DAWN European Network Conference
City Reaching Track
Wilderswil, Switzerland, 1-5 February, 2003



In this track we will explore four things together:

1. What has been done so far?
-> summary of City Reaching Track, Wilderswil, February 2001
-> summary of European City Reaching Consultation, Berlin, September 2001

2. What is the status of city reaching in Europe?
-> summary of national survey The Netherlands
-> what are the three main successes/improvements over the past two years?
-> what are the three main obstacles that hinder the process?

3. What priorities should be set for the next two years?
-> what solutions do we see to overcome the three main obstacles?
-> what can we learn from the experiences in the USA so far?
-> what priorities should be set in resourcing the City Reaching movement in Europe?

4. Any other issue that we think is important for now
-> feel free to feed your concerns and insights into our meetings



Attached articles:

- Report of DAWN Feb.01 City Reaching Track (Van der Woude, August 2001)
- Report of European City Reaching Consultation, September 2001 (Scharnowski)
- Report of City Reaching Survey The Netherlands (Van Arnhem & Van der Woude)
- Article on City Reaching in Switzerland and Europe (Scharnowski)
- Report of CityReach International (Dennison, October 2000)
- Report on sustaining momentum for City Reaching (Dennison, April 2002)

 

 

 

 

Prepared by Marc van der Woude, Joel Ministries | DAWN European Network
tel: +31-30/ 22.39.542    e-mail:   joel-ministries@xs4all.nl      web:   www.joelministries.org
City Reaching in Europe

 

Report of the working group on city reaching, held at the DAWN European Network annual consultation in Wilderswil, Switzerland, February 2001



1. Where are good models of CR in Europe?

 

Our definition of CR: mobilization of the whole church to reach the whole city with the whole gospel. Examples of CR movements in Europe:

 

- Bergen, Norway: 50% of Christians in churches is connected/covenanted to reach the city, and apostolic leaders are in place

- Schaffhausen, Switzerland: started with pastors’ prayer breakfast, now every month city-wide celebration, personal relationships between leaders have been established, there is mutual trust

- ICF Zürich blessed city pastors with city dinner (no agenda than just to bless each other), a prayer movement came out of this

- Kristiansand, Norway: the city-wide prayer meetings are better attended than the Sunday services, because people who dropped out of church are happy to see an expression of unity in their city

 

Key principles for CR we derived from these success stories are:

 

a. prayer, hearing from the Lord (God’s specific guidance in a specific city context, a strategy birthed by God, prophetic revelation)

b. unity among pastors on a heart level (development of personal friendships)

c. city-wide expression of church (city-wide celebration)

d. apostolic leadership on a city level in place (governing, gate-keeping), and five-fold ministry (prophet = prayer movement in the city); prophets and apostles are foundational for the development of a city church, they can get people in place, both in the ch and the marketplace

e. common vision and commitment to reach and disciple the city (setting of qualitative and quantitative goals), development of a long-term strategy

 

We want to stress that it is important to focus on principles, not on models, and apply these principles under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in your specific city context.

 

 

2. How can we link those initiatives?

 

Suggestions made to link CR initiatives in Europe:

 

- create a CR forum by e-mail

- identify and expand network resources: who is who?

- communicate successes -> inspiration

- develop an ABC starter kit for CR

- link up with churches who are on the forefront of CR in Europe

- develop CR training for consultants and city leadership teams

- develop CR as a track within the DAWN network

 

 

3. What is the difference between a city network and a city reaching movement?

 

A city network is the infrastructure for a city reaching movement.

 

 

4. Is there a biblical basis for city reaching?

 

Basically this is Matt. 28, interpreted as a holistic vision.

We could define the biblical concept of city church as ‘all disciples of Jesus in a given city and city-influenced areas’. In practice the key is ownership/belonging: the church should spiritually ‘own’ her city.

 

 

5. What is the difference between discipling and transforming a city?

 

First of all: discipling is our work; transformation is God’s work.

Secondly, there is no true transformation without discipleship. Discipleship is an on-going process of bringing in Kingdom values in different areas of life; transformation is the logical outcome of this.

 

 

6. What is CR more than ‘just’ church planting? How can this be brought together?

 

Church planting is a tactical approach within the more comprehensive CR strategy / vision / plan of God in a given city. Church planting will flow out of CR.

 

 

7. Dream a dream about your city and maybe bring it to paper.

 

We used this time to share additional insights and suggestions:

 

Theology and concepts

- the CR concept is not limited to the geographical area we define as ‘city’, it can also be applied as ‘neighborhood reaching’, ‘region reaching’, and - for the Norwegians - ‘fjord reaching’ J

- do we need to use the existing church in a city? Isn’t it more effective to focus our resources on a small ‘Gideon’s Army’ and a target group of unbelievers? The other churches might follow our good example if we succeed… How do the ‘Gideon’s approach’ and the ‘unity approach’ complement each other? We know that the unity Jesus prayed for in John 17 gives us spiritual authority. At the same time impact can be lost if we seek a broad interdenominational consensus… In practice a two-edged approach might work well

- don’t copy what God is doing in other places, but rather listen to the Holy Spirit to find God’s blueprint for your city

 

Starter tips

- prayer, doing research and building heart relationships go before ‘blowing the trumpet’ for a CR project

- often it’s best to start small and work with pilots, before launching a big CR project

- when sharing vision for CR it’s important to clearly underline what the city church can do as a whole that the local churches cannot do on their own

- a new divide is emerging between Christians and leaders who want to change and those who don’t want to change; therefore, focus on the change agents

- many pastors will find it difficult to shift time and energy from the local church to the city church. At the same time CR gives pastors hope and expectation because of their invested interest in their local churches (finally things are happening…)

- intercessors prepare the way for God’s work in a city; they are crucial and need to be encouraged by the leaders

- a paradigm shift takes time, so don’t run too fast, rather walk slow and steady. Regular vision casting is needed to either confirm people in their vision, and to help others to catch it on the long term. Remember: also the visionary pioneers Joshua and Kaleb couldn’t enter the promised land without the people of God

 

Leadership issues

- form a core team of ‘movers and shakers’, build the team and the vision together. About 5% of the leaders are innovators, and 15-20% are early adopters of a vision. It’s not wise to cast the vision for CR to a very wide group of pastors, it’s better to start with the first 20-40% of early and middle adopters, and thus form a ‘critical mass’. This approach differs from the ‘traditional’ DAWN approach where commitment is sought from all churches. Of course it is important to continue building relationships with leaders who are not yet open to the vision, but not at all costs

- identifying apostles and prophets: who are the ‘John Knox’ers’ that other leaders listen to? Who are the real visionaries and strategists?

- a clear sense of (prophetic) destiny strengthens the city church in her identity and mission; therefore prophetic leaders who ‘discern the right times and know what the church should do’ have to emerge

- the leaders who take the initiative for CR are not automatically the people who are called and anointed to do this; it’s important to pray that God will bring the right leaders in place and that these leaders will recognize and respect each others gifts and roles

- perhaps apostles and pastors should lead a city movement together and clearly define their roles: the apostles should focus on ‘entering new territory’, the pastors on forming a grass root movement of unity. Likely the pastors (who are more relational) will be committed to the process for a longer period than the apostles (who might get bored after a few years because they want to develop new things)

- a paradigm shift is needed from positional to relational leadership, leaders need to make this paradigm shift before they can effectively serve city-wide

- rotating leadership can work well

 

Networking

- there are basically two approaches to networking:

a. involve as many churches as possible from the beginning and seek a broad consensus

b. start with a relatively small, committed group of leaders, develop common values and direction, then invite others to join in (in our opinion a better approach than a.)

- how to identify the key people in your city? Pray that God will lead you to the right people and prepare them for His plan for the city

- Ted Haggard advises to focus on the (theological) absolutes when bringing leaders together in a CR vision

- don’t focus exclusively on church leaders: business leaders, political leaders, media leaders, youth, women, etc. are important groups to network ‘horizontally’on a city level

- how to involve the more traditional churches in a CR process? Build relationships on a heart level, don’t give them the feeling that they have to join ‘your’ program

- it’s a challenge to get both indigenous and migrant churches involved in the CR process. It’s a cultural challenge above all, because these groups have different approaches. For a real expression of city church the migrant churches have to be included

 

Resources

- we see the need to train city consultants in Europe who may be able to coach the emerging CR initiatives; perhaps Jack Dennison can help us set up a training program

 

 

8. How to coach CR initiatives?

 

In the Netherlands we are in the process of pulling a team together that can provide:

(a)     national vision casting on conferences for leaders, intercessors and researchers

(b)     local and/or regional training for CR

(c)     consultancy and coaching for the local and/or regional apostolic teams

(d)     website with practical resources for CR

 

We will experiment with five city-wide seminar modules. Every module consists of interactive teaching and practice, given on a consecutive Friday evening and Saturday. When the first module is put in practice and bearing fruit (this can easily take 6-18 months, dependent on the local situation and eagerness of the leaders), the next module can be introduced. In this way healthy momentum is being built for change in a city. If necessary or useful every module can be focused on specific target groups (leaders, intercessors, etc.) or be divided in 2-3 submodules (to teach more in depth on specific issues).

 

A local/regional training for CR could look like this:

 

Module A: Introduction to city reaching

A vision casting seminar intended to ‘warm up’ leaders and intercessors if there is not yet a critical mass in a city. This seminar will include testimonies of what God is doing worldwide in the area of city reaching, leading to a timely challenge for the Dutch situation.

 

Module B: Start loving your city and discover God’s plan for your city

- new paradigm: theology of the city

- principles for revival and transformation

- the role of intercession and research/mapping

- specific action points

 

Module C: Grow in heartfelt unity and friendship

- new paradigm: the city church

- principles and pitfalls for unity among leaders

- building a ‘critical mass’

- the role of a covenant

- specific action points

 

Module D: Start city-wide, united prayer

- strategic intercession

- relevant research

- mobilise the whole church in prayer

- partnership between spiritual leaders and intercessors

- specific action points

 

Module E: Develop a common and comprehensive strategy to reach your city with the gospel

- new pardigm: fulfilling the Great Commission

- the role of saturation church planting

- developing, implementing and evaluating strategy

- specific action points

 

 

Marc van der Woude,    8 August 2001

 

E-mail:    mvdwoude@xs4all.nl

Internet:    www.joelministries.org

 

 

Report on "City Vision" - 1st European City Reaching consultation

Sept 10-12, 2001, Luke's Fellowship, Berlin



Origins

Already in 2000, we realized that one of the developments in Europe was the forming of city-wide strategic networks to reach whole cities with the whole gospel through the whole church. In the DAWN European Network conference in February 2001, we saw that there are many cities with prayer networks but few who were going a step further and working strategically. The plan of a European consultation arose. In the following months, Marc van der Woude, Oyvind Bjoerkly and myself brought together our informations from all across Europe, agreed on a size of ca. 30 and on Berlin as a place of venue.


