missional church...simple
What do you think?
posted by Dan Masshardt at 6:02 PM
CGGC in an Emerging World
The world is changing rapidly. Postmodern thinking is increasing in the west and the East is becoming part of the Global community. Many in the Churches of God General Conference are interested in what church will look like as fresh expressions in the 21st century. This blog has been encouraged by the CGGC but in no way reflects the official thinking of the denomination. It is a place for free flow of thought and conversation.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
15 Comments:
I think this is well said but it is not all that simple.
Institutionalism and attractionalism have become core notions surrounding church no matter how detached from biblical teaching or the New Testament church model they may be. I suspect that, for many people, the notions of church as institution and evangelism as invitation to a 'church' event are so connected to following Jesus that separating them will require major surgery.
Getting from institutional and attractional to simple will take some very serious and, for many, painful acts of repentance.
I don't believe the American church can flourish without this repentance but I'd been at this long enough to know that the repentance necessary comes with great pain and intentionality.
Yay! A thread I can comment on again! :)
I like the video, I think it is a cute and thought provoking little primer.
I have to agree with you, Bill. It is easier said than done and does require major surgery.
With my little church community plant you would think it would have been easy since we were starting from scratch, but old habits die hard and the ceo small business attractional mindset is so hard to break away from.
A story about us recently got posted in the Emergent Village and the hits to my website and blog have been through the roof. I am cool with the blog, it is what it is, but the website which was designed before we started is in so much need of major revision and so full of attractional marketing speak that it is embarrassing to me.
Along the road in this intentionality I find myself often needing to repent of old mindsets and it is a painful process and one that is STILL going on and likely will for some time. I cannot imagine how hard it would be if we were a more established body with over a decade of experience under our belt and a building and paychecks. As we move closer to having a permanent rental space I find myself scared of me and my bad habits.
So yeah, great pain and intentionality and repentance is spot on, my friend.
In my church at least, I think it's just not in people's conception to think this way. I don't think that it's even that we are opposed to it, just it is indeed such a radical culture shift that it's really, really hard to move toward.
So I'd say that it is simple....simple and incredible hard.
It IS hard to make the shift.
Reggie McNeal's book, Missional Renaissance describes three shifts that the church needs to make and they don't sound hard when he writes it. And, he gives clues on how to do it.
But, even where I am, in a congregation that is less than 20 years old, the shift has been hard to accomplish.
Still, the world to which we are called to take the gospel is changing rapidly...
It's not only that what is now being called 'simple' is more consistent with our Mission Statment that calls us to build churches on the New Testament Plan. The challenge is that most people under 40 who have never been churched are very unlikely to respond to Christ when He is presented in institutional and attractional garb.
I agree that the video has value, but also that it's overly simplistic. I saw it on Ben Sternke's blog too, and - just to make it even more complicated - liked what he had to say:
"The only thing I would add is that the church doesn’t simply send out individuals to embody and proclaim the good news, but that the church needs to be equipping individuals-in-community to do these things. I firmly believe what Steve Timmis and Tim Chester say in their book Total Church: 'Mission must involve not only contact between unbelievers and individual Christians, but between unbelievers and the Christian community.'"
Bill,
It is hard because it is more than a simple tweak or changing of literature, but it is a quantum shift in praxis.
I will be honest, I've not yet read Reggie's book, but I am going to order it this week. I do not know his roadmap, but I suspect it is a process that takes time for established churches to change. Like the titanic, established churches tend to be large vessels with small rudders and changing direction takes time and patience. We will just ignore that whole iceberg event. I would use the Olympic, her sister ship for the analogy, but not sure how many people would have gotten the reference. ;)
In the meantime, I do think there is something essential that established churches can do to address the immediate need while they work on their long term change.
I am not saying this is THE was, rather A way. That is investing in spawning missional and emerging communities that do not have the baggage and helping the leaders stay away from said baggage of Christiondom. This too is difficult.
For instance, an abandonment of the term church planting is a place to start. People are the church and not buildings and institutions. So you are helping plant a community and a family. While this needs to be done with intention, it is vastly different than starting a church. When you set your sites on that, things change. For instance, you no longer market, you create awareness. There is a difference. You are no longer planning programs, but seeking ways to foster an environment that opens hearts to worship and disipleship and trust. You are no longer aiming for the Sunday show, but aiming for a outward focused community that is still bound together.
These new communties will need guidance and leadership, but they also need greater autonomy to do things radically different from your expression.
This also means abandoning the church plant models very radically and looking at this new community much like you would look at starting a foreign mission. This is hard because that mission may be in your very own town.
In the UK there are a growing number of Emerging and missional communities that meet at night in some of the larger Anglican buildings. There are some pockets in the US that are doing similair things but it is hard because here boards and CEO pastors are having a hard time letting go and letting an autonomous community meet on "their space". If you can let go a little, that is one option. Another option is to plant house communities in your area, maybe borrow a page from the new monasticism and help plant that kind of unique community.
Planting these communities allows you to meet that need now in a very tangible and significant way while you take the time to steer your ship in the direction it needs to go.
