The Spiritual Leaders' Tools - S&S VI

Spiritual Acumen. Jesus met people where they were at and then, almost without fail, he met needs. To lepers he touched them to heal them. Think about that; he could have chose any means by which to heal them but he chose to touch those who had not been touched in years. Over and over again Jesus displays an incredible spiritual acumen, meeting physical needs on his path to bringing spiritual life and redemption.

Trish was an RA in her dorm. She was praying all summer to have an impact on her dorm floor. As the school year began she noticed that many of the girls were lonely, so she went to them, and met their need for friendship and connection by getting them connected. It was in this context that she was able to share the gospel and launch a movement. By the end of the school year ½ of her dorm floor had personally heard the gospel and ¼ were involved in a movement.

Seek to meet the felt needs of a pocket of people, but don’t stop there. Ask God to give you wisdom and discernment as to how you can meet these needs on your way to introducing them to Jesus – who will meet the deepest longings of their soul. Man’s greatest need is spiritual, but it’s awfully hard to think about spiritual things when you’re starving.

Mapping. As we individually take responsibility for launching a movement in a pocket of people on campus and collectively take responsibility for launching movements everywhere, one tool that will keep us focused is mapping. Mapping is simply keeping track of where God has moved and a movement has been launched while praying for those pockets of people who do not have the gospel within arms-reach.

Mapping allows us to get to the end of the week, semester, year, etc. and praise God for what He has allowed us to be a part of. Otherwise, how would we know? If we, as the church (global), didn’t map out the unreached countries of the world how would know where to send missionaries? In the same way, mapping allows us to pray for and seek to launch movements in the unreached pockets of people on campus.

Believe the best in people. After Paul has his amazing conversion experience he immediately starts preaching Christ as the risen messiah. He decides to go hang out with the disciples for a while in Jerusalem, but they’re scared that he isn’t genuine and that he might be trying to kill them. That could’ve been the end of the story for Paul. It wasn’t. This guy named Barnabas came along and believed the best in Paul. Barnabas went out of his way, put his name on the line, and arranged a meeting with the disciples. The rest, as they say, is history. After Paul met with the disciples he was welcomed into the faith, and went on to be one of the most influential persons in all of Christian history.

Barnabas believed the best in Paul. As we are living Spirit-filled lives and moving toward the same mission of launching movements everywhere, the challenge will be to believe the best in one another. Who are you tempted to dismiss or gossip about? What steps could you take to begin to believe the best in them?

Launch. Just like launching a shuttle, when a movement is launched it’s time to take our hands off. Apollo 13 still had communication and contact with Houston, but there was no denying that they were launched. When a movement grows to the point where it is going to launch another movement we need to launch the new group and let go. This doesn’t mean that we stop dialoguing or that we lose communication, but it does mean that we let new people lead the new group. Remember, they’ve got the Holy Spirit, who is a better comforter, counselor, and evangelist than we will ever be.

-Ethan

Application Starfish & Spider V

1. Circles
When we say circles we mean to say that we don’t have a defined leader within your movement – there is no hierarchy. I’m not talking about your leadership team or weekly meeting here, but rather, the movement that you’re a part of in a specific pocket of people. Instead of rules and regulations, there are norms. Apache followed Geronimo because he picked up a rifle and began to fight. His influence came from the way he lived his life and not his title or position. By keeping your movement a circle and not a pyramid you allow others to lead and take ownership for their slice of the mission.

2. Mission & DNA
While all of the movements around campus will be diverse and even autonomous from one another, continuity and solidarity will come from the mission and DNA. You will be separate and different, but when you step back and take a look at the broad picture of reaching every group of people on campus you can see that you’re all going toward the same mission of putting the gospel within arms-reach of every student on campus. We must lead with a clear and compelling statement of our mission to launch movements everywhere. Further, it’s significant to have a unified understanding of what a movement is. Yes, adaptation, mutation and customization will happen (good!) but we must start with a common mission and shared DNA. It is this common ground that allows us to let go and trust as other students purse the mission in the power of the Holy Spirit.

3. Preexisting Network
Rather than extract a football player by asking him to come over here to follow Christ, why don’t we share the mission, give him the DNA of a movement (Movement Launcher), and let go. Instead of extracting the football player we, in effect, infect the entire football team with the Jesus virus. It catches. Soon a football player comes to faith who has a girlfriend on the softball team. Instead of extracting her, he shares the mission, gives her the DNA of a movement (Movement Launcher), and, in effect, infects the softball team with the Jesus virus. I use sports teams because they are easily recognizable, but there are preexisting networks of students all over campus. We don’t extract, we infect.

