The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church by Alan Hirsch
Introduction
Alan Hirsch gives an overview of where he wants to go in his book, The Forgotten Ways. That locus is simple. Hirsch wants to answer the question, “How did they do this?”[1] How did the early Church go from twenty-five thousand people to over twenty million in just over two hundred year? How did the Church in China go from two million to over eighty million? How did the explosive growth movements through out the Church’s history do it? The Church in the West is in rapid decline. Hirsch’s proposed premise seems to be that if the Church in the West is to experience not just revitalization but growth, it must answer the above questions and use the answers to transform the Church’s ecclesiological praxis. Hirsch’s answer to the above questions is “Apostolic Genius,” which he lays out as incorporated in these six concepts: Jesus is Lord, disciple making, missional-incarnational impulse, apostolic environment, organic systems, communitas.
Setting the Scene, Part 1: Confessions of a Frustrated Missionary
In this chapter Hirsch sets the tone for The Forgotten Ways by rooting it in his own transformative experience as a spiritual community leader at South Melbourne Church of Christ. Hirsch recounts how he came to lead a dying community that was sprung into a chaotic, but vibrant, existence that transformed the community. The church went on to plant other churches learning about how to engage society in new ways, which Hirsch now claims are the foundation of his insights on becoming/being a missional church.
Setting the Scene, Part 2: Denominational and Translocal Perspectives
Hirsch in this chapter, in a brief summary, asserts as fact that today’s “postmoderness” is much more akin to time of the early Church than the time of Christendom. Thus prompting the question, why is the Church trying to continue to do “church” as if the Church is still in the era of Christendom? Hirsch lays the ground work for why the must re-embrace its missional roots now that it finds itself marginalized on the fringes of society. Hirsch suggest that change most often comes from the fringes of society, thus the church is actually in a position to reengage society, if it is willing and able to become missional.
Section Two: A Journey to the Heart of Apostolic Genius
The Heart of it All: Jesus is Lord
The centerpiece of apostolic genius and mDNA is the fact that Jesus is Lord. Hirsch theoretically breaks down how many Christians are confessing monotheists, but are practicing polytheists. The church has been held captive by the dualistic way it sees society, the separation of sacred and secular. Hirsch shows how when realigned the church can have a holistic view with Christ at the center. Hirsch finishes the chapter by showing to examples of how the dualism can lead to disastrous results.
Disciple Making
Jesus talked with, walked with, and shared life with his disciples. The entrance into ministry, or their discipleship did not take place in a classroom, but rather on the roads they journeyed on with Jesus, their Rabbi (teacher). If Jesus discipled his followers in the midst of mission, through hands on application as well as the dialogical exchange of concepts and ideas that were rooted in the mission, why is it that the church today is content to merely convey ideas through monologue and call that discipleship?
Hirsch touches on a very important topic that the Church needs to answer. Hirsch says, "Please don't get me wrong, we need serious intellectual engagement with the key ideas of our time, What is truly of concern is that such engagement takes place largely in the passive environments of the classroom" (121). I would add that "the passive environments of the classroom" not just removing disciples from the context of ministry, but is also creating a socio-economic boundary to who can be discipled or who can participate in the engagement of the key ideas in the Church.
Missional-Incarnational Impulse
To quote Rob Bell, "Everything is Spiritual." Hirsch in this chapter makes the case that God in the person of Jesus incarnated godself into creation, and thus one can see Missio Dei, meaning the mission of God, lived out in the incarnation of Jesus. The Church has operated under the model of secular and sacred spaces for a long time. A misnomer of the nature of space as dualistic created a culture in the church were we invited people to come to share our sacred space, hoping that that space was attractive enough to draw them in. Hirsch suggests that Jesus' model of ministry was to go into the places that had been deemed secular and make them holy by incarnating the gospel there. In this way every place is spiritual.
Apostolic Environment
Today's top down, tiered style of leadership, I would add even most concepts of flat-line leadership, have diluted the biblical concepts of leadership in the New Testament Church. Hirsch presents what is in essence a cyclical model of leadership that is based on Ephesians 4:11. In this cyclical model of leadership the Church starts with apostolic leadership, which creates space for Prophetic leadership, which creates space for Evangelistic leadership, which creates space for Pastoral leadership, which in turn creates space for didactic leadership. All of the above Ephesians 4 leaders are needed in order to create an apostolic environment in which new church movements can be birthed.
Organic Systems
The multiplicity of the church is dependent on how reproducible the DNA is. Hirsch uses a parable about the inventor of the chess game in order to show how the concept of squared exponentially multiplied the requested reward. To borrow a phrase from Walter Brueggemann and mix it with Hirsch, we have lost our apostolic imagination. This has become an era of cloning versus an era of innovation. There have been some incredibly innovative churches during this time but the majority of churches are just trying copy an irreproducible model.
Communitas, Not Community
Guerrilla wars are not fought by institutional structures. Guerrilla wars are fought by decentralized fighting units that are bonded over their central or common mission. The mission is central not the organization. The organization is free to change and adapt as is demanded by the needs of the mission. America, the “most powerful” military in world, on more than one occasion has been brought to a halt by military forces of far inferior size and strength, because of the implementation of guerrilla warfare. Hirsch’s vision of the Church, as communitas, sounds a lot more like Communist revolutionaries in the jungles of Vietnam, than the highly structural and institutionalized American military lead from the centralized location of the Pentagon.
[1] Page 18
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