What is “Liturgical Gangstas Redux”?

In 2009, Michael Spencer asked some of us across denominational lines to come together as “The Liturgical Gangstas.”  The intent was for Michael to throw a question to Christians of different traditions to see how we would approach the questions and, ostensibly, to help ourselves and the readers to think through spiritual issues more deeply.  We did this over the following year.  I bowed out after Michael’s passing, though I think the Liturgical Gangstas continue on over at the Internet Monk site.  Anyway, in looking through the older content at Internet Monk, I thought I might post my answers to those questions over here, in case they are of use to anybody. (I don’t feel comfortable lifting the entire Gangsta posts from the site, but, in time, I’ll move the questions and my responses here.)

What is the way to go to be the church Jesus is building: Sacramental, Attractional or Missional? And in what mixture? For what reasons?

At the risk of sounding contrary, I want to suggest another name: “incarnational.” This would parallel, somewhat, “missional.” But by “incarnational” I mean that the church ought to show in radical ways that sharply contrast with the prevalent social models in our culture its embodiment of the purpose and work of Christ. The watching world ought to look at the church and see the continuation of the Kingdom life that was revealed most gloriously in Jesus.

It is the antithesis of attractional, as it’s been defined here. The attractional model has sold its soul for a place at the table of culture only to find out that it is perpetually ten minutes late. A Roman Catholic friend told me once that when he left the attractional church and entered into a communion that was infused with the flow of historic liturgy that only then did he “realize how exhausting the constant pursuit of novelty was.” The attractional model will inevitably have to keep raising the stakes on what attracts most, which in many cases will end up being sex. (So Ed Young challenging the members of his church to seven days of sex a few years ago was simply inevitable.)

What I like about an incarnational model is that it will encompass the great strenghts of the sacramental and missional models. For the sacraments draw us into the person and work of Christ (as we Baptists seem to have forgotten). The missional model is, I believe, a glorious example of status quo institutional iconoclasm and an infusion of energy into the stagnant church, and so it is to be celebrated insofar as it draws us into incarnational ministry in our particular context and day.

Finally, an incarnational model strikes at the roots of the altars of the great gods of American Evangelicalism: raw mass and material comfort. In the economy of the Kingdom, the widow with her mite is the richest person in the room, the small congregation that is truly loving and winning its community is the largest church in the world, and the humble, unknown, never-invited-to-speak-at-a-conference pastor who stands in honesty before God and His people is truly the “celebrity” pastor. How nice it would be to see these kind of values incarnated today in the church. Only then will we become what Christ has called his church to be.