I’ve never seen the video of this story, but I’ve heard about it time and again. There’s a priceless, beautiful truth that resounds as the beauty of Jesus’ Kingdom is revealed.
(ht: ron edmondson)
This ad ran after the debate in a few select locations…
This is one of the most powerful arguments I’ve seen on the issue or heard and it’s a tremendous example of the power of testimony.
We typically see this issue as an either/or sort of thing - it’s either life or death; it’s either choice (liberty) or governmental restrictions; it’s either murder or protecting the unborn. Is there a way to see this question as a both/and? Is there a middle ground that takes the life of the unborn in to consideration as well as the emotional/physical/wholeness of the mother also?
With fear of stirring up a hornet’s nest I ask the question anyways… what are you thoughts? But more importantly, what should the church’s response to this question be?
I have such a tremendous respect for Tim Keller and the way in which he is able to connect, through his wisdom and brilliance, the gospel with the culture around him. That is a truly unique quality in the church today and something that we should sit up and pay closer attention to. This short interview displays that ability in epic detail.
(ht: Steve McCoy)
Opening night at the Democratic National Convention, author Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz, etc.) gave the closing benediction. If you were watching CNN, they didn’t televise it along with a lot of other things that happened throughout the day. But if you’re interested in hearing what he said/prayed for, here it is courtesy of CSPAN.
NOTE: The sound drops out at one point for a couple of seconds but does resume.
In this weeks Leadership Weekly email put out by Christianity Today an interesting tactic is being employed by many churches in their communities that will certainly do nothing to create a sense of goodwill or bring about any sort of partnership between the church and the communities they’re trying to reach and be a part of. Here’s the story:
It’s become known as “The Bush Doctrine.” In order to prevent another devastating terrorist attack like 9/11, President Bush announced that the United States would launch a preemptive strike against any credible threat. It doesn’t exactly jive with Jesus’ command in the Sermon on the Mount to “turn the other cheek,” but then again the United States Government isn’t pretending to be a church.
So what happens when a church decides to employ the Bush Doctrine by preemptively suing their local government for a zoning code the city hadn’t yet violated? This week Collin Hansen reports about the escalating tensions between churches and cities over land use. Municipalities are less welcoming to churches buying and building in their communities, because it takes land off their tax rolls. As a result, many are changing their zoning codes to severely restrict where churches may locate.
Some churches are responding with aggressive legal maneuvers of their own—including filing lawsuits before the cities even reject their land use applications. Do these strongarm tactics work? Are they right? And what is the impact on the church’s mission in the community afterward?
Here’s a full-length article in Leadership Journal about the same issue.
I must say that this is a rather destructive tactic, and one that will certainly engender more and more animosity against the church in the community. This certainly can’t be the sort of message Jesus was asking the church to convey…
“The starting point for any theology of the church today must be a theology of social change….A church whose life is defined and shaped by what God is now doing in the world cannot be imprisoned [by antiquated ] specifications. It must allow itself to be broken and reshaped continuously by God’s continuous action; hence the need for a theology of social change.”
~ Harvey Cox. The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective (1965)
179 pages
At the end of Pagan Christianity, the authors called for and gave practical steps on how someone could leave the church community they were attending because of the vast amounts of pagan practices being employed by the traditional church body… Smay and Halter do something quite the opposite, something rather noble, and in fact something that looks out for the health and well-being of the church instead of someone’s personal preference. This is the kind of talk we need to hear, and the action we need to see in the church today to bring us together in unity and walk through the changing cultural landscape that is before us:
If you recognize that you are a part of a traditional-attractional church structure, don’t punt! The best response is to create the missional pyramid from scratch with a few missional people of your choice and start right where you are. If you leave, nothing beneficial will happen in your church. But if you—with a humble desire to influence or model a new way—launch out with a few friends while staying connected to your church, you’ll not only enjoy the freedom of being on mission, you’ll be able to influence and inspire more people within the existing structure to change…
We ask for a small handful of would-be missionaries to pilot incarnational community. If it works, then we believe the grassroots success will spread to more people in the existing structure. Most pastors have no reason not to want this experiment to succeed. They want you to live out this calling, but part of their calling is to also hold the saints together. Structures don’t change easily through challenge or critique. They change best as people within the organization change and model new approaches. So, instead of pointing your finger at your pastor or elder board, go live out this ancient way and pray for the larger community to eventually move forward with you… If it works, you’ll have helped move your church into new territory. If it doesn’t, you’ll have a great time with a few friends. How bad can that be?
