Contours of Post-Christendom Vineyard Ministry

UPDATE: Frank Emmanuel, a Vineyard pastor in Ottawa, adds his thoughts on why we’re in for a hard road ahead. In my experience, Canucks tend to be ahead of the curve regarding this issue and it’s good to see a leader like Frank pitching in his perspective.

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Part 1: Did Tony Jones Kill the Vineyard?
Part 2: Vineyard Churches at the Crossroads

As I mentioned, Jenell and I huddled with a small group of Vineyard pastors last weekend to compare notes on the experience of leading non-traditional, missional churches. We were hardly able to scratch the surface on most issues, but here are some of the main topics that came up:

Common origins and experience
For the most part everyone’s stories had at least one common theme: Nobody lacked significant leadership experience and everyone had led in an attractional church (some successfully, some not), which led to a high level of frustration with the overall lack of discipleship fostered by the attractional approach. Yet, nobody in the room was willing to condemn attractional churches. Still, everyone was generally in agreement that, as a rule, it is predisposed to more shallow congregations on the whole.

A time of liminality
Everyone seemed to have a long list of anecdotal evidence that attractional/church-growth oriented congregations are rapidly failing – yet nobody feels there are established, sustainable alternatives. One person basically said, “I think this is going to be really hard for a long time to come.” Nobody disagreed.

High commitment to kingdom theology and the “radical middle”
Everyone spoke of Kingdom Theology and the Radical Middle as key underpinnings which kept them strongly rooted in the Vineyard, even though they felt the association overall was largely quiet concerning the emerging/missional movements and the ecclesiological shortcomings of attractional church.

A Sense of missional continuity prior to church-growth models
Most of the people in the room had been practicing many elements of what we now call “missional” church (i.e. use of third spaces, intentional communities, contemplative and liturgical practices, etc.) long before the missional/emerging conversations were popularized, and, more importantly, long before the church-growth movement took hold – at least as far back as the early to mid-seventies. For me this was a light-bulb moment. There’s a great deal of talk on the attractional side that missional ministry is a fad, but, whatever you may call it, the “missionary to the West” mindset seems to be both a descendant of theological shifts beginning in the 1960′s, but also a by-product of the religious fervor stemming from the Jesus Movement.

Family ministry in the missional church
This was probably the most energized conversation of the weekend. There’s a great deal of frustration with the void caused by a rejection of centralized, professional, spectator approaches to children and youth ministry. Everyone believes these approaches are bankrupt, but hardly anyone could articulate a viable missional alternative and nobody was aware of a proven approach. It was pointed out that in the absence of a compelling alternative, most parents would understandably choose to have their kids satiated in an entertaining mega-church ministry. Future-facing churches must fill this void with a biblically insightful and culturally appropriate approach to the discipleship of whole families.

Partnering with culture, making culture
There was a pretty solid body of experience in the room when it came to engaging with culture. This is understandable. Within the emerging/missional stream this has been relatively strong and the people in this group reflected that: there were examples of partnering with local government (especially schools) to fill civic needs, participating with local AIDS organizations and justice issues, creating third spaces, offering secular counseling services, and creating internet communities and arts organizations. Everyone seemed comfortable and positive about pushing forward in this direction. This, of course, isn’t exclusive to so-called missional churches. More traditional churches are making rapid progress with innovative cultural engagement; that’s always been a strength of evangelicalism. The difference is that missional churches tend to lean more toward culture making (see Andy Crouch, Culture Making), whereas traditional evangelicalism leans more toward cultural critique or cultural emulation.

One church, many congregations
Unity was identified as a major theme, and a phrase that stuck with me was, “One church, many congregations.” Particularly in the bay area Mike McCoy is working with a large collection of diverse churches to bring about an unprecedented level of cooperation and unity in that region. Here in San Diego the catch-phrase I’ve heard from several people is “a citywide church.” As Christendom winds down and Christian communities are marginalized, these kinds of networks are likely to become vital and the Vineyard has a history of ecumenism, inherited from John Wimber.

