There was an interesting discussion going on at your blog, Ordinary Community about the interface between the "traditional" church and the simpler "missional community" church, I'd like you to comment, but first tell us a bit about your background in ministry?
   
My undergrad degree is in youth ministry and I spent about 10 years in student ministry in traditional and seeker churches doing everything I was supposed to do.  I grew numbers and had all the outward success you could ask for but inwardly was feeling empty.  Instead of leaving  ministry, I went to seminary to take some time to figure things out. It was there that I became exposed to Celtic Christianity, ancient forms of community and immersed myself in missiology as it pertains to the postmodern worldview and culture.  Graduating from seminary, I turned down a couple opportunities to take staff positions at a couple mega churches in order to be a bi-vocational planter of micro communities. We planted     Ordinary Community Church in May of 2001 and it has been the most satisfying experience of my life.
     

You are planting a missional community and have been involved in traditional church ministry, you seem to reject accepted church growth principles. Why?
   
I reject the way they measure in only linear terms.  It can tend to be about the ABC's, attendance, building and cash.  It can also suck the authenticity right out of you as you scrape for witty themes and easily identified sales pitches.  There's nothing wrong with church growth, I'm just looking for a less 'corporate america' approach. One where our whole point is to live in community and love our neighbors.  Out of those relationships to proclaim the Kingdom has come and invite other into that experience.  It's a less linear approach.  We count conversations and relationships and are thinking long-term. Relationships for us are not a means to and end, but an end in itself.
     

Authentic discipleship as described by Dallas Willard is a worthy end, from your viewpoint, compare your method of  "making disciples" with those of the "traditional" church.
   
The point is to make more and better followers of Christ, not attenders or consumers.  For as much as seeker churches can gather people and engage them in a worship experience, they admit to their weakness in discipleship. When people only attend a service, they unintentionally are thinking and living as consumers just acquiring experiences instead of actual life transformation as Willard points out.  I believe that discipleship happens best in small communities where there is no back pew.  Teaching is interactive, there are no exalted roles, relationships create safety and they allow for everyone to participate.  The point is life transformation, becoming like Christ and living in His Kingdom.  I often say that church is not someplace you but its a people you belong to.
     

What do you make of all the discussion of modernism versus postmodernism?
   
At times it can be nauseating where we sound like intellectual elites and  forget the point of ministry is that its about people, not ideas. However its relevant as well because I do believe we are in a major cultural shift in the world.  The western world is being exposed to the eastern world and its way of thinking and it challenges our assumptions about what we thought we knew.  This can be dangerous and helpful.  Dangerous because our faith definitely holds to some absolutes and the relativism of postmodernity seeks to destroy that. Helpful in that Jesus lived and taught as a man in an eastern worldview and so to understand best what he meant, we have to understand that he's not from Wisconsin or any other red state.  To me its just good missiology to know your context and take the time to understand them so as to communicate the Gospel in a way they can respond to.  However I believe that here in midwestern America that we are neither modern nor postmodern but both and it can be confusing.  Postmodernity is basically about deconstructing which I'm all for when it comes to church.  However, when your done deconstructing, the real work is partnering w/ God to create again.  He is a creative God and if all your doing is deconstructing, you might need to ask what God you claim to be serving.
     

There are those that say that "missional" churches are on the cutting edge, would you agree?
    
I'm not sure what cutting edge means but I would say that one of the universals for New Testament church is being missional.  We don't just hang out, we're here on a mission to proclaim the Kingdom and invite others into that experience.  Any church that is missional in that its all about people would be on the edge of what God's Spirit is doing here on earth.  I'm not comfortable calling what we do 'house-churching'     because as I look at the history of that movement it tended to be be very inward focused.  What we are about is planting missional communities. Our community exists in order to give it away.
     

If you could pick two things you would like to say to the leaders of "traditional" churches, what would it be?
   
