A friend on a mastermind call last week asked me an interesting question. He asked, “What is your Mars colony?”
He asked that question after I had shared some of my projects, plans and multiple ministry roles I’m involved in. He shared an anecdote from the life of Elon Musk and how he makes decisions. When Elon Musk is faced with an opportunity or a fork in the road, his locus for decision making really is asking himself if this will help advance the ultimate goal of creating a self-sustaining city on Mars.
Nowadays, everything he’s doing, from Tesla to the Boring company to Neuralink, behind all of this is the ultimate goal of a self-sustaining city on Mars. He wants to get there in his lifetime, and so that becomes the framework for all decision making.
What my friend was asking me was, “Daren, out of all these different things, online work, church ministry, writing, and other kinds of projects, what is your Mars colony? What’s the one thing that is behind all of your decision making?” So I spent some time mulling on that.
My quick answer was something I call NMC, or New Model Church or 12Church, which is a long term thought experiment I’ve been having about looking at alternative ways of doing church. This experiment explores some options like maybe not requiring a facility, but distinct from house church, and looking at a more effective and efficient way of doing church.
That in a way is probably my Mars colony, my long term dream goal, but it’s kind of vague because I don’t know exactly what it looks like. I’m still learning and growing and talking to people, reading a lot about missional churches and what’s working and what’s not working. So initially I thought that might be a Mars colony.
But in my thinking, I thought, before you get to Mars, you’ve got to get to the moon. So what’s my moon colony? I’ve been thinking, what’s the step back from that? Right now, I’m a transitional pastor doing transitional coaching and have some online work. What is the next big step that would move me in that ultimate direction?
I think a big part of it is what I’m already doing with the larger Priority Pastor, or 8020Ministry project, which is something I have going that includes Priority Pastor and includes things about church governance, church staff and church marketing. When 80/20 is boiled down to the core, the main idea is asking what are the key factors in these areas of life and ministry for pastors? What’s 80/20 preaching? What is the core of 80/20 leadership? What is 80/20 church governance?
So the umbrella for all this is 8020Ministry and the first piece of it is Priority Pastor or 8020Pastors. But that’s just one piece. So my moon colony is 8020Ministry and it will hopefully lead towards my Mars colony, which is an alternative, or at least a much more effective and efficient way of making disciples.
Disciple-making really is what’s behind all of it. What I want to do in 8020Ministry is help existing churches be more effective and efficient in making disciples. I also want it to be a catalyst for thinking outside the way we normally do church to just asking the question, “How can we do this better?” But rather asking “How can we be more effective in disciple-making, both in reaching people and equipping people to being disciple-makers?”
That’s really what’s behind what I’m doing. That is my moon colony leading to my Mars colony.
What’s yours? What is the big picture? An idea, goal, plan or dream behind everything you do in life and ministry?
Something to mull on. Have an outstanding day. God bless. Press on.
