the postmodern pop pastor

Yesterday I got a friendly razzing for my enjoyment of poetry...by some friends who admit that they dont get it.

What is Poetry?
Poetry (from the Greek ποίησις, poiesis, "making" or "creating") is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may be used in conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns or lyrics.

Basic elements
Rythm or timing. Metrical rhythm generally involves precise arrangements of stresses or syllables into repeated patterns called feet within a line.
Meter: Meter (British English spelling: metre) describes the linguistic sound patterns of a verse.
Intonation: the variation of pitch when speaking. Intonation and stress are two main elements of linguistic prosody.

A Great Poem
They Ask: Is God, Too, Lonely
Carl Sandburg

When God scooped up a handful of dust
And spit on it, and molded the shape of man
and blew a breath into it, and told it to walk
That was a great day

And did God do this because he was lonely?
Did God say to himself he must have company
And therefore he would make man to walk to earth
And set apart churches for speech and song with God?

These are questions.
They are scrawled in old caves
They are painted in tall cathedrals.
There are men and women so lonely they believe God, too, is lonely.

Labels: poetry

The post from yesterday got me thinking about L'Abri. Julie and I spent just a week there right after Seminary and it was truly life altering for me. I would recommend that anyone sell a limb to spend time there. We visited the English L'Abri (in the room at the top) but you can find them in Holland, Cananda, Massachussettes, Minnesota, Switzerland, Korea and Sweden. Check out the L'Abri Website.

Labels: church, community, evangelism

Ranald MacAuley (L'Abri related, married to Francis Schaeffer's daughter) has given this talk all over Europe. It is spectalar. Here is a written synopis that goes with it. The audio is in much greater detail.

An important question is this : why should we be thinking in terms of apologetic communities separate from the local churches ? Are the local churches not the proper context for all the tasks which Christ has set his people?

In a certain sense this is true – the local church is indeed the only type of community commissioned directly by Christ and alone guaranteed a continuing existence up to the end of the age.

But other organisations have a part to play in the Lord’s work. They can be extremely valuable in fact. However, they need to be conscious of their ‘occupational hazards’ and always insist, wherever possible, that members belong also to a local church. This helps to keep them from becoming inward looking or inbred.

In the area of apologetics, however, the failure of the western church, generally speaking, has been almost total. When Harry Blamires wrote his classic on The Christian Mind in the mid 1950’s he began the book saying - “There is no longer a Christian Mind”. Then he went on …“unfortunately the Christian mind has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness and nervelessness unmatched in human history…”

Sadly the intervening years, while they have brought improvement in many areas, have not seen significant difference in the area of the development of a Christian mind, at least not within the practice of local churches. Scholarly books have been written and many have benefited from them. The churches have focussed, quite rightly, on the exposition of Scripture. Evangelism has remained a priority. But the ministry of local churches has tended to neglect intellectual concerns, especially in Europe.

This being the case it is almost unavoidable that a start has to be made to train future apologists elsewhere than in the local churches. This is far from ideal and one of the aims of a proper initiative in this area should be the reinvigorating of the churches so that they also become ‘apologetic communities’.

The task is also daunting in terms of its dimensions and difficulties.

But why communities?

1. The task of turning the churches around in relation to their apologetic responsibility is too great for any one or two individuals. Therefore as a first step models have to be created which churches can see and examine and even participate in. They then become catalysts for change within the larger community of the church.
2. In relation to the post-Christian societies within which we all live the task is too daunting without considerable support. So communities for apologetics provide an understanding and sympathetic support for those trying to learn a better way. They can be mutually encouraged, comforted, instructed and corrected.
3. Most importantly of all, society in the West has experienced something like ‘community melt-down’. One contemporary writer, not a Christian, puts it like this :

“One could argue that corporate consumer culture is tantamount to a kind of nuclear attack on the mind…” (Berman: The Twilight of American Culture 2000)

This being the case, particularly as it occurs in the context of a repudiation of traditional moral values, models of a more humane view and experience of life have to be created. A small community of like-minded apologists is then able to make an appeal to those who come to look and listen which far exceeds the cogency of their arguments. Not that arguments and discussion are without value, but they need more than simply to be stated, especially when there is an excess of statement without substance anyway.

