EnterMission - Rob Wegner

Chinese Starfishes

I posted here and here this week on the concept of open-source, viral, grassroots growth.  Today , I' want to give you a snapshot of what that looks like via a field report from the One Prayer church planting movement in China.  According to the book God is Back: How the Revival of Faith is Changing the World, the tatest stats put the Jesus movement in China at over 100 million. There aren't that many card carrying Communists in China!  Due in part to persecution, the house church movement finds itself spinning out a new church every time a church hits 25-50 people.  Notice, how Starfish plays out in this story.

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In a small tourist city on the Bohai Gulf of the Yellow Sea near Beijing of northern China lives a family of our church planters Daria Gu and Samuel Zhang. Daria and Samuel moved there at the invitation of a few local believers, who asked them to come and hold worship services in their town. Grandpa Bo, and older believer, offered his house to hold services. Our missionaries started their ministry. As a result of our missionaries’ work the number of believers doubled there in the first month and half. It grew from fifteen people to thirty and divided into two groups.

During the following months Daria and Samuel organized four more groups in the same area and that added another 40 people to their worshipers. Thus the ministry of our missionaries was now happening in six groups with a total attendance of about seventy people. The missionaries had their hands more than full. Six days a week they were conducting services in small groups. Nevertheless God had more plans with these servants of His!

One day Grandpa Bo was visited by his friend from a neighboring village and so he decided to invite Daria and Samuel so that they would meet his friend and share the gospel with him. So they did and Grandpa Bo’s friend accepted Christ as his personal savior. The next day he traveled back home as a new baby in Christ. All that our missionaries could do for him now was to pray for this new born Christian so that he would not lose his faith after returning home.

But our baby Christian didn’t even consider losing his faith!!! Instead he began to share it with his acquaintances and friends in his village. About four weeks later he called Daria and Samuel and invited them to come and visit him in his village. You see what happened there was that Grandpa Bo’s friend had started two Bible study groups with about six people in each and had run out of information he knew to share and needed help. He needed the help of more knowledgeable and mature Christians.

Now to the ministry of Daria and Samuel two more groups were added to a total of eight Bible study groups. Due to their overload of responsibility God raised two new leaders from among the more mature believers, who began to assist the missionaries in their ministry.

This story reminds me of the ministry of the early church, when the believers were scattered and shared the gospel just like our newborn baby Christian did and God was adding daily new believers to His church.

Please pray for the continuation of the spreading of the gospel in this region in China.

-submitted by Waldemar Kurz

On Pirates and the Jesus Revolution Part 2

Last week, the world watch as a few guys in a little row boat held off massive warship for the better part of a week.  In the last post, I noted that the solution came down to a few special forces sharpshooters, not a massive, full scale.

What do the Pirates,  Craigslist, Skype, Al Qaeda, and the Jesus Revolution have in common? They're all decentralized bottom-up, open source organizations that have confounded the established top-down hierarchy bent on crushing them.

Using the metaphor of authors, Brafman and Breckstrom, a spider and a starfish have similar structures.  If you chop of the leg of a spider, it dies. If you chop of the leg of the starfish, you get a new starfish.

I'm convinced that Jesus' revolution was designed by the Master to grow as decentralized, bottom up movement.  However, the church has made massive efforts to "spiderize" itself over the last 2000 years.

Companies like eBay are neither a pure starfish nor a pure spider, but a hybrid organization. They combine the best of both worlds -- the bottom-up approach of decentralization with the structure, direction, and resulting power of centralization and collaboration.

This eBay model is the model we are working on here at GCC and through EnterMission.  Here are some of our discoveries on Top Down vs Bottom Up

Top Down:   A Big Problem Requires a Big Solution.                                      Bottom Up: A Big Problem Requires a Small Solution and another Small Solution and another and another…

Top Down:   Start Organizationally                                                         Bottom Up: Start Relationally

Top Down: Provide What Is Standard                                                    Bottom Up: Provide What is Contextualized

Top Down: Need Based                                                                         Bottom Up: Asset Based

Top Down: Assumption Based                                                               Bottom Up: Assessment Based

Top Down: Co-Dependent                                                                     Bottom Up: Self-sustaining and Reproducible

What are your thoughts?

We Want To Hang With You For 2 Days

In just a few weeks, the senior management team at GCC is blocking out two days for some intensive mentoring for 24 leaders.  This isn't your typical fill-in-the-blank, workshop experience.  This is a highly relational, contextualized-to-your-setting, informal, incredibly interactive learning experience.  This is only the second time we've offered this.  We're keeping the registration coast at the same price as last year.  We've got a few slots left.   If you're a church leader, looking for a two day infusion of community and interaction with practitioners, not just theorists, check out Leadership Live.  We'd love to hang with you for two days!

On Pirates, Sharpshooters, and the Jesus Revolution

You've undoubtedly heard about the pirates in Somalia.  All afternoon Sunday, the good news about captain Richard Phillips rescue was reported on every news channel.  Too bad that only had that one picture of him to show.  :)

All last week, I was thinking about those pirates.  Prior to the special forces operation on Sunday, here's a snapshot of one of the BIG solutions that was sent out to handle the problem.

Impressive.  Now, let's look at the size of the problem.

A few guys in a dingy.  Disturbing, eh?

This is an example of what of what one commentator called, "The Power of the Weak. The pirates in their vessels are like mosquitos that can attack these massive military ships with relative ease and near impunity." 

If you ever been in a tropical setting, you know that little mosquitos can be a big problem. Ask my wife who contracted malaria during a summer in Uganda.

The picture of a tiny  lifeboat in a stand-off with  US warships speaks volumes. 

Our hearts broke, as an American captive dove into the water in attempt to escape, while the pirates easily reel him back in.  All the time,  these great warships, this massive military power,  watched the tragedy unfold, unable to cope with this small problem.

Don't miss the massive implications of this image.

Currently, these pirates have highjacked about a dozen vessels, are holding more than 200 hostages, and have successfully disrupted on of the world's major sea lanes.

What does it mean?

Intentional, strategic small interventions can have HUGE impact, for good or, as in the case of the pirates, for evil.

Conventional wisdom: Big Problems need Big Solutions.

Not so. 

Counter-Cultural Truth: Big problems need a small solution, then another small solution, then another small solution. 

These intentional, strategic small solutions can take on a life of their own and  topple HUGE imbalances of power.

The big warships couldn't solve this little problem.  The solution came down to three special forces sharpshooters. 

Jesus' revolution, the dastardly deeds of these pirates, and the sharpshooters final response actually share a common strategy.  

More on that tomorrow.