The Changing Shape of the Church ~ The Way Forward

The report of the United Church’s Comprehensive Review Task Group, “United in God’s Work” recommended that the United Church “make a commitment to supporting new ministries and new forms of ministry through an initiative that tentatively would be called Chasing the Spirit” . It frames the purpose of this initiative in terms that come from the Missional Church conversation: “The task group believes the challenge, risk, and hope for the church lie in joining what God is already bringing to life”(p. 13).

The language of the missional church conversation is being heard in many places in the United Church. There is lots of talk about engaging the neighbourhoods around church buildings. However, the term ‘missional’ is often applied to congregational mission projects rather than connoting a genuine shift in identity: mission is seen as something the church does rather than what the church is.

The Missional Church conversation recognizes that the the Church does not have a mission; rather, it participates in God’s mission in the world. That mission does not just happen in distant places; the Holy Spirit is at work everywhere, including the neighbourhoods in which congregations exist. God works through the everyday, ordinary lives of the people of the church and through the congregation as a local expression of the Body of Christ. Baptism is a person’s ordination into ministry and mission. The church is not a ‘place’ where spiritual consumers come to get their needs met. It is an outpost of the reign of God from which disciples of Jesus are sent into the world. It understands itself to be both gathered and sent for the sake of God’s mission of reconciliation and grace. The conversation is not about, “What can we do to get more people into our church”; it is about, “Where is God already at work and in what ways are we being called to participate in that work?” As congregations make this shift in identity, the role of the ordered ministry personnel shifts from being “the minister” to being a leader who equips disciples of Jesus for their ministries in the world and who cultivates a congregational environment that “nourishes this work of discernment, experimentation, learning and engagement with God at work in their neighbourhoods” (The Missional Network website).

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The Changing Shape of the Church (32) ~ New Realities

What does the ministry of the baptized look like if considered through the lens of the five marks of the church? Today we look at changes that are developing in the ways congregations teach the faith and form disciples of Jesus (didache)  as they find their way into the new shape of God’s mission.

3) Didache (Teaching)

It is not uncommon for leaders to lament the biblical and doctrinal illiteracy of the people of mainline congregations. There are long-term members of congregations who, if asked, could not find the book of Genesis in a Bible. Most clergy have had the experience of congregational members telling them that they want more Bible studies but, when the study groups are offered, few people sign up to attend; even fewer stay with the group for more than a few weeks.

However, there appears to be movement toward more intentional discipleship formation in some churches. Some of this is driven by the need to form Christians who are equipped to survive as Christians in an indifferent and sometimes hostile environment. The current context brings to the fore the challenge for disciples to be transformed by Christ rather than conformed to the culture.

When people are helped to deepen their discipleship, they become more willing to take on leadership roles that are shaped by the call of the Holy Spirit upon their lives. Taking on these kinds of leadership roles, in turn, often compels them to go deeper in their discipleship. They need to learn how to pray more deeply; they need to know better the story that shapes the lenses by which they see the world and gives hope; they need to recover the distinctive language of faith that articulates what God is doing in their lives and in the world; they need to develop maturity in Christ which includes the humility that shapes faithful relationships.

Congregations are finding new ways of delivering the content of Christian faith. They are more participatory and interactive, engaging not only the mind but also the heart and the body. They recognize that many adults learn best when content is not isolated into separate subjects but is integrated into and related to actual experiences.

Many congregations are finding that adopting Christian practices have helped people deepen their spiritual life and engage in the ministry to which they are called. “Practices are shared actions that, when taken together, weave a way of life amongst a people” (Alan Roxburgh, Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The Shape of the Church in our Time, p. 49.) In particular, in churches that understand themselves to be mission outposts of God’s reign, practices help them see the world and God’s work in it in new ways.

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Telling the Story

The Church, by its very nature, is missional: the Holy Spirit gathers people into the Church and then sends them out into the world with the message of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.The first gift that the Holy Spirit gave to the Church at Pentecost was the gift of speech. The early Church expected that every member would witness to the amazing work God does in and through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

I can’t speak for other denominations but, in the United Church of Canada at least, it can be difficult to get people to witness to the work is God is doing in their lives. People might share some stories with their pastor but they resist telling others, especially in a public context.

