By Bishop Todd Hunter

Bend the church…save the people…
Evan Roberts, Welsh Revival

The best available future for C4SO depends on us taking on the practices of a movement within an ecclesial institution. I outlined this vision for 2020 at our 2019 Diocesan Convention, but I’d like to go deeper with you. What do I mean by the idea of a movement?

Let me first say what I don’t mean. I am not bashing church institutions. Institutions have positive elements and will always be with us.

What I am is pro-Spirit and pro-kingdom. Churches have to bend to the movement of the Spirit and to the rhythms of the kingdom, not the other way around. To find a faithful bent well-aligned to the inbreaking of God’s kingdom, each generation of Christ-followers has the task of teasing apart unchangeable essence from familiar forms. We engage such discernment to ensure that institutional sluggishness never overthrows the joyful, lighthearted, movement impulses of the Spirit.

Evan Roberts’ Spirit-given cry, Bend us, O Lord! became a core image of the Welsh Revival. By this, Roberts meant to convey personal will and church-wide will being in full submission to the movements of God.

But was Roberts right—can we really bend the Church? Isn’t the Church supposed to be a stable, never-altered institution? Isn’t bending just a euphemism for denominational, or even worse, doctrinal unfaithfulness?

Leaders of movements always get themselves in trouble over this issue. Criticism of bending the Church did not start with the Fuller Church Growth Movement or the Seeker Movement. The new church at Antioch—in a new context—was occasionally in tension with elders in Jerusalem—in the old, known situation. The Great Awakenings, along with Wesley and Finney, had to defend themselves against charges of bending the practices of the Church too much. Jesus was regularly in trouble with the religious crowd for conversing with the wrong people. Paul had to defend his flexibility. He wrote:

I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it! — 1 Corinthians 9, MSG

Our Anglican Forebears: Flexible?

Anglican luminaries insist on missionally motivated flexibility in similar ways. Take, for instance, the following thoughts:

The Preface to 1549 Prayer Book asserts that ministry should be done according to the various exigency of times and occasions. In my view, Cranmer was concerned that his flock didn’t understand Latin, that they couldn’t profit from it; that at best, they heard with theyr eares onely; and their hartes, spirite, and minde, have not been edified thereby. Archbishop William Temple was first and foremost a Gospel minister—and he certainly understood what it meant for Anglicans to be a Gospel movement: The Church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members…

Wolf, Booty and Thomas in The Spirit of Anglicanism: In order to follow its Lord who become a servant to humanity, the church must be willing to let go its hold upon its self-serving institutionalism. This is not easy, for churches, like all institutions, are notoriously conservative and self-protective.

F.D. Maurice: We want to make sure we are not giving people the Church, when what they are looking for is the living God.

Hooker envisioned a church among the people for the sake of the people.

Paul Avis: There is an acknowledgement that the faith of the Church, as the Church of England has received it, needs to be expressed afresh in each generation.

Paul Avis: We should not fret about the identity of Anglicanism: pursue integrity (alignment with the purpose of God for the Church) and identity will take care of itself.

In the foreword to Rolland Allen’s The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, Bishop Lesslie Newbigin wrote: “There is a summons to everyone who will hear to submit inherited patterns of Church life to the searching scrutiny of the Spirit. We need to give pre-eminence to the Holy Spirit in all the work of the Church.” Allen himself advocates for “self-propagating, self-supporting and self-governing churches rooted in the life, culture and modes of expression of a nation.”

Outside of Anglicanism, Pope Francis has called for “a missionary impulse for the Church capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, languages and structure can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation…so that in her ongoing discernment, the Church can also come to see that certain customs not directly connected to the heart of the Gospel, even some which have deep historical roots, are no longer properly understood and appreciated. Some of these customs may be beautiful, but they no longer serve as means of communicating the Gospel. We should not be afraid to re-examine them…if they no longer have usefulness for directing and shaping people’s lives.”

But Aren’t There Limits?

