Do ‘relational’ Apostolic teams really evidence robust accountability? Here’s how they might.

Apostolic oversight groups (created ostensibly to provide ‘accountability’ to others) who don’t create policy documents to govern their own behaviour and enable evaluation by the wider church…may in so doing reveal that they aren’t themselves seeking to be truly accountable.

 

BUT: Policy (+Holy Spirit and relationship) = mutual accountability = godly and objective evaluation = the potential of a Spirit led, nimble and growing organisation.

 

Without clear policy, the question that such groups are happy with just the semblance of accountability for themselves remains. Without clear policy, and the public commitment to implementable direction it brings, they usually fall back to operating merely as pastoral support groups for leaders who need to somewhere to turn outside their own small neck of the woods. Not, in other words, as true apostolic teams.

 

One of the first things a truly trustworthy and accountable leadership group will do is create publicly available policy which enables people to see transparently how their own performance, relational choices and actions can be evaluated (goals and steps). Then, to reveal how they intend to evaluate progress. And then to regularly implement that evaluation and to publish the results of that evaluation. Why would an organisation seeking to implement biblical imperatives of mutual accountability not do this?  Every other secular organisation does. And yet many independent and baptistic churches and groupings can ignore this vital function altogether.

Yes, it requires money and time to be put into good governance. And even the creation of a specific role to ensure ownership of the commitment. But it’s worth it!

 

‘Relationshipism’ can be as destructive as institutionalism: Covenant as a biblical theology of the need for good policy and good relationships.

The resistance to creating policy is a result of anti-institutional thinking, which is a Gnostic heresy and ultimately a rejection of the Word. ‘Relationship’ is elevated over ‘covenant’ theologically…”it’s all about relationships” becomes a sacrosanct principle…as if good relationships can exist without submission to the Ten Commandments, the commands of Christ and the Haustafeln (which are all policies, if you will – scriptural policies). Feelings and instinct take over; emotions and ‘keeping hold of the relationship’ become the controlling factor in decisions about discipleship and direction. This is in opposition to Christ (Luke 8:21).

When relationship is idolised rather than covenant, nepotism and rudderless lack of traction result. When relationship is idolised rather than covenant, engaging as a change agent becomes threatening because no routine and mutually agreed systems are in place to legitimately offer new ideas…and the conversation is always treated as being a personal attack.  When relationship is idolised, what really happens is that relationships internal to the church are prioritised, but relationships outside the church are devalued.

The idolisation of relationships over institution (“relationshipism” or “nepotism”) is as deadly to church life as the idolisation of institution over relationships (“institutionalism”). Covenant is the biblical concept and theology that places the two in healthy – and continually evaluated – dialogue.

I am not saying that organisational policy is as important as the Ten Commandments. But it is the natural contextual outworking of a well-functioning church, given the relational model…covenant…that scripture models. Ignoring the principle of policy is to ignore the template of scripture for the flourishing of our relational life together.

Evaluation as a time of celebration and lamentation = healthy contemplative spirituality.

How does this evaluation happen in scripture?  One way is through regularly repeated days of communal celebration and remembrance…annual feasts…the biblical mode of evaluating covenant. These feast days have also been sidelined in independent circles. We have embraced the idea of being accountable to scripture for our personal lives, but rejected the mode and even the ethos of being accountable to scripture for our organisational lives together. Could we re-institute these feast days as creative ways to evaluate our lives together?  And weave in robust organisational feedback and evaluation processes?  This might release powerful practices of celebration and lamentation as we respond to the work of God in the world…and us.

 

How can organisational change happen when we don’t have robust evaluation?

In the long-term, how can change-agents (and the whole body can and should be legitimised as change agents) bring legitimate change to an organisation without a consensual, publicly-owned baseline written policy, with aims, objectives  and budget goals? And the ability to honestly assess these against the true needs of the day? Such institutional practices are healthy. Otherwise, all is but conjecture, half-remembered organisational memory, guess-work and instinct. Works for some personality types in leadership…but not for effective body-mobilisation. Not for the purposive life of the People of God outlined in scripture to be light to the nations.

Without concrete policies to govern their own behaviour, those who provide oversight cannot be mutually accountable to the wider church, because there is no formal mechanism for evaluation of their work or the future needs of the organisation. This in turn makes it almost impossible to bring change to the system. Nice and safe for the overseers! But potentially a great recipe for us all to end up stuck under the pomegranate tree.

 

How do the trustees or congregation of an independent church with spiritual authority vested in leaders that do the same thing (well) for 20 years supposed to encourage those leaders to change if they don’t want to, or don’t see the need, or don’t have the gifting, even if for the benefit of the wider system? Only if those leaders have had the humility to put in place evaluation processes that might eventually see the need for their role and office to be less privileged. To suggest that someone’s calling and presence (or even performance) maybe doesn’t need to be as strongly privileged for the next season is considered the ultimate anti-relational move. Ironically, when the crisis becomes acute, the relational damage caused by such ostensibly pro-relational practice is often devastating (church splits, leaders ‘shunted out’, up-and-coming leaders not given space to express their gifts etc).

 

Is the lack of evaluation linked to leadership personalities and the elevation of particular offices?

The following is only an argument to privilege all the the offices equally, not to denigrate the pastoral gift.

 

Certain personality types often strongly drawn to (and over-represented in) pastoral ministry are often the most averse to developing policy, which they mis-portray as tedious admin and institutionalism. In fact, it is a critically important and life-giving function of organisational pastoral care which, done well, can avoid any number of individual pastoral disasters which leaders otherwise spend huge amounts of time clearing up. How much of our workload of pastoral care is in fact created by the very people who deliver that work because they avoid the very structural, discipleship and systems work that would create cultures where their work is far less required?

 

In this sense, we may have a system run by pastors that, in the dysfunctionality they themselves create by avoiding good systems practice, creates the conditions whereby they themselves are needed.  Pastors always see more pastoral care as the most important thing.

