Why I Am No Longer An Evangelical

I am no longer an evangelical. I didn’t turn in my card because of addiction, moral failure or because I became a Democrat. I did it because I care more deeply about the state of my world than I ever have; I did it because I believe more fervently than ever that the Jesus I read about in the Bible, and the things He says, are true and compelling. I did it because evangelicalism, in this light, is more of a hindrance than a help.

This comes as a shock to my system because my experience and education are rooted in all things evangelical. Academics include a double-major in Pastoral Ministry and Bible and Theology; I also got halfway through a Master of Arts at a world-famous seminary in Pasadena, California before leaving fifteen years of pastoral ministry to become a missionary in North Africa. I have read many books by Christian authors. I highlighted passages in most and even finished some of them. Most of my adult life has been centered in vocational ministry. I Am Clergy.

I was clergy.

My life goals haven’t changed appreciably since the days I drew a salary as “Pastor Bob.” I still want to be a change-agent in bringing those within my sphere of influence to life in Christ. I still pray and look for opportunities to share Jesus with those around me. But I no longer see the movement known as “Evangelicalism” as helpful in this regard. It is not, for me or for you. It is not, especially for the millions of spiritually seeking citizens outside the Church who long to fill the void in their souls.

It is time for a new Reformation.

It is time for American Christians to re-invest wholesale in the missio dei. That’s a great Latin phrase speaking of the mission of God: the driving and chief motivational force of God and His kingdom. It is a force that won’t let Him rest until every corner of creation has been totally redeemed.

The missio dei is a dynamic power that makes no room for slackers. It forces me to critically and ruthlessly evaluate every personal priority, attitude and habit, and to include in that critique any memberships in social groups and how those memberships can be leveraged for the Kingdom. This gives me a newfound ability to see work and neighborhood relationships with spiritual clarity and to empower me to act as a member of this amazing kingdom of priests known at the Church. It also grants me freedom to move away from the activities and associations that hinder Kingdom impact. Weirdly, and surprisingly, I found that the very group I thought would be re-invested with spiritual significance—evangelicalism—became the one I had to leave. This brief paper outlines those dynamics.

The limitations of a pamphlet or a blog post on a topic like this are manifold and glaring. Each paragraph deserves several chapters peppered with explanatory footnotes and bibliographical references. No room is given to dissenting views. There is no attempt at objectivity. What you have is a guy and his perspective. What you might also find are a few nuggets worth pondering; and in so doing they might just change your life.

Trapped in an “Ism”
Evangelicalism is an “ism.” That is, it is a movement with overarching principles and a whole set of assumptions embraced by those on the inside. Many of the assumptions Evangelicals embrace are philosophical, and not theological in nature, and most are on the level of worldview: that is, these are concepts we embrace, assuming them to be true, while rarely acknowledging or analyzing them. These assumptions go unchallenged largely because we mostly don’t realize they are there. Nevertheless, the consequences of the assumptions we hold have profound effects. We do the things we do because that’s what we assume “normal, biblical church life” is. The rest of this paper is devoted to analyzing three of the foundational assumptions of evangelicalism. Then we will draw some conclusions and make some suggestions for change.

Assumption: We Were Meant For the Middle
The evangelical church as we know it isn’t explained in the pages of Scripture. Its roots go back to the third century of Christian influence in the Roman Empire. In this historical setting we see the seeds of the modern church.

The first three centuries of the people of God after the Resurrection are a record of amazing numerical growth. Some say as much as thirty percent of the entire Roman Empire embraced the gospel during that time. All this happened through a decentralized, organic movement whose chief feature, in the government’s eyes, was that it was an illegal threat to national security. As such, Christians were subject to harsh persecution which included imprisonment, forced labor, the confiscation of property and even death. Still, the Church grew exponentially as it was persecuted.

Roman emperor Constantine then embraced Christ and issued the Edict of Milan in 313, officially reversing Rome’s position on Christianity. His edict says he did it so that public order may be restored and the continuance of the Divine favor may "preserve and prosper our successes together with the good of the state."

In one official act the Church is transformed from outlaws to key players in both national security and social stability.

The Church was moved politically from the margins to the center of culture. Legitimate members of a religious society have certain hallmarks, the chief of which are professional priests, geographical locations for worship and an expectation of favorable treatment by the host government. The rapid and sustained decline of numerical growth as a percentage of the population, coupled with an official chasm between professional clergy and an increasingly inert laity, have characterized the Church ever since.

Ever since the movement on the margins known as Christianity found a legislated home in the center of Western culture, it embraced the inevitable calcification that is inherent in the word “religion.”

The history of Western civilization is simply not coherent without an understanding of the wrestling match between politics and religion. Western history for the last eighteen centuries even has a name for this culture that has been dominated by Christian religious systems: it is "Christendom".

