THE EMERGING MISSIONAL CHURCH

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THE EMERGING MISSIONAL CHURCH

• Re-Imagining the Church in Post-Christendom
  Contexts

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Signs of Weakening Commitment

• Attend church less often
• Reluctant to become members
• Move from church to church
• Attend more than one church
• Poor knowledge of basic beliefs
• Makes little difference in peoples lives
• Decline in commitment to orthodox beliefs
• Validation of other religious opinions
• Lack of interest in spreading the faith

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Erosion of Denominational Loyalty

• Increase in mixed marriages
• Members alienated by denominational
  pronouncements
• Growth of parachurch organizations
• Impact of new church networks
• Growth of large independent churches
• Spread of interdenominational seminaries
• Weakening relationship to the church
• Covenant to Contractual to Casual

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Changing Position of Church in Society

• Traditional society Chaplain to Implicit
  Religion Community
• Church at the center
• Modern Society Marketing Self-confident
  Rationalism Entrepreneur
• Church on the margins
• Postmodern Society Apostle on the Eclectic
  Spirituality Frontier
• Church as one segment among many

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Cost of MissionDying John 1224

• Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat
  falls into the ground and dies, it remains just a
  single grain but if it dies, it bears much
  fruit.

Not TERMINATION but GERMINATION
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Cultural Megatrends

• From the Industrial Age to the Information Age
• From Modernity to Postmodernity
• From the Christendom Era to Post-Christendom
  Contexts
• From Religious Identity to Spiritual Exploration
• From Production Initiatives to Consumer Awareness

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Consumer Culture of Exchange
Marketing makes a
science out of the
relationship between
producers and con-
sumers. Jesus wont
satisfy individual needs,
for the gospel is
primarily about Gods agenda, not ours. For true
satisfaction to take place, need must be reformed
and transformed to correspond with the gospel.
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Origins of the Missional Church

• Lesslie Newbigins recognition that Europe was
  now a mission field
• The Gospel and Our Culture Network in North
  America
• Seven Books published by Eerdmans, beginning in
  1996
• Concern for the de-churched and growing numbers
  of never-churched

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Alan Roxburghs Assessment

• If the West is once again a mission field
  within which the central narratives of the gospel
  have been lost or profoundly compromised by other
  values, then the focus of this mission must be
  upon placing the God who has encountered us in
  Jesus Christ back in the center of our
  communities of faith that shape and give meaning
  to our lives,

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What is a Missional Community?

• Consists of followers of Jesus who are seeking
  together to be faithful in their place and time

Ringwood, Melbourne
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The Mission Shaped Church

• Strength lies in the grassroots level at which it
  operates
• More diverse and less coherent
• Not a confessional movement identified by a
  statement of faith

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What the Emerging Church Is NOT

• Not a passing fad
• Not generation specific
• Not being culturally chic
• Not a cohesive, monochrome movement
• Not simply a protest, defining itself in terms of
  what it is against, rather than in what it is
  aiming to become
• Diversity of fresh expressions

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What the Emerging Church IS

• Variety of expressions
• Within traditional denominations
• As new networks and independent initiatives
• Seeks to relate the gospel to the whole of life
  within specific cultural contexts
• Not immune from becoming institutionalized and
  commercialized

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Abp. Rowan Williams
It is not the Church of God that has a mission,
but the God of mission who has a church.
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Defining Emerging Church What It Is NOT

• Not a passing fad
• Not generation specific
• Not being culturally chic
• Not a cohesive, monochrome movement
• Diversity of fresh expressions
• Not simply a protest movement
• Defining itself in terms of what it is against
  rather than what it is aiming to become

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Defining Emerging Church What It IS

• Variety of expressions
• Within traditional denominations
• As new movements and independent initiatives
• Recognizes that the church is always the
  becoming church
• An anticipatory sign of the coming kingdom
• Seeks to relate the gospel within specific
  cultural contexts

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Common Characteristics

• Dependence on God
• Communicating the gospelthe heartbeat of the
  church
• Birthing faith communities among the de-churched
  and never-churched
• Demonstrating the transforming power of the
  gospel
• Worship providing the inspiration for mission
• Ensuring corporate life of worship fellowship and
  witness is appropriate to the cultural context

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Common Characteristics

• Practicing hospitality to all who come
• Interpreting the way of Jesus within a specific
  place and time
• Clustering everyone within face-to-face
  interactive communities
• Relating the gospel to the whole of life
• Engaging the entire body in Christs ministry and
  mission

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Common Characteristics

• Ensuring the bible is the guide for lifes
  journey
• Identifying and encouraging leadership throughout
  the body
• Recognizing that every church is an incomplete
  expression of the reign of God

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Emerging as Missional

• Internal Focus
• Inherited Tradition
• Monocultural
• Attractional
• Systematic Theol
• Celebrity Leader
• Negative attitude towards pop culture

• External Focus
• Independent Network
• Multicultural
• Missional
• Biblical Theol
• Low-profile leaders
• Engage pop culture

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Challenges Facing the Emerging Missional Church
Were not an exiled people,
biding our time until
we can return home. Were an Abrahamic people,
being sent into the world. Greg Russinger,

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Revelation Church, Chichester
Church is not a building...it's who we are and
the people we are. But so you know how to find
us...we do have a home.