 

Could it be that by finally privileging other ministries as highly, and by creating functional systems and policies, we might find a tangential benefit overall (from a pastoral perspective) as the root causes of the damage are addressed? Rather than merely privileging those who relieve the symptoms? If we actually grow churches rather than merely pastoring them, will we avoid all the pastoral damage of churches in decline that seem to so require pastors to care for them?

 

Interestingly, the pastoral office remains the most structurally privileged and rewarded of the 5-fold ministries of almost every denomination in Scotland (Christendom mindset), apart from maybe the Pentecostals…who have gone further than anyone to encode 5-fold systemically. And who are the only denomination that are growing, and are experiencing the pastoral and morale benefits of this experience.

 

Equations for healthy and unhealthy organisations

Policy (+Holy Spirit and relationships) = mutual accountability = godly and objective evaluation = the potential of a nimble and growing organisation = faithful reflection of covenantal theology.

 

BUT: lack of policy = no true accountability to the whole body = no godly objective evaluation = static, risk-averse, ‘relational’ but rarely covenantal or dynamic organisations = idolatry of relationships (relationshipism).

Christ’s blessing to pioneers: “you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God”

“You will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God.” Whether or not your denomination does.

Some words of blessing from Jesus (who quoted this passage in the gospels) for pioneers or former pioneers who have been marginalised or let down as they have pursued their calling. From Isaiah 61 (NIV): You may be brokenhearted, captive, imprisoned, mourning, in despair or covered in ashes. But imagine yourself as the broken-hearted in this passage and allow Christ to speak these words to your heart:

1 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,

because the Lord has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives

and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]

2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

and the day of vengeance of our God,

to comfort all who mourn,

3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—

to bestow on them a crown of beauty

instead of ashes,

the oil of joy

instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise

instead of a spirit of despair.

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

a planting of the Lord

for the display of his splendor.

4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins

and restore the places long devastated;

they will renew the ruined cities

that have been devastated for generations.

5 Strangers will shepherd your flocks;

foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.

6 And you will be called priests of the Lord,

you will be named ministers of our God.

You will feed on the wealth of nations,

and in their riches you will boast.

7 Instead of your shame

you will receive a double portion,

and instead of disgrace

you will rejoice in your inheritance.

And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,

and everlasting joy will be yours.

8 “For I, the Lord, love justice;

I hate robbery and wrongdoing.

In my faithfulness I will reward my people

and make an everlasting covenant with them.

9 Their descendants will be known among the nations

and their offspring among the peoples.

All who see them will acknowledge

that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”

10 I delight greatly in the Lord;

my soul rejoices in my God.

For he has clothed me with garments of salvation

and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,

as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,

and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up

and a garden causes seeds to grow,

so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness

and praise spring up before all nations.

“you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God.” Whether or not your denomination does”I hate robbery and wrongdoing” even pioneers who are robbed of the structural support and income that is appropriate for them.

“your descendents will be known among the nations” – the people who you have faithfully led to faith in new contexts.

“instead of disgrace, you will rejoice in your inheritance” – your shame and marginalisation will be lifted.

Church planting and the structural causes of bitterness.

A timely blog post from Alan MacWilliam: Creating a Movement of Churches that Plant Churches: “Most church planters are serial spiritual entrepreneurs who have the ability to plant again and again. However, we are not yet seeing the release of gifted pioneers to plant multiple new churches. In Scotland we need our church planters to be released and encouraged to plant lots more churches.”

Of course, in many cases we are not yet even seeing pioneers being resourced to plant their FIRST church and so don’t start. Then, we must observe how few pioneers manage to complete a church plant without being undermined from within their own denominations for structural reasons…often damaging said pioneer for years even if they even do later get back into a pioneering role. Then we get to Alan’s comments, about which I observe what can only be called ‘institutional insanity’ around the number and nature of the structural barriers in place that actively prevent pioneers from replicating their hard-won experience and knowledge.

The barriers are different in different denominations, and I may well write a blog about this in detail later. But for now we should observe how few, even successful pioneers, are choosing to plant again. I don’t think that’s primarily because they are lazy or seeking comfort (an approach that focusses on imagined or perceived personal failings). I think that it’s primarily because the wider church is not taking responsibility for supporting them even if they have fought through to make a success of their first plant (taking a structural viewpoint). Why on earth would anyone be mad enough to do it again (or indeed would a compassionate God call such people to be so structurally mistreated again) when the impediments, stresses and barriers have proved so intractable and undermining the first time around? Everything from finance to recruitment to legacy church leaders dissauding people against this or that approach to reactive non-support from denominational structures….and that’s not even adding in contextual stressors and the usual pastoral issues that arise in any church.

I have many friends with proven pioneering capability who have either 1) returned to roles within the legacy church system (effectively bolstering its strength) because, understandably, they need paid work which continues to only be framed and framed in these dimensions. Or 2) returned to the workplace and are applying their talents to roles not directly connected to the church (starting businesses, doing community development etc). Or 3) find roles in para-church (for want of a better term) entities say working for justice issues and mobilising legacy churches towards this. Or 4) simply disconnected from church altogether. There can be good and meaningful fruit from most of these, and I am not disrespecting that. However, the goal of pioneering new congregations suffers badly in all of these scenarios.

Hebrews 12:15 “See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” We have a system that seems custom designed to engender bitterness among those God is calling to pioneer new churches, even those few who make it past their first plant. And the wider church seems willing, like Esau, to give up its inheritance rights (to fruitfulness in this area) for the sake of a bowl of pottage (by at least doing ‘no harm’ and trying to keep existing congregations afloat). Note, however, that this passage is an open letter to an entire congregation. Most often leaders will take this apply it to individual pioneers (or congregational members) who have become bitter and encourage them to change (a personalist approach)…as if it is their personal being and psychology that is the ‘problem’ to be solved “because no system is perfect”…and because legacy structures basically don’t want to take responsibility for the damage they are wrecking.

