Enchanted Community

2/24/14: WHEN THE CHURCH BECOMES IMMUNIZED (TO ITS OWN MESSAGE)

Hey, guys! I hang–out a lot at coffee shops. Invariably, my revealing of my career as a teaching-pastor in the church creates some interesting responses. I’m a fairly friendly guy, and the conversations that so often ensue over coffee are frequently along the line: “How did a nice guy like you function in a church that … [for my conversation partners is such a stumbling-block]?” They will often come up with all of the news reports, or their own unpleasant experiences, or of ‘whacko’ ideologues mouthing off in the name of Christian faith. The church is easily dismiss-able as any potential source of good news to them.

So comes some questions: When is a church? What is its message? What is its form? How does it speak (as the Body of Christ) to the deepest longings of the human heart? These folks who are my conversation partners get their images of the church from all kinds of input: personal experience, social media, newspapers, etc. They find so much of it ridiculous, or irrelevant to their experience, or having to do with another world that is not on their agenda.

I know of several thoughtful, tuned-in Christian guys who were sitting in a pub on the town square one day, a few years back, and wondering out loud what kind of a church could reach, and convey the message of Jesus Christ to the huge diversity of persons they were watching in that urban scene: professionals in suits and ties, tattooed young adults, LGBT folk, individuals lost in their iPhones, (“spiritually confused God-seekers”) etc. There were, at the same time, a half-dozen formidable old church institutions within sight of that pub, all pretty much focused on their own survival, yet with a severely diminished concept of their own message and purpose in the mission of God. Their members were certainly not contagious with the life-transforming gospel.

How would a church become forgetful, or immunized to the passion of Christ to “seek and to save”—God’s great search-and-rescue mission? How do such churches marginalize the whole awesome fact of Christ and his cross, so that it hardly determines what they proclaim or practice, or how they live? How do they become merely gathering places of those seeking ‘spiritual experiences’ rather than embracing the awesome fact that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself by the blood of the cross?

This is not a new phenomenon. The seven churches in Asia Minor (Revelation 2-3) were already drifting away. Both Søren Kierkegaard (19^th century) and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (20^th century) verbalized this drift in telling ways, as did Jacques Ellul in the post-World War II period. “Show me Christ in Christendom,” Kierkegaard is reputed to have asked of the church in Denmark. Bonhoeffer spoke of “cheap grace,” i.e. proclaiming faith without repentance. Ellul wrote eloquently of the subversion of Christianity.

What is even more tragic is that so many, who inhabit such forgetful church institutions, seem so unable to recognize, or acknowledge that their own church institutions are so immunized and forgetful. Many churches are founded well, but after a decade or a generation, become forgetful, or dilute the gospel with other self-help messages, or displace it with friendly church activities.

Lest I seem too dismal, and on the more positive side, there was a period a half-century ago in New Orleans (where I was pastor), when a group of Roman Catholic charismatics rediscovered both Jesus and the Biblical gospel, and became joyous and contagious with it—whole parishes came alive with Jesus, and gospel-loving priests and parishioners. Still, the institutional ‘traditionalists’ were indifferent or dismissive of this huge awakening. Jesus and his cross are the center of time and eternity. Forget that central fact and the church becomes one more pleasant religious institution—but only questionably an authentic community of the Kingdom of God.

BLOG 2/20/14. THE CHURCH AND ITS LEADERSHIP: MUST BE DEEPLY IMMERSED IN THE REALITIES OF DAILY LIFE.

Our walk of faith as the people of God, and as leaders of the church, is in the “stink and stuff” of daily life, what with all of its enigmas, compromises, intractable problems, hostility, challenges, joys, sorrows, camaraderie, and engagement with all of the forms of the culture of darkness, which is a formidable calling. This means that our formation into Christ must never seek to isolate itself from that dominion of darkness out of which we are to call men and women so that they may come into the dominion of God’s dear Son. That profound immersion should be especially true of those who are the church’s leaders. Life as the people of God must never be an escape from the very world that Jesus came to seek and to save.

