So I might be missing something here, so let me know if I am.

I have been trying to invite Childrens and family ministers Ed Timpson to engage directly with the Home for Good campaign for a while. Sadly he was too busy to come to any of the meetings (including the launch) and too busy to speak to us directly. But today he was speaking at a conference for the National Fostering Association. Here’s a bit of background on them:

One of Britain’s biggest independent fostering providers, the National Fostering Agency (NFA) was bought by one such company in 2006 and sold to another for £130m, tripling the original investment.

So this is a for profit (and big profit too) Fostering association. So venture capitalists are making huge profits out of the fact that there very 22 minutes a child is coming into care in the UK.  Here’s how Kevin Williams from children’s charity TACT put it.

“There is a moral question about making large sums of money from children who’ve suffered abuse and neglect. If they do profit from such children, can they demonstrate that they’re delivering the best possible outcomes for those children and not simply making money through efficiency savings, by increasing workloads and reducing training and support? I would question whether they can.”

Quite why Mr Timpson picked to launch a new government initiative to help recruit more foster carers at at a for profit fostering business is beyond me. Supporting some (not all) independent fostering agencies (IFA) makes life even harder on the local authorities who have to compete  in a marketplace for foster carers and sometimes have to place children with  an expensive IFA but then not have enough money to keep them there – meaning children are moved more often than they should be from one placement to another. 

In our Big Society there was supposed to be encouragement for the charity sector and the faith community to work with government to see the flourishing of our nation. But sadly by backing the business sector in this area they are working against their own aspirations to find the right homes for children.

Any way maybe I am just venting – so help me understand if I have misunderstood something.I am a local authority foster carer. I want to see as many children as possible get the right care that they need. Not all local authorities are brilliant, not all for profit agencies are soulless heartless capitalists willing to make a quick buck no matter at whose expense. Many foster carers and social workers who work with venture capitalist funded agencies will be lovely people its the fat cats at the top I have a problem with and the fundamental philosophy behind this set up.

But we do at least have to ask the moral question of whether this is right?

Travelling home after a really encouraging time at the HTB leadership summit. Here are my highlights from day 2. You can read my reflections on day 1 here.

1. What a difference a day makes

You can read my reflections on day 1 here.
I had struggled a bit with Patrick Lencioni’s presentation yesterday. It came across very culturally conservative and strangely lacking confidence. But today he was in brilliant form. I think its all about finding your niche and your voice. He was speaking on one of his best selling books – the 5 dysfunctions of a team and had lots of really helpful nuggets of wisdom, great energy in delivery, excellent stories.

He looked so much in his element. The transformation was remarkable and reminded me how important it is to help people find their passion and their gifting and release them into it.

2. Bridge Building

Nicky Gumble conducted a very gracious interview with Cardinal Christoph Schonborn from the Roman Catholic church. The cardinal had a lovely, warm and engaging manner. He talked about his own experience of coming to “a personal relationship with Jesus” and the work of the Spirit in his life especially relating to the Conclave to elect the Pope. He spoke about his closeness to Pope John Paul II; Pope Benedict and Pope Francis.

Nicky offered gracious hospitality to a cardinal and these are exciting days for a new kind of ecumenism. We witnessed a meeting of the ‘other’ in friendship rather than opposition and there was a standing ovation in the Albert Hall at the end.

One question that was in my mind after my favourite part of Lencioni’s presentation on day 1.

The top right quandrant is where we want to be. The labels are mine – ( you can probably come up with better ones.)

Culturally I think there is a major fight going on within evangelicalism between a judgementally arrogant right wing conservatism and a friendly relativism. Between those are two extremes there is  of course spectrum between those positions. The danger is that we end up strong on grace and weak on truth, or strong on truth and weak on grace.

But there is also another dynamic at play. Again drawing from Lencioni today. When building a team – he argued that we need to start with trust building. Before trust is established we are not ready to face conflict. Conflict without trust just becomes power politics. But once trust is established then there is room for constructive conflict where everyone is enriched.

