The Uprising

2010-08-25T14:09:00.001-04:00

by Mike Perkinson

The power of story is in the seed. More simply said, the power of story is in the telling or sowing of that life-giving seed. After all, Jesus said that a seed must fall to the ground and die before it can bear fruit.

In an agrarian society like Israel the language of sowing seed and reaping a harvest was common. Being a farmer was more than a profession but a way of life that took care of the basic needs of a family.

That is why the prophetic instruction in Hosea 10:12 is so stunning as it seems to violate the natural sequence of this agrarian way of life. The prophet declares, “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.” I find it fascinating that the prophet oddly violates this natural sequence that would require one to first break up the fallow ground before sowing the seed as Jeremiah correctly instructs, “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.” (Jeremiah 4:3) Why does Hosea place breaking up the fallow ground after sowing and reaping? What in the world is he trying to say? And how does that relate to story?

It is stunning that the logical progression of cultivating and preparing the soil to receive the seed is oddly missed in the Hosea passage. I find it striking that the prophet immediately moves us to the language of sowing. What is intriguing is what we are called to sow.

The seed that we are to cast is that of righteousness. Not so much doing right things, but being in right relationship with the God that has so marvelously kept His covenant and provided for Israel. As a matter of fact everything Israel had received was a gift from the hand of God. Included in this gift was the land that God so graciously provided. Israel’s undertakings were then to be done in accordance with her relationship to this faithful, covenant-keeping God.

The prophet is instructing the people, as well as the Church in the 21st century, to sow first the seed of covenantal relationship with the gracious God that has so wonderfully provided all we have – having made possible full reconciliation in and through Christ.

It is when we sow to this life-giving sphere of relationship with the Father that we find our hearts enriched with His steadfast love (hesed). What we reap (not merit) when we are living in this life-giving sphere is riches of His love that empowers our lives and enlarges our capacity to live as His sons and daughters who steward well our Kingdom responsibilities. It is then that we are able to adequately break up the fallow ground (“of knowledge” which can mean our knowledge of God) and seek His face not only for ourselves but for our neighborhoods, cities and nation. When this happens the prophet boldly asserts that the Lord will then come and rain righteousness upon them. May God rain down His righteousness on the barren soil of our country and may we sow to righteousness, reaping His steadfast love – living the empowered life and doing only what the Father is doing!

What's the correlation to story, Mike? That’s right. I mentioned that the power of story is in the seed. Story is the place where the seed finds it greatest power. As Revelation 12:11 reminds us, those that overcame the evil one were those that were washed in the blood, shared the word of their testimony (story) and had bold faith, they did not fear death.

There is something about story that jettisons one’s faith and that also of the hearer. It is the conduit by which the seed is most proficiently cast as it facilitates the life-giving environment of heart engagement and decision. After all, story requires conversation which fuels relationship; relationship is the basis of community. Story is then a key to life, community and multiplication as it allows for the transforming power of the Cross (life-giving sphere) to be sown (righteousness) in relationship with God and His people, resulting in an amazing harvest of salvation, healing and restoration of individuals, families and communities.

It is through the medium of story that we find ourselves most able to sow righteousness, coming to right relationship – reaping His love and power so that we love others as we love ourselves and then engage in breaking up the fallow ground that resists the seed of hope that is in Christ. As we press on and pursue our great God and seek His face we are confident that this covenant keeping God will rain downs righteousness on our land. May it be!!!

On Being a Grain of Wheat

2010-08-25T14:06:00.000-04:00

by Tom Johnston

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” John 12:24-26

Seeds get planted. They exist for one purpose – to give life in order to produce fruit, a crop, a harvest. So it was with Jesus, the Ultimate Seed, who in giving His life for humanity released the potential for harvest of souls throughout the ages. And in each generation He calls His followers to do likewise – lay down their lives in order to bear much fruit. The call to follow Christ is the call to perpetual death of the self, choosing instead a life of loving devotion to God, His people and His harvest.

Such dying to self for most of us will not take on a singular grand heroic act such as martyrdom, but rather we will die 10,000 little deaths to our flesh, our fallen human nature, so that Christ might live through us. We have an opportunity to mortify the flesh each time we are presented with a decision in our day-to-day lives in the context of our marriage, family, vocation and ministry. In each and every relationship we have, with God and others, we can choose either to live for ourselves or to live for Christ. It encompasses our inner life as well – the desires of our heart and the thoughts of our mind, as we make choices being led of the Spirit as opposed to the flesh. Again, it is in such choices that we allow Christ to release His life in us and through us, bearing spiritual fruit in our own being and in those around us as well. All such choices – both internally and in our relationships – are based on what we value.

In speaking of losing our life, Jesus seeks to focus His disciples on something transcendent, something beyond this life – eternity. We often say “everything pales into insignificance in the light of eternity.” This is Jesus’ point exactly: don’t live your life in the flesh, in the moment, but rather live your life in the Spirit, in the “now and not yet” of the Eternal Kingdom of God. Such a life is costly, Jesus teaches us, requiring we pay the ultimate price of self-sacrifice. But in doing so He promises us fruitfulness – a harvest of righteousness and of souls which will outlast this life, extending into eternity.

In dying these little deaths daily, we are not paying some “price of admission,” not earning our way into heaven, but rather we are allowing Christ to live through us in ways which He cannot do when we live life focused on us. It is when Christ shines through a life which is yielded and surrendered that people take notice and ask us about the hope that is within us. Through a life overflowing with the abundance of His life we truly can be witnesses to the Risen Lord and the power of His resurrection. Today it seems much of the Church in the West is grappling with cultural relevance. Forget it – grapple with the Cross. Let us grapple with what it means to die daily that Christ might live through us. Let us wrestle with God through spiritual disciplines that Christ might be formed in us. Let us lay hold of that for which Christ laid hold of us. Let us strip away everything from our lives that will hinder us from running the race that is set before us. All this we can do, when we choose Christ and His life, allowing Him to increase in us, and our flesh to decrease. We must see our lives as that grain of wheat which Jesus has sown into the world, so that He might reap a great harvest.

We have this promise from Him – that where we are He will be, and where He is we will be for eternity. Choose to let Him sow your life, so that He might live in you and through you, now and for evermore.

What are your thoughts?

Shaping & Tending Creation

2010-06-22T10:34:00.007-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

The Pattern of Creation: Bringing Life / Bringing Order to Chaos

The beauty of creation is wonderfully described in Genesis 1:2 as God bringing order to that which is “formless and empty” - ṯōhû wāḇōhû. He does this by speaking the Creative Word, setting the life pattern for all of creation that is based on creating life-giving environments / spheres, then filling them with living things. The Creative Word of God then brings form and substance to life, brings order out of chaos, and provides the life-giving environment that allows for the development and maturation of living things.

When we look at Genesis 1:3-31, we see a pattern to creation that is played out in human history and wonderfully recorded in the Word of God. This creative pattern reflected in Genesis reveals that God creates the environment or spheres for life (e.g. the heavens, earth, seas) and then fills each sphere with life. More simply, the environment is the key to fostering and developing life. As we say, it is a good thing that God created the oceans before he made fish. Without the proper environment, all living things will either struggle to survive, finding ways to cope within a jury rigged life, or die.

The Process for Shaping & Tending Creation

Before we talk about the process, we need to take a quick look at God’s factory setting for humanity - what our original design involved as a job description for the first parents. Genesis 1:28 (the Cultural Mandate) tells us to be fruitful and multiply. Adam and Eve are assigned a joint task of fruitfulness, increase, subduing and ruling over the earth. To help us here, Genesis 1:28 is a chiasm, a poetic stanza that links words in form. The B elements are synonyms, and the A and C elements add a new dimension to the meaning of the stanza.

Like Adam and Eve, we are to be fruitful and increase. As we increase and fill, we are also to subdue creation – that is, continue to add life and develop it to its full potential. More simply, we are to shape and own the world around us. We can, in effect, change the environment. What this process then looks like involves the following:

1. Create / Co-create with the Father in bringing life

Creates the sphere or environment for life development and maturation
Creates the framework for life development
Nurture the soil of the heart to receive life by discerning the beauty and God-given potential of the person

2. Co-create - Shape / Co-rule - Tend

Words spoken to call life out – potential / glory recognized & celebrated
Soil of the heart nurtured through life-giving words, the seeds of life
Fill the life based on who they are in Christ and their God-given potential and destiny

3. The Process & Tools of Creation - The Word(s)

God said . . . Creative Word – environment; creating spheres that foster life. Unlike God, we are not able to create from nothing. We create from the raw materials God has left us with. In the pastoral task, this raw material is the human heart. All human hearts need a basic environment for life development and maturation that involves the life-giving Spirit of God, acceptance, being understood and seen for who they are, and loved.
The Word became flesh . . . Incarnate Word – gift of presence; calls out and shapes life. Shaping life and dealing with the raw material of the human heart makes it all the more imperative that we ask God to reveal to us who the person before us is in Christ, how He has made them and what their God-destiny and potential is. Answering these questions allows us to create the proper environment for them to develop and mature in Christ. Before we can develop someone, we must be able to see their God-given potential – who they really are in Christ. We see this played out wonderfully in the movie, Avatar. The gracious and heartfelt greeting of the Na’vi reflects this most beautifully, “I see you.” May we see the beauty of humanity in the way God sees it!
Written Word of God – teaching; provides the framework for life and teaches me how to live out my God-given potential. Shows us how God relates to Himself, to His creation – the pattern by which we are to follow in doing the same. Although we are dealing with the written Word of God, the key to understanding the life-giving potential of the Written Word is the Spirit of God that reveals to us the very heart and love of God as it is most poignantly reflected in the Person of Christ (Hebrews 1:1-3). As a result, the Word of God is based in the Person of Christ, making it a relational book – discovering the truths in order to better relate to the Person (John 5:39; 14:6 – the Way, the Truth and the Life is a Person = Christ).
Spoken (Life-Giving) Words – the primary tool by which I co-create and co-rule with God. Shaping and tending creation is through the use of spoken words that give birth to life (born again, re-birth or re-creation), awakens the heart with hope and a future, igniting desire and passion to pursue their God-given potential. When such hope is ignited, as leaders what we discover is the individual now has internal motivation that is predicated on their relationship with God as a son/daughter, allowing us to more thoroughly engage in the pastoral task of equipping and resourcing the saints to their God-given destinies as sons/daughters, servants and stewards of life with the Father.

The Pastoral Heart and Objective

All of this is wonderfully summarized in the life and teaching of the apostle Paul as he makes it clear in several places what the primary objective of the pastoral task is. He speaks as a father to the church in Galatia as he passionately states, “my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!” (Galatians 4:19) Paul goes on to expound further to the church in Colossae,

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (Colossians 1:24-29)

All that we do in the pastoral task can be summed in the words, “until Christ is formed in you” and presenting “everyone mature in Christ.” No matter how large or how great one’s church becomes, the ultimate drive of our pastoral task is to form Christ in our disciples. May our anguish be based in this heart that longs for God’s people to reflect the beauty of Christ in their lives, as they grow in the love of God, responding to His amazing love with a life of loving devotion, loving others as they love themselves and bearing fruit as they shape and tend creation – making disciples where they live life.

The following is a list of some practical things you and I can do to set the environment as we shape and tend the creation.

