Old Church Model ‘Killing the West’ -Journal Article Review
Old Church Model ‘Killing the West’ | Christianpost.com
This is a pretty light article… simply reporting on what is being said a conference in Texas, but there is a challenging quote from Leonard Sweet. He says, “The “Achilles’ heel” of the church is the practice of attractional Christianity. “It’s all ‘come and see’ and not ‘go and be,’”
I agree with this quote, but it certainly challenges what has long been defined as “church”. The Augsburg Confession says, “The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.” Other translations replace, “congregation of saints” with “gathering of believers”. I would not argue that this is a faulty definition of church. In fact, I would claim quite the contrary. I do wonder, however, if we might need to reconsider what constitutes the “gathering of believers”. It is good to come together as the congregation. I love to worship with my brothers and sisters on Sunday mornings (or whenever). This Sunday morning gathering has long been a place where the Word is consistently proclaimed in my life, and where I am fed by Christ’s presence in the sacrament. But are there other ways that we can be the Church in the manner described in the AC outside of Sunday morning? The challenge comes, I think in our clerical control of the administration of the sacraments. Is there a way that we as clergy might “faithfully administer” by equipping the “laity”?
If Sweet is right… and I think he is… is this realization of Church possible under the structure and systems that exist in the larger church?
Five Streams of the Emerging Church - Article Review
The emerging church is a challenging “movement” to define. In fact, most involved in what is labeled as “emerging” would argue that it is not a movement at all, but simply a conversation. Add to this the organization “Emergent”, which has become a prominent voice in the conversation because of their published works, speaking engagements, etc. and the emerging church remains elusive to anyone seeking a nice, neat label.
Scot McKnight is a professor of religious studies at North Park Theological Seminary, the author of several books, and one of the most widely read bloggers in the emerging church. He self-identifies with the emerging church, but admittedly struggles at times to maintain his evangelical identity in the midst of that which is emerging. In this article, McKnight identifies what he calls “Five Streams of the Emerging Movement”
- PROPHETIC (OR AT LEAST PROVOCATIVE) - This stream, according to McKnight, believes that things in the church need to change and they live like they already have. He also admits this stream has a tendency to exaggerate to make a point. For example, Peter Rollins (author of How Not to Speak of God) says, “Thus, orthodoxy is no longer (mis)understood as the opposite of heresy but rather is understood as a term that signals a way of being in the world rather than a means of believing things about the world.” This kind of statement, McKnight says, “makes its point, but it sometimes divides.”
- POSTMODERN - McKnight describes this stream first by defining postmodernism, no simply as a denial of truth, but as, “the collapse of metanarratives (overarching explanations of life) like those of science and Marxism.” It is not as much, as some believe, that postmoderns do not believe in absolute truth, rather that thruth cannot be known absolutely. This stream can be further subdivided into categories defined by Doug Pagitt: 1) Those who will minister to postmoderns, 2) Those who will minister with postmoderns, and 3) Those who will minister as postmoderns. The distinctions are subtle, but important. The first two categories imply that postmodernism is something to be opposed and ministered to… like an affliction of sorts. The third category does not seek to change/cure a person of their postmodernity, rather it accepts it as an acceptable existance and asks the question of how to live faithfully as a postmodern.
- PRAXIS ORIENTED - Simply described, this stream is mostly concerned with how the faith is being lived out. While other streams are challenging long-standing theological understandings, the praxis oriented stream is primarily concerned with authentic faith being represented in it worship, orthopraxy, and missional orientation.
- POST-EVANGELICAL - This stream is , “a protest against much of evangelicalism as currently practiced…This stream flows from the conviction that the church must always be reforming itself.” McKnight further identifies this stream as 1)Post-systematic theology, meaning that god did not offer a systematic theology to capture who God is, but a “storied narrative.” 2) Post-In Versus Out. Emerging churches tend to be less interested in separating the “sheep from the goats”, per se. McKnight sees this as a weakness. He says, “This emerging ambivalence about who is in and who is out creates a serious problem for evangelism.”
- POLITICAL - The emerging movement often gets labled as “left-wing” politcally because of its strong emphasis on social justice issues. Emerging leaders/churches have been active in politics, garnering significant criticism from those who say that the church should not be involoved in politics. McKnight, simply calls for a proper balance, maintaining a distinction between the social gospel and the spiritual gospel.