In this context it is striking to find numbers of writers drawing parallels between the situation in the West today and the disintegration of the Roman Empire in the 5th century. And not a few, including the famous British historian John Roberts, see the small monastic communities surrounding Benedict in the 6th century as a possible model for the present.

For these reasons at least the development of apologetic communities is both understandable and strategically necessary.

Their object is 3-fold :

1. To raise a new generation within the church at large which is confident about the objective truth of God’s Word – and for that reason devoted to the service of their Master.
2. To provide teaching – the communication of ideas – the learning of propositions – the honing or arguments – the experience of discussion – the understanding of alternative worldviews and why they aren’t true.
3. To teach within the context of the testing of faith in which the experience of service and changed attitudes is considered as important as anything learned intellectually about apologetics, or anything else for that matter.The major block to this sort of approach is not merely the absence of examples and practice but the spirit of ‘technique’ which dominates western thinking in almost all areas of life.

Labels: audio, church, community, evangelism, gospel

I am an Evangelical in the 21st century living in the United States of America. In the present context, my association with this group portrays both a commitment to the innerancy of scripture, its authority and sufficiency, and a commitment to a very personal evangelization, including a most honest and vigorous cultural involvement.As far as my personal theology, I believe in summary of our ancient greats in the pillar creeds. I believe in the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the Church, the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection from the dead and the life everlasting. My leanings are soteriologically reformed; ecclesiastically congregational; biblically Evangelical; pneumatilogically neither charismatic nor cessationist; and eschatologically premillienial.

I am firmly committed to biblical orthodoxy and here is where my wrestling begins. Orthodoxy tends to be dogmatic, lacking practical application. The Christianity of Christ, of the Bible and of the early church, however, is no less pragmatic than dogmatic. I cannot directly live the creedal statement, "I believe in one God, the Father almighty."

Yet, if I do not live this belief than my orthodoxy (right belief) would serve me no better than would heterodoxy (different belief than orthodoxy); truth, no more beneficial than fiction. Going one step further, this right information is intended to bring me into a living relationship with this God who has made Himself known as the Father almighty. On the other hand, I personally have had the privilege of being mentored by men who had very lively relationships with God. There was something more than orthodoxy about them. There was what the mystics have called a "knowing," an experiential relationship where they personally communed with their God. Some of these described their encounters with God as simply as a personal, subjective confirmation of the love of God while others spoke of a supra-rational communication from the divine. Now, it is contrary to both the Bible and my tradition to allow a content of revelation beyond either the Bible or special, verbal, prophetic revelation. This kind of mysticism without the Bible is little more than paganism and mysticism beyond the Bible is rootless relativism. So I see mysticism alone as having no content and orthodox information alone as having no life. I want to know how I can live my orthodox faith with a mystic type relationship.

I find that I live within a four point continuum spanning from orthodoxy on one end to mysticism on the other. Walking toward the center from orthodoxy (right belief) I come across orthopraxy (right practice) and inward from mysticism (experience of the divine) I arrive at paradox (seeming contradiction). Please allow me to explain my understanding of these ideas and why I hold to a fifth, using prayer as the overarching example.

Christian orthodoxy is simply holding to an established set of doctrine.

Prayer is not orthodox, per se, in that it is not a doctrine. However, the practice of prayer is undoubtedly orthodox. First, the practice of prayer for me as a Christian is described and bounded by the scripture. I must prayer according to God's will, with an obedient life and in Jesus' name. Second, if my prayer is not orthodox, ie from a sinner to the one true God, in the name of God's redeeming Son via the intercessory power of the Holy Spirit then it is only meditation. So orthodoxy is beautiful and absolutely essential. Yet, on its own, it is most certainly dead. I need to step beyond it every time that I pray to my Father in heaven.

