on January 12 2011

Death of a Church Plant – Some Reflections and Hope for the Future of Missional Church Planting

I don’t know Jason Coker (except through blogosphere), but I love reading Jason Coker. And what he has done in a recent series of posts is simply amazing. In these posts (here, here, here, here, and here), Jason reflects on the sorrows of closing down a church that he and his wife Jenell worked so hard to plant in San Diego. Jason is a good writer. Yet Jason does more than that, he is brutally honest. He gives us a window into the world of church planting. I think everyone who seeks to plant a church should read these posts.

After I read Jason’s posts I couldn’t get them out of my mind. I often find myself  worrying about church planters who do the kind of church planting that Jason and Jenell were doing. Jason’s posts fed that angst. Jamie Arpin-ricci’s recent post poured more gas on the flames of that anxiety. So I started to write this post. This post is not meant to tell Jason or anyone else what they did wrong. I do not dare to suggest I know Jason or San Diego or anything else enough to be able to do such a thing. I admire Jason, Jenell and Jamie and a whole bunch more church planters of their ilk. I’m just reflecting on their experience out of my own experience. If it helps everybody, so be it.

Planting missional communities is a different animal from the prototype church planting that is so familiar in denominations and places like Acts 29 and Redeemer City to City. The attractional dynamics that often typifies these kinds of church planting depend largely on existing Christianized populations. The emphasis is on meeting the dynamic of the population group so as to present the gospel in a cultural savvy way.  I have no doubt that the success of many of the New Reformed Missional churches in the cities is the result of the influx of twenty-something populations into the cities in the past fifteen-twenty years with little or no place to go to church. Of course this is worthy work, and it has its own costs – let me tell you. And just so every body hears me – even in missional communities – there is the coalescence of already existing Christians of some sort for the task of listening to God and living in mission in a neighborhood. But the task of missionary church planting is different. Can I say that one more time? MISSIONARY CHURCH PLANTING IS DIFFERENT and the demands require a “mental training” of a sort.

So I have just a few observations to offer from reading Jason’s posts.  After all I need the therapy! And thinking through Jason’s posts are like good therapy for every church planter I know. Again, just to reiterate, I don’t know Jason and I have only visited San Diego so these comments aren’t really about him. I applaud the hard work and the journey. Church planters like Jason and Jenell are golden. I hesitate to comment because perhaps people will think I’m saying they did something wrong. NOT! I think they are extraordinary for their work. I offer up these reflections as fodder for the much needed conversation on the nature of church planting for our time.  Feel free to go at me on these comments.

4  Observations of Jason Coker’s post-mortem reflections on the closing of a church plant.

1.)Church Planting in Post Christendom is hard. I really can’t tell if Jason/Jenell were intentionally engaging post Christendom contexts, but their emphasis on justice, culture, and various approaches to ministry articulated here suggest that that they were doing just that. They were avoiding the competition and negative orbits associated with attractional ministry. Going against this grain is hard.

Nurturing community with an external focus and vibrant missional life often goes against the cultural assumptions of denominations and support networks. Denominations/American business want to see (immediate) results. They think like business people. Jason never said the Vineyard people placed these expectations on them. But the pressure is there regardless. It’s an American church cultural thing. Yet has anyone ever doing missionary work in India ever been expected to produce a self-sustaining church in three years? Overcoming these cultural pressures is hard.

Missional community also goes against the grain of already existing Christians who simply see the church as a place to sustain their own lifestyles/families in the Christian ethos. Leading people into a new imagination for the way God works in our lives and mission is painstaking. It is asking Christians to take discipleship to a new level. This – IMO – takes several years of cultivation. As such, many church plants have neither the patience, internal security or plain finances to be able to work that long on this kind of cultivation. Many get way-layed, pulverized by the turnover and the plain stubborn headedness of American Christians. All this makes church planting in Post-Christendom hard. Jason, Jenell should be commended for their true hearted commitment to work as missionaries … BECAUSE THIS KIND OF CHURCH PLANTING IS WHAT IS NEED IN A COUNRTY WHOSE ACTIVE CHRISTIAN POPULATIONS ARE SHRINKING.