In Christendom the Church expects and demands a place at the center of the culture—which means a voice at the table in shaping, directing and maintaining that culture. This doesn’t mean that everything and everyone in the culture operates within the parameters of biblical Christianity; it simply means that the Church expects that it should, even if there is scant evidence that it ever actually happened in that or any other nation’s history. What it means is this: the Church ultimately must become willing to dedicate whatever resources necessary to “restore” its culture to that mythical golden ideal.

The embracing of the Christendom ideal of a Christian nation (or establishing it as such) necessitates a culture war. The forces or groups within that nation moving the culture from that ideal, in the eyes of religious leaders, are enemies both of the Church and of the State. It is therefore the Church’s patriotic and religious duty to identify, expose and oppose such groups. It also follows that the Church assumes the right and obligation to call each and every citizen, public structure and private business to publicly declare their stand on these “litmus test” issues. Ever wonder why abortion attained “litmus test” status? Now you know. This is how and why the culture war is waged.

The Cost of War
The folly in this is that the Church is the only entity that plays by these rules. This means two things. First, it means that we are seen primarily as a contrarian political group obsessed with behavior modification. Second, and far more tragic, the Church allows itself to be broadly characterized by what and whom we are against.

Go stand in the place of Joe Unchurched for a second. He sees the Church fighting the culture wars and how it has demonized its opponents; at the same time he reads a church sign or a tract that says, “God loves you and so do we!” This cognitive dissonance we have created is why he believes our public persona rather than our printed propaganda. The percentage of our nation’s population becoming followers of Christ has been in steady decline for decades. Our cultural moral slide is the same. We are obviously lousy politicians and not so terrific at attracting people so they can hear our clarifications on Sunday mornings.

Should we continue doing what we have been doing, expecting a greater effort to yield different results? Let’s be perfectly clear: when the Church emphasizes moral issues in the public square, expecting unredeemed people and political systems to live by biblical standards, that is not a prophetic voice. It is a political platform and a fool’s errand.

Re-read those last two sentences and compare them to John 13:34-35. Here’s a public identity proposed by a guy who was given every opportunity to enter the culture wars but who adamantly refused to engage. Why was it that Jesus chose to call Himself “The Son of Man” rather than “The Messiah/Christ”? He steered clear of political/cultural assumptions and chose to define Himself differently. Evangelicalism has taken the “Messiah” option as its primary cultural position and those who might otherwise respond to a cup of cold water rather than a conservative voter’s guide are the ones paying the price.

Our group (evangelicalism) has publicly campaigned to be re-inserted into the center of its culture. We expect and demand to have a voice at the political table and have vigorously engaged in culture wars to maintain our “rights,” but at what cost?

Assumption: Church is a Place and a Thing
We are people embedded in a culture and that culture is embedded in us. Our perspective is always skewed by the weird things we as a group think are normal. These are the elements poured into the mold that makes the glasses we wear when we want to make sense of something. They are the very glasses we wear that bring our world into focus.

As an example, think of how we generally do church. The vast majority of US citizens would understand the question, “Do you go to church?” However they may or may not answer, that same percentage will likely envision a congregation at a specific address on a certain day of the week. Headlining those congregations are professionals who lead us and manage programs designed to meet our needs. Christians come together on Sundays because that’s what Christians do.

So when a teacher where people go to church turns to John chapter one, he puts on his cultural glasses and explains it accordingly: people go to church; Andrew brings his brother, Simon, to meet Jesus. This is obviously an analogy for church members to bring their unchurched acquaintances to church where they, too, can meet Jesus.

“Normal” church life in North America is centripetal. “Normal” for evangelicalism is attracting people from their spheres of influence to a central location where they can learn the art of spiritual inertia. Sitting quietly and listening passively are in the center of evangelicalism’s definition of “church.”

Ask that same question to one of those pre-Edict of Milan followers of Christ. “Do you go to church?” would make no sense whatsoever. “Church isn’t a location,” he might explain. “It is the people, wherever we are.”

Andrew and Simon in John’s gospel might look different through his glasses. Here, he sees a picture of a person receiving truth, then going out and sharing it with someone already within his sphere of influence. To him, the message is one of being a carrier of good news, not a link between a consumer and a provider.

For him, the Church is centrifugal. Coming together is important. However, the force at the center isn’t magnetic—it is dynamic. It doesn’t attract and hold; it propels and directs. There can be no inertia when one’s definition of “church” is how I and my friends are living on the front lines.

Giving Up Control
One of the strongest factors in the centripetal ministry assumption is also one of its greatest contrasts with early Christianity. When we gather together as an institution, we expect a controlled environment. On Sunday mornings we have an order of service from which we rarely stray. Our business meetings follow Robert’s Rules of Order. Even in our centralized outreaches, they have an element of control to them that would baffle an early follower of Jesus.

