Thanks for all the great discussion last night. I really appreciate the way you are engaging with the ideas in the readings.
I’ve got two ideas for blog posts this week. Of course, you are free to write about anything related to the missional church.
1. Last night we talked a bit about some of the dichotomies set up by the various authors, and we noted that some of them seem to be false dichotomies. For example, “more about prayer than planning,” in the first Stetzer (2006, p. 164) reading. I’d prefer to talk about prayer as a part of every stage of planning, prayer as a significant part of the way time is allocated in every planning meeting, and personal prayer for the congregation's plans as a major responsibility of all leaders of a congregation. Perhaps there are dichotomies like that one that you’d like to discuss in a blog post.
2. One of the ideas we didn’t discuss very much is the notion of a community being incarnational in its focus. I’d like to suggest that as a second option for blog posts this week. What do you think it means to be incarnational or to think in an incarnational way? What do you think it looks like in practice to be incarnational in your focus? In what ways is Jesus’ incarnation a model for us in ministry and in what ways is Jesus unique and not a model for us? What are the connections between incarnational ministry and the various characteristics of a missional church?
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26 comments:
Chris Ambrose writes:
One of the books that I have in my library that looks at missional churches is Emerging Downunder: Creating New Monastic Villages of God by Ray Simpson with Brent Lyons Lee (Adelaide, ATF Press, 2008). Ray Simpson is an English Anglican priest who has written on the development of Celtic spirituality in the British church scene. In this book he looks at some of this within Australia and New Zealand and reflects a little on what the “merging” church and the intersection of developing spirituality will result in.
Prior to the first week of the course I had also read the latest issue of Stimulus (Volume 17 No 1 – February 2009) which I thought contained an article that questioned the use of Celtic symbolism in New Zealand society. The tenor of the article was that maybe we need to look more closely at New Zealand symbolism that helps us develop a new spirituality in relation to our culture. (On looking back I cannot find the article -will have to search other material I was reading at the time.)
I also noted in a quick rereading of Steve Taylor’s book The Out of Bounds Church? Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a culture of Change (Grand Rapids, Emergent YS (Zondervon), 2005) that he talks about a Koru Theology (Chapter 5).
I remember some discussions in Australia over the past 30 years about the development of a theology that reflected the culture of Australia and the importance that this could have in the future of the church.
Do we need to also look at some of the understanding of church from the missional/emergent church and see if this needs to have our own theological view placed on it?
Bob Roberts, Glocalization, makes a wonderful observation when he points out that we are not called to empower or develop or transform people. We are called to serve. I wonder if perhaps this could be a foundational concept for what church might look like, what leadership might look like. I wonder if maybe the first fundamental mistake the apostles made was when they organised someone else to wait on the tables in Acts 6. The failure to make the direct connection between serving at the table and preaching and prayer set in place many of the models of ministry we currently labour under. What would the church look like, what would leadership look like if it was directly attached to ‘waiting on tables’? Could this refine some of what Dan Kimball alludes to in his writing as well?
Prayer in person vs. prayer as a community, sometimes they are not same in single decision-making. Recently, a pastor who planted a church and ministered for 1 year has decided to go back to mother country since his family had been hard to live in New Zealand. It was a big issue among the congregation becasue his wife said that they got answer to her prayer from God. All the congregations complained that why God answered to her only. They disqualifed the 'the answer from God' rather qualified 'the planning by themselves.' It was sad and a big challenge to us to think about how we interpret " answer to the prayer " as a community. Above all , the church leaders decided let them go freely, and they left.
Prayer is everything, but "authority" of leaders would work through the planning of the community I found, and others are eagerly prepared to obey to the authority.
I was one of those that took exception to Stetzers comments about life being more “spiritual than strategic, more about prayer than planning and more spontaneous than organized” (pg 162). I am not sure that those with gifts in strategic planning are as unspiritual as Stetzer seems to imply. For sure we need to be discerning about a direct import of business or corporate models into church life. However, to suggest that those who plan do not plan prayerfully is to devalue those with gifts in these areas. In our church listening to God and praying together precede planning and continue long after planning.
Also, Stetzer (pg 162) and Stetzer and Putnam (pg 48) both seem to be advocating a shift from an attractional church to an incarnational one. While I can understand this distinction where there are extremes operating, I am struggling to see these as polar opposites. Even if I agree with his take on the attractional model (which I’m not sure I do), surely to be incarnational is attractive!
