In our last blog post, we talked about the church living in a secular post-Christian society. We need to explore further the implications of what it means to be the church in such a secular post-Christian society.
In what is now regarded as a Christian Classic, H. Richard Niebuhr’s book Christ and Culture discusses the various stances that churches have in relation to the culture at large. One of the stances is The Christ of Culture in which churches “interpret culture through Christ, regarding those elements in it as most important which are most accordant with his work and person; on the other hand they understand Christ through culture, selecting from his teaching and action as well as from the Christian doctrine about him such points as seems to agree with what is best in civilization” (Christ and Culture, p. 83). In other words, this stance involves finding those elements of culture that are believed to fit with the Christian faith and then, in turn, operate with a Christian faith that is at home within society.
In some significant ways, though not every way, this Christ of Culture stance fits with a lot of Christianity within the United States. In particular, I’m thinking of the ways in which Christianity operated from the paradigms of modernism and Christendom. This includes the Churches of Christ that many readers of this blog likely have some affiliation with.
With that said, much of the Western world has undergone a paradigm shift in which the realities of modernism and Christendom have given way to postmodernism and a post-Christendom society. Add to this paradigm shift the realities of secularism, and we find ourselves living in the post-Christian society that I described in the previous post. The question we have to ask as we seek to plant churches and make disciples is how do we equip Christians to live with a Christ-formed faith (cf. Gal 4:19) in such a post-Christian society?
With such changes in society, we must learn how to live in a manner that is transformative rather than antagonistic. Becoming anxious or angry with people who embrace values and practices that are at odds with Christianity will only further the gulf between Christianity and society. Making enemies out of society will not do any good. There may be some people who see Christians as the enemy but we must love them anyway because Jesus teaches us to do so (cf. Matt 5:44). In fact, David E. Fitch wisely suggests that when we have such adverse reactions, we should instead “probe what it is about the enemy that creates such fear, jealousy, envy, or even disgust in our lives” (The Church of Us vs. Them, p. 34).
Of course, we don’t want to simply become accommodative towards society and so compromise our witness. So in making disciples, it will take intentional teaching and formation of faith to live, as I like to say, as faithful participants in the mission of God. That is, we must be intentional in learning how to embody the gospel in ways that do not make enemies. But is this possible? David Fitch rightly points out that there is a difference between “making enemies and revealing enemies” (The Church of Us vs. Them, p. 155).
Living as followers of Jesus will certainly put us at odds with the society we live in but like Jesus, we must see ourselves as servants among society. Christianity in society is about serving, with humility and love, so that society might once again see the truth, beauty, and goodness that springs from the good news of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God!
_________________________ K. Rex Butts, D.Min, serves as the lead minister/pastor with the Newark Church of Christ in Newark, DE, and is the author of Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God. Rex holds a Doctor of Ministry in Contextual Theology from Northern Seminary in Lisle, IL, and a Master of Divinity from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, TN. He is married to Laura and together they have three children.
Over the last year and a half, I have slowly read through a book written by Charles Taylor called A Secular Age. This book is regarded as Taylor’s magnum opus. What Taylor does is tell the story of how secularism gradually developed over the last four hundred years and how secularism works in the Western world today.
Secularism works through what Taylor calls a “social-imaginary,” which has to do with the way people “collectively imagine” their existence (A Secular Age, p. 146). This is different from what we think of as a worldview in that the social-imaginary is not a carefully constructed set of beliefs but more like assumed beliefs, some of which operate below the surface of awareness. In our society, the social-imaginary includes the loss of transcendence in the lives of people (A Secular Age, p 294). The loss of transcendence means that people can easily live life without any awareness of God at work in their lives.
Let’s briefly move on from Charles Taylor and consider another aspect of the macro culture in North America. In the year 2022, we are living in a post-truth society. According to Lee McIntyre, this post-truth reality means our society is one in which all kinds of people are trying to make us believe in ideas whether there’s good evidence or not (Post-Truth, p. 13).
In his book, McIntyre mentions the Tobacco Industry as an example. For years cigarette manufacturers colluded to fabricate research in support of the claim that smoking cigarettes were not hazardous to health. The Tobacco Industry engaged in this disinformation campaign even though they knew there was conclusive research showing that in all likelihood the tar in cigarettes caused cancer.
Over time, this spreading of disinformation and spinning of facts has helped create a culture where truth seems relative. Although we are now to the point where truth no longer matters as much as feelings (Post-Truth, p. 116). As a result, people may now add adjectives to the word truth and in doing so, seemingly claim whatever they choose to believe as truth whether it is true or not. For example, a part of our vernacular now includes phrases like “my truth” and “alternative facts” as a way of justifying a claim. Of course, what this accomplishes is making our own opinions, perceptions, etc… become a totalizing reality, even if it is self-deception.
This is why what we do as Christians, and not just what we say, matters more than ever. If we’re going to claim that the good news of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God is true, which I hope we do, then our claim has to be seen in what we do and how we live. Hence, the title of this message series on Philippians, Living Christ.