Consider a typical community “outreach” employed by many churches in my area. It is a youth basketball league known as “Upward.” The basic format is this: church families invite unchurched friends to enroll their kids in the league, which typically plays their games in the fellowship hall of the local church building. Volunteer coaches stop the activities somewhere every time they meet so that someone can deliver prepared remarks as a “testimony.” Children are encouraged to “accept Jesus.”

Our assumption toward attracting people into our environment is so strong, most see nothing remotely negative about a program such as church basketball. What it requires on the part of unredeemed participants and their parents is to behave as if they are already redeemed. It places a priority on behavior and keeps the church organization in control.

What might happen if youth basketball went centrifugal instead? What if local churches refused to duplicate what is already offered outside its doors? What if followers of Jesus were encouraged to coach in a city league where religious behavior is not required? Might more unredeemed families see a stark contrast between darkness and light in that uncontrolled environment?

Assumption: The Consumer Is King
Recently a large evangelical church in the Pacific Northwest issued a cease and desist order to another church using the same name but a neighboring state. Their lawyers stated how the offending church was damaging the brand of the larger group. We spend so much energy developing and maintaining the unique “brand” of the local church. It’s a necessary marketing tool if small churches are going to compete with the dozens of identical fellowships in their area.

But what really happens when we name our fellowships?

No matter how different the worship style, preaching style, or ministry offerings, once a fellowship adopts a name, a damaging dynamic comes into play. We become our own worst enemy.

Our sense of identity shifts from the people of God in dynamic motion, already strategically placed in ministry throughout the community. We become a passive group looking to professionals to do the bulk of ministry in a centralized place on a certain day of the week. We become inwardly focused when the name goes up, unconsciously assuming that ministry is “good” or “bad” based on how it affects me and my family when we gather.

Church leaders are caught in a powerless position. We create ministries to attract attenders and to maintain our hold on them as they morph into members. We know that certain ministries are necessary to achieve this, so we offer good worship and relevant preaching along with youth and children’s ministries.

We get people in the door on Sundays by appealing to their consumer instincts. Then we pointedly expose consumerism from the pulpit. We draw people out of their spheres of influence, subtly persuading them to trade their priesthood for a membership card where they can sit and watch. The more people come to the central meeting place, the more they are considered for leadership. Then to those who have demonstrated commitment to the meetings, we announce that God wants us to win our neighbors and co-workers. All of these conflicting messages create what is known as “cognitive dissonance,” that inner struggle which often leads to paralysis of action.

Most evangelical pastors struggle to find a transformational discipleship curriculum. Our problem is not in the plethora of programs and methodologies on the market; our problem is drawing people as consumers, keeping them through appealing to their consumer instincts, and then expecting something altogether different to emerge in the process.

What It Might Look Like on the Other Side
One of the traps in a paper like this is the impression it may leave in the minds of people still on the inside of Evangelicalism. It may sound terribly negative and angry; the contrasts may seem dull and unimportant. Be that as it may, it is necessary to summarize the contrasts so that a path to the new way of thinking and living becomes clear.

The list of evangelicalism’s woes is long and varied. It is essential to list enough of them to establish the concept that this movement has run out of gas in our day. Evangelicals are not inherently evil or stupid. I am not a whiner who couldn’t stand the heat, so he got out of the kitchen and now campaigns that all cooks are communists. I love Jesus and His people. However, it is my position that the movement we know as Evangelicalism is culturally bankrupt: it got into a bad marriage with its culture and it’s too late for divorce. And the stakes are sufficiently high to warrant sober consideration of abandoning the vehicle so we can finish the journey.

Adequate change of our present method of ministry is not feasible. Besides, a wholesale change is needed to jolt the Church away from simply importing our old assumptions into the new thing. If a person is a bad driver, then switching from Toyota to Chrysler will not solve the problem. When a new mode of transportation becomes your standard, you adopt new rules.

It’s time for a new Reformation.

Reformed Relationships
First and foremost, followers of Jesus are travelers in a foreign land. We have no claims on our culture. We are here as a missionaries in the finest sense of the word. That mission is to show people the way to new life as citizens of the other Kingdom.

Missional self-awareness must be based in our once-alien-from-God status, and must remain as we live among aliens and show them the path to citizenship. Those who expect to view their culture from the center, with a hand on the joystick, can’t help but see aliens (both spiritual and political) as interlopers threatening the citizens and the lifestyle they protect. Rather than seeing ourselves as living people walking around with dead people, and gladly offering them the cure to deadness, the church corporately tends to adopt the stance that the dead people around us are flesh-eating zombies who are to be resisted and/or avoided.

