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Featured Guest Review: Q&A with Neil Cole, author of Church Transfusion: Changing Your Church ally--From the Inside Out ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Neil Cole Q. Why is the church movement still so important? A. Christianity is still fraught with pollutants. If we do not purify the people of God from the institutions of men that keep them encased in artificial mechanisms, then we will never be able to see transformation of neighborhoods and nations with the power of the Gospel. Q. What would you say is at the heart of the church movement? A. We have always declared that the heart of the church movement, indeed all of church, is what we call the of the body of Christ. For us the stands for Divine Truth, Nurturing Relationships and Apostolic Mission. So at the very raw center of our movement is love and how we relate to God, one another and the world around us. Q. What’s the most crucial ingredient for a traditional congregation that wants to make the move toward being more ? A. The way you lead in a man-made, top-down organization and the way you catalyze the outward spread of influence in a movement are not only different but are actually polar sites. Everything the leader has learned to date about how to succeed in the institution must be questioned and replaced with a new sense of identity and practice. We have devoted several chapters to this topic. Q. What three pieces of advice would you give to pastors and congregations that are drawn to an church model? 1) Don’t try to change a church corporately with a program. Implementation of real change must come from the heart of the disciples not the staff offices or a pulpit. 2) Allow a new pilot project on the side to thrive and let that group of people have contagious influence over the rest of the church. Protect it from the people who will see it as a threat. 3) Start with ing the Good News of Christ’s in a few disciples that will make more. Let the of a few drive the change rather than a top-down approach that never really infiltrates the hearts of the disciples. Q. If church leaders only did one thing to receive the transfusion you talk about in your book, what would that be? A. Death: to yourself as a leader, and for the church. Yikes, does that sound too harsh? Well, if it does, that is only an indication of how far removed we actually are from the Gospel. We are supposed to be a people for whom death has no sting, the fact that it is so feared and threatening is a symptom of a very serious problem. Jesus clearly said that if we cling to our lives we will lose them and if we lose them for the Gospel’s sake we will gain them. We believe this applies to us as individuals and as ecclesia.