
Repeat.
We did it in Longsight. We might have to do it in Cheetham Hill. Are we not waiting on God, are we not praying hard enough over that leadership, or do we just have to walk along the cat paths that God's people make?
Our sheep track is the eleven stage church planting loop. Our cat path is everything we've actually done so far. So just how far can you bypass key principles:
Find the leader first.
Build the team.
Lay the team and logistical groundwork.
Support, train, review, grow.
Repeat.
We did it in Longsight. We might have to do it in Cheetham Hill. Are we not waiting on God, are we not praying hard enough over that leadership, or do we just have to walk along the cat paths that God's people make?
The rant goes on
Welcome back to the Bitter Scroll after 8 years of silence! I have now deleted the earlier rants, not wanting to cause stumbling / give evidence to those who suspect me of being narrow minded and opiniated. Far be it from me.
So, the new incarnation of the Bitter Scroll is a church planting 'notes to self' page. It has a moderate safe search filter - meaning I might rant about my enemies, but won't name them.
So, let me kick off with the first church planting technicality. Mid week groups and critical sizes.
Soul Food was/is the midweek meeting of TCC Rusholme. I have spent quite a while thinking of the ways it succeeded and failed. Its format was that of a constantly running alpha course, with a basic Bible study as its teaching content.
Its key success was based on its format - simple, accessible and Biblical. Hundreds of people came through - in many ways it lifted the church into a crucial phase of growth but it did so very unevenly.
With the Kurds, the meeting was their main doorway into the church. This became a significant group in TCC and it started in Soul Food.
The Arabs.....mixed. The reality is that while Arabs came, the change process was slower and their loyalty to the church was weaker.
Other groups didn't see new disciples made. Put crudely.
What made the difference? Commitment to discipling people outside Soul Food. Soul Food was not capable of being the engine of change on its own. It needed to be combined with other strategies and groups that drilled down into deeper issues. That took committed leadership - for the Kurdish group, and partly through the Arabic church for the Arabs.
It was easy to be intoxicated by numbers, to ignore a lack of depth in prayer, and to put off considerations of deep life change to another time. The Alpha course is temporary. Holy Trinity Brompton's pastorates meet every other week to leave time for deeper meetings. We need formats that mix breadth with depth.
Note to self: encourage leaders to offer that deeper level to key people in the church. If you don't, you'll burn out for short term gain. Possibly run the main meeting every other week, not every week.
So, the new incarnation of the Bitter Scroll is a church planting 'notes to self' page. It has a moderate safe search filter - meaning I might rant about my enemies, but won't name them.
So, let me kick off with the first church planting technicality. Mid week groups and critical sizes.
Soul Food was/is the midweek meeting of TCC Rusholme. I have spent quite a while thinking of the ways it succeeded and failed. Its format was that of a constantly running alpha course, with a basic Bible study as its teaching content.
Its key success was based on its format - simple, accessible and Biblical. Hundreds of people came through - in many ways it lifted the church into a crucial phase of growth but it did so very unevenly.
With the Kurds, the meeting was their main doorway into the church. This became a significant group in TCC and it started in Soul Food.
The Arabs.....mixed. The reality is that while Arabs came, the change process was slower and their loyalty to the church was weaker.
Other groups didn't see new disciples made. Put crudely.
What made the difference? Commitment to discipling people outside Soul Food. Soul Food was not capable of being the engine of change on its own. It needed to be combined with other strategies and groups that drilled down into deeper issues. That took committed leadership - for the Kurdish group, and partly through the Arabic church for the Arabs.
It was easy to be intoxicated by numbers, to ignore a lack of depth in prayer, and to put off considerations of deep life change to another time. The Alpha course is temporary. Holy Trinity Brompton's pastorates meet every other week to leave time for deeper meetings. We need formats that mix breadth with depth.
Note to self: encourage leaders to offer that deeper level to key people in the church. If you don't, you'll burn out for short term gain. Possibly run the main meeting every other week, not every week.
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