Does the Church Need a Change of Direction?

For years, Dave had driven the same roads from Chicago to his folks’ house in eastern Pennsylvania. That is, until the first time he drove it with his new wife, Jen. 

Jen decided she would consult Google (of course!) in order to determine the best route. Dave found this utterly ludicrous! After all, hadn’t he been driving the best, fastest, and only route for years?

Apparently not. When it was Jen’s turn to drive, and Dave fell asleep in the passenger seat next to her, she began to follow her route. By the time he woke up, they were within minutes of their destination, an hour and a half earlier than expected. Who’d have thunk. There was a better way.

BETTER

But when we walk a road over and over again, it’s hard to see anything as better! Habit establishes a way of life, an internal map, if you will. And with regard to impacting the lives of those around us for Jesus, have we ever asked ourselves if the internal maps we operate from prevent us from getting deeply involved in what God is up to?

But how do we work our way toward a better map? Is it possible to readjust our missional GPS?

A CHANGE IN BEHAVIOR

Rather than a change in direction, the church needs a change in behavior. In his book The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch writes, “The Hebrews acted their way into a new way of thinking instead of thinking their way into a new way of acting.” 

Hirsch continues with this thought:

Many church leaders experience this on a regular basis: it starts with the recognition of some sort of problem in the local church together with a desire to address it . . . so they go to a conference to access a whole lot of new ideas about church renewal, leadership, and mission. The problem is that this is all they get— new thinking. They still have to deal with an unchanged congregation. And on a deeper look they soon realize that their own behaviors remain unchanged. It is genuinely hard to change one’s behaviors by merely getting new ideas. . . .  Even though gaining knowledge is essential to transformation, we soon discover that it’s going to take a whole lot more than new thinking to transform us.

Hirsch would submit that we all need to behave differently because acting will impact how we think.

EQUIPPING WITH SKILLS AND PRACTICES

The 9 Arts of Spiritual Conversations are behaviors—skills that can be learned so that people will, as the Hebrews believed, act their way into a new way of thinking. The 9 Arts have the capacity to readjust our missional GPS.

Noticing our neighbors, praying for them, and really listening to their life stories, creates genuine empathy and compassion. 

Loving like Jesus impacts our judgmental attitudes and preconceived maps, driving us to welcome others into our lives—yes, even those who believe differently than we do. 

When the people who are outside of our churches experience us acting like Jesus, treating them with genuine interest and love, they might even be attracted to our message.

These skills and practices—these arts—provide a way for us to walk the way of Jesus and incarnate the gospel in the flesh and blood of our everyday lives.

If missional is about being sent and going, the 9 Arts provide the map for how to go.