I have three ideas for blog posts this week.
(1) I'd love to hear more about how and where you have observed that spiritual formation happens in New Zealand. I'm particularly interested in the connection between prayer and spiritual formation. Any thoughts?
(2) I'd love to hear more about what you think is the significance of liminality. Thank you very much, Craig, for your clear and helpful summary of Alan Roxburgh's thoughts in the last minute of the audioconference. I'd love to hear more from you about why that chapter seemed significant to you, and I'd love to hear others' thoughts about the concept of liminality.
(3) We talked briefly about the idea of a third place. I believe one way a church with a building can serve its community is by providing space for a third place. I'd love to hear your comments about how you've seen churches do that. If you want to read what I wrote about the church as a third place in my thesis, here's where you can read it:
http://www.lynnebaab.com/academic.htm
Click on chapter 7. There is a section of that chapter entitled "A Third Place" which begins on page 190. The part that directly addresses the church as a third place is only three pages long. I just re-read that section, and I had forgotten that one characteristic of a third place, according to the people who originated the idea, is that a third place makes possible conversation that is open-ended, freewheeling, and not goal-oriented. It's thought-provoking to consider the place of that kind of conversation in a congregation. Here's the citation for the origin of the concept of a third place:
Oldenburg, R. & Brissett, D. (1982). The third place. Qualitative Sociology, 5(4), 265-284.
(Note the format of this citation is the APA format, not the Chicago format that our department requires. If you read the article and want to cite it for an assignment, you'll need to change the format of the citation.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
I love the concept of liminality. I took some time to explain the word and idea behind it to our homegroup and faces were lighting up and aha moments happening all around the room. It was as if people were suddenly able to name what they were feeling and so deal with it at a much deeper level.
It occurs to me that the idea of being aliens and strangers, a concept that is revisited often in Scripture, has the same level of ‘betweenness’, of being neither ‘back there’ nor ‘over there.’ Which leads me to wonder whether the people of God should, perhaps, be in a constant state of liminality where the only constant or anchor is our faith in God.
Another connection that I would make at that point is the way in which many scholars have written about the New Zealand church being a ‘settler church.’ The settler church was in essence the settlers bringing the ‘back there’ with them so that while their social and environmental settings were liminal, their religious setting was kept stable. As a result the church was never in a position of needing, or even wanting, to respond to the effects of what was developing as a radically different society to that which they had left behind in Europe.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons it is so difficult for the mainline churches particularly to develop indigenous faith communities. I use the word indigenous to refer to both Maori and to the more general New Zealand population that has developed a culture that is unique to these shores. The DNA of our churches is in one sense fighting the liminality of leaving Europe and the liminality of leaving modernity and the liminality of a rapidly changing cultural sea.
I found McNeal’s article on spiritual formation intriguing yet most of what he said came up short for me. He argues that we have reduced following Jesus to a Christian club. Club assimilation becomes the goal at the expense of the individual’s needs and desires. His answer is to focus on the individual through life coaching, which we should view as spiritual formation (pg 227).
We have all heard the club analogy before and I am sure it may exist in some churches. Of course there is a fine line between viewing an initiative as a club characteristic rather than an endeavour towards community. He refers to the church directory as a list of fellow club members when in actual fact it could be a valuable aid in the community.
He also recommends that every church should implement an intentional spiritual strategy for its constituents (pg 226). This reads as if churches and their leadership have no idea or plan to help people grow. He goes on further to suggest that, in his opinion, most Christians have no idea about, “prayer, fasting, Bible study and ministering to others (pg 228). I found this claim to be totally unsubstantiated in any churches that I have either been involved with or know of. I can only imagine that he is operating outside of the evangelical stream.
Also his answer to these issues seems highly individual to me. Spiritual formation is best served when we tailor-make spiritual development to the perceived individuals needs. I’m certainly aware that this is one of the ways we can grow but who really sets our agenda for growth – God or us? Also so much of our growth can come from being in community with others and putting their needs ahead of ours. Not to mention learning from what others go through. If I set my own agenda it certainly wouldn’t involve pain or suffering of any kind.
However I do like his idea of a community learning together (pg 232). Sharing life issues and life experiences. I just see our story (the bible) in a different way from his description (a text driven curriculum). This story must have a front row seat, whether in the classroom or living room (pg 232). It’s the story that gives us our history, place and anchor in an ever-changing world. Spiritual formation is not just about agreeing on a model of education. It’s far more and for me, McNeal’s article leaves me cold.