A response to my previous Blog raises a very germane and uncomfortable question about those of us who are its ostensible leaders, and who often rely on our seminary training to qualify us to be such: “… a question (among many) regarding the teaching-shepherd: Do modern-day seminaries ‘miss the point’ by training would-be clergy to be mere custodians of the church? Have they always ‘missed the point’? Did they go astray at some point? If so, when? Are some better than others at avoiding neutering a gift/role that you claim is critical, and one that can be performed [only] by an ordained pastor? Why do some seminaries produce [here he names two such disparate examples, one commendable and one questionable]? I know this isn’t fair, I know, because you could argue that each graduated seminary with the same potential to fulfill that role but experience shaped them differently. But I still wonder.”

That is a huge question, and the answer is both yes and no. Seminaries that sharpen, inform, resource, provide depth of understanding for the church’s teaching-shepherds can be most useful, … but if the seminaries themselves are a culture of ecclesiastical ‘ghetto-ism’ then they can be a liability. This becomes somewhat delicate when one finds that many of the superb academicians teaching there have, themselves, never been fruitful teaching-shepherds. Add to that the fact that men and women attend seminaries for many different reasons, and with many different backgrounds—some out of strong missional churches, and some out of sterile custodial churches. Some attend seminary in hopes of finding themselves, and proving their worth to God, alas!

A half-century ago, James F. Hopewell, then the director of the Theological Education Fund, humorously commented that our theological education system was like “an ecclesiastical puberty-rite” where we give all the instruction before the participants have had any experience (as pastors). I spent a decade as director of seminary ministries for a denominational renewal organization and visited, and spent time with, students and faculty on about fifteen campuses—this after my own forty year career as a working pastor in some colorful and fruitful locations. My experience in those ten years reinforces the questions raised above.

The late missiologist Ralph Winter told an assembly of seminary leaders (to their chagrin) that in the majority world that church growth was often exponential until the church established seminaries, and then it flattened out. He commented that if a person planted a church and fruitfully pastored it for ten years, that the larger church would only then consider ordination. This procedure filtered out those who were not gifted.

Back to the point, it is that strong church leadership must be deeply immersed in the world in which his/her charges live and work, their challenges, temptations, relationships, cultural realities. And then he/she is competent to equip and form God’s people to be light in their daily encounter with the darkness—otherwise their ministry could be accused of being Docetic, i.e., no true humanity (or from Xorba the Greek: “No blood, no excrement, no sperm.”) just ‘religious Christianity.’ … But church traditions die hard!

BLOG 2/16/14. CONCEIVING LEADERSHIP FOR NEW CREATION COMMUNITIES.

Pursuing this quest for an alternative narrative for tomorrow’s church, one quickly runs head-on into a major obstacle, which is that there are so many filters that hinder us in our consideration of the kind of form and leadership for tomorrow’s church. One of these is the filter that conceives of the church as a spiritually uplifting, aesthetically pleasing, and socially congenial religious community, and so creates a leadership to promulgate this misunderstanding, which has created such a subversion in so much of the church. Face it: the Christian faith is not safe. It is transformational. The church, as it is being created by Jesus Christ, has got to have as its dynamic purpose what I choose to call the communal demonstration of God’s New Creation, his New Humanity. It has got to got to have as its foundation that for which Jesus came—his life, death on the cross, and resurrection in order to reconcile the world to himself, and to reconcile individuals to one another. Having said that, however, when one looks for some kind of handbook as to how that happens, and what kind of leadership is required, what you find is not some kind of algorithm, but something more like a montage.

A subtle, yet critical key to the relationships that are to exist within the church, and out of which relationships this New Creation community is to be formed, would be the concept of one another, which is one Greek word (allelon). There is an intimacy envisioned here. We are to love one another, confess our sins to one another, bear one another’s burdens, etc. There is a mutuality of responsibility and accountability.

And, please note: such mutuality and intimacy is not possible in a large impersonal church society in which one can easily exist as a stranger. (As far back as Deuteronomy, God wanted his people in communities of accountability and mutual caring groups, and provided leaders for groups of 10, of 50, 100, etc. No one was to get lost in a crowd.)

