south goes apest

Around 2000 at South Melbourne Restoration Community, we restructured our leadership team on this principle and it led to significant movement towards being a missional church. We restructured leadership so that we could ensure that all five ministries were represented on the team, each in turn heading up a team related to the respective APEPT ministries. So we had a apostolic team which focused on the translocal, missional, strategic, and experimental issues facing the church. We had a prophetic team which focused on listening to God and discerning hiswill for us, social justice, and questioning the status quo of an increasingly middle class church. We had an evangelistic team whose task it was to oversee and develop evangelism and outreach. The pastoral team’s task was to develop community, cell-groups, worship, counseling, and to enhance the love capacity of the church. The teaching team’s task was to create contexts of learning and develop the love of wisdom and understanding through bible study, theological and philosophical discussion groups, etc. All were represented by a key leader on the Leadership Team. Whilst at times it creates significant debate on what the key issues facing the church were, it was thoroughly stimulating.

At Leadership Team level we operated this model on the idea of open learning system which allows the team to “fit and split” and to “contend and transcend.” The term “fit” refers to that which binds an organization together (unity). It is the group’s common ethos and purpose. “Split” happens when we intentionally allow for a great diversity of expression in the team (diversity). “Contend” is the permission, even encouragement given by leadership to disagree, debate, and dialogue around core tasks (duality). “Transcend” is the collective agreement everyone makes to overcome disagreement in order find new solutions (vitality, ‘reaching unity in the faith’).

So on just about any ministry issue, the Leadership Team would be pre-committed to the common mission of the group. We were covenanted to do ‘whatever it takes’ to see our mission fulfilled. And given healthy relations within the team, this meant that we allowed for the divergent opinions of each member without being offended. We had lived together, struggled together, faced issues together and our bond to Jesus and this particular expression of his people was strong. It was this sense of ‘fit’ that gave permission for each member to operate out of their own ministry biases and represent their perspectives on the issue at hand. The apostolic person would present or critique in light of the need to galvanize the community around mission. The prophetic types would challenge just about everything and ask irritating questions about how God fitted into our grand schemes. The evangelist would always be trying to emphasize the need to bring people to faith and how what we suggested would achieve that. The pastoral type expressed concerns about how the community could healthily engage the issue sustainably and the theologian would try discerning its validity from scripture and history. The ‘split’ therefore allowed for significant divergence of interests and there were many debates, even arguments (contend). But we would not try resolve debate and disagreement too quickly (this would drive the pastoral types nuts.) But we would sit with the problem until we had assessed all options and had through dialogue and debate arrived at the best solution. An outcome which was likely to be more true to calling, more faithful to God, sensitive to the needs of the not-yet-believers, sustainable and mature, and theologically well grounded.

APEPT, if well led and directed, can operate in a very invigorating way indeed. Most churches seem to prefer more hierarchical structures with a chain-of-command approach and are most often lead by people gifted as pastors and teachers. Such ministry types can tend to avoid conflict or focus primarily on ideas and not action. The resultant organizational culture struggles to find fit and split, contend and transcend. In the operational model decisions are made at the top and filter down to the grass roots. There’s little room for any real interaction and participation around central tasks and ideas. As a result, in many denominational structures and churches the members at the ‘bottom’ of the system can tend to feel silenced and resentful.

A bottom-up approach to APEPT creates a healthy learning system: The dynamic nature of the whole matrix will ensure that an open learning system results from an organization built with such leadership structures. The more outward looking, non-status quo types (in this case A, P & E) will ensure incoming information from outside the system and guarantee a dynamic engagement and growth with the organization’s environment. The more sustaining ministries (like P’l & T) will ensure that the church is not overextended beyond its capacities. All in all it makes for a good balance of church health and missional fitness.

Take the APEST test here. Its great for team dynamics and empowering the people of God.

See Richard Tannee Pascale, Managing on the Edge: How Successful Companies use Conflict to Stay Ahead (London: Viking, 1990).

. Our ministries are not always defined how we see them ourselves, but are discerned through the impact they have on others around about us—hence the need for feedback from colleagues and friends. I encourage the reader to undertake the online APEPT profiling test to help identify the dynamics of their own ministry. Visit www.theforgottenways.org (see inside front cover).

July 9, 2008 | Filed Under APEST, apostolic environment, the forgotten ways |  

Comments

3 Responses to “south goes apest”

  1. Isaiah on July 9th, 2008 8:37 am

    Good post.

    What would you do in a church that is far from this? I mean, a church which has been established for a while, yet does not have a leadership structure that they could or would want to change.

    How would one in a situation of traditional churches, say one with an Elders-Council structure, allow for the spirit APEST to flourish with in the already established systems? Could it be done?

  2. Jeremy Pryor on July 10th, 2008 12:14 am

    Excellent Alan. This is very helpful!

    We’re working on setting up 5-fold teams and have yet to see anyone share a working structure.

  3. Janet on July 10th, 2008 3:33 pm

    It would be true to say that South had a long history (1oo+ years)… it would also be true to say that it had gone through such significant decline it was willing to embrace an “out there” apostolic like Alan Hirsch, so in many ways it was more like a church plant. (Established churches sometimes need to be near death before they’ll embrace resurrection.)

    There’s no doubt established churches (like other established organisations) are the toughest gig to change… they require savy leadership… and there are significant pastoral implications to manage for those attempting it.

    What we’ve been attempting in Vic/Tas Churches of Christ is exploring the idea of “missional experiments” that run alongside the “business as usual” side of local churches. This has released interesting results in some churches (though not all, it would have to be said.)

    In an attempt to answer Isaiah’s question… it might be easier to get permission to release an “apostolic team” and to prayerfully support that which might emerge than it might be to say “we are going to completely change the governance of this church.” (That requires a level of faith… or desperation… that may not be found within an existing eldership). Perhaps this might be one way of tackling a “bottom up” approach to APEPT?

    Of course… there’s still some gentle persuasion required to release human and financial resources for an “APEPT experiment”. Might an eldership be persuased to read TFW and see what emerges?

    (I don’t know of a church other than South that has structured itself this way, so I’m toying with ideas, not giving answers!)

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