Get Off Your [Donkey] and Help Someone

Here's a presentation by Reggie McNeal that should be required viewing for all church leaders in North America.


Reggie McNeal Main Session Unleashed Conference 2010 from Unleashed Network on Vimeo.

Pastor Rod

iJesus

Cool Jesus
Originally uploaded by isc_luis_herrera

I have the key to reaching the world for Jesus: We ride the popularity wave of the iPod, iPhone and iTouch and market a reinvented iJesus.

The traditional Jesus is as dated as 8-track tapes. In today's world, even CDs are being replaced by mp3s. We need a Savior who is technologically savvy.

We've been doing cross-marketing for years, what with the John 3:16 guy in the end zone and athletes thanking Jesus for helping them to be successful. We just need to be more diligent. Maybe we could buy the naming rights to Wrigley Field. How does Jesus Saves Stadium sound?

Of course, we'll have to update our logo. The cross is iconic, but overdone. We need a fresh, new twist. Even Pepsi has updated their logo.

We need a cool Jesus, one that will boost consumer confidence and turn around our economy.

If this sounds like a good idea, head over to ChristianityToday.com and read Jesus Is Not a Brand by Tyler Wigg-Stevenson. Here are a few quotes:

When it's just you and Jesus, you (the consumer) "invite him" (the product) "into your heart" (brand adoption) and "get saved" (consumer gratification).

If you feel like a used-car salesman talking about Jesus, the solution to the perceived lack of authenticity isn't a smoother pitch—it's a renewal of the church.

In a consumerist society, my identity comes from what I consume.

Spiritual consumers, therefore, will approach the church with the same narcissism they bring to other brands. What am I expressing about myself if I buy Brand Jesus? How will Christianity fulfill my vision for me?

Preaching and evangelism that focus on the benefits of becoming a Christian present a message not fundamentally different from commercial advertising about the existential benefits of this car or that soap.

We live in neighborhoods of single-family homes populated by people like us, go to church with people like us, consume media targeted at people like us, and shop with people like us. All of this makes us more reluctant to inhabit a world with people who are not like us.

If we treat the gospel like a commodity, can we fault nonbelievers for thinking that the cross is just another logo?

Spiritual consumers will come to Christianity as do window shoppers at a mall, wanting a spirituality tailor-made to their preferences.

Tyler focuses on evangelism, but consumerism is deeply embedded in North-American Christianity. It won't be long until we have Consumer Reports reviewing churches and rating the programs that they offer.

Pastor Rod

What is the gospel?

Gospel is one of those words that we think we understand, until we're asked to explain it.

Most people see the gospel as information about how to go to heaven after death.

Some would define the gospel as

the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that provides full and free deliverance from the power and penalty of sin according to the grace of God alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Others would say it this way:

Believe in God. Repent. Be transformed by the teachings of Jesus. Love God. Jesus' death and resurrection shows that we too will be resurrected if we listen to Jesus.

In any case, we have been too individualistic in our understanding of the gospel. It's all about me. Even those who say that it's all about God, turn it into a private, personal matter.

But a close reading of the New Testament would seem to indicate that the gospel is bigger than that. It's about more than just getting signed up for heaven.

Lesslie Newbigin gives us some helpful clues about the nature of the gospel in his posthumous book, Signs amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History:

I think we have used the word "gospel" without giving as much attention as we need to the question of what exactly we mean by that world. We don't mean Christianity. Christianity is what generations of us have made of the gospel, and we know we have often made a mess of it (p. 113).

The gospel tells the story of what happened when the true light came into the world, the only light, the light that shines on every human being, the light in which things are seen as they are and reality is distinguished from illusion. Those who were confident that they see turn out to be blind, and those who knew that they were blind receive their sight. The light shows up the illusions of human wisdom and godliness and political shrewdness. It overturns human confidence that we can know how and where God is at work in the world. It invites us to believe that the victory of God is achieved in the rejection and shame and suffering of the cross (p. 108).

The specific responsibility which has been given to the church and to nobody else is the responsibility to bear witness to the reality of Jesus' victory (p. 115).

Whatever else we do for people—to come to know Jesus, to love Him, to serve Him, to honor Him, to obey Him—that is the greatest thing that we can do for anyone and it is the specific thing entrusted to us. It must be the center of our missions (p. 115).

The announcing of the good news about the Kingdom is empty verbiage if there is nothing happening to make the news credible (p. 99).

Here are some things we can say about what the gospel and what it is not.

• The gospel is not about organized religion or about a private, personal faith.
  
• The gospel is not just about the eternal destinies of individuals.
  
• The gospel is not about recruiting church members.
  

• The gospel cannot be reduced to a simple transaction.
  
• The gospel cannot be reduced to a theory of the atonement.
  
• The gospel cannot be reduced to moral reform.
  

• The gospel is good news for all people everywhere.
  
• The gospel is both now and "not yet."
  
• The gospel is the occasion for great joy.
  

We need to recapture that joy, or, better yet, let the good news capture our hearts and produce its characteristic joy.