Sorry...stepping off soapbox.....NOW. ;)
I think Dan has hit on the crucial missing link there. That little video clip would lead us to believe that we are going out on mission by ourselves. Community is crucial. Also the video misses how people come back to be apart of the community of faith.
Hi, guys!
It's been a long time since I commented, but here goes nothing ...
Bill said, "The challenge is that most people under 40 who have never been churched are very unlikely to respond to Christ when He is presented in institutional and attractional garb."
You've hit the nail on the head ... but I would also suggest that even those who grew up in the church and came to Christ in the terms you describe may walk away, too, if we don't equip them to be missional.
The rising generations aren't interested in institutionalism and attractionalism. They want community. They want to know you're authentic. They want a place where they belong ... and it is honestly meant and not part of a marketing campaign. A great little book called Youth Ministry 3.0 described it much better than I do. I'd suggest that YM 3.0 would be a good read for anyone in ministry.
Give them that sense of community and they will naturally talk about it. Their enthusiasm not necessarily for the church but for Christ is contagious. It spreads into a desire to serve or to support the service of others.
The sad thing is that I can see that community in mission creates a response. I still don't see how we get there from where we are. Sacred cows are going to have to be sacrificed. Maybe (speaking in youth ministry terms) youth group isn't a Wednesday night or Sunday night big program, but a bunch of smaller groups that meet with a trusted mentor on a regular basis. Maybe we get rid of Sunday School. ;).
Oh, well. In retrospect, I'm not sure this added anything to the conversation ...
By the way, that last comment was from me. For some reason when I use OpenID, it links to my user name at my blog ... which is just what I want the world to see.
Tammie
Tammie,
Would something like this be a youth community you would see as being a step in the right direction?
http://www.emergentvillage.com/weblog/green-story
This is the youth community we have and a little write up I did on how their organic ways fed back and reshaped our ways in the sunday worship gatherings.
I am all for simple, missional church, and understand the failure and dangers of institutionalism and an attraction-only mindset. But as I read down through the comments on this post, I realize how easy it is to drift back into mechanics... "Let's change the terminology, or let's ditch this or that program..."
That's not the solution. The solution is incarnation, and it's going to look different in every setting, depending on the wiring and experiences of the leaders, and on how they exegete the slice of culture they have their eyes on and then choose to incarnate Jesus and his message. So as we identify the failures of the church in her past, let's be careful not set up a new overly-narrow set of parameters for what constitutes an authentic church.
I also see how easy it is to start to generalize about our culture... people want this, they don't want that, they all think this, they all think that. It isn't true. Even Frost and Hirsch's M1, M2, M3 etc., can be further broken down into smaller groupings with differences from one another in experience and perception and ideas. When I look at the last 4 couples I have visited with who are new to our church community, there are huge differences in their perceptions of church, Christianity, and life. The lesson is that it's not one-size-fits all, which is why incarnational ministry is a contact sport-- you only know where they are coming from if in fact you know them. The other reminder this gives us is that even if you craft the perfect simple missional community, the church down the street you disdain will impact some people for Jesus that you never will.
I have been reading this discussion. I am not registered as a FOLLOWER but I would simply add that I believe Fran Leeman's most recent post reflects my sentiments in large part. I am a pastor who has attempted to help turn churches from an inwad focus, traditional to outward focus missional congregations. It is neither easy nor perfect, but I believe that if your church leadership begins pursuing the idea of letting the Holy Spirit truly be the leader--a lot of "mechanics" are cared for including repentance and transformation.
we are going through some of these changes right now.
They are hard - very hard. But once there is a collective discontent with business as usual, I believe that we are open to a change.
No doubt it will continue to be hard.
Simple but hard seems to charactarize the Christian life.
In my office I have picture of the Eiffel Tower during its construction over a period of a year. It is a reminder that it was constructed rivet by rivet. Each one of us responding has been riveting and will continue to do so. We will eventually reach what Reggie McNeal refers to as critical mass. He also added it takes about ten years to reach critical mass This is not mean to discourage but to encourage.
I would like to see things happen more quickly but even in agriculture things take time. We can get zucchini in a few months but a good wine comes after a long process.
(Don't you appreciate the mixed metaphors?)
i think there's been a lot of good things said here, so i'll try to be concise and not repetitive.
going back to the original video, i think the general point it's trying to get across, of going into the community instead of failed attempts at becoming "the next big thing" or the church equivalent of "keeping up with the jones's" is good and needed. the idea that one (or a series) of great events, with lots of bells and whistles will draw people to Christ is generally foolish, lacking in dependence on the Spirit and looks more like irreverent, silly myths than gospel truth. the going out into the community, like Jesus in His incarnation, acting missionary-esque, is generally a good change methodologically. i think you've expounded on this well, so i'll leave it there.
however, the video stops short of the real goal. being on a mission is good, but we have to remember what the mission is about. it's not about just going out to people with the gospel: that's the means, not the end.
the end is the glory of God through the transformed lives of His people working out His will in His Kingdom. or whatever other way you want to summarize that.
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