I was reading last night while lying in bed from the book entitled, Jesus, Paul and the People of God (I know,
nothing like a little light bedside reading). It's a dialogical or responsive book that has to do with the theology of NT Wright. One of the chapters is called “The Shape of Things to Come? Wright Amidst Emerging Ecclesiologies.” In the chapter, contributor and theologian, Jeremy Begbie discusses the interesting notion of how NT Wright has been generally embraced by so many corners of the church, in particular the emerging church. Begbie writes, “Significantly, Wright’s heavy institutional involvement is largely ignored by the young ecclesiologist drawing on his work. Along the same lines, Newbigin’s claim that the local congregation is ‘the hermeneutic of the Gospel’ can be quoted enthusiastically in emergent writings, but his decades of work for visible church unity (sometimes in the most barren institutional settings) receive rather less attention.”
It is as if many people love NT Wright when he is talking about issues that they want sorted out, but look the other way when he talks about the church or his ecclesiology. It should be noted that Wright thoroughly, albeit with caution, endorses an organized, even centered version, of the church.
Wright gets right to the heart of the issue in his book Simply Christian:
“I use the word ‘church’ here with a somewhat heavy heart. I know that for many of my readers that very word will carry the overtones of large, dark buildings, pompous religious pronouncements, false solemnity, and rank hypocrisy. But there is no easy alternative. I, too, feel the weight of that negative image. I battle with it professionally all the time.
But there is another side to it, a side which shows all the signs of the wind and fire, of the bird brooding over the waters and bringing new life. For many, ‘church’ means just the opposite of that negative image. It’s a place of welcome and laughter, of healing and hope, of friends and family and justice and new life. It’s where the homeless drop in for a bowl of soup and the elderly stop by for a chat. It’s where one group is working to help drug addicts and another is campaigning for global justice. It’s where you’ll find people learning to pray, coming to faith, struggling with temptation, finding new purpose, and getting in touch with a new power to carry that purpose out. It’s where people bring their own small faith and discover, in getting together with others to worship the one true God, that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. No church is like this all the time. But a remarkable number of churches are partly like that for quite a lot of the time.
Nor must we forget that it was the church in South Africa which worked and prayed and suffered and struggled so that, when major change happened and apartheid was overthrown and a new freedom came to that land, it came without the massive bloodshed we were all expecting. It was the church which stayed alive at the heart of the old Communist Eastern Europe, and which at the end, with processions of candles and crosses, made it clear that enough was enough. It is the church which, despite all its follies and failings, is there when it counts in hospitals, schools, prisons, and many other places. I would rather rehabilitate the word ‘church’ than beat about the bush with long-winded phrases like ‘the family of God’s people’ or ‘all those who believe in and follow Jesus’ or ‘the company of those who, in the power of the Spirit, are bringing God’s new creation to birth.’ But I mean all those things when I say ‘church.’” (pages 123-124)
This is currently a big issue and a big deal to me.
What is your view of the church? Should we opt for a purely organic version – no positioned leadership…natural connections…engagement with the world? Or is there room for structure and planned gathering and appointed leadership?
Give me your thoughts!
BTW – Christian Associates is hosting a great event in London,UK that runs along the same lines as this post: HALLMARKS OF A MATURING MISSIONAL CHURCH! The dates are: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27 – FRI. MARCH 2, 2012. The link to the event if you are interested is http://christianassociates.org/blog/events/summit-2012/ It would be great to have you join us…join the conversation.
Yes. We will be there, very much looking forward to it!
I will keep praying. Are you guys coming to Summit?
Michael – did you get my email about Wes White coming to Aberdeen? BTW – it would be cool if we can meet up sometime while I am in Europe.
Peace
I’m sorry that wasn’t clear. We’ll be living in Aberdeen rather than Munich for four months between February and June.
It is through Aberdeen directly.
You’re welcome to come up to Scotland. We can get you set up in Aberdeen. But I doubt we’ll be able to make it to London etc. unless God steps in. I’ll keep it in prayer.
Living in Catania is amazing! The food, the wine, and of course the people have made living here a real blessing. It’s also wonderful to see how God in his sovereignty is using my ministry in co-operative with what Bethany is doing. God has brought into our lives here people of influence who are devout Roman Catholics, are still seeking something more, and are coming to us for answers.
Because we know our time is limited (2 more years) we have been working on the identity and development of high-impact people who can continue an organic display of Grace and Peace when we leave. This has forced us into a Short-term/high-impact strategy of leadership development and discipleship. God has given us a wonderful core group of people that we continue to knit together through fellowship gatherings, so they can develop this community on their own. Please continue to pray that what God is bringing together man will not separate. Happy New Year!
