Here’s an excellent video that illustrates the two meanings of the word “church.” I found this video at Church Anarchist blog, which is a website run by Richard Jacobson (whom you can follow on Twitter: @churchanarchist).
Monthly Archives: December 2013
The Ghost of Church Past: Part Three
My wife, parents, and I recently watched a stage production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. As I watched it I couldn’t help but imagine what the ghosts of church past, present, and future might say to those of us who follow Jesus. I started with the the ghost of church past by looking at the earliest church (click here for that post) and then to the era begun by Constantine (click here for that post). Now we turn to the more recent past.
The Attractional Church Model
Basics — The wheel that was set in motion during Constantine’s time has continued to roll. And a fairly recent example of this has been the attractional church model. This model came into full bloom during the “Church-Growth Movement” which was spearheaded by Donald McGavaran, Peter Wagner, among many others. The basic idea here is that what I call the Field of Dreams tactic: “If we build it, they will come.” So the focus of churches became programs, worship, and preaching. The thought was that if we could make these things excellent, then people would come to our churches in droves. To some extent this worked. Some churches grew like crazy during this period, with Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church being a prime example. And many good things came out of this time. Millions came to know the Lord through this model, Christians learned a whole bunch, and a ton of money was raised for churches and missionaries.
How Leadership Worked –– Many of the churches that did and continue to fall into this category are led by a few pastors with one being the chief pastor. This chief pastor tended to be charismatic and focused on preaching and teaching. As some of these churches grew, more and more staff were hired to help shepherd the growing flock. This led to a silo effect in which various wings of the church were led by their own pastors who were in charge of their own budgets, programs, buildings, etc.
Problems — This model is affinity-based, meaning that church leaders promoted people being grouped together based on similarities. So many churches became increasingly homogenous, meaning that there was very little diversity. This model also depends on the culture outside of the church being similar enough to the culture inside the church that folks on the outside would turn to the church when they were seeking God. This was the case in the past but it’s not so much so now. And, most importantly, this model taught us to think of the church as the place where we invite people to come instead of being the church among those who do not yet know Jesus.
Place in Society — During the height of the attractional church model many church leaders were seen by politicians and other civic leaders as powerbrokers. Thus, a few of these church leaders and their churches began to wield incredible power in their communities, cities, states, and beyond. However, as the values of the wider culture and the attractional churches have departed from one another, these leaders and churches have seen their power wane to some degree.
Great Commission — For the most part this model followed suit with what had begun with Constantine’s legitimization of Christianity. As mentioned above, most of these leaders and churches wanted people to flood into their church buildings. The hope was that people would come to know Jesus through preaching and be discipled through education. Most of the talk around the “Great Commission” meant contributing to international mission work financially.
Thus, we see a few positives here and quite a few negatives. Hopefully this trip down memory lane will teach us a thing or two!
So, when you think of the attractional church model what comes to mind for you? Is my brief analysis fair?
(FYI — some of the content of this blog was inspired by Alan Hirsch’s book Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church. I highly recommend it!)
The Ghost of Christmas Past: Part One
The Ghost of Christmas Past: Part Two
10 Challenges for Missional Extroverts
Full disclosure: I’m not an extrovert but I am married to one! She’s taught me a ton about what extroverts are like. However, the list below is not solely based on my wife and her experiences. I’ve known lots of other extroverts in my life too!
So based on what I’ve experienced, read about, and observed, here are some potential challenges that a missional extrovert night face.
- Spread Too Thin — Most extroverts that I know like to know lots of people, meaning that they can sometimes be pulled in a thousand different directions. Often the result can be not being able to invest much time in any one relationship.
- Don’t Go Deep Enough — This one is related to the previous one. In order to make disciples we have to go deep in our relationships with one another. But this can be a problem for some extroverts since their sheer number of friends makes it hard for them to slow down, understand, and connect deeply with individuals.
- Rejection — A major part of living like a missionary is learning how to deal with rejection. People aren’t always going to respond positively to you, your way of life, or Jesus. It’s really easy for an extrovert to take this rejection personally since being social is centrally important. And the sadness that this rejection causes can take a while to get over and discourage extroverts from moving forward.
- Feeling Too Pushy — Extroverts say that at times they can feel like they are being pushy in a relationship, like they are trying to create something out of nothing. This is especially true if the person the extrovert is trying to build a relationship with is an introvert! This fear can sometimes prevent an extrovert from deepening a potential friendship.
- The Social Butterfly Effect — Not every extrovert struggles with this, but many who I know do. Sometimes an extrovert has a hard time focusing in on one relationship because there are so many other people out there! Maybe there’s someone more fun, more interesting, or more socially valuable to connect to. Being missional, of course, necessitates that we really focus in on each relationship we are part of.
