This Thanksgiving morning, we’re prepping for a meal together at the Filling Station. Our friend, Robin, has been gracious enough to let us use her coffee shop (I hope that’s what I’m supposed to call it) to gather as a bunch of scattered, eclectic friends with a midtown commonality. Before the shared meal, though, I’d like to share two articles that got my heart moving in the right direction this morning. The first is from Jon Foreman (Switchfoot). Jon (honestly) surprised me with his ability to be articulate, thoughtful, honest, and compassionate. It’s a great check-your-perspective read. He’ll get you thinking. Here’s the link:
Jon Foreman: Compassion vs. Consumption
Second, I’ll point you to an article by Michael Spencer (Internet Monk). It’s less Thanksgiving and more everyday, but man is it good. For me, similarly to Foreman’s article, Spencer’s piece got my mind moving the right direction- away from me and toward the rest of the community around me. Here it is (Happy Thanksgiving!):
I’d say that I highly recommend this article from Tim Keller, but it might imply that I highly recommend this piece especially. Reality is, I’d highly recommend everything Keller writes. I’ll skip going into all that Keller is for modern evangelical Christianity. Rather, here, I’d like to emphasize what Keller is doing for MCC. Keller represents a first-base for us in our missional self-diagnosis, and this article is the base. We are reading the article together as a church, hoping that with it we’ll better understand the overall context of Christianity in America. I think it’s well worth your time, too.
THE MISSIONAL CHURCH
June 2001
TIM KELLER
The Need for a ‘Missional’ Church
In the West for nearly 1,000 years, the relationship of (Anglo-European) Christian churches to the broader
culture was a relationship known as “Christendom.” The institutions of society “Christianized” people,
and stigmatized non-Christian belief and behavior. Though people were “Christianized” by the culture,
they were not regenerated or converted with the Gospel. The church’s job was then to challenge persons
into a vital, living relation with Christ.
There were great advantages and yet great disadvantages to ‘Christendom.’ The advantage was that there
was a common language for public moral discourse with which society could discuss what was ‘the good.’
The disadvantage was that Christian morality without gospel-changed hearts often led to cruelty and
hypocrisy. Think of how the small town in “Christendom” treated the unwed mother or the gay person.
Also, under “Christendom” the church often was silent against abuses of power of the ruling classes over
the weak. For these reasons and others, the church in Europe and North America has been losing its
privileged place as the arbiter of public morality since at least the mid 19th century. The decline of
Christendom has accelerated greatly since the end of WWII.
The British missionary Lesslie Newbigin went to India around 1950. There he was involved with a
church living ‘in mission’ in a very non-Christian culture. When he returned to England some 30 years
later, he discovered that now the Western church too existed in a non-Christian society, but it had not
adapted to its new situation. Though public institutions and popular culture of Europe and North America
no longer ‘Christianized’ people, the church still ran its ministries assuming that a stream of
‘Christianized’, traditional/moral people would simply show up in services. Some churches certainly did
‘evangelism’ as one ministry among many. But the church in the West had not become completely
‘missional’–adapting and reformulating absolutely everything it did in worship, discipleship, community,
and service–so as to be engaged with the non-Christian society around it. It had not developed a
‘missiology of western culture’ the way it had done so for other non-believing cultures.
One of the reasons much of the American evangelical church has not experienced the same precipitous
decline as the Protestant churches of Europe and Canada is because in the U.S. there is still a ‘heartland’
with the remnants of the old ‘Christendom’ society. There the informal public culture (though not the
formal public institutions) still stigmatizes non-Christian beliefs and behavior. “There is a fundamental
schism in American cultural, political, and economic life. There’s the quicker-growing, economically
vibrant…morally relativist, urban-oriented, culturally adventuresome, sexually polymorphous, and
ethnically diverse nation…and there’s the small town, nuclear-family, religiously-oriented, white-centric
other America, [with]…its diminishing cultural and economic force….[T]wo nations…” Michael Wolff,
New York, Feb 26 2001, p. 19. In conservative regions, it is still possible to see people profess faith and
the church grow without becoming ‘missional.’ Most traditional evangelical churches still can only win
people to Christ who are temperamentally traditional and conservative. But, as Wolff notes, this is a
’shrinking market.’ And eventually evangelical churches ensconced in the declining, remaining enclaves
of “Christendom” will have to learn how to become ‘missional’. If it does not do that it will decline or die.
