Sowing seed and church emergence

Was Paul a church planter?

I don't think so.

Heresy? No. If we look at the pattern in scripture, Paul preached Christ. He went to a new city, and he and any partner taught and discussed Jesus. There is no scriptural proof to any claim that he started churches. He taught about Jesus, then left town after leaving that foundation. ONLY on return trips did he do anything with structure - and an open honest reading of the scripture would seem to say he recognized the structure that emerged, not set it up.

So he taught Jesus, left the disciples to their own, then returned to see how they were doing and recognize the structure that grow up.

And speaking of that ...

The Structure

What was the structure of the early church?

Does it matter?

If Jesus builds his church, is it our concern? If the early pattern was to simply be disciples in community, what emerges would be what He wants, wouldn't it?

This thought, and the growing ramifications of it, have been on my mind more and more. The conflict with it was all the thoughts of what we see in Paul's letters of structure, and a background in the descendants of the Restoration Movement (a frontier faith movement from the time when the frontier of the U.S. was Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, etc.)

But reading yet another church's website on trying to be "culturally relevant" made me pause: what if what Paul (and to some extent, Peter) was what would be expected of the church where and when they saw the seed of Jesus was planted. Some quick research and recollection of studies of the synagogues of Jesus time confirmed my suspicions.

The synagogues were overseen by councils of elders, much like the elders oversaw the communities Paul and Peter ministered to. Since the early churches emerged initially alongside Jewish synagogues, it would make sense that the church reflected (in a neutral way) the culture the seed of Jesus was planted in.

Where the church has in the past broken free from the restrictions of "doing it like them over there" or "them back then", we see similar patterns emerge. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, resembles the Roman Empire a lot, right or wrong (the way it sets up a hierarchy between Jesus and "the royal priesthood of believers" is an issue, for example). Instead of an emperor, one has a pope; instead of regional governors, cardinals; instead of local heads, bishops; etc. This pattern of reflecting predominant cultural elements continues to the modern day "non-denominational" churches reflecting modern business - the CEO is the senior pastor, any associate pastors are the vice presidents, there is a board of directors (sometimes called the board of elders for churches), etc.

So this concept is not new to even institutional churches, though I would argue (and have) that their implementation has strayed from some fundamental principles of following Christ with the dichotomy of "professional class" Christians and the laity.

So if we were to accept that what we see in the epistles is a reflection of what the church emerges as from the seed of Jesus in the first century, what does it look like today?

I think there are literally hundreds if not thousands of answers to that, one for each culture in the world. The key is freeing ourselves of being like what we've seen in the past in order to be free for what Jesus wants to build among our community.

I think it begins by not "rushing" to form "something" because we feel "disobedient" for not having "church". Church, in the truest sense, is community. It is community that encourages and equips one another. We all have contributions to that. It doesn't have to be formal gatherings, though it may include that. It doesn't need to rush to find leaders (as Jesus is the head anyway). Just as Paul didn't anoint leaders on his first trip anywhere he went. It doesn't require a formal staff, a building or the trappings that require balancing budgets or capital campaigns.

We've lost something in our rush to "plant" churches. We've discovered churchianity when we rush to form a church, rather than finding Jesus Christ.

Community

Think free of church as you've known it. What has your circle of friends, your communities, looked like? Maybe that's what the seed of Jesus planted in your arena looks like as church.

Authority

An online discussion got some juices flowing:

The church, as a collective outside the individuals, has no authority. Bold statement? Yes, I agree. It flies into the face of much we've been taught, or we've caught, from church leaders, but it is true scripturally. Properly understood, church should be merely a community of individuals, not an institution or organization, but a community. Churches which are institution or organizations demand authority, and many do submit to the churches rather than the proper place - to God and to other individuals.

