Tag: sodalic

AND: The Gathered and Scattered Church

AND: The Gathered and Scattered Church

by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay

A tension often exists between the modalic and sodalic elements of the church. This book addresses that tension and suggests ways for the two to work together. The modalic arm of the church is the one with which most of us are more familiar. It is the “gathered” church, which is usually stable, organized, and centralized in a building or some sort. Caring for people is usually the focus of such churches. The sodalic arm of the church is often represented by parachurch organizations and small missional groups which focus on reaching the unreached, making disciples, serving the marginalized, and otherwise engaging in mission outside the walls of the church building.

The modalic version of church can easily develop primarily into a programmatic attractional model which focuses most of its time and resources on presenting well-orchestrated Sunday services. Modalic pulls toward the center.

Sodalic versions of the church are sometimes called “missional” and are often versions of “simple church,” which focus more on relationships, discipleship, and mission. Ideally, sodalic thrusts outward.

Halter and Smay contend that every church is both modalic and sodalic; although, individual churches will tend to be more one than the other.

The thesis of this book is that instead of competing with one another, the modalic and sodalic should embrace and support each other. This will allow both expressions to do what they do best and contribute to the overall health of the church.

Proponents of the sodalic wing of the church argue that the modalic has been overemphasized, has become the cultural “norm,” and hinders God’s mission – the development of disciples who make disciples.

American Christians have been conditioned to expect churches to meet their needs instead of being challenged to be on mission. Because of this, sometimes it feels as if asking people to be missional is like trying to “sell rocks.” [Halter, Hugh; Smay, Matt. AND (Exponential Series) (p. 23). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.]

Many sense that God is moving churches toward more collaboration, but missional leaders may fear losing their missional identity if they venture into partnership with the modalic vortex that pulls people to serve the church instead of thrusting them outwardly into the community. Smay and Halter developed a “hybrid” church in Denver called Adullam that blends both missional and modalic elements. They insist that some elements of the church should be centralized (modalic); whereas, others should be decentralized (sodalic). (p.26) The goal should be to see “fans…turned into followers, disciples…made into apprentices, AND consumers become missionaries.” (p.26) They encourage churches to…

…live a fluid organic Christianity AND … [have] enough structure to provide for any level of growth God wants. (p.26)

We want to create a cohesive balance between the scattered communities and the gathered corporate movement. (p. 64)

Moving toward the AND

AND was written to help churches, whether they began missionally and have grown to the point of needing more structure or started as a modalic structure and now recognize the need for more mission. It also proposes that sometimes the modalic and sodalic will choose to partner, each embracing the other without either losing its identity in the process. The modalic and sodalic are two sides of the same coin.

The authors spend quite of bit of time describing what it means to be missional or sodalic, since that has been their own journey. They emphasize the need for engaging the culture (“context”)  in an “incarnational” way. Developing relationships with people in our community is the only sure way to become a contextual missionary. (p.58)

Halter and Smay suggest that modalic churches can develop the sodalic side of things by identifying, developing, and releasing missional people who will think and act missionally.

If you want your existing church to successfully engage the culture, you don’t begin by telling your people to engage and then bring’em to church. You must start by creating a new environment for them that provides a better witness to the culture and is the best way to see the kingdom lived out in concrete ways. (p. 66)

an existing church must first gather bands of missional people out of the larger body, bring them together, and then begin the process of engagement. All you need is a handful of people who want to pilot an incarnational community. (p. 68)

This can start with what the authors call “pilot communities.”

Addressing Consumerism

The authors call out consumerism for what it is – the enemy of mission. I cannot say it any better than they have.

