Archive for the ‘Upstream’ Category

Posted on February 4, 2010 - by Larry - 0 Comments

Copenhagen Day Three

I am on the train from Copenhagen to Hamburg, Germany. I am reflecting a bit on some conversations that we have had over the last few days. I feel it is quite important as we go into a city to find locals who can inform us about the city and the people who live there. One conversation took place at Cafe Retro in the central part of the city. In this case we were talking with two local believers. One of them told us about the Jante Law.
The Jante Law was an observed form of behavior but put into a set of rules by Danish author Aksel Sandemose in his novel A Fugitive Crosses his tracks.”  Wikipedia says that the Jante Law “refers to a pattern of group behavior towards individuals within Scandinavian communities, which negatively portrays and criticizes success and achievement as unworthy and inappropriate”.
Here are the 10 Jante Laws our cultural guides spoke of earlier…

Don’t think that you are special.
Don’t think that you are of the same standing as us.
Don’t think that you are smarter than us.
Don’t fancy yourself as being better than us.
Don’t think that you know more than us.
Don’t think that you are more important than us.
Don’t think that you are good at anything.
Don’t laugh at us.
Don’t think that anyone of us cares about you.
Don’t think that you can teach us anything.

If you were living in Denmark how would the Jante law affect the way you live and interact as a new person in the community?

Posted on February 3, 2010 - by Larry - 1 Comment

Copenhagen – Day Two

This week I have been able to spend some time with Grady  here in Copenhagen.

Grady is a photographer and his wife is an artist and writer. They both are incredible examples of artists who are  living out their lives as salt and light in any community in which they live.

We have had several cups of coffee this week in Copenhagen. You will find a great post that he wrote while here this week here.

I asked him “Why Copenhagen? As I have been here over the last few days his answer makes total sense.

Copenhagen is a city full of artists. They feel a kinship to the arts. They believe that this is a part of the world that as a family they could live long term and really connect with people and have a ministry through a relational context.

I also asked him about where do they desire to live in Copenhagen? He says they are looking for a place that strikes  a balance between being close to where artists spend a lot of time such as galleries or cafes and to where as a young family they can develop relationships.  Intentionality is important in missional living.

If you are interested in learning more about their ministry you can send an email to info@theupstreamcollective.org

For a look at some of his work please visit my gallery page.

Posted on February 2, 2010 - by Larry - 2 Comments

Copenhagen – Day one

Observing a couple of things about the culture.

First, it is really a bike culture. It seems that there are more bikes than cars and on top of that  it is snowing. While many of us would stay inside by the fire on days like this many people in Copenhagen are riding their bikes everywhere. I could not imagine how many bikes would be on the street if the sun was shining and it was warm.

It is also a Cafe culture. You know this pleases me. There are cafes everywhere. I am trying out most of them. Mostly with large windows and many candles to give it a warm feeling.

Our group from The Village made it in this afternoon from the states. We have our first meeting this afternoon at a coffee shop this is also a cultural center.

As we begin our time this afternoon with the group one thing that we will talk about are the three streams of culture that I see in Europe.

• A decline in Institutional Christianity
• An increase in the influence of Islam
• An increase of a post Christian worldview

We see these in most European cities. This afternoon we will begin to talk to some people in Copenhagen about these three streams.

More soon.

Posted on January 30, 2010 - by Larry - 2 Comments

New Skybridge Site

We have just completed a re-launch of our site.

I hope you will check it out and join this community.

Normally we have four categories of members

1. Those thinking about working in Europe and looking for ways to do that and prepare for being salt and light here.

2. People who are already working in Europe and looking for ways to connect with ministries and obtain training for living out their lives incarnationally here.

3. We have some US churches who want to partner with people who are working over here in the marketplace. We believe it is extremely important for the marketplace worker to have a supporting church for prayer, accountability and potentially projects that will enable them to minister here. If your church is interested in this please let me know.

4. We also have church planters, church planting teams and people in existing mission networks here in Europe as  a part of our community.  Our Skybridge members want to connect with meaningful local ministry and this is where much of their community is found. We have Skybridge members in quite a few European cities and they are often looking for ways to connect.

