One of the things I've noticed in reading over the past few months is how people have been critiquing the church. In this move from wherever we were to a more missional emphasis we're reading things through a different lens...and this is good. When it becomes a challenge is when we see the old model of what many would call the 'institutional' church in a state of such disarray that we feel there is little to no worth in it.
When I was a kid I was a part of a larger church. It was very traditional in many ways. A group of friends and I really wanted to do some new things within the church. We wanted to transform the church into something that we thought it could be. What we didn't do was appreciate what was there. We were critical of what wasn't there and what wasn't being done. I see this in some of the current missional conversation.
For example, Michael Frost wrote a great book entitled Exiles. I was trackin' until the last few chapters where he went on a little soapbox on the current state of music within the church. I felt that instead of bringing a better construction of what could be there was criticism of what was.
As we look at our current church situation it is important to be constructive toward the current institutional church (the type that meets in buildings that use pastors, etc :-). It's great how the missional conversation is going, but as one who serves a local congregation I'm needing some breathing room in how I think through all this. At first I just wanted to quit. I thought what we're doing was so against what the missional church is supposed to do...but it wasn't. I was just thinking that everything had to go in order for us to become this missional people. But I've learned to be challenged by the call to mission without giving up everything. In contrast to McClaren's new book I'm not so much into everything must change...perhaps things must shift...perhaps Some Things must change...but I'm not sure everything has to. To think that way insinuates there's nothing worthwhile in the local congregations we have now. As a part of an amazing community of faith I would have to argue otherwise.