I greatly appreciate this approach, and I could imagine a better way for the church to begin working together amidst different philosophical approaches. This is the antithesis of “I’m taking my ball and going home” which has become way to prevalent in the church today.
179 pages
…the traditional “Come to us” attraction model of church was successful in the past. People outside the church still appreciated our values… But when our values are opposite, or even different, it is much more difficult to find a way to be together… Cultural distance (a concept shared by Alan Hirsch in The Forgotten Ways) explains why there is room for some churches to stay the same, but also why most churches will need to make radical adjustments. It all depends on who you are called to reach. If your calling is to influence those with the most similarly held values, then you can keep providing the same thing. But if you want to influence the massively growing percentage of people who are much further from the gospel, you’ll have to provide, model, and invite people into an inclusive community that welcomes people with alternative values. (Page 72)
The problem today is not that the church is broken, rather the problem is that the culture is changing at such a rapid pace around us that we have yet to catch up. We need new expressions of church and of communicating the gospel to reach out to these new expressions of the culture. It’s hard to realize sometimes while dabbling on the progressive fringe, how important the establishment (traditional church) is and how seemingly irrelevant some expressions of traditionalism are becoming. Yet, they still reach out to and speak to the modernistic paradigm and fruit is being harvested regardless of what we may think.
By looking at things from this sort of lens I think it allows for us to approach differing expressions of the church with grace and generosity, in some instances even with a sense of appreciation. This is the lens we need to begin seeing each other through, and by doing so will allow for us all to come together with a strong sense of unity amidst our diversity, and realize that we are all called to reach different segments of this growingly diverse population called America.
179 pages
The issue of contextualization has seemingly reared its head again as John MacArthur and others have continued their rampage against the idea of contextualizing the gospel. Which, honestly, makes absolutely no sense to me—I can’t imagine what vacuum the gospel would have to be in in order to be considered pure, but that’s a separate issue. What Halter and Smay discuss in chapter 6 is the idea that it’s in our contextualization, it’s not solely about the context you are entering but rather the posture in which the telling/embodying is done.
Often times we are stuck in the idea that it’s okay to teach/train missionaries how to contextualize because we’re are sending them to “go over there” into the foreign land. But when it comes to our own culture and context, we often times do a very poor job of teaching people how to create entry points for the gospel in their own worlds. This is the beginning idea of missional living. Halter & Smay make a great distinction here between missional and incarnational (often times they’re seen synonymously).
Missional sentness is focused on leaving and everything related to going, but incarnational represents how we go and what we do as we go… God could have sent his son by asking him to set up a website and download spiritual information to every billboard in the world. But apparently he knew that information about him doesn’t help people understand or love him So the only option for the Father and for us is to embody the concept.
Unfortunately, in modern day evangelicalism, we’ve mastered the idea of going… but we’ve fallen way short of embodying the gospel and being the gospel to people. Instead, “we’ve prioritized the verbals over the nonverbals, the message over the method… the proclamation over the posture.” This is why the church is in such trouble in our society—we’re not living out the values of the gospel. We’re all talk and no substance. We’ve mastered the idea of belief-ism, but have yet to actually live out in tangible ways as a united community what that belief-ism is really all about. Our operating principle, our little cities seem to revolve completely around the idea of believing the right way. Those are the lines we’ve drawn (denominations) and the walls we’ve erected.
