Quote For Thought

The main stimulus for the renewal of Christianity will come from the bottom and from the edge, from sectors of the Christian world that are on the margins.

Harvey Cox, Religion in the Secular City

Conditions of God's Unconditional Love

Over the Holiday's I was fortunate to have some time to connect with Mike and Candice (who I hope will post something to Tomorrow's Church soon, so everyone doesn't grow weary of Kevin's endless rambling and yes, I just referred to myself in the 3rd person). But Mike and I had some time to dialogue about church thought and I wanted to share some of the conversation.

We have a peculiar faith that intertwines the seeming dichotomy between the unconditional love of a Creator and the conditions of restoring the relationship between Creator and creation.

So, for those of us called and captivated by who the church is today and what it needs to be tomorrow, we have work to do in a world that shrugs absolutes. Our world is comfortable with the idea of a God who loves and who says there is nothing that can separate us from that love (Romans 8). However, our world disdains attaching any condition to that love. An example would be peoples comfort and respect for the man named Jesus, like they respect Gandhi and MLK, but are not comfortable with accepting claims that Jesus is more than a man or for that matter, the only way to God.

I recently had a conversation with a pastor, in his middle age, great guy, and we were discussing the swinging pendulum of imbalanced theology and Christian movements. Like a rubber band, we seem to go from one side, often erring on extreme, to the other side - reaching a whole other extreme. And we came to the story of the Rich Young Ruler (Luke 18) and Jesus' interaction with him. Jesus not only saw what was lacking in the young ruler's faith, but shot straight to the issue - didn't pretend, didn't glaze over the issue - and then was willing to let him walk away saddened.

This pastor rightly accused our younger generation of being unwilling to let people walk away saddened by the conditions and the reality of the Liberating King story. I believe we must seek a balance in being able to dialogue with the world, engaged in our culture and still maintain our absolutes and the conditions of the gospel. And as I said to him, we are only trying to respond to his generations all-to-willingness to let people walk away not only saddened, but also pissed off.

There are a lot of thoughts about this, but I will end it with this; We have to bring balance to our practical theology and interactions with the world we are called to make disciples of. Discipleship necessitates conformity on some level, necessitates abiding in and under the conditions of God's unconditional love. Our challenge lies in simplifying what our absolutes really are. We must resist denominationalizing/dividing/separating over peripheral theological issues and center again on the love and person of Jesus Christ.

Thoughts...responses...

Kill the Clergy! [Part 2]

Yes, I took a long time in coming back to finish Part 2 of this thought process - my apologies. You can read Part 1 here and catch back up on where I was going with this, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately. And with saying that, I'm nervous I won't be able to fully articulate what I'm feeling, but will do my best and look to hear your input.

I believe a key in killing the terminology of clergy and ridding ourselves of the separation between clergy and laity is no longer using the word 'pastor.' Wait...what? Let me explain...

1st - We are all pastors and we all have pastoral roles to play in our families, work places and circle of friends. We are all called into the priesthood of God's Kingdom (mission) through our marriage with Christ and the Body. Thus we all have responsibility in loving, leading and caring for those we are gifted with the opportunity to have relationship with.

2nd - Because we don't realize the 1st, we have done a poor job of fulfilling our role. I believe we are all theologians too, though most would never call themselves a theologian, we are nonetheless so. Because we are human we occupy a unique space in creation, being fully physical and fully spiritual. You can be no more 'less human' than you can be 'less spiritual', which is exactly why throughout history humanity has struggled to grasp truth and either define or deny the existence of Deity. We are all theologians and we are all pastors and we need to start doing a better job of them.

3rd - This has all lead to an unhealthy and unbiblical set of expectations for those burdened with the title of 'pastor'. I have written about this aspect on my other blog (here), but when pastors become superstars and anything more than just human (another person trying to figure out this journey of life), pain and hypocrisy are inevitable. When Catholic Priests molest young boys, it is not a sign that they weren't 'holy men,' it's just a sign of the same broken human condition we all share. And it is the same when a pastor has a moral failure - they were never more than human, though we allowed them to be, and in a lot of cases, we thrusted them onto the pedestal ourselves. We shouldn't be 'more devastated' by their failure, we should be just as devastated by our own, remembering that sin is sin and we all fall short.

4th - So we must move from the title of pastor, to an understanding of leadership and influence. We need to have a more holistic understanding of what being a pastor means. We are all called to be disciple-makers and some are called to be apostles, some prophets, some teachers, some administrative, but we are all called. And changing our terminology will free the leaders of our local church communities to fit the role God designed for them and their passions. They will not have to conform to all the vague, unbiblical and unbalanced expectations that are encompassed in the title of 'pastor.' Instead, they will be free to lead us as they follow God and His calling for them - no longer having to pretend to be the marrying-burying-teaching-preaching-hospital-visiting-counseling-pastor the Church has come to expect of them.

