Copyright holder: Tyndale University, 3377 Bayview Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2M 3S4 Att.: Library Director, J. William Horsey Library Copyright: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Copyright license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Citation: Chaise, Sam. “Mission in a Post-Christian (Or Never-Christian or Newly-Christian or Vaguely-Christian) Canada: It’s All About Context,” IN From the Margins to the Centre: The Diaspora Effect. A Collection of Essays to Celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Tyndale Intercultural Ministry Centre, edited by Michael Krause; with Narry Santos and Robert Cousins, Pages 83-97. Toronto, Ont.: Tyndale Academic Press, 2018. ***** Begin Content ****** TYNDALE UNIVERSITY 3377 Bayview Avenue Toronto, ON M2M 3S4 TEL: 416.226.6620 www.tyndale.ca Note: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Chaise, Sam. “Mission in a Post-Christian (Or Never-Christian or Newly-Christian or Vaguely-Christian) Canada: It’s All About Context,” IN From the Margins to the Centre: The Diaspora Effect. A Collection of Essays to Celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Tyndale Intercultural Ministry Centre, edited by Michael Krause; with Narry Santos and Robert Cousins, Pages 83-97. Toronto, Ont.: Tyndale Academic Press, 2018. [ Citation Page ] From the Margins to the Centre The Diaspora Effect A Collection of Essays to Celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Tyndale Intercultural Ministry Centre Edited by Michael Krause with Narry Santos and Robert Cousins [ Title Page ] From the Margins to the Centre: The Diaspora Effect Edited by Michael Krause with Narry Santos and Robert Cousins Copyright © 2018 Tyndale Academic Press All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified all Scripture quotations are taken from the English Standard Bible To order additional copies, visit: www.biblescanada.com or www.tyndale.ca/Tim Tyndale Academic Press A Collaboration of the Canadian Bible Society and Tyndale University College and Seminary 701TAP001 ISBN 978-1-9994646-0-8 TAP-2018-1K Printed in Canada [ Title Page Verso ] [ Page ] 83 CHAPTER 5 Mission In A Post-Christian (Or Never- Christian Or Newly-Christian Or Vaguely- Christian) Canada: It's All About Context Sam Chaise Introduction We have never been here before. The urban Canada that lies before us is a new thing with its mix of new and long-time Canadians, socio- economic fragments, and multiple ethnicities and cultures that co- exist alongside one another, and often intersecting with each other. Overarching this multiplicity, however, is a trajectory of meta-level cultural discourse and an ethos of the public square that is tilting away from faith in general and Christianity in particular. Rather than shifting to a genuinely pluralistic multi-faith reality, Canada seems intent on shifting faith (of any sort) to the private sphere. Faith is tolerated in terms of its symbols (crosses, turbans, burkas) and expressions of' private spirituality (churches, temples, mosques), but not when it seeks to interface with public life (laws, behavioural norms, etc.). This is not just post-Christian Canada. It may be post-public-faith Canada, and post-pluralism Canada. This means that the Church will have to engage in multiple shifts, all at the same time, if it is going to participate in God’s mission. Not just one thing is changing; many things are changing, and not in a linear, predictable fashion. New Canadians who are Christians, find that the mission methods they used in their home country don’t work in Canada (other than, perhaps, reaching culturally-similar newcomers). Long-time Canadian Christians have discovered that the worldview shift from modernity to post-modernity has required a wholesale re- thinking of what mission is, especially with regard to evangelism. This is a new reality for us to face. If we have never been here before, we will need to think thoughts we have never thought, ask questions [ Page ] 84 we had not thought of asking, and generate experiments in mission that are as much about us learning as about us accomplishing. Most of all, we will need to learn that there is no one solution or program that will deal with our new reality. In a Canada that is full of multiplicities, the Church’s mission must be multiple and varied, with no one program or one approach working in all of the multiple contexts. Foundational Thoughts The Canadian Mosaic Is Composed of Many Different Fragments A single city block may contain many fragments of differing beliefs, practices, cultures, and worldviews. There is no one-mission strategy that will work for all of Canada, because there is no one Canada. There are multiple Canadas and multiple mission contexts. We can learn from other contexts, and, as we shall see later, there are ways we can cooperate, but at the grassroots on-the-ground level, what we need is radical contextualization that emerges from deep local knowledge. Mission and Evangelism Christian mission is holistic, because God wants to heal all of the brokenness of humanity, whether physical, relational, or spiritual. The specific contexts we live in at a local level may bring one of these dimensions of mission to the fore, but they should all be present. For