|
|
GibMonk 09-07-105 |
|
|
The Monkey and the
Fish Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture
Church Dave
Gibbons Zondervan,
2009, 218 pp., ISBN 978-0-310-27602-9 |
|
Gibbons is the founding pastor of Newsong, a
multisite, international third-culture church in Irvine, CA, with extensions
in several other countries. He is also
an innovative strategist with global experience in the arts, business,
church, and community development. While
pastoring he moved to Bangkok for a year.
In this book he urges the whole church to go multicultural. Gibbons argues that the church--not just
the missions department--should deliberately grow by loving and serving the
marginalized (by race, economy, and culture) at home and abroad "with no
strings attached." Rather than
growing a big homogeneous institution, it should grow many small branches of active
heterogeneous people. And one way to
do it is by holding the best parties. [These are apparently very well attended by
all kinds of people who feel at home but they weren't described. dlm] Gibbons' church has started these movements
in Bangkok, London, Mexico, the worst parts of L.A. and elsewhere. "Those
who follow Jesus embody fluidity, adaptation, and collaboration. It's what we call the third-culture
way." (18) Liquid means being adaptable,
fluid, becoming all things to all people.
(19, 27) The term
"third-culture" describes children immersed in a culture foreign to
their parents. They must come to terms
with both cultures and this brings about a heightened sensibility and intelligence
for bridging cultural differences.
(20-1) "American churches tend to gravitate toward
the gods of pragmatism, materialism, and consumerism. …
The global village is longing for something deeper." (22) God is calling the church to become known “for
our kisses of compassion rather than our condemnations." (32) Grassroots social change around the globe is
being fueled by the internet's vast potential to help people leap barriers
and collaborate to solve problems.
(33-4) Cultures and people are
experiencing an intense interdependence.
Potential for creative international and cross-cultural collaboration
exists because of our cause-driven culture.
Justice and compassion are hip.
(35) "In what some people have called the First
Great Commission, God told Abraham that he and his offspring would be a
'blessing to all the nations.' That, I believe, is our charter, our call,
for our churches to be a true blessing to all the nations." (38) Definition:
"Third culture is the
mindset and will to love, learn, and serve in any culture, even in the midst
of pain and discomfort." (38)
"The genius of leaders like Hybels and
Warren is their ability to design new clothes that fit their contexts. Each generation of leaders is called to do
the same." (58) We need to change our measurements of success in
the church. We may be counting the
wrong things. We idolize bigness. "David chose tools that suited him,
tools that didn't seem to make sense to the 'authorities' of his day. David chose offensive, not defensive,
weapons." (61)
God cares about numbers. But
what he counts is different. What he
cares most about is transformation and relationships. (63) How many people from a different culture do
we include in our lives? How much time
do we spend developing relationships across cultures or economic differences?
(66) Chapter 3. Neighbor The hero of the Good Samaritan story, the
"neighbor," is a person of mixed descent, a category the Jews
despised. "The second most
important commandment is all about loving people we don't understand, whom
maybe even the community we live in doesn't like, maybe even
hates." (74) Misfits.
Outsiders. (74) Loving people who are unlike us and not
accepted by our community is at the heart of fulfilling the second greatest
commandment. (75) This changes everything for the way we do
church. "While we've poured our
resources into perfecting strategies to create church bubbles of homogeneous
people, the colorful communities that have quietly sprung up around our churches
and neighborhoods are anything but homogeneous." (76) Our neighbors have radically changed but
our focus hasn't. "What if we became arithmetically smaller
yet stronger bands of wild-eyed zealots who embrace the life that Jesus did,
a life that is frequently about discomfort, a life that is all about a
radical new view of who a neighbor is--someone of a different culture whom
you may even hate?" (77-8) "If any word epitomizes Jesus' life, it's
discomfort. … Embracing a life of discomfort means venturing into places we
don't feel like going, doing things we don't wish to do, being with people we
don't feel comfortable being with, serving them, loving them, helping
them--all of which demonstrates a not-of-this-world brand of love that is
irresistible to all people in all places." (78)
"If we do these sorts of things in our
churches, we generally relegate them to the missions or local outreach
departments." (78) "We must
focus our strategic initiatives of love on people who make us feel uncomfortable…."
