Thursday, December 11, 2008
Right on Alan
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Out of Ur has had an ongoing blog/conversation this past week regarding the success of so-called "missional" churches. It started essential with Dan Kimball questioning whether or not missional churches were successful, based upon their seeming lack of numeric growth in comparison with so-called "mega-churches" (over 3,000 or so), that continue to grow and plant new churches.
What I appreciate so much about Alan Hirsch's response is that he points out that real and meaningful change and impact is not quantifiable by the old measurements, IMO numeric and financial growth. This was something I thought about a lot during the class I took over the summer on Emerging Churches. Students in the class often questioned the "sustainability" of emerging or missional style churches, and they asked questions about how they would be funded, how many converts were made in a short time period etc.
If American Christians continue to think of the "success" of the church in business and economic terms, the impact will be measured in comparison to other successful businesses in America. But if the church will realize that it of an essentially different nature - of the kingdom of God, not of this world - then the tools of measurement will change, and perhaps even disappear.
What I appreciate so much about Alan Hirsch's response is that he points out that real and meaningful change and impact is not quantifiable by the old measurements, IMO numeric and financial growth. This was something I thought about a lot during the class I took over the summer on Emerging Churches. Students in the class often questioned the "sustainability" of emerging or missional style churches, and they asked questions about how they would be funded, how many converts were made in a short time period etc.
If American Christians continue to think of the "success" of the church in business and economic terms, the impact will be measured in comparison to other successful businesses in America. But if the church will realize that it of an essentially different nature - of the kingdom of God, not of this world - then the tools of measurement will change, and perhaps even disappear.
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2 comments:
I especially like that Hirsch always afirms the modern attractionalism model of "Christendom" you know it feels like he's saying "if it works for you great, but for those of us who can't stand it anymore let's find a better way". Sometimes I feel like it is this battle the emergents vs. Xenos or something and one person's got to be right, but really we're all in this together, and I have to admit there are some darn good attractionalist churches out there that make real disciples.
The cool thing about talking about the Great Emergence is that something is happening to the church whether we proclaim emergentism or not, people are having these thoughts just like us. So if the pastors of the megachurches don't "get it" that's fine we don't have to force it on them, but we do have to be ready to catch the people who fall out of the modern church when they start having post-modern thoughts.
Good stuff Zack. Thanks for commenting - I agree that megachurches seem to be working for a lot of people, but it also obviously isn't for everyone. I appreciate and really respect that Hirsch is looking to those people whom it is not working for (I think about the video you let me watch where he pointed out basically 80% of American population doesn't like church or go to church) and that he is looking ahead to the future, to those, as you said, who "fall out of the modern church when they start having post-modern thoughts" -
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