Loren Mead. The Once and Future Church: Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier. Alban Institute, 1991.
Deck furniture. If I have heard the analogy one time I have heart it a hundred. While the world today is lost and without hope, the Church is rearranging deck furniture. Unfortunately, the Church does not seem to have a clue that the name of the ship on which it is busily engaged is the Titanic.
Mead reminds us that the new paradigm is the old. We live in a culture which retains only the vestiges of the Christendom culture to which we are accustomed. Now we, that is the Church, must either resign ourselves to a caretaker role in an outdated institution or adapt to the new situation. This pagan culture is strikingly similar to that which the first century Christians encountered in the Greco-Roman world.
Deck furniture may consist of our emphasis on programs at the expense of giftedness. Or, it might be the hierarchical systems which acknowledge that there is a problem and then go back to the old paradigm (the community chaplain) to find or implement the solution (which always tends to look like another program). So, the membership continues to decline as the Church waits for the world to come to it.
A clear vision of what will be in the future is not an option. By the time we have that the situation will have changed. So the solution will be adaptable and willing to take a risk. Doesn't sound like the way the Church usually operates, does it?
But... the good news is that the ride will be exciting!!! (if we are paying attention).
3/21/05