406.1.4 Contemporary Forms of Missional Church

Birmingham October 2012

Comprehension – ensuring you understand the material

Development – broader perspectives on the subject matter

Application – contextualization of the subject

matter in your own work setting

Mutual enrichment – a seminar context where peer learning can take place.

Reminder of the Aims of an RSN Day

Aims:

To analyse the present missionary context in contemporary Western culture.

Objectives:

By the end of the topic students will be able to evaluate opportunities for the church to communicate its message in its cultural context.

The Church and Mission – NT origins and questions

Our context of the 20th century

Post WW2 - signs of hope and the cultural and social revolution of the 1960s

Recent developments in evangelical Christianity

The church in the 21st Century

Understanding the times – need to distinguish local, national, continental and worldwide perspectives

Contemporary Forms of Missional Church

Section 1: Church and Mission – NT Origins

• What was the Mission of Jesus ? - to form a church organisation ? - or a movement to renew Israel ?

Was the institutional church an accident (Kung) ?

• What was the Mission of the Apostles?• the founding of ‘Jesus synagogues’ early on • the growth of new ‘eschatological communities’ (without

the cultural clothing of Judaism or any other cultural pre-requisites)

Section 1: Church and Mission – NT Origins

• Mission as the reason for the existence of the church is not deeply grounded in the imagination of western Christians compared to issues of denominational organisation, doctrinal distinctives, and worship styles •As a result ‘mission’ can be seen as another ‘programme’ or activity of the church, something else that it does, not an essential expression of what it is

The church community was formed to continue the mission of Jesus – to reveal the kingdom of God to the world

So ‘mission’ is not to be understood as just one activity or programme of the church (nor just evangelism overseas)

Spirit inspired mission to the world, which extends God’s kingdom, expresses the true identity of Christ’s church

Section 1 – The relation between church and mission

‘Mission doesn’t mean multiplying churches, but finding ways to show God’s love and greatness to the world.

If you focus on mission, churches will follow, but if you focus on churches, mission often gets lost.’

Pastor Bob Roberts quoted in Leadership magazine, Winter 2007

‘The church is only the church when it exists for others’ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The church and mission

Recent secular histories have stressed the violence and hatred of 20th century

The War of the World : History’s Age of Hatred – Niall Ferguson

Reflections on a Ravaged Century – Robert Conquest Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century –

Jonathan Glover Dark Continent – Mark Mazower

Section 2 – The Violent 20th Century

‘The hundred years after 1900 were without question the bloodiest century in history, far more violent in relative as well as absolute terms than any previous era.’ Niall Ferguson

Total violent deaths – c175m WW1 – 9-10m WW2 – 58-59m (of which 25m were Russians) Communism – under Mao – 40m+, under Stalin c20m

The Violent 20th Century

World War 1 – Christendom undone by all sides combining Christian faith with national patriotism

Russian Revolution effectively destroyed the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church

The Chinese communist revolution evicted all Western missions and resulted in sustained persecution of Christians , as also in N Korea and former Soviet states

20th Century Violence and the Christian Church

Auschwitz in civilised Europe The ending of the Marxist dream

◦ Emerging truth about Stalinism and the Russian Gulag◦ Economic and social disasters under Mao◦ Fall of the Berlin Wall

Hiroshima and the threat of a nuclear holocaust Environmental destruction The limits to economic growth

‘The chief business of 20th century philosophy is to reckon with 20th century history’ RG Collingwood

20th Century Challenges to Enlightenment Humanism / ‘Modernity’

Continued growth in world Catholicism Evangelicals stirred by Billy Graham missions in UK

and USA Liberal Protestantism and social activism both at

home and in mission The ecumenical movement and WCC’s support to

‘third world’ Christianity Grassroots explosive rise of a diverse Pentecostalism

– on the margins of the historic churches

Section 3 – Church developments (1) 1950s – Signs of Hope

Willingen Conference of the International Missionary Council (1952) – affirmed the essentially missionary character of the church – i.e. sent into the world

This Council explored the understanding of mission as firstly the mission of the Triune God (missio Dei)

The gradual acceptance that the church’s nature and purpose must be shaped by the missio Dei was to receive a very different stimulus by the cultural transformation of the ‘long’ 1960s

Church developments (1) - The Rediscovery of the Missio Dei

Until the 1960s, the tone of English public life remained a comfortably stodgy Protestant Anglicanism. Now that seems a world away.

Diarmaid MacCulloch

Church developments (2) - The 1960s

The Devastating Impact of the 1960s

“This book is about the death of Christian Britain – the demise of the nation’s core religious and moral identity. As historical changes go, this has been no lingering and drawn-out affair. It took several centuries (in what historians used to call the Dark Ages) to convert Britain to Christianity, but it has taken less than forty years for the country to forsake it….quite suddenly in 1963, something very profound ruptured the character of the nation and its people, sending organised Christianity on a downward spiral to the margins of social significance.”

Callum Brown

Women’s liberation and equality Contraception Smaller families Easier divorce Rapid increase in single parent families Homosexuality as a lifestyle Abortion on demand

Cultural Shifts In Family and Sexual Attitudes

Between 1914 and 1950 the number of Christians in Africa is estimated to have grown from 4m to 75m

Latin America – a similar growth of Pentecostalism South Korea from a Buddhist to a predominantly Christian

country in 50 years 500m Pentecostals today from zero in 1900 By mid 21st century only 20% of Christians in the world will be

‘white’

Beyond the European perspective - The Shift in World Christianity – from North to South

Martin Luther King and civil rights – Christian imagery and inspiration

East Europeans Christians and the fall of the Berlin Wall

Ending of Apartheid in South Africa – and role of key Anglicans – Huddleston, Collins, Tutu

Christians and Social Revolutions

Church developments (3) The last 30 years in the UK ‘Church Growth in Britain – 1980 to the present’ ed.

