| Bridge Communities Built Through Real Relationships and Partnerships with Community Members Click here to return to the Church Innovations web site. This article is a continuation of the newsletter series on the Partnership for Missional Church (PMC). We began with a “50 000 feet” overview in the March 2007 newsletter, followed by an article on “What is Missional Church” in June of 2007 and a brief overview of the first year of PMC in the September 2007 newsletter. The series continued with a brief overview of the second year of PMC in the December 2007 newsletter and Risking Failure...Experimenting Explained in September 2008. In Phase 2 of the Partnership for Missional Church we talk about Missional Experimenting and forming Bridge Communities. I explored Missional Experimenting in the last issue. Here I take a look at a couple types of bridges to understand what we mean by Bridge Communities. Recently Pat Keifert was at the Cathedral of Bath and Wells training teams that will launch several PMC clusters in 2009. In order to enter Church you must cross the drawbridge over the moat. This is literally a fortress church because over the centuries it has needed to withstand the attack of enemy armies. While we don’t see any “fortress church” architecture in the United States, that mindset has captured much of the Church. We are all too aware of the differences between ‘in here’ and ‘out there’ or ‘us’ and ‘them’. With this mindset, mission work becomes teams sallying forth to provide service and care for the less fortunate of the community. In Prague, the St. Charles bridge spans the river connecting the Castle and Cathedral with the city. If you attempt to cross it after 9 a.m. you will have to push your way through a crowd of vendors and shoppers who fill the bridge from shore to shore. Through the ages this is where the people from the town met the people from the country to trade wares and news. It was a bi-cultural community where people from different parts of society and culture met, mingled and belonged because of their shared lives and work on the bridge. Which image is more reflective of the community Jesus formed during his life among us? He seems to have hosted gatherings of people who had no earthly reason to be together: Pharisees, Sadducees, zealots, centurions, tax-collectors, sinners, poor, rich, men, women, disciples, unbelievers and enemies. In these multi-cultural communities, he taught the crowds, healed the sick, broke bread and invited people to join him in the work of the Kingdom of God. During the second year of PMC, congregations learn to connect with the people God has brought to their attention in Phase 1. They do this through two congregational practices: Plunging and Hospitality Groups. Plunging is done as individuals or pairs enter the hospitality of the “stranger” God has sent them to meet. Hospitality is practiced by already existing groups in the congregation who welcome the “stranger” into their midst. Through these complementary practices of going out to the stranger (Plunging) and welcoming the stranger (Hospitality), PMC congregations build real relationships and partnerships with community members they have not known. These are bridge communities. This Phase is called Missional Experimenting because in the process of building these bi-cultural bridge communities, congregations discover that it is harder and riskier than they had realized. Their ventures don’t get the results they expect and there are many excellent failures. What they learn is that they are more accustomed to thinking and acting like fortress churches than they even realized. These habits need to be unlearned so they can become part of building bridge communities where Christ welcomes them and the community. It is in the bi-cultural bridge communities that congregations come to really understand what God is doing in the community. It is not what God wants the Church to do for the community…it is what GOD is doing and wants both the Church and community to join. What kind of bridge connects your church with the community? A drawbridge that protects your fortress church from the threat of its enemies in the region? Or a bridge community where the congregation and its neighbors share life and hope and God’s mission? Bob Armstrong is director of Partnership for Missional Church in North America. |
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