“The church of Jesus Christ exists to be a sign of the kingdom of God in the culture in which it exists. It is the light and hope in a reprobate world that suggest there is an alternative worldview where giving, losing, serving, and turning our cheeks are higher values than hoarding, gaining, controlling, and avenging. The body of christ is the visible expression of a value system that sets love and obedience above rights and freedom.” (p. 160)
Apathetic.
Hypocritical.
Judgmental.
Arrogant.
Aloof.
Out-of-touch.
These are just some of the adjectives that some have used to describe the church in the West, and particularly the church in North America. The tragic thing is that many of the comments, which employ these and other adjectives, are made by those who are on the fringe. They have either given up on the church and have been part of an exodus from the church. Or they have never been a part of the church, yet critique it as if they have firsthand knowledge.
Admittedly, the church is not all that God has intended it to be. In many instances the adjectives and criticisms are justified and true. What is disconcerting, however, is the voices that decry the problems of the church neither offer a new way forward nor do they endeavor to help be part of a positive change as a part of the church. Jimmy Dorrell and the folks at The Church Under the Bridge, however, are an exception. Acknowledging the imperfections of the church has been part of a long process in which through soul-searching and the guidance of the Holy Spirit they have forged a new kind of church. A church that makes sense to and speaks the truth of God into the lives of a wide smathering of society. Drugs addicts and prostitutes worship next to business executives and spoiled college students. Together they do life together. They learn from one another. And, not surprisingly, they and the church that embraces these folks are better for it.
Trolls and Truthis a phenomenal book from a pastor who has learned firsthand the inadequacy of the church as it currently is and has fought hard and championed the church as it ought to be. The result is a heart-felt, beautiful, and sometimes uproariously funny set of “14 realities that today’s church doesn’t want to see.” Dorrell’s wit and humor is able to disarm the reader to the extent that the reader will be nodding in agreement with many of the observations that he has made. The stories help the reader to know that while this book critiques the church and proposes a new way forward that it is not a purely academic or untried series of suggestions- instead, these stories are recorded by a pastor who has experienced the pain and joy that are characteristic of the way forward.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Standing Stone Coffee Company, Panera Bread Company, a traffic jam along the I-80 corridor, The Portland Center, and my house.
Individually these places seem to have very little in common. Standing Stone Coffee Company is a coffee shop in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where I like to go on a date with my wife or conduct business meetings throughout the day. Panera Bread is a restaurant chain whose menu provides a scrumptious alternative to the burger joints, when I go to visit a parishioner at Altoona General or Mt. Nittany hospitals. A traffic jam, in the west bound lane of I-80, means that I sit in an unmoving car within eyesight of my exit. The Portland Center, as it is affectionately known by both faculty and students, is the Lake Oswego extension of George Fox University where the seminary is housed. And my home- well it is my home.
Taken collectively, however, these places compose my classroom. As a student in a virtual learning environment, in which the vast majority of my coursework is conducted online, I am able to engage in the learning process from almost anywhere. I am able to engage in discussions via my laptop as I sit at my favorite coffee shop, sipping my delectable beverage of choice, while making use of the free WI-FI. It is possible for me to upload a project from my iPhone, while waiting for my next meeting to join me at my Panera lunchtable.
Many universities, colleges, and institutions of learning are now moving in the direction of virtual learning communities. Magazines and online sources which used to tout the value of relocating to attend this educational institution or that are now turning their attention and efforts toward institutions offering world-class educations for a fraction of the price and without the hassle of relocation.
Are Moodle and ScribLink going to be the classrooms of the future?
Are the hashtags of Twitter and the ding of an incoming email message going to be the hand-raising of a new generation of students who are seeking to engage with their professor and fellow students in meaningful dialogue about a subject?
Will video chats and asynchronous discussions provide students with an education that is as rich with “real world experience” as it is with time in the classroom?
Only time will tell. Though some would say that the future is now.
As a reflective practitioner in the realm of Christian ministry and as churches what will such educational advancements call forth in us as we seek to effectively engage a new generation in hearing afresh and anew the good news of Jesus Christ?
Pedagogically, what steps must we take now to ensure that the ways in which we are teaching the good news five years from today does not leave us talking only to ourselves?
Jesus be the center
Be my source be my light Jesus
Jesus be the center
Be my song Jesus
Be the fire in my heart
Be the wind in my sails
Be the reason that I live
Jesus Jesus
Jesus be my vision
Be my help
Be my guide Jesus
(lyrics to “Jesus Be the Centre,” by Michael Frye)
he words to this song are both simple and beautiful.