There may be a number of reasons for this: many of the people in our congregations were raised in an era where faith was considered to be decidedly private; they may feel that they don’t have appropriate language to speak about their experiences; they don’t want to be associated with those aggressive, brash types who want to know, “Are you saved?” and have only one particular kind of answer that would be considered adequate. Some fear that, if they were to share their experiences, other people would make fun of them. They would dismiss their witness as delusional.

There was a time when people thought that words weren’t necessary in order to witness to one’s faith. The deeds you did would speak for themselves. A popular quotation (mistakenly attributed to St. Francis) was, “Preach the gospel often and, if necessary, use words.” That may have been appropriate in Christendom, when people assumed that ‘everybody’ was Christian and could easily attribute good deeds to an underlying Christian faith. However, we are no longer in Christendom. Most people do not associate Christianity with the doing of kind and good deeds. They also recognize that people who do good things are not necessarily Christian. Years ago, a friend who was a missionary in Nepal told me, “When I do something kind and good in Nepal, I cannot assume that people will realize I am doing it because I am a disciple of Jesus. They are more likely to assume that I am doing it because I sinned in a previous life and am now working to atone for my sins.” The situation is now similar in North America — people will attribute our actions to any number of motivations. Words have again become necessary.

People may want to share their faith but find it difficult to be comfortable in doing so. I have been wondering what a church could do to help. The impulse to speak about one’s faith arises from the love that the Spirit of Christ places in human hearts — love for those who need to hear the good news of God’s unwavering love, of the hope that Christ offers, of the Spirit’s liberating power. So, I am wondering if, for many of the people in our congregations, it is their love for their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren that could be a gateway for learning to speak about faith to others. They are puzzled and troubled by the fact that their children have so little to do with the life of the Church, even though they were brought to church activities all their lives. They are concerned that their grandchildren and great-grandchildren are growing up without hearing the stories of Jesus. They long to pass the faith on to the next generation, knowing that it has been a source of strength and comfort and guidance throughout their own lives. Some of them faithfully bring their grandchildren to worship and to Sunday School, even though the parents don’t attend, hoping that the stories will be told there.

Christian faith is story-based. It is through stories that Jesus reveals to us what God is like and what the reign of God looks like. It is through stories that our lives are shaped and we develop the lens through which we see the world. If the faith is going to be passed along to the next generation, it will be important to get those stories deep into hearts and minds and souls.

So, I have been wondering: What if a congregation asked the adults, “What is your favourite Bible story? Why is it important to you? What is one Bible story you want your grandchildren to know? Why?” The stories could be gathered into a booklet or the adults could tell the story in a video. The artists in the congregation could illustrate the stories. The booklet (in whatever form it eventually took) could be given to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren as a gift, offering an opportunity to read or view it together. Perhaps a booklet/video could be produced for each season of the Christian year. Over time, these booklets or videos may be places to start a deeper conversation.

As I was thinking about these things, it occurred to me: Learning to talk about our faith takes practice. It is a critical practice for the church in this new context. However, it may be that what is more basic than that even is not our faith but the faith. What is more critical is learning to tell the Story, as a way of learning to find the words to tell our part in it.

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From Pastoral to Missional (13)

This is the thirteenth and final in a series of posts about the differences between a pastoral and a missional church.  The phrase ‘from pastoral to missional’ came from Harold Percy, who was one of the first people to articulate for me the shift I was experiencing in congregations.

I have come across a few different ways of describing the differences between the two models of church. Somewhere in the past, I picked up a chart in which Harold Percy compares the attitudes and expectations in the two models. These posts will work through that chart of comparisons and give some explanation of what I think the differences imply for the way a mainline congregation operates.

The twelfth difference is described this way:

The pastoral church thinks about how to save the church.
The missional church thinks about how to reach the world.

When the topic of being ‘missional’ comes up in United Church circles, someone usually expresses their discomfort with the term. The word ‘missional’ carries with it baggage. It reminds people of that time in the not-too-distant past when ‘mission’ meant Christians attempting to impose their views and values on other people. Sometimes, people think that ‘missional’ means that they will be expected to knock on doors and ask, “Have you been saved?”