Berlin

The new German capital is central, has more than 3 Mio. people in need of Christ, and a city-wide network of leaders is emerging, even with a full-time coordinator. One of the leading pastors, Hans-Peter Pache, is a distant relative of mine and has a heart for networking and church planting. We met in his church from which several daughter churches and house church networks have emerged in past years. The church accommodated us in an excellent, serving and loving way.


Jack Dennison

We agreed on Jack Dennison as guest speaker. Everyone had to read his book in advance so that there was a common ground of understanding and no need to talk about absoulute "basics". Jack was aware that the European situation and mentality is very much different from the American one, and he succeeded very well in adapting and blending his and our points of view. His style of teaching was very creative, succeeding in a common learning process.


The participants

We were 29 participants from: Switzerland (3), Czech Republic (1), Germany (8), Italy (2), Norway (2), The Netherlands (6), Sweden (1), Finland (1), UK (4) and USA (1). Practically all were already engaged or very much interested in a strategic city reaching process.



The Learning process


We learnt:

· What is City Reaching? Why is it important today? The global perspective – since yr. 2000 the world more urban than rural.

· In spite of evangelical growth – the negative factors of our societies grow faster. Why is this so and what can be done to reverse this?

· What are the most common roadblocks to a strategic citywide process?

· How important it is to work together as churches in a city, as parts of the body


We discussed:

· The closure paradigm (versus "just growth"). Although it is accepted in many places of the 2/3-world, Europeans partly have problems accepting it.

· What is the goal? What do we need to achieve in our cities? This is a key question that needs to be further worked through theologically, missiologically and strategically.


We identified some of the main roadblocks for a city reaching process:

1. Not being able to define or to agree on the goal(s) – what do we want to achieve?

2. Pastoral inside view versus apostolic outside view. Churches are usually led by pastors, not by evangelistic or even apostolic leaders. Most pastors ask "what does my church need" instead of "what does our city need". Leaders mindset / paradigm shift needed

3. Lack of faith / Fervent prayer

4. A Citywide apostolic team is missing, engaging other leaders with the vision

5. Denominational walls

6. Time and priorities for this task vs. current activities

 

We realized the truth in this picture:


DiVision

In the midst of the conference, the terrible tragedy of Sept 11 brought us to our knees and into a prayer time for hours, making it very clear that it is not a "sand-box-game". Satan is targeting cities – so is God.



Practical outcomes

 

a) We defined some types/stages of a city reaching process

For easy understanding, we categorized cities into four groups:

1. A city where regular pastor's and/ or inter-church prayer meetings are held (many) Milano, Utrecht

2. a city of 1. plus goal(s) defined that reach out into society (less) Berlin, Rotterdam Oslo (close to 3)

3. A city of 1. plus 2. plus some tactics applied (even less) Bergen, Thun

4. A city of 1. plus 2. plus 3. plus a long-term strategy defined/applied (a few) Liverpool

              4

     
          3

   

      2

 

1
 









b) We defined the cities we knew in terms of these categories  (see above)


c) We chose as Pilot cities: Berlin, Liverpool, Bergen, Thun, Humber-Wash.

Reinhold will gather material from these cities/areas and make it available on the DAWN website. All of us will exchange informations and take special interest in what these city networks are doing.


d) We decided to connect among each other and thus start a European City Reaching network.

 

e) We will meet next at the Hope for Europe conference 2002 in Budapest and then at one of the model cities. We will connect with the Hope for Europe City Track and look for common ground.

 

f) Until we have a European City Reaching coordinator, R.Scharnowski will serve as contact person to Jack D. and as City Vision coordinator, in team with Marc and Oyvind.




Reinhold Scharnowski,   September 2001

 

tel:          +41-33/  438 88 77

e-mail:     rscharnowski@gmx.ch

web:        http://www.dawneurope.net

 

Revival Yes, but hands off my church"

 

By  Pim van Arnhem  and  Marc van der Woude

 


"Revival Yes, but hands off my church." That is in short the main conclusion of a survey by Dutch church growth organisations Joel Ministries and Impuls, together with the Dutch National Platform of Pentecostal and Full Gospel Churches, among (mostly evangelical) church leaders. It shows that in 75% of Dutch towns and regions, some form of inter-church collaboration has begun, but without taking off properly anywhere. A large majority of leaders believes that God can and will send revival, but they think their own church boundaries ought not to be taxed too much.

 

In an increasing number of Dutch towns, some co-operation is growing in the areas of prayer, unity and evangelism. In some places this is going well, in others things are stagnating. To Joel Ministries (publisher of Joel News) and Impuls (an organisation for church development) it seemed a good idea to send a questionnaire to evangelical church leaders from several towns in the Netherlands and ask them about two things:

 

1. What do church leaders think of revival, prayer, unity and leadership? What are their convictions and tenets?

 

2. How much inter-church prayer, unity and evangelism is actually taking place? What are the most important results and difficulties? What concrete steps are leaders taking to create an environment for spiritual rebirth in their towns or regions?



FIRST RESULTS

 

The enquiry turned up some interesting information. First of all, in the Netherlands we are only at the beginning of city-wide co-operation, as far as depth and impact of this process are concerned; but in itself, city-wide co-operation is a familiar phenomenon. At least 75% of church leaders replies that some form of co-operation had started, which includes mostly evangelicals, charismatics and reformed churches. The three primary results of this process are:

 

1. church leaders get to know and respect one another;

2. church leaders pray together and/or inter-church city prayer has come into being;

3. there is a growing form of co-operation (e.g. for evangelism, although usually at a 'safe distance').

 


FOUR FACTORS FOR SUCCESS

 

How can churches develop a common strategy for saturating their town with the gospel? The church leaders mention four factors they see as crucial:

 

1. praying together;

2. learning to accept/respect/trust/love each other (growth in relationships and friendship);

3. building unity among many leaders/churches /types of church (unity in diversity, keeping your own 'smell');

4. developing a common vision for the town/region (i.e. an overall evangelistic plan).

 


FOUR OBSTACLES

 

But we also see serious obstacles for unity looming. The four biggest are:

 

1. churches are inward-looking and still think in terms of rivalry with other churches (safeguarding their own segment of the market);

2. lack of time/priority. In practice, own church activities are put higher on the agenda than city-reaching initiatives. Many church leaders do not basically choose to break through this pattern, so city-wide initiatives languish;

3. differences in theology and disagreements on doctrine;

4. lack of vision, faith and communication. Here we in fact see the necessity of prophetic and apostolic leadership, even though church leaders do not use these terms. We have observed that it is usually prophetic leaders who communicate vision, and apostolic leaders who get the 'city-wide church' (the whole group of Christians and churches in a city/region) to move.

 

The church leaders are optimistic about their ability to understand the leadership of the Holy Spirit (and to obey it rather than their own agenda's), their compassion for people outside the church and their readiness to develop and release young leaders. They put these area's at the bottom of the list of possible deficiencies.

 


THREE VIRGIN TERRITORIES

 

So while some initial steps have been taken, the survey shows that there are areas of inter-church unity where almost nothing has as yet been achieved. The most important are:

 

1. reconciliation between leaders and churches who have gone through splits or that have spoken critically of one another;

2. contacts with secular government (city councillors and mayor, local politics, police and other services);

3. exchange of ministries among churches (exchanging pulpits, sharing or lending out staff, facilities, programmes, etc.).

 

It is striking that most church leaders say they do not need more information, training or help to build unity and shape a city strategy in their locality. Their reactions seem to say that they think they have come a long way once they have started praying together or have some services together, while in fact that is only the very beginning. They seem to be content with small steps, and lack the drive to carry the whole process onto a higher level and give it the necessary depth.

 


FIFTY STATEMENTS

 

To find out what church leaders think about revival, prayer, unity, leadership and evangelism, and to test their ideas for practicality, we offered them fifty statements. They could indicate on a scale of 1 to 5 whether they agreed or disagreed. This revealed some interesting facts.



...ABOUT REVIVAL AND CHANGE

 

It turns out that their is a great longing for revival and transformation in evangelical/charismatic circles in the Netherlands. More than 85% of these leaders believe that:

 

- God wishes/can bring a great revival in my locality;

- there will be no revival without constant, united prayer;

- social transformation is a legitimate goal (i.e. the gospel is meant to influence all parts of life and society).

 

"But," the same majority say, "such a revival is almost entirely unrelated to change of church structures." In other words: "Hands off my church, we're doing fine, we don't have to change to cope with revival." We think this has two implications:

 

1. church leaders see little need to prepare their churches for the harvest time they are expecting;

2. they think God will change the world around them without first transforming them and their churches.

 

If our assumptions are right, these are two serious underestimations. We do not think the church as it is now, will be able to disciple the world. At this moment, we see the opposite happening. The world is 'discipling' the church.



...ABOUT EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP

 

The survey shows that most church leaders believe God has a plan for their locality, and that they have spiritual responsibility for their locality. But at the level of the local church and the 'city-wide church' (the whole group of local churches) these thoughts are not implemented.

 

The city-church needs its own leadership team, most church leaders agree. And this calls especially for people with apostolic gifting. Interestingly, about 40 % of church leaders see themselves in this role. That is rather a lot, when we consider that generally speaking, leaders with evident apostolic gifts are rather thin on the ground. If 40% of church leaders actually had these gifts, 40% of the Dutch churches in this sector would be showing forth strong growth, and an equal percentage of city-wide initiatives would be developing in a healthy manner.

 

Practically every church leader states that leadership is more to do with relationships than with position. Yet only half of them are taking time to train and coach young leaders.



