The ecclesiological shift is found in the church renewing its missional identity in practice as well as in theory. Moving from merely a sending church that sends a few professional missionaries to a imaginatively exploring and living as a sent people who live out mission daily. The West is growing more and more Post-Christian which may sound like all bad news. This shift can however contain promise in it for the Church in the Post-Christian West in offering it a purifying challenge. Today there is a huge opportunity for the church to develop a missiology of Western culture and be what by nature she is called to be: A sent people, a missional church.
"...the church in the West had not become completely 'missional'--adapting and reformulating absolutely everything it did in worship, discipleship, community, and service--so as to be engaged with the non-Christian society around it. It had not developed a 'missiology of western culture' the way it had done so for other non-believing cultures." The Missional Church
Later in this same article Keller shares the four key characteristics of missional churches who've made the ecclesiological shift;
1.
Discourse in the
vernacular: Missional churches avoid tribal language, we-them language, talking
as though non-believers weren't present in our churches. We must learn to
discourse in the local vernacular's our churches are situated within
2.
Enter and re-tell
the culture's stories with the gospel: Missional churches enter
into their culture by showing sympathy toward and deep acquaintance with the
artifacts of the culture (music, art, literature, food, etc.) acknowledging the
goodness of culture because of common grace and the image of God in all
humanity; missional churches are able to re-tell their cultures stories in
light of the biblical story which shows us how in Christ we can have freedom
without slavery, embracing the 'other' without injustice.
3.
Theologically
train lay people for public life and vocation: Missional
churches train everyone to 'think Christianly' about everything and work with
distinctive's shaped by the biblical story; people are encouraged to renew and
transform culture through a theology of work; and to become culture-makers;
missional churches encourage people to demonstrate love and 'tolerance' in the
public square, under cutting intolerance as a common defeater of the gospel in
the Post-Christian West.
4. Create Christian community which is counter-cultural and counter-intuitive: Missional churches seek to empower and equip the body to show the surrounding culture how radically different a Christian society is with regard to sex, money, and power; and missional churches practice holistic mission because the world is a holistic mess because of sin and God has provided a holistic answer in Christ; they do this through word and deed, through the proclamation and presence of the Kingdom of God.
The ecclesiological shift of the missional church is a holistic shift. A shift made for the sake of reaching, in incarnational way, those without Christ in the Post-Christian West. As Harvie M. Conn said long ago,
"The most difficult step for many
missionaries and urban church planters in the United States to take is to
rearrange our lives. Jesus rearranged His life for us, and it is imperative
that we rearrange our lives for the people he died for."
Discussion Questions:
1.
Is it only bad news that the West is growing more and more
Post-Christian? What benefit could this new setting bring to the church?
2.
Are missional churches the only viable expression of the church in
the global setting of today?
Thank you everyone for commenting and contributing. I have learned
more from all of you than you have no doubt learned from me. Here are a few
resource suggestions to continue considering the Missional Church;
Best short article; The Missional Church, by Tim Keller
Best book; The Missional Church: A vision for the sending
of the Church in North America, edited by Darrell Guder
Helpful video short: What is the Missional Church?, by Tony Stiff
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"Is it only bad news that the West is growing more and more Post-Christian? What benefit could this new setting bring to the church?"
Tony, thanks for these posts. This is a great question, even if I'd prefer to say 'post-Christendom' since I'm not too convinced that the West or any other fallen culture can really be 'Christian'.
Benefits? - what follows is more a prayer than anything. I guess it all depends on how we discern what the Spirit of God is saying to us in the midst of change? But whatever the future, we need to go forward in faith not fear - or wanting to 'run back' to the security of the past.
Maybe a deeper trust in God rather than our own cultural power and strength in numbers? Maybe a renewed focus on mission rather than assumptions of a 'come to us' church. Maybe being more open to dialogue & listening to others outside the church from being a minority in a pluralist & secularising culture? Maybe increased humility borne from life on the margins rather than the centre? Maybe a renewal of humble evangelism in a culture which knows less and less of the Christian story and assumes Christianity is bad news? Maybe deeper prayer as we recognise there is a cultural shift going on far outside our control? Maybe a rediscovery of the gospel as good news and 'public truth' for all of life. Maybe the church will be spiritually renewed to incarnate the gospel in its community life, rather than be propped up by the crumbling pillars of Christendom.
RJS mentioned the "vernacular" issue -- what that made me think of was how *some* in emerging and missional circles are advocating more liturgy, weekly Eucharist, etc. That would seem to collide head-on with Keller's "vernacular" advocacy.
If we sing the Gloria Patri every week (heck, I've been in churches for 30 years and I'm not really sure what the part starting with "As it was" is supposed to mean), or say "the new covenant in my blood" every week, are we failing to be "missional"?
Something is missing here. Point #4 says we are to create counter-cultural churches regarding money, sex and power. But it says nothing of being counter-cultural regarding the racial segregation that is rampant in our churches and that some do not even think about.
Tim Keller has done good work in this regard in his church, but if this primary sin of our society is not addressed in smaller churches in less metropolitan places, the Missional Church, of which I am a supporter, will fail. I think both of Chris Rice's essay on two churches in Durham and our congregation here in Grand Rapids, where our congregation is working hard in some regards but has a long way to go with learning how to work and serve alongside their brothers and sisters.
Peace,
Randy
AHH-
"...how *some* in emerging and missional circles are advocating more liturgy, weekly Eucharist, etc. That would seem to collide head-on with Keller's "vernacular" advocacy."
On the contrary- I think it speaks to the vernacular issue well. Many outside (and inside) the church have at least some knowledge of such practices, and expect/want it. It brings to mind the recent study that showed how the unchurched would rather worship in a traditional place of worship than in a modern, business-like building.
Of course this, and many of the things Keller mentions, have to do with context. Keller regularly reminds people to keep in mind that he is speaking from a NYC context, and that we should adapt to our own circumstances accordingly.
RJS says, "We will create a counter cultural Christian community if and only if lay people are trained theologically for public life and vocation..."
Maybe. I'm more inclined to think that our model of "theological vocational training" is part of the problem that perpetuates our stark Constantinian lay-clergy duality.
The Jesus movement was counter-cultural not because it trained religious authorities, but because it entrusted all people as "priests," regardless of academic or vocational achievement.
Rather than encouraging the professional / amateur duality, let's find ways to flatten our inherited religious hierarchies and encourage all-body participation.
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