on May 25 2010

Untamed: Reactiving a Missional Discipleship by the Hirsch’s: A Review and A Question

I’ve always been a fan of Alan Hirsch and his wife Deb. I like that they have risked a lot in their lives, lived a lot among “the least of these,” that Deb is now a pastor in the city of LA, that they read incessantly. Alan is much more irenic than I. I like that too. I think Alan’s gift is his ability to read a lot of things, condense them and make them concrete to missional living. I don’t always agree with him on everything (duh). I think a lot of our disagreements come from him being a missiologist and me being primarily a pastor/theologian. I’m theologically driven ( I admit it) and Al is missiologically driven (which makes him holier).

All this to say that I read Alan and Deb’s newest book, Untamed on the plane ride home Saturday. I jotted down some highlights I’d like to share. Here goes.

THE REVIEW

The Hirsch’s book is about “reactivating a missional form of discipleship.” On page 99, they describe the modus operandi of the book: “this book has to do with overcoming obstacles inherent in our thinking about God, present in our culture, and programmed in our psyches. It is a book about idolatry, false worship, deception, and the lies we tell ourselves to get off the hook.” I like and applaud this approach to discipleship. I found it helpful.

The book runs through some of Alan’s signature themes (I recognize the book is written by Alan and Deb here BTW but up til now these themes have beem articulated by Alan et. al.)) and, I might add, what have become dominant themes in the missional world. You know them as “Christology precedes missiology,” “the bounded set centered set,” as well as others.  These ideas are reflected upon here as to their implications for discipleship. The way these themes work themselves out is via four central ideas: 1.) Jesus shaped spirituality: Jesus comes first Christology precedes missiology and missiology precedes ecclesiology. 2.) Shema spirituality: a discipleship based on Jesus’ commandment to love God – love your neighbor .. of course Deb and Alan are beginning with Deut 6 here, 3.) No Mission No Discipleship:  Discipleship cannot happen unless the invitation to participate and be formed by the Mission is central, and d.) the deconstruction of idolatry as a core practice of discipleship. Can I say AGAIN! – this is an excellent outline of what discipleship can be and I highly recommend it!! And the Hirsch’s do a extraordinary job of fleshing out what this looks like within the missional life of a community. Again, it’s well worth the read.

Allow me to mention a few more highlights. I like Allan/Deb’s question on page 45 “what is it about holiness of Jesus that caused sinners to flock to him like a magnet and yet managed to seriously antagonize religious people?” I like the Hirsch’s chapter on sexuality. Coming from a significant ministry and life among the sexually hurting, this chapter is substantive and really helpful. I appreciated their soft chiding on the place the family has taken in American culture (ch. 6). Thank-you thank –you. Thank-you. These ideas will help me in discussions within my own home and around us as we are in the midst of planting missional communities.

So, all in all, this book is a good contribution to discipleship in missional communities. It’s not a manual or a specific method or strategy. It’s a bunch of creative ideas about discipleship we should be thinking about as we plant missional communities. It’s good and I’m glad I read the book, especially because I’ve been pondering the issue of discipleship a lot lately at our church.

THE QUESTION

Of course, there are some theological issues here that I am unsettled about. But this is not Alan or Deb’s problem. I don’t think they would self-describe themselves as putting forth theological foundations for the missional movement. Yet I still think we need these foundations badly.

For instance, I continue to growl when I see the “Christology precedes Missiology precedes Ecclesiology” theme. This theme is of course foundational to the book. NOW I KNOW that when Alan or others use the term ‘ecclesiology”in this way, they are talking about the form and function of the church. The form and function of the church should follow from the gospel’s engagement with the context because mission defines the church. Mission isn’t a program of the church, it is the church. In this sense, I agree. But for me there’s a significant unrecognized problem with following this logic. By splitting Jesus from His ongoing incarnation in the “body of Christ” the church; i.e. by saying Christology precedes the church, we are left with the epistemological problem: how do we know Jesus? To Alan and Deb, maybe this seems obvious –i.e. by reading the gospels, praying and allowing the Spirit to teach us. This seems to be in line with charismatic evangelical epistemology they are already comfortable with. But without the church as the manifest ongoing social embodiment of orthodoxy grounded in Christ and the apostles by the Spirit, do we not leave ourselves open to self-creating Jesus in our own personal image – the very problem Alan and Deb wish to remedy. Are we not open to all the cheesy consumerising of Jesus all us missional types deplore? Without the organic body, in succession, working out the gifts in check “one with another,” are we not left to our own psyches and or exegesis of the gospels. The Spirit certainly works this way yet there must be more. I contend there is a prior order and shape to the church that runs all through history that makes possible the incarnation of Christ into the world again and again. The charismatic individualized receiving of Jesus can really only happen within this ongoing shaping body of the church. So to put Jesus or missiology before ecclesiology opens the Christian to the same grand epistemological problem. This is why John Howard Yoder famously pronounced that the church must “precedes the world epistemologically.” Priestly Kingdom, 11.

