GCM pastor, J.R. Woodward, has a great blog-
Today he summarized someone else to whet your appetite to check that out.
not that I'm an expert, but it seemed familiar to GCM history:
"1. Metaphor: We pick a metaphor that embodies the idea or model of church we desire, and while this is helpful, it can also lead to an unhelpful idealization of the church.
2. Idealization: Our grand idea of church does not match our given reality of church because as soon as the church does something concrete involving real people, the idea is polluted and corrupted, so we move onto the next form of church.
3. Dogmatic Prescription: We then might move to a stage which prescribes an unquestionable form of church proclaiming our model as true and that the "true church" must include and exclude particular things.
4. Continued Reflection: A new problem arises in that we prescribe our idealism that never quite takes shape because the church is full of imperfect people, so we can end up living in an endless dream of church instead of a church of practice. We then start to think we simply need to be more persuasive and clear about our idea.
5. Continued Idealization: We get locked into a cycle of feedback and response and start finding more satisfaction in the wishing of church, in the consuming of the idea of church than of actually practicing and doing church."
http://www.jrwoodward.net/jrwoodward/2007/03/on_new_church_f.html
