I’ve had the Wesleyan Covenant Prayer on my mind a lot over the past week:

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
Exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
To thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Thou art mine and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made of earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

And then this tweet from Mike Slaughter pops up today:

Feel you can’t have impact because of ur church size, location, resistant people, lack or resources? Gen. 28:16-17. No excuses.

Both are reminders I need daily.

TreeHugger has a post on High Speed Rail, while I’m not the train nerd my friend Rudy is, I do enjoy taking the train when possible (i.e. family trip to Chicago and a couple trips back to Iowa). Making a serious commitment to improve the rail infrastructure and introduce a real high-speed system is a good thing in my mind, but, as the article notes, if you going to do it, it needs to be done right.

Making Light has a nice summary of the Hutaree situation that happened in Adrian last weekend. Having not lived in Michigan during the first wave of militia activity, I find myself fascinated by this, as well as a little nervous, Adrian is just a 10 mile drive from my home – and also happens to be the location of my denomination’s Annual Conference. (Note to my brothers and sisters in the Detroit Conference: Please leave the camo and automatic weapons at home this year).

Donald Miller’s blog continues with it’s solid output – today he shared a short meditation on what Peter might have written to fellow believers immediately after Jesus’ crucifixion. I love the line:

“Perhaps he was a fool, perhaps he was mad, but he was mad with a love emboldened by an unseen authority that I simply cannot explain.”

He also showed pastors a little love this week (and yeah it feels a little self-indulgent to post that… oh well).

Miller also hit on a theme that has been a big part of my thinking in the last year or two – the whole idea of finding a common ground, the “radical center”, or the “third way” that moves beyond the divisive attitudes that are so prevalent right now. Miller’s article addresses the problem of “black and white” thinking. In a similar vein Mike Slaughter this week offered some thoughts on “The Way of the Cross vs the Political Divide”. I’d consider Slaughter’s article a must read, for thoughts like this:

“Christ compels us to tear down the barriers that create religious, ethnic, gender and national conflict. If it’s not about healing and reconciliation, it’s not the Gospel.”

I’ve also been slowly working my way through the book Follow Me To Freedom by Shane Claiborne and John Perkins and in there Shane writes:

“We can’t just write people off because we disagree with them. we need to start thinking ‘What is behind that?’ – even when we disagree [with] them or don’t particularly like their style. Even the Religious Right has leaders, albeit leaders some folks may disagree with. But if we aren’t careful we will write off all their followers if we don’t engage their message and the reasons that folks followed and are still following them. Jesus was always inviting dialogue with His critics. He was able to draw together a pretty eclectic dinner conversation. Look at His followers. He was able to bring to the same table a zealot revolutionary and a Roman tax collector. Zealots killed tax collectors for fun on weekends. What a mix… and all of them were being transformed into a new creation in Christ.”

I also stumbled upon this video (via Seth Godin). There is one word, as well as a gesture some might find objectionable, but if you aren’t easily offended check it out – the message of Taylor Mali’s poem is a great – and it’s always good to send some love to my teacher friends.

Good friends from college, Clint Twedt-Ball and his brother Courtney Ball have been doing great ministry in Cedar Rapids with their organization, Matthew 25. A recent article in Faith and Leadership, tells of their Block-by-Block program.

Rocky Supinger over at YoRocko.com offers some interesting thoughts on Jeff Jarvis’ book, What Would Google Do?. You will find Supinger’s thoughts in three parts: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. A couple key points he makes:

Churches model themselves after other forms of organization. They always have and they always will. The earliest Christian congregations were modeled after synagogues of the day. Most churches in North America today are reflections either of mid-20th century civic organizations or late 20th century business and and self-help and leadership movements. These models affect everything. Worship, education, polity, dress, outreach, marketing: everything churches do reflects models borrowed from other sectors of society.

I frequently am required to chase off skateboarders from the church property for insurance and liability reasons. Yet are these skaters not simply using the church as a platform for what they want to do, which is not just skate but also hang out and connect with one another? To protect ourselves, we have to chase them away; doing so may actually be causing us harm.

Communities aren’t waiting around for permission from churches to do their thing; we ignore the great stuff they’re doing at our peril, because, if Google is right, helping them helps us.

