Being missional and how we can be missional in community – Part 1

We live in times of unprecedented change.  Millenials are the last generation born in the 20^th century (1978 to 2000).

• 50 percent of Millennials consider themselves politically unaffiliated;
• 29 percent consider themselves religiously unaffiliated;
• They have the highest average number of Facebook friends, with an average of 250 friends vs. Generations X’s 200;
• 55 percent have posted a selfie or more to social media sites versus 20 percent of Generation X;
• 8 percent of Millennials claim to have sexted, whereas 30 percent claim to have received sexts;
• They send a median of 50 texts a day;
• As of 2012, only 19 percent of Millennials said that, generally, others can be trusted;
• They are the generation that has received the most marketing attention;
• As the most ethnically diverse generation, Millennials tend to be tolerant of difference;
• Having been raised under the mantra “follow your dreams” and being told they were special, they tend to be confident;
• Millennials are cynical at heart and they don’t readily trust authority figures including the Bible.

Millennials are leaving church for the following reasons according to Barna Research:

• Christianity feels stifling, risk averse and fear based;
• Christianity is shallow – God seems missing from my experience as a churchgoer;
• Churches are antagonistic towards science;
• Church views on sexuality are simplistic and judgemental;
• Millennials wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity (since this group are so open, tolerant accepting. Christianity are only for insiders according to them.

How do we as the church respond to this new challenge?  A definition of mission from Wright’s “the Mission of God” reads as follows:

“Mission means our committed participation as God’s people, at God’s invitation and command, in God’s own mission within the history of God’s world for the redemption of God’s creation.” Williams, Rick. Uncomfortable Growth (p. 80). Kindle Edition.

When I use the term “missional” then, it refers to God’s purpose to redeem the world – it is the mission of the Father through the Son and the Holy Spirit that includes the church (Williams, Rick. Uncomfortable Growth (p. 79). Kindle Edition).

The cross is God’s redeeming mission.  It disarmed demonic powers.  Through the work of Spirit, we are indwelt by the Spirit to worship, he builds up the church, we are sanctified, gifted for ministry and the kingdom of Satan is driven back by the evangelisation of the world through proclaiming the word of Jesus and doing the works of Jesus (Williams, Rick. Uncomfortable Growth (p. 85). Kindle Edition).

Christianity holds an exclusivist position in terms of this grand narrative of the Bible – salvation is only through Jesus and you are eternally lost if you do not believe in Jesus.  Some Christian writers hold the view that Christianity is also inclusivist in that the saving grace of God is not only limited to members of the Christian church (but that non-Christian religions cannot be the vehicles thereof).

The Bible says that this gospel is for everyone and Revelation 7:9 gives us the wonderful picture of a great multitude from every tribe and tongue that no one can count standing before the throne of the Lamb.

The apostles were convinced of their role in preaching this gospel.  “God gave me the privilege of being an apostle … in order to lead people of all nations to believe and obey” (Romans 1:5).

Our personal transformation as Christians must go hand in hand with this outward mission using the vehicle of the church. Think of three spheres intersecting – God, church and world.  If we exclude the world from this continuum, we run the risk of a privatised faith.  If we exclude the exclude the gospel, we are nothing more than a social service agency (church and world only).  If we exclude the church, then bypass the gospel and the church and we have a god and me scenario only (Williams, Rick. Uncomfortable Growth (p. 92). Kindle Edition).

Popular missional author Mike Breen describes this tension as follows: “If we look at it objectively, we see churches with discipling cultures (that focus mainly on the transformation of individual self) and churches with missional cultures (which focus on the transformation of the world/people around us) and we often see tensions between these two camps.

One has a clue, but no cause. The other has a cause, but no clue. High mission/low discipleship church cultures have issues with Biblical literacy, theological reflection and deficiencies in character and Creed that, in the end, sabotage the very mission they’re about.

Critics are rightly concerned that these kinds of churches are a hair breath away from heresy, with people largely not experiencing the depth and transformation of heart and mind Jesus invites us into.

High discipleship/low mission church cultures have strength in the previous issues, but lack the adventurous spirit/ heart of compassion and Kingdom compulsion that so stirred the Father into action that he sent his only Son to a world he so loved. Their transformation isn’t leading to the place God is taking them.

Critics are rightly concerned that these kinds of churches will turn into Christian ghettos, creating people who lob “truth bombs” over their high, secure walls, creating an “us vs. them” mentality.”

God has designated the church affirming Christ as its head, as the vehicle to extend his kingdom here on earth.  At Pentecost, Peter summoned the crowd to not only repent and believe, but also be baptized and be “added” to the new community of the Spirit (Acts 2:40–47). A transfer from one community to another was clearly envisaged from the beginning. (Williams, Rick. Uncomfortable Growth (pp. 94-95). Kindle Edition.)

