No More Frozen Pizza

I generally don’t make New Year’s resolutions. But this year I’m making an exception.

My resolution for 2007 is not to eat any frozen pizza.

Pizza is a strong candidate for my favorite food. I like deep dish pizza, stuffed pizza, thin crust pizza and authentic Italian pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven. I like pizza with mushrooms, onions, sausage, olives, pepperoni, green peppers, sun-dried tomatoes and just about anything else you can put on a pizza.

Pizza is also the food I am most likely to eat too much of.

I don’t eat sweets, so I am not tempted by pie, cake or ice cream. You can leave a bowl of M&M’s in front of me, and I won’t eat a single one. But pizza is a different matter. I’ve even forced down a slice of pizza when I was already stuffed.

So what’s the problem with frozen pizza?

The problem is that frozen pizza is not real pizza. Most of it is little more than cardboard with tomato sauce and “cheese” on it. Even the best frozen pizza is a weak imitation of the real thing.

If I’m going to have pizza, I want the real thing.

I don’t want to waste empty calories on something that fills my stomach and yet leaves me hungry—longing for the real thing.

Of course, this is bigger than pizza.

I’m also done with reduced-fat peanut butter, fat-free mayonnaise and turkey franks. But food is just the tip of the iceberg.

The prophet Isaiah records these words of the Lord:

Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare (55:2).

Our lives are filled with fake junk.

We sit in our imitation leather chairs while we watch “reality” shows on TV that are interrupted by ads that tell a fictional love story that centers around instant decaffeinated coffee and by mechanically animated commercials selling us financial investments with a “personal touch.” We then go to our computers where we enter the virtual community of My Space while smoking low-tar cigarettes and eating “butter-flavored” popcorn.

Sundays are no different. We get up and eat Egg Beaters for breakfast. Then we drive 30 minutes to a church where we have a manufactured “worship experience” and listen to an entertaining monologue from a preacher who wishes he were Jay Leno.

Enough.

Jesus said, “I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of” (John 10:10, The Message).

So why do we settle for imitation life?

We spend our time, energy and resources accumulating wealth, trying to make ourselves look attractive, buying the latest electronic gadget, going to trendy vacation spots, developing our abs, indulging in addictive pleasures, applying products to our bodies to make us look younger and scaling the never-ending ladder of “success.”

And the whole time our souls are starving.

I’m not talking about pagans, atheists or hedonists. I’m talking about people who claim to be among Jesus’ “sheep.” I’m talking about myself.

Do I really believe that God causes all things to work together for my good? Do I really believe that if I focus on the Kingdom of God that God will supply all my needs? Do I really believe that nothing can separate me from the love of God in Jesus Christ? Do I really believe that God intends to fulfill the desires of my heart? Do I really believe that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us? Do I really believe that my life can be suffused with love, joy and peace?

Then why am I gorging myself on frozen pizza?

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Peace on Earth

The angel announced, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14).

This simple statement has the potential for several misconceptions.

The key to understanding this is to remember that it is written in the characteristic Hebrew poetic form of parallelism. It is composed of two statements (of unequal length).

Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.

Place: “the highest” — earth

Person: God — men

Characteristic: glory — peace

The angel was proclaiming that this event (the birth of the Messiah) would result in bringing glory to God in “the heavens.” And the result on earth would mean peace for mankind, specifically those upon whom his favor (grace) rests.

But this was not a promise of world-wide peace. In fact, Jesus would later tell his disciples, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34).

God has much bigger plans than a global truce.

Ever since the Garden, mankind has been estranged from God. And this estrangement spread to all our relationships. We found ourselves estranged from each other. Not only were we at war with each other, but we were also at war with nature itself.

Yet, God was prepared with a plan.

This plan rested in a feeding trough in an obscure village of an unimportant province of the Roman Empire—as a vulnerable baby. In this child resided all the hopes and dreams of mankind (and the Divine Community we call the Trinity).

God and man were reconciled in a single person. And in this person, God’s plan of redemption was fulfilled. And peace became a reality on earth.

But this peace came at a cost.

Only this child could pay the price. And pay he did, in full.

So why is there still conflict and war? Why do modern-day Scrooges exploit others for profit? Why do children become pawns in custody battles?

Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to experience this costly peace. It can only be known by repentance and surrender. We’re back to the choice whether to trust God with our happiness, with our future and with our hearts.

If we try to save our lives, we lose everything. Yet if we abandon ourselves to this Messiah, we receive life and hope and peace.

May you experience this peace that is beyond human understanding this Christmas season. And may you allow God to use you as a carrier to infect all those around you.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Limited Grace

In a previous post, I mentioned that we tend to reduce grace to a deposit in some cosmic bank account. We say that it is “God’s unmerited favor” and limit that favor to getting signed up for heaven.

The Bible has a much richer concept of grace.

In the following Scriptures, grace seems to refer to God’s power:

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Hebrews 4:16

It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them.
Hebrews 13:9

But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James 4:6–7

Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.
Acts 6:8

In these passages, grace seems to refer to spiritual gifts or special abilities that God gives people:

We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. Romans 12:6

But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.
Ephesians 4:7

Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. 1 Peter 4:10

We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.
Romans 12:6

Here grace appears to be a capacity that God provides which produces maturity in a follower of Christ:

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
2 Corinthians 9:8

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 3:18

You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
2 Timothy 2:1

In these two instances, grace seems to mean God’s care:

From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed.
Acts 14:26

Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.
Acts 15:39–40

In these passages, Paul addresses the role of God’s grace in his life:

For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
1 Corinthians 15:9–11

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for
my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
2 Corinthians 12:9

I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s
grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Ephesians 3:7–8

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.
Romans 12:3

I have written you quite boldly on some points, as if to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:15–16

The first two, seem to be using the term to refer to God’s power at work in his life. The other three seem to use it to refer to his office as an apostle.

If you are still thinking that grace refers only to the substitutionary atonement, this verse should resolve the issue:

And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.
Luke 2:40

Of course, the child is Jesus. God’s grace was upon him. And in this case, the favor was not “unmerited.” This suggests a richer meaning for John 1:14:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

May the love of God, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Spirit be with you this Christmas season.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Controlling Grace

I’ve noticed a rather disturbing behavior in parishioners while participating in the means of grace known as Communion, the Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper.