So we come to the New Testament, and the creation of the church. First off, there is no clergy. It seems uniquely egalitarian. There were the apostles, of course, but they almost never invoked apostolic authority. There was not domination by the leadership. Peter will describe himself, to the elders of the church, as a fellow elder. Paul will speak of himself as a co-worker. Yes, you do find that there was the provision of leaders: elders, bishops, deacons, but even they are not precisely defined except that the elders were the most mature in their understanding of the Word of Christ, they were the proven practitioners, and the were the shepherds of God’s flock, and the models/examples to the flock (cf. I Peter 5). The word bishop has to do with overseeing, and may be almost identical to the elder. Whatever, it is made clear that they were accountable to God for each of those persons under their charge.

Their goal was to present each person “mature in Christ.” Somehow, they were responsible to see that those four gifts (in recent Blog) were implemented. They seem to have been the teachers, the models, and the mentors to create New Creation persons, who in turn would become reproductive, and become part of the mission of God, and become, perhaps, themselves elders. They would be able to say with Paul: “Be imitators of me even as I also am of Christ.”

Again, “get real”—this cannot happen in a large impersonal configuration. Paul, himself, speaks of teaching in public (large gathering for teaching?), but also from house to house—ah! (Acts: 20). If I can invoke my own experience here, I have noted that whenever a smaller group of a dozen or so believers commit themselves in mutual discipleship and love, that inevitably leadership emerges obviously and spontaneously. Then as such a group grows; it divides and multiplies with a new generation of proven mentor/practitioner/example leaders recognized by the others. A final word: The Christian faith, when practiced according to scripture, is disruptive and may involve suffering. We need those intimate communities in such a pilgrimage

BLOG 2/10/14: TOMORROW’S CHURCH: RELINQUISHING TRADITIONAL FORMS

One inescapable transition that is already inevitably and ineluctably taking place, as we project our alternative narrative for tomorrow’s church, is that it will have to relinquish its dependence upon venerated traditions such as: 1) large impersonal church institutions, and upon a ‘sacralized’ class of leadership known as clergy. For many of the older generations these will be relinquished with kicking and screaming.

I want to focus for the moment on ‘clergy.’ It is not even a New Testament category, but it has been with us for a very long time unquestioned—probably since the period of the Roman emperor Constantine (and there are so many incredible illustrations of how significant this class has been in the preservation of culture). Those two traditions (church institutions and clergy) came charging through all of the deprivations of the Great Depression, and World War II, and those difficult years produced a very large crop of war veterans who were sobered by the war, and came home to attend theological schools, and enter some kind of a clergy-career that had meaning. The post-war prosperity also produced a boom in the construction of impressive church buildings on a very large scale, and optimism reigned. [Historical note: it was in this 1952 period that IBM produced the first Mainframe Computer, which is now considered by the present generation so primitive as to be unbelievable!]

Yet, culture doesn’t stand still. The generation of ‘Boomers,’ who were produced by ‘the Greatest Generation’ were less influenced by their parents’ Christian culture, but hung in there to a degree, and after some rebellion found their way back into the church institutions and settled into traditional patterns. Then came the ‘Gen X’ers’ who were the first generation to really be formed by a rigorous post-Christian culture. The X’ers were a very bright, but very cynical generation (I’m generalizing, of course) and were more and more unconvinced by what they had experienced by their upbringing in the church, and the exodus began.

At the same time, for all of the huge advances in so many areas of the culture: information technology, bio-engineering, etc. … the basic questions of meaning, of relationships, of the ultimate goal of life, and of life after death, etc. remained. And an entertainment culture became a dominant medium of escape … but it didn’t answer these ultimate questions.

The Gen X’ers were followed by the Millennials (those who came of age around the turn of the 21^st century). The Millennials, unlike the X’ers were more optimistic and pragmatic and committed to finding solutions to seemingly unsolvable human problems. They are also the products of the Information Age, of Artificial Intelligence, of everybody being in communication through their iPhones, etc. Now an even more recent generation is emerging—maybe Generation Z. And what you have now is a global population of which over 50% are under 25 years of age.

