Well, I guess it's time I started to unpack some of those pairs. I'll begin with two that are closely related:
Community Focused vs. Internally Focused
The modern church has become a monument to itself. Its facilities, services, programs, and ministries are 90% focused within the church, to provide support, encouragement, inspiration, and community to its members. These are not bad things, but they miss the point. The collective mission of the church is to shine the light of truth into dark places; to share hope with the hopeless, and to just generally act and talk as Jesus would for the world's benefit.
When the people of Jesus lose sight of this core mission, they begin to focus, almost exclusively on themselves. The work of real ministry is replaced with the mounting responsibility of keeping happy church members who mistakenly think the church is supposed to revolve around them. At best, the internally focused church becomes isolated from its surrounding community. At worst, it becomes exclusive and self serving.
So the first step towards becoming a missional church is to learn to think outside ourselves; to reacquaint ourselves with the fact that we serve a purpose in the world, and not just within the walls of our facilities.
Missional vs. Attractional
Of course, not all churches become so internally focused. Some are very committed to service within their communities, and to reaching people with their message. We, however, are not only concerned with whether or not the church gets outside of itself, but how it does so.
The accepted standard for church methodology is to initiate benevolent or evangelistic campaigns with the intent of attracting people back to the church. Thus, the church's focus within the surrounding community is almost exclusively on getting people back into the church. The false assumption at work here is that real church and spiritual life take place nearly exclusively within church initiated and controlled environments.
Furthermore, once the church manages to attract someone, it begins to drive a wedge between them and the communities of which they are already a part. Thus, writers like Hirsch and Frost not only characterize these churches as attractional, but extractional, inasmuch as their intent is to attract people to the programs and resources they have to offer, then extract them from their other community relationships.
We believe this creates a bit of an ivory tower. Church people develop a certain arrogance about the distinctions between who is in and who is out of their group. And the mission is compromised in the sense that, in order for people to experience the good news about Jesus, they must enter into and submit themselves to our organized religion context.
In response, we are sorting out what it means to be genuinely missional, in the sense that getting people back to our facilities or into our programs is not a primary goal, and may not even be important. The missional church functions on a sending model. We are learning to see ourseves as sent out into the community, to connect with people, be a positive influence, and, when given the opportunity, to share the source of our hope.
We don't want to extract people from their current community ties. In fact, we would love it if they began to value Jesus themselves and share that discovery with others they know.
Church, then, becomes not a place to go to or a meeting to attend, but something that simply happens in the context of relationship and communities.
Blessings,
Doug
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Outlining the Change
We are entering into a phase in our process where, it seems to me, recruitment is the order of the day. We need the help of mission minded people to move forward, and we are seeking them from the outside and the inside. From the outside, we are seeking what you might call "suburban missionaries;" people who will be invigorated by our missional call, and will join us in the endeavor, even if it means changing homes and jobs to do so. We might consider such a call extreme in a domestic context, where missional efforts are generally viewed as secondary to our "real life concerns." But we are looking at our context as no different than a foreign mission field. Relocating and developing your own means of support is not at all unusual for someone going to another country to serve, so why should it be different here? This mission field is in great need of such people; people whose presence is motivated specifically by the mission.
The arrival of missional people from outside our immediate fellowship will, we believe, also aid our efforts to recruit from within the fellowship. The problem, in short, is that we are all way too comfortable with church as we have known it. And that has not required of us much in the way of commitment or sacrifice. Again, the objective is to retrain ourselves to think as we would if we were missionaries in a foreign place. In that context, the work of the mission is front and center. Careers, accommodations and other resources exist in service of the mission. The church as we have known it has never held such expectations of us, and has often actually encouraged us to think of ourselves and our own selfish desires before the mission. Consequently, a great many well meaning Christians maintain the notion that "once I've obtained my arbitrary markers of personal success, I will be in a position to give, serve, etc." This is a sort of American ideal of Christianity: one in which I enjoy such personal affluence that whatever time or financial resources I commit to following Jesus does not really register as a sacrifice on my part. Such assumptions, I would argue, are incompatible with mission.
