Why doesn’t the Church—especially in the Western world—see more activity of the Holy Spirit?
One of the things I have discovered in my 20-year trek toward understanding the Spirit and His gifting hit me a couple years ago, and it gave me a new perspective on the issue. One problem we have is that we tend to see spiritual gifts as things. They are possessions I accumulate; for Western Christians, this is the most deadly way of understanding them. Our US worldview, especially, is that the accumulation of things is our goal and lifestyle--responsible use is not. For American Christians to hear about spiritual gifts as things God gives us rather than a challenge to a lifestyle of a completely different order, it often psychologically puts them in the "Optional" or "For Use When Needed" bin in our cluttered minds. You know—the place where great concepts wither and die.
This piecemeal approach is both informed and augmented by our American way of reading 1 Corinthians. We see it as Paul, the problem solver, ticking off his list of things to discuss with the troubled church in Corinth. See a problem, fix a problem. We can relate to that. It fits our superficial, pragmatic worldview.
Several years ago I was doing some Greek work on that book and came upon what I think is the real theme of 1 Corinthians, and it completely re-oriented my view of the book in general and of spiritual gifts in particular. It all revolves around the Greek word "pneumatikos" in some key areas in this book. It unlocks Paul's grand purpose for writing the book, and helps us understand that lifestyle of a completely different order.
First, a definition. "Pneumatikos" almost cannot be translated into English. The best we can do is to say that it speaks of "spiritual stuff," or the realm of reality where spiritual stuff is most active and alive. As you know, context very often must supply the local meaning. However, just looking at the words immediately surrounding a word often is not enough. This word in particular is used in key places in the book, so we are (or should be) forced to harmonize all the uses into a cohesive theme. Only then will we really "get it."
We can all agree that the church in Corinth had a number of presenting issues that reeked of spiritual immaturity. We can also agree that in Paul's other letters he never applied corrective action or teaching without first applying a broader theme of redemption and maturity. He wasn't a help desk guy simply intent on getting things re-booted so he could go on to the next customer.
Paul addresses the immaturity issue in chapter 1 presented to him by the visitors from Corinth. The goal he presents to Corinth is finishing well, which is done through the outworking of the Kingdom of God (1:7-8). He sets up the discussion for the rest of the book, and the grand underlying theme of the book in 1:18 - 3:23. That theme is, "this is what true spirituality/maturity looks like. Come live in it." In the middle chapters he holds up the mirror and lets them see the spiritual anarchy that prevents them from "getting it." That's what the discussions about divisions and competition, an anti-authority spirit, sexual leniency, legal disputes, broken and distracted marriages, "strong" versus "weak," men and women in competition, and nominal religion are about. The middle chapters are illustrations.
Back to the theme. In explicit teaching about spiritual maturity beginning in 2:6, Paul says that real understanding about the way things truly are, and the power to live that way, comes from "...words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths (pneumatikos) in spiritual words (pneumatikos)" (2:13). The concept is so important that Paul uses the word twice.
Only those who live in this realm of pneumatikos, and who are defined by it, can "get it" when God speaks (2:15 -- Literal translation: "...but the spiritual one [pneumatikos] examines all...). Suddenly the word is personified, indicating one whose life is intertwined with and defined by this realm. Paul goes on to say that he could not talk to the Corinthians as "pneumatikos" but had to do it on the flesh level (3:1). Hence, the way he writes the book. Does the way I interpret 1 Corinthians bring a little interpretation into what realm dictates my understanding? Hmmm...
Paul goes on in chapter 9 to remind the readers that his ministry was all about sowing the seeds of the Kingdom and spiritual maturity [pneumatikos]--that was his goal (9:11). He reminds the readers that they really are without excuse, because this was God's goal all along. God even provided examples through Israel's wanderings (10:1-6). They "...ate the same spiritual food [pneumatikos], and all drank the same spiritual drink [pneumatikos], for they were drinking from a spiritual rock [pneumatikos] that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ." Pneumatikos, it seems to me, is the same stuff that is supposed to flow when we are attached to the Vine. It is the lifeblood of the Kingdom, not a component we call "spiritual gifts" that most believers learn to get along without very nicely.
So we get done with the illustrations and Paul returns to his theme in 12:1. "Now concerning spiritual gifts [pneumatikos], I do not want you to be ignorant." Without understanding the flow of Paul's thinking, our next best guess is twofold: First, spiritual gifts were another of the many problems Paul had to dress down the immature Corinthians about (which leads many to the conclusion that it is good to avoid them entirely for fear of excess); Secondly, and equally wrong, that this is a list of things God gives that is almost entirely unconnected from any of the previous teaching.
What Paul is really saying is, "OK, now that I have your attention, let's talk about what living in the realm of mature spirituality looks like." If we can synthesize the earlier teachings and come to this point, then and only then does chapter 13 really fall into place. This is a discussion about what the Spirit-filled lifestyle looks like, and the greatest manifestation of the Spirit of God is love (John 13:34-35; 1 John 4:16). He can then say, "Pursue the love and the spiritual [pneumatikos]... [literal Greek translation]" (14:1).
Incidentally, by using the definite article “the” before the word “love” in 14:1, Paul is speaking of a specific love, e.g. the spiritual gift that is the primary identifier of the “pneumatikos” kind of person. This could lead to an entire volume of discussion in itself, which we won’t do now. But it does beg one important question that is directly related to the “pneumatikos” lifestyle: what does it say about the American Church when most people outside of it would say that we are identified primarily by what (or whom) we are against, rather than the empowered, magnetic essence of God living among and through us?
Paul then finishes the teaching portion of his book by saying, "If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted [pneumatikos--one who walks and lives in the realm of the Kingdom], let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command..." (14:37).
In closing, Paul encourages the Corinthians to live under the shadow of the resurrection (chapter 15). He continues his theme and weaves it into this encouragement. Whenever the English translations say in 44-46 that there is a "spiritual" whatever, that word is pneumatikos. Paul's point is this: Pneumatikos is what we were destined for. Not only is it what we will experience, it is what we can experience. If that is the case, then learn to recognize it and live in it now. Without this kind of understanding we will continue to view spiritual giftings programmatically, rather than wholistically. Without this kind of understanding the Church at large will never move toward the organic and away from the institutional.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Legacy versus Lethargy
Deciding what’s important is more than making a list. It can be the difference between legacy and lethargy.
Followers of Jesus have some decisions to make as the Church in North America begins its slide into the same chasm of irrelevancy that has haunted her European sister for the last century. Will we shake our fists at the boogeymen of the “culture wars” as our organizations sink from sight, or will we become an irresistible force uniquely able to thrive in this new global environment?
Yes, the stakes are that high.
And yes, the decision is ours; it does not rest in the hands of the Supreme Court, Barack Obama, Angelina Jolie or Joel Osteen. We are the ones who control the destiny of the Church and it is high time we made the right choices.
The single most important decision an individual follower of Jesus can make is to join God in His mission. This may sound like the spiritual warm fuzzies but it really is a destiny-maker. Here is what it looks like and why it is so different from our normal church experience.
Many evangelicals might say that the Great Commission is our greatest calling and priority. The way we have unpacked that since the nineteenth century, however, leaves the average Joe in an institutionalized kind of lethargy: the place of observer and financial supporter so the professionals can git ‘er done. Most of the average local church’s budget and focus rest squarely on Sunday morning services. Most of the “good things” that happen on most Sunday mornings are from services rendered by professionals (or at the least highly skilled volunteers). The Great Commission is also largely “done” by trained professionals in faraway places. They are the players; we are the crowd.
When we cry over the globe, most of us never expect to go to those places and live among the people for whom we weep. And most of us don’t see our immediate surroundings as a mission field demanding our immersion in it. That’s because the Great Commission has largely been professionalized, and therefore, depersonalized. We have become victims of our own success.
Lethargy can evaporate and legacy can begin by embracing a higher purpose. It is found in the ancient Latin words “mission dei,” which simply mean “the mission of God.” God has been on a single-minded mission for a very long time. His plan to win back His lost humanity proves that He would let no obstacle stand in His way. His love for people continues to drive Him. It is that love that can drive us.
