DRG - thanks! I’d been wondering whether to post something on James Thwaites etc but your comment got there first and I felt I should respond to that first.

There is a summary on this site of a contribution by James Thwaites at the ‘Future of the people of God’ conference 2004, which is worth reading (with a positive, but critical eye).

Thwaites came to us a couple of years back in a kind of post ‘prayer for revival’ vacuum, (the vacuum being because the revival didn’t seem to be happening) and offered a radical view of church which involves the people of God being ‘church’ in the places where they live and work, and the conflict between this and the ‘gravitational pull’ of church congregations into themselves and away from the created world - which, the teaching goes, we were created to go out and ‘fill’, thus fleshing out Christ’s ‘fulness’ in the created world.

The books he has written (Church Beyond the Congregation;
Re-negotiating the Church Contract) develop these ideas.

So I wonder: are you going to plant a ‘traditional’ church congregation, or are you going to be church beyond the congregation? And what is it about your ministry which you feel will be unacceptable to rank & file Christians?

Bob Hyatt (whose early contributions to this site are really worth reading) challenges us to ‘go and plant churches’. What kind of ‘church’ do you want us to plant Bob? (And Chris, for that matter!)

In the UK, experimental types of church plant are not new: church in the work place, church in the pub, church in the leisure-centre, church in the supermarket, boiler houses, 24-7 prayer rooms, etc etc - but the issue is the same: an attempt to bridge the gap between church and the surrounding culture, and especially to create something which is more ‘liquid’, more ‘fluid’ than traditional church plants.

Pete Greig makes a very good point in the series on ‘Emerging Church’ by Mark Greene in Christianity & Renewal magazine: new forms of church are either ‘downwards’ (involving a change of culture on the part of the planters to reach a particular culture) or ‘upwards’ (from within the culture itself). The latter tend to be the more successful, or authentic, in his opinion. You can put Christians in the pub, but that doesn’t make them part of the culture they are trying to reach.

Here in Guildford UK, we have had a response to Thwaites (or his type of teaching) and especially also to the ‘transformations’ type vision (Sentinel Ministries - George Otis) for a couple of years, which we call City of the Bride (see the website). It is drawn from over 20 congregations (that sounds bigger than it actually is) and is encouraging people to take ‘church’ into their ‘spheres’ - eg business, arts, youth, civic government, education etc.) The issue is not whether this is really outreach from congregations, or ‘kingdom’ as opposed to church, but whether the centre of gravity can change from being ‘congregation centred’ to ‘sphere centred’. It is being driven by a businessman who runs an ecommerce business. It’s early days yet.

As for myself, I’m supportive, but I’ve got questions (I think that’s a permissible place to be). Some about Thwaites’s stuff - which I may put onto a post at some point.

All I know is that while some evangelical churches have never had it so good, as regards growth, success etc, there are long term issues about the relationship between church people and the world we inhabit/work in, and are meant to be reaching, which may be getting overlooked. Also long term issues about the growth and sense of mission/calling in the average church member (which available church structures can stunt/inhibit).

I say this as one of the leaders of a charismatic type congregation - which embodies some of the more traditional ‘congregational’ characteristics mentioned above, but which is also trying to encourage ‘church beyond the congregation’, and help people discover the vision God has placed within them, and help them to pursue that (rather than ‘the pastor’s vision’).

In the end, I think we will have an even more mixed church scene than ever, which is no bad thing, provided we are creating followers of Jesus (not rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic), and recognising the unity of the body of Christ. And we have to get on with the ministry and calling God has given us with 100% commitment and passion. But there are some big issues to be faced about ‘church’, as we have caused it to be, and as it has shaped our thinking and attitudes.

Does anyone else identify with any of this? And can you tell us more about your ‘unacceptable’ calling DRG? I doubt if I would find it unacceptable.