Here is a basic law of entrepeneurial endeavors. You only begin something if you think that:
1) It doesn’t exist already
2) There isn’t enough of it already
3) You can do it better
By starting something new, we are declaring that their is a vacuum to be filled, or criticizing the existing offers. The problem isn’t noticing something is missing, it’s when we jump to the next step, and assume we know what is needed. Continue Reading…
“…pray for the nations…”
“…families values….”
“…substitutionary atonement…”
“…God spoke to my heart…”
“…separate and apart from the Lord’s Supper…”
“…let your Spirit fill this place…”
“…four point, double predestination…”
“…gospel-centered…”
“…racial reconciliation…”
“…false metanarrative…”
The list could go on and on.
Every Sunday, in Churches across the world, we listen to professionals explain theology to us. With years of training, they are paid to be experts, which means precisely knowing the ins and outs of your topic. Doctors know latin words for diseases. Computer scientists know about code. Interior designers know names for colors that others can’t even differentiate. Professional Christians use theological terminology. It’s what makes them professionals.
Add to that the language created by 500 years of Christian tribalism. When Luther broke off the Catholic church he taught about justication by grace. When the Anabaptists broke off they started formulating their peace teachings. Calvin’s followers, in an attempt to differentiate themselves from Arminius, articulated the five points of Calvinism. The results today can be heard in people’s language. Neo-reformed types use the word “gospel” a lot. Charismatics love to talk about “the nations.” Social justice types have use phrases like “racial reconciliation.”
We use these terms because they’re important. Nuanced language is neccessary for discussing nuanced theology. Denominational phraseology helps express hard won, distinctive values. This is good and important, but for a missional practitioner, it is also dangerous. Here’s three reasons why:
– It means nothing to the secularist who has no theological training.
– For the dechurched, it’s a path to bringing back old, painful memories.
– It sends a message that you are only interested in talking to people who are already like you.
In a post Christian world, insider terminology it’s the equivalent of a street corner preacher in Mexico speaking in English. It tells your audience “I have nothing to say to you.”
So how do you avoid this missional misstep? You do you what the gospel has always done. As Jesus was translated into flesh, the gospel was translated from Aramaic to Greek to Latin, to almost every language on earth. We have to do the same everyday: remember who we’ve been sent to, and find new ways to translate the gospel for them every day.
Imagine you want to throw a birthday party for your friend Joe. Would you:
A) Spend 8 years in school studying party planning theory. Organize a party planning committee. Raise funds to throw the party. Send Joe a mailer about his party.
B) Spend some time with Joe. Find out what where he likes to go, what he likes to do and who his friends are. Ask what his favorite type of cake is.
Why is the question ridiculous? Because situation B is about throwing a party for Joe. Situation A is something else.
Impersonal.
Calculated.
Maybe even self-indulgent?
Missional endeavors get bogged down and lose course when they forget who have been sent after. Sometimes there’s denominational pressure to reach certain metrics. Sometimes there’s a fixation on certain finer points of theology. Sometimes the missionary just doesn’t know how to make friends with non-Christians.
Results can vary. A church or ministry can grow quickly by offering a cool worship experience that appeals to people already attending other churches. It can get driven into the ground by toxic, unfocused religious people, or loose itself in someone’s pet cause.
Compare this to the model Jesus offers as a missionary:
Sent by God, Jesus grows up in Palestine. He wears the clothes, eats the food and speaks the language of those he is sent to. He teaches them using their traditions and analogies they understand. He provides for felt needs such as sickness and hunger. He teaches and empowers a small group of people to do the same.
The missional misstep we’re describing can be described in one sentence:
Forgetting who you were sent for.
Here are some simple question any missionary can ask to help them find their course again:
The last few decades have seen the rise of well organized, highly programmatic, event driven religious organizations. They are often led by charismatic leaders with the perfect mix of stage presence, interpersonal savvy and strategic thinking. A few churches have done this really well, and grown to huge proportions. Many more have tried to copy the big ones, to varying degrees of success.
Any successful movement will eventually create a backlash. First there was the Emergent movement, which criticized the ahistorical nature of the megachurch, and it’s lack of philosophical savvy. More recently, the idea of churches being “missional” has gained traction. The conversation began when missiologists, typified by Newbigin, began to see that the West was becoming overwhelmingly secular. Over the past few years, this criticism has been boiled down to a dichotomy between Missional and Attractional. Attractional was associated with anything highly organized, strategically planned and efficiently marketed. Missional then began to take on the opposite form any many minds. Grassroots instead of corporate. Spontaneous instead of strategic.
