The videos below include two segments of a conversation between Alan Roxburgh and Simon Carey Holt. The videos are a companion resource to an excellent workbook written by Roxburgh titled “Moving Back into the Neighborhood.” The MBiN workbook can be downloaded here. As mentioned before, I initially thought the $30 price tag for a 77 page download was a little pricey, however I have discovered the workbook to be worth the investment.

In the videos Holt shares from his book “God Next Door: Spirituality and Mission in the Neighborhood.” His emphasis is that the neighborhood is a place where God is, and it is a place where God calls us to participate with Him. In the first video, Holt shares a tragic story that played a significant role in his journey towards an emphasis on the local context.

In the second clip, Holt speaks to the importance of fighting against the neglect of our neighborhoods. Even though most people live in a series of relational networks that function outside of the neighborhood context, we must recognize that neighborhoods remain an important piece of the fabric of society. While watching the second video, I was reminded of my favorite Eugene Peterson quote: “The way of Jesus is always local and ordinary.”

I attended a half day conference yesterday that dealt with trends that were impacting the American church. It didn’t take long for me to become frustrated with the “list” of trends seeing that it did not include what I believe to be the most crucial “trend” to understand – that being the shift towards a post-Christian culture.

Without a clear understanding that the church in America no longer sits in the dominant seat of culture, the church is totally incapable of making the necessary missiological and ecclesiological changes. Below are two short videos of Michael Frost speaking to the importance of this topic.

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For further study of the post-Christendom shift I still find Stuart Murray’s Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World to be a great resource. For a brief (23 pages) overview of Murray’s work you might also check out this article: christendom-murray.

Over the past couple of years I have been attempting to read through every book from the Gospel and Our Culture Series written or edited by such authors as Darrell Guder, Craig Van Gelder, George Hunsberger, Lois Barrett and others. My two favorites have been the ever popular “Missional Church” and the lesser known “Confident Witness – Changing World.”

In additon to the book in this series I have also tried to find writings by each author that were pre - GOCN. One such book is “Be My Witnesses” by Darrell Guder. In chapter ten, titled “Correcting The Church’s Course” Guder offers an excellent contrast between what the church is and what it should be using the images of the Temple and the Tabernacle. He writes:

With regard to the church’s interpretation of its role in history, I suggest that the church has developed, from early on, a “temple” interpretation of itself, whereas the biblical image of the church is more the “tabernacle” of the Old Covenant. The difference between these two images is profound.

The temple is an unmovable building, a center for religious activity, even a headquarters for a religious elite or massive building housing an organization whose commitment is to its continuation as it is. Temples often are walled compounds, separated from the world without, architecturally symbolizing a chasm between the so-called sacred and the secular. Temples can be places in which religion functions as an arcane discipline, reserved for the initiates. They are built to last forever, to resist change, to maintain their form and activity in as pure a fashion as possible.

Tabernacles, on the other hand, are a unique expression of a people’s faith. The “tent-church” of the Old Covenant was not permanent but moved with the people whenever they followed God’s leading into new territory. The furnishings of the tabernacle, and the acts of worship and community that took place there, constantly focused the people upon their God, his actions on their behalf, his presence in their midst, and his will and direction for their future.

Israel symbolized and celebrated her faith in this tent-church. It carried both the history and the future hope of Israel’s faith within it, and stood as a constant reminder of her identity as God’s chosen people. At the same time, it was designed and equipped to be mobile, responsive to change, and to provide what the people needed spiritually as they continued their pilgrimage from bondage to the promised land. . . .

My contention is that the tabernacle is closer to the New Testament image of the church than is the temple. We have mentioned earlier that Peter refers to the Christian community as the diaspora, the aliens or pilgrims, when describing their situation in the world in his first epistle. The early church clearly had that sense about itself. Its first self-denomination was “the followers of the Way,” which conveys the sense of movement and pilgrimage that we find in Peter and in the tabernacle.

But very early in its history, the church began to adapt itself to the temple mentality. We see this in its architecture, once Christians began to build buildings or adapt other religious buildings to their use. Gradually, the accoutrements of temple worship crept into the church (we really cannot sort out how and when), so that within a few centuries we have altars, priestly orders, and many of the features of the temple-oriented religions that thrived in the Mediterranean world.

As the Christian church became more and more woven into the fabric of society and government in the Western world, its temple self-interpretation expanded and hardened. The church became the central institution in the typical town or village, symbolized still today by the church steeple that dominates the skylines of Europe and America.

