Practical Tips For The 5Q Journey

For all you leaders out there who have read 5Q and are now ready to tweet, preach and train your people to a premature 5Q-end. Please just take a moment.

Stop, save the tweet and read the ways below that you can save yourselves and your people lots of bumps and blind alleys.

Lead by example – This has to be something you embody. You won’t become Yoda overnight, but you have to start to embrace both the 5Q paradigm and practice. Start small and start somewhere. There is nothing worse than telling everyone to do something you don’t understand or teaching someone else content that you’ve not grappled with. Internalize 5Q and begin to incarnate 5Q before you broadcast & boast about it! 

Take the time over each day and throughout the week to read, reflect and then activate 5Q in your personal life & discipleship.

[bctt tweet=’Internalize 5Q and begin to incarnate 5Q before you broadcast & boast about it!’]

Start with story – You will have seen that the 5Q book is rich with story: people, movements, metaphors. Don’t go straight into the technical data or systems analysis. Paint a picture. Tell a story. Share an example. Give people the texture of the skin not just the strength of the skeleton. As the famous quote goes:

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men and women to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

Share with grace – Whenever there is something new, the internal whispers are always around “Am I in or out?”, “Am I good enough or not?”, “Do others get it and I am just slow?”. 

There will be so many whispers of fear, doubt and uncertainty for people as a new phrase, paradigm of practice comes around. However this is framed: as a gift from Jesus to His body, a key to unlock latent potential, a framework for us all to play our part or an adventure towards unity and fullness; it needs to be communicated with Grace, as an invite, not a test, as an opportunity for all, not an obstacle to entry.

Have a communal voice – Who are the trusted voices in your community? As you begin the 5Q journey, invite them to read 5Q with you. Take time to dialogue, to study, to ask questions and then share thoughts in community. This small number of trusted voices will begin to address at the questions of the wider community and begin to translate 5Q truth in the language & culture of your community. They begin to do the cultural translation and language work that others will be invited into the conversation in a smooth way.

Enjoy the journey – I am a future oriented person. It’s all about tomorrow and what could be coming around the next bend life gives us. For the 5Q journey to be deep & meaningful it needs to embraced and engaged within a deep way over time. It isn’t a quick fix or superficial set of tools.

Make the most of exploring rather than be frustrated or overwhelmed that you aren’t ‘there yet’. (FYI – I am not sure you’ll ever get ‘there’!)

[bctt tweet=’For the #5Q journey to be deep & meaningful it needs to embraced & engaged in a deep way over time’]

There is also a final part of Chapter 10 that will help you with some postures to make the pages of 5Q begin to come alive in a deep & edifying way for the whole community. Not just your twitter followers.


If you want to jump to the practical stuff in Chapter 10, you can get your copy of 5Q today at the pre-launch pricing. 


What wisdom have you picked up on your 5Q journey? Join the conversation in the comments below.