1) I'm sorry if myself or any of my co-horts in the sopcalled emerging     church have thrown stones in your direction as we deconstructed, we often did/do it out of painful experiences and a yearning for more. What I want in the future is that we could embrace our different approaches and if we can't work together, let's at least be friends. The big idea is Kingdom, not church structures.
2) Understand that we are not just doing worship in different styles, but operating on a completely different worldview, core values and set of assumptions.  It may be too cross-cultural to ultimately understand us but if you get to know our hearts you'll find that we take Kingdom theology extremely seriously and are committed for the long haul.  Be 'for' us as we attempt to bridge the Gospel to people who would never step foot in a church."
   
Chris Marshall planted and now leads Ordinary Community, a tribe of Christ followers in the Cincinnati, OH area. There he lives with his wife and three children. He is also a teacher.

Barry Long

There was an interesting discussion going on at Chris Marshall's blog, Ordinary Community, about the interface between the "institutional" or"traditional" church and the simpler "missional community" church, I'd like you to comment, but first tell us a bit about your background inministry?
 
Sure, I was converted at the tail end of the Jesus Revival, at the Vineyard when there was only one. Kenn Gullicksen was the pastor, Wimber came later. I was leading something we called a home church soon after I was converted which says a lot about how fast the church was growing at thetime. Being a new believer and leading is often the case in revival- noother choice. I had a high value for church planting at the beginning and still do. We came back to Kentucky, went to seminary (while workingand planting three small groups in Northern Ky.) We met as community groups for about a year before we launched a Sunday service at a gym.Along the way I got to accompany Wimber on a few short term mission trips and made several of my own around the world. Early on, church growth combined with so called power ministry shaped my praxis. Oneseemed to keep the other from hurtful extremes. Seeker sensitivity alsoshaped me. as well as servant evangelism, ala Steve Sjorgren, a good friend. My mindset was evangelistic and urgent -- ---not only in terms of drawing a crowd but contextualizing the gospel in the quickly changing culture. Of course, I fell prey and still fall prey to some extent to the pressure of bigger. it's the air we breathe in America. But my gas mask is the gospel of the Kingdom and anything that extends it. Of late (the last ten years) Dallas Willard has been a big influence on my approach to making disciples, and most recently I have learned from Sweet, Hunter, Frost and Hirsch, and our newest hire Dave Nixon about how to be more intentional about disciple-making in a culture in the midst of a huge sea change.
 
You've planted churches and wrestled with church growth issues, practioners ofthe "missional" form seem to reject accepted church growth principles. How do you react?
 
Some should be rejected. But keep in mind when Donald McGavern developed so called church growth principles they were descriptive, not prescriptive. And, interestingly they were developed through observations in India, not in Microwave America. The impulse of church growth I retain is the urgency Peter Wagner speaks of. "The worst thing that can happen to a person is to be separated from God for all eternity." The programmatic stuff and formulas are all fluid as far as I'm concerned and much of the growth stuff used in the U.S. is developed with a weekend meeting in mind. I think the weekend meeting is important and will be for some time. But things are changing, the people we are reaching out to are changing. And, as I grow up I am changing too. But not to observe and adapt is silly for people on a mission. So, the church growth research has its place. I say use whatyou can and leave the rest.
 
Authentic discipleship as described by Dallas Willard is a worthy end, from your viewpoint, compare your method of "making disciples" with those of the missional church.
 
