on January 12 2012

More Ekklesiaphobia Post #3: The Fear of the Colonialist Mistake

Continuing on the theme of ekklesaphobia from the past few weeks, I often encounter a version of it when I’m speaking somewhere on my (latest) favorite theme – How “sentness extends the authority of Christ.” I try to show how whenever we enter a context, a new culture, and practice the Eucharist or Reconciliation (and other church practices), God’s authority is extended into His Mission, Christ’s presence takes up residence. Upon saying this, some is usually offended. So they will come up to me afterwards (or during the Q&A after the presentation) and object saying something like “but that sounds colonialist” meaning that imposes a preconceived practice/authority on a context. Medieval practices of the Eucharist and Penance probably come to mind and that approach disregards the culture of that context. It dismisses what God is already doing in the midst there. It is coercive, presumptive. Upon which I emphatically agree that these are dangers with all Western forms of church. But I also see here a symptom of what I have been calling ekklesiaphobia, a excessive fear of traditional church practice in mission.  I observe this fear as infecting a lot of missional church types and so it’s healthy to deconstruct this fear and take a closer look.

A Fear of Repeating the Mistake of Colonialism:

“Colonialism” names that process by which the Western church once sent missionaries to other countries and, under the auspices of bringing the gospel, imposed their own language, customs and church institutions on the new converts. The end result was often not the furtherance of the gospel but an extension of an institution (their denomination of church) and an unhealthy dependency upon the West. Making matters worse, these institutions were often aligned with imperialist nations who used the church allegiance to exploit countries foreign to it. The so-called “foreign” country became a client of the colonialist nation.

Today, in these post-colonialist times, we nonetheless see colonialist tendencies even in the way church/mission are done in the North American church. We plant churches as extensions of a particular (denominational) form of church. We enter new contexts, set up mega-church programs, video venues assuming the singular presentation of the gospel that we preach in say Seattle is equally valid in a thousand miles away, say Albuquerque.  We hold conferences falling into the temptation to extend the institution as an end in itself. We continually fall into the bad habit of identifying our own particular Christianity as determined by our own cultural experience as “the gospel” itself for all peoples in all contexts. There is much to discuss in this malady and many versions of it, but this in short, is the Western temptation of colonialism.

Ecclesial Practices as the Means for True Contextualization (and the Resistance of Colonialism)

The Missional church has done a great job of bringing the issue of colonialism to the forefront of N American church discussion. Missional church people emphasize listening, learning, exegeting, being among a cultural context. I love this kind of work.

But we also must remember that we who are sent by definition also bring something into a context. This is what “sentness” means. We are sent from somewhere, from someone with something. To bring this “something” (the gospel) from (and with) someone (the presence of Christ) we have to then contextualize those “some-things”. Some people call this “translation” (Lamin Sanneh). But I prefer incarnation, embodying the gospel and presence/reign of Christ in a place. This is where I’d like to say that contrary to intuitive wisdom, the practices of the church I have been contending for, not only resist Colonialism/de-contextualization, they actually make contextualization (embodiment) possible. They make possible the becoming visible of the presence of Christ and His reign in our midst in a way that is unpredictable and can only truly be understood  post facto, after it has taken place.

To just take an example or two.  When we practice the ecclesial practice of reconciliation in submission to Christ’s authority (Matt 18:15-20), God uses that practice to  bring into material reality the forgiveness of Christ and the “reconciliation of all things” into our social context. It contextualizes the forgiveness of Christ. It’s a simple process, but we must in fact figure out (“discern” is the Biblical word) in each broken relationship, what this reconciliation will look like, what the Spirit is saying, what it might mean to be faithful to the cross.  In this process, described by Matt 18, reconciliation gets contextualized! People get to see it and go “wow.” We start by practicing this reconciliation together as a people of God. But then, as we extend it into every area of our lives and our community, the gospel becomes contextualized into the context. We invite people in our world (outside the church) into reconciliation. The church is birthed anew. The practice of reconciliation actually enables contextualization.

In the same way, the practice of the Eucharist requires contextualization. It is socially disruptive and demanding (read 1 Cor 11: ) It is Kingdom in that our relational bonds with one another, the ways we are committed to one another under Christ’s Lordship, the living together under the victory and forgiveness of God in Christ together, the way our money is each other’s in Christ’s Kingdom, is all made manifest in this Eucharist communion. But this requires contextual discernment (read again 1 Cor 11:29). And this becomes the basis of a unique contextualized hospitality anytime we eat together and with anyone else. From Eucharist together as church, I go share a cup of coffee in McDonald’s and I actually share the forgiveness and the bond in Christ’s Kingdom (“I confer on you a Kingdom” Luke 22:29) with someone who may not know how to receive grace, forgiveness, love and communal bond.  This ecclesial practice undercuts injustice and the social bonds based on coercion, torture (and dare I say capitalism)., It demands of us contextualization.  Kingdom breaks out. I’ve seen this happen. Likewise with all the other practices including gospel proclamation, fivefold ministry, sharing life with the poor, etc. Each practice forces contextualization (For instance, it is not gospel proclamation if transmitted via a Video feed).

All of these ecclesial practices extend the Kingdom, Christ’s authority. But we are so right to recognize that we can not own these practices and make them our possession and use them to extend our power. We must recognize they can (and have in the past) become the instrument of colonialist evils.  On the other hand, properly lead, released from Christendom control, these same practices become the means for the continual contextualzition of the gospel in our midst. In their practice, the church is rebirthed, or as Darrel Guder famously described, the church is continually being converted.”  We therefore must deconstruct our phobia of church practice and recognize the dangers of the past allowing us to go forward into the world as instruments of his Kingdom.

What do you do with the colonialist temptation? How do you resist it as you seek to lad you church into Mission? Do you see how the fundamental church practices can shape community in mission as opposed to against it?

 

 

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on January 3 2012

Ekklesaphobia Post #2: The Protestant Principle

Warning: The following post is more theological requiring some interaction with theologians and church history.

My last post I started to explore the subtle fear and resistance to church practices so common in today’s missional church. I claimed there is often an out-sized reaction in and among the missional church against organizing people into practices traditionally associated with being the church: practices like worship gathering, teaching evangelism postures, ordination of clergy. I called this “ekklesaphobia.” I freely acknowledged that there are abuses and malformation in all of these practices so a healthy caution is good (a quick glance into the archives of this blog reveals I write a lot about this). We need a reformation of church practice in the West so as to shape a church into God’s missional life. Nonetheless, this phobia, I argue often goes too far leaving us lacking in sustainable formation of God’s people for His Mission as well as a dysfunctional leadership. I named 3 sources of this phobia. 1.) fear of colonialism, 2.)  fear of the protestant principle. 3.) fear of being abused again by corrupt authoritarian church structures as many of us have been in the past. I want to “riff” a little bit on these 3 fears in the next few posts. I want to start with the fear of “the protestant principle,” the most difficult of the three to describe and see at work.

