In essence, this is the crux of his argument:

• Christian accountability doesn’t work and is mostly toxic for those who participate.
• It doesn’t work because of lack of grace, bad environments where we are held accountable, we often lie if we want to escape being held accountable (“gaming the system”) and often hurts more people than it helps.
• Therefore, we should get rid of the whole notion of Christian accountability.

Now before you think he’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater (which is how I perceived on my first read), he then advocates for a “different” thing:

• Instead of “accountability”, let’s be “advocates”, people who are fellow supporters and intercessors. He believes a new word is needed.
• These “advocates” should demonstrate radical grace, focus on what people are saying yes to (and not just what they are saying no to), prioritize people and not organizations.
• Lastly, have different environments where people and groups have different levels of access for you to be honest, rather than restricting it to one group and have a “First Call” where there is at least one person who has 100% access to the whole of your life.

First things first, it becomes pretty clear that Mike Foster believes in accountability, he just doesn’t like the word because of the way people abuse it. In the same way that people don’t like to be called Christians and instead call themselves “Christ Followers,” his proposal is probably close to the way that most people would ideally see Christian accountability happening.

What I’d like to do is perhaps push his thought a bit further and add a bit of nuance.

You see, the way that Mike seems to describe the purpose of accountability or advocacy (and the way most people seem to) seems to be making sure you are doing certain things and not doing other things. And there is something I think he taps into. Many Christians approach this life as if there is a giant check-list in the sky of do’s and don’ts. Now to be sure, there are things that we can say are “Godly” and things that aren’t, and we should walk the way of the straight and narrow, but what I’m concerned with is the process of doing so.

The way I hear people talk about it, faith is mostly about doing the right things, as if it’s all about behavior modification, or as Dallas Willard calls it, “sin management.”

But clearly this isn’t the way Jesus thinks about it.

He says, “Most people think about the outside of the cup or dish, but the inside is filthy. I’m telling you to worry about the inside first.” His position seemed to be if you attended to the inside, the outside would certainly follow suit. Over and over again in the Sermon on the Mount, he seems to be saying,

“Guys, I’m talking about a new reality! It used to be about just following the rules. But the problem with that is it never got to the heart of things. The issue isn’t murder or lying or adultery. Don’t do those things, but seriously, what are your motivations? What’s causing your heart to take you to these places? I’m telling you that if you even entertain the thought of adultery, you might as well be doing it. A sin is a sin is a sin. Let’s start working on the heart.”

It’s about a new reality for Jesus.

Now I’m not suggesting that we should ignore giant holes in our life like drug addiction, affairs, lying, etc and draw lines in the sand, but I am suggesting the more we focus on orienting the inner parts of our life towards God and his coming Kingdom, the more our behavior will reflect this change.

That’s why Jesus says in Mark 1:
The time has come. The Kingdom is near. Repent and Believe the Good News!

You Repent, then you Believe.

Repent is the word metanoia, which refers to an inner reality. It’s about changing your mind. It’s about re-orientation. It’s about coming to understand reality and setting ourselves to live in it. Seeing things differently.

Believe (often used for the word faith as well) is the word pisteuo, which speaks to a certainty that results in action. It’s not blind faith, it’s a bit like experienced knowledge. It’s saying, “I believe the sun will rise tomorrow so I’ll set my alarm.” The belief results in action. It’s that your actions tell everyone what you believe. It’s not blindly believing that God is good; it’s about knowing that God is good because you’ve seen and experienced his unending goodness and that changes the way you live.

The problem is that we’ve often reversed it and that’s what I read in Mike’s post. We make faith about an abstract reality, something we believe “out there” and repentance is something we “do.” We’ve flipped it!

Let’s take a common “accountability” example. For men, you often hear about them struggling with pornography and the usual accountability group or teaching goes something like this: “You struggle with porn? That’s wrong. You need to stop. Stop looking at it.” That’s what repentance looks like in this system. But that’s not how repentance is discussed in the Bible. The real question is WHY. Why can’t you stop looking at it? What inside of you that needs to be redeemed, is causing that behavior?  If we don’t address the inside, we end up with Jesus’ parable: A clean dish on the outside (well, at least most of the time) with something quite dirty on the inside.

