May 16 2008
The ‘Real’ Xenos Model
When you read the history of Xenos, you read about chaos - or so it seems to the institutional mind. But to those who enjoy the love of Christ, it’s called freedom, and freedom is chaotic for legalistic minds. This is the “real Xenos model” in a nutshell: some call it chaos, while others call it “freedom through the love of Christ”. (What a cool slogan!)
Here’s the kind of chaos I love: listen to The Road Less Traveled by Dave Browning, some dude from the West Coast.1 He’s a Willow Creek mega-church business-model dropout who is now more relaxed and happier than ever — and more fruitful than ever, too! This was Dave’s life in the business-model church:
Dave’s high didn’t come from a bottle or a needle, but from those Sunday mornings when a big crowd packed his church, everything went just right and he hit the ball out of the park with another power-packed sermon. The need for that rush nearly destroyed everything Dave cared about.2
The Business-Leader Model
Such is the life of the business-model church leader: it’s all about “Kingly-Leadership” which kills a good Church Planting Movement. The business-leader model also kills the kingly leaders through exhaustion.
Willow Creek’s own research now reveals a disturbing trend with this entire approach. I recently blogged about the “Revolving Door Syndrome” that kept us stagnated here in Northeastern Ohio, and Willow is discovering the same trend through research. It’s called the “Old Christian Syndrome” (or OCS), and it looks like this:3
Willow’s research clearly demonstrates that people grow more dissatisfied with their church the older they become as Christians. This phenomena extends across-the-board with other Willow Creek Association churches (and probably most churches in the American experience):
In summary, these six segments capture the spiritual journey expressed by more than 11,000 surveys taken by seven churches. We learned so much and were so intrigued with the findings that we started a second test phase of 25 churches. To see regularly updated findings from that research, click here. Finally, we are currently in the process of our third test phase of 500 churches.4
Thus, George Barna writes a new book which could be titled “The Revolution at Laodicea.” It describes a massive population of dissatisfied dropouts forming new churches on golf-courses.These dissatisfied and apathetic revolutionaries are strengthened by the business-model of church leadership.
Business savvy says “the customer is number one,” but Jesus Christ says “the customer” should be numbered last if the customer is an older Christian: “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35) In the church-planter’s mind, the “customer” should be non-Christians, and older Christians should be serving “the customer”.
But surprisingly, Willow’s answer is to build a “customized, personalized growth-plan” for everyone plagued with OCS. It sounds like a massive undertaking and quite expensive, and doomed to increase the tragedy of OCS. Here’s what Hybels says:
We should’ve taught people to read their Bibles in-between services, how to practice the [spiritual] disciplines on their own. The older a Christian gets, the more that Christian should become a self-feeder…So we’ll provide customized, personal spiritual-growth plans to people at Willow to become self-feeders.5
Is this not an obvious, problematic approach? Is this not more of the same? Self-feeding for selfish people is always self-defeating. Where is the “others-feeding” approach Jesus talked about? Here’s the Jesus solution for OCS:
“If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you…If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. (John 13:14-17)
OCS gets healed by doing something. That is, by feeding someone else, not self-feeding! Both Reveal.org and Hybels could benefit by focusing less on their business-model and more on the “Reveal” book called the New Testament!
The Columbus Business Model
Without sounding too sacrileges — I am, after all, a Xenoid — isn’t it true that Xenos history reads differently once we tried to adopt the Willow Creek business-model? In 1990 I was an elder when we all took a pilgrimage to Chicago to study what Willow does best: grow.
There are many wonderful facets and fruitful aspects of Willow, and we readily identified with their language of the “seeker-sensitive church.” But we also adopted their business-leader model and launched expensive programs to establish Xenos as a respectable peer among successful churches. After all, as Hybels said, the credibility of church is judged in the secular realm by its business-savvy and holdings.
We forgot what really gave Xenos credibility in the secular realm: it was one-on-one sharing the Gospel.
At this year’s Servant Team Retreat some of the teachings pondered wether statistics were the culprit suppressing the wonderful “Grace Explosion” which lies at the heart of the Xenos model. Perhaps this is true.
But if Xenos growth was stymied from the early 80’s by “church growth technology”, why not also consider the influence of Willow’s business-model on Xenos growth? Isn’t this a tremendous cause for the Kingly-Leader imbalance? Did it not significantly reshape Columbus Xenos in the 90s? And if so, how much of that reshaping caused missteps from our earlier revelation from the Lord?
The NeoXenos Business Model
The purpose here is not to lecture Columbus (although it wouldn’t hurt), but rather to ascertain what works and doesn’t work at NeoXenos.
We too fell prey to the business-leader model and launched an expensive building program with much fanfare and a huge investment of manpower. It was a Herculean effort made with all the right “seeker-sensitive” moves all in the hopes of infusing new life into our “northern flank,” as we called it.
In the end, even though it imposed great traveling hardships on our growing southern population, it was actually the “southern flank” which grew like wild with new converts.
Meanwhile, how did we grow in the south? By sending. At first two, then three households picked up and headed south. And what a mess it was!
Sending means chaos. It was pure, sweet chaos in “the southern flank.” Our meeting place was a messy thing, with messed-up people and poor planning and resources stretched beyond breaking.
And it was exciting, and there were conversions, and many are those today who are so very thankful for the “Xenos chaos” that came their way.
I think the Lord approved, too.
