imagining how the church can reorient around mission

Have We Really ‘Forgotten’ How to Do Church?

By Troy
As a Theology major at Whitworth, I’ve had the privilege of reading a wide variety of Christian literature. I’ve read through the Bible, numerous early Christian primary sources, biblical commentaries, etc.  One consequence of my extensive reading is the tendency to become a literary critic. For me, the older the book, the more weight and authority it carries (this is a generalization). After reading Ignatius, Clement or Irenaeus, it’s easy to see how these works have survived the centuries. But I tend to read contemporary authors more critically. In other words, they haven’t stood the test of time yet.
 
In class, we are reading Forgotten Ways (2006) by Alan Hirsch. After slogging through the book, I was left disappointed by the wordiness and ‘fluff’ of Hirsch’s writing (and the excessive use of charts!). Although Hirsch does offer some valuable insight for contemporary church leaders, I found the book characteristic of ‘emergent church’ literature. Forgotten Ways is full of emergent buzz words such as missional, organic, fluidity, ‘authentic Jesus movement’ that appear to be cutting-edge. At least to me, these words are nebulous and vague. After more than two hundred pages, it’s still not clear to me what mDNA and the Apostolic Genius are! I felt the book was just another attempt to formulate a ‘successful’ 21st century church.
 
Hirsch confidently asserts: “the Apostolic Genius lies dormant in you, me, and every local church that seeks to follow Jesus faithfully in any time. We have quite simply forgotten how to access and trigger it” (22). This seems to suggest thatwe possess the keys to unlocking the Apostolic Genius; and when/if we find it, the Church will flourish. There is little mention of the working of the Holy Spirit or God as Lord of the Church. And have we really forgotten how to do church? I agree that the church-growth and attractional-church models aren’t healthy, but the church has managed to survive two thousand years. There is no magic model to success, as “unlocking the Apostolic Genius” suggests.
 
I agree that mission is a critical aspect to the Church, but I also affirm the importance of true worship and diligent study of Scripture. Mission is not superior, but rather goes hand-in-hand with worship, theology, liturgy, and sacrament.
 
Like other contemporary ‘emergent’ authors, Hirsch is simply offering a new model for “doing church.” New
styles of doing church come and go like many other fads and trends. Well we have not ‘forgotten’ how to do church, Hirsch does offer excellent insights, provoking critiques, and challenging applications. But in my opinion, Hirsch is neither a diligent biblical exegete nor a careful historian. Hirsch Abandoned-church-ext_jpg1 is no Irenaeus, but we can add his opinion (with grace) to the Christian melting pot as we progress towards renewed expressions of the Church.

One Response

  1. Troy, I appreciate your thoughts here. Too often we in the Missional conversation are totally unaware of church history and tradition and so we end up sounding a little amorphous and unaware. In this regard I think that Missional Church edited by Guder is really important in terms of an exegetical and theological basis. What’s interesting is that most the authors in that book come from more confessional and liturgical traditions. When mission isn’t rooted in the historical it can end up sounding a lot like the reformulated seeker sensitive movement and many have subverted it in that way. I’m not sure I would suggest that of Hirsch but his writing can certainly sound that way.
    I think a solid understanding of a theology of mission realizes a vast array of ecclesiological expressions that transcend model and has applications in the way we order ourselves in both free church and high church backgrounds without having to move outside our tradition.