Previous Post – Junia Is Not Alone
When David Fitch posted his recent blog proposal, “On Planting Churches That Do Not Cannibalize: The Luke 10 Project”, I was excited. With Little Flowers Community struggling for sustainability, his proposal offered some exciting hope- an approach that helps small teams of planters sustainably engage their communities bi-vocational church planters (read the post for more details, as I don’t want to use too much space reiterating).
It should be stated that David is not attempting to set up THE model or formula for all church plant. Rather, it is something of an experiment that is adaptable within many contexts through our post-Christendom culture. As I consider what he is proposing, I get excited, longing to apply it in my context. I see some serious challenges, including where the funding will come for the proposed team of servant leaders.
As I was reading the post and comment again, I noticed that my friend Wendy McCaig (Embrace Richmond) posted some push back on her blog. While she affirmed much of Fitch’s proposal, she expressed this concern:
“My issue is with over emphasizing ‘relocation’ and under emphasizing ‘indigenous leadership development.’” (from “Church Planting: A Hostile Takeover?”)
She goes on to express concern with the implicit assumption that “the Body of Christ is absent, and therefore we have to ‘take Jesus to people’”. This is a fair and valid concern, since this assumption has all too often shaped much of Christian mission over the last few centuries, often with devastating (though not unredeemed) consequences. She calls, instead, that the Luke 10 Project give more explicit emphasis to “training, equipping and sending” local Christians already part of the neighbourhood. Her point is critical and her case well made.
However, I feel that, just as Fitch’s proposal lacked this nuance (and I have little doubt that David would fully agree with Wendy and that his omission was more oversight than intention), I feel that perhaps Wendy’s response nuance as well. I do not say this critically, but rather in the hope to carry both great posts forward in conversation. No doubt my own post will need such help from others. Here are my primary concerns:
There still seems too much of a dichotomy between the “us and them” between locals and outsiders. The emphasis on indigenous leadership was (and is) an important correction to the tendency to treat the “mission field” paternalistically. However, many missiologists have noted that the corrective has, at times, produced culturally myopic Christians. The Body of Christ, after all, is about unified diversity under the headship of Christ. Therefore, I think we need to be explicit about looking a means to see a blended community of locals and outsiders.
In our context, for example, this is essential. The “us/them” dynamic at play is largely one of locality based on socioeconomic differences. We have found that our community needs “outsiders” to participate in the community- not necessarily as leaders, but simply as members. Consequently, as I see the struggles in many of our suburban churches, I know that for some to relocate and enter into community with us would feel a deep need in their faith walks as well. It is about mutual transformation.
Another critical reality that we must acknowledge is that, in most North American contexts, the “us/them” dynamic is a division of our own making. As I am fond of reminding people, when God said (in Deut. 15:4) that there should be no poor among us, He wasn’t suggesting segregation. In other words, it was as the church has been co-opted by the cultural values of consumerism, individualism, etc. that the true relocation happened. The relocation that Fitch recommends (like that recommended by John Perkins and others) is not about conquest, but about reconciliation. Further, like the incarnation of God in Christ, our relocation, if true, makes the “them” into “us”.
My province is one of the ancestral homes of the Métis people- a people group born out of the inter-marriage between early European settlers and local First Nations peoples. However, rather than one culture swallowing up the other, the Métis reflect a true union, producing new people groups. My own French Canadian ancestors represent one part of that heritage, namely through the inter-marriage of the exploring, fur trading voyageurs and the First Nations people they encounters, traded with and even lived among. They are now a proud and distinct people group.
The voyageurs have, for a long time, represented something of an archetype for how I see our place as Christians within the world. We are called to be daring explorers who connect with the indigenous people on their own terms, relating to them uniquely and, together, producing something new. Yes, like the voyageurs complicity in the colonization of the First Nations people, so too are we “outsider” Christians often complicit with the colonizing agenda of Christendom. However, acknowledging these tensions, the product of our coming together can be something profoundly new and beautiful.
Therefore, I affirm both David & Wendy’s posts. However, I believe that the missing element in both is the intentionally of the coming together of the “us” and “them” as an intentional move of our missional engagement. This foundation of mutual transformation is critical, I believe, to our success in birthing new communities of faith and mission in our post-Christendom world.
