Simply Jesus

I've started reading N. T. Wright's Simply Jesus.  I'm into the third chapter, and loving it.

You know, it's really kind of interesting how many books are being written with the avowed purpose of refocusing on Jesus, correcting a trend, in other words, toward focusing on other things and relegating Jesus Christ to the periphery.

There was Jared Wilson's book, You're Jesus is too Safe, and Frank Viola and Len Sweet's The Jesus Manifesto, and more recently Tullian Tchividjian's Jesus + Nothing = Everything.  I'm sure there have been others, but taken together they represent a distinct trend.  Almost a movement!

Speaking of books, the next in my queue is The King Jesus Gospel, by Scot McKnight.  It's been my personal project to read the NT for a deeper understanding of what is meant by that term, "the Gospel."  McKnight has been investigating that same matter, and his conclusion is that we've been so focused on one aspect of the Gospel (individual salvation) that we have done the broader picture is a distinct disservice.

Now back to the matter of re-focusing on Jesus. I think that Jesus is the good news; he embodies it. So you can't go far wrong concerning the Gospel--and you won't over-simplify it--if you begin with Jesus and keep the focus there.

So anyway, back to Simply Jesus.  Here's a clip from the introduction:

Jesus—the Jesus we might discover if we really looked, is larger, more disturbing, more urgent than we had ever imagined. We have successfully managed to hide behind other questions and to avoid the huge, world-shaking challenge of Jesus’s central claim and achievement. It is we, the churches, who have been the real reductionists. We have reduced the kingdom of God to private piety; the victory of the cross to comfort for the conscience; Easter itself to a happy, escapist ending after a sad, dark tale. Piety, conscience, and ultimate happiness are important, but not nearly as important as Jesus himself.

That's good stuff.  I've been struck, in my reading of the Gospels, at how absolutely strange Jesus often seems.  Sure, he's fully human and all that, but he talks like no man has ever talked.  He says things like, "How long am I to bear with this faithless generation?" Those are the words of a man who has come from elsewhere, is a stranger in this world, and is eager to get back home.  Nobody is a stranger in this world like Jesus was.

Well, he was different, this Jesus.  And I'm thankful for this movement to re-focus on the Jesus going on in the church today, and it's something I want to be a part of. It's the most exciting thing going. Either the church is about the indwelling Jesus (for real) or it is nothing more than playing the religious community game.

Are we not disciples?

I really enjoyed the Stetzer/Hirsch conversation on the nature and meaning, and the theological underpinning, of the whole concept of the missional church. God is a sending God, and the church is a body of "sent ones," in the power of the Holy Spirit, whose purpose is given them by Jesus himself:

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” (John 20:21-23 ESV)

DebD asked in a recent comment, "what do you think it means when someone is a disciple (beyond learning from Him and going and making more disciples)? What does becoming a disciple look like?"

In answer, I think I'd go back to the Hirsch/Stetzer conversation, where Hirsch says, "the church does not create the mission, the mission creates the church." The mission precedes the church, and the church is the embodiment of the mission. This means that the church is not merely the dispenser of spiritual goods ("join now and we'll throw in one free hands-on prayer for healing before signing you up for the usher team!") but it is nothing less than the continuation of the church in Acts. A sent people, preaching the Kingdom, teaching, healing, forming community, worshiping God together, etc.

What that looks like is going to be somewhat different in every context, but it bears repeating, believers are disciples. All of them. They are radically committed to the practice of grace, embodying the gospel of grace in their relationships, explaining the significance and relevance of Jesus at every opportunity, being available to the Spirit for the work of the Spirit in drawing people's attention to Christ. They do this in their ordinary lives.

Missional Thinking

I think Ed Stetzer is writing some of the best stuff on the subject of missional churches. He's now up to 5 entries in his eight part series called Developing Missional Churches for the Great Commission.

Understanding What We Mean When We Talk about Being Missional
The Great Commission and Missional Thinking
The Challenge of Being Missional
The Missional Idea in Scripture
God Sends

By the way, "mission" and "commission" need to be closely connected or you will go off the rails.

And also, for another linked set of posts, take a look at Kenny Silva's personal resolutions. Good stuff.

The Search is Definitely Over

So, we've been taking this long sabbatical (you might call it that) from church-attendance for over a year now. I kind of wanted to wait and think and not leap too quickly, and have also been limited by the simple fact that there seems to be a dearth of what I would call Christ-centered and Gospel-driven churches in this area. [I've discussed all this at length in the various posts here.] In the meantime, we've gotten involved in a weekly Bible study at the home of a church planter, which has been a real solid blessing to me. Upshot of all this being, I seem to be experiencing a little revival in my soul.

This morning we went back a second time to a church where we'd had a favorable experience previously. In between visits they'd moved to a new meeting place, and we thought we'd let them get the kinks out before returning (well, I was really waiting for an increase in my wanna level). Anyway, back we went this morning and I just want to tell you, it was everything I've been saying a church ought to be about. Christ exalting, Gospel-driven, not flashy or loud, no video presentations, and humble worship leaders focusing our hearts and minds just where they ought to be. I haven't been this satisfied on a Sunday morning in a long time.

Anyway, it's a Harvest Bible Chapel, part of James MacDonald's tribe. So for now, this is where we'll be settling in. I'm still tracking with my church-planting friend, but until he moves to having a full-fledged worship service, HBC seems like the place and the family where God is leading us.

Some Quick Thoughts on Church, Mission, Discipleship

Christians are disciples.

Disciples follow Jesus, learn from him, and are charged with the mission of continuing to do so, and to draw others to the same kind of life ("go and make disciples").

The original disciples were called by Jesus and in answer to that call they followed Jesus. But when Jesus departed, he charged them with the mission of making other followers and learners like them, so somehow the ability to follow Jesus and learn from him did not come to an end with his departure. It continued through the disciples. They continued to be disciples (followers of Jesus) and in so doing they made new disciples.

The church is the coming together of such disciples. When they come together they might be expected to sing the praises of the one to whom they have dedicated their lives, or to discuss their mission (the ups and downs, the troubles and triumphs), or to pray for one another as disciples (or you might say, to pray one another into their missions). Jesus said he would be with them when they came together, even just two or three of them. To be with him and to have him be with them is the desire of their hearts.

If you conduct church as if your congregation is not in fact a gathering of disciples on mission but simply a needy crowd, then that's what you will have.

If you, as church leaders, funnel your definition of mission entirely through a church-activity grid, then you're failing to teach the true nature of discipleship or the true nature of mission. It is almost entirely outside the walls, along the highways and byways.

If when disciples come together they choose to listen to someone preach, that preacher probably should preach what Jesus preached. They're Jesus followers, after all, not Bible-worshippers.

And when, after coming together and learning from one another, praying for one another, singing the praises of Jesus together, they go their separate ways, they are going back out to their missions as Jesus-followers. Their mutuality is in their love for Jesus and their shared mission as his followers.

The alternative to this vision of church is one in which the church is merely a dispenser of help (Biblical or not) and the congregation is merely a crowd of needy people. There can be a lot of comforting at such a church, but often very little calling. Leaders in these churches see their primary mission as attracting more needy people and dispensing the help they need, but seldom calling (and even re-calling) people to the mission the way Jesus did ("follow me, and I will make you fishers of men").

The congregation then takes on a two-tiered aspect. The handful that "minister," and the many that need "ministry." This set-up becomes entrenched by one-hour repetitions each Sunday morning. But it does not make disciples nor does it strengthen and encourage disciples, nor is it, I would suggest, even church.

On the other hand, a church that is the gathering of the called disciples will be all about sending not attracting. It will be all about mission, not about finding new way to get more people in the building.

Wellsian Wisdom

Three excerpts from an interview with David Wells at Ligonier.com:

"Every study on the internal life of the churches shows that they are becoming increasingly less literate biblically. With that, our ability to judge where our culture is intruding upon our souls is diminished. A church that is merely mimicking the culture, rather than offering a biblical alternative to it, is on its way to oblivion."

And:

It is a temptation to think that by being nice and accommodating we can make the Christian gospel seem like a great little addition to everyone’s life. But the gospel is not a great little addition. It is a soul-shaking, costly, demanding reality. The church cannot hide this fact! The gospel is not about self-therapy. Despite our pressured, taut, nervejangling age, the Christian message is not there just to make us feel better about ourselves or more able to cope. It is about coming before our great God and Savior, confessing our sins, entrusting ourselves to Him, and surrendering our claim upon ourselves to Him. What is most needed, and what is most lacking in the church, is a little character in differentiating its message from self-help therapies and marketing strategies. Our deficiency is not that we lack the right technique. It is that we often don’t have a real alternative.

And:

We have brought into the church the rhythms of buying and selling, of making a product appealing so that a potential buyer can be lured into a sale, and to help out that process, we are changing the atmosphere of worship into one of pleasant entertainment. The product we think we are selling is the gospel and, within that, the God of the universe. Put that way, it sounds pretty absurd, doesn’t it? But as the visions of success, of sanctuaries packed with potential buyers, dance before our eyes, nothing seems to be absurd, inappropriate, or out of bounds to us. Apparently, we are willing to do whatever we think it takes, no matter how inappropriate.

