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Three Implications of the fractal we choose for discipleship
The fractal we chose in discipleship has great implications.
Implication #1
The broccoli versus pumpkin illustration reveals that parenting will be much more effective when sets of parents are reproduced instead of just adding children in an orphanage type scenario. (See “Let me change your understanding…” http://www.networkchurch.ca/?p=249 )
Implication #2
Our fractal can either promote or inhibit self-organizing learning. Self-organizing learning has far greater potential than running programmes because it does not require outside control. Becoming parents is a good example. To review self-organizing learning I recommend these two 1 Minute Learners:
- http://www.devedinternational.net/1ml/1ml-078/player.html
- http://www.devedinternational.net/1ml/1ml-079/player.html
Implication #3
The job for the pastor is becoming increasingly impossible in our high entitlement, consumer culture. The pastor simply cannot spiritually parent all the congregation. This needs to be done in small family type relationships.Review some statistics from the Francis Shaeffer Institute on how pastors are faring: http://www.intothyword.org/articles_view.asp?articleid=36562&columnid=
Give me just 3 minutes and I could change your understanding of discipleship.
What others have said: “Jim, I’ve not listened to a more insightful, helpful or engaging presentation in 20 years … especially your five, concluding action recommendations. I highly recommend viewing your full workshop to those who are serious about actually doing what Jesus commands each real Jesus Follower in the Great Commission (Matthew 28-18-20).” Gary Patton
Enter here: http://www.devedinternational.net/fractal/mfshort/player.html
Feel free to pass this on.
Toronto MissionFest Seminar
Here is the workshop I gave at Toronto MissionFest 2012
(40 minutes)
http://www.devedinternational.net/fractal/mf/player.html
I would love to hear your thoughts, or a review of the presentation. Please feel free to share this with others.
Pizza Discipleship
“Start ‘em young and show ‘em how“, I say. I am here with my two budding master pizzeros.
This is the way we should learn so many things: experientially.
Someday Jonathan and Andrew will be making pizzas for their kids and they will say, “Here is how you do it. Now let me see you do this now.”
Or we could sit them down in rows and give theory classes on making pizza. Like that would be really fun?
I was surprised to read in John 4:1, “Jesus Himself was not baptizing but His disciples were.” Right off the bat, even before His Second Miracle (v.54), he was already teaching them how.
How many of us have ever baptized anybody? Wouldn’t that change the dynamic of your home group?
So let’s get flour on our hands and floor and let’s just learn together.
Question: What things in church should we teach this way? I would love to hear your ideas.
Jim
PS. By the way, Jon and Andrew’s parents just did their Sunday school class on rocket making out in the parking lot. I can guarantee they had everyone’s attention. I can just imagine the conversation around the dinner table after church and the kids not wanting to wait until next Sunday to go back.
Why do I feel like I don’t ‘belong’ in church?
The other day I found a toy tractor in the china cabinet. I thought, “This is the way I feel in church, like I don’t belong here.” There is nothing wrong with the tractor or the china for that matter, it is that they just don’t go together.
A tractor is meant to be:
- used outside
- moving
- doing something useful
- used every day
- handled roughly
Good china is meant to be:
- used inside
- stored in a safe place
- doing somethig pretty
- used just on Sundays
- handled delicately
There is nothing wrong in being a tractor or being good china. But a tractor feels out of place in a china cabinet.
What if we made church more like a barn?
We come into a barn to:
- get out of the cold
- get cleaned off
- get repaired
- be available to be used with other impliments
- get ready for going out again into the fields
So what are you doing to make your church ‘tractor-friendly’? Let us know your comments.
How awkward questions can help build Collaborative Connection
I have always been troubled by John the Baptist’s question to Jesus: “Are you the One who is coming, or do we look for someone else?” (Luke 7:20)
Didn’t they have the baptism incident together, hearing God’s voice etc? Wasn’t he Jesus’ right-hand man? In addition, John sent his disciples to ask a difficult question. I wonder if he was already in prison by then or whether he was too embarrassed to ask personally.
My heart goes out to John, tormented by a question that must have touched him to the root of his soul, but he is brave enough to ask the awkward question, ‘Excuse me but if you are really God, shouldn’t something else be happening here?’
Look at Jesus’ response. He could have banged his head against the wall thinking “Not even my cousin gets it!” Rather, he gently answers him, situates him in the OT Scriptures and gives him some advice, “Blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over me” (v.23) Ouch but so true!
What John doesn’t hear is Jesus’ assessment of him to the crowds: “There is no one greater than John…”
The bottom line is that John got the help he needed to more fully connect with Jesus by asking a difficult question. He got a nagging doubt out of the way and probably got something sorted out that he would need as he faced his imprisonment.
So when a co-worker takes a risk and asks me a question concerning my credentials, I can either be threatened or I can use it to build a bridge that allows for deeper collaboration.
What questions do you need answered in order to better collaborate with others? Add your thoughts to the comments.
