Words'nTone

“…discontinuous change is much more disturbing and difficult. Unlike the continuous form, it creates a situation that requires something different from and more potent than the normal habits and skills that were so useful during a stable period of continuous change. Congregations do not do well with this unexpected, dramatic change; they need entirely different skills and capacities from those that have service them well in the past” [Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk in The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World, pp 57-58]

Although I spend most of my time reading up on issues of poverty, urban blight and suburban sprawl, the tensions of economic advantages and disadvantages, the significance of demographic data and profiles of populations, and of course taxes, legislation, and politics, I try to keep up on church-related, ministry and mission issues facing Christianity and the Church. To be frank, I have been so unimpressed with much that I have read on the so-called emergent and emerging church (including anything smacking of contemporary church growth or just trying to be trendy), and books on missional churches have been as well unimpressive. Same ol’. Same ‘ol. I have heard it all before—just an attempt at keeping up on the times. Just trendy stuff and approaches wrapped in postmodern (hyper-modern, really just modernity gone wild) language.

I am very skeptical of the down-play given to the place of Scripture coming from most of the new elite authors. There is one set of authors that caught my attention and left me a little impressed (there I said it), that is, with Roxburgh and Romanuk’s book on the The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World. I appreciated the analysis of their church leadership approach to change and how various congregations fit within the continuous-discontinuous change mode. I like the honesty. The star statement comes on page 54, although it had already been hinted at on almost every page:

“Decisions must be made and action taken that no longer fit an established paradigm.”

Of course this book on Church Leadership is coming from guys who aren’t doing church, they advise, consult, and critique churches and church leaders. That’s always a problem for me. Doesn’t mean what they are saying isn’t right (and so far, I am about 90% in agreement—thus far, all good excepting, again, with their low view of Scripture and the eschewing of strategic planning—for another Thought), just that its easier to consult than do. But I digress.

In my reading: First we must face up to it—we make changes and respond to change (or instability) in ways that find its basis in protecting the current structures, authorities, and dare I say jobs (i.e., position and place). The book, The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World, stresses that we simply cannot make changes and do church the way we have always done it, or even to attempt to try harder at the same thing. The social and cultural contexts have vastly changed from what the older church structures were built upon. Something else must emerge (oh, man I can’t believe I wrote that!). A different type of church must emerge (ouch, even that word I can’t believe I actually wrote out-loud) in order to compete with the changes surrounding the church—and that doesn’t mean just being trendy or mod. And the direction we face—we can’t think that serving up religious goods and services is the call of the Church. We continue to think it’s our job to create something the un (or even the churched from a competing church) will desire and come get, as if potential members of the congregation are consumers and we are selling a product. Some church leaders and authors continue to think we are, and some church growth gurus still portray church growth in such terms—but they are dead wrong, unregenerately wrong. And this book I have appreciated the idea of imaging a new future for God’s people (within a congregation), and allowing the Word, the sacraments, and our worship to be more formative in helping the congregation imagine that new future. What the authors paint is scary for pastors and congregational leaders—some might lose their jobs and their elite status!

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It’s an older paper now, and I wrote it to critique the status and state of the bible college movement and offer a future direction—don’t think anyone listened—but some of you might be interested in the thoughts in my paper on ministerial training, “Ministerial Training & (Post)Modernity: Institution-Based Ministerial Training Creates Concrete (Post)Modern Experiences for Students”

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