missional the new emergent?
This blog is part of a global syncroblog of over 50 bloggers initiated by the Blind Beggar. The aim is to explore the current use/overuse/misuse of the term ‘missional’. Actually this is timely because I have been chewing on this for a long time and am increasingly alarmed about the potential damage that can be caused though incorrect understanding and use of the word. I have hesitated to write or blog about this because of the sometimes nasty controversy surrounding the whole ‘emerging church’ phenomenon. But sadly, this controversy is precisely where the blurring is taking place–from both sides of the debate. I certainly don’t want to be seen as further marginalizing a group of brothers and sisters that are searching in some way for a place to stand and for a faith that they can believe in. But I believe that this discussion is now unavoidable. What triggered this post is a recent conversation that I had with Ed Stetzer. He said to me that he had spoken to Tim Keller and Tim had expressed concerns that missional had become the new emergent and that the term had become almost useless and that we had to now think about discarding it. My reply to him was that I was equally concerned about this and that as far as it depended on me that this would not take place on my shift!!
Words carry meanings and the blurring of words leads to a blurring in clarity and understanding. Biblical truth in particular is inextricably bound to the right use of words as images are often suspect conveyors of truth in Hebraic worldview (see Ellul, The Humiliation of the Word) . Part of the role of theology is to guard the meaning of words–to maintain truthful speech in the community of faith. In light of this, the word ‘missional’ carries a very distinct, and I would argue irreplaceable, meaning/s. Why I am so fussy about this word is because I believe it carries the full weight of the hope for the church in the West. I wholeheartedly believe that the recovery of the missional idea of God and Church is critical to the survival, let alone the growth, of Christianity in the West. Much is at stake here! The reason for this is that ‘missional‘ is a word that gives us a perspective on the very nature of God. It has direct links to the doctrine of the Missio Dei…the understanding that God is a ’sent one’, a missionary–a redeemer by his very nature). This has profound implications for the Church’s fundamental stance in relation to the world in which we are called to live. Missional church requires that we, following the Missio Dei, are in turn a missionary, a ’sent’, people. The church emerges out of the mission of God in the world, not the other way around. The way I phrased this in The Forgotten Ways was to say that “…it was not so much that the church has a mission but that the mission has a church.” Another paragraph from The Forgotten Ways…
Missional church is a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the church’s true and authentic organizing principle is mission. When the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God’s purposes in and through his people. [82]
This is clearly not the same as the core ideas that inform the terms ‘emerging church’ or ‘Emergent’ (the organization that largely represents it in the US at least). Whilst some people in the emerging church are deeply concerned about organizing around missional ideas, And while there are certainly aspects of missional approaches throughout the movement, the same can be said for all churches, including the church growth movement which is is opposed to. in my opinion what is expressed through Emergent, the Alt-Worship movement, and what has been called Post-Evangelicalism, is not by-and-large a missionary movement, but is rather what I would call a renewal movement. That is, as far as I can discern, its primary concerns lie largely in interpreting theology and worship for the post-modern situation. Therefore, for many who can no longer hold to modernist understandings of the faith, it is a deadly serious search for a ‘place to stand and believe’ or else abandon the faith altogether. But at bestthe emerging church movement is about contextualizing theology and spirituality for a particular cultural context at the dawn of the 21st Century. At worst, it is simply a reaction against both Evangelicalism and a Western church captive to a distinctly modernist cultural understanding of itself. And let it be said that I believe that many of its concerns ought to be heeded, although I do believe it sometimes overreaches itself and discards many hard-won, and profoundly significant, theological insights passed on to us in the historical, orthodox, understanding of faith. As for me, I am happy to call the so-called ‘emergents’ friends and fellow travelers, I personally do not feel the need to question the inherited theological tradition as many of its adherents do.
All this to say that I do not believe for a moment that “missional is the new emergent”! Emerging forms of the church must always be subservient to the missional purposes of the church. We can use the term, as I do in my writings, the “Emerging Missional Church”, but the emphasis should always fall on the term ‘missional’. Actual mission must precede any new cultural understandings that the church might develop of itself. The Emerging Church has a certain validity as a renewal movement, but renewal movements come and go, the Missio Dei however, is something that must have abiding implications for the Church’s theology, lest we lose the irreplaceable redemptive core inherent in the Christian view of the world. My advice to ‘emergents’ is therefore, don’t emerge before you have a mission.
