The Monkey and the Fish

The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture Church

I’m a white American and I have a ton to learn. Did I say that out loud? I can’t tell you how refreshing The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture Church by Dave Gibbons has been for me to read. I read a lot of books, but few with such timely insight and exhortations like this. The entire time I was reading this, I felt my spirit resonating with the spirit of the book and inside I was shouting “Yes! Yes!” I thank Dave for his humility and hard work to put this treasure together for the Church, capital “C”.

Dave tells us in the book that his definition of third culture emerges from a look at Genesis 12 and from the second greatest commandment: Third culture is the mindset and will to love, learn, and serve in any culture, even in the midst of pain and discomfort (I just typed that from memory because it’s ingrained in my heart now).

I especially like Dave’s insight into the second greatest commandment (“Love your neighbor as yourself”). My heart for the poor and homeless connected with his vision as he described our neighbor as “instead of being someone like him, was someone not like him at all, someone he would be uncomfortable with or even hate.” He goes on to say that the second most important commandment “is all about loving people we don’t understand… People who are misfits. People who are marginalized. People who are outsiders… Instead, it’s about people I would not normally choose to befriend, people who might make me feel uncomfortable to be around.”

Another truth that God has been teaching me lately and this book confirms is that ministry and leadership is not so much about having the answers, but rather about asking questions. As Dave writes, “Questions should lead us.” Dave points to how Christ’s MO was to answer a question with a question or a story. His example was a very Eastern thing to do and one that we as Western Christians should really wrestle with and try to put in practice.

As a young leader and one who God has been teaching what it truly means to live by the Spirit, I especially appreciated his candidness and honesty about his early years of going to conferences and watching people like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels. He wrote that they “warned us not to imitate them, but when you’re young and feel the need to make it happen, you tend to plug and play rather than innovate and pray.” I’m traveling the country a lot these days meeting with Church leaders and I’m urging people to let their innovation come out of prayer. This book and Dave’s own testimony and confession affirmed that conviction.

Last week at The Idea Camp’s pre-conference meet-up I said on video that I believe “the future of the Church is going to be messy”. Then on the flight home I read where Dave writes that “loving the other can be messy, ugly, unnatural, and perhaps not fun…” He also talked about the specialness and bonding that happens with people over food. As one who loves to eat and fellowship with others, this is something I definitely can testify to and resonate with. He teaches that the metric for this type of ministry is relational. I think we, as Church leaders, need to hear that and need someone to get in our face and ask when the last time we ate and drank with people different from us and people that don’t believe the same way we do.

I’ll close with more praise for how Dave addresses bottlenecks in the Church. This is something that I, too, see and am praying through how we can remove these bottlenecks. Dave asks a hard question: “What squeezes the life out of what is intended to be a sanctuary of strength and a source of life, hope, and intimacy?” He questions how many churches are about a place and not nearly enough about the people. I encourage you to read this book and ask yourself how many in your own church or organization feel “like the third-string team that plays only if the game is well in hand.” I’ll let him set that quote up for you in his book and let you chew on it.

The good news is that this is a tremendous and challenging book. The bad news (not really bad) is that you must wrestle through it and in a third culture way ask yourself, your leadership and your local church some very tough and thought provoking questions. If you’re up for a book that will read you, I encourage you to get a copy and devour it.

-- Greg Atkinson – www.GregAtkinson.com

QUESTIONS FOR DAVE GIBBONS:

1. In your book you mention the Medici effect. You describe the Medici effect as what happens when you’re at a place of multiple cultural intersections, where learning and innovation are heightened. This took place for you at various times in your life as you have traveled and especially when you got to live in Thailand for about a year. What are ways that an average Joe can try to create or seek out opportunities for the Medici effect to take place in our own lives? Can it happen through other means than a mission trip?
2. In your book you write that at moments of desperation people often give up (sell their golden ticket). You say that we can’t let worrying about something “as common as money get in the way of our calling or mission or values.” You expressed your new-found freedom and that pursuing your God-given vision is a feeling beyond words. I appreciate your encouragement that “God will sustain you.” What would you say to that pastor or Church leader that is ready to cash in their golden ticket today?

 

Comments

[dave G]

1. The avg. Joe can experience the Medici effect or the intersections of culture by looking around them locally and finding where the fringe and the marginalized live. Once you find that space, do business there by eating in their restaurants, meeting with civic leaders and community development organizers and asking how one can serve the needs of their community, mentoring young people in schools. The key is to identify people already there to partner with different than you. From a perspective of creativity, always involve people from different occupations, careers, and cultures to engage in conversations. Some of your best ideas and strategies will come from these groups. Another simple thing to do is attend conferences or read authors different than you. If it's a Reformed Conference you usually go hang out with the Pentecostals for a weekend.

2. If you're ready to cash in your golden ticket how about creating some space in your life to become God aware, love aware and self aware. Most likely the answers are all within your grasp, but you needs space to let the Holy Spirit unpack it and love on you. As you create some space, it's highly recommended at some point in the journey you invite close friends to speak truth into your life after prayer and honest reflection. Then take action. Do what you know is right. Radical disease requires radical remedies.