Consumerism is the self-focused drive to get as much as I can get with the least amount of effort. It coercively shifts the church away from its true call, from valuing giving to getting. It compels us to protect what we already have and only to give away what has become useless to us. It erodes our sense of duty, honor, loyalty, and chivalry to live for the right things and the best things. It gets in the way of leaving a legacy for those behind us because it waters down our present understanding of what it means to follow Christ today. It pushes responsibility and expectations onto others instead of self and exchanges true spiritual growth for ankle-deep personal devotionals and self-help measures. (pp. 73-74)

Consumerism only exists when it is allowed to exist. Like a scavenging raven, it only shows up where the easy food is available. Consumerism can only exist if there’s something to be consumed. (p. 74)

In a sense, they [consumers] give ownership and responsibility to whoever provides for them. They stop growing on their own and no longer dream about the plans God might have for their lives. Hearts that were once growing and alive begin to atrophy; leaders grow weary, and the church shrivels—in numbers and depth of spiritual maturity. (p. 74)

A consumer is not a disciple and a disciple is not a consumer! (p. 75)

AND asks the question that every missional leaders must ask.

If developing people so that they become like Jesus is our grid for evaluating fruitful ministry, then we have to take an honest look at everything else we’ve felt pressure to provide and ask ourselves, “Do these activities, services, processes, staff positions, religious ceremonies, and financial resource allocations actually help us reorient someone’s life direction so they are growing closer to Jesus?” (p. 79)

Making apprentices out of consumers isn’t just a matter of repro-gramming. The problem isn’t behavioral or methodological—or even ecclesial for that matter. The problem is spiritual. (p. 79)

“Nothing good of the Spirit ever comes naturally or easily.” The missional push and the incarnational way of giving your life for others sound really nice, but the reality is that living this way means you don’t get what your flesh wants. You don’t get to keep all the money. You don’t get to do whatever you want with your time. You have to share your house, your stuff, your money, your kids. You have to exchange your ambitions for God’s, your kingdom for his, and you must be available for God to interrupt your nicely scheduled day with needs that will cause you to pull your hair out. (pp. 79-80)

The more missional you want to be, the more incarnational you’re willing to be, the more you release your people out into the world, the more you desire to equip and empower young leaders, the more effective and faithful you want your church to be…the more you’ll have to die to your self. (p. 80)

There’s only one way to overcome the problem of consumerism. Not two or three ways, not a program, not a sermon for you to preach or a class for you to teach. Just one way to break the pattern: You have to remove what they are consuming. (p. 81)

The last quote is the rub. Becoming a simpler version of church will push the consumers away, but it will free up the rest to engage in mission in a greater way. Stripping away the fluff to make room for mission is a painful yet rewarding process.

Halter emphasizes that real discipleship requires spending personal time with people, not just preaching to them on Sundays or even in classroom settings. He states:

We try to live by a simple leadership principle: “Whatever you give your best to will grow.” (p. 86)

They conclude the chapter with this idea.

Pastoring is as much about protecting the flock as it is about growing a flock. It’s about pushing them and challenging them instead of pandering to them. Ultimately, it’s time for leaders to be consumed in a struggle against consumerism. Our collective calling as leaders is to create spiritual pathways for people so they can come out of their old life and find the new life of Christ. (pp. 88-89)

Spiritual Formation for Missional Churches

In some ways, I believe that even the gravity toward consumerism is simply a symptom of how bored our people are with the basic Christian experience. (pp. 91-92)

The above statement should grab our attention. What can churches offer their people that will engage their sense of adventure while being true to Christ’s mission.

Regardless of our specific church form, the process of spiritual formation in our church must help move people out of consumerism and toward the life, actions, and devotion of Jesus. This process must call for change, challenge the status quo, and guide people through the tension of being counter-culture kingdom people. (p. 95)

Missional churches must prioritize equipping their people to be on mission.

This equipping must move people from the classroom and the sanctuary back into homes, the streets, and the natural places of connection with the world. (p. 96)

Many people assume that our primary purpose in coaching our folks to this end is evangelism. Although we do believe that whenever you find people integrating community, communion, and mission, the kingdom becomes tangible and people find Christ, our primary purpose is really spiritual formation, discipleship, or apprenticeship after Christ. We ask people to live this way for themselves! (p. 96)

The authors insist that discipleship must be intentional. It will not just happen on its own. They lay out a model that integrates inclusive community, communion with God, and mission. The outline four steps in the process: observance, preparation, participation, and partnership. (p.102) The authors encourage missional leaders to invite prospective disciples into a deeper level of commitment and preparation.