The Thump Test. S&S IV

If you thump it on the head will it die? We've been talking a lot of theory and paradigm to this point, so let me pause a moment to ask some questions to put this stuff in our life.

Bill Wilson died and AA continued to thrive, Geronimo was killed and the Apache defeated the Spanish, the Disciples were martyred (for the most part) and the church exploded across the globe. If your organization were to lose its leadership team would it cease to exist? Are there students on campus who are empowered to lead toward the mission without a title or position?

If you take out a unit (movement) is the organization harmed?

What happens if a spider loses a leg? The spider’s mobility is significantly affected, and if it keeps losing legs its survival will be at risk. Separate a company’s accounting department from the rest of the organization and it won’t magically sprout a whole new organization to support. As we’ve seen, when a starfish is cut in half you end up with two starfish. On your campus when a movement grows in numbers does it turn into a spider or a starfish?

Are knowledge and power concentrated or distributed?

In starfish organizations, power is spread throughout. Each member is assumed to be equally capable and has power equal to that of the others. Each AA circle knows about the needs of its members, and each group can decide how to react accordingly. Are members of a movement empowered to innovate and meet the needs of their friends? Do they have access to the core DNA of a movement?

-Ethan

Starfish & Spider III AA

“Bill Wilson started Alcoholics Anonymous, but nobody owns AA. Bill realized when AA became a huge success, and when people from all over the world wanted to start their own AA chapter, that he had a crucial decision to make. He could go with the spider approach and control what the chapters could and couldn’t do. Under this scenario, he’d have had to manage the brand and train applicants in the AA methodology. Or he could go with the starfish approach and get out of the way. Bill chose the latter. He let go.”

“He trusted each chapter to do what it thought was right. And so, today, whether you’re in Anchorage, or Santiago, Chile, you can find an AA meeting. And if you feel like it you can start your own. Members have always been able to directly help each other without asking permission or getting approval from Bill Wilson. This quality enables open systems to quickly adapt and respond.”

“When other addicts took note of AA’s success, they borrowed the 12-step model and launched organizations combating a variety of addictions, including narcotics, food, and gambling. AA’s response? Good for you. Go right ahead. It’s all a part of the design.”

Bill Wilson and AA found a sweet spot, where incredible freedom and mutations were designed into the very fabric of these ‘open’ systems. It started with a unified commitment to the mission; whether you’re at AA or Narcotics Anonymous or whatever, the mission is to set the captives free, to bring healing, restoration, and freedom to those who are enslaved by addiction. From there, each mutation (new group) takes with it an adaptation of the 12-step process and the AA handbook.

The mission is always the same, and the tools are an adaptation of the originals, but these groups thrive in a diverse range of populations, cultures, languages, and ethnicities around the world. Similar to the early church and the Apaches, Bill Wilson said “This is what we’re doing (freeing people from addiction). This is our strategy (the 12-step plan and handbook). Now let’s get out of the way - empowering people to take this organization and customize it to best reach their friends and neighbors.

In Nebraska Catalytic we’ve done a very similar thing: our mission is to put the gospel within arms-reach of every student in Nebraska. Our approach is to launch movements everywhere. We’ve created the ‘Movement Launcher’ as our version of AA’s 12-step plan and handbook; the core DNA of our organization is in the Movement Launcher. Now we’ve let go, saying that Hastings College students can reach their friends and classmates better than we can. International students at UNK can reach their peers more effectively than I can.

Innovate, customize, create….figure it out! We’re behind you all the way. The challenge for you will be to enter a group on campus and launch a movement while praying for groups on campus where there is currently no spiritual movement. Once a movment is launched you’ll get to do what the apostle Paul, and the Apaches did…inject God's core DNA into the new movement (from the Movement Launcher) and begin to let go. Allow the new believers and new movement members to mature through their experience of Jesus and his mission to reach every student on campus.

-Ethan

Mitchell

As a lifeguard in high school, the beginning of the summer was always the most competitive time of the year. You see, as the summer was kicking off, all of the parents were making arrangements with their child’s favorite lifeguard to have private lessons. I suppose the popularity thing made it competitive, but the private lessons also paid double what we typically made.

During my first year I got a call from the regional center to set up a lesson for Mitchell Dunn. After asking if they had any preference for a lifeguard I pounced on the opportunity and was pleasantly surprised to find out that Mitchell was going to be taking a double session – almost the entire summer! Ka-Ching! Little did I know, I was going to earn every penny.

