By Jim Henderson

The White church is slowly being pushed toward the margins of a culture it once dominated.

• Cell phone towers are replacing church steeples as key geographic (and cultural) markers
• For all its political effort, the religious right has come up largely empty handed
• The fastest growing faith segment in America is the “nones” those who claim no religion

The Good News: The Black church has been operating from the margins from its inception

• They’ve never had power or influence over the majority culture
• They’ve always had to do more with less
• They have experience with being ignored
• They’ve developed practical gospel that brings heaven to humans (as well as humans to heaven)
• They produced the most significant Christian leader of the 20th Century Martin Luther King Jr.

The Bad News: We’ve rarely asked them for help

• We have largely ignored their accomplishments
• We have been suspicious of their version of the gospel

The Best News: If we ask, they’re willing to help us

• Create a more practical gospel
• Become more about others and less about ourselves

The Missional movement is calling the church to serve the culture, to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth. This movement was forced in part by the increased awareness people have of suffering all around them. Not just “over there” but right next door. What used to be derisively called the Social Gospel has become business as usual for even the most conservative evangelical churches.

This impulse and theological tradition is found in its purest form in the Black Church who due to being marginalized discovered that the social gospel and getting people to heaven are not mutually exclusive. They also discovered that political action can be exercised for people who are truly disadvantaged not just inconvenienced.

Today, due to a general disillusionment with much of the traditional church, more young people are voting with their feet and saying if you aren’t serving your community you aren’t going to see me in church.

This is why Off The Map has invited several leaders of the African American church to talk with us about what we can learn from their experience. We want to know what would happen if we merged on the margins. We also want to say thank you and to honor their contribution to the work of the Kingdom.

As a way of saying thank you we will be honoring the work and contribution of Dr Samuel B McKinney who has devoted his life to serving others. The Samuel B McKinney Service Above Self Award will be given each year to the individual or group who exemplifies these missional values.

It was only a little over 500 years ago that the most popular maps showed an earth that ended at the Equator. The Equator was a boundary no one crossed and lived to tell about. We know that isn’t true now and wasn’t true then but it “felt” true to them.

Here’s the lesson: Maps make people feel and if we want people to change we need to give them alternate feelings – a new map. Only then will they walk out the door and see that the world is much bigger, more interesting and more receptive than they had come to believe.

As Brian McLaren says “If you have a new world you need a new map – you have a new world”

Tags: church