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Joyfully
following Jesus
we will cultivate
a missional
imagination
in every
congregation.

Events - Annual Sessions - Seminars

“If missional means anything,” said Alan Roxburgh, “it is asking again what God is up to; it is about finding out what God is doing on the ground here among us.” Probing the questions of what God is up to and how we should respond was at the heart of Alan’s all-day interactive seminar on Friday. At the invitation of the IN-MI Transition Team, Alan explored topics of change, transition, identity, mission and leadership in the church with the delegates and participants. The seminar was a time to talk about the fundamental questions of who we are as congregations and as a conference, and what we are called to be in today’s rapidly changing world.

Alan introduced himself as “a man from Liverpool”—Liverpool, England, that is. He emigrated to Canada when he was young and has spent his life studying, teaching, writing, consulting and serving as pastor for a number of congregations. He has a deep love for the Church and a passion for walking with churches as they find their way in our ever-changing world. His work has taken him around the world and into many different denominational settings. Alan’s wide experience and deep understanding of church dynamics were evident in the stories and insights he brought to Annual Sessions.

Alan began Friday’s seminar by asking participants to think about changes that have happened in society and in the church. On a timeline stretched across the gym, delegates and participants wrote down the major changes that have occurred in each decade from 1920 to 2008. Examples ranged from birth and death dates to world events. Reflecting on what people had written on the timeline, Alan said, “Change, in a broad sense, is nothing new, but the rate and depth of change that we are experiencing today is. Even change seems to be changing, and our old ways of operating don’t seem to be working like we expect them to.” Participants and dele-gates noted trends of accelerating change in church and society and a sense of having little control as the world changes around us.

The difficult thing about today’s change is that our internal maps—our way of seeing the world and responding to it—are being challenged. We don’t have language to understand and talk about what is happening in our churches and our society.

“It is difficult for us to respond as individuals, as congregations, and as a conference because that means rethinking our internal maps and even rethinking our identity,” said Alan. “We are in an era of discontinuous change, an era that requires not just a changing of the guard but also an internal transformation of how we think and act.”

So what do we do? How do we as churches and as a conference respond to the changes happening around us and among us? Alan’s advice can be boiled down to one phrase: “engaging the stories within us and around us.”

Alan explained that “we have to begin with a healthy conversation between us. This is not about leaders telling people what they should be doing. It is about getting people to talk to each other about what is really going on in their lives, in their communities, and in their churches.”

Cultivating a missional imagination in each church—the heart of IN-MI Conference’s mission statement—is not about strategic plans, bringing in experts, or perfecting mission and vision statements. It is about getting to the place where we can hear each other’s stories of change and transformation. It is about learning from each other and being inspired by each other and by God’s work among us.

What Alan was suggesting was not an easy solution, or a panacea for all that ails us, but ideas about facilitating a deep wrestling with who we are and what we are called to be.

“Too often in our churches we never make the space or time where we can hear from each other about what is really going on with us, what is really shaping us and where we see God at work,” said Alan. “Moving towards a missional imagination means being okay with ambiguity, okay with questions and okay with listening to each other instead of always preaching.”

The role of leaders, according to Alan, “is not to come up with a vision or a plan. Their role should be to help create the space for transformation, for people to share together about the way God is working in their lives.”
While Friday did not cover the nuts and bolts of what this kind of approach would look like, that will be the focus of the Pastoral Leadership Team Weekend with Alan, to be held Nov. 7–9 at Amigo Centre, Sturgis, Mich.

“I know that some of the ideas we’ve talked about today sound simplistic,” said Alan, “but the reality is that we hardly ever do it. We need to learn how to cross boundaries, even within the church, and really engage each other in a new way. This involves risk, but even failure can help us build things better, understand ourselves better and fulfill our calling better.”

(photo by Paul Shetler)