Essentials -

ESSENTIALS
Promoting Christ-centred Biblical Ministry

Congregations on target?
reprinted from the Spring/Summer 2004/05 edition of Essentials

   "No one was single in the church where I grew up", I was told recently by a woman frustrated that pressure was applied to date and to marry. A regular suburban church, open to all, especially if you were married with children. How easily our congregations unintentionally create a target group, even if they stumble upon their paradigm accidentally. What are our blind spots? Whom do we make welcome? Do we have deliberate strategies to target particular cultures or groups in our community? Should churches design targeted congregations in the first place? I suppose I am really asking the question, "What is a church?" Rhys Bezzant works at Ridley College and edits Essentials for fun

   I won't keep you in suspense. I am a big fan of making local congregations intentional in their outreach and ministry, thinking first of all strategically about who lives nearby, why they live there, what ministries are already working with them, and what social networks exist that we can surf on. And then deliberately creating a congregation that connects. Not that I am captured by the demands, selfishness or spiritual myopia of unbelievers around me, but driven by the abundant supply of the Gospel. This strategy is theologically motivated and liturgically principled, not marketing, merchandising or manipulating, against which the apostle Paul warns (2 Cor 4:2). But one size no longer fits all – perhaps it never really did. So what if a largely homogenous congregation results?

   We often merely assume what the ideal demographic composition of a congregation should be, without taking our context into account. Jesus sends out the twelve to further the mission which he had already begun (Mt 4:17-24 cf 10:1-8), but he restricts their mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel – there are good strategic reasons why at this stage of his ministry Jesus targets neither Gentiles, nor Samaritans but the Jews, and asks his co-workers to be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves (Mt 10:16). No commitment here to a diverse and interracial community.

   Indeed, Paul himself, who could insist on Jews and Gentiles being reconciled in the fellowship (Romans 15:7), could also see the merits of establishing the distinction between a mission to the Jews headed up by Peter, and one targeting the Gentiles, to which he would give the lead (Gal 2:1-10). Paul in another way recognises that some people will be better suited to ministering amongst certain people groups rather than others: Titus is not circumcised (Gal 2:3) for his ministry amongst the Gentiles, whereas Timothy did undergo circumcision (Acts 16:3) for his outreach amongst the Jews, though he himself had a Greek father.

   Diverse demographics are never elevated in the New Testament to the chief defining criterion of a church. Even the letter to the Ephesians, often argued to be the foundation charter of a demographically diverse fellowship, perhaps needs some more thought. Paul does make clear that the dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles has been brought down (Eph 2:14) – there is one new reconciled body of believers through the cross (Eph 2:16) – but interracial (dare I say inter-generational) diversity is relativised in the remainder of the letter, since Paul writes of it only obliquely again! Unity is assumed, and the application of the theology of the first half of the letter is the common goal of building up the body of Christ (Eph 4:1-16). A diversity of gifts – yes. A diversity of linguistic, cultural or generational attributes – not necessarily. When household relationships are described in this letter (Eph 5:21-6:9), it is not their necessity in the church which is highlighted but the problems they are causing!

   My basic point is this: unity is often stressed in the New Testament when fractured fellowship forms the background. When trust prevails between various groups in the fellowship, freedom is encouraged to minister in distinct ways appropriate to target groups.

   I remember being at the General Assembly of the IFES (International Fellowship of Evangelical Students) in 1991 in Chicago. The Berlin Wall had just fallen, Yugoslavia was being dismantled, and apartheid in South Africa was on its last legs. A motion came before the floor to allow three distinct student movements in Canada: one French speaking, one English speaking, and one for the Chinese diaspora. It seemed to me a reasonable proposition. But the Germans asked the question, why allow three movements in Canada, when the IFES had insisted upon one united movement in Germany comprising both former East and West university groups. Then representatives from South Africa rose to ask the similar question: why should black and white work together in one movement, as the IFES had requested? The Swiss argued that they had always existed with two distinct movements within the nation, one French and one German speaking. The issue was live in Belgium too, with Flemish and French students. With Timothy and Titus on my mind, I asked why there should not be multiple models of tertiary student ministry. Where there was trust between groups, allow distinct ministries targeted along linguistic or cultural lines. However, where there had been distrust, antagonism or hostility, insist on not just spiritual union but organisational unity. Consistency to the higher imperative of context-specific ministry forms must be our goal.

   For it appears to me that there is a very important distinction to be made between accommodation to culture and concession to sin. Encouraging a target-specific congregation could result from sin in the attitudes of its leaders, despising submission to elders, or a refusal to work cooperatively with others of like mind. Such a concession to sin should be rebuked. On the other hand, targeted ministries may prosper because of support of others not directly involved and because of a clear reading of and accommodation to the culture and networks within which the church is set. Is this not what Nehemiah so masterfully models in his project to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem? He does not homogenise the teams working on various corners and lengths of the wall, making the Tekoites work cheek by jowl with the priests (Neh 3:5 cf 3:22). Rather he uses the natural affinities and synergies of the populace, and assigns to each group the task of working with those like-minded to complete a certain section of the wall. His strategic targeting of labour exemplifies a most useful missiological principle: work with what you've got, and build on what you find in the networks around you, to achieve the goal. He even allows for some self-interest, letting Jedaiah make repairs opposite his own house (Neh 3:10)!