The distinction between secular and sacred developed into a system according to which all of social life, even the practices of calendar keeping, was regulated. Rather than being understood as a pilgrim people, following God through history, the church was seen as a great unchangeable and permanent presence in the world, guaranteeing those central and sacred realities that the haphazard course of human history could not affect. In that position, the church exercised great power. But we must regard that power as a threat in many ways to the church’s obedience to its primary calling.

One of the key elements of moving an existing congregation in a missional direction involves assisting the church in understanding cultural shifts. The most significant shift for the church to consider is the one from Christendom to Post-Christendom. Without a clear grasp of the significant missiological and ecclesiological changes that are necessary in a Post-Christendom context, a missional posture will be impossible to develop. Following are seven such shifts taken from the Anabaptist Network Newsletter:

From the centre to margins: in Christendom the Christian story and the churches were central, but in post-Christendom these are marginal.

From majority to minority: in Christendom Christians comprised the (often overwhelming) majority, but in post-Christendom we are a minority.

From settlers to sojourners: in Christendom Christians felt at home in a culture shaped by their story, but in post-Christendom we are aliens, exiles and pilgrims in a culture where we no longer feel at home.

From privilege to plurality: in Christendom Christians enjoyed many privileges, but in post-Christendom we are one community among many in a plural society.

From control to witness: in Christendom churches could exert control over society, but in post-Christendom we exercise influence only through witnessing to our story and its implications.

From maintenance to mission: in Christendom the emphasis was on maintaining a supposedly Christian status quo, but in post-Christendom it is on mission within a contested environment.

From institution to movement: in Christendom churches operated mainly in institutional mode, but in post-Christendom we must become again a Christian movement.

Here are the links to two very good presentations from Alan Hirsch on the topic of cultural distance in a post-Christendom context. The first video is a 19 minute talk given at the Q conference. The second clip is an expansion on the same topic in a 47 minute session at Velocity.

Ervin R. Stutzman has written an excellent paper titled “Preaching in the Missional Church” which can be downloaded here. Stutzman provides a brief analysis of the effects of secularization on the Christian church in the West. He then moves to discuss the response of the missional church to the secularization process. However, the majority of the seventeen page paper is focused on the missional church approaches to preaching. He suggests nine key characteristics of “missional preaching.” Below I have listed each characteristic, with a small portion of Stutzman’s explanation, for the first few points. For further clarification read the entire paper.

Missional preaching prepares God’s people for their work in the world.

Guder (Missional Theology for a Missional Church, 1998) maintains that effective Gospel preaching arises from a missional hermeneutic. This method of interpretation “works from the basic assumption that the New Testament writings are directed to communities which are primarily and essentially defined by their missionary vocation. They are apostolic communities, that is, churches founde.d by the apostolic proclamation with the purpose of continuing that witness in their particular contexts.”

Missional preaching grows out of the “agonistic” encounter between the gospel and the church.

Agonistic preaching is “the struggle to proclaim the gospel in such a way that it ‘frames’ the entirety of our ministry in light of the context we live in” (Wyatt, Preaching to Postmodern People, 1999). . . . Wyatt describes four key expressions of agonistic preaching. It is 1) iconic, 2) midrashic, 3) parabolic and 4) poetic.

Missional preaching takes place in many contexts outside the traditional worship service, including the public square.

Guder claims that “preaching” has come to mean something quite different from the New Testament definition of the word. In many North American churches, preaching is practiced only within the church, to the faithful, on Sunday morning. Such preaching probably bears more resemblance to the New Testament concept of ‘teaching’ than to its concept of ‘preaching.’

Missional preaching is concerned with authenticity of life and witness, not simply proclamation of spiritual propositions.

Daniel Oudshoorn avows that to be missional, the western church must learn to “speak Christianly in the midst of Babel.” Christian living, coupled with faith in the Holy Spirit, ought to provide the content and meaning of the Christian message.

Missional preaching deliberately draws contrasts between the gospel message and the practices and values of American civil religion, aiming for conversion from habits shaped by participation in American democracy to habits formed through Christian discipleship.

“Public announcements of God’s actions in the world are a call to conversion, to turning around, to giving up idolatries, and to placing one’s loyalty in the one true God and God’s reign.” This is just as true for believers in the church as for nonbelievers outside the church.

Missional preaching has a cross-cultural dimension.