2.) Finances are really important and often out of our control This is why I encourage those who plant a missionary church to have a minimum of a 5 year financial plan. You can raise these funds, but often, for many reasons, the work of this kind of fund raising CAN (ALTHOUGH NOT ALWAYS!) work against the very missional impulses your working to go with. I urge beginning church planters to get a job, especially if they’re in the twenties. Gaining a skill and experience in the workplace is monumental for your own personal development. It offers years of flexibility and freedom. I suggest church planters get a job where you can learn a skill and commit to getting good at. I urge church planters to only think about working 15 hours a week in their missional community pastoring. I urge every missional church plant to have three core leaders/couples who similarly have jobs who together can give 15 hours a week to the cultivating of this community.  This is enough time for pastoring/cultivating (it’s actually the equivalent of one full time pastor). Since the community is very small (maybe only a few people to as many as thirty) you’re going to be ordering your life together in mission in the community. You aren’t going to be spending 50 hours producing an attractional service to compete and draw Christians from other places. 15 hours a week by three people is sufficient to lead and nurture the beginnings of such a community.

The job that these pastors get then provides the means to take all the pressure off and spend 5 years cultivating. It will also help each pastor gain a sense of identity and reality. This changes everything. It changes the way we look at ministry. Changes the dynamics of why we get paid and the pressures. And it provides the seeding ground so necessary in a missionary plant. It puts you out and about and alongside the community.

Jason had difficulty finding work. he got caught in the 2008 financial collapse vortex. It took a toll on him big time. For me, this issue of a job is perhaps the key part of navigating one’s entry into missional church planting. It’s a hurdle so many M Div’s can’t get past. Many M Div’s place their entire identity into getting a pastorate (this was definitely NOT THE CASE WITH JASON). They struggle to see tent-making as an identity marker that marks you as a revolutionary. Jason already was past this hurdle but couldn’t get that job for a long while. I suggest an alternative might be to raise funds with the plan for those funds to provide the time necessary to find a job.

Finances are probably the single number one debilitating factor in planting churches. I think it’s more psychical than it is material. For these reasons, as we plan a missional church plant, we must take the time to get firmly planted within a sustainable life financially that is also a walk of faith.

3) Finding at least two other strong mature leaders/couples that can join in with you and lead this communal imagination is essential. It is the APEPT principle – it takes an Apostle, Prophet (preacher), Evangelist, Pastor, and Teacher (organizer) to nurture a community into existence and flourishing (Eph 4). Until then you struggle.  Jason certainly struggled to find the right partners. He struggled courageously. At the Vine, it took us four years to get our leadership together. We struggled awfully until God led us into the right partnership with the right leaders. I feel like I nearly died psychically several times as a single leader with others who did not understand the mission with me. But when God provided the right partners, life changed, it made sense, and things started to take on a life of its own, the life of the Spirit.

In Christendom, one guy(or woman), with some charisma, can rustle up a crowd of Christians using Facebook and attract them with some preach-tainment long enough to establish a base from which he/she then builds systems. Not in missionary situations. One charismatic person cannot carry the load, and if she/he does, it will primary be an internally focused mega-church servicing Christians of some variety. Nothing wrong with that (necessarily).  But it won’t be a missional community like Jason and Jenell were seeking to cultivate.

4) 5 Years. I simply don’t believe cultivating such a community will even begin to take on sustainable way of life that breeds life in the Spirit for a minimum of 5 years. Many disagree but I just don’t see it. The cultivation work is too important.  It takes long patience and sustaining of oneself financially. Jason and Jenell had to close the church after 2 to 3 years. Yet I don’t think they should see this as a failure. Certain contingencies worked (all of which I have no knowledge of) to prevent from continuing. But 2 years is too short to consider this community a failure. I don’t believe in missionary work you can expect to see vibrant transformational growth until the end of year five (this may even be too short). I realize there are exceptions – this is just my historical perspective. For some reason, many many times, the Holy Spirit requires cultivated ground, open minds, prayer that opens the minds and hearts of the world to His working.  TO ME MISSIONAL CULTIVATORS MUST EXPECT TO CULTIVATE MANY YEARS before they see the kinds of numbers, conversions etc. that Christendom has gotten us so used to.

Missional Communities Aren’t Worth It!

Some may look above and read of the struggles of Jason, Jenel and Jamie and others and say “missional communities then are not worth it.” Uh, I think Jason, Jenell and Jamie would disagree (although maybe not today).  It does however require a different imagination, a different set of expectations, seeing ministry as a way of life, dare I say a sense of identity as a revolutionary, a Jesus radical. The kind of pastor I tried to describe HERE. To me Jason, Jenell and Jamie ( to what degree I know them which is only through blog world) provide us some examples as to what such “radicals” might look like as we go forward as missionaries in N America. Way to go!! Jason, Jamie today and yesterday I have been praying for you guys. I don’t know you, but you inspire me and others. I pray for you as God leads you into the future of His Mission!!

