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By Len Hjalmarson
A COLLEAGUE, Scot McKnight (who can be found at
jesuscreed.org), cues me to the latest edition of David Dunbar’s Missional Journal. David is not
only the president of Biblical Seminary, he is also a voice in the
missional conversation.
Along with others, I distinguish the
‘missional’ conversation from the ‘emerging’
conversation. This follows historical precedent, and the approach of both
Tom Sine’s recent book The New
Conspirators and David’s journal
article.
It’s interesting to characterize the four
conversations as Sine did, with four streams denoted by the terms emerging,
missional, monastic and mosaic.
Convergence of energies
It’s even more interesting to observe the
convergence of these energies, all birthed by the Holy Spirit. Each brings
their own renewal dynamic to the broader church, and I’m convinced
that the convergence zone is where some of the most creative experiments
will occur.
Convergence is evident in places like Life on the Vine
(see lifeonthevine.org), the Chicago church where monastic is meeting
missional and emergent; or in kingdom initiatives like Allelon
(allelon.org), where a similar dynamic is at work.
“Experiments,” I hear you say, adding:
“The church of Jesus Christ is never an experiment.” Agreed.
In Call to Commitment (Harper & Row, 1963), Elizabeth O’Connor
writes:
“We would say that the church of Christ is never
an experiment; but wherever that church is true to its mission, it will be
experimenting, pioneering, blazing new paths, seeking how to speak the
reconciling word of God to its own age.
“It cannot do this if it is held captive by the
structures of another day, or is slave to its own structures.”
David Dunbar characterizes ‘missional’ and
‘emerging’ uniquely. The missional movement grew out of The Gospel and Our Culture network
(gocn.org) and came to prominence with the publication of Missional Church in 1998.
This conversation, profoundly theological, was built on the insight and
experience of Lesslie Newbigin – who recognized that the West had
become a context for mission.
New science
The emerging conversation, while incorporating some of
the insights from the missional movement, is also built on insights rising
from the new science, and in particular from emergence and chaos theory.
David writes: “Emergence theory argues that
dynamic systems grow out of a combination of top-down and bottom-up
processes, that unleash the creativity necessary for organisms to adapt and
thrive in their environments.
“Emerging church leaders are therefore quite
prepared to reinvent traditional church structures and leadership roles in
favor of promoting life.”
That observation and contextualization is helpful. My
own reading has taken me into the works of Margaret Wheatley, Dee Hock,
Peter Senge, Fritjof Capra and others.
I find the work being done at the convergence zones of
biology, quantum physics and organizational science to be extremely
helpful. The work around complex adaptive systems is helping us move beyond
rationalized and mechanistic thinking to an older and more organic
paradigm.
Dunbar has focused on two of the four streams
identified by Sine.
I have little contact with the mosaic, but I am
intensely interested in the ‘monastic’ stream, and its own
flavour and impact in the on-the-ground engagement which is occurring as
these streams water the roots of the church world-wide.
If Thomas Homer-Dixon is right that synergistic energy
can result in catagenesis in complex systems, we may be observing the
emergence of conditions that will engender a new storm system for change.
In the journal, Dunbar accurately cites David Fitch as
a leader in the emerging movement. Life on the Vine, however, is one of
those bodies that has crossed into the monastic movement by scripting and
adopting a rule of life.
Similarly, Alan Roxburgh is known as a leader in the
missional movement, but as far back as the publication of Missional Church has had a
strong interest in covenant structures. Retrospectively, it seems that the
emerging conversation has been the catalyst that allowed missional and
monastic to combine.
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The monastic component
What has the monastic component added? What is this new
element which grows from the synergy? The process is very new, but I think
it is worth offering some initial observations.
It helps to be clear about what monastic revival offers
to the mix.
I take it that the goal of the new monasticism is to
create ‘colonies of heaven,’ an alternative and kingdom culture
which exists in a rhythm of inward and outward movement: prayer, work and
mission — particularly mission to marginalized groups.
I use the word ‘culture,’ purposefully,
since I am convinced that culture is a cultivating force. We are always
being formed, and the telos of humankind is the image of Christ.
Thus, a foundational ministry is the nurturing of
alternative kingdom communities growing out of a missional engagement with
culture.
Some of us would argue that, apart from the existence
of communities which stand in some sense prophetically against the dominant
culture, there is no true ekklesial presence.
Some key observations:
* The missional movement identified covenant and
context (place, or land) as important theological categories, but needed a
way to anchor those concepts in renewed practices as well as in tradition.
The monastic movement provides that anchor with its rule and rhythms, as
well as the connection to memory (many of the rules and practices are
adapted from historical expressions).
* The missional movement offered a strong theological
anchor for mission in the trinity, but needed a way to anchor that movement
in a rhythm of inward and outward life. The monastic movement provides that
anchor by empowering devotional (gathered) rhythms with particular
practices (the daily office, lectio divina and similar things).
* The emergent movement offers a strong critique of
practices, but tends toward an activist and individualist agenda. The
monastic movement offers a recovery of shared discipline and common
devotion, and places the transformed community at the centre.
* The emergent movement offers a strong critique of
structures, but tends toward pragmatic response. The missional movement
offers theological anchors, historical and cultural nuancing, as well as a
balanced critique of modernity and the Enlightenment.
* The emergent movement, in its emphasis on newness and
difference, sometimes stands aloof from tradition and history –
becoming sectarian and forcing the ‘reinvention’ of the wheel
(a hermeneutic of suspicion). The missional and monastic movements offer
connection to memory, tradition and wisdom – and the
recognition that “there is nothing new under the sun.”
Oldest is newest
As Thomas Merton put it, in New
Seeds of Contemplation:
“That which is oldest is most young and most new.
There is nothing so ancient and so dead as human novelty. The
‘latest’ is always stillborn.
“What is really new is what was there all the time. I say, not what has
repeated itself all the time; the really ‘new’ is that which,
at every moment, springs freshly into new existence.
“This newness never repeats itself. Yet it is so
old it goes back to the earliest beginning. It is the very beginning
itself, which speaks to us.”
More of Len Hjalmarson’s articles can be found at
his website, NextReformation.com.
August 2008
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