the postmodern pop pastor

What is the best you have read, heard or seen on Evangelism?

I want to know, anything in any form from any one.

Labels: evangelism

Many have already responded to the "Leading from the Middle Survey." Here are two hints at the values of pastors under 40 as they are resulting. Surely there has been a change of values with the change of generation.

First, regarding leadership style.

My manner of shepherding can best be described as ...
Second, regarding pastoral values.

Rank the following in order of importance in your practice of pastoral ministry.

Labels: community, leadership, pastor, survey, values

If you are a Pastor, would you be willing to participate in a short online survey? Or please link to this post to encourage friends to participate. I would appreciate it very much.

Several recent pastoral surveys indicate a higher relational participation for younger pastors. "Buster" pastors, generally those under 40, report having better relationships within their own congregations than their "Boomer" counterparts. The hopes of this survey, combined with literary research and theological study, will be to provide a profile of the 21st century ministry leader who relates well within the congregation. Such understanding may also serve to improve relations among Boomer and Buster pastors in the coming generational transition as well as between pastors and their congregation.

By following the link to the survey you are indicating that you consent to participate in this study and that your responses may be put in anonymous form and kept for further use after the completion of this study. You may print a copy of this consent form for your own records.

Leading from the Middle




Principal Investigator: Robert Campbell, Pastor, Northpoint Evangelical Free Church, a Doctor of Ministry candidate for ACTS Seminaries at Trinity Western University.

Northpoint Evangelical Free Church
988 W. Ontario Ave.
Corona, CA 92882
951.734.1335, extension 2820
rcampbell@northpointcorona.org

Advisor: Dr. John Auxier, Dean and Acting President, Trinity Western Seminary.
Trinity Western Seminary
PO Box 1409Blaine, WA 98231-1409
auxier@twu.ca
(604) 513-2019

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to support the spiritual formation of the next generation of ministers by clarifying the values that result in the experience of better relationships and exploring the impact of those values on the manner of pastoral work. You have been asked to participate because of you affiliation with the Evangelical Free Church of America, West.

Procedures: This survey involves your anonymous responses to 26 multiple choice questions and 4 open ended questions.. The entirety of the survey should take approximately 15 minutes.

Potential Risks and Discomforts: There are no foreseeable risks to your participation in this survey.

Potential Benefits to Participants and/or to Society: There are potential benefits of this study to the relational health of pastors and to the coming generational transition in church ministry.

Confidentiality: Data will be collected anonymously and names will not be linked with any information. The survey program (www.constantcontact.com) will keep a list including your email until the study is complete.

Contact for information about the study: If you have any questions or desire further information with respect to this study, you may contact Robert Campbell at 951.734.1335, extension 2820.

Contact for concerns about the rights of research subjects: If you have any concerns about your treatment or rights as a research subject, you may contact Ms. Sue Funk in the Office of Research at 604-513-2142 or sue.funk@twu.ca.

Consent: Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary and you may refuse to participate or withdraw from the study at any time.

Labels: church, community, leadership, pastor

A flattened organizational structure in a community oriented culture encourages leadership to take place in community, partially as a reaction to the use of power and partially due to the increasing value of the role of each in the community or organization. Leaders will naturally form a community. Religious leadership functions best in a connected network of relationships.[1] Alan Hirsh, in The Shaping of Things to Come, writes, “The missional church requires a missional ministry and leadership system.”[2]

Alan Hirsch presents an organic structure in which an equal team of gifted individuals collaborate according to their gifts in a unified authority. He shapes the system upon the five-fold ministry gift list of Ephesians chapter 4, which he calls APEPT leadership. First, APEPT leadership is leadership.

Leadership in the light of APEPT can be conceived as a “calling within a calling”; it is a distinct task that entails leading and influencing the body of Christ, and not just ministering. Not all ministers are leaders—that much is obvious. As such, leadership embodies a particular APEPT ministry that is given to the believer but extends and reorients it to fit the distinct calling and tasks of leadership.[3]

APEPT leadership requires a community of leaders: “Christian ministry is never meant to be onefold or twofold, but fivefold, and each leadership style is strengthened and informed by the particular contributions of the others.”[4] APEPT leadership requires a community of leaders in relationship.

In living systems theory, moving an organization into adaptive organic mode requires that we (1) develop and enhance relationships, (2) cross-pollinate ideas from different specialties and departments, (3) disturb equilibrium by moving to the edge of chaos, and (4) focus information according to organizational mission.

APEPT leadership would mean a transition for the North American church.