Graeme Flett writes:
A couple of responses to the other night – firstly thanks Craig! I share Lynne’s appreciation for your clear and helpful summary of Alan Roxburgh's thoughts particularly following my rather muddled attempt. You made Roxburgh’s thesis much clearer for me at least. Secondly, Craig you also mentioned something earlier in the audio conference call (a passing remark) which cut to the essence of being missional. You applied a rather simple criterion to the question of; what is missional and what it is not. As I recall you said something to the tune of “is it not missional when it is about the other?” I think this is a really apt thought as the word missional can become the in-cliché used to justify all sorts of entrepreneur activity and yet miss the point. I share your sentiments here. I wonder whether consideration of ‘the other’ helpfully sifts the authenticity of our own Christian spirituality! It certainly challenges mine.
On another topic, I found the conversation about the idea of ‘a third place’ fascinating. I noted in Lynne’s dissertation that she suggests “all churches have characteristics of a third place, but to the extent that the conversation in a church is instrumental and pragmatic, the identification of a congregation with a third place is diminished.” She goes on speak about holding to the Christian faith as the centering principle but needing to “maintain that centre in tension with a diversity of gifts, ways of service, and voices of personal service.”[1] If indeed this is the case, I wonder if it’s not a worthy exercise for church communities to give due consideration to the various spaces where this could be happening or not happening? But what about extending this concept further out in giving thought to our particular localities? I wonder where those third places might be? I suspect the church in NZ is much more on the margins than in the US, which presses the point that we may need to go out rather than expecting others to come in (Luke 10). I am not suggesting an either /or here rather, we need to aware that for many, a church building is very unfamiliar territory. Michael Frost’s thoughts on this subject have challenged me personally to think both about the church and beyond to the social texture of what exists around us. Frost helpfully adds to this quest by stating that: 1) “third places are the most significant place for Christian mission to occur because in a third place people are more relaxed, less guarded, more open to meaningful conversation and interaction.”[2] 2) “It is in the third place that we let those guards down. It’s here that we allow people to know us more fully. It’s here that people are more willing to discuss the core issues of life, death, faith, meaning and purpose.”[3] I find Frost helpful. Yet is there a further element that needs to be named and teased out - that of space? Does not space shape our behavior and the way we respond? Perhaps we discover something about our own spaces in observing the open spaces where the public most prefer to congregate?
[1] Lynne Baab, “The Future Church: Identity and Persuasion on Congregational Websites” http://www.lynnebaab.com/academic.htm PhD Dissertation pp190.
[2] Michael Frost, Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christain Culture Peabody,MA: Hendrickson, 2006, 58.
[3] Michael Frost, Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christain Culture Peabody,MA: Hendrickson, 2006,58.
The article on the Third Place can be found here: http://www2.ivcc.edu/nagle/TheThirdPlace.pdf
I had a chat with a non-christian friend this week which was very interesting indeed. I shared a bit about the concept of the "Third Place" and the alternative forms of church that we discussed in our Audio Conference. Her first response was "What is next? Drive-through Church?" She then proceeded to tell me about the church building in the town where she lives and the significance that it holds for her. The Church building and the spire is always reminding her about God. It is as if God is calling to her through the presence of that building. She did not like the fact that the church has to be brought to people in any shape or form as it makes her feel that people do not have to go to much effort any more and that man and his needs and comfort and pandering to these, becomes the central issue. She also reckons it simply makes people more "lazy". She also feared going to that church one day and finding nobody there as they are "elsewhere". I am still thinking about this conversation and I suppose that she does have a point. In any case, I thought that I should share this and perhaps get other students to comment!
I like really like Graeme’s questions about space; sacred space and the way space shapes our behaviour. I share similar thoughts regarding the gospel itself. Our very interaction with tradition, text and myth in some way shapes both the text and us. I feel missional writers focus heavily on the “us” (postmodern context) but are not particularly interested in exploring different impressions of the gospel that postmodern critique offers as a “critical friend”. Murray embraces this well when he says “a disappointing aspect of many emerging churches… is their theological conservatism; their readiness to explore the implications of cultural changes for the church is rarely matched by eagerness to re-examine the nature of the gospel”( Murray 2004, 161).
