Why I Love My Church...[3]

With all the talk of being “missional,” the elders at my church are discussing and critiquing this phenomenon of jargon. It has been helpful and I am looking forward to more posts. I was particularly challenged by Kaiser Keisling’s post this morning. Here’s an excerpt: This leads to one of my questions about the “missional” folks. The pursuit for the indigenous culture sounds like a quest to identify some native, unique, previously unknown culture (like the noble savage) that if we can study and imitate, then we can make ready for conversion. Well, this could be good at many levels, but it can be bad at many levels. What I see of many “missional” folks is that they have identified the “indigenous” culture of their 20-30 something contemporaries and adopted it. Is indigenous culture defined by a geographical boundary or really the same old homogeneous-unit principle? From my vantage point, the missional quest for an indigenous culture is really grandpa’s homogeneous-unit principle with more facial hair and more expensive coffee. (Disclaimer: I think the more facial hair and good coffee one can muster the better.) I haven’t given this lots of thought, but my intuition has always been be well aware of the culture and to do as little as possible to offend the culture, but within the church to develop a culture that is as transcultural as possible through simplicity, timelessness, and thoughtfulness thereby allowing the beauty, truth and power of the gospel to be displayed in all its slendor. In short, it is a Tiffanys approach that I am after I guess. I think in the end that a gift from Tiffanys would be welcome in any culture — how about Linden, Texas? Thoughts?