Are You Interested in Discipleship

If so discipleship is central to what happens in Neighborhood Transformation.

A disciple is a learner with the intent to learn from the master and then pass on what he has learned onto others as he puts it into practice in his own life. It focuses on making obedient disciples. It is not just focused on making  converts. It is also builds  multiplying disciples whose impact  expands Jesus’ kingdom. It is discipleship where people practice their following of Jesus Christ in every act of their daily life. It is where word and deed are  intertwined, not parallel tracks of life. It is a strategy that occurs when a disciple is following God’s direction. It does needs right principles to be applied. It is ongoing, unstoppable and out of control. It is not hierarchical, systematic, or highly structured and tightly managed.

It’s a rapid multiplication of groups and churches. It is not slow, sequential, methodical addition. It’s simply about churches rapidly planting new churches. It is not primarily about expansion of denominations, or growth of organizations. It thrives in an environment of persecution and chaos. It is messy. Disciple making does not do well in a peaceful environment of significant controls, policies, and procedures.

Discipleship focuses on replication. It is not about growing large, highly programmatic, organizations but rapidly multiplying small groups that have a core value of discovering where God is at work by finding a person of peace. It is not about starting church services and inviting people to come. It is about the church emerging from within the culture of the people. It is not about calling the people out of their culture to form a new organization. It’s locally led. While often started by outsiders, it is not led by outsiders who intend someday to turn over the ministry to the people of the community.

It is family-based. It does not seek to extract individual respondents from their families and communities, re-acculturating them and then sending them as semi-outsiders back to their communities, which is powered by ordinary people; unschooled and non-credentialed. It is not driven by highly trained and credentialed professionals. It’s counter-intuitive. It does not fit management theory or organizational development. It’s about developing independent leaders. It is not about building a mass of followers.

It is about simple men and women with the simple gospel for simple people. It is not sophisticated and complex. It’s inexpensive. Once begun, discipleship expands without outside resources at all, which is making disciple-makers of every member. It is not about the few reaching the multitudes. It does not make buildings a priority. The church meets within the community of the people. It places a high level of commitment on the health and welfare of the people; people caring for one another. It is not a strategy of hiring professionals to care for the needs of the people.

Churches never emerge without a heavy commitment to prayer. It has a saturation commitment. It believes in a church for every people. Nor is it about planting a denominational church in every community. The goal is a rapidly expand movement under God’s direction through the people in the neighborhood who want to see God’s kingdom established in their neighborhood.

The goal is a rapidly expanding movement that is growing exponentially neighborhood by neighborhood until it transforms the city. A movement is a group of committed people embracing a common purpose moving towards well-defined goals and who are committed to the spread and multiplication of these objectives. It is based on winning, building, and sending people.

Are you interested in getting a free 10 lesson workshop on Making disciples email me at stan@neighborhoodtransformation.net to get it.

What is Transformation

TRANSFORMATION DEFINITIONS 

A definition given by Bryant Myers of World Vision International in his book Walking With the Poor:  “I use the term transformational development to reflect my concern for seeking positive change in the whole of human life materially, socially and spiritually .

• Changed people and just and peaceful relationships are the twin goals of transformation . . .
• Changed people are those who have discovered their true identity as children of God and who have recovered their true vocation as faithful and productive stewards of gifts from God for the well‑being of all”   (Bryant Myers, Walking with the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development [Marynoll: Orbis Books, 1998]

Transform World Working Definition

Transformation is the progressive, ongoing, measurable, and supernatural impact of the presence and power of God working in, through, and apart from the body of Christ on human society and its structures. It involves seeking positive change in the whole of human life materially, socially, and spiritually as we recover our true identity as human beings created in the image of God and discover our true vocation as productive stewards, faithfully caring for our world and its people. Deep and profound change is possible in human beings and is equally possible for the social organisms that we call communities, cities, and nations.  We in Collaborative for Neighborhood Transformation use the following:

A permanent change in one’s attitude, belief, and behavior in all areas of an individual’s life (physical, spiritual, emotional, social) who then facilitate the same changes in others; who as an aggregate, change their neighborhood from the inside out.