When Alan and Deb  put forth the problem that “we tend to create Jesus in our own image” 40, that we domesticate him for our purposes, that we need to “free” Jesus from these cultural, Christianized boxes, what Alan and Deb must answer is “how do we know that “the wild Messsiah,” the Untamed Jesus, is not the Jesus created by Alan/Deb Hirsch?” This is the question I have posed before right? Alan is not surprised by this. He’s heard (or read) me blather on about this elsewhere. Do they find the true Jesus through better exegesis? better cultural analysis? Is it through the direct Holy Spirit illumination as one reads and prays the Scriptures?

I contend Jesus becomes present in the practice of His Table, the proclamation of the Word (not the informationalizing of it) and the practice of the gifts, the resolving of difference and conflict, of fellowship etc.i.e. the core practices of becoming His people in the world. Jesus incarnates Himself in the world via the community, as it carries on in succession from Christ Himself as His body into the world. Out of this place of His presense at the Eucharist, the proclaimed Word, and the gathering of gifts, binding and loosing (Matt 18), His authority, His forgiveness, His reconciliation, His life giving renewal and healing of all things, His very presense is incarnated into the world. From this place, Jesus manifests Himself uniquely for each context and pushes us out as His Sent presence in the world. This is the defined ecclesiology which, for better or worse, Yoder says precedes the world epistemologicallyTHIS IS THE LOGIC OF INCARNATION INTO THE WORLD.

We can avoid the whole problem, therefore, by simply saying that ecclesiology is missiology (or vice versa) and that without Jesus as the incarnate center of each, they are empty and void.

Despite any theological push backs on the nature of missional ecclesiology, I continue to advocate leaning on Alan and Deb for their marvelous missiological explorations. I recommend this book.  Anyone else read the book?  Any other great nuggets from the book out there you care to share? Questions? Push back? Debate?

What do you think the greatest theological challenge is for the missional church and its authors?

In the meantime, thanks to Alan and Deb for a job well done. Keep er going!

Filed under Books Reviews,Ecclesiology,Missional Ecclesiology 11 Comments

on March 29 2010

Woman and Men in Ministry Together: Affirming Women and Transforming – The Missional Way

A couple weeks ago I began a series of posts on the post-evangelical landscape regarding two controversial issues – women inimages ministry and the normativity of gay/lesbian relations. To reiterate, I contended that how a church/movement comes down on these two issues together reveals much about the assumptions that drive their theology. The manner in which the Neo-Reformed missionals reject women in ministry and/or GLBT relations together reveals much about the way they do theology re: Scripture, authority, sanctification etc. Likewise, the way the post Emergent/emerging coalesence here in the U.S. (heretofore referred to as pEC) affirms both reveals the underlying assumptions that drive the way they do theology. As I see it, getting at these assumptions improves the conversation in the post-evangelical landscape moving us further together into the Kingdom of God.

The Missional Way I have been proposing is a third way of doing theology. It is an incarnational logic that drives much of Missional practice. It has some similarities to the pEC’s in that it is non-foundationalist, post Christendom, driven by cultural engagement and community life, wholistic in salvation. Yet there are differences as well which I tried to make clearer previously over at this post. This incarnatiuonal, post Christendom driven understanding of life and truth in the gospel leads, so I argue, to certain directions on the two issues of “Women in Ministry” and “GLBT sexual relations” – what I’d like to call Position No. 3 “Yes to Women in Minstry/ and Transforming of All Relationships” (this phrase was tipped off and influenced by Brad/futurist guy in the comments on this post).  FYI for the theologically driven reader- the transforming logic here comes from Yoder’s Authentic Transformation idea as opposed to Niebuhr’s transforming logic here which is where I see both Neo-Reformed and pEC coming from. This view a.) affirms women alongside men as equal participants in the ministry of Christ’s church in the world, and b.) calls for a redemptive community by which we explore together and witness to the sexual redemption God is working in the world in relation gay/lesbian sexuality and sexuality in toto.

In terms of the way this works out on the women in ministry issue first, according to the Missional Way, women are full participants in the ministerial authority of the church, including ordination, because:

1.) Authority by its very definition is flattened and thereby includes All! The Missional church understands authority in the church as manifested in a flattened leadership within the community – the priesthood of all believers. The Kingdom has begun. The Holy Spirit has been poured out on all – men and women alike, your sons AND DAUGHTERS shall prophesy (Acts 2:17). Men and women therefore partake together in the gifts and the authority of the Lord in the community. In so doing however, the very nature of this authority has been transformed. It is not exercised as the power of the world (Mark 10:42-45) – top down hierarchically. (This was part of what Christendom did to the church’s power). This power is exercised via the humility and vulnerability of the Incarnate Christ. In distinction from Reformed ways of thinking about authority, there is no senior pastor! Women and men participate equally. In that certain forms of church power has taken on hierarchical structure, we should not fight for women to enter authority on those terms. It is an outmoded Christendom way of authority in the church. Neither should we see authority as derived from democratic legitimation.  Communal authority emerges out of the gifts within communal discernment. There is difference and roles. Equality is based on the mutual participation in one Body (1 Cor 12). It is not an equality that obliterates our differences. This way of authority and power spreads out into the world instead of centralizing authority in a professionalized top down hierarchy. Under these terms, how can women be excluded from full participation in ministry? (The Anabaptist, as well as holiness and pentecostal influences here are obvious.

