Terminal care for old churches or could we still replant them Atte Helminen

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Terminal care for old churches or could we still
replant them? Atte Helminen
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God Centered faith!

• Nehemiah
• "God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who
  keeps covenant and loving kindness with those who
  love him and keep his commandments Neh.15
  
• These are the two attributes that Nehemiah saw in
  God
  
• 1) The great and awesome God
  CAN do everything.
  
• 2) The God who keeps his covenant of love
  WILL do anything.

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See the Holy Spirit vision

• Then after I have poured out my rains again, I
  will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your
  sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men
  will dream dreams. Your young men will see
  visions. In those days, I will pour out my Spirit
  even on servants, men and women alike.
  Joel 228,29
• What do we learn from this text?
• Holy Spirit is poured out to all people not
  just for the holy church people.
  
• Young people really see visions
• The older the people are the more difficult it
  becomes to believe it is possible. The young
  people that are inspired by the Holy Spirit do
  not know that it is not possible.

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Helsinki Annankatu SDAchurch

• 5 pastors before me during the last 10 years
• Confused - ready for change
• New elders - leadership
• Hospitality childrens ministry music
• Talked about love
• Become a church planting church plan to give
  birth

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Terminal care for old churches or could we still
replant them?

• What could be a reason to let an old church have
  terminal care (let it die)?
  

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Terminal care for old churches or could we still
replant them?

• What could be a reason to start replanting an old
  church?
  

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Jesus gave us 5 purposes (Matthew 2237,39
2819-20)

• 1. WORSHIP Love the Lord your God with all
  your heart
  
• 2. SERVICE Love your neighbor as yourself.
• 3. EVANGELISM Go, and make disciples of all
  nations
  
• 4. CHURCH MEMBERSHIP baptizing them
• 5. DISCIPLESHIP teaching them to observe all
  things

By this everyone will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another."
Joh.1335.
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Wake up church!

• Leonard Sweet said it quite bluntly to the point
  ministry in the twenty-first century has more in
  common with the first century than with the
  modern world that is collapsing all around us
  The institutional church in the next twenty years
  will continue more and more to look like the pink
  Cadillac with the huge tail fins...

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Wake up church!

• the church's leaders have Alzheimer's disease. We
  still love them. We remember and pass on their
  stories. But they're living in another world.
  They're totally clueless about the world that is
  actually out there. The problem is that they are
  captaining the ship." "Postmodern Pilgrims
  First Century Passion for the 21st Century World"
  by Leonard Sweet.

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The new norm

• Discontinuous change has become the new
  continuous change, and we were never trained to
  deal with this kind of world!... Discontinuous
  change is disruptive and unanticipated it
  creates situations that challenge our
  assumptions.
• p.6-7 The Missional Leader by Alan J. Roxburgh
  Fred Romanuk

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New imagination

• God enters the ordinariness of our confused
  congregations and its organizational system. God
  enters among people who dont get it, who are
  often compromised beyond hope, and there God
  calls forth new imagination. Christian
  imagination is about announcing that God does a
  new thing by entering into the very real places
  where we are formed, to transform them. This is
  what the Incarnation is about.
• p.30 The Missional Leader

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How? 1 Cor. 127-28

• God chose the foolish things of the world that
  he might put to shame those who are wise. God
  chose the weak things of the world, that he might
  put to shame the things that are strong and God
  chose the lowly things of the world, and the
  things that are despised,

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The role of a pastor and a lay person

• 1 Peter.29 But you are a chosen race, a royal
  priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own
  possession, that you may show forth the
  excellencies of him who called you out of
  darkness into his marvelous light.
• Every believer has a direct connections to God
  through Jesus. Every christian is missionary with
  a mission.
  
• Pastor Lay person no difference in purpose or
  value, only a different job description

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The role of a pastor and a lay person

• IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
• Lay people were specialists who did mission work
  according to their abilities and spiritual
  gifts.
  
• The pastors/priests were laypeople, who served
  full time training and equipping the lay people
  in their mission. They were equippers, who
  planned and lead the spreading of the gospel. At
  the same time they took part in mission work as
  lay people.
• The main task of the pastor and the church is to
  equip and train the members in evangelism.

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The role of a pastor and a lay person

• When the pastor makes home visitations, gives
  out literature, preaches in the church or holds
  evangelistic meetings or does any other mission
  work, HE IS DOING LAY WORK AND NOT DOING THE
  (main) ROLE OF THE PASTOR.

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The role of a pastor and a lay person

• Epf. 411-12 He is the one who gave these gifts
  to the church the apostles, the prophets, the
  evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their
  responsibility is to equip Gods people to do his
  work and build up the church, the body of
  Christ.
• They will always need pastors because these
  gifts are for EQUIPPING/COACHING of the CHURCH
  MEMBERS for their tasks as priests/missionaries

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The role of a pastor and a lay person

• If the pastor sees his/her task as doing laywork
  (missionwork) and if the members hire the pastor
  only to do layministry (evangelism), the church
  becomes weak and it will die.

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The role of a pastor and a lay person

• IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
• The lay people were annointed and separated for
  their ministry by the Holy Spirit. This was done
  in laying of hands, in baptim and in the baptism
  of the Holy Spirit. (Acts.814-17 191-6
  Hebrews 61,2)
• The Holy Spirit separated pastors and
  teachers for training task of the members.
  (Acts 132,3 1.Tim.414)

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The role of a pastor and a lay person

• In the Seventh-day Adventist church
• In the beginning the pastors were missionaries
  and their role as a pastor was not very clearly
  defined.
  
• We gave up the biblical model.
• Nowadays many members believe it is their role
  to pay and let the pastors work on their behalf.
  Pastors may have even encouaged this
  understanding.

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The role of a pastor and a lay person

• Start from the beginning, says Ellen White
• The ministers are guarding the churches that
  know the truth, while thousands are becoming lost
  without Christ. If the right kind of teaching had
  been given, if the right methods had been
  followed, every member of the church would do
  their part as members of their body They should
  be taught if they cannot stand alone without
  their pastor, they should be reconverted and
  become rebaptized. They need to be born again.

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The role of a pastor and a lay person

• PAUL IN EPHESUS
• He lead the members of the church into a new
  relationship with Jesus and stayed 2 years
  equipping them for mission work.
  
• THE RESULT This continued for two years, so
  that all those who lived in Asia heard the word
  of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.
  Acts.1910

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Understand the fall of christianity and
modernity
Christianity (institutionalized church)
the growth of the Kingdom of God worldwide
Modernity
0
500
1000
1500
2000
Postmodern time
Modern time
Old age
Middle Ages
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Modern and postmodern evangelism
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Modern and postmodern evangelism
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New Churches quality

• From To
• Representative participatory
• Hierarchies apostolic networks
• "teaching" "discipling"
• "come" "go"
• believing belonging
• Intellectual incarnational, holistic
• Word-based Image/symbol-driven.
• Rational experiential
• Individual Individual-Communal.
• "standpoint" a journey and a pilgrimage

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For you

• Do you have discipling relationships?
• Break down church walls
• Dont be afraid to experiment
• Learn how to make mistakes
• Maximize discontinuity
• Learn and teach how to present a unique Christ in
  a relativistic world
  
• For Gods sake, do something!

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Gods natural plan God made us fruitful

• Everything is planned to produce fruit
• If there is now fruit, something is wrong
• Jesus said I chose you, and appointed you, that
  you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit
  should remain. John 1516

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Matthew 628

• See the lillies
• of the field,
• how they grow...

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Mark 426-29

• A man scatters seed
• the seed sprouts and grows
• All by itself the soil produces grain...

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1 Corinthians 36

• I planted,
• Apollos watered,
• God made it grow...