If this interests you then I hope you will join Skybridge.   Check it out at www.skybridgecommunity.net

Next Week I am leading a Jet Set Vision Trip with the Village Church in Dallas. I hope you will follow along on this blog, twitter and our Upstream Site. as we travel to four different countries and look at ministry opportunities, learn about local cultures and have various missional conversations.

Posted on January 18, 2010 - by Larry - 2 Comments

Cross Cultural Church Planting Assessment, Part Three

Last week we took a look at some of the competencies that are important for church planters in North America. Today I want to discuss briefly the idea behind behavioral assessments.
In behavioral assessments a person’s past behavior is a good predictor of their future performance. For example one can make a prediction on a person’s “initiating” ability if you can look at their past performances regarding the ability to create some thing from nothing. If I were to ask you “tell me about a time where you started something from nothing” how would you respond?
If you were to say for example that “when I was a teenager I needed some extra money. I decided to start mowing yards to have more money.  I designed and printed  publicity brochures and handed them out to my neighbors and friends. I got  a few customers and did a pretty good job with their lawns. They told others about my work.  Soon I could not do all of the work so I hired a few others to help me mow the lawns.”  In this case the person started a small business. In my opinion this person demonstrated the ability to start something from scratch.

However, I would then ask a follow up question “can you tell me about a time where you started a ministry?” I ask the “follow up” for I want to try to establish a pattern of that behavior. The more times I can see that pattern in their life then the more accurate of a prediction that I can make.
So to continue this “fictional assessment” let’s assume the person being assessed then answered:
“Well, in college I was talking with some of the guys on our hall and they kept talking about spiritual matters. They had all sorts of questions. I decided to start a bible study for people who were spiritually seeking. We started in my dorm room but it quickly grew too large for the room. I identified some potential leaders in this group. I spent some time training them and then we started these groups on other halls and in several places on campus”. Again this guy demonstrated the ability to start something from nothing.
In the church planting world I would say this person has potential in one key component of being a church planter. He has the ability to start something from nothing. He has shown me this in at least two specific examples from his past experiences.  In church planting assessments “the more longstanding the behavior, the greater its predictive power.” Behavior Description Interviewing, New Accurate, Cost Effective by Tom Janz, Lowell Hellervik, David C. Gilmore, Prentice Hall, 1986.
By indirect observation of behavior you can take a zoom lens into the past. By looking into the persons past we can gain a handle of their behavior consistencies that can allow us to have some understanding of their future performance in a given context. The more recent the past behavior, the greater its predictive power.
Next week I am going to write a post about if this can potentially be applied to a church?

Posted on January 11, 2010 - by Larry - 0 Comments

Cross Cultural Church Planting Assessment, Part Two

I have been thinking about what would the differences be between the competencies needed in church planting in a North American context in comparison with other parts of the world. There are at least two factors that we need to consider.
1. The type or model of church plant.
2. The cultural context of the church plant. In other words I think the needed competencies could look different in Asia compared to South America.  However, I believe there are some competencies that are important regardless the culture.

There has been much written and discussed about church planter assessment. For an excellent article on church planting assessment take a read at this article from Scott Thomas of the Acts 29 Network.  Towards the end of his article you will see 13 Characteristics  of a church planter from Charles R. Ridley.

Ridley’s 13 characteristics is  probably the most utilized list for church planter assessment over the years.

