A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. (Isaiah 11:1)
In his erratic but occasionally illuminating book, The Future of Faith, Harvard’s Harvey Cox traces the beginning of the emerging church movement to 1990s New Zealand. Whether this is true or not, I recently spent two weeks with New Zealand Baptists, and decided that these fine folk are some of the most interesting, progressive leaders I’ve ever met. I have come to believe that church life in New Zealand provides some clues to what could be coming next to the Mid-Atlantic.
John Chandler
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Unlike the rest of the globe (especially the global south, where Christianity is growing explosively), much of western civilization (western Europe, Australia, New Zealand) has mostly entered a post-Christendom era. That’s a sweeping statement, but more true (I believe) than not. The symbols may be grand but there are empty cathedrals and declining patterns of congregational participation. In the United Kingdom, fewer than 3 percent attend church on any given Sunday.
In simple terms, this means that in these parts of the world, the church is no longer playing a “home game” but is now playing an “away game.” We are no longer at the center of community decision-making, but toward the edge of the conversation — if invited at all.
The United States is fast heading in that direction. Of course, there are micro-cultures within every larger culture, and exceptions to the general rule. But this rule is already more often true than not in the Mid-Atlantic.
One way to watch (and join) God at work in our changing communities is to look for redemptive responses of the church in cultures which are further down the post-Christendom road than ours. New Zealand is such a place. The church is often pushed to the margins of society there.
But God’s people have never let a little thing like Egypt, Babylon or Rome prevent us from faithful witness! As Isaiah put it, some trees may be cut down to stumps, but God sprouts out shoots from the stumps. Some of the most creative expressions of church I have ever seen are thriving in Kiwi-land. We’ll look at some of those clues in coming weeks.
Trending is written by John Chandler, leader of the Spence Network.