Much has been written about the reduction of the gospel in the last ten years (by myself and others). It is inadequate to understand our salvation in Christ as ONLY OR PRIMARILY “a decision” by which we acknowledge our sin, put our trust in Christ, and receive pardon for sin/ eternal life. This is an element of our salvation. But the salvation we enter into in Christ is so much more. It seems this idea is close to going mainstream in American evangelicalism. Here, in this promo video, Scot McKnight makes the case for widening and deepening the way we preach, explain, present, initiate people into God’s salvation in Christ. I’m looking forward to his book (I also like the shaved head look. Scot has got the right shaped head for the Jordan look. Agreed?).
davidfitch on September 2 2011
A Deeper Salvation is Gaining Traction in Mainline Evangelicalism: Scot McKnight’s New Book
davidfitch on May 17 2011
The Important Task of Cultivating Missional Rhythms in a Community
I’m heading off to Toronto this week to be at the Presentensions Event. Before I go I thought I’d post this piece (with slight revisions). It has been a popular blog post over the years. I’d like to hear from anyone who has been involved in such cultivating and what you have learned! Comment if you can. Peace!
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Over the years now, I’ve come to understand the important task of nurturing communities into missional rhythms. Especially in the early stages of a community’s formation, we must resist the community’s desire “to do something!!” and instead cultivate missional rhythms among our people’s lives together for God’s mission. I think leaders need to walk along with and among people being a “missional therapist” helping people imagine God at work in and around their daily lives. Along the way, they lead by consistently (and kindly) rejecting some old habits and directing the imagination towards other possibilities. This is the never-ending work of cultivating missional habits of imagination among a people. Here’s my list of what to reject (slowly put to death in a congregation) and what to direct (nudge people forward) a congregation’s imagination toward. I’ve learned a lot of these things from missional thinkers/practitioners but have found all these things to be surprisingly simple and possible in my own life.
1.) Kindly Reject doing Outreach Events. Instead direct imagination towards ways of connecting with people where they are. Outreach events take up much time, planning and enormous “congregational capital” (if I may put it that way). In post Christendom outreach events rarely “work.” And you simply cannot compete with the local Park District or Megachurch event planning neutral site events. Instead, with little effort or cost, direct the people’s imagination towards seeing the ways you can connect with people in their everyday situations by going to the same place at the same time every week. Stoke imagination for the way ordinary life is the stage of God’s working. Visit the same places at the same time every week (this is easy for me because I am pathetically boring and love doing the same thing everyday). This has revolutionized my missional life with not a single ounce of extra-expended energy spent on my part. I believe the same could be true for every member of our church Body. Thanks to Alan Hirsch for teaching me about this.
2.) Kindly Reject evangelism as a one time hit on a target with a preconceived outcome. Kindle imagination toward seeing mission as part of regular daily, weekly and monthly life rhythms where out or regular life God works to use your life to impact people for the gospel in unforeseen ways. There is no precision strike technique, instead we need to train our eyes to pay attention to our life rhythms and be ready to minister out of everyday life, where God is already working to bring people to Christ.
3.) Kindly reject building multiple use buildings as if by building a gymnasium on the church campus we can bring people into the orbit of the church. Instead stoke imagination for what can happen when we go inhabit the gyms already in the neighborhoods. We should build less third spaces, and inhabit more the ones already there.
4.) Kindly reject one-on-one evangelism and the techniques associated with such apologetic persuasion. Instead direct imagination for inhabiting places in two’s or three’s or more. Hospitals, PADS Centers, the school systems, the park districts and places of hurt and pain too numerous to mention are all places where there are forces at work that can take under any one isolated saint. But two or three Christians together become an undeniable force for the kingdom under the Lordship of Christ.
5.) Kindly reject the Sunday morning gathering as an evangelistic event for it cannot be that in the new post Christendom cultures. Instead fire up imagination for the formation that comes from a communal encounter with the living God in Jesus Christ. As we hover around the altar, in silence, in prayers of submission, in affirmation, in confession, in healing prayers, in the hearing of the Word, and the Table, as we sing in praise and thanksgiving at what He has done, and then as we are sent out by God in the Benedictory challenge, we are shaped for His Life in Mission. It is simple, organic, takes a lot less planning than a mega show, and alot less money. And if any non-believers do happen to come, they won’t confuse this with a Tony Robbins event.
6.) Kindly reject coercive persuasion and argument in our witness. Instead stoke the imagination of your people for seeking “one person of peace” (Luke 10) among the lost of their neighborhoods. Look for that one who, though never having heard the gospel, is dispositionally ready (been readied by God) to receive. (Thanks to Mike Breen for this idea).
7.) Kindly reject presumptuous postures of power as we live our lives among those who do not yet know Christ. Instead direct the imagination towards the way Christ always enters the human situation in humility. So don’t come to your neighbors as the one with the answer, but as the one searching for the answers that always point you towards Christ. Come to your neighbors humbly and in need. Instead of offering them a meal, find ways to participate in a meal with them. If you’re in the suburbs ask them if you can borrow their lawnmower.
8.) Kindly Reject Surveying the neighborhood – Direct the imagination toward exegeting the neighborhood. Surveying looks at the neighborhood as a place to market our church, find out what they are looking for and appeal to it so that they are attracted to the idea of coming to church. Exegeting a neighborhood requires inhabiting the neighborhood, seeing the neighborhood as a place for redemption, discovering where the hurting are and the unjust structures are. See the possibilities for ministering the gospel to those who are lost and through the gospel (over time) seeing that very culture transformed.
9.) Kindly Reject problem solving – instead direct the imagination towards “appreciative inquiry.” We often approach church and the world through problem solving. What is wrong with our programs? What needs are we not meeting? How can we solve this problem in the nieghborhood? What are we not doing right? This is negative, mechanical and lifeless. Instead, let’s direct our community’s imagination to noticing where God is working among us and around us, to recognize it, praise God for it and participate in it through the gifts we have been given. Thanks to Mark Lau Branson for this insight.