Both of these movements have made important criticisms. Both of them have tried to offer alternative forms. But there aren’t many Emergents still around, and many believe it’s only a matter of time before the missional movement does the same. So what is it that has allowed the Megachurches to stick around while their critics seem to fade away? Is it possible that well meaning missionaries have thrown the baby out with the bathwater?
Being missional is often equated with being “organic,” and organic is often equated with being freeform, open and completely lacking in structure. Not only is this a poor philosophy for any entrepreneurial endeavor, but it is the opposite of the word “organic” and a far cry from the missionary models of the New Testament.
If by organic we mean something that grows naturally, we should review how exactly it is that plants and animals grow. They begin with a single cell which replicates its DNA and builds a system of bones, tissues and organs. Within that original cell is the blueprint for a dandelion, a blue whale or a linebacker. In other words an egg has everything it needs to become a healthy and tasty chicken.
Many missional endeavors seem to do little more than gather burned out church people in a living room. Often, in an attempt to differentiate themselves from their over-programmed counterparts, they fail to develop strategy and structure. They may provide a meaningful opportunity for worship, healing and community, but it is doubtful whether they ever truly engage their community in a missional way.
The question that missionaries should ask is not “how can I avoid becoming like that church?” but “what strategies and structures will facilitate missional interaction with my surrounding community?” This will lead to the development of systems for engaging people in worship, discipleship and community service. Sound programmatic? Perhaps. But if done with a desire to truly incarnate the body of Christ in a unique local setting, this will undoubtedly result in what the “organic” leader claims he or she anyways: A naturally occurring representation of the gospel.
Missional Misstep: Underestimating the need for strategy and structure.
Questions to get you back on course:
1) Am I avoiding better organizing our church because of my personality or baggage?
2) Are there systems or structures that naturally occur in my community or in the history of the Church which can provide a blueprint for a locally incarnational representation of the church?
Holy Week is upon us. The mindless celebration of Palm Sunday. The somber foot washing and feasting of Maundy Thursday. The sense of disaster on Good Friday. The confusion of Holy Saturday. The resurrection power of Easter Sunday. It’s a week where the gospel story is so dense that one can literally imagine themselves walking along with the Jesus and his disciples through each hour of their lives.
This is the high point of the Christian Calendar, celebrated by Catholics and Orthodox, the ancient Armenian and Ethopian churches, Mainline Protestant, and confused Evangelicals. Over the past few decades, everyone from Baptists to Pentecostals have been looking for methods to help them flesh out their faith in their day to day lives. They read something from the Book of Common Prayer and to may even give up chocolate in the spring, and secretly hope they’re not sliding down the slippery slope to Mary worship. This desire to incorporate older forms of worship was most championed by Robert Webber, who reasoned:
“The way into the future, I argue, is not an innovative new start for the church; rather, the road to the future runs through the past. These three matters—roots, connection, and authenticity in a changing world—will help us to maintain continuity with historic Christianity as the church moves forward.”
Webber had it half-right. In his concern for creating a more visceral worship experience, he drew on two thousand years of spiritual formation to address the unique needs of post-modern thinkers. But the other half of the equation Webber did not address was local, day to day culture.
If nothing else, being missional means being missionary. A missionary is one who learns a culture, in order to present the gospel in words and forms that make sense to them. While I sympathize, and happily participate, with evangelicals wishing to reclaim liturgical traditions, we need to realize that those actions alone will not help us present the gospel to the cultures we encounter.
The value of a the liturgical calendar is not in specific rites, but in the idea that how we organize our time defines our lives.
What if, as we set out on our missional endeavors, we took the concepts of time and calendar seriously. Are there celebrations in a local culture that can be redeemed by the gospel? Are their gross imbalances that can be reformed through organized, corporate disciplines? Perhaps borrowing from other Christian traditions may help us address this or perhaps we will find ourselves creating something new.
In my church in Austin, Texas, we occasionally recognize traditionally Christian seasons and holidays. We anticipate during Advent, reflect during Lent and party on Easter. But we also host concerts during SXSW, ride our bicycles through the East Austin Studio Tour, and run around the park during the Zilker Kite Festival. We do these things because we are Austinites. But we do them together because we are the Church.
In the past, evangelicals have eschewed the practices of other churches. Today, they seem to grasp at them in hopes of providing a lost sense of meaning. What if instead, we looked at our neighborhood and asked the question “How does this people organize their lives? How can the gospel be presented within that?”
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