The Cautioneers

Just when I thought I had invented a new word, Google Search popped my balloon. Turns out the term ‘Cautioneers’ preceded my innovative musings. It’s the name of a band out of Toronto! It is also a term used by the Enneagram. Interestingly the Enneagram captured some of the essence of my (once innovative) meaning: ‘safe, secure, reliable, predictable, cautious’. I will take this definition & expand on it in the context of leadership, especially those who lead the followers of Jesus to their mission of restoring the world back to God.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a leader who occasionally demonstrates the characteristics of The Cautioneer. If we did not display some of these qualities (or was connected to someone who does), leadership and followership would be chaotic. Ask any follower of a purely idea-driven, “squirrel!” kind of leader.

However, to lead from the posture of a Cautioneer is what is bringing the church to a slow crawl in its mission to restore the world to Jesus. Shepherds and pastors by nature default to organizing systems and safe pasture for their flocks. These gifts dominate the paid leadership roles of the organized church. Thus, the resulting church has been defined and confined by boxes, programs and systems. It is certainly busy, but rarely is it found in the cracks of human experience and at the edges of society. There is still a “come to check out what we offer” mentality that drives the church’s mission. It’s safer that way, isn’t it? It’s a Cautioneer approach.

Interestingly the metaphors that describe the world changing ways of Jesus - salt, light, yeast and seed – inherently must be scattered in order to effect change. Yet the Cautioneer leaders find ways to gather and ‘nurture’ these elements rather than risk scattering them around. Thus, their churches are often active internally and launch out on a few forays into the world to ‘pillage the village’ and gather new recruits. Their activity makes them feel and appear they are on mission. Reality check: Activity does NOT equal mission.

I have two questions to pose, with my own answers (lest you think I don’t think about this stuff). I’m eager to hear your own responses.

1. What happened to us?

2. Can we do anything about it?

My personal opinion about what happened:

• In the past few generations or so, increasing wealth enabled resources to be poured into gathering places and then staff to take care of them.
• These places needed ‘pastors’, basically leaders who could manage the place and the activities that would justify the existence of the place.
• ‘Place’ came to define ministry and a programming boom ensued, which then elicited the need for more staff. This was helped along by a culture sympathetic to Judeo-Christian values that were eager to receive these services.
• This became the norm and our colleges and seminaries followed suit by training people for the model, but not necessarily the mission.
• We woke up to the reality that we are not in Judeo-Christian Kansas anymore, and have tried to tweak our model to be ‘relevant’.

Now here we are, in an era where many are speaking out about this. Hirsch, Barna, McLaren, Bibby, Devenish, Platt, Wright and a host of others are in various ways calling us out to cast off the Cautioneer mantle and discover new ways of thinking and organizing so that the mission can be forefront. In spiritual gift terms, the apostolic/prophetic and evangelist mantle needs a renewal within the leadership community of the local & global church. FYI those gifts will inherently seek out new models, forms and ways of being.

Frankly, I don’t hold out much hope for existing church institutions to be able to make the change. (I do hope they try). Mission rhetoric abounds, but it’s calling out from a model resistant to change and unable to change because it won’t face up to the fact parts of it won’t make it into the future. I see some churches tweaking at the edges, but unable to create a wholesale change without a decades long time-window or a commitment to disruptive change.

So to the second question, what can be done?

INDIVIDUALS or GROUPS - Start something. Don’t wait around for the wheels of institutional machinations to catch on and support your idea. The story of church growth has more to do with innovators walking out to the edge of cities, towns and social networks than it does intentional institutional initiatives. 

• Caveat: Don’t do it alone. Find mentors and advisors to help guide your endeavour. The truth is plans go wrong for lack of advice but many advisers bring success (Prov 15:22). A lot of harm has been done by Lone Rangers. A lot of good is done when pioneers rely on other pioneers.

• Encompass Partnerships is designed to assist you start something. It’s one of the key reasons we started in the first place. Contact info@encompasspartnerships.org if you want to start a conversation

CHURCHES – Become a hub of innovation. Your ship may not be able to turn easily or fast, but you can launch smaller vessels that use your ship as a resource hub. Within your gathering most definitely are those who are wired to go to the edge, to seek out new places and spaces for the gospel and do things unconventionally compared to what your church currently defines as ministry. They are those who by nature and gifting are the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists. You have already lost quite a few of them because of inattention and asking them to squeeze into what is. They leave and typically go somewhere else, start something on their own, or leave the church altogether out of frustration. So, why not instead embrace them (not too closely, because after all, they are pioneers) and develop an approach that encourages and coaches their ideas?

• Leadership is to equip ALL followers of Jesus for the work for He calls them. However, clearly your church programming is not capable of reaching as far as its people can reach. I hope that moves you to seek the answer to: How then do we empower those people? Struggle with that one! The Spirit will guide you. I’m not going to provide a 3-point answer.

• Appoint a staff person, create a department, assign time & space among existing staff – whatever works in your corporate environment, which shows and speaks to innovators that you are open!

• WHO can you partner with to ensure these people are given guidance and have some wind blown into their sails? Encompass’ coaching can help fill that role, but we have capacity issues too. You could find mentors for these people among current/former international mission workers or others who have worked in innovative, idea & project-generating environments. Find people with great coaching skills (not advice-givers) who can help a person walk through their thinking about an idea.

Whether you are that individual with a passion, or the church wanting to empower that passion, be ready for one common outcome: It will get messy. The world is messy. People’s lives are messy. Oppressive systems are messy. Yet this is where we are called to live the Life and show the Way of the One who is the key organizing Truth for a restored world.

Harv