From Revitalization to Mission

"The challenging context in which we live in the West requires that we adopt a fully missional stance.  While some established churches can be revitalized, success seems to be rare from our experience and perspective.  We believe that the strategic focus must now shift from revitalization to mission, i.e. from a focus on the "insiders" to the "outsiders"; and in so doing we believe the church will rediscover its true nature and fulfill its purpose.  Perhaps an established church can plant a missional congregation within its broader church structures.  Others might sponsor and support the planting of new congregations on their doorstep to reach those not interested in the conventional church.  But it does seem to us that the real hope lies with those courageous leaders who will foster the development of alternative, experimental, new communities of faith."

"In our travels around the world we have encountered a new breed of Christian leadership, young and feisty, willing to experiment with audacious new versions of Christians communities within unchurched subcultures.... Some will fail; others will have great success.  But it seems to us they are more likely to succeed when legitimized, affirmed, and supported by the more conventional, established churches and denominational structures in their midst."

(p. x)

Missional Church

This isbound to be a very messy and incomplete post. My thoughts are starting to gel, but I still have a long way to go.  I expect this to turn into a string of posts on this topic.

I've been meditating on the difference between "missional" and "emerging." I'm particularly interested because I live in a place where I don’t believe an “emerging church” can thrive. I live and pastor in the suburbs (or exurbs) of Chicago.  My town is less than 25,000 with no university or significant population from emerging generations.

The "emerging church" conversation (that I'm involved in) seems to be about reaching those who have grown up in or been significantly impacted by the culture of postmodernity (however you explain that). Though we have some people where I live who might fit in an emerging church, it’s nothing like more urban populations or university settings.

In my understanding, being "missional" is the conviction and action of being sent by God into culture (incarnation) with the message of redemption (as told and lived). It is not something we "do" along with other things we do, but it is who we are as the church. So by definition every church around the world should be missional. Someone might say that a missional church is simply a biblical church. (I like what Tim Keller says in "The Missional Church.")

If I have it gauged right, then, the emerging church is essentially about being missional in a postmodern context. You could have a missional church in a modern context, or whatever kind of context you can describe…you could be missional in that context. That makes sense out of those terms in my thinking.

So should we strive to be emerging, or strive to be missional which may or may not be emerging?  Or is the idea of "emerging" taking missional and expanding upon the idea?  Or should every church be at least emerging in part because every church should be missional and therefore reaching the emerging generations around them?

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Go to Part 2 > Missional Church: Driscoll & Emerging

Not More, But Better

Just when there seems to be a hint of a trail-head leading 'emerging SBC leaders' out of the SBC's denominational morass, we may find our feet plugged in the muck once again.

Jimmy Draper is the leader of Lifeway, the uber-resource for Southern Baptist publications.  He is also the one SBC leader who had enough guts to care about and facilitate talks with young SBC leaders.  In the mix is Lifeway's Younger Leaders Solutions board, which is an almost worthless (though noble-intentioned) place for emerging leaders to offer our 2 cents about the need for the SBC to change.  I've offered an alternative which is growing every day, Emerging SBC Leaders.

For the record, I am very encouraged that Dr. Draper has spent time with young leaders, opened his ears and heart, made an honest attempt, and so on.  I am encouraged by his concern, have nothing against him personally, and I look forward to meeting him at the SBC Annual Meeting in June.

That said, the gap between those emerging and those mired in the ways of yesterday is ever clearer as Dr. Draper has offered a new article on the gospel in Baptist Press.

Draper thinks we need a lesson in economics.

Evangelicals need a basic business lesson. Research shows that evangelicals are not supplying the Gospel in a manner that matches the public’s demand.

What is demanded by Americans?  Draper gives his opinion.

A recent MSNBC/Newsweek online survey asked readers the following question: “Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead after the crucifixion?” Eighty-one percent of those who answered responded “yes,”....It reflects other research showing that the population at large is searching for meaning in life.  

So, according to Draper, people's belief in the resurrection shows they are searching for meaning in life.  And churches are failing to supply the meaning of life to those who demand it.  Why?

