Allelon

Where do we go from here?

Alan Roxburgh — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 10:01:18 -0800

The failure of a dominant narrative & the need for a new social imaginary

I was recently introduced to a magazine called Prospect by an Anglo-Irish friend, Colin Greene. It offers a regular series of cultural and political essays that cover current affairs, the arts, economics and culture. The lead article in the latest edition is by Robert Skidelsky. Entitled “Where do we go from here?“, it addresses some key issues in the current global crisis. (You can also connect with several short pieces Colin Greene and I have written.) Skidelsky argues that the current financial crisis is a failure of the market system: it is a crisis generated by the system itself, not some outside agent or actor. He then outlines three levels of failure.

First, institutional: banks, regulators etc., succumbed to the ‘efficient market left to itself’ hypothesis.
Secondly, the crisis was intellectual. Alan Greenspan’s confession to the US Congress earlier this year epitomizes this failure: ‘I never saw it coming!’ Why? Because he wore a set of intellectual lenses that blinded him to alternative explanations.
Thirdly, the crisis represents a moral failure in a system that worships the absolute priority of growth that has made our moral compass thin and degraded our capacities to imagine an alternative way of life.

Skidelsky explores these issues in more depth through the rest of his article. What struck me are the parallels between this analysis and the challenges that have faced Christian life in North America for several decades. The three sources of crisis, institutional, intellectual and moral, are also at work in the life of the church. The institutional crisis is the failure of church leaders to grasp the ways institutions are socially constructed systems. The institutions of denominational life framed in the early part of the 20th century are no longer tenable. This has nothing to do with theological traditions or ecclesiology, but how those traditions are socially constructed in a particular time and place. Nor is this crisis reason to enter the silly season of debunking institutions. The very nature of our sociality requires us to form institutions. This crisis is the failure of leaders to grasp the way institutions are socially constructed in and for the social imaginaries of a particular time and place. Inevitably leaders became too comfortable within systems they could manage and control and in which they had security and success.

The intellectual crisis is profound. At precisely the time when the church needs local and academic theologians able to re-enter the Tradition to re-imagine Christian narrative in the midst of a radically pluralized culture(s) a significant percentage of denominational and local church leaders are without the training or intellectual frameworks to do this work. As a result much of the current engagement is shaped by platitudes and pragmatisms that prevents the church re-imagining new ways forward in this Heideggarian ‘space’ where it now finds itself. The operative frameworks remain those of modernity — pragmatism (try this it works here) and romantic idealism (I have been to the mountain top and seen the vision (and shape presumably?) of what we need to be). These imaginations remain captive to the forms of modernity from which their authors are claiming to liberate us even while others are seeking to name the new emerging intellectual territory we need to inhabit (see Barry Harvey’s Can These Bones Live? and Greene and Robinson’s Metavista: Bible, Church and Mission in an Age of Imagination as two illustrations). The language of ‘postmodernism’ and ‘missional’ are largely catch-alls and short hand for not having to do the hard work of thinking or entering the Christian tradition or be surprised by the ways the Spirit is at work in the local and the ordinary.

The moral crisis is the most difficult to address because, in Christian circles, moral language is preloaded with notions of guilt and sin. There are many levels to this moral failure and one doesn’t want to make light of its reality. In a culture built on spending, debt and ever expanding pie the notion of ‘growth’ remains at the heart of the North American church. One has to be careful, growth is not wrong; that is not the point. Models of church growth drive too many churches and leaders; not just in terms of seeker driven churches but among missional and emergent leaders whose underlying methods and proposals are new forms of church growth wrapped up in a different language game. The North American church must discover an alternative imagination from growth. It is not that they are so difficult to find; it is that we are so captive to the imagination of success, individuals and need-centered imaginations.

Skidelsky’s article attempts to address the question: Where do we go from here? The next RJ will propose some responses to that question from the perspective of being the church in a ‘metavista’ world of multiple, interacting social imaginaries.

Anne Rice and the Catholic Church in an Age of Discontinuity

Alan Roxburgh — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:12:59 -0800

I was listening the other day to Canadian national radio (CBC). Its Tapestry program interviewed Anne Rice, author of The Vampire Chronicles (Interview with a Vampire was turned into a movie). After many years as an atheist, she recently returned to her Catholic faith. (The Tapestry podcast is of the interview is available for download in .mp3 format.)

I was held by the beauty of her language, the journey that took her so far into darkness searching for bearings after the death of a daughter and the end of all possibility of believing in God. I was struck by the deeply literate ways she described the journey into atheism and its long returning. You can read it in Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession. Anne Rice is no naive fool filled with romantic illusions about the church. She’s indwelt church history, so knows its glory and broken humanity. She also knows the philosophies of our time better than most.

We keep asking about the signs of the times in these days of disorientation. We know ourselves as living in a clearing (or a deep forest — it depends on the metaphors one chooses) where the markers that gave us direction and place are gone. The metaphor of exile doesn’t work in this space. I am struck by how some people think all this can be neatly explained by invoking the post everything liturgies believing this incantation dismisses so much. It’s disconcerting how too many conversations suggest the historic churches are done. When I listen to Anne Rice my suspicion these claims are thin are confirmed.

I was trained for several years in a Jesuit seminary. I listened the other day to a Jesuit teaching (that is what they do) a class of evangelical leaders about the nature of the call God places on our lives. These men and women were enthralled by the way he wove together Scripture and contemporary thought to help them understand that God is up to an amazing task in creation. They applauded when he was finished. I loved what this Jesuit said: Jesuits don’t teach subjects; they call people to life. He explained that, of course, a Jesuit is trained in a set of subjects. But a good teacher listens first to the person(s) before him/her, then brings a series of resources (subjects) into the conversation that call the other forth as the image of God in a community of faith (I’m reminded of another teacher, Parker Palmer, who is a Quaker and would say the same thing).

I wonder if the church that shapes Jesuits and where Anne Rice finds again the presence of God stands a better chance of addressing our culture(s) in this strange new clearing than most of the gurus and books I find coming from those who proclaim the ‘post’ church? At least we need to give this some consideration.

The Cutting Edge & the Humour of God

Alan Roxburgh — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:11:35 -0800

Ever get tired of trite phrases? There are few that get me going. “Cutting edge” is one, “movement” another. In churchland we’ve lots of (in the spirit of Foucault) power words signaling who’s in and who’s out; who’s de guerre (or flavor of the month) and who isn’t.

I think the “cutting edge” is shifting around. I think it’s part of God’s humor — that irritating way the Spirit messes with all the people, systems and ideas we’ve declared no longer ‘in’ and breathes fresh life into old bones so they become the new ‘cutting edge’.

Take the old Anglicans for example. I can claim identity here. As a baby I was carried up the short street we lived on (Burleigh Road South — named after Lord Burleigh, aka, William Cecil, who served kings and queen in the 16th century — a definite misnomer for a non-cutting edge neighborhood like Anfield in Liverpool) to St. Cutherbert’s church (long torn down and replaced by the dull flats of urban, post war renewal) where I was baptized and given a God-parent. Cutherbert was of Lindisfarne fame so, perhaps, that is why the Cutherbert thing stuck.

Imagine — Anglicans are moving to the ‘cutting edge’ and creating a ‘movement’. A Google search of “Fresh Expressions” will show that God is up to something in the UK. Then, last week, I was in Toronto. The weather was amazing for November and the dry leaves crunching underfoot brought back memories of the great years I spent there in the ’80s. John Mclaverty and I were meeting some folk at the main offices of the Anglican Diocese. The inside of their building was under renovation. All the staff was crunched into a big room. Desks were pushed up against each other, wide bands of bright red tape stretching across the floor covered telephone lines. Meeting rooms around the sides were crammed with stacks of blue, plastic packing cases. Everything was impermanent. Dave Robinson and Heather Steves comprise the congregation development team. We sat with Dave and Heather for an hour as they shared stories of what was brewing and emerging in churches around the region. We listened with a sense that the “cutting edge” had moved. God was up to something among these creative people. Later we met with Bishop Colin Johnson, a thoughtful, attentive leader who flashes wry smiles in the midst of conversations. He’s a Bishop who has built a team committed to seeing the mission of God flourish in this Diocese. It was a wonderful two hours of conversation and stories.

When we left, the word under-construction ran through my head. That’s what’s happening! The “cutting edge” has shifted. God, with a great sense of humor, keeps turning up in all kinds of places that our labels keep missing.

Alan Roxburgh: Response to Colin Greene on the Economic Crisis

Allelon — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 07:11:20 -0800

The Blind Leading the Blind

[Karl] Polanyi’s thesis is that there can be no self-regulating market. The functional ideology behind the last quarter century of economic life in the West has been, of course, the orthodox conviction that the self-regulating market is the form of economic life whose laws, if left to themselves, will cause all human life to thrive.

Who can forget the image of Alan Greenspan, this past October, sitting before the US Congress to answer questions about the economic meltdown? It took shape during his long tenure at the head of the Federal Reserve. Greenspan had been before this very same Congress many times over the past decades. Congress had attended to him with the reverence and silence one would greet a Bishop or Pope. Greenspan is the quintessential ideologue of the self-regulating, ‘free market’ shaping the economic policies of the West for some two decades. There he sat as Congress wanted answers to why this crisis had happened on his watch. All Greenspan could offer was the reflection that we’re all shaped by ideologies - he prevaricated, choosing to confuse frameworks with ideologies – and the penultimate confession: ‘I never saw it coming.’ Why? Because of this ideology, this belief that would and could not be swayed by any counter argument, that markets regulate themselves.

Not far behind such ideology lies Rousseau’s romantic idealism about human nature – apparently when individuals are left to themselves, out of self-interest they will do the right thing! At least John Locke was enough of a realist to believe that when the men came back home from the (economic) hunt, their claws blood red, the women at the hearth would be able to ameliorate and domesticate the law of the jungle, which is the selfish drive to get and win at all costs.

What has happened since 1989 (end of the East-West power struggle and then State economies) has been the systematic dismantling of institutional frameworks intended to protect people from the greed and ravages of the free market (note the shift, it is no longer home or church that protects society but the legislative powers of impersonal government). The protective legislative systems developed through much of the 20th century were dismantled with great rapidity after 1989 in the flush of the new economic order of globalization (the free market globalized and, therefore, made even more unaccountable to any social end other than itself). In retrospect, the past twenty years looks like a time when we recklessly embarked on a blind journey shaped by laissez faire principles stripped bare of historical memory. This is the side of globalization we tend not to talk about in the midst of the panegyrics about Friedman’s so called flat world.

Shaping the Imaginaries

We know that economic systems impact and transform the cultural imaginaries of a society. They shape how we use language (from person to laborer, from land to real estate) and then, from within this language, we are shaped also through the way we see, treat and understand our relationships to other human beings and the creation. Polanyi’s argument wasn’t new but it did focus the essential condition of social life under the language games of free-market capitalism. He wrote that the so-called self-regulating market was a radically new development in human history with no parallels in any other time or society. It disembedded and disconnected both human beings (whom we now euphemistically describe as ‘labor’ or ‘workforce’ and study in terms of economic units or purchasing demographics) and the creation from their social relationships of belonging formed by a teleology of ends and turned them into impersonal, rationalized commodities that are a function of money and market value. This transformation occurred in the early part of the 19th century when money is reified as an end in itself so that human beings and the creation become means subject to and defined by the inevitable laws and invisible hand of the euphemistically termed ‘free’ market!

Prior to this time, according to Polanyi, economic activity was embedded in and a subset of human social community. Money (where it existed) and economic activity were a function of and controlled by, social norms and rules rather than the other way around. There wasn’t a separate, determinative economic system encompassing all other forms of social life. Polanyi argues that from the 19th century onward there emerged a double movement within Western societies. On the one side, is the self-regulating market with its claim of heteronomy and commitment to being the primary metanarrative of modernity. On the other side, counter movements continually seeking to safeguard human social life as primary. These movements (see, for example, Robert Owen’s alternative models of work and social organization) keep presenting counter imaginations to human life and our relationship with the creation.

At stake in this continuing tension and our current crisis, for Polanyi, is the question of what it means to be human and the sources where a society goes to find the language for that conversation. How do we define what it means to be human if it is other than labor, work force and homo economicus? If it is not the invisible hand, the determinative laws of capital, and the market that define that question, then what? Critical to this question of what it means to be human is the question of how a cultural imaginary and its language games, such as the free-market, come to penetrate, disembed and, finally, determine all other social imaginaries in a culture? How does that happen? If we can’t address this question about social formation and the shaping of imaginaries it will be difficult to imagine an alternative at this particular point in time.

