The Shaping of Things To Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st

Sayo Ajiboye
DMin Creating Onramps for Calling
Sept 2007
The Shaping of Things To Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21^st Century. Author: Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch

Pages 236

This book started on a feisty note and is indeed a stimulating write up on mission and innovation in the 21^st century. Its first assertion was that the key thing driving today’s pseudo spiritual and missional experiences is the search for a sense of belonging, empowerment, sensuality, celebration and liminality. Of these concepts, liminality describes an intense experience of standing between times in the process of human transformation (p.5). There is a deep yearning for an experiential activist form of religious and mystical experience. To paraphrase D.H. Lawrence, “adventure needs to come back into the Christian venture” (p. 6). Tackling the challenges of this generation requires nothing less than an Einstenian paradigm (p. 7).

This book traces the metanarrative of the church from a subversive and persecuted roots to its co-option into Constantinian power sharer in the 3^rd century and its evolution into the symbiotically interdependent church /stae fusion of the Holy Roman Empire. The church and the state became pillars of a mutually supportive sacral structure. The authors advocated a movement away from this symbiotic sacraliszation into a missionality that is incarnational, messianic and apostolic (p. 12).

An assumption that seeps through from the authors in the first few pages is that the missional cannot be institutional; they therefore call for a Second Reformation to engage with the current socio – historical shift defined by post – modernity (p.15).

The authors sustain a fierce tempo of attack on the attractional, the dualistic and the hierarchical. They see it as a critical need for the Church to move from a Sunday focus and from a “come to us stance” to an “everyday is holy focus” and a “go to them mentality” (p. 19). The authors advocate that the church abandon a dualistic spirituality and move awauy from its Docetistic alignments (p. 20).

The authors defined incarnational, messianic and apostolic faith. Incarnational faith refers to the sublime love and humility whereby God took it upon himself to enter into the depth of our world (p. 35). It identifies, it is localized; it is in the midst – in a transcendental manner which is beyond ordinary (p. 36). Incarnation en-fleshes God, it identifies God with His people, He abides among them; He is their real Immanuel (p. 37). Incarnation can be understood by the contrast between the bounded set and the centered set. The focus of the bounded set is on limit, the focus of the centered set is on freedom and access. The missional church is a centered set with Christ in the midst and all having unrestricted access to His Well of Life.

The authors discussed Fuller Seminary’s Homogeneous Unit Principle – HUP and David Bosch’s attack on it. They posit that it is hypocritical to reject HUP without proffering an alternative. According to them, those needing Christ must first cross a Cultural Gap of ignorance about the person of God before crossing a knowledge – Gap of the process odf commitment to the discipline of follower - ship. To cross the Cultural Gap the authors believe is our responsibility, to commit to crossing the discipleship process Gap the author asserts must come from the person (p.58). To facilitate process 1 and catalyse process 2; HUP is necessary.

I instinctively disagree with the proposition above. As a church planter in a community that is completely alien to my roots and among which people like me are not many, I have come to a conclusion that effective Church building is not a function of HUP, is much rather a function of another system that the authors also advocate – The man of Peace concept. It must also be clear that in a as much as Paul deferred to HUP in his missionary journeys, his churches were invariably an antithesis of the HUP systems.

I however agree with most of the other things that they have to sday. Thwey envision the Church asa contextual community with a commission that creates a communion. Communion evolves around God’s word and worship, community evolves around learning and fellowship, and commission evolves around serving and sharing the Gospel. An effective deployment of community, communion and commission leads to an estate of critical contextualization. To understand critical contextualization, the authors reviewed both Paul Herbets Model (p.90) and John Travis’ C1 – C6 categorization of Phil Parshall’s Model.

Critical contextualization of worship among post moderns must be E.P.I.C – Experiential, Participatory Image-Driven and Communal. The missional community must be democratic, non patriarchal and compassionate. Its focus must be on the messianic spirituality that is redemptive of every facet of life. Deeds are reclaimed as sacraments (p.144), Heschel’s proposition that “action is truth” flows to the fore (p. 142).

The author proposes a visional spirituality that will drive Christians from the inertia of Christendom, they desire to see us freed from our cowardice and released into a new life of true salvation, security and freedom (p. 146). The authors desire that we will be led to the “indicative and imperatives” of identity. The indicative will define us and the imperative will call us t o live out the definition of our identity (p. 146). The author looks to the day when everyone living authentically becomes a Torah – an instruction.

The authors ideas are powerful, I take many issues with its core though and I will take the time to define just one. Must we allow the culture to define for us what it means to be Patriarchal? Can we be truly Christians and deny patriarchate? Must the patriarchate always be seen as negative? Underlining these thoughts are the subtle influence of the Feminist atmosphere in which we live. My experience is the opposite. People are looking for true fathers, structured personalities with the capacity for compassionate institutionalization.

While agreeing with the concept of the Centered set, my immediate thought is this: “Is that not what the true Father is?” The centered set defines best the real patriarchate, Abraham allowing Lot to have his pick, David allowing Absalom to have his way, God allowing Israel to go astray, Jehovah allowing Jesus to make his choice. Is it possible that the drifting crowd of the “Burning Man” described in the opening pages of the book, are actually looking for the Man who will give direction to the Burning mission of their lives? There are myriads of thoughts that whirl in my mind.

I challenge the authors to re – evaluate their proposition at FORGE in the light of a true Patriarchate; it may be possible that this is what they have created. The missional is always and strongly patriarchal, it is also matriarchal, in the truly missional is Emmanuel, El Elyon (Warrior, mighty Mountain) who is El Shaddai (the Double Breasted One. Whatever we see the Father do, that is what the Post Modern Generation NEEDS.