"The studies show that after two years of coming into church, new believers do not lead others to Christ because by that time they have severed all ties with the non-Christian world."
"[The leaders of alternative worship communities] didn't want Christians who were having their 'fun night out of naughtiness' in the pubs. They wanted Christians who were already there, whose lives already revolved around pubs."
"The reason other Christians go [to the pubs] is to support those who are already there."
Welcome to my internal struggle...
McGavran, in The Bridges of God, discusses what he sees as the proper end of the mission station. He says they should be shut down and their resources extended to support People Movements. He says the missionaries should build their own homes, get jobs in the country, and humbly help the indigenous movements flourish.
He says they should do this because the mission station and the missionaries who work there are ineffective in spreading the gospel.
Modern church movements like to espouse the benefits of "being the church" where people are. They don't seek to pull people out of their societies; they seek instead to be Christians among their community, the same community they were a part of before they became Christians. For instance, if a person comes to Christ whose life pre-Christ revolved around hanging out on a street corner with a drug dealer, the other Christians encourage the new convert to keep hanging out on the street corner with the drug dealer, much like McGavran celebrated evangelization by family members to family members.
What then am I do to?
I have been raised in the church. My friends, past and present, are mostly all Christians. I attend seminary; it's the reason I moved to California. I work at the seminary; it's how I afford to stay in California. I am also involved in ministry in my church. My life revolves around church and Church related people and things.
And I love my friends.
And I love my coworkers.
And I love where I am in life.
But I am not in community with non-Christians. By virtue of the family I was born into, the orbits of my family's life, and the orbit of my life now, I live in a "Christian" world. Separate. Sequestered. Set apart.
Have I become a mission station?
Is the only hope for me to be "shut down," my resources funneled-off to support "indigenous" movements? Am I precluded from leading Peoples to Christ because I was raised Christian? Can I only function in an ancillary role? Am I the greatest which must become the least, and if so, how do I do that?
Do I need to settle down, build a house, get a job, and learn to be part of the non-Christian society around me? Do I need to strip away all that has formed me, all that has made me who I am? What of my seminary training? What of my (oftentimes fought against) urge to minister, to pastor, to lead people in worship? Does that pursuit, and the aquarium I've entered into to be trained for that end, disqualify me from ministering, from pastoring, from leading people in worship?
I hope not, but what am I to do?
I'm really against people who do the "let me tell you how it is" schpeel and then unload all of their arrogant wisdom.
ReplyDeleteSo, as a disclaimer, my post will not be that.
However, I have wrestled with the same things as you. I haven't reached many conclusions, but many years ago, I was at a poetry reading outside Chicago, looked around, and realized these people would never fit in my church. That's when I began to ask how Jesus would reach them. What does it look like to live outside the "church"? How can one be in a Christian community but also "missional" (whatever that word has come to mean!)
I work in a secular setting right now because of that reflection many years ago. But I don't think my story is prescriptive.
There are going to be times in the journey that you are surrounded predominantly Christians. Seminary being one of those times. For me, it was also working at a traditional church.
As a potential church planter (and I mean both of us...), one must ask how involved you desire your members to be. That's a leadership question. And that also falls into a greater sociological question of how busy we are as Americans already.
I'm starting to think that it's less where you are and more being PRESENT wherever you are. Being a hospice chaplain has taught me that. I will minister as much to my kids as well as the bar owner down the street from me because of presence. Church has a tendency to focus on the outer things--the programs, the events, the locations. Being present is an inner quality. Jesus had it.
For me, at this moment in my life, Jesus had his community of 12 AND he was out in the world at large. It's both. Living in the tension causes us to step out of programs and create the life where both can be accomplished.
I think...
Like I said, I can't stand arrogant sages, so I'm just as much wrestling with this as you are. But my additional wrestlings then have to do with family. Many GREAT books on being missional and doing ministry--but most are individualistic. Would love to see one that deals with how a family is present in their world.
Looking to Jesus - I like that. The tricky thing is figuring out what Jesus would look like as a twenty something, single, seminary student in Southern California.
ReplyDeleteI guess on one level, He looks like me. He is in me, and my life is surrendered to Him, and He has led me here, so in one respect, I am Christ in my culture. What should I do to exemplify Christ here?
On the other hand, I am anything but Christ-like, so I guess I need to change the things about my life that aren't Him.
Or maybe I need to focus more on the things that are Him, and let the the unlike Him things worry about themselves. Maybe.
Thanks, Jason, for being anything but an arrogant sage.
Cross-cultural relationships can happen anywhere, but you might have to think through what makes sense with regards to who you are and what you are supposed to be doing. Thanks for your reflections...
ReplyDelete"Who you are and what you are supposed to be doing" - those are the big questions aren't they? ;)
ReplyDelete