A past professor of mine, asked me to weigh in on the topic of the emergent church in Canada as he is about to pursue the topic at our annual convention this July in a seminar that he is leading.

In an email I said the following: “I think in Canada (from my experience) we see the emergent movement as an American thing. We don’t identify with it, but we appreciate the conversation. I think in Canada we have to go even further, but the problem is that moderns are so “worried” that we are going to abandon everything they hold close. We may abandon some things, but if we are kept close by Jesus, we will never truly leave. Freedom over control.”

I will stand by a couple things in this quote. 1) Emergent is really not on the radar in most Canadian circles. But let me clarify. Emergent is on the radar of youth leaders trying to spice up their youth group, but in terms of those on the ground, starting churches and grass root movements, the conversation is not nearly far enough along to make a difference in what we do. It is almost as if we need something more edgy “per say” in order to really impact our country with the hope of Christ in the world. 2) But like I said, moving toward edgy is really awkward, because we don’t know what that looks like and many of us are worried our modern church friends will call us heretics and think we are abandoning our faith as we try different things, teach new ideas and stretch things out. I think this worry of abandonment is more about control than anything else. Yet, I believe it was Jesus that said that he had a strong grip on us and we mustn’t get so caught up in others motivations (mixed with actions).

So then what is the current state of the emergent church in Canada?

To me its helpful. It is supportive and the books, blogs, podcasts, and people are allowing us to sift through and pick out the relevancy in the material to our culture. I am currently finding more helpful information from Kester Brewin and Pete Rollins of late; but they are both UK guys and I guess that says something about where we as Canadians get our inspiration. And usually most books that are more about spirituality (donald miller and rob bell for example) are more helpful then ones that suggest methods. I have found Richard Rohr more helpful than any others at this stage of my personal development.

In the CNBC (my tribe), there are not a lot of emergent type churches, but I would say that some of the things COTM is doing as well as the joshua house here in the Lower Mainland are good attempts at figuring out where the church is going in the future. The funny is, and not to be vain, but we may be too far ahead. We are trekking in areas that we have no idea about and sometimes it might just be easier to revert back to old ways of doing things. At least I feel that way sometimes.

I think when someone asks “who is the pastor” of a church, what they are really asking is “who is in charge.”

I might be presumptuous in saying that, but if you really thought about it, this is what many would be asking, especially if they were visiting this church for the first time. The same thing happens over time, especially in a church plant. Over time people look at the person “in charge” and label them pastor, and then put a lot of expectations on them. I may fear expectations, but the expectations that are generally placed on a person are not that fair, from my experience.

I have been thinking as well, whether it would be worth writing down the expectations people should have or not have on a church leader or pastor, in order to help others understand where their role (congregation) is and what the leader (pastor) is responsible for. The idea would then allow the leader freedom in their role. In fact a friend of mine asked me to look at a document like this, called a covenant, in order to give some of my own insight into such a thing. The problem is the document may start as a public document, but over time it gets hidden, forgotten, misinterpreted and then out of date. The idea is wonderful, but the truth is, unless there is a change in the culture in the church (and probably all churches) the stereotypical pastor role will not change despite any covenants we design or sign or post on our church walls.

I appreciate my friend who is working on this document, mainly because it really is the best idea we have right now. But for me, I need to think this through fully and not just create a document. In our situation a document will not free me up in my ministry… only freedom in Christ will.

Since there is so much transition in churches these days (a call of the times), there will always be people joining you coming from another church culture. It is almost as if churches need to be cross cultural in terms of their own sub-culture… pretty confusing I know.

So (optimistically) perhaps we can begin a change in culture. It might start with our small community of Jesus followers, but being part of the change is also the best place to be.

Hey everyone,

Due to the shortness of time and the fact that the people looking to host the potnetial BBQ are unable to, we are going to stick with the regular plan and meet at Little Nest this week.

I will be leading our time of discussion,

Cheers

No one prepares you for this.

You think that you are just some guy, with friends starting a community that will hopefully impact your neighbourhood with some exciting Jesus type action and then it happens. Someone treats you like you’re their pastor. I always new that if I was going to start this community I should have “pastor” type gifts, but to be honest I don’t think I ever embraced the idea of actually being a pastor. Pastor’s are guys who speak Sunday morning, and perform weddings and funerals, and have a building on the corner of the street; I wasn’t one.