I’ll come back to the matter of what we do as Christians but I want to bring Charles Taylor back into the mix for a moment. The secular age we live in means belief and unbelief are in contest with each other. Almost everyone has some doubts about what they profess in terms of religion and spiritual life. For the most part, believers profess faith but have questions that raise doubts about such faith. Likewise, unbelievers profess agnosticism (perhaps even soft atheism) but have questions that cast doubt on their unbelief.
Taylor mentions the aesthetic awareness of beauty, the awareness of a need for ethics and morality, and the awareness of the creative capacity that humans possess as reasons why there are questions that cast doubt on unbelief. The awareness of beauty, morality, and human capacity evokes a wonder that cannot be explained by a secular framework of unbelief (A Secular Age, p. 596). In other words, beauty, morality, and creativity raise questions that cannot be answered in a life in which there is no God. Furthermore, as Taylor explains “there must be some way in which this life looks good, whole, proper, really being lived as it should” (A SecularAge, p. 600). Therefore, even in our day where moral relativism flourishes, people know that there is a right and wrong way to live… a good and bad.
If Taylor is correct, as I believe, then the fact is that even in a secular society, there are many skeptics who still have questions. Such skeptics may have reasons for doubting belief but even with their pervasive secularism they also have questions about whether there is more to life than just what can be observed in a science lab. I contend that this opens space for the church. Knowing that people still have a sense of right and wrong and wonder where that comes from opens space for the church to point to the existence and redemptive work of God. This opening is based on the way we live life, particularly by practicing what Paul describes as true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, and commendable (cf. Phil 4:8-9).
Although the church’s understanding of what is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, and commendable, is going to differ from the way other people understand, surely there are places where there is similar understanding. These are the spaces where God is out in front of the church, already working in the community. For example, believers and unbelievers alike agree that racism, poverty, and human trafficking are unjust realities. So when a local church works to address one or more of these matters, there is a portal for demonstrating what the kingdom of God is like. In doing so, this can become an opportunity to build relationships within the community and perhaps share the story of Jesus as an explanation for why the church would care enough to do something about racism, poverty, and human trafficking.
I’m sharing this with you because we are well beyond the days of leading with “The Bible says…” In fact, in a secular age where truth is now relative, our words matter not without actions that coherently express what we hope to proclaim with our words. At the end of the day, there isn’t any guaranteed outcome except the promise of hope that exists in the crucified, resurrected, and exalted Jesus Christ. Yet the way we bear witness to that hope is by our good works.
“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” – Jesus, Matthew 5:16 (NRSV)
_________________________ K. Rex Butts, D.Min, serves as the lead minister/pastor with the Newark Church of Christ in Newark, DE, and is the author of Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God. Rex holds a Doctor of Ministry in Contextual Theology from Northern Seminary in Lisle, IL, and a Master of Divinity from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, TN. He is married to Laura and together they have three children.
By now you’ve probably heard more about the realities of the postmodern and post-Christendom society that pervades much of North America. So I won’t bore you with those details but I mention them because they have a big impact on the cultural landscape that we do ministry in. Whether you’re a church planter, a pastor serving in an existing church, like myself, or a Christian leader in some other aspect, the cultural landscape is no longer the same landscape your grandparents grew up in.We can’t ignore the changing cultural landscape of North America and what it means for churches participating in the mission of God. Another reality that we cannot ignore is the decline of Christianity in North America. I don’t have stats for Canada but the number of Christians in America will be a minority in fifty years. According to recently released research from the Pew Research Center, “…the projections show Christians of all ages shrinking from 64% to between a little more than half (54%) and just above one-third (35%) of all Americans by 2070. Over that same period, ‘nones’ would rise from the current 30% to somewhere between 34% and 52% of the U.S. population.”
All this is to say that the way Christians are going to organize as a church, that is be a church, is going to change. I can only speculate on what those changes will look like but it’s not a stretch to imagine a day when many local churches no longer own a building of their own. Perhaps they rent a place in some shopping strip or just meet in homes but they likely won’t have the finances to own their own building. That also means those who are called to serve as ministers of the gospel with these churches will likely do so as bi-vocational ministers, working another job because the churches won’t have enough money to support the minister with a full-time income. That also means the way we educate and equip ministers to serve will change because the cost of seminary education may not seem prudent for bi-vocational ministry (something I lament).
None of the changes I foresee will make doing church incomprehensible but it will take some new thinking that opens space for reimagining how churches live on mission with God. This is especially the case, I believe, for people whose Christian background is the Churches of Christ and the wider Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. I say this because we have a heritage that has sought to replicate a church pattern that has been constructed from the New Testament through ad hoc proof-texting. This pattern became the pattern for every church in every region with little consideration for the local context and this reading of the Bible has actually become a hindrance to participating in the mission of God.