We don’t simply need evangelistic churches, but rather ‘missional’ churches.
The Elements of a Missional Church
1. Discourse in the vernacular.
• In ‘Christendom’ there is little difference between the language inside and outside of the
church. Documents of the early U.S. Congress, for example, are riddled with allusions to and
references from the Bible. Biblical technical terms are well-known inside and outside. In a
missional church, however, terms must be explained.
• The missional church avoids ‘tribal’ language, stylized prayer language, unnecessary
evangelical pious ‘jargon’, and archaic language that seeks to set a ’spritual tone.’
• The missional church avoids ‘we-them’ language, disdainful jokes that mock people of
different politics and beliefs, and dismissive, disrespectful comments about those who differ
with us
• The missional church avoids sentimental, pompous, ‘inspirational’ talk . Instead we engage
the culture with gentle, self-deprecating but joyful irony the gospel creates. Humility + joy =
gospel irony and realism.
• The missional church avoids ever talking as if non-believing people are not present. If you
speak and discourse as if your whole neighborhood is present (not just scattered Christians),
eventually more and more of your neighborhood will find their way in or be invited.
• Unless all of the above is the outflow of a truly humble-bold gospel-changed heart, it is all
just ‘marketing’ and ’spin.’
2. Enter and re-tell the culture’s stories with the gospel.
• In “Christendom” it is possible to simply exhort Christianized people to “do what they know
they should.” There is little or no real engagement, listening, or persuasion. It is more a
matter of exhortation (and often, heavy reliance on guilt.) In a missional church preaching
and communication should always assume the presence of skeptical people, and should
engage their stories, not simply talk about “old times.”
• To “enter” means to show sympathy toward and deep acquaintance with the literature, music,
theater, etc. of the existing culture’s hopes, dreams, ‘heroic’ narratives, fears.
• The older culture’s story was–to be a good person, a good father/mother, son/daughter, to
live a decent, merciful, good life.
• Now the culture’s story is– a) to be free and self-created and authentic (theme of freedom
from oppression), and b) to make the world safe for everyone else to be the same (theme
of inclusion of the ‘other’; justice).
• To “re-tell” means to show how only in Christ can we have freedom without slavery and
embracing of the ‘other’ without injustice.
3. Theologically train lay people for public life and vocation.
• In ‘Christendom’ you can afford to train people just in prayer, Bible study, evangelism–
private world skills–because they are not facing radically non-Christian values in their public
life–where they work, in their neighborhood, etc.
• In a ‘missional’ church, the laity needs theological education to ‘think Christianly’ about
everything and work with Christian distinctiveness. They need to know: a) what cultural
practices are common grace and to be embraced, b) what practices are antithetical to the
gospel and must be rejected, c) what practices can be adapted/revised.
• In a ‘missional’ situation, lay people renewing and transforming the culture through
distinctively Christian vocations must be lifted up as real ‘kingdom work’ and ministry along
with the traditional ministry of the Word.
• Finally, Christians will have to use the gospel to demonstrate true, Biblical love and
‘tolerance’ in “the public square” toward those with whom we deeply differ. This tolerance
should equal or exceed that which opposing views show toward Christians. The charge of
intolerance is perhaps the main ‘defeater’ of the gospel in the non-Christian west.
4. Create Christian community which is counter-cultural and counter-intuitive.
• In Christendom, ‘fellowship’ is basically just a set of nurturing relationships, support and
accountability. That is necessary, of course.
• In a missional church, however, Christian community must go beyond that to embody a
‘counter-culture,’ showing the world how radically different a Christian society is with regard
to sex, money, and power.
• In sex. We avoid both the secular society’s idolization of sex and traditional society’s fear
of sex. We also exhibit love rather than hostility or fear toward those whose sexual life-
patterns are different.
• In money. We promote a radically generous commitment of time, money, relationships,
and living space to social justice and the needs of the poor, the immigrant, the
economically and physically weak.
• In power. We are committed to power-sharing and relationship-building between races
and classes that are alienated outside of the Body of Christ.
• In general, a church must be more deeply and practically committed to deeds of compassion
and social justice than traditional liberal churches and more deeply and practically committed
to evangelism and conversion than traditional fundamentalist churches. This kind of church is
profoundly ‘counter-intuitive’ to American observers. It breaks their ability to categorize (and
dismiss) it as liberal or conservative. Only this kind of church has any chance in the non-
Christian west.