The thought that the attractional model is “come to a church service” (pg162) and the incarnational model is to “be Jesus” (pg 162) may be forcing a divide where a partnership exists. For the most part many people come to church as a result of personal contact with another Christian. This Christian is presumably living out their life in a way that is to some degree is both attractional and incarnational. Their visit to a church service may well be the result of them already seeing something of Christ in their own context.
I meant to add this link to my blog. www.neueministry.com/2009/01/dan-kimball-prefers-the-megachurch/
The link Grahame put in the comment right above this one is definitely worth reading. Be sure to read all the comments as well as the original post. Very interesting.
The false Dichotomies of the Culturalisation of the Gospel
I would like to propose a counter argument for minimising the effect of culture in our search for spirituality in the culture of God. Secondly I would not support the notion, posed against Stetzer’s proposal that our lives in Christ should be more spiritual than strategic, more about prayer than planning.
Culture is a very powerful thing. It is, in my view, a very basic ingredient of our lives and is ingrained in our natural instincts. It is where we find safety and wellbeing when we are not certain of things or feel threatened. Culture forms our modus operandi and is the default setting of our actions and behaviour. The culture of our destination is away from what we know. It is the culture of God, the way Christ calls us to do things, to behave and to live. This culture is not ingrained in us and is not the default setting when we are threatened or lose our way. Ultimately, God’s call to us is to be more like Him and less ingrained in ourselves. The call for the culturalisation of the gospel (Taylor, Out of Bounds Church, 2005; Warner, 21st Century Church, 1988; Wilson, Future Church, 2002 etc.), in my view, may present a false dichotomy. The call of the gospel is to wean us from ourselves and to adopt a different culture – the culture of God. By becoming reliant on our cultural setting to find meaning in our Christian expression is back to front. For sure Gospel and culture go hand in hand but in that order. The gospel of Christ should lead our cultural engagement and not the other way round. Far too often I come across church folk who resemble more of the world than they do Christ. I wonder if that is because the gospel has been culturalised so much that the distinction between the two is less of a disparity. We end up with an anthropocentric church and not an extension of Christology. This is what Stetzer means when he said “When the Church steps out of the Scriptural and theological bounds the result is syncretism – mixing up the gospel with the world so that you can’t tell the difference (Stetzer pg 56; CB pg 163).”
Secondly, I listened with interest to Monday’s audio conference at the marginalisation of Stetzer’s proposal of spirituality over strategy and prayer over planning (First reading Stetzer 162-64, CB 152-153) – I couldn’t agree more with Stetzer. He warns against the emphasis on tools and techniques and methodologies (Stetzer pg 55, CB pg 162). He says ‘the missional church must be birthed from Scripture (Stetzer pg 53; CB pg 161). He adds, the Bible actually has a lot to say about church and ministry. There are many examples in Acts of plans and strategies gone wrong (e.g Philip and the Eunuch; Paul at the Road to Damascus; Paul and Barnabas’ plans on taking Mark on the first missionary journey, and more). The classic example for me is Paul’s journey through western Asia Minor in his second missionary journey where the “Spirit of Jesus did not permit them into Bithynia” (Acts 16:7). The reading suggests there was much prayer and spirituality (vision in the night of the man from Macedonia) which took over planning and strategy. If planning and strategy are pivotal in ministry (Paul was a strategist and planner – Beals, A People for His Name, 1995; Dayton/Fraser, Planning Strategies for World Evangelisation, 1990; Crafton, Paul’s Rhetorical Vision in Novum Testamentum, 1990) then prayer and spirituality are essential. Prayer and Spirituality works best with Planning and Strategy and in that order, much like Gospel and Culture in that order. The cart (object) always follows the horse (living driving force).
Incarnational for me implies embodiment, that in your person and in your life you live out who you are, the inevitable consequence of being embodied creatures. To live out your faith incarnationally recognises that all that you do and say expresses your faith (for better or worse). It is a terribly transparent way to live. Terrible for transparency implies a capacity to confront your life and the way of your living with honesty; to accept God’s grace of forgiveness for the many ways you fall short, rather than your own judgment; to turn always and again to God knowing your dependence, and that God is the source of renewal and empowerment for yourself and for the world. Perhaps something of Jesus’ uniqueness is that he could sustain and live with such transparency. Most of the rest of us require a few more concrete props, systems that reassure, models and examples to which we can aspire, which reflect back to us with more immediacy the possibility and potential of a world immersed in God.