Orthopraxy has been defined as simply as the right practice of right belief. It is the action part of orthodoxy. In this sense, the former assumes the latter. Think of James' letter, "Do not merely listen to the word… do what it says."

Prayer is definitively orthoprax. Yet it is much, much more than that. A Christian obediently churches, a minister obediently preaches, a parent obediently disciplines, a spouse obediently fulfills their marital obligation, but prayer always acts in faith. In order to pray, I must believe that God exists and that He answers prayer. These things are true in my heart the moment that I kneel and cry out, "Father…" At times, I am uncertain of who He is or who I am, but that is when I have to trust that He is there and He hears me. Orthopraxy alone risks the danger of legalism, lowering my Christianity to nothing more than a list of rules to practice. Even if those rules are orthodox, it is still ugly.

By paradox I mean something that seems contrary to common sense but is most likely true. In theological discussion we use it to speak of the truths of God which are irreconcilable in the human mind. The typical example is the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Somehow, God is uniquely governing all events in the universe and at the same time I am responsible for my individual choices and actions. We know from scripture that these both are true, how they come together remains a paradox. I know some things propositionally, via God's revelation in the Bible while some things I hold paradoxically, in a both/and sort of way. Where the proposition and paradox end, there I embrace the mystery of God.

Prayer is paradoxical. I am commanded to do it. I see promises in the Bible about answers to prayer and illustrations of dynamically answered prayers. Yet, I am left to ask:

• How can a finite creature commune with the infinite?
• Why would a holy God choose to hear a sinful person like me?
• How does prayer influence all knowing, all wise, all sovereign God?

Every time I pray, I enter into this mystery. Paradox is a part of following Jesus. It lines the pathway of my theological journey. I find it on my left and on my right, standing like a grove of wild flower. Paradox is delightful in this context, yet alone it becomes a shallow cover up for ignorance.

I speak of mysticism as the practice of obtaining direct experience of God and often attaining personal knowledge of Him through that experience.

Prayer is mystic in that it goes beyond orthodoxy and obedience as I've already said. Prayer is encounter. It directly addresses God. It is two way in the classic sense that God speaks to me through the Spirit inspired Bible and I respond in prayer. The practice of mysticism has so much life to it, I like that. However, mysticism that has not originated within the scripture pushes very easily into heresy lacking any legitimate boundary.

I practice, alternatively, what I call a paradoxical orthodoxy. My idea of paradoxical orthodoxy has characteristics of all of the above.

• Paradoxical orthodoxy is orthodox in that I must be fully informed of the given revelation. I begin here with the understanding that these words are not merely to inform my head, but are intended to divide the spirit and soul.
• Paradoxical orthodoxy is orthprax as I seek daily to obey all of God's revealed will. Beyond that is up to Him to make known, but I can be confident keeping the commandments from a heart of faith.
• Paradoxical orthodoxy is paradox as I worship where I find mystery. I follow the example of the Apostle Paul, who, after waxing eloquent on the mysterious workings of God with the nation of Israel and the heart of every individual, breaks out into praise that God is greater than he is.Romans 11:33-36Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
• Paradoxical orthodoxy is mystic as I practice the spiritual disciplines experientially. I practice the disciplines not to please God, who is supremely satisfied with me because I stand covered in the shed blood of His Son, but to build up my own faith in the divinely prescribed manner. These practices for me are intellectual and emotional, rational and experiential.

Our example of prayer fits fine into this system.

• I know who I pray to, what to pray and how to pray because God's revelation in the Bible.
• I act in faith and obedience according to that revelation.
• I find that God hears me, a sinner, though I cannot comprehend how or why.
• I find that after 30, 60, 90 hours of daily prayers I know God and have been known by Him in a way that could never happen by Bible memorization.

I, like you hold a theologia viatorium, a theology or pilgrims. I seek in my belief and practice to honor God, to recognize the value of His revelation, to humble myself accordingly and to take advantage that God has sought to know me in relationship. My heart, mind and feet are all satisfied in practicing a paradoxical orthodoxy. I pray that you will find the same on you journey.

