Over the year or so I have posted numerous entries regarding our shift to a decentralized way of being the church. As we began to go through this shift, I often posted what we were discussing and thinking Kaleo Church would begin to look like. You may have noticed in the last 9 months my posts decreased. This is because I wanted to actually do what we were talking about.

Now, as this transition (and much of what I wrote in theory) has begun to take shape (in ways we imagined and ways we did not imagine). In fact, the beginning of this year has been very difficult where we lost about 1/3 of our people due to varying circumstances. In contrast, the last 3 months have been more of a blessing to me than any period of Kaleo’s existence as much fruit has been seen in the live’s of people around me.

I am currently working on a shared document to re-communicate the ideas from these posts from what we learned through our own experience as well as from our interaction with communities we share values with. It should deal with the way we do church, eldership, community and develop people within these structures. I hope by posting it we are able to continue to learn from one-another and share the vision of how we plan to do what we believe it means to be a local church.

There are a couple things that are still in theory. For example, at the end of this year we will endeavor to begin the planting process as discussed in Organic Movement - Reverse Church Planting. So this will still be an area where we will need to learn as we go through this process next year. Secondly, we are actively re-thinking our discipleship process which we see as core to the future of the Kaleo Community. So this will be very much a work-in-progress.

If you missed much of the last year, here is a abbreviated listing of the transition at Kaleo:

Check out Stuff Christian Culture Likes, with posts like:

#42 Drama Teams
#40 Frosted Tips
#39 Side Hugs

Total Church Conference
Speaker: Tim Chester
Session 3: Beyond Total Church

QUOTES:

Planting new churches isn’t enough, we need to create church planting movements.

The model of mission is supernatural. Prayer is the primary missionary activity.

The model of living is martyrdom. From incremental discipleship to martyrdom. We are called to take up our cross daily. We can often feed people’s idolatry with religion.

The model of the church should be reproducible. Every Christian should say, “I can do this.” There should be rapid incorporation of new converts into the church. People should be put into leading sooner than we are used to.

Notes from Simply Missional.

Audio/video sessions coming soon…

Total Church Conference
Speaker: Steve Timmis
Session 2: A Gospel Community Centered

Total Church Session 2

QUOTES:

When we use the word ‘church’ we are almost always miscommunicating both to the Christian and non-Christian. It seems we’ve lost the battle with this word. Why should we use a term where we are almost always communicating the wrong thing?

Church is far more than a community of religious people, it is a whole new world order. In Jesus miracles he showed us what eternity is like.

How do we create a community where the gospel progressively permeates every part of it?

Q/A

Launch Video of Q/A Session

Q: How do you avoid judgmentalism in a community? How do we not care about being judged?

Q: How do we live life in community if we don’t have the leadership to do this? One of the most common complaints of churches, but it’s not an issue found in the NT. (How our false view of leadership impacts our ability to be the church.)

Q: Is the gospel specific enough to address the complex political and economic of issues to life?

Q: How does the gospel impact stewardship, for example our retirement?

..amongst others.

Total Church Conference
Speaker: Steve Timmis
Session 1: A Community Centered Gospel

NOTES:

Church planters don’t need a new shtick or new things. What we need is the gospel.

What is the Gospel? (Col. 1:3-6) The gospel is the word of truth that works. What does it do? It is constantly bearing fruit. It is the good news, the arrival of the Kingdom because of the arrival of the King. The evangelical emphasis has been on the individual. But where we (evangelicals) miss it most is in view of community. The ultimate goal of the gospel is an exalted Christ with his people. Christ without his people is incomplete.

What is the Church? Communities of light in a dying decaying world. The prevailing view of church is an event. If you doubt this, how many people hours are invested in that meeting? (Planning, sermon prep, worship practice, etc.) We know what we believe by how we behave. It is a static view of church vs. a dynamic view. Most of the recent debates on church center around what happens in this meeting (worship wars, preaching styles).

The church is a life together under the reign of the King. It is this corporate life together as a redeemed people pointing to the future. By our life together we are telling people, “this is what the future will look like.” If the event is what is pointing to the future, “God help us!” We should reverse engineer the future and set things up to line up with that now.

There are 630 laws and 3 events given by God. God was more concerned with the nitty gritty of life together. (eg. to build a small wall around a flat roof, how to harvest). Our gospel needs to be community centered.