   In all this I am not saying that we should conceive of a church minimalistically. I don't want to run the argument that having an effective outreach exhausts what the church should be. Nor indeed is it enough to think that wherever the Bible is taught, there is church. If an unbeliever came to me and asked what is the bare minimum she had to do to become a Christian, I would want to point out that the very question is wrong-headed: it is not about getting over the line, but serving God with heart, mind, soul and strength (Mk 12:30). A targeted congregation is not excused from the long-range mission of presenting every believer mature in Christ (Col 1:28), using every means possible to spur members on to love and good deeds (Heb 10:24), harnessing gifts, preaching grace, expecting glory.

   We want each church to be all that it can be under God, so we will have to be creative in working towards these aims. It is just that an unintentional variety of social backgrounds in a congregation will not necessarily prevent its members from being immature, "children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of trickery" (Eph 4:14). Maturity doesn't happen accidentally. Neither ought an unintentionally homogenous congregation of elderly women be disqualified from being church on the grounds that it contains no youth. It is just that it has set itself a target passively when it begins each service with a death notice, or if it only prays for those who are sick or bereaved. In fact, every congregation is unintentionally targeted in as far as it uses just one language in the service!

   Targeting is here to stay, because our geographic community has become many and complex micro-communities. We have to be clear-sighted enough to own our previous default setting of some kind of passive targeting, and make our goals deliberate. We don't want to pretend that times have not changed, like the Polish cavalry who at the beginning of WWII went out naively against German tanks. But we do have to be wise in building in checks and balances when we aspire to create actively targeted congregations, exposing cultural blind-spots, avoiding sin, building trust, encouraging gifts, teaching the whole counsel of God according to the learning needs of the ages and stages before us, praying for growth, being filled with the Spirit, and administering the sacraments. We can't change the world overnight. But we can be deliberate in targeting at least some group outside our door. We will certainly never hit if we never take aim.

