Church as Gospel Community

Steve Timmis and Tim Chester have helped evangelicals to recover the sense of church as gospel community, not least through their Crowded House initiative. In Total Church (IVP, 2007), they challenge today's prevailing view of life, of us standing on our own 'juggling' our various domestic, work, and social responsibilities.

All too often church becomes one of the balls. We juggle responsibilities for church (measured predominately by attendance at meetings) just as we juggle our responsibilities for work or leisure. An alternative model is to view our various activities and responsibilities as spokes of a wheel. At the centre or hub of life is not me as an individual, but us as members of the Christian community. Church is not another ball to juggle, but that which defines who I am and gives Christlike shape to my life.(pp.42-43)

Interestingly, this works out, among other ways, as church members (including church leaders) 'make decision with regard to the implications for the church and to make significant decisions in consultation with the church.' (p.45)
Such a gospel community is profoundly mission-minded. Although mission develops from being centripetal (moving towards the centre) in the OT to centrifugal (moving away from the centre) in the NT, Timmis & Chester argue that 'mission does not cease to be centripetal.'

The attractive covenant community continues to be the means by which Godfulfils his promise to Abraham. What has changed is the centre! The centre is no longer geographic Jerusalem. Now it is the community itself among whom Christ promises to be present (Matthew 28:20). The community moves out across the globe (a centrifugal movement), all the time drawing people to its Lord through its common life ( a centripetal movement).(p.47)