So, what on earth is the church?

For many of us, church has been something we have lived with and around for much of our lives. And this is a good thing, because the community of faith is meant to be a living community of God’s people. But the problem is that hanging around it for so long we get to assume that we actually know what it is–what exactly makes it the church. Having been in it for such a long time actually makes it increasingly hard to ’see’ and therefore define. Kinda like a fish trying to describe the water it swims in. But getting to grips with missionality and missional church requires that we first get to grips with what the ecclesia really is.

So coming out of my own story, and assuming the role of the Spirit and the Bible (because without these you cannot even know Jesus truly) I came up with the following functional ‘definition’ of what ecclesia is comprised of.

A church is….

A covenanted community: A church is formed people not by people just hanging out together, but ones bound together in a distinctive bond. There is a certain obligation toward one another formed around a covenant.
Centered on Jesus: He is the new covenant with God and he thus forms as the true epicentre of an authentic Christ-ian faith. An ecclesia is not just a God-community—there are many such religious communities around. We are defined by our relationship to the second person of the Trinity, the Mediator, Jesus Christ. A covenant community centered around Jesus participates in the salvation that he brings. We receive the grace of God in Him. But, more is required to truly constitute a church….

A true encounter with God in Jesus must result in

Worship; defined as offering our lives back to God through Jesus.
Discipleship; defined as following Jesus and becoming increasingly like him (Christlikeness.)
Mission; defined as extending the mission (the redemptive purposes) of God through the activities of his people.

It needs to be noted that in practice, as well as theologically, these are profoundly inter-linked and inform each other to create a complex phenomenon called ‘church.’

This definition is important for me because it distills the core aspects of what constitutes a faith ecclesia. Graphically represented it might look something like this…

So what’s in a definition? Actually the way we define church is crucial because it gives us a direct clue to the critical elements of authentic Christian community. It also highlights for us the major responses that constitute Christian spirituality, namely worship, discipleship, and mission. We will be weighed up by God on the basis of the innate purpose of the church and thus our capacity to

Center our common life on Jesus (see post on this)
Cultivate covenant community
Make disciples: people who are learning how, and what it means, to become Christlike.
Engage in his mission to the world: which is our mission (his purposes flow through us) and,
The authenticity, depth and breadth, of our worship.

If we were not fruitful in these areas then we cannot claim to be a faithful church as God intended us to be. So the definition serves as a test of fruitfulness and a guide to the kind of activities we need to pursue to remain true to our calling as God’s people.

How do you sit with this definition? What would you add/subtract? Have any of you got similar ways to test fruitfulness in a church?

December 28, 2006 | Filed Under missional church, the forgotten ways |

Comments

44 Responses to “So, what on earth is the church?”

Matt Tew on December 29th, 2006 12:19 am

Heck. Why not just throw in ‘ministry’ as well to make in an even five, and then make a fancy acronym or alliteration with your five purposes, er, ‘critical elements of authentic Christian community’

Seriously though, these are clearly the outworkings of a happening community, but as the Reverend Warren himself warns, we must be careful of attempting to imititate the outworkings without understanding God’s unique direction for our community. I reckon these things can only happen with a) A passionate love of God and b) Loving others more than ourselves.
Bob Carder on December 29th, 2006 7:40 am

Alan, hate to be the party pooper but(t)! No pun intended!

As a disciple grows in Christlikeness does that mean we do what Jesus did and commands us to do?

Does that mean all disciples are to make disciples who make disciples? Why? Why not?

Can you flesh out “engaging His mission”? It seems vague at least here. For those who are stuck in muck of Americanized Churchiology it will fly over their heads and they will likely say, “we do that already”. Something seems to be assumed but not said here in this definition.

Tell me if I am wrong, in your opinion, for Christ followers to believe that the making of disciples is the mission. If it is not, then I wonder how missional transformation can happen in without it being the main thing.

I also wonder that if the main thing is not “being fruitful and multiplying” in the spiritual sense, than I missed something as this theme is carried from Genesis on through with the culmination given in the Great Commission “make disciples” or “be fruitful and multiply”. If you did a quick review of scripture you would see that all the key players in the Old Testament we given the command to “be fruitful and multiply” and then following the resurrection Jesus gave it to all of us, “Go and make disciples, baptizing and teaching them to obey.”

Do you think you have taken the new paradigm out far enough. Isn’t our problem more about us and less or not about Jesus and His mission? How will your definition move us out and into the fulfillment of the purposes of God found in the Great Commission which is all inclusive of all commands.
“Teach them to obey all things I have commanded.”

Do you think it is possible that the answer for failing American Christianity lies in the simply but powerful words of Jesus in Matthew 28:19,20 ? If we owned and lived this powerful commission wouldn’t it solve everything? I know - the church would never go for that. Or, would they?

Matt: Rick Warren adds to the problem we face. Here we have yet another let’s do the five and the five ends up keeping us busy in the church and missing in the world. Again if the Mission is the main thing and the mission is making disciples multiplying than how can Warren be correct to put everything on the same level thus changing nothing but our “Awareness” Where and when did “implementation” outside of the church happen without a programmed outreach deal. Are we not all to live incarnationally in the world? Than why are we not?

