We’ve once again simplified the faith adventure model. Here’s the latest!
Faith Adventure Model
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A “faith adventure” involves three kinds of people doing three different things at the same time (or as part of the same process).”
The three kinds of people are:
- People who are not Christians “Discovering” a new life through relationship with Jesus Christ.
- Christians who are experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit as they learn to share their faith with people who need to discover Jesus.
- Engaged Christians who become “heroes” by mobilizing others to learn to share their faith.
A faith adventure occurs when these three kinds of people are all involved in at the same time, or, we say, as part of the same process. It’s another way to talk about a spiritual multiplication cycle.
A friend asked an interesting question recently. He referenced Habakkuk 1.13. ” But you are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot stand to look on iniquity.” And then he asked this question, “If God cannot look on evil, how can he be present in a world where evil is everywhere and even in us since sin is still part of our life?”
After some thought it became clear to me that all evil is committed in God’s unencumbered sight (Ps 51.4). His ominpresence, as His other attributes, is immutable and without limitation at all times. There is nothing in His character or nature that prevents Him from having evil in His presence. Even Satan Himself can stand in the presence of God (Job 1.6-7) and not be destroyed. Yes, he is present by God’s permission, but He is present nonetheless.
Habakkuk 1.13 is not a declarative sentence about the nature of God but rather a question that Habakkuk brings before the Lord as a complaint. It would be a mistake to convert Habakkuk’s complaining question into a specific teaching about what God can and cannot see. The question itself shows that Habakkuk knows very clearly that God sees evil. What is troubling him is why God appears to be doing nothing about it. So he complains that God is not being just, and then he says, “I’ll climb up in my tower and see how the Lord will answer my complaint.” The Lord’s reply is not, “You don’t understand, Habakkuk, I don’t see these things” but rather “I see it all even more clearly than you do, and I assure you that a day of terrible judgment is coming.” Read More
Our Power To Change Faith Adventure Model hasn’t changed in underlying principle, but we have a newer graphic form for it and a definition of a faith adventure. We are increasingly organizing all of our ministry activities around the concept of faith adventure. A related way of describing the same concept is the more traditional language used within our organization of “win, build, send.”
Faith Adventure Model
Click to Enlarge
A “faith adventure” involves three kinds of people doing three different things at the same time (or as part of the same process).”
The three kinds of people are:
- People who are not Christians “Discovering” a new life through relationship with Jesus Christ.
- Christians who are experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit as they learn to share their faith with people who need to discover Jesus.
- Engaged Christians who become “heroes” by mobilizing others to learn to share their faith.
A faith adventure occurs when these three kinds of people are all involved in at the same time, or, we say, as part of the same process. It’s another way to talk about a spiritual multiplication cycle.
Leadership models matter because they influence how we think, and how we think determines how we act. Are there distinctive principles that should mark we lead in God’s work? If so what are they?
To focus the question more, let’s ask, “What is that makes leadership in a Great Commission movement unique and different from leadership in other areas of activity?” The only way to answer this question is to dig into the same book that gives us the Great Commission: the Bible. What can the Scriptures teach us about what makes leadership in God’s work unique?
Rather than looking at specific texts, I’d like to “open the lens” and consider the grand sweep of the Bible’s “leadership story” across the whole span of our creation’s history. The diagram below attempts to capture the main principles.
The Bible’s Leadership Story
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Staring from the top we have:
(1) God’s decisions in eternity (right and left) followed by
(2) Creation (on the left) and the renewed creation in the New City (on the right);
(3) Our world’s collapse into sin (left) with final judgment of sin (left);
(4) The penalty for sin on the cross in humility but one day he will return in glory (right).
Our unique time (in the center marked by the red arrow) is an age during which God is calling people to join his new human community. Those of us who follow Christ are entrusted with this invitation and empowered by His gift of the Holy Spirit that Jesus sent to counsel and empower us for this task. Read More
He shared in their humanity so that he might free those
who were held in slavery by their fear of death. Hebrews 2:14-15
“How does the resurrection of Jesus transform your understanding and practice of leadership?” If someone asked you this question could you answer it clearly? Think about it for a minute. If this most pivotal event at the core of our faith doesn’t have an impact on how we lead then surely something is wrong. Isn’t it?
Toxic Leaders and the Fear of Death
As I thought about this point, I recalled a fascinating analysis of toxic leadership provided by Jean Lipman-Blumen in her book on toxic leadership. As with other poisonous things, these leaders come in varying degrees of toxicity. Some are mildly poisonous — one might say “not altogether bad” and are found in small domains, offices, churches and ministries. They set unreasonable goals, promote excessive internal competiton, and create cultures of blame. Others rise to the senior ranks of great corporations and lead their companies into disaster. They violate the dignity and rights of others, bend or ignore ethical obligations, and divert resources to elevation of their own grandeur.The worst are among the monsters of history who names have become bywords for evil. Their legacy includes death, fear, and devastation. What all toxic leaders have in common is that they “leave their followers worse off then they found them.” Read More
“Never abandon yourselves to despair, for we are the
Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”
It can be interesting to think about what a religious historian one hundred years from now might write about our own time. What would the perspective of history say about the trends of today? What follows is a small attempt to capture a bit of that future history. It has not yet been written, but perhaps someday it could be. So use your imagination when you read what follows.
An excerpt from John Arthur Hargerston, History of the North American Church in the Early 21st Century (Nashville: Century 22 Publishing, 2134), s.v. “Easter People.”
The Easter People. “Easter People” has been used to describe one of three influential orientations common among evangelicals in the early 21st century. The other two are “Power People” and “Fortress People.”
Power People. The “Power People” movement developed among evangelicals who were determined to oppose erosion of what they believed was a cultural consensus from the 19th century that incorporated Christian moral principles. Power People understood themselves as an embattled minority fighting to preserve decency, family values, and godly government. They worked to mobilize public outrage, lobby politicians, and pass new laws. Many took on roles as political activists and power brokers. The Power People movement ultimately failed as the surrounding culture counter-moblized, bringing to bear on the issues greater social leverage than the Christian minority could muster. A secondary factor in the movement’s failure was that growing numbers of evangelicals became disillusioned with political battles as a strategy for carrying out the mission of the church. Over time the Power People communities withered as members departed to merge either into the secular culture where power-oriented strategies were more accepted or into one of the other main evangelical movements of the time. Read More
Questions are powerful. Getting to the right answer begins with asking the right question. A particularly probing question can press us toward new perspectives, new insights, new methods. A very few questions–just the right questions–can stimulate wide-scale transformation
The Power of a Transformational Question
Robert Quinn relates the experience of consultant Kurt Wright who was working for a huge software project that involved a $100 million dollar contract. 400 hundred engineers were 38 months into a 60-month schedule. The project was slipping behind every month and was now 18 months behind. Worse still, if the project was not on schedule within 10 months, the contract required the company to pay a $30 million penalty. Disaster was 10 months away.
What would you do? Crack the whip and urge people on? Fire the managers responsible for the slippage and hire new ones? Give up?
After many conversations with people involved in the project Wright concluded that he had to change the fundamental “scripts” that were controlling the workers’ assumptions and behaviors. To galvanize everyone’s efforts and establish a new positive vision he concluded that it was necessary to change the underlying question. In short, those 400 engineers and managers needed a new and transformational question. Read More
Is there anything a grave marker can teach us about evangelism and love?
The answer is “a lot.” Take a look at the stone below that stands over the grave of Cameron Townsend, the founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators.
Cam’s final message to his followers includes two exhortations. First, “By love serve one another.” Second, “Finish the task.” Notice that serving one another by love comes first and the task second. The order is deliberate, instructive, and biblically accurate. The great task of Bible translation is carried out by the community of believers who love one another.
There is always a temptation to put practical results first, to make “getting the job done” the first priority and then to fit in love for one another when there is time or opportunity. The problem with this approach is that loving one another gets squeezed out in the rush to catch the next flight, to get to the next appointment, to take the next phone call, to answer the next email, and–well–very simply to do “the next thing.”
Commitment to fulfilling the Great Commission can turn into this kind of high-pressured race. Let potential followers who want to gather together for fellowship go elsewhere. We “signed up” to do evangelism and the Great Commission not to love one another. This can even turn into a suspicion of taking time to love one another as if loving one another could become the enemy of the Great Commission.
Love is the hallmark
of authentic evangelism.
In reality the reverse is true. Love is the origin and energy that motivates the Great Commission. God did not take the initiative to reach out to fallen sinners because it was the next item on His divine “to do” list. It was because while we were sinners he loved us (Romans 5.8). It was his “great love” Because of his “great love” with which he loved us, he has made us alive with Christ. The sign for us that we have been saved is that “we love our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3.14). The implication is clear: if you don’t feel great love for the fellow believers around you, then you have little reason to be assured that you are truly in Christ.
There’s a marvelous article in the January issue of Harvard Business Review on “leading from behind” and “leadership as collective genius.” Professor Linda Hill is chair of the Harvard Business School’s High Potential Leadership program and an active researcher in the field of leadership. Leadership in the future, she says, will require “leading from behind” to create environments where people working in teams can contribute their skills for collaborative problem solving and innovation through the joint creativity of diverse teams.
Tibetan Good Shepherd (Click to Enlarge)
She compares this process to the work of a shepherd. Shepherds lead from the rear of the flock, helping them navigate and creating an environment where the more nimble and agile are able to run ahead so that the others can follow. The task of the leader is to help individuals flourish in their roles, setting boundaries for the flock, and helping to resolve tensions. Leading from behind is particularly important when the goal is to encourage innovation, discovery and implementation of new ideas and processes. Innovation flourishes where leaders both unleash and harness the creativity of the team, Hill says. “You have to create an environment in which” all the participants are “engaged and in which the collective talent of team members is tapped by having everyone take the lead at some point.” Read More
What does it take to be an extraordinarily effective organization? This is the perennial leadership question. There is something different about some organizations, something that helps them outperform others and even exceed their own goals.
In his book, Building the Bridge As You Walk On it, Robert Quinn says that these “extraordinarily positive” organizations can be called highly “productive communities.” In these communities, people find that they can contribute and excel.
What makes highly productive communities different?
During a visit to one extraordinary organization, a group of managers described the impact of several extraordinary people. These were people who had influenced the organization very significantly. They had inspired others to achieve at higher-than-dreamed levels.
“So what do they do?” the researcher asked. Quinn says that there was a long silence. Finally one director said, “That’s the wrong question.”
I like that. To ask first about what they do is to ask the wrong question. That question points us to look for behaviors, techniques, practices, and habits. It’s the dream of everyone concerned about leadership. “Tell me what I need to do!” We want the three-point short-list, the seven-part formula, the 21 irrefutable keys to successful leadership. If we could only find out what these extraordinary people do we could then capture it, teach it, and through imitation gain that same performance advantage for ourselves.
If only!
But if the answer is not what they do, then what is it? Quinn continues the story. After the long pause the director said, “It is not what they do, because each one of them is unique in how they pull it off. It is not about what they do; it is about who they are.”
It’s not what they do.
It’s who they are!
Don’t miss that point! The key to developing and sustaining positive and productive communities lies within. It’s a matter of heart and character, integrity and soul. Organizational excellence tends not to be a function of imitation, Quinn tells us. It’s a function of “origination” that begins within the hearts and minds of people who have a deep inner sense of purpose, integrity, and caring. Read More
