This question came via email from a mate. I asked if I could throw it up on here to get some input. So wise people in blogland… offer your insights!

My own thoughts are below the questions…

What you think a group of 200 people doing a missional incarnate movement would look like?

What paid staff would you have, if any?

Ok… my response!

Hmmm… this is a very tough question actually because I reckon its hard to get 10 people on the same page let alone 200!

I have always thought it would be an interesting experiment to get to the end of a Sunday service and say ‘ok folks – that’s it – we’re done – church in this form is over for ever. But we’d love you to keep serving in the community and meeting together, so why don’t you figure out what you’d like to and make it happen?’

Putting the iniative back onto the people to make it happen would spawn some very interesting results I imagine a few possible outcomes…

1. Some would breathe a sigh of relief and live very loose unstructured lives that connected as they were able but often went for long periods of time with no gathering. I imagine they would either form up into a bunch of people meeting regularly with some purpose or they would disapate altogether.

My guess = 20%

2. Some would go and join another church because that is the only lens they have to view church thru and to ‘not attend’ would be simply unimaginable. This is the easiest solution because to do an unstructured thing would feel wrong, but to start from scratch means letting go all the services of a larger church.

My guess = 50%

3. Some would see it as the opportunity to re-think what they were doing and to ask the hard questions all over again – what is church? why do we do this? what is essential? what is peripheral? what are we on about?

My guess = 15%

* Some would drift off into the ether and never be seen in any kind of church again.

My guess = 15%

I guess there are other options but I can’t think of any more at the moment!

So by my rather pessimistic reckoning I am saying there are probably only 15% of your congregation really up for this kind of disruption to the ‘church’ segment of their life. And my guess is that once they’ve walked the road for a while there might be half of them peel off back to the church down the road.

Sorry – that’s not very hopeful is it?

So… if that’s the likely scenario I guess I am saying I feel it is unlikely to ever see a whole very established congregation moving in this direction.

Can you lead people thru a process of devolution? My good mate Stuart Wesley has been able to pull of a shift of this kind at Network Vineyard but that was in a 7 year old church with 100 people. They have re-invented themselves as a genuine network but they do still meet every Sunday. I know Stu is giving thought to paring this back to once a month or fortnight.

I have a sense that to make changes to a large established beast it will mean some level of compromise and a framework more like that of NCCC where the old runs parallel with the new. Those who get the new ‘incarnational movement’ stuff can pursue it but the others can keep meeting in various congregations as they are used to.

These guys have found a healthy middle ground and seem to have been able to hold consistent values across the congregations while allowing for great diversity.

You asked what kind of values this kind of church would have…

I’d say there would need to be a very simple and easily communicated notion of what the church is on about. One of the things Thom Rainer said was that if we want people to ‘get ‘our stuff then it must be easily ‘drawable’ and also uses some level of imagery. He quotes Andy Stanley’s church where the goal is to get people from the ‘foyer’ into the ‘lounge room’ and then into the ‘kitchen’ because this is where serious action occurs. Our own image is that of getting people to ‘swim upstream’. I imagine some very simple concepts easily spread would be pivotal here. Anything remotely complex or confusing will have people wilting.

As for practical outworking?

I imagine this will follow whatever purpose you set for the community. If its focus and hub is a worship event then this gets the best of our energies. If its focus is the local community then this ought to get the best of our energy and attention. Reality is that we are deeply programmed to default to our worship event settings, so that even when we set out with a new intention we often find ourselves back setting up the chairs and sound system!

I do tend to think that if there is to be a genuine change then it will result in a large shift in behaviour. People will need to do significantly different things, (acting their way into a new way of thinking) otherwise they will flop back very quickly.

I would be establishing some common practices that keep the whole ship pointing in the same direction. That way people know what is expected as a lowest common denominator.

As for paid staff?…

I guess it all depends on whether you try to hold it together centrally or just ‘let it go’ out there in the community. These days I find myself leaning towards very little centralised authority/control so in my mind it may look like a mess, but because of that it may not need any staffing.

If there is some attempt at oversight then I would still try to keep it to a minimum. Part of the problem with where we have been, is that once someone is paid to do ministry everyone else does it to a lesser degree. I know we don’t say it like that (“its about equipping”) but reality is that people give it away to the paid guys.

Whatever you do:

– listen to the spirit and follow him. Our good ideas are nothing if not inspired by God.

– remember ideals are great, but they are called ‘ideals’ because that’s what they are!

– have courage – maybe you will pull something off that others have been unable to.

Anyway – I have been thinking out loud for the last half an hour. What do others think they would do to re-orient an established church with 200 people in a missional incarnational direction?