It’s been pretty busy around here for the past week or so, and therefore I apologize for not being more frequent in my posts. I thought I’d take this morning to toss out a few things that we went over in our final membership class last week. For the final session, Barry went through the church’s “missiology”, or in other words, “how we want to reach people with the Gospel”. Of course, I’m loving this stuff because not only am I fascinated with “how churches do church”, but also because it’s so rare that people talk about how and why they do what they do in their local church. They had a handout which outlined a few things, so I decided to scan in my copy for any of you to download and view, if you wish.

If you’ve taken a look at the handout, you can see where I’ve jotted down at the top a statistic Barry mentioned at the beginning of our session. It turns out that around 4,000 churches close their doors every year in this country. And among those, about 80-90% of them are structured traditionally. Now, the only reason I bring this up is in order to emphasize the importance of discussing how and why we do things in our churches on a regular basis. I believe if we fail at this, we will begin to fail the mission.

Another reason I mentioned it, is because it is becoming more clear that the traditionally structured church is no longer a dominant force in our culture. The dominant church these days is the contemporary or “seeker” church. We have seen churches explode in growth due to this structure, leaving us impressed but also skeptical. Can a church that huge produce an authentic community of believers? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s also becoming more and more clear that this particluar brand of church has “peaked” in it’s dominance due to other emerging forms.

Enter the “missional” church—a brand of church that refuses to lock into any system or structure. The church that will always ask how and why and continually change in order to achieve the mission as best as it can. The church that will never grow very large, but instead multiply, in order to better achieve the mission, develop leaders, and maintain authenicity and community.

So how does a missional church achieve the mission and win people to Christ? The answer is all different ways, according to it’s culture. But are there any basic principles that it can be rooted in? Yes there are, and that’s why we have the Bible. But people have different ways of laying those biblical principles out in a structure. Both the traditional church and the contemporary church have a kind of “bring in” mentality, meaning that people are won to Christ by bringing the lost to the church, winning them to Christ, then including them in the fellowship of believers. The missional church has a more Celtic twist to it. By Celtic, I’m referring to the Irish civilization that gained influence and growth in the world by imbedding itself into other cultures and civilizations, rather than storming in and dominating it. The Romans gained influence by taking cities and countries over and imposing their cultural standards and beliefs on those whom they dominated. The Celtics gained influenced by becoming a part of a culture and influencing it from within.

So what does this have to do with church and evangelism? Well, if you take a look at the handout, you can see a side by side comparison of the two methods of missiology. As I mentioned earlier, most structured churches build up the body of believers through “cultural imperialism”, by bringing them into church, presenting the Gospel, calling for decision, taking those who accept the call and extending fellowship and friendship to them, and training them.
The Celtic method, or “cultural redemption” instead extends fellowship and friendship first, then discipling and offering participation in ministry, always sharing the Gospel, then the conversion takes place, resulting in celebration and continued ministry.

As you can see by my notes, the key distinction here is where friendship and fellowship is extended in the timeline. In traditional structures, the church hesitates in this regard, in order to protect the church, but this can often lead to exclusivity and animosity. It’s often felt that you have to change first in order to feel accepted at any given church. The Celtic method offers complete inclusivity and friendship before even sharing the Gospel. More than that, it submits that spiritual discipleship can begin before salvation.

So what do you think about this? Is one method better than the other? Certainly the Roman method works and I believe God is glorified by all sorts of churches and methods, just as long as the Gospel is reaching people. But is the Celtic method more biblical? It sure seems like things move along quite a bit “slower”, but can’t that be a good thing? The contemporary Christian culture seems to put so much emphasis on the number of conversions and so much less on the actual spiritual substance that is evident in an individual’s life. Obviously a balance must be struck here, but I’m wondering if Celtic evengelism has most of the advantage. What is the most biblical, and therefore the most effective?