A few weeks ago, I was interviewing Elaine Heath, a good ministry friend across the years, as she described her current ministry focus. (Click HERE for the episode) As we chatted, it hit me that we may be coming out of the fog of transition between eras, between Christendom and the What Next. The What Next is taking on shape and texture. I would like to take a moment in this year-end reflection to describe the land that is coming into focus - the Church that is Rising.
1. It is rooted in compassionately serving and loving neighbors. By this it is best known.
2. It has a highly committed group at its core, people who have made very tangible, and often sacrificial, covenant of how they wish to join their lives together in faith.
3. Beyond this core, the circle is drawn wide. This church plays with any kid on the playground whose heart aligns in any sort of manner.
4. Communion is more about bread broken around a table with robust conversation and laughter than about a liturgy in a church house.
5. Christ Jesus is Lord - but by this I mean the troubling, revolutionary character of the gospels, who is full-on socialist in much of his teaching and full-on accepting of people outside orthodoxy’s boundaries.
6. Often (not always) it lives intentionally in tandem with the church gathered in sanctuaries on Sunday mornings. Sometimes, its people just need a break from conventional church, and lines of institutional connection are less important.
7. People (who are squeamish about organized religion) keep wandering in and commenting, “I had no idea that church could be like THIS.”
8. Grace experienced around this community keeps soaking in and messing with people’s perceptions and practice of life. It is almost impossible to hang around in this space without getting infected and revolutionized by grace. Even when people are dogged by bad history, this place is liberating and transformational. This healing impact is available to persons who retain non-Christian faith traditions - it is free - it is offered without baptism!
You get the picture?
With regard to this new church, most people fall into certain camps.
1. People (like me) who still manage to find meaning in church sanctuaries here and there, but who are friends and allies to this new church - and enjoy time spent in unconventional spiritual spaces.
2. People who are done with organized religion (at least for now) and who find this rising church to be like water in a desert.
3. People who are defensive of church as it has existed, and are quick to find fault with anything that seems to challenge the primacy of church as they have appreciated it.
4. People who remain skeptical that anything good can come of Christianity, given its warped and disturbing history of collusion with wickedness and power.
As the 2020s unfold, it will be interesting to watch how this ancient and fresh experience of church spreads, how it influences established and inherited forms of church. My prediction is that vital traditional churches (with buildings and Sunday services) will take on many of the elements listed above and often partner with circles of faith that are purer examples of this rising church. The other churches will mostly continue steady decline.
Liminal seasons do not last forever. Finally, new things do appear, often quite suddenly. Advents end. Epihpanies happen. God says, “See, I am doing a new thing! Do you not perceive it?”
Holiday blessings to all!
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