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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Church and repression: series

No, this isn't really going to be an anti-church diatribe. Or maybe it is.

Jesus is clear: we are the light of the world. Yet we try to replace ourselves with the "church" as the light. How does an institution replace God's creatures? Typical church-think has us "worship" God with a service, but in the new covenant, it is clear -- our lives are our worship. As a second century "bishop" said "The glory of God is man come fully alive". Transformed lives, not a song service, is our worship.

But when I speak of "church and oppression", I'm talking about various "church practices", not God's ideal, that repress us. So each topic in this series will look at a practice and how it represses one from experiencing either life to the full, or one's fullest potential.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Structure

A common misconception (or related argument) about "redemptive communities" or "organic church" is that it is anarchy, that the lack of being an institutional church means there is no structure. This isn't true. In fact, structure is necessary. It is just the nature of the structure that is different.

Structures are needed, but they must be simple, reproducible and internal rather than external. Every living thing is made up of structure and systems. Your body has a nervous system, a circulatory system, and even a skeletal system to add structure to the whole. The universe and nature itself teach us that order is possible even when there is no control but God Himself.
(Neil Cole http://www.cmaresources.org/articles/simple_structures.asp)

As indicated by Cole, the structure is to come from the inside out, endoskelton, as opposed to the institutional church's typical exoskeleton. Institutional structures are focused on preserving the institution, to keep it around as long as possible. The Bible speaks constantly of the church and kingdom in organic terms. Leadership should be about growing structure, not imposing it.

As Curtis Sergeant (expert on the Chinese underground church) notes
In regard to church-planting patterns, external human control over the new converts and churches is inversely proportional to the potential growth and rate of growth in terms of both maturity and size. If a church planter or agency or denomination or other entity seeks to exercise authority to a great extent, then the new church and its members will tend to be dependent and not take responsibility for their own growth or for reaching others. Every time you are tempted to micro-manage, remember this principle. (emphasis mine)
David Garrison observes something similar
Denominations and church structures that impose a hierarchy of authority or require bureaucratic decision-making are ill-suited to hand the dynamism of a ... movement. It is important that every cell or house church leader has all the authority required to do whatever needs to be done in terms of evangelism, ministry, and new church planting without seeking approval from a church hierarchy.
I think another way to look at it is the old saying (maybe not so old) -- first your ministry shapes your building, then your building shapes your ministry. What we don't recognize is other structures, in terms of control, sustainment, etc. shape and restrict ministry as well. We need to let structure come from inside, not imposed from outside.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Postmodernism and the church

Gathering some thoughts on postmodernism:

My first exposure to postmodernism had been with a church plant I was a part of in Texas, and on its leadership team. We started out (long story on how this happened) as consisting about 40% early-30 somethings with kids and another 40% early to mid 20-somethings, around 1998. The larger church culture was just discovering the need to rethink itself in reaching postmodern influenced thinkers.

A few years later, I was initially on the launch team for Vintage 21, now located in downtown Raleigh NC. Vintage 21 targets postmoderns there and in the greater Research Triangle area. I ended up leaving V21 when the launch team moved its meetings, and later its initial services, to Sunday evenings – I had prior commitments to honor then.

Another few years later, from 2004-2006, I was around a top postmodern thinker and author at his church in Burtonsville MD. Though his theology tended toward liberalism, I found it good to be about challenging thinking that I disagreed with. He eventually left his post at that church to focus on writing and so he could accept the numerous speaking requests he was getting.

So, postmodernism is not a new concept to me.

A “feature” of postmodernism has been a fracturing of our culture. Those who study culture have noted that over the centuries, especially into the 19th and 20th century as transportation and communication speeds increased, the number of distinct cultures fell. But in the late 20th century to now, the number of distinct cultures, especially so called “sub-cultures” have been multiplying. Postmodernism is one reason, aided by technologies such as cable and satellite TV (more options mean less “unifying” cultural features, like back when we only had three TV networks), and the internet.

Many in the church (universal) have realized the need to change that which we can change around our unchangeable core truths in order to reach the world that is increasingly postmodern. Common techniques include switching the old emphasis on forgiveness of sins (not that it isn’t a part of the message still) to the emphasis on impacting the culture and world about us (John 14:12, et al), changing the “feel” of our spaces, and other changes of the facades we have. And this has had some success, typically among those postmoderns who grew up in the church.

But what of those postmoderns who didn’t grow up in the church? Ralph Winter, a pioneering missiologist (a person who studied missionary techniques and methods), a few years ago introduced the concept of cultural distance. It is a measure of how far a people-group (a culture) is from a meaningful engagement with the gospel. A cultural distance of 0 means a person can be brought to a meaningful engagement without removal of a cultural barrier. A distance of 1 would mean the need to navigate past or remove one barrier. A different language, for instance, adds 1 to the cultural distance score.

