The Apostolic Paradigm

Mead identifies three paradigms in church life and mission. The first is the paradigm of the apostolic period. In the early church, Mead says, the church was conscious of itself as existing in a hostile, antagonistic and persecuting world. The early Christians saw themselves as called out of that world into a community which had very different values and ways of behaving. Life in the early Christian communities was intense and personal and each of its members was aware that they were called to witness to God’s love in that hostile world.
For Mead, the key element in identifying the nature of church life is the nature of its mission. The early church saw its mission as its front door. The mission of communicating God’s good news was a task for every member. The congregation sought to build up the courage, strength and skill of its members to engage in that mission.

The Christendom Paradigm

Mead sees a new paradigm emerging as Christianity became, in name and law, the official religion of the Roman Empire. In this paradigm, there was no clear distinction between the world and the church. The church no longer existed in a hostile environment. Mission became something that happened at the frontier of the Empire by specialist missionaries sent to convert heathen tribes and nations.
The congregation became a parish, a geographical region and all the people within that area. People became part of the congregation by birth. The priest became a chaplain to the community. Being a Christian was being a good citizen, obedient to the system of government. The law was seen as describing and enforcing the values of the Christian faith. Christian and secular dimensions of society were not clearly distinguished.
Mead argues that many people in contemporary society have grown up in the Christendom paradigm. They think that being Christian is the same thing as being a good citizen. Mission is something which happens ‘at the edges of the Empire’. He suggests that most of the structures of congregational, denominational and ecumenical life remain oriented to this paradigm.

The Emerging Paradigm

However, the Christendom paradigm is no longer working, and a new paradigm is emerging. The basic fact is that the environment is no longer ‘the church’. No longer can it be assumed that all people are Christians. Hence, the congregation must be seen as distinct from the geographical area of the parish. The front door of the congregation has become mission territory and the lay members of the congregation have been called once again to engage in mission.
Within this new paradigm, the roles of the clergy are changing. The clergy no longer have high status roles as chaplains in the community. They are expected to be managers and leaders of the institution. But this task often conflicts with the more basic one of assisting the laity to take responsibility for mission in family, workplace and community. The result is a loss of authority and role clarity and, in many cases, depression, anger, stress and burn-out.
The laity are called not just to be good citizens and contribute to the parish budget. Rather, they are called to ministry beyond the congregation. They are aware that things have to change, and even worship has to change, but are not always clear why that is the case. Nor is it clear exactly what is the ministry they are expected to undertake.
People are putting their efforts and energies into the local congregation, where the demands of mission are experienced. Denominational agencies and systems of leadership are being forced to ‘down-size’, no longer seen as relevant to the mission of the church as the lay people see it.
Mead sees the task as one of ‘re-inventing’ the church. He believes that the future church will need to be more intentional about Christian education for the laity as they live in an ambiguous world. Most new Christians have little background in the traditions of faith. Their life experiences are becoming more diverse and pastoral care must have an educational component. ‘Mission training’ will be needed to help lay Christians engage in mission activities.
Clergy must support the ministry of others and provide training, equipping people for their mission in the new age. Mead sees the training and re-training of clergy to do this as a major challenge of the churches. There is a need for re-working theology so that it will relate to the missionary frontier, to people’s decision in family, work and community, rather than being a classroom exercise for the academic elite. The structures of the church must be turned upside down to serve the local mission of the church.
There are inevitably structural resistances and problems of leadership. For many, change is met by denial, depression, bargaining, or anger. However, Mead believes that the theological seminaries could show vision and leadership. Many denominational leaders are approaching the tasks with commitment and imagination. New change agents and change events are occurring.
Mead suggests that leaders should focus on those congregations at ‘learning points’, facing a change or a crisis of some kind, or a boundary point, at which there may be the opportunity to change. He suggests that churches need to encourage and fund innovation, rather than handicap it and punish it. On the other hand, he says that we need structures that ‘hold steady’ not allowing the new to become erratic and impulsive.

The Broader Context of Change

Some may challenge Mead's simplistic account of congregational and mission history. Many congregations, particularly of the Free Church heritage, have always seen mission as being at the heart of congregational life. Nevertheless, Mead has put his finger on important challenges which are facing the churches. Australians will agree with many of his insights. Certainly, one can no longer assume that the people in the community have a Christian background. Mission has increasingly become a task for the local congregation. Mead notes that these changes are occurring in the context of wider social changes occurring in many parts of the world.
An examination of these wider social changes would indicate more exactly some of the challenges in mission that churches face. The Christian Research Association has explored three types of social change in the Western world.
1.          Change in community life - from being built on local communities to fragmented experiences of community many of which occur through electronic communications (see Horsfield in Religion in an Age of Change).
2.          Rapid changes in cultural expression. Worldviews and cultural expression in music, art and film, for example, have changed. The cultural forms of church life of the 1950s relate neither in form or content to the world of the 1990s.
3.          Change from a ‘traditional’ society to a ‘post-traditional’ society. In a post-traditional society in which people are constructing culture and society on an individual basis from a wealth of global options, the very nature of religion has changed. Religious faith is moving from being a community activity, often rooted in ethnic cultural identity, to an individual pursuit. There is little interest in the coherence of an exclusive package. Rather, people are seeking religious resources from various sources which they put together to meet the challenges of their own situation.
Loren Mead has correctly pointed to paradigmatic change in which mission has become a concern of the laity within the local congregation but has under-estimated those changes which make contentious the very nature of community and religious faith, and hence, the nature of congregational life and mission.

Philip Hughes