It is most obvious when they are partaking of the “wine.”

(Disclaimer: We use grape juice in little cups. I know that it has little continuity with Jesus passing around a cup of wine after the Passover meal, but there are other factors involved.)

Communion is supposed to be a means of grace. It is one of the “channels” through which God administers his “unmerited favor” to his people. It is well established that humility and surrender are necessary conditions for receiving grace.

But this is what I see: worshippers asserting control when they are receiving Communion.

It is a general attitude. But I have isolated two different behaviors that expose this attitude. One is refusing to take the little cup that is closest. It seems to be a deliberate assertion of self will.

In this situation, the tray has some cups already removed. And one cup is isolated making it easy to grasp. (I often rotate the tray to make these even more accessible.) I watch the person consciously reject the close cup and reach for one farther away.

The other situation could be described as “which one should I take.” In this case, the worshipper looks at the cups in the tray as if they were chocolates in a Whitman sampler. After a short deliberation, the communicant reaches for the prize with the compressed lips of satisfaction.

What made me aware of this was a jarring moment that occurred while I was distributing the bread. (We use a small loaf of regular bread which I break in two. I often carry a half loaf in each hand.) I extended one of the half loaves to a congregant who quite purposefully reached past it to tear off a piece from the other half.

It was after this that I started to notice the more subtle behaviors I described above.

So what do you think? Have you seen this at your church? What is your attitude when taking Communion? Do you think I have made too much of this behavior?

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Discipleship & Grace

I’ve heard people that I respect say that sanctification is by grace alone: “The Christian's personal holiness is as much a monergistic activity of the Holy Spirit as is his justification and conversion.”

(Monergistic is just a fancy way to say that it depends entirely upon God and that we play no part in the process.)

I understand the motivation and mindset behind such a statement. But it is not biblical.

Fortunately, J. I. Packer doesn’t let his theology get in the way of clear biblical teaching:

Regeneration was a momentary monergistic act of quickening the spiritually dead. As such, it was God’s work alone. Sanctification, however, is in one sense synergistic — it is an ongoing cooperative process in which regenerate persons, alive to God and freed from sin’s dominion (Rom. 6:11, 14-18), are required to exert themselves in sustained obedience. God’s method of sanctification is neither activism (self-reliant activity) nor apathy (God-reliant passivity), but God-dependent effort.

As Dallas Willard explains:

Currently we are not only saved by grace; we are paralyzed by it. We find it hard to see that grace is not opposed to effort, but is opposed to earning. Earning and effort are not the same thing. Earning is an attitude, and grace is definitely opposed to that. But it is not opposed to effort.
Dallas Willard, The Great Omission, p. 166

Here are a few statements from Scripture about the effort involved in becoming like Christ (emphasis added):

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation.
Philippians 2:12–15

For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.
1 Corinthians 15:9–10

We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.
Colossians 1:28–29

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
2 Peter 1:5–7

Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
1 Peter 1:13–16

So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.
2 Peter 3:14

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Colossians 3:5–10, 12

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.
1 Thessalonians 4:3–7

Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’
tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.
1 Timothy 4:7–8

But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.
1 Timothy 6:11

Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
2 Timothy 2:22

We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.
Hebrews 6:11–12

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
Hebrews 10:24

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Hebrews 12:1

Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
Hebrews 12:14

Make no mistake. The work of transformation in the Christian is done by the power of God. But this transformation does not occur without participation on our part.

Discipleship is “training for godliness.” It is a process much like physical training.

In today’s church we’ve reduced the gospel to a theory of atonement and reduced grace to forgiveness of sins. But the gospel is much more than that. And grace is not just some deposit in a cosmic bank account.

Jesus called us to be (and to make) disciples.

A disciple is a person who has decided that the most important thing in their life is to learn how to do what Jesus said to do. A disciple is not a person who has things under control, or knows a lot of things. Disciples simply are people who are constantly revising their affairs to carry through on their decision to follow Jesus.
Dallas Willard, “Rethinking Evangelism”

Discipleship “is not a matter of behaving in certain ways, but of being inwardly and thoroughly a different kind of person: having the character of Jesus Christ.”

Christian spiritual formation is a transformation of the “inner person” by the power of God through our exercise of spiritual disciplines and participation in the means of grace. It is God’s work. But it also requires effort on our part.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Willard on Discipleship

So what exactly is discipleship?

For an answer to that question I’ve turned to who I believe is the number one expert on Christian discipleship, Dallas Willard.

Discipleship belongs to the category of spiritual formation. This is a popular topic in today’s world. (A search on Google returns 1.5 million hits.) There is Buddhist spiritual formation. There is generic spiritual formation. Some think that spiritual formation is a Trojan horse for heresy.

The truth is that everyone is a product of spiritual formation, even atheists. The only question is what kind of a person each is being formed into.

Unfortunately, most North American Christians are not intentional about their spiritual formation. Their spirits are unconsciously shaped by Woody Allen movies, by The Oprah Winfrey Show, by The Simpsons, by U2, by Dr. Phil, by Rick Warren, by Dan Brown, and by Bill O’Reilly.

Instead of this haphazard spiritual formation, followers of Jesus are called to an intentional process of Christian spiritual formation (2 Peter 1:5–7).

In Living A Transformed Life Adequate To Our Calling, Dallas Willard explains:

Spiritual formation for the Christian is a Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self—our “spiritual” side—in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.

Christian spiritual formation “is not a matter of behaving in certain ways, but of being inwardly and thoroughly a different kind of person: having the character of Jesus Christ.”

But that inner transformation will result in observable differences in behavior:

Discipleship focuses on the inner self, which consists of our ideas, beliefs, and emotions. Character grows out of our inner lives, and it governs what we think and feel. As our character is transformed, our behavior is transformed as well.
Dallas Willard, “Apprentice to the Master,” Discipleship Journal, #107

It is widely accepted that Christians behave in ways that are virtually indistinguishable from nonbelievers. Why is this the case?

