This week, David Fitch added to a conversation on the problem of individualism in the missional church movement. Here’s an excerpt:
Mike Breen and Dan White Jr have both written this week about the problem of individualism in missional churches this week. My own take on this is there is a missing ecclesiology at the core of the missional movement. The missional church movement often misses just how much the Kingdom of God is a social dynamic in Christian participate in. The resulting social reality is the church as its social visualization. As I said on twitter earlier this week: “The Kingdom of Jesus is always a social reality which individuals participate in. Privatizing it is both the evangelical and liberal mistake.” Evangelicals want to make the kingdom a private personal relationship with Jesus the King, protestant liberals want to make the Kingdom about God’s work in the world in which individuals are sent as good Christians to work for. But either way we miss how the Kingdom becomes visible and flourishes when two or more people (a community) submit to His reign in a space and time and thereby open space for His reign and authority to break in. This is to me the dynamic of mission. Too often the missional church movement has fallen into either the evangelical and/or the protestant liberal mistake. The Anabaptist corrective is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is that in Christ, the fulfilment of the promises to Israel has begun in a commuinity. God’s reign in Christ on earth has begun in the form of a community in and for the world. It is the harbinger of where God is taking the whole world and therefore invites the whole world to see and partake.
Today’s “missional churches” tend to default into producing individual missionaries and then sending them out to be missional at their work or in their neighborhood. They tell a message instead of being the message together (from which they can tell the message). They hold a Sunday gathering that pumps up and challenges Christians to join in God’s mission. Then they send them out to be little Jesus’ in their respective places in the world. The problem? This strategy exhausts everybody involved. And gives them a big guilt trip. The church burns out in three to five years. It’s the dirty little secret in the room. It’s important to note that even though many churches plant by sending large groups into a town to plant a church, their logic of mission is still individualistic carrying out this same logic.
But God in Christ beckons us to come together, submit to His reign together to a social reality typified by forgiveness, reconciliation, renewal, healing and transformation in the Spirit. The world of this new Kingdom becomes visible in the reality of our lives together – whether that is the social reality of our family, economy, governance, art, meals, conflict. It is extended to whatever space we go and inhabit. Here is this space (which depends on individuals submitting to Christ over their own lives as well) God’s reign and authority in Christ breaks in by His Spirit. Devoid of this social reality, the church is left to become a volunteerist army sending out individuals who get exhausted somehow thinking the work of God is on them. We are left with a bunch of individualist burn out missionaries, another version of the protestant liberal vision of the church as recruitment center for doing the good work of the Kingdom out there.
What say you? Is Dave onto something here? Or is the missional movement generally doing just fine?
Also, be sure to catch Dave at the Ecclesia Network National Gathering coming up in just a couple weeks!
Missio Alliance Comment Policy
The Missio Alliance Writing Collectives exist as a ministry of writing to resource theological practitioners for mission. From our Leading Voices to our regular Writing Team and those invited to publish with us as Community Voices, we are creating a space for thoughtful engagement of critical issues and questions facing the North American Church in God’s mission. This sort of thoughtful engagement is something that we seek to engender not only in our publishing, but in conversations that unfold as a result in the comment section of our articles.
Unfortunately, because of the relational distance introduced by online communication, “thoughtful engagement” and “comment sections” seldom go hand in hand. At the same time, censorship of comments by those who disagree with points made by authors, whose anger or limited perspective taints their words, or who simply feel the need to express their own opinion on a topic without any meaningful engagement with the article or comment in question can mask an important window into the true state of Christian discourse. As such, Missio Alliance sets forth the following suggestions for those who wish to engage in conversation around our writing:
1. Seek to understand the author’s intent.
If you disagree with something the an author said, consider framing your response as, “I hear you as saying _________. Am I understanding you correctly? If so, here’s why I disagree. _____________.
2. Seek to make your own voice heard.
We deeply desire and value the voice and perspective of our readers. However you may react to an article we publish or a fellow commenter, we encourage you to set forth that reaction is the most constructive way possible. Use your voice and perspective to move conversation forward rather than shut it down.
3. Share your story.
One of our favorite tenants is that “an enemy is someone whose story we haven’t heard.” Very often disagreements and rants are the result of people talking past rather than to one another. Everyone’s perspective is intimately bound up with their own stories – their contexts and experiences. We encourage you to couch your comments in whatever aspect of your own story might help others understand where you are coming from.
In view of those suggestions for shaping conversation on our site and in an effort to curate a hospitable space of open conversation, Missio Alliance may delete comments and/or ban users who show no regard for constructive engagement, especially those whose comments are easily construed as trolling, threatening, or abusive.