It is difficult for people who have been in the church for many years to wrap their minds around the cultural changes that have happened over the past few decades. In Canada, Christians are no longer in a position to impose anything on anyone. We are no longer the dominant voice in the culture. We are a minority among other minorities in the religious landscape. While it may have seemed appropriate a few years ago to some Christians that we should be reticent about speaking out about Jesus for fear of silencing other voices, that is no longer the case. We get to speak our truth as much as others do. We can name the name that has claimed our love and faith. We can share our story.

Hopefully, one of the things we have learned in the process of being pushed to the margins is a new humility. We cannot save the world. We cannot even save the church, for that matter. That’s Jesus’ work. What we can do is be a witness to the work God has done and is doing in our lives and in the world. We can be a sign of the Spirit’s work in the world, gathering people into community to love and serve God’s purposes for the world. In our life together as a community of faith, we can offer a foretaste of the kind of communities God intends for all people — shaped by love and grace, by forgiveness and reconciliation and by the honouring all people.

If a congregation understands its purpose to be a witness, sign and foretaste of the reign of God (David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission), its priorities and activities will change. It will find ways to structure itself so that less time and energy is spent on internal governance: will it trust a few people to make decisions so that the rest of the congregation can be about the work of living into faith in the world? It will find ways to help its people know the scriptures well enough to be able to recognize and name God’s presence when God is unexpectedly present. It will expend less energy on ‘fundraisers’ and more energy on equipping and supporting people to live out their faith where they live and work and play. It will mean that the pain and hurt and brokenness of the world will find a place in the church’s worship and life. It will also mean that all the people will need to develop deep practices of prayer since participating in God’s work in the world will be so challenging, it will drive them to their knees.

Worship will be less a performance by professionals and more a gathering of the world’s pain and hurt and brokenness into the redeeming, reconciling power of Jesus Christ through the surprising grace of the Holy Spirit. The liturgy — the “work of the people”  — will draw on the active participation of the whole people of Christ.

The ordered ministers of the congregation will spend less energy on providing chaplaincy care to all the members of the congregation and hospice care to a dying organization and more energy on equipping all the people to live into their baptism, i.e.  to take up their ministries both in the church and in the world. And, the congregation will support the ordered ministers in doing so.

The shift from being a pastoral church to being a missional church will not be easy for most congregations. Most won’t even consider making the shift until their level of pain (or desperation) is high enough. It will mean returning to basics — the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that shapes who we are and whose we are and what God calls us to be. It will mean sacrificing much that is dear to us for the sake of God’s mission in a hurting world. It will also mean, though, receiving new energy and purpose and passion from the Holy Spirit who is pushing us out of our comfortable enclaves and summoning us into God’s new future.

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Pastoral to Missional (12)

This is the twelfth in a series of posts about the differences between a pastoral and a missional church.  The phrase ‘from pastoral to missional’ came from Harold Percy, who was one of the first people to articulate for me the shift I was experiencing in congregations.

I have come across a few different ways of describing the differences between the two models of church. Somewhere in the past, I picked up a chart in which Harold Percy compares the attitudes and expectations in the two models. These posts will work through that chart of comparisons and give some explanation of what I think the differences imply for the way a mainline congregation operates.

The eleventh difference is described this way:

When thinking of the community, the pastoral church asks:  “How can we get these people to support the church?” 

When thinking of the community, the missional church asks: “How can the church support these people?”

 

In Missional: Joining God in the Neighbourhood, Alan Roxburgh describes the Church as part of a three-way friendship with the Gospel and the Culture. The three friends grew up together and developed a deep relationship over the years. Then, they gradually drifted apart, losing touch with one another. One day, two of the friends were delighted to receive an email from the other friend, inviting them to spend a weekend at his home. The friends enjoyed catching up with each other. However, as the evening progressed, the friend who had invited the other two began to dominate the conversation. He turned every topic to a discussion about his needs, his questions, his plans. The other two friends left the weekend feeling that they had been used to meet his agenda.

In a few different situations, I have found Roxburgh’s depiction of the Church to reflect what happens as congregations try to find their way into the future. They recognize that they have lost touch with the culture around them. Two, three, four generations of people are missing from the faith community. The congregation wonders what went wrong: Why did their children, who were brought to worship and to programmes at the church all through their childhood, drift away? Why do their grandchildren have little interest in being part of the church’s life?

