A note to my general audience for context: The following are some random
thoughts of mine as I try process through some big questions facing the North
American Church of Jesus, in particular the world-wide team I play for call the
Wesleyan Church. Organizationally in North America the Christian movement
(non-denominational and denominational alike) is losing the culture and America is
slowly slipping into a post-Christian era. This Must Change, because God loves
and values lost people, therefore, we must get busy and get back ON MISSION, HIS mission! It is my hope that processing through the tough issues I address below is a help for all those to whom this memo may be more suited
In a recent survey of our denominational pastor’s and leaders, headquarters asked pastors and leaders a series of questions to assess the current plight of our organization. Here is a listing of those questions:
Question 1
What are your greatest hopes for The Wesleyan Church?
Question 2
What is your church already doing to spread transformational hope and holiness?
Question 3
What are the barriers that prevent or hinder your local church from spreading transformational hope and holiness?
Question 4
What needs to be revived, refined, reinvented and/or restructured in order for The Wesleyan Church in North America to achieve its vision?
Question 5
How should we be measuring the health and growth of The Wesleyan Church to evaluate our mission effectiveness?
How should we be measuring the health and growth of The Wesleyan Church to evaluate our mission effectiveness?
It is obvious that we are no longer a movement, but a maintenance organization that is losing the culture and dying the slow death of attrition. I fear Coke and McDonalds are more committed to their product than we are to the Gospel of Christ…and the statistical realities of our North American Conference confirm this reality.
Some of my thoughts as I am still processing through all of this:
1) We must become a movement again!
By the time we have built walls and written by-laws for God he has already broken out of them…He’s God and cannot be institutionally captured or driven. Church history tells this story better than I, and one lesson from Wesley’s own “Quadrilateral” would be to learn from Church history and traditions so we do not repeat the errors of our past! VS. building and guarding our “religious/sacred relics.” God is not contained in images, buildings, and rules…He is God!
Some of my thoughts as I am still processing through all of this:
1) We must become a movement again!
By the time we have built walls and written by-laws for God he has already broken out of them…He’s God and cannot be institutionally captured or driven. Church history tells this story better than I, and one lesson from Wesley’s own “Quadrilateral” would be to learn from Church history and traditions so we do not repeat the errors of our past! VS. building and guarding our “religious/sacred relics.” God is not contained in images, buildings, and rules…He is God!
I, for one, think only revolution and reinvention can get us moving again.
Are we a movement, or are we spinning our wheels in institutional heaviness?
2) We need to stop and make sure we are asking the right questions.
We must ask the most fundamental questions again. Everything must be on the table. We must return to the Scriptures and ask, "who are we as Christ’s followers and what is our mission, what are we suppose to be doing?"
I sincerely believe we have failed to ask the most fundamental questions of MISSION and VISION!
Are we a movement, or are we spinning our wheels in institutional heaviness?
2) We need to stop and make sure we are asking the right questions.
We must ask the most fundamental questions again. Everything must be on the table. We must return to the Scriptures and ask, "who are we as Christ’s followers and what is our mission, what are we suppose to be doing?"
I sincerely believe we have failed to ask the most fundamental questions of MISSION and VISION!
MISSION: what God has told you to do; the reason you are alive?
VISION: A “God inspired” mental picture of what could be, fueled by a passion that it should be!
This is what changes the world! – The Church of Jesus ON "HIS" MISSION to make disciples of the lost.
3) We need to ask the RIGHT PEOPLE!
If we are to learn and grow through this time of REVOLUTION and REINVENTION, we must listen to the disenfranchised and de-churched. We must become learners again. We must take a new stance in N. America, that of a missionary. We are NOT a Christian nation…statistically, this is true. We must listen to the culture and to the Holy Spirit and learn again how to communicate the Gospel to our culture. How can we reach the World with the Gospel from North America, if we have lost the credibility in our own land with our lack of zeal for the Gospel here at home?
What have we learned from key leaders who have stepped away from the WC for good, conviction-based reasons?
When is the last time we have asked a lost person (not an author who tells us about lost people) why they do not see our light or why our saltiness does not make their mouth water for the Living Water of Jesus Christ?
4) We need to STOP asking, "how do we grow?"
This is what changes the world! – The Church of Jesus ON "HIS" MISSION to make disciples of the lost.
3) We need to ask the RIGHT PEOPLE!
If we are to learn and grow through this time of REVOLUTION and REINVENTION, we must listen to the disenfranchised and de-churched. We must become learners again. We must take a new stance in N. America, that of a missionary. We are NOT a Christian nation…statistically, this is true. We must listen to the culture and to the Holy Spirit and learn again how to communicate the Gospel to our culture. How can we reach the World with the Gospel from North America, if we have lost the credibility in our own land with our lack of zeal for the Gospel here at home?
What have we learned from key leaders who have stepped away from the WC for good, conviction-based reasons?
When is the last time we have asked a lost person (not an author who tells us about lost people) why they do not see our light or why our saltiness does not make their mouth water for the Living Water of Jesus Christ?
4) We need to STOP asking, "how do we grow?"
...especially when the mission is to love and reach out to lost people and make disciples.
We need a Cataclysmic Event, not a new growth curve.
At every moment of plateau and/or decline, you either put the organization in hospice until the end (which is one thing the WC is competent at doing) or you look for something to change the destiny of the organization. That something is or requires a catalyst! Organizationally speaking, we need a ‘Sigmoid Curve’ experience.
Everyone wants this!….BUT is the WC willing to pay the price for such an event? In order to get from x to y you need a CATALYST! Not a tweak, not a survey, not a meeting, not a set of internally generated pre-set questions, not technology, not a building, not a new thing...maybe it's just returning to the power of an ancient way, a barbaric way, the raw power and message of the Gospel? Now that would be cataclysmic. To strip our organization, our constitution, our by-laws down to the Gospel. If we want the power of God again in our movement, than we need the Gospel! No Gospel....No power!