The church knows the lesson, but we are still having trouble living into it. The logic of “build it and they will come” no longer applies – we need to go to where the people are – bringing Jesus into the neighborhoods like Clint and Courtney are, or to the skater kids hanging out in the parking lot. I’ll confess that even I can preach & blog on it but still have trouble doing it, but that’s where we need to be, and we need to keep challenging, supporting, and encouraging one another to get there.

I don’t know the history behind the statement, but over a Sojourners there is a Covenant for Civility that is simple, Biblically-rooted, and speaks to the need for real conversation both in and out of the Church, instead of the shouting and self-aggrandizement that so often takes place. There is certainly a need for it on the macro level, but I also wonder about the micro-level of congregational life – could it be a covenant for Bible studies of controversial issues or even for committee work? (Maybe with slight adaptation). On a related note, I found out that Chuck Colson, who has signed the Covenant, has said that it doesn’t apply to Glen Beck, because Beck is a Mormon.

I’ve added Donald Miller’s blog to my feed reader and found it to be filled with all kinds of good stuff. This week, you can read about Nella’s Beautiful Story, a powerful reminder that life doesn’t always go according to (our) plans, but God’s grace has a way of brining light into the darkness and love is the most powerful force on all. He also writes on Changing Negative Character Traits and Letting Go of Cynicism (and, yes, Amy, I know you will find that a little ironic given my cynical attitude over the past week).

I couldn’t help but read Miller’s post on cynicism, without thinking about Conan O’Brien’s parting words, “Please don’t be cynical, it’s one of my least favorite traits… if you work really hard and are kind, amazing things will happen.”

Music for the week is by the Eels… you might remember them for their mid-90s song “Novocaine for the Soul.” I actually remember first hearing Mark Everett’s music on Rob Michael’s “All Alternative Friday Night” show on KDMG – though, I can’t remember the specific song that made me first think “Hey, this guy is really cool” (my guess is it was either “Hello Cruel World” or maybe “Fitting in with the Misfits” off A Man Called E). I haven’t done a great job of keeping up with the band over the years, but I did pick up Hombre Lobo a few months back and enjoyed it. The song and video, both, are worth taking a peek at:

Back from a break last week to attend/officiate my brother’s wedding in Iowa. Good times… of course the weird thing about going back and seeing people you haven’t seen for a while is that I find myself thinking, “Wow! They are starting to look old…” and then realize that they are probably thinking the same thing about me.

Kem Meyer shares a friend’s thoughts on using social media within the church. Some good points are made – 1. Most church folk aren’t actively using twitter 2. Most people outside the church aren’t going to randomly follow a church twitter feed. The solution, according to the author-

There is a lost and suffering society all around us without hope. A high percentage of them actually use Twitter and Facebook. Since I know they don’t have an interest following our church, I’m going to follow them instead. Using the search tools, I’m going to purposely follow anyone and everyone who posts anything on Twitter within 10 miles of our zip code. I’m going to do this with the prayer that some of them will in turn follow us. And even further that some of the people who follow the people we follow will want to follow us (confusing I know…draw a picture if you need to).

In all honesty, much of what is posted on the twitter accounts I’m now following is very objectionable. I want to lead old school believers to an understanding that not only is it okay for the church to do this, we’re supposed to. What I know to be true is the best way to fill your own cup is to fill someone else’s. Since I know these people are not going to come to me, I’m going to go to them.

I like the idea, and would add to it that I think there is value in listening to those “outside” (even if they are objectionable) simply for the sake of knowing what people are saying/doing/thinking. It is way too easy to get locked inside the church bubble and not realize that our experiences and perspectives can sometimes be very different from our neighbors. We can’t connect with our neighbors until we understand our neighbors.

Jeremy Smith has some thoughts on Thursday night’s episode of the Colbert Report. I had seen the part on Glen Beck, but I missed the interview with Mary Matalin.

(As a side note I’m actually glad I wasn’t writing last week so I could avoid the hype around Beck’s comments. I certainly disagree with what Beck was saying but I also think some people have gone a little overboard with their objections; it seems to me like their is a point where you just have to let Glen Beck be Glen Beck, fully expecting him to say things that are controversial and move on).

David Byrne writes this week on the topic of collaboration, he speaks of the challenge and benefits of collaborations, noting (in part):

Another reason to risk it is that others often have ideas outside and beyond what one would come up with oneself. To have one’s work responded to by another mind, or to have to stretch one’s own creative muscles to accommodate someone else’s muse, is a satisfying exercise. It gets us outside of our self-created boxes. When it works, the surprising result produces some kind of endorphin equivalent that is a kind of creative high. Collaborators sometimes rein in one’s more obnoxious tendencies too, which is yet another plus.