The manner of the interviews played to Nicky’s very friendly and gracious spirit. So when Nicky interviewed the cardinal the emphasis was on bridge building and finding common ground. To an onlooker you might think that it was full on embrace of the catholic church – a blurring of all boundaries as no contentious issues were raised at all. But if you look at this as trust building so that the harder conversations can be had in a spirit of friendship there’s a very interesting opportunity ahead. At some point we are going to have to talk together about the tricky subjects. There will be lots to learn about the nature of unity from our catholic brothers and sisters. We’ll need to talk about what salvation, grace, the gospel, Mary, papal infallibility, the eucharist, purgatory means. We will grow in our grasp of the gospel together as iron sharpens iron because we  will have the honest conversation – and we will have somethings to offer to help our catholic brothers and sisters revisit these important theological issues.

3. Ellie Mumford

It was great to see a woman on stage preaching with passion. Ellie championed “lashing ourselves to the scriptures – just as sailors used to lash themselves to the mast when encountering storms.” She gave a clarion call to be more biblical as well as experiential in our relationship particularly with the spirit of God. Quoting the adage:

Word without the spirit – you dry up
Sprit without the word – you blow up
Word and Spirit together and you grow up.

There was a call to be confident in the work of the spirit of God in our day. Lots of stories about healings with a brief passing reference to the “not yet” of the kingdom of God when he doesn’t answer our prayers.

4. William Wilberforce Centre

There’s a fantastic group of people working through the implications of radical hospitality. There was a ‘more theological’ seminar which featured Graham Tomlin, Pete Greig, Sue Colman and Paul Cowley and others. My favourite quote from this seminar was:

The gospel is an invitation to hospitality – it is first a word of welcome.  @gtomlin #lc13

I was then privileged to be part of a panel that sought to work out the practical implications offering the church some models of radical hospitality. ideas included:

Night Stop - an emergency overnight accomodation for 16-25 year olds

Safe Families – a Chicago based scheme that offers preventative interventions to help at risk families stay toegether being trialled in Middlesborough

Home for Good – our fostering and adoption campaign.

5. Optimism

There’s a very upbeat optimistic spirit about the church. Ellie Mumford echoed it when she said that this was the most exciting time to be a christian. But there is an infectious positivity about the HTB culture which is really encouraging to connect with.

So thank you HTB for a challenging and inspiring time.

I have come across a lot of cynicism when it comes to working with management consultants. Some people believe they are the kind of people that ask you for a list of the biggest problems in your organisation and then charge you  a lot of money to put that list into a nice bullet pointed powerpoint slide. I guess the cynicism comes from bad experiences and sometimes from jealousy. Sometimes there is a spiritual slant on the use of business consultancy when it comes to church leaders engaging with management wisdom. I can understand there is a fear of importing ways of ordering a community from an industry that is driven by maximising profit and economic efficiency. I think it is right to be wary – there are a number of churches that seem to operate as businesses – its all about the brand, the profile, the platform that the church and particularly its leaders are able to generate. On the other hand there is a good case to be made that church leaders who don’t think critically about their management of people are likely to
a) unwittingly replicate leadership models they have experienced elsewhere
b) fail to manage effectively and so use clunky, inefficient systems that lead to bad stewardship
c) over spiritualise the management of people – which can sadly lead to “spiritual abuse”

So what is needed is discerning engagement with management theory. So in this blog I want to think out loud as to what I have learned having just finished reading Patrick Lencioni’s “The Advantage” for an exercise we are doing at work.

1. Organisational Health trumps strategy

‘I am convinced that once organisational health is properly understood and placed into the right context, it will surpass all other disciplines in business as the greatest opportunity for improvement and competitive advantage.’ p.4

This makes sense to me. From a biblical point of view when instructions are given to the life of the church in the epistles – there is little emphasis given to strategy but a lot of emphasis on ethos – the kind of common life that believers are called to exhibit. The communal life of any community, team, business is hugely significant as a robust and resilient community can weather any circumstance, can learn to face any situation, can be as productive as possible. So I like Lencioni’s focus on oranisational health. What do you think? Does organisational health trump strategy?