IMonk on American Gnosticism

I really enjoyed reading this collectiion of Michael Spencer quotes on "the Evangelical circus." Michael has my vote as greatest Christian blogger ever. Here's his analysis of "American Gnosticism:"

…what is called American Christianity is actually some sort of American Gnosticism, a religion of direct human experience with God that has no need of the Bible, the Gospel or Christ and the Cross in the classically Christian sense. We are apparently such basically cool people, that we can get in touch with God our little ol’ selves if we just tune in the right way. Today, we have a Bible that is described as a “love letter,” a Gospel of manipulated and self-generated feelings and experiences (complete with band), and a Christ who is a whispy, feminized, dispenser of hugs and life management principles and no-cost/no discipleship salvation. Of course, this is the appropriate religion for people whose only actual concerns are feeling good about themselves and having it all without feeling guilty. Sinners seeking a remedy for the righteous wrath of God need not look into modern Christianity for any help.

On a similar note, Do you suffer from Acute Church Center of the Universe Syndrome? I have, but I think I'm over it. Now I want to go to a church that isn't intent on spreading the contagion, infecting me again.

Clinical trials have not yielded a definitive cure for ACCUS but scientists think it might have something to do with acting like Jesus. Turns out, He was the center of the universe and He did everything to not act like it.

Done searching

After yesterday's post about our most recent church visit, I thought I'd update you on the status of our search for a church.

It's over, more or less.

My honey and I have agreed on a church to attend in the immediate term. It's called Harvest Bible Chapel and is part of the family of churches planted out of James MacDonald's church in the Chicago area. BTW, here's a nice sample of MacDonald, particularly relevant these days:

Keep Your Eye on the Ball from Harvest Bible Chapel on Vimeo.

So, anyway, we'll be attending a Harvest Bible Church. They're in the process of changing location just now. Having sold their old building on the outskirts of everything, they're now renting some warehouse space in a much more densely populated area. I didn't fall head-over-heals in love when I attended this church a few weeks ago. I didn't feel an overwhelming sense of God's presence, or the sense of being exactly where I belonged. But both my wife and I have kind of quietly come to the conclusion that it's the right place for us, the right bunch of folks, at least for now.

I say "for now" because there's a group in my area that is preparing to plant a "Christ-centered" church, and I want to check in with them when they do. I'm acquainted with the church-planter and will be attending a 4-week Bible-study at his house next month, and I really anticipate, if all goes well, being a part of that church.

BTW, if I do get involved with that new church, I promise not to have any of these attitudes.

Of Easter Eggs and Cotton Balls

So we visited another church this past Sunday.

This one meets in an old neighborhood church building on the other side of town. We arrived after the worship set had started and a kindly usher showed us to our seats . . . in the second row! Now, this was a smallish room with a sixties-style drop ceiling, and the band was pretty much deafening.

[Brief aside for discussion of volume issues in the church: everyone knows that young folks like things turned up loud, then middle-aged folks like it turned down, and then really old folks like to turn things up loud again. This is the way of all flesh. If you complain that something is too loud the goateed guys at the big panel of lights and switches in the back of the church, which I think is called a sound-board, will laugh and make old-fogey jokes about you behind your back (and on their blogs). Then of course there are the middle aged guys that dye the gray out of their hair, have recently gotten a tongue-stud, and always seem to be sucking in their gut when young women are in the vicinity . . . they like it loud too!]

OK, so back to our church visit. This was a smallish low-ceilinged room, very intimate, which made the double rack of spotlights hanging from the ceiling and the good-size amps on stage seem kind of, well, out of place. But that's how you do church, don't you know, and these guys were doin' church by the the book. Anyway, I could tell by the expression on my Honey's face that this second row positioning was not going to work, so we wound up defying the kindly usher who had showed us to these choice seats and clamored back to the rear of the church. That was somewhat better. I would have explained myself to the usher, but he wouldn't have been able to hear a word I said!

But enough of the pleasures of contemporary church worship! After that was over there came the sermon. The preacher, cleverly dressed in worn-out jeans and and un-tucked shirt-tails, leaped to the platform and flashed a smile that reminded me of none other than--I can't help saying this--Joel Osteen. He proceeded to deliver a pretty darn good message though. Based on the story of the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus asking, "What must I do to have eternal life?" The preacher unpacked the story nicely and concluded by asking everyone what comes first in your life? Is it God, or is it something else? Money, perhaps. Or gaming. Or work. Or health. But God wants you to put Him first!

I was all set to shout amen here, but then the sermon took an unfortunate turn. You see this church is about to put on a big Easter Egg hunt. And they're going to need volunteers to help fill several thousand plastic Easter eggs with candy. As a form of outreach, you see. To the community! And well, if you've been convicted about how you've not been putting God first in your life, but instead have been putting gaming first, here's your chance. Help stuff candy into plastic Easter eggs! We need all the help we can get, and you'll be serving God! John Newton may have preached to break the hard heart and to mend the broken heart, but our modern day preachers--this has been my experience--preach to sustain the production.

