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Anne Rice and the Not-Yet-As-Beautiful-As-She-Will-Be-Bride

A number of years ago, Anne Rice, author of Interview with The Vampire and other books, became a Christian. For her it was a rediscovery of a childhood faith. The writer of numerous books of erotica and dark, occult fiction had found a home again in the Catholic church. But, apparently a short-lived home.
She's now renouncing Christianity.

She said on Facebook recently:
"For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else."

When I read this, I knew that

a. A lot of "anti-institutional", free-range Christians would applaud
and
b. Anne was missing the same point many of them do.

In one sense, I'm glad Anne can distinguish between Religion and Jesus. Those two things need to be disconnected. But in another sense, I'm saddened that she's trying to disconnect Jesus from His Body, because those two things never are.

I want to have grace for Anne and I certainly wish her well. I hope she does remain committed to Jesus. But, in thinking about this, I can't help but think that yes- It would be wonderful if all of our families, groups, networks never had disagreements or problems- if all the folks in them were just as we wished them... but then how would we grow? Where would be the opportunity to grow in patience, forgiveness, love? To opt out on account of the difficulty in a community is to miss both the point of the difficulty AND the community- especially in a redemptive community.

What is Jesus trying to do in the world? Get individual butts through the goal posts of heaven? Or create a redeemed community to live in a renewed creation in relationship with the One who saved them? The point of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus isn't so much "me" as it is WE. And WE are a people in process.
Of course there are hypocrites and hostile people in the church... because there are people in the church. People on a long journey towards Christlikeness.

In some ways, when I read Anne's statement I think about someone looking at an elementary school and saying "I can't have anything to do with you people because you don't know astrophysics and advanced calculus."
Jesus calls sinners into the community He's creating, and all who hear and answer that call are in varying states of growth and character-change. To expect maturity the moment everyone walks in the door is both unreasonable and lacking in the very grace Anne seems to want the church to show to others.

"Quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious"... Well, what else could anyone expect? Did we not hear Jesus when He said, "I come to call sinners, not the righteous?" Did we think He was kidding?

Our job is to follow Him along side and as a part of the Community He is creating. And being thankful for the grace He daily shows us in our "in-processness" means showing that grace to others as well. Even others "in" the church. Because to love Jesus is to love the people He loves- both the "lost sheep" and the "found Bride" that He is in the process of making beautiful.

Grace on our part looks like trying not to be upset that He's still got a ways to go.

Should the Church Meet My Needs?

“In a recent survey of 1,000 church attenders, respondents were asked, ‘Why does the church exist?’ According to 89 percent, the church’s purpose was ‘to take care of my family’s and my spiritual needs.’ Only 11 percent said the purpose of the church is ‘to win the world for Jesus Christ.’” - Greg Laurie, senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California.

For the past few years, there's been a substantial push back to the idea of the church as a meeter of needs. This generally takes the form of deriding the idea of the church as a "provider of religious goods and services" (to quote my friend Doug Pagitt, the first I heard of many, including myself, who have used this phrase).
And as far as that goes, I'm in total agreement. When the Church is seen primarily as an institution which caters to the felt needs of myself and my family, something vital gets lost as communities get sucked into an attractional cycle of tweaking programs and message to fit fads and tastes.
But more and more, I'm beginning to see the opposite end of the spectrum as just as much an overstatement and disservice to the true meaning and mission of the church.

I think of it this way: if the Church's mission is to be a sign and foretaste of the present and coming (already and not yet) Kingdom of God, then it's imperative that needs be met- that's part of the artwork, the essence of being a sign and foretaste.

In other words, one of the reasons we feed the poor, aside from the fact that people are simply hungry, is to point to what God ultimately does and will do in Jesus. We care for the environment for the same way- not just because it's good stewardship, but also because we are drawing a picture for people of the redemption and renewal of all things that began to come to fruition on Easter morning with the Resurrection of Jesus and will culminate someday in the Reign of Jesus.

So if all that is true, I think it's imperative that the church be meeting needs for people not just "outside" but inside as well. Not as a church growth strategy ("Get the kids and you get the parents!") but rather as a means of showing the mutual love and concern we are commanded to show (Gal 6:10) AND a means of being the sign and foretaste of Jesus' work we are meant to be. In the Kingdom, needs are meant- financial, emotional, whatever. So then, that same reality should be reflected in our communities.

The difference, I think, lies in the "how" as well as in the attitudes we cultivate as members of a community.

First, the how. If our primary strategy of meeting needs is one of professionals being paid to make things happen, things may indeed happen, but two unintended side-effects are likely to ensue. In the professional-driven church where nothing "official" happens that didn't originate in a staff meeting, where nothing is considered "real ministry" unless a paid staff-member is present, consumerism WILL become the driving factor. Why? Because what we personally have a hand in creating and sustaining we love and nurture. What we merely purchase, we consume. The quickest way to make consumers (not that people don't already have a pretty good head start)is to make ministry the domain and provence of people getting paid to do it. This disempowers people in the community who feel like they have to run everything by somebody "official"- and as we all know, putting someone in the back seat doesn't make a passenger- it makes a back seat driver- someone who grasps for whatever control they can get by judging and complaining about every turn, missed signal, speed-up or slow-down... The quickest way to stop back-seat driving type complaining is to hand someone the wheel.
Of course- there's still a role for people who are paid to free up the majority of their time to serve the community. There are pieces of ministry that take inordinate amounts of time (coordination of large numbers of volunteers, for example) or specialized training (counseling those in crisis is one) that mean if we want to have those things present in our communities, we make room in our budget for them. There's a pretty good argument from Scripture for paying people as well. This isn't an apologia for paid staff, but I think it's important to remember- that often when no one is being tasked with the primary duty to make sure that things are happening in a community, you get the same result as when it's a professional-only atmosphere: nothing much happens.
In when pastors and elders begin to grab a hold of their true main purpose in ministry- as equippers of others to do the work of ministry (Eph 4) that things begin to click.

