These were pretty high level discussions, one with an Association group that is working to redefine a portion of that Association's ministry and another with a national group that is attempting to locate a purpose for its organization. I had been hired to facilitate by the one, while I had volunteered for the other. In both cases, the groups were seeking a revitalization of purpose and meaning.
It is astounding to me that both conversations trailed down similar paths. If I were to try to condense the conversations, in search of their common elements, I would easily reach an outline for both:
1. Where the organizations have been may have served well in the past,
but we no longer relevant, practical or functional.
2. There is a need to redefine, retool, reshape the efforts, in light of two factors:
First being the cultural evolution in which we find ourselves. The second is
the need of ministry to adopt the new cultural patterns and evolve alongside
the culture that surrounds them.
3. While it is easier to simply keep doing the same old thing in different ways,
to do so is no longer honest in light of what we now know about our calling
and vocation-in-life.
So we dreamed. We imagined together. In an ideal world, what would this organization do? How would it work? What would its aims, values and guiding principles look like? Think big. Do not be afraid to shake the foundations upon which the organizational stability had always been based. Go ahead. Rock the boat! There are no wrong answers and no stupid suggestions.
We began to define together what the organizations might do and look like if their existence was based solely in the ministry of Jesus Christ, within the given context of each body. This turned out to be a greater challenge than anyone around the repspective tables assumed it might be. The suggestions challenged old values and traditional orinetations, even at one point suggesting that seeing the church as a family mighy serve as a roadblock to servanthood and evangelism. The groups were given permission to throw out traditional values and beliefs, to question, to dare to dream in alternative, creative and imaginative ways what it might mean to represent Christ Jesus in new and powerful ways.
In each case, what I relate here simply tells of initial sessions with the respective groups, one regional and one national. Both groups were energized. Both were enthused. Both want desperately to continue the process.
The process has local church applications, of course. When we get free enough to imagine alternative and innovative ways of expressing our vocation-in-Christ, the result is empowering, enthusing, exciting and energizing. The steps in the process are simple. Permission must be granted and received to think beyond traditional boundaries and values. Participants must be willing to dare to dream, to risk, beyond traditionally safe borders, what it means to represent Christ in, to and for the culture that is developing around us. Group process then takes over and remarkable, surprising, magical suggestions and ideas ensue. In my experience, this is the rule rather than the exception.
Where we have been and what we have done in the past is no longer effective. It is time to blaze new avenues of ministry and service, to re-imagine Christ and our representational incarnation. It is time to reshape our vocation...or to even speak in terms of a "Christian vocation." It is time for us to embody a different Christ differently in the church that represents him. It is time for us to evolve, like the culture around us is evolving.
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