Live from the inside out
Relate to the person – affirm their humanity – be a witness to their life
Listen to the heart of others (Proverbs 20:5)
Affirm the Jesus in others or affirm their God-given potential if not a believer
Assimilate/Incarnate into people’s lives rather than assimilating them into your or the church’s purpose
Release people to their identity, purpose and gifting

As you can see, the ideal environment for spiritual development and maturation to transpire is relational. This relational environment is based in the amazing love of God, devoted to the Person of Christ, devoted to His people and devoted to His passion. This community lives in unity, based in life together around the “IC” as it finds itself re-created (born again), restored in Christ (healed and being healed) and joining God in the family business of reconciliation as restorers of the breach (2 Corinthians 5:18-20; Isaiah 58:12). May we all bring order to ṯōhû wāḇōhû!

Pastoring People

2010-06-18T16:25:00.002-04:00

by Tom Johnston

The pastor of a modern Western church has to be "all things to all men" but not in the sense of Paul's words (1 Corinthians 9:22). The number of roles pastors are expected to play, via historical-cultural or organizational expectations, is really quite absurd, and most often do not arise from a biblical definition of the pastoral task. Pastors are expected to be skilled orators, expert expositors, competent managers, CEO/COO/CFO of the church, personnel coordinator, program director, general contractor, landscaper, mental health worker, carpenter, janitor, prayer warrior, legal advocate, accountant, head of IT, PowerPoint master, spiritual advisor, worship leader, bulletin layout person, vision-caster, omnipresent visitor of the sick, shut-ins, and at every major church event - as well as being chief cook and bottle washer. OK, this may be a bit of hyperbole, but most of you pastors out there have done some, if not all of these things. So, is this what Jesus has called us to do?

The forms of ministry we have inherited, along with the associated activity of it all, has caused the pastoral role to become culturally encumbered with these organizational roles and expectations. We have to keep the ministry plates spinning, and to do that, we have to become involved in things far beyond our calling or expertise. All this is done in the name of Jesus, with the motive being caring for His flock, and extending His kingdom. And from what we can see, it doesn't really work to accomplish either. Instead, busyness has taken the place of fruitfulness, as we have left the ministry of the Word and prayer to wait on tables (Acts 6:2). And quit honestly, we have left something else - the people we have been charged to care for, to minister to, to disciple and to equip. Many no longer pastor people, they pastor programs, becoming in effect, mid-level program managers in a non-profit organization. Our direct investment in the lives of others has be replaced with a lot of moving and shaking via administration. We attempt to manage the life of Christ into people, with minimal personal involvement or contact. We take the "Henry Ford" approach to ministry - mass production through efficient processes.

Yet, Jesus calls us to pastor His people. He told Peter to feed His lambs and tend His sheep (John 21:15-17). Paul speaks to the Ephesians elders of overseeing the flock of which the Holy Spirit made them overseers. The New Testament tells us to teach, pray for, exhort, encourage, rebuke people, not organizations, processes or programs. Our work is to see Christ formed in people through our own travail, giving birth as it were to spiritual children (Galatians 4:19). Robert Coleman, in his classic book, Master Plan of Evangelism (1963) said this:

"Better to give a year or so to one or two people who learn what it means to conquer for Christ that to spend a lifetime with a congregation just keeping the program going."

I wish we would have listened to Coleman in 1963 - when I was two years old. If we had, I wonder what I'd be writing you right now. Probably not this article. Henri Nouwen points out in his book In the Name of Jesus that ministers have traded their spiritual role for an administrative role so as to have distance from the people they lead. This keeps them safely away from the need to be transparent, vulnerable and accountable, and to live in community with those whom they lead. He wrote this in the late `80's from a talk he was asked to give on spiritual leadership in the next century. Now in that century, twenty years from Nouwen's lecture, and we have not heard Jesus through him either.

So, when will the madness stop? When will we have the courage to cast off the shackles of culture and human expectations, and radically return to the call to pastor people? How many more prophetic voices will Jesus need to send before we listen? Where are the spiritual radicals, the New Reformers, the revolutionaries of the Kingdom who are not satisfied with the status quo? Where are the men and women who will risk their paychecks for the future of the Church in the West by casting off the cultural expectations in favor of pouring their life into people who will embrace the Kingdom of God? Please understand, not all modern ministry forms or functions are wrong, nor are all the roles we must play at different times and seasons reprehensible to God. What offends God's heart and dis-empowers our ministry is when we allow those things to come between us and the people we serve, when we replace the direct spiritual formation of people with some 101, 201, 301 process that just happens on Tuesday night for an hour. See, its not about the form, but about our hearts. It is our heart that has to change.

The madness of modern pastoral ministry will end when enough of us currently in the ministerium cast of the fears of our own hearts and embrace the heart of the Father for His people. It will happen when the desire to please the Father replaces our desire to please people. It will happen when we stop seeing ministry as a profession or as a career and re-engage it as a holy calling. It will happen when the fear of man is overcome by the confidence of the Holy Spirit in who we are in Christ. It will happen when we embrace a new "core metric" of disciple-making instead of attendance. It will happen when we allow pastoral ministry to be defined by the New Testament rather than just our culture, history or organization. It will happen when obeying Jesus is more important that a paycheck, and when a church built on the person of Jesus Christ is more important to us than one built on us as the pastor.

The truth is, if you are going to pastor people, then you won't be able to really pastor very many. Probably about ten or so you can really pour your life into, maybe seventy or so you can have any real depth of pastoral relationship with. No, I am not advocating small church or house church - although there is nothing really wrong with that either, if they are making disciples who make more disciples. Even my friends who pastor mega-churches know this to be true: they must invest in the few who can in turn invest in the many. All ministry is incarnational and relational, so you only truly pastor those whom you can consistently engage and embrace personally.

Don't give up hope! All is not lost! The Church in the West is in dire straights, but the Church of the Scripture is not! Embrace God's call to pastor people. Make time and space in your life for people rather than the tangential roles we have inherited. Move away from those marginal roles and responsibilities - and make disciples! Don't wait - do it now, and watch what Jesus does, in you and through you, as you pastor His people.

If you'd like to read more about this transformation of the pastoral role, get our latest book The Organic Reformation: A New Hope for the Church in the West.

The Great Indivisible Commandments

2010-05-23T13:41:00.003-04:00

by Tom Johnston

I love the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37. It is one of my favorite teachings of Jesus. We see the Master approached by one of the religious elite of the day, a “lawyer” – one schooled specifically in the proper keeping of the Mosaic Law, who has obviously been listening to Jesus. The man ask Jesus how to inherit eternal life. Jesus, in true rabbinical form, asks the man to try to answer his own question from the Law. He quotes the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and the second half of Leviticus 19:18, and Jesus commends him for his answer. But the man presses his point in the dialog by asking “But who is my neighbor?” To expose his heart (to himself and the others listening) Jesus tells the wonderful story about the Samaritan.

Jesus uses the story to illustrate the inseparable nature of love – how love cannot be divided or compartmentalized, how the loving of God is indivisible from the loving of humankind and how love, the very nature of God Himself (1 John 4:8), must be demonstrated in action. One cannot truly just love in thought or emotion – Jesus shows us that love demands action. He uses the character of the Samaritan – one who is ceremonially unclean, a religious heretic and a social outcast – to demonstrate this truth. At the end of the parable, Jesus asks the lawyer which of the three characters in the story “proved to be a neighbor.” The lawyer is forced to admit that it was “the one who showed mercy” – he can’t bring himself to say “Samaritan.” Jesus then admonishes him - “You go, and do likewise.” You go, and be like the Samaritan. Demonstrate you neighborliness, your love for others, your love for God. Demonstrate your love. Do something. Here Jesus shows us that not only are the Two Great Commandments inseparable, indivisible, but also that true love is something which is lived out in action.

Now, remember why Jesus came to us – to reconcile all things in Himself to the Father (Colossians 1:19-23). He came with a Gospel of the Kingdom, declaring God’s right to rule in the affairs of men, a Kingdom which lays demands on both our allegiance and our affections. But the Gospel message Jesus both taught and embodied was not just motivated by truth, but by love. It was the Father’s love which compelled Him to redeem us, to gather Him back into communion with Himself, and indeed, with other people as well. In Jesus’ discourse in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:18-19), Jesus lays out the benefits to humanity of God’s loving Kingdom rule. Too often we Christians are too satisfied to stop when someone enters in the Kingdom and its salvation, and we neglect to bring them into the aspects of their inheritance in the Kingdom which can be at least partially realized in this life. If I love God, then I will contend for my “neighbor” to inherit the Kingdom to the fullest possible degree. And to that end, my love MUST take form in action, and here are some things which I have personally embraced, and you might feel moved to lay hold of as well.

All humanity deserves my respect because we all bear the Imago Dei, whether we are redeemed or not. Such respect is demonstrated in my relational behavior – my actions, my speech, my serving of them.
Within the realm of my relationships, I should care for the practical, emotional, relational and spiritual needs of others simply because it is Christ-like to do so.
I choose to advocate for the poor, the broken and needy whenever and wherever I encounter or am made aware of such people.
I work for BOTH personal transformation of individuals AND the transformation of society around me through the application of the Gospel message.
Care for the incarcerated, rehabilitation and reconciliation with society should be an element of my Christian ministry.
I make sure that the broken, the sick, the disabled and the addicted all have a place in God’s “house of healing,” the Church.

I want people to know the Triune God and His truth as embodied in Christ and explained in His Scripture, but I also want them to be free from governmental tyranny, have access to health care, be able to pay their bills and put food on their table. I want them to inherit eternity with Jesus in His Kingdom and I want them to experience the effects of His dominion in their life now – freedom from spiritual bondage to sin as well as the bondage of drug and alcohol addiction, having the eyes of their heart enlightened and filled with His glory – and having the eyeglasses they need. I want to see the lonely placed in His family and those entrapped in abusive relationships freed by living in His embrace through His community. Why do I want this? Simple – I love God, and because I love God, I must love others. And if I truly love others, it will take shape in action (James 2:17). Because you can’t love God and hate your neighbor. My encouragement for you – “You go, and do likewise.” The Great Commandments truly are indivisible.

Story: The Language of the Heart

2010-05-23T13:40:00.000-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

Capturing the heart and securing devotion for the cause of God’s Kingdom is that elusive element that all of us face head on in this enterprise we call ministry. Trying to find ways and methodologies hopefully inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit to speak to the heart of humanity drives much of our literature, conferences and seminars.

It has become apparent that as great as information is, even the acquiring of Biblical information, it does not automatically lead to personal transformation. The American church is one of the most informed churches in history and yet, the hearts of many are no more devoted to living the Way of the Kingdom than they were before they knew the information. Maybe as leaders we give too many answers? Maybe we should be asking more questions? Maybe the questions would give more answers than any answer ever will? Maybe the answer is in a Person (expressed in the narratives, poems, songs, and propositions of Holy Scripture)? Maybe there is another way to teach and share that would open the heart?

Jesus had an interesting way of communicating with the crowds that allowed Him to communicate clearly with His audience, capturing the heart as He conveyed the simplicity of the good news of life in the Kingdom. More specifically, He was following in the vein of the Rabbis utilizing haggadah and halakah. Oddly enough, there is the occasion that His disciples asked Him what this parable meant. He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, ‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’” For someone that was trying to speak the language of the heart, resulting in surrender to Him as the Way, the Truth and the Life and living in this new Kingdom reality, I find it odd that such a statement was made.

