hmmm...

I think my article is starting to piss (a few) people off.

Ah well... I think it's hitting where it's supposed to hit.

Comments

[john chang]

excellent article, bob!

[Sivin]

Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment. Bless you and evergreen to serve long and prosper in your efforts to be faithful to Jesus and his heart for the church and the world!

[Jessi]

I thought it was an excellent article! We planted a church almost 2 years ago, and because we didn't do the big launch model, but just started in our living room til we outgrew it, we've attracted some people that have been hurt by the church and looking for something different. In many ways, that's who we'd like to connect with, but as you pointed out, it really only works when people have the mindset of wanting to move on. That is so key! I'm trying to figure out a way to forward some of those people the article without being completely offensive (like HELLOOOOO...THIS IS YOU)! We've had some that really don't or can't (not sure which it is yet) move on (emotionally & spiritually speaking), but want to stay there, on the fringes, and continue to bash the Church. Not specifically ours, as we aren't where they experienced the hurt, but including ours, because the slams and cheap shots are all-inclusive of Christians and the Church. It can be very toxic, and we are praying and trying to find a way to deal gently with them without further hurting them, yet still protecting others from their spewing!

[grace]

Bob,
Do you really think that the responses to you are pissed off? I guess that isn't how I perceived them, and I hope you aren't saying that was your intent with the article.

I remember the feeling of being "in the zone" with ministry and community, wishing that everyone could have that experience. It is very rewarding. I am happy that you are enjoying this season ministry and community in your life.

no, mainly just a couple of them seem frustrated with me... most are fine with it.

For me, it's not so much wishing everyone could have what I have. Everyone's different...

It's more wishing everyone could have all that they could have.
I get that (some) people have very active prayer and spiritual lives away without connection to a larger christian community. For me the issue is that I pray one way alone, I pray another way entirely in community. Ditto worship...

And I think we all need both, you know?

[Makeesha]

I think though bob that you're biased because of your current position and role in the Body :) and that's ok, we're all biased, but it's good to admit it and it helps to offset people's offense a bit (in my experience).

I thought it was a good article but it did feel a bit "you're not doing it my way, therefore you're not doing it right". I know you a little bit from reading your blog so I heard what you were saying but I think others might have heard it that way - - esp. those who have had the holy crap beat out of them by IC leaders ... some for decades.

I also want to take issue with 1 point you made a few times in the comments - homogeneity is, in my experience, more often found in IC than outside it. Your experience or your observations might be different but I have had a more diverse group of friends and mentors since leaving the IC as have all of my Christians friends who have followed a similar path.

Now, I share your bias, I'm a "church leader" but we couldn't be further from the IC model so I guess we're a bit of an aberration. Sadly, not everyone has a "revolution" or an "evergreen" to hook up with.

[Heidi]

Bob -

I read your blog often and have a great deal of respect for what you're doing. I've even said if I lived in the Portland area I might just be tempted to attend a church again - yours. ;) With that said, I read your Next Wave article with great anticipation...I figured it'd be good.

Funny thing? It was, but only because of what I know about you. I kept thinking that if someone else (that I didn't know) had wrote the same things, I'd probably be bristling. I wouldn't know that you left the IC to start a church in a pub, I wouldn't know that your definition of "community" doesn't mean a Sunday-only crowd or one that's committed to a bunch of meaningless IC principles. Kinda reminded me of when I read (for kicks) Josh Harris' book "Stop Dating the Church: Fall in Love with the Family of God." I know Josh a little bit and so even when I WAS agreeing with parts of the book, I was always waiting for the implications he would soon draw, that I DIDN'T agree with. Then, even the parts that were quite good bothered me - because I saw where he was taking them.

All that to say, I think some of your commenters (Messy Christian among them) weren't reading your article the same way I was. They weren't reading Bob Hyatt, the guy who left the IC (and suffered a lot at the hands of the IC) and started a different kind of community in a pub. They were reading the words of a pastor, determined to get everyone back in line (and back in his idea of church.)

I'm not a part of a regular church gathering. But, I appreciated your article, because I appreciate (and respect) what you have to say. I also know that what seems to be outside your general experience is very much my precise experience. You said in a comment to Messy Christian:

>>>Like I said earlier- If you really are functioning as a church, great. What I see most often is that those who go the "I'm just going to hang out with some friends and that will be my spiritual community" route often end up in a very homogeneous group with little interaction with Christ-followers who don't view the world/spirituality/following Jesus JUST like they do, and for all the talk of building spiritual practices into those friendships to replace what's missing from not actively participating in a formal church community somewhere, they really just have some people they hang out with who talk about God sometimes.

