Blog 1 – Alan Hirsch – “Post-Christendom Mission”

The first presenter from the Q conference that I would like to interact with via blogging is Alan Hirsch.  The title of his presentation, “Post-Christendom Mission.”  Soem of you are probably like, “Whoa, post-Christendom?  Are we stuck in the Middle Ages?”  The premise of this presentation is one that we seriously need to ponder as the Church in the West witnesses decline and, in some places, decay.

In the 1950s the paradigm for society was very friendly towards the life of the church.  People found their social networking through the operations of the local church.  Close friendships and bonds were formed and held through a community’s involvement with the local church.

Fast forward now to the present time.  People do not seem to find their closest friendships and relationships through the life of the church.  The church is experiencing a push to the margins of society.  Our soceity has gotten increasingly pluralized, increasingly secularized, and increasingly individualized.  What should be the church’s response in the 21st century?  Do we roll over and play dead?  Do we continue to operate via old strategies from a paradigm, or two paradigms ago?  How will the church in the West respond?

Alan Hirsch is an interesting presenter.  He comes from Australia.  The significance of this in global Christianity is stunning.  Europe is basically dead.  Large cathedrals and monasteries now stand as tourist attractions.  A spiritual malaise has fallen over the face of the continent.  In one word, Europe has become incredibly secularized.  What I mean by secular is a culture that is consumed with worldly rather than spiritual things; one that sees religion as an archaic system of rules and regulations.

Australia and New Zealand stand in between Europe and the United States.  Hirsch’s prophetic claim is that this secularization has infiltrated areas like Australia and New Zealand.  His warning to America, do not think your fate is any different if you continue to do things the way you’ve always done them.  An awakening of sanctified imaginations needs to happen quickly in our contexts.

Think of with this graph:

(simple)       m0     m1     m2      m3      m4        (complex)

[m= significant barrier to effective communication of the gospel]

The church, Hirsch contends, operates within a sphere around m0.  We are continuing to become incredibly isolated.  In a sense, the church exists within its own orbit around m0.  Thus, many churches operate out of an attractional paradigm.  People will come to us when they reach our orbit.

A difficulty arises.  Culture is moving more and more to the more complex end of the spectrum.  More and more people are being missed because they fail to reach our orbit.  And, when people do reach our orbit, we institutionalize them.  The same people that had tons of non-Christian friends at the bars and workplace, now fall into a Christian bubble.  We speak our own language, listen to our own music, wear different clothing with jokes/phrases/sayings that are confusing at best to the larger culture.

We draw people in through an attractional model (if they come into our orbit) and send them out through an extractional model.  These institutional clones cause culture to move further and further away.  The church becomes its own worst enemy.

Hisrch polled a group of people about four large components of religion.  He first asked participants of the survey about God, 100% said they believed.  He then asked how they viewed Jesus, most believed.  He then asked them about spirituality, all regarded it as important.  When he asked about the church, he found no positive reactions.  Keep in mind, he comes from more secularized contexts than small town Ohio.

The reality is that what is happening in the cities trickles out to the suburbs, trickles out to the small towns, and trickles down even to the countrysides.  What is happening in large cities is a moving trend that will soon afflict small town churches.  I already see it in my own context.  We need to stop arguing about whether the city is right or wrong and start realizing the catclysmic cultural shifts occuring in our country.  America is always moving more towards the secularized level.

What should be our response?  Our response should not be to run or hide or to step out and condemn.  We need to discover, once again, the sacredness of sentness.  We in the church have lost the reality that we are called to go, not to stay or come.  Thus, in a culture that is increasingly alienated from Christ, we respond with organizational insanity.  We think if we keep doing the same thing we’ll get different results.

Hirsch describes it this way.  Imagine two holes are being dug.  One is being dug by culture at large and the other is being dug by the church.  The church’s response to recent trends is likened to us saying, “If we only dig this same hole deeper we’ll tap into that hole over there.”  The illustration is ridiculous but so are some of the ways we’ve attempted to change/shape/influence our culture.

Leverage in the missional movement is found not in changing culture but in changing churches.  Churches need to step into the marketplace and point people to the healing of their deepest doubts, wounds, and confusion.  I love the church…it is God’s vessel of restoration and renewal.

We must remember that it is God’s vessel…not our soapbox or place of judgment, not our building of escape, not our list of rules, and not a religious system.  Hirsch identifies the problem as a “death of the imagination.”  We fail to think differently and fail to have the courage to let certain things die and bring to life new things that people may resist at first but so desperately need.  We cannot violate our incarnational impulses.  Jesus came and took on our flesh.  How will we live incarnationally in the flesh of culture?

Right now, 90+% of churches are seeking to become contemporary, attractional growth churches.  In a culture like our own, this is a strategic problem.  Why?  Studies show that almost 60% of people are alienated by this model because they never come into its orbit.  That is a missional problem.  May the people of God reclaim their missionary imagination and live incarnationally, missionally, and relationally in this world that God so deeply loves!

Tags: Alan Hirsch, America, Australia, Christian, church, Europe, God, Hirsch, Jesus, New Zealand, Ohio, United States

This entry was posted on May 11th, 2009 and is filed under Jason Barnhart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.