The Church Transforming: Part 4

Since I began this series "The Church Transforming" at the beginning of the year, I've begun reading a book that was recommended by a friend. This book has shed tremendous insight on my adventure. The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch is a book committed to discussing the church in the western world (Europe, USA, and Australia) as one of the most crucial mission fields on earth. Without going into detail about this book I want to make sure and give it credit for many of the ideas that are swirling around in my head concerning the need to transform the mainstream institutional church into a new kind of body.

One of my major questions is "can the mainstream church as it is co-exist and function alongside a new kind of church, one that is more missional and organic?" The longer I contemplate this question, the more I believe it IS possible for an institutional church and a missional one to work together side-by-side. Let me paint a picture of the kind of scenario I'm imagining. For this post, I will simply try and point out some primary assumptions that the church will have to transform if they have a chance at reaching new people.

Think of a larger mainstream church (between 2500-3000 members) that is steeped in institutional norms (large physical campus, large full and part-time staff, countless programs and ministries) that is trying to reach a largely "unchurched" population. This "unchurched" population is defined more by the church's imagination than by its true form. In other words, the church doesn't really know who they are trying to reach. By and large, there is an assumption that the people who are not involved in the church are like those who are, but they just haven't found the right invitation or opportunity by which to come. I would argue that the fundamental problem is that most of the people who are not coming to church (more than half) actually have much different worldviews, cultural assumptions, and attitudes about life than the people who are at church. More invitations and opportunities to engage will not be enough to cross the many chasms that exist between those "inside" and those "outside" the church. This mainstream church has a choice to make. It either needs to be honest about the modest percentage of "church-friendly" folks that are out there who are potential attendees (this does not include the "church-shoppers" and "church-hoppers" who are not "unchurched" but are looking for a church), or they need to be honest that something fundamentally different must be offered to a much larger group of people who are currently "out-of-touch" with the church's very heart. The deeper truth here is that the mainstream church needs to forsake the assumption that the way they are presenting the gospel is the best or only way for all people. This church either needs to stop acting like they have "something for everybody" or start finding out what that "something" actually is.