In terms of attitude, though- it's not enough to think about what attitude to warn against- we have to point people to the positive alternative, and that probably looks like saying early and often: "We as a church are here to meet needs- not from the "top down", but from person to person, as a community." We point people towards the idea that when they see a problem or need, their first instinct shouldn't be complaining or criticizing, but asking if THEY themselves can meet or fix the need/problem. And if they feel unable, the next step is not to pass off to the paid professionals, but to spur conversation in the community about equipping people to do this task that is now becoming apparent as a pressing need.

To sum up:

My overall fear with the idea that the church is not here to meet needs is that while we may be effectively fighting consumerism with language like that, we're probably unintentionally signaling to people that needs that they see WITHIN the community are not a priority or even important. The real solution is to move elders and pastors from being the paid professionals back to the more biblical model of equippers, and to instill in people an attitude that community IS there to meet needs, and they are not just an essential, but THE main part of that.

Forget everything except...

"For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified." -St Paul, 1 Cor 2:2

 For me, the last few years of thinking, praying and preaching have largely been an exercise in coming to grips with this thought: forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified.

Like many who started off in evangelicalism and especially in youth ministry, the trap of seeing preaching/teaching/pastoring as largely a matter of helping pretty good people become slightly better people is one I fell into face first. For me, it was about "How God Wants Us To Live." The Bible was the Handbook for living and my job was to help people understand what God wanted them to do. 

Oh, sure- there was something about Jesus in there. It's like He was the ticket in to the dance, but it was really all about how you moved and what you did once you were IN.

And I was constantly surprised when that moralistic do-better message failed to capture anyone's heart or move anyone to anything beyond incremental change. My efforts seemed to produce not a group of people so captured by an overwhelming love for a Savior who would lay down His all for them that they would lay down their all for Him, but rather groups of (interestingly enough) slightly guilty, slightly self-satisfied religious people who always berated themselves for not doing better and salved that guilt with the thought that at least they were doing better than those people. Who "those people" were changed over the years. First it was the Catholics, then "liberals" (anyone to the left of us), then finally as this all took on a slightly emergent sheen, "evangelicals" or "fundamentalists" (anyone to the right of us).

At the peak of my frustration with all of this, I was introduced to Tim Keller. As a recovering Calvinist, I was at first a bit leery of the Presbyterian pastor from New York. But in the same way that CS Lewis speaks so well to the secular skeptic, I think Keller speaks to those skeptical of Reformed theology- those who don't want to end up like so many of the bitter Calvinist trolls who seem to populate the corners of the internet. 

At any rate, his assertion that the Bible is not about YOU, but rather about Jesus, about the story of God's redemption and Redeemer was game changing for me. 

Suddenly, my role was not to tell people how to be like various Bible heroes (who really weren't all that heroic if we're going to be honest) and how to do better/more, but to do what Scripture actually did- point them to Jesus, always and only, let their hearts and minds be moved by the Good News of what God has done for them in Christ and allow the Holy Spirit to take that heart movement and alchemize it into Christ-likeness in their lives individually and communally. 

Practically speaking, this means I approach texts (even head-scratching ones from the OT) with the basic questions of "How does this point us to Jesus?" and how does the Gospel answer the questions that people will be asking around this text/issue? We always end up back where we need to be: At Jesus and what He's done for us, and though we often get to what we need to do as a response, the first thing we always need to do is see how His work on our behalf is enough- how Jesus Christ crucified is the answer that leads to all the other answers. 

So that means answering practical questions about things like self-image, success, money, sex with some variation of "Until you are freed from your need for success, a failure you will remain." That is, until we see that in Jesus and His righteous life and sacrificial death imputed to us we have what we need, we will always struggle. As long as we look to other things (in biblical language: idols) to save us and until we put our hope in the only One strong enough to bear it, we'll continue to live lives of either overt unhappiness or, even should we largely get what we are striving for, an undercurrent of "is this all there is"?  

And thus change happens, individually and communally, not when we try harder to do better, but when we are able to lay down the need to do for ourselves what God wants to do for us in Christ, all our little self-salvation projects, and lean more and more into and onto Jesus.

The challenge, on an individual level (and speaking personally, it IS a challenge) is to live this. And on a leadership level to creatively move to this through all my counseling, preaching, teaching. To find 100 different ways to say the same thing. Honestly, I think I've got maybe 5 (some who listen to me preach regularly might think that generous). I need more. 

But... I think I finally know what Paul meant when he said "I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified." My job isn't to help people understand what God wants them to do. My job is to help them see, understand and be moved by what God has already done. That's the difference between good advice and Good News. Out of that, as they follow the One who has captured their heart, God will speak and I can help them listen, process and respond appropriately- but it all flows first and foremost from the ground of how God is redeeming us and the world through the work of Jesus on our behalf. 

What is Evergreen For?

