Thanks for your response. You are such a breath of fresh air to me! I need people like you around me talking out loud, because its a catalyst for me to keep rethinking and imagining church, and even what being a pastor could mean for me.

I do need to clarify that I definitely don’t think that one person should be responsible for equipping the church. But I think that it is helpful if there are people who have the time, because they’re being paid, to equip people to equip others, who equip others, etc. And have people with different gifts/passions equipping people in the areas of their gifts/passions.

So this isn’t a hierarchical things, just a way of bringing out the best of the dreams and gifts God has given everyone.

I agree with you that it is probably easier to plant than to change an existing congregation. If you consider that the congregation will grow from the DNA that exists, it’s important to start with the DNA that will produce the desired result.

Concerning full-time pastors, my thoughts are more ambivalent than dogmatic.

On the one hand, I would love to see people like yourself planting new kinds of churches and changing the landscape of church as we know it.

On the other hand, I consider the billions we spend in America for a different expression of church on every block, with each group needing a minimum budget of several hundred thousand a year, and then I think there must be a better use for all this money.

Contextually, I think that Americans still want some type of public gathering, although that could be changing. In that case, it would be nice to be able to pay someone to take on a full-time role role of administrating and catalyzing such a gathering.

Where I would make a distinction is about the role of the full-time person. In order to not revert to the clergy mentality, I believe that it should be clear that ministry is the shared responsibility of the congregation.

I don’t believe that one person should be responsible for the equipping of the body, but rather that you will find those equipping gifts among the body. The same is true with discipling, teaching, and mentoring. None of these things should be taken on solely by the leader.

Even if this is clear in your heart as the leader, as long as there is a full-time pastor, it will be an uphill battle to prevent passivity among the congregation regarding who is responsible for ministry.

Anyway, as I struggle through my own thoughts on the role of a pastor, I want to be careful to not disrespect in any way the vision that God has put in someone else’s heart. My struggles are with particular issues concerning how we have seen this role function, not with the legitimacy of the calling of the men and women who serve well within this role.

Which I guess brings me back to the original point of the post. It worries me that as we deconstruct and reimagine ways of doing church, that in the process we invalidate the legitmate things that others are doing for the good of the kingdom.

So even though I am still wondering if there is a different way of doing church, I totally respect what God is doing through you, and I look forward with excitement to reading about your journey in planting this church.

I’m really sorry to take so long to respond.

To answer your question, the good news is that I do think there’s a possibility of turning a traditional congregational into a missional community.

The bad news is that I think the possibility is between slim and none. The last church I was at in Australia moved to some extent from being inward focused to missionally focused.

But it nearly killed me in the process. I think the view that it makes more sense to plant a new church than try to change an existing church culture.

When you refer to giving to the community instead of the church, you mean the community instead of financially supporting pastors–right?

I have a good friend who is going to be a part of our new church plant who is thinking along similar lines, and as I’ve told him, I’m obviously biased on this. But I think that there should be full-time pastors focused on equipping people, and that this should be a paid role.

But there are lots of other areas–perhaps ones where I’m less biased!–that I think would free up lots of funds for giving to the community.

I am always interested in hearing what you see in the future for the church.

I just wonder if there will be an entire generation of seminary-trained pastors caught in the midst of the shift the church is about to experience.

For yourself, I am guessing that you have many skills acquired in the pastorate and from life experience that you would find applicable to other career options, should you ever find yourself looking for a “real job”.

“Could explain more about why you are less “hireable”?”

Basically because when you challenge the status quo, you scare/offend/terrify both the congregation (the ones committed to passivity) and other pastors/leaders (the ones committed to power and prestige).

“Is it because your values no longer fit within a traditional structure?”

That’s also a big part — you just suddenly realize (after a long season of sensing that you’re moving in a different direction) that YOU don’t fit. And the more my values changed (I’ll write a post on this later with a real-life story), the less I WANTED to fit in.

“If so, do you feel that missional leaders will need tentmaking occupations to provide for their families?”

