Outward, not inward?

If I sometimes seem to quote the same few people in this blog, it's because they keep on saying good stuff. So my apologies for yet again quoting David Fitch.

It is common in church planting for N. American churches to rush in a.) naming a main leader and b.) starting a public service (what has often been called the launch). For instance: the Acts 29 Network – a training network for planting churches – puts an unusual importance on a.) choosing a strong male leader to plant the church, and b.) the launch of a service where “the gospel” is preached clearly, contextually and authoritatively.

The impression here is that the preaching itself, led by a strong male leader, is sufficient to draw the lost into the gospel.

Although there is much to be thankful for in what God is doing with Acts 29, for me, this is an approach heavily dependent on the cultural conditions of Christendom. The preaching requires people already habitualized to go to church and hear a sermon. It requires people who understand the language. It organizes the church structure toward the centre – where the single strong leader is – instead of outward where lost people are.

It will work where there are wandering peoples who have a Christian past and/or have discontent with existing forms of church (i.e. Roman Catholic or traditional evangelical) who are easily drawn to something new and impressive. This is not, however, a Missional strategy because in many ways it sets the new community up to be a centralized attractional community. Its dynamic works against invading the rhythms of a context, living the gospel in ways that invade the secular spaces of the world that is living oblivious to God and His work in Christ for the world. If we would be missionaries, we need to think differently about congregational formation. [My italicizations]

David has more to say.....see here.

Just checking out the Acts 29 site, it's a bit disconcerting to see that there's a considerable emphasis on men as leaders on this site. One of the tweets in the right hand column of the home page says this: God uses MEN to plant lasting churches [their emphasis]. However, when you go to the actual video, the title - and emphasis - is slightly different: God needs men to plant churches.

Hmmm.

The Next Evangelicalism

The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity, by Soong-Chan Rah.

This book, critical as it is of American white evangelicalism (and therefore also of NZ white evangelicals) sparks a strong critical review from one Amazon writer, an Assemblies of God pastor. His biggest concern is that Korean-born Rah sees the white culture as one big negative. For him, Rah forgets the very many strong and positive traits of Western civilisation, and lumps all white Christians together as one homogenous group.

That aside, however, he has some good things to say about the book, and admits that in spite of its ‘flaws’ it points out something that is needing to be said in regard to the group that is 60% of the world’s Christian community: the Africans, the Asians and the Latin Americans.

“No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't escape the conclusion that Rah - to a significant degree - is right. The American evangelical church is declining, or at least its Anglo component is. But as Rah points out, the non-Anglo component of the American evangelical church is thriving. This is true in my own denomination, the Assemblies of God.

“…the Anglo evangelical church in America declining, it is guilty - in various parts and to varying degrees - of practicing an individualistic, consumerist, materialistic, and racist form of Christianity. Why do we focus on personal evangelism rather than also on social transformation? Why do we think the three B's - buildings, bucks, and butts in the pew - are indicators of a church's success, if that's even an appropriate word for a church to use? And why do we presume that non-white culture is a mission field that needs our contributions and competence, rather than the other way around?”

To sum up, “correction does not mean the total negation of the one culture nor the total affirmation of the others. It requires a balancing off of weaknesses and strengths.”

Dave Tomlinson in New Zealand

Dave Tomlinson comes to Wellington
(these details come from a joint newsletter put out by Presbyterian Youth Ministry and World Vision).

World Vision have brought Dave Tomlinson, an Anglican priest in London, over to New Zealand for a fleeting visit. Dave will give two keynote talks on "re-emerging church" on Thursday 10 September, 9 - 12:30 pm @ St John's in the City, Wellington. Door charge $10.

Who is he?
Dave wrote The Post-evangelical, founded "Holy Joes" church in a pub, and has recently published the excellent book, Re-enchanting Christianity, which follows on from The Post-evangelical in that it explores ways of being faithful to the Gospel/Bible for those who may be post-church or wondering about their faith. Bible, prayer, mission, theology, church, community, are some of the areas explored. Now he is the vicar of St Luke's in North London, an Anglican parish church that seeks to combine tradition with contemporary culture. He is married to Pat, and has three children and three grandchildren. Dave's website has more information about his work and ministry.

Re-emerging Church?

Mark Pierson, from World Vision, uses the term "re-emerging church", which he prefers to "emerging church" because it better reflects a desire to see existing churches resourced to re-discover their place in the culture, rather than feel that something new is going to come along and take them over. Dave has done this at St Luke's Anglican in London and his new book reflects this practice.

Dave's two keynote talks:

Church without borders
In a fractured and fragmented world where many starve for relationships and belonging, how can we build more open and inclusive communities? How can we create churches that people want to come to? How can we connect effectively with churchless spirituality?

Identity and change in an age of uncertainty
How do we listen and respond to what is happening in the world, whilst continuing to listen, and remain faithful, to our tradition? What do we let go of, and what do we hold on to? And how can our traditions and rituals be reconfigured and re-spirited to meet new needs?

Jim Wallis on young evangelicals

"Young evangelicals really think that Jesus probably would care more about the 30,000 children who died today because of poverty and disease than he would have about gay marriage amendments in Ohio. This is a new generation of abolitionists, you might say. And they are applying their faith, using their faith, addressing their faith to the challenges we face: the moral scandal of poverty; the degradation of the environment, which they call 'God's creation'; the threat of climate change; human rights; Darfur; pandemic diseases like HIV/AIDS; war and peace issues - the exclusive use of war to fight evil and the foreign policy disasters that has led us to. Their agenda is much wider and deeper."

--Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners and author of The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America

Bloggers' Ten Commandments

Godblogs, a gathering held by the Evangelical Alliance on 23 September, was designed to give Christian bloggers an opportunity to network face-to-face and think through a Christian approach to blogging. The group, aged from 18 to 87, reflected on how to honour God with their blogs and in their relationships online.
One thing some of the group produced was an updated (and not particularly tongue-in-cheek) version of the Ten Commandments for bloggers. You can see the full list here.

More about the meeting, and the making of the Commandments, here.

Evangelicals: a dying or changing breed?

An extract from an article by Christine Wicker, formerly a religion writer for The Dallas Morning News , and author of The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church .
The article is entitled: American evangelicals, once considered monolithic, are fragmenting.

Evangelicals almost never convert a native-born American who wasn’t raised in a church. That most evangelical growth comes from stealing the sheep from other denominations. And that they’ve stolen about all they can.

They’re also admitting that most evangelicals won’t evangelize. And if they did, it wouldn’t get them anywhere because the usual methods don’t work. They don’t work first because they usually rest on the idea that Christians are the only ones saved. In today’s religiously equalitarian culture, that assertion causes evangelicals to seem distastefully holier-than-thou.

Conversion tactics also focus on telling people the Good News as though no one else knows it. But most everyone has heard it. Again and again. The trouble is that they aren’t convinced. They aren’t scared of hell. They aren’t hoping for heaven. And Christians haven’t been good at giving anyone better reasons than that for following Jesus.

Wicker makes a number of other important points; you may agree with them or not. For New Zealanders, the article is of value because it looks at a society that's not too dissimilar to our own.