My point here is that these recent generations have no allegiance to our venerable church institutions, its buildings, or its clergy leadership. But when they turn off their iPhones or laptops—they still are left with their quest for relationships, for meaning, for justice, for some kind of connection with transcendence. Our alternative narrative will require, then, that we not only reconceive the form of the church, but that, most importantly, we reconceive its leadership in terms that will create authentic New Creation communities.

In the New Testament there is a very definite provision for church leadership, and it is dynamic and pragmatic and reproductive. It is anything but institutionally focused and custodial, such as most traditional clergy have been. And, happily, there are already many thrilling examples of those have realized this and have become its practitioners of just such leadership.  And they are passionate about Jesus and the Cross. Stand by …

CHURCH: COMMUNITIES OF CARING, MEANING, AND HOPE

I’m writing this, sitting here in a coffee shop amidst high achieving urban adults, laptops everywhere, and no telling how much amazing information is being processed in just this one location. But I am also sitting here thinking about the death, a few days ago, of Philip Seymour Hoffman … and feeling quite sad (even though I am not a theatre person). Here was a guy who was obviously a giant in the field of acting. He was on top of his craft. And yet … he evidently was minus some of the most crucial pieces of true humanity: meaning, caring others, … and especially, hope. We humans need a center, an authority, a creative source, a guiding line, and a final goal. Otherwise we are lost in the boundless, bottomless sea of chance.

It is so sad, tragic. A generation ago Walker Percy wrote a novel: Lost In the Cosmos, and with his own inimitable skill as a writer, and with a penchant for psychology, wrote of this very lostness and hopelessness.

We are not created to live in isolation, but in caring communities, and these communities are to be suffused with meaning and hope. So I am back to my alternative narrative about the church. Folk, such as Hoffman, don’t need sterile communities of impersonal (and often stagnant) ‘religion’. And Christ’s church is not called to be a confederation of religious strangers.

Let me focus on the dimension of hope. One of the saddest descriptions in scripture is that of those who are strangers to God (and I am assuming that perhaps Hoffman was one of such folk), and so “having no hope and without God in the world.” I can only assume that Philip Seymour Johnson was without hope—and perhaps without those with whom he was intimate enough to share his hopelessness. Drugs became an alternative to his emptiness, and resulted in his death.

It provokes in me again how very urgent becomes our calling individually and communally as Christ’s church to be a demonstration of hope … a warm, caring, and contagious demonstration of what that hope creates in us humans. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you abound in hope” (Romans 15:13). Through the centuries and through all kinds of nightmarish periods, it is this great hope that has been a hallmark of the true church. I’ve seen this happen on a small scale when suicidal folk were brought into contact with God’s people who radiated this hope and joy and caring because of Christ, and had their lives transformed.

I am quite certain that among all of these high achieving, information-age, apparently successful folk sitting around me—not to mention the unmotivated and economically deprived and meaningless folk so prevalent in our urban scenes—that there are a lot of Philip Hoffman’s counterparts. God, please make me sensitive to such.

Why am I saying all of this? Because if the ostensible ‘Christian community’ is only a somewhat mindless and depersonalized confederation of religious strangers performing its rites, and not a true community of caring and freedom, of mutual confession and forgiveness, of profound discussions on the meaning and hope given us in Christ … especially, the great hope that we share in Christ … then the church becomes part of the problem, and certainly not a community of hope to all of the ‘Philip Seymour Hoffmans’ out there whom no one suspects of being in such despair.

Yes, any alternative narrative of the church must include its sweet aroma of faith, love, and hope. It must be a living, breathing incarnation and demonstration of this new life in Christ.