Embracing the missio dei forever personalizes my approach to my corner of the world. I can’t help but to be involved. It means that I begin living as a person of influence, touching those around me and developing relationships with greater intentionality. It also means that my relationships are now seen as a direct conduit of God’s love and power to my unsaved friends, neighbors and co-workers. No longer am I a “mule,” trying to convince those same people to come to church so the professionals can take over.
Suddenly the average Joe is important. Influential. Significant. Huge.
We tend to think that only the powerful have influence. The truth is that everyone is a person of influence, and everyone uses his or her influence. Some are more overt and successful than others; most of us exert our influence unconsciously.
Deciding to be a person of conscious influence is not an ego trip. It is just the opposite: when we jump into the swift current of the missio dei we realize how humbling it is and how inadequate we are. There is another benefit to intentional influence: it can lead us away from two legacy-killing dilemmas.
First, because our influence-peddling is small potatoes compared to some, we tend to unconsciously grant ourselves immunity from the responsibility placed on those in positions of influence (as if we were not in the same position). The responsibility is still there; now it becomes a positive motivating factor.
We must recognize the dangers of the second dilemma that undisciplined influence creates. Living in the land of non-intentional priorities tends to insulate us from analyzing and critiquing the end to which we unconsciously pull others. That end, like it or not, is the pragmatic center of our universe. That toward which I draw others is the thing I worship as my god.
Look—as long as we’re here our god might as well be God. Let’s get intentional.
Legacy and lethargy are opposing forces we all face. By choosing to engage God’s relentless love for the people around me I can become a person of eternal influence and give others a glimpse of their own destiny as followers of Jesus. Part of letting the mission dei capture us is the sorting out, clarifying and galvanizing power of a focused influence whose magnetic north is Jesus himself. Nothing else is really worth pointing at.
Followers of Jesus have some decisions to make as the Church in North America begins its slide into the same chasm of irrelevancy that has haunted her European sister for the last century. Will we shake our fists at the boogeymen of the “culture wars” as our organizations sink from sight, or will we become an irresistible force uniquely able to thrive in this new global environment?
Yes, the stakes are that high.
And yes, the decision is ours; it does not rest in the hands of the Supreme Court, Barack Obama, Angelina Jolie or Joel Osteen. We are the ones who control the destiny of the Church and it is high time we made the right choices.
The single most important decision an individual follower of Jesus can make is to join God in His mission. This may sound like the spiritual warm fuzzies but it really is a destiny-maker. Here is what it looks like and why it is so different from our normal church experience.
Many evangelicals might say that the Great Commission is our greatest calling and priority. The way we have unpacked that since the nineteenth century, however, leaves the average Joe in an institutionalized kind of lethargy: the place of observer and financial supporter so the professionals can git ‘er done. Most of the average local church’s budget and focus rest squarely on Sunday morning services. Most of the “good things” that happen on most Sunday mornings are from services rendered by professionals (or at the least highly skilled volunteers). The Great Commission is also largely “done” by trained professionals in faraway places. They are the players; we are the crowd.
When we cry over the globe, most of us never expect to go to those places and live among the people for whom we weep. And most of us don’t see our immediate surroundings as a mission field demanding our immersion in it. That’s because the Great Commission has largely been professionalized, and therefore, depersonalized. We have become victims of our own success.
Lethargy can evaporate and legacy can begin by embracing a higher purpose. It is found in the ancient Latin words “mission dei,” which simply mean “the mission of God.” God has been on a single-minded mission for a very long time. His plan to win back His lost humanity proves that He would let no obstacle stand in His way. His love for people continues to drive Him. It is that love that can drive us.
Embracing the missio dei forever personalizes my approach to my corner of the world. I can’t help but to be involved. It means that I begin living as a person of influence, touching those around me and developing relationships with greater intentionality. It also means that my relationships are now seen as a direct conduit of God’s love and power to my unsaved friends, neighbors and co-workers. No longer am I a “mule,” trying to convince those same people to come to church so the professionals can take over.
Suddenly the average Joe is important. Influential. Significant. Huge.
We tend to think that only the powerful have influence. The truth is that everyone is a person of influence, and everyone uses his or her influence. Some are more overt and successful than others; most of us exert our influence unconsciously.
Deciding to be a person of conscious influence is not an ego trip. It is just the opposite: when we jump into the swift current of the missio dei we realize how humbling it is and how inadequate we are. There is another benefit to intentional influence: it can lead us away from two legacy-killing dilemmas.
First, because our influence-peddling is small potatoes compared to some, we tend to unconsciously grant ourselves immunity from the responsibility placed on those in positions of influence (as if we were not in the same position). The responsibility is still there; now it becomes a positive motivating factor.
We must recognize the dangers of the second dilemma that undisciplined influence creates. Living in the land of non-intentional priorities tends to insulate us from analyzing and critiquing the end to which we unconsciously pull others. That end, like it or not, is the pragmatic center of our universe. That toward which I draw others is the thing I worship as my god.
Look—as long as we’re here our god might as well be God. Let’s get intentional.
Legacy and lethargy are opposing forces we all face. By choosing to engage God’s relentless love for the people around me I can become a person of eternal influence and give others a glimpse of their own destiny as followers of Jesus. Part of letting the mission dei capture us is the sorting out, clarifying and galvanizing power of a focused influence whose magnetic north is Jesus himself. Nothing else is really worth pointing at.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Re-Visioning "Church"
We began the missional journey knowing that the path we are walking is, for us, largely an uncharted adventure. We committed to discovering and defining the markers along the way that can guide those who follow. Some of those markers were found at the edge of the forest; they were obvious and easy. Some have taken us by surprise. As we round the corner we discover abrupt changes in the landscape: what was expected just isn’t there. We are discovering at some of those turns that our “church common sense,” that body of information and expectations we carry around with us, accumulated through years of church activity, is no longer adequate to help us navigate. In fact, there are times when “proceeding as normal” is the worst thing we can do.
At those times it is helpful to pitch our tent and evaluate our decision-making process before considering our next turn. The following discussion is one of those moments.
We are well into our second year as a missional team in a defined target area in the urban center of Fort Wayne, Indiana. We currently have nine adults who are committed to the team. Every one of us comes from a church background and most have deep ties to three local churches from two denominations.
Our major goals with church people are twofold. First, we must embrace a missional/incarnational theology. That includes the following essential elements:
1. Understanding the concept of the missio dei—that God has always been on a mission to seek, save and redeem. The mission of God dominated the life and teaching of Jesus; and the missio dei calls every follower of Christ that very lifestyle.
2. The essence of missional theology is relationships. Our triune God, the ultimate relational being, expects us to express our theology and communicate His love relationally. Our Western worldview is more propositional, rather than relational, in nature. The missional/incarnational model moves people to see life and ministry through another lens.
3. Our cultural/evangelical application of church ministry has traditionally been centripetal in nature: that is, we have buildings/properties where ministry happens, and church members and seekers are expected to move toward that central point. In this regard we use the term attractional to help define this kind of ministry model. The vast majority of church people are so familiar with this as the only model we know that we rarely stop to ask if there might be other, equally legitimate models.
4. The Scriptures call believers to a set of relationships that are centrifugal in nature: we are sent out to the needy rather than expecting the needy to come to us. Since Jesus calls His followers salt and light, then we strive to invest our lives and resources where those qualities make the most impact.
5. The missio dei calls us to redefine our local context. Where I work, play and live is a mission field and this is where my ministry must begin.
The second major goal is related to the first, but more clearly defines how I relate to my world as a person of mission. This is one of those unexpected turns along the way. We never anticipated how challenging the adoption of these values is, and how the whole missional process hangs on moving from what we have known to what our times demand.
In essence, the second goal is the gateway through which people from church backgrounds can find permission and freedom to live in a manner that brings power to the concepts embedded in the first goal. The first goal is essential in orienting our thinking. The second goal moves those concepts into everyday experience.
Our second goal is currently coming into focus. As it becomes clarified, we are discovering the many familiar layers of expectation and assumptions that must be addressed if missional teams are to truly flourish. Here it is in a nutshell: missional people must decide how to redefine “Church.” The implications for this definition are staggering. We shall make some brief comments for the benefit of individuals stepping out into mission and for church leaders contemplating how to empower them.