How Transformation is Different Then Measuring change or Social Impact                                                                                              

• Transformation is a change in all areas of an individual’s knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behavior in all areas of their life; physical, spiritual, emotional, social and intellectual.
• God is actively involved in this change which is the underlying factor for long term  transformation to take place.
• Because of the changes in individuals as they come together they begin to transform their neighborhood from the inside out.
• Identify bisecting interests – where the dreams of the community meet the calling & capacity of the church, in harmony with God’s mandates.
• Recognize “common grace” of God’s work outside of church
• Learn from goals & methods of good secular initiatives
• Align agendas around common ground of the church and neighborhood
• Relationships (horizontal) and prayer (vertical) are key to fruitful intersection between community’s dreams and kingdom goals
• Every person has opportunity to make an informed decision about Christ
• Measure Christ-likeness in unbelievers

Transformation Requires More Then Doing Things for People and Neighborhoods                                                                                             For transformation to take place people and neighborhoods must decide they want something different then what they currently have. Then they must care enough that they are willing to do something about it to see the change take place. If that desire and action are not there then no matter what we do for others might be good but generally transformation does not take place. Transformation comes from inside people themselves and neighborhoods.

But we as Western Christians are focused on doing things for others. People might say sure I would like that and gratefully accept whatever we do for them but does that transform them or their neighborhood? The answer is No.

An Approach that Fosters Transformation                                              

• It is a people-oriented, relationship building process.
• It is designed to identify assets within the neighborhood found in individuals, associations and institutions, and identifies which of those assets they are willing to share.
• Once the assets are identified, you begin to link the people you have been building relationships with, to the assets that would empower them.
• It is based on neighbors helping neighbors, not being dependent on professionals to do things for them.
• It is designed to build up internal and external abilities.
• It is designed to be sustainable.
• It is primarily a grass-root, bottom-up process which requires a person to act as a catalyst and facilitator.
• It is a gradual learning process progressing from the simple to the more complex and from the known to the unknown.
• It works primarily with individuals and households and then impacts the neighborhood as a whole.
• It is greater than the sum of its parts.
• It requires a moral and ethical focus for relationships to grow, which results from establishing trust.
• These ethical values are based on absolutes that do not change, but are the same year-after-year. This is based on God’s Word, the Bible.

Neighborhood Transformation Vision: To see as many cities across North America transformed, neighborhood by neighborhood, in all areas of life. These cities are networked together so eventually the North America is transformed as a whole from the inside out.

Neighborhood Transformation Mission: We exist to expand transformational ministries across North America cities by creating a collaborative of partner organizations that will mutually encourage, motivate, and innovate on behalf of under-served communities. They will focus on transforming neighborhoods and then networking the neighborhoods in a city to transform the city from the inside out. In addition there is a collaborative at each city level and at the national level to see this take place

How Neighborhood Transformation Goes about Ministry: We Connect People, Create Community, Transform Communities and then Connect  them into a Collaborative  that transform large geographical areas.

 

What is Wholistic Ministry

I just attended a 3 day conference here in Phoenix, International Wholistic Mission Conference where 700 people came to talk about what was happening in wholistic ministry. Fantastic conference, you should plan to attend next year in 2015. It will be April 29^th through May 1.

Let’s talk about wholistic and what it means to us in the Global CHE Network and in Neighborhood Transformation.  It is all about bringing the whole gospel to help people become whole who working together create a whole neighborhood, which then brings about a a whole city and then a whole nation being transformed in all areas of life.

It is both the Great Commission and Great and the great Command together, it is not one or the other. Or I do one so that I can do the other.

We spell wholistic with a ‘W’ because it keeps ever in front of us the idea that we need to deal with the whole person, all aspects of their life, and the whole community or neighborhood, meaning all sectors in that place.

Some people and the Webster Dictionary spell it without the W and give it a spiritual meaning from holy. We agree with that BUT feel it is more important to concentrate on the whole, not just on the spiritual or holy aspect.

When we talk wholistically about a person’s life, we are dealing with all aspects: physical or health well-being, spiritual well-being, emotional well-being, and social well-being. When we do this, we are dealing with more than the different sectors such as education, job, medical, etc.

In working in a community or neighborhood, we are looking into the above areas as well, but the different sectors found in a community come more into play. Therefore, when we talk about community, sometimes we will use the term sectors, and when dealing with the individual, we talk more in terms of physical, spiritual, emotional and social aspects.

Just concentrating on one area of life, such as just working with a person’s health or getting them a job, helps them in one way, but there needs to be assistance in multiple areas of life for real transformation to take place.

Let’s look at another aspect of being wholistic. Sometimes groups talk about being wholistic when they have different people deal with the different sectors or areas in a person’s or community’s life. But to us that is not wholistic. That is parallel track ministry, but all elements rarely come to play in a person or community. Instead, what needs to happen is that multiple elements must come into play in order to see transformation. The people working in their own track are specialists and generally only concentrate on their specialty

I use the illustration: Have you ever look down a straight line of railroad tracks? The tracks start out being in parallel but far down the line they seem to converge. However, as you walk down the tracks you see that they never do. This is what happens when we have specialists working on their track. They hope that all the people working together will bring convergence. But this does not happen.