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	"No one was single in the church where I grew up", I was told recently by a woman frustrated that pressure was applied to date and to marry. A regular suburban church, open to all, especially if you were married with children. How easily our congregations unintentionally create a target group, even if they stumble upon their paradigm accidentally. What are our blind spots? Whom do we make welcome? Do we have deliberate strategies to target particular cultures or groups in our community? Should churches design targeted congregations in the first place? I suppose I am really asking the question, "What is a church?"	Rhys Bezzant works at Ridley College and edits Essentials for fun
	I won't keep you in suspense. I am a big fan of making local congregations intentional in their outreach and ministry, thinking first of all strategically about who lives nearby, why they live there, what ministries are already working with them, and what social networks exist that we can surf on. And then deliberately creating a congregation that connects. Not that I am captured by the demands, selfishness or spiritual myopia of unbelievers around me, but driven by the abundant supply of the Gospel. This strategy is theologically motivated and liturgically principled, not marketing, merchandising or manipulating, against which the apostle Paul warns (2 Cor 4:2). But one size no longer fits all – perhaps it never really did. So what if a largely homogenous congregation results?
	We often merely assume what the ideal demographic composition of a congregation should be, without taking our context into account. Jesus sends out the twelve to further the mission which he had already begun (Mt 4:17-24 cf 10:1-8), but he restricts their mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel – there are good strategic reasons why at this stage of his ministry Jesus targets neither Gentiles, nor Samaritans but the Jews, and asks his co-workers to be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves (Mt 10:16). No commitment here to a diverse and interracial community.
	Indeed, Paul himself, who could insist on Jews and Gentiles being reconciled in the fellowship (Romans 15:7), could also see the merits of establishing the distinction between a mission to the Jews headed up by Peter, and one targeting the Gentiles, to which he would give the lead (Gal 2:1-10). Paul in another way recognises that some people will be better suited to ministering amongst certain people groups rather than others: Titus is not circumcised (Gal 2:3) for his ministry amongst the Gentiles, whereas Timothy did undergo circumcision (Acts 16:3) for his outreach amongst the Jews, though he himself had a Greek father.
	Diverse demographics are never elevated in the New Testament to the chief defining criterion of a church. Even the letter to the Ephesians, often argued to be the foundation charter of a demographically diverse fellowship, perhaps needs some more thought. Paul does make clear that the dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles has been brought down (Eph 2:14) – there is one new reconciled body of believers through the cross (Eph 2:16) – but interracial (dare I say inter-generational) diversity is relativised in the remainder of the letter, since Paul writes of it only obliquely again! Unity is assumed, and the application of the theology of the first half of the letter is the common goal of building up the body of Christ (Eph 4:1-16). A diversity of gifts – yes. A diversity of linguistic, cultural or generational attributes – not necessarily. When household relationships are described in this letter (Eph 5:21-6:9), it is not their necessity in the church which is highlighted but the problems they are causing!
	My basic point is this: unity is often stressed in the New Testament when fractured fellowship forms the background. When trust prevails between various groups in the fellowship, freedom is encouraged to minister in distinct ways appropriate to target groups.
	I remember being at the General Assembly of the IFES (International Fellowship of Evangelical Students) in 1991 in Chicago. The Berlin Wall had just fallen, Yugoslavia was being dismantled, and apartheid in South Africa was on its last legs. A motion came before the floor to allow three distinct student movements in Canada: one French speaking, one English speaking, and one for the Chinese diaspora. It seemed to me a reasonable proposition. But the Germans asked the question, why allow three movements in Canada, when the IFES had insisted upon one united movement in Germany comprising both former East and West university groups. Then representatives from South Africa rose to ask the similar question: why should black and white work together in one movement, as the IFES had requested? The Swiss argued that they had always existed with two distinct movements within the nation, one French and one German speaking. The issue was live in Belgium too, with Flemish and French students. With Timothy and Titus on my mind, I asked why there should not be multiple models of tertiary student ministry. Where there was trust between groups, allow distinct ministries targeted along linguistic or cultural lines. However, where there had been distrust, antagonism or hostility, insist on not just spiritual union but organisational unity. Consistency to the higher imperative of context-specific ministry forms must be our goal.
	For it appears to me that there is a very important distinction to be made between accommodation to culture and concession to sin. Encouraging a target-specific congregation could result from sin in the attitudes of its leaders, despising submission to elders, or a refusal to work cooperatively with others of like mind. Such a concession to sin should be rebuked. On the other hand, targeted ministries may prosper because of support of others not directly involved and because of a clear reading of and accommodation to the culture and networks within which the church is set. Is this not what Nehemiah so masterfully models in his project to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem? He does not homogenise the teams working on various corners and lengths of the wall, making the Tekoites work cheek by jowl with the priests (Neh 3:5 cf 3:22). Rather he uses the natural affinities and synergies of the populace, and assigns to each group the task of working with those like-minded to complete a certain section of the wall. His strategic targeting of labour exemplifies a most useful missiological principle: work with what you've got, and build on what you find in the networks around you, to achieve the goal. He even allows for some self-interest, letting Jedaiah make repairs opposite his own house (Neh 3:10)!
	In all this I am not saying that we should conceive of a church minimalistically. I don't want to run the argument that having an effective outreach exhausts what the church should be. Nor indeed is it enough to think that wherever the Bible is taught, there is church. If an unbeliever came to me and asked what is the bare minimum she had to do to become a Christian, I would want to point out that the very question is wrong-headed: it is not about getting over the line, but serving God with heart, mind, soul and strength (Mk 12:30). A targeted congregation is not excused from the long-range mission of presenting every believer mature in Christ (Col 1:28), using every means possible to spur members on to love and good deeds (Heb 10:24), harnessing gifts, preaching grace, expecting glory.
	We want each church to be all that it can be under God, so we will have to be creative in working towards these aims. It is just that an unintentional variety of social backgrounds in a congregation will not necessarily prevent its members from being immature, "children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of trickery" (Eph 4:14). Maturity doesn't happen accidentally. Neither ought an unintentionally homogenous congregation of elderly women be disqualified from being church on the grounds that it contains no youth. It is just that it has set itself a target passively when it begins each service with a death notice, or if it only prays for those who are sick or bereaved. In fact, every congregation is unintentionally targeted in as far as it uses just one language in the service!
	Targeting is here to stay, because our geographic community has become many and complex micro-communities. We have to be clear-sighted enough to own our previous default setting of some kind of passive targeting, and make our goals deliberate. We don't want to pretend that times have not changed, like the Polish cavalry who at the beginning of WWII went out naively against German tanks. But we do have to be wise in building in checks and balances when we aspire to create actively targeted congregations, exposing cultural blind-spots, avoiding sin, building trust, encouraging gifts, teaching the whole counsel of God according to the learning needs of the ages and stages before us, praying for growth, being filled with the Spirit, and administering the sacraments. We can't change the world overnight. But we can be deliberate in targeting at least some group outside our door. We will certainly never hit if we never take aim.

ESSENTIALS Promoting Christ-centred Biblical Ministry

Congregations on target? reprinted from the Spring/Summer 2004/05 edition of Essentials

Home

ESSENTIALS
Promoting Christ-centred Biblical Ministry

Congregations on target?
reprinted from the Spring/Summer 2004/05 edition of Essentials