Establishing the Next Step
Victory Metro is a multicampus megachurch headquartered in Manila, Philippines, with 65,000 attendees each Sunday. Two of their leaders have written fantastic books that deal, in part, with how structure can help culture.
Steve Murrell, an American missionary who planted Victory in 1984 and has recently returned to the U.S., describes the model in the book, WikiChurch: Making Discipleship Engaging, Empowering and Viral.
When I interviewed him, Steve said that a WikiChurch, like Wikipedia, does not require professional oversight of the work being done. By the way they operate the intentional structure of the church, the leadership encourages all of the members to be involved in service. Their culture is strengthened by a structure that equips and empowers every believer to be on mission.
Joey Bonifacio, one of the current leaders at Victory, wrote The Lego Principle about how people were designed to be in relationships. They were made to connect on the top and the bottom, with God and others. No matter the color or when the Lego piece was made, they fit together and can make something amazing.
These ideas of empowering believers and building relationships are served by the structure established in Victory. Joey compared it to the process immediately after arriving on an international flight.
You have several steps that you always take. No one gets through the airport without going through those. You go through and have your passport checked. You pick up your luggage. You go through customs. It is all a clear path for everyone involved. There is no question as to what is next.
Their church has created a simple process for everyone to go through. Part of what makes it fascinating is that they actually have an app to take people through their discipleship process. I had never thought about using that, but it is brilliant in their context.
Here’s the thing that I think is key for Victory: They have a very intentional pathway that reinforces the culture they have developed in their church since the beginning. But what if your church hasn’t always had a missional culture? Maybe you are working to grow that type of mindset. Can that be done? Can a structural change help in the process of creating a new culture? Absolutely.
I’ve written before about how I planted a church that grew from a 25-person core team to 125, but the 100 that came in didn’t do anything. With a new culture, we encouraged them to change, but we also empowered them to change with practical structural shifts, one of which was requiring all members to go through a training course.
We didn’t just say, “We need you to serve here.” We said, “We need you to serve here, but first we are going to train and equip you for that service with a three-class course.” Two families left because they just did not want to participate, but everyone else got on board with what we were doing.
