"When They Will Not Come" - Community: The anti-attractional process of beginning a church with community
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Here's the first of many more posts on the subject of "When They Will Not Come": Church -planting, church-pastoring and church-life as it is AFTER the "attractional" nature of the church has disappeared in society. Please ... join in with me on this conversation.
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"Community" is an overused word in American churches. It is used to describe any number of ideas that all seem so elusive. And no one really knows what "it" means. Has anyone every seen community? Even with all this baggage, I firmly believe "community" is a non-negotiable essential defining the very heart of what it means to be church in the world. We therefore must push for definition and concrete practices when it comes to community. "Community" should be that much of a defining issue for we who seek to follow Christ and His Mission in the world.
Why is community so central? When we born into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ we are not just born into a community. We are born into a very specific kind of association with one another. We are members of the Body of Christ. The forgiveness we have received is not just a personal pardon in a verticalized relationship with God. It is also inextricably a new relationship with one another (See Scot McKnight's Community of Atonement on this) Just as we have been forgiven, renewed and live in relationship with God, we forgive, renew, and live in reconciled relationships with one another. This is why Anabaptist Menno Simons declared "unfeigned brotherly love" to be an indispensible mark of the church.
Such community is the foundation for all we are as the church. It is what makes possible discipleship, the raising of our children, a corporate worship which sustains us as people in our orientation to Christ's Lordship. Indeed it is what makes possible a culture that in turn makes the gospel intelligible to those outside. It is the foundation for God's Mission in the world (on this read Gerhard Lohfink's Does God Need the Church?).
Acts 2:42-47 is a manifesto of sorts for this kind of community. The apostle Peter had just preached his sermon at Pentecost and many had been baptized. An amazing communal life then burst forth. The words "together," "held in common," "eating" and "fellowship" are smattered throughout the prose Luke uses to describe this new way of being socially alive. The text describes all this as directly flowing from the forgiveness and the Holy Spirit (vs 38) received by these new converts in Christ. Evangelicalism has always done well in explicating the power of these twin pillars of personal conversion: a.) the forgiveness we have in Christ and b.) the renewal we have in the filling of the Holy Spirit. But often in my evangelical heritage, these two doctrines have been taught as individual appropriations. This account in Acts however makes it clear that this forgiveness and the Holy Spirit are gifts to the community that shape a way of life together. They are not only to be received as individuals. Rather something incredibly social is birthed. In receiving forgiveness of sins we in turn become forgivers, ministers of reconciliation. In receiving of the Holy Spirit we trust that the Holy Spirit is working in, among and around us for His purposes. We give up control and begin to seek God and his work among us and around us. The community incarnates these realities in a social dynamic that can be described as truly missional. As a result, as verse 47 tells us, "they had favor with all the people … And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved." Such a text describes the missional "strategy"(I don't like to use this term unless in scare quotes) - nurture a community in the redeemed life of Christ and Mission (including conversions) will follow.
I believe a host of problems in American evangelicalism originate in our disregard for community. Indeed, our hyped up attractional approach to church has put the individual first in such a way that community becomes an afterthought which creates problems for discipleship, catechesis of our children, as well as evangelism. We seek to draw the individual in, sell him/her a message, and then provide communities. Community by definition becomes commodified. Instead of an individual being grafted into the Body of Christ as the very foundation of his/her salvation, this individual becomes a consumer of what kind of community best suits the kind of Christianity he or she can fit into her life. The ramifications for discipleship are disasterous.
Acknowledging all of this however still leaves us with the problem: if community is prior to mission (not theologically but practically), i.e. if community is a necessity from which we engage Mission and evangelism, where do we start?
As church planters and pastors, we are ever tempted to sell something. We could try this with community. "Come to our church and you will find authentic community." We could put "community" in our values-mission statement. We have done market surveys and discovered people long for community. Let us then offer community! But this inevitably fails. People come seeking an instantaneous community (feeling of some sort?) and there simply is no such thing.
The problem of post Christendom is how do we develop community when people will not come to our church in a way that makes such community possible. It used to be that people would come to come to church for community. People in the fifties actually came to church for the fellowship. Churches would advertise regularly in the fifties, sixties that they were "ABC church - the friendly church." Everyone needed a local church for the kind of community formation that took place inside the four walls of the church. This was Christendom at its finest. Today however, "communitizing" is fragmented in society in many ways including the internet. And people are shaped for easy solutions. The church holds no special place as a community. It is but another social services agency or distributor of spiritual goods and services. As a result, there is nothing more oxymoronic than to try to "attract people to our church for its community."