Q/A

Launch Video of Q/A Session

Q: The Historical church has been defined by preaching, discipline & the Sacraments. Are you moving away from these positions? Small quote from Steve’s answer: The way the vast majority of Christians celebrate communion has no bearing at all on how the New Testament portrays it.
Q: How do we facilitate creating communities sent into the ‘city’ versus ’small groups’?
Q: How do you view the tension of the focus on the community in the OT and the focus on the individual in the NT?

NOTE: These are the videos and the notes I took from the first sessions. The video recordings and q/a recordings for all the sessions and audio from the breakouts will be uploaded in the next couple weeks to Church Bootcamp.

Our team is working on the 12 videos (6 main sessions and 6 main breakouts) and 10 audio sessions (breakouts) from the Total Church Conference. In the next few days I should be posting the first two main sessions for people to enjoy.

There are only 5 spots left until the Total Church Conference is sold out. Register now if you plan on attending.

8/7 Update: CONFERENCE SOLD-OUT

The conference is almost sold out. Here is the schedule for the Total Church Conference next month:

Tuesday, August 12th

Main Session #1: A Community-centered Gospel – Steve Timmis
The gospel is about a King who died to rescue a people who would reveal his character by their shared lives. In keeping with who I am ‘in Adam’, I individualize and privatize the gospel so that church is reduced to a necessary but often intrusive addendum. The gospel calls us to live ‘in Christ’ corporately and so show the power of the cross to reconcile and create community.

Main Session #2: A Gospel-centered Community – Steve Timmis
The gospel is that which creates, sustains, nurtures and perfects the church. To achieve this, the gospel needs to be at the center of all we are and do as the people of God. The gospel needs to be taken out of our pulpits and meetings and applied into the mundane and routine of our corporate and personal lives.

break out #1

Track 1: Being Neighbors: a Gospel Strategy (Steve Timmis)
When so much emphasis is placed on being missional and incarnational, contextual and radical it’s easy to forget the simplicity and significance of the truth that gospel makes us into lovers, of both God and others. Instead of trying to send out edgy, hardcore dudes with body piercing and tattoos, we should be satisfied with sending people who will be the neighbors everyone wants to have as a neighbor.

Track 2: Forming a Gospel Community (Jeff Vanderstelt)
Now that many are aware of the need to form gospel communities, how do we move from theology and theory to actual forming and leading them? This session will explore the process and the specifics of moving an individualistic group of people toward a gospel-centered community on mission.

Track 3: One-Anothering: A Communal Gospel (David Fairchild)
Why are so many Christians detached and isolated from one another? How can we experience a radically reshaped community? What kind of social ethic does the Gospel produce? What would it look like if we lived lives together as if the Gospel were true? Join us as we unpack the various “one another†passages in a quest to answer these questions together.

break out #2

Track 1: Evangelising the Urban Poor (Tim Chester)
We have endless resources on reaching postmoderns, most of which in fact address student and professional culture. In comparison there’s very little on understanding and reaching the urban poor. Drawing on insights from biblical counselling, this session suggests some ways forward for evangelizing and discipling the urban poor. Join the work-in-progress!

Track 2: Story & Rhythm of Soma Community (Caesar Kalinowski)

Track 3: Reading Cultural Texts (Mike Gunn)
This is a missional gaze at pop culture. We will be taking a look at the “Other†gospels in our culture (Media, film, books, etc.), and how to read them in a way that can help propel you to a better understanding of them for the sake of the gospel. We will look at the reason why this is important to our mission, as well as, some help for understanding and engaging pop culture in authentic ways.

Wednesday, August 13th

Main Session #3: Rethinking Attractional Church – Tim Chester
Attractional church (‘come to us’) and missional church (‘go to them’) are often set up as alternatives, yet throughout the Scriptures God calls his people to a life that attracts the nations. We can bring attractional and missional approaches together by re-conceiving church as a community rather than an event.