The modern church has changed what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Being a Christian has come to mean going to church and being saved when you die. The ministry of the church is given over to “making the final cut” and solving problems (marital problems, witnessing problems, apologetics, pain and suffering), not to discipleship.
Dallas Willard, “Apprentice to the Master,” Discipleship Journal, #107

In this article, Willard explains:

[Christians] believe there is a God and they need to check in with him. But they don't have any sense that he is an active agent in their lives. As a result, they don't become disciples of Jesus. They consume his merits and the services of the church. … Discipleship is no essential part of Christianity today…. We don't preach life in the kingdom of God through faith in Jesus as an existential reality that leads to discipleship and then character transformation…. When you don't have character transformation in a large number of your people, then when something happens, everything flies apart and you have people acting in the most ungodly ways imaginable.

Christians generally do not exhibit that character of Jesus. And the reason they don’t is that they don’t intend to. They don’t think that the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount are livable in the real world. They believe that “turning the other cheek” and blessing “those who persecute you” are idealistic moral sentiments rather than commands.

Of course, there are other issues involved such as a misunderstanding of the nature of grace and very real concerns about legalism. Then there is the question of whether it is even possible for us to develop the character of Jesus.

I’ll address these issues in subsequent posts.

Pastor Rod

“Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be”

Missional Discipleship

In my previous post, I mentioned that many people see community and mission as competing values. The truth is, however, that true community grows out of mission.

Most church leaders are also convinced that evangelism and discipleship pull the church in different directions. They say that we must manage a “balance between evangelism and discipleship.” But they warn us, “Finding and keeping God’s Biblical balance between in-house discipleship and outreach evangelism is always difficult.”

Many believe that evangelism is more important than discipleship. Their philosophy is to get as many people “into heaven” as possible.

John R. Rice is an extreme example. In his book, I Am a Fundamentalist, reviewed here, he calls Biblical churches “great soul-winning centers.” He criticizes formal worship services and small churches. Rice says, “It is not a sin for a church to start small. It is a sin for a church to stay small.” He asks, “Who is greatest in the sight of the Lord? Evidently the man who wins more souls.”

A Southern Baptist Convention official sent out a letter (quoted here) with this paragraph:

Numbers are important because they represent souls lost and headed for Hell that are now headed for Heaven. It is time that we get serious about baptizing as many as we can these next two weeks to close out the 2005-2006 year.

There are many pastors and leaders who think the very same way. They just don’t have the courage to say so.

There are others who believe that discipleship is important. But they think a few reminders from time to time will encourage people to “follow Christ.” Or they see discipleship as “part two.” First we have to figure out how to get them saved. Then we’ll figure out how to disciple them.

Some believe that discipleship is more important than evangelism. They believe that healthy Christians will naturally share their faith and bring others into the kingdom. They say, “Disciples naturally share their faith. They do relational evangelism on their own. They bring new believers into the church.”

But the problem is that the longer most people are Christians, the less contact they have with non-Christians. The more mature believers become, the less likely it is that they will find themselves in situations to “naturally share their faith.” And the more cloistered they are, the less they are able even to speak the same language as “the world.”

The sad reality is that most efforts at discipleship do not result in people “naturally sharing their faith.”

Here’s something most people haven’t thought about: The early church did not have an evangelism program.

They didn’t have a visitation night. They didn’t pass out tracts. They didn’t memorize a “plan of salvation.” They didn’t set goals for baptisms. They didn’t go door to door.

Yet “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Evangelism was not some activity they did from time to time. It was something that “just happened.” Notice in Acts 2:42–47 the things that the believers did:

• They listened to the apostles’ teaching.
• They “fellowshipped.”
• They “broke bread.”
• They prayed.
• They “lived” together.
• They shared their possessions.
• They gave to the needy.
• They met daily in the temple courts.
• They ate together.

You don’t read that they “shared their faith.” In fact, there is no mention of the things we think of when we hear the word evangelism.

Yet, at the end of this list Luke records that “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Unfortunately, the word evangelism has lost its value for us today. I would suggest that mission is a better word.

Some people just see mission as a more sophisticated word for evangelism. In this article, the Director for Education and Evangelism in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America said, “It is a balance between mission and formation.” He has simply adopted new words for evangelism and discipleship. He equates mission with evangelism and formation with discipleship.

The associate director (apparently his wife) says, “Within each congregation are two distinct but intersecting spheres of activity: evangelism and education.”

Mission is not just a more sophisticated word for evangelism or “outreach.” It’s an entirely different mindset.

We must replace “evangelism” with mission.

One reason churches need to have evangelism programs is because they have completely missed the purpose of the church. They have lost touch with its mission.

But what about discipleship?

Some people don’t see the need for discipleship. They say, “Teach me what the Bible says about church, and get out of my way. My friends and family will wrestle with the cultural implications. Teach me what you understand to be God's directive concerning leadership, worship, gifts, and service; leave it to us and the Spirit to work out the practice.”

Some resist efforts to do discipleship because they are afraid that it will result in legalism or moralism. Discipleship is about behavior, but it is not about legalism, moralism or even religion. Discipleship is about internal changes that are visible in behavioral changes.

Some think they are doing discipleship, because they believe it is nothing more than education or instruction. To them, discipleship is teaching people theology and doctrine. It is explaining the Trinity, the human-divine nature of Jesus Christ and the particular interpretation of eschatology to which their church subscribes.

But discipleship is much more than that. Dallas Willard insists that the proper way to think about discipleship is as Christian spiritual formation.

And this formation must become our highest priority: “If we do not make formation in Christ the priority, then we’re just going to keep on producing Christians that are indistinguishable in their character from many non-Christians.”

True discipleship includes the practice of missional living. And missional living is what Luke is describing in Acts 2:42–47. Missional living results in the expansion of the Kingdom.

Missional living is one of the factors that the Holy Spirit uses to draw people into the Kingdom. Luke says, “Everyone was filled with awe.” It is tempting to think that this was a result of the signs and wonders done through the apostles. But the Greek suggests that the people were filled with awe because of how the Christians lived.

True discipleship is missional discipleship. And missional discipleship attracts people to the Kingdom. “Evangelism” and discipleship might be at odds. But missional discipleship inexorably leads to the expansion of the Kingdom.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Community or Communitas?

There is a lot of talk in the church about community. But there seems to be too little experience of true community.

Anthropologist Victor Turner suggests that we should think about this somewhat differently. He offers the concept of communitas instead of community. According to Turner, communitas grows out of liminality.

Liminality is a state of ambiguity, openness, and uncertainty. This transition state opens the possibility for new ways of thinking, feeling and acting. Differences between participants also become less important.

