on August 28 2009

WTWNC: From Bridge to Onramp – On a Proposed Way to Teach People Missional Evangelism

WTWNC

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?

Filed under Evangelism,Uncategorized,WTWNC 16 Comments

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)

WTWNC

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?

Filed under Evangelism,WTWNC 13 Comments

on May 7 2009

Should We Chase After Christians Who Come to Our Sunday Gathering When They Do Not Feel Welcome?: When They Will Not Come 2

WTWNC

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.


All church leaders will recognize this situation. Some people, maybe a couple with children, come to the church and they attend a service or two. They don’t return. They tell someone that “they did not feel welcome,” or “they just did not feel like they fit in.”  This is never a positive and we lead so as to nurture hospitality as a practice of the church gathering. Yet there is a danger to this as well.

Sometimes these words from the visitor reflect a mistaken assumption about church: that they should somehow feel “warm.” comfortable and part of things in just a few short visits. Yet any community of any significant depth will present barriers to entry for the new person. The community will already know each other deeply, the visitor will not. The community will have shared a journey, struggles, pains, sorrows and joys. We will already understand deeply our purpose, our Mission as worked out for our context because we have spent months, maybe years, praying and listening to God. We should ALWAYS BE HOSPITABLE in inviting others into this great life we have been called to share. But frankly, it cannot be communicated or extended through the exchange of simple pleasantries after church gathering on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, there will always be these communal hurdles to becoming part of such a community of Mission.

I think it is a mistake to over react to the visitor and try to create a welcoming team that engenders a false sense of community to those visiting on any given Sunday. It may have an initial positive effect, but long term I think it raises false expectations. Community, formed around Mission, cannot be commoditized or made easily accessible ( Tim Keel says something like this). Community comes through understanding a common goal and becoming committed to it with other people of like mind and then struggling through the trials and pains of that journey together. It takes long-term commitment. I think that the Walmart-like greeters who wear a smile and have a system to greet you going into the large church are a sign of the loss of this community. It is false, a simulacrum, and it eventually breeds cynicism. I think it is better to have a pamphlet to give to visitors explaining that community is difficult and will take time and offering them helps on how to get connected.

In post Christendom, as I have often argued, the Sunday morning gathering is essential, buts its very character changes from the ways we met in Christendom. It is no longer structured to attract seekers or non-Christians and evangelize them. It is no longer put together to attract Christians wandering away from other churches. It is instead formational, it brings us corporately into the practice of encountering God and being transformed by that encounter for life and Mission in Christ. The very nature of what we do changes if we are not seeking to attract but instead to be trained into a Call-Response vital relationship with the Triune God of Mission. This time around the Word and the Table is certainly a powerful witness to the presence of our God in Christ, but it cannot always make sense and should not be tailored to the one who is outside of Christ.

Last Saturday, as a number of us sat around my back deck (talking Missional stuff at what I am now calling the “Missional Back Porch” meeting at my house on every first Saturday night), this issue came up. J R Rozko said that the shape of Sunday gathering changes in the Missional context. Instead of a place for strangers to feel immediately welcome, we would do better to understand it as a “family gathering.” We would not expect people to come to our family gatherings as strangers. More likely they come invited through a significant relationship. And when they do come, say when one’s new fiancé comes to the family thanksgiving meal for the first time (is J R expressing some personal anxiety here?), there is an unease and a feeling of unfamiliarity which out of commitment this “stranger” will work through.

It should be expected that new people get to know the community in social contexts outside the church, in the bar, at the house gathering, in friendships of many other ways. They come with someone they already know well and can rely on them to navigate “the family” for them.

I have made it a habit not to chase every Christian visitor to our church (this is different from when I was first starting the church and was seeking to gather a people). There are simply many Christians who are looking for something that we cannot and probably should not offer. I do not often chase Christians, who after a time with us, choose to leave. I think pastors/leaders have often spent inordinate amounts of time trying desperately to cater to Christians who have, for better or worse, a consumer mentality. (I know, this certainly does not apply to every Christian searching for a church). I think we are to spend our time searching out the lost however. And I think we should listen deeply to one another as COMMITTED MEMBERS of a community to the complaints, concerns, issues of our community. And I think we should nurture the practice of hospitality to all strangers. But there is no doubt, that in the new cultural conditions of post Christendom, the nature of this welcome has changed and we must be sensitive to it.

Some have said this is too harsh. Others have asked do you not want this church to grow? What do you think?

