Category Archives: Ministry

Digital Reformation 2.0

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back to the future_Fotor

What will the Church of the future look like? In the face of continuous change this question is becoming evermore prominent to those churches that do not wish to have their backs to the future. In an insightful article by Carey Nieuwhof in ‘ChristianWeek’, Carey writes of a ‘seismic shift’ taking place today that is parallel to the conversion of the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity in the fourth century, or the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century.

The latter had a direct influence on the Reformation of the Christian Church in Europe which it is commonly agreed, began on 31st October 1517 when the German monk and theologian, Martin Luther, nailed his 95 theses to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg. The theses were a response to the then practice of selling ‘indulgences’ to absolve sins. Luther propounded two central beliefs in his theses: that the Bible is central to Christian religious authority and that human beings may reach salvation by their faith alone and not by their deeds. It is arguable that Luther would easily have disappeared into history and the Reformation never have begun without the invention of printing to quickly disseminate his ideas.

Although the original Reformation is now consigned to history the Christian Church could be on the cusp of a ‘digital’ Reformation 2.0. This is not due to any malpractices within the Church but simply because of the revolutionary development of information technology since the arrival of the internet.  Carey does not himself make this claim but some of what he says in his article ’10 predictions about the future Church and shifting attendance patterns’ does imply this.  For example Carey’s second prediction says this:

“…many individual congregations and some entire denominations won’t make it. The difference will be between those who cling to the mission and those who cling to the model. When the car was invented, it quickly took over from the horse and buggy. Horse and buggy manufacturers were relegated to boutique status and many went under, but human transportation actually exploded. Suddenly average people could travel at a level they never could before. The mission is travel. The model is a buggy, or car, or motorcycle, or jet. Look at the changes in the publishing, music and even photography industry in the last few years. See a trend? The mission is reading. It’s music. It’s photography. The model always shifts….moving from things like 8 tracks, cassettes and CDs to MP3s and now streaming audio and video. Companies that show innovation around the mission (Apple, Samsung) will always beat companies that remain devoted to the method (Kodak). Churches need to stay focused on the mission (leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus) and be exceptionally innovative in our model.”

Anyone who is familiar with the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible will know how much the model of the apostles’ faith had to change in order to engage with the missionary journey they were led to undertake through God’s Holy Spirit. If they never had changed the model, the journey would never have begun and Christianity would probably have disappeared as a sect of Judaism within the first few centuries, if not decades, of the death of Jesus.

Today, as the internet matures and becomes part of our ‘normal’ experience it is becoming increasingly evident that a seismic shift is happening within our human cultures, particularly in relation to communication.

  • What are the implications for the Christian ‘kerygma’, or proclamation of the Gospel?
  • What are the models that need to change, or be ‘reformed’, within the Christian Church in order for the kerygma to resonate with today’s generation?
  • Dare the Christian Church change or reform them for a generation that have been taught within our education systems to expect to interact with the information they are provided?
  • Dare we not?

Say “No” to going to Church

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roundstonecross

“I do not go to church”.

That is what I am encouraging my church congregations to say. I think saying this can be a great act of witness in today’s world. And when people say it I would encourage them to say it with great conviction!

Now before you start sending in your messages of complaint let me say the following. I am encouraging church members to say, “I do not go to church.  I am the church.”

If that sounds strange to you it would not have sounded strange to St. Paul or any of the New Testament writers in the Bible.  When Paul wrote his letters to the church in Corinth or Ephesus, he was not addressing a building, he was addressing a group of Christians in that town or city.

In the New Testament the word for ‘church’ always mean’t a group of Christians gathered together, never a building to go to. One of the primary reasons for this was that Christians formed part of a persecuted minority in the Roman Empire until the adoption of the Christian religion by the state under the Emperor Constantine (272-337AD).

“So what?” You may be wondering. Personally I think it makes all the difference in the world for Christians today to see themselves as the church rather than as a building they occasionally visit, just as you would occasionally visit a shop or a club.  Being a Christian is a 24/7 existence but that understanding to some degree was eroded when the message of Christianity became absorbed into the mentality of ‘Christendom’ – the idea that everyone shared the same world view as citizens within a Christian state.

In our age of the global community that world view continues to be deeply challenged within the traditional institutional church denominations, all born of Christendom. The challenge is now so acute that the only reasonable starting point to talk of a Church of the future is to begin by acknowledging its existence within a post-Christendom environment. But what will the Church of the future look like?

When Jesus called his disciples to follow him he called them into a way of life. “Follow me”, Jesus says and the earliest Christians reinforced this message by describing what they did together as “The Way.” (Acts 9:2) This metaphor provides a potent reminder that Christianity is fundamentally about movement and always has been.

Christians should see themselves as disciples of Christ, ‘learners for Life’, rather than as consumers of a pre-packaged religion with various spiritual products available from a static church building near you.

So, please do not go to church, instead be the church wherever you are.

Alone or together, in a church building or not, every day of the year.

For that is the Church that will have a future…

Go with the Flow

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cyberdummiessigned

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s investigations of “optimal experience” revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called ‘flow’. During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life. Flow is more than happiness, it is a deep connectivity, a oneness – dare I say a ‘communion’. People may experience flow through work or religion, but they may also seek it through the creative arts, sport, etc.

Flow cannot govern our institutions, such as the Christian Church, but without the element of flow what are we left with? And is that one of the reasons that people in this country continue to leave the traditional, institutional Christian churches in their droves? Traditional Christianity is failing to ‘go with the flow’ perhaps?

All our traditional Christian denominations were born of the age of Constantine and the Roman Empire, and the institutions which shaped that empire have shaped our collective consciousness which we can call in short, ‘Christendom’. This is a worldview that places every individual and system of governance within a Christian framework. But Christendom is no more. I believe a key challenge for Christian churches in this country is to define what they are in a post-Christendom age. Can we turn back the clock and bring back the unity of Christendom, if indeed it ever was united, or should we be seeking something else?

Thankfully we do have a vision of the Christian Church that existed before the age of Christendom, it’s in the Bible and charts the life of the Early Church centuries before Christendom began. We also have a way of life that was first given to us by Jesus himself, not Christendom, but the Kingdom of God. The Christianity I would like to see in the 21st century is one that seeks to live the Kingdom of God inclusively with a generation that yearns to go with the flow.

Where does that leave our institutional churches born of Christendom? I do not know, but I am willing to find out from the itinerant preacher from Nazareth who still says, “Follow me.”

Maybe that is how I go with the flow.

How about you?