Now, this might seem a little self-serving but I actually wrote a book that was published earlier this year that addresses the way churches read the Bible for participation in the mission of God. The book is called Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God, published by Wipf and Stock, and is available pretty much wherever books are sold. The description on the back of the book reads:
Many people realize that the cultural landscape of North America has shifted significantly. With such changes, new challenges for how churches live as a proclamation of the gospel have and continue to emerge. These challenges are related to the church’s participation in the mission of God and particularly how local churches live faithfully to God while remaining relevant to such challenges. Because Scripture is revered as God’s word, this matter also pertains to the way churches read Scripture, since the Bible does shape how churches embody the gospel.
Gospel Portraits addresses the intersection of mission and hermeneutics for churches within their local contexts. Believing the gospel calls the church to follow Jesus and bear witness to the kingdom of God, this book proposes that churches should read the Bible as a Christ-centered and kingdom-oriented narrative. This reading of Scripture allows churches to reimagine how they might embody the gospel within their local contexts.
Discerning what a contextual embodiment of the gospel involves, churches portray God’s new creation in ways that are coherent with the biblical story and relevant to their local context. In doing so, churches live as Christ-formed and Spirit-led communities portraying the gospel.
Yes, I want my book to sell but I wrote it because I believe the book will help churches begin learning to read the Bible, not in order to try reproducing first-century Christianity but instead to live as faithful followers of Jesus within their own context. And I wouldn’t pitch my book to you if I didn’t think it would help.
Let me say one final word about the decline of Christianity. As the number of churches shrinks and Christianity is relegated more and more to the margins, there will be frustrations. In such moments of frustration, the temptation is to find quick-fix solutions but such attempts often fail and only lead to more frustration. The only way forward will likely encounter some significant difficulties but we travel with God the Father, Son, and Spirit on our side. Renewal always seems to start in the margins, so we need not fear the marginalization of Christianity — even when relegated to last place. We just need to keep serving with our faith in God, for at the end of the day Jesus is still Lord!
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K. Rex Butts, D.Min, serves as the lead minister/pastor with the Newark Church of Christ in Newark, DE, and is the author of Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God. Rex holds a Doctor of Ministry in Contextual Theology from Northern Seminary in Lisle, IL, and a Master of Divinity from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, TN. He is married to Laura and together they have three children.
It’s not a secret that many churches throughout North America are declining and this is also true among the Churches of Christ. The declining number of people committing their lives to serve as ministers also comes with the decline among congregations. In some ways, this is a crisis in the making, which I discussed in the previous Mission Alive blog post The Future of Church in North America: Crisis, Reckoning, and Hope.
There are various reasons for the decline among churches but it is also one reason for the push behind church planting. We need to raise up more ministers willing to plant new churches and/or campus ministries that are capable of reaching the growing number of unchurched and dechurched people with the gospel. Yet, one objection raised in the form of a question is why not send more ministers to revitalize the declining churches.
This is a fair objection but I wonder if the people who raise such an objection understand what they are really asking. I had several people raise this objection in response to the previous post but their objection seemed to assume that renewal among an existing church is simply a matter of plugging in a minister to serve among that church. However, that’s a bad assumption. The reasons why any congregation is in decline are complex and have developed over many years, so to think the solution is simply hiring a new minister is naive. It is an attempt at a quick-fix solution and when it fails, as most quick-fix solutions do, the problems will only increase.
Most congregations among the Churches of Christ are fifty years plus in age and have an ethos and habitus that is deeply solidified. That is, the self-identity of the congregation, how it perceives the gospel and the world around them, and the way of being/doing church is firmly engrained as the way of life. For most churches, this way of life was established within the first five to ten years of existence. More often than not, there are also some unhealthy theological praxes among declining churches. These may stem from leadership issues and unresolved conflict to even some misunderstandings of scripture that all contribute to the decline. In my book Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God, I explain how misreadings of scripture hinder participation in the mission of God.
I say all this to say that it is unrealistic to believe any minister can simply begin serving with an existing church and lead the church in renewal. I am not saying that church renewal is impossible. Everything is possible where God is working and Mission Alive even offers consultation to existing churches seeking renewal. However, for such renewal to take shape, churches must be willing to reconsider some deeply entrenched assumptions and ways of being/doing church. That means churches must make adaptive changes, which are adjustments and modifications that require new ways of thinking and new practices. Some churches seeking renewal will find it but some won’t and sometimes the path to renewal might be so disruptive that it might not be worth the pursuit.
I don’t want to be misunderstood. I am not saying that we should give up entirely on existing churches because I certainly have not done so. I serve as the minister of the Newark Church of Christ, which was established in the 1960s and is trying to discern a new way forward as participants in the mission of God. But the most effective way in which Churches of Christ are going to reach a new generation of people with the gospel is by planting new churches and campus ministries. These new churches and campus ministries will do some things different from the way existing churches have done things and we have to be okay with that. My hope is that Churches of Christ will support more ministers to plant new churches and campus ministries.
If you want to know how your church can help with church planting, please contact Mission Alive. I know that Tod Vogt, the Executive Director of Mission Alive, would love to chat with you. I also serve on the board of Reflect Campus Missions, currently serving as the President of the board, and would love for you to contact us if you want to know more about planting campus missions. The Lord is giving us a pathway forward and it includes planting new churches and campus ministries.
