Layers : Letting Go And Taking Hold, Part 1

Mark Tidsworth, Pinnacle Team Leader

Letting go 7 constraining church assumptions while taking hold 7 robust church assumptions

Article Series

Part 1 – Introduction to Constraining and Liberating Church Assumptions

Part 2 – Describing Constraining Church Assumptions

Part 3 – Describing Liberating Church Assumptions

Part 4 – Living Into Your Church’s Best Self

During the Modern Era (up to the year 2000) here in North America, the consistency of American culture along with its embrace of the Christian story allowed churches to become part of the mainstream social fabric. This provided churches the opportunity to develop consistent paradigms or models for being church, with denominations taking shape and form, resulting in recognizable churches across geographical regions. Given this context and environment, certain beliefs about church life took shape, giving guidance to church leaders. Over time, these beliefs became so embedded they became assumptions, forming unconscious guidance systems giving shape to everything in our church paradigms.

Now, during this Postmodern Transition, we are discovering these guiding assumptions don’t lead to the same outcomes they did during a more stable time. Though they were effective guides when culture and church life were woven together, a certain unravelling of this fabric is underway . Now when we live out of these outdated guiding beliefs, we experience disappointment and frustration, since they don’t result in the same outcomes as before. These beliefs are not primarily faith statements, yet are insights about how we go about being and doing church.

Our current challenge is that these guiding beliefs are now unconscious assumptions. We believe them, organizing our church life around them, without conscious awareness of what we are doing. We find ourselves strangely frustrated with our churches, without knowing why. These guiding beliefs are actually constraining our adaptation in this emerging Postmodern environment in which we find ourselves. These previously helpful guiding beliefs have morphed into constraining church assumptions, holding us back from adapting and flourishing in our current contexts. We in this Christian Movement are in a time of letting go; letting go guiding beliefs which have become assumptions constraining our forward movement. This is Part A of our current adaptive challenge.  

At the very same time, robust church is rising. God’s Church moves onward. Very traditional churches are experiencing newness and vitalization, witnessing the unfolding story of God among them. New expressions of church, only in our imaginations during the Modern Era, are rising up and taking shape. The story of God as expressed through God’s Church is starting a new chapter, turning the page in the telling of a really good story.

In this context, new and fresh guiding insights are rising to our consciousness. The Holy Spirit is inspiring fresh thinking and adaptive perspectives about being church. When we give ourselves permission to follow Holy Spirit nudges, we discover again the age-old wisdom that in Christ all things are becoming new, God’s Church included.

Perhaps it’s too soon to call these new liberating beliefs “assumptions,” yet they are already guiding churches as they live into God’s calling. Integrated beliefs become the structure upon which church forms take shape. When integrated well, they become assumptions guiding most everything we are and do. When there is convergence between theology, faith, and culture, then the resulting guiding beliefs resonate, giving us mission-congruent guidance. They become liberating church assumptions, setting us free to participate with God’s unfolding story as expressed through God’s Church. Taking hold of these new liberating church assumptions is Part B of our adaptive challenge.

Join us next week as we describe the 7 Constraining Church Assumptions.