futuristguy@missionaltribe


Healthy Ministry Systems and Structures-Part 2 of 3-Systems Integrity and Evaluations


May 14

Posted: under Gathering, Planting, and Enterprising, Organizational Systems Design, Toxicity vs. Sustainability.

Ministry Systems Integrity

Any church, ministry, business, or agency that wants to train DiscipLeaders needs to evaluate the integrity of its systems and structures first. And, if toxic deficiencies are discovered, those need to be addressed - or at least started toward significant resolution - before implementing any kind of mentor/apprentice system.

We simply should not expect interns to save a failing organization - though interns undoubtedly have much they can contribute to its vibrancy and vitality. And we should not subject interns to an unhealthy ministry setting. That borders on misuse, if not abuse, and likely also implants some “toxic DNA” into the interns’ perspectives.

I believe this so strongly that, if I were In Charge of Everything, I would not allow interns into an organization where its leaders refuse such an evaluation of ministry system integrity, or where they slack off in addressing problems discovered during an evaluation.

I assume that the less open to scrutiny or solutions an organization’s leaders are, the more open they are to abusing anyone associated with them.

This does not mean that I’d write off organizations that don’t have healthy enough systems in place yet. However, their current need would be for redemptive and restorative work to bring the organization up to a reasonable level of standards for what their systems should be, not attempting to replicate what systems they have into anyone prospective DiscipLeader they would mentor.

So - that may sound all fine and dandy, but it leaves many practical questions about an internship site certification assessment that identifies the organization’s core systems and tests for “structural integrity” in ministry:

  • What areas should be considered as necessary for a minimum threshold of system health?
  • What additional areas are needed for a comprehensive system?
  • What are the standards for evaluating whether there is sufficient development and integrity in these various areas?
  • Are these standards quantitative, qualitative, or both?
  • Are the standards of “healthiness” different, depending on the organizational paradigm or the methodological model for ministry, or are they universal?
  • What biblical expectations for organizations of disciples must override any other standards set by the business community, denominational officials, or emerging organizational development models?
  • Who should conduct such an evaluation - are insiders objective enough to set aside their assumptions to see the strengths and challenges involved?

.

The Importance of Mobilizing Disciples into Ministry

The one recommendation I have for both biblical and “best-practices” principles in a systems-oriented evaluation is the “Model Mobilyzr Church” from http://mobilyzr.com/. Check their website for a range of core issues in healthy versus toxic ministry systems and resources, and especially see the series of links below on the Model Mobilyzr Church profile.

Disclosure: I previously worked for Mobilyzr as a ministry strategist in 2007-2008. One project I had was writing the Model Mobilyzr Church profile. Its principles and applications were developed directly from material written by PLACE/Mobilyzr ministry founder Jay McSwain, in his book, Are You Committed? Connecting God’s People to Meaningful Ministry. The profile of evaluation principles I developed from his book was designed to fit a range of traditional, transitional, and “new-edge” ministry models and methodologies, and a range of approaches and practices within orthodox theologies. Although the Model Mobilyzr Church is not in the form of a checklist, its profile does interweave very practical ways to identify system integrity issues and, often, ideas for correcting problems. Also, I do not receive any remuneration for linking to mobilyzr.com, Jay’s book, or the Model Mobilyzr Church.

I strongly recommend the perspective of Mobilyzr and its sister organization, PLACE Ministries. Also, I know they consistently work to upgrade their products, and that they avoid promising what they cannot yet deliver. They seek to practice what they preach. I refer people to Mobilyzr for helpful resources because their toolsets are integrated around how to:

  • Connect God’s people with meaningful ministry through identifying their giftedness and areas of passion for service.
  • Equip, empower, and encourage them in their best-fit ministry.
  • Develop them as leaders and the entire organizational system for sustainable multiplication of ministers and ministries.

In my opinion, if a Christian enterprise does not have ministry mobilization of disciples as a core commitment, I believe it is already proving both its lack of overall health and that it has no business at this time in attempting to supervise ministry interns from either an inside or outside program.

In systems that do not mobilize disciples into ministry, the designated “leaders” typically: (1) do everything themselves, (2) only allow their “chosen ones” to serve, and/or (3) misuse the service of sincere volunteer ministers for their own misguided “leadership” vision, purposes, and goals. All three of these are manifestations of quenching the Holy Spirit by denying the gifts given to people within that gathering. And quenching the Spirit is indeed a most serious issue of accountability.

How to Evaluate Your Organization’s Systems Integrity

Here are links to the overall principles that Mobilyzr recommends for planning, evaluating, and ensuring ministry systems that are sustainable, both through positively mobilizing God’s people and through preventing abuses. Other tools from Mobilyzr offer practical resources for improving the quality of systems in a church, ministry, or agency.

1. The Model Mobilyzr Church. Introducing core values, sustainable systems, customization, tracking changes, and budgeting consistency.

2. Naming and Promoting Core Values. Overviewing biblical values required to implement an intentional, complete, integrated process to connect God’s people to meaningful ministry.

3. Sustaining Integrity in Ministry Processes, Systems, and Structures.Implementing practical principles for healthy systems, such as: strength-based service (instead of “slotting” people into roles where anyone could do the job), clear job descriptions, team-based ministry, mentoring, sustainability, systems improvements, ministry infrastructures, accountability, new ministry development, missional development, conducting background checks, periodic evaluations, supervision, and ministry multiplication.

4. Customizing Ministry Placement, Training, and Communications. Assessing gifts, ministry interests, and spiritual maturity level before placing any volunteer (or staff) into ministry positions; customizing the ministry role and ongoing training for people from a variety of learning styles and maintaining confidentiality in data and communications systems.

5. Tracking Quantitative and Qualitative Changes. Balancing both being Spirit-led and being intentional in upgrading organizational systems, and using regular evaluations of the “environment of empowerment” - responsibilities, risk-taking, and unconditional support - to assess the church overall and its individual ministry teams.

6. Budgeting Reflects Priorities from Core Values and Sustainable Systems. Budgeting specifically to fund equipping resources, training, and sabbatic leaves. Creating a clear and comprehensive system for internships/externships. Some of the other detailed sections contain general principles of openness and accountability with financial systems - a crucial feature to identifying an overall healthy or toxic system.

7. Here is a link to read/download: Introduction and Chapter 1 - “Is the Church on Steroids?” - in Are You Committed? Connecting God’s People to Meaningful Ministry by Jay McSwain.

