I've spent the past two days listening to Mike Breen and Mal Calladine teaching Lifeshapes.
To be honest, I wasn't excited by Lifeshapes when I first heard about it. It doesn't help that the marketing material is aweful. "You've found your purpose, now discover your passion." That makes it sound like Purpose-Driven part two. Breen admits that he took a risk in giving the material to Cook, which tends to be pretty modern. As a result, it's packaged in a fairly programmatic way, which really is too bad, and will cause a lot of people to dismiss it.
One of the best features of Lifeshapes is that it's not a program. It's meant to be more of a rule of life, sort of a modern monastic order. It actually provides an alternative to the modern, programatic model of church and life, to the model of individualized devotions, stadium-sized evangelism, and limited discipleship.
Breen developed this material while pastoring what has become one of the largest churches in the United Kingdom, where church attendance has plummeted. That church (an Anglican Baptist one) is primarily made up of the age group that is rarely found in church (those in their 20s and 30s). It's been developed in a postmodern context.
It's also been implemented in modern settings. Mike is now on staff at a megachurch in Phoenix. Mike calls megachurches the "last flower of Christendom". He's there to help transform the church from a programatic emphasis to a more organic one. Mike says that we have elaborate carts and starving horses; it's time to ignore the cart and feed the horse, to give less attention to the institutions and more attention to spiritual formation.
Programs, Breen says, are like maps. The problem with maps is that they go out of date as the territory changes. What we really need is a compass. That compass is Jesus. We need to abandon the programs and get back to Jesus.
The way to do this, Breen argues, is through symbols and stories. Since language defines culture, Breen's developed a language, a set of symbols, that takes us back to Scriptural teaching. It's almost a form of shorthand to remind us what the Bible says about faith and repentance, rest, balance, leadership, ministry, prayer, organization, and mission. The power isn't in the language as much as it is what the language points to, and how well the language reminds us of what's important.
A cynic would say that Breen just offers another program. Lifeshapes can be used that way, but who needs another gimmick?. The best way to use his language is not by implementing it as a program. It's first to live it, and then to share it relationally, sketched on the back of napkins rather than on Powerpoint, even though that won't do much for sales of their kits.
If you haven't taken a look at Lifeshapes, you may want to take a look at their website or books (Passionate Life and Passionate Church). My notes from the conference are also online (here and also in PDF).
**Ministry to postmoderns: Since people don’t trust buildings and programs, invite them to mission and community before they know Jesus. Invite them into relationship, to feed the poor, to relate to the compass (Jesus). Invite them to community before you do building and institution. Begin to talk to them about the story.
People out there have no understanding of how sound churches differ from snake-handling churches.
Darryl, thanks for this post. I wasn't at the conference but wish I were after hearing you and Dean talk about it.
My concern is most Christians (including myself) weren't taught the Bible as a story. We were in Sunday School but once we grew up the Bible was looked at as book of abstract principles. A systemized theology. I have felt that I have had to unlearn all the stuff I was supposed to learn and then relearn it all as a story. (McLaren's The Story We Find Ourselves In, is a great way to do that).
I guess my question is, how are we going to begin teaching and learning the Bible as God's story? How are we going to learn the context of an ancient Hebrew people as the read through the stories.
If we continue down the road of Systemized Theology, I feel like I'm going to write Christianity off as just another culture. With no more truth then the local Rotary Club or Legion. Mostly a club for people with like ideas who may or may not be nice. As a life-long Christian (26 years) I'm really wondering if there's any difference between evangelicalism and snake handlers. I bet there's nice people in both and not-nice people in both. I know how cynical that sounds, but I'm really trying.
These are probably questions that no one has answers to.
Hi Rob:
I don't know if I have an answer to your questions, except to say that a lot of evangelicals are really longing for something more than they've experienced, something real. That gives me hope.
Hope also that we can meet up one day.