If it is true that Jesus was sent to incarnate (John 1:14), and in the process showed those around Him the full extent of love through an act of sacrificial service (John 13:1), and we are sent by Jesus to incarnate (John 20:21), then it follows that we must employ the same lifestyle. What that means to those around us is that they are not seen as “contacts” or ministry projects, but as real people who are loved and cared for simply because they are who they are.

This concept elevates relationships and acts of love and care within them to a new level. It means that every follower of Jesus already has a mission field in the form of family, co-workers or fellow students and the people we regularly see in social settings. It also means that as their missionary, I had better hurry up and discover a kingdom skill set. This is the doorway to a new passion for true discipleship and to the energizing of the priesthood of the believer.

Reformed Fellowship
The re-energizing of the priesthood of the believer also means that priority time must be given to those newly-discovered ministry opportunities and growing relationships.

Incarnational living simply takes time. It means that I choose to live intentionally as salt and light in front of and amongst my mission field. In order to do that, I will move away from the security of a controlled environment in the evangelical subculture to embrace life in the wild as my primary identity. This is where we were designed to be.

Living on the edge of the desert, we discover a path to a pool of living water in the center of a hidden oasis. We respond to the call and retreat to the living water. But we return to the edge of the desert because that’s where we were meant to live amongst our people.

What we must understand is that the gift is not just the pool—it also the path. Our calling and privilege is to guide others—who have no hope of refreshing and who literally have no prayer—to the pool of living water down the hidden path. There is no room to live on the water’s edge. It was never designed for that. We are to live on the desert’s edge as examples to a dying, dehydrated people of what divine hydration looks like and how it allows the hydrated to live a different kind of life out in the heat. With this posture we can live in the heat amongst a parched people, knowing that the path is never too far away and that we are never to go to the pool alone.

Reformed Priorities
Australian theologian and missional provocateur Alan Hirsch once wrote, “It's not the church of God that has a mission in the world, but the God of mission who has a church in the world.” The top priority of heaven is the missio dei. God will not rest until all of creation is redeemed. That must be our highest priority.

Reformed Identity
The new Reformation means seeing relationships with new intensity. That’s because in this formation we identify “church” as people and not institution. If I and my fellow followers of Jesus are truly the Church, then this allows for new definitions of ministry and field of service. First, this means that ministry happens (or can happen!) wherever the priests are. This means that there is little for vocational, professional clergy to do.

Second, it means that ministry happens largely in uncontrolled environments. As a missionary I routinely advised people not to pray for my safety. The light shines the brightest and opportunities are the greatest when the pressure’s on.

Let’s dislodge the notion that our defining act of church membership is “going to church.” That means our Sunday morning services must change radically or go away entirely as we have known them. Let’s build dynamic motion and address our common spiritual inertia. The best way to do that is wean us off of the expectation that our specially-trained professionals will do the heavy lifting for us. Losing a professional priesthood would certainly open the door for the priesthood of the believer, wouldn’t it? Let’s focus on the sending out, not the gathering in.

The average congregation simply couldn’t change this radically and still retain its identity. This is precisely why I advocate for groups of Jesus-followers to meet regularly in unnamed fellowships where leaders lead because of spiritual gifting and the content of their lives. The only way in our present culture to break the back of consumerism is to act in such a way that is counter-consumer. It means a wholesale retreat from our current church paradigm.

We have too much to lose. The question with which we must grapple is then this: is our identity more important than the outcome? Evangelicalism caters to our culture-based self-interest rather than a biblically-based self-sacrifice.

America’s current election cycle reminds us how frustrating it is to simply shuffle the deck and get a new set of leaders, when it is the system itself that needs radical reform. It’s illogical to assume that a politician using that broken system to maintain enough political capital to run for office and to ascend to a higher level of authority and influence within that system would then be capable of or even remotely interested in changing the very dynamics that brought and maintain his current position. True change rarely comes from within. Why didn’t Jesus populate His inner circle from within the religious/political leadership of His day?

The point I have tried to make regarding Evangelicalism is that it is a cultural phenomenon as much as it is a biblical movement. It is the cultural dimension to which I object. However, because it is so ingrained in our culture, it is so hard to distance oneself from.

I am learning the loneliness of this distance and the route I have chosen to walk. I hope that the doors I open are enough to allow others entrance into a new day of impact in our land, the dawning of a new Reformation. But even if I walk with few by my side, I am convinced that I have chosen the right path.

So Who's the Heretic?

Michigan church pastor Rob Bell has once again wandered off the reservation. His latest book, Love Wins, is making evangelical leaders’ heads spin off their necks. He has been branded a “heretic” for his theological conclusions. I don’t mind calling things as they are; what troubles me is that the playbook upon which I based much of my ministry is not looking so ironclad these days. I am having trouble these days deciding just who the heretics really are.

