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Field Guide Preview: Cultivated Ministry

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. In this month’s series, we are excited to share some sneak peeks of NEXT Church’s forthcoming “Field Guide for Cultivated Ministry,” alongside articles and stories that reflect on the importance of mindfulness, discernment, and learning as crucial to the flourishing of ministry. We can’t wait to share the whole thing with you this fall! We invite you to share your own thoughts on Facebook and Twitter

Today, we’re excited to share the first sneak peek of the Field Guide for Cultivated Ministry, which we’ll release in full this fall. This preview is from the guide’s introduction, which debuts the concept of “cultivated ministry” and defines its four movements: theology, accountability, learning, and storytelling.


Cultivated Ministry

Jesus often used agricultural metaphors to describe God’s kingdom and our calling to participate in its growth. As anyone who has tried to maintain a garden knows, growing desirable plants requires intentionality and hard work. Growing nothing is easy. Growing weeds is easy. Growing delicious fruits and vegetables and beautiful flowers is much more difficult.

According to the Book of Genesis, from the beginning of human history God has called us to be caretakers and cultivators of our local contexts. The first commandment given to human beings was to be fruitful. This ancient calling provides the guiding metaphor for this field guide.

Cultivated ministry is a third way between toeing the line of traditional metrics and abdicating accountability altogether. Haphazard gardening is irresponsible and ineffective. Fruitful gardening involves mindfulness and discipline. A cultivated garden requires planning, ongoing assessment, learning when confronted with new challenges, and periodic pruning. Likewise, cultivated ministry insists that we undertake our work with a clear and purposeful understanding of how our activities contribute to God’s mission in the world. As practical theologians have long recognized, ministry requires seasons of reflection, evaluation, and evolution. From time to time we must slow down and ask critical questions about what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how we can do it better.[i] Without this discipline, our practices and methods become stale or out of touch with our rapidly changing cultural contexts. It is far too easy to rest on our laurels and allow existing ministries to outlive their original purposes or effectiveness. Unless we adopt open postures of listening, learning, and intentional discernment, we are prone to miss opportunities for the development of new ministries to meet the needs of new situations.

Cultivated ministry is more than a new set of metrics or a collection of plug-and-play tools. Rather, it is a commitment to four interlocking means of assessment, evaluation, and (re)design aimed at nurturing thoughtful expressions of God’s mission in the world. This is not a recipe to adhere to nor a linear process to follow—these four movements happen simultaneously, informing and supporting each other as an organic and coherent whole.

Cultivated ministry begins and ends with theology, with our belief that God is intimately engaged in the world and has called us to bear fruit that will last. In this work to which we are called, we practice mutual accountability to God and to each other. Along the way, we commit ourselves to constant learning and reformation. At every step, we listen for good news of God’s redemptive work through transformative storytelling.

This four-dimensional practice of assessment is neither focused on the past nor fearful of the future. It is time for us to regain control of our own narratives. We are much more than passive players in the unfolding drama of human history. With God’s help, we can shape our own future and tell our own stories. God has placed us in the world and has given us seeds to plant. Now, as stewards of God’s good creation, it’s up to us to step forward in faith. It’s up to us to practice cultivated ministry.

[i] Sarah B. Drummond, Holy Clarity: The Practice of Planning and Evaluation (Alban Institute, 2009), 103-122.


Editor’s note: The full field guide is available for free download now! Check it out —

NEXT U: Poetry, Prayer and Prophetic Wisdom

school room

Welcome to NEXT University! During the month of August, we are highlighting our most popular posts and videos on the NEXT blog from the past few years, with suggestions for how to use this content with church sessions, committees, staff and other leaders. 

Of all the thoughtful speakers and provocative blog posts and videos we’ve shared over the years, whether at our conferences or on our blog, Stacy Johnson’s keynote address at our 2012 National Gathering in Dallas remains a highlight. Stacy Johnson is Arthur M. Adams Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary and a member of NEXT’s advisory team.

Stacy’s remarks have been quoted and shared widely over the years. In today’s installment of NEXT U, we annotate this video and break it into topical sections. You’re invited to view some or all of the segments and engage the questions provided… or let Stacy’s words spark your own imaginations.

ACCESS THE FULL VIDEO HERE

(all times below are approximate)

Introduction — The Logic of Survival v. The Logic of the Cross (1:50-5:05 on video) 

  • Where have you seen the logic of survival at work in your context? the logic of the cross?
  • Jesus, according to Stacy, did not advocate fighting or giving in to the logic of survival, but rather to trust in a different reign. Where do you see that reflected biblically? What does that different reign look like right where you live?

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The “Cultural Tsunami”: Technical and Adaptive Challenges (5:05-9:55 on video)

This section takes us through some of the statistics facing our denomination, as well as some of the attitudes of millenials and “nones.” Stacy also unpacks the difference between technical and adaptive challenges.

  • How do Stacy’s comments about millenials and nones “wanting to learn the game” play out where you live?
  • What are some of the technical and adaptive challenges in your congregation? To use Stacy’s analogy, have you found yourself treating a sprained ankle when in fact the leg is gone?
  • Do you agree that “Christianity as usual is not working”? Why or why not?

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The Gospel and Our Adaptive Challenges (9:50-15:10 on video)

In this section, Stacy argues that the adaptive work we need emerges from the gospel itself—that the biblical witness itself is a testimony to the need for constant reform, grappling and change (see shifting attitudes toward slavery, the role of women, and the place of torture).

  • According to Stacy, theologians say christendom is on the decline and that we should find new ways of being church. But then their remedy is to repeat the same doctrinal structures of christendom. Do you agree? Where have you seen this play out, or resisted?
  • Do you agree that we have “hardly begun” to understand the full depth of the gospel?
  • According to Stacy, “We stand between reform and revolution.” Where do you see yourself and your congregation on this continuum? (Or do you?)

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Where Do We Go from Here, Part 1: The Poetry of Ministry (15:10-21:00 on video)

  • The word “poesis” means “to make or to create.” How does your congregation engage in poesis? What does your church “make”? As Christian communities, what should we be in the business of “creating”?
  • What are some practical ways to engage in the “poetry of ministry” in your context?
  • “The gospel is not a theory; it’s about a life.” What’s your response to this? If this is true, what does it mean for our life together? Our polity? Or way of “doing theology”?
  • Bibliographical Note: Stacy references Craig Barnes’s The Pastor as Minor Poet and Walter Brueggemann’s Finally Comes the Poet. Both are worth checking out for further conversation.

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Where Do We Go from Here, Part 2: Prayer (21:00-26:25 on video) 

  • Think about the ways we pray in our congregations. To what extent are we tending to God v. asking God to attend to us?
  • Reflect on this definition of nihilism: “if a single standard is not good for everyone, then there is no standard good for anyone at any time.” How do you respond? Have you seen this principle play out in the church?
  • Reflect on this comment from Gerald May, that it’s only when our beliefs crumble that we stop worshiping our beliefs and begin to worship God. Have you seen this process take place in your congregation? Has it ever taken place in your own life?

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Where Do We Go from Here, Part 3: Prophetic Witness (26:20-30:30 on video)

  • How do you see prophetic religion as distinct from liberal or conservative religion?
  • The world is the arena in which God is acting.” Where have you seen God at work this week?
  • Reflect on this statement: “We are not yet what we shall be.”

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Conclusion (30:00-end of video)

Here Stacy revisits the “fear of perishing v. the logic of the cross” that he introduced in the beginning.

  • How has the gospel “happened to you” lately?
  • How can we tell those stories more fully in the congregations we serve… to make the gospel more “conspicuous”?