What If…

As part of evaluating the strangers and barbarians in their midst, the missional community looks for opportunities to get to know them better. A great way to extend this “get to know you” phase beyond the surface or beyond what can be gleaned over coffee or even a meal is to follow the model of St. Patrick and find a place of service around a common cause. In either instance, meeting to get know each other or serving together, the idea is that there is a safe place for the process of freedom can happen.

As the guest is invited into the life of the individual or the community, more time is spent together. The stranger or barbarian gets to see how a Christian or a Christian community lives, works, thinks and worships. It is in this time that questions can be asked and matters of faith can be brought forward.

And finally as the newfound friends makes the decision, after what may be a long period of time, to follow Christ they are now family and should be treated as such. Here, I believe, needs to be an, for lack of a better term, initiation moment or process. This could be simply a communal celebration of baptism or maybe even a catechism process. One way or another the new family member and the community need to know that there is someone new at the table who has undergone a fundamental change in their identity. They are not what they were. At one point they were foreign to the community but now they are the closest of kin; they are a brother or sister who have a seat at the table. They come bringing their stories and their gifts, talents and resources to be offered up to the community and to Chris for the advancement of the Kingdom there!

Much of this process could and should be built around the sharing of meals. The table should be a safe place – an equalizer. The guest should get the full attention of the host which may possibly be even more important that the food. With new guests this should happen regularly as it provides for space to get to know each other.

There are two major pitfalls that have become apparent in considering going forward in this light. One is that the missional community takes into the exurb the idea that they are offering hospitality as the world offers it. Hospitality is not an event or a medium by which people are made comfortable to move them to a desired end. Hospitality for the community must be bound in creating space for God to work in the life of the guest; the community does not create the change. God does.

When thinking about worldly versions of hospitality, the missional community must be sure that it as well does not come off as just another entrepreneurial entity that is set on winning clients in the exurbs. The goal is not to get people to be a part of the club or come to the event or serve for their goals. The goal is to open our lives up to others in the sincere desire that they may become more fully human in our eyes and that they may know our God more fully.

The second pitfall is that as missional communities transition to a stance where hospitality is a way of life, its members must realize what the vision is. They must understand what it means to be hospitable. If they don’t, some will never open up their lives because there notions of hospitality will be stuck in outdated ideas or misconstrued notions of what it means to be hospitable. They may be leery of opening up to others because they believe they are expected to provide an event. They must know that the food is enough and that the goal is to just help people end up in the family.

Finally, the act of hospitality must be framed for what it is. It is not just a service or a characteristic. It is worship. For centuries our worship gatherings have been framed by a liturgy an order to what we are doing but the word liturgy actually means “the works of the people.” Liturgy is the community bringing its gifts to honor the King. When we go out and serve and open up our hearts, lives and homes we are serving. When we do this as a community we are bringing our gifts together. Maybe we could say we are bringing our works together. We are creating worship. Recognizing that every person is sacred maybe this is what James meant when he said, “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” (James 1:27 NLT) The true pure religious activity is to work together with the people.

I believe this is the call of the community. This is what moves them from just being a community to being a missional community. It is a commitment to serve their neighbors by embracing a lifestyle of hospitality. By taking a stance with a community that is open, vulnerable and available, each individual then as part of the missional whole, gets to participate in bringing the Kingdom to the exurbs and to truly worship our God.

After reviewing the precedent literature in the areas of American exurbs, biblical hospitality and missional communities, I believe that there are transferable principles that can aid in the formation of missional communities in exurban America. There as well pitfalls and dangers that need to be examined also as leaders move toward implementation of these gleaned concepts.

In a reality defining act, the missional community must help people regain a theology of place. Exurbanites are constantly looking to where they must drive to work, to the next place they need to be, or to the next house they want or the place that they want to live. With what has been learned about the residents of the exurban areas it is safe to say that the vast majority are distracted and feel no real ownership in their communities. They see their time there as transitional so there is no need to be invested or at the end of the day they are just too tired.

The missional community then serves as a centering force for the exurbanite. They should become hubs of activity on the street or in the cul-de-sac. They are productive centers where exurbanites can look out of their window and see that something fruitful something good is happening here. This will help combat the prevalent notion that anything of value is always somewhere else.

Like Zacheus who was left to be a light where he was, missional communities must claim their space as redeemed people at street level. Jesus says that his father is always at work (John 5:17) and the missional community embraces this idea and looks for opportunities to join in.

Methodology here becomes important, as we are welcoming people out of the edges and into the presence and work of the King. The people of God have for years carried the three-step idea as a marker for what the process of hospitality looks like. The process involves evaluating the stranger, welcoming him or her as a guest and sending him or her out as a friend. I argue that this three-step process needs a fourth step as missional communities seek to impact the exurbs of America.

