I wrote this article a few months ago – ripped the guts of the idea of a nice bloke called Mark Sayers…

Actually Mark has changed tack with his presentation on this topic.

He presents the first 4 stages of the em church movement kind of like I have written them, but then finishes with a question:

“Is the emerging church simply an incarnation among ‘cultural creatives’?”

Its a great question…watch wall e in divx

Justin is still chasing metaphors for ‘pastor’ in the em church scene. It seems every word has connotations – some good and some bad – such is the limitation of language.

‘Coach’ gels well with me. I have had many good experiences with coaches and with coaching. A coach can be a friend, but at the end of the day the coach is expected to help you get in shape for the game. He equips, encouarges, inspires, has been there before you and can share learning.

There are different forms of coaches too. In sport I always liked the role of coaching from the bench (basketball), but in church I feel we need playing coaches – people who are in there figuring it out with us, not yelling orders from the bench.

I guess many of the ‘issues’ with leadership often stem from people’s bad experiences. The funny thing is that for me, after 13 years in est churches I was almost always treated with kindness and respect by my leaders, so I am less concerned for the dangers of positional leadership.

When people say that leaders in positons of power become ‘abusers’ I get very toey for those leaders. Chances are most leaders are people trying to do the right thing who occasionally get off track. At least that is what I would see…

Perhaps all this just goes to show how much our experience shapes our beliefs!

Following on from the Monks, pastors, webmasters, cultivators etc discussion Steve has written a few of his thoughts about the place of the paid worker in the Em Church.

Here are a few quotes…

If I follow the idea’s that you are suggesting and develop an organic, movement of small responsive missional groups, what do I do for a living?”

As far as my research goes, the first “full time” workers were the apostolic and evangelistic types. You were paid to start new communities, not to maintain them

This gutsy young guy fronted up with the issue. Many people train for their whole lives and consequently gain a series of skills that are virtually useless in any other vocational context. There is a vested interest in maintaining the status quo for a very good reason. Bills need to be paid.

So… the bottom line (so to speak) is that there is no money to be made in the Em Missional Church…

And yet we need to live…

And some of us are called to be missionaries…

So how do we earn the necessary dollars?…

My two bobs worth is that we sometimes need to free people up to do this work. It doesn’t just happen – there is stuff that goes on behind the scenes, particularly in the realm of thinking and dreaming (something that is often underestimated) which means we need to support them.

I find that just teaching on Thursday and Friday seems to cut a swathe thru my week and limits what I can do. It hits me hard to lose those two days … but maybe that is because I have 3 paid roles…

On the other hand I like a stock standard day job, because it reminds me how others feel when they get home from work – tired and maybe not that fired up for a small group meeting or a missional activity.

If someone wanted to throw me another $22K a year I’d quit teaching tomorrow – because I don’t enjoy it. The big issue though would be the sense of identity that goes with work. I have felt that maybe our community would find it hard to grasp this guy who seems to have time on his hands to float around, have coffee, help with patios, go fishing, chat in the street etc.

My heart is in finding ways of connecting in with the community around here and yet it seems I need to do other things to subsidise that.

I have said before that I’m sure Paul didn’t wake up each morning and think ‘you beauty another tent!!’ But he did what he had to do so he could do what he loved to do. If teaching primary kids is my sacrifice then I’ll do it to have time to do the rest of the stuff.

Justin is asking whether there is a place for a paid pastor in the church. Part of his post reflects back on my own post and says the following:

“Today, Hamo got me thinking with his announcement that he’s been asked to do a blessing service for a neighbor’s son, as he did for his own son a few weeks ago. I was talking with my wife about this, as we are vocational church planters and do not really consider ourselves “pastors” in the proper sense (we’re more into the “priesthood of all believers” thing).

This is a tough one, though. Hamo got asked to do this because people see him in some regards as a pastor. I don’t think people will ever see any of our church planting team as pastors as such. Is this a problem? Maybe. Maybe we don’t need to be pastors. Maybe we need to be monks”

Read on here…

For my money, I agree totally with Justin that the priesthood of all believers is a key theological tenet we want to adhere to, but I don’t see that it has to preclude some folks from being freed up to spend more time in a leadership role.

My take on scripture is that both paid workers and ‘priesthood of all’ co-exist and maybe we need to find ways to make it happen again…

Monks?… hmmm… I like the ideas Justin articulates, but the monk notion just doesn’t fire me up! It still feels too separatist.

I have a suggestion to put to our team at our next Focus meeting. I’d like all of us to consider practicing the discipline of reflective learning over the next month with a particular focus on how we are engaging in mission.

Here is the daily task sheet – what do you reckon?

Mission Reflections

Complete for each day in the next month. This might only take 5 minutes a day, but it may take longer if you want to give it more time.

It is intended as a discipline

to help reflect on how God is at work in you and in the community we are a part of.

We will share what we have discovered when we gather in 4 weeks time.

1. Where did I see God at work around me today?

2. Where did I share something of my faith with someone today – how did that happen and what did I do?

3. What feelings arose in me as I engaged with people today?

4. What am I learning about God / Jesus / mission / myself?

5. Are there intersections between my current experience in the scriptures and what happened today?

Summary: Before coming to the group take some time to look back and summarise what themes emerge in your journal.

I am hopeful that as we complete this together we will see patterns and trends emerge in our lives and community and it will also bring missional practice to our consciousness. In a sense I am hoping it will train us to be more effective missionaries as we do/reflect/do/reflect etc.

Its not rocket science, but sometimes it takes a disciplined practice to help us move from old patterns to new ways.

Do you reckon people will do it?