MISSIONAL MOVEMENT - EXPONENTIAL '08 (Alan Hirsch)

Missional Movement
Alan Hirsch
4-23-08
Exponential Conference ‘08

Alan Hirsch is from “the land of down under.” He’s an Aussie and he may just be brilliant. The guy loves God and is passionate about the church. He has written two of the most challenging books you’re likely to read: The Shaping of Things to Come and The Forgotten Ways.

Hirsch delivered one of the most fascinating and challenging messages of the entire conference. I agree with Steve Anderson who said, “Alan Hirsch is a prophet to this generation.”


Illustration: Gordon McKenzie’s book, “Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace.”

Hirsch opened by sharing a humorous story from Gordon McKenzie’s book about how as boys, McKenzie and his cousin loved to “mesmerize” chickens on his uncle’s farm by capturing them, holding their beak down to a white line of chalk until the chicken was “mesmerized” or basically “frozen.” The chickens would remain in this position until the boy’s uncle would basically give them a kick in the backside. The point of the illustration and of McKenzie’s excellent book is that organizations have a “mesmerizing effect” on people.

Unfortunately, churches have the same affect. Something either in our theology or methodology makes us keep our “noses down on the line.” We rarely break free to do something innovative, different or something that challenges the status quo. We behave like a group of “mesmerized” chickens. What we desperately need is a kick in the backside.

Note: One of the funniest moments in Hirsch’s message was when in his Aussie accent and Aussie way, he actually said, “Sometimes God has to give us a boot in the a**.” Yep! He actually said it. And, I think he’s right!

According to the latest research, the church is in decline in every American / Western city…

What needs to happen is that we desperately need to recover a “lost ethos” and go back to the “primal stories” in our history when the church grew exponentially and had a profound impact upon our world and culture.


4 Areas Where We Need To Recover A Lost Ethos

1. The Recovery of the Absolute Centrality of JESUS In His Movement.

• Christology lies at the heart of the renewal of the church. Jesus Christ must be central!

• We must radicalize in order to missionalize. We have to go back to our roots. We must once again become a “missionary movement.”

→Christology (Jesus, our founder and leader, sets the primary template.) Leads to and determines our..

→Missiology (Jesus establishes our purpose and function in the world.) Leads to and determines our...

→Ecclesiology (The church is a result of our “missionary engagement” in the world.)

Note: It is crucial that the church always recalibrate back to JESUS.

Note: Jesus and religion don’t mix well together. In fact, Jesus reserves his harshest criticism for the religious… He was usually “gentle” with the sinner, but tough on the religious.

Big Question: Where is Jesus in all that we do? Just read the N.T. gospels. Why doesn’t the church look more like Jesus?

• The subversion of Christianity

Somehow we often take Jesus out of Christianity. Why? Because it’s hart to live with the Lord! Jesus will challenge every aspect of our lives.

Example: Church at Laodicea… Revelation 3:20 describes Jesus by saying, “I stand at the door and knock…” Jesus was standing at the door of this church knocking, waiting to be invited in…

Question: How was Jesus ‘shut out of the church’ in the first place?

We kicked him out! Why? Because Jesus is too demanding!

G.K. Chesterton said it like this; “Christianity has not be tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried.”

Christianity
minus
Christ
equals
Religion
(the domestication of Jesus and His Church)

Unfortunately, there is lots of religion in America… This is exactly why it is crucial that we go back to Jesus!

Christology is at the heart of the renewal of the church!

• Show me your Jesus and I will show you who you are.

Voltaire quote: “God created man in his own image, and man returned the favor.”

We have domesticated Jesus. We have re-created Jesus in our own image. You know you’ve “re-created” Jesus in your own image when Jesus hates all the same people you hate…

We have created / fashioned several caricatures of Jesus…

➢ Spooky Jesus (Jesus with halo and heart in hand…) – This caricature ignores the humanity and incarnation of Jesus…. Basically a return to a heresy called “docetism.”

➢ Buddy Jesus (Jesus with thumbs up…) - This caricature lacks reverence and respect… Jesus is our “homeboy” or buddy… It ignores Jesus’ divinity.

➢ Sunday School Jesus (Jesus surrounded by children and lamb…) – It ignores the revolutionary nature of Jesus.

➢ Jesus is my boyfriend… (Listen to a lot of contemporary music… The lyrics basically describe Jesus as a boyfriend…) Jesus is not my boyfriend. He is LORD!

➢ Bearded Lady Jesus… (You’ve seen these portraits… Jesus looks somewhat effeminate... He looks as if his hair was done by some guy from “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”…) This caricature of Jesus doesn’t inspire revolution!

➢ Suburban Jesus… (Jesus who builds his own cross...)

We have DOMESTICATED JESUS!

We must recover JESUS… The “wild” one… The Jesus described in the N.T. We must recover the Jesus described in the gospels and in Revelation!

Unfortunately, too often we lock Jesus out of our lives because we are disturbed by Him.


2. The Recovery of Discipleship As Our Core Task.

• Discipleship is becoming like Jesus. It is allowing Jesus to live his life in and through me.

• Embodiment and transmission… We must become the “embodiment of the faith.” When we become more like Jesus, people will be more interested in our faith.

• Movements only grow in proportion to their capacity to make disciples.

Movements make discipleship hard. They raise the bar.

Jesus made discipleship tough. He regularly challenged people, “Lay down your idols.” Check out the story of the Rich Young Ruler. Jesus was not “seeker sensitive.” He was radical!

Discipleship is the basis of every apostolic movement. If we fail to make disciples, we will fail to increase the movement.

• Leadership is an extension of discipleship.

• Consumerism is killing us.

Consumerism is the alternative religion of many in our society. In fact, a consumer mentality has gripped many in the church and is killing us from within.


3. Recovery of the Ethos / Structure of apostolic movement.

• We desperately need missionally responsive, culturally adaptive, organizationally agile, multiplication movements.

• Movements mobilize the people of God. Movements take seriously “the priesthood of all believers.”

China has adopted this philosophy: “Every believer a church planter, every church a church planting church.”

THOUGHT: “In the spark is the potential of the flame… In the seed is the potential of the tree…”

• A few thoughts about movements:

➢ Movements are reproducing and reproducible
➢ Movements are structurally networked. They avoid the centralization of power. They are “al-qaeda” like in their networking… Fast, quick, responsive…
➢ Movements employ missional leadership. The five-fold gifts are operational in the context of a movement (See Ephesians 4)


4. The Recovery of an Incarnational-Missional Impulse.

• We have a missional God

• We have an incarnational God

• We must have a missional Church

• We must have an incarnational Church

The missional church goes out.
The incarnational church goes out.


NOTE: Read more about Alan Hirsch by logging on to website and blog The Forgotten Ways.