Network DNA - Church Planting

While discussing creating Networks of Networks, specifically the merging of the MISSIO and FORGE efforts in America, Alan Hirsch (Author of The Forgotten Ways and ReJesus) shared the following DNA pieces of the existing Network. These are great thoughts for those invested in apprenticeship networking. They might be in a book somewhere, but I've never seen them compiled in this fashion so I thought I'd pass them along.

1. Context is Everything.
• Place interns in context.
• Academy is not the best place to form missional leaders.
• Just as we cannot learn leadership outside of influence of leadership, we can’t learn missional outside of context.

2. Teachers must be Practitioners.
(Reflective practitioners, created ethos)
• Cannot teach what you do not know.
• Lead from the front.
• Beyond Theory.

3. Put Risk into the Equation.
(Becoming a learner instead of expert).
• We only learn what we know in comfort zone.
• Take two steps out of comfort zone.
• They need to feel the potential of failure.

4. Action Reflection Learners.
• Do it, then reflect. Evaluate, critique.
• Assumption is that we will learn as we do.

5. Relational Empowerment
• Coaching with emphasis on relationship

6. Inspiration THEN Information.
• Major on motivation and inspiration.
• Quantifies the information

7. Imagination is a Key Resource.
• Not just pragmatism
• We repeat what we know
• Helping us find our new maps.
• ReImagination is a cultivator for leadership
• “If you can’t imagine it, you can’t do it.”

8. Intellectual Engagement.
• Theology
• Missionaries should be our best thinkers.
• We’ve got to be thinking better.
• Become learners, but also become thinkers.
• High Quality information. Web is a wonderful resource.