This article identifies some helpful markers of the emerging movement, but in all I’m not sure that the categories are particularly helpful. Most of my experience has been that those in the emerging movement do not fit exclusively into any one of these streams, but are a mixture (sometimes changing) of all of the above. This article was yet another attempt at the elusive defninition the emerging church that makes some helpful points, but doesn’t quite get there.
McKnight, Scot; Christianity Today; Feb 2007, Vol. 51 Issue 2, p 34-39
Technology and the Church
I am very interested in the use of electronic media and technology in the church. Yesterday I came across this short bog post that sparked a few thoughts.
Click Here for the full post.
Mark Batterson is the Sr. Pastor at National Community Church in Washington DC. They are a large multi-site church that meets in movie theaters along metro stops around DC. The only permanent meeting space they have is a coffee shop called “Ebenezer’s” on Capitol Hill. Last year I spoke to one of their pastors who shared that their primary evangelism efforts are done via internet. He called it “e-vangelism”. They are very intentionally going into the “virtual” world where people spend ridiculous amounts of time and trying to connect with them through the internet. They webcast their service as part of that outreach.
I don’t believe that watching a webcast of a worship service is anywhere near the same experience as physically gathering in worship, but I also think that we might learn something from those folks who are using this powerful medium of the internet to plant the seeds of relationships. In the blog post Batterson says,
“For what it’s worth, 54% of our attenders visited theaterchurch.com before coming to a service. This is old news but a healthy reminder: your website is the front door to your church! It’s your first impression. Especially with our demographic–about 66% of NCCers are single twenty-somethings.”
Those stats are particularly striking to me considering the results of the recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Our natural tendency as human beings, I think, is to look at technology and immediately (and sometimes only) consider what it is going to make obsolete because it often threatens our comfort zone. Email is going to make snail mail obsolete…electronic books are going to make “real” books obsolete… chat rooms are going to make face-to-face conversations obsolete…PowerPoint is going to make hymnals obsolete…etc. There are certainly cases where this is true. The new medium is simply more effective or more efficient than the old and the old becomes obsolete. Cassette certainly made 8-track tapes and Vinyl (although some would argue vinyl has never adequately been replaced) obsolete and then CDs have done the same to cassettes. The question of what a particular technology or medium will obsolesce, however, is only one question to ask of our media and technology. Marshall McLuhan (google him if you don’t know who he is) identified four things to consider when evaluating the use of any technology:
- Determine what the technology enhances.
- Find out what, if anything, the technology makes obsolete.
- Figure out what the technology retrieves.
- Determine what the technology reverts into when pushed to the limit.
I think all of these are important to consider when we think of using technology in the church or in any frame of life. Looking again at the internet, you would be hard pressed to find any church leader that would say the preferred way to be the church is on the internet. Even LifeChurch.TV who has an “internet campus” ultimately views the internet as a means to make connections with people that will hopefully lead to face-to-face meetups. Going back to the question of “what does this technology obsolesce?” If this is the only thing we consider in our use of technology, then we may miss the possibility of what that same technology might enhance or retrieve that was lost with the use of any prior technology.
This is turning into a book. Sorry. If you want to read a book on the subject, I highly recommend The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church by Shane Hipps.
What do we value?
I came across this article today: Former Denny’s declared landmark - USATODAY.comBasically there is a building in Seattle that is being protected from demolition because a local preservation organization fought to have declared a local landmark… and succeeded. It turns out that the architecture of the building is in the “Googie” style, which is the same style as the famous Seattle Space Needle (and every Stuckey’s at highway exits across North America). The building is in pretty bad shape and the landmark status doesn’t require the owner to restore the building so he plans to let it remain in disrepair. His plan, until meeting this recent roadblock was to demolish the building and build condos. “‘We’ve heard the arguments before from people saying it’s ugly, it’s
this, it’s that,’ says Eugenia Woo, a preservation consultant who
worked to save the Denny’s. ‘We’re not just looking at high-style
buildings or buildings for the rich and famous as buildings that should
be preserved. Seattle was a working-class city, and Ballard’s history
comes from that.’”