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Cafe Seed strategic frame of reference
Vision
Discipleship
Values
Values
Strategic path
Strategic choices
Mission
Friendship
Leadership
Biblical mandate
Leadership
Vision
Ministries
Art
know-how survey
Wed

Small groups
Café evening
18
-
22
training
Recourcing
Sabbath
Late night
Power-hour
Saturday eve
Processes instruct.
Spiritual gifts
Roles responsibilities
at 19.00
at 20-23..
Kitchen
Public relations Seed Brand Guide
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Vision Seed is known as a Christian community whe
re Jesus is at the center of our lives and His l
ove shines through us.
We serve God in everything
We encourage friendship with Jesus
We grow in prayer and in the Holy Spirit
We are authentic and accept differency in people

Values
We are friendly and love everybody
We use our Spiritual gifts
We understand the present time
and reach out accordingly
We comply with Bible principles and listen to
Gods will
Mission Seed touches people
We are faithfull to our small groups
We grow as Christs disciples
Biblical mandate 1.Cor.36 I planted, Apollos w
atered, but God gave the increase
We plant a seed together. God gives a limitless
growth. (LOVE Matt.2236-40, GO Matt.2819-20,
SALT Matt.513-16, COMMUNITY Acts 242-47, PRAISE
Is.6111, SEED OF FAITH Matt.1331,32).
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Café Seed growth path
Friendship
Discipleship
Leadership
Basic Christianity
Level 1/Small group
Befriending
Contagious Christianity
Welcoming lunch
Baptism, church membership, personal service role
Seed club memberhsip, help in a service role
Small group leader, growing into leadership,
forming your own ministry team
Level 3/your ministry team
Level 2/ Your mission
Spiritual gifts
Ancient paths
Seed consept/ purpose
Faith, baptism, and salvation
Participation Events, Cafe-evenings, Power hou
r

Participation Small groups, Power hour, Worship

Particiapation LTG (group), Small group leader
meetings,
leadership training
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Strategy for Church Planting and Church
Revitalisation
Matthew 28 19-20
Church Planting
Church Revitalisation
replanting
Friendship
NCD Survey
Discipleship
Vision, Strategies
Leadership
Equipping
Commitment
Self-directingSelf-supportive
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THE HEART of a Servant leader

• Why am I a leader?
• We are all leaders (spouse, children, at
  work, at leisure)
  
• Am I a leader who wants to benefit myself or
  others?
  
• Am I a servant leader or a self-serving leader?

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A Servant leader

• How to know which one I am?
• How do I handle feedback?
• Do I spend time and effort in training new
  leaders?
  
• Do I have a need for controlling other people?

Material The servant leader, Ken Blanchard and
Phil Hodges, 2003
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A Servant leader

• 1. How do I handle feedback?
• Am I afraid of loosing my position if somebody
  gives me negative feedback?
  
• Everything is on loan relationships, wealth,
  position
  
• If I receive negative feedback, does it mean my
  leadership is no longer needed?
  
• Servant leaders look at leadership as an act of
  service. They empbrace and welcome feedback as a
  source of useful information on how they can
  provide better service.

Material The servant leader, Ken Blanchard and
Phil Hodges, 2003
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A Servant leader

• 2. Do I spend time and effort in training
  new leaders?
  
• Do I plan to replace myself with better leaders
  than myself?
  
• Self-serving leaders who are addicted to power,
  recognition and who are afraid of loss of
  position are not likely to spend time in
  replacing themselves.
• Jesus modeled sacrifical passion. He lived his
  legacy in intimate relationship with those he
  empowered by his words and example to carry on
  the movement.

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A Servant leader

• John 1515 I no longer call you servants,
  because a servant does not know his masters
  business. Instead I call you friends, for
  everything that I learned from my Father I have
  made known to you.
• Servant leaders, who consider their position as
  being on loan and as an act of service, look
  beyond their own time of leadership and prepare
  next generation of leaders.
• John 1412-13 I tell you the truth, anyone who
  has faith in me will do what I have been doing.
  He will do even greater things because I am going
  to the Father.

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A Servant leader

• 3. Do I have a need for controlling
  other people?
  
• Pride and fear takes hold of a self-serving
  leader
  
• Pride may lead to a person talking too much,
  seeking attention, showing of or rewarding
  himself too much.
  
• Fear may lead to a person hiding behind his
  position, holding information, pestering or
  controlling others or not giving honest
  feedback.
• Prov. 2925 Fearing people is a dangerous trap.
  But to trust the Lord means safety
  
• Eg. Zacheus (a tax collector)

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A Servant leader

• How does a self-serving leader become a servant
  leader?
  