Rabbinic Teaching Methods

If you allow me to take us back historically to second-temple rabbinical thought, we find there existed two primary modes of teaching – haggadah (knowing/devotion/meditation on scripture) and halakah (doing the Word, walking in the Way). Our modern day classification of these two forms would probably classify haggadah as “knowing the Word” (orthodoxy) and halakah as “doing the Word” (orthopraxy). R. Abraham Heschel, a deeply respected Jewish rabbi of the 20th century, says of these two modes of teaching that:

Halakah without haggadah is fanatacism, Haggadah without halakah is irrelevant.

In other words, to do the Word without faith or proper understanding of it is to be a blind follower, and to have faith and understanding in the Word without fully living it out is irrelevant. This speaks to our modern day dilemma in our churches and in the world of Christian faith – we know and don’t do or we do and don’t know, seeing but not hearing or hearing but not seeing.

It is apparent that there is a way of life that the haggadah is framing that leads to life lived in and around the centrality of Christ that is most poignantly expressed in the “irreducible core”.

Parables: Did you hear it? No, really hear it?

Halakah has a subset in its approach which stands apart. This subset is called parable – a concept with which we are very familiar as one-third of the recorded sayings in the synoptic gospels are conveyed in parabolic form.

Let me take you back to Luke 8:9-10 (cited above), there are some who like to quote it or its synoptic equivalent to mean that Jesus taught in parables to confuse people. At first glance that is what seems to be the motive to Jesus’ use of parables. However, when we examine His quotation of Isaiah, along with the historical usage of parables, quite the opposite is true.

In rabbinic teaching, every parable has at least one “secret” or “key” that the story was conveying. With Jesus, most of his parables had at least two:

1) A key theme or high level “secret”, that dealt with the “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of heaven”, which would be better termed in English “the reign of God”, because it describes how God’s people should live – NOW – demonstrating His reign in the daily rhythms of their lives.

2) A second “secret” that dealt with a demonstration of how we are to act in the kingdom - this is the most obvious meaning or application of the parable. More simply, how we are to live based on what the parable reveals.

In the teaching the “secrets” or “keys”, rabbis were expecting two things from their listeners: to understand their “secret”, and to accept that teaching and apply it to their walk. In Luke 8:10, Jesus chooses to refer to the words of the prophet Isaiah. He said, “Go and tell this people: ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’”

It is in understanding this quote that the reader can get a hint at the two meanings of the words “see” and “hear”. When you understand the point the teacher is trying to make, you “see” it. Now, on the one hand, if you understand the message, if you choose to accept it as truth and to act upon it, you have “seen and seen” it. On the other hand, if you choose not to accept it as truth or to act upon it, you have “seen and not seen” it. In either case, the listener has to make a choice – this is the power of parable and story.

Heschel helps us here as he refers to parables as the ‘basket handles’ for haggadah and halakah, because without handles, it is very difficult to lift a basket – particularly a heavy one. This is why Jesus used parables to help the people understand his teaching so that they could make a fully informed decision whether or not to follow them. As gracious and life giving as our Messiah was, He was seeking to find followers that would go with Him in this way of life in the Father’s Kingdom.

I would also note that it was in His use of parable that Jesus was a master contextualizer – able to engage humanity right where they were. In Jesus’ society, which was heavily agrarian and living under monarchies, parables took on earthy themes, king/subject themes and master/servant themes – this was the context of peoples’ everyday lives. Using these types of stories, Jesus was able to contextualize haggadah so that people could follow it with the appropriate halakah.

So What Does This Mean For Us Today?

Using these three aspects of teaching, might I humbly suggest a way to lead in our churches to live out this Kingdom way of life that keeps us centered in a relationship with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit based in the framework of the “IC”. To help us, let me offer the three basic ways to utilize the rabbinical process.

1) Haggadah – we need to know the Word, study the Word (which includes dialogue, debate and discussion – not necessarily full agreement and certitude on every subject), we need to hold to the truth of the Word – this transcends the culture in which it is taught – the Bible then reads us rather than we read it – we are changed and when we are changed our world has a chance to change. There are things that are part of haggadah – they do not need to be ‘adapted’ to the culture and they must not be forgotten or minimized or marginalized – they are timeless realities. On the flip side, though, to only focus on knowing without doing makes a church irrelevant.

2) Halakah – living out the Word – this is a mixture of both the transcendent and contextual, and it is the heart of being ‘missional’. The Bible contains definite prohibitions (idolatry, murder, theft, sexual sin, divination, etc.) and commands (loving God, loving your neighbor, making disciples, caring for the poor & the oppressed, etc.) which are transcendent – beyond culture, but it also leaves a great deal of gray space – issues and situations – which are not directly addressed. This gray space requires knowing the Word (Haggadah) so that we might differentiate between the “open hand” (engaging and adapting the Kingdom to culture) and the “closed fist” (living out the timeless truths as culture submits to the Kingdom). To perform works of halakah without haggadah in the extreme is fanatacism (think about abortion clinic bombers, the Crusades, Jewish zealots, etc.) and at the least is misguided and sinful, and in any matter does not lead to the kingdom.

3) Parable is the true ‘contextualization’ of the Word – it is teaching and demonstration which takes haggadah (knowing the Word) and translates it into halakah (living the Word) in a way that makes it plain to the hearer how they should live, engaging the heart as the defenses of religion and fallen humanity are minimized and invitation to enter the story is given. If the ‘parable’ is told properly, the hearer will be able to make an informed decision on whether or not to follow the Way. Parable is all about contextualization – because ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’, is it not important for us to know and teach the Word in such a way as it can be properly understood and followed? Utilizing parable or story is then a beautiful way to speak the language of the heart so that the way of the Kingdom is properly understood and can be followed. Parable more simply allows a person to take responsibility and make a decision (see 2 Samuel 12, the parable told by the prophet Nathan is an excellent example).

And so, at our pulpits, in our classrooms and small groups, I think we would do well to seek out a process of teaching that incorporates haggadah:halakah:parable. Whatever your tradition might be or whatever label you choose, it is imperative that we incarnate the reality of Christ in our developmental process that seeks to bring about a right knowing (theology), the full mission of living out the “IC” and contextualizing it in our homes, neighborhoods, cities, and world. May His Kingdom find its full expression and may we rise up and be those that explicate with full heart the haggadah, incarnating, modeling and engaging our disciples into halakah, as parable and story (sharing of our own as well, Revelations 12:11).

Wave Generators and Church Growth

2010-03-24T16:06:00.001-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

Growing churches, reaching culture and transforming society has been at the heart of our church growth dialogue for some time; expressed most poignantly in becoming a people that discern the times, exegete culture and carefully employ creative avenues to express the gospel in the language of the day. The techniques are not necessarily what I am questioning as much as I am the odd use of “wave generators”. Let me explain.

Surfing a God ordained, Spirit generated wave is life generating, life transforming and to say the least, exhilarating. There is nothing like a life lived in the fluidity of the Spirit of God, doing only what you see the Father doing (John 5:19) and partnering with the God of the universe for the expansion of His Kingdom life and rule. The joy and simplicity of riding the wave of the Spirit is the key and the practice of those who are Spirit led more than tradition or systems led. Oddly enough, there is another kind of “wave” that we find in our church processes that resembles a wave of the Spirit, but is nothing of the sort.

In the world of “church growth”, like athletics, there is a thing called “momentum” that is developed that drives the body / team towards victory. “Momentum” in athletics seems to ignite confidence in the players, unifying the team in its objective to win and focusing each participant towards that end. In the church there is a similar reality that takes place where growth is surging and momentum is in full force allowing for the accomplishment of the vision with greater ease. Things seem to simply work with greater ease when momentum is in play. However, momentum as good as it is, is not the same thing as a Spirit generated wave of life that sweeps through the life of a spiritual community.

The effects and feel are similar to that of momentum with one drastic difference. Momentum brings increase in attendance and excitement, but does not produce long term transformation in the lives of the people. What sustains the wave of the Spirit is the ongoing transformation of lives that leads to the transformation of culture and society, driving the expansion of the Kingdom of God deep into the cultural ethos. Things not only work with greater ease when the wave of the Spirit is flowing, but salvation, life transformation and unity around the mission finds fluid expression while multiplying with little effort.

The wave of the Spirit, however, is somewhat unpredictable and hard to discern, requiring that the leader learn to wait on God, pray and intercede for more laborers while developing faithful disciples, stay faithful to living out the “IC” in life and ministry, and develop the art of discerning what the Father is doing. In our ever increasing “hurry up and grow your church fast before you run out of church planting funds”, we find patience and the ancient art of discerning the ebb and flow of the Holy Spirit a topic relegated for theoretical dialogue with little or no training on how to discern or practice this key art.

Sadly, when momentum wanes, the temptation then is to find or create a wave via a “wave generator” that will produce a wave of life that can be surfed; of course, this in hopes of the real deal coming soon. Artificial waves can be surfed and enjoyed but have one major flaw – they have to be maintained as well. We have come to believe a simple rule of thumb. “If you give birth to it, then you get to make it live – maintain and care for it.” If, however, God gives birth to it, then you can partner with Him in this new life that He will sustain, fund and see to its ever increasing development and expansion. He makes it live while we ride the wave.

Wave generators produce a flurry of activity maybe even draw in the crowds; but ultimately, drains the existing leadership community of life as they attempt to not only surf the wave, but also maintain it. Jesus did not call us to be an activity based community that seeks to draw people. Rather, He called us to be a disciple making community that lives in relationship to Him and each other, finding ways to incarnate the reality of His love to the created order.

The issue for us is not so much how we can generate life – you know, “make something happen” - the issue is more simple than that. It is the discovery of the life that is already happening, the life the Spirit is already forming; the life that is at work in your family, your neighbor, your colleague, your staff; the life that is at work in your spiritual community. If life, the wave of the Spirit, is not happening within us and our spiritual community, how then can it find expression in the community “out there”?

May we all find our hearts encouraged to hear the voice of the Father, to see the clear movements of the Spirit in our lives, our families, our spiritual community as we contend for His Spirit to come in full force, creating a wave of life that transforms our country. May we all catch the wave of the Spirit!

Learning to Surf

2010-03-24T16:04:00.001-04:00

by Tom Johnston

A pastor friend of mine named Buzz loves to surf. He has surfed all over the place – California, Hawaii even in the Atlantic off New England in winter! The man is a manic surfer dude. And he has a skill set all pastors need: we need to know how to surf. Now, there is NO WAY I am going to paddle out on a board and try to catch a big wave. The surfing we need to learn as servant-leaders in the Body of Christ is how to recognize, catch and surf the wave of the Holy Spirit in our lives, churches and communities.

Jesus knew how to surf this kind of wave. He demonstrated it consistently, always flowing with what the Spirit was doing –

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. John 5;19 ESV

Jesus knew what His Father was up to, and acted in partnership to see His will realized in the lives of people. He found this Spirit-awareness in that place of communion with His Father, moving from one such place of intimacy to another – and did powerful, life-transforming ministry inbetween.

We see a great picture of this in Mark 1:35, praying and communing with God, getting His direction and marching orders. In Fact, Mark 1:38 shows Him walking away from a revival outbreak in response to the Holy Spirit’s direction! Amazing, I’d love to have that kind of God-outbreak in our church and ministry, yet Jesus, secure in His relationship with the Father and certain of the Spirit’s voice, simply moves on to the place and ministry the Father was doing next. WOW.

