Church at the Margins
of Culture - Unsatisfied Spiritual Yearnings
The communities at the margins of
mainstream culture represent the greatest challenge for the church in the
spread of the gospel and the greatest resistance to the institutional church. George
G. Hunter III, distinguished professor of church growth and evangelism, writes
about the angst of the paradigm shift and the reaction of the church,
The Church, in
the Western world, faces populations who are increasingly “secular” — people
with no Christian memory, who don’t know what we Christians are talking about.
These populations are increasingly “urban” — and out of touch with God’s
“natural revelation.” These populations are increasingly “postmodern”; they
have graduated from Enlightenment ideology and are more peer driven, feeling
driven, and “right-brained” than their forebears. These populations are
increasingly “neo-barbarian”; they lack “refinement” or “class,” and their
lives are often out of control. These populations are increasingly receptive —
exploring worldview options from Astrology to Zen — and are often looking “in
all the wrong places” to make sense of their lives and find their soul’s true
home.
In the face of
this changing Western culture, many Western Church leaders are in denial; they
plan and do church as though next year will be 1957. Furthermore, most of the
Western Church leaders who are not in denial do not know how to engage the
epidemic numbers of secular, postmodern, neo-barbarians outside (and inside)
their churches.[1]
The cultural divide between the church with its modernist source
and the shift to postmodernism has resulted in an inability to continue
business as usual, yet this is exactly what the institutional church continues
to do. The cultural shift to postmodernism and post-Christendom has created a
cultural transition and a struggle for identity amid the institutional churches.
The resulting tension has created dismay for the institutional church in its
efforts. Halter and Smay,
We’ve worked so
hard for so little, and we don’t know what else to try. We’ve tried Graham crusades,
Promise Keepers, Willow Creek church, Saddlebacks’ four bases, the “small
group” movement in every conceivable arrangement, Alpha, 40-Days of Everything,
and house church. Yet we continue to lose the people we have while failing to
reach the ones we don’t have.[2]
The tensions of the inherited modes of church have not
satisfied the spiritual yearnings of the marginal and sub-cultures resulting in
diminished congregational size and lackluster results in church planting. Ecclesia
/ Church at the margin seeks to move beyond the institutional church’s
dynamics. Stuart Murray notes that the emerging church focuses upon three
crucial components of church through “refocusing mission . . . reconfiguring
community . . . refreshing worship.”[3]
The critical endeavor of the church needs to move away from its modernist
mooring within the mainstream of society to the margins. Issues such as
“cultural exegesis and reflection on mission”[4]
are shaping the thinking of the missional church movement as it engages those
at the margins of culture.
Rethinking ecclesia at the margins
has resulted in genuine, culturally relevant ecclesial expressions, previously
referred to as alternative missional ecclesia. Murray makes an observation about
the appearance of ecclesia amid marginalized people, “. . . in networks and
sub-cultures. Churches are emerging among science-fiction buffs, surfers,
Goths, homeless people, transvestites, many ethnic minorities and youth
cultures.”[5]
The alternative missional ecclesia at the margins has moved away from
institutional buildings and the trappings that come with them. Murray writes
about this observation, “They are emerging in cafés, pubs, clubs, mosques, workplaces and on the Internet.”[6] The praxis of ecclesia at the
margins takes into consideration the exegesis of cultural context. The issue of
cultural contextualization has become a driving concern, so at the forefront of
this discussion is the church in culture.
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