01.02.07

the forgotten ways I

Posted in culture, ekklesia, emergence, formation, reviews, theology at 2:23 pm by len

ON the weekend I cracked Alan’s latest book, one that looks to have been in process since the publication of The Shaping of Things to Come.

It’s not easy to release a solid followup to such an encompassing first work. Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch burst on the scene with a great deal of passion, imagination, focus, and clarity. They asked significant questions, and offered significant thoughts based on a wealth of experience in a post-Christendom context. Their first book remains on my short list for best reads in the past five years.

To my surprise and delight, Alan’s second book is likely to make that same short list. All I propose to do today is to share first impressions.

Really, I couldn’t be more pleased. I’m pleased both for personal reasons and for kingdom reasons. The personal reasons are that this book arrives just before I begin serious preparation to speak at a conference in Manitoba in February. The book has offered me another perspective and more raw material on which to build. I’m thinking both of the general sessions as well as a workshop on “evangelism.” That word exists in a cultural framework that is far too narrow, and my intention will be to deconstruct it for the purpose of substituting a much larger vision.

Second, I’m pleased because Alan does a terrific job of clarifying some of the murky issues, and building on the first book. I’m excited about this, because clearly God is at work. Like many of you, I am immersed in the world of church and culture, gospel and kingdom, and sometimes I am too close to the trees to see the forest. At times I wonder if the emergent conversation is only that.. a conversation. What will be the impact? Is there hope for the church in the west? Are we wasting our time?

Then there are moments when I catch a glimpse of the telos, see the impact of the conversation, and suddenly have a sense of both movement and direction.. I see God’s purpose more clearly, and I see others who have dedicated their lives to God and His kingdom, who are not boxing the wind but who are making an impact. I find myself encouraged to keep trying, to continue writing, and even.. to travel and speak. As an introvert, I’m not always excited about the latter. But greater clarity and hope leads to renewed vision and passion.. Ok, on to first impressions.

The book is divided into two broad sections. Section 1 is “the making of a missionary.” Alan tells his own story, a journey from attractional-evangelistic models to incarnational-missional practice. This section contains a lengthy introduction and then two chapters Section 2 is “a journey to the heart of apostolic genius.” In this section Alan works out what he calls missional DNA. There are many points of contact with Neil Cole and some with Howard Snyder, both of whom made use of the DNA analogy, but Alan is more intent on fleshing out a deeper missional ecclesiology than did Neil Cole, and his direction is both broader and more focused than Snyder’s in “Decoding the Church.” There is also some significant resonance with Alan Roxburgh’s “The Sky is Falling,” particularly with regard to the use of “liminality” and “communitas” vs “community.”
Section two comprises 8 chapters and then a lengthy addendum and short glossary. All told the book is 288 pages in length.

I’ll try to describe more than the territory as I work through the chapters. I resonate very deeply with the ecclesiology Alan is describing. It feels like we have been sharing the same conversations.. but more than that, perhaps sharing some of the same history also. His approach to “covenant” as part of the core of ekklesial life, for example, is a conviction I share with both Alans (Roxburgh and Hirsch). Well.. on to the content. Remember, this is only dipping the toes today, tomorrow or Wednesday we’ll get wet.

Alan opens with the question you may have seen elsewhere:how did the early Christian movement go from roughly 25,000 members in AD 100 to roughly 20 million two hundred years later? more critically, how did they accomplish this without buildings, a coherent Scripture (other than the first testament), no professional leaders, no seeker sensitive services, youth groups, or worship bands.. and while the church was under persecution! (we probably wouldn’t have even the membership we have today if that element was suddenly introduced).

Now, Alan doesn’t anchor his reflection only in the early church. The church in China experienced nearly the same growth rate under similar conditions. Leaders killed or imprisoned, unable to use or build large meeting halls, no leadership training, almost no access to the bible etc. In his introduction Alan offers a foretaste of what is to come. He outlines six elements of mDNA.

* Jesus is Lord
* Disciple Making
* Missional-Incarnational Impulse
* Apostolic Environment
* Organic Systems
* Communitas instead of community

In chapter 1 Alan begins filling in the details. He notes, as he and Mike noted in the previous book, that great missionary movements begin on the margins. The story of the transformation of his own faith community from maintenance to missional is a great read. One of his notes along the way is that only about 12 percent of the typical populace in western contexts is attracted to the contemporary church growth model. Since almost all churches in typical western cities are working from this model, they are all competing for the same demographic. This leaves more than 85% of the population untouched. (Granted, some of these are de-churched Christians who are likewise uninterested in consumerist, passive gatherings). Reaching the other 87% of our populations is not going to happen with doing more of the same.

In Alan’s own experience, tweaking the system had some effect. It enabled mobilization of some of the passive believers. This left two problems, however…. 1. how to reverse the numbers.. with 20% of members active and 80% passive. And 2. how to reach out to the 85% of the population who were interested in the typical church. Alan concluded that the fundamental issue was that they had been ineffective at making disciples, and so were failing at living missionally. At issue was consumption.. believers who were not being converted out of the market ethos into a kingdom ethos. For the most part, people came to church to be fed… not to be empowered and sent. Alan realized that “we cannot consume our way to discipleship.”

Alan’s reference to “practices” and “covenant” on page 46 brought a strong sense of resonance. I immediately felt he was on a solid and revolutionary track. The reimagining and reflective process of engagement took Alan and his community into a deep ecclesiology. They came up with this:

1. the would grow smaller so that passivity was more difficult to maintain .. they became a cell church

2. they would not develop a philosophy of ministry per se but rather a covenant and some core practices. They did not want to appeal to the head, but to the feet. They didn’t want mere “motherhood” statements but an expression of shared life.

3. each group had to be engaged in healthy spiritual disciplines — the only way to grow in Christlikeness. toward this end they came up with their own model: TEMPT..

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