Driscoll - Confessions...2b

To recap - Mark begins his book, Confession of a Reformission Rev. Hard Lessons From an Emerging Missional Church, with Chapter 0 where he asks 10 questions that all church leaders and church planters should ask themselves to "help clarify your church's identity, gospel, mission, size, and priorities." Some questions have only one right answer (according to the author) and some have a couple, but must be answered correctly so that you understand your congregation. Last time we reviewed the first 5, and now we will finsih with the last 5. I'll provide each question again but only expound on 6-10.

1. Will your Rev. require reformission?
2. Will your church be traditional and institutional, contemporary and evangelical, or emerging and missional?
3. Will your church be an emrgent liberal church or an emerging evangelical church?
4. Will you proclaim a gospel of forgiveness, fulfillment, or freedom?
5. Will your church be attractional, missional, or both?
6. What size shoe will your church wear? - This is all about size and numbers. As churches grow their shoe size will change and they need to learn how to fit into them. Mark goes so far as to claim that a church that does not want to change, negates their ability to grow and is a sin which must be repented of. He also makes it a point to write, "nothing is wrong with a small church providing it hates sin, loves Jesus, serves people, obeys Scripture, and sees transformed lives (page 31). I couldn't agree more.
7. Will your church have a mission of community or be a community of missions? - Community is definitely a buzz word nowadays. It is thrown about a lot by a lot of people to define and explain church. All that is good, but if community is done wrong, then it falls short. Unfortunately too many new young leaders who prefer smaller and more loosely defined neo-church arrangements...in which being in community sometimes takes priority over being in Chirst (page 32). Mark goes on to compare 2 distinct "communities" in the Bible, Babel/Bethel and Pentecost. Babel exists for itself and Pentecost for missions. Babel meets because people are similar and Pentecost because the mission is similar. That mission is God's mission and that mission is the gospel and greatness of Jesus.
8. Will your leaders work from guilt or conviction? - Leaders of emerging and missional churches need to work from the conviction that comes from the Word of God instead of the guilt that comes from people and their words. Mark makes an analogy of a boat. The pastor is to be the architect of the boat, not the captain who pilots, the cook who washes dishes, or the activities director who coordinates everyones shuffleboard reservations. Pastors should build the ship not work on it. Having a skilled captain, cook, and activities coordinator is great, but if the ship can't float what does it matter (page 34).
9. Do you have the guts to shoot your own dogs? - Dogs are idiotic ideas, stinky styles, stupid systems, failed facilities, terrible technologies, loser leaders, and pathetic people. You must have the guts to shoot those dogs. And then only have to do it once, so they do not come back and bite you.
10. Can you wield and sword and trowel? - Our culture is know less hostile now than it was in the days of Nehemiah. Nehemiah charged everyone to carry a trowel to do the work and build the church to the glory of God and a sword to defend themselves from Satan and evil.

As Mark concludes this chapter, he finishes with, "I will be painfully honest about the shots from hell that nearly killed my family and our church. In the next chapter, we'll start our journey in the hot upstairs youth room of a fundamentalist church.

After each chapter (just as he did with The Radical Reformission) Mark asks a series of questions in a quasi sort of review for the reader. These seem to be tailored toward someone who is really going about to have a book study or a group in a church doing the same thing. I'll stay away from these here and going forward.

Overall, this Chapter 0 (fancy for Intorduction) was a good lead in as it gave you a glimpse into how Mark thinks and lay out an explanation for some the decisions he will make going forward in this book. As I already mentioned, I am happy his questions didn't carry an all or nothing "you must answer the way I do to be right" with them. Rather, they need to be asked so that you have a better understanding of yourself and your leadership or that of your church.