- People Pleasing — This one isn’t true of every extrovert either, but many that I know are also people pleasers, meaning that for them what others think is very important. A major problem with trying to please everyone when trying to be missional is that it might lead us to telling people what we think the want to hear instead of what they need to hear.
- Strategizing…Alone — Virtually every extrovert I know works best, thinks best, and plans best with others. But the sad truth of the real world is that sometimes we have to strategize alone! Since being alone is usually socially draining to an extrovert, this can be a huge challenge. But it is really important for us all to figure out how to take stock periodically, even if alone!
- Burn Out — Many extroverts can burn themselves out pretty easily. And many times this burn out can really surprise and extrovert due to the fact that many extroverts pursue so many relationships at once. So, while its true that an extrovert needs relationships to be energized, too many relationship will ultimately cause harm.
- Intimacy Issues — Everyone has intimacy issues at some level but many extroverts usually have one of two issues: 1) They sometimes let too many people into their most intimate level of friendship, which can result in getting hurt a lot; or 2) They sometimes have lots and lots of superficial relationships to prevent anyone from really getting in close. Being missional, however, means figuring out how to be intimately connected with one another but in healthy, life-giving ways.
- Fear of Being Needy — Almost every extrovert I know has a deep-seated fear of being viewed as needy. They don’t want people to think of them that way. This fear can hamper connecting well with folks, so its something that needs to be addressed in the life of a missional extrovert.
What do you think of this list? Did I get some things wrong? Did I miss a few? Let me know in the comments below!
10 Challenges for Missional Introverts
By: Ghetu Daniel
Full disclosure: I’m an introvert. Some people find that hard to believe because I like to talk to people. I describe myself as an introvert who likes people…I just need to recharge afterward.
However, I’ve learned the hard way that being an introvert and being missional can be difficult. Here are a few examples.
- Relationships — Hold on…you mean that in order to be missional I have to get to know people? Dang. I thought that I could just think more missionally and that would be good enough.
- Small Talk — There’s nothing more palm-sweat inducing for an introvert than small talk. It’s pointless and painful. But typical human interaction demands it, which means that in order to be missional introverts are going to have to figure out how to navigate conversations about pets, the weather, sports, and what not.
- Expending Energy — For an introvert relational energy is spent when we interact with others. Thus, we normally pick and choose who we spend that energy on. Being missional, however, means that we have to be open to whoever might need us in the moment, even if they haven’t quite made the cut in our book yet.
- Unknown Results — This one is related to the previous one because an introvert is more likely to expend energy in a relationship that he or she know is “worth it.” But being missional means giving of our time and energy even when we have no idea how it will play out. Just typing this is making me a bit anxious.
- Better in Community — All the missional practitioners say that it is better to do this in community. But lots of us introverts like to be a wolf pack of one. So it’s a pretty big ask for us to figure out how to live like a missionary with other people trying to live like missionaries!
- Being “Natural” — So a common fear among introverts is that we’ll look socially awkward. We all know that we are socially awkward in varying degrees but we try our best to hide it. So when some missional people tell folks to just be “natural” or do what “comes naturally,” some of us introverts can get confused! How do I act natural when I feel so unnatural!
- Valuing Others — Since a lot of us introverts understand that interacting with other people is taxing, we sometimes engage in cost-benefit analysis. So, we ask ourselves if interacting with a person will be worth the relational drain. Being missional means being open and ready to interact with anyone, even those who might cost us a lot!
- Active Listening — Now this one may just be me…but I sometimes find it really, really, really hard to listen to what someone is saying to me. I often drift off and start thinking about how I would rather be using this time or looking forward to some time alone to recharge. This isn’t good and I’m sure that people can see it on my face! Instead I need to listen actively to every conversation I’m in!
- Seeking to Understand — Most introverts have friends; we just have a few. We know how hard it was to come to understand our friends, so when we meet someone new it can be difficult to put in that same effort. So we might be tempted to think something like “I already have three friends, that’s enough.” Then we’ll just try to move through a conversation as quickly as possible instead of seeking to understand the other person. Being missional certainly involves carving out time for understanding!
- Facing the Fear of Embarrassment — A common fear for most of us introverts is to be embarrassed in public. We have nightmares about it…no really, I had one just last night about being embarrassed in front of someone whom I greatly respect. But being missional involves risk of all sorts, including embarrassment. When we start interacting with other people, we’re going to mess up and it’s probably going to be funny at times! This is just a risk we have to learn to live with.
I’m sure there’s a thousand more ways that being a missional introvert is hard. Let me know in the comments!
