Alan Roxburgh, author of the 2006 book The Missional Leader, was in Brisbane recently to talk with leaders from the Church of Christ, Baptist and Uniting denominations. He’s been doing some work with the Church of Christ in Victoria. We invited Alan up for the day to share with us about his observations on church, mission and leadership.
Alan Roxburgh and Jenny Tymms (Uniting Church General Secretary)
Roxburgh began the day with an invitation for people in pairs to engage with Scripture. We revisited the sending out of the 72, pausing long enough to rethink our understanding of what it means to be in mission.
Roxburgh proceeded to provide a critique of the tools used by consultants. “We don’t need to hear any more bad news about declining numbers. We know we’re in trouble. We just need to work out how we can live in the world we’re in. The maps of the 20th century, still used in our denominational training of ministers, are no longer as helpful in helping us grow.”
We can’t continue to rely on the models of church growth used in the 20th century. Sex – producing babies to replace ourselves, is no longer cutting it. We either have the technology to prevent conception or we’re shooting blanks! The 40/40 rule, in which graduates could count on 40 years of secure work at 40 hours a week, is the foundation of our expectation of volunteer commitment. But the rule is no longer in use in the workplace. We’ve also relied on loyalty in the past, hoping that people will sign up based on their existing sense of commitment to the denominational or local brand. For many denominations, the way to deal with the new scene is to transfer all our hope into church planting. But we’re discovering that the dynamics have changed even in new environments. We’re in a time of transition from a previous environment of stability and control into a new future that is unpredictable and beyond our control.
Roxburgh pointed to the inadequacies of the ‘Gap Theory Model’ in which consultants help congregations work out their gaps and fill them. Natural Church Development, for example, had the potential to give the illusion that we are in control of determining outcomes. After years of analysis and attempts to change culture, hope begins to dwindle.
Next in the firing line was the ‘saviour mentality’ found in many of our models in which congregations buy in a CEO/dynamic visionary senior minister who can identify, articulate and roll out vision, goals and outcomes. “I’m Theo and this is a theocracy”. The model, Roxburgh pointed out, was imposing many of the categories of modernity which has led the church to where it is now.
Despite diet books dominating the NY Times bestsellers list, the United States continues to face a crisis of obesity. The same thing’s happening in the church. Despite many books giving advice on how we configure the church, whether they be Lyle Shaller or Emerging Church, we still have the challenge of working through culture change, changing the cultural imagination of a group of people in a particular setting.
We’re used to the model of defining the problem, defining the solution and rolling out a strategic plan. Roxburgh suggests that we need to avoid presenting with a ‘plan’ which has the potential to drive or disillusion people in a way that is ‘straight out of hell’.
Leaders need the skills to cultivate an environment, create spaces for the ‘in between’ where the Spirit is given the opportunity to work. Much of our work is ‘fast track’, moving quickly from strange to familiar, the other to the close. Many of our plans take the ‘other’ and make them objects for our own ends. Much of our efforts at project management are about the baggage of ministers.
We need to begin where people are, not where we want them to be. For example, much of the ’emerging church’ conversation assumes that Pentecost was just for young people. The reality was that the visitors to Jerusalem were likely to be in retirement age, making Pentecost a ‘geriatric event’.
Roxburgh proposed an approach to conversation that helps people make sense of their lives, gives them language of the world in which they live. We need the means to listen to the narratives beneath the narratives. Roxburgh observed that congregations are generally not a place where people are invited into free speech. People are told what they should believe and say.
We can start by cultivating awareness of the world around us. We can help people find words for the reality around them. We can invite people into ongoing dialogue about their growing awareness, recognising that we’re usually aware of 10 percent at most of our world (like an iceberg). Free speech includes sticking with the dialogue long enough to hear what is really going on in the community. It means resisting the tendency we have to look for the ‘real agenda’.
When we have developed the skills of patient listening and dialogue then we can ask “What does this mean for us as a congregation?”
This is about dialogue. It is not about organisational change. Organisational change is a waste of time if you are trying to change culture. It’s only useful after the fact of change. Not changing anything provides space for listening and dialogue.
Roxburgh drew on David Bosch’s interpretation of Luke and Acts, showing that our situation makes sense even though the ‘plan’ is not being fulfilled.
Roxburgh introduced the model of ‘Congregation Missional Transformation Guiding Team’ which is able to encourage the process of listening and dialogue. This is not to be used to predicate ansswers or compare churches with churches.
Becoming aware of adaptive needs
Reading congregational readiness
Feedback
Listening Group throughout congregation
Congregation Challenges Identification Board
Experimenting Mat – Hospitality
Committing
Listening Appreciation of Narratives
A few Roxburgh one liners to finish with:
Stop focusing on the church. Look at what is happening in the world.
Stop reading those books from America about what the church needs to look like.
Go out into the villages, enter into the homes of the other. Enter their narratives.
As a participant in the seminar I certainly agree with Duncan that Alan Roxburgh took us on a stimulating and challenging ride. I found his content brillinatly thought provoking as he powerfully confronted many of the popular assumptions surrounding church health, church growth and missional vitality. Also I firmly appreciated his emphasis on the priority of conversation, ‘dwelling in the Word’ and communal discernment as essential for the missional leadership process.
Having said that however, some of the times he shot himself in the foot. For example, in his swipe at liturgical churches that follow the lectionary he claimed that missionally challenging biblical passages such as Luke 10:1-11 never appear in the preaching calendar (whereas Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 was the Gospel reading for 8th July 2007). He also strongly critiqued Natural Church Development but showed no evidence of understanding the essential organic dynamics of the NCD paradigm.
Nevertheless, despite these criticisms I do believe Alan Roxburgh offers a a timely, holistic and Gospel centred approach to mission in an age of uncertainty and discontinuous change.