A Crisis of Meaning and Identity

In the end, argues Polanyi, the reification of capital with its resultant redefinition of human life and creation as subsets of market capitalism tore apart social community and, therefore, the basis of being human in the recognition and embracing of the other as genuinely other and not a commodity (here Levinas is of great assistance in clarifying the situation of late modernity). This is the reality in which we all now live; it is the crisis under the crisis. People like Zygmunt Bauman (In Search of Politics) chronicles the effects of this social dissolution, the liquification phase of modernity, and the consequent diminution of our capacities to cultivate thriving social community.

The malaise of modernity and its current crisis is not, fundamentally economic in nature. It is a crisis of meaning and identity – about teleology and ethics: Who are we? Where are we going? What does it mean, therefore, to be in relationship with the other who is not me? How do we begin to have these kinds of conversations again when the self-regulating market set out by the world of Alan Greenspan is irreconcilable with the kind of human thriving set out in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures? It seems to me that these are questions increasingly difficult for the primary institutions of modernity to address. That body to which we gave primary responsibility for watching over the social good of ordinary citizens (national governments) abandoned that role a long time ago. Surely, this crisis is precisely that which needs to be addressed at the local level. Isn’t this where churches in neighborhoods and communities need to be creating dialogue about the meaning of human thriving? It is these perduring social institutions of the Spirit’s creation that have the capacity to create safe spaces where people can cross boundaries in order to meet each other and, in that space, ask fundamental questions about the meaning of human thriving. What makes this such a difficult task these days is that the churches are still, whether in their traditional, emergent or missional forms, entangled in conversations about making the church work. We desperately need an alternative narrative. This, as we know, is what Newbigin did all the time. He kept pushing us to think about what it means for a focused Biblical imagination to enter and engage this space we call late modernity.

This article originally appeared as a three-part series at the Metavista Blog; reprinted with permission. Alan Roxburgh also commented on the original post:

Colin — I want to respond to your reflections on the economic crisis that is over-running the world these past months. In reading your blog I was aware of Karl Polanyi’s book, The Great Transformation. Polanyi was the brother of Michael — of Personal Knowledge — who significantly influenced Lesslie Newbigin’s thinking in terms of epistemology and the framing of the conversation with late modernity. Written in 1944, The Great Transformation became a 20th century classic translated into eight languages, sadly, however, the book is hardly known on this side of the Atlantic.

When Art Comes to Town: Reflection on Art as Public Mission

Allelon — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:11:36 -0800

The concept is simple; to employ art to tell the Christmas story. Seek tactile interaction – make a star out of wire, mark your home town on a world map, record the one thing you would take with you on a refugee journey – as a way of inviting people into the Christmas story.

The use of containers is a master stroke. A container provides a space in which a unique environment can be created, allowing a different part of a Journey to be created. A container has roofs and floor, allowing a Christmas story to be placed outside. They are lockable, ensuring security for art and electronic gear in public spaces.

In 2005 permission was gained by Side Door Arts Trust, in partnership with Opawa Baptist Church and Creative Communities, to place 8 containers, each container telling part of the Christmas story, in the square at the centre of Christchurch city. The Christmas story was to find a home outside the church and in the marketplace.

Ironically, Council regulations demanded a temporary building permit and required a wire fence. As soon as the Christmas story was taken outside the church, it acquired a fence! However the public response was excellent, with nearly 8,000 people visiting.

Building on the relationship with the Christchurch City Council, permission was sought in 2006 to place the 8 containers, not together, but separately. Each was wrapped in nylon fabric to represent a Christmas present, and placed at strategic tourist sites – the art

gallery, the museum, the information centre – around the city. Each container was also placed adjacent to the tram route, a major Christchurch tourist attraction.

The art for inside each container was prepared at Opawa Baptist Church. A hi-ab container truck transported the containers into town. Picture the scene as suddenly, nine days before Christmas, eight 20 feet long wrapped Christmas presents suddenly appear, scattered, throughout the city centre.

On the door of each container part of the Christmas Bible story was painted (in the style of Colin McCahon, a famous New Zealand artist). Inside each container a different theme is explored.

The results:

Stories of people emerging from church containers declaring “I am changed.”
People’s written responses at various containers indicating an honest and deep engagement
Over 15,000 people visited. (Note that there was no way to record if these visitors had been to other containers. So while unlikely, it is conceivable that a total of 2,400 people visited all 8 containers).

The implications:

Don’t do this if your goal is increasing church attendance. It takes a lot of energy out of a church and you end up encouraging people to volunteer on containers during church time.
Ideally each container has someone for purposes of explanation, welcome and security. This requires a large commitment (8 containers for 9 days open for 3 by 4 hours slots = 212 volunteers).
This volunteer dimension allows people a practical way to “give” during Christmas. This needs to be placed alongside the busyness and rush that people face.
Another volunteer dimension is that people are exposed to the rhythms of the city. This allows a missional conversation. Equally, it raises issues of safety.
A project on this scale demands a huge variety of gifts – to create, to stand at a container, to publicise, to negotiate. It feels a lot like 1 Corinthians 12, with all parts of the body important and thus becomes the mission of a church community.

Unresolved tensions

The tension between whether the Journey should act like an interactive signboard or the foyer of a building. Should each container stand alone, as a signboard? Or should the Journey be like a foyer, that welcomes and points people toward church or Christianity in some way?
The concept of gift is important. Many churches offer subtle switch and bait operations. Should the containers be offered as a gift, with no strings attached? Or should they come with a subtle price tag. (This could include invitation to church services, a Christian tract, a takeway resource). Yet society at Christmas is so dominated by consumerism and when the church offers “switch and bait” have we not bowed down to the gods of consumerism in our culture? Each year this is debated. In 2006 the Journey simply offered a takeaway potential of a memorable moment.
Should the containers be grouped (as in 2005 in the Square) or separated (as in 2006 around the city centre)? The former allows greater visibility and increases the chances of completing the whole Journey. The latter increases visibility and curiosity and allows walking time for reflection. However it demands a greater effort if people want to then complete the Journey.
The Christmas Journey evolved under the leadership and creative talents of Peter and Joyce Majendie. They have prepared a teaching video “Art in public space as mission.” This is a four hour seminar in which they trace the creative process. This is available for sale from artcomestotown at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz

(This article was previously published in 2007.)

