Spectrums of Missional Church – Contextualizing Mission in Culture
What Missional Church Means for North America
There's seemingly endless chatter going on in the blogosphere talking about the missional church vis a vis the 'attractional' church. 'Missional' supporters bash modern attractional churches for their seeker sensitive 'sit, be served, and consume' approach to church. Conversely, attractional churches offer their rebuttal about the effectiveness of missional to achieve duplication.
In today's North America who's right and who's wrong? Frankly, if we support missional church, that we must contextualize our gospel message to our culture then we have to assume that there is room for both, albeit attractional should be on the decline regarding its capability to maintain relevance in a emerging post-Christendom culture.
Even within the missional movement you have a vast array of theological differences. Andy Rowell provided an interesting 'spectrum' ranking from high to low church, the major theologians of the missional conversation.
Where does that leave us?
This post is influenced by the growing rhetoric in Protestant denominations to do something about their declining numbers. Evangelical consumer churches are bleeding away people yet their 'old church' expenses remain.
Something has to be done, something is changing, we need to change!
Or so these types of leaders like to say. The issue? Doing is different than talking about change. The very same mortgage problem forces many to maintain status quo, doing what makes most givers happy. Solution?
When it comes to change, be it moving the piano across the stage or changing philosophical paradigms, modern Protestants tend to be exclusively reactionary rather than leaders. Current denominational and church pastors tend to be more concerned about dwindling numbers and giving rather than creating unique ways to address the diminishing impact 'church' has on society.
Thankfully this is changing as many have taken note of how poorly the current church set up is to 'make disciples'. Mega churches may work at getting you in and getting you invovled, in fact most attractional churches can at least get you in. But taking the TWO to SEVEN years to journey with people as They battle through discipleship is an action that receives a failing grade.
Don't get me wrong, from your run of the mill program driven evangelical consumer church, to your building-less 'incarnational' house church, missio Dei (God's mission to redeem humanity) can be expressed in both. In comes the 'missional' paradigm where we acknowledge mission shouldn't be a small ministry of the overall church purpose, rather, the entirety of its purpose.
The genetic make up of the attractional church has created a three-fold dichotomy of distinguishing people between 'clergy-laity-missionary'. As noted, missional church seeks to tear down the walls, eliminate clergy and laity distinctions (while keeping leadership), while affirming EVERYONE to exist for the sake of missio Dei.
Adjusting what is essentially an Old Testament way to organize versus a New Testament model of apostolic leadership, is a massive uphill battle. The way our churches are organized as a great deal to do with our capability to engage in our culture around us. The following diagrams explain the different between the perception of culture and organization impact the way we view community (those we journey with towards God's redemption plan for creation).
There are two paradigms being expressed here. The top is a more traditional, modern perspective on how church ought to posture itself to the world outside. The reason why I put a rigid box around the modern church is because revelation/theology/understanding can only exist within it. As you can see, those outside of the 'box' (the church) are labeled 'pagans'. Those within the 'box' exist on a continuum, right-wing fundamentalist on one side, attractional 'moderates' in the middle, and even, yes, modern missional expressions at the other end (which, however, invariably hit the edge of the box where they can't progress any further without 'getting out').
The circle perspective represents a post-Christendom view of church community along with the world it leads. We can see everything that makes up culture is on the outside (called 'language'). You're not considered a pagan because you don't pray a certain way, but rather, some are further along their journey towards Christ compared to others. This culture does not assume one of the central tenants of missional church: that we still exist in a nation rooted in Christendom (more so Canada than the US).
Inside the circle is your city, culture, community, etc., and in one of the great and many paradoxes we live with everyday, we see the church community is NOT out of culture, but leading it, yet not necessary a part of it. So not 'of' culture but simultaneously not 'out of' culture.
As it stands, Conservative protestants generally exist by relying on their foundations referring almost exclusively to the Scriptures (sometimes at the expense of the Christ). Revelation and vision of any kind is grounded solely through the perspective of a particular boxed evangelical community (seen above). This is explained better by David Fitch:
The Protestants, you remember, no longer could trust the church as God's work in the world....For evangelicals, the autonomous individual rational mind reads the Bible and by the Holy Spirit understands and encounters the living Word....Evangelicals argue for the historical reliability of Scripture and the wherewithal of individual rationality under submission to the Holy Spirit to come to the propositional and real truth.
Problem is 'real truth' is variable because, like it or not, many perceived Christian 'truths' are really a product of theology (which are glorified opinions). Case in point Mars Hill Seattle. Great job and using the language of the day (technology) to communicate. However, their message is conservatism in blue jeans rooted in their love for neo-Reformed theology. This isn't bad, not in the slightest, but it's a perspective of many--not the only voice in Christian orthodoxy.
Conversely, a new missional community can mean you do not exert rules and theology on the community before it even begins. The community will determine where and what is kosher (yes, there is a danger to this as well). Of course, if you reside within denominational boundaries then you already have some theological fences (to sit on).
Modern Church to Missional Church? Just About Change Management?
It is unlikely that a church existing within the consumer Box 1 will be capable to shift into Circle 1. There's too much at stake ranging from traditions of the community/denomination, versus the environment/ethos created in the past. Once a consumer church always a consumer church. Don't believe me? Try it out, see how fast a consumer/attractional church will decline to 10% the original numerical size after a hard switch to missional. It doesn't help that our church leaders tend to act like managers rather than strong visionaries willing to accomplish risky business.
Some have accomplished this dramatic shift, however, most will go through the steps any profit maximizing organization would employ: change management. "We'll do just enough to loose not too much so we can look somewhat like the culture 'out there'." But doing 'just enough' is not good enough, especially in a time where once prominent evangelical denominations are quickly becoming ineffective like their mainline counterparts found out 30 years ago.
This is risky business especially when you're a church that's supposed to be a living organic expression of loving community that deals with people. It's not a corporation that has many of the same legal rights as humans, but without the all important relationship aspect.
It's also detrimental at worst, and confusing at best, if modern consumer churches adopt missional language then without adopting a missional posture as a congregation/community. 'Missional attractional churches' calls everyone to connect into the mission of God while simultaneously offering a Sunday morning product to be consumed by quiet and unengaged spectators. We can't take part in missio Dei if we commission congregants to exist on mission throughout the week but treat Sunday morning as if they were sit and consume customers.
We need to think of big ways to address a culture that has carried on without us. We can start by acknowledging what we did yesterday may not work today, and what we believed yesterday may not be understood today. At least at this point we'll be able to figure out ways to lead, which by definition doesn't mean catching up, but creating a response for tomorrow today.
So yes there are many expressions of missional church, just as there are expressions of modern North American church. Adjusting based on your context is important, but make sure you don't make the mistake of assuming you know more about your neighbour than you really do. Then you'll end up back in the same never-ending spiral of brow beating your friends into rationally understanding 'God's wonderful plan for their lives'.
A good start is to establish some regular relationships and learn from where they lead you. Then you can comprehend where your culture is and how you should respond to point them into the direction of God reign on earth.
[tags]missional church, missionality, missional, emergent, attractional church[/tags]