I think this feeds into the debate about Stetzer’s proposal of spirituality over strategy, prayer over planning and so forth. I agree with Seti, rather than a dichotomy it is about priority, which takes precedence. Incarnational ministry acts out your faith, expresses your understanding of God and God relationship, which arises from being in relationship with God encountered through prayer and spirituality. Prayer informs planning, spirituality shapes strategy, however I am aware of our human preference for action and I suspect a temptation to retrospectively understand (or construct?) a God connection to our activities.
Incarnational ministry, as I understand it, does not suggest a covert evangelistic agenda. Regardless of the model of church that is being considered, it seems a fundamental characteristic of church that part of its mission is to convert and is that conversion to church belonging – noting Stetzer’s definition that success of a missional church is “measured in multiplication of churches and quality of disciples,” (p.165) whereas success in E/A churches is “measured in numbers of church members, baptisms, program attendance, etc.” (p. 166). Incarnational ministry is about living faithfully and with integrity, revealing in the world the transforming possibility of fullness of life known through relationship with God. Of course this needs concrete shape and form, but such understanding informs what is done and the way things are done, according to the abilities and resources of the people with whom we work and the context in which we live. If the impetus is the experience of grace of God in our own lives and the mission is God’s, what is the measurement of success?
From Dellwyn Moylan:
In reading McNeal reading 14, p. 226 (CB) they say “... this is exactly the same dynamic experienced by people outside the church bubble when they consider coming to church. They don’t know the right code words, secret handshakes, or anything. They don’t understand 'church speak'. I am convinced we use code words and phrases in church to keep from dealing with God." I do believe we need to ensure when we use theological words that those we are talking to understand what we mean. Think of how our discussion on what church is or what do we mean by mission. I was not sure of what the word incarnational means and tried to search for a definition of it. If any one cares to share with me what they mean by incarnational in the context they are using it in regards to this paper I would appreciate that. I rang a Minister to ask them what the word meant. As part of our discussion he said it irritates him when people use theological words without explaining their meaning leaving people wondering what it means. In parish I use to attend nearly every week the Minister would use such words in the sermon and this distracted me. I sat there wondering what the word meant or might mean and then I lost the sermon completely. When I shared that with this Minister he said he remember one lecture at the Theological Hall that began something like this "Under discussion are the epistemological implications of the ontological reality of Christ Jesus in terms of existential experience from an eschatological perspective." His response was ‘a what’ and he looked around the lecture room and saw a room full of stunned faces. No wonder. I have no idea what that sentence means.
Perhaps a story about an urban monastic fledgling might help to ground our thoughts on the nonsense which is the incarnational/attractional dichotomy:
I currently attend a small group every fortnight on a Thursday evening. There are seven participants and we have dinner together that is basically the same each week (this keeps down the bother factor). We meet in each other’s homes and share bread (hot) and wine (both red and white & occasionally French). We then have coffee together and discuss life/faith and the American presidential election (topic is initiated by that nights host). After about an hour of discussion, we light a candle to recognise the presence of god (or other), practice a small ritual we call “breadcrumbs” based on a book called Sleeping with Bread (which is based on Ignatius’ becoming aware of those things in our lives that bring to us a sense of consolation/desolation). This small ritual is then followed by another borrowed from another tradition; the Anglican Night Prayer, which is read by that at evenings host. The group is made up of a retired couple, a 25 year old student, two former church ministers, a person who hasn’t regularly attended church for 20 years and another who has never been to church at all. For me the group is safe, caring and hospitable to the stranger (in lots of different ways), and it is overtly Christian... yet as I read our readings, not particularly missional! For me the space is sacred and warm for others who do not profess to be Christian but who like bread, wine and warm company. For me this reminds me a little of what hanging out with Jesus might have been like...
Picking up on what Seti Afoa wrote, I am also in agreement with Stetzer when he says that "The Missional Church must be birthed in Scripture". A supreme example of this comes to mind when I look at the Hobbs'seventh characteristic of the Missional Church as "A community which practices reconciliation" In South Africa where I am originally from, I spent 8 years in a church which had racial integration very high on the agenda. However, the aim was the racial integration for the sake of it and God became the means to that. All I can say is that it was extremely unsuccessful. The last 7 years of my life in South Africa, I attended a church where racial integration was also high on the agenda but based on the Scriptural teaching about the ministry of reconciliation as found in 2 Corinthians 5 which is all about God reconciling us to Himself. When we make it our mission to reconcile man to man, we are on the wrong track. Interestingly enough, the second church is where I truly experienced true racial integration because all of us where reconciled to God first and therefore truly reconciled to each other. God was the goal, not the racial integration.