But Jesus gives us a fantastic picture of how we should address this. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount he closes with the well-known parable of the wise and foolish builder. The foolish person isn’t the person who doesn’t hear what Jesus has to say; he’s the person who hears but doesn’t do anything with what he hears. Both the wise and the foolish man hear what Jesus says, but only one does something with it.

It’s not management of sin, it’s the development of wisdom. The whole of Matthew 7 is about accountability. If you’ve heard the word, you ought to do something about it.

I think it’s incredibly harmful to boil accountability down to a list of things we should/shouldn’t do. That’s behavior modification and sin management, not faith in our Lord Jesus! It should include questions of integrity and character, but it’s missing an important element, an element that Jesus introduces in this parable, the two fundamental questions of Christian Spirituality:

• What is God saying to you right now?
• What are you going to do about it?

It’s a posture of recognition that God is speaking to us, he’s inviting us more fully into his Kingdom every single day…and are we going to do anything with that?

• Maybe God is saying he’s never been more proud of you. What should you do about that? How will life be different in the next week because he’s said that to you?
• Maybe God is saying you to forgive your Father and now is the time. What should you do about it?
• Maybe God is saying that job promotion isn’t right for you even though it’s more money. What are you going to do about it?
• Maybe God has put a vision in your heart for your neighborhood. What are you going to do about it?

God is constantly speaking to us and is inviting us to himself and his unfolding Kingdom. His desire is that the words he speaks deep into us will change the way we see the world around us (Repentance) and result in us living differently (Belief).

What if much of the way we build our structures for accountability revolved around those questions? What if it revolved around the idea that God wasn’t always looking crossly at us, but was reaching out to us, inviting us into a different way of living? What if accountability was more about stepping into the Kingdom because God has spoken something fresh and new to us and we want to make sure we take those steps?

What if it was about the inside changing and then the outside following suit?

As I think about this, one thing comes to mind mind:

• It would mean people would need to learn to hear God. Most people I meet really have very little idea how to listen to God, hear what he’s saying…much less respond to what he’s asking. But the word “disciple” means learner, in the original Greek. So that’s good news for us! It means we can learn to hear the voice of our Father, even if we are starting off at a place where we hear very little.

Everyone has to start somewhere, right?

It quickly filled up, so we did another in January, then another in Denver — and since we’ve had an outpouring of requests for more. So we’re excited to announce dates for a series of workshops in spring 2012, hoping to give as many opportunities for connection as possible. If you’re interested in registration or more details, check out the links below.

• February 14-16, 2012 — Minnesota

http://wsminneapolis1202.eventbrite.com

•  February 21-23, 2012 — Kansas City

http://20120221kansascityws.eventbrite.com

•  March 22-23, 2012 — Fort Wayne, IN

http://wsftwayne1203.eventbrite.com

•  March 27-29,2012 — Pawleys Island, SC

http://20120327piworkshop.eventbrite.com

In these last few weeks, two things have stuck out to me in interacting with pastors about Missional Communities:

1. So many pastors are looking for the Silver Bullet. They are looking for the one thing that can save the day and keep their church (and the church in general) from the precipitous decline they are facing.
2. They are hoping to master whatever this Silver Bullet is, whatever it may be, and hoping they can do so almost overnight. As if you could stick their church in a microwave, and two minutes later…DING!…”it’s ready!”

First, I do believe there is a Silver Bullet for the church and it’s discipleship. However, the issue is that discipleship is something that is simple, but hard, not complex and easy. It takes a while. And because we’ve been about building churches first and foremost (hoping it would grow as quickly as possible) and rather whimsically hoping we get disciples out of it, we’re not accustomed to the amount of time and energy it takes to make even one disciple.

More and more I see this phenomenon happening with Missional Communities (MC’s) as well. I meet pastors who are looking for a quick fix to their seemingly unfixable problems. They assume that learning how to start, grow, disciple people and multiply MC’s is as simple as doing a 40 Days of Purpose sermon series. But it’s just not. It takes a long time to learn it.

Think of it this way.

Most pastors spend years and years becoming experts in running Sunday morning worship gatherings. They go to seminary for it. Spend 15-30 hours of sermon prep each week. Many grew up attending worship services and are thus pre-conditioned to have a certain level of expertise already (through the immersion process). If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say it takes about 5 years of hard work before a pastor feels really competent in large gathering services. A lot of time and energy have gone into this.

