The "Unchurching" Comic Book and the Unfinished Business of the Reformation

Friends - I've been mulling recently about what I consider to be the "unfinished business" of the Reformation as we are in the midst of the 500th anniversary of all that getting going. To me, the unfinished business is the empowerment of the "laity," which is the churchy word for "everyone who's not a clergyperson."

Luther himself proposed a bold move for that, but never launched it, and I've written about that on this blog before. That may be the most important post on this blog, come to think of it.

In the mean time, I want to lift up for you the work of Richard Jacbson who's written a really engaging book called "Unchurching: Christianity without Churchianity." There's a Facebook group and podcast around that now, and the latest incarnation is a comic book version that the focus of a Kickstarter campaign featured below.

I encourage you to take a look, and consider supporting this work! I for one believe it is past time for us to be asking better questions and launching bolder experiments in how we follow Jesus and bless the world. I salute Richard for being a part of that work.

Common Cause Communities and their LA Hatchery

Another group that's caught my attention is Spencer Burke's "Hatchery" in L.A. Their focus is on non-traditional church-planting and their core concept is "Common Cause Communities" which can be contrasted with teaching/attractional/Sunday morning mode congregations (and compared to 3dm Missional Communities for those of you familiar with that language.)

Common - Common faith in the way of Jesus
Cause - Outwardly focused on a shared cause to rally around
Community - to deepen relationships

If you're interested in new models or alternatives to traditional seminary, I encourage you to check them out.

"Greenhouse" Organic Church Workshop offered in Minneapolis, March 2011

If you are interested in the simple/organic/house church movement and live in or around the Twin Cities there's an excellent opportunity coming up quickly for you.  Church Multiplication Associates is holding a Greenhouse Training March 18-20 in Minneapolis. It's a Friday evening, Saturday morning and afternoon, and Sunday afternoon.  

What's a Greenhouse?

In a nutshell, a Greenhouse training does two things:

• Helps participants to reground their thinking about Church in "organic" terms as a simple, living organism that readily grows and reproduces. Much of the time at the training is spent exploring how that looks in practice, both as outreach and as discipling believers.
  
• Invites participants to follow up on the training by gathering monthly through the following year for encouragement and supportive accountability as they begin to pursue this kind of "missional living" in the context of natural relationships.

I attended a Greenhouse some time ago and highly recommend it from that experience. The cost ranges from $110 to $150. It's worth it.

For more specific information, contact my friend Katie Driver who is the local coordinator and will be one of the presenters.  You can register here.  For more of my thoughts and opinions about it, read on.

Although the Greenhouse training has good content in several areas, that's not the main reason I suggest you go. Frankly, good content isn't that hard to find these days and you can buy a lot of books for the price of this registration. What makes this worthwhile is that it pulls together three things that I think are key to Kingdom work - whether you're talking evangelism, discipleship or social ministry for that matter:

Simplicity.  Lots has been written about simplicity.  That's ironic, that is. Simplicity is vital for something to be easily transmitted and replicated. That goes for churches as well as viruses. The Greenhouse training works with a very simple expression of church, simple in both written and in human forms. That's good.

Substantive Relationships.  Relationships where people feel safe enough to get below the surface of life are foundational, both for people to come to faith and for believers to mature in faith. This is one reason why conventional congregations struggle so much under the burden of maintaining a weekly large group gathering that inherently can't facilitate those kind of relationships. The Greenhouse training focuses on equipping people for exploring faith together in groups of 2 to 4 as normative. It offers one simple tool for people to use in self-facilitating such groups, but only as an example or as one resource they recommend.

Intentionality.  This truly is the linchpin. Even mediocre ideas that actually get implemented will probably show more results than great ideas that are left on the shelf. I think the Greenhouse folks know this, which is why the real goal of the training is not simply to deliver good content to people. It's to lay a foundation for the formation of supportive accountability groups. (That's my term. They call them Greenhouse Monthly Gatherings which sounds much more fun and friendly and is probably a better term for that reason.) At the end of the training, they invite those who are interested to begin meeting monthly to encourage each other as they work to live out what they have learned. And note how the monthly meeting is not the main event. Rather, it plays a supportive role to the weekly gatherings of people in groups of 2-4, most of whom have not had the Greenhouse training. That's the kind of flip-the-pyramid strategy that sent me off to learn about house churches in the first place, two years ago.

This is good stuff and these are good people. If you can get to a Greenhouse I think you'll be glad you went.

Twin Cities House Church Coalition

David Brown

I recently met David Brown, a UMC Pastor who has launched "A coalition of house churches across the Twin Cities living in the way of Jesus" called STORM Faith Community.  At some point I'd like to post a little profile/interview with him here but for now I suggest you visit his website if you are interested in House Church groups in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul Area.

I would add though, that this is one of only a couple of cases I know of where a mainline denomination is actually investing in a home-based faith community as a missional strategy.  (If you know of others please let me know!)  The proof of that pudding is that STORM only gathers for large group worship monthly.  That may sound familiar if you've been reading my blog from the beginning since that pattern was part of my very first musings:

I began to wonder… what would it do for the life of the people if they met weekly in small groups, and then monthly, perhaps even quarterly for a rip-roarin’ pull-out-the-stops large group, corporate worship celebration? I thought about the possibilities for spiritual growth and evangelism. I thought about the time and the money it would release. I thought about the amazing celebrations we could do if we had a month or more to prepare for each one. I thought about the enormous decrease in the facilities needed. Then I realized, there is a name for the kind of congregational life where the small group is the main thing instead of an extra thing.

It’s called the house church.

Blessings, Dave.  May your house increase!

Catalyzing new communities? Thinking about it?

Those of you who are looking for kindred spirits to connect with as you plant or dream of planing new missional communities may want to check our TransFORM. It's a newly forming Ning-based social network. Here's a chunk from their About page. If you join, I'd be delighted to connect with you there.

Vision
TransFORM is an international, trans-denominational missional community formation network:

• international — primarily focusing on the United States context, where the majority of our members/partners live and work, but intentionally involving international partners, as well
• trans-denominational — working across denominational lines, in partnership with existing denominations, as well as with independent non-denominational groups
• missional — participating with God in God’s holistic mission to restore all of creation
• formational — contributing to the formation of vibrant communities of practice that in turn contribute to the formation of robust disciples of Jesus Christ

Purpose
The purpose of TransFORM is to bring together men and women who are on the verge of starting new communities (i.e., community catalysts) or are already cultivating new communities and to give them the encouragement and resources they need to get started and be sustainable:

• by providing training in missional community development, practical start-up issues, and theological engagement
• by connecting community catalysts with potential support structures
• by helping community catalysts negotiate complicated and challenging support structure relationships and hurdles
• to link community catalysts with mentors/spiritual directors

Goals

• Organize regional gatherings to bring together missional practitioners with those interested in forming new missional communities
• Partner with denominations/networks/groups to put on these regional gatherings and provide other resources and connections for community catalysts
• Develop other resources to encourage missional community formation
• Build and sustain momentum, share best practices and other learnings, provide mutual encouragement and exchange of ideas, and develop emerging leaders