Exponential 3 :: Alan Hirsch

Late getting session notes up...but, I am posting quoteables as they happen via Twitter.  For now, I am only posting notes from the main sessions here.  I will post some summary thoughts and notes from the Missional Church track I am participating in at the end of the conference.

That being said, here are notes from Alan Hirsch's main session:

The church is in decline in virtually every corner of the western world.

The answer is not found in faddish practices and ideas - the answer is going deep into our most primal stories and re-discovering the ethos that has been lost.

The potential for world transformation is in each of us.

1. Recovery of the Centrality of Jesus in His own movement

• Christology lies at the heart of the renewal of the church
• Christology ----> Missiology ----> Eccelesiology
• It's so easy to take Jesus out (and replace Him with methodology or ministry) because it's hard to live with Him and follow Him.
• The incarnation of Jesus sets the stage for how we are to engage the world.
• If you want your kids to be middle-class citizens with PhD's, then  do not expose them to the life of Jesus.
• Not just recovering His birth, death, and resurrection, but His life as well.

2. Recovery of Discipleship as our Core Task

• You're not Jesus, but you must become like Him.
• Discipleship is the embodiment of all Jesus stands for - your life is the message.
• If we are more like Jesus, people will be more interested in what we stand for.
• Make church simple and discipleship hard.
• Only disciples can change the world.
• Leadership is an extension of discipleship.
• Consumerism is killing us from within.
• Movements can only grow in proportion to our capacity to make disciples.

3. Recovering the ethos/structure of Apostolic Movements

• What we need are missionally responsive, culturally adaptive, organizationally agile, multiplication movements.
• Movements...
  • mobilize the whole people of God
    • every believer a church planter
    • every church a church planting church
  • are reproducing and reproducible
    • is your model reproduce-able - if it costs millions of dollars to reproduce it, the answer is "no."
    • bring leadership back to the people
  • structurally networked (avoid centralization of power and function)
    • every declining organization has de-legitimized the apostolic, prophetic, and evangelistic functions of Eph. 4

4. Recovering a Missional/Incarnational Impulse
(Hirsch's time ran out and he did not get to elaborate on the last point)

It's hard to reduce Alan Hirsch to a few bullet points.  You miss so much of the context, but I hope the statements I've shared will trigger you enough to ask some questions, wrestle with some ideas, and maybe read some of Hirsch's work (The Shaping of Things to Come and The Forgotten Ways).

Comments

[stephen]

dude i wish i were there for this stuff...it makes so much stinkin' sense. still waiting to hang out to hear some of this stuff you're doing.

[Chris]

I think that Hirsch was the best all day. I had a guy ask me, "Well what was the best part of the experience so far?" I told him - after hearing Alan, having read his most recent offerings - I could go home and be satisfied - I love the heart. What he said was just what I needed. Hope you're having fun!

[mike watkins]

Jay,this is good stuff. I wish I were there. Moreover, I wish more people were here. The mission field here is wide open, but workers are few.

I long for the days when there was a tangible urgency to send and to go. We desperately need missional people on the field, and I know you need them there too because...well,..you are on the field too. God bless

[jay hardwick]

stephen - c'mon down to columbia and let's talk!

chris - the things i was so thankful to hear was hirsch's hope for the church in the west. he has not in anyway written it off as some other missional/incarnational thinkers/leaders have. i think he is right on so many things and glad that he has the platform he now has.

mike - you are so right on both accounts. maybe as we do a better job of casting vision for people to "go" here, we will also do a better job of going there. let's pray in that direction...that's what Jesus told us to do when He talked about the possibility of the harvest!