Naturally over the past year I have reflected on my father’s life, including my relationship with him.  Part of that journey has led me to think more deliberately about legacy, a topic that has again come increasingly to my mind this week.  How do I live with great intentionality in the area of my legacy to those who will come after me?

I look back, not just at my father, but at various people who have shaped and impacted me, and I feel called to have the level of influence and legacy that the very best of them did (and still do) have.  So the question Jesus is asking me is, what kind of legacy am I going to leave behind?

Legacy Through Our Children

My top priority when it comes to legacy is my three sons.  My deepest desire is that each one of them grows into a mighty man of God, overflowing with the Holy Spirit, extending the Kingdom, bringing great glory to Jesus, and most of all being utterly secure in their own relationship with their Father in heaven.  So, along with Hannah, we pray daily for them (and for their future wives – shhh, don’t tell the boys!!), aiming to raise them in such a way that helps bring this about.

We try to do this through a mixture of:

• Relationships (with us and others who can invest positively into their lives)
• Experiences (whether serving the poor, playing on vacation or eating meals with friends, they are fully part of our calling as a family of missionaries to the United States), and
• Information (such as helping them to know the Bible well).

We want them to be able to stand on our shoulders, going further and higher than we could ever do (and we intend to go a long way!).

Legacy Through Others

My legacy, though, is more than what my biological children will receive, even if all three become legendary leaders in the Kingdom of God!  I recognize that part of my calling as a leader is to intentionally influence many others, helping them take tangible steps closer to God’s best for them and their lives.  To do this well, I have had to learn the difference between a legacy that is adding and a legacy that is multiplying.

Is Your Legacy one that Adds or Multiplies?

In my first ten years or so of church leadership, I think I tried to do too much through the force of my own personality.  That mindset of ‘legacy by addition’ meant that more often than not I felt I was the one who had to meet with, disciple and help others if they were really going to be properly impacted.  The problem with that approach is that Alex-the-super-gifted-leader becomes a huge bottleneck in the system.  People can only be added one-by-one, and there is no space for exponential growth to take place.

Gradually God has chipped away at some of the curious mixture of pride, insecurity and just very high expectations that lay behind the addition mindset, and increasingly He has helped me see that my focus is to be on multiplying my impact.  This is achieved when I become a leader of leaders (of leaders), equipping others to help strengthen and build up the body of Christ, rather than doing it all myself.  To use the old analogy, a multiplying legacy is one that teaches others to fish, rather than having them watch me catch and then hand out the fish. In fact, what I really want to do is to be a teacher of those who teach others to fish.  That is true multiplication influence – hundreds, if not thousands, can be discipled that way.

As I go further along the missional path, learning better how to use tools such as Huddles and Missional Communities, I realize just how much they help me become a leader of multiplying influence.  In order to maximize my legacy, I am increasingly focused on being an equipper of others who do the work of ministry, rather than being the one whose name is up in shining lights. It is interesting that if I am going to really allow God to do this through me, I have to be willing to go lower personally and not be the famous leader.  Church stops being about a few highly gifted and charismatic leaders, and instead it is about lots of people bringing whatever God has given them and allowing Jesus to multiply it exponentially.

I believe that God is wanting to raise up a faceless generation that extends His Kingdom like we have never seen before – but one of the keys is a mindset that says I am going to be a leader who multiplies my legacy, rather simply expands it through addition.  It is not about me, it is all about Him and His fame.  That is the sort of legacy that is worth having.

Questions…

If you die right now, what is your legacy?
Who will your legacy be expressed through?
Is your legacy built on addition or multiplication?

This year the theme is ‘Sifted’ – focusing on the challenges of planting and the how church leadership is far from an easy ride.  Part of the journey is the recognition that the Father takes us through times when we are deeply challenged, or sifted, which He uses to mature and strengthen us for the long haul.

As part of the preparation for the conference, along with a bunch of other leaders I was asked to write a short story of experiencing sifting in my own life, and that is being highlighted today on the Stories of Sifted website.

