The Missional Church

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The Missional Church
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Exercise

• Choose a partner
• Observe your partner for 60 seconds
• Stand back to back, now change five things about
  your appearance
• Stand back to back again and change five
  different things about your appearance

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Reflection Questions

• How did it feel to observe each other for 60
  seconds?
• If it isnt strange, it isnt change.
• What did you take off?
• I have to give up something to make change
  happen.
• Did anybody borrow something?
• Normal reaction to change is that I have to do it
  all by myself. The reality is that God places
  around us all the resources to make change
  happen. Change isnt usually a question of money,
  but of creativity.

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Reflection Questions

• What was your first gut reaction to having to
  change five things?
• Everyone of us has a certain capacity for change.
  Some like instant change, others need it more
  gradually.
• After changing, how long did it take you to get
  back to normal?
• It is normal for humans to go quickly back to
  Egypt.

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Imagining the Kingdom
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Upper Emergent

• Pioneering
• Maximum experimentation in engaging community
• Missional leadership cultivates an environment
  in which the people of God imagine together a new
  future rather than one already determined by a
  leader.
• Engagement in Scripture and engaging community
  context

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Lower Emergent

• Experimenting
• Building of appropriate habits and structures
• Shared conviction
• Social interaction
• Informal organizational life in the beginning
• Trial and error, risk and failure permitted

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Emergent Zone Leadership

• Free of hierarchy or expert authority
• Excels in ambiguity
• Focuses on cultural rather than organizational
  formation of community
• Sees challenge as opportunity to be embraced
  rather than crisis to be managed
• Strategy as emergent, not linear

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Performative Zone

• Organizational structures that perform well in a
  stable environment
• Follows normal process of change
• Predictability

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Performative Zone(Upper)

• People attracted here want stability rather than
  change
• Improvement vs. change
• Works best in a stable culture

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Performative Zone (Upper)

• Characterized by well-developed structure
• Leaders are professionals
• Large scale vs. emergent planning model
• Specialization of roles and programs
• Leadership focus on skills for running
  congregation
• Organizational hierarchy vs. loose association
• Learning from top down
• Focus on current programs and making sure cong.
  needs are met
• Formal groups and committees vs. informal social
  interaction
• Planning based on predictability of past results

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Reactive Zone

• Describes what happens to an upper performative
  zone congregation when it encounters
  discontinuous change.
• Skills and habits of performative zone are
  insufficient to navigate new environment
• Examples of discontinuous change Community
  change, pastoral change, church conflict,
  financial crisis, etc.

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Reactive Zone (Upper)

• Reacts to change by working harder
• Respond to change with more regulation to gain
  back control of an organization
• Confusion leads to an attempt at returning to the
  performative zone as a default (works to quell
  anxiety for a short while, but is not an option
  for moving to the future)

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Reactive ZoneCrisis

• Little capacity to read precisely what is
  happening
• Manifests in a variety of ways
• People become anxious, expressing anger
• Staff/ministries retreat into silos
• Battle lines form over secondary issues
• Books of order used to assert control
• People leave or church splits
• Leaders resign to relieve stress

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Reactive Zone(Lower)

• The Confused Congregation
• Leadership challenges
• Become aware that challenges are not routine and
  can not be fixed by a return to the performative
  zone
• When people are in crisis, they cannot risk
  substantive change. A measure of stability is
  needed before change can occur.
• Dont reach for the BHAG. The bold new future
  will eventually look like the same old present.
• Leaders role invite dialogue and engagement.

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Transition The Performative Lower Zone

• A place of choice and polarity (past vs. future)
• Leadership must manage polarity without choosing
  sides
• Requires a process that cultivates new
  imagination
• Stability requires spiritual and organizational
  discipline
• Key symbols and elements emphasized with
  excellence
• Understand the difference between change and
  transition

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Change vs. Transition

• Change is what happens to us from forces outside
  ourselves over which we have no control
• Continuous (gradual) vs. Discontinuous
  (unexpected, dramatic)
• Transition is our inner response to change
• Anger, denial, trying harder
• Unless an organization learns to address its
  transition issues, it will never create an
  effective change process.

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Principles for Missional Transformation

• No performative zone performance lasts forever
• We cant see all the steps along the way
• Any performative or reactive zone congregation
  can adapt.
• Adaptive change happens by cultivating emergent
  zone culture
• Cultivating a missional congregation requires new
  leadership skills and capacities.

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The S-Curve Model of Change and Growth
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Questions for Discussion

• What zone and lifestyle stage do you believe your
  church is in at present?
• What are the challenges of discontinuous change
  that you are/may/will be facing?
• What are the emergent opportunities in your
  community?

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The Missional Church
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The Character of a Missional Leader

• Character
• personal habits, skills, and behaviors that
  engender confidence and credibility.
• Motivation, values, sense of purpose
• Clear evidence that Christ is the center of the
  leaders life
• Character observed in four personal qualities

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Personal Maturity

• Being present to oneself and others
• Authenticity actions and words are coherent and
  internally consistent
• Self-awareness awareness of a narrative that
  gives life a center and direction and awareness
  of ones gifts and limitations

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Conflict Management

• Conflict is normal in change
• No conflict, no movement
• Practice makes a difference

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Personal Courage

• Missional leadership is not for the faint-hearted
• Sometimes means being willing to discipline
  oneself to learn new skills and work on other
  readiness factors before rushing into action.

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Trustworthiness and Trusting

• Trust is the glue that enables a community to
  move forward in difficult times
• Trust is the covenant between leader and people
  that makes transformation possible

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A Key Learning

• The key to innovating new life and mission in a
  congregation is not so much a strategy for growth
  as it is cultivation of people themselves. It is
  from among people that the energy and vision for
  a missional life emerge.

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So, do we want to pursue the imaginative exercise
of becoming a missional church?
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If heaven were to come to earth today, what would
this community look like?