Here is a good link on Christmas and this advent season.

It makes me simply wonder where would Jesus show up if he were to incarnate the world again.  Who would he hang out with?  And what cultural norms would he teach about/against?

Good thoughts.

So there has been some talk/debate lately about the pros and cons of missional churches versus mega-churches.  Mainly, the debate has centered on the argument that missional churches don’t produce conversions.  Here is my take:

The critique of missional churches is mainly that people are not being “converted”.  By converted, they simply mean putting their faith in Jesus Christ.  In other words, missional churches talk about incarnating culture, hanging out with non-Christians, and building relationships, but it all adds up to… well, very little.  Simply, people are not coming to faith.

The critique of mega-churches is that their growth also is not really “converstion”.  Christianity, as a whole, is not growing in America.  Rather, the growth of mega-churches is really just a “shift”.  Christians from “other churches” (mainly, traditional churches) are now attending the mega-church.  In addition, people that are coming to faith, are typically not “unreached” people, but rather people who grew up in church, left, and are now coming back to the faith.  Their conversion is dependent upon their being raised knowing about the Christian faith.  Also, the critique of mega-churches is that their definition of “conversion” is incomplete. The critique being giving one’s life to Jesus Christ also ought to include a dying to the ways of the world, i.e. the consumerisitic, individualistic, materialistic, ways of Western culture.

Missional churches argue that “conversion” of a post-Christian culture is much trickier than their critics suggest.  Here are some of my thoughts, based completely on personalexperience:

1) Missional engaemement is difficult.  I bartended for 3 years of my life and now coach wrestling at a local high school.  Occasionally I meet a person who is a Christian, was raised in church, or attend a church.  It is amazing how much easier it is to talk about matters of faith with these people!  Even if they now hate the church, there is a common language and experience that allows for conversation.

However, having conversations about faith with people that have no religious background is very difficult.  There is very little common ground.  Rarely there is a person that is interested in the subject matter and willing to talk.  Mostly, people are embarassed about how little they know, are turned off by the subject matter, or are simply apathetic.

2)  Attractional Churches attract Christians (in my experience, the middle-upper class).  I have worked at a few “attractional” churches.  All of them have have great people trying to do great things for God.  All of them have done missions and ministry.  But honestly, none of them were very successful at reaching the broken and those who did not know God.  Sure, I know stories of a few people giving their lives to Christ (and all of them are awesome), but most of these stories are people who were raised in church, left, and then came back to the faith.  Honestly, I love those stories.  They remind me of Jesus leaving the 99 to find the 1.

However, most of the “growth” of these churches came from Christians who became discontent with “their” church, and “liked” our church more.  Maybe it was a bad church experience, a personal conflict, different taste in music, the quality of teaching… whatever, the growth was not lost people coming to faith.  My experience is mega-church growth is Christians being attracted to a “better” church.

3)  Missional/Emergent Types are Scared of Conversion (and so are mega-churches). My experience is that both missional and mega-church advocates are scared of conversion.  Let me explain.

Missional/emergent types (they are different, by the way) are scared of conversion, generally.  This is because of 2 reasons, I think.  First, Christian history and conversion has left a bad taste in their mouth.  Genocide of Native Americans, street corner evangelists with bullhorns and tracks, etc. makes conversion a sore subject.  Second, the practice of incarnation is not balanced with the call to take up the cross.  In other words, missional thinkers over-emphasize the incarnation, and forget to ask people to loose their life in order to find it in Christ.

However, attractional church types are scared of conversion too.  They are not scared of asking people to put their faith in Jesus.  However, they are scared to ask people to follow the “way” of Jesus.  In other words, attractional church types, in my experience, seperate faith in Jesus from the way of Jesus.  This makes it altogether possible to believe in Jesus, but trust and follow the ways of the world… accumulating and trusting in wealth, allegiance to country (i.e. violence), maintaining an individualistic and consumeristic lifestyle, etc.  To bring these rather direct teaching of Jesus to the forefront of Christian spirituality makes many very uneasy.   They, too, are scared of conversion.

In the end, ministry and missions are being done.  However, no matter what side of the conversation you fall on, neither side is being extremely effective in converting people to the way of Christ.  Despite the allusion of “success” that is portrayed by the mega-church, and despite the buzz of missional/emergent conversation… the way of Christ remains narrow.  Fewer and fewer, in America, are finding it.