Following a great discussion in this post on missional communities, I have a new question:
To what extent should we structure church to reflect the reality that there are both Christians and non-Christians in our churches, despite the fact that Jesus and the apostles never mentioned this possibility? From reading the New Testament, you’d get the idea that only true Christians were supposed to be church members, the others being either backsliders in need of repentence or wolves in sheep’s clothing.
How to we mesh this with the reality we see today, where we have “process evangelism” and “worship as a witness” and many other forms of endorsing non-Christians’ presence in and with the church? Why isn’t this anticipated in Scripture, and what do we do about it?
[New semester starting at school next Tuesday, hence the light posting recently. Thanks for keeping the discussions alive in my semi-absence.]
Just a few brief thoughts: I think we do see non-Christians in Church in 1 Cor. 12-14. The idea I get from that is that we go about doing what we do, but we are sensitive to the fact that everything we do and are is a witness to the grace and glory of God.
Secondly, I so do not think that the “worship as a witness” thing is valid. I don’t mean to contradict what I’ve just said - and we should always be sensitive to non-disciples in our midst, but this is for God.
I think it’s Maclaren who said that he would not come to England to watch a Cricket game and expect them to play Baseball rules just so he can feel at home.
Yes. I think the example in 1 Cor 12ff has been misused, because Paul seems to be presenting it as an exception - a strange chance occurrence that might have fortuitous results - rather than an outreach strategy.
Great question Justin. For me we need to examine our need for the “event” mentality. If we move to more “community” mentality I think the clear distinction of Christian or not becomes less. I am not sure I am explaining this well - but perhaps we need to match our church structures with our rehetoric that ‘everone is on a journey’. Event thinking says come and experience us, as we want you to experience - community thinking is much more messy, chaotic and grey.
Ah, community and events - a good paradigm. I think we all want to be community-oriented, but have found that events are very useful for attracting people into the community.
The problem I have in this discussion is: Have we co-opted the ethos of “Christian community” as found in scripture (though the term may not be) and applied it to communities that include both Christians and non-Christians? For Paul, the idea that people of sinful lifestyles could be at home in the Christian community would be ridiculous (again, see the Corinthian letters).
This is why I see the “missional community” as something that’s critically distinct from the church, because it’s OK to have non-Christians as accepted members of it (I’m not speaking of “formal” membership here, of course). But even Jesus had “missional communities” of Pharisees and tax collectors that he hung out with - but they were distinct from his disciples. The MCs were gateways into the community of the disciples, if I’m not reading too much into the gospels’ record.
I’m wondering whether this distinction (between missional communities and Christian communities) is really just something we’ve invented as a by-product of how we define Christian i.e. someone whom has “said the prayer”. The underlying assumption there is that, you are not a Christian unless you sign up to the doctrine of the church you’re in. This is not something that the early church had.
I think in New Testament times things must have been different. They didn’t have the New Testament doctrine. The concept of what it was to be a Christian would have been much more confusing. I think all they really would have had to go on would be the idea that they we’re kind of becoming Jews and fulfilling the vocation of Israel, to be a priesthood to the world.
I don’t think it would have been immediately obvious that this involved a weekly meeting - much less dictated the format of those meetings -? although, their lack of doctrinal framework would have necessitated plenty of teaching session from visiting speakers.
I could go on forever, (and probably will on my blog) but I’ll finish by saying that I think the New Testament shows us that how to address morality was a big issue in the church back then. Clearly the Corinthians needed telling that sinful lifestyles weren’t appropriate. But by that point they we’re already in the Church community, professing Christ and baptising each other.
Dan said:
I think the opposite is probably true. Remember, the early Christians were Jewish, and the Jews were big on making boundaries clear. Even up into the fourth and fifth centuries, becoming a Christian was a huge ordeal that was very clear - it was a process with stages, but you were still either in or out. As for the doctrinal statement - “Do you renounce Satan and all his ways, and pledge…” sounds like a doctrinal statement.
I come from a tradition that also emphasizes the clear transition from being a non-Christian to being a Christian. While obviously the internal transformation is a process that takes place over a period of time, most people in my heritage would say that there was a definite time when they became a Christian - when they were baptized. It’s not that the baptism accomplishes everything, but rather indicates that up to that point the commitment was not present, at least not publicly. [I'm not presenting the actual church of Christ view here, but this is how baptism is effectively seen, though more importance is given to it.]
I’m highly skeptical of any attempts to claim that the early (1st-century) church had non-Christians in all of its gatherings, or that they called the gatherings that did have non-Christians in them “church” (if they called events “church” at all). It’s very easy for us to assume church has always been public services you can walk into anonymously.
But the Jews were notoriously xenophobic and were not allowed to eat with foreigners. When Jews became Christians, this changed, and the possibility of “missional communities” emerged. They were probably not ongoing and organized communities like people are forming now, but more on the level of hospitality and being a good neighbor.
Are we not making a mistake if we think that we are only a missional community if we have non-believers in our meetings? Is this not hideously meetings-based.
Surely we can be a missional community if we exist for and because of and in mission? (I agree wholeheartedly with the first sentance in Dan’s post.)
Justin
Reading back through the opening lines of my earlier comment, I think you’re right to make the criticisms that you do.
What I’m trying to get at really, is this: I think our perception of what it means to join the church has a significant amount of historical baggage attached. Modernism has taken our view of Christianity and made it a very intellectual thing. When we evangelize we explain to people the doctrine of the atonement, we draw diagrams, we work on a very intellectual level.
1000 years ago, becoming a Christian would have been very different. That’s not to say the theology wasn’t there. It’s just the your average agricultural peasant would probably have seen religion in terms of rituals. Being converted would mean changing his rituals from Pagan ones (winter solstice) to Christian ones (Christmas). He probably wouldn’t have been able to explain much in the way of theology, he would have deferred to the preist for that.
Going back to New Testament times, I suspect that it would have been characterized by a lack of theology all together. We know from the NT that people were still arguing about whether converts need to follow Jewish law. Some Christians (like the Corinthians) are taking the atonement as license to do whatever they like. Most of them believed that Jesus is God, but it’s going to be another 300 years before anyone comes up with trinity theology. Given this turmoil, it’s just not possible that they saw becoming a Christian the same way that we do.
You say you’re highly skeptical of people claiming that non-Christians were in the early church, and in a way I agree. I’m sure everyone there thought of themselves as a Christian. They just didn’t know quite what it meant. The xenophobic Jews said that you had to become a Jew (with all that that involved) to be a Christian, others said you could do what you like and still be one. What they all had in common though, was an interest in, and a desire to follow, Jesus. To me, that sounds a bit like the missional communities of today.
I think the implications are that we can happily get rid of the “who’s in, who’s out” way of thinking, because we know it’s a human invention. That’s not to deny the existence of universal truth, I’m just saying that we’ll never agree on it so lets just all get along. I think what’s left will be a church that does everything from dinner parties to prayer conferences and which lets people do whatever they like within that framework.