Church Follows Mission (Alan Hirsch) [Justin]
Alan Hirsch has been kind enough to spend some time in the comments here clarifying some of the ideas presented in the paper on Forge and Emergent, which I also discussed here.
Van S (here) and Daniel (via email) wanted a little more on how missiology comes first. Daniel said:
essentially, that you can’t contextualise spirituality/theology without first an active missiological engagement. Perhaps some of the lines between the two don’t need to be made so distinct. I think of the desert hermits or other monastic movements; sometimes spirituality does take preeminence over missiology - often in the past a “revival” movement is born out of a “renewal” movement. Think of Acts 2: Christ told the disciples to wait until they had received power, then the commission to “Go into all the world,” a case of spirituality before missiology.
In response to this request, Alan sent me this diagram from his forthcoming book:
Thoughts?
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Is this another instance of “chicken/egg theology?”
Yes, church cannot exist outside of mission (where would we be without God’s missiological enterprise on our behalf?) but can mission (or at least our response to it) exist apart from church? Granted, I am part of a fellowship which does not use mission agencies or organizations or societies, the local church is the locus of mission for us, but I still think that, as was mentioned above, the Spirit of God works in his people (the church) which provides the personnel and the funding and everything else we associate with “mission.”
I’m interested to see how this discussion develops.
Greg-
Do you mean the church as an institution, or the church as God’s people? If it’s the latter, I can see how mission could be allowed to shape the form that God’s people take when they are organizing themselves, without that organization being a prerequisite to the mission.
People are of course necessary, but I’m wondering if the institution “back home” is necessary for contextualized mission on the field (wherever that may be).
Well, yes.
I am speaking about “church” as the people of God, because I believe very strongly that God has entrusted his “mission” to us, he chooses to use his creation to complete his work.
But, I guess I am also talking about the “institutional church.” But, perhaps that needs to be re-defined…the church doesn’t have to be “back home.” For instance, I think you guys in Seattle are doing “mission” and are a church. No, you may not be supported financially or be under the oversight of a body of believers in another location, but the church you are a part of is the medium for the contextualized mission you are doing.
Probably not making sense, but trying…
gkb
More about Acts two and chicken/egg theology:
You could say that ecclesiology and missiology are simply two sides of the same coin, namely, Biblical spirituality. In different times and contexts, it has been necessary for one to precede the other.
In Acts 2, the disciples were instructed to wait in Jerusalem, praying. They needed to build their ecclesiology, as it were, before engaging the culture with mission. They were waiting for God’s timing, all the while building community, learning to pray. But they needed something that only God could give, in his timing, to prepare them for the growth that was to occur.
Case in point, the Seattle Metro Church. By some standards, we have not done a terribly effective job of engaging the culture around us yet, as we have no converts from the “outside.”
But are there other standards by which to view this? I personally think that it is okay for us to lay down a theological framework for this missional church, for us to spend time in community with people of faith, for us to learn to pray more (and better), for us to work on projects like UrbanMonastery. Perhaps we are in a stage of waiting, until something comes together to thrust us into becoming this incarnational body.
Greg-
That’s the level at which I’m trying to make sense of it, since we are not supported, and are free to allow our contextual needs to determine the structure of our church. We’re having a major meeting on this tomorrow, so it’s at the front of my mind.
Daniel-
I agree in the abstract that everything depends on God’s timing, but it’s so tempting to assume our lack of growth is because we are doing something wrong, or failing to do something we should be doing. I look forward to our meeting.
Alan-
I guess a major question I have about how this works is the transition from being enculturated to forming a faith community within that culture (e.g., as your diagram says, a local pub). I came across this article from Sydney Anglicans in which Stuart Robinson talks about how he killed a church plant in attempting to make the transition from just hanging out to being something that looks more like a church.
We’ve had no trouble attracting Christians to our community, and no trouble attracting non-Christians to our other gatherings (for the most part), but we are not seeing much transition or connection between the two. This is a major area of work for us.
Daniel-
I’m also willing to consider the possibility that we’ll spend a good long time in Stage One of Alan’s diagram - maybe half a decade. I certainly don’t think this kind of “entering” has been done by church of Christ people, and perhaps only on the (increasingly respected) fringes of Foursquare. So I see what we’re doing as quite valid, though still frustratingly slow at times.