Out of this liminal environment grows communitas, a new social structure that is based on equality and common experience.

Michael Frost discusses this in his book, Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture.

Men [the disciples] who otherwise would have nothing to do with each other are thrown together by their shared devotion to Jesus, and as they journey together, they develop a depth of relationship that literally turned the world upside down.
Michael Frost, Exiles, pp. 113–114

When the church focuses on mission, communitas naturally develops. But when the church tries to create “community,” it often goes bad.

Those who love community destroy it, but those who love people build community.
Michael Frost, Exiles, p. 108

The hunger for community is a legitimate one, but to pursue it for its own sake is the mistake. When we seek to build community without the experience of liminality, all we end up with is pseudo-community that pervades many churches.
Michael Frost, Exiles, p. 121

Many Christians have the sense that the church must balance an outward focus with an inward focus. In other words, they see mission as competing with community. The reality is that a commitment to mission is the soil out of which community grows.

The idea of worshipping with fellow believers and then bidding them farewell for the week in the parking lot—“See you next Sunday”—is the very antithesis of the experience of the earliest Christians.
Michael Frost, Exiles, p. 288

Community has an inward focus.
Communitas creates a feeling of belonging because the group has the common experience of being outside society.

Community focuses on encouraging each other.
Communitas focuses on the mission.

Community tries to create a “safe place.”
Communitas seeks to transform society making it more just and good.

Community is something to be created.
Communitas is a serendipity that happens in a state of liminality.

Community requires homogeneous groups.
Communitas cuts across all sorts of cultural, ethnic and ideological boundaries.

Communitas is most familiar in the form of battlefield camaraderie. It is what Henry V describes in Shakespeare’s play:

And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Henry V, iii

Communitas is what allowed a tax collector and a zealot to treat each other as brothers as members of Jesus’ inner circle.

Frost quotes from a soon to be published book by Alan Hirsch:

Communitas in the way I want to define it is a community infused with a grand sense of purpose; a purpose that lies outside of its current internal reality and constitution. It’s the kind of community that “happens” to people in actual pursuit of a common vision of what could be. It involves movement and it describes the experience of togetherness that only really happens among a group of people actually engaging in a mission outside itself.

Instead of liminal communities, most churches are private clubs designed for the comfort of their members, members who like to discuss religion in their spare time.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Say a Prayer

I just read this sad note over at The Hungarian Luddite:

Thank you to all who have read my website and blog over the years. I am sorry I can no longer keep this up. The physical problems I face are such that I can no longer even type. It's been fun.
The Hungarian Luddite

Say a prayer for this man with a big heart and a broken body. We’ll miss you, my friend.

Rod

Pop Culture

I was doing some research for a post I’m writing about Christianity and culture when I discovered this article by Douglas Wilson. It deserves a post of its own.

Wilson bases his discussion of pop culture on the framework supplied by Ken Myers of

• high culture,
• folk culture and
• pop culture.

High culture and folk culture transmit “permanent things” from place to place and time to time. Pop culture, in contrast, focuses on the temporary. Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame.

Rebellion against God can be expressed in each of these forms of culture. But pop culture presents the greatest threat to the average person.

High culture can express rebellion against God at a high level, but it is not the greatest threat to us, because when the avant-garde goes stupid virtually no one else pays any serious attention.

Rebellious high culture only presents a problem to really smart intellectualoids—the only ones in the world actually vulnerable to the really stupid idea, as modern architecture shows us.

Pop culture, however, it more closely connected to the desires and aspirations of the average person. For this reason, it is much more dangerous.

Wilson lists three principles:

1. Pop culture is not sinful in itself just because it is pop culture.
2. When sin is expressed in pop culture, the fault lies in the human heart not in the particular medium in which it is expressed.
3. All human actions have a moral component and a direction.

This third point requires some explanation. An action is either right or wrong. This is the moral component. But there is another factor that must be taken into account. Each action moves us toward greater or lesser maturity. Wilson argues that “cultural issues are always maturity issues.”

Often we ask, “Is this wrong?” If the answer is that it is not wrong, then we conclude that it is OK. But just because something is not morally wrong doesn’t mean that it is good. There must be a second question, “Does this lead to maturity?” I would ask the question like this: “Does this lead me toward becoming the person God created me to be?”

To this point Wilson and I are on the same page.

Then he gives an example of a young man with purple hair. He says that the issue is not the color of the hair but what the purple hair means. He asserts that purple hair means rebellion.

I would argue that purple hair often means rebellion but it can also mean something else entirely. It could mean “I don’t buy in to the cultural definition of beauty.” It might mean “I am one of you.” Or perhaps it could mean “I am a walking object lesson that obedience to God does not equal conformity with society.”

Wilson says, “A constant diet of pop culture is only legitimate if you don’t want to grow up.” Then he adds, “Pop culture represents a full-scale revolt against cultural maturity.”

He starts off with several insightful observations. But then he twists them to justify a traditionalist position that discounts all pop culture as worthless.

Pop culture, as a category, means things that are transitory. But the things that are now folk culture and high culture were once pop culture. Some of the things that are currently pop culture will eventually be promoted to folk culture and even high culture.

He says, “This critique is aimed at the direction of the whole enterprise.” Then he argues that the rock culture is “in high rebellion against the God of heaven.” Even if individual songs might have redeemable qualities, the overall meaning of rock music is antithetical to Christianity. Therefore, in his opinion, the whole enterprise should be avoided.

He maintains that there is nothing in pop culture that will be handed down to future generations.

High culture, he argues, places demands upon the consumer. It takes more “effort” to listen to Bach than the Beetles. He says, “More than one rock guitarist is an impressive virtuoso, but the fingerboard display makes no demands on the hearer, other than a willingness to be blown over. The listener to classical music is impressively engaged; the devotee of such rock music is left, with a ringing in his ears, right where he started.”

I suspect that Wilson has never learned to play the guitar.

Just because a guitar solo only sounds like so much noise to him does not mean that listeners cannot be engaged at a level similar to hearing Bach’s “Minuet in D minor.”

Wilson argues that the ultimate sin of pop culture is that it displaces true culture by catering to the undisciplined. “In a biblical culture, a man expects his great-grandchildren to read what he has read, sing what he has sung, listen to what he has listened to. In an evanescent culture, like the one that surrounds us, a man expects to have all his ‘cultural’ experiences buried with him.”