The Protestant Principle argues that we must challenge the church (or anyone else for that matter) anytime it acts like it in any way owns the privileged place of God’s presence and authority.  Because when this happens, the church will eventually use this authority for corrupt ends. We are human after all. We are prone to ego and self-serving motives. On the other hand, without the church as  location for Christ’s social body in the world, we are basically left alone to be little Christ’s. We must be an authority unto ourselves (even if we do look to the Bible as a personal authority) in the world to do/participate in God’s Mission. As intuitively American as this is, this still leaves us to be absorbed into society’s structures even when they are bad/evil/corrupt. We get rid of the church as corrupt structure only to be absorbed into the social structures of society (which may be corrupt themselves, or at the very least lacking in the reconciliatory power of Christ).

Paul Tillich articulated the protestant principle as that theological principle which must challenge all historical representations of the divine. In other words, we cannot expect that the transcendent, almighty and perfect God would be located (or limited to being located) in a human institution like a church. For human institutions are by their very nature corrupt and imperfect. And so when we give divine authority to such a structure the worst things imaginable will happen. Human beings will claim to be acting on behalf of God (i.e. the Roman Catholic church and/or the pope). Even worse, divine salvation shall be limited to this structure and be controlled by human beings to their own benefit (i.e. the Roman Catholic church and the transubstantiated Eucharist). In the lineage of the European protestants who have gone on before us, therefore, we must protest whenever we see this happening. God cannot be controlled. God only comes in His own freedom to us (as individuals). The minute anyone associates (in any way!) a human institution as the place where God works, bad things happen! Whenever the church makes any “claims to absoluteness” (Tillich, Systematic Theology vol. 3 p. 245) in the name of Christ it rejects its own identity in Christ. For God in Christ cannot be contained or boxed in by the church or any other human organization. This principle was followed by H Richard Neibuhr, his brother Reinhold and carries on in many circles of American protestant church. (For more on the protestant principle see D. Stephen Long, who first introduced the concept to me,  Divine Economy 136ff. and my own The Great Giveaway note 17, in chapter 6).

Who can deny this? There is much truth here. Especially to those of us who have seen pastor-authority figures use the church for their own ends. And we must resist the notion that God works in, especially “only in,” His church. This is a big source of the problems we now face as a church incapable of being in the world where God is working.

BUT (please, hear me on this) we must avoid the other extreme in saying that the church is merely a group of individuals trying to be little Jesus’s, and we come together for mutual support, encouragement (and worse admiration). For this denies that God in history has chosen to reveal himself in the witness of a people before the nations. God in fact does come, in authority, to inhabit a people in a social and visible way WHEN HIS PEOPLE ARE IN SUBMISSION TO HIM AND RECEIVING OF HIM IN SOME BASIC CORE PRACTICES GIVEN TO US IN AND THRU JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF.

Here is a primary example: when people gather (as in Matt 18:15-20) to submit to Christ’s authority as King (“in my name”) and be reconciled (“agree on anything”), Christ’s authority is made manifest (“what you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven”). He becomes present in a special way (“there am I in your midst”). His presence, and that inbreaking authority is carried with us whenever we bring this reconciliation of God in Christ into our everyday relationships, vocations and neighborhoods. This is real flesh and blood (incarnational) Kingdom authority of Christ breaking in our lives and neighborhoods. We do not control it, we cannot possess it, only cooperate with it and be instruments of it. But this is a practice of being His people in His church where God exerts divine authority and becomes divinely present by the Son through the Spirit.

The same can be said of many other practices such as the Eucharist (Luke 22:29), the proclamation of the gospel (Luke 10), of the fivefold ministry (Eph 4), Kingdom prayer (Mark 9:29, Matt 6:9ff)) and so on.

These Practices, When Practiced in Submission to Christ, Extend His Reign.  By gathering in the neighborhoods, via these practices, we bring the Kingdom into visible manifestation as a witness to His Lordship and rule over the whole earth. “Witness” always means we do cannot control or possess this authority (Karl Barth’s work on “witness” comes to mind here – Barth Church Dogmatics IV.3.2 par.71 #4) Instead we point to it and allow it to be manifest in our lives together into the world. These core practices, birthed out of the death, resurrection and enthronement of Jesus Christ as King, become the means by which Jesus becomes present and His reign breaks in. They do not need to ossify a people (like they have in the past) as a people set apart over against society. Instead they become the means by which we materialize the Kingdom in a contextualized way, offering in our midst His reconciliation (Matt 18), hospitality (Eucharist), freedom from sin, death and evil (proclamation of the gospel), leadership into God’s work in the world (5 fold ministry). It is no secret that I have a whole book in process on how these practices, grounded in Jesus Christ Himself as sent one, released through the Holy Spirit, become missional practices when they are released from the captivity of the Christendom institutionalized church.

Til then, what do you think about the protestant principle? Have you seen it at work in your church? your ministry? Do you see it as a deterrent to ministry in your neighborhood? Do you see it as a deterrant to the formation of people into God’s Mission? (P.S. should I keep more theologically intense posts off this blog? keep them in more traditional outlets like journals etc.?)

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on December 28 2011

DON’T BE AN EKKLESAPHOBE

It happens on facebook when I give the slightest indication the church is God’s instrument in the world. It happens frequently when I am speaking and assert that God has empowered the church to extend Christ’s presence in the world. It happens when I coach church planters that are missionally oriented and ask them when they gather for worship. It happens when I engage my missional friends on one of the variants of the formula “missiology precedes ecclesiology.” It happens each time I meet someone who has been abused by the traditional church. Each time there is a out-sized reaction against organizing people into practices traditionally associated with being the church (this is especially true of the public worship gathering, or the ordination of clergy).

OF COURSE IT IS TRUE that in many cases the local church has become stuck in paying for buildings, “hell-bent” on attracting people into worship services at all costs, authority structures that gum up the works via the hierarchical clergy. It is true that the Church has abused the eucharist, has tried to colonize whole people groups into a specific enculturated way of being the church, thereby making the gospel a piece of Western propaganda. It happens every time a mega church pastor exerts control over his behemoth enterprise for his/her own personal glory. It happens every time the church has used spiritual authority to abuse people so as to enrich its coffers and expand its enterprise. I think I’ve written enough on all these things to convince you all that I am well aware of these dangers. I’m no fan of what has become of the institutionalized church (especially its mega church consumerist varieties). If you don’t believe me, read The Great Giveaway for example.

But, unfortunately, this wise caution against organizing people into Christendom-tainted-functions of the church has turned into a phobia, an unhealthy fear. I call this ekklesaphobia. And I believe it is time to ask whether such an ekklesaphobia is hurting the furthering of fresh expressions of the gospel over N America as the missional movement matures into its third decade. I say yes.