I can only imagine how groups like yours, Justin, will have an impact on “mainstream” churches in the future. I hope it’s in the not-too-distant future. I think it’s sad that our current situation is one which makes statements like
make sense. I was just griping about this on my blog, about how there aren’t many, if any, churches around that would support a ‘traditional’ missionary to just go about preaching Christ. We place too much emphasis on the shingles we hang out, which means that sadly, because some of us are dependent on the support of a sending institutional church we don’t have the freedom to “do” missions properly. It’s a sad state of affairs, but I think it will change…slowly.
Missional DNA? Describing Foundational Missional Concepts
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In so many cases, and for lots of reasons, I think the whole process of incarnating into a people-group takes significant time. Also, I think it is easier to start a church on this principle than to try take an ‘attractional’ church into this form of mission. Part of the problem is that there is a clash of imaginations of what actually constitutes church happening here, and most Christians have been formed in the evangelistic attractional (as opposed to the missional-incarnational) mode. If we get this right in the initiating DNA of the church plant, then it seems to me to becoming a whole lot more natural later.
I am constantly amazed that God spent 30 years in the neighborhood before activating his ministry. And what is more bizarre, is that no-one noticed!!
Alan-
Thanks for the encouragement. I didn’t really realize this implication of your work until today when I was reading some of Steve McCoy’s comments (and others’) over at Reformissionary. Several people there frame the recent PDF issue quite lucidly.
Thanks for suggesting that church may look different for us here. So far, we’ve really only considered housechurches (though we don’t like the baggage of the term), and haven’t considered the “deep ecclesiology” that Andrew Jones talks about. Much to think on.
Thanks for “creating space” for this discussion. I found it very helpful.
My take away phrase before going to pick up my daughter is this one by Alan:
Excellent post(s). Thanks for the clarification. Alan, you say
This is one of the biggest issues I face as a church planter. My heart was to have people become a part of the neighborhood and have church flow out of that, but people’s assumptions about the nature and functions of the church caused them to expect a more institutionalized expression before mission could be cultivated.
Okay, I have been reading some of your past entries– very interesting. I was wondering what someone like you would think of this book I am reading– I would be very interested to hear your viewpoint. The book is “Truth and Tolerance” by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger— don’t freak out that its by the Pope– you may be surprised. The book talks about alot of the topics you are discussing– just wondering what someone with a different backround would think. mollie
Mollie-
I’d love to hear more. Do you have a quote to share?
[...] One think about arrows is that they always have a starting point, and from the starting point they direct to somewhere or something else. In stage one of the model that I’ve referred to on radicalcongruency.com the arrow starts from outside the box and points into the box. The intent is to show how a church enters into a community to plant a church by practicing incarnational ministry. [...]
[...] I’ve just been reading Justin and Dan’s post in response to a diagram that has been sent to them from a soon-to-be-released book that suggests that mission comes first and the church comes out of mission (second). I read some of the chicken and egg comments asking if the church comes as a result of mission or if the mission comes from a church, but it took a while for me to grasp the issue that I have with this diagram and that of a number of other missiological diagrams that I’ve seen over the last many years… There’s an arrow. [...]
Alan,
Are you a part of the fellowship of churches of Christ? I am a minister at the Liberty Church of Christ in Liberty, MO, a suburb of Kansas City. I am in Fuller’s D. Min. program, and I saw that you are on the schedule. I am trying to help Liberty become a missional church. Loved your book.
Thanks,
James Nored
Thanks for this, what a great way to visualize mission and purpose for the local church
Hi
I am reading The forgotten ways and loving it and hating it all at the same time. I agree with everything that you are saying but I think that when we talk about the new forms emerging like house churches, I am afraid that they are no more missional than I am at this time. They gather people who have some understanding of church and who have dropped out. They to me are doing exactly what Alpha is doing and that it attaching the dechurched. After 12 years in a inner city church in Canada I have to say that the idea of emerging church is where my heart is and where I have tried to lead my community. Sadly we are not there yet. We have only gathered those who did not like other expressions of church. We are multi cultural in every way with all kinds of people across the spectrum but most of them just want to look the part and in fact are afraid of the group they think they belong in.
They smoke and wear tattoos and long hair and body priecings but like their holy huddle. Maybe I am the problem. Maybe I have not pushed them out yet enough. In the next month we are stirring the pot again then I will know better where we are at.
They look different but still are just middle class people who are afraid of the streets.
Anyone help!
Don
[...] just been reading Justin and Dan’s post in response to a diagram that has been sent to them from a soon-to-be-released book that suggests that mission [...]
[...] Our Christology should determine our Missiology which will determine our Ecclesiology. (Justin had a good entry on this a while [...]