I suspect that there were people making the same arguments about opera in the 18th and 19th centuries. I’m sure that at the premier of Roméo et Juliette in Paris on April 27th, 1867, someone was saying, “Why do we need a pop culture treatment of this classic by Shakespeare? In 150 years, no one will remember Gounod’s vapid tunes. The masses are seduced by this nonce art form called opera.”

As R. Wesley Hurd points out, “It is a difficult to see through one's own cultural habits and preferences; it is difficult to admit that one's own cultural comfort zone is irrelevant to the gospel's universal truth.”

He reminds us, “As believers, we must understand the gospel well enough to dis-enculturate it from our own religious culture in order to be able to offer it with clarity to our generation.”

Wilson seems to think that there is a “Christian culture” that encourages spiritual maturity and that is friendly to the gospel.

But, as Hurd points out, “We are often not aware of the ideas and beliefs that lie hidden from us under the cover of our own Christian culture.”

Leslie Pollard from Loma Linda University makes a powerful statement: “Those who in light of the Bible cannot articulate a biblical critique of their culture of origin’s cherished and transmitted values are not qualified to objectively evaluate another culture.”

In other words, if you cannot see how your own culture stands against the truth of the gospel, you have no business telling other cultures that they are unbiblical.

Pollard says, “Almost without exception, culturally incompetent persons assume that their culture of origin is superior to the culture under their microscope. Once the subject of culture is raised, many well-meaning believers immediately move to condemn what they view as culturally unacceptable in someone else’s cultural group.”

(Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek explains in this lecture how even the design of toilets reflects deep cultural assumptions.)

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Christendom Shift

We generally are unaware of our own culture as culture. It’s not that we are not conscious of our cultural norms. It’s just that we usually see them as elements of something else, such as common courtesy, moral behavior, or even the truth.

Culture generally changes with time and place. If I travel to Europe, I quickly can tell that I am in a different culture. When we watch a period movie, we consciously experience a culture from the past.

But there is a particular culture that has been so widespread and longstanding that it is often hard to see.

When Constantine legitimized Christianity in a.d. 313, culture began to be transformed into what has come to be known as Christendom. Alan Kreider writes in the April 2005 issue of International Bulletin of Missionary Research that this shift involved eight factors:

1. Christianity moved from the margins of society to its center.
2. Christianity originally attracted new people by its appealing community and spiritual power; after the shift, the attraction was access to prestige and power.
3. Christianity moved from a reliance on spiritual power to a reliance on human power.
4. The Christendom shift changed Christianity from a voluntary movement to a compulsory institution.
5. After the shift Christianity became at home in society so that it no longer was able to make a distinctive contribution to society.
6. The role of Jesus shifted from the Good Shepherd, who was the teacher for all Christians, to the exalted Lord, whose teaching applied only to elite Christians.
7. Worship changed from a humble gathering for the believers to grand assemblies intended to evangelize outsiders.
8. The focus of the church changed from mission to maintenance.

While some bemoan the passing of Christendom, others see it as a blessing.

Living at the end of Christendom, we have been given the opportunity to distinguish between Christianity and a particular cultural expression known as Christendom.

If we are serious about being missional (that is serious about following Christ and taking his words seriously), then we must become experts in culture. We must understand our own culture and the culture of those around us.

This skill is not just for the elite.

Pastor Rod

“Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be”

Jesus-Keller-Pink-Christensen Mashup

Some would argue that the truth of Scripture must remain pure, unadulterated by the taint of culture. Others would remind us that the truth of Scripture can only be understood and expressed in the context of some specific culture.

When people fight for the “pure gospel,” they are always fighting for an expression of the gospel in a culture that they “feel at home” in.

The question is not whether to comprehend the gospel in cultural terms. The question is whether we do this intelligently or unwittingly. If we are not aware of this process, we tend to selectively adapt culture and the gospel to each other, keeping the parts that we find most comforting and comfortable.

When the gospel is expressed appropriately in a particular cultural context, it speaks both prophetically and reassuringly.

When this is done badly, the result resembles neither the gospel nor the culture.

Inasmuch as all truth is God’s truth, I would like to pull together elements of truth expressed in several different contexts. So I suggest the following mashup of Jesus, Tim Keller, Daniel Pink & Clayton Christensen.

(A mashup is a song, video or web application that combines information from several sources and fashions it into a new article with added value.)

Some time ago I did a post about a book by Daniel Pink called A Whole New Mind.

Pink says that nowadays people are looking for

• Design as well as function
• Story as well as argument
• Synthesis as well as focus
• Empathy as well as logic
• Play as well as seriousness
• Meaning more than material accumulation

I also mentioned that Tim Keller identifies these characteristics of a missional church:

• They use vernacular language.
• They engage the culture and re-tell the culture’s stories in the context of the gospel.
• They train their people theologically for public life and vocation.
• They create a Christian culture that is both counter-cultural and counter-intuitive. (It cannot be neatly categorized as “liberal” or “conservative.”)
• They practice Christian unity as much as possible in the community.

My previous post about the three books written by Clayton Christensen included the following ideas:

• Look for people who are trying to solve the problem for which you have the solution.
• Strategy evolves. The first version of the strategy is rarely effective.
• Success kills off innovation.
• Focus on the “low end.”
• Keep things simple.

With this background, let’s look at some of Jesus’ statements and actions as they illustrate some of the same ideas.

Jesus used stories

Matthew 13:34 says, “Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable.”

Jesus was a storyteller. Narrative was at the center of Hebrew life. The very identity of the Israelites was rooted in the account of Abraham, Moses and David. Yet today, Christianity is often thought of as a system of doctrine and regulations.

People are searching for compelling stories. In 2004, Americans spent more than 33 billion on movie tickets and home movie rentals.

And so the church gives them Seven Steps to Live at Your Full Potential and Nine Secrets of Healthy Relationships.

Jesus provided a solution to those who knew they had a problem

Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).

The religious establishment was expecting the Messiah to come with all the trappings of power and piety. But Jesus did not fulfill the cultural expectations of the insiders. He did not look for followers among the religious establishment. He sought out those who were at the margins of society, people who were not good enough, rich enough or connected enough to participate in the current system.

When Jesus encountered the lame man at the pool of Bethesda, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6). The man answered, “I have no one to help me into the pool.”