And my advice to all you folks on both sides of the debate that mix up the term, be warned! What you are doing is only making it harder for the Church to come to grips with its deepest sense of call and purpose in this time and place–no less! You are therefore mucking around with what could be one of the most significant ideas that the Church has to grapple with if we are going to survive, let alone thrive, in the 21st Century. For God’s sake, be clear in your use of the term or can I suggest that you stop using it.
To guard against a further degrading of the word, I want to suggest (as I did in The Forgotten Ways) that we combine the term ‘missional’ with the associated term ‘incarnational’ to come up with the term missional-incarnational. Its clunky I know, but the combination of these two words I believe captures far more completely a sense of the Church’s deepest theology and missionary calling in the world. It is laden with profound theological, and therefore missiological, meanings. If ‘missional’ carries the sense of being ’sent’, then ‘incarnational’ gives definition to the nature of that ’sentness.’ If ‘missional’ means being thrust into the world as witnesses to the redemption that is in Jesus, then ‘incarnational’ shows us that we ought to engage the world in the same way that God did in and through the Incarnation of the Word in Jesus the Messiah. We must go into the world to reach people, but we ought to stay and abide in order to communicate the Gospel relationally and meaningfully in any given context. Mission always sets our Agenda and Incarnation must always describe our Way.
Forgotten Ways, The: Reactivating the Missional Church - Alan Hirsch
Forgotten Ways Handbook, The: A Practical Guide for Developing Missional Churches - Alan Hirsch, Darryn Altclass
ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church - Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch
The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21 Century Church - Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch
Alan, I met you in New Orleans. Thanks again for what you shared there.
You are right. We should not discard the term missional, but rather, we should make sure that the definition is clear. I have not read all the comments, so this may have been mentioned already, but we seem to want to continuously be on the cutting edge. We hold on to new terms until everyone else begins to deal with them, and then we often want to discard them because they become passe. I am not saying that anyone is doing this in this conversation, but one reason that we want to discard terms that are becoming widely used is that we derive a sense of power from being the originators or the guardians of the terminology. If only a few really knows what a word means, then that few controls the use of it and they gain power from and identity from that. Again, I am not saying that Keller is doing that - he doesn’t need to. But, many others might engage in that.
Thanks for trying to establish the term. I think that the word “missional” is very helpful and we need to keep it.
sorry, one other thought… if there is ANY danger of the term being co-opted or misinterpreted I would think it would be by those who would use it to refer to evangelical missions strategy or to back up a missions program, or promote a course or system.. something where soul saving is placed ahead of life lived wholly in God’s agenda for the world.
2
M=EC
This is a brilliant post Alan. Thanks so much as I have forwarded its link to many who I have been in conversation with about this very thing within my own community!
It seems an underlying cause which I have noticed within my own context is this deeper push to make movements such as missional and emergent a denominational class in order to classify, judge and “find accountability”. Problem is, I don’t think the missional movement as it is understood within the messio dei can be demographed and boarded within a dichotomy of ecclesia. It can and should be found in all parts of ecclesia; large, small, and every in between. I am sure that is something which a modern point of view would have a hard time of understanding!
Actually, in a conversation I was having not long ago I drew the analogy of walking along a see saw as though it were a balance beam. On one end we found the institutional practices of denominational and political fundamentalism while on the opposite end we found spiritual and religious elitism. Standing within the fulcrum and pivot I believe to be more and more inline with the idea of a Christological center; granting that we know now as those witnessing that truth in a mirror (1 Cor. 13:9-11
). If we stray one way or the other it not only creates imbalance and division but it also declines the movement itself - something which I think you talk about in TFW with regards to Liberalism.
I must admit though that the question remains in my own heart as to how I/we remain in that central Christological fulcrum without stumbling into our own trappings of “classification”? The word missional and emergent both most definitely hold deep and great meaning however in the end I believe it will be language itself which leads to any and all judgments and dare I say it… I don’t think it will be English (John 1:1
)!
Great post! This is definitely a topic worth discussing and evaluating. Your statement, “The church emerges out of the mission of God in the world, not the other way around.” reminds me of Christopher Wright’s work that has been extremely helpful to me with regard to the Missio Dei.
In an article printed in the January 2007 issue of Christianity Today, Wright gives just a tiny taste of his must-read book The Mission of God.
