No Strategy Will Reach Every Kind of Person Except a Strategy that Mobilizes Every Kind of Person + The Underground Network
I recently had the privilege to spend time with some beautiful people during The Microchurch Conference (and Pre-Conference). This included some beloved friends with The Underground Network, KC Underground, Greenhouse Church, and Unshackled Network. Below is a collection of my notes from my time with them.
Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk ... For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. + Acts 3:16; 2 Corinthians 4:15
Do we believe in God's sovereignty and the Spirit's sending of Jesus' Church, including you and me today, will prevail?
+ Jesus loves His Church and has not lost His grip on His Church (John 10:27-28; "He Will Hold Us Fast")
+ The gates of Hell will not prevail against what Jesus has done and is doing to send His Church (Matthew 16:18)
+ Jesus' Church has, does, and always will learn, believe, doubt, obey, teach, adapt, worship and thrive to the end because Jesus is with Her always (Matthew 28:17-20)
Will we respond like St. Francis, when God said to him, "Francis, repair My Church"? Will we attend to whatever dilapidated little chapel and community He sends us to love, using what He gives to serve day by day, little by little?
St. Francis Discipleship Story
For a few years early in his ministry, Francis did not know where God might lead him. He began by helping to feed the poor and tend to the lepers. One day, Francis came to a run-down chapel in Assisi and thought he heard God say, “Francis, repair My Church.” Looking at the terrain around the chapel, Francis set to work with what he could see, gathering sod and stone for building materials, repairing the little chapel bit by bit.
Later while he was kneeling in prayer, he thought he heard God say again, “Francis, repair My Church.” This time, Francis understood the words, "My Church" as God's people, and his lifelong calling was established. Francis' care for others in light of this calling led him to share and show Jesus' Gospel of the Kingdom with all creation: human, animal, and earth. Soon, people began to follow his way of service. They humbly called themselves the Friars Minor (or the Lesser Brothers).
History would later remember Francis as a doctor of Jesus' Church, bringing healing and hope through little acts of love.
+ Brian w/ The Underground
"G.K. Chesterton gives a beautiful insight into the conversion of St. Francis by describing him as the 'Tumbler for God' who stands on his head for the pleasure of God. By seeing the world upside down 'with all the trees and towers hanging head downwards,' Francis discovers its dependent nature.
By seeing his world, his city, upside down, Francis, the 'Tumbler for God' saw the same world and the same city but in a different way 'thankful to God Almighty that it had not been dropped.'"
+ Henri Nouwen, The Genesee Diary
Violin Discipleship Example
In the moments of "failure" do we see it as the end or as an experiment we get to continue to learn from? For example, no one becomes a master of the violin without time, practice, endurance, repetition, input, and more practice. You can't get to mastery without the horrific mess that resilience and perseverance require.
Be brave enough to be mediocre for a while. Pick up the cross to bear. Die on it. Live the Gospel story of death and resurrection.
Die and resurrect with Jesus.
+ Brian w/ The Underground
Are you willing to live in the chaordic where the Spirit brings the mastery of Jesus (creativity, innovation, emerging practice) into artistry birthed out of the mess?
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In the chaordic path, we get to listen, learn, and emerge in harmony with the Spirit of God in order to love our neighbors, and be fully present with Jesus in the moment as He helps us not fall into the chamos (see Moabite god of destruction, Chemosh) of every whim, or stifle opportunities with control in our fear. We get to:
+ Be attentive to God and others: Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity (Simone Weil).
+ Be contemplative with God and others: Attention is contemplative practice through which we reap the deepest rewards of our humanity (Simone Weil).
+ Be fully present with God and others with our thoughts, words, and feelings: Attention without feeling is only a report (Mary Oliver).
+ Activate people by the Spirit to join with Jesus in doing all of the above. Our modus operandi is Jesus' Lordship in all things. He helps us know how to think (orthodoxy), what to do (orthopraxy), and how to feel (orthopathos). All of this Jesus lived with God by the Spirit and gives to us freely so we might live fully as well (John 10:10). His way leads to eternal, abundant life.
For I did not speak of My own accord, but the Father who sent Me commanded Me what to say and how to say it. I know that His command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told Me to say. + Jesus (John 12:49-50)
No strategy will reach every kind of person except a strategy that mobilizes every kind of person. All of us who follow Jesus get to be servant leaders who get to activate, release, mobilize those we get to love. We come to serve, not to be served, like Jesus because He first served us in love. We seek to set free every person as:
+ A daughter or son of God: Baptized in the name of the Father to love and welcome others home
+ A friend and servant of the King of the universe: Baptized in the name of the Son to serve others and not be served
+ An ambassador of the Kingdom of heaven empowered to be humble and hopeful amongst the crumbling castles of the world: Baptized in the name of the Spirit to go love, learn, teach, obey, and live abundantly among others
+ A learner of the One who knows all things, in Whom all things hold together: Come and see and go and be disciples of Jesus for the love of neighbor, for the life of the world, and for the glory of God
This is who we are on our missionary journey that leads to an abundant life of missionary pathways where we live, work, and play. Questions we get to ask along the way are:
+ Who are we called to love?