The Ghost of Church Past: Part Two
My wife, parents, and I recently watched a stage production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. As I watched it I couldn’t help but imagine what the ghosts of church past, present, and future might say to those of us who follow Jesus. I started with the the ghost of church past by looking at the earliest church (click here for that post). Now we turn to the much-maligned Constantine and the era that he is said to have begun.
PublicDomainPictures / Pixabay
Constantine
- Basics — A man named Constantine was the emperor during the time in which Christianity became a legitimized religion in the Roman empire. This meant that persecution slowed down to a great degree. The followers of Jesus could come out of hiding and express their religious beliefs and practices more freely. The believers began to become more centralized. They were allowed to construct buildings in which they could meet. This led to more and more people associating church with the meeting place rather than the people themselves. Good things happened during this period too; it was during this time that many of our theological issues were ironed out and when Christian scholarship in general flourished.
- How Leadership Worked — This centralization and localization of the church in a building meant that the preachers and teachers began to rise in influence over the apostles, prophets, and evangelists. These preachers and teachers began to become the authorities on all things related to Christianity.
- Problems — Naturally, with Christians being able to rise from the shadows produced some issues. Chief among them was the professionalization of ministry. As we saw already, the church had become centralized and localized, which allowed for people to have great levels of training for leading as a teacher or preacher. And this produced some good benefits, such as doctrinal orthodoxy and a continuity of messages being preached throughout Christendom, but it also created a situation in which some (those who had been trained) were seen as responsible for almost all the work of the gospel.
- Place in Society — Over some time the believers became entrenched in their societies, influencing them and being influenced by them. Followers of Jesus also began to find themselves in positions of power, from emperors, to military people, to business people. This development helped lead the church to become, at times, a defender of the status quo instead of being people who radically follow Jesus wherever he might lead.
- Great Commission — The churches during the period beginning with Constantine sought to draw people toward themselves, toward their buildings, their programs, and their teaching. For a long, long time this worked! Disciples were made and many, many people grew in their faith. Of course, this was due, primarily, to the culture of the church being similar to the culture of society at large. In places where the society at large had a vastly different culture from the church (places outside of or on the fringes of the Roman Empire), preachers and teachers found it much more difficult to draw people to them.
So this part of the visit from the ghost of Christmas past is not as positive as the first one. Hopefully we are seeing some areas for growth here and some things to avoid.
So, when you think of Constantine and the period of church history that he is said to have begun, what comes to mind for you?
(FYI — much of the content of this blog was inspired by Alan Hirsch’s book Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church. I highly recommend it!)
The Ghost of Church Past: Part One
My wife and I recently went to see a stage production of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol with my mom and dad when they were in town for Thanksgiving. While watching the play, I kept thinking about the state of the churches in America. What would the ghosts in A Christmas Carol say to us? For the next little while I’m going to try to answer that question.
We’ll start with the ghost of church past this week. When Ebenezer Scrooge asked the ghost of Christmas past why it was there with him it said that it had come for Scrooge’s welfare and, ultimately, his reclamation. It’s for the same reasons that we gaze back into our past as well!
Let’s begin all the way at the beginning —
The Earliest Church
- Basics — This period begins at the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 and extends until the fourth century. It’s marked by growth and vitality. The early believers in Jesus were not centralized, they tended to meet in homes, and they appear to have taken Jesus’ teachings about caring for the least of these seriously.
- How Leadership Worked — There were a variety of leaders, those who pushed the envelope (like evangelists, prophets, and apostles) and those who provided care for the flock (like teachers and preachers).
- Problems — Before we get too excited, however, these earliest churches had many problems. Their theology was pretty loose, they had to deal with really dangerous persecution, there were unity problems in their churches, and they had the ongoing issues associated with the ethnic drama between Jews and Gentiles.
- Standing in Society — These early believers were pioneers who lived on the edges of their societies. Thus, they tended to stand out from the norm quite a bit, thanks to their moral practices, their care for the poor and the hurting, and their love for one another.
- Great Commission — These churches were sending churches. We this see modeled in Jesus’ own life (Luke 9-10) and then recreated by the early faith communities, such as the church at Antioch (Acts 13). They also appear to have understood that making disciples meant doing life together while always being open to folding in new people (Acts 2.42-47).
Unlike Ebenezer Scrooge, the first part of our visit from the ghost of church past is pretty positive. As we look back at the earliest church, there’s lots to like and emulate.
So when you think of the earliest church, what comes to mind? Tell me in the comments below!
(FYI — much of the content of this blog was inspired by Alan Hirsch’s book Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church. I highly recommend it!)