Shifting Our Thinking - Part 4

Happy New Year! I hope your new year is blessed as you seek the Father and His will for your life. I have been blessed as I continued reading through Missional Renaissance by Reggie McNeal. I've been summarizing the three shifts that he outlines in his book that individuals and churches will need to make if they are going to thrive and reproduce spiritually in today's culture. So far I summarized the shift from an internal to an external focus and the shift from program development to people development. This time I am going to summarize the shift from church-based to kingdom-based leadership.

Shifting Our Thinking - Part 3

Continuing on through the three shifts highlighted in the book Missional Renaissance by Reggie McNeal, I am up to the second shift, from program development to people development. This shift seems very subtle at first glance, but once you fully grasp this concept you will see that this is a monumental shift in current church thinking and actions. "The key idea is moving away from a program-driven church culture... [where] the church takes its measure from the quality of its programs rather than the quality of its people... In the program-driven church, you begin with programs and look for people to make them happen. In a people development-driven culture, you begin with people and then use established programs or whatever else it takes to help them grow."

Shifting Our Thinking - Part 2

Last time I introduced the subject covered in the book Missional Renaissance by Reggie McNeal. I highlighted the 3 shifts that he says people and churches are going to make if they are going to join the missional movement that is spreading across the world. This time I want to introduce the first shift: from an internal to an external ministry focus.

Shifting Our Thinking - Part 1

I've been reading a book by Reggie McNeal called Missional Renaissance that is absolutely awesome! I would love to claim that he plagiarized me, but most of what he has published I never wrote down, it just kept swirling around in my head. As my kids used to say, maybe he has E-S-P-N. Anyway, I'm not very far along in the book, but he addresses a few issues that really struck a chord with me and I wanted to pass them along to you. My apologies to Reggie if I use so many quotes that you decide not to read the book for yourselves.

Making Sense or Making Sents?

Right up front I have to give credit to a couple of people. First to Dawn for drawing my attention back to the question, "How is this supposed to work?" How is it supposed to look serving others instead of leading (lording) them? What does it look like to "be the church" instead of just "going to church?" Those are great questions and they don't have easy answers, or at least they don't have one-size-fits-all answers. I also have to give credit to my friend Jason who has done are really good job expressing what I believe are the answers to many of those questions. Jason has written a book called "Live Sent" and I have mentioned him and his ministry many times before. If you are looking for a good book to plunge you into this discussion, then I recommend reading his book first.

Thoughts on Leadership - Part 2

Well I didn't intend on waiting a month between these posts, but as you know, stuff happens. The good news is that I've had more time to think and reflect and learn new things about Leadership since the last post.

In the past few months I have had one particular statement and theme repeat itself quite a few times. Just a few days ago it was repeated again. Eric Voelz was a guest at our local Reproducing Churches gathering here in Ocala. Eric is a missionary Bible teacher who lives in Sweden. One statement he made was that we (church leaders) tend to find natural leaders and try to make them into servants, but what Jesus did was to call servants into leadership. Neil Cole said something very similar at the Live Sent Conversation. My paraphrase of what he said: We look for leaders who will serve, but God looks for servants who will lead.

Thoughts on Leadership

This entry is way overdue, but better late than never, right? The Live Sent Conversation was a great time of refreshing and recapturing my attention on issues relating to living our faith among the people we interact with daily.

One theme that was repeated by many speakers throughout the Conversation was Leadership, specifically within the church. For the sake of a shorter blog and limited time I am going to include some of the thoughts that I wrote down about leadership as I listened to various speakers. Then, in part 2, I will comment on some of those thoughts. Just in case it isn't clear, these are not quotes, but paraphrases.