Supernatural/Leadership/Learning

May 31, 2010

by Mike Breen

Aidan: So I’ve had a decent number of friends meet you at this point, mostly people who are in our community…probably 10 or so. And one of the things they always comment on is how easily both you and your team engage with the supernatural. Maybe it’s my more cynical nature, but I am HIGH skeptical of people when they step into that area. My mind goes straight to magic handkerchiefs, head slapping and lots of yelling. I’m starting to realize I shouldn’t reject the whole of the gift because of the package I’ve seen it wrapped in, but maybe you could talk about that a little today?

Mike: I think what we really want to believe is that the supernatural is quite normal. In fact, in Jesus’ worldview, the supernatural in-breaking wasn’t odd or out of the ordinary…that was normal.

So both in our interaction with the supernatural and how we present it to others, I think we do it just like Jesus did. He seemed to have this air of, “This stuff happens, it happens a lot, it’s just the way things are.”

Aidan: When you talk about it like that, I can almost picture Jesus shrugging his shoulders and just saying, “Yeah, it’s simply the way my Father operates. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

It reminds of the story in Mark 6 where Jesus has just fed the 5,000 and he is walking out on the water past his disciples in a boat, and it says his disciples “were amazed,” but this reaction was because their hearts were hardened…as if amazement was the wrong reaction! They failed to see that the supernatural (feeding of the 5,000 and then walking on water) is simply normal in God’s reality. It’s about as normal as popping popcorn.

Mike: Exactly. It’s not as if you’re amazed when the bag of popcorn pops. But the supernatural has become simply surprising for many of us.

Aidan: So how do you think we start to engage with that?

Mike: I think the key to the supernatural is to learn to listen to God’s voice. Learn how to listen and respond, and then learn how to teach others to do the same.

Paul really does say that we should yearn “especially for the gift of prophecy.”

Why does he say it?

He says it because he means it! It’s the most important thing to learn.

Think about it: On the day of Pentecost, everyone shows up and they are struck by the phenomenology of the situation. Wind. Fire. People they think are drunk.

But for Peter, what did he center on? People hearing the voice of God! This was the most important thing he comments on.

I often say it the birthright of every Christian to hear the voice of their Father.

Hearing the voice of your earthly father and responding to it is as normal as popping popcorn. The same can be true of our Heavenly Father.

I actually have a pretty simple way of getting into this:

1) Faith comes from hearing the word (That’s what Paul tell us in Romans)

2) We want more faith

3) We need more time in the word (the phrasebook of heaven) to hear our Father’s voice and build our faith

Aidan: I know we went further into how to hear God’s voice in a post a few weeks back, but can you go more into the idea that hearing God’s voice is legitimate?

Mike: I really believe Jesus  made it clear that we’d hear his voice after he left.

In one passage he talks about his sheep hearing his voice.

In another passage he talks about never leaving or forsaking his disciples.

In another, in the upper room, he says he is sending the Paraclete…translated Counselor or Comforter. Look…however you translate it, a counselor or comforter is speaking!

And for me, Leadership and Listening are inextricably connected.  If you’re learning to lead like Jesus, shouldn’t you be learning to listen to the Shepherd? We should be encouraging and teaching others to listen to the same Shepherd.

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MC’s & Established churches | Part 2

May 27, 2010

by Mike Breen

Aidan: So we’ve looked at two ways established or attractional churches can begin to transition people in their congregation to Missional Communities. What other things have you seen work?

Mike: Well we looked at those for two, the third attaches itself to the 2nd.

3) Fill out newcomer connection cards in the service.

But give these cards to a particular MC and have them go and visit.

Just go to their house, knock on the door, say your from the _____ MC at the church, and you just wanted to personally welcome them and say how excited you are they came.

We’d often times bring them a pizza or a pie.

The quicker you visit someone, the more likely you are to have them come and belong. Who wouldn’t want to join? You have people so willing to engage with them they will go to your house to say, “Thanks for coming.”

Aidan: I remember reading statistics a few years ago that were pretty astounding.

It was something to the effect of:

1) 92% of people will come back to your church a second time if you call them within 24 hours of them visiting.

2) 97% of people will come back to your church a second time if you visit them at their house within 48 hours.

It’s always made me think…why aren’t we calling and visiting a lot more?!

Mike: Yeah, I’ve read those and to be honest, the statistics are staggering. And I have seen those things actually work in the churches I’ve led. It actually works.

Aidan: So what is the 4th idea you’ve got?

Mike: Right!

4) Have a Welcome Lounge run by the MC. We’d regularly say, “If you’ve been here less than 3 weeks, we have one of our Missional Communities in the Welcome Lounge, and we’d love to meet you and answer any questions you have.” You see, by this time they’ve heard about MC’s and probably are at least vaguely interested and probably have some questions. I’ve seen this have a massive effect on people’s lives. It sounds so simple, right? But people get to see normal, regular people answer their questions and then talk about their Missional Community. It’s an incredibly easy way to help people into Missional Communities.