Authority is typically associated with power. But power is limited when it comes to authority as the word is used in scripture. Authority is from the Greek for a word that may be better translated "authorship". We typically think of author as a writer, but the original meaning is more to do with creativeness or creating. To bridge the gap from the original Greek meaning and the modern meaning, an author "creates" a written piece. Authority, in the original language the word originates, is to have the function to create or foster in others. A father is an authority in his household for the purpose of creating fully realized children and helping his wife fully realize her potential. He is not a ruler, but the authority. Some amount of "power" comes with that, but only in exercising a kind of discipline meant to foster growth and development. If this power is exercised to "keep things in line", it's an abuse of authority. When I submit to another, it is in the hopes they will exercise the authority I permit them to help me grow.

Authority within the church (not "of the church" but within the community) comes not because of a role, but because one recognizes in another the ability of that other to help one grow. In practice, it is almost always only for a season.

So authority comes by submission to one another for the benefit of creating in one another what we are meant to be fully as God's creation. We allow others to mold us, to shape or hone us, but submitting to them, by granting authority. We do not "recognize" another's authority - the only authority to be "recognized" is God. Authority within a community of believers does not come from a role, but from recognizing the ability of another to help one become more fulfilled as a child of God.

What is the church to be?

For regular blog readers, I feel like I almost should be apologetic with the stuck themes here. It's just something that is stuck like a bad song in my mind.

It's hard to argue with what people say the church should be, but I do anyway. It is amazing how little is said in scripture about the purpose of the church, but so many do impose a belief on it. Some common ones:

A vehicle for spreading the gospel. Absolutely no scriptural basis for this. The early church commonly hid its gatherings, and carefully screened those who came before they came, due to the persecution common the first few centuries of the existence of the movement of Christ. The whole "seeker friendly" modern concepts would be foreign to the first century Christian. One did not bring them to church to convert them; one introduced the new disciple to the church.

When Paul and Barnabas were sent by the Antioch church - they weren't funded by them, the church in Antioch did not set up the tour, etc. They laid hands and sent them out. They had before hand perhaps did some training, then just sent them. No program, no infrastructure. They equipped them, encouraged them, and sent them on their way. Paul wrote of accepting no money - he was a tentmaker where he went.

The result of such thought makes Amway representatives. Not well rounded disciples. Such an approach results in a church which is considered a failure if it is not growing numerically, or seeing numeric growth in some way if the focus is in making "disciples" over there, where ever over there is.

The church is a place of healing - a hospital for sinners. Very common thought. Also no basis in scripture. It is another case of how examples or commands in scripture to disciples get cast off to the "church", which then makes a "program" to handle the issue/concern/command.

The result of such thought makes a place that doesn't expect or at least not welcome the "healthy". If healing happens, suddenly there is no point for a person to be there. It is as if we do not expect healing to occur if this is how we define church.

The church is a place of worship. Scripture never mentions that the church ever gathered for worship. I'm not counting those "headers" injected into most translations around I Corinthians 14. No, the church is said to have gathered for "encouraging and exhorting one another" or "to spur one another on to love and good deeds". Worship produces Jesus admirers, not Jesus disciples.

The church is a gathering for us to learn about God.
A variation on the church as an evangelical tool. Interesting history on this one - it is a perception of the church that emerged about the time the Bible became readily available for the masses due to the printing press. Knowledge replaced discipleship. Knowing replaced doing.


The church is a humanitarian organization. (or a place to impact the world, or that sort of thing). Closer I think, but still not too well grounded in scripture. The result is a place of goody-goody people at best. A reaction in the wrong direction from the knowledge emphasis crowd so dominate in Christian society.

What is it that the church should be, then? Scripturally, we see the church gathering as a community, not a sit down and shut up and follow the clergy. We see Paul instructing on the gatherings being centered on being a community and equipping one another. It's not about a vision for the church - the church had its vision and lost it. It's vision is to be a community of believers seeking to be Christs - the original meaning of "Christian" was "little Christ". Christ listened to the Father for his mission, not a pastor, not a church board. The early church, from what we could tell, commissioned the called to the work they were called to, not recruited its members to those programs the leaders were called to "lead". The leaders were servants, they were ones called to equip.

A church following its commission is one that equips its members for what they are called to. Not letting a clergy class define what the church is called to and recruiting to those programs.

Environments

Remember, churches produce church members.

