Missional/Discipleship

 I keep saying I won't be posting anything more here but there was an article by Mike Breen (with the provocative title: Why the missional movement will fail) that someone alerted me to this morning which I think is essential reading, and certainly very much related to the kind of material that has appeared frequently on this blog.  Here's how the article starts....

It’s time we start being brutally honest about the missional movement that has emerged in the last 10-15 years: Chances are better than not it’s going to fail.

That may seem cynical, but I’m being realistic. There is a reason so many movements in the Western church have failed in the past century: They are a car without an engine. A missional church or a missional community or a missional small group is the new car that everyone is talking about right now, but no matter how beautiful or shiny the vehicle, without an engine, it won’t go anywhere.

So what is the engine of the church? Discipleship. I’ve said it many times: If you make disciples, you will always get the church. But if you try to build the church, you will rarely get disciples.

More here. 

Sorry, who killed the church?

In the middle of last year Richard Beck wrote a post called How Facebook Killed the Church, which has just taken off on the blogosphere again. It's a provocative title, and it's true in relation to what he actually says in the article, where he talks why people who went to church primarily for the social element find it's no longer necessary when there are umpteen technological ways to make contact. I quote:

No doubt, the vast majority of the people in a friend list on Facebook are strangers, acquaintances, or old school friends you haven't seen in years. But no user of Facebook is confused enough to think that she is "in relationship" with any of these people. These are just the penumbra around the core of our Facebook interactions, connecting with people we actually know and are friends with.

In short, Facebook isn't replacing real world relationality. Rather, Facebook tends to reflect our social world.

Beck isn't saying that these people who no longer go to church were thoroughly involved in being disciples - at least I don't think that's what he's saying. There are a great number of very comments to this post, and these clarify and deepen the discussion in a variety of ways. These are as much worth reading as the original post.