Flat Earth: Many Bumps Part 4 of 4

This is the end of this small series of thoughts.

Post Colonialism

There is a growing number of people who are desperately seeking to share the gospel and the kingdom in a post-colonial world and way. They are digging through the remnants of people scarred and burned by the colonial way and are trying to re-imagine together a new way of embracing where God is already at work, sharing the story that unites us and to tell it in ways that not only fit the culture, but come out of the culture. For people in different global areas this looks differently and the language is different, but perhaps the hearts of the questions are not so different.

For those of us who find ourselves on the colonial side, we too are feeling the effects of our people’s heritage. We see the carnage left behind and some of us at least are truly sorry, saddened and sickened. We also feel the effects of colonialism in our own culture and world. As we see and experience this post-modern world changing us and the cultures in which we live and move and find our being, we want to re-approach the ways and whys of church. The problem you see is that the method and model have worked before and if it isn’t working now, then it can’t be the model that’s broken it must be the culture that its in. Therefore, the obvious solution is that the culture must change and be formed back into the mold and model that the colonial church has deemed best. Enter the west into the post-colonial new day!

Lots of Bumps

The west and the non-west have not exactly conformed to this colonial model. Whether you find yourself in the East, South or West, you see that everywhere are peoples who are NOT fitting into this dropped in model. Not only are they not fitting into this model, they are not understanding it and increasingly reacting against it. This is not just a reaction to church done the colonial way, it is a reaction to almost every colonial system from government to economics to society.

The reactions however are not uniform, as could be expected from different people shaped by different histories informed by different philosophies and relationships. The reactions and the many sub-cultures that have arisen out of these reactions have created many bumps on this flat world. While we may truly be as connected as ever, able to share more than ever, we are also able to affirm our individualism and connect with others around our specific interests, dreams and passions.

This has created a world in which many of us belong to many different sub-cultures. These groups of people that we identify with only with certain parts of our lives have created a decrease in the value of money and possessions and an increase in the value of true relationships and community. We have become spread so thin among our own many identities and our many sub-groups that anyone who we can trust with the “whole me” is a true friend. The new gold rush may indeed be the running of people, not toward the west, but toward authentic relationships and the places where these just might be found.

The church finds itself in an interesting place in this new bumpy world. There is a desire among some to represent the church as truly the one-stop shopping place for the many sub-cultures to gather and find identity under one umbrella. This would be a move to reclaim the model of broadcasting one message to the masses.

There is also a desire among others to find more and more ways to narrowcast the message of the gospel to each sub-culture, each group in the language and ways of that sub-culture helping it identify the places where God is already at work in their midst and inviting them to live this out in its completion in Christ.

A Convergence?

There’s an interesting convergence developing here. There is a growing number of people who are trying to re-imagine church and faith in this new post-colonial world. These groups often find themselves centered around their attempts to communally live an authentic life of faith. Insert these evolving communities into this flat world full of small bumps of sub-cultures and you have a unique synergy.

The challenge for the emerging church in this new world is many fold. First, they are about finding their own identity apart from just deconstructing and NOT being what was before. Second, they are challenged to continually ask the important missionary questions that would not bring their favorite model of ministry to the place where they find themselves, but would rather identify the work of God in the place where they find themselves and begin to embrace that. Finally, as they develop and grow they must not fall into a neo-colonial mindset, where they begin to teach others that the only right way is their way.

An invitation

I’m writing this a bit as a reporter, a bit as a truth teller and bit as someone trying to re-imagine this new life in this new world. It seems to me that we in the Christian community, attempting to incarnate the gospel wherever it is we find ourselves, should be sharing our stories with one another, challenging each other to discover the missionary questions that we are asking as we find friendship in the little bumps that our millions of sub-cultures provide, and working hard to be authentic people involved in authentic relationships for the sake of authentic relationships.

This is an open invitation to whomever might want to join in this conversation centered around the gospel in a new and developing world. Whether you find yourself on the front, slippery edge of this world, trying to get your footing and yet somehow moving forward at a break-neck pace, or find yourself perhaps identifying more with the colonial or anywhere in between, we want to come together.

We must come together and commit to one another so that we can somehow find out past and our future in redemptive, Jesus-like ways. We must come together and commit to one another so that we can actually be the gospel.