6th September, 2011

DARREN CRONSHAW

On the Verge: A Journey into the Apostolic Future of the Church

Grand Rapids

Zondervan, 2011

ISBN-13: 978-0310331001

"On the Verge is incarnational and attractional. It affirms the contribution of strong mission-resourcing churches and the creativity of energetic missional experiments. It encourages reproducing on a macro scale (new churches and congregational campuses) and on the micro scale (mobilising every believer for mission in their everyday context)."

Alan Hirsch's writings are like old friends that help me think and act as a missionary in suburban Melbourne. Hirsch is a missional catalyst and founder of Forge Mission Training Network which I have been part of since 1995.

In this latest volume, Hirsch has teamed up with Dave Ferguson who leads Community Christian Church (a pioneer of the multi-site model for North American megachurches) and New Thing Network (championing all sorts of reproducing churches and smaller-scale missional experiments). (See also David Ferguson and Jon Ferguson, Exponential: How You and Your Friends Can Start a Missional Movement, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010). Hirsch and Ferguson have been part of Future Travellers, a cluster of initially 12 churches seeking to implement the best of organic missional principles alongside existing mega-church models of growth. Their stories are spiced throughout the book and form an interesting appendix.

Learning from the best of both worlds
With the way Hirsch has developed over the last decade, and with Ferguson's input, On the Verge celebrates all sorts of missional expressions - from organic church to megachurch. It advocates a 'both/and' approach rather than the unhelpful 'either/or' dichotomies that polarise and block our capacity to appreciatively learn from what God is doing in different sectors of the church.

Perhaps to the surprise of some readers of Hirsch, it is incarnational and attractional. It affirms the contribution of strong mission-resourcing churches and the creativity of energetic missional experiments. It encourages reproducing on a macro scale (new churches and congregational campuses) and on the micro scale (mobilising every believer for mission in their everyday context).

It is not just about changing the direction of nations but transforming neighbourhoods (epitomised by the movies Invictus and Blindside). It teaches about church planting and mobilising every person for mission. It wants to develop and integrate missiology and ecclesiology. It argues for our need to learn from the best of renewal movements, church growth lessons, megachurch and multi-site strengths, missional-incarnational models and the exponential potential of church-planting movements. This is what they mean by being "on the verge" - converging the best of different thinking that will help tip the church over the verge of a new missional understanding of our apostolic future.

My questions
When I picked up the book I was eager to read and reflect on how it was relevant to my role as a pastor at Auburn Baptist Church (or "The Auburn" as we are becoming known). In an inner-suburban context where the church has plateaued or declined and struggles to connect locally, what are the keys for revitalisation? I am also keen to reflect on my role in training other missional leaders and thinking about the future of Forge or Forge-like training in Australia. What are the frameworks and principles emerging leaders need to grasp so that they can be ready not to just to criticise the old, but be equipped to constructively develop and grow new models of church?And I belong to the denominational tribe that we call the Baptist Union of Victoria and work for its resourcing office. We are 'reimagining' the ways we staff and focus our efforts to resource churches and leaders.

'Reimagining' is a kind of spiritual word for corporate restructuring that brings the usual uncertainty and delays in new initiatives. But the gift of 'Reimagining the BUV' as a process is that we are pausing to consider our mission and how to shape ourselves to best foster that. The book quotes Eric Hoffer: "In times of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned find themselves well equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." What is there to learn? To borrow from the bookís title, I am eager to learn what it will take to help my church, students and denomination to 'verge' into an apostolic future.

Charting new journeys
If contemporary church-growth styled churches might appeal to 40 per cent of Americans (and less Australians), then we need different models of church to reach the majority. Yet the tendency is that "all our missional eggs are in one ecclesiological basket!" Global marketers talk about red oceans as all the industries and markets that are known to exist, where existing companies compete for a share of the market. Blue oceans are the industries not yet in existence. In a blue ocean, entrepreneurs create demand rather than fight over it. Sailors in blue oceans create the rules rather than be restricted by them (see W Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant, Boston: Harvard Business, 2005, cited in Hirsch and Ferguson).

The challenge for churches is to dive into the uncharted expanse of blue ocean spiritual idea space. Given the decline of the church in the West, relying on just more of the same is organisational insanity. We live in a highly networked, democratised, decentralised, multicultural, post-Christendom world. We cannot rely on buildings, clergy and institutional power. Innovation and movement need to become not merely buzzwords but established norms and defining characteristics of how we shape our approach to church. Hirsch and Ferguson contend: "if we wish to birth apostolic movements in our day we cannot avoid the intellectual rigour of rethinking the paradigm, recalibrating the system, changing the metaphor, and reframing the story of church".

The book is a conversation - with Hirsch and Ferguson writing different chapters with subsequent comments from the other. Their underlying framework is in four parts - appealing for imagining and seeing what God us is calling us to (part 1), shifting and freshly understanding our approach to church (part 2), innovating and acting in new ways (part 3), all for the sake of moving in new directions of missional momentum and apostolic movement (part 4).