Recruitment raises a challenge for us, in that it requires that we be able to communicate the mission in a relatively succinct manner. On the surface, this may not seem like that big of a problem, but I've found it very difficult, because our experience of the church as we have known it is so second nature to us that we tend to filter all our information through it. So, if I say our goal is to be more missional, religious people tend to think of mission as they've known it: "My church supports missionaries in Thailand and Bolivia, and we sponsored a community outreach campaign last year." These may be good things, but they do not capture the spirit of what we mean by the term missional. Even my unchurched friends tend to filter what I am saying through the lens of their assumptions and experience of organized religion.
So, it simply isn't enough to state what we are trying to be; we really have to contrast what we seek to become against the status quo alternative. I've done some of that already in this blog, but now I feel the need to become more intentional about it.
What follows is not, at this point, a final draft of these notions, but rather a very rough draft of our emerging mission, as characterized by pairs of opposing ideologies and methodologies. In each pair, the first term represents the church as we believe Jesus intended, which is what we seek to become, and the second represents what the church as we have known it has generally been. Some of these terms I've talked about in earlier posts. The rest I will try to elaborate on in the future. Anyway, here we go. We seek to become:
Community Focused vs. Internally Focused
Missional vs. Attractional
Organic vs. Institutional
Disciples vs. Religious Members
Christocentric vs. Denominational
Incarnational vs. Indoctrinational
Adaptive and Contextual vs. Assumptive and Legalistic
At this point, I'm thinking these seven categories might capture it, but I'm fairly certain I will change my mind about that. As I build on these ideas, I would certainly welcome questions and suggestions.
Blessings,
Doug
The arrival of missional people from outside our immediate fellowship will, we believe, also aid our efforts to recruit from within the fellowship. The problem, in short, is that we are all way too comfortable with church as we have known it. And that has not required of us much in the way of commitment or sacrifice. Again, the objective is to retrain ourselves to think as we would if we were missionaries in a foreign place. In that context, the work of the mission is front and center. Careers, accommodations and other resources exist in service of the mission. The church as we have known it has never held such expectations of us, and has often actually encouraged us to think of ourselves and our own selfish desires before the mission. Consequently, a great many well meaning Christians maintain the notion that "once I've obtained my arbitrary markers of personal success, I will be in a position to give, serve, etc." This is a sort of American ideal of Christianity: one in which I enjoy such personal affluence that whatever time or financial resources I commit to following Jesus does not really register as a sacrifice on my part. Such assumptions, I would argue, are incompatible with mission.
Recruitment raises a challenge for us, in that it requires that we be able to communicate the mission in a relatively succinct manner. On the surface, this may not seem like that big of a problem, but I've found it very difficult, because our experience of the church as we have known it is so second nature to us that we tend to filter all our information through it. So, if I say our goal is to be more missional, religious people tend to think of mission as they've known it: "My church supports missionaries in Thailand and Bolivia, and we sponsored a community outreach campaign last year." These may be good things, but they do not capture the spirit of what we mean by the term missional. Even my unchurched friends tend to filter what I am saying through the lens of their assumptions and experience of organized religion.
So, it simply isn't enough to state what we are trying to be; we really have to contrast what we seek to become against the status quo alternative. I've done some of that already in this blog, but now I feel the need to become more intentional about it.
What follows is not, at this point, a final draft of these notions, but rather a very rough draft of our emerging mission, as characterized by pairs of opposing ideologies and methodologies. In each pair, the first term represents the church as we believe Jesus intended, which is what we seek to become, and the second represents what the church as we have known it has generally been. Some of these terms I've talked about in earlier posts. The rest I will try to elaborate on in the future. Anyway, here we go. We seek to become:
Community Focused vs. Internally Focused
Missional vs. Attractional
Organic vs. Institutional
Disciples vs. Religious Members
Christocentric vs. Denominational
Incarnational vs. Indoctrinational
Adaptive and Contextual vs. Assumptive and Legalistic
At this point, I'm thinking these seven categories might capture it, but I'm fairly certain I will change my mind about that. As I build on these ideas, I would certainly welcome questions and suggestions.