Many congregations begin to ask those questions when it becomes apparent that, if they don’t find adequate answers, the congregation will not survive. Their need to find new people for their faith community drives them to try to reconnect with the culture around them. They ask, “What do we need to do to get more people to support our church?” They look for tactics that they can adopt in order to make their congregation grow.

The Missional Church conversation is not driven by church-centred questions. The focus is not on “How can we get more people to support our church?” Rather, the focus is on what God’s Holy Spirit is already up to in our neighbourhoods.

I have found that it is very difficult for many people in the church to shift their focus. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have sometimes invited them to search out someone who is not involved in a church and ask them four questions:
What is important to you?
What are you passionate about?
Where do you feel God’s presence?
Where do you feel God’s absence?

My instructions are that they are to ask the questions and listen to the answers. Any questions they ask are to be for clarification only. They are not to try to correct or convince the person of something. They are just to listen to him or her.

Some people have taken up the invitation. They have asked the questions of young people and of the elderly. They have asked family members and acquaintances. The answers have been varied. Some of them have been heart-breaking.

However, whenever I have been part of a church gathering where the reports of the conversations have been given, the conversation inevitably turns to the question, “What can we do so that these people will come to our church?” What programme can be offered? What changes can we make so that these people will want to join us?
Even when I have pointed out to the group that the point of the exercise was to hear what God is up to in people’s lives (and not to find out how to make our churches grow), the group reverts to the church-centred question.

The missional conversation assumes that God is out ahead of us, at work in our neighbourhoods and in people’s lives. We go, listening and looking for the signs that God is already on the premises, already at work, although often in ways that don’t look like what we are used to. Nadia Bolz Weber, in an interview with Faith and Life, I think, says the church sometimes is like someone who says, “There are so few pay phones any more. Isn’t it a shame that people have given up on communicating with each other by phone.”

Roxburgh spends a lot of time reflecting on Luke 10. One of the things he points out is that in that passage it is the disciples who are to receive the hospitality of the people to whom they are sent. So often, we think of ourselves as the ones providing hospitality, as those who are offering something to others. It is a major shift to put ourselves on the receiving end of their hospitality. So the question becomes, “Can we create a space safe enough that they are willing to host us, i.e. to share with us the story of God’s work in their lives?”  And, “Are we training ourselves to become the kind of people who, when they trust us enough to invite us into their spiritual lives, can reflect with them what those nudges from the Holy Spirit mean?”
If it is true that God is already at work in their lives, a point at which we can meet is in giving them language to describe what they are experiencing. Of course, we need to know our own stories well enough to recognize God when God is acting in surprising places and ways in people’s lives. I think of my former theology professor, Steve Hayner, who is dying of pancreatic cancer. Through his writing in his Caring Bridge blog, he is able to help us recognize God’s grace even in his suffering and in his dying. Who would have thought that such a journey would be filled with such blessedness, so much joy in the midst of such great sorrow and suffering? He knows the Story well enough that he is convinced that God’s grace is to be found in suffering. He names it in his own life and so helps us recognize it in our lives as well.

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From Pastoral to Missional (9)

This is the ninth in a series of posts about the differences between a pastoral and a missional church.  The phrase ‘from pastoral to missional’ came from Harold Percy, who was one of the first people to articulate for me the shift I was experiencing in congregations.

I have come across a few different ways of describing the differences between the two models of church. Somewhere in the past, I picked up a chart in which Harold Percy compares the attitudes and expectations in the two models. These posts will work through that chart of comparisons and give some explanation of what I think the differences imply for the way a mainline congregation operates.

The eighth difference is described this way:

The pastoral church is concerned with the church’s institutional nature, organizations and structure, canons and committees. The missional church is concerned with culture; with understanding how secular people think and what their needs are.

The church never exists merely for itself. The church is a people gathered by God to be sent into the world as a “sign, witness, and foretaste” (David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission)  of the Reign of God. Paul tells the church in Corinth that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:19-20).