That is great. Is it directly from Aberdeen or through some other institution. I have looked into a PhD from there through International Christian College in Glasgow where my buddy Wes White works.
I will be over in Europe from the end of Feb until near the end of March. The first part at the CA Summit in London and then most of the rest of the time Holland. Any chance of connecting?
Aberdeen, Scotland for the PhD. I was at Tübingen. My wife and I explored joining CA this year. I guess you could say we’re still exploring. Teal has my details.
I’ve been watching your blog for a while. I like it.
Michael – maybe you told me this before, but I tracked you down and realized that you are at City Church in Munich. Where are you taking your PhD? Are you connected to the CA world much?
Rob (not Robb)
Stephen – I wish everyone had the view that you hold. Fo me, the container or model is not the “main thing.” The “main thing” is how we as the people of God represent Christ and His Kingdom.
BTW – how is life in Sicily? How’s it going for you guys?
That’s right about Newbigin. I can see you are a fan as well. I have been for years now. I had the privilege of taking a class in my doctoral program called “Following the Newbigin Trail.” It was in England and we basically traveled around and talked to and were lectured by folks that were his friends. It was amazing!
As I read this, I thought back to when Bethany and I were getting ready to help lead our “church” through a transition from a brick, and mortar, and structural type; to an organic community embedded in the homes and lives of those around us. Eliminating our building and “going into all the world” stirred up a lot of questions to what “church” was supposed to look like. As we faced these questions, several things stood out to us that we found in John 21:22: (when Peter asked Jesus about what was going to happen to the “one whom Jesus loved”) Jesus says “if I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” Our take away was this, What is it to us if someone else is following Christ through a different expression of faithfulness than us? Is our community fulfilling that which Christ has called us to do? The local “church” is not defined by it’s structure, but rather by how it expresses Grace and Shalom according to how Christ has called it. This enabled us to set out into our communitites without fear and to enable the unlimited potential that can only be found in our unique calling by Christ. (just my thoughts as part of the conversation)
He was Reformed Church in England and was sent to India by the Church of Scotland. It was there that the Indian Reformed churches merged with the Anglican churches and formed a new church, neither Reformed nor Anglican. Newbigin did bring himself to believe that bishops were a good idea, but he returned to the Reformed church when returning to England. The bishop-thing is the only more-typically Anglican thing I found in his theology. Did you spot something else?
Great thoughts Michael. Thanks for stopping by. I will have to take a look at Peterson’s book. The “real” church is with the struggles, warts, & screw up…along with the awesome Kingdom stuff. Bonehoeffer talks about this, when he talks about the “wish dream.”
BD – great thoughts. They deserve a whole new blog. Why don’t you follow up this one up as a guest blogger? How do we do what you are suggesting here? If you want to, hurry because I am about to flood my blog with Whitworth students. 🙂
BTW – though definitely deeply influenced by Anglicanism, I believe that Newbign was a Church of Christ or something like that.
There is a similar omission when many read Roland Allen. His interest in the Holy Spirit and de-bureaucratized mission initiatives was always strongly tied to high church commitments like sacramentalism and bishops.
Of course, there is also a lot of talk about organic church within hierarchical circles including groups like Presbyterians. For them the alternative to organic would be things like institutional, dialectical, foundationalist or scholastic.
Eugene Peterson has a beautifully written argument for what he calls “the ontological church” in his book “Practice Resurrection.” Organic church functions by ignoring or pruning the parts which it doesn’t like or which don’t fit in its ideal biology. Peterson’s ontological church simply says no to an organic grooming of the church. It says “This is it.” What we’ve got now in history and in life _is_ the church. Ecclesiological sinners and saints all wrapped up in it together.
I know for me it’s difficult to accept the purely organic vision of church. I think that approach that you just let what happens happen and there isn’t a clear leadership is a pipe dream.
The way people order themselves, there’s a leader even if they don’t call it a leader. And the idea of not needing a direction for what the community ends up with either a community that does nothing or a community that gets dominated by a demanding or needy person.
But I wonder if there’s another angle besides the organic church thing. Both Newbigin and Wright are Anglicans and connected to a larger tradition. Many emergents and missionals tend to come from free church backgrounds and we’re a bit prone to viewing our church plants as independent entities rather than a part of something bigger, and I suspect that the high church/whatever else you want to call it, theologies of these men effects their writings as well.
In thinking about CAI, I think we can attain this, but it isn’t always so. But I think that tension also ought to be pressed into more – being accountable to a larger community and not seeing ourselves as some sort of special church inventor, but rather participating in something happening in a number of places. I suppose in a sense this is a larger scale picture of the same tensions as the organic church on the local scale.