example, a focus on poverty reduction should be attentive not just to physical poverty, but to the effects of broken relationships among people, and between people and God. Similarly, a focus on strengthening families should be attentive not just to relationships within the family, but to how that family brings justice and blessing to its world. Evangelism is a specific component of Christian mission that focuses on introducing people to Jesus Christ. For many years, I avoided the term because in my experience it evoked a programmatic approach that reduced human beings to objects that should be persuaded; it felt like a sales technique. However, in today’s Canada, the danger for the Church is not inappropriately objectifying evangelism; the danger is no evangelism at all. It might be time to rehabilitate the term and seed it with new content, though the term we use matters less than our practices and approaches. This is not to say that evangelism can or should be segregated from mission; rather, it is to say that Christian [ Page ] 85 mission should include a dimension that seeks to intentionally expose people to the God who loves them and died for them. Evangelism in Canada’s Multiplicity The fragments that comprise the multiplicity we face consist of different worldviews, approaches to religion in general, and experiences with Christianity in particular. Let me propose the following contextual schematic as a way of organizing this complexity; this is not intended to sharply categorize so much as it is intended to organize our thinking as we engage the complexity. The first category incorporate contexts that were largely shaped by the Christian story but no longer are. This would apply to most people who grew up in Canada or who have immigrated to Canada from a similar context. These contexts are genuinely post-Christian and are significantly post-modern. They may have a slight or significant negative impression of Christianity, because it is a part of their collective past that they have moved beyond. This descriptor could apply to how Canadian society overall is being conceptualized today. Within this context are people who are actively engaged in Christian faith, those who have no problem with it but aren’t actively engaged, and those who see Christianity as a problem in terms of its relationship to Canadian society and want to see it privatized and marginalized. Later in this chapter, we will consider how the Church can engage in mission to this segment. The second category includes contexts that were never Christian and still largely aren’t. This would apply to people who have immigrated from contexts that were never collectively formed by Christianity (though Christianity may have been present), such as Japan, China, much of India, and parts of the Middle East. Some of these contexts had Christian influence in the distant past (e.g. parts of China, the Middle East), but it is so much in the past that it is not the present experience of people who emigrate from there. There are Christian populations in some of these contexts, so there are some new Canadians from these contexts who may in fact be Christians. However, most aren’t, and to engage in mission and evangelism in these contexts will require current versions of pioneer mission strategies that were adopted historically by missionaries who went to ‘unreached’ lands. One mission approach to consider is to think about how these people [ Page ] 86 might meet Jesus, without having to journey through the historical and political culture of Christianity. The third category involves contexts that are primarily first or second generation Christians. This would apply to people who have immigrated from parts of Asia (e.g. Korea) and sub-Saharan Africa. Christianity may or may not have an influence on the collective formation of that society, but these immigrants often come from vibrant and growing churches that exist in contexts where faith is part of the public discourse, even when there are multiple faiths. There is often a confidence in the Gospel and a confidence in certain evangelistic methodologies that were effective in these contexts. Upon arrival in Canada, they may find that these methodologies work with culturally- identical or culturally-similar people, but not with people who were formed in contexts ‘a’ and ‘b’. Another factor to consider, which may be true in all of these contexts, is the extent to which religion is also a cultural-marker. For example, someone raised in the Middle East may see “Christian” as a marker, not just of religion, but of a particular culture or sub-culture. Similarly, someone raised in Canada may see “Christian” as a marker of an older, less-progressive Canada. These categories are not mutually exclusive. The above schematic is meant to be a helpful way of thinking about the different ways people may relate (or not relate) to Christianity long before they intersect with a church initiative or Christian person. Canada is not just post- Christian, it is also never-Christian, or newly-Christian, or vaguely- Christian. It depends which fragment one is examining. When Engaging in Mission & Evangelism, We Need to Know in which Context We’re Operating. In some settings, one of these contexts may be dominant. For example, there are neighbourhoods in Metro