Why do we assume that learning something like Missional Communities will be any easier or take less time? Why do we think we can learn to do MC’s faster than we can learn the worship service, something that most of us grew up with? MC’s are foreign to so many of us. It’s not like we can stick it in a microwave and pop it out.

I was talking with our Director of Content last week, Doug Paul, and he mentioned that he didn’t feel he was competent in launching, growing and multiplying Missional Communities for 18 months…and even then, he only felt he was “OK” at it and was still a ways off from “very good at it.” I imagine people like Michael Stewart at VERGE/Austin Stone and Jeff Vanderstelt at SOMA would agree, as they’ve been doing great work with Missional Communities for several years now. It’s not easy, it’s not quick and it takes time to learn.

Now it’s completely worth it, but if we approach it like it’s a quick fix that will come easily, we’ve got a surprise coming our way.

I keep coming back to this quote from J.S. Bryan, but I think it’s so true:

Many men can build a fortune, but few men can build a family.

Similarly, I would say that many pastors can lead a worship service, but few pastors have the patience to learn the art of Missional Communities. It’s going to take longer than a week, a month or a year!

The teaching series will include:

• Teaching notes
• Series video
• Background slides
• Small Group discussion guides
• Small Group leader guides
• + a few more extras

We’ll put it up here when we release it on February 1, but just a little something to get you thinking.

And probably in your church community, that’s already happened.

It usually happens in one of two ways. Either people start to form the beginnings of an extended family (20-50 people) based around a common, joint ACTIVITY, or it happens through AFFILIATION, when people with similar interests or life stages become friends.

Almost what inevitably happens is that the two start to inter-relate. Participating in a common activity together brings you closer and this group become friends, and doing the friends and family do. Likewise, people who naturally are drawn to each other start to do activities together.

Here’s a traditional example of this at work: Choirs.

In the average size church, you will have a choir of 30-50 people. These people are joined by the common activity of being in this musical group. However, over time, they usually become quite close. Why? Weekly practices. Weekly services. The choir Christmas party. Special Christmas services. Easter services. They just spend a lot of time together, going after a common goal! Eventually, over time, the group that was simply activity based becomes something to do with affiliation as well. They become friends. And sometimes, they start to function as a family.

This is but one example. It happens so often.

So let’s say you’re wanting to start Missional Communities in your church.

What I’ve found is that if you can spot the chrysalis of  extended families starting to form, you can AUTHORIZE it. Rather than starting from scratch in your community with Missional Communities (MC’s), show people where it’s already at work and set them free and empower them to be a Missional Community. Baptize it and let them go do the work of the Kingdom. And what you do is give them a few handles to make sure the life of the family resembles
the life of Jesus (because they are
the body of Jesus!).

SO…

• They need to have an UP dimension (time when the MC gets together to connect with the Father).
• They need to have an IN dimension (time to gather as the body of Christ, be family together).
• They need to have an OUT dimension (time spent outside of the church building, doing mission together in the world).

For most groups, this is pretty easy because they are already doing things like this. But giving this simple handle allows them to focus their time and energy and be the full embodiment of a Missional Community.

Simply authorize what already exists!

• Are youth pastors saving the jobs of senior pastors?
• How to start a Missional Community
• Want to help write a worship song?
• 13 ways to raise grateful kids
• Our problem with proclamation
• The religious views of 20-somethings

We only have a finite amount of time, yes?

So what I think Sally and I had to learn to do early in our marriage and as parents was to have an integrated life, where we learned to use time, resources and energy differently.

I fundamentally believe that’s the only way to do this thing. You have to live and integrated life. You only live one life, so live one life. I asked Sally if she would give some thought to how to do this, and here are some of her thoughts.