Filed under Church Planting,Missional,Post-Attractional,Post-Christendom,Uncategorized 36 Comments

on October 19 2010

On Why I’m Not Ready to Give Up On The Seminary Yet: Gary and Me Again

In the previous post, a lively discussion ensued when I suggested that “the kinds of pastors we need” for the future church of post-Christendom West will have to be missionaries, people who can lead differently, are capable of supporting themselves and immersing themselves in a given context. I suggested churches/institutions pour their resources into training missionaries – a different kind of pastor. On that post, we all agreed that theological education will have to change. The cost structures, contextual basis of  delivery methods, and amount of time devoted to study and ministry development all have to change. Yet some, in fact many, seemed to relegate seminary education to relic status – no longer making sense for the challenges we face in N America’s new post-Christendom.

Now I agree and disagree (full disclosure: I am a seminary professor). On the one hnad, certain kinds of seminary, following the rigid university models of Euro Christendom, definitely support and depend largely upon existing church structures. These structures make less and less sense although there is the possibility of “living off Christendom” to fund future missionary activity. Such “living off” however has to be discerned so as not to pollute future missionary work with Christendom based assumptions. On the other hand, whatever the future may hold, we will need educational organizations to train leaders into the teachings as passed on through the churches faithful. 2 Thessalonians 2:15. The grounding of the leader in the NT, OT, Systematic questions of theology, as well as the cultural issues of hermeutics IS EVEN MORE IMPORTANT in the West given the cultural challenges of epic proportion. We will need, for instance, to understand the implications of Pauline scholarship, the history of protestant interpretation of Paul, even to get at why we understand salvation the way we do and then to navigate (hermeneutically) the new territories for the salvation in Christ Jesus. It is doubtful whether unconferences, local institutes, church based teaching can meet the challenge. For centuries, even in the poorest of mission fields, seminary like institutions have been birthed to train leaders into the depths of the faith for its passing on.  Seminaries seem most positioned to play this strategic role in the furtherance of the gospel. They do however have to change! We at Northern are working on a 5 year M.A. CM Missional Church Studies program where you spend Mondays at the seminary only – one course, full library access, very low cost, for those who can drive in. This will lead to localized cohorts. Other seminaries are also reinventing!

On all of this, see the video below of Gary Nelson and I talking about these issues as filmed by Bill and Imbi Medri Kinnon and subscribe to their Missional Channel on Vimeo for more videos (alot of good stuff).

Nelson/Fitch – Theological Education in the 21st Century from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

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P.S. If you want to join in discusssions about shaping your church for mission, and the challenges, come to  the Missional Learning Commons coming up. If you’re already coming, register, let others know via the facebook page. It’s a non conference, meaning no paid speakers, and it’s free (except for 10 bucks to help for children’s care). Check out some of the speakers here and here Quite a lineup!! Of course I’ll be speaking a couple of sessions on leadership and money, and leadership as submission. There’s 9 presentations – 12 minutes each – delivered in rocket fire format. And then discussion, questions, open session. best part? hanging out with other missional leaders for a day and a half. Do you need a lift, encouragement? new ideas? I invite you to join us. Check it out : the Missional Learning Commons .

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Filed under Missional,Missional Leadership,Missional learning commons,Uncategorized 5 Comments

on September 25 2010

NOTHING QUITE FEEDS MY SOUL LIKE THIS!! : THE 2010 MISSIONAL LEARNING COMMONS NONCONFERENCE

The best times I have ever had at conferences have been when I just hung out with other pastors/leaders discussing “stuff.” The “stuff” could be movies, music, and the challenges of ministry and/or the valleys and how we’re getting through them. I gain perspective. I gain encouragement. It’s food for the journey. The conference speakers at times have been impactful. Yet often, they are “big names” from large churches that speak out of a persona that I just can’t relate to. They carry assumptions about church and leadership I flatly can’t buy into.

All of the above is especially true for “mission shaped” churches. We resist technique. We often seek to be small and contextual. And yet we need encouragement, and we need to feed off what God’s doing.

With these things in mind, I started doing this thing called “the Missional Learning Commons” about 4 years ago. We invited missional pastors/leaders/practitioners (as well as those seeking another way into ministry along these lines) to come together and hang out for a day. We paid no speakers. We listened to each other. We left plenty of time for “hanging out.” If you are a missional leader/pastor/ someone in ministry seeking “another way,” I invite you to join us this coming Oct 29,30 for our 4th annual Missional Learning Commons.

