New Questions
Well, since my buddy Marshall actually mustered up a few posts again, I’ll have to follow suit. My time of late has been consumed with work, trying to sell a house, and spending time with new friends. I haven’t even done much book promotion yet, although Jason Evans has graciously set up a reading at his house next weekend while I’m out in San Diego for a weekend with him and some other friends.
My mind has started to recharge lately in spite of everything else going on. I just didn’t realize how much brain energy writing a book takes - obviously my blogging has suffered considerably. The fact is, this blog was my canvas for the past seven years to work through new ideas (or perhaps old ones, depending how you look at it). Now that I’ve published something cohesive from that work, it’s difficult to go back to dabbling again. I start posts and find myself sitting in front of the computer trying to not write a book. Not very good for blog production I’m afraid.
So I’ll stop apologizing and try to splat some words on the page. Here’s what I’ve observed at a macro level over the past year (beware…mass generalizations ahead…):
- The “Emerging Church”, whatever it was or wasn’t, is pretty much done for.
- There are two theological camps that are now trendy to align yourself with - some amalgamation of Reformed (MacArthur, Piper, Driscoll) or some amalgamation of Social Justice / Kingdom (Wright, McLaren, Claiborne).
- Your church is pretty weak if it isn’t Missional (TM).
- Evangelical ministry leaders still don’t have a clue on how to lead in this context.
And some micro observations through local / trans-local relationships both new and old:
- Those of us on the front-end of transition 8-10 years ago are pretty much either healed or off the deep end.
- Todd Hunter was right. Most of the groups we started during this transitional period lasted about 3 years and then died or radically changed.
- There is an undercurrent of unrest in most evangelical churches, particularly among the 25-40 year old age group. Their unrest is not cultural / theological / social, they are just dying for someone to authentically lead them. They have kingdom-born dreams, but are bored out of their skulls for the most part because they have no advocates.
All of this has been leading to a question I’ve been asking myself. Who leads those people that I described in the last bullet and how does their leadership work? If you doubt me that leadership is required, you haven’t been spending any time around typical evangelicals lately. There won’t be another cohesive movement with evangelicalism anytime soon to replace church growth, so forget about “movement-ism” doing anything to sweep people into action. Theological debates can be productive long term, but are pretty meaningless to the people on the ground. The ‘missional church’ conversation is excellent for the most part, but has the tendency to be a little paralyzing when it comes to praxis. Those of us who have been in transitional communities (house churches, new-monastic groups, or just plain outside the whole church scene) can come off way too out-there for typical evangelicals, to the point where it feels like we’re not even speaking the same language. Finally, since we’ve adopted a much more egalitarian outlook on leadership in these communities, we’ve struggled to discern our role and what leadership is really necessary.
In the end - in spite of the challenges - I think we have a better chance at answering my question than the current batch of ministry leaders in evangelicalism. They are, frankly, just too absorbed in crisis to deal with the question in the first place. They’d love to do something about it, but when half your congregation is unemployed, you have to keep your priorities straight. The problem is, many of us on the other side are dealing with our own personal crisises and don’t have the muster to deal with anything else either. But on the whole, my guess is that our crisis will settle down faster. Give me a little time and space (and debt relief, dammit) and goodness knows what I’ll accomplish.
At this point, I’m still a little in crisis, but I’m willing to question and dream again….
Look forward to meeting you and Rains on Saturday. I think your right about the emerging church.
Well said. I recently looked back a re-read some of Todd Hunter’s looked stuff from ten years ago and I’m astonished at how prescient he turned out to be. Makes me want to have a conversation with him about the next ten years.
“Your church is pretty weak if it isn’t Missional (TM).” Bold statement, but I like it! You DO have more to say post book.
Hi Mike,
Will your book be available on an Amazon Kindle?
Thanks,
Chad
Hey brutha Mike!
A friend of mine sent me a link to your site and I had a chance to hang ten it. I could comment on a few different topics such as the trend back to a Reformed doctrine. We NEED to keep the OLD RELIGION close at hand in light of all the crazy new trends in the church. Whew, it’s comforting to know in these troubling Evangelical times that at least God is still in control…but this is a different topic for another day.
What I really want to touch on is this comment:
“Their unrest is not cultural / theological / social, they are just dying for someone to authentically lead them.”
Actually, No, this is not what is keeping us up at night. In fact, just the opposite is true, we are sick to death of “someone” leading us and not “The One.” The real reason why approx. 50% of “born again, Bible thumping believers, like myself, and now most of my friends that grew up in popular, traditional, churches are now staying home and drinking beer together on Sundays is because most of the leaders of which you speak are becoming, well, irrelevant. And why?…because the real trend in the church is an attempt to “be” rather than “go” to church, and to be led by Christ and NOT by yet another seminary trained, charismatic, can really “extract the Word” and lay down a good message, blah, blah, blah, “leader.”. We actually need far LESS leaders Mike and way more FOLLOWERS.
You remember the old hymn, sure you do, “On Christ (not pastor Bill) the solid rock I stand ALL other ground is sinking sand.” Well the sand is sinking, quickly, and we need Jesus to lead us once again… The movement is really about dethroning the religious leaders and replacing them with Christ. Now I know what you are thinking… then who’s gonna take care of all those important things like leading the parking lot repaving committee and picking the color of the new carpet in the Children’s Ministry Hall? Well, when the body is actually out in the community, where we belong, and not in the newly painted building, we don’t have to worry about those important Kingdom decisions…
Oh and by the way, we do have an Advocate - and I’m pretty sure you know who that is…
God Bless!
Hey bethechurch,
Thanks for the comments. The ironic thing is that I’ve advocating, blogging - even wrote a book - arguing many of the same ideas you wrote about. Your critique of modern church leadership is spot on…we do need to acknowledge in word and deed that Jesus is the head. We’ve been putting that into practice in our local community, The Well. No one calls me or anyone else pastor, although people are pastored. Needs get met, new believers are taught, worship happens - all without ‘formal’ leadership or much formal structure. However, I think it’s important to note that where we are now did not happen magically. Most of the people in our group needed an extended period of ‘detox’ from their previous church experiences to begin living into these ideas. They needed an environment where it was possible to see new alternatives, both for themselves and for how the church might function. That required people like me and others who had previous church ‘leadership’ experience to intentionally not do some things, but at the same time be empowering and encouraging others to take on responsibility that has been theirs all along. This is far more difficult that I could have ever imagined. “Dethroning the religious leaders and replacing them with Christ” is a great idea, it just takes a lot of work and patience in real life.
To be honest, my post wasn’t really about the function of a local faith community. It was more about calling out people who follow Jesus in the wider church to see new opportunities. Obviously, there is more to mission than serving in Children’s church or handing out bulletins for the Sunday service. Yet, those are sometimes the only real options for people in traditional churches. My hope is to help those who are looking for more to find more - to see their God-given dreams advanced and new territory explored - and that will definitely require a new kind of leadership.
Very interesting stuff, Mike. You raise more questions than offer answers, which is fine … it’s just that I’m dying for an answer to the leadership conundrum. I’m one of five leaders of Woodlands Church in Swansea (www.woodlands.cc) and we have regular full-time jobs too and struggle to not just adopt ‘traditional’ church models of leadership with the flaws that we saw in them but are at a stalemate in terms of growth of the work because no-one has enough time to make vision a reality at ground level and move into new areas.
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