This ekklesaphobia manifests itself in dysfunctional leadership that cannot recognize the Kingdom authority invested by Christ in the 5 fold gifting structure of  leadership (although hierarchy is still bad IMO). It manifests itself when we cannot understand the forming event of the Eucharist where the presence and authority of the Kingdom breaks out and forms a community of the King to spread reconciliation and renewal of all things. It manifests itself when we cannot see the formational effects of true worship (read chapter 15, p. 217 in NT Wright’s Simply Jesus to get a taste of what I am talking about). There are no missional people apart from the place in which these people are formed into His Mission. Anyone who thinks this can be done solely individually one to one does not get the nature of how sociality under the King shapes people into the Kingdom.  For all these reasons and more, I have a new phrase when I see signs of ekklesaphobia manifesting itself. I say “DON’T BE AN EKKLESAPHOBE.”

The sources of ekklesaphobia come from various places. I’ll just name 3 which I hope to expound upon in my next post. First, We’re afraid of repeating the colonialist mistake. Second we’re afraid of the protestant principle (a version of the ecclesial mistake of triumphalism in culture). Third, many of us have been abused by church authority and we’ll do anything to avoid that hell again :) . These fears lead us to throw out the practices (like worship, ordination, discipleship/baptism) by which God forms His people as the means to extend the presence of Christ in the world.

Of course, I have a fourth fear, and that is that once people are given permission to not fear the church practices anymore they will revert back to the default ways they have grown up with doing church. They will then repeat all the things that have gone wrong in N American ecclesiology these past 40 years (I’ve seen this way too often). I think therefore we must learn from each of these historical problems. So I will post some thoughts on each of these three fears in the next few weeks. Til then I urge people: Don’t Be an Ekklesaphobe :)

What do you think? Is there an eklessiaphobia in the missional church? What drives it? In what ways is it healthy? Is it unhealthy?

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on November 9 2011

Scot McKnight’s King Jesus Gospel: Has The Gospel Coalition Caved?

A whole lot has been written about Scot McKnight’s latest book King Jesus Gospel. We probably don’t need another review of it. Nonetheless, since I received a free copy (in full disclosure) I need to say something :) . (Again in full disclosure, before I requested a copy, I already knew I would like it. I had a early preview).

I think pretty much everyone knows by now Scot McKnight’s contention that evangelicals equate the word “gospel” with the word “salvation.” Hence, according to McKnight, we evangelicals are really “soterians” not “evangelicals”. According to McKnight, the NT gospel should not and cannot be reduced to “our plan of salvation.”(39). Scot shows in King Jesus Gospel that the gospel according to the NT is best defined out of 1 Corinthian 15.  Here the Gospel is the telling of the whole Jesus Story as the completion of the Story of Israel, the lordship of Christ over the whole world. It is the summoning of people to respond to the completion of the promise to Israel in Jesus Christ as Lord.  Through the proclamation of the gospel, we are invited to enter into this grand work of God in history in Christ. Out of all this, we are saved and redeemed (here’s where salvation is part of the gospel but not to be equated with the gospel). Without the Story (of Israel), Scot says, there is no gospel (36). So Scot singularly does one thing in this book, he shows how “individual salvation” is part of the wider gospel. It is not the whole gospel. The salvation we as individuals receive is something we receive as we participate in the wider work of God in the world to bring in His Kingdom in and through Jesus Christ. Even this “personal” salvation is much bigger than “justification by faith” although it certainly includes that!

Scot does a good job unfurling this gospel as it appears in the Bible focusing on the apostle Paul’s 1 Cor 15, the four gospels themselves and the preaching of the apostles in the book of Acts.  He gives his quick take (and it is a quick one) on how the gospel culture of the first three centuries turned into what we have now, a salvation culture obsessed with individual salvation and getting people out of hell into heaven. It is all nicely done

I think this is a landmark book because it summarizes and communicates the important issues of New Perspective, NT Wright and the Kingdom/Paul debate for everyday Christian life in a way the average adult Christian can grab hold of. That’s a feat! I have been trying to teach New Perspective on Paul, NT Wright on God’s “making all things right,” for years. I have been trying to teach how the gospel is not an either/or – kingdom or justification. It is bigger than both and includes both. This book does what I couldn’t do. My student’s light bulbs have been going on this quarter and they are using this book with elders in their churches.

Of course, if there is one lack here in McKnight’s book, it is the thin offering on ecclesiology at the end of the book (ch.10). To me, the redescribing of the gospel according to the New Testament changes how we gather as a people in the world. It changes the way we “proclaim the gospel” at Sunday gathering, “proclaim the gospel as witness in our everyday lives”, how we engage everyday life as the places where God is at work to complete His Mission, how we pray and how we inhabit the world in Mission, how people are baptized into the kingdom (we return to some of the ancient rites). It’s probably too much to ask, but the last chapter on “Creating a Gospel culture” leaves us asking for much more. But this is a short book. I chalk it up to that.

So, all this leaves me with the one question that headlines this blog post. Has the Gospel Coalition caved in all of this? These friends, who have taken on the name “Gospel” and sought a re-invigoration of it (“the gospel”) as “justification by faith,” seem largely absent in challenging McKnight’s book. There are some good reviews out there by Reformed types. Michael Horton, for instance basically argues (here) with Scot over the innocence of Luther and Calvin on the individualizing of salvation. He himself seems to fall into the trap of saying McKnight is marginalizing “salvation” as the forgiveness of sins (just like many seem to accuse NT Wright of). See McKnight’s response here. But Horton is a classical Reformed theologian. He’s not in the Gospel Coalition/Neo-Reformed camp. Where are the serious disagreements from the Gospel Coalition/Neo Reformed bloggers? Even Neo-Reformed blogger Trevin Wax seems to demure to McKnight by subordinating (unintentionally?) “salvation” into part of what God has accomplished in Christ’s Kingship over the world. Is this not what Trevin is saying when he says here “I see the announcement of 1 Corinthians 15 as the gospel presentation by which we are being saved.” But even aside from Trevin, where is John Piper, Al Mohler, or Don Carson in response to this book? (I couldn’t find reviews by them?) Why the silence?

So my question is: is this silence real? (I could have missed some reviews – please help me here) Or maybe, just maybe, has Scot McKnight done the impossible? Has Scot given us the bridge to bring together – the “NT Wright-ests” with the “John Piper-ites”? -  for a re-invigoration of the gospel of the Kingdom in our times? Is this what is happening? or am I hearing crickets chirping in “the Gospel Coalition camp? Just asking :)

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on November 1 2011

“The Fifteen Hour Rule”: A Challenge to All Church-Planters – Quit Working More Than 15 Hours!! (on your churches)

The idea of the singular professional pastor running a church doing all 18 spiritual gifts (depending on how many you read in the NT etc.) has fallen out of favor. No one believes this is possible any more. This is a relic of the hierarchies of Christendom where such consolidation made organizational sense (if not ecclesiological sense).  Any pastor trying to do this will expire from burnout. It is a denial of the Holy Spirit’s work in the body (I Cor 12). (Should we then get rid of the M Div degree as well?)

Of course mega churches are able to keep the hierarchy going by building massive staffs which employ full time specialists in each gifting, and then they employ huge cadres of volunteers for massive programs which they then call “gifts.” (which is a complete misnomer – but that is a subject for another day. On this kind of false volunteerism read Bill Kinnon here and Jamie Arpin Ricci here). But this is another story of the prolongation of Christendom past its time.

