What will the next Reformation look like? Pay attention to the rumblings ...

The rumblings are already taking place underneath your feet. Can you feel them?

"So let us go out to him, outside the camp, and bear the disgrace he bore." --Hebrews 13:13 (NLT)

The Protestant Reformation didn't happen 500 years ago simply because a German priest decided to nail his list of 95 opinions to a door. Martin Luther's act was unquestionably heroic, but the act itself was as common as thumb-tacking a flyer to a cork board for discussion on a college campus today. It wasn't because his "theses" were so persuasive and so well-written that it inspired Christians to risk their lives to reform the Western Church. Rather, Luther's words struck a nerve.

For a movement to last half a millennia it couldn't have been the work of one man in only one historic event. Nor will any future, widespread changes to Christianity take place overnight.

For Luther, the time was right. The stage was set by many reformers who came before -- many of whom lost their lives -- in defense of the simple truth of the Gospel. The circumstances made for a ripeness whereby Luther's words echoed and pierced more than just a wooden door but the hearts of great academics and church leaders whose excesses and errors are well known. Those paying attention had known for years what led to this earth-shaking act of defiance that toppled strongholds. They felt the rumblings.

Reformation didn't take place in a vacuum
This major quake happened 500 years ago, Oct. 31, 1517, to be exact, when Luther's little rebellion sparked the Protestant Reformation. It also inspired the Catholic Church's re-evaluation of itself via the Counter-Reformation and a gradual shift of priorities in other streams of Christianity (e.g. Eastern Orthodox, and a trickle of reformation groups that pre-dated Luther). That's a quarter of the entire age of Christianity that Protestantism has been in existence. And if you don't know why this change in Western Christianity is significant even today, read this. If you don't feel like clicking links, or even if you confuse Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the Lutheran church guy, just be thankful that you can read the Bible in your own language.

We know from Scripture God used men like Abraham, Moses, King Josiah, Daniel, Jonah, even Saul of Tarsus to enact a changing of the guard that one man could not have orchestrated on his own. We know from church history there has been a fairly consistent trend of movements and martyrs who prophesied to the Church to "hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches." These "rumblings" are what broke up the ground for the Protestant Reformation.

Those of us worshiping as intentionally simple congregations, house churches, missional communities, and various forms of "body life" know another tectonic shift is on it's way.  For now, we're often voices crying in the wilderness. But it's not that we picked up on something forgotten for 2,000 years. There were The Lollards. The Hugenots. The Waldensians. The Anabapists. Moravian Brethren. The Wesleyan Revival. The camp meeting movement. And so many others. Remnants of each of these "awakenings"still exist and have fed in to what we're doing. Some say this is proof that we're not "Protestants" at all because there has been a "crimson line" or a "trail of blood" that extends back to Pentecost -- though it's a sparsely dotted line if it exists at all. Either way, it's not out of God's character to "preserve a remnant" and call believers to repentance from time to time.

Meeting simply around the Lord's table was not only a revolutionary act for this "great cloud of witnesses" and sometimes a life-threatening one. We will likely never learn about remnants of Christians who met underground to pursue their conscience in following after Jesus. Records of others are lost to the Dark Ages. And let's not forget today that many of the saints still meet in secret in East Asia, portions of the Muslim world, the infamous 10-40 window, and other portions of the world where believers in Jesus are persecuted. American Christians have it easy, though comfort has its own drawbacks.

Turning vision into reality
Those of us in the "organic" corner of Christianity often imagine ourselves as modern reformers -- quixotically at times. Some call what we're doing a "last reformation" before the return of Christ. Others aren't quite that dramatic, though we raise quite a few eyebrows:

• We've rejected the clergy-laity hierarchy and not only declared every "member" a priest in Christ Jesus but allowed them to exercise that right freely.
• We've traded discipleship programs for direct relationship-building.
• We've put function and responsibility over leadership and credentials.
• We've made an art of getting to the bottom of biblical practices, such as recapturing the Lord's Supper and bringing it back to its New Testament "love feast" context.
   
• We've put the focus on building the kingdom through our time and giving rather than physical structures (e.g. no church building means more money to help others and send missionaries). 

Even though most Christians agree that this was the way of the Early Church, for various reasons these remain controversial practices. But I don't know of anyone losing their jobs over it.

The future is already here 
Our natural gravitation is to look around and point to various book authors, conferences, and networks to define our exodus and bring us to a "promised land" -- a golden age where un-chartable, internecine networks of simple churches criss-cross the globe and supplant common attitudes about what it means to be the Church.

Despite the wild dreams, the reality is that "house church networks" are rare and many meetings often short-lived and elusive.  And this way of "doing church" tends to attract those with an aversion to authority in general, which presents a challenge to building a credible movement. And motives vary: some do it out of a rejection of leftover pagan rituals in Christianity and some do it because they've been burned by "organized religion" and a fear of legalism. Some cooperate with Christians who meet in buildings and pay pastors (as mine does) and some turn their backs on them. Some are in it to start a movement, while others are just burned out and tired of fighting.

It's perhaps not wise to point to any one man or gathering of minds to predict where this organic movement is going any more than we can say that Martin Luther was the one who reformed the Western Church.  We know that the next 500 years (if Jesus doesn't return for us before then) could very well incorporate our current practices into mass Christian culture. And if this is in any way like the Protestant Reformation, the work is already being done. The peaks and troughs are appearing on the Church's seismograph!

Here are a few "pre-shocks" I can think of taking place in mainstream churches:

• An explosion of the "cell church" model in contemporary churches ("life groups," home groups, etc.).
• An undercurrent of theologians supporting a "plurality of elders" to shepherd the flock rather than a single head pastor calling all the shots.
• A rise in the popularity of "missional" efforts to physically address problems specific communities are facing.
• "House churches" that are connected to larger organizations, churches, or denominations as a means of spreading the gospel, each with non-seminary trained, volunteer leaders in place.

As one example to support that last bullet-point: former megachurch pastor and author Francis Chan recently left his flock to plant house churches in San Francisco. Though his system is still tightly organized (~$500 to get trained!) with its own system of appointed leaders and curriculum, that he feels this is an avenue worthy pursuing shows that predominant Christian figures are beginning to wake up to the practicality of what we have been suggesting all along. Even Facebook's headquarters had him come speak, curious of what this might mean for the future.

This writer keeps running across references to "oikos mapping" and "missional DNA" in church-planting circles, which has long been the domain of certain streams of organic house church activity but has now caught on elsewhere.

The institutional church has noticed what we're doing, is still paying attention, and will continue gleaning from our example.

Through a mirror, darkly
The next reformation will almost undoubtedly be a relational revolution. Some are predicting it will leverage technology and mass communications to help Christians better disciple and connect with one another. But it could be just the opposite, as a generation raised in an ever-complicated and entertainment-focused world begins to long for face-to-face dialogue and localized community. After all, "micro is the new macro" in the business realm, from local farmer's markets to regional flavors of brands in retail stores. Consider how handheld devices have transformed our world in terms of peer-to-peer e-commerce and social media and you may see how a church birthed in this reality (and mingled with the prophetic voice of the organic movement) could shake up Christianity throughout the next centuries A.D., or until the Trumpet sounds.

But again we don't know. We don't know what God has cooking. We "see through a mirror, darkly" and cannot be certain what a future Reformation will consist of. It likely won't call itself a "reformation" at all (that term is spoken for!), but will sneak up on us in a completely unexpected way as Luther's otherwise mundane challenge to his intellectual peers caught fire five centuries ago.

Let's not forget in all this that our call to baptize and make disciples goes back four times as long ago.