The “tendency of early Christianity to cross cultural boundaries is a fertile starting point for developing a model of biblical interpretation. It is fertile, especially for our purposes, because it places the question of the relationship between Christianity and diverse cultures at the very top of the interpretive agenda.” Missional preaching, then, engages in various ways with people outside the dominant culture or even the “churchly” culture, the privatized gatherings of Christians in local communities of faith.

Missional preaching employs an interactive style of presentation that engages postmodern listeners in a participatory manner.

Missional preaching employs storytelling and metaphorical language in an “abductive” mode.

Missional preaching is shared among those in the congregation who are effectively sharing the gospel with others.

Stutzman concludes his paper with the following paragraph:

Finally, training schools must find ways to equip a range of people, beyond the seminarian or other matriculated student, for the ministry of preaching. To reach our world for Christ, we need a multitude of lay people (if such a term is even appropriate), to announce the gospel in every corner of our nation, indeed around the globe. These preachers can benefit from instruction in preaching even though they will not earn a degree in one of our evangelical institutions. We will do well to provide training for them in the context where they live and work.

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Here are two additional sessions from last month’s missional church conference. In these two sessions Eric Swanson speaks to the topic of community transformation. The final 30 minutes of session one includes the audio of an animated short film titled The Man Who Planted Trees. The film is the story of a solitary sheperd who patiently plants and nurtures a forest of thousands of trees, which single-handedly transforms his desert surroundings into a thriving oasis. The film sparked a very good discussion around the topics of focus, forbearance, and investing for the long-term. You can purchase the film and read multiple reviews here.

Why focus on the city? In the United States, more than half of the population now lives in just forty cities of a million or more people. In the past twenty-five years Las Vegas exploded with 250-percent population growth, while Houston grew by 140 percent. Cities are magnets pulling the hopeful across any barrier, and they endure any hardship. They are twenty-four-hour-a-day catch basins for the vulnerable. But some cities are losing population as old industries die. We are in the beginning phases of the most massive migration, both in and out of cities, the world has ever known. And it is ramping up.

Why focus on the city? Today’s cities, even more than nation-states, influence economic systems, political alliances and social movements. This makes cities a strategic investment: what influences the city influences the world. The city needs a growing cadre of young leaders – both college and graduate students as well as those already in the marketplace – who will link their skills, their privileges and their sense of well-being to the well-being of the city. In today’s globalized world, to shape the city is to shape the way people experience life itself.

Why focus on the city? While for some the city is the normal context of faith development, part and parcel of what it means to follow Jesus and the stage where the drama of life before God has unfolded, for many others the city represents a huge question mark. Is it a place where faith can thrive? Is it a place of blessing, or evidence of a curse? Is the city a spiritually fertile place where a person can sustain a vibrant relationship with God? For many whose faith was nurtured in the womb of a gated suburban community or in the calm rhythms of small town America, there’s a lot of doubt about the answer.

While books on ministry in cities, on community organizing, on urban evangelism or simply on how to serve people in cities abound, there are very few resources that view the city as a place to grow your faith and discover a meaningful life, as a place that transforms you or as a place where your own transformation can have an effect.

- Randy White in Encounter God in the City: Onramps to Personal and Community Transformation

History of Missional Church – Part I
History of Missional Church – Part II
History of Missional Church – Part III

Other Notable Authors and Contributors

There are a number of other authors who have contributed significantly to the missional church conversation in the past decade. Two of the more notable voices have been that of Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost. Their first collaborative effort was The Shaping of Things to Come [1] published in 2003. In that book, the authors built upon the twelve indicators first offered by the GOCN by adding three additional overarching principles that provides perhaps the best direction for what it means for a church to be missional. The additional principles include the following:

1. The missional church is incarnational, not attractional, in its ecclesiology. By incarnational we mean it does not create sanctified spaces into which unbelievers must come to encounter the gospel. Rather, the missional church disassembles itself and seeps into the cracks and crevices of a society in order to be Christ to those who don’t yet know him.

2. The missional church is messianic, not dualistic, in its spirituality. That is, it adopts the worldview of Jesus the Messiah, rather than that of the Greco-Roman empire. Instead of seeing the world as divided between the sacred (religious) and profane (nonreligious), like Christ it sees the world and God’s place in it as more holistic and integrated.