1. Visionizing Capacity: Ability to project a vision into the future, persuasively sell it to other people, and bring the vision into reality.
2. Intrinsically Motivated: Approaches ministry as a self-starter and commits to excellence through long and hard work.
3. Creates Ownership of Ministry: Instills in the people a sense of personal responsibility for the growth and success of ministry and trains leaders to reproduce leaders.
4. Reaches the Unchurched and Lost: Ability to develop rapport, break through barriers, and encourage unchurched people to examine themselves and commit to a walk with God and lead people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
5. Spousal Cooperation: Creating a workable partnership that agrees on ministry priorities, each partner’s role and involvement in ministry, and the integration of ministry with family life.
6. Effectively Builds Relationships: Takes the initiative in getting to know people and deepening relationships as a basis for more effective ministry.
7. Committed to Church Growth: Values church growth as a method for building more and better disciples; strives to achieve numerical growth within the context of spiritual and relational growth.
8. Responsiveness to the Community: Adapts the ministry to the culture and needs of the local residents.
9. Utilizes Giftedness of Others: Equips and releases people to do ministry according to their spiritual gifts.
10. Flexible and Adaptable: Ability to adjust to change and ambiguity, shift priorities when necessary, and handle multiple tasks at once.
11. Builds Group Cohesiveness: Enables the group to work collaboratively toward a common goal and skillfully handles divisiveness and disunifying elements.
12. Demonstrates Resilience: Ability to sustain oneself emotionally and physically through setbacks, losses, disappointments and failures.
13. Exercises Faith: Demonstrates how one’s convictions are translated into personal and ministry decisions.

Which of these are important in your part of the world?

Digging Deeper about Behavioral Assessments: The categories were from a research conducted by a behavioral psychologist by the name of Charles Ridley. You can find out more about him here. His resume is quite impressive.
Another resource you may want to take a look at would be  Discovery Tools . You can download this under the available resources section.  This is a pre-assessment tool from the Church Planting Village for potential church planters that some people use.

More on cross cultural assessments next week.

Posted on January 5, 2010 - by Larry - 1 Comment

Cross Cultural Church Planting Assessment, Part 1

A few weeks ago I was in the Ukraine leading several sessions of  training regarding church planter assessment in that part of the world.  This actually brought back memories of a former life when I worked at the North America Mission Board in this same area. In preparing for this time I was reviewing some research that I had on the topic regarding church planter assessment. It really prompted three conversations in my mind.
1. How does church planter assessment look in another cultural setting? What are the behavioral competencies for a church planter outside North America? I had a particular interest in this since I wanted to compare what important competencies fellow workers see here on the field versus past research in North America.

2. Can behavioral assessment principles be utilized in a cross cultural setting? If so what would that look like?

3. Is there a way for a church to be assessed for it’s cross cultural abilities?
One project  that we are working on at the Upstream Collective is to find ways in which a church can assess their gifts, experiences and even their make up as a community of believers and then utilize this information as they determine where the Lord may be leading them to do missions. Can the behavioral assessment principles be applied to a church?
Are there certain competencies that a person (or a church) needs to possess in order to minister effectively in a cross cultural setting?

I would welcome your feedback on this conversation.

In another post I am going to give you a list of several of the behavioral competencies that I see as important for cross-cultural workers or teams of workers that I have been working on.

Next week I want to briefly describe the idea of behavioral assessments.
BTW - My New Year goal for this blog is to write on a missional topic on Mondays, a leadership topic on Wednesdays and then introduce you to a friend or ministry on the weekend.

More Soon.

Posted on November 30, 2009 - by Larry - 0 Comments

Back to the Future

From time to time I want to highlight some friends of mine and their ministries. I do this because I really think a lot of what they have going on and how the Lord is using them. Some of my great friends are the guys at MountainLake Church and Churchplanters.com. I try to go to their conference each year. These guys know about church planting. Here is a blog post from Upstream that we did recently about our pre-conference session this coming February.  I hope to see you at  the conference.

Last year, the Upstream Collective did a breakout session at the churchplanters.com conference. Each year, church planters from across the country gather in Atlanta for a few days at Mountain Lake church. The churchplanters.com conference is the forum for new church planters to share best practices, personal stories, and vital resources.

This  years  theme, Velocity, is about movement and timing. Upstream is partnering with Alan Hirsch to do a Pre-Conference Session about ministry in post-Christian contexts. This Pre-Conference track will be called:

Back to the Future: Lessons from Post-Christian Cultures

The future is already happening. Alan Hirsch, Larry McCrary, and Caleb Crider bring lessons from Europe and Australia to the North American Church. This session will focus on some of the lessons this team has learned from being engaged globally and how your church can engage with this global movement called the church.