David Goodhew◦ London – 70% growth in Anglicans in last 20 years ◦ Growing black and other ethnic churches – 1m members◦ Baptist church growth◦ New non-mainstream churches◦ 5000 new churches (v 5000 closures?)◦ An antidote to an ‘ecclesiology of fatalism’

◦Four Threads to Consider: Evangelicals, Charismatics and Pentecostals Gospel in our Culture Network Emerging Church Fresh Expressions

Section 4 – Recent Changes in Evangelical Christianity

• The Growth of the Evangelical Alliance in the UK• Conversions, renewed social activism, and hope for revival• liberal Christianity and scholarship at a dead end

• The Development of the Charismatic Movement:• Phase One – The Fountain Trust – cross denominational• Phase Two – House Church/ New Churches• Phase Three – Wimber/ Toronto Blessing/ other manifestations

• The move towards promoting programmes (mostly from the USA) to support church growth/’improve church’• Purpose Driven (Rick Warren)• Seeker Targeted (Bill Hybels)• Cell Church and G12

The Re-emergence of the Evangelicals from late 60s

The Re-emergence of the Evangelicals from late 60s

• Pan Evangelical / Charismatic / Pentecostal developments (supported by the Evangelical Alliance and Spring Harvest )

• Many benefits but also problems• programmes do not replicate outcomes when applied in

different cultures and by different leaders• the best of the attractional model of church – bringing the

world to the church not sending the church to the world

• EPC’s spirituality strengths and weaknesses (Alan Jamieson)• Many conversions but many drop out or burnout • A focus on church renewal – followed by revival?• Some EPC features may have alienated society

The Gospel and Our Culture Movement

1. Lesslie Newbigin - The Other Side of 1984 – the challenge of secularism as another faith

2. The Gospel and Our Culture Consultation, Swanwick 1992 – responding to the change in both intellectual and popular culture

3. Follow up books in the USA

4. The development of the term ‘missional’ to differentiate churches which see their own culture as a mission field from those which are mainly interested in personal evangelism and overseas mission

The Emerging Church

The emerging church phenomenon – hard to actually see because it is still “emerging” !

Origins of “emerging church”

• Alternative Worship (Alt worship) - Largely interested in the aesthetics of worship itself

•Mission focused - Concerned to shape the church around mission praxis

• But also struggling to relate the church’s mission to the discontinuities in current culture

• Anglican approach of ‘Fresh Expressions’

The Emerging Church

1. Critique of church growth models as belonging to a modernity that is passing

2. Critique in particular of the mega-church and a concern for:• neighbourhood churches• experimental and provisional forms of church

3. The Emergent v Liminal (or transitional) debate (Roxburgh)

Fresh Expressions - Origins

- Bob and Mary Hopkins ministry

- St Thomas’ Crookes Sheffield ‘Nine O’Clock Service’

- Church Army and the Sheffield Centre

- Decade of Evangelism

- Springboard and the Mission Shaped Church Report

- Report points towards the need for diversity of expression and experimentation – hence “fresh expression of church”

Fresh Expressions of Church

Questions:

- Should it be fresh expressions of church or fresh expressions of mission?

- Is it about getting the church to engage with the world or getting the world to engage with the church ?

- Are fresh expressions of church merely providing another consumer experience in our culture?

The main issue for missional approaches is how the gospel relates to culture

We are enjoined to focus on the activity of God in local culture, rather than end up continually focussed on the church

Matters of ecclesiology are rightly deemed to be derived from this more fundamental concern

However the concept of church as a sign, foretaste and instrument of the Kingdom helps this perspective

Missional v ecclesiological

More interdenominational activity at all levels More modern liturgy and musical forms More participation by lay people in ministry More participation by women in ministry More engagement with biblical scholarship More openness to charismatic gifts More openness to the ‘5 fold’ ministries More worldwide engagement with the poor and social

justice

How many of these are ‘missional’ in origin and intent ?

Section 5 – The Church in 21st Century – Signs of Change

The Church in 21st Century - promoting ‘missional living’ rather than ‘consumer church’:

• Personal spiritual practices and formation • Serving those beyond, as well as in, the church• The development of significant community (e.g. the new monasticism) serving its wider community • Prophetic insight in bearing witness to a different ordering of society •‘Glocal’ engagement by the local church – sharing its resources

Interpreting the crucified God – powerlessness and resurrection - are we to be a suffering church ?

How does the church promote truth and reconciliation between nations and peoples ?

How do Christians relate to those of other faiths in a pluralist and secularist world?

What about the disappearance of talk about death and hell and eternity?

Is the church and its mission about suffering or success ?

The Gospel in 21st Century - Questions

1. Apply systematic knowledge and critical understanding to the contemporary discussion of the distinctive elements of a ‘missional’ approach to Christian churches and how they are led.

2. Critically analyse the impact of a range of historical and contemporary movements of Christian mission on current developments in ecclesiology and missiology.

3. Understand and critically reflect on the application of missional thinking to their own ministry.

Learning Outcomes

1. ‘The church is a sign, instrument and foretaste of the kingdom of God’. In what ways might this become a reality in particular congregations?

2. Drawing on actual examples, analyse what makes missional leadership different from any other church leadership.

3. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for your locality of adopting ‘Fresh Expressions’.

4. Drawing on one of the historical movements studied in the module (e.g. the Celtic Church, Anabaptists, Pentecostalism etc), critically analyse its potential contribution to contemporary missional church, with particular reference to your own setting

Essay Questions