Labels: mysticism, orthodoxy, paradox, prayer

Athanasius stood contra mundum, against the world...
Athanasius live 15 years, 10 months in exile...
Athanasius found a home in exile because Jesus was with him.

I follow Athanasius...
not as one who stands against the world...
but as one who is at home in exile.

These words have defined me for a number of years. Athanasius has been a great inspiration to complete and utter trust in Jesus. At times, he is all we have. And when we have so much that we forget that he is all we need. Then we are truly in exile.

Labels: exile, Jesus, pastor, poetry

Character matters in this community. Primarily, that means that we truly hope that what we believe transforms who we are so that what we do is authentic and sincere. Lets talk a little about living consistently with our mission both within and outside the community. Then I’ll introduce you to our sacred rites and what you might expect from “organized” churches.

I like the way that Alan Hirsh[1] describes our mission as mDNA. The mission is built into our very essence as believing people. For you, my friend, God’s mission of rescue, restoration and redemption through the death and resurrection of Christ now defines your life. Living all of your life in full participation in this goal is consistent with the belief that you now hold. In the church, we commit to encouraging one another to keep on this journey.[2]

When the church gathers, we typically spend our time praying together, singing together and someone among us teaches and admonishes us from the Word of God. You will find two sacred rites practiced in the church, the Lord’s Supper and Baptism. We call these “ordinances,” because Jesus ordained these to be practiced by his followers in the time after his death and resurrection. The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic meal when we eat a piece of bread and drink a small cup or wine or juice together as a people. The Supper grounds the Church’s common faith in the substitutionary and reconciling death of Jesus Christ by active remembering of that death and its significance in the present. It binds together in solidarity all those who participate in faith, overcoming all other human distinctions apart from Christ alone.[3] Baptism is a ritual when a new believer, that’s you, is welcomed into the congregation and affirmed in your faith by a ceremonial washing. A member of the congregation will ask you some meaningful questions and lower you into the water and then out again. Baptism dramatizes a faith community’s theological foundations. It speaks of the manner in which an individual, subject to the guilt and corruption that is common to mankind, comes to be reconciled to God in Christ. Baptism continues the pattern of reconciliation in addressing the way that this same individual relates to the community, each of whom have likewise been reconciled to God in the same manner.

Churches will organize themselves in many different manners. It would take far too long to detail here. But let me say just a few things. First, the forms that groups use to organize is seldom essential. Big or small, simple or professionally planned, these are really matters of preference and only become an issue when someone insists that their tastes are closest to those of the New Testament. Because the organization is the most public aspect of the church, it is also the object of most of the cynicism. Some churches will meet in homes, others in school auditoriums and others in fancy multi-million dollar buildings. Some will sing acapella, some with a guitar and others with a choir. Personally, I think a church’s style should reflect its neighborhood. Remember that systems cannot care for people.[4] If you enter a church and are find the structure more prominent than the people, you might want to look elsewhere. If you find someone telling you to not ask questions, just believe. Kick them in the leg and run.

The protestant tradition that I belong to has emphases three characteristics that make up a church, regardless of its size, location or structure. These are: proper leadership, ordinances and the preaching of the Word. When these are present all else is preference. Truly, even some of difference will exist among groups as to how these three are practiced.

Well, I trust that this letter has been helpful. The church can be a strange beast to someone who has no experience with her. It is my prayer that you value the community and the mission while never taking the form too seriously. May the Lord bless you with a strong community as, I know, a community will be strongly blessed by you.

The Well-Wisher of Your Soul’s Happiness,
Robert Campbell
[1] Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006), 45.
[2] Faith is a way of living. Clapp, 120.
[3] Breaking bread show the intention to share it. Clapp, 108.
[4] Clapp, 197.

Labels: church, community, evangelism, gospel

Just after Sunset in the mountains above Cultus Lake near Chilliwack, B.C.