Seeking a Missional Imagination

Alan Roxburgh — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:11:41 -0800

There’s been a dis-ease in the back of my mind for a while about the directions of the missional conversation in North America. I’ve written about one: it’s too ecclesiocentric. Most of what I read with missional in its title is about the church and making the church work with new formulas and programs. The missional conversation is about what God is up to in the world; church conversations are a sub-set we’ve turned into the main thing.

Another issue has been hard to put into words; but, yesterday I was reading the New York Times Book Review and saw how to address it. Russell Shorto has just released a new book, Descartes’ Bones. The picture on the cover is intriguing. It shows a headless skeleton. The reason for the image is in the plot of the book, which I won’t give away. Descartes lived in massively turbulent times when the tectonic plates of society were shifting. People were filled with anxiety and the question of God was up for grabs. It was a time, like ours, when established formulas and frameworks failed to address an emerging modernity.

Descartes desired to stop the turmoil, provide a solution that would fix the world and give God back his place. He was a devout Catholic concerned about his world. He gave us a new method and a formula (Cogito, ego sum) for fixing the world. In the end, he both shaped and profoundly misguided modernity. All this was the shaping of a now well-known body-mind dualism. He retreated into his head, disconnected from (it’s not possible but was what he believed he was doing) the ordinary, the local and the material (all of which was distrusted). Hence, the image of a skeleton without its head is a metaphor for this imagination. The head is disconnected from the body because the body can offer no real help or direction in shaping the way ahead.

I see this is an apt metaphor for what is happening today in the missional conversation. I read books that, basically, retreat into the realm of some ideal imagination that is supposed to provide formulas and methods for the ailing mission of the church in the West. We haven’t got past our Cartesian dualism with its romantic idealisms about the nature of God’s mission in the world. We need a different imagination. The basis of it is in a simple text that lies at the core of the Gospel: He came and pitched his tent beside ours.

Missional life isn’t formed in the ideals and formulas of those who retreat into some non-contextual space or create stories from elsewhere. It is formed in the concrete, ordinariness of the men and women who make up local churches and pitch their tents in neighborhoods. This is where the missional imagination emerges.

Beware of the Cartesian dreamers with their books, formulas and programs.

Caring for Strangers

Mark Priddy — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:09:53 -0700

I always look forward to David Dunbar’s Missional Journal, and this month he leads off with the question, “How can pastoral leadership encourage Christians to move into the neighborhood?” (Naturally, this got my attention!) He advocates a missional reading of the Bible as we begin this move — and in fact, I believe a missional reading of the Bible will actively press us back into our neighborhoods. Dave makes this really practical as well… if “reading” our actions is the first exposure our neighbors have to the Bible, it will be a mistake not to read it with a missional view, as it will fail to ingrain in us an essential aspect of how the gospel is intended to engage with our culture. Do you think Dave hits the mark here? I’d love to hear about anyone’s experiences with direct applications of this idea.

–M.P.

Sometimes people ask the question, “So what does it mean practically to be missional?” They understand that the church has been too inwardly focused. They see that we can’t just hope non-Christians walk through the door. But what does it look like for congregations to live as the “sent people”? How can pastoral leadership encourage Christians to move into the neighborhood?

These are good questions. There is no one-size-fits-all answer. Missional living calls for Spirit-led creativity which seeks outreach that is appropriate to the varied context of each local congregation. We can’t provide universal models, but we can illustrate the principle.

Just recently I received a great story from my friend Rick Paashaus who serves as pastor of worship at Calvary Bible Fellowship Church in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania. After a bit of arm-twisting, Rick agreed to let me share his story with you.

Two months ago I was reading through Deuteronomy and kept hitting up against those phrases about “the aliens within your gates.” Kept thinking…yeah, right…Coopersburg [PA]…the only aliens here are those of us who don’t happen to be Pennsylvania Dutch…and maybe one or two black families and one or two adopted Korean kids. But then I went to the diner for lunch and was cared for by a Mexican, saw another Mexican refilling the salad bar, and noticed a Greek immigrant cook on his break. It really got my mind going. Where do these folks live? Who is showing any interest in them? What about the staff of the diner in general, folks who are Greek Orthodox but rarely darken the door of a Church anyway?

My wife and I came up with a plan to invite THEM to a dinner, just to say “thank you.” And they responded. We provided a full course dinner with tablecloths and china and candlelight, and 35+ of the staff from the diner came and enjoyed it immensely. We took some pictures over the past weeks and secreted out some shots from over the years and put together a surprise video before the meal. No preaching. No handouts or signup–just our way of saying thanks and getting to know the staff better. Many of our own people were there to help, serve, mingle, listen. The diner people loved it. Some were tearful when they arrived and couldn’t stop saying, “I can’t believe you guys would do something like this.” They stayed for three hours and left with containers of leftovers. We even sent 12 dinners over to the staff that had to work and couldn’t attend.

Don’t know what the results may be–perhaps nothing visible–but at least the server from Mexico who is living above the pizza place while his wife and child remain across the border felt valued and cared for one night. And the waitresses who so often serve us and wait while we linger over a third cup of coffee realized that they were appreciated. It was the right thing to do, and the Lord was glorified without too many words.

There are several points to be made from this story.

First, the starting point was a fresh reading of the biblical text from a missional perspective. By this I mean an interpretive stance which presumes that the unifying theme of Scripture is a narrative about Yahweh, the missionary God, who reconciles the world to himself through the promised Messiah. This perspective highlights certain points of the text that might otherwise go largely unnoticed; it raises questions that move beyond merely historical or exegetical concern. Who are the aliens in our community? What are their greatest needs? How is the Spirit leading us to extend hospitality to them?

Second, a missional reading of the Bible encourages a distinctive way of “seeing” our communities. For many of us life is too busy to allow us to see what God wants to do through us. Will and Lisa Samson observe that life in the suburbs seems particularly designed to perpetuate our blindness: “The burbs are safe, but they are safe at the price of keeping out questions of need, questions of poverty, questions of insufficiency. In fact, they are designed to maintain an illusion of a particular life, the American dream, where no one is needy, where there is a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage….”¹

Of course the tendency to look past kingdom opportunities is not new. One thinks for example of the disciples traveling through Samaria with Jesus. Their concern is with the challenges of the journey and the logistics of finding food. Jesus, on the other hand, speaks of having food that they know nothing about even as he ministers profoundly to a woman they would as soon look past or disregard (Jn. 4:31-35). I love Rick’s story because it reminds me that we need to see through the eyes of Jesus.

