Tuesday, December 11, 2007

A look at three current models of ministry in American churches

In one of my Trinity classes this semester, we have been talking through philosophy of ministry and looking at how people "do church" in America. My professor, Dr. Phillip Sell, articulated this chart, which I have reproduced below. I thought it was an interesting and insightful summary.

Issue

Traditional

Contemporary

Missional

Cultural Orientation

Assumes the support of Christendom

Minimal passion for evangelism

Accomodation to culture

“Church can be attractive to lost people”

Marketing approach and image management

Penetration of culture with the Gospel

Church as missionary to the unsupportive culture

Image of the Christian

Representative of the dominant culture

Civil Religion

Successful and happy

Alternative to dominant culture

Resident aliens within the pluralistic culture

View of the Church

A place where religious things happen

The country club/dues

A vendor of religious goods and services

The mall/consumer

A people sent on a mission

The web/relational

Orientation

Content-centered

Right ideas

Program-centered

Right activities

Relationship-centered

Right relationships

Central Structures

Pulpit, Sunday School (one way communication)

Age-graded Christian Education (mimic the public school)

Seeker-oriented services

Needs-oriented ministry

Market segments/generational ghettos

Equipping venues

Discipleship/Mentoring

Small Groups

Spiritual formation

Organizational Structure

Hierarchy

Committees

Recruitment to church ministries

Pastoral oligarchy

Teams

Mobilization into church and world

Networked teams

Empowerment to interpersonal ministry and team formation

Role of Pastor

Preacher/Caregiver

Evangelist/Leader/CEO

Equipper/Model/Leader

Learner Orientation

Cognitive processing through teaching

Cognitive processing

Social learning in groups

Experiential learning

Social learning

Cognitive processing

Media/Era

Print/Oral

Broadcast

Digital

Internet/ Website

Source of information

Advertising and promotion

Interactive community

Social origins

Rural

Suburban

Urban

Dominate Generation

Builders

Boomers

Busters/GenX, Millennials

Evangelism

An isolated program

Proclamational

Come-see approach

Reach the churched

Adult convert growth rate?

A consistent emphasis

Need-oriented event

Come-see approach

Reach the dechurched

How do you gather a crowd?

A life-style, relational, incarnational and service-oriented

Listening, dialogical

Go-seek mentality

Reach the unchurched

Worship

Predictable

Historically anchored

Hymns, hymnals, choirs, organs and pianos

Not in cultural idiom

In some cased liturgical

Scripted excellence

In cultural idiom and popular instrumentation

Historical disconnect

Celebrative, upbeat

choruses and worship ensembles

Use of other media added

Laid back, serendipitous

Ancient and vintage worship practices creatively mixed with contemporary media

Multimedia, multi-sensory, participatory

Ethical Orientation

Subcultural

taboos

Personal

ethics

Social

ethics

Other Churches

Cordial

Denomination-building

Competitive

Congregation-building

Networked

Kingdom-building

Problems

Irrelevance

Minimal evangelism

Come-see approach

Cultural captivity

Marketing/Consumer orientation

How change consumers into disciples?

Come-see approach

Establishing Biblical authority

Maintaining the uniqueness of Christ

Becoming a generational ghetto?

Do you support his assessments? Which model do you most philosophically align with? Which model is closest to some manner of Biblical ideal and why?

2 comments:

chris said...

so being the first comment is sort of awkward. i would have to say that as far as categorizing myself i generally fit into the category of missional. i thought this was funny considering before i read this post i didn't even know the name of the category.

i think putting titles on things is sort of funny sometimes, but they are convenient...

Craig said...

I agree that putting labels on things is not desirable, but discussing trends requires some semantic tags to grab hold off. I think the term missional here is preferable to "emergent." I classify the emergent movement as one example of a missional style manifestation.

I personally find myself a part of a more traditional style church that is attempting to transition to a more missional style without losing its multi-generationality, which I think is a worthy goal and concern.