We’ve changed things. Rozko, Holsclaw and Sternke  showed up at our Hyde Park gathering 13 weeks ago and they took charge :) which means this nonconference will get only better. They suggested we go to Oct 29,30 instead of the first week of January which is bad for weather in the Midwest. (Weather hurt our gathering last year). They moved it to Northern Seminary, a more central place for the Midwest and besides we Northern gave us the conference center for free (Besides there’s great places to meet for this kind of thing on the eats coast like ecclesia network’s gathering and Biblical Seminary).  They also changed the format quite a bit. You’ll have to check out the new format on the web page. I’m excited with the topics – Missional Leadership/ Families within Mission/ and Missional Discipleship (what we’re doing to disciple new/old believers into Christ and His Mission). One great added feature is there will be care for children this year. We hope to encourage more women leaders to come and join in (because frankly, often, for better or worse, they often cannot come because of children). Whereas this was free in the past, we’re charging 10 bucks only to contribute to the costs of making that possible.  And one more added benefit, within walking distance of Northern, THERE ARE LITERALLY 30-40 PLACES TO HANG OUT, GRAB A BEVERAGE, and AND JUST TALK WITH FELLOW ATTENDEES. I personally am committed to staying up into the wee hours hanging out, chatting and listening to what’s going on in people’s lives. To me, nothing quite feeds my soul like times like these!

These are challenging times. God’s calling into being 100’s of missional communities to be a missionary presence in their local contexts in the Midwest. So let’s gather and be together in a way that enriches our lives through what God is going in and among us. Wont’ you consider joining us if this fits you?

You can find out more about it here. You can sign up and pay the ten bucks. This will assist our planning. Thanks for considering and may God bless this time together in our lives.

Filed under Missional,Missional Discipleship,Missional Leadership,Missional learning commons,Uncategorized 6 Comments

on September 8 2010

Sanctuary or Living Room? Senior Pastor or “Community Organizer”?: What You Do The First Year Shapes Your Congregation for Decades

It is common in church planting for N. American churches to rush in a.) naming a main leader and b.) starting a public service (what has often been called the launch). For instance: the Acts 29 Network – a training network for planting churches – puts an unusual importance on a.) choosing a strong male leader to plant the church, and b.) the launch of a service where “the gospel” is preached clearly, contextually and authoritatively. The impression here is that the preaching itself, led by a strong male leader, is sufficient to draw the lost into the gospel.

Although there is much to be thankful for in what God is doing with Acts 29, for me, this is an approach heavily dependent on the cultural conditions of Christendom. The preaching requires people already habitualized to go to church and hear a sermon. It requires people who understand the language. It organizes the church structure toward the center – where the single strong leader is – instead of outward where lost people are. It will work where there are wandering peoples who have a Christian past and/or have discontent with existing forms of church (i.e. Roman Catholic or traditional evangelical) who are easily drawn to something new and impressive. This is not, however, a Missional strategy because in many ways it sets the new community up to be a centralized attractional community. Its dynamic works against invading the rhythms of a context, living the gospel in ways that invade the secular spaces of the world that is living oblivious to God and His work in Christ for the world. If we would be missionaries, we need to think differently about congregational formation.

Our church is in the beginning stages of seeding two new communities. We’re helping with two others.  Over the weekend we gathered in Hyde Park (for the Missional Midwest Roundtable of EcclesiaNetwork) with several leaders of missional communities. I led a discussion on the goals, purposes and dangers of the first year of congregational formation in what we used to call church plants: the gathering of a community amidst a new territory for mission. I said there should be three goals for the first year of a church plant- a seeding of a missional community:
1.)    Establish a small community of fellowship in the neighborhood who can pray together for the Kingdom. This community will develop as friends, dialoguing, listening, praying – learning to listen for God’s voice, observing where He is working so as to respond and participate in what He is doing to reconcile, heal, create anew and birth righteousness.
2.)    Get to know the neighborhood. Exegete it so as to know how to pray, minister, adopt rhythms, hang out, and be Christ’s presence.
3.)    Facilitate hospitality. Become a place to facilitate hospitality in the neighborhood as well as helping people move to the neigborhood. I urge a contant calling of people into the KIngdom. When these people don’t live in the neighborhood, I encourage the community to help these people of the kingdom find jobs, find a place to live at reasonable cost, know how to live in this community.

