Church is a verb, not a noun
I ran across this article: The Church is A Verb, Not A Noun (http://www.christianpost.com/church/Denomination/2009/05/united-methodists-church-is-a-verb-not-a-noun-02/index.html) about how the United Methodists are "...urging the world to 'rethink Church' through a new campaign that seeks to offer the church not as a building but as a movement of people empowered to transform the world." It sounds very similar to a lot of the thoughts shared on this blog.
The article also states, "The denomination stresses that 'Rethink Church' is not a call to find new theology but rather a 'call to refocus our ecclesiology' and 'to see church in a way that is more aligned to Scripture..." Is this what some of you/us have been saying/thinking?
The blog has been slow, so I wondered if anyone had any thoughts on this.
- Do you think the United Methodists are on to something?
- Do you think this will "work better" with the denomination pushing it (making it a multi-million dollar campaign)?
- Is this something the cggc could do, or should do?
- Any other thoughts?
posted by dan at 10:57 AM
6 Comments:
For me the slowness has been the busyness of May. Crazy!
I thought you had some good questions.
Is this what some of you/us have been saying/thinking? Yes. For me it is a change in ecclesiology. Our elders met with me this morning as we are working through the book "Sticky Church." We see that as we develop Home Groups which are discipleship groups that are connected by the Sunday sermon, we will have to think about "church" differently."
That is the major shift for us, not doctrine, though there are some doctrinal shifts for me that have changed our focus a bit.
Do you think the United Methodists are on to something? Probably.
Do you think this will "work better" with the denomination pushing it (making it a multi-million dollar campaign)? I want to think so. I'm not sure about the ad campaign, but I've wanted the denom to get behind this kind of thinking, though it could just as easily hurt the cause.
Is this something the cggc could do, or should do? Can't see them doing it.
I wish I had some great reason for not posting (although I have been reading the blog)but it just comes down to fatigue.
I agree with the idea promoted by the United Methodists but that's a lot of money to spend on ads. There must be another way.
The idea is in line with my message for Sunday "The Church has left the building".
I do think that in so many ways the shifts needed at present are about ecclesiology. In many ways, we've been too easy on the church as it exists today, allowing congregations to think they decide what the church is, what it cares about, what it does, etc. But the church needs to smell like Jesus, desiring the transformation of people and the world. I'm not saying we should manhandle our churches into new directions, but we churches should do what Brian is doing with his leaders-- get them reading and thinking and talking about it until they want the church to smell more like Jesus. Then look them in the eyes and ask them, "How are we going to be more like that?" Of course, to do this, we who would lead her must be on a good journey ourselves.
I don't know what the result of their ad campaign will be. I'm just happy when I see my own leaders and a some other churches wanting to go better places, because no matter how the awareness gets raised or the rethinking begins, fleshing it out will be one church at a time. So I'll start with mine, and you start with yours, and maybe there will be more as time goes by.
I honestly don't know what I think of this either. On the one hand I think it's good to see denominational leaders say, "This is where we want to be going." But on the other hand that in itself isn't necessarily going to do anything.
This reminded me of a great book from Michael Slaughter though (a UM pastor) - Unlearning Church. It's a bit dated (2002), but it is packed with good stuff and was, in fact, what led our church to make many of the changes we've made institutionally (to less institutional). It made me wonder how much Slaughter had to do with this campaign. It's not about how to "do" church, but more the need to concentrate on creating radical followers of Jesus.
Personally, I think we've been too long in this church planting vs. traditional church battle in the cggc. No one would ever say that, but I think it lies under the surface. Not that we don't need to be planting churches (we do!), but personally, I don't care if your church is 5 years old or 105; I don't care if you worship with hymns or hip hop... what we need to be asking is: ARE LIVES BEING TRANSFORMED BY GOD THROUGH OUR CHURCHES!?! Which I guess is what Fran said too.
I agree, that needs to be being done by local church leaders. But who is looking in our eyes and asking us? And wouldn't it be great to have someone say "this is what we're after", or "way to go", or "how can we help"... rather than telling us who served what at their potluck?!
I'm not trying to be critical of our denominational leaders. If anything I'm saying, "Hey... please feel free to provide some leadership." Sometimes I think we make too much of it, but sometimes I don't think we stress the importance enough. Sure, it can cause more problems. But sometimes it can help too. I don't think we're in danger of making too many disciples.
Great thoughts Dan! I couldn't agree more.
For clarification purposes... I wrote my previous comment before I saw the newest CGGC Newsletter. My comment about the "church planting vs. traditional church battle" was not meant to contradict or be in response to anything Ed said. In fact, I am ALL FOR church planting. It has been a passion of mine since I became a Christian, and I was glad to see Ed speak about it in the newsletter.
I was just trying to make the point that I believe making disciples is whats important. Not only might our ideas of what "church" looks like need to change, but for some even our ideas of what a church plant is might need to change. And wouldn't it be cool if someday we looked (or as Fran says, smelled) so much like Jesus that you couldn't tell if it was a plant or an older church?
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