Attempting to Gain an Historical Grip
Things have changed and things are changing. That is certainly NOT news to anyone among us.
Just by virtue of the fact that I’m “blogging” (something that didn’t even exist when I went to Seminary in the early 1990’s) is an indication of just how much things have changed in the life and ministry of the ordinary pastor, let alone all the changes in the world we are called to reach for Jesus Christ.
So, things have changed, and things are changing… So what?
Well, as things change in the world, the Church is challenged to discern how best to articulate and transmit the unchanging Gospel in those ever changing environments. Again, not new information. Well, not new to you. It may be “new” to the people in the pews in the congregation you serve.
What many parishioners populating Presbyterian pews need is an historical survey designed to help give them a grip in the rising current of change.
What I’m suggesting is that you “survey” the realities of the world in which the Church has been called to communicate the Gospel for the past 2000 years.
Begin with a conversation about the context of the “early” Church - a time period that you might call “classical antiquity,” up to about 500 A.D. (or C.E. for some of you). Your conversation will include the Greek and Roman influences that radically transformed the way people thought, spoke, were educated, dressed, travelled, defined themselves as geo-political people groups, etc. Remember the “pax Romana?” Aquaducts and roads and leisure and “global” trade and economies of scale and language and war all changed, and the spread of the Gospel was effected at every turn. Every Christian understood themselves to be a missionary in their own home, their own community and to the ends of the Earth. Every Christian a missionary and every place a mission field. Then, things changed…
It did not matter where in the “Western” world you happened to live.
It did not matter if you were a person of means of a person of meager life, when the Roman Empire “fell,” the world changed and the context for ministry changed as well.
From the fifth century division of the Roman Empire into “Eastern” and “Western” thought to the 16th century Reformation, the Church was transformed - both blessed and challenged to accomplish real mission in the midst of a “forced faith” environment which then evolved into what we now call “Christendom.”
Cathedral churches replaced home-based gatherings. Ordained clerical ranks replaced the “every Christian is a missionary” spirit and the once “persecuted people” become the demagogues of a new world order. Even a passing consideration of the rise of Imperialism, the Crusades, overseas exploration, the beginning of colonization, the Renaissance and finally the Reformation give us a taste of what “doing ministry” must have been like for the common pastor in the middle ages.
And then we, as Protestants, point with ecstatic glee to the age of Revolution and Reformation in the 17th and 18th centuries. With the advent of the printing press, people were no longer dependent upon the spoken Word but could read the Word of God for themselves. And what they discovered in the pages of the Bible was a faith far different from the one delivered to them by the ordained ranks. As Western culture developed socio-economic affluence, there were suddenly human resources to invest beyond survival. There was, for the first time in a long time, time to think.
You might call the Enlightenment the age of Reason or Rationality but whatever you call it, it lead to Revolution. Revolution of thought, politics and yes, religion.
Think “revolution” in terms of the rise of Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism, alongside Imperialism and Colonization, Slavery and civil war, international trade routes and piracy, nation states, transportation, and emerging technologies. And then, you guessed it, things changed again!
By the mid 1850’s there was a “stability” in the world between the “have’s” and the “have nots.” The world was defined as those who inhabited “the first world” and those who had been relegated to the “third world.” Those living in “developed” nations sought to export their way of life to lands they viewed as “undeveloped” or “developing.” This, my friends, was the hay-day of North American Christian missions.
From the mid 19 to the mid 20th centuries the “mission” of the Church was narrowly defined as sending missionaries to do mission work in foreign lands. The Christian gospel was “exported” to the world (in many cases, alongside the ideas of democracy and capitalism.) In the United States, the “church” settled into a comfortable role as the center of community affairs and in many cases the power behind those who became powerful.
Geo-politically, the Modern Age (1850-1950) was the era in which Nation States became “Super Powers,” the time of World Wars, and Nuclear realities. The U.S. economy flourished then floundered then rose again to unprecendented heights. Along the way we became a thoroughly secularized consumer driven culture. Higher Education became available to a broader segment of the population, life expectancy began to lengthen, and the stage was set for sexual and social revolutions that sought to redefine the norms of American life.
Lots of people in Presbyterian pews today want the church they remember from the 1950’s. No wonder. It was (at least on the surface) idyllic. Do I even need to say it? Things have changed.
Now the conversation will make a turn. Chances are you will now be covering “new” territory in terms of people’s understanding of the context of ministry. Tread carefully. You are now on sacred ground.
In the past 50 years we have witnessed developments in communication, travel, and technology; the fall of the U.S.S.R., the spread of democracy, and the rise of terrorism has opened our eyes to just how small the world really is.
“American” now comes with prefixes denoted that even our own nation is really multi-cultural. The primary value taught to our children is tolerance. We are learning new words like pluralism and relativism; and we are learning new depths of human depravity like human trafficing and blood diamonds, and we are learning that that neither the “far” East nor the “far” South are really that far after all.
And somewhere along the way, both the United States and Western Europe become mission fields. That’s right. We’re back where we started. Every Christian a missionary, living in a mission field.
As things have changed in the world, things have changed in the Church…
And as the context of the Church has changed, the understanding of Mission has changed… The advancing edge of the gospel:
- From the Meditteranean to North Africa and Western Europe
- From Western Europe to the Americas
- From North America to the Pacific Rim
- and now…backflow.
Think of it this way: the daughter churches are now sending missionaries home to check on mother, about whom they have become VERY concerned. She seems to be limping after other gods. She seems to be uncertain, confused and wandering around without a vision. She needs to be converted to a living faith in a living Christ. She needs to find a fresh vision and stimulate a sense of stewardship that releases her mammoth resources for the work of Christ in the world.
Backflow is the acknowledgement that churches planted by North American missionaries a century ago are now bearing fruit and reaching back to offer the Gospel anew to you and me.
The message remains the same, the Gospel does not change, but the context in which we are called to share the Gospel has changed dramatically.
The New Wineskins movement has emerged in response to the futility felt by many within mainline North American denominations that are facing declining numbers and dying congregations in the midst of communities populated by unreached people.
The New Wineskins movement is a part of the worldwide Missional Church movement which embraces the reality that every Christian is called to be a missionary in the context in which God has planted them – unmasking the reality that every one of us lives in a mission field.
North America is a mission field; the United States of America are a mission field; the state you live in is a mission field; your county, your city, your town and yes, your church, are a mission field.
If your congregation is like mine, there are evangelical Christians from other parts of the world worshipping with you. Why are they here? Why has God sent them into our midst? Because they bear within them the Holy Spirit, fresh wind and fresh fire, a clear sense of who God is and what God is calling the Church to be and do in the 21st century. Maybe God has sent them because we were lacking the spiritual gifts or insights that they posses. Are we in a position to help them? Certainly. But are we also in a position to be helped by them? Yes.
So, what does it mean for North American evangelical Christians to live into the Great Commission in the 21st century? We know that the Church’s calling has not changed: to make disciples of all nations; what we are trying to figure out is how does God deign we do that in a post-modern reality? How do we deliver the timeless message of the gospel in ways that lead people into transforming encounters with the living Christ in our generation? Furthermore, with an awakened understanding of the reality of the worldwide fellowship of believers, how do we discern and then live out our calling in the context of the larger Body of Christ?
We know that the answer is theologically biblical - We know that the answer is fundamentally missional and evangelical - We know that the answer is functionally relational, connectional, and global, We know that the answer calls for accountable ethical leadership – We know that the answer finds its life in the context of local congregations where every believer is fully equipped for every good work –We know that the answer calls for a structure that is flat, flexible, and responsive,
Beyond that, we’re still working in wet cement. Isaiah 43:19, God says, “See, I am doing a new thing in your midst. Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