These are just a few of the ways we can lead our congregations to make our whole way of life a participation in God’s mission. There are many more I am sure. What others do you have?
davidfitch on September 27 2010
The Greg Laurie Crusade and 2 Other Signs Christendom Ain’t Done Yet
Christendom names the social alliance of Christianity with cultural power/institutions. The government opens its Congress with a Christian chaplain praying, stores are closed on Sunday respecting that many employees want to go to church, various Christian forms of sexual morality are either encouraged by society/school systems or actually written into the law. These are some examples of a Christendom society. Because of these various reinforcing structures, the average citizen of said culture understands the Christian Story, gives Christianity an inherent respect (even though he/she may not believe or practice) and looks to go to church when feeling the need for God. For years America has been a nation under such cultural conditions.
Churches in the United States have conducted themselves for years as if we are still living in a Christendom. For many parts of U. S. and Canada however, this culture is vanishing. Much of the U.S. is in transition. NOW THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH CHURCHES MINISTERING IN CHRISTENDOM!! (at least I am not arguing this right now – I’m waiting for this book here). Christendom ain’t done yet! And there are a lot of cultures where these social conditions can be played off of successfully (whatever that means!) and to the furtherance of the Kingdom. Yet I think we should at least acknowledge that this is what we are doing as churches and that these Christendom conditions are rapidly in decline. Where Christendom has disappeared, the church that still operates out of Christendom assumptions ends up largely talking to herself. We end up providing answers to questions nobody’s asking (as Rick Cruse reminds me on my facebook thread).
With this in mind, here’s 3 recent signs in my neighborhood that Christendom ain’t dead yet. The question we need to ask in each case, by engaging in these practices, are we the church largely talking to ourselves? Or is there engagement with those outside the church for the gospel – folks I will call for lack of a better term – secular.
THREE SIGNS CHRISTENDOM AIN’T DEAD YET
1.) Greg Laurie Crusade
The Greg Laurie Crusade happened over the weekend in Chicago suburbs. In what seems like a resurrection of the Billy Graham crusade strategy of the 50’s – 70’s, a reportedly 2 ½ million dollars was poured into advertising, renting of a large stadium, bringing in first class musicians to “attract” a crowd. Several hundred churches backed the crusade with funds, volunteers and vehicles that bussed their people into the stadium. Christians were encouraged to invite a friend. The messages by pastor Laurie where driven towards inviting people to make a decision based on the question “where are you going when you die?” I listened intently to the internet stream.
The obvious question is, would the average secular person be remotely interested in attending another mega church service at a stadium to hear a gospel evangelistic sermon? Would a questioning Muslim come to something labeled a “Crusade”? As good as this was! Just asking? Was this stadium filled with mostly churchgoers? Just asking eh?
Growing up in Canada as a boy, we invited our neighbors to the Billy Graham Crusade in Toronto. They came. They had a mainline church background and had largely drifted away. That Crusade had a positive impact on their lives. It was a day when Billy Graham was a culturally interesting (in some sense a “must see”) “event.” I have no doubt that there were many of these folk who came to the Greg Laurie Crusade. They were maybe ex-Christians, or people who grew up in some form of Christian church who simply had never been challenged to follow Christ in a committed way. There were many people like this I suspect who were positively affected by this Crusade. In this way, the success of the Greg Laurie Crusade is a sign that Christendom ain’t dead yet.
My question is: Are these kind of situations diminishing? Is it worth spending 2 1/2 million dollars? How many “decisions” were actually new ones from people outside the faith? How many were lapsed Christians? Was this in essence a bunch of Christians getting together to feel good about our message? (I heard rounds of applause every time Greg Laurie mentioned eternal life). In other words, was this the church talking to itself and feeling much better about the success of its version of Christianity? Do any of you out there know of non-Christian conversions? Did any of you invite secular person? A Muslim? An atheist? Seriously, no negative take here, just asking.
2.) The Alpha Program
Ok, I’m driving by the local Baptist this week. They are putting up a flashy sign in the front of the church announcing “The Alpha Course Here!” I like the Alpha Program, a program set up basically to operate out of the neighborhood (I like that!), to invite neighbors to ask questions about God (I like that!). It is a program of a set number of weeks, getting people to commit to a journey. It emphasizes the work of the Sprit in our lives (Again I Like that!!). I have seen many curious people on the edges get initiated into the faith via Alpha. It comes from U.K. a post Christendom place in many ways.
And yet I know few people who are secular who come to such an invitation. They would view it with suspicion. The ones who would come have backgrounds in Christianity and have come to a point in their lives where they are seeking intensely a connection to God in Christ. This is cool. But again, my question is: Is this a strategy dependent upon Christendom? Yes or No? tell me, you folks out there. Are you successful on your block getting secular people to come over for an “Alpha Course”? Or would you be more successful inviting someone over to your backyard for a barbeque? BTW that wouldn’t even work for several of my secularist friends. To me, the Alpha program is a sign that Christendom ain’t dead yet. It has been good for the church operating on the edges of Christendom. But will it succeed in the new cultures of post Christendom? Or will it become another example of the church talking to herself?
3.) One on One Tract Evangelism in The Park
Recently I’m sitting in the local park with some friends who are either post Christian secular or post Muslim secular. I see a group of young twenty-somethings praying in the corner of the park. They then break (like a huddle in a football game)and spread out over the park. I knew what was next so I went and sat on a bench where two older unsuspecting people were sitting to take in what was happening. One of the “young evangelists” approached the people where I was sitting and asked, “Do you know where you are going when you die? We’re all going to die right? So it’s an important question. Would you agree?” (They were handing out a million dollar bill with Obama’s face on it with the million-dollar question on it). I then proceeded to listen as this zealous young evangelist tried to convince this man to join him in what amounted to “the sinners’ prayer.” The man being evangelized, it turned out, was a disillusioned ex-presbyterian who was gentle, kind and willing to listen and debate. He was asked at least 5 times, “would you let me pray with you right now …?”
I returned to my friends about twenty minutes later only to hear one of them run up to us and say, “I was here last weekend. We’ve got to get out of here now. These people are rude and pushy.” I inquired some more and we had a bit of a conversation about how their approach is unfortunate. As we left, I looked over the park and I saw a mass exodus of people leaving the park area.