Recently I was watching some Andy Stanley sermon video. Normally I don't do that sort of thing, but it came to my attention with its intriguing promo. Talk about bait and switch. Stanley was talking about why his church does the things it does, in the way it does. It was all about introducing "seekers" to Jesus Christ, by creating environments with the church for people to get involved with Christians or to "experience" faith first hand - try it on in other words.

This is a buy-in to the myth that the purpose of any church involves making disciples. But churches make church members, disciples make disciples. Biblically, a church is simply a community of disciples who encourage and equip one another. The disciples do the work, not serve as volunteers for church programs. The disciples are to answer the call of God, not the assignment to a church function. The environments that a church creates are ones to spur its members on to love and good deeds. The church of today has assumed the role of the disciples. The church is to be about equipping, not doing.

What we commonly see is churches whose leaders turn this on its ear, who talk like a business - we pool resources to maximize impact. They justify taking over the roles meant to be born by disciples for various 'efficiencies' reasons. Or in older line churches, it's about not trusting the laity, but bringing in the 'professionals'. But maximum impact is not made by programs, but by relationships. Relationships are not between a church and someone, but between two someones.

Church leaders who are interested in evangelism shouldn't come up with programs, but equip and encourage the disciples among their membership. They should get out of the way, at best facilitating ways for the disciples to interact meaningfully with their neighbors, which probably means just cutting back on the programs so disciples have time to be neighbors, co-workers, and/or friends.

The method is the message/Going to church to learn about God heresy

On Sunday we visited an institutional/traditional church for the first time in some time. I've been led by God to think in terms of making an impact, so trying a little "this Lord" asking in prayer and action, and seeing how God responds to see where.

My son decided to go off to Sunday School, bored with the main service (funny how it's called a "service" when no service happens). And he got even more bored.

I'm sure the teacher was well-intentioned, but she had the chairs lined up like a classroom, all facing forward to her. Since it was this church's first service in a new location, with them moving from two services to one in the larger facility, she introduced them all to each other and welcomed visitors (Sit down, shut up, I'll do the talking). And there was only 7 kids! Seven kids and the class is lined up in rows. She proceeded with a lesson, and my understanding is all the kids were obviously bored out of their gourds. The method was teaching these kids that church is a boring place of learning. My son said later that the whole experience was more boring than the most boring time he's had at school!

Somewhere along the line, this attitude that "church is where we go to learn about God" crept in. A totally unbiblical concept. For one, church is a community, not a location or event. We do not go to it, we are it. Second, church is not for learning about God -- the Great Commission was issued to disciples, and it is disciples who teach others. Church is for community, for encouraging one another to love and good deeds. Church is not a place to distribute knowledge. Early church history shows us that sermons weren't "popular" until the late 3rd century, and barely known beyond an out of town apostle visiting or a need to address a special issue until the late second century. For centuries, people were taught about God then joined into the community, not the other way around.

I'm convinced that the reason so many people are flooding out the back door of churches, that there is so much church hopping, that as Reggie McNeal says "[people] are not leaving the church because they have lost their faith. They are leaving to preserve their faith" is in fact this heresy that the church is a place you go to learn about God. The teaching always ends up at the same level at a given church - to the new believer, or an intermediate one. Once someone has heard what one church teaches or emphasizes, after some time you've got to move on to grow. Thus the church hopping. The believer who has been caught up in the knowledge myth then eventually finds no place to go, unless they rise to a place of power and finds a way to fire a preacher in order to hire a new one. It's been there, learned there, bought the T-shirt.

How churches can facilitate growing disciples

In 2004 (according to Skye Jenathi in Divine Commodity - I thought it was more recent), the "flagship" of megachurches Willow Creek CC near Chicago got back the results of a study commissioned to look at the effectiveness of their ministry. Their philosophy had been to create a variety of programs and services for people to participate in, with the belief that frequent participation would produce disciples - as characterized by increasing love for God and other people.

In other words, do institutions produce disciples? Can programs ignite love? The study encompassed the 15000 member Willow Creek and 25 other churches that use similar strategies.

The answer was a resounding no.

What did they find that did work?

