I recently had the privilege of enjoying the hospitality of the Englewood Christian Church of Indianapolis. This congregation isn't as well known as Saddleback, nor has its pastor (Michael Bowling) ever been interviewed by Larry King, but its story is as exciting as any told by Joel Osteen.
Even a partial list of the community projects supported by Englewood is remarkable: a lawn care business, bookkeeping and PC-repair services, and a bookstore with on-line ordering capability. All of these benefit neighbors in the streets around the church. The church's largest area of outreach has been in the housing sector, where it has helped more than 25 householders become homeowners in their neighborhood.
What makes this story particularly impressive is not just what the church is doing but how it got into the position to make it all possible. Englewood's history over the past 100 years is in many ways the case history for mainline Protestantism: once one of the largest churches in Indiana until “urbanization” led to a loss of members, it faced a struggle to survive financial and numerical freefall. I won't recount the full story (it's available on the church website) but I do wish to lift up for consideration the three Scriptural convictions that guided their path to renewal and dialogue:
• The church must pursue one-mindedness.
• Assembly is for the purpose of edification.
• Godly discernment must take place in assembly.
These conversations (every Sunday evening) took place in a congregation that within 20 years had shrunk from more than 1,000 to 250 people.
I can't help wondering whether their numbers made it possible.
While we are being inundated by the campaign ads of various presidential contenders, each of whom promises to transform, I can't help wondering how a nation of 300 million can discern anything. Wendell Berry has observed that it's impossible to think globally and act locally because of the vastness of scale. The globe is an abstraction, and what is real for any of us are our families, our schools, our neighborhood and our churches. Any change will take place there, or it won't take place at all.
This is what the Baptist emphasis on the autonomy of the local church — at its best — is all about. The emphasis on the local is not an assertion of rights over or against a national convention or the church catholic. Still less is it a vehicle for the implementation of national programs. The local church is the place where the gospel is embodied.
Above all, the local church is the place where the voices of the congregants matter in discerning the call and the vision of the larger congregational body. As Paul wrote to the early Corinthians, “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.” There must be, therefore, some economy of scale that allows space for each member to speak and to be heard.
While this practice, as Englewood discovered, is messy, costly and painful, it also embodies a kind of “localist” economics — an economy not based on bureaucratic structures but based on love. This might sound cheesy or idealistic. But at a place like Englewood the economic focus is not on getting rich people to give money but on how individuals envision the kingdom of God in the concrete place where they exist.
As Englewood tells the story, “What has emerged from all of this activity has been a community of faith imperfectly but intentionally bearing the transformative gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a community church immersed in the real stuff of life. What better placement could there be for the leaven of God's kingdom come on earth?”
Beth Newman is professor of theology and ethics at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond and can be contacted at bnewman@btsr.edu. This article was distributed by Associated Baptist Press.