Hirsch notes: consumer spirituality, missional church
Alan talked about our spiritual consumerism in his Forgotten Ways workshop at the CMA conference in January. We approach church (meetings) as consumers. How was the show? We even approach house church meetings this way. How waaaaas the show?
House-churching can easily become just a renewal thing. All the house-churchers I have known are former institutional churchers who are detoxing, rehabing or something like that from institutional church life. All of us have been getting renewed. That is a good thing, but it's not mission.
The light bulb really came on for me as I coupled Alan Hirsch's talk with my experiences. Big meetings are not where it's at, but neither are small groups or cell groups or even housechurches. There's nothing wrong with all these and they can do a lot of good. Where it's at is out there. John Wimber famously said, "the meat is in the street".
So, what I have discovered or the dots have been connected, is that outreach, outward focus, or mission is it. We need the core belief that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, but that does not drive us just to make churches where Jesus reigns among us and we share life together, but it rather binds us to Jesus mission to the lost and our community (church) is built from or around and in that.
Another really interesting thing that Alan talked about was Alpha. Alpha truly is an attractional, "come and see" or "come and get it", program for de-churched people, not unchurched. To word it better: Alpha is more effective with the de-churched rather than the unchurched, and there's nothing wrong with that. My point is that we need ways to reach the un-churched people that are effective.
House-churching can easily become just a renewal thing. All the house-churchers I have known are former institutional churchers who are detoxing, rehabing or something like that from institutional church life. All of us have been getting renewed. That is a good thing, but it's not mission.
The light bulb really came on for me as I coupled Alan Hirsch's talk with my experiences. Big meetings are not where it's at, but neither are small groups or cell groups or even housechurches. There's nothing wrong with all these and they can do a lot of good. Where it's at is out there. John Wimber famously said, "the meat is in the street".
So, what I have discovered or the dots have been connected, is that outreach, outward focus, or mission is it. We need the core belief that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, but that does not drive us just to make churches where Jesus reigns among us and we share life together, but it rather binds us to Jesus mission to the lost and our community (church) is built from or around and in that.
Another really interesting thing that Alan talked about was Alpha. Alpha truly is an attractional, "come and see" or "come and get it", program for de-churched people, not unchurched. To word it better: Alpha is more effective with the de-churched rather than the unchurched, and there's nothing wrong with that. My point is that we need ways to reach the un-churched people that are effective.
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