Personal Bible reading, prayer and meditation, meaningful relationship with a friend or mentor, and serving others.

Of that list, the first half of the list is best learned to be done in the context of a meaningful relationship with a mentor, not a program. The last one, probably can be done in a "program" but finding one's best spot to serve is from my experience best done with a mentor or friend to bounce things off with.

Why do so many hate going to church? It's just frustrating wanting to grow and with church programs and services all focused on the wrong things, it consumes time away from productive growth time.

Churches, IMO, would best serve and reach out through more "match-making" like activities, so men and women can find those meaningful relationships. Church's role should be to foster relationship. Willow Creek was not the first to discover that fostering knowledge or how-tos is not effective in producing disciples. We can hope they are the last.

Leadership

Alan Hirsch had some interesting thoughts this week in his blog (see here)

In the swirling world of living systems thinking there are comparison of two types of leadership: between what is called operational and adaptive leadership. Essentially, operational leadership is suited for organizations that are in relatively stable environments where maintenance and development of current programming is the core tasks of leadership. This form of leadership is built on the assumptions of social engineering and is thus built squarely on a more 'mechanistic' view of the world. And it does work, and is entirely appropriate for some organizations. Adaptive leadership on the other hand, is the type of leader who develops learning organizations and manages to help the organization transition into different forms or expression where agility, responsiveness, innovation and entrepreneurship are needed. Adaptive leaders are needed in times of significant threat or considerable new opportunity, or both. This has direct relevance to our situation at the dawn of the 21st century.

I'm going to disagree a bit on that last statement - I think the church should have always had adaptive leadership - but we settled for operational leadership. I will agree, however, that it is more crucial than ever to have bold new leadership that is adaptive. We need leadership that is equipping, the primary characteristic of adaptive leadership I believe, rather than commanding and authoritative. We need leadership that shows the way, rather than leadership that maintains and preserves.

Jesus said he who tries to save his life will lose it. I think that is true today of the church, that the church leaders who try to save the church as they know it will lose the church altogether ...

Training Circles

Sorry not to be "around" much. I keep thinking of this site for one set of thoughts, but God has been clear that there are interconnections where I don't see them at the time. So I should have been posting here more, perhaps, but not seeing the connections.

In this journey to restore my own heart, see others restore theirs, to find more specifics on my calling, one theme has continuously resurfaced -- church. A few months ago, I tried to walk away from thinking so much about church and how it impedes people from walking in their calling, and how it could help, just to go and act. To move toward what I thought was more my calling, to help others find theirs.

Wasn't sure exactly how that looks. If you saw The Mask of Zorro you may remember the scene with the training circles. The circle started out large, but as the new Zorro was gaining skill, the circles shrank. "This is your world" the old Zorro said. And each new circle represented his world shrinking.

As you journey into calling, discovering your calling is like that. You get a general idea, and act in that. As you learn and experience, the circle shrinks. It's like knowing you want to teach, and in walking in that the circle shrinks and you discover you want to teach adults, then it shrinks again and you find you want to teach young adults, then college students, then it's teaching literature, and on it goes until you discover you want to teach 19th century English literature to seniors in their final semester. The circles shrink as you discover yourself.

All that to say that I wonder if I forced my circle to shrink around the wrong center. After trying to move away from "church" (see some of my posts around August), I wonder if I should have moved more away from "institutions" and more toward community. One key on this was the last few weeks (the 'distraction' that took some time from blogging) is working with some friends on "Redemptive Tribe" (I put the link there for those reading this a few weeks from now, but for now I believe the settings are still "private" while we build some content). This is a collaboration site for those "friends of Ransomed Heart interested in redemptive community". I'll probably write more on some of the thoughts it has stirred as we seed the site.

Is all this God drawing me back in a circle with the center he knows is my deeper desire?

So, how was your Thanksgiving?

Yesterday

Yesterday, I had coffee with another man.

"David" has an adult son and daughter. His son works for an internationally known ministry in North Carolina. Dave himself has worked for a number of Christian ministries over his career, mostly in community development and CD consulting, dealing with places in Africa and Asia mostly.