You can read my story HERE – and then I’d encourage you to browse around.  There are some really good stories from a variety of contexts and stages of life.

And if you are going to Exponential itself (hey – 4 days in Orlando in late April!!) then I’ll be leading a couple of seminars, so come, heckle and say hi!

“How do Missional Communities impact how you incorporate people who first join the church through weekend services?”

Many churches run some form of a ‘Welcome to Church Life’ class, which may be a one-off, several sessions or even the length of a full-blown course.  Saddleback’s very popular 101 Class has been a major influence in this, with many good things having come out of that.

The underlying thinking is that it is important to give people a chance to find out more about the church, what commitment looks like, what expectations they will face (eg attendance, tithing, serving, etc), and what they can expect from the church’s leadership.  Alongside this there is also the clear intention to take time to explain the Gospel and invite people to respond to the claims of Christ there and then.  This in turn will generally lead to a full explanation of the importance of baptism and a strong encouragement for people to sign up for that.

All of these are good things to do – clearly there is a time and place to call people to crystallize their growing commitment to Christ, and/or to take the next step of faith, which baptism signifies.  Personally I absolutely love being able to pray with someone who is consciously repenting and turning to Jesus for the first time, so the comments that follow are not in any way a repudiation of that.  However, I do want to question the pressure to frontload all of this before someone can belong to the church.

Those of us who have been in church leadership for a while know that this Welcome Class format only has limited results, since there are many who come through our process who aren’t yet ready to make this clear a commitment.  That is not (yet) where they are on the journey of discipleship, but there is no other avenue for them to go down, besides turning up at weekends.  We then face a dilemma: do we keep them in some sort of holding pattern, or dare we let them join in regular church life?  The pressure of this can lead, if we are not careful, to the Welcome Class feeling more like some sort of sales pitch, where we daren’t let them leave without signing on the dotted line, because this is our best chance to achieve a ‘result’.

In addition, at an intuitive level I suspect that there are many around the edges of the church who want to learn more about the realities of following Jesus, but have absolutely no desire to go through a formal class to do so.

I believe one of the implications of building a stronger discipling and missional focus is that we can take the pressure off the Welcome Class to achieve quite so much.

At a philosophical level, I would argue that discipleship is a lengthy process that begins as soon as someone chooses to start intentionally learning from Jesus (which means, in most cases, that this is way before they would call themselves a Christian or would be ready to be baptized).  This journey of discipleship continues through the time when someone does publicly declare Christ as their Savior and Lord, and on into the active life of maturing faith, where one grows in the fruit of the Spirit and utilizes the gifts of the Spirit to glorify God, equip the Saints and extend the Kingdom of God.  This journey, of course, continues onwards forever!

If a Welcome Class helps in this process then that’s wonderful, but it shouldn’t matter too much if it doesn’t.  Not all our eggs need to be in that basket.

The reasoning is this.  At a practical level, Missional Communities give us a context where the journey of discipleship can be walked out with others.  By belonging to a group that forms an extended family of relationships, there is a framework where questions can be asked, character formed, lifestyle shaped and the day-to-day implications of the Gospel gradually taken on board.  Whilst small groups can do many of these things, there is something about the mid-sized, social space community that gives both the flexibility and the rigor to allow someone to learn to follow Christ at their own speed, without having unhealthy influence on the rhythm and pace of the rest of the group.  A Missional Community is indeed small enough to care and large enough to dare when it comes to discipleship.

At RiverTree, one of my roles is to lead the main campus, which includes the Welcome to RiverTree class.  We are going through a process of reviewing and rewriting what we do there, but this has only been possible by reassessing expectations for the class.  I am now crystal clear that the major outcome I am looking for is that people are shown how they can belong at RiverTree – by joining a GoCommunity.  If they do so, I have great confidence that, over time, they will be discipled and learn how to live out following Jesus in their everyday lives.  They will be able to explore the claims of Christ intellectually, relationally and practically.  Their GoCommunity will be the place where discipleship happens, even if it takes years before any tangible fruit becomes evident.  But this feels like a far more authentic – and dare I say Biblical – approach to making disciples.

