02 11 13 A Second Gold Nugget

A second golden nugget in this series on transformational churches is the realization that churches are not in the business of attracting church members.  Churches are tasked with creating a community of spiritual leaders.  Elaine Heath has given a wonderful list of touch points to use in disciple formation, and I will list it, below.  But first I want to write a bit about the difference between trying to attract church members as opposed to raising up a community of spiritual leaders.

This difference is significant, because if churches and their ministry strategies simply assume that people generally want to be church members and are waiting for a really attractive church to show up, then they are not truly observing what is going on in the world.  Although their was a brief period after World War II when people believed that flocking to institutions was the way to be responsible, good human beings, those days are long gone.  Since the 1960s Western society has been increasingly distrustful of static worldviews.  People are increasingly interested in ways of living that incorporate new learning and experimentation into their worldviews.  Old institutions are in drastic decline, and the new ones that are emerging are not based on attraction so much as a common mission.  People get involved in order to be a part of the mission, not the institution. With this in mind, the whole concept of membership changes. 

In the long run, I believe this is good news for churches.  God’s mission in the world has never been a static thing.  Christians used to be known as “people of the way, meaning path or road (see John 14: 6),” which means we know our lives to be a journey, and we know ourselves to be the companions in this journey, following the lead of the Messiah.  Journeys are inherently about not being static.  Journeys are about going somewhere, discovering new people and experiencing new things.  Journeys are about personal growth, and journeys with the Messiah are about growing while we accomplish something together. 

Churches, then, are not tasked to train institutional members, but to form a community of spiritual companions, who are journeying out into the world to do something as a part of God’s mission in the world.  These spiritual companions have to be spiritual leaders, because they are leading the way into new places to participate in the new things God is doing (remember all those Psalms about “singing a new song?” Or how about Isaiah 42:9, “See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.”)?  They are leaders, because they are not “doing church” the old way, nor are they ever done learning or trying out new endeavors.  They are always on the journey with the Lord, always participating in something new.

However, the journey with God generally doesn’t go well unless the journeyers learn to build and care for a balanced spiritual life.  With this in mind, Elaine Heath (see The Mystic Way of Evangelism, Baker Academic, 2008) offers the following list of personal disciplines for Christian life:

Prayer                        (I’m currently using The Daily Prayer app on my iPhone);

Presence            (the practice of becoming aware of Christ’s presence in the here-and-

now, and holding onto that awareness throughout the day);

Gifts                        Becoming aware of one’s giftedness and being a steward of them;

Service                        We are sent out into the world for service, if we follow Christ;

Witness            We bear witness to the Christ we follow, and what he is doing.

Practicing this balance of spiritual disciplines, both as an individual and as a member of a missional faith community, is essential for building people up as spiritual leaders, and for building an empowered missional faith community.  It is this kind of balance that gives us vision and empowerment for the journey along the Way.