A new friend recently contacted me via the Austin Mustard Seed website. What he read about our church community resonated with his own hopes, so he asked to hear more of our story. It was meaningful and motivating for me to recapture it. While pieces of my story have been shared on this blog, I’m not sure I’ve ever put it all together, so I thought I’d offer my response to him here as well.

I did student ministry in a large church in the Phoenix area for about 11 years. I enjoyed it, and saw many great things happen. Like you, I noticed that the best things happened in ongoing relationship, in the home groups we created for the students or on trips and retreats where there was a burst of proximity to each other. In time, I noticed that many of our former students were no longer connecting with what was happening in churches, even though Phoenix has a number of good churches. But these former students were still passionate about their relationship with Jesus. This caught my attention…and my soul.

Through a series of events, I was drawn into church planting about five years ago. We ended up joining another friend from our church in Arizona to plant a church up in metro Seattle. We went knowing we would be sent out in a few years to plant again. It was a blessing to be part of that, and it was a bit of a testing ground for me to try out church planting. It was a traditionally modeled church plant in terms of moving into the community, advertising, and launching a weekend service after about six months there. We wanted to have a very relational focus and and lots of community engagement. I think we did pretty well, though the weekend service still took up a lot of our energy and resources. Some beautiful things happened in our time there, and I very much love that church and the time we had there, but it also helped me to see that church plant model was not true to who we felt we needed to be.

We had long considered Austin as an option, even before we moved to Seattle. As we started thinking about where to form a new church community, we began to focus here. We anticipated moving here about 18 months before it happened. As I talked to church planting organizations and denominations, it slowly became clear that most of them wouldn’t get what we were trying to be. There have been enough churches successfully launched with that hard start style, that this has become the norm. The expectation is that a church should gather as many as it can as early as possible so that it can be self supporting with a few years. This model still works pretty well, but most of the time in fast growing suburbs. And I’ve seen it work in urban centers…once or twice per city I think. Once one or two churches have launched in the central part of a city, all of the “low hanging fruit” (I dislike that phrase even as I type it) has been gathered. But some times, I’ve seen it also mean a church isn’t true to itself. I’ve visited too many church plants where a stage centered production with sound, lights, and a monologue was put on for well less than 50 people. And I’ve ached…if there are 25 people, give me a few couches, and let’s discuss our way through the text, rather than just let me talk at them with an outline with blanks for them to fill in.

Somewhere along the line in the last few years, I grabbed a hold of the idea of living not as church planters, but as missionaries. (Not my own idea, but probably most influenced by Lesslie Newbigin.) Rather than try to move in and launch a church, we felt like we were best suited to live as missionaries in a city. (Sure I could be a part of another church and do this, but I can’t imagine not shaping a church community…it’s central to who God made me to be.) What would we do if we were to move to Bangkok or Amsterdam? We wouldn’t just drop 20k postcards in the mail. We would engage relationally, and let the church form around those relationships. So, it’s with that mindset that we came to Austin. We’ve raised some support, but it’s not quite as sexy as a big launch, so I work part-time for the church and do other work on the side. And thankful for it. I’d rather work bivocationally than not be true to who we feel we are called to be. I’ve brushed off some old design skills (always done design work in churches I’ve been in, and did some freelance several years ago) to try to help make ends meet.

As far as the church, I have dreams and ideas, but more than anything, we want to be a church formed by the Spirit and the culture of Austin. Right now, we are basically a small group/house church, but we have no intention of being just that. Ideally, I would love to become a hybrid of a house church network and a traditional model. I envision meeting in house churches every other Sunday, and gathering as a larger community on alternating weeks. It seems like that is the best way to emphasize the focus we want to have on smaller communities, especially as midweek groups present a challenge for so many. But I also think there is a need to gather in a larger community as well, to be reminded we are part of something bigger. To be honest, I don’t really know if this kind of format will work, but we’re not there yet anyway!

