Your sentiment is exactly what I hear from pastors who have been around in ministry longer than I have. I take the wisdom that comes from experience seriously, so I don’t discount it by any means–it might just be a sociological reality that new movements need to leave those set in their ways behind. But it is precisely that Bonhoeffer quote (which I’m quite sure is from Life Together) and the writing of Jean Vanier in “Community and Growth” that gives me my sense of idealism in the opposite direction.

The extension of Paul’s metaphor to thumbs and toes rings true to me as well, however. Still one body, still needed, just not in the same place unless you’re doing yoga.

True Christian community is found in the place where the person you like least to be with always is.

I don’t know how big a hole that pokes in my previous comment, but I’m willing to contend that a thumb and a big toe can get along quite well in the same place without always being held alongside each other. In fact, it makes it pretty hard for the body to do much of anything if those two digits are kept close together for long periods of time.

Some horses don’t want to be led to water, let alone drink it.

The longer I’ve been in ministry, the more this has shown itself to be true to me. Perhaps others disagree, but I’ve known too many people who view any change in their church experience — including the presence of people with different views or hues — to be an affront to The True Faith And All That’s Holy.

For years I’ve held on to the belief and hope that diversity in worship and ministry is a healthy thing. I know that it happens in some faith communities, for which I’m grateful to God. The truth is that those communities are very rare. Who knows but that it’s only a matter of having enough funerals before the present tensions subside. Somehow, I don’t think it’s that simple.

In the meantime, I’m tired of doing my equivalent of “cleaning wax out of the carpet” while listening to a chorus of complaints about how “the wax” got there. I, for one, am no longer interested in trying to get the complainers together with the ones they’re complaining about. Let the complainers stay amidst the places, practices, and people that give them comfort, and let the missional crowd follow where they believe the Spirit leads them. Even Paul, with all his reconciliation and Body of Christ language, parted ways with Barnabas. The book of Acts doesn’t say for sure, but it appears that both Paul and Barnabas managed to stay faithfully within “The Way”, differences and all. Maybe that’s because big toes and thumbs are far enough apart on the body to do their jobs well.

Though I only have to work with one worship service, there are clearly tensions in my community of the classic sort that you described. The worship wars.

The theme that you brought up that resonates with me the most is the idea that the missional wing of the church needs and can bring into participation the “existing” wing of the church. Personally, I am hesitant to start a new worship service, because I don’t think it’s okay to say, “forget you older folks, we’ll let you stay set in your ways while we’re going to be missional.” Worshiping with those we are in tension with might be one of the core purposes of communal worship! For myself, when I’m 70 or 85 I don’t want people to tell me that my role in the community is to pray and give money. So why shouldn’t we work to creatively incorporate that generation into the missional activity of the New Thing that God is doing?

The point should not be the new cool vs. the old cool, but the quality of our life together as God’s people while gathered or scattered.

I guess that’s all I’ve got, but thanks for your post.