2.) Ordination recognizes those gifted and entrusted with the gift of teaching preaching. From this vantage point, ordination is still important for the gifts recognized for maintaining the theological integrity of the community (preachers, teachers, apostles and others as well). There’s a succession going on here. And yet it is not an ordination of hierarchy but of service. On these terms, there is no reason to exclude women from ordination? Of course there is the issue of Scripture’s pronouncements which leads to my next point.

3.) The Kingdom Has Begun and This Helps Us Understand the Tension in Scripture Between Roles in the Church and Roles in Marriage: The Missional Way is driven by Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom – that it has begun in Himself – His life death and resurrection and Rule as Lord. It has begun, yet it is not yet consummated.  For this reason gender and bodies have not disappeared yet (as the Gnostic Corinthians suggested). Marriage continues until Jesus returns and the new age  consummated (Mark 12:25). Gender difference and the roles within marriage continues to exist ALTHOUGH THE KINGDOM TRANSFORMS THESE ROLES OUT OF THE PATRIARCHAL ABUSES OF THE PAST! The main point I want to make here therefore is, given this dynamic at work in the NT, we can now understand many of the texts which chasten women from teaching over men in the NT to be the chastening of women who did not honor their marriages in the exercise of their new found authority in the church- e.g. women who did not cover their hair while teaching (1 Cor 11) or who took out their newfound authority against their husbands (1 Cor 14:34) etc. So whereas the Neo-Reformed tend to take Scripture as plainly outlawing women in ministry over men, and pEC’s tend to dismiss these Scriptures as culturally obsolete, the Missional appreciation of the dynamic of the inbreaking Kingdom allows for a fuller appreciation for the eschatological tension of the Kingdom that must be upheld in these dynamics. This inevitably extols the full participation of women alongside men in the ministries of the church while guarding the maintaining of the community’s marriages in “the in between” time.  Women are welcomed alongside men in the full authority of the Kingdom as long as they each maintain their God ordained marriage callings (1 Tim 3:4-5 if they are married that is, if not then this does not matter for women or men which is why Paul is always urging people to remain single and unentangled). This is all I can say on this here (I have a long unpublished paper on this). This all illustrates how the three ways often approach Scripture.

4.) The principle of revolutionary subordination. In Christ a new authority has begun and all are invited into it. Yoder called this the principle “Revolutionary Subordination.” The idea here is that just as Jesus our Lord incarnated himself, humbling himself, giving up the right to power, God exalted Him, the Truth was vindicated and empowered (Phil 2). We operate in all ways under this principle subordinating ourselves to powers, false authorities, ways of exercising power with the peaceful witness of character, truth and Scripture. God will manifest the truth.  This extends into the practice of mutual submission one to another in the community (Eph 5:20, Matt 18:15-20) Jesus himself inhabits this submitting of ourselves and works in each conflict, each leader to further His Kingdom via the way of peace. We therefore reject past ways of abusive power, and do not ask women to become part of the them. For many of us, the ways we have exercised power in the church is not incarnational and must be rejected period, not just for the ways it has excluded women.

So women are of course invited as full particpants in this new way of power. Yet there is an incredible transformation here that not only affirms women’s full participation in ministry but transforms the very power structures that have hardened the church and sucked the life out of its witness. Instead, all who come into the Kingdom as a community are empowered to participate in a way of revolution that spreads the power and leadership of the church into the world for Mission.

In the past I have complained how the bland politics of Western democracy obliterates difference. I have also complained that the NeoReformed evangelicals have excluded women from authority in the church thereby foreclosing the incoming Kingdom of God. To me the Incarnational logic of the incoming Kingdom -that drives the Missional church – is a way forward out of both of these malaises.

My next post on this subject will address how the Missional Approach of Welcoming/Transforming plays out in the GLBT Sexual Relationships Issues in the church today.

Filed under Ecclesiology,Incarnational,Neo-Anabaptist,Neo-Reformed,Post-Christendom,Women in MInistry,Women/GLBTQ 23 Comments

on March 22 2010

6 Reasons Not To Go To Church

2958546316_0aa6879fdcThe phrase “go to church” is a “no-no” in missional circles. Some 20-something chastises me every-time I let that phrase slip from my mouth at our church. Church is not a place we go. It is a way of life we live as being God’s people in the world participating in His Mission. Acknowledging that, why get up and go on Sunday to the gathering of His people? I must admit often awakening Sunday morning and experiencing the inertia of getting going to the Sunday morning gathering. And I am a pastor! Why go to such a gathering?