Main Session #4: Remodeling Attractional Church – Steve Timmis
As we focus more on the quality of our lives together rather than the slick performance of our Sunday meetings we will see how a gospel community is an integral and indispensable piece of the evangelism jigsaw. In fact, people won’t be able to fully understand the magnitude of what God has done in Christ without it.

break out #3

Track 1: Out of the Frying Pan… (David Fairchild & Mark Moore)
Is God calling your church out of Ur? How do you get your church to move from traditional to missional? Both Mark Moore and David Fairchild are practicing church planters that initially planted relatively traditional churches built around the Sunday gathering. As they labored to develop deep community as a gospel display people for their cities, they realized things needed to change. Come and hear their stories and insights as they share what pitfalls to avoid and what challenges to accept as missional leaders. This breakout is intended for anyone looking to turn the corner missionwards!

Track 2: Beyond Total Church – Sowing the Seeds of a Movement (Tim Chester)
How can we plant churches that plant churches? What can we learn from church planting movements? How can we build in reproducibility?

Track 3: Communication in a Post-Christian World (Drew Goodmanson & Caesar Kalinowski)
The culture is changing and it requires new thought in communication. This session will help you learn how to effectively minister in a post-Christian context. Come learn the 1) five values of this Post-Christian generation, the 2) ten idols that enslave them and 3) effective ways to communicate the eternal and unchanging gospel message.

break out #4

Track 1: The Everyday Rhythms of a Gospel Display People (Jeff Vanderstelt)
The gospel community is called to be a display of the gospel in everyday ways of life so that others might see what their life would look like in the gospel. In order to do this, the church needs to lead their people to identify everyday practices and then lead them to live out their identity in Christ within them. This session will identify some of those everyday rhythms and and then explore how we can display the gospel through them.

Track 2: True Gospel Community in a Truly Big Metroplex (Mark Moore)
Being a gospel community that does life and mission together is sometimes easier said than done. This is especially the case in large cities that are characterized by sprawl as well as population. This session will concentrate on leading your people to make missionary decisions in their everyday lives in response to the gospel. Specific challenges to this way of life in a metroplex setting will be examined.

Track 3: Reaching the Domains of Society (Drew Goodmanson & Caesar Kalinowski)
How do we bring gospel renewal to our cities in the 7 pillars of society… Business, Education, Healthcare, Government, Media, Social Services [including other churches] & Marginalized? We believe the gospel informs all of life and this good news helps shape how we view the world and our involvement in it. How do we equip Christians to engage in redemptive work in science, politics, art, culture, business, economics, education, local concerns, mercy ministries, social justice, environmentalism, law, media, social concerns and spirituality.

Thursday, August 14th

Main Session #5: Making Disciples for Missional Church – Tim Chester
‘I’m free and belong to no man’ could be the slogan of our age. But Paul continues: ‘I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.’ What kind of people are going to sustain a church planting movement? This session explores how the cross and resurrection should shape our lives.

Main Session #6: Making Disciples in Missional Church – Tim Chester
This session looks at how we train and pastor one another in the context of ordinary life and the context of Christian community.

break out #5

Panel Q/A Session

break out #6

Track 1: Wrapping up Total Church (Tim Chester)
This session will be built around the questions of those attending, especially concerning the application and implications for the issues Tim raised during his main sessions.

Track 2: Developing Missional Leaders (Jeff Vanderstelt)
There is plenty of opportunity to hear and learn about being a gospel-centered church on mission. And, after a few days at a conference, the tendency of teachers and preachers is to go home and tell our people to get going. If we are going to lead a gospel-centered church on mission we must do more than that. During this session we will explore some ways to identify, equip and support a group of gospel-centered leaders to share in leading the mission with us.

Track 3: Urban Discipleship (Mike Gunn)
The city holds more than 50% of of the world’s population, and is growing rapidly toward a world-wide megalopolis, while the church continues to migrate to the suburbs. The city also holds both the keys to the culture, and abyss of brokenness. In America our cities are becoming multi-ethnic/racial posing unique challenges and opportunities for our churches. In this session we will take a look at the role of the church (Make disciples), what it looks like to make disciples, and why we should be doing it in the cities of West and the world!

We (Kaleo) and several other communities continue to develop a tighter relationship. Recently the leaders of these communities collaborated on a list of shared values, led by The Crowded House. If these interest you, I’d encourage you to register for the Total Church Conference our collective communities are holding. Here is the current state:

The Crowded House is a family of church planting networks. Our congregations are committed to working together within, and between, networks around the following shared aspirations. They are a statement of our distinctives and are not intended to be a judgment on those with gospel commitment who do things differently.