But the passage also suggests a corporate interpretation (structural lens). This reading would look something like: “See to it that you (plural, the local church and the wider church) don’t create and sustain systems and structures that deliberately and methodically force people to fall short of the grace that God has for them in the calling he has called them to. Make sure you don’t create or neglectfully forget about institutional structures and processes in such a way that bitterness of heart will be the inevitable outcome for those that God is calling to operate in particular ways. To do so will cause trouble for them, the wider church, and the people that our missionary God is trying to reach.” Read this way, we see that the wider church has as much (if not more?) responsibility for the seeding of bitterness among those of this generation that God is calling to pioneer.

Why do we routinely condemn and marginalise pioneers who raise these questions or who are broken by their experiences, rather than address the profound systemic failings of the systems that are deeply implicated in causing the damage in the first place?

How can we prevent a culture of ‘lone-ranger’ pioneering? The answer may not be what you expect…

In his latest blog post, Alastair McIndoe writes “I say strongly that pioneers should not and must not be seen by others, or see themselves, as ‘lone rangers’.” How can we ensure this?

Last weekend at a church weekend away I was able to catch up a little with Alistair, the current Tutor in Pioneer Ministry at Scottish School for Christian Mission, so I was intrigued to read this latest in a series of interesting articles through the SCCM blog outlining his vision for pioneer ministry.  I agree with this statement very much and would like to take it further with some of my thoughts, especially about the idea that pioneers “must not be seen by others…as lone rangers.” [The other side of the coin, however, is equally important]. Theologically, the jargon word used to describe the field in which this discussion takes place is ‘catholicity’: the part of thinking about church which deals with how local churches and members relate to the wider universal church.  This can include how pioneering leaders and their teams/churches relate to sending churches and/or their denominations.

Jonathon, Saul, and ‘lone-ranger’ pioneering.

I think that a great danger with regards to pioneering ministry in Scotland today is that we create an culture whereby ‘lone-ranger’ pioneering becomes an inescapable experience for pioneers if they act on a calling to pioneer. Whatever their desires might be in the matter. For my best current assessment of the limits of contemporary resourcing for pioneering mission from a denominational perspective, see here (about half way down the page) (this is an admittedly limited view with my limited resources, but it paints a general trend of underinvestment…any additional info gratefully received). It is fairly straight forward to see that pioneering resourced by the church is a luxury available to only a very few, despite the growing awareness in this current climate of the need for such leadership.

A biblical example of this might be seen in the story of Jonathon and the Armour Bearer (1 Sam 13/14). Because of the environment created by Saul, his son Jonathon is forced to be a ‘lone-ranger’ in order to be faithful to his call from God. In what sense a ‘lone-ranger’?  He works within God’s purposes and call, invites other faithful people into community, lives out of a sound tradition of conviction about the nature and character of God, and later faithfully ushers in the next generation of leaders (David).  He is not a ‘lone-ranger’ in any of these ways. Most pioneers I know of in Scotland fall into this category.

Instead, Jonathon is forced into a position that looks like being a lone-ranger from the perspective of the centre (the court around Saul), precisely because the centre creates the conditions whereby there is no other way in which Jonathon can act in order to be faithful to God.  He acts the way he does because he knows that the centre, with its insecure leadership and unfaithful passivity under the pomegranate tree, will bestow neither trust nor resources upon him to do the work of God that he (and in fact the whole people of God) are called to. We can be fairly certain that Jonathon would have prefered not to face the Philistines with just an armour-bearer. But he has no choice. Sadly, I know just as many pioneers in Scotland today who fall in this category.

Living out of paralysis and insecurity, those with power, resources and authority among the people of God create the conditions whereby Jonathon’s faithful pioneering efforts must perforce operate at the limits of both personal security and official endorsement. They cause him to have to embrace a ‘lone-ranger’ posture because of their unfaithfulness. Even if he would want it another way, he has no choice in the matter. They want a solution to materialise, but they aren’t prepared to relationally trust and materially resource those who are called to be the solution. Insecure leadership at the centre undermines the mission of God in the world and prevents a truly communal and relational response to the pressing issues of the day. The catholicity of the people of God’s response is undermined, and the appropriate relational and structural chain of support is broken. Saul is consumed with self-doubt and fear of lack of resources. Jonathon is effectively left to his own devices.

Jonathon’s success is therefore not a success for those under the pomegranate tree. God makes it a success for His glory, but not in the way that I think He would want…inclusive of the whole of his people. In his willingness to embrace the vulnerability of community and risk, and the miracle that emerges, Jonathon’s story in fact becomes a rebuke to existing leadership in their unfaithfulness. In Saul’s favour, however, at least he invested in his son enough in the first place that Jonathon had the courage to strike out. And at least Saul has the gumption to mobilise fully once Jonathon has established breakthrough as a result of his pioneering. Sometimes not even these are evident in the Scottish church today.

The consequences of creating a culture where the only option is lone-ranger pioneering.

If denominations and sending churches create and sustain conditions in which pioneers have as little access to positive collaboration in their initiatives as Jonathon had, if they either don’t trust or don’t resource (or both) the very people who they are desperately hoping will provide a solution, then they are forcing such people to be seen as lone-rangers and to have to operate as such (with all the negative consequences that may entail).  What might those consequences be?

