Good Stuff

"In the following pages we will explore what it means to read Scripture missionally by: 1)learning to read Scripture in light of its missional origin; 2) its missional narrative; 3) our missional context as readers; and 4) the missional engagement of Scripture with our culture."

Reading the Bible Missionally

Tennessee Blues

A favorite.

A Great Sermon

I just listened to a wonderful message from Sam Storms on the subject of the proper attitude of the Christian concerning afflictions and death. You'll find it at Desiring God. Storms is one of my faves.

North! Or Be Eaten!

Andrew Peterson's North! Or Be Eaten is a fantasy adventure for young readers, book 2 in the Wingfeather Saga. A small band of heroes, with a mission to accomplish, travel across a forbidding landscape with evil creatures hot on their tracks. That may have the stamp of the fmailiar, but Peterson's originality, humor, and heart lend this story a great zest. I hadn't read book 1 yet, so some details of the back-story were a little iffy for me, but it was not an insurmountable problem.

So, imagine if J. R. R. Tolkein had had a Lemony Snicketish sense of humor and a fast-paced writing style. There, you've got Andrew Peterson's Wingfeater Saga. Now I can't wait to read book 1!

Pride and Joy

My wife doesn't actually read my blog, but this one goes out to L:

Having been turned inside out . . .

Here's a snip from the introduction to Michael Horton's new book: The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World:

We don’t find the truth about God, ourselves, or the world by looking within, but by being drawn outside of ourselves. Having been turned inside out, we look up in faith toward God and out toward our neighbors in loving service and witness. Surprising news has a way of focusing us on something “out there” in the real world rather than on our own assumptions, experiences, and speculations. Only the Spirit, working through the gospel, has this kind of power to bring about a new creation in the midst of the old. Gradually, we discover that the world outside is more interesting than the inner world of narcissistic preoccupation. It is a liberation that we never expected, much less achieved for ourselves. It’s a gift. It is the marriage supper that is promised in the gospel and of which the Spirit gives us a foretaste in this present age. While our consumer culture offers instant gratification in drive-thru spiritualities, the gospel seats us at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as the Triune God serves us with his heavenly gifts.

Mary Travers, R.I.P.

Agape

I'll give the last line:

I am free to embrace, love, accept and forgive because I am totally embraced, loved, accepted and forgiven.

Now go read the rest.

3 Nuggets

A couple of stunning quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together:

"A life together under the Word will stay healthy only when it does not form itself into a movement, an order, a society, a collegium pietatis [association of piety], but instead understands itself as being part of the one, holy, universal, Christian church, sharing through its deeds and suffering in the hardships and struggles and promise of the whole church" (45).

"Nothing is easier than to stimulate the euphoria of community in a few days of life together [a retreat, a conference]; and nothing is more fatal to the healthy, sober, everyday life in community of Christians" (47).

I came across these over at Jesus Creed. Thanks, Scot.

While I'm borrowing quotes, here's another doozy. It's from Jack Miller's The Heart of a Servant Leader.

What you discover is that there is no permanent joy in Christ apart from a willingness to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. That is, your life cannot have power in it or even salvation if you refuse to be like a grain of wheat that must fall to the ground in order to bring forth much fruit. God calls you to greatness, Catherine, but greatness means fruitfulness, and fruitfulness comes as we die to self and our fears and rise from the dead…Your life must have a death in it if it is to go anywhere. (p.230)

HT: Darryl Dash.

On Church Membership

The church I've attended consistently for the past ten years (until this summer) instituted a membership program about six months ago. You were to attend an 8 week class, make eight key commitments to the church (commitment to tithe, for example, and commitment to be active in at least one church ministry in the course of the year). If you did all this, you would be, officially, a member. If not, you were just an attender.

This came at a time when I was questioning much of the focus of church life there, so it was not hard for me to say “no thanks” to the whole deal. I didn't see myself making a commitment to tithe, for example, and told the pastor as much. Thus my relationship with the church seemed to change, and during the summer I've investigated some other ways of getting together with my fellow Christ-ians.