When we started Evergreen, there were the inevitable questions of "Why start another church?" 

 And while there was a certain amount of reaction to our past churches and communities, the overriding desire we had was to begin a community that would reach people we saw as being unreached by existing communities. We knew that those communities were doing a great job of reaching and serving the people they were reaching and serving (obviously). But we also saw some pretty big gaps- some people that just weren't showing up. 

Further, we had the intuition that the kind of community needed by the people we were thinking of was by definition smaller and more intimate, so it wasn't enough just to have one or two churches in our area that were connecting with these 20's and 30's, mostly unchurched or formerly churched folks. There needed to be many. 

So for us, it wasn't and couldn't be about just starting one church that got bigger and bigger- it had to be a church that would plant churches (which would continue to plant churches). Multiplying communities that were doing their best to relationally connect to more and more people and connect those people to Jesus by living out, demonstrating and declaring the Good News. 

We wanted things to be organic- that is, a more open source community whose ministries and activities would revolve around not what a group in leadership wanted but what the whole community desired and dreamed together of doing. We knew that leadership is important, but we wanted that leadership to be as flat and as transparent as possible, and to leave as much to the people of the community as was good and healthy. In other words, to find the balance between serving the community and acting to meet their needs, and yet not doing for the people the ministry they should and could be doing for themselves in meeting the needs of others. 

We wanted a community that would encourage people in every way towards relationship with Jesus, that would show radical hospitality, that would be committed to the poor and the hurting and that would live out community in ways we had only dreamed about up to that point. 

That's why we started Evergreen. 

In many ways we have succeeded and in many ways we are still very much in process and struggling towards those ideals. 

But six years in, I can honestly say: Our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness. We are not a personality-driven community. Evergreen doesn't rise or fall on the gifts of one or two people. The work of the community is very much up to the people of the community. Whether we will live out our ideals of hospitality, commitment to the poor, introducing more and more people to Jesus doesn't rest on the shoulders of the elders or pastors. The responsibility to be/become that community rests on the shoulders of everyone who calls themselves a part of our community. 

Frankly, that's a risk. I get (more and more, in fact), the desire to program ministry, to advertise and "vision-cast", to push and pull and guilt and cajole a community towards being what I or others in leadership would like it to be. In some ways, that would be the easier route. 

Instead, Evergreen continues to take a different route. We preach the Gospel. We see lives changed slowly but surely. We encourage people to listen to God and respond appropriately, to follow their passions as God leads them out into a hurting and broken world and to pull others of us along with them. We pray for people to use their gifts both inside and outside of our community and live lives that are truly "on mission." 

I have seen the Gospel at work in our community- I can't tell you how many times over the last few weeks I have seen the light-bulb come on and heard people say "I think I'm beginning to get what it means to say that Jesus is my Savior and nothing else." But I also see people hurting and in pain, I see newer folks struggling to connect, I see us often struggle to BE the kind of church community we all know we are meant to be. 

But even in that struggle I see the grace of God and the Gospel at work. I'm so glad it's not easy for us- I'm so glad we're never tempted to think that something as vitally important to the world as living out the Good News that God Himself has come to rescue and renew all of creation through the work of Jesus on our behalf is easily within our power. I'm so glad that even in our efforts to be the Church, we are drawn to realize by how this hard is just how much we need Jesus. 

So Evergreen, keep pressing on towards being the church you need, the church the world needs and the church Jesus is making of us. And when you feel frustration or an area of lack or pain in our community, thank God. That's Him showing you where He wants to work, and most likely, where He wants to use you. 

From the Archives: Why I'm Not Done With Church

I've often wished I could write off church... It certainly would make life easier in many ways and at least I'd get to sleep in on Sundays. But, I'm beginning to think that if I truly understand the Gospel... I just can't. 

More and more people are declaring "I want to follow Jesus... I just can't handle church." The rise of the free-range Christian along with its attendant cynicism towards all things institutional has been one of the big stories of the last couple of years, most notably highlighted in George Barna's book Revolution.

In it, Barna describes a new movement that "entails drawing people away from reliance upon a local church into a deeper connection with and reliance upon God." 

He envisions a generation "choosing from a proliferation of options, weaving together a set of favored alternatives into a unique tapestry that constitutes the personal 'church' of the individual." 

"The personal 'church' of the individual"?

Interaction/Review- Tony Jones' "The Teaching of The Twelve"

“The Didache is the most important book you've never read,” starts Tony Jones, in his latest book, The Teaching of the Twelve: Believing & Practicing the Primitive Christianity of the Ancient Didache Community.

And while Tony's examination of this ancient Christian manuscript is engaging and thoughtful, I just don't know if I'd go quite that far. I enjoyed reading this book- well-written, I think well-researched... but the main premise is something I find myself wanting to push back against somewhat.

The Didache, according to The Teaching of the Twelve, records "a primitive Christianity" of about the same era in which the synoptic Gospels were composed, and seemingly unfamiliar with the theology of the Apostle Paul. 

And in that, it's a helpful look at some of the rhythms of the early church. The question, of course, is what can/does that early Christianity mean for us today?

Tony attempts to answer that question as he examines the Didache, by also looking at a small, modern community of Christians who call themselves the Cymbrogi- a house church of sorts which includes Trucker Frank, a friend we've gotten to know from some of Tony's other works. 

The Cymbrogi take from the Didache a very praxis-oriented approach to their walk with Jesus. They are in search of that primitive Christianity that "emphasizes how you live."