That’s been my experience, but I wouldn’t consider myself “the wave of the future”, although there are quite a number of former pastors who are finding that tentmaking is not just their only viable option (if they’re “hard to hire”), but actually a desirable option.

People like Brother Maynard are better suited to this shift that people like me, simply because he already had a “real” job and I trained only for the pastorate and have no other marketable skills. Perhaps Brother Maynard is “the wave of the future”!

Now that sounds like church! And yes, there are plenty of opportunities for people to lead out in living this way. I’m just not sure if they are necessarily career opportunities anymore.

Steve,
Thanks for your encouraging words.

ksg,
I can certainly relate to your thoughts about not being an “employable volunteer” in a traditional church setting. That is the problem with this emerging/missional conversation. It seems to ruin a person for fitting into the institutional structure. I think as we all become new kinds of leaders and followers, we may learn a more fluid relationship of sometimes leading and sometimes following.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You always have helpful input.

While we all agree that congregants are likely more responsible for passivity than the leaders, do you think we will ever overcome that passivity as long as there is a person hired to “do the stuff”?

We have missional people frustrated in nonmissional churches and missional leaders trying to lead passive followers. I guess we just need to get them hooked up with each other.

Could explain more about why you are less “hireable”? Is it because your values no longer fit within a traditional structure? If so, do you feel that missional leaders will need tentmaking occupations to provide for their families?

john,
I have several thoughts about “leading” the family in contributing to taking care of the home, since this is my area of expertise.

1. It would usually be easier to do it yourself. (resist the urge)

2. You could usually do a better job yourself. (resist the urge)

3. You may be tempted to criticize the quality of work done. (resist the urge)

These are lessons about the sometimes frustrating work of getting others to participate.

John, I pray that you and your wife hear from God on how to deal with the financial aspect of this. The reality of financial pressure can suck the life out of our dreams.

I wanted to ask you about saying no to the traditional pastor positions. Do you see any possibility of turning a traditional congregation into a missional community?

Since you asked, my thoughts about finances in a church are kind of bizarre. I have been trying to imagine a church where you could teach service and giving, but the service was to the community instead of the church, and the giving was to the needy instead of to the church.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to stand in front of a bunch of people and teach and encourage them to give abundantly, knowing that they would take that excitement and follow the direction of the HS in finding where to give and knowing how blessed they would be in their giving.

Of course, this totally messes with our non-profit, get a tax deduction mentality. Not to mention, aside from house church, I have yet to figure out how to do church in a way that doesn’t cost anything.

Sorry to say, I have more questions that answers at this point.

I like what McRob says, “But the more I pursued a more authentic, community-based expression of the Faith, the less “hire-able” I became.” This is so true… as I’ve reworked my understanding of church, I’ve become less “employ-able” (even though I’ve only ever volunteered) by church. After all, who wants a guy who thinks he’s equal to everyone else, including the senior pastor, in value to the organization, who’s passion it is to do what God’s called him to do but doesn’t believe that the pastor holds the ‘vision’ for the church but instead thinks that the vision is held by the active believers within the congregation and so therefore that vision is ever evolving, someone who actually wants to be a part of a team who wrestles with scripture and how to apply it, someone who thinks evangelism is what happens everyday when Jesus followers go about their intentional Christian lives and not just a program on Thursday night or a staged event every other Friday. I’ve been taught for 27+ years that everything rises and falls on leadership, so I say to old school church types, “If you really believe that, then who should you be holding responsible? Don’t blame the sheep when it’s you as ‘under-shepherds’ who have created this mess.”
My resume doesn’t fit institutional church, and I mean the charismatic, word-of-faith, “in revival”, fits of laughter, roar-like-a-lion, set man, pyramid-shaped, evangelical type of institutional church, not the ones that the afore-mentioned church loves to mock or otherwise hurl insults towards.

New types of leaders require new types of followers. I say that reluctantly since it’s very easy to still think of leader/follower relationships in terms of the old paradigm.

Oh, “So-I-Go”… love that scripture…thanks.

Here’s praying for you John.