If these are the goals of the first year (or two?), I said (at the Hyde Park meeting) we should then consider two questions:

A.) Do we need a pastor or a community organizer? My contention is naming someone a “pastor” – dare I say “Senior Pastor” – starts to order the community’s life around this one person’s centralized leadership. It sets up the community for expectations that this one person shall provide for certain needs, services and the making of decisions. The community’s life becomes a centralized orbit around this one person as opposed to a dispersed activity (of God) living in and among the neighborhood. This habit will be almost impossible to overcome in the years ahead. I suggest putting off naming someone “the pastor.” Instead name him/her the “community organizer.” There will be a time and a place to name pastors (I purposely put this in the plural). But at the beginning stages a single pastor could really jam up the workings of a missional community’s involvement in the community and participation in the work.
B.) Do we meet in a sanctuary or a living room? My contention is that meeting in a sanctuary (i.e. a meeting place with rows and a pulpit) is bad for meeting the goals of the first year as stated above. Meeting in rows, with a pulpit up front creates a passivized audience but it also creates a certain expectation as to what church should be. This expectation will be almost impossible to overcome in the years that lie ahead. Instead we need to develop relationships. We need a space to voice questions and dialogue. We need to hear stories of what God is doing and express hardships and ask “what is God saying?” This is why I suggest the first year’s gathering should have the feel of a living room as opposed to a service in a sanctuary. There will be a time and place to start the rhythm of more formalized preaching/worship. But this itself should be an extension of the fellowship that is developed during this one crucial year.

In both cases, there will be a time to both ordain pastors and formalize worship (see this post here). However, what I learned at Life on the Vine is that moving too early on these two fronts (which we did) will not only force the issue, but ingrain bad habits in a community that shall harm it for years to come.

At the Midwest Missional Roundtable, four other church planters discussed their struggles with these ideas. What do you think? What are the pluses and minuses of the Acts 29 approach versus the approach proposed here? What are the pluses/minuses of “senior pastor” versus “community organizer”? What are the pluses/minuses of “sanctuary” versus “living room”?

Filed under Acts 29,Church Planting,Incarnational,Missional,Missional Leadership,Neo-Reformed 27 Comments

on August 12 2010

The Witness of a Transforming Sexually Redemptive Community: Mission and GLBTQ Relations#3

In my last post on this subject, I said “One of evangelicalism’s biggest problems is we have no compelling sexual vision … We have little or no sexual ethic except the glorified desire of Hollywood lopped onto heterosexual monogamous marriage. We have no theology of desire formation. It is “lust,” and enjoy it, only do so while married to one person. We have no concept of the “ordering of desire.” This is why our witness is so vapid among the sexual brokenness of our day.” I said this is perhaps why we have nothing else to say to the GLBTQ peoples except “hetero-sexual sex is right” and “same-sex relations is wrong”.

It seems then that the first task of a “Welcoming and Mutually Transforming” missional community, ministering among the sexual brokenness of today’s society (whether GLBTQ or heterosexual or otherwise) is to recover a Christian vision of sexuality. There’s no way to describe what such a vision would look like in a blog post. Yet if I were to summarize the direction I think we need to go, it would be with the sentence, “human sexuality is a reflection of the Triune Relation that we are created to experience in the image of God.” But this really does not translate to those outside of Christian faith easily apart from a community living a sexuality in process of being redeemed. It would take a twenty page essay (or my sexual ethics class at Northern ?) to begin to describe this vision theologically.

So instead of that, I offer four ways God transforms our sexual desire and thereby our experience towards his created purposes. Then I make a comment on the practices we need for such a community to become this kind of place where we can be transformed by the Spirit. In describing these 4 areas for transformation (this is just a start) there’s almost a sense here, that if we allow ourselves to be shaped in these ways through confession, prayer, liturgy, truth telling etc. and thereby live them out, the GLBTQ issues will sort themselves out along with all the rest of the sexual issues the church is facing in today’s society (although I still recognize the necessity of articulating our sexual commitments internal to the Body of Christ).