To combat this inertia, I think we can get into some bad habits for “going to church.’ If we got rid of these habits, we might actually be able to see the gathering as a more natural part of the rhythms of our life with God in His Mission. Here’s 6 bad reasons to “go to church” Don’t go to church …

1.) OUT OF DUTY/OBLIGATION. Spiritual disciplines are good if they are openings for God to work and shape out lives into His life and Mission. Too often however, disciplines become duties, devoid of the life they were meant to connect us to. Don’t go to church out of duty or obligation. It should be a regular spiritual discipline that shapes us into His life and Mission.
2.) IF THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A CHRISTIAN. If you think being a Christian is what happens in this hour-hour and half  – stop going to church and ask what it means to follow Christ when you don’t go.  This is where we gather to encounter the living God corporately, respond to Him, be shaped by His vision and His work, and then be sent out to continue this life into the world.
3.) TO GET MY NEEDS MET. If you think some problem in your life will be solved or some need met by “going to church” – don’t go! Because more than likely you’ll be disappointed. Sometimes needs, physical and otherwise, get met at the cross (or around the prayer bench) in instantaneous fashion but most often there’s some suffering that needs to walked through in the death and resurrection of Christ. Most of our needs are ministered to over time as we submit them regularly to Christ and what He is doing.
4.) TO FEEL GOOD, GET INSPIRED.  I recognize a lot of times I come away feeling inspired and good after the gathering. But I try to check myself on this. For if I get addicted to a certain “feeling good” worship experience or some inspiration from the sermon – my relationship with God starts to look like – an addiction to a feeling that has become narcissistic. It stunts the growth of my character into God and what He is doing. Maybe I’m too uptight on this?
5.) TO PERFORM. Occasionally I will notice that I’m going off to the gathering to perform. I’m going to go preach, or teach, or guide the children’s ministry. I feel like other people can get into this rut too. I’m going to sing, play guitar, be cool, whatever (BTW I haven’t played the guitar in 20 years). We’re getting a buzz from performing. Something subtle occurs and it’s about my self-accolades. I feel better about myself after doing something for God. I suggest, if this is happening, don’t go to the gathering. Shrink back. All our service in the gifts and to the world should be out of our life with God. It should be an offering unto Him out of the gifts He keeps giving. Of course, we need affirmation in order to recognize what God is doing and calling us to. But that’s a different dynamic. After I preach a sermon, I discipline myself to leave that sermon in God’s hands. I offered it to Him. If and when I receive feedback, it is for the furtherance of His work in my life and the community.
6.) TO GET SOMETHING FROM THE EXPERT. If we go to church to get something on the Christian life from the expert in a sermon or something, I think we miss the point. The so-called expert is most likely gifted to proclaim. He/she has been recognized for God’s work in this regard in his/her life. But the real formation happens in the response and the working out of that proclamation among a people. The expert, on his own, often disappoints or worse starts acting like he/she is the only one who knows Scripture which breeds distrust of any authority in the community. The thought process –GET SOMETHING FROM AN EXPERT – defeats God’s work in community and should be discouraged. Don’t “go to church” if this is the way you think it works.

Over against these reasons NOT to “go to church,” I still believe that the church gathering is a part – just a part – albeit and important part – of the rhythm of Mission. For it is at the gathering, we come as broken people in order to submit ourselves to what He is doing to be shaped for Mission. Here we are led into His presence, the reading of Scripture, the liturgies of submission, affirmation of truth and confession, the proclamation of the gospel and the feasting on His forgiveness and new life at the meal, in praise and thanksgiving and finally into the sending out into Mission.

Are there any more reasons “not to go to church” which might actually prevent church from becoming a part of a Missional rhythm for a people of God. Can you think of any more?

Filed under Ecclesiology,Missional,Missional Ecclesiology 30 Comments

on November 20 2009

The Collateral Damage of Video-Venues: A Challenge To All Video Venue Multi-Site Church Leaders – DO A SURVEY!

imagesThis is an add-on to my previous post on Video venue church. Here I want to suggest strongly that video-venue mega-church-developers examine how their plans might impact the surrounding church community. In other words, do a survey!

In the past I have said that churches should abandon “marketing type” surveys. Such surveys usually look at the church’s surrounding context as a place to market the church, to find out what people in the neighboring communities are looking for. The goal is to build a church that appeals to people already seeking church (or why would they even ask these questions) so that they are attracted to the idea of coming to church. Such surveys serve no purpose in post-Christendom where there are few ex-Christians or de-churched Christians just looking for a more relevant user-friendly Christianity (these surveys still work however in many places where Christendom is alive and well). Instead of this kind of surveying, I have proposed we exegete a neighborhood. This requires inhabiting the neighborhood, seeing the neighborhood as a place for redemption, discovering where the hurting are and the unjust structures are, seeing the possibilities for ministering the gospel to those who are lost and through the gospel (over time) seeing that very culture transformed.