Filed under Missional,Missional Leadership,WTWNC 17 Comments

on March 6 2009

WTWNC Instilling Missional Habits in a Congregation – As You Walk Among Your Community

WTWNC

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.

How do we lead a church community to engage mission as a way of life? How do we steer a congregation out of evangelism programs into everyday missional living? How do we train a congregation out of Christendom habits and instill post Christendom virtues (character for living faithfully in post Christendom)? I think leaders walk along and among their communities. 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 at the EcclesiaNet conference this past week for this idea).

7.) Kindly reject presumptuous postures of power as we live our lives among those who do not know Christ yet. 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 through problem solving. What is wrong with our programs? What needs are we not meeting? What needs to be tweaked? 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?

Filed under Missional,Missional Leadership,Uncategorized,WTWNC 37 Comments

on August 20 2008

"When They Will Not Come" – Community: The anti-attractional process of beginning a church with community

WTWNC

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.

Here’s the first of many more posts on the subject of “When They Will Not Come”: Church -planting, church-pastoring and church-life as it is AFTER the “attractional” nature of the church has disappeared in society. Please … join in with me on this conversation.
———————————————
“Community” is an overused word in American churches. It is used to describe any number of ideas that all seem so elusive. And no one really knows what “it” means. Has anyone every seen community? Even with all this baggage, I firmly believe “community” is a non-negotiable essential defining the very heart of what it means to be church in the world. We therefore must push for definition and concrete practices when it comes to community. “Community” should be that much of a defining issue for we who seek to follow Christ and His Mission in the world.

Why is community so central? When we born into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ we are not just born into a community. We are born into a very specific kind of association with one another. We are members of the Body of Christ. The forgiveness we have received is not just a personal pardon in a verticalized relationship with God. It is also inextricably a new relationship with one another (See Scot McKnight’s Community of Atonement on this) Just as we have been forgiven, renewed and live in relationship with God, we forgive, renew, and live in reconciled relationships with one another. This is why Anabaptist Menno Simons declared “unfeigned brotherly love” to be an indispensible mark of the church.

Such community is the foundation for all we are as the church. It is what makes possible discipleship, the raising of our children, a corporate worship which sustains us as people in our orientation to Christ’s Lordship. Indeed it is what makes possible a culture that in turn makes the gospel intelligible to those outside. It is the foundation for God’s Mission in the world (on this read Gerhard Lohfink’s Does God Need the Church?).

Acts 2:42-47 is a manifesto of sorts for this kind of community. The apostle Peter had just preached his sermon at Pentecost and many had been baptized. An amazing communal life then burst forth. The words “together,” “held in common,” “eating” and “fellowship” are smattered throughout the prose Luke uses to describe this new way of being socially alive. The text describes all this as directly flowing from the forgiveness and the Holy Spirit (vs 38) received by these new converts in Christ. Evangelicalism has always done well in explicating the power of these twin pillars of personal conversion: a.) the forgiveness we have in Christ and b.) the renewal we have in the filling of the Holy Spirit. But often in my evangelical heritage, these two doctrines have been taught as individual appropriations. This account in Acts however makes it clear that this forgiveness and the Holy Spirit are gifts to the community that shape a way of life together. They are not only to be received as individuals. Rather something incredibly social is birthed. In receiving forgiveness of sins we in turn become forgivers, ministers of reconciliation. In receiving of the Holy Spirit we trust that the Holy Spirit is working in, among and around us for His purposes. We give up control and begin to seek God and his work among us and around us. The community incarnates these realities in a social dynamic that can be described as truly missional. As a result, as verse 47 tells us, “they had favor with all the people … And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” Such a text describes the missional “strategy”(I don’t like to use this term unless in scare quotes) – nurture a community in the redeemed life of Christ and Mission (including conversions) will follow.

I believe a host of problems in American evangelicalism originate in our disregard for community. Indeed, our hyped up attractional approach to church has put the individual first in such a way that community becomes an afterthought which creates problems for discipleship, catechesis of our children, as well as evangelism. We seek to draw the individual in, sell him/her a message, and then provide communities. Community by definition becomes commodified. Instead of an individual being grafted into the Body of Christ as the very foundation of his/her salvation, this individual becomes a consumer of what kind of community best suits the kind of Christianity he or she can fit into her life. The ramifications for discipleship are disasterous.

Acknowledging all of this however still leaves us with the problem: if community is prior to mission (not theologically but practically), i.e. if community is a necessity from which we engage Mission and evangelism, where do we start?