I’m not sure how to label us. Many in the “organic church” movement (at least in my experience) have found their way there out of skepticism, or even cynicism. We just don’t fit that, I don’t think. I am compelled by hope…hope that the Gospel is truly good news, and a community centered in the Gospel will partner with God as an agent of restoration, regardless of the form that church takes. This hope in the Gospel, and a shared missional impulse, gives us common ground with churches of different shapes and sizes and I’m glad to partner with them and celebrate what they do, both in a local Austin network (plantR.org) and in a national network (ecclesianet.org).

And this means, as is well known, that his theology has the character of inaugurated eschatology, that is, of a sense that God’s ultimate future has come forwards into the middle of history, so that the church is living within — indeed, is constituted precisely by simultaneously within! — God’s new world and the present one.” — NT Wright, Paul: In Fresh Perspective

(This is the final post in a series reflecting on David Bosch’s six distinctives for a missiology of Western culture. See the introductory post for a little background.)

in the context of the secularized, post-Chrsitian West our witness will be credible only if it flows from a local, worshiping community.

Of all of Bosch’s six distinctives, none resonates with me more than this one. It seems that there is a great deal of opinion (and tension) over what it means to be the church. The discussions are full of rhetoric as people make their cases for house churches, local parishes, regional megachurches, or no organized form of church at all.

But I think the question is not what structure of church is best, but over how a church community can best engage with its own context. Bosch goes on in this section to quote Lesslie Newbigin: “the only hermeneutic of the gospel is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it.” We must perpetually ask ourselves how we can form, and reform, our community so that we can be a living and visible gospel to our local culture.

Bosch emphasizes this:

the question about the feasability of a missionary enterprise to Western people hinges on the question of the nature and life of our local worshiping communities and the extent to which they facilitate a discourse in which the engagement of people with their culture in encouraged. Local church “happens” where believers are involved in what is critical for people and society.

There is a unique challenge we face in our North American metropolitan areas, and I think this is true for both urban areas and suburbia. We are a transient culture. We have few relationships that happen due to our geographic proximity, where we tend to bump into the same people simply because they live, shop and work closeby.

I was challenged a few weeks ago in a conversation with a respected retired pastor who knows the heart of Austin well. I asked him what he would do if he were planting a church today. His response was that he would focus on an elementary school, and do all he could to bless it. In his view, and I can’t disagree, elementary schools are our last remaining gathering points for any neighborhood, where we can interact with people who share our proximity.

If the church is to be a local, worshiping community, then we have to seriously engage with the idea of what exactly it means to be local. Who are the people we can connect with regularly because of our daily life patterns? What does it mean to minister to, and alongside, those that our lives happens amongst?

(This post is part of a series reflecting on David Bosch’s six distinctives for a missiology of Western culture. See the introductory post for a little background.)

A missionary encounter with the West will have to be, primarily, a ministry of the laity.

I suppose one might argue that the laity are being given more opportunities for responsibility in churches now than they have in decades. (Laity would refer to volunteers, or anyone in a church that is not professional clergy.) The emphasis in a lot of my experiences with Evangelicalism is for pastors to be those who raise up lay people for the purpose of leading and running the ministries of the church.

This isn’t a bad thing in itself, but I hope we can see the need for more. The laity are equipped to do far more than offer energy and ideas for the ministries of a church. I think Bosch was envisioning much more as well. He emphasizes the importance of the laity for two reasons:

first, the church’s witness will be much more credible if it comes from those who do not belong to the guild of pastors;

From my observations, I’m finding this to be true sometimes, but not always. Some I know avoid stating that they are in professional ministry as much as possible, expecting that such a revelation will immediately shut down conversations. Others I know embrace the role of clergy, and function well with the title of pastor outside of the church building’s walls. (I really appreciate how Kester seems to have developed a persona as a pastor at large for Austin.) I’m finding a happy middle ground by making 2/3 of my income as a professional pastor, and 1/3 doing web design. When I meet someone, mentioning that I do both offers to different routes from which the conversation might proceed, and two different means to gain (or perhaps lose!) credibility with others.