Draper believes it's because evangelism isn't the highest priority for pastors.

Sadly, according to a previously released Barna Group study, fewer than half (46 percent) of the Protestant senior pastors surveyed listed evangelism and outreach as a ministry priority. Spiritual development finished No. 1 at 47 percent. (Sixty percent of Southern Baptist pastors place evangelism as their top priority).

Spiritual development is important, but it is not the primary purpose of the church....We’ve turned churches into comfortable country clubs for members when, in fact, the purpose of the church is to reach those who are not members. Evangelism is the proper expression of mature, or discipled believers.

I don't think Draper adequately shows that a cultural belief in the resurrection means people are seeking the meaning of life.  Honestly, I'm not sure what it shows.  It probably shows that most Americans are liars, or have cultural beliefs but not real beliefs, or are willing to go along with what mommy and daddy told them to believe.  I think he makes a tremendous leap here to make "supply and demand" seem plausible, but I don't see it.

But I do believe it's a biblical notion that God has made us for something bigger than the mirror, and therefore everyone is in some sense looking for meaning in life.  People are inescapably religious.  But sadly people are usually falsely religious because they reject the God of Creation for other things (Rom 1).  Let's leave that theological point aside and focus on those who are truly hungry.

Draper's answer for meeting this innate spiritual hunger is to avoid focusing on discipleship more than evangelism, and then do more evangelism. 

But we should never attempt to put evangelism against discipleship. Jesus didn't when he said in Matthew 28 to make disciples of all nations.  That means more disciples (evangelism, baptism) and better disciples (teaching/discipleship).  Evangelism and discipleship are organically connected vines, not puzzle pieces locked together.

But Draper seems to understand this already when he says, "Evangelism is the proper expression of mature, or discipled believers."  I think he realizes it's not less discipleship, but better discipleship that results in evangelism. 

And I think Draper's answer, that we need more evangelism, only hints at the problem.  Surely there isn't enough evangelism, but we don't need more bad evangelism.  We need more better evangelism. 

We need evangelism that doesn't see people as a demands to be supplied, but as image-bearers to be loved.  We need evangelism that is not first organizational, but organic and relational.  We need evangelism that is not about keeping a tally of distributed tracts (look for the tally at June's SBC), but about spending time shooting pool with sinners. 

It's no wonder that Draper and other SBC leaders are struggling to understand emerging generations.  He takes statistics and economic ideas and tries to paint the church as a failing business that needs to retool on the fundamentals of 'supply and demand.'  But emerging generations see things more organically. 

SBC leaders, please hear us.  We will not be professional pastors who are running a "supply and demand" business.  We want better disciples believing better theology and doing better evangelism through better families and homes and churches.

Draper told us that Jesus said in Matthew 9:37, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few."  No doubt, we need to pray for more laborers.  That's biblical.  But more of the same evangelism and discipleship we see today will never solve our problems. 

That is, in my opinion, a big part of what being an emerging SBC leader is.  The status quo is not acceptable.  Reformission is necessary and good.

The Missional Tim Keller

I have been really rocked over the last few days by the words of Dr. Timothy Keller, the Senior Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in downtown NYC.  I read some of the article below before, but this is a time in my life when they really mean so much more. 

Articles...
The Missional Church - pdf
Post-Everythings
Evangelism through "Networking" -pdf

Audio...
Vision Talks - especially 2004

For more, DJ Chuang has an excellent Keller resource list (though some links didn't work for me).

Clubbing Seals: Love Your Clubber

Sometimes when I'm preaching, an unplanned illustration comes to mind and I go with it.  These are often some of the most helpful thoughts for my own thinking, and I think for those listening as well. 

Last Sunday I let loose with one of those illustrations.  I was talking about perspective, how the way we perceive things dictates how we respond to them.  The idea of clubbing seals (that doesn't mean they are partying) seemed to show this pretty clearly.  Here are some of my thoughts based on this short, off-the-cuff illustration.

