Missional Going Forward, Part 3: The Flaw

The first two parts of this series have explored the unfortunate obsession with form that has left the word “missional” devoid of real meaning, and the need for a missional theology to be our primary focus in order to regain and preserve the meaning of missional. My motivation in writing this (in case it hasn’t come across) is my love for and overwhelming belief in the missional movement as the most powerful answer to the crisis moment the western church finds herself in.This crisis moment has been described in various terms, but the ones that make the most sense to me are post-foundational and post-Christendom. (I deplore the usage of post-modern at this point, as it is better known as a whipping boy in the hands of furious fundies than as any kind of positive, definable shift.) The two are connected, but missional folks are much heavier on the post-Christendom bit, sometimes presenting a very foundationalist gospel message just aimed at addressing a post-Christendom situation.

And like the obsession with form, this is a serious flaw. It’s generally the same “timeless message, timely methods” stuff, making the core of missional into somehow dressing up the message in such a way that a post-Christendom society will be more likely to respond.

This can happen in either of the formal categories described – relevant mega-church or embedded micro-church – or anything in between. But notice that the urgency of the church’s fading centrality in the West (as the American church goes the way of the European or Canadian buffalo) is translated into the primary response of a new church planting or evangelistic strategy. Further, it creates a scenario that is inherently temporary because it is inherently situational (i.e., post-Christendom).

But I have become convinced that our post-Christendom situation will not suffice as the sole driving force for a missional movement. What we must have is not just the urgency of the church’s decline but rather the (re)discovery of elements inherent in the gospel (theology) itself that answer the current question with something deep, substantial, and lasting.

It is this to which post-foundationalism is pointing. Not only are we facing a cultural ethos in which the church has lost her influence and centrality, but the cause of that loss was the church’s reliance on a mode of thought (foundationalism) that simply could not sustain over the longer haul. The solution, then, is a timely missional theology hearkening back and beyond modernistic thinking to something simultaneously more ancient and futuristic.

My ventured guess is that churches which embrace and address both aspects of our crisis moment – post-foundational and post-Christendom – will be the ones that pave the way for a new faithfulness in the next 500 years. Again, missional churches are uniquely called and equipped to answer the crisis, but not because of particular revamped forms of evangelism or doing church. Rather, they are equipped because of their theology, their message, their gospel, their meaning.

It is this that leads me to a very simple conclusion, to be explored in more depth in part 4. Missional churches will necessarily take on embedded forms because of their message and meaning; and this is hugely important! However, I don’t believe that the house church will answer the current crisis. Halter/Smay’s gathered AND scattered proposal is a nudge in the right direction, but I want to push one step further. And if the micro-church missionals have despised all things centralized, then let this be a strong push back. Because the missional church going forward will be nothing if not centered to move.