...FROM OBSTACLES TO UNITY

 

On the subject of unity and co-operation, there are several things church leaders cannot easily get to agree. Is it necessary for successful citywide co-operation that all churches and congregations in a locality are included? Is the relationship with leaders and churches in my locality more important than my denominational affiliation? Should I sacrifice some of my own goals and desires for the sake of the process towards unity? Should my church help in practical ways or financially, if other churches in town have difficulties?

 

These are hard questions. No wonder only 25% of city-wide co-operation platforms have formulated a common vision.

 

Theological differences are becoming less important. Most church leaders share the opinion that their church does not have a better theology than other churches in town. And 70% sees no insurmountable objections to co-operation with Roman Catholics. But that does not lead to actual pulpit sharing. Of all church leaders, 20% have preached in other churches, but these are mostly of the same denomination. It is still quite exceptional for a free church pastor to preach in a reformed church and vice versa.



...ABOUT PRAYER AND SPIRITUAL MAPPING

 

In the area of prayer and research, a large majority of church leaders agree with the following four statements:

 

1. Satan currently has more influence in my locality than Jesus;

2. the church is called to battle demonic powers in this place ('spiritual warfare');

3. collective and historic sins (of the city or the church) are still quite relevant today; we should confess these inherited sins;

4. intercessors are useful (it is good to cooperate with them).

 

Most church leaders see the use of spiritual mapping, but fewer than 20% have done or asked others to do it for the spiritual and social situation of their locality.

 

Half of the church leaders pray for their localities daily - the others don't. In a little more than half of all localities, pastors have begun to pray together.

 

...ABOUT EVANGELISM AND THE GAP

 

Almost 80% of church leaders affirms that there is a gap between the church and the world, which is the reason why the church seems more or less irrelevant to people who do not yet know God. Most church leaders also say they understand why people are disappointed in the church. In spite of this:

 

- most church leaders hesitate to change church organisation;

- only 30% of the churches know what their calling is and have developed a strategy to implement their calling;

- only half the church leaders agree that "the church's primary reason for existence is for its non-members";

- fewer than 10% of churches try to equip businessmen/women for their ministry in the business world;

- fewer than 40% structurally co-operate for evangelism with other churches in their locality.

 

By far most leaders do not believe big evangelistic events like Impact World Tour and Sonrise are effective for reaching their cities. Fewer than 10% choose for this method. Ready-made 'foreign' evangelistic concepts are no longer popular.

 

Just over half of those who responded believe it is a good idea to start new churches, including specific churches for young people, which is remarkable, because interest in church planting has diminished lately.

 


CONCLUDING

 

Generally, we might draw three conclusions from this survey:

 

1. church leaders want revival and know what is needed;

2. they think they're not doing too badly;

3. but when you dig a bit more deeply, there is little to show.

 

Inter-church talks and prayer or a service together from time to time gives pastors the idea that they are co-operating nicely (and of course it is a good start), but it is all very tentative and has practically no impact for non-believers. There is insufficient strategic thinking and effective action.

 

What can we do about it? Judging from transformations and city-wide co-operation in other countries, we can point to three key issues:

 

1. To bear fruit, the grain must fall in the earth and die. This is a spiritual principle. Do we dare to ask God to 'crucify' our own strength and ambitions, so that his power and passion may be manifested? At the moment, many Christians are experiencing such a process of dying to themselves and their work. It is necessary to become deeply dependent on the Lord, so that He can use us the way He wants.

 

2. The most powerful weapon in the heavenlies is a covenant. If we make a covenant with God for our city, Satan cannot easily drive us apart. Let us decide to devote ourselves completely to God and his plan with our locality; in prayer, in consecration, finances, time and passion. That sort of consecration is an open invitation to God to powerfully work with us through his Spirit.

 

3. It is crucial to learn to discern God's times, people and anointings. That means we no longer start things in our own strength, but wait till they are born from the Holy Spirit, at God's time, with the right people in place, and with God's visible power. This is a secret we are only just learning.

 

Also, the results described above offer a number of points where the process of unity and city strategy can be strengthened.

 

SOME ADDITIONAL FACTS ABOUT THE SURVEY

 

We have sent out several hundreds of questionnaires, of which 70 were filled in and returned. There were open questions and there were a number of statements to react to. Because the survey was not very large, and the questions were not formulated according to proper academic procedure, we have purposely not given any exact percentages, but rough indications instead. This means that this survey is no more than an indication of what those who responded (a cross-section of evangelical church leaders) think. When we speak of a 'large majority', this means at least 85%. A 'majority' is at least 70%.

 

Definitions:

- church leader: a leading person in a local church (pastor, minister or elder/deacon/evangelist).

- city strategy: the process whereby local churches in a city grow in unity, evangelism and social action in order to develop a common strategy to 'saturate' their city in all its branches and pockets with the message of the Kingdom of God.

- city church: the total number of all Christians and churches in a given locality.

 

 

 

Source: Joel News,     www.joelnews.org

City Reaching - a vision for our cities and regions


Human history, as we see both around us and in the Bible, starts in a garden and ends in a city. That's hardly a revelation, but spiritually of great importance. 174 million people live in the world's twelve largest cities. 94% of North Americans, 80% of Russians, 74% of South Americans and 73% of Europeans now live in towns or cities. For the first time in history, the world is more urban than rural. For a long time, towns and cities were associated with a curse and sin. Christians, and with them, their churches, moved to the suburbs. Today, that is changing; leaders and their churches are learning that the cities are a mission area. The "Transformation" video shows impressive examples of changed cities. What can God do with our cities and regions? What is already happening, what could still happen? Where can we start?

A nation - city for city

How do you eat an elephant? By cutting it into small pieces, correct. How do we win or saturate a whole nation? By dividing it into manageable units. The truth is that very few people have the vision or task of reaching an entire nation, but towns or regions are units with which most Christians and church leaders can identify.

In the 1990's, a number of books were published on this topic, and initiatives started. Authors such as John Dawson, George Otis, Ted Haggard and Ed Silvoso demonstrated the spiritual importance of cities. Jack Dennison started to apply the DAWN strategy to cities with his City Reaching concept. It is important that we resist the temptation to simply adopt a programme or model "which worked" in Argentina or elsewhere. As usual, the aim is not to copy the models but to comprehend the principles and then, led by the Holy Spirit, creatively apply them to our own area.

Some personal observations

In the region where I live, I see many trends which are also happening elsewhere. Some of the most important:

 

 

These trends - which have been visible for years to some degree - are interwoven and reinforce each other. Throughout Europe, they are moving in the same direction. In a growing number of cities

The process of reaching, saturating and transforming a city starts when the Christians realise that God sees only one Body of Christ in the city, and start to act as that one Body, taking spiritual responsibility for that city.

Wine and wineskins, or the interaction of spiritual and structural renewal

In recent months, I've met an astonishing number of Christians who are in some way on the outside of the structures, searching, unsure, sometimes hurt, but open and waiting. A large number of them are middle-aged or older. Something like a spiritual mid-life crisis caused them to start asking "What have I achieved with my years of effort? And what became of the many great promises?" We're setting our hopes more and more in the revival. Prayer, fasting and desire for revival are growing, along with an expectation and prophecies of new wine. But many are asking themselves whether it is not also time to be talking about new wineskins. What if revival is more dependent on structures than we have previously realised? What if we must reach not only "higher into heaven" but also "more down to earth"? The fact is that structures - the "organisation" in "organism" - have a far greater influence on the effectiveness of the church than many "spiritual" people recognise (see for example Christian Schwarz' Natural Church Growth). Structural change is by very nature difficult, but I am convinced that we would make dramatic progress towards the desired and prayed-for revival if we would start asking ourselves questions like

What does our nation really look like?

The situation in Switzerland

Switzerland has a number of cities with active pastors' and leaders' networks. The meetings generally have the following focus or aims:

Those are very encouraging signs, and an enormous progress compared with only twenty years ago. Standard accusations such as "Christians even fight each other" or "they steal each others' sheep" are certainly less true today than before. We have learnt to talk with each other; leaders take a step out of their isolation and become friends. Prayer with and for each other is a foundation on which more can be built, and the spirit of prayer is generally increasing.

 

 

Naturally, the process is not friction-free: new problems and challenges arise in any process of becoming one. Conversations with those involved have revealed the following weak points:

On the one hand, we can view such points as normal, but they can also be a sign that we haven't yet recognised God's clear vision for the city. From time to time, perhaps during a retreat, we catch another glimpse of it, but in daily church business, high aims can easily be overseen.

We need a paradigm shift

A vision for the city requires a paradigm shift - a transformation of our thinking processes for the future. A new age demands a new way of looking at our churches, our cities and our task. I'm convinced that this shift is worth it, and would like to try to describe it with the following seven theses:

1. From a peaceful "come to us" to an offensive going

We no longer live in the relative peace of a Christian age, but in war. There is no lasting neutral ground; our post-Christian society will rapidly become anti-Christian. Andrew Wells writes "It is too late to view Western society as 'fallen below Christian standards' and to attempt to bring it back through sermons and convincing arguments. We must learn to think and act like mission agencies, which have worked in non-Christian cultures for centuries, developing ways of understanding them, entering them, studying them and bringing the gospel in their language."

It is astonishing, how many churches still have a "come to us and find God"-mentality. God is quite clear:

If we want to reach the city, individual churches must see themselves as offensive outposts of the Kingdom of God, and find practical ways to express that in their daily business. Where that does not happen, pastors' prayer meetings will also be inward-focused. Let's not forget: the church is the only society founded for the good of non-members! City-wide processes must serve the whole city, and not just organise the Christians a little better.

2. From individual churches to a true local church

Most Christians agree that the church is both local and universal. The local church consists of believers who attend the services, while the universal church encompasses all believers around the globe. In the New Testament, though, we can clearly see a third structure which is now being rediscovered around the world: the church of the city. Rex Koivisto writes "In the New Testament, there are three basic dimensions of church: the believers who regularly meet in a house church; the believers who occasionally meet as the entire church in a locality; and the entire fellowship of believers, which cannot meet in one place, but of which every believer is a part."

In Romans 16, Paul greets "the church in the houses" several times, but writes the letter to "the believers in Rome". I am convinced that God sees only one church in a locality, which has many different meeting places. Paul, of course, was in the enviable position of living in a time before denominations and confessions. But I am convinced that the expression "the believers in Rome (Corinth, Houston, Zurich, Thun)" is more than just a historical coincidence; most Christians can identify with their home town or region; it is the place where we are first and most naturally witnesses, where we seek the good of the city. Even in the internet age, personal relationships are normally regional**.