But the other fascinating thing, to me, in the article is Byrne’s comments on the songwriting process – I always assumed you generally started with the lyrics and built the melody around it, but Byrne (generally) does it the opposite way. There isn’t any deep meaning for “lesson for the church” in there just the personal revelation that the process is usually done opposite the way I always assumed.

This week at The Jesus Manifesto there was also some powerful thoughts on following the Abstract Jesus as opposed to the “real” Jesus who has a way of entering in, getting personal, and “messing up” our lives. Good food for thought.

RIP, Alex, thanks for the music –

Tony Campolo has an article on Making Matters Worse in Haiti, suggesting that in spite of the best of intentions and the good work that faith based groups have and are accomplishing, there might be another side we aren’t considering – that mission teams disempower the Haitians, keeping them from potential employment and fostering ongoing dependency.

Scott Couchenour offers 10 Questions to Lead from Your Strengths. Good stuff to chew on. Also this week a couple good posts at Church Marketing Sucks: Follow the Leader: More Jesus, Less Personality Pastor, focusing on avoiding the “cult of personality” that threatens to attach itself to those in pastoral leadership; and The Church as a Dream Factory or Do Factory – I’m with that author that it isn’t an either/or, at it’s very best, the church should be about dreaming God-sized dreams AND working to help build the Kingdom.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been fascinated by issues around church architecture; in that vein I came upon this article, which offers some important thoughts – first, the style of the building doesn’t seems to be important as condition of the facility, but also as they note, people don’t come because of the building, they come because of spiritual longing and personal invitation (an obvious point, but one that often gets forgotten). They also provide this analysis:

“The “third place” area is important. A “third place” area is a social gathering point outside of the two usual community environments, work and home. Those churches that remain at the cutting-edge realize that a third place area is growing rapidly in importance with society. Churches that provide these types of gathering areas are much better positioned to reach the unchurched people in their surrounding neighborhoods.

The gym fallacy. Many pastors hear from their members that building a gym will help attract the unchurched in their community. Our research, however, found the exact opposite to be true. In fact, one of the areas of the church that was least important to the unchurched was the gym. Church leaders that are considering building gyms need to understand that gyms, in general, serve their current membership and have little effect on attracting the unchurched.”

The “third place” stuff is interesting and something I’ve been thinking about for a while – especially how to offer a meaningful “third space” that is more than a coffee shop that serves the membership, but I’d never thought about the whole church gym issue before. It seems like that could be a third space, too, but maybe the focus around it would have to be about building relationships instead of just offering more programs.

Taylor Burton-Edwards points to the changing model of the US Postal Service which is aiming to create more decentralized points of service in the places people already are (grocery stores, pharmacies, convenience stores, etc), instead of the traditional single point of operation (the Post Office building). Taylor asks what the United Methodist Church might learn from this, especially when parallels can be drawn between the two institutions (lots of underutilized buildings in remote areas with the expectation that people “come in” instead of “going out” to serve).

I personally prefer the “marching band” version of OK Go’s This Too Shall Pass, but this one is certainly worth 4 minutes of your time as well:

Damien Kulash from OK Go also has an Op-Ed up on the New York Times about how music labels are against the very thing I’m doing here. The problem is, when I embed the video on my site, youtube doesn’t pay a royalty to the record label, but as Damien point out, if people like me don’t embed, the video doesn’t go viral, and people don’t find out about the band or the new music. I think the bottom line is if you find an artist you like on the internet, find a way to show them some love – buy the cd/mp3/etc., see them on tour, etc.

In my post on Craig Groshel I mentioned my concern with his suggestion for an amicable separation. I understand where he is coming from, and have had similar thoughts myself, but right now I’m trying to commit to this idea of the “radical center” that Adam Hamilton mentions. Hamilton’s analysis in Seeing Gray is great, and too long to post in full, but here’s a taste of where he’s at:

“Some in the political and social realm are speaking of a third way between the left and right as the ‘radical center’ that is able to hold together the best of the right and the left, and which forges something more powerful and true, and, in the case of faith, more authentically Christian, as a result.