Inside or Outside
We have a missional teammate sharing our house. She has a cat. The cat goes mostly unnoticed, but there are times that it becomes maddening. One of those times is when she yowls at the door to go outside. I will open the door to let the cat out and then the drama begins. The cat rarely shoots out the door as expected—most often she will hesitate; looking out at freedom, then looking at me, the impatient doorkeeper. Should I try to coax the cat out, or move in her direction, she skitters away. I shut the door in disgust and the cat stays inside.
How many times have we stood at the door, hesitating to go outside? This doesn’t automatically imply that we all operate out of fear, and therefore we choose disobedience over possible hardship. Very often we are like that cat: the doorkeeper seemingly bidding us to go outside doesn’t look all that believable.
Our centripetal church model has subtly convinced us that attendance at meetings, and involvement in building-based activities, are some of the significant indicators of spiritual maturity. From which pool of candidates do we choose when considering members for church leadership? One common denominator is those persons’ level of involvement and attendance at centripetal functions.
Meanwhile, preachers and teachers expound the virtues of the Great Commission and offer tips on evangelism. All the while we are locked in the middle of two equal and opposite magnetic pulls: be more involved in the church ministry and its programs; go out and reach your neighbors. We find friendship and support from fellow believers in our church culture; the more we are involved the more isolated we are from impacting our unsaved friends and neighbors (unless they accept our offer to attend church, which all the major cultural trends definitively state that this is rapidly losing effect in our world). Yet we hear the message of God’s heart. We stand at the door, frozen in indecision.
This indecision has implications for individuals and church leaders. For the individual, accepting the concepts surrounding missio dei but not significantly acting upon them leave missional teams in frustration and futility. Individuals contemplating their participation on a missional team must evaluate their level of involvement in the traditional church organization. In a real sense, for missional teams to flourish, there has to be a break for the door. “Insiders” must choose to become “outsiders.”
People moving into the missional lifestyle who remain “insiders” will continue to see their local church as their source of fellowship and fulfillment when it comes to feeding and worship. They will also tend to default to paid professionals to do the heavy lifting in ministry. Consider the possibility that the two most common defining activities of the traditional church are preaching/teaching and worship on Sunday mornings. If this is true, then the average believer must default to a passive experience in a professionally-led environment. What this leaves for a missional team are individuals who attend meetings, but who do not dive headlong into relationships with fellow team members beyond what church-based small groups traditionally provide. They are too busy; their loyalties are divided. And as long as their feeding and worship experience is provided for them, whatever happens in the team setting is icing on the spiritual cake.
As we all know, icing is optional.
Church leaders who truly desire to see their members blossom in a missional environment must evaluate whether teachings from the pulpit coupled with subtle pressure to “go to church” actually create a dissonance that leaves their followers camped in the valley of indecision. What can be done—what must be done—by local church leadership to free people to head out into the great unknown?
One radical (but we deem biblical) turning point is to promote the Great Commission in the individual’s sphere of influence as our destiny and defining activity. This kind of dynamic is truly what should define the Church. As long as corporate worship and the preaching/teaching of the Word are promoted (however subtly) as the central, defining activities of the Church, regular members will continue to treat the Great Commission casually.
What might happen in local neighborhoods if believers, empowered and encouraged by their fellowships, were able to invest themselves fully in a centrifugal lifestyle?
Feed or Fed
Our second theme follows closely on the previous point. One problem the Western Church faces in this era is that we have become victims of our own success. Teaching in local churches is enhanced (and often eclipsed) by supplemental purveyors of truth on TV, in print and through podcasts. All I have to do is open my ears and let the stream fill my brain.
Let’s go on record right now: listening to Bible teaching is not wrong, sinful or misguided. It is simply not enough. We will go on record as saying that receiving teaching was never God’s intention as our primary source of knowing Him and His Word. We must become self-feeding followers of Jesus who gather together out of fullness rather than emptiness.
Missional teams strive to promote the practice of self-feeding. This has three distinct advantages when one is attempting to establish a missional lifestyle: self-feeding untethers the believer, it enhances team dynamics, and it personalizes the priesthood.
Self-feeding as the primary source of one’s spiritual nutrition allows the follower of Jesus to begin the untethering process. Those who grew up standing in their boat tied to the dock sharing fishing stories with all the other boaters tied to their docks can gain confidence that the boats were really designed to push away from shore and head for open waters. Self-feeding starts the process of confidence-building for the great adventure outside the safe harbor.
Self-feeding enhances team dynamics by developing a model of gathering together where everyone has something to share, which is what builds the Church (1 Corinthians 14:26). This separates missional gatherings from our traditional home Bible study format and gives organic life more fertile soil in which to grow.
Self-feeding also personalizes the priesthood of the everyday follower of Jesus. Taking responsibility to feed oneself, coupled with an expectation that God may give that same person something to share when the group gathers, makes the individual much more likely to leave the bleachers and move down to the field.
What can local church leaders do to help encourage self-feeding and thereby give their missional folks a reasonable opportunity to thrive in the new atmosphere? Offering more Sunday School classes on how to study the Bible may actually perpetuate the dissonance and keep potential movers idling at the door. This is an issue that must be discussed and debated. The Baby Boom generation, of which I am part, cut our spiritual teeth on the church growth principles that for many made teaching the Word an end in itself. This has some significant implications for those in professional ministry whose gifting and calling have them staying within organized fellowships. This might mean discovering a new persona for those whose primary responsibility and identity has been behind the pulpit.
Parent or Guardian
The final theme in our quest to re-vision Church more explicitly guides the professional. How can an organization affect significant change if those guiding it remain the same? What this missional impulse needs from the inside-out are pastors and leaders who choose to lead their congregants as parents rather than guardians.
My mother-in-law once told me that her goal as a parent was to raise her kids so that, when they were 18, they were ready, willing and able to move out on their own. No responsible pastor would intentionally raise a generation of spiritually jobless 35-year-olds who still live with their parents. As we have already stated, our collective skill with worship and the Word may actually be encouraging many in our congregations to never strike out on their own because Mom and Dad continue to provide everything they need.
Moses speaks of this in Genesis 2 when he reminds newlyweds to leave their parents and cling to each other. Embedded in the notion of leaving are parents who “get it” and allow and encourage their children to act like adults. This works best when parents initiate a new order of relationship with their kids as friends and peers.
Perhaps the converse of that image is that of a guardian who hovers over the child, dictating (or strongly suggesting) what would be best.
Our best scenario would find church leaders and missional members meeting in a new middle ground. Each gives back to the larger group. Each sees the other with new eyes. Each does his or her part to make the missio dei a reality. Then all, including a previously unpenetrated surrounding community, benefit.
Our enemy would like nothing better than division and alienation amongst the followers of Jesus. Without a strong and clear emphasis on the missio dei, the traditional Church in North America will continue its slow but steady decline. And without the backing of church leaders, missionally-repurposed believers will never enjoy the impact they desire.
We need each other.
More importantly, our world needs the Church in action.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Repentance on the Cliffs of Insanity
I have mulled for a while now that when Jesus preached His first message, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand," that He might be saying something different than what we are hearing. Reference the Spaniard in The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
We normally associate repentance with an individual felling sorry for his/her sins and then making the choice to turn from them and live in the opposite direction. In this sense "sin" is the thing I have done.
Perhaps, though, Jesus' proclamation is something entirely different. Maybe it is consistent with the Shema, Hebrews 11:6 and the Garden of Eden. Maybe sin is not to be understood primarily as a breaking of the law or an offense that violates God's holy code of conduct.
If God is really who He says He is, then He is the One God of the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4. He is to be loved, worshiped, obeyed and emulated in every sphere of life. He is Lord--the absolute, final word on how I should and can approach any and every situation and option in life. One who operates from this position filters everything through the lens of how God might see it, and therefore, what He would want me to do based on what He wants as my first priority.
So when Jesus says, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand," He is really issuing a call to orient our lives to His lordship. The declaration of the nearness of God's rule is my cue to submit my life in total to His purposes. It means that I declare my allegiance as a citizen of the Kingdom of God.
In this context, then, repentance becomes the movement away from the rule of foreign "gods" toward the absolute authority of God in Jesus.
When the writer of Hebrews says that "anything not of faith is sin," perhaps it is also written in this context. The human examples bookending this declaration show men who submitted their lives to God's rule--and thankfully it shows less-than-perfect men who, by the way, did become examples--warts and all. Faith, then, is far more than hoping God does something that only He can do. That is the consumer-oriented version where, incidentally, my desires are actually a notch above God's. Reference the need to repent above.