 

 

**  Footnote:   in the 1970's, Witness Lee's "local church" movement over-emphasised this Biblical truth, founding "The church of ..." in many cities. That did not bring unity, but rather simply added another group to the multi-faceted local church. That cannot be the way forward. Today, the question of the local church is of renewed importance, quite simply because the general public frequently only sees the Christians' inexplicable disunity, and because most Christians do not understand the differences between the various groups.

The Biblical witness is quite clear: the 'local' (city or regional) church is the largest structural unit known in the New Testament. That is no coincedence: locally, Christians are able to develop a common conscience and act corporately. Even at provincial level, such as a county, that becomes far more difficult. Particularly in a time in which new house cells, house churches and neighbourhood groups are developing, this city view is important for creating a Body of Christ identity and prevent atomisation of the local church. This common identity gives the smaller groups a public identity: "We belong to the regional church of ..."

A common identity can also benefit traditional churches and free churches, giving them a new, gift-oriented importance: church A is strong in social work, church B has an excellent Bible school, church C is particularly prophetic, and church D has a number of visionary youth leaders. Why must every church have its own youth group? What would happen if the city church decided to start a powerful youth church for the lost generation, with the city's best youth leaders?

3. From a false either/or to Biblical cooperation

Do we need revival or strategies?

"We need more prayer, not more strategies."

That sounds good, doesn't it? Statements like that are 'in' at the moment, and are often applauded. But are they true? I think an attitude "either strategy or prayer" is a dangerous dead-end:

1. We don't have any strategies!

At city or national level, we may have a good idea or two, and a couple of tactical methods, such as the Alpha Course, but we hardly have any strategies, in the all-encompassing, long-term sense. One of the reasons, particulary in Switzerland, is the lack of true leadership at city level. We are good at allowing everyone to contribute, but often bad at orchestrating the contributions to become a choir. Either nobody wants to take responsibility for a servant leadership, or they are democratically neutralised with all sorts of concerns. How many courageous initiatives are stopped because someone has a problem with some aspect or another? Building something which lasts in a federalistic system is a real challenge!

This either/or which I encounter again and again is also a sign of

2. The spiritual-technocratic dilemma

Christian Schwarz explained the following process a little: as soon as something seems doable, people show up who tell us "we primarily need more prayer. It's not about organisation, but about organism." And everyone nods and bows their heads to pray. How often have I experienced that! Of course, prayer is decisive, and the source of all things, but I can't shake off the suspicion that it's an opt-out solution, because we haven't yet reached agreement in the strategic discussion (which we often didn't even seriously hold). As a result, many things are left hanging in the air - and in different places: the one group is upstairs praying madly (even if they don't really know what's going on), and the others are downstairs in the office, planning for all they're worth (and hoping that God will bless it).

We must recognise the trap of the spiritual-technocratic dilemma! It wastes much of the Body of Christ's energy. The "Ora" (listening) and "Labora" (working) must both become a natural part of spiritual planning.

In the picture of the five-fold ministry, the New Testament gives us clear help in understanding that we should not see ministries as opposing or competing, but as complementary
 (see box "Do we need revival or strategies?")

Paul prays that the church would recognise "the length, breadth, height and depth" - we should not think and live one-dimensionally. In order to advance the Kingdom of God in our cities, we need to think and look multi-dimensionally, and find ways to use the various gifts in synergy, not neutralise them with either/ors.

To put it plainly: I think that the spiritual leadership in every city has people gifted in each of the five directions:

Upwards: the prophets and intercessors

People who live far into the unseen, are strong in prayer and able to hear and recognise God's current instructions

Forwards: the "apostles"

People who develop innovative and strategic plans, and pioneers who develop new structures, often across church boundaries.

To the right: the evangelists

People who are able to communicate the Gospel in our culture, in such a way that it is understood.

To the left: the shepherds

People who care for the well-being of others, particularly in the Body of Christ.

Into the depths: the teachers

People who dig deep into the Word of God, and lead others in teaching and practice.

The inner circle is the city's leadership team. The shepherds are enormously important (counselling!), the teachers are needed to train others, and the evangelists develop effective ways of approaching people. However, if we want to make significant progress in our cities, we need to bring prophetic and apostolic giftings into synergy, particularly because they have such different directions. The "Ezras" (prayer leaders) and "Nehemias" (activists) must unite. Wolfgang Simson sums it up as: "Hear prophetically, act with apostolic strategy." Prophetic people set all their hopes on revival, which comes vertically >from above. Apostolic people are interested in plans with substance. The two must learn to complement each other.

4. From tolerance to cooperation

If we truly understand the dynamics of God's Kingdom in a city, we won't simply tolerate each other and our various giftings; God gives us the task of combining our various gifts in dynamic cooperation. This can also be described as:

5. From fellowship to functional unity

We have made amazing progress in fellowship in our cities in recent years. Today, there is often less tension between various denominations than within any one of them. In my hometown, we have wonderfully united services, prayer meetings and youth events; we are clearly theologically and relationally more united than before. But we dare not stop there. "Alliance" is a wonderful word, but it does not mean drinking coffee together and being good friends, no matter how important that may be, but 'agreement for coordinated attack'. We strengthen our fellowship with worship nights, prayer meetings, Jesus Marches and church services in the local stadium. Those are good signs of unity, and perhaps even appear in the newspaper, but they don't change our cities. Carlos Mraida warns us against seeking unity for its own sake: "The focus of unity in the church must be our task," he writes. "As long as the focus of our church life is on teaching or particular experiences, we are bound to divide again." We must do all that we can to ensure good relationships with each other at all levels, but it is the task which Jesus gave us - reaching the lost in our city - which holds us together in the long term. The great advantage is that this form of unity requires neither control nor conformity; theological differences are possible. The unity gains its strength, direction and permanence from the task at hand.

6. From 'permanent evangelisation' to goal orientation

We must examine this task anew. Of course we will permanently evangelise until Jesus returns, but have we really ever thought about what we want to achieve in our city? What is our aim? Can we define it somehow? Very few of us will be able to express our aim the moment we are asked, but the New Testament seems to define our task as giving every person the opportunity to make an informed decision for or against Jesus. Logically, changed people mean changed structures and surroundings - but the aim remains the same: that the Kingdom of God breaks through.

I am convinced that an unclear (or even completely lacking!) understanding of what we want to achieve in our cities means that we will not evangelise with all our strength. Why put effort into something today, if tomorrow is just as good? Why such priority on the task of discipling if it's not going to be finished until Jesus' return, and we can't know how far we have got anyway?

It's not about mechanical, automatic aims, but in a growing number of cities, leaders are asking themselves "Where do we actually want to go? What does God want to do in our city? Can we determine how much of our task is completed? What does a city look like, in which the Kingdom of God has broken through?"

Goal-oriented thinking and working is different to muddling through. Steps suddenly become clear, priorities recognisable, and evangelisation in the city has a previously lacking long-term dynamism.

7. From tactical actions to long-term strategy

Then we realise that if we are goal-oriented, we're no longer focussed on tactics or single methods, but on developing a strategy. Strategy and tactics are military terms. The cool head behind the battle plan is often more important than the blazing gun in combat. A strategy is the all-encompassing plan for reaching an aim, with a long-term view. Tactical actions, such as an evangelistic crusade, an Alpha course, VIP services or distributing tracts are methods of implementing the strategy.

 

A strategy

Typical questions which help us define our strategy are:

Our strengths can often be compared to a box of nails which someone emptied on the floor: pointing in all directions, with no apparent order. A strategy is like a magnetic field, bringing order and direction. Besides churches, businesspeople and para-church organisations, who generally like to think and invest strategically, become involved in the planning process. Priorities become clearer.

The power of information

How do we recognise these priorities? Confusion reigns where clear information is lacking. The truth sets us free. Before rebuilding the city, Nehemia collected information which helped him gain a clear picture of the task.

When we make the change from a 'come-to-us' to a 'go' mentality and pose the question of strategy, we must gather information in three areas:

We must ask questions such as:

We don't want information for its own sake - nobody is interested in simply collecting numbers. The information must be gathered and interpreted to form a prophetic message which is part of the strategy's foundation.

Back to Switzerland

In every city where I have asked, the leaders emphasize particularly that their unity is based on friendship, not events - one of them described it as 'revolutionary'.  Spiritual leaders becoming friends is a very important process; they meet as people and brothers, not primarily in a particular function.

But if we do not want regional leaders' meetings to sink into harmlessness, we need a vision from God for our cities and regions which we can turn into long-term aims. It's about more than just the occasional city-wide service, prayer meetings and an evangelistic crusade every few years, no matter how good that may be; it's about a long-term, carefully considered and consistent strategy which we have received from God in prayer, with the aims of bringing more people to Christ, stopping the spiritual, moral and social decay which we see in many cities and making the Kingdom of God into a visible reality. Ted Haggard expresses it as "We have to make it hard for the people in our city to go to hell." We're not talking about making all the instruments the same, but about orchestrating a piece of music to which they can all contribute in their own beautiful diversity. Will we allow God's spirit to orchestrate the instruments in each church? Who can fulfil the Great Commission in our cities, if not the church which lives there? Who can seek the good of the city according to God's will, if not the united Body of Christ? I believe that God has called and equipped the church in the city to do exactly that, and that this synergy contains undiscovered and previously unused blessing.