Any church, ministry, or agency leaders who believe they are beyond the need for evaluation, training, and oversight themselves in order to supervise others have already proven by their lack of humility and teachability that they are currently incapable of leading others in healthy growth or ministry development.

How to Identify Your Organization’s “Redemptive Purpose”

Not everything in our organizations should be about finding the deficits and excesses, and fixing them. Important as a systems integrity evaluation is, it needs to be counterbalanced by an understanding of the organization’s providential “redemptive purpose.” I define redemptive purpose as the unique “spiritual capital” that God has implanted in a specific church, ministry, agency, business, culture, or individual. It reflects God’s intent and design for that entity, and includes its history, mission, context, and potential best future options.

I suspect that many times, an organization strays from a deep understanding of why it exists, and why it exists in the specific place it is planted. And this may lead to problems in the organizational systems, because its leaders have lost their focus on God’s providential purposes. Recapturing that sense of redemptive purpose may help set things back on course, but it will not automatically correct internal problems, remove toxicity, and/or promote health. Nor can it change external circumstances that may require continual course adjustments because the culture and context of the organization do not remain what they were when the organization was founded.

If you are interested in more details about how to identify the redemptive purpose of an organizational entity, culture, or individual, look into the emerging discipline of appreciative inquiry. This approach to communal discernment focuses on identifying what is positive and constructive in a business or organization, and amplifying it - not on identifying its flaws and problem-solving them.

Next post: Part 3 - Sustainable DiscipLeader Systems introduces my systems design terminology. It also shares principles for selecting and certifying qualified sites, mentors, and other leaders for various kinds of DiscipLeader mentor/apprentice systems (e.g., arts/creativity, general character and specific gift-based ministry skills, and sustainable strategies for Kingdom contextualization).

This series is cross-posted at my main futuristguy blog.

Comments (1)

Healthy Ministry Systems and Structures-Part 1 of 3-My Background in Systems Design


May 14

Posted: under Gathering, Planting, and Enterprising, Organizational Systems Design, Toxicity vs. Sustainability.

Series Introduction and Overview

A recent guest post from Dr. Margaret Jones tackled some important issues for training leadership and addressing issues of spiritual abuse. I may eventually respond to each of the five “cluster questions” I posed there. However, I felt I should at least explore issues of systems and structures for mentoring next generations of DiscipLeaders. (DiscipLeaders is my own term, and I mean it to emphasize that ALL who follow Jesus Christ as disciples are automatically designed to be leaders through their life, their gift-based ministry, and their relationships.)

So, this series on Healthy Ministry Systems and Structures will run at least three posts.

  1. This first post gives my background in organizational development and systems design.
  2. The second post links to webpages on http://mobilyzr.com/, an important source for conducting an evaluation of systems integrity for your church, ministry, or agency. The delay between Parts 2 and 3 gives you a time gap to read and consider the material from the mobilyzr.com links, and conduct a basic evaluation on how well your organization seems to be doing for integrity of systems and structures, processes and procedures.
  3. The third post offers specific suggestions for starting a ministry internship or mentor/apprentice system. It draws from three different plans I have designed for sustainable and duplicatable systems: one for experiences to hone interns’ ministry skills and character; one for mentoring next-generation artists, creators, and writers; and one on sustainable strategy and ministry skills for culture-readers, change agents, and futurists. (I’ll see if I can blend principles from all three into one coherent approach. But if it looks like it’s becoming too long, I’ll split it into several posts.)

I am raising these topics right after Dr. Jones’ guest post on spiritual abuse because:

I believe an organization that has not evaluated its system integrity and begun addressing deficiencies does not have the right stuff to be mentoring next generation leaders responsibly. An organization with low system integrity is at high risk of inflicting spiritual abuse on its leaders, members, and ministry interns.

I hope this series will give constructive frameworks for health ministry and mentoring systems. These are crucial to the survival of existing churches, ministries, and agencies, and expansion of the Kingdom! I will post the second part of the series immediately, and the third part as soon as I can, depending on time and energy coinciding.

My Background in Organizational Development and Systems Design

If spiritual gifts and ministries are where our “work” seems like play, then I must have a providential gifting package related to organizational development! I have vivid memories of my first major systems design job. My role related to conference organizing. It involved creating a system for scheduling 1,600 students into as many of their top choices as possible for 5 different workshops with a total of over 60 teachers, some of whom had limited time availability and others who let us choose their time slots. And then I had to train a team of schedulers in how to apply this system - thanks Al, Leslie, and Robyn! It could not be done by computer … because it was high school, in “old school” times, and we didn’t have access to computers in those pretechstoric time.

Yeah, that was my first big gig in systems design. I was 16 at the time. When I was 40, I designed what apparently was the first-ever U.S. seminary training on HIV/AIDS ministry offered for academic credit. It involved three weekend conferences, each on a different theme and with multiple main sessions and workshops. This series utilized the expertise of over 50 instructors who averaged something like 9 years of experience in ministry to people infected or affected by HIV. (Most of whom I knew personally from national-level work in this ministry arena myself since the late 1980s.) It also involved developing all the schedules and volunteer plans, plus creating over 200 pages of resources in three notebooks. That was in 1996 - 15 years into the HIV epidemic - and it was still a startling missing link in terms of church ministry during that era.

Maybe all that detail wasn’t necessary for most readers, but for those who do require documentable expertise, perhaps that shows enough “street cred” for me to write on this topic as a combination practitioner-theoretician-theologian.

I’m not sure I ever viewed projects like that one, or organizations in general, through a mechanistic framework. That’s because I believe a set of multiple factors shapes the outcomes, and if any of those elements change - especially the human element - then the intended outcomes cannot be guaranteed. No one taught me that, that’s just the way I always saw it. As I’ve come to understand since then, that perspective involves a framework that is more organic than mechanistic, and a methodology that is more interconnected complex systems than purely analytic. (My beginnings in organic systems and ecology go back even farther than my systems design experiences, but I’ll save the story of that passion, research, and practical experiences for another time.)

And so, I’ve come to see that “O” for Organic is about Optimizing the cOmbination of relevant elements for the best Output, while “M” for Mechanic is about Maximizing the aMounts of set inputs for the Most output. (I just made that up on the spot. Not perfect, but I still kind of like it!)