• Experiencing unconditional love
• A good role model
• A crisis situation (a near death experience),
  death of a close person, illness, tragedy
  
• A spiritual awakening / conversion
  (work of the Holy Spirit)

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What am I hear for?

• But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and
  have made the Lord their hope and confidence.
  They are like trees planted along a riverbank,
  with roots that reach deep into the water. Such
  trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by
  long months of drought, Their leaves stay green,
  and they go right on producing delicious fruit.
  Jer.177-8

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Biblical Adventism

• ?
• Jesus
• Did he ask from his disciples how do people
  enjoy my preaching, do they follow my
  instructions and teaching?

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Matt.1613-16

• Now when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea
  Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, "Who do
  men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" They said,
  "Some say John the Baptizer, some, Elijah, and
  others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets." He
  said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
  Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the
  Son of the living God."

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Terminal care for old churches or could we still
replant them? What does it take?

• God centered faith
• Waiting for Gods timing
• Finding Gods purposes
• Wake up leaders!
• Understand the discontinuous culture
• Understand my role as a pastor
• Understand postmodern conversion
• Understand Gods natural growth principles (NCD)
• Friendship Discipleship Leadership
  (strategy)
  
• Character Servant leadership
• Clear identity as an Adventist Christian clear
  witness
  
• ? become a missional leader ? an adventist
  movement

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Additional material
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All in heaven
Vision 2005 - 2015 The vision of the Finnish Se
venth-day Adventist church is to invite every
person in Finland to receive the good news about
Jesus and His soon coming.
Values 1. Everyone is precious 2. Living a good
life
3. A loving community
Mission Loving Finland for Christ
Biblical mandate Matt.2818 20 and Rev.146
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Foundation The BIBLE is Gods reliable
revelation of himself and of the way to salva
tion
The rock Salvation in Christ Jesus
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• Mission
• LOVING FINLAND FOR CHRIST
• (THE WAY) By leading people to experience
  salvation in Jesus Christ and joining believers
  in His church through baptism.
  
• (THE TRUTH) By proclaiming Gods eternal Gospel
  and the prophetic word of the Bible.
  
• (THE LIFE) By encouraging to grow and rejoice in
  mercy and the truth, thus preparing people for
  the coming of Jesus.
  
• (Joh.146)
• Values
• 1. Everyone is precious
• Every person is infinitely precious to God and
  for us (John 316 2Pet.39)
  
• 2. Living a good life
• Every day with Jesus (Gal.220)
• 3. A loving community
• Everyone is entitled to a loving community of
  believers (Eph.413-16)
  
• Foundation
• The BIBLE is Gods reliable revelation of
  himself and of the way to salvation
  
• The rock
• Salvation in Christ without own deeds, by
  grace, as a gift. (John 316, Eph. 28, 2
  Cor. 61)

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The Missional leader

• Equipping your church to reach a changing
  world
  
• A book by Alan J. Roxburgh Fred Romanuk
  (a leadership network publication, 2006)

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Emerging Churches

• emphasizes an incarnational, servant approach
• sees church not as a once-a-week gathering but as
  a community to which one belongs that relates to
  the whole of life.
  
• It is a community in which each person makes an
  active contribution.
  
• emphasize hospitality and are therefore small.
• Small not because of their limited appeal, but
  because they are committed to maintaining their
  values of community, accountability and service,
  and to being reproducible on an exponential scale.

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Challenge

• not many church leaders are equipped to lead such
  a church

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Consumer church Missional church

• Church leaders who have captured the vision often
  cry
  
• How do we transition from a consumer model of
  church to one that is essentially missional in
  nature?
  
• How do we birth such a church, when we have
  never had the opportunity to be involved in one?

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Change process

• The new norm Discontinuous change has become
  the new continuous change, and we were never
  trained to deal with this kind of world!
  
• Continuous change develops out of what has gone
  before and therefore can be expected,
  anticipated, and managed. e.q. the maturation of
  children
• Discontinuous change is disruptive and
  unanticipated it creates situations that
  challenge our assumptions. The skills we have
  learned arent helpful in this kind of change.
  There is no getting back to normal. e.q. internet

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Pastoral / Missional

• Conclusion In a situation of rapid discontinuous
  change, leaders must understand and develop
  skills and competencies to lead congregations and
  denominational systems in a context that is
  missional rather than pastoral.