The man thought he had a getting-into-the-pool-first problem. He was trying to solve that problem. Jesus provided a solution to his real problem. Notice the difference between the approach of Jesus and a market-driven approach.

Yet he doesn’t try to convince the satisfied to accept his solution.

In John 9, he encounters another man who is trying to solve his unable-to-work problem by begging. Jesus restores his sight even though his condition was congenital, once again solving the underlying the problem.

The Pharisees denied that they had an unable-to-see problem. Jesus replied that in that case he was could not help them.

Jesus emphasized meaning over material possessions

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

Then he tells his listeners not to worry about food, drink or clothes. He calls them to focus on the Kingdom instead.

Jesus enjoyed life

Jesus was accused of too much partying (Luke 7:34). His first miracle was providing wine for a wedding celebration. Jesus told Martha to relax and enjoy his company (Luke 10:40­–42).

Jesus simplified God’s expectations

The religious establishment had erected an elaborate system that required experts to understand and keep the Law. The people were told that they could not please God without the assistance of these experts.

On one occasion, one of these experts tried to trap Jesus while asserting his own superiority in handling the Law (Matthew 22). Jesus cut through the conundrum with two simple commands: Love God and love your neighbor.

I’m sure we could find other examples of how Jesus embodied more of these concepts. If you can think of any, feel free to add them in the comments.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Christensen & Innovation

There are many who think that all innovation in Christianity is essentially heresy. They are like the proverbial man who gets married hoping that his wife will not change.

I am of the opinion, however, that innovation is not only a good thing, but it is inevitable. What appears to be “holding the line” is innovation in disguise.

I don’t want to take the time or the space to make a detailed argument. Besides, it would all be a waste of effort. Those who are opposed to all innovation will not be persuaded by anything I might say.

So I will address those who see innovation as good and even inevitable.

Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School, has written several books on innovation in business, The Innovator’s Dilemma, The Innovator's Solution & Seeing What’s Next. These are primarily focused on why some new products were successful and why others were not.

While I have been quite vocal that the church should not be operated like a business, I do believe that we can use insights from all fields of learning within the church.

All truth is God’s truth, after all.

Christensen is not concerned with the process of coming up with ideas. He wants to know how to develop ideas into successful products or services.

Template for shaping disruptive ideas:
Target nonconsumption. Look for a set of consumers who are trying to get a job done, but because they lack the money or skill, a simple, inexpensive solution has been beyond reach.

Leverage the low performance hurdle. Since these new customers compare the disruptive product to having nothing at all, they are delighted to buy it even though it may not be as good as other products available.

Make it “foolproof.” Deploy technology not to make the product more sophisticated, but rather to make it as “foolproof” as possible so that customers with less money and little training on the product can begin using it.

Lock in and take over. As a new value network forms around the new consumer market, certain channel partners will come to depend on your product to fuel their own need for disruptive growth. In addition, consumers will begin to use the product in new venues. Over time, the disruptive product will improve in quality, attract more customers, and take over the leadership position in that category.

Here are a few other quotations from his books:

“When searching for ideas with disruptive potential, look for ways to help customers get done more conveniently and inexpensively what they are already trying to do. Don’t invent new problems for customers to solve—they won’t reprioritize what’s important in their lives just because your product is available.”

“The resources, processes, and values that allow your core business to thrive may well prevent great new ideas from succeeding.”

“Don’t assume that your initial strategy is the 'right' strategy for a potential disruption.”

“Be impatient for profits, but patient for growth. Demanding early profitability will save years of losses that come from pursuing the wrong strategy for a long time—and help your team hit upon a truly viable strategy more quickly.”

Those of you with a missional mindset will see applications right away. In fact, there are so many different ways to use these findings in pursuit of a missional agenda that I cannot even begin to list them all. Let me make just a few observations.

“Target nonconsumption.” Too many churches are trying to compete with other churches. They are trying to produce better and more diverse programs. In this situation the mega churches will always “win.” But our real competition is not other churches but the activities that people do instead of “church.” (I know this is over simplified. But those of you who "get it" understand my point. I don't have the space to explain it precisely to those who don't.)

“Don’t invent new problems for customers to solve.” People are already trying to get “jobs” done. The strategy for the church is to show people that Jesus is the solution for “problems” they are already trying to solve. Traditionally, churches have tried to convince people that they needed “church.” Most people do not think that they have a “lack of church” problem.

“Leverage the low performance hurdle.” If we truly target nonconsumption, then people will be comparing our “product” to nothing at all. The typical seeker-church strategy is to try to convince people that we are “just as good.” But what if the church becomes the channel through which people receive something they were unable to get before? What if the church becomes the agent through which God transforms their lives?

“Make it foolproof.” This has an obvious application to church planting. Neil Cole advocates planting churches with as little structural, financial and leadership overhead as possible. Most attempts to start new churches require enormous investments of money and other resources. But that doesn’t seem to be the strategy that was used in the early church.

“Lock in and take over.” This is essentially what the early church did. It was very much a new market disruption. It was composed of the marginalized and ostracized. These people often became respectable. Then church became legalized in the Roman Empire. And before long we have Christendom. Now “the church” is the establishment.

Success kills off innovation. The very things that make an established church attractive to its members will prevent it from taking the risks that a start-up church is forced to take.

Strategy evolves. One of the important findings of Christensen’s research is that new businesses almost never get their strategy right in the beginning. But because they don’t have unlimited resources, the successful innovators are forced to test and refine their strategy. In the church we often confuse theology and methodology. Because our message is timeless, we assume that our methods will be as well.

“Be impatient for profits, but patient for growth.” This again applies to church planting. Most strategies try to build a big church right away. Instead we should seek to quickly establish a vital, self-sustaining church. Because the investment is low, we can afford to make more attempts. Because the resources are limited, the church planting team is forced to test all their assumptions quickly.

Christensen points out that established companies try to force innovations into their existing markets. In other words, they try to fashion the new idea to make it attractive to their existing customers. Ditto for the church. Pastors are pressured to “serve” their existing members. New ideas are evaluated on how well they will meet the needs of current members.

I hope that your brain is starting to spin with the implications of these ideas. I don’t have the luxury of spelling them all out in detail. I suspect it would require a full-length book to pull that off.

