Dispatches from Exponential 08, day 2.1

I have so many thoughts from Exponential 08 today that I need to break them up into two separate entries.

This one is all taken from a pre-conference seminar continued from yesterday entitled “Attractional and Incarnational Church Planting.” Today involved conversations with the guys from yesterday (Alan Hirsch, Greg Hawkins, Neil Cole, Darrin Patrick) plus Joseph Myers, author of Organic Community and The Search to Belong (you can see his blog here).

The reason this is so interesting to me is the challenge of planting a church out of an attractional model while valuing a lot of what’s happening in the more incarnational model.

In relation to my question about how to engage with an incarnational approach from within an attractional background, Neil Cole offered the following advice. Take a two-prong approach. Continue to do the stuff you are doing within the attractional model, while also starting fringe initiatives that take a slower and more radical approach. In these other options, don’t talk about the church, but spend time talking about Jesus and spiritual family.

On why we gather corporately:

• “We gather to scatter.” – Darrin Patrick
• “It’s [Sunday gathering] a huddle from which to send people out.” – Greg Hawkins

On Leadership:

• “Leadership is the bottleneck that keeps us from getting a movement going. . . . We need to be more dispensable as leaders.” – Neil Cole
• “We reproduce who we are – in relation to character.” – Darrin Patrick

On Ephesians 4 and Leadership:

• Alan Hirsch, in referencing his 5-fold functional ministry model APEST (Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd, Teacher), discussed the ways in which we legitimize the pastor – teacher – and (at times) evangelist, but we don’t know what to do with the apostolic and prophetic functions
• Neil Cole offered an example of the hand and the APEST model in which,
• The thumb is the Apostle – moving forward
• The index finger is the Prophet – pointing the way
• The middle finger is the Evangelist – stands out beyond the others and is most offensive to others
• The ring finger is the Shepherd – shows that it is committed to the church
• The pinkie finger is the Teacher – developing a hunger for God’s word; smallest amount necessary (“not many should desire to become teachers”)