Powerful words from Alan Roxburgh via PoMoMuSiNgS
If we want to discern the emergent work of God, weve got to ask, Where are the most God-forsaken places today? Let me suggest to you, one of the most God-forsaken place for us, is the local congregation. Why? They dont get it. They dont understand any of this stuff. They are so steeped in a commercialized Gospel. They are so busy trying to make life work and trying to keep up and catch up, that they dont get it. Heres what I want to say to you. That is exactly the place where Gods future is going to emerge. Many of us who buy the emergence narrative want to give up on these places. Thats why with so many young leaders today, church planting is the thing. You know why church planting is really the thing? Because they dont want to bother with that stuff. Because you cant change it.
The Spirit of God is amongst the people of God. Which means Gods future is amongst Gods people. And I mean that literally, because heres the next thing: The answer to the question What is the emerging form of the church today in North America in this complex culture that we live in? – I want to say to you the answer is right there in the suburbs, inner cities and in all those dumb, stupid congregations that dont get it.
Thats where it is. In the most God-forsaken places in our culture today. Thats where Gods future is present.
That is a radically alternative narrative because Gods future is not found in the new and the next. Gods future is not found in the great high priests of the church who say, This is how you do it. Gods future is found in the ordinary men and women who dont know how to do it.
Gods future is not found in leaders who have the plan and the strategy, the top-down, arent you lucky youve got me, Ive got my M.Div., D.Min., Ive got a wonderful plan for your life, lets go. Its not where Gods future is found. Gods future is found in the very opposite of that.
Gods future is found in the temporality, materiality, locality, specificity, of particular people in particular places. In other words, there is no big answer out there that big people bring, even at these conferences. There is a confused people, and in the midst of those confused people, is Gods Spirit and Gods future, waiting to emerge.
Therefore, being a leader is not having an answer. Being a leader is being one who is shaped and formed in practices of cultivating environments that call forth that people and that future. And the way in which that future gets cultivated and formed, is by re-entering the memory of the story. But, the gift of our moments is that we have a chance of re-entering that story from below, and outside, and no longer from dominion and power and control.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons