Most Leaders Are Starting With The Wrong Questions

I once played with string at a leaders meeting, because, frankly, it was more interesting than the discussion at hand. I've felt that way about the majority of the meetings I've participated in over my ministry time in Canada over the years. Very few of the discussions were pivital in my mind.

Always the same subjects, from the same perspective, and we go home with some busy work to make some cosmetic adjustments; But really, still doing the same thing. What can we do to make it better to "Attract" to "Draw", to "Lure" to "Appeal". I have come to really dislike this kind of discussion.

I've discovered that we can't lure people to church with a carrot. When it comes to church, everyone we speak to always knows our end goal, to "Get them to church". Do we think they don't know that we will be slipping in the gospel too? Of course they know that. If they come, it's not because of the music etc, it's because they are ready to hear a little of the gospel. So don't pat ourselves on the back for having found the right program or method. The dynamics are more complicated than that. Usually they come out of respect for you. So the real core is relational.

Here is a great summary the wrong Questions We discuss: I don't go to meetings like this anymore. Don't want to waste my time, that is why I'm so glad to be serving outside a paid traditional minister role these days. They have the hardest job in the world - Hats off to those who still do that.
This quite resonates with me deeply, as a former, current, and continuing missionary, be it in Africa or in the community where I'm involved in a new church plant. I believe if we approached every place like a missionary, with a missional mindset, it would be very good.

We would agree in principle that we are missioanries to this place. Truth is we are not applying much of the wisdom that our missionaries are using to engage people, and understand and enter new cultures, as insiders.

"USUALLY, WHEN LEADERS START to think about the call of missionality and to personal and corporate change, they begin in the. church parking lot asking questions like these;

• Why is the church failing?
• How should we do church?
• Should church be small or big?
• Mega-church or house church?
• What types of changes can we make to our programs or our presentation on Sunday?
• Should we build or buy a building?
• How can we increase funding so we can continue at the level we are now?
• What type of staff do we need?

Starting with any of these questions is the wrong place to start. Pastors, denominational leaders, theologians, and lay leaders usually begin here.

A missionary starts somewhere else.

Where Missionaries Begin: We must start with people like Fiona (from Chapter One) in mind—she and the millions like her who represent our mission field. We start with their assumptions, their experiences, their worldviews, their emotions. When we start there, everything changes: our posture with people, our livelihood, what we do with our spare time, who we spend our time with, how we structure the fabric of our lives, Yes, church is what we’re concerned about because we’re deeply entrenched in its minutia, but we can’t make transformative adjustments if we start there and work outward. We must go out and then let the church reemerge as a reflection and the natural outgrowth of our missional way of life.

Missional at its essence means “sent.” The idea is the exact opposite of waiting for the Fionas and their friends to come to us. It’s the antithesis of trying to “attract” them to us, our programs, our buildings, or our gatherings"

(Tangible Kingdom. Hugh Halter, pg 38, 2008, Jossey-Bass)