Street Seminary
Am I really here in Chicago to plant churches? Is that really a passion in my heart that trumps all others? Any job that was worthy of Christ’s attention is something I’d be willing to stake my life on, and yet he doesn’t plant a single church in his lifetime. He doesn’t even try. Instead he cultivates the transformed lives of 12 missionaries – 12 world changers – out of the most common people.
Maybe my paradigm is about to change again. Maybe this has more to do with inspiring world changers than about gathering people together. If its just about putting people in a room, which is typically what has defined successful “church planting” and “missions” for the last 3 centuries, and especially during the Church Growth Movement of the last generation. We think that gatherings are important, but they shouldn’t be obligatory.
If someone had just one hour to give to this mission each week, (in today’s hyper-busy world that’s not uncommon), I’d rather them spend it intentionally being Jesus in the world rather than filling a seat in our larger gatherings. This isn’t me bashing on large gatherings, I’m simply thinking about why we gather. Gathering Christians should happen as a natural result of the need to resource each other’s common vision for greater impact – not about coming to receive my spiritual goods and services. (I’ve been hearing about the Divine Commodity, by Skye Jethani, a book about consumer religion in America. I might check it out as I think through this.)
If my role is to “make disciples/missionaries/apprentices” rather than planting churches, and expecting churches to grow organically out of the mission of these disciples, then this must be at the forefront of my thoughts and praxis.
There are so many Christians in America ready to do something meaningful – something world changing. But they don’t feel ready because they’ve never been initiated into the missionary life. Therefore they continue to come crawling back to the Sunday service looking for sustenance to keep them going for another week. Mentors and profs in graduate school gave me the tools to learn about God, and thankfully pointed me to a ever-flowing relationship with God himself…but now I’ve got to take that to the streets – what about a “Street Seminary” that offers the world-changing, peace-bringing, Jesus-living life to everyday Christians?
The first step is persuading them that living as a Christian in the big, bad city is not about survival, its about challenging the Darkness. After that, I’m still thinking…
Tim C, 