Now I invite all to beat me up and have some fun!
Bob Carder on December 29th, 2006 7:43 am

Oh, I know that no one said the mission is the main thing - I said that. Why would I be wrong in saying that and living that?
Alan Hirsch on December 29th, 2006 11:29 am

Matt, the last thing I want to produce is a five point anacronym. Too easy–and I fully understand how that can appear this way here. Why I say ‘critical elements’ is that these become (for me at least) the irreducable minimum of what constitutes a functioning ecclesia. Any less than these means that we are falling short of what God intended with his church. And I do think ministry plays in to the area of covenant community (the ‘one-another-ness’ of community.)

And Bob, I know that many would claim to be on the journey to Christlikeness, but in a previous blog ( http://www.theforgottenways.org/blog/22 ) we had a really hard look at that, and will really dig in when we get to the mDNA of “Jesus is Lord”. To really become like the ‘real Jesus’ results in disturbingly revolutionary behavior, especially within a middleclass setting. I mean, taking Jesus seriously and becoming like Him is the most dangerous thing a person can do. Our real problem is that we have forgotten what folowing Jesus, and becoming like Him, really means.
Bill Wilkie on December 29th, 2006 11:30 am

I appreciated Bob Carder’s comments; however, I believe that the ORIGINAL COMMISSION in Genesis chapter 1 had four elements not just two elements:

“multiply, fill, subdue and rule.”

This was God’s charge to mankind and composed his work in this world. Why have we left out the last two functions. Some deep thinkers call this the “Cultural Mandate.” But I think it is what is expected. The mission seems to extend beyond the way we are defining missional today.

In Matthew 28 , the unit to disciple is the NATION. Could it be that discipling implies:

1. Disciple Individuals: change heart and behavior.
2. Disciple Institutions: transform values, policies and practices
3. Disciple a Nation: create new institutions with appropriate values, policies, practices and structures.

The real tentmaker today is called by God to work in their profession as the center for fulfulling the Original Commission.

The OT has a lot of “Nation Building” in the material including the 40 year wilderness experience. You might reference Landa Cope’s http://www.ottemplate.org for an interesting perspective on DOMAINS from a dedicated evangelical with YWAM.
Matt Tew on December 29th, 2006 11:44 am

Bob, you must’ve missed what I thought was clear sarcasm in my post.

I was attempting to illustrate that I was suprised that Alan would come up with something so purpose-driven-esqe. Even the act of attempting to put such a list together seems to be against the flow of what I would have expected.

My point is that in preparing such definitions, we put ourselves in danger of creating a model to follow. Even creating a model that focuses on discipleship can inherit such problems.

I’ve witnessed a discipleship focused ministy talk about the fruitlessness of preaching (while preaching, might I add) to a church in Kibera slums in Niarobi, as if it was the most important thing for them to learn. I’ve sat in the office of a man who’s life’s passion is to share on the virtues of discipleship and had him tell me that if my friend doesn’t submit to a particular passage of scripture after a while, then abandon them because I’m wasting my time. Simply put - my friend didn’t fit into his discipleship process, so they had no part in the Kingdom.

Discipleship is clearly central to Jesus’ message and mission, but my point is the same as for Alan’s principles - if we put process above the message then we fail by default.
Alan Hirsch on December 29th, 2006 1:09 pm

But Matt. if we fail to have some form of criteria by which we assess ourselves, then we might well miss the mark. If you read the first chapter (as per sample download) you will see how I came to those conclusions. By focussing on non essentials we missed the mark in making disciples. And in the end this undermined us totally. Reminds me of that little vignette in Alice in Wonderland.

“Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?” asked Alice.
“That depends a great deal on where you want to go”, said the Cat.
“I don’t care where” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you walk.” said the Cat”
Alan Hirsch on December 29th, 2006 1:09 pm

Just another thing:

One of my favorte questions I like asking a group of people is “is a can opener a can opener if it can’t open cans anymore?’ And after a while conversation around he question distills to the issues of form/essense vs. function/fruitfulness. Is something what it appears to be because of its essence/form, or is it purely a functional thing. And then we ask the question of the church…’Is the church a church if it oen’t do what churches are meant to do in the first place?’ Now that’s a doozy of a question! Why? Because it gets us to the root of the issue. What is the purpose/function of the church? And what are the meaning of the parables of judgement that relate to our essential fruitfulness or lack of it? For my part, I think the bible read within the Hebraic worldview commits us primarily to the functional side of the equation. Rev 1-3 is based on this, as are the parables of judgement, John 15 , and the whole concept of judgement taken as a whole. Fruitfulness is vital in the equation.

And back to my point. If we don’t know our basic purposes, then we won’t fulfill them.
Matt Tew on December 29th, 2006 2:48 pm

Ah, but is the church supposed to ‘do’, or is it supposed to ‘be’?

It seems to me that the benchmarks God places on us as believers are on character and not function. The fruit of the spirit are Love, Joy, Peace etc, and not ‘Helping the poor’, ‘healing the sick’ etc.

