Can emerging churches survive the “wish dream” phase?
3 Mar 2007
I recently read for the second time Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, the Classic Exploration of Faith in Community. Bonhoeffer writes:
“Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.
Bonhoeffer continues:
“Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hinderance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial. God hates visionary dreaming….”
I am a firm believer in the importance and value of the nebulous conversation that has come to be known as the “emerging church movement.” The deeper theological reflection that is being done, as well as, the renewed awareness of the possibility of our cultural captivity to methods, means and forces that neuter our faithfulness to Christ and his true mission are profoundly important in my opinion. Running along side of this conversation, communities of practice are emerging all over the world as groups of people committed to the ways of Jesus seek to live faithfully in their local context.
I believe one of the most significant challenges facing these emerging churches has to do with whether or not they can move beyond the “wish dream” phase and survive the season of “disillusionment” that Bonhoeffer claims is inevitable if the community is to become authentic.
A little over four years ago I became the pastor of a small church that would later be known as the Aqueous Community. Raised in various U.S. expressions of institutional evangelicism and having served for 6 years as an assistant pastor on the staff of a larger church, I began to long for the opportunity to be involved in the forging of a new kind of church community that would break from some of the patterns of institutionalized church life that I was growing impatient with.
The desire to become “more missional” became my favorite buzzword, and, I was not alone. A small number of “revolutionaries” joined me and with the blessing of our denomination and parent church, we ventured forth. A new “Wish Dream” was soon born. A little more than four years into this journey, I look back on the road we have travelled and I can see how God has so faithfully “shattered” many aspects of our dreaming. The desire to live faithfully, intentionally and missionally burns as brightly as ever, but I can see how so many aspects of our “Wish Dream” idealisms as a people eventually gave way to disillusionment, and ultimately, to a posture of humility and brokenness from which a deep and humble yearning for authentic Christ centered living could emerge.
Little remains of our passion to be “cutting edge” or “alternative.” In its place has risen a renewed passion to simply and authentically care for one another in quiet ways and to serve the world and give witness to Christ through very plain “earthen vessel” lives. We’re not very sexy, we’re not very cool, we’re not very “edgy,” but perhaps, we are beginning to become more authentic as a Christ centered people in our context.
Your thoughts:
1. Has the Christian community you are involved in had to face disillusionment resulting from the shattering of a wish dream?
2. Can you briefly describe this process and what has arisen from it?
3. In an attempt to correct the problems inherent in “modern” or “institutional” church expressions, are emerging church practicioners tempted to simply impose another form of humanly conceived “Wish Dream?”
Billy Calderwood is the lead pastor of Aqueous, an Emerging/Missional Church in Santa Barbara, California.
9 comments
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Comment by glenn
6.39 am on 3 Mar 2007
This article sort of rings in my ears because I have presided over the death of church that I thought was going to be my dream. The dream turned into a nightmare that led me into five years of trying to figure out what was next. I became very disillusioned with churches and experienced a drastic change in my views, but never stopped dreaming. This Sunday, I step back into the arena as I host the first meeting of people who want to begin a new church.
I think that we both need to hold the dream loosely and tightly. Loosely, because culture, relationships,and methods will change. Tightly, because we are convinced that church will and must prevail as redeemed community to reach a community.
Cool and trendy churches seem like nothing more than the same old self-serving attitude rehashed. But churches that exist for the non-members to be the evidence that Christ’s Kingdom is here and now, well, that’s a real dream worth pursuing!
Oh yeah, it all takes a lot humility, dependence, patience, and perseverance!
Comment by steven hamilton
12.48 pm on 3 Mar 2007
billy – may we all be so ‘uncool’! i am thankful God has shattered your illusion and you have responded to His grace by working through it, so much so that being missional and authentic ‘burns brightly as ever’. God is good.
the community i am in here in maryland has gone through several of these disillusionment seasons during it’s 25 years…and has grown and shrunk and grown and shrunk, yet i see committment and a wisdom that shines forth in those who have weathered the disillusionment seasons. it has caused what people call, ‘church-splits’, where others have gone off trying to make their own ‘wish dream’ come true. yet none of those ‘wish dreams’ have survived nor thrived…
i think you are right, many emerging expressions of church are likely to tread a similar path into a season of disillusionment, i pray God gives them the grace to commit and work through this season, so as to bear a richer harvest in another season…i pray they reach for the Rock! i was just listening to grant lee buffalo and ‘rock of ages’:
Rock of ages
I am tumbling down
Where the roots of trees
Embrace you I do fall upon my knees
And ask you how
You can just sit there and be
Rock of ages
I am crumbling now
In an avalanche
Im reaching for the rock of ages
Rock of ages…Rock of ages
Father now I have stepped
Beyond my bounds
Now the pack I wear
It weighs a thousand pounds
It drags me down
Makes me think crazy
Oh my rock of ages
I have gone astray
I heard my brother call
I turned the other way
Now Im ashamed
To face him
Oh my rock of ages
Rock of ages
Oh my rock of ages
Rock of ages
Reach for the rock of ages
Rock of ages
In the avalanche…In the avalanche
Heavy rock
And I reach for the rock
I reach for the rock
In the avalanche it falls
I reach for the rock…I reach for the rock…I reach for the rock
Comment by benjamin ady
4.47 am on 4 Mar 2007
I see that I still find Bonhoeffer as obnoxious as ever. “God hates visionary dreaming?” If I were worshipping or following a god like that, I would immediately fire him. Same goes for “God is not a god of the emotions” from the same page in the book.