“The radical center within the Christian faith embraces the evangelical gospel that proclaims that human beings are wounded by sin and are in need of saving, and that Jesus Christ is God’s antidote to our human condition. And it embraces the social gospel that seeks to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and recognizes the Christian’s responsibility for addressing the great problems of poverty, oppression, racism, the environment and war. The evangelical gospel without the social gospel is spiritual narcissism. The social gospel without the evangelical gospel remains afflicted by sin and holds, in the words of the Apostle Paul ‘the the outward form of godliness but denying its power’ (2 Timothy 3:5a). The radical center holds that the gospel is incomplete without both its evangelical and social witness.”

You can find Hamilton’s book here:
Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White: Thoughts on Religion, Morality, and Politics

Andrew Jones has offered his 5 Tips For Attending a Baptist Church Without Embarrassing Yourself. Seems like they’d work pretty well for most UMC’s too.

Over at bedeviant you can read Justin Wise’s thoughts on What Starbucks Can Teach You About God. I think there is a lesson for the church in there as well, but I’d be nervous about drawing the analogy too far, because there are already too many people who treat “church” like a commodity and expect the pastor to know their needs and respond to their preferences before they can even articulate them. At the same time, it is important to remember that basic premise that everyone wanted to feel valued, remembered and recognized.

Lifehacker gives some thought to What Managers and Freelancers Can Learn From the Grateful Dead. For me the take-away is look for creative ways to empower the people, so that they will not just “buy in” but expand the base. Maybe there is a lesson for the church in there, too. (I also look forward to the day worship services are bootlegged… “Dude, have you heard this Pentecost service from 2005 – it is amazing, and the organ on ‘O For a Thousand Tongues’ will blow your mind!!” – yeah, I know it would never happen, but I still have to hold on to some sort of rock-star dreams).

Keeping with the “lay empowerment” theme, Seth Godin explains how is it much easier to teach compliance than initiative, and in my feed reader this morning just before the Godin article was this photo posted by Jonny Baker [via trying to follow | photo via ivan amezcua]

Jeremy Smith points to the issue of people who feel pressure to fake being a Christian to gain social acceptance in their community. As he puts it,

“I’m much less insulted by the fakers than I am by the Christians who don’t express radical hospitality to other faiths/agnostics.”

Seth Godin also has some interesting thoughts on the power of zealots. He makes the case that given a broad range of perspectives (on any issue), the real power of the zealot is to get the middle to broaden or redefine the “center.” He writes:

“The people at either end have little hope of moving the masses all the way to their end of the argument. Instead, what they do is make it feel safer to change the boundaries, safer to recalibrate the compromise. Over time, as the edges feel more palatable, the masses are more likely to be willing to edge their way closer to one edge or another. Successful zealots don’t argue to win. They argue to move the goalposts and to make it appear sane to do so.”

The day I build the Treadmill Desk is the day I will destroy Jeremy Peters in the Virgin Healthmiles Program. (Meaning: it will never happen, but it’s still a cool idea).

The new Leno promo, featuring the Beatles’ “Get Back” has been re-edited by Team CoCo. I like this version (via Consumerist):

Conan also joined Twitter this week. In his first tweet, he reports:

“Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.”

Finally, for this week’s music selection, something that I’ll admit is incredibly wrong, but you still need to hear:

Craig Groshel (of Lifechurch.tv) is doing a series of posts this week on some of his thoughts related to the United Methodist Church. I’ve followed a little of Craig’s stuff in the past, but didn’t realize he had UMC roots himself, and served as an associate pastor within the denomination, until his desire to lead a new church start led him to leave. The posts are here:

1. Financial Resources (“People are more likely to join a new mission rather than an old denomination.”)
2. The Itinerant System
3. The Ordination Process
4. Apportionments
5. Cooperation & Mergers
6. A Liberal/Conservative Split

(I’ll try to link the whole series as the week progresses).
So far I’m not completely onboard with his critique, but it is important that we continue to wrestle with the points he is trying to make.

Update: As I mentioned before, I think Craig makes some important points, but I also think he is missing some big things too.

In Part 1 on Financial Resources, he is really talking about the “Rethink Church” media campaign, and while I agree completely with his point that “People are more likely to join a new mission rather than an old institution” I think he missed out on the fact that the whole point of Rethink is to focus on mission. My problem with the campaign is that it seems to be selling something that isn’t present in a lot of UM congregations.

In Part 2, he does name some real problems with the itinerant system. He doesn’t consider the “other side” that itinerancy represents an inherent check to congregations developing a “cult of personality” around a pastoral leader, and allows a sharing of gifts that he hints at in Part 5, but I confess that the basic critique he offers is valid.