Tony writes, "The Didache's vision of communal life in Christ is powerful and potentially transformative. For the Cymbrogi, the Didache's primitive rhythms of faith have changed them personally. Each one of them I've spoken to has professed that the raw, organic Christianity that they find in the Didache and now attempt to practice is exactly what they've been looking for all along." Tony continues, "The Didache offers something of an alternative to what many know of Christianity. The real power of the Didache is its ability to remind us of what is truly important in Christianity: showing the love of Jesus to the world."

Okay... Here's where I start to wonder. 

Joy and frustration...

A good and frustrating (and so maybe good) night for me last night. 

Sunday nights tend to be harder for me as the day is so long. I'm usually at it pretty early, refining my sermon or working on last minute details. And If I've preached, then done something like lead a new people's group, there's not a whole lot left in the tank for Sunday evening. But yesterday I wasn't preaching at our 3rd/evening gathering, so it was a little less of an issue. 

First, the good. Last night I kept Jack, our 5 year old with me in the gathering the whole time. He did (mostly) great. We could probably think of it in terms of thirds. The first third he was excited to be with us (the cookie I promised him helped), he actually read the words and sang aloud (loudly! No discernible tune!) to the first song. And THAT was the highlight of my evening. Seeing Jack engage in what we were doing was wonderful for me- it's not an exaggeration (though maybe an overly-flowery way of saying it) to say my heart swelled with joy to see my son worshiping Jesus.  Probably the highlight of my week. 

Of course, the second third where I was just trying to keep him quiet and the last third where he was almost in tears and saying "I hate it in here!" were a little different story, but... baby steps!

But that wasn't the frustration. 

Review: Sim Church pt 1

It's really difficult for me not to come out swinging when a book I've been promised deals with real questions in an even handed manner begins with breathless statements like "Today a new community of the people of God has begun... A change is occurring in the Christian church the likes of which has not happened in centuries...This type of church is unlike any church the world has ever seen. It has the power to break down social barriers , unite believers from all over the world, and build the kingdom of God with a widow's mite of financing . It is a completely different type of church from any the world has ever seen."

And that's just the first page. 

Despite the stated purpose of Sim Church being to counter the "fluff pieces- pretty pictures, nice ideas but little substance" that the author identifies as so far making up the discussion on virtual church, I can't help but feel like, based on the first few pages, that's exactly what I'm I'm in for. 

Let's lay aside (for the moment) theological considerations of just what it is that breaks down barriers, unites people and builds the kingdom (hint: it's called the Gospel!), I think this book already suffers from the main problem of most books looking at issues of virtual church, video venues, etc, that is, begging the question. Assuming that "God is in this" and it only remains to work out the details. It IS church (the refrain throughout the opening chapter is "Today a new community of the people of God has begun"), now we just have to figure out what kind of church. 

And I say, hold on. It's not that simple. 

"Church" is defined by certain markers, the presence of certain elements, without which it may still be helpful, still be worthwhile, and yet not rise past the level of para-church. AA does a lot of good things, builds community, meets needs- but it's not Church. The Masons do most of the things Church does. Service? Check. Ritual? Check. Gathering together? Check. Funny hats? Double check.

But it's not Church. 

I'll get more in depth into what is and what isn't Church as I interact with future chapters (particularly chpt 2 where the author, very briefly, takes up the most critical question: What is Church and does Virtual Church qualify) , but I wanted to do two things by way of intro- push back against the initial first-line-of-the-first-paragraph assumption of this book that Virtual Church is Church and say- that's the very question you need actually to wrestle with, not tip your hat to and move on. 

And second, to point out this. The author makes this statement in closing chapter 1: "The Christian church is engaging far less than 1 percent of the seventy million people who are active in the virtual world. This means the virtual world is by far the largest unreached people group on Planet Earth... We have great work to do."

The obvious flaw in that reasoning is this: the (mistaken) assumption that these people are "unreached" in real life. They may have no credible Gospel witness in their lives, and virtual efforts at evangelism may be worth pursuing. But... it is seriously doubtful that, in missiological terms (and that's exactly what "unreached people group" is)  these folks are online and logging in to Second Life and are "unreached." This feels like a calculated attempt to draw parallels between virtual environments and real ones and play off our emotions regarding unreached people groups who have never had even an opportunity to respond to the Gospel and to bring a sheen of missionary respectability to efforts at building virtual churches. And again, that begs the question. Not an auspicious beginning. 

If you are new to this discussion you can catch up by reading my article There Is No Virtual Ecclesia here (part 1 part 2, Doug Estes' response here, and my response to his response here

Dust Up at UR over Virtual Chruch!

Last week, Doug Estes, the writer of a new book called Sim Church posted on Out of Ur what was essentially a response to my thoughts in previous Ur articles regarding the idea of Virtual Church. He wanted to avoid responding to me by name, but there were too many pointed comments to avoid the conclusion. 

You can check in out here: "In Defense of Virtual Church."

I wrote and sent a response that was pretty quickly made superfluous by the (now) 87 (and counting!) comments on the original post. 

I reproduce some of it here. I hope you'll read it (and the original article that inspired it) and come back here to answer this question: What do you think of this debate? 

It's my contention it's an important one to have (in fact, I think I need to write a post on why!)- but I'd like to know what you all think. 

