Bill Kinnon gets it half right
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 at 10:15AM My friend Bill Kinnon is a provocateur. After he posted yesterday in response to a comment by Tim Keller, I emailed him and said, "Is nothing sacred?" Bill knows I'm kidding...sort of.
Bill argues that good megachurches like Redeemer in New York and The Meeting House in Toronto (did you really just link the two, Bill?) are unintentionally built around the personalities of their preachers. In contrast, Bill writes:
Missional (organic/incarnational in Tim's comment) is not a methodology. It is not a pragmatic approach to growing the church that is used as the best model and method to reach a particular people group. At its best, missional runs counter to the consumer culture, realizing that much of the West is long post-Christendom. Missional believes that Aslan is on the move and that we are to follow the Spirit into the mission field which is our very own culture.
Bill's both right and wrong, but I'm not sure I completely buy his argument here. He's much more hopeful about organic churches than I am, not because I'm against being missional. Quite the opposite. But as I'm going to point out, organic churches market just as much (inadvertently) as megachurches, and they suffer from the same core problem: people. Missional does not necessarily equal organic, nor does mega necessarily mean non-missional.
Here are two thoughts I have in response to Bill's excellent post (and I mean that):
All churches market. I recently met with a graphic designer and challenged him about logos. "Aren't logos passe?" I asked. "They seem so consumeristic." The designer agreed, but then argued that the most subtle form of branding is the most dangerous, because they pretend that they're not doing it. He was talking about the No Logo brand. Books like No Logo and magazines like Adbusters are their own kind of brand, except they pretend that they're above it, which is a lot more disingenuous when you think about it.
My point isn't to pick on No Logo or Adbusters. It's just to say that you can't not build a community around something. It's clear that people are drawn to churches like Redeemer and The Meeting House because they both have gifted teachers. But we can't pretend this doesn't happen with more organic churches. People are drawn there for all kinds of reasons. You can't avoid it. As Ed Brenegar says in the comments:
By branding them mega-, missional or emergent, they are playing into this consumer game. They are trying to segment the marketplace by their ideological and organizational distinctives.
This should lead to some humility as we critique each movement's weaknesses. Weaknesses exist in every model of church - and our model may share in these weaknesses more than we realize.
Structure is not our biggest problem. I get that we are always looking to structures to solve problems. There are better and worse structures. But I'm increasingly convinced that structures aren't our biggest problem.
An organic church can be designed for mission, but they still have one problem: people. The same problem, by the way, that megachurches have. You can structure for mission all that you want, but until people develop a heart for mission, it won't make a difference.
On the other hand, you can have people on mission within a megachurch. The structure may get in the way, but it doesn't have to. And when it does, missional people won't let it stop them. Organic vs. megachurch is not the issue. People are the issue.
One of my friends got talking about church one day, and said, "People are only part of the problem." We started laughing and thought that would be a great church tag-line. "Come to our church, were people are only part of the problem!" But that's not a bad statement. In every type of church, people are a part of the problem, and a pretty big part at that. The solution, then, is also going to be people who repent and get on mission.
This isn't to say that there aren't strengths and weaknesses to both kinds of churches. It's just to say that we can't hold one up as the solution and the other as the problem. The solution may be to keep our heads down and actually focus on what is the real issue, rather than worry about the strengths and weaknesses of each model. Our biggest need is repentance because Aslan is on the move, and we're awfully slow to follow. This is true in every model of church, organic or otherwise.
As Brenegar writes of his own church:
...the church I attend with my family is really unaware of why it is a healthy church. They just are. There is an intentionality about what they do, but it isn't something that they are interested in promoting. There is no conscious programmatic marketing of our church to the outside world stating we represent whatever it is. As a result, we are far more diverse economically and politically, though not sufficiently racially, than most churches I know. We are happy, growing and learning to be the church in a new era. I know the secret why, but I don't want say so because then we might become recognized in a way that would be unhealthy for us. The last thing we need is to be self-conscious promoters of our branded approach to being a healthy church.
