When the Chevy Nova was released in Latin America, it didn’t sell well at all.  Turns out that Nova in Spanish—or “no va”—means “it doesn’t go.”  Not a good name for a car. No wonder sales were dismal.

In the same way, when you are doing ministry in another culture, recognize that things don’t always translate. Not only the language, but the culture itself, may be quite different.  What works here may not work there.  Yet another reason to get to know those you are serving on a personal level.

What I’m calling positive assumption simply means assuming the best about a person. We think about this when we are trying to encourage people by pointing out something they’re doing well, but positive assumption can be every bit as helpful when someone is doing something wrong that needs to be addressed.

Instead of pointing out a person’s blind spot because you assume they’re unaware of it, why not start with something along the lines of: “I’m sure you’re aware of this and working on it….” Although you’re still addressing the issue, you’re also showing respect for the person you’re talking with. You’re assuming a level of awareness on their part. And you’re assuming that they—like you—are a work in progress and are actively growing and learning.

A posture of respect assumes the best of those you’re working alongside. How much different would many church relationships be if we all practiced positive assumption?

Byron Spradlin, founder of Artists in Christian Testimony International, was the one who taught me this principle. You can check out his blog here.

Early on in his ministry, Ray Bakke realized that if he was to be a true urban pastor he would have to live among those he ministered to. As a result he and his family have lived for many decades in rented apartments in inner city Chicago.

John Hayes, who lives among the poor in London, says, “Presence ministry breaks down barriers. It ministers face-to-face. It knows people by name…. Heaven is strictly a first-name-basis kind of place.”

The need for presence ministry seems to have so often escaped our missions endeavors—both past and present—as we live in safe “missionary compounds” or suburbs removed from those we serve.

Who are we serving and how can we best live among them?

Did you know that we’ve begun offering recorded webinars that you can download and use with your team? The first one—Getting your Ministry Moving in a Missional Direction—provides you with fresh ideas and practical planning.

Designed for interaction, the webinar can be downloaded along with a discussion guide. Then, as you watch with your team, you can pause the webinar to work through the exercises together. Check it out at http://loganleadership.com/resources/video/

A woman at a conference asked me one time what my position was on women in leadership. I responded, “I believe that leaders ought to be in leadership,” to which she responded, “Well said.”

But in a coaching setting, if I am serving as the coach, my opinion on issues like this simply doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant. What matters is what the person being coached believes. I’ve worked with people or groups who are men-only, and I don’t try to convince them of my view. I just help them live out their values and principles very consistently. It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people.

Whatever your convictions are, they’re not relevant once you’re in the coach’s chair. I’ve worked with people who believe in the gift of tongues and people who don’t, and in either case I work within the client’s framework. One of the hardest things for Christian coaches is to recognize that it’s not our role to change people’s beliefs to fit with our own. Make the tent as wide as you can, be helpful to as many people as you can… and keep yourself out of it.

Here’s a new solution to the church building problem—meet under an interstate bridge. I don’t know this church or its pastor personally, but a friend of mine mentioned it to me because she knows I’m always interested in unique approaches to doing church.

This church started out as a Bible study and ministry to the homeless people who slept under a particular bridge, and it grew to become a church focused on serving the poor and communicating the message of Jesus. Their mission statement says, “May we come together, black, white, brown, rich and poor, educated in the streets and in the university, all worshipping the living God, who makes us one.”

You can watch a news story about this church on youtube or visit their website. I’m always amazed how much we can learn by looking at all of the creative ways others have found to do ministry in the name of Jesus.

On one of Paul’s missionary journeys we was heading into the province of Asia, fully intending to preach the gospel there and plant churches as he had done in other places—a fine goal. But an odd thing happened at the border of Mysia: “They tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas” (Acts 16:7-8) That night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia, standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us” (v. 9). “After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them” (v. 10).

Paul’s plan wasn’t so rigidly structured that he was unwilling to change direction when the situation warranted it. He maintained flexibility and listened to the Lord for new directions.

We all know of ministries that have set themselves on an inflexible course, and then have been unwilling to change when the circumstances and opportunities have demanded it. Sometimes this type of rigidity is mistakenly called “faith.”  Invariably, ministries that are unwilling to change and reset their course slowly lose relevance and die, not recognizing that God may have wanted to redirect their efforts toward a different purpose.

Four steps to uncovering the pain:

1. Listen. Prayerfully listen to what people are saying. What are their concerns? What are their repeated prayer requests? Ask questions that allow people the opportunity to open up about what’s going on their lives.
2. Relate. Build bridges with individuals in the church. Develop and deepen personal relationships. It’s surprising how often people in church leadership don’t do this.
3. Debrief. Conduct exit polling. Those who leave the church are dissatisfied. They are essentially saying, “You can’t help me anymore.”  These are also the people most likely to open up and be honest about why they’re leaving, since they aren’t worried about maintaining an ongoing relationship.
4. Investigate. Discovery the hurts of your community. The pain outside the walls of your church is likely to be similar to the pain outside your church, unless your church is extremely disconnected from the wider community. Don’t make the mistake of assuming Christians are immune from the struggles of non-Christians.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, The Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” (2 Cor 1:3-4 TNIV)

No matter how incarnational and organic your ministry is, if you have a public worship service of any kind, you do have a front door as well as a side door. And if you have one, you do have to pay some attention to the “attractional” issues. If people are wandering in, are they able to figure out how to get connected? Is there a clear path—an assimiliation track of some kind? If the people wandering in are of the previously-churched variety, do you have some method of acclimating them to your philosophy? Some friends of mine call it “running them through detox,” but it’s still a system.

What can we learn from attractional churches who are effectively reaching people in this way? What’s needed is to mobilize our people into incarnational living so that if they do bring someone to church, the most important groundwork has already been laid. The person coming has been experiencing sacrificial service and building a redemptive relationship. By the time the whole bringing-a-friend-to-church-thing happens, people are already very receptive.

Sometimes we just look at the outside—how good is the service?—without looking at what’s under the hood.

Missional has become a popular word used more and more frequently. Once considered an antonym of attractional, missional has begun to be used by churches that are still primarily attractional—geared toward reaching people through inviting them to experience the worship service as a step toward spiritual transformation.

Now I don’t think that’s a bad thing. If you remember, I planted a seeker-sensitive attractional church myself many years back. Over the course of 11 years, 2/3 of the people we reached were previously unchurched. We were fairly effective at being missional in the sense of being about the great commission.

The difficulty is that at least 50% of people (a very conservative estimate) are not reachable that way anymore. Only those who have a memory of church—in a positive sense—are reachable in this way, and that pool is getting smaller and smaller.

Attractional isn’t a bad thing… it’s just a different thing—and geared toward a different group of people. However, if you have a public worship service, you want it to attract, not repel, right? So what if we used terms that indicated different types of missional?

• Missional attractional
• Missional incarnational

Because in a sense, everyone who takes Jesus seriously is missional.