Here's my response to Mr. Estes:

October 27, 2009

Virtual Church is STILL a Bad Idea

Online churches are missing a few essential ingredients.

by Bob Hyatt

**Editor's Note: I apologize for the lack of posts in recent days. We've been experiencing some technical difficulties. -Url Scaramanga**

I was disappointed to read Douglas Estes’ piece last week on Ur, for a number of reasons, but chief among them is this: it fails to deal substantively with a single serious critique that has been raised regarding virtual church. In fact, Mr. Estes not only fails to address the critique, but he seems to fail even to understand it.

So in a spirit of Christian love and good dialogue, let me respond point by point!

First, Mr. Estes asserts that critique of virtual church can be boiled down to “Internet campuses and online churches are not true churches because they don’t look like and feel like churches are expected to look like and feel like (in the West, anyway).”

Respectfully, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, my concern about internet church is that it’s too much like what we expect (and want) church to look and feel like (at least in the West).

Video venues and internet church are the logical next step to the celebrity and consumer culture of America, and they represent a threat to both the overall maturity of the Body of Christ and our counter-cultural mandate. Celebrity elevation of pastors who have begun to franchise themselves and their “brand” around the nation should concern us for a number of reasons I’ve outlined elsewhere—they draw down people and resources from other church communities and they are unable to do mission-critical activities.

I’d say those are pretty substantial concerns.

Second, this article repeats what I see as the major scriptural argument in favor of virtual church—“Nowhere in the Bible does it preclude online church.” The argument from silence, as we all remember from high school debate class, is the weakest. And in this case, I believe the Bible isn’t silent. Let me ask very plainly...

READ THE REST AT OUT OF UR 

NT Wright on the question of gay clergy...

NT Wright is very much the CS Lewis of today- I'm glad people living concurrently with him recognize much of his wisdom. I have a feeling in future years, his stature and influence will only continue to grow...

At any rate, he's weighing in on the biggest issue facing (and in fact splitting) the Anglican communion worldwide- the American/Episcopalian church's insistence on ordaining "active" gays/lesbians to ministry. 

Standard Disclaimer (in case anyone cares): I'm in favor of gay/lesbian people having the same rights as anyone else. I'd love to see government get out of the "marriage" business altogether and issue everyone civil unions, leaving marriage to religious institutions. 

In terms of the Church, the issue isn't whether gay/lesbian people can serve God (they absolutely can)- the issue is whether same sex sexual activity is ever consistent with following Jesus- I don't believe it is.

NT wright agrees...

Of course, matters didn’t begin with the consecration of Gene Robinson. The floodgates opened several years before, particularly in 1996 when a church court acquitted a bishop who had ordained active homosexuals. Many in TEC have long embraced a theology in which chastity, as universally understood by the wider Christian tradition, has been optional.

That wider tradition always was counter-cultural as well as counter-intuitive. Our supposedly selfish genes crave a variety of sexual possibilities. But Jewish, Christian and Muslim teachers have always insisted that lifelong man-plus-woman marriage is the proper context for sexual intercourse. This is not (as is frequently suggested) an arbitrary rule, dualistic in overtone and killjoy in intention. It is a deep structural reflection of the belief in a creator God who has entered into covenant both with his creation and with his people (who carry forward his purposes for that creation).

Paganism ancient and modern has always found this ethic, and this belief, ridiculous and incredible. But the biblical witness is scarcely confined, as the shrill leader in yesterday’s Times suggests, to a few verses in St Paul. Jesus’s own stern denunciation of sexual immorality would certainly have carried, to his hearers, a clear implied rejection of all sexual behaviour outside heterosexual monogamy. This isn’t a matter of “private response to Scripture” but of the uniform teaching of the whole Bible, of Jesus himself, and of the entire Christian tradition.

The appeal to justice as a way of cutting the ethical knot in favour of including active homosexuals in Christian ministry simply begs the question. Nobody has a right to be ordained: it is always a gift of sheer and unmerited grace. The appeal also seriously misrepresents the notion of justice itself, not just in the Christian tradition of Augustine, Aquinas and others, but in the wider philosophical discussion from Aristotle to John Rawls. Justice never means “treating everybody the same way”, but “treating people appropriately”, which involves making distinctions between different people and situations. Justice has never meant “the right to give active expression to any and every sexual desire”.

Such a novel usage would also raise the further question of identity. It is a very recent innovation to consider sexual preferences as a marker of “identity” parallel to, say, being male or female, English or African, rich or poor. Within the “gay community” much postmodern reflection has turned away from “identity” as a modernist fiction. We simply “construct” ourselves from day to day.

We must insist, too, on the distinction between inclination and desire on the one hand and activity on the other — a distinction regularly obscured by references to “homosexual clergy” and so on. We all have all kinds of deep-rooted inclinations and desires. The question is, what shall we do with them? One of the great Prayer Book collects asks God that we may “love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise”. That is always tough, for all of us. Much easier to ask God to command what we already love, and promise what we already desire. But much less like the challenge of the Gospel. 

Read the rest here

Kimball's Missional Misgivings...

Dan Kimball, a fellow OutofUr contributer, has earned my respect in a number of ways. 

First, as the pastor of a successful "church within a church" he had the guts to admit that ultimately, it doesn't work. New wine in old wineskins never does. 

Second, I appreciate the balance he has brought to the emerging church conversation. Yeah- he's on the more conservative end of the spectrum, and let's be honest- it's a needed voice. (Who speaks prophetically to people more conservatively-minded? Liberals. And who speaks prophetically to people who are more liberally minded? Conservatives. See?)