This whole thing got me thinking a lot about the things to which attribute value. Obviously, some people really care about things like a dilapidated Denny’s enough to halt “progress” (I’m not sure if building condos really counts as progress…but whatever.) Or maybe they don’t care and it’s just a ploy to prevent the condos from being built. Whatever the case, I wonder what we cling to as the Church that might better serve the kingdom if it was knocked down to make room for something new. I hesitantly type those words because I certainly do not want to promote simply scrapping what appears to be old for the sake of whatever new trend might be gaining momentum. I am really trying to consider this with consideration for the Kingdom. For the folks that fought to save this Denny’s, its style is symbolic of what they value…the historic working-class nature of that particular community. They are not willing to part with that as a piece of their identity. As the Church, what are we not willing to part with? What defines us to the point that we cannot imagine ourselves as the Church apart from it? In theory its pretty easy to set aside most things and claim that we will follow however Jesus leads. In reality, however, there are local churches all around us that are stuck partially because their identity is wrapped up in something that is no longer life giving. Do we define ourselves by our buildings or our programs or our theology? What are some other things that impede progress? Are we even to be concerned with progress? What is it that we should rightfully stand in front of the wrecking ball for, and what is it that we are doing so that doesn’t really matter in the long run?
What tools have you found useful?
I’m always curious as to what folks are using to keep there lives in order or to work more efficiently or things that are just functional and cool. These can be online tools, gadgets, whatever. What do you use and how do you use it?
Defining Missional and Organic
This was a helpful article from Alan Hirsch
http://www.christianitytoday.com/smallgroups/articles/smallgroupmissionofgod.html
He offers some good clarification of over-used (yet often misunderstood) terms. IE:
What does the term missional mean to you?
Well, that’s one of those very difficult terms because it’s so widely used. But for me, it primarily refers to a church that organizes itself around the mission of God, or the misseo dei, which refers to God’s involvement in the world—his redeeming it to himself. In The Forgotten Ways, I say that it’s not so much that the church has a mission, but that the mission has a church. So when I think of the term “missional church,” it’s in that order—that a church has somehow bonded itself or identified itself as a primary agent of the mission of God in the world.
What about the term organic?
Of course that one has been made famous by Neil Cole, but organic for me is the idea that human organizations—just like living systems—are made up of very complex structures, and they have a life of their own. It’s a term that’s in contrast to a more mechanistic view of organization. So when I refer to organic systems, I’m thinking of a type of leadership and organization that is closer to the rhythms and structures of life itself.
An organic church goes with the natural flow of things. It doesn’t try to perpetuate its life beyond what it’s meant to be, which is different than most organizations. Most organizations tend to assume that once they’ve been started, they need to be perpetuated continually.
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I found these definitions useful. As I continue to study the “missional church” I am amazed at how many fundamentally different definitions there are floating out there. This quote, “it’s not so much that the church has a mission, but that the mission has a church” I believe identifies a very real issue for many churches. Church leaders will spend countless hours and meetings hashing out the details of a mission statement for the church when truly the mission has already been given to us by God. Maybe we should spend those hours trying to figure out how we can best partner with God in God’s mission instead.
I’m a cartoon!
Just found out about an interesting web tool(?) called bitstrips that is actually quite versatile in creating avatars and then building comic strips. I’m not sure what use I really have for it, but it sure is fun to think I can be a cartoon any time I want.
The Plan So Far
My last post was a brief spot about vision. As much as I am an idealist when it comes to what the vision of the Church should be, I know that there are some practical realities I have to prepare for. It is important to lead with purpose and direction while remaining open to the movement of the Holy Spirit for course correction along the way. So, I am beginningto develop a plan for the first six months (I’m still not exactly sure when we will hit the ground there…hoping for some confirmation soon)and here’s what I have so far:
PURPOSE AND GUIDING PRINCIPLES
The Church: To join in God’s redemptive mission in the world.
Pastoral/Leadership: To faithfully proclaim the gospel and administer the sacraments. To equip God’s people for ministry.
Personal:
- Trust in God’s provision
- Pray fervently
- Listen deeply
- Prepare well
Team Facilitation:
(Identification) Be present and active in the community by serving as a volunteer at Bain Elementary School (a potential large gathering space in the middle of Mint Hill). Meet people by attending and participating in local community events (specific events are not yet identified). Become a familiar presence at local community gathering spots such as Jimmie’s Restaurant and Freshly Brewed Coffeehouse (also a potential small gathering space).