1. the priority of the gospel
We are committed to filling ordinary life with gospel intentionality, pastoring one another with the gospel and sharing the gospel with unbelievers. We challenge one another to be sacrificial, servant-hearted, risk-taking and flexible because the gospel has priority over our comfort, preferences, security and traditions. We will not let Christian activity be just one part of our lives.

2. mission through community
We are committed to communicating the gospel message in the context of a gospel community. As we build relationships with people and share the gospel message, we want to introduce them to Christian community. We want people to experience church as a network of relationships rather than a meeting you attend or a place you enter. We will not put on evangelistic missions outside the context of a Christian community.

3. home as the primary location of church
We want a reproducible model of church without any trappings that might impede freedom and flexibility. We are committed to homes as a context for all or most of church life with home shaping the ethos of church. When congregations use other buildings, those buildings will not be viewed as the main focus of mission.

4. sharing our lives as extended family
We are committed to sharing our lives in Christian community, caring for one another, discipling one another and resolving conflict. We expect one another to make decisions with regard to the implications for the church and to make significant decisions in consultation with the church. We will not let conflict continue unresolved, nor view church simply as a meeting you attend.

5. inclusive communities
We are committed to welcoming broken people and making church accessible to unbelievers. We want to offer a sense of belonging, and be communities of grace in which people can be open and vulnerable. We will not let our welcome be dependent on adherence to any cultural norms not demanded by the gospel.

6. working for city renewal
We are committed to working for neighborhood and city renewal – redressing injustice, pursuing reconciliation and welcoming the marginalized. We celebrate the diversity of cultures in our local contexts while recognizing the need for gospel renewal. We encourage one another to glorify God and serve others through the workplace, business, community projects, government and artistic endeavor. We will not make a division between spiritual and non-spiritual activities.

7. growing by starting churches and church planting networks
We are committed to starting new congregations. We will work together within, between and beyond our networks of missionary congregations. Our vision is to collaborate in a wider church planting movement to litter the world with communities of light. We will not develop into single, large congregations, nor become insular congregations.

8. prayer as a missionary activity
Recognizing that God is the primary agent and orchestrator of mission, we view prayer as a missionary activity. We will offer prayer to unbelievers, witnessing to a living and personal relationship with our sovereign Father. We want prayer to be both a regular community discipline, and an impromptu response to needs and opportunities. We will not assume we are in control of mission, nor rob God of his glory by boasting of our achievements.

9. everyone exercising gospel ministry
We are committed to every Christian seeing themselves as a missionary and exercising gospel ministry in every aspect of life. We shape activities around gospel opportunities we have with unbelievers, and the gifts and passions of church members. We believe leadership is important, seeing leaders as facilitators of gospel ministry rather than those who exercise control. We will not make distinctions between full-time and nonfull-time ministers.

10. shaped by the Bible story
We want our lives and our life together to be formed and shaped by the Bible’s story of redemption. We believe the Bible to be the reliable, authoritative and sufficient word of God, and are therefore committed to good Bible learning. We will not act on the basis of tradition, habit or pragmatism without reflection on the Bible. We will not see Bible teaching as an end in itself, but as that which must shape our thinking and action.

Read today's paper and saw a quote from an article stemmed from the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey:

Another finding almost defies explanation: 21 percent of self-identified atheists said they believe in God or a universal spirit, with 8 percent “absolutely certain” of it.

Jeff Archer, president of the Atheist Coalition of San Diego, was at a loss to explain how one in five atheists said they believed in God.

“I find it quite preposterous that an atheist believes in God,” Archer said. “The only qualification to be an atheist is a nonbelief in God. When you take that away, then they're not an atheist.”

One last reminder prior to tomorrow for you to join us on Shapevine June 24 at 4 PM EST (1pm PST) for an interview on Missional Communities, Total Church, Triperspectivalism & the Renovo Network. 

There will be a time to ask questions and interact with David & I regarding what we've learned, where we've failed and what we see God doing at Kaleo as we've transitioned to missional communities.

