proposal part 2

VIP PROPOSAL COMPONENTS
ANE Missional Studies Group

D) Learning Activities

1) Visit and interview leadership at Cedar Ridge Community Church, a church which has made the transition to missional ministry
2) Visit and interview leadership at missional churches such as Mars Hill Church, Mosaic Church, New Hope Church, and Kauai Christian Fellowship on our Immersion Retreat
3) Become well-versed in publication of churches visited, books on reading list, and on-line resources and discussions
4) De-brief with one another after visits and reading, utilizing our blog, list-serve and web site, as well as our regular meetings
5) Participate in Bible Study of Acts with appropriate aids
6) Each cohort member will write an original plan (paradigm, description, process) for our own ministry context
7) Field test what we’re learning in each of our congregations simultaneously, and in our own lives
8) Work individually with personality/gifting/leadership assessment tools to determine how we measure up with the characteristics we have observed in missional leaders
9) Develop interview tool to gather consistent information from leaders



























VIP PROPOSAL COMPONENTS
ANE Missional Studies Group

E) Evaluation

Group -By meeting together regularly and engaging in meaningful discussion in regard to our reading list and Bible study, we hope to discover the truth of what it means to be missional leaders. We want to understand this concept of "missional", we want to learn what missional churches and leaders are doing in order to accomplish missional ministry, and we want to understand what missional philosophy will look like in the context of our communal and individual ministries.
Some hoped-for-outcomes of this cohort would be:
1. A working definition of what it means to be missional. If we cannot arrive at this determination,why not?
2. Is missional ministry a good thing to be sought for?
3. If what ways are our ministries missional or non-missional?
4. We will identifying and strategizing ways to break through barriers to missional ministry.
5. Our Immersion Retreat will inform a paradigm of missional philosophy
implementation.
6. Our cohort will form real community, challenging one another to live out God's mission in our personal lives and corporate and personal ministries.
7. Out of that developed community, we will develop opportunities to serve and help each other.
8. Some of those opportunities will involve members of our congregations, building unity and community among our congregations, modeling the body of Christ working together to fulfill missional philosophy.
Some "indicators" along the way would be: (These indicators assume we have arrived at certain definitions and understandings which we have yet to determine)
1. The development of an information gathering tool to develop a good working definition of pastoral leadership in missional movements.
2. Are greater numbers of the people in our congregations identifying with missional philosophy?
3. Are some of the programs in our churches connecting with missional
philosophy?
4. Is fruit that should be born from missional movements being born from our
missional philosophy?
5. Are aspects of congregational life that were non-missional being moved away from in order to pursue true missional philosophy?
6. Are we aligning our leadership philosophy and goals along the lines of successful missional leaders who are implementing missional philosophy?
7. Are we experiencing true missional community as a cohort and helping one
another realize needed change in becoming missional leaders?




Tim - Assumptions: 1) The term "missional" could be defined as revolving around or focused on the mission. 2) The primary mission of humanity is to glorify God. 3) The primary means by which this is done in the church is by knowing and loving God and helping others to do the same, or in religious terminology: growing in personal discipleship while making disciples of others. 4) While these are the primary means I do not see them as the exclusive means. 5) I also assume that I will only have "abundant life" if these purpose and means are set and seen exclusively in the context of a daily, authentic relationship with the living God. 6) I assume that glory and discipleship are terms given to help us understand and chart certain aspects of that relationship. In the broadest sense how can one quantify or evaluate the quality of any given relationship, let alone a relationship with the divine? My assumption is that the term "missional" is an attempt to do just that; quantify and evaluate the quality of an aspect of this relationship. Specifically, the term "missional" is there to help us understand how effective we are at shaping our lives and ministries around the pursuit of God in our lives and the lives of others.

I believe that at the end of these 2 years I should be able to 1) give adequate defense to these assumptions of the mission, the means, and the term "missional" or 2) I should be able to give a well supported rebuttal to these assumptions and a defense for the newly formed assumptions.

Given the first scenario I will need to be able to quantify the level at which I (and the ministry that I lead) am becoming missional in order for the term to serve its purpose of quantifying a certain aspect of my (our) relationship with God. I will attempt to quantify that by a few different means. a) I will list the major duties that I perform and the major things that I give my resources (time energy and money) to. I will explain, for each of those, how and to what extent they do or do not conform to the mission. b) I will provide true purpose descriptions of the ministries that I work with and compare and contrast them with the mission. c) I will ask 3 close friends and fellow journeyers to help me in the personal evaluation. d) I will take a fruit inventory in my life/ministries to see if there has been fruit born of the mission.

Given the second scenario I should be able to a) diagram how those new assumptions will shape my future life/relationship/ministry. I should also b) develop a method to measure my effectiveness in that pursuit.


Rob - One tool of measurement for me will be the understanding of what this word missional means, and how it can effectively be applied in the life of our congregations to benefit the community and the church. I hope to discover the pastor’s role in this unique puzzle and accumulate the knowledge and understanding to complete the puzzle. The opportunity to witness a church who has harnessed this missional thing, which seems so elusive to me, will be most helpful.



