Gems from Organic Movements Conference

Gems from this last weekend at the Organic Movements Conference in Ontario, CA.

Curtis Sergeant (helped plant 1,000,000 simple churches in India): To help multiply disciples, ask them just two questions - how have they obeyed what they have heard, and how have they passed it on? If they haven't passed it on, stay on that teaching until they do. If it takes several weeks, find out if it's an understanding, opportunity, or obedience issue. If it's the latter, you need to deal with it according to the church discipline outlined in the Bible.

Disciple happens best in groups of 4-6. One-on-one discipleship is not most effective because much of discipleship concerns how we relate to one another. Much like in basketball, someone really good one-on-one, will not have the same skills and benefits playing on a team.

Neil Cole (author of Organic Church): Jesus was the ultimate expression of the Ephesians 4:11 gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. Because Christ lives within each believer, we have all the potential of the gifts latent within each one of us. However, only one or two may become our primary role/function. Leadership teams should hold people with different primary roles to better reflect the glory of Christ.

The gifts are not given to us but through us to the rest of the body. And there are different measurements and capacities for these gifts.

People can equip others in the gifts only after maturing through growth, calling, and circumstances.

Alan Hirsch (author of The Forgotten Ways): Communitas is the intense community experience. It usually happens through experiencing liminality together. Liminality is the experience of being pushed to the margins and put in danger, often seen as rites of passage in many cultures. We often squelch this important process in our Christian fish tank - controlled environments that prevent Christians from being touched by the rest of the world.

A good example of this: 80% of students in high school youth groups leave their faith in college. We have put them in the artificial environment of the fish tank instead of helping them risk.