Anyway, the last time I mentioned church-membership and my distaste for it, one reader blatantly encouraged me to say more. Since this is a rare request indeed, I thought I'd take advantage:

I don't get church-membership.

I get that we Christ-ians are called into a body, and that the “local church” (I use the word local in its American churchy sense—the church I attended was by no means local in the common sense of “nearby”) is a visible manifestation of that body. That body is in fact a trans-local host of Jesus-followers, down through the ages, known sometimes as the bride of Christ, the body of Christ, Jesus People, the people of God, the invisible church, and on and on. So there's this big, millennia-spanning “cloud of witnesses,” and then there's this relatively small and local manifestation in the here and now, the local church.

To achieve membership in the trans-local church, you merely have to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. In other words, you see in him your sole hope of mercy, and you are, we might say with Paul, transferred from one kingdom (a kingdom of darkness, leading to death) to another (a kingdom of light, leading to life). It is all by the mercy and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the king of that kingdom, and through him eternity is ours. Stored up in heaven we have rooms prepared, crowns, glories untold awaiting us, to be enjoyed forever in the presence of God.

Nice, eh? But, wait a minute, you still might not be a member of the local church. Because the local church might just have a higher standard than heaven. Are you tithing? Are you taking part in a church-based ministry? Are you attending regularly (according to to definition of the church leadership)? In the case of the church I was attending, if you make a solemn commitment to these things and five others, you're in. If not, you're out.

Does anyone else think it odd that I can say of myself, I am a child of God, a member of his family by adoption through Christ, but I am not a member of the local church, because by their standards I haven't measure up? You see, they've raised the bar a good deal higher than Jesus did.

Is this local church membership system mandated “from above” through the Word of God, or is it an institutional convenience and nothing more? Am I, apart from local church membership, in some sense less saved than I would be if I were a member? Apart from the local church, do I lose connection to the trans-local cloud of witnesses? Does everything filter down from the universal to the personal through the local church?

I just now used the term, institutional convenience. In other words, the leadership of the local church seems to need to be able to report, we have come this far, we have this many members who have taken our classes, we have measures and yardsticks and we can tell we're succeeding (or failing) by such as these. That's our system, and if you want to be one with us, you have to get in gear.

These yardsticks are intended to measure our “commitment.” The c-word was unveiled with the membership program and began to be used frequently. Commitment. Show your commitment. Are you committed to this or that? Or are you just sitting on your hands? Come on people, it's time to show your commitment! We need to buy a new sign—are you committed to evangelism (the sign will be an evangelism tool, don't you know)? So we need $38,000, because the sign must be wifi equipped, etc.

Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are doing too much, and I will give you rest." The local church says, "Come to this place called the local church, all you who are already doing too much, and we will give you even more to do."

See, once you institute these systems of behavioral measurement, you get to coaxing people to “measure up.” From membership as a measure of commitment to membership as a measure of holiness is a very small step. Do you tithe? Don't you realize that tithing is a measure of your commitment to the local church? Don't you realize the local church is the body of Christ? Hey, where's your faith, man? So what if Jesus lambasted the Pharisees for using tithing as a spiritual status-symbol, an approved measure of spiritual wellness! I mean, you don't want to be a mere attender, do you? From now on, not tithing should cause you second thoughts, pangs of guilt, and the questioning of your commitment! Do I really measure up? Is my lack of commitment showing?

Another thing: I've heard it said that for a Christ-ian all life should be ministry. But the local church likes to privilege its own organized and established ministries above all else. You have to be committed to participation in one of our church-based ministries. It simply doesn't count that you're pouring yourself out, day by day, to your children. Sorry, that just doesn't register on our membership scale. You need to come to church and fold bulletins, or pass plates, or work in the bookstore, or pull weeds in the garden, in addition to that other stuff. That way we know, we can measure it, and then we can confirm your status of membership.