Now, I realise that the helping the poor and healing the sick are outworkings of these fruit, but they cannot be the benchmark for judging their existance. It is possible to have these outworkings without the fruit, as apparent in Matthew 7:22-23 and 1 Corinthans 13.

The same suggestion goes for the church - we will be known for our love for each other, not how well we worship together.

I’m not trying to say that we don’t set ourselves measures. I think that it is important. And I think that it is clear that if we aren’t mission-focused, for example, then we haven’t got things in the right perspective. But at this point we need to change our perspective, not simply start a missions work.

If my skin starts peeling off, gluing it back on won’t fix the problem. If I build a mannequin, because that’s how someone tells me a person looks, then I haven’t built a person. The trap, which I know is not the point of your article, is that someone, somewhere will try to build something that looks like a church based on your ‘blueprints’. But this isn’t how you build a church.

If I need a serious reason for my posts- then it is this - to add a disclaimer that what was a great article was not intended as a guide (I hope) on how to build a church. But in reality, I was just pointing out how funny it was that you pretty much summarised the ‘Purpose Driven Church’ (the modern, institutional handbook for church growth) and you possibly didn’t realise it.
Matt Tew on December 29th, 2006 2:58 pm

And to be just a little more annoying, compare your diagram to the classic purpose-driven baseball diamond.
Alan Hirsch on December 29th, 2006 3:14 pm

Well insofar that the ground is covered by such diamonds or anything else Matt, I can accept that they contain real truth. The missional church, or any expression of church, has onl got partial grasp on truth. Kinda like the blnd people trying to describe the elephant by grasping different parts of the animal’s body. The parallels don’t distub me as much as they seem to disturb you. But let me be clear here, that I am defintely not trying to give people a pragmatic five-step program for church develpment here. There are very, very, few ‘formulas’ I would hold to and this is certainly not one of them. For me this goes to how can we be faithful and be church at the same time. And I do take a very distinctive missional perspective on everything. Just because a mouse and an elephant (to stay with our Elly for a while) have each got four legs, a tail, a mouth, etc. does not make them the same animal. I do not approach any issues I face from a church growth perspective. This changes everything. Matt, read the story out of which these reflections com and perhaps it will make sense. Tell me if it changes your objections. You can get the download here.
Bob Carder on December 29th, 2006 3:53 pm

Hey Bruce Wilkie, Thot I would expand my thoughts with this:

These thoughts come from the teaching of Richard Greene. Richard, a Missionary Church Missionary who has implemented the teaching of God’s Word in leading “an out of control missional movement of incarnationally driven disciple multipliers.” He discipled me to do the same with God’s annointing as was the case for Him as well.

“Throughout the Old and New Testaments you will see a recurring and consistent theme, “Be fruitful and Multiply.” In the Bible God chose ‘Being Fruitful and Multiplying’ as the means of accomplishing His commandments and purposes.”

“This principle or Manifold Purpose of God to ‘Be Fruitful and Multiply’ was given to every significant individual or group in the Bible: Adam, Joseph, Noah, Abraham, the 12 tribes, Isaac, David, Jacob, the church, Jesus and His disciples.”

“God has chosen you: “You did not choose Me but I have chosen you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so whatever you ask of the Father in my Name He may give it to you.” John 15:16

“Go, Bear fruit, Bear fruit that remains, Have a special relationship with the Father.”

“God designed every living thing to reproduce. Reproduction was God’s first blessing and commandment and that commandment/blessing is carried throughout the entire Bible.”

“Reproduction is at the heart of God’s purposes in creating man.” (end quotations)

Are you showing and teaching disciples to “Go”, “Bear fruit”, “Fruit that remains” and to “Have a special relationship with God the Father?

Now I’m ready for feedback! Some of you will be amazed to see this recurring theme in God’s Word.
Bob Carder on December 29th, 2006 4:19 pm

Alan, I’m looking forward to mDNA and I pray we will be knocked off our pulpits or kicked out of our pews or, well I won’t go there.

As for Matt, I thot I sense a hint of sarcasm and now I’m really glad it was there.

We do need benchmarks but we do not need our own, God has already addressed that. And furthermore, I think you will agree, that we can’t even set the levels of priority God has already established. When we do what Warren does we do injustice to the purposes of God and we sugar coat the real deal and believers end up still sitting on their butts in buildings with large budgets isolated from the world. We need to understand what it means to “obey” all that Jesus commands. And if we all look at what it really means to be a disciple we must also see that true disciples walk in the footsteps of their master, and in our case it happens to be the footsteps of Jesus our King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Matt, I appreciate your comments regarding Warren & Alan and commonality. I don’t really want to comment on Alan until I read His book, but I can say Warren missed it and America is not gaining and in time what has been accomplished? Lives have been changed but often they are changed to sit. That is not even close to being correct. I found Alan’s answer interesting and now my interest is peaked.