Isn't it remarkable that according to the New Testament the whole thing begins with an enormous explosion of joy? The disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising God! It seems to me, the resurrection of Jesus was a kind of nuclear explosion which sent out a radioactive cloud, not lethal but life-giving, and that the mission of the church is simply the continuing communication of that joy—joy in the Lord (p. 121).

May we once again experience the gospel as good news.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Stating the Obvious[ly Wrong]

In the command known as the Great Commission, Jesus said, "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Of course, we all know exactly what Jesus meant:

• "Making disciples" means to seek the conversion of individuals.
  
• The goal is to increase the number of Christians.
  
• In order to be baptized, these individuals must repent, which means they must turn away from their sins.
  
• The responsibility of the Church (and individual believers) is to bring unbelievers to a point of decision after presenting them with basic information about the content of the gospel.
  
• After an individual is converted, then he or she learns the commands of Jesus and is encouraged to model his morality.
  
• While both of these steps are important, the most important is conversion because it allows people to get into heaven.
  
• A significant part of this Commission requires us to go (or send others) to other countries.
  
• "All nations" refers to the countries of the world.
  

The problem is that each of these "obvious" facts is wrong.

But our understanding of this Commission has become ingrained in our church culture, and no one asks anymore what it means. Furthermore, many of these assumptions actually get in the way of the Church fulfilling its true mission.

If one regards it as the primary purpose of mission to increase the number of Christians and treats such increase as the criterion of success, without posing all the time the more radical questions which the gospel puts to the common assumptions of our culture, if the dominical call to "repent" is translated as "turn away from your sins" and there is no understanding of that radical overturning of the world's ideas of sin and righteousness and judgment, then there can be rapid church growth; but the very success of the burgeoning congregations may actually incapacitate them for a radical encounter with the culture into which they fit so comfortably. If religion is an affair for the private life, it can flourish in a society governed by other assumptions, taking the characteristic form which we know so well—a series of voluntary societies made up of people who share the same religious tastes. In that form Christianity can flourish, but it cannot challenge the beliefs that control public life. It has been co-opted into the culture.

Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, p. 91.

Besides, the advancement of the kingdom is not the Church's mission. It is God's mission:

Mission, then, is not essentially a human activity undertaken by the church and its leaders out of obligation to the Great Commission, gratitude for what God has done for us, and the desperate plight of the world. It is God's own mission in which we are invited to participate.

Stephen Seamands, Ministry in the Image of God, p. 161

So what is the mission of the Church?

The Christian mission is thus to act out in the whole life of the whole world the confession that Jesus is Lord of all.

Leslie Newbigin, The Open Secret, p. 17

This requires deep knowledge of God and more than a passing familiarity with the culture in which a particular congregation finds itself. It is God's embassy in a particular community.

The business of the church is to tell and to embody a story, the story of God's mighty acts in creation and redemption and of God's promises concerning what will be in the end. The church affirms the truth of this story by celebrating it, interpreting it, and enacting it in the life of the contemporary world. It has no other way of affirming its truth. If it supposes that its truth can be authenticated by reference to some allegedly more reliable truth claim, such as those offered by the philosophy of religion, then it has implicitly denied the truth by which it lives.

Lesslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence, p. 76

So what do you think? Do you still agree with some of the "obvious facts"? Are there other "obvious facts" that you'd like to debunk?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Straight Talk on Evangelism

Michael Spencer has some interesting comments about evangelism from a missional perspective. Here are a few that resonate with me.

When a large church pastor starts lecturing small churches about their lack of evangelism, you should change the channel, because the guy is mainly being a jerk toward a lot of faithful ministers and Christians in more difficult situations.

How many faithful, talented, sacrificial church planters and pastors find they can't go on? And some places are just hard. Where did we get the idea that every community can have a great church if church planter Bob will just do the right things?

Small churches have a tough time seeing converts. So does any church these days. We aren't in a time when people are joining Christianity. We're in a time when tens of millions are walking away from it. We're in a time when thousands of Christians are going from this church to that. The faithful pastor may be seeing converts or not. You're going to have to look deeper.

God builds the church and God counts the fruit.

Then K.W. Leslie makes the following comment:

This all goes back to the fact that pastors and evangelists are seeking a worldly model of success rather than a Kingdom model: They're looking at numbers, size, and influence. They're not looking at Jesus.

If they asked Him what He wanted in their ministry, they'd be a success in His eyes, but they don't want that—they want numbers, size, and influence. Supposedly once you have that, you can further the Kingdom, even though Jesus told us to seek the Kingdom first, and then you get the other things.

Amen.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Evangelism Is Evil

Well, not evil. But there is something messed up about what is usually referred to as evangelism. Too often it feels like selling Amway.

The early Church did not have an evangelism program. It seems unlikely that early Christians were trained how to "share their faith." Yet "the Lord added to their number" regularly.

Most modern evangelism emphases tend to use guilt to motivate believers to memorize a presentation of "the gospel" and to confront friends, family and even strangers with a call to decision. The primary value is pragmatism. If it works (produces "converts"), then we use it. Marketing techniques are used to sell the gospel.

But why would we need to sell good news?

• If the news is truly good, won't people want to hear it?
  
• If the news is truly good, why would anyone need to be bullied to proclaim it?
  