So many more thoughts come to mind, but I'll stop here and ask you for your thoughts...

Defining 'Missional'

Micheal Frost added this to the conversation on 'what it means to be missional.'



In an interview on The Missional Blog, Frost said

our christology should lead to our missiology which in turn will lead to our ecclesiology

That is an interesting way of guiding the conversation. When we come to grips with the Jesus found in the gospels, it defines our mission as we translate it into our lives, our world and our culture. Thus, church is an outgrowing and a byproduct of moving from Jesus to His mission for us. I agree with him that many times we start with how to do church and then try to figure out mission as a byproduct of that.

I said this in the 'comments' the other day, but I think you could define missional as living in a way to stay outside the 'stifling equilibrium' of our traditions, denominations and doctrines. Never abandoning them, never abolishing them, but as Jesus did - fulfilling them - renewing them and their meaning in our lives.

In other words it is recognizing the tendencies of our human condition to seek comfort and predictability and finding ways to live continually outside of that. Finding ways to live outside of our own might or ability and instead, engaged in the adventure of depending on God and following his design for your life.

Thoughts...

Continuing The Missional Convo...

Below is Alan Hirsch's reply to the earlier post by Dan Kimbal and the conversation we've been having.

Dan, as someone who comes out clearly for the missional reframing of church, I do share some concerns about reproduction (fruitfulness). Anyone concerned with Jesus’ commission should be.

The comments so far are excellent and so I will just add a few more.

* I certainly don’t believe that attractional is not working. What I have said is that it has appeal to a shrinking segment of the population, and that persistence with a church growth style attractionalism, is in the long run, a counsel of despair. Are you suggesting that we simply stay with what we have got? Surely not bro?

* If we persist with our standard measurements for mission, we will miss the point. The issue is what idea of church is more faithful to the Scriptures. Genuine fruitfulness, surely, cannot simply be measured by numbers but by ‘making disciples.’ How does one measure that? By all accounts, current churches are made up largely of admirers of Jesus but few genuine disciples/followers–this is not a biblical idea of fruitfulness!

* Besides, the early church would not measure up to the current metrics!! If Rodney Stark is right, there was only 25,000 by year 100AD. Not exactly mind boggling church growth. Some attractional churches are larger.

* If we stick with the prevailing measures, we will miss the level of incarnational engagement with quantitative measures alone. How do we measure that? Incarnation takes time and loving presence (witness) among a people. Working with post-Christian folks ain’t easy because we have lost our credibility and have to work darn hard to regain it. I think there is much work to do here.

The only other thing I will say is that we as believers, live by a vision of what can be…we cannot allow ourselves to be constrained by pragmatics alone. Vision precludes that and is driven by holy discontent to see a greater manifestation of the Kingdom.

With love and respect.
AH

Thoughts...

Quote For Thought

And because this book is about missional dynamics, it is appropriate to make a comment about the a significant characteristic of Jesus movements at this point. In the study of the history of missions, one can even be formulaic about asserting that all great missionary movements begin at the fringes of the chruch, among the poor and the marginalized, and seldom, if ever, at the center. It is vital that in pursuing missional modes of church, we get out of the stifling equilibrium of the center of our movements and denominations, move to the fringes, and engage in real mission there. But there's more to it than just mission; most great movements of mission have inspired significant and related movements of renewal in the life of the chruch. It seems that when the chruch engages at the fringes, it almost always brings life to the center. This says a whole lot about God and gospel, and the church will do well to heed it.

-Alan Hirsch, 'The Forgotten Ways'

Missional Fruit (2)

