Books @ Leadership Network

Uneasy Evangelism in an Ambivalent World

        Conversation about God in western culture faces a real dilemma. The public is simultaneously eager and embarrassed to talk about God. They welcome spirituality and dislike religion, which means that just organizing ideas about warm fuzzy feelings somehow seems wrong. Once the hugs are over and the music stops, everybody gets tongue-tied. Ironically, Christians seem just as confused: excited and shy at the same time. We are so pleased to know Christ and so wary to share the opportunity with others. Seekers and believers are like teenagers who like each other but don’t know how to dance. Two recent books on evangelism try to remedy that dilemma.

        The first book is: Got Style? Personality Based Evangelism by Jeffrey A. Johnson (Judson Press, 2009). There have been a number of personal growth books tied to personality such as Corrine Ware’s Discover Your Spiritual Type (Alban, 1995) and Soultypes: Matching Your Personality and Spiritual Path by Sandra Krebs Hirsh (Augsburg, 2006). Jeff Johnson’s book is geared to public interaction more than personal introspection. He provides excellent summaries of different “styles” of evangelism: assertive, analytical, storytelling, relational, invitational, and incarnational. The simple assessment tool gives a believer confidence for faith sharing without awkwardness. Use this for intentional lay training. Yes, even you can dance!

        The second book is: Organic Outreach for Ordinary People: Sharing Good News Naturally by Kevin G. Harney (Zondervan, 2009). It reminds me of an effective little book some years ago by my friend Harold Percy: Good News People: An Introduction to Evangelism for Tongue-Tied Christians (Anglican Book, 1997). Harney’s book helps people get the attitude, shape the message, model the Gospel, and let the conversation flow naturally out of your lifestyle. It’s organized into brief databytes and reads more like a self-help book. Use this for small group discussion. The joy of dancing is mainly about looking your partner in the eyes and smiling.

        The key to effective evangelism in a skeptical world is to make it “incarnational”. Jeff Jones saves his discussion of “incarnational style” for the end of the book, but it really is the foundation of everything. Even when you read the chapter, you sense that “being incarnational” is not so much another alternative style, but a basic posture of the soul. I recommend that anyone reading Harney’s book should start with Part 2, Chapter 8, where he talks about “Incarnational Living”. Then read Part 3 to get practical. And save Part 1 for last. This is more intellectual.

        It seems to me that the design of evangelism books should model the actual phenomenon of successful evangelism in the mission field today. We have always tended to start with introspection, and then moved on to conversation. The problem, of course, is that we never seem to complete the introspection part. Successful evangelism starts with conversation, and uses that to provoke introspection. If we think we first have to know it all before we share anything, we’ll never get started. Grow as you go.

Tom Bandy

www.ThrivingChurch.com

Incarnational Community in 8 Weeks

Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, the authors of The Tangible Kingdom, have published a Primer designed to help guide your small group (either existing or created for this purpose) through an incarnational community experience over the course of 8 weeks.

The TK Primer was written for two specific purposes:

1. To be a spiritual formation tool to prepare your heart for mission.
2. To be a field guide for starting mission together.

It’s designed to compliment The Tangible Kingdom, but reading the book is not a prerequisite to the Primer.

The subject matter of the TK Primer is both thought provoking and practical. It provides some simple ways to begin your journey together as a community, and the designers left enough space to write your thoughts and comments as you go. (I say designers vs. authors because the book looks really cool, too. Each page is different, so even the visuals will help you begin to think and see things differently as you work your way through each section.)

So go on, check out the primer here, where you can watch the video Hugh created to introduce the primer, and order your copy through their website.

For an unbiased recommendation, surf over to Austin New Church’s blog and read over their shoulders as their community groups have been working through the primer for the past 8 weeks.

Here’s a review of the primer by Brandon Hatmaker, lead pastor at Austin New Church:

I had the opportunity this Spring to sit in a living room condo with Alan Hirsch (The Forgotten Ways), Neil Cole (Organic Church), and Matt Smay & Hugh Halter (The Tangible Kingdom). Many consider these guys to be at the top of the list of the missional conversation, so I was wondering how I made it into the room. I’ve enjoyed my time observing from the outside what’s going on at Matt and Hugh’s church (Adullam) and getting to know them a little more on a personal level. In the same way, it’s been good to hang with Alan at a handful of meetings where the topic of the day was typically “where do we go from here”. It was the first time I met Neil, and as expected, he did not disappoint.

They were discussing the same realization that Ed Stetzer (Breaking the Missional Code) and Alan both acknowledged at a dinner gathering the following night. The claim that missional is not just another passing fad that will be here today and gone tomorrow. They all affirmed that although it’s quickly become a junk drawer word for many, it’s not just a trendy word to describe what’s going on in the church today. Instead, it’s a Biblical idea communicating well the sentness of the church, a label that’s worth hanging on to, and a concept worth pursuing.

