Saturday, February 23, 2013

MLI re-gathering notes

Some of the random notes I took from Reggie McNeal and Lance Finley at our first re-gathering the end of January 2013.

From Reggie...
  • "Church stuff will kill you. Kingdom stuff will feed your soul."
  • 32% of Gen-Y now want nothing to do with church (was 25% 5 years ago).
  • Metrics = What are we celebrating; what are we emphasizing; what are we shining the spotlight on... "When we do this we're feeling the wind of the Spirit."
  • How many spiritual conversations did we have this week?
  • How many hours of community service did we do this week?
  • "We have to celebrate something, so we might as well celebrate something we want to see more of!!!"
  • "Do not worry alone. But don't worry the same person to death."
  • "Empower people without trying to co-ordinate people." (pepper them with ideas)
  • Meettheneed.com/org = free service to connect volunteers w/needs
  • "You've got to be so sold out that you just don't care who gets the credit."
  • We (Christians) are free to be FOR everybody. The serpent created "us vs. them". We are the "we" people. (this might have been Brian Miller)
  • "We need to work on solving issues at the community level rather than the organizational level."
  • What movie (or song) best describes the narrative of your life right now?
  • "Internal narratives are crucial in helping us fall down or up."
  • "The N. American church no longer has a strong enough internal narrative. How can we make the Good News a compelling story again?"
  • "Our problem is that we have put eternal life at the end of life. Jesus put it throughout." (eph. 2:8-9 AND 10).
  • Helping people find freedom. Not just saved 'from'... but also 'to' and 'through.' (From slavery, thru the cross; to abundance... What have we been saved to?).
  • "Sharing the prayer request IS the prayer. We don't need to do it again. God can hear."
  • WIGS = Wildly important goals.
  • Consider sponsoring a child locally, not just overseas.
  • literacydesigncollaborative.com
  • "If we are announcers of Good News, and the Kingdom narrative is a street party, what do we need to do (or learn)?" (we need to learn how to be community developers)
  • valuetheperson.com
  • "If we're going to lead a Kingdom movement then we've got to gain Kingdom competencies. And the competencies are gathered by gaining street smarts."
From Lance...
  • Jeremiah 29:7
  • Shalom = the way things were meant to be (Gen. 1&2).
  • All of Jesus' miracles were to reconcile things broken/undone in the Fall.
  • Bridges Out of Poverty book (understanding generational poverty and how that shapes them).
  • Poor people have a skill set, it's just not a middle-class skill set. But they know things we do not.
  • The theology of this is important. It's not just helping people so we can grow our church. This is part of God's narrative.
 COLLECTIVE IMPACT (from Stanford U. article):

Pre-conditions -
  1. Influential Champion (somebody to call the party; people of influence).
  2. Adequate Financial Resources
  3. Urgency for change (realize now is the time)

5 Conditions of Collective Impact -
  1. Common Agenda (What 1 or 2 issues, if solved, would make the biggest difference in this community? What builds common ground is a common threat. TED talk).
  2. Shared Measurement (we need something to celebrate)
  3. Mutually Reinforcing Activities
  4. Continuous Communication
  5. Backbone Support
Phases of Collective Impact -
  1. Initiate Action (may take a couple years)
  2. Organize for Impact (we need systems for sustainability)
  3. Sustain Action and Impact
Backbone Organizations -
  1. Funder-based
  2. New non-profits
  3. Existing non-profits
  4. Government
  5. Shared across multiple organizations
  6. Steering committee driven (can initiate through but not sustain with)

1 comment:

Jim L said...

I liked the "Sharing the prayer request IS the prayer. We don't need to do it again. God can hear." Amen.