• If the news is truly good, why does it feel like we are putting one over on our friends and family?
  

It seems obvious that most Christians don't really believe that the gospel is good news.

Of course, they think it is a "good deal."

They exchange most of the things that people think of as fun for a ticket to paradise when they die.

They go to church, try to be honest and give God some of their money, not because they really want to. They do it to get the big payoff.

And this is what most Christians are selling when they "do evangelism."

One of our problems is that we haven't found the gospel to be good news. And this needs to be addressed. But for now, I would like to focus on a different problem, the way we "do evangelism."

David Fitch has suggested that we give up on evangelism and focus on witness instead.

Here is a chart showing the distinction he makes between these two concepts.

Evangelism	Witness
Done by Individuals	Done by a Community
Hard work	Natural
Coercive	Patient
Strategic	Responsive
Argument	Ministry
Presented as a Message	Presented as a Community

He says, "Evangelism can be done without witness. Witness cannot be done without evangelism."

Yes we must proclaim the good news, but the most important part of that proclamation can only be done by a community that is living the gospel and embodying God's grace. And in this community the gospel must be experienced as truly good news.

Does this make sense? Do you find his concept of witness helpful?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

How NOT to Defend Your Faith

Sometimes those who attempt to defend Christianity end up doing more harm than good. Here are some suggestions about how you can avoid finding yourself in that situation.

Do not insult the intelligence of those who disagree with you.

Many Christians seem to have the attitude toward questioners, "If you weren't so ignorant, you'd see that Christianity is obviously true."

Do not say, "You just have to accept it by faith."

While faith is required, Christianity has answers to difficult questions. If you can't give a satisfactory answer, don't cover that up with an appeal to faith.

Do not try to prove Christianity by science or logic.

Christianity cannot be proven by science or logic. There is much to say in support of Christianity from the fields of science, logic and philosophy. But there are no proofs.

Do not act in any way inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus.

Much harm is done to the cause of Christ by people who win arguments while acting like jerks.

Do not automatically accept the question as sincere.

Some questions are simply ways to avoid the real issues. There is a good answer to why the Bible doesn't mention dinosaurs. But most people who ask that question are just trying to stump you. They will not be satisfied with any answer you might give them.

Do not pretend to be an expert.

If you are not a biologist, don't pretend to be an expert on evolution. Just because you've read a few books, you're not in a position to dismiss a whole body of professional literature that is unfriendly to Christianity. You don't have to be an expert to raise questions. But be cautious about pronouncing the other position illogical or self-refuting.

Do not try to defend too much.

Christians have gotten themselves into unnecessary quagmires by trying to defend positions that are not at the heart of the Christian faith. For example, the heart of the Christian position is that God created the universe. Don't try to defend a young earth. Even if this position were unambiguous teaching of the Bible (which it clearly is not), arguing about the age of the earth distracts from the core issue.

Similarly, don't put yourself in a position to defend all religion—or even everything done in the name of Christ.

Do not use the Bible as a club.

Those who do not accept the Bible as authoritative are not persuaded by biblical quotations. The Bible is not magical. The words of the Bible are powerful because of the truth they contain for those who acknowledge its divine origin. To use the Bible to prove the Bible is simply circular reasoning. The Bible is useful to explain the teaching of Christianity. But don't use it to prove the Christian faith.

So what do you think? Do you have some suggestions of your own?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be."

What Is Missional Church?

I see many people using the term missional in ways that have little or nothing to do with what I understand the word to mean.

For many it is little more than a synonym for hip or cool.

But I ran across this statement by Lesslie Newbigin in his Foolishness to the Greeks that seems to sum things up rather well:

The church is the bearer to all the nations of a gospel that announces the kingdom, the reign, and the sovereignty of God. It calls men and women to repent of their false loyalty to other powers, to become believers in the one true sovereignty, and so to become corporately a sign, instrument, and foretaste of that sovereignty of the one true and living God over all nature, all nations, and all human lives. It is not meant to call men and women out of the world into a safe religious enclave but to call them out in order to send them back as agents of God's kingship.

Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, p. 124

Missional primarily refers to the mission that the church has been given.

This is not a mission just to get people signed up for heaven. It is mission to proclaim the gospel and to live as agents of God's kingship in the world.

• We are not calling for people to participate in a business transaction with Jesus that will provide them with a voucher to enter heaven when they die.
  
• We are not calling for people to hire Jesus as a life coach so that they can "live their best life now."
  
• We are not calling for people to vote for Jesus as their deity of choice.
  

We are calling for people to submit to the one who is Lord of the Universe, to acknowledge his rightful place in their lives and in the world.

We are calling for them to actively participate in his kingdom as his will becomes fulfilled "on earth as it is in heaven."

Ironically, it is in giving up our "pursuit of happiness" and in submitting to his sovereignty that we find the fulfillment that seems so elusive:

Human beings find fulfillment not in the attempt to develop themselves, not in the effort to better their own condition, not in the untrammeled exercise of unlimited covetousness, but in the experience of mutual relatedness and responsibility in serving a shared goal.

Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, p. 122

Jesus said something like that

Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it (Luke 9:24).

