{"id":76,"date":"2011-06-04T02:16:08","date_gmt":"2011-06-04T02:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/?p=76"},"modified":"2015-12-09T18:30:09","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T18:30:09","slug":"the-shaping-of-things-to-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/the-shaping-of-things-to-come\/ ","title":{"rendered":"The Shaping of Things to Come"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have heard any of the following terms in\u00a0religious\u00a0conversations as of late, Missional<\/em>, Incarnational<\/em>, Meta-Narrative<\/em>, Post-Christendom Culture<\/em>, being an authentic community<\/em><\/strong>, it was probably encouraged at least in part by this book, \u00a0“The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church<\/a>\"\"<\/strong>“. Both Michael Frost<\/a> and Alan Hirsch<\/a> have done an excellent job in describing what is at the the center of the \u00a0fresh expressions of church that are emerging.<\/p>\n

Frost and Hirsch explain how “Western” society has been moving into what they describe as a post-christendom era. They say, “Christendom has been in decline for the last 250 years<\/em>.” They argue that many are now or many ought to be moving in to a “Missional<\/em>” phase of church expression. One where we are moving away from the many things that defined the era of Christendom, such as Buildings, Institutional\u00a0Centralized\u00a0Leadership, Institutional Sacraments, Church as center of Society, \u00a0and\u00a0ex-tractional\u00a0Conversions.<\/p>\n

[two_third]
\nThe Missional emerging shape of things to come will not be focused on a Church building. The new leadership mode is one that is pioneering-innovative in nature, including the five-fold ministry ethos, not just majoring on the “pastor\/teacher” role. It will move towards being more grassroots and\u00a0decentralized. It Redeems, re-sacralizes, and ritualizes new symbols and events. Church is once again on the fringes of society and culture. The church re-embraces a missional stance in relation to culture.That is a mouth full.
\n[\/two_third]<\/p>\n

[one_third_last]
\n<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

[\/one_third_last]<\/p>\n

They suggest the idea of Shared Projects<\/strong><\/em>. Rather than only doing church based programs, \u00a0instead getting involved in programs and initiatives that are already helping the community.<\/p>\n

There is this group in San Francisco calling itself ReImagine. \u00a0They have been meeting to explore the goal of living in what they call Green space. Green is the goal. The color green is made up of course by\u00a0both the colors yellow and blue . “Yellow space refers to a Christian spirituality that is only concerned with the personal, interior world of faith. It characterizes the classic individualized form of faith the focuses on personal quiet times, Bible study, church attendance and personal moral\/ethical behavior. Blue space refers to an exclusively other-focused form of Christian spirituality, one that takes context seriously and features such activities as social concern, justice-seeking, activism, and public moral\/ethical behavior<\/em>.” These two parts of faith ought to be blended and not separated.<\/p>\n

Rather than being an attractional church, the goal of the emerging church is to be Incarnational<\/strong>. “The incarnational church seeks to infiltrate society to represent Christ to the World<\/em>” A long chapter toward the end is about what they call “the genius of APEPT<\/strong>“. This is the five-fold ministry or functions of disciples: Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, and Teacher. The newer expressions of church are giving a more rounded recognition within the leadership of all these roles, not just favoritism to the Pastor\/Teacher C.E.O. style of things from the past.<\/p>\n

I have read many books in this genre and this one is is quite unique and stands out amongst the rest in many ways. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you have heard any of the following terms in\u00a0religious\u00a0conversations as of late, Missional, Incarnational, Meta-Narrative, Post-Christendom Culture, being an authentic community, it was probably encouraged at least in part by this book, \u00a0“The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church“. Both Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch have done…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,36,57],"tags":[60,134,5,58,62,59,61,63,64],"aioseo_notices":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":45,"label":"Christian Living"},{"value":36,"label":"Church"},{"value":57,"label":"Ecclesiology"}],"post_tag":[{"value":60,"label":"Alan Hirsch"},{"value":134,"label":"Ecclesiology"},{"value":5,"label":"Emerging Church"},{"value":58,"label":"Emerging Theology"},{"value":62,"label":"Incarnational"},{"value":59,"label":"Michael Frost"},{"value":61,"label":"Missional"},{"value":63,"label":"Narrative Theology"},{"value":64,"label":"Post Christendom"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Nick","author_link":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/author\/nick"},"comment_info":5,"category_info":[{"term_id":45,"name":"Christian Living","slug":"christian-living","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":54,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":9,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":45,"category_count":9,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Christian Living","category_nicename":"christian-living","category_parent":0},{"term_id":36,"name":"Church","slug":"church","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":44,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":36,"category_count":4,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Church","category_nicename":"church","category_parent":0},{"term_id":57,"name":"Ecclesiology","slug":"ecclesiology","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":68,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":57,"category_count":4,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Ecclesiology","category_nicename":"ecclesiology","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":60,"name":"Alan Hirsch","slug":"alan-hirsch","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":72,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":134,"name":"Ecclesiology","slug":"ecclesiology","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":70,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":2,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":5,"name":"Emerging Church","slug":"emerging-church","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":6,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":7,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":58,"name":"Emerging Theology","slug":"emerging-theology","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":69,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":2,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":62,"name":"Incarnational","slug":"incarnational","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":74,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":59,"name":"Michael Frost","slug":"michael-frost","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":71,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":61,"name":"Missional","slug":"missional","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":73,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":63,"name":"Narrative Theology","slug":"narrative-theology","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":75,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":2,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":64,"name":"Post Christendom","slug":"post-christendom","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":76,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingtheology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}