+ What are the obstacles (real and potential)? What are the opportunities?
+ What is Jesus asking us to do?
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| The Underground Network: Missionary Journey |
Phase 1 | Personally Lead MC with People
Principles:
+ Jump into the sandbox (pray & play)
+ Define the DNA (protect & pass on)
+ Cultivate environments for recognizing lordship (ex. What Jesus is inviting us to do?) and liminality (ex. What suffering will we endure for Jesus and others?)
Methods:
+ Bring people along with you, where you are, in your rhythms
+ Learn and teach how to ask questions, pray, share story of God
+ Be "treasure hunters" who look for the Kingdom that's underneath the surface of a person or a moment (ex. Ask God, "What's a word that would encourage this person You want me to meet and befriend?")
Pitfalls:
+ Don't remove suffering (let Jesus develop resilience)
+ Don't over-structure too quickly
+ Don't miss opportunities to activate others in the Spirit to serve, seek the Kingdom, receive Jesus as Savior
Phase 2 | Grow Permission for Apostolic (i.e. Sending, Going) Work
Principles:
+ Continue to learn how to be an MC leader
+ Bring MC leaders together for "holy imagination days" (cultivate shared learning from failure(s), helpful practices, prayer, adaptations, new approaches, trying again)
+ Bias towards "Yes" in trying new things, staying steadfast
Methods:
+ Develop "coaching habit": ask more questions than give answers among MC leaders to help them look to Jesus and rely on the Spirit (see Seven Coaching Questions That Will Forever Change the Way You Lead in The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More by Michael Bungay Stanier)
1) The kick-start question: What's on your mind?
2) The A.W.E. question: And what else?
3) The focus question: What's the real challenge here for you?
4) The foundation question: What do you want?
5) The lazy question: How can I help?
6) The strategic question: If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?
7) The learning question: What was most useful for you?
+ Pray into the needs you are now seeing over time in MC, neighborhood, city
+ Ask God for "more lordship (ex. obeying Jesus in new areas of life) and liminality (ex. persevering through challenges in effort to see Kingdom breakthrough)" to press into growth
Pitfalls:
+ Thinking you need better disciples and/or better plans before starting something
+ Only celebrating expected "wins" or "gains"; look for more to celebrate and mark these things like:
1) Conversations in which Jesus came up
2) Surprise weekly interactions with community beyond organized plans
3) Acquaintances becoming friends who check in regularly
Phase 3 | Become a Church Network that Serves a Community of Diverse Missionaries and MCs
Phase 4 | Develop Practices of Pivoting and Persevering
Principles:
+ Normalize "failure," experimenting, learning, pivoting (always turn to listening to God in these moments)
+ Cultivate looking for environments for new leaders to arise in (Where are missionaries needed next?)
Launch as a mission sending agency,
Plant missionaries who share and show the Gospel with neighbors, coworkers,
See microchurches emerge and multiply,
Network them together (i.e. prioritize relationships in family of God along with relationships to neighbors)
Celebrate God's work in worship, community, mission
Methods:
+ Communicate again and again that people have permission to try, experiment, learn, try again
+ Tell stories from MCs
+ Ask "What's my responsibility before God and my neighbors He has sent me to love?"
Pitfalls:
+ Missional drift when the chaordic occurs (don't fall back to what's known instead of leaning into unknown with God)
+ Opting out of continued training, learning
+ Pulling back from being present with others
Phase 4 | Develop Practices of Pivoting and Persevering
Principles:
+ Keep giving permission
+ Normalize that the desire to quit will happen in missionary life (rely on Holy Spirit, address how loneliness can manifest as exhaustion)
+ Allow the movement to be chaordic so new "failures" can be experienced as experiments for new learning
Methods:
+ Lift up perseverance as a virtue
+ Focus on the calling Jesus gave you
+ Press into need for deep relationships among missionary peers
Pitfalls:
+ Don't reduce the apostolic impulse when things get hard, go backwards, stay small
+ Don't fall into relational fragmentation in relation to the family of God, friends
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| KC Underground: Missionary Pathway |
Lord, help me to do great things as though they were little, since I do them with Your power; and little things as though they were great, since I do them in Your name. + Blaise Pascal
Almost anything in life that truly matters will require you to do small, mostly overlooked things, over a long period of time. + Zack Eswine
Bonus: 6 Foundations of Our Movement in The Symphony of Mission: Playing Your Part in God's Work in the World
1) With – Mission includes incarnational presence. Solidarity with us came before salvation for us. Much of mission is just showing up.
