How Am I Going to Grow Up? An Exploration of Congregational Transition Among Second-Generation Chinese Canadian Evangelicals and Servant Leadership

Abstract

closure of their community. How did they view themselves and what remained of their resources? ‘Oh, that’s easy, we’re the compost for whatever comes next’ (99). This compost is intentionally created out of the death of a socially influential Church, and ‘made from the post-modern, post-industrial, post Christendom, and post-colonial North’ (100). They examine ‘ ... five ways of approaching a nuanced post-colonial contextual theology from the North of England’ (102): particularity, theological agency, coloniality, hybridisation, resistance. They argue ‘ ... that spiritual capital creates relational capital at the fuzzy boundary of Church and world’ (112), illustrating this with German churches that have shops within their outer walls. Chapter 7 draws together the themes of the research with the image of dance: joining in with what God is already doing through discernment of ‘the spark of God’ beyond and within human experience. HowGodworks is marked by ‘ ... patience, kindness and gentleness, not domination or force’ (124). The compost for Fuzzy Church embraces the situation in which the church is no longer a political and cultural force. Rather, it tends the work of the Spirit through a choice against power over and cooperates with the Spirit’s patience, kindness, and gentleness. ‘The power of the Spirit at work could perhaps be described as new life coming through death and deprivation, like new shoots pushing up through cracks in the pavement’ (128). It would augment the research if there had been a response from the participants. I wondered, if they had read the book and responded, would they recognise the insights and conclusions? Perhaps this is the next chapter which the authors hope will be written.