Mitchell arrived at the pool and after introductions his teacher informed me that Mitchell was in his mid-twenties but had the capacity of a grade-schooler. She said that he minds his manners...most of the time. After getting changed I jumped into the water and asked Mitchell to come and get in with me; he refused (rather emphatically). That first “lesson” basically consisted of me and Mitch walking around the pool so he could introduce himself to everyone there. By the end of the session I had convinced Mitchell to sit on the edge of the pool and put his feet in the water. There was a brief screaming incident once he put his feet in, but other than that he was fine.

For two summers I gave Mitchell private lessons, and I got to see him move from being scared of the water to getting in, and eventually even swimming. Mitchell learned to put his head under water, and after about a year and a half he swam 25 meters across the deep end of the pool all by himself. Sure there was some screaming, one biting (he bit me, not the other way around), a few names that shouldn’t be repeated, but he did it. He could swim.

Perhaps we were feeling a little cocky, or maybe we needed a new challenge after Mitchell had conquered swimming in the deep water, but one day I told Mitch that he was going to jump off the high board and swim back all on his own. Well, that idea stuck in his head and from that point on, from the time he arrived to the time he left, Mitch would ask over and over again, “Go off the high board now?”

A couple weeks into the incessant questions (and one successful jump off the low board) I decided it was time – Mitchell was going to jump off the high board. I’ll never forget watching him climb to the top of the board and meekly make his way toward the edge. He stood there for several minutes using every excuse he could think of until he finally looked at me and said, “I’ll jump now”.

By this point many of the mothers at the pool were interested, and the aerobics class was just finishing up so many of those ladies stayed behind to cheer on Mitchell. Of course Mitch had been telling every lifeguard for a few weeks that he was going to jump off the high board so when they saw him up there they came out of the guard house to watch. So there we were, shading our eyes looking up at Mitchell as he stared down at the water, trying to muster the courage to jump.

Mitchell would bend his knees, hold his breath with his cheeks puffed out....and then...he would stand up and shuffle his feet and mutter. He did this several times, and thus the audience was really getting into it. Mitchell crouched down and his knees started knocking, causing the board to shake...but this time he did it, he jumped! Mitchell swam to the side, got out of the water, and ran through the crowd to give everyone a high-five. (I know running is against the rules, but we let it slide)

So often I talk to people who have followed God and his leading right up to the edge of the high-board and once they get there their knees start knocking and suddenly God’s plan doesn’t look so good anymore. It may be taking the leap to go on summer project, share Christ with a parent or friend, or to reach out to co-workers. I’m so grateful to be in a position where I get to experience stories from around the state of students following God’s leading, pushing through their knocking knees, and jumping into the deep end. I rarely hear of how God simply made it easy, but often hear of how trusting God through the fear and the unknown has changed them, marked them for a lifetime.

I don’t know what your high-board is, but I do know that if God has brought you this far, the leap will be worth it. I’ll be on the pool deck waiting to give you five.

Geronimo and You (S&S II)

“Just two years after Cortes (the Spanish Conqueror) first laid eyes on Tenochtitlan (Aztec capitol), the entire Aztec empire – a civilization that traced its roots to centuries before the time of Christ – had collapsed. The Aztecs weren’t alone."

"A similar fate befell the Incas. The Spanish army, led by Pizarro, captured the Inca leader; a year later (with all their gold in hand) the Spanish killed the him and appointed a puppet ruler. Again, the annihilation of an entire ancient society took only two years.”

The Spanish moved North, conquering every group of people whom they encountered, until they reached what is today Southwestern USA.

“You’d think that against an army like the Spanish, the Apaches wouldn’t have had a chance. But that wasn’t the case, ‘By the late seventeenth century, the Spanish had lost effective control of Northern Sonora and Chihuahua to the Apaches. The Apaches had successfully wrested control of North Mexico- not that it was ever their desire to do so.’ This wasn’t a single accidental victory, however. The Apaches continued to hold off the Spanish for another two centuries.”

How’d they do it?

The Apache are a decentralized, open culture with no clear leader.

“If and when a leader does emerge, that person has little power over others. The best that person can do to influence people is to lead by example. There are rules and norms but these aren’t enforced by any one person. Rather, the power is distributed among all the people and across geographic regions. Basically there’s no Tenochtitlan, and no Montezuma.”

Without a king like Montezuma (Aztecs), how do you lead a people group?