Alan, I sure hope and pray that in your mDNA you depart from keeping Missional Incarnational Disciple-making on the same page as all the other stuff. The other important stuff will flow out of our missional purposes of the Great Commission. To do otherwise could just be the same-o and little transformation will occur. It may even give others in the church a cop out. I cannot believe that could ever be the case after reading your heart. So I am excited.

Any missional transformation attempt that drops the purposes of the Great Commission to a level other than “supreme” does the mission of God an injustice. We need a revolution and we need not a half hearted attempt to bring change in what we call a new paradigm without the real meat or hart of God’s intentions. Don’t you agree?

Matt, Alan and Bruce keep up the great comments.
Bob Carder on December 29th, 2006 4:28 pm

Alan, Referencing comment #4 and your referral to a previous post. I’m with you!

Actually, because the reputation of Christianity has been so grossly abused and destroyed by believers (me too) I don’t want to be called a “Christian”. Just call me a Christ following disciple of His who walks in His steps.

Let’s stop being “Christians” and start being “Disciples” of Jesus in the purest sense. We messed up “Christian” now let’s not mess up pure Christ following discipleship.
Bob Roberts on December 30th, 2006 3:21 am

Alan, I don’t know about your definition of church - but I know your model and how it operates is not just theory - it’s what we’ve learned and what we’ve practiced - you know all the T-Life stuff - BUT - it’s also the SAME thing I see around the world, even explained the same by varying cultures and different kinds of churches. It’s how any truly healthy or missional church operates - regardless of nation or “style” of church. Your model isn’t American - this is not how typical American churches operate - we learned it from around the world.
len hjalmarson on December 30th, 2006 7:19 am

This was a fun read
I share the distaste for five points and I also have a love/hate relationship with diagrams … but I wonder if one of the things we are reacting against is the modern assumption that knowledge leads to change. We know this isn’t so, and I know Alan knows it isn’t so. So.. why worry about five points or diagrams? Because we are in a place where we have to see our seeing and know our knowing.. like the fish in water, we don’t see the muck in which we swim until we do. SO.. the process of learning and change involves paradox. And I really like the “can opener” question.. almost as much as I like the old “can of worms” metaphor
Alan Hirsch on December 30th, 2006 10:50 am

Len, just get on reviewing the book.
Christina on December 30th, 2006 1:39 pm

I may be missing the point here, but the comments here concerning the model Alan has presented seem more to do with the fact that there are “five points” than the actual concepts captured within them. Are we reacting to the idea that there is a required list of ingredients for the recipe of living as a Christ follower? Would we rather improvise and come up with our own individual concoctions - perhaps a more “post-modernist” (such a tired word these days) approach…?
Alan Hirsch on December 30th, 2006 5:15 pm

Touche Christina. Lets deal with whether these actually are elements of authentic ecclesia.
Bob Carder on December 30th, 2006 6:09 pm

Oh boy, I just hit the wall. Now what?
Alan Hirsch on December 30th, 2006 6:21 pm

Actually, let’s broaden the discussion. Why don’t we assess the validity of what the Reformers called the marks of a church? Luther said that a true church exists where the Word of God is preached, the sacrament of communion celebrated, and baptism is practiced. Calvin took out preaching and stayed with the other two.

Do you think these are adequate marks/characteristcs of ecclesia??! I for one think they are woeful. Historically speaking all they have done is give a whole lot more non-essentials to fight about. And we certainly did that. Where does mission and discipleship feature in this?

How does this compare with what I have suggested above? Christology at the heart. Community centered around Jesus that results in worship, discispleship, and mission.
Matt Tew on December 30th, 2006 8:50 pm

Do we put too much emphasis on the function of church corporate, rather than that of the individual believer?

We are one body, do doubt. There is something inexpicable about the church. Again, no argument. And God is into the church. Of that I am certain.

But shouldn’t the church simply be an expression of those it is made up of? When two or more believers come together in the name of Christ, is that not ecclesia?

So then, along this line, mission happens because it is in the nature of the believer, and not just a function of the community. Ministry happens because we have all been individually gifted. Worship flows, because as the people of God we wish to lay our lives down.

And we disciple one another, because we take the message of Christ seriously.

I can’t help but to think that we create an entity of the Church in it’s own right, when perhaps it is no more than the sum of it’s parts?

Luther identified three marks of a “true church”. Calvin two. Warren five, Swartz eight and Hirsch four or five. I say none. Like a family “is”, Church “is”.
celtic son on December 30th, 2006 11:51 pm

Hullo-o-o ALL…

why is it that we seem to want to use the same building blocks we’ve always had and make something new… what if the building blocks were not right in the first place… What if the great scholars of the reformation were wrong in some aspects! What if there had been a subsequent 500 years of so of research and discovery that could shed further light!

In the past few years I have been questioning a whole bunch of propositions, (including all of the terminology in the sentence that follows…!) which were handed to me, as they had been handed to others before me, when I joined a church after my “salvation” in 1989. These propositional statements were expected to be accepted uncritically as the truth… and many of us have swallowed them without careful critical analysis to determine if they are indeed true.