Back at the Welcome to RiverTree session, we of course do work hard to welcome people, give them some information about the church and enable them to ask lots of questions.  If someone expresses interest in committing to Christ or being baptized then we are absolutely delighted!  But I am also aware of there being a reduction in the pressure (and length!) of the formal welcome process, since our goal is not to do huge amounts of the discipleship process there and then in the classroom.  Instead, we invite them into a process where information will be multiplied with imitation, as they learn from and do life with the members of their GoCommunity.

As leaders exploring more missional approaches to extending the Kingdom, we do need to define what metrics of success we are going to be using.  The trouble, of course, is that once we stop making the offering and bums-on-seats-on-Sundays our key measures, what should take their place?

Reggie McNeal has written well on this topic (especially in Missional Renaissance), and it is something that we have been wrestling with at RiverTree.

The way we have tackled this is by writing a two year vision-driven ends plan.  This takes our stated vision as a church and identifies reportable measures that we can set goals for and/or evaluate.  They are a mixture of hard and soft data – that enables us to recognize that discipleship is essentially relational without letting us off the hook for some objective tangibles as well.

Before giving examples, I want to back up and respond to the question that Dave correctly identifies as central – our definition of a disciple.

A disciple is someone who is intentionally choosing to learn from Jesus.  This means that they are wrestling with two ongoing questions: what is Jesus saying, and what am I (or are we) doing in response?

In turn, this defines our top metric of success.  Our key measure is this:  how many people do we have in discipling relationships?

Someone in a discipling relationship is deliberately moving towards Jesus, in the context of a Jesus-centered community.  We see this happening in a variety of places, but most especially as they connect regularly with a GoCommunity (i.e. our Missional Communities).

Alongside GoCommunities, we are also strongly using Huddles.  These groups of 6-10 are how we bring encouragement and accountability to our current or emerging leaders, by using them as intentional times of discipleship.  They are focused around those two core questions of discipleship (what is Jesus saying, and how are you responding?).

We believe that discipleship is far more about imitation than information (see, for instance, 1 Cor 11:1 -“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” – or 1 Cor 4:16, Heb 6:12).  This means that we need to create spaces where that can happen, and we see GoCommunities and Huddles as central to that plan.

Our weekend Gatherings are wonderful occasions, and people do genuinely encounter God there, but they are not going to be fully discipled in a large event like that.  One interesting thing we are picking up on is that, for their first experience of ‘church’, increasing numbers of RiverTree people are choosing to take their unchurched friends and family to a GoCommunity, rather than bring them along at a weekend Gathering.  This, I suspect, is a vote in favor of discipleship as imitation, where over time people are transformed life on life, house by house.

Of course, there are other contexts where discipleship happens – we have a good number of people in small groups who haven’t yet jumped into a GoCommunity, although increasingly small group life is being expressed as a subset of GoCos. But we are finding that GoCommunities are increasingly central in building our discipling culture, with Huddles as our intentional strategy for developing leaders.

So, without giving you a long laundry list, we measure things like numbers of GoCommunities (34 as I write, almost all in Social Space (between 20 and 70), with others brewing for the coming few months), huddles, attendance at both, baptisms, dollars spent per baptism, etc.  We set goals for some of those – for instance, a 2011 goal was that the majority of pastoral staff would not only be being discipled in a huddle but would also be leading a huddle by year end.

Looking outwards, we try to measure how we are impacting the wider world in witness and service.  For instance, where we can we’re recording a list of hours spent in service projects, of dollars given to benefit the community beyond our church, of lives impacted, of children sponsored through our partnership with Compassion, of churches planted, of outside leaders coached, etc.  Many of these are best expressed (and measured) through GoCommunity life.  Whilst we know such lists are of variable accuracy (and perspective as to what counts!), they do provide some more tangible measurements.

