Tomorrow my cluster gets together to discuss another video from Redeemer’s Renew website. This one is the campaign overview.

In the first part of the video Keller talks about “movement dynamics”. This of course reminds me of when Kevin Adams and I sat across the table from Tim Blackmon and Chuck Dillender when they were just planting River Rock and Tim was going on about their new church being more of a movement than a church. Kevin slyly asked “will your movement have a budget?” 🙂

Keller talks about early days of Redeemer like many talk about early days of successful ventures. People were young, committed, giving their all, sacrificing for the common goal, etc. What he draws attention to is the distinction between an organization where people come in as passive consumers receiving a product vs. where everyone is in this together. It reminded me of the old aspirational tagline “every member a minister”.

This alone is probably the most audacious goal that Keller sets out in this piece. I don’t know Redeemer but from what I’ve heard the congregation is very young, many are single, many will come and go within 4 years either as students or young professionals, and there is within the congregation both a staff and a group of older, committed core. I imagine that transitioning a group like could only happen into the kind of thing he imagines only with some sort of revival experience happening. (I think about some of Keller’s talks in the fall of 2005.) If God doesn’t grace them with an extraordinary revival type experience I would imagine that in the three year transition they would experience some sort of numerical decline, possibly significant. From what I’ve seen in terms of large congregations that seriously challenge a consumeristic assumption within the church consumers do what they do, vote with their feet.

There are always upsides and downsides to this. You change the culture away from consumerism but there are also big hits. Morale can really suffer if you lose numbers. Momentum has its own vindication sometimes for better or for worse. You lose an audience of potential “true believers” among the broad consumers and you lose their networks. The dilemma reminds me of Jesus’ dilemma in the Galilee. You’ve got lots of folks who are only halfway getting what’s going on and they can be fickle, but you’ve also got the good things that size brings you: visibility, credibility, access, etc.

Keller then goes on to lay out three things: 1. the pastor pipeline, 2. developing lay leadership, 3. 7 day a week ministry space but all with continued one senior pastor and one elder board.

First let me say that I like this vision a lot. I think Keller is right that ministry need develops ministry leadership. The downside of a large congregation is that the centralization of the work inhibits lots of people using their gifts and he is also right that gifts are developed by their use, not just by the preacher talking about things. Doing generates prayer, skill development, just in time motivated learning, dreaming, new networking, etc. In a sense Keller wants to leverage the strength of the smaller church, even though 1/3 or Redeemer is anything but small.

When I was working with Haitians in the hills of the Dominican Republic with churches and groups from 10 to 200 people I was always amazed at how much leadership that model developed. As I work in this small congregation I’m always encouraged by seeing people step up to meet a need and seeing the good fruit that it creates in their lives, usually also with struggle, suffering, and sometimes some “authenticity” that might not be pretty.

What is also key is that what you get from such a movement is not only more leaders but leaders who are far more contextual than what conservative denominations tend to produce out of the center. This will stretch the church in many new ways and issues that are in the community will become opportunities for growth and conflict within the sites. Conflict isn’t fun but usually the best responses to the things in the culture come from conflict.

It’s good that they’re thinking 3 years to split into 3s with the plan of planting more still. It will be messy but gardening usually is.

The ministry space component is an interesting one. Again here in some ways Redeemer is transitioning to become a “regular” church. Brick and mortar can be such an asset and such a pain. Walls that welcome can so easily become walls that shield and contain.

When I visited in 06 the emphasis was on seeding their people into voluntary efforts in various benevolent enterprises around the city. I liked that vision and could see the shrewdness of it (ownership of ministries can be complicated) but also the possibility for networking. I’d love to hear from them some of what they learned through their previous model. I’m sure it’s a both/and situation where they’re looking forward to having space to do the kinds of things having space allows.

In some ways what I hear in this video is what I’ve seen in the church in general: there are reasons for the shape of the “ordinary” when it comes to churches.

Probably my most significant impression of the video was “this will either make Redeemer ordinary OR this can be the altar for a new revival”. Again, there can be some both/and in that, but despite how it looks the first option isn’t bad. Institutions have staying power and despite their liabilities what they offer to places and communities that exist in time is slow and steady positive impact. I’d love to see God do an amazing revival work through this effort, and that’s worth seeking in prayer, but those things are so rare and always so obviously the work of God’s Spirit alone.

If the fruit of this is more ordinary what I hope we see are lots of new leaders who look like the kinds of people I’ve seen in nameless churches all my life. Leaders who live quiet, godly lives that hardly anyone really knows about. Leaders who love deeply, give sacrificially, are flawed, are specialized and make the kingdom of God the kind of sneaky kingdom it has always been. God’s kingdom is a strange kind of thing that seems to lose every battle while still slowly, over centuries wins the war.