Craig Van Gelder offers a robustly theological explanation for the nature of the church that gives a glimpse of how exactly God is present through this group of human beings:

In this view, the Spirit-created church lives as the very body of Christ in the world. Its existence declares that the full power of God’s redemptive work is already active in the world through the Spirit. It lives as a demonstration that heaven has already begun for God’s people. This Spirit-led community possesses all the power of God’s presence, even while it awaits the final judgment of evil that will lead to the creation of the new heaven and new earth.[1]

Van Gelder roots the nature of the church in the activity of the Spirit, in pneumatology. If this is true, then a better way to think of ecclesiology is by using a different set of theological terms that better gets at its nature. The nature of the church is nothing less than an incarnational pneumatology. One of Paul’s favorite metaphors for the church is the body of Christ: “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27).

Such an understanding of the Christian faith takes the burden off of the church to be successful and instead calls the church into faithfulness as it attends to the action of God and follows the Holy Spirit in that action. This moves ministry beyond gimmicks and marketing methods and moves towards discernment and spiritual practice.

Just as the Spirit of God descended upon Jesus (Luke 3:22), so the Spirit descended upon the church (Acts 2:1ff). The church is, therefore, more than a collection of individuals who attest to a past event (as profound and cosmologically significant as that past event may have been) but instead the church bears the message of Jesus Christ within her very being as the church is the current primary means of God’s revelation to the world. Paul’s description of the church as the body of Christ is more than mere metaphor. Indeed, it is a theological assertion that the work of Christ continues through the church. Drawing from Jürgen Moltmann, Anderson agrees when he says, “the messianic mission of Jesus is not entirely completed in his death and resurrection. Through the coming of the Spirit, his history becomes the church’s gospel for the world. The church participates in his mission, becoming the messianic church for the coming kingdom.” [2]

Thus, such a view of the church is more than nineteenth century liberal theology or humanist anthropocentrism but is truly an incarnational pneumatology. The church did not decide upon herself that she should possess such a task and status, but God is the one who elected for the church to be the continuing agent of God through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. In ministry the church continues in the ministry of Christ: “The form of the church is thus incarnational; not another incarnation, but a continuation of the one incarnate life of God in the form of Jesus Christ.” The formation of mature Christians must move past current educational models towards practice-based action, whether that is through ritual and worship or acts of service and justice. Because the Holy Spirit continues to be active in the world, Christian formation must take the form of action.

1. Craig Van Gelder, The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), 32.
2. Ray S. Anderson, The Soul of Ministry: Forming Leaders for God’s People (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 160.
3. Ibid., 139.

f you liked this, you’ll probably like:

• A Trinitarian Model for YM – The Holy Spirit
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• A Trinitarian Model for YM – The Location of Ministry

I agree that the youth ministry does not need to be a completely self-sustaining, segregated, holistic ministry apart from the wider ministry of a local congregation. As Chap Clark says in this book Hurt, adults in general have abandoned teenagers, and the church does not need to contribute further to that. But honestly, most youth ministries still have some degree of significant autonomy apart from the whole life and ministry of a congregation. It may not be as bad as it once was, but I would venture to say that we still spend a fairly significant amount of time in youth ministry still in the one-eared Mickey Mouse mode.

My contention is that perhaps we should use that to our advantage. Mark Ostreicher makes the point in Youth Ministry 3.0 that, in general, youth culture is on the leading edge of culture in general, and to an extent I think he is right. What if, in the church, we used the youth ministry to lead the congregation-at-large towards habits and practices that they otherwise would not consider. When you introduce change in any group there are innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards (see this Wikipedia article for an introduction and The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk for a theological and missional treatment of the subject).

If youth ministers are by nature innovators and teenagers are often innovators and early adopters, then church leadership (youth ministers, pastors, elders, deacons) should look to the youth ministry to set in motion a process of change. Since we are already operating autonomously in certain regards we won’t face some of the hurdles in a youth ministry that you would if you attempted change in the wider congregation. The same thing, and perhaps to an even greater extent, applies to young adult and college ministries.   

In a way, approaching youth ministry this way fights the one-eared Mickey Mouse model. If we want the whole church to begin to move in a certain direction and start by focusing on setting that in motion in the youth ministry, it acknowledges that the youth ministry is connected to and significantly influences the whole congregation. I wonder if this might also apply to dying denominations as well.

So what do you think? Can youth ministries become labs of ecclesial innovation and change? Or am I just being manipulative and trying to force top-down change?

f you liked this, you’ll probably like:

• The 3 Spheres of Youth Ministry
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However, there were some interesting comments made in the press release regarding this brand campaign:

The purpose of the ELCA brand campaign is to grow awareness of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and inspire members to invite others to a worship service.

We could debate whether “growing awareness” has anything to do with evangelism or mission, but I really caught on to the assertion that these advertisements were meant to “inspire members to invite others to a worship service.” The reason that I am so intrigued by this is because the goal is completely separated from the means. The brand campaign focuses solely on the work being done by the ELCA on behalf of God (“Gods work. Our hands.”): feeding the homeless, training literacy to African women, providing medical training, rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina. How this missional emphasis in the advertisements would inspire regular members to invite people to sit in a sanctuary and listen to a sermon and sing to an organ is beyond me. Are we still caught in the mindset that inviting people to a worship service is what is meant when Jesus said, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations”?

I would have rather seen the money spent on these advertisements go towards grants that inspire and facilitate the kind of missional acts of service that are highlighted in the campaign. Churches who can barely afford to pay a pastor might be able to feed the hungry in their town, to train people in a trade, or to offer financial counseling and resources in these economic times. Would that not also grow awareness of the ELCA and inspire people to serve, love, and sacrifice for one another?f you liked this, you’ll probably like:

• More Thoughts on Worship Services
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So, if you want to be a missional church, cut your marketing budget and use that money to send people out to minister in the community.

Next podcast to be posted Thursday.f you liked this, you’ll probably like:

• The Podcast is Legit
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