Abstract
The missional church concept promises to guide local churches in the direction of a new identity and mission. It is a response to a sense of ecclesiological and congregational urgency that is felt all over the world. In Africa, North America and Europe, churches and local faith communities have been challenged by the changes in the religious state of affairs since the 1960s. Whether we still call it �secularisation� or rephrase it as �differentiated transformation�, the face of religion is changing globally. In many parts of the world, this raises a feeling of crisis that gives way to the redef nition of the mission and purpose of the church. �Missional church�, however, is a precarious concept. Nobody disagrees with the intention but can it be more than an inspiring vision? In order to realise this vision, a multi-layered and multi-dimensional analysis of �culture� is essential. We should move the analysis beyond the philosophical interpretation of relatively abstract and evasive macro-level processes, such as �modernity� and �post-modernity�. The future of the missional church depends on a differentiated and empirical, informed perspective on culture. For this purpose, this article proposes the concept of ecology: A system of diverse populations, including populations of congregations and faith communities, that interacts with these populations and with their specific environments. Preparing a missional congregation for the future should be accompanied with a thorough empirical investigation into the ecology of the congregation. We should be thinking intensively about and looking for vital ecologies.
Highlights
There is an anecdote about a meeting between Hans Hoekendijk, on the one hand, and Peter Beyerhaus and Donald McGavran, on the other
Hoekendijk died in 1975 but, a couple of years before his untimely death, he met Beyerhaus and McGavran: In 1973, just a year ahead of the Lausanne conference on world evangelisation, Hoekendijk was invited for a discussion with the two ‘big shots’ of the evangelical movement
Beyerhaus and McGavran repudiated him as a suspected ecumenical and blamed him for preaching a secular gospel of humanisation
Summary
There is an anecdote about a meeting between Hans Hoekendijk, on the one hand, and Peter Beyerhaus and Donald McGavran, on the other. The Christian congregation should be a paroikia, a group of nomad people, free to relate to whatever form or structure; koinonia means an open and flexible community, directed at establishing significant signs of the kingdom of God in this world (Hoekendijk 1964:21–31) Hoekendijk put down these thoughts more than four decades ago, when he was a prominent figure in the missionary and ecumenical discourse. Theology students in the Netherlands nowadays, hardly know who Hoekendijk was The reason for this may be that they are more on par with Beyerhaus and McGavran but it may be that Hoekendijk’s apostolic theology was too radical, according to his Dutch colleagues Berkhof and Van Ruler. ‘The times they are a-changin’’, according to one Bob (Dylan) Zimmerman; ‘The Great Society’ (Hoekendijk 1964:35–41) reached the Netherlands and the ‘fourth man’ – beyond Christianity, the church, the bourgeoisie, the self, religion – announced his advent (Hoekendijk 1964:56–71)
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