At the same time, we work very hard to unearth and record stories and “preponderance of evidence” of life change, both inside and outside the church.  This is inevitably more art than science, but we do actively broadcast stories in the bulletin, blogs, Facebook, videos, emails, etc (see previous blog).

And yes, we do still count the offering and measure bums-on-seats-on-Sundays, because they are valid things to count and set goals for!  However, they are now just two of many measures of health and life that we are using, and make more sense in that broader context.

NEXT TIME we’ll look at how this changes our goals for those who are new to the church (I know, that should have been this time!)

What is your top measurement of disciple-making?

As leaders and churches start to explore Missional Communities, a very obvious (and sensible!) series of questions are raised about how this will change existing weekend church services.  In this and the next couple of posts we’ll start to look at how this works in an existing church, before moving on to think about church plants/ new sites.

Do you remember the old joke about a city slicker who is driving around in the countryside and ends up completely lost?  After making turn after turn along country lanes, when all he can see is fields and cows, he eventually comes across an old farmer sitting on a bale of straw.  “Excuse me, can you tell me the way back to the city?”  “Well, if you want to get to there,” says the farmer, “I wouldn’t be starting from here!”

Applied to Missional Communities, how they impact weekend services (or gatherings, as we call them at RiverTree) will very much depend on where you are starting from!

If you are an existing church, I strongly recommend that you keep your weekend gatherings going as strongly as possible.  To tear up everything that has brought you thus far is an extremely high-risk approach and, in the absence of a crystal clear word from God, not a wise move.  Think about how that would feel to your existing people: essentially you would be communicating that everything that went before was worthless, their sacrifices were for nothing, and they are not very good Jesus followers.  Would you stay if your church treated you like that?

Here at RiverTree our aim is a both/and approach, recognizing the strengths that different sizes of gathering bring (see earlier posts on the Four Spaces).  We focus our weekends on the inspiration that comes from worshipping God alongside hundreds of other people, the momentum that is built as we hear stories reminding us that our experiences are part of a far broader narrative of what Jesus is up to, and the nourishment that comes from excellent preaching from the Bible by gifted communicators.  Those are all elements that aren’t done as well by MCs by themselves.

At the same time, those same weekend gatherings have changed over the past couple of years, moving away from the highly presentational, non-participatory approach, to an increasing emphasis on responding to what Jesus is saying to us (whether individually or as a whole community).  This fits with the wider shift to a more intentional disciple-making culture, since the essence of discipleship is hearing God and responding obediently.

We are also working very hard on telling stories.  A bunch of GoCommunity leaders have been filmed giving us short summaries of their mission vision, and we show one of these films either right before or during the gathering.  ‘Good news’ stories – when a MC experiences breakthrough – are terrific to find and broadcast (whilst being sensitive to not sharing personal info that identifies unchurched friends).  When we don’t show a video, we try to print a short written story in our bulletin that highlights the impact of being a community on mission.

Our preachers try often to use GoCommunities as illustrations in their sermons, even if it is as simple as encouraging people to be active in one.  The more GoCommunities sound familiar and normative to people, the more likely they are to join one (or feel affirmed in their decision to have already joined one).

One note: with all the emphasis and energy going into GoCommunities, we have also tried to freshen up our gatherings with some fun activities and occasions.  For instance, this coming weekend we are doing a Bread Bake-Off – inviting people to enter homemade bread/muffins etc into a competition at each gathering, with prizes in different categories (including ‘worst’!), and then everyone can taste samples afterwards.  The whole point is to have fun, create space for relationships to form, and to tangibly demonstrate that we mean it when we say we are committed to BOTH GoCommunities AND weekend gatherings.

NEXT TIME we’ll look at how this changes our goals for those who are new to the church.

How are Missional Communities impacting your weekend gatherings?  If you are thinking about starting MCs, what concerns do you have about their potential impact?

