The Church in North America finds itself in a culture that is no longer Christian. Those attending church are getting older while younger people increasingly stay away. The “dropout rate” for college sophomores raised in the church is astronomical (by one count 90 percent). Furthermore, the received wisdom that these adrift youngsters will find their way back to church and faith as parents seeking baptism and nurture for their children no longer bears itself out. (Jim Singleton calls this the “Little Bo Peep” strategy–“Leave them alone, and they’ll come home, wagging their tails behind them.”) They aren’t coming home!
Increasingly the word “missional“ is used to describe both the situation in which the church finds itself, and the strategy for us to follow in this “post-Christendom” era. Eddie Gibbs gives a succinct definition: “Missional refers to those congregations who see Western culture [because it is no longer Christian] as a field ripe for mission engagement, thus acknowledging that the period known as Christendom is over.” In the congregation I serve as Associate Pastor for Adult Education I have the challenge to reshape one of our denomination’s largest adult education programs in light of these realities. Here are some reflections on the issues we face and the steps and changes we’re beginning to make.
1. Focus on transformation, not just information. We are realizing we have functioned for so long in a “Christendom culture” that there is much about the Christian life that we have taken for granted — in fact ignored — in our educational ministry. We have stressed information and have not been too concerned that each church member experiences the transformation life in Christ promises. Many of our denomination’s best adult education curricula and strategies look remarkably like the M. Div. course of study required of ministers for ordination. Alas, the effort tends to yield a select group of people who treat theology as a hobby and who, after a while, know almost as much as their pastor. But it is perilously easy to sit, soak, and sour in this kind of environment, forming people who may know all about the Hittites but who may not have a vital life of prayer and devotion that enables them to experience an intimate relationship with God in Christ.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). We have majored in Jesus as the Truth (knowledge) and minored in Jesus as the Life (action).
2. In a post-Christendom world mission is more likely to mean me crossing the street than someone else crossing an ocean. Missional church orientation accepts the notion that North America has become a mission field, and local churches exist as mission stations. They help people to understand and embrace the “otherness” of their distracted, secular neighbors and equip them to speak the good news of the Gospel to a culture that has grown immune to the myriad “oughts,” “shoulds” and “spiritual laws” of a fading Christendom.
In our congregation we are exploring the relationship between faith and the arts, particularly in film, to the end that our people become able to engage thoughtfully in a creative dialogue with the culture. We also are following the model of the early church by witnessing through social compassion. Such ministry often gets organized apart from the realm of Christian education, but we are partnering with other ministry areas in our congregation to create a more holistic approach to equipping for ministry.
3. Equip our people to be missionaries, not just good members. When Luther and Calvin taught about the priesthood of all believers they were thinking about more than recruiting committee chairs! We have settled for equipping relatively few people to run the church when in fact Christ commissioned us all to be change-agents for the in-breaking Kingdom of God. Our preoccupation with maintaining church buildings and programs has driven members to leave in droves less because of doctrine than because of boredom. They want a call from God, not from the Nominating Committee.
A few years ago a favorite relative returned to faith, and then to the church, with tremendous excitement after a decades-long sojourn in “the far country.” He is the CEO of a company with more than 200 employees. The church he rejoined soon tried to recruit him to be on Session (makes sense). However, he refused, wisely discerning his call to lead his company as a renewed follower of Jesus. Sadly, his church appears to have given up on him, lacking any vision to equip him in his vocation as a Christian businessman. HUGE Kingdom opportunity missed. If the extent of our vision is no larger than filling the slots necessary to run the programs of a local congregation, we will surely die in obsolescence.
Reformed Christians understand that bearing witness to the Gospel entails, at least in part, contributing to the common good. We must equip our people for spiritually vital lives of witness in their workplace and world and not just recruit them for church activities.
What is my congregation doing about all this?
The primary new step we have taken is to develop an intentional small groups initiative. We are convinced that, done right, small groups are the single most powerful tool for spiritual growth and transformation. They provide the ideal context in which to live out and experience the truths of our faith. In our existing programs we are supplementing structures with small groups.
Furthermore, we have launched a new church-wide ministry that puts people into intergenerational groups of 8 to 12 weekly to discuss the sermon, and even more importantly, to share one another’s lives together. The key is a strategically-recruited and intentionally-trained lay facilitator who shepherds his or her small flock with the parameters of a group covenant. We know that small groups have been around for a long time, that they are not a new idea. But given our missional, post-Christendom congregation, we are striving not so much to grow our church but to equip God’s people to be part of the Kingdom agenda for the 21st century.
For decades in adult education we only took attendance; how many chairs in our classrooms were full? While the classrooms within our church are wonderful places to equip people, we recognize that the world outside the church is the real classroom where our faith is tested and engaged in Kingdom ways. God has called each of us to something bigger than ourselves, and something larger than can fit within the church walls.
Through the work of the Holy Spirit we are empowered to serve. With a vision to equip people for their unique ministry, we have the awesome opportunity to partner with God by equipping the church to bring the gospel to a world crying out for wholeness and restoration. God bless us all as we undertake this missional work.
Quinn Fox is associate pastor for adult education at First Church in Colorado Springs, Colo.