Wright states,
“Perhaps what we most need to learn, since we so easily forget it, is that mission is and always has been God’s before it becomes ours. The whole Bible presents a God of missional activity, from his purposeful, goal-oriented act of Creation to the completion of his cosmic mission in the redemption of the whole of Creation—a new heaven and a new earth. The Bible also presents to us humanity with a mission (to rule and care for the earth); Israel with a mission (to be the agent of God’s blessing to all nations); Jesus with a mission (to embody and fulfill the mission of Israel, bringing blessing to the nations through bearing our sin on the Cross and anticipating the new Creation in his Resurrection); and the church with a mission (to participate with God in the ingathering of the nations in fulfillment of Old Testament Scriptures).
But behind all this stands God with a mission (the redemption of his whole Creation from the wreckage of human and Satanic evil). The mission of God is what fills the Bible from the brokenness of the nations in Genesis 11
to the healing of the nations in Revelation 21-22
. So any mission activity to which we are called must be seen as humble participation in this vast sweep of the historical mission of God. All mission or missions that we initiate, or into which we invest our vocation, gifts, and energies, flows from the prior mission of God. God is on mission, and we, in that wonderful phrase of Paul, are ‘co-workers with God.’
This God-centered refocusing of mission turns inside-out our obsession with mission plans, agendas, goals, strategies, and grand schemes.
We ask, ‘Where does God fit into the story of my life?’ when the real question is, ‘Where does my little life fit into the great story of God’s mission?’”
Wright’s book Mission of God does a thorough job at getting at the truth that “Mission always sets our Agenda and Incarnation must always describe our Way” which you have encouraged me to think about. Thanks for this post!
I’ve very much appreciate the distinction made between emerging and missional. Mostly because of my own experiences. I got burnt out and left the church and got totally disillusioned. For most people that was the beginning of their discovery of emerging churches. For me, however, it was emerging churches (and their pre-cursors) that did it to me. Again and again.
What got to me was seeing the same patterns of leadership and control and demands in emerging churches as I saw in traditional churches. There was big liturgical changes but not significant freedom or real missional activity. There wasn’t equipping for that and there was still a sense of inviting people to the events.
Not all emerging churches are like hat, for sure but I got burned by seeing those that were and seeing leaders demanding sacrifice for others but then skipping town when better offers came to help them climb the ecclesial ladder.
There wasn’t real passion for the locations involved and real commitment to each other.
But there were significant steps taken and such places provoked new thinking that I appreciate. But such places folded and dissipated. Because they thought making the changes towards emerging practices would result in people being drawn to what was happening. When this didn’t happen, or not in the ways allowed, then people got discouraged. It was about the form, not the mission.
Now, I’m a big defender of both missional and emerging churches but I see a needed distinction that isn’t a slight to emerging churches but is instead a very important standard that such churches need to orient themselves around if they are not going to fall into the same traps.
Also, I think there’s no reason to say a missional church has to be oriented in the ways that emerging churches are. And in this missional goes beyond and reaches into broader traditions than emerging churches can. Just as the charismatic movement reaches farther than Pentecostalism.
I think emerging churches can be missional, but they certainly can also not be. And they are also characterized by leadership structure differences, liturgy differences, and other aspects which may not be directly tied to what it means to be missional. At the same point a Catholic Church, I think, can do wonder work within their communities, being truly missional, while still holding onto their very established traditions.
Wow, some rich stuff here.
Just thought of another way to say what is said above is that emerging is contained in missional not the other way around. That’s why is must be defended–the loss of missional will necessarily mean the lost of any genuine emerging.
Alan,
I truly appreciate your forthrightness and high view of the word “missional.” Historically we have a tendency to let theological words go by the wayside after losing their meaning through misuse and misunderstanding.
Thanks for bringing our attention to this matter. Hopefully this synchroblog will continue to spark continued conversations resulting in more clarity and a broader understanding of our “missio Dei.”
Alan,
Thanks for bringing clarity to the tohu bohu we find ourselves in as the Church rediscovers the forgotten ways. I appreciate the conversation all of you have created. It gives me hope that the Church will embrace the beauty in the struggle of this journey we call “faith.”
I’m discovering that at the heart of any local church there should be the very heart of God. At the very heart of God is the desire to reconcile all of humanity to Himself. If that’s not true then Jesus was a meaningless sacrifice and being missional is useless.
peace to all of you…gibby
P.S. See you in Hungary, Alan.
I think the fact that there is a competition for controlling the definition of this term is an enormous sign of success for those who have been trying to push the missional concept into the forefront of peoples thinking. It is defintielty on the map for a lot of people, and I can honestly say that I never heard the term until I read your book Alan.
I beleive is was Karl Marx who said “He who controls defintions controls movements.” I think that quote is on target here with the discsuiion. I of course do not use the term control in a pejorative sense.