3. The missional church adopts an apostolic, rather than a hierarchical, mode of leadership. By apostolic we mean a mode of leadership that recognizes the fivefold model detailed by Paul in Ephesians 6. It abandons the triangular hierarchies of the traditional church and embraces a biblical, flat-leadership community that unleashes the gifts of evangelism, apostleship, and prophecy, as well as the currently popular pastoral and teaching gifts. [2]

Hirsch and Frost believe the missional “genius” of a church can only be unleashed when there are foundational changes made to the church’s very DNA, and that means addressing fundamental issues like ecclesiology, spirituality, and leadership. It means there must be a complete shift away from a Christendom way of thinking, which, as mentioned above, has been attractional, dualistic, and hierarchical. [3]

Several other books that have added much to the missional church conversation in the past decade are included in the following abridged annotated bibliography:

Craig Van Gelder, The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000).

In The Essence of the Church, Van Gelder shares his concerns for many churches taking a functional approach to ecclesiology. He then moves to articulate a missional ecclesiology, which he places in the context of God’s purposes within creation and his eschatological intention. According to Van Gelder, the church is the redemptive reign of God implemented in a fallen world. Furthermore, it is the Spirit which carries out the redemptive purposes of God through the church as the Spirit empowers it for ministry. After describing the church from a redemptive, Trinitarian theological perspective, Van Gelder reserves the second half of the book to give practical advice about what the church is, what the church does, and how the church should organize to best live out its missionary nature.

Milfred Minatrea. Shaped by God’s Heart: The Passion and Practices of Missional Churches (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004).

In Shaped by God’s Heart, Minatrea offers a good introduction to the missional church conversation. The book is organized in three sections. Part one is titled, “The Church in a New and Changing World.” In this portion of the book Minatrea discusses the difference between being “mission-minded” and “missional.” In part two, “The Nine Essential Practices of Missional Churches,” he presents the core of the book as he shares nine practices that he has observed in studying missional churches. Part three is titled “Structures and Strategies for Becoming Missional.” In this last section Minatrea shares strategies for church leaders who desire to move their churches towards becoming more missional. Additionally, each chapter includes helpful reflection and application questions to be used in group studies.

Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006).

In The Forgotten Ways, Frost and Hirsch describe the current form of church in two simple ways. A missional church is one that goes to where people are to engage them on their own cultural turf while an attractional model expects people to leave where they are and come join the church culture. They contend that the attractional, institutional church that in large part is the creation of the church growth movement, has created a spectator Christianity that is largely irrelevant at reaching 85 percent of the culture. However the book is much more than a simple attack on the attractional church or the church growth movement. Building upon theological reflection and missiological principles, the authors develops a sound missional theology for the church. The Forgotten Ways will certainly remain one of the most significant contributions to effective missional engagement.

Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006).

In The Missional Leader, Roxburgh and Romanuk draw upon many years of experience as consultants to church leaders across the United States and Canada. They offer a realistic approach to leaders who are struggling with what it means to be a missional church in a local context. The authors caution against adopting business models and church growth techniques. Instead they continually emphasize the importance of recognizing that the church is a spiritual entity that is lead and empowered by the Spirit. The goal of spiritual leadership therefore is to discern where and how the Spirit of God is working in the context of the local church.

Ed Stetzer and David Putman, Breaking the Missional Code (Nashville: B&H, 2006).

Breaking the Misisonal Code is one of the most practical introductions to the missional conversation. The book is built upon the premise that the church is a community created by God to be sent as a missionary into a local context. To do so effectively means that the church must break the “missional code” of their context. Each church must function as a missionary people exegeting their culture in order to better present the Gospel.  Throughout the book Stetzer and Putman provide numerous examples of churches that exhibit missional qualities. They also offer multiple definitions to bring clarity to missional terminology. For any church leader who desires to better understand the basics of missional practice Breaking the Missional Code would be a great place to begin.

Patrick Keifert, We Are Here Now: A New Missional Era (Eagle, ID: Allelon Publishing, 2006).

In We Are Here Now, Keifert offers a framework for deep change in churches and leadership teams that are striving towards missional engagement. Similar to other books on the missional church, Keifert agrees that as a result of vast cultural changes the church is in desperate need of recapturing its missionary nature. However what sets We Are Here Now apart is that Keifert lays out a long-range plan of spiritual discernment and transformation for a local congregation. Keifert maintains that when it comes to serious missional commitment, there are no quick fixes and real change is shaped by Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and attention to each other.

Craig Van Gelder, The Ministry of the Missional Church: A Community Led by the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007).