FOUR AREAS FOR SEXUAL TRANSFORMATION

1.)    From “sex for me” to “sex towards Oneness.” Sex is dying to self in order to become one.  There is a reflection of the Triune God here. There is a reflection of the way of the cross here. “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her …” Eph 5:25.  Sex is the act of our own self-giving to the other for the sake of becoming one. And yet, the sexual malformation of our society often does the exact opposite – turning the other into an object for sexual satisfaction. The attraction that is nurtured is primarily the fulfillment of libido “for me.” Anytime this happens, we are duped and in a trap. When having sex becomes about who I am, my “sexual identity,” my ego, “how many notches on my belt,” “he/she wanted me,” “I feel desired” and  any of the other numerous ways society perverts sex into self fulfillment, I suggest we’ve become trapped into objectifying and being objectified. Instead of oneness between two, there is now an awful distance. We’ve lost the formation that makes the deeper purposes of God’s creation possible. We therefore must gather into community (I suggest groups of threes) to confess and discern how we make others into objects in the way we think about them, sexualize them. (I’ve been in powerful men’s groups where this kind of therapy revolutionized men’s lives). We must examine, bring out into the light, confess, and be healed of these inordinate desires deep within the soul that seem so “natural” yet war against the purposes of God for our lives. Once released of these enslavements, our own desires are not only freed to be re-oriented, but also those who have been victimized by these sins can also be free from the way their desires have been shaped by these sins.

2.) From dominating the other to being with the other. Our society trains us to make others into a fantasy for me. This is where the patriarchal dominance of the male over the female is a reflection of sin. Christian sexual redemption however overcomes difference WITHOUT OBLITERATING IT. This is the mystery (Eph 5:28-33). The two very different persons “become one.” Anytime we obliterate difference, to avoid the difference, any dominance or control exhibited therein, is the manifestation of sin that will lead to addiction. As a reflection of the Triune three in one, God created sexual life for the bringing together of difference. In some respects, I contend this is where same-sex relations can only fall short of God’s purposes. We therefore must examine ourselves, submit ourselves to Christ for the ways we seek to avoid difference, dominate or control those who are different in our sexual lives, play off ways we have stereotyped the opposite sex.

3.) From pursuing pleasure as the first goal to seeking pleasure as the after effect of true union. I take it that in Eph 5 the love of agape (Eph 5:25 committed covenantal self-less love) is joined together with the love of eros (Eph 5:31 the love that seeks union).  Marcus Barth in his commentary of Ephesians says this is the only place in Greek literature where this happens. To me this says pleasure/attraction/the desire for union is not necessarily first, but often the afterwards development of a love that pursues the covenantal purposes of God in marriage. To seek pleasure as an end itself, to make the other an object for pleasure, to somehow take any short cut to pleasure by making it an end in itself, deforms one’s sexuality. It dissables the growing of our sexuality so that, over a life time monogamous relationship, sex becomes less and less about pure physical attraction and more about the pleasure of union. The pursuit of pleasure/attraction as an end in itself therefore must be confessed as sin. We must gather in some helpful way to submit ourselves to the disciplines (many of them liturgical within the rites of the church) that shape us for a lifetime of growing into One with the person God has given us for marriage.

4. From sex as personally generative to sex as procreative, extending beyond me into life and mission.  Of course, I understand that sex can and perhaps should be personally generative (giving life). But what the Catholic tradition has truly understood, is that personal generativity is only generated out of the giving of oneself over to the procreative act that is beyond me in Mission. As Bob Hyatt has said so well here, the first command in the Bible to have sex is “be fruitful and multiply.” That sex should be always tied to procreation is something beyond the social imaginary of our current society. Yet to say that sex is physically tied to the unselfish act of giving oneself over to the future, to being obligated to the out-of control act of giving birth to something beyond one’s self is to ultimately say that sex, in the Christian sense, is missional. Yes I said sex is missional. For to give birth to and raise children, not as idols to our selves but as a belief and commitment to God’s future, is missional. Tying sex and procreation together in this way changes the very experience of sex. To detach it from the giving one self over to creation (even if biologically having children is not possible) changes sex. This is why Catholics have said that once you have contraception you shape and discipline desire totally differently.  In this way then, we must allow our bodies to be shaped by God’s call to procreate biologically. Now there are obvious implications here for same sex relations as well as adoption. Don’t have time to expound here. In addition we must come to see celibacy as a discipline that orders our drives towards God’s mission in the world. We must see our singleness, whether short term or life time vow, as a time for the spiritual disciplining of our bodies for God’s mission.

