In our work at A Renewal Enterprise, we are helping people and the organizations they care about learn how to be who they are and see what they have for the sake of doing what matters. But we sense a strong call to give special focus to this work in the church (especially that part of the church that lifts up a message of scandalous love, radical grace, and profound responsibility to neighbor!). This new website gives us an opportunity to be in conversation with church leaders in a more direct way. And we are pretty excited about that.
These are interesting times to be the church. All the old models are broken and it isn't clear, yet, what will replace them. But God is on the loose in the world! I see evidence of that all around.
I see God at work, for example, in people like Francis Westleywho is doing research in the area of social innovation at the University of Waterloo, and MIT professor Tom Malone, who is advocating for a more decentralized way of working together, and Tim Brown, who is inspiring people around the world to think more creatively and work more collaboratively. I hear God calling us, through leaders like these, to learn how to work together in more lifegiving - renewable - ways.
Part of learning to do church in renewable ways is learning to let go of what we used to be, think we ought to be, or want to be because we've been sucked into the butts and bucks game. God is up to so much more than butts and bucks. I'm not going to play that game anymore. My team and I got out of the business of "fixing" churches quite awhile ago. And we're as sick of "church growth" programs as you are. What we are excited about is learning how to:
- Listen more closely to the Spirit
- Pay attention to what God is up to in our own lives and in the life of our neighbor
- Work together in ways that unleash the creativity and energy that dwells within each one of us
- Pray more honestly and play more often
- Dance with God and with each other into the emerging future
We think of our work as post-modern because we reject the 20th century consumable model that characterized the modern, industrial way of doing life and work. We are exploring renewable, emergent, and organic ways of working together.
Also, we think of our work as post-missional because we reject the idea that the world is the object of our evangelistic or missional efforts. It doesn't need to be converted, claimed, conquered, or consumed. Instead, we embrace the world as the locus of God's activity. Jesus is at the crossroads! Once we have eyes to see that, it changes everything.
You'll hear a lot about this stuff on this blog, in our webinars and workshops, and pretty much anytime one of us opens our mouth. I hope you will jump in and be part of the conversation. We really don't know where this is all headed. We're living in the last days of Christendom. Something new is emerging and it is here. The future starts now.
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Doing What Matters Sunday Packet
