pat loughery

Todd Hunter

Let’s talk about meanness in the missional focus.

We cannot be willing to hurt others in order to get our way.

3 things we cannot do to do missional without being mean:

1) You can’t strive to win. “this isn’t personal, but” means you’re about to get into trouble. what does it mean to lead a group of people who are supposed to be following somebody else? If we’re supposed to be following Jesus through the work of the HS what’s the leader’s role in that? if you’re winning somebody else is losing.

2) You can’t manipulate. In the em church world, we’re so afraid of manipulation, we’ve lost intentionality to do anything at all. tension== stress; intention== resolved in our will. focus. Manipulation, however, is to control or play upon someone by artful, unfair, or insidious means. To do those things for your own advantave. To give people an appearance of choice, but not a real choice in the matter.

This is tricky b/c neither can we be unintentional. As soon as you intend to be missional, there’s stuff that has to be done, to change, to do – and stuff that has to go away.l How do we do that ethically and well?

3) yOU CAN’T DO IT that starts form the basis of grabbing power. that’s what you all hate about politicians. nobody loikes being a target or beingused, even if it’s for a “good end”. jesus didn’t do this – how/why? he liveed in a god-bathed reality. a greater reality..

Personhood is not dependant on matter; how was Jesus simultaneously enormously affected by reality around him, but phenomenally ethical? he knew the kingdom behind the material world. he did NOT live in dualism- the storm was real, but behind the storm was the reality of the inventor of the molecules that produced the form.

What lies behind the known world is TOTALLY COMPETENT LOVE. If you know that, you’re totally safe – andyou create atmospheres of totally safe love.

3 things you mUST DO:

1) practice the golden rule.don’t treat oters as stupid, as some horrible person; the enemy; etc.

2) you have to operate out of the great commandmen. leadership is NOT judged simply accomplishment of taskss. but also the quality of persons and the quality of community that is created in the accomplishing of that task.

3) you have to relax. jesus said, ‘here’s what it likes to be missional – follow me and you’ll live freely and lightly. you’ll enter into rest.’ if you accomplish what you do by cdestroyng relationships, booooo.

Your projects and my projects are hardly ever God’s projects. WE ARE GOD’S PROJECTS. Even if you get this exactly right, no missional community you build will last forever. YOU WILL. What kind of person you become in the midst of this process WILL last forever.

q: so how do you handle dissonance, discipline?

a: i don’t think any of this means that we tolerate OTHER agents that are cereating harm in the community either.  I don’t want oters to do that either (just as i’m saying i don’t want me as a leadre to do that)

q:

Good discusssion around misunderstadings of missional, meaning ‘missionary, black/white…’.  e.g. james and john, calling down fire from heaven – they just didn’t get it; nor peter, nor judas.  he was able to pick his shots, hang out with them, tell them at times they didn’t get it…  remember in the garden, peter goes to cut off seravnt’s ear; jesus says, there’s a realkity behind this that’s way bigger than this.  there’s a larger reality than what’s hpapening in this board meeting, this discipline time, etc.