By John Cole

So why bother with being local?

Two theoretical answers:

1. ‘Incarnation’.

A church can have no redemptive impact on the world in which people live, it cannot function as a sacrament of God incarnate in Jesus Christ, if it is somehow floating in free space. A church which is not earthed in a local culture (however we then choose to define ‘local’) is a place only for those who want to escape from the world.

Christians from a wide range of backgrounds bear witness to this insight: Walter Bruggemann, an American Lutheran theologian, looks at the symbolism of ‘The Land’ both in the Old Testament and for us today (see ‘Life's Journey’). Vincent Donovan, a Roman Catholic priest, ‘rediscovers Christianity’ in the culture of the Masai people of northern Kenya. Christians involved in ‘church planting’ in England and in Base Ecclesial Communities in South America and elsewhere are constantly being confronted with the need to allow people in each local context and culture to give expression to Christian faith in their own way before then coming to appreciate its universality.

For Christians to pretend that we are not part of the world in which we live may be tempting but it is not a viable option. A church which refuses to engage with its local culture(s) will inevitably develop a culture of its own. What develops may appear harmless, but it will certainly inhibit communication and may quickly become self-seeking and corrupt.

2. ‘Communication’

The second answer to the question "Why local?" is "because we cannot avoid it!" Wherever disciples of Jesus Christ come together, what they are and what they do will be saying something to those around them. If the message doesn't come across as good news, it will tend to be counter-productive. There is no neutral state.

We also need to understand the context in which our church is set simply because we are shaped by it more than we realise it - whether or not we ‘conform’!

We cannot know how to be ‘church’ - never mind how to be ‘local church’ - if we have not first developed our awareness of life in the world around us.

And a very practical answer:

3. God is there already.

God is already at work in our localities, and people will already have begun to connect with him or have begun to develop a culture which rejects him. It is as if every local community has its own spirituality. This is the point these people have reached on a shared journey of faith, however much variation there may be among individuals.

If a church is to function with any degree of gospel effectiveness, if it is even to begin to be aware of the presence of God, it must start where people are. And today we are realising once again that people are not best understood as isolated individual consumers - lost in a proletarian mass. Rather they are human beings who derive their identity through their associations in groups and networks and ‘tribes’. We must return to this theme later - (See 'Finding new ways of belonging').