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2 reviews for:
The Church as Movement: Starting and Sustaining Missional-Incarnational Communities
Dan White Jr, Jr. Woodward
3.86 AVERAGE
2 reviews for:
The Church as Movement: Starting and Sustaining Missional-Incarnational Communities
Dan White Jr, Jr. Woodward
3.86 AVERAGE
The Church as Movement Gave Me a Kick
Sometimes I just need a good “kick in the seat of my pants” to get me going. That phrase – kick in the seat of the pants – has always been a reminder that I need to open myself up to new ideas and get outside the box in my thinking, even in church matters. Roger Von Oech wrote a life-changing book a few decades ago that I pull out occasionally just to remind me that I need to keep my thinking open and responsive to what God is doing in my life and in the culture in which we engage.
The book, The Church as Movement: Starting and Sustaining Missional-incarnational Communities, gave me one of those “kick in the seat of the pants” moments as I digested and engaged the ideas presented by the authors, JR Woodward and Dan White. Oh, I have heard some of the ideas before as I engaged with thoughts and books by Alan Hirsch, David Fitch, Mike Breen, George Bullard, and Alan Roxburgh among others. But something about their approach caught my attention. It was like God was saying to me, “Quit complaining about the failure of the Western church to address discipleship and community, and get up and do something about it!” The book gave me that “kick” to realize the hope for our churches and communities when we engage again the Jesus way of relationship and sacrifice.
As I reflect on the book, here are a few of the ingredients that make this a book that people who serve in Western Hemisphere churches should contemplate and study:
1- Basics– Woodward and White make the assertion early that this book is written from a perspective of the “basics” of establishing thriving discipleship-focused, incarnational communities. They are writing specifically to those who are engaged in planting churches in this diverse, relationship-starved world. They also are writing out of their experiences of planting churches in many different parts of our country.
After setting a framework for establishing new communities, the authors teach all of us Western Christians, who are fascinated by big, polished, elaborate programs and personalities, the basics of what it means live out a discipleship focused approach to being church in the 21st century. We could all use a good “kick” to be reminded that Jesus approached relationships as the basic of church life, not programs.
2- Workbook – the material is written to engage us in conversation and discussion. Each chapter concludes with questions for the reader to share in the context of a learning community. The questions provide for a reflective conversation about what the reader is engaging and learning about these new communities. The authors approach to “meta-learning, reflective learning, and experiential learning” give each of us some room for our own understanding and growth. Many of these concepts will especially be challenging for those of us who have grown up in the programmatic world of the mid and late 20th century.
The engagement of this learning in a group context will allow us to engage the concepts and find practical ways to live them out. One of the most beneficial part of this book is its balance between the theoretical and the practical. Take seriously the commitment of these authors to involve other people with you in looking at these concepts. Our accountability for learning and engagement with missional-incarnational communities are a necessity in our own community context.
Even though the book is written to church planters, church leaders in Sunday School groups, small groups, church staffs, deacons, and other traditional-based groups will find the opportunity to process these challenging ideas in their settings. (By the way, if you cannot connect with a group context, I would suggest you consider investing your reading this book with a coach. Your coach helps you process your learning and commit yourself to sustainable action.)
3- Movement Language – One of the constant challenges of church life is our human need to institutionalize and codify our movements. I highly recommend you spend significant time with the chapter on movement intelligence. The book does a superb job helping us think through our fascination with forms of church that have grown up in the industrial world of the 20th century.
Many of our churches have institutionalized the need for growing bigger, having more resources, and developing hierarchical structures. Spend time with this chapter and capture again the sense of church as a movement of relationship and discipleship.
4- Revolutionary – I do not use this word lightly. In fact, I have deleted it twice and tried to come up with a softer word, but when I engage with this material, I sense the concepts that Woodward and White present are revolutionary for the nature of whom our churches will become. Their focus on polycentric leadership, discipleship core, and community formation would change the whole nature of who we will be as churches.
If you take a careful look at life-changing movements, a majority of our churches do not fit the bill. We have become static life forces that tend to succumb to culture and provide little life-changing movement in our communities. If we were to follow many of the principles of this book, our churches would see radical change that brings discipleship back to the center of our existence. (Not many churches are up for that type of change. Most of us would be revolutionized by small, incremental changes.)
“A kick in the seat of the pants” – we all need to be taken out of our boxes and comfort zones and discover new, challenging ways to be and do church in the 21st century. This book will kick you right where you need to be kicked. The church planting world will be inspired and kick-started with the practical concepts in this book. The traditional church world will be provoked and challenged to live out their mission and vision differently because of what they read. And remember – don’t read this alone! Let someone be nearby when you need that kick to get you going!
Sometimes I just need a good “kick in the seat of my pants” to get me going. That phrase – kick in the seat of the pants – has always been a reminder that I need to open myself up to new ideas and get outside the box in my thinking, even in church matters. Roger Von Oech wrote a life-changing book a few decades ago that I pull out occasionally just to remind me that I need to keep my thinking open and responsive to what God is doing in my life and in the culture in which we engage.
The book, The Church as Movement: Starting and Sustaining Missional-incarnational Communities, gave me one of those “kick in the seat of the pants” moments as I digested and engaged the ideas presented by the authors, JR Woodward and Dan White. Oh, I have heard some of the ideas before as I engaged with thoughts and books by Alan Hirsch, David Fitch, Mike Breen, George Bullard, and Alan Roxburgh among others. But something about their approach caught my attention. It was like God was saying to me, “Quit complaining about the failure of the Western church to address discipleship and community, and get up and do something about it!” The book gave me that “kick” to realize the hope for our churches and communities when we engage again the Jesus way of relationship and sacrifice.
As I reflect on the book, here are a few of the ingredients that make this a book that people who serve in Western Hemisphere churches should contemplate and study:
1- Basics– Woodward and White make the assertion early that this book is written from a perspective of the “basics” of establishing thriving discipleship-focused, incarnational communities. They are writing specifically to those who are engaged in planting churches in this diverse, relationship-starved world. They also are writing out of their experiences of planting churches in many different parts of our country.
After setting a framework for establishing new communities, the authors teach all of us Western Christians, who are fascinated by big, polished, elaborate programs and personalities, the basics of what it means live out a discipleship focused approach to being church in the 21st century. We could all use a good “kick” to be reminded that Jesus approached relationships as the basic of church life, not programs.
2- Workbook – the material is written to engage us in conversation and discussion. Each chapter concludes with questions for the reader to share in the context of a learning community. The questions provide for a reflective conversation about what the reader is engaging and learning about these new communities. The authors approach to “meta-learning, reflective learning, and experiential learning” give each of us some room for our own understanding and growth. Many of these concepts will especially be challenging for those of us who have grown up in the programmatic world of the mid and late 20th century.
The engagement of this learning in a group context will allow us to engage the concepts and find practical ways to live them out. One of the most beneficial part of this book is its balance between the theoretical and the practical. Take seriously the commitment of these authors to involve other people with you in looking at these concepts. Our accountability for learning and engagement with missional-incarnational communities are a necessity in our own community context.
Even though the book is written to church planters, church leaders in Sunday School groups, small groups, church staffs, deacons, and other traditional-based groups will find the opportunity to process these challenging ideas in their settings. (By the way, if you cannot connect with a group context, I would suggest you consider investing your reading this book with a coach. Your coach helps you process your learning and commit yourself to sustainable action.)
3- Movement Language – One of the constant challenges of church life is our human need to institutionalize and codify our movements. I highly recommend you spend significant time with the chapter on movement intelligence. The book does a superb job helping us think through our fascination with forms of church that have grown up in the industrial world of the 20th century.
Many of our churches have institutionalized the need for growing bigger, having more resources, and developing hierarchical structures. Spend time with this chapter and capture again the sense of church as a movement of relationship and discipleship.
4- Revolutionary – I do not use this word lightly. In fact, I have deleted it twice and tried to come up with a softer word, but when I engage with this material, I sense the concepts that Woodward and White present are revolutionary for the nature of whom our churches will become. Their focus on polycentric leadership, discipleship core, and community formation would change the whole nature of who we will be as churches.
If you take a careful look at life-changing movements, a majority of our churches do not fit the bill. We have become static life forces that tend to succumb to culture and provide little life-changing movement in our communities. If we were to follow many of the principles of this book, our churches would see radical change that brings discipleship back to the center of our existence. (Not many churches are up for that type of change. Most of us would be revolutionized by small, incremental changes.)
“A kick in the seat of the pants” – we all need to be taken out of our boxes and comfort zones and discover new, challenging ways to be and do church in the 21st century. This book will kick you right where you need to be kicked. The church planting world will be inspired and kick-started with the practical concepts in this book. The traditional church world will be provoked and challenged to live out their mission and vision differently because of what they read. And remember – don’t read this alone! Let someone be nearby when you need that kick to get you going!
JR Woodward and Dan White have written a valuable guidebook for recalibrating existing churches or starting new Christian communities from “a discipler mentality.” They recognize that one of the challenges facing the North American church today is that “things that once were productive … no longer are.” And yet, naturally, we remain “attached to the obsolete.” Simply optimizing inherited habits to reach a new world “is like trying to negotiate New York City with a map of Paris.” They challenge us to listen to the voice of the Spirit for what it means to be followers of Jesus today.
As Alan Hirsch states in his Forward, key to discerning the Spirit’s leading, engaging his mission, and rethinking local church architecture requires the restoration of apostolic ministry. We can rejoice that this is happening, and there is an awakening among God’s people as they rediscover that movements of God take place in the streets rather than in the building.
Concurrent with a renewal of apostolic ministry is the recalibration around Jesus as the paradigm for ministry. Jesus’ message was of the kingdom of God, and he ignited a kingdom movement by “confiding in three, training twelve, and mobilizing seventy.” This is how movements start. Movements happen when the focus is multiplying disciples. “We must die to our self, our infatuation with speed and size, and devote ourselves to the work of making disciples, training the few.” Jesus commanded us to make disciples. Not start a church service.