THE HABITS OF A SEXUAL REDEMPTIVE COMMUNITY

In order for a missional community to offer sexual transformation in Christ, it must offer a place where spiritual disciplines can be practiced for the shaping of desire into Christ. Admittedly, the received standard view is that desire is natural/given tied to biology. And of course, desire is tied to the body in some ways. Genetics have something to do with it. And yet so much of sexual formation is developmental. The reshaping of desire is inconceivable in our society because of the modern construct of desire.  Yet the contradictions inherent in saying desire is or cannot be shaped are so obvious it is hard to carry out this assumption in any meaningful way See Sarah Coakley’s can’t miss work on this here (HT Kinnon, Ben Myers)

In order for any of the above areas to be transformed, we need a regular practice of confession of sin, examination, space for the Spirit to shape imagination, healing prayer, liturgy and worship. (I recommend groups of three). We must have places where we can study Scriptures, talk openly and cast a vision for what God has created in sexuality. We must practice the renouncing of certain negative habits sexually (think of how we have renounced the domination of women in patriarchal patterns), how we look at each other, how we practice friendship, how we nurture our teenagers towards sexual fidelity. We allow the Holy Spirit to train ourselves into new habits that will often be at odds with society. Yet they are a profound witness to the sexual redemption God is bringing to the world in Jesus Christ.

Has anyone experienced such a sexually redemptive community? In my attempt to boil this down into a (long) blog post, what elements have I missed that are essential for such a transformative community?

Filed under Incarnational,Missional,Uncategorized,Women/GLBTQ 30 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 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 July 13 2009

The Witness of the Church to the Gay/Lesbian Peoples – Miss California U S A and the Politics of Sexual Redemption

images I know this is little late, but for me, nothing illustrates better the current state of the church’s witness in regard to sexual issues in America, than the Ms. California/USA pageant episode a couple months ago. It was an embarrassing irruption of the Real that any follower of Christ has got to wince at and just turn away (it’s so embarrassing). Here a woman prances before the media in a miniscule bikini (ironically designed by another ex-evangelical Jessica Simpson), she was a woman who had (‘sexually-enhancing’) cosmetic surgery (we found out), who had been in revealing photoshoot of some sort, and she is asked about her position on same sex unions. She responds by saying the words “…I think in my country, in my family, that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.” The next day on the Today show she said “I don’t take back what I said.” She added that she “had spoken from my heart, from my beliefs and for my God.” “It’s not about being politically correct,” she said. “For me, it’s about being biblically correct.” Regardless of her own church allegiances, she says the “B” word in front of the cameras, “biblical,” labeling her an evangelical sterotype. In the process she becomes a symbol of the problem of political (communal) credibility evangelicals lack to be able to witness at all to the gay/lesbian populations.

To me this Ms California episode is an irruption of the Real (in a Zizekian sense) for us evangelicals. It reveals the horror of who we are in the eyes of the gay/lesbian peoples. For she is a symbol for how we project onto gays/lesbians our (evangelicalism’s) own sexual sin thereby making ourselves feel better. By saying what she said about gay unions, moments after the swimsuit competition, she was basically telling the world  “we do the same things, but for gay people it’s sin.” We have duplicity personified as Miss California says “lust is good, objectifying my body is normal, the fulfillment of all desire is good” on the one hand, and then with the other says to the gay and lesbian world, “but you can’t do any of this – because you’re different you are not allowed.” In the process she becomes a glaring symbol of how by pointing out someone else’s sin, we can ignore the empty cheap frivolity of our own sexual lives and still feel better about ourselves. We do not need to fess up that our own sexual habits are so badly skewed, our desires so poorly oriented. We can keep on ignoring the emptiness of our own sexual sanctification by displacing our lack of “enjoyment” onto “the others,” the gay and lesbian people. This too often has become the nature of our witess in society. As such, I believe such an episode reveals the inner contradiction of our own sexual life and politics as evangelicals. And the gay world just looks on with a snicker.

I believe the gay, lesbian, bi and transsexual groups pose the defining test case of the decade for the witness of the church in the new post Christendom contexts of N America. And we (I am speaking about us evangelicals here) are failing miserably. Each time another senator who supports Focus of the Family or Promisekeepers, or another fallen pastor goes on Larry King revealing the emptiness of our sexual formation, it only gets worse. As I said way back here, , the broader evangelical church of my heritage has, generally speaking, not been the kind of people capable of speaking (any kind of) truth into the sexual lives of anyone – nevermind the gay/lesbian community. We have been a community of disordered sexuality. We have been hitherto incapable (theologically) of embodying the sexual redemption made possible in the resurrection through Jesus Christ. We have no space to speak on these issues to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual communities. And until we get our own communities to line up with the sexual redemption in Christ, to the gay community we look like empty judgmental duplicitous fools who see everyone else as thieves stealing away our enjoyment.

