During the next two network gathering times we will be examining Alan Hirsch’s “The Forgotten Ways.” We plan to discuss the first two chapters in March and finish the book in April. I hope everyone has secured a copy of the book, if not remember you can still download the introduction and chapter one of the book from “The Forgotten Ways” website.
I hope other friends who are unable to join one of the network gatherings and readers of this blog from other areas will join our discussion via this blog as we work our way through the book each week. There has been a good bit of discussion of the book taking place the past month over at Jesus Creed. Additionally, there is a helpful interview with Hirsch at Rodney Olsen’s site.
To begin our discussion I want to share a bit from the introduction. Under a section entitled “A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Question”:
Using studies by Rodney Stark, Hirsch calculates that the early church grew from 25,000 in AD 100 to about 20,000,000 in AD 310. How did this happen? What was going on in early Christianity to experience this type of growth? To illustrate that this phenomena was not just an early church experience Hirsch shares the example of the church in China. When Mao Tse-tung took control of China there were approximately 2 million Christians. However, when the Bamboo Curtain was lifted some estimated the Christian population in China to be near 60 million. Moreover, the number of Christians in China today are around 80 million. Once again, how did this kind of growth happen?
Before you respond, Hirsch states some qualifications that must be factored into your answer:
1. They were an illegal religion throughout this period.
2. They didn’t have church buildings as we know them.
3. They didn’t have scriptures as we know them.
4. They didn’t have an institution or professional forms of leadership.
5. They didn’t have seeker-sensitive services, youth groups, worship bands, seminaries, etc.
6. They actually made it hard to join the church.
How do you respond to these two examples? What was happening in the life of the church to experience this kind of growth?
Brad, its my honor to have you guys go through the book. I will try and visit on occasion to see how heretical you all are!
Hope God blesses you in the search for a better way.
Brad, I just started the book yesterday. I will definitely try to participate in the chatter as it begins to be posted.
Thanks for the heads up!
I’d love to get into this book. I’m not sure whether I can do it with my school reading load, but Hirsch is definitely on my radar now.
Brad,
Stark’s book (The Rise of Christianity) has some interesting insights to this:
–”Christianity revitalized life in Greco-Roman cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with urgent urban problems. To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes,Christianity offered effective nursing services.”
–The church placed high demands on its participants. There were often martyrs (like the woman Perpetua) who contributed to the impression that a radical new reality had come into the world.
Rustin
Thanks for the bit from Stark’s book, it fits well with Hirsch’s sixth point that the church actually made it hard to join or at least there were certainlly high demands. Don’t see much of that today in our context.
I have heard some push back on the stats, which I guess are Stark’s numbers (is that true Rustin?) but regardless even if the numbers where half that is proposed it would still be a miraculous Jesus movement!
I love the Hans Kung quote at the beginning of the intro. “A church which pitches its tents without constantly looking out for new horizons, which does not continually strike camp, is being untrue to its calling. . . . [We must] play down our longing for certainty, accept what is risky, and live by improvisation and experiment.”
Also like Hirsch’s understanding of what it takes to recapture the power that was manifested in the early church and the underground church in China as: “…the awakening of that dormant potential has something to do with the strange mixture of the passionate love of God, prayer, and incarnational practice. Add to this mix the following: appropriate modes of leadership (as expressed in Ephesians 4), the recovery of radical discipleship, relevant forms of organization and structures, and the appropriate conditions for these to be able to catalyze.”
This is the introduction of the foundation of the book which he calls the “Apostolic Genius.”
Other thoughts from anyone before we move on to chapter one?
Brad,
I think the growth is attributed to the natural outpouring that believers have once changed by a Holy God. They didn’t have to “do” anything, just love and follow Jesus. The evangelism, studying, churches all come as a result of acting upon the love that was freely given. I don’t think we’ll ever see that type of numerical growth until we see the persecution that will test our hearts that many around the world are currently experiencing.
Brad,
Thanks for taking the time and effort to do this.
What they didn’t have comes from what they had as Toby points out. Hirsh points out later the apostolic passion that drove them.
But they had a theology of life transformation (theirs and their target audiences) that was incarnational: Jesus “lived” with their predecessors for three years. They learned him. That proved sufficient for missional living. Their followers did likewise.
They also had a methodology of transformation that was incarnational: Jesus “lived” with their predecessors for three years. They learned him. That proved sufficient. Their followers did likewise.
Yes, the repeat is intentional.
What they did not have was deliberately put in place, and adopted as the MO of the fledgling church. They had the means. Some of the early Christians were well-to-do people. The women that supported the itinerant ministry of Jesus and the disciples and future disciples like Philemon, etc… show this amply.
The danger that could thwart missional thinking, churches, and networks today remains the same. That is letting affluence determine direction. This affluence needs to be intentionally channeled to missional and incarnational minsitries rather than making our own barns larger. Jesus had a thought or two about that.
Looking forward to the rest of the book.
[...] focuses on the issue of leadership in the missional church. He begins by reflecting back on the introduction of the book where he discussed the phenomenal Jesus movements of history, namely the early church up [...]