Evaluation is an essential; the community and its members must be honest about how they see individuals or families around them. The evaluation of the person(s) that we are pursuing with hospitality helps define who the person(s) really are and helps make them more human. It helps the community member to shelf pre-conceived notions about the person and from this day forward to treat them out of respect based upon who they really are. In the exurban context this may take multiple conversations, shared encounters or meals.

The next step of welcoming the stranger into our space leads to opportunities to know the person at a deeper level. It is hear that the guest is transitioned from stranger to friend as they are becoming more fully human to us. Here expectations levels are raised as the guest/friend and the host glean what they can expect from each other. Trust is built as tasks are shared or stories are exchanged.

It is at this point that I begin to argue for a difference in the pattern. The next step is to send them out as a friend with the caveat they comeback to become family. Our goal as Christians is to create family and in a world where friend can mean anything from a best friend, to a dating relationship, to an acquaintance at Starbucks, or to a networked person on Facebook we need to delineate that our goal is that the stranger eventually becomes a family member.

Family members are resourced differently, loved differently. They are sought out differently. They are tracked differently and contacted differently. They are held to accountability differently, at a higher level as more is expected from them. In all of these instances the standard is higher and our goal is to see each and every street become one big family of God. The missional community can facilitate this at street level if it has solid vision as to why it is there and what the ultimate goal is.

Families in the south, where I have lived all of my life, have family reunions. We get together and share meals and stories. We reflect on the time since we last gathered. My family does this yearly but the missional community with members that live within eyesight will do this more frequently both formally and informally do to proximity. The family must and will reunite when new family members are being added regularly and when there are stories to tell, needs to be met or hurts to be expressed. Simply put the missional community wants the stranger and the barbarian,

*To be seen for who they really are and given the opportunity to become fully human.

*To be welcomed as guests and for the guest and the host to be more fully known.

*To leave not as a stranger but as a friend recognizing the new bond that exists between them.

*To comeback and continue the relationship as family where the guest, the host and the larger community live, love, hope, dream, hurt, serve and worship together

This larger four-step map serves as a great guiding framework for the ultimate goal of the community but it does not speak to specific methodology. It is at this juncture that I believe that the methods of St. Patrick can have huge impact in how the missional community lives in the exurbs.

Missional communities are committed to having the interests of others first. They see themselves as the body of Christ; they empower people to daily mission. They look to join God in what he is doing where they live and finally they exist to know God and be known by Him and others. Matt Smay and Hugh Haulter lay out a rhythm of missional living that calls communities to live out of mission, communion and community (Halter and Smay 2008). The rhythm or way of live invites all members to be on mission to seek communion with God and live out biblical community. This means that missional community members live in such a way that there is space to commune with God their creator. They recognize that they are “sent ones” and are looking for opportunities to bring the kingdom to Earth[1] and finally have time and space for community where friends, food and life are shared. But it is not enough for the community to simply know each other. The community exists for its host – the surrounding community. St. Patrick recognized this as he sought to evangelize the Celts and worked to know those in his midst, work with them to meet immediate contextual needs, discuss spiritual matters along the way as they arise, and eventually invite the stranger or in his case the barbarian into faith in Christ (Hunter 2000).  

George Hunter points out that to convert people to a real faith in Jesus the people of the land had to know who Jesus was. Since there was a language barrier the best way to do this was through the lives of the Christian community (Hunter and Ebooks Corporation. 2002). St. Patrick and his community moved into the Celtic space and got to know the people. They shared stories (often through plays), they shared meals and they shared their lives with the inhabitants. St. Patrick knew that there was no shortcut to knowing people so his community committed for the long haul (2002:20).

Previous Roman models of evangelism had been based on a model of presentation, decision and then fellowship. St. Patrick upended this system and sought fellowship first, followed by ministry and conversation that gave way to belief and an invitation to commitment (Hunter 2002:53).

Much like St. Patrick, we find ourselves in the midst of a world that doesn’t understand us. We speak the same language but we really don’t or maybe it’s that we shouldn’t. We share common spaces but we don’t really share the space. Our lives look similar but we are a million miles apart. We make speeches or presentations but the surrounding culture is either not listening or doesn’t’ understand us.

Missional communities established and led by the Spirit of God stand up to meet this challenge. Right where they are, where they live they are a community of people who are committed to knowing, serving and loving each other and their shared locale. It is through this love that they are known and our God is seen, known and followed. Love, compassion and mercy are a common language that everyone speaks and the beauty of what Jesus and the early church left us in pictures of the kingdom fleshed out is that it works anywhere any time. Our American exurbs desperately need this mindset. The question is, “Will we find where God is already at work and join in or will we just go to church?”