Part 1 - Imagine

On the Verge reminds me of what the authors say is latent in the people of God - that at our essence we are a missionary people. The challenge of every believer is to grasp and live this out. The challenge of every leader is to help inspire and equip the people of God in this direction. There are a host of competing cultural ideals about what church is about: the church as the centre of evangelism, the guardian of morals, the class for Bible-teaching and/or the institution with services, clergy and building(s). In terms of a syllabus for emerging missionaries, we need to list what we need to unlearn as well as what we need to learn.

Part of the role of leadership, at any level, is to create space for people to imagine a different future. We want people to think outside the box and have their imaginations grabbed by an alternative story. Bono challenges people "to dream up the world they want to live in, to dream out loud, at high volume". The church's role is to help people dream up big about how God wants to transform our world. It gives a new position description to my role as pastor, teacher or denominational resource-person ñ Iím a trainer of missionaries and change-agents. Since we can say that "in every seed there is a forest" then when I look at the people in my church and the churches in my system I can see great potential. There are thousands of missionaries in waiting and hundreds of pregnant church planting organisms. When we encourage the apostolic mission of church planting multiplication (CP) and add the mission of every person (MEP), then we get apostolic movement (CP + MEP = AM). This is what Part 1 helps us to imagine and "see it".

Part 2 - Shift
On the Verge is not just about changing paradigm but changing practice. It outlines a movemental approach to change. This includes Hirsch's previously articulated elements of missionalDNA: Jesus is Lord, disciple-making (or apprenticeship with Jesus), missional-incarnational impulse, apostolic environment (of Ephesians 4 APEST leadership), organic systems, and communitas (community arising from a shared challenge). (See Alan Hirsch's groundbreaking The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church, Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006; and the more accessible and practical Alan Hirsch and Darryn Altclass, The Forgotten Ways Handbook to a Revolution: A Guide to Mission-Incarnational Practice, Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2009). This is what Hirsch says is apostolic genius or the genetic code for fostering movement. It is what we need to foster and celebrate. Alan Hirsch says he is committed to doing something more risky each year, to exercise risk-taking muscle. Let's hear what his latest adventures are. And let's hear what the latest adventures are of the lesser-known heroes in our churches. In our sermons and announcements, in classrooms and denominational communications, in conversations and in public affirmation, it is timely to make heroes of people and churches that epitomise the basic elements of being missional. And our churches need clear systems and articulated practices that we expect everyone to engage in - not just centred around church attendance but missional behaviours like hospitality, prayerful rhythms and using our gifts. This is part of how part two suggests guiding the church to shift and "get it".

Part 3 - Innovate
Thirdly, the book offers inspiration for doing something about the urgent missional challenge. Dave Ferguson's church expresses this as focusing on the 67 and the 20; if the world were a village of 100 people, 67 would be far from God and 20 would live in extreme poverty. What will we dream up and do in order to engage with these people? Hirsch and Ferguson encourage leaders to be curious about what God is doing in their neighbourhoods and spheres and join in. They encourage leaders to "lead with a yes and ask how later" and give permission for people to experiment like crazy with missional initiatives. Seth Godin is quoted as saying: "At first, the new thing is rarely as good as the old thing was. But if you need the alternative to be better than the status quo from the very start, you'll never begin."

Innovation - dreaming alternative options and learning how to implement them - is an essential skill for church leaders. It is something the church needs to cultivate locally, denominationally and in places of training. This is why the Baptist Union of Victoria's resource Out of the Box: An invitation to move into new forms of mission and ministry (2011) gives space for people to dream new ideas but also gets them out of their churches to be exposed to new ideas. Hirsch and Ferguson says churches don't need departments of research and development, but at their best are agencies of research and development exploring how to foster the kingdom of God in all spheres. We need to exercise the best of our creative energies, like Alice in Wonderland used to say: "Sometimes I try to think of six impossible things before breakfast" . Let's keep asking believers, leaders, churches and denominations: "What would it look like for you to incarnate the gospel where you live and work?" Part 3 is written to help people innovate and 'do it'.

Part 4 - Move
Finally, the book is designed to help us move and foster 'movementum'. It is startling to see the statistics on what churches grow the best; one indicator overall is that churches that have started in the last 10 to 20 years show the best positive growth, suggesting the importance of multiplying church planting. Moreover, if we are serious about engaging the West, then we have to mobilise people on mission in every sphere. Asking people what they enjoy doing, where they see God working, what they would like to see God do in their life, how they would like to serve and how we can pray for them and cheer them on are key questions to coach people as missionaries. The church is designed for transforming the world - Hirsch and Ferguson appeal for missionary pastors to unleash the church into that apostolic future.

On the Verge combines sound missiology with visionary ecclesiology. It offers helpful models and frameworks as well practical principles and inspiring stories. It is an excellent resource book for pastors of any size of church that want to grow in mission-shaped directions. And it is a useful guidebook for teachers and denominational leaders intent on casting vision and fostering movements of all disciples as missionaries and all churches as church planting organisms. But its biggest gift is to offer an enticing appetiser and hopeful invitation to set sail in uncharted directions on the blue ocean. The leadership challenge for the journey is captured by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "If you want to build a ship, don't summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs, and organise the work - rather teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean."

Darren coordinates leadership training with the Baptist Union of Victoria and pastors Auburn Baptist Church.

FOR MORE ON BOOKS, visit our books page here...