An(other) Attempt at Religion (with/out Religion): Renewing “Church”
At the outset of the third and final portion of our study, we remind ourselves of Jesus’ proclamation in the first century Temple, which informs our ongoing thesis:
And as [Jesus] taught them, he said, “Is it not written:
‘My house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” (Mark 11.17)
Jesus’ statement, it should be noted, is a joint quotation of Isaiah 56.7, which features YHWH looking forward to the day when eunuchs and foreigners would worship in the temple; “these I will bring to my holy mountain, and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” and Jeremiah 7.9-11, where YHWH questions, “‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe” – safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.”
Central to Jesus’ proclamation – as well as his counter-cultural ministry – is the assertion that the Kingdom of God is now at hand, and as such, those previously excluded from the Temple system are now included in this new eschatological movement of God’s people. This is seen from the outset of Mark’s gospel, as seen in the first chapter of Mark: “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’” (Mark 1.15) Though it seems entirely obvious at this point in our study, we must remind ourselves that the heart of Jesus’ mission and ministry centered not upon a program or personality (even His own!), but rather the worship of YHWH.
This reality forms the primary church practice for renewing the Western church toward an increased missiological engagement. As we turn our attention toward renewing church practices, we should be careful to note that the difficulties of deconstructing church hierarchies looks different in each setting. As Van Gelder states, “it is hard to read the materials of the New Testament on their own terms and come to any clarity of how to proceed with matters of leadership practices and organizational structures. Power gets institutionalized within structure, and once structure is in place it is quite difficult to reform.” (The Ministry of the Missional Church, 124) Thus, this concluding post will, at best, hope to broadly sketch some possibilities for renewing the church in the West.
Though we have previously recognized the difficulty of relying upon the preached Word as the primary means of communication inherent in Quitting Church and Essential Church?, their authors rightly recognize it as a means by which congregations are able to commune with God. Duin states that pastors who rely upon “[t]ime alone, time spent with God, time spent in the Bible… [and] fight for this time manage not only to produce better sermons but also to keep their personality centered on God. When they slip off that center, that’s when the worst problems arise.” (Duin, Quitting Church, 133) Of course, this cannot simply be the focus of the pastor, but must become the focus of the entire congregation. And in light of our study, this must become the focus of the congregation’s communal gatherings, even reshaping the structure of our gatherings. In his study of nominality, Gibbs rightly recognizes the role of worship in the life of a community;
Religion becomes secondhand when a generation arises which refuses to hear from God or to whom God has become silent… The important issue is to recognize that as soon as the second generation becomes the dominant group in the life of the church, nominality becomes a growing problem, unless that generation has its own authentic experience of God.” (In Name Only, 44)
Instead of allowing worship services to remain in an attractional role, truly missional communities should begin seeing such gatherings as opportunities to incarnationally translate the gospel into a particular culture. Darrell Guder puts it this way:
What we have received from our traditions must be empowered by God’s Spirit so that it can be “passed on” (traducere – tradition), and we are to be the agents of that translation. This becomes very concrete: the language we use, the forms of communication we adopt the music and symbolism, the liturgies – all of this can and must be translated for the sake of the witness we are to be and to do. Our worship services are to be missionary events, invitations to follow Christ. (Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church, 46)
Gibbs agrees: “The worship of missional and emerging churches is God-focused, rather than seeking to enhance the celebrity status of the preacher or worship leaders – it is “the central act by which the community celebrates with joy and thanksgiving both God’s presence and God’s promised future.” The Gospel and Our Culture Network, “Empirical Indicators of a ‘Missional Church,’” The Gospel and Our Culture 10, no. 3, in Gibbs, ChurchMorph, 45-46)
Indeed, this realization is a necessary step toward renewing church practices, as worship is not a mere program, but is central to the heart of a faithful community, as proclaimed by Jesus in the first century temple. Without reforming the theology and structure of church gatherings, increased missiological engagement thus runs the risk of becoming another program to do for church, instead of a way to more fully be church. Craig Van Gelder writes,
Interestingly, the missional church conversation has introduced a new dimension into the discussion of the identity of the church. At the center of this conversation is the relationship of the church to its context in light of a different understanding of the nature of essence of the church. In this conversation, mission is no longer understood primarily in functional terms as something the church does, as is the case for the corporate church. Rather it is understood primarily in terms of something the church is, as something that is related to its nature. (The Ministry of the Missional Church, 85-86)
Central to the desire to reform our worship gatherings is to recognize the churches calling to engage faithfully within their particular cultural setting. We have previously noted the mid-century reconception of the local church as a community center which features basketball courts, swimming pools and fellowship halls, thus becoming “the centralized, hierarchical, and stabilizing organization, the life-giving replacement for, and integration of, all that had been lost when urbanization and automotive mobility ripped us away from a common imagination.” (Tickle, The Great Emergence, 90)