Labels: photos

My friend,

The great community that you are entering is centered on belief in Jesus Christ alone. Jesus, his life and death, provide the one supreme unifying factor for the church in the present and throughout history. In my own tradition, the Evangelical Free Church of America, our founding fathers gathered around the cry for the church, "Believers only! But all believers."

So, Jesus provides the center point and all who gather around him and look out together make up the church in some sense. Yet, that is probably not a sufficient description because many questions remain regarding who Jesus actually is and what does he do for us. The church has held to several primary creeds throughout her long history that give necessary understanding for unity around Jesus. I see 5 beliefs about Jesus that both center and bound the church community.

1. We believe in the one true God. There is only one God and that God eternally exists in three persons. This divine community is what we have called the Trinity.
2. We believe in both the nobility and the true moral guilt of man. We people bear an immense value because we, alone of all creation, were made in the image of God. At the same time, we bear true moral guilt and experience real mortal corruption because of the sin we inherited from our first parents and continue in our own rights.
3. We believe in Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Jesus is the second person of the Trinity who became a man to live with us and die for us. As God, his sacrifice can justly bear our win. As man, he can rightly represent us.
4. We believe in complete forgiveness through Jesus' death on the cross. That's why we can center on Christ alone. Nothing else is needed.
5. We believe in the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of all men, some to reward and some to punishment. Jesus not only died, but rose again and present sits at the right hand of God. He will come again and at that judge all people.

(The best thing I've ever seen covering this credal core is called "Credo" by Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason

The Jesus who we center on is the divine Son of God, who took on humanity, to die in our place, to save us from eternal punishment for our sin. We center on the Jesus who will judge the world one day. .)

The gospel comes with a mission. Having believed the gospel and trusted Christ, this mission is now your mission. Having been warned of the future judgement, you ought to be motivated to be about this mission with all that you are.

These beliefs, not only set the boundary for the church community but they also give the church direction or mission. We exist to carry-out and carry-on the mission that Christ came to earth to do. We are acting as his representatives in the restoration of all things. We do this in the way we live and in the good news that we proclaim about the rescue effort that God has made in Christ, the good news about forgiveness of sin and a future hope.

As you join the church, our missions become one mission, our beliefs become one, our direction is one direction. One important part of the conversion that you are going through is the shift from following your own will and plan to lining yourself up with the will and plan of God just as millions of others have done before you. Again, you have arrived at the end of a very long line. Come on in, be who you are and let your presence shape the people around and allow them to shape you.

Next time, we'll look at the character or heart of the church and the peculiar practices that set her apart as a unique people and alternative, but parallel culture.

Blessings to you,
Robert

Labels: church, community, evangelism, gospel

My friend,

I am so glad to have heard of your new found faith in Christ. It has been a long time in coming. God has been at work in you for quite some time, which I am sure that you can see it now as you look back. I trust that the world will stop spinning for you soon. You are certainly understanding why we refer to this experience as conversion. Everything is changing for you isn't it? More than just your belief has changed, your heart has been changed, your desires have been changed and the impact of all this on your life will be felt at every level.

I am writing this letter to help ease some of that transition. I understand how strange the church looks to you and your resistance to take part. I want to affirm that cynicism in some ways. I want to offer some friendly correction in others and, hopefully, help you find your place in this great work of God, which you really have no choice but to part of at this point.

Let me help you see the context of this great community of God we call the church. Then I want you to know the stripped down elements that make her magnificent in all her naked beauty and in so doing entice you into throwing your heart, soul and might behind your God, who is using his church in the world.

The Church in God's Story
In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. God was there in the beginning. He is the eternal, infinite creator of all things. He is separate from his creation, we say theologically that God is transcendent. At the same time, however, he is intimately involved in his creation. God is near. He created all things, he sustains all things and he is governing all things to his intended ends.