5. Practice Christian unity as much as possible on the local level.
• In Christendom, when ‘everyone was a Christian’ it was necessary (perhaps) for a church to
define itself over against other churches. That is, to get an identity you had to say, “we are not
like that church over there, or those Christians over here.”
• Today, however, it is much more illuminating and helpful for a church to define itself over
against ‘the world’–the values of the non-Christian culture. It is very important that we not
spend our time bashing and criticizing other kinds of churches. That simply plays in to the
common ‘defeater’ that Christians are all intolerant.
• While we have to align ourselves in denominations that share many of our distinctives, at the
local level we should cooperate and reach out to and support the other congregations and
churches in our local area. This will raise many thorny issues, of course, but our bias should
be in the direction of cooperation.
Case Study
Let me show you how this goes beyond any ‘program.’ These are elements that have to be present in every
area of the church. So, for example, what makes a small group ‘missional’? A ‘missional’ small group is
not necessarily one which is doing some kind of specific ‘evangelism’ program (though that is to be
recommended) Rather, 1) if its members love and talk positively about the city/neighborhood, 2) if they
speak in language that is not filled with pious tribal or technical terms and phrases, nor disdainful and
embattled language, 3) if in their Bible study they apply the gospel to the core concerns and stories of the
people of the culture, 4) if they are obviously interested in and engaged with the literature and art and
thought of the surrounding culture and can discuss it both appreciatively and yet critically, 5) if they
exhibit deep concern for the poor and generosity with their money and purity and respect with regard to
opposite sex, and show humility toward people of other races and cultures, 6) they do not bash other
Christians and churches–then seekers and non-believing people from the city A) will be invited and B)
will come and will stay as they explore spiritual issues. If these marks are not there it will only be able to
include believers or traditional, “Christianized” people.
There’s a lot that hits home here:
You can’t method people into missional behaviors, you can’t train people into incarnational communities, and you certainly can’t preach people into posture and practices of ancient-church-now. The only way people will ever live missionally, especially in light of incarnational communities, is if they have an honest to goodness heart change born from active life in the world.
Many followers of Christ never develop muscles of mission. Often people live their lives growing only in head knowledge, doctrine, theology and moral living, believing that they are growing in maturity.
Today we separate mission and spiritual formation.
Hugh Halter
As we’ve negotiated our way through the last several weeks, trying to move away from self-focused practices and trajectory that contradict our others-focused vision statement and the seek and save the lost example of Christ, I have sought and solicited recommendations for a resource that we could employ as a team-wide, interactive, instructional tool. We want to learn to live out our missional identity. Most of us have little to no idea how to actually do that. After weeding through several recommendations, yesterday, I ordered a bunch of copies of The Tangible Kingdom Primer from Hugh Halter and Matt Smay (the guys from Adellum and Missio). Below, I’ve posted a video about the Primer. In it, Halter (1) presents (rather convincingly) the reason they created the book and (2) walks through the book’s eight-week format.
There is a different DNA and disciple that is produced in a church planting church than a church focused church.
Bob Roberts
One of my desires in returning to semi-regular blogging is to display and share in a public forum some part(s) of what God is teaching me, how he is challenging me, and who and what he is using to accomplish both. As a young church, we are neck-deep in a tidal wave of introspection, self-analysis, intentional questioning, Biblical reflection and wisdom-seeking. We are re-thinking a lot of things (yes, this early on); I want to share as much of the process as is possible and beneficial. If you visit often, you’ll notice a ton of stuff written by people other than me. Consider it my way of giving you a window into our process-world. Those pieces, articles, videos, etc. that I share here are not shared because I’m eager to draw people to my blog by pirating other men’s wisdom and wit. I share them because I want to share what is influencing me/us. In reading, I’m hoping you’ll have an, “Oh, I see” type of experience. I’m hoping God will challenge you with what he is challenging me with.