Now, well, ummm, I hesitate to say this, but it's kind of a fundamental point of mine . . . I'm not so sure that serving your church is equivalent to serving God. I think it's just, well, serving your church. Getting with the program. Being a warm body in the never-ending stage-presentation we call church.

If I had to think of a few ways to put God first I might come up with some different options:

1. loving someone
2. forgiving someone
3. asking forgiveness of someone
4. praying for someone
5. loving someone (oh wait, I said that)

But stuffing candy in plastic eggshells might be on that list somewhere too, I suppose. Way down at, oh, number 348 or so.  And besides, everybody knows stoking kids with sugar is a harmless and wholesome activity!

I could say a lot more, and one thing I should add is that I got the feeling with this church that they are trying hard, as best they know how. Good for them. But they should have a little bowl of cotton balls in the vestibule . . . for us middle-aged types.

[UPDATE: In the mail today, a gift card for Dunkin'Donuts with $5 loaded to to it. A gift from the church I attended on Sunday. Their way of thanking me for the visit. How cool is that!]

What am I looking for, anyway?

I've written a series of posts here about my slow-motion adventure of looking for a church. But I've had a fairly difficult time explaining, to my own satisfaction, what I'm really looking for, probably because I'm not really sure myself.

People have all kinds of carefully thought-out ideas about just what church should be and do, and why we should almost never leave a church, and why we should never not be an active church member, and just what the responsibilities of membership are to begin with, etc.

They also have carefully thought-out ideas of what a person should look for when searching for a church. They talk about creedal statements, "what we believe" statements, attitudes about church governance, the practice of church discipline, and on and on.

But I'm still not exactly clear. The thing is, most churches feature a creedal statement or a "what we believe" statement on their websites, and all of these are the standard church boilerplate. Going by these formulas is about like thinking you understand warfare because you looked at a few battle-plans on maps. Things can be very different "on the ground."

On the ground, there's an awful lot of "keeping up appearances." There's a lot of maintaining to be done if you want people to have the right impression and the church to grow. Some churches seem to be nothing more than a club in which the leaders try to get the rank and file to get involved. As long as it's with the right attitude, of course!

I've been out of the church for about a year now, I guess. Maybe more. A part of me wants to go sit in the pew in blessed anonymity, but another part of me wants a lot more than that. Not so much church activity, but praying together, bolstering one another, trying to walk out our faith together where we're at. That would be a pretty good start. How would the body of Christ in my town manifest itself if all the church buildings burned down over night? That might be the "church" I'm looking for.

I said in a recent post that the church is like a Galilean hillside. The reference, of course, is to the hill where Jesus taught his disciples (Matthew 5-7). Our attention, then, is directed to Jesus. All about Jesus. The world needs a savior, not just an enhanced sense of community or slight improvement in behavior.

The "Sermon on the Mount" has recaptured my imagination lately. It's crazy how little I've ever heard Jesus' sermon exposited in church preaching (except the snippet about not worrying); exposited, that is, from start to finish as a coherent and intentionally constructed statement from Jesus about what it means that the Kingdom of God has come. As blogger Joshua Graves says (here) these are among Jesus' most difficult words. Jesus is clearly not out to simply rouse us to kindness or congratulate us on our Christian-ish ways.

He's out to re-orient our imagination, to show us the world from His perspective, and to call us into a life that is nothing more than the consequence of seeing things His way. He's not out to put on a show.

"Coming to a church near you . . . YOUR CHURCH FAMILY . . . one morning per week only! . . . featuring live bands . . . INSPIRING VIDEO PRESENTATIONS . . . Powerpoint! . . . along with engaging professional speakers!"

He's out to shake our foundations!

Another Church Visit

So I went to church again last week.

This one was about as standard-brand as you can get. Ministry team up front on a raised platform, facing an audience. Half-hour of heart-felt music, then pass the plate, then half-hour or so of preachin'.

The people here were genuinely welcoming. That hasn't been typical in my experience so far. Also, the pastor seemed genuinely a part of the congregation, not just the hired Bible-expert. His message focused on evangelism, and I didn't completely concur with it all, but he was earnest and unassuming.

This was not exactly an inspiring church experience, but it was refreshingly un-flashy, not straining after relevance, and essentially Word-centered. It was real. The music was God-focused, and we sang one of my all-time faves, By the Blood.

This group will be transferring to a new building soon, and in fact will be moving from the exurbian fringe (out beyond the mall and the industrial parks) and into the city (reversing the normal direction of church migration) for which I highly commend them.

Seems like I'll probably go back to this one.