Photo credit: Diamond Farah, “Awkward” March 24, 2009 via Flickr, Creative Commons Attibution
How to renegotiate the Collaborative Connection
We don’t know much about Jesus growing up but a good part of what we do know is in Luke 2. There is a fascinating event that effectively illustrates a principle of collaborative connection, especially the need to renegotiate that connection as he grew.
It was Jesus family’s custom to go to Passover each year and when he was 12 years old and ready to move from boyhood young manhood, Jesus did something very disruptive.
When his parents left to return home, he decided to not go with them but to stay in the temple asking questions. He could have told them his plan but they very probably wouldn’t have let him.
Instead they assumed he was in the caravan with relatives and after a day, when he didn’t show up, they got worried and returned to Jerusalem.
They spent a very significant three days searching for him. (Does that time period ring a bell?) I wonder as those days progressed if their assumptions grew progressively more desperate? Did they start looking in the playgrounds and ended up checking the morgue? They did finally find him in the Temple with the elders and it must have seemed quite odd. Of course they were upset, as their imagination had moved them from thinking him lost to thinking him dead.
But their surrender of the boy Jesus was necessary for him to become a man. He had to be about His Father’s business. A new collaborative connection was being forged with the Father which necessitated another collaborative connection giving way.
And isn’t that how it works? In certain environments all the assumptions are made of what one can or can’t do. It takes a dynamic shift, a forceful discontinuity, to get the players to the point where a different way of looking at possibilities can emerge.
The boy Jesus had to die in their minds, in order for the man Jesus to take the next step in fulfilling His destiny.
Not everything can be negotiated ahead of time concerning the collaborative connection. Sometimes it takes disruptive action that is stressful and in the short-term incomprehensible. But it leads to a new collaborative space where much more can be accomplished together.
Photo credit: colemama, “Wait…”June 2,2012 via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution
Five Kingdom Verbs you need to know!
5 Verbs
Imagine
(Phil 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”)
• Look for ‘God spots’ where He is already at work
• Identify Circles of influence where we find ourselves in.
• List gifts and resources that we each bring into the mix (and others can add to our list by affirming what they see
• Identify dreams of where we long to see God work
• Share promises from the Word that empower our journey
Connect
(Matt 18:19,20: “For where 2 or 3 are gathered in My name…”)
• Share contact info and join DropBox where we can work on a common Action Map
• Where do we sense common harmonics inn the above information
• Who else can we reach-out to include in this journey, can they join us or do we join them?
• What is the scope of our involvement
• Form Micro-teams (2 or more)
Risk
(Hebrews 11:6: “Without faith it is impossible to please God…”)
• Community supports the micro-team by prayer and encouragement
• The Micro-team takes concrete steps of action
• The Micro-team observes what happen
• The Micro-team communicates back to community
Reflect
(Matt 6:28: “Consider the lilies of the field…”)
• What evidence is there that we are moving in sync with the Spirit, our gifts and our calling?
• What are we learning? How are we being changed by this?
• What course corrections are needed (pray, stop, rest, shift, increase, change etc)
• What is God saying to us?
Celebrate
(The Kingdom of heaven is like a party by Tony Campolo)
• Directed to our great God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit
• What He has done, is doing and will do
• Name the evidences of His working and what we believe is unseen
• Celebrate the wonderful diversity of His body that allowed all this to happen
• Declare our hope for a transformed future
Why I believe things must change
Why I believe in challenging the status quo of the church today:
1) Jesus used a method in disciple making that we have too easily discounted as not workable today. Or we say we subscribe to it, but put so much other stuff in front of it that we trivialize it.
2) The present system is toxic to leaders. These article from the Francis Schaeffer Institute are a must read: church stats, Pastor stats
3) The present system is unsustainable economically at best and at worst it is diverting important giving resources to the missionary mandate and in doing substantial acts of good that overcome evil.
4) People are bored. They jump through the hoops, remain unengaged and slowly roll over and die.
5) So much is changing. We need to examine our core. There are a few things we need to be hold on to for dear life and many things we need to be willing to adapt. “Changing everything” or “changing nothing “ is a recipe for irrelevance.
Jim
If Jesus came as a learner, what about you?
Christmas is over and New Year has begun. The lesson that I have had on my mind is why Jesus had to come as a baby. Weak, defenseless, needy… all show God’s upside down way of working. He also came as a learner. He had to learn everything. (And he already knew everything but left it aside to show us how.) He grew in wisdom and stature and favour with God and people (Luke 2:52). We shouldn’t overlook this fundamental fact that it wasn’t just saying a prayer, attending events or subscribing to a set of beliefs. He couldn’t have demonstrated how to live out His purposes more integrally than showing us how to learn.
We have reduced this to sermons, courses, classes, compartments in or thinking and in our lives. This works really well to ‘keep the cup clean on the outside’. I want Him to keep transforming me on the inside.
“For all that was…¸Thanks! For all that is to come…Yes!” Dag Hammarskjöld
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