Today, I want to share a word from Bob Roberts. You can find Bob at glocal.net (I point you there because he is too hard to track down otherwise). I’ve emphasized that statement that is most contemporary for us above. There is a marked difference between church as usual and Kingdom-focused, externally-focused church. Bob articulates the difference:
“I want to start a church to reach thousands of people to change the world for Jesus.” I’ve heard that again and again and again. The idea is right, the metric and methods have to change though for that to work. Here’s how it works:
Start a church that reaches millions (thousands is too small a thing) so the world can hear the good news of Jesus. That means I must count beyond my building, and multiply millions of small gatherings (house churches and small churches), thousands of large churches, and hundreds of mega-churches, and dozens of giga-churches.
Start a single church to reach thousands – and start no churches? You won’t change anything – not even your own members! There is a different DNA and disciple that is produced in a church planting church than a church focused church.
If you fulfill the Great Commission as a church it’s not cheap, and the price isn’t just in people and dollars – it’s in mindset. As I’ve worked with people of different religions and governments, etc., I’ve learned that. Everyone says they want to see the Great Commission fulfilled – as long as people becoming Christians are just like them! I preached Galatians the past month, and one of the things that stood out in my mind is how hard it was for Paul to be the “apostle to the gentiles” – if only he would have focused on the Jews – no Judaizers that followed him, no disagreements with the Apostles, wow – if only he could have been more politically correct.
If only he had been more sensitive to his own culture, more politically correct – - – - – then you and I would never have known Jesus!
fold 2 |foʊld| |fəʊld|
noun
a pen or enclosure in a field where livestock, esp. sheep, can be kept.
• ( the fold) a group or community, esp. when perceived as the locus of a particular set of aims and values : he’s performing a ritual to be accepted into the fold.
__________________________
Normally, in America, church is equated with a weekly public gathering held in a regular geographic location. In the Christian tradition, it made sense to employ such a practice because the first Christians sprang from Jews. The Jews met regularly in a permanent place- the synagogue. So, it’s not a stretch for the fulfillment of Old Testament religious expression and practice to carry over into its own New Testament expansion. But in America, a weekly gathering in a set locale and structure gave way to as much theatre as church. There came a point when churches started looking a lot more like theatres architecturally, and the program of the weekly gathering started look like just that (a program). In America, church became theatre.
As an admittedly young, admittedly inexperienced, admittedly ignorant church, we are more and more distressed by the contradiction that exists between American-theatre-church and New Testament Christian practice. We are concerned with our own self-service, self-obsession, and self-entertainment. The vast majority of our money, resources, and energy are pointed inward, not outward. We are attempting to humbly work our way through that problem. As such, for at least a foreseeable, indefinite period, we have suspended our weekly worship gathering(s). Now, to clarify, we have not sought to only do away with. Rather, we seek to put out more effort. It’s just that we’re shifting our focus to the outside, to others, to the community at large.
We know we’re leaving the fold. That might be a good thing. Let me give a contemporary example.
This weekend, there will be a couple thousand (my estimate) people gathering to take place in the Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis at Zona Rosa. For some of our folks, that means that handfuls of their midtown co-workers will be donning bells and red felt to raise money for arthritis victims. Rather than huddling our small, communal mass in our little spot at 29th and McGee, we are going to go be with people. It’s nothing magical. We could surely do more in the future. Really, honestly, we hadn’t even seen this opportunity coming when we decided to axe our weekly gathering, but now, on the first Sunday post-decision, we have a chance to build relationships with those outside our church in their regular circles of interest.
Below, if you are interested, you can read more about this fold-leaving practice (from Jonathan Dodson):
4 Reasons to Cancel Sunday Service
Last Sunday we canceled our Sunday gathering. We did not have inclement weather. The preaching pastor was not ill.The roads were not blocked. We canceled our service deliberately to take part in Austin’s annual Capitol 10K run and fun run. Over 18,000 people turned out this year.
The run benefits a local charity each year. This year it was Meals on Wheels, a non-profit that delivers groceries and provides services to the home bound and elderly. Our City Groups work with Meals on Wheels so it was a natural cause for us to support. We mobilized our church to participate in the 10K and had a big cookout afterward. In retrospect and in prospect, here are four reasons to cancel your Sunday service.
- It enables us to corporately Serve the City, Know the City. By canceling an age-old tradition of Sunday church services, Austin City Life church went public with their commitment to being a church that is genuinely for the city. Instead of gathering in our downtown venue while thousands of runners streamed by, we decided to join our city in a great cause of feeding the needy. We rubbed shoulders with people who need Jesus. We gained a unique perspective of the city. Approaching the capitol with a throng of people, we made our way up Congress St running right to the edge of the capitol building. I poured out prayers for our government and kept running. We saw neighborhoods up close, house after house of people who don’t know Jesus and prayed. We saw the unique architecture and marveled. Heard the great bands and cheered. Laughed at the ridiculous costumes and had a great time with our city. Cancel your service to serve and know the city.