Why then, WHY WOULD WE think about planting a new missional church with a singular leader/pastor at the head of the ship?  The only reason is if we are comfortable with the notion that we can recruit enough already existing Christians to be subservient to said singular leader and form a Christendom organization for managing and distributing Christians goods and services to them. But is this church planting or church reconfiguring? Is this Mission or Marketing?

This is why, when planting a missional church/community I prefer the leaders implement “the 15 hour rule.” The “15 hour rule” says that NO PASTOR/LEADER CULTIVATING A NEW MISSIONAL COMMUNITY SHOULD WORK MORE THAN 15 HOURS A WEEK ON MISSIONAL COMMUNITY ORGANZIATIONAL FUNCTIONS (including preaching, organizing, leadership, etc.).

Of course, this is heresy in the traditional world of evangelical church plants. Most assume the new pastor works 15 hours per week just on the sermon.  Over against this traditional model I believe “the 15 hour rule” works to do the following:

 1.) It says no one pastor/leader can nurture a Christian community. It requires a minimum of 3 pastor/leaders who know the inter-relationship of their giftings according to the Eph 4 APEPT schema – Apostles/Prophets/Evangelists/Pastors/ Teachers. These pastors must work together in mutual submission to one another modeling the life of submission one to another in Christ. I’m of the mind, you put three mature leaders who know their giftings in one place for ten years who can lead out of mutual submission to Christ and His Mission, and you will have a fresh expression of the gospel (not dependent upon already existing Christians) in that place 10 years later.

2.) It promotes bi-vocationalism. This is obviously a bi-vocational model where each pastor has a job sufficient to provide a level of support which can sustain these three pastors together in the work for 10 or more years to come. Yet this also reinforces the idea that to do bi-vocational ministry as a singular pastor is VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE!! To do bi-vocational ministry – 15 hours a week max – requires at least three leaders together on the ground, praying, discerning, leading.

3.) It prevents any pastor from thinking the work of the Kingdom is dependent upon how hard he/she work. Instead, I have 15 hours to give and that’s it.  It is God who will do this work not me. I do not have to worry about results, people in the pews, offerings because by and large I am being supported in and through a job and a community. I can exercise the patience necessary to see God work among new and unreached peoples.

4.) It promotes an active body dependent upon the Spirit discerning what God is doing. Because every one in the community sees “the body” modeled by the pastorate, this kind of leadership automatically fosters a “body mentality” in the rest of the church that regularly depends upon the Spirit. We become participants in the rhythms of God’s grace in His Spirit, no meglamaniacal leadership that has predetermined goals (financial and otherwise). The community therefore becomes the arena in which and around which the Spirit can work. Leadership does not control the organization. It fosters an organization of a different kind, an organization that post facto the Spirit facilitates what God is doing.

5.) It says that there should be more than one preacher, teacher. If it is true that it takes 15 hours of prep for a good sermon, then we need to rotate it among the three pastors (and others gifted as well) so that theoretically the fifteen hours are spread out over a longer period of time than one week. This keeps the mission from being centered around one personality.  It keeps the preaching grounded in the mission and life of the community (not a single person studying 20-30 hours a week for the most brilliant exegesis).

NOW LET US BE SURE TO RECOGNIZE that there will be times when “the fifteen hour rule” must go by the wayside. As the church grows, as one’s gifts become more fully recognized, as the fruit of one’s ministry dictates more devotion to the work on the ground in fostering the Kingdom, more hours will be appropriate. This happened all the time in the NT. But, I’m of the mind that every pastor, no matter how much he/she is working within the structures of the church, must always have the ability (i.e another job skill) to go back to “the fifteen hour rule.” Because it simply re-disciplines the church to be the arena of the Spirit from which it can participate in God’s Mission in the world.

Your thoughts on “the 15 hour rule”? Outrageous? Impractical? This Can’t Be Done?

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on October 4 2011

Put off the Launch!! When Going Public (with your Worship Service) is a Bad Thing

The word “ecclesia,” used  in the New Testament over 100 times to describe the local gathering of Christians in each city, was a word that actually referred to the public civic assembly in Greco Roman culture. It was a very public gathering where people could gather and participate in the governing of their city.  Using the word to refer to the Christian church gathering then indicates a public aspect to it. The Christian assembly is the called-out ones in each city who seek to be governed by the Lord of the universe.

By using the word ecclesia, the NT emphasizes two different aspects to the gathering. There is its public aspect to the gathering. These people are called to gather together to witness to the Kingdom before the watching world. Yet there is also the unique aspect to this gathering amidst the culture. These people are called “out” in order to witness that Jesus is Lord and not Ceasar. The ecclesia is a calling to another way of being governed– the Kingdom of God – which is at work in the world. Going public then is essential to its witness in the community. Yet it shall not be attractional in the sense of appealing to people’s immediate tastes, preferences, conveniences or needs. This is about God’s Kingdom under the rule of Christ.

All this to say it is important and essential to the witness of the gospel that a church eventually go public with its meeting. Yet, when starting a church, or as I like to refer to the process – seeding an expression of the gospel in a community – I think it best to move with caution when going public with the gathering. Take it slow. The time has to be right. Obviously, this goes against the majority of received wisdom on church planting where the so-called “launch” of the public gathering is actually viewed as the legitimating event, the founding moment – of the church plant. But I can think of at least 3 reasons to go slow.

 1.) Going public too early can derail discerning God’s Mission together in this community. When you go public before a culture of mission has been established, the community can get derailed by the newcomer Christians who “come” to your church gathering. As we all know, new church plants attract disgruntled Christians looking for something new. The new church seedling can get caught up into knitting these new folk into a cohesive body of Christ seeking God’s mission, not their own perceived wants and needs from a church. This can set back a church’s development into mission. My advice: Resist at all costs building a church body around disgruntled Christians. Instead, one by one, relationally, through prayer, the study of Scripture, the sharing of the communty’s gifts, and discerning the context, work out together what God is doing among you and in your context, seeking where God is calling you into, in the first years of your community’s life.  Then go public.

2.) Going public too early can change the focus of your gathering to numbers and success.  I can’t explain why, but for some reason when a gathering is opened to the public, and numbers of people show up, leaders start to concentrate on “how many.” If you are not well ensconced in your mission you can get immediately distracted and start focusing on the numbers coming on Sunday morning and how you can keep them coming. THIS ALWAYS DEFEATS MISSION. As Courageous Church pastor Shaun King said “I sold my soul for church attendance in our first week and I could never quite get it back.” See his story here. This automatically sets back the ecclesia formation that needs to take place as now we are focused on keeping people/Christian happy.  My advice: Resist at all costs the temptation to work to keep Christians happy and more people coming to your Sunday gathering. Focus on discipleship and mission. The church will be the outrgowth

3.) Going public too early can put the cart before the horse. A worship gathering should be a part of a rhythm of an already existing community. We should gather as part of a shared life the rest of the six days a week. It is a gathering and sending rhythm. There must be an integrity to our life together before we go public or else the Sunday morning gathering becomes a performance to attract people, as opposed to a coalescence for the celebrating of what God is doing among us and the shaping of our lives to understand it and participate in it.