In thread #93 titled “To know God is to change…” Alan touched on the teachings of T.F. Torrance… Here lies a clue to redirecting our thinking. Torrance, as a follower of Karl Barth, challenged some of the fundamental teachings that have led us to the evangelical foundations we have inherited. Their thinking seeks to hark back to the patristic writings of the early church - in a similar vein to Al pushing us to consider forgotten ways as an matter of praxis.

Barth pushes the envelope on thinking about the nature of the Bible as the Word of God, on the nature of revelation, on the priority of the Trinity and the supremacy of Christ. Evangelical theologians criticise Barth, but seem often to promote weak responses to his genuine challenges.

Torrance, formerly a pastor, excels in developing thinking on the nature of the Triune God… this stuff is not theology in isolation, it is a vital foundation in clarifying the building blocks for our discussion and the truly emerging church.

Virtually every diagram I have ever seen regarding the church (including a number I’ve drawn in the past) places Christ as “other” - we are always coming to him from various places and there is truth in that - BUT it is not the ultimate Biblical reality. The reality is that the ecclesia exists IN the nature of the Triune Godhead - we are caught up INTO Christ… the church is LITERALLY Christ’s body - we are seated in heavenly places… God places us there, He redeems us… God then opens our eyes to that truth - He reveals Himself to us…

We cannot define church outside of God - true ecclesia exists IN Christ… we don’t have Christ at the centre and we approach from some place that is other… He includes us IN HIM… All else we do, is in RESPONSE to the revelation that we are already included… REPENTANCE is the changing of our minds, in response to the revelation that we have already been included in Him…

Consider those thoughts and revisit the scriptures with those concepts in mind. Revisiting Al’s post at the start of this thread, with that thinking in mind, would change everything.

The church (ecclesia) is literally “people called out and included in the Godhead” That is the covenanted community and the covenant is God and we are IN covenant… We are empowered by the Holy Spirit because we are IN Him… That’s the ultimate “baptism in the Holy Spirit” - we are eternally immersed in the Spirit and we never come out…

SO there are not five points, or three or two… there are a myriad and there are none… BECAUSE it is about relationship not statistical analysis - while trends can be helpful, people can be different, so our thinking needs to remain fluid…

God doesn’t turn up to our meetings we turn up to His because we are in Him… being a disciple of Jesus means being IN Jesus - living our lives consistent with the reality that we are IN CHRIST… in Him we live and move and have our being…

The church is being IN HIM… and living in response to that truth…

Blessya,

a celtic son
Subversive Influence » Blog Archive » So, what on earth is the church? on December 31st, 2006 1:59 am

[...] A question posed and answered (at least provisionally) by Alan Hirsch this past week: So, what on earth is the church? Discussion follows his blog post, but here’s my take. [...]
NextReformation » the forgotten ways on December 31st, 2006 3:05 am

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Janet on December 31st, 2006 9:45 am

I think the depths of your theological answer also is an appropriate response to Matthew’s reflection… the nature of the Triune God is love and community and relationship… those who are joined with Him are also by very nature part of the wider body of Christ, called to love and community and relationship.
Alan Hirsch on December 31st, 2006 10:25 am

Matt, actually years ago I wouldhave agreed with you. The church just is–just let it be. The problem is that we ended up with something far less than what the bible intended as ecclesia. I do think there is an innate purpose to the community. We don’t just ‘hang out’ together and wish for the best. Church history tells us that Jesus is soon maginalized from the community. Or at the very least ‘domesticated.’ And my experience is that discipleship does not just happen willy-nilly. Most will resist it. Furthermore, I have done many cnsultations in many places now, and from my experiene I can say that most times Christians won’t do mission because they don’t like it. That’s why we have to actually talk about missional church now..becase 98% of churches simply aren’t missional in the least! Unless we somehow intentionalize these, they don’t happen.
celtic son on December 31st, 2006 1:20 pm

Hi Janet…

I don’t see this primarily as a theological issue as much as an anthropological/ontological one. It is not so much about our understanding of who God is, as it is about our understanding of who we are and what our original purpose is. It is vital to get that concept right because it is the foundation that we work from - I am convinced that the evangelical church has it wrong! It is the building block that we need to replace…

Alan…

You note… “most times Christians won’t do mission because they don’t like it.”

A major cause of the stumbling block is precisely because we are encouraged to see mission as something that we have to DO… People need to know who they ARE - they are caught up into the community of the Triune God - they ARE missional because they are participants in the nature of the Missional God…

Bob Carder pointed out that God’s first “commands” are to be fruitful and multiply - I think that what we need to see is that this is not so much a command, as God prophetically/ ontologically speaking out the nature of humanity, BECAUSE we are created in God’s image - and God is by nature fruitful and multiplying. When this statement is repeated in the Scriptures, it is a reminder to humanity of who we are ontologically designed to be…

We are ontologically in partnership with God in His fruitfulness and multiplication business… Jesus came to remind us that the business is called “God & Sons - fruit producers” and that we are in the business by nature of the fact that we are adopted as Sons.