Calling people to leave their nets, to prioritize God’s mission over their own, to live by faith, to take up their cross, to deny self, and to seek first God’s kingdom and righteous life is what seekers are so desperate to hear. Let me challenge you to take a risk and start inviting people as Jesus did. Begin personally to invite higher-level leaders to your home, give them your best time, and trust that if you’re honest about how hard Christianity is and how their lives will change, God will build his church—the one he’s entrusted to you to lead well. (pp. 110-111)

The disciple making church sets the bar high enough that mere consumers will not choose to go there, but not so high as to discourage people from giving mission a try. The authors give some examples of what a missional lifestyle might look like.

…what does dying look like in real life?” I said, “It’s just living well and being willing to give time, resources, and relationship to people who are looking for what you have. It’s opening your home for dinners, inviting sojourning people into your family time, recreation, and hobbies, and into your spiritual community. It’s not rocket science or martyrdom at a biblical story level, but you do have to die to your natural bent to live exclusively to yourself. You have to let Christ’s mission dictate how you live. It’s really about the direction of your life, not a state of perfection. It’s serious, but it’s also a beautifully whimsical life without legalistic pressure or self-judgment.” (p. 117)

Disciple making requires us to take responsibility for helping others grow.

The Big AND: Gathered and Scattered in Perfect Harmony

In this chapter, the authors more fully address the main theme of the book. They state the challenge as they see it as follows.

When the modalic and sodalic are completely isolated from each other, the church movement as a whole tends to lose its capacity to multiply. (p. 133)

As you can see, God’s church moves forward, reproduces, and survives from generation to generation because of our sodalic calling. Any sodalic work will eventually turn modalic as a result of the need to disciple and nurture the newcomers to faith, but typically, the missional DNA and fervor wanes and static ministry structures set in. There is really nothing wrong with this process…as long as the sodalic continues to push outward. Practically, this can be accomplished by simply forming our church plant teams, pastoral staff, and elder boards with an equal number of both sodalic- and modalic-oriented leaders. Yes, there will be more tension and lively discussions, but it’s all part of the bride working together. (p. 134)

Notice the two sides of the church here in the words of Jesus. There is the sodalic “go” and the modalic “make disciples,” and the sodalic “of all nations” and the modalic “teaching them to obey.” What most people miss is the big AND right in the middle. It’s not surprising! Conjunctions aren’t supposed to get a lot of attention. They just hold a sentence together. But as you can see from our discussion to this point, the AND is huge and it holds the key to grasping God’s bigger design potential for his church. (p. 135)

They make a very powerful statement that should motivate church leaders toward collaboration.

The greater the collaboration, the greater the potential. The more aggressive the partnerships, the more expansive the movement becomes. (p. 136)

Morph: Transitioning from Gathered to Gathered AND Scattered

This chapter shows how the modalic might move toward embracing the sodalic. They encourage leaders to link arms with other leaders and churches in their communities that have the same vision, mission, and heartbeat.

Be part of The Church instead of limiting your focus on your own local church. Be willing to link arms with others who share a common vision and passion for your community. (p. 156)

To Gather or Not to Gather: Is That the Question?

In this chapter the authors encourage leaders to construct mission and ministry so that their people see that they are needed for the mission.

If the vision of the church is not scary, if it doesn’t require everyone to pitch in, if faith is not needed, then folks will stay home and watch the football game. Here’s the bottom line. People get weary of church services when they realize that their participation isn’t necessary for it to continue. On the opposite side, if a person feels that they must be there so that God’s kingdom work can go on, they will give up anything to gather together. This focus on the outside naturally brings excitement and integrity to gathering together on the inside. (p. 172)

He also addresses the “what do we do with the kids?” question by promoting the integrated approach.