From Roly Scott:
I'd like to respond to Lynne's comments about what it means to be incarnational. What was God doing when to quote Tom Skinner 'he put skin on him'. I also wanted to respond to Craig Braun's description of his community which meets fortnightly. On Christmas Eve at one of our services I tried to shed some light on John 1:14 - 'The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory...' William Willamon commenting on that verse said 'All things heavenly spiritual and eternal touched earth, took up residence here and we considered that in God becoming flesh he at last did something about our troublesome flesh. God didn't come to deliver us from our flesh but to redeem us in our flesh and to ennoble our fleshly, faulty existence.' To me this is the model for incarnational ministry. To bring in Jesus' name a spiritual and dare I say eternal perspective to living and relationships, to be presnet in those relationships. Stetzer speaks of new faith communities springing up naturally birthed out of relationships. To hang out with people as I imagine Jesus did. And this seems to be what Craig Braun writes of. I like the sharing over hot bread and wine and the ecletic nature of the community. The ambience sounds great but is this a reflection of my age? Adn when Stetzer has on his chart that the missional church is about personal mission, it's theocentric and it transforms community I am right there.
From Jan Clark:
Thinking about Missional Incarnational and the Evangelical Attractional concepts I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. I went back to Hirsch’s book ‘The Forgotten Ways” to find a summary of the dimensions of incarnation. Courtesy of google here is a summary.
Hirsch describes at least four dimensions that frame our understanding of the incarnation, and he believes these should profoundly shape our response to the ongoing mission of God:
1. Presence: In Jesus, God is fully present to us. Jesus is no substitute or intermediary, but God in the flesh.
2. Proximity: God approached us in Christ in a way we can understand and access, befriending the outcast and living close proximity to the broken and lost.
3. Powerlessness: In the incarnation, God took the form of a servant. Hirsch writes, “He does not stun us with sound and laser shows, but instead he lives as a humble carpenter in backwater Galilee for thirty years before activating his messianic destiny,” showing us how love and humility reflect the true nature of God.
4. Proclamation: He initiated the gospel invitation, heralded the reign of God, and called people to respond in repentance and faith.
In these four aspects of the incarnation, we find the following calls for our work together with God in mission (these are just snippets of what Hirsch describes):
1. Being present in the fabric of a community, engaging in the humanity of it all. All ministry is relational and based in our particular local presence. “…Jesus actually likes to hang out with the people we hang out with. They get the implied message that God actually likes them (p. 134).”
2. Like Jesus we’re called to be in proximity to folks from every level of society. This involves genuine avaliability, spontaneity, and regular friendships and community.
3. We too are called to powerlessness: humility and servanthood to each other and with the world. This is an integral aspect of church, leadership, and mission.
4. Genuine incarnational approaches to mission will result in our proclamation of the gospel story with the people we engage. “We are essentially a ‘message tribe,’ and that means we must ensure the faithful transmission of the message we carry through proclamation” (Matt Judkins Catching Meddlers blog)
The emphasis of M/I understanding of Christian community sees the people of God moving outward and deeper into the culture. However an understanding of church I hold is the belief that worship is central to our common life. Sine’s chapter referred to the “anglimergent website’ from that page is the following link http://www.anglicancommunion.org/ministry/mission/fivemarks.cfm and the following extract reminds me why I want to find a helpful relationship between M/I and the aspect of mission which invites others to come and share in the church gathered.
Mission as celebration & thanksgiving
An important feature of Anglicanism is our belief that worship is central to our common life. But worship is not just something we do alongside our witness to the good news: worship is itself a witness to the world. It is a sign that all of life is holy, that hope and meaning can be found in offering ourselves to God (cf. Romans 12:1). And each time we celebrate the eucharist, we proclaim Christ's death until he comes (1 Cor. 11:26). Our liturgical life is a vital dimension of our mission calling; and although it is not included in the Five Marks, it undergirds the forms of public witness listed there.
Part way into this course I feel a need to hold many elements in tension and not follow any particular model.