The question then is this, in a post Christendom context, with something so essential to the church as community, where do we start? How can we begin a community without first attracting people into it?
What do you think?
I'll be picking up this question on my next post on "When They Will Not Come?"
Posted by David Fitch | 12:00 PM
COMMENTS:
I was actually just talking about this subject with a friend recently. We both has recognized the frequent use of the word "community" at a service we had recently attended that was used to describe the people at the gathering. I think one reason may be that the word "church" here in the northeast is not widely embraced so they could be trying to find a replacement to describe the assembly of people. While I understand the need to change word usage to bring fresh meaning to old concepts, we need to be careful of unintentionally misrepresenting the meaning these new words. Also, from what I understand about this passage in Acts 2 the idea of community and fellowship is more about reaching out beyond ourselves, and serving those in need around us together, rather than the idea of meeting my own needs of love and acceptance.
2:11 PM
A thought provoking post! I think part of the answer is simply realizing that true community takes some time to develop and build. People are initially attracted to the idea of it, then start to realize the kind of commitment it takes to really be in community. They begin to realize how much "say" the community has in their "private" life, and they either step up or flake out (put put it black-and-whitely). It takes some time for a core group to change their thinking from "community as commidity" into "community as commitment".
I think it also has to do with how people are "attracted" to the community. Slick advertising will tend to attract those interested in the quick fix, but there is another "attractional" dynamic that can happen, where a community is living missionally, partying publicly, inviting outsiders to their parties, standing with the marginalized and downtrodden, essentially putting the real dynamics of community on display (see Acts 2). People see this and it is extremely attractive - they are attracted to the church, and may ask one day, "What is up with you guys?"
It's attractional church for postmodern times ;) because it's based on incarnational/missional presence. People need to be attracted into community, but on the right basis, with the right commitments in place. This means some people will decide "this church isn't for me," and we as church planters and pastors need to be okay with that. You're right there is a huge temptation to "sell" community in order to keep people around, especially if you're small/struggling. But it just doesn't work to attract them on one set of assumptions (community as commodity) and then switch the game a few months in (community as commitment).
8:59 PM
I have been talking about this with my pastor/friend. In fact, I recommended to him that he read this blog ever since the title of this series was posted. The conversation got started between him and I because of the very dilemma you stated from the beginning: When They Will Not Come.
The small missional community that I lead houses itself (in terms of relationships and tribe) within our larger (attractional?) church community/service. In reality, both communities are relatively small (Sundays range from 80-150 people including children, while my smaller community ranges from 8-15 active members). What has baffled my friend and I is that most of the members in my small community are not members in the larger community. In fact, several of them, having joined the larger community, later decided to leave with the explicit critique that the church on Sunday morning has not been about community after all and, perhaps more damning, that mission too often is left on the periphery.
True confessions: there is a part of me that sometimes wants to leave too. But I don't, simply because they (the membership) have become my family (i.e., relatives I love, though sometimes unwillingly). It's hard because they don't talk about mission nearly enough and they don't seem to understand the radical nature of community, and yet I'm still holding on, hoping—and not because of blind faith. The fact that the church has stayed at 80-150 (more or less) for the last 10 years or so tells me something’s happening.
In other words, if the community were to grow beyond our capacity to interact, support, and mature in the embodiment of God’s mission, I would probably have no choice but to leave. But I can say, having been there for about 10 years now, we are not slick (trust me, we’ve given it our best shot!) and we haven’t yet figured out the right “game plan” for gathering a “niche.” So, not-so-secretly, I am hoping and defiantly wishing that we never “fulfill” this empty attractional pursuit which threatens the true nature of our imperfect but loveable community.
Does this answer your question, David? Probably not, but I wanted to share it with ya’ll anyway. ☺
11:15 PM
This word community really has me stumped - oh and and add to that the two words "authentic community" now i'm really stumped. I have been throwing around those words very freely over the past few months but recently I felt the conviction that maybe I should stop and think about what those words really mean before I say them again. When I did stop and think I unfortunately did not come up with great answers. Everything ended up sounding cliche and canned. Am I just saying "come be part of this community" as a response to the larger churches that people are feeling lost in or do I relieve believe in real - authentic community? I believe I have been talking about community as if its perfect, as if community has all the answers. But I think what I am beginning to realize that community is about is relationships and those relationships are not always easy. There can be conflict within the community - so does that mean the community is not functioning properly? I don't believe so - thats probably when things get real and authentic - when life is messy but grace, truth and love are present perhaps that is what community is about. I am not sure that if I presented community as sometimes having conflict in it that people would flock to it. Ah I feel like i'm rambling and not getting to your specific question david but anyway - those are some thoughts on the word community!
