Getting People On Board
7/15/02

Be forewarned. This is long.
 
Regarding this issue, I want to be clear about the subject itself. What I understand the question to be asking is how to help people catch the vision of both church and ministry the TJC process seeks to embody. So let me clarify what I believe this vision is.
 
We see the church as a community of faith whose self-identity is that of the body of Christ, in a mystical sense a living organism. We do not think of ourselves as simply an organization. We are a people born of the Spirit. As Israel understood itself as a community made by God and not by themselves (Psalm 100), so this is how we think of ourselves as the church.
 
This vision of the church as the body of Christ extends to a particular understanding of ministry - that we are called to love and serve Jesus in the world. This means His ministry defines ours. The more we understand Him, the more we understand what we are to be doing as His representatives in the world. Ministry is not whatever service we decide to give. Ministry is what we sense Jesus calling us to do that embodies what He wants to do through us. We are not doing our ministry. We are at the deepest level doing His ministry which He began and continues through us.
 
I believe this vision of church and ministry lies at the heart of TJC and calls churches back to a biblical vision of who we are as the people of God and what it is we are to be doing as a result of who we are. While I affirm the Weslyan "quadrilateral of authority" (scripture, tradition, reason, and experience), my own perspective is that scripture is the first among equals. Thus, the nature of the church and its ministry is not what I happen to think it is or what my experience wants it to be. Church and ministry are defined by scripture as best we together can understand it, using tradition, reason, and experience as aids in this discernment process. In other words, what kind of church we seek to be and what we try to do in ministry should take their direction from how we read the Bible. This is why reading it in community where we have a diversity of "eyes and ears" for seeing and hearing the Word is so important. Vision derived from within community has the advantage of being challenged and refined by others. 
 
The above provides the context for how I answer the question, "How do we get people on board?" I believe trying to get them on board means sharing The Jesus Connection vision of church and ministry. It is not unlike what Paul says when he writes, "But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim Him? And how are they to proclaim Him unless they are sent?" (Romans 10:14-15). How can people catch a vision of a new way of being church and a fresh way of doing ministry except that we preach and teach both? For me personally this is what I believe is God's calling on my life. I feel quite strongly that I have been "sent" into ministry to share this vision. It is what I preach and teach here at Spirit of Joy. It is what I write about in books. It is what I preach and teach through The Jesus Connection.
 
I have no hesitancy trying to get people to understand this vision or to embrace it. I realize the futility of trying to persuade them to get on board. Indeed, I genuinely believe vision is "caught," and that this is the work of the Holy Spirit. But I think we have to be realistic about what we up against in order to appreciate the immense importance of sharing this vision. Many church members have been thoroughly enculturated by American values and perspectives. They resist change because they do not realize how enculturated they have become. They are quite comfortable substituting membership for discipleship and church work for ministry because they have "eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear" the radical nature of the gospel.
 
I don't believe these people started out this way when they first came into the church, rather, they were sincere in wanting to be Christians and not just church members. But through the years they have allowed themselves to experience what I call "spiritual drift." They have failed to attend to their spiritual life regularly and have thereby limited the depth of their understanding or commitment to discipleship. At the same time many of them are in key leadership positions and can influence others in congregational decision-making. Our goal is to confront these people with the vision of church and ministry we believe can free them from enculturation, or at least position them to have a fighting chance. They will not catch the vision without PERSISTANT preaching about it, PERSISTANT writing about it in newsletter articles, PERSISTANT teaching about it in meetings and informal conversations.
 
They must also catch our own passion for this vision. Our passion is the key to their understanding that we are not pushing another program, but are talking about something fundamental to life together in the church. To believe as we do in the process we offer means we believe we are engaged in something of lasting value. To be timid about sharing our vision or hesitant to challenge the status quo of church life today suggests that we have not yet gotten "ruined to the old," to use a phrase coined by my friend, Bev Cosby. Passion is born of being ruined to the old because you have tasted the wine of the new. Once this passion envelopes you there is no way you cannot share the vision.
 
All of the above points to one final element of "getting people on board." It is the inward journey. It is the work we do on our inner life that gives us vision and empowers us to do ministry. Therefore, in truth getting people on board with TJC means getting  them on an inward journey. This is the way they will catch the vision because it is the way they will encounter themselves, God, and others at ever deepening levels. The inward journey is the primary difference between the structure we seek to embody at the end of the process and the current "business" organization most churches have. The inward journey is the foundation for everything else. It is also the most difficult part of our process for people to understand or commit to. Years ago Elizabeth O'Connor of the Church of the Savior wrote that the problem we faced was not that the church was not in the world. It was that it was in the world without being sent. That is what happens without the inward journey. That is what TJC insists must not be by-passed or short changed because people get impatient.
 
 Recently Joy and I called our congregation back to the inward journey, which for our church means not forming ministry groups in the fall as planned. Instead we hope to form spiritual life groups that will study Elizabeth O'Connor's book, The Call To Commitment, and spend time working on developing a daily prayer life and learning how to read scripture devotionally. We are also planning to hold several silent retreats. SILENT RETREATS are one of the best tools available for helping people experience the transformation we know they can experience if they can open themselves to the Holy Spirit. I have led them for 30 years and have not found anything comparable in terms of the Spirit working to change people's lives. We are convinced that our congregation needs to get deeper spiritually before we can move ahead into ministry. Ministry groups ARE committees by another name unless they keep focused on the inward life as they do their ministry. We found that this was not happening in our four groups and so we decided to take a step back and get refocused. I have encouraged you all to step back. Now we are having to do so here. It's called "practicing what you preach."
 
I think as clergy we need not be timid in holding up TJC vision. Once we "get ruined" to the old wine and wineskin, we have no choice but to go for the new. We have to be bold in witnessing to the hope that is within us, even as we do it with gentleness and reverence (1 Peter 3:15). Bold is no contradiction to gentleness and reverence. We may not have THE answer to spiritual and structural stagnation, but we do know ONE way. Being intentional in telling others about it and trying to help them understand it and embrace it is what we are all trying to do. It is part of the responsibility we bear as vision casters. Knowing we cannot force anything on people does not mean we are to be passive about the vision. Bold witnessing is an inevitable result of the gospel's claim on us. Witnessing does not depend on techniques, but on convictions born of serious study of scripture and an inward journey that helps us to face ourselves, God, and others in honesty and humility. In short, if we are on an inward journey we can lead others to join us. Everything we do to get them on board, which is a noble thing to do when we are talking about vision, arises from deep within. If that is the case, we truly can trust ourselves and our people to God.  
 
Jan Linn, Spirit of Joy Christian Church, Apple Valley, MN