Also, another quote that have been dwelling on lately is from a sociologist from the late 60’s. Here it is “Organization is the mobilization of bias” Chew on that one for a while and its implications for this discussion. It may have some pretty provoking implications.
I suppose one of the issues we also need to tease out here is the overlap of missional and evangelistic. I do get the impression there are a number of emerging leaders who have, if not exactly abandoned evangelism, so redefined it as a practice that (to play with St Francis) they don’t seem to like using words even where necessary. Now, don’t misunderstand me here, I am as much a critic of aggressive evangelism as anyone else, but would I be wrong in suggesting post-evangelicalism has sometimes drifted into anti-evangelicalism territory?
Yes there is an overlap between missional and emerging, perhaps even a significant one, but there are also areas of non-overlap. I have come across many unmissional emergent Christians and unemergent missional Christians over the years. Because I am a keen advocate of unity in diversity I am not suggesting definition should divide the conversation. Heaven forbid. Rather I am suggesting that diversity within the conversation be properly acknowledged and respected.
Matt - I think the only time I’ve seen that “anti evangelism” sentiment is when people are still in the beginning stages of emerging “out of” something and they are reacting against the “beat salvation into you” experiences. My experience with this after 5 or 6 years of walking this journey with others is that it almost always comes to a tempered place of scriptural holism that includes an admission of the need for proclamation in some fashion.
As for the rest of your comment - I have no problem with desiring distinction. My concern wasn’t so much with the sensed need for distinction of the terms, my concern was with the way some are creating the distinction. And I think the problem that we are noticing is that we are distinguishing it differently and now there seems to be almost a competition for who has more of a right to define missional.
For example, I don’t agree that missional MUST come before emergence and I don’t agree necessarily with the rigid line drawn suggesting that emergent is only a renewal movement and that’s why it must have it’s feet rooted in missional. I just don’t see it in such clearly defined compartments.
So now, here we have Alan defining missional and me, a person who sees myself as missional not really identifying with some of his definitions…so what does that mean? If there’s room for some “generosity” in this whole thing then I really don’t care if we see it different. But the tone I heard in some of the conversation was that there really isn’t much room for differences and that we must come to a universal understanding of missional which includes a universal understanding of emergent…talk about a double whammy
THAT’S where I start getting a little squirmy.
but i’m trying to rest from all this stuff so I should probably keep out of it anyway hehe.
Tim thank you for you comment. There is indeed much to chew on in there. What was that sociologist’s name? I am curious. As someone who is big into movements, I have an immediate accord with what you have said…that ‘organization is the mobilization of bias’.
Mak, sorry you have got all upset about this post. I find myself weighing up your comments but still thinking that the point I am trying to make (however badly) abides. We will have to disagree on this one. I hope you are not offended at me. I value your friendship.
Love the interaction guys. And thanks for the post Alan. Would you mind if I reposted it (as yours) in my blog?
Can I throw another wrench in the discussion? Last year I left my professional “pastor” role at a large attractional church in Nevada to pursue a missional-incarnational community and coffeehouse dedicated to blessing our surrounding community. Since that time, I’ve had countless conversations with many people in various Christian circles (Emergent, church growth, conservative, mainline, etc.)about what we are doing. One of the most disturbing comments I recieve regularly is along the lines of,
“Oh, a missional community? That must be something from those (insert your favorite emergent writer here) followers and that Emergent movement. I just can’t buy into that.”
Now please hear me, I (like Alan) have no problem with the Emergent movement, in fact I’m fairly well connected within it, but when the terms become synonymous it does pose a problem of over-identification. The missional-incarnational impulse does exist in the emergent movement, but it also can exist in other Evangelical circles. When missional is discounted by conservative Christians based on their misunderstanding or plain ignorance, we as the “church” lose out. Regardless of one’s leaning on the emergent/conservative continuum, a rediscovery of the missional-incarnational character of God, and what that means for His followers, is essential for His church to be all that it was created to be.
BTW Just as equally disconcerting are the attractional churches who add missional as a tag line on to their values and mission statements without coming to grasp with what it really means for them.
oh alan, I’m not upset, not even close
sorry if that’s how it sounded.
and I actually don’t think we disagree on your core concern and of course I’m not offended.
Sure DareM. Post away!
Ah yes, “mission” statements. Man I could go on all day about them.
There was an interesting interview of Ian Mobsby on emerging church info some time ago which I think is pertinent to this discussion.