"Faith" might be best seen as the hopeful entrusting of yet another facet of life to the lordship of Christ.
If this is the case, then I can finally lay to rest the insipid and condescending notion of the original sin due to "pride." (Am I the only one who is bugged by that?) It wasn't pride at all; it was the willful act when Adam and Eve pulled God's permission to lead them off of the table. Their act was all about deciding that they were now going to call the shots and control their own destinies. To borrow the idea from Jesus' message above, they declared themselves no longer citizens of God's kingdom and planted their own flag instead. The curse, then, is simply God giving them what they asked for. As we well know, they went from the penthouse to the outhouse and took us along for the ride.
What does this mean for practical living? Two things come to mind.
First, if I am truly to be a follower of Jesus, then He has to be lord of everything (duh). In New Testament terminology, it means that the Great Command is my barometer of the health -- and even the reality -- of my faith.
Second, it means that living as a citizen of God's kingdom -- under His rule -- now defines God's passions and driving forces as mine, too. The mission of God is now the mission of Bob. Everything else must revolve around and flow from that. Anything less than that means that I am really not a citizen of this realm; I seriously doubt if there is a place for conscientious objectors in this kingdom.
The trap intwo which modern Christianity has fallen is the notion that there is a divide between "private spirituality" and "the real world." Incidentally, this is part of the legacy of the so-called Enlightenment that powerfully shaped our founding fathers and US cultural foundations. In church-talk we call these twin dynamics "sacred" and "secular." What this divide really amounts to is a kind of working dualism where Jesus can be lord of one compartment but persona non grata in the other. As Alan Hirsch says, "People involved in dualistic spiritual paradigms experience God as a church-based deity and religion as a largely private affair, and it is the actual way we do church that communicates this non-verbal message of dualism" (see The Forgotten Ways, pages 95-96).
One great call to repentance, sounding like an Old Testament prophet thundering at his own people, is now being issued to God's people -- you and me -- with the same intensity. It is the call to repent by turning wholly to Jesus in every aspect of our lives. If He truly is the "author and finisher of our faith," then what He started/authored with the example of His own life is what we should aspire to. Repentance for the Church in America must include a take-no-prisoners inventory of our attitudes and assumptions. That, in my estimation, will mean wholesale changes both in why we do things and in what we do.
Are we up to it? I, for one, am tired of living as a resident alien in God's kingdom.
We normally associate repentance with an individual felling sorry for his/her sins and then making the choice to turn from them and live in the opposite direction. In this sense "sin" is the thing I have done.
Perhaps, though, Jesus' proclamation is something entirely different. Maybe it is consistent with the Shema, Hebrews 11:6 and the Garden of Eden. Maybe sin is not to be understood primarily as a breaking of the law or an offense that violates God's holy code of conduct.
If God is really who He says He is, then He is the One God of the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4. He is to be loved, worshiped, obeyed and emulated in every sphere of life. He is Lord--the absolute, final word on how I should and can approach any and every situation and option in life. One who operates from this position filters everything through the lens of how God might see it, and therefore, what He would want me to do based on what He wants as my first priority.
So when Jesus says, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand," He is really issuing a call to orient our lives to His lordship. The declaration of the nearness of God's rule is my cue to submit my life in total to His purposes. It means that I declare my allegiance as a citizen of the Kingdom of God.
In this context, then, repentance becomes the movement away from the rule of foreign "gods" toward the absolute authority of God in Jesus.
When the writer of Hebrews says that "anything not of faith is sin," perhaps it is also written in this context. The human examples bookending this declaration show men who submitted their lives to God's rule--and thankfully it shows less-than-perfect men who, by the way, did become examples--warts and all. Faith, then, is far more than hoping God does something that only He can do. That is the consumer-oriented version where, incidentally, my desires are actually a notch above God's. Reference the need to repent above.
"Faith" might be best seen as the hopeful entrusting of yet another facet of life to the lordship of Christ.
If this is the case, then I can finally lay to rest the insipid and condescending notion of the original sin due to "pride." (Am I the only one who is bugged by that?) It wasn't pride at all; it was the willful act when Adam and Eve pulled God's permission to lead them off of the table. Their act was all about deciding that they were now going to call the shots and control their own destinies. To borrow the idea from Jesus' message above, they declared themselves no longer citizens of God's kingdom and planted their own flag instead. The curse, then, is simply God giving them what they asked for. As we well know, they went from the penthouse to the outhouse and took us along for the ride.
What does this mean for practical living? Two things come to mind.
First, if I am truly to be a follower of Jesus, then He has to be lord of everything (duh). In New Testament terminology, it means that the Great Command is my barometer of the health -- and even the reality -- of my faith.
Second, it means that living as a citizen of God's kingdom -- under His rule -- now defines God's passions and driving forces as mine, too. The mission of God is now the mission of Bob. Everything else must revolve around and flow from that. Anything less than that means that I am really not a citizen of this realm; I seriously doubt if there is a place for conscientious objectors in this kingdom.
The trap intwo which modern Christianity has fallen is the notion that there is a divide between "private spirituality" and "the real world." Incidentally, this is part of the legacy of the so-called Enlightenment that powerfully shaped our founding fathers and US cultural foundations. In church-talk we call these twin dynamics "sacred" and "secular." What this divide really amounts to is a kind of working dualism where Jesus can be lord of one compartment but persona non grata in the other. As Alan Hirsch says, "People involved in dualistic spiritual paradigms experience God as a church-based deity and religion as a largely private affair, and it is the actual way we do church that communicates this non-verbal message of dualism" (see The Forgotten Ways, pages 95-96).
One great call to repentance, sounding like an Old Testament prophet thundering at his own people, is now being issued to God's people -- you and me -- with the same intensity. It is the call to repent by turning wholly to Jesus in every aspect of our lives. If He truly is the "author and finisher of our faith," then what He started/authored with the example of His own life is what we should aspire to. Repentance for the Church in America must include a take-no-prisoners inventory of our attitudes and assumptions. That, in my estimation, will mean wholesale changes both in why we do things and in what we do.
Are we up to it? I, for one, am tired of living as a resident alien in God's kingdom.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
What if Church Went Away?
What would the Western world look like if all the churches went away? My guess is that it would look far better, with more Christian influence, than it presently does.
For most Christians--leaders and followers alike--the thought of the United States without a church building on every corner is way beyond heresy. It is demonic, communist; or at the very worst, liberal.
Imagining the Church without buildings is not something we do. We don't have permission to think that way. Our assumption is that building-based ministry is the only biblical option. When we think like that, we actually choose not to think.
An honest look at our present church system reveals issues and dynamics that actually retard the expansion of the Kingdom and limit the Great Commission to a very few. As I posted already, the Church in the Western world operates under the assumptions of Christendom. Briefly stated, Christendom is the name for a situation wherein the Church is in the center of culture, guiding and shaping it; the host government gives the Church a privileged position; and there is a definite blur between religion and politics. Along with this is the assumption that the host culture, by necessity, must be Christian (or sliding precipitously away from that position), otherwise the Church can't wield the kind of cultural influence it expects to or associate itself so closely with national patriotism.
It is my position that the Church is a radically counter-culture movement. The culture of the Kingdom is so different from any human government or culture, and so radically different in its values. We were born (again) to live on the margins; to speak prophetically from the outside in to the center. No matter where the people of God find themselves, they are in a mission field. Christendom has birthed a self-image for the Church opposite from the Scriptures.
The Christendom worldview has also spawned a whole variety of issues. First, we have created the concept of seeking to attract the "unchurched." The assumptions behind this are as follows: if our land (the US) was established as a Christian nation, then it follows that most people know the truth. They are not really "lost" in the classic sense; in fact, we talk about "outreach" in the US and "missions" overseas. So our goal as churches is to find a good location, staff our ministry machine with hotshot professionals, and draw people (who already know the truth but struggle with coming back) into the fellowship where they can "come to God."
(Isn't it interesting that Jesus, our Immanuel, is the embodiment of "God coming to people" and that Jesus in both the Great Commission and Acts 1:8 tells believers that we are the embodiment of His passions and power and we are to "go to them"? What went wrong? Christendom is killing us.)
