Archive for February 2009
missional vs. attractional
I hesitate to write those two words because those are specific to church people… and not just any church people, but church leaders describing organizational process. In anycase, if you fit into that category… then here’s an interesting article with Neil Cole and Ed Young, two leaders who sit on the opposite extreme of the missional/attractional spectrum.
The article says, “The contrasts between Young and Cole are striking: extrovert and introvert, megachurch and microchurch, centralized and decentralized. But what’s surprising is what these two leaders share in common.” When I read the interview… I can’t think of one thing that the two guys have in common. As a house church guy, I find Young’s answers ridiculous especially as they compare and contrast them in the interview. I’m not a big fan of blogging about church methodology, but thought this article was interesting.
Coming and Going
Two leaders. One mission. Two very different strategies.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Observing Neil Cole and Ed Young Jr. is a study in contrasts. The soft-spoken Cole quietly entered the vacant sanctuary where we were meeting. He lingered in the back for a while before anyone realized he had arrived. By contrast, Young burst into the room with a shout—every head turned. The sanctuary was immediately electrified.
Their contrasting personalities are paired with very different approaches to ministry. Ed Young Jr. is senior pastor of Fellowship Church, a seeker-driven congregation that began in Dallas in 1990. After surpassing 20,000 in weekly attendance, Fellowship Church is still growing with a highly structured multi-site model that uses video broadcasts of Young’s sermons. The megachurch now has four locations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and recently launched its fifth campus in Miami, Florida.
Neil Cole is a pastor and the director of Church Multiplication Associates (CMA), a “growing family of organic church networks.” Cole advocates a decentralized, micro-church strategy to reach the growing number of people who will never be attracted to a worship service. CMA began in 1990, the same year as Young’s Fellowship Church. In that time, Cole’s network has launched hundreds of churches in homes and coffeeshops across forty states and thirty countries.
living on the tightrope – man on wire
I had my Tuesday day off today – it has not been an easy discipline honestly. I’ve been challenged by Pete Scazerro’s [and others] rebuke for people to take proper sabbaths – especially pastors. So I’ve been trying to really learn to relax, take my time, keep the rest of the world away and live in an unhurried mindfulness of God.
So I watched a movie… at home. It was raining all day and taking very “spiritual” walks in the woods don’t happen in the rain. I watched this documentary called Man on Wire. It was really interesting and the temptation is to wonder what kind of personality would do something so foolish as to string up a tightrope between the World Trade Center and walk across. Insane.
But it was really intriguing to hear Philippe Petit share about how his dream was spawned and the passion he had for something so crazy, so out of the ordinary, something that could demand his life in the pursuit. During all the meticulous planning and the numerous setbacks, he said that he needed to remind himself of the sheer exhilaration he’d feel once he’s on the rope.
The logical question would be to ask why we don’t live with the same kind of reckless passion. But I think we all know why. I sense that most of us live life placidly and occasionally embark on some death-defying challenge that reminds us that we can live, really live. It’s as if we strive to live ordinary existences needing occasional moments of the extraordinary [just to keep us sane]. What if we tried living extraordinary existences needing occasional moments of the ordinary [just to keep us sane]. Maybe life would be different… incomplete thoughts… but a few reflections after a pretty engaging documentary.
Some quotes:
“If I die, what a beautiful death. To die in the exercise of passion.”
“To me, it’s really so simple, that life should be lived on the edge. You have to exercise rebellion. To refuse to tape yourself to the rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge. Then you will live your life on the tightrope.”