A Decade of Sustainable Systems Design Plans

Much of what shaped the ideas in the next posts on healthy systems and mentor/apprentice programs comes from three major projects I’ve developed over the past 12 years. Some of the ideas come from even earlier periods in my thinking, but the initial proposals date from 1997 through 2003 - with multiple revisions and upgrades to them in the years since.

The first source comes from 1997. I completed an extensive proposal for creating “MentorCenter Networks” to disciple next-generation artists, creators, and writers. It contained specific criteria, structures, and processes for selecting and developing mentors and interns. The design called for the first interns/trainees to become the next mentors in turn (if interested, capable, and qualified by sufficient spiritual maturity),and some of them could be trained and certified to transplant the entire system elsewhere. That gave the approach an edge for transforming what could otherwise be just a one-time, short-term series of meetings into an ongoing, long-term sustainable and duplicatable system.

The second source comes from reflection on my own Theological Field Education (TFE) internship at seminary in 2000-2001. I was supposed to serve in a church plant as a “concept and design guy,” which involved conceptualizing and designing all dimensions of what I was then calling a “post-postmodern-friendly church.” Today I’d probably describe the concept and design activities as something more along the lines of “organizational historian, cultural interpreter, learning styles consultant, and systems designer and developer.” The post-postmodern-friendly aspect I would now describe with equal verbosity as a “culture-current, futures-oriented, intercultural-context, multiplication-structured, organic-paradigm church.”

What these were called wasn’t as important as the fact that this experience turned out to be far more disappointing than engaging. At least my deconstructing it afterwards led to at least two things I consider very redemptive. One was an original system for integrating multiple cultures into an “intercultural connection zone” that was “welcoming and transforming” for all. Another was an extensive critique of the TFE system. That very disheartening experience also motivated me to apply for a job as the seminary’s TFE administrative assistant when the position came open in 2004.

Disclosure: Serving in that position gave me a direct opportunity to share suggestions for improving the quality and consistency of the TFE promotions and materials, processes and procedures, systems and structures. I shared with the Director some articles I had developed on internship systems, with the explicit agreement that “In sharing this material with the TFE program [...] I retain the right to use the same material in any training and mentoring programs I may eventually implement.” Hence what I’ll write from in Part 3 is material I am responsible for creating and stewarding, even if it was initially in response to my TFE experiences, and even though some of my ideas were adopted in the updates to their program.

The third source comes from an extensive proposal I created in 2003 for “Marin Century.” I live in Marin County, often acknowledged as one of the least churched counties in the U.S. In terms of discipleship, this locale needs more plowing, sowing, and watering than of reaping. And - just my opinion - that kind of preliminary work may need to be the priority for several more generations, as this setting really does seem to be a classic cross-cultural missions frontier situation.

The Marin Century proposal offered systems for developing a 100-year-plan for greater systems health, spiritual maturity, and transgenerational sustainability in Marin County churches and ministries. It suggested structures for equipping an initial intergenerational, interdenominational team of adult men and women to move toward spiritual maturity, and for training them in practical culturology, contextualization, and futurist skills. Their legacy of this long-term learning-and-serving community would be to:

  • Apply those spiritual formation and ministry strategy skills in the current context.
  • Pass them on through investing them in next generations of DiscipLeaders.
  • Release those next generations to adapt the plans to their own emerging contexts as they discern it.

Thus, Marin Century would implant a multigenerational strategic plan and skills training system that could be implanted, and continually adapted and re-implanted.

Next post: Part 2 - Systems Integrity and Evaluations shares some opinions on why potential ministry internship sites should undergo evaluation. It also gives an overview and links to www.mobilyzr.com as an important source for conducting your own evaluation of systems integrity for your church, ministry, or agency; and introduces the complementary process of appreciative inquiry to identify an organization’s “redemptive purpose.”

This series is cross-posted at my main futuristguy blog.

Comments (1)

Everyday DiscipLeaders 2-Rod Miles (Part 2)


Feb 25

Posted: under Gathering, Planting, and Enterprising, Profiles of Missional Disciples.

Part 1 introduced Rod Miles as a missional pastor and church planter. It showed how he learns like a crosscultural missionary would in this missional setting, and how he stretches himself and listens strategically. A Profile Addendum: Marin as a Missionary/Missional Setting provided more background on his cultural setting of Marin County, California, and showed how it differs from many places in North America as a locale where post-Christendom manifests in spiritual rather than skeptical forms. Part 2 concludes this profile by focusing on how Rod emphasizes making grace, liturgy, and narrative theology comprehensible to disciples and spiritual seekers.

Grace and Centered-Set Preaching

In March 2006, Grace Church of Marin was birthed, after a few years of preparation work. It’s still a fledgling church, but it was well named: Grace is a focal point. Rod Miles, the church planter and lead pastor, continues to work at discerning how to make this enterprise successful by being sustainable in the long run, and at trusting in God’s grace to give him sustenance and perseverance.

On the theological side of things, I’m challenged to a different level by Rod’s deep understanding about grace. He consistently speaks of grace as something that every person needs, rather than as something we Christians have and others don’t. Also, he’s passionate about making sure his teachings don’t follow what he sees as the troubling trend in contemporary sermons toward moralism (just being “nice”) and toward living by the strength of human will power. Those ultimately lead to legalism and should never be accepted as a substitute for the life that is Living-Word-oriented and Spirit-led-and-empowered.

Although Rod’s perspective on grace has long been on my radar, a month ago, I finally saw that it’s a great illustration for the concept of the “centered set.” That concept pops up sometimes in semi-technical discussions at Missional Tribe. Here is a comment I posted January 19, 2009, on the group wire for “Searching for Bereans,” in response to the following question from MT member Joanne:

Hi all,

Am very thankful for the rich discussion here, and think I am beginning to understand more (am having a little bit easier go of it, trying to put things in my own words, which must mean I am beginning to understand better).

In any case, I do have some more questions - this is from a couple of days ago [...] I found this sentence in a series describing what missional is; website is http://missionaltribe.org/a-working-description-of-missional.

“Missional sees the church as a centered set rather than a bounded set.” What do these terms mean?

My response summarized a lot of what I’d seen on this subject from Rod, so I’ll quote most of the wire post here:

Hi Joanne and all … I can give an introductory thought or two on centered set vs. bound set, as I “just” happen to be working on a “missional profile” post about my reformed theologian pastor friend Rod Miles, and what I’ve learned from him. A bit more detail in the eventual post, but for the time being, here’s The Big Picture.