The second Christendom dynamic that has wreaked havoc on the Great Commission is the fortress mentality. If our supposedly Christian nation is truly on the downturn, then it follows that the safe place for Christians to go and find wholesome community is in church. We must be keepers of the truth, and in so doing, shine the light on a darkening world. Why? To shame it into repentance. They'll see what they're missing and they'll come to us.
In the process we have developed a Christian subculture in America. We have our own stores where we can purchase Christian pop culture nick-nacks for the home; we have the Christian Yellow Pages so we can find a Christian mechanic and dentist and hair stylist. Our Christendom-based fortress mentality has convinced us to subtly pull away from the very world we are supposed to impact.
A third, related dynamic is what happens inside the Church to inhibit members from reaching their neighbors. The typical American evangelical church is what sociologists call a "closed set." Borrowing language from Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, they describe a "closed set" in terms of the Church as having a hard edge and a soft center. We practice, generally speaking, a policy of "believe, then belong." People can't actually see how Christianity works until they agree to the statement of faith. Jesus, and in some measure the missional/incarnational movement, practice what Frost and Hirsch call an "open set": a group with a soft edge and a hard center.
Why do so many church leaders struggle with deeper discipleship? Because it is not really necessary. The "soft center" of evangelicalism is Jesus Himself. Getting closer to Him means acting like Him and caring about the things that make Him pound the table. We don't really need that because we are on the other side of the line: we are "saved" while those on the other side of the line are not. There is no sense of urgency because our insider status allows us to enjoy worship and devotions and be part of the Christian subculture. Besides, we have the professionals whose job it is to attract outsiders in for an encounter with God on Sunday mornings.
As a long-time purveyor of this perspective, I fell prey to the misguided notion that one of the clear ways one could judge "maturity" in a believer, and therefore consider him or her as a candidate for leadership, was by the criterion of church attendance. If one is truly committed to Christ, the thinking goes, then that person will be committed to the Church. Regular attendance and participation in the building-based ministry will be the signs. So the more people devote to the fortress, the more we deem them worthy of leading God's people. Do you see a vicious cycle brewing anywhere?
It irks preachers when people aren't in attendance on Sundays. Yet the same preacher will, in all good intentions, teach his listeners great principles for outreach. Here is the rub: we give advice on reaching our neighbors, and slather on a film of guilt for not having done so, and then expect our parishoners to spend their rapidly-diminishing "free" time in church on Sunday mornings, and a small group, and maybe a kids' program, and Wednesday prayer meeting, and men's breakfasts... all with members of the fortress while they go on not even knowing the names of their across-the-street neighbors.
The "open set" of Jesus' example and that of the missional/incarnational movement has a soft edge and a hard center. On the Christendom side, it means that one has to believe before he belongs. It seems to me that Jesus, with His laser-guided movement to the center (when His disciples would look more like Himeslf than themselves) practiced a "belong then believe" policy. It mattered less to Jesus where people were currently standing than if there was movement toward the center. If this were not the case, then there wouldn't be any first disciples and I could then spend my time talking about football and cars because there wouldn't even be a Church in 2008.
What can we do about this? Jesus Himself is teaching me how to be intentional and missional. Look, for instance, at Luke 5:1-11 and notice how Jesus got Peter to follow Him. The following principles are not for the squeamish. It gets personal and ugly. Read on if you dare.
By the way, what percentage of our preaching/teaching is dedicated to the disciple-making style of Jesus as opposed to the organizational style of Paul and the epistles? If my 15 years of preaching are any indication, it was about 95 percent about the inside-the-building stuff. Feed the machine, baby!
Luke 5 is the familiar story of Jesus calling Peter to become a "fisher of men." Jesus preaches to a big crowd, Peter goes fishing with Him, they catch a gob of fish, and Peter changes professions. But wait, there's more!
Verse 1 is actually the most important part of the story. It sets the table for us geographically and philosophically. At first blush, and in English, it appears that Jesus' main intention was teaching the Word of God. However, the original language doesn't support that. The main verb in the first sentence is not "preaching" or "teaching," or even "listening." It is "was," as in, "He was there." What He was there doing of first importance was not preaching or teaching. We know this by the participle "standing."
The participle "standing" is in the perfect tense. This means that it was Jesus' habitual practice to stand at that spot. It was His choice to be in that spot again and again. Why? It wasn't for the acoustics: sound travels well over water, but it was behind Him. It wasn't the best place to hold an audience: no escape when the crowds press in. It was a noisy place: Peter and his family, and doubtless other fishermen, were a few feet away putting their tools away after another night on the lake. (Peter worked third shift-when the fish came closer to the surface to feed). Guys who work hard for a living, who are tired and feeling like their space is being invaded, probably make a lot of noise. Lousy spot if you are supposed to be The Great Communicator and that is your first priority.
So what was Jesus up to? He was applying the very first principle of missional life: Establish proximity with the people you want to reach. Notice that Jesus didn't plant the First Church of the Seaside Messiah and expect Peter to come to Him. Jesus planted Himself in Peter's world.
Sociologists talk about three places in our lives that have dramatically different "rules" and authority structures. In each of these three places there are different kinds of relationships possible that are not possible elsewhere. The first place is the home. The second place is work. The third place is social. (Thanks again to Frost and Hirsch for pointing this out).
What happens when a majority of evangelical Christians tie their spiritual fellowship and social lives together? We are never found in any social place with any kind of frequency to build relationships with those outside the circle.
Missional living takes this point seriously. We move into needy neighborhoods, establish businesses, and look for ways to hang out with our unsaved friends. You do have some, don't you? That's a good diagnostic to help determine if the curse of Christendom has pushed you to the margins of meaningful impact. You can be usable and teachable; but if you're not available, it really doesn't matter.
Jesus met Peter when his bro Andrew dragged him into a face-to-face (John 1:40-42). At that time Jesus started talking in terms of moving Pete closer to the center (see above). So here is Jesus, being missional by going where His new friend is and habitually planting Himself there.
What would happen if followers of Jesus decided to get themselves known in the neighborhood bar and grill? What if they became frequent customers with the intention of establishing friendships with other frequent customers or workers? What if followers of Jesus quit the whole dumb idea of "church softball teams" and infiltrated city leagues with the purpose of building intentional relationships through following Jesus' missional example? What would happen if followers of Jesus realized that some of the best times for making relationships with our neighbors are the very times most of us are in church--and we did the Christ thing instead of the Christendom thing? Would our church leaders support our actions? Hmmm...
Back to Luke 5.
Jesus first establishes proximity with Peter. He hangs out where Peter is. This is the first and most difficult dynamic of missional life as opposed to church life.
Then Jesus deepens His relationship with Peter by building on the dynamics of Peter's world (Luke 5:2-3). Jesus climbs into Pete's work vehicle and asks if he can move it about 20 feet. Low-impact stuff, but it builds trust between a missional person and his new friend. Peter is still in his comfort zone; Jesus has moved into that zone and nothing is amiss.
After establishing proximity and doing activity in Peter's comfort zone, Jesus then has sufficient funds in His relational account to take Peter out of his comfort zone. He says, "Hey, Pete--let's go fishing. I know a perfect spot" (Luke 5:4-10). Peter responds out of growing relationship--we see that when he calls Jesus "Lord," instead of "You dumb wood butcher."
The underlying dynamic of Jesus' missional strategy is clear. It isn't good enough to befriend someone on their terms and leave it there. There is a purpose for the friendship, and that is to see the new friend come to know God in His fulness and for that friend to become everything God desires that he become. So the third scary step for a missional follower of Jesus is to invite an experience of God into your friend's life.
This doesn't mean slapping a "Four Spiritual Laws" tract on his kitchen table. It doesn't necessarily mean reciting your testimony or a litany of memorized Bible verses. At some point it means acting on your belief in God, and at the appropriate moment, inviting your friend to trust you as you become the portal of God's love and power. Can you give extravagantly? Pray shamelessly for a hard or hurtful situation? And do it in such a way that the relationship doesn't blow up in your face? Look, if the power of God isn't available for moments like these--both to give us the guts and then the answers to our prayers--then football and cars are a better investment of my time. Does God always "show up?" No; sometimes you feel like a fool. But sometimes He does...
After Peter responds to the power of God, Jesus brings him full circle by having Peter enter His world. "Your piscatorial prowess will now be directed toward bipedal humanoids," Jesus assures Pete (Luke 5:10). And lo and behold, Peter follows Jesus.