In Part 3 on the Ordination Process, again there isn’t much to take issue with. Our process is long, complicated, and can be discouraging. It doesn’t always filter out those with poor gifts for ministry and can exclude those with amazing gifts. A better process is needed, but I can’t begin to pretend what that “better process” might begin to look like.

Part 4 on Apportionments was a little disappointing to me, especially based on the fact that someone who served for a period of time as a UM pastor is unable to really articulate “where the apportionments go.” Unfortunately “apportionments” are a very easy target – much like “taxes” – it’s easy to be indignant about how WE could do more if we could keep OUR money, until they realize what the money does. Just like no taxes = no schools, libraries, police, or roads; no apportionments = no (or far fewer) seminaries, leadership development, or global mission programs, etc. It also ignores the fact that OUR money is never OURS in the first place it is God’s first and foremost, and if we were really concerned about giving in the UMC and having enough money to fund local ministry let’s get serious about tithing instead of the 2-3% that the average Methodist gives.

Groshel’s take on cooperation and mergers in Part 5 again had some really good points to it. As someone who was involved in a conversation about potentially merging two congregations one major obstacle we have to address is our idolatry around buildings – for far too many people “church” is “bricks and mortar,” those emotional attachments are normal and understandable, but they are also slowly killing us. Because of the of our connectional system I think the UM church has the potential to be in a very powerful place if we got serious about developing a “ministry commons” where resources (including buildings, staff, programs, etc.) could be better shared; but again we have the obstacle of territorial-ism by clergy who are threatened by the idea of working together in collaboration. Groshel’s lifechurch.tv model of church is a very interesting one, and I really appreciate the commitment he has made to making resources easily and freely available. We would be better served moving in the direction he is pointing.

In Part 6 he argues the the church might be better served if the church divided. He contends that, “While the UMC prides itself in being open, many of my evangelical peers don’t believe that their conference is very open to them… If liberal leaders won’t support evangelicals, the denomination would be wise to allow them a way to gracefully exit.” Maybe there is a regional difference, or I’m biased because of my own perspective, but I don’t see “liberals” dominating the church – it seems to me that we are pretty equally divided and there is plenty of give and take on both sides. (I also would take issue of the distinction between “liberal” vs. “evangelical” – liberals can be evangelical too, assuming evangelical holds its core meaning of sharing and proclaiming the Good News). But to me the bigger point is that we are better together! I need my conservative sisters and brothers to challenge me on matters of personal holiness and I need my liberal sisters and brothers on matters of social holiness; uniting the two is what we are about as United Methodists. And make no mistake finding that balance is messy, complex, frustrating, and there are times when it would be so much easier to quit and go play in the sandbox with people who think exactly like you do, but I don’t believe that is God’s way. God’s incarnate love revealed in Jesus took him to the very people who didn’t like him, didn’t agree with him; instead of retreating maybe we need to be more committed to going to the cross for each other so that God’s love could be fully understood. For me the last couple pages of Adam Hamilton’s book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White really nails it, when he talks about the church of the “radical center” (unfortunately it’s too long to quote), but our strength is faithfully serving God in the middle ground, and we need both sides for that to happen.

Thanks again to Craig for raising these important issues.

The “other side” of The Blind Side. On Twitter and Facebook, I’ve mentioned my friend Marcus Zumwalt before – he (and his family) really lives out that Christian call to radical hospitality. Check out his latest post about the film and how in those exceptional, heart-warming stories, we sometimes forget about the difficult reality of dreams that don’t come to fruition.

Matthew Paul Turner has an interesting article about an interview he once had with Amy Grant, in which he was forced by CCM to get her to apologize for her divorce. Fascinating look at a certain subset of Christian culture, and a subtle condemnation of the CCM industry in general.

I tend to be a sucker for cover songs as well as music by the Talking Heads, so this week’s installment at Covered in Folk is especially entertained to me. Recommend tracks Bell X1’s take on Heaven, Robin Danar (ft. Jim Bianco) doing Life During Wartime, and Bruce Lash’s Psycho Killer. (And as much I loved the idea of 6 different versions of This Must be the Place, I realized I’m too invested in the original to give the covers a fair listen).