What I propose here in this post however is a different kind of survey that I challenge all “video-venue-churches-to-be” to do. This kind of survey would seek to understand the collateral damage such video venues are doing to the other local churches surrounding the entrance of said video venue into the neighborhood. Because time and time again I can point to situations where the mega-church has entered a neighborhood – set up a video screen, moved 200 people to the new venue, provided 8 pastors and all the goods and services (including rock and roll youth programs) – and within six months to a year their Sunday morning attendance has gone from 200 to 600 or even 1000. Where did these folks come from? Was it a massive Acts ch. 2 in-pouring of newly saved? I have some doubts.  I know of at least 4 cases in our own back yard where the local community churches lost half of their people to these video venues and then had to in essence shut down a year later. Ironically, in a few cases, after the video venue church sees the community church struggling, it offers to take over the struggling church’s debts, the church building and what do you know – they put their own name on the building with ironically many of the same people having returned. Even more telling? perhaps those people have now become consumers instead of being knitted into a missionally driven community?

Perhaps I have over generalized? (I confess I am prone) Has any one else seen similar things going on?

I am sure there are times when dying churches, or churches that have wandered from sound theology should be transitioned into death and their people transitioned to a more vibrant ecclesiology. But in these cases that I am describing here, these churches were growing from 250 to 300. They lost Christians to the video venues. They were people who (IMO) needed to be discipled into a deeper commitment to a way of life in Christ together in the world for God’s Mission. Did these people see a glitzier, user-friendly form of church and then bolt? In two of these cases, the church had recently undergone a building program and when they lost over one hundred people they couldn’t afford their bills anymore (another reason to not enter into building programs as a growth strategy). Let’s just hypothesize here for a minute. Could it be? that these smaller communities, seeking to nurture a communal and missional life together, didn’t have the time to disciple people because the video with all its conveniences attracted them away to an easier way (and BTW, as far as I know, Willowcreek has not been involved in such episodes directly). (Just so people know, Life on the Vine has not faced any of these stresses).

So I am just asking that we seriously take a closer look here. Perhaps all this musical chairs movement from one form of church to another (video venue) is good? Perhaps these churches were not doing a good job of discipling their people missionally in the first place? Perhaps I have over stereotyped every mega-church video multi site as being attractional, user friendly and contrary to the missional life and its intense commitments (I admit, this is the way I see things 84% of the time – there are exceptions). Perhaps these people that left never should have been in the small churches in the first place? Perhaps we need to offer many different kinds of church options to the church marketplace and video venue should certainly be one? Who am I to limit people’s free choice of church style? There are certainly times when dead forms of church need to be closed – why not do it this way?

Obviously I think there is some flawed ecclesiology in the above questions. But even if all of these questions could be answered yes, I’d still like to push for all video-venue’s planner-leaders to examine answers to the following questions as you survey the context for your next video installation.

1.) How many people will we anticipate coming from other churches to our video venue church in the first six months? If we set up shop, how many of the people coming will be people transferring to a more convenient form of church?
2.) How many small church communities will be destroyed and closed up because of our new video effort in this locale?
3.) How many actual pagans to the gospel (those who have not been followers of Christ for over ten years say?) will we anticipate be brought into the Kingdom in the first three years based on our strategy.

In fact, survey your previous video venue start-ups for answers to these same questions. I am sure there are good reasons to move people out of local churches, close down smaller churches or call de-churched or previously churches people (as opposed to pagans) into a personal commitment to the life in Jesus as Lord through video preaching (I am serious). Knowing that video-venuing is actually doing this can help clarify not only what the video venue movement is doing but the missional community movement as well.

There are many of us who consider that the gospel requires a way of life to become manifest in post Christendom worlds. The gospel is a way of life, and so no matter how good the quality of the teaching might be, no matter how efficient a job of meting out the goods and services to existing Christians, mission is not possible without true community that inhabits the whole of life as gospel in the neighborhoods. This kind of discipleship is not accomplish-able through video venues. But there may be other contexts where video makes sense? Am I wrong? Maybe? So let’s do some surveys and find out!

Ok, any push back will be warmly received.

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12The upcoming Missional Commons has been announced! Have you signed up yet?

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Filed under Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership 8 Comments

on August 7 2009

Ordination and the Lord’s Table: PROVIDING SOME “SHAPE” FOR “THE THINGS TO COME”

There is for better or worse, an anti-institutional bias that simmers in some parts of the missional church. This can be seen in books like George Barna’s Revolution and Neil Cole’s Organic Church. Many think the same of Alan Hirsch’s The Forgotten Ways and Hirsch and Frost’s The Shaping of Things to Come. On “The Shaping”, I applaud this book, love it and see it as the first off my shelf when trying to guide someone into the missional literature that unfolds what missional church is all about. (BTW for a new groundbreaking guide to missional church, don’t miss this book coming out shortly). And of course, I consider Alan Hirsch the best of allies and a good friend. But I have to jab a little (good-naturedly of course) that perhaps “we could use a little more shape for the things to come.”