Here’s a snippet:
“You also imply there is a clash missionally between the needs of unchurched and dechurched people – what has been your experience? Is it hard to do both?”
“Sometimes it has been hard to do both but at other times it has not. In many of the examples of worship given above both groups have engaged with the worship and it has met their needs. When people join who have left the church they often have a good knowledge of the Bible, Christian tradition and language and whereas they use this to express their beliefs they also want to distance themselves from it and often are expressing pain and doubt. The unchurched can find it difficult to engage with this as the language and concepts are unfamiliar and they have an interest in engaging with some of these things and exploring belief.”
This very much matches my own experience and why, though I would not go nearly so far as to say emerging is “only” a renewal movement, I would agree it is “mostly” a renewal movement. It is because pre-Christians seem a secondary concern next to post-evangelicals.
Link is here
http://emergingchurch.info/research/hannahdeaves/index.htm
Matt, I would agree that it is not ‘only’ a renewal movement. I said ‘largely’. Same as your ‘mostly’. BTW, I love Ian Mobsy. He’s a great guy.
I have encountered the same struggle as I understand that it is the mission of God that drives the church, but I realize that the word mission is loaded with all kinds of misunderstandings and baggage.
I am planting a new missional church, and very much wanted to convey an “outward sense.” I realized that the Latin term for mission is missio, so that is part of our name. We are Missio Lux, which means Mission of Light–a very clear picture for who we are and what we are about.
Now when we speak about a missional purpose we call it is a missio, which has a different ring but carries the very real sense of the biblical meaning.
Yeah Alan, I realize you’re saying “largely” not “only”. If that last comment insinuated otherwise it was unintentional.
What I appreciated was the candidness of Ian’s comment and the missiological implications. It has been something that has been gnawing at me for ages. Many of the non-Christians I engage with are no more drawn to emerging church than established church. Their experience of postmodernity is more influenced by Madame Blavatski and Oprah Winfrey than Derida and Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty. So they tend to experience emerging church as an adventure in missing the point … that is, if your point is mission. This is one of the principle reasons behind why my Christianity has become more overt in my own blogging. My experience is overtly covert and vague Christianity is NOT what they wish to engage with. This suggests much of what we see happening in the emerging church can only be taken as a partial resonse to postmodernity. Necessary, yes, but comprehensive, no.
Fantastic. I wholeheartedly agree. I love the idea of the mission having a church instead of the other way around. What interests me particularly is that when people from seemingly opposing theologies enter into missional context together their theology is put to the test as the attempt to embody it in the mission. I think mission is the true proving ground for obscure or abstract theologies, especially on secondary matters.
What I would give for the church to invest the energy it puts into planning shows/services, acquiring property, and debating abstract theology into mission! I mean that regarding both emerging and mainstream.
I agree that “incarnational” certainly helps define the meaning of the word “missional.” Additionally, one question I find to be a clarifying one on the use of “missional” is ‘What is the mission?” Is it purely evangelistic or is it seen in an all-encompassing redemptive effort? One that embraces any and all redemptive acts as the type of works disciples do/embody - including a major focus on making new disciples? I know where I lean, but I think it’s a good part of the conversation.
p.s. sorry, I only had time to read like 5 comments and skipped the other 67.
Hi There Alan
Just read Forgotten Ways. I am hungry to test one or two things about it among a few, but as with all great books I don’t know.
I think the postmodern theology of the emergent movement brought the significant change that the missional church will definitely use. The main thrust of change lies in the way the church needs to look at Jesus Christ. For me the paradigm change lies in studying Jesus from a post - babilonic point of view. Post exilic. In this regard Jesus is chalinging to the whole concept of a fixed temple or institution because it doesn’t connect with the mercy and care of God to the hurt, the sick, the lost and the poor.
This Theological shift, is vital and will defintely help the chruch in conversation with a post modern world.
Being just missional says nothing at all. there’s a whole lot of missional movemenst and organizations out there that all beleive in reaching out, that is all setting up partnerships with the church, but the theology is either very fundamentalistic or end- of -time frame of mind. It is a very anxious theology, with the emphasis on being “holy” or regarding others as “projects”.
The emergent movement brought a shift in theology and reading the Bible. This shift is also nessaccery in having the missional conversation with others.
Thanks anyway for a wonderful book.
Hoop to chat with you again.
PS I am pastor in a mainline church and is currently part of an outreach team to the homeless and poorest of the poor in our city. I am also busy with making friends in the Third Place Communities. So thanks for that link as well
blessings
Gerhard
I just thought this deserved 75 comments.
