Transfiguring Church Culture: Reorganizing the Church for Holistic Mission
Part Eight: The Rise of Transvocational Ministry
We are not really ready for this.
Throughout this series, one thing has probably become obvious… local congregations are not organized for this way of being church. In fact, the professionalized, clergy-centric model, is in some ways dependent on not really living into a “priesthood of all believers.” Much of our denominational hierarchies and systems depend on things staying the same.
In previous posts, we’ve explored the biblical, historical, and practical foundations of transvocational ministry—the powerful vision of integrating faith with everyday life in a way that transcends the traditional divide between the sacred and the secular.
How can churches reorganize at a local level to equip every person to live out our faith in the world? It requires transfiguration, a graceful journey of becoming who we were always created to be.
The Blended Ecology
In Gardens in the Desert, we suggest two frameworks for change, radical and incremental. When it comes to restructuring inherited congregations and systems, radical, rapid change is not usually the way to go.
Consider the blended ecology of church. This refers to Fresh expressions of church living in symbiotic relationship with inherited forms of church, in such a way that the combining of these modes over time blend to create a nascent form.
The blended ecology is about releasing the priesthood of all believers within existing churches to cultivate new ecclesial communities.
One pathway for this is called Dual Transformation.
Scott Anthony, Clark Gilbert, and Mark Johnson explain that “imminent disruption” is one of the greatest challenges for leaders today. They propose a practical and sustainable process for the transformation of businesses they call “dual transformation.”[1] Can we apply this to a blended ecology of inherited and emerging church living together?
Dual refers to two simultaneous transformations that reinforce each other, rather than a monolithic process of change. So, think of two processes of change happening at the same time, like sauce boiling on the stove, and bread baking in the oven. Yet I mean transformation in its most radical sense: a fundamental change in form or substance. So, the sauce would somehow turn into stew, and the bread would become a potpie. It’s not just changing the temperature or the taste, but a complete and total change. In a molecular way, its still the same, but transfigured. This kind of transformation takes time.
For the business world, dual transformation involves (a) finding ways to better service existing customers, (b) while simultaneously finding ways to reach new customers outside core markets, and (c) then combining the leveraging of a company’s valuable assets for new entrepreneurial ventures.[2]
So, there are three key components involved in the process of dual transformation. For a business (a) refers to repositioning and improving the business model to maximize resilience (b) involves creating a new growth engine (c) or the “capabilities link” involves building on the relevant mix of critical assets, brand and scale, and managing the interface between the core and the new.[3]
For example, Netflix is a company that began with the simple idea that people could rent and return movies through the mail. This eliminated time wandering the aisles of rental stores and cut down on late fees. In 1999 Netflix moved to the monthly subscription that allowed unlimited rentals. In 2000, Netflix entertained a conversation about being bought out by their main competitor, Blockbuster, for $50 million. Blockbuster passed and later went bankrupt.[4]
However, Reed Hasting’s, founder of Netflix always saw the DVD by mail as temporary evolution in the business. He saw the coming potential of downloading and streaming made available by Web infrastructure. As the capacity of the internet built up to provide quality streaming, mail subscribers were offered free streaming in 2007. But Netflix launched the streaming-only plan in 2009. This model allowed international expansion in 2010, something that would have been challenging in the mail-in only model. Netflix used dual transformation again when it used its streaming business to enter the film industry, committing to not just deliver the content of others but to create their own. By 2015 the company had transformed from a mail-in service to a web-delivering based blended service, providing original and third-party content.[5]
Netflix just stopped sending DVD’s in the mail in 2023. In 2015 five million subscribers still received DVD’s. Each time, they (a) used and developed existing technologies to provide better service for existing customers (mail-in service) (b) harnessed emerging technologies to reach new customers (streaming services) (c) combining and leveraged their valuable assets to start new ventures (original film and series production).
So, for the church in the twenty-first century, we need to find new ways to nurture existing disciples, that is, being inherited church in fruitful, contextually appropriate ways. While simultaneously finding ways to cultivate new forms of church with the increasing populations of “nones and dones.” Reaching new people we wouldn’t reach otherwise, by forming new Christian communities with them where they are. Combining those modes in new and creative ways is forming the hybrid church of the future.
