Contextualized Strategy

In his latest post over at Crushed Leviathan, Pêcheur comments on the "visible church." Though it's not the overall intent of his writing, he raises an interesting issue concerning our "strategy" for planting churches in Western Europe. Pêcheur writes,

In the Western world (Europe and America), to ask some to stop going to church (building) on Sunday is asking too much from them and they can turn you off. What you have is not "church" to them, no matter how innovative you believe yourself to be. On the other hand, there are some who are wanting some freedom from, what they perceive as restrictions (or even negative experiences) that come from a church structure (i.e. building, clergy, etc), that they will embrace a non-traditional understanding of "church."

I agree completely with his thoughts that we cannot forsake the "traditional church" in the name of innovation or creativity. Neither can we condemn the "contemporary" (or whatever you might call that which is not "traditional") for its leaders' efforts to engage culture. It takes both. Determining what "type" of church to plant is part of the hard work of missions, whether in the US or overseas.

Ten years ago, our organization adopted a worldwide strategy called "New Directions." You can read about it in Jerry Rankin's book, To the Ends of the Earth, so I won't go into great detail about it here. Part of that strategy is the concept of "church planting movements." We as workers in our agency, are to be about facilitating CPMs. I'm fine with that. I think it's a great general strategy for our organization. But it's just that: a general, worldwide strategy. It is our guide, our goal, and it provides some parameters for our work.

Here's the issue: its application in the context of Western Europe. The number one task of what we do is contextualization. We work hard to understand the culture where we live and to contextualize our communication of the gospel. We try every day to shed our own cultural baggage and biases in order to be a light to the world. New Directions, with its emphasis on church planting movements, is great. But it has been poorly applied in our context. We have neglected the first rule of missions and applied techniques and practices from another culture to another without considering how it fits.

In the far east, where CPMs were first identified, they were based on house churches. Men and women much smarter than me analyzed and determined some of the characteristics of these movements, and those characteristics were embodied perfectly in the house church movement. Someone decided that we ought to plant house churches in France and Western Europe just like they plant them in China. We were told to read books about house churches (even some books by Europeans and Westerners), we were taught about house churches in our orientation, and we practiced house church meetings. We were told not to go to an established church because it would confuse those who were watching.

The problem (for me, at least) is not house church. I agree with many of the fundamental principles and consider them biblical (simplicity, community, lay leadership, relationship, etc.). The problem is applying the form in this context. Small groups meeting in homes work here because people are committed to relationships and are perfectly willing to have people into their homes. As Pêcheur points out, however, it is a tremendous cultural hurdle when you call your house a church. The small home groups work alongside the larger corporate worship. They provide the community and the relationship. So, what do we do? We apply the principles in the culture and that's contextualization. That's what we ought to be doing, but infatuation with the latest fads of church planting or evangelism or whatever have distracted us. I'll be the first to admit that the difficulty of living and working here, the lack of visible fruit, can easily cause one to grasp anything that might "work," but we often pay by making our task even more difficult.

When I was in Tennessee, I saw churches split because preachers applied the model of Saddleback or Willow Creek indiscriminately and uncritically to their location. They did not take just the principles of purpose-driven, they tried to be a little Rick and do California music and wear Hawaiian shirts (that's an exaggeration to make the point). In Western Europe, we can start reproducing "traditional churches" that reach people, and we can start reproducing "simple" or "organic" or "contemporary" churches that reach people. Whatever we do, we've got to contextualize strategy and do something.

To my knowledge, there has not been a church started in France by our organization since New Directions (though I'd be ecstatic to be proved wrong on that). Other organizations have started churches, in some cases many churches. Could it be that we have cared more about implementing strategy than about fulfilling our commission?