Van Gelder writes that the premise of The Ministry of the Missional Church is to encourage churches to recognize the ministry of the Spirit in the midst of constant congregational change. He believes that God’s intent is often to use change either directly or indirectly to move a congregation in new directions of meaningful ministry under the leading of the Spirit. Furthermore, Van Gelder desires for congregations to understand that the Spirit-led ministry of the church flows out of the Spirit-created nature of the church. In other words, being precedes doing. Or to put it another way, the nature of the church establishes the foundation for understanding the purpose of the church and its ministry and determines their direction and scope. Van Gelder does an excellent job of showing that when a church begins with its nature, or essence as a Spirit-created community, growth and development are the natural outcome.

Craig Van Gelder, ed., The Missional Church in Context: Helping Congregations Develop Contextual Ministry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007).

The Missional Church in Context is a collection of eight outstanding papers presented at a consultation held at Luther Seminary in December of 2005. The premise of the consultation, and exemplified by the book title, is that every context should be seen as a missional context, and every congregation as a missional congregation that is responsible to participate in God’s mission in that context. The book does not promote a method or model of ministry but encourages various congregational expressions to enter a discernment process, with the Spirit, to identify the theological foundations and insights in order to develop the capacity for ministry engagement. Again as indicative of the title, context does matter. Collectively the contributors state that the church needs to develop a “formation triad” that includes congregational formation (the shaping of a concrete Christian community), spiritual formation (corporate and personal attention to initiatives of God) and missional formation (local church’s identity and agency in its encounter with the immediate context). This text represents another important voice speaking on the significance of context in the formation of the local church.

Hugh Halter and Matt Smay. The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008).

The Tangible Kingdom is a guide to the planting of missional communities written by two missional practitioners and church planters. One of the strengths of the book is the use of stories to illustrate the power of incarnational community. They show what it looks like to leave the safe “bubble” of much of modern evangelicalism and ventured out into the lives of those around us. Further it provides helpful direction on combating consumerism, living out our mission in the context of an entire community, and what it means to practice biblical hospitality.

Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways Handbook: A Practical Guide for Developing Missional Churches (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2009).

The Forgotten Ways Handbook is a follow up to the 2006 publication by the same name. However, the handbook moves beyond the theological foundation built in the original The Forgotten Ways to a place of practice that very little resources provide. This extremely practical handbook includes many helpful tools including summary sections encapsulating the ideas contained in each chapter of the original book, suggested habits and practices to help readers embed missional principles, and adult learning-based techniques and examples from other churches that enable readers to process and assimilate the ideas in a group context.

Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).

The most significant contribution that Missional Renaissance makes to the missional church conversation is McNeal’s attempt to establish a new way of measuring success in the church in the United States. For years the measure of faithfulness and vitality in the church has been in terms of growth in attendance, finances and facilities. However to assist the church in making a shift in a missional direction, McNeal argues that the church must begin to measure success by using a new scorecard. He asks, What would happen if we measured vitality in terms of growth in the area of people, service, prayer and outreach?

2. Ibid.,12.

3. Ibid.

History of Missional Church – Part I

The British Gospel and Culture “Programme”

The British version of the Gospel and Culture movement was initiated by Newbigin in Britain during the 1980s and came to be known as a “programme.” Newbigin had been entrusted by the British Council of Churches with the task of planning a major national conference pursuing Christian engagement with contemporary Western culture. It was shaped largely by his writings during that period, which included three significant books: The Other Side of 1984 (1983), Foolishness to the Greeks (1986), and The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989). The major themes of each of these books not only played an important role in the formation of the British “programme” but they continue to influence the missional conversation today.

The Other Side of 1984 was a published essay that Newbigin prepared for the British Council of Churches conference held in 1984; thus, the name of the book. In it, Newbigin presents two major themes. First, that Western culture is in crisis because it has too closely tied itself to an Enlightenment worldview. Newbigin argues that those in the west believe that science and technology holds the answers to unlimited progress. Moreover, in the west scientific explanations have replaced dogmatic explanations. However, the shift to a world dominated by science and technology has not led to a rational and meaningful world, but instead has led to a crisis of meaning and purpose which can only be remedied by a serious reaffirmation of faith.

The second theme concerns the loss of influence the church has had upon the culture. According to Newbigin, the church’s voice has been marginalized in large part because it has surrendered its place in the public sphere and retreated into the private sector. Newbigin desire is not to have the church return to a position held during the time of Christendom; he simply believes that faith must always be involved in the dialogue with other patterns of thought.

