the métissage of the church
this map does not represent countries that i've visited. it is a map of the origins of the people that make up my daily life, people that i know by their first names, that are my church, are welcomed into our home and my family into theirrs; people that I actually see and talk to every week if not every day.
i live in a richly multicultural world and i love it. sometimes i wonder how i can possibly even do my job, having never visited africa and the "younger churches" of the Southern Hemisphere. it will happen soon. i really must go.
i've received serveral e-mails lately asking me to jump into the conversation on the "emerging church". if you browse some of the links in the left margin under "blogs i read," you’ll quickly find a hot and bothered discussion among insiders trying to "define" the so called "emerging church" movement…or not. i must admit that this discussion represents my country of origin, but it's not where i live and work today.
it seems to me that the "emerging church" discussion has essentially grown out of a cleavage between sub-cultural expressions of the church within Anglo-Saxon cultures. i suspect that the usage of the word "culture", as in the "emerging culture", springs from an essentially monocultural world view and actually means "subculture". anyway, the "emergent culture" seems to be an essentially english-speaking, white boy's world (sorry girls and the rest of the planet). it seems these boys don't want their "father’s Oldsmobile" anymore (yes, girls and boys, i’m provoking you). i must agree with this much: someone has disengaged the parking brake on this shiny relic, the “modern, western church,” and has sent it coasting driverless (even purposeless ;-) toward an eminent and brutal collision with a post-modern present. I'm not claiming to even know what post-modern means (before you do, read this), but i do agree that the shift is real, radical, and sprawling.
However, I don’t find much in the “emergent” conversation that helps me to understand the multi-cultural suburbs of Paris, as “post-modern” as this context is or might be. I have to go to Africa for that...or at least talk to my neighbors. It seems to me my “emergent” cyber-friends could also learn something about what God is doing in the world if they looked South (and I’m not talking about New Zealand) or simply opened their eyes to the “ethnic” churches springing up all over western urban centers and their understanding of "post-modern" phenomena.
I’m especially surprised that the “emergent” voices from London don’t have more to say about immigration issues and the multicultural landscape of that city. The younger, Southern churches may not be emerging from post-modern, anglo-saxon cultures but, be assured, they are overflowing into them at a rate that no one will be able to deny for long. Can’t you see ?
Take off your Oakleys, dude, and maybe you’ll see the emerging métissage of the church. There's a whole world, a real world, going on outside your blogoshere.
The center piece of our epoch in church history is that the vital center of global Christianity has moved to the Southern hemisphere. This phenomenon has been called the “browning” of the church. I am precisely interested in the point of contact between Christian Africa and Post-Christian France, the place where I live and work everyday. Can anyone help me?
In church history, the weak, the foolish, the poor and the marginal have often shamed and overcome the wise, the strong, the rich, and the popular. In Jerusalem, they asked, can anything good come out of Nazareth? In Paris, we ask, can anything good come out of Africa? What is God up to today? I want to learn. I want to see..
great post! i completely agree that emerging church has to be global. maybe blogs don't help this side of the conversation?
i'm very keen to learn and see how the conversation can join up with other parts of the world as well as other cutures in our cities - you throw down the gauntlet to us in london!
one of the things i have enjoyed about cms is that it is global - i am hoping like you to travel and listen and learn....
Posted by: jonny | 02/11/2004 at 14:47
jonny, let's travel together. when do you want to go?
Posted by: Jonathan Finley | 02/11/2004 at 14:57
Awesome post - and one that touches on values that I cherish.
Posted by: roland | 02/11/2004 at 15:29
you are so right!
we do have on western, white glasses!
thanks for reminding us that our god is a global god and boy does he have something up his sleeve....and he has really, really big sleeves!
even in the midwest, we need to be so aware of the influx of "new" folks to our "white" world. we have a hispanic population that is continuing to grow, and our poor ability to relate to aftrican americans in our city have been seen and heard world wide!
thanks for saying the truth and for reminding me that in the usa atleast, we too often forget what god is doing all over the place.
i'd love to join you and jonny on your african adventure! lilly
Posted by: lillylewin | 02/11/2004 at 18:13
Jonathan.... this post is a perfect example of why I love reading your blog!! :)
I have been meaning to email you and ask you about this for a while. I have looked through most of your pictures and your videos and I noticed the multicultural flavor of your church and I wondered what your thoughts were on this stuff. It's awesome to see someone on the same page!! Bless you man! You are a real gift from God!