I also really liked Roxburgh’s liminality as a space of transition whose traditional rites of passage are no longer a given. Roxburgh argues that the churches response to the Enlightenment and its sister Modernity was a move to the margins of individualism (piety, personal salvation etc) and this move followed formal and known pathways. So the liminal period between Christendom and Modernity used the formalised pathway of individualism within an overarching Christian worldview (albeit changing); a win -win “reaggregation” (Roxburgh 1997, 27). It was one group (Christians) moving to the margins of a larger society. This he argues, is why the church responded so well to the liminal phase of modernity. This is how we got such a strong evangelical and mission oriented tradition in the last 150years. More recently though, the church is experiencing a double whammy, a liminal change (a move further to the margins) but this time the move does not have well worn pathways, no normal patterns because it is no longer one group moving (ie Christians), instead the whole community is in flux, in an unfamiliar liminal phase. Roxburgh calls this double hit a Liminoid phase. The danger of this phase is to circle the wagons and hope the Calvary turns up (pinning for what is lost). The opportunity is for new “play… or to envisage an alternative future” (Ibid., 51). This new imagined future he calls a communitas; a new way of being the people of God that rejects modernity’s individual centred society and seeks an “intersubjectivity of persons formed by the new centre, Jesus Christ as the head” (Ibid., 55).
Unfortunately I missed the last fifteen minutes of the audio conference because the battery on my cordless home phone died; consequently I missed Craig’s excellent summary on liminality! As I read Roxburgh’s article, I was struck with similarities between Roxburgh’s call for churches to embrace liminal transition to work toward ‘fresh missionary engagement’ (p27) and healthy communitas (p52), and Guder’s continuing conversion of the church to avoid gospel reductionism (p151). Both concepts share the beginning and end points of separation and reaggregation. For Guder, it is separation from reductionism or internalization (such as congregations seeking conversion or evangelization for the sake of the congregation [p 149]), toward reaggregation with a renewed and comprehensive response to the gospel of Jesus Christ (p 150).
Andrew asked the question in his blog comment (23 April); ‘which leads me to wonder whether the people of God should, perhaps, be in a constant state of liminality where the only constant or anchor is our faith in God’. I think Guder would express a resounding Yes to this question! Every day the church community yearns for more structure, differentiation or hierarchical systems as it struggles with the radical freedom and equality of God (as shown, for example, in the Hebrews desire to return to slavery rather than the radical freedom of the desert eg, Exodus:16). Every day the church community is vulnerable to becoming increasingly sectarian or spiritualized (p 53, Roxburgh). The Apostle Paul knows this only too well in his pleadings to remain living in the Spirit rather than sin (Rom 8:1-12) or flesh (Phil 3:1-4); to remain in Christ (Col 2:6-8); to live by faith rather than by law (Gal 3:1-14) etc.
From the two readings I could envisage two hierarchies or types of liminal transition. For Roxburgh, his focus seems to be primarily on meta-liminal transitions; the churches challenge to navigate and engage missionally within transitioning social frameworks (eg, the challenges of the liminal transition from modernity to postmodernity). For Guder, his focus is more on (what I will express as) stream-liminality; one that remains daily and constant, bound to the challenges of our realized/not realized eschatology.
Jan Clark writes:
Liminality is the second phase of transition, the initial phase, separation is one of detaching and the final stage is one of reintegration as a new identity is established. The middle element, is loss of identity as the group / entity becomes largely invisible to the larger society. It seems as if the natural direction for an entity is towards the security of status, power and influence. However when Roxburgh describes the experience of the early church or the Exodus wilderness experiences they are about countercultural, marginalized experiences not ones at the centre of power and control. Helpfully, he suggests, that the middle phase offers two critical elements; negation and transformation, these offer the church the opportunity to choose to be true to the gospel values and experience rather than controlled by the culture. The significance for any entity in transition is in the choices made for future direction and shape.
Primarily I warm to Roxburgh’s concepts because he seems to be suggesting that in the midst of our current experience where the church is floundering, wondering what it means to be missional, we are encouraged to understand the confusion and anxiety as signs of an invitation to faithfulness as we leave the familiar behind. An invitation to let go striving to return to the good old days when we measured success in terms of congruence with cultural norms and positions of authority and influence. The hope would be that this model might offer the courage to resist being pulled backwards to reinvent the past and instead move towards the future.
The piece that I am trying to get my head around is what luminality means when we live in post modernity when marginalisation is no longer an accurate measure because the idea of centre has disintegrated. Roxburgh goes on to talk about pastoral identity and symbolic role and leaves us to struggle with what this means and how engaging in this exploration alongside the search the wider community is undertaking for identity is powerful. The danger I see is if we reintegrate into the culture and loose our identity as church with distinct values we fail to offer the voice of a prophetic community shaped by the risen Christ- we cease being missional. The other option is of course that we see this process as an opportunity and actively seek to follow the lead of the Spirit.
Kingsley Ponniah writes:
I remember being at a conference several years ago, while I was still in Singapore, when the challenge put to attendees was whether the community around our respective churches would miss us if we ceased to exist. I realize this question has been posed, in a variety of ways, at other forums as well. I think it is a necessary question and one that should be regularly asked of every congregation especially in light of the church being marginalized in today’s society. And it further maintain that “the church is one of the few institutions in the world that does not exist for the benefit of its members” [1], then what justification for its existence are we left with?
