My session at our Forge Re-imagine Learning Day this weekend revolves around the concepts presented in Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger. We are exploring what churches look like that have structures that facilitate healthy missional engagement and discipleship.
Duncan Brown who is about to be the new pastoral team leader at Peninsula Baptist Church in Vic (Mornington) is our key presenter and I am the ‘filler’…
What I liked about ‘SC’ is the way they distilled the essence of a healthy church into 4 distinct components and offered principles and a framework rather than a you beaut model.
However the further I went along the more I saw that while it may be ‘simple‘ it certainly wouldn’t be easy to do what they suggest.
The 4 core principles of ‘Simple Church’ are:
1. Clarity – because ‘people cannot embrace the ambiguous’. We need to decide what is is we are seeking to do and how we are seeking to do it. It needs to be clear and easily communicable so that people can ‘get it’. Clarity will enable measurability and accountability to what we put our hands to
2. Movement – Rhainer argues that we need to sequentially move people thru discipleship stages to help them increase in their
level of commitment. He states strongly that in churches where discipleship and mission is effective there is a ‘sequential / linear’ process that is followed. The sequence is not terribly imaginative being Sunday gathering – smaller groups – service. And I am not all that convinced that messy people follow linear processes very well either.
However his point is that we get ‘bottle-necks’ and need to clear them if people are to grow. Usually the bottle neck is the Sunday gig and we need to help people get beyond that. I’d like to see some more fluidity and flexibility in this dimension as it currently feels rather strait jacketish
3. Alignment – simply put this involves aligning all aspects of church life so that the same process occurs in each ministry area. It avoids groups competing and sending mixed messages to people. There is some real wisdom in this. Having been a youth pastor I know we developed our own vision statement, processes and systems alongside the main church, but it actually subverted the other congregation as we sought to develop our own identity.
Some will find Rhainer restrictive here, but the value is in harnessing a team that all wants to do the same things and not having competing agendas. Of course the question that arises is ‘what do we do with the disparate and dissenting voices?’ This hasn’t always been a strength of churches that are pursuing a vision. Its usually get on board or go somewhere else.
4. Focus – the point of this element is to eliminate any unnecessary activity and be very careful about adding anything new to the calendar. Often churches seem to develop and allow anything to happen so long as someone runs it and doesn’t ask for money. This element requires a particularly cohesive and focused leadership team to be able to implement and stay on track.
In all of these elements communication is crucial and the success of a church seeking to implement these elements will probably hinge on the degree to which they are able to get the message out. I guess we could call that good leadership!
While the book seeks to encourage churches to simplify, I am not quite sure where a missional involvement in the local community and everyday life fits. There was little if any talk of mission while there was talk of serving within the church.
Maybe I just notice these things more these days…
So you don’t need to come to my session now…