In this regard then, I offer two principles concerning organization and ecclesiology to all missional church planters that can clarify the “incarnational” implications of the form of  church practice and its organization.
1.) Structure/organization should always be an “after-development” and inextricably connected to the “gifts of the Spirit.” Yet we still need it and we should never avoid it. Structure actually grounds the “charisma” (gift) into day-to-day historical life which is another way of being incarnational (not fleeing the day to day).
2.) Ecclesiological form – certain core practices – serves to ground the church in history, i.e. preserves its continuity with Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son. In this way – church form is actually incarnational preventing the church from becoming a mystical society of individuals all into their own thing even if it might go by the name of “Jesus.”

Throughout the entire history of the church, there has always been a tension between the spontaneous and organized. And if there is a swing too far to one side or the other, bad things happen. If a church does not rely on authentic Spirit driven contextualized ministry it will become rote, dead and unengaged with the local context. If a church, as Spirit filled organism, does not provide sufficient organization enabling what the Spirit is doing, it is doubtful whether it can ever gain traction in the context. The lack of organization will frustrate and produce a never-ending chaos. The individual gifts of the Spirit (charismas) will eventually implode in their own narcissism  (read 1 Cor 12,14 as Paul’s corrective). Likewise, if the church retains no historical continuity with those who have gone on before, it becomes arbitrary and so syncretistic that it is hard to recognize anything that might be Christian. If a church adheres to historical form to the exclusion of contextualizing, it becomes so separated from the culture to which it has been called to minister that it becomes incapable of participation in any Mission.

My observation is that among missional churches, house churches I have visited over the past several years, the impulse has been anti-institutional, so that there is even angst in doing the minimal organization work they allow themselves to do. Some get too anti-institutional, too afraid of organization, too detached from the historical questions. Indeed I get accused of this often by people in the church I serve as I continually push for organic forms of organization that keep the church de-centralized and attached to various forms of ministry taking shape in the locales where people actually live.

All this to say, it helps if we must understand how organization and historical form can indeed be incarnational. I think the two principles articulated above help in this regard. I think “ordination” and “the Lord’s Table” illustrate these two principles well. So here goes with my two principles.

1.) Structure/organization should always be an “after-development” and inextricably connected to the “gifts of the Spirit”: The Case of Ordination.

Alan Hirsch – in his recent book with Michael Frost: ReJesus p.75f. – uses Max Weber’s famous “routinization of charisma” to illustrate the fact that there must be a passing on of the charisma from the founding gifted leader to the resulting “organization.” “The link between the Founder to the Found” must be preserved at all times for the health of the organization to be preserved. Within NT scholarship, Bengt Holmberg back in 1980 IMO, did the best job of appropriating Weber to Paul. Holmberg showed (among many things) how the spontaneous gifts of the Spirit breaking out in the Pauline communities became routinized through a process of the recognition and formalizing of the gifts and their functioning in the church. Routinization was a positive development as long as the giftedness, the actual empowerment of the gift for authority in the church by the Holy Spirit is never separated from the office itself.  The danger is to avoid all routinization saying, “we need no structure because we daily depend upon the Spirit!!” This is an over realized eschatology believing we are already in the new age entirely instead of the anticipation of it proleptically before the end of history. This is what was happening in Corinth and was the occasion for the writing of 1 Cor 12-14. Instead we need this “formalizing” – this recognizing of the gift to facilitate its flourishing in the community. This testing, recognizing includes its testing for character and orthodoxy and then blessing it. This is the function of ordination. This keeps the church grounded in history (apostolicity). This keeps the church from a Gnostic mysticism where individuals all by themselves seek to become individual Jesus’ without the historical embodiment of that in a community. At the same time however, church structure can become ossified and somehow ensconced in the church – no longer an outflowing of the life of Jesus Christ and His Lordship becoming manifest by the Spirit in a local place and time. This happens as the result of a futurist eschatology that sees the Spirit and the Kingdom as wholly future. “Jesus died, forgave our sins and will return for us in the rapture. Until then let’s live as good as we can and bring as many with us when the rapture comes.” We are therefore just biding our time until he returns. Let us organize for efficiency.  Either avenue is a failure to live in the “already-but – “not yet” tension of the Kingdom breaking in through Christ’s Lordship as manifested in the Spirit in a context, place and time. I feel the false reliance on business leadership is frankly another example of a leadership notion based in a futurist eschatology.

In any case, formalized leadership (and its structure) is always an after-development of the manifestation of the gifts. It must at all times stay directly connected to the gift as empowered by the Spirit. This is how the Founder stays linked to the Founded (Eph 4). Perhaps this then is what could be meant by the phrase missiology precedes ecclesiology. If so, then I can agree with/and encourage that!