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Missional “in quotes”

True friendship is God's calling, in and of itself. If people find friendship with Jesus through our friendship with them, that is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come, p. 99

If we cultivate relationships with non-believers solely for the purpose of converting them, then we are not doing the work of God. We are doing the work of God a disservice. We must care about people because they are important to God, whether they acknowledge him or not. True friends are not manipulative and scheming.

If God is at work in our lives, we don't need to orchestrate "opportunities" to "share Christ."

If we are living lives that require explanation, there will be plenty of opportunities.

If we are serious disciples of Jesus Christ, our lives will proclaim the gospel more powerfully than any prepackaged presentation.

Of course,

• if we don't really know God
  
• if we are not producing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives
  
• if we aren't willing to deny ourselves, to take up our crosses every day, and to follow Jesus as serious disciples
  

then maybe we'd better work on our sales techniques.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Missional vs. Church Growth

Here's an excellent article by Gailyn Van Rheenen entitled Contrasting Missional and Church Growth Perspectives at www.missiology.org.

SheHe defines missional churches as "theologically-formed, Christ-centered, Spirit-led fellowships who seek to faithfully incarnate the purposes of Christ."

This definition is not all that helpful, because most churches would say that it describes them.

It is often more helpful to talk about what missional is not. And so she contrasts a missional approach to ministry with church growth philosophy.

Church growth employs "tools from the social sciences to analyze culture and to use this analysis to develop penetrating strategies for reaching both searchers and skeptics with the gospel of Christ." However,

Practitioners succumbed unintentionally to the humanistic suppositions of the Modern Era. Assuming that they could chart their way to success by their ingenuity and creativity, Church Growth practitioners focused on what humans do in missions rather than on what God is doing. They saw the missional task as setting goals, developing appropriate methodologies, and evaluating what does or does not work.

Here is a chart she provides that contrasts the various aspects of these two mindsets:

	Missional	Church Growth
Orientation/ Perspective	Theocentric	Anthropocentric
	Theological	Practical
	Postmodern	Modern
Theological Focus	Missio Dei	Great Commission
Beginning Question	What is the gospel?	What makes the church grow?
Perspective on Scripture	Narrative of God's purposes	Propositional truth
How does missions happen?	By the Spirit (God's "surprises")	By strategic planning
Nature of community	Inclusiveness, unity of the body of Christ	People groups
Focus of Evangelism	Initiation of people into the kingdom of God; holistic understanding of "making disciples"	Differentiation between discipling and perfecting, individual salvation
Orientation toward Social Action	The Gospel, evangelism, and social action cannot be separated	Priority of evangelism and church planting over social action; Reactive to the Social Gospel

(The emphasis is mine.)

Church growth is pragmatic by design, "Church growth determines effective practice and then seeks to validate this practice by the use of Scripture. The movement emphasizes growth rather than faithful proclamation of the gospel and faithful living of the gospel."

SheHe advocates what she calls The Missional Helix. It is composed of four elements: Theological reflection, Cultural analysis, Strategy formation & Historical perspective.

The diagram is a helix because theology, history, culture, and the practice of ministry build on one another as the community of faith collectively develops understandings and a vision of God's will within their cultural context. Like a spring, the spiral grows to new heights as ministry understandings and experiences develop (emphasis in original).

In my experience, there are many who see the missional approach as simply a new form of church growth thinking. Perhaps this article will help demonstrate the difference.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Peron God Created You to Be"

What He Said

Alan Hirsch has an excellent post about Existence Communication. He quotes T. S. Eliot:

"The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyze his reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief."

Missional living is the most powerful apologetic for Christianity. It is the only truly effective method of evangelism. It is the only authentic expression of Christianity itself.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

2 Conversations

Last night I attended a business open house for a friend. During the evening I had several conversations, but two of them were longer and more significant than the others.

One was with a new believer.

When he found out that I was a pastor, he told me that he had just become a true follower of Jesus Christ about a year ago. He was excited about his faith and his involvement in his new church.

He said that he had been a part of an institutional church most of his life, but he had never heard the Gospel.

The conversation turned to things missional. Though he had never heard the word or even thought about Christianity in quite those terms, the notion resonated with his soul. We talked about how that might work out in his ministry at his church.

Then I suggested that he could also approach his career with the same view to ministry.

This was an entirely new idea to him. He knew that he should act in a "Christian way" at work. He knew that he had an obligation to treat people in a certain way. But he saw his career as simply how he supported himself so that he could do ministry.

I could see the excitement in his eyes as he started to think about he could participate in God's mission at the same time that he was earning a living.

Just after that, I was introduced to an older man as the pastor of a local church. The one introducing me couldn't remember the name of the church. I had some food in my mouth, so I couldn't respond right away. In the meantime the older guy asked, "So what synagogue is he with?"

I answered that we did have roots in the synagogue, that our founder was known to attend synagogue from time to time.

The introducer eventually walked away, and the two of us talked. He quickly told me of bad experiences that he had at a missionary boarding school. He told me of a book he had recently read by John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels.

I affirmed his frustration with the anti-intellectualism far too common in Christianity. And I agreed with his view that the daily practice of Buddhism and Christianity are strikingly similar.