You write “Church history tells us that Jesus is soon maginalized from the community” which is precisely my point about the diagram that shows Jesus as “other.” Christians have not understood that the church is IN Christ, so that by our nature we are missional because we are IN the God who is missional - therefore we are simply called to “walk into the works that God prepared in advance for us to do…”

Trying to correct praxis without correcting our ontological basis is the problem. The matter of correct praxis follows the correct foundation… we need to connect with the wild Jesus that we are IN, not some idolatrous domesticated Jesus that is somehow conceived to be other than His body - the church.

Blessya

a celtic son
Alan Hirsch on December 31st, 2006 6:34 pm

Hey Celtic Son, you make a very good point. My only concern is that it sounds awfully hellenistic in the philosophical sense. I must admit to beaing tad weary of ontology–the Western church has pretty much overdosed on Plato et.al.. If anything ontological thinking lies at the root of much of our dualism/s. I am much more comfortable with concrete, historical, existential, thinking myself.

But I like your corrective about being IN Jesus already and that we have to live it out. And that mission is participating in what God is already doing (ala Bosch). Well said.
celtic son on December 31st, 2006 7:35 pm

Hi Alan…

In all honesty I disagree with some elements of your comment… I sympathise with your weariness and I pray that you “do not weary in doing good!” There is a lot of good coming out of these discussions… good onya.

Firstly, the danger of using technical terms is that discussions can get side-tracked, highbrow and full of crap - I apologise if at times I get caught up with that… it’s simply a struggle to put concepts into words. I have no desire to reduce this discussion to arguments about theory… it all comes back to Bob Carder’s reminder that ultimately our purpose - and the evidence of it - is in producing fruit that remains.

I don’t think in some magical way I’m immune to the platonic dualism that has infested the church since its inception, but I am aware and try to remain conscious of it. In what ways would you suggest my point “sounds awfully hellenistic in the philosophical sense?” because I don’t see it!

In trying to perceive your intention in your comment, what I hear you saying (correct me if I’m wrong) is that the “ontological statements” that we’ve inherited (in evangelical-based thinking) are hellenistic in nature and lie “at the root of much of our dualism/s.” I agree with that, which is why it is vital that we revisit the wrong ontological foundation we have inherited and correct it… To ignore it is to continue to make the same mistakes that have been made, in every generation that has sought to emerge as authentic church.

I believe you are wearied by it because, in general, the teaching in Christian thinking, built on a Christendom model is fundamentally flawed - that’s where Torrance, Barth et al who point us to the patristic teachings are vital - that’s where our heritage from Hebraic scholars who have a holistic approach is a blessing. We need to revisit and redirect our ontological statements to line up with Bob Carder’s notions of “fruitful and multiply,” along with the New Testament concept of being IN Christ. These are not the basis of a dualistic ontological statement, BUT a vital alive holistic one - which is a foundation building block for authentic ecclesia.

My concern is that the approach suggested by the diagram you proposed, is influenced by dualistic thinking - particularly in that it suggests that Jesus Christ can in any way be separate from His body - to me that is a consequence of not thinking through the reason for existence. The separation of mission to become a “doing” thing is also a consequence of dualism - biblically speaking Christians ARE missional. Which is why we need to revisit and change the ontological building blocks…

You note “I am much more comfortable with concrete, historical, existential, thinking myself.” Alan I’d say, “me too” BUT is the basis for discussion what we are presently “comfortable” with… is it not, rather, to be stretched beyond our present comfort level, to grow? The existential argument of necessity follows the ontological one, and I believe that the historical record shows that the church is bent out of shape, because we are not true to the original purpose God intended. That needs to be corrected before we can ever get the existential development right.

Trying to build with the same building blocks may make the house a different shape or a different pattern of colours, but in fundamental ways it is still built on sand! When the storms come it is gone, until the next generation picks up the blocks and builds it again - with different music, or candles or drapes. We cannot change history by doing the things we’ve always done, we must redefine the building blocks, which requires that we return to the source.

Like Bosch… I am suggesting that a paradigm shift in our thinking is required, to return to the authentic purposes of God (ontological)and give us the opportunity to establish authentic ecclesia (existential) IN Him. Otherwise we are in danger of shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic!

May 2007 bring fruitfulness and multiplication…

slainte

a celtic son
Janet on January 1st, 2007 10:07 am

One reflection I have to throw in is that Alan is attempting to describe a phenomenon that cannot be “manufactured”. In my mind this is not like the “7 easy steps to a growing church” (run a good Sunday School and have adequate car parking) that there’s been some reaction to on this thread… I think his interest has more been in peering at phenomenal Jesus movements and attempting to describe their elements. Picking up the analogy of how yeast grows, the scientist will note that oxygen, sugar, water and warmth are necessary elements to release growth of the yeast… but throwing in oxygen, sugar, water, warmth and… dead yeast cells… will do absolutely nothing. Describing the elements of a phenomenon and attempting to throw them together does not create the phenomenon.

However… those who are already involved in the mission of God… who share in the mysterious life of Christ… might benefit from reflecting on Alan’s observations… is there an element or elements that are lacking in our church/ missional community? Are we truly centred around Christ? Serious about making disciples? Are we actively involved in mission? Are we committed to true worship? Should we not earnestly pray that God will lead and empower us and gift us with what we lack?