This experience leads me to conclude that a.) Christendom ain’t dead yet. There was an older ex-presbyterian who was willing to engage in serious conversation. b.) Time may be running out on this form of evangelism because there are less of these people, already familiar with the terms of the claims of Christianity, sufficient to make sense of this version of the gospel. Furthermore, it is a version of salvation so reductionist that it is questionable whether it communicates the right things to people uninitiated into the assumptions necessary to make sense of this version of the gospel. To me the question is, is this form of evangelism vastly becoming another example of the church talking to itself?
I, and others, have argued for a revamping of the way we think about evangelism, the gospel and witness. You can start by looking at these posts here, here and here. There’s more elsewhere on the blog. For now, I am interested in your reflections on these three experiences over the weekend. Are these signs that Christendom ain’t dead yet? Are these examples of the church talking to herself?
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Notes on what’s coming next:
I aim in the next two weeks to begin a promised series of posts engaging the Neo-Reformed Missional efforts which include Tim Keller, Jim Belcher, Acts 29, The Gospel Coalition etc. I’m doing it off of reading this book here. Thanks Gordie for the heads up.
For those interested in Missional, Don’t forget the Missional Learning Commons coming up. It’s free (except for 10 bucks to help for children’s care).
davidfitch on June 28 2010
The Emerging View of Salvation: Brian McLaren and the Danger of De-eschatologizing the Kingdom
As I said on the two previous posts, 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 among others. 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. Here’s some of what I wrote (edited for a blog post with citations etc. deleted) on the second of these 3 traps using Brian McLaren to illustrate what such a danger might look like.
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Emerging church writers have spilt much ink criticizing evangelicalism’s narrow understanding of salvation. Author/pastor Brian McLaren has led the charge. For McLaren, truly the father of the emerging movement, evangelicalism has over-personalized salvation, made it into a transaction and has generally been pre-occupied with the afterlife and escaping hell. As a result, evangelicalism’s salvation message has actually distanced the believer from the salvation that God is doing to transform the unjust world. As a result, evangelicals have become dispassionate and even duplicitous in the way we lead our lives in the world. Again, in short, McLaren agrees with everything I have written in The End of Evangelicalism? concerning evangelicals and our practice of “the Decision.”
McLaren responds the status quo by admonishing evangelicals that they have forgotten (or ignored) the Jesus of the gospels and His message: the Kingdom of God has begun. We have focused instead on the Pauline/ Lutheran doctrine that we are justified by faith in Christ through his atoning work on the cross. He argues that evangelicalism’s salvation has become a personalized middle class gospel accommodated to the comforts of American prosperity. It is a message hardly recognizable in what Jesus preached in the gospels where He announces that the Kingdom of God has broken in, a new way of life with God has begun. McLaren, true to the evangelist he is, invites his readers to identify with it and join in living the way of Jesus in this new Kingdom. As opposed to an evangelical conversion that emphasizes the afterlife, McLaren says Jesus is about the work that God is doing in His Kingdom to reorder our lives now. In joining in with God and His Kingdom we can become part of what God is doing to transform the world.
In his The Secret Message of Jesus, McLaren takes this theme that is over 100 years old in New Testament scholarship and refashions it for evangelism. He invites his readers to follow Jesus into the socio inter-personal and political dynamics of the Kingdom birthed by, in and through Jesus Christ. In Anabaptist fashion, McLaren describes how God is working not through coercion or power but in the daily (even mundane) lives of committed followers of Christ willing to participate in what He is doing through love and reconciliation. To those of us tired of the individualist consumerist habits of evangelical salvation, Brian McLaren is a breath of fresh air. He offers a salvation that includes repentance and a decision, but is grandly holistic. It is a belief and practice that shapes us out of the duplicity and dispassion that has seemed so much a part of evangelicalism’s practice of evangelism.
In McLaren’s next book, Everything Must Change, he expands on this vision. He describes the message of Jesus as a new way of life founded upon “a counter story.” This story is of course the Kingdom of God, “a framing story” offered by Jesus that truly helps us see what God is working in the world. Over against the stories of domination in our world that are destroying the earth, sustaining suffering and exploitation and perpetrating gross injustice, McLaren calls for an awakening to this new framing story, the “creative and transforming story” of Jesus (EMC, 274), where God’s love, reconciliation, sacred beauty, restoration, justice and renewal takes shape among us and in the world. This is a story “that changes everything” (EMC ch. 3). McLaren calls his readers to become true believers and participants in this “framing story,” the Kingdom of God.
It is in Everything Must Change that we see, maybe for the first time, McLaren’s temptation to de-eschatologize the Kingdom. De-eschatologizing the Kingdom happens when one separates the Kingdom of God from its fulfillment in the historical (i.e.incarnate) work of God in Jesus Christ. It is in EMC that we notice that Brian is comfortable differentiating “the message of Jesus” (the Kingdom of God) from “the message about Jesus” (that Jesus Christ, in His life, death, resurrection and as Reigning Lord, is the means by which the Kingdom is taking place) (See for instance EMC 22,98). It is therefore possible to read him in this book as advocating that we must put our faith and trust in God and His framing story – the message of the Kingdom – as opposed to submitting ourselves to the one who has been exalted as Reigning Lord and is actually bringing in this new in-breaking Kingdom. Jesus becomes (if we’re not careful) the guide, the exemplar in helping us do this. This move de-eschatologizes the Kingdom and risks thwarting the formation of a politic for mission in three ways.
1.) First, de-eschatologizing sets the stage for “the Kingdom” to become another nebulous Master Signifier which can mean anything. When we separate the Kingdom from the ongoing in-breaking work of Jesus as reigning Lord, the Kingdom is set free from its moorings in God’s eschatological work. No, no longer grounded in its history in the nation of Israel and the fulfillment of that history in Christ, the Kingdom can be applied as a concept to any number of activities that one deems qualifies as God’s ‘ethic’ for bringing justice into the world. Indeed, it can become the means of another form of ideological complicity as we casually associate “the Kingdom” with various causes without discerning whether this is of Christ and His Kingdom. I have no question that some government initiatives qualify as God’s Kingdom, especially when Christians get involved. Yet how would we know apart from the church’s participation in God’s eschatological activity to bring this Kingdom to fulfillment in Christ? The Kingdom has of course become a Master-Signifier before. Some might even suggest that George Bush used evangelicalism’s amalgamation of democracy and the Kingdom to justify the Iraq War as the bringer of God’s “freedom” to the world. There is a long history of such “ Kingdom abuse.” Separated from the eschatological fulfillment of this Kingdom in Jesus Christ, the Kingdom can become just another Signifier that distracts us from God’s justice as opposed to building a politic of God’s justice/Mission in and among our everyday lives.