So then after that introduction on mission and the role of the church within mission, I return to my earlier question, how do we as the church respond to this new challenge of reaching out to a post Christian world who are unchurched?  What further complicates our role as the church is the culture of consumerism.  Consumerism is dangerous in its immediacy – the “heaven now” scenario – there is no self-denial, giving rather getting, suffering in the process of living the Christian life as a disciple of Christ.

The church cannot veer from Matthew 28:19-20. We need to make disciples, but we need to make them like Jesus did.  Being a disciple in terms of its essential meaning is someone who becomes a life-long learner and apprentice of Jesus. (Williams, Rick. Uncomfortable Growth (p. 112). Kindle Edition).  An often-neglected aspect of discipleship in today’s church culture, is that that the disciples were with Jesus in order to learn from him.  Jesus spent extended time with his disciples – discipling was not a crash course.  He spent time with a few.  Instead today we are generally attracted to large gatherings rather than committed to the hidden work with a few (Williams, Rick. Uncomfortable Growth (p. 118). Kindle Edition).  There were times that large gatherings responded to the gospel in the book of Acts, but they were thereafter properly discipled.

The greatest tragedy of today’s church in general is that ministry is left to a few.  We are all called to be ministers and it crucial to do this in community.  The twelve were discipled as a group.

As disciples, we are not called exclusively to Christian service, but we are called to reach to our families, places of work and places where can influence others.  Community and relationship is therefore vital to our health as a church.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book, Life Together, reminds us that living among other Christians is an immense privilege. “The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.”  Gibbs and Bolger in Emerging Churches point out, “A first century Christian would have been puzzled by the question, ‘Where do you go to church?’ for church was a network of people to which one belonged.”.

“Similar to this is the concept of what has been called “communities of witness”. A group of people may, for example, live together in a residential location or share a particular interest or outreach passion. Gathering together to talk and pray, they discover how they might organize themselves into a community of witness. The emphasis is on mutual support in working out the implications of mission in their particular context. These can also develop in hospitals, colleges and businesses, by identifying other Christians who work there and exploring together the opportunities for Christian ministry. A further way of mobilizing the church might be to consider ministry in more than one location. These “mission outposts” throughout the community provide contact points for those who are unlikely to ever come to the church centre. Groups of recent immigrants, residents of a nursing home, students at college or university, or youth at a skateboard facility are all examples of possible mission outposts. These sorts of initiatives send the unmistakable message to the church – that it exists to equip people to go into the world, to value their vocation, and to be effective bearers of the good news wherever they go” Williams, Rick. Uncomfortable Growth (p. 140- 141). Kindle Edition.

Most of our churches today are however attractional.  A definition of “attractional” would perhaps be something like this: a way of ministry that derives from the primary purpose of making Christianity appealing (Wilson, Jared C.. The Prodigal Church: A Gentle Manifesto against the Status Quo (p. 25). Crossway. Kindle Edition). These churches over an easier, more palatable gospel focussing on success and excellent worship with all the paraphernalia that goes along with it (videos etc).  However, members are largely made up of Christians playing the proverbial church chairs (or I suppose musical chairs could be quite apt with the great worship available).  The number of unchurched being reached is highly questionable.

“Nearly every major statistical survey into American church life is showing that the nation is becoming less and less churched, even as megachurches become bigger and more common. It turns out that while megachurches are flourishing, America has suffered an actual net loss of churchgoers since the rise of the seeker/attractional movement” Wilson, Jared C. The Prodigal Church: A Gentle Manifesto against the Status Quo (p. 35). Crossway. Kindle Edition.  I believe that the same is true of the South African church environment.

I close today with this quote and we will continue next week with missional models for today’s church:

“There are millions of people in smaller congregations across the country who live with a feeling that they are failures because their church isn’t as big as the megaplex congregation down the street. This is sad and should not be the case. A global survey conducted by Christian Schwartz found that smaller churches consistently scored higher than large churches in seven out of eight qualitative characteristics of a healthy church. A more recent study of churches in America, conducted by Ed Stetzer and LifeWay Ministries, revealed that churches of two hundred or less are four times more likely to plant a daughter church than churches of one thousand or more. The research seems to even indicate that the pattern continues—the smaller the size of the church the more fertile they are in planting churches. It pains me that so many churches and leaders suffer from an inferiority complex when in fact they could very well be more healthy and fruitful than the big-box church down the street.  I am not suggesting that the mega church is something we need to end, I am simply saying that we need other kinds of churches to truly transform our world. I also do not want people in huge churches to think that, just because they have more people and more money, they are more blessed by God. The stats tell us that ten smaller churches of 100 people will accomplish much more than one church of 1000” Wilson, Jared C.. The Prodigal Church: A Gentle Manifesto against the Status Quo (pp. 41-42). Crossway. Kindle Edition.