Comments on: Leadership Thoughts

By: jason

jason — Wed, 30 May 2007 01:14:11 +0000

That was close Mark. I was about to email DD about my “concerns” over your statements. LOL

So you starting the google doc?

By: Mark Begemann

Mark Begemann — Wed, 30 May 2007 01:03:28 +0000

not trying to cop out either, but this has pretty much run its course for a comments section (a collaborative Google doc might be interesting), so i’ll just state something for the record. i’m not against church membership, obviously, since we’re members of FBC. nor do i want to be a member of multiple churches or think that is practical. i just think it’s more of a cultural necessity (common to most cultures) than biblical mandate, but i’m officially undecided (as with most issues). i spend more time with believers from other “churches” at work than i do with fellow members of FBC so i think about this a lot. communication and transportation barriers aren’t what they used to be in the 1c.

By: jason

jason — Tue, 29 May 2007 05:24:12 +0000

I’m back from the weekend trip down south…
This isn’t meant to be a cop out but I think the more appropriate hermeneutical question is why would we assume global/universal/cosmic church when it is not specifically referenced?

I ask it this way b/c it is clear that the herm of simplicity would give us just cause to use a natural reading of a text to consider it is a reference to a local body. This should be magnified when we recognize that the letters are written to a specific destination to address specific issues in a locale and are not, in any instance, theological treatises. This is significant in my mind, because not one single document in the NT is recognized as some sort of theological treatise. They are occasional writings, to real people in real places.

For us, with your reference to LifeConnection Olathe, etc, those would not be independent churches. How we’re looking at operating those would be additional sites of one church. One church, multiple locations. But that’s just how we’re viewing these, mainly because we plan/intend on launching additional churches as well, that will be independent of LifeConnection.

By: Mark Begemann

Mark Begemann — Fri, 25 May 2007 17:31:09 +0000

man, so much we could go into here… trying to pick a few key questions… not necessarily asking for specific answers to each…

since the short answer is no, it implies you are restricting yourself in some respect to one congregation or from all the others, yeah?

90% seems high, so i’ll question the most obvious example(s) to hopefully show that others could be questioned as well. why is it that when the NT references a locale with the word church we have to assume that “church” only includes that locale? why can’t it be read as “the [members of the global] church [who happen to reside] in Ephesus”?

which church was Paul a member of?

LifeConnection Olathe and LifeConnection Independence… different churches?

By: jason

jason — Fri, 25 May 2007 04:03:39 +0000

good question Mark. My short answer is, “no, you couldn’t.” First off for me is biblical reasons, that’s an entirely foreign idea to the NT. The focus in the NT is on connecting to a local body. In fact, in the NT over 90% of the references to “church” is a local reference, not a cosmic reference.

Second for me is a practical issue. (it’s late…i’m going short) It just doesn’t seem to work out practically. There are a lot of issues here and I just haven’t seen this work out practically. So that really won’t be an option in my mind.

BUT, I will also say that this could be a descriptive and NOT a prescriptive thing too. That is, I don’t think this is a central core issue and so if Church X differs from Church Y on this one I wouldn’t think it’s an essential disagreement, just a difference in methodology. So this is how we’re going to handle it, but I wouldn’t hate on someone who does it differently. I want to hold this in an open hand right now.

whatchou think?

By: Mark Begemann

Mark Begemann — Fri, 25 May 2007 03:49:45 +0000

late on this one and could write a million things, but here’s one question/comment…
can you be a “member” or “partner” of more than one “church” if you fulfill all of the “requirements” of the “covenant” or whatever you call it?

By: tiffany

tiffany — Thu, 24 May 2007 00:15:02 +0000

membership is something we’ve been having a little trouble with at GC. we want to make “membership” mean something– to have a responsibility and benefit attached to it instead of just a name on a role. and i think we’ve thought up some good ways to make it meaningful, but the demographic we’re kinda targeting are anti-commitment, so membership is really scary for them. we’re trying to work through those things, but it’s hard. we don’t want to make membership mean nothing, which is what some in this age bracket want.

Complex issues.

By: Jon Ralls

Jon Ralls — Wed, 23 May 2007 14:25:36 +0000

Jason,

Here is the link for the book called “The Starbucks Experience”. It has some great principles about not only coffee (no prune juice sorry) and the expectations of its partners.

By: stephen

stephen — Tue, 22 May 2007 19:55:01 +0000

Looks like a great book Mike. Thanks.

When we launched Mosaic Arlington, we too wanted a word that expressed “working together for a common cause” so we also used partners. That word has worked okay for us, but we still get the religious people thinking we are with TBN or another fund raising ministry. And my lawyer brother thinks it’s a little misleading (since partners usually have a full vote in what we do…and that decision making process falls to our elders).

Anyhow, it’s funny you write on this today b/c as of this summer Mosaic Arlington will transition our “partner” word to “staff” (this allows us to fall more in line with Mosaic LA while also conferring that leading here is very important/serious/rewarding.

I trust partner will work will for you guys! (Who knows you may end up franchising LifeConnection all over the world!). Have fun.