Rick Warren, in the first chapter of his book Purpose Driven Church, talks about catching the wave of the Spirit at Saddleback – and surfing it. The rest of the book is his surfboard. Like Rick, and truly like Jesus, we need to learn to surf the wave of the Holy Spirit where we are at – seeking to what the Father is doing and doing likewise. We need to shelve the off-the-shelf programs we buy for our church and move ourselves, our leaders and our churches back to the place of communion with the Father. It’s then that we can surf into His perfect will for us, our ministries and our churches.

Let’s talk about it.

Pastoring Standing Still

2009-08-25T15:32:00.004-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

Pastoring is such an odd profession. There is so much about it that resembles the business world and so much about it that does not. We have a semblance to the machinery of leadership and organizational prowess as any business and yet, we lead nothing like it.

Our world involves leadership dynamics, forming and maintaining the leadership engine, developing farm systems for new and upcoming leaders, navigating the organization, and so on. However ours is not simply a leadership of systems or product creation, management or sales. The world of pastoral leadership is a spiritual enterprise that affords us the privilege to lead and shepherd God’s most precious creation – people. In this organization, we are not the senior partner, but the junior partner. God is the senior partner and since it is His company; He gets to call the shots (John 5:19).

Having said that, let’s talk a bit about something I have always known but not always practiced. I have always believed that God speaks to His people (I Kings 19:12; Amos 3:7; Acts 16:9). The most frequent ways seem to be impressions in our spirit, the “still small voice”, through His Word, through others, dreams and visions, and of course, the occasional audible voice. This article is not on how He speaks but assumes that He does. Particularly when it comes to developing His people and navigating His Church into the fullness of living and representing His Kingdom life on earth.

What I have been realizing is how often my pastoring and leadership have been based on my tradition or my understanding of leadership principles. You know, stuff like when there is momentum in the organization you don’t want to stop it and so do all you can to facilitate it. Makes perfect sense and is absolutely logical. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the logic of our traditions and leadership logistics and execution. I am not contending for an irrational leadership and then calling that spiritual, but asking the question, how does one lead in a spiritual manner? The answer that I’ve come up with is the title of this article, “Pastoring Standing Still.”

It is clear that God asks us to do things He will not do and reserves for Himself things that He will do that we cannot do (I Corinthians 3:6). Somewhere in the midst of this is the key to pastoring standing still. Let me try and explain.

Jesus uses the “wind” metaphor as language for the Holy Spirit (John 3:8). I have struggled most of my ministry life trying to discern; what is apparently the knowable “will of God” (Romans 12:1-2). You know, trying to decide if you should buy that building now, lease this property or the other one, start this ministry or stop that one, plant the church now or wait, support which country in missions, preach what series or text, do what outreach project, bring on which staff member, etc. The decisions we face are many and deeply challenging.

Scripture doesn’t always help as it makes clear that God’s thoughts and ways are not like ours (Isaiah 55:8-9). We find in Scripture countless examples of what appears to be counter-intuitive leadership; a leadership, that some would call, supra-rational. Supra in the sense that is just beyond our understanding, but not irrational per se. It is rational in the spiritual domain but not necessarily in ours. It is rational from the vantage point of God who can see all things and as we learn after the fact, His decisions are brilliant and include so much more life than we ever anticipated. It is not logical in the way we understand logic and once we see the whole picture our hearts melt in humble awe. That is precisely our problem. We do not see the whole picture.

Our training as helped us look for what is next and proper for our traditions and what is the next step in the leadership matrix. We look for those obvious cues and rightfully so. But is that all there is to spiritual leadership? I think not.

In order for us to become sensitized to the Spirit’s leading in our lives, we must allow ourselves to stop and pause, to reflect and meditate, to listen; to open the eyes of our hearts (Ephesians 1:18) so that we might be spiritually enlightened; to calm ourselves so that we might be able to feel the wind blow and sense the direction of the Spirit.

After pastoring for nearly 30 years, I have come to truly know some things I already knew. I know that I am a son first and not a servant/pastor. I know that I am supposed to follow the leading of the Spirit. I know ministry is a spiritual enterprise. I know that spiritual transformation cannot take place without the work of the Holy Spirit. And yet, I have spent less time in prayer as a son and more as a pastor trying to get a sermon or a tip on what to do next. Instead of meditation and reflecting on my relationship with God and what He is doing in my life and ministry, I have opted to study leadership theory or systems or simply have gone out and done something in the name of the Almighty to satisfy my restless and uneasy heart. I have quieted my soul for the process and not the Person of Christ and as result, have missed the beauty and peace of being in relationship with the God of the Universe.

I say all of this to simply say, slow down. Spend time with God as a son/daughter, quiet yourself and meditate on what He is doing in your life and ministry. Reflect on your day with the Holy Spirit and led Him guide you through it and learn from the happenings in your life, training the “eyes of your heart” to see with understanding. Don’t act unless you sense that “still, small voice” releasing you.

All I know is that since I have committed to pastoring standing still, I have discovered that my ministry is less burdensome. I have more joy and life. Not to mention that things happen with greater ease and less work, leaving everyone amazed at God and not me.

I leave you with these questions:

How long has it been since you have heard God speak to you about you? If it is a long time, why do you think that is the case?
What do you sense in your spirit/heart that God is saying to you about your relationship with Him? Your family? Your leadership?
When you sense you are suppose to pause or act, what keeps you from doing it?
How is that we, as spiritual leaders, struggle to hear the voice of God and yet, expect our people to do it? What will you do differently to ensure that you will hear the voice of your Father and only do what you see the Father doing?
If God has spoken to you today, how will you now respond to that?

Walking in the Flow

2009-08-25T15:24:00.004-04:00

by Tom Johnston

What moves you? I mean, really moves you? Not just emotively, but motivationally – what moves you to action? Is it a situation – a positive or negative experience, or perhaps circumstances – those that are pleasant, or those that are uncomfortable and challenging? Is it personal need, a sense of mission, a desire to please, an aspiration to show love? Is it a feeling, a way of thinking, a perspective; is it hope, or fear, or anger, or joy, or lust, or greed, or ambition? Could it be a desire to bring change, a just cause, a passion to see people helped and served; a wish for people to know the truth – as you see it; a passion for souls “won to Christ?” It is something you choose, or simply a “knee-jerk” reaction to some external stimulus in your life, good or bad? What is it; what drives you? It may be one of these things, or something similar. The point is, something does motivate you, and something does move you. The question is: what is the ultimate source of that motivation; that drive, that passion?

When you look at the list above, you view it through a framework within your thinking and emotions which reflects your moral values and ethical beliefs. This framework is developed through experience and learning, what you have been taught and what you have encountered in life; through your upbringing, family life, the country and locality you were born into, as well as your place within the socio-economic and ethnic status of your culture. Of the list above, you may see some as almost angelic in virtue or demonic in expression; and you would be right, to a point. What drives us proceeds from within – for good or for ill, from our own heart. Because of this we are admonished in Proverbs 4:23 to:

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Jesus highlights this in Luke 6:45:

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

The rabbis of His day thought of the “good intention” and the “evil intention” of the human heart, and the struggle was to master the evil intention and thereby give rise to the good. We see this in the story with Cain and Abel in Genesis 4:6-7:

The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

Unlike Taoism (Daoism), which seeks to hold these forces in the Yin-Yang balance, the Hebraic rabbi sought to teach his disciples to overcome the “evil intention.” The problem is – we can’t do either. We cannot achieve the balance the Taoist would desire, nor can we ourselves master the “evil intention” of sin as described by the rabbis. Cain couldn’t do it, David couldn’t do it and we can’t do it. Yet, the desire to do good is there because we are made in the Imago Dei, but that image is marred by sin. So, from this we can see that all human motivation in and of itself is, to some degree, corrupted. It is the self-oriented nature of the fallen human condition that taints the purest desire, with the self being both the source and the object of the motivation – what I do, I do because of me, and I do for me. After all, it really is all about me! Beyond the rare selfless heroism, we are bound to the problem of the self. What I do, I most often do for the sake of self, very often even loving and serving myself so as to be loved and accepted by others. Many are driven to preach the Gospel not out of compassion, but out of a need to be superior, to be right. Many want their ministry to prosper not for the satisfaction of Christ’s travail (Isaiah 53:11), but for their own need for success. Many even seek to serve God through “soul winning,” hoping in actuality to win the love and approval of their heavenly Father.

This is the problem Paul talks about in his Letter to the Romans, in chapters 6 through 8, the death of the self in favor of the life of Christ living in us and flowing through us, being the only solution. We can’t overcome the evil intention of the fallen nature, but we can die to it. We can live, not just in the “good intention,” but rather in the goodness of the person of Christ. Regrettably, we often view these chapters from a theological or theoretical perspective, rather than a practical one.

So what does it look like to actually live out this goodness of Christ through self-death? Sounds rather bleak, doesn’t it, dying to self and all? Is it all a road of pain and suffering? There is some of that, yes, self-mortification of the flesh is not comfy, not “warm and fuzzy.” But the key is found to all of this is in this passage in Romans 8:12-15:

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

The key is simply living life in the flow of the Spirit, and allowing all motivation to proceed from that. No longer am I living, but it is Christ who is living within me, and through me (Galatians 2:20). I no longer have to master the evil intention or try to exude goodness, two things I can’t do anyway, I just have to choose Christ over myself in all things. I no longer must master evil or good, I must be mastered by the One who is good incarnate. For many this sounds too metaphysical or ethereal, but it is actually quite practical. While the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each disciple of Christ is a profound mystery, the daily walk of yieldedness is a simple function of relationship: the more time I spend with the Person of Christ; the more time I spend in meditating on His Scriptures; the more time I spend with Him in reflection and prayer; the more sensitive I become to His moving. So, then, as I walk through my day, I am walking in His flow, my heart and desires yielded to His.

While this time investment sounds extreme, it is more about consistency and constancy than the actual hours allotted in spiritual pursuit. If I have time with Him and His word consistently on a daily basis, and if I build into my day the means of being aware of Him continually, I will be able to draw upon His presence, His heart, His mind, His will and His desires, putting mine aside. The real death I must embrace is not just to my fleshly desires, but a death that allows me to prioritize God in my personal schedule! Again, Paul speaks to us about this as well in Colossians 4:2:

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

We can walk through our daily life in a God-aware posture, always seeking communion with His spirit, having an attitude of awareness or watchfulness for what the Father is doing (John 5:19). Whatever we encounter, whomever we encounter, we do so in thankfulness, responding through the Spirit, in the Spirit to everything and everyone, realizing in everything the will of the Spirit, as it says in Romans 8:28, in Paul’s culmination of His dialog about the flesh/Spirit struggle:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

This should then be our goal as disciples of Jesus Christ, to walk in His Spirit daily to flow with Him in what He is doing, to be motivated by that which motivates Him and nothing else, dead to the self, but fully alive in Christ. All this is simply attained, to an ever greater degree through our relationship with Him. May this be so for you, and may you walk in the flow of the Holy Spirit daily, moved by His heart, sensitized to His directing breezes, living a life overflowing with the abundance of the Person of Jesus Christ.

The Keys to Church Growth: Trust & Obey

2009-06-24T15:24:00.002-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

The longer I have walked with Christ and partnered with the Father in His Kingdom enterprise, I have come to realize that the fundamental issue of my life has been housed in an inability to trust. I have discovered that it is easy to believe God. It is an entirely different matter to wait on Him. If I trust Him then I can wait on Him, even when it appears He is not doing anything.

This inability to trust has influenced my life at the very core of its being, expressing itself most clearly in a command and control persona that resulted in a lot of activity (more than necessary), stress, pressure and oftentimes, wasted energy. This life of command and control can be explicated more clearly in the graph below.