1. Diminishing returns on spiritual authority. A culture such as the one outlined above can force pioneers to become so overly self-reliant (read: reliant on God and their armour-bearers without the support of the rest of those who claim to follow Him) that they begin to look more for leadership towards others who are prepared to embrace that same sacrificial journey.  It is after this episode, I believe, that Jonathon begins to think about who the next king will be, and how to support him (i.e. David, not his father). The incongruity of having to work out solutions without the support of those who instead reserve resources to themselves leads pioneers inevitably to question the appropriateness of such a stance. I believe that gatekeepers and permission-givers in Scotland today, if they want to rest well within their spiritual authority, are called to do one of two things. Either 1) to enter into as vulnerable a financial place as they are calling pioneers to inhabit, sharing resources and even their own personal salaries equitably or 2) to work hard on behalf of those they are calling to pioneer to enable them to access the same level of personal security they enjoy. I have seen examples of both, but they are few and far between. Usually the call, permission and mentoring is present.  But not concrete resourcing…those resources are reserved for the gatekeepers and their congregations themselves. It will be untenable in the long-run, however, for those with authority to call call pioneers to resourcelessness even as they themselves enjoy the fruit of the labour of God’s people.
2. There is unavoidable risk, and there is unnecessary risk. Such a culture can force our children to have to take unnecessarily high risks as they strike out in new forms of mission. In pioneering, some risk is unavoidable. But why create conditions where unnecessary risk needs to be embraced? God proved himself through and to Jonathon, but the process was one of redeeming unfaithfulness through the great sacrifice of two men, rather than working redemption through the collaborative faithfulness of the wider people of God. Minimising individual risk and sacrifice for pioneers who are already taking on huge uncertainties is the most loving and relational thing we can do. Insecure leadership at the comfortable centre forces the price for extending God’s mission to be paid by the next generation…often our own children who we love dearly! This is profoundly unrelational. Does anxiety for ourselves trump our love for our own children who must take the battle forward?  As in the parable of the talents, if we make fear rather than love our God we ourselves will be fruitless. But additionally, we learn from 1 Sam 14, we make it a far more sacrificial process for our loved ones coming through than it would otherwise need to be.

   For full-time paid existing and pioneer church leaders to lay hands on and commission in prayer nascent church plants led by volunteer leaders and not then find mechanisms to redistribute financial and other resources to them seems counter to the nature of the very Spirit invoked in the commissioning prayers. Similarly, Is it appropriate to get the next generation of people to pay for their training for God’s mission, if the subsequent resources to carry it out (including good paid work) are not available? This could be seen as cannibalising behaviour. The opposite of kingdom generosity. Of course training is appropriate, and of course it is appropriate to be paid as trainers.  But the question is about what situation are we training people into? We are all called to proactive faithful action to resource pioneers, not just pioneers themselves. We learn from Paul’s rebuke of the Corinthians that churches are called to proactively offer money to pioneers and set up structured means to do so, not passively respond to depositions and furlough trips. In the contemporary scene, self-financing teams are the last resort in a context where the system has failed. They may be successful like Jonathon, but that just reveals how much the system needs to be reformed.  I worry when I see the system adapting to promote and benefit from the sacrifice of pioneers so that others may remain in comfort. Self-funding pioneers can become merely a way for denominations to do mission more cheaply.  It would be toxic were this to happen. Denominational budgets should not be subsidised by the excessive sacrifice of pioneers. For more on this, go here.

How can churches and denominations prevent a culture of lone-ranger pioneering? Change starts with ourselves…meaning we can begin to sacrificially trust and resource our pioneers. Financially and otherwise.

Even if our denominations and sending churches go beyond Saul and proactively call, give permission to and train our Jonathons, we fall short if we nevertheless hoard resources and do not sacrificially participate. Calling, permitting and training are not enough…we must resource, honour and recompense our pioneers (especially leaders) as much as we like to be resourced, honoured and recompensed ourselves. I believe this is the commandment of Christ applied to this particular ethical issue. We must ask hard questions of ourselves and our denominations, and generate what many may experience as painful (read sacrificial) changes of expectations.

In summary

There is huge work in the process of recruiting, deploying and financially resourcing pioneering enterprises. It is a privilege to be able to contribute. God calls us not to place the burden of that weight on the pioneers themselves, who already have a heavy enough load to carry themselves (Galatians 6:1-6). Instead he calls us to share that burden. He calls us not to hoard resources and reserve our trust to those within the shade of our pomegranate trees, but to emerge and resource generously from those places with the same faith and trust that our pioneer leaders display.  I believe that means proactively creating concrete structural redistribution and trust-filled, value-based modes of evaluation for our pioneers.  Given the sacrifices our Jonathons make, that seems the least they should be able to expect from us. If we don’t, their (inevitable, providentially) breakthroughs will not be credited to us, they themselves will face a much harder task, and God’s will that mission include the whole people of God coming to maturity and experiencing the joy of partnering with him as he reveals his deliverance will be thwarted. Lets not let insecurity and anxiety rob us as we sit comfortably beneath the pomegranate tree. Let’s not create a culture where lone-ranger pioneering is inescapable.

A big thanks to Alistair for the prompt in his post to think in these terms about how to stop forcing pioneers into a ‘lone-ranger’ identity and posture.

 

Weaning ourselves off the “opiate of middle-class consumer evangelicalism”. 21 concrete suggestions.

“Perhaps we now need to ask whether some forms of evangelical religion in consumer societies have come to function as an opium of the middle classes.” David Smith, Liberating the Gospel p188. [Full quote at the end of this piece].

Recently a thread emerged on my Facebook page in response to this quote by esteemed pastor-theologian David Smith. One friend asked a great question: “exactly what would you like to see ‘middle class’ or ‘suburban’ churches do more of? What does ‘radical’ look like – personally or collectively?” I responded of the top of my head with 21 responses. My friend kindly said: “These are great (and challenging)! Another reason you should write a book or develop a ‘toolkit’ for churches?” Well, whatever happens, I would say that I am always open to be invited to speak with church leadership teams and denominational leaders as to how to equip them to implement concrete strategies in these areas.  Here are 21 concrete ideas for action for any church who would like to become more radical in their commitment:

1. Create a culture whereby it is normal for every member of the church to have at least one long term friendship with someone on benefits or at the margins (refugees etc). Make this as normal as having a mother’s and tots ministry or a student ministry. Mediating our mission through professional relationships is not enough – this will also enable the poor to serve and love suburban church goers as friends. Recognise that generosity can stop with our tribe and class in relatively easy to create bonding social capital.  A more radical and harder approach is to be generous across boundaries with those we fear (Anne Morisy’s brave social capital).
2. Develop cultures in which prophetic action on behalf of the marginalised has as much attention and resource devoted to it as serving the poor. The overwhelming culture in the UK church is to serve the poor (sustaining the power relationships) not change the system (CAP, Food Banks etc etc). All good, but not enough.
3. Proactively encourage members, if they have to commute rather than live in the immediate ‘parish’, to commute from living in poor areas not rich ones. The location of our homes makes all the difference.Why mortgage ourselves to the hilt to have a nice home when we can live in deprived areas and get debt free quickly and serve God more effectively?
4. Promote sensitive contextualized church planting in poor areas and resource it, or establish at least one formal two way partnership with a church in a poor area and invest as heavily into that as we do into overseas mission. Figure out where innovative church planting among the poor is happening and give sustained funding to struggling or unpaid/bivoc church planters and workers. Resource church planting as much as (more than?) mere Christian community development (which can be resourced by the 3rd sector, while the previous isn’t).
5. Send our kids on mission to the estate down the road not just to a foreign country for a month so that they are sensitised to poverty on their doorstep.
6. Ensure equality of access to mission events like Soul Survivor with a proactive bursary system for teenagers from poorer areas.
7. Develop means to make our services welcoming to the poor with appropriate cross cultural training for our congregations.
8. Teach that our kids are not any more special in God’s eyes than the poor kids and their struggling families, who we studiously avoid when we choose to live in a nice area to raise our young.
9. Disinvest in our own pastoral care and leadership so as to promote fair redistribution for mission among the poor. Wean ourselves off addiction to full time leadership which sadly often structurally minimises our capacity to reach out beyond ourselves. More in point 2 here.
10. Repent and lament of the breakdown and divisions in society which put us in privilege and others at the margins.  Make this part of sung Sunday worship for a season along with the stories of Jeremiah and Nehemiah as example of commitment to restore at-risk communities, rather than ignore them.
11. Promote business ethics that lead us to develop intern programmes in our businesses for folks at the margins. Consider investing as a church in a start-up business in a deprived area.
12. When preaching sermons be careful to cut out or explain jargon words.
13. Proactively form partnerships with incarnational mission agencies among the poor allowing them to recruit and raise funds from your church. More in point 1 here.
14. Appoint folk from working class and marginal backgrounds to your leadership team to deliberately cultivate multi-cultural church. If you can’t find anyone like that in your church ask why and start making changes.
15. Assess the actual needs of our local community and city and observe the ways that syncretism with historic patterns of home location and city-design lock local churches into agglomerations of multiple-sectarian planting in wealthy areas and minimal resourcing and presence in poorer areas. And then choose embrace a strategy of presence and mission that challenges the status quo.
16. Bathe ourselves in the Christ of the gospels who chose to operate from the margins to challenge the system, not work within the establishment to maintain the system.
17. Develop a missionary pattern of worship rather than a gathered Temple pattern of worship so that missional culture (foregrounding mission among the poor) becomes embedded in our spirituality in home mission as well as overseas mission.
18. Stop uncritically choosing to send missionaries abroad if we do send them. A new age has dawned where European Christendom is truly the needy ‘heart of darkness’. Instead sponsor foreign missionaries to come and work here with a strategy of starting with the poor not the powerful and train them in cross-cultural mission…or deploy the bulk of our sending resources to re-evangelise the UK.
19. Ensure that folks who come to faith in disadvantaged areas aren’t civilised to serve in middle-class culture (former drug dealers invited to middle class evangelistic outreach) but instead resourced to keep reaching neighbours and friends in their own communities.
20. Focus as much on ministry among communities where prisoners are released to as opposed to drop-in and chaplaincy mission to prisons…relational, long-term throughcare ministry.
21. Valorise and resource incarnational-relational ministries focussing on preventing family breakdown as much as adopting children out of these communities.

 

Full quote from David Smith’s book, Liberating the Gospel. p188 

“When in nineteenth century Britain the industrial revolution created a deeply divided society, Karl Marx famously described religion as the ‘opium of the people’. In offering the poor and oppressed the hope of compensation in heaven, it provided comfort, while at the same time inculcating passivity and submission to the existing social order, so closing off the political action required to change this world. The criticism was only partially valid then and does not apply to many poor believers in the global South today, but perhaps we now need to ask whether some forms of evangelical religion in consumer societies have come to function as an opium of the middle classes. To judge from the lyrics of songs sung in churches across the Western world, the whole drama of the incarnation, of cross and resurrection, was designed to meet individual’s needs for comfort and reassurance. The suffering of humankind which lies outside these sealed bubbles of devotion, to say nothing of the created world threatened by human greed, might as well not exist at all. Is the spiritual distress voiced in such worship, the desperate need for personal peace, the outcome of the unbearable tensions which are the inevitable result of attempting to ‘serve two masters’?”

The Parable of the Talents…Why do churches and denominations bury their resources and become stuck?

Rereading the parable of the talents this weekend, I was reminded again how our fruitfulness in the Kingdom is more dependent on our view of God (and relationship with him) than anything else. Today, Fred Drummond asked on FB: “Sitting on the London train thinking about passive and active Christianity. How can we create a culture where the expectations are that churches plant churches and disciples make disciples? I am open to lots of suggestions.”  A great prompt for my thoughts. There are many structural reasons for this (see some suggestions for change here).  But there are also theological ones, as my good friend Ben Thorp has challenged me to remember! Here are some ideas/suggestions from both missional and pastoral angles.

In this reading, the man with one talent represents passive, stuck Christianity/churches/disciples. The ones with 2/5 represents energised, active disciples. What makes the difference?

The ultimate issue seems to be the servants different views of the character of their master.

The passive servant has this view: “‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid.” Where we find passivity, we find a wrong view of God and therefore a distorted relationship with him. More than this…his view of the master causes him to adopt similar practices in his own life…”harvesting what they have haven’t sown.”  We see this in churches too…churches that subsist and survive by harvesting what they have haven’t sown.  This parasitic, even cannibalistic behaviour marks out passive Christianity.  Transfer growth creates some measure of sustainability but never real multiplication and never transformative, creative mission.  An example might be student-oriented churches that cycle through “people they harvest but have not sown for” as each year a new influx of already-Christians swell the ranks from other places.  There is a meaning and satisfaction in pastoring and teaching in such churches.  But many such churches don’t intentionally multiply beyond themselves. They get stuck. Sure, individual students touched by the ministry might strike out, unresourced and Jonathon-like (1 Sam 13/14), on their own. And even miraculously see breakthrough and new things emerge. But the community itself is not energised in this manner. Underlying this, the parable might suggest, is a distorted view of God and a distorted view of where his resources come from and are to be used for.

What’s the alternative? If we want to be active servants who pour out and reap a missional harvest, we must learn about, experience, trust and live into the reality that the master is one who really will ultimately reward us and invite us into happiness. If we lose site of who Christ is, if we don’t come to be captured by his goodness and generosity with all our heart (or we lose this deep knowledge), if we live by fear (which is ultimately to make God a god of fear), then we will not be fruitful, we will not engage, we will bury our treasures (gifts, resources, time, best people, heart) and be unfruitful.

Lessons for mission

Churches who truly grasp the goodness, generosity and trustworthiness of God will pour themselves out for others…not just the generosity that creates bonding social capital with those like us ‘under the pomegranate tree’ (Saul in 1 Sam 13/14), but the generosity that links us with the other we fear (brave social capital) and constructs and supports new cross-cultural communities of faith.

Many churches, often the larger, “suburbanite”, commuter churches end up satisfied by being generous within their own four walls, or at best reaching out to people like themselves.  This is a kind of selfish generosity, an comparatively easy-to-practice bonding social capital, which involves loving those already with us “under the pomegranate tree” of affluence.  There is meaning here, but surely there is more?

I believe this deep knowledge of God’s goodness and generosity needs to begin with those in leadership positions. Especially those who find their decision-making with regards to missional discipleship and church planting shaped by negative influences: by fear of losing income/people, by hurt from past experiences, by being comfortable with the ministry we have within and to our own tribe. Such leaders tend to find all their reward and meaning in serving those already gathered, rather than orienting God’s people through example and deep energy to the needs of strangers (out of a heart overflowing with God’s generosity and kindness). Such was the close group of Israel’s great and good alongside Saul at Migron.

A pastoral lesson for pioneers and leaders

There may be totally understandable (and compassion-worthy) reasons for being so stuck. Often in leadership and as disciples (whether we have pioneered a new thing or taking on an existing job/role) we invest years and are very fruitful, but then become discouraged and cynical.  Our view of God changes from a god of generosity and kindness that energises us towards mission, to a God of fear and cynicism, which begins to undermine our capacity to keep bearing such fruit. Varieties of burnout…also especially common among pioneers. Leaders, disciples and churches hit this part of the cycle and enter a phase of barrenness, burying their gifts and resources…once so freely offered and fruitful.  What does this parable say to those who have been active but are now passive and stuck?  It offers a story of hope…”His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”  When we hit the end of a cycle of productivity, if we miss this invitation and don’t chose to enter into the masters joy, we will instinctively shy away. Just as if we were the servant who sees the master as ungenerous.

I wonder if denominations, churches, leaders and disciples who experience passivity and barrenness after rich seasons of fruitfulness have somehow missed or chosen not to enter into this invitation of joy for a season.  What might this invitation to experience the joy and satisfaction of the master look like?  Celebration, Sabbath, and a new call might each be an option…or all three! The latter may mean moving to a completely new ministry, or moving on from the old and changing vocation away from the church. Or possibly even moving to pioneer a new church! This can be hard to discern at the right time, because it takes sacrifice.  Too often, the choice to not “enter into joy” and move on leaves a leader embedded for years to come in the grind of a role for which they have lost passion. This may be rooted in a fear of God’s goodness and capacity to provide beyond the security and comfort of the paid leadership post already enjoyed.

Not entering into joy in the appropriate form, at the right time, then colours our capacity to chose fruitfulness for a new season. Leaders who stay in post unrenewed, or in spite of a new call to move on, can be especially prone to body-swerve new calls to count the cost and be fruitful (making more disciples, enabling more church planting), because they are actually living out of hurt, pain and joylessness.  An inward focus leaves us passive, ‘under the pomegranate tree’ like Saul in 1 Samuel 13/14…surrounded by our faithful hierarchy and secure in comfort but actually sheltering in fear.  This has massive impact because those coming behind and wanting to pioneer may all over again have to do so alone and with no resource back-up…just like Jonathon.  This is not a healthy life cycle.  Work needs to be done if as leaders we find ourselves stuck under the pomegranate tree of hurt, fear and shame like Saul, viewing God through a twisted lens that says he will not reward or offer joy in reward for continued faithful fruitfulness.

After a season of fruitfulness (including its pain) has come to an end, how can leaders truly enter into the joy of the Lord in order for that fruitfulness to continue?  Move on? Start afresh? Be truly healed but stay in post in a way that doesn’t block future growth?

Sobering ultimate consequences

I think this parable also has hard truths to offer to disciples and churches who operate out of a barren view of God and bury their resources so as to just keep what they have (whatever the cause of that position might be). There are ultimate consequences to adhering to this view, and scripture also doesn’t pull any punches about also sharing this element of Christ’ teaching. Following my reading above…we might paraphrase the following:

“whoever has [a right view of God] will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not [have a right view of God], even what they have will be taken from them.”   Matthew 25:29.

But also a powerful message of hope and encouragement:

If you have given much in an existing church or a pioneering role; or in business or a start-up enterprise;  or in the third sector; or in medicine…and are feeling the burn or have become used up…what would it look like for you to hear and then choose to enter our Masters invitation “into his joy?”

What should a pioneer leader’s salary and conditions look like?

Is the playing field level?

What should a pioneer leader’s salary and conditions look like in Scotland today?

Well, thanks to the CofS the bar has now been set.  They are offering 5 new pioneer posts (itself really just a token gesture – see my post here), but nevertheless something comparatively significant. Significant especially in giving a baseline definition to what a pioneer leader’s time is actually  worth, and what conditions they should be able to work under from the get-go. No matter what the denomination.