I do find it interesting that as Western Christians we so quickly panic when we have to think beyond programmatic ministry models. In other cultural contexts, if you asked a Hindu, Buddhist, or a Christian what they do with their kids during religious services, you’d probably get a weird response like, “You include them.” This really shows how church has dis-integrated our experience to the point where we don’t think we as big people can grow with God if our children are with us.(p. 181)

The last chapter deals with leaving a spiritual legacy.

All parents want the best for their kids, but as we mentioned in the chapter on consumerism, God’s highest goal for our children isn’t to keep them busy and safe. Our role as stewards over the spiritual life and legacy of our kids is to model a holistic life of apprenticeship under Jesus—to invite them and include them in as much as you can and to trust that God will grow them, protect them, and use them to change the world. This certainly can include children’s education during our gathering times, but it must include much more. Children will follow what they’ve seen us do. If they see us go to church and live a typical, normal life, that’s what they’ll think being a Christian is all about. But if they see their parents actually live out the gospel—community, sacrifice, inclusiveness with everyone, and mission to the poor and needy—they will follow suit. The more decentralized and organic your church rhythms, the more creative and intentional your people will need to be with each other and for each other, with and for their children. (pp. 182-183)

Conclusion

I highly recommend this book to anyone who desires to help the church fulfill both its pastoral and sending responsibilities. It can inspire you and give you some practical ways to implement your vision.

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Developing Missional Churches – Part 3: Using the Equipping Model for Mission

 

 

 

 

In the first article in this series entitled Developing Missional Churches, I looked at some tensions that challenge our attempt to fulfill our God-given mission. The first is the tension between attracting consumerist church shoppers to meetings and making disciples. For those churches which choose to be missional, a second tension involves choosing between using the attractional model to win people to Christ or using the equipping model to train people to do ministry themselves. In my second article, I examined how some missional churches use the attractional model to effectively preach the gospel to large numbers of seekers. This article looks at how the equipping model can be employed to make disciple-making disciples.

Leadership Goals of Equipping Churches

I have already established that Jesus charged the church to be missional when he gave us the Great Commission. Mission includes going, preaching, teaching or equipping, and launching. Whereas missional-attractional churches often are very successful at presenting the gospel to those who are drawn to their services, with many surrendering their lives to Christ, they may struggle to produce disciples who can minister in their own right. This is why the equipping model is needed.

The above continuum places attractional churches on one end and equipping churches on the other. Of course, real life churches are going to be somewhere in between. My continuum places what I call a “hybrid network” in the middle. I will talk about that later. Pure equipping churches do not employ attractional techniques or strategies. In fact, Hugh Halter, pastor of Adullam in Denver, sometimes deliberately makes his services less than perfect just to remind people that we do not go to church to be entertained. At LifeNet, we never have to try to do that. It comes naturally.

Equipping churches seek to develop disciples by giving them adequate Bible knowledge and competent ministry skills and launching them into the community to do the work of ministry.

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12  for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; Ephesians 4:11-12 (NASB)

Instead of adopting a strategy to invite people to church meetings to hear the gospel from a main speaker, equipping churches develop disciples who are competent to share the gospel themselves outside the four walls of the church.

Leadership Strategies of Equipping Churches

Leaders of equipping churches necessarily will be missional, and they also must be committed to training. This is the biggest difference in leadership strategy. Instead of maximizing their own pulpit time, they will seek to step aside to make room for their disciples.

This means equipping churches are willing to put less polished speakers and worship leaders in the forefront in order to develop them. This runs counter to the accepted attractional strategy, which always puts the best of the best in front of the crowd.

Think “teaching hospital” when you think of the equipping church. Think rock concert when you conceptualize the attractional model.

Equipping churches can be led by any of the “five-fold” ministry, but missionally-minded teachers always will have a large role to play.

Equipping churches do not rely simply on classroom or lecture style teaching. Instead, they use Jesus’ method, which blends instruction with demonstration and application.