I agree and am relieved to hear how convinced they were.

A key element in sustaining the sentness of a church is not only to establish a missional DNA, but to ensure its ideals are manifest in its formation of structure. The key element is to form, organize, and seek new ways to discover incarnational community… and somehow keep it as organic as possible. The problem for most of us is that while there is a growing desire for this type of community, most of us don’t know where to start in creating it.

I think Hugh put it best on the Tangible Kingdom website, “Everyone’s talking about community. Everyone seems to want it, most complain if they don’t find it, but it’s harder to pull off than you’d think.”

So we’ve engaged culture and begun to form community. We may even gather for worship on the weekends (maybe you’ve done that for years). But how do we equip an entire church to strip away their preconceived ideas of what community looks like and replace it with gospel-centered relationships that emerge out of an intuitive lifestyle? How do we point our people outwards?

Enter the Tangible Kingdom Primer. I think Hugh and Matt describe it best:

“The Primer is about building life-long habits, with two primary purposes: first as a formation tool to prepare your heart for mission, and second as a field guide for starting mission together. So whether you’re a pastor hoping to reinvigorate your church, a planter needing to get your people on the same page, a small group leader wanting to push your friends into mission, or a regular guy (or gal) looking to start something new… get started with this eight-week guide to incarnational community.”

And it’s good. In fact, it’s the best I’ve seen.

Over the past 8 weeks at Austin New Church, we’ve sent each of our Restore Communities (Villages/Community Groups) through the TK Primer. I have several friends both at large churches as well as small churches doing the same. While at first it was a tough sell to get everyone excited about an 8 week study that required daily reading and action steps each week… there was quick buy-in once they realized how practical it was, that it spoke directly to some of their greatest sources of tension, and gave them a realistic plan for intuitively living out their faith.

It’s practical. It’s simple. It hits (and even creates) some tension head on. And it takes even the leader through a calculated and experienced journey. Yet still manages to leave enough unanswered questions to force each community to dig in and blaze their own trail.

Bottom line, we will be using the TK Primer as a critical step in our spiritual formation process and will continue to work through the study as a key part of our partnership (membership) requirements.

Whether you’re building a core team from scratch and wanting to insure a missional DNA, find yourself needing some help communicating missional theology, looking for a way to equip and lead others towards incarnational community, or even find yourself leading a church of thousands searching for a resource to help your people engage community, you should give the TK Primer a hard look.

To track ANC’s journey through the TK Primer, see posts from other pastors and churches doing the same, and to contribute to the conversation go to www.tkprimerblog.wordpress.com.

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Stephanie Plagens is the Publications Manager for Leadership Network.

What is the best book on church leadership?

From the latest edition of Leadership Network Advance (Issue #101):

Search Is On: Best Book on Church Leadership 

We want to know what our readers are reading in the area of church leadership. Which of the many books available have you read that really struck a chord for you? Which of those books did you recommend to your peers? In other words, what are the must-read books for church leaders on leadership?

Leadership Network wants your nominations for Church Leadership Book of the Year. Submit your nomination HERE before August 25. Then, beginning September 8, we'll list the main nominees and open the polls for you to vote on the best book for church leaders.

Leadership Network Advance is an indispensable, twice-monthly, free email newsletter featuring the best in innovative church strategies.  You'll gain insights from the ministry pioneers who are setting the standard for tomorrow's church.  Each issue will also point you to resources, tools and events that will help you build a more effective ministry. Subscribe for free >>

Holy Mavericks

I recently purchased Holy Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators and the Spiritual Marketplace, by Shayne Lee and Phillip Luke Sinitiere (New York University Press, 2009). 
 
It's very readable, but poorly argued. If you enjoy reading about Christian "celebrity" pastors (Joel Osteen, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, etc.), you'll find a lot of interesting background. (Better books on Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes have come from the pen of Richard Young, which I've reviewed here. 

Their overall thesis is intriguing. Years ago a mainline writer named Dean Kelley penned a widely quoted book titled Why Conservative Churches Are Growing. He argued that strict religions (conservative ones) thrive while lenient ones decline. By contrast, the authors of Holy Mavericks say, "We uncover little that is strict or demanding in our subjects' messages or ministries, and yet  . . . their churches are among the largest in the country." If these churches haven't raised the bar with high expectations, what have they done instead? According to the authors, the churches they selected have grown so wildly more due to effective marketing, meeting psychological needs, and appropriately addressing "the cultural tastes of potential clients."
 
They don't argue their case well, which is why I feel it's poorly written. But the book does get me thinking: are the standards that churches today hold up for followers of Christ higher or lower than 50 years ago? What are your thoughts?

 By the way, Christianity Today wasn't big on the book either, though for other reasons. Here is Mark Galli's take. 

 Warren Bird, Ph.D., is Research Director at Leadership Network, and co-author of 21 books on various aspects of church health and innovation.