The making of disciples following the example of Jesus outside where the fish are. This is the missional genius of Jesus. It is to be our example for missional life in the twenty-first century.
In conclusion, it might seem that I am on a crusade to ruin the Church. Actually, no one needs to be on a crusade to ruin the Church; it is doing a fine job all by itself. Am I bitter and disillusioned? I was disillusioned before I realized what I had been missing. Now I'm having the time of my life. This realization cost me my career as a pastor and preacher. It was a good call. Now I can follow Jesus toward the center and no longer engage in feeding the machine.
Have I given up on the established Church as we know it in America? Ah, now that's the real question. If you follow my logic, one has to conclude on some level that much of what happens in building-based ministry is intrinsically illegitimate--a huge waste of time, money and focus. So the real question isn't, "Bob, what do you have against the Church?" but rather, "What does the Church have against the Great Commission?"
We really must declare our allegiance. If it is solely to Jesus, the road is going to be rocky, misunderstood and unappreciated, but totally worth it.
For most Christians--leaders and followers alike--the thought of the United States without a church building on every corner is way beyond heresy. It is demonic, communist; or at the very worst, liberal.
Imagining the Church without buildings is not something we do. We don't have permission to think that way. Our assumption is that building-based ministry is the only biblical option. When we think like that, we actually choose not to think.
An honest look at our present church system reveals issues and dynamics that actually retard the expansion of the Kingdom and limit the Great Commission to a very few. As I posted already, the Church in the Western world operates under the assumptions of Christendom. Briefly stated, Christendom is the name for a situation wherein the Church is in the center of culture, guiding and shaping it; the host government gives the Church a privileged position; and there is a definite blur between religion and politics. Along with this is the assumption that the host culture, by necessity, must be Christian (or sliding precipitously away from that position), otherwise the Church can't wield the kind of cultural influence it expects to or associate itself so closely with national patriotism.
It is my position that the Church is a radically counter-culture movement. The culture of the Kingdom is so different from any human government or culture, and so radically different in its values. We were born (again) to live on the margins; to speak prophetically from the outside in to the center. No matter where the people of God find themselves, they are in a mission field. Christendom has birthed a self-image for the Church opposite from the Scriptures.
The Christendom worldview has also spawned a whole variety of issues. First, we have created the concept of seeking to attract the "unchurched." The assumptions behind this are as follows: if our land (the US) was established as a Christian nation, then it follows that most people know the truth. They are not really "lost" in the classic sense; in fact, we talk about "outreach" in the US and "missions" overseas. So our goal as churches is to find a good location, staff our ministry machine with hotshot professionals, and draw people (who already know the truth but struggle with coming back) into the fellowship where they can "come to God."
(Isn't it interesting that Jesus, our Immanuel, is the embodiment of "God coming to people" and that Jesus in both the Great Commission and Acts 1:8 tells believers that we are the embodiment of His passions and power and we are to "go to them"? What went wrong? Christendom is killing us.)
The second Christendom dynamic that has wreaked havoc on the Great Commission is the fortress mentality. If our supposedly Christian nation is truly on the downturn, then it follows that the safe place for Christians to go and find wholesome community is in church. We must be keepers of the truth, and in so doing, shine the light on a darkening world. Why? To shame it into repentance. They'll see what they're missing and they'll come to us.
In the process we have developed a Christian subculture in America. We have our own stores where we can purchase Christian pop culture nick-nacks for the home; we have the Christian Yellow Pages so we can find a Christian mechanic and dentist and hair stylist. Our Christendom-based fortress mentality has convinced us to subtly pull away from the very world we are supposed to impact.
A third, related dynamic is what happens inside the Church to inhibit members from reaching their neighbors. The typical American evangelical church is what sociologists call a "closed set." Borrowing language from Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, they describe a "closed set" in terms of the Church as having a hard edge and a soft center. We practice, generally speaking, a policy of "believe, then belong." People can't actually see how Christianity works until they agree to the statement of faith. Jesus, and in some measure the missional/incarnational movement, practice what Frost and Hirsch call an "open set": a group with a soft edge and a hard center.
Why do so many church leaders struggle with deeper discipleship? Because it is not really necessary. The "soft center" of evangelicalism is Jesus Himself. Getting closer to Him means acting like Him and caring about the things that make Him pound the table. We don't really need that because we are on the other side of the line: we are "saved" while those on the other side of the line are not. There is no sense of urgency because our insider status allows us to enjoy worship and devotions and be part of the Christian subculture. Besides, we have the professionals whose job it is to attract outsiders in for an encounter with God on Sunday mornings.
As a long-time purveyor of this perspective, I fell prey to the misguided notion that one of the clear ways one could judge "maturity" in a believer, and therefore consider him or her as a candidate for leadership, was by the criterion of church attendance. If one is truly committed to Christ, the thinking goes, then that person will be committed to the Church. Regular attendance and participation in the building-based ministry will be the signs. So the more people devote to the fortress, the more we deem them worthy of leading God's people. Do you see a vicious cycle brewing anywhere?
It irks preachers when people aren't in attendance on Sundays. Yet the same preacher will, in all good intentions, teach his listeners great principles for outreach. Here is the rub: we give advice on reaching our neighbors, and slather on a film of guilt for not having done so, and then expect our parishoners to spend their rapidly-diminishing "free" time in church on Sunday mornings, and a small group, and maybe a kids' program, and Wednesday prayer meeting, and men's breakfasts... all with members of the fortress while they go on not even knowing the names of their across-the-street neighbors.
The "open set" of Jesus' example and that of the missional/incarnational movement has a soft edge and a hard center. On the Christendom side, it means that one has to believe before he belongs. It seems to me that Jesus, with His laser-guided movement to the center (when His disciples would look more like Himeslf than themselves) practiced a "belong then believe" policy. It mattered less to Jesus where people were currently standing than if there was movement toward the center. If this were not the case, then there wouldn't be any first disciples and I could then spend my time talking about football and cars because there wouldn't even be a Church in 2008.
What can we do about this? Jesus Himself is teaching me how to be intentional and missional. Look, for instance, at Luke 5:1-11 and notice how Jesus got Peter to follow Him. The following principles are not for the squeamish. It gets personal and ugly. Read on if you dare.
By the way, what percentage of our preaching/teaching is dedicated to the disciple-making style of Jesus as opposed to the organizational style of Paul and the epistles? If my 15 years of preaching are any indication, it was about 95 percent about the inside-the-building stuff. Feed the machine, baby!
Luke 5 is the familiar story of Jesus calling Peter to become a "fisher of men." Jesus preaches to a big crowd, Peter goes fishing with Him, they catch a gob of fish, and Peter changes professions. But wait, there's more!
Verse 1 is actually the most important part of the story. It sets the table for us geographically and philosophically. At first blush, and in English, it appears that Jesus' main intention was teaching the Word of God. However, the original language doesn't support that. The main verb in the first sentence is not "preaching" or "teaching," or even "listening." It is "was," as in, "He was there." What He was there doing of first importance was not preaching or teaching. We know this by the participle "standing."
The participle "standing" is in the perfect tense. This means that it was Jesus' habitual practice to stand at that spot. It was His choice to be in that spot again and again. Why? It wasn't for the acoustics: sound travels well over water, but it was behind Him. It wasn't the best place to hold an audience: no escape when the crowds press in. It was a noisy place: Peter and his family, and doubtless other fishermen, were a few feet away putting their tools away after another night on the lake. (Peter worked third shift-when the fish came closer to the surface to feed). Guys who work hard for a living, who are tired and feeling like their space is being invaded, probably make a lot of noise. Lousy spot if you are supposed to be The Great Communicator and that is your first priority.
So what was Jesus up to? He was applying the very first principle of missional life: Establish proximity with the people you want to reach. Notice that Jesus didn't plant the First Church of the Seaside Messiah and expect Peter to come to Him. Jesus planted Himself in Peter's world.
Sociologists talk about three places in our lives that have dramatically different "rules" and authority structures. In each of these three places there are different kinds of relationships possible that are not possible elsewhere. The first place is the home. The second place is work. The third place is social. (Thanks again to Frost and Hirsch for pointing this out).
What happens when a majority of evangelical Christians tie their spiritual fellowship and social lives together? We are never found in any social place with any kind of frequency to build relationships with those outside the circle.
