Session 0.5 Q&A with Tim and Tim
This was a continuation from the session last night. We didn’t get to do Q&A with Tim and Tim
because of time, so we picked it up again this morning.
The Tims talked more about distribution of leadership and
clarified the I and We facets of leadership.
The fact is, just like Jesus had, there are always the 3, the 12, the 70
and the crowd. Different circles of
people with different levels of buy in, commitments, and levels of experience
with the church plant. It’s also okay to
NOT do thing which are legitimate and good because they aren’t within the
resource pool of the plant or within the ideology or vision of the church. There are a lot of things that just aren’t at
the right time. (Many people come to a
new church plant because all the other churches in town say no and they come to
you hoping you’ll say yes.)
Tim Keel also said one of the most important functions of a
leader is to name the things that you see going on in your community. If something is not feeling right, if people
seem tired, if something seems like it's running out of gas, if there’s a lot of
energy in a particular direction, whatever…
Session 1 – Structures and Organization
Mike Stavlund – Common Table, Washington DC
Bruce Reyes-Chow – Mission Bay Community Church, San
Francisco, CA (Former moderator of PCUSA)
Mike made an analogy to Walking Dead which I didn’t quite
get. The conclusion from the analogy
was: “Beware of working for the people of the church instead of working with
the people of the church.” He also
proposed a similar question: “Think about what will happen if you succeed? What if you survive? What kind of person will you become in the
process? What kind of community will you
build in the process.” He highly
encouraged leaving gaps in the leadership structure of the church for other
people to fill in. Not a role where you
tell them what to do, but a space for them to be creative and express their own
gifts within a task. Build a church that
you love, not a church that only loves you for what you do for it.
Bruce did a powerpoint presentation on structures
(slideshare.com/breyeschow). He prefaced
by saying he was working in and through the PCUSA and had had a positive
experience of the mainline. He just knew
that there were other niches that the PCUSA wasn’t reaching, so he dreamed up a
church that might reach some of those people.
Bruce first talked about why structures are often feared –
they are most often not built for adaptability or flexibility. They don’t inspire innovation. The have been used to control and marginalize
people. Often times they codify one
learning from one place and one time as if it will be applicable forever and
ever. He also pointed out that when we
as pastors put things into a structure, we are necessarily giving away our
power over them which requires trust.
He also pointed out that as people gather, some structure
will take root. We can be intentional
about creating a structure which fosters innovation or we can just let the
structure solidify on its own however it’s going to.
He talked about how reflective structures (structures which evaluate themselves regularly) avoid institutional marginalization and how healthy structures equip communities to manage polarities and maintain cultural continuity. (I wrote that in my notes, but now I have no idea what it means. I think basically he was saying healthy structures that allow adaptivity can give safe space for conflict, disagreement, and different visions, while also binding people together instead of being a wedge or a weapon that divides them.)
He advocated “institutional fluidity” (he chuckled at the almost oxymoronic quality of that phrase).
There are specific boundaries and assets – it’s not a
free-for-all. It embodies visions and
culture, unleashes creativity and innovation, and it can mediate the ebb and
flow of life. Basically, a good
structure is a healthy thing that creates stability in a good way.
A good structure can incarnate the ideals and values of the ministry. It can administer and support the things about the church that are meaningful and it can help guide what are the things about the church which are meaningful. It can nurture the church’s pastoral, prophetic, priestly, and poetic expressions, and it can be an individual person’s way of showing commitment to a church plant.
Bruce advocated using flexibility in structure like having 3 year terms for members of session but with permission to leave. Mission Bay used face to face contact for the real life giving things – meaningful study, relationship building, organizational thinking and then used technology and online tools for business – votes, nuts and bolts decisions
They built in evaluation cycles for everything so that after 6 months, they’d take a look at a thing and decide if they still wanted to do it or if it had run its course.
Session 2 – Navigating the phases of a church plant
Panel
Doug identified (with some help) the following phases of a
church plant:
1)
The church in your brain
2)
The initial core team meetings
3)
The first year before the crisis of change
(honeymoon)
.
.
.
4)
The traditions and history of the church being
to compete with the present (That’s the way we’ve always done it)
There was also special mention of the 7
year itch in which everything seems to get deconstructed and a lot of things
fall apart. Bob’s advice was to endure,
endure, endure.
I guess there’s a common issue of the core
team leaving after 3 years? Maybe from
moving, boredom, burnout? Tim Keel said
that organizations are far more resilient than we give them credit for. New people will take ownership and it doesn’t
always have to be about you.
He said he went from a “trust me” phase
where he was trying to build credibility with his core team and church
participants to a “how can I help phase?” when people started taking the
initiative and he just needed to serve as resource or consultant.
Doug asked about what the rites of passage
in the life of church were to mark transitions and whether they were explicitly
celebrated or marked.
Tim said sometimes you see them coming,
sometimes you get caught flat footed, and sometimes you only see them in
retrospect. Any way the transitions
happen, it’s important to name them, sit with them, experience them and celebrate
or lament them. Worship experiences are
a great way to allow such moments to “be.”
Often the pastor has to go through a
personal transition from approaching things through a “how do I solve this?”
lens to a “What is God doing in this?” lens.
Doug asked “How do you balance looking back
to reflect with looking forward to innovate?”
Some of the planters mentioned different ways they celebrated
anniversaries, looking back at numbers and trends. The conversation started veering towards
numbers in general and the notion of “what you count is what you’ll get.” Tim said if he counted anything, it was the
number of people who were in discipleship relationships (mentor/mentee).
The conversation turned to salary of pastor
and there were a couple of different models for paying the pastor. I think the common thread was that no matter
what you’re being paid, it has to make sense within the context of your
church. If you’re a small plant, don’t
expect to get paid like a mega church pastor.
Another common thread was to look forward regarding salary. If you take a small or no salary, what will
happen when you leave? Will anyone be
willing to lead the church? Will it need
someone paid to lead it?
Session 3
Doug talked about some future opportunities
for church planters. He’s planning to do
annual or more than annual events for church planters. The Church Planters Academy sessions were all
recorded and Doug will distill the knowledge and put it in book form. Coaching will also be available from the
presenters on an ongoing basis for approx. $3000 a year. I’m hoping to find or raise the money, as I
think that would be helpful for me.
Conclusions
Overall I got a lot out of the
conference. It was helpful to see a lot
of models, to know that there are a lot of people trying this stuff, and to get
some good practical and abstract ideas about church planting. I’m not sure I related *that* much to a lot
of the models that were being examined.
In particular, I have a very positive experience of the traditional,
institutional mainline and I’m not that interested in creating something for
people to come to. One of the themes of
the presenters was “I wanted to create a church that I would want to go to” but
someone (Justin) asked/commented at one point “I don’t want to create a church
that I want to go to. I want to create a
church that people far away from God would go to.“ My heart is in creating
something where people far away from God might experience God or maybe even
creating something where people close to God can go to be filled by the Spirit so
they can reach out to people far away from God.
I still find it odd that none of the presenters mentioned the word
evangelism.
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