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.