Churches tend to forget that they exist for the sake of God’s mission in the world for a number of reasons:

• When the church assumes that the culture in which is functions is basically Christian, it is easy to drift into being merely a religious social club;
• When a church ‘settles in’ to the way things are, there is a natural tendency to forget its core purpose for existing and to get preoccupied with matters related to managing itself;
• When the church’s survival is threatened, the temptation is to turn inward, focussing on tactics and programmes to reverse the decline.

In a workshop at the 2012 Worship Symposium of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, Mark Labberton spoke of growing up outside the church, largely because of the deep anti-Christian sentiment of his father. Religion, said his father, tends to make things small. It takes something great and glorious and makes it less than what it actually is.

Churches that are made up of people who are mostly all from the same age bracket, the same economic and social classes, the same race and ethnic background are too small. They are too small because God has so much more in store for them. They are too small because the gospel is so much bigger.

A missional church is a church that is rediscovering the largeness of the gospel. It turns outward, attending to the wondrous work that the Holy Spirit is doing in the world. It works within very wide horizons, responding to God’s challenging work of reconciling all things. It finds itself crossing boundaries as it follows Jesus in new and risky adventures among people different from itself.

This turn outward seems difficult for many people in our mainline congregations. Somehow, we have trained them to believe that the church exists mostly to meet their needs. Somehow, we have convinced them that getting what they want is more important than sacrificing their own wants and desires in order to working for what God wants.

In a few different situations, I have invited people in the church to participate in what I thought were relatively easy exercises as a way of getting out into their neighbourhoods. “Walk around the neighbourhood of your church building (or your own neighbourhood), praying, ‘What do you want me to see, God?’” Or, “sit in a local coffee shop and pray the same prayer”. I invite them to do this a number of times and share with others in your congregation what they have seen and heard and observed.Very few people actually take up the invitation. I don’t know why but I expect that figuring out why so many of us resist that turn outward may be the first step we need to take in participating in the ‘new thing’ God is doing in our day.

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From Pastoral to Missional (8)

This is the eighth in a series of posts about the differences between a pastoral and a missional church.  The phrase ‘from pastoral to missional’ came from Harold Percy, who was one of the first people to articulate for me the shift I was experiencing in congregations.

I have come across a few different ways of describing the differences between the two models of church. Somewhere in the past, I picked up a chart in which Harold Percy compares the attitudes and expectations in the two models. These posts will work through that chart of comparisons and give some explanation of what I think the differences imply for the way a mainline congregation operates.

The seventh difference is expressed this way:

Leadership style in a pastoral church is primarily managerial, aimed at keeping everything running smoothly.

In a missional church, leadership style is primarily transformational, casting a vision of what can be, and marching off the map to make the vision real.

It was Einstein, I believe, who first said that insanity is ‘doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results’.These days, if the leadership of a congregation assumes that its task is to manage the church well, it will probably find itself not only extremely frustrated, but also feeling like it is operating in the midst of insanity. The culture in which North American churches operate has shifted so radically, that the goal of ‘managing the church well’ no longer produces the desired results.

I am not advocating that congregations be poorly managed; it is just that ‘managing’ is no longer what is needed. In a time of what Alan Roxburgh calls ‘discontinuous change’, the kind of leadership required must be flexible, agile, able to act creatively.

Part of the challenge for those who are in leadership in a congregation is that many of them are in their positions because they value having things well managed. They want meetings that are orderly and that ‘get things done’ in an efficient manner, resulting in clear decisions and ‘action items’ that lead to successful programmes and projects.

Chances are they are not very comfortable with the kind of process that equips the congregation to respond to a culture in transition. That kind of process is messy. It expects that there will be failures. It takes people into risky new territory where they do not have the experience needed to remain ‘in control’.

Years ago, I heard someone say that churches need to create a space for the crazy, risk-taking kinds of leaders that are in their midst. Give them permission to go off and try out some of their crazy ideas. See what ones work. Don’t shut them down when some things fail. Instead, what churches tend to do is to drive them away or impose so many rules and requirements on them that any new life they generate is stifled.

One thing we know from the scriptures, wherever the Holy Spirit is at work bringing new life, things will be out of our control. That doesn’t mean they are out of control. It just means that God is in control — which often looks very different from what we are comfortable with.