• Food – ideally sharing a meal together
• Socializing/ laughing/ having fun
• Breaking bread and sharing Communion
• Story-telling (i.e. testimony), especially of things people are grateful to God for
• Bringing praise and worship to God – this could be done with guitars, but it doesn’t have to be!!
• Offering prayer for healing and prophetic encouragement to anyone who has particular need
• Studying the Scriptures together, especially from what God has been speaking to the leader (or whoever is leading that portion) about during the past week.  People are hungry for fresh bread.
• Praying for the wider community that you are seeking to reach, as well as for your witness there
• Planning practicalities for mission activities

This could be summarized as a 1 Corinthians 11-14 model, which seems the fullest unpacking of how a church would meet and express its life together.  From what Paul writes, it is also clear that such gatherings were led in such a way that people who weren’t yet Christians could come in and be welcomed, without it throwing all the plans into confusion!  In addition, children could be part of all these elements, even if sometimes they are not expected to spend as long on each thing as adults do.

The MC will also go out together in specific missional activities, to serve and witness to their place of calling.  Such events need to be regular and rhythmic, so that the group sees this as an integral part of their life together. It should be no more a ‘special’ than meeting to eat together or pray together is a ‘special’.  For this reason I would strongly urge a brand new Missional Community to start doing ‘Go’ activities from the inception of the group, so that it is fixed in from day 1.  Some will try to argue that this can’t happen until the people have “got to know each other/ become more sorted out” – but this is an unbiblical perspective, which simply lets people off the missional hook.  Furthermore, experience shows that the groups that gel the most and the fastest are the ones who share common battle stories and missional escapades (successful and less so!).

• What one new thing can you add into the mix of your gatherings?
• Does your Missional Community go out in mission in a pattern that could be described as ‘regular and rhythmic’?

In the Christmas spirit, here is an unusual post – with some awesome Christmas music!

At RiverTree we love supporting church plants and planters, and one of the great new churches we’ve connected with is Renew Communities, in Cleveland.  They are led by Andy Sikora, who is doing a tremendous job in leading the church in impacting and reaching a very needy city.

Andy dropped me a note to let me know about a cool new album that one of their team, worship leader Bethany Solyntjes, has recently recorded.  It’s a Christmas EP called Hope Renewed, with six excellent re-workings of some favorite Christmas carols, along with one original.  I’ve listened to it all and the sound is chilled-yet-contemporary indie-folk, and definitely wouldn’t be out of place on your Christmas mix!

The reason I’m blogging about this is that Bethany and her husband Chris are like most church planters, in that they are raising their salaries for the first few years of their church’s life.  This year they took a huge income cut to help plant Renew Communities and, needless to say, it’s been tight for them. This record is one way that they are hoping to supplement their income.

On top of that they are giving 10% of each sale to a church planting project that Renew Communities is supporting.  Don’t you love the fact that a church that is less than a year old is working on planting one church locally and one internationally?

OK, sales pitch over!  I’ve bought a copy and would encourage you to do the same.  What is really cool is that you can listen to the whole album online before deciding!  You can take a listen to the EP (or buy a copy) here.

Merry Christmas, especially to all you church planters!

]]> http://alexabsalom.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/cool-christmas-ep/feed/ 0 alexabsalom http://alexabsalom.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/people-drawn-to-christ-through-missional-community/ http://alexabsalom.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/people-drawn-to-christ-through-missional-community/#comments Tue, 06 Dec 2011 20:06:37 +0000 alexabsalom http://alexabsalom.wordpress.com/?p=376 Continue reading »]]> This is a great story from one of the RiverTree GoCommunities that is focused on going to a residential retirement home in our local area.  It was an unsolicited letter of thanks from one of the staff at the home:

“I thought I would take this time to thank you for all that you do and for creating this go group. I am not sure if you know how much of a difference and an impact that you make to those around you. Almost everyday at work my residents talk about how loving Rivertree is. They always ask me when the next time you are coming. They have become very interested in the church itself and how the church members are so willing to reach out to the community. More and more of my residents are becoming interested in coming to the gatherings because of how some of the other residents are talking about the amazing people. More specifically however, I really wanted you to know how much your visit to [one lady] meant to her. When I got into work today it was the first thing that she told me about. She said: ‘I love your church! They came to pray with me today and I feel that I really needed that today. I can’t believe that they thought of me.’ I really want to thank you for the compassion that you show to the people that I feel are an extension of my family.”