It is very important to form good “political” habits in the founding of a new expression of the gospel. By “political” I mean the things that drive us to be together and live life together. There will be a correct time to go public but DON’T RUSH IT! Any stories out there of going public too early? Any other cautions we should consider when we go public with our church gathering in the world?

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Reminder! Oct 28 and 29 the Missional Learning Commons is coming to Chicagoland. We’re centering our presentations from real live missional practicioners on the issue of discipleship. What does the practice of discipleship look like in a missional church?? How do we cultivate a discipleship culture into God’s Kingdom? as opposed to just producing another program?  We will hear from and have discussions built around on-the-ground practitioners. Mike Breen and the team from 3DM will be hanging out with us to share some of what they have learned and help facilitate our conversations.

 You can register here to come to the Commons. It costs practically nothing (10 bucks) I pray God’s blessings on this year’s Missional Learning Commons!

Filed under Church Planting,Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership,Uncategorized 15 Comments

on May 11 2011

Why Neo-Reformed Theology Won’t Jive With Mission: I Plead My Case

I’m hanging out at the ecclesia network’s church planter training week. Last night, we all enjoyed some fellowship at a local establishment – and a fight broke out – ok not really. But a real good discussion happened as I tried to explain to a few “Presbyterian” friends why I think Neo-Reformed theology can’t lead us into mission amidst the post Christendom cultures of the West. After we all professed our love and esteem for Tim Keller (and I’m serious here), I argued that Reformed theology, extracted out of Medeival Europe and transplanted to the frontiers of N America, (almost automatically) becomes individualistic. Without the monolith of European Roman Catholicism to reform, the Reformation’s principles – the so-called sola’s – cannot provide a foundation for the Christian life. As hard as “they” might try, such a people formed around the “sola’s” will eventually devolve (once separated from its European culture) into an internalized, transactional individual faith. OK, that’s my case. But let me try to expand with questions

The Reformation Reformed a Church that Was Already There

The Reformation’s claims for a.) Sola Scripture (Scripture alone), b.) Sola Fide (it is by faith we are saved – by no other means), c.) Sola Christus (in Christ alone, we need no other mediator including THE CHURCH!!) were assertions made over against a corrupt church. They provided a corrective to something that was already there. In relation to a.) the church’s interpretive authority needed the call to submit to Scripture. In relation to b.) the church’s excessive penitential demands upon its people (which had made salvation about works) needed the call to recognize salvation was a work of God in Christ by trust in Him, not the church. And in relation to c.) the church itself had become a corrupt controller of al things having to do with salvation including the Eucharist and absolution. The church needed to be chastened from being the controller of God’s blessings in Christ to being the servant thereof. So in simplest terms, the Reformation reinserted the authority of Scripture over (and in) the church, the role of faith in one’s participation in God’s salvation in Christ, and that the church is God’s servant not controller.

But, within medieval Europe, these “Sola’s” did not wipe away a.) the church’s interpretative role in understanding Scripture, b.) the importance of the sacraments and disciplines (the eucharist, confession, serving the poor, etc.) to lead the individual into holiness, or c.) the church as a social reality by which the witness of Christ is carried on into the world. These “sola’s were meant to reform these practices not wipe them away.

Without Something to Reform, Reformed Theology Devolves into Individualist Christianity

Many years later however, transplanted into the United States, Reformed theology has nothing to reform. The “sola’s” are left standing alone as the foundation for a Christian life together.  This worked for many years as long as the cultural consensus came along with the Reformed communities from Europe. But once the Reformed culture began to lose its hegemony within a given context (whether it be the Dutch in Grand Rapids, Swiss or Scottish Presbyterian cultures of the north etc.), the church’s life will devolve into individualism. We get a.) individualist interpretation of Scripture where I – “the individual” becomes the authority for what Scripture means, b.) decisionism – where salvation becomes an individualist transaction all about me where by faith I get pardon for sin and eternal life, and c.) the church becomes the invisible church, a collection of individuals to whom the church must now appeal to.

To me this is what happened as Reformed theology devolved into its current Souther Baptist formulations so prevalent in certain parts of the so-called Neo-Reformed New Calvinist movements. Do you agree? Do you see this in the current manifestations of Neo-Reformed New Calvinism?

What This Means for Mission

This is important for me because I contend such an individualism works against the church taking up a communal, incarnational particpation in God’s Mission in the world. In relation to a.) such individualism too often makes the church an ideologizing entity which uses Scripture as prooftexts to rally people around one position over against another. We turn into a defensive and/or antagonistic people. We do this because we no longer see the church’s role in guiding interpretation. As a result we lose our ability to come together as a people in submission to one another to discern interpretation of texts for new issues we face in the culture. In relation to b.) salvation becomes an individual transaction for me instead of something God is doing in the world to make all things right in which I participate through conversion. We make Jesus private. We lose Mission. And in relation to c.) church becomes eventually something that we must offer as appealing to individuals. We set ourselves up for attractional and/or consumer church. We lose the ability to be shaped by church into a way of life in God’s Mission in the world.  In short then, I contend that Reformed theology has much to offer and learn from. But it is eventually ill suited to shape a people in Mission within Christendom. It remains ecclesiologically functional within Christendom type cultures (like Dallas Texas, Nashville Tenn and Grand Rapids MI). This is why I’m an Anabaptist with Catholic appreciations.

BUT THIS ISN’T REFORMED THEOLOGY!

OK, so I’m asking: is this a fair analysis of Reformed theology hitting the shores of N America? I’m obviously not the first one to argue in this way. Reinhard Hutter made a similar case in Suffering Divine Things. Stanley Hauerwas recently quoted Bonhoeffer (here) saying that “American Protestantism is Protestantism without the Reformation.” Bonheoffer alludes to the conditions I’m discussing here.  But there are many, like Richard Mouw and Jamie Smith who would contend that I have described something that is not Reformed theology. Indeed they argue that the Neo-Reformed theologies are not Reformed at all, they are something else – usually described as Neo Puritan Pietism or something like that. I contend, that yes, the Neo-Puritan Neo-Reformed theologies of folk like Piper, Mohler and Driscoll might not be classically Reformed theology. But still, this is what happens when we separate Reformed theology from its reforming task within Christendom. Are we not seeing many of these individualist tendencies within the Neo-Reformed movement for these reasons?

OK, I have plead my case. I’m expecting and welcoming push back. Shoot, I’m willing to convert. I just need to know where I’m wrong. What say you?

Filed under Ecclesiology,Neo-Anabaptist,Neo-Reformed 74 Comments

on July 13 2010

The Diversity We Seek: The Danger of Manufactured Pre-Determined Diversity

I had a conversation with someone the other day at “the Vine” about diversity and seeking diversity. At “the Vine,” we’re in the process of planting/reviving 2 missional communities and I argued that one of these contexts – Hyde Park – had to be the most diverse place in the Midwest. She said no, that a different place – Waukegan – was. We were working with two different concepts of diversity.

