Category: assimilation

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assimilation austin stone christianity missional

Mission First, Community Later?

I found this quote on our Missional Community blog from the Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch:

“In a remark ascribed to Gordon Cosby, the pioneering leader of that remarkable community Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C., he noted that in over sixty years of significant ministry, he had observed that no groups that came together around a non-missional purpose (e.g., prayer, worship, study, etc.) ever ended up becoming missional. It was only those groups that set out to be missional (while embracing prayer, worship, study, etc., in the process) that actually got to doing it.” (p. 235)

This quote definitely contains a large degree of truth…groups that form with no missional impulse will generally never find a mission.  I do, however, believe that there are potential outcomes from the formation non-missional groups, especially when there is a vision of mission driving those groups.

The most direct method of assimilation in a missional context is “assimilation to missional community”.  We have also found, though, that there are several indirect pathways, especially when the vision is ultimately missional community.  Sometimes the most efficient path is not the best.

In our experience with missional community at The Austin Stone, and specifically on the assimilation side of things, I think I’ve come to discover that in our context, entry into virtually any kind of community, missional or non-missional, is a good first step.  We have utilized non-missional community as a venue for exploring missional concepts, and many individuals have begun to discover their calling to mission.

Although this may not directly result in missional community, it is resulting in individuals who are pursuing mission, and the hope and prayer is that over time, as individuals find a calling to mission, that they begin to unite around a common purpose to create missional community.

The phrase our community team likes to use is “teams of missionaries” (collections of missional individuals) and “missionary teams” (missional communities).  The team of missionaries concept is a great intermediate step in the process of moving a body toward missional community.

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assimilation books church theology

Consumerism and the Church

A great quote from David Wells:

Churches which preserve their cognitive identity and distinction from the culture will flourish: those who lose them in the interests of seeking success will disappear.

In our churches we may have made a deal with postmodern consumers but the hard reality is that Christianity cannot be bought. Purchase, in the world of consumption, leads to ownership but in the Church this cannot happen. It is never God who is owned. It is we who are owned in Christ. Christianity is not up for sale. Its price has already been fixed and that price is the complete and ongoing surrender to Christ of those who embrace him by faith. It can only be had on his own terms. It can only be had as a whole. It refuses to offer only selections of its teachings. Furthermore, the Church is not its retailing outlet. Its preachers are not its peddlers and those who are Christian are not its consumers. It cannot legitimately be had as a bargain though the marketplace is full of bargainhunters.

For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s Word…” II Cor 2:17

No, let us think instead of the Church as its voice of proclamation, not its sales agent, its practitioner, not its marketing firm. And in that proclamation there is inevitable cultural confrontation. More precisely, there is the confrontation between Christ, in and through the biblical Word, and the rebellion of the human heart. This is confrontation of those whose face is that of a particular culture but whose heart is that of the fallen world. We cannot forget that.

David F. Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World, pg. 308-309

HT: Reformation Theology

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assimilation church

Gospel and Method | TheResurgence

As a minister in a megachurch focusing on assimilation where the ministry strategy is small missional community, I consistently wrestle with the tension of model.  This article by Jonathan Dodson is a very helpful, short statement on the balance.

Gospel and Method | TheResurgence.

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assimilation church missional

Mission as organizing principle from The Forgotten Ways

This blog articulates well the idea of mission as central to small group and church sustainability.  I consistently wrestle with the concept of assimilation into mission rather than ministry, and the most effective means to accomplish this end.

I’m not sure I’m ready to abandon wholesale assimilation to ministry as a pathway to mission as Hirsch suggests (this is the route that I took, as well as many missional practitioners that I know), but the principle is important to understand.

Sustainability in community is driven by the size of the mission and vision.  Groups that are internally focused tend to turn on themselves, and ultimately die.  This creates an approximately 2 year life cycle of small groups, which is pretty standard lifetime for assimilation based churches.  Once your means of attraction becomes outdated or fails to adapt, thus drying up your source of new individuals, your church is essentially doomed to die.

Only when small groups catch an initial vision to be externally focused will they endure beyond this life cycle, in my opinion.

Read all of Hirsch’s thoughts here:

Mission as organizing principle : The Forgotten Ways.