Relief (Soul feels the pleasure of control) >
Immediate Results (Pathway is now confirmed – it works, therefore it is God) >
Ache in the Soul/Boredom (Something still missing, success not enough) >
Pressure to fix the ache of the soul >
Results in increasing stress >
Discouragement & Despair (Ending point for some)>
Demand & Control (Isaiah 50:10-11; Jeremiah 2:13)

As you see, the life of command and control is lived in the authority of the self and not in the power of the resurrected Christ. For many years, I have lived in that mode, justifying it and baptizing it with Scripture. The basic ideology of a command and control leadership style is about the objective and the methodology or system employed to achieve it. Leaders who live in this world de-humanize their leadership teams and staff, providing on-going scarring of their hearts, speaking love while modeling performance and results as the basis of acceptance (you are valuable as long as you contribute). Everything we preach against somehow finds its way into our practice, undermining the very gospel we are trying to convey. How did this happen?

Without trying to answer the question categorically for everyone, let me tell you how it happened for me. The old hymn says, “trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey” (Word by John H. Sammis, 1997). Trust and obey, I have come to believe is the key response to the love of our Father expressed most poignantly in the Son at Calvary. We not only trust and obey for our salvation but for everything we do in our Father’s Kingdom, including how we lead His church.

An example of opting out of the life of trust and obey is found in 2 Samuel 6:1-8, when David is returning the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. He opts to carry it via a cart instead of how it was commanded in the Law which specified that it be carried by Levites who would bear it on their shoulders by means of poles passed through gold rings attached to the ark (Exodus 25:14). Even the Levites could not touch the ark or look in it. This violation of a command led to the death of Uzza.

If you’ll let me place a little modern logic to the mind of David, his rationale for carrying the Ark on a cart was based in convenience and speed. After all, you don’t need 4 people to do it, the pace can be faster and energy preserved. How do we move from doing what we know God has asked of us, to doing what is expedient and convenient? The tragedy of our choice is that it often paves the way for death to be more dominant in our ministries than life. Ironically, more people burn out, die spiritually and lose their passion for Christ – including those of us who lead it – when we opt for this life of convenience, immediacy, results and success.

Years ago, God spoke to my heart a powerful phrase that still reverberates in my soul. He said, “This is a sacred trust, never treat it as common.” This powerful exhortation had to do with His Kingdom and my small part in it, shepherding His church (a local expression of it) for His pleasure and purpose with a methodology of equip and release rather than command and control.

As much as I have known this, I have struggled with it – what I know and what I do have not always been the same. Years ago, when I came to Christ and entered ministry I knew it was about loving God and loving people and making disciples. Somewhere in the simplicity of my faith, I opted for expediency, results and success – using people to achieve my vision (or as I use to say, “God’s vision”). While I contended for those who did not know Jesus and sought to love them and include them at my Father’s table, I minimized those around me as I dictated what they should do to achieve the vision, loved them well when they performed and replaced them when they didn’t, preached about love and family but modeled perform or lose your spot. While I opted for the convenience of carrying the Ark on a cart, I still could hear the voice of my Father speaking to my heart. I simply ignored it or paid more attention to the voice of convenience, results and success.

I am a classic “Type A” personality and so, waiting has never been easy for me. My idea of patience is a 30 second wait – microwaves even irritate me. When it comes to God, who seems to move at “Three Miles an Hour”, I have found myself opting for convenience and immediacy, rather than “trust and obey”.

When we adopted our second daughter, we were so amazed at God’s kindness to us. Ephesians 3:20 seemed to be happening as God was simply blowing our minds. However, during the second week of the adoption the birth mother changed her mind. It was a time of tremendous heartache for us as we were well aware that we were about to lose our daughter. We prayed and trusted God, with no other options but prayer and waiting on Him (rather good options, I think). The following Sunday my wife went to the altar and laid our little girl on it (I joined her) and thanked God that we were able to be parents of a newborn baby for 2 weeks. With our baby girl in her arms fully extended to God, we said thank you to God and wept. We let our baby go into the hands of our loving Father (waiting on God which is to look to God, Isaiah 40:28-31). Well, God took our daughter and gave her right back to us and we have enjoyed this sacred trust and will never treat it as common. What I have learned is that when you wait or look to God (Isaiah 40:28-31) the results are far greater, the death happens inside of us and the life and health of those around us is vibrant, alive and maturing.

Dear leader, as you contend for our God, be mindful of His voice. You know, the one that reminds you to love your spouse and speak kindly and tenderly to her; the voice that prompts you to show affection and verbalize it to your children; the voice that encourages you to appreciate your staff and leadership team with words and acts of kindness; the voice that asks you to give up your fear; the voice that tells you are a beloved son/daughter before you are a servant or a steward. Whatever you do, be sure to carry the Ark the way it is supposed to be carried – “trust and obey for there is no other way.”

More Than Mechanics

2009-06-24T15:17:00.002-04:00

by Tom Johnston

In the classic 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz, the young girl Dorothy is transported to the Land of Oz, and in her journey to return home to Kansas, she seeks out the Wizard of Oz, purported to be the wisest man in the land, to aid her in her quest. Through all of her adventures, she and her friends (the Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion) finally encounter the Wizard, who is not all that he at first seems to be.

First appearing as a giant, fearful apparition, the Wizard is exposed as just a man who is operating the “smoke and mirrors show” of his avatar from machinery hid behind a curtain. Amazingly enough, once he is exposed, the travelers gain the benefit of his very real, and gentle, wisdom. While the Wizard messed up and is eventually unable to facilitate Dorothy’s return, he is able to help the others discover that the things which they seek are already in their possession.

For too many of us who are pastors, we have been trained to be the men and women “behind the curtain,” pulling the levers of the church machinery, keeping everything (apparently) running smoothly, creating a larger-than-life presentation each Sunday morning. We wow the crowds with our sermons, video clips and worship experiences while staying safely behind the “curtain,” holding people at a distance, all the while saying “ignore that man behind the curtain!” With exposure comes vulnerability, and the regular folks from Kansas might find that Pastor Oz is not quite as huge as the twenty foot projection screen makes him out to be. So, we focus on being “church mechanics,” operating and maintaining the machine of ministry, a safe recluse accessible to all through their avatar, but available to none as a real person.

But it is that kind of encounter, the encounter with the “real Oz,” that allows for those “regular folks” to access the gentle wisdom of Jesus resident in each of His shepherds through the Scripture and the Spirit. And what we help them discover is that what they seek they already possess in Christ. Too often we try to give them what we think they want – the big show with all its apparitions or pomp or laser-light shows, yet in doing so we most often fail to give them what they really need.

It is much safer for us to touch them lightly through our public avatar than to touch them deeply through our personal presence. Indeed, the avatar allows us to present, like the Wizard, a perspective of who I am without revealing the true me – the “spiritual giant,” the “Sermonator,” the faux-vulnerable servant of God who is close to no one. (Social networking sites allow us to do the same – I can show you the “me” I want you to see and never allow you close enough to see the real “me.”)

Now, you can’t have deep relationships with everyone in your congregation, especially if you have a large church. No one can handle that many relationships, and it is foolishness to try. But you can be open and go deep with your staff and leadership team, modeling vulnerability, giving them access to the wisdom of Christ in you, setting a standard for the culture and ministry of your church community. What you do with them, they will do with others. What you give to them from Jesus, they will give to others. Pretty soon, the light show will seem dim due to the brightness of the Son in your midst. You’ll find the levers you used to pull don’t flip the spiritual switch for people anymore, as they have found the real Jesus in you and your leaders – once you stepped out from behind the curtain.

We are more than mechanics operating and maintaining the machinery of church. We are not professional performers, staging a larger-than-life drama. We are the “regular folk,” the men and women of God, called to live a way of life together with others, with all of our flaws and vulnerabilities – all our human frailty – making disciples with His gentle wisdom.

So, come out from behind the curtain, and join the rest of us. The first steps might be a bit scary, but the rest of the journey is a blessing – both for you and for those you minister to.

My Father

2009-05-19T11:32:00.001-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

We live in a confused, somewhat dark and oppressive time. The apparent corners of our foundation have been seriously challenged in the past 18 months. Our equity has been severely diminished (for many completely gone), for many their homes have been foreclosed upon, for countless millions jobs have gone by the wayside, and our retirement plans have been blown away by the winds of economic decline.

On top of that, we are still dealing with the effects of the earthquake of postmodernity, leaving us in a quandary of how to think, perceive and function in our lives as pastors and leaders of the church. The theological landscape is still a confused mess. The arguments for and against postmodernity have already filled enough pages of a myriad of books and articles; another one by the Praxis guys is not necessary. However, I am concerned that the times we live in have only led to further confusion about who we are in Christ and how we are to live as His community. Unlike the men of Issachar, who had understanding about the times (I Chronicles 12:32); we find ourselves more sophisticated than ever, technologically savvy and stellar in creating ambience for our gatherings and yet, without any clearer sense of who we are as sons and daughters of the Most High and how we are to love and live together as a community.

Oh sure, we have continued to do what the church is so proficient at, polarizing between so-called ideologies which are still theological and methodological processes that are all too often, devoid of developing the 3 relationships: Relationship with God, relationship with self and relationship with others. The polarization between the house church movement and the traditional/temple church is a reaction to something that is missing in our current church practices by and large. Even with the challenge of postmodernity, we still tend to look to something (a methodology – a new wineskin) rather than looking to someone (the Father and His people). All this tells us is that the “how” of doing church is still the issue.

How do we overcome this dilemma and live and love as Jesus did? Well, let’s turn to Jesus to see if He can help us.

Jesus frequently used the personal and intimate designation of God as “My Father”. Unlike so many in our day and age, Jesus defined Himself in relationship with His Father. We tend to define ourselves by our theological persuasions, our methodological prowess, our roles, our mission, etc. If you took away your ministry, your role, your mission, would have anything left that could be called the self? I realize that human beings have “to do” something in order to be human – our humanity is expressed in and through our doing. This is not my question or issue. Maybe the better question is, if you gave away the Gift of Presence – the Gift of Self to another, what would that look like without your role or missional function? What does it mean, in your life, to incarnate the Gospel in the lives of others?

Jesus often says, “My Father” - this is the key and source of His life and ministry. He is in relationship with the Father. He is not submitted first to a mission, a cause, a methodology, but to His Father. It is this relationship that releases Him to the mission, the Father’s cause and the methodology by which He will do it.

It is also of interest that the Father’s validation of Jesus, at His baptism, was on who the Son is, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). I find it striking that the Father defines Jesus by His relationship to Himself and not by what Jesus came to do.

This relationship defines who Jesus is, what He will do and how He will do it. In the same way, our relationship with the Father allows us to discover who we are in Christ and how He has made us for His Kingdom pleasure and purpose. It is only then that we truly are able to do only what we see the Father doing. Maybe it actually frees us to see what the Father is doing since we are no longer looking at our theological paradigms or methodological processes first, but sensing the direction of the Father’s leading and where He is already at work.

Navigating this confusing time or any confusing time is best done by looking to our relationship with our Father. After all, isn’t that how Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father”?

I say all that to simply ask, are you growing in your love for God and for His people? Do you find your heart moved by the tender mercies of God, overcome by His love and unable to stop the love of Christ from flowing from your life towards others? Do you find your devotions extend to the whole day rather than just 15-30 minutes? Have you discovered your love for family is deepening and your presence with your spouse is more pronounced? In the midst of this economic decline, have you noticed more peace and hope than ever before, even though all that seems to bring it is passing away? How can that be? Maybe, that is the question the world should be asking us who live such a reality.

