Paul Walker one more time on "The Forgotten Ways" by Alan Hirsch

Paul Walker (link on my blogsite) is going through Alan Hirsh's book, "The Forgotten Ways" and leave these comments behind:

Searching for Missional DNA

This book begins with a bold claim - that there is a fundamental principle that has remained or neglected for much of the history of the Church which - if rediscovered - would release a potent and church-shaking energy of change and reconfiguration. Of course, this is by no means the first book to make such claims - Christian bookshops are full of books that claim to have found the 'missing piece of the jigsaw'. What makes this book any different?

What seems to be different here is that we are not talking about a piece of a jigsaw at all - some new approach to theology or spirituality that can somehow change everything. Indeed, it would seem to be the case that no such piecemeal approach to our current malaise (the long term and seemingly irreversible decline in inherited church) can - almost by definition - bring about the kind of deep-rooted change that is necessary. Here we are talking about a complete reconfiguration not simply of the 'software' of church, but the very 'hardware' itself. It is about the need for a 'paradigm shift' to use a somewhat over used phrase.

The clue to this missional DNA first seemed to become clear to Alan Hirsch when he found out the the early church grew from something like 25,000 believers in 100 AD to 25,000,000 in 310 AD. The figures come from Rodney Stark in a book called 'The Rise of Christianity' (I'm taking them at face value as I've no knowledge of the source). Now, the interesting thing is the choice of the year 310 AD, which is a few years before the rise of Constantine (he came to power in 312 AD) and the subsequent rise of Christendom from the Council of Nicea (325 AD) onwards. If these figures are anywhere near accurate then Christianity was growing exponentially before Christendom - indeed it is quite likely that Constantine didn't so much 'create' the central place of Christianity, but saw its inexorable rise and 'jumped on the bandwagon'. I think Stuart Murray also mentioned in 'Post Christendom' that Constantine may have been rather more of a political expedient than a spiritually-motivated reformer!

The explosive growth of early Christianity isn't, of course, the only historical example of this phenomenon. The incredible growth of the Chinese Church after the explusion of Western missionaries during the Cultural Revolution is a more modern example. Then there is the rapid growth of the Methodist Movement - from 2% of the population in 1776 to 34% in 1850.

How do such growth 'spurts' come about? It is the contention of this book that there is a 'missional DNA' that can be discerned, isolated, extracted and incarnated into the present day context. Note that we are not talking about simply replicating a pattern from a previous era and a different context - but rather taking deeper and more fundamental principles from those movements and re-interpret it for the situation that we find ourselves in ( late modernity, liquid modernity, post modernity...take your pick!) In the same way that the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Lion, in the film 'The Wizard of Oz' eventually discover that the qualities they needed were 'in' them all along - but they hadn't awakened them, Hirsch suggests that a similar missional re-awakening in the hearts of Christians could unlock a potent force within the Church. He says

This story highlights the central assumption in this book and gives a hint as to why it has been called The Forgotten Ways : namely that all God's people carry within themselves the same potencies that energized the early Christian movement.... Apostolic Genius (the primal missional potencies of the gospel and of God's people) lies dormant in you, me, and every local church that seeks access and trigger it.

The Planter: Visit both Alan Hirsh and Paul Walker's site for more discussion. See to the right for a quick jump over to some great discussion.