Reggie McNeal.
(Reggie’s bio piece from the LCMC website is placed at the end of my report for your information).
Out of the three keynote presentations, I unashamedly enjoyed Reggie’s the best. If I had the money, I’d gladly pay the fee for Reggie McNeal to come to Des Moines and evaluate our ministry and help us move forward. I know this isn’t the case with everyone. I talked to one colleague who felt that Reggie is unfair to large churches and is unnecessarily cynical and caustic about the Church. Full disclosure here: I don’t think the Church in North America has must of a future in it’s current manifestation and so I agree with Reggie’s more “extreme” views. This will definitely color my opinion of his presentation. I apologize in advance if my interpretation of his remarks is not accurate. Although it sounds like he’s used to being misquoted.
Every church has problems. But, “Healthy churches deal with a better set of problems.”
“We gotta get out of the church business and get into kingdom business.”
If you want to be ambassadors, shouldn't you represent the home office well?
90+ times Jesus talks about the kingdom.
We need to learn to talk about Church as a verb, not a noun. You don't go buy music at the record store any more. Nor do you go to a bank. You “bank.” The Church needs to be known by what it does, not by it’s location or it’s building.
The Church is important but it isn’t the goal or end of everything. We’re not here to worship the Church, rather, the Lord of the Church. “We start the Bible in the garden with no church, we end in a city without a church.” The Church is a vehicle that gets from place to place. The Church is an avenue of blessing. Our job as the people of God is to bless the world. It’s a continuation of the covenant God made with Abraham in Gen 12. (“By your name all the nations of the world will be blessed.”) The wording is different than Genesis 12: we are to be ambassadors, the light of the world, a city on a hill, the bringers of hope to the hopeless, etc. It’s all about grace. It’s all about blessing people.
Reggie suggests that we regularly encourage our congregations to practice blessing people - “Go out and bless 3 people intentionally this week. Not randomly. But with intention.”
He also encourages churches to keep track of and celebrate “God sightings” on a regular basis. Where have you seen God at work this week?
“How can we bless you?”, ought to be what every church asks of it’s members, neighborhood and what individual Christians ought to ask of people they meet.
What is the Church? “Airports are connectors, not destinations. But without them you don't get to where you need to go.” The job of the Church is to connect people to Jesus and to mission. Mission is not so much programmatic,(although it may be expressed programmatically), as it is
“We are doing more and more stuff at the church house while these kids are going to hell.” To hell with more programming. Near almost every church there is a school with kids who are struggling. Maybe it’s an under-resourced school. Maybe there are kids with broken families or special needs. But there are enough schools for churches to ask them, “How can we serve you?” Reggie told the story of one Episcopal priest who talked to the local principal and said, “How can I bless you.” She thought she was nuts. She was advised by others to test him. So she asked him to be the crossing guard. He did it. And there began a beautiful relationship between the local church and the local school. The school calls the church for everything. The church is a blessing to the school.
Ask yourselves this question: “Is our city any better because we're here?” Has the church made any difference in the life of your community? If it hasn’t, aren’t we doing the Master of the Church a dis-service?
Reggie says that some react negatively to the concept of the church blessing the people of the world He says they ask: “What about the Word?” In other words, what about evangelization. Reggie responds: “The Word is a whom. So, be doers of the Word.” What did Jesus say in John 13: “Behold I have set you an example, that you should do as I have done.” (Wash feet). And, “By this, all men will know that you are my disciples: by the way you love one another.”
Be doers of the word. What did the early church in the Roman world do? There were a tremendous number of girl babies left to die because they were not boys. The early Christians took them home and raised them as Christians. Years later, when all the Roman boys were looking for wives, who did they marry? Christians.
And again, in Rome, when the plague came through town. Who stayed and tried to minister? The Christians. Many died. But those who were ministered to and survived could not help themselves but to become followers of Christ. They had been shown a very great and beautiful love.
“The church needs to move from an internal to an external focus; from a program driven to a people development culture.” Programs are useful in that they help to develop people. Which is the goal. Perhaps we’ve lost sight of the goal here. Perhaps we’ve become a program driven church which values having programs more than the end of the program: the development (transformation of people).
For instance, why do we evaluate, even within families, on the basis of participation instead of result. Example: Most people think that having a God conversation with your kid goes like this: “How was Sunday School today? Are you going to Youth Group on Friday night?”
A youth director in the Twin Cities said that he no longer started at the point of saying “What kind of program do I want to have?” Rather, he asked, “What kind of kids do I want to send into the world?” It’s about mentoring. And also about mentoring mentors. Turns out, mentors grow because kids ask questions. We need to ask more questions in church.
How can we get churches to ask the right kinds of questions? Just expose them to the virus. For instance, for your sermon, interview the principal at the local school. Ask, “How can the church bless you?” Then people want to help.
We also need to learn to change what we celebrate in the church. Instead of celebrating what we did in church, how many people we had or how much money we raised, why not celebrate what we do in community?
Regularly ask your congregation these kind of questions:
What are you learning?
What are you experiencing?
How are you growing?
What did you learn about God?
It’s time for pastors to move from being institutional managers to a movement leaders.
Consider that your congregation is already deployed in the world in various industries and sectors for mission.
Release business leaders into the marketplace.
Release artists into the society.
Release teachers into the classroom and school.
Keep asking people, “How can you bless?”
Teach your flock “How to be a person of blessing.”
How do we serve our community?
It’s time for a new scorecard. Our old scorecard evaluated us on how much money and how many people we brought in. It’s time for something different.
Begin by asking what kind of resources the church already has = prayer, people, time, facilities, money.