As I understand it, a bound set focuses on what divides a specific group of concepts, objects, or people from other items. It’s about figuring out the boundaries or borders for the group - what/who is in the group, and what/who is out of it. So it’s about what differentiates us.

A centered set focuses on what brings us together, despite our other elements of diversity. It’s about figuring the integration point(s) or areas of overlap among members of a group. So it’s about finding common ground.

Without ever using the terms “bound set” and “centered set,” my friend Rod talks a lot about the concepts. In some more traditionalist views, the gospel/grace is “something we have that everyone else needs.” That sets up an us-them mentality that we have the goods and no one else does. Instead, he believes we need to take the approach that “the gospel/grace is something that everyone stands in need of, us included.”

When we start working through some of the implications of this, the differences in approaches aren’t exactly subtle any more. The bound set - we have the gospel/grace and we’ll give it to you - leads to a sort of exclusive/exclusion mentality that can be interpreted by outsiders as quite contentious and arrogant. The centered set - we all need grace - leads to a more inclusive mentality that can be more easily interpreted as humility that keeps us on the same common ground as our neighbors.

Missional seems to require a far more “we” mentality as opposed to other approaches that seem to have an “us/them” mentality. And the countercultural “we” approach of grace doesn’t mean we accept everything as okay, but we can still learn to embrace every person and treat each and all graciously, regardless of who they are and what they do. I appreciate that kind of perspective, so perhaps Rod’s view of grace-is-for-all is part of why we’ve connected so well over the past few years. As he’s said, “When we say, ‘All of us need grace,’ that is a welcoming and safe slogan.” It fits with my understanding of a “welcoming and transforming church,” where we welcome people and help them on their journey to pursue Christ and be changed toward Christlikeness.

Making Things Comprehensible for Spiritual Seekers

Another thing Rod is committed to is making the liturgy “comprehensible.” As a member of the Presbyterian Church in America, Grace Church of Marin emphasizes the historic gospel and liturgy. The liturgy is a gospel re-enactment that moves through recognition of our separation from God due to sin, to reconciliation with Him through Christ. As the liturgist, Rod leads by linking the sections of the service together with commentary that sets up what is going to happen next and/or explains why it is important.

His intentional efforts to “frame” the flow of the liturgy make the theologically-rich story underneath the liturgy more accessible to spiritual seekers. For instance, in one service I visited, Rod explained the “Call to Worship” as a holistic view of praise and judgment: Everything will eventually be put right in the realms of heavens and earth and people, and this redemption of all things will bring praise to God.

Over time, a process that emphasizes being comprehensible leads to an understanding that is potentially more comprehensive. And I think a comprehensive theology is absolutely critical to having a holistic perspective, and a holistic perspective is absolutely critical to having a missional mindset.

Some may think it an oxymoron to combine missional, reformed theology, and liturgical worship style. However, I think what can make it work together coherently is when liturgy is wedded to a narrative theology framework (even if it isn’t welded to narrative theology as if liturgy is the only possible right worship style). The narrative approach interweaves conceptual theology with concrete actions. Historical accounts of people show forth character qualities that demonstrate themselves in real-world actions. The liturgy stylizes all this into a symbolic set of interactions, where deeper meaning can grow over time as worshippers reflect on the continuity of God’s character in showing grace and mercy to His people in general and to them as individuals in particular.

Also, I think that those who are steeped in narrative perspectives generally tend to be more missional. This is because a storying approach to Scripture emphasizes tribes, cultures, nations, and civilizations - and how both individuals and groups of people are often reached with God’s revelation through crosscultural encounters. By tracking with the Bible’s primarily narrative approach to laying out the history of God’s interactions among people, we have a built-in bias that is missionary/missional and crosscultural.

On a sidenote that isn’t really a side issue, there are definitely reformed approaches to theology that are not narrative and really aren’t all that missional, even if they are about “reaching people.” For instance, I once heard Rod graciously but clearly critique a particular reformed-theology evangelism movement as being:

“… fear-based, not Jesus-centered. It presents a proposition, not a person. There is no application of the gospel to life in it. It is reductionist, only dealing with heaven and hell. There is no present value of the gospel for a life of overcoming. We prefer to talk about the story of redemption, and how we can fit in.”

So - back to Rod and Grace Church - in my opinion, a narrative-missional-crosscultural framework that is “seeker comprehensible” is far more helpful than is a typical “seeker-sensitive approach” where a theoretical principle is presented and then there is talk about how to apply it. (I guess that’s a fairly technical subject. Maybe I can address that sometime, from a perspective of learning style theory and why the ways we construct our services and communications make a substantial difference in setting up how people absorb and apply the messages presented.)

Also, I suspect the narrative and seeker-comprehensible approaches make for a more realistic pace in the worship service. For instance, I’m intrigued that there is typically a relatively long greeting time at Grace Church, in comparison to many other kinds of churches. It’s at least five minutes, which actually gives people time to get into a reasonable length conversation with guests and/or friends beyond an obligatory handshake and hello. It’s counterintuitive, but I think the longer greeting time seems to help make the conversations less awkward, rather than more awkward.

(I have difficulty with the fast pace and short spans for various items in a typical 60-75 minute church service. In those, I feel I’m a spectator who is warp-speeded through a series of spiritual aerobics. First, there’s a micro-concert of worship songs, interrupted by a couple of bulletinfomercials, with a whack-a-mole jump-up greet-time, followed by a theological pep-talk, and perhaps a blipvert prayer or two. All of which makes me reel, as if I’ve been on a holy-rollercoaster or a spiritual speed-date with God, and not in a sacred/set-aside space for learning, asking, participating, reflecting.)

From a missional perspective, there’s a lot at Grace Church to think about in how to construct a service that creates more opportunities for participation than in just simply watching, listening, and occasionally moving. This may be worth spending some concentrated time focusing on, sometime …

Missional as Seen from the Eyes of an Outsider

Huh … who would’ve thought … the person I’ve known the shortest time in this initial group of eight may end up getting the longest ministry profile description! Maybe that’s because Rod represents someone who is intentional in being missional, contextual, and countercultural - three themes that I find essential for individual disciples and for gatherings, and it takes a while to describe all that.

Also, it took a reasonable amount of space to show the kind of courage and faith it took for an outsider to move to the far edges of spiritual post-Christendom culture resident here in Marin. My other friends I’m profiling as missional DiscipLeaders have the opportunity to serve more from the advantage and vantagepoint of already-insiders in emerging cultures. But - in the multicultural world as it is unfolding - we need all kinds, because no one kind alone will do.