Though it is easy to criticize these offerings as a misstep, we must also recognize these churches inherent desire to engage with their neighborhoods. A more faithful way of engaging, however, is explicated by Van Gelder, who notes that congregations led by the Spirit have a dynamic relationship with their surrounding communities, as they seek to join God in what He is doing, instead of imparting their own vision. Thus, there are elements of relying upon the community’s resources and elements of seeking to serve the community in needs not yet met. He asserts:
The primary way of theorizing this relationship is from the perspective of “resource dependence theory.” Congregations must be aware of the resources they need to draw from their environment in order to carry our their purpose and accomplish their vision. The types of information that a Spirit-led congregation should be interested in gathering about its community include such things as population trends, demographic profiles, transportation patterns, residential location of membership, organizations serving the community, business development and employment, and so on. It is important not just to gather such information, but… to read this information from a theological perspective. (Van Gelder, The Ministry of the Missional Church, 85-86)
Gaining such information allows an increasingly mission-minded congregation toward engaging with the realistic needs of their community, instead of building gyms and swimming pools in hopes of attracting more giving units. (We are further reminded of the missiological orientation of Jesus’ temple act by Matthew, who highlights his prophetic judgment in light of those who came to him immediately following; “The blind and the lame came to [Jesus] at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ they were indignant. ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’ they asked him. ‘Yes,’ replied Jesus, ‘have you never read, ‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?’” (Matthew 21.14-16)
Previously in our study we alluded to the research of Donald McGavran, who discussed the “homogenous units” principle, which – due to misappropriations of his writing by the church growth movement – has led to increasingly ethnically segregated churches in the West. Without oversimplifying, we should recall Solomon’s prayer that foreigners would be drawn to the temple because of God’s holy name and Jesus’ assertion that the holy place was to be “a house of prayer for all nations.” (Mark 11.17) Thus, while we can recognize and appreciate McGavran’s findings, we must question any church growth strategy that would purposefully exclude others, due to their “otherness.” On the contrary, Van Gelder asserts that
a Spirit-led congregation is reminded that they also were once strangers and foreigners and that they can actually grow into a deeper understanding of the reconciling powers of the gospel as they become relationally connected to the other. The biblical and theological issues is that cultural diversity needs to be understood as a gift from God to be celebrated rather than as a problem to be solved. (Van Gelder, The Ministry of the Missional Church, 51)
It is not only for “our” sake that we include the “other,” however. Van Gelder later notes “it is often through contact with the other that new insights into how to participate in God’s mission in the world come into focus.” (157)
Therefore, instead of ignoring our differences, an increasingly mission-minded church must seek to become a place where our diversity is an opportunity whereby we can more fully represent the worldwide Body of Christ and more beautifully serve those in our community, looking forward to the day where all tribes and tongues will join together in glory. Van Gelder, again; “The church is therefore a sign to the world that the now is already present, a foretaste for the world of the eschatological future that has already begun and an instrument to share this good news with everyone everywhere.” (The Ministry of the Missional Church, 111)
We have thus asserted that to renew church practices in the West, ecclesiological leaders must recognize the importance of the congregation as a worshipping community who engages with their surrounding community, purposefully including the “other,” in hopes of meeting God in His missio Dei. Though our study has focused upon the perspective of those in leadership, these changes must also reform the institutional implications of each congregation, especially in light of the upside-down Kingdom Jesus sought to inaugurate in His ministry and prophetic temple action. Greene and Robinson similarly assert that Western culture presently offers “the ability to effect dramatic change from the bottom up, rather than (as the privileged custodians of the knowledge industry had previously opined was necessary) from the top down.” (Green and Robinson, Metavista, 52)
Though this will, as aforementioned, look different in every congregational setting, recognizing – and living into – this reality is central to any congregation embodying faith in a postmodern, post-Christian culture. While there are those who mourn this as a loss, (See, for instance, Rainer, Thom S. and Sam S. Rainer III. Essential Church? Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts, 2008) we should instead recognize that our 2.0 culture presents us with an opportunity by which we can reform our respective congregational lives to more closely mirror the intentions of Jesus. Notice, for instance, Matthew 23.8-12:
But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
We began this series by noting the new conversation taking place in contemporary ecclesiology, which has shifted away from church growth into a renewed understanding regarding the church’s purpose. We then noted the issues at the heart of Jesus’ prophetic temple action, ways in which those issues are mirrored in modern, institutional faith structures, and church practices that could help renew local congregations toward increased missiological engagement. We conclude by recognizing the importance of this ongoing conversation, albeit recognizing that our words must now become flesh:
The presence of the Spirit and the Spirit’s teaching and leading the church give birth to a church that is missionary by nature. The Spirit-led church’s very existence in the world has to be understood in missionary terms. The church cannot help but participate in God’s mission in the world. This is part of what it means to be the church. To do less would be contrary to its nature [though] the Spirit’s presence in the church means that this reality is always there to be cultivated and lived into. (Van Gelder, The Ministry of the Missional Church, 41)
Tags: Church, Colin Greene, Craig Van Gelder, Darrell Guder, Eddie Gibbs, Jesus, Julia Duin, Martin Robinson, Missiology, Phyllis Tickle
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