Values
I think a statement of vision and values for a church is a waste of time.
There, I said it...now let me explain before you pummel me. The conventional wisdom of church planting and leadership gurus is that organizations must concretely state their vision and values so that the organization's members are not functioning cluelessly. This is, in fact, one of the first things a church planter does in preparation to plant a church, long before the first meeting happens. The vision is the "beacon" to the organization; what will become the rallying point for all subsequent activities. The values are guiding principles to nudge the organization continually back towards its purpose. Finally, a list of concrete practices might be developed to demonstrate how these values are expressed in the organization's life.
But what if one's conception of church is less entrepreneurial and more agrarian in nature? It is ironic that the conventional terminology for starting a church is to "plant" a church. The enterprise we are used to should be called "church launching" rather than church planting. Regardless, I believe it is appropriate to think of the essence of church as something that is farmed by an aware group of people. The essence, the seed, is given by God, received by this group of people, and planted in the ground to germinate. What comes out of the ground is dependent on both what is given by God and the environment in which the seed grows. The environment, of course, is made up of the healthy and the harmful - nutrients and weeds, water and pests. But good farmers manage the germination period with as much wisdom and patience as possible - just enough water and fertilizer, pulling up weeds at the right time, shooing away pests, watching and waiting. The work continues as the seedling comes out of the ground, but the farmers understand that the tender plant has a long way to go before it is able to bear fruit.
Removing church from an entrepreneurial and organizational framework allows us to think of vision and values as something that can be acknowledged and affirmed rather than prematurely and wishfully concocted by an entrepreneur. That does not, of course, eliminate the need for visionaries and "trail blazers". However, those visionaries, led by the Spirit, simply do the work of breaking up the ground (or in some cases, finding ground in the first place) to allow the farmers space to do their work. After a few growing seasons, the farmers begin to understand the land and what kind of yield the land will bear. Verbalizing vision and values at that point is not premature, because it is anchored to the concrete realities the farmers are working with - weather, soil, weeds, etc.
About a year ago, T and I began editing a document that attempted to express some of those concrete realities for our faith community, The Well. We drew from a number of sources - authors that have been influential, Alcoholics Anonymous, our Vineyard heritage, and our own experiences as a community for the past five years. The document was not meant to be static or full of jargon (i.e. something to put on a website), but rather was just an exercise to congeal our thinking, challenge us towards growth, and affirm some of what we recognized as fundamental to our identity as a community. One of my reasons for posting it is to simply reconnect with some of the thought processes I had during writing it and maybe seeing what has changed or stayed the same. Those reading from afar might find it helpful in wondering about their own communities, or not. Locally, people might hate it and still think it was a waste of time. Or it might spark some good conversation. Hmm. Well, let's see...
---------------------------
God's Work & Call…
Out of love, wisdom and power God made the world, and out of love, wisdom, and power, God is making it new. The good news is that God is active in the world to save his creation — removing all evil and healing every wound it inflicts — as he promised he would do long ago. He is not giving up on humanity in this rescue of creation; rather, he is redeeming humanity as well, restoring our true vocation as his friends and and co-workers in his beautiful world. He has appointed Jesus, his unique son, to lead this loving work. The plan is well underway. We've been invited to join with Jesus, the crucified but resurrected King, to be part of God's healing of the world.
Having experienced a taste of what God is doing through Jesus, we have decided to give ourselves completely to Christ and his expanding work — for everyone's sake. Below is an outline of our current plan for placing ourselves as individuals and as a community into Jesus' hands. We hope it is a fitting response to God’s invitation and that it becomes more so as we mature.
Our Response…
Practices of Kingdom People
As God’s people, we will seek to integrate our entire lives into the process of becoming friends, students, and co-workers of Jesus and his Way. We will endeavor to live lives of creative goodness as agents of God’s kingdom in society by actively pursuing lifestyles that are sustainable, remain in harmony with God’s creation, show care for the forgotten, and subvert the status quo through confidence in God, hope, thankfulness, and love. We will do this by regularly practicing spiritual disciplines such as solitude and silence, prayer, fasting, and meditation as a means of breaking our addictions to culture and opening ourselves to God’s transformative grace.
In order to maintain harmony with each other and with the world, we will strive to see that all our relationships are mediated by and through Jesus.
