START WITH GOOD NEWS Day 2

Roger Ross, Meet the Goodpeople: Wesley’s Seven Ways to Share Faith, begins with the observation that mainline folks are stuck. The church is mired in a decline and no one has much of any idea how to get un-mired from all that traps the church, looking for some new way of being. The issue is the transformation of the church as it is, changing it into a welcoming, open community that is meaningful for everyone—in church and out of church. As John Wesley discovered, though, there is hope in recapturing, ironically, some old practices (the seven ways). The seven practices are—

Prayer

Meeting people where they are

Direct, simple communication

Use music of the current context

Small groups

Empower laypeople

Think globally

PRAYER

To begin, consider what inspires people to pray. It can be a moment of deep fear or wonder. It can be when someone loved falls into need or crisis. It can be when we ourselves are broken, overwhelmed, or confused. When something or someone really needs to change. When we want to see a change in course personally, locally, nationally, or globally. 

Therefore, before we begin any kind of outreach, we need to pray deeply for the church and for ourselves as we prepare to meet the world. Hebrews 11:30—the walls of Jericho fell after the Israelites by faith circled the city for seven days—that is the paradigm for prayer before we tackle the problem of making disciples in our troublesome context. Petitions within this sort of prayer are—

awakening to God’s presence

confess the walls that divide, separate, alienate, or isolate human beings

awakening to the people no one else wants—like it or not, that’s the target of grace

Prayer is more for us than it is for God. God already knows our needs, hopes, praises, and wants, but as we speak them, we own them, overcoming our denial of the world as it is. We need to always keep in mind that half of prayer is speaking, the other half is listening. As we own our needs, etc., we then listen for God’s presence which may be silence, or it may be directly counter to what we think we want, or it may be exactly congruent to what we pray—i.e., God is free to be God apart from us.

It becomes apparent that perhaps a means to more effective prayer is that we do it in community—we strengthen one another; our presence helps one another; and someone might perceive something we would miss on our own. The point is to create a context where we can see, hear, or experience something new, something we may not have expected (a key to getting un-mired). Doing so allows us to see the people more closely, more clearly, and more for who they are. Ross comments, “You cannot lock eyes with someone who is not important to God—as a human being, they are valued by God.” Therefore, the church needs to teach, foment, and encourage prayer intentionally, regularly, and experientially.

Realize that this process becomes the means by which we fulfill Jesus’ admonition as he cleared the temple—my house shall be a house of prayer. If anything is to be meaningful, purposeful, or effective, God needs to be at center of everything done. We learn what is secondary (organization, structure, etc.) as we connect with what is primary (walking with God). 

MEETING PEOPLE WHERE THEY ARE

Know the people—there are followers of Christ in the church; unbelievers in the church; followers of Christ not in the church; and unbelievers not in the church. Every person is in one of these four groups. Realize that you will never really see which category someone is in other than whether or not they are in the church. 

Folks not in the church may not be there for many, many reasons—hurt by church, disillusioned, “spiritual, but not religious,” simple unbelief, etc. The folks who believe in nothing and are part of nothing may be the easiest to welcome. The folks who are in church but not really followers of Christ are the hardest to reach.

a California exception to this last observation is that the unchurched, unbelievers are really the hardest to connect with because they truly and actually do not care, and they will find any invitation, welcome, or outreach, no matter how gentle or open, as a hostile intrusion—NB: Californians, by and large, live by the dictum, LEAVE ME ALONE, AND I’LL LEAVE YOU ALONE

Still, the greatest opportunity is with the unchurched in all their forms. That becomes the central focus, followed by deepening the connections among the people who don’t believe, but are within the church.

a clarification of the category of churchgoer without belief—this is someone who attends, probably contributes, but has no spiritual engagement within themselves—they are religious without faith

There are no longer any justifications for a “build it, they will come” mentality. Instead,  we have to—have to—take church to the people. Any means is acceptable, from Beer Church to Farm Church to Panera Church—just be in the world, visible and present. Note the imperative from John 21 again—Jesus went to the disciples, made a space for them, and met them as they fished—open, welcome, and prepared. John Wesley remarked, I submitted to being more vile—i.e., he would be among the people as the people. 

SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES

To accomplish this move outward, the church has to change its mindset from being institutional into being missional. The institutional mindset is insular—self-interested, self-beneficial, etc. The institutional church focuses on its members, assuming these members are consumers, simply taking the programs offered. Leadership is the Board being sure the staff meets the needs of the members. Thus, staff are employees, meeting the needs of the members. The missional mindset is outward. They focus on who is not there. Everyone works for the ends of the church. Leadership is the staff who guide and shepherd the workers to meet the ends of the church. Within the missional church, evangelism happens when the empowered laity meets the world. Within the institutional church, evangelism only happens as someone enters and conforms to the working model within the walls. The draw of the missional church is that everybody participates as a member, ensuring the continuance of its ministry—there is a place for you in the community’s work, a chance to live what is preached. The draw of the institutional church is that it provides a “mighty fortress” that stands within a world gone mad—you will be safe and secure inside these walls because we will keep out all that threatens you. The institutional church contains a powerful danger—a dead end—self-service ends with swallowing its own tail (e.g., the pharisees). The missional church is open-ended, able to survive one generation’s passing onto the next, but also contains a danger—it is risky to engage the world on its own terms and you may well meet with total, annihilating rejection (e.g., the cross).

So, the question is—which danger are we willing to face?

BEING GOOD NEWS

We are not so much inviting people to a church, but rather to a posture (Anthony Smith’s terminology)—a way of being. David Bosch, Transforming Mission, pointed out that the church has been an ever-changing, ever-evolving entity, continually redeveloping itself to meet its context. Most evangelicalism, though, comes from a static point of view—the church was, is, and will be what it was, is, and will be, denying the essential nature of the church as fluid. This recognition seems rather obvious—what each generation of the church faced was in and of that time. Any entity has to morph and adapt to meet the changes that come. We cannot act like a horse and buggy is the mode of transportation in an age of interplanetary rocketry. Furthermore, our theology is based on the dogma of a living God; i.e., God continually reforms the people of God to meet the needs of the world as the needs shift, change, and morph. God is always creating! So, then, the church must always be open to being created.

John 1:14 (The MSG)—the Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood…God is wherever people are; i.e., every encounter with another person is an encounter with God’s power, transformation, and transcendence. God is with every person, which is easy enough to accept when the neighbor looks, acts, and thinks like us, but becomes far more difficult when we realize that God is also present with the person who does not look, act, or think like we do. 

The way into this reality is to ask first, What is God doing? The second is to ask, How do I join that action? 

The way you find the answer to the first question is by sharing stories of our experience. As the stories unfold, we become aware of how God works with all of us, expanding our view and understanding, seeing how God claims each person as God’s own child. What is God doing? Gathering children to himself. 

So, what else then are we to do? How do I join God’s action? Go and do likewise—gather God’s children so they know they’re God’s children. The specifics can be improvised.