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K. Rex Butts, D.Min, serves as the lead minister/pastor with the Newark Church of Christ in Newark, DE, and is the author of Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God. Rex holds a Doctor of Ministry in Contextual Theology from Northern Seminary in Lisle, IL, and a Master of Divinity from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, TN. He is married to Laura and together they have three children.
“I am usually slow to use the word ‘crisis’ to describe a situation, but it may well be apt for our day.” That was the first sentence of an article that Carson Reed wrote in a short article for the Mosaic blog titled Ministers in Short Supply. The crisis that Carson speaks of is that facing the Churches of Christ and I presume that most of the people reading this blog have some ties to this declining church tribe.
For those who don’t know who Carson Reed serves now as Dean of the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University. He also has served as Executive Director for the Siber Institute for Church Ministry. This work involves helping match ministers with congregations that are seeking ministers to serve with these congregations. But a problem has emerged. According to Carson, there “is a sheer lack of persons to serve as ministers in our churches.” That’s the crisis he is referring to. In the article, Carson notes how the number of congregations seeking a minister and ministers looking for new ministry opportunities with churches was about evenly matched. However, that has changed, with there now being about a 1:15 ratio of one minister for every Church of Christ congregation seeking a new minister.
The reasons for this problem are varied and Carson’s blog post list some of the reasons, which I encourage you to read. As a minister myself, I am not surprised in the least bit. Don’t get me wrong, I love serving as a minister of the gospel and I am very blessed to serve with a wonderful congregation. But I also know there are more than a few Churches of Christ who want (even expect) a minister to help the church grow numerically but do so with little authority to lead churches that have little desire to change. Add to that the rise of secularism, the challenges of a pandemic, the increase of Christians who seem to prioritize politics over the gospel, and the overall decline in church membership, all make serving as a minister of the gospel very difficult (and unless you have served as a minister, you don’t have any idea what this is like).
I also have concerns about the number of churches that are in decline. Churches, like any other organization, have life cycles. Sometimes churches are able to reimagine a new way of embodying the gospel that leads to renewal as participants in the mission of God but sometimes they are not. But this is why there is a great need for the mission work of plantingnew gospel seeds in North America.
I’m using the language of “planting new gospel seeds” intentionally. The task is to embody the gospel among a particular community of people and then begin sharing the story of the gospel with a few people. Such a task is the planting of a new gospel seed. Then, like a gardener, the task of ministry also involves cultivating the planted seed with the trust that God will bring about a new community of disciples. However, such communities will differ in some ways depending on their contexts, such as planting among a rural community, a college campus, or a marginalized urban community.
Besides helping Mission Alive, I also serve on the board of Reflect Campus Missions (currently serving as the president of the board). The vision of Reflect involves training new campus ministers through a campus ministry apprenticeship and then sending them out to plant new campus ministries. Mission Alive, as you know, has a vision of transforming marginalized communities through starting and renewing innovative churches. In fact, Mission Alive has identified one-hundred marginalized communities in North America to plant churches among
The need for new campus ministries and new church plants among marginalized communities is great, and it is the way of planting new gospel seeds. As I mentioned earlier, some established churches may find renewal as participants in the mission of God and I’m thankful for that. But my plea to the Churches of Christ is please consider supporting church planters and campus ministry planters so that new gospel seeds can be planted with new lives and communities being transformed in Christ.
For the kingdom, power, and glory of God!
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K. Rex Butts, D.Min, serves as the lead minister/pastor with the Newark Church of Christ in Newark, DE, and is the author of Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God. Rex holds a Doctor of Ministry in Contextual Theology from Northern Seminary in Lisle, IL, and a Master of Divinity from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, TN. He is married to Laura and together they have three children.
We need to plant new churches and new campus ministries throughout North America. That I am 100% convinced of but I also know we need missionary planters that can navigate the tension that comes with embodying the gospel. Such tension is a question of how we live in a manner that is both faithful to Jesus and contextual to the local cultures.
Years ago I was serving with a church in New Jersey and one of the members of that church gave me a book to read, one which I enjoyed much and have since referred back to on occasions. The book I was given is called The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story, (2014, 2004) by Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen. The book, as the title suggests, demonstrates how the Bible tells a coherent story by taking the reader through the story, or drama, of scripture.
Of course, I firmly believe that a narrative reading of scripture matters if we are to faithfully live as participants in the mission of God. Bartholomew and Goheen explain why this narrative reading of scripture matters:
Many of us have read the Bible as if it were merely a mosaic of little bits—theological bits, moral bits, historical-critical bits, sermon bits, devotional bits. But when we read the Bible in such a fragmented way, we ignore its divine author’s intention to shape our lives through its story. …If we allow the Bible to become fragmented, it is in danger of being absorbed into whatever other story is shaping our culture, and it will thus cease to shape our lives as it should (The Drama of Scripture, p. 12).