Keys to integrated life:

1. Begin sharing stuff. It breaks down the barriers when someone borrows your sewing machine, lawn mower or car. It’s a lot easier to shape an inter-dependent family when you’re sharing things regularly.
2. Don’t think about people as possessions. (i.e. my children, my husband, etc). Think about what they bring and who they are within the wider community.
3. What gift do I have that I could share with others for good? (cooking , cleaning , decorating, computer skills, etc). I could swap my gift for another (“if you teach me how to use Quickbooks, I’ll babysit your kids so you get a date night). What do I need and what do others need, and what ways do they relate to each other so we can be more interdependent?
4. What shared tasks would be more fun and completed quicker if done in oikos (extended family)? Christmas /thanksgiving, children’s parties, landscaping, etc.
5. If you’re discipling someone in your extended family, is there something I’m already doing that someone else could tag along with? Driving kids to school. Going grocery shopping. Going to the airport. Rather than setting up a coffee or lunch every time someone needs something, fold them into your regular life and use the time more efficiently. Plus, there are lots of other things they’ll pick up.
6. Start thinking about major decisions (like schooling , where to buy a house, etc) in terms of where your community and relationships are, not just your individual preference . Start with where the People of Peace are (people God has already prepared in advance to be open to you).
7. Have at least one meal a week when you invite someone(s) over. You’re already eating, invite someone to do it with you!
8. Walk the same roads and neighborhoods. Park the car in the driveway instead of the garage so you have to talk to your neighbors.
9. Go to the same restaurants at the same time on the same day each week and sit in the same place so you get to know the staff over time.

I’ve been leading worship for almost ten years. It is a gifting that I have. I have developed this over the years because it’s something that I place immense value in. I want to continue to lead and write incredible songs in and for the Church. I want to see people saved and made new through God using what I do. These are all incredible things to desire and I believe it’s the heart of God.

But it can’t just be about leading worship on a stage a couple of times a week.

When I read the scriptures, I believe at the end of this life when I’m old and grey, I want to look back most of all and identify the small amount of people that had intimate access to my life and because they did, they did the same, and disciples were made and the Kingdom of God advanced. And then those people made disciples…and the Kingdom of God advanced. And then those people…well…you get the picture…

If I’m honest, really honest, I’d have to say if I stay on the current trajectory I’m on, I’m not sure I’ll be able to say that with the assurance I’d like to.

But I want to.

And I’m cashing in all my chips to make it happen…to ensure that discipleship is the primary thing my life revolves around. That I’m making sure someone who is further along in this journey is investing into me, but, likewise, that I am doing the same thing in discipling others.

It really is worth reading the whole post in it’s entirety. Click here to read it.

Also, as a thank you to David for letting us re-post some of his blog, here’s a video of one of his original songs:

Recently, Sam Rainer and the Rainer Research Group released a futurist study on what they believe to be 10 unexpected trends in church-life by the year 2020. I’ve posted those trends and some of their thoughts with it.

When you read it, what do you think? What connects for you? What misses?

The heterogeneous church explodes
Perhaps the most important, this first trend involves not only pragmatic issues, but theological issues as well. As the younger generation ages, they will not be represented by the homogeneous unit principal that was championed in the early years of the church growth movement. Basically, this principal states that people desire to worship and serve in church with similar people, and the best way to reach people is with others who are similar.

Boomers began to change this thinking. Many sought diversity — they intentionally championed it. For many Millennials, diversity (or heterogeneity) is normal. In the future, homogenous units will still form — there’s a reason why people attend Star Trek conventions (though it is lost on me). People with common interests, characteristics, life stages and languages will still gravitate towards each other. The difference with the younger generation is that these divides will not be as distinct, specifically in ethnic terms. The United States will be minority white by 2042 — preschools much sooner, by 2021. The Millennial generation will gravitate towards heterogeneous churches because they represent what is normal in their generation.

The diverse church will explode in growth over the next 10 years. And instead of looking at this trend through the lens of pragmatic church growth practices, I believe it needs to be viewed as a picture of the Gospel. What man segregates, the Gospel unifies. Get on board with this trend not because it will grow your church, but rather because it was God’s plan for his church from the beginning.

Church attendance continues to decline
People do not wake up one Sunday and decide to leave their church. They phase out; they begin by attending less frequently. This problem is pervasive throughout the North American church. While myriad individual, spiritual reasons exist why people attend less, decreasing frequency of attendance is the single biggest macro reason for overall church declines. For example, a church has 400 people that attend four out of four weeks. This attendance frequency equates to an average attendance of 400. But if this same church has 400 people that attend two out of four weeks, average attendance is cut in half to 200.