In response to Gerhard above, properly understood, I think being missional is everything when it comes to being the church. But I agree that just calling yourself missional can mean very little, and that just doing good charity work is not our mandate either.
But if being missional defines your primary stance in relation to culture, then it shapes everything. Its a foundational issue that directly informs our understanding, and dictates our practice, of what it means to follow Jesus.
I’m not as well-versed as others on the Emerging Church, but I think it obviously is helpful in reaching post-Christendom cultures of the West. However, I think it is limited to that, except where it overlaps with the “missional” stream. And to me, it is a often a re-dressing of what remains a Christendom model.
A Missional-Incarnational practice of following Christ transcends culture and the various phases of history, making us “relevant” at all times and in all places. And this is only true because it is the approach God himself used to reach us…. an approach passed on to the disciples, and followed by the early Christians, St. Patrick and company, the Chinese, and so on.
Alan, the guys name is E.E. Schattschneider.
Justin Mayfield, I think your question of “What is th emission” has to be framed in the context of what is God’s mission. I am not just being cute or ambiguos. In order to answer this question, we havwe to look at God’s agenda for the world both in its fallen context now, and in the eschaton, or age to come. I am not alluding to the whole premil/post mill nonsense. The idea here is New creation. The clearest poicture of this we have is Jesus of course. But his mission, if we look closely, had a cosmic/social/spiritula flavor to it. It was multidimensional. He was inaugurating the New Creation. “The Kingdom of God is at hand!” Mission is participating in the Spirits activity of facilitating a new creation. This puts mission on a cosmic level, and not just on the one dimensional approach of evangelism. Social justice, environemntal efforts, when coupled with evangelism are authentic signs of the Spirits presence among Gods people. Being on mission to me is using our giftings in this perspective.
Ok, I am new to all the discussion of missional and emergent. I am reading blogs and websites from both and gaining some great insights. The distinction here that Alan makes however is critical. After being a cross-cultural missionary for 20 years and returning to the States, all of this discussion is fascinating. Let’s face it, every church that now exists anywhere in the world was started by someone who felt God leading them to be missional in the broadest sense of the word. However we all know that missional DNA has been suppressed and frankly killed. Unfortunately that is true of churches not just from North America, but many I have dealt with over the years. So distinguishing missional today as the Mission of God and talking about being missional and doing missional things is so very important. I think both older congregations and new starts can have that missional focus. But Alan is correct again to say that “emergent” comes from missional. You never really dialogue with culture either here or around the world unless you are missional. However, dialogue is the only way to communicate the Gospel. The emergent church movement is at least screaming “Talk to this culture today in ways they understand!” Being missional may have become a buzz-word for something, but it has to be a vision and word for what we want disciples to be. Creating and recreating missional communities might just be a fun thing to do.
Well… I’ve just emerged from a 2 1/2 day conference with George Lings and David Male, who have been key participants in the “Fresh Expressions” movement within the Church of England.
I’d have to say their experience and theological insight make them (I think) very valuable contributors for anyone with interest in “remissionalising” denominations or existing churches… and also for those who want to give serious thought to “who are we really seeking to reach?” in developing new churches and new mission initiatives.
So with Alan’s permission, I might drip feed some of the rich insights I’ve been receiving. But one story shared I think is actually very informative in this particular thread. (Hopefully I’ve gotten the story correct).
David was involved in an outreach that developed into a church for the previously unchurched… and as it had emerged from a previously “unchurched” group of people, it was not particularly religiously conventional.
As time went on, the church was approached to conduct funerals for the elderly in the neighborhood. There was a growing perception that the current style of corporate gathering would not be a good “fit” for the elderly of this community (most of whom had childhood experiences of the Church of England, despite being “dechurched” for many years). As a missional response, they developed a church for seniors which had a very conventional style of corporate gathering… a quite traditional Church of England service. This was described as a “fresh expression” of church, emerging as it did from a process of outreach and service to a section of the community. This new congregation was formed as a result of a “mission shaped process”… but it actually LOOKED a lot like a very traditional church service.
I think this is a rich story in many ways… it turns on its head the idea that “missional” has to look novel… or follow some kind of current fashion as what “emerging church” must look like. It begins with community connection, moves into relationship, moves into evangelism, and moves into developing an expression of corporate gathering that “works” culturally for a group of people.
It also indicates that corporate gathering developed for the “dechurched” are likely to develop a different form than gatherings developed by and for the previously “unchurched”.
