Corey Paxton

Here’s a promo of a book that just came out by a couple CRM staff in Denver on creating incarnational -missional community. Matt and Hugh lead Missio within CRM which mentors church planters while they have the option of earning a masters at Fuller seminary. Their community, Adullam, is doing some great stuff in Denver.

I had the privilege of spending a couple hours with Hugh on Thursday. I am hoping we can get to be better friends and partner together in tangible ways in the future. He has an inspiring calling and gift from God in his ability to serve and build relationships with people who are homeless.  I have a lot to learn from him.

You can find more about his ministry here.

In our conversation, I was most encouraged by hearing the joy he experiences in his calling.

Thanks for what you are doing and your reminders to the church that mission happens best through relationships, and is as much about our hearts as it is the people we are connecting with.

Leadership theorist, Peter Senge writes on why top-down efforts are limited for bringing about significant organizational change:

Why do we cling to the view that only the top can initiate significant change? Is it just our unwillingness to give up a familiar mental model? Is it the fear of stepping out of line without the imprimatur of the hierarchy? Perhaps, also there is an element of self-protection—the comfort of being able to hold someone else, namely, top management, responsible for the lack of effective leadership. There is no doubt that a CEO opposed to fundamental change can make life difficult for internal innovators, but this hardly proves that only the CEO can bring about significant change. At the very least, shouldn’t we be suspicious of the knee-jerk tendency of people in organizations to “look upward” and expect top management to fix things?”

Consider a different view: little significant change can occur if it driven form the top.

Hierarchical authority, as it has been used traditionally in Western management, tends to evoke compliance, not foster commitment. The more strongly hierarchical power is wielded, the more compliance results.”

the more we appreciate the inherent limitations of executive leadership in bringing about deep change, the more frustrated we are likely to feel, given the immense need for change [if we keep trying to change it from the top].

Have you ever thought about the God’s strategy to bring about change? God chooses to overthrow empires with fisherman?

The Ultimate Authority of the Universe chooses bottom up change.

So, if God is the King of the grass-roots movement, why does the church still want emperors? and why do we build empires?

If you have a couple minutes, watch this video to promo a book by Rick McKinley. This video communicates the mystery of Jesus’ kingdom invitation really well.

I’m always cautious, and even anxious when I hear language of “bringing the kingdom” because it sounds like we are in control of God’s kingdom. This does a great job of communicating that God’s kingdom is present all around us, and God is inviting us to participate in what He is doing in the world.

(I think this is what people mean by saying “bringing the kingdom,” but it’s hard to put language on it and this is often an easy way to say it); other times, I think we actually think we are in control of God

Tuesday, I got to catch up with one of my volunteer high school Young Life leaders. Mike has always been a entrepreneur. He started his own law firm in Roanoke, and has always been heavily involved with ministry since I’ve known him. We had one of those conversations that we had to cut off because it could have kept going the rest of the day.

I’ll share a few highlights from the conversation-

• Over the past few years, God has been giving Mike a hunger for a deeper experience with Christ than what he had previously known. God has opened up his heart to finding freedom and deeper intimacy in Christ and helping others to experience the healing of the Holy Spirit to break cycles of bondage, depression, and addictions.
• Since being opened up to this healing ministry, he sees much of the church as offering a powerless message of the gospel that keeps people stuck in cycles of guilt-grace-try harder-guilt-self loathing-grace-try harder- self-loathing-grace–the gospel we preach often just centers on forgiveness from the consequences of our sin, and not freedom from the power and bondage of our sin.

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