The third observation is that actions speak as loud as or louder than words. This is especially true in our post-Christian culture. The church now finds itself playing an away-game. The fans who watch the game no longer view us as the home team. They are neutral at best and sometimes downright hostile.

David Kinnaman surveyed perceptions of Christians among outsiders to the faith, ages 16-29. Among the 440 people in the sample, only 10% had a “good impression” of “born-again Christians” and only 3% had a good impression of Evangelical Christians.² In another survey Kinnaman reports that only 20% of outsiders “perceive Christian churches to be loving environments, places where people are unconditionally loved and accepted regardless of how they look or what they do.”³

In this context cynicism runs high and words–including gospel words–are regarded with suspicion. So actions become the metaphors of the gospel. Not that we never speak. Words are still necessary, but we have been too much about words–words as theories, words without deeds, or even words with the wrong kind of deeds. As Hugh Halter and Matt Smay have observed: “Christianity is now almost impossible to explain, not because the concepts aren’t intelligible, but because the living, moving, speaking examples of our faith don’t line up with the message. Our poor posture overshadows the most beautiful story and reality the world has ever known.”⁴

Kinnaman talks about the need “to articulate a ‘kinder, gentler’ faith–one that engages people but does not compromise its passion for Jesus or its theological understanding of him.”⁵

What we need right now are churches that put both words and deeds in the service of the mission of God. And we need leaders who can encourage this balance–leaders like my friend Rick who can help us to think more creatively about the opportunities that surround us.

Footnotes

Justice in the Burbs (Baker, 2007), p. 59. [back]
unChristian: (Baker, 2007), p. 25. [back]
unChristian:, p. 185. [back]
The Tangible Kingdom (Jossey-Bass, 2008), p. 41. [back]
unChristian:, p. 16. [back]

When Missional is Not Helpful

Mark Priddy — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:04:12 -0700

My friend David Dunbar’s Missional Journal, consistently writes insightful messages for the missional conversation. Recently he published an article about when “missional” is not helpful. His message is a necessary and helpful reminder for those who would seek to bring change into church contexts, as he cautions us to remain humble, patient, and inclusive as we reimagine church missionally. I’d love to hear your thoughts… have you encountered the kind of “triumphalistic” attitude Dave warns against in the missional conversation? Has it been damaging in your context? It’s a good season for practical suggestions to approaching the issue Dave describes, so share your stories if you’ve got them. If you’ve been following it, do you see a connection between the task of navigating “discontinuous change” and Alan’s recent Missional Mapmaking Series? — MP

**When Missional is Not Helpful**

Throughout history God’s people have experienced cycles of spiritual prosperity and expansion followed by stalled growth and eventual decline. In such contexts, movements of renewal or revival have sprung up as the Spirit of God graciously worked to complete the cycle and restore the vitality of God’s people.

I like renewal movements. I grew up in a group that was the result of a powerful moving of the Spirit that began in the British Isles during the 19th century. My love for the Bible, my devotional life, my commitment to the church, and my approach to ministry have been deeply formed by this group. Although I no longer identify myself as a card-carrying member, I am still significantly influenced by what I learned in this tradition and I appreciate the heritage it gave me.

This may help you understand part of what attracted me to the missional church. It too is a renewal movement. I see it as a moving of God’s Spirit within the Western church at a very critical time in its history. We find ourselves (most Christians probably agree on this) in a time of decline. Churches in the West are in trouble: internal dissensions, the failure and discouragement of leadership, loss of our youth, widespread negative perceptions of Christians by outsiders, and the death of many congregations. Just the kind of dry-bones situation where the breath of the Spirit often begins to blow!

And this is what energizes me! I turn 60 this year and I realize that my life is quickly slipping away. How wonderful it would be to live into a new era of spiritual vitality and power for the church in North America! I can almost see it. I am impatient for the transformation, and that’s where the trouble begins…

My way or the highway

I grew up in the protest era of the 1960s. Bob Dylan sang about changing times to an older generation:

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

I am sure parents who found themselves on the “old road” were less than appreciative of Dylan’s suggestion that they buzz off. And with good reason! I imagine those of us in the missional church movement sometimes sound a bit like Dylan to believers perplexed by massive changes in the church and culture, but not sure “missional” is the way to go. They may hear the message as, “move out of the way,” “get with the program,” “admit you are wasting your time,” or something equally uncharitable.

To them the missional discussion seems like just another way to “diss” the past. When missional leaders point out current problems in the church, they often appear to have an arrogant disregard for what God has already done—as if the Holy Spirit has been totally absent for the last century and nothing of eternal significance has really been accomplished! Good people thus feel attacked and undervalued, their contributions unwelcome and unneeded.

I suspect most renewal movements, whether by intention or misunderstanding, have conveyed such messages. To those who have felt attacked, I apologize. The point is not to discredit the sincere and often productive endeavors of the past, but to ask, “How can we be faithful to the gospel in the new cultural situation of the 21st century?” Of course any attempt to answer this question involves evaluation of our current situation and some level of critique of the current state of the church.

And, yes, I admit I am an impatient kind of guy who wants others to get on board yesterday. But I need to remind myself (and my missional friends) that if this is indeed a movement of the Spirit of God, it will make its way among the people of God with power and certainty.

Triumphalism

Another problem many people detect in renewal movements is a prideful spirit. The term “triumphalism” describes an attitude that assumes the superiority of a particular culture, teaching, organization, etc. In the case of the missional movement some folks have sensed a triumphalist spirit among its proponents, as if we are saying, “This is THE ANSWER, we have found THE WAY, wisdom now resides with US!”

Certainly triumphalism in all its forms is divisive and offensive. To the degree that missional church leaders are guilty of this, we need to repent. Triumphalism is not helpful and does not honor the Lord or his people. However, I would like to offer a note of caution to those who think the missional church is triumphalistic and who are tempted to dismiss the movement on that basis. Part of what initially attracted me was the willingness of missional leaders to admit that they did not have all–or even many–of the answers to the problems facing the church today.

Alan Roxburgh suggests that the current period of highly discontinuous change will not go away any time soon. He estimates that we are two or three generations away from a time of greater stability for the culture and the church. During this time “none of us will find clear answers or complete solutions.” (The Sky is Falling!?! [ACI Publishing, 2005], p. 67.)

