In case you had not heard, the "seeker-sensitive" church and its cousin of "post-modern" ministry are already passe. The newest catchphrase in ministry innovation circles is the so-called "emerging church." Dan Kimball in his book "The Emerging Church" addresses this next-wave paradigm of doing church. He explains that one of the characteristics of the post-seeker emerging church is its focus not on methodologies, numbers, strategies, or innovation, but its focus on what its practices "produce in the called people of God as they are sent out on a mission to live as light and salt in their communities."
The emerging church places a missional awareness at its center, rather than any particular model. There is a difference between what we might traditionally describe as a "mission" mentality and a "missional" mindset. Missions is too often only something that we do, but a "missional" outlook is not an activity, but a vision of being. It asks not "What is the church doing?" but "What is the church being?" In other words, what are we producing in the daily lives of our members? This fresh emphasis on product delivery and quality of spiritual life is a much needed counterbalance to evangelicalism's sometimes sole obsession with its sales sector, namely evangelism and its positioning to reach the non-Christian "client." Herein, of course, lies the departure from the seeker-driven model. In the long run, of course, a little more "salt" can only help improve the flavor of our gospel message to those sampling it for authenticity.
Work life, of course, is an obvious long-neglected missional area. This is where there is incredible potential for synergy between the respective worklife and emerging church movements. It would be a monumental advance if a local church would only ask itself just one new question, "What is all that we do actually producing in the work lives of our people?" Just seeing this missional question is half the battle. It is true that there is more to daily life than work, but the fact remains that our work life consumes the bulk of our waking hours. Furthermore, the issues of our day at work have a direct bearing on the rest of our life -- family, friends, rest, finances, health, etc.
Stewarding the church's equipping of the work lives of its members is its Ephesians 4:12 mandate. Work should not be taken as just another "mission field" of the church -- an evangelistic target zone -- but instead should be viewed as a "missional" field, a sector of the daily lives of God's people requiring the church's intentional and systematic nurture. Without this reground lens of the vision for work-life nurturing, the emerging church phenomenon will risk itself becoming just another passing "methodology", new grist for our Christian addiction of doing. Pairing these powerful new lenses, however, creates the potential to finally bring into focus this forest among the trees.
Copyright 2004 David Scott. David is a speaker/writer with Life 2.0 (Lifetwozero.org) and a His Church at Work contributor. Contents distributed by WorkLife.org > used for non-profit teaching purposes only.