Reader Comments (7)
I thought our contractual arrangement was that I always got it 90% right - and you got it right 10%. I'll have to go back and look that up. All kidding aside, my next post on this topic, tentatively titled Consumerism vs Discipleship, will hopefully better unpack my half-witted post from yesterday. I don't buy the "organic" church either. I used that term because the far wiser man than me, Tim Keller, appeared to conflate organic and missional - and we were all responding to Dan Kimball and his "missional success?" Out of (y)Ur (Missional Mind) post. I believe that the hope for the church (almost wrote "only hope" but that would be more half-wittedness on my part) is to return to the mentorship/discipleship model of growing up believers. I'm becoming convinced that a process of catechisis for new believers and our youth is critical. Believers need to be engaged in growing up other believers whilst also being mentored themselves. (And no, please Lord, this is not a return to the control/hyper-discipleship movement.) Jesus had the three disciples who were closest to him, then the twelve and then the 120. And that was enough to turn the world rightside up (or at least half right side up - but we're still working on it.) Before I write my entire next post here - let me just say that I look forward to sitting down in our studio tomorrow with you and Dan MacDonald where we can continue to talk about this - and other really important topics like - did Coldplay really steal the tune for Viva la Vida from Joe Satriana - or did they both steal it from Cat Stevens, who probably got it from an obscure English hymn.
“Missional does not necessarily equal organic, nor does mega necessarily mean non-missional.” I suppose it depends on ones definition of organic. Do we mean something that equates with the “simple church” movement or something akin to life and ministry springing up from a people who are thoroughly discipled and equipped (instead of being a cog in an organized programs being pushed down from the top)? The latter is more analogous to my definition in which case missional does equal organic. As for the mega-church, they rarely can be or are missional. They simply can’t sustained themselves without adopting an industrial business model approach to governance (programs, personalities, buildings, budgets, committees, CEO, etc) and a methodology that feeds the consumeristic tendencies of the average North American Christian. Thanks Darryl for a thoughtful post and to Bill who is teaching me to be a better provocateur. :-)
Rick: I hear you. I still think it's possible, but not easy, to be a larger church that doesn't treat people like cogs in a machine. I think of one in Portland that doesn't organize top-down, but encourages missional grass-roots initiatives. I'm sure there are more. Structure doesn't have to kill mission. It can support it. But unless we're careful the structure can start to exist to maintain itself.
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Not in a while. I really need to subscribe to that blog!
I find a lot of people skeptical about organic churches. After seeing some ups and downs in my organic church experiences I've said that organic church has its problems too, it may not necessarily be better given the context. Then I started attending a conventional church again. Honestly, I was so bored I found all sorts of excuses to run out to the foyer hoping some friend might be there. Usually I found other refugees of ecclesial pablum talking about hockey or something. In simple churches people are the problem, but generally they are the only problem. Working through each problem gives an opportunity to equip, to teach and help people reach maturity. Most of the problems are not fires to put out, but opportunities for the kingdom. One thing I've noticed about organic church blogs, is they don't post a lot about church. I think it is because there is too much opportunity for relational ministry and so much support and love there isn't any question why you are in it. There isn't any wrestling over methods and structures because they have found something they don't feel the need to wrestle with. Now the church I'm part of now is the best yet and my opinion might change if things were to ever take an ugly turn. More and more I think the question isn't so much about how to structure church or organize meetings (large or small). The heart of ministry is simple, it is Spirit empowered, driven by sacrificial love guided by the authority of God's word. I encourage lots of people to simply open up their house, open up their fridge, invite people in to their lives, love sacrificially, open up the word, engage God in prayer and you'll see changed lives. I don't care if you call a church, cell group, prayer group, bible study, coffee night or whatever. The key catalyst isn't the structure but the "love sacrificially" part. Can this happen in a big church? Sure. I just don't see the need for all that extra complexity.
Darryl, I really appreciate your comment about hearts and repentance being the key. One thing that worries me a lot the attractive/missional debate across the internet is that I very rarely see comments about seeking God's will for a particular mission and environment, and building what He wants us to build. When God delivered Israel in the Old Testament, the mechanics of delivery were unique every time. From Gideon breaking lamps to people marching seven times around the walls of Jericho, there is really no apparent rhyme or reason to God's methodology in any earthly sense. But what was the same in every instance was that His methods required Faith. What I fear most as the church I belong to grows is that we fall into the trap of saying "this is what's working over there, so we have to do it too." I think it takes more faith, and is infinitely more effective, to say "we'll seek God and His Word together, ask Him what to do, and then do that, regardless of whether it conforms to earthly logic, or anyone else's patterns." - As an aside, Tim Keller's comments linked on Ian's post above illustrate another concern of mine, and that is that we may often be advocating church models based on our personality types more than scripture and God's direction. I kind of think the artist/MBA dichotomy he references was a slip, and I don't really have the context of the full interview, but it is illuminating, nonetheless.