I guess some of it depends on what you want to achieve. I am also reading Steve Jobs’ biography and he definitely didn’t value organisational health – but managed to accomplish an awful lot. For Jobs the ends seemed to justify being mean. As a Christian this is a tangible difference when it comes to the way we react in organisations – the end informs the means – we live for another set of values because we see in the end Jesus wins.

2. Leadership is about joint vision, ownership and responsibility

“A good way to understand a working group is to think of it like a golf team where players go off and play on their own and then get together and add up their scores at the end of the day.  A real team is more like a basketball team – one that plays together simultaneously in an interactive, mutually dependent and often interchangeable way.  Most working groups reflexively call themselves teams because that’s the word society uses to describe any group of people who affiliate in their work.” p.5

A leadership team works best where there is a genuine sense of shared vision. Sadly in many cases leaders working in a team are only concerned with their own particular department or area and so disengage from team meetings. But developing a core shared vision is vital then leaders would be loyal to the vision and be able to defend the decisions of the leadership team. Lencioni, in my opinion does not spend enough time working out how to develop this shared vision, but he did advocate having more honest team meetings that push hard to try and get to that level of corporate buy in. You don’t have to look far in scripture to see how much emphasis the New Testament writers go to underline a corporate sense of ownership of vision, for example Philippians 1 gives a little taste of this:

²⁷ Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit,^[e] striving together as one for the faith of the gospel ²⁸ without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God. ²⁹ For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him, ³⁰ since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have.

For Paul this shared vision, unity in the Spirit was vital for the health of the church. In Philippians he pleads with leaders to come together, to agree, to be loyal to eachother as “loyal yokefellow”

3. Meetings Matter

I admit I find some meetings difficult. As an activist I struggle with meetings that I can’t help with , contribute to or learn from. There’s a world out there to be reached, children that need families, churches that need empowering, networks that need to be built, people that need encouraging. So a meeting where I don’t need to be is a tough place to be. Lencioni wants us to have more meetings, which was a downside to his book when I first came across it. But he wants more meaningful meetings. One aspect I was challenged by, was the need to have meetings where there is deliberate pursuit of consensus. This stops the temptation of phasing out of a meeting because there is a corporate sense of responsibilty for any decisions made – Lencioni argues that:

‘A good way to ensure that people take this process seriously is to demand that they go back to their teams after the meeting and communicate exactly what has been agreed on.’ p.184

Reporting back is one thing but elsewhere in the book he argues for the need for loyalty as a team and so you would need to go back and actually “defend” the decisions made by the team. I guess that would force us to really work at consensus in a meeting.

4. How to End a Meeting

“At the end of every meeting, cohesive teams must take a few minutes to ensure that everyone sitting around the table is walking away with the same understanding about what has been agreed to and what they have committed to do.  Unfortunately people are usually eager to leave the room when a meeting is coming to a close and so they are more than susceptible to tolerating a little ambiguity.  That’s why functional teams maintain the discipline to renew their commitments and stick around long enough to clarify everything that isn’t crystal clear. ” p.51

This is a really important idea and one that I am going to try and put into practice more often.

5. How to do conflict

“When there is trust, conflict becomes nothing but the pursuit of truth and attempt to find the best possible answer.  It is not only OK but desirable.  Conflict without trust however is politics, an attempt to manipulate others in order to win an argument regardless of the truth……Overcoming the tendency to run from discomfort is one of the most important requirements of any leadership team – in fact, for any leader.’” p.38

I have been in too many teams where conflict is seen as disloyalty, or where the leader is too insecure to allow anyone to challenge their views. I am sure I have been like that as a leader myself on occasion. A mark of a truly great team is one that works through conflict rather than run away from it.

There was a lot of sense in Lencioni’s book – some of it is common sense – but sadly not common enough in practice. What do you make of it?