2) From – Mission is empowered by the Spirit. To engage in God's mission, we must know the source of our strength. Scripture is very clear that we aren't just doing something for God; He supplies the ability to do it. Creativity and strategy can never replace the work of the Spirit through prayer.
3) And – Mission is comprehensive in scope. Word and deed. Staying and going. Respect and boldness. Vertical and horizontal.
4) Us – Mission is communal. God does not carry out His mission by commissioning a roster of individual contractors, instead, He adopts a family and incorporates them into His family business of blessing the world. God has made some people to be evangelists, but He has given other people the gifts of compassion and mercy and still others the gift of administration. We need each gift, each part of the body of Christ, to be working together to enable the whole to be a conduit of blessing and shalom.
MC Story Example: Over the years, I've known several Muslims who have come to believe in Christ. I've made a habit of asking them who was influential in their faith journey. Invariably, they describe an encounter with a whole community rather than any one individual. For example, my friend Abdul came to the United States as a refugee and encountered God's generosity and hospitality through a man named David, who invited Abdul to come live with his family. Next, Abdul encountered the wisdom and compassion of God through Joan, a woman in David's community who helped Abdul find a job and learn a language in a foreign country. Abdul had a difficult time understanding what he was reading in the Gospels, but there was one person in their community, John, whom the Spirit used to explain the Good News. This was a team effort. Knowing that most Muslims have a hard time wrapping their minds around the cross and the Trinity, I asked Abdul how he came to understand those things. He said that it was ultimately God who opened his eyes. But the Spirit used the sacrificial love of that community to be a living analogy of the sacrificial love of Christ. Regarding the Trinity, he said that there wasn't a single apologetic argument that made sense to him. But he came to see the Triune God by living among this community of Christ followers, who were all individuals yet displayed a type of oneness that he had never seen before. There wasn't a single individual who could sufficiently proclaim and demonstrate the Gospel to Abdul, but God used the varied gifts and shared life of this community to make himself known.
5) Be – Mission includes a distinct way of life.
Love: Imagine if we were a unique community that focused on sacrificially and selflessly serving others rather than ourselves. Imagine Jesus' Church known for its self-giving love in a world of selfies.
Joy: Imagine if we were known by what we were for instead of what we were against. What if we had eyes of wonder that saw every good thing in this world as a gift from God, and what if we were constantly grateful for simple things.
Peace: Imagine if we were known as a community of peacemakers in the midst of this conflicted world. Imagine if we were marked by listening, confessing sin, speaking truth, and extending forgiveness.
Patience: Imagine if we were known as the people of patience in a world of hurry and immediate gratification. What if we were known as the people who put away their cell phones and paid attention in a world of distraction?
Kindness and Goodness: Imagine if the kindness and goodness of God were experienced through the kindness and goodness of Jesus' Church. Imagine if the body of Christ became the unique community that had eyes to see the most vulnerable, hands to carry burdens, mouths to speak the truth in love, arms to embrace the hurting, and minds to constantly dream up creative ways to fill the earth with God's good gifts.
Faithfulness: Imagine if we were known for being a distinctly trustworthy community. What if employers, and nonprofits tried to find volunteers, from within Jesus' Church – because they know that these people would show up and do their best work faithfully day after day?
Gentleness: Imagine if we were a people of nuanced and gentle public discourse. What if we refused to engage in vitriolic rants online and instead had wise and measured words in all our conversations.
Self-control: Imagine if we were known for saying "enough" in a world that says "more." What if our joy in the simple things subverted the emptiness of consumerism by showing that a deep contentment is possible in Christ?
6) Why – Mission is motivated by love. The foundation for all missional engagement is knowing why we are participating in God's mission. Before we can participate in God's mission, we must know that we are beneficiaries of God's mission. We are not the rescuers; we are the rescued who merely bear witness to others who also need to be rescued. We are the beggars who tell other beggars where bread can be found. We respond to the love of the Father by participating in the work of the Father ... Perhaps 1 John 4:19 summarizes the motive for mission best when it says, "We love because He first loved us." ... (and) God's love cannot be contained.
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| Fresh Expressions: Reimagining the Parish as Blended Ecology Ecosystem |
Additional posts with The Underground:
+ What Might God Be Stirring "Underground" in Wormtown?
+ Underground | Being a Servant Leader + Benefitting More
+ Underground | Invitation into the Creation, Innovation, & Improvisation
+ Underground Microchurch Conference | The Wild Few Transform
+ Underground Microchurch Conference | Jesus in the Small
Bonus resources:
+ Microchurches: A Smaller Way by Brian Sanders
+ Ready or Not: Kingdom Innovation for a Brave New World by Doug Paul
+ The Starfish and the Spirit: Unleashing the Leadership Potential of Churches and Organizations by Lance Ford, Rob Wegner, and Alan Hirsch
+ Red Skies: 10 Essential Conversations Exploring Our Future as the Church edited by L. Rowland Smith
Christ is all,
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