In recent times I've had the opportunity to attend a FORGE conference and get my hands on some material by Hirsch and Frost, and essentially get a bit more up to date with the whole "emerging church" movement.Much ink has been spilled over reservations about the whole movement, particularly over their interactions with more "traditional" mainline churches. I share the sentiments of many others (Glen has written some excellent comments here), feeling that they have many good things to offer, but do often come across as being a bit arrogant in the simplistic neglect of tradition. Nonetheless, I'm inspired by their commitment to serious discipleship (something which has definitely lapsed in many churches) as well as their intense missional focus, particularly in their service to the poor.
No doubt there are some questionable characters in the movement (I'm not a fan of McLaren), but amongst the more balanced people, I've been interested to find how much they have in common with the spirit of Wesleyanism. For example, in The Shaping of Things to Come, Hirsch and Frost write:
...what the church needs to find its way out of the situation it's in at the beginning of the 21st Century, is not more faddish theories about how to grow the church without fundamentally reforming structures. What the church needs is a revolutionary new approach.They advocate that the church need to restructure itself around the concept of mission (rather than worship, which is very prevalent today), on the basis that:
...the missional church represents God in the encounter between God and human culture....it is a visible manifestation of how the Good News of Jesus Christ is present in human life and transforms human culture to reflect more faithfully God's intentions for creation.In other words, our construct of ministry and mission should not and must not be centered within what we call "Church". "Ministry" is not just about ushering, leading worship or playing the piano - it is also very much (and more so!) about MISSION - our engagement and interaction with the world the other 6 days of the week. For many, it is thus lamentable that church structures and organisations are so church-centered - we encourage people to attend prayer meets, cell groups, sunday schools, choirs, courses, seminars, workshops, meetings, etc, hence effectively taking people OUT of their community and keeping them IN the Church.
Hirsch and Frost see this church centered functioning as a logical outcome of "traditional" ways of church organisation and institutionalisation, and hence call for a radical restructuring of our churches, at points calling us to return to "primitive" Christianity.
What struck me was how similar this sounded to the Wesleys as they began their ministry. Chilcote, in The Wesleyan Tradition, comments on the Wesleys' beliefs:
Commenting on the Wesleys' understanding of the function of the church, he says:
The church of England in the Wesleys' day was an institution in need of repair...It had become distant from and irrelevant to the world it was called to serve during a time of tremendous change. Its forms and its structures had become so inflexible and devoid of life that the weight of its "institutionalism" was quenching the Spirit, suffocating the life of God's people....It needed to rediscover itself and reclaim its identity as God's agent of love in the world. The Wesleys believed that God raised them up to resuscitate the church.
Their ecclesiology (understanding of the church), therefore, was essentially missiological (formed around mission)... All of their energy was directed toward the empowerment of Christ's fiathful disciples in ministry to God's world. Indeed, they all viewed evangelism and mission...as the reason for their existence.
Given that the Methodist Church today has become more well known for being "Methodical" (in terms of beauracracy and red tape, rather than in the pursuit of holiness), I can't help but wonder whether the much maligned "Emerging Church" movement actually better embodies what it means to be a Methodist than many Methodists, by demonstrating a stronger passion for a more missional, discipleship oriented, and contextual approach to church life.However, perhaps more importantly, how do we as a church rediscover what it means to be "missional" - what sacrifices and pains will it take, and will we take them?
3 comments:
Depends what you mean by "Wesleyan" I guess. John Wesley would I think be bemused by the Emerging Church's low ecclesiology. One does not need to be "church-lite" to be missional. His class meetings were designed to complement not replace the Anglican liturgy. The people Wesley reached outside of the Anglican structure were promptly organised into a very busy and active ecclesiastical organisation. I am not yet convinced that the Misional and Emergent Churches are doing a better job at mission than the so called traditonal church. Both movements seem to attract disgruntled Evangelicals rather than unchurched people. No matter how successful we are in mission we have to do something with the people we reach. A concrete community of worshipping believers is the natural outcome of mission is it not?
I agree on the "low ecclesiology" of the Emerging and Missional Churches, and do too feel that is an area to be strengthened. I also stand with you on being unconvinced that "traditional" churches are a dead end.
However, what I was pointing out was that some key elements - eg: having a missiological ecclesiology, and a strong concept of christian vocation - are also key elements of Wesleyan theology (even if it is much more mature). I am not aware of what is happening in your denomination, but from my vantage point, it does seem that my denomination has lost some of that. For example, my church prides itself on prioritising "worship" - ie worship seems to be the focus of our ecclesiology. Not that it's bad, but it does mean that concepts of "ministry" lies largely within the church and it's programs, and mission is relegated to overseas activitiy (the concept of being "missional" to our communities has been lost). Hence my comment that this emerging church movement seems to have more in common with wesleyanism than we do!
And agreed too that a worshipping community should be the outcome of mission. But what happens when "worship" replaces mission at the center of the church's identity, and it fails to continue engaging with the world around it? That's something I'm thinking about - should our ecclesiology be missional in nature, with worship as a secondary outcome (as chilcote seems to suggest Wesley did)? I'm not longer convinced that "mission" can be relegated to being another "ministry" (alongside finances, christian education, etc), but has to play a central/close to central role in our identity as the body of Christ.
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