Missional Church?

I just finished reading "The Shaping of Things to Come" by Frost and Hirsch, a book about the theory of missional church leadership as compared with the institutional church. They make some good arguments about the dangers of institutionalism in our churches. For example, we are identified by our hierarchy, by our buildings, and by our "attractional" stance: if you build it, they will come. Since we have the truth, it is our responsibility to get people to come and hear it. Our outreach events are oriented around bringing them to us. They're more in-drag than out-reach, to use Frost and Hirsch's language. Instead of attracting non-Christians to church with our new buildings, fancy programs, and "great worship and preaching," Frost and Hirsch argue that the Bible seems to say "You go" more than "make them come."

The authors argue for a non-institutional model: no church building, no hierarchy, no us-them language, no attraction to our fancy programs, no dualism. By dualism, we mean the tendency of institutional churches to allow and unintentionally encourage Christian behavior on Sunday that is not connected at all to the rest of the week. If you remember, I constantly and intentionally tried to teach against this kind of dualism. I want teens to know that Christianity IS life, not a part of it. Jesus IS Lord, and that means even on Tuesdays and Saturdays. I couldn't (or wouldn't) play the institutional games, and so even my chance to teach truth was cut off.

Frost and Hirsch argue that the institutional church is dead but doesn't know it yet. I'm convinced that if those of us who are trained and training to be ministers jump ship to build a new model, then we will contribute to the death of the institution. Somebody needs to stick with the program and help those folks.

And so I'm back to another version of the same question... How does a person who is anti-institutional function within the institution? I suppose that by nature the gospel is subversive, but I hate to be intentionally subversive. I don't want to "play institution" while being anti-institutional in my teaching and life. At the same time, I love the people in the institutional church, warts and all, so I can't just take off and start my own thing like so many want to do.

In case you haven't figured it out by this point, I don't entirely buy Frost and Hirsch's arguments in their entirety. Remember that I blog to inspire thought in the readers more than to convince them of certain points.

Have a good one!
Jason