We will seek to immerse ourselves in and continue to live out the ongoing Story of God and His people as revealed in the Scriptures and handed down through the generations. As a result, we will continuously be listening for and responding to the call of God to join him in his redemptive mission.
We will regularly gather with other followers of Jesus to worship, tell stories, read, teach, process, pray, share a meal, or simply be with each other to express love for God and one another. We will remember to receive the Lord’s Supper together as recognition of our common need for Jesus, our thankfulness for what he has done, our participation in his sufferings, and our expectation for the fulfillment of his kingdom. The Values of Kingdom Communities will guide these times together and how we organize ourselves.
Values of Kingdom Communities
Above all, Jesus is the central focus and ultimate authority in our lives. Our primary purpose is to live as friends, students, and co-workers of Jesus in his kingdom. We believe that the kingdom of God is the range of God’s effective will, where what he wants done is done. The kingdom of God is also our basis for relating to and continuing to live out the Story of God and his People as revealed in the Bible.
Membership in our group is completely voluntary. After the vision of life in the Kingdom of God is clearly presented, individuals must intend to pursue that kind of life on their own. Our group will be autonomous in relationship to other groups, but we will always remember that we are just one small part of God’s universal church. We will take seriously the notion that the Holy Spirit will lead us and distribute his gifts to those he wishes for our common benefit. In order to stay focused on our primary purpose, we will appoint a facilitator each time we gather. Group decisions will be made cooperatively through prayer and discussion (the group conscience) under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. So that we are not distracted from our primary purpose, our group will hold any resource loosely and will value simplicity. Any voluntary contributions will be collected and distributed to people in need or to resource the advancement of our primary purpose at the discretion of the group.
While together, we will seek to be guided by Jesus’ example to only do what the Father is doing. We will honor the dignity of each individual and respect God’s action in each other’s lives. Our group will discern and act upon the unique practices that will aid in opening ourselves to God’s transformative grace as demonstrated by the Practices of Kingdom People. We will not engage in these spiritual disciplines as isolated individuals, but will seek to become a learning, loving, and worshipping community.
There, I said it...now let me explain before you pummel me. The conventional wisdom of church planting and leadership gurus is that organizations must concretely state their vision and values so that the organization's members are not functioning cluelessly. This is, in fact, one of the first things a church planter does in preparation to plant a church, long before the first meeting happens. The vision is the "beacon" to the organization; what will become the rallying point for all subsequent activities. The values are guiding principles to nudge the organization continually back towards its purpose. Finally, a list of concrete practices might be developed to demonstrate how these values are expressed in the organization's life.
But what if one's conception of church is less entrepreneurial and more agrarian in nature? It is ironic that the conventional terminology for starting a church is to "plant" a church. The enterprise we are used to should be called "church launching" rather than church planting. Regardless, I believe it is appropriate to think of the essence of church as something that is farmed by an aware group of people. The essence, the seed, is given by God, received by this group of people, and planted in the ground to germinate. What comes out of the ground is dependent on both what is given by God and the environment in which the seed grows. The environment, of course, is made up of the healthy and the harmful - nutrients and weeds, water and pests. But good farmers manage the germination period with as much wisdom and patience as possible - just enough water and fertilizer, pulling up weeds at the right time, shooing away pests, watching and waiting. The work continues as the seedling comes out of the ground, but the farmers understand that the tender plant has a long way to go before it is able to bear fruit.
Removing church from an entrepreneurial and organizational framework allows us to think of vision and values as something that can be acknowledged and affirmed rather than prematurely and wishfully concocted by an entrepreneur. That does not, of course, eliminate the need for visionaries and "trail blazers". However, those visionaries, led by the Spirit, simply do the work of breaking up the ground (or in some cases, finding ground in the first place) to allow the farmers space to do their work. After a few growing seasons, the farmers begin to understand the land and what kind of yield the land will bear. Verbalizing vision and values at that point is not premature, because it is anchored to the concrete realities the farmers are working with - weather, soil, weeds, etc.
About a year ago, T and I began editing a document that attempted to express some of those concrete realities for our faith community, The Well. We drew from a number of sources - authors that have been influential, Alcoholics Anonymous, our Vineyard heritage, and our own experiences as a community for the past five years. The document was not meant to be static or full of jargon (i.e. something to put on a website), but rather was just an exercise to congeal our thinking, challenge us towards growth, and affirm some of what we recognized as fundamental to our identity as a community. One of my reasons for posting it is to simply reconnect with some of the thought processes I had during writing it and maybe seeing what has changed or stayed the same. Those reading from afar might find it helpful in wondering about their own communities, or not. Locally, people might hate it and still think it was a waste of time. Or it might spark some good conversation. Hmm. Well, let's see...