Kingsley Ponniah writes:
I wonder if the concept of a parish that churches like the Anglican Church adopt might help us understand what it means for the church to be incarnational. In this concept, a church or congregation understands that its local community is its parish and it sees itself as a Christian presence in that community. It is there to also serve the community and so share the love of God with them. While it might focus on the spiritual needs of its members and the people living in that community, it also understands that it has to respond to the needs of that community. So there are parishes that have responded with practical aid when there has been a flood or other crisis situations in the community. They have initiated activities that are aimed at groups of people living in the community – activities like Mainly Music for pre-schoolers, Senior lunches for the elderly and parenting courses, to name a few. They make their facilities available for community groups to use or as venues for community events. Church members are also encouraged to pray for and be involved in local schools, community groups and grassroots organizations. Perhaps this is one way the church can be incarnational and missional. In this scenario, being incarnational means that the church is involved in its local community and through that involvement endeavours to enrich the lives of the people in that community.
I would like to complement the list that Jan provided to Lynne’s question ‘what does it mean to be incarnational?” with five key components that Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch in ‘the shape of things to come’ suggest are crucial for a church to be incarnational.
1) The church must always enter fully into the context in which it happens to find itself. I know this sounds obvious, but it is also very challenging, especially when most of the congregation don’t actually live in that context.
2) Incarnational mission will mean that in reaching a people group we will need to identify with them in all ways possible without compromising the truth of the gospel itself. What also is interesting is the warning they give for this not to be limited to work among the poor.
3) Incarnational mission implies that if you want to reach the local people you are going to have to live where they live and hang out where they hang out. Again this becomes difficult when the congregation do live elsewhere. No longer are parish boundaries the norm, and we might have people who travel great distances to come to worship. It would be very difficult to suggest at a session meeting that only those in the surrounding area should be part of the congregation.
4) In terms of its missional stance in relation to context, incarnational mission implies a sending impulse rather than an extractional one. The only danger I find in this statement is that the baby seems to almost always get thrown out with the bath water. I believe that incarnational mission does imply sending, but I also believe that there must be a centripetal impulse at the same time, inasmuch as Christ needed time alone with his Father in prayer; he needed time to teach his disciples for the centrifugal work.
5) Incarnational mission means that people will get to experience Jesus on the inside of their culture and their lives because of our embodying the gospel in an incarnationally appropriate way. This means that we must witness a Jesus who is not the wimpy, nice character, Jesus meek and mild, but the real Jesus who changes lives.
I found these very helpful and I would be very interested in what others think.
Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch, The shape of things to come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church (USA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 35-41
From Dellwyn:
Reflecting on what Andrew said about Bob Roberts, Glocalization, makes a wonderful observation when he points out that we are not called to empower or develop or transform people. We are called to serve. I wonder if perhaps this could be a foundational concept for what church might look like, what leadership might look like. I think some people can think they have a gift one something such as speaking in tongues and they think that is all they have to do. But I think we all have a responsibility and obligation to serve others as an expression of our faith. I have seen too often the elders in a parish sitting making the decisions without listening to the congregation, the community, God or the spirit and then telling people what they must do. It seems it’s a case not do and I do but do as I say. They make the decisions, they make the plans but they don’t carry out the necessary work nor do the support, equip or encourage those that do. For me this links into what Grahame was saying Stetzers comments about life being more “spiritual than strategic, more about prayer than planning and more spontaneous than organized” (pg 162). Some people can think often because of their situation they are more spiritual than others so they pray about thing and get the answers but then expect someone else to plan, strategies or organise. They see their gift as more important and more spiritual and the others are just getting the job done when all gifts are equal.
Reflecting on Kingsley's thoughts about “ the concept of a parish that churches like the Anglican Church adopt might help us understand what it means for the church to be incarnational. In this concept, a church or congregation understands that its local community is its parish and it sees itself as a Christian presence in that community. It is there to also serve the community and so share the love of God with them. While it might focus on the spiritual needs of its members and the people living in that community, it also understands that it has to respond to the needs of that community.” I find this a very helpful concept. I think the church is certainly there for those who are part of it. Its role to these people is to provide worship that equips them to be the people of faith God designed them to be, to provide pastoral care to them so they in turn can pastorally care for others. But if the church solely focuses is on those who are already inside it, it has slot part of its purpose. That is the call to go out to those around it, to help meet the holistic needs of the people around it. It is not just about meeting the spiritual needs but often the church meets the physical needs through such ministry as opportunity shops or food banks, the emotional and mental needs through support groups or counseling. It maybe that members of the church undertake this work themselves or they may provide the finances, the resources, the buildings for other to undertake this mission. For example part of our church building is used for the young people from the local high school who have been expelled from the school so they can continue their education. They do damage the building but it is about the church being able to demonstrate God’s love. Love the person but not the sin. I think too that as each person of faith that is involved in their community they to are being the church for those they come into contact with. Whether it be through a service club, being on a School Board of Trustees, coaching a soccer team etc they are living out their faith in a very real way and maybe the only “Jesus” in that place.