City Vision: I have a dream

This is my dream of a city vision, the result of a paradigm change:

  • that in 2005, there will be ten regions in Switzerland (cities, large, medium and small towns and rural areas) in which Christians have united to become some form of regional church;
  • the leaders of this regional church take spiritual responsibility for the area, in prayer and deed;
  • research will have revealed the spiritual strengths of the region; we know something about the history, significant events, & how to deal w/ them. The leadership regularly deals w/ new facts.
  • home groups, prayer cells or even house churches exist in every neighbourhood, which understand themselves to be God's bridgehead for reaching their surroundings, and act accordingly. They intercede for the people, and live their Christianity in an open and relaxed manner. These cells multiply frequently, and nobody asks "Which church are you from?"
  • all Christians in the region meet four or more times each year for a united service, with praise and worship, but also a strong message with an apostolic challenge and prophetic direction - a different dimension than in the small groups;
  • an own newspaper or homepage links and presents the movement openly;
  • every "church in the church" has a clear ID within the whole, based on its location & strengths;
  • wherever possible, New Generation Churches or Youth Churches are planted and young leaders released to lead them;
  • the leaders serve each other with their gifts. Those who are discouraged receive encouragement; those who are tired are supported and can rest; someone with a vision can share and discuss it – no one has to defend their fellowship, territory or existence;
  • whenever it makes sense, events e.g. trng, Alpha courses, etc. are combined/ opened for all;
  • churches pool their resources to work on larger projects (skate park, kindergarten, old peoples' home, Christian school, soup kitchen...);
  • some churches merge, releasing money for other projects. Preachers are sent out to serve 'in the world' where they are more comfortable …which they have secretly desired for some time;
  • the leadership prays for & plans to plant cells or neighborhood ch’s, & cooperate in doing so;
  • when one part is suffering, the others help carry the load: when one church is in financial or personal need, the others spring in to help;
  • the public & media realise that the Christians are no longer a disunited/ uninteresting minority, but that their united presence is a force to be taken seriously. At last people know who is who;
  • the result: Satan's favourite method, 'divide and conquer' no longer works. The city or region experiences a spiritual and social transformation.
  • transformed cities impact the country. Within a few years, the number of Christians grows to twenty or thirty percent, which transforms one region after the other.

CitiReach International Report


By Jack Dennison, October 2000



I think we have crossed an important milestone in the growing City Reaching movement in the United States. I encourage you to read this report carefully. I believe that though not all of the issues and obstacles in City Reaching will be represented in your current circumstances, my experience tells me that many of them are.

 

When our approach to City Reaching (strategic) began six years ago most of our effort was directed toward vision casting that would lead to an awakening of the Church to God's love for the city and the Church's biblical mission and responsibility to the city.

 

I believe the milestone that we have crossed is that the Church has largely been awakened to God's call and the possibilities that the process of City Reaching provides as we pursue its goal of community transformation. So that today, though vision casting and awakening must be continuous, the focus of our efforts is more on helping local leaders with the process of City Reaching rather than simply casting vision for it. This is, I believe, a fundamental and significant shift. We are making progress!

 

I recently completed a ten-day journey through five US cities. It was a wonderfully productive time that provided another great learning experience for me. I want to share with you my learning from these 5 cities since each of them were facing very similar & formidable obstacles in their City Reaching effort.

 

Many city initiatives seem to stall. They lose momentum. The leadership and vision community becomes a closed group. The prayer effort becomes marginalized from the broader pastoral community. The group becomes consumed with tactical activities and events. What began for many with a clear and compelling call from God to reach the city has gotten lost in the dense forest of confusion, distraction and activity. It seems the more lost we become the faster and more feverish is the pace of our activity.



REASONS CITY REACHING INITATIVES SEEM TO STALL

 

1) We get stuck at the level of prayer and relationships.

2) We have not achieved a vision that is widely shared by others and is commonly articulated in city vision casting.

3) We have been unable to extend our circle of influence beyond the initial joiners.

4) Our city reaching initiative has become largely event and activity driven.

5) We don't know where we are, where we're going, and exactly what steps to take next.

 

I found myself reading George Otis' comments from the Foreword of the City Reaching book as a backdrop to finding solutions to each of these formidable challenges. I believe there are solutions to these matters and if we do not find and implement them, the city reaching effort will die a slow death.

 

George Otis writes, "A key question is, are these (community transformation) results reproducible?  Are there certain steps we can take to attract the transforming power of God into our own community?  If the answer is "no," then there is nothing more to be done.  If divine visitations are inherently arbitrary, then our approach can only be one of hope.  Faith does not enter the equation.

If, on the other hand, divine visitations are the result of a cause and effect process, then we must discover the principles involved.  We must follow the divine prescription, believing that if we do, God will honor His word and grace us with His presence."

 

Otis underscores the importance of the Church's role and responsibility in the Divine partnership. The Church must seek God and the collective wisdom of others in its effort to be as purposeful and intentional as possible in aligning its activity with the activity of God. If we do not, He will not do for us what we are called to do, and His purposes and our goals will remain largely unmet. Being good-hearted and well-intentioned people is not enough to avoid the pitfalls that prevent the achievement of God's goals in our lives and in our community.

 

Otis concludes, "In the end, divine visitation is as much our responsibility as it is God's." In other words, we must be careful observers of how God works, noticing that on occasion He is serendipitous and spontaneous but typically He is planned and methodical, and so must we be.

 

Lets look at some possible solutions to these major roadblocks.

 


1) WE GET STUCK AT THE LEVEL OF PRAYER AND RELATIONSHIPS.

 

Prayer and relationships, or spiritual and relational vitality, are fundamental to the Church's ability to sustain its efforts and achieve its goals. We can do many other good things but fail to do this one thing and our overall efforts are destined to disappoint. But if these two elements represent all that the Church is doing in its city reaching effort it will soon lose momentum and eventually become stuck.

 

My view of the City Reaching framework has been expanded from the three essential elements that formed our initial approach (prayer, leadership, and information) to seven essential activities that run throughout the city reaching effort from its inception to its culmination.

 

Prayer -- Establishing the fountainhead of ministry through spiritual vitality

Prayer is the initiating and sustaining factor for effective ministry. Personal, corporate, and community transformation results from the supernatural work of God and requires the Church's spiritual and functional partnership. God's presence experienced in the gathered community leads to a spirit of shared unity, saving grace, and hunger for God that releases spiritual power into the city.

 

Unity -- Sustaining the momentum of ministry through relational vitality

Spiritual power and practical effectiveness are released through genuine and authentic community. Prayer and unity results in a life giving power and witness that the people of God experience as they passionately pursue God's vision for their lives, congregations and community. Without authentic spiritual and relational vitality the Church does not have the wherewithal to engage and sustain community transformation.

 

Envisioning -- Vision for the completed task is the beginning point for aligning the Church's transformational efforts

God's vision for the city must become increasingly clear, concrete and compelling. Continuous interactive vision casting results in shared vision, shared values and common goals. Common language emerges enabling deeper understanding and commitment to vision, principles, and processes.

 

Research -- Increasing understanding of the current situation

In order to be a relevant, shaping force in its community the Church must gather information describing the makeup and needs of the community (Harvest Field) the Church (Harvest Force), and diagnostic data describing the spiritual forces (Spiritual Mapping) behind the current reality. The Church must see the city as it truly is and not merely as it appears to be. These data will direct leaders in discovering God's top priorities and highest leverage ministries that will result in the greatest impact and the most enduring results.

 

Leadership -- Empowering leaders and establishing strategy for community transformation

Empowerment requires a growing base of committed leaders and the removal of barriers that prevent them from serving effectively. Effective leaders develop the structures and strategy to accomplish God's vision. Strategy results from the prayerful planning of leaders to identify the activity of God in the community and make the corporate adjustments needed to join Him in that activity.

 

 

Learning -- Increasing the Church's capacity to achieve God's vision

Fulfilling the comprehensive will of God in our cities is a formidable and complex challenge. Changing paradigms and approaches call for a new level of learning in personal and corporate skills and competencies. The development of appropriate structures and processes for collaboration and effectiveness requires a commitment to training and continuous learning. Discovering what the Church needs to learn in order to increase its impact is crucial to achieving its goals.

 

Serving -- Presenting the Good News in words and works with power

The Great Commandment calls the Church to meet the needs of people demonstrating in practical ways the love of God for all people. The Great Commission calls the Church to share the message of hope and salvation in Christ with every person in culturally sensitive and appropriate ways. Increasing the Church's credibility through acts of kindness and compassion will increase its capability to ingather the harvest and expand the kingdom.

 


My observation is that when prayer and unity become the sole focus of a city reaching vision and process the momentum is soon lost. ALL seven activities must be pursued  SIMULTANEOUSLY, NOT SEQUENTIALLY. If we commit to prayer and relationships believing that we must attain a certain level of activity here before including additional dynamics we will never get good enough to move on, and therefore we get stuck at the initial level of commitment.

 

Another observation is that when the call to pastors to come together to meet with God and one another began in the early 90s it was a unique, novel, and compelling call since the activity was foreign to the routine and experience of most pastors at that time. This is not true today. Pastors have many opportunities to enter into spiritually and relationally vital experiences with their peers. If your vision call to pastors is simply "come out and pray with other pastors" I am finding that pastors are increasingly turning a deaf ear to the call, not because it is not important to them and not because they are disinterested, but because they are already doing this with other individuals and groups.

 

I have had numerous conversations with city leaders who bemoan the fact that pastors, especially larger church pastors, are not interested in reaching the city. When I ask them to describe the events which pastors are not participating in that leads to the conclusion that these leaders don't care about the city the response is almost always the same. "They won't come to our prayer cells, to our citywide prayer events, to our prayer retreat, and so on."

 

These well-intentioned prayer leaders have defined their city reaching strategy and vision cast around prayer and relationships alone and since some pastors fail to attend their sponsored activities prayer leaders conclude that those pastors don't care about the city. My experience is that pastors, most pastors, do care about the city and do care about prayer and relationships. But in this day they have many opportunities to pray and relate to their peers and another call to "come out and pray and get to know other pastors" is insufficient to dislodge them from their current peer prayer groups to join someone else's prayer group.

 

I am convinced that the vision call to pastors must be to reach the city together which requires a collective level of spiritual and relational vitality that we do not current experience. The Church will not reach the city without regular and vital collective experiences of spiritual vitality with God that result in dynamic horizontal encounters with one another.

 

Let me share the story of one city that is doing this well. Jim Herrington tells the story of Katy, a large suburb of Houston. Each week the pastors meet together for one hour of prayer. Currently, nearly half of the pastoral community comprises the vision community. Upon entering the meeting place they find chairs set in groups of four. They have been trained to fill each group of four before filling another group. This insures that group composition changes week by week.

 

The first ten minutes each group receives a list of questions. For ten minutes they will discuss questions such as, "Where did your family live when you were 12?"  "What person was the center of warmth in your family as you grew up?"  "What person was the center of warmth for you as a child?" Imagine what this level of sharing will produce over time in their efforts to know one another more deeply. This is the commitment to relational vitality.