In the reconstruction of the church, it is essential that we re-discover and embody the ideals of incarnational ministry… otherwise we’re in for a long ride potentially seeping into a new “dark age” of the church.
At the Exponential Conference this year, Tim Keller gave a talk in one of the breakout sessions talking about perhaps one of the least talked about and possibly more uncomfortable topics out there… revival. Keller was unapologetic about the use of the word revival and even said that “Biblical, Spiritual Revival is what is missing in the modern church planting movement” and even perhaps the church today. Revival is a topic that is not currently being written about, talked about, or even being mentioned very much in many circles—yet Keller asserts that it is an essential component if church planting is to move from action to a movement.
I’ve been reflecting over Keller’s 16 characteristics of revival the past couple of days and although listed below I want to begin really wrestling through them in community. So, for the next several weeks I’ll be posting them individually with some reflection and hope to really begin understanding what revival truly looks like and how unpredictable and possible it really is.
The 16 Crucial Dynamics of Revival
1. Recovery of the difference between Gospel & Religion
2. Extraordinary Prayer
3. Creativity/Innovation
4. Nominal Church Members are converted
5. Sleepy Christians wake up!
6. Unbelievers are drawn in, in numbers that programs cannot produce
7. Edifying/Dynamic Worship
8. Great Teaching/Preaching
9. Life-changing Community
10. Evangelism –> Outward Focused
11. Passion for Justice/Poor
12. Cultural Engagement
13. Always a loony fringe
14. Always a backlash
15. Always a lot of churches planted
16. Real Social Healing
179 pages
Deconstruction towards reconstruction… this seems to be one of the greatest sources of dissent in the church today. There are those that are actively seeking a deconstruction of the norm in order to explore and experience a new reconstructed norm that is positioned to speak prophetically into the culture and then there are those who grip tightly to maintain the systems and functions that are currently being deconstructed. It seems that this is what the emerging church truly introduced into the mainstream of ecclesiology… however the attitudes behind the movement were often times less than gracious (and even though it has tempered as of late, the undercurrent still remains.) I myself still struggle with a gracious attitude to those that have gone before me, preparing the way for the future. Halter reminds us:
As I speak for many in the budding missional church world, I have to share that I no longer judge the faithful, fervent work of so many pastors who have pastored well but who struggle to find their place in this new world. They deserve to be honored instead of belittled. Without their legacy, we would have nothing to build upon.
Therefore, it would behoove us to begin treading graciously with those who have paved the way—honoring them, yes, but also providing them the grace and mercy as they too struggle to find their way in the new world.
Reconstruction can only begin by starting with Jesus… and it’s through Jesus that we can begin coming together as a unified church. “By starting with Christology (the life of Jesus), which informs our missiology (how we live), we’ll have a better chance of finding common ground with our ecclesiology (how we do church).” (pg. 20)
These chapters took a great turn in tone. There has always been a very gracious tone, however the tone shifted from a deconstructionist viewpoint to a re-constructionist viewpoint and a presentation of hope that can be had throughout the emerging church as we move forward for change. The final question for reflection that was asked: “If Jesus were to trim down your Christian experience to his essentials, what would he remove? What would be left?” I’m not sure the wording of this question was truly indicative of the re-constructionist tone and so I’d rather answer a new question… a better question: “If Jesus were to trim down your Christian experience to his essentials, what would you keep? What would you start with?” This is probably an easier question, not to mention a shift in thinking away from deconstruction and onward towards reconstruction.
As I thought through this question of what would I keep… I’m not sure it would be a very long list. In fact, the only thing that immediately came to mind was Jesus. I think as a church we have lost focus and sight on Jesus as the bridegroom, as the head of the church, and instead have supplanted ourselves in his place. In this reconstruction it is my hope and prayer that we rediscover the supremacy of Jesus in the church, getting away from paying him lip service and move towards a new understanding and reliance upon Him. “By starting with Christology (the life of Jesus), which informs our missiology (how we live), we’ll have a better chance of finding common ground with our ecclesiology (how we do church).”