And lastly, he always sends me comforting Facebook messages when I get myself into little brouhaha's, like over Tony Jones's recent comments on Beliefnet re gay marriage (a Facebook interaction that took place during my recent blog hiatus)

His recent post on Ur asks some good questions of the Missional Church movement. 

I'm all in favor of good questions. And furthermore, I think Dan is asking the right ones (e.g. are people meeting Jesus in "missional" churches).

A couple of thoughts in response, though. 

Dan writes:

"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."

I both agree and disagree with Dan here. 

When I was in the middle of conversations and thinking that eventually led to me leaving a megachurch and beginning this pub church experiment, I said (and still believe) this wonderful piece of obviousness: the megachurch is great at reaching the people it's reaching. And it's awful at reaching the people it's not. 

Deep, huh?

To me the question isn't "Is the megachurch done?" Clearly, it's not. 

To me, the question has always been, is something else needed to reach those the megachurch isn't (and can't), those the traditional, smaller evangelical church (like 1st Baptist or 2nd Methodist) can't?

And the answer for me then and now is an emphatic yes. 

I pastor a growing church (something like 60% this year) of people for whom the attractional, large-scale production church was a dead end. Many of them even attempted to be part of a large-scale missional church here in town (that rhymes with Montego Bay) and found that though they appreciated the missional emphasis (as do I- I think we have a lot to learn from them), the size and difficulty of getting "in" precluded their participation. 

Many of our folks are either coming back to Christianity, just starting out (yes, we have people meeting Jesus @ Evergreen), or are, not to put too fine a point on it, half-way out the door giving it one last shot with us. I've heard from people in ALL of those places on the continuum that the attractional, program driven church, or even large church in general just wasn't attractive to them.

And that's the key to this whole discussion. 

There's a group of people for whom the megachurch works just fine. I LOVE that there are churches where those folks can find community and find Jesus. But let's be honest, there are people for whom those communities don't make sense, and an alternative is needed. 

Here's my contention (and no, I can't prove it- we'll just have to wait and see)- The numbers of people for whom the megachurch "works" is probably going to shrink over the next couple of decades. Mega Churches will continue to grow and be used by God, but those who intentionally make themselves smaller through strategies like multi-site will grow the most. More and more people will seek out medium sized communities (bigger than the house church or small (≤40) church but not as large as big (≥400) or mega-churches), recognizing that what they long for is community and it's just easier (though never easy) to create in smaller churches. I think when they want to hear Driscoll or (shudder) Ed Young Jr, or others they'll just hit the pod/vodcast. When they want production, they'll throw on a Hillsong or Crowder CD. For worship, a couple of guitars and vocals will suffice. 

But not just smaller communities, these people will seek out communities that point to and hold up Jesus, that encourage, prepare and launch people out into missional living (so no, I'm not predicting the renaissance of the millions of corner churches that can't seem to crack that particular code). They'll want communities that run lean (so not many building programs), take care of the poor, and focus on relationship and relational health. 

So while I appreciate Dan's pushback, I think it's a bit more complicated than what he's both depicted as the "missional" mindset and the way he's answering it. 

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe Osteen and Young Jr are on to something. 

But I doubt it :)

Okay- your turn- what do you think? 

Give it away...

Had a great couple hours yesterday talking with one of the pastors of the large church that helped launch Evergreen (by, uh, "releasing" me into ministry!) yesterday. 

It was an interview for a school project, and also a chance to catch up just a little...

Good to talk about what's gone into the making of a community like evergreen and to have validated that yes, on many levels, it really is different. I think we forget that from the inside, or grow so used to it, it just begins to feel normal. But it really isn't- at least not when placed alongside most of American evangelicalism. I don't take pride in that, or consider what we're doing to be higher on the ecclesiological evolutionary chain- but I do take solace in the idea that fixing some of the things that have been bothering us about Church often begins simply with starting new things- that blank slate approach without the baggage of denomination or corporate culture can be incredibly freeing. Yes, we'll make our own mistakes that the next generation will need to correct- but... 

One of the things that came out of the conversation for me (ah... verbal processing) is the idea that Jesus' call to find our lives by losing them isn't just an individual call, but a corporate one as well. 

As we started Evergreen, we made the decision within the first couple of months to begin supporting another church in town financially and to not so much teach tithing, but demonstrate giving by doing it corporately, starting at giving 10% of what came in to the community and then raising that percentage as giving grew. (We're at 12% now and for 2009 are hoping to get that up to at least 13% and hopefully more like 14 or 15%) 

It was personally threatening to me as the "paid staff" of a new church plant who had NO idea what offerings would shake out to be to lead into that- but something told me it was the way to go- that in the long run, if we set the precedent of being a giving community, of giving ourselves and resources away, that would bring a lot of good things back in the future... and it was just the right thing to do. 

There are a lot of aging churches, maybe property and facility rich but increasingly people poor, who are wondering "How do we save this thing? How do we keep it going?" And if I understand Jesus rightly, that's probably the wrong question- and counterproductive in the long-run. The question should be "How can we give away and use what we have for the good of all those around us, whether they know Jesus or not?" 