- It reinforces how important it is to Be the Church. By canceling our Sunday gathering, we reinforced our belief that church is not merely what we do; it is who we are. Weekend services have actually replaced the church in America. Our landscape is dotted with churchless Christianity. As a new believer said to me recently, it doesn’t matter if I miss a few Sundays because I am with the church throughout the week. Canceling the event and spending time running, cooking, eating, and hanging out was a wonderful reminder that we are the church and that we need one another.
- It offers Sabbath rest for a driven society. When we canceled our service, we created much needed rest for many volunteers, deacons, leaders, and pastors. We also created the opportunity for the church to rest in a society that is driven and too busy. We had quite a few people that did not participate in the race. They took the opportunity to relax and enjoy a wonderful day without the demands of work or service attendance. Many of us remarked how nice it was to not be in the service. Is this because we don’t want to worship God, because we don’t love the Word of God, because we are slovenly and indifferent to the gospel? Not at all…but it could also be that it…
- Serves as a reminder that very often we are too busy for church.That Sunday “off” came as with unexpected level of refreshment for many? Why? Because very often we are too busy for church. We get so exhausted from our busy lives, that Sunday gatherings of the church are something we discipline ourselves to go to. We work so late that we don’t go to our City Group meetings. We are so exhausted from taking the kids here and there that we can’t imagine having the energy to have people over for dinner to share life with. Unexpectedly, canceling a service can lead people to repentance over sinful busyness and faith in the Sovereign supplier of all things.
Some would say- and get rich doing it- that following Christ and being in relationship with God means a full, rich, prosperous, illness-free existence. I guess these Vietnamese believers didn’t get the memo.
This is the third and final entry in Jonathan Dodson’s blog series over at The Resurgence. If you haven’t yet, please check out my previous three posts here on my blog. There, I explain (in brief) some of what we’re processing through as a church. Dodson’s posts are indicative of our current conversation. He has been a great source of wisdom over the recent weeks. He blogs regularly at Church Planting Novice and The Creation Project. You can find his extended personal reflection and response(s) to some of the dialogue sparked from the Resurgence posts there. Enjoy:
How NOT To Be a Missional Church series: Click | View Series
The missional church movement has been good and bad. On a positive note, let’s focus on the bad. I want to suggest three ways to not be a missional church. In continuation of the series, this post examines some of the defects of social action-driven mission.
Social Action-Driven Mission
This approach probably creates the best community of the three mentioned in this series. A socially-minded and active church attracts socially-minded non-Christians. When my City Group recently cleaned five apartments from top to bottom for some homeless women and children, we all got a little closer. There’s something about being on a common mission—the sweat, the jokes, the empathy, and the memory–that unites folks. Creating a missional memory strengthens community and mission. It also raises questions with non-Christians you serve. But is social action enough?
1. Social action-driven mission isn’t unique to the church.
There are plenty of non-Christians engaged in social mission—serving the poor, the needy, the abused, and the homeless. They don’t need a church to engage in social mission. There are thousands of non-profits that can do this. What sets the church apart? If we are banking on social mission to be the unique contribution of the church, we’ll lose the game, and more importantly, the souls.
2. Social action doesn’t create new community.
Although social action mission creates community, it doesn’t create newcommunity. Regenerated, new creation is the unique work of God the Spirit (Tit. 2.11; Gal. 6:15) through faith in the Son (Tit. 3:6-7; 2 Cor. 5:17). If we convert people to community and social mission alone, and not to Christ, we offer a very incomplete gospel. Regeneration is both social (Matt. 19:28) and spiritual (Tit. 3:5). The Spirit, not social mission, makes men new.
3. Social mission can lead to liberal church.
When we reduce mission to social action, we run the danger of becoming a socially-minded liberal church that neglects large stretches of the Bible requiring repentance and faith in Jesus. When missional communities focus on social mission alone, they disregard their evangelistic identity, gifting, and responsibility as the church of Jesus Christ, the Jesus who died and rose to make all things new—people and products, souls and society.