The gatherings that are mentioned are the times that the GoCo organizes in the home itself, as a way of building relational bridges.  They socialize, worship God (in an appropriate way for that culture – specifically, by singing old hymns) and do simple teaching from the Bible.  There are also activities they do that are aimed at helping residents serve others outside of their immediate setting (for instance, making things for a local elementary school).  Many of the residents who come are not Christians, or haven’t been part of a church for many years.

I love that this GoCo is doing mission so effectively – remember my mission equation: mission = service + witness.  When this is done with great love, enthusiasm and consistency, God will cause all sorts of Kingdom chaos!

They fall within the big point of Bible reading, which is answering the “SO WHAT?” question.

If discipleship is hearing Jesus and obeying Him, and if the primary way Jesus is revealed is through the Bible, then we need to learn to hear and obey His voice in Scripture.  Thus, when I read something, the key question is, “So what am I going to do in response?”.  My goal is not to gather more knowledge (although that is helpful) – my goal is to become more like Jesus, which means I respond to His word to me that I am reading or hearing.

As I read the Bible, I try to be always attentive to the “SO WHAT?” question, so that I can be shaped by Jesus.  These ideas are trying to help people find practical ways to refresh that process when it has grown a little stale (which, of course, is a universal experience!).

1. Stop and listen – Take time to listen (that is what it means to come as a lover of God).  The point is to stop, even if time is short and it is simply reading a verse from the Psalms and bowing your head in genuine stillness for 1 minute.
2. Have a realistic plan – eg it is better to do a few minutes every day than to do 1 ½ hrs on day 1 and then give up!
3. Come in worship – I love playing loud live worship music, such as Jesus Culture/ Bethel Church, Hillsongs United, Matt Redman and then reading the Bible.  Work out what works for you.
4. Use a Bible reading plan (try something on youversion.com).
5. Use a devotional book or Bible reading notes.
6. Different lengths – Some days take one verse and meditate on it, while on other days read a long chunk of the Bible.  Have variety!
7. Use a different translation – That will cause you to see familiar passages differently.
8. Read with kids – They see things so well, that we tend to hide from.  Use both ‘full’ Bibles and children’s Bibles eg The Jesus Storybook Bible
9. Picture it – Visualize the scene in your mind and see what Jesus says to you.
10. Eat your PEAS! – Is there a… Promise to claim?  Example to follow?  Attitude to change?  Sin to confess?
11. Memorize a verse/ write it on a card/ put it on your phone, and then look at it throughout day.  Allow it to shape your day.
12. Listen to the Bible in an audio version – Find times when that will work for you, such as in your car, when you are cooking or when you are exercising.  There are free versions available at youversion.com, or you can buy it on CDs/MP3s.
13. Read it out loud – You will experience the Bible differently.
14. Read at unexpected times – eg Put a Bible in your bathroom, in car for when you are waiting for the kids, download a Bible app for your phone, etc
15. Physical location – Create a regular place at home where you go to worship, read the Bible and pray.
16. Read a parallel book/novel based upon the Bible – This should make you want to go back and check out the original version of the story.

Finally, if you are in a dry place with Bible reading, it is worth simply asking God why.  What’s going on?  Sometimes He withdraws to invite us to pursue Him.  Other times there is sin in our life that is causing the blockage.  It might be that we are simply lacking in self-discipline and need to work around that.  Don’t be afraid to do this, because Jesus will challenge us deeply while also showing us the way forward.

(I shared these in a sermon this weekend at RiverTree and was asked to post them online.  Please do add to this list – it is by no means complete!)