Blessings,
Doug
Friday, February 1, 2008
Breaking Out
One of the things unique about our journey here is that we are an established and modern traditional church, earnestly trying to make the shift to missional thinking. I've come into contact and read stories about many missional efforts, but most of them fall into the category of "church plants." They begin with a different premise, and the people that join the effort along the way are those who embrace that premise.
I don't have church planting experience to which I can compare it, but I do know that starting the missional shift in an existing church setting is difficult on all fronts. I encounter other church leaders who are interested in missional ideals, but more often than not they hope to apply some of these within their existing church structure. I suppose some would characterize us this way, as we retain most of our traditional elements: a church building, Sunday School, Sunday assembly, etc. Though I can say that at multiple levels we've at least been allowed to question these elements.
Hirsch and Frost, in their book The Shaping of Things to Come advocate that we ask really tough questions of ourselves, like, "If you were to start from scratch, would you build the same kind of church?" or "What would our church look like if we had to function without a building or assembly or even full time staff?"
We've been asking these kinds of questions and, to the best of our ability, allowing a safe environment to explore the possible answers. It has produced mixed results, to be honest. For some, these questions have set loose the apostolic imagination. For others, it produces great anxiety and fear. Truth be told, we still have many for whom the building and the assembly are church, though we are constantly trying to improve their definition.
The advantage we have in this process is a touch of desperation. I asked Alan Hirsch about this at a training in Denver. Alan entered into a situation in Melbourne where his hiring was a sort of last stand on the part of the church. If they couldn't turn around their decline, they knew they would have to shut the doors. I asked Alan how important that kind of desperation is to making the missional transition, and he said it was incredibly important. He challenged me to return to my congregation and carefully build the case for what the big problems are, not just in our fellowship but in the decline of modern Christianity across the board. He said that until we have accepted the problem, we will not collectively search out solutions.
So, for us, recent losses in attendance and finances have put us in a position to make changes. There is a fairly broad agreement in our congregation that we cannot continue as we have. Of course, there are a few dissenters. There are those who maintain that things are not all that bad, and that if I weren't always challenging the status quo, we wouldn't have lost the members we have, and all would be right with the world. But for the most part, our people realize you have to keep some serious blinders on to think this way. The only growing churches in our region are primarily tapping off members from other churches. There is little real growth, and very little meaningful engagement with the community. We are, as the adage goes, "preaching to the choir," because no one else is listening.
Thus, I find myself in a rather curious position. A drop in attendance and finance, which is among the greatest fears among modern church leaders, is actually the source of our opportunity. A mild desperation and a sense of urgency has opened the minds and hearts of our congregation's leaders and gatekeepers to new possibilities. These are all good people, who desire to be good disciples. But, let's face it. Few of us will make dramatic changes unless we believe we've no easier options.
As has often been pointed out to me, further losses combined with my own rhetoric about the fallacy of the institutionalized church may result in my talking myself right out of a job. And I have to admit, sometimes that fear gets the better of me. But most of the time I'm too amazed with what God seems to be doing here to spend much time agonizing about the unknowns of my professional future.
So, what exactly is happening? Well, its pretty simple, really. In fact, I'm not sure how much you would notice with a casual look. Since the missional church is an organic movement, and not an institutional approach, there are no new programs or ministries for us to refer to and highlight as "missional." Rather, there is a shift in focus. People are taking the time to build better relationships with their neighbors. They are hanging out in "third places." One of our guys started up a basketball team with a bunch of players he met at the rec center. It's all this kind of thing; people building relationships and having conversations. Not forcing Jesus into the conversation, but trying, as best we can, to represent Jesus as a community.
When we do have an organized activity, such as an upcoming Valentine's Banquet we are sponsoring, our focus is not on getting people to the church building, but on giving our members another opportunity to connect with their friends and neighbors. We encourage everyone who comes to bring a guest with them, not to sign them up for a Bible study or compel them to attend church, but just to show them a good time and to build the relationship.