When we think of what it means for people to club baby seals for their fur, we often respond with great compassion for the seals and anger for those with the club.  Our response: "This is just wrong."  And I've recently learned that in some places they give out "hunting" licenses so people can experience killing a seal with a blunt object.  This rips my heart out.

But if we change perspectives (I've also written on this idea here and here) and take a moment to think before we respond emotionally, we just might find out that some people who are killing seals are doing it because that's the only way they know of to make a living and provide for their families.  Maybe there are really some people who are just doing the only thing they know to do to keep on living in this world. 

When we see seal clubbing from that perspective, we remember that life is hard for all of us.  We are all trying to put food on the table.  These guys are just like us.  Suddenly we see the world from their perspective and our compassion is fuller, more complete.  If we only work for justice with seals, we will miss working for justice for people who only know the life of the club.

I admit, solutions aren't easy.  But responding only to our first emotion will often just create more problems.  The situation is almost always deeper and more difficult than that.

Jesus' solution was to get in the middle of the problem (incarnation) and become the Solution.  Maybe when we start to think like Jesus, we will truly see how He could die for our sins and put Himself in our place when we are the ones holding the clubs.  And then we will see a world full of club wielding people in a different, more compassionate way.

What if...

What if we, instead of only looking for opportunties to speak about redemption, were looking for opportunities to live redemptively?  It seems so simple, yet it's so hard for Christians to live this way.

N.T. Wright and Our Urgent Task

N.T. Wright is taking part in a point-counterpoint forum at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.  Here is a snippet from the Baptist Press news article on one of his thought-provoking lectures.  Really good stuff on living redemptively.

Armed with the hope that comes from Christ'sresurrection and from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, possibilities now exist for lives to be healed and for communities to be mended, Wright said. Followers of Christ should strive to be the model and the means by which renewal comes about in the surrounding communities, he said.

"If we are even beginning to do any of this, we will also be, as part of our conformity to the pattern of the Son of God, people in whom the battle for the Kingdom of God becomes apparent," Wright said.

Indeed, living Christianly in the present postmodern society often proves to be a battle, he said, while noting that postmodernism also can be a positive agent for the spread of God's Kingdom.

"The task of postmodernity within the purposes of God has been to preach the Fall [of man in the Garden of Eden] to arrogant modernity," Wright said. "I regard this as a necessary task."

Modernism taught that mankind could rise to any level, even to the point of redefining good and evil and placing mankind in God's place, Wright said, whereas postmodernism's legacy is that it reminds proponents of modernism that knowledge leads to power and power often corrupts. However, postmodernism cannot complete the task, he noted.

"Postmodernity can condemn, but it cannot give life," Wright said. "In putting down the arrogant modernist self, [postmodernism] collapses all human identity into a morass of invention and experience.

"It carries no possibilities of new creation," he said.

Christianity must take up the challenge where postmodernism falls short, Wright said.

"Though postmodernity has shown the modernist empire to be dangerous, it can't do anything about it. It can't stop it," he said. "Part of the task of living Christianly in today's world and living by a new creation is the task of finding a way through postmodernity and out the other side."

Wright challenged Christians to take seriously the part of the Lord's Prayer that says, "Thy will be done on earth," and to find confidence in Jesus' statement that "all authority in heaven and on earth" has been given to Him.

"We have to learn -- and I think this is the most urgent ethical task of the 21st century -- how to live as new covenant people in new creation, submitting neither to modernism nor to postmodernism nor to empires or anything of the sort but to the Gospel imperative," Wright said.

Mark Driscoll Interview

Thanks for the head's up from cawleyblog on this Christian radio show interview of Mark Driscoll.  Mark is pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle and if you haven't read or heard about him, this will give you a good idea what's this guy's about.  Really great stuff.  They talked about how he has changed the way the Seattle newspaper talks about religion, popular TV preachers, and a variety of other issues.

Best line, concerning the choice of coach for the Seattle Seahawks: "The whole thing's a goat rodeo, isn't it."

Second best line, on Mark's favorite TV show "24" (my personal favorite as well): "Give me a show where somebody dies...I'm watching that one."