The actual demographics of each place can be debated. But I argued numerically that Hyde Park was more diverse because its inhabitants included a wide range of ethnicities (white people are probably in the minority here), a wide range of economic classes (from wealthy to poor across all ethnic spectrums), and a wide range in levels of education (from the intellectual elites of Univ. of Chicago to the under educated poor of the Chicago public schools system).  I said as far multiple kinds of diversity, Hyde Park had to be the most diverse place in the Midwest.

My friend said Waukegan is more diverse than Hyde Parke. What she meant when was that Waukegan is a place which is more “not us.” We are middle class suburban (majority) white people with the comforts of education, stable families, homes and jobs. Waukegan is more on the “margins,” people who are struggling for all those things. When I said Hyde Park is more diverse, I was referring to the makeup internal to that community, and its broad differences within one community. When my friend said Waukegan was more diverse, she was saying Waukegan was more “other” than us: diversity as a function of a relation external to us.

As we plant communities what are the opportunities and pitfalls of each? Which diversity should we seek to plant in? Diversity a.) or Diversity b.)? What different things should we consider in terms of God’s redemptive purposes in each? Which diversity should we seek as the most appropriate context for a church like ours to seek to inhabit?

I think these are important questions. There are opportunities and pitfalls in both. I offer a comment in relation to both kinds of diversity.

In the case of Waukegan, there is an opportunity to go to the margins and minister the gospel. Given the ubiquitous poverty, this represents “the deserted places of the empire.” These are the folk God has called us to be mindful of. There is the great readiness here, fertile soil here. “Blessed are the poor, the open handed, the ready to receive, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Just as important, here is where we can learn the Kingdom, for God is at work here in unusual and different ways than we are used to.  Yet there are dangers. How do we go here and not be people of privilege? Coming with the answers? Coming with our value systems we learned in the suburbs? How do we enter with proper humility? Most importantly, we must resist the temptation that we know, can predict, what redemption will look like here we inhabit these places for the Kingdom. There is a temptation it will look like our pleasant lives back in the prosperous suburbs. This is the false promise of “the American dream”.

In the case of Hyde Park, we have opportunities here as well. We have the opportunity of calling this community into the diversity of the Kingdom, the community of reconciliation and renewal that God is bringing thru Christ.  The ones who are wealthy will learn from the poor and vice versa. The ones who are educated will learn from those not and vice versa. The various ethnicities will learn to love and care and understand and learn from each other. Yet we must be careful here not to allow a manufactured diversity to take shape where somehow we all look the same. We cannot appeal to some preconceived notion of what such a diversity might look like in this context. We cannot assume what our music will be, what wealth will mean. We must avoid the mistake (and this is true of many communities) that those who are successful in economy must somehow be minimized, what their success in the world might mean here (I’ve learned this from the Afro-American church communities). They surely must model how to live differently with wealth but they also must teach us how to live in the economy for witness. There is a danger of a manufactured pre-determined flattened diversity that is often shaped by the bland vision of American democracy. God wants to create something anew here through His life of forgiveness, reconciliation and renewal.

I have noticed (a times) a manufactured diversity in large churches in majority white suburban wealthy communities. Here people of different ethnicities and social backgrounds are hired to be visible and lead from up front. Is this a good thing? Sometimes this can work for some good. Sometimes, I’m afraid it is manufactured and is niot the diversity we seek. Kingdom diversity is a culture of renewal worked out on the ground in real relationships. I tend to discourage such attempts at manufacturing diversity. What about you? Is this a temptation where you minister? In what ways do you see manufactured pre-determined diversity taking shape in Christianity? Are you against the ‘token hires’ to promote diversity? How can we avoid the tendency to do manufactured pre-determined diversity? Do we need to?

Filed under Ecclesiology,Missional Ecclesiology,Uncategorized 9 Comments

on July 6 2010

The Emerging View of the Church in Society: Alan Hirsch/Michael Frost and the Danger of De-Ecclesiologizing The Church in Mission

This is my last of three treatments on the theology of the emerging/missional church. As I said on the three previous posts here, here and here,  I’m currently winding down my book project  The End of Evangelicalism? by writing an epilogue probing the possibility what a new faithfulness might look like to emerge “from the rubble” of evangelicalism. I applaud the emerging and/or missional church movements. But I contend they must avoid three dangers, three traps if they (we) are to elude the traps that evangelicalism has itself already fallen into.  That’s when I came up with these three clumsy terms, de incarnationalize, de-eschatologize and de-ecclesiologize. Today, I’m examining one of my favorite persons in the missional church movement – Alan Hirsch and his co-writer Michael Frost. I love these guys. I hope they take what I wrtite here as an act of love and appreciation for what they’re doing.  Here’s some of what I wrote (edited for a blog post with citations etc. deleted) on third of the 3 traps using Hirsch and Frost to illustrate what such a danger might look like.

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Emerging/Missional leaders have criticized evangelicalism’s practice of the church as too defensive and inward looking. The evangelical church, they say, has become an organization set off over against society as opposed to being a people in and among society in God’s Mission. Missiologists Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost,  two of the main leaders of the missional church movement in N America, have challenged evangelicals in this regard to embrace a “missional ecclesiology” in N America.

Early on in their writing, Frost and Hirsch chided the N. American church for its obsession with attracting people to come to its services and programs. In The Shaping of Things to Come, they labeled the N. American church as fundamentally “attractional.” It is structured primarily around a building which is to be the center of all its various services and programs. This “attractional” modus operandi has engulfed all of the church’s functions including evangelism. According to Hirsch and Frost, we even seek to reach the hurting and those seeking faith by inviting them to church to a program we built to meet their needs. For Frost and Hirsch, this notion of the church is fundamentally flawed. It depends upon the social orbit of Christendom society where the societal expectation is that the church would be the center for all things having to do with God. This Christendom world, however, is slowly passing away. Today, this attractional “indrag” works to close off the church from the hurting and the poor and the ever-increasing world of non-Christians.

For Frost and Hirsch, the N. American church is carrying on the bad habits of Christendom. We still believe we possess power and influence in our culture “to compel them to come to us.” We organize ourselves into hierarchical business like structures that centralize the church’s operations instead of dispersing it into the world. In order to preserve our own culture, we divide what is sacred (the church) from the secular (the world). It is a power play requiring those who believe to come to church to meet God.  As a result, the church is self-enclosed trying to defend its own view of the world. It has not only withdrawn from Mission, it has become antagonistic to it. In many ways then, Frost and Hirsch agree with just about everything I have written in The End of Evangelicalism? concerning evangelicalism’s practice of “the Christian Nation.”

In response to this state of affairs, Hirsch and Frost preach a dispersed notion of the church where it inhabits its neighborhoods and contexts of everyday life. Recounting some the core themes of missional thinkers, they unfurl how the church is to live missionally as an extension of the Mission of God in the world (not as a church that does missions as a program). We are to follow Christ and the incarnational model of God’s sending the Son into the very context, rhythms and language of everyday human life. We are to live inhabit the context and witness to the Kingdom. These are “the forgotten ways” of Jesus and His disciples, which bred the first mission into the world. It is only after we inhabit and identify with those we are with that the church can then take shape in terms of its programs and services. To do the reverse is to revert to the attractional ways of Christendom.