I am writing in response to Dan Kimball's article, "Missional Misgivings" (Refer to Kevin's last post). Although he gave us some good things to consider, overall the article discouraged me. The only 'misgiving' I had was toward his idea of "effective" ministry.
Dan begins his post with this statement: "Small, indigenous churches are getting lots of attention, but where's the fruit"?
Right here, Dan. I am the fruit.
I grew up in a fairly large Lutheran congregation. In high school, I went to youth group at a separate mega-church downtown. It was fun, it was flashy, and it was cool. Now, mind you, I am not here to bash mega-churches. I know they minister to large numbers of people, and I praise God for that. However, for someone who attended church her entire life, surrounded by a huge community of Christians, I felt alone. How is it that I attended a church with hundreds of people, yet knew only a handful? I went to church, I heard a great message, I got pumped up by the rock-band worship team, and went back to my normal life at home. I could skip a few Sundays, but I didn't need to worry- no one would notice. I was one of the hundreds. A small fish in a big sea. I was a member of a seemingly large support system, but did not feel supported.
In college, after much searching, I found a 'small, indigenous' church in downtown Spokane. For the first time I understood what Jesus meant when He talked about the Body of Christ. I felt like I was part of a family. People there were warm and inviting. I developed meaningful relationships with people, and was held accountable by my brothers and sisters. Church began to spill over into my week. It was no longer a Sunday event. It was a lifestyle.
This church was not perfect by any means. But it was here that I learned the importance of putting people first. It was here that my faith was most nurtured by the relationships I had.
Numbers? Small, but steady. There was growth, but nothing in comparison to the mega-congregation down the street. However, when we start looking at numbers to define the "success" of a church, we are missing the point.
In his article Dan Kimball, referring to one particular missional church, explains, "After fifteen years it hasn't multiplied. It's a wonderful community that serves the homeless, but there's no evidence of non-Christians beginning to follow Jesus. In the same city several megachurches are seeing conversions and disciples matured."
Alright Dan. Now I am overjoyed that conversions are happening left and right in that city's megachurches. I rejoice for that. However, it seems that he is discounting that missional church's ministry. He says himself that it is a "wonderful community that serves the homeless." It is a community that is taking giant steps in faith to serve the lost and forgotten. I have been to many churches over the years, and most steer clear of homeless ministry. It is uncomfortable, and takes a great deal of boldness to step out of your community and enter theirs. Building relationships with the homeless can be difficult. They do not give their trust easily, and most have been broken and abused in unspeakable ways. It's a whole different kind of ministry. We cannot judge a ministries success based on the number of people "we" convert. Last time I checked it is the Lord that changes the heart, not ourselves. We do not always get the privilege to see the fruit of our labor. Most of the time, hearts are not changed in an instant. The Spirit moves, but in His own time. Perhaps the church Dan speaks of has not "multiplied" in 15 years, but they are continuing in their ministry to the homeless and are being faithful to that call. Who's to say God is not stirring hearts in preparation for a later conversion?
Numbers do not determine effective ministry. Do we give Jesus a hard time for choosing only 12 disciples? Would it not have been much more effective to pour into 100 disciples who could disperse and spread the good news? How dare he assume 12 could do the job. Right?
Now I say this to stress a point. I am not saying that large groups are ineffective either. What I am saying is that Jesus knew how important it was to invest in relationships. He wanted a small group of disciples he could...wait for it...disciple. He wanted to develop a deep and meaningful relationship of trust with these men. He knew that the more he poured into them, the more they could pour into others. Clearly it worked. Open the Gospels and look at the great things these men did in faith.

As Kevin stated in his response, and I think he hits it right on, "I think the greater question is, "Who is your church trying to reach?" The answer to that question can lead to harder, less traveled paths of ministry. It can also lead to a more relationally based ministry that is hard to quantify in attendance, but is no less impacting."

I feel like there is so much more to say on this topic, but I want to stop here and ask for your thoughts.
I want to remind you again- my point is not to condemn one church model and praise another.
I do think Dan's article makes for an interesting discussion. I think it's good to be in conversation about such things...

Missional Fruit

The following are thoughts from Dan Kimball on the 'not-yet-proven' status of the missional movement.

I hope I am wrong. For the past few years, I have been observing, listening, and asking questions about the missional movement. I have a suspicion that the missional model has not yet proven itself beyond the level of theory. Again, I hope I am wrong.

We all agree with the theory of being a community of God that defines and organizes itself around the purpose of being an agent of God's mission in the world. But the missional conversation often goes a step further by dismissing the "attractional" model of church as ineffective. Some say that creating better programs, preaching, and worship services so people "come to us" isn't going to cut it anymore. But here's my dilemma—I see no evidence to verify this claim.

You can read the whole article here.

He raises some interesting points, but I think the greater question is, "Who is your church trying to reach?" The answer to that question can lead to harder, less traveled paths of ministry. It can also lead to a more relationally based ministry that is hard to quantify in attendance, but is no less impacting.

Thoughts?

If S*Bucks Marketed Like The Church...

Jave-lujah!

Thought this was an interesting perspective on how unnatural we make the church experience for people.



This was posted by Mike Foster over on the Ethur blog:
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NOTHING I DO IS “CHRISTIAN”
Posted November 6th, 2008

I’ve been very fortunate to work on and create some successful projects. I am always humbled to have been a part of creating initiatives that engage people.

While many of the projects have influenced people of faith, I consider none of them Christian projects. I do not create anything specifically focused on that particular target market. I rarely consider them in the generation of a concept or a project.

And before I scare you off let me just say that I am a follower of Jesus. I love the Church. I hope everything I do honors my creator.

So here is my tip for launching a successful idea. Market to humans. Not Christians.

If what you are doing doesn’t communicate or connect to God haters, people of other faiths, or those who don’t subscribe to your beliefs, then you’re in for a rough ride.
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Thoughts?

Quote for Thought

You are a Christian only so long as you constantly pose critical questions to the society you live in ... so long as you stay unsatisfied with the status quo and keep saying that a new world is yet to come.

- Henri Nouwen