The spiritual leader of 80 million Anglicans was introduced after a moving gospel singing rendition of amazing grace followed by a rip roaring ear drum shattering rock out from Ben Cantelon and Tim Hughes. With all the lights and smoke machines you would expect from at a rock concert at the Albert Hall. Then there was a very professional blip vert introducing us to the global press coverage of the Archbishop’s installation on the high definition LCD screens. Then on comes the mild mannered and incredibly humble figure of Justin Welby. He spoke very movingly about coping with the loss of his baby daughter Joanna: “hardly a day goes by that we don’t think about her” at a time when the HTB was engaging with the healing ministry of John Wimber. He spoke of feeling incredibly nervous but relying on the God’s grace to cope with the task infront of him. He spoke about evangelism and the need for the church to take risks in its mission:

There is no safety in Christ, but absolute security – we need to be risk taking church in the service of Christ” @ABCJustin #LC13

Loved this little one liner from the ABC…

“At Chichester Cathedral I was wandering around trying to look like an archbishop… wearing a long black dressing gown”

It was a very gracious and engaging introduction and he seemed very comfortable in a charismatic evangelical context.

2. Leadership church, culture and business

I really like the emphasis borrowed from Rick Warren and Bill Hybels in seeking to encourage Christians to lead not just in the church but in the culture and business. So it was good that speakers included leaders from these worlds: Patrick Lencioni a well known management consultant and author of New York times best selling books such as “5 dysfunctions of a team” and “death by meeting” and Chris Hyman the CEO of Serco group a multibillion dollar multinational company with over 120 000 employees.

It is true that Nicky Gumbell took on an interview style closer to Parkinson than Paxman and as a result there was a warmth and humanity to the interviews which meant people felt happy to open up about their personal stories. Hyman spoke movingly about his escape from the world trade centre on 9/11 and his admiration for the fire rescue workers. He spoke about his passion for his family and the challenges of balancing time with kids and work and only sleeping for 4 hours a night.
But Paxman would have asked questions about how a Christian works through the ethics of making lots of money by being the CEO of a company that runs the UK’s nuclear arsenal.

3. Hospitality

I am a speaker at the conference. I will have a few minutes to share about the Home for Good campaign on day 2 in what looks like an excellently put together seminar focussing on the radical hospitality of God. Despite my modest input into the programme HTB have been very generous in allowing our little stream a special box to sit in with a great view at the Albert Hall, some very friendly hosts and tea and coffee on tap. The whole event has an incredibly well produced feel to it and all the staff are exceptionally friendly and helpful.

4. Bill Hybels

Bill Hybels spoke movingly about his desire to make sure the church is able to engage with the broken hearted. His communication style is relaxed and yet informative. Rather than use powerpoint there’s an honesty and directness about a man and a flipchart armed with a thick marker pen. Hybels manages the difficult task of speaking humbly and yet authoritatively. He offered some very helpful insights about finishing well.

5. Digital media

The whole event has been live streamed on the internet and apparently the sound mix has been exceptionally good so that people can rock out to the worship times. Lots of people have been commenting on how nice it was to be able to join in during free lessons at school or while looking after children at home. Indeed streaming the event live at great cost is a real act of generosity. Also  the leadership conference app is useful (and available for IOS and Android).

6. Meeting people

I love the fact that there are people here from so many different places and tribes. I enjoyed bumping into old friends and making new ones. So I had a number of really helpful meetings with people I have been hoping to see for a while.

Room for improvement?

No conference is perfect – indeed Bill Hybels encouraged us to develop a culture of incessant tinkerers – constantly improving things that are already great… so I humbly offer some suggestions. Would be great to see more women speaking on the main stage.  Last year Christine Cain delivered a powerful challenge to us to look out for the outsiders. It  would have been great to hear from Lynn Hybels.More bible – during the time I was in sessions and seminars there was very little serious engagement with scripture. Scripture was assumed rather than explicitly engaged with. But this is only day 1 so perhaps the balance will be struck tomorrow.

Really looking forward to another day of inspiration and challenge tomorrow.