Modern Reformation - Evangelism

As usual, the current issue of Modern Reformation has good stuff inside.  Of note, Michael Horton's interview of Rico Tice: "Using the Gospel to Share the Gospel."  He is the associate minister at All Souls Church, Langham Place, London, and has developed the Christianity Explored evangelistic study.

Here's a good excerpt.  They talk about using this particular evangelistic study, but even more they talk about where to use it.  Folks in my tradition could use some of these ideas.

Horton: ...how do we—practically speaking—reach the lost? How does the Christianity Explored course try to do what perhaps we have not done as effectively in our own churches and in our own personal practice?

Tice: Well, two things. The ultimate aim of this course is that you help lead the course with your pastor in charge of evangelism. You become a helper to answer people’s questions and to befriend them. And as you do the course and teach Mark’s Gospel, and teach the identity, the mission, the call of Jesus, you become equipped to open Mark’s Gospel yourself. So that’s the first way in which it reaches people.

The second way it reaches people is that you just ask your non-Christian friend to come along. And the key thing you say is, “You know what? We’re not taking anything for granted on this course. You can just come and ask any question you want.” So they feel that they can come into an environment….By the way, don’t necessarily run this in a church. Run it in a home, run it in a hotel, run it in a place where you know your friend will feel secure because it’s on his or her territory.

Horton: We’ve talked about pubs. Inviting people to …

Tice: Absolutely. I have a friend back in England who ran Beer and Bible. And as they arrived in the door he gave them a bottle of beer! It was a men’s evening, and they’d come and they’d just look at the gospel together.

Horton: That’s great. And instead of trying to turn the church service into something that is neither feeding the sheep nor reaching the lost, this allows you to do on the Lord’s Day what should be done on the Lord’s Day with the people of God, and yet reach out on other occasions to bring people to an earshot of the gospel on their turf.

Fuel

"The church exists by mission as fire by burning."

Hey, I'm Right Here!

I consume enough cultural commentary from conservative Christians (I'm a bit "c" happy right now) to begin to get a feel for where they are coming from.  That includes things like commentary on books, movies (like the ones I've read on Million Dollar Baby), ethics, music, and politics, just to name a few. 

When I read most cultural commentary, why do I get the feeling that most Christians are treating the culture as if they are a disobedient son?  We talk about them as if they aren't in the room, as if they can't hear us, and we say how worthless and horrible and wrong they are.  But we know they hear us and we are glad they hear us.  Actually, that's the point. 

I think thoughtful people in the culture realize we are doing this to them (like Green Day in their newest CD, American Idiot).  And they are saying, "Hey, I'm right here!  Stop talking about us as if we aren't in the room.  I'm worth something.  I have feelings.  This is what life is like for me.  Stop looking down your nose at us as the morally superior and smug know-it-all's and try to see the world from my perspective."

In some respect, isn't that what it means for us to be incarnational?  To stand in their shoes?  We don't read about what it means to be a sinner so we can point our fingers at the world and say, "Ha!  Sinner!"  We learn about sin in order to better explain grace and love and joy and peace and hope.  I don't find many conservative Christian cultural commentators who think and talk like that.  I don't think the world reads the things our commentators write and say like the woman at the well, "Listen to this guy who knows me."  Maybe they think, "Don't listen to this guy.  He doesn't know me as well as he thinks he does, and he doesn't think much of me."

God help us, so that when we meet the woman at the well we will tell her about the Savior with compassionate words seasoned with grace instead of leaving quietly and quickly to write our articles about a culture engaged in sex outside of marriage and divorce.

Refrigerators and Redeemers

I recently saw a slide-show mission presentation featuring an isolated people group in Mexico.  I was moved by it and felt the desire to support this work and get the gospel to these people.  Nothing I'm about to say changes my desire, but it does change the way I desire the mission work to be done.

It struck me during this presentation that most mission presentations I have seen (if not all) focus more on the need for Americanization than spiritual need, yet they never say this explicitly.  And usually the spiritual need is couched in physical need.  Something like this: "There are few believers in this group, but just look at how they live!  The tiny church building is leaky, the floors in their houses are dirt, here is how much money they make a year, and they have to salt their meat to preserve the little bit of meat they have because they don't have refrigerators."  Is your heart melting yet?