Vancouver and Greater Toronto that are primarily filled with people from contexts that were never Christian. However, in many cases, multiple contexts may live and work alongside one another. A downtown business office or a suburban family neighbourhood may each have people from all of these contexts, so a single approach to mission will not engage every context well. [ Page ] 87 differently. Some cultures have more direct ways of relating and in these contexts it is okay to articulate one’s stance and seek to convince the other, while in other contexts this is considered inappropriately aggressive. Another difference is that some contexts have a higher level of skepticism towards Christianity in particular, and truth-claims in general, than do other contexts. It's a Video, not a Photograph: It Keeps Changing! Just when we think we’ve figured it out, it changes on us! That’s because in the mix of multiplicity that is today’s Canada, cross- pollination and cross-influence happens among the fragments. This is especially true among the second generation of newcomers, i.e. the children who grow up often, but not always, rubbing shoulders with the children of immigrants from other places. But it is also true because in our age of hyper-connectivity and high velocity of information and influence through digital networks, these many contexts are also being shaped by the stories they see in the media. Someone watching a show on Netflix is being shaped in a certain way regardless of whether they live in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, or The Annex in Toronto, and regardless of whether they grew up in north India or England. Of course, whether they even choose to watch it in the first place may also be influenced by their background. Even if a newcomer comes from a context where faith is a part of public life and normal relational discourse, after some years in Canada, their thinking on this may have shifted because of the norms they’ve seen portrayed and practiced in Canada. Evangelism in Post-Christian Canada The focus of this paper is meant to be on ‘post-Christian’ Canada, so now that we have laid the foundation with our description of our contexts, we will turn our attention to the evangelism segment of this multiplicity. I am a child of immigrants but grew up in Canada as a Christian, so I have personally experienced many of the immense shifts that have occurred in the past 40 years. Whatever vocabulary we choose to use, we know that something is very different from what it was in the 1970s. We can observe it numerically, as we measure things we think might be important, such as people in seats on a Sunday morning and dollars in an offering plate. We can see it in public and cultural discourse, as attitudes towards Christianity in specific, and religious [ Page ] 88 belief-systems in general, grow more negative. We participate in it relationally, as the life-patterns of our friends and families and, perhaps even ourselves, embody practices and values that are less expressive of God’s shalom and more expressive of brokenness, than they might have been a few decades ago. We can call this change many things: post-modernity, post- Christendom, neo-liberalism, subjectivist-expressivist. It is all that and more. These are different lenses by which we view what is happening around us, and in us. While we may disagree on what came first and what caused what, a number of observations about our current Canadian cultural characteristics hold true: 1. There is no belief in a single conceptual ontological “Truth” that lies outside our experience and to which we aspire. We have multi-truths: your truth and my truth. 2. There is a growing rejection of Christianity; Christianity is not seen, from the Canadian perspective, as having a positive influ- ence within the Canadian mosaic. 3. There is a growing rejection of religion in general, as a shaper of culture and values. We are moving past ambivalence and towards antipathy, especially when religions of any sort are seen to hinder personal freedom. Rather than a secular space that values all reli- gions and non-religion, we are shifting towards privileging anti-re- ligion over religion in the public square and cultural discourse. 4. Spirituality is valued as an individualistic private experience, but is seen with caution, if it impinges on the freedoms of others. 5. The question being asked is not whether Christianity is “true”, but whether it is “good’.’ Is it good for Canada, and is it good for flourishing as a human? Increasingly, the answer is that Christi- anity is bad for you. 6. “Jesus” is a positive brand, but “Christianity” is not. Meanwhile, in the Church, we might note that evangelicalism has fragmented; the relatively recent ‘big tent’ coalition with its iconic [ Page ] 89 figures of Billy Graham and John Stott has fragmented into multiple smaller camps with varying labels, each seeking to be a reformation of the evangelical movement. For the most part they are not in dialogue, but in a cyber-space competition for attention, influence, and dollars. Responses How might we respond? The thoughts that follow are not linear nor do they build on each other; rather, they are pieces of a mosaic that in my view signal a way forward. Acknowledge that We Don’t Know for Sure What to Do If we have never been here before, then we can’t be absolutely certain about how to respond. Might we be honest for a moment and admit this? We don’t know where this cultural shift will end up, and it will likely last longer than most of our lifetimes. So we don’t know all the steps we will have to take, because the ground is going to keep shifting on us, so our journey will be more akin to an improvisational dance than a straightforward walk. We are in a time of massive and multi-polar change, and our job is to navigate as well as we can. This need not discourage us; the Church has been here before in the last 2000 years. So we need to learn how to lead, when we don’t know where we’re going; we need to learn how to walk, when all we might know are the next few steps. Shift from Framing Evangelism as "Agreeing with These Ideas” to Evangelism as "Tour Guides on an Interior Journey” The post-Christian element in Canadian society doesn’t mind conversations about spirituality, but it hates having religion or epistemic certainty marketed to it. If we are tour guides, we help others journey by responding to their questions, noting specific things and suggesting that attention might be paid to these things. We share our travel experience and suggest practices that facilitate the journey. We invite them to visit, but don’t force them to come on our journey. We need to stop insisting that others use our language or even enter our language-world, and must learn how to be missionaries into their language-world. Rather than insisting that people enter our thought-world, can we learn how to enter theirs? After all, isn’t God larger than our linguistic attempts at articulating God? Might we even be playfully adventurous in our tone, curious and engaged rather than defensive and fearful? [ Page ] 90 Shift from "Certainty” to "Confidence” Certainty is a product of modernity, not a product of the Spirit, and certainty is usually about a body of knowledge that is ‘out there’ and which we think we know objectively. Confidence, on the other hand, is about trusting something - it is confidence in a Person, and confidence in a Story. The early church did not try to convince people of its understanding of an ontological category called “god”; rather, they declared and demonstrated that Jesus had risen from the dead, and had re-ordered all of life into a new pattern that was obvious and seen by those around them. Jesus let people walk away from him when they disagreed. Do we? Or do we get mad? Or does it shake our confidence? Does the disappointment stick to us? We should be fans of a multi-religious, pluralist society, because in that sort of society religion is a valid topic for private and public discourse; in that sort of context, the Spirit can be in the conversation. What we should guard against is society sliding into a secularism where religion as a category is privatized into the non-tangible, non-public spheres of life. We don’t need a privileged place in society as Christians - after all, we worship a Saviour who gave up privilege - but we do want to co-labour with other faith-groups to ensure that faith is at the table. All faiths. Return to an Embodied Apologetic I was raised to think of apologetics as a set of words that tore down objections to Christianity, so that people might meet Jesus. But in a post- modern context, influenced by thinkers, such as Nietzsche and Foucault, using words in this way would be considered an inappropriate use of power. This means that there is no point in ‘winning’ a word-based argument, since words are not considered to be equivalent to a real reality. On the other hand, actions and practices and ways of living have an intrinsic reality to them, like when people see and experience Christians accompanying marginalized people, caring for creation, or expressing care towards a work colleague. These actions have intrinsic validity to them, because they are part of the lived experience of the people involved. This is what I mean by an apologetic that is “embodied”; it is truth that is demonstrated in the physicality of lived experience. This is how the early Church began. People saw something at Pentecost, wondered what was going on, and Peter told them. People saw the way those early Christians loved each other, became intrigued, and decided to find out more. [ Page ] 91 Let me emphasize here that I am not arguing for an embodied apologetic instead of the use of words. Rather, I am arguing that words become a part of the relationship, after the embodied realities have created a space that allows the words to no longer be seen as plays for power, but as explanations for why this person or church is doing these things. A few years ago I was on a trip to India and paid a visit to a food security project, and to its “Demonstration Farm,” where they grew small sections of various crops, bringing in local farmers to show them what they were doing. In my naivety, I asked why they went to all that trouble; after all, wouldn’t it be faster and more efficient to just train the farmers with the better crop- growing techniques? The project coordinator looked me in the eye and said these simple words: “We do this, because ‘seeing is believing.’ When they see the crops we are growing here, they want to know how we do it.” In the Kingdom of God, seeing is believing. When people see the gospel, they may want to hear the gospel. In fact, that may be the primary purpose of the Church: to be the demonstration farm of the Kingdom. We must learn how to be people and communities who cultivate grace and irrigate soil, so demonstration farms of God’s Kingdom may be planted. Become Local Gardening Experts We are not looking for one “magic bullet” - for that one mission strategy that will work everywhere. We are not franchisors of a salvation product; we are gardeners of the Kingdom. The global Church is not a factory with an assembly-line churning out clones of salvation. The global Church is a network of community gardens, learning from one another, but not trying to clone one another. Here’s the thing about gardens: they are all recognizable as gardens but no two are exactly alike. Wouldn’t it be great if every local church was the expert on their particular context, and became experts at embodying and articulating the Gospel in their setting? The local church is whether the rubber hits the road; it is where the Gospel is seen and then heard. It is where in the micro-ecosystems of relationships, the people of Jesus learn to be tour guides of the Kingdom, cultivators of God’s grace, and evokers of the aroma of God’s presence. Experiment and Be Playful About It If we’ve never been here before and if we can’t be exactly sure where we’re going, we might as well enjoy the ride. Genuine creativity comes [ Page ] 92 when the mind is relaxed, as any musician or painter knows. Anxiety and anger are not the seedbed for innovation. So, might it be time to recover the fruit of the Spirit we call “joy”? And then, out of that joy, and with curiosity and eagerness, discover how the Spirit wants us to be gardeners of the Kingdom in our context. We won’t always get it right; in fact, for a while, we may mostly get it wrong. That’s okay. If we rarely fail it means, we aren’t trying hard enough. When we are obsessed with short-term numerical success, we are like the CEO of a business that focuses on quarterly profits to the detriment of the long- term health of the corporation. We have not even come close to the level of innovation that is needed, if we are to genuinely engage the mission field that is Canada. Most churches and organizations speak the language of mission, but operate encumbered by the apparatus of Christendom. For example, how many churches do you know that don’t have a worship service as their central and primary program? We are all - well, almost all - using the same format of church; some of us just use different graphics, innovations, or styles. Putting it all Together Now that we have focused on the ‘post-Christian’ segment of the Canadian mosaic, let’s return to our larger consideration of the multiplicity that is today’s Canada. We’ve already argued that we need radical contextualization that emerges out of deep local knowledge, if we are to be effective. But we also need to cooperate with one another and learn from one another. This section contains some simple suggestions. First, church-planting strategies need to have multiple mission strategies that are based on their context. Key determinants of the strategy need to consider the level of skepticism towards truth-claims, the prior relationship with Christianity as a religion, and the extent to which religion is a signifier of a cultural group (e.g. Italian Roman Catholics, Greek/Russian Orthodox, etc.). Second, diaspora Canadian Christians and long-time Canadian Christians need to have honest conversations with one another to understand each other’s contexts. Christians who are newly arriving into Canada are generating new life in the Canadian church. Or, are they? When people speak of this, they usually mean that overall church attendance statistics are levelling out instead of declining, that certain neighbourhoods and parishes experience increased attendance, and [ Page ] 93 that buildings are less empty than they used to be. However, relationally, what I see is not the inter-pollination of new Canadian Christians with long-time Canadian Christians. This means that we are not learning from one another, nor are we being formed by one another. Perhaps, newcomer Canadian Christians could sow new energy and confidence into long-time Canadian Christians, if they were in deeper relationship with one another. Perhaps, long-time Canadian Christians could help newcomers understand the Canadian cultural landscape better, so that they can adjust their mission strategies to the new context they are facing, which is unlike the context from which they came. For example, since I am a long-time Canadian, I am relatively experienced at having spiritual conversations with post-moderns. Others, who have come from a multi-religious context, would be better than I would be at relating to people who are of another faith. We need one another, and we need to learn from one another. Third, we need to use simple tools of inter-cultural understanding to locate (place into context) our different cultural approaches, so that we understand one another and can better position ourselves where we are best used. For example, some newcomer Canadian Christians come from cultures that are “high power-distance” (more hierarchical and respectful