Those who grew up in the church may typically only have a cultural distance of 1. Thus the common techniques churches use, such as a special service for 20 somethings, may remove that barrier. But these common techniques are limited to those whose cultural distance is typically 0 to 1, maybe 2.

So how can the gospel reach those with higher cultural distance? We must realize that most of our thoughts on how church is done are themselves cultural adaptations, and not core to being “church”. Sadly, many have bought into various prooftexting arguments (isolating a single verse without full context, or combining several verses from different contexts) to make the case for these cultural adaptations. George Barna and Frank Viola have written an excellent treatise on this entitled Pagan Christianity. Once freed from these biases of church, we must realize that church is merely meant to be a community of disciples engaging in corporate activities on behalf of the kingdom of God, led by the Holy Spirit. So rather than trying to attract those in the subcultures to our current churches, the key seems to be to inject Christ into the subcultures and redeem that community to be a community for Christ.

What does this look like? There are numerous examples around the world of this (see The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch for a discussion of these). The common elements seem to be to have high expectations of those who become disciples, and a low cost to planting a church. The result is disciples on the fringes of one subculture scatter seed into another subculture, and teach and train the disciples there, giving birth to another church. These small communities are typically 8-20 in size, and often network with other fellowships in the same or nearby (geographically and cultural distance wise) subcultures.

The traditional church as we have known it is limited in its ability to reach these various subcultures. The high cost (in time, staff, and money) and limited ability to cross cultures from the “central” target culture (typically no more than a cultural distance of 2) handicaps the old methodology of church planting for kingdom growth. The emphasis needs to be on disciple making, and let the churches emerge from that effort. This requires a change in our “services” and meetings, as the passive nature of most in attendance fuels a heretical “consumerist” version of Christianity. This probably looks like more small meetings, and rare large meetings, with the expectation on those present to participate, not too unlike we see in I Corinthians 14.

Not unlike redemptive communities.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Secular v spiritual

Well, I've been thinking on post-modernism and how that relates to redemptive community, so I thought that would be the next post from me, and it may come tonight or in the next couple of days, but on the way to that one ...

Secular is not a word that occurs in biblical Hebrew or Greek, it is a more modern "thought" invention. Spirituality permeates all, as should our faith. (This is something post-modern thinkers seem to get).

A common mistake that we see more traditional churches is creating very distinct "space" (here, I use the term more broadly than just physical, though that is involved here). We see buildings unlike any other in their architecture, we see clothes and songs commonly unlike any others (less so with the "seeker sensitive" services), atmosphere unlike the "real" world, etc. Even the teaching is unlike other forums (usually you interact more in 'secular' settings). "Worship services", as practiced, are so disconnected. So even when the sermon is "relevant", we struggle to connect Sunday morning (the typical time for services) with Monday morning and the rest of the week.

Right now, my wife and I are looking at taking our tax refunds and use them to put hardwood down in the living and dining rooms (connected continuous space there). The issue is that the kitchen and foyer are already hardwood, and connect directly to the living room (foyer) and dining room (kitchen). The favored option would be to "feather" in the new boards into the old hardwood, and refinish the whole thing to make it look as it was all done at the same time.

How could we redo the spiritual space and "feather" it into the so called secular space? How do we take our "Sunday morning" time and make it more relevant to Monday? I think a key is to make our "spaces" less distinct. Then we can more readily apply the spiritual to the secular.

In forming redemptive communities, it is something to be mindful of.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Cool quote

I'm going to share this quote first, rather than tell you where it comes from, because you may discount it at first:
Maybe who we are is more about who we believe we can be.
I think there is some truth to that. Deep truth. If we believe that we are depraved at the core, that affects who we are. If we believe we have a good and noble heart, it too affects who we are. If we believe we are a child of God, the child of the KING, it impacts our behavior. If we believe we are wormwood, it similarly impacts us.

Quote source? It was said by a animated character, Brainiac 3.0 or the such, one of the good guys unlike the original Brainiac 1.0 you know from Superman, in a Saturday morning cartoon called "The Legion of Superheros".

Thursday, February 7, 2008

The Great Commission

It is common for churches to make "mission" and/or "vision" statements nowadays. And almost all somehow embed a reworking of the instruction of Jesus known as "The Great Commission" into these statements.

Interesting, though, that the Great Commission is somehow, some way, commonly mistranslated.