2.) Secondly, de-eschatologizing the Kingdom strips us of our ability to inhabit the gospel in peace and hospitality. Ironically, when the Kingdom is de-eschatologized, we are tempted to make it into a Cause which we advocate over against those who disagree with us. We are tempted to take control of history when the Kingdom is separated from the certainty that God is working to bring it to completion in history in Christ (1 Cor 15:25-28). As a result, the onus to bring in the Kingdom is shifted more onto what we do than what God is doing. We lose the wherewithal to participate in God’s work as patient and non-coercive participants as McLaren wants (I consider it a curious mistake of McLaren to give up on the second coming in New Kind of Christianity 197). It is only as we are confident of what God has in store for the world, that we can participate daily as His subjects, not as ones who need control the world. McLaren’s words in his title, “Everything must change,” reveal the stress of this de-eschatologizing. Instead, I would suggest “Everything Has Changed” already in Christ and we must now participate in what God has already begun and is bringing to completion in Christ for the world. Only in practicing such a belief can Christians avoid taking on “the Kingdom” as another cause which we must fight for over against those who disagree with us. This patience and hospitality is essential for a political presense that can participate in God’s Mission in the world.
3.) Lastly, de-eschatologizing the Kingdom loses the very dynamic that gives us hope for something different coming into the world. One of the first things I learned about the Kingdom in seminary is what we used to call “the already, but not yet” character of it. From Oscar Cullman, George Ladd and other NT theologians we learned there is a tension in the NT that acknowledges the Kingdom has come yet it is not yet completed. We then are a people baptized into the new age all the while continuing to live among the old. We are called to live under and bear witness to the new realities of the Kingdom, Christ’s Lordship, his defeat of the powers, his victory over death, sin and evil. This takes seriously the fact that something actually happened cosmically to the world in Jesus Christ yet it has not been fully manifested (it comes as a mustard seed). If we separate the Kingdom from the Reign of the living resurrected Christ, we lose this tension. If we lose this tension, we lose the wherewithal to engage the world for the transformation God is bringing in His Mission.
As I said last post, the emerging church shows much promise for leading post-evangelicalism into a new faithfulness for Mission. McLaren, and many other emerging leaders, teach us a salvation of the Kingdom that breeds hospitality and authentic witness to what God is bring to the whole world. He takes the foundational teachings of Jesus and writes them for a new evangelism in our time. My concern is for a new post –evangelcial political presence of faithfulness in our culture. I suggest McLaren contributes to such a new presence. If there is to be such a politic in our future however, we must avoid the trap of de-eschatologizing our belief and practice of salvation.
What do you think? Does Brian McLaren commit the ideological “trap” of de-eschatologizing the Kingdom? rendering the gospel of the Kingdom impotent for shaping a politial presense in the world?
davidfitch on November 4 2009
IMAGES THAT HELP US THINK ABOUT THE NEW SITUATION WE ARE IN #1: The Image of “THE OTHER” and Post Christendom Evangelism
The church in the West is straddling through some mammoth culture changes. In some parts of N America, it feels as if “we” have become extinct – no longer viable in the society we’re ministering in. Some of us label this situation “post Christendom.” In the following weeks, I offer a series of posts on six images that I believe help us think through what these culture changes mean for the practices of the church. I find the terms “post-attractional, post-positional, and post universal (language)” helpful descriptors of these new cultural conditions we (at least some of us) are ministering in. I call them “the three posts” (not to be confused with blog posts) and will expand on these “conditions” in the posts to follow. Today I want to discuss the image of “the Other,” that empty faceless shapeless figure that we encounter when we engage someone who is not a Christian out of a Christendom mindset. I think it helps us think about evangelism and mission in the America’s new cultures of post Christendom
The Other
The image of “The Other” – as described famously by the Continental philosopher Emmanuel Levinas – describes the one we encounter outside ourselves. It (he/she) is that which is otherwise than my self. Levinas complains that the modus operandi of the West has been to reduce the Other to the Same. It is what our individualist autonomous universalizing modes of reason do as we encounter someone. We all know that feeling, when getting to know someone new, of being categorized by him/her as this or that – of being shoved into someone else’s categories before we have been truly heard. This is what Levinas means by “reducing the Other to the Same.” In the process, the Other – is objectified – “deprived of its alterity” (Totality and Infinity p.42).
It is the habit of Western knowledge (epistemology) to interject a middle – supposedly neutral – term that ensures we comprehend the object. You are a “republican,” a “democrat,” a “liberal,” a “conservative,” you have “guilt” because you have sinned against God (although you don’t know it yet), you are always trying to achieve righteousness on your own, aren’t you? We conceptualize reality – the way we think things are – and then expect the Other to conform into it, submit to it. It is unconscious. Perhaps unintentional. In the process however, the concept becomes the means of stripping the person of his or her alterity (Totality and Infinity, 33-34). We reduce the Other to the Same. It is this denial of alterity in what Levinas calls “the concept” which produces domination, tyranny and violence.
This is the image of The Other, that faceless stick figure that we import all our pre-conceptions into. This faceless stick figure always fits nicely into our existing categories so that we can feel comfortable and in control of it (not a him or a her). Levinas pleads – we must always call into question the habit of reducing the Other to the Same. A space must be opened for the presence of the Other. We must call into question (what Levinas calls “ the egoistic spontaneity of the Same:”) that instinctual Western habit of always putting the Other into our own conceptualization, without questioning, as if it were self evident, the way it is. Over against this habit, Levinas calls for a disposition that seeks “the face to face encounter” with the Other, the strangeness of the Other, his/her irreducibility to the I, to my thoughts and my possessions (Totality and Infinity, p. 33). We must recognize, that the Other, in order to remain the Other, must always come into our awareness, our consciousness by first obliterating all our categories.
