Tag: Alan Hirsch

Alan Hirsch's New Book: ReJesus

Posted on October 30, 2008

My Review of ReJesus.

The introduction and first chapter of Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch’s new book, ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church, are now available for download. Some endorsements:

“Frost and Hirsch have done it again. Reading ReJesus provoked, frustrated, and ultimately convicted me of my need to live more deeply in the way of Jesus. If you are looking for another book on simply bolstering church as-we-know-it, this is not for you. If you and your church want to be challenged to walk in the Way of Jesus, this book delivers.” —Ed Stetzer, blogger (www.edstetzer.com), author, Planting Missional Churches

“Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost continue to push the church into the future with their latest project, ReJesus. Herein they focus on what every Christian church must focus on—Jesus Christ—and they develop a Christ-centered strategy for missional ecclesiology. This is a timely and relevant book and deserves a wide readership.”
—Tony Jones, national coordinator of Emergent Village, doctoral fellow in practical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, author, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier

“ReJesus calls to mind Jaroslav Pelikan’s Jesus Through the Centuries and the stubborn fact we can never get outside our own culture(s) to a pure Jesus. That way is not open to those who confess the Incarnate One. In every age Christians are compelled to wrestle with the meaning of Jesus again. Colin Greene’s Christology in Cultural Perspective reminds us of how we must continually wrestle with how to be faithful to Jesus in
our day. Neibuhr’s Christ and Culture shows how we continually shape Jesus out of our cultural imaginations. Yet, in all its eradicable shortcomings, the church is still the location where we’re shaped by the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. We always wrestle with how to re-Jesus because we have no choice. May we do it with humility and a deep love for these clay vessels of history we call the church, for there is no other place in which Jesus is made present. This book is a contribution to that wrestling; like all such wrestling it is itself enmeshed in culture. I trust it encourages others to wrestle that we might all be more faithful followers of Jesus.”
—Al Roxburgh, Vice President, Allelon Canada, co-author, The Missional Leader

HT: FE

When does Planting Stop and Pastoring Start?

Posted on October 13, 2008

Inevitably there comes a point in the life of a church planter in which you begin to pastor more than you “plant”. Is this bad? How do we continue to cultivate a missional church, while also attending to the growing pastoral needs of our communities? When does planting stop and pastoring start?

When to Pastor in a Plant?

An honest answer to this question will serve you well. Only then will a theoretical answer begin to bear fruit. Another way to get at this issue is to ask when does pastoring start in the life of a planter? I believe it should start immediately. Too many planters fail their churches because they plant not pastor. Planters are apostles but they are also elder-pastors. To be sure, not all apostles are static traditional pastors and not all pastors are church planting apostles. However, true apostles have the capacity to pastor, at least for a season. Check out Paul, Peter, Epaphras. They all planted and they all pastored. They loved the whole life of the church, not just birthing her. Pastors are called to shepherd apostolic—sent—communities, so they should be able to function missionally.

Equipping for Pastoral and Missional Community

As our communities’ needs grow, how do we effectively live, lead, and serve in the tension between pastoring and planting, between community and mission? JR Woodward offers some practical help in his forthcoming book Re-Sketching the Church. He argues for the centrality of “equippers” for effective missional church life. Ephesians 4 is his locus classicus for equipping the missional church, a good choice. In Ephesians 4 the various equipping gifts are laid out for the purpose of equipping “the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Though the purpose of these equippers for building up the internal church—community—is frequently noted, the external dimension of being the church—mission—is often overlooked in these roles. Woodward picks up on this absence of a mission. Quoting Frost and Hirsch, he notes that the five equippers are: “the very mechanism for achieving mission and ministry effectiveness as well as Christian maturity.” Alan Roxburgh makes a very similar point in his chapter in Missional Leader. Here’s the point—leaders are not only to be missional leaders; they are to equip and release missional leaders through, at least, five different roles with various missional “destinations” or expressions. In other words, if the success of your church being missional relies mainly upon you, then you don’t have a missional church.

