Can we handle life in the highways and byways?
July 12, 2005
Lucy's comment on the "Visions to Avoid" post set me thinking (read that thread if you haven't - we need to develop it!). We're "selling" Jesus, she suggests. That's what we've got to offer. And she raises the question, "To whom?" I wonder what most of our church folk would answer if (a) the question was, "Who would you most like to attract to your church?" and (b) they had to answer honestly!
I suspect that the answer is that we'd like middle class, well-spoken, enthusiastic, productive, skilled, younger, thinking, popular, gifted, comfortably off people. I'm getting on for sure-to-certain that the answer will not be poor, damaged, difficult, marginalised, unpopular, dirty, destructive, embarrassing, unemployed (unemployable?) people who need giving to.
This is where I get stuck. I actually believe that these are precisely the people we should be seeking to attract first (ie before turning our attention to those less needy). That's what Jesus did, after all! But Jesus did more than extend charity and hospitality. He chose these people as friends! They were his first choice.
We concentrate our efforts on people like us. We are battling to communicated with jaded, satiated consumers who are overwhelmed with choice. That is not to say for a moment that they - and we - aren't needy. But our needs come from having too much. We pray "Give us this day our daily bread", while my daily bread frquently goes hard and mouldy and gets fed to the ducks and swans because I have so many other, more exciting things to eat. We have Communion services, procaliming Jesus to be the Bread of Life, while people starve to death. Then we have theological arguments about how to dispose of the leftovers! One of our greatest health problems is obesity and our most common mental health problems centre around our bodies and self-image. Part of our salvation is a fairer world in which we live more simply in order that others may simply live.
The parable of the Great Feast is about abandoning concentration on those who are most reluctant to hear the Good News of the Gospel and concentrating on those whose need is greatest - for whom the Gospel comes as gloriously Good News. That is not the same thing as abandoning those others. It's about where our efforts are concentrated.
So how can we make that sort of quantum leap? How can we begin to create a Church that is recognisably the Church of Jesus Christ precisely because it reflects Jesus' priorities in this area? That seems to me part of the task of catching the vision of God's Tomorrow.
Visions to avoid
July 10, 2005
Too many discussions of Emerging Church are still underpinned by a desire to be successful. If "success" means growth, then the hard facts are that most churches grow at the expense of others, because we are not so much conecting with people who have nothing to do with Christian faith as competing for a market share of people who are already Christians. Church as it is is getting to the point where we are exhausting the list of people "on the outside" who are interested in "joining" Church.
If the vision to be caught is of a Church that is simply more successful than before in wooing disaffected Christians, it's one we ought to avoid assiduously! There are enough churches presently catering for "already Christians". If we have a justifiable reason for existing beyond our existing shelf life, it must be because we are finding ways of connecting with the vast majority of those for whom the Gospel is clearly not Good News. When we create spaces for them to find faith and join the community of faith, we will find ourselves changing organically. That's when we start to become the Church of Tomorrow!