At the same time, I carefully explained how Bishop Spong and I had different views about what happened on the first Easter Sunday.

We had a good, challenging conversation.

A few years ago, I would have been more jazzed up about the second conversation than the first.

• The first guy is already plugged in to a church. There is little chance that he would ever be a part of my congregation.
  
• The second guy, by his own admission, is not a Christian. He probably has little experience with Christians who are not intimidated by his views and his intellect.
  

I would have seen this second guy as a challenge and as an opportunity to refine my apologetic skills.

But today I have a very different perspective.

• The first guy is eager to participate in God's mission. He is excited about what God is doing around him and wants to be a part of it. He has been infected with the missional virus.
  
• The second guy was concerned only with justifying himself. His mind is closed. It would take a miracle of God's grace to get past his pride and bitterness. While that is certainly possible, he has consistently resisted the slightest movement toward grace and mercy.
  

In the past, I would have left with a sense of frustration:

• Frustration that the new believer was not a part of my church.
  
• Frustration that the skeptic seemed to be closed to the truth.
  

Now I'm invigorated because I have met another believer who has embraced the missional mindset. And I am encouraged because I hear what God is doing in another community. And the skeptic is not my problem. It's not my responsibility to convince him. If we happen to meet again, I'll be open to the direction of the Holy Spirit. But I'm not plotting how I can get him to change his mind.

Now that I've begun to see the world with a missional mindset, it's hard for me to see it any other way.

A mind, once it is stretched by a new idea, will never return to its original dimension.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

All Roads Lead to Romans?

What is the Gospel?

For many evangelical Christians it is defined by what has come to be called the Romans Road:

• All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
  
• The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
  
• But God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
  
• If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).
  

This is true as far as it goes. But there is much more to the Gospel than what is represented in these four verses.

Scot McKnight has an excellent post on this. Here is an excerpt:

The biggest issue that I see with the Romans Road approach is that once the sin problem is resolved (sin almost always understood as guilt before an all-holy God, which is true but not true enough), salvation has been accomplished. Frankly, this isn't biblical: the sin problem of guilt, to be sure, has to be resolved, but sin is bigger than guilt (it is distorted relationship with God, self, others, and the world) and therefore the resolution (salvation) is bigger than forgiveness (it is resolved relationships with God, self, others, and the world — and it takes a lifetime). Only a kingdom vision makes the sin problem fully clear and only a kingdom vision makes the solution fully clear.

The Romans Road reduces the Gospel to getting people signed up for heaven. In the tradition I have come from, people look at me with utter confusion if I tell them that the Gospel is about more than just getting people signed up for heaven. They can't imagine what else there could be.

Among the worst expressions of this distortion of the Good News was a group of one-point Calvinists that I knew when I was in high school. They held to the "perseverance of the saints" but believed that individuals needed to "make a decision" for Christ. I actually heard one of them talking about his willingness to use deceptive means to get people to "make a decision" for Christ because once they were signed up for heaven they were guaranteed to get there.

I find myself surrounded by church leaders (not in my congregation) who seem to share a similar philosophy. They say things like:

• "Nothing is more important than" getting people signed up for heaven.
  
• "The only justification for the existence of a church is to" get people signed up for heaven.
  
• "We need to do whatever it takes" to get people signed up for heaven.
  
• "This event will be worthwhile if just one person" gets signed up for heaven.
  

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association reports that "3.9 million people made decisions for Jesus Christ in 2006." The 2005 report cites 3.2 million decisions: "On average, one life was transformed by God's grace every 10 seconds last year [2006] through the ministries of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association."

Now, I'm not claiming that the work of the BGEA is harmful or even worthless. But I am wondering if these 7 million people really have been transformed by God's grace in the past two years. Are they true disciples of Jesus Christ? Are they really "signed up" for heaven?

Unfortunately, when many Christians read the Great Commission they see this equation:

Make disciples = Get people signed up for heaven

Others read this (incorrectly, I believe) as a three steps process:

1. First make disciples
   
2. Then baptize them
   
3. Then teach them
   

They then reason that the first step is the most important step because it gets people "signed up for heaven." But the Gospel seems to be much more than "step one."

What you present as the gospel, will determine what you present as discipleship. If you present as the gospel what is essentially a theory of the atonement and you say if you accept this theory of the atonement, your sins are forgiven and when you die you will be received into heaven, there is no basis for discipleship.

Dallas Willard, "Kingdom Living"

And as we think more clearly about what this mission really is, we must remember that it is not our mission. It is Jesus' mission in which he invites us to participate.

The Church's job is not to save people but to shape the space in which God calls them to Himself.

Earl Creps, Off-Road Disciplines, p. 145

So what do you think? Is the "Romans road" an adequate explanation of the Gospel? Is the mission of the church primarily to get people signed up for heaven? What exactly is the Gospel?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Missional Marketing

What is the difference between a missional orientation and a seeker-sensitive orientation?

One significant difference is the motivation for adapting the message of the gospel to the culture.

First, let me make clear that we do not have the option of a culturally free expression of the gospel. The gospel is not “timeless principles.” It is an account of good news. It is a report about a specific event that happened in a specific place at a specific time. The story of the gospel is inextricably intertwined with culture.