The book is organized around Distributing, Discipling, Designing, and Doing. “Distributing” is about growing a ministry four generations deep and four spheres wide (Acts 1:8). Church as Movement requires authentic engagement with the Holy Spirit, a missional theology, church simplicity, transferable and locally sustainable methodology and tools. Essential to this are the five ministries of apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, and teacher. Leadership is polycentric where leaders “lead as a community from within a community.” Rather than getting our leadership models from business, we need to get them from the early church.
“Discipling” means changing the metrics of the local church. Discipleship isn’t identified by Bible studies, but by those who live the counter-intuitive, upside down life Jesus modeled and called his followers to embrace. Though Jesus had a public ministry, and though both Jesus and Paul taught in synagogues, the engine of their ministries was the purposeful gathering and training of a smaller group of friends.
“Designing” involves the community of disciples. The community itself is God’s gift to the neighborhood. It is a sign, foretaste and instrument of the kingdom of God. “For the church to be a movement, the way we express being the church should flow out of our theology.” This is expressed in communion with God, community with each other, and commission into the work of Christ in the world.
“Doing” the work of the kingdom is a community affair. “Community is the pod that carries mission.” “The church as movement starts with a discipleship core, hospitality with others, presence in the neighborhood and an inviting spirit.” “Jesus didn’t command us to remember him with mere words but with a meal.” The local church community should be a learning environment, a healing environment, a welcoming environment, a liberating environment, and a thriving environment. Leaders serve these purposes of the church community by connecting people to God and his mission. This requires trust building, truth telling and peace making.
“In order to live into church as movement, you will need to change the way you look at the church. You need to ditch the church as industrial complex. If you want movement, you need to be willing to start small and focus on making disciples, remembering that discipleship is more about imitation than instruction.”
The strength of “Church as Movement” is that it links disciple making movements with church, though to do so requires us to completely rethink our church paradigms and leadership structures. This is difficult because so many of us are invested in the current structures.
Its weakness is that its linear presentation and focus on church can reinforce the belief that a local church is the goal (rather than the fruit) and a discipling movement is the means to get there. More emphasis could have been given to the reality that Christ actively builds the church. It's his responsibility.
As Alan Hirsch states in his Forward, key to discerning the Spirit’s leading, engaging his mission, and rethinking local church architecture requires the restoration of apostolic ministry. We can rejoice that this is happening, and there is an awakening among God’s people as they rediscover that movements of God take place in the streets rather than in the building.
Concurrent with a renewal of apostolic ministry is the recalibration around Jesus as the paradigm for ministry. Jesus’ message was of the kingdom of God, and he ignited a kingdom movement by “confiding in three, training twelve, and mobilizing seventy.” This is how movements start. Movements happen when the focus is multiplying disciples. “We must die to our self, our infatuation with speed and size, and devote ourselves to the work of making disciples, training the few.” Jesus commanded us to make disciples. Not start a church service.
The book is organized around Distributing, Discipling, Designing, and Doing. “Distributing” is about growing a ministry four generations deep and four spheres wide (Acts 1:8). Church as Movement requires authentic engagement with the Holy Spirit, a missional theology, church simplicity, transferable and locally sustainable methodology and tools. Essential to this are the five ministries of apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, and teacher. Leadership is polycentric where leaders “lead as a community from within a community.” Rather than getting our leadership models from business, we need to get them from the early church.
“Discipling” means changing the metrics of the local church. Discipleship isn’t identified by Bible studies, but by those who live the counter-intuitive, upside down life Jesus modeled and called his followers to embrace. Though Jesus had a public ministry, and though both Jesus and Paul taught in synagogues, the engine of their ministries was the purposeful gathering and training of a smaller group of friends.
“Designing” involves the community of disciples. The community itself is God’s gift to the neighborhood. It is a sign, foretaste and instrument of the kingdom of God. “For the church to be a movement, the way we express being the church should flow out of our theology.” This is expressed in communion with God, community with each other, and commission into the work of Christ in the world.
“Doing” the work of the kingdom is a community affair. “Community is the pod that carries mission.” “The church as movement starts with a discipleship core, hospitality with others, presence in the neighborhood and an inviting spirit.” “Jesus didn’t command us to remember him with mere words but with a meal.” The local church community should be a learning environment, a healing environment, a welcoming environment, a liberating environment, and a thriving environment. Leaders serve these purposes of the church community by connecting people to God and his mission. This requires trust building, truth telling and peace making.
“In order to live into church as movement, you will need to change the way you look at the church. You need to ditch the church as industrial complex. If you want movement, you need to be willing to start small and focus on making disciples, remembering that discipleship is more about imitation than instruction.”
The strength of “Church as Movement” is that it links disciple making movements with church, though to do so requires us to completely rethink our church paradigms and leadership structures. This is difficult because so many of us are invested in the current structures.
Its weakness is that its linear presentation and focus on church can reinforce the belief that a local church is the goal (rather than the fruit) and a discipling movement is the means to get there. More emphasis could have been given to the reality that Christ actively builds the church. It's his responsibility.