As we have posted before, our denomination is utilising some consultants from Canada. Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk are guiding us through a process aimed at releasing missional imagination in our local Churches. I am very impressed with the methodology that they have developed to do this process. It is one that does not rely on the superman leader, nor does it say that one program will solve all our problems. In addition, it seems to be able to encompass the idea that all models of Church are suitable and applicable for different contexts. So much of the talk in the emerging Church scene is often centerered around the evils of the christendom model. It changes things when we can say: God has, and God is working with all of his people, through all different forms.

One of the key diagrams that Alan Roxburgh used to illustrate life cycles of organisations was what is called the three zone model. We have been discussing this at a number of our leadership teams at Northern. We are asking “what does this model have to say about the history and movement of our Church”. Here are some of the reflections from Northern’s journey:

Green Zone - New Actions
This was the life of our four former churches when they were planted. Most of the four were planted after the first world war into an environment where Christianity was flourishing and an area where they creatively and imaginatively engaged with their environment.

Blue Zone - Performative Leadership
For our churches, in our area of the northern suburbs of melbourne, this was definitely the 1950’s. It was a time when the Church was at the centre of community life. People moved into the area and asked “where is my local church?” as they sought out churches to be their centres of social, sporting, spiritual and community involvement. The Churches were filled and the Sunday School and Youth Clubs were bursting with kids. For many people in our Churches this is a time that they remember very fondly.

Red Zone - reactive leadership
The kids that had been in the youth clubs and sunday schools grew up and moved out to the eastern suburbs of melbourne. High levels of immigration post world war two, largerly from Italy and Greece saw more of an interest in Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Despite the best efforts and intentions of the leadership, numbers decreased and the Churches became little pockets of elderly anglo-saxon people surrounded by a diverse mix of people. The Church became (as Pete Ward calls it) a heritage site. The 1970’s until now saw another influx of migrants and refugees, this time from the middle east and meant that Islam become prominant in the area.

Red Zone - Bridging Leadership
The leadership recognised and named what was happening. A sense of urgency was felt and after a long process of discussions, the decision was made to merge four churches in the area. Some of the bridging leadership tasks were:

- employing a new ministry team
- selling four properties and releasing bricks and mortar assets for ministry
- merging the four churches in a practical sense
- dealing with the grief of the loss of the four former churches and property’s
- starting to name values and discern what they wanted to look like. This was sketched out in a green paper document.

Blue Zone - Transition Leadership
For the past four years much work has gone into this area.

- developing our signposts for the future which include a recognition that while we don’t have all the details worked out, some directions are emerging for us.
- naming our values and articulating a vision
- developing our shared spiritual disciplines
- creating a new governance and management system that decentralises power and empowers congregation and missional teams.

Green Zone - Emergent Organisation
Every time we have created a new congregation we have moved into this zone. New congregations force the teams of people to be in the mode of an emergent organisation. A mode that requires imagination, energy, passion and commitment. The fragility of each new congregation is a concern and a strength. Perhaps one of the strengths of our multi-congregational model is that we are forced to continue have groups of people in the green zone, even when some of our older congregations have naturally moved out of the green emergent leadership zone, we are still birthing new green zone leadership environments.

I think this is a helpful model to reflect on the life and history of our Church. It is encouraging to look back and see movement. It also can help us see that red zone leadership is not bad, but needed and required. The red zone is simply a natural part of the rythmn of organisational life.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 31st, 2004 at 9:48 am by phil and is filed under challenges for the church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.