On The Verge: The Silver Imagination

(I recently began reading a copy of Alan Hirsch and Dave Ferguson's new book, On The Verge: A Journey Into the Apostolic Future of the Church.  I have been looking forward to reading the book as I have enjoyed the other books that I have read by Hirsch (especially ReJesus).  Over the next few weeks, I will be posting some thoughts from the chapters that I am reading.)

Let me put this out there from the beginning- I loved this chapter.  I'm further along in the book and there is good stuff to come- but as I read The Silver Imagination, it got my juices flowing.  I consider myself a big picture/vision oriented kind of leader...and this chapter in On The Verge challenged my imagination and the imagination of my leaders about what God is doing- and can do in and through our churches.

Alan tells the account of Ivan Illich who was asked what he thought was the most radical way to change a society.  Rather than answering through a violent revolution or gradual reform, Illich said that if one wanted to change society, one must tell an alternate story (pg. 57).  In the church, we have this great story from creation to the final redemption of creation through Jesus Christ- yet we need to find, imagine alternate ways of telling this story as our communities and cultures change.  In the States, as we grow increasing pre-Christian, we must tell the story (and live the story) differently than we did 20 or 30 years ago.  It's a paradigm shift.

The key, according to Hirsch, is imagination.  Hirsch writes that imagination is not just for child's play or fantasy, but is a God-given gift of our mind that allows us to live and minister in creative and new ways.  Imagination allows us to explore possibilities that we have never before considered.  Hirsch writes, "...the fundamental job of apostolic imagination is to produce out of the church we now experience a vision of the church Jesus wants us to experience" (68).

In my previous minister appointment, I was an associate pastor at a church that had been around for over 200 years.  It was an institutional church.  Ministry at this church was most exciting and life giving when our paradigms began to change and we began to imagine a new way of making disciples of Jesus Christ.  I have recently completed my first full year as the solo pastor of a church that is less than ten years old.  While we don't have the institutional baggage of a 200 year old church- we daily wrestle with what it means to be the church because many of our leaders (myself included) operate on an old paradigm of institutional church.  I pray for myself and our leaders that we would pray and create space to use our imagination to become the movement type church that turns the world upside down for Jesus.  I pray this prayer for all our churches that we would produce the church Jesus wants us to experience!

On The Verge: Chapter 1

I recently began reading a copy of Alan Hirsch and Dave Ferguson's new book, On The Verge: A Journey Into the Apostolic Future of the Church.  I have been looking forward to reading the book as I have enjoyed the other books that I have read by Hirsch (especially ReJesus).  Over the next few weeks, I will be posting some thoughts from the chapters that I am reading. 

Introduction and Chapter 1:

In the introduction, the authors liken the current state of the Church to a "phoenix arising from the dying embers of Christendom" as they view the Church of the future.  They believe that the the Christian Church is standing at a pivotal point in history- hence the idea of VERGE...that we (the Church) are on the verge of something new and yet ancient. 

What does it mean to be "on the Verge" or a "Verge" Church?  Hirsch and Ferguson write that what was once in conflict with one another (incarnational or attractional) are now beginning to interact with one another.  This interaction has all sorts of missional implications, according to the authors, including a new paradigm for the Church that "fundamentally altars the nature of the game." The authors believe that the Church can attractional and missional at the same time if the organizational DNA incorporates a both/and approach that is able to contextualize the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Western World.

For most of the first chapter, Hirsch and Ferguson talk about shifts in the Church.  On page 32 the authors write:

"Adopting a Verge church paradigm requires learning what it means to become a more fluid, adaptive, reproducible, viral people-movement.  In other words, it means taking seriously the idea that the church Jesus built- and therefore what he intended- is meant to be more of a movement than an institution."

In short, chapter one is setting up the movement....moving from an institutional church to a movement (or Verge Church).  This is a challenging and exciting step for the Church to consider.

I am currently a pastor in The United Methodist Church.  What was once a great missionary movement in the 1700-1800's has now become an institution.  As I read the opening pages of "On The Verge," my heart rate increased as I considered what the Church could look like if it could once again become a movement rather than an institution.