(79) "The soul of the Great
Commission and the Great Commandment leans into difficult people and their
complexities." (80) - - - - "Change is hard. And it's getting even harder to change
because it has to b e done faster and on a global scale." (89) "It's about maintaining our identity
and our ability to influence the world in this new era." (91) "Our
task as the church is to be water. To
flow. Not crash. Our water--our message--remains what it
always has been: the love of Jesus.
Our forms, our containers, can change.
Must change." (93)
"This mindset--a passion to be open to new cultures and new
ways…is at the heart of being a third-culture church." We must shift from consumerism to cause-ism. "We're learning that our churches and ministries
need to be about this brand of undiluted compassion…to love without
strings." (95) With no agenda other than goodwill and a dream to help,
without our own agenda of religious conversion. (95) "If we're not careful, I fear we'll
become known for a love with hidden conditions…." (96) [Gibbons clearly
expects people to learn to follow Christ, but he sees conversion as a much
longer, messier process than a simple response to a clear proposition. Dlm] We've made church too easy. We must call people to live for something
beyond themselves. The younger
generation is ready to roll. Boomers
are wealthy and there are fewer barriers to investing time and money in
developing nations. We have an amazing
opportunity. "We are, first and
foremost, a movement of people called to a dangerous mission." (99) "We must, first and foremost, occupy
ourselves with and deal with the deepest needs within our hurting communities
and society." (102) We must move from the linear progression of first
trusting Christ and then growing deeper.
This doesn't work well in much of the world. We must rethink our approach. Many enter a relationship with Jesus
through involvement in a cause or doing a good deed. "So in today's culture, a person's
religious conversion is better viewed as a dynamic, organic, messy
journey--complete with detours and dead ends and back alleys and
U-turns--than as a moment that triggers a series of key decisions." (106)
One model organizes ministry around Christ, cause, and community. "A person can be operating within one
sphere, two spheres, or all three. Any
of those scenarios can lead a person closer to Jesus." (106) [I would be interested to know how they
maintain the focus of helping people continue to move closer to Jesus and
avoid becoming simply good works? Dlm] Where is the other side of the tracks in your
city or region? Who are the
marginalized or outsiders near you?
Who is weak? Misunderstood? "Focusing on them as a church may mean
you won't grow as fast. And you may
lose some people. But your church will
be fulfilling the most beautiful expression of who God is." (115) Where is the pain? Most people can't relate to our
achievements or successes. However,
most can relate to our pain and losses, our disappointments and our
suffering. Theology and lifestyle is
not just about the resurrection but the Via Dolorosa, the way of
suffering. The core of the gospel
isn't prosperity but foolishness. (I Cor 1:19-23) It is pain that draws people in. It disarms the things that can divide us.
(116-18) Our church structures and organizations create
bottlenecks where too many people are spectators. We need everyone to play. Flatten the
hierarchy and tap into the vast expertise and talent available. Put people in meaningful ministry
activities out in the world. It's a new day of networks of innovators and
influencers. Artists, business-persons,
and community developers are leading local transformation around the
world. Artists are the creators and
prophets. Businesspersons bring the
entrepreneurial spirit, capital and skills.
Community developers can see from the streets and have the passion for
change. Identify them, help them team
up, equip them, and unleash them. (138) Empower people to engage in the exciting
stuff we're doing. (139) "The world is tired of hearing the gospel
preached by the church. They want to
see it practiced by the church." (143)
"Our role as pastors and leaders in the church is to be the
platform and…a servant." (144) An evangelism philosophy from a conversation with
missionary Jim Gustafson: Jim, "What are you doing to bring these
other people to Christ?" Leader, "Jim, how could you ask that? It's not my job to bring them to
Christ. It's his job. Jim, my job is to live the love of Jesus
Christ that brought me to him in their presence. They have to voluntarily accept or reject
Christ, but I have got to live it out."
(166) Jim:
"How can I enable people, in the context they are in, to have the
freedom to accept Christ not just based on my Christian, cultural, and
religious preferences but based on a true relationship to Jesus?" [I would like a more complete understanding
of where 'words' fit in. How do people
learn they have the option and what it means to follow Christ? dlm] Movements
of God are fundamentally movements about love, and there's very little that's
predictable and orderly and clean about love.
Love is messy, chaotic, foolish, perilous. You can't put a box around a movement of
God. (184-5) "On a global level, is missions ancillary,
like a department? Or is it really at
the heart of your church?" (194) |
|
*
* * * * *
Your comments and book
recommendations are welcome.
To discontinue receiving
book notes, hit Reply and put Discontinue in the text.