That’s the rub and the reason a narrative reading of scripture matters. The reality is that everyone is living a particular story. However, when we follow and are baptized into Jesus Christ, God is raising us into a new life that is the good news of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. That’s our new story as disciples of Christ, which is told to us through the narrative of scripture. But if we allow the Bible to be absorbed into a different story, then we will struggle to embody the good news of Jesus Christ and our witness as participants in the mission of God will be compromised.
Of course, I’ve also just named one of the fundamental credibility problems that Christianity has in North America. There are far too many people who profess the Christian faith but continue living out of an alternative story that is not the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. The stories they live are formed by realities such as national or geographical locations. For example, I once had a Christian justify his subtle racism expressed in his condemnation of inter-racial marriages by saying, “I was born and raised in the south and that’s just the way things are around here.” But to be a Christian is about our location in Christ rather than the location of our childhood. Our baptism into Christ says that our old life has been buried with Christ and we have been raised to walk in a new life in Christ (Rom 6:3-4). So our point of departure for how we live can no longer be where we were raised and whatever was the accepted social-cultural norms of that location.
What makes any life-orienting story a story is the worldview it projects. Worldview stories offer a particular vision and set of values that direct what goal or end (telos) people should live for and how they should live in order to reach the goal. With this in mind, we can see how political ideologies, on both the right and left, offer a rival story to the gospel. Sadly though, too many Christians these days seem to be allowing the gospel story told within scripture to be absorbed into various political ideologies. One only needs to spend a few minutes scrolling through their social media feed to see examples.
Living our of the gospel story as told within the narrative of scripture raises a question. How do we navigate the tension of embodying the gospel in a manner that is coherent with the gospel but relevant to our cultural location in society? In others, how do live as followers of Jesus in a manner that is both faithful to Jesus but contextual to our locations?
Undoubtedly, this is a big question that cannot be fully answered with just one post. However, I recently read another book by Goheen and Bartholomew called Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Wolrdview (2008) which is very helpful in addressing the tension of embodying the gospel in our society. Several options that Goheen and Bartholomew reject include simply withdrawing from society, uncritically accommodating society, or living with a dualistic stance where we attempt to live a Christian view privately but publically fit in with the rest of society.
Rather than withdrawal, accommodation, and dualism, the authors call for discernment that considers both the gospel and the culture of society. It is an exercise in critical thinking in which “we discern between the creational structure and design in all things and the religious misdirection and rebellion that pervert God’s good world” (Living at the Crossroads, p. 136). In other words, within every culture, there are likely aspects of life that reflect God’s creative and redemptive intent but also aspects that are departures from this intent. So for example, we can think of sex and sexual intimacy. God obviously created sex and sexual intimacy as a natural expression but we also know that sex and sexual intimacy have often departed from God’s intent in a fallen world corrupted by sin. This is one reason why when someone says, “It’s only natural,” we must critically evaluate whether the claim of being natural flows from God’s creative-redemptive intent or from a fallen-corrupted understanding.
I have mentioned and interacted with both books Bartholomew and Goheen because I find them helpful for us to think about the missional task we face as followers of Jesus living in North America in 2022 and beyond. If you’ve read the books, then great. If you haven’t, I would encourage you to add them to your list of books to read in the not-to-distant future.
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K. Rex Butts, D.Min, serves as the lead minister/pastor with the Newark Church of Christ in Newark, DE, and is the author of Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God. Rex holds a Doctor of Ministry in Contextual Theology from Northern Seminary in Lisle, IL, and a Master of Divinity from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, TN. He is married to Laura and together they have three children.
We live on the frontier of the mission field – actually the far edge of it. Our family lives in the inner city of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, among a large Indigenous population. In 2011 my wife and I and our three children prayerfully moved into North Central Regina, and we have been living here ever since, living our lives for Jesus among the people. In this article, I would like to share several aspects of planting a church in this context that invites us to reflect on both the challenges and opportunities before us, as Christians in a rapidly changing world.
Post-Christendom. Recently we were having a Bible study with some younger adolescents. A girl who is about 12 years old, and whom I thought had a church background, asked if it hurt when Jesus was crucified. Imagine what the statement that “Jesus died on the cross for our sins” would mean to her. Little to nothing, given her question! The statement not only assumes a theological understanding of sin but also historical knowledge of crucifixion as an extremely painful form of execution.
Post-Christendom can be described as the decline in the influence of Christian institutions in society – to the point where things such as the church and the Bible are neither central nor well-known. In Regina, there is a neighbourhood called Cathedral, which is named after the large churches (Roman Catholic and United Church of Canada) that are in the area, as well as several smaller ones. The Cathedral area is over 100 years old. But contrast that with two of the newest communities in Regina – Harbour Landing and Grasslands – developed in the 2010s. These neighbourhoods have no property set aside by the City of Regina for church buildings or cathedrals. A lot has changed in the last 100 years, and that includes the removal of the church as a tall, central figure in our communities, to disappearing off the map. So, what are the challenges and opportunities of the Christian mission on the margins?
