The Rules of the Game are Totally Different

And the Church must be forever building,

And always decaying, And always being restored.    

 --T.S. Eliot

Foreign travel is one of the best ways to experience intractable cultural differences. For example, when traveling to the United Kingdom I experienced the difficulty of driving on the left hand side of the road. “Are you nervous?” was the first question the driving instructor asked. As I sat in the driver’s seat behind a steering wheel that was on the right hand side of the car. The thought of driving on the left hand side of the road was overwhelming. “Nerves, no. I’m absolutely freakin’ out, none of this feels right, but let’s do this!” Anxiety filled my mind and a large amount of adrenalin flowed in my body. The pedals were all the same as in the U.S., clutch, break and gas pedal were all present, only on the wrong side of the car. The gear-shift lever was still in the center, but I would have to shift with my left hand. It all felt awkward and out of place, unnatural. “This just isn’t right!” Andrew, my London friend, laughed at me and saying, “Doug, you’re not in Kansas anymore!” He was right. It was a foreign land and I was thrust into experiencing one of the greatest cultural difficulties Americans encounter when visiting the UK; driving on the wrong side of the road. 

Fortunately, the driving lesson started out in an area specifically designed for teaching Americans to drive. Everything was marked clearly, the lanes with arrows to indicate correct direction, the street signs that would be encountered and then there was the dreaded counter-flow roundabout. The counter-flow roundabout is definitely not for the faint of heart. Before visiting the UK I thought that the only real big difference was simply driving on the opposite side of the road . . . it’s not. The rules of the game are totally different. Everything about driving in the UK went against all that I knew and understood about driving in America. Finally, I am ready to experience traffic in real time. Despite my objections, Andrew and the instructor took me out to an area where they felt the traffic was lighter and had counter-flow roundabouts. I was asked to drive from one end of a five-mile section through two counter-flow roundabouts turn around and come back to the starting point. Did I mention counter-flow roundabouts are definitely not for the faint of heart?

The experience was one of the most intimidating of my life. The straight sections were great, the corners were tricky and I ended up in the wrong lane a couple of time. During this first foray into traffic it was in the roundabouts where Andrew and the instructor screamed like children begging for their lives. To this day I can recall their screams. One recommendation here, avoid the Lorries (the trucks), they are large and intimidating. Frankly one should avoid hitting one at all costs. It took a few weeks to become a novice driver in the UK. If I had not taken the time to orient myself to this intractable culture difference of driving in the UK the results could have great injury others or myself. 

The experience of learning to drive in the UK forced me to feel the deep frustration and discomfort of what it means to be completely outside of my comfort zone. As wrong as it might seem to drive on the left, the UK will not change for the convenience of an American. Nor should we expect them too. Yet, in general this is exactly what the contemporary church expects of people. When dealing with intractable cultural differences the church believes they are able to easily overcome the barriers, but in reality the practices and strategies the church employs are like an American learning to drive in the UK. The danger lies in the idea that the church works on a one size fits all theory that eventually. This may cause spiritual death in those who don’t understand the culture or do not or won’t conform to church culture. The rules of the game are totally different. The church is experiencing intractable cultural differences with the culture it resides within. The church in the North American context is struggling due to its inability to connect with the diverse emerging cultural climates. Cultural change has set the course of the church in a pattern of cultural irrelevance and decline. 

It is the reality that the North American church is experiencing decline. We recognize several factors are contributing to this decline; postmodernism and post-Christendom are the two dominate cultural factors and principal contributors. While the population continues to grow in North America, church attendance is severely diminishing, so much so that if the current trend continues by the year 2050 church attendance will be fifty percent of what it was in the 1990’s. With the number of people attending church in such a decline amid the general population, what is transpiring amid the culture of North American society? The change in church attendance amid the general population has implications. This blog asks the questions, what is transpiring amid people in relationship to the establishment of new churches? How might leadership be inspired in order to empower contextualization of the Gospel with practical theological practice in the midst of a post-Christian culture? The opinion of this blog is that the alternate missional movement churches has been able to create and sustain communities in the midst of this society, specifically where other church planting methodologies have experienced more failure then success. 

The alternate missional churches with their unique strategies and practices provide support for empowering contextualization of the Gospel. They are doing this through practical theology and this creates and sustains church communities in the midst of a various cultural environments. The backdrop for this view is supported by the historical success of the church has as a missional movement spanning the globe into contemporary times having originated from the humble beginnings with a handful of Jesus followers, specifically the twelve disciples.

In this blog we will be exploring the future church, its shape, dynamics and life in the postmodern and post-Christian environment of North America.

*This blog consists of excerpts from my dissertation – Positive Deviance: Empowering Ecclesial Contextualization With Theological Praxis.*