Hi to all of you on the Learning Community,
I am sorry that it has taken a while to start doing these blogs - unfortunately a grant that we were hoping for to free up some time for me to do this kind of thing did not come through, so we have been desperately trying to juggle schedules to make it possible! I think we have got there now, so hopefully this will become more regular. The plan is for a blog a month from me, plus some comments on the posts that you write in response.
My articles are primarily to stimulate discussion, so I am not in the least offended if you disagree with me over something! Also, you might want to post a question or comment that is not directly connected with the article for that month. That is fine too.
Article 1: Task, Team, Time
Of course reflecting on the way that Jesus chose the twelve and also reading Jim Collins' Good to Great we have been talking a lot about making sure that we have the right team ('people on/off the bus') and also that we are very intentional about our use of time ('what do I start, what do I stop?'). However, we can sometimes make assumptions about the task in which we are engaged. Do you really have a clear vision of what you are trying to do long-term through your church? If you do not, it can be difficult to make shorter term decisions that work together to build your momentum.
For us at Philly KC, our vision is:
The re-evangelisation and re-christianisation of the UK (and beyond?)
In order to achieve this we feel that we need to first learn how to significantly affect one major city (Sheffield).
In order to do this we need to learn how to grow a network of missional communities that will reach into every neighbourhood and network of the city.
In order to do this we need to learn how to release low maintenance, low control missional communities that can continue to live, grow and multiply after we have planted them. We need to see them grow exponentially.
We will need a structure that can support them sufficiently without becoming intrusive.
As this is our goal, we have spent the last five years looking almost exclusively at getting these missional communities working and growing properly. Now that they seem to be multiplying without a lot of extra input from my team, we are beginning to look at how we can develop some more resourcing centres that will help to support them properly.
The task that the Lord has called you to as a church may be different from us. But clarity about what you are trying to see happen is really key to the way that you develop your team and the way that you as a leader use your time. In your church, does the task, the team and the use of time all work together, or are these things actually fairly disconnected? What needs to happen in your team in order to establish the correct priorities and to build momentum towards a clear goal?
Paul Maconochie
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Paul,
ReplyDeleteGreat to have this...and perfect timing for us as we move into a new phase of taking the launch of our "Satellites" to a new level.
For us, progress has felt slow, (dare I say "plodding") and lots of hard work for Will in particular who has been driving the 'project' to keep momentum going. I guess one of the greatest issues we face is getting people to grasp the vision and see the value in these communities. We're interested in any ideas / suggestions you or others have in how to start winning people over to the idea - it's not that they are anti-satellite (as far as I know) but rather there is more of an apathy, in some cases related to "over-commitment" elsewhere in church activities. We have now planned in a number of "Satellite Sundays" where there will be no church service, but satellite activities only. This is a start. We believe that this will make a difference... but any other thoughts/suggestions would be helpful!
God bless you all in what you are doing.
Andy R
Thanks for this Paul. I guess at Meadowhead we still feel we're at the first hurdle with this whole process! The idea of identifying a clear vision that leads to a clear strategy is proving a big challenge not because it's a change of communicated strategy but because we've never had one in the first place really. In the words of Alan Roxburgh - we are definitely in that 'performative' place, with a large proportion of the church stemming from the 80's style of house church and all that good stuff. Now we recognise it's not working (for us) in terms of reaching our communities and society as a whole. One big challenge this gives us is can we, as leaders with all our history of "doing church" in a given way, actual identify a vision / hedgehog principle sufficiently different from where we are now?
ReplyDeleteAs we've tackled this recently,, it also seems difficult to come up with words that are not too general, ie. could be used in any number of church contexts. For example, your statement above "The re-evangelisation and re-christianisation of the UK (and beyond?)" doesn't automatically lead to missional communities as a way of doing this (eek - hope I'm not speaking out of turn!). It would be helpful to hear how you went about 'selling' that vision at Philly so that people understood that changes were afoot.
Thanks
Thanks for commenting, Andy and Andy.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the 'over commitment' issue, we found that this can be a major problem for us too. One thing that has helped us is to keep the mid-size groups (satellites in your case I guess) small enough to stay relatively low-maintenance; at Philly we have gone from defining them as 30-50 (up until about 5 years ago) to more like 20-30 people in a full size group. Having cells or small groups within them really helps too as then the pastoral care is shared by the small group leaders and does not always fall on the leaders of the satellite. Training leaders in how to keep things low maintenance is essential (e.g. how to engagae with scripture without sermons, how to worship without a band, basically how to live the life and then share from that rather than doing tons of prep).
In terms of inspiration, we are always telling stories. We do a monthly e-mail to all our leaders with lots of testimonies and stories, vision Sundays (every six months) include lots of stories too. A question we keep asking ourselves is 'Who are we making the heroes?'.
In terms of vision, of course missional communities Philly style are not the only way to acheive re-evangelisation - but I would suggest that without some kind of lay-led network of missional communities it would be very difficult; whether the monasteries of the Celtic movement, the class groups of the Methodists or the citedels of the Salvation Army, there has always been some kind of multiple discipleship / mission group involved in effective outreach.
We have only started to talk to Philly about the UK in the last year although it has been part of the vision for at least 15 years at a staff level. This has not been to keep secrets, but more to think about what level of vision-sharing most helps people to engage. We also try to keep vision very rooted in practical, real-life examples of what we are really talking about whenever we share. What does it mean day to day in the workplace, at home, in schools, etc etc.
This is useful stuff. We are finding that it is quite a battle bringing task, team and time together - it is not about re-organisation but much more fundamental... re-organism. I have been leading a process of renaming the church - which is all about identity and we are finding that it is flushing out all those who are struggling with the vision so task & team are working themselves out with some people leaving the church. The Lord has spoken to me through Amos 3:3 "do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?" - doing stuff related to the task and the team has exposed disagreement and though uncomfortable clears the ground for greater engagement with the task.
ReplyDeleteI have also found that I have had to revisit some of the 'bits' of vision that the Lord started giving me as soon as I agreed to move to Harrogate - these have been guidelines for the clarifying of a particular vision for the church. I hope this all makes sense!