But the gospel transcends culture. The Christian Scriptures can withstand translation into other languages and cultures. (It is radically different from the Quran in this regard.) In fact, the four accounts of the gospel in the Bible had already broken cultural barriers before they were even recorded.

We do not even have the actual words of Jesus. Jesus spoke in Aramaic, but his words are recorded in “street” Greek. Each writer sought to capture the sense of what Jesus said; he had no intention of being a human tape recorder.

Matthew tells his gospel in the framework of Hebrew culture. Mark recounts the same story in terms more at home in the wider Roman Empire. Luke seems to be working from a Greek foundation. John takes a different view entirely, focusing on the meaning of events in Jesus’ ministry.

Right from the start, there was never such a thing as a “Christian culture.”

In the past century or so, the Church has operated out of a culture that was distinct from the culture of its environment, but also different than the culture of the first Christians. This “Christian” culture was generally little different than the general culture, that is the general culture of a few decades before the current time.

Many western missionaries in that same period seemed to be as focused on instilling western culture as they were in proclaiming the gospel. It could be argued that they were unable to conceive of the gospel in any other terms than the prevailing (or dated) western culture.

Along came some mission-minded people who were culturally literate enough to see the foolishness of this strategy. People were rejecting the Church, and Jesus Christ, for reasons that had little to do with the essence of the gospel. They were rebelling against elements that had little or nothing to do with Christianity—even though these elements came from the culture of many Christians.

And so these pioneers removed the artificial, cultural barriers. This development is generally known as the seeker-sensitive movement.

But, as happens with any “adjustment,” there was an “over correction.”

In the effort to remove cultural barriers there was generated a momentum that tended to remove (or weaken) all barriers, even barriers inherent in the gospel itself.

Partly in reaction to this over correction, a significant part of the Church has taken a new direction. These people seek to proclaim the gospel in terms that challenge the “powers.” They make no effort to soften the offense of the gospel, but they are scrupulous to distance themselves from the offense of Christendom.

This movement often dismisses the previous movement as “mere marketing.”

And this charge has substance. The gospel has far too often been packaged and sold as another product in the marketplace. Success has often been defined in marketing terms. Not only were the methods taken from the world of business, but the measure of success was defined in “bottom-line” terms, even when the bottom line was “souls.”

But we need to be honest here. Marketing is inevitable. We are always marketing, either intentionally or unintentionally. “Non-marketing” is simply another form of marketing.

So the question is not whether we should market the gospel. But the question is what the message should be and how it should be communicated.

The missional movement seems to be at once counter-cultural and culturally sensitive.

The seeker-sensitive movement appeared to be motivated by a desire to remove barriers to make the gospel more accessible. The missional movement seems to be motivated by a desire to make the scandal of the cross more prominent by removing all cultural “noise” that might be confused with that offense.

But this is not as straightforward as it sounds. Even the prevailing explanations of the offense of the cross are usually loaded with ideas that have more to do with the Enlightenment than with the gospel.

This “offense” is usually explained in terms of personal sin and divine power.

But I would suggest that it runs much deeper than this. The real scandal of the cross is that Jesus won his victory in weakness and defeat.

As it is usually depicted, the cross is little more than bowing to a superior power. Even a tough guy like "Dirty Harry" Harry Callahan admits that “a man’s gotta know his limitations.” When we recognize that God is the sovereign, we give up our pretensions of being in control. But this is simply a wise “business” decision.

Too many people “come to Jesus” to enhance their lives: to win more football games, to make more money, to sell more widgets. Taking up our cross is no longer a radical submission; it is now a calculated investment.

What the gospel calls us to is something much more difficult. It calls us to trust in a Savior who could not “save himself.” It calls us to a life of power that is manifested only in weakness. It calls us to abandon ourselves to God’s story without any alternative “plot lines.”

Jesus is not the ultimate warrior. He is the outcast, the reject, the “fool.”

We are not called to “take prisoners” for Jesus. We are called to become prisoners for the gospel. The gospel is not just a different insider game. It is a complete rejection of all struggling for position and power.

This is the scandal of the cross.

It is not giving up bad habits. It is not changing the way we dress. It is not engaging in a program of moral improvement. The way of the cross may involve these things, but they are not the essence of that way.

At least that is what I think. What do you think?

Pastor Rod

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

ESL--English as a Second Language

I am in Sicily teaching English. Many people here and at home think I'm on vacation.

While I'm having a good time and meeting many old friends, I wouldn't call this a vaction. I teach every morning (except Sunday) in the local middle schools. (Hello to the students from Tisia D'Imera and Paolo Balsimo.) I start at 8:15 and go to 1:15.

Twice a week in the afternoon I go to one of the schools for a two-hour "conversation" with some of the more advanced students.

Three nights a week, from 9:30 to 11:00, (yes, that's in the evening) I teach a class for adults. The students range from people who know virtually no English to teachers of English and Greek. (This makes preaching to a diverse group on Sundays seem easy.)

In addition, I am giving a few private lessons.

As you might guess, I'm not getting much sleep. But I can sleep when I get home.

My reason for this post is not to complain about how hard I'm working. I came here to teach. I enjoy it, and some of the students seem to be benefitting from it.