This God stooped to take a handful of the dust of the Earth and shaped it into the form of man. He graciously breathed into it and that dirt-man became a living being, in the very image of God. God and his image bearers lived and loved in an Earthly paradise, walking and talking together in the cool of the day. Imagine the magnificence of God’s joyous laughter, as his children first inhaled the magical perfume of a white-pedaled flower, highlighted by red stigma, which he created to grow each morning in the green field, only to die that night before being resurrected with new dawn.

Our first parents despised this holy intimacy and chose instead the independent exercise of self-will in a world full of the knowledge of good and evil. With such a disregard of God’s presence and love came the distance they desired. God’s distance meant the absence of long life that resided in the sap of the tree of life. It meant that the walks were no more. It meant that the separation would now be permanent, both in this life and in the next.

God immediately promised that he would restore all things to the way that he originally created them to be. Some day, creation will be renewed and we will once again walk with him in the cool of the day. Until that time, God has initiated with his people. He did it first by selecting a people from all the nations of the world, delivering them from their bondage and establishing a covenant in which they could relate to him in faith. We know this as the Old Covenant or the Law. Eventually, people started to use that Law as a way to earn favor with God rather than as the gracious wisdom of how to live in relation to him who initiated their rescue by delivering them.

Then, when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the Law so that he might redeem those who are under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as Sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying Abba! Father! (Gal. 4:4)

We who have faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross now know the beginnings of complete restoration to relationship to God. We have been rescued from the consequences of sin. We live in hope that one day, all things will be restored and we will walk with him while he describes the flora and fauna of the new heavens and new Earth to us. We will laugh with him and he with us. We will dance around the tree of life and settle in for a long eternity with our creator, our savior and our King.

I want to recommend to you a short book by Vaughn Roberts, God's Big Picture. He explains this same story (very rightly) as the overarching Kingdom in which God rules all things. His outline looks like this:

The pattern of the kingdom - Adam and Eve in Eden
The perished kingdom - the fall
The promised kingdom - God's promises to the fathers of the nation of Israel - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
The partial kingdom
The prophesied kingdom - the prophets in the Old Testament
The Present Kingdom - the kingdom of God comes in reality in the person of Jesus Christ
The proclaimed kingdom - the worldwide spread of the Good News of Jesus Christ
The Perfected kingdom - God's kingdom will finally come in visible power and glory.

You have arrived in the "proclaimed kingdom" part of this story. God has redeemed you in Christ and has called (even demanded) that you engage in spreading the good news to the world in preparation for the perfected kingdom.

Know that this part of the plan has been going on for 2000 years. You arrive at the end of a very long line. This genealogy will be your treasure and your shame. You are related to men and women who have changed the world! And, you have to acknowledge the crazy Aunt Crusades. Sorry, this is what you're part of now. Fortunately, your calling is to proclaim our wonderful savior and the good news of his rule, not the jacked up ways we've tried to bring it about for him. At some point, you will need to slow down to learn of your Christian heritage. It will encourage you, it will challenge you and it will warn you. Its not all about you. Many have walked this road before. Be smart, learn from them.

Next time, we'll begin to look the glorious figure of lady church.

Blessings to you,
Robert

Labels: church, community, gospel, kingdom

From Mahaney's book:

Recently, I had to correct my son, and because I was already late for a previous commitment I had only a brief moment to do it. Carolyn was there observing, and later she told me there was something unusual about my interaction with my son: "I didnt hear you say anything about the gospel."

She was right. I had brought to my son's attention that he had violated a moral standard without in some way bringing in the gospel and giving him hope. That wasn't appropriate speech for me, in light of Ephesians 4:29; it wasn't acceptable correction.

The fact is, it shouldn't be difficult for me to bring in the gospel when correcting my son, because the one correcting him is the worst sinner he knows; and the one doing the correcting would in no way want to be corrected without someone giving him hope. And hope is always found in the gospel.

This little book has been a good read for me. I am not very humble. I don't correct well because I am a coward and by the time I say something its usually in anger. I receive correction poorly and allow the sloppy manner of another's words to be an excuse for not listening. I beg for the forgiveness of God but act as if it is the worst possible thing ever thought up when I have to give it.

