Here are the Six Present-Futures and their accompanying questions from Reggie McNeal.
1. The collapse of the church culture.
Wrong question: How do we “do church” better?
Tough question: How to we deconvert from churchianity to Christianity?
2. The shift from church growth to Kingdom growth.
Wrong question: How do we grow this church?
Tough question: How to we transform our community?
3. The New Reformation: Releasing God’s people
Wrong question: How do we turn members into ministers?
Tough question: How do we turn members into missionaries?
4. The return to Spiritual Formation.
Wrong question: How do we develop church members?
Tough question: How do we develop followers of Jesus?
5. The shift from planning to preparation
Wrong question: How do we plan for the future?
Tough question: How do we prepare for the future?
6. The rise of apostolic leadership
Wrong question: How do we develop leaders for church work?
Tough question: How do we develop leaders for the Christian movement?
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
McNeal is a prophet to the church in our age. How can our legacy churches possibly “make the transition” to what McNeal (among others) is calling for? I am skeptical that it can happen, except if God does it. Left to our own devices – even with the best of intentions – we revert back to the institution.
This is my first time to comment on this blog. I have read this blog and have read some of the literature of the emerging chuch. Just an observation. I wonder sometimes if we are getting caught up in the new vocabulary and just overlooking some obvious ways to reach the people of today. Praying for God to open doors to lead us to people we can teach the gospel. We should always be doing good works. Love peole where you can, look around and help those in need . We should be baptizing disciples. Compassion should be characteristic of those who follow Jesus. Being chnaged into the likeness of Jesus Christ is to be the constant desire of every Christian. It will mean time spent in the word of God. Our assemblies can equip us to love and good works and then we leave the seats of worship and then go out in the streets to teach and serve. Does not take a lot of money , just hearts in love with the Lord and a relentless desire to prclaim to the world , sometimes just one person at a time , the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Just an observation.
I love this refreshing philosophy.
I hate the old philosophy.
All the old philosophy created was people who go to church, and nothing more. It was the start of the mega-church mentality. What this gave people was the gift of salvation, only the people that were given it were never informed that they needed to open the gift and see what was inside. here is a story that illustrates this perfectly.
“Once upon a time there was a village. This village was in a country that was starting it’s first year of a drought that would last four years. In this village was a good farmer who had responsibly used his crop from the harvest of years before and had a large storehouse of food. He gave all he had through the years of the drought, and on the day the drought ended he had finally depleated his entire supply of food. The king heard of this good farmer, and ordered a represenative of the king to deliver to him a royal gift. The good man was thrilled to be thought of so kindly by the king to receive this marvelous gift. It was a golden box with intracate decorations on it. He intended to open it but the villagers crouded around him and he was unable to open it. Several weeks passed this way, and the weeks turned to months, and months to years. Until finally he simply had the box in a place honor in his house. The good farmer became very ill about this time, and the people of the village kept care of him. One day the king inquired of his reprenative if the good farmer had opened his gift, and had become very ill. The man told him that he hadn’t and the king became upset. He had his chariot readied for him and went to the village of the good farmer with his royal physician. When he arrived the villagers informed him that the farmer lived in a small shack and was very ill. The king found the man in the condition which the villagers had described and went into the house. He saw the box on the mantle. He went over to the farmer and inqiured, “why have you not opened my gift to you?” the farmer replied, “I felt unworthy to open the gift, and felt honored enough by just recieving such a beautiful gift and that was sufficent for me, so i did not open it.” the king said, “but a gift is meant to be opened, will you please open it.” and when the farmer opened the box he found a deed to a large and beautiful Estate in the city where the king lived. See, the good farmer had been living in poverty, while in reality he was very wealthy. Sometimes we as christians receive the gift of salvation whithout even opening it. What a shame to live the life of a poverty stricken person, when we are blessed in abundace with riches from our heavenly father”
-Jeff Brown
principle at Wright Christian Academy
Love it Wade.
Good thoughts, Wade. Combined with Willimon’s thoughts, all of this goes right to the point for what we are doing in our leadership group as we gear up for the new year with, we hope, a relevant theme.
Peace.
What we haven’t really addressed in our “fellowship” so to speak is the thought that Traditionally, Churches of Christ have not been “Kingdom” driven. That is, we want to be in and make the rules for our kingdom, but not buying into the “Kingdom of God” at large. This buying in means to accept many different ways of doing church and becoming Christ to the world. I think the Tulsa Workshop last year highlighted the fact that many of us are willing to go there, but many of us are not. My sister was a member of the ICOC for many years and they certainly taught alot about their “kingdom”. Kingdom was a kind of buzzword for their ministries. It did not however include anyone else baptized outside of their fellowship. The Church of Christ has seemed to breed this kind of thinking. I dare say many ministers preaching this new paradigm from the pulpit would be considered heretical. I also want to say ditto to Ray and Ali’s above comments. Especially Ray’s part about not taking alot of money
to equip folks and reach others.
Before reading this – I can honestly say the shift in this regard is happening in my heart.
I haven’t been able to put language to it until I read this post – but permeating the culture – & seeing people transformed into missionaries is where the Lord is calling Shannon Oaks.
This weekend – Geoff Cohen from Gateway Church in Grapevine came to share with us. It was absolutely awesome – especially his message on Spiritual Authoirity in the Kingdom.
Thanks for sharing the language – really good stuff.
Wade, go to http://www.wiredparish.com
A good friend of mine started this service and actually roped me into co-hosting a show. It’s a podcast subscription that provides a lot of great thinkers and practitioners. Reggie McNeal is one of them.
It seems we are finally starting to look at the bigger picture. For so many years the CofC has looked with intensity at the details and trying to fine tune every practice and doctrine. It is finally time we wake up and realize what it is all about and who it is all about.
There is the saying that you can “miss the forest for the trees.” We have gotten better than just about anyone else at examining individual trees. We have found out how many rings they have, how tall they grow, what sorts of animals live in them, even measured how thickness of the leaves…but so often we have forgotten the forest that is all around us – the kingdom of God.
I appreciate your post and your thoughts. Take care.
I talked about this book on my blog a few months ago. I think it’s a good entry point for a lot of people who wouldn’t read Brian McLaren into the “Emerging” theology.