Comment by Simon Hardwick
8.46 pm on 4 Mar 2007
Billy wrote: Little remains of our passion to be “cutting edge†or “alternative.†In its place has risen a renewed passion to simply and authentically care for one another in quiet ways and to serve the world and give witness to Christ through very plain “earthen vessel†lives.
A thought provoking piece Billy. As someone who is beginning to gather together those on the fringe of church – looking for new and relavent ways to express Faith in our post-Christian nation – this is a timely piece.
It’s not about “New” or “cutting edge” or “the next best thing”. But rather authenticity.
However, reading about emerging communities like Vaux in London, it surprised me that they had a short life span. Visiting their websites and blogs for inspiration and guidance, then discovering the communities had either disbanded or fallen silent has sadden me. Is it too much of a pressure and burden to remain relavent, creative and post-institutional? As you have written did idealism hit disillusionment which eventually lead to the end of the community?
As I reflect on my own context we not only need to wrestle and grapple with deeper theological reflection which unpicks and reveals our cultural capitivity, we need to learn what it means to be community. In a society influenced by the legacy of individualism (as borne out by Kantian morality and Cartesian epistemology) we need to learn again what it means to connect with one another, to be the communion of saints.
Thank you for pioneering, leading and sharing.
Comment by dan brown
11.29 pm on 4 Mar 2007
In our church the most vital ministries are the ones that started from a grass roots level. They include a group that not only supports an orphange in China but actively is involved in caring for the people there. There is a group that is called Mommy Time, it caters to young mothers with children. It was not started by the pastor just a group of concerned mothers who wanted to learn more about raising children and have a break from the child rearing by getting to know the Lord better. On the other hand there is a musican who is no longer a part of our local church. He was convinced that we needed a Sat. night service where contemporary music would prompt our worship. Over a period of several years this get together developed a small tight knit group of beleivers. However, the numbers where never what this leader would like them to be, after he left we have tried several other leaders and although a core group continue to worship together the numbers have not really grown. When the leadership tried to graft the Sat. night into Sun. morning things got really bad as the Sat. night people did not feel loved and did not feel they were really being listened too. This process has taken over two years the Sat. night people and leadership have resulted in many hurt feelings. This has resulted in losing some people while others have stayed and yet others don’t yet feel totally validated. The wish dreaming in these examples have both had obstacles to overcome but where there is a real need the people overcome with caring people and the HS. When Bonhoeffer talks about wish dreaming I wonder if that is the result of zealous enthuiasm for an idea of ministry without the benefit of looking for Biblical reasons, the consul of wise Christian bothers and sisters, and ignoring the lead of the HS where they see God working? Or is Bonhoeffer saying that no matter what minsitry we undertake there will be adversity and heartache? When are not in a sprint, we are in a long race and the Emerging conversation is an example of a long race. In Life Together the author also says that no fellowship is any stronger than the weakest link. And the strong links only remain strong to the exent that they care for the needs of the least.
Comment by Molly
6.43 pm on 5 Mar 2007
Wow. This was a very moving post. Thanks.
Comment by dan brown
1.50 am on 6 Mar 2007
Thank you Molly… I really enjoyed your last post where you shared what it means to be a mother for you personally. I shared it with my wife and she thinks you are a gifted writer with much to share with the church.
Comment by billy
8.10 pm on 6 Mar 2007
Glenn, overjoyed to hear about your “re-stepping” into a new ministry context! May God’s grace be with you in the process. Thanks for sharing your personal story and your thoughts.
Steven, thanks for the encouragement!
Benjamin, not a big Bonhoeffer fan I see. Still, I think that this work (Life Together) can be of value to the church today, especially when taken in the context of its writting. (Bonhoeffer wrote LT while leading an unauthorized “underground” seminary that was training pastors in Nazi Germany). I forgive him for the abrubt language he sometimes uses to stimulate thinking. The larger point he makes I believe is that churches, to be authentic, must be so much more than the set of “dreams” that people bring to them. Is what is true for the individual christian, that we must lay down much of our “wish dream” for our own lives to follow Christ, not also true for the community of Kingdom?
Comment by billy
8.25 pm on 6 Mar 2007
Simon, Glad this piece was timely. I totally agree with you about the challenge of becoming an authentic community in the face of a strong cultural updraft of individualism. “Hipper” and “Cooler” church doesn’t pose any real breaking of the powers of individualism. Authentic community is much more costly. It is much easier to hide behind our wish dreams than it is to forge a truly alternitive community.
I recently read “The Complex Christ” by Kester Brewin, one of the leaders involved with Vaux. In his book he likens the “Alt Worship” movement to punk music at its inception. Punk music “razed music to the ground” and made way for new musical realities and expressions to evolve. I think you would enjoy his take on the Vaux experience and the future that it has made room for that he talks about in the book.
Thanks for the encouragement!
Dan, Thanks for sharing your story. These learning experiences are hard wrought and often painful and thanks for your willingness to articulate it for us! I really think the marathon as opposed to sprint language is helpful as well.
Molly, Thanks!
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