2/3/14. THE CHURCH FOR AN EMERGING GENERATION OF PRAGMATISTS

So in my Blogs having to do with an alternative narrative for the church, and especially for the emerging generation, we have, first of all the inescapable fact that over 50% of the world’s population is under 25 years of age. Then, feed in the fact that this generation is emerging into a totally different cultural setting than its predecessors. It is a culture that is not only post-modern and post-Christian (whatever those designations imply), but it is a culture that is global, digital, connected, faced with some seemingly impossible pending dilemmas (water shortage, global warming, economic factors that could be ominous, etc.) and yet it also seems to be a generation that is incorrigibly optimistic … but even more, it is a generation that is pragmatic: there are exciting solutions that we can find to the seemingly impossible challenges.

Yet in our North American cultural scene it is not uncommon to find that it is a culture that has found the church to be irrelevant by those outside, and somewhat mindless by those inside. Articles about how the church is losing the Millennial culture, and how the church “lost us” by those of the emerging generation, who were once part of it, are published regularly.

My conclusion is that the church itself is a good part of the mission field (alas!) and that is primarily because the church has lost touch with its own very pragmatic raison d’ètre. It has displaced its two fold commission by its Lord: 1) to go make disciples in every people group, and 2) to love one another. I want to look briefly at that first commission and its evident Biblical components. Disciplemaking is accomplished within the Christian community when (according to one of the few passages that explicates it: Ephesians 4) by knowledgeable practitioners of discipleship, who then not only communicate/teach the data of Christ’s life and teachings, i.e., of God’s in-breaking New Creation in Christ, to every one of Christ’s followers, but also model it before them and coach them in the process of becoming practitioners themselves. The result of this is that then a second generation is equipped to do the same with a third generation of believers, etc.

But note from that same Ephesians 4 passage, that there are four components necessary to create disciples who are mature, and so the Lord provides four different gifts to his church. Every follower of Christ is to be formed by the Word of Christ and held accountable for it, hence, the teaching-shepherd / or pastor-teacher gift. Each follower of Christ is to be equipped in the capacity to communicate that joyous news to those with whom he/she is engaged every day, and to be contagious with that very possibility (this is not learned in a classroom!), Hence the gift of evangelist. Each follower of Christ must be understanding of the context of his/her life and so to exegete that culture, however its darkness (or hostility) expresses itself in their experience. This is the gift of prophet. If our calling to be Christ’s followers is that of calling men and women from the realities of their darkness, and into the light of God’s New Creation, then each must be a student of how that darkness expresses itself societally, relationally, intellectually, psychologically, politically, etc. That is the church’s calling (and we have failed dismally to do this. Rather, we simply tell folk to: “come to church” and be entertained with ‘churchy’ stuff).

And, fourthly, every follower of Christ must be equipped to maturity in the church’s missionary mandate, in the mission of God to the world. No one is exempt. Every believer is a missionary and a disciple-maker, and a church planter. Every home or apartment is a potential gathering place for the church. This is the gift of apostle: the missionary gift.

If and when the church rediscovers these pragmatic components … then it gets exciting, and engages a generational culture, which is actually looking for just such a resource and a hope. Add in one another love, or caring relationships, and the church emerges but in a new form.

BEING ‘THE CHURCH’ IN A CULTURE THAT COULDN’T CARE LESS

In my quest (with the readers of these Blogs) to come up with an alternative narrative for the church as it finds itself now in an increasingly post-Christian and post-modern culture (lots of church folk fail to come to grips with this reality) we really need to make pre-suppositional the reality that, increasingly, the church, as church, doesn’t even register on the screen of a huge segment of this human scene. Folk are increasingly indifferent to it, or can ignore it, or are offended by it, or even hostile to it … or even if they are marginally aware of it, don’t take it at all seriously as any significant piece of the society in which they live.

This interesting cultural shift hasn’t remotely dawned on traditional church folk, who still regularly “go to church,” participate in its activities, give money to support it, but remain either ignorant or passive about the whole purpose of Christ calling out a people to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. It rather reminds me of a few lines from a ballad: The Skeptics:

“They do it every Sunday,

They’ll be all right on Monday;

It’s just a little habit they’ve acquired.”