Aidan: And from my experience, it would seem to help out a lot with volunteers. You’re not having to constantly scramble and put teams together for the Welcome Team, Ushers, Greeters, Lounge Team, etc. A Missional Community could simply be assigned for that weekend.

Mike: And the funny thing is that MC”s will be fighting for this opportunity. It’s so easy and it yields excellent fruit because we would always say, “All the fish you catch, you keep.” So all the MC’s are wanting to do it so they can do an easy OUT.

Aidan: So what would be your last idea?

Mike: Pretty simple, again.

5) Run a MC Fair. I’ve seen a lot of churches do this for local organizations like the Red Cross or a homeless shelter or soup kitchen…the organizations come in and you can sign up for the one you’re interested in.

Same concept…preach on Missional Community life, the need for us to be creating spiritual households that are on mission together. Then, have a bunch of Missional Communities they can give their email address or phone number to that they want to check out and then have someone from the MC get in touch with them. They’ll come and check it out.

I know none of this stuff is really that revolutionary, but it doesn’t have to be. These are just things we’ve seen work really well with minimal effort in the churches I’ve led.

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MC’s & Established churches | Part 1

May 24, 2010

by Mike Breen

Aidan: I was thinking the other day, and I said to myself, “Self, a lot of the questions you’ve been asking and the angle you approach these blog conversations with is through the lens of a church planter. I wonder what questions people in traditional/established churches would be asking.”

Mike: That’s probably a realistic insight. So what did you come up with?

Aidan: Well I know how our community is launching Missional Communities, but we are a church plant. It’s got to be quite different with a traditional church. What are some ways you’ve seen MC’s launched out of traditional or more established churches?

Mike: Great question.

Well one thing I’ve seen in more established churches, where people probably grew up in the church, is that if you’re going to ask MC Leaders to do OUT (grow the group through people who may not know Jesus yet), sometimes they need help (particularly if they are pastoral). What they need is a context to do it in that seems accessible and safe for them: a Sunday morning service.

Aidan: OK…I hear that…but isn’t that missing the point? If they are at church already, how are MC’s doing OUT?

Mike: I don’t assume that because someone is in church they also already know the Lord. Maybe they did in the past and that relationship is strained. Maybe they’ve never darkened the door of the church and this is their first time. Maybe they are new to the area. All of these people need the spiritual family that is MC life.

Aidan: So what would you do? What are some ways to have your MC Leaders engage with OUT during a Sunday morning?

Mike: Tell you what, I’ll give you 5 ways. We’ll do two today and three in a day or two.

1) For one Sunday, have your whole MC function as the Greeting Team. They hold doors and welcome people, they hand out bulletins, they serve as the ushers and seat new people.

What I tell them is that this is a fishing exercise. At certain times of the year there is a larger proportion of new people checking out the church. You’ve got new people coming in. Look out for the people you don’t know. I’d have them say something like, “I’m not sure I know you, you may have been here for 20 years, but my name is ________. How are you today?” (strike up a conversation)

The point is not only that they feel welcome, but that this conversation can serve as a connection to Missional Community life.

If at some point you say, “Hey, there are 30 of us from this church getting together for dinner, why don’t you guys come too”…there’s a really good chance they are going to come! In fact, if they just moved into the area, they are definitely coming. Why wouldn’t they? They don’t have any community yet. They are at your church. You are offering them easy entry.

2) Have newcomers fill out connections cards. Carve out space in the service where nothing is happening and everyone is filling out this card. Make sure it has a place for their name, address, email, phone and even a spot for prayer requests. The second thing you can do with this is quite simple: Give the prayer requests to an MC. Have a time where the MC gathers and prays together for these requests…and then check in on them!

“Hey, my name is ___________ and I know you don’t know me, I’m in the (name of Missional Community) MC. We got your prayer request and were praying for you, and I wanted to check in. Has anything happened? Anything changed? Anything we can help with?”

Aidan: Couldn’t that be really intrusive for some people?

Mike: Definitely. That’s why the leader really needs to show discretion and discernment. Some requests are better following up with than others. Some just should be prayed for in earnest and that’s it.

Aidan: So I know we’re going over another three ideas in the next post, but I’ve got to be honest, I’m a little uncomfortable using the “attractional” model as a sort of funnel. It seems…I don’t know…off?

Mike: To be honest, I think this is what we have to understand: Attractional churches are deeply and virally flawed, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

If an attractional church wants to become more missional (and not just the cute buzzword), that will take time and it needs to be transitioned. What I have seen is that MC’s are missionally attractive….so when you put them to work and on display in an attractional setting, they have a sort of gravitational field to them. People want community and relationships, they don’t want programs. If their touch point with your church on their first Sunday is someone inviting them into a safe thing like a dinner with people and not a new members class or another program-based thing, they will be really receptive to it.

