Matt Smay

I’m often asked, “What does a Village (an Adullam Community) really look like? While this is a big question that we attempt to answer in the Tangible Kingdom by describing how we integrate communion, community, and mission – Below are a few things that we’ve experienced lately:

• Our Village is the people we can call in the middle of the night, and relied on to watch our daughter for two days while my wife was in the hospital delivering our second baby.
• Our Village makes decisions about where to buy their homes based on proximity to each other.
• Our Village is the people we ask to give advice when we’re making our biggest life decisions.
• Our Village spends time with each other beyond our normal meeting times.
• Our Village is the people we party with during holidays, vacations, and special occasions (Super Bowl, BCS, and World Series).
• Our kids can’t wait for our Village so they can see their friends, and our 2 year old knows all the adults by name.
• When people in our Village call – we always pick up.
• Our Village blends conversations about everyday life and God naturally.
• Our Village is basically our extended family in Colorado.

We’re getting ready to move Adullam into an old church building on March 9, but many have questioned why we would chose to move Adullam into a ‘church’ – making a common assumption that we cannot remain missional in a church building. For the record, we’ve always said that buildings aren’t the issue when it comes to being missional or incarnational.

Of course, there are some bad buildings out there that would be culturally awkward for our people, and there are inherent dangers with church buildings due to the way people tend to identify themselves with their church. It often starts innocently. Once church leaders have a building, they spend significant time trying to fix and personalize the building in order to make it attractive. Not a bad thing, but after people invest significant time, sweat, and resources, there can be a dramatic shift in focus from ‘church as a people’ to ‘church as a place,’ which can reduce the “missional/incarnational impulse” (an Alan Hirsch phrase) to the few die-hard evangelists. Since people outside the church are not drawn to buildings – this becomes the fatal flaw! The stats back this up; the majority of Americans are not driving around their cities trying to decide which church to check out next week.

The main issue for us is how people end up at Adullam. Whether we’re in a house, art gallery, recreation center, or old church, if people continue to find us through relationships, we’re fulfilling our mission to incarnate the gospel in the culture(s) we live. Generally, the following factors tend to help us make our building decisions:

• Location, Location, Location – Since Adullam is a network of communities, finding a location that is central to those communities is critical. Because our gathering is where our communities meet to celebrate what God’s been doing, we’re able to view Adullam as a city-wide movement, which is not dependent on a single geographic local. However, being more central to the city will help us connect with strategic opportunities to be a blessing to the city, especially in The Pearl and at DU.
• Kids Running Wild – If you have children’s ministries that are exploding like we do at Adullam, then finding a building that can serve your kids is a prime consideration. Note: This is why church building with classrooms and nurseries are so specialized. It’s easy to find meeting locations for adults, but when you try to provide diversified children’s ministries, those traditional church buildings start looking more attractive.
• Most Bang for the Buck – Always comes back to monthly costs when you’re in a church plant environment, especially when our values prevent us from spending more than 25% of our budget on facilities.
• Aesthetics – Just like selecting a personal residence, there’s a lot that can be said for finding a building that just feels right. Feel is highly dependent on the context and culture of the congregation, but we’ve found our people are adaptable as long as we prioritize locations that facilitate opportunities for building relationships. Since our new location has a large fellowship area with a full-service kitchen, we’re excited about the possibilities this space may provide.

At Adullam, we’ll keep doing what we’ve always done…building relationships, blessing the city, and avoiding the traps of attractional church. We’ll keep our people from settling into a consumer perspective, while continuing to prioritize our communities as the entry point for people outside the church. If people come to church through relationships, whether we’re sitting in pews or fold-up chairs, singing 3 or 5 songs, or preaching 20 or 50 minutes – it simply won’t matter. It’s true that some people find our Sunday gathering a welcoming place to invite their friends, but 95% of the people entering our gatherings are invited by a friend or acquaintance — keeping us true to our values no matter where we chose to meet!

Anyone catch the documentary on Nike (Swoosh! Inside Nike on CNBC)? As I watched some of the broadcast, I was fascinated by the fact that Phil Knight was completely opposed to marketing early on at Nike, and for many of the reasons that those in the 18-35 demographic resist common marketing techniques. What sold Knight on developing a marketing strategy was the concept of

Promoting aspirations instead of catering to consumer desires

This phrase totally caught my attention! So, instead of pushing products, Nike focused on sharing insider information and technological advancements that would help athletes reach their goals and achieve success. This was further developed by featuring sports legends in the making using Nike products – Michael Jordon, Bo Jackson, and Tiger Woods to name a few. By customizing products to meet their specific needs and highest professional standards, Nike added value that was handed down the line to amateur sports enthusiasts. {Although, it’s interesting that Nike still hasn’t made a putter to replace Tiger’s tried and true Titleist}.

So, what does the Swoosh {that Knight paid $35 to have designed} have to do with anything ministry related? As we continue to shape a variety of ministries to individuals, leaders, and churches – the challenge for us is to provide opportunities that move people beyond their consumer tendencies. If you ever run across Adullam, Missio, MCAP, or The Tangible Kingdom – I hope it’s in a context that expands your aspirations to play a key role in the Kingdom…

We’ve recently had some questions from people that have confused our use of the term “emerging” with the specific group referred to as “Emergent or Emergent Village.” Our friend and colleague, Alan Hirsch has also run into the same conversations due to his influence and leadership within the much larger conversation related to ‘emerging missional movements,’ which many organizations are now participating. In doing a little online research, it was easy to find heated debates – I even found an article on Wikipedia with the title “Emerging vs. Emergent.” Our CRM pres. Sam Metcalf, responded to one of our critiques with the following clarification – (Thanks Sam)

Regarding the “emerging church” and CRM’s relationship to this renewal movement, I believe it is important to understand that this movement is not monolithic. It is very diverse. It should also not be confused with “Emergent” which is a specific organization here in the U.S. but which does not, however, represent the totality of “emerging churches” by any means. The emerging church movement as a whole reflects a variety of theological perspectives, some of which I would agree with and some that would give me pause. But overall, I personally believe this is a movement of God which stands squarely in the flow of the great, historical renewal movements of the past 2000 years.

As in almost all renewal movements throughout the history of Christianity, it’s messy. That’s to be expected. There are always excesses, muddy thinking, and some level of deconstructionism that takes place when such change occurs. That was even true of the Protestant Reformation. I saw it myself in the Jesus Movement of the sixties and seventies in the U.S. and astute observers see many interesting similarities to today’s situation. Regardless, CRM is committed to serve the emerging church and to help in any way possible to develop and empower the leadership of this movement.

What God is undoubtedly doing is raising up, on the cultural fringes, a new generation of people who are faithfully and wholeheartedly followers of Jesus and true to the bible, but they are committed to living that faith out in an increasingly secular, postmodern world. From my experience, what I believe is most unsettling to the traditional Christian establishment is not primarily the theological nuances and questions that emanate from emerging churches, but forms and ecclesiological expressions that are outside the acceptable box. While some would attack the emerging church on theological grounds, my suspicion is the real backlash is primarily cultural. In most respects, the emerging church movement is profoundly biblical…

I hope sharing posts on emerging church will continue to clarify some of the issues surrounding this controversial topic. I remember attending the Young Leader Network events in the mid 90’s, and I’ve personally seen some negative aspects of the emerging movement, especially early on when it was highly deconstructive in nature. I appreciate the contribution of the many voices that are articulating proactive principles that are being implemented throughout the western world. I have even greater hope now, than in those early days, that the Christocentric and Missiological framework will solidify the core of this emerging (missional) movement in the days ahead.