Session 5: Tammie

Hunsberger
I'm not sure that the church as a whole challenges, questions or critiques the culture although certainly the individual within the church and teaching both from the pulpit and in the Sunday school classes may on any given day accomplish any or all of the three. There have been messages and lessons that I can recall off the top of my head that challenge, for example, the cultural notion that it's all about me and getting everything I can for me. There is one Sunday school class, in particular, that makes it a point to discuss contemporary issues from a Christian culture. More often, challenges, questions and critiques even within such teaching settings comes as through discussion between the teacher and the students as assorted topics are brought up because that it what the student is facing in school (and, yes, I am referring primarily to youth in this instance).

Generally, it seems we challenge and critique the culture without asking the questions first. We say this thing or that thing is wrong without asking why it is happening or looking for an underlying cause. When that happens, we really have no basis on which to begin a conversation with someone or to engage the culture because we begin from a place of antagonism rather than understanding.


Hendrick
One verse alone - Acts 2:42 - shows a striking similarity to the model Hendrick describes in a missionary church, but the similarities grow as you begin to take the history of the early church as a whole. For example, in Acts 2:42, we are told that the early believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, a devotion that easily falls under Hendrick's point that the missionary church must provide opportunities for the members to reflect on culture from a Biblical view. Granted, we don't know precisely how the apostles taught, but we have to remember that this was a fledging movement in a fairly turbulent historical period. They undoubtedly had to learn how to reflect on their culture from a Biblical worldview just to survive. And, let's not forget that the early church - especially, perhaps, the church at Jerusalem - grew out of the Jewish tradition which already looked at the culture of the Romans, who occupied their land, from a Biblical viewpoint that ran counter to Roman sensibilities. In addition, we read in Acts 2:42 that the New Testament church devoted itself to prayer. Again, this fits with Hendrick's point that the missionary church prays for and seeks its own transformation.

When we start to look at the New Testament church throughout the rest of Acts and in the letters of Paul, we begin to see how it understood its existence in a cross-cultural situation. Paul's address to the gathering on Mars Hill is a brilliant example of Hendrick's first two points - understanding that the church exists in a cross-cultural situation and entering into a dialogue with its context and culture. We also see the church accepting its marginal position as the early believers are scattered in response to the persecution following the martyrdom of Stephen as the believers took the gospel with them wherever they went.

Junkin
Honestly, I don't think I ever participated in a long-term "f-4" community although there are various times in my life that I can pinpoint as short-term "f-4" communities or (in one case that is in no way a means of trying to score extra points, as will be demonstrated in a few lines) an "f-4" community that comes together on a periodic basis.

First, the short-term communities. Almost every mission trip in which I have participated has been an example of an "f-4" community as we were a small group of people banding together to perform certain tasks that grew out of our faith in Christ and a belief that he has called us to work on behalf of "the least of these." Those projects were infused with faith as there were prayers, devotions and worship services involved in the planning of the trip and on the trip itself as well as in the post-trip report to the "senders;" that is, the people of the church.

Now, the community that meets periodically. That would be the MACD cohort. During our times in the intensive classes, we study, we pray, we eat together, we play card games, we drink a lot of coffee, we talk, we sit in silence and basically do life together for that week.

Roxburgh
I find it interesting that on the traditional and renewal models the world seems to be on the outside looking in almost as if to accentuate what is too often reality (at least as perceived by those outside the church) - that is, that you have to figure out what's what, get your act together and fall in line before coming into the church. The difference, perhaps, is that in the renewal model the world seems to be putting the pressure on the church to change its ways while in the traditional model the church seems to be putting pressure on the world to change so that it may enter the fellowship. The missional model, however, seems to point to the world as a target. As Roxburgh describes this model, it also plays to the strengths of the individuals within the church as those individuals find discover their gifts and their role in bringing the gospel to the world. It also seems to allow the pastor a little leeway. In the first two models, the pastor is either expected to be all things to all people, but the third seems to acknowledge that the pastor, too, is a human with talents in some areas and not so much in other areas. It seems this model also engages the people more and gives them a stake in the mission. If there's anything I have learned working with youth, it is that they become more committed to a project if they have taken ownership of it in some manner by taking on roles of responsibility. For example, the contemporary service at our church, while proposed and started by the youth leaders, has now become the domain of the youth. If the worship team doesn't get it together, there's no music. If the tech crew doesn't get it together, we're all in the dark and no one can hear what's happening. The youth have become so committed to it that they now are often pushing us!

Hunsberger
First of all, I almost cheered on the StairMaster at the gym when I read the sentence on page 344, "We are being committee-ed and council-ed to death in our churches." It really does seem that we spend quite a bit of time talking about things rather than actually getting it done. Even if it is not on an official committee, there is usually no shortage of people willing to offer suggestions of what ought to be done and what should be done. Sometimes they follow up on these things and sometimes they just remain as ideas floating on the wind somewhere. The idea of moving from program to embodiment is also one that struck a chord with me as I see every week that the youth (especially as they get older) are less concerned with flashy programs and more concerned with the way we as leaders are modeling the gospel and learning the ways they, too, can be models to their peers. It also seems to me that the shift to laity-oriented relieves the pastor of the burden to do and to be everything. There are, however, people in the church who, for example, expect the pastor - not an elder, not an associate - to visit them while they were in the hospital or shut-in.

Dietterich
The church is not defined by the walls of the building in which it holds its meeting, but by its shared vision of bringing to the world a taste of what is to come when Christ returns and restores the earth. It's a community that opens not just its doors but its hearts to the broken, hurting and imperfect people of the world to bring them into an authentic community that gains strength from each other as it lives and grows in the freedom and knowledge of Christ. The people of the church individually and collectively recognize God as creator and provider of all things, leading to worship as it celebrates the redemptive work of God through Christ. This community also recognizes the uniqueness of each individual as one of God's creations.