A friend of mine used to make the point, on a regular basis, that it is often not either/or, rather it is both/and. I think it is really important in a conversation about Incarnational vs. attractional, missional vs. maintenance, large vs. small, etc. to realise that with few exceptions people have valid points whether they be positive or negative. The problem we face is when those points are used to go head to head with people, as Dan Kimball mentions in the blogpost Grahame pointed out to us.
I think that God must role the eyes in exasperation whenever we begin to insist, yet again, that our way is the only right way. Fuzz Kitto makes the comment that one of the keys to knowing if a church is on the right track is through its use of language. If the language it uses demonstrates an awareness of context and is able to describe clearly what is happening in that context then some things are being done right. So I wonder if the use of exclusionary language between churches indicates that those using that language have failed to truly discern what God is doing in their context. That is not to suggest that no-one ever gets it wrong but rather the way in which we speak about difference and concern is indicative of how well we have discerned the missio Dei amongst us.
The same thing goes for the artificial dichotomies between planning and prayer or spiritual vs. strategic. Surely these are all parts of a greater whole that will only work as designed once they are brought together and recognised for the role that each plays in our service to God, to each other, and to our broader community.
Graeme Flett writes:
In adding something to the conversation about incarnational ministry, I think the most helpful point to begin a conversation is in scripture itself. Personally, I’ve found the term (incarnational) a helpful one although I concede the use of such terms may be unhelpful if detached from the gospel story of Jesus itself. I am inclined to think this is where we can come unstuck – defaulting to theological abstractions instead being drawn by the Spirit into the story where we encounter God becoming flesh. John’s gospel is explicit in the way it expresses the incarnation of God– the word became flesh and dwelt among us – John 1:14. For me a number of important points emerge here that have practical implications for ministry and mission.
1) Jesus was a Galilean Jew and as such found himself within a particular cultural context. The implication is that we too exist within a particular cultural context. Just in Jesus’ world of the 1st century, culture was a factor, so it is today. People dress, speak and behave in different ways. This being the case, how do we express the reign of God in a given particular and local context? And what does the gospel have to say to the people of our own context? What is good news and the announcement of God’s reign in a culture where people are materially wealthy? Incarnational mission pushes us to ask such questions.
2) Jesus in announcing the new age of the Kingdom, used images and metaphors that people were familiar with. This raises questions about language and communication. If we are thinking incarnationally, then due thought might be given to the artful practice of listening. Luke 10:6 is an interesting text within the context of Jesus’ instruction to the disciples he sends out. It seems to me, the one going has to become an artful listener, conscious of the subtle but distinct nuances that make up the world of another(s). “If the head of the house loves peace, your peace will rest on that house.” (Luke 10:6) The question is; how will we know whether the householder loves peace unless there is a (missional) listening? The assumption here is that in the midst of this story there is a level of mutual communication.
3) God becoming flesh is an emphatic statement about Jesus’ physicality. In other words mission and ministry has to be earthed. Jesus is not a dematerialized being that can be separated from his earthly existence. To think incarnationally is to rid ourselves of a dualism that “wants to separate the material and spiritual as if they were two distinct and separate realms having nothing to do with each other.”[1] Roxburgh further notes, that this idea has implications for Christian leadership. He states“leadership practices and capacities are uncritically adopted from outside Christian understanding, while leadership character is developed from within the Christian narrative of inner, personal, spiritual life. Leaders practice this basic dualism by seeking to develop spiritual habits as part of the formation of character and then uncritically adopting leadership skills from other arenas to shape vision, create change processes, and manage systems.”[2]
1 Roxburgh, A. & Romanuk, F., The Missional Leader (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006), 121.
2 Roxburgh, A. & Romanuk, F., The Missional Leader (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006), 121.
In the course of conversation with a member of the faith community amongst whom I work, we came around to discussing ideas around missional and incarnational church.
This conversation took place after Holy Week and Easter celebrations, during which we had shared a number of services of varying styles. As I am relatively new here this was the first year I had introduced a less traditional service or two. My predecessor had paid close attention to the language used in liturgy but tended to provide services that were very wordy. One of the new services, held on Good Friday, provided quite a contrast. Led by the young people of the parish, members of the congregation were invited to participate in a series of ritual actions. These symbolic actions mirrored the gospel account of the crucifixion of Jesus, his being taken down from the cross, and his then being laid in the tomb.
