Open Doors!

The clergy retreat with Dick Hamm and the area staff and Executive Team is now a pleasant memory and we look ahead to new opportunities to go more deeply into service and leadership.

The Allelon missional leader formation initiative has asked this area leadership team to host one of five regional training centers in North America. Click here for more information. I have seen the proposed curriculum (as have some of you) and it appears to offer something local congregational leaders seek, so we are inclined to move forward once the details are worked out.

At the same time, area staff and executive team along with about 10 -15 invited congregational pastors and leaders will begin a 100-day period in January in prayer and share triplets (teams of three) to see what that might look like, go to the Spiritual Strategic Journey website.

Missional Church conversations continue in Cameron, Maryville, and Higginsville. We encourage participants to invite their non-Disciples clergy colleagues.

We have also been invited to host in 2009 a Heartland Regional Cluster learning event for congregations engaged in transformation. This would bring together leaders from congregations in seven states to articulate best practices, share wins and losses, and become together a life-long learning community for congregational transformation and leader support.

Finally, we are pulling together resources in the area of character development for leaders - including some secular options for clergy who may do better personal character work in a non-church setting.

We appreciate your prayers and your responses to our sincere desire to support you, your families, and the missions to which God has called us in local communities.

What new learning opportunities are working well for you?

I Left My Heart in SanFrancisco

You know the song and most of us can probably remember Tony Bennett singing it.

Last week I spent 5 days at an Advanced Leadership workshop put on by the Klemmer and Associates staff. Heeding their admonition to take what is useful and leave the rest, I began the week with 32 other leaders and a staff of 7, two were volunteers and one came on his own dime from Tulsa!

This was one of those workshops for which I had no prior leadership responsibility. That and the fact that I knew absolutely no one put me into a very humble place that I never got to leave throughout the event.

I know how much I dislike it when others tell me this, but, I won't describe in any detail what we did or said. It would not matter anyway because each one gets what and as much from the experience as they choose.

By the third day, I was ready to go home with more than my money's worth. On that day, the foggy lenses through which I have viewed my entire life and ministry were allowed to slip off and I saw myself and my relationships, as well as my commitments to Christ in sharper relief.

Fortunately, I stayed with the process because there was so much more to come.

Colleagues, it is no accident that God put this opportunity in my path at this juncture. We are about to engage in missional life together with new and familiar partners and at a level of investment unparalleled in the history of this area. Between all of us, we now have more access to tools and more reasons to commit to excellence than ever before. There is also a catch.

We can do no credible mission work, preach no credible message of saving grace, emerge as a trusted leader - worthy to be followed if we will not confront the inner demons that continually sabotage us and keep us at arm's length from success. Self-doubt, laziness, ineffectiveness, judgement, blame, shame, and pride have a life of their own when they are tolerated and neglected. The shadow side of us demands parity with the side bathed in Christ's light. Sadly, we have helped to grow a church culture with so much emotional distance between us that we often affirm or excuse the very character traits and behaviors that undermine mission.

I discovered that I was actually holding us back every bit as much as I thought that I was being supportive. That's a long story and one I don't need to air on a blog. I do want to thank you, though, for your implied or explicit support for me. I could not do this level of personal mastery work without your help.

I am in the process of trying to raise the nearly $5000 I will need to take the next level workshop in February. I have no idea how that will happen - only that I need to understand it well enough to know how to make this opportunity available to more clergy. The kind of progress our workshop participants made in just 5 short days was on a par with a couple of years of seminary. It was that useful.

Klemmer has designed an event - exclusively for Christians - called the Quikening. I am working to arrange for a Quickening Preview event in the area. To see a preview of what a Quickening might offer, go to: http://www.klemmer.com/quickening. The event in which I participated was at the next level up and is called the Advanced Leadership workshop. I'd be happy to explore both opportunities with you.

I would welcome an opportunity to share with congregations and their leaders.


With respect and a desire to support you more effectively than ever,
Bill R-H

What about . . .? Conversations among Clergy

Colleagues,

Clergy gatherings among are some of my favorite times of the month. Conversations can get rich quickly as devoted servant-leaders tell stories of struggles and breakthroughs in personal, family, congregation and community. Today, several of us in the central part of the area grazed on grapes and donut holes and bandied about the question, "How do we relate to Mormons - especially in communities where they are becoming a significant influence?" "Do we embrace them as full partners in a Christian ministerial alliance?" "Do we challenge their claims to be Christ-followers in union with the historic Church?"

Questions like these are not rhetorical or merely theological whimsy. They now draw considerable pastoral time and energy (in some places more than in others.) What do you say to a member of your church who, having been treated kindly by a local Mormon, now doubts their salvation or that of the dearly departed?