Having said all of those uncomfortable things (which have been increasingly corroborated by multiple books and articles in recent time), I find that one of the telling causes for such indifference is that folk have never seen demonstrations of the Christian faith that are compelling, i.e., people or Christian colonies that actually demonstrate the life and teachings of Jesus. I also find that there is a whole lot of spiritual hungering among these (what one poet described as: “decent, godless men”).

And yet … it was to just such ordinary—maybe agnostic, or spiritually and ethically confused, or captive to the immediate—folk that Jesus came “to seek and to save.” But if passive church folk have no sense of Christ’s calling, or no significant contact with just spiritually confused god-seekers … and if the church gatherings do not sensitize them to such, or equip them to be those contagious children of the light amidst these realities, then the church is, actually, a questionable presence. And if the church’s leadership is not equipping the followers of Christ to be agents of his mission to reconcile the world to God—then it reinforces and underlines the critical need for an alternative narrative for tomorrow’s church.

It’s interesting, by the way, that who has gotten the attention of large numbers of persons in recent days is Pope Francis, who seems to get the message quite well. But behind his colorful presence is the fact that the Society of Jesus, of which Roman Catholic Order he is a member, is a very highly disciplined order. And the progression within such orders from: 1) inquirer, to 2) novice, to 3) brother/full member of the order, involves a thorough knowledge of: a) the life and teachings of Jesus, b) one’s own personal conviction of the truth of that life and those teachings, which produces a commitment of repentance toward God and costly faith in Jesus Christ, c) equipping for a life in the mission of heralding that faith in difficult contexts, and d) acceptance of the communal disciplines of the order.

In forthcoming Blogs, I want to propose the alternative narrative that somewhat parallels such disciplines, but to do so the colonies of the God’s New Creation in Christ are going to have to divest themselves of the traditional, and without Biblical foundation, concepts of passive church membership, and of ‘clergy.’ We will be looking for a church that equips every member to joyfully and fruitfully invade the darkness, and demonstrates in flesh and blood that New Creation.

A MUCH NEEDED CORRECTIVE TO MY LAST BLOG-POST

I am so very grateful for a comment on my last post (1/22/14)—beside the fact that some thoughtful folk are reading these blogs. You may recall that I was proposing that tomorrow’s church would be more in the form of versatile and mobile colonies of the Kingdom of God/New Creation than the formidable, permanent, and traditional church institutions that have been so normative for the last millennium and a half.

This reader posted a comment/response in which she asked the question: “Where does the Cross fit into all of this?” What a beautiful question! Yes, if I were to attempt to single out the major macro force that would determine the fruitfulness of any alternative narrative for the church in the coming generation, it would be that these colonies of the Kingdom of God, or colonies of God’s New Creation in Christ, …  would reclaim the church’s priority focus on the reality that Jesus made all of this possible by his reconciling work on the Cross—on the atonement. It is easily discernable that when the church’s focus becomes its own communal prosperity and survival, rather than on what God has done in Christ, when such a community ceases to be thrilled by that love of God displayed on the Cross, and when it becomes totally captive to something less than Christ and him crucified … that such a community begins its own demise as an effective agent of God’s mission to make all things new—for God’s Kingdom to “come on earth as it is in heaven.”

But the two themes: 1) the inauguration of the Kingdom of God (New Creation), and 2) the centrality of the cross, are both essential. Note that Jesus came, on one hand, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God, i.e., he preached that in himself the Kingdom was being inaugurated. One the other hand he also knew that his destiny was the cross, and he “set his face to go to Jerusalem” knowing that there he would be arrested, be brutally tortured, and then executed. That was his divine mission. It would seem that the design of the prince of darkness (Satan) in his three temptations of Jesus in the wilderness was to deflect him from whatever he had come to do, … all of which Jesus rebuffed knowing that it was his purpose to obey his calling to reconcile the world to God by the blood of his cross.

As we have the records of the early church, we have such a giant figure as Paul the apostle asseverating that he is determined not to know anything among his hearers except Jesus and him crucified. Paul taught that it was Jesus and his cross was that event that gave us the key to the mystery hidden for the ages, but now made known in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:8-10). It was Paul who would continually remind us that we are reconciled, forgiven, justified by the blood of the cross. That event, as some have so clearly described it, is the center of time and eternity.