Afew years ago I began talking about more and better disciples from the great commission in Matthew 28:18. "Go to every nation baptizing" isabout more. Teaching them to do "every thing I commanded you" is about better. I don't really feel qualified to speak about how the missional church is making disciples. But my casual observation is that my simple church structure friends know, or are discovering something we in the so called institutional churches have neglected about "making better disciples." And that something is authentic relationships in the context of an interdependent community. On the other hand, reaching more people may be something we can teach missional groups about. I know some may believe that "more" is the problem and even the poison of the current evangelical church and, certainly sometimes that is true. But, I believe we must continue to preserve the urgency of the one who came to seek and save that which was lost, rooting out the poison incurrent methods. Some folks I've talked to in "simple structure churches" hold being authentic, or true to themselves as high or higher than the mission. I say, why not both authenticity and aggressive outreach? What is more authentic than loving people into a relationship with God? Being true to myself is one thing, but Jesus is reforming me into a person after his likeness. And, Jesus is gathering a people to present to God. So,for me this is not just about drawing a crowd. It's about people and their need for Jesus. It's about The Kingdom of God. My question to missional folks is how can we help each other and teach each other? But of course, what I've just said is simply the front end of making a disciple. Apprenticeship to Jesus is the journey we are all on. I suppose I'm inclined to develop a pathway for people to run on and make it accessible to as many as I can without compromising the gospel. The missional people I talk to, once again, have something to teach me about how community and relationships are the context of healthy discipleship and, as a church that is where we are going. Frazee's 'The Connecting Church" is a reasonable facsimile of where weare headed, albeit with some key differences. This approach tries to take discipleship seriously by involving the entire church in the same biblical material in terms of cognitive learning. The learning is worked out in both intermediate and smaller community groups through meaningful activities (community service, spiritual disciplines,missions, retreats, etc.) in the context of growing relationships. Some of my friends don't think this is possible in the institutional churchworld, or they think it is too programmatic to really make "betterdisciples" so we will see. We have never been more intentional about it though, and I am encouraged by what I have seen in quality changes in people so far.
 
What do you make of all the discussion of modernism versus postmodernism?

I have friends, smart friends who see post modernism as a fad. I don't; Ithink it is an obvious sea change the church needs to take serious note of. Of course, I'm not saying I have my arms around all post-modernism means, far from it. But I do believe that those who are in the charismatic or Pentecostal traditions have a leg up on those who arenot. What I mean is that much of postmodern thought seems to me to be about experience and art. Or, to put it another way, using the so-called non-logical part of the brain to interpret life and God. This is prophetic, and most prophets I know are artists of the Spirit, poets ofheaven. Since, God cannot be categorized or systematized or fully understood we need to employ the faculties image bearers have to comprehend and communicate God in every way possible.
 
Notebooks full of principles will not cut it with the next generation, nor shouldit. A full blown experience of God is what he intended for us. In Acts2, apparently all people are included in this prophetic category, men,women, young and old. Being Pentecostal, not in a traditional religious sense, but in a Biblical sense seems to me to be a wonderful opening toa culture more and more enamored by experience. I'm saying nothing newhere, many have seen this opportunity to revive what is Biblical and,for me that is the bottom line, not post-modernism, or
modernism.
 
On the other hand, post modern epistemology is troubling to me. Chris Marshall has written well on his blog about the issues. We must hold onto those things flowing from God that are absolute. He doesn't change and if we are going to be a people who thrive in a world that does nothing but change, we must grab Him and hold on tight.
 
Finally,like many others I believe there is a huge overlap between the twoeras. This means modernism is still here as postmodernism flows in. The question, again is how can missional churches and more institutional churches help each other make more and better disciples?
 
The Association of Vineyard churches and John Wimber, its leader for many years, has always had the reputation of being on the cutting edge, can you still say that about the Vineyard?
 
Well,we do have a magazine about church planting named "The Cutting Edge" but I don't think that answers your question. But three things make me hopeful we will be relevant for some time to come.
 
1. Church planting: We are committed to it; and because of this I think God
will have patience with us and help us morph into what we need to be to change our world.
 2. Kingdom theology: If the Kingdom remains our focus and the backdrop of all we do, again I believe God will allow us to be part of His stuff in years to come.
 3. Openness to change: We have changed a lot and not gotten totally crusty yet. This also will help us to remain useful to God in years to come. Thanks for letting me "say my piece" - May God be with you.
 
If you could pick two things you would like to say to the leaders of these missional communities, what would it be?

I'll give you three:
1. Find ways to be aggressive and urgent evangelistically within the paradigm you are exploring.
 2. Find ways to allow the Pentecostal realities of the faith to blossom and
 bear fruit among you.
 3. Keep talking, having patience with, and where possible working with the
 so-called institutional church.

Barry Long is the senior pastor of the Vineyard Christian Church in Florence, Kentucky. He is also Chris Marshall's wife's uncle.