A church with mission, or missions without the Church? A few thoughts on the emerging 'coversation' / 'churches'
Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 9:09AM Updated 26 March 2009.
Dear friends, please find the expanded text of a lecture on the emerging Church conversation here. To find out more about the occasion of this lecture I delivered in March 2009 (the Hugh Price Hughes lecture in London) please follow this link.
What is clear (quite apart from all of the statistics) is that while the Church may be dying (as we know it), the Christian faith is growing!
I would encourage you to read the lecture, absorb the statistics, watch the little video below, pray about your response and feel free to engage me!
Original post below.
Here are a few thoughts on the emerging conversation in relation to the Church. It is entitled 'Revolution or Evolution'... The gist of my research has shown that the content of the Gospel is not what the world has a problem with, rather it is the manner in which we frame our narrative and engage the world....
In the attached powerpoint slides you will see some alarming statistics on the decline in Church attendance and membership in Southern Africa (and the world!) But, that decline in interest in the Church is certainly not an accurate reflection on the Christian faith! Christianity is still going strong!!!
For example while church membership and attendance is decreasing at an alarming rate (in most 'Christian' societies') there is a steep growth in adherence to 'non' traditional Church models (e.g., African Initiated Churches, Cell Groups, Home Churches, Marketplace ministry groups, Mission organizations etc. etc.).
Here's a little video with my thoughts:
And, here are the Powerpoint slides that may add some 'meat' to my thoughts. emerging_conversation_church.ppt. (PS. the last slide has some incomplete references on it... I did not have two of the books with me when I finished the slides... And, now the books are at the office. Email me if you can't find the references).
I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you agree that the Church will die out in the next 40 years if we don't change our 'delivery mechanism'? I would love to hear your thoughts - there are some like Roger Saner and Stephen Murray who are experts in this area... Perhaps you would like to chime in?
By the way Steve Hayes - in my research I have discovered that the only 'mainline' denomination that is growing exceptional well are the Orthodox Churches! Any ideas?
Technorati tags: emergent conversation, emergent Church, mainline Church decline, statistics on Church membership, Seth Mokitimi, Orthodox
Reader Comments (3)
Dion,
Your post raises several questions, but just one for now: delivery mechanism?
What is being delivered, by whom, to whom, and how?
The Orthodox Church growing -- yes, if you see my latest blog post, its from 10000 to 30000 parishes in the last 20 years. But it depends where you start counting - there were 60000 parishes before the Bolshevik revolution.
Hi Dion
Your powerpoint is interesting - and your thoughts interest me partly because I'm working on a Masters on building Christian community within South African cultures and partly because I'm working cross-culturally in a traditional Black African setting this year. The difficulty is that what the emergent conversation says to a church that is attempting to be relevant in a post-modern culture is very different to what the emergent conversation says to a church that is stuck in a pre-modern/modern traditionalism. And there is not going to be any simple, one-size fits all solution. In the Methodist Church we are training ministers from both backgrounds - and others - people who are not already dissatisfied with the church as institution. I see in your slides that you are trying to deal with both - but it becomes almost contradictory. Some need to become more outward focused, others need to stop trying to draw crowds, how do we define the focus? Sorry if this sounds muddled - it is an area I care a lot about and it is complex!!!
By the way - do you have a source for research that shows that alternative churches are growing significantly in South Africa (other then the AIC's)? I know they are growing in the USA, but I was not aware of significant growth in SA.
Thanks so much for the thoughts and powerpoint- it is saved on my computer for future reference!
Hi Dion.
I am especially interested in this topic and have been for the last several years years; as I have struggled with the idea and implementation of Church so I became more and more convinced that the church must change in order to survive (which could be the same as being relevant but I feel relevant is not bold enough given the downward trend in church attendance).
I guess the question really is; how do we and how should we define "church". By most people's definition I am not a regular church goer but I would have argued quite the contrary; it all boils down to our perception of what the Church should be.
If you have not done so already I might suggest George Barna's book "Revolution" (I see you've quoted another one of his books).
Thanks for the interesting post.
Blessings