From a personal perspective, they present an approach to life which places Jesus at the center of our lives and being.
Tonight as the lyrics to this song danced through my mind, however, I viewed them from a different perspective. Over the course of the last three days, I’ve spent a great deal of time listening to Alan Hirsch lecture on the mDNA of the church. During the lectures and the discussion time which followed, Hirsch asserted rather strongly that Christology informs Missiology which informs Ecclesiology.
It is an assertion, which for the Christian, seems to make sense.
As followers of Christ, individually and corporately, He is the author and perfecter of our faith. It is Christ who is the Way, Truth and Life. It is He who exegetes for us what God is like.
With that in mind, it would seem that Jesus would both be at the center of the faith as well as the source of and standard by which we measure our own missional effectiveness.
What is the church? Why does it exist?
Bound up in those two classic ecclesiological questions is, it seems, the idea of identity and mission. And if we assert that the church belongs to Christ and that His mission has become our own, Hirsch’s assertion makes sense. Jesus, it seems, would be at the center. He would provide us with what we might know about the missio dei, which would in turn shape our understanding of how God’s people might be organized and mobilized to achieve said mission.
In An Introduction to Ecclesiology,Veli-Matti Karkkainen asserts that, “Where there is a one-sided emphasis on Christology, church structures tend to become dominating.” [1] According to Karkkainen the reason for such dominating structures is none other than the incarnation. In particular, a one-sided emphasis on Christology, in Karkkainen’s view, results in dominating church structures when the church envisions and understands itself in terms of continued incarnation.
If this is indeed the case, it would seem that the idea that Christology informs missiology informs ecclesiology is indeed true, but not quite in the way that Hirsch asserts. In fact, this premise, as suggested by Hirsch, would seem to lead to a form of church structure which would be antithetical to the organic structures which Hirsch also asserts are a fundamental part of the mDNA of the church.
Assuming the Hirsch’s assertion regarding the mDNA of the church is correct, it would seem that we must either abandon Hirsch’s conception regarding the source of the church’s ecclesiology or adjust it in such a way so as to interject new life and fluidity into the structures of the church. Karkkanien, in facts, seems to allow for such a possibility in his discussion of the Eastern Orthodox church, when he writes, “The Christological aspect creates the objective and unchangeable features of the church, while as a result of the pneumatological asoect there is a subjective side of the church. In other words, the Christological aspect guarantees stability while its pneumatological aspect gives the church a dynamic character.” [2]
If this is the case, however, where is God the Father in all of this? What, if anything, is absent from our ecclesiologies if we include God the Son and the Spirit, but fail to include the Father?
Assuming that Hirsch’s assertion regarding mDNA is correct, and assuming that ___________ inform Mission which informs Ecclesiology- who or what would you place at the center?
[1] Karkkainen, Veli, Matti, An Introduction to Ecclesiology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 33.
The Wesleyan Church, the denomination of which I am a part, is hosting a series of ‘Pastors Forum(s)’ in the coming months. The purpose of these meetings/forums/discussions is:
to gather knowledge from the grassroots on what needs to be revived, refined, reinvented, and/or restructured in order for North American Wesleyans to achieve our vision of “Fulfilling the Great Commission in the spirit of the Great Commandment.” During three to three and a half hours of conversation, we will discuss what a denomination should look like that is passionately and powerfully spreading hope and holiness to transform individuals, churches, communities, and cultures. Your General Superintendent and District Superintendent want to hear your responses to the following:
-What are your greatest hopes for The Wesleyan Church?
-What is your church already doing to spread transformational hope and holiness?
-What are the barriers that prevent or hinder your local church from doing this?
-What needs to be revived, refined, reinvented and/or restructured in order for The Wesleyan Church in North America to achieve its vision?
-How should we be measuring the health and growth of The Wesleyan Church to evaluate our mission effectiveness?
(Excerpt from an email from Rev. Randy Swink, District Superintendent of the Western Pa. District of the Wesleyan Church)
The final question, “How should we be measuring the health and growth of the Wesleyan Church to evaluate our mission effectiveness?” is, for me, the most intriguing and perplexing question on the list.
It’s intriguing because I have a “love-hate” relationship with measurement, because it so often denigrates into a discussion about statistics.