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A leader must be able to help a congregation

• understand the extent to which strategic planning
  and other such models misdirect the church from
  faithful witness in our culture.
  
• create an environment wherein Gods people can
  discern for themselves new forms of life and
  witness.
  
• thrive in the midst of ambiguity and
  discontinuity.

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Missional leader

• understand and develop the capacity to innovate
  new culture within a congregation.
  
• is a cultivator of an environment that discerns
  Gods activities among the congregation and in
  its context. It is leadership that cultivates the
  practice of indwelling Scripture and discovering
  places for experiment and risk as people discover
  that the Spirit of Gods life-giving future in
  Jesus is among them.

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1 Cor. 127-28

• Paul said, God did not choose the powerful or the
  rich to build the kingdom rather, God chose the
  foolish things of the world that he might put to
  shame those who are wise. God chose the weak
  things of the world, that he might put to shame
  the things that are strong and God chose the
  lowly things of the world, and the things that
  are despised,

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God calls forth a new imagination.

• God enters the ordinariness of our confused
  congregations and its organizational system. God
  enters among people who dont get it, who are
  often compromised beyond hope, and there God
  calls forth new imagination. Christian
  imagination is about announcing that God does a
  new thing by entering into the very real places
  where we are formed, to transform them. This is
  what the Incarnation is about.

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Congregations can change

• The majority of the church is no longer in Europe
  and North America, it is in the southern
  hemisphere. With few resources, the church is
  growing and vital it is addressing the dire
  needs of its peoples in the places globalization
  and economic development have ignored or left
  behind.
• Yet the church in North America, Europe and
  Australia is in serious decline. It operates in a
  context of confusion, anxiety, resistance and
  loss. Churches in these parts of the world are
  driven to recapture a lost sense of place and
  importance in their culture. They are beguiled y
  an ideology of growth, numbers and trends. Energy
  is focused on marketing themselves as providers
  of religious goods and services to seekers. Yet
  despite the effort, a great many congregations
  and denominations continue to lose members.
• Some leaders confess they dont know what to do
• An initial step in cultivating a missional
  community is understanding the dynamics that
  brought declining communities to their present
  crisis.

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• Twentieth century church and its leadership
  models and organizational structures invested
  heavily in producing leaders with a highly
  developed capacity to perform the requirements
  and expectations of a church in this stable,
  predictable environment. The result is multiple
  generations of leaders with little experience or
  knowledge of how to lead when the context tips
  out of stability into discontinuous change.

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• Missional leadership cultivates an environment in
  which the people of God imagine together a new
  future rather than one already determined by a
  leader.

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Some characteristics of emergent leadership

• they manage ambiguity and dont need the quick
  closure of a solution or a large plan
  
• a sense of shared conviction we are together
  for something important
  
• they have to be together to think aloud and test
  new ideas because they havent been in this
  situation or environment before
  
• communication is face to face confront
  challenges that cant wait for a scheduled
  committee meeting.
  
• in the beginning organizational life is informal
  there is no handbook, no set of rules. People
  come together to do what needs to be done at the
  moment, handbooks are written after the fact and
  on the go. Mission and vision statements are put
  together along the way, not at the beginning.

65
Some characteristics of emergent leadership

• people learn through a never-ending process of
  trial, error, and experimenting. Leaders create
  an environment where failure is permitted because
  they know it will happen often. It is more
  important to create a culture that values and
  permits risk.
• leadership keeps congregation free of hierarchy
  and topdown or expert authority
  
• It excels in a situation or environment that is
  ambiguous, where groups face multiple challenges
  with no clear answers.
  
• It focuses on the cultural rather than
  organizational formation of the community.
  
• It sees challenge not as a crisis or exception to
  be managed but as an opportunity to be embraced.
  
• See strategy as emergent, not linear. Leaders
  dont move according to a predetermined plan but
  learn to cultivate engagement and experiments
  that release the missional imagination of the
  people.

