Co-Chairs Report #1 October 3, 2008

Japhet Ndhlovu, Neil Crosbie, Alan Roxburgh

Dear Friends:

Warm greetings to each of you in the diverse contexts of ministry around the world where we live and minister in the name of Christ.

It is hard to believe our meetings took place more than a month ago.  After the Lusaka meetings each of us returned to busy lives.  We determined that Neil, Japhet and Alan would co-chair the next stages of our work and shape the agenda around the steps forward we had agreed on together.  Both Neil and Japhet had to travel extensively outside their own countries in August so it was only at the beginning of last week that the three of us were able to arrange a Skype call with one another.  We appreciate your patience.

One of our first tasks was to personally review the Lusaka meetings.  Our common experience was that Lusaka had gone very well.  We achieved the community and communication we were seeking across a diverse, multi-national and multi-cultural set of relationships.  The three of us felt we were able to integrate “Western” and African voices thanks to the wonderful preparation and guidance of key people like Frederick and Jurgens.  We believe that Lusaka was a special event of potential Kingdom significance.  We recognize the responsibility and gift we have been given to guide this process forward and recognize the level of challenge this project will require of us all in terms of communication and the actual implementation of the decisions we made.  Thank you, each one, for contributing to making Lusaka something we might have dreamed of happening but probably didn’t imagine possible. The Lord was with us.

Third Annual Consultation in Lusaka, Zambia of the Mission in Western Culture project

(2-9th August 2008)

I always seem to require a week at least to both intellectually and emotionally process my trips to Africa and this time I asked myself why? I have come to the conclusion that travelling to sub Saharan Africa and really experiencing the enormous economic and social transitions that are presently going on as well as enjoying the natural hospitality of the African people is probably a picture of what it was like to move into London or Manchester during the industrial revolution of the 19th century. All around you watch and experience the disorientating effects of modernization while still enjoying, for the time being at least, traditional African values and ways of life.

Lusaka seemed to me to be much like Nairobi or Johannesburg. On every street corner there is much evidence of those who have found their way into the new world of economic success and social mobility juxtaposed with mind shattering and gruelling poverty and injustice. Dusty streets choked with exhaust fumes; women and children breaking rocks by the roadside; expensive new hotels and government buildings often sponsored and built by the new colonialists, the Chinese; sprawling shanty towns and piles of degradable rubbish. Taxi’s crammed full of people on their way to low paid jobs. Young boys forlornly endeavouring to sell plants or meaningless modern bric a brac by the roadside and everywhere, just under the surface of the vibrant hustle and bustle of city life, the daily pressure and ocean of sorrow and heartache associated with a worldwide pandemic, HIV/AIDS.

Modern Africa is a snapshot of what happens when the global viral economies and epidemics of late modernity invade, consume and explode from inside the settled, and to a certain extent more sheltered, way of life previously sustained through the agrarian economies and social hierarchies of traditional tribal society. The effects are devastating, more losers than winners, more problems than solutions, more challenges than available resources. What is being birthed, however, is the possibility of enormous new wealth creation and a ticket into to the 21st century. Progress? Well, maybe, but one thing is for sure we cannot stop this global march toward – toward what? To a certain extent that was what our consultation was all about.

Listening to personal stories of transformation on the missional
journey at our recent cluster 9 meeting, I was amazed at the depth of
the life change pastors and other task team members reported.

Until quite recently these very same people were struggling on the
road, still integrating new knowledge and experience in a Christendom
framework, envisioning de facto church-with-a-mission projects instead of a deep cultural shift towards being missional church.

Just the week before I attended the seventh cluster in another partnership, where we faced the reality of this struggle:

– how to make lists shorter;

– how not to be everything to everybody;

– how not to operate with existing “how-to” knowledge and approaches.

“Christendom” means the dominion or sovereignty of the Christian religion.

The Christendom phase of the Christian movement is drawing to a decisive close.

The question is: Can we get over regarding this as a catastrophe and begin to experience it as a doorway into a future that is more in keeping with what our Lord first had in mind when He called disciples to accompany him on his mission to redeem the world through love, not power?

The decline and fall of Christendom

What started to develop in the fourth century under emperors Constantine and Theodosius I – the imperial church with its great power – now comes to an end. That beginning and this ending are the two great social transitions in the course of Christianity in the world.

As a congregation and its staff flourishes, the role of the clergy shifts.  In a missional church, the clergy’s role becomes more and more upon the equipping of the saints, innovating their capacities, rather than replacing them or being the congregation’s primary capacity.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.  This task, while belonging to all congregational leadership, and all members of the staff, must be the highest priority for the pastor of the congregation, the one who has the call to such leadership.

If the pastor is to keep the main thing the main thing, the pastor must spend significant time and energy doing so personally.  Indeed, personal spiritual disciplines are the most critical activity of a missional leader.  If the missional leader loses track of their own God-centered identity and, therefore, are unable to self define in relationship to the rest of staff and membership of the congregation, it becomes extremely difficult for the pastor to keep the main thing the main thing within the system.  So the personal, often unseen, acts of leadership lie in dwelling in the Word of God, prayer and meditation.

Out of this God centered self definition, the pastor then coaches and teaches staff and leadership within the shared covenant they have to accomplish the missional vocation of the congregation.  So rather than doing most of the ministry, the missional pastor coaches, teaches, and oversees that ministry. 

A missional church listens to God’s specific call.  It experiences and participates in God’s sending it and the Holy Spirit’s empowering it to participate in God’s mission in the world. It does this in such a way that both its outreach and its life together as a church are a witness to Jesus Christ.

There is no easy formula: do these three things and you will be a missional church.  There is no handy checklist of activities you can perform in order to be successful.  Instead, researchers have identified eight somewhat overlapping “Patterns” that they have found in missional congregations.  These are explained in more detail in the book Treasure in Clay Jars, where you will also find congregational stories illustrating these Patterns.

You can recognize patterns, even if they are not identical.  For example, a plaid pattern on fabric may look different from one piece of fabric to another.  Plaids may have different colors, even different numbers of colors.  They may be symmetrical or not.  The repeat may be small or large. The fabric may be broadcloth or corduroy, cotton or wool.  But you can still identify the pattern as a plaid. That’s the way it is with these “Patterns in Missional Faithfulness.”  They may take different form in small congregations versus large congregations, in different cultural settings, in different denominational traditions, but you can still identify the pattern.

Sometimes people ask the question, “So what does it mean practically to be missional?”  They understand that the church has been too inwardly focused.  They see that we can’t just hope non-Christians walk through the door.  But what does it look like for congregations to live as the “sent people“?  How can pastoral leadership encourage Christians to move into the neighborhood?

These are good questions.  There is no one-size-fits-all answer.  Missional living calls for Spirit-led creativity which seeks outreach that is appropriate to the varied context of each local congregation.  We can’t provide universal models, but we can illustrate the principle.

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