Following is another section of chapter one of my dmin dissertation. This comes immediately after a discussion on the marginalization of the church, which I shared a portion of here.
While the disestablishment of the church from the dominant seat of culture is disturbing to many Christians in North America, it is seen as a positive development by others because they believe the church can now “recover its identity as shaped by the scriptural story rather than the cultural story,” [1] and in turn regain something of its “genuine mission in the world.” [2] Some would argue that the church, as a result of buying into the cultural story of consumerism, materialism and pragmatism has veered away from its self-understanding as rooted in the mission of God and assumed other agendas. [3]
In the book The Church Between Gospel and Culture, theologian George Hunsberger offers three distinct ways people view the nature of the church. He argues that the manner in which people perceive the church becomes determinative for the church’s agenda. The first view is what Hunsberger labels the “Reformation Heritage.” With this view he argues that Protestants have inherited a particular view of church – the right preaching of the gospel, the right administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of church discipline – that has left us with an understanding of the church as “a place where certain things happen.” [4]
Hunsberger labels the second view as the “Contemporary Variation.” He believes that while the church in North America is not far removed from the view that church is “a place where certain things happen,” a more accurate description of the way people view the church would be as “a vendor of religious goods and services.” [5] From this perspective, members are viewed as customers for whom the religious goods and services are produced. The participants expect the church to provide a wide range of services from favorite music and children programs to fellowship opportunities and marriage enrichment options. With such a model, evangelism evolves into membership recruitment, which may more accurately be called “capturing market share.” The livelihood of this kind of church “is dependent on having a sufficient number of satisfied, committed customers.” [6]
The third view of the nature of the church is identified as the “Missionary Vision” or as Hunsberger more often refers to as “a body of people sent on a mission.” [7] The central point with this view is that the church is to be understood as a people called and sent by God to participate in His mission for the world. Or as Lesslie Newbigin states in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, “It seems to me to be of great importance to insist that mission is not first of all an action of ours. It is an action of God.” [8]
Hunsberger’s taxonomy of how people view the nature of the church raises three very important issues surrounding the missionary posture of the church. First, when people within the church hold to a view that the church is “a place were certain things happen,” they become inwardly focused and expend their resources on maintenance rather than mission. The church becomes a place where the needs of its members take precedence over the needs of those outside the organization. In early 2006 researcher Thom S. Rainer wrote:
In a recent survey of churches across America, we found that nearly 95% of the churches’ ministries were for members alone. Indeed, many churches had no ministries for those outside the congregation. Many churches seem to exist only for themselves. While there certainly should be ministry available for church members, often the balance between external and internal ministries is heavily skewed toward internal. When churches seek to care and minister only to their own, it’s a likely sign that decline is in motion and that death may be imminent. [9]
Or as Bill Easum writes in Unfreezing Moves, “Most Protestant congregations are stuck in the muck and mire of their institutions with little or no movement toward joining Jesus on the mission field. To them faithfulness means supporting their church and keeping it open.” [10]
Second, when a church adopts the view that it is “a vendor of religious goods and services,” it in turn relies on church growth strategies and marketing techniques to attract customers, or new members to the church. However, in the religious climate of today, marketing approaches seem to be wearing thin, especially among younger generations. After discussing the negative image of Christianity among younger people, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons conclude that “no strategy, tactics, or clever marketing campaign could ever clear away the smokescreen that surrounds Christianity in today’s culture. The perception of outsiders will change only when Christians strive to represent the heart of God in every relationship and situation.” [11]
After discussing the mounting problems of connecting with the majority of the population that report alienation from the form of church that relies on marketing techniques and church growth principles, Alan Hirsch offer this candid critique:
How do they access the gospel if they reject this form of church? And what would church be like for them in their various settings? Because what is clear from the research . . . is that when surveyed about what they think of the contemporary church growth expression of Christianity, [their response ranges] from being blasé (“good for them, but not for me”) to total repulsion (“I would never go there”). At best, we can make inroads on the blasé; we can’t hope to reach the rest of the population with this model – they are simply alienated from it and don’t like it for a whole host of reasons.
What is becoming increasingly clear is that if we are going to meaningfully reach this majority of people, we are not going to be able to do it by simply doing more of the same. And yet it seems that when faced with our problems of decline, we automatically reach for the latest church growth package to solve the problem – we seem to have nowhere else to go. But simply pumping up the programs, improving the music and audiovisual effects, or jiggering the ministry mix won’t solve our missional crisis. Something far more fundamental is needed. [12]
Eddie Gibbs speaks to a possible reason behind the move that so many churches make toward marketing strategies to reach those outside the church:
Churches throughout the Western world find themselves increasingly marginalized from society as they endeavor to relate the good news to people whose assumptions and attitudes have been shaped by modernity and postmodernity. Our post-Christian, neopagan, pluralistic North American context presents crosscultural missionary challenges every bit as daunting as those we would face on any other continent. Unfortunately most pastors and church leaders have had no missiological training. Consequently they resort to marketing strategies in place of missionary insights in their attempts to reach out to a population that is becoming increasingly distanced from the church. [13]
The theological and missiological concerns associated with the first two issues surrounding the understanding of the nature and activity of the church leads us to the third and most pressing issue – and one stated in the previous quote by Eddie Gibbs – that the church is in dire need of instruction in the area of mission. Again, Gibbs writes:
The majority of church leaders throughout the Western world find themselves ministering in a rapidly changing cultural context that is both post-Christian and pluralistic. Consequently their outreach ministries are as crosscultural as those of their more traditional missionary counterparts seeking to make Christ known in other parts of the world. Consequently they are in as much need of missionary training to venture across the street as to venture overseas. [14]
1. Goheen, 38.
2. Hall, 36.
3. Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009), 22. See also Rodney Clapp, A Peculiar People (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity, 1996) and Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989).
4. Hunsberger and Van Gelder, 337.
5. Ibid.
6. Hunsberger and Van Gelder, 339.
7. Ibid, 341.
8. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluarlist Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 134.
9. Thom S. Rainer, “Seven Sins of Dying Churches,” Outreach Magazine 5, no. 1, (January/February 2006), 16.
10. Bill Easum, Unfreezing Moves: Following Jesus into the Mission Field (Nashville: Abingdom, 2001), 10.
11. David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity And Why it Matters (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 226.
12. Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006), 37.
13. Gibbs, 36.
14. Ibid., 27.
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