Embracing grassroots organizational dynamics
There was some spirited conversation around the subject of embracing grassroots styles of organization as particularly compatible with the values of egalitarian leadership, the priesthood of the believer, and discipleship/multiplication. A.A. and Crossfit were bought up as examples.

The critical need for inter-church missional leader relationships
Everyone agreed that the single most important benefit of the weekend was developing relationships with others who are also experimenting on the fringe. It’s easy to feel marginalized when leading a church these ways. People both in your own church and in the Vineyard at large sometimes press for more traditional indicators of success.

Returning to the simplicity of Jesus
As we wound down on Saturday afternoon, the conversation shifted to the importance of refocusing on Christ. It was pointed out that movements historically tend to take off as “roots movements,” but over time become cluttered with the minutia of bureaucracy. If the Vineyard is the speak a fresh word and a demonstrate a fresh mission to a new generation it will have to be a word/work about Christ. He is the mission.

What we didn’t discuss
There were some conversations we didn’t have time for as much of this gathering was a “get to know you” session since few of us had any significant prior relationship. In my opinion, some of the pressing conversations we could/should have in the future include:

• Gender and sexuality issues facing the church
• Science and faith conflicts
• Politics and peacemaking
• Post-Charismatic Pneumatology
• Post-Christendom theological education and leadership development
• Navigating religious and theological pluralism in and out of the church
• The role of arts and aesthetics
• Ancient/future liturgical practices and consistency
• Public evangelism in post-Christendom
• Alternative economic practices

What are your thoughts?
What are your experiences with some of these topics? Do you see them differently? Are there critical issues we missed?

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People Present:
Certainly, there were others we could have invited. The decision was made to keep this a western gathering for cost and convenience, and to keep it very small in order to maintain a manageable conversation dynamic. A few were unable to attend such as Rich and Rose Swetman from Seattle, WA, Barry Diamond from Las Vegas, NV, and Randy Knutsen from Palm Desert, CA.

• Bill Farris – Orange County, CA
  
• Pete & Gail Mosgofian – Arcata, CA
  
• Mike McCoy – Concord, CA
• Jason & Jenell Coker – North County San Diego, CA
• Eric Brown – Huntington Beach, CA
• David Ruis – Hollywood, CA

Technorati Tags: Emerging, Missional Church, Post-Christendom, Vineyard Churches, Vineyard Movement

Review of Deep Church by Jim Belcher

If you want to start a fight among Christians these days there’s no better way than to bring up the “Emerging Church” in conversation.

In his recent book, Deep Church, Jim Belcher doesn’t want to start that fight, he wants to finish it.

Belcher may prove to be the man for the job. In the last eight years – since the publishing of Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christian heralded the coming-out party of an emerging group of dissatisfied Christian thinkers and leaders – hardly anyone has tackled the differences between traditional and emerging Christianity with such irenic aplomb (Scot McNight comes to mind). Jim seems to care just as deeply about the people in the debate as he does about finding a “third way” beyond the muck and mire of traditional vs emerging name-calling.

Early on we hear about his own struggles with the issues these two camps represent, and we learn, surprisingly, that he feels profoundly out of place in both. He’s an insider and an outsider struggling to plant a church that is both biblically faithful and culturally prophetic. Therefore, he’s personally invested in sorting out the intersection of the gospel and culture in an increasingly post-christian America.

This is what Jim Belcher does best in Deep Church; he establishes himself as a reasonable referee in an unreasonable fight. Like a fatherly figure wisely stepping between two schoolyard pugilists Belcher knows the fight is necessary; but hoping to avoid any serious injuries he offers the boys a set of oversized boxing gloves. We breath a sigh of relief. It’s about time, we say to ourselves and settle in for a little level-headed maturity. Consequently, it’s hard not to trust him as he gently but firmly admonishes the low-blows of the combatants and offers a “third way.”

