Rethinking Church in a Missionary Situation
Series: Church Planting
Categories: Church Planting
Let's say you are a novice missionary in a foreign country, working among a previously unreached group in the back-of-beyond. What would you do? This may be slightly presumptuous of me, but I imagine that one thing you wouldn't do was simply what you did back in England: for example, construct a special hut with pews and a pulpit, and meet twice on a Sunday at 10.30 and 6.30.
What I think you would do is take time to learn the language, get to know the people, familiarise yourself with the local customs, integrate yourself into the community, etc. From all this, you would try to develop a pattern of 'doing' church that was consistent with the gospel and pertinent to the people. Admittedly, this would take a long time and you would have to agree that you were there for the long haul. No quick 'fly in and rush out' approach. However, before you did any of this, you would have to be clear that the one reason you were in that situation was because of your love for the people and your desire to tell them about Jesus as the most tangible expression of that commitment.
In other words, you're not interested in perpetuating your own hobby-horses or maintaining your traditions. You simply want to be faithful to the directive of Jesus to his church to: 'Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them into the name of the Triune God and teaching them to observe all that he has commanded' (not least to: 'Go and make disciples'!).
But let's say you took that same approach, undergirded by those same convictions, in the missionary situation of the UK on the threshold of the 21st century. What could 'church' look like then? Allow me to 'share with you' the conclusions reached by a small group of people in the city of Sheffield, who had the privilege and opportunity of 'starting from scratch'.
The name of the church is The Crowded House, and it meets in the home of one of its leaders. The decision regarding the location is not mere pragmatism: some sort of stop-gap until a 'proper' building can be purchased or hired. It is the result of careful biblical and theological reflection, accompanied by a conviction about where many (post) modern people are at. In practical terms, this means that if the group remain true to the original idea, a church building will never be bought.
The whole vision behind the initiative is 'to plant a network of household churches', because it is felt that the idea of 'home' is a powerful metaphor that not only reflects God's 'movement' in redemptive history, but also resonates with contemporary people who are experiencing a profound sense of 'homelessness'.
The church meets together once a week, usually at around 5.30 on a Sunday afternoon. The features of that gathering vary from week to week, but always involve an exposition (sometimes interactive) of the gospel, and a meal.
Sometimes songs are sung and prayers prayed, and on some weeks it looks and feels like your average church service. At other times, it doesn't look or feel remotely like one, and when the meeting is finished, some folk aren't even sure that they've been to church!
One example of an 'alternative' meeting will suffice. As the church were making their way through Romans and they arrived at the famous and pivotal section of 3.21-31, instead of doing the 'normal' thing, they watched the film Dead Man Walking. The thinking behind this was not mere enjoyment, nor even a desire to be different or trendy, but because the film deals powerfully and disturbingly with the key issues of justice and forgiveness, which just happen to be the very issues Paul deals with! Watching the film together provided a meaningful context in which people (including a number of non-Christians) could thoughtfully consider the central question of Romans, namely how God could remain just and at the same time forgive sinners.
Within the weekly life of The Crowded House, there are no midweek meetings, but everyone is encouraged to meet with others throughout the week in a range of social settings. Those occasions are intended to be the context for prayer and mutual encouragement, because it is the conviction of those involved that these aspects of Christian discipleship should be a natural part of the lives and friendships of believers. Our motto is 'Mission through Community and Community in Mission'.
In terms of evangelism, the principle aim is to involve non-Christian friends and acquaintances in the network of our believing relationships. This is done through meals, trips to the cinema, walks, football, etc. Those involved will readily admit that none of them is very spectacular but all are 'the stuff of life', and they provide a way in for unbelievers and also a window through which they can see how Christians love one another. However, one or two of these social settings have been engineered. For example, at one time, a large number of the church went to a local pub on a weekly basis. The purpose of these visits was not to hand out tracts but to meet local people and to get involved in a local community. Through this contact, Christians were able to hold their carol service in the pub last year, and well over half the 'congregation' (somewhere around 30 people?) had probably never even heard the gospel proclaimed. Some initial thinking has begun in terms of ways in which we can explode the urban myth and see gospel churches planted in areas long since abandoned by the majority of middle-class evangelicals. The need is pressing.
Another context for evangelism which has just begun is a series of Table Talks, in which ten or so people (a significant number of whom will not be Christians) get together for a meal and at which a topic is discussed, e.g. Truth!; Science or Christianity?; New Labour or Old Tory?; 10 Green Bottles in a Recycling Bin. At our first Table Talk, one participant was a post-graduate student from mainland China, who had never seen a Bible before coming to this country. At the end of the meal, he commented that prior to the meal and free-flowing discussion, he had always regarded Christianity as mere superstition, but through the evening he had come to see that it was a reasonable faith believed by thoughtful people. This approach has the dual benefit of helping Christians to work out a consistent 'worldview' and also giving non-Christians a chance to contribute on 'a level playing field'.
It has to be said that there are no guarantees about the future. It is a classic understatement to say that it isn't easy doing church this way, and those involved have to remind themselves constantly that it really is a ministry that's long-term, low-key and relational. Furthermore, there is an in-built and necessary fragility about The Crowded House. Understandably, people often ask if this initiative will work. That's an incredibly difficult question to answer, because at one level no one knows. But that's not all there is to be said because, on another level, it already has! By which I mean that people have been converted and Christians have been challenged and equipped to think biblically and radically. The ripples from this may seem small, but in the providence and goodness of God, they will come to shore sometime, and who knows how they will then change the shape of the coastline?
My own view is that this model may prove very significant in terms of what many churches could look like as we enter the next millennium, and the stark and uncomfortable missionary context in which we will increasingly find ourselves.
Steve Timmis is a leader of the Crowded House and a co-author of The Gospel-Centred Church.
This article first appeared in Evangelicals Now
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