Reching Up, Reaching Out for September 24

Friends,

When we consider the type of church we want to be, Tim Keller, Sr. Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC reminds us that understanding our context is critical to mission. In “The Missional Church” (link below), Keller writes,

“The British missionary Lesslie Newbigin went to India around 1950. There he was involved with a church living ‘in mission’ in a very non-Christian culture. When he returned to England some 30 years later, he discovered that now the Western church too existed in a non-Christian society, but it had not adapted to its new situation. Though public institutions and popular culture of Europe and North America no longer ‘Christianized’ people, the church still ran its ministries assuming that a stream of ‘Christianized’, traditional/moral people would simply show up in services. Some churches certainly did ‘evangelism’ as one ministry among many. But the church in the West had not become completely ‘missional’--adapting and reformulating absolutely everything it did in worship, discipleship, community, and service--so as to be engaged with the non-Christian society around it. It had not developed a ‘missiology of western culture’ the way it had done so for other non-believing cultures.”
Our task as we develop plans for this new church, is to know the people in our neighborhoods and our city well enough that we are skilled at “adapting and reformulating absolutely everything we do in worship, discipleship, community, and service - so as to be engaged with the non-Christian society around it.” We must develop a “missiology” of Lincoln, Nebraska.

I’ll never forget sitting in my office with a young woman who grew up in Omaha, Nebraska and was now attending the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. She had asked to meet with me following a presentation I gave to college students on dating relationships, at the end of which I had shared how I had come to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. This young woman had experienced a number of painful dating relationships and was intrigued by what I had shared about Jesus. As we talked together the next day, I mentioned that much of the pain we experience is due to our sin. She wanted to know what sin was. I mentioned that sin began with Adam and Eve. This young, college educated woman from Omaha, Nebraska then asked me something I will never forget - she said to me, “Who is Adam and Eve?” I just looked at her in amazement that she had no idea who Adam and Eve were and I realized at that moment that all my assumptions about the Midwest were wrong. Everywhere we go we will find a “post-Chistian” culture and the people living in it have very little if any Biblical insight that shapes how they look at the world, at relationships, at themselves.

So, what type of church should we be? Keller mentions five elements of a “missional church”. We are to:
1/ Discourse in the vernacular
2/ Enter and retell the cultures story with the Gospel
3/ Theologically train people for public life and vocation
4/ Create Christian community which is counter-cultural and counter-intuitive
5/ Practice Christian unity as much as possible at the local level

I encourage you to read the brief two page article, The Missional Church, for further development of these ideas.

http://download.redeemer.com/pdf/learn/resources/Missional_Church-Keller.pdf

Also, as a follow-up to last weeks email on worship I would recommend the following article on “Evangelistic Worship” (and no, to clarify, we are not going to have a “seeker friendly” worship philosophy along the Willow Creek model. The following article will help explain our approach.)

http://download.redeemer.com/pdf/learn/resources/Evangelistic_Worship-Keller.pdf

- Pastor Tobey

Posted on September 25, 2007.