There’s no better example of this in Deep Church than the manner in which Jim handles the differing uses of the word “postmodernism.” By telling his own story of coming to terms with “postmodernism” Belcher manages to create a sense of humble empathy for both sides of the debate.

Likewise, the recounting of his priceless conversation (yes, I’m jealous) with Nicholas Wolterstorff concerning foundationalism is worth the price of the book alone. There may be no more inspirational and hopeful point in Deep Church than when, after a discussion about the traditional church’s captivity to foundationalism, Belcher asks where the Emerging camp might have also gone wrong. Wolterstorff answers,

“I think they have made a similar mistake as the traditional church,” he responded. “If the traditional church thinks that their theory of being commits them to a foundational epistemology, the emerging church
makes the opposite mistake. They think that their postfoundationalism commits them to an anti-realism metaphysics. That we can’t know reality apart from what the individual or the community comes up with. But the truth is, reality is there. I see it. You see it” (p82).

This is humble and hopeful clarity! That’s no small accomplishment in this increasingly vitriolic debate, and it’s precisely this fashion of honest, transparent guidance amid complex and emotionally-charged issues that makes Deep Church a fine book.

On the other hand it isn’t long before we discover something disconcerting: the fix is in – and the referee is in on it. After a few overlooked sucker punches it becomes clear that Jim Belcher has a favorite in this fight. He wants one of these fighters to win – and if the winner happens to suffer a bloodied nose, all the better for instilling some much-needed humility.

This preference becomes especially clear in Chapter 6, “Deep Gospel.” In it Belcher visits a theme he earlier acknowledged to be a core issue dividing Traditional and Emerging Christians: the definition of the gospel itself. But here Belcher abandons his former creative transparency and prefers instead to fire jabs alongside his Traditional cohorts, saying:

“As [our church leadership] wrote about our gospel commitment, we wanted to stress the atonement as well as the kingdom of God. We wanted to make it clear that Christ’s cross, which paid for our sins and took away our guilt, is the foundation for Christ’s victory over evil and oppression, and allows us to join God’s family and his kingdom reign” (120).

To be fair, Belcher wants to connect the Atonement to the Kingdom, but by the end of the chapter his use of the word “gospel” has become synonymous with “atonement.” Though Belcher mentions the influence on Emerging leaders of theologians like Anabaptist John Howard Yoder and Anglican N.T. Wright, he never engages with Yoder’s views that being a Christian is an embodied political salvation, or with Wright’s work regarding justification, atonement and an understanding of the gospel as the essentially political proclamation of Christ’s overall Kingship.

Instead Belcher seems content to reduce the gospel to one particular view of the atonement, penal substitution – a great irony, since most of Chapter 6 is vociferously dedicated to avoiding any such “reductionism.” There’s no better representation of this reduction than Belcher’s presentation of his church’s core commitments:

Gospel – Community – Mission – Shalom

In other words, Community, Mission, and (perhaps most surprisingly) Shalom are not the gospel. Atonement is. This may or may not be true, but Belcher knows better than anyone that this is a major bone of contention with Emerging leaders, and unlike the discussion on foundationalism vs postmodernism, here Belcher doesn’t make the same effort toward uncovering a genuine gospel “third way,” and that may very well be what divides Traditional and Emerging Christians permanently – just as it has divided Christians since the early Church councils.

Overall, Deep Church is a very good book. One could find no better overview of the Traditional/Emerging debate, and one could certainly find no better mediator to date. However, as the book develops it becomes increasingly clear that Jim is pulling for the traditional church in this scuffle. Sure, he wants the traditional church to take its licks and wake up to the reality of postmodern shifts in America and beyond – that is, he wants the “Great Tradition” in Vestments and Levis – but by the end of the book Belcher’s “Deep Church” begins to look suspiciously like an advertisement for the Presbyterian Church of America.

Technorati Tags: Brian McLaren, Church, Deep Church, Emerging, Jim Belcher, Scot McNight, Traditional