Continuing our look at mDNA - communitas not comminity and how it applies to Northern Community. The other posts in the mDNA series are here

Dualistic Christendom Mode

Hirsch paints a picture of the western church that is far from healthy. It is a picture that includes issues such as the attractional mindset, the fish tank controlled environment and frozen structures. Hirsch writes: ‘there is another way of seeing, and perhaps resolving, this dilemma. I believe that is partly the way that we actually do church that is the problem’. He argues that the core of the problem is the dualistic Christendom mode of the western church. That is, that we seek to draw people out of their own context to worship God in sacred spaces. He believes that in order to become more incarnational we need to reclaim third spaces such as pubs, restaurants and cafes.

The context of a third place will ensure that a form of church is created which is more reflective of the missional environment in which we live. For example, at our jeebus congregation it would be impractical to engage in congregational singing as it would be completely out of place for the café environment. Yet there is a challenge for Northern in assessing whether this engagement with context makes us any more missional than a congregation gathering in a church building. The café environment is such that people don’t mix from table to table. So, in essence there is little missional engagement with the sojourners in the café. It is true that the café location creates an environment that is more attractive and even less threatening to non-Christians to become part of the group. Yet, this is still seeker sensitive territory in its goal to make the congregation more attractive to non-Christians. The challenge, as I see it, is for the missional context to shape us to be more missional and more incarnational.

There is a tension is between the need to create discipleship and missional space. This tension increases for us when I look at our structure of congregations and missional teams. Our congregations and missional teams have the communitas characteristics of a common goal and vision beyond themselves. But our language still separates the two categories. I waver in my thinking on whether this is positive or not. At the moment, I would advocate that we cannot abandon the key discipleship task that our congregations provide. But we also must keep our eyes focused on the missional task as expressed by our missional teams.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 10th, 2005 at 12:02 pm by phil and is filed under mDNA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.