As church planters and pastors, we are ever tempted to sell something. We could try this with community. “Come to our church and you will find authentic community.” We could put “community” in our values-mission statement. We have done market surveys and discovered people long for community. Let us then offer community! But this inevitably fails. People come seeking an instantaneous community (feeling of some sort?) and there simply is no such thing.

The problem of post Christendom is how do we develop community when people will not come to our church in a way that makes such community possible. It used to be that people would come to come to church for community. People in the fifties actually came to church for the fellowship. Churches would advertise regularly in the fifties, sixties that they were “ABC church – the friendly church.” Everyone needed a local church for the kind of community formation that took place inside the four walls of the church. This was Christendom at its finest. Today however, “communitizing” is fragmented in society in many ways including the internet. And people are shaped for easy solutions. The church holds no special place as a community. It is but another social services agency or distributor of spiritual goods and services. As a result, there is nothing more oxymoronic than to try to “attract people to our church for its community.”

The question then is this, in a post Christendom context, with something so essential to the church as community, where do we start? How can we begin a community without first attracting people into it?

What do you think?

I’ll be picking up this question on my next post on “When They Will Not Come?”

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on August 5 2008

When They Will Not Come

A lot of my interaction with students, pastors and church planters is over the issues of post-Christendom and the revolutionary change required of us who seek to engage those outside Christ with the gospel. It truly is stunning to recognize how things have changed in this country over the last fifty years. Over and over again I hear the stories of churches and the lament “all we’re doing is shuffling discontented believers from one form of church to another.” Or I hear “another mega church has moved into the area and emptied out three traditional local churches.” It’s post Christendom and we’re competing for customers.

For those who refuse to enter this ugly frey, we are left to plant churches and think about the Christian life in a different way. There simply are not a ready made group of people out there ready to join your church-plant in just a few months of your beginning (hallelujah). Salvations don’t just fall out of trees (read here for my case on this) and disciples take several years to grow. There are no simple techniques or boot camps. I’m ok with this. For indeed church planting now has to be life on life – sustainable over many years.

This is the situation of “when they will not come.” It is church planting, church pastoring and church life as it is after the “attractional” nature of the church has disappeared. Now all we have left is “us.”

Church in post-Christendom therefore is nothing less than a chosen way of life. It is choosing a way of being together. This way of being together encompasses how we worship, how we share and eat food, how we pool together resourses to help the poor, how we get together and hear Scriptures read and teach our children how to listen for God in that. Forgiveness, patience, care, speaking truth in love, is part of this way of being together. In this way of living, career and making money is more about taking care of one another and giving glory to God than personal aspiration. And God inhabits this way of being so that miracles, blessings, sustaining times in life and death become a part of everyday life. Mission becomes our rhythym.

When those outside of Christ will not come to our church services no matter how professional they might be, when they will not come to our special out reach events, when they will not come for Sunday school for their kids, or movie night or whatever other crazy fanagled way we dream up to get people into our church, then we must somehow rethink the orientation of just about everything we do in church. This would include worship, community and fellowship, discipleship, preaching (part of worship), children’s ministries, leadership, evangelism, justice and of course church-planting. From time to time then, on this blog, I’m going to post on all these subjects from the point of view of “when they will not come.” It’s a well worn subject I know. Yet I’d like to reflect on the ever expanding stories, theological perceptions and practical reflections I am gaining from walking through this process at Life on the Vine and in discussion with many other people. If you like- sign up for this blogs RSS feed. And I’ll tag any post in this series by starting out with the words “When They Will Not Come.” Hope you’ll be joining with me on this discussion!

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on May 20 2008

WTWNC Looking for the poor in the Suburbs: Ten ways to engage mission in the suburbs.

WTWNC

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.

I never wanted to live in the suburbs never mind buy a house here. But God led us here. It’s a story I’ve told elsewhere and so I won’t repeat it here. My wife and I are now buying a house for the first time in six years. We’re doing it for 2 reasons. ONE, for the first time in 6 years, the combination of the down payment we had leftover after we sold out last house (what was left after giving) and mortgage + expenses, now is about the same as if we rented the same house (prices have come down that far). So it makes financial sense. Having said this however, I urge all missional pastor/leaders to be real careful in buying a house or any real estate. I think I’ll go into this in a latter post. TWO, and more importantly, our church is under housed, and we need gathering places in the neighborhood locales if we wish to get going on our vision for missional orders in the burbs. The place we rented wasn’t big enough for this.