We do not control the phenomenon by describing it… it is a Holy Spirit phenomenon. But we can cooperate with God as the Spirit leads us.

On the theological issue… there is part of me that thinks that a leadership forum such as this is precisely the place to tease out our theological ideas and to do some “unlearning” of inherited theology… and that this is an important thing to do.

And yet… how is it that the Chinese house church movement, with no qualified theologians and a page of the bible at a time to refer to if they’re lucky, has experienced explosive growth? In one sense, this makes me question whether “correct theology” is the real issue at all. Don’t stone me… I’m a theology student myself… but I’m just thinking out loud… (or in type)… that theology too does not create a Jesus phenomenon… it only describes it.

In one sense every Christian is a theologian… but we really are dualists if this becomes an abstraction that is not lived out in relationship with God and community and in the physical world.
Janet on January 1st, 2007 10:26 am

Why don’t Christians like doing mission?
celtic son on January 1st, 2007 12:03 pm

Good onya Janet…

Let me begin at the end… do Christians really not like doing mission? Or are they simply afraid of the concept of mission/evangelism that they’ve been fed? Would they like it more if they just joined in mission and then recognised that it was something that fitted them - and I believe it’s the case, because human beings are created in the image of the missional God. A few months ago we organised a clean up event at a local school - we had 100 adults involved including 50 from our church - every person I spoke to loved it… some of them spoke to others about their faith some didn’t - they just did stuff to serve the local community. We did have some teaching on “faith in friendship” which about 25 people attended before the event - the focus was how to share your faith with friends without ruining your friendships. We didn’t call the cleanup missional or evangelism, we just did it… and we’re planning more events where we can serve our community…

I honestly believe that the notion of being “truly centred around Christ” and the elements of worship, mission that are external to Christ, misses an incredibly significant foundational truth that we are IN Christ. We need to redefine our fundamental purpose.

My argument with Al’s point is that historically we have built church on a Christendom model and unless we get back to “the forgotten ways” we are doomed to re-do what has been done, though we might tinker with some of the existing elements. The Christendom approach to humanity, which has developed into the basis of our inherited evangelical ontology, pays lip service to Genesis 1 and 2 and is founded on “the fall” in Genesis 3 - which is why Bob Carder’s reminder of God’s description of “fruitful and multiply” is vital.

Evangelical theology begins with the problem - “SIN”… The Bible begins with the answer “GOD.” Our fundamental purpose is distorted in Gen 3 , but it is STILL the ontological defintion of humanity. So Jesus doesn’t come so much to bring a “NEW” Covenant as He does to RENEW the original covenant. At it’s basis evangelical theology posits a duallist notion of God - basically “God is against us, but Jesus is for us.”

It builds on this the notion that God is sovereign, yet also proposes the unbiblical notion that God cannot be in the presence of sin So it concludes the anti-Trinitarian notion that on the cross the Father and Son have to be separated. BUT Jesus is quoting from Psalm 22 - understanding that the religious people of the day will know it in context. Jesus is declaring the human condition - that we “feel” separated, but that’s not the truth… Read the Psalm.

When it comes to theology we are all theologians in the sense that theos-logos is literally just our comprehension of who God is. In the west we have redefined this to be an academic discipline, where we are beholden to prior academic concepts. The simplicity of the Chinese house church movement is that their theos-logos is more dependent on fundamental truths - they are closer to the source and more true to their ontological purpose. Their theos-logos is not filtered through the misunderstandings of other academics…

Correct theology is the issue for us because in the west we have an incorrect theos-logos and in the east they are closer to the truth and have a clearer understanding of their foundational purpose IN Christ.

I’d write more but I’m heading off for a week’s break and should already be gone…

I look forward to people’s thoughts in reply.

In the meantime slainte

a celtic son.
Janet on January 1st, 2007 1:16 pm

Wow C.S… you’re a heretic in terms of my evangelical upbringing, but I think you’re onto something. Your comments evoked for me:

Acts 17 : 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

The evangelical view is that unbelievers are a million miles away from God because of sin… a broader view of the grace of God is that all are made in His image and that He is not far from any one of us… and that we are God’s agents of invitation to follow His Way.

I’ll be interested in what others think!
Bob Carder on January 1st, 2007 2:11 pm

Janet, they are too self consumed or I should just say it. LAZY! LAZY! LAZY!

Why be the Church when we can go to church. It is so much easier to go to church rather than be one with others.
Alan Hirsch on January 1st, 2007 2:35 pm

I’m with the CS on the fact that we have to get beyond the inherested ways of concieving evangelism and all associated ideas. And with Bob because why bother. We don’t feel the inner compulision when we are just basic relgigions consumers and the church is happy to put on the feast.
Janet on January 2nd, 2007 10:24 am

What I enjoy about “doing mission”:

It makes me feel alive… what I was put on earth to do.
It builds community like nothing else when engaged in this with others.
I learn more from unbelievers than church people… often more interesting and likeable people.
I really enjoy dialoguing on matters of truth and meaning.