By starting with Jesus we’ll soon enough be able to reconstruct a new “norm” that can speak prophetically into our culture because of the influence that will be gained in our missional ways… but we shouldn’t expect this new “norm” to last forever… a new wave of deconstruction will come about in the decades to come as once again we will have to figure out how to present the gospel to the culture that we interact with.
179 pages
The Kingdom of God is not the property nor the sole possession of the church (institutional or organic), rather the church is the property of the Kingdom, and it is the church’s responsibility not to exploit but to extol the Kingdom in all of its glory. Could it be that this is where the church (institutional and organic) lose the focus? That somehow we see the Kingdom as a means to our end, the purveyor of our own self-fulfillment residing completely within the church as opposed to our residence within the Kingdom that is revealed throughout the world? These are the initial questions that I am wrestling with…
At the end of chapter 1, Smay posses the question: Describe some times in your life when you’ve wanted to tap out on God and the activities of the church. Talk about a loaded question! As I thought through my time as a “professional” Christian, there are three distinct times that I have felt a strong, strong desire to simply throw my hands in the air, say “f*ck it all!” and walk away. I have not had the easiest time in ministry, however at each and every stage, through every single turn, I have found God sitting with outstretched arms simply beckoning me to “come” and rest. And I am extremely glad that I have listened, fallen into his arms and allowed him to challenge me once again to continue on in his grace (”my grace is sufficient!”). This isn’t the end of the journey, and it certainly won’t get any easier… however He will continually be there at every step, waiting.
It’s not hard to understand why so many are walking away from the church, the statistics are startling, and as Clegg & Bird state (as quoted on page 12)
The inescapable conclusion is that we must throw out any notion that God is truly at the center of the church’s heart in North America. The shift in society’s view of the church has resulted in the marginalization of the church and the secularization of society. Christianity has lost its place at the center of American life. Christians must learn how to live the gospel as a distinct people who no longer occupy the center of society. We must learn to build relational bridges.”
I love that line: “Christians must learn how to live the gospel as a distinct people who no longer occupy the center of society.” (emphasis mine) I find that absolutely fascinating, brilliant and eerily similar to St. Francis, “Preach the gospel always and if necessary use words,” the mantra of the incarnational church. Talk about the need to understand the issues of contextualization! Halter continues: “…something must change to reverse the trends. We need to start by doing some of the things we haven’t been doing, and we must stop doing some things that we have been doing. The world around us is growing increasingly disinterested in our Christian story.”
Smay asks the question for reflection: “What are some of the ways you believe we’re losing our saltiness?” Now, honestly this could be an entire blog post, but for the sake of brevity I’ll narrow it down to the issue of evangelism. I believe the way we “communicate” the gospel (skywriters scrawling “Jesus loves you” in the sky; tracks that look like money left as tips to waiters and waitresses; bullhorns on the corner shouting “You’re going to hell!”; etc.) although they are the extreme cases, they are the picture our culture has of Christians. When we boil the gospel down to a “Get-out-of-Hell Free” card it begins to lose its effectiveness as a beautiful way to live amidst the destruction, pain and horror the world has to offer. The gospel is more than eternal destination—it’s about living beautifully… it’s about shalom.
Smay then concludes his reflecting questions with this dandy: “What do you think of the increasing disinterest of the culture towards church means for the future of the church?” My instant response was “GOOD!” I think it’s a good thing that culture has become disinterested in the church for one simple reason. It should (and I believe has to an extent) force the church to eventually begin understanding and dealing with contextualization issues! I believe that this could be the beginning of a re-awakening of the church, a great revival of sorts, right here in our midst—if and only if we are attentive to and receptive of the Spirit who is working among us. I truly wonder what this re-awakening and re-emergence of the (American) church will look like, and the amazing things that God has in store! We’re in store of a re-awakening or we’ll simply go the way of the Dodo… I’m hoping for a re-awakening!