2.) Ecclesiological form – certain core practices – serves to ground the church in history, i.e. preserves its continuity with Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son: The Case of The Lord’s Table.
There are certain “things” that form the church that DO NOT CHANGE FROM CONTEXT TO CONTEXT. Instead, we do them and the shape and language of these “things” are translated to accomplish the function. These “things,” call notae or marks of the church within church history, are seen everywhere the Body of Christ comes into being. In this sense, ecclesiology is not determined by missiology. It is missiology. By becoming a people of Jesus, His Very Body, in the context we inhabit, we are sent as an apostolic community into a context to bless the world with God’s salvation in Christ.

In order for this “body” to take shape, there are these “marks” that must happen. I won’t list them now, but one good example is the Eucharist, the Lord’s Table. Kudo’s to Frank Viola and his post on Out of Ur about the post church generation. I agree with him on several things. He offered various tests in part 2 here. I might suggest that the Lord’s Table to be such a test. Here is a “ritual” that we learn that ever grafts us into the history of Jesus and Israel that shapes our lives into the Triune God and His Mission. Like the Jews and the Passover Feast, the Lord’s Table is a well-defined practice, and takes the Passover into the next dimension (in salvation-history). It keeps us in essence grounded in the incarnate Christ. It actually, through practice, forms us into a reconciling community, members of one another. It keeps us in history instead of again, becoming individualist trying ourselves to be little Jesus’ as individuals in the world. Such “little Jesus mystics” in the end, apart from His Body, eventually turn in on themselves. They seek Jesus for themselves and it usually turns into each individual’s own version of Jesus. Instead, we need the corporal existence of the Body organized for growing and shaping people into His mission in history in the world. Missional disciples (Christians shaped to participate in God’s mission in the world) do not grow on trees, they are shaped via the church through practices like the Lord’s Table into the stature of Christ (Eph 4:11-16) To reject so-called “rituals” and formal organizing principles of the church that define our very sociality, is not following the principle of incarnation, it defies it… for it pulls us out of history into self generated ecstasy. This is why I wince when I read Alan and Michael Frost say something like, “The more one replaces a fresh daily encounter with Jesus with religious forms, over time he is removed from his central place in the life of the church. The result of this removal (by whatever means) is the onset of dead religion in the place of living faith.” (p. 71 ReJesus). Now Alan and I have debated this in front of a group before. And of course Alan is right! But we shoudn’t forget that the problem isn’t the form; it is the rote and detachment from the Founder that has been allowed to happen that is the very foundation and basis for the rite in the first place.
Summary
In summary then, I want to argue that ordination and the Lord’s Table (as an example of a “ritual” which is universal for all churches in all places) make “incarnational” church possible. They do not work against it. They ground us in history, which is the essence of incarnation. Of course, in each case, these things can become dry rote. But instead of throwing them out with the proverbial bath water (for the sake of either contextualization or ridding the church of dead rote), we should seek to reinvigorate them, connect them again, and contextualize them. We are ever working at Life on the Vine to make the Eucharist the powerful grounding shaping forming event of the week that sends us out for participation in His Missio. We are ever looking for ways to make the processes of leadership recognition communal, servant oriented instead of positional, and yet historically grounding. I contend that this facilitates our participation in the Mission of God. How do you navigate this tension, between institutionalizing and spontaneity, between Spirit and form, in your own missional context? What other examples of these principles have you encountered?

P.S. on another ecclesiological vein, Bob Hyatt’s posts on video venues are a must read. To me, he illustrates the ways video venues defeat the local incarnation of a church into its immediate context. They turn a practice of the church meant to ground us into history, into a mystical Gnostic experience that detaches us from the local context. Nice post Bob! Perhaps I’ll comment on this more next time.

Filed under Ecclesiology,Incarnational,Missional,Missional Leadership 16 Comments

on June 16 2009

Missional Theology: Towards a Theology that Shapes a People for Mission – A new course offering at Northern

This fall I am teaching a new course at Northern Seminary entitled “Missional Theology: Towards a Theology that Shapes a People for Mission.” It will meet Mondays 4-6:40 p.m. for the Fall quarter.

The premise for the course is that the ways we articulate our beliefs, and the ways we in turn practice them, shape us into a certain “kind of people” with a certain disposition in the world. Theology, in other words, is spiritual formation for the community of Christ. We need then to ask “how is our belief and practice shaping us into His Mission as the people of God.” “How is our belief and practice shaping us into a people whose very character is congruent with the gospel we proclaim?” There are missional theologies (both biblical and systematic) that have sought to articulate our beliefs according to the driving theme (rubric) of Missio Dei. What I am aiming for here is a little different. I am actually seeking a theology that, in its practice, shapes a people in disposition (hospitality, love, patience, rootedness, compassion, kindness, integrity, authenticity, justice,etc.) so as to embody the gospel in the world. So often the ways we have articulated and practiced the doctrines of Scripture, Church and Salvation have worked contra the gospel, to produce a people who are either judgmental or defensive or hypocritical or dispassionate. By opting out of some of our bad theological habits of the past, and without compromising one iota of orthodoxy, I contend we can articulate our basic beliefs concerning Scripture, the church in the world, and the salvation we have in Christ Jesus in a way that shapes us for Mission.