 

The next fifteen minutes are devoted to increasing shared vision. Currently the group is studying through my City Reaching book, later they will turn to another resource. For these minutes they will discuss together the vision, concepts, principles or practices of some dimension of city reaching presented through the assigned reading for that week.

 

The last thirty minutes are devoted to large group prayer as they stand in a circle and share their needs with God. Others enter into to the prayerful needs expressed and minister to one another when that is appropriate. The final ten minutes of the prayer time is devoted to praying for the city with as much specificity as possible.

 

Imagine what this threefold approach to a single hour committed to prayer and relationship will produce in that community of pastors over time. Katy is a great example to us of intentionality, balance, and progress.



2) WE HAVE NOT ACHIEVED A VISION THAT IS WIDELY SHARED BY OTHERS AND IS COMMONLY ARTICULATED IN LOCAL VISION CASTING.

 

I am convinced that the only way to achieve shared vision is through continuous vision casting and ongoing dialog and feedback forums where vision for community transformation is interactively presented over and over again.

 


My experience is that few leadership teams have invested the necessary time to discuss vision materials, language, and concepts out of which can emerge a shared understanding and commitment to principles and process. Since this is not done they lack a shared vision and surrender their calling to articulate a shared vision, beliefs, principles and process to others they seek to influence.

 

I want to present the following example as one approach to helping leadership teams move toward shared vision. I used this approach in a recent retreat with a leadership team.

 


I placed the city reaching definition on the overhead and formed the team into groups of four.

 

"City Reaching is the ongoing process of mobilizing the whole body of Christ in a geographic area to strategically focus all their resources on reaching the whole city with the whole Gospel, resulting in the transformation of the city and its societies."

 

They would have 15 minutes to discuss each of three questions and then we would reconvene for reporting and discussion. They would have a total of 45 minutes to answer: "As you read this definition what words or phrases...

 

1) Touch you deeply; what connects with your passion, what deeply moves you?

2) What red flags, concerns, or problems are raised by this language?

3) What remains unclear or confusing?

 

The small group discussion was lively. I then had each group report with a little discussion but not much. I wanted to get the responses on the chartboard; each page was then hung on the wall.

 

Because of a lack of time I did not spend much time on the passion piece though I would have liked to. I concentrated mainly on the fact that we are each moved by different things. Our vision must be comprehensive enough to tap into the passion of each person. I talked some about Ezra (prayer, revival) and Nehemiah (mobilization, strategy, leadership) to illustrate my point that people are wired differently and will respond differently to various aspects of the city reaching vision.

 

I then went to the second question regarding red flags and concerns. As you would imagine all of the issues you would expect arose. Let me give two examples of how I approached this.

 

1)         "Whole Gospel" . . . I asked . . .

(a)     Why do you think the word "whole" is used?

(b)     Has the Church ever divided the Gospel in the past?

(c)     Into what components?

(d)     What has been the result?

(e)     What are examples of the two components? This led to a great discussion of the importance of the cultural mandate and that it be balanced with the evangelistic mandate. What was invigorating is that they became impassioned about this component without me needing to say anything about it.

(f)       If the Lord were to assess your congregation's ministry what would He say about the balance you have brought between the evangelistic and cultural mandates?

(g)     What do you think He would want you to do about it?

(h)     And so on . . .

 

2)         "Transformation" . . . I asked . . .

(a)     Does George Otis believe a city can be transformed . . . I emphasized in my tone the past tense or completed sense of the word?

(b)     Do YOU think a city can be transformed?

(c)     What is true of a transformed city?

(d)     What is not true of a transformed city?

 

This got the group into a discussion around a process definition of transformation rather than a static completed one. The discussion was again very enlivened. I spent about 30 minutes on each issue.

It is vitally important that leaders take the time to work toward shared vision. Without this they don't know what to say and continuous vision casting does not occur. Over the years we have also discovered that the first time a person hears the vision language of city reaching and community transformation they resonate deeply with it. If they are then asked to describe what they resonate with they do it using old paradigm language and imagery. It typically takes several times of interaction before the shift really takes place that enables the listener to fully describe the vision and process to others.

 


3) WE HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO EXTEND OUR CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE BEYOND THE INITIAL JOINERS.

 

I have heard Joe Aldrich, founder of the Prayer Summit Movement, say on several occasions "every soul is equally precious, not every soul is equally strategic." Aldrich's point introduces the fact that that though there is no differentiation of value among individuals we do entrust individuals with varying degrees of influence. We ascribe greater influence to some than to others.

 

Picture with me three levels of influence within the ranks of leadership in the City Church. Draw three concentric circles and in the outer circle simply write the word SOME. Label the middle circle with MORE and the inner circle with MOST.

 

More often than not citywide movements (whether prayer, relationship or events and activities) seem to be initiated by outer circle leaders. In fact, one of the reasons for writing the City Reaching book was to get to middle and inner circle leaders more rapidly hoping that they would come to the fore of leadership earlier on in the process.

 

The problem we face is not in the circle of influence that early leaders represent but the need to continue to expand the leadership ranks with leaders of ever-increasing levels of influence. In the end, if the Church's mobilization effort is not led by leaders entrusted with the MOST influence it will not reach the necessary critical mass of size and momentum.

 

I want to sound a cautionary note here by reminding us that we are not equating increasing levels of influence with the size of a pastors Church or of a leaders paraministry. Influence is earned and given based upon credibility, trust, relationship, and other spiritual and character qualities. It is not positional leadership that I am describing but a relational leadership of influence.

 

The solution to getting stuck at the outer levels of leadership is to clearly identify who the Christian leaders are who have been entrusted with greater influence and identify the relational pathways to them. This must be done deliberately through prayer and wisdom. Once relational pathways are identified current leaders must carefully navigate them. The operative questions that must be presented to God and to one another are, "Who are they?" "How do we get to them" "What vision cast will we make to them?" "What are we asking them to do in joining with the broader vision community to steward their collective influence on behalf of God's purposes for the city?"

 

If current leaders are not mindful of the need to identify more influential leaders, are not successful in establishing relationship with them, and/or are unsuccessful in engaging and empowering these leaders the current group of leaders will oftentimes become a closed group in which others will self-select in or out and the momentum building will stop or be drastically reduced.

 

Leaders of more influence rather than less lead effective momentum building movements.



4) OUR CITY REACHING INITIATIVE HAS BECOME LARGELY EVENT AND ACTIVITY DRIVEN.

 

I have come to believe that the vision for city reaching is largely intuitive (God has placed it in the hearts of people everywhere) but the process is not. Not only is it not intuitive, it seems counter-intuitive. In others words, if we do what seems right to us, it may well be wrong.

 

Here is a case in point. I recently met with a national leadership team representing 10 cities in their country that wanted to become more intentional in their efforts to catalyze initiatives in each major city. One city in particular was deeply challenged by the need to identify the biblical leaders of the City Church. They promptly returned home, called together a dozen pastors and voted on the appointment of a handful of leaders to be "city elders." In so doing, I am convinced; killed the initiative at its inception. Though leaders are needed, following methods of the past (voting, balloting, assigning, etc.) to select them is the wrong, and usually harmful approach.

 


I believe many good-hearted and well-intentioned emerging teams committed to a vision for reaching their city turn immediately to what is intuitive and comes naturally to them and that is to do something . . . anything to impact the city. Many turn to the latest events and activities with little thought to timing, appropriateness of the approach, effectiveness, measurements for success, and means to monitor progress.

 

A key issue for us at CitiReach International is our concern over leverage. We ask of others and ourselves over and over again, "Of all the things you could do, what are the highest leverage activities that would produce the greatest impact and most enduring results for the Kingdom?" We believe that we are called to be both faithful (doing the right things) and successful (doing the right things well). Measurements for success should be based on the results of our activity and not on our activity alone. So we frequently ask, "why are you doing this, rather than doing something else?"

 

I recently received an unsolicited evaluation of the recent distribution of The Book during our Easter season. Here is what I heard from pastoral leaders from several cities who conducted a citywide campaign for its distribution (not every city approached the task the way these cities did).

 

The Book was distributed by various congregations as door hangers throughout the city and often into neighborhoods other than where the distributor lived. The assessment was that the distribution effort produced several detrimental outcomes both for the Church and the recipients.

 

Many homes received multiple Books indicating to the receiver that Christians still don't communicate much with one another. The impersonal approach (where we oftentimes trade ease of distribution for effectiveness) reinforced the belief that Christians really don't care about others but that they are simply into the numbers game. In one city they reported that the Church did very little if any direct follow up (knocking on the door for a face-to-face visit after the distribution was completed) but the Jehovah's Witnesses did.

 

 

Leaders reported that this approach had a negative impact on the Church too because it reinforced an ineffective approach to personal evangelism, reinforced an impersonal approach to outreach, and encouraged the Church to applaud its activity apart from any effort to measure the evangelistic success of the activity.

 

The matter of leverage asks the question "if you took the dollars, time and people that you are committing to this project and invested it in some other activity, could you increase your impact and results?" If the answer is "yes" then doesn't faithfulness and effectiveness require that we do it?

 

Additionally, I hear pastors continuously bemoan these latest and highly time and resource intensive efforts presented to them as the latest and greatest inventions to "reach your city" but leave the city largely untouched in terms of actual impact. Pastors are asking that we place a moratorium on these efforts and give them a rest while they try to catch their ministry breath and seek the Lord for collaborative efforts that could result in a significant harvest for the Kingdom.

 

However, the real heart of the matter is not in our events and activities but in our dream of seeing the whole Church taking the whole Gospel to the whole city. This requires a different approach, a strategic approach, rather than one that is punctuated by one event or activity after another. Leaders should understand that mobilizing the whole Church to reach a city requires different behavioral rules and values than conformity or uniformity around events and activities. The event and activity approach typically engages only a small percentage of the Church and only for the duration of the activity. I am afraid that until the Church shifts its approach from a tactical to a strategic effort and from low leverage to high leverage it will continue to live on a diet of approaches that produce fewer measurable results for the Kingdom.

 

What the Church does collaboratively should emerge as an expression of our unity rather than as the basis for it.

 


5) WE DON'T KNOW WHERE WE ARE, WHERE WE'RE GOING, AND EXACTLY WHAT STEPS TO TAKE NEXT.

 

In our consulting with leadership teams in city reaching initiatives we ask six basic assessment questions.

