Last week Suzanne (my boss) gave me yet another book to read. This one is The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church by Reggie McNeal (Jossey-Bass, 2003). McNeal was the Director of Leadership Development for the South Carolina Baptist Convention when he wrote the book. He currently serves as the Missional Leadership Specialist for Leadership Network of Dallas, TX. I have to wonder why most of the books she gives me to read are by Baptists.
A lot of what McNeal writes about is not new to me, or to many of you. Here are a couple of the many points he makes:
- The current church culture in North America is on life support. It is living off the work, money, and energy of previous generations from a previous world order. (p. 1)
- Many church leaders confuse the downward statistics on church participation with a loss of spiritual interest in Americans. (p. 11)
- The Pharisees' evangelism strategy sounds eerily familiar. Their approach to sharing God was, "Come and get it!" (p. 28)
- The mental model that many church members have for doing evangelism is for them to act like telemarketers. (p. 36)
- since the church is absent from the streets, people are turning to all kinds of false answers to their spiritual quest. Church members then have the gall to sit inside the church and pass judgment on people for their errant beliefs! (p. 41)
- If we are in a post-modern and post-denominational world, then why do we need anything like the Episcopal Church Center?
- Do we even need an Episcopal Church? A Presbyterian Church? A Roman Catholic Church?
- If we don't need denominations, do we need clergy?
- How do we recognize, acknowledge, and pass on transformation?
- What role does ritual play in a post-modern, post-denominational church?
That's one of the reasons I value this tiny community of readers of my blog, we can engage in the questions of our world.
Peace,
Jeffri
1. We don't NEED the Church Center, but it can be a useful tool for gathering us to talk about where the church is going, brainstorming initiatives and supporting one another as we go out to make our visions and dreams come true. It can be a center of resources for doing church in this new world which is coming into being. It can be, if it will, a place of holding in tension all our various dreams and desires, and us as we work all this out.
ReplyDelete2. We don't NEED our denominations but they are there so we do have to deal with them. They grew up because different people had different visions of living out the Gospel, all exclusionary of the others. We haven't gotten over that yet, and probably won't in our lifetimes. So make use of TEC's particular charism: daring to expand the vision of the reign of God into what for us is its logical conclusion - justice for the most vulnerable among us and sacrifice for the powerful and righteous.
3. We don't NEED denominations and therefore we don't NEED clergy, but clergy can be useful as icons, and as gatherers. Ask the Rev. Christopher Calderhead, whose name I feel free to use here because this blog is by invitation only so use his name sparingly,nonchurched but still a priest in the church, about his vision of opening a storefront and simply living the Christian life in plain view of everyone. That's something I'd like to do. (He and another priest friend once named me bishop of this little commune!)
4. So, maybe we do need some structure. It was for the purpose of passing on, recognizing and acknowledging that church institutions came about. They aren't NEEDED, but we humans don't seem to be able to execute any of our ideas without eventually institutionalizing them. So the question becomes, how do we have institutions without letting them ossify us and our visions?
5. Ritual plays the role of incarnation - putting flesh on mystery. In the storefront idea in number 3, food is cooking in the kitchen, and on the grill outside. It entices people who come in and are fed. Conversations about life take place. Maybe God comes up, maybe not, at least today. Maybe tomorrow bread and wine will be shared.
You see, I've been thinking about this dream now for at least 20 years. Ask me more.
And you'll forgive me if I paste this into a word document to become part, eventually, of a major work on this subject on my own blog. Feel free to share with 815, with Terry Martin and anyone else who might be of use.
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ReplyDelete(too bad we can't edit our comments before they go live. OW)
ReplyDeleteWith whom might you be able to share this conversation who will listen and might even understand? It is an important message and needs to be shared, maybe watered down at first but eventually it needs to go on up the ladder.
Formation and Evangelism MUST work in harmony to be effective.