Figure out how to deploy what you have. For instance. If your church is a church of prayer, why not follow the example of one church and put up a prayer booth at your next local fair? Or go to teachers/schools, police and fire stations. Tell them you’re praying for them and take requests. Tell them simply, “We’re asking God to bless you.” If you need a standard of evaluation, why not ask your membership to self report their community service hours? Or ask, “Is your marriage better this year than last? “ Or, “Is your relationship with your children better than before?” This kinds of transformative experiences are the things we should be evaluating. It’s in these kind of things that people’s lives are changed.
“Every hour you spend at church is taking you away from your primary mission field.” These are hard words for a pastor to hear. But if we’re serious about the Great Commission, I think we have to realize that our job is to equip our people to be missionaries. And their mission fields are as diverse as our people.
Imagine what it would be like if we didn’t have to financially support church structures? We could give our offerings away. Reggie suggests we find a way to give money away. Take an extra offering, even $1 per person. Decide who in the community needs it. Report out. He tells the story of one man who gave $1000 tip to a waitress at a Waffle House. He said that both the waitress and the giver cried and cried. It’s the kind of thing that changes people’s lives. Shouldn’t our goal in teaching people to give be to grow generous people who will give to what's important?
At that point, time ran out and the session ended. I followed up by going to Reggie’s breakout session. Twenty three registered for the session (including myself). But over 50 showed up. There were people sitting on the floor all around the walls and up and down the aisles. Proof, I think, that people were intrigued by his remarks.
Breakout:
Question: Isn’t it true that once you do something more than once it becomes a program?
Answer: Yes. So what we’re really saying is to customize your programming for each person. Intentionally suggest to people what kind of classes or programs will benefit them and why.
Be sure to follow up with people. If you ask, “what do you want God to do in your life?” You are obligated to go back and ask people, “how it's going?”
Question: How do you keep the kind of outreach you’re talking about from becoming “just another community service project.”
Answer: Keep the people development piece, that's what keeps it from being only a community service piece ... Help people develop a response.,.. I’m doing this because Jesus loves the kids, or because I've been blessed.” Also, we need to train people on whether this environment is a seedbed or an open door. In other words, are we building a relationship so we can tell them about Jesus or is it time to tell them about Jesus now?
Always try to keep your outreach projects inter generational. Send the seniors and the high school kids out on a project together. They will come back best friends.
Question: What kind of leaders do we need in the church today?
Answer: To be part of the Apostolic ministry, leaders need to be genuinely spiritual. They also need to be entrepreneurs who are willing to take risks and fail. And they must have a Kingdom vision (a vision bigger than their own congregation).
Contrary to things that I’ve seen recently, Reggie insists that the development of the vision belongs to only a few people because only a few people can turn the wheel on a ship. Where you want masses of people to be involved is in implementation. Implementation is where you want 100s of people to be on board. Not in the development of the vision itself.
Why is vision making left to the few? Because in vision making with many there will be the necessity of some kind of vote. Because as pastors we are in the job of creating winners. And every time you take a vote you create losers. You lead a spiritual movement by listening to the Holy Spirit, not to the crowd.
Reggie says to dream big. How would our community be different if the church did this one thing?
Question: What is a missional community?
Answer: Missional community- not house church. Under 2 dozen. A micro church, no governance they see themselves as missionaries to their community.
There are two models: 1.) They may move to poor side of town together. The get to know people, just be there and be apart of the community. Then they teach their members how to create intentional spiritual conversations.
Or
2.) A community of missionaries that lean on each other for resources and ideas about how to reach the community.
Both may:
Worship maybe once a month
Meet together based on the rhythm of the constituents
Be connected to a network
Be trained by established churches
They exist to help people get trained and get deployed in their community as missionaries.
Final comments: You're not going to meet a soul where God isn't at work in his life. Find out how to partner with God to bless that person. Introduce that person to Jesus and see where Jesus goes next in that persons life. That's what is so much fun, to watch Jesus and what he does with people.
Thanks for reading. God bless. PJ
Rev. Reggie McNeal
Dr. Reggie McNeal enjoys helping people, leaders, and Christian organizations pursue more intentional lives. He currently serves as the Missional Leadership Specialist for Leadership Network of Dallas, TX.
Reggie’s past experience involves over a decade as a denominational executive and leadership development coach. He also served in local congregational leadership for over twenty years, including being the founding pastor of a new church. Reggie has lectured or taught as adjunct faculty for multiple seminaries, including Fuller Theological (Pasadena, CA), Southwestern Baptist (Ft. Worth, TX), Golden Gate Baptist (San Francisco, CA), Trinity Divinity School (Deerfield, IL), Columbia International (Columbia, SC), and Seminary of the Southwest (Austin TX), . In addition, he has served as a consultant to local church, denomination, and para-church leadership teams, as well as seminar developer and presenter for thousands of church leaders across North America. He has also resourced the United States Army Chief of Chaplains Office (the Pentagon), The Chaplains’ Training School (Ft. Jackson), Air Force chaplains, and the Air Force Education and Training Command. Reggie’s work also extends to the business sector, including The Gallup Organization.
Reggie has contributed to numerous publications and church leadership journals. His books include Revolution in Leadership (Abingdon Press, 1998), A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders (Jossey-Bass, 2000), The Present Future (Jossey-Bass, 2003), Practicing Greatness (Jossey-Bass, 2006), Get A Life! (Broadman & Holman, 2007), Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church (Jossey-Bass, 2009), and Missional Communities: The Rise of the Post-Congregational Church (Jossey-Bass, 2011).
Reggie’s education includes a B.A. degree from the University of South Carolina and the M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees both from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Reggie and his wife Cathy make their home in Columbia, South Carolina.
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