This means their disciples will be able to effectively share the gospel, pray for the sick, cast out demons, counsel, and do other facets of ministry. The doing is part of the learning. Until the disciple does, he or she is not a disciple. Unless churches develop a way for people to have “hands on” opportunities to practice their ministry skills under supervision, equipping will not take place. Obviously, listening to a talking head for an hour each Sunday will never accomplish this. Equipping church meetings are designed to maximize disciple making. The small group setting is ideal; although, it is quite possible to break a large church down into small discussion groups on the fly. In order to facilitate the application of teaching, ministry opportunities must be created, ideally outside of the church meeting. All sorts of creative options are available, everything from door-to-door visitation to men’s nights out, to starting or joining some sort of affinity group or club.

A necessary part of equipping and launching disciples is decentralization.

Nothing bottlenecks ministry as much as forcing all decision making through a top-level choke point. Equipping churches expect to produce mature ministers who have the wisdom and courage to be spiritual “entrepreneurs.” Just as natural dads release their sons and daughters to establish their own families, equipping churches adopt a strategy of equip and release. For this to work ideally, launched disciples will maintain a healthy relationship with their mentors and launching churches, having the same values, mission, and strategies.

Integrating the Attractional and Equipping Models

Neither the attractional nor the equipping model is perfect. Both have strengths and weaknesses that can be complemented by the other. In his book, AND – The Gathered and Scattered Church, Hugh Halter advocates creating a hybrid church that incorporates elements of both. (You can read my summary here.) Having pastored both types of churches, I am intrigued with the possibility of integrating the two into one “mean, lean missional machine.”

Larger attractional model churches usually have nice facilities, established programs for youth and other sub-groups, and resources. Equipping churches, especially the small group variety, may have none of the above, but be rich with missional vision and committed people. The blending of the two can provide pastoral stability (modality) with missional passion (sodality).

Such a hybrid makes room for people who may not be willing to go the more radical missional route of the equipping church, but who support it. It also provides programs and resources not otherwise available to smaller equipping churches.

Such hybrids will necessarily be led by those who see the need for both expressions of the church.

The leadership team will need to make room for the more fluid expression of missional sodality within the protective covering of the modality, the larger “mother” church. Disciples and leaders that come out of the equipping ministry of the hybrid church, can be plugged into the various small groups as leaders or be encouraged to start their own through evangelization.

Hybrid missional churches will be able to conduct schools of ministry for training and equipping future leaders. This training will include hands on mentoring in the doing of ministry.

Hybrid leaders will need to resist the desire to “rein in” the more sodalic expression of the church, and sodalic leaders will need to properly relate to the modalic church. This will have to be worked out over time, but the possibilities for mission are huge and probably worth the effort.

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Developing Missional Churches – Part 1: Tensions

 

 

 

 

Developing missional churches is one of the great challenges facing modern church leaders who live in a consumerist world system.

By missional I mean prioritizing the pursuit of the Great Commission, Jesus’ marching orders to the church. This article will address two of the major obstacles to achieving this missional goal.

Tension #1: Attractional vs. Equipping

In the United States, we live in a pronounced consumer culture, in which people are trained from an early age to view life from a “what’s in it for me” vantage point.

This consumerist mindset has infected the church, too, resulting in many people having rather shallow reasons for attending or not attending a local church.

The culture has molded our people to look for a church that provides the most return on their investment, which is often measured by how a particular church blesses them personally. Unfortunately, because we are mostly selfish in our orientation, we gravitate toward those churches that are attractive, comfortable, and impressive. To put it another way, people will “shop” churches to find the one that offers the best programs, facilities, worship experience, preaching, and other benefits, such as being a place to network with other successful people in the area. Not surprisingly such a search often leads consumer Christians to the biggest and most successful churches in the area. This is to be expected because the church growth movement that began in the 1980s taught leaders how to market their churches to the masses. This leads us to a very important point that has proved to be a disaster in many cases.

Churches that want to attract Christian consumers must choose to provide the things for which people are shopping.