The revolution that Tom and I believe our Father is birthing is not one that is based in a new ideology or a cause or methodology, but in a relationship with God. It is only those who walk in such simplicity that will be able to navigate this tumultuous time with grace and success, as they do what they see their Father doing.

And so, what are you defined by? What defines you is what you will give away.

Church Without The Props

2009-05-19T11:22:00.003-04:00

by Tom Johnston

So, how did Jesus minister the Gospel to the 5,000 without the appropriate background music? I mean, come on, how did He set the mood for the moving of the Spirit on people hearts and minds without a worship leader and team backing Him up? Everyone knows that you need a serious kickin’ sound system to do live events outdoors! It’s surprising that people would come such a meeting without proper seating, or donkey parking, or childcare. I wonder what the disciples did for Children’s Church? How was He able to do leadership meetings with His disciples without PowerPoint? How was He able to build community with them without e-mail, Facebook or Twitter? How did Jesus do church without all the props?

I think the key to why His ministry was so effective can be found in this passage from John 6:66-69:

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Jesus had life, the life of the Father in Him, and that life was that which drew people to Him. Jesus didn’t need the props because He had content – eternal life from the Father. And not eternal life as a concept, or a future destination, but as a vital current reality. People experienced the life of the eternal Father when they encountered Jesus. Peter’s statement related the fact that they had been so impacted by this life that they could not leave Jesus. If Christ was so impacting us today – and others through us, we would see the churches full to overflowing. So, the question becomes, why do we need the props to “do church?”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think we should use all the technology, etc. in our ministry environments. There are many practical things we need to put in place to facilitate ministry well, and all ministry should be done with excellence. But very often we prop our ministry up on the props, because we don’t have the vital life of Jesus flowing in us or our churches. Ouch. I know, it hurts to embrace that, like a crown of thorns, or nails in the hands, or a spear in the side. But we have to embrace this truth – it is part of our going to the Cross, part of our dying daily, part of our sharing in the sufferings of Christ.

We often use the analogy of Starbucks coffee in a paper cup – we go to Starbucks for the good coffee (and pay way too much) and not the paper cup. The cup is essential, but is not what we spend the ridiculous amount of money. It’s the content. The life of the Father brought to us by the Holy Spirit through Jesus the Son is the content we need. As we like to say, we need some serious Jesus on tap, because you can’t give away what you don’t already have.

So, what are you doing to add the content of the life of Christ to your life? How are you going deep with Jesus, personally? How are you going to add His life to your Church? Are you relying on the props to get you through, both personally and as a church?

Recently, I learned of a local Episcopal church here in New England which had one of the walls collapse of its stone building – it fell on the pastor’s car. The building inspector condemned the ancient stone building – they can never use it again. Believe it or not, the congregation was revitalized by the challenge of being flexible for worship, sharing space with other churches, being in temporary digs. They lost one of their props, but found the dynamic life of Christ. Amazing. What would you and your congregation do in a similar situation? What would happen if you lost some of the props supporting your ministry? Maybe it’s time to kick out some of the props and see if the life of Christ alone will support your ministry. Let’s see if they are coming because of His life, or the convenient donkey parking.

May your life and ministry have the true life of Jesus in abundance and may it be more than just a propped up house of cards.

The Time Has Come

2009-03-31T13:40:00.002-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

We live in the midst of a post-modern world that has become suspicious with the propositional world of truth and facts. The declarations of science have only made the average individual more apprehensive about what can be known and who can know it. Truth has become personal, “what is true for you is not necessarily for me”; largely due to a world of overstatements that were not backed up by reality. Our world is less interested in whether or not something is factually true, but rather if something is real. This does not deny the interplay of truth with facts, but speaks to the “something more” that lies deep within the human heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

The Western Church (referred to as WC) has only facilitated this demise as we have bought into a secular worldview that has taught the sequence of fact, faith and feeling. In essence, feelings don’t matter and can’t be trusted. We are basically Vulcans (like Spock on Star Trek -Vulcans are individuals that have removed all emotion because of the near extinction of the Vulcan society due to emotions). We live in a cerebral world of propositions and systems of thought that guide our daily lives. The world is then not about love, righteousness or beauty, but about being right, clear and logical. The emphasis is on supporting, building and nurturing the proposition and the operating system and not on nurturing human beings (Philippians 1:25) and our operating system, the heart.

As a result the WC has operated in a paradigm that focuses more on the “how” than it does the ultimate destination or the “why”. It would be like two families arguing over which vehicle to take on a trip. One family wants to take the RV and the other wants to take the SUV. In their argument they lose sight of the purpose and destination and focus only on the reasons their vehicle of choice is superior and more necessary. The point of the trip, family fun and togetherness is lost in the heated exchange and both families will not budge.

RV – Argument for: More room, can rest better and relax while we drive, can interact better as families.

SUV – Argument for: Roomy enough, better gas mileage, easier to drive, less likely to get into an accident, easier to park.

The families can’t agree on the mode of transportation, the “how” and so by taking separate vehicles are no longer able to vacation together. How unfortunate. How silly. How church-like. It is so easy as the church to get sidetracked and spend more time disagreeing over the “how” rather than focusing on the direction (a “how” the Bible does not address). You know - when your political party determines your theology, when you base your Biblical views more on the Constitution than Scripture, when you turned Christianity into creeds and doctrines at the expense of a relationship with God, when love becomes a tool to evangelize instead of a way of life, when our denominational preference supersedes Scripture; when this happens we become "religianity" rather than being simple followers of Christ.

The WC gets lost in its creedal wars, fighting with a heart that is far from the heart of love that Jesus told us would define as His disciples.

The WC has then created a process where we…

Educate to Principle > Equip to Principle > Evangelize because of principle for the principle.

The WC seeks to admonish and address issues in life so that people will adhere to the principles and systems that have created and need to be supported. The contention of many in the WC is to protect and to preserve their system or way of thinking more than preserve and nurture others in the love, grace and freedom of Christ.

The OC (Organic Church)

On the other hand, the OC (Organic means life on life) seeks to help facilitate a relationship with the Person of Christ by incarnating His presence (Gift of Presence) and living in the reality of the “Irreducible Core” (loving God, loving others as you love yourself and as you live life, make disciples). Systems are utilized in the OC as well. However the systems are not served but serve the life that is forming. These systems are adaptable and flexible and only exist to support and release life - not constrain it.

The OC process then would look something like…

Encounter a Person > Equip to and for life > Edify other persons

The WC is about strict adherence and behaviors while the OC is about 3 relationships (God, self and others). More simply, love affirms which frees people to become the person God intended them to be (Ephesians 2:10, NLT “masterpiece”) – releases us to have a relationship with a person not a proposition. Just a side note, propositions are much easier to control – a person, particularly Christ, is not.

All of that to say, forgiveness leads to freedom and freedom leads to fruitfulness. Understanding the proposition of forgiveness is vital but experiencing it in relationship with the living God of the universe is another matter. Love frees and is the basis of the new revolution.

If you have found yourself weeping over this generation, interceding on behalf of lost people, praying that God would forgive them for they know not what they do, finding ways to facilitate reconciliation in all matters of life, and growing in the Fruit of the Spirit; then you are being prepared for what is to come.

The closing two verses of the Book of Acts help us understand what this all means. Paul had been living in house arrest for 2 years, paying his own expenses, as well as having a soldier guard him (Acts 28:16). In spite of the obstacles, Luke closes the account with these powerful words, “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance”. When we live for ourselves there are always hindrances. When we live for Christ, there are only opportunities.

The revolution is full of opportunities. May God’s people submit to the King, be overtaken by love, and find the world ready and primed to receive our Messiah! To the resolved and broken, the time is now. The revolution has begun!

De-coupling From Culture, Engaging People

2009-03-31T13:25:00.001-04:00

by Tom Johnston

Since Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, followed and reinforced by Theodosius I and his Code in 380 AD which established Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire, the Christian faith has held special cultural privilege in Western society. Indeed, as the West developed, the Church has played a foundational role in the formation of its civilization. The Church has been the center pole of that society, and consequently the American nation as well. Here in New England where I live, during the Colonial Era, before a village or town could receive a charter from the King, a church building HAD to be constructed. Mr. Jefferson’s letter regarding his thoughts on the separation of Church and state had not yet been penned – the Church was seen to be essential to the community, the society, the culture. (Kings ruled by Divine Right – and none wanted to offend God!) Christendom, the aligning of Church and State, became the dominant cultural driver in Western societies. How far we have moved from that reality, with the secularism that came with Modernity replacing the influence of the Church. This has been both good and bad. Bad in the sense of a general decline in those professing Christ as a percentage of the population, bad in the sense that the positive influence of the Church in ethics (politics, business, science) has declined as well. But perhaps it is good as well. Perhaps it is an opportunity.

Today the Church in the West struggles to find its place in the very civilization it helped to found. Europe has become profoundly post-Christian, some even say pagan. Years of culture wars in the United States has not gained any purchase in the downhill slide of faith in our country. By way of example, the recent American Religious Identification Survey indicates 29% of the people living in my state (New Hampshire) have no religious identity. Not Christian, not Jewish, not Muslim, not Buddhist - not anything. This is up 20% in the past 18 years. Yet the Church of Jesus Christ continues to grow everywhere in the world outside the West. The Church of the West is in trouble, the Church of the Bible is not.

In response, many pastors and Christian leaders are on a quest for an elusive thing – cultural relevance. Many see such relevance as the key to communicating the Gospel effectively to generations which have yet to be truly impacted by its message. And while we would applaud their missional concern and their desire to once again impact the society for Christ, we are not sure that cultural relevance is what we should be aiming for. An honest appraisal of the Gospel as compared to some of our Western cultural norms shows some dramatic divergence. For the Christian disciple, the way up is down, the way to gain your life is to lose it, the way to lead is to serve. Seems a little different than the current version of the American Dream, as we see a combination of personal and corporate greed wreck the economy as companies sold things to people who were lusting for what they could not afford. Not exactly Matthew 6:33.

No, Christianity is counter-cultural to the West, as the Gospel speaks prophetically against much of the self-absorbed nature of our society. It is counter-intuitive, as it does not support the current morals and values of the West, seemingly wrong to those steeped in the materialistic, hedonistic lifestyle at the core of our civilization. To make the point simply, the recent “economic crisis” happened in part because people stopped buying stuff. Times got tough, people got smart, savings went up, personal debt went down (first time since WWII) – and this was bad for the economy. So the government had to spend for us, and for our kids and grandkids. But that’s another article.

So, what then about culture? The Church exists within culture, incarnates within culture and communicates the Gospel within culture. A proper “cultural exegesis” is required for a local church to effectively minister in any given environment. So, culture cannot be escaped, but the issue is not cultural relevance, because the Gospel is not relevant to culture. It’s relevant to people.

For 2000 years, in many different parts of the world, in many different cultures, the Gospel of the Kingdom and its message of salvation have impacted billions of people – and changed and shaped cultures – through the people who have been transformed by Christ. The individuals, couples and families who have entered into the new birth and then been used by God to bring change to the culture. They have been so affected because the Gospel speaks to the core human needs of significance, transcendence and belonging. The needs of people. People’s hearts must change before they can change their culture. In effect, true Christianity is a counter-cultural, revolutionary in-breaking of the Kingdom of God into the lives and affairs of men. The Kingdom advances one heart at a time. The hearts of people. This spiritual revolution initiated by Christ is not propagated by institutions on organizations – but by His people. It is shared person to person, life to life. It is an organic reality that transcends culture. In fact, every culture at some point must bow its knee to Jesus. We don’t need to dominate culture nor morph ourselves to mate with it – we need to be salt and light within it, ministering the love and life of Jesus to people.