Does that all mean that Paul had a different gospel than the gospel of the Kingdom of God? Not at all. The two themes are inextricably linked. The one depends on the other. Note that at the end of the Book of Acts there is Paul, a prisoner of Rome, in the shadow of the Roman Forum, and of Caesar’s imperial power, doing what? “ … welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God, and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness …” (Acts 28:30)

Such a hasty attempt to hold up both of these essentials is quite inadequate and worthy of a much more extended conversation. But, again, I am so thankful for the response of the reader who raised this question. Any attempt to project, or prophesy what the authentic church must include (or to project the macro forces that will form such a church) must absolutely include the holistic understanding of the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and that infinite act of love which makes such a Kingdom possible, which act of love was Christ’s obedience in bearing the sins of the world by his own atoning death on the cross.

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BLOG 1/22/14. COLONIES WHICH DEMONSTRATE NEW CREATION PRIORITIES

Those readers, who follow my Blogs, are fully aware that I am quite persuaded that the familiar institutional form which the church has primarily taken for at least the last millennium and a half (activist and dominant clergy, passive participating laity, focus on a place/building) is archaic, is increasingly unfruitful and difficult to maintain, is diminishing in influence and becoming more and more marginalized, is without any sound Biblical foundation—and is being increasingly abandoned by the emerging generation. I am also persuaded that this is good news, and a sign of hope. It is Christ who is building his church, and Christ who says that “the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

One only has to look at this emerging generation to realize that it is populated with pragmatic young minds who are eager to find solutions to the most impossible problems. It is a generation, which eschews hierarchical organizations, but rather wants to be participant and collaborator in creating those communal solutions that speak to a more fruitful and hopeful future. It is also the best-informed generation in history. It has, for instance, more Biblical, theological, and missional information at its fingertips (on its iPhone) that the church’s scholars of a generation ago could have found in their wildest dreams. It is because of this generational nature that it has consigned the stodgy institutional churches to irrelevance. (They do not, however, reject the rich and fruitful traditions of the past.)

Already the form of the church in the future is coming into focus. It will be made up of mobile, flexible, versatile colonies of those who are formed by, and committed to the gospel of God’s New Creation in Christ (i.e., the gospel of the kingdom of God). All of its participants will be formed by/equipped for obedience to the word of Christ (cf. Colossians 3:16). They will be focused on their part in the mission of God, of being “the missionary agent of the Holy Trinity.” It’s leadership will come from the mature practitioners of all of this within their colonies.

These will prove their authenticity by their obedience to the word of Christ, remembering that Jesus taught unequivocally that those who were truly his disciples were those who heard and obeyed his teachings (note: you can’t worship One whom you do not obey!). This involves not only living out the ethical mandates of the kingdom of God/of the New Creation (as so splendidly set forth in the Sermon on the Mount/Plain), but also living out the relational command to love one another as Christ has loved us. It will be a colony of Light in its knowledge, in its ethical demonstration, and in its relationships. It will be passionate about Jesus’ “search and rescue mission” which is to seek and save those who are still lost, or spiritually confused, or self-destructive, or walking in darkness. It will be also culture creating in a very holistic incarnation of its influence.

The gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of the kingdom of God, is an alternative narrative in itself. It is radical, divisive, transformational, counter-cultural … yet the colony of this gospel will always be suffused with the infinite grace and love of God. Those who find new life in this gospel will almost inevitably find each other, and with together become the entrepreneurs of these New Creation colonies in their journey together as they give themselves to one another in mutual responsibility and accountability.

And, finally, these colonies will, by their love and obedience to Christ, become contagious and reproductive and be always creating new colonies (churches), which also will be mutually encouraging of one another. Studies have shown that the largest number of participants, which an extended family can effectively embrace, is 150. But, the colony in which the Biblical mandates of our ministries to one another is much smaller—something like twelve or fifteen. The emerging generation knows these dynamics. They express a future and a hope for the church.