Same Concepts, Different Approach

I found the time to finish Diana Butler Bass' book "The Practicing Congregation: Imaging a New Old Church". I was amazed to see how similar Butler Bass' conclusions were to Brian McLaren's. I found it fascinating, however, that Diana wasn't quite ready yet to let go of many of the modern concepts with which she was raised. For instance, she created a grid that separated Christian movements into four quadrants. The grid representated continuums between liberalism/conservatism and established practices/intentional practices (I'll explain this in just a moment). Using this grid she located four primary movements: (1) old-style mainline movements, (2) traditional/evangelical movements, (3) practicing congregations, and (4) emergent churches. While her grid was an interesting intellectual exercise, it didn't resonante with my post-modern sensibilities/spirituality. I found my thinking and experience to be closer in line with McLaren's perspective. The exciting thing, however, is that there is an acknowledgment of the emerging principles from communities of all theological/liturgical shapes and sizes! The most important thing I took from Butler Bass' book was her framing of the existing tension between communities that use established worship practices and communities that use intentional worship practices. "The essence of established churchgoing," Butler Bass wrote, "was that one assumed denominational loyalty, received certain beliefs and practices from earlier generations with few quesions, and expected these patterns to continue indefinitely. Indeed, to break the pattern revealed a certain kind of fmailial disloyalty, and religious conversation was socially fatal." Intentional worship communities, however, are markedly different. "Intentional congregations are marked by mobility, choice, risk, refexivity, and reflection. They think about what they do and ask why they do it in relation to their own history, their cultural context, the larger Christian story found in scripture and liturgy, and in line with the longer traditions of Christian faith." My goal in moving toward the new worship gathering this fall is to help create an "intentionial" worship gathering - one that defies the grid that Butler Bass created, however, and instead gives glimpses of both the immiment and transcendent God who is larger than the confines any grid. Til next time ...