Most churches seem to prefer more hierarchical structures with a chain-of-command approach and are most often led by people gifted as pastors and teachers. Such ministry types can tend to avoid conflict or focus primarily on ideas and not action. The resultant organizational culture struggles to find fit and split, contend and transcend. In the operational model, decisions are made at the top and filter down to the grass roots. There’s little room for any real interaction and participation around central tasks and ideas. As a result, in many denominational structures and churches the members at the “bottom” of the system can tend to feel silenced and resentful.[5]

In the missional church, “leadership can never be done in solo” for two reasons. First, leaders are to be at the front of the community living out the mission so all can see and second, the necessary leadership gifts cannot be found in a single individual.[6]

[1] Diana Butler Bass, “Introduction,” in Leadership in Congregations, (Herndon: Alban Institute, 2007), xiii. Mark Lau Branson, “Forming God’s People,” in Leadership in Congregations, (Herndon: Alban Institute, 2007), 103. Reggie McNeal sees future church org charts being as flat as possible. McNeal, The Present Future, 126.
[2] Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2007), 169. The plurality of church leadership has not risen in the postmodern transition. While an old concept, it has found resurgence in more conservative Christian movements. John MacArthure writes that church leadership belonged to a group in New Testament. One man was not responsible for all. But it does no disservice to equality (of the 12) to have one of them provide leadership to the group. There is no place for dictatorial, self-styled leadership. John MacArthur, The Master's Plan for Church, (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1991.), 195, 197. Additional examples are found in Alexander Strauch, Biblical Eldership: an urgent call to restore biblical church leadership, (Littleton: Lewis and Roth Publishers, 1995) and Mark Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004), 229. The biblical foundations of plurality to be discussed in later chapters.
[3] Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 171.
[4] Ibid, 172.
[5] Ibid, 174, 176.
[6] Guder, Missional Church, 186, 214.

Labels: church, community, leadership, pastor

This one is not mine. Its from Joe Thorn. I love his photographs and his blog is something to keep up with also.

Labels: pastor, photos

from Daniel Montgomery at the Church Bootcamp. He offers these insights.

Leading the Mission as a Christian “Christ loves me and gave himself up for me.”

Check Yourself: Where do you go for love? What idols are you exchanging for the love of Christ?

• The idol of success
• The idol of human approval and recognition
• The idol of controlThe idol of respect

Practice: Preaching the Gospel to Ourselves.

Leading the Mission as a Pastor “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock.”

Check Yourself: What is my default mode of pastoring? What steps can you take to know your people? What’s the plan for presenting everyone (under your watch) perfect in Christ?

Practice: Asking Questions

Leading the Mission as a Theologian “I laid a foundation as an expert builder.”

Check Yourself: What is your church driven by: pragmatism or theology? Where do your methods for doing church begin?

Practice: Doing Theology

Leading the Mission as a Missionary “Follow Me as I Follow Christ.”

Check Yourself: Are you setting the pace for mission? Are you eating with “sinners”?Are you broken for the lost?

Practice: Look, Listen, Love

Listen to the audio

Labels: church, church planting, gospel, leadership, missional, pastor, theology

Leadership is key to the formation of missional church communities. The church as an alternative, parallel society in the New Testament develops godly, gifted leaders in spirit filled communities.

Authoritarian church leaders are not for these times. Controlling lead pastors are finding less lay leaders to submit to such an exercise of authority. Those who serve as volunteer leaders no longer find it sufficient to tow the line of the hired pastor.[1]

The individual board member is no longer seen as a political representative but as a spiritual leader. The board or council is no longer seen as a group of corporate managers, but as the people of God in community…Individual board members are not managers serving pastoral CEO but spiritual leaders with gifts and power to act.[2]

The church of the future will be embracing a more collaborative leadership model.[3] Younger Evangelicals long to see the church led by people who care more about being in touch with God and community than in being a success.[4] When success equals loving God then it equalizes leaders. It flattens out the church’s organizational chart.[5] Eddie Gibbs connects this change to an age-group.

This style of connective leadership is more evident among the under thirty-fives, and women tend to be more adept at it than men. The controlling style of leadership that is prevalent among the builder and boomer generations, and that typically determines the church’s corporate culture, must give way to this empowering, connective style if the church is to reinvent itself to meet the missional challenges and opportunities of a new day.[6]

When interviewed about how his Level 5 leadership translates into the church world, Jim Collins responded as follows:

I was delighted how the Level 5 concept took hold, and yet the deeper I got into it, the more I realized that Level 5 Leadership looks different in a non-business setting. A church leader often has a very complicated governance structure. There can be multiple sources of power, constituencies in the community, and constituencies in the congregation. With all of that, you're going to run into trouble if you try to lead a church as a czar. Church leaders have to be adept in a more communal process, what we came to call “legislative” rather than an “executive” process.