As we have been looking at houses, praying over the neighborhoods, seeking where we might buy a house, I have walked the neighborhoods trying to open my eyes to where mission could be engaged. I find the suburbs difficult for mission. The poor are so hard to find. Yet as I walked and prayed, I found my imagination stoked by the Spirit. Mission was all around the rhythms of this place. The poor (of all kinds – see Jonathon Brink’s post on this over at Allelon here) could be found. Here are ten missional places I noticed.

1.) The Hospital: (we’ll be two blocks from a hospital). There are few places where people are this poor (in spirit if not other ways), broken and seeking God than in the hospital. Practicing the presence of Christ in the hospitals is a spiritual discipline. It changes me, it ministers Christ. I could develop a regular weekly rhythm where I could spend a few hours a week assisting the chaplain there at the hospital.

2.) Foreclosures: Foreclosures are popping up (there’s a few in the neighborhood). (Neil Cole gave me this one) These are opportunities for Christians to minister to hurting people, bringing peace, helping them readjust and think differently about life.

3.) A Ride with the Police: (there’s police available in every neighborhood) This is a Tony Jones move (read his account of riding with the local police here). I think it’s a great one. Neil Cole once said that the police know where the trouble spots are in the burbs. They know where the hurting people are, the drug addicted domestic abuse is. He suggested to Christians in the burbs to go on a regular ride with the police, find these places, and find ways to hang out and minister.

4.) The Local Bar: The bars are where people go when they are lonely, searching. (there’s one eight blocks from the house). I envision a regular visit the same time every week. Alan and Deb Hirsch say that for the first year of going to the local bar in a regular rhythm, you are getting to know the locals. By the second year you are the locals, and you have earned the right to be heard.

5.) Mom’s Play Groups: (I noticed young children in this neighborhood). All over the suburbs, through the internet, lonely moms get together under the excuse that their kids need to play together (It’s not an excuse). These moms have some of the greatest community. I’ve witnessed this first hand with our young son. When you get there, look for the hurting left out mom, the single mom, maybe the mom with a troubled child, spend time there caring and supporting. Practice the generous serving spirit of Christ. You will be changed, and others will be too through your ministry.

6.) McDonald’s: (there’s a great McDonald’s in this hood). I don’t care where you go, every McDonald’s has a local breakfast club: usually a group of men who sit around, talk sports and joke around before they go to work. If you go the same time everyday, they’ll soon get to know you and you’re life will become an open book to strangers who become friends. Trust me on this; you don’t even have to try on this one.

7.) The Hockey Rink: (there’s an ice rink about two miles away) Ok my son is only three, but I’m thinking hockey (my first love) already. The only way I could afford it is if I coach. This is in my plans in the next few years. Having hung out with hockey kids, their behavior is rude and their dads are even worse (forgive me if this is an over generalization). Being missional might be as simple as not swearing every 5th word, berating someone publicly and treating every one like cr__p. It might be as powerful as setting the direction for a young kid’s life.

8.) The Elderly Center: (A care center for elderly is next to hospital). The most neglected of our society. There are so many elderly who live in retirement homes who need to talk to someone and understand their lives with someone. Find an elderly care facility and visit someone on a regular basis.

9.) The P.A.D.S. Center: PADS stands for Public Access to Deliver Shelter. (I notice a PADS center two blocks from our house!). It is an excellent organization serving the homeless in the suburbs. One of the things they do is train mentors and put them together with homeless. The missional opportunities here are obvious.

10.) Hospitality with your Next door Neighbors: It is so hard to get to know your neighbor in the burbs. They often don’t want to talk. And if you’re a pastor, you’re rarely home. I must make time to be in neighborhood. But then to overcome the distance, some subversive tactics might be in order. Like sell your lawnmower and ask to borrow your neighbors, ask someone to baby-sit your dog. As time goes on, the barriers come down, and you can share some barbeque in the back yard.

All of these places are within 2 miles of my house, almost all of them within 8 blocks of my house. I am encouraged that this house can be a place for mission.

ONE LAST THING – ONE PERSON CANNOT DO ALL OF THESE! I recommend doing what is already part of your daily life. Then add one and make it part of your weekly rhythm. I aim to add one of these to the ones I already do. Once you’re in a rhythm, aim to simply be Christ to the people you are among. God will use you, opportunities for 1 Pet 3.15-16 will occur regularly. Mission will change you and your life will be take on a new level … of living the Mission.

Where are some of the other opportunities to engage “the poor,” the ones most ready to receive the gospel?

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