We should not conclude from this comment that missional leaders don’t know where they are going! The point is that this discussion is not about having all the right answers, but rather trying to identify the most important questions before the church–and working toward biblically and theologically sound answers.

For this discussion everyone is welcome at the table: traditional churches, charismatic churches, mega-churches, emerging churches… no one is excluded unless they exclude themselves. The challenges facing the church in our generation call for the Spirit-led creativity and commitment of the whole body of Christ. We need to put aside our relatively minor differences to focus on the pressing questions of our day. Faithfulness to our Lord demands this. And, yes, I admit it–I’m impatient!

So let’s get on with it!

Copyright ©2007 David G. Dunbar
Originally published in Vol.2 No.3 of the Missional Journal (PDF Link); reprinted with permission.

A New Imagination for the Church

Mark Priddy — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 09:03:12 -0800

My friend Dave Dunbar, president of Biblical Seminary where he publishes the Missional Journal, has written an article on “A New Imagination for the Church,” and has given permission for me to share it here. He opens with a statement against consumer-oriented Christianity, which I’ve written about here as well.

Dave also reflects upon how missional leaders commonly speak of “moving back into the neighborhood,” of learning to listen and build relationships and create a context in which the gospel may flourish in word and deed. For the majority of leaders this will require learning new skills. Quite simply, it’s a call to locality, its a call to “pitch our tent” and enter our neighborhoods and communities in order to incarnate the Gospel.

Let me know what you think of Dave’s ideas and I would love to hear about some of the missional experiments you are up to in your local context — MP.

In the last issue of the Journal I suggested that the challenge for Christians in the West is re-imagining the shape of the church and its ministry in a post-Christendom environment where it must function on the margins of (worldly) power. What will such churches look like? Are there any obvious patterns that will characterize their structure and function?

At this point we see only the leading edge of the missional transformation. A variety of experiments are currently under way and more will follow if churches successfully navigate the transition period. While I am hesitant to prophesy about the future, I think it is probably safe to anticipate a number of distinctives.

1. Missional is not McChurch

Since the 1990s the term “McChurch” has referred to a consumer-oriented Christianity which pursues church growth by offering more and better spiritual goods and services. Sometimes the notion of franchising is even included, i.e. the practice of marketing to the larger Christian community the programs, practices, or strategies of churches regarded as particularly successful.

The popularity of the franchise approach is understandable. Church leaders passionate about reaching their culture are looking for help but don’t know what to do in a time of cutural upheaval. Buying a program off the shelf, or looking for an external prescription that produces results when applied faithfully, is a strong temptation.

The problem with this approach is that it is not missiologically sound. It doesn’t take into consideration the fact that the medium and the way the message is presented will vary, at least in emphasis, from one local context to the next. Most Christians recognize the need for missionaries to translate or contextualize the gospel in appropriate ways to specific cultures–our churches need to do the same.

Missional practitioners recognize that the principle of contextualization applies equally to churches in the West. From region to region, city to city, neighborhood to neighborhood, we see a kaleidoscope of cultures. One size will not fit all. Franchising is usually unsuccessful. Missional therefore means a local, culturally-specific application of the message.

2. Evangelistic/attractional → missional/incarnational

At this point I am borrowing the language of Alan Hirsch to distinguish two basic approaches to communicating the gospel. By evangelistic/attractional Hirsch means the traditional approach of the Western church in the culture of Christendom. In this context a church may grow largely on the basis of attraction–a nice building in a good neighborhood, with a charismatic leader and/or good programming, can bring in non-Christians to be evangelized (presented with the message of salvation).

By contrast Hirsch advocates a missional/incarnational pattern. It is missional because it is “an outwardly bound movement from one community or individual to another. It is the outward thrust rooted in God’s mission that compels the church to reach a lost world. Therefore, a genuine missional impulse is a sending rather than an attractional one. The NT pattern of mission is centrifugal rather than centripetal” (The Forgotten Ways [Brazos, 2006], pp. 129-30).

It is incarnational because it understands God’s action in Christ as the model for the life of the church. “If God’s central way of reaching his world was to incarnate himself in Jesus, then our way of reaching the world should likewise be incarnational. To act incarnationally therefore will mean in part that in our mission to those outside the faith we will need to exercise a genuine identification and affinity with those we are attempting to reach” (Forgotten Ways, p. 133).

Incarnation requires a church’s presence in the community. Missional leaders commonly speak of “moving back into the neighborhood,” of learning to listen and build relationships and create a context in which the gospel may flourish in word and deed. In the words of Bryan Stone: “The reign of God proclaimed by Jesus and embodied in his person becomes a concrete possibility in the world when a space is created for it through the Spirit’s formation of persons into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ (and thus into his ‘body’)” (Evangelism after Christendom [Brazos, 2007], p. 108). As the church confronts wide-spread cynicism about the Christian message, the gospel displayed will give credence to the gospel declared.

I don’t want to argue for missional to the exclusion of all attractional aspects of current church practice. Many people are drawn to the church by good preaching, good programs, and fine facilities. The problem is that 1) many of those attracted (not all) will be disgruntled members of other churches and 2) the percentage of the population who can be reached in this way is rapidly shrinking.

3. Cultivating spiritual discernment

In the culture of late modernity many churches adopted a corporate model for leadership, decision-making, and planning. Pastors became CEOs, elders (or deacons) transformed themselves into corporation directors, and top-down, vision-driven planning became the order of the day.

It is a sign of biblical-theological health that this paradigm is being questioned in the missional church movement. Here is a good place to begin “re-imagining” the nature and function of the church for a post-Christian and postmodern era. What is there about the decision-making and planning process of the church that makes (or should make) it distinctively Christian? Or, to ask the question differently, what is missing from the older model?

The short answer is sensitivity to the leading of the Spirit. Or, in the words of Craig Van Gelder, “An essential dimension that Christian leaders must attend to in the midst of a discernment and decision-making process is how to keep God in the conversation” (The Ministry of the Missional Church [Baker, 2007], p. 99).

One can hardly read the narrative of Acts and fail to note the level to which God is “in the conversation.” From Pentecost onward the Holy Spirit is repeatedly identified as the directing and empowering force in the expanding mission of the church. Individuals like Philip, Peter, and Paul experience the direct leading of the Spirit at missionally strategic points (Acts 8:29; 11:11-12; 16:6-7).