Dave, age 54, doesn't go to church anymore.

You see, Dave was active in church for years, but as he grew to know what God made in him, what made Dave unique in his father's eyes, he stepped toward that. But the churches he was a part of wanted to plug and play him in what they wanted to do. Dave has grown and matured and knows his part in the kingdom, but apparently that's a threat to local churches he just need someone to feel their predefined roles. Dave was even told "we know you don't like doing this, but you are good at it so it must be what you are to do here". It was killing his heart.

So he left.

Online, in ministry (I've volunteered with Ransomed Heart and The Noble Heart ministries) I've come across dozens of men like Dave. Men called by God in a direction that brings them in conflict with their churches. Some stay for their families' sake. Some stay as their ministry creates the church as a kind of mission field for them. Others leave.

The "church" was meant to equip. Somewhere along the way it placed itself in the place of God. If the church returns to equipping men, then the work done by the church will be the work the members are called to do. Not what some committee decides.

Growing churches

The Gospel is like a seed, and you have to sow it. When you sow the seed of the Gospel in Israel, a plant that can be called Jewish Christianity grows. When you sow it in Rome, a plant of Roman Christianity grows. You sow the Gospel in Great Britain and you get British Christianity. The seed of the Gospel is later brought to America, and a plant grows of American Christianity. Now, when missionaries come to our lands they brought not only the seed of the Gospel, but their own plant of Christianity, flower pot included! So, what we have to do is to break the flowerpot, take out the seed of the Gospel, sow it in our own cultural soil, and let our own version of Christianity grow.
–Dr. D.T. Niles of Sri Lanka

Imitation is the bane of modern Christianity.
- Reggie Britt

Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost make the point in The Shaping of Things to Come that in their native Australia, the form of Christianity that is prevalent relates to at most 35% of the population, and about 45% in the United States. And both numbers are shrinking. The typical method of church planting is too much like trying to plant cuttings from previous plants. A plant may take in that situation, or it may not. Studying church history, this method seems to have been pretty much used since the 4th century.

While Niles speaks in terms of national churches, his final comment on culture is right. And wrong in some ways too. Rather than culture, the individuals who join into a church need to shape that church. If the body consists of its parts as Paul writes, shouldn't the arrival or departure of an individual impact that church? Shouldn't the growth of an individual impact it? Too often, people come and go from a church and it just goes on as before -- short of the coming and going of the clergy class.

If the church is to be the body, the individual has to matter. Corporate and individual must intertwine tightly. If the church is to have impact in a culture, then the shape and form of church must grow from seed within that culture -- holding to truth -- but letting form and to an extent function be shaped by its environment.

New post

Got back Sunday from my fourth Wild At Heart Boot Camp. You think, why four? Well, of course there is the first, and way back there once was a requirement to make two boot camps to go to the Advanced Camp. That's two. The last two I've volunteered at, first in Oct '06 and then last weekend on the work crew.

Great time hanging out with the work crew members in down time, what little we had. Some great guys. There's talk of a reunion next month for those of us along the front range. I assume the guys from Oregon, NY and Arizona are welcome to fly in if they wish.

I think there were three great "wows" from the weekend. Fourth if you count John Eldredge's great quote "Rescue sex is almost as good as makeup sex". Now how many "men's retreats" can you go on and hear that kind of advice?

Great "wow" number one: the fall foliage was peaking. Such beauty. I'll probably edit this post later or add one to embed some photos I took of it.

Great "wow" number two: God speaks. Actually I hear his voice regularly, but usually something extra comes through at these boot camps. I don't know why God doesn't speak these kinds of things elsewhere -- is it something with me that I'm only willing to listen at a Ransomed Heart event? Or is there something about the situation that God just can speak clearer -- is the lines of communication clearer? Really need to figure that one out, because I can't wait between events like this to hear like that.

Great "wow" number three: Such men on the work crew. There were two men on this crew I knew before -- Bill from Castle Rock who I met at a previous event and had lunch with a few weeks back, and one of the leads Scott who was a "wingman" on my previous volunteering with Ransomed Heart. In no time we bonded. Why can't the church be more like this? Well, in part, we were the church of course. But why can't the "church" as most think of it be like this? I cling to the belief it can ... and continue to suspect the "institutional systems" about her interfere with her full functioning. But I love how she often performs despite those handcuffs.

