Charis-missional?
Ever since writing Post-Charismatic, I've been thinking from time to time that we should really come up with a term that better describes what post-charismatic people are positively moving towards.
In the interim, I've been saying "post-charismatic, but not post-Spirit" to differentiate myself from those former charismatics who have simply ditched anything even remotely charismatic. While I've been generally content to use the "but not post-Spirit" phrase, I still wanted something more pithy, more forward-focussed.
It's important, as people work through various issues of Detoxing from Church, that we not get stuck on defining ourselves based on where we've already been (and are leaving/deconstructing) -- hence my desire to find a better phrase than POST-charismatic. It says where we're coming from, but not where we're going TO in a healthier re-construction of what it means to be Christ's apprentices in the advancing Kingdom.
Emerging Grace may have just come up with the phrase I've been looking for, in a recent post entitled Missional Schmissional.
The phrase?
Wow. I think I may have found my new phrase!
In the interim, I've been saying "post-charismatic, but not post-Spirit" to differentiate myself from those former charismatics who have simply ditched anything even remotely charismatic. While I've been generally content to use the "but not post-Spirit" phrase, I still wanted something more pithy, more forward-focussed.
It's important, as people work through various issues of Detoxing from Church, that we not get stuck on defining ourselves based on where we've already been (and are leaving/deconstructing) -- hence my desire to find a better phrase than POST-charismatic. It says where we're coming from, but not where we're going TO in a healthier re-construction of what it means to be Christ's apprentices in the advancing Kingdom.
Emerging Grace may have just come up with the phrase I've been looking for, in a recent post entitled Missional Schmissional.
The phrase?
Charis-missional
Grace defines charismissional as "Spirit-led missional living".Wow. I think I may have found my new phrase!
posted by Robbymac at
4:15 PM
9 Comments:
that or missio-charismatic :)
oh...both are good...
hehehe..I think it's a bit of a mouthful but I don't have anything better.
Robby, just a quick question. I feel the same way about the negative dimension of "post" as a descriptor/label. It defines in an oblique way. Yet, at the same time, because we're not really sure where we're heading, may the post is appropriate for now? As in the case of post-modern. Some scholars have argued that post-modernism isn't a rejection or a break with modernism, but is in fact a deepening of certain characteristics of modernism - I'm thinking of Stanley Rosen's arguments here. And in light of your work on the "post-charismatic" I wonder if the post might retain a usefuly nuance? Then again, a new name could probably do that too...
robby,
I'm sure that post-charismatic will continue to be useful because it is descriptive of a turning point in the charismatic movement.
Charismissional fits me for now.
(Pithy happens to be one of my favorite words.)
Hey all,
I agree that post-charismatic provides an indicator of where we've been, but I like charismissional as a descriptor of where -- by God's grace and the Spirit's leading -- we're moving towards.
While it may seem perhaps even a wee bit premature to move on to "charismission", as many of us are still working through what being post-charismatic is, at the same time it's important to me that we don't get stuck for too long in the de-construction season. We have to move at some point, and we'll want to be defined more by what we're moving towards.
Although remembering the journey behind us will remain important as well. It's a journey, lots of process involved, no doubt about it!
As with the emerging church ...its important to at least create some distance from that which one has been moving away from to better articulate what one is moving toward. So long as one doesn't stay in that place.
Thanks
Garth
I like it cause one, it fits, and two, it creates questions. I'll have to start using it.
Robbie,
I hate to tell you, but "charismissional" just sounds like "missional charismatics". For that reason, I do not think post-charismatics or anti-charismatics will respond positively to this term.
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