 

On a scale of 1 - 10 (with 10 being high) how would you assess the progress of this team . . .

 


1) To what degree is the group experiencing spiritual and relational vitality?

2) To what degree has the group achieved shared vision and is able to clearly articulate that vision to others?

3) To what degree has a clear and commonly held map of the city reaching process been identified?

4) To what degree has your team identified several carefully chosen tactics that help move the strategic process forward?

5) To what degree has the group identified clear measurements to monitor progress?

6) Have you read the City Reaching book? (This reinforces the need to be fully familiar with the key vision materials including Informed Intercession, Leading Congregational Change, and Discover Your City).

In a leadership retreat we pray and plan around these six factors. I have already written about numbers one and two; spiritual and relational vitality and achieving shared vision. What is missing from the toolkit of many leadership teams is a map to help them navigate the white waters of city reaching. "Where are we?" "Where have we just come from?" "Where do we go next?" are each unanswerable without a map of the process that gives a sense of direction and progress to the effort.

 

Jim Herrington writes about the value of a map when beginning unfamiliar journeys, in his book, Leading Congregational Change "Congregational (Community) transformation has many analogies to whitewater rafting. Whitewater rafting is an exhilarating adventure, but it can also be dangerous if it is not done properly . . . .



Jim underscores the value of "a wise rafting guide" and then presents the importance of a map. "For challenging raft trips, a map of the river is invaluable . . . A good river map recommends a particular approach to the tricky currents, highlights boulders hidden in the stream, and suggests places to stop for a rest or for scouting a difficult passage."

 

The map (which presents a general picture or overview of the process) that has guided the steps of CitiReach International over the past six years is included in the City Reaching book on page 206. This model is being expanded based upon our growing experience with local initiatives to include Seven Phases of Development and Seven Essential Activities. The latter, representing activities that run throughout the city reaching effort, are listed under question #1 in this document.

 

The Seven Phases of Development are;

1)                   Preparing & Beginning

2)                   Awakening & Creating Urgency

3)                   Establishing the Vision Community

4)                   Discerning God's Vision for the City

5)                   Communicating God's Vision for the City

6)                   Implementing God's Vision for the City

7)                   Extending God's Vision for the City

 

A graphic model that integrates the phases and activities of City Reaching will be released soon. But the point is that leadership teams need a map. They can choose one that has been developed by someone else (like ourselves) through their experience or they can create one of their own, but they need a map from whatever source it comes.

 

In leadership retreats, after exploring a couple of conceptual maps, detailing and describing the city reaching water ways I form the small discussion groups.

 

I want to underscore again the need for a general map that illustrates WHAT needs to be done, but leaves room for the group to determine the HOW and the WHEN of navigating toward each milestone. I am personally convinced that where there is an understanding of the WHAT that needs to be accomplished, that through prayer, reflection, and dialog the HOW and WHEN will become readily apparent to the leadership team. God is for us and wants us to be successful and He will illuminate any effort to discern His will and ways.

 

After asking the small groups to discern where they are according to the couple of maps presented I have said, "lets return to our groups of four to determine the highest leverage steps we can take over the next 12-18 months that will help us move to the next milestone or level of effectiveness. In other words, of all of the things you could do, what are the highest leverage activities you should do?"

 

The response of each group are placed on the chart board and then prioritized. Once knowing the highest leverage activities (WHAT) they need to do over the next 12 - 18 months they can begin to seek God and one another for answers to the questions of HOW and WHEN. This provides clear action steps for the team to take with clear measurements of progress and a means to monitor their effectiveness.

 

Since most leaders do not intuitively and comfortably turn a conceptual model into effective action steps, I believe, this is an important step for leadership teams to complete and repeat periodically perhaps on a semi-annual basis.

 

I hope that something from these reflections will be of value to you. I would welcome your thoughts on any of these matters. We are each members of a growing and global learning community who each desires to understand God's ways as we prepare for His visitation to the cities of the world.

 

 

City Reaching Initiatives: Sustaining Momentum

Submitted by Jack Dennison

Community Impact Roundtable

April 10-12, 2002

 


I have been asked to provide an update on city reaching initiatives and to describe our latest learning from them. Dozens of initiatives have emerged over the past decade. The vision has taken root in nearly every community in America and in most places around the world. While city reaching initiatives are rapidly and dynamically emerging everywhere around the world I find there is a great deal of confusion regarding what City Reaching is, what we mean by transformation, and how we achieve our transformational goals.



Confusing Terms & Approaches

 

A. What is City Reaching and what constitutes a City Reaching Initiative?

 


CitiReach International defines city reaching as "the ongoing process of mobilizing the whole body of Christ in a geographic area to strategically focus its resources on reaching the whole city with the whole Gospel, resulting in the transformation of the city and its societies." This definition builds upon the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization's affirmation and adds a statement regarding the transformational goal of city reaching initiatives.

 

The definition includes three fundamental components of the city reaching strategy; the whole Church, the whole city, and the whole Gospel. Dedication to mobilizing the whole Church requires the initiative be inclusive of every believer in its approach. Commitment to the whole city requires that the initiative be comprehensive in its scope to include all peoples, problems, and conditions that affect community life. The whole Gospel requires methods that are holistic in nature requiring a balanced integration of proclamation and incarnation. A city reaching initiative by definition must be inclusive in approach, comprehensive in scope, and holistic in nature.

 

Are soup kitchens city reaching? Are homeless shelters city reaching? Are distribution projects of food, materials and media city reaching? At a popular level many would say "yes". At a technical level I would say "no". While these valuable ministries and many others contribute in meaningful ways to reaching a city, they do not in and of themselves meet the test of the three fundamental components of city reaching.

 

City reaching is not a synonym for every kind of ministry. It is not a modern day equivalent for the Great Commission. City reaching is a technical term referring to a new and highly specialized ministry approach that has at its core a strategy to mobilize the Church to spiritually and socially transform its community.

 

We must be clear on what city reaching is so we can do it intentionally and effectively and we must choose approaches that, if successful, will actually lead to the transformation of the community. My experience is that many citywide initiatives are not city reaching initiatives at all because the approach is not designed to be inclusive of the whole Church, or it is limited to some part other than the whole of the community and its needs, and it frequently fails to use an integrated and balanced approach to words and works.

 

Foggy thinking and limited approaches will not get us to our destination. The approach we employ to reach cities must be capable of doing that and not every approach that gets passed off as city reaching is.

 

 

B. There is also a lot of foggy thinking regarding the use of the term transformation.

 

Critics argue that the conditions of sinlessness or perfection that transformation implies are unbiblical and impossible. They remind us that employing an agenda that has as its goal the Christianization of our cites and nations in a desire to impose biblical values on others is equally unbiblical.

 

None of this is meant by those who use the word. Transformation is a reference to two points of time in a cities history; where the city is now and where it once was. For a growing number of cities the language that best describes the degree of societal change occurring between those two historic points is transformation.

 

When I became a Christian my life was transformed. I wasn't perfect or without sin, but I had been undeniably transformed. I moved from spiritual death to spiritual life and my lifestyle was changed dramatically. I was transformed. Since then I have been transformed again and again. There have been other experiences and periods in my life where the work of God has brought such dramatic and profound change that transformation remains the only word that could possibly describe the degree of change. And I, like you, hope to be transformed again and again as our lives are increasingly conformed to the image of Christ.

 

Deep and profound change is possible in human beings and is equally possible for the social organisms that we call cities and communities. George Otis concludes that it is less important where a city is on the transformation continuum than where it is compared to where it was.

 

 

C. Confusion has also arisen out of the two primary approaches to achieving our transformational goals.

 

The first approach emphasizes Divine visitation and revival. In visitation God acts apart from the Church. He acts on the Church bringing revival and acts on society bringing spiritual awakening. When God visits a community He comes in a swift and powerful way that invades every corner of community life and results in broad and far-reaching societal change. He produces a level of change that no human effort could produce.

 

The second approach emphasizes the Church's obedience to its missional responsibility. The Church is an apostolic people with an apostolic mission to transform peoples, places and the culture within which it lives. This approach emphasizes not Divine visitation, but Divine partnership. God works not a part from the Church but through it in a joint effort to heal pain, end suffering, release captives from human and spiritual forces, and to infuse culture with the transforming power and presence of God. This partnership produces incremental change that compounds to transformational proportions over time.

 

The 1st approach calls the Church to pray for visitation while waiting for His coming. Internal in nature, it calls people to purity & sanctification. It's a matter of personal devotion/ spiritual preparedness for visitation. Let's pray/ wait, they say.

 

The second approach calls the Church to plan for change and go with God into the harvest field to secure the fruit of its prayerful efforts. It is external in nature and calls people to create structures for change and commit to selfless service. Let's plan and go, they say.

 

Each is right. We must pray & wait for divine visitation but we must also plan and go in divine partnership. The problem comes with the tendency to do one or the other. If we only pray and wait we are disobedient to our call to mission. If we only plan and go we are oftentimes disappointed by limited results that do not fulfill our desire for change.

 

George Otis agrees that these two approaches are not two ends of a continuum that compete with and are in conflict with one another, but rather are two rails to the same track. They are two components of transformation that must be married into a single, cohesive, and dynamic approach that can produce transformational change in our communities.



How Are We Doing?

 

So, with all of this confusion how are city reaching initiatives doing worldwide?

 

As we coach, resource, and meet leaders from initiatives around the world my personal conclusion is that most city reaching initiatives are stuck. They have stalled & show few results & little progress toward genuine community impact.

 

We are entering the back half of a decadal window of opportunity regarding the Church's call to prayer, unity, and to the city and its transformation. More and more leaders are asking, "Where are the results?" They ask whether ten years of effort should have produced results that they are hard pressed to find. One marketplace leader in a prominent US city said to me, "Ten years of prayer mobilization has produced no change in this city." He is not saying that there isn't more prayer in the city than ever before, because there is. He is not saying that Church leaders are not in better relationship with one another than ever before, because they are. What he is saying is that more prayer and better relationships should have resulted in observable and undeniable spiritual and social change in the city, and they have not. As I have shared this with prayer and city reaching leaders worldwide, with heavy hearts, most agree with the conclusion … they are stuck. There are few results they can offer as proof of the effectiveness of city reaching.

