Friday, December 19, 2003
Is God reshaping -- and reviving -- his church?
There is a growing universal awareness that God is leading His church in some new and surprising directions, as it seeks to reach a postmodern culture. The end result, say many observers, may well be a radically transformed church.
"People have rejected what we've shown them as the church, but I'm not sure what we've shown them has to be the only way that we do church," says Cam Roxburgh, the senior pastor of Southside Community Church in Surrey and the B.C. regional coordinator of Church Planting Canada.
"For too long we've defined 'local church' as a place where I go on Sunday morning to attend a religious service, and oftentimes the bigger the better.
"I don't want to rip that apart, because so many good things have been done through that model, but I'm not sure that's the approach that's going to win the day in our country over the next generation or two."
Roxburgh believes part of the answer lies in motivating the church body to go out and consciously build relationships. "We've got to be a group of people who infiltrate neighbourhoods -- and that's bound to make 'church' look a whole lot different," he says.
"So why can't it look like a series of home churches, or be held in a coffee shop more than under a steeple?"
"We must learn to live without a building," says Vancouver-area church planter Tom Tan. "Right now, churches are leaving the city. We have to go back to the city to reach the lost there. And facilities are expensive for a city church."
It is a way of "doing" church that can take many forms. In Montreal, for example, a group of Quebec Roman Catholics began meeting in October with the blessing of the archdiocese for a non-traditional Mass called the 'Repas de Fraternite.' As the Montreal Gazette reported, they gather for "family-like meals" that also include "Scripture readings, singing and discussion, often in the absence of a priest."
A manifesto signed by about 110 Catholics states that these meals counteract what they regard as the failure of the traditional Eucharist to fulfill its original purpose of building community within the church. "A church that no longer embodied community would run the risk of becoming a [mere] religion, providing ceremonies and other services to people who hardly know one another, if at all," the manifesto states.
Dr. Eddie Gibbs, who teaches church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, says such "intensely eucharistic" meals -- in homes, but also in restaurants and cafes -- are becoming a key feature of these new churches.
"In the context of the meal, the bread is broken and the wine is blessed," he says. "It is a participation; it is a means of grace. It can be powerfully evangelistic, because we are engaging with cultures which are rich in symbolic action. We've got to re-discover the power of symbol and the power of metaphor.
"And we're always just glancing sideways and making room, because there are lots of lonely people out there."
New churches are also springing up on university campuses, as students show a renewed interest in developing their spirituality.
"It is quite broadly characteristic of post-modernity and the emerging generation, where the skepticism of all things institutional -- government, business and the church -- continues to be very high," says Murray Moerman, director of national church planting strategy for Outreach Canada.
Yet to the unchurched student, he adds, most of these churches will seem no different than a Christian club. "If you pop your head into one room or the other, it still looks like 30 people sitting haphazardly on various kinds of furniture in a relaxed way. They're both involved in Bible study groups, worship, discipleship.
"The way that you can tell the difference," says Moerman, "is that the church views itself as permanent and intending to reproduce, whereas Christian clubs tend to view themselves as seasonal, and therefore not as focused on leadership and reproduction."
"I thought the barriers to mission were the big, bad cities," Dr. Ray Bakke, executive director of International Urban Associates, wrote in a recent article. "But 90 percent of the barriers to reaching cities are not in the city at all; they are inside our churches, things like, 'Our bishop would never let us get away with that,' or, 'They'll call us liberal if we do that,' or, 'We can't do that, the seminary didn't prepare me for that.' The barriers are inside our structures: the knowledge base, the intimidation factors of our churches -- these are the things that keep us from reaching cities."
Gibbs agrees, though not entirely. "There are some institutional churches that find their identity and their security in their traditions. And at that point, they become highly resistant," he says.
"But then there are other churches in mainline traditional denominations that get it. They see that maintenance is no longer an option, that they must engage in mission and are prepared to pay the price to do whatever it takes to re-engage their cultural context."
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