Alan Hirsch During Main Session

Alan Hirsch – Plenary Session of Exponential Conference '08

www.theforgotenways.org

• Organizations get mesmerized to conform and need a kick in the butt to change.
  
• We need to recapture the apostolic form of movement which is exponential.
  
• Church in the West is in decline in every setting
  
• Answer not found in new things, but in going back to find something lost in our ethos
  

 

4 Areas to Recover in order to Recover the Lost or Ancient Ethos

 

1. Absolute centrality of Jesus for the life of the People of the Church –
   
   1. Christology lies at the heart of the renewal of the Church
      
   2. We must radicalize in order to re-missionalize
      
   3. We don't look like Jesus, and we must recalibrate back to Jesus to authenticate ourselves
      
   4. Christology determines missiology that determines ecclesiology
      
   5. Jesus doesn't mix well with religion, just look at the NT… look at any church and ask "where is Jesus?"
      
   6. We have subverted Jesus out of Christianity (Catholics by statues, prayers, Mary, etc; many Western Evangelical Churches by our programs and structures)
      
      1. Rev. 3:20 – "How did Jesus get outside the church in the first place?"
         
      2. Christianity minus Christ equals Religion, Christianity plus Jesus equals Christianity
         
      3. Show me your Jesus and I will show your faith
         
         1. Keep the gospels from our children because if we really take the gospels seriously, they are dangerous, radical things. (He is saying this tongue in cheek to make his point) about how the gospels should really inspire radical living….isn't what Jesus really asks disturbing?)
            
2. Recovery of Discipleship as our Core Task
   
   1. Becoming little Jesuses – embody all that he stands for
      
   2. Embodiment and Transformation
      
   3. Movements can grow only in proportion into their discipleship (Jesus himself makes it hard to join the movement)
      
   4. Leadership is an extension of discipleship
      
   5. Consumerism is killing us
      
3. Recovering the Ethos/Structures of Apostolic Movements
   
   1. Movements are very different than institutions
      
   2. We need missionally responsive, culturally adaptive, organizationally agile, multiplications movements
      
   3. Movements are responsive to the people outside, template follows after mission, not in front of it. Movements:
      
      1. Mobilize the whole people of God – priesthood of believers (we have made it too professional) "Every Believer a Church Planter, Every Church Planting Churches" (Chinese mission statement)
         
      2. Are reproducing and reproducible
         
      3. Structurallly newtworked (avoid centralization of power and function)
         
      4. Employ Missional leadership
         
      5. Where are the other offices beyond "pastor" found in Eph. 4
         
4. Recovering an Incarnational-Mission Impulse
   
   1. Missional God
      
   2. Requires a Missional People
      
   3. Living Missional Lives