Alan Hirsch is a brilliant thinker and speaker, and the author of ReJesus and The Shaping of Things to Come. Larry McCrary and Caleb Crider are co-founders of the Upstream Collective. Larry currently lives in Germany and Caleb was a church planter in Barcelona and is now part of church planting in Portland, Oregon.

The conference is February 22-23 at Mountain Lake Church in Cumming (Atlanta), Georgia. The conference costs $99 (earlybird special through 11/30) and Pre-Conference Sessions are $49.

For more information, visit churchplanters.com.

I hope you all will join us at the pre-conference session.

See you there!

Posted on November 27, 2009 - by Larry - 0 Comments

Martin Luther and Erfurt Germany

This week I made a  visit via train to Erfurt, Germany. It is located in former East Germany. I must say I did not have a lot of expectations before arriving in Erfurt but was pleasantly surprised. You may know that Erfurt was where Martin Luther went to university and then to the monastery.  He was also ordained as  a priest there (Take a look at the large church below).  So lots of reformation history here. Sometimes I really wish I had studied more Church history  in seminary. (I guess that is another post)

Here are a couple of links if you are interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt

I went to Erfurt to meet up with a volunteer team from FBC Jacksonville.  They were teaching English (ESL) in various settings during the week. This church has a desire to see churches started in this part of Germany.  There are trying to find some ways to have an incarnational presence in this city. I went up there to chat with them about their venture. I will post more about the next part of my trip later. The next day I spoke at a seminary in Bonn, Germany.

There are some incredible opportunities for churches to become involved in ministry here in Germany. I truly sense God is doing a work here. Interested in joining in write me an email at larry@theupstreamcollective.org or check out our site at www.theupstreamcollective.org.

Posted on November 24, 2009 - by Larry - 0 Comments

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

One of my favorite John Hughes movies is  Planes, Trains and Automobiles. We watch it most Thanksgivings. Since it is that time of year I thought I would write a post on my favorite mode of transportation in Europe. I know this is a really deep subject matter but I am writing  this while I am on a train to Erfurt Germany which I am learning is a pretty significant city for people who love Martin Luther.

Erfurt is about a 4 hour ride from my house. In Europe we  normally have several choices for transport. We have used all four but here is my list in order of preference.

Train – I like this the best for it is just easy. Well most of the time. I guess it depends on the country but in Germany the train service is quite reliable. Someone has once said if you are on the right track at the right time you will be on the right train to your destination.  So far that has been true for me. There are some language issues with that but for the most part it works. I like riding trains for you have more room to spread out even in the 2nd class car.  You can get up and walk around anytime you like.  You do not have  “fasten seat belts” signs to mess with.  You can use your ipod the entire time even when you take off from a station or enter a new one. You can do the same with your computer. However, you do have to be careful to sit in the appropriate car if you want to use your cell phone).  I have learned that the hard way. I was wondering why it was so quiet.  But my favorite part is that it will take you many times from city centre to city centre plus  you do not have to worry with parking your car.

Discount Jet Service – I am an Easy Jet fan. When I have to travel further than possible on a train due to time I jump on Easy Jet or something like it. Normally a good price ticket and pretty easy. Sometimes you have to fight your way in line since it is first come first serve unless you buy a “Speedy Boarding” pass. You need to pack your lunch unless you want to buy your peanuts and coke. It is a new way to backpack Europe.

Personal auto – We use the car if it is within driving distance or if  there are more than two of us going to the same place. However we have a car here to use. I do not think I would rent a car unless I was going to some hard to get to places. Normally it can be cheaper to drive if our entire family goes or if we are going with a group. I still do not like though. But on the other hand the autobahn in Germany can be rather fun when you can travel without speed restrictions.  Not that I would do that.

Bus -  I really do not like taking a bus from one city to another. Inside the city I can handle the buses but since this is a post about going from city to city I cannot rank them that high. I think I must have had a bad experience in the past. In fact I know I have and it had to do with a bad smell on the bus. Bathrooms can be a blessing and a curse on a bus. For that reason alone I give them a number four ranking.

Any other planes, trains and automobile stories?

Happy Thanksgiving.