What's the difference between legislative and executive leaders?
If you walked into the Senate, as one of a hundred senators, thinking, Okay, here I am. I am going to lead this place as if I'm CEO, you're going to fail because you don't have that kind of power. Whereas if you're Sam Walton at Wal-Mart, you can say, “I am Sam Walton; this is my company; this is what we are going to do,” and it will work.

Legislative leaders are in a complicated body where you have to bring together multiple pieces Executive leaders don't ultimately have to convince other people to go along. Concentrated executive power is far less prevalent in the social sectors. [7]

[1] Reggie McNeal has lamented that the church not longer needs God to operate church we as it is today. Reggie McNeal, The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 6.
[2] Charles M. Olsen, Transforming Boards into Communities of Spiritual Leaders, (Herndon: Alban Institute, 1995), xiii, 10.
[3] Burke, Making Sense of Church: Eavesdropping on Emerging Conversations About God, Community, and Culture, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 37.
[4] Weber, Younger Evangelicals, 53.
[5] Kent and Barbara Hughes, Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome, (Carol Stream: Tyndale House, 1992), 60.
[6] Gibbs, LeadershipNext, 33.
[7] Jim Collins, “The Good to Great Pastor,” Leadership Journal, Spring 2006, http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2006/002/7.48.html, accessed September 5, 2007.
[1] Guder, Missional Church, 183.

Labels: church, community, leadership, pastor

Younger Evangelicals, Robert Weber’s description of those Evangelicals under forty, long to belong to a community. The do not accept the individualism inherited from the enlightenment.[1] For them, churches are places of socialization. The church is an alternative community, which plays an essential role in liminality.[2]

This alternative community is self-consciously Christian. Founded on the image of God in man and gathered as the church of Jesus Christ. [3] My Pastor, David Hegg, reminds the marginal church that fellowship among believers is first fellowship with Christ.[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer places the individuals relationship to God in Christ as the center post of biblical community. His classic words still ring true. “Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ.” And, “It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren.”[5] The Christian community comes together based on the commonality of Jesus Christ. Each individual finds grace through faith in the cross and then by instinct of the supernatural new birth, unites as one body with other believers in the church. The church has rediscovered her heritage as a communal people, seemingly prompted by a similar discovering in culture.

Professor Stan Grenz sees the tie between community and place as an intrinsic characteristic of the church. The church contextualizes the gospel of Jesus Christ in a particular place to a particular people in a particular time. “Our gospel,” he contends, “must address the human person within the context of the communities in which people are embedded.”[6] Jim Henderson argues that this connecting is evangelism.[7] His point is very well made. Evangelism takes place when the gospel message is embodied by the believing community in such a way that it is heard and believed by the surrounding neighbors.

Weber envisions local churches as customizing their ministries to their communities.[8] This trend brings hope to the uniquely Christian alternative community called the church. At one time, that great observer of communities of people and place Wendell Berry critiqued the North American church because he saw clearly that they don’t concern themselves with local issues.[9] That assessment finds its mark in less and less churches every day.

Guder et al in the Gospel and our Culture Network present the church as sitting between the gospel and the specific culture: “We cannot escape the reality of place, nor should we, and the fact that creation locates us contextually has important implications for leadership… The structures of the church are to incarnate its message in its setting.”[10] Rex Miller understands the vital role of the leader in community. “The soil for community comes from the church's vital relationships, initiated by the example of leadership.”[11]

What kind of leadership has arisen in the church during the liminal transition? That's a question for the next post.

[1] Weber, The Younger Evangelicals, 51.
[2] Roxburgh, The Missionary Congregation, Leadership, and Liminality, 49.
[3] We are inseparably communal creatures. Clapp, Peculiar People, 194. We are created for companionship with God and man but have become estranged by the fall. Gary Inrig, Quality Friendship, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1988), 16.
[4] David Hegg, “All Things in Common: The Pastoral Role in Building Real Fellowship,” in Reforming Pastoral Ministry, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2001), 188.
[5] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1954), 20, 21.
[6] Grenz, Primer on Postmodernism, 169.
[7] Jim Henderson, AKA Lost, (Colorado Springs: WaterBrook Press, 2005), 32.
[8] Weber, The Younger Evangelicals, 149.
[9] Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community, 152.
[10] Guder, Missional Church, 189.
[11] Miller, Millennium Matrix, 197.

Labels: church, community, gospel, Jesus, leadership