The Out of Bounds Church?: Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change

AUTHOR: Steve Taylor founded Graceway Baptist Church in New Zealand , has a Masters in Theology and is working on a Ph. D. in new ways of being church. He's lead pastor at Opawa Baptist Church and describes himself as a thinker, creator and writer. A lecturer in Practical Theology, he teaches Missional Church Leadership, Emerging Church, and the Gospel in a post-Christian society. He's married with twin daughters. Though his training and church experience leans to the Baptist tradition he seems to be wholly unfettered by any single tradition, being at home with the newest moving of the Holy Spirit. As a practitioner of what he writes, Taylor seems well-qualified to give his reader these snapshots (or postcards) of the emerging church. THESIS OF THE BOOK: "Gospel and culture lie at the core of the emerging church," in which the Holy Spirit is fostering imaginative ways to embody a missional, incarnational and holistic Gospel. PART 1: A paradigmatic cultural shift to a fast/cutting mentality paradoxically both fragments traditional community and provides opportunities for new modes of community. Changes are occurring at the edges of traditional Christianity, in the "border country of postmodernism." Part 2: Coffee drinking can be a spiritual discipline (by allowing one to be present in culture). Emerging churches focus ahead, not behind; on birth, not death; on "God's constant re-creation." God is a God of creativity, play, and fun. PART 3: Spiritual tourism invites "tourists" to move from the experiential to the experimental to existential converts. Redemptive portals draw people into spiritual community. A missional interface allows people to peg , but encourages them to participate in ethical communities. Remixing gospel and culture helps the church stay relevant in a society in which resampling and remixing is a primary communication mode. PART 4: "The emerging church is a toddler" standing on the "fault lines of a cultural shift." REFLECTION: I read this book three times, and each time gleaned a little more encouragement and discovered new potential areas of personal ministry. I particularly resonate with the idea of spiritual tourism, inviting people on "guided journeys" into the spiritual domain. However, I wonder how to make these journeys out of the context of the church edifice, where so many factors can not be controlled. For example, I'd like to apply the concept of spiritual tourism to online role playing games, trying to set up events and situations where my "character" can guide other characters spiritually. The nine "postcards" present snapshots of different aspects of the emerging church. No snapshot is definitive, but in aggregate they create an image of the emerging church as highly varied, rapidly changing, iconoclastic, community oriented and passionate about embodying the Gospel in culturally relevant ways. The greatest benefit for me (and I suspect for most) is in the "proof of concept" they represen

Given that you have eyes to see, and given that you are reading something of the world in which you live, Steve Taylor's opening statement, "We live on the fault lines of widespread cultural change," won't come as any kind of surprise, nor will the resultant challenges we face as churches in our, at once, global / local ("glocal") contexts. Taylor writes, from within the church, both gathered and dispersed. He writes, as he himself says, from the "border country" between church and culture, and has an obvious commitment to ensuring that "the postmodern or emerging church" doesn't become "a fad." He contributes to this aim by articulating a missiology of the emerging church and by offering "theological resources to nourish, deepen, sustain, and strengthen what God is breathing." That said; I would be concerned if mention of the so-called "postmodern or emerging church" limited this book's audience. It has wide appeal and usefulness beyond this particular church grouping. Taylor writes with his senses attuned to "what's going on out there." He writes in order to help us do what Olive and John Drane (in one of the two forewords to this book) describe as finding "new ways of expressing and celebrating Christian faith in a world that is increasingly interested in spiritual meaning, whether that is demonstrated in the search for life-giving ways of nourishing [their] own lives, or as a concern about the apparently destructive capabilities of spiritual fanaticism." They write (and I wholeheartedly agree) that Taylor's book "will speak to all who share these concerns, and do so in innovative ways that draw us deeper into the gospel story, and consequently, closer to Christ." Taylor's book offers his readers a series of "postcards": Postcards 1 & 2, "Beyond Romeo & Juliet", and "Edges of Culture." Here we find commentary on the societal / cultural changes themselves and what some of those changes might mean for churches wanting to `gospel' Jesus Christ faithfully and creatively. His use of the contrast provided by Franco Zeffarelli's 1968 version of "Romeo & Juliet and Baz Luhrmann's 1996 version of the same movie, is compelling. Postcards 3 and 4 ("Koru Theology" & "Creativity Downloaded"). The second set of postcards help us to think about and explore the metaphors of "beginnings," "birth," and "midwifery." They also remind us that God is Creator, and therefore the source of creativity, artistry, and re-creation. Taylor uses these postcards as a means of exploring, both the beginnings of possible responses to cultural change, and also in order to talk about birthing the kinds of communities that will fruitfully communicate and embody Christianity in the cultural milieu of our day. Postcards 5, 6, 7, and 8 ("Spiritual Tourism" (traditionally rendered "pilgrimage"), "Redemptive Portals," "Missional Interface," and "Culture Samplers" These offer possibilities and content for any church congregation seeking to become mission