Tribes

If we were going to be missionaries, say in Kenya, we would take seriously our need of entering another land, other cultures (one or more of scores of tribes and clans and sub-cultures), learning their language, customs, ways - likes, dislikes, religious beliefs and actions, etc. We would go there - missionally, incarnationally - rather than asking them to 'come to us' - to our language, music, culture, ways, preferences, etc. (oops, we've not always got this right have we, even in our missional attempts overseas)?!

But who will reach out missionally, seeing him or herself (or the local church on this-here corner) ? - to: those of new religious movements (like New Age); those in whole communities of differently defined sexual identity (gays, lesbians, transexuals, etc.), those immersed in sports communities, those who define themselves by alternative ideologies (neo-Marxist, neofascist, eco-rats, etc), those who define themselves as metrosexuals or 'urban grunge,' etc., work types (computer geeks, hackers, designers, etc.). Or - how to be incarnationally, missionally present to at least 50 discernable youth subcultures (like: computer nerds, skaters, homies, surfies, punks, etc.) ?

Each group takes its subculture-identity with utmost seriousness, and hence any missional response to them must as well. They are as unique and different as are (in Kenya) the Kikuyu, Kamba or Masai tribes, or Somalis of the refugee-diaspora there . . .

How can one local church possibly reach out to all of the cultures around and among us ? . . .and, now, how to do that from the margins (liminally)- not any longer from the privileged, Christendom-cum-Western-Cartesian centre. No meta-story, no overarching (dominant) culture and story any longer exists for the nation. So, now what? How ?

Original Focus

C. S. Lewis once observed that "there exists in every church something that sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. So we must strive very hard, by the grace of God, to keep the church focused on the mission that Christ originally gave to it."

Time?

If we're just really busy running our churches - can we possibly have time and energy left to be missional ? Does one discount the other? . . .

Smorgasbord

Can one local, urban church possibly reach all the different kinds of people around it - a mixture of yuppies, older working-class folk, family units ('traditional' and 'non-traditional' - of all sorts and descriptions), subcultural groupings (you name it - people from other lands and ethnicities - the diaspora of the world, now present with and among us), the gay population, upper-class snobs . . . I mean, do we really have any idea what it is we're trying to do?!

Most of our churches are just reaching out (locally, if at all -- with waaayyyy overseas, of course, being the exception) to people just like them. That's not missional.

'Extractional' Models

When we focus mostly on an 'attractional model' in the shaping, programming and investments related to the ministries of local church (ie. mostly 'come to our building and participate in our programs, on our turf), then we de facto, too often, end up by really facilitating an 'extractional model.'

We take people from their families, their cultures and sub-cultures - vaccuum them out of their own neighbourhoods, cultures, families and sub-cultures (encouraging them to drive - sometimes many miles - to our excellent structures and programs and dispensation-posts of religious goods and services). We extract them from where they normally live and work and breathe, thinking that we must get them into our space so they can be counted (yea us), cared for and perhaps only then re-directed back to the people and contexts from whence they came.

Sadly, they don't 'go back' . . . we really don't expect them to, in tems of their living missionally, incarnationally in those prior contexts. We don't train them for mission there; we only help them invite others to make the trek with them to the church's services. We want them to bring others to us and we wreck their ability to be at home and office, to be incarnationally involved there, with the people in the context(s) where they themselves were first reached.

In Trouble

Frost and Hirsch, in 'The Shaping of Things to Come,' report that"around the world Christians are developing cafes, nightclubs, art galleries, design studios, football teams, etc., to facilitate proximity and interacton (with pre-Christians). If the church service is the only space where we can meaningfully interact with unbelievers, we're in trouble."

Seminal Reading

Been reading Alan Hirsch's The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church. Very helpful, potentially church-life changing . . .

From the forward: "Hirsch has discovered the formula that unlocks the secrets of the ecclesial universe like Einstein's simple . . . formula [E=mc2] unlocked the secrets of the physical universe." (Leonard Sweet)

"A fascinating and unique examination of two of the greatest apostolic movements in history (the early church - and China) and their potential impact on the Western church at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The book may well become a primary reference book for the emerging missional church." (Bill Easum)

I also recommend - Hirsch's book, co-authored with Michael Frost: The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church and, while I'm at it, Alan J. Roxburgh's The Sky is Falling: Leaders Lost in Transition.

What Next?

Loren Mead (The Once and Future Church: Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier) says: 'The dilemma of the church in this transitional time is that the shells of the old structures still surround us even though many of them no longer work.'

Some of these 'shells' are institutions, some are roles, and some are mind-sets and expectations. Whatever, these need to be acknowledged, analyzed and dealt with, if we are to move on.

New Church

The Barna group shows that millions of adults (in the US - and likely proportionately in Canada) are trying out new forms of spiritual community and worship, with many abandoning traditional forms altogether:

The study, based on interviews with more than five thousand randomly selected adults . . . found that 9% of adults attend a house church during a typical week. That remarkable growth in the past decade shoots up from just 1% to near double-digit involvement. In total, one out of five attend a house church at least once a month.

Gerard Kelly (RetroFuture: Rediscovering our Roots, Recharting our Routes) observes: "Experimental groups seeking to engage the Christian faith in a postmodern context will often lack the resources, profile or success record of the Boomer congregations. By definition, they are new, untried, relatively disorganized and fearful of self-promotion. They reject the corporate model of their Boomer forebears, and thus do not appear, according to existing paradigms, to be significant. But somewhere in the genesis and genius of these diverse groups is hidden the future of Western Christianity. To dismiss them is to throw away the seeds of our survival."

Conversations . . .

Pop culture: a bunch of conversations intermingling, fighting for attention ...

Perfect Storm

At our annual Convention assembly, last week, keynote speaker Leonard Sweet spoke very practically, provocatively and prophetically. At one juncture he used the metaphor of our (the Church) being in a 'perfect storm' (yes, like the movie) in which three major systems of change have come together: unprecedented as . . .the Tsunami of Postmodernity, the Tornado of post-Christendom and the Hurricane of Change of 'Scale.'

Very helpfully, Sweet himself continues to venture into the deepest part of the storm, challenging us to see that our Lord Jesus, who having already overcome, is on the other side of the mountainous wave (in Spirit with us, yes) - and also calling us to come to Him there.

In this day - for this day, we were born - we struggling, straggling, still-trying-to-be-faithful gaggle of Jesus-followers.