I had a great time meeting with my friend Ben Ingebretsen over in Grand Rapids on Friday (thanks again Ben!). We shared stories with each other and laughed often.
One story he shared really hit me. Ben had recently traveled out to Los Angeles and attended a gathering at Mosaic (Erwin McManus' community). The space was approx. 500 church leaders and the first thing that was shown was a 10 minute video about a guys experience attending Mosaic (which I've tracked down as a guy named Carlos who blogs at ragamuffinsoul.com) - the video has been taken offline by request of some employees of Mosaic even though Erwin was big enough to play it AT mosaic.
Apparently, you see this guy's experience from his perspective as he holds a video cam and talks in the background. From what Ben shared, he was a bit less than flattering regarding how no one would come up to him and invite him in and had interesting comments about the forms of worship and so on. (It should be said that he also shares his love for Mosaic on his blog)
This really hit me as a person who is actively seeking a deeper ecclesiology in my local context which hopes to be embracing rather than protesting/against and hopes to be welcoming to all people. While I do believe that our "model" of a simple church is a great form for us, I do not believe that it is neither new nor the "right" or "better" form than any other existing form as God's Spirit continues to begin new works today in local communities, and that looks and feels different from town to town, and block to block.
One comment Ben graciously added was that our simple church form already circumvents the tension that Erwin is experiencing, it dawned on me later that we have the opposite tension in that while people will not engage our communities and find themselves not being "known," however it also will tend to scare away people who don't like the sociological atmosphere of close space community. This is something we've wrestled with for years. What do we do about the portion of the population who are terribly uncomfortable with what we've called "forced intimacy" (while we do not forced closeness nor do we understand intimacy as a room of 15 people).
Our idea is to provide access points for all types of people, in that we want to create more public spaces of belonging for people that seeks to belong with a larger form of community before getting uncomfortable with a smaller band of friends. (it should also be mentioned that we borrow much of our language of belonging from Joe Meyers book "The search to belong")
Now, here's the real rub. How do we re-think "Church" for our local context without throwing out what is beautiful about the contemporary ecclesiology and yet moves forward from and with this? How do we invite participants into this anciently new way of living out faith in community while shedding the "bait and switch" tactics of modernity? It is in the middle of this tension in which we live, and I believe that this tension is beautiful. For many, the word tension is negative. Yet, to the ancient Hebrews "tension" was celebrated and understood to be a natural way of understanding and experiencing the Torah from God. It was in the midst of this "mid-rash" (truth in tension) that they dialogued about the Truth in God's Word and how that moved them to live out their "with God" life.
So, we at Tapestry try to celebrate the beautiful mystery and depth of God's Word and struggle daily with what these things all mean to our living out this faith of ours locally/global.
We don't pretend to have it all figured out, nor do we say that our "way" is better than any other. In fact, we seek to develop close relationships with other local bodies of Christ people to learn, grow and celebrate with.
Peace to you...
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