Missional living takes this point seriously. We move into needy neighborhoods, establish businesses, and look for ways to hang out with our unsaved friends. You do have some, don't you? That's a good diagnostic to help determine if the curse of Christendom has pushed you to the margins of meaningful impact. You can be usable and teachable; but if you're not available, it really doesn't matter.
Jesus met Peter when his bro Andrew dragged him into a face-to-face (John 1:40-42). At that time Jesus started talking in terms of moving Pete closer to the center (see above). So here is Jesus, being missional by going where His new friend is and habitually planting Himself there.
What would happen if followers of Jesus decided to get themselves known in the neighborhood bar and grill? What if they became frequent customers with the intention of establishing friendships with other frequent customers or workers? What if followers of Jesus quit the whole dumb idea of "church softball teams" and infiltrated city leagues with the purpose of building intentional relationships through following Jesus' missional example? What would happen if followers of Jesus realized that some of the best times for making relationships with our neighbors are the very times most of us are in church--and we did the Christ thing instead of the Christendom thing? Would our church leaders support our actions? Hmmm...
Back to Luke 5.
Jesus first establishes proximity with Peter. He hangs out where Peter is. This is the first and most difficult dynamic of missional life as opposed to church life.
Then Jesus deepens His relationship with Peter by building on the dynamics of Peter's world (Luke 5:2-3). Jesus climbs into Pete's work vehicle and asks if he can move it about 20 feet. Low-impact stuff, but it builds trust between a missional person and his new friend. Peter is still in his comfort zone; Jesus has moved into that zone and nothing is amiss.
After establishing proximity and doing activity in Peter's comfort zone, Jesus then has sufficient funds in His relational account to take Peter out of his comfort zone. He says, "Hey, Pete--let's go fishing. I know a perfect spot" (Luke 5:4-10). Peter responds out of growing relationship--we see that when he calls Jesus "Lord," instead of "You dumb wood butcher."
The underlying dynamic of Jesus' missional strategy is clear. It isn't good enough to befriend someone on their terms and leave it there. There is a purpose for the friendship, and that is to see the new friend come to know God in His fulness and for that friend to become everything God desires that he become. So the third scary step for a missional follower of Jesus is to invite an experience of God into your friend's life.
This doesn't mean slapping a "Four Spiritual Laws" tract on his kitchen table. It doesn't necessarily mean reciting your testimony or a litany of memorized Bible verses. At some point it means acting on your belief in God, and at the appropriate moment, inviting your friend to trust you as you become the portal of God's love and power. Can you give extravagantly? Pray shamelessly for a hard or hurtful situation? And do it in such a way that the relationship doesn't blow up in your face? Look, if the power of God isn't available for moments like these--both to give us the guts and then the answers to our prayers--then football and cars are a better investment of my time. Does God always "show up?" No; sometimes you feel like a fool. But sometimes He does...
After Peter responds to the power of God, Jesus brings him full circle by having Peter enter His world. "Your piscatorial prowess will now be directed toward bipedal humanoids," Jesus assures Pete (Luke 5:10). And lo and behold, Peter follows Jesus.
The making of disciples following the example of Jesus outside where the fish are. This is the missional genius of Jesus. It is to be our example for missional life in the twenty-first century.
In conclusion, it might seem that I am on a crusade to ruin the Church. Actually, no one needs to be on a crusade to ruin the Church; it is doing a fine job all by itself. Am I bitter and disillusioned? I was disillusioned before I realized what I had been missing. Now I'm having the time of my life. This realization cost me my career as a pastor and preacher. It was a good call. Now I can follow Jesus toward the center and no longer engage in feeding the machine.
Have I given up on the established Church as we know it in America? Ah, now that's the real question. If you follow my logic, one has to conclude on some level that much of what happens in building-based ministry is intrinsically illegitimate--a huge waste of time, money and focus. So the real question isn't, "Bob, what do you have against the Church?" but rather, "What does the Church have against the Great Commission?"
We really must declare our allegiance. If it is solely to Jesus, the road is going to be rocky, misunderstood and unappreciated, but totally worth it.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
The Curse of Christendom
The modern American Church owes much to a Roman emperor. Much of it ain't so good.
We have a name for the Church's interface with its world since Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. The word is Christendom. It refers to a modern (Western) world that has had the influence of Christian values in the center of its consciousness.
That seems like a good thing to most Christians. In fact, for many, it seems like that is the goal of the Church. At this point in US history, it appears that we are slipping away from the pinnacle of our achievement in capturing a culture. A quick look at the legacy of Christendom, however, reveals that many of the assumptions under which most American church leaders and members operate deviates from the first two centuries of the Church, and the results are far different.
From Pentecost until the Edict of Milan in 313, Christianity flourished on the edge of society. Persecuted and pressured, the ranks of believers in Jesus grew exponentially. Those who decided to follow Jesus did it knowing the risks. The power of God was evident in their ranks and the Church became a counter-culture force across the world.
Constantine's edict gave the Church social status. It did not give the Church momentum. Rather, it tamed the Church as it found its place at the social table. The problem here is a change of diet. The Church on the edge of society has nothing to eat but what God offers. The food at the social table suddenly adds the fattening fillers of civil religion. Soon after tasting these new treats the Church found itself defined by politics, priests and property.
At this point many readers would agree, but quickly add that the Reformation led by Luther and Wesley in the 16th century changed all that. Let's skip ahead to today's Church in America and see.
Politics
The American Church operates with many assumptions derived not from the Bible but from centuries of familiar treatment by host governments. The Christendom Church expects to be in the center of the culture; its influence then is expected to radiate from the center out to the edges. No one can deny that the post WWII Church in America has made an impact. What is in question is what kind of impact we have generated and how we quantify "success."
So many Church-related public voices rally local members to vote for political candidates who embrace certain "accepted" positions. For millions of evangelicals, to be Christian is to be Republican. We also declare our outrage when stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments are removed from public buildings. We continue to expect preferential treatment, in spite of the Bible's warnings about the impossibility of any and all secular governments truly following the King of kings. We demand tax-free status, and many church professionals expect "clergy discounts" where they shop and play golf.
The Church of the first two centuries, and the Church of a new Reformation committed to a missional/incarnational DNA, see many dangers in alignment with any political system. The Church was always supposed to speak from the edges inward; when the Church expects and receives preferential treatment from its host government, it comes with a cost. The Christendom Church loses its prophetic voice because it is on the inside and is now, therefore, part of the problem.
This perspective also changes our orientation toward our host culture. Instead of seeing my circle of influence as a mission field, the Christendom worldview by necessity has to assume that the host culture is basically a good culture (since the Church is at the center!) simply in need of repair; the people surrounding us are basically good people who know the truth but need to be guided back to the right path.
Priests
Evangelicals feel pretty smug about this one: we don't have an irrelevant Pope. But looking at the dynamics of church life, we have to admit that we have a clearly-defined priesthood nonetheless.
The Christendom Church has a social order that was not present in the early Church. There were leaders, of course. But the implications of our present system are staggering.
How many churches in the Western world actually operate in a biblical mode in terms of form and function? How is the interdependence of 1 Corinthians 12 or Ephesians 4 experienced? In contrast, how many churches operate in a Christendom mode where paid professionals "do the ministry?" How many church members refer to their pastor as "the minister?"
Most evangelical churches can't find enough people to staff the nursery.
That's because the average church member "goes to church" on Sundays with an expectation that he or she will be "ministered to" by the preacher and the worship team, while those members sit and soak and give little in return. They can't, because the average member in the average Christendom-ideology-dominated fellowship is not part of the accepted priesthood. He or she is not a "Reverend."
How the modern priesthood actually sabotages the fulfillment of the Great Commission is an idea worthy of an upcoming blog of its own.
Property
One of the greatest blows Christendom landed on Christianity is in reorienting church from a verb--what happens when God's people act in His name--to a noun: the place I go on Sundays. How many people talk of "going to church" rather than "doing" or "being" church?
The goal of building-focused ministry is to attract the largest number of people we possibly can on Sunday mornings. People will sense their need, we believe, and come visit us if we are attractive enough. In fact, our subtle goal is to be more attractive than the church down the block. We wind up in competition with other churches.
The New Testament church and the missional/incarnational church of a new Reformation refuse to engage in a "come and see" mentality that places all the pressure on the unsaved. Jesus teaches us to "go and tell;" to take on the mantle of a follower of His and wear it well.