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insight into 3DM

May 21, 2010

by Mike Breen

I’m currently in Israel traveling and then doing some work in Europe the next few weeks (in fact, here’s a picture I took early this morning of sunrise in the Holy City), but we’ve worked to have plenty of posts spread out during that time.

In the mean time, many people regularly ask what 3DM does.

Obviously we’ve put together a new website with a brand video explaining a little bit about what we do.

But if you’re interested in more details about what one of our 3DM Learning Communities are about (the bread and butter, so to speak, of what 3DM does), here are a series of posts by a pastor planting a church discussing his experience:

Post 1

Post 2

Post 3

Enjoy the weekend and we’ll pick up on Monday.

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time with Alan

May 17, 2010

by Mike Breen

Mike: As I mentioned in a previous post, Alan Hirsch and I got to spend the better part of the week together.

We did some writing together on Apostolic genius, 5-Fold Gifting, a lot of discussion on movements and we had the privilege of him sharing at two of our Learning Communities.

I thought I would share some of the thoughts he shared that struck our Learning Communities as particularly insightful.

Voltaire: “God made us in his image and we returned the favor.”

We often think Jesus is very nice but not very smart.

Think about it.

Write everything down that Jesus said about money and put it on one page. Then take it to your bank manager and say you are going to start using your money like Jesus advises. You don’t think he’s going to try to talk you out of it?

And then we do change how we think about it…and we subvert the Lordship of Jesus. We’ve co-opted him and made him look like our middle-class American selves.

++++

We need to allow ourselves to see ourselves as missionaries again. Once we start thinking we’re missionaries we’ll behave like missionaries

Ask two questions:

1) What is good news to these people?

2) What is “church” for these people?

(*you can’t know the answers to these questions before asking them!)

In cities like New York, do people feel guilty? NO! But they might feel shame (but that’s a different story). So instead, we try to make them feel guilty so the gospel as we know it can connect.

Perhaps it should connect differently?

What does it say about God that he lived among us for 30 years before he started his mission?

We don’t plant churches, we plant the gospel. The gospel, in a particular context, will create a church that is true and particular to that context. The right of every believer is to receive Jesus and have a community of faith appropriate to their context.

God is a missionary/rescuing/sending God.

We are sent into a specific mission context (like Jesus was).

The context determines how we “do” church.

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claiming new territory

May 11, 2010

by Mike Breen

Mike: I’ve spent a lot of the past two weeks teaching on “Launching Missional Communities” as we are in our 2nd Learning Community here in Pawley’s Island.

I thought I’d put up a few notes from this time that people seem to have found quite helpful.

One of the key metaphors I used is that of a castle or fortress.

Much of the way we have learned to do church is through the lens of a fortress. With a fortress model, it is true that the number of people in the fortress could be growing, but that means if we are always trying to grow what’s inside the fortress, all of the territory outside the fortress lays unclaimed.

What seems to have happened is that our enemy has a contract with the church and has for a long time: The church can grow as much as it wants as long as little-to-no territory is taken outside of the fortress.

But to establish new outposts, to claim territory and put it under the full reign of God (his Kingdom), we actually have to go into the territory! We can’t just stay holed up in the fortress. I promised you, we are making virtually no Kingdom impact within the fortress. God wants his Kingdom expanded.

However, the metaphor starts to break down when you think about it only geographically. The BIG territory is NETWORKS, not neighborhoods. Think about it: Even within neighborhoods there are existing networks of relationships.

So…if we are going to take new territory, start new works, claim things for the Kingdom and see breakthrough, it’s important to understand that we will each do this differently as we’ve been gifted within the 5-Fold Gifting in Ephesians 4. Having a vision and a leader are key, but it’s important that the leader knows how they naturally function best.

APOSTLES as Missional Community Leaders | They love new frontiers and want to see HUGE, public breakthrough

PROPHETS as Missional Community Leaders| Incarnational expressions, they take on the skin of their mission context and live there

EVANGELISTS as Missional Community Leaders| Looking for salvation using Persons of Peace principles

PASTORS as Missional Community Leaders | Compassion and identification, find and meet the perceived need of MC context

TEACHERS as Missional Community Leaders | Looking for a way to engage with interested people wanting to discuss an apologetic (think Alpha class)

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if you’re a leader, you must watch this!

May 11, 2010

by Mike Breen

Perhaps the best picture of leadership within a movement that I have ever seen. It’s really short.