Beyond pastoral concerns, such questions raise other issues that linger always in the background. "Who is a Christian?" "Who gets to decide that for everyone?" "How do we relate to people whom we judge to threaten the orthodoxy of the Church?" "What in me gets 'hooked' whenever I am engaged in these controversial conversations?" What is the proper balance between justice and compassion?"

You can imagine that we did not find mutually agreeable, easy solutions. What I did find, however, was an integrity among us that I could trust. There is value in conversations that are open, honest, vulnerable to the Spirit's influence and passionate. What makes them even more valuable is that they take place within the assurance of a covenant. We commit to being here for each other. We allow for the fact that most transformation (even that which is fully directed by Christ) may take years for most of us . We challenge each other's conclusions but not those deep convictions forged over decades by prayer, Bible study, worship, and mission. We clamber up the mountain together to a teachable height, knowing that we cannot live here long but we will each return soon to the more congested and separated valleys of service and leadership.

I like to think that we go back to work together, that we have each other's back, that we care a bit more about each other each time we gather and return. The Great Commission and Great Commandment were, thank you Jesus, entrusted not to a few but to all the early Christ-followers and to us.

May we continue to invest in each other and into the missions we share in common - particularly the mission to make disciples of all nations.

Any Interest in Coaching, Clergy?

I invite you to visit www.thecolumbiapartnership.org and learn a bit about what is offered there.

I just enjoyed a long conversation with Dick Hamm (whose latest book, Recreating the Church, is a real ray of sunshine in uncertain times). He is interested in working with us and I'm interested in the area's helping to subsidize at least part of the expense for up to 5 pastors to enjoy monthly telephone coaching sessions with Dick - former General Minister and President of the DOC from 1993-2003 and now consultant for TCP and executive administrator for Christian Churches Together.

What I need from you is some indications of interest. Care to comment? (see below)
Bill R-H

General Assembly 07

The 2007 General Assembly in Fort Worth is now history. For those who were tracking resolutions, all were passed.

Strong messages from Jill Wallis (Soujourners), Alan Roxburgh (Allelon) and Bill Lee (DOC moderator) got the attention of many who attended.

The missional theme is being picked up by more Disciples. The learning track for Congregational Transformation was attended by about 200 people.

I brought back several keynotes from the National Evangelism Workshop that are on DVD. We'll be posting titles when I return to the office on Tuesday.

The work before us all is clearer: we need to create contexts in which a passion for mission in the community can flourish and spiritual preparation is likely to happen. Many congregations may be further along than they realize and perhaps we can help with that.

Evangelism and Missional Church

I'm writing from Fort Worth where we concluded the National Evangelism Workshop and are about to begin the General Assembly of the Christian Church (DOC).

What struck me most about the keynotes and workshops is how clearly leaders call for Christ-followers to:

• Become people with our own powerful (and credible) stories of being saved by Christ)
• Get invested into the communities where the gospel story is foreign
• Grow relationships with the "Samaritans" of our age
• Reclaim the high priority that Jesus gave to multiplying disciples

I will bring back several DVD and book resources that you can borrow - not to tell you how to do evangelism - but to help kick-start fruitful reflection and action with your leaders.

In the coming weeks I will begin to address each of the points above and invite us to engage in conversation as colleagues. We've just got to become more faithful and effective evangelists - every one of us. Many are depending on us, including the One who entrusted us with the mission.

Bill

A Plan For the Future

With conversations about missional church well underway, what can we expect to do together over the next several months?

Difficult as it may seem for action-oriented, results-driven leaders, we will spend a good deal of the next few months praying and working on our spiritual disciplines and conditioning.

We will also submit several grant requests to major foundations in hopes of funding education and research events for many congregational leaders in the area. We believe that by expanding the circle of people meeting cutting-edge leaders around the country, we are more likely to get the desired results.

Other focus areas will include more encounters with our communities in the form of large-scale, short-term projects and learning the art of Christ-centered conversation among us.

What would YOU recommend we be about as we strive to serve those of you who are equipping and inspiring new disciples?

Lessons in Missing the Boat

With the slow and subtle collapse of local community and thinning volunteerism, you'd think the local church would be throwing everything it has into this window of unprecedented opportunity. If disciples of Jesus know how to do anything, it is to call community into being and to equip, organize and lead volunteer teams.

We're letting this opportunity slip, too. We're still focused inwardly except when we occasionally dip our collective toes into real mission.

For the first time in recent memory, local and regional emergency service planners and providers are ready to welcome leadership from local religious communities. Safety and security are front-burner in the national psyche.

Send me an email and I'll attach a PDF proposal we are working on in Cameron to take advantage of this. The plan is easily adaptable to any community.

On Roles and Relationships

How did it happen that over time we stopped being a tighly knit band of adventurous disciples and drifted into membership of religious corporations led by paid professionals?

Recent and decent histories of the Church in North America abound these days. I won't attempt to address the "How?" question here.

I'd rather focus on how to recover that sense of adventure and purpose, the collegiality and high mutual regard we all once enjoyed at some time on our pilgrim journey with Christ.