[You can read my reflections on day 2 here]

I was pleased to see that as a month of prayer is focussed around the subject “What is the gospel?” As you may know we have been thinking hard about this subject to make sure that we are being biblically faithful.

John Stott’s work helped the church re-engage with the call to engage in holistic mission and so it is interesting to see this new video from the new exec director of the Lausanne movement Michael Oh. It is a bold move that Michael’s first public statement is tackling head on this currently contested area. This is the first time I have seen Michael speak so it feels like the new exec director is laying out his stall – making his mark – so lets take a look at what mark he wants to make. The question is “Is there a shift in emphasis when it comes to the gospel from the Lausanne movement?”

Here’s 4 things I enjoyed about Michael’s presentation:

1. Energy and fluidity

Michael speaks with a dynamism and excitement – a smile goes a long way in good communication.
He doesn’t appear to be reading – its a memorised sermon spoken with passion.
Michael seems like a really nice guy – warm and engaging.

2. We never graduate out of the gospel

Its a bit of cliche but its true none the less. We need to keep allowing the gospel to reshape and reform our life and thought and action.

3. Rhetorical flourish

Nice little refrain about “God is… and we are not…”

4. Emphasis on the Lordship of Christ

Good to hear emphasis not just on christ as saviour but as master and lord.

Six things that slightly worry me:

1. Michael’s gospel is pretty individualistic

- no mention of the church or the new creation
- the emphasis is on personal salvation of the individual soul to eternal life
- interesting when the the Lausanne Cape Town theological groups The gospel creates a new reconciled humanity in the one family of God

- Michael is quick to mention eternal conscious torment – (hell gets a double mention) which could be a deliberate sign to conservatives like John Piper who wanted to make this the central part of the Cape Town congress – see live blog here. I know you have to be quick and concise in these kinds of things – but what you chose to leave out and what you chose to repeat reveal a lot.

By mentioning this and not for example – connecting the gospel to Israel’s story ; is Lausanne signalling a move away from thinkers like John Stott, NT Wright, Scott McKnight and a further move towards the conservative right – Piper, Grudem et al? The statement “We don’t just get the gospel – we get God” – sounds a lot like “God is the Gospel” by John Piper.

2. Michael’s gospel is relatively Marcionite

Nothing about the Christ as the fulfilment of Israel’s story. Nothing about Israel at all. Interesting when the the Cape Town theology working group stated : “ The gospel tells the story of Jesus in the light of the whole Bible”

3. Michael’s gospel has little about Jesus

- Jesus gets name checked twice but otherwise the gospel is seen almost exclusively as the transfer of sin and judgement
- It’s what Matt Chandler might call the gospel on the ground – its the four spiritual laws – facts about Jesus rather than the story of Jesus
- There’s no mention of the birth, life or resurrection of Jesus – interesting when the working group made a point of underlining the latter:  The gospel proclaims the saving message of the cross and resurrection

4. Nothing about justice or reconciliation of all things

If lausanne did anything for global mission it was the historic lausanne covenant which clearly stated:

Although reconciliation with other people is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political liberation salvation, nevertheless we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty. For both are necessary expressions of our doctrines of God and man, our love for our neighbour and our obedience to Jesus Christ. The message of salvation implies also a message of judgment upon every form of alienation, oppression and discrimination, and we should not be afraid to denounce evil and injustice wherever they exist. When people receive Christ they are born again into his kingdom and must seek not only to exhibit but also to spread its righteousness in the midst of an unrighteous world. The salvation we claim should be transforming us in the totality of our personal and social responsibilities. Faith without works is dead.

But none of this is emphasised. This sounds like a pietistic escapist gospel that doesn’t call us to any kind of worldly engagement other than evangelism.

5. Michael’s gospel is full of Pauline proof texts

Interesting use of scripture – it seems a long way from the expositional approach of Uncle John Stott and instead of lots of contextless proof texts mainly from Paul’s epistles.