Levinas’ “the Other” is very intuitive. Obviously I am over-simplifying Levinas bypassing much of his profundity (including his theological work on how we might know the ultimate Other, the Infinite – or the “Otherwise than being”). But I think this small description of the Other gives us the image we need to understand how we must reorient the entire practice of mission and evangelism for the new cultures of post Christendom.
Up until recently (WW1/WW2 in Europe and post WW2 here in N America) the church a.) has been in this unusual homogenous world where the language of Christianity has been somewhat universal (in the West), b.) has been in a posture of respect/authority in culture, where c.) people gravitated towards it, especially on Sunday for issues having to do with God. And so in communicating the gospel, in preparing people to evangelize others with the gospel, in attempting to engage surrounding culture – we have been able to do it LARGELY ON OUR OWN TERMS. Today, in post Christendom, these Christendom habits persist – and now – in a post universal (language), post positional and post- attractional culture, we Christians appear hideously commercial, abusive of power, and grotesquely presumptuous. In the words of Levinas, our methods of evangelism smack of “Reducing the Other to the Same.” Here are three examples:
1.) We Reduce the Other to the Same WHEN WE ATTRACT PEOPLE TO COME TO US: By asking people to come to us into our churches to hear “the gospel message,” we assume a position of power, we assume that they will know our language, that our language is THE LANGUAGE, and that we do evangelism largely on our own terms. One of the things Levinas’ “The Other” helps us see is that when we produce large attractional events to get non-believers into the mega building, we in essence deprive them of their alterity, agreeing to overwhelm them by the excellence of the production, a one-message-fits-all presentation of the gospel that denies the alterity of each person. The attractional events have certainly worked well in Christendom, where we could assume a mono-cultural initiation into basic-things-Christian. There also was a common formation of most people into the same set of cultural problems. This is why Billy Graham was a proper (and successful) response to Christendom America in the 50’s-thru 80’s. Today however, the lost person is coming with a vast array of lostness and brokenness that must be met in a relational “face to face” encounter. This is where the gospel can be received in post Christendom. In these contexts, we must give up squeezing each person into one grand attractional scheme, as individuals through a pipeline to proceed through 4 bases (or pillars, or steps) in order to become a contributing member to an organization.
2.) We Reduce the Other to the Same WHEN WE APPROACH INDIVIDUALS FROM A POSITION OF POWER: As people trained for evangelism in the habits of Christendom we come with a script, with a pre determined outcome – with a method how to lead everyone to the same sinner’s prayer. It comes off as a reduction of “the Other” to the same – going for results, presenting a message and expecting a response, adding up numbers, making people part of our church growth agenda. As the new post Christendom cultures have swept over us, we have not adjusted. We still seek to sell a message, just make it more relevant, appealing, drawing people into the aura … so that they will hear a message. These are still signs of the assumptions of power – just come to us on our terms.
3.) We Reduce the Other to the Same WHEN WE ASSUME THEY KNOW OUR LANGUAGE: Our Christendom tools assume words, sentences and of course a knowledge of the Story that are no longer the currency of our places of ministry. So now, in post Christendom, when we talk about sin, they ask “what is sin?” When we talk about God, they say “which one?” and we in essence talk right past them. We have in essence, reduced the Other to the Same expecting them to already know and live in the cultural world of Christianity
All of the above are signs that we still are working under the Western habits of reducing the Other to the Same – the Other who we must now assume is different than us, who will not come into our orbit unless we do something sneaky to attract him/her in, who will not understand what we are talking about, who will consider it an act of violence to assume we are right and they are wrong. In short, WE FACE THE CHILLING CHALLENGE OF THE OTHER, and of OVERCOMING OUR HABITS OF EVER REDUCING THE OTHER TO THE SAME.
Elsewhere on this blog, and in my speaking, I have proposed that we seek to do evangelism in the rhythms of everyday life, not through attractional means, that we become onramps for the gospel as opposed to transaction salesman, that we look for ways to inhabit our neighborhoods as Christ, incarnating the gospel in our ways of life within the contexts we serve (not asking them to come to us). The image of “the Other” helps us understand why this kind of reorientation of our evangelism is so important. Thank-you Levinas.
OK, having said all this, I am open for your push-back. Are there ways the attractional churches engage non-Christians apart from the violence of “the Other”? Peace in Christ everybody.
davidfitch on October 14 2009
“Ed and Me” Part 2, and 3 and Beyond
There is some more video “out there” on Ed Stetzer and me debating … er conversing on among other things, Can Mega Be Missional? I tried to embed it (vimeo) on the post here and had no luck (the blog is on wordpress). So, until I figure out how to do it, it’s all available here at the Missional Channel at Vimeo.
In regard to this most recent video … it’s time to fess up. I can finally admit it. My strategy backfired. My strategy was to sit back coyly, ask a lot of questions and let Ed self-destruct. It didn’t work, he destroyed me and I have yet to recover 
OK … just kidding. We had a great time, we left good friends. After this episode we went over to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where I changed strategy. Over there, in hockey terms (something Ed would not understand because he’s from the south), I took the gloves off (wink wink). I’m hoping the final footage of the debate at Trinity appears, before my reputation as a shrinking violet is irreversible! Thanks to the unflappable, indefatigable team of Bill and Imbi Kinnon for their tireless efforts at putting out materials like this for the furtherance of God’s Mission in and thru His church. Again, you can find all their good work here at the Missional Channel at Vimeo.
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UPDATE: Thanks to JR in the comments, I figured out how to embed the videos. Thanks JR.
Ed Stetzer & Dave Fitch – a missional conversation Part II from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.
Stetzer & Fitch – a missional conversation – Part III from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.
davidfitch on August 28 2009
WTWNC: From Bridge to Onramp – On a Proposed Way to Teach People Missional Evangelism
When They Will Not Come” (WTWNC) names the social dilemma of the church in post Christendom when we can no longer assume non-Christians will come to church even when they are seeking God. This new cultural condition forces us to change the way we think about every aspect of the church. WTWNC is a series of posts that reflect on the ways the practice of being Christ’s church/church planting must change because of this new cultural dilemma.
