UnLearning Church. Mike Slaughter

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      Part 2 shows how unLearning LEADERSHIP empowers servants of God to do the mission of Jesus. These chapters will guide you in making God's vision a reality in your own unique context, with the group of people God has called together for this purpose.

      You can create environments in which people can become radical followers of Jesus Christ. As God asked the prophet Jeremiah, to whom he'd given great vision, "What do you see?" each chapter challenges you to describe the vision God is creating in you.

      What old habits and worldviews must you unLearn in order to make that vision a reality? What does the next step look like?

      Radical Abandonment and Evangelism

      UnLearning is not about continuing what you are already doing and simply slapping on a new slogan, better technology, or some other additive. The goal of this book is not to showcase the latest program or to give you a numbered list of how-to steps. The challenge in these pages is to hear and obey God with a sense of radical abandonment. The result will be new ways of ministering to people, using the resources God has already given to you.

      Radical abandonment to Jesus is much more holistic than a set of prescriptive formulas. Jesus rose from the grave, looked at his disciples, and said, "You will receive power" (Acts 1:8). A revolutionary power. An uncommon power. Power to be witnesses in the power of the Holy Spirit.

      The challenge is to find and follow God's directive for you. Your local implementation may take on a one-of-a-kind flavor seen nowhere else. Yet the results will be similar: You'll design communities invaded by the presence of God through Jesus Christ that demonstrate the very kingdom of God. Radical Christianity is being the hands and feet of Jesus Christ, led and empowered by the Holy Spirit, ready to serve and give witness whenever and to whomever God calls us to reach, in ways uniquely appropriate for each particular community. Consider these two examples:

      Everything about Princeton Alliance Church at the Crossroads says, "Urban professionals are welcome here." The church campus in New Jersey's research corridor was intentionally constructed to look like the executive office parks nearby. Each church ministry models a quality standard consistent with the surrounding business community. Not surprisingly, the church has made great inroads for Christ with executives and managers at nearby Merrill Lynch, Bloomberg, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. "Our calling is to reach everyone we can," says pastor Bob Cushman, "but we know we're best at connecting with urban professionals, so that's why we build a corporate feel into all we do."

      9 Six hundred miles to the southwest, Quest Community Church in Lexington, Kentucky, has a similar passion for outreach but does best at impacting a different community. Pastor Pete Hise is proud of the fact that 25 percent of the people who attend Sunday mornings are either atheists or agnostics. He's particularly glad that young people with body piercings find lots of others at the church who look like them. "Which church in Lexington will reach that kind of person for Jesus?" he asks. "The one gaping hole in most churches' ministry is in reaching the Generation X crowd. That's what we do best." He estimates that as many as three hundred thousand people in greater Lexington need to hear about Jesus in a way they have not yet heard.

      These two churches share the same overall mission of turning irreligious people into committed followers of Christ, but the local expressions are completely different. Each is appropriate for some segment of its community. Each of these churches has found its own flavor.

      It's time to go beyond knowing and believing God's truth to experiencing and demonstrating God's presence. God wants you to be authentic, the real deal, becoming a change agent for the entire world.

      Start by UnLearning

      To become an indigenous, relevant community, you will un-Learn lots of things you thought were right.

      UnLearning is about going a different direction. UnLearning means repentance. It requires us to identify ways we were wrong and to rebuild in a new direction. UnLearning is about breaking away from the pack, because a crowd will always be slower to respond to the radical voice of Jesus Christ. UnLearning is about ways the Holy Spirit can adjust your leadership skills and attitudes. Then you, in turn, can lead the way for a similar transformation in others. Most important, unLearning is about experience.

      Leaders who unLearn are a different breed from what you may be used to. They are willing to fail. They break their own rules— at least the rules that prohibit people from becoming passionate followers of Jesus. UnLearning churches demonstrate an uncompromising approach to church mission and ministry. The methods may seem new, but the approach follows an ancient call.

      Why a book about unLearning? Any navigator who travels fluid waters knows the need to change the angle of a boat's sails as soon as the wind blows from a new direction. Today's ocean of constantly changing pop-culture breezes may make you uncomfortable. That's a good thing. Discomfort precedes change. Tension spurs learning and growth. It's important for you to ask questions that other leaders may not be asking. Now is the time to seriously evaluate what you're doing in light of the fresh wind of God's Spirit blowing through a post-Christian world.

      UnLearning Church will inspire you to create a safe space, an environment in which people are free to become radical followers of Jesus Christ. This book will challenge how you see and do church. It will speak to both head and heart, and chances are you'll find yourself on an unexpected spiritual journey.

      Are you ready to take yourself and your church on that kind of journey? Ready to unLearn anything in your church, leadership, or lifestyle that stands in the way? God is calling people to develop faith communities that effectively reach unchurched populations for Jesus Christ in a postmodern, post-Christian world—radical disciples abandoned to the purpose of evangelism through relevant service.

      Want to be there? Then let's begin unLearning.

       UnLearning churches defy old identities.

       They don't fit into the usual categories.

       They're tough to label, difficult to classify,

       and downright unpredictable. UnLearning

       churches are based on shared life in

       Jesus—not issue-centered ideology. The

       people at the helm are fully dependent on

       the leading of the unseen Spirit of God.

      "Church growth" was the mantra of the 1980s and 1990s. I attended my first "Breaking the Two Hundred Barrier" conference shortly after becoming Ginghamsburg's pastor in 1979. Then I enrolled in "Breaking Four Hundred" and "Breaking Eight Hundred."

      We became experts at methodologies that involved small group and Sunday school ministries. When it was trendy to do so, we shifted from a programmatic approach to a cell-driven approach.

      We began to develop associations around the successful megachurches of that day. We learned about the pastor as CEO, and I adopted that model. In the late 1990s, I really thought the contemporary megachurch would be the church of the future. It was the kind of church СКАЧАТЬ