Almost a year ago I posted an intro to the Renovo Network concept, entitled: Transforming Cities - The Church beyond the Spiritual Box.   Since this post we've incorporated the Renovo Group, the Tentmaker Group and Imagine City Group.  We continue to work on the the organization but first we realized it needed a funding mechanism up and running, which we launched as the Tentmaker Group.  To date we've trained over 40 people on Tentmaker Group roles and I believe by the end of this year we will have established a sustainable mechanism to help missional leaders and churches seek city renewal.  If this is the case, our prayer is that through external funding we can roll this into 25 cities by next year.  Here is a little bit about Renovo: 

The Renovo Network is a collection of local communities of believers (churches) that seek to bring gospel renewal to our cities in the 7 pillars of society Business, Education, Healthcare, Government, Media, Social Services [including other churches] & Marginalized.  The Renovo Network seeks to re-capture a broader scope of being the church in our city.  We believe the gospel informs all of life and this good news helps shape how we view the world and our involvement in it.  We want to equip Christians to see how the gospel shapes life, science, politics, art, culture, business, economics, education, local concerns, mercy ministries, social justice, environmentalism, law, media, social concerns and spirituality.   Let's be a foretaste of what's to come…

A couple years ago, after the success of The Passion of the Christ, several film makers tried to tap into the Christian word-of-mouth marketing.  I cringed (see: Hollywood: Turning the Christian Faith into a Marketing Gimmick) when I saw Rocky's newest film use a faith-based marketing approach.  Marketing for Rocky included sermon resources at RockyResources where you could show clips of Rocky respecting Adrian and tie it into a sermon on Esther.  After my posts, I was subsequently interviewed on NPR and labeled the 'Pastor who takes issue with Rocky'.

….but it looks like the bubble has burst.  As Hollywood looks at the struggle of the latest Narnia film  (which I haven't seen yet, but clearly this is more appropriate to connect to Christians than Rocky.)  The Hollywood Reporter writes

Read The Hollywood Reporter's How effective is marketing to faith-based audiences? 

I'd encourage all church planters to attend one of the most important church planting conferences to come. This one is a must attend for church planters who are thinking about planting missional churches to reach our culture. The Total Church North America Conference 2008

REGISTER EARLY BENEFITS!

Be the Church

Total church is a way of thinking about church and mission in the 21st century which sees the local Christian community as integral to Christian living and Christian mission. The Christian life is 'total church' - our identity is communal.

Why Attend?

- Create a community centered on the gospel, equipped to do the work of the ministry.
- Make your community a community of church planters.
- See what it means to be the church on mission through ordinary life with gospel intentionality.
- Dialog with missional church leaders from across the world.
- Learn from seasoned practitioners how to form missional communities and transition traditional churches toward mission.
- Did we mention its in San Diego?

Dates: August 12-14, 2008

Location: San Diego, CA

Main Sesssion Speakers: Steve Timmis and Tim Chester are the authors of Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community (Crossway). They lead The Crowded House, a family of church planting networks that started in Sheffield, England. They have also started The Porterbrook Network to train people for mission and church planting in the context of ministry.

Break-out Sessions will be led by church planters/practitioners from The Crowded House, Kaleo Church, Soma Community & Providence Community.  Break-out sessions will be added but will include:

Stay-tuned as more break-out sessions are added.  There will be several tracks for people being introduced to a missional mindset all the way to those who have formed missional communities to learn from others around the world leading missional movements.

The first Total Church was held in Sheffield, UK, in 2007 at the end of October, hosted by the Crowded House. The conference is named for the book, Total Church -A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community which will be released in the Fall in the US.

Learn more: Total Church North America Conference 2008

If you have a chance I'd encourage you to attend the Dwell Conference in London.  Many of you already know Mark Driscoll & Scott Thomas, but maybe some of you haven't been exposed to Steve Timmis.  I've had the opportunity to visit Steve in England and I strongly encourage you to learn from him.  At the Total Church conference in England, his sessions were provocative, a bit edgy (in a good way) and caused many of us to go home re-thinking what we are doing.  Keller fans- Redeemer is bringing Steve & Tim Chester to NY in '09 to train all their leaders on being the church formed around the gospel, on mission in community. 

For those of you in the US, Steve and Tim will be joining Soma Community, Providence Community & Kaleo Church at the Total Church North American Conference.  Space is limited!