Each May, I sit down and dutifully prepare the annual statistical report, and the accompanying forms, which are required by both my district and the denomination. The process is slow and tedious, but is not nearly as horrible or time-consuming as I was initially led to believe. That said, as I compute and then input the statistics, I am oftentimes left with a sense of unease and dissatisfaction. Are the statistics that are being asked for (statistics primarily having to do with attendance, membership, and budgetary items) really an accurate measure of: 1) what God is doing in the hearts and lives of His people, in this particular location, and at this time? and, 2) the effectiveness of the local church in accomplishing its mission?
I wrestle with the question of how to effectively measure the health and growth, while at the same time evaluating our mission effectiveness, because I’m not sure that it is a question that can adequately be addressed in light of the current institutional structures and emphases. Here is, in bullet-point form, what I mean:
I was talking with Todd Hunter, the other day, in an effort to get a better handle on some things that we are looking to do in our local ministry context. During the course of that conversation Todd made the comment that, “Once you decide what to measure, you have shaped your mission and future.” I think that Todd’s statement was spot-on. As a local church, we can say that we are about “reaching our community for Christ” or in showing the love of Christ to our community in tangible ways, but when we sit around the table at leadership meeting we only talk about how many visits I made as a pastor and how many people we had in our respective services throughout the week- is reaching our community for Christ or sharing the love of Christ in tangible ways really central to our mission or what we would like to see take place in the future? The truth is that we can talk about such things and say that we are committed to them, yet, all-the-while, our focus and emphasis remains on other things. What we measure shapes who we are now, as well as who we will become. That said, denominationally, can we truly talk about measuring the health and growth, let alone the missional effectiveness, of the Church while at the same time keeping intact a reporting system that is driven by bucks, butts, and buildings? Can we say that we are concerned about missional effectiveness, when those churches and pastors which are recognized are the ones who have built bigger buildings, seen an exponential increase in giving, and/or have seen attendance explode?
While statistics, necessarily, will always tend to be part of the way that we measure things, might there be a better way for us to “measure missional effectiveness”? One of the newest initiatives to be rolled out by the Wesleyan Church has been that of m3(which proposes that we focus on becoming a missional, multiplicational movement of God in which we see believers, leaders, and churches being multiplied). Personally, I have no qualms with such an emphasis. In fact, it seems as if the Church, our churches, and our communities would in fact be better places if we had committed believers, leaders, and churches who were on a mission to be the hermeneutic of the gospel. That said, however, is our current system of measures structured in such a way as to measure the force and impact of the missional, multiplicational movement? As we statistically count those who raised a hand, prayed a prayer, or visited an altar are we truly measuring a church’s capacity/ability to multiply believers? How many of those who have been counted on such a line, on our statistical reports, have either prayed a prayer and disappeared (bearing no fruit and evidencing no maturation) or have become a nominal, pew-warming individual? Is it possible that if we are striving to be a missional, multiplication movement, that we should be measuring (in one shape or form) how many believers are moved to minister to the world as if it were their parish?! Maybe, for example, we should be asking whether the belief of a believer is leading to a tangible difference in that person’s relationship with her family, co-workers, and her community. In other words, might we find a way to measure the kingdom-impact of a believer upon his/her sphere of influence?
When we speak of attempting to “measure missional effectiveness,” I think that we need to decide what “missional effectiveness” really is. Is the mission, which we are trying to measure, something that is universal- in that, it is a mission for all of God’s people, in all times, and in all places? If so, then maybe we need to come up with a way to measure how well our the churches of the Wesleyan denomination are cooperating with the churches of other denominations so that the missio Dei can be accomplished. Are we endeavoring to measure missional effectiveness of a mission which is unique to our denomination? If so, we may need to ask how we can measure these missional distinctives in such a way so as to accurately gauge and measure our success in these areas of ministry and mission, rather than in unrelated areas. Or, are we striving to measure the missional effectiveness of a local church, whose mission may look different from church to church? If this is the case, can a denomination ever hope to accurately measure missional effectiveness?!
These are just some of my rudimentary thoughts on the subject. In some sense, I feel that I have raised far more questions than for which I will ever have answers. What is more, I am well-aware that the questions that I have raised do not even begin to address the litany of questions which exist on the subject.
With that in mind, I would like to pose to questions to you, the reader: 1) Whether you are Wesleyan, or not, how would you define “missional effectiveness”? and 2) What mechanisms/statistics/criteria would you employ as you seek to measure missional effectiveness?
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