The challenge on this front is clear. Biblical knowledge is little to none. Gone are the days when the youth went to Sunday school while their parents stayed home, as that was one to two generations ago. Gone also are a Christian moral framework and worldview. So our task is to help people learn the contents of the Bible, and especially the large story of God and his mission in this world. The opportunity here is equally exciting though. We help people learn to read the Bible in a new way by emphasizing the character of God, his mission to love and redeem the world, and the invitation to participate with him in this grand adventure. What a glorious calling! In this missional way of reading the Bible, we are carefully observing God as he worked in the past, and listening deeply for how he desires to work in our lives now, all in eager anticipation for what he will do in the future to complete the story!
Residential School Impact and (Post-)Colonialism. In Canada, Indigenous peoples were for several generations forced to attend Residential Schools, run by various Christian denominations on behalf of the federal government. Among these schools, they were taught the English language and Christian teachings, but many also experienced physical torture, emotional trauma, and sexual abuse. So as one Christian Reformed Church leader described it, “They were offered a cup of cold water in the name of Christ, and it turned out to be battery acid.” So it is understandable that they would give us a long, cold look whenever we offer them anything of a Christian nature today. In fact, after the discovery of unmarked graves at a number of Indian residential schools in 2021, several church buildings on and off reserves throughout the country were burnt to the ground. The backlash against Christendom was swift and strong. Today the hostility to Christianity is palpable in many Indigenous communities and I sympathize with much of that anger.
Indian Residential Schools were a tragic marriage of Christianity with colonialism – European countries bent on empire. Unfortunately, the children of this marriage were not Hope and Dignity, but Despair and Poverty. Today many indigenous peoples, and other Canadians, want nothing to do with the church. If that is what the church is like, who needs it?
So, what challenges and opportunities do this legacy of Christianity married to colonialism bring? The big challenge here is to carry out the gospel mission in a context where many people are jaded and hostile toward Christians. This was a serious concern I had about 12 years ago when I was considering God’s call on my life to plant a church in the inner city of Regina. Would Indigenous people have anything to do with us? Would they even consider the Christian message? Would they even contemplate a friendship with us? We took comfort from one Indigenous woman’s wisdom. She told us that while ethnicity is certainly a factor early on in a relationship, people sense whether you have genuine love in your heart or not and once they get to know you this is what carries the day. We have found that often to be true and so, while we will never be insiders to the culture, we have several relationships of mutual love and respect.
The opportunity that this presents is very significant. Serving as a missionary from a position of weakness is very different from a position of power. As my Christian Reformed friend said, he was highly esteemed in Africa decades ago, as a white male Christian missionary. Now in the inner city of Regina, it is the exact opposite. Each of these words carries, in many people’s minds, a corrupting and coercive sense of privilege and power – white, male, Christian, missionary. So how do we proceed? This challenge is also an opportunity because it forces us to be creative. It requires that we dig deeper into the Christian story and reconsider how we tell it. No longer can we just construct a church building and sit back and wait for people to flock to it. Serving as a missionary requires that we go to the people, that we incarnate the gospel through our lives and actions, that we embody the message of sacrificial love and service to the world in real and tangible ways. The old question is relevant here: If our church disappeared tomorrow, would the community notice? Would they miss us? Would there be a serious hole? Our response to this opportunity lies in humility, self-sacrifice, and genuine love.
Technology. While there are other things we have learned, I am choosing to focus on technology here because we work with a lot of youth. Let’s be honest. Technology has changed our lives, especially for young people. It has impacted how we shop (Amazon), relate (social media), bank, read (Kindle), access news (youth source their news from TikTok), listen to music (Youtube, Spotify), and go to school (Zoom). To lose one’s phone, or go somewhere with no internet access, is the kiss of death for many people.
This immersion in technology has created several challenges. Most importantly, the advent of the smartphone with a reversible camera has had a dramatic impact on the mental health of adolescents (and adults as well). This development, in combination with social media, has created a context where people are able to get instant feedback on their public portrayals of themselves. Never before was this possible So a girl may be disheartened because her selfie did not get as many likes as her friends or boys may compare who has the most followers. Photos and videos are heavily curated, and some parents even hire professional photographers for their teens so they can publish the best possible pictures of themselves online.
The problem here is that people are invited to form their identity based on their online activity. So they are elated when a photo is popular, and then depressed when a Tiktok they have created tanks. Their online activity becomes an extension of, and sometimes even the very heart of, who they are. In some cases people take on an alter ego, an alternate personality, assuming a different gender or ethnicity in an online game or social profile. The question becomes, what is their real identity? Who are they really? And what do they base their value on?
The opportunity in this is to help people form their identity in Christ. This is not a trite statement. In fact, the Bible holds up Jesus Christ as the ultimate reality. In a world of disparate versions of reality – virtual (VR), augmented (AR), and mixed (XR) – we as followers of Jesus are invited into the kingdom of God, where Jesus is the ultimate reality (UR)! This requires that we live into this reality deeply ourselves and that we teach it, model it, and advocate for it with all our hearts. It calls for us to embrace the teachings of Jesus as words of life, as words that have both a descriptive quality about this ultimate reality (the upside-down kingdom of God) and an imperatival call to adoration and obedience. To quote Simon Peter: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
To sum matters up, church planting is an exciting adventure that is filled with many rewards and much adversity. The dynamic nature of Canadian culture, and its various subcultures, presents many challenges and opportunities for the Christian mission. With each challenge comes a requisite opportunity. As God’s people, living missionally requires us not to fall into the pit of despair over the rapidly changing landscape all around us. Our task calls us to be creative, listen deeply to our friends and neighbours, pray fervently, humble ourselves, serve sacrificially, and most crucially, listen carefully for the Spirit to lead us in His mission. And so in our corner of the world, we attest to the fact that there is hope at the margins of society!