"A New Sign"

John Barth:

"[The Church] exists . . . to set up in the world a new sign which is radically dissimilar to [the world's] own manner and which contradicts it in a way which is full of promise." (Church Dogmatics 4.3.2)

Quoted in Hauerwas and Willimon's Resident Aliens, p.83

Foundness is the Difference-Maker, or The Church is a Galilean Hillside

It has long been my contention that the church in America has too often positioned itself as a kind of local pool of Bethesda (John 5:2-4) to which people are invited to come and receive healing (or at least therapy), rather than a kind of hill in Galilee where we are invited to sit and hear the master teach us about the Way (Matt 5:1).

There is not an absolute divergence between these two attitudes, of course. I'm certainly not dismissing healing ministry out of hand. I'm only suggesting that, as we look at the pool of Bethesda story in John 5, for example, we ought to be encouraged to read it not as folks who need healing like the people gathered at the pool, but as followers of Jesus, his disciples, watching and learning as Jesus demonstrates Kingdom realities.

I think that much preaching is in this mistaken mode: appeals to the broken and hurting in which (or, because) everyone is defined primarily as broken and hurting. Thus, Bible texts are chosen for their ability to comfort the broken and hurting. These turn out to be the most successful sermons (that is, they elicit the most emotional response) and so the preacher learns to return to the theme frequently.

In all this it is not disciples who are being addressed, but simply folks with problems.

But hey, isn't everyone broken and hurting? Even disciples? Yes, yes, but what I have noticed is that this sort of preaching winds up having the effect not so much of healing them than of encouraging people to continue to self-define as victims. Just what the wider culture does! It's as if this self-definition (hurting and broken victims) were inescapable, and church then becomes primarily a place of momentary solace or an interlude of hope rather than a place of equipping.

See, I think there is a whole lucrative industry out there (both in the Christian branch of capitalistic enterprise and the non-Christian) which rests on the recognition that if you can keep people self-defining as needy, you can sell them the latest solution (which is usually nothing more than snake oil). The thing is, I-once-was-lost-but-now-am-found must mean something! Foundness is a glorious difference-maker. It is a self-definition closer by far to the NT view of the believer than that of needy one. Though I remain seriously bent (for the Kingdom has not yet come) this is no longer my primary way of thinking about myself. My primary way of thinking about myself now is healed (for the Kingdom has come).

There is a great need for healing in the world. As Jesus walked the roads of Palestine, he healed many, but it should be noted that the disciples were not the ones clamoring for healing. They were the ones who, defining themselves primarily as Jesus-followers, desired to learn his ways and then go practice them. When Jesus gathered his disciples to himself, it was not to simply offer them solace and commiseration, perhaps even a miricle healing or two, but to teach them Kingdom truths. For example, take a look at the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and the Upper Room Discourse in John.

I'm still searching for a church. I mentioned here that advice-dominated preaching is one thing I'll be trying to avoid. This is another: preaching that treats me as the helpless victim rather than Jesus-follower.

Yet another church visit

I went to church again yesterday.

This time I continued with my plan to visit every church within walking distance of my home (walking distance defined as, oh, 20 minutes or so). This particular church has a "traditional" early service and then a contemporary service. I chose the early service, as the traditions can be a little more interesting to me than the familiar contemporary style.

Turns out that, when you do this bifurcating of traditional and contemporary, you get all the old people in one service, all the young'uns in the other. The congregation was almost entirely elderly folks in suits. The smell of perfume suffused the atmosphere of the sanctuary.

A fairly large sanctuary, the 50 to 60 attendees sat almost entirely in the back half of the church. The worship had an old time tent-meeting feel! An old fellow with a great voice led us in the singing (he reminded me of George Beverley Shea), to the accompaniment of a sort of honky-tonkin' piano that sounded almost like one of those old player pianos in Western saloons (in the movies, anyway).

We sang "Power in the Blood" ("There is power power wonder working power / in the blood of Jesus") and a typically lugubrious "Old Rugged Cross."

Now, the walls of the sanctuary were stenciled with life-size images of comic-book superheroes: Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Captain America. It seems the preacher was in the midst of a preaching series called "Superheroes of the Bible." This week's superhero was the good Samaritan.

The pastor was a big disheveled emotional guy who reminded me of an old friend of mine. I liked him immediately. His sermon was introduced by a video (oh, the ever-presence of screens, screens everywhere . . . I vote for a trend to de-technologize church!) which told the parable of the good Samaritan with a grinding guitar accompaniment that struck me as odd after the all the old-school hymn singing. Anyway, the sermon was a heart-felt plea for compassion and generosity, with the good Samaritan as our model.