In Foolishness to the Greeks, Newbigin provides an excellent analysis of the central features of Western culture. He asks the question, What would be involved in a genuinely missionary encounter between the gospel and Western culture; especially a culture that has fragmented life into the artificial distinctions between facts and values, public and private lives, and particulars and absolutes. Newbigin places Christian truth claims in constant dialogue with modern issues. He interacts with the tensions between the truth of Scripture and science, politics, and the institutional church. In each case he asks, What must the church claim to know, do, and be in a post-Christian culture?

Finally, in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Newbigin continues the theme of contextualizing the gospel in a postmodern, pluralistic culture. He writes on the necessity of shaping the gospel within culture and yet insisting that the gospel cannot endorse everything in culture. Moreover, the work of contextualization is not something set aside for individual Christians alone, but for Newbigin it is at the core of the mission of the church. Describing the congregation as “the hermeneutic of the gospel,” he underlines the nature and purpose of the renewed communities of God’s people.

As churches attempt a move in a more missional direction one of the major issues involves rethinking church “measurables” or “scorecards.” David Fitch offers several good ideas on this topic in chapter one of The Great Giveaway. He contends that there is still a need to measure, but the things we “count” will be very different. When speaking on my favorite measurable Fitch writes:

Let us also turn from measuring the size of buildings to the number of new churches planted. Let us count the number of local congregations each church has formed outside itself instead of the attendance figures on Sunday morning or the increased size of the worship facility. We must ask, Why is it that pastors of large churches are more willing to build bigger buildings than empower a group of forty to fifty people to plant another living body of Christ? If indeed the facts are true that the greatest conversion growth occurs in churches when they grow from fifty to two hundred people, why is it that we insist on building bigger churches after they reached one thousand?

What does it say about our assumptions for church growth when we plant churches that already start with two hundred people? Does it say that a church is not really a “successful” church until it reaches a thousand? But if we accept our new conditions in a post-Christian culture, pastoral success and the success of a church will not be measured by simple numbers alone, but by church plants, the spurring on of missional congregations that can display a witness visibly to the new life in Christ before a watching and lost world.

If what we have said above is true, evangelicals should seek a vision of the world that is populated with local bodies of Christ, not megachurch centers. Instead of huge religious arenas for private individuals to come eat, shop, and see a religious production, let us evangelicals pursue a world where one can no sooner go to a Starbucks, a Cineplex movie theater, or a local tavern without also being confronted with an alternative center for life, a life centered under the lordship of Christ, the visible local body of Christ. If this is what it means to be a physical body of Christ in North America, then the ultimate sign of church success will be “the number of churches you have planted,” not how big your church is in terms of attendance, decisions, or church facilities.

Here is another small section of chapter one of my dmin project. This portion follows a discussion on the marginalization of the church in America, as well as part one shared in the previous post.

To achieve a move from treating the church as a vendor of religious services to being a body of people sent on a mission there must be a renewed emphasis on the nature of the church and its missionary encounter with a post-Christian society. Hunsberger provides one way of framing the necessary transitions that must take place in the beliefs and practices of the church. He believes there are at least three practical shifts that can lay the foundation for sound theological and missiological “rethinking” in the life of the local church.

First there will need to be a shift from program to embodiment. “It makes a difference whether a church is oriented toward producing programs and services for potential consumers, or whether it is committed to cultivating habits of life that help us be faithful to the gospel together.”[1] Programs are not necessarily wrong; they simply need to be subservient to the purpose of the church, which is to be an instrument of God’s mission. Programs are not for the simple consumption of church members but are for the purpose of growing members so they can be sent out into the world to participate in what God is already doing in the lives of people. Mike Erre in Death by Church speaks to this transition when he writes:

The church was birthed out of the mission of God, and not the other way around. This means that we don’t take Christ to a region or people group, but we instead show up and pay attention to the work that Jesus is already doing. We have to move away from the current mind-set about church, ministry and mission and think again about our participation in the ministry of Jesus in the world. This change is difficult for us because it means we are no longer the initiators or sustainers of mission and ministry. Instead, we are focused on discerning the movement of God’s Spirit as we week to join Him in what He is already doing. This involves waiting, asking, seeking, knocking – disciplines and activities that cannot be mass-produced or consumed.[2]

The second shift that Hunsberger believes must be embraced by the church is a shift from being clergy dominated to being laity oriented. In other words, the emphasis must shift from the “professional Christians (clergy), who are center stage in the gathered church, to Christian professionals who are ministering in the world and in the workplace.”[3] Martin Luther’s idea of the priesthood of all believers was that all Christians were called to carry out their vocational ministries in every area of life. Every believer needs to be encouraged to fully understand how their vocation plays a central part in God’s redemptive Kingdom.[4] Mike Regele speaks to this dynamic of vocational ministry for all believers when he writes:

If the local congregation is the primary unit of mission in the twenty-first century, then the individual members of the local congregation are the primary agents of mission. We have the opportunity to again image the lay person as playing not just a supporting actor role but a lead role in the mission of Christ’s church in the world. The Pauline notion of being ambassadors for Christ takes on renewed meaning, not just for those who enter into “full-time Christian work” but for those who work, period. Each one of us must be captured by the vision of playing this role in every activity we undertake.[5]

The third shift, which is perhaps the most crucial in assisting the church in the development of a missional mindset, involves a shift from recruitment to mission. Hunsberger rightly contends that the two words, “recruitment” and “mission” move in opposite directions. “Recruitment is the orientation inherent in the vendor church, which tries to attract people to be regular and committed consumers of its programs and services – that is, to be satisfied customers. Mission moves in an opposite direction. It moves outward. It is concerned about giving the gospel away, not getting people in.”[6]

Robert Warren in Building Missionary Congregations makes a helpful addition to this third shift by highlighting the point that when the church moves its emphasis off of the needs of the church and on to the needs of the world, the typical pastoral role will also change:

A church effectively engaged in mission will see that participating in the missio Dei will involve shifting emphasis from a focus on the life of the local church, and a concern to keep everyone happy (which too easily passes for ‘pastoral concern’), to a concern for the world in its needs, joys and struggles. The work, for example, of engaging with the sick, the grieving and the dying, as well as with the moral issues of such roles in society as those concerned with wealth creation or medical ethics, is indeed pastoral. It is the shift form the maintenance and ‘keeping people happy’ mode in which the church all too often operates, into engagement with these situations that will bring the church into the pastoral-in-mission mode of operating. [7]

Conclusion

While religious interest remains strong in American culture, people are increasingly examining alternatives to Christianity to supplement their religious beliefs and behaviors. In a chapter titled “Post-Enlightenment Culture as a Missionary Problem” author Lesslie Newbigin argues that the missiological dilemma is not reaching a secular society, but more troubling, reaching a society that is thoroughly pagan. Newbigin writes, Western society “is a pagan society, and its paganism, having been born out of the rejection of Christianity, is far more resistant to the gospel than the pre-Christian paganism with which cross-cultural missions have been familiar. Here surely, is the most challenging missionary frontier of our time.”[8]

Scottish missiologist Andrew Walls further emphasizes both the gravity and urgency of the challenge when he writes:

It is now too late to treat Western society as in some sort of decline from Christian standards, to be brought back to church by preaching and persuasion. Modern Western society, taken as a whole, reflects one of the great non-Christian cultures of the world. There is one department of the life of the Western church that spent centuries grappling with non-Christian cultures, and gradually learned something of the processes of comprehending, penetrating, exploring, and translating within them. That was the task of the missionary movement.[9]

The church in America must once again engage in the task of the missionary movement of which Walls speaks, however today those same missiological efforts of the past must be directed towards Western society. It is essential that the church in America recognize that it is now living in a mission field which requires sound missionary thinking and activities. Furthermore, it is necessary that the church gain a clear understanding of the missio Dei,[10] the mission of God, and see how it, the Church, is to be sent into the world to actively participate in what God is already doing. Instead of being shaped by mission statements, business models, or marketing and church growth techniques; the church must be shaped by participating in God’s mission. Ed Stetzer writes:

A proper understanding of the biblical and theological basis of being on mission begins with an understanding of the nature of God. He is a missionary God – in this and every culture. . . . The missionary posture is the normal expression of the church in all times and places. The theological concept of missio Dei, the mission of God, recognizes that God is a sending God and the church is sent. It is the most important mission in the Scriptures. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of that mission; the Holy Spirit is the power of that mission; the church is the instrument of that mission; and the culture is the context in which that mission occurs. . . . The source of missionary identity is located in the nature of the triune and sending God, and is connected ontologically with the very existence of the church. . . . The church needs to realize that mission is its “fundamental identity.”[11]