I also find this an interesting window into the cultural and religious diversity in the Western world, and the missionary sensitivity this requires. Some people are more “modern”, some are more “post-modern”, some are utterly “unchurched”, some are “dechurched”… and one size does not fit all. This is an example where “missional” does not look like “emergent” (as I picture emergent anyway).
I am also reminded more generally that cross-cultural mission involves a serious endeavour to develop patterns of Christian community that are a good cultural “fit”… and this may look like a South American family gathering, or an African tribal get together, or an Australian aboriginal fireside story telling, etc. etc…. ie, that missional means something bigger than emergent… even though the emerging church (at best) emerges from the same missional impulse.
Janet,
This is a great story. It also actually feeds back into what I said earlier about some of the unchurched being not being attracted to either emerging or established churches. To expand, many unchurched people I have met have been quite ambivalent about contemporary and alternative worship, being quite happy with old hymns and old church buildings. What is more I have come across counter-cultural NeoPagans who actually PREFER the King James Bible and the archaic language and modes of expression.
What they find insufferable is the unwillingness of the average Christian to listen to their stories and engage meaningfully over questions of religious pluralism, religious experience and practical wisdom - and unfortunately they have experienced this amongst emerging church people almost as frequently as amongst established church people. The criticisms I have head from unchurched people has often been along the lines of … emergents are too busy talking about philosophy and going off into fairy land, but missing the point on the important stuff, I wish they’d just leave off that $%#$ and start listening.
This is where Alan’s “revival” critique becomes quite sharp.
I think it might help to clarify whether missional is the new “evangelical” as well.
You’d have to hope not… I’m all for using a new word when an old one stops working, but “slippery terms” don’t assist communication.
Surely the heart of evangelicalism is recognising the authority of scripture over all of life. As has been mentioned on this thread, there are some Catholic parishes (and orders) that are highly effective in missional engagement with their communities… I hardly think they’d like to be described as evangelicals.
If missional doesn’t describe what a Christian community does in God’s world, it stops meaning anything.
I’ve been thinking about your comments further Matt… fascinating.
One of the observations noted by George and David at the “Fresh Expressions” conference was part of the recent growth in the Church of England is increased participation in Cathedral worship… ancient prayerbook liturgy, huge sacred space, choirs singing Bach in 4 part harmony backed by massive organ, bells and smells and robes and all. There is certainly a segment of the “spiritual seeker” population that is drawn to ancient practices and ancient wisdom. There’s some irony in the 101 websites I see of churches that market themselves as “contemporary and relevant”!!!… when to some people at least, it’s the very stability of a long and enduring faith tradition that speaks to their inner hunger more deeply.
I wonder whether it’s because of the strong tradition of “preaching the word” that so many Christians get into “tell mode” in sharing the gospel, rather than conversations mode. Most of us have probably heard the gospel preached more than we’ve heard it respectfully explained in dialogue.
It’s so frustrating… it’s not that we don’t know how to do this stuff… pastoral care 101 is all about respectful listening!!!! (and missiology 101 is surely about understanding cultural starting points). Sigh.
I think Alan is the outstanding “midwife” for those seeking to birth missional movements… which is obviously the most effective way to get the job done of reaching “the ends of the earth” with the good news. I do think that because we live in such a religious “mixed economy” there is also a place for those who seek to re-missionalise existing churches… even the bells and smells ones!!!! There may be some currently in existing churches whose real vocation is to birth new missional movements, (even with an existing congregation as a launch pad), which is why keeping informed in this kind of dialogue strikes me as so valuable.
Yes well lending my weight towards the re-missionalizing an existing church is where I am currently at. And you know, even though I find the worship music less than inspiring, and find the building drab, and might roll my eyes at many things, I decided some time ago just to let it go, to not waste any further energy in battling for changes in the worship service. Cause you know what? Sometimes the most missional thing I can do is to spend LESS energy on Sunday services … so that I can free more up for elsewhere … where it matters more. We don’t have enough resources to stage a different Sunday service or to start a different church for every unreached people group in the area anyway. What I do hope to achieve though is raise awareness of missional issues, openness to listening to outsiders and courage to step out into our colourful community. I think that is the deeper, more substantial work.
that’s so interesting Matt because what my unchurched friends LOVE about the emerging gatherings we have is that we listen and are willing to question our own beliefs.
matt - I think your comment about the need to stop working so hard on changing stuff inside the sunday service is an important component of missional IMO.