Who’s the heretic? We all are. American evangelicalism embraces a concept of God, what motivates Him, and how we are to interact with Him, that might just be completely foreign to the minds and intentions of a large portion of Christ-followers in the first four centuries of the Church’s existence. To be more specific, my gut tells me that the guys who wrote the New Testament might not have the slightest clue how we come to some of our conclusions about God and His dealings with creation.

On this end of history it is easy, and quite natural, to assume that what we know and how we perceive truth is the way things really are. One problem with that involves the genesis of the very human culture upon which our knowledge base sits. In other words, the worldview of Western culture pushes all of us—theological thinkers, too—to see and understand our world, and even God, through a couple of dirty lenses. One of those lenses comes from a guy in North Africa. Another comes from Europe of the seventeenth century.

Augustine, our erudite African bishop in the fifth century, was a brilliant man. He happened to be steeped in the categories of Greek philosophy. So he applied this perspective on truth to God and the human condition. He cast God’s relationship with humanity in a legal framework, and these writings became one of the foundational philosophical cornerstones of Western culture. This legal paradigm permeates the Western worldview. Consider how strongly we are attached to this perspective: we sit in our well-defined traffic lanes waiting for the light to tell us to proceed; we react strongly to people “taking cuts” in lines; we must have clear winners and losers in law, sports and relationships. “Right” and “wrong” dominate our choices. Having traveled the world where other dynamics hold priority, and having lived on a continent where a different worldview dominates people’s interactions with their world (honor and shame versus right and wrong), I have experienced the stark contrast.

This cultural cornerstone has had its impact on religion, too. How often have we seen Christian groups fighting with each other over their perspective on “truth” with more intensity than they fight the devil and the grip of this world for human souls? Isn’t that why church signs have advertized “Baptist” or “Pentecostal” or “Methodist”? It’s to let those on the “inside” know if this particular fellowship agrees with my theology—they are “right” while the others are “wrong.” As a sidebar, I was part of the pastoral generation in the 1980s and 1990s that removed denominational labels from church names. At least in my mind, it was because we live in a world where religious “brand loyalty” no longer applies; denominational monikers didn’t attract new people, and in fact, confused church-seekers. This was part and parcel of the church growth movement, pandering to market forces and consumer interests. That, in itself, is worthy of another blog post but is off-track here.

Another dirty lens is Modernism. As a philosophical movement, it fueled a cultural shift to embrace the Enlightenment’s insistence on science as the preeminent arbiter of truth versus error and explains everything in mechanical terms. This was the dominant cultural perspective of the 19th century. Consider that the majority of systematic theologies still used today were written during that period, and only updated/expanded upon in the last century.

Most of our theological formation in the US has been along these lines. Consider the definition of the word “forensic”: relating to or dealing with the application of scientific knowledge to legal problems. This is precisely the ground in which the roots of evangelicalism lie: it is how we have grown up understanding God, His agenda, and the Atonement. Popularized by the seminal American theologian, Jonathan Edwards (“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”—think for a moment how that one sermon has shaped and captured American theological thinking!), systematized by modernist “scientific” theologians in the 19th century like Hodge and Strong, forensic theology blossoms in early 20th century fundamentalism and eventually present-day evangelicalism.

What all this leads to is an emphasis in Christian ministry on the salvation event, because this is the crux of the legal problem. If it is true that sinners are in the hands of an angry God, and the Atonement was acted out in heaven’s courtroom before the Judge, then our greatest duty is to get sinners out of their present “guilty” condition. Once the status of the “sinner” has been changed to “saint,” we have unconsciously satisfied the one legal item in our modernist Christian worldview that really matters. It was, according to our forensic theology and “The Four Spiritual Laws,” the reason why Jesus left heaven to visit Earth.

Could this be one of the reasons why evangelicalism has had such a good track record in making converts, but such poor success in turning converts into true disciples? Maybe this helps explain why a Billy Graham can gain celebrity status for conversion event crusades (with admittedly abysmal recidivism rates) and why a pamphlet like “The Four Spiritual Laws” gains such uncritical acceptance and widespread use. Since the emphasis in Western church culture is on the initial conversion act, evangelicalism is curiously deficient in terms of Great Commission impact. You know, the whole “make disciples” thing.

This paradigm, to some degree, explains why evangelicals so easily gravitate toward abandoning their harvest fields in favor of huddling together to protect themselves from being tainted by the world (why else is there a “Christian Business Directory”?). What do most denominational names indicate? Could it be that the primary element of our corporate self-identification has traditionally been more about what separates us from others (exclusion) than what we have to offer to our world (inclusion)?

Maybe this also helps explain why Western culture, once a captive audience to the message of Christianity, would rather turn anywhere else than embrace the picture of God we have meticulously painted. We present a picture of cultural cognitive dissonance: “God loves you; God is love; but He is so angry over sin that He actually severed relationship with Jesus himself as he hung on the cross. If He would do that to the only sinless man who ever lived, then how far away has God turned from you?” Who would want to get closer to a God who hates their very essence? If we look at evangelical theology, we have to conclude that Jesus found himself in that camp, too.