Consumers need to be attracted, which has led to the development of the attractional model of doing church. This way of operating tries to present the very best Sunday service possible in order to attract the largest number of seekers and church shoppers, as well as provide a great experience for its members in order to retain them. The disastrous aspect of this model is that many leaders have compromised the gospel to “keep ’em coming.”

In stark contrast, Jesus taught his disciples that they must be willing to lose everything for his sake, which is a direct attack on consumerism.

So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:33 (ESV)

The opposite of the consumerist church is the disciple making church, which prioritizes training and equipping its members to do the work of the ministry.

Comparing attractional churches to equipping churches is like contrasting going to a concert with going to school. It’s pretty easy to guess which one most people will choose. Disciple making churches cannot be consumer oriented by definition. The two ways of doing things are diametrically opposed.

Strong disciples are built through teaching them self-denial for the sake of the mission, which will alienate consumers, whose purpose in life is to consume blessings for themselves.

What draws consumers will pull disciples off track.

Leaders who wish to prioritize the Great Commission will have to face the giant of consumerism and choose to turn their backs on its allure in order to make disciples.

Tension #2: Modalic vs. Sodalic

A writer named Rob Yule, from New Zealand, wrote: “A modality is the static or geographical form of the church, the church as a local or regional community. A sodality is the mobile or missional form of the church…” Another, perhaps, better way to conceive of the difference is that modality is a function of the pastoral ministry of the church to its own people; whereas, sodality is its outward (missional or apostolic) thrust toward those who do not yet know Christ. This second definition is how I use the two words in this article.

Church leaders, because of calling, gifting, training, and/or personality, usually emphasize either modality or sodality in their ministry. These two ways of seeing and practicing church seem to be in opposition to each other, creating some tension in the church world.

Jesus launched a worldwide missionary organization called the church, whose marching orders are found in the Great Commission.

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19  "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20  teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Matthew 28:18-20 (NASB)

He promised his disciples that the gates of hell would not be able to withstand its missionary advances. (Matthew 16:18) The preaching of the Gospel turned the world upside down in a very short time, as bands of early disciples, often led by apostolic (sent) ministers, went forth with the sole objective of preaching the good news of Christ’s resurrection and lordship and establishing churches whenever groups of disciples responded to the message.

But just as a conquering army must organize and consolidate its gains, the church found that tending its new converts tended to be a full-time occupation.

The Apostle Paul probably spent more time tending the newly formed churches than he did in active evangelization of unreached people. Nevertheless, he never lost his zeal for and commitment for taking the Gospel to unreached areas. (Romans 15:20) He used established churches as bases from which to launch and sustain his ongoing missionary endeavors. (Romans 15:24) In terms of a conquering military army, churches can be viewed as outposts from which greater advances can be made while maintaining conquered areas.

Both the pastoral (modalic) and the apostolic (sodalic) callings are fairly all-consuming. Paul was one of the few, it seems, who was able to keep both front and center in his life.

It is my belief that true apostles have this calling and ability. They are essentially missionaries who care deeply for and maintain a pastoral relationship of some nature with the churches they help start.

Unfortunately, however, many churches are led by pastors who may unintentionally stray from the Great Commission and settle for being modalic self-absorbed institutions. This is because it is difficult to maintain both sides of the equation – mission and pastoring.

The tension between the pastoral and apostolic calling is a second challenge in developing missional churches.

Most church leaders I know are in favor of reaching out with the Gospel to those who still do not know Christ, but fewer feel the need to devote their resources and energy toward motivating, equipping, and launching their members into the harvest field. Those who have prioritized mission are divided between using an attractional model or employing the equipping model. Which is better at making disciples? Which is better at bringing in new converts?

Two questions will be addressed in the following articles in this series.

  • Should church leaders equip the entire church (modality) to become members of a Great Commission harvest team, or should the Great Commission be delegated to specialized sub-groups (sodalities) in the church?
  • Should churches rely on drawing people to evangelist-led attractional meetings or focus on equipping average followers of Christ to competently penetrate their neighborhoods and relational groups with the gospel in order to make disciples?

I hope you will stay with me as I look at these two questions in the next two articles.

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