As for me, I'm going to serve in the mission field to which I've been sent (my family, my town, my workplace). I'm not all that good at it, and I'm sure by any standard you can possibly name, I do not measure up. But Jesus says, I in you and you in me, and somehow that gives me hope. He's the one who measures up. I'm throwing all other yardsticks away.

Ok, this is really good.

Going to see this guy tonight. Psyched!

What do you mean by the word church?

Michael Spencer's recent post, Jesus - Yes; Church - No? Maybe, is a very worthwhile read.

As the first comment says, how you answer that question ("Jesus, yes; the church, no?") will depend in part on what you mean by that enigmatic term, church.

Very few people of my acquaintance these days (ever since I wandered off the Lutheran reservation) would say their loyalty is too a denomination, a pastor, or a building. But in practice that's sure how it looks.

Thinking back to this recent post, I should emphasize that it's easier by far to limit your understanding of church to a particular meeting in a particular place where they sit beneath the teaching of a particular preacher, etc., than to think of church as a network of relationships between believers who are seeking to live out the "one-anothers" of the New Testament.

It is easy enough to order your sense of spiritual well-being around church-attendance when church is uniquely a Sunday morning experience, but the challenge is to be the church every day in all and sundry places. The first commenter over at Michael's post says it this way:

I have often times said “Jesus – Yes; Church – No” simply because Church was not the brother or sister sitting next to me, but the legalistic expectations devised by those of influence. (If you’re a Baptist, there are certain things that you, as a good Baptist should do). Now I understand that it is my fellow Christians, whoever and whever they are, who are the church and to that I say, “Jesus – Yes; Church – Yes.”

This is too good not to repeat,,,

"The world’s idea that everyone, from childhood up, should be able at all times to succeed in measurable ways, and that it is a great disgrace not to, hangs over the Christian community like a pall of acrid smoke.” J. I. Packer

[HT: Between Two Worlds]

End of Summer Notes

This summer I began to accept the full ramifications of being an exile, whose allegiance is to another kingdom, and for whom this world's kingdoms are strange, strange in every direction.

This summer I began to realize that the kingdom of heaven that Jesus spoke of is not best represented in this world by prosperous and "successful" churches, but by a network of exiles who have in common a few simple things: their kingdom is not of this world, and Jesus the Galilean teacher who was executed on a Roman torture device two thousand years ago is their risen and reigning king.

That's crazy.

I learned this summer that if you try to forget everything you've ever learned bout what church is and should be, and then with your mind washed clean of all that cultural baggage you try to gather up the mostly quite enigmatic hints as to what the church should be from the New Testament, you'll be profoundly embarrassed at what we have done with what we were given.

This is not an anti-church tirade, but it shouldn't be surprising to anyone that many many people are wondering these things lately.

This summer I began to act upon and test a simple thought experiment. The church is a network of believers, strangers in a strange land, wearing their absurd foreign garments (that seem so terribly uncomfortable to those not wearing them--Col 3:12-17) to restaurants and schools and workplaces.

So this summer my goal became to get with my fellow citizens of a far kingdom at every opportunity, in various ways and places, to do various things, but all in the name of Jesus, our king. It has nothing particularly to do with Sunday morning. And when it is exclusively channeled into Sunday mornings, it becomes an absurdity.

For those whose leaves have withered.

I've working my way through the beatitudes of Jesus as found in Matthew's 5th chapter. I'm up to the 4th beatitude, which is:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

In previous posts in this series I've mentioned that the first four beatitudes are "beatitudes of lack." A person who fits the description of these first four beatitudes would be feeling keenly his own helplessness (v.3), would be mourning the terrible impact of sin that has touched every life (v.4), would be intensely meek, knowing that he has no spiritual prowess to change a thing about this situation (v.5), and yet would so desire that this situation be changed that it would feel for him like the intense hunger of starvation or the thirst of a man who has been wandering in a desert.

Sometimes I've felt that way. Sort of. Maybe.