- The Road Less Traveled, by Dave Browning from Christ the King church in Washington. His podcast is from last month’s Multi-Site Exposed 2008 conference [⇑]
- Quoted from Leadership Network. [⇑]
- Research from the Reveal Web site. [⇑]
- (Reveal Web site [⇑]
- See http://www.revealnow.com for Bill Hybel’s presentation and more of their research. [⇑]
[…] The Real Xenos Model - did we lose our way somewhere? It doesn’t look good when our mentors say they lost their way! Willow Creek is now rethinking is “seeker-sensitive” business-leader model. This has implications for the new directions NeoXenos is undertaking as well. […]
Very thought-provoking. I’m so grateful that I stumbled on the chaos of NeoXenos. When I first came around I would get so frustrated that plans changed at the last minute, or that it took everyone close to an hour after meeting to leave for our destination. But then I realized that it wasn’t about the plans or the destination: it was about building relationships.
I think I tend toward the kingly aspects of leadership, and while that role is necessary, I don’t want to be too pragmatic and forget about God’s Word and people’s needs. We need to be a church planting movement, and I want to welcome the chaos of going/sending when it comes.
I appreciate your candor, Kalie. And how tough it is to lead while not over-leading! Your description fits, I think, most leader’s frustration, especially when we’re doing all “this” while doing all “that”…
Yeah man .
Ch. I am so thankful for NeoXenos, and all the craziness involved.
Half the time we (word) don’t know what we are doing for the activity, until its time to go and do it, so it takes a long time to get going, and that can be frustrating. But in all reality that doesn’t even matter, because even with all the confusion, and pondering and whatever, we find something to do and always have a good time building relationships.
Frustration is like so useless in such situations.
When you rely on the lord, everything is possible, just look at Lucy in the new Narnia standing up against that entire army. She didn’t have an ounce of fear, and that is because she had the lord on her side.
I’m in agreement with Kalie too. For a functional control freak like me, the irrational nature of Neo-Xenos style ministry and relationships can be very upsetting. Just when I think I’ve got a handle on things, the plans change at the last minute again.
Adding to things, I was always bothered by how our church wasn’t growing into a huge mega church. Many people were coming, but it seemed like a huge battle for each one.
Personally, this has been very good for my own spiritual life - learning how not to be so rigid has been a good thing. But, I always attributed the choatic nature of our ministry to the fact that our leaders were unorganized.
As I stepped into some leadership, I found out this wasn’t the case at all…the very nature of relationships is really irrational and the time it takes to relate with a few people in an intense discipleship relationship far eclipses the time it would take to set up a huge church production with a big building and a stage show.
But, the Dave Browning teaching you’re talking about is so cool. The relational model is harder and lacks the flashy lights and glamour, but it is really cool and rewarding. The church grows and multiplies in small cells like virus. I see also that this is the method Jesus used (it seemed to work) as did the early church (worked too).
It seems that people were receptive to the gospel and Christians were burdened to share.
Keith I am curious how the uncertainty of the 70’s and early 80’s may have played a role in the explosion of church growth. If I recall, the ecomonic times were poor at best, there was not the comfortable affluence of the later 80’s and 90’s.
With the economy taking another dive - will people be more open to the gospel as their personal resources move from abundant to meager? Will the impending recession result in people looking for answers for the pain and emptiness that money can no longer mask?
Hey Lisa - that’s an interesting recession thought…for now, at least around me, most people are consumed with their personal finances, buying/ refinancing a house, getting better jobs.
I have other reasons to consider this:
Credit was much more difficult to acquire in the 70’s and 80’s. I recall my my mom could not get credit - being a divorced woman - she also made too much for government assistance, yet we were very poor. Today credit is far easier to acquire, yet not as easy as a year ago.
I just wonder if economic difficulties — the stress of war (remember Vietnam was ending in the 70’s), and post secondary education being something that was more readily accessible to all - not just the rich or those who were able to get aide/financing, if these things could be the start of a spiritual resurgence. I believe it is - yet this generation has redefined truth as something that is contextualized and viewed through perspectivalism. Truth is no longer absolute. There are no answers.
Things in the 70’s seemed to be ripe for a revival or a seeking for answers to a screwed up world. Now I look around and listen … I hear a lot a confused people - as a whole not suffering yet … but is it coming?
What do we do in this climate of uncertainty, fuzzy truth, and people seeking answers.
It seems so confusing to me and I understand truth.
“Sending means chaos. It was pure, sweet chaos in “the southern flank.” Our meeting place was a messy thing, with messed-up people and poor planning and resources stretched beyond breaking.”
Keith this is so true. At the time those first meetings at KSU were so exciting and we knew God was working and building something through us there there. Looking back as a somewhat more experienced leader, I think, “We were a bunch of goofballs!” I think if I were you back then I would have a hard time looking at our motley crew and believing God could do anything with our messed up selves. Thanks for investing in us and taking the risks to send out this new messy group of college punks.
[…] the section “The Business-Leader Model” in the NeoZine article, “The Real Xenos Model” for an interesting description of Willow Creek building “self-feeders”. […]
[…] Writing a series about church growth - which is a re-evaluation of our Xenos history and the “Real Xenos Model.” […]
[…] Read http://neozine.org/inside/the-real-xenos-model/ […]
[…] trends in Christianity. For months Keith was writing about these new trends in the NeoZine (see The ‘Real’ Xenos Model, for example), and then at the 2008 July Body Meeting at Hudson park he taught about the trends and […]
[…] trends in Christianity. For months Keith was writing about these new trends in the NeoZine (see The ‘Real’ Xenos Model, for example), and then at the 2008 July Body Meeting at Hudson park he taught about the trends and […]