For me, Alan Hirsch remains credible because he presents good data and because what he says makes sense. He’s not just a bunch of bluster and unsubstatiated opinion. He also has been an observer of trends in England and Down Under that seem to be pre-cursors to what is happening in America. He can predict what will happen in America by explaining what happened in those parts of the world.

So, here’s the the tough part of putting Hirsh’s wisdom to work in the Church. We like to contain things and then measure them. As long as we are using an attractional or extractional model of church, we can put our arms around those who respond and we can count them, survey them, monitor them, etc.  Since we measure success in the church by numbers and dollars (c’mon, you know I’m right) we replicate those things that look like successful outcomes.  Bringing people into the church environment, and assimilating them into our culture, look like success as we do it on greater scales, so we keep doing it.  What we can measure we can manage, and the conventional attractional/extractional church environment allows us to measure and manage people and behaviors. And so we keep doing it. If Hirsh’s ideas of missionality are correct, which I believe they are, then we are going to HAVE to divorce ourselves from the old measurements of success. Not mask them. Not rename them. Not rewarm them. We need to detox from them and send them as far as East is from West.

How in the heck do we do that?  Some people say they have made the switch from measuring numbers of people in their programs to measuring stories. Huh? What? I don’t know what that means really.  I think it sounds really good, but we’re still qualifying and quantifying to measure success. I’ve heard others say that they measure inputs instead of outputs. Like, Statistical Process Control, if  the theology, training, message, experience, commitment of the Christian community is strong, then the outcomes will be strong. What outcomes? How do you measure how well a mom loves her kids or how effectively a boss relates to his employees or how purely a missionary serves his field? My instinct says that a true missional model has to be a total clean break from dependence on metrics as measures of success. We’ll always have metrics but our confidence in their integrity is indirectly proportional to our freedom to be missional. There will be much argument on this point, but no one can ever win, because we have no way to prove the answer metrically. Some things “work” in some places. The same things “fail” other places. There’s something really important about the Fall of Man and that has to do with categorizing everything as good or bad, but that is another conversation for another time.

So…if we are to be missional, the Church has to cease conforming to the patterns of this world.  The clergy system that depends on butts and bucks is in jeopardy. The facilities system that we’ve adopted to contain the Christian community is on the chopping block. The programs that we use to direct people in tracks of proper behavior might have to go. The worship-centered experience of the faith may have to fall into equal proportion with other less pleasant components. AND…when we become missional, the very metrics that Hirsh uses to show that we’re currently failing as a church will say that we have failed miserably, because to measure how non-missional we are, we are using non-missional metrics!!!

So, on to more important things… The first night there, we ate at a place called the Hickory Street Bar & Grill. It was good in spite of all the buckets scattered around to catch water leaking through the ceiling from the recent rains. It has sort of an indoor outdoor format and a hippish, grungish vibe.

Here is what I ate… Grilled Portobello with corn-salsa, rice and black beans. It was really tasty with its zingy seasoning and freshness. Pretty guilt-free too!

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!