Illustration by Ben Sternke of http://benjaminsternke.typepad.com.
In previous posts and writings (here , here, and here) we have covered the challenges of evangelism in the new post Christendom contexts of N America: the cultural condition of “When They Will Not Come.” We have asked what does evangelism look when we can not assume they will understand? When the message cannot assume a cultural hegemony of Christian assumptions.We have seen how the Bridge Illustration, the Romans Road, the Four Spiritual Laws all struggle to adequately engage the lives of post Christendom peoples with the gospel. In fact, each one has the potential of damaging the gospel for people who have no “Story” from which to make sense of ‘what they might be doing.’ By reducing it in a way that misleads those with no background, it has the potential to cheapen the gospel and malform the new convert (narcissistically) into something other than the gospel. Like most Christendom evangelism, these tools assume too much. They look at every person as the same. Yet, up to this time, I have not really come up with suggestions for a tool/way that can replace these well worn and to some degree proven tools of Christendom evangelism (although many others out there in blogworld have made excellent attempts)
After much thinking and conversing at our church (last spring after Easter we had “think sessions” for seven Sundays before worship), I have some tentative conclusions as to how offer a way for training Christians for “missional evangelism” in the new cultures of post-Christendom. Here goes – starting with two preambles that define the assumptions on evangelism we must change for evangelism in post Christendom.
Preamble One: In our evangelism-thinking, let’s move from “bridge” to “onramp.” If there is one overriding conclusion for me in all this, it is that missional church leaders must move from a.) Training people to offer non-Christians a “bridge” to salvation, that is susceptible to making salvation into a transaction, to b.) Training people to become themselves “onramps” who through their lives offer nonChristians an avenue (i.e. themselves) through which people can enter the work God is doing in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor 5:19). This concept of moving from a “bridge” to an “onramp” is key for me.
Preamble Two: In our thinking, let’s move from justification before God “by Christ” to living life “in Christ.” A second conclusion for me in all of this is that we must understand that the fundamental issue in salvation is not our forensic guilt before God based in an oversimplified post-Reformational forensic substitutionary atonement. Instead, let’s move towards the salvation that God is doing in the world to “set the world right” (as J D Dunn and N T Wright say it). OF COURSE PART OF THIS IS (an inseparable part of all this!!) the justification, yes the forensic pardon we receive in Christ via His sacrificial death on the cross as a fulfillment of the covenantal promises given by God to His chosen people Israel (of which we have become part). We need to make this shift however from seeing justification as the primary issue in salvation, to seeing it as part of God’s overall covenantal plan with a people to make the world right.
This move gives us the necessary perspective to proclaim the fullness of the gospel for the world without diminishing the grace, forgiveness and new life we as individuals have in Christ through participating in the entire salvation God is doing in the world. It changes salvation from “you receive this and this” by faith in Christ alone – to “put your entire life under Christ” and live under His Lordship over the world. IN THIS WAY, no new Christian can miss that “in Christ” we are going from living for your -self, out of your self, in your self – and all the things that you have become entangled in the process – to living “in Christ” – where every thing, every area of our lives is surrendered to be lived out of one’s relationship “in Christ”
GIVEN THOSE TWO ASSUMPTIONS, here’s some rudimentary pieces that I think the church can train its people into that can shape them into “effective onramps” for the gospel.
Five Things For an Effective On Ramp To Be Able to Do (from 1 Pet 3:14-16)
1.) Listen. Let us give up all the prescribed pre-scripted gospel messages and ways of leading one pre-scripted to a certain outcome. Let us learn how to come humbly before another person and listen to the Other as someone different than me, someone who God is working in, and someone who has issues, needs, understandings which may have nothing to do with the way the gospel has taken shape in my own life.
2.) Trust in God. Let us learn to completely trust in God by His Spirit that He is working and anyone’s salvation is completely His work. Let us give up any coercion and simply become the onramp for the Holy Spirit to use in bringing another person to Himself.
3.) Nurture My Own Participation/Relationship in/with God in Christ. This may sound trite, but we each must have a relationship with God, a vibrant real participation in life with God, in order to witness to this life and be onramps for other people to enter into it.
4.) Tell The Whole Story: We must be able to share the whole story as well as one’s own participation in it daily. We must do it with simplicity yet profound amazement.
5.) Close with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We must learn that a faithful presentation of the gospel eventually proclaims the good news of what God is doing in the world “in Christ” INTO A PERSON’S LIFE. There will be a time eventually in many relationships when the hearer asks how do you live like you do? Given my situation, how I can participate? Join in? Be saved? Here we describe God’s work in Christ making the world right (righteousness) – new creation, restored relationship with God and invite him/her in through repentance, submission and entering into a whole new cosmic way of life under God’s Lordship through Jesus Christ.
On Offering a Place to Start
I think every “onramp” must be able to offer the new seeker a place to start in this relationship we have with the Triune God in Christ. We used to offer everyone the same “sinner’s prayer.” A discerning “onramp,” I think, will have to model the gospel here, describe what it looks like in their real life situations, offer a place to start. Here’s a few “places to start” “onramps” should know and understand in leading someone onto the highway of the relationship we have with the Triune God.
a.) START BY RECONCILING “It’s about reconciling” You are invited into a life of Christ reconciling the world to Himself. Righteousness is about putting things right. “In Christ” means that every relationship you have must always be in the process of being reconciled, forgiven and put right. This starts with your relationship with God, and now this is what God is doing through Christ in the world through you. Are you willing to engage every relationship as if God wants to “make it right” and transform them? 2 Cor 5:14-21; Matt 18:15-20.
b.) START BY DYING “It is about Dying” – You are invited to come and die to things that are killing you and the world. Living in Christ requires the literal ever “putting to death of yourself and the things God asks you to die to” in order that new life might be resurrected in and out of you …Col 3:1-17; Rom 12:1-2 (John 12:24)
c.) START BY ENGAGING GOD-GIVEN TASKS IN FAITH/ DEPENDENCE UPON THE SPIRIT. “It’s about the power of the Holy Spirit” at work in and through you and in the world. In the cross and resurrection, God has conquered evil, sin even death in Christ. You are invited to live in this same power of the Holy Spirit to do and be part of all these things. Recognize in each situation, that “in Christ” under His Lordship, you are the instrument to make manifest his victory over evil. (John 14:12-14; John 20:23).
d.) START BY LIVING UNDER CHRIST’S AUTHORITY. “It is about “His Lordship Over All Things” You are invited to enter relationships under Christ’s authority, denying power to evil, praying for the sick, bringing His peace wherever you go. Put your own life each day under His authority trusting He is at work all around you for His purposes. By so doing we are participating in what God is doing to bring about the new creation until He comes …
e.) START BY PARTICIPATING IN HIS MISSION. It is about “His Mission in the World” -participating in new creation . 2 Cor. 5:14-21(NOT THE NIV VERSION!) Matt 5-7 The sermon on the Mt (The inaugurating of the Kingdom). You are invited to participate in the new age Christ is bringing in under His power until He comes.