• Romans 1:7
• Romans 1:16 x 2
• 2 Corinthians 5:21  - imputed righteousness underlined a number of times.

Fascinating what is included and what is excluded. Especially in light of the Cape Town Theology working groups statement about even the Pauline gospel.

Paul’s definition of the gospel, then, includes both the central historical facts (Christ died for our sins, was buried and was raised on the third day), and their scriptural context and frame of meaning. Our understanding of “the whole gospel”, therefore, needs to include both also. We point to the centrality of the death and resurrection of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin, and we locate the full significance of that within the rest of all that God has said and done in the Bible as a whole. The Bible tells the whole story of what God has done to save the world.

6. Michael’s gospel isn’t quite Trinitarian

Interestingly nothing is mentioned of the work or person of the Spirit. What would Mike Reeve say?

CONCLUSION

• OK so Michael is new to the job, perhaps he hasn’t had a chance to reflect on the findings of the Lausanne studies from Cape Town.
• It was a short video no one can include everything.
• It was an inspirational piece not a learned theological statement.
• This is only day 1 – maybe the balance will come out in the next part?

But on the other hand – this does seem to be a key topic in global theology and Michael must know that otherwise he wouldn’t have made it the focus of his work. You learn a lot from what someone excludes as of secondary importance.

Either way – a global dialogue to make sure we are being faithful to scripture not just to one particular evangelical tribe’s reductionist take on the gospel is always worthwhile and it what historically made Lausanne truly great.

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There are some helpful resources on the Evangelical Alliance’s confidence in the gospel site to help you further explore this subject. 

There’s lots to like about it.

- The emphasis on church as a disciplemaking community
- The emphasis on equipping for ministry
- The emphasis on interpersonal discipleship rather simply rotas and programmes
- The emphasis on whole life discipleship – in work, arts and business

But have a little watch and see if you spot the same little niggle I had with it… drop me a line below if you spot it.

If you are passionate about growing in discipleship and helping the church reboot its thinking and practice on the subject – you will enjoy this course I am teaching at Regent College, Vancouver .

Discipleship is the core calling of all Christians yet many would argue that is our failure to do this basic task that has meant that we have lost confidence to share our faith; struggled to find energy or motivation to transform our communities; inadequately challenge issues of global poverty and injustice. Sadly lack of discipleship has left our churches are often consumer driven rather than gospel driven . In fact the catastrophic losses of young adults leaving the church can be attributed to a failure to adequately prepare young people for adult life so we are facing the situation where the majority of young people do not make it into their 20-30s with their faith in tact.

I want to invite you to join me in Vancouver for a two week intensive course on helping the church to reboot its discipleship. My aim will be to help you personally take concrete steps forward in your discipleship but also to think biblically and creatively about how we can see a culture change in our churches on this issue. The course is running from 3rd – 14th of June 2013.

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HOLISTIC DISCPLE-MAKING FOR THE THIRD MILLENIUM

It takes a whole gospel to raise disciples…

Genocide and the discipleship deficit

A vision for transforming discipleship

Lex credenda, the grand story and discipleship

Lex communatis, the body of Christ and discipleship

Lex orandi, the praxis of Christian holiness and discipleship

It takes a whole Bible to raise disciples…

Preaching, scripture & spiritual formation

Biblical narratives and holistic discipleship

Wisdom literature and discerning discipleship

The Psalms and emotionally integrated discipleship

Apocalyptic discipleship: reimaging discipleship for a post-Christian

context

 It takes a whole world to raise disciples…

Equipping the church for culturally immersive discipleship

Evangelistic disciples: building gospel confidence into spiritual formation

Just discipleship: empowering the church for political discipleship

Discipleship after Google: following Christ in digital space

Whole life discipleship and Christian worship: ecclesiology, vocation and liturgy

It takes a whole church to raise disciples…

Young missionary disciples and inter-generational formation

Twenty-something vision: discipleship and the missing generation

Discipleship in the global village: intercontinentally connected discipleship

Developing multicultural and multiclass discipleship models

Reforming the church as a disciple-making community