By Mark A. Taylor
The discussion was about missions, but the topic was change. And I couldn”t stop thinking about the church”s task in a world changing faster than we may realize.
Steve Moore, president of Missio Nexus (missionexus.org), was leading about 30 of us at the Cincinnati installment of Reset Tour, a 10-city event sponsored by the International Conference on Missions (ICOM).
The Tour, which concluded with a West Coast swing in May, was expected to reach 250 missions-minded
members and leaders of Christian churches and churches of Christ, according to David Empson, executive director of ICOM. From this input, he hopes to discover common threads to help church leaders evaluate future directions for the church, especially its strategies for evangelizing non-Christians.
All this will be reported at a special preconference session 1:30-4:00 p.m. November 15, just before this year”s ICOM opening session in Indianapolis.
“The work of the church can”t be business as usual,” Empson said after the Cincinnati workshop. His comment reflected the message behind the Reset Tour.
Moore asked attendees to list the “exponential and largely irreversible changes” the North American church is facing today. We brainstormed our answers, and then he challenged us to consider what we need to preserve, eliminate, and create in light of the changes. It was almost too much to think about in just the few hours we had together.
Even more challenging is the paper Moore wrote as background for our discussion1. It described the viral explosion of digital innovation we”ve seen in barely half a decade (examples: YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, the iPhone) that has “revolutionized popular culture with game-changing influence on how we do church and mission.”
Moore calls this “deep change,” from Robert Quinn”s book by that title.
Deep change is both exponential and irrevocable. It differs from incremental change, requiring new ways of thinking and behaving. It is “major in scope, discontinuous with the past and generally irreversible.” . . . This level of change goes beyond pilot projects and safe field tests.
Deep change is upon us. That means we need “new ways of thinking and behaving” about everything the church is doing. We may not know what the future will look like, but we can certainly know that strategies, methods, and tactics for making disciples will be radically different from those that succeeded in the past.
I”m looking forward to hearing what Empson and his associates will suggest in Indianapolis this fall. Meanwhile, I”m pondering the challenge of deep change for the Great Commission work I”m trying to accomplish.
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1Find the paper at http://pr.b5z.net/i/u/10114008/f/Reset_article.pdf
You may be right about needing changes for our substitutes””weekly worship shows and marketing””for what really works to make disciples but what actually works hasn”™t changed since Jesus day and won”™t change until he returns. Our substitutes haven”™t worked all that well. Even with the explosion in the number and size of megachurches, when we count heads actually in church, attendance has flat lined if not declined. Megachurch pastor, Bob Robert”™s, Jr. said, “The best thing you can do for your marriage; don”™t go to church.” because the divorce rate in the church is higher than outside the church. What we”™ve been doing hasn”™t really been working for many years.
Neither Jesus nor the apostles ever commanded worship. It”™s not wrong but they never commanded it. Rather he commanded us to love God and love our neighbor. Later He defined loving God when he said, “If you love Me [God], you will keep (obey) my commandments.” And, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even AS I HAVE LOVED YOU” (emphasis added).
Christians are looking for great worship, great music, and great preaching. That”™s what we”™ve taught them to look for and it”™s a lot easier than great love. Non-Christians aren”™t all that interested in great worship, great music, and great preaching. They”™re looking for great love.
It works when we love people the way Jesus loved us. But there are two problems with that, it”™s hard, a lot harder than worship, and you can”™t love even a hundred people that way, let alone a thousand or ten thousand. The limit is about a dozen or so. We need to develop way to encourage people to love others the way Jesus loves us.
God Bless you,
Bruce