(Identification) Plant seeds for partnership relationships with local congregations who might provide prayer support, financial support and/or “missionaries” from their congregation to provide initial leadership and critical mass to begin
(Training) As potential leaders are identified we will commit to meeting regularly to pray and vision and identify practical steps forward.
(Facilitate) Establish clear, effective lines of communication for ongoing conversation, visioning, and planning efforts. The challenge is to get things done while not further “busy” people’s already busy lives. I will make every effort to communicate through one-to-one conversations, regular meetings, and through online technology.
AREAS OF FOCUS FOR THE NEXT SIX MONTHS
PASSIONATE SPIRITUALITY
Action Plan:
- Meet regularly with a spiritual director
- Remain committed to daily time in scripture/prayer/worship
- Remember the sabbath and keep it holy
- Begin a weekly home Bible study/small group worship gathering with those who show interest in being part of the church community.
LOVING RELATIONSHIPS
Action Plan:
- Model loving relationships by putting my family first and faithfully spending time simply playing together
- Invite families/individuals to spend time with our family in social settings…without focusing on “church stuff”.
GIFT ORIENTED MINISTRY
Action Plan:
- Regularly encourage people to complete a “spiritual gifts” identification tool, followed up by visioning/dreaming about how they might use their identified gifts for ministry.
Other key action plans “the 1st 6 months”)
- The following initiatives have high priority in the next 6 months
- Identify a “person of peace” in the local community who God has placed there to be a welcoming presence in my life
- Get to know the community by walking the neighborhoods as an active observer. Use the Community Mapping Tool to help gather and process information.
- Begin to meet with other area congregations to build relationships with area clergy and begin to invite prayer support. Plant seeds for consideration of additional support (financial, people, etc.)
- Develop an internet community website (including a blog, podcast, community forums, social networking) to begin building relationships with people in the community and invite questions and conversation.
- Listen attentively to Holy Spirit and pray intently for the community, seeking how I might best begin to participate in furthering God’s mission in Southeast Charlotte.
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That’s what I have so far. It is certainly a rough draft and certainly a work in progress. I would love some input from those who have been out in the field. What is missing? What needs tweaking? What is way off base? What is good?
What is my vision for the Church?
I think this is the question I get the most when people find out that I want to start a new church. “What is it going to look like…how are you going to do things?” I’m never quite sure how to answer this question. Sure, I have some things that I value and a lot of ideas about how I would like to lead and approach things, but ultimately what I want the Church to look like is Jesus. I know that sounds like a cop-out or over spiritual or whatever you might call it, but I really believe that the “vision” for the church should be Jesus. What if our primary goal as community of faith was to look deeply at the way Jesus lived and called us to live, and then actually went about trying to do it? I am really excited about the future and seeing how things will come together. Maybe we can give folks even the slighest glimpse of what Jesus is like.
Tags: jesus, the church, vision, pastor, planting
Was anyone else disturbed by "The Big Give”?
Last night we watched Oprah’s new show called, “The Big Give”. The basic premise is that 10 people are traveling around the country and each week they are given a task that involves helping someone in need. This part is good…I’m all for helping people. But then here is the kicker. The motto of the show is “Give big or go home!” The contestants are judged on their performance and each week one of them who didn’t “bring it” on the same level as the others is sent packing. It’s “Good Samaritan Survivor”. The other kicker is that the contestants do not know that the “winner” of “The Big Give” will be rewarded with $1,000,000 for their efforts.
I’m just not sure how I feel about turning helping others into a game show. The contestants have chosen to participate for a number of reasons from the contestant who says, “You can either get a boob job, get Botox or truly turn your life around…I really want to change my direction now. I want the next half of my life to be about giving back because I’ve been so blessed.” to the one who says, “As a young entrepreneur, I’ve been giving since I was 10 years old, and this was an opportunity to continue that on a much larger scale.” I think the cast, for the most part, has sincere motives (and I am happy to give them the benefit of the doubt)… I’m not even sure I can find words to describe why I was so bugged. I guess I wonder if the show would be compelling enough if it was just about folks doing good things for people motivated by love. Do we really need the soap opera, reality TV conflict drama to make the story watchable? Do we need to watch the “judges” harshly critique their performance, or would it be more beneficial to those learning to give and those recipients of the giving if folks would just pool together and help instead of standing on the outside “judging”?
Did anyone else see the show? What were your thoughts?