Let’s consider that moment in time when forensic theology insists that the Father turned away from the Son as he bore the sins of humanity on the cross. If that truly happened, then we must conclude that the Trinity ceased to exist during that time. Modernist theology has no explanation for this paradox. Belief in the Trinity is foundational to orthodox theology, but the logical conclusion here using modernist/forensic theology is that God’s wrath actually caused Himself to cease existing. Even if the Trinity was fractured for the briefest of moments, this means we are all in a puddle of doo-doo.

Let’s use this as an exercise in worldview: Jesus, on the cross, shouts, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

Our modern assumption is that this verbal outburst confirms that Jesus was feeling the weight of sin and the separation from God that it caused. For the first time, Jesus felt the devastation of abandonment as the Father turned from sin. Therefore, the modernist says, this is proof that things are the way I see them.

But perhaps the reality is a bit different. Jesus’ physical reality was one of ultimate torture: agony in pain from dislocated joints, flesh raw from beating and subsequent up-and-down movement to try to breathe; hyperventilation; loss of blood. He is gasping for breath and yells out what he can. What he did was commonly practiced by his fellow countrymen—especially with the Psalms. A vast percentage of adult males present would have instantly known exactly what psalm Jesus referenced (Psalm 22); most of them would be able to recite it by heart. If you start a song everyone else knows, everyone else finishes it (precisely what the psalms were) and nobody questions what deeper meaning you had in saying just the opening line. The song stands complete.

So what Jesus did was strategically start a song that has some very interesting verses which apply directly and dramatically to his immediate situation. Besides being a clear literary illustration of the ravages of crucifixion centuries before the practice was used by Rome (12-18), the psalm pointedly states that God will never abandon His holy one or turn His face away (24). It ends with “It is finished” in Hebrew—in the English versions it looks like “he has done it.” Now where do we hear that from Jesus’ mouth? By finishing the song in the last moments of his life, Jesus confirms from beginning to end this psalm’s statement of ultimate relationship in the midst of ultimate suffering. Jesus is never, for one second, abandoned by God to face his worst day ever completely on his own.

Should we believe that God turned His back on Jesus for even a moment, we are the heretics: we are saying, in spite of clear biblical evidence, that God separated Himself in some clearly definable way from Jesus on the cross. We can’t say that in Jesus’ case God loved the sinner and hated the sin. Paul states emphatically that Jesus actually became sin (2 Corinthians 5:21); sin wasn’t something Jesus carried, it was something he was. So if God turned from sin, He turned from the person Jesus. The implications of that are astounding. We are saying that the Trinity, one of the foundational doctrines of Christianity, is unimportant. We say that because it ceased to exist at the moment of Jesus’ abandonment; yet somehow the Godhead as we understand Him was seemingly unaffected. In reality, if relationship with Jesus was severed, it means one of several things.

First, if we believe that Jesus was fully human and fully God as the creeds of Christendom have taught us, then somehow Jesus was God in a separate essence from the Father and Holy Spirit. That leaves two fully functional and separate Gods in the universe at the same time. If that is the case, then perhaps the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are right.

Second, if relationship between Jesus and the Father were truly separated, then Jesus ceased to be fully God at that point. That leads us back to inventing ways to explain a fractured, but not mortally wounded, Trinity.

Third, maybe we just don’t understand the kind of relationship that God the Father enjoys with Jesus. There is some way, we suggest, that God could turn from Jesus (because sin separates us from God) while at the same time He didn’t.

The problems with this response are twofold. First, this argument, based on the legal modernist theology, has to leave that worldview and take a trip into a more metaphysical, mystical posture for this to make sense. One cannot stay true to the modernist foundation and honestly reach this conclusion. Second, this kind of talk can only make sense if words are released from their meanings. We can’t stay true to the modernist worldview and employ postmodern uses of language and stay consistent.

The bottom line is this: if relationship between Jesus and the Father were severed for even a second, then for that second God was not God and the Bible is full of lies as to His longevity, omnipotence and character. If we believe in the forensic hatred of sin like we say we do, then perhaps our heresy is deeper and more insidious than the emerging church.

What to do?

It has been ultimately freeing to begin seeing God as the relentless lover of His creation, who would stop at nothing—no cost or risk too high—to enjoy undiminished relationship with this world and all its inhabitants. It is freeing to look at that tired modernist theological civil war between predestination and free will and wonder if both sides have seriously missed the point. What if, in eternity past, the Trinity decided to go ahead with creation knowing full well what the introduction of free will would bring? And in the midst of that decision, the Trinity decided that to get what they ultimately wanted—humans freely engaging in relationship with God—it was worth the personal cost of redemption? In that regard, Jesus was “predestined” for the cross, “the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” My passionate, loving Father set loose the hounds of heaven to pursue me even before I was lost!

