Exclusion and Embrace

Not at all related to the book (mostly because I haven't read the entire thing yet), but here it is all the same. A lot of churches out there are doing things didfferently. Their liturgy is different, or their services incorporate different forms of expression (newer forms of music, conversational sermons, question periods, etc.) than what has been traditional to the Modern Church. I guess my primary question relates to how these churches actually engage with the communities they are in. Some have tight membership structures that require membership in the church prior to participation in small groups. But different scholars and practitioners have noted, and continue to observe that people who come to church out of curiosity do not come in if there are numerous barriers to acceptance. Membership is one of these barriers. How does a church that stresses membership as a way into community, actually function missionally? Can it? It seems to me that if the entire structure of the church is inward focused -- focused on drawing people into the community, rather than reaching outwards, there will be larger problems to be accounted for unless there is something radically different about the way in which this exclusive membership operates in the real world. If the membership is concerned with the surrounding community - if it is engaged in communicating the gospel in word and in action, then perhaps such an exclusive membership structure can work. However, if this second tier is more focused on maintaining exclusivity, without finding some other way of creating social space for "non-members" to explore faith in the context of community, it seems that the community has failed at both levels in its call to incarnate the gospel. The question all over my mind today is how do you move from an inward-focused, membership-driven church to one that both on individual and corporate levels engages with the surrounding culture? The church needs to create space for free and open dialogue, and be willing to break herself for the good of the entire world. I question how insulation from the world (you know, the one that God thought was good) will serve to promote this dialogue, and serve the world with a witness of God's unimaginable grace. Tags: Doctrine of Election, Ecclesiology, Emerging Church