5:00 AM
d. Fitch
I would like to hear a little more about our fragmented lives and what you mean by stating that.
thanks
5:17 AM
David,
I think Ben has us on the best track in response to your post. And in a sense, I hear a bit of a push-back in Ben's response: Community isn't always practically prior to to mission, and being "attractive" doesn't always commodify community. One of the "ideas" my church is hoping will build new bridges to the immediate neighborhood is asking them to help us in our monthly "soup kitchen" ministry at another location. This would be mission that opens the door to community because it's attractive.
Your basic question was "if community is a necessity from which we engage Mission and evangelism, where do we start?" I am greatly helped in this matter by Charles Van Engen in his book, "God's Missionary People." Charles lays out four paradoxes of the church:
> The missionary Church is becoming what it is
> The missionary Church is what it is becoming
> The missionary Church cannot become more than what it is.
> The missionary Church cannot be more than it is becoming.
Sounds like crazy talk at first. But Charles is saying that because of the theological reality that we *are* a community as God's people, there's a sense in which we don't have to try to concoct community. We are becoming (practically) what we are, but we can never be more than we are (theologically).
So I don't know if it's okay to make the distinction that community must be prior to mission not only theologically but also practically. If it is true theologically then it must also be true practically at least on some level.
Thanks for the great discussion.
6:43 AM
well ... these comments are rich ... thanks a whole lot... If I can just add, I think Ben has got something exactly right here: that as we live in community before the world it "displays" salvation before the watching world in ways not possible by simply trying to comunicate the gospel in "word packages." Hence there is an attractional element to what goes on here (I think this is implied in Acts 2:47). The difficult issue is how to build and shape such a community without being forced into attractional strategies which then undercut this comunity at its very founding.
Thanks Ben .. thanks to everyone. I have been richly blessed by these comments.
LET'S DO THIS!
7:10 AM
Fascinating discussion.
A minor peripheral theme that baffles me is the continued harkening back to the "good ol' days" in several posts -> as in: "This was Christendom at its finest."
Not so sure about why it bugs me, but maybe it brings up images of an ole codger sitting on the sidelines, a la the Muppet Show's old men in the balcony.
jim
9:53 AM
After rereading my comment, I thought to myself, maybe a good way to get started with community is to shave off numbers. In other words, limit "growth/size." Not only will that undermine the Attractional Pursuit, but it will protect/preserve the community membership who are attempting a missional life together.
11:03 AM
How can we begin a community without first attracting people into it?
Is it possible to attract people without being attractional? Obviously the world "attractional" is loaded down with all kinds of baggage. Do we then not attract. There are 3 options: attract, repel, and ambivilance.
Apostle Thomas was attracted to the WHOLE package. His first recorded words are "Let's go that we may die with him." Did any body enter into a community because they were NOT attracted to it? Do you stay because the uncomfortable is worth it because of the full picture?
There are not attractional churches and repulsive churches (or maybe attractional chruches are repulsive ;)) The key is to attract me to death of ME--and others too.
Then I'm sure many will be too busy trying out oxen, and viewing new land, and such; and only the beggars and strangers will be interested in that kind of party.
12:02 PM
I'm joining this late but I can't help but be reminded of Bonhoeffer's work on this in "Life Together". Christian community originates, grows, draws it's life and is centered on Christ. Coming together to see, hear, speak, know, touch and fellowship with Christ in our midst is what makes a "Christ-community" so unique. Are we growing in an intentional desire and practice to know Christ who comes to me and he thru me to my brother/sister?
12:35 PM
@jim (anonymous) - I think David Fitch is being slightly facetious in his hearkening back to the good ol' days... knowing him, he's as happy as anyone that Christendom is over ;)
And @Fitch - you're right that the issue is building and shaping true community without being forced into the wrong kind of attractional strategies. It's a huge temptation for us as a small missional church. We're trying to discern how to be "public" (visible, people aware of us) without simply setting up an expectation that we are the new church flavor of the month that promises to be the "real" community everyone is seeking (seems like a church like this gets started where I live 2-3 times a year, attracting all the disgruntled church hoppers).
We've talked about it before, but one thing that has helped us tremendously is placing a high value on the community gathering to be formed by liturgy and fellowship. We gather to be formed as the Body of Christ, rehearsing the story of Christ in Word and Sacrament, allowing our imaginations to be shaped by God's narrative. The "church service" for us is not the entry point for the unbeliever, it's the time for the church to worship and be formed as a missional people. The entry point for pagans to be introduced to our community is the parties and other public displays of salvation we attempt (I like that phrase, Fitch).