Organic Conference

It has been more than a year since regularly "attending church" (if we are the church, how do we attend ourselves?). This past weekend I attended an organic church conference with a number of other folks interested in organic church here in Colorado Springs and along the Front Range. Looks like an outcome is two somewhat connected communities, one along the I-25 corridor of the town, one along Powers Blvd (for those not familiar with the Springs, the area is really stretched n/s, but it is typically quicker to go n/s than east-west because of I-25 on the west side and Powers on the east -- nothing really comparable to those two going east-west).

We've got an outside "consultant" -- a church planter if you will -- who is helping direct this from experience. He'll be back in a few months, but for now, we "detox" from institutional church and just gather and build relationships. Lots of things are banned for now that sounds almost heresy to do so -- no bible study, no theological discussions, no "prayer requests" at gatherings -- it's about relationship with one another and Jesus for now.

Excited, wary, and a number of other emotions. We'll see what happens.
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Reminder -- I'm out of town and away from a computer from Wednesday late until Sunday. So this will likely be the last post of the week unless I do one Wednesday for some odd reasons.

A new view of "church"

Those who know me know that I believe there is something fundamentally off about church as it is practiced in America. There are really too many points to make about what is wrong to summarize here, but you can find many a thing looking through the history of this blog.

I've come to realize through a transition in thinking that the alternatives I was advocating were wrong, at least in the details. This was really climaxed in thought in May. If there was one spark in this shift, it was sitting around the fireplace at Ransomed Heart's "Advanced Boot Camp" with a group that included a couple of my regular readers of this blog, and Craig McConnell. Craig and I have had off and on conversations around this topic and some others, but it had been one on one. I don't know if Craig's thinking had shifted, or he brought out a nuance of it in a group, or I had never noticed his use of some words, or just what, but something he said struck me. It was the way he used the word "church", talking of it breaking out at times when disciples are gathered. Now, the way he used it and means it may differ from the reaction and resulting developing conclusions I've come to, so please don't treat my words and thoughts as his. His contextual use of the word "church" and the way I took it (he could have meant something entirely different) is the topic here.

So just what does it mean, "church". There's an analogy I read in the preface or intro to Frank Viola's new book Reimaging Church that describes beautifully the kind of shift in thinking. Early scientists trying to study our solar system were baffled in trying to compute orbits and the like. Until Galileo. The problem was that early astronomers were trying to make their computations geocentric, that is, centered around the earth. Galileo proposed that they should be heliocentric, that is, centered around the sun. Galileo was treated as a heretic for his thinking, due to a false belief that the Bible taught that the earth was central.

In many ways, I think I've been trapped by some remaining "geocentric" thinking. So I've proposed or sided with new ways of structuring church, new hierarchies, etc. I've advocated some great concepts, like organic church, but treating it as a different way of structuring things. That misses the point, I now think.

Now, after that discussion around a fireplace, I picked up a copy of Jake Colsen's So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore I had owned but not read yet, followed by reading The Shack by William P. Young. Both are novels, but they expose a different way of thinking. Looking at church as much more relational, much more embedded in life, rather than a separate entity shoved to a building on a street corner that one visits occasionally, or even a separate structured time in a home.

What is this new view of church? It is really hard to put into a few words. The words one would like to use are often loaded with alternate meaning that will throw off the reader. Other words are entirely biblical, but in practice their meanings have been twisted. But let me attempt it anyway, and I invited conversation to help express this better.

In some ways, the church as the body of Christ is an extension of the Trinity. When we look at the scriptural descriptions of the relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we don't see a hierarchy, but rather a community which complements each other. As we read through something like I Cor 11-14, we see a community about the mutual edification of one another. Paul in his Corinthian letters doesn't address a hierarchy, but charges each member to be about what he describes to do.