---------------------------
God's Work & Call…
Out of love, wisdom and power God made the world, and out of love, wisdom, and power, God is making it new. The good news is that God is active in the world to save his creation — removing all evil and healing every wound it inflicts — as he promised he would do long ago. He is not giving up on humanity in this rescue of creation; rather, he is redeeming humanity as well, restoring our true vocation as his friends and and co-workers in his beautiful world. He has appointed Jesus, his unique son, to lead this loving work. The plan is well underway. We've been invited to join with Jesus, the crucified but resurrected King, to be part of God's healing of the world.
Having experienced a taste of what God is doing through Jesus, we have decided to give ourselves completely to Christ and his expanding work — for everyone's sake. Below is an outline of our current plan for placing ourselves as individuals and as a community into Jesus' hands. We hope it is a fitting response to God’s invitation and that it becomes more so as we mature.
Our Response…
Practices of Kingdom People
As God’s people, we will seek to integrate our entire lives into the process of becoming friends, students, and co-workers of Jesus and his Way. We will endeavor to live lives of creative goodness as agents of God’s kingdom in society by actively pursuing lifestyles that are sustainable, remain in harmony with God’s creation, show care for the forgotten, and subvert the status quo through confidence in God, hope, thankfulness, and love. We will do this by regularly practicing spiritual disciplines such as solitude and silence, prayer, fasting, and meditation as a means of breaking our addictions to culture and opening ourselves to God’s transformative grace.
In order to maintain harmony with each other and with the world, we will strive to see that all our relationships are mediated by and through Jesus.
We will seek to immerse ourselves in and continue to live out the ongoing Story of God and His people as revealed in the Scriptures and handed down through the generations. As a result, we will continuously be listening for and responding to the call of God to join him in his redemptive mission.
We will regularly gather with other followers of Jesus to worship, tell stories, read, teach, process, pray, share a meal, or simply be with each other to express love for God and one another. We will remember to receive the Lord’s Supper together as recognition of our common need for Jesus, our thankfulness for what he has done, our participation in his sufferings, and our expectation for the fulfillment of his kingdom. The Values of Kingdom Communities will guide these times together and how we organize ourselves.
Values of Kingdom Communities
Above all, Jesus is the central focus and ultimate authority in our lives. Our primary purpose is to live as friends, students, and co-workers of Jesus in his kingdom. We believe that the kingdom of God is the range of God’s effective will, where what he wants done is done. The kingdom of God is also our basis for relating to and continuing to live out the Story of God and his People as revealed in the Bible.
Membership in our group is completely voluntary. After the vision of life in the Kingdom of God is clearly presented, individuals must intend to pursue that kind of life on their own. Our group will be autonomous in relationship to other groups, but we will always remember that we are just one small part of God’s universal church. We will take seriously the notion that the Holy Spirit will lead us and distribute his gifts to those he wishes for our common benefit. In order to stay focused on our primary purpose, we will appoint a facilitator each time we gather. Group decisions will be made cooperatively through prayer and discussion (the group conscience) under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. So that we are not distracted from our primary purpose, our group will hold any resource loosely and will value simplicity. Any voluntary contributions will be collected and distributed to people in need or to resource the advancement of our primary purpose at the discretion of the group.
While together, we will seek to be guided by Jesus’ example to only do what the Father is doing. We will honor the dignity of each individual and respect God’s action in each other’s lives. Our group will discern and act upon the unique practices that will aid in opening ourselves to God’s transformative grace as demonstrated by the Practices of Kingdom People. We will not engage in these spiritual disciplines as isolated individuals, but will seek to become a learning, loving, and worshipping community.
posted by Mike Bishop at 3:46 PM
4 Comments:
i love the kingdom radical that is mike bishop...
also liked the piece about 'church planting kukus'
O
you said: 'gurus'...
I'm with you, man. Good stuff.
Interestingly enough, business guru, Jim Collins espouses a similar philosophy for business greatness with his principle "First who, then what..."
That being, get the right people together and then collectively determine where you will be going/what you will be doing.
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