What does this imply for the church in America that faces the challenge of doing ministry in a post-Christian, pagan, pluralistic context? First and foremost it means that the church must recapture the missionary nature of God and His church, and as a result see, as Stetzer states, that mission is its fundamental identity. It is essential that the church once again become a missionary people who move beyond a Constantinian model, that presumed a churched culture, to an apostolic, missionary approach intent on penetrating the vast unchurched segments of society. It means the church will “need to be turned inside out in order to bring those outside in. It will not suffice to simply invite the seeker to come to us to hear the gospel on our turf. Instead the church will have to be the church in the world – gathering for worship in order to go out in mission.”[12]

In the final chapter of Foolishness to the Greeks, Newbigin provides a clarion call to the church to activate its missionary calling as God’s instrument sent into the world on His behalf, when he writes:

The church is the bearer to all the nations of a gospel that announces the kingdom, the reign, and the sovereignty of God. . . . It is not meant to call men and women out of the world into a safe religious enclave but to call them out in order to send them back as agents of God’s kingship.[13] (emphasis added)

The contemporary church is in desperate need of a self-understanding that will empower it for ministry in this changing world. That self-understanding, however will come only when the church fully embraces the reality that it is in fact a called people – but as Newbigin states, it is called for the unmitigated purpose of being sent.

2. Mike Erre, Death by Church (Eugene: Harvest House, 2009), 136.

3.  Hunsberger and Van Gelder, 345.

4.  Gene Edward Veith, God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2002)

5.  Regele, 220.

6.  Hunsberger and Van Gelder, 345.

7.  Robert Warren, Building Missionary Congregations (Glasgow, Scotland: Church House Publishing, 1995), 26.

8.  Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 20.

9.  Andrew Walls, “Western Society Presents a Missionary Challenge,” in Missiological Education for the Twenty-first Century, ed. J. Dudley , Charles Van Engen, and Edgar Elliston (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 19.

10. For a brief history of the concept of mission as missio Dei, see David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991), 389-93.

11. Stetzer, 78.

12. Gibbs, 236.

13. Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, 124.

Stetzer & Fitch – a missional conversation – Part III from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

I know a couple of these links have been out there for a while but if you haven’t seen these be sure to check out the following.

Outstanding post from last month by David Fitch on moving from “the bridge” to “the onramp.” Today’s post by Fitch on Missional Discipleship is also well worth reading. Also I am looking forward to Fitch coming to Kansas City next month.

Tony Stiff and Reading the Bible Missionally. You can also follow a conversation about Tony’s thoughts at JR Woodward’s blog here and here.

Another great analysis by Ed Stetzer in Five Reasons Missional Churches Don’t Do Global Missions And How to Fix It.

Neil Cole and Church 3.0

Organized For Mission and Four P’s For Church Planting at Next Reformation.

Jonathan Dodson and Is Your Mission Driven by Prayer?

On Reaching a City.

Missional Small Communities from Ed Stetzer on Vimeo.

I recently ran across a very enjoyable article by Dr. Steven Harmon (my former theology professor in seminary) entitled “U2: Unexpected Prophets.” If you are a U2 fan I suspect you will enjoy Harmon’s observations as much as I did. Here is the concluding paragraph:

In these and other songs of social engagement, Bono and U2 continue to be unexpected prophets. They not only cry out against injustice, but also dare to imagine an alternative in light of the Christian vision. They searchingly examine the distortions of our world and proclaim with Scripture “the place that has to be believed to be seen,” the place “where the streets have no name.” Will we hear them?

All the clearest voices tell us that the corpus Christianum, the Constantinian arrangement, and the world of Christendom that guided our thinking about ourselves for 1500 years, is not coming back.

Our habit of telling our Christian story always as a success story, the habit so ingrained in us by even these later years in which formal Christendom was largely disestablished but functional Christendom continued, is running out of capital. The danger lies in continuing to believe the fiction that this is the way our story goes. The crisis means discovering what new story awaits us, and how the Holy Spirit draws us into the story in a new way.

That brings us to the opportunity side of the crisis. The opportunity is to recover what it means for the church to be missional. This is not just to have missions, or to send missions or missionaries, but to possess a distinctly missional sense of our identity, and to know ourselves to be formed by God as a sent community that bears the marks of the full biblical story of a cross, as well as a resurrection.

Here we are face to face with the challange for which Lesslie Newbigin has become so famous (or, infamous). He imagines what it would be like for the churches of the West to become genuinely engaged in “the missionary encounter of the gospel with our Western culture.”

That this sounds so new tells how far we have lost our missional character because it is in such a continual engagement that our calling and vocation finds it certre.

– George R. Hunsberger from “Birthing Missional Faithfulness: Accents in a North American Movement” in International Review of Mission