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From Pastoral to Missional (2)

This post is the second in a series of post that I am re-posting from another blog that I have hosted but will be discontinuing.  The posts are about the shift from a pastoral to a missional church.  The phrase ‘from pastoral to missional’ came from Harold Percy, who was one of the first people to articulate for me the shift I was experiencing in congregations.

I have come across a few different ways of describing the differences between the two models of church. Somewhere in the past, I picked up a chart in which Harold Percy compares the attitudes and expectations in the two models. These posts will work through that chart of comparisons and give some explanation of what I think the differences imply for the way a mainline congregation operates.

Here’s the first:

The pastoral church asks,   “How many visits are being made?”
The missional church asks, “How many disciples are being made?”

In traditional mainline churches, the paid professional minister is expected regularly to visit all the congregation’s members. In its original form, the intent of these pastoral visits by the minister was so that the minister could ask, “How is it going with your soul?”  Are you engaged in a regular practice of prayer and study of the scriptures? Do you meet regularly with other Christians who hold you accountable for your discipleship? Are you offering a portion of your wealth to the work of God? Are you involved in some form of Christian service to the world? Are you sharing your faith with others?

I suspect that, these days, most members of the congregation (even those who complain that the minister doesn’t visit enough) would not be looking for that kind of visit from their minister!

Over time, the expectation for pastoral visiting tended more towards its being a social call, perhaps with a prayer offered by the minister at the end of the visit. The minister is expected especially to visit those who are sick or lonely or dying. Medical conditions seem to merit special attention. In this sense, the minister is expected to act more like a chaplain than like a spiritual leader and guide. As The Missional Leader puts it:

“Ordained ministry staff functions to give attention to and take care of people in the church by being present for people as they are needed (if care and attention are given by people other than ordained clergy, it may be more appropriate and effective but is deemed “second-class”). [The minister’s] time, energy, and focus [are] shaped by people’s ‘need’ and ‘pain’ agendas.” (p. 12)

This model of ministry was shaped to fit a culture that considered itself “Christian”. The church counted on the culture to help it form people with “Christian values” (through magazines, radio shows, public education, etc.). The culture has changed and so has the church. The church can no longer depend upon the culture to do its work of Christian formation. It must now be more intentional about growing those who are followers of Jesus Christ.

In a missional model of church, the role of the paid ministers reverts back to one described in Ephesians 4:11 -12  — “Christ calls some to be “pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” In the missional church, it is understood that all those who are baptized are given gifts and a call into some form of ministry. That may or may not be expressed by a position in the congregation’s structures. Most probably, it will be outside the church’s walls — living out the gospel through their lives, seeking to to be instruments of transformation within the  culture, witnessing to the work of the Holy Spirit healing and renewing life. The role of the pastor/teacher is to cultivate an environment in the congregation in which people discern what their gifts and calling are. It is to attend to the life of the community so that its people are equipped to participate in God’s mission in the world.

Pastoral visiting — both providing social support and helping someone grow as a disciple of Jesus — is primarily done by the people of the congregation for each other. Most often that is done through ‘small groups’ — 4 to 10 people who meet regularly to care for one another, help each other grow in faith and act into that faith.

Such a shift takes some getting used to. People usually think that the care they provide for one another won’t feel as spiritually helpful as the care they receive from the “professional” minister. Granted, most people will have some growing to do — learning to pray for one another and to challenge each other. That is why, in a missional church model, spiritual formation and growth takes a high priority.

When a missional model is adopted by a congregation, people quickly discover that the care they get from their small group members is better than what they were getting from the paid professional(s). After all, the paid minister is only one person. His or her time and energy are limited to what any one human being can do. Any one person can only care effectively for a few others (no matter how professional she is; no matter how much s/he is  paid!). When pastoral care is provided through small groups, far more people receive far better care and attention and are encouraged to grow spiritually. The paid professional minister’s role shifts to equipping the people of the congregation to minister to each other and to participate in God’s mission in their local contexts. That is why, the critical question is not, “How many visits is the minister making?” but, “How many disciples are being made?” That question will maximize effective pastoral care and spiritual growth in the congregation.

What excites you about this different model of ministry in a missional church? What questions does it raise? What concerns?

What will it cost a congregation if it does not adopt a missional model of ministry?