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Performative congregation

• They deploy tactics, programs, and techniques
  that improve but do not fundamentally change
  their performance (better worship, preaching,
  evangelism, small-group life, discipleship
  process, mission trips, and so on). They resist
  change that requires them to shift significantly
  away from the habits, skills, and capacities that
  have brought success up to this point.
• They will expect steady growth so long as they
  just performed in an average manner, stayed away
  from internal conflict and kept programs
  updated.
• In the last couple of decades, the wider culture
  has been radically destabilized. The result is
  congregations and leaders being ill prepared for
  the new environment.

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Characteristics of performative leadership and
organization 1/2

• 1. organizational culture is characterized by
  well-developed structure with clear lines of
  function, roles and expectations, rather than
  loose network of teams and groups as in the
  emergent organization. Leaders are professionals
  with a degree certified by a denomination to do
  the performative work of the church
• 2. large-scale planning displaces just-in-time
  emergent leadership action. Leaders believe their
  job is to come up with plans and solutions for
  the congregation. They believe topdown planning
  brings the best results.
• 3. scecialization of roles and programs is the
  norm. The laity is perceived as not having
  requisite training or skills.
  
• 4. Focus on ability to perform the skills
  required for running a congregation.
  
• 5. Hierarchy displaces loose association. A
  constitution or operations manual is likely to
  define and regulate appropriate roles and
  functions in the system.

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Characteristics of performative ledership and
organization 2/2

• 6. The source of knowledge is shifted. Instead of
  a learning community, experts, professionals and
  positional power send a message of knowing what
  to do and controlling what is done.
• 7. Experience a loss of overall, shared vision.
  Although a few people can articulate the vision
  that formed the congregation, people focus on
  current programs and how their needs are being
  met.
• 8. Formal groups, committees and meetings replace
  informal social interaction. Sharing information
  in the form of bulletins, newsletters or church
  announcements is communication.
• 9. Planning is rationalized, not emergent. It is
  based on the predictability of past results and
  an assumption that the future will continue to
  develop the same. As a result, planning continues
  the present culture into the future, moving from
  the center to the periphery, in a process in
  which people agree or disagree by means of vote
  or financial support.

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Reactive congregation

• As the cultural and social context goes through
  massive change, the skills and habits of a leader
  in performative culture are insufficient to
  navigate in the new environment. The result is an
  experience of diffuse confusion, conflict and
  anxiety in the face of unrelenting episodes of
  crisis without end.
• Leaders work harder, for longer hours and with
  fewer resources at what they have been doing all
  along. They find they must address ever more
  crises with little time to imagine alternatives.
  But the answer is not trying harder and working
  longer.
• As the financial base of the systems erodes, with
  resultant cutbacks in personnel and budgets, more
  pressure is placed on fewer people. Productivity
  declines, creativity disappears, and stress
  grows. As the congregation or denomination moves
  deeper into crisis, leaders face demands to put
  out fires, manage dysfunction, and furnish
  solutions. These demands leave them with neither
  time nor energy to do the job for which they were
  hired. Feeling they have no answers, the leaders
  struggle or leave a situation they never signed
  on for.

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Reactive organization in crisis how does it
look?

• People become anxious, expressing anger at
  leaders for their inability to address the
  situation
  
• Staff retreat into ever-deeper silos to protect
  their dwindling budget and positions. Subtle
  power and political struggle emerges as they
  fight over policy, staff, and finances in order
  to maintain control.
• Battle lines form around issues other than those
  that are critical to the life of the system.
  People take sides and demonize each other over
  secondary issues, which further reduces the
  systems ability to address the real crisis.
• A constitution, books of order, and operations
  manuals are used to assert control.
  
• Some opt out (emotionally and physically) of the
  organizations life They might do so by setting
  up their own network or suborganization. The
  system becomes Balkanized around secondary issues
  that deepen the crisis.
• As preassure increases, leaders resign to relieve
  stress in their lives.

