1. FROM TRADITIONAL TO MISSIONAL

It is natural for us to seek routine and normalcy in our lives. This is true for us as individuals and for us corporately. We like to know what to expect. Even for those outliers who seek adventure and thrills, you will find an underlying foundation of routine providing an innate sense of security that allows journeys outside the boundaries of comfort. The challenge is that evangelism requires us to get outside of the established routines. 

We must actively seek to engage in new relationships with people who have different fundamental values from us. In the setting of a church, it also requires that we consider the mission to be more important than the tradition. If we are routinely engaging in social rites and rituals that bring us comfort in their familiarity but get in the way of reaching the lost, we need to shift our thinking. I am not talking about abandoning liturgical practices, rich traditions, or healthy church habits. But, you may need to think about how well you are explaining the meaning behind these practices as you do them so anyone visiting your church understands why you are doing what you are doing. 

I am suggesting you start asking why you do things in your church and why you do them the way that you do. Every time you get an answer anywhere close to “Because that’s the way we always do it” you will know you have run into a “tradition” vs. “mission” mindset. We should know exactly why we do everything we do, and we should always look at these things in the context of asking “How does this further the kingdom through Worship, Discipleship, or Evangelism?” In a way, this mind shift is a conglomeration of Random to Strategic, Us to Them, and Famine to Funding. The reality is that we need to be accountable for every bit of kingdom resources, including time, and how those resources are being leveraged for the three reasons for the church’s existence—reaching upward, inward, and outward.

2. FROM DEMOCRACY TO THEOCRACY

One of the most common questions I hear from pastors who are just beginning to install the operating system of Organic Outreach in their church relates to getting their governing board fully engaged. Invariably I respond with a question back to them that goes something like this: “How well do you know the motivations of your board members for serving?” Having served on many boards over the years, both church and secular, I have come to recognize that when you drill down to the core, you will find two primary motivations for people serving at this level of an organization – for the betterment of the organization or personal power, position, and prestige (ego). In a perfect world, every church board would be entirely made up of those who are purely driven by the first of these motivations—the betterment of the Church (yes – big ‘C’ church—the Church at large and not the individual church the board is directly serving). 

The reality is, that we all have a bit of both of these motivations, whether we are prepared to admit it or not. The problem comes when you have folks serving who are driven more by power, position, and prestige. This type of board member will always naturally default to various methods of persuasion to maximize the mechanism of democracy. They will often lobby other board members between meetings to build a majority faction supporting their position on a variety of topics. When this type of board member is allowed to engage in this way, at best you have a church that conforms to an individual’s personal wants and desires. At the worst, you have a board that becomes fractious and contentious, potentially leading to a split in the church itself. 

If you have a dysfunctional board, your church is not ready to even think about Organic Outreach. You have some foundational work to be done to shift the mindset of the board from democracy to theocracy. The board must understand that their role is to provide leadership to the church that is entirely from God and not from personal preferences. At Organic Outreach International we often encourage leaders facing this challenge to walk their board through the book, The U-Turn Church by Kevin Harney and Bob Bouwer. The litmus test for every decision of the board should be “How does this honor God, further His kingdom, and serve the Church?” At the end of the day, you may have one or more board members who just can’t/won’t/don’t get it. If that is the case, they need to be invited to serve the church in another way.

3. THEORY TO PRACTICE

What gets measured gets done. It’s not that everybody intentionally lets things slide if they aren’t going to be checked on, it’s just that when our plates are full, we naturally prioritize the things that we know we will have to account for and the others we will get to when we get to them … if we get to them. This is exactly why evangelism often takes a back seat in the life of the church. Even when we are diligently teaching the concepts of Organic Outreach, there is a danger of creating a culture that wholeheartedly embraces the One-Degree and Two-Degree Rules in theory, but no one executes. The intellectual understanding is there, but nobody is following through with changes in practice because they never quite have time to get to it because no one is holding them accountable. 

Even in the Outreach Influence Team (OIT), each ministry leader is called on to develop a “Ministry Action Plan” which outlines how they are going to replicate the monthly OIT meeting experience with those who work within their ministry. If the OIT Leader is not following up in one-on-one meetings to ask specifically what has been implemented and how the overall plans are working, those plans may never make it from a paper outline into practice. We must engage in Organic Outreach with relentless intentionality that goes all the way from conceptualization through planning and on to outcomes … rinse, lather, and repeat … until Jesus returns.