"Surprised by God" in Utrecht, The Netherlands
By Pat Taylor Ellison

Click here to return to the Church Innovations web site.

In March of 2004 Church Innovations Institute co-founded the International Research Consortium, inviting persons from several continents to help “foster a mutually critical conversation between theology and the social scientific study of Christian congregations and the systems that support them in innovating their life in God’s mission.” We have met six times, twice in St. Paul, MN, twice in Stellenbosch, South Africa, and twice in Europe (once outside Oslo, Norway, and once outside Greifswald, Germany). This year a portion of the Consortium met to attend a conference held in Utrecht, the Netherlands, entitled “Being Surprised by God: Embodied Ecclesiology in Local Contexts,” hosted by ourselves and five other church studies networks.

The plenary sessions featured fine speakers such as British theologians Alister McGrath and Nick Healy, American scholars Chris Scharen and Mary McClintock Fulkerson, and the consortium’s own Norwegian theologian Harald Hegstad.

Among Pat Keifert and my favorite sessions were the ones held by researchers on the ground in local congregations who reported on the culture, community, and practices of lived congregations. One group called Action Research: Church and Society, who works primarily in London but using a team of interviewers and theologians from all over Great Britain, really captured our imaginations in the final plenary presentation of the conference. Clare Watkins and Helen Cameron talked about their work discovering how faith is articulated and lived out, the espoused theology and the lived theology of local churches. This group will be one to watch, and we hope to find a way to encourage their work.

Another group of graduate student researchers from the Protestant Theological University, particularly Veerle Rooze from Leiden, is studying how new churches get established (or don’t) in changing communities in Holland, and how the values and priorities of the community need to be carefully gathered without approaching the community members as persons to be “fixed” or “evaluated” but rather to be learned from and to be in relationship with. I was particularly struck by Ms Rooze’s depth of perception and willingness to be taught by strangers. We hope to be able to work with her on a project someday. Her presentation and others taught us once again how much we have learned in more than two decades of the Partnership for Missional Church, and how God has blessed Church Innovations research staff with partners and indeed questions that are in some ways far ahead of the usual church studies curve.

Pat Taylor Ellison, Ph.D., is the managing director of research for Church Innovations.