But some of the students have no interest in learning English. Their parents don't speak English. Their friends don't speak English. They see no reason to invest the time and effort to do something as difficult as learning another language.

There also seems to be an attitude generated by the French teachers that English is not an important language. I've tried to combat this idea by explaining how many opportunities that English speakers have around the world which others don't.

One way I've tried to do this is by saying the following over and over again until someone figures it out or until I run out of time:

In my hand, I have a 1-Euro coin. The first person who comes to me and asks for the coin, in English, can have it.

When this is successful (about half the time), it usually takes at least 15-20 minutes. Some of these students are the equivalent of 8th-graders. They've been "studying" English for three or four years. Yet they cannot understand simple, slowly-spoken English.

Not only is the cultural environment unfriendly to learning English, but the classrooms are also hostile (to most any kind of learning).

The teachers try hard to teach, but they spend more than half their time trying to maintain order.

The rooms are constructed exclusively of hard materials (concrete and tile). The desks and chairs have metal legs. They make an annoyingly-loud noise when they are moved (even carefully). And the desks are tables for two. Two students sit shoulder to shoulder at the same desk. It doesn't take much imagination to see the potential for distractions.

And they never stop talking, at least not for long.

It reminds me of a Monty Python skit. The students make noise. The teacher trys to quiet them (sometimes by making an even louder noise). A few students yell, "Silenzio!" Evenutally there is quiet for a few moments.

Then the teacher resumes the lesson only for the process to repeat itself in a couple of minutes.

Some of the students are clearly bored. Some of them think that it is too hard to learn English, so they joke around and try to be "cool." Some of them have given up on learning at all.

But there are a few students that are truly interested in learning English. Unfortunately, they often get lost in the chaos.

So what's my point?

The world is filled with people who have no interest in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They invite people to commit the "unpardonable sin." They make fun of Christians who are hypocritical. They publish diatribes about the foolishness of believing in something you can't prove.

And many Christians spend their time and energy trying to answer these critics.

Of course, this needs to be done. But we must not focus our time and energy on these people. (I'm not advocating that we "write off" anyone.)

Instead, we must focus on the "good soil, those who are hungry for the truth. God is at work in the hearts of many people. (See 1 Kings 19.) We must be on the lookout for them, not the vocal critics. We must allow the Holy Spirit to use us to communicate God's love and grace to those who are desperate for it.

An intersting thing happens when the interested students start getting most of the attention. Some of the other students begin to develop an interest in learning themselves.

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”

Same but Different

At the heart of the Pharisees “separatism” was the idea that they were different than other people. Of course, by “different” they meant “better.”

Jesus seems to accept the “sinners” and even identify with them. However, this wouldn’t have much significance if he wasn’t clearly different from them in some important way. If Jesus were just another “sinner,” his presence would be unremarkable. So Jesus identified with “sinners” (“I am the same as you.”) while maintaining his distinctiveness (“I am different than you are.”).

This theme of “same but different” runs throughout the Bible. (A more technical term could be “continuity and discontinuity.”) The Gospel is the same as the Law in many respects, yet something entirely different. The resurrection body has several things in common with the earthly body, but is something brand new. (Jesus’ resurrection body had scars from his crucifixion.) Those who are in Christ are called “saints” (literally, “holy ones”) even though they still exhibit many characteristics of “carnality.”

So what does this have to do with radical hospitality?

If we are going to practice the radical hospitality of Jesus, then we must identify with the outcasts while exhibiting qualities that clearly show we are significantly different.

What should these qualities be? Some Christians have defined these qualities by what they wear (or don’t wear). Other Christians have defined these qualities by the things they don’t do.

I would suggest that the only important visible difference between those in the Body of Christ and those outside should be the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

Unfortunately, many outside the Body of Christ have more of these qualities than many within the Body of Christ. This should not be!

• We have Christians who think that defending the truth (as they see it) is "being kind" even if it involves personal attacks and harsh language.
  
• We have Christians who think that beating people over the head with the truth of the gospel is "being compassionate" because "their eternal destinies are at stake."
  
• We have Christians who think that fighting the culture wars is more important than loving people the way they are right now.

But on the other hand, some Christians have taken relevance so far that they engage in crude and unwholesome behavior themselves. (They use language that Paul condemns in Ephesians 5:4, for example.) They have become like undercover cops who break the law in order to win the trust of the criminals they are trying to arrest.

As Christians we must love people with God’s radical love. And we can do that without copying every one of their behaviors. We must be the same, yet different.

Pastor Rod

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

Radical Hospitality

Let’s open a different can of worms.

In some parts of the church, the term “radical hospitality” is a code word. For some it means openness to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender individuals. For others it means taking a specific position regarding immigration.

But this biblical concept is too important to allow it to be narrowed to one or two issues.

Hospitality was an important value in Israelite culture and was built into the Mosaic Law (Exodus 22:21, 23:9; Leviticus 19:10, 19:33-34, 24:22; Deuteronomy 10:18-19, 26:12-13, 27:19). The Letter to the Hebrews calls for a generous hospitality, “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).

