I attempt to be intellectual
20 May 2006
I attended the Perspectives on Mission Conference down at Bay West for most of Friday. It was an interesting time. I learned a lot and was able to do a great deal of thinking and chewing over. I didn’t agree with all that was said and firmly disagreed with some of the ideas put forward. That's not to say there weren't many useful and valuable thing I learned.
We looked at several different models of church structure and looked at the advantages and disadvantages of each. Theses were; Classical Attractional model, Seeker model and the Incarnational model. I'll outline each as they were presented and comment on each.
The Classical Attractional eg. Rick Warren and Bill Hybels This model was heavily criticized for failing to actually “attract” non Christians to the church. I would agree with this to a certain extent. Many of the theologically reformed churches I have attended simply don't "attract" non Christians.
Seeker Church model. This is more of a Crossroads style church. The church seeks to be Attractional but cater to the needs of outsiders. For example not having music, removing theological jargon, explaining what prayer is etc. The end point of all this is to allow the non Christian to feel as comfortable as possible. The problem with this view was that it sees church leadership as "vendors", and "seekers" as consumers. This in turn breeds Christians who expect to be served by the church rather than serve themselves. Furthermore this can lead to leadership burnout. I don't think this was so much a problem with Crossroads in it's old form.
A second criticism of the Seeker Church model is that Non Biblical issues are over emphasized in order to cater to outside needs. I'm inclined to agree here. The music issue at Crossroads would be a classical example. Was it worth having no music at Crossroads for so long when we put a number of valuable Christian members of our community offside? Did having no music actually achieve what we wanted it too?
The final Church model and by far the one most heavily put forward was the Incarnational model. This model draws it's inspiration from the incarnation (the Jesus become man and dwelling among us stuff). It involves bringing Christian values to the world. Or in another way aiming to bring church into the surrounding community rather than attract the community into a meeting. For example going into a pub and chatting with people, sort of coffee church type things. This was the model I had most problem with. The biggest of these is that I just don’t see the incarnation as a model for how to do church in the New Testament. Rather I think that it is primarily Jesus death and resurrection are what drive our sense of Church and community.
One thing I found more concerning was in the wording of what Christ’s death actually achieved. In an attempt to broaden the implications for salvation beyond the individual (“extending to the social and political sphere”), Jesus’ Penal Substitutionary Atonement was presented as of “secondary importance” (their words not mine) to his triumph and victory over principalities and worldly institutions. Here I strongly disagree. 1 Corinthians 15 springs to mind.
Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
So where do I sit? Well with the Seeker model. As I said before it was this model that was heavily criticized even bagged out at the conference. Many of the arguments put forward as to why this model fails were full of straw man arguments and false dichotomies. I found this very frustrating. Apologies if this post comes across as overly negative as I did learn much and really valued the experience.
tags christian, ministry, rant, review, thinking
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I didn't go to the conference. From your summary, I'm not feeling the loss.
I think church can be done "incarnationally" but without the baggage and hangups of incarnational theology. (You are bang on w/ 1 Cor 15).
With Crossroads, one major reason for the Hullaballoo was that the leaders were simply doing too much work. The "burnout" criticism of the Seeker model might be valid. On the other hand, we certainly never had a problem w/ Christians feeling like consumers, rather than servants.
Music at Crossroads was put off so long for reasons other than "being evangelistic". We put it off because we wanted to do it well, or not at all.
I agree with your statement that Church can be done without the hangups. In fact I think that Crossroads did this well in the past.
I agree that music was put off more recently for reasons that we wanted to do it well. I wasn't critcising this at all.
What I was critical of, was the reasons music was put off in times before you attended Crossroads. This was very much for evangelistic reasons. This was the way that it was presented by the leadership at the time. I can remember having it explained to me/the church that way and defending/explaining it that way to others.
I like your challenge of the Incarnational model and I agree with your issues with it. Thanks for explaining the conference :)
It was G. K. Chesterton who said, "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly."