“CHURCH IN TRANSLATION: MISSION AND EVANGELISM IN A POST-CHRISTIAN WORLD” presented by Dan Collison, lead pastor at First Covenant Church, Minneapolis


How’s that for an intriguing workshop title? It was one that I signed up for at this year’s Covenant Midwinter Conference, and It was every bit as intriguing--and exciting, challenging, and FUN--as I’d hoped it would be. I want to do a two-part blog about what I learned because, if your church is similar to Dan’s (First Cov. Minneapolis), or mine (Hilmar Covenant), or to any number of older, more traditional, firmly established churches in America that are declining in attendance, seeing fewer young people, sensing a waning interest in church, and feeling concern or even apprehensive about the future of one’s congregation, this workshop is for you!

It clarified many of the issues and reasons why traditional, institutional Christianity is in serious decline across America, how those outside of the Church view it and us who are inside it, and offered many excellent, helpful, hopeful solutions to the frustrating reality so many Christians in so many churches are facing today.

Dan began by stating what most of us already know: the era of Christendom in America is over! We might not want to believe it, we might resist it, we might even be trying to re-establish the prominent, privileged place of Christianity in our country and culture. But the reality is that in the course of the past 50+ years, everything has changed for institutionalized Christianity in America. Our culture as a whole no longer encourages or subsidizes Christian faith, Christian values, Christian views, or church involvement; in fact it is often antagonistic and even hostile to Christianity.

But then Dan erupted with excitement, saying this: “What a great time to be alive!” What? This made me sit up! He certainly had my attention now. “What a great time to look for God’s surprises and unexpected moves that will advance His mission of love through our churches and our lives into an increasingly complex culture and into our increasingly complex contexts. As pastor of First Covenant in Minneapolis, God has given me the opportunity to lead a church through a complex re-birth process in one of the most challenging and post-Christian contexts in America. I am convinced now more than ever that our churches’ greatest opportunities for effective mission and evangelism are right in front of us: our contexts; the places where our church buildings are located; the people and experiences who surround us.”

Now let me try to summarize all of the nuggets of insight and understanding that Dan shared with us for the rest of the workshop. First, his own context:


First Cov. Minneapolis was planted in downtown Minneapolis 135 years ago. It was the biggest Covenant church for 101 years in a row! It used to be a “big time” church with thousands in attendance. National and internationally recognized preachers and leaders “left echoes of preaching greatness rattling around the nearly 100,000 square feet of our church building,” which includes a sanctuary that seats 1500.

But beginning even in the 1950’s, the church began its early stages of decline. As we all know, America has gone through many stages of change and upheaval in the decades since then. However, First Covenant Minneapolis remained largely the same congregation with the same worship styles and approaches to ministry throughout these years without much regard to the changing landscape around them. As time went on, the disparity between the congregational life and ethos with its surrounding context was a set-up for serious decline--and it happened!

When Dan arrived a year and a half ago, the church had shrunk to about 100 people in worship. Finally, rather than see their congregation die, the people called Dan to be their lead pastor while agreeing to intimidating words like “re-invention” and “re-development” and “re-start.” They dug in, and began the difficult work of re-thinking, re-orienting, and re-forming their church. After 18 months, it is thrilling to see how the church has progressed, even doubling in size. But they “still rattle around [the] large sanctuary like bee-bees in a tin can.” That huge space “strips our egos bare, giving us a striking mirror image of the broader reality taking place in our culture.”


As Dan got to know the area surrounding First Cov. he asked: “What transformational 21st century change do we have to offer East Downtown Minneapolis?” In so doing, he realized that if they weren’t careful, the congregation was “at risk of driving headlong into the same ditch that so many American churches die in. "Like a scratched compact disc stuttering on the same two seconds of sound over and over again, churches across America get stuck.”
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Scene One: A church originates with a group of people drawn together around a common mission at their unique location.
Scene Two: At some point, the context surrounding the church (population, culture, housing, business, community needs,
etc.) changes.
Scene Three: In response, the church changes little to nothing in its own practices, assuming (falsely) that its past
successes assure future effectiveness.
Scene Four: The people surrounding the building begin to ignore the church.
Scene Five: The church loses a sense of purpose in its time and place.
Scene Six: The context ignores the church altogether and pushes it to the margins of its imagination.
Finale: The church inevitable closes its doors or hands its building off to a new church that is more committed to the current context, or to a developer who does something entirely different with the building and property.
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Dan realized First Cov. was ending Scene Six and about to begin its Finale “when God put into motion an amazing string of events that have now put the church on a path to revitalization and changed much of what I thought I knew about the missional nature of the Church.”

The workshop continued with a brilliant combination of academic information, sociological statistics, literary and media resources, and the very practical, specific things “happening in real time at the Ol’ First Covenant Church ‘Brick House’.” Dan covered three categories of Mission and Evangelism for us to consider in re-shaping how we do mission and evangelism in a post-Christian world:

•Culture and Evangelism: Shifting From Modernity To Postmodernity
•Leadership and Evangelism: Merging Missiology And Ecclesiology
•Worship and Evangelism: Practicing Missional Worship

First, we got a primer on defining some of these key words: culture, modernity, post modernity, missiology, ecclesiology, and missional. (See end of blog) None of this was new to me. I’ve been studying, absorbing, and identifying with this framework that Dan was presenting for probably a decade. However, the way he combined them and described the process of utilizing them to help bring about the re-vitalization of FIrst Cov. validated them all over again for me. It got me thinking again: If congregations across America that are similar to FIrst Cov. Minneapolis could grasp these realities, take a deep breath, choose to become un-stuck, and embrace the understandings and awarenesses that are helping churches like First Cov. come alive in mission and ministry again, there is much hope for the future of Christianity in America!

The question is: can we? Another question: do we want to? Or perhaps even more importantly: will we?


(MISSIONAL: a quick word about this word because, to me, it is absolutely essential that we get inside of its meaning. It was coined in the ‘80’s through the writings of well-known missiologists Lesslie Newbigin and David Bosch, regarding the changed nature of the Christian institution in the West. The conclusions were twofold: 1. What had been a Christendom society (a broad cultural alignment with Christianity as the dominant faith experience) was now clearly post-Christian and, in many ways, an anti-Christian culture. 2. A missiological response to this challenge was an emphasis on the term, missio Dei, or “Mission of God.” Instead of an “ecclesiocentric” (institutional church-focused) understanding of mission, where for centuries the Church focused on shaping Christian communities in the image of the Church of western European culture, this needs to be replaced by a profoundly theocentric (God-centered) understanding of Christian mission. Mission is not merely an activity of the Church! Mission is the result of God’s initiative, rooted in God’s purposes to restore and heal creation. “Mission” means “sending,” and it is the central biblical theme describing the purpose of God’s action in human history. To be missional is to be externally oriented and primarily a sending entity. The key to unlocking this vision for individual churches to become and remain God-centered mission outposts (John Notehelfer, take note!) requires a deep, intentional commitment to contextualized ministry: the practice of fully engaging the people, circumstances, and location where the church (i.e. the people) gather in Christian community.

This is it for this first installment. If you are committed to and engaged in ministry in a church, I hope it has whetted your appetite and you’ll be ready to read Dan’s perspectives and practices that he brought to us in the workshop which have already made such a positive difference in the life of First Cov. Minneapolis. Till then, do some reflecting on your own context and then, in two weeks, see what you can glean from Dan and apply within your context. A blessed Lent to all of you...