Perhaps it is that God in His sovereign plan is allowing the Church in the West to lose its cultural influence so as to de-couple us from it, so that we can minister to the people within it. We could leave the Culture War behind (we lost anyway) and engage in a war of love and service to people. No longer being the center pole of Western civilization, we can’t expect people to come to us, we must go to them, going with a heart of love embodied in sharing God’s truth, compassion and justice.

So, abandon your quest to hit the moving target of cultural relevance, and go find people to love on, in Jesus name. When He transforms enough of us, He can transform our society. Go engage some people.

Jesus Christ: Revolutionary, Liberator

2009-02-25T11:38:00.004-05:00

by Tom Johnston

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” – Jesus Christ, Luke 4:18-21 ESV

It often surprises many people that Jesus is not just some mild-mannered teacher of moral values, but rather a spiritual revolutionary, the Anointed One chosen of God as the ultimate Liberator of humankind. That’s O.K., because it surprised the folks in Nazareth, too. Jesus, in his own words, declares Himself and His intention to upset the apple cart. He was not just another run-of-the-mill upstart young Rabbi just come in from one of those desert epiphanies. No, He was the Invader from Heaven, breaking in from the outside, intent on setting some things straight. In this declaration, He is throwing down the gauntlet in the face of the Adversary, declaring the coming of the Kingdom rule of God.

Seven Marks of A Revolutionary

It was not all that long ago in the span of history that America fought what has been termed the “Revolutionary War” against what was called “tyranny” and “oppression.” Jesus came to fight a much more significant war on a much grander scale – all the cosmos and the humanity it contained was the prize for which He waged war – not a war of this fallen world (cosmos = created order, see John 18:33-40), but a spiritual war which spanned the dimensions of reality (Philippians 2:8-11). Yet in this, Jesus finds Himself in the company of many members of humanity, perhaps the Founding Fathers of America included, who were radicals, revolutionaries bent on liberating people from oppression. Let’s look at some of the marks of such people:

1. He claimed Divine empowerment. He was not the first revolutionary, or the last, to claim such, but He was the only One who could do so in absolute, undeniable truth

2. He felt that He was specially chosen for His task. Many leaders throughout history have proclaimed the same, but none with the effect on humanity, or on human temporal and eternal history, like Him

3. He had a special focus on the poor – those who were spiritually impoverished as well as the economically disadvantaged and destitute

4. He led the largest jail-break in the history of creation, busting into the worst concentration camp ever to lead the captives to freedom (Ephesians 4:8-10). And to this day He continues to free men and women, boys and girls from the bonds of death and hell (1 Corinthians 15)

5. He brought a new way of seeing things, a new take on reality, that was not of the status quo. This challenged the religious leaders of the day – in fact it scared the gehenna out of them

6. He came to over-turn the tables of injustice, racial hatred and oppression – the oppression of humanity by the Adversary and the oppression of humanity by humans

7. He, with all authority, declared all the debt owed to the true King of the Universe was to be paid in full – and then He Himself paid it on the Cross

Jesus is the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world. But He is also the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. And He is not a tame lion. Nor is He a circus lion, who can be taught to do tricks. He is a victorious warrior who defeats His enemies with a word and has a “take no prisoners” policy – because the liberation of the prisoners is why He fights. He is the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, and is over all dominions, principalities and powers, in the form of both human and spiritual governments. He cannot be overthrown, ousted in a coup d’état, or subverted through a counter-insurgency – and the increase of His government shall know no end. He is utterly undefeatable. He is not a messianic politician, but THE Messiah. He is the ultimate Revolutionary because He is good, unstained by fallen-ness, untainted by personal agenda. His methods – hanging out with all the “wrong people,” having relationship with the “usual suspects,” are completely righteousness, because He is the embodiment of both love and justice. He does not wage war in the flesh or by the means of this world, but by service, self-sacrifice and speaking the Truth to us in love. And we are His revolutionary Army of Liberation.

Come Again?

That’s right. The Church. The Body of Christ. You – Spiritual Warrior of Love, Freedom and Hope. What? Not quite the image you had of yourself, or of the Church in the West? Could it be because the Church, born in the image of its Creator, having both lion and lamb characteristics, has forgotten its spiritual lion-hood? Is it perhaps because our self-perception is that we are grasshoppers in the eyes of the giants in the land? Is it because we think our culture too hard, too cold, too wealthy, too satiated, too disinterested – in other words too tough – for Jesus to conquer? Is it because we have bought a defeatist and escapist theology that says it’s all downhill from here – and we all beam out just before it hits bottom, so hey, why bother anyway? Maybe it is a combination of these factors, and more.

Or maybe, it’s just because we’ve forgotten who we are in Christ. Or perhaps we have never really known. You are what you eat – and we have been fed an incomplete diet in our understanding of what it means to be a Christian. But not all of us have drank the watered-down kool-aid of spiritual passivity. There are lions in our midst – we know you are out there! It is time to believe in the call of God on your life as a liberator, to trust His Spirit working in you to revolutionize your heart with His love, so that He might revolutionize your home, your neighborhood, your church for His kingdom. The time has come for you to take a stand for the Liberation Front of Heaven and embrace the fullness of Christ in you – embrace the Lion. It’s time for you to stand up, stand out and wage the war of love. It is a time to take risks, to love with reckless abandon the lost, the hurting, the broken – the “wrong people,” the “usual suspects,” to champion again the cause of the poor – the spiritual poor and those poor in the things of this life (Jesus wasn’t kidding about the sheep and the goats thing in Matthew 25). It’s time to work to set the spiritual captives free – and to work to free those held captive by poverty, alcoholism, addictions, fear, hopelessness, and social injustices of every kind. It is time to see the new reality of God’s Kingdom life as real, and not a storybook fairly tale of something that happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away – or as something we wait passively for the Rapture Bus to swing by our stop and take us to the great-by-and-by. Yes, it’s time to even stand up to governments that oppress people through economic and political means. Where are the advocates in the Church for the Darfurs, the Sudans, the Rwandas? Yes, we know you are there, but you are distressingly too few.

And why should we concern ourselves with such things? After all, we each have our own stuff to deal with, right? The first reason is simply because it completes the work of Christ, pulling into this reality and into the lives of people the acceptable year of the Lord’s favor - the blessings of His Kingdom reign and rule. His Kingdom enriches, frees, illuminates and unshackles – and that reality needs to be demonstrated in and through, His Church. The second reason is just as simple – He has already begun doing these things for you. How could you but allow Him to do the same thing through you for others:

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” - John 20:21-22 ESV

So, go, you who are the Spirit Breathed-Upon, sent in the same way the Father sent Him: Empowered. Chosen. To the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed – in the spiritual and the natural – and declare and demonstrate the blessings of His Kingdom rule and reign. Remember, this is your God:

The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing – Zephaniah 3:17 RSV

Go, be a revolutionary, a liberator, like Jesus.

Binding and Loosing: Language of a Revolutionary

2009-02-25T11:30:00.002-05:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

Jesus told Peter, after he made the great confession that “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19)

Jesus seems to be giving Peter the keys of authority that will invade the dimensions of planet Earth. What did Jesus mean? What is the authority that has been granted to Peter? Are we able to simply bind and lose whatever we desire? Can we simply decide to start a spiritual revolution and loose it on earth? From a quick literal reading it would appear such is the case.

Whatever camp you find yourself in determines your interpretive possibilities. For the conservative Evangelical the power of binding and loosing can only be based in the written Word of God. For the Pentecostal, the power of binding and loosing is based in the authority of Jesus granted in the presence of the Holy Spirit who empowers every believer to live out this authority. For the Catholic, this power has been given through a long succession of Popes, beginning with Peter, that speak as the living words of authority, preserving the tradition and life of the Church.

Ok, enough of the exegetical possibilities. What in the world did the text mean? And how does it apply to a revolutionary?

I find it fascinating that the once the words have been spoken by Jesus, He immediately instructs the disciples to tell no that He is the Christ and explains how He will go to Jerusalem and die and on the third day be raised from the dead.

What intrigues me further about this text is Peter’s response to Jesus going to Jerusalem and dying. The first thing that Peter tries to bind is Jesus, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” (Matthew 16:22)

Jesus swiftly rebukes him, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Matthew 16:23)

I wonder how much of an issue this really is. We, well meaning sons and daughters of Adam, in our attempt to move out in the authority of Jesus, often end up binding and loosing the wrong things. How Hell must laugh.

Another text adds to our understanding, which reads, “Why could we not cast it out?” And He said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” (Mark 9:28-29,)

In the account, the disciples were not able to cast out the demon (Mark 9:18) and were perplexed as the text indicates. The disciples had to learn that their previous success in expelling demons (Mark 6:7) provided no guarantee of continued power. Rather the power of God must be asked for on each occasion in radical reliance upon the Spirit of God. This power must be asked for afresh in prayer. Our reliance is not on a principle but a person that we commune with daily. As Jesus said, the Son only does what He sees the Father doing (John 5:19).

To trust God’s power in the sense that we have it in our control and at our disposal is tantamount to unbelief; for it is really to trust in ourselves instead of in God. Faith is a radical reliance upon the Person of Christ not just the propositions about Him. I can control a proposition or principle and implement it as I see fit. I can’t control Christ and use Him as I see fit. Faith in Christ requires a relationship, trust, on-going dialogue (prayer), and a daily surrender to His heart and will for my life.

And what does this have to do with a revolutionary? Simply this, we believe God is in the midst of something profound in our land. A spiritual wave of hope and life is swelling in the distant horizon and the saints are finding themselves stirred within to ride this wave of life and societal transformation that will release the healing and saving power of the Kingdom. It is within this framework of the in-breaking of His Kingdom that we have the power to bind and loose.

So how do we bind and loose and facilitate this revolution? The first key in a spiritual awakening or revolution is not so much what we choose to do in the name of Jesus but our surrender to the Ultimate Revolutionary, our obedience to His voice in our daily lives, our willingness to live within the confines of His Kingdom authority; and our passionate aim to see His Kingdom extended so that all might come to know the restoration of life His Kingdom brings (this is about salvation of souls but includes so much more).

And so, it is not so much about what we bind our loose or the power that has been granted us to exercise demons and remove the darkness in our land. His authority has been released in us (Matthew 28:18-20), that is not the issue. The issue is our on-going dialogue (prayer) with the Ultimate Revolutionary so that we move when He moves and we bind what He has bound and we loose what He has loosed.

The prophet Micah encapsulates this for us as he declares, “He who opens the breach goes up before them; they break through and pass the gate, going out by it. Their king passes on before them, the Lord at their head.” (2:13) The King has come. His Kingdom is here. The revolution has begun. May we have ears to hear what He is saying and eyes to see what He is doing!

