4.11.2004
Six Questions for Faith Communities
from Fred Peatross
March 2004
(1) What is the hottest question that needs to be answered? Easy... how will the church have to undergo radical reconfiguration to be a viable entity into the 21st century? This should be the dominate question for the next several years as we seek to move from tweaking to totally re-tuning, from re- forming to totally reconfiguring, from focusing on ministry (which almost always implies inside the four walls) to being a movement, from centripetal to centrifugal, from being ministers to be missionaries. This will be the decisive arena of in-house discussion. Be warned however, the intensity of this talk, the stakes involved in these migrations, the addictions to the way we have always done it will generate heat as well as light. The interchange will be livelier than any worship war dialogues of the recent past.
(2) I'm in an untraditional Bible class (no teacher, no lecture; only non-linear discussions) at the congregation I assemble with. One of the topics we touched on this Sunday was event versus process. Here's the jest of it: If we are convinced that salvation occurs in some event and point in time that we are fully cognizant of, then we will proceed to present salvation in "decision moment" terms. This is exactly how my heritage ended up using the Jule Miller film strips and the OBS and others tribes found the Four Spiritual Laws to be their evangelism method of choice. What if salvation really is a process? Do we have the sort of vehicles in place that encourage the process or only assist people for a point of decision? Process evangelism in our pomo world may look very different than our point evangelism of modernity.
(3) The issue of theological reflection, how we use biblical and extrabiblical terminology and our understanding of missiology and the kingdom are watersheds for the next edge of the emerging church. In my reading and discussions with friends the forums that seem to stroke the fires the hottest are our language, kingdom, conversion and the movement from point to process.
(4) What is the point of the gospel? This is a question I have been toying with of late. If Christianity is about giving "the answer," we would have to say the gospel is given to make sure people have secured a ticket to get in the heavenly stadium. That is certainly the focus of almost all evangelism training I am familiar with. And yet Jesus seems almost uninterested in eternity. The question of where you will spend your eternity is hardly, if ever, discussed in all of Jesus' ministry exchanges... at the very least I find that extremely troubling. The question we have been taught to ask the pre-Christian is, "if you were to die tonight..." Jesus never asked that and to the best of my knowledge only engaged a rich yuppie in that discussion when he was asked about it. Just as an aside, Jesus' answer to that entrepreneur was clearly out of synch with our evangelical teaching on how to "get saved." So back to the original question, what is the point of the gospel if securing advanced seating in the heavenly arena doesn't seem to be Jesus' main agenda?
(6) If relational apologetics will precede rational apologetics in 21C, (and certainly that has been the case with the inquirers I interact with) then what do those relational apologetics look like? Someone has said, "People seek to believe (the quest for meaning), belong (the quest for community) and become (the quest for hope and a future)." How do we tap into these core yearnings and help the conversations toward Jesus?
For the next few years most faith communities attempting to remain relevant will struggle with these questions
Disclaimer:
The whole landscape (and all our questions) change if the ever present dangers of terrorism and the Middle East evolve to a place where Christianity finds itself on a collision course with Islam. Though the 21st century there will continue to be more Christians in the world than Muslims, yet both will be jostling for converts, and often in the same places. Some foresee several countries "being brought to ruin by the clash of jihad and crusade." If this happens, our questions die and new ones arise.
from Fred Peatross
March 2004
(1) What is the hottest question that needs to be answered? Easy... how will the church have to undergo radical reconfiguration to be a viable entity into the 21st century? This should be the dominate question for the next several years as we seek to move from tweaking to totally re-tuning, from re- forming to totally reconfiguring, from focusing on ministry (which almost always implies inside the four walls) to being a movement, from centripetal to centrifugal, from being ministers to be missionaries. This will be the decisive arena of in-house discussion. Be warned however, the intensity of this talk, the stakes involved in these migrations, the addictions to the way we have always done it will generate heat as well as light. The interchange will be livelier than any worship war dialogues of the recent past.
(2) I'm in an untraditional Bible class (no teacher, no lecture; only non-linear discussions) at the congregation I assemble with. One of the topics we touched on this Sunday was event versus process. Here's the jest of it: If we are convinced that salvation occurs in some event and point in time that we are fully cognizant of, then we will proceed to present salvation in "decision moment" terms. This is exactly how my heritage ended up using the Jule Miller film strips and the OBS and others tribes found the Four Spiritual Laws to be their evangelism method of choice. What if salvation really is a process? Do we have the sort of vehicles in place that encourage the process or only assist people for a point of decision? Process evangelism in our pomo world may look very different than our point evangelism of modernity.
(3) The issue of theological reflection, how we use biblical and extrabiblical terminology and our understanding of missiology and the kingdom are watersheds for the next edge of the emerging church. In my reading and discussions with friends the forums that seem to stroke the fires the hottest are our language, kingdom, conversion and the movement from point to process.
(4) What is the point of the gospel? This is a question I have been toying with of late. If Christianity is about giving "the answer," we would have to say the gospel is given to make sure people have secured a ticket to get in the heavenly stadium. That is certainly the focus of almost all evangelism training I am familiar with. And yet Jesus seems almost uninterested in eternity. The question of where you will spend your eternity is hardly, if ever, discussed in all of Jesus' ministry exchanges... at the very least I find that extremely troubling. The question we have been taught to ask the pre-Christian is, "if you were to die tonight..." Jesus never asked that and to the best of my knowledge only engaged a rich yuppie in that discussion when he was asked about it. Just as an aside, Jesus' answer to that entrepreneur was clearly out of synch with our evangelical teaching on how to "get saved." So back to the original question, what is the point of the gospel if securing advanced seating in the heavenly arena doesn't seem to be Jesus' main agenda?
(6) If relational apologetics will precede rational apologetics in 21C, (and certainly that has been the case with the inquirers I interact with) then what do those relational apologetics look like? Someone has said, "People seek to believe (the quest for meaning), belong (the quest for community) and become (the quest for hope and a future)." How do we tap into these core yearnings and help the conversations toward Jesus?
For the next few years most faith communities attempting to remain relevant will struggle with these questions
Disclaimer:
The whole landscape (and all our questions) change if the ever present dangers of terrorism and the Middle East evolve to a place where Christianity finds itself on a collision course with Islam. Though the 21st century there will continue to be more Christians in the world than Muslims, yet both will be jostling for converts, and often in the same places. Some foresee several countries "being brought to ruin by the clash of jihad and crusade." If this happens, our questions die and new ones arise.
