Embarking

I recently read the new book Multi-Site Church Road Trip by Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird.  After reading The Multi-Site Revolution several years back, this was a wonderful update.

6 or 7 years ago, I had the opportunity to meet Dave Ferguson for dinner at a restaurant in Brighton, Michigan where Community Christian Church was then working on a potential site.  Dan Reeves introduced me to CCC and the Ferguson brothers who were then cutting edge (and still are) in the multi-site movement.  Then, as reflected in The Multi-Site Revolution, multi-site was new, exciting, and and catalyst to new growth.  They were multi-siting in old churches and even in a housing development for the elderly.  I had a chance to hear their strategy at a small conference in Kalamazoo not long after that in which they talked about the “franchising” of churches.  Initially, that rubbed me the wrong way, but with the right spirit and for the right reasons, that idea was cheaper, more effective, and provided more accountability for “church planting” as well as more support for the planters (or campus pastors, as their usually called.)  I had a chance later to visit the Yellow Box and worship with CCC and was really impressed with their innovation, passion, and down-to-earth evangelicalism.  CCC was really my only real personal interaction with multi-siting until I began reading more about it in Leadership Network’s articles.

I now serve at a large church just about to celebrate its 50th anniversary.  We worship just under 2000 most Sundays, and for the last 5 years, myself and the other leadership have worked diligently to move our church not only towards planting, but towards being a multiplication center with church multiplication at the heartbeat of our mission.  We’ve been involved in church plants in the past, but had gotten away from that focus and got sucked into the megachurch growth movement – which is only a negative comment because of the loss of a planting focus.   Out of that focus, we’ve decided to plant 4 churches in the next 5 years through venues, sites, and plants.  A month ago, we launched our first venue on our central campus called Rock Harbor with 60% of the attendees (170-200 total worshipers) from outside the church.  We’re now looking to out first site to possibly launch in September or October.  We’re also involved in the planting of a cluster of at least 5-10 churches in central Florida that will also launch this next year.

The Multi-Site Road trip has been an awesome primer in what’s happening around the country and about the maturation of multi-siting over the past 10 or so years.   What I loved about this book was that it didn’t give a silver bullet and didn’t promote a one-size fits all approach.  In fact, exactly the opposite was true.  MSR defines multi-siting as “one church meeting in multiple locations” and identifies five basic models:

1. video venues
2. regional campuses
3. teaching teams
4. partnerships
5. low risk models

The authors give examples of all these models and show how these models actually play out in real churches, real teams, with real struggles.  It also helps the reader to see that multi-siting is not just for the large, or mega church, but that it is a strategy for growth that helps churches to reach new communities, make room for new people, or as our planting network (The Harbor Network) would say, lives into the reality that “new churches reach new people.”  It was insightful to read that multi-siting may be an evolution of church strategy not unlike the addition of a second or third service, something that will in the future be “the new norm” as the book calls it.  The book is both practical and encouraging, and is a must read for anyone either considering venues or multi-siting, as an alternative to traditional “planting,” and as a catalytic idea for a church looking to expand into the community.

I just finished reading the book Obstacles Welcome: turn adversity to advantage in business and life.  This book by Ralph de la Vega is part autobiography, part leadership history, part leadership principles, part self-help, and part personal development.   de la Vega, President and CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets has been responsible and overseen everything from the move to mobile to the proliferation of the iPhone.  The book starts out, though, with stories from de la Vega’s youth in which he emigrated to the United States without his parents through a last minute glitch at the airport.  At the age of 10, he began his life in the United States without his parents.

I really enjoyed reading Obstacles Welcome.  It was a really accessible and easy read, and de la Vega takes the complexity of managing a huge corporation and a gives simple but not simplistic look into how he does it.  I also appreciated the type of leadership de la Vegan seems to exhibit.  He appears to be a person who values people, virtue, integrity, hard work, and determination.  After reading this book, I thought to myself, “de la Vega would make a good mentor” and that is exactly what he does through this book, becoming  a personal and leadership mentor.  If you’re in a leadership position, it’s worth a read.

I’ve had about 10 books going for awhile, and I’m trying of focus on finishing one at a time. I just finished reading The New Monasticism: What it has to say to the church, “an insider’s perspective” by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. I’ve mentioned the new monasticism before, and I have a lot of respect for what they’re trying to do. The New Monasticism movement reminds me a little bit of the way George Hunger III described St. Patrick’s monastic project in the Celtic Way of Evangelism (a fabulous book, and a must read as far as I’m concerned.)  He talked about how the early missionary monks to the Celts moved into their cities and rural sprawl and created a kind of monastic island in the middle of these people.  These monastic communities had a strict rule of life, served the people in their community, offered hospitality to strangers, and sought to transform a culture from the inside out.

I really appreciate the 12 Marks of the New Monasticism.  Hartgrove gives a good basic understanding of how monastics have been a part of renewal in the church throughout various centuries.  He writes about how monastics seek not to separate from the church or become an alternative, but to bring renewal and reformation to the church by returning to some key roots such as hospitality, sharing all things in common, prayer, and serving others.  This is how Hartgrove begins, by sounding the call, “the church in America isn’t living up to what it’s supposed to be.  Somehow we’ve lost our way.”  The point of monastic movements is to remind the church of its true identity, and that’s true for the New Monastics as well.

I had a fabulous conversation with a gentleman from my church recently who’s feeling the same way.  He loves the church, and yet he feels like the church in America missing the point of the mission at so many levels by putting money and energy into too many things that are not the heart of the reasons for the church in the world on God’s mission.  In his words, “We’ve so boughten into the American dream, that we’ve forgotten what the church is supposed to be.”  Hartgrove writes about this very thing.

What’s unique about this movement is that it takes seriously the renewal of the church and the ancient practices of monasticism in a way that is both inclusive of married couples and families and is also deeply embedded within the cultures of this world, particularly urban settings.  These settings are often referred these days by many of us as “abandoned places of the empire,” referring to those places, particularly urban, that have been deeply affected by the contemporary empire’s of consumerism and progress.  I’ve appreciated everything I’ve read and heard from the many in this movement and am already seeing how they are affecting the church in dramatic ways, Shane Claiborne being one of the key players here.

The New Monastics have also, like many people I respect, been deeply influenced by John Perkins.  Years ago, I sent some students to learn from Perkins and his community, and it was a life-changing experience for many of them.  Particularly, his 3 R’s are foundational (Relocation, Redistribution, and Reconciliation) for only only the New Monastic movement, but for other renewal thinkers in the urban settings as well (ie. Christian Community Development Association).  The other thing I deeply value is people like this who are able to speak intelligently and passionately about justice issues, poverty, and concern for the least of these while also maintaining some of the evangelical commitments of the Scripture.  More and more voices are emerging that are neither conservative nor liberal, fundamentalist nor mainline, republican nor democrat but hold together the biblical truths which cross such narrow, dualistic, and truncated views of the Scripture.

Good read for anyone who is thinking about the emerging church, renewal of the church and culture, poverty, urban ministry, community, and what some consider a more “radical” Christianity, which I think is probably closer to the identity of the early church than many of the churches in America today.

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It’s been a long time since I’ve read a Max Lucado book.  Lucado’s new book, Fearless, is a book about the fears that are so prevalent in our lives and how they affect us.  Lucado takes these fears on head on and matches fear with courage, and fright with faith, with heavy doses of mercy, grace, and generous love.  It’s an uplifting book that en-courages by giving you a dose of an alternative, biblical reality of a God in control.

What I like about Lucado is his ability to use Scripture, prayer, stories, examples, and easy to read, engaging and creative writing.  In this book, Lucado looks past fear and into the heart of the pain behind and inflicted by so many of our fears.  He is engaging in stories and metaphors, and then is a straight shooter with the clarity of biblical truth.