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Kevin Vance is a minister and church planter in the inner city of Regina, Saskatchewan. He works among youth in Regina and throughout the province to help them find hope and healing in Jesus Christ. He has a special passion for Indigenous youth and the reserves. He and his wife Lisa have been married since 1989 and have three grown children. Together they planted Gentle Road Church of Christ in North Central Regina in 2011, and dream about planting other churches in the toughest communities in Canada.
Most of the books on my bookshelf are written by White American men. Not all, but most. Although most of the books on my shelf have benefited me as a conversation partner when it comes to the intersection of theology, mission, and culture, I am aware of the need for more diversity when it comes to the books I read. So over the last several years, I have started reading more books written by people of color, women, and to some extent, people who live outside of the United States.
I suspect most of us have the same issue. In fact, if we throw in podcasts, YouTube videos, and other forms of learning, the majority of the voices we give our attention to are White American men. There are many reasons for that, some of which are beyond our control, but point this out to say that we need to be more intentional in giving attention to more voices than just those of White American men.
For us serving in ministry in the United States, one of the voices we should give more attention to are those of our Canadian neighbors to the north. Whether we serve as church planters, pastors within an established church, or another sphere of Christian leadership, we can and should learn from Christian leaders living in Canada. My friends from Canada tell me that, in general, their nation as a society is about twenty years ahead of the United States in terms of where our western society as a whole is headed. So listening to some perspectives from our Canadian neighbors just might help those of us serving in America better anticipate the future that is coming.
Jeremy Hoover, a church planter in Sarnia, Ontario, and Jonathan Massimi, an Anglican pastor, have already contributed articles to this blog but there are other Canadian voices to hear. So beginning next week and the two weeks that follow, this blog is going to feature three different Canadian people serving in different capacities of Christian leadership. First, will be Stanley Helton, who serves as the president of Alberta Bible College. Besides years of ministry experience in both the United States and Canada, Stanley also writes to us from the perspective of a Christian educator. Next up will be Kevin Vance, a church planter in Regina, Saskatchewan. Kevin will share with us the challenges faced in church planting in a post-Christendom context where technology is ever-changing and some people within that society have suffered injustices. Lastly, will be Shu-Ling Lee, who writes to us a 2nd generation Canadian-born Chinese pastor serving with a church in the suburbs of Toronto, addresses the challenges presented by suburban ministry, pragmatism, and the need for diverse voices.
As always, if you believe that Mission Alive might be able to help you as you serve on mission with God in North America or would like to help support Mission Alive, we’d love to hear from you. In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy this series of blog posts and share them with others.
Grace and Peace, Rex.
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K. Rex Butts, D.Min, serves as the lead minister/pastor with the Newark Church of Christ in Newark, DE. He holds a Doctor of Ministry in Contextual Theology from Northern Seminary in Lisle, IL, and a Master of Divinity from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, TN. He is married to Laura and together they have three children.
While the Imago Dei is not a prominent biblical theme, it shows up right at the beginning of scripture in Genesis 1-2 and so, understandably, becomes vital in Christian history to how we understand God and ourselves. Stanley J. Grenz explains how there have been two primary ways of understanding the Imago Dei in the west, structural and relational, with the former taking the increasingly prominent view in western Christian history (The Social God and the Relational Self, p. 142). The structural view also tends to identify certain attributes or capabilities, particularly “reason” or “will” as what make humans in the image of God.
Although it makes sense that the church fathers would primarily focus on the qualities of “reason” and “will” given the influence of Greek philosophy in their day, this conception of what it means for humans to be in the image of God is not what we have in view in Genesis 1:26-27. In the ancient Near East, “an image was believed to contain the essence of that which it represented” (Walton, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, p. 8). Generally, it was either the king or an idol who was supposed to have the image of God. However, in Genesis 1:26-27 we have people in general, both male and female, bearing the image of God, which would have been radically egalitarian in that day.
In the first creation account, we have a man as the pinnacle of God’s work (Gen. 1:27). Each of these aspects of our biblical origin story shows a communal, bodily, and even environmental understanding of the relationship between humans and the Creator. We start with humans reflecting the divine image, an image depicted in the plural that reflects not just the relationships that take place within God’s Triune self, but the relationships between God and other spiritual beings.