Maybe we can develop this further in the comments. Let me know what you think.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Update: Comparison of some of these ideas with the words and actions of Jesus.

Don’t Try This at Home

I have been trying to develop a missional mindset and, more importantly, a missional lifestyle. I’m trying to lead my church into a missional approach to ministry.

As I mentioned previously, this is a huge gamble. And it should be.

I maintain that following Christ should feel like a gamble. If it doesn’t feel like a gamble then we’re probably not really following him. We are probably just trying to get him to bless us as we pursue our own way.

It is important, however, that people in a congregation know what they are getting themselves in for when they become “missional.”

David Fitch, author of The Great Giveaway, has compiled a list of warnings about the cost of doing missional ministry. I have included it here along with some of my comments (and a few minor edits):

Ten Things Anyone Who Joins In a Twenty First Century Missional Church Plant Should Not Expect

David participated in starting a missional congregation “from scratch.” These are his observances from what he experienced. I suspect, however, that any congregation that seeks to operate missionally will have similar experiences.

1.) Should not expect to regularly come to church for just one hour, get what you need for your own personal growth and development, and your kid’s needs, and then leave till next Sunday. Expect mission to change your life. Expect however a richer life than you could have ever imagined.

Missional life is demanding but also deeply fulfilling.

2.) Should not expect that Jesus will fit in with every consumerist capitalist assumption, lifestyle, schedule or accoutrement you may have adopted before coming here. Expect to be freed from a lot of crap you will find out you never needed.

Some times we will feel like the rich young ruler who was told to sell all his possessions.

3.) Should not expect to be anonymous, unknown or be able to disappear in this church Body. Expect to be known and loved, supported in a glorious journey.

4.) Should not expect production style excellence all the time on Sunday worship gatherings. Expect organic, simple and authentic beauty.

Some times the “commitment to excellence” gets in the way of true excellence.

5.) Should not expect a raucous “lights out” youth program that entertains the teenagers, puts on a show that gets the kids “pumped up,” all without parental involvement. Instead as the years go by, with our children as part of our life, worship and mission (and when the light shows dim and the cool youth pastor with the spiked hair burns out) expect our youth to have an authentic relationship with God thru Christ that carries them through a lifetime of journey with God.

This seems like a landmine to me. Parents really need to think this through.

6.) Should not expect to always “feel good,” or ecstatic on Sunday mornings. Expect that there will ALSO be times of confession, lament, self-examination and just plain silence.

7.) Should not expect a lot of sermons that promise you God will prosper you with “the life you’ve always wanted” if you’ll just believe Him and step out on faith and give some more money for a bigger sanctuary. Expect sustenance for the journey.

8.) Should not expect rapid growth whereby we grow this church from 10 to a thousand in three years. Expect slower organic inefficient growth that engages people’s lives where they are at and sees troubled people who would have nothing to do with the gospel marvelously saved.

9.) Should not expect all the meetings to happen in a church building. Expect a lot of the gatherings will be in homes, or sites of mission.

10.) Should not expect arguments over style of music, color of carpet, or even doctrinal outlier issues like dispensationalism. Expect mission to drive the conversation.

This doesn’t mean that there will be no arguments or disagreements.

O AND BY THE WAY Should not expect that community comes to you. I am sorry but true community in Christ will take some “effort” and a reshuffling of priorities for both you and your kids. Yes I know you want people to come to you and reach out to you and that you’re hurting and busy. But assuming you are a follower of Christ (this message is not for strangers to the gospel) you must learn that the answer to all those things is to enter into the practices of “being the Body” in Christ, including sitting, eating, sharing and praying together.

Jesus said that potential disciples should count the cost of following him. (Do most of us experience any “cost” of following Jesus?) Those who seek to live missionally need to take a similar inventory.

As for me, I’m all in.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Missional Gamble

Texas Hold-’em has grown in popularity over the past few years. Most people today know what the phrase, “All in,” means. I have to admit that I’m intrigued by the game. The mathematical aspect reinvigorates a part of my brain that got a lot of use in high school but little since. I am also drawn in by the psychological aspect.

Fortunately, I never play this game for money, or I’d probably be addicted. When I play with pretend money online, I can usually guess what cards the other players have. I can usually build my virtual chip stack without much difficulty. But sometimes aggressive players force me to make calculated gambles.

I am forced all-in with cards that most of the time will result in a winning hand. When I’m all-in and the cards don’t fall right, my play money is wiped out. But when the cards do fall or when I guess correctly that my opponent is bluffing, I feel a rush as the virtual chips pile up.

I can see how people get addicted to this stuff.

I think most of us would like to find something that we could go all-in over. That’s essentially what Jesus said was required to be his disciple. He said, “If you want to be my apprentice, you must go all-in. You must give up all your potential plan-Bs and follow me wherever I take you” (Luke 9:23, Pickett Loose Paraphrase Version).

But we’ve reduced following Christ to entering into a contract for an eternal retirement plan and showing up at club meetings once a week.

It’s time we went all-in for Jesus and for his kingdom.

Faith, in biblical perspective, is not the acceptance of conventional standards of behavior, and it is not primarily an effort to safe our own puny souls: it is the exciting venture of faith in which we bet that God really is, that this is his world, and that he is like Jesus Christ.
Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come.

Following Christ should be scary, risky and exciting. We should be pouring all we have into his kingdom. We should be looking for new opportunities and ways to participate in the work that God is doing in this world.

Every church should have a Research and Development department; that is, a forum for dreaming, where nothing is impossible and no thought too outrageous. And every authentic missional church will experiment like mad in order to find new and accessible ways of being the people of God.
Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come.

Now that’s something to get excited about.

What if we turned our churches into “skunk works”? What if our church buildings resembled the offices of an advertising agency more than a museum? What if we acted as if we really believed that God is all-powerful and everywhere-present? What if we took Jesus’ words seriously? What if we took Jesus seriously?

Let’s pray the prayer of the early Christians: “Sovereign Lord, you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. . . . Now, Lord, … enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:24, 29–30).

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Two Restaurants

Imagine that you are a patron of a restaurant where you get poor service and inferior food. Frequently, the waitress ignores you and procrastinates in taking your order. She is rarely friendly. And you often get food that you didn’t order.

While the food is always edible, it often looks as if it’s just been thrown on the plate. The chef has a tendency to overcook everything. He couldn’t prepare al dente pasta to save his life.