I got to thinking how nice it would have been to just sing the songs, and even a bunch more, then maybe hear the reading of the parable and pray for one another, and then have lunch. Is all this sermonizing really all that important? Based on my experience lately, I'd have to wonder what good it's all doing. Not that I'd argue against anything this preacher said. And I have to admit, I'm not nearly as compassionate and generous as the Samaritan in the parable was. Not. That dude puts me to shame. Which is, I think, sort of the point.

Well, I'm all sermoned out, maybe. I've got plans to visit another church next week, and undoubtedly will hear another sermon that pivots on a preacher-ly "illustration," a personal story, a YouTube video, and a charge to the congregation. Is it wrong for me to just want to quiet down, think, pray, and maybe wait on God for a little while. How busy and bustling church is, and then how like a classroom full of bored students and a teacher who simply seems to be trying his best to rouse a roomful of sleepers.

A Church Visit

I went to church today.

There are plenty I could have chosen from, and most will have very similar statements of faith, and very similar approaches to conducting a worship service. The one I attended this morning was fairly typical. A couple of big screens showing a glitzy animation behind the projected lyrics, a rock band up on a stage and the congregation, audience like, facing the band. No one questions this stagey set-up, and in truth most people do seem right at home in it. We are the audience, you are the performers. There's a guy banging away at the drums, and a guy whaling away tastefully on his electric guitar.

I liked the songs they sang, but didn't really feel I was joining my voice with others, since the band was so much louder than we "others." If you closed your eyes, hiding the silly loop of graphics on the two big screens and hiding also the performers on stage, you might be able to focus on, you know, God. This doesn't seem to be a problem for most people. Guess I'm weird.

The sermon today was part of a series to get more people to volunteer, since this is a growing church that intends now to add a third service (on Saturday evenings). So it was what I like to call a "church-maintenance service." This is where the preacher, recognizing that ministry XYZ needs more help, finds the requisite Biblical passage to preach in order to inspire more helpers.

At first I was disappointed that we had clearly chosen to visit this church on one of their church-maintenance Sundays. But I gotta tellya, the guy did a bang-up job, and by the time he was finished I wanted to jump up and volunteer as a greeter. The dude even quoted Henry V's St. Crispin's day speech at length, and with ease! In all seriousness, I loved it and thought it was a pretty fair sermon, all things considered.

But an inspirational message wears off quick. I daresay even Shakespeare's Henry V filled his outnumbered and exhausted troops with a lot of high-flown hooey that day. You may win the battle at Agincourt, and you may staff the lobby with friendly greeters, but nothing much matters if it is not Christ living his life through his people. If what the theologians call "union with Christ" is not a lived and felt reality, no inspirational rhetoric will substitute for long.

But I don't want to be harsh. The preacher is following the template he's inherited, and so is most everyone else. I also understand that my impression from one Sunday morning experience is nothing to be conclusive about. These folks are trying their best, and they believe all the things you're supposed to believe, and they're very conscientiously trying to do it all well. I'm more or less resigned to putting up with the audience-church template, and the goofy little cups of grape juice and the chicklets of "bread." And I'm delighted that the message I heard this morning was not a self-centered God-has-a-wonderful-plan message, but essentially a discipleship message. In truth, this is about the most I can expect from evangelicals in my area, methinks.

What about church? (4)

So far in this series about church I've talked about the things I've got a problem with, things I definitely want to avoid. Religion, which is essentially synonymous with legalism, was one. Religion is definitely a deal-breaker. The least hint is likely to guarantee no return visit. The alternative to religion is the gospel, of course. More on this in a moment.

Also in this series, I worried over the issue of promoculture in the church. Promoculture is our culture, we're embedded in it, and it is a culture that is promiscuous about the truth, for it's purpose is profit, not knowledge. The wider culture is heavy with promotional rhetoric, endeavoring to entice, urge, cajole, convince, rather than to enlighten or encourage. And yet promoculture is rampant in the church.

Finally, in the third and most recent post, I highlighted the "pastor-centered" problem. Or call it the pastoral mystique. This one is so entrenched, it will be hard to avoid, but perhaps at best there will be a good deal more emphasis on the reading of the Word and less on the reading of the sermon. This is not to disparage all the hard work of many fine pastors, mind you. But look at it this way: we are often encouraged to think of the church body as our family, and yet no family I know sits in rows and listens to the patriarch for an hour every time it gets together. It's far more likely they would get together for food and conversation. There's just no getting around the fact that for modern evangelicalism, despite all the talk about family, the church is more aptly compared to an audience than to a family. My ultimate point here is that the audience-church template can actually inhibit the family-forming possibilities within the congregation.

Before this series of posts ends I hope to rise to the occasion of describing what I'd really hope to find in a church, but I want to address the question first that a friend of mine recently brought up. That question is this: is the church--any particular church--alive or dead?