For us to see wholistic transformation, all areas and sectors of life in individuals and a community must be done by one person who is looking for wholistic transformation to take place. This means we want to help people (in CHE or NT) to be generalists not specialists.

This means what is shared must be transferable to a person can share it with another who can share it with another, onward. To accomplish this you have to keep things simple and basic. We use the KISS principle, Keep It Short and Simple. In other words, we must decide what is the most important thing another person needs to understand, and forget sharing many of the “what-ifs”—the things people might need to know in the future or things that might be nice to know but others would never use.

So remember, it is best when we have generalists who deal with multiple areas in a community’s or person’s life, and who keep it simple. In another blog I will share with you how this is accomplished through our participatory teaching approach.

I am off to South Africa Sunday May 4th for two weeks to do a a five  day Training of Trainers  on Neighborhood Transformation, which we call overseas Urban CHE. The Healthcare Christian Fellowship equips medical professionals how to share their faith in the workplace is moving to incorporating NT and CHE into their 100 chapters around the world.

Organic Movement

Earlier this year I read the book Organic Community by Joseph R. Myers which compares the way a community can grow either by a master plan or organically. Master planning is what is done by most western organizations where it is top down every detailed planned out. While organic growth takes on a life of its own like a plant or other living organisms. This book was a very good compilation of things that we have been discussing and aiming at over the years.

In December I read the book Organic Church by Neil Cole which talks about how the church can be organic which is very different approach then most traditional churches. Both ideas fill in significantly concerning an understanding of what it means to be organic which is central to being a movement.

Every living thing is made up of a structure and a system. There are two types of structures that hold a living thing together and support the system. An exoskeleton is external and must be shed because it eventually inhibits growth. The second is endoskeleton which is internal is not seen with it’s main purpose to support and strengthen an organism. ATM is an endoskeleton.

An organic movement is viral, it takes on a life of it’s own and transforms as it moves forward. It can be compared to the way an epidemic spreads. DNA is what internally directs a movement not outside forces. ATM and its affiliates DNA, is our mission & vision statement, core values and commitment to a cause.

In an organic movement you describe what has taken place after it happens while in master planning you prescribe what will take place if things are done in a certain way. CHE/NT was designed from the beginning to be descriptive not prescriptive.

When we began to think about a CHE Movement in the early 2000’s it was designed as an organic order through and through even though we were not aware of those terms then. We talked about an upside down pyramid with flat organization structure.

A CHE/NT program may be thought of by some as master planned because we do give many steps to starting a program. But if we want a CHE/NT movement to take place it must not be prescriptive or controlled but there are some built in guides that focus growth around a cause with broad parameters.

The establishment of Global CHE Network and Collaborative for Neighborhood Transformation was from the beginning designed to be based on an organic order. If CHE/NT was to grow from a collection of mission organizations doing CHE/NT projects into a worldwide movement,

One more factor in an organic movement is leadership that is distributed not delegated. In delegation power and authority is from the top down. But distributed leadership comes from God to accomplish all that God has for that person without needing layers of intermediaries to pas that authority downward.

To be organic with enough skeletal characteristics to assist the collaborative to do what they want to accomplish.

The key to being a movement is being organic not master-planned therefore we will foster organic growth by helping others to see our cause and attract those that are like minded. Then we want to build their ownership in our joint cause. This means being flexible enough but around our vision and mission statements and core values to have a desired joint impact of transformation.

Everything we do is build around being an organic movement that uses its DNA that empowers us forward and our endoskeleton to hold us together in a loose way to move towards the accomplishment of our cause through CHE/NT as a vehicle to see this happen.

But to become an organic movement people must understand easily what we are all about. We talked about our cause statement in my last blog.

Organic Community, Great Book

John Myers wrote a book Organic Community comparing a community that is designed and encouraged by organic growth versus a community that is designed by a master plan. As the title implies an Organic Community is what Myers heavily favors. There are nine elements he uses to describe the difference between organic and master planned growth.

Many of you have seen notes from Stan on books looking at different types of organizations from the Birth of the Chaordic Age, to Just and Lasting Change, to Good to Great, to The Starfish and the Spider, to the Tipping Point.

Back in 2004, MAI/LWI talked about the the upside down pyramid, but that turned out to be the wrong analogy.We have been attempting to try to describe a organizational style that fit the growth of our CHE Movement which has taken on a life of it’s own.

I believe Organic Community finally describes what a movement is all about and what both GCN & CNT have been trying to foster over the years. To whet your appetite Stan has again created his notes which you can see at: http://www.neighborhoodtransformation.net/articles/index.php

Great reading
Stan