At this point, someone is sure to ask: What are the limits of creative diversity in ministry styles? Because I place so much emphasis on a given context—as did Jesus and Paul—I don’t have a precise answer. But I can say this precisely: I am not motivated by pushing boundaries, nor can I embrace mindless conformity. I am inspired by Spirit-discerned approaches to ministry that result in people coming to faith, becoming followers of Jesus, receiving healing and deliverance, and becoming ambassadors of the kingdom. Where church life is facilitating those things, I am a happy bishop whose mind is bent toward fruit, not limits.

Maybe the bar before which ecclesiastical creativity should stand is simply this: Does a given approach, form, ritual or method facilitate the will of God among a given people in a particular place and time?

A Practical Sneak Peek

What does all this mean practically? What does it mean for bishops, dioceses, priests, deacons and laity to engage in the practices of a movement within the historic and well-ordered Anglican Communion? I will have much more to say about this in the months to come, but here is a sneak peek I hope will stir your imagination.

What does it mean for me, as a bishop? Bishop does not mean “leader of a nanny-state” that takes full responsibility for the growth and health of all the clergy and churches. Nanny-states, as Allen teaches, cause “sterility, antagonism, bondage and resentment.” Rather, being a bishop calls for cultivating a missional diocesan culture in which fully competent clergy and laity interact with the Spirit and their local context to design ministry and worship practices in alignment with Allen’s notion of self-propagating, self-supporting and self-governing churches rooted in the life, culture and modes of expression of [their city].

This is not a chaotic free-for-all. It is genuine confidence in the Spirit at work in the Church. And it does not mean there is never discipline, correction or saying “no.” It means, “Come Holy Spirit,” “Come rule and reign of God,” “Let us see you move and we will follow…”

What does it mean for the diocesan office and diocesan structures? It means that every leader in C4SO must align with Allen’s notion that “paid and trained men acting in fear of what might happen hinders growth; it causes able people to lose their spontaneous zeal.” Fomenting mission on the ground is everyone’s job at C4SO. In the intelligent, passionate, Spirit-animated movement I envision, the need for policing should be rare. It will take some alignment work to get there—but we will get there.

What does it mean for clergy? It means we must get comfortable with trusting the Spirit, with thoughtful risk-taking and with “failing forward.” It means identifying, training and deploying lay leaders in every arena of ministry life except that proscribed to clergy. It means clergy need to give themselves to lifelong learning as missional leaders.

What does it mean for laity? Missional movements have high confidence in lay people—that they can testify, witness, heal the sick, cast out demons and in all manner of ways experience the calling and gifts of the Spirit. That work of the Spirit is every bit as powerful as that which flows through those in Holy Orders. In a stark irony, especially for those who suffer from clericalitis, Allen insisted that “the great heresies of the early Church arose not from rapid expansions resulting from the work of unknown teachers (new converts), but in those churches which were the longest established and where the Christians were not busy winning converts.” Allen goes on to say, “Danger to doctrine lay not with illiterate converts, but among highly educated and philosophically trained Christians in Ephesus and Alexandria.”

Embracing the Practices of a Movement in 2020 

I empathize with those of you for whom movements look too informal and unceremonious. They appear to be unplanned and unstructured, while the Church, in both its worship and programs, commonly puts an accent on that which is formal and ceremonial, prearranged and systematized. I also know that discussing these things in a brief blog post runs the risk of creating strawmen or caricatures.

While trying to steer clear of those two ditches, maybe in 2020 we can begin the practices of a movement by taking to heart this Prayer of Dedication by William Temple found in the 2019 Book of Common Prayer—it harmonizes well with Evan Roberts’ cry of Bend us!

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated to you; and then use us, we pray, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Todd Hunter is the founding bishop of The Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others and founder and leader of The Telos Collective. He is past President ofAlpha USA, former National Director for the Association of Vineyard Churches, retired founding pastor of Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Costa Mesa, CA, and author of Christianity Beyond Belief: Following Jesus for the Sake of Others, Giving Church Another Chance, The Outsider Interviews, The Accidental Anglican, Our Favorite Sins, and Our Character at Work.