Missional or Merely Monoculturally Relevant?

A friend sent a book to me to review while I am traveling and teaching in India. Chris is one of those guys who is always striving to learn more and so I was more than happy to review and send him my evaluation of Breaking the Missional Code: Your Church Can Be A Missionary In Your Community.  The bottom line, this book is for (a) church planters in the U.S. or (b) churches who are looking for ways to revitalize their congregations. As I waded through the pages it became obvious the authors are hoping to present a new model for church planting that is relevant for today’s post-Christian context.  The writers reviewed past models, from the traditional church of forty years ago to seeker-sensitive services a decade ago, to today’s emerging church.  In this book the new approach is reaching the unchurched which they call the missional congregation.  

In the end, though they touched on it, the book didn’t didn't break any code as it didn't address some issues that, in my opinion, is the true definition of a missional church -- how to reach our cities cross-culturally.  Let me explain.

The city of my home church has many churches, some which are growing, many which are not.  In this community of less than 50,000 people there has been a huge influx of Hispanics and people from the Marshall Islands and other ethnic groups.  If our little city has such a diversity of people groups, I can only imagine what is taking place in Kansas City, Dallas, Baltimore and other major cities.  Our region of the country has its share of mega-congregations, all vying to out-build and out-program other churches.  What my town needs is a book on how to reach across those cultural boundaries, to the people of other ethnic backgrounds who will never come to a culturally middle class WASP body of  believers. 

The principles of how to go cross-culturally are certainly in this book, i.e. building relationships and finding a “safe” place for non-believers to meet.  The writers even use good missiological terms like contextualization and indigenous forms of worship.  In the book they cite many examples of starting contextually sound congregations among the white middle-class, but they never give one example of how those churches started or partnered with the Asian, Black or Hispanic communities.  While the authors note the shifting demographics of our country they did not, in my opinion, capitalize on that reality in their church planting models.

For many of today’s church growth experts, including this book, contextualization is defined as a different style of music, using the latest media technology and casual dress.  In some ways their arguments are no different than what we talked about 30 years ago.  The term “cutting edge,” no longer seems to be in vogue, but when people talk about reaching their generation with the Gospel they are merely repeating the older arguments for today’s culture. 

So, my final analysis of the book is that it extremely helpful as far as it goes.  For those who are starting WASP churches or for established congregations looking for ideas for revitalization, it’s worth the read.  They give good insights and principles that can be built on and I appreciate their emphasis on church planting multiplication.  However, from a missiological perspective, until the church begins to become Kingdom centric rather than Ecclesia centric we will remain focused on church growth rather than fulfilling the command to go to every panta ta ethne.