Julie Clawson has some great thoughts on Lent – short version – it’s not about denial, it about opening yourself up to God’s transforming power. I think she’s right on the money. Jonny Baker also points to some useful helps for Ash Wednesday (and into Lent) as well. I’m still in the process of exploring the 40 Days of Yes by CMS which he recommends, and the Ash Wednesday prayer by Christine Sine, is very powerful (and more than a little convicting). Baker also put up another “worship trick” this week and I’m totally drawn in by the idea – using filtered glasses to show differing theological insights (you’ll have to read the post the understand), but if really creative worship is your thing check it out.

Jay Voorhees picks up on a small controversy in the British Methodist Church by some comments by David Gamble, seemingly taken out of context to suggest he is proposing folding the British Methodist Church into the Church of England. As Jay points out, Gamble’s real point – how we need to put the mission before the institution – is an important one, of which we need to continually remind ourselves.

Another food hack via Lifehacker – grow your own onions.

As part of The Ooze Viral Bloggers, I recently had the chance to read Thy Kingdom Connected by Dwight J. Friesen. Dwight in an associate professor of practical theology at Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle, and the founding pastor of Quest: A Christ-Commons in Bellevue, Washington, and it is clear both these experiences inform his writing.

Thy Kingdom Connected looks at the role social networks play within the life of the church. Rather than looking at the specifics of networking tools like Facebook and Twitter, Friesen, insightfully examines the “big picture” of Scale Free Networks and how they are applicable to the life of the church. Drawing upon theology, biology, and sociology, Friesen makes the case that we need to rethink our conception of the congregation and the missional implications that ensue from understanding our fundamental interconnectedness.

Theologically, Friesen asserts, the Christian conception of God is inherently relational. He writes, “…only Christianity has a vision of God who exists in relationship before time – a God whose ‘being,’ as Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas says, is ‘in communion’; a God who moves relationally toward creation, now away from it; a God who is personally and actively involved in human affairs, not just setting things in motion. And we don’t just stop there; we believe that God created all that is out of love and for relationship, and we understand the very mission of God, as seen through the capacious narrative of revealed Scripture, to be the reconciliation of all things relationally unto God” (pg. 56).

And when we begin to consider that we each have importance and a place in this relational/networked kingdom that God has created, the missional implications become apparent, as Friesen notes, “As we begin to understand our interconnectedness, we begin to take on a shared mission: the mission of kingdom connectors is to actively participate in the ending of suffering of all kinds. Kingdom connecters know that when one person suffers, we all suffer, and that to bless one has untold ripple effects” (pg. 70).

Using this idea of a networked kingdom, the local church becomes a resource center with the goal of developing relationships. Friesen notes that each church should maintain its unique identity (traditional, contemporary, house, small group etc.), but the larger goal should be about connecting people with God and with each other, so that the people might be equipped to serve Christ in the world. As he says, “The church exists in relationship, by relationship, and for relationship. We exist to connect people with God, one another, and with creation in continuity with the capacious narrative of Scripture. Sometimes this means connecting people with a narrative so big and so beautiful that their lives find new meaning, redemption and hope. Sometimes it might mean connecting with others whom you personally wouldn’t choose to connect with. Sometimes this may even mean helping people who are a vital part of your church connect to a different faith community or ministry even at great cost to your own ministry. And we can do this because every local Christ-Commons understands it is dynamically linked together in God’s connective kingdom. The church doesn’t exist simply to propagate the church, rather the local church exists as a local expression of the reality of God’s networked kingdom” (pg. 109).

In a networked system traditional hierarchies no longer work, authority isn’t derived through position or power but in the ability to connect. Using Google as an example, Frissen argues that the role of connective leadership is to help people connect and build meaningful relationships, building bridges and revealing God’s reconciling work. Leaders in the church are “network ecologists” who help foster the life of the community.

Overall, Frisesen’s book is a great read. It’s deep – I found myself wanting to put it down after reading through each two or three chapters just to process everything he presents, and at the end of each chapter he presents some great questions for reflection and discussion, but it never felt overwhelming. The one (minor) difficulty I had was that it felt, at times, a little too “theoretical” to me, there were points where I wished he would have pointed to examples or provided a specific picture of what his vision of what church or pastoral leadership looks like in the networked kingdom. But it is largely written in such a way (especially with the questions) that the reader can fill in those gaps on their own.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Thy Kingdom Connected to review through Ooze Viral Bloggers. I will also receive a small percentage of proceeds if you click and purchase the book through the Amazon Associates link.