I’m not sure Rod would exactly consider himself in the “emerging” vein of ministry, but he certainly seems to live out the principles of crosscultural ministry in the “edge culture” here, in terms of his conscious and conscientious attempts to listen to the culture and still be countercultural. After all, as Rod says, “Historic Christianity with its message of every person needing grace and redemption is VERY countercultural in a locale like Marin County,” which has for decades been full of people who’ve shaped the global culture shifts!

In fact, I’ve seen Rod intentionally stretch himself (and let God stretch him) in almost every way conceivable in order to understand and serve both this community and his congregation as a church planter. I appreciate Rod for his humility in being a learner-leader, and in his risk-filled choices to put himself outside his comfort zone. Craig Combs, a member at Grace Church of Marin, says of his pastor:

Rod says he’s not a natural risk-taker, but he puts himself out there in ways that he cannot succeed without grace. Most pastors aren’t willing to do that. To me, that reflects he really does believe in grace, because his whole life and ministry depend on it. I have this sense that often, the people God calls weren’t the first people He asked, just the first to say “Yes.” Rod said yes.

And for that “yes” and with all his follow-through, Rod is a hero to me …

Missional Metrics -

Compositing a Profile of Christlikeness

From themes in my encounters with Rod I see demonstrated that missional DiscipLeaders who are church planters and pastors …

  • Put themselves is situations of discomfort on purpose, for the ultimate purposes God designed for those people in that place.
  • Implant themselves for the long haul, even with the willingness to be there the rest of their lives, if God so leads.
  • Do not assume that just because they speak the same language as the locals that they speak the same “lingo.” They invest themselves in listening deeply and for a long time in order to hear and interpret their adopted community BEFORE launching.
  • Stay committed to the formation of disciples who will engage in personal and social transformation. Thus, they reject what I’ve termed a “slash-and-dash” approach to quickee harvesting of supposed “converts.” Instead, it’s about long-haul discipling, and letting the people they disciple become the church’s evangelists.

Do-It-Yourself Section

  • What qualities in the life, ministry, and message of Rod Miles seem to you perfectly suited for new paradigms and cultures that are unfolding in what was previously Christendom?
  • If you could interview Rod about what it means to him to be an everyday disciple who is a learner-leader, what specific questions would you want to ask?
  • Take some time to check out the Grace Church of Marin website, and pray for Rod, the other leaders, and the people there. And perhaps you’ll find it as intriguing as I do on how well they blend theology, theory, and practice for a missional approach. I’d especially suggest studying at least their statements of:

Comments (1)

Profile Addendum: Marin as a Missionary/Missional Setting


Jan 23

Posted: under Gathering, Planting, and Enterprising, Profiles of Missional Disciples.

Yesterday I posted Part 1 of an Everyday DiscipLeader profile that included this quote about Marin County and Christianity:

From a survey done in the mid-1990s, [Marin County] reputedly does have one of the lowest (if not the smallest) percentages of active, church-going Christian population of any county in the U.S. - equivalent to somewhere between the percentage found in Japan and Taiwan. Other than perhaps one or more Catholic churches in this county of 250,000, probably the largest Christian gathering is a Pentecostal denominational church with about 700 people.

Matt Stone asked me what the percentage of Christians here was. I’m not able to follow up the original sources at this time, but I did spend a few hours trying to track down notes. Here’s what I found out, and hopefully this will clarify and correct some aspects of my quotation. So, as best as I can reconstruct it from memory and notes, this is where the estimate on Christianity in Marin County comes from and it still shows the unusual context in which I live. And this may have interest in terms of missional research and some of its difficulties.

In the mid-1990s, one of the local churches here conducted a survey. The closest I can tie it down timewise is 1995, 1996, or 1997. Because I interviewed someone in July 1997 who spoke of this survey and it sounded at the time like relatively fresh statistics, I think it may have been done that year.

As I recall, the survey was run the week after Easter Sunday, and the survey team contacted every “church” listed in the Marin County Yellow Pages. They asked just one question: “How many people total attended your services last weekend?” The responses provided the base for some statistics.

I’ll get to that in a moment. But first, you need to know that the term church is in quotes because the Yellow Pages here still list nearly every kind of religious group in the section on Churches. The most recent AT&T Yellow Pages includes in 36 Christian denominational variants. It also listed 10 other groups in the Churches section: Baha’i, Buddhist, Buddhist Soto Zen, Gnostic, Interfaith, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Moslem Mosque, Religious Science, Unitarian Universalist, and Unity. Only synagogues are not listed under the Church section.

Around the same time, the local Marin Independent Journal newspaper ran an article on “Spirit Rock,” a Buddhist meditation center with presentations by spiritual teachers like Jack Kornfield. The article included information on attendance to show how popular the center had become.

Okay, so here is a quote from the 1997 interview I conducted with a local church leader:

And this county is a place where Christians are 3% of the population. Sunday morning, 6,500 people will be in all of the evangelical churches in Marin County, population 250,000. But over 8,000 people from around this area will be here every weekend for a New Age service called “Spirit Rock.” That’s not going to happen in Fort Worth, or Louisville, or Dallas - yet. It eventually will. Anyway, I think the things that could be learned and taught in this cultural setting now can be taught anywhere in the United States 20 years from now. Our location is strategic.

I don’t know how many responses the survey team got, nor how they determined what an “evangelical” church is. But 6,500 evangelicals is closer to 2.5%, so the full meaning of the 3% figure isn’t clear. Was that the absolute total of those going to Christian churches, or just a rounding-up from the 6,500 figure? Also, the fact that the survey asked about attendance on Easter Sunday might inflate the percentage since there is likely some residual of the adage, “twice a year Christian,” with church-going behaviors on Christmas and Easter. But anyway, that survey is where the famous 3% figure comes from.

So, where did I get the figures to compare Marin to Japan and Taiwan?

That was something I added myself in about 2003 when talking about Christianity in Marin County. It’s meant to demonstrate that this is a missionary setting - perhaps shocking some into realizing that this kind of “unchurched” place actually exists in America. And what is the significance of this county being that close in percentage of Christian population to some “never-been-churched” countries like Japan or Taiwan?