Well these are my still evolving (Life on the Vine) communal thoughts on training people to be “onramps” for the Kingdom of God. WHAT HAVE I MISSED? Is this too much? unorganized? Not strategic enough? How would you improve this? How can this be made compact enough to become a suitable teaching means to train people to be post-Christendom evangelists?
davidfitch on June 23 2009
The Christendom Nostalgia – Leading us out of it by using the words of Billy Graham
I heard Billy Graham on the car radio last week and I got nostalgic. It was nostalgia for Christendom. The words by Billy Graham were verbatim as follows: (they were part of a radio spot by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association).
Too many think that you can go out and live the way you like. Go to church on Sunday, or perhaps go to some religious ritual that your church demands and everything will be all right, but it won’t. It’s wonderful to be a member of the church, it’s great to be baptized, it’s great to be confirmed, but that alone is not enough. Jesus said, “You must be born of the Spirit,” “you must be born again.”
The recording of these words can be found by clicking here and then scrolling down to the clip entitled “Church on Sunday.” I urge you to listen to these words. Feel the ethos. Wallow a little in the nostalgia for a time gone by. For these words reveal the by-gone age of protestant Christendom in North America, the golden years of evangelism (I realize some may not consider these years golden). These were the words as preached by Billy Graham in one of his many crusades (the very word ‘crusade’ bespeaks Christendom). I have no idea when the sermon was preached but, again, it played last week on the radio (it is ironic that the BGEA is playing this spot in Chicago in 2009). These words help us imagine the mindset of so many churches from the small Bible churches of the post WW1 generations all the way (I contend) to the current-day huge mega churches of evangelicalism. In virtually all evangelical people over the age of 60 there is this nostalgia for these feelings, this ethos, this world that was sure, so certain and grounded in the foundation of Christianity.
Of course, dramatic changes have taken place in our society. In just a short period of time we have gone from a Christendom North America during the Billy Graham crusade years of 1950′s to 1980′s to a post-Christendom where most of these words make little sense. Today, in many post-Christendom places in N America, THESE WORDS MAKE NO SENSE. Here, people in these post-Christendom contexts have not been baptized or confirmed. They receive no social benefits from going to church. They are not even looking for that. They do not believe going to church will save them. They are oblivious to the notion of “being saved.” Unless the hearers of this message by Billy Graham live in Dallas Texas or Atlanta Georgia, these words fall on deaf ears.
There is a line of continuity between the Billy Graham crusades of that day and much of current day evangelicalism. Whether it is in the local Bible church congregation or the large mega church, they both rely on a cultural ethos that lies behind these words by Billy Graham. It is a world that respects the Bible, believes in one God, and sees church as viable cultural institution. Here converts are described as people (usually coming out of some former initiation to Christianity) who make a personal commitment to Christ and have a personal relationship. Church is organized so as to attract people into its doors. The mega churches merely seek to do the Billy Graham thing with more relevancy/production value (it is ironic to see how a Billy Graham crusade basically put on a typical evangelical worship service in an outdoor service – complete with congregational singing, choir, special music, a testimony and a sermon by Billy Graham- and thousands came time after time). Even though the Graham ministry had a much broader ministry than this brief sound clip would indicate, by and large the majority of Crusade converts were Christendom converts, born and initiated by the European heritage churches, and seeking a vital faith. This in itself was a worthy ministry.
The times however changed. The last vestiges of Christendom lie in decay in large parts of the N American world. There are fewer and fewer people already initiated into Christianity needing to be “revived.” There are less and less Christendom pre-converts who need to be challenged to take their pre-disposed intellectual assent to a higher level of personal commitment. THE TIME OF CHRISTENDOM EVANGELISM HAS LARGELY PASSED. We must lead out of this nostalgia. It is the task of Missional leaders, authors, and seminary students to help lead what remains of the evangelical church (in the post Christendom contexts of N. America) out of the Christendom nostalgia.
Over the last two years, I have visited hundreds of pastors at gatherings of all kinds in the new territories of post Christendom. They are watching their churches dwindle, getting older and having less and less of a cultural relevance. They are watching the mega churches with bloated budget producing hyped-up programs steal any Christians that under the age of 40. Their single number one question is “how can I get young people to come to my church?” (obviously the wrong question for the context we are in). Many are just plain in shock. It is a post Christendom, post-attractional world.
I got to admit; I still get “goose bumps” listening to the dulcet tones of Billy Graham’s voice. The fruits of his many years of ministry are to be honored. I’m convinced however that this same nostalgia must somehow be addressed. Denominations that are closing churches faster than they can start them should read the writing on the wall. We should respect the Billy Graham generation. We should honor the dwindling churches for all their labors for Christ (and I am dead serious here). Then we should also transition our Christendom churches somehow (I have a few ideas for such a transition) into a missional disposition in the world. We need to lead past and out of the Christendom nostalgia. Perhaps playing this 60-second sound Billy Graham sound bite and talking about it in our congregations might be a beginning towards such ends.