What I don’t like about doing mission:

I hit points of embarassment and discomfort in speaking about the “nitty-gritty’s” of faith… this discomfort can make me hold back at times.
Sometimes I’m tired and busy and can’t be bothered. Between work, study and family my life is pretty full.
I think I lack spiritual passion… I often have little sense of the lostness of the lost… my spiritual life in general can be undisciplined. I’m not good at goal setting stuff.
I think my faith can be too individualistic, and in my experience, mission is best done in community. (It takes a village to raise a child… of Christ)

The confessions of others are invited!!!!
Janet on January 2nd, 2007 10:59 am

Then, of course, there’s that paralysing feeling you’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re doing.

Then there’s that embarassing moment of totally forgetting someone’s name you know you should know.

Boy, I reckon I could come up with a big, pathetic list.
celtic son on January 6th, 2007 10:44 pm

Hullo-o-o…

Janet - the challenges of my “heresy” remain… the question for you is “how will you respond?” I have come to some conclusions that disagree with much that was proposed to me as “evangelical heritage.” My concerns have arisen as I try to reconcile the Christ I have encountered (or more accurately, who encountered me) in terms of the Bible I read.

The Jesus I encounter in the gospels embraces sinners and rejects the religious… where is that in our evangelical practice?

The God I encounter is everywhere and I cannot go anywhere that He is not with me… where is Psalm 139 in our evangelical heritage?

The Spirit I encounter is not daunted by sin and in fact revealed Christ in me, to me while I was STILL a sinner… where is that in our evangelical mission?

Rather than enjoying doing mission at times and being embarrased at other times… consider seeing yourself as a missional being, enveloped in the relationship of a triune godhead of love… (The technical term is “perichoresis”)As you become more conscious of who you truly are, then you become more conscious that mission is not a task to be achieved, but the theme of true life to be walked out - when you are who you truly are in Christ, everything you do is missional because you are in Him… in Him is the pain of the lostness of the lost… in Him is the passion. Mission IS communal because we (plural) are created in the image of a missional community.

Bob - I agree that in the majority people are lazy - I know that frequently I am! I am frequently too lazy to be the me that God created me to be! Jesus came to set captives free… to free me, to be the me that He initially designed me to be… and all other lazy people are deserving of the same opportunity and revelation. They may be too lazy to embrace it, but (to paraphrase) we must not become “lazy in doing good!” I believe in people and I believe in mission, because I am in the family business with a Father who believes in people and believes in mission more!

Al - I hope you’re feeling a tad less weary of redefining our inherited ontology

an erstwhile heretical celtic son

I once heard a wise man say that heresy could otherwise be considered “freedom of thought.”
Vicky on January 6th, 2007 11:26 pm

I wonder if it helps to compare the functional definition of ecclesia with the other covenant God has designed, the one of marriage.If we are the bride and he is the bridegroom as described in revelation.
Having been married my self for 26 years I find that I have had to continually redefine, in order to ’see’,what my marriage is; to keep it alive and functioning.
I wonder if we cant see how to live in covenanted communities because when one in three marriages end in divorce we have lost the ability to know what ‘Love”is.
1 cor 13 vs 3 And if I give all my possesions to feed the poor but have not love ….it profits me nothing..
I believe personally that church/marriage requires both doing and being for it to remain a living organism and if our missional commission to be fruitful and multiply does not come from a selfless motive it will always wear thin ( as those of us who are parents know!!)
Fruitfulness must be an intentional commitment to a continual process of examing our hearts and behaviours so that our ‘çhildren’ become healthy adults.
Allan I look forward to reading your new book to allow God to continue that process in me.
Janet on January 6th, 2007 11:39 pm

Hey, good to have you back Celtic Son… I really appreciate your insights as ever. I’ll chew on this some more.

Hope you had a good break.
celtic son on January 7th, 2007 12:15 am

Hi Vicky…

I appreciate your observations… and I do think that your comparison of covenants is useful…

I’d begin by saying that when we look to experience for answers, we will always come up short. You are right that divorce statistics are painful and when we look to those we lose sight of what “Love” truly means… but I am convinced that John’s observation that “God is love” is truth. Therefore I can only express authentic love as I live in Him - He is the love I express as His adopted child.

I was also thinking that “fruitfulness” was designed to be the natural outworking of a healthy plant, sown into good soil with sufficient water. Your comment that “Fruitfulness must be an intentional commitment to a continual process of examing our hearts and behaviours so that our ‘çhildren’ become healthy adults,” challenges that thinking. While I could agree with your comment, experientially in one sense, I am also aware, as a parent, that while I may need to be intentional in expressing my love for my children, I don’t need to manufacture the love… My intentionality is not related to the root issue, but to my own selfishness that prevents true fruitfulness from occuring…

I do think you are right though that doing and being need to both exist… I’m left wondering what the root issue is in truth… Food for thought this week… I’ll be reflecting and considering.

Blessings

a celtic son

Ps. thanks Janet… good to be back
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