What percentage of the Church's resources is tied up in maintaining property and supporting professional clergy? If it is true that God counts true spirituality in terms of taking care of those who can't take care of themselves (James 1:27) and actually judges our lives in relation to how we work on behalf of the oppressed (read Jeremiah 22:15-16 and Isaiah 58 very carefully), then how accountable are we for the tithes and offerings that never make it out the door of the church?
Some might suggest that we need buildings to offer seminars on financial management or to host recovery groups--things that can have a major long-term impact in people's lives. Who says that we need a building dedicated to religious purposes for those things? What might our impact be if instead of inviting strangers from the community to such events, we would offer our services to individuals and groups already within our speres of influence--people with whom we have already been intentionally investing our lives?
Whatever happened to a mobile Church going to where the need is? Why do we insist that needy people come find us? Isn't that exactly the opposite of how God treated us?
You can't invest in a needy person's life outside the church building if you spend all your free time inside it. In this case perhaps smaller is bigger. Smaller crowds means personal ministry to the people with whom we are intentionally establishing relationships. Smaller buildings means using homes that foster intimacy and ongoing relationships.
If permeation of the culture with the values of the Kingdom is truly what we want, then it is time we got back out there. We must do it as individuals and groups demonstrating a passionate love for others while we represent the King who did that for us. It will never happen if we represent a political or social philosophy as a voting block.
What would happen if followers of Jesus began viewing their surrounding culture as a hostile environment needing a demonstration of the radical love of God? What if those who have really counted the cost would band together and develop intentional relationships in their spheres of influence? What would happen if church people would stop wringing their hands over waning political influence, stop identifying themselves by what they oppose, and start loving people into the Kingdom? What would happen if we could expose the curse of Christendom and set people free to be salt and light?
It's edgy. Scary. Downright dangerous.
Just what the Church is supposed to be. Exactly where the Church is supposed to be.
We have a name for the Church's interface with its world since Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. The word is Christendom. It refers to a modern (Western) world that has had the influence of Christian values in the center of its consciousness.
That seems like a good thing to most Christians. In fact, for many, it seems like that is the goal of the Church. At this point in US history, it appears that we are slipping away from the pinnacle of our achievement in capturing a culture. A quick look at the legacy of Christendom, however, reveals that many of the assumptions under which most American church leaders and members operate deviates from the first two centuries of the Church, and the results are far different.
From Pentecost until the Edict of Milan in 313, Christianity flourished on the edge of society. Persecuted and pressured, the ranks of believers in Jesus grew exponentially. Those who decided to follow Jesus did it knowing the risks. The power of God was evident in their ranks and the Church became a counter-culture force across the world.
Constantine's edict gave the Church social status. It did not give the Church momentum. Rather, it tamed the Church as it found its place at the social table. The problem here is a change of diet. The Church on the edge of society has nothing to eat but what God offers. The food at the social table suddenly adds the fattening fillers of civil religion. Soon after tasting these new treats the Church found itself defined by politics, priests and property.
At this point many readers would agree, but quickly add that the Reformation led by Luther and Wesley in the 16th century changed all that. Let's skip ahead to today's Church in America and see.
Politics
The American Church operates with many assumptions derived not from the Bible but from centuries of familiar treatment by host governments. The Christendom Church expects to be in the center of the culture; its influence then is expected to radiate from the center out to the edges. No one can deny that the post WWII Church in America has made an impact. What is in question is what kind of impact we have generated and how we quantify "success."
So many Church-related public voices rally local members to vote for political candidates who embrace certain "accepted" positions. For millions of evangelicals, to be Christian is to be Republican. We also declare our outrage when stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments are removed from public buildings. We continue to expect preferential treatment, in spite of the Bible's warnings about the impossibility of any and all secular governments truly following the King of kings. We demand tax-free status, and many church professionals expect "clergy discounts" where they shop and play golf.
The Church of the first two centuries, and the Church of a new Reformation committed to a missional/incarnational DNA, see many dangers in alignment with any political system. The Church was always supposed to speak from the edges inward; when the Church expects and receives preferential treatment from its host government, it comes with a cost. The Christendom Church loses its prophetic voice because it is on the inside and is now, therefore, part of the problem.
This perspective also changes our orientation toward our host culture. Instead of seeing my circle of influence as a mission field, the Christendom worldview by necessity has to assume that the host culture is basically a good culture (since the Church is at the center!) simply in need of repair; the people surrounding us are basically good people who know the truth but need to be guided back to the right path.
Priests
Evangelicals feel pretty smug about this one: we don't have an irrelevant Pope. But looking at the dynamics of church life, we have to admit that we have a clearly-defined priesthood nonetheless.
The Christendom Church has a social order that was not present in the early Church. There were leaders, of course. But the implications of our present system are staggering.
How many churches in the Western world actually operate in a biblical mode in terms of form and function? How is the interdependence of 1 Corinthians 12 or Ephesians 4 experienced? In contrast, how many churches operate in a Christendom mode where paid professionals "do the ministry?" How many church members refer to their pastor as "the minister?"
Most evangelical churches can't find enough people to staff the nursery.
That's because the average church member "goes to church" on Sundays with an expectation that he or she will be "ministered to" by the preacher and the worship team, while those members sit and soak and give little in return. They can't, because the average member in the average Christendom-ideology-dominated fellowship is not part of the accepted priesthood. He or she is not a "Reverend."
How the modern priesthood actually sabotages the fulfillment of the Great Commission is an idea worthy of an upcoming blog of its own.
Property
One of the greatest blows Christendom landed on Christianity is in reorienting church from a verb--what happens when God's people act in His name--to a noun: the place I go on Sundays. How many people talk of "going to church" rather than "doing" or "being" church?
The goal of building-focused ministry is to attract the largest number of people we possibly can on Sunday mornings. People will sense their need, we believe, and come visit us if we are attractive enough. In fact, our subtle goal is to be more attractive than the church down the block. We wind up in competition with other churches.
The New Testament church and the missional/incarnational church of a new Reformation refuse to engage in a "come and see" mentality that places all the pressure on the unsaved. Jesus teaches us to "go and tell;" to take on the mantle of a follower of His and wear it well.
What percentage of the Church's resources is tied up in maintaining property and supporting professional clergy? If it is true that God counts true spirituality in terms of taking care of those who can't take care of themselves (James 1:27) and actually judges our lives in relation to how we work on behalf of the oppressed (read Jeremiah 22:15-16 and Isaiah 58 very carefully), then how accountable are we for the tithes and offerings that never make it out the door of the church?
Some might suggest that we need buildings to offer seminars on financial management or to host recovery groups--things that can have a major long-term impact in people's lives. Who says that we need a building dedicated to religious purposes for those things? What might our impact be if instead of inviting strangers from the community to such events, we would offer our services to individuals and groups already within our speres of influence--people with whom we have already been intentionally investing our lives?
Whatever happened to a mobile Church going to where the need is? Why do we insist that needy people come find us? Isn't that exactly the opposite of how God treated us?
You can't invest in a needy person's life outside the church building if you spend all your free time inside it. In this case perhaps smaller is bigger. Smaller crowds means personal ministry to the people with whom we are intentionally establishing relationships. Smaller buildings means using homes that foster intimacy and ongoing relationships.
If permeation of the culture with the values of the Kingdom is truly what we want, then it is time we got back out there. We must do it as individuals and groups demonstrating a passionate love for others while we represent the King who did that for us. It will never happen if we represent a political or social philosophy as a voting block.
What would happen if followers of Jesus began viewing their surrounding culture as a hostile environment needing a demonstration of the radical love of God? What if those who have really counted the cost would band together and develop intentional relationships in their spheres of influence? What would happen if church people would stop wringing their hands over waning political influence, stop identifying themselves by what they oppose, and start loving people into the Kingdom? What would happen if we could expose the curse of Christendom and set people free to be salt and light?
It's edgy. Scary. Downright dangerous.
Just what the Church is supposed to be. Exactly where the Church is supposed to be.
Monday, June 30, 2008
What's A Tumtum Tree?
Read Lewis Carrol's epic poem "Jabberwocky." The Tumtum tree is where the one, armed for battle and pursuing his foe, stops for rest and reflection. Then he kills that sucker.
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