In Genesis 1:26 we see God creating in community, probably in the author’s mind including what might be called the divine council, heavenly host, or even other Elohim (cf. Ps 82:1, LEB). While the author might not have had the Trinity in mind when saying “us,” including the Trinity in our exegesis of the passage would not conflict with the meaning of the text even though it might be anachronistic. The point that God identifies himself in the community is made either way by the “us” passages in Genesis. The author of Genesis saw fit to represent God’s identity in the plural in various places (Genesis 1:26, 3:24, 11:7, 18:20-21 cf. 19:13), which seems to indicate that God’s identity is to be portrayed as not alone but in relationship to others. Possibly the poetic parallelism of “them” in vs. 27 is also meant to reflect “us” of 1:26 in referring to the divine community. In this way, the human plurality would also mean a reflection of both divine plurality and unity. In other words, God’s identity is social and relational, and no individual by him or herself represents the image of God.
While the first creation story has already established humanity as the pinnacle of creation, in the second creation account man is made first after “the heavens and the earth.” Not even the plants have come up before man is created. The first task man is given is to work and take care of the earth (2:15). The adam (earthling) is formed from the adamah (ground), showing his intimate connection with the land and environment. The isha (woman) is formed from the ish (man) to show her intimate and harmonious connection to the man (Note: ish and isha are in other places in the Old Testament is translated as husband and wife).
Everything is depicted as being in a harmonious relationship, with emphasis on humans and animals, humans and the earth, and male and female. However, in Genesis 3, the result of their disobedience is to disrupt these harmonious relationships. It would be a misreading to see the results of the fall and the “curses” as the way things were meant to be or even should be today. Instead, the curses are distortions of what God intended for humankind.
God helps man learn through interaction with his environment, giving him tasks to do like caring for the earth, and the fieldwork of naming the animals. What is conspicuously missing from the account of Adam and Eve is that God directly teaches man anything. On the contrary, in allowing Adam to name the animals, God—knowing that Adam needed a female counterpart—allowed Adam to learn through experiment. As the first human, he would know very little at this point, being like an infant. He may not even have known that he is actually different than the rest of the animals, or that he is not simply an animal himself.
God could have easily told Adam that he was different or needed a female counterpart. However, God let Adam learn through a “failed” experiment so he would know in his gut that he would need a partner different than what any other animal would be able to offer. So God is not operating not from a “bobble-head” premise, in which people primarily learn through head-knowledge, but from James K.A. Smith’s premise that “We are what we love, and our love is shaped, primed, and aimed by liturgical practices that take hold of our gut and aim our heart to certain ends” (Desiring the Kingdom, p. 40). God treats Adam not primarily as a cognitive creature, but as an embodied learner, a “liturgical animal”, so to speak, who learns through a process of experimental habit and practice over time to be “a certain kind of person” (Desiring the Kingdom, pp. 24-25). This is how God gains ground in His relationship with Adam and helps Adam learn.
The way God interacts with Adam and helps him learn is through bodily experiments. In the same way, ministers should not shy away from uncharted territory where people try different things until they find out what works for them or their ministry in life. Such tests and experiments should be encouraged even if they may lead to “failure.” Allowing such “failure” means entrusting people and helping them along in the process, even if the process does not necessarily “succeed” in the way we might measure success. God allowed Adam to know what the way forward was because God allowed Adam, who bears the image of God, to walk through the process in an embodied way. This would have built trust between Adam and God because God was not simply dictating to Adam what he should or should not do but allowed him to go through his own process of embodied discovery.
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Jonathan Lichtenwalterhas written and edited for the website evidenceforchristianity.org, articles forrenew.org and his website jonwalt.com, He has studied under John Oakes, Ph.D. (creator of the website evidenceforchristianity.org), and is currently getting a Master’s in Missional leadership from Rochester University. He is passionate about missional theology, apologetics, and biblical studies. He loves to use his writing and studies to build up the faith of others, to help disciples grow deeper in their understanding of scripture, and to share the truth of the gospel with others.
This week, we want to introduce Wes and Amanda Gunn, church planters in Wetumpka, Alabama.
Where is your church plant?
Our plant is in the Redland community, a growing suburb just outside Montgomery, AL.
Why did you choose the place to plant?
We were residents of this community for 7 years prior to our plant and have a deep love for our community and neighbors. We noticed many people in our area were not a regular part of any church or were driving long distances.
What is your vision for what you are doing?
We want to create a church family that glorifies God by loving its neighbors and caring for one another.
What made you want to become a church planter specifically?
I think the joy of reaching out to people, sharing Christ with them, the challenge of communicating effectively with people who are a long way from the Lord and are jaded towards anything spiritual; the power of a Christian community coming together to serve God and reach out to the world; the God-pressure on my heart that he wanted me to live and work in the inner city, to the point where doing anything else would have been disobedient.
What tips or advice would you have for someone interested in church planting?
The journey is hard, so individuals have to constantly go back to their calling from God. Without that, you are likely to throw in the towel at some point. We have found that we had to completely alter our lifestyle to make room for our neighbors and find ways to serve and love them. It isn’t just about a Sunday morning worship service, but engaging our community.
If you are interested in church planting, or would like more information, please visit our website at missionalive.org.
