MIM Ezine, December 29, 2007

-- Want an Equipping Church? Small Groups Play an Important Role, by Teena M. Stewart

-- Book Review: "The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church To Reach A Changing World,"by Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk, reviewed by Tom Hanover.

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Does your congregation have a consumer mentality? Many churches suffer from this mindset. We live in a society where many conveniences are readily available. The result is people come to church with an attitude of "what can you do for me” rather than “what can I do for Christ?"

How do we transition people from passive consumers to servant leaders? How do we develop leaders who develop more leaders? The answer is to become an equipping church.

What is an equipping church? It is a church that equips people for effective ministry by developing their spiritual maturity while coaching and mentoring them to be able to coach and mentor others. The fruit of becoming an equipping church is that more people mature spiritual as they come to Christ.

To do this, the effort has to take place on multiple levels in multiple areas. One area of equipping often overlooked is the small group. Small groups are more than simply Bible study groups, although scriptural study is often a key element to these groups. Healthy small groups encompass more; they aid spiritual and physical equipping.

People can only retain so much from a Sunday sermon. In groups, participants learn Bible basics, discuss scriptural principles, and glean how to use them as a compass for their lives. They also benefit from a healing environment and family support network where people can help each other with emotional, spiritual, and physical needs.

Small groups also equip by tapping into the unique skills and gifts of its members. Some may have the gift of hospitality, others administration, others teaching and so forth. There are many opportunities within small groups that allow members to utilize their gifts. Through use, members polish these skills and gain confidence in using them on a larger scale to help the church body.

Groups are also a key place for leader apprenticing. However, I don't have room here to cover all of the ins and outs of apprenticing and mentoring, but I'll briefly touch on these aspects.

Group leaders need to be taught how to look for potential future leaders. Once they are identified, they can also give apprentice leaders opportunities to try their hand at leading. Often, after an apprentice leader has proven himself/herself, he/she can even be encouraged to start new groups. As these leaders are developed they learn to use their leadership expertise in other areas in order to serve more of the church body.

My book, Successful Small Groups from Concept to Practice, resulted from my desire to help people understand the value of small groups, while providing the encouragement and resources to launch and grow them as well as to develop leaders. I believe that if more church leaders were aware of the leadership equipping potential within small groups they would make small group development more of a priority.

      I just caught a cold and feel really lousy. I don’t think it detracts from my masculinity at all to say I want my mommy.
     Okay, now that I see it in print, I admit it detracts from my masculinity.
     But it is amazing how Mom always used to know exactly what to do when I got sick, and she invariably had a treatment plan that was even more dreadful than the illness itself.
     At the first sign of the sniffles, Mom would produce one of those old glass thermometers that I had to hold in my mouth for so long that my chin would begin to quiver uncontrollably and my jaw felt like it was going to fall off.
     If I had a fever that was anything less than life-threatening, then off to school I went. If the thermometer revealed I was indeed knocking on Death’s door — or, if not knocking at his door, then at least hanging around in his subdivision somewhere — then Mom would proceed to the second stage of treatment which involved administering a dose of rot-gut whiskey, which is also known in some communities as “NyQuil.”
     They’ve since changed the formula, but back when I was growing up, NyQuil was about 90 proof and was so potent you could get tipsy by just walking past the medicine cabinet.
     Interesting historical note: Archeologist James R. NyQuil discovered his now-famous cold remedy in 1872 while excavating an ancient Native American archeological site in southern Arizona. His team unearthed “a foul-smelling liquid” which was thought to be used as an embalming fluid.
     Human nature being what it is, the entire archeological team agreed they should all take a sip “and see what happens.” The few that didn’t suffer a sudden, horrific death were almost instantaneously cured of their colds. This draught eventually became a tremendous commercial success and remains to this day a popular cold remedy and paint remover.
     After giving me medicine, Mom would shuttle me off to bed, slather about three inches of Vicks VapoRub all over my chest, and then button my pajama top over it. Nothing helps a kid drift off to sleep like having his jammies pasted to his body with a sticky, gelatinous substance that smells like axle grease.
     I’m not sure what this action was supposed to accomplish, but Mom believed in Vicks VapoRub just as if Moses had brought it with him down from Mt. Sinai or something. Any questions about its effectiveness were not to be born and were immediately dismissed.
    Finally, Mom would set up a nefarious contraption known as a humidifier, which continuously pumped thick clouds of vapor into my room. This served to distract me from my sticky jammies by transforming my bedroom climate into that of a primordial rain forest. All night long, I would have terrible nightmares of being chased through the jungle by dinosaurs who caught me and spit axle grease all over my chest. It was awful.
     When I awoke in the morning, I couldn’t see more than three feet in front of me because of the thick cloud hanging in the air. The first time this happened I thought that my cold had been a lot worse than originally thought and that I was now enveloped in heavenly clouds.
     Fortunately for the kids today, Mom’s method of treating colds was outlawed in the mid-1980s and is now only used to interrogate terrorists.
     But whatever strange methods Mom used to treat my colds, I never doubted her love for me. She always came to my rescue when I was hurting. I think one reason good parents are put on this earth is to paint a small picture of what God’s personality is like. I believe that when we see something good in human nature, it is a reflection of God’s personality. Because I have known my parent’s love, it’s easier for me to imagine my heavenly father caring for me when I’m hurting.
     And now that I’m an adult and have kids of my own, I try to give them the very best care I can when they’re sick. And by that, of course, I mean that I goof off and let their mom handle it.

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by Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk (Jossey-Bass, 2006, ISBN 0-7879-8325-X, 206 pages)

What is a missional church? How is it different from some other kind of church? How does one lead a congregation into becoming a missional church? Roxburgh and Romanuk put their heads and hearts together to unpack the answers to these questions with significant research and insight.

Alan J. Roxburgh is a pastor, teach, writer, and consultant with more than 30 years experience in the church. He works with the Allelon Missional Leadership Network in the formation of leaders for the missional church.

Fred Romanuk is an organizational psychologist who has led strategic planning initiatives for many large organizations in Canada and the United States.

This book should be read carefully and thoughtfully with a yellow highlighter in hand. The insights into change theory as well as the mission and purpose of the church are unpacked with some depth and detail. They avoid the technical and theological jargon that might discourage those unfamiliar with that language. And, yet, the writing is provocative and penetrating.

The book includes a handful of charts and diagrams to visualize the concepts they are teaching. And the final chapter includes some practical coaching on developing a leadership team.

In the first chapter the authors identify six critical issues for missional leadership:

These issues are listed here not to eliminate the need to purchase the book (yellow highlighters do not work well on computer screens), but to note that these six topics are the themes of my next several columns in the ezine. Roxburgh and Romanuk take the topic of leadership in a little different direction than many change consultants. Their approach develops the unique and rich heritage of the meaning of a church and the call to ministry. Not that it is not just the latest business trend translated into churchy language.

If the reader is uncertain about buying, borrowing, or stealing a copy of this excellent book – and I paid market price for my copy – I hope the next several columns will invite you to study this work more carefully.

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DBMIM -December 29, 2007

Does your congregation have a consumer mentality? Many churches suffer from this mindset. We live in a society where many conveniences are readily available. The result is people come to church with an attitude of "what can you do for me” rather than “what can I do for Christ?"

How do we transition people from passive consumers to servant leaders? How do we develop leaders who develop more leaders? The answer is to become an equipping church.