of leadership roles), and so they find it difficult to relate to long-time Canadian Christians who are more “low power-distance” (more informal leadership relationships). It is important to have deep conversations regarding difference, using tools of inter-cultural understanding. Therefore, we won’t think of these differences as right or wrong, but may be able to authentically experience, understand, and navigate the differences. Fourth, we must learn from our global mission histories and stories. Many church denominations and networks have within their systems significant knowledge of how to engage in mission in 'never-Christian’ and multi-religious contexts. This knowledge is present in their global mission agencies and missionaries, and less often present in their domestic mission strategies. This is an unfortunate reality of having silos of knowledge, which is detrimental to our effectiveness. Fifth, we need agencies (denominations, mission organizations, non-profits and networks) that curate knowledge and learnings. First, the agency can act as a curator of the knowledge base that is being created in the academy, sifting, sorting and offering it to local churches [ Page ] 94 in accessible patterns and chunks. In the old days, agencies were the holders of information, but ever since Google, the problem is not a lack of information, but too much information with no one who can wisely sort it for us. Most of the art in a typical museum is in storage; curators choose what to display. Perhaps an agency can curate knowledge for its network of people and churches. Another area needing curation is that which we have learned from our global mission efforts over the past couple of centuries. There is a significant knowledge base in mission agencies that specialized in pioneer mission and evangelism that needs to be curated and adjusted for the Canadian context. Next, the agency can cultivate an environment that generates new expressions of the Church, along with the infrastructure and patterns that can sustain those new expressions. This is different than helping existing models get better - we need to do that, of course; but we have spent the last 30 years doing that. Maybe we need to try something else as well. What might this look like? Well, here are some examples. First, given current trends, it is inevitable that bi-vocational ministry will be the norm, and this should be celebrated. Part of the reason our innovation is stunted is because our paycheques are tied to getting enough of a crowd together in seats on a Sunday morning so they can pay our salaries. If we didn’t need to make money at this, we would be more innovative. The agency can also help churches develop multiple metrics that are contextual to its reality to help them understand what “success” looks like in post-Christendom. It can help churches figure out how to assess outcomes for its initiatives instead of just managing processes, and how to get timely feedback, so that the initiative can be adjusted in real-time. This means that instead of helping develop better worship pastors, or preachers, the agency can help churches ask “Why do we worship or preach?” and “How will we know when we have worshipped?” Next, the agency can act as an aggregator of knowledge from the local churches in its network. As I said earlier, local churches need to be experts on their context, but every local context inhabits a non-local context of discourse and influence, such as pop culture and social media. So every micro-context inhabits a macro-context. While face- to-face local relationships are influential, non-local meta-conversations through traditional and new digital media are more influential. People are watching the latest Netflix show whether they are in Weyburn. [ Page ] 95 Saskatchewan or in downtown Toronto. Even though churches are not trying to mimic each other, they can still learn from each other. The agency is in a unique position to aggregate learnings and share them across its network. Let me add that this is more than just sharing stories - what the stories mean and what they might imply for other contexts also needs to be shared. This way, the system learns faster than if every local context did not share its learnings. Next, the agency can act as a bearer of risk, or, at least, a sharer of risk. This is a critical role, and it is not one I have heard discussed adequately. If we are going to enter an era of adventurous innovation, some churches will need to experiment with higher risk innovation. Right now this is not happening, because we are asking each local church to bear all the risk of that innovation. Might there be a way to pool the risk of innovation? This is exactly what insurance companies do, of course. They pool risk. For example, on average, most people in a private health plan will end up paying more in premiums than they would have in health care costs, which is how the insurance company makes its profits. But for the occasional person who gets really sick, it is financially worthwhile for them to have the insurance. So most of us buy insurance, not because it saves us money, but because for a few of us it saves us from financial ruin. We are spreading out the risk among the group members. So then, how might we figure out how to pool risk when it comes