Bosch continues:

and second, only in this way will we begin to bring together what our culture has divided, the private and the public, for the lay members of the church clearly belong to the public and secular world, whereas the pastors belong to a separate, “religious” world.

Dualism in Christianity is a buzz topic for me — I tend to see it playing out everywhere, so I can’t help but see how Bosch addresses it with this idea. An empowered laity is a statement against the spiritual vs. unspiritual dualism that distorts Christianity today. The lay people of a church must be seen not just as resources to enhance programs and ministries within our churches. They are the body of Christ, with opportunities to engage in the every day as sacred agents of the Kingdom of God.

I love this idea, but I must admit it is still threatening to me as well. What does it mean for me to pastor a community of people that are so engaged outside of the church that it can’t be measured? How can we shape a community the celebrates well the stories of what is happening outside of our structured times together?

The fundamental truth, as I see it, is this — the laity are a great asset to a church community not because what they can do “inside” the church, but for what they can do “outside”. The church is the sent people of God, so how can we better honor the sacred vocation of those who are “sent” Monday through Saturday?

Next post: a local, worshiping community

(This post is part of a series reflecting on David Bosch’s six distinctives for a missiology of Western culture. See the introductory post for a little background.)

We have, at long last, come to the conviction that mission in the Third World must be contextual. We do not have an equally clear conviction about the need for contextualization in the West.

In the decade plus that I did youth ministry in a large church, I was blessed with many opportunities to do some short-term missions trips. I hold dear many memories of those experiences, but there is one lesson that stands above all…

I sat in a church service in a remote mountain village in Jamaica where the organ played while men wore white shirts and ties and women wore hats. It felt like I could be in a church in Alabama in the 50s, and I wondered where any Jamaican culture was reflected. I sat in the balcony at a national Christian convention in the Philippines and was troubled by how much it was like the conventions I had been to growing up in the US. I saw nothing that reflected the Filipino culture that I had been experiencing in the days prior.

From what I understand, missionary methods have changed, but much of the early push in Christian missions exported more American church culture than it did the Gospel. As Bosch affirms above, in recent decades, mission work has been more intent on engaging with a local culture with the Gospel.

Bosch goes on to say that the same needs to happen in the West: Somehow, we still believe that the gospel has already been (has always been?) properly indigenized and contextualized in the West. However, as we now know, the West has largely turned its back on the gospel. Was it perhaps because the gospel was never properly contextualized? Or perhaps overcontextualized, so much so that it has lost its distinctive character and challenge? What, indeed, will contextualization of the gospel in the West involve and look like? I submit that we do not really know. This makes it all the more necessary to reflect on this issue with the utmost urgency.

I am encouraged, and comforted, by these words. They reflect what I hope we are becoming in Austin. A few years ago, I grabbed a hold of the idea that we were not called here to plant a church, but to engage locally as missionaries. I believe that the divide between the church and the rest of our culture is greater than we know. Not all of our current church planting practices are bad, and I am trying to learn from many of them. But, rather than try to replicate church as we have experienced it elsewhere in Western culture, we are praying, learning, and listening in order to understand how we might shape a church that is engaged, that is contextualized, to the unique culture we are in.

We must reshape our thinking about church planting (and perhaps we just need to do away with the term althogether). Too many of our methods focus on creating a Sunday worship gathering out of the best, or at least our favored, practices we’ve seen in other Western churches. But what does it look like for us to patiently listen to our culture, and then begin to see how we can intersect the Kingdom of God with what we hear?

Let me return to Bosch’s words: What, indeed, will contextualization of the gospel in the West involve and look like? I submit that we do not really know.

I agree. And I sure hope I can be a part of helping to find some answers…at least for the context I’m in.

Next post: laity

Gathering and sending are related to one another like breathing in and breathing out. The important thing is therefore to view life in the everyday world as just as important as the gathering of the congregation in the feast of worship.” — Jurgen Moltmann

(Lovely thought. I think I’ll steal it for our church gatherings page.)

(This post is part of a series reflecting on David Bosch’s six distinctives for a missiology of Western culture. See the introductory post for a little background.)

a mission to the West must be countercultural, though not in an escapist way

I wasn’t planning on spreading the posts in this series a week apart. But, maybe it’s providence, since we had some discussion last night that stirred some thinking for me on this topic.

A few years ago, I sat in one of my core classes at Mars Hill called Faith, Hope, and Love. The lecturer was Dan Allender, and the class served as the foundation for much of the theology (and therapy) that was taught there. In our first session, we watched a few clips from The Lion King that focused on interactions between Rafiki and Simba.

As we discussed the clips, the idea emerged that Rafiki was seen as a fool, yet his words had invited Simba to desire and hope. His folly was a subversive invitation to life. Dan went on to make the following comments (though he said them in the context of therapy, I think they hold true for the church as well):

The work of a therapist is to be a fool. In that foolishness is the breaking and transforming of paradigms. Rafiki has reframed reality and in that has told a deeper truth then what could be viewed as nominative truth. Yet, in play a therapist knows how to play with reality.

In the Old Testament, we see the prophets often acting in ways that seemed foolish to those who heard them…and even to us today. I wonder what it means to have a missional stance of a prophet toward our culture. Not as the angry prophet who denounces all, but as the fool — the voice that is engaged with culture in ways that sound insane, but invites us to abandon our destructive patterns in the pursuit of life.

Next post: ecumenical

The church now seems to stand in the same place as God stood in some 2,500 years ago: misrepresented, accused of bigotry, portrayed as narrow-minded and in love with power, only interested in buildings, ready to smite the dirty and sinful, over-occupied with sex, and ready to lend support for unjust wars … And so we must do as God did, as Christ commanded and exemplified: we must be born again. Become nothing, removed of strength and power and voice and means and language.” — Kester Brewin, Signs of Emergence

We have to create, and sustain, communities where this life is being lived in such a way that when we speak of it we are obviously telling the truth. That is the hard part. As long as our churches are places where we struggle to sustain an hour or two’s public worship per week, with ‘real life’ only minimally affected by it, we will indeed end up like a bunch of vaguely religious cows in a field, mooing on Sunday mornings and chewing the cud the rest of the time. No highs and no lows. But if we really worked at trying to be for our world what the apostles were for their Jewish world, things might change. The gospel might come alive.” – Tom Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part Two

(This post is the introduction to a series reflecting on David Bosch’s six distinctives for a missiology of Western culture. See the end of the post for links to the rest of the series.)

David Bosch was a missiologist in South Africa who died in 1992. A car accident took his life only a year after he published Transforming Mission — a monumental work which I blogged about last January.

Not long ago, I came across a used copy of Believing in the Future: Toward a Missiology of Western Culture. This was an essay Bosch wrote and presented in 1992, and then was published as a short (69 pages) book a few years after his death. (Since Eugene Cho once told me he only reads books by dead guys, I’m hoping he will consider Bosch if he hasn’t already.)

To state it too simply, Bosch says that the church in Western culture must view it’s work as mission in the same way it views mission to other cultures. Chapter 4 is entitled Contours of a Missiology of Western Culture, and I think it is one of the most important chapters I have ever read when it comes to thinking about the church. I had to restrain myself from highlighting too much.

Equally striking was the conclusion, where Bosch touches briefly on six other elements he thinks are necessary to develop a true missiology of Western culture. He was writing ideas in 1992 that are just starting to make their way into mainstream church conversation in the last few years. He mentions that our missiology must be ecological, countercultural (though not escapist), ecumenical, contextual, a ministry of the laity, and it must flow from a local, worshiping community.

I resonate with these ideas so much that I’m going to try to do a series on them in the days, or maybe weeks, to come.

Update — Here are the links to each post in the series:

• ecological
• countercultural
• ecumenical
• contextual
• laity
• a local, worshiping community