It's still difficult to escape our institutional notions in defining the church, but I see us slowly opening our eyes to a whole different way of being a people of God.
Blessings,
Doug
I don't have church planting experience to which I can compare it, but I do know that starting the missional shift in an existing church setting is difficult on all fronts. I encounter other church leaders who are interested in missional ideals, but more often than not they hope to apply some of these within their existing church structure. I suppose some would characterize us this way, as we retain most of our traditional elements: a church building, Sunday School, Sunday assembly, etc. Though I can say that at multiple levels we've at least been allowed to question these elements.
Hirsch and Frost, in their book The Shaping of Things to Come advocate that we ask really tough questions of ourselves, like, "If you were to start from scratch, would you build the same kind of church?" or "What would our church look like if we had to function without a building or assembly or even full time staff?"
We've been asking these kinds of questions and, to the best of our ability, allowing a safe environment to explore the possible answers. It has produced mixed results, to be honest. For some, these questions have set loose the apostolic imagination. For others, it produces great anxiety and fear. Truth be told, we still have many for whom the building and the assembly are church, though we are constantly trying to improve their definition.
The advantage we have in this process is a touch of desperation. I asked Alan Hirsch about this at a training in Denver. Alan entered into a situation in Melbourne where his hiring was a sort of last stand on the part of the church. If they couldn't turn around their decline, they knew they would have to shut the doors. I asked Alan how important that kind of desperation is to making the missional transition, and he said it was incredibly important. He challenged me to return to my congregation and carefully build the case for what the big problems are, not just in our fellowship but in the decline of modern Christianity across the board. He said that until we have accepted the problem, we will not collectively search out solutions.
So, for us, recent losses in attendance and finances have put us in a position to make changes. There is a fairly broad agreement in our congregation that we cannot continue as we have. Of course, there are a few dissenters. There are those who maintain that things are not all that bad, and that if I weren't always challenging the status quo, we wouldn't have lost the members we have, and all would be right with the world. But for the most part, our people realize you have to keep some serious blinders on to think this way. The only growing churches in our region are primarily tapping off members from other churches. There is little real growth, and very little meaningful engagement with the community. We are, as the adage goes, "preaching to the choir," because no one else is listening.
Thus, I find myself in a rather curious position. A drop in attendance and finance, which is among the greatest fears among modern church leaders, is actually the source of our opportunity. A mild desperation and a sense of urgency has opened the minds and hearts of our congregation's leaders and gatekeepers to new possibilities. These are all good people, who desire to be good disciples. But, let's face it. Few of us will make dramatic changes unless we believe we've no easier options.
As has often been pointed out to me, further losses combined with my own rhetoric about the fallacy of the institutionalized church may result in my talking myself right out of a job. And I have to admit, sometimes that fear gets the better of me. But most of the time I'm too amazed with what God seems to be doing here to spend much time agonizing about the unknowns of my professional future.
So, what exactly is happening? Well, its pretty simple, really. In fact, I'm not sure how much you would notice with a casual look. Since the missional church is an organic movement, and not an institutional approach, there are no new programs or ministries for us to refer to and highlight as "missional." Rather, there is a shift in focus. People are taking the time to build better relationships with their neighbors. They are hanging out in "third places." One of our guys started up a basketball team with a bunch of players he met at the rec center. It's all this kind of thing; people building relationships and having conversations. Not forcing Jesus into the conversation, but trying, as best we can, to represent Jesus as a community.
When we do have an organized activity, such as an upcoming Valentine's Banquet we are sponsoring, our focus is not on getting people to the church building, but on giving our members another opportunity to connect with their friends and neighbors. We encourage everyone who comes to bring a guest with them, not to sign them up for a Bible study or compel them to attend church, but just to show them a good time and to build the relationship.
It's still difficult to escape our institutional notions in defining the church, but I see us slowly opening our eyes to a whole different way of being a people of God.
Blessings,
Doug
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