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Making Sense of Emerging Church The term emerging church is used by lots of people
nowadays and, somewhat confusingly, often seems to be used by different
people to mean quite different things. For some it’s just the trend towards
new and different sorts of church that may be more contemporary and relevant
to today’s culture and context. To others it’s all about the dynamics of the
process through which these new or fresh expressions of church arise. Attractional Church – COME! Admittedly this approach does not change the prevailing attitude and
enterprise of most churches, which is to focus on the invitation to “Come”,
rather than Jesus’ command to “Go”. Nonetheless within our decaying
Christendom context, for some churches it is appropriate and probably the
only realistic response that they can make. At the heart of doing the
Attractional thing well, is obviously to mobilise the existing members to
make positive invitations. Then when visitors come through the doors, it is
vital that they receive a really good welcome. Much research has indicated
that Western churches are generally extremely poor at welcome. It’s not only
possible, then, but likely that visitors will attend the church service and
leave without anybody having spoken to them, let alone given them as warm
and sensitive welcome and offer of appropriate follow up. Many Western
churches still have the phenomenon of casual Sunday visitors. Addressing
their welcome ministry can pay major dividends for growth in an Attractional
mode. Clearly the other major area for Attractional churches is that they
pay attention to the pattern of their services, and particularly to the
message shared. The style of the worship and community need to relate to the
culture of the casual visitors or invitees, and the message needs to address
the life issues of these people 7 days a week. Engaged Church – GO, get involved and then invite to COME! This mission response begins to change the direction from “Come” to “Go”
with existing church members encouraged, trained and equipped to engage in
one or many of the contexts in which the church is set. This may involve a
whole range of activities including personal evangelism, identifying needs
and aspirations and working in partnership with others concerned for the
community. Ann Morissey is one of the best authors to describe these
processes of partnership and the three directional flow of the Gospel that
can result (in her book Beyond the Good Samaritan). However, having made the
major shift in direction to go and get involved with the lives of those
beyond the church, as these relationships begin to bear fruit and the Gospel
creates responses, those responding are then invited to come to church as we
do it. Obviously a major factor influencing whether this good missionary
engagement yields sustainable church growth will depend on whether the
lessons of Attractional Church have also been learnt, such that those that
respond to the invitation to come find a warm welcome and a relevant and
contemporary faith community that does not present too big a hurdle for them
to cross. Emerging Church – GO and STAY and see what EMERGES! This has in common with the Engaged model that Christians actively get
involved in communities beyond the church with the “Go” description defining
their engagement. Similar principles of good practice of this mission
engagement will apply as with the Engaged model of church. Listening to the
community, recognising it’s needs and aspirations and working in partnership
will all be crucial. However here the similarities end. As the Gospel begins
to bear fruit in people’s lives there is no invitation to come to church as
we have been doing it. On the contrary the whole assumption is that the
responses to the Gospel in the culture and context will be allowed to give
rise to a new emerging faith community that is fully indigenous to that
community. This is the classic mission process described by Vincent Donovan
(Christianity Rediscovered) and Bruce Olsen (Bruchko). As Hirsch and Frost
describe this is clearly the most radical mission approach and the one most
appropriate when large social and cultural differences exist between the
missioning church and the focus community. The challenges involved for the
cross-cultural missionaries are very considerable. They have to leave behind
their own personal preferences and cultural practices and most particularly
forget their assumptions about how church should be done. Rather they have
to develop the sensitivity to support and encourage those embracing faith in
Jesus to work out what their response in worship, prayer and community
patterns should look like. Having said this, we have to remember that there
may well be within an existing congregation or it’s fringe, representatives
of the quite different cultures that may surround the existing church. In
this case they will not be cross-cultural missionaries but will be bridge-people into the new contexts. They will not have to leave behind their own
culture and preferences but they certainly will have to forget their
memories of church as they have been doing it and the inherited mode into
which they will probably have been socialised. For more information on emerging church, visit www.emergingchurch.info |
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Anglican Church Planting Initiatives (ACPI) Admin Office |
