Also by this author: When the Universe Cracks: Living as God's People in Times of Crisis, Kingdom and Country: Following Jesus in the Land That You Love
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Growing up, I thought a parachurch ministry was when you “pair a church” together with other churches for a specific purpose. I grew up, learned about prefix meanings, and came to understand that “parachurch” ministries were meant to come alongside churches to either assist the church or provide ministry resources the individual churches didn’t have. So maybe my childlike assessment wasn’t too far off. The problem comes when that alongsideness turns into a competition—for money, for volunteers, for physical space, and more. In Beyond Church and Parachurch, ministry leadership expert Dr. Angie Ward calls readers to a less competitive, less hierarchical, more collaborative and kingdom-minded model of ministry.
Ward begins with a statement of the problem: We have a restricted idea of what church is. To use theological words, our ecclesiology is deficient. We’ve had church about a building, an organization, an event, or even a specific group of people, but Scripture is clear that church is our collective identity as believers. How might our leadership, our ministries, and our focuses change if we acted out that identity?
Beyond Church and Parachurch then takes a survey of the church, present and historical, to help readers contextualize the problem—and therefore the solution. This history of the church and parachurch (mostly focused on Western/American ministry) sets the groundwork for how we got to where we are while still recognizing the good that parachurch ministry has done. Ward then spends quite a bit of time defining the church and its mission in a way breaks down hierarchies and ministerial barriers in favor of a more inclusive, yet more individual definition.
It’s this conversation, one that rejects the businesslike models of many institutional churches and parachurch ministries that I think should be central to how we talk about church. When we focus only on our own institutions—be they church or parachurch—we miss out on the wideness and expansiveness of God’s people and God’s calling on them. When we try to shoehorn ministry into models of business that serve consumeristic/capitalistic ideals, we will inevitably get into a competition for resources that will only get worse as (or if) the church continues to decline in the West.
Beyond Church and Parachurch’s ecclesiology moves church leaders from scrapping over limited resources to a sharing of resources—moving from competition to missional extension. By locating the church within individuals, rather than an institution, Ward makes the case that while individuals should have a church “home base,” they are then called to be missionally extended outward into other ministries. This sharing of resources and leaning into the strengths of various organizations will help make the church as a whole stronger, healthier, more competent, and more on mission. In a world that has been increasing focused on the “business” of church, Angie Ward calls us back our mission.