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The Church as
Subversive Community How does your garden
grow? With silver bells and
cockle shells And pretty maids all
in a row. For the past
generation, one of the hottest topics among pastors and church leaders has
been church growth. “Pastor, Pastor, quite contrary, how does your garden
grow?” Theories abound and models for 'doing church' come and go like
teenage fashion fads. But in the middle of all this discussion and strategy a
few very practical questions remain: "How does God intend his church to
grow? What are the means by which the gospel of Jesus is spread? What is the
job of the average Christian? How should pastors lead in this endeavor?"
One attempt to answer these questions should be very familiar. For lack of a
better name, I will call it the 'Church Growth' paradigm. Here are a few of
this paradigm's basic assumptions: A simple vision - bring the gospel of salvation in Jesus to the
entire world by any means necessary. Ethnic groups, generational groups, special needs groups, etc.
are identified, studied, targeted, and advanced upon with this gospel in
hopes that they will be assimilated into the Kingdom and a church. Massive amounts of funding, personnel, strategy, planning, and
leadership are necessary to pull off this enormous undertaking. One of Church Growth's
primary tools is to coax people into a special place once a week where God is the
focus of the entire event (traditionally, a service on Sunday morning). The
idea is that if people will think about God for a few hours on Sunday, maybe
they'll also consider him the other 166 hours during the week. All manner of
resources are expended to make those few precious hours as efficient and relevant
as possible. Countless programs are concocted to try and connect people with
God at other times. The amount of blood, sweat, prayer, and tears expended in
this paradigm is extraordinary. 'Subversive' is an odd
word to associate with Christian ministry, but that is only because of its uses
in recent world history. Webster's defines 'subvert', "to overturn or
overthrow from the foundation." It's origin is
Latin, "subvertere, literally, to turn from
beneath." Eugene Peterson has a great description of this paradigm's
assumptions: "Three things are implicit in subversion. One, the status
quo is wrong and must be overthrown if the world is going to be livable. It
is so deeply wrong that repair work is futile. The world is, in the word
insurance agents use to designate our wrecked cars, totaled. The Subversive
Community's mission is not to bring the The Subversive
Community understands that the world and its ways are false. It is constantly
interacting with people at work, in the grocery store, or at home who are all
in the prison of this world's system. These prisoners are quite happy in
their assumed reality (especially the ones who have amassed quite a kingdom
of wealth). But some secretly ask the question, "Is this really all
there is to life?" The Subversive Community’s answer is not merely to
inform them about the Kingdom, but to invite them to become participants in a
whole new reality. The training program will be unique and cannot be rushed
or broken down into a few 'principles' that are easy to swallow. Remember,
the "Prayer and parable are the stock-in-trade tools of the
subversive pastor. The quiet (or noisy) closet life of prayer enters into
partnership with the Spirit that strives still with every human heart, a
wrestling match in holiness. And parables are the consciousness-altering
words that slip past falsifying platitude and invade the human spirit with
Christ-truth.” Andrew Jones used to
have on his website this tag line: “One who tells stories and throws
parties.” Combine that statement with Peterson’s and you get the closest
thing to a strategy for church planting available. I call it the “Three-P’s
of Church Planting” --- Prayer, Parables, and Parties. Prayer In the absence of
building programs, 45-minute sermons three times a week, and an “outreach
ministry,” there is prayer. The “wrestling match” to which Peterson
refers is not the hand-wringing sessions most prayer meetings resemble. “Oh
God, our culture is so bad. Why are people not coming to our church
service anymore? Please bless our next outreach program so we can advance
your kingdom.” Instead of asking God to bless our programs, we should be
trying to bless His. This takes a willingness to do two things: ask and wait.
Our community has grown through having times of prayer that include more silence
than prayer. We are trying to learn corporately the ancient (and
anti-Western) discipline of solitude and silence. As we’ve grown in our
ability to hear God’s voice, we’ve found a few simple prayers that have been
helpful: “God, what have you created us to be in our community?” “How can we represent your Kingdom in our jobs, families,
circles of friends, and neighborhoods?” “Make us aware of your rule and reign today in every situation.” “Lead us to men and women of peace that will provide contact
with the world in places where your Spirit is working.” (See Luke 10) Parables The Subversive
Community is a living story. It sees itself as a footnote to Chapter
Three in the Story of God and His People. Simultaneously we are living within
the Larger Story, the story of our faith community, and our individual
stories. This has always been so, but the church has kept these stories
stored away on a dusty shelf and tried to give the world the Cliff Notes
instead. It’s time to take the musty books down and learn the art of storytelling
again. Jesus understood the
deeply subversive nature of stories. He used parables like ticking time bombs
of truth implanted in his hearer’s minds. They would sit there unprotected,
challenging assumptions and coaxing the soul to establish a new foundation
for life. N.T. Wright explains, “When Jesus announced the kingdom, the
stories he told functioned like dramatic plays in search of actors. His
hearers were invited to audition for parts in the kingdom. They had been
eager for God’s drama to be staged and were waiting to find out what they
would have to do when he did so. Now they were to discover. They were to
become kingdom-people themselves.” The Subversive
Community can use parable in many different ways. Our community has utilized
the Web to tell our story on a global and local stage. The recent web-logging
craze (www.blogger.com) has enabled us to keep our
story documented real-time and from the point of view of each participant.
Music, art, and poetry allow the community to present the story in fresh,
creative ways. Even something benign like how you design your house can
communicate truth about the Kingdom. Parable is in its nature a creative act
so it is most effective when you decide to be original and invite the Holy
Spirit to tell God’s story through your life. Don’t just use someone else’s
stories; come up with your own! Parties "People will come
from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the
feast in the Our community has
organized a few parties, which we call Kingdom Feasts. We invite friends,
family, co-workers, people from other churches, and
anyone else who wants to come. The last one was held at the beach where we
cooked a ton of burgers and played volleyball in perfect The Subversive
Community would never be caught trying to coax the world into a church
building. It believes the church (which is you and me) exists primarily out
in the world just being itself. But we are not passive observers of a world
going to hell. We are here to overthrow the world’s assumptions about life
and our hope for the future. Peterson now completes our job description: “This is our primary work in the real world. But we need
continual convincing. The people whom we are praying and among whom we are
telling parables are seduced into supposing that their money and ambition are
making the world turn on its axis. There are so many of them and so few of
us, making it difficult to maintain our convictions. It is easy to be seduced
along with them. Mike Bishop is learning how to be an apprentice of Jesus with
his wife Amber, his son Jackson, and a small faith community called the |
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