Relational Integrity

By: Steve & Marilyn Hill

The prophets keep speaking.  Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstram  declare in "The Starfish and the Spider"  "the unstoppable power of leaderless organizations".  These are organizations whose unity is through shared values  (like the house church movement in China) rather than centralized leadership.

Ricardo Semler  declares in "The Seven Day Weekend"  the release of creativity and excellence through non hierarchical leadership.  He sees the main task of leadership to be nurturing the atmosphere of creativity and collective responsibility through releasing each to their gifts and passions rather than command and control.

Robert Fritz has written "Your Life as Art" and "The Managerial Moment of Truth".    A friend in England was telling me about his work.  Yes, Fritz is  another prophet from the realm of business but I believe they are prophesying more accurately than most in the church world.  They have to have measurable results or nobody will listen to them.

Robert Fritz is dealing with how we market, train and grow.  Conventional multi level marketing companies reward those who recruit the most in the least amount of time.  Star performers may recruit several hundred in three or four months but generally most of those recruits become "non performers" by the end of their first year.  Not a very good result.  And parallels to mass evangelism are not accidental.

Fritz challenges his clients to truly invest in people.   So if you are involved in health products, you work with a small group of three to seven and walk with them for at least a year to actually see them through to the health that your product was created to produce.  That is step one.   Fritz sees your role here as that of a teacher/trainer.  This is not just about information but life formation.

The goal is not to draw as large a crowd as quickly as possible.  Experience teaches that such short term success is generally long term fruitlessness and frustration.

Fritz's second step is to identify ONE person who is interested in helping others to use your products and to work with that one person for at least three months to enable them to become a teacher as well.  The point is that if you become the teacher/trainer for their friends, they will never do so.  You step back from being the teacher and, in Fritz's terminology you become the mentor.  You help this one to succeed as a teacher/trainer of their small circle.

If this sounds like Jesus in Luke 10 where he instructs us to remain in the house of peace and teach them to become the pastor of their family and friends, that is because it is exactly what Jesus is teaching!  We confuse numbers with success.  Jesus sent the crowds away to invest His life in the twelve.  He asks us to do the same!

The third step for Fritz happens when you have a group of three to seven that you are investing in as their mentor and who have begun to do the same.  You then step back again to become their manager.  Maybe our terms would be that you become a grandfather or the resource person for those you have taught to be apostles.

The reality is that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  He is the God of the three generations and we must keep stepping back as we release the generations of Jesus Christ or we stop the process and create dependency amongst those averse to risk and frustration in those who thrive on risk.  We simply stop the multiplication of the generations of Jesus.

Your gift may draw a crowd but when your gift leaves so does the crowd.  The same crowd that wanted to make Jesus King wanted to kill him a short time later.  Your success is not in the crowd.  Your success is not even in your sons.   Have you laid your life down as a foundation so that your sons can multiply the generations of Jesus?

Success is in your grandsons!

Steve & Marilyn