Anyway, in 2003 a friend of mine did a presentation based on her research into Christianity in Chinese countries. She was working with estimates of the Christian populations being 5% of mainland China, 5% of Hong Kong, and 2% of Taiwan. I checked out some missiological statistics books around that time and found that Japan had (as best I can remember) around 1% Christian population. I don’t have access to those books at this time, or I’d check it out to confirm. But I did find an article on Religion in Japan which seems to confirm the 1% to 2% figures. And I used Japan as a marker because of the following piece of information, which comes from an article I wrote in about 2003 about the mid-1990s survey:

When cross-checking church-goer survey results with a listing of doctrinally sound Christian churches, [the team] found that perhaps only a total of 1.5% were theologically conservative, evangelical Christians.

I don’t know at this point if this 1.5% is an additional piece of information, or was just my rounding off of some of the original survey results as the memory of the actual statistics faded over time. At any rate, it fits more with the estimated percentage of Christians in Japan in the mid-1990s to early 2000s.

Meanwhile, I’ve corrected my blog post to state that the active/evangelical Christian population here in Marin County in the mid-1990s was somewhere around the percentage found in Japan or Taiwan.

I apologize for being a bit sloppy about this material. Talking about research is difficult, especially when you only have access to final results and not to any clear description of the process used or an exact listing of questions used. And if it was hard enough to get clarity on a rather informal survey done in the mid-1990s, then consider that I find a formal, commissioned survey done in the mid-2000s to be even more confusing! Consider this article which summarizes the results: Marin County, California Survey on Spiritual Values by Diana deRegnier.

According to her account of this phone survey of 502 Marinites, 26% claimed to attend church or other organized spiritual service weekly or more often. So, you would expect 40,000 in the pews on Easter Sunday in the mid-2000s, whereas 10 years earlier, there were only 6,500 of the population of about 250,000 sitting there. Hmmm … I often talk about how “the ways we word our questions precondition our answers.” And it appears there is a probable flaw in research method here: The question list apparently did not distinguish among types of “spiritual services,” and since this county is known for having one of the highest percentages of a county population attending 12-step and recovery groups, the attendance figures are skewed upward. There are about 200 recovery group meetings per month, and many consider these as a “spiritual service.”

So there you have it: around 3% attend church or evangelical churches on Easter Sunday in the mid-1990s. Even if that has doubled over the past 10 years, it still illustrates the main point: Marin County is a missionary setting.

Perhaps another time I can provide a more qualitative profile of this fascinating place where I’ve lived nearly 20 years. Maybe some of the topics would help in understanding roles of spiritual research in missionary/missional settings.

For instance, I talk about the serious “metaphysical syncretism” going on among some churches here with paganism, Buddhism, and/or Gnosticism.

Or what it’s like to live in a spiritually polytheistic and postmodern culture.

Or what it means for Alpha, church planting, apologetics, church gatherings, and everyday conversations for us as followers of Jesus to be among people who embrace spirituality instead of act toward it with skepticism as their core epistemological stance.

Or questions about why, when people here are so evidently spiritual seekers, and many theologically conservative churches are seeker-sensitive, there seem to be so few “finders”

Or musings on how what appears to be hardened soil may indeed be quite fertile, though it just needs significant aerating and working over time - and how it makes sense for missional/missionary-minded disciples here to consider a 100-year plan that challenges three of four generations to implant themselves for an incarnational presence here, to plow, sow, and water - and not worry so much about the reaping.

Interesting?

Interested?

Comments (2)

Everyday DiscipLeaders 2-Rod Miles (Part 1)


Jan 22

Posted: under Gathering, Planting, and Enterprising, Profiles of Missional Disciples.

Summary of “Profiles of Missional Disciples” Series

I picked eight people for my initial set in this series of Profiles of Missional Disciples: Andrew and Debbie, Rod, Joshua and Kristen, Shannon, Jessica, and Dave. These are the friends who immediately came to mind when I thought and prayed about “the million dollar question” posed in Willow Creek’s Reveal self-study book: What would I do if someone gave me one million dollars to invest in maximum Kingdom impact? My first thoughts were about people I personally would want to invest in, not programs or products I would spend money on. And these eight men and women are learner-leaders/multiplier-mentors I am confident in to direct the course of the future in their corners of the Kingdom. I have no doubt they will continue shaping more generations of disciples who will shape disciples who shape disciples, because that quality of multiplication is already demonstrated in their life and lifestyle.

Meet Rod Miles - Missional Pastor and Church Planter

Some of the friends in this series I’ve known for as long as 15 years. I’ve known Rod the least amount of time among this group, just over four years. But we’ve met together for a few hours of discussion every few months about local culture, life, and theology and I’ve learned a lot from him in that short time. I see Rod as a missional pastor in a missionary setting. And to profile even some of how he is missional, I need to give some background on why this is a missionary setting that calls forth cross-cultural sensitivities.

Missional Pastor in a Missionary Setting

Rod is the founding pastor/church planter at Grace Church of Marin. The Miles family came to Marin County, California, in 2004 to plant a church. This county just north of the Golden Gate Bridge creates a faith-stretching experience of culture shock for almost all church planters. For most, it is a cross-cultural enterprise because Marin’s cultural realities and spiritualities are so unlike what they are used to, and few seem to thrive in it. It requires not only being missional and implanting into a neighborhood, but being a missionary who sets aside The Usual Assumptions and stays humble enough to learn before being entrusted to lead. Not all settings are this difficult to navigate, but my theory is that we all can learn a lot from those who are led into the extremes. And Marin seems to have been a concentrated dose of post-Christendom culture for at least the past few decades - though becoming more “spiritual”/embracing than “secular”/skeptical in orientation.

Cultural Realities

Culturally speaking, Marin has been home to a significant number of highly recognized paradigm shifters in just about every field of academics, business, ecology, entertainment, and technology. And joke all you want about California being considered the “Left Coast.” But remember the underlying truth that people who are here, or their forebearers, ended up here because they “left” behind what they didn’t like or felt too ordinary in order to forge their way out West. So, those who are here often have inherited a pioneering spirit.

And indeed, this has been an epicenter for the creation and exportation of the new “global culture” of pop culture, media, green development, etc. Over the past century, Marin has been home to many of this country’s recent and next-edge intellectual, socio-cultural, and financial elites. (For example, Howard Rheingold, Anne Lamotte, Eric Erickson, George Lucas, Isabel Allende, Ram Dass, Philip K. Dick, Joan Baez, Frank Herbert.) In fact, it seems it could be a capital city in the Empire of Postmodernity. Culture and spirituality are inseparable here. And wealth is a factor as well - according to the 2000 census, Marin had the highest per capita income in the U.S., at $44, 962. People here get so many props and have so many props that they certainly don’t seem to be interested in a Savior - and yet, they are deeply spiritual … perhaps because this is about as close to the Far East as one can get from the continental U.S.