12:35 PM
In our ministry, we define authentic community as the social, spiritual space where people live out the one another commands, i.e., love, serve, submit, confess, forgive, admonish and so on. A good place to start, then, would be to place ourselves emotionally and spiritually under these commands and through dialogue, discern, define and describe what it would look like for us to live out, that is embody the commands together. In fact we have created a small group study for this purpose at www.restoringthechurch.org if interestred.
Peace,
Jim
12:40 PM
I don't understand how we can conclude that "community is prior to mission" when the Acts 2 story reports the full blossoming of community after mission.
If we are trying to avoid the whole bait-and-switch pitfall of the attractional model ("You should come here to get what you want...ok, now that you're here, it's really not about you."), don't we form missional communities by starting with mission?
I do like what has been said here about community requiring commitment to one another. But a commitment to one another does not naturally result in mission outside the community.
Somewhere in this is the question of how one belongs to a community of believers. How can we welcome the stranger, yet nurture and honor committed relationships as well?
9:10 PM
David,
First of all... let me tell you that I've really enjoyed your blog. Sadly, I only started reading it a few months ago, when I began my research on... well... all things missional. :)
(I belong to a church that I believe is on a path to becoming truly missional. In our hearts, I know we want it. But I feel like there's just so much of the old mindset still there. I know it's going to take time to transition things. But we'll get there! In the meantime, thanks for blogging. Hahaha!)
Anyway... about community - I think that we all want the kind of community described in the book of Acts. And I think that from scripture, we see that true discipleship (or becoming like Christ) can really only happen in the context of community.
But I feel that "authentic community" can only really be attained if and when preceded by "authentic cause" - the cause of Christ, of course. I think that is where it starts.
How this cause is carried out may vary in different churches I guess, but I think that ultimately, CAUSE is what "attracts" and brings people together in a way that will foster authentic community.
In other words, people may have absolutely nothing in common with each other, just like those in the book of Acts. But if people are gripped by the same cause, then perhaps that will be enough for them to intentionally lay their differences aside, learn to live out all the "one anothers", and practice authentic community... the kind that is necessary to further engage in the mission of Christ.
Hmm... easier said than done. But I hope I made some sense. :)
10:54 PM
Regarding: the tension of community (versus) attractional ....or even the "community prior to mission" debate...
[you wrote: "how to build and shape such a community without being forced into attractional strategies which then undercut this comunity"]
there's the similar tension in the classroom between authoritarian discipline (versus) communal learning... talked about in this book: http://www.shelfari.com/books/1012230/Beyond-Discipline-From-Compliance-to-Community/editorialreviews
or here:
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Discipline-Compliance-Alfie-Kohn/dp/1416604723/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219425481&sr=8-1
i'm directing a video/film project for urban learning environments... and there's the practical reality that , yes while "real authentic" learning is best embodied when students participate and are loved and have control, ...but the reality is these kids are out of control before they get there. they aren't "fit" enough to enter into and benefit from a communal type of environment.... yet. I'm saying there's a tension here.
so too, people outside don't know enough to be entering into the church's version of community in the first place... on their own accord... they need to be 'attracted' to it somehow. and , ohmigosh, you may need a 'strategy' to attract them into it...
otherwise they'll continue to run to Harvest mega chapel.
just my 2 cents,
jim poole
11:10 AM
One thought about community: wherever you are, right now, look around and figure out how to love those who are with you. Don't think about how to attract them, convert them, save them, or change them. Think about how to love them. Then do it: Love them. Talk to them, care for them, help them, challenge them, laugh with them, pray with them, love them.
You will be in community.
-david
10:35 PM
First of all, I strongly agree with the author of the post about the importance of community, although I am not sure that I agree that community pre-exists mission.
I think the Pauline model would be incarnational. Church planters should work in a team, practicing and modeling community within their own relationships (Paul, Silas and Timothy in Thessalonica for example) and should NOT attempt to build a community – but rather seek to influence the man or woman of peace in an already existing community (Lydia in Phillipii) and through that influencer bring the gospel of the kingdom into the existing community (oikos) and disciple it toward Christ.
Paul never settled in anywhere to start ‘attracting’ people into a community that he built. He reached existing community networks and disciple them to Christ.
This requires some fundamental rethinking of certain assumptions about community.
1) No where does Christ tell us to “plant churches” or “build communities.” Rather, we are told to “love one another” and “to go and make disciples.” On the contrary, the one time out of two or three that Jesus mentions the ecclesia, he says explicitly “I will build MY church.”