However, there are also critical points at which the gathered body discerns the leading of the Lord. Luke tells us (Acts. 13:1-3) that the commissioning of Barnabas and Paul for the expanded mission to the Gentiles was the result of the Antioch believers hearing from the Holy Spirit during a period of worship and fasting (likely focused on discerning “next steps” in God’s purposes for the congregation). The Jerusalem Council is another example of communal listening for the voice of the Spirit which allows the apostles and elders to speak with (for us!) surprising assurance: “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us . . .” (Acts 15:28). Luke also records the warning given to Paul by the Spirit through the community of disciples at Tyre, which Paul ignored to his own detriment–and perhaps that of the mission (Acts. 21:4).

The point is that missional churches need to cultivate what for many of us is a forgotten art–the ability to discern what God is up to in our world (or neighborhood). This is best accomplished in a community of believers who are able to listen prayerfully for what the Spirit is saying in Scripture, in and through the voice of the congregation, and in the specific context where the church is located.

From a practical standpoint, it is important to realize that good listening/discerning is often dependent on asking good questions. So perhaps I should close by listing a few questions that can help churches and leaders who desire the Spirit’s guidance toward a new day of missional engagement. For instance, consider a retreat for your church in which small groups wrestled with these questions:

What means or activities in the history of our church have proven most effective in introducing non-Christians to the gospel? (This is not the same question as what activities have been most effective in adding members/attendees to the congregation.) What can we learn from this that might guide our present efforts?
Jesus taught us to pray “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.” If the kingdom were to come today, what things would be different in our neighborhood? How might the answers to this question guide the participation of our church in the mission of God?
The Abrahamic covenant promises that Abraham’s descendants will be blessed in order that they may be a blessing (Gen. 12:2-3). How is our church a blessing to our community? How would our neighbors answer this question?

Now imagine a congregation posing such questions, listening carefully to the answers, and with prayer (and fasting?!) asking for the Spirit to guide them toward one small missional experiment. And, perhaps six months later, another missional experiment. And then . . . well, just imagine!

Love in the Burbs

Mark Priddy — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:02:17 -0800

I ran across this blog post from Jonathon Brink and I thought I would post it here. Thoughts?

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Much of the discussion around social justice is centered on reaching and loving the poor. Of all the mandates in Scripture, the poor are the front and center in the law and in the commands of Jesus. I get that. I have had many conversations around this with friends and family. And our first response is typically the idea of participating in some organization that feeds the homeless, or serve at a soup kitchen. These established ministries are needed, wanted, and serve to transform my own heart as much as they reach those who are homeless. And when we think of the poor, the first thing that typically, but not always, comes to mind is the idea of financial poverty. But is poverty deeper than that?

I live in the burbs. I live in a upper, middle class community in the suburbs of Sacramento. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is where my Father has me at the moment. I’ve contemplated leaving many times but sensed the call to stay. My home is fairly new and it is common to see Hummers, BMWs, and Mercedes passing my house. And the temptation is to pass by these people and miss a different type of poverty, one that I think leaves as many scars on the soul as anything a homeless person could experience. This is the poverty of that comes from gaining the whole world but losing our soul.

In the burbs, we find people who have gained the whole world, or at least the American version of it. We’ve arrived, so they say, but found that somehow, someway, they raised the bar on us. We have the house, the minvan, the perfect kids, the dog and the vacation to Hawaii in the summer, but approval is now the next rung up. Love moved just beyond our grasp. And once we’ve attained each rung, we find that the promise leaves us more empty than we can imagine. We’re not happy. We’re bored. Now we know that we aren’t satisfied and there’s nothing left to do but try to continue up the ladder. Stuff can’t answer the questions of the soul. We try…but eventually find out it doesn’t work.

The empty faces line up at my daughters school hoping that they’ve arrived correctly, driven correctly and coifed correctly. The crowd provides a scant approval, leaving us to wonder what the hell we did wrong. We can’t abandon it because its comfortable. It’s nice. And the wallpaper on our prison cell is a nice floral print we got at Home Depot.

I use to be in this situation. For ten years I chased the American dream and some would say attained it. I was successful, lived in a killer house in a killer neighborhood that people talked about. I was financially wealthy and…broken inside. What surprised me about wealth is that it didn’t answer one fundamental question. Am I loved? Some of the happiest people I’ve met are poor. And some of the saddest people I’ve met are incredibly wealthy.

And this brings me to my real point. It’s actually quite easy to go down and serve the homeless or at a soup kitchen. We can arrive with our lattes and leave when we want to. We’re in control and can look like a hero. But loving our neighbor next door, when every time he looks at us with an angry stare, is another matter. Our neighbor isn’t likely to leave tomorrow, meaning we have to love over a long period of time. Our flaws are likely to show and then we’re no longer the hero. We’re simply human called to love. And the question isn’t which is better. The question is, where God is calling us to? And what if God is calling us right back to the space we find ourselves in? What if God is calling us to address the poor right next door?

The Consumeristic Gospel: The “Reveal” Radio Interview with Fitch and McKnight

Mark Priddy — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:12:56 -0800

I had a chance to listen to the most recent radio interview with David Fitch and Scot McKnight. I am grateful to Scot and David for their kindness and willingness to show what it means to be hospitable to one another, even when you have a difference of opinion. My hope is that we would continue to challenge one another, to give each other space and to discern together what God may be saying and doing. This is the beauty of what it means to be companions in the gospel – we are invited to discover with each other, not only the mysteries of God, but the practical realities of what it means to be God’s hands and feet in our neighborhood. May we do this with grace, courage and humility.

If you get a chance, I would encourage you to listen to the interview. I look forward to some of your reflections and thoughts.

The following is a 6-minute edited clip that begins with David Fitch: the entire interview is available for download.

Grace and peace, Mark

Business, the Gospel, and the Consumeristic Church

Mark Priddy — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 16:12:08 -0800

Over the last several weeks there has been a lot of posting around Willow Creek (”Reveal”) and the “consumeristic church” conversation. You may want to check out David Fitch’s most recent post, Is The Consumerism Critique Legit? - and the conversation taking place in the comments. Check out Bill Kinnon’s comments around the book Consuming Jesus.

Here are some thoughts I wrote in a blog post around this conversation awhile ago. I have updated a bit and added a few reflections. Look forward to some of your thoughts. Grace, Mark

It’s not Business, it’s the Gospel

“If you don’t like the way you were born — try being born again!”