P.S. I still hope to have my final post on Post Christendom evangelism up in the next few weeks.
davidfitch on May 16 2009
The Bad Habits of Christendom Evangelism – “The Romans Road,” The Four Spiritual Laws, Evangelism Explosion and the Bridge Illustration (WTWNC 3)
When They Will Not Come” (WTWNC) names the social dilemma of the church in post Christendom when we can no longer assume non-Christians will come to church even when they are seeking God. This new cultural condition forces us to change the way we think about every aspect of the church. WTWNC is a series of posts that reflect on the ways the practice of being Christ’s church/church planting must change because of this new cultural dilemma.
Illustration by Ben Sternke of http://benjaminsternke.typepad.com.
In the West, especially within the N. American evangelical church, evangelism usually meant “going out” from the church. We trained our church people to be individual agents of salvation “going out” to engage others in the ‘act’ of evangelism. I use quotation marks here however around the words “going out” because much of what we did went the way of “you will come to us on our terms.” We went out, yet it was still from a position of power, “that we already had the answer you need,” that we already knew what your problem is. We went out to them, yet we still presumed they would understand and learn our language – another indication of the Christendom mentality. We went out assuming we did not need a relationship. We could simply present the gospel, the one form of it that was true for all people. We went “out” – but the posture was still “you will come” … “once you hear what we have, you will come on these pre-conceived terms.” In this way, our strategies of evangelism in the West have been sorely dependent upon the social conditions of post Christendom. How must this all change, “when they will not come?” (I understand that in a totally different sense – everyone is either coming or walking away from the one true Incarnate Son – Jesus Christ 2 Cor 5).
Ever since I wrote this piece and this piece, and pointed out some of the problems of our evangelism, many have asked have you come up with an evangelistic tool for these new cultural conditions you call “post Christendom?” This week Scot McKnight and Michael Spencer have been blogging on the related problem of a reduced gospel. At Life on the Vine we have been thinking through these issues as a church group at 9 a.m. on Sunday mornings before we gather to worship. We have come to some insights. We have been discussing some practices we must learn if we are to truly to engage in post-Christendom evangelism.. Yet I cannot say we’ve come up with a new tool quite yet. Next post I’ll offer some of the practices. Here are a few insights we’ve learned (as I report them from my own perspective.)
1.) The old ways – Romans Road, Evangelism Explosion, The Four Spiritual Laws, The Bridge - approach the “lost person” from a position of power. They come to the lost person with a prepackaged message that assumes one gospel fits all. They assume the questions to be asked and the answers that shall be given before we have even listened. (intellectually, and more important attitudinally – we are saying with our posture that we already know what you need, what your problem is, and we’re right and you’re wrong – none-Christians come away feeling like “I’m one of your ‘cases’”). I contend this is contrary to the gospel. For the gospel always comes incarnationally: i.e. humbly, entering in to hear each person/ culture in its own language. The one message fits all implies that everyone has the same problem. Only in Christendom, where everyone was already pre-initiated and where the cultural problems are homogenous, would this make sense. (The Romans Road BTW still makes sense ( and ‘works’) even to this day for the many families who go to large mega churches – offering a simple teaching tool for converting those already raised in the foundations of the Christian faith). If you read the New Testament however, the gospel is posed differently in each context, in each gospel or epistle. The problem the gospel addresses and the way in which the good news of Jesus Christ addresses it – differs between the gospel of John, Luke, the epistles of Romans, versus 1 and 2 Peter, versus James and Hebrews.
2.) The old ways assume the Christian language as a given. When the Romans Road has three words on either side of the chasm that is then bridged by the cross, it assumes these words are understandable. The average person however outside of Christ has no language by which to understand how the word “sin” (on the left side of the chasm) might make sense of their existence. When they hear the word ‘God’ (on the right side of the chasm) they ask “which one?” (co-pastor Matt Tebbe put the issue this way Sunday morning). We could do the Romans Road in Christendom, but not post Christendom. It is another way our evangelistic strategies are off putting … requiring non-believers to come to us on our terms.
3.) These evangelistic habits of Christendom separate the gospel from real life. They do this by “Cartesianizing” the gospel: i.e. they make the gospel into a mental concept separate from real life (the only place where people can really be reached). We could do this in Christendom, when people were largely still marrying, having children, maintaining domestic propriety, living within their means etc. and living a moral ethos still governed by the Roman Catholic and protestant worlds. In such a society, becoming a Christian means assent, or personal commitment. It’s about personal meaning and in some ways this works because one’s life is already habituated in Christian ways. These are the habits of Christendom. Yet they are reversed in post Christendom. In post Christendom, people generally (even among those rasied as Christian) come to God in Christ broken, often from homes of divorce, sexual abuse, places of despair. The gospel cannot be a concept, it must be the invitation into an entirely reordered way of life – the world of redeemed creation.
About a month ago, a man got up in our church in the gathering time and told a story about how he had been working at a Starbuck’s for over a year. He got to know some of the people there and about a month ago, a woman asked to talk. She poured out her grief over her life, the many misfortunes that had befallen here, and how she had lost all hope. As she looked towards the future, she could see no reason to live. This man said that he had a moment to respond with the “good news” but all he knew was to start charting the diagram of the Romans Road. Yet this made no sense. This little episode speaks to the problem of evangelism in post Chrsitendom where the old ways do not make sense. We missionaries simply have to think about inhabiting our worlds differently for the gospel.
In my next post I talk about how we go “from presentation to invitation.” These are the brilliant words of (co-pastor at Life on the Vine) Matt Tebbe that describe so well the transition we must make if we would carry the gospel into the new worlds of post Christendom. We will learn that Biblically the gospel is never a set of “laws.” Rather it is a Story. We will learn that we always engage the world and “the Other” in the posture of listening (as a sign of our humility). This is the posture of servanthood. We will learn there is never a pre-conceived outcome. Salvation is a mystery, it happens in God’s moment not ours, it is always the work of God. He is already working, we are simply the servants, the very participants in what God is already doing. We will learn that salvation happens as an invitation into the relationship we have with God through Christ, always as a way of life, never a singular moment or transaction. We will learn the gospel is always contextualized, addressing the issue of lostness, separation, disorder, that each person is encountering personally, culturally and socially. We will learn that it is impossible to invite someone into such a life if you yourself are not authentically immersed into that very life with the Triune God yourself.
In the meantime, what other ways has our habits of evangelism been dependent upon Christendom cultural conditions?
davidfitch 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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