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Reactive organization confused leadership
challenges

• One must become aware that the challenges are no
  longer routine and cant be addressed by the
  methods and assumptions of the performative
  culture. The system is in a situation where
  performative strategies, values, and approaches
  will never work. The issues the organization
  faces are not well understood, and attention
  needs to be given to developing peoples
  awareness and understanding of the situation, not
  to strategic plans or organizational change.
• The reactive situation is a place of instability
  and crisis that must be managed, not fixed. The
  organization needs a measure of stability to
  cultivate the creativity and innovation required
  to rediscover missional life. The skills for
  doing this involve cultivating dialogue and
  listening across the system or denomination.

72
Leader and the reactive situation - what happens?
1/2

• The leaders in the reactive situation usually
  come up with some form of a bold plan (BHAG -
  big, hairy, audacious goals). The theory behind
  this approach is to find some new vision or focal
  mission before the system enters crisis. This
  supposedly bold new vision might involve reaching
  a certain group or type in the community, or
  planting a huge number of new congregations over
  a ten-year period, and so on.
• The vision is supposed to galvanize the
  membership and turn the ship around. It usually
  stops the process of listening to and engaging
  people who are in crisis. As a methodology it is
  leaderdriven, from the top, and does not engage
  the people themselves in forming a new
  imagination. In most cases, the bold new future
  soon begins to look like a whole lot like the
  same old present, and the main result is that
  leaders spend down hope among the people.

73
Leader and the reactive situation - what happens?
2/2

• A reactive crisis is a transition where people
  recognize the impossibility of regaining a lost
  past but have not yet internalized how to become
  another kind of culture.
• In the reactive situation, the role of the leader
  is not to escape the crisis through a BHAG but
  invite people into a place of dialogue and
  engagement amid crisis. It is there that people
  (Gods people among whom the Spirit is present)
  begin to discern and imagine a different future
  for themselves. This leadership calls for a
  combination of performative and learning
  organization skills.

74
Transition organizations

• Once a congregation in the reactive situation
  realizes its regulatory responses are no longer
  working and the crisis reaches a critical level,
  the congregation faces a number of options.
• It might continue in a state of distress and move
  into a period of steep decline leading to death
  
• it might seek out a leader who will impart a new
  vision and remake the congregation in a radically
  new mold
  
• it can choose to enter the performative lower
  zone transitional situation which has the
  potential of inviting people to learn again how
  they might imagine fresh ways of being Gods
  people.

75
System change in congregations context for
missional change model

• 1. Focus on the culture, not the organization
• unless the culture of a congregation is changed
  all the sound programs and organizational changes
  that have been implemented evaporate. As a
  result, the congregation eventually reverts back
  to previous habits.
• e.q. diet control, obesity is not going away but
  is instead getting worse. Why? Because the books
  and their programs dont address the deeper
  cultural issues that make eating certain foods
  the norm, that shun exercise, and that encourage
  a sedentary lifestyle.

76
System change in congregations context for
missional change model

• 2. Focusing on culture does not change culture
• Searching for happiness cannot bring happiness
  it is the result of things other than the search.
  
  
• Culture change happens in a congregation when
  Gods people shift their attention to elements
  such as listening to Scripture dialoguing with
  one another learning to listen and becoming
  aware of and understanding what is happening in
  their neighbourhood, community, and the places of
  their everyday lives.

77
System change in congregations context for
missional change model

• 3. Change takes time and small steps (even baby
  steps)
  
• 4. Starting with alignment is not the answer
• Alignment, a strategic planning process or lining
  up congregations strategy, staff, skills,
  systems, style, people, resources and shared
  values around a common goal or vision. This is a
  classic performative practice style.
• The only way to create alignment, however, is to
  negate the messy reality that Gods future
  emerges from Gods people nonlinearly and
  unpredictably. Alignment assumes it is possible
  to define outcomes from the front end. Such
  certainty is impossible in a context of
  discontinuous change.
• Alignment emerges from experiments, dialogue, and
  engagements together in the work for the emergent
  culture.

78
How to move from a performative-reactive culture
to emergent culture.

• 1. Awareness (4-6 months)
• Through intensive communication events, both
  one-on-one and in groups, leaders take people
  through dialogue and discussion about the need
  for missional transformation of the church
• until people can put their feelings into words
  and be heard, they are held captive by
  unarticulated anxiety. Leaders must create a
  listening space to allow people to become aware
  of what is happening within and among them.
• awareness develops by being able to speak about
  where the people of God find themselves in terms
  of their real lived experiences at this moment.
  