The person I was talking with commented that people kept talking about the power of the service. Physically participating in the drama of the story had had a profound effect upon them, engaging them in a way that they had not experienced before. “Isn’t that incarnational mission?” was the query. “Because you’ve participated in the story of faith in this way you keep remembering it and so it changes you and you want to talk to other people about the experience.” His comment did make me reflect upon the potential of worship and wonder about the simplicity of mission, people experiencing their faith in a way that makes them want to keep talking about it.
I am enjoying everyone’s comments and reflections of what it is to be incarnational. I liked what Jan had to say about proclamation and what Stuart said about Christ being the centre of any missional impulse. For me I have been thinking a lot about the role of the proclamation of the gospel. For instance, does the gospel have to be proclaimed in order for mission to truly exist?
Perhaps what Hobbs has to say about word and deed (pg 162) sums up an incarnational life. The challenge is to allow the traditional understanding of these words (word and deed) to be stretched in new ways and directions. Hobbs puts it like this, “Persons, in their words and actions, express to others what God has done in the world and in their lives through Jesus Christ”. For me if we accept that the starting point or agenda for the church is always missional then it is easier to reflect on what incarnational might mean and look like. Murray (pg 137) puts in strongly, “mission, not the church is the starting point”.
Of course, Jesus Christ makes our involvement in mission possible. This is where Stuart’s comments about Christ being the centre are so crucial in the discussion. So I would add to Murray by saying, that it is the mission of Christ that is the starting point. With this in mind, for me, it becomes easier to ponder what incarnational means.
Tim Pettengell writes:
Is not Christianity itself a dichotomy? While it lays claim to having its origins in the life and work of the historical Jesus, what is claimed and proclaimed about this Jesus today, cannot be supported by the historical evidence! If this is true – which I believe it is, then before the notion or idea of a missional church can be entertained, then the foundation upon which such a claim is made needs to be addressed.
I think what this does, is ask us to be sure of the meta-narrative we lay claim too. I remember reading an article by a Rabbi (sorry, notes are not stored in New Zealand and therefore unable to reference), who made the point, that before one can make the leap of faith one must first have a firm foundation of knowledge. Thus if in today’s world we make claims about Jesus that can be refuted by historical evidence – evidence from non biblical sources, then our claim about who and what we believe Jesus to be as well as any other claims that we make are not only suspect, but are not credible.
Therefore, if the theological concept – and that is what it is – a theological concept, of the missional church is to have relevance, be applicable and find traction, then it needs to built on a foundation of rock instead of sand (c.f. Matt 7:24-26).
I am interested in the comments of Phyllis Tickle, an Episcopalian writer and author from Tennessee. She has a theory of a 500-year cycle in Western history- a period of upheaval followed by a settling down period. Codification is followed again by upheaval because we do not like what is being codified.
Tickle maintains that the Reformation was 500 years ago, 500years before that was the Great Schism (East/West), 500yrs earlier was the fall of Rome and the beginning of monasticism, our Lord walked on earth, 500yrs before that was the Babylonian captivity of the Jews and 500yrs before that was the end of the age of judges and the beginning of the dynasty.
The difference in the present upheaval, Tickle says, is that we are aware of what is happening. The post protestant, post denominational era can therefore be intentional. Historically Protestantism emerged from Roman Catholicism, and Roman Catholicism emerged from the East West Schism. Similarly the future church emerges from Protestantism.
What shape does it take? Tickle believes that the future emerging church will combine Evangelicalism, charismatic Pentecostalism, mainline churches and liturgicals in a vortex that will be incarnational in character: building a new model of church that will survive the next 500 yrs.
I am wondering where in this incarnation is the move back to Biblical truth that has characterized other "schisms"
Perhaps the 500yr cycle is too general a fabrication? Perhaps instead of looking at the western church we should turn our eyes to the church in the rapidly growing 2/3 world
I like Jan am seeking to “hold many elements in tension,” and have just finished reviewing Guder’s comments on “incarnational witness.” Like missional writers, Guder seems to suggest that Missional churches stress public worship as an activity of evangelism (eg. Newbigin’s “Acted doxology”). Therefore evangelism is an activity the whole Christian community participates in rather than a select few. Guder goes on to say public worship leads to “member-missionaries” in their particular individual locale (workplace, family systems, Bridge Club etc). Like Jan I see multiple forms of the Missional /Incarnational and Evangelistic /Attractional models working within the suggested spectrum between them and I try not to separate them too much. What I struggle with is my own experience of the impact urban monastic groups seem to be having among post-moderns using older Attractional methods of keeping the fires warm at home (safe spiritual space)… Some of the Missional forms leave me feeling like I just participated in a time-share sale where I was the “market of one” in pursuit of increased market share and building the empire( McNeil, CB, 227). I spoke with someone recently who described their interaction with church as an assault! I really liked Jan’s link to a “message tribe” called to live in “proximity”. For me this is more respectful of people as persons and God as a little more slippery than we had first thought!