Righteousness is the Bible's word for the way the world would be if Adam and Eve hadn't gone tragically astray. It's the word for a kind of life that is entirely and happily alligned with the loving will of God. Sort of like this:

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers. Psalm 1:1-3

Wouldn't it be nice? For me, sometimes my leaf withers. And now comes to mind our old friends Eve and Adam, and how they got cast out of all that blessedness, and life became very very hard, and one of their sons murdered the other, and always they got their food by hard labor, dreaming of a garden paradise, and then finally they had another son, Seth, and to Seth was born Enosh. This would be the third generation, then. And Genesis 4:26 says, "At this time people began to call upon the name of the Lord."

Imagine that. It took three generations of suffering for people to begin to call upon God. It took a while, but suffering (that is, the impact of a severe shortage of righteousness) brought forth a hunger for, you guessed it, righteousness.

Today, in my own world, I have seen how a little word, well-intentioned, could ignite a firestorm of recriminations. I might think about the best way to address the situation, and hope to be a help, but I'm learning that the only true response is to call upon the name of the Lord, asking him to work his will. Calling out, in other words, for righteousness.

Report on a Home Group

I spent Monday evening with a “home fellowship group” made up mostly of young folks from several local churches (but mostly the big - by Maine standards - Baptist church in our area). The people who host this group have been doing so for many years. Twenty to thirty kids (I know I'm getting old when I call twenty-somethings “kids”), a few “seasoned” types like myself, a lot of food and fellowship, and a gifted teacher to top it off. It was a sweet time in the Body of Christ.

The food and fellowship lasts an hour or so, till you get to wondering if there's going to be anything else. Then some “kids” get out their guitars and start doodling. It's a signal for people to start drifting into the big living room with its many couches and folding chairs. There's a carefully compiled homemade songbook on each seat. No one seems to “lead.” Somebody requests a song, the strumming begins, someone shouts a page number, before you know it everybody is singing (loudly!) to the accompaniment of several guitars “sprinkled” around the room, a mandolin, a hand-drum, and a couple of “rhythm-rattles.”

I totally enjoyed this. I loved the songs, I loved the singing. And I was kind of amazed to be in a room with so many bright-eyed young people. After a while the host got up to teach a lesson. He's been teaching through the Gospel of John, and all signs point to one who has been praying and struggling through the Gospel in all humility. He spoke for maybe 40 minutes, and the folks seemed to be listening. I only noticed one kid checking his phone!

Okay, so this was the sweetest time I've had in the Body of Christ in a long time. At different times people chimed in with prayer requests or testimony of some sort, and others in the group (never the old-timers) kind of modestly entered into prayer. In fact, a kind of spiritual modesty was the mark of everything here. The prayer was soft-spoken and free of prayer-jargon, the “leadership” was definitely under-the-radar (even the worship was not so much “led” as accompanied). A couple of times when people spoke they looked around the room for “the leader” in order to ask permission, till finally the hostess said with a chuckle, “There's non one to ask, honey.” I loved that.

So . . . awesome! I hope to get together with these folks again. Thank you, Jesus!

Two Great Posts

The masterful house-painter/blogger Nate Spencer has been on a roll lately. First, there's this amazing post at his blog, The Jesus Paradigm. This is really thoughtful material based on a 1 John 2:18-27.

Then, as if that wasn't enough, Nate got busy on our group blog, Mount Jesus, which is a 3-way conversation concerning the sermon on the mount. Nate clearly gets inspired by "difficult" Bible passages. This time, it's the blessing of suffering for our faith.

10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matt 5:10-11

This is another amazing post. Here's a brief snip:

Why are these beatitudes the scariest? They seem to speak of my life, in terms of it's pursuit of comfort, security, and pleasure, as irrelevant, as something that are grass for the furnace. As if it is a help to me when my reputation and comfort burn up.

Jesus is out to kill your fear, once and for all. Growing up into the fullness of Christ, which means living as if we were citizen of heaven all the time, should produce a lot of fearless saints. Read the whole post to follow Nate's reasoning.