Notebook cover
or
DVD opening shot of turning
globe
Journey
80 congregations in 6 clusters in
Southern-Africa
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Western-Cape:
20 congregations
Namibia:
8
congregations
Gauteng I:
10 congregations
Eastern-Cape:
7 congregations
Southern-Cape:
13 congregations
Gauteng II:
12 congregations
Kalahari
10 Congregations
Methodist, Lutheran, Anglican, DRC, URC,
DRCA Churches participate already.
Partnership for Missional Church
• Grounded in experience
• 20 years of experience (USA)
• 3 years of experience (SA)
• In over 81 congregations
• Grounded in research
• Longevity study
FOUR KEY FACTORS
1. Clustering congregations
synergizes innovation
FOUR KEY FACTORS
1. Clustering congregations
synergizes innovation
2. Innovating capacities works better
than replacing capacities
FOUR KEY FACTORS
1. Clustering congregations
synergizes innovation
2. Innovating capacities works better
than replacing capacities
3. Congregations are key partners to
innovation
FOUR KEY FACTORS
1. Clustering congregations
synergizes innovation
2. Innovating capacities works better
than replacing capacities
3. Congregations are key partners to
innovation
4. Conflict can be employed for
mission
Measured Outcomes
Increase participation
of young adults
Worship attendance
Participation in
Longevity of pastorate
churchwide ministries
Adult conversions
Increase in lay leader base
Partnership for Missional Church
• Grounded in experience
• 20 USA (3 in SA) years of experience
• In over 71 (81 SA) congregations
• Grounded in research
• Longevity study
• Grounded spiritual disciplines
• Dwelling in the Word
• Keeping the Main thing the Main thing
• Corporate Spiritual Discernment
Partnership for
Missional Church
KEY:
kickoff event
cluster gatherings
Preparation,
finding leaders
Celebration event !
During Phase I
Congregations will receive . . .
• 3 days of continuing education for your pastors/ministers
• 5 days of lay leader training
• A process for discovering the culture and readiness of
your congregations for missional church along with 3
different reports illustrating the results
• A board retreat to evaluate and engage learnings
• Training for coaches and mentors
• A step by step process for leaders of congregations to
work together on a monthly basis
• Phone loop: a bi-monthly phone meeting with a
consultant/coach
• On-line newsletter
During Phase II
Congregations will receive . . .
• 3 days of continuing education for your
pastors/ministers
• 5 days of lay leader training
• A full assessment of leadership skills &
capacities for leaders
• 2 days of training for missional action teams
• Phone loop: a bi-monthly phone meeting with a
consultant/coach
• 2 day board retreat
• A step by step process for missional action
teams
• On-line newsletter
During Phase III
Congregations will receive . . .
• 3 days of continuing education for your pastors/ministers
• 5 days of lay leader training
• A process for creating 5 documents to guide
congregations through the implementation of their plan
–
–
–
–
–
Congregational Confession
A Vision for Embodiment
Long Range Plans
SMART Plans of Action
A Staff Covenant
• Phone loop: a bi-monthly phone meeting with a
consultant/coach
• On-line newsletter
During Phase IV
Congregations will receive . . .
• 3 days of continuing education for your
pastors/ministers
• 5 days of lay leader training
• Plans for developing ministries and for helping
members discover their God-given spiritual gifts
and assist in placing them in an appropriate
ministry
• Phone loop: a bi-monthly phone meeting with a
consultant/coach
• On-line newsletter
Our context changes continuously and is complex
of nature. David Bosch describes one of the
changes as a shift from Christendom to PostChristendom. The implications are enormous for
both the assumptions and focus of the local
congregations ministry
Christendom assumptions
• We live in a christen
culture
• The church is a central
force in the community
• The focus of the local
congregation should be to
maintain the Christendom
in its geographical area
• Ministry= hatching,
matching and dispatching
Word has it that more than 80% of sailboat
owners never sails further than 20km from the
harbor, notwithstanding the fact that the jach
was bought and maintained to undertaken a
world race
- in the christendom paradigm it is the painful truth
of congregations
- we maintain the congregation for the sake of
God’s main calling, but never undertake the race
Post-Christendom implications for
local congregations
• The Christendom assumption
lost its power
• That does not necessarily
spells the end of the churchbut we should look seriously
into the implications of the
shift
• It is not for us to chouse a
Christendom or PostChristendom world -God is
sending us into a postChristendom world.
Post-christendom realities
Biblically illiterate
Ritually incompetent
Highly self-conscious
Trauma or stress
Disillusioned with the
institution
• Undefined spiritual hunger
• Feel shamed by the church
•
•
•
•
•
• What Does It Mean To Be
Missional?
