Fine Speech - Now What Do We Do?

William Wallace worked hard to inspire his fellow Scots to fight the English with his famous 'freedom speech'  in the 1995 movie Braveheart.  A classic speech. He even put on make-up to deliver it.  But THE best line came from one of his inner circle in their leadership huddle immediately after: Fine speech.  Now what do we do? 

I wrote a provocative blog titled The Pandemic Pruning of the Church on June 2.  It was about the state of the church and how I view its future as we emerge from the pandemic.  Those who know me, have worked with me and who have read my blogs know that it wasn't a one-off rant that came out of nowhere.  I have talked and written much on the topic of the diminishing effectiveness of the church and it's opportunity to re-invent and re-focus.  I write to raise awareness and to provoke thought.  On other occasions I have proposed ideas, implemented experimental ideas and offered coaching questions to leaders to help them discern answers to the "now what do we do?" question.

I write this to follow up the last blog and say that I don't stir up thinking without being committed to be part of the solution.  I am not without answers, but neither do I have answers for others.  What I mean by that is there is no silver bullet model or approach.  But I do have ideas.  Perhaps they will inspire thinking.  And more importantly, we have the Holy Spirit who will guide us into all truth about our tasks and the means by which we hope to accomplish those tasks. 

Honestly let's not be cognitively lazy and spiritually comforted by the system we have all known.  For the sake of a task that is totally beyond us and that is fully in the hands of a sovereign God to accomplish, let's be sure to always ask the questions of HOW the models we use are serving God's purposes.

I offer these coaching questions for you personally, and for you as church leadership teams, to help jump-start conversations about true transformational change.  These are adapted (and added to) from a previous blog I wrote called: Current Church Models: Railroads in the Age of Airplanes

• What are the purposes of God for the world?  How does the way our church practice 'church' align or misalign? (*NB - this is not about your mission or vision statements.  Its about your practices)
• The task of church leadership is to equip the saints for the 'works of service' (Eph 4).  What constitutes 'works of service'?  Knowing this, how then are we organized to equip for that?
  
• What does a church staffing model look like if we were configuring it for reaching our current context? What do we really know about our current context?  How can we know? If we started over, what needs to be different?
• To what extent should we continue to foster an institutional model for our church?  What benefit is it bringing (or can it bring) to God's Kingdom purposes for our world?  What are it's liabilities to the mission?
  
• How would we exist if we moved away from a worship service focus? What if the service took the lower priority for budget, staffing and corporate energy?  What's the alternative?  Where else would we prioritize energy|? How would that change our budget, staffing and use of the building?
  
• How could we who have buildings re-envision how they are used to integrate with and serve our surrounding communities? Where could we find examples of how to do that?
  
• For a fascinating look at how foundations, and even governments, are encouraging the re-purposing of church buildings, see this article on community hubs.  
• Also, I'd be happy to chat with you about my previous experience as Executive Director of Encompass Partnerships, an entity originally designed and delivered as a multiple-use church, mission and community hub.
  
• Are buildings a necessary element for our mission? If so, how could that building be used in light of our mission to the world (vs. a support for internal activities).
• Staffing implies salaries, which implies a system to collect funds to pay those salaries which requires maintaining group loyalty to the institution so that salaries can be paid. What could a church on mission look like without dependence on a salary-based system?  What if it were lead from a more co-vocational model?
  
• How does a Christian community identify & release all the gifts into the world where it's people live and work?  How will it exist organizationally when callings, gifts and skills move it far beyond its current programming model or staff capacity?  How will we cope coaching new mission efforts?  
• What is our risk tolerance for true innovation?  How much does our structure rely on control vs. empowerment?
  
• How do we really equip and release the saints for the work of service God called them to do - vs. the positions the church needs filled to advance its particular mission? 
• I personally believe the gifts God gives to a church community is what is to define & drive its agenda, not the corporate leadership 'vision'.  For a model of how a community designed it's life & structure around the gifts of it's people, watch this great documentary video of the Tampa Underground church.
• What does community life look like that actually embraces people from any lifestyle, culture, economic situation, habit etc. so they can experience the way of Jesus in community and perhaps come to know Him?
• If believers were too busy in neighborhoods and vocational pursuits living out the values and ways of the Kingdom of God to attend church activities on a regular, sustained basis, how would you reconfigure 'church'?  How would you coach & support that person?  How would it change staffing?

Innovation is easy to talk about. Too easy.  Leaders sometimes have the habit of believing their rhetoric IS the reality, when they are actually barely out of the gate. It's also easy to be deluded into thinking that if you tweak at the edges of the existing system, you have innovated towards a transformational change.  Tweaking is not innovation.  What we need to become will cost more than we think.  So count the cost.

I'm on a journey into this.  By the time you read this I will have moved into a historic, old, eclectic neighborhood in Calgary.  As I embed myself into my new neighborhood, my relationship with the corporate church expression as it is today will diminish.  My role in this world is to bring the Way of Jesus into my world - my new neighbourhood and it's people, systems, values and relationships.  It is not to bring my world into the church model.  If and when there can be a useful, mission focused integration, won't that be wonderful. 

Harv