Galen - I do not feel that I have a comprehensive understanding of what it means
to be missional. I hear the word tossed around today and, on the one
hand, I think it is simply the new word for being “evangelistic,” but,
on the other hand, I have this sense that there is much more to it. I
hear of a missional movement, but very frankly have been so busy
building a growing church over the last several years, that I have not
had the time to read material coming out of these missional movements.
(And it bugs me that my spell checker keeps flagging this word
“missional.”)
At the end of these two years I would like to be able to intelligently
discuss this concept, even if it means I do not buy into it. For sure I
would like to be able to define what parts of it resonate with me and
what parts seem foreign. I begin with the assumption that it is good to
be missional—I may be wrong about that. I begin with the assumption that
I am already somewhat missional and that makes me want to be more so—but
I may be wrong about that, too. I expect that growing understanding, a
change in how I think about the church, more intentionally focusing
outward and more courage in my life personally to reach out, would be
markers that something is changing in relation to our study together.
I am hoping that the Cohort group gels and that we can develop a deep
sense of community in which we support each other, challenge each other,
and grow together. And then that that sense of community affects us in
such a manner that it flows into our congregations. Ephrata has been
working intentionally at building deeper community.
I hope we will be able to help each other congregationally, as we seek
to define and evaluate and apply missional concepts.


Jay - Some hoped for outcomes that I seek for my personal ministry setting are:
1. To impart a working definition of missional philosophy to my staff and
lay leadership teams.
2. To see that working definition begin to change the way that these
leadership teams approach their diverse ministries from a seminal
standpoint.
3. To begin to see the fruit of missional philosophy at work in the lives of
people in my congregation, particularly the leadership of the church.
4. To begin to see programs that are non-missional being phased out.
5. To begin to see programs that are missional being created and
implemented.
6. To be a part of a true community with my fellow cohort members in order
to receive support, discernment and communication about carrying out
missional philosophy.



Some indicators along the way would be:
1. To begin to hear a change in language on the part of my leadership teams
away from non-missional, program-based ministry speech and toward holistic,
missional speech.
2. To begin to hear healthy evaluative questions from my leadership teams in
regard to their ministry situations.
3. To hear from my leaders the perceived need of doing away with
non-missional programs and creating and implementing missional programs.
4. To give to and receive from my cohort members perceived discernment and
support in leading my church into missional philosophy


David Ulm - I feel I am significantly behind the others in this group in my understanding
of missional ministry. I know what I believe it to mean , but am unsure of how my understanding relates to the meaning used by the larger church community.

Hoped-for Outcomes: I hope that at the end of this two-year study I will have a firm grasp on what the missional concept is all about and what a missional leader looks like. I hope to know whether that concept is one that fits my God-given calling, and should therefore be pursued, or whether it is foreign to my calling and should be abandoned. More importantly, I hope to have a solid plan for moving myself and my congregation in whatever God’s direction is for building His kingdom in our ministry setting. I also hope to have a greater connection with those in the cohort group, so that we can encourage each other, and work side by side in ministry.

Indicators: I’m sure I will be looking at myself and the knowledge I am acquiring, and hoping to see a decrease in the gap between myself and the other group members. I will also be looking at the dynamics of our group and how we are impacting each other as we study this issue. But more than anything else, I will measure the outcome by how I and my congregation are progressing in our current attempts and future plans to impact our community with the love of Christ and the message of salvation. Are more and more people in the congregation involved in ministry beyond our four walls? Is our community being changed in any way? Are meaningless activities of “doing church” being replaced with activities that “make disciples”?

Dave Weiss -How will you personally measure the outcomes named in your learning
objectives? I remember very clearly the first time I heard someone refer to “building missional communities of faith.” My first thought was, “ Oh great. some new buzzwords, but what do they mean?” I have been trying to get a handle on post-modern and emergent ministry and what that means to me here in suburban Pennsylvania. What really helped was really disecting the phrase. Missional (which still trips most spell checks), the idea of the fact that we are surrounded by a mission field and that God has a mission for our lives. This is a two fold issue, dealing with two very important relationships, my relationship to God(internal mission) and my relationship to my fellow man (external mission). Community, the idea that the people in the church are interdependent, and of course the faith that holds the whole thing together.
My hoped for outcomes for this cohort group are:
1. To experience, in a small microcosm, missional community in this cohort as we encourage each other, build each other up, and keep each other accountable through this study (internal mission) and prepare to communicate our findings to other cohorts (external mission).
2. To grow in my own personal understanding of what to means to be a missional leader and apply what I leatn in my ministry context so that I can lead by example and encourage others to fulfill their God-given missions both internal and external.
3. To discover the current missional elements in my ministry and to learn what elements are off mission and need to be re-evaluated.
4. To revitalized my walk with the Lord.
5. As a bi-vocational minister, I hope to learn how to lead missionally helping others to gain a sense of mission and help them to take some of the load off me so that I can remain on mission and not distracted by things that I do not need to be doing.
6. To build deep relationships with my brothers in this cohort that will spill over into our congregations working together as the body of Christ should.
The indicators for me will be
1. Gaining a better understanding of what it means to be missional, that I can not only define it but also live it.
2. Seeing more of the members of my congregation in active ministry, using their gifts and talents to serve the Lord.
3. That God will use these “ministries” to add to the number in my congregation. (I will try not to be number focused, but in my ministry context as a new church plant, growth equals survival.)
4. More free time as I let things go into the hands of others, allowing me to spend more time with the Lord and family.
5. A willingness in my congregation to reinvent ministries and cut ministries that are not bearing fruit, and a clearer understanding of what that fruit should look like.
6. One of my favorite speakers always says that “If you want to be successful, speak to people who have been successful.” My hope is that in our immersion retreat, through meeting and speaking with “successful” missional leaders that I will gain a new perspective on what success (and fruit) looks like in a missional context.
7. FRUIT