Westwinds and the Incarnational Model

Jered had some questions about some things I talked about during Sunday School last week. He addressed them in a comment on an earlier post, but I think this conversation might get long and I'm therefore setting them into their own post. Let me take Jered's questions one at a time, and I'll welcome your thoughts thereafter. By way of context, here's part of Jered's original comment:

In Sunday school you mentioned the acrostic IPAC for the Incarnational church, Westwind, I believe. Everything about that model cried out to me; the focus on imagination and creativity, the embracing of authenticity, the empowering of the congregation to do good works, and obviously the communal focus....

First of all, yes - it was Westwinds in Jackson, MI that I was talking about. They are a self-described Emerging church. Just so we're clear, the iPAC acronym is theirs. Imagination, Permission, Authenticity, Community: iPAC. There's a flash sequence on the bottom of their homepage that visually identifies this creed.

...is the Incarnational model synonymous with emerging or missional or is it another closely related way of doing things?

Westwinds does, in my opinion, serve as a great example of the so-called Incarnational model of ministry. The Attractional model says, "Create an environment that will attract seekers and make them feel safe and comfortable". The Incarnational model says, "Create authentic community as a help to the spiritual growth of the congregation and as a testimony to God's glory; seekers, should the Spirit lead them, will see this depth and sincerity and perhaps be attracted to it (though that's not the point)". Okay, maybe nobody would actually say that, but that's my take on Incarnational.

"Missional" is not exactly the same as Incarnational. Missional describes the philosophy of ministry for the local church; Incarnational describes the philosophy of community. The two definitely overlap, but to keep the meaning of the words distinct, I'll keep this distinction a bit more academically than it might appear in reality.

"Emerging" is a very nebulous term right now. There is no single accepted definition. But for me and in this context, it is the catch-all term that sums up these two concepts: emerging churches are (by and large) both Incarnational and Missional. One can be Missional without being Emerging - the FGBC, for example. That's Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches, for you non-Grace Seminary folk! They are decidedly Missional in their thinking, but not Emerging (though they're not all anti-Emerging).

I'd encourage all of you to poke around on Westwinds website. They are one of the more theologically orthodox of the emerging churches that I know much about. Read and see what they have to say.

And let me know what you think.

Hatushili