It is freeing and inspiring to read Jesus’ take on the dancing, joyful Father in Luke 15. Whether it’s an illustration of money, livestock or kids, the same relentless Finder of Lost Things has heaven poised for the next party.

I’m not smart enough to figure out what happens to the billions of people who haven’t heard the story of Jesus. I still think that it isn’t just God’s problem; if I am in relationship with Him, it’s my problem, too. But this I know: the story of God I am seeing re-written in my life is about the magnetic draw of the One who dances for joy over finding His lost ones. You can have your systematic theologies and dark courtroom dramas. I’m going this other direction.

The Case Against Clergy

Time For A New View
The modern, Western Church defines itself with a theological foundation in the disciple-making command of Jesus in the Great Commission, and with a philosophical dynamic from the Protestant Reformation that insists on the priesthood of the believer. In its current form, however, the institutional Western Church actually stands in the way of both true discipleship and maximum world impact from its members.

The worldview of Christendom has become the Western Church’s largest export and its greatest hindrance. Because of the weight of our cultural and historical baggage and the depth of our traditional church assumptions, radical alternatives to traditional church forms are needed to restore the power to Western Christianity.

A Gift From A Guy Who Wore Metal Pants
“Christendom” refers to a relationship between the Church and the State that was inaugurated during the rule of the Roman emperor Constantine. His reign witnessed the exponential growth of a marginalized, persecuted Christianity. The Church was organic, decentralized, and powerful.

Constantine realized that nearly half of his entire empire was now professing allegiance to Christ. His legendary vision of a cross during battle gets center stage in our view of Church history. This becomes the mythical tipping point when we assume Christianity burst forth onto the world stage. One thing is definitely true: this was the beginning of Western culture and the Church was in the center of the culture. Being in the center isn't always a good thing.

What we often fail to realize is that Constantine probably made his decision to legitimize Christianity for numerous reasons, not the least of which was a shrewd political move. The emperor did what all the Roman leaders before him did. By bringing a conquered enemy’s gods into the Roman pantheon, and granting legitimate cultural status to both their priesthood and the locations where their religious faithful gathered to worship, those suddenly “set free” religiously lost their distinctiveness and the will to rebel. They were assimilated into the Roman Empire. Rome’s one great stipulation was that those new citizens revere Caesar—and by extension, the host culture—as divine. Most saw that as an inconsequential price for the freedoms and privileges they could gain.

So it was with the Christian Church. What was a dynamic movement that won converts by the sheer force of changed lives modeled in the toughest of circumstances rapidly became a legitimized religion whose centralized priesthood and distinctive, sacred buildings emerged as its defining cultural characteristics.

Scroll ahead to Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation in the fifteenth century. Luther surveyed the religious landscape and proposed reformative measures to his Catholic Church. It was an unbalanced institution heavily invested in politics and real estate. Luther saw an institution populated by a class of professional priests, schooled in the mystical art of understanding the Scriptures, supported by those grateful enough to receive spiritual guidance. It was the priesthood’s main occupation to interpret the Scriptures for their parishioners. In this system there was no room for everyday followers of Jesus to fully exercise their own priesthood as the Bible commands. People accepted the status quo; they knew no different and probably assumed that that was the way things were supposed to be in the Kingdom of God.

Shaped By History and Environment
Our late-twentieth-century Church worldview is both heavily influenced by our history and mostly hidden from view. We all operate on certain assumptions—those dynamics we implicitly and unconsciously understand as the way things ought to be. Because they are on this deep level, most of our assumptions go unchallenged.

Many of our guiding assumptions are deeply rooted in Christendom:
• We expect the Church to be in the center of culture, with a valued and respected voice. When this is no longer the case, we assume that it is the culture’s fault, not the Church’s.
• Our default is to equate the concept of Church with a place, not as a people. We are building-centric in our approach to ministry. This is one of the major contributing factors to our spiritual schizophrenia—the “sacred” and “secular” approach to life—where I can live separate existences depending on whether I am at work or at home or whom I am with.
• We demand dynamic performances from professionals, whom we grade and reward with our financial contributions and our continuing attendance at their performances. The focus of our Christian life is Sunday mornings; we “get through” the rest of the week to return to church.
• There is a vast difference between “clergy” and “laity” regarding the expectations of one’s life-investment. We expect much from professionals and little from ourselves. We have been conditioned to remain passive attendees.
• Laypeople’s chief contributions to the movement of the Kingdom of God are generally twofold: sources of income and bridges for church growth. Members are encouraged toward financial giving to the local church and to professional missionaries around the globe, and to invite their “unchurched” contacts to Sunday morning gatherings so that professional performances can change their minds. How much of the typical church’s income feeds overhead—salaries and mortgages?