If you are reading this, you already have more than a passing interest in the quality and efficacy of your discipleship. Do you also have more than an occasional twinge of longing for connection with disciples who really believe that living the good news was the intent all along of our hearing it?

I'd like to propose a Fifth Sunday reunion of disciples of Jesus to meet, pray, study and be studied by a few of the more challenging texts from the Word, to share table fellowship and renew our sense of individual and corporate focus.

Who's interested?

Bill

Easter Monday

Today is Easter Monday and I am wondering if anyone else is experiencing difficulty keeping up the level of focus and energy we did during Holy Week?

The resurrection was an accomplished fact before our celebrations of rememberance. The stunning reality of the resurrection of Jesus should have the power to lift and focus life every day, no?

If I learned anything this Lent it is that my spiritual disciplines are lacking the substance and frequency of a champion. To put this in athletic terms, it is as if my prayer life is just strenuous enough to prepare me to be a cheerleader and little more in the vineyard.

What I would not give for a group of nearby disciples of Jesus who who desired to work out in earnest for the race Christ called each of us to win.

Why Do You Follow Jesus?

Tom Bandy, writing in the Fellowship of Prayer Lenten series devotional, includes a prayer following his reflection on the story of Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It goes something like this: "Jesus, I've followed you for all the wrong reasons. Thank you for chasing me for all the right reasons."

That prayer sparked a long time of reflection in prayer today. I guess I'd never really given much thought to how self-centered the practice of Christianity has been for most of my life.

Perhaps it is impossible in this life to be one hundred percent about the mission of Christ but surely the percentage can be a lot higher than it is now.

How much of my spiritual discipline is, ultimately, about me - about my comfort levels with God and the human community? How much more different am I in my practices of faith than a benign, neighborly atheist?

Is being Christian like being Roman or Greek or Hebrew or Chinese? Differences galore but one no more human than the next? If being Christian is being about the focus and work of Jesus, then I guess that a lot of my life does not qualify as Christian. Christendom, perhaps, but not really Christian.

Fortunately, that can change. The same one who began this work in me will complete it in his time (or so I seem to recall avery reformed rabbi Paul once write).

What about you? Why do YOU follow Jesus?

Indigenous versus Imitation

Do you ever wonder why we overuse the art and music of cultures and times far removed from our own to give expression to our current encounters with the Gospel?

As I visit congregations around the country, I see lots of uniformity - a kind of "generic" order and style of worship that fewer and fewer people seem to invest in.

In my home town of Cameron, MO, nearly half of the population is comprised of medium and maximum security prisoners or staff members who serve them. Our community has a regional hospital, large school system, Missouri Veterans Home and several skilled and semi-skilled facilities as well as quite a bit of retail and agri-business. One newer, local congregation worships in a country-western style that feels more indigenous than the more common blends of traditional, classical, and contemporary styles.

Whatever indigenous worship, spiritual disciplines, and mission may be, discerning who we are will be as continuous as the changes in even "stable" Midwestern culture.

How important is is to be who we are, rather than to merely imitate the forms used by other communities?

What Does God Say To You?

The following is the key question for the retreat March 15 & 16 with Alan Roxburgh and 22 NW Area leaders at Conception Abbey:


"How would God have us reconfigure, retool, and transform at our core to become more than a denominational middle judicatory; a truly helpful team of servants who broker equipping relationships with congregation leadership teams of any or no denomination who want to become mission-driven, disciple-making, transforming communities, serving with Jesus in their zip codes?"

Please reflect prayerfully and let us know what God says to you.
B R-H

Create On-line Surveys!

Need to poll your community, your congregation, your leadership team? Check out Survey Monkey: "Using just your web browser, create your survey with our intuitive survey editor. Select from over a dozen types of questions (single choice, multiple choice, rating scales, drop-down menus, and more...). Powerful options allow you to require answers to any question, control the flow with custom skip logic, and even randomize answer choices to eliminate bias. In addition, you have complete control over the colors and layout of your survey."

Wikiletics

Check out a different kind of sermon resource. Anyone might benefit from reviewing some of the shared wisdom about scripture passages on this site. www.wikiletics.com/display/WH/Home

What's Going On?

What is "missional" church about anyway?

Let's start with what it's NOT:

• Not another program
• Not a denominational initiative
• Not an option
  

What missional church IS:

• Centered in the local community
• Congregationally led
• Focused on serving with Jesus (as opposed to for Him)
• Mostly carried out by well equipped lay people outside the church campus

This is how we intend to focus our best energy and resources.

This is a good place to share your reflections, your successes, your trials, your testimonies of transformation.

Let the journey begin!
BR-H

Area Website

Phase 1 of the new area website will be launched on March 1, 2007.

At the time the new website is launched, we will maintain a link to previous site.

Brian Bullock