So many of these churches have facilities that could be used by the community, equipment tucked away in closets that new churches, or local schools or community organizations could really use, land that could be used for community gardens, playgrounds, prayer gardens... We charge "non-members" large amounts to use the facility for weddings and receptions, we post signs and lock the doors and gates during "off hours," big churches build gyms on their campuses, restrict them to "members-only" and all the while we bemoan the fact that the church is no longer at the center of civic life. Well...  

The call of Jesus to find our lives by losing them is a call the church in America needs to hear. We're so worried about why the next generation isn't showing up, about declining influence and shrinking offerings and attendance that we've forgotten that our call isn't to build something, but to give it away. We've become so concerned about our legacy and leaving something behind we've switched into accumulation and maintenance mode, unwilling to use what God has given us for anything that doesn't directly benefit the institution, unwilling to give people away to new churches in the same town, unwilling to let go, not realizing that this is precisely the reason it's all slipping away. The counter-intuitive call of Jesus to let go, give it up for the sake of others and the Kingdom is the way forward. 

It's easy to say that when the stakes are small, I know. When it involves sending a couple here or there, or when you don't actually have a building with a big mortgage or a payroll with a hundred people in it. I hope as evergreen grows we continue to lean into this piece of our DNA and history that says the way to gain is to give and the real way to win for the Kingdom is to lose ourselves. 

Sentness and Alongsideness- Missionality 101

 

“God sent His Son into the world, not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him.” -John 3:17

 

“Just as You sent Me into the world, I am sending them into the world.” -Jesus praying in John 17:18

 

For us, everything begins and ends with the person of Jesus- the Sent One who then sends us.

 

Our fundamental identity as a community is not only gathered, but sent. Gathering is a necessary prelude to being sent. Why did Jesus spend so much time with the disciples prior to sending them? To teach and equip them. To change them and to prepare them. It’s in the context of being gathered around the person of Jesus, of leaning into and learning from Him together that we are changed, sharpened, refined and made ready... The problem with the whole church thing is, we rarely seem to get past the gathered part.

 

At the end of the day (that’s for you Dustin), the whole purpose of Evergreen is not to gather on Sundays in a pub. We come together to do that which we can’t do as individuals (worship together, pray together, be in community), but our purpose as community is not just coming together- it’s going. A community following the Sent One is by definition a sent community. We say we are a “missional community” and that means we are a “missionary” community. A people who follow the God who left- who left comfort and privilege and went to live among those whom He wished to love and save.

 

“So the Word became human and lived among us...”John 1:14

 

Of course, there’s more than a sentness to Jesus. There’s an alongsideness as well. In other words, Immanuel, God With Us, came to be with us. Not against us. Not over us. But with us.

 

But for too much of the Church, the countercultural claims of the Gospel get lost in a people who don’t see the alongsideness of Jesus, who don’t follow His incarnational and serving example, and who then don’t see the power of the Gospel working itself out in their communities in the way they dream of it doing so.

 

The real power of the countercultral Gospel is found when it comes from along side, from someone who is with someone else and speaking out of a friendship, not the adversarial relationship (or worse, the unconcerned, practical apathy towards those around us) we in the Church too often cultivate.

Until we see our primary identity wrapped up in sentness AND in alongsideness, we may be countercultural, but we’ll just be speaking to ourselves.

 

When we truly grasp who Jesus was and what He did, it propels us out into mission and it changes how we live as a people structure our community. In that order. (This is something we’ll talk about over the next couple of weeks...)

 

And more: it’s in holding up the person of Jesus and following Him in mission that we find our meaning- as individuals and as a community. And that purposeful, meaning-filled, Christ-centered communal life is about the most attractive thing a church community could ever do.

 

A little harder to propose to the “Evangelism Committee,” but infinitely more effective and satisfying...

Waitaminnit...

I thought having a "building" was pagan!

Huh...

Here's Tim Keller on how a church community can make redemptive use of a facility.

 

By the way, this beautiful outlook on a church's facility just makes me all the more angry at churches like... well, I won't name them, but they do silly, silly things like build complete gym/health club facilities into their "churches" and then open them only to church members.

Duh...

(ht: Brandon)

Peterson on the Institutional Church...

"What other church is there besides institutional? There’s nobody who doesn’t have problems with the church, because there’s sin in the church. But there’s no other place to be a Christian except the church. There’s sin in the local bank. There’s sin in the grocery stores. I really don’t understand this naïve criticism of the institution. I really don’t get it. Frederick von Hugel said the institution of the church is like the bark on the tree. There’s no life in the bark. It’s dead wood. But it protects the life of the tree within. And the tree grows and grows. If you take the bark off, it’s prone to disease, dehydration, death. So, yes, the church is dead but it protects something alive. And when you try to have a church without bark, it doesn’t last long. It disappears, gets sick, and it’s prone to all kinds of disease, heresy, and narcissism."
-Eugene Peterson

ht- darryl dash

So call me a pagan... 3

Let's get into the main parts of "Pagan Christianity?," starting with chpt 3: The Church Building.

Here, Viola does have some good things to say, and some challenges, particularly as regards how much is spent on buildings and structures by the Church in the West. But as is quickly being seen here as SOP (standard operating procedure) he buries all the good points he makes under an almost intolerable load of garbage- overstatements, mis-implications and outright non sequiturs.

Hyatt's Law, pt 2

The original Hyatt's Law dealt with R Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet."

So lets call this one "Hyatt's Law of Eccesiastical Certitude."

Goes something like this:

"The smaller one's church, the more likely one is to be absolutely certain THAT model of church is the RIGHT one."