We need to ask “what kind of people should we be in order to welcome gay and lesbian people into the redemptive and healing salvation of God in Christ for sexuality?” In my opinion, in the average evangelical church, we date and marry much like the rest of society where an unexamined sexualized attraction is a guiding factor. We teach that lust before marriage is bad, yet lust after marriage is good (implicitly). In our practice of salvation, there is no formation of desire to be integrated and developed into a narrative of self-giving love and commitment to mutuality, self giving and procreation over time in marriage. All of this leaves us asking gay and lesbian people to not do something (consummate all desire as created and good) that we are encouraging heterosexuals to do for the exact same reasons. Without a communal witness of love and redemptive sexual healing, our words are empty. And so the typical evangelical church, when they meet gay communities in their  midst, engage in protest of same sex marriage, or institute some kind of legsilative action. In so doing we reveal our fear for our children and our insecurity in our own sexual formation practices within our church communities. It leaves us impotent as a missional witness for the gospel in the gay and lesbian communities.

As a start, I believe we need to become the kind of community that

a.) does not indulge hyper romanticist notions of sexuality that objectifies sexual attraction as the basis of heterosexual marriage,

b.) quits disembodying sexuality in the way we do whenever we make the Bible into moral propositions that should be enforced instead of a narrative world to be shaped and directed towards so as to live into.

c.) worships in a way that would order desires towards God away from narcissism (instead of feel-good pep-rallies), for any other kind of worship cannot hope to train us out of our narcissistic obsessions with sex.

d.) stops acting like heterosexual marriage and sex itself is absolutely essential for a fulfilling Christian life. Indeed we should elevate celibacy/singleness as a vocation in the process testifying that sexual drive, as well as all desire needs to be sub-ordered to God’s purpose and Mission for anything remotely fulfilling to take place in our lives.

e.) loves and nurtures the hurting souls and the bruised lost ones who seriously desire to be shown another way but are too consumed at this moment to see anything else.

Life on the Vine makes marriage a process of spiritual (and desire) formation. It is in submission to the community and calls each marriage into submission to Christ’s mission. We have just begun some good discussion groups about the various issues revolving around sex, gender and singledom. I think if we just start talking about our sexual formation, a major hurdle will be passed.

As I said above, the gay, lesbian, bi and transsexual groups pose the defining test case of the decade for the witness of the church in the new post Christendom contexts of N America. Missional thinkers practicioners must engage and lead on this issue. There are no more hurting people groups in N. America which at the same time remain (or have the perception that they are) ostracized from the church. (The homeless for instance may be hurting but are not as ostracized from the church). Speaking to the gay issue in the church takes courage – the easiest thing to do is to avoid speaking about it publicly. This is because, if you speak, you end up being pegged as either “judgmental” or “compassionate.” Since no one wants to land on the “judgmental” side, the overwhelming temptation is to err on the compassionate side. Yet, the church needs both. The defining character of the church as it works out its moral discernments is “speaking truth in love.” This is how we grow according to Eph 4. This is how we inhabit the truth over time. Unfortunately this kind of speech is regularly missing in the churches. It’s either one or the other.

This is why the Bridging the Gap Synchroblog begun by Wendy Ritter several weeks ago was such a pleasant surprise. I read many of the entries. I urge others to do so. I found the conversation excellent. I really felt it went beyond the judgment-versus compassion deadlock. There were several posts I could not agree with. But I gained a new sense of what is happening in this discussion, a starting point of love and compassion from all sides that is rare but so necessary if we the church shall be witnesses in these communities. I wish I would have gotten in on it but the above represents where I would start.

I’ve assumed alot of things in this rant, including stuff in moral theology (hoping it was just intuitive). Sorry! For those who need to know, I do not affirm gay/lesbian sexual practice as normative for the Christian church. This makes communal embodied incarnational witness to our gay neighbors all the more indispensible. There’s no way I could clarify all my positions concerning gay, lesbian sexuality etc.. So I welcome questions and discussion. (Although I’m heading off to vacation Thursday).

Filed under Justice,Missional 21 Comments

on June 23 2009

The Christendom Nostalgia – Leading us out of it by using the words of Billy Graham

bg1I 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.

Filed under Evangelism,Missional,Missional Leadership,Post-Christendom 11 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

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