Do you see the problem?  It's as if, "They need Jesus and don't know Him, and haven't heard of Him," isn't enough for us.  They need to be like us, they need tile floors and ice machines and blue jeans.

My concern isn't over meeting real needs vs. telling the gospel.  I'm not talking about the social gospel vs. the gospel preached.  Biblically speaking, social needs and spiritual needs are very close friends and intertwined.  My concern is that the line between the gospel of consumerism and the gospel of Jesus has been blurred.

Is the biggest problem of these people that they don't know Christ?  Or is it that they don't get to live more like us in the West?  Is their biggest problem their lack of a refrigerator or a Redeemer?  Or better yet, is their lack of a refrigerator really a problem, or just a cultural difference?  I'm afraid our emotional heartstrings and deepest desires in mission are tied too much to our mindset as Americans and not to our redeemed mindset.  And yes, these two mindsets are at odds.

Look in the front of most churches and you will see where most of us stand.  The American Flag is standing right there with the Christian Flag.  We Christians are still too American.  And don't get me wrong.  I'm all for helping with real needs.  What a joy it is to serve others in the name of Jesus!  But we get real needs mixed up with the American lifestyle, and it's no wonder that our churches are full of people deeply in debt and deeply in love with the ways of the world.

What do you think?

Lighthouse

"For the early Christians, the home was the most natural setting for proclaiming Christ to their families, neighbors, and friends.  The same is true today.  If you and/or your local church are looking for ways to evangelize, opening your home is one of the best methods for reaching the lost.  Most of us, however, are not using our homes as we should to reach our neighbors, friends, and relatives.  Tragically, many of us don't even know our neighbors.  Yet through hospitality, we can meet our neighbors and be a lighthouse in spiritually dark neighborhoods."

Alexander Strauch in The Hospitality Commands, page 22.

The more I read Scripture and think about evangelism in a rapidly changing culture, the more convinced I am that the average Christian needs to look to their living rooms and dining rooms as the key to building relationships. loving and serving their neighbors, and opening doors for redeeming conversations.  I believe it would make a tremendous and lasting impact on our community if there was regular hospitality through our local church, even if some of them are afraid to share the gospel.

What I'm saying is, I think most Christians are afraid they can't answer hard questions.  But I really believe the hard questions are often answered without words when Christians love their neighbors.  Our lives are a testimony to Christ, and they will learn of our convictions and the changes in our lives and families and realize they need to know more.  That is where the larger community of faith in a local church can supplement Christians in helping their friends to know the gospel.

I guess hospitality is the introduction to a community of faith before they meet the whole community.  It's the front line of evangelism in any culture, because relationships are the front line of evangelism.

Little Stories, Big Story

I have a lot of stories.  Some are better than others.  Some are funny, like when I cut off my little sister's piggy tail (just one).  Or when on vacation I was piloting a small fishing boat alone and rammed the boat dock by turning the engine throttle thewrong way (Yeah, the dozen people who came running to the dock to see the calamity were very comforting).  Or when I dropped a tray of Pepsi’s on the way to my table at a banquet with a hundred people or more watching. 

I have some sad stories too, like when my first dog was run over by a car.  Or when my son was diagnosed with autism.  Or when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.

We all have stories like this, don't we? 

Have you ever noticed how narrow our stories are?  Usually our stories are about very short periods of time: minutes, hours, or days.  They are tiny experiences in our tiny lives.

What's unfortunate is that so many of us only have our tiny stories and they don't fit into anything of greater significance.  We are myopic.

Myopia is 1. the condition in which the visual images come to a focus in front of the retina of the eye resulting especially in defective vision of distant objects (or) 2. a lack of foresight or discernment; a narrow view of something.

I think a lot of people in Western Culture are suffering from a type of myopia.  We live very self-absorbed lives.  We can talk narrowly about our lives, what we’ve experienced, stories about our sister or dog or kids or spouse or job.  But we can’t talk about the big picture, something of greater significance from a larger story that encompasses all of us.  We are nearsighted in our view of time and experience.