And the prices are higher than anywhere else in town.

How long do you think you would continue to eat at this restaurant?

Before long you’d start asking your friends where they eat. You’d ask them how the food is there. You’d enquire about the quality of the service. You’d compare prices with “your” restaurant.

You might even shop around and try different places. But you would be foolish to stay at a restaurant that wasn’t satisfying when there were several good alternatives.

Imagine a different scenario.
You’ve been eating at a particular establishment for several years. This place doesn’t even have a menu. You rarely get any input into what is served. What’s more, you are expected to eat whatever is served, whether you like it or not.

And the service is poor. When you need something that doesn’t happen to be on the table, you have to go into the kitchen and get it yourself. You are required to bus your own table.

So one day you tell the waitress, “It’s nothing personal, but I’m looking for a different place to eat. I know you’ve tried your best. But, Mom, I just don’t feel that I’m getting the nourishment that I need. Tommy says that his mother makes an outstanding meatloaf. I owe it to myself to try it out.”

So why don’t we shop around for different families? Because a family is more than a dispenser of domestic goods and services. We belong to families. We don’t enter into service contracts with our parents.

Of course in extreme cases, some do have to leave their families. When there is neglect or abuse, this becomes necessary. But this is the exception.

Churches are more like families than they are like restaurants.

Imagine having this conversation with your father:

“Dad, I know you are a good parent. But I’ve found a better deal down at the Johnson family. They don’t require any chores. And their curfew is not until 1:00 a.m. I really appreciate all the things you’ve done for me, especially the time you stayed in the hospital with me when I had that terrible fever. But it’s time for me to move on. I have to think about what’s best for me. I hope that I’ll be able to stop in from time to time. I really wish the best for you and Mom. I’ll be back later to pick up my stuff.”

Yet parishioners have this conversation with their pastors all the time.

We’ve turned the church into a dispenser of religious goods and services. We evaluate churches by what they can do for us and for our families. We look at the programs and services they offer, and we weigh that against what they require of us. Then we enter a loose contract with the winner, binding only until we find a better deal.

We think that the purpose of a church “worship service” is to meet the private, individual spiritual needs of the members of the “club.” We pay performers to entertain us and make us feel better. We hire a leader to listen to God for us and to tell us what God’s wonderful plan is for our “club.” We make our own special rules for membership so that our “club” can maintain its “distinctives.”

If the church is going to be the church, then the leaders and the “members” need to stop thinking about it as a dispenser of religious goods and services. We need to start thinking of it as the Body of Christ, the family of God, the Kingdom of God.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Missional Leadership III

So far I’ve focused on what missional leadership is not. Let’s consider what it does look like.

Missional leaders lead from earned authority. The words “because I’m a pastor” should never be used to solicit compliance from church people. True authority is always earned.

If the words that come from one’s mouth are full of God’s wisdom and insight, people notice and follow, regardless of the speaker’s position, title or diploma.
Neil Cole, Organic Church

Missional leaders lead by serving. The primary way we earn authority is by serving. Jesus called us to serve one another. He said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all (Mark 10:42–44).

Our theology says that we should lead from below, but all our models say we should look and act successful.
Alan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader

Missional leaders are more like shepherds than CEOs. Missional leaders are true leaders, but they lead a community. And this community must be engaged in the work of the Kingdom as it senses God’s calling and identifies the ways in which God is already working.

An important role of a missional leader is cultivating an environment within which God’s people discern God’s directions and activities in them and for the communities in which they find themselves.
Alan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader

Rather than the leader having plans and strategies
that the congregation will affirm and follow, cultivation describes the leader as the one who works the soil of the congregation so as to invite and constitute the environment for the people of God to discern what the Spirit is doing in, with, and among them as a community.
Alan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader

Missional leaders are driven by theology rather than pragmatism. There is an idea that pastors don’t have the luxury of doing serious study. That is to be left for those living in ivory towers. In the real world we just need to get busy and find out what works. But pragmatism leads to theological error. Pragmatism leads to moral failure. Pragmatism leads to a human agenda.

More than ever, pastors need to be theologians.

Their beginning point is grounded in a theological understanding and conviction of what the church should be and do. It is not simply about building a reputation, a ministry, a following, or a great church, but it is about a deep conviction that is grounded in the Word of God.
Ed Stetzer & David Putman, Breaking the Missional Code

The work of theological reflection in a profoundly changing culture must be reintroduced into the daily practices of pastoral life.
Alan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader

The Christian leaders of the future have to be theologians, persons who know the heart of God.
Henri J. M. Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership

Missional leaders prepare for the future rather than plan for the future. The future is uncertain. We cannot predict it with any certainty. We need to be prepared for the future. But we cannot force the future to take the shape we think it should take.

The better (and biblical) approach to the future involves prayer and preparation, not prediction and planning.
Reggie McNeal, The Present Future

[A leader must be able to] thrive in the midst of ambiguity and discontinuity.
Alan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader

We are in a period that makes it impossible to have much clarity about the future and how it is going to be shaped. Therefore those leaders who believe they can address the kind of change we are facing by simply defining a future that people want, and then setting plans to achieve it, are not innovating a missional congregation. They are only finding new ways of preventing a congregation from facing the discontinuous change it confronts.
Alan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader

Missional leaders take the long view. One of the problems with American business is that its leaders often live for today. They try to make the quarterly numbers look as good as possible. In doing so, they often sellout the long-term prospects.

This is no different in the church. Pastors are encouraged to find quick answers. They feel pressure to submit good statistics. This year needs to have better numbers than last year.

But missional leaders buck the trend. They make their decisions with a view to the long-term impact on the Kingdom.

Missional change is not a short-term problem solved by pragmatic programs. Instead, it entails forming an alternative imagination over time.
Alan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader

Missional leaders focus on people. Most leaders focus on programs. But missional leaders focus on people. They focus on the people already in the congregation. They focus on the people in the community. Jesus never let his plans prevent him from addressing the needs of people.

The key to innovating new life and mission in a congregation is not so much a strategy for growth as it is cultivation of people themselves.
Alan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader

Again, I’ve only had time to give a brief sketch of these ideas. Let me know what you think. What would you add to the list? Do you disagree with anything that I’ve included?

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”

Part One, Part Two