And while we see regular meetings, I don't think the regular meetings are central. Jesus is. It is about relationships, to one another and to God. If meetings are central, relationships aren't. The meetings feed the relationships. They help maintain them. Interesting, there isn't a single description or instruction about the gatherings being worship, but there are plenty about edification, encouragement, spurring on one another to love and good deeds ...

When it comes to hierarchy, it is every member ministry. Some do have roles, but Paul described them as for the equipping of the saints, not lording over them. Jesus even described that we shouldn't be like those who lord it over one another (Matthew 20:25, see also I Peter 5:3).

What it really comes down to is this: if we are following Jesus, our communities will arise as they should in our contexts. That, I believe, is what happened in the first century. Looking at what happened then should be limited to seeing how they contextualized to their society being the body of Christ.

The problem is, many of us have such an embedded thoughts influenced by the way things have become rather than what was intended. I still struggle with this, and at times, struggle with being "anti" the way things have become.

Law v Grace

Law gives us something to manipulate for our advantage, and gives us some sense of control. Grace doesn't have such a "handle" on it.

The Pharisees upheld the law because it gave them a means of control. But as was said by someone around the campfire this weekend, you can't balance rules, control, and rigid formal structure with grace. 1% law and 99% grace is still legalism.

Law permits us to restrict in many ways. Not only freedom, but it also allows us too much discretion where law doesn't speak. Grace as a way of life knows no such bounds. Law would require us to give a fixed set of our income to an institution. Grace demands from us to love until it hurts -- which may require none of our income if we are poor, or the majority of it if we are wealthy.

Law requires debate of rule interpretation, grace demands us stop debating when anger or condemnation is interpreted in our words.

In the process of detoxing from four wall church, I'm finding how the rigid ritual of "church" reinforces the idea of keeping law -- whether an old one, or re-interpreting the New Testament in a way to derive a new one. As Alan Hirsch writes, the "medium is the message". What message does the medium of ritual express? That of form, of format mattering. Our medium often gives off the message of law. What would a grace-filled gathering look like?

Community

This past weekend, I went camping with six other guys and six boys. Thirteen of us all together, all the adult men disciples. We shot guns and rifles on a makeshift rifle range, had campfires, a couple of us went white water rafting et al.

In many ways, it was more of a church than what happens on a Sunday.

If church is a community that is centered on Christ, then what was experienced was more of a church than what is typically labeled as such. We challenged each other, we had some deep theological discussion (including a rousing one on if it is 1% law and 99% grace, it's 100% legalism), we encouraged each other, we spurred one another on to doing good afterward, we sympathized and comforted one in our crowd who's facing having to get a legal separation early this week, etc. And I believe God was more glorified in it than if we had stared at the back of each others' heads singing with one of us giving a talk somewhere along the way.

That, my friends, is what I'm learning a church to really be, as intended. We glorified God in our interaction, we had fellowship, we had times of discipling one another, we ministered one another, and we were sounding boards for one another in how we will be about the God given missions of our lives. Moreso, I believe, than the churches of four walls and a pulpit.

The Red Pill

"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you to the truth."
"what truth?"
"That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.".
So states Morpheus in a famous scene from The Matrix. After opening a small silver box and pulling two pills from it, Morpheus continues.
"This is your last chance. After this, there is no going back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

and Neo takes the red pill.


But before the pills decision, Neo faced another choice. Kidnapped, Neo is offered the chance to leave, but Trinity asks him to trust. Neo asks why he should. Looking down a street being pounded by rain, Trinity says "Because you have been down there, Neo. You know that road. You know exactly where it ends. And I know that's not where you want to be".

slowly Neo gets back in the car.

Looking down the road of conventional church in America, you are looking down a soggy street. How compelling is it, really? More vision statements, shows called worship, building and capital fund raisers. Is this really what Jesus died for?

You read the New Testament, the account of Acts especially, and wonder why the conventional church pales so in comparison. You hear stories of the church in China, India, and underground in Muslim nations, and wonder at the power. Why not here, where you are?

to adapt what Morpheus says at one point in the movie "Let me tell you why you are here. You are here because you know something. What you know you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. There is something wrong with the church. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind"