Matt Smay

I was recently downloading a new update to a program on my computer (won’t mention the culprit), but after about 5 minutes of downloading the following message appeared,
 

Installing – This may take a while…

Have you ever wondered why anything worth doing seems to come with that message? I’ve been reflecting lately on the past few years of ministry and I’m struck by the consistent theme – most of the best stuff has taken a long time to develop. Whether a book, a new training, a new community, or ministry strategy – it often takes years to accomplish something new and innovative. This is not just an idea or concept relegated to the ministry world. I’ve had two girls, and in the midst of each of my wife’s pregnancies, I remember the hurdles – pregnancy test, first heart beats, ultrasound (it’s a girl!), and the long awaited delivery.

You know the deal, whether it’s starting a relationship, finding the perfect job, landing a big opportunity, or starting a new church…it all takes time – usually too much time in my book!

As I look at this year, I’ve been wrestling with a theme. I think it’s going to be centered on ‘love’. Strange theme for a guy like me. Afterall, I like to hunt – with a bow, I never cry, love to rough-it when I camp, I’m the big brother type, the kind of guy that rarely, if ever, shows emotion…But since I take this yearly theme pretty serious, I’ve spent a few months listening to God, keeping attentive to the unique coincidences, and the obvious connections in the day-to-day. Even though I’d rather focus on some attribute like courage, love is the theme I’ve been dealt.

Unfortunately for me, when my mind wanders for even a second, I jump to that familiar scripture, ‘Love is patient…” hope you know the rest because this is as far as I’ve gotten. Seems to me that everything that matters most in my life has been developed over time and has taken a great deal of patience. For me, it has always involved a thorough process of learning and adapting, which has also included some failure and the occasional big success.  Part of my job is to train church planters and coach existing church leaders, and I’m sure the ones reaching their goals would all agree that sticking with it was the hardest struggle. Just a little fair warning, I think starting a missional community or moving an existing church to be more incarnational is one of the hardest things to do, but it’s also one of the most rewarding. I’ve noticed that it’s the front-end investment of time and energy that discourages most in the long journey of  change. For what it’s worth,  I laughed out loud, as  I read, “This may take a while…”

If you’re looking for great examples of missional – incarnational church, then you’ve got to check out the story of Austin New Church.

http://anconline.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/missional-church-year-in-review/

Brandon Hatmaker is the lead pastor / church planter of ANC. I often get asked if there are other examples of missional churches out there. After getting to know these guys & gals, I’d have to say they’re at the top of the list!

http://www.austinnewchurch.com/

Since my last post – there’s been a ton of developments. Hugh, Ryan, and I had a great trip to Scotland and Ireland. We met some great people (Furgis, Phil Kingsley, and many others from Greater European Mission).  We enjoyed a great time with church leaders and even spent a day golfing at St. Andrews.

It’s still quite amazing to be in contexts where less than 3% of the population attends an evangelical church.  It’s a reminder of how important the call has become to the missional/incarnational life in the west.

On a positive note, everywhere we went, we talked about the need to create resources for those in the existing church to reorient people back to the missional way of God.  The problem in the past has been that we have separated the idea of spiritual formation from missional practices.  It’s time to redefine discipleship as “becoming like Jesus” and call people deep spiritual formation on the streets.

Hugh and I have been working to create such a resource.  I’m happy to announce that The TK Primer is now available – released in April. We’re super excited about this resource and are getting great feedback from those pioneering the Primer in their churches. The goal of the Primer is to help every Christian to understand and experience a bit of what’s possible in an incarnational community.

The Primer is a spiritual formation journal that walks someone through an 8 week process to deal with the barriers to real apprenticeship. That is Individualism, Consumerism, and Materialism.  This is an individual process, but the fifth day of each week is designed to be done with a group – a few friends, a small group, or a community group that’s just getting started.

Each week has 7 days of content and follows this format -

Day one: Exploration of the concept

Day two: Meditation on Scripture related to the concept

Day three: Change element: What will need to change to live out the concept

Day Four: Action day: Small steps into missional life

Day Five: Community Day: Where everyone processes their personal journey together

Day Six: Calibration Day: Serious reorientation to the new habit

Day Seven: Sabbath Communion

The primer can be used with existing small groups to move them beyond “bible study” to a more holistic incarnational commmunty.  In adullam, we use this 8 weeks to prepare people to live the Adullam way and so it serves as a great companion to any assimilation process, disipleship process, membership curriculum, or small group training.

You can only find it on our Tangible Kingdom website. There, you’ll also find a basic video that will help you use the primer.

If you’re an existing pastor and desire to use this tool to reorient your church, we’d recommend you check out the Missional Chuch Apprenticeship Practicum. The MCAP is specifically design to give you an effective grid to work from using the Primer. You can find out about the MCAP at the Missio web site.

Last week, Hugh and I had a chance to spend a few days with a couple of friends, colleagues, and strategic missional leaders. Alan Hirsch – on the front right is one of the founders of Forge Australia and an author of three of my most highly recommended books (the newest of which is ReJesus). Lance Ford in the left corner is a church planter and coach that has started an entire online networking and training website called Shapevine.

During our time together, we solidified our commitment to serve in the development of a broad based missional movement, which will result in a number of partnering arrangements with Missio – the details of which will be announced in the next few weeks.