Posted by: jamie | 02/11/2004 at 18:54
Salut Jonathan, what a wonderful post. Much that is a wonderful challenge to us all, including remote locales like down here in New Zealand. It expresses much that is a dream for many of us too. Merci Beaucoup.
Posted by: Paul Fromont | 02/11/2004 at 20:09
You pegged it man....
I'm white, Canadian and male...yet I am a child of immigrants..go figure.
This whole multi-cultural aspect of His church....it's the point. Whether it's black, white, red or yellow...or punk, rocker, business man, skid or millionare...at the foot of the Cross Dewd...our equality is shown.
I pray for a true understanding of what God "has up his Massive Sleeve" And I join you in a desire to see what the "browning' of the church brings. But I don't have to go to Africa, I can just go downtown.......talk to people and get to know them.
If you do go to Africa...man soak some in for me though, OK?
Come Lord Jesus and free us from our Oakleys..
God bless, Peace Out.
Posted by: Ray | 02/11/2004 at 22:02
Well said! Very well said!
Posted by: James | 02/12/2004 at 03:14
Yeah - we need to listen to and learn from all the different voices. Others outside of our cultures can breathe new life into things that we've given away as old and stale. Not only that but they can often point out the "log in our eye".
Posted by: Stephen | 02/12/2004 at 08:36
Great post and so true..it is good to read a good blog from France..Merci
Posted by: Frederic | 02/12/2004 at 15:28
.... and that the African believers - and South Americans too - can teach Westerners a thing or two about efective mission among the surrounding culture.
Posted by: dave | 02/12/2004 at 21:49
applause,
the one PS I would want to add is that many non-western cultures have not yet felt the full ravages of postmodernity and when they do, the lessons of the emerging church in the west could be helpful. brazilian missionaries go to UK and boy do they struggle, as modern hits postmodern. we all have much to learn from each other. we all speak with accents and work in unique local contexts. this is the kingdom. peace.
Posted by: steve | 02/13/2004 at 11:46
having worked in Tanzania for 7 years and now in UK for the last two I think there is a connection between pre-modern and post-modern cultures (although there are significant differences too) such that in a few years time we might realise that modernism/enlightenment was just a 200 year blip in cultural history ... on the other hand it might not go away that easily ... but looking for the connections between the pre and post modern could be very fruitful.
Posted by: Nigel Rooms | 02/13/2004 at 14:18
This is the first blog I've read in a long time that makes me remember why I love and long for the church. thankyou.
Posted by: cheryl | 02/13/2004 at 22:38
True
Convicting
A voice we need to hear
Posted by: Bill Finley | 02/14/2004 at 07:27
"I am precisely interested in the point of contact between Christian Africa and Post-Christian France, the place where I live and work everyday. Can anyone help me?" - thyis statement struck me , because I'm in a post-colonial but probably more pre-Christian (or at least more predominant muslim & non-Christian context) would that be a closer contact with a post-Christian France? Thanks for this blog ... it nudged me to think deeper
Posted by: Sivin | 02/15/2004 at 08:06
Yeah, you got me. I know my own points of contact with the Southern Church don't get beyond charity stuff and justice/injustice thinking. Certainly I've not been willing to learn much.
You've really challenged me Jonathon, thanks
Posted by: Ben Askew | 02/17/2004 at 19:30
Thanks for sharing that link, Jonathan. You said so much better what I was wanting to express.
I will direct people to read this.
We need to hook up and talk some more.
Posted by: Todd | 02/14/2005 at 09:18
Great stuff. Just quickly for the moment: I've been trying to start church in a muslim area of Burkina Faso, and have been writing occasionally, trying to relate that perspective back to the UK - the latest post was http://voiceinthedesert.netfirms.com/keith/archives/2005/02/emerging_church_3.html
Look forward to more on this
Posted by: keith | 02/27/2005 at 16:05