Here are three sample job descriptions and conditions sheets:

Ayr Farming Pioneer minister job_description |

Job_Description_Pioneer_Ministry_Stirling |

Pioneer_Minister_-_Hopefield

Now, I don’t advocate for full-time posts like these, but rather part-time posts (say 0.4 or 0.6 posts – 2 or 3 days a week). Partly because this multiplies the number of posts, partly because bi-vocational and other options offer alternative legitimate routes to reach a community, partly because we need to get away from over-clericalisation, and partly because in doing this we can challenge existing f/t settler ministers to go part-time and therefore increase the overall impact (see point 2 in this post). But the basic value and conditions being offered here provide an excellent pro-rata baseline even if a part-time option is pursued.

Looking beyond the denominational focus of the document, lets now use these to begin to define a template set of expectations for any pioneer leader in any denomination or sent from any church, both FT and PT (0.6) versions:

Salary: £40,000 per year, or £24,000 for 3 days a week pro-rata
Holidays: 36 days paid holiday a year (6 weeks + six public holidays), or 22 days pro-rata
Pension: Access to the generous CofS pension scheme
Study leave: Access to the Minister’s study leave scheme

What would it look like if potential pioneers in Scotland were to begin to use this package as a baseline of expectation for negotiating terms and conditions with their sending  organisations?  And unless a suitable, negotiated agreement is reached, to choose not to pioneer with that sending denomination.  James 5:4 “Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.”

At the moment, the default position is often: “I’m sorry, there is no money. If you accept little to no pay, no paid holidays, no pension arrangements, no paid study leave and no manse (or equivalent pay) we will agree to release you.  Or else, you can organise this yourself and fundraise for yourselves and that will also work.”

Should pioneers continue to accept the latter conditions, then inevitably denominations and sending churches will continue to take advantage of that willingness and self-sacrifice indefinitely.

Is it time for pioneers to band together in solidarity and begin to campaign for the ability to receive these conditions or negotiate a mutually agreeable package using this as a baseline?

An ecumenical gathering of pioneers in Scotland – October 2016

An ecumenical gathering of pioneers in Scotland is happening in October 2016 in Perth, called Bruadarach (“Dreamer or Visionary” in Gaelic, organised by Lesley-Ann Craddock, the Scottish Episcopal church’s sole pioneer missionary.  She is Pioneer Priest, & Priest in charge of St Oswald’s SEC, Castlemilk & Kings Park.

The flyer (Bruadarach – Ecumenical Pioneer Missionary conference) says:
Share your vision to build the kingdom an ecumenical space to share ideas and create networks for pioneering and fresh expressions of mission and ministry in Scotland.

£161 per person
Come and join the conversation
October Wed 26 – Thurs 27
Mercure Hotel, Perth
Inclusive of accommodation and catering

What the flyer says to expect:
This is the first pioneer gathering of its kind in Scotland.
Priests, minister and laity of all denominations are all welcome to “join in the conversation” as we explore new and innovative ways to mission in modern Scotland.

Our keynote speaker, Dr Ash Barker of the Newbigin House Community Trust, will be sharing his experiences before all delegates are invited to share their own stories.

A key aim of the conference is to create interest networks for those interested in particular areas of mission for future support and engagement. There will be time to pray, to speak, and to socialise in the beautiful surroundings of a mediaeval converted water mill.

The experience of pioneering has been like…part 5

Please read the introductory post here, part 2 here, part 3 here, and part 4 here

4. Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30)

The experience of pioneering in Scotland today has been like…watching the pioneering gifts and talents that God has given the church to steward at this time be buried in the ground rather than carefully tended so as to bear kingdom fruit.

Buried in the sense of not being released into profitable use. Suppressed by historical patterns of church life, ingrown pathways of structural financing, and training pathways antithetical to the flourishing of these particular gifts.  Suppressed by lack of energy and imagination, and a consumerist spirit in our churches. Buried in the sense that just when they are poised to make a breakthrough, pioneering initiatives are pulled by a wider church that feels threatened by the success that is emerging. Buried in the sense of being given permission, training and even mentoring but rarely the requisite trust and even more rarely the requisite capital to get off the starting blocks, let alone make a decent go of it over a number of years. Buried in the sense of being resented or marginalised for being agitators when they raise questions about resourcing, vision and implementation when it comes to this form of mission (Martin Robinson of Formission College once said that you can tell the maturity level of an organisation by how it responds to its agitators).

Instead of denominations and churches using these talents and seeing an abundance of fruit like the men who received five or three, in Scotland it seems that out of fear and an instinct for self-preservation (v.24-25) we prefer to shovel these gifts underground, push them to the margins, or force them to fulfil maintenance roles that constrict their God-given purpose. Peter Brierley, the church researcher, has demonstrated that some New Churches in England, the Anglican Fresh Expression initiative, and Black Minority churches have found ways to validate and fund these gifts – like the servant who is given three talents in the parable and is able to offer back fruit to his master.  Check out his research here as a pdf download. Why not in Scotland?

Denominations in Scotland continue to structure themselves economically in such a way that those who would otherwise pioneer have no option but to simply help an existing (mainstream) church innovate new growth into its own people group. This is done by only offering paid work in these roles, not pioneering.  It is also done by redirecting the energy and talent of pioneers away from front-line recruitment and deployment, towards the indirect ministry of propping-up denominational priorities of pastoral care and teaching. Either supporting struggling churches, or tending to the administration of yet more teaching conferences and ministerial (pastor-teacher) fraternals.

Doug Gay has talked about the need for four things to happen in the church in Scotland: close dying churches, transition shrinking ones to growth, helping healthy churches to grow, and planting new churches. At the moment the vast majority of resources go into the first three.  I am a passionate advocate for pioneering, not because the first three are less important, but because the church consistently puts the fourth last. I am passionate about pioneering because dedicated start-up small-team enterprises have been proven historically and biblically to be far more effective than existing modalities (local churches) in reaching cross-culturally beyond the existing ‘in crowd’.  That’s not to say that local churches don’t have a role in helping the fourth of Doug’s elements happen. Just that in post-Christendom Scotland merely trying to grow existing churches will never generate the required energy to create the kind of break-through cross-cultural mission that is needed for the future.

I have started putting a question to my friends who either a) have a pioneers calling and are aware that the only jobs out there involve taking up a post in an existing church, or b) have a pioneers calling and have already been forced to take up such a position for financial reasons. I ask them whether they would prefer to be paid to pioneer cross-culturally from scratch or help an existing church to grow. Invariably they are saying their passion and drive is for the former, if the money was there. Many are turning to chaplaincy as the closest thing to a missional post that is on offer. We are suppressing the potential of a generation to pioneer new church communities from scratch, even as we scramble to shore up the hemorrhaging of members from our legacy churches.

If we are not careful, we will see yet another generation pass by in which God-given talents for pioneering bear little fruit because the church buries those talents in the ground.

How can we elevate rather than bury our pioneers to enable concrete, sustained direct ministry…and then affirm them when they actually make it work? How can the energy of pioneers, if they are to be directed structurally, be put to use developing structures that benefit pioneering mission itself?  Instead of smothering the potential for future life from the get-go, how can we instead choose to self-sacrifice by dying to our existing mindsets and institutional life so that new life and institutions might emerge?

These are key questions to ask if we want to see a greater yield.

So what creative steps can we take to change this picture?  If you are interested in this, please read the following posts:

Towards a restructuring of the economics of pioneering mission in Scotland – part 1

Towards a restructuring of the economics of pioneering mission in Scotland – part 2

The reason I’m sharing these is to encourage more critical thinking around mission in Scotland and head-off the possibility that others behind me will have to face the same issues I have faced. I am often asked by potential pioneers coming behind, what are the issues you have faced that we will need to deal with?  Well, here they are…how can we raise our game as denominations and sending churches to better support pioneers?

 

The experience of pioneering has been like…part 4

Please read the introductory post here, part 2 here, part 3 here and part 5 here.

3. Peter and Cornelius (Acts 10, 11)

The experience of pioneering in Scotland today has been like…Peter taking the reputational and cultural risk of obeying the Spirit and reaching out to Cornelius, only to be scorned by the structural powers-that-be on returning to share about the good work of God.

When Peter returns to share about the turning point of Christian mission history and the outpouring of the Spirit on the Gentiles, those of the Jewish party initially accuse him of betraying their cultural religion, in part because they want to secure for themselves their privileged status in the ecclesial economy. In the scriptures, Peter is eventually received with open arms and affirmation by them, and they then commission him and restructure their thinking and resourcing to enable this type of cross-cultural mission to flourish.

But my experience in Scotland over the last 10 years has not by and large resembled this. The reception has not generally been frosty relationally (although it has also been that at times, especially when seeking to surface questions like I am now surfacing in this blog), but it has been resistant and exclusive with regards to the implications inherent in the minority report I have offered back to the centre. This cultural exclusivity hides among other things a desire to retain status and control despite the new thing God is doing, like the Jewish party. Resistance has at times been framed in theological terms: “the way they think theologically or their way of doing church is wrong, so I won’t support them.” In some cases there has been sabotage from large middle-class church leaders, either proactively by discouraging congregational members have indicated they want to join us, or passively by simply not offering support, space to recruit, or a proactive seeking of partnership.  And there have been instances where direct opposition towards church planting and pioneer mission itself has been publicly expressed from key leaders of large, well-to-do churches in my sector of the church. Mostly, though, the greatest issue seems to simply be a lack of energy and passion for this type of work.  This is partly because those who have the greatest influence (and pay) are pastor-teachers, not pioneers and apostles. Pioneering does not excite them or fire them up.  And instead their passions of caring and sharing prevail. I think it is also partly because they have been wounded or burned in the past (such as in the 90s push towards church planting), and have become cynical.

Meanwhile, making wider cultural adaptions at a denominational level, based on new learning and new moves of the Spirit, has been painfully (sinfully?) slow. For example, the defensiveness around the ongoing privileging of older, male, full-time modes of leadership for existing congregations in which the office (and therefore gifting) of pastor-teacher styles remains pronounced is hamstringing missional momentum. See the results of the recent Barna report for more on this (4/5ths of Scotland’s senior leaders are over 50 and 9/10ths are male). The effect of such a stance is actually to devalue the work of pioneers in preference of the status quo. Encouraging words may come from people’s lips and be written in denominational vision statements, but they echo back hollow from the cave of the mainstream’s financial fears.

My experience has been that cultural and structural self-interest and resistance undermines pioneering cross-cultural mission in Scotland today, in antithesis to the reasoned and spirit-filled response of Peter’s contemporaries.

Clay Church finances

Distinct from the thrust of this post, but for the sake of full disclosure re: Clay Church, it seems appropriate to share about our financial situation. While there has been no attempt to redistribute and support us systematically over the years, there have been four unsolicited small donations from Baptist churches, which were gratefully received. And, since beginning to talk publicly about the issues facing pioneers in Scotland last year, a large donation from an Episcopalian church and a generous in-kind gift from an independent church in Perth. All in, worth about £10,000 total over 10 years. There have also been individual, faithful donors giving smaller amounts in direct giving from outside the congregation. Some of our team have been funded through fundraising through their own relational networks. The rest of us work bivocationally, are supported by our partners or dedicate significant volunteer time.

All in, we currently spend around £12,000 a year on the work we do and have no employed staff – I myself have taken no salary for a decade. Most of our income is generated from within the congregation. As with all Scottish charities, full accounts are accessible on request and you can see our OSCR listing here. We now have a congregation of 30 (including children) and some significant ministries connecting us with our community.

Right now our congregational journey is in a very positive place, with new local people finding faith, strength and maturity of leadership, a growing core of mature and committed believers (both relocaters to Possil and remainers), a positive reputation in the community and a rootedness, profile and connectivity in the community that is exciting to be part of.  We are extremely grateful to God for this.

You can read more of our story in this post…and see our website here.

The reason I’m sharing these is to encourage more critical thinking around mission in Scotland and head-off the possibility that others behind me will have to face the same issues I have faced. I am often asked by potential pioneers coming behind, what are the issues you have faced that we will need to deal with?  Well, here they are…how can we raise our game as denominations and sending churches to better support pioneers?