This question makes me cringe a little, because I fear we draw our definitions of these words from the culture. Anyway, alive usually means passionate, while dead means staid, routine, dreary. Alive is up-tempo, dead is lugubrious. Alive is emotional, dead is formal, restrained, subdued. You get the picture.

I'm not exactly buying into all this, but I'm not exactly rejecting it either. There is such a thing as a dead church. I know this because Jesus warns about it here:

“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.
“‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ (Revelation 3:1-6 ESV)

In this quote you see that aliveness and deadness have everything to do with incomplete "works."

for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.

The key correction to this, you'll notice, is not to hurry out the door to dispense charity somewhere, thereby getting back on God's good side, but to remember something!

Remember, then, what you received and heard.

Something you've seen, something you've heard. A message. Remember it, and repent. This is the the foundation that precedes "works." Here's the ESV Study Bible note concerning the Sardis passage:

The church in Sardis is in a deep spiritual coma, approaching death but not beyond Christ's summons to wake up, to strengthen what is about to die, to remember and keep the message of grace that the church had received and heard, and to pursue the holiness that flows from grace.

And here's the upshot of all this for me. A church may be noisy or quiet, rocking or meditative, hub-bubby or contemplative, but none of this has to do with real aliveness or deadness.

If recollection of the Gospel message--what we have seen and heard--is the foundation that precedes or underlies holiness, then the key thing in a church, the thing to be looking for, is a congregational experience that brings that message back to our attention. Whether through the music, the prayer, the reading of the Word, and yes even the sermon, we are having the message of the Gospel called to mind again. It might at times be disconcerting. It might make us repent. It might make us at other times feel like dancing. But aliveness and deadness in a church has nothing to do with worship styles. It is simply a measure of Gospel mindfulness. That's all.

What about church? (3)

In this ongoing series, I've pinpointed religion and promoculture as things I hope to avoid as I look for a church. Not that I really expect to find a church that's completely free of these things (we're only human, after all), only that I will look out for these things, and be wary.

In future posts I hope to move on to some of the more positive things I'll be looking and listening for, but let's just add for now--on the negative side of the ledger--pastor-centered. I'd sure like to avoid that if I can. You know, this is where it is believed that God speaks to the congregation primarily through the pastor's sermon. This leads to all sorts of odd behavior.

In the worst cases, people even adopt the pastor's preferences, liking what the pastor likes, reading what the pastor reads. I mean, really, I've seen ridiculous examples of this. I've seen people adopt the preacher's political views. I've seen them switch their coffee preferences to match those of the leadership. I've seen people take up cigar-smoking because the pastor smoked cigars (seriously). I've even seen people for whom The Shack is too cerebral go out and buy whatever book the pastor recommends (but no other . . . only the pastor's choice is "Spirit" led).

Sheesh.

In truth I've known only one pastor who actively encouraged that sort of thing, while the rest have harbored, I suspect, a somewhat bemused attitude about it all. Still, most have held a high view (shall we say) of the importance of their weekly sermon.

Here's the thing: I don't think that God's preferred way of reaching us is primarily through our pastor's sermons. God's strategy for getting through to us ordinary pew-folk is not, OK, I'll send the Holy Spirit to the pastor's study, inspiring him about what to preach next Sunday, and it will be just what all three-hundred people in the church really need to hear this week.

No, I really don't think it works that way. Nor do I think that, when the pastor is a great orator and can stir the passions of the congregation with his preaching, that's definitely the Spirit's doing. The history of oratory is checkered at best.

Instead, give me conversation between friends, perhaps over a meal (before, during, after). I'm really not looking for a 50-minute "lesson" from my pastor/teacher/guru/spirit guide.

What's the alternative? The more I think of about it, the more I realize that worship, prayer, the reading of the Word, the sharing of needs and blessings, and a meal, would be just fine. Is preaching really supposed to be the be-all and end-all of church practice? Who decided that? And how has that practice worked out so far, generally speaking? Hasn't it engendered a largely passive follow-the-leader mentality? One man talking, several hundred listening, then filing out to the parking lot wondering, what did he say? Oh yeah, I remember, sin is bad.

Anyway, here's a truly radical suggestion. One way of doing things that might guard against the pastor-centered tradition is to practice the liturgy, which centralizes Scripture and the Lord's supper, not preaching. In fact, you can do away with preaching altogether and still have a profoundly meaningful worship experience. But in the typical evangelical church of my experience, if you did away with the preaching, you would simply have a big gap in the service with people milling about and wondering what to do with themselves.

Hey, that's not a bad start.

What about church? (2)

I've been reading Daniel Okrent's Last Call: the Rise and Fall of Prohibition, and it's a real eye-opener. If you ever wondered how it was that a bunch a teetotalers (in a beer-loving nation like ours) ever worked up the political momentum to actually amend the constitution in order to keep people from enjoying a snort once in a while, this book lays it out in all its surprisingly-sordid detail.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about . . .