I still remember when I first “became” a pastor. It was one night after one of our gatherings at my house when my immaturity got me in trouble and when a person I was speaking with told me that she couldn’t believe that a pastor would say such a thing and stormed out of the room in disgust. I was floored. Shortly after, more of my “personality” traits got me into more trouble and then it hit me. I was now a pastor.

A pastor? Me? What happened?

This wasn’t good and as I look back am not sure if I will ever recover.

The first thing that made me realize I was a pastor is that I no longer had the same rules. I couldn’t make the same jokes, I couldn’t go to the same places, I couldn’t hang with the same people (without leaving out others) and my public profile became plastered everywhere. (At least to me). I couldn’t just be a guy working things out with everyone, I was a pastor who should “know better.”

This may have been the death of my journey in some regards. I am in a better place now, but the ministry depression I went through prior to and a good time after my stellar trip to the Bahamas to Soularize in October 2007 was quite painful and I think it’s only now that I understand why.

The truth is, if you want to journey together with your church, make mistakes openly, and just be “one of the boys” don’t pastor. Unless you like being at the top, partially transparent, or are an elder and have been through enough to be able to navigate through the waters, don’t pastor.

I’ve seen people leave because of me. This might be my ego, but they told me so.

I never signed up for this. Then again, maybe I did? Maybe this is the natural progression for all church planters; of course I think most of the others knew this would happen… I’m not sure i did.

I am a recovering pastor right now. And to be honest… I don’t want to be one. I want to journey openly and suggest some “sketchy” ideas, and explore the world (not needing to show up every Sunday). I need to re-define the term. Or perhaps bring its original meaning back… a gift as opposed to a position.

(I love that I can write this. I love that my church will read it and be encouraging.)

Now how do I actually live this out and not continue down the same road?

Sometimes I don’t think I will ever be able to.

After Anna recommended this book to me, I never really thought I was going to like it based on some of her thoughts about it. I was pleasantly surprised to say the least and am quite excited about the possibilities in this book.

If I was to connect this book to church planting for one second and to be honest it is hard to do so because of its emphasis on a remote lifestyle, I would say the author presses on something very important. He writes a lot about how we have this big desire to be efficient in our work when really we should first think about being effective. It is very easy to be efficient doing things we don’t need to do. In fact I am very good at this. But the first thing is to realize whether what you are doing is worth doing in the first place? I think of church planters specifically and in our desire to prove to others that we are actually doing something, we will try to add things to our plate that we really don’t even need to do (and are definitely NOT effective). We create busying structures to justify our work as church planters. This is incredibly non-effective, no matter how efficient you can be at it.

I understand that Tim Ferriss is trying to help you outsource your life and reduce your working time so you can take up other hobby’s and life goals, but the truth is still there, if you can do what your doing in 4 hours, it is really not worth spreading that task over 8 hours, just to make someone think you’re busy. And if you are doing a task ( a certain outreach or program) and it is really not that effective, you really might as well drop it and go golfing for the afternoon. From experience, your sanity as a church planter is probably more important than whether you can “say” you piled on the work this month.

There is a lot more to be said about efficiency versus effectiveness as a church planter, and as I have commented in the past I have found either lazy or overworked (a hamster running on a wheel) church planters. But wouldn’t it be great if we were more effective in the tasks that work, and spent less time doing the things that didn’t so we could really impact our neighbourhoods?

I think that on a foundational church planting scale (those who never plan on working and church planting at the same time) this book is probably not a priority, but as a quick side note, I will say that if you are a bi-vocational pastor/ church planter this book is a must read. I personally work a full time job and lead the open house, and this book was incredibly helpful in guiding me through the things i need to do and what I am just busying myself with. For the bi-vocational pastor, freeing your “working” time so you can have more time with people in your church is very effective. And to go further, being able to minimize the church activities so that you can be effective in your job is also critical. So if you are a church planter, and are or considering to be a bi-vocational church planter I would give this book a 4.5/5. However, if you never plan to work and church plant then maybe this book wouldn’t be too helpful for you, but its a fun read anyhow.