I agree with you alan. Sometimes we get so excited over the use of new terms we begin to think that they apply to everything. I remember a few years back when the word postmodern landed on our desks and I was sitting in seminary watching every professor I had trying to use it when it did not apply. We need to make sure that when we speak of missional things that they are in fact missional in nature not just something new and shiny for us to use.
http://www.my-center.net/web/tom/home
Makeesha,
Don’t get me wrong, its not the openness to questioning that I find they critique. Its more the framework within which the questioning is done that is more the issue.
What I mean is, Emergent questioning can be very post-evangelical in style, which is all very well and good if you are an evangelical or post-evangelical, but not nearly as exciting if you are not and if your questions come from a different direction. As is often the case wise the genuinely unchurched.
For example, I once attended a talk Brian McLaren gave in Australia and met up with an ex-New Age friend of mine. She was, how might I say it, distinctly underwealmed by Brian’s lengthy explaination of the paradigm shift between modernity and postmodernity. Not that she necessarily disagreed mind you. It’s just New Agers got over the paradigm shift back in the 90s so its booooorrrring if that’s your background. She saw it as overly philosophical / knowledge-centred and little more than the relabelling of yesterday’s news for evangelicals in their own jargon. What is more, she was disappointed the speakers were not asking “more interesting” questions and engaging with “real” culture rather than an evangelical projection of it. I find this sort of response is not uncommon.
This is not to say the sort of talk that was given on that day does not have its place. Surely it does. But we make a serious mistake if we universalize its relevance. That is what my example shows. The simple fact of the matter is there are many postmoderns who couldn’t care less about talking about postmodernity any more. Its old news, it’s the air they breathe, it’s stating the obvious - talking about it is not something that actually interests them any more.
What I think needs to happen more is more listening to non-Christians and the best space for that is not emergent gatherings but non-Christian gatherings. I remember reading one emerging author (who shall remain nameless) waxing lyrical about engaging with non Christians and mentioning the “fourfold path” of Buddhists. It was such a gross misunderstanding of the most basic elements of Buddhist belief that to this day I am still tempted to launch into Driscollesque expletives at the sloppiness of it all. It was clear all he knew was from books, and not good books at that. It was also clear he wasn’t actually interested in genuine dialogue with outsiders but only with how some of their stuff (or his perception of it) furthered his insider conversation. How can people claim to be missional without having actually taken the time to listen to and come to an understanding of non-Christians? This is my gripe.
So its not that I question the questioning, I just think the questioning is better done after going forth.
One complexity in this conversation is that what we picture when we hear “emergent / emerging church” may not be the same thing.
Masheeka’s gathering might be nothing BUT genuine dialogue with believers and seekers… sitting in a room hearing Brian McLaren lecture about post-modernism is “modern pedagogy”… even if the topic is post-modernism!
One insight from the “Fresh Expressions” people is to be really clear about the groups you’re trying to reach… “everyone” is an unhelpful answer.
Invitation to alternative worship services CAN work as a starting point for the “dechurched”… those who have some basic understanding of the the Christian God and some awareness of the Christian story. My feeling the proportion of people who fit this category in the States would be much higher than in Australia.
For the truly “unchurched”… those who are likely to have next to no interest in or understanding of Christianity… this approach is unlikely to work. The progression works better then to start with community service (loving deed), to progress to community (experience of relationship within a community) to evangelism (respectful and timely sharing about Jesus) to shaping a “indigenous shaped commununal gathering”.
What will “work” has a lot to do with context… it sounds like whatever Masheeka’s community is doing works well in her context… so praise God for that!
“My feeling the proportion of people who fit this category in the States would be much higher than in Australia.”
Yes, quite possibly so. We had a women over last weekend who we have been ministering to for many months now. Finally had the opportunity to offer her a gospel to read. Had to explain to her what it was.
So yes, truly unchurched, and progression from service to community to evangelism is indeed the approach we have taken with her. We are only just getting to evangelism.
Not criticizing anyone for ministering to the de-churched or semi-churched, just agreeing with Alan that we need to be clear with our terminology and the groups we are trying to reach.
Matt, yes, I see where you’re going with that. Most of my mainline/liturgical friends are very underwhelmed with Brian’s liberation theology for example - esp. because they were around when liberation theology was actually real liberation.
So yes, the specific conversations can be a bit meaningless to many unchurched but most of us emerging types engage the unchurched in their space on their terms so I guess I don’t think it’s a real “problem” … at least not in my sphere.
and I would never argue for a universalization of relevance. In fact, I generally don’t argue for relevance at all.
To me, emergence often allows freedom to listen to the other (required in a missional paradigm)