 

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From Pastoral to Missional Church

Some time ago I posted a series of reflections on another blog about the shift from a pastoral to a missional church. I will be discontinuing that blog so am re-posting them here. The phrase ‘from pastoral to missional’ came from Harold Percy, who was one of the first people to articulate for me the shift I was experiencing in congregations. Here’s the first of the blog entries:

 

the journey mainline churches are on these days is taking us into uncharted territory. The landscape in which we are ‘the church’ has shifted.  Many of the things we are accustomed to doing as ‘the church’ no longer work. We can’t make them work by working harder or smarter. The culture has changed. The ‘maps’ we have used for decades won’t help us find our way. We are having to become pioneers — learning the skills, capacities and habits that will help us navigate through unfamiliar country; developing the spiritual character that will keep us following Jesus on the road.

The contours of that unfamiliar country can be characterized as a shift from a ‘pastoral’ model of church to a ‘missional’ model of church. Most mainline churches operate out of a pastoral model: a ‘paid professional minister’ leads a congregation of ‘lay people’ by providing pastoral, or spiritual, services to them. The congregation provides programmes that encourage people to come to the church building and participate in the community life that happens largely in that building.

A missional model of church operates out of different assumptions. The word ‘missional’ carries with it some baggage: people think of missions as an activity that designated persons carry out some place distant (geographically or emotionally) from the regular congregation. For some people, the word “mission” conjures up Western missionaries imposing Western values on other ethnic groups — something in which they do not want to have a part.

That is not what is meant by the term “Missional Church” . Here is a good description of “Missional Church” from the book The Missional Leader by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk.

“God is about a big purpose in and for the whole creation. The church has been called into life to be both the means of this mission and a foretaste of where God is inviting all creation to go. Just as its Lord is a mission-shaped God, so the community of God’s people exists, not for themselves but the sake of the work. Mission is therefore not a program or a project some people in the church do from time to time (as in ‘mission trip,’ ‘mission budget,’ and so on); the church’s very nature is to be God’s missionary people. We use the word missional to mark this big difference. Mission is not about a project or a budget, or a one-off event somewhere; it’s not even about sending missionaries. A missional church is a community of God’s people who live into the imagination that they are, by their very nature, God’s missionary people living as a demonstration of what God plans to do in and for all creation in Jesus Christ. ”  (p. xv)

Here’s a link to a short animated video that depicts the difference between pastoral and missional:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arxfLK_sd68

 

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Time in the Wilderness

It is not unusual these days for people to characterize the mainline church as being ‘in the wilderness’. In the Bible, the wilderness is a time of scarcity: there are not enough resources. In that sense, ‘wilderness’ is an appropriate description of many congregations. Many congregations are experiencing declining attendance in worship, declining participation in the programmes they offer, and declining financial support. They are realizing that the church is no longer at the centre of power in the culture.

In the Bible, wilderness times are not merely times when the resources for surviving or thriving are scarce. Wilderness times are also times of dealing with God. Indeed, it is often the Holy Spirit that drives the people of God into the wilderness. The times in the wilderness push us to deal with God because alternatives are not available.

I think of the times when I have felt like I was in a wilderness: I was driven to prayer because there was no other way to get through such a time. I learned what the psalmist means when s/he prays the God is a fortress, a rock, a refuge. At times, I still felt pretty exposed and vulnerable. However, I was held; I was not deserted; I was given enough strength to keep going a little longer. When the Bible speaks of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness, that’s what I think about.

In his commentary on 1 & 2 Samuel, Eugene Peterson talks of the wilderness as an ‘untamed place’ (p. 131-132). Ironically, one of the gifts of the wilderness times is what the Bible calls “meekness”:  a strength that is tamed. Meekness is strength like a wild horse that has been tamed (N.T. Wright, For All God’s Worth, p. 70), its energies directed and purposeful, disciplined and controlled.

You can emerge from the wilderness stronger for having endured something difficult and challenging.The strength comes from having a clearer focus on what is real and what is illusion. It is rooted in learning to pay attention to God and in learning to wait for God’s timing and God’s action.

The ‘missional church’ conversation seeks to turn the church from being busy with our own agendas and plans to paying attention to what God is up to in our neighbourhoods. Our time in the wilderness is training us in that practice.

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