In the Greek Matthew 28:19-20 reads
poreuqenteV oun maqhteusate panta ta eqnh baptizonteV autouV eiV to onoma tou patroV kai tou uiou kai tou agiou pneumatoV didaskonteV autouV threin panta osa eneteilamhn umin kai idou egw meq umwn eimi pasaV taV hmeraV ewV thV sunteleiaV tou aiwnoV

(letters transliterated as best can be done -- not sure how to create Greek fonts here -- see http://www.greeknewtestament.com/B40C028.htm#V18 for better Greek).

A purely literal translation, as best I can tell (I took a bit of classical Greek in college, studying a period of the language from about 4th century BC): "having gone, then, teach (or train) all the nations, baptizing them -- to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all, whatever I did command you, and lo, I am with you all the days -- till the full end of the age."

We see two distinctions. Where most translations say "Go", as in "Go!", the Greek could be translated, perhaps more accurately "as you go", or "as you live your lives". Less debatable than that, however, is that the Greek does not say "make disciples", but rather, "teach the nations", or "train others" in a more modern-speak.

Why does this matter?

I let the reader decide on the distinction of "Go" and "as you live your lives", for the sake of brevity. But let's focus on the latter. The biggest difference is one of responsibility and burden. The more literal "teach the nations" are simple instructions for our actions. "Make disciples" however, puts a production burden on us. One that is not in the source Greek!

So, our burden should be to instruct and train others. Numbers are not ours to worry about, which "make disciples" implies. The impact on churches and communities, I believe, is that we wouldn't worry about measuring ourselves in terms of numbers, but rather simply teach. The depth of the disciple development, I believe, would be much fuller.

One final note. Churches need to realize the Great Commission was not given to them, but to disciples. Churches often try to measure how the body is doing from a corporate sense, rather than how the disciples within are doing. I've known not a few pastors who encourage their congregations to bring others so they can teach them. The teaching is instructions to disciples, not the "staff of the church". Ephesians 4 shows us that those gifted at being apostles, evangelists, teachers, pastors, etc are for the "equipping of the church", not doing the work of the church.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Exciting times/collection of random thoughts

I hope any readers of this blog spot are checking out the joint spot I share with a team, Redemptive Communities

I believe that a lot of very common practices hamper the recovery and restoration of the hearts of God's people. Many of these practices are very core, yet not biblical. The book Pagan Christianity documents many of these practices that concern me. Maybe I will blog a series on these points, but in the mean time, I really recommend the latter edition, co-authored by George Barna and Frank Viola and published this year, to anyone. Excitingly, my review of Pagan Christianity that I published on the Redemptive Communities site is linked to from paganchristianity.org.

Speaking of community: been in discussions with a couple of different men on some efforts of community here in Colorado Springs. One has an effort he calls Amplify, that is to plant a different kind of church here in the Springs. He has studied and found that several of our standard practices are not in the Bible. The other is looking at a kind of church multiplication movement for the Springs. We'll see if any bear fruit.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Red Pill Redux

A few years ago, Frank Viola wrote a book entitled Pagan Christianity. It was a very well researched book, but it was written as propaganda material for house churches. I liked it, but I always hesitated to recommend it due to its propaganda elements.

Viola has since joined forces with George Barna, and jointly they've rewritten the book. Released last month, I finally got a copy last Thursday. I'm about half way through reading it. It is a much stronger book. The propaganda elements are gone; instead of Viola making a case for house churches at the end of each chapter, Barna and Viola close each chapter with anticipated questions and answers about elements of the chapter. What the book does is take a number of standard church practices and show the history of how they came to be, and why you should question and challenge their practice. Then they leave you alone to decide. They don't make both sides of the argument, just show how the practice was introduced from culture, how it has evolved, and then say why they believe the practice is either wrong biblically, detrimental to discipleship and church life as God intended, or both.

Among the topics covered are the practice of churches owning buildings, building design, the spectator nature of the modern Western church, the rise of clergy, the role of pastor, music, the sermon, "dressing up" and other "costumes", etc.

If you want to "take the red pill", or you want someone you know to, Pagan Christianity may just be the pill for many people. Ironically, the cover is red.

Thirst III: Relationship

Whereas we are created in the image of God, a study of human nature shows we do have two fundamental characteristics of God.

1) God is creator. Studying healthy humans, we see that we all have a way we want to create, build, organize, rule, author, etc. This is the need to impact.
2) God set, "Let us create man in our image". God is community (a threesome), Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God functions in community. We are meant to function in community -- community with God, community with others.

We see this as fundamental to human nature. Psychology 101, if you have taken it, shows a great number of disorders, especially depression and depressive disorders, are caused by a lack of social interaction, or mitigated with social interactions.

So, church should be good, right?

Then why are churches some of the loneliest places on Sunday mornings? Why do we think "performances" are what Jesus intended for "services"?