Reflecting on what I have read in the article by Guder, It was highlighted to me again on p 149 "the understanding that the local congregation is the basic unit of Christian witness if we understand witness incarnationally." I have heard what Guder has pointed out here a number of times, and certainly if we go by many of readings, this is true, inasmuch as to be a incarnational church we need to exist and be the body of Christ in a given context. However I find that when we narrow down the context to a precise area we as the church miss out on so much. Of course at the coal face we are at the local level, the local context, but we should never forget the global context, where we are part of the body of witnesses who are also seeking to be incarnational. It could just be the language used, but it jumped out when I read it. In history I have seen our church cut funding to global mission and national mission because many ministers considered local mission the primary focus.
Roly Scott writes:
One of the Bible passages I reflected on last week was from John’s gospel where Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And as Keith Green’s song which begins ‘Jesus commands us to go’ and continues in the same vein says, surely this is where Stetzer’s Missional Church paradigm heads – members as missionaries being involved in personal mission, missional living. At the heart of these expressions is being on or going on a mission. But I’m also thinking of the way Jesus also spoke of coming to him – ‘come to me all you who are tired from carrying heavy loads’, ‘if anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drink’, when Jesus said to Peter on the lake, ‘come’, ‘Come follow me’ just to name a few. Someone said to me recently Jesus used the attractional method to death. So when Hirsch and Frost with their heading attractional versus missional and Stetzer saying that the missional church is ‘a full expression of who the church is and what it is called to be and do’ is this not one of the false dichotomies Lynne is talking about. When the Samaritan woman went to get her friends or acquaintances and bring them to Jesus, wasn’t it because she found Jesus compelling and was attracted to him. When Andrew went searching for his brother Simon so he could introduce him to Jesus wasn’t there something attractional in Jesus that Andrew had discovered. So this tension still exists for me. I’m not sure that missional and attractional are mutually exclusive terms. But working through how to apply these principles seems to be the present task.
I can understand Craig Braun’s frustration when he wrote in the introductory paragraph of his blog comment on 4 April 2009; ‘…the nonsense which is the incarnational/ attractional dichotomy.’ Having completed an interview with a minister (for assignment two) who expressed desperate frustration on using missional/attractional techniques, I think there is value in separating the church’s missional response into attractional and incarnational.
I think this is a very similar situation to missional as opposed to maintenance from module one. While missional churches share maintenance functions and vice versa, this symbiosis can diverge in the core values, heart or spirit of a church’s missional response. Stetzer offers such an example of the difference in spirit of a missional/incarnational approach (as opposed so missional/attractional) when he writes ‘By incarnational we mean it does not create sanctified spaces into which unbelievers must come to encounter the gospel…rather it disassembles itself and seeps into the cracks and crevices of a society…’[1].
In drilling behind Stetzer’s comments, there is an intentional centripetal quality to a missional/incarnational approach. Inherent within this is a willingness to create space to actively rather than passively embrace the other on the other’s turf. The disempowerment which can be present when we invite someone into our space is reversed; we are the guest and they are the host. This reversal of power between guest to host is a key component of incarnationalism.
Contrast this, for example, with a church around the corner where I recently received an invitation in my letter box to attend an Alpha course. This approach is intentionally centrifugal and, in my opinion, attractional/incarnational in spirit. Should I attend, I come as a guest on their turf and with all the disempowerment that is inherent in this role. The experience may be all the great things Craig expressed in his blog, but I come to experience Christ walking a road that, at the outset, is unfamiliar and where I am stranger. This leaves me vulnerable in using the wrong language, etiquette or customs in a place that is not my own.
A church that has a missional/incarnational ethos is willing to incarnate itself as the stranger; to take upon it self the garbs of the unfamiliar, the guest and the disempowered. This heart, I don’t believe, is shared in a missional/attractional ethos.
[1] Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 162.
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