And that really is a far cry from participation in a community which preaches the Gospel to us, holds us accountable, administers the sacraments to one another, etc... >>>

The people I "hang out with" are very much NON-homogenous (like others noted, all the churches I've been a part of are very homogenous in contrast.) I am being spiritually sharpened by finally developing relationships with people who are different from me, some of them people I wouldn't CHOOSE to be friends with, but God put us together. We have some crazy stories! God has knit together my husband and I with another couple in particular that several years ago we weren't even on speaking terms with. It's been a messy road, and we're WAY different from each other, but God is teaching us how to "be church" for one another in exactly the ways you talk about: preaching the Gospel to each other (when I listen to our friend Pete, sometimes I'm convinced I've never heard wiser words spoken from any pulpit...and we all do that, we all preach the Gospel to each other), holding each other accountable, administering the sacraments to each other, etc. We're still learning - taking communion together isn't as regular a part of our gathering as I would like it to be - but we're also not a homogenous group of friends that believes that "Just Jesus'n'Me" is fine. We are in love with the Family of God, we just find that we don't often get to interact much with them in traditional church settings. But I think you jive with that, after all, you meet in a pub.

I guess my point is: be aware that people reading what you're saying without knowing YOU might not be able to hear what you're actually tryin to say...

...and also that many of us on the "outside" of IC or regularly-scheduled-meetings are very much in love with the church, painfully aware of our desperate need of community, and that God is knitting our hearts and lives together...albeit in a different way than he's knitting together the hearts and lives of those in your community, and in a different way than he's working within the IC (because I do still believe that he's at work in the IC!)

Sorry for the wordiness, this whole exchange just set off a lot of thoughts for me!

Blessings to you. I enjoy your blog a lot.

[Janie]

A comment from someone who had never (not even for a funeral or a wedding) stepped inside a church for the first 30 years of her life –

After a pretty, let’s say, shady existence, I became a follower of Christ. I tried several of the local organized churches. I couldn’t figure out how to play their game of church. I didn’t know the rules. And I found little assistance in anyone explaining those rules. I’m not saying they didn’t want to help. But most of those attending were “lifetime members” and couldn’t relate to my questions or history. It seemed to me that the attitude was now that I was “saved” I should just get in line behind the other sheep. And play the game – no questions asked.

I am thankful that I located a small circle of people who meet on a regular weekly basis. In a hotel bar, no less. We are all at various stages in our relationship to Christ. Questions are encouraged. We find answers together in the Bible.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this, there is room for both. I didn’t feel comfortable in the organized church. I’m sure many from the organized churches wouldn’t feel comfortable at the hotel bar. Find the place where you can grow. And help others to grow as well.

[bob]

Of course, we all have bias... but the assumption is that I love the church because I'm a pastor.
Maybe I'm a pastor because I love the Church, the Body of Christ in the world...

Homogeneity in church IS a problem... but the answer is not to bail.

Overall, I don't think it's not a matter of doing it "my" way... I hope I made that clear by saying connect to whatever kind of local church makes sense to you.

But the option I don't believe is on the table for people following Jesus is to disconnect from the larger Body of Christ, circle up with a couple of buddies, and assume that having some spiritual conversations now and again (mostly focused on what sucks about church) is sufficient.

If someone wants to be a house church of 5 or 10 people, then okay. That's *great* in fact. Baptize people, take communion, serve the poor together, read and discuss Scripture and pray with and for each other. Regularly worship God together and when necessary, correct one another.

If someone is doing ALL of that with their 5 or 6 friends then I have absolutely NO beef with them whatsoever. That's church.

But I have a feeling that even with the best of intentions "me and my spiritual friends" OFTEN (not always) is far from that...

[Bob]

Heidi and Janie-

Thanks for your comments! they published as I was writing the last one... Heidi, I think you are right- people who don't know my story will likely read that article very differently. I think that's the only way someone could possibly label me a member of the "old guard" out to squash a new movement of God!

Janie- I love the Body of Christ in all its forms, little and big, unconventional or not. I have some, uh... issues with some of the bigger, more conventional forms, but that's another topic :)
I'm sorry you didn't find the help you needed at first. I'm glad you eventually did. Stories like that are a big part of why we started evergreen. Keep following Jesus- what you are doing is church- don't let anyone tell you different!

