Our field tested resources have all been designed to address the question of how you innovate missional life in local churches and the organizations (denominations and para churches) that serve them.
The word transformation is often used to describe this desire to shape and re-form our churches and the systems that serve them but few grasp the dynamics of transformation. This is why the majority of programs and tools being offered today work for a while creating energy and excitement then leaving people pretty much where they were before the programs began. Transformation is a wonderful ideal but how do you do it when you're on-the-ground doing the everyday grind of leadership?
RMN has developed a process that not only leads local churches and the organizations that serve them into transformation but teaches leaders how to do this for themselves. Because we believe missional transformation is a process and not a program we want to work with leader and church systems where we can give them the tools to do continual transformation inside their system for many years to come. Below you will find some brief samples of our transformation processes. We can provide you with the resources as well as the mentoring and coaching to support you in forming mission-shaped churches in your own organizations.
Innovating Missional Transformation in a Local Church
We have learned several important but counterintuitive principles essential to cultivating mission-shaped life in a local church.
- Transformation is more than and different from a program or the creation of mission statements, visioning processes and strategic plans.
- Experience has taught us these standard ways of doing transformation actually closing down the inherent capacities of a local church to discover God's dreams for them.
- Missional transformation occurs when genuine innovation comes from among the people themselves - the Spirit of God is among the people of God, therefore, God's future is among God's people.
- Mission-shaped transformation can't be led by pastors, clergy or those staff identified the key leaders. This does not mean these leaders have no role to play. They have a pivotal role but it is not the expected forms leadership. To the extent transformation is leader-driven it will fail over the long term while generating a lot of energy and hope in the short term.
- Bottom-up, diffuse, non-linear processes of transformation create a missional life DNA in a local church.
The diagram here shows you an overview of our processes for innovating mission-shaped processes in a local church. It requires the church to give approximately eighteen months in learning the skills of culture change that make sense for its story and tradition in a local context. We are not suggesting that these eighteen months will produce all that is needed for transformation, that will take longer. In this period we will enable the church to experience transformation and internalize all the skills it needs to deepen and continue transformation for itself.
We have also created the Mission Shaped Church Field Guide as a comprehensive resource that will guide a church through each of the steps involved. Based on the principles of 'just-in-time-learning' and using a webinar format the Field Guide is an indispensible resource filled with information and additional resources for guiding the process. We offer on-site consultation and training as well as phone coaching and webinar formats to ensure this learn as you go process is fully resourced.
Forming Mission-Shaped Leaders
Under Construction...
Please feel free to contact us to learn more about these processes.
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