Len Hjalmarson over at Allelon has also blogged about Tom Sine’s article and the identification of the four streams that seem to characterize the current re-imagining of church. He focuses on Missional, Emerging and Monastic, confessing little contact with the Mosaic (multi-cultural) stream.
I enjoy Len’s insightful reflections on these streams, and his analysis of how each helps to balance the other. New to me is the connection of chaos theory and the emerging stream. He is absolutely right that all these streams need to inform each other.
In fact, continues Len, “I’m convinced that the convergence zone is where some of the most creative experiments will occur.” If you have a hard time with the notion of the church experimenting, you will be challenged by his reference to Elizabeth O’Connor:
“We would say that the church of Christ is never an experiment, but wherever that church is true to its mission it will be experimenting, pioneering, blazing new paths, seeking how to speak the reconciling Word of God to its own age. It cannot do this if it is held captive by the structures of another day or is slave to its own structures…” (Call to Commitment, 1963)
These words are so helpful for my church as it tries to figure where it needs to go to address the missional challenge before us. We need to hear that if the church is true to its mission, it will be constantly experimenting, and working to communicate the gospel faithfully in each cultural moment.
A side note on the Mosaic stream. I rightly/wrongly associate this stream with my friends that have been burdened for planting multi-ethnic churches. I wonder if it was birthed in reaction to the Homogenous Unit Principle. I think you can also find some crossover with the Kingdom values of reconciliation and social justice issues. Mosaic makes it onto the diagram above… somewhere.
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July 26th, 2008 at 12:37 am
[...] The Hsu’s Views » Blog Archive » Missional, Emerging, Monastic Responding to Len Hjalmarson’s thoughts on Tom Sine’s four streams of the incoming church. It’s gotta be good stuff; the author’s a BGU D. Min student also. (tags: monastic emergingchurch missional christianity) [...]