to ministry innovation? If we are going to radically innovate, we need to build a system where failure is not fatal - where it is not fetal to one’s ministry career, one’s salary, or a church’s budget. I believe this is a critical need, and not one I have heard discussed. In some ways, I find an analogy to the American political system - there are lots of problems there, but the most fundamental one is that there are no restrictions on campaign donations, so money drives everything. Perhaps, if we were honest, we would admit that money is a bigger driver of ministry decisions than we would like to think. Challenges I will close with two challenges we face, not because I like ending on a downside, but because it is a reality check. The first big challenge is that our entire system - from schools to agencies to churches - was designed and created in the era of Christendom, and then was optimized [ Page ] 96 to produce our current results. Pastors get paid for certain things, ministries get donations for certain things, and so on. Very few congregants and very few donors are willing to invest in the unknown and experimental. There are some promising experiments taking place at the level of the local church, but if we want to accelerate the innovation, we will have to invent new sorts of agencies. This leads to the second challenge. Not that long ago, only a few decades ago, when I was in university, I wrote my papers on a typewriter. Remember those? Now we’re past the era of typing on computer keyboards and are in the era of voice recognition - and just around the corner is artificial intelligence. Most of the agencies I know of started in the typewriter era. What we need today is not a better typewriter. Can we imagine different ways of communicating the Gospel that don’t involve old technologies? Can we actually do it? Can we do all of this? My response, as I end, is this: why would we NOT want to do it? If we have never been here before, let’s be honest, none of us is CERTAIN about what we are to do next. But, to paraphrase the Alcoholics Anonymous definition of insanity, we know that if we keep doing what we are already doing, we will continue to see what we already see. If we want to see something different, we will have to not just do things differently, but do entirely different things. Reflection Questions 1. As a way of organizing the complexity of Canada’s multiplicity, Chaise presented a contextual schematic of three categories; namely: (a) contexts that were largely shaped by the Christian story but no longer are; (b) contexts that were never Christian and still largely aren’t; and (c) contexts that are primarily first and second-generation Christians. What contextual category do you and your church fall under? In relation to the community that your church is part of, what is its contextual category? How does the category of your church and that of your community inform you on the approach to use to engage your community? 2. The chapter framed evangelism with metaphor of a “tour guide” (i.e., sharing of the travel experience and suggesting practices that facilitate the journey) and for an “embodied” apologetic (i.e., [ Page ] 97 truth that is demonstrated in the physicality of lived experience). In your view, do these metaphors accurately represent the church role in evangelism, given the post-public-faith and post-plural- ism context in Canada? Why or why not? 3. Chaise also visualized the Global Church as a “network of commu- nity gardens, learning from one another, but not trying to clone one another.” What practical steps do you think can churches take to move toward becoming a “network of community gardens”? 4. The chapter concluded with five ways for churches to cooperate with and learn from one another; namely: (a) church-planting strategies need to have multiple mission strategies based on con- text; (b) diaspora Canadian Christians and long-time Canadian Christians need to have honest conversations to understand each other’s contexts; (c) we need to use simple tools of inter-cultural understanding to locate (place into context) our different cultural approaches; (d) we must learn from our global mission histories and stories; and (e) we need agencies (denominations, mission or- ganizations, non-profits and networks) that curate knowledge and learnings. Which one of the five ways must be a priority for your church, ministry, or mission context? How can you motivate your church leaders to walk with you in making this a priority? Sam Chaise was a pastor for 17 years, involved in congregational life and church planting. Sam was Executive Director of Canadian Baptist Ministries, a global mission agency, and is currently Executive Director of Christie Refugee Welcome Centre, an emergency shelter and place of welcome for asylum-seekers. Sam is a Doctor of Practical Theology student at McMaster Divinity College, researching how Servant Leadership is expressed in cultures with varying power-distance. Sam’s connection with the TIM Centre is around a shared interest in exploring how God’s intercultural church in Canada can distinctively be involved in local and global mission. ***** This is the end of the e-text. This e-text was brought to you by Tyndale University, J. William Horsey Library - Tyndale Digital Collections *****