Using
In a recent
article, George Lings (author of
Just
the same, only different
Every Sunday
morning about sixty or seventy people take over the ‘Green McCaw’ café
located in a suburban shopping strip. The
small space is packed to the door and people sit around tables to enjoy the
music, listen to a brief and punchy message, hear stories and generally
celebrate the good things that God is doing in their community.
It’s a
pretty unlikely crew – a millionaire businessman sits at the same table as a
recovering heroin addict. The head
bouncer from the local pub is there, along with IT professionals, welfare
dependent single mums and an array of others.
The young pastors are desperately seeking a larger space to meet.
About half the
people attending that morning have come to faith among this group.
The rest were either part of the original planting team or have
re-connected with church after a break.
Sunday
afternoons, in another city meets another church, which looks virtually the
same. The look and feel is café
casual, although they meet in a school hall.
The music is not too different, the message just as relevant and punchy.
The crowd lacks some of the diversity, but numbers about eighty or so.
All-in-all, you’d struggle to see from the outside how very, very different
these two churches are.
What’s
the difference?
Our first
example began six years ago as a team of about ten people.
For the first two years they had no public worship service, committing
most of their time to building relationships with unchurched people, doing
simple acts of service, making disciples one by one and gathering them into
small groups. When the people they
were reaching kept asking to ‘start church’, they commenced a monthly
service. They moved to a fortnightly
service only when they had enough people involved to sustain both grass-roots
mission activity and the public service. They’ve only recently increased the
frequency to weekly. Because a
favourite pastime in their area is relaxing in a café, they chose a one as a
meeting place. Founded and formed by
mission, this is a mission-shaped church.
Although a
little bigger, the second example church is only eighteen months old.
The origins of the church are found in a small group of young adults,
frustrated by the rigidity of the traditional church they attended.
They wanted something fresh, contemporary and informal - something they
could invite their friends to.
The group
worked hard to bring their dream to reality.
They put together a detailed strategic plan, pulled together ideas,
people and resources and even gained the blessing of their home church.
Local government demographics told them that middle class 18-40 year-olds
abounded in their suburb, so everything about the service - from funky music to
plunger coffee – was chosen with these in mind.
Their first service was everything they had hoped, and since then a
steady flow of new faces has delighted the leadership group.
While the new
church appears to be a resounding success, a few nagging doubts rattle about in
the minds of the leaders. Firstly, almost all the newcomers are from other
churches. Some stay, some attend for a few weeks and move on.
Everyone is encouraged to invite their friends, but all their friends are
Christians.
Contemporary
and cool as it may be, the second example is mission-flavoured.
|
|
|
|
Had its
origin in a call to mission |
Was born
in reaction to the established church |
|
Began
work with the unchurched and their needs |
Began
work with the churched and their preferences |
|
Made
serving the lost its first priority |
Made a
hip worship service their first priority |
|
Launched
its public worship service according to health indicators |
Launched
their public worship service according to a schedule |
|
Sought
to discover and meet the needs of unchurched by engaging with them in
relationship, then serving them in a relational ‘peer’ approac.
. |
Perceived
the needs of the unchurched form a distance and opted for a
‘provider-client’ approach to serving them |
|
Allowed
those new to the faith to influence its form and style.
|
Designed
its look and feel based on its own idea of what the community needed.
|
|
Became
‘insiders’ in their local culture – ‘Bringing Jesus to them’ |
Remained
‘outsiders’ in their local culture, trying to ‘Bring them to
Jesus’ |
The
basis for mission-shaped church is a call to mission, rather than frustration
that your own needs aren’t met. As
far as possible, deal with your frustrations and other gripes before you set off
to plant.
Right
from the start, spend significant time with those you’re trying to reach.
Your job is to be good news, not a purveyor of goods and services,
religious or otherwise.
In
a mission-shaped framework, a public worship service should be the overflow of
mission and its fruits, rather than preceding it. It will therefore be shaped by
those who’ve come to faith through mission.
The form it takes may or may not follow the style and symbols of the
receptor culture.
Public
worship services are usually very resource-hungry.
Beware of committing too much of your people’s time and energy to the
service at the expense of relational time with the unchurched.
Programs
as a concept are value-neutral. They
succeed or fail as outreach tools largely on the basis of whether they provide a
context for relationships to form and grow.
Remember, outreach and evangelism aren’t the same thing.
A final thought. . .
Many
large, attractive churches successfully reach unchurched people using a ‘come
to Jesus’ model. And some of them
began by launching a public worship service. This is valid and worthwhile
ministry. Mission-shaped church is
not a replacement for this model, but an alternative approach that will reach a
different sector of society.
Ken
Morgan trained at Tabor College, Melbourne while working among youth in
outer-eastern suburbs. He currently
serves with Church Resource Ministries training and coaching church planters,
and consulting to denominations. With
his wife Janet and their two daughters, Ken makes his home is the