Here’s the course description from the syllabus.

TH 423 Missional Theology” explores the ways our belief and practice shape a people for Mission. Theology in the West has often erred by separating doctrine from life (praxis). A missional theology however is a belief (and a corresponding practice to that belief) that shapes a people for the social incarnational presence/ministry of the gospel in the world. Bringing to bear the fields of political theory and political theology, we will develop a method to explore this connection of belief to life, the shaping of a community into the Mission of God. We will specifically explore the ways we talk about and practice Scripture, the Church and Salvation and how each doctrinal expression shapes the very character of a community for Mission. We will focus heavily on traditional evangelical theology and practice as our test case for whether a theology is ‘missional’ or not (as I have defined it). We will then play off this exploration to draw on multiple sources to articulate a theology (and corresponding practices) for each of these three doctrines that is decidedly ‘Missional.’ The course will conclude with each student examining his/her own inherited doctrine and practice in the same manner with the goal of each student being capable of extending their theological practice towards the shaping a people for the Mission of God.

A pre-requisite for the course is having already passed/excelled in the  Christian Theology sequence of Northern or another seminary. This course requires the student be motivated to engage in some challenging reading material.

If anyone is interested in the course let me (e-mail me at fitchest@gmail.com) or admissions at Northern know. We’ll figure out a way to get you in.

Filed under Ecclesiology,Missional,Missional Theology,Scripture,Soteriology 10 Comments

on December 8 2008

The Attractional/Missional Debate Won’t Stop: Three Take-Aways

This attractional/missional debate just won’t stop! And I think we might be getting somewhere. Thanks to Dan Kimball and Out of Ur for starting this whole thing up again. Here are some highlights for me.

1.) This is a question about the right way of church in post-Christendom. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Pres. NYC, in one of his comments on my last post, raises the issues of the Models of the Church. He says all of the various historical models of the church have different strengths, weaknesses, gift mixes, and are appropriate for certain times and contexts. We need them all. I agree! What I want to argue is post Christendom requires of us an Anabaptist missional ecclesiology. Indeed what I want to argue is that the attractional and consumerist driven ecclesiologies have not got the contextualization right, what Keller refers to as “not over-adapted or under-adapted.” I think prof. Keller’s approach to cultural engagement (in that comment) has some problems in it in that he uses the word “adapt.” But I know he wasn’t working out a theology of culture there. So I’ve got to give him the benefit of the doubt.

2.) Part of this talking past each other (Attractionals talking past Missionals) has to do with the assumptions that underlie Reformed versus Anabaptist (as well as Pragmatist) missional theorists and practitioners. On my comment (in my last blog post) to prof. Keller, I hinted that I thought some of the talking past each other (in this missional/attractional debate) was due to some assumptions that lie deeply embedded in the Reformed leanings that back some missional thinkers (I’d put in this camp Keller, Driscoll and my buddy Stetzer – depite his denials) and the assumptions that lie embedded in my own and others’ Anabaptist (postmodern cultural) leanings. I want to explore that in another upcoming post. Ironically Andy Rowell has mapped 60 theologians on the spectrum of high church-low church. I think he’s ranked me wrong. For in terms of strong ecclesiology I, like the theologian who has most influenced me (Hauerwas), find myself committed to a very Mennonite communal ecclesiology along with a very high church (Catholic) view of liturgical formation. Having said that, I’d like to see Andy rank the missional thinkers along the Catholic – Reformed – Anabaptist theological spectrum. I’m going to address this in a future post.

3.) In the end the attractional apologists must still answer the consumerist question! Bill Kinnon’s post today is a highlight. In response to Redeemer Pres. NYC pastor Tim Keller’s comment in my last post, the irrepressible Bill Kinnon says some things that must be responded to directly. It’s got to be one of the highlights of this entire blogalogue on missional versus attractional. I urge Dr Keller, Dr McKnight, Rev Kimball, and other missional thinkers to respond to Bill. I urge a response that does not by pass the issues he presents regarding consumerism. Yes it’s a tired critique. But answers like “no one can avoid being a consumer,” or “people are coming to Christ in these churches” or “different models work for different contexts” simply don’t cut it when a guy like Bill Kinnon speaks so forthrightly.I hope everyone else has learned as much as I have from this dialogue. What do you think about these proposals? Agree? Disagree?

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Filed under Church Planting,Ecclesiology,Evangelism,Incarnational,Missional,Missional Ecclesiology,Post-Attractional 14 Comments

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