Church expressions must change to reflect God and his kingdom well both in the west and around the world. Indeed, we are seeing innovations but change is still slow and not, necessarily, keeping pace with where they could be.
Every day I see new formulas for how to live as missional communities, or missional families, or organic followers, or disciplemaking communities. This is all GOOD. It means we are finding relevant ways to walk the lifestyle of following Jesus and then developing new structures (church expressions) to support those lifestyles.
In the world of cross-cultural missions, there is much talk of disciplemaking movements and church planting movements. In my experience, some of this is more talk than reality, but it is still GOOD in that the dynamic nature of the church is giving new impetus toward fresh expressions.
But… surely we have only just begun. Let’s not be too quick to brand our current formula as the ‘one-size-fits-all.’ Let’s continue to innovate what it means to live as salt and light in our world and context, and then develop the structure/expressions that best support that lifestyle and give it the impetus to reproduce.
Allow me to break this down a bit in order to encourage even more innovation of church expressions.
Lifestyle Rhythms of Church
Church is first and foremost God’s people living a lifestyle with and for him. It is his people following him and doing life in ways that glorify him and display his kingdom. It is not a series of programs, events, or services.
The structure of ‘church’ (whatever that looks like) is always meant to support the lifestyle of those who are bringing Kingdom life to earth through an intimate walk with God and a missional lifestyle (broadly termed) alongside of others (spiritual community). But we have a tendency to rely on structures of church to define our lifestyle rather than the other way around. We easily become structure-dependent.
We must continue working at divesting ourselves of our reliance on structures, re-discover the rhythms of impactful Kingdom lifestyle in our context, and then develop the structures/expressions that fully support the impactful lifestyle allowing it to then reproduce in others. This is where innovations are coming from and this is where they must continue to come from.
We are called to follow Jesus. This is the natural God-ward rhythm. We need others to support us in this. This is the community rhythm (team, family, group, spiritual friends). We are also designed to be world changers by being involved as disciples who call others into followership (in many, many different ways). This is the missional, reproductive rhythm. With this as our starting point, we WILL continue to discover innovative structures (wineskins/expressions) that support the fresh and living wine of today.
Let us continue to look forward in this dynamic, transformative time!
Comments
8 responses to “Innovating & Transforming Church Expressions”
We in the western world (Europe, Switzerland) have less dann 2 % follower of Christ. There are some kind of mega churches in our souroundings who are doing quite well concerning keeping the status quo. But people outside are not at all interested in Christ nor Christianity. Evangelisme is hart. But we see if we don’t reach our neighbourhood – Our Nation will be lost. There is a new hope arising: doing the works as Jesus did. He healed the sick, raised the dead and set the demonized people free. But when He sent his disziples to do his work, he commanded them to find a person of peace and called them to stay in this house, and to heal the sick and preach the gospel and train the people as disciples and instruct them to do the same. Maybe if we would do evangelisme this way more people would following christ and if we started to really do the work of Christ – we would not have time for programs and right way to do church – we then wold be the church in action.
Well-said, Mary-Anne. Thanks for the challenge.
Just had a beautiful, though challenging conversation with a young pastor I meet with weekly (anam cara – discipleship) about this. We had similar thoughts. Hopefully continuing discussion and sharing will lead to “long obedience” in Christ and within God’s “unforced rhythms of grace”? (quotes credit Eugene Peterson)
Thanks Roger.
Throughout the Bible, God is constantly expressing Himself in different ways. Jesus lived a lifestyle of continually waiting on the Father for direction. He promised to be present in His people to continue this dynamic from that point forward. The model was; His people, as a group, waiting on Him for direction which would be expressed through the gifts of ALL the members of His body because no one person possessed all of the gifts. Whether it is a house church or cell church or even an institutional church, if there is no opportunity for Christ to speak through the body as a whole then we have lost the spirit of the early church.
Will continue praying with you for that young man.
Good focus on the gifts of ALL as a vital part of the rhythm of community. Thanks for bringing that up!
Thanks for these thoughts. It helps put things in perspective for me. I’m a bit dissatisfied with my church’s ways, so I keep searching for another better way that’s more like the New Testament. I got drawn to the Discovery Bible and the Disciple-making movement ideas. But can’t seem to implement. I think I’m trying to find some method that works for me that I can rely on instead of just on Christ’s leading and his patterns. This ministered to me.
I have drawn much from both Discovery Bible Study and many of the ideas from disciple-making movements. I always have to remember, like you, that there are tools and methods and then there are core principles: letting God lead, trusting the power of His Word, etc. The tools, for me, always need to be considered and/or adapted but, at the end of the day, they need to support the process of organically reaching out, loving others, discipling, etc. Trust that God will continue to lead you in this journey!