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time with Alan Hirsch

May 9, 2010

by Mike Breen

Had the privilege of spending a good couple of days with Alan Hirsch this week. He came and was in our Learning Community for the last two days, doing one of our teaching inputs and giving input. We also spent a day and a half writing a few extra chapters together on 5-Fold Gifting. Really inspired by his insights on 3DM, our conversations and the new content.

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daily rhythms | part 2

May 6, 2010

by Mike Breen

Mike: As a pastor, you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard people say, “I just don’t hear God saying anything to me.”

What I’ve found is that blending this individual and communal times of prayer and scripture creates a scriptural backdrop to listening to the voice of God.

Reading the written word connects me to the Living Word.

I liken it to this: The Shepherd speaks to us every day, it’s just that the sheep don’t always understand most of it; they aren’t familiar enough with the language.

Scripture then, becomes the phrasebook of heaven.

If we learn the phrasebook, we’ll understand more and more of what the Shepherd is saying to us.

There is this beautiful interplay between the written word and the Living Word.

What you then learn to do is once you put that aside as the key discipline in your life, you learn how God has created you and crafted you because God has hard-wired us to hear him through our specific personalities in different ways.

Aidan: Ok, I’ll bite. What are some different ways we can hear the Shepherd’s voice once scripture becomes our language guide to the Living Word?

Mike: I think in my experience there are three that seem to emerge.

1) Emotions/feelings

2) Imagination faculties

3) Reasoned/cognitive fashion

I’ve always had a visual and imaginative wiring. I’ve noticed over the years that the emotions/feelings one has become a second or tertiary one. But generally speaking, I seem to hear God’s voice most clearly through seeing things God wants me to see.

It’s so important that we find out the ways we connect and most easily communicate.

Aidan: How do you think someone would be able to tell what comes most naturally for them?

Mike: Sure, you can take the Myers Briggs and the will help some, but how do you pass your time? Daydreaming? Reading? Creating? Relationships? These will usually provide a window into which of these three is most accessible for you.

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daily rhythms | part 1

May 3, 2010

by Mike Breen

Aidan: The past few posts we spent talking a good deal about history, some theology and practice, I thought it might be nice to move to a few, very basic and practical posts.

One of the things I’ve noticed in getting to spend a little time with you is the rhythms that sustain your life from day to day. Would you mind talking about that a bit today?

Mike: Not at all.

I mean, I don’t think I do anything that out of the ordinary. I get up, usually do something physical, like going to the gym or riding the bike. I’ll usually eat something and spend time reading scripture and praying, asking God what he wants to tell me.

To me, that doesn’t feel that revolutionary.

However, I’ve always had a sense that I need to an individual walk with the Lord, but one that’s not done in isolation, one that’s done in community. I wonder if that’s what has been vital to my walk with the Lord.

So one way we’ve done this are the teams that I’ve worked with in the past, we all studied the same scriptures each day…we were reading the same scriptures alone in the morning. So again, there was a walking with the Lord in a very personal sense, but there was a communal aspect to it.

It’s a bit like dinner: The food that is on my plate is just for me, but everyone is eating the same meal together, sharing the same food. So in this way there can be a potent individual experience in terms of the sensory aspect of it, but it’s still communal. I’m tasting each morsel, chewing it myself, enjoying the flavor and the subtle undertones, but I’m doing this amidst people who are doing the same thing with the same meal.

So currently, the team I work with are using the Moravian prayer texts, which literally tens of millions of people around the world use each day. Really it’s just the international lectionary.

It’s a discipline I’ve used for several decades now; sharing the text. We haven’t always used the Moravian texts, that’s where we are right now, though.

Aidan: So I know you meet each morning with your team. What do those beginning times look like?

Mike: Again, nothing revolutionary. I think the key has been reading the same texts.

We start by praying together.

We usually sing a few songs together and worship as a team.

I’ll read on the texts again that everyone has already read previously in the morning.

I’ll usually talk about what I’m sensing, what God has been saying to me and other people will comment as well.

We’ll spend some more time in prayer and then jump into our work day full force.

Aidan: It’s interesting. I was having dinner with a couple on Friday night that work at another, very very large church, and they were saying each day is started at 9am with the staff at their church with prayer and scripture, but they were saying it was completely lifeless. People were there because they had to, but it seemed as if very few value the time. It made me wonder, after our conversation, 1) How many of them were starting the day with prayer and scripture on their own?, and 2) Would that time be substantively different if they had a common, shared reading both individually and communally?

Mike: I think one thing I’ve always tried to do is have these communal times with my team be an overflow of what we do individually…that somehow they connect back to that.

We were also always trying to look for where God was asking us to be more sensitive, so we would change things from time to time. At one point we re-established the monastic prayer hours, with different focal points for each prayer hour. I think St. Toms still uses some of that.

Aidan: I think that’s a good breaking point. I’d like to go deeper in some of our next post about what that means from a spiritual formation perspective. How can we learn to really listen to God in our daily times.

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