Church as Missionary Gathering Next Week in St. Louis: Networks, Starfish, and Spiders

Next week, Marty Duren and I are headed to St. Louis (January 12-13) to join with a small group of pastors to discuss the concept of the local church acting as the missionary both globally and locally. We will be talking about church to church networking to engage in global missions work as well as domestic church planting. I really believe that these kinds of networks are the future. Because of the ease of communication and travel, the need for bureaucratic hierarchies in our missions involvement has been lessened. God has given the Great Commission to the local church and for years, we farmed it out to parachurch organizations because the local church chose not to be obedient. That needs to change and it is changing. There is a role for parachurch organizations, but it needs to be the the role of assisting the local church much more than we presently see.

Church to church networking has great possibilities. I wrote an essay almost two years ago on the conept of the Starfish and the Spider as outlined in the book by the same name. I applied the concept of networking to Baptist life at the time. I also wrote a summary of Emerging Network Theory that is very helpful, I believe. The parts in quotes comes from the book Linked by Albert Laszlo-Barabasi.  I believe that the time for this concept is now. There are thousands of churches all over America that are full of latent resources (people, gifts, talents, money, etc.). What if these churches began to work together in peer-to-peer relationships? What if we did more than talk about things and actually did things together? The work that we are doing in India is a great example of how this can happen. We have connected with a group of ministries in India that are networking together to provide an interface for us. They are also working together amongst themselves. We are creating a network of churches here in the States to work with them. They submit projects to us that go along with the agreed upon basis of our cooperation and we fund these projects as we are able. They report to us their progress and we pray for them and encourage them. We also visit with them periodically to check on their progress and see what else we can do. The indigenous church around the world is growing and it is time for American churches to come alongside and assist them. The day of the American missionary being the only one blazing new trails for the gospel is coming to a close. We have partners all around the world that we should be working with and we are now at a point where the local church can begin to do this like never before.

We can also partner together domestically in ways that can be very effective. There are many areas of the United States that are in desperate need of ministry and new churches. A network of likeminded churches can come together and directly plant domestic churches through funding, working with church planters, and helping to support new ministries. If 5 churches are working together, think of the possiblities if there is no bureaucracy to fund. If every dollar goes straight to the work being attempted, there is much greater accountability and involvement from the local church.

I believe that this is much closer to how things happened in the early church. Denominations have their place. They provide a sense of identity and cooperation that is still important. There is a place for denominational missions and missionaries. But, I believe that they should be assisting the local church far more than we currently see and the relationship between the local church and the missionary should be much stronger than it now is. If churches with similar visions could network together to get resources and spiritual life to places of need, how much greater impact could we have?

I hope that we are able to make some headway in talking about this next week in St. Louis, January 12-13. Pray for us. And, if you want to join us, you are welcome to do so. The gathering is intentionally small so that we can have a lot of conversation, but anyone who wants to come is welcome.    

Comments

[Bob Cleveland]

Ahhh there IS light at the end of that tunnel. Good onya.

I'd be there, were it not for a certain appointment with a TomoTherapy machine here.

[Marty Duren]

Alan-
I'm getting a blank page when I click that link to Spider and Starfish.

[Debbie Kaufman]

This sounds exciting and doable.

[Alan Cross]

Marty,

I don't know why. All of the links work when I click on them. Here is the page address:

http://www.downshoredrift.com/downshoredrift/2007/04/the_starfish_th.html

[Micah Fries]

Alan, I'm really excited about our conversations next week. I called Marty yesterday and told him that the Starfish and Spider book may be the most powerful book, at least in the area of organizational leadership, that I've read in the last few years. Wow. I can't wait to discuss concepts with other church leaders.

See you there!

[Strider]

We have been promoting this principle for a long time in our region of the world. We had 'Adopt a People Group' movements and we had partnerships with Churches. We now have (within the IMB) a Strategy Coordinator Church concept- in spite of the poor name it is a good concept. What you are proposing seems to me to be the next generation of this thinking. Most of us on the field agree with you 100% as to the theology of what you are doing. For me personally though, I remain cynical as I have been promoting our work for 12 years and all I ever hear is 'You guys are doing a great job, that sounds really exciting. Of course, you are too far away, it is too expensive, too remote, and takes too long to get to where you are so we are doing a project in Central America.'
I guess I am saying, 'do what you are doing, it is good. But don't forget to support the IMB and us on the field unless you are prepared to come to Gondor and the uttermost parts of the earth.'