The promise of Christ and the contention of this book are simple: we can fear less tomorrow than we do today. [p. 13]

Destructive anxiety subtracts God from the future, faces uncertainties with no faith, tallies up the challenges of the day without entering God into the equation. [p. 46]

The Expanded Bible

I recently got a copy of The Expanded Bible, New Testament, published by Thomas Nelson. It’s text is a modified New Century Version, and the “contributing scholars” are Tremper Longman III, Mark L. Strauss, and Daniel Taylor. I’m new to Strauss, but I’ve appreciated Longman’s writings and thoughts as a biblical scholar for a long time. I first learned about him through Dan Allender (who happens to be a promoter on the dust jacket). Taylor, as far as I’ve known, is more of a writer than a biblical scholar, but has always worked with biblical material, is contibuting editor to Books & Culture, etc. I had my introduction to Taylor at the Calvin Faith & Writing Conference years ago.

In any case, this is a very interesting resource, and I’ve already found it quite useful. What these writers/ scholars have done is take the New Century Version and then expanded it within the text to include alternative translations for words or phrases, literal translations of the words, the traditional translation (read KJV), comments, references and textual variants. Rather than have some of these within the footnotes, or expanded explanations (as in a Study Bible), these are included within the text. Doing this allows the reader to see the translation decisions that need to be made, or the possible other meanings, textures of the text, etc. It also allows the reader to see both the formal equivalence possibilities (favoring a more literal translation) and functional equivalence models (favoring words that convey meaning rather than being literal) – choices which most translations make and you never see.

What I appreciate about the Expanded Bible is the ability to really see what’s going on a little better without a) having to go to multiple translations or b) having to go back to the original language. Particularly for those who do not have training in Greek or haven’t studied the textual variants or semantic range of words or idiomatic renderings, this can be a great help for Bible Study or teacher preparation.

One thing that may be lacking here is a more helpful explanation of textual variants as well as translation in general. There is a good, short explanation of the difference between a formal and functional model, but more information in the introduction could help those who pick this up and haven’t been introduced to the issues. What I find in most churches is a relative lack of knowledge about how the bible has been contructed, about additional manuscripts, scribal errors, the decision-making process of most translators (older, harder reading, etc.)

However, overall, I think this is a great addition to or prequel to a Study Bible. It allows you to get into the text with more texture without getting into someone else’s decisions about what the correct reading is, or someone else’s interpretation. With any translation, many decisions have been made. With a study bible, there is lots of commentary on interpretation.

I would not probably use this Bible as a normal “reading” bible. I would find all the symbols and extra information distracting, but in the right uses, it can be really helpful. I think an Old Testament Version would be great.

I haven’t posted any sermons lately, so here are a couple from the last several months:

Revolutionary Love 8-2-09

Love in Action 7-5-09

Angels 6-14-09

These are some of my notes from the eighth session of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

These are some of my notes from the seventh session of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

• Focus, study and replicate the 2 that are stellar
• Look for the bright spots and find out what’s different; throw resources behind those and multiply

When going after big issues, focus on sequences of small solutions and small starts.

“Shrink the change” – Take a large change, and run a micro version; get some small victory.  Then, resource and multiply and go big.

We owe it to people to prepare them for adversity.

Ideo's View of Hope to Confidence

There are people who have the “growth mindset.”  They are always thinking that with work, they can become better.  But built into that whole process is a tolerance for failure.

“Failure is not an option” is ridiculous.  It is often through failure that success comes.  It may be an early warning sign for success.

Sometimes we think we have a problem with someone who won’t change, or won’t accept our ideas.  In this sense, we think we have a “people” problem when we might actually have a “situation” problem.  This is called a fundamental attribution problem.

These are some of my notes from the sixh session of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

“Speeches take place within a context never a vaccum.  Listeners bring to the occassion not only their dreams and aspirations, but a range of questions about the speaker.  Who is he down deep?  What does he really stand for?  Does he speak with authority?  Does he care about people like me? Can I place my faith and trust in him?”

–Gergen

These are some of my notes from the third part of the fifth session of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

“The very people who should have been protecting us were our attackers.”