Navigating Healthy Multiplication
Core Value | Facilitate Movement
The life of a disciple includes a life of gospel goodbyes. As change can bring about grief, uncertainty, and anxiety we look to Jesus - who left His heavenly home and came to earth for our sake.
In navigating multiplication at every level, our hope is that these resources would equip you to lead your people into authentic, healthy, and fruitful multiplications with the hope that many would know the living God.
Learning to see anxiety
Remarkably illuminating and relevant for all, this short article by Jim Herrington & Trisha Taylor dives deep into how anxiety affects all human relationships, especially through change.
Article (10 min)
reflection questions After reading
Name one childhood experience that shaped your first understanding (first formation) of yourself and of the world you live in. Explore how this experience shaped how you saw yourself? How you saw authority figures? How you saw the world around you?
Are there individuals in your House Church that can predictably raise your anxiety? See if you can make any connection between your first formation experience and the experience of anxiety you have around this individual today.
How does the reality of anxiety impact a House Church as it is considering multiplication?
What leaders need to know about change
Common wisdom says change is difficult because people resist it, but leadership researcher Taylor Harrell, suggests that there’s something deeper that people actually resist: loss. A really helpful talk for Shepherds considering or in the midst of multiplication.
Video (20 min)
reflection questions After Watching
When you consider some of the losses associated with any kind of change in your House Church, what comes to mind?
How can you use some of the resources in this video to inform the way you respond to these losses, and understand deeper the way your House Church experiences change?
What parts of our “identity” must we maintain, in the midst of change? What must we be willing to give up to maintain our mission?
Canoeing the mountatins
Tod Bolsinger offers a combination of illuminating insights and practical tools to help leaders reimagine what effective leadership looks like in a rapidly changing world. The principles here are relevant for churches steering into cultural headwinds, but also for Shepherds trying to guide their HCs into something unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
Book
reflection questions After reading
One key quote from this book is:
“There is one core principle for developing relational congruence. People must be engaged in meaningful work together if they are to transcend individual concerns and develop new capacities.” (68)How does your HC engage in “meaningful work together”? Is your HC engaging in “meaningful work together”? How does this concept lend insight into why you may be experiencing dissonance in the midst of change?