Spiritualities

“Everybody here does religion. But historic Christianity is shockingly foreign to Marin, as much as Zen Buddhism would be to someone from Mississippi.” ~ Rod Miles

In my nearly 20 years here, I’ve had only three discussions with atheists or agnostics. Many other conversations or drive-by listen-ins involve people who have some kind of system of spirituality.

Yet for all its spiritual focus, Marin is not a particularly Christian or even pro-Christian place. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Often enough I’ve overheard and read overtly anti-Christian statements where Christendom kinds of behaviors were blamed for all sorts of social problems from the environment to the economy to “low cosmic consciousness.” And true to form for post-Christendom people, they often like Jesus but really have a problem with Christians, as witnessed by a fleet of (r)evolutionary Darwin fish stickers, and the bumper sticker I’ve seen on multiple cars: “Lord save me from your followers!”

From a survey done in the mid-1990s, this place reputedly does have one of the lowest (if not the smallest) percentages of active/evangelical Christian population of any county in the U.S. - not even 3%, which puts it near the range of percentages found in Japan (1%) or Taiwan (2%) and less than Hong Kong or China (5%). (See the Profile Addendum for more details.) And other than perhaps one or more Catholic churches in this county of 250,000, probably the largest Christian gathering is a Pentecostal denominational church with about 700 people.

Also, by comparing several local reports on religion around that same time, it was clear that more Marinites and guests went to meditate at Spirit Rock - a huge boulder situated in a grassy field - than went to all the churches in the county combined during a typical week. And that trend doesn’t appear to have changed much in the last 10 years. Eastern practices like Buddhism and Tantra in their pure and Americanized forms flourish here, as do Western alternative spiritualities like Course in Miracles and paganism, and global traditions of tribal eco-spiritualities. Enlightenment-era alternative religions like Christian Science are dying out here.

And so, church planters who think they will “rescue” Marin County for the Kingdom by importing their brand of church from elsewhere generally get a very rude awakening. Marin presents a different reality in religion, and, when it comes to church planters, this place has a reputation for “chewing ‘em up and spitting ‘em out.” Numerous church plants here have faltered or failed over the past few decades - and I believe two main reasons are an unwillingness by leaders to listen to the local culture, and their inflexibility by importing and implanting a church model that doesn’t fit here. Often, church planters move on within a couple years, their Marin experience becoming a line on their resume. But, sadly, they’ve often swathed through a quick layer of harvest which then gets left aside to spoil when the planter departs. So much for commitment to a setting and sustainability, it appears, which means it probably wasn’t a very missional endeavor from the outset.

However, for church planters to come here and survive, they need a compelling spirit, both in the missional/missionary and pioneering senses of that term. Rod arrived here with both. Here are some ways he’s lived them out, and some things I’ve learned from him in our journeying together.

Stretching and Shining, and Listening Strategically

“Everybody contextualizes. I listen to what questions local people or groups are asking, and seek to relate the gospel to them.” ~ Rod Miles

When I think of learner-leader lessons from Rod’s life, I think especially about his balancing what I call “stretching” (functioning past our comfort zone) and “shining” (functioning within our strengths and giftings). He also exercises intentional listening to culture, in order to be both relevant and countercultural.

Given Rod’s background in career and ministry, you might expect him to take a more traditional perspective of pastor/leader as “vision-caster.” (He used to work in the banking industry with financial securities accounts, which would seem to be a very linear kind of a profession. And his church denomination is Presbyterian Church in America and its theology is Reformed - which can sometimes turn out quite rigid and yet the PCA seems to encourage a significant amount of innovation in church planting.) But Rod has not followed a typical leadership template. Instead, he embodies his faith as a “vision-carrier.” He doesn’t just point people to where they should go or tell them what they should do. I see him living it out himself first. For instance, he connects with people in his neighborhood and kids’ schools through coaching a sports team. Also, in recent months he’s spoken with community members who are dealing with crisis from financial reversals - as a former banker, he can provide a distinct level of understanding of those issues and their personal, family, and spiritual implications. The conceptual and ideal are consistently backed up by embodying the concrete and real. Rod didn’t just create a strategic plan, he lives strategically.

A typical visionary leadership approach to church planting involves a crash course of developing a team in just six months before “the launch.” Also, even if you have a pioneering mindset, it’s quite easy to arrive with preconceived methodological models in place, and you hit the ground running to implement plans developed off-site, before you were even living in your new home culture. (And given the unusual characteristics of Marin, one’s previous home-base culture was seldom in sync with that of the new!)

Rod had the pioneering spirit to come here, as have others before. However, he assumed little about how best to plant a church here. And although he’s lived in the Midwest, Northeast, and South, he didn’t attempt to superimpose onto here the ministries designed for there. Instead, Rod took the route of a cross-cultural missionary. This required him to work far slower, longer, and deeper. During his first two years here, he served with CityChurch in San Francisco, one year as an intern and another as an elder. (He’d already been an elder in his church before moving here.) And all the while, he continued his path as an “Everyday DiscipLeader” by studying Marin cultures, interviewing local insiders, developing networks of relationships, and strategizing how best to create a church start-up here.

Actually, we met because Rod wanted to listen. Rod did something done by no other church planter I’ve been aware of since the early 1990s. He conducted extensive personal interviews with pastors and other church leaders in the county, to find out more about the cultures and the Church here. Certainly others have done at least that. But then, one of his interview questions was always, “Who else would you recommend I talk with?” And then he followed up on those suggestions - every one of them. Someone referred him to me.

I believe I’m known for speaking forthrightly, and I hope I’m known for investing significant energy into discerning so I can speak forthrightly. And so, for some, one conversation might give them more than their fill of me. And yet, Rod and I have continued meeting on at least a quarterly basis for four years now. I can serve him as both a “culture reader” on the local scene, as well as a “person of peace” who welcomes his presence.

The “visionary leader” kinds of church planters I’ve met have more typically arrived here with preset strategies and plans, created before doing any kind of significant on-site research. Rod’s done it right to create a firm base for ministry that is missional and cross-cultural. I suspect it has cost him in some ways during the short run, but I also expect it will prove the wiser investment in the long run. After all, he’s still here, going into year number five in a place known for confounding planters who are intellectually bright, spiritually sincere, and initially enthused. But you know what? “Success” isn’t about IQ, EQ, GQ, or SQ. It’s about faithfulness and tenacity in relying on God for the guidance, empowering, and blessing to keep going forward.