“The Apaches had a Nant’an (a spiritual leader and cultural leader). The Nant’an led by example and held no coercive power. Tribe members followed the Nant’an because they wanted to, not because they had to. Geronimo is one of the most famous Nant’ans in Apache history.”

“Geronimo never commanded an army. Rather, he himself started fighting, and everyone around him joined in. The ideas was, ‘If Geronimo is taking arms, maybe it’s a good idea. Geronimo’s been right in the past, so it makes sense to fight alongside him.’”

“Because there was no capital and no central command post, Apaches decisions were made all over the place. A raid on a Spanish settlement, for example could be conceived in one place, organized in another, and carried out in yet another. In one sense, there was no place where important decisions were made, and in another sense, decisions were made by everybody everywhere.”

Doesn’t this sound similar to the early church? As I read Acts I can’t help but see the similarities: very limited positional power, people coming together as equals to engage in the mission of letting the world hear the good news that Jesus is alive. Spiritual movements cropping up all over the place, led by example.

The Apaches and the early church hold many principles for movement launching on your campus. Before we get to it, however, we need to start by recognizing two of the characteristics that made these organizations so powerful: commitment and empowerment.

They both made a commitment to the mission – the Apaches were fighting the Spanish, and the church was committed to the gospel. Next, they empowered people to engage in the mission in their own cultural context. In effect, the message was: “Here’s what we’re doing…now figure out the best way to do it in your world.”

Each group of apache knew the lay of the land in their area and thus they were the most capable people to perform a raid on the Spanish. Ephesians knew the culture in Ephesus, and thus were capable of reaching their friends and neighbors in Ephesus. As we seek to launch movements in every group of people on campus we are praying for athletes to come to Christ who can then reach athletes, greeks to launch greek movements, and so on. The mission is to launch spiritual movements everywhere so that everyone knows someone who’s a follower of Jesus.

That’s what we’re doing. Now, how are we going to do it? What is your part?

Starfish & Spider I

One of the books we're reading is "Starfish & Spider: the power of leaderless organizations." It's fascinating and I think that many of principles will aplly to you and your movements.

“If you cut off a Spider’s head it dies; but if you cut off a Starfish’s leg, it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. Traditional top-down organizations are like spiders, but now starfish organizations are changing the face of the world.”

What better example of a Starfish organization than Christianity? A quick glance at the beginnings of the church starts with a Starfish organization dramatically losing its core and central figure, Christ. At this point the centralized power of the faith shifts from Jesus Christ to the remaining 11 disciples. Jerusalem remains the primary location for the disciples and for Christianity as the number of Christ-followers grows.

Fast forward about 20 years.

Saul has a miraculous conversation with Jesus and a few years later becomes a missionary to the gentiles. From this point Paul spends the days of his life moving from one strategic location to the next setting up small churches-circles of believers who come together to worship and follow the teachings of Jesus. Once a church had been established Paul moved on.

Port cities, significant trading routes, and cross sections of culture – these are the places that Paul established faith communities. Corinth, in fact, is a small isthmus (only a few miles wide) where sailors would take cargo and ships from one body of water over the land to another body of water. It’s easy to see how Christianity spread so rapidly when you begin to understand the significance of the early church locale.

If you were to draw the conclusion that real estate were the only reason for this expansion you’d be mistaken. While the location of these early circles of believers certainly contributed to the growth of the Church, just as important is the fact that the faith of these early Christians was decentralized. Just as Paul didn’t need to get permission (Gal. 1) before embarking on his missionary journeys, the churches that he established didn’t need to get permission, sign a document, or pay dues in order to be a church. When they had the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ teachings, and a few other like minded believers they had a church!

Combine this decentralized organizational structure with tremendous real estate for proliferation, the power of God himself, and compassionate support from Paul and his boys…and you get a tidal wave of faith. Christianity spread like wildfire; or like starfish… A church would sprout up, grow, and when people tried to stop it by cutting off an arm, or killing a leader, they would only end up multiplying the number of leaders and overall believers.

As leaders on your campus you have the honor and privilege of being a part of this incredible, decentralized heritage. As you pray over the campus and ask God to direct your action you can relate to our forefather in the faith Paul as he prayed for direction. As he set out to launch spiritual movements from town to town he relied on the Holy Spirit to direct him and then he worked hard and labored to launch a movement despite persecution and hardship. 2000 years later you are doing the same thing, following the Spirit and seeking to launch spiritual movments everywhere.

-Ethan