Missional Equippers

Woodward has contextualized the five roles of apostle, prophet, pastor, evangelist, and teacher, calling them: heart revealer, dream awakener, soul healer, story teller, and light giver. All sounds a bit new age, but Woodward stays pretty close to the biblical meanings. Noting a great insight by Marcus Barth, he points out that all but one of these roles had vocational equivalents in the Greco-Roman context. This means that anything but a prophet had a cultural outlet for missional expression. There was a socially accepted place for teachers, apostles, evangelists, and pastors. And so it is today. Consider your role and your equippers’ roles in this light. If you are a teacher, how can you teach in service of the city, as well as in service of the church? Run with it.

Perhaps the planting versus pastoring dilemma can be solved by raising up disciples who are pastors and missionaries, pastors who are missional and missionaries who are pastoral. This, of course, requires leadership and equipping. Taking Woodward (and Paul)’s cue, we do well to look for and cultivate the “five equippers” in our own churches to advance both community and mission. In short, cultivate missional equippers.

When does planting stop and pastoring start? Never. Planters should plant reproducing churches and planters should always pastor. How? Raise up missional equippers that “pastor” and “plant” your church, that lead in community and mission. Pastoring and planting should start and stop together, when you are regenerated and when you die.

Leading Missional Communities

Posted on April 13, 2008

Leading our church into somewhat uncharted waters, I am constantly on the look out for helpful influences in cultivating missional communities, what we call City Groups. City Groups are local, urban missional communities of disciples who redemptively engage people and culture. These groups are intended to foster the church being the church to one another and to the city and world. They meet in homes three weeks in a row and on mission in their communities every fourth week. Each CG has been charged with the task of finding a strategic social partnership, through which they can be a blessing to the social needs of Austin, while also learn how to love the city better. City Groups are the lifeblood of Austin City Life.

The influences I have found profitable are few and far between. So many models and methods of the church are not based on missional ecclesiology. However, the resources that have shaped my thinking and our practice have been good. Churches like Soma, Providence, and Kaleo. Books like The Missional Church, The Forgotten Ways, Exiles, Missional Leader, Total Church have been a help. But nothing beats personal reflection and prayer as we do our best to express the call of the church in the world.

I am currently working on new curriculum for our City Groups that covers the biblical storyline, while also discovering the place of the 21st century North American in that larger Story. It’s called The Story of Scripture and Our Place in It. Tim Chester’s The World We All Want has been some help as I reflect on how to cultivate gospel thinking and living at the intersection of the biblical and personal stories. The challenge is to always keep the missional nature of the church in view as I write the material. It is so easy to fall back into “Bible Study” mode. Yet, as Alan Roxburgh has pointed out, “these ministries of leadership are given to enable the church to carry out its fundamentally missiological purpose in the world: to announce and demonstrate the new creation in Jesus Christ” (Missional Church, 185). Alan also points out that “leaders will need to become like novices, learning to recover practices that have become alien to current church experience…it requires waiting and listening to the Spirit’s directions…in a strange land” (199).

My hope and prayer is that we are listening to the Spirit’s directions in Austin. That direction has led us to build our church on City Groups, not Sunday services. These City Groups are based on four principles and four practices (that will, no doubt, be revised in the months and years to come), which shape our identity and practice of being a missional church. I look forward to continuing to learn from and with Austin City Life and the larger missional Church.

Missional Leadership (Hirsch)

Posted on March 11, 2008

In addition to holding to a clear vision, missional leadership involves facilitating the emergence of novelty by building and nurturing networks of communications; creating a learning culture in which questioning is encouraged and innovation is rewarded; creating a climate of trust and mutual support; and recognizing viable novelty when it emerges, while allowing the freedom to make mistakes. – Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 233

Unfortunately, it is precisely this question-asking and viable novelty that most leaders fear. The traditional, modern paradigms of leadership advocate a top-down, answer-possessing, anti-novelty approach. Yet, if we will lead remaining open to the power and insight of the Spirit in the Church, we will reap dividends and live out the priesthood of the believers! Oh, do I have room to grow in this!