Here are some tidbits from JR’s conversation with Austin planters.
JR Woodward on developing missional core teams that are comprised of migrant people. His LA team was composed of white people from Virginia:
- Know the city.
- Care for the team. As people arrive to your city, help them transition into new life, new friends, new jobs, etc.
- Unlearn church. Help people transition from going to church to being the church. To be a people who bring heaven on earth. To be a people who cultivate community outside of meetings.
JR has also developed a five-fold leadership paradigm (along Eph 4), with each leader focusing on two destinations (see descriptions here). His five equippers and ten destinations are used as a lens for him to identify, assess, and cultivate leaders. I got the sense that they aren’t roles that people sign up for. Rather, this paradigm helps him identify and release the gift-offices of the church to the church for the city.
JR will be releasing a book on this stuff called Re-sketching the Church in 2009. Here is an endorsement of the forthcoming book:
“That we need to recover the lost ministry ethos embedded in Ephesians 4, I have no doubt – the missional effectiveness of the church in our time depends to a large degree on this. JR is a sound, practical, and uncommonly wise, guide on this topic and one with ample practical experience in planting churches and leading ministry with the fivefold gifting in mind. A great study guide.” – Alan Hirsch, Author of The Forgotten Ways and The Shaping of Things to Come.