I wonder also if one of the reasons the church finds itself on the margins of society rather than in the centre is because, in many instances, it has pushed mission to the margins of church life. At best, mission might feature as a programme or activity of the church and at worst, it is delegated to some external agency. Furthermore, the church as an institution has established structures and protocols that, in theory, are meant to facilitate mission but could unwittingly hamper it. There is a need then for us to encourage our congregants to actively proclaim Jesus as they live out their faith and engage with people in their every day lives. But there must also be willingness to encourage the emergence of new faith communities as a result of such engagement and not expect them to fit our denominational moulds. We must also be willing to release our congregants to be involved in those communities and actively encourage it if it means they can no longer be involved in the “main” church. These things can appear quite threatening for established congregations. Perhaps the way forward is a return to the place where a church is recognized not by its institutional trappings but by its people, who love Jesus and are committed to following him and making him known through their words and actions.
[1] Ed Stetzer and David Putnam, “The Missional Church Shift” in Breaking the Missional Code (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2006) 44
I found the article on liminality really useful, it provided a bit of a framework for some of the issues I find myself confronted with. My intuition has been that the church (and I stand in the Anglican tradition) cannot go back to a place of centrality within wider society. I found the concept of liminal time as a time of uncertainty, but as a necessary time for maturing, really useful. It puts a positive spin on the process in which the church is engaged.
I liked the way the article suggests the church returned too soon from the liminal time precipitated by the modernist/enlightenment period. That the church had adapted and sought to return to a place in society rather than remain in the liminal place where it might fully engage with the challenges presented by the assertions of this period. I wonder whether the adaptations the church made caused it to be compromised. The church lost confidence in its own resources (biblical, theological, wisdom tradition), measuring itself instead according to the standards and values of this newly evolving modernist worldview. Looking at some of the ways the missional church is evolving - its reclaiming of the monastic tradition, its recognition and validation of scripture for identity and as a measure of authenticity in exploring ways of ministry, its rediscovering of the presence and variety of vocational calls that all need expression for a healthy community – might suggest the church is reclaiming the resources of its identity and heritage.
I found the differentiation between liminal and liminoid useful, although perhaps not reassuring. It was this concept that perhaps left the feeling Roxburgh offered no solution. But it is this very liminoid situation, connected with Roxburgh’s notion of communitas, that I think Roxburgh suggests might provide the church with opportunity for identity and role. First he suggests the liminoid has the potential to critique and subvert wider society but also to provide alternative models that will have a transformative effect upon society. Then Roxburgh uses the term communitas with reference to the church. It is the second element of being communitas that Roxburgh suggests the church has not paid close attention to “the transformation of culture through its own sociality as an alternative community.” The way I read Roxburgh seems to suggest that when the church embraces this second element of communitas, where resides “the potential of rediscovering the tradition as a reservoir for transformation ... [which] offers the reconversion of the church for missionary encounter with modern culture,” the church discovers an identity as a liminoid presence in society.
Roly Scott writes:
I feel I’ve been through at least three approaches to spiritual formation. The first was the intensive discipling/formation I received with the Navigators when I was at university. There were several things that were central to that process and many of them were disciplines that I have built on through the years. While these may be seen to be trite they were very helpful at the time and foundational. Scripture reading, Scripture memory, Scripture study and the application of the bible to everyday life; prayer and verbal faith sharing seemed to be at the heart of. When I look back I feel so much of this was what might be called mechanistic and there were deficiencies – worship, contemplation, serving others without the need always to reduce faith sharing to words and there were others. But I am grateful for much of what was laid in my life over those years. In my three years of formal theological training (given that it was the mid 70’s) the emphasis was on acquiring knowledge in the four major areas of Old Testament, New Testament, Theology and Church History as well as all the practical issues involved in pastoral ministry. The great lack here was in developing my prayer life, my understanding of God experientially and personal worship. While I was gaining all this knowledge, much of which I would classify as information rather than knowledge what was happening to my relationship with God and his Son Jesus. Well it was very much the minor part of my training. So I left Theological College knowing a lot while my own spiritual life had shrivelled to an extent. The third major influence has been the contemplative movement, experienced through retreats with the accompaniment of a spiritual director and developing an understanding about my preferred ways of relating to God through things like Myers Briggs and the Enneagram. Of course prayer in all its forms has been explored – some of which appeal, some of which don’t. I think the book Prayer according to type was most helpful. And there have been some books which have been crucial in this regard - several by Henri Nouwen and a range of Catholic writers. I am not sure Protestants write with the same clarity but I could be wrong. I would be interested in who other people have found helpful.
Susan Gill writes:
Some random thoughts not connected with other comments you guys have made – We’ve just had our annual Diocesan Leadership Conference in Nelson. The theme was Discipleship. I’m more and more convinced that all our talk about Missional Church and some of the values we’ve considered are really about discipleship. Truly being a Christ-follower is about seeking and obeying God’s will and the way we go about that will surely encompass missional values – hospitality, inclusiveness, valuing the other, art etc.
Anyway one of my gurus for ever has been Mark Pierson – I’ve read his books etc but never met him. He took a workshop out our conference – it was kind of around worship and how that fits with missional discipleship.
He had some interesting terms (there’s quite a lot of jargon around this topic of ours eh). When putting together a worship event of any kind, rather than the traditional term of ‘worship leader’ he calls himself a ‘curator’. I have a very limited understanding of the art world so maybe ‘curator’ means more than a preserver of old things but that’s kind of what comes to mind when I hear the term. He is using the term I think, as a kind of gatherer/poet/facilitator/imaginer.
Also he talked about 3 kinds of worship -
Traditional – which is about a form of worship you are used to in the place you are used to doing it
Transitional – which might be new aspects of worship or trad worship in a new place
Guerrilla – which is ‘out there’ worship often in a public place
Guerrilla worship is always ambient in the sense that people are always coming and going. The other 2 kinds of worship can be either ambient or …. I’ve forgotten the word but it’s to do with staying for the duration of the worship experience.
The term ‘guerilla’ appeals to me because of the idea of doing something then withdrawing – if done properly I think it bears the action/reflection idea. And the idea of worship that anyone outside of the usual church faithful is also appealing.
I like Roxburgh and Romanuk’s term for leadership – that of ‘cultivator’. It’s not a metaphor I’ve heard used before (I know, where have you been Susan?). The idea of cultivating an environment/fostering a culture where the Spirit is recognised as being at work in all people is very positive. A cultivator does not form preconceived plans and strategies but encourages the people to dwell in the Biblical story and see where God is at work in their own midst. This is good!
I promise my next blog will be in response to other's thoughts rather than just a drop as i have done this time :-)
I like the idea of ‘Third place’ to describe a location for social interaction outside family, church, and work. In the audio conference last night (11/5) it was discussed again, with particular reaffirmation that it is a place where stories are told and where there is open ended and unrestricted exchange of thought and ideas. A place that is infused with a ‘magical chemistry’ (Victor Herman, Horizon Books, review of Ray Oldenburg’s book, The Great Good Place, De Capo Press, 1999) that is conducive to revitalising those who gather there . So third place then is a market place of ideas. But non-descript ideas that are not yet censored by the State or mainstreamed into status thinking. In a church setting, it could also be a place where church policy and direction is discussed among the parishioners – not yet sanctioned. So it’s a place of freedom and a place where freewheeling conversation can take place. We are the poorer without such a place (Oldenburg & Brissett, 1982).
I think the benefits of such a place as mentioned in earlier blogs on this topic is the repositioning of ‘space’. My space becomes our space. We invite others to interact with our ideas without taking offense or being offended ourselves. But by simply being in a third place doesn't mean that we necessarily interact with strangers. This is not the place for it but I am thinking of the reason God in the OT prescribes very clearly for entertaining strangers. It continues in the NT of course.
In thinking of Jesus’ time we can readily identify the existence of third place in his ministry. It was the street walk, dining with Pharisees, at the market place, or the temple courts. He also had other places: with just Him and the disciples, “Come away with me” (Mark 6:31) or by Himself alone (Mark 6:36). In thinking of effective missional interaction it would seem, from Jesus’ model, that third place is equally important to Jesus as is private place. In Mark 6 (second half) all these ‘places’ are at play. He’s at the mountain side teaching and interacting with people, then he withdraws with the disciples to a private place, and he Himself withdraws alone to the mountains to pray. It seems to me that without third place we may not have meaningful ministry, and without a fourth place and a fifth place we may equally be impoverished or under prepared for our effective missional activity.
It seems to me that today the idea of third place may also be changing. The coffee house is being replaced by cyber space. So our interaction is virtual and faceless. The other limitation maybe is, while we may gather at coffee houses or other market places, there is no guarantee that we would necessary go outside our preferred zone of association to meet with total strangers. It is no different to working in a big corporate office where you really only get to know the people within your department. The challenge is how to invite others into ‘our third place’.
Post a Comment