• until people have gained awareness, they cannot
  commit to change.

79
How to move from a performative-reactive culture
to emergent culture

• 2. Understanding using dialogue to integrate
  thinking and feeling (3-5 months)
  
• The dialogue and discussion serve to bring
  thinking and feeling modes of understanding
  together into a coherent pattern of
  understanding.
• The leader is like a midwife assisting a birth
  process that must follow its own mysterious ways.
  If the ground is prepared and the leader
  cultivates the proper environment, shaping a
  space rather than forcing a strategy or plan, the
  process of missional formation will encourage a
  congregation to organize itself and change will
  emerge.

80
How to move from a performative-reactive culture
to emergent culture

• 3. Evaluation applying awareness and
  understanding (3-5 months)
  
• What is currently happening in the congregation
  is evaluated in light of awareness and
  understanding.
  
• as awareness and understanding engage the
  congregation, its desire for actions increase.
  This is not the time for action and planning, but
  evaluation. Members need to take time to evaluate
  their current activities, attitudes, and values
  as a congregation relative to its changing
  context.
• people need to ask about the support they need in
  terms of skills, structures, and resources to
  move forward with deliberate actions for
  missional innovation or to halt the process.
• The leader needs to communicate frequently that
  the congregation is not going to choose wholesale
  change but is going to learn how to develop a
  missional future by taking small, significant
  steps.

81
How to move from a performative-reactive culture
to emergent culture

• 4. Experimentation risking some change (3-8
  months)
  
• People begin to identify actions that they
  believe will move them toward becoming a
  missional church. The critical world is action.
  People will experiment through action.
• adaptive change is the kind that congregations
  strongly resist. This is why they dont need
  another overarching strategic plan to bring about
  change in the church but instead need emergent
  change. It is about encouraging the congregation
  to develop multiple forms of experimentations.
• the people who experiment do not claim to have
  all the answers and they do not want to control
  all the outcomes
  
• Someone said I now have hope, I believe we can
  make this church a great church for the Lord
  because we are being given the resources and
  tools to make a difference rather than being told
  what to do.

82
How to move from a performative-reactive culture
to emergent culture

• 5. Commitment signing on to new ways of being
  church
  
• People commit to getting others involved in the
  process of moving through awareness to
  understanding, to evaluation, to experimentation,
  and finally to commitment.
• The experiments gather more people, the
  confidence of the community grows. They believe
  they can become an emergent congregation
  
• a missional culture is embedded in the
  congregation not as the idea of one person, not
  because of the personality or power of a specific
  leader, but because the people themselves have
  taken on a new way of being church together.

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How to prepare yourself to lead a missional
change?

• Take stock of what you know
• understand the environment in which congregations
  now function
  
• Know yourself as a leader
• take a snapshot of who you are as a leader at
  this moment and how others perceive and
  experience your leadership. Ask for direct, clear
  and honest feedback, e.q. 360 degree instrument,
  which asks a cross section of people with who you
  are working and among whom you are pasturing to
  evaluate you as a leader along several
  dimensions.
• Listen
• spend time actively listening to trusted friends,
  colleagues, and mentors to ask them a series of
  questions. Try to perceive a clear sense of the
  key areas for change and development.
• Focus on key areas and issues
• focus only on two (three at most) critical areas
  identified through the listening process
  
• Develop an action plan
• design a clear, intentional learning path to
  develop the identified skills over a 12-month
  period. The plan includes identifying the kind
  of training required, where the training can be
  received, how it will be done (schedule), when
  the training will take place and who else might
  need to be involved.
• The plan often takes the leader in a zone of
  personal discomfort where they need to risk
  learning unfamiliar skills, habits, and
  capacities that they are often afraid to
  address.
• The plan also requires the leader to identify
  specific action areas where he/she actively
  experiment in using these new skills.
  
• Commit
• This is a journey without a destination a
  discontinuous change