Alan Roxburgh re the 'Missional Church'
Roxburgh believes:
* We don’t need to hear any more bad news about declining numbers. We know we’re in trouble. We just need to work out how we can live in the world we’re in.
* The maps of the 20th century, still used in training of clergy, are no longer as helpful in helping us grow.”
* We can’t continue to rely on the models of church growth used in the 20th century. Producing babies to replace ourselves, is no longer cutting it.
* The 40/40 rule, in which graduates could count on 40 years of secure work at 40 hours a week, is the foundation of our expectation of volunteer commitment. But the rule is no longer in use in the workplace.
* We’ve relied on loyalty in the past, hoping that people will sign up based on their existing sense of commitment to the denominational or local brand. For many denominations, the way to deal with the new scene is to transfer all hope into church planting. But we’re discovering that the dynamics have changed even in new environments. We’re in a time of transition from a previous environment of stability and control into a new future that is unpredictable and beyond our control.
* We should avoid the ’saviour mentality’ found in many models in which congregations buy in a CEO/dynamic visionary senior minister who can identify, articulate and roll out vision, goals and outcomes. The model imposes many of the categories of modernity which have led the church to where it is now.
* Despite many books giving advice on how we configure the church, we still have the challenge of working through culture change, changing the cultural imagination of a group of people in a particular setting.
* We’re used to the model of defining the problem, defining the solution and rolling out a strategic plan. We need to avoid presenting a ‘plan’ which has the potential to drive or disillusion people in a way that is ’straight out of hell’.
* Leaders need the skills to cultivate an environment, create spaces for the ‘in between’ where the Spirit is given the opportunity to work. Much of our work is ‘fast track’, moving quickly from strange to familiar, the other to the close. Many of our plans take the ‘other’ and make them objects for our own ends. Much of our efforts at project management are about the baggage of ministers.
* We need to begin where people are, not where we want them to be. For example, much of the ‘emerging church’ conversation assumes that Pentecost was just for young people. The reality was that the visitors to Jerusalem were likely to be in retirement age, making Pentecost a ‘geriatric event’.
* People need to be invited into conversations that seek to help them make sense of their lives, and that give them language for the world in which they live. We need the means to listen to the narratives beneath the narratives. Too often, congregations are not a place where people are invited into free speech. People are told what they should believe and say.
* We can start by cultivating awareness of the world around us. We can help people find words for the reality around them. We can invite people into ongoing dialogue about their growing awareness, recognizing that we’re usually aware of 10 percent at most of our world (like an iceberg). Free speech includes sticking with the dialogue long enough to hear what is really going on in the community. It means resisting the tendency to look for the ‘real agenda’.
* When we have developed the skills of patient listening and dialogue then we can ask “What does this mean for us as a congregation?”
* This is about dialogue. It is not about organizational change. Organizational change is a waste of time if you are trying to change culture. It’s only useful after the fact of change. Not changing anything provides space for listening and dialogue.
* We should stop focusing on the church. Look at what is happening in the world.
* We must go out into the villages, enter our neighbourhood(s), enter into the homes of the other. Enter their narratives.
