The Subversive Church

Over the next 10 to 15 years, the landscape of our ministry here in Cotton End is going to change significantly. Within 3 miles of us an expected 5,500 to 8,000 new homes are being built. A whole new town is under development, and it’s really exciting. I can’t imagine ever being presented with such an opportunity more than once in a generation or more as a church. But when I talk to people about this opportunity one of the first questions that I consistently get asked is: “are they building a church?

Why, when we all know that church is about people not buildings, do we constrain our thinking about new church in new communities so quickly to buildings? And anyway, with 8,000 new homes being built, why can’t we see them all as possible places of worship, places from where we can serve the community? If you’ve got a building, you need a minister, and if you’ve got a minister you need a house for the minister and family. Suddenly starting a church is about having thousands of pounds before you start. When you start with people, all you need is imagination. When you need a building, rent it.

I think we can be, should be, more subtle than bricks and mortar. I want to do something subversive. It seems to me that Jesus was subversive. He undermined the common viewpoint, he chipped away at preconceived ideas and challenged conventional wisdom. He dropped thoughts and ideas into the hearts and minds of his hearers, he offered love unconditionally, he called the people to follow him and he went to them in their places of need and lived among them. He started a worldwide movement without a building and without a budget, although he had access to all the resources of heaven.

For me the excitement comes from the thought of doing church in a new way for this new community. I want the church to grow with the community, to become part of the community’s DNA, so connected with the community that it influences and affects and transforms the community as it grows. It means meeting the community where it is, serving it where it is, and influencing it where it is.

I guess that’s harder work. It’s much easier to open a building and then blame the community for not wanting to come and share in worship it doesn’t understand and talk a language it hasn’t learnt.