Again, insight from the business world shows that in dual transformation, the greatest challenge lies not in finding creative ways to better service existing customers, or finding fresh ways to reach new customers outside core markets, but in the combining and leveraging a company’s valuable assets to simultaneously release entrepreneurial creativity (“Transformation C”). It’s the blending together of these two simultaneous transformations in a way that is symbiotic and not parasitic.
The positive dynamics of change must reinforce each other, not replace or destroy the other.
So, this requires (a) strengthening the center through traditioned innovation, creating and enhancing inherited, attractional, gathered and analog church (b) cultivating missional experiments on the edge, creating and enhancing emerging, missional, scattered, and digital forms of church (c) grafting the organisms together, through connecting, feedbacking, and synergizing.
When a local church lives in this dual transformation over time, the blended ecology unleashes new and often unanticipated kingdom flourishing and fruitfulness in the new reality where we find ourselves.
The Tree of Life
I have often anchored this in the vision of Romans 11:16-24. There Paul is speaking to the marvelous thing God has done in Jesus Christ, making “Jews and Gentiles” one living organism.
In this image, the deep roots of the tree are the Patriarchs, Matriarchs, Torah, Covenant . . . now fulfilled through Messiah Jesus. Gentiles, then, are the “wild branches” grafted into the very same root system as the Jews. They are now one tree.
This both/andness reawakens the two primary modes of how God has gathered people around God’s presence throughout history:
· Stationary mode: A fixed place where God dwells—attractional—God invites us into God’s holy space.
· Mobile mode: God dwells with us on the move—incarnational—God moves into our space.
What if we thought of our local church as a microcosm of this scenario? The inherited church serves as the root system, whereas the fresh expressions are the wild branches being grafted into the tree?
For a smaller illustration, consider “ketchup and fries.” This is a plant that grows potatoes in the ground and tomatoes up top. Two distinct species are grafted together to form one new living organism. An organism from which you can grow both ketchup and French fries. This is a dual transformation organism, and an absolute game changer for church potlucks across the country![6]
What if every church could in some way embrace being a hybrid organism? We will need to cultivate inherited communities that have deep roots in tradition and local context. Simultaneously we will need to cultivate fresh sprouts of church that our nimble, incarnational, and tethered to the root system.
If you think this is mind-blowing, consider the Tree of 40 Fruit. This is a single tree that grows forty different types of stone fruit, including peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, cherries, and almonds. The tree is one of a series of fruit trees created by Syracuse University Professor, Sam Van Aken, using the same grafting technique.
The Tree of 40 Fruit blossoms in variegated tones of pink, crimson, and white in spring, then when summer comes the tree bears a variety of diverse fruits. Does this remind you of the “tree of life” image from Revelation 22? A tree “with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Rev 22:2).
The “tree of life,” which we lost access to in the beginning of our story (Genesis 3), is made accessible in the end. This tree is a “hybrid organism.” It is significant that we will ultimately do life together for all eternity as a hybrid community grafted together, Jew and Gentile (Rom 11:17-24), around a hybrid organism—a single tree of many fruits. Hybridity and grafting are from our future, breaking into the present. What if our local churches could look like that tree right now? With the inherited church serving as a stable incubator for all kinds of wild experiments…
This is what that blended ecology of church could look like practically. The inherited church is one habitat among a communal ecosystem, equipping believers to cultivate little pockets of communal life in Jesus in every first, second, and third place all over the community. Transvocational ministry is a pathway for this.
In the next post, we will explore practical ways to renegotiate the inherited social contract, enabling this kind of transfiguration to flourish.
[1] Anthony, Scott D., Clark G. Gilbert, and Mark W. Johnson. Dual Transformation: How to Reposition Toady’s Business While Creating the Future, 2017.
[2] Ibid., 17.
[3] Ibid., 44-45.
[4] Ibid., 126.
[5] Ibid., 48.
[6] See Beck, Michael. Deep and Wild: Remissioning Your Church from the Outside In (in press, Franklin, TN: Seedbed Publishing, 2021).
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