Help with My Homework

Next week (starting July 10), I  have a course in Chicago and I have a short paper due on the first day.  It’s basically reflections on the required reading.  We were asked to write about three “seminal ideas” that we now “own” as a result of this reading, as well as two practices we would like to adopt.  Over the next few days, I thought I would post parts of my paper to get your reactions, which will in turn make it a better paper!

Here are the books that these reflections are based on:

Ammerman, Nancy, et al.  1998.  Studying congregations:  A new  handbook.  Nashville:  Abingdon Press.

Gibbs, Eddie.  2000.  ChuchNext:  Quantum changes in how we do ministry.  Downers Grove:  Intervarsity.

Ryken, Philip Graham.  2003.  City on a hill:  Reclaiming the biblical  pattern for the church in the 21^st century.  Chiago:  Moody.

Van Gelder, Craig.  2000.  The essence of the  church:  A community created by the Spirit.  Grand Rapids:  Baker.

Here is the first “seminal idea” I chose to write about.  I would appreciate your input:

            Among the important ideas that I distilled from these readings, I was impressed by the reality that the North American church faces a cross-cultural challenge that requires a missionary approach to the dominant culture.  North American culture represents a context in which traditional, modern, and postmodern worldviews are interwoven (Gibbs 2000, 25).  Ministry in this context must be able to speak to all three perspectives, without being subverted by them.  Unfortunately, the modern worldview has often undermined North American Christianity (Gibbs 2000, 22).  As a missionary church, we must seek to understand and overcome such influences, while at the same time seeking to understand postmodern perspectives without being overcome by them. 

            We should not be surprised to find that the church must assume a missionary outlook, even though we have long felt at home in North America.  To be missionary is part of the genetic structure of the church.  The church is rooted in the sending nature of God, and this sentness is reflected in the ancient confessions.  The church has long claimed to be “apostolic.”  While often interpreted to reflect the foundations of the church’s doctrines, practices, and institutional structures, the church is primarily apostolic because it has been sent out by God.  Craig Van Gelder maintans, “This sentness is to be the primary dimension of the apostolic attribute.  The institutional dimensions of the church, those related to its teaching content and governance, are to support and mobilize the ministry of sentness” (2000, 125).

            Neither should the church be surprised that it finds itself at variance with the dominant culture in North America.  For too long we have operated with a Constantinian model in which we presumed that the larger culture shared the church’s values.  Whether or not that presumption was ever accurate, it can no longer be maintained.  We cannot simply meet the needs of the seekers who walk through our doors.  Many are looking elsewhere to quench their spiritual thirst.  Churches that rely on seekers to fill their pews will find an increasingly shrinking market for their product.  Instead, the church itself must become the seeker, transitioning “from becoming an inviting church to an infiltrating church” (Gibbs 2000, 190, 236), and reflecting the heart of its missionary God.