Discuss.

(Clearly, the Roman Catholic Church is the exception that proves the rule. This is geared more towards the family of Protestant churches from "mega" on down to "micro.")

Justin Martyr and the early church's patterns

The idea that what we do as a church community, the sermon, pastors, gathering, etc. is new or novel is simply false. From the earliest years of the church, a pattern of corporate life has been present...

Justin Martyr was born around 100 AD and became a Christian following a conversation with an old man he met while walking on a beach. Justin was a philosopher, and the conversation that day turned to Old Testament prophecies of Jesus, the big questions in life, and the limits of human philosophy. Justin later said, ""When the old man had spoken these and many other things, he left, encouraging me to think about what he had said. I've never seen him since, but immediately a flame was kindled in my soul. I was overwhelmed by a love for the prophets and the friends of Christ. After pondering over the things the old man had said, I realized that Christianity was the only true and worthwhile philosophy."

By the time Justin became a Christ follower, Christianity was persecuted and outlawed. Justin felt that much of the opposition Christians faced was because of baseless negative perceptions about their beliefs and practices, so at great risk to his life, he wrote a number of pubic apologias to the emperor and the Senate.

In the end, a group of philisphers conspired against him to see him arested. When he refused to offer the requisite Roman sacrifices to the gods, he was beheaded.

Justin wrote in his First Apology of what early Christian gatherings looked like...

"...the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead."

quotes... the church

"The church is then not simply the bearer of the message of reconciliation, in the way a newspaper or a telephone company can bear any message with which it is entrusted. Nor is the church simply the result of a message, as an alumni association is the product of a school or the crowd in a movie theatre is the product of the reputation of the film. That men and women are called together into a new social wholeness is itself the work of God, which gives meaning to history, from which both pesonal conversion (whereby individuals are called into this meaning) and missionary instrumentalities are derived." -John Howard Yoder

"The work of Jesus was not a new set of ideals or principles for reforming or even revolutionizing society, but the establishment of a new community, a people that embodied forgiveness, sharing and self-sacrificing love in its rituals and discipline. In that sense, the visible church is not to be the bearer of Christ's message, but to be the message."- Stanley Hauerwas

the creative commons church

Before we talk about pastoral plagiarism, first a reprint from the archives (is reprinting from your archives "self-plagiarism"???... I wrote this in March of 2006:

Watch your toes...

I want to put in my plug for more Creative Commons churches.

One of the beautiful things about the age we're living in is the unlimited potential to share. Where sermons and art and music used to take years to circumnavigate the globe, now, they take less than seconds. We have the ability to share what we create in our local Christian communities with the larger Christian community and with the world. But not many of us do it.

Why?

I can think of a couple of reasons...

Some are making money.
There's gold in them thar hills! Churches... strike that... pastors are literally desperate for creative materials, for help in the area of music and art/visual resources.

And while I understand the impulse to commercially meet that demand with our supply, I certainly don't think it's best. It seems to me that the mixture of commerce and spirituality always ends badly... and degrades everyone who takes part in that mixture.

Many churches have full time media/music/creative professionals. I'm okay with that (having been one). Many churches have also started their own media businesses, selling what has been created for their community to other communities. I'm less okay with that. I tend to see it as "double dipping."
When I spend time, time when I'm "on the clock", to create something for my community, I have been compensated. My time has been paid for. I create, and I give to my community the gift of what God has allowed me to create. However, when I turn around and market that, I, or my community, is making moeny off of what should be an act of worship.

That's where it starts to get dicey.

Do I think it's wrong to sell creative works? Not at all. If a musician or a video artist takes his or her time to create something that he or she feels would be helpful to a church community, I think they have the right to sell that work to others.

It's the selling of things created on "community time" for a specific community's use that I disagree with. It's the selling of that which would otherwise sit on a shelf... and it's the selling of things created for the worship of God that bothers me.

For example...

Many pastors package their sermons and sell them in book form. Fine. I think pastors should be able to write books and sell them. My issue is when the content of that book was created during time paid for by a community, in the course of pastoral duties for a community, for the edification of a community. Now, it certainly costs to distribute a book... So clearly, something has to be charged for that. And I can understand charging for a CD of your sermon to cover material charges...

But in the age of downloads when the cost to produce and distribute has dropped to essentially zero, how do we justify charging someone $2 or $3 to listen to the message I preached for my community last week? Or my sermon manuscript? Or selling the powerpoint created for my sermon? Or the song created for our worship service?

We need to see churches large and small giving away what they produce for the greater good of the Body of Christ.

Some are worried about others stealing their jive. Well, here's where I can think of two helpful concepts. The first legal and the second spiritual.

When you license the things you put out under a Creative Commons license, you can choose what level of rights you retain. You can specify whether others must attribute to you, whether they can change, reproduce, create derivitive works etc. Check it out. There's no reason you can't safely distribute everything you create, knowing that you will receve credit and no one else will make money off of your creativity without your permission.

But the bigger issue here is spiritual...

Think back to the last sermon you heard/preached on stewardship. It's all God's, we say. We offer back to Him only what He has given to us first, we say.

Well, God has given your community the gift of musicians, artists, writers, speakers... If not all of them, probably one or more of them. There's something your community does that other communities could benefit from.

And now, with blogs and podcasts, and Flickr and Google... With the world at both your fingertips and your doorstep, there's no reason not to share what God has given you.

Freely you have recieved...