On Sunday night I spoke again at a friend’s church and shared some of the Brighton story – what we’re about, what we ‘do’, yada yada yada…

While speaking I spotted a couple in the crowd who I thought I knew – so after the service I went up and said g’day. It turned out we didn’t know each other and had never met before. They had enjoyed the night and engaged with what I was saying about connecting with neighbours because they were actually physical next door neighbours – not a ‘couple’ as I had thought.

‘Oh so you’re both Christians and neighbours’ I said, making an assumption…

‘I’m a Christian’ she said, ‘but he’s not’

He nodded – this was a true statement – like saying he was wearing jeans – but here he was at church… listening to a bloke speak about connecting missionally with neighbours. Just a tad ironic I felt – especially given that I had just been telling them that most Aussies don’t come to church any more (which is of course still true).

I had to ask him how he felt sitting there listening to a talk about evangelism – given his current faith status. For some reason he loved it, wanted to come back next week and hear more… Weird!

There is no question God is at work in this guy’s life – and he brought him to a local church.

‘How did you find being in church?’ I asked. I am always interested in an ‘outsider’s’ perspective.

‘It was great – I couldn’t sing though – so I just sat thru that bit – but the rest was good’.

Which brings me to the point finally!…

If its not part of his life to sing ‘pre-faith’ should we expect him to do it ‘post-faith’. Is singing an essential biblical requirement for worship or is it a cultural expression that can be taken or left depending on context?…

There is a LOT of singing in the Bible – music has been called the ‘language of culture’ – but must rundown the dvd churches sing?

Some have said ‘once you know Jesus you can’t help but sing’. Maybe that’s true. Maybe we should expect new believers to pull in and become like us in this way?…

Do you think?…

Or have we become so attached to our singing that we just can’t conceive of worship taking any other form?

It is a genuine question because I think there is something powerful and engaging about a group of people singing, but should we see it as normative?

As a team we are working to develop a biblical and functional leadership structure.

We have split into three teams to explore the NT teachings on this subject. One group is looking at the Gospels, on the Acts and Romans and the other the rest.

We are looking at these questions as we read:

1. What do you see the qualities of or qualifications for leadership in the NT to be?

2. Who are the key leaders in the books you read and what do they actually do?

3. What different leadership structures do you observe in the Christian communities/groups you read about? What conclusions can you draw about leadership/church structure from the NT?

4. What seems to be the non-negotiables of biblical leadership? By that I mean some things are specifically situational, like Jesus choice to lead with 12 apostles, but some things are permanent and must appear in all church communities everywhere. What would you sense are those core elements?

I am convinced that the long term effectiveness of our missional communities is directly linked to the quality of the leadership.

That’s a big call, but I’d say its the single most critical element in shaping and developing a healthy team. Hence I believe if we can get a good handle on it at this point we will begin to steer in the right direction.

One of the questions I believe we face as a team is the shaping of identity and what that means for people joining us.

One the one hand we want to be an ‘everybody welcome’ type of deal where people can from anywhere in terms of their proximity to God and feel like they belong. But on the other hand we don’t want to dilute the essential DNA that shapes our missional identity.

If there were a spectrum I reckon ‘missional order’ might sit at one end, with very high requirements for joining and an almost ‘exclusive’ air about them while some of our churches tend to sit at the other, where we are happy if people just show up on Sunday.

I realise the vast majority do not sit in these extremes. Missional orders want people to join and churches want people to develop into mature disciples.

The question I am tussling with at the moment is ‘how do we shape up who we are?’

I sense a missional order in the style of UNOH hazard of hearts a dvd download is not what God has called us to – but neither do we want to be a ‘whatever happens’ kind of community where there are very low or no expectations…

My gung ho side leans towards shaping a missional order because I don’t like passengers and people who don’t pull their weight. But can we expect a new ‘convert’ to be as much of a disciple as a long termer? (In some ways yes – in others no!)

I believe this is where we need to exercise some wise leadership and be open to getting it wrong as we move forwards here.

Sometimes I enjoy not having a map and just cutting a swathe thru the bush, but other times I’d like a bit of guidance to avoid the inevitable dead ends and u turns that occur.

I would be interested in how you perceive our group to be functioning as you read this blog.

If on a scale of 1-10, 1 were a high requirement missional order and 10 a no requirement ‘please come’ church what would we seem definitely maybe free to be???? (I say seem because I am aware that this does not give a true picture)