But the most compelling argument for radical hospitality comes from the example of Jesus himself. In contrast with the Pharisees, Jesus associated with social and religious outcasts. He spoke publicly with a Samaritan woman (John 4) crossing two barriers at once. He welcomed children (Mark 10:13-16). He made physical contact with people suffering from skin diseases, which made them unclean and potentially contagious. He ate with tax contractors and “sinners.”

He told his followers to show hospitality to those who would be unlikely and even unable to repay it (Luke 14:12-14). In his parable of the sheep and goats (Matthew 25:31-46), Jesus says that all the people of the earth will judged by how they treat those who are poor, those who are sick, those who are in prison and those who are strangers. He identified himself with the outcast.

So what does it mean to show hospitality? Bruce Malina, in the journal Semeia, explains, “Hospitality might be defined as the process by means of which an outsider’s status is changed from stranger to guest” (“The Received View and What It Cannot Do: III John and Hospitality,” Semeia, vol. 35, p. 181).

In contrast, a common way of dealing with strangers is to drive them away with force or by social pressure (by ignoring them, ridiculing them or attacking their worth). But Jesus calls his followers to welcome the stranger as a guest. Of course, this is not to be done blindly or without caution. And it must also be done with discernment (2 John 7-11).

This tradition of hospitality was not only practiced in the early church, but it also had a rebirth in the monastic life.

At Paradoxology there is an extended quotation from The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West...Again, by George Hunter.

The Abbot has no higher priority than ministry with guests. You would learn that the monastic community's highest commitment is hospitality to strangers, seekers, pilgrims, and refugees.

Lonni Collins Pratt, a Catholic laywoman, and Daniel Homan, a Benedictine monk, have written Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way of Love. It outlines the role of hospitality which is at the core of the Benedictine, monastic life. In this book, “They discuss some of the challenges of hospitality: guests sometimes have different values than their hosts; they can intrude upon the routines of daily life; they require intimate companionship when hosts might rather be alone” (Publisher’s Weekly).

Why is it called radical hospitality?

This is radical because it is not a calculating hospitality. It is not performed as a form of manipulative pre-evangelism. (But any hospitality that is true will have the desire for the other to find life in Jesus Christ.) It is hospitality for the sake of hospitality. It is not the means to an end (even such a noble end as evangelism).

As followers of Christ, we have an obligation to extend hospitality to the outcasts in our neighborhoods and in our world.

But we can take this one step further. If Jesus ate with the outcasts, should we not also exhibit a radical hospitality in inviting the outcast to the Table of the Lord?

So what do you think?

Pastor Rod

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

Networking Evangelism

I found this PDF article by Tim Keller at the excellent resource page managed by Steve McCoy. Tim talks about the difficulties with most approaches to Friendship Evangelism. He suggests an alternative: Networking Evangelism.

Here are some excerpts:

A networking church is developed primarily through cultivating a mindset, a collective attitude and only secondarily through setting up programs.

A bringer will use the church as a plausibility structure to reach out to his or her web-network.

In a networking church, you must be either a seeker, a bringer, or a cell leader (follow-up) OR YOU ARE DEADWEIGHT!

There are four basic kinds of “web networks”: familial, geographical (neighborhood), vocational (career/school associates), relational (friends not necessarily in the other networks).

It is expected that the non-Christian will be exposed to the gospel at least several times on the way to commitment.

A networking church will discern, create, and keep track of “pathways” for the non-churched into the congregation.

(I suggest that you download the full article and keep it for reference.)

At first glance this seems to be the “seeker” model of Willow Creek and Saddleback. But it's really a different philosophy. Here’s an excerpt from another article by Tim Keller:

We live in an increasingly "post-modern" society. The older modern society rejected revelation as a source of truth, but still honored reason/science as a source of truth. "Post-moderns" are more deeply secular and skeptical of any kind of truth at all…. In a "mixed" group, when the preacher speaks somewhat more to non-Christians, the Christians present learn how to share the faith. This is extremely important today. It is becoming increasingly difficult for Christians to just share the gospel without doing apologetics. The old canned quickie training programs cannot prepare a Christian for dealing with the range of intellectual and personal difficulties people have with the Christian faith.

They need to hear the preacher week in and week out dealing winsomely and intelligently with the problems of non-believers. This is excellent "training". On the other hand, when the preacher speaks more to Christians, the non-Christians present come to see how Christianity "works". More deeply secular "po-mo" non-Christians tend to decide on the faith on more pragmatic grounds. They do not examine in a detached intellectual way. They also are much more likely to make their commitment through a long process of mini-decisions. They will want to try Christianity on, see how it fits their problems and how it fleshes out in real life.

Any failure in behavior in Christians is due to unbelief. The antidote to unbelief is a fresh telling of the gospel. So, if a sermon is Christ-centered in its exposition and application, and if it is oriented toward a) dismantling the unbelief systems of the human heart, and toward b) re-explaining and using the gospel on the unbelief – then it will be highly illuminating to non-Christians even when it is aimed primarily to Christians.

(Keller also has some interesting things to say about math theory and the church. If you want to dig deeper check this out.)

This is heady stuff. Even my brain hurts. So what is your reaction?

Pastor Rod

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