 

Our window of opportunity is closing. We must demonstrate to others that calling Church leaders into authentic relationship around common vision can actually make a difference in the life and affairs of a city.  A few, not many, just a few have already concluded that though the vision is divinely inspired the Church is simply not up to the task and will, once again, be the bottleneck to the accomplishment of God's purposes for our cities. It is time to show results that are observable and undeniable; results that are spiritual and social; results that make a difference in the lives of people and the affairs of the city.

 


What Are We to Do?

 

George Otis, the leading researcher of the global phenomena of community transformation writes in the Foreword of City Reaching: On The Road to Community Transformation,

 

Some readers may find Jack Dennison's ideas startling-especially the notion that God's ambitions for a community do not end with revival and church growth.  But it is new ideas-or rediscovered old ones-that help us break out of the spiritual status quo.

 

Most of our questions about community transformation derive not from a lack of theology on the subject, but from our lack of experience with it.  The phenomenon is still quite rare in the western world.  Few of us have actually seen a neighborhood or city transformed in all its dimensions.  As a consequence, we're not sure where to catalog such an experience….

 

A key question is, Are these results reproducible?  Are there certain steps we can take to attract the transforming power of God into our own community?  If the answer is "no," then there is nothing more to be done.  If divine visitations are inherently arbitrary, then our approach can only be one of hope.  Faith does not enter the equation.

 

If, on the other hand, divine visitations are the result of a cause and effect process, then we must discover the principles involved.  We must follow the divine prescription, believing that if we do, God will honor His word and grace us with His presence….

 

The good news is that God wants to visit our communities.  Indeed He desires to make them His habitation.  But He will not be comfortable in our midst until we remove offending spiritual roots and cultivate an appetite for holiness, unity, faith, humility and prayer.  In the end, divine visitation is as much our responsibility as it is God's.

 

If God always acted spontaneously there would be little for us to learn. We could only pray and hope He would come. If, on the other hand, He often follows an ordered approach in which He uses similar principles and processes over and over again in one context after another there is much for us to learn. The more we learn through careful observation and prayerful application the better able are we to adjust our behavior and align our activity with the activity of God. I am convinced the latter represents what we experience most often in Divine interventions. The Good Shepherd wants us to hear His voice, understand His ways, obey His will, and accomplish His purposes.

 

Through thoughtful observation and biblical reflection principles have emerged that define and direct our CitiR Int'l approach to mobilizing the Church for community transformation. Principles operationalized become essential activities.

 

Essential Activities - that must be applied throughout an initiatives' development

 


· Draw leaders together into relationship with God and one another increasing the group's spiritual health and relational vitality. Prayer mobilization has done much to foster more vital relationship with God and has produced many positive and beneficial results on the horizontal and relational levels among leaders and people.

 

· Cast a clear, compelling and comprehensive vision for transformation leading to an awakening of hearts and produces urgency to act.

 

· Identify and empower credible and competent spiritual leaders who shepherd the process of community transformation.

 

· Gather necessary information to establish a strategic plan to guide the Church's transformational efforts.

 

· Make a fresh commitment to individual & corporate learning around needed skills & effective ministry models.

 

· Renew the Church's commitment to employing the most effective and highest leverage ministries that produce measurable results through refocusing and retooling itself for increased effectiveness.

 

As we experience spiritual and relational health with God and one another, as our hearts are awakened to God's urgent call to the city, as leaders are empowered who have the credibility and competency to weave the Church community together around common vision, as we gather information that helps us accurately understand the condition and resources of the Church and the needs of the city, as we commit to discovering and utilizing the most effective models that will genuinely make a difference in our city … we will see transformational progress and change.

 

By my observation most citywide initiatives get stuck at their commitment to mobilize prayer and foster relational unity. Prayer has deeply impacted the Church around the world & many leaders who have experienced the joy of friendship w/ peers from diverse backgrounds for the first time in their lives have left little room for anything else. We have become stuck at the level of prayer and relationships. Many of these groups have lost momentum and are loosing participants.

 


Momentum Builders represent the best practices from cities that are sustaining momentum and producing results.

 

Momentum Builder #1 - The Church increases its ministry effectiveness when it makes regular progress in EACH of the essential activities by engaging them SIMULTANEOUSLY rather than SEQUENTIALLY. When we approach matters sequentially we rarely get good enough at what we are doing to believe we are ready to move to the next level, so we don't. The result is that we stall out and loose momentum. Developing initiatives call us to fully commit to the priority of prayer and relationships (spiritual and relational health and vitality) but also to additional essential activities. Most initiatives are stalled at this first level. Simultaneous engagement means that over a twelve month period a healthy developing initiative will make progress in each of these areas.

 

Momentum Builder #2 -- The Church increases its ministry effectiveness when it PRAYS & GOES. For example, committing to pray for a high risk neighborhood should be accompanied by a commitment to mobilize and deploy human and financial resources into that neighborhood to secure the fruit from our praying. Let's pray for children in nearby schools and also initiate a mentoring program that increases their life skills and produces relationships that can foster spiritual and social change in the individual and their family.

 

It seems to me that some people treat prayer like magic. When we pray for a lowering crime rate God doesn't just make crime disappear like magic, it doesn't just evaporate. He sends people to do the hard work of spiritual warfare and provide compassionate care that results in a reduction of crime. This could include local churches who adopt a neighborhood for holistic service, law enforcement that makes a concerted effort to rid the neighborhood of bad guys, human service agencies who provide job skills training and employment services, and more. When we announce that a significant reduction in crime is the result of our prayerful intervention alone we claim responsibility for something we have had only a partial role in accomplishing. Don't the efforts of these other groups represent a dimension of God's response to our intercession? There is a whole mix of factors and people that goes into redeeming a neighborhood. The process may begin in prayer but it does not end there. We must pray and go!

 

 

Momentum Builder #3 - The Church increases its ministry effectiveness when it PARTNERS with other congregations in meeting community needs. Regional pastoral prayer cells, many of them have been meeting for years must begin to turn their attention outwardly and collaboratively meet high priority community needs. When this does not occur within a reasonable period of time one begins to question the authenticity of those relationships. The Church has earned the reputation of being concerned only for itself. Others have concluded this because the answer to every question is to do something else for ourselves; let's pray more, lets conduct another citywide prayer and worship event, lets build another building, lets tell people what we think about this issue, and so on. It is always about us. If we are going to become an agent of spiritual and social transformation it is going to have to be about them! It is time to see regional community based partnerships of congregations spring up across the city to address high priority community needs.

 

 

Momentum Builder #4 - The Church increases its ministry effectiveness when it collaborates not only with other congregations but also with other COMMUNITY SECTORS (government, education, law enforcement, etc). It is important that Church leaders meet with leaders representing the major sectors of community life. This is done to establish personal relationships with them, to learn about the city through their perspective and experience and to pave the way for collaboration with them. Viewing these leaders and groups as potential colleague creates opportunities for holistic ministry that can make a difference. Church leaders should build relationships with leaders from the marketplace, government and education sectors and especially with the Christians within those sectors.

 

 

Momentum Builder #5 - The Church increases its ministry effectiveness when it responds to an INVITATION FROM OTHERS for help. There is greater synergy and effectiveness when a school board invites the Church to begin a mentoring or reading program for its kids than when the Church simply does it without invitation.

 

We gain credibility and visibility that opens other doors when we are asked to do something that the school or police or government considers important to them and we do it well. Church leaders should meet with the leaders of these sectors and simply ask, "What do you need done that the Church can help with?" Whatever the answer, do it! In city after city where the Church does this well the Church has become a best friend to the city. Doors open wide, collaborations increase in number, lives are redirected, people gain a favorable impression of the Church, and bless the Lord, increasing numbers place their faith in Jesus Christ.

 

 

 

Momentum Builder #6 - The Church increases its ministry effectiveness when it helps the FAITH-BASED COMMUNITY of the city establish relationships with one another and with the pastoral community. The faith-based ministry community has been as disorganized, isolated and competitive as has been the congregational community. They need help in connecting with one another, especially those who do similar kinds of ministry in the city. It is important that the pastoral community be introduced to them since many of these ministries provide some of the most innovative and effective models available of holistic ministry. They are also good channels through which the Church can deploy its spiritual, human and financial resources into transformational efforts.

 

 

Momentum Builder #7 - The Church increases its ministry effectiveness when RESEARCH is completed that describes the unfinished task of the Church in the city. I think we have waited too long to begin this crucial momentum building activity. You cannot make strategic decisions based upon information you do not have. My experience is that our assumptions and presuppositions regarding the current condition of the Church and situation of the city are flawed and inaccurate. We must have accurate and up-to-date information describing the Church, the city and the spiritual forces influencing current circumstances in order to make good decisions that can produce real change.

 

 

Momentum Builder #8 - The Church increases its ministry effectiveness when pastors expose their congregation and congregational leadership team to VISION MATERIALS AND VISION EXPERIENCES. Pastors should be preaching and teaching the vision, principles, processes and practices of city reaching to their congregations and leaders. Pastors are encouraged to utilize the many means available to expose their congregations to God's call to the city and evaluate its implications for their congregation. Congregational leadership teams should begin to consider the implications of the city reaching vision for their congregation determining where refocusing and retooling may be required.

 

 

Momentum Builder #9 - The Church increases its ministry effectiveness when leaders of the local initiative employ an outside CONSULTANT/COACH. The consultant coaches the design of the initiative and works alongside local leaders in its development. We are convinced that with few exceptions citywide initiatives maintain a more optimal pace of development, maintain better focus and progress, and avoid many of the most common pitfalls when an experienced coach is used. The best learning and most effective practices are emerging from the grassroots. It is important that practitioners access the collective experience of the global learning community in leading their initiative. A coach, with broad experience and connection with practitioners worldwide helps provide a failsafe against ineffectiveness and derailment.

 


CitiReach International works hard to operationalize the disciplines of the learning organization. We are diligent observers and committed learners who dig out the best learning and practices from local initiatives. While an unending commitment to prayer and relationships (spiritual health and relational vitality) forms the foundation for city reaching these momentum builders represent the best practices and building blocks needed for genuine transformational results.

 

I trust this analysis and our latest learning will help you guide your city reaching initiatives into greater health, increased momentum, and ultimately to demonstrated "no doubt about it" impact of transformational proportions in the cities of this nation and the world.

 

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Dr. Jack Dennison

CitiReach International