‘An Idea That Could Transform the Church’

 

Guest Post: ‘An Idea That Could Transform the Church’

What it takes to produce a genuine Jesus movement–and the necessary role of radical multiplication

Alan Hirsch

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Below, renowned missiologist and author Alan Hirsch offers his insights on how the primary principles explored in the new FREE eBook Spark: Igniting a Culture of Multiplication by Exponential Director Todd Wilson align with the movement-producing precepts Hirsch presents in his watershed title, The Forgotten Ways (theforgottenways.org).
I have had the privilege of working alongside Todd Wilson for a number of years now, and I can quite honestly say that I think he is a real genius when it comes to designing sustainable organizations that can go to scale.  I fondly think of my dear friend Todd as a rather zany scientist (he is a nuclear engineer after all) with an uncanny gift to be able to sense a challenge, imagine new organizations to suit, and then be able to design them in a matter of hours! He is what I call an imagineer—he can both imagine and engineer the organizational future of the church.
It should not be a surprise, therefore, that he has developed and leads an organization called Exponential. In fact, his new eBook, Spark, is a truly excellent example of Todd’s imagineering genius. In it, he powerfully articulates an idea, that if taken seriously, could transform the church, and beyond that the world—the elegantly simple idea of radical, systemic and exponential multiplication. I tend to call it apostolic movement, and I believe it’s the very thing that Jesus has called us to be as His people in the first place. It turns out that our greatest truths are remembered ones!
But make no mistake, this little eBook is more dangerous to our prevailing mindsets than its size and accessibility suggests. Not only does Wilson propose a radical vision of the church as a multiplying sending agency, but also he calls into account our standard metrics for success and exposes critical flaws in our thinking and culture that keep the church from being what Jesus intended us to be—a rapidly expanding movement with transformational impact.
The fact is that just about everything on our current modes, as well as in our inherited theologies of the church and mission, has worked against this very thing. Many of you are going to find this book personally very challenging as well as pretty confrontational in terms of the way we normally go about leading and organizing our churches. Hopefully you, like me, will be so absolutely thrilled by the vision of the church implied in these pages that you will be willing to swallow the sometimes hard medicine that is laced throughout. And because Todd completely believes in the power of “both/and,” and is a long-term advocate of church growth (along with the megachurch and multisite church movements), what he is proposing as actually within leaders’ grasp and capacity, regardless of their context. It is totally doable, but to do what Todd suggests will require significant unlearning (repentance) along with some wonderful new learning along the way. I expect that this little eBook will fuel the movement that is already within you and latent in your church.
The only word of caution is that in the climate of American pragmatism, many will be tempted to think of Spark as a silver bullet. I urge you not to see it as an easy, one-size-fits-all solution to all the spiritual and missional problems you ever had. There is more to becoming an authentic Jesus movement than simply a commitment to multiplication. In other words, while radical multiplication is absolutely necessary for movement to take place, it is not in itself sufficient. Other factors must come into play for genuine, transformative, apostolic movements to emerge in our day. As I have sought to articulate in all my writings, but particularly in The Forgotten Ways, the answer is always in the system itself, and systems have a dynamic and a complexity to them that defies one-dimensional solutions.
According to my own analysis of movements in The Forgotten Ways, to be a genuine Jesus movement will mean that…

• We have to be absolutely clear as to who it is we follow and why we follow Him. It’s our core message—I simply call it Jesus is Lord.
• We will need to have a strategic and systemic commitment to disciple making and discipleship all the way down the line.
• Following the ways of our Lord, we will need to be willing to be sent (missional) as well as be willing to go deep into culture and context (incarnational) to extend the movement—I rather geekishly call this the “missional-incarnational impulse” in The Forgotten Ways.  Sorry about that.
• We will definitely need the type of ministry and leadership that can both generate and sustain a movement over time and space. This is much broader than the standard ways of seeing ministry in terms of teaching and pastoring. The best description of precisely the kind of ministry needed is found in Ephesians 4; namely that of apostle, prophet, evangelist, alongside that of shepherd/pastor and teacher.
• We will also need to cultivate a culture that is willing to take risks, and so put some much needed adventure back into the venture of church. This I call liminality-communitas. Yes I know, another strange term that you will simply have to go check it out for yourself in the book.
• The final critical element in the system is exactly what Todd so brilliantly presents in this book. It involves the deep vision and commitment to multiplication and the willingness to develop the kind of organization that can generate and maintain it in a sustainable manner. Following my confessedly geeky nature, I call it organic systems. Todd simply calls it Spark. Whatever you call it, you need it to be a real gospel movement beyond the weekend service in church buildings.

The only other thing I would perhaps add to Todd’s analysis of what is stopping us from being a multiplication movement is the issue of structure. All of us know all too well the reality of trying to change something after it has started—especially if the model was conceived centuries ago in another time and place. Most of our ways of thinking about church are European derivatives. As a result, most churches and denominations in the United States can hardly be called highly adaptive organizations. Todd is right, you need to make the decisive commitment to multiplication and then you need to build the culture of the church around that. All I would add to that is the need to somehow develop an organizational model to suit.
Of course, all of this will involve necessary unlearning and new learning. But, as Todd envisions here, it can totally be done. Why? Because Jesus has given His church everything we need to get the job done. You are His ecclesia, and the gates of hell will not prevail against your advances. So get to it!
Missiologist and author Alan Hirsch is an award-winning writer on missional movements, including his watershed title The Forgotten Ways,  founder of Forge Mission Training Network and Future Travelers. Find more information at theforgottenways.org.