•Quadrant III
•Quadrant IV
•Closed-Door Community
•Missional Church
•Both congregational life
and outreach focused on
God’s mission
•Focused on being a
“good” church, but
only for us
•Quadrant I
•Quadrant II
•Religious Club, or
Spiritual Filling Station
•Church with a Mission
•“Meet my needs”
•Focused on
evangelism and/or
social action
1. Club or spiritual filling
station
•Quadrant III
•Quadrant IV
•Closed-Door Community
•Missional Church
•Both congregational life
and outreach focused on
God’s mission
•Focused on being a
“good” church, but
only for us
•Quadrant I
•Quadrant II
•Religious Club, or
Spiritual Filling Station
•Church with a Mission
•“Meet my needs”
•Focused on
evangelism and/or
social action
3. Close door community
•Quadrant III
•Quadrant IV
•Closed-Door Community
•Missional Church
•Both congregational life
and outreach focused on
God’s mission
•Focused on being a
“good” church, but
only for us
•Quadrant I
•Quadrant II
•Religious Club, or
Spiritual Filling Station
•Church with a Mission
•“Meet my needs”
•Focused on
evangelism and/or
social action
2. Church with a mission
•Quadrant III
•Quadrant IV
•Closed-Door Community
•Missional Church
•Both congregational life
and outreach focused on
God’s mission
•Focused on being a
“good” church, but
only for us
•Quadrant I
•Quadrant II
•Religious Club, or
Spiritual Filling Station
•Church with a Mission
•“Meet my needs”
•Focused on
evangelism and/or
social action
4. Missonal church
Missional or being send
•
•
•
•
We want to participate in God’s mission of
reconciling, restoring, and redeeming a
world in need of God’s grace.
We engage in spiritual discernment to
discover specifically how God is sending us
so that we may be better partners for one
another in God's work.
The mission field is no longer only in foreign
countries but among us; congregations are
the mission centers for the Christian church
today.
“in our homes …. across the street …..
all over the world”
What is expected of a minister
in the first three churches?
The
innovative
Missional
Leadership
and Change
• Innovating is a
process of failure
emerging from a
Christian imagination
and wisdom and
leading to a shared
positive outcome.
Rogers’
Diffusion of Innovation
Model of Change
and
the Partnership for
Missional Church
Change rarely happens in a
straight line,
directly from Point A to
Point B
In fact, it looks more like the path of a sailboat,
riding the wind to get to its destination.
This is especially true as a
whole culture changes.
Everett Rogers declares that there
are even five different stages that
members of a culture go through
when they have met a change…
5 stages of
decision-making
Confirmation –
seeking
reinforcement or
overturning of the
decision
Decision – adopt or
reject the new thing
Knowledge –
awareness and
understanding of
a new thing
Persuasion – favorable
or unfavorable attitude
toward the new thing
Implementation –
putting the new
thing to use
People’s openness
to change
Late majority
34%
“the skeptical”
Early adopters
13.5%
“the respectable”
Innovators
2.5%
“the brave”
Early
majority
34%
“the
thoughtful”
Laggards
16%
“the
traditional”
Cluster event
Partnership for
a Missional Church
Cluster event
Cluster event
Cluster event
Cluster event
Cluster event
Preparation,
finding leaders
Cluster event
Cluster event
The Partnership for a Missional Church
Learning
and growing
Open to do, risk, fail
Renewal
Innovated
Capacity
Build do-able plans, recognize walls
Visioning for
Acting II
journey
Event
LEGEND
Open to
listen
Open to God’s work
Discern God’s
preferred future
(long range plans,
hitting the wall)
Open to
consensus,
leadership Harness energy,
start a plan
Speak, think,
imagine
Open to afterChristendom
Listening
leaders
Practices –
pattern 4,
(mission, vision, and pattern claiming)
for example
Visioning for Acting I
Discern mission, gather participation
Growing
Healthier
Open to focus, not dispersion
Congregations
Gathering Event
Experimenting
(after-Christendom and
congregational discovery training)
Missional ministry; teams
Open to new way
Missional
Authority –
pattern 8,
for example
Discern mission, gather participation
Open to focus, not dispersion
Worship as
Witness –
pattern 5,
for example
How does all this happen?
Discovering
Experimenting
Visioning for Acting
Learning and Growing
Sharing and Mentoring
Five Questions That Missional
Congregations Ask
1.
Where are we?
Missional congregations are aware of their contexts. They know that Christendom is vanishing.
They cannot expect that everyone around them is Christian. They know that they live in the
midst of a mission field.
2.
Whose are we?
Missional congregations know they belong to the people of God. They are letting Scripture
and prayer shape them as individuals and as a congregation. They let God’s Spirit work
through them and empower them to take risks for the sake of the gospel.
3.
What is God doing?
Missional congregations can point to how God is acting among them and in the wider world.
They are learning more about God’s mission of redeeming, restoring, and reconciling the world
through Jesus Christ.
4.
How is God sending us?
Missional congregations know how to discern and listen to God’s specific call to them. They
know their missional vocation and are willing to act on that. They are reaching out across
boundaries for the sake of the gospel.
5.
How is our church living now according to the
pattern of God’s future?
Missional congregations want to be a sign of God’s way of doing things. They want to order
their life as a congregation so that it is a preview of the future God intends for the whole world.
They give witness to Jesus Christ in their outreach as they invite others to become citizens of
God’s reign. And they give witness to Jesus Christ in all of their life together as a
congregation. How they are church is also a witness to the gospel.
Dedicated to Diversity
The Leading
congregations in
each cluster
consists of a pair
of congregations
which represent
diversity in terms
of denomination
and community.
Structure of the Partnership
Participating congregations represented by the
leading congregations.
The leading congregations with the project
leaders constitute the Management committee.
Buvton does the project management of the
partnership.
Questions and discussion
Notebook cover
or
DVD opening shot of turning
globe