Maybe it’s seriously cross-cultural for Rod to live here, and therefore it’s quite stressful. But I see consistently over time that he lives in a culture of the Cross, and that gives an anchor of security. Rod has said, “I learn a lot from Pascal, whose motto was to live the Christian life with joy and authenticity.” He does, and it shows …

To be concluded in Part 2, focusing on Grace, Centered-Set Preaching, and Being Missional as Seen from the Eyes of an Outsider - plus another “Missional Metrics” and Do-It-Yourself section for the series.

Comments (1)

The Whole and the Holes …


Dec 19

Posted: under Gathering, Planting, and Enterprising.

The Whole and the Holes

An Intergenerational, Intercultural Church Genre

That Counteracts “Spiritual Osteoporosis”

Long ago I concluded that the main problem in our modern and postmodern fellowships is seldom false teaching. Much more, what we are missing is what traps us. Our church methodologies and structures may seem perfectly sound. But then, like spiritual osteoporosis of the soul, the gaps in our own lives and in our church Bodies go unnoticed until we experience a complete and sudden collapse. The holes that were hidden can cripple or even kill us.

If this assumption is true, and both modern and postmodern genres of being/doing church have inherent deficiencies, then what can we do? What approach fills in the gaps? Where can we find an example of holistic church that fits, especially in the emerging post-postmodern era and beyond?

Let me offer a brief case study in “integrative church planting” (i.e., intergenerational so there is mentoring and passing the church on to the next wave of leaders, and intercultural so that it calls all people groups beyond their native culture to a comprehensive “Kingdom culture”). It’ll take a book to share the details of why this approach counteracts what currently is missing in so many of our churches, but I believe even the short version can illustrate some practical aspects.

Actually, I can’t even recall how I met Pastor Bill. It was one of those relational introductions so common these days - friends telling each other about finding “our kind of church” and inviting you to come meet their cool church planter/pastor. “He’s just who he is, and he let’s everybody else be real, too!”

Bill is one of the most brilliant men I’ve ever met, but you’d only know that because it can’t be hidden. He’s also one of the most humble leaders-by-example I’ve ever met, and that can’t be faked. Bill’s innovative, narrative-based sermons bring the Bible to life like nothing I’ve ever heard! He spins the stories together so well that you feel you’re walking right beside Jesus and The Twelve, surveying the scenes they saw, smelling the salts in the seas, tasting hot fish fillets straight from the fire.

Jesus comes alive to us through those sermons, and Bill models how to become like Jesus to one another. For instance, we all know we’re welcomed to drop by Bill and Laura’s place just about anytime, and it’s not just anyone who can make 20-somethings through 50-somethings feel comfortable, accepted, and equals. But they do. And they constantly disciple people naturally, in the course of pastoral care, small groups, and one-to-one conversations.

There’s such excitement among our little multigenerational band of men and women! We’ve felt like the misfits of both the world and the Church. But, ahhh, finally … here’s a place of our own! Where we meet in small groups to slog our way through Scriptures to real understandings and relevant applications. Where we’re covenanted together as each other’s priority relationships, and we experience intimacy that seems so elusive elsewhere. Where we help each other discover and use our spiritual gifts for the good of the church and the surrounding community. And none of that simply-send-”problem”-people-away-to-get-fixed mentality. With Bill’s leadership, we’ve developed a willingness to walk through life’s muck with one another, even when people do go for counseling if needed. There’s a spiritual support system beyond anything the recovery movement could offer.

Our church plant isn’t based on some external, abstract vision that we aspire to because of some pie-in-the-sky charismatic leader. Instead, this small Southern Baptist congregation is the natural expression of who we are and what we ourselves already hold inside as an organic, concrete version of seeking wholeness and holiness.

And what does our theology look like? I guess it really is the ultimate “blended” system. Overall, the theology and “style” seem to integrate the best from each major church tradition, without the excesses of each that bring toxicity. And that’s what prevents gaps, or fills them in. We have the biblical grounding supplied by theological conservatism. Reverence for God and a sense of His transcendence from the liturgical traditions. His imminence as expressed in the intentional connectivity of the radical Anabaptists, house-church movement, and other faith communities. The sense of mystery and reflection among the Orthodox branches. Broader range of freedom in expression of motion and emotions in worship from the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. Creativity and cultural relevancy of the missional church emphasis.

Does that sound to you like what we’ve been searching for the past few years to reach the emerging cultures?! It works, but it takes hard work to integrate consistently toward a comprehensive theology, axiology [values], and praxology [practice]. But we seem to have all the hallmarks of a countercultural church that is contextualized for contemporary postmodern cultures and beyond. Clarity, creativity, community, complexity, and comprehensivity - what more could you ask for …?

… well, maybe just that this little body of believers would have survived a few more decades. But Pastor Bill and “Church of the Covenant” were too far ahead of their time, and it was not financially sustainable. The years of this, my first church planting experience, were 1979-1980, and we didn’t even know at the time we were in a vanguard “(post-)postmodern” church plant experiment.

In one way, I fibbed by tweaking the verb tenses above, as if this church existed in the here-and-now. But in another way it does, because I carry the seeds of intergenerational, intercultural church planting in my soul. I believe it represents an integrative, organic approach that will not only survive into the post-post-postmodern era, but perhaps even dominate contextualized churches in that period and multiply heartily. But first, we must move beyond mere reaction to the institutional church genres of the modernistic, monocultural past. We must move beyond the incremental changes and pragmatic experimentations of the multicultural, postmodernistic present. We must venture and adventure into the futuristic realm of intercultural, holistic paradigms.

When we’re ready for the hard theoretical, theological, and methodological work called forth by the task of filling in our gaps, I pray the remembrance of this pioneering church plant will guide us.

© 2003 Brad Sargent. The above article originally appeared in a newsletter for church planters. It is presented here with almost no editing, and was previously published on my WordPress futuristguy blog, in a post on recovering from spiritual abuse - mentoring and moving toward hope.

Epilogue 2008. I lost track of Bill and Laura over 15 years ago, after the church folded and they relocated so Bill could work pursue doctoral studies. A few years back, I finally found them during one of my periodic internet searches for them.

Comments (0)