2) Apostolic types (church planters) have had it backwards. Instead of starting with a community (meetings, worship, etc), we should start by reaching lost people and finding their natural social network. The question then is not, “how can we get them to come to church?” but rather, “how can we help them learn to BE the church?” Once we have helped a social network turn to Christ and implement his teachings, the apostle/church planter needs to move on to other social networks in accordance with Matt. 10 and the record of Paul.
3:11 AM
Thanks everyone, this conversation is great.
A few comments:
To Jim Poole ... you said "people outside don't know enough to be entering into the church's version of community in the first place... on their own accord... they need to be 'attracted' to it somehow. and , ohmigosh, you may need a 'strategy' to attract them into it" ...I think you nailed the problem here. Thanks.
To Jim Van, I love what you've done with the "one another commands" in the NT ... the study of these helps focus us well on the depth of community birthed out of Christ's salvation. Thanks again!
To smokin Joe ...I think you and I agree on alot, maybe 90%. I think the way you describe church planting as "Church planters should work in a team, practicing and modeling community within their own relationships" is basically where I'm going in all of this. So thanks!
Where you and I might have some work to flesh out is what I view as an over simplistic view of "No where does Christ tell us to “plant churches” or “build communities.”" And tho I agree Paul always worked within existing networks, primarily Hellenistic synnagogues or Gentile "god fearers"... he certainly intended to build ekklesia's as the means of displaying the presense of Christ incarnationally. Here I follow Newbigin (Gospel for a Plurakist Society p.121ff). I think your point no. 2 is also over simplifying in the sense that it fails to realize in post Christendom how the cultural inhabitation of the gospel requires a people who live a way of life before the world and thereby are able to engage what God is doing in the world without becoming absorbed into it.
This is why I am arguing that community is in a sense (albeit in a Wittgensteinian sense) prior to Mission, ALTHOUGH AS I TRIED TO MAKE EXPLICIT, it is not theologically prior to Mission.
Hey, I hope I've clarified myself and really, smokin joe, thanks for ramping up the level of debate here. eh?
Blessings ...
7:21 AM
I wish I could remember where I read a Christian author who said, "If you aim for community, you will miss it every time." Instead, this author stated that community is actually a byproduct of facing a common challenge. He used AA as an example as well as the kind of life-long community experienced by veterans of WW II.
I don't know who Wittgenstein is, but it sounds to me that this author would argue that mission is the soil from which community springs and not the other way around. I really wish I could remember who the author was
9:12 PM
sue .. I was using Wittgensteinian to refer to the idea that language is a product of a social existence, and that there is no understanding a language without entering into it. This means in a sense, that a community of language and practice is necessary for that language - and story that it lives - to make sense.
DF
1:43 PM
Mission --> community or Community --> mission.. I suspect it's both and somewhat perspectival since there is a cycle here that began at Pentecost. SOmeone asked about fragmentation.. big challenge for us since most of us participate in multiple communities. One of the best articles I have ever read on community.. Summer 2004 Cutting Edge magazine an interview with Ken Wilson
http://www.vineyardusa.org/publications/cuttingedge.aspx
4:20 PM
This morning in the church we attended they showed a 4-minute DVD promotional clip about a new national domestic ministry the denomination is launching. It consisted of various slogans and tag-lines, but never made it clear what they were actually planning to DO.
One of the lines was, "A Church OF the Community, not a Church IN the Community." That distinction, I understand. Like missionaries in a foreign land, it can take several years of relationship building before you've earned the right to speak into peoples' lives at a deeper level. Even here in North America.
But then it becomes tricky, because you get into the debate about people "belonging before they believe," vs. "believing before they belong." One critic I know insists that this will, as happened with the mainline churches, contribute to a watering down of Evangelicalism, and our eventual downfall.
4:26 PM
Thank you for this work. I have been working on an article along these lines.
12:32 PM
While looking for something else (now that is a metaphor) I ran into this old article by Henri Nouwen: "From Solitude to Community to Ministry." Looking at Luke 6:2-19 Nouwen says we begin with neither community nor mission, but rather in solitude with Christ. Also intriguing, he says that each.. solitude, community, and ministry.. is a discipline by which we create space for God to act.
3:55 PM
A great post and comments. This fits right into the discussion we had recently at our emerging church group here in Hollywood, FL. I shared a summary of the post and comments on our blog and added some of my own. I especially liked david's comments about community as just loving on the person next to you. Don't know where I'd be without close friends along the journey.
Steve
10:18 PM
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