GlocalNet

A few years ago I read The Medicci Effect, The Hidden Connections of Things, and another book called Consilience - those 3 books radically shaped my mind and thinking.  Mainstream wisdom is to focus in a single area - the more you focus the better you get and the more results you will have.  I would say - that is true, but just for a season.  Those 3 books helped me understand that cross-disciplinary learning, exploration, and experimentation actually lead to huge breakthroughs and open the door to the future.  As a result, I began to expand my circles of relationships and domains of society.  When you study a single discipline - isolated from the rest - you grow at one rate - but when you combine them - such as biology and technology to bio-technology - each area grows faster than ever. 

From this I began to read history, science, theology, literature, business, government, etc. - as a result of this - my views, my approach unexpectedly took some sharp turns.  I have never left my orthodox faith - it did make me think deeply about how I understood it and how it worked in a broader context.  Add to that the travel in seeing different global cultures and the relationships I began to make with non-Christians and non-clerical Christians around the world - and you get a new paradigm in the application of faith.  What I realized was how we had isolated faith from everywhere but the church and religion when in reality Jesus has awesome power and appeal in broader context and conversations that we for the most part ignore.

This concept is driven home in the New Testament by an understanding of the church as the body of Christ.  You need all the parts to make it complete - and you need all the ministries - and all the people working towards a single goal but in different areas for it to impact.  If you study the Old Testament, you discover the prophets played a role, but just a role - kings, rulers, businessmen, etc., were the real story.  In the New Testament in reading the life of Jesus - his focus was not on the religious leaders of the day.  In reading Acts - the first church planting movement that impacted the known world in that day was from a business leader who moved to Antioch, and the Gospel was spread more by traveling merchants and Roman soldiers than missionaries - who were few at that time.  This isn’t to minimize pastors or missionaries (I-R-1) but to see their role more as mobilizers as the body of Christ to fulfill the mission of Jesus.  I really should write on this more, alas 2 books, sermons, lectures - sooner or later I’ll get there.

THIS WEEK, however, will be fascinating - along with the next 2 months.  FIRST, this week I’ll be meeting with a group of global pastors - because every six months I’m with a small group of global pastors that planted their churches and plant churches like crazy,.  Only one western church per cohort is allowed.  These men are seeing the gospel spread and explode in powerful ways.  When we bring them together and teach domains and they teach church planting, etc., it’s powerful - we all learn and we all shift.  SECOND, we have ministries in our church organized by domains - education, health, government, agriculture, communications, economics, civil society, - none of these are “preachers’ they are all in the broader society and we are coming together to explore how we serve the city in a cross domain way.  We have many domains in operation - some intersect - but we are going to move it to a new level.  We have mayors, police chiefs, elected officials, business leaders - you name it - all having a conversation around what it looks like to engage our city - even a few other pastors will be there.  The Global pastors will also be present observing and telling their stories with our members.  THIRD, the church planters in our current cohort will be present as we train them to plant churches for the city in the domains.  Young pastors, global pastors, disciples from every domain, global leaders, and local citizens. Can you imagine the conversation? What we are going to learn from one another? - It will be awesome.  FOURTH, for the first time ever, there is a gathering of church planters from the 150+ (I can’t keep up with the number anymore) that we’ve helped start - over half are coming and I’m pumped about that.  FIFTH, Northwood members will be present in all of this.  WHAT A MIX!!!! 

I’m excited about what I’m going to learn and see emerge from this week - busy week - but fruitful week!!!