[Heidi]

Bob -

>>>If someone wants to be a house church of 5 or 10 people, then okay. That's *great* in fact. Baptize people, take communion, serve the poor together, read and discuss Scripture and pray with and for each other. Regularly worship God together and when necessary, correct one another.

If someone is doing ALL of that with their 5 or 6 friends then I have absolutely NO beef with them whatsoever. That's church.>>>

And see, this is what I appreciate about you. This is what we're striving for, and I feel (like you) that it IS church (even though it looks different) - but many of my IC friends see this and yet say that what we're doing is NOT church because it's not under IC oversight. I think some of your commenters on the ezine article might have misadvertently read the same thing into your article because they've heard it from so many other places.

Blessings!

[Makeesha]

I know Bob, I get it, I really do, I'm just saying that if your article made ME bristle a little, I can see why others are even moreso. You sounded a bit defensive over at the article site and I was hoping I could offer some perspective.

and the reason I brought up the homogeneity issue is not to advocate bailing but to point out that you used that as a "bad component" of a "me and my friends" church and I don't think that's a valid point because more homogeneity exists IN the IC than outside.

[bob]

yeah- I get defensive on these internet exchanges. I find them really difficult, which is why I generally don't do a whole lot of back and forth here in the comments on my blog...

See, I'm not sure about the homogeneity thing... I realize that from the outside, churches tend to look really internally alike, but it's in my church community that I
find myself having good long conversations with 50-something ex pastors. Would that happen otherwise? I end up having coffee with college students and baptising medical interns. Would any of that happen otherwise? I don't know about others, but in my case, probably not.

My "friends" tend to cluster pretty tightly around my demographic. It's in the larger community that I mingle with people both richer and poorer, better and not-so-better educated than me... my church community is the only place I have where I can be in the same room with a bunch of democrats and republicans and a couple of socialists all at the same time, all loving each other.

That might happen without the intentional community of church, but in my experience, at least maybe with my personality, not so much...

[Makeesha]

we have different experiences then, which is why I wanted to challenge your point.

churches around here are very beige whereas the "ouside of churcheanity" Christians are very diverse and broad.

[Makeesha]

since you gave specifics let me pose my own. most protestant IC around here are either college age republicans, middle age republicans with teenagers or 50+ empty nest republicans. OR, if you want to find other ideas, you have to turn to the theologically liberal churches which also have their own concrete identity. Within those churches, people cluster by age.

Outside the IC, I have found groups of people gathering together in a much more mixed fashion - politically, ideologically, theologically, socioeconomically and demographically. My theory is that if people who are leaving the IC are SINCERELY leaving because of pain and frustration (not just laziness, which seems to be the group your focusing on, in which case, laziness if the problem not homogeneity), they want to keep communion with other believers and they are forced to "live with" what they are presented.

which means the young, the old, the conservatives, the liberals, the libertarians, the middle class, the lower class, the greeners and the oil drillers....all have to find a way to make it work.

[Helen]

Bob wrote: My "friends" tend to cluster pretty tightly around my demographic. It's in the larger community that I mingle with people both richer and poorer, better and not-so-better educated than me... my church community is the only place I have where I can be in the same room with a bunch of democrats and republicans and a couple of socialists all at the same time, all loving each other.

That might happen without the intentional community of church, but in my experience, at least maybe with my personality, not so much...

Bob, if church is the only place you get together with a group more diverse than your close friends, does that mean you're never with people who don't share your beliefs and hence wouldn't come to your church?

[Sivin]

Bob - for all it's worth and the energy that some of the comments. I'll leave a short comment and say thanks for the effort in putting up the piece. Personally, I can resonate with your statement: "I get regularly written off as a heretic for my connection with the emerging church by those to the right of me. To them, I;'m a screaming liberal because I like to read Doug Pagitt and Brian McLaren and because of how our community does church.

But now, because of this article, I'm the "old guard" who's trying to squash a new movement of God.

I have a feeling that whenever you are feeling the pushback equally from both sides of you, you are probably right where you need to be. "

of course, I haven't been written off as a heretic yet so my suffering is mild compared to yours. Blame it on me because I'm trying to be organic as much as I can as an elected denominational representative of a small denomination of 10,000 members! :-P