On page 2 Okrent quotes Billy Sunday, who was a popular American evangelist of the early twentieth century, and a lifelong campaigner for "temperance." When the 18th amendment to the consitution, banning the sale and distribution of alcohol, was passed, an ecstatic Billy Sunday said this:

The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corn cribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent.

Putting aside the extraordinary theological confusion on display here, Sunday's words are of a piece with a long tradition of puffery and hucksterism in American culture, in which a cause (or product, or diet, or lifestyle choice) is promoted with over-the-top promises of bliss, while at the same time a failure to accede to that cause (or buy the product, or choose the lifestyle, etc.) will result in untold misery and degradation.

This method of persuasion is so common in American culture as to go almost unnoticed. It is rife in commercial Christianity, with Your Best Life Now being only the most obvious example. It even colors the tone of much pulpit ministry, coaxing the pew-folk to be good, tithe, volunteer, vote, or whatever. I'll call it promoculture. In the church, promoculture language not only invites exaggeration, intentionally brushes over nuance, and conveniently ignores alternative evidence, but inevitably shades into outright legalism.

Imagine America without promoculture. It's hard to do. You'd probably have to go back to pre-industrial village life, I suppose (see this post on Christmas nostalgia). Imagine, let's say, the game of baseball without promoculture. You'd have to go back to pick-up games in the sandlot. My point is simply to demonstrate the all-pervasive nature of, and our economic dependency on, promoculture.

Now try this thought-experiment: imagine evangelical America without promoculture. Again, very hard to do, methinks. [Update: but see Lore's comment for a clue.]

See, I hate promoculture. I mute the commercials on TV, and I tune out the promo-jabber in churches. In the first post of this ongoing series, I featured a rant of Mark Driscoll's against "religion." Point being, as I look around for a church to attend, I'll be extremely wary of religion, and I'll also be extremely wary of promoculture. Don't try to sell me a book, get me excited about a program, or entice me into buying the latest must-have Christian music.

The question is, if you take promoculture out of the evangelical church, will there be anything left? Sometimes I wonder.

What about church? (1)

I'm not so much thinking about looking for a church as thinking about what I'd be looking for if I was looking for a church. With a new year nearly upon us, perhaps it's a good time to consider these matters a little more intentionally.

Not that I'm about to go bouncing around from Sunday to Sunday in search of "the right fit." And neither am I holding out for perfection. I know there's an element in the Christian world that holds that not having a church--or, as they are just as likely to say, a church family--is a kind of crisis. Probably I'm just being selfish, or harboring sin, or who knows what, but it can't be good.

Going to church, in other words, is for these folks a key measure of spiritual health.

Well, maybe. Then again, maybe not. But anyway, although I'm pretty happy hanging out at home these Sunday mornings, I'm still liking the idea of church. It's a good New Testament idea, after all.

So I return to the original question: if I was looking for a church, what would I be looking for? In future posts I'm going to attempt to tease out a few answers to this question. So consider this the first in a series. In the meantime, here's Mark Driscoll preaching about something I intend to avoid like the plague: religion!


Heh. "We're all jacked up, Jesus. Can you help?"

An end to Christian romanticism, please

Francis Schaeffer said that a Christian can allow himself to be worn out by Christians who turn Christianity into a romanticism. [HT: Trevin Wax]

I think I know what he meant.

I suspect that a disinterested observer (say, the proverbial alien visitor studying the earthlings) would probably explain American Christianity as an elaborate system for getting what we want from God. Here's where the "romanticism" comes in. The conversation in many churches is all about what God can and will do for us. Just pray for it and keep believing. God is faithful . . . to give you what you want. So faith is boiled down to an ongoing transactional relationship with God, in which we ask and He gives. Small groups in the church meet primarily to indulge in this romanticism.

And, yeah, it wore me out.

You think this is broad-brush generalization? Maybe. But then it's the kind of generalization that rings of truth.

The thing is, you can find all the right proof-texts in the Bible to justify this sort of practice, but at bottom it is not the burden of the New Testament. You don't see the disciples practicing this relationship with Jesus. It's not the gist of Paul's writing, nor is it the picture of the church we get from Revelation. It does describe, in some sense, an aspect of Kingdom reality, but an understanding of the Kingdom that is essentially "now" and almost never "not yet" (if we only believe) is sheer romanticism.

I've been out of the church loop all year, and I'm missing it a little. What will I be looking for? A persistent engagement with the sweeping story of God and His people, which is a lot more about hard realities than goodies from heaven.

"The kingdom of God is near," Jesus said, on the way to His cross. That phrase, then, must mean something more than "God is my servant, he gives me everything I want."