This announcement, prominently displayed recently on a church marquee in my neighborhood, reflects perfectly the spirit of religious life in North America today. It advertises to all who pass by the church what sounds like very good news: “If you don’t like who you are now, God has a ‘new you’ ready to try on! Details available inside!”

This is exactly the kind of message that modern men and women like to hear. What could be better news than to hear that the God who called the universe into existence wants nothing more than to make us over into what we most want to be? How could this message not be compelling? As a result of years of cultural conditioning, recent generations in North America have come to see themselves almost exclusively as consumers whose sole purpose in life is to satisfy their individual needs…Not only does this message by itself leave much to be desired, it is also symptomatic of a widespread problem within the church today, which is to confuse the gospel with an infomercial, and the community of God’s people with vendors of spiritual goods and services.

I love this quote from the book StormFront. It reminds me of a similar situation I went through in the mid-90’s.

I was invited to sit on a panel to explore a new program called; “New Strategies For City-Wide Evangelism.” I still remember the question that was posed to me as if it were yesterday. “Mark, if you could figure out how to put the gospel into a vitamin bottle, package it, market it, and get it into the hands of men and women in the city, our churches would be filled to capacity.” In other words, I was asked to help implement a marketing strategy that would successfully saturate the entire region with the gospel and turn “customers into consumers” and the church into a “vendor of goods and services.”

My years of business and my experience in marketing and producing products seemed to be precisely what was needed to launch a new and innovative marketing program. Had I found my call?

Let’s face it. Though the fundamental idea of marketing has been around for over fifty years, the message itself is ageless. Surely, if Fortune 500 companies see fit to spend money on marketing campaigns in order to achieve brand recognition and successfully turn customers into consumers, couldn’t the religious sector do the same? Customers are the focal point of all businesses, religious or secular, aren’t they? It doesn’t take a savvy executive to know that in order for organization to exist, one must do marketing and do it extraordinarily well to flourish.

THE PLAN: If we could present the gospel in a reduced message, a catch phrase, several bullet points, something less than two to three words, and market it on billboards, benches, bumper stickers, radio and TV ads, then we could reach thousands of religious customers. If each campaign carried a simple message, or perhaps better stated, a “catchy slogan,” if we worked together and invested enough money to cover the largest market and deliver the maximum amount of “impressions,” then we could implement a successful marketing strategy to reach our targeted customer. That’s right impressions!

In marketing, one of the most important laws is to capture the mind of the customer— the prospect. Get the message out there as much as you can. It needs to be in front of them at all times—when they’re eating, driving, or taking a siesta on the local bench—make it quick, easy to read, short, sweet, and catchy. This approach is vital to the success of any marketing program. If all goes well, then theoretically it will bring people into the store and successfully convert them from “customer to consumer.”

So, following that line of thinking, it only makes sense to market the gospel, right? And what other product is free? What other product can forgive sins, take care of our needs and secure a place in heaven?

NOW, ON TO THE HARD PART: Any well-versed executive who has lived in the trenches and the world of marketing products knows all too well that once we have successfully embedded the idea into the customers’ minds, then we must continue to satisfy their needs. Without satisfied customers, you lose business to your competitors. Without the ability to satisfy customers, you fail to attract new customers. The logic is simple, yet powerful. There are only two possible sources of business revenue: selling to new customers, or selling to repeat customers. And since repeat customers are generally easier and more profitable to work with, you generally want to maximize customer satisfaction and insure a high rate of retention. Thus, to succeed, a business needs to attract new customers, then make sure they are sufficiently satisfied to come back again and again.

It is no wonder why businesses devote so much time, attention, and money to activities designed to attract and retain customers. To attract them, they design their products, develop new sales programs, and seek faster and more convenient ways to distribute the products to customers.

So what was the slogan? What powerful catch phrase was presented to a group of “so-called prominent” men and women that would convert “customers to consumers?” It was simply this:

“Got Jesus”

Original right? But, hey, why reinvent the wheel? “Got Milk” had become a household slogan, sales had sky-rocketed, and the campaign was publicized as one of the most successful marketing programs in years.

The whole point of the campaign revolved around a marketing plan that would get people to come to church with the purpose of providing programs that promised to meet people’s needs, improve their private lives, enhance their self esteem, give them a sense of purpose, improve their emotional state as individuals and assure eternal life at a minimal cost to the customer. Isn’t this is exactly the kind of message that men and women like to hear. How could this message not be compelling?

I remember walking out of that room thinking to myself, “how can we reduce the gospel of the kingdom of God to a set of bullet points or a catchy phrase and the church to a mere vendor of religious goods and services? This was the beginning of my journey.

Some Reflections:

1. As a result of years of cultural conditioning, recent generations in North America have come to see themselves almost exclusively as consumers whose sole purpose in life is to satisfy their individual needs. Not only does this message by itself leave much to be desired, it is also symptomatic of a widespread problem within the church today, which is to confuse the gospel with an infomercial, and the community of God’s people with vendors of spiritual goods and services.

2. Such reductionism stands in obvious tension with an incarnational approach to mission. As long as we continue to view the church as a place, then we will continue to compete for members. (”God’s Love is Visible. Come Inside and See!”) We will get sucked into the marketing vortex of trying to convince the world to come to church and doing everything we can to “satisfy their needs” in order to keep them coming back.

3. Religious economies are no different then commercial economies, meaning that they consist of a market made up of a set of current and potential customers and a set of firms seeking to serve that market. As long as the church forms it’s ethos around “a product to be consumed” and positions itself as a “vendor of goods and services”, it will be held hostage to the powers that drive the market. The true nature of marketing today is outwitting, outflanking, outfighting the competition. In short marketing is a war, where the enemy is your competition and the ground to be won is the ‘CUSTOMER”. Is this the business the church is in?

4. As we rethink church in North American it will require, as many people have noted, more than a mere tinkering of strategy, or re-tooling of marketing tactics. It will require more than the next or the new. It will require more than a rearranging of the furniture. It will require more than “a new set of horses that can run harder and with more speed.” As the church continues to adjust, there is a need for reinventing or rediscovering its essential nature as a community of God’s people.

What if the church embraced a different imagination - not about a privatized religion built upon “meeting needs”, or attracting people into a building, but rather living as God’s people in the public space of their own community and neighborhood? What if the church took seriously the call to incarnate the mission of Jesus in the places it worked, lived and played - in the ordinary, where our humanity is found and worked out. This will be the topic of my next post.