This series has attempted to identify some of the shortcomings in expressions of missional church. When mission is driven by events or evangelism, or social action, we engage in incomplete mission. When we engage in incomplete mission, we offer an incomplete gospel to our neighbors, towns, cities, and world. In a future series, I will take a more positive tack by exploring three areas that promote being a missional church.
If you’re just stumbling across this post, it may prove helpful to read the previous two. Here, the second in Jonathan Dodson’s current series over at The Resurgence:
How NOT To Be a Missional Church series: Click | View Series
The missional church movement has been good and bad. On a positive note, let’s focus on the bad. I want to suggest three ways to not be a missional church. In continuation of the series, this post examines some of the defects of evangelism-driven mission.
Evangelism-Driven Mission
These churches focus almost exclusively on evangelism. Their view of the gospel leads them to see social action as optional. For them, mission is synonymous with evangelism, and evangelism is highly programmatic. They focus on training individuals through evangelism training programs, apologetics, and use of evangelistic tracts. What’s wrong with learning evangelistic presentations, memorizing apologetic defenses, and using tracts?
1. Evangelism-driven mission is often answer-based and heaven-centered.
These churches train individuals and teams “How to present the gospel” in a brief period of time. Typically, these programs look for the person being evangelized to offer a specific answer. For example, “If you died tonight and stood before God and he said: ‘Why should I let you into my heaven?’ What would you say?” Notice that the questions are answer-driven. The goal is to get someone to say the right answer and to believethe right facts, like “Jesus died for my sins.” What we need is less belief and more faith.
In his new book, The Future of Faith, Harvey Cox makes a helpful distinction between belief and faith. He writes: “We can believe something to be true without it making much difference to us, but we place our faithonly in something that is vital for the way we live.” We can believe without it making a difference.
Many Americans believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins, but it makes very little difference in their lives. They possess mere belief. This mere belief undermines the gospel. What we need is faith. Moreover, mere belief in the right answer baits people, not with Christ, but with heaven. It is heaven-centered, not Christ-centered. In evangelism-driven mission, Christ is subordinated to the treasure of heaven, instead of heaven being subordinated to the treasure of Christ. The goal is heaven, not Jesus. Answer-driven and heaven-centered evangelism leads to nominalism and distorts the gospel. Evangelism-driven mission can undermine, not advance the gospel.
2. Evangelism-driven mission can be defensive and fact-oriented.
Training in apologetics has its place; however, when our approach to non-Christians is driven by apologetics, we very often reduce people to projects. Apologetic mission can foster too much defense and too much offense because it aims at the head to the exclusion of the heart, to change someone’s mind, but not their lives. Just because someone agrees with our facts and embraces our logic doesn’t guarantee true conversion. We need to be prepared, not only to defend the faith, but to love people intelligently. Most objections to the gospel have existential and personal roots. If we can get beyond the arguments to the idols of the heart, we can show just how tremendously superior and satisfying Jesus is to whatever they love, desire, and pursue most!
3. Evangelism-driven mission is often outdated and fails to contextualize.
The methods used are often prepackaged and outdated. Evangelistic programs falsely assume that our listeners still understand the meanings of sin, Christ, and faith. But very often, they hear something very different, like legalism, moral teacher, and mere belief. When we fail to express the gospel in context and vocabulary that our listeners can understand, we fail to share the gospel. Christ dated and contextualized himself to all kinds of people so that his message would make sense and connect with their deep needs for redemption. Using packaged illustrations and methods assumes a one-size-fits-all, but the Incarnation reminds us that the gospel is much more personal and dynamic.
4. Evangelism-driven mission is individualistic.
This approach to mission trains individuals, not communities. It reduces the gospel to a conversation between two people, without focusing on embodying the gospel in communities. Statistics have shown that individuals are consistently converted to communities before they are converted to doctrines. Our methods are often doctrine-driven and individualistic.
Jesus prescribed a kind of communal evangelism in John 17, where our community is so redemptive and rich that it points people to Jesus. Paul called for a distinctive discipleship in churches that set the community of faith forth as an example, as salt and light in their cities, attracting others to them. Individualistic evangelism doesn’t create community because it doesn’t convert people to the church. It aims at converting individuals to a set of answers and to heaven. Evangelism-driven mission has very little to do with the Jesus of the Church, the Head of the Body.