To reduce the problem of declining attendance frequency, church leaders will begin to track not only how many attend, but also how frequently they attend as well. I am not advocating legalistic superciliousness — that every time the church doors are open people must be there. But the family that once attended almost every week and now attends 10 times a year is gradually leaving the church.

The conservative drift draws more
While the overall attendance decline will hit churches of all types and denominations, growing churches will typically be the more theologically conservative congregations. The Millennials will either go to conservative churches, or they will not go at all.

Deep teaching gets more popular
Coupled with a theologically conservative drift, many growing churches will get deeper theologically and more popular. Many young adult dropouts left the church because they desired deeper teaching. The superficial anomalies will most likely still exist, but churches that challenge people to greater biblical depths will proliferate while others languish in their own shallowness.

Boomer ministries boom
Boomers will be a different type of senior. In fact, don’t call Boomers “seniors.” They are not part of their parents’ generation — they aren’t seniors. How senior adult ministry was done with the previous generation will not be as favorable with the Boomer generation. There is just as large a generation gap between the Boomers and the Greatest Generation as there is between Boomers and their children. Boomers don’t get on buses and visit places with their friends. If you’re wondering why your “senior” ministry keeps getting smaller and older, and no “fresh faces” are joining, it’s because Boomers don’t want to be lumped in with their parents.

Ministries to families grow
The largest generation is no longer the Boomers. The Millennials now lay claim to that title. According to LifeWay Research, the number one priority among the Millennial generation is family. Millennials desire to stay connected with not only their immediate family, but their extended family as well. Ministries to families have always been important but will increase as this youngest generation begins their own.

Staff positions evolve
For churches to remain healthy, staff structures will change between now and the next 10 years. As children’s ministries become more diverse, children’s ministers with experience in and a passion for diversity will become more important. As multi-site churches become more prevalent with more sites, administrators will need to become more skilled at managing a network of ministries. As churches refocus their programs and activities around a tight discipleship process, the old paradigm of hierarchical structures will fade as a plurality of local church leadership emerges.

The importance of the church building is renewed
The church is not a building, but a building is where the church meets. And buildings are the most expensive part of discipleship. In North America people go to buildings to do things — they go to the game in an arena, to the doctor at her office, to school in the classroom, and to the movie at the theater. Part of our culture is the expectation that things happen in buildings. This cultural expectation is true of the church — people go to church to be discipled.

Not all churches have buildings, nor am I advocating that they should. But church facilities are one of the most expensive and most critical tools church leaders use in shepherding God’s people. In short, buildings are important pieces in God’s mission of building his kingdom. Many building and design firms are becoming more intentional about creating space with the purpose of making disciples. In the next ten years, this focus will continue to grow. And churches will begin to view their buildings as part of their discipleship process.

Charismatic leadership becomes less prevalent
Charismatic leadership is based on the personality and charisma of a senior leader. Transformational leadership is based on the collective vision of an entire group. Both have their place, even in the church. A popular teacher should not lessen his or her charisma to detract followers. When the entire ministry structure is in place to elevate the leader, however, is when major problems arise.Charismatic teachers and leaders will always exist, but transformational leadership will become more popular in the coming decade.

Transformational leaders inspire people to reach for a common goal. They develop, train, and mentor future talent. They empower people to accomplish tasks. Creativity, transparency and authenticity are valued. Leaders and followers alike know what the goal is and how to achieve it. These leaders show everyone the big picture and why it’s important. The next 10 years will bring a fresh focus on local pastors leading local churches to become focused on a local mission.

Growth in video-venues slows down
The trend towards more transformational leadership will quell the popularity of video-venues in which a single teaching pastor is projected to multiple sites. The Internet and podcast boom brought with it a cultural wave of electronic teaching. While this trend has been positive — more sound teaching is readily available (for free) than ever before. Eventually, however, the wired generation will desire a more local, personal touch than the man-on-the-screen. By 2020, more campuses at multi-site churches will feature a campus pastor who teaches, and more people will seek out this type of local connection.

• Why the Missional movement will fail
• Missional Communities series (landing page for the 23 post-series)
• Why I’m not using the word attractional anymore
• Obituary for the American church
• Why does church innovation=technology? (Part 1)