If you want the growth curve, FIRST you must embrace the greater cataclysmic forces of the Holy Spirit destabilizing our foundations, and revolutionizing the way we see God’s world, the world he is ON MISSION to save!
Are we willing to embrace this Catalyst? (whatever God has in mind – and I tend to think of it as a person or group of persons, considering God uses people in the Bible far more than institutions) To quote Steve Deneff, "we lack HERO's in our day." I say, we need some, badly! And if this is what we need, we should ASK, SEEK, and KNOCK until our eyes are opened to God's provision.
The Wesleyan Church needs to pray on its knees for God to send a CATACLYSMIC vision to us and for us to have the courage to embrace it! I don’t know if it’s a new leader, a new system, a new name, a new discipline….all of the above…or some combination….but mark this, a Revolution is a foot.
Whether it’s now, or whether it’s when this ‘catalyst’ finally is handed the reigns, either through God’s providence or simple attrition….this Cataclysmic moment is coming…why not embrace it now, so we can celebrate it together for all of eternity.
5) We can start planning to live as a people and as a movement again, or we should just simply tell the truth and embrace our organizational mortality.
Personally, this is the one thing that gives some hope….you, nor I, can extend our life by one minute by planning or worrying….BUT THE CHURCH, the Church of Jesus, can out survive us all (temporally speaking)….The Bible Promises that God’s Church (God's people on God's MISSION) will stand and will win every battle it engages in against the gates of HELL!
Today, we can take courage and plot a new course for ourselves, and for future Followers of Christ who call themselves a movement in the spirit of true Wesleyanism.
Let’s do what we can now…for our generation of Christians who play for the team called Wesleyan, and for the next generations that will follow us! Let’s plan to be alive, to thrive, and to LIVE ON MISSION until Jesus comes!
At every moment of plateau and/or decline, you either put the organization in hospice until the end (which is one thing the WC is competent at doing) or you look for something to change the destiny of the organization. That something is or requires a catalyst! Organizationally speaking, we need a ‘Sigmoid Curve’ experience.
Everyone wants this!….BUT is the WC willing to pay the price for such an event? In order to get from x to y you need a CATALYST! Not a tweak, not a survey, not a meeting, not a set of internally generated pre-set questions, not technology, not a building, not a new thing...maybe it's just returning to the power of an ancient way, a barbaric way, the raw power and message of the Gospel? Now that would be cataclysmic. To strip our organization, our constitution, our by-laws down to the Gospel. If we want the power of God again in our movement, than we need the Gospel! No Gospel....No power!
If you want the growth curve, FIRST you must embrace the greater cataclysmic forces of the Holy Spirit destabilizing our foundations, and revolutionizing the way we see God’s world, the world he is ON MISSION to save!
Are we willing to embrace this Catalyst? (whatever God has in mind – and I tend to think of it as a person or group of persons, considering God uses people in the Bible far more than institutions) To quote Steve Deneff, "we lack HERO's in our day." I say, we need some, badly! And if this is what we need, we should ASK, SEEK, and KNOCK until our eyes are opened to God's provision.
The Wesleyan Church needs to pray on its knees for God to send a CATACLYSMIC vision to us and for us to have the courage to embrace it! I don’t know if it’s a new leader, a new system, a new name, a new discipline….all of the above…or some combination….but mark this, a Revolution is a foot.
Whether it’s now, or whether it’s when this ‘catalyst’ finally is handed the reigns, either through God’s providence or simple attrition….this Cataclysmic moment is coming…why not embrace it now, so we can celebrate it together for all of eternity.
5) We can start planning to live as a people and as a movement again, or we should just simply tell the truth and embrace our organizational mortality.
Personally, this is the one thing that gives some hope….you, nor I, can extend our life by one minute by planning or worrying….BUT THE CHURCH, the Church of Jesus, can out survive us all (temporally speaking)….The Bible Promises that God’s Church (God's people on God's MISSION) will stand and will win every battle it engages in against the gates of HELL!
Today, we can take courage and plot a new course for ourselves, and for future Followers of Christ who call themselves a movement in the spirit of true Wesleyanism.
Let’s do what we can now…for our generation of Christians who play for the team called Wesleyan, and for the next generations that will follow us! Let’s plan to be alive, to thrive, and to LIVE ON MISSION until Jesus comes!
If we embrace this revolution, our legacy and God's work with us will never end and will be celebrated for eternity throughout the corridors of Heaven. God never ends a life He still has plans to use on this side of heaven! So let us embrace the LIFE that is truly LIFE for our Church again.
We must not leave this to the next generation to change. We MUST change NOW! If not, let’s just pick a burial plot and a headstone and pray to God he raises up someone else to reach people for Jesus, because where we came from (Egypt-the past-the way it used to be done) seems like the best we can do or want for ourselves, our future, our world, and for our God who is ON MISSION to rescue lost people.
Are we going to be the Moses generation full of murmuring and doubt who die in the desert OR are we going to be the Joshua generation, who bold go with courage and conviction? Who challenge everything and embrace the MISSION of God.
Let’s not have meetings, take surveys, and do reports all for the purpose of ‘tweaking’ or ‘piddling with’ structures and polity. That’s not revolutionary, it is not reinvention, and it certainly is not inspiring to the next generation of Christians who currently wear a Wesleyan Jersey!
I thank my leaders for opening up a portal for this conversation to take place. I pray that we open up all of the windows and let the fresh wind of the Holy Spirit blow through every nook and cranny of us until it fills our sails of ministry once again as we venture out on the high seas of MISSION, God’s Mission!
God is working!
Allen
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