Missional Going Forward, Part 4: Centered to Move

So, it’s taken me a bit to get to this fourth post in the series, but I’m kind of glad it has. I’m mainly glad because in the ensuing time between one and four, a really interesting conversation flared up between missional theologian David Fitch and megachurch leader/practitioner Alex McManus. It began with Fitch asking the world to STOP FUNDING CHURCH PLANTS and Start Funding Missionaries, and it eventuated in part 3 of McManus’s response in Missional Vs. Mega. Fitch finalized things here.

In a way, this conversation seems to get at the issue I’ve been addressing: the preoccupation with form, mainly decentralizing house church forms, that has plagued the missional movement to date. I have argued for the centrality of a missional theology – for the 1st century gospel in its missional fullness, really. And I’ve argued for that kind of theology to be central in the life of communities, so that the praxis flows forth naturally; as 21st century communities gather around the missional gospel, a fluid kind of form emerges, one that would likely include a rhythm of larger and smaller (embedded) community expressions for mission.

Halter and Smay have at least been keen on loosening the missional grip on simple church in their book AND, and their community life at Adullam seems to reflect this rhythm of gathering AND scattering. But I want to push things one step further, along the lines of my theological emphasis. I want to argue for a center, and for a step beyond gathered/scattered. I want to see missional churches that are centered to move.

Interestingly, I agree with Fitch’s opinion that by and large McManus was talking past him. As Alex argued passionately for a both/and style of church planting and expansion (both mega- and micro-), Fitch was actually trying to argue specifically for a means of funding the missionary engagement of post-Christendom contexts in North America rather than propping up churches/plants that generally attract the previously churched. In other words, in my view, the anabaptist, incarnational impulse that Fitch was arguing for is specific to how expressions begin (through humble, incarnational engagement), and not really restrictive of the forms they may, in time, take.

This is the kind of practical strategy I can get down with, because it flows from the missional gospel (presence, incarnation, etc.). And this is precisely the way our community began – as a deeply embedded and rooted group of friends gathering in a home or cafe, with everyone working jobs and no one getting paid, – and the growth of our larger gathering has not impeded the continuing engagement in smaller expressions. The incarnational presence is pervasive. The center doesn’t impede the movement but energizes it (more later).

McManus is wrong. Straight up. Big church/denomination imports simply won’t do the job with regard to our post-Christendom situation. But the problem runs deeper than that; big church imports are generally not getting the missional gospel right. The problem, really, is at the center, not in the form or the method of ministry. And it’s not about whether or not the lead guy is entrepreneurial. Instead, it’s about whether or not the core leaders are properly gospeled, and by that I mean connected to the missional-theological center of the movement itself. How is incarnational presence and witness going to occur? Only if the covenant-kingdom-restoration DNA is present and celebrated as front and center.

And let me add this: some of the most inwardly focused non-missional anti-witness churches are house churches. Can I get an Amen?

This is where centered to move comes in. As form, there are clearly two expressions happening as part and parcel of the Expression itself: a center and a movement. But note how the center itself is that which defines form through the missional gospel in these ways:

1) The missional theology is unapologetically present. It is present in core values, in structural documents, and most importantly, in the heads, hearts, and formation of the core leaders.

2) The core leaders are unabashedly committed to the missional gospel – and there ARE core leaders. These are specifically apostolic people (see Acts!) who are aiming to do nothing less than catalyze a unified, energized missional presence and movement.

3) The main/larger/celebratory gathering of the community – and there IS such a gathering – is utterly necessary for the communication and celebration of the missional gospel among the people. It’s formative, it’s powerful, it’s vital. Yet it is also fully aimed out towards the movement on the ground; it is part and parcel of missional presence and movement.

On that last point, I might have more agreement from McManus than Fitch, and that’s OK. But please take note of what I’m really saying here: I’m saying that all this, ALL OF IT, is for the missional movement. The church is mission and the church has no mission but the mission of God. So the movement of the people as a presence in the city giving witness to the breaking in of the kingdom is the entire purpose of everything done. Further, the overlapping of the Jesus community with all other communities represented in the city – be they co-worker communities, homeless communities, neighborhood communities, art and culture communities, etc., – is the express manner in which movement into mission happens. This is why smaller expressions of Jesus community for the sake of this overlap (dwellings, for us) are a natural and obvious outflow of the core DNA.

As I write this, it is the night before my wife, baby daughter, and I move into a housing co-op in Burlington, VT. And as a case in point, we will gather with our smaller community expression (dwelling) in the middle of an intentional neighborhood community of those who don’t yet follow Jesus and are in varying places of need. Everything we do at the center is for the purpose of this area of overlap – and every other area that our community can exploit in the culture.

Additionally, as I write this, our church has come through an intense season of transition in which the value and importance of the center has been proven. And our conclusion is this: unless there is a centered expression – theology/values, leaders, and a larger gathering – there will not be a meaningful presence in the city for the missional movement. I believe this wholeheartedly. My chastening addition to the missional conversation is that we MUST drop our emphasis on small, organic, unorganized (decentralized) forms as part and parcel of missional. Where smallness is required by extenuating circumstances, great; where it is a formal or structural mandate that limits the natural progression of things, not great at all. Fail, in fact.

But I’ll end by returning to Fitch, and by extension, the relational network of churches that Fitch is a part of serving, and into which our church, Dwell, hopes to enter in the very near future. David Fitch has absolutely nailed the point at which missional theology and praxis meet by describing that anabaptist, incarnational impulse; in fact, his recent series has basically embarrassed me for forgetting to mention this point in part 2. There is a #1.a. when it comes to our missional-theological center: Incarnation. It is the very meaning of our church’s name, and it is the principle through which we came into existence and by which we continue, even through transition. How churches begin, how they emerge and spring up in a context, is the critical piece of this incarnational impulse, and Fitch/Ecclesia are living this out wonderfully.

1.a. Incarnation. That the eternal Word became flesh and made his dwelling with us. That he moved into the neighborhood. That he took on everything we are, hung out with us, moved to the margins with us. That he resocialized the covenant community by moving it to the nooks and crannies of society and pushing into the liminal space. That he fully emptied himself and identified with us on the cross, taking on even our brokenness and destruction. The church is incarnational because the church is the body of Christ, the fullness of him who is filling everything in every way (Eph. 2). The church must embody the good news in a particular place among a particular people and must do so humbly, emptying itself for the other, engaging culture authentically, investing in people relationally, and serving the other sacrificially.

This, Fitch says, is how a missional church must begin (so stop funding church plants!); and this is how a missional church must continue throughout the course of its life.

So, to recap, for me, the form of a missional church flows from that missional gospel naturally.

And meaningful presence in the city requires a true and identifiable center.

But the form itself, while working itself out in a rhythm of gatherings, does have one essential, universal trait.

The form is and must be a fresh expression.

If it did not freshly emerge out of the soil in which it lives, a true embodiment and enfleshment of gospel in a particular place among a particular people, then it is not missional.

It must be a fresh, incarnational expression, centered to move.

Church imports don’t work. Old Christendom doesn’t work.

And worse: they are not truly, fully gospel.

That’s my take on missional going forward.