This brief summary does not do justice to the contributions of Hirsch and Frost to the burgeoning missional church movement in N. America. They have provoked the church, especially the evangelical church, to rethink its position in society and take up the posture of Christ in the world, who came humbly, vulnerably to serve, seek and save the lost. They offer us a practice of church that shapes us out of the dispassion and protectionism that has plagued so much of our churches. Their work is helping to shape among a politic of faithfulness for mission in our time.

Nonetheless, there is a potential ideological trap that lies within the missiological practices of Hirsch and Frost. It is the trap of de-ecclesiologizing the church’s relationship to society. By the word de-ecclesiologize, I am not referring merely to Frost/Hirsch’s resistance to the institutionizing of the church. Indeed some of that might be warranted. I refer instead to the separating of the practice of the church from any continuous work of the incarnate Christ in history as extended in the forms of the church by the Holy Spirit. If this happens, I contend that the church is set adrift from any determination in Christ and the work of Christ in the world. It becomes de-ecclesiologized.

This trap is not immediately apparent in Frost and Hirsch. On the contrary, they have written extensively in sympathy with theme of The End of Evangelicalism?: the restoring of Christ to the center of a politic of Mission in the world. The central task of their book ReJesus is to “reinstate the central role of Jesus … in the life and mission of God’s people.” They do not wish to separate the practice of the church from Christ, they seek to “reinstate” it. They often summarize their approach to this issue with the formula: “mission must precede ecclesiology and that Christology must precede missiology.” For Hirsch and Frost, this phrase requires that Christ must come first and be the source of the church’s formation in the world. It is Christology which drives Mission from which the church is birthed in the world.

It is this formula, however, and the assumptions behind it, that reveal the potential for the de-ecclesiologizing of the church in their ecclesiology. Implicit in this formula is that we (anyone) can know/encounter Christ determinately apart from the ongoing form of the church. The continuous forms of the church, including Eucharist, the preaching and interpretation of the canon of Scripture, the fellowship of the gifts, are therefore dispensable for Mission. Jesus forms the church directly in Mission and the church is de-ecclesiologized in Mission.

Hirsch and Frost of course are following the founding theological mantra of missional church theology, that “it is not the church that has a mission to bring God’s salvation to the world, it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church.” That the church should be defined as an extension of God’s Mission in the sending of the Son should not be questioned. Yet for Hirsch and Frost, this doctrine means that the church carries no continuous form from context to context. According to Hirsch, first comes entering the cultural context, identifying with its people, getting know, understand and live among the context. Only then, after one’s life takes shape in the culture, after redemption has taken hold in the culture, can the church take on forms. The church, as Alan is fond of saying, “comes out the back of mission.” The forms in which the church takes shape in the world are all a matter of post facto development after “we” have inhabited a context. The questions however remain: who are the ones who engage the context prior to being the church? Does not this missiological engagment assume the prior existence of the church? And how does one know Christ in this context apart from the continuous forms of the church to carry on His presence in the world?

Hirsch and Frost imply in ReJesus that it is through “a direct and unmediated relationship” between the individual believer and Christ that He is known in the context (ReJesus 55). They go to great lengths to “debunk the many false images” of Jesus that have existed in the church down through the ages. They then seek to “go back to the daring, radical, strange, wonderful, inexplicable, unstoppable, marvelous, unsettling, disturbing, caring, powerful God-Man” (ReJesus 105,111). They recognize here that we must allow all the various images of Jesus in the gospels to drive our encounter with the world. There is a serious attention given to the texts of Scripture in defending the “wild Messiah” Jesus they advocate as the basis for Mission in the world. There remains the question however, how do we seek after this Jesus without ourselves becoming victums of another encultured view of Christ? this time the Wild Messiah as portrayed and argued for by Hirsch and Frost. For Frost and Hirsch it is a fresh encounter with the living Christ which over comes the forms of the church instead of being made manifest in these same forms as Christ has given them to the church. The danger here is that Christians are left without a basis for our very connection to the ongoing presence of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit in the Triune history. We become a bunch of individuals seeking a personal mystical experience of Christ via our own interpretation of the gospels. We become individual worshipers of a self-described Jesus devoid of the means to be immersed in the work of the Triune God in the world.

The church however has been given practices from Christ and in continuity with Christ as the Sent One to embody Christ in the world by the Spirit. Within these practices of the Eucharist, the preaching of the Word, baptism, the fellowship of the “gifts” through mutual submission, ordination, service to the poor (Matt 25), the presence of Christ in mutual discernment (Matt 18:15-20) the body of Christ is materialized in the world. These various practices must be contextualized for each place we inhabit God’s Mission. Yet it is here in these practices that we learn that the incarnation is more than a principle to be applied as a missiological method – it is a reality extended in and thru the church. These practices should not separate us from the world, they should incarnate us as His body in the world. To somehow separate these practices from the extended work of Christ in history into the world via the Spirit is to risk setting up on high an ideological picture of Jesus as the possession of each individual. Instead through these simple ecclesial practices, we are enabled as individuals to submit to and participate in the full Trinitarian Mission of God of which the church has been sent and is a part. In these ways, missiology does not precede ecclesiology, missiology is ecclesiology and vice versa..

The danger in all of this is that the church falls into the trap of becoming ideologized. Without the forms of the church, we Christians are left without a source of political formation in the world. Without a practice to be formed “in Christ,” we as individuals instead gravitate around compelling causes, which often can be used and manipulated for ulterior purposes, whether it be the building of a large organization or the accumulation of power for purposes devoid of Christ. If the church has no stance from which to engage the world, discern the issues, and engage God’s work in the world, it is susceptible to disappearing as it is contextualized out of existence. It can then become an ideology or worse, the instrument of an ideology. Either way the church loses its faithfulness. “Mission” becomes an ideological banner because it too is undetermined by a concrete practice in the world. It in essence becomes a concept to be applied. We can be lured to put it to the service of the pragmatics of making the church more successful in terms and for purposes that have little to do with God’s Mission. In all these ways, de-ecclesiologizing the church’s place in the world makes the church susceptible to the trap of becoming the instrument of ideology, repeating (what I show in the End of Evangelicalism?) the evangelical mistake of “the Christian Nation.”

Hirsch and Frost rightly want to guard against the Western habit of imposing a form of imperialism on the host cultures we seek to inhabit. They want to guard against the church thinking its got it all figured out before it lands in a culture. They want to guard against the tendency for the church to think that the Holy Spirit is only working in the church and its practices. For all of this Hirsch and Frost are to be applauded. With Frost and Hirsch, we should understand that the practice of the church needs be contextualized although not discarded. The church has failed often in its history at this. We need to realize that God’s Mission is at work outside the church, that Jesus is Lord over all things, and the church exists to inhabit, discern and be responsive to His work, not our own pre agendas. The church has failed at this. We need to listen to Hirsch and Frost. Yet we must do so while taking heed to avoid the trap of de-ecclesiologizing the church stance in society.

There is no question in my mind that Hirsch and Frost are leading post evangelicalism towards a new faithfulness for Mission. They teach us how to be Christ’s body, His very incarnate reality in the world. They teach us the ways of compassion, of being among the poor and the needy, they teach us how to be an hospitable witness that embodies the justice of Christ in the world. These are truly the beginnings of a politic of faithfulness. If there is to be such a politic in our future however, we must avoid the trap of de-eccelesiologizing our belief and practice of the church in society.

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What do you think? Does Alan and Michael fall into the trap of de-ecclesiologizing the church? Have I fallen into the error of Catholicism (please describe what that might be for you eh?)? Does this matter?

Filed under Ecclesiology,Missional Ecclesiology,Missional Theology,Uncategorized 27 Comments

on June 15 2010

On How Flat Leadership Works for Mission: The Three P.’s

Much has been made about flat leadership in the missional church. Flat leadership of course refers to non-hierarchical forms of church leadership structure. In my experiences, there are various reactions to it. Some assume flat leadership is a reaction to abusive authoritarian structures of leadership. Still others complain that flat leadership means no leadership. Some like it because, in the midst of conflict or confusion in the local church, flat leadership means we talk more or tolerate each other more. For me, all of this misses the point of flat leadership.


Three Reasons Flat Leadership Works For Missionary Communities

For me three things drive my attachment to flat leadership structures in the church. First, flat leadership pushes the church outward as opposed to a top-down leadership structure, which draws the church inward. As I have said elsewhere, with top down leadership, the activity of the church flows inward towards the leaders who give direction. They are the professionals. When a member of the body has an issue, concern, or a call to pursue in the field of mission, he or she is trained to first look inward to the leader to answer questions like:  How does this fit with our goals and visions? How can we secure resources from the church organization? How can we secure its blessing? Each member of body is passivized as he or she looks inward and upward for approval for what they are doing. The church becomes uniform as it becomes organized around a personality that people like, trust or are drawn to. There are usually a set of issues that distinguish this leader and his/her church from other leaders and their churches. People stay or leave as they are aligned with this person and the positions. In essence each church becomes a “brand” centered around its leadership. This is what top down leadership does. Flat leadership does the opposite. It decenters the life of the church from around a central leader. It pushes people outward. Flat leadership enables the church’s identity to take shape around missional activity in the surrounding culture.

Second, flat leadership structures are more dynamic flexible and discerning of new things. Conflict is important in a church. Differences, disputable matters and the discerning of sin in the body are all important “life matters” that shape a community into the mission we are called. With top down leadership, conflict usually gets litigated through the leadership as opposed to discerned by and among the community. There is very little room to move into new territory unless discerned by the said leader. But, unfortunately, the leader is often engulfed in “managing” the church’s growth now.  Conflict is discerned based on what harms or does not harm the cohesiveness and growth of the church body. This stagnates a community quickly. Decentralized flat leadership works against that.

Third, flat leadership models the disposition of Christ we need for mission in the world. With top down leadership, there is often a coercive element here. The leader is often acting out of the authority of the office, in which he or she exercises an authority of position.  He or she is set above the congregation instead of below it, as the Scripture seems to dictate for all leadership in the church. Mark 10:42-45.  Such leadership does not model the submission to Christ that following Christ demands. It does not model the vulnerability and submission to the Father that Christ Himself modeled and the epistles call all leaders into (Phil 2, 1 Pet 5. 1-6).

For these various reasons, top down leadership works against the body of Christ being incarnational, discerning new territories, entering the world humbly and in the disposition of servanthood. It passivizes the body of Christ from being an alive ministering community of the Spirit extending His Lordship into the world.

The Three P.’s of Leading a Missional Community

Having said all of this however, people still can’t see how such a flat leadership works in the church. We are so driven by a modern Christendom form of leadership which is more efficient and based in a set of cognitive skills sufficient in Christendom, but woefully inadequate for the missionary situation we find ourselves in. So, recently, I was asked, about two months ago, while we were in the midst of a conflict in our body, to describe for our shepherd board the principles of how our leadership works. I wrote three things on a napkin that I have since used over and over again. I now call them “the three P.’s.” They are

1.) Posture. All leadership is called to model the POSTURE of submission to Christ as Lord of the church and (in that) the posture of mutual submission to one another in all activities of leadership. This posture, which Yoder called “revolutionary subordination,” is the place out of which God works to reveal the truth. In dialogue with one another, in listening, and in pushing each other, a consensus is birthed. And until that time we wait and listen more.

2.) Process. The process of Matt 18:15-20 is fundamental to how we navigate issues in the church. The issues the church must deal with arise from on the ground relationships going on amidst and around the community. When sin and/or a disputable matter occurs, we begin to discern that issue/disagreement NOT BY GOING TO THE TOP DOG LEADER, and having him/her arbitrate. (Matt 18 is not just about sin, but also issues of differences as described in the words “binding and loosing”). We go to one another and in humility discuss the issue. If we believe someone is in sin we say that and then submit ourselves to that person being careful to listen as to why we might be wrong. If agreement cannot be reached, if insubordination is detected, we then bring in a third person. At the point where an issue simply cannot be agreed upon (and these issues are rare and outside the creedal orthodoxies that guide a given church), then we take it to the elders, then to the community to study and pray over the issue (Acts 15.28). The Holy Spirit at work in the community drives the issues that will determine the direction of the church, not the single chosen leader who shall determine what shall be discerned, what shall be tolerated, and what shall be not allowed.

3.) Pneumatocracy. OK it does not work phonetically, (I also have tried “Politics of the Spirit” if you’re really hung up on phonetics). Here I am trying to say that the body IS NOT A DEMOCRACY. It is a social field of the Holy Spirit where the authority of Christ is exercised in the gifts as recognized by the community. There will need to be apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists, and pastors, all recognized and in service to the body. These gifts need to be recognized, trusted and followed if the community is to flourish into God’s life together.  Often I hear that no leadership can come from such a flat leadership. I think this misunderstands flat leadership. For flat leadership will not work unless the apostles can lead, the preacher-teachers teach etc. Each one must be given authority for what gifts God has given them. Yet they must exercise that gift in grace and humility (Rom 12: 3-4).

By following the three P.’s I believe a community is formed for mission Cohesively missional communities are shaped. Top down hierarchies provide leadership for Christendom. They most efficiently manage an already existing body of Christians, They facilitate larger churches. They create brands around leaders. It’s fine for that place and time. For we who seek to be missionaries, and to be unencumbered with the attractional models of church planting, I offer the three P.’s.

I already know people think this will not work. I was so formed out of John Yoder’s writings (especially Body Politics) that I was shocked this was just not second nature to any missional types. I have learned that this way of leadership is not only Biblical but revolutionary and will take practice and continual learning. So what objections or problems does this mode of leadership present for you?

Filed under Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership,Neo-Anabaptist 29 Comments

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