Labels: forgiveness, gospel, humility, pride

Labels: photos

Milk cancels health benefit of drinking tea: study
By Patricia ReaneyMon Jan 8, 7:10 PM ET

Church is all about sex. I think if that was the church's motto, folks would be streaming in to hear what we have to say.

I am reflecting on a chapter in Alan Hirsch's new book The Forgotten Ways in which he is calling the church back to her most fundamental form for the sake of world in need of the gospel. Most churches, he argues, reach a demographic similar to their own. For the average Evangelical church in America, that means it appeals to 10-15% of the community. 85% have no interest in their ways and words, because of their ways more than becuase of their words.

I've liked the book so far. I picked it up as my friend Len started reviewing it on his blog nextreformation.com. The author, Alan, has been interacting there as well.

Back to sex. Alan focuses for one section (which he titles "Lets' Talk About Sex") on the reproducability that is inherent in the church's DNA (or mDNA as he calls it, missional DNA). But instead of reproducing independent functioning adults, most church reproduce nothing and of those that do, the create clones rather than adult sons and daughters. This, unfortunately "minimizes the internal missional variety that is needed to ensure maximum impact in a different missional setting." In other words, it creates another church fighting over the same 10-15% of the people.

He contrasts this with studies of the Chinese church movement under communism where new converts were not able to be assumulated into existing churches and so they formed the basis of a new church with the gene of reproducing built right in.

You see, most of what we do in the church today is not reproducible. Think about it, even to make a service trip to mexico we load trailers full of sound and video equipment. Most churches cannot afford the resources needed to "do church" as Evangelicals call it. I think that is fine, most shouldn't being doing church in large professional manner (perhaps none should be). A great difficulty rises when small churches think they have to act like big churches and so they have terrible singers with lousy sound systems and bad preachers delivering Rick Warren's prepackaged ersmons.

Wouldn't it be nice, if the church was just about followers of Christ coming together to help form one another into complete people and deliberately reproducing themselves in the world.

A little more church sex could change the world.

Labels: books, church, evangelism, sex

from one of Luther’s sermons delivered at Wittenberg in 1522

“I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept [cf. Mark 4:26-29], or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it.”

I saw this quote in the conversation on Joe Thorn's site.

Labels: Bible, pastor

The flower of repentance grows only in the soil which has been enriched by the death of the old self that we have let die in it.

Check out the Phriday Photos group on flickr.

Labels: photos

Yard sales are personal. You look in my face and I look in yours. Its hard to look someone face to face and to overcharge them when you know that you would probably just throw the stuff away if they didnt buy it.

Church is personal. In the community I drag both new and the old from my garage and display it on the driveway. I do take the time to clean it a bit and then display it nicely on a blanket, no one actually sees the way it was just tossed on the floor when the door was closed. Church as a yard sale celebrates the noble and the ignoble, the strong and the weak, the already and the not yet. The yard sale church proclaims, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of which I am the foremost."

At the mall, its always new. Its always packaged. There is no room for flaws. This is quite inappropriate packaging for displaying the good grace of Christ. It pretends that the the not yet is already. It hides the weak and puts the strong in the window. It hangs portraits of the noble and confines the ignoble to driving the truck. Its message might read, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of which we used to be."

Labels: church, community, gospel

Jonah live in a living room.



Jonah live with a band.



Does it get any better than that?

Labels: community, music

I have been spending some time with Jonah Matranga's new website. I have decided that Jonah is the very top of rock music. I don't think it gets any better than Jonah, in any of his musical manifestations. Jonah sells his cd's on a sliding scale, kinda whatever you want to pay. There was a time on his site where you could choose the songs you wanted on you Jonah cd. Across the top of the "shop" site you will find this gem of punk rock wisdom. It epitomizes the worldview that Jonah and I share.

Rock should be less like a mall and more like a yard sale.

Labels: church, community