Have you noticed how rarely you hear people around you asking the great questions of history: "Who am I?" "What am I here for?" "How should I live?" "Is there a God?" "What is God like?" "What is God doing?"

Because we have defective "vision" and a narrow view of ourselves and the world, we tend to put ourselves in the center of our little universe.  The things that happen to us and through us then become the key facts of history (or mystory) and the larger picture of things is blurred beyond recognition.

God's words found in the Bible tell the Big Story, the Grand Explanation of all things and people and time and eternity. Instead of letting us hide in our narrowly concerned lives, God presents a very different picture that shows us where our lives fit in The Story of Stories.  Jesus is at the center of that Story, and as our understanding of His greatness and glory increases, our little stories begin to decrease, as do our problems and perceptions of ourselves.  In this Story we find out who we really are, what we were created to be, why we aren't living as we should, and how to be truly human again.

I believe one of the best things any of us can do is to learn a new Story.  We need to dive in to God's Grand Explanation of everything and see what's important, what's not, where significance is found, and Who is at the center.  In this Story we won't always like what we find, but what we find there will be tremendously good for us and will show us a significance beyond the stories we know.

Place and Leisure

I found this quote from an article on the PCA and emerging church movement.

"You can’t have a hit-and-run approach to ministry. You have to love a place to minister to a place. The people need to become your people. We push for a geographical integration of church, neighborhood, and work. The closer these things are, the more natural it is to live a seamless life. The more distance there is, the more you need artificial props—programs—to create community. Relationships need leisure to develop. That’s why we talk about a long-term commitment to a particular place (2-3 mile circle)."

Conscience

I've been struck a few times in the last few days with the role of the conscience for preaching and evangelism.  Most recently I found a helpful section in Russ Moore's article "The Child Not Taken" in the current issue of Touchstone Magazine. 

Moore writes, "For the unbeliever, the conscience is not Disney's Jiminy Cricket, offering a friendly, understanding, welcome guide.  Instead, it is a universal gnawing within the heart that points to a coming judgment, which men and women desperately want to deny exists at all.  It is found everywhere, in all people in all places at all times--and it is always smothered by people who do not want to hear its voice."

"This is the Achilles' heel of so much of our preaching and witness.  Some of us try to reach the culture by offering 'life principles,' twelve steps to personal peace and so forth.  Some of us try to offer rigidly organized doctrinal explanations of Christianity.  Some of us (though far fewer) try to scare unbelievers into thinking aobut how miserable hell will be.  None of these is the way the apostles preached."

"Jesus said that through the gospel the Spirit 'convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment.'  Paul said that his preaching explicitly appealed to the consciences of his hearers.  These consciences are 'seared' by years of self-justification, but it is the forthright proclamation of the gospel that pierces through this satanic deception."

Though you can only read the rest of this article in Touchstone Magazine, you can read more of Moore at The Carl F.H. Henry Instutute for Evangelical Engagement.

From Monument to Movement

This is the new and improved Reformissionary weblog.  The original blog is found here. 

I'm on a mission to seek the continual reforming work of God's Spirit in my life and church.  The burning church building in the blog header is meant to express the need of the hour in our American established churches: we must change from monuments to movements if we are going to impact our culture as Jesus intends.

I'm seeking to follow the path of faithfulness that isn't about isolation from the world or getting comfortable with the world.  I want to live like Jesus who had no trouble fitting in at parties where the world meets and talks and sings.  I want to live like Jesus who had no trouble piercing the conscience of the people around Him with words of life.

Mark Driscoll said it well in his book The Radical Reformission...

"Reformission is not about abstention; it is about redemption. We must throw ourselves into the culture so that all that God made good is taken back and used in a way that glorifies him." (p 152)

That's my goal as a reformissional Jesus follower.  I want to be close enough to those who don't know Jesus that they can see the natural outworking of the gospel in my life, and then invite them to know the King.