The Missional Church
Okay, gentlemen, I'll go first. The buzzword in emerging and non-emerging circles lately has been defining what it means to be missional as a church within culture. Being missional simply means that the church must take a step back and re-evaluate the cultural stories, values, and mannerisms of the community in which God has assigned them to minister, and act as a missionary to their community. Being missional is distinct from both being evangelistic or being "seeker-friendly." Two well-known "missional" churches are Mars Hill Church in Seattle (Mark Driscoll) and Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan (Tim Keller).
Here is a quote from Breaking the Missional Code by Ed Stetzer and David Putnam:
We are convinced that you can be equally called, gifted, and passionate and yet experience different levels of success due to the model of ministry being used. In other words, the way you do things does impact your ability to reach your community effectively. (p.2)
Are Stetzer & Putnam correct? What role, if any, should the culture play in determining ministry focus and methodology? Is a large-scale shift in church culture necessary to reach a culture that is growing more secular?
posted by Anonymous at 6:24 PM
10 Comments:
"What role, if any, should the culture play in determining ministry focus and methodology?"
Ministry methodology has to be relevant in some form or fashion to be effective. For instance, you minister in a community where all the men hunt deer and ducks. You may want to know something about hunting and go hunt with these guys to effectively minister to them. By learning what they like to do and by doing their hobbies you are showing love for them in that you care for them.
However, let's say you are in a culture where (and I'm going to extremes here) illicit drugs are used by everyone and they see nothing wrong with this practice, and the practice is encouraged. Obviously, that facet of the culture should not impact methodology.
Perhaps what we should ask about our methadology, "Is it anti-biblical?" Also, a good question to ask is, "How is this methadology glorifying God?"
"Is a large-scale shift in church culture necessary to reach a culture that is growing more secular?"
I don't think a large-scale shift in much of anything is good for any reason (except a reason specifically stated in Scripture). We should remain relevant to culture, but here is where I will be disagreed with:
Church should drive the culture. The culture should not drive the church.
Is there any expression of the church, in any place in the world or history, that is not culturally conditioned?
The cultural setting of any group of believers shapes them. Just as it shapes language and art.
The challenge I think is to learn the redemptive stories that connect to the culture so that the message is never lost.
Missional Jerry,
That is an interesting statement: "The challenge I think is to learn the redemptive stories that connect to the culture so that the message is never lost."
How does the story of redemption change across cultures? Does it? Am i asking the right question, or did I misunderstand you?
Drew,
Probably not.
Charlie asked a great question about whether the redemptive stories ever change. My answer is of course the story of redemption never changes, and I think that Missional Jerry probably agrees with me.
Perhaps a better way to say this is to find the aspects of any given culture (by virtue of common grace) that can be used as "hooks" in which to connect with the unchanging facts of redemptive history.
An example of this that has come up in recent days has been celebrating the sacrifice of so many FDNY firefighters on 9/11. A gospel-driven, missional approach seeks to point out how those firefighters, living in a self-autonomous, individualistic society, willingly gave themselves over for those who were helpless. That ties in directly with the unchanging facts of the Gospel, in which Christ, who by his very nature of being God has every right to be individualistic and self-autonomous (in a Trinitarian sense, of course), yet willingly gave Himself over for helpless, desperate, dying people.
I hope that clarifies.
So more of a contextualization approach - finding the local, 'missional' analogy to help people understand the love of God.
Exactly. It's using the same principles that foreign missionaries use to communicate the gospel to their culture, and applying it to North American cultures.
Ben,
Good point. I too, share that uneasiness with altering a Gospel presentation too radically, for fear of altering the content itself. With that said, I think we want to make sure that if someone trips, they trip over the message of the cross rather than the messenger himself.
And that is not to underestimate the power of effectual calling (for all of my non-Calvinist brothers, that's a clarification of the "I" in TULIP). First Corinthians 9 is the driving force behind my point.
Post a Comment
<< Home