The list above might seem cynical and reactionary. Its purpose is not to discount every dynamic of the modern Church as worldly and worthless. God has used churches and church people in amazing ways—and He will continue to do so. The purpose of this discussion is to allow the interested thinker some perspective to consider what cultural and historical foundations unconsciously drive our contemporary understanding of ministry and the Church’s interface with its world.

This is precisely why it has been so difficult historically in American evangelicalism to create vital, sustainable discipleship programs. There is no real need, since we implicitly know that all impactful ministries happen through professionals in sacred buildings on Sunday mornings. Our programmatic, building-centered approach actually militates against the focus, time and energy it takes to be missional and incarnational; without this the average member will not sense the dire need to be a disciple.

Finally, in our professionally-driven Christian sub-culture, just whom exactly is the disciple supposed to follow? Even in our relaxed, first-name-basis contemporary churches, there remains a huge and nearly unbridgeable psychological gap between clergy and laity. I simply can’t emulate a professional’s lifestyle; he does things and has powers and privileges I don’t, like getting seminary degrees, marryin’ and buryin’, baptizing and serving Communion.

So What?
The discussion above is also an attempt to demonstrate to missionally-minded leaders that there are serious and potentially stifling assumptions that North American Christians bring into the arena whenever we employ familiar forms of ministry. This is precisely why new forms are needed. It is not that new forms are intrinsically better or that traditional forms are evil. It is all about creating an atmosphere where community, impact, power and new imagination have the greatest chance of taking root.

Would a chapter of Overeaters Anonymous have an easier or a more difficult time reaching their objectives of they were to hold their meetings at a McDonalds or a Dairy Queen? When we are guided by clear objectives, sometimes an otherwise welcome venue becomes toxic.

Can an existing church turn the corner and become a dynamic, missional vehicle? Yes, or course. There will undoubtedly be more dynamic expressions of the Kingdom in many institutional/traditional churches (see how easy it is to mis-use that word?) than there ever will be through my own feeble efforts to pioneer a new/ancient movement. As one who has been part of the institutional Church as both a pastor and an overseas missionary, I have to wonder why we would spend our lives performing CPR when we could be out delivering babies.

What, then, is the best discipleship vehicle? It certainly isn’t through a paid professional, for all the reasons stated above. But take those same individuals, with theological acumen and leadership gifts, and place them in real-life situations. Intentionally under-employed former professionals working in local businesses, living in the same neighborhoods as the people they want to reach, acting as templates of hospitality, generosity and intentional relationality, wield great influence and inspire hope in others.

Spiritual gifts should be exercised. That includes those gifts of leadership within the Church. As gifted people learn to adopt a new set of assumptions, including one that restores the word “Church” to refer to God’s people rather than a building on a certain street corner, we will see a renaissance in Kingdom power across our communities. These new forms of Christian community will flourish as former professionals strip away old patterns and constantly challenge their co-laborers to disconnect from old paradigms of who does ministry in the Church and how it gets done.

So what about those verses in the New Testament about “don’t muzzle the ox” (like in 1 Timothy 5:18)? Is there a place for vocational clergy? Let’s address this with a couple clarifying comments. First, we are in the process of re-imagining the concept of Church. Now we see that when Paul addresses “the church in Corinth,” or Ephesus, or Rome, he probably is using that phrase to include every follower of Jesus in that geographical region. They didn’t all meet together on Sundays with a pastor. They were more likely a loose collection of house churches—tight-knit families of Jesus-lovers who needed the challenge of seeing a broader horizon. What they needed were regional overseers who could provide guidance and accountability in a very hostile environment. We have a continuing need for apostolic thinkers and prophetic teachers who can inspire and challenge God’s people. They just have to be far enough removed from us that we won’t dip back into the default assumption that they are the “ministers” and we are the passive audience. Even these verses, so beloved by those who make their living from others’ generosity, must be passed through the grid that challenges our default cultural assumptions.

There is a double irony in this new paradigm of Church in the West. The first is that this really isn’t new or novel; both the ancient Church in the first three centuries after the resurrection, and the modern Church in China, are shining examples of stunning health and growth through organic community in the absence of a professional priesthood. The second irony is that the current institutional Western clergy-led Church just might be led out of its rapid retreat into irrelevancy by…former clergy.

The missional/incarnational movement is more than a splinter faction of disgruntled spiritual anarchists. It is a fresh expression of ministry that has the potential to usher millions of people disinterested in “church” into the life of The Church. It’s worth every risk.

All the Power You Need

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.

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.

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.

The three major themes we will explore as we begin to re-vision our understanding of Church are Inside or Outside, Feed or Fed, and Parent or Guardian.

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.