Deformed Reform

2009-01-22T11:04:00.001-05:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

I have often wondered why it is that people struggle to get along with each other. Husbands find it difficult to understand their wives; wives, at times, feel like they are married to an alien that doesn’t comprehend the feminine heart; siblings fight and contend for parental affection; and those in the Kingdom of God, the Church, war with one another over right doctrine and preferred practice. Like the Zealots of old, our reformation tactics, even if well intended, are not about bettering humanity and the Kingdom of God but some form of nationalism that interjects its religious superiority and prejudice over others. After all, the best human organizations can do is to create structures that dominate and oppress – dehumanizing individuals as it turns them into human doings, functionaries within the oppressive matrix that serves the powerful and the few.

The Kingdom of God, on the other hand, is not about a power that restricts, dehumanizes, oppresses or dominates. Rather, the Kingdom of God is about the freedom (Luke 4:18-19) that Christ ushered in that results in a power of service that frees others from the bondage of the oppressive demonic matrix. The power of the new society that Jesus came to create is not one that needs to be served, creating fear in the lives of its constituency. Rather, Jesus came to bring about a Kingdom that will serve others even if by dying for them.

All this to say, the best religious structures can do is give rise to oppressive and restrictive measures that continue to live along the lines of the satanic matrix that continues to dehumanize and devalue the pinnacle of creation (humanity). As polished and right as our doctrine might be the machinery of religion still serves the few, drawing the many to support it, while the many serve the machine and lose their humanity. Maybe this has something to do with why so many are disillusioned with organized religion. It would appear that our overall efforts at reform simply deform the creation more and more.

On a more positive note, have you ever noticed that humanity is often at its best in the midst of catastrophe? When a hurricane or some natural disaster or terrorist attack strikes one of our cities, we see humanity step up in a way that normally does not take place in our day to day routines. Fireman, police officers and the like sacrifice their lives to help those caught in the throes of death’s grip. The heroic efforts of those during 9/11 are forever etched upon the minds of us all.

Why is it that during such difficult times people act more human than at any other? I submit to you that the reason is the playing field has been leveled. We are no longer doctors, lawyers, CEO’s, but simply human beings. It doesn’t matter if the person trapped in the building is a house wife, a CEO, degreed or non-degreed, all that matters is one of the human family is hurting and someone needs to help them. For a moment we get a taste of humanity at its best, as it loves sacrifices and re-humanizes the other. For a brief moment, the country is one and we are all just human beings contending for the humanness of each other. The problem, as we all know, is that we can’t maintain this.

Jesus comes to bring about a true reformation of heart that re-humanizes us through the power of the Cross. He came to level the playing field. He became human so that we might return to being human. He became a Man so that we could see how the Father (the Trinity) is and how the God-head relates to itself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He brought about a Kingdom that is based in 3 relationships: Loving God and loving others as you love yourself. More simply, relationship with God restores our relationship with the self, healing our brokenness, which then allows us to have relationship with others. The purest form of a level playing field is the power of the Church to serve and re-humanize the other. In other words, loving people is the primary characteristic that verifies we are disciples of Christ.

A man went to Rabbi Shammai and made a request, “I will believe in the God of Israel and abandon idolatry on the condition that you teach me the whole Torah while standing on one foot.” Shammai was rather irritated by this request and was holding a builder’s cubit measure rod in his hand that he quickly used to whack the would-be convert with, driving him away for asking such a ridiculous question.

The other great Rabbi of the day, Hillel (both were contemporaries of Jesus) was next in line for this foolish man’s question. He asked Hillel and Hillel responded. “What you do not want someone to do to you, do not do to him or her. The rest of the Torah is commentary upon this principle. Now go and learn it!” This is the negative application of the Golden Rule taught by Jesus.

The heart of the Torah that Jesus came to restore is highlighted by Rabbi Hillel. The issue is in how we relate to each other. Another great Rabbi and Pharisee (Acts 23:6) said something along the same line: “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14)

Dear Saint, Pastor, leader, may you find your heart overwhelmed by the love and mercy of our God that has resulted in your freedom that has released in you a heart to serve His Kingdom. May you resist the oppressive nature of the demonic matrix that seeks to overtake our churches and organizations while it dominates and oppresses people all in the name of Jesus. May you find your life more human, more alive as you and your family enjoy the liberating power of the Cross that sets us free from human domination. May the coming revolution not be about our personal prejudices, a nationalistic pride or self-serving theology. May Christ come and set me free from myself and free me to be myself for His pleasure and Kingdom so that others might be re-humanized in the love of the Cross.

One Lord, One Faith, Many Graces

2009-01-22T10:58:00.003-05:00

by Tom Johnston

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Ephesians 4:4-7, ESV

So then, why all the sects, denominations, networks – all the different brands? Why is it that it seems that while God sees us all as one, we are working so hard to try to portray ourselves as different? Why do we feel the need to be unique as a church or denomination? Is sameness bad?

At the heart of this segment of Paul’s letter to the mighty church at Ephesus, the Apostle to the Gentiles is trying to help them see the wonderful nature of God: unity in diversity, and how that is expressed in His Church. God as trinity is One, yet diverse. Paul reminds them of this singular nature of God as a prelude to his discussion of diversity. He makes a clear point of there being only one body, only one Spirit, only one hope, only one Lord, only one faith, only one baptism – and only one God who is the Father of the one family, called the Church.

With all this unity and singularity, why then do we have so many brands? If we are meant to be interdependent, why so much expressed independence in the churches? With more than 3,000 denominations, networks, independent groups and non-denomination denominations today, we seemed to have missed the point of the “one body” et al. somewhere. What we experience is more division than diversity, more isolation than interdependence. Why?

In verse 7, Paul mentions that each member (diversity) of the one body (singularity) was given a grace empowerment for the building up the body of Christ, for bringing us to unity in faith and spiritual maturity. It seems such development equips us for growth in love, and makes us resistant to the shifts brought on by the “winds of doctrine.” Yet, amazingly enough, it this issue – doctrine – which seems to divide us the most. Not necessarily just on the big points: the Bible, the Person of Christ, etc. but on things, well, that seem to us to be less important, things not essential, not core to the Christian faith. Our doctrinal statements and our liturgies become reasons to depart from the unity of the faith, from the bond of peace. Indeed, they have been the cause for wars.

Where then, does the expression diversity come in? In the grace of Christ. The fundamental uniqueness of His grace working through the various streams of the Church and individual people provide us with a display of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23). The multiplicity of Christ’s grace expressed is what imparts us our uniqueness, all of which is meant to function and flow together in oneness – God is one – with one purpose – the building up of the one Body and the extension of the one Faith. At Praxis, we currently have the privilege and joy of serving pastors and denominational leaders from more than 20 denominations, as well as many independent churches and networks. Most of the time when we are together with these dear saints, we can’t tell them apart, because we can see in all of them the grace empowerment of Christ Jesus at work in them.

So, go ahead and hold onto your doctrinal proclivities and creedal statements – we want you to. But hold onto them loosely – and please don’t use them as a hammer on the rest of us – don’t let them divide us. What we need everyone to do is bring their grace to the table – that which Christ has invested in them. We need who He is in each of us. Just don’t go home and take your ball with you, because then we all lose out – and so does the world. We might differ in a few bullet points on our creeds, fliers and websites, but we still need the grace of Christ in each other. It’s the only way the West can be one again for Christ.

How To Not Stink At "Evangelism"

2009-01-22T10:45:00.001-05:00

by Phil McFarland, member of the Praxis 24 Fellowship

Americans love shortcuts. We value expediency and hate waiting. Let’s face it; we are accustomed to getting what we want, in the shortest possible time. A mere twenty years ago, a single phrase universally described a bygone era: “Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.” As Christians, we’re not immune to impatience. In fact, I suggest we’re worse off. With God on our side, why should have to wait? With the full force of Scripture behind us, we’re genuinely confused why the majority of lost and misguided people surrounding us fail to recognize what we’ve discovered. We want to believe our Lord’s words, that the ‘fields are white for harvest’. Yet, Christ’s prayers in Gethsemane seem to often go unrealized. Why?

Over the course of the past year, through prayer and reflection, I’ve compiled a list of simple truths I believe are essential in order to communicate God’s love in today’s world. I’ve adopted a practice of rereading these occasionally to remind myself of the depth of relational investment required to effectively model Christ’s sacrificial love.

1. There’s no two ways around it; you really must love people; this means having other people’s best interests in mind and being genuinely (and solely) motivated from compassion. 'Witnessing' for any other reason is merely arguing about your beliefs.

2. Learn what's important to others first, then communicate God's love in a way that's meaningful to them, based on their values. They’ll never adopt your values before experiencing your love for them.

3. Unbelievers can't be expected to learn jargon; if genuine communication is going to occur, you must speak their language –fluently. Do you think “Christianese” is holy?

4. If you can't communicate your core, foundational beliefs in common, everyday language, then chances are, you really don't understand them to begin with.

5. Don’t wait to tell others about Christ. Live-out the change He’s making in your heart and describe to others what’s happening in your life when God presents the opportunity to do so.

6. Speaking to someone about Christ is far more personal than talking to them about their weight. If you don't know them (or care for them) enough for that discussion, than you probably need to lovingly invest more into their lives before trying to talk to them about their errors of belief and spiritual destiny.

7. Christians are far better at drawing distinctions between themselves and others around them than they are at recognizing the connections that already exist between them and those that God has placed in their lives.

8. Contrary to what you believe, most non-Christians have not rejected the God you serve. They've rejected a half-formed set of ideas, based on their godless experiences. If you don't believe that, ask them to describe the god they've rejected -and see how it little it compares to God's true character. If you still doubt this, ask yourself, “What would I believe about God if I had not met Jesus?”

9. Christians place a supremely high value on what they believe. Non-Christians truly aren't concerned about what you believe; they only care about how you treat them and others. If they see a significant difference in how you act, they may listen to what you have to say in relatively small, digestible chunks.

10. Don’t perpetuate the idea that people are loved more when they act right. That only reinforces the (wrong) belief that love is earned. Instead, merely love them. Unconditionally. In time, they may want to know why – live out 1 Peter 3:5. Then, connect them to Christ, our Cause and Source. At that point, a transformation of heart and values will occur. Their behavior will change in response to the birth of love, forgiveness, grace and appreciation in their lives.

21st Century Pastoral Ministry

2008-11-14T11:31:00.003-05:00

by Thomas Johnston

As the culture in the West continues its dramatic shift away from any connection with a Christian world-view, we are challenged to continually readdress and redefine the role of the “pastor.” Historically, this has been a vocation in the sense of a compensated role, paid for by a self-supporting local church or a denominational group, and may have been either full time or part-time in those churches too small to support a pastor. While pastoral ministry continues to be a multifaceted reality in the sense of various aspects of the role, one thing has become clear: the 21st Century pastor in America must think and function like a missionary.

Gone are the days where the church was the center pole of community life and activity, where the pastor cared for and nurtured the flock which obediently attended the weekly services and activities that were normative of a neighborhood or town. We are the inheritors of a declining church, one with a lackluster witness to a powerful Christ. The generational decline in church participation will seemingly reach its lowest point in American history, beginning to parallel the decline a generation earlier in Europe. The Church in the West is in trouble. However, the church of Jesus Christ as portrayed in the Scripture is not.

So, we face a post-modern, post-Christian, pagan culture. Good, now that we’ve got that figured out, let’s get to work. We face nothing that has not been seen before by the Church throughout the ages. The shift we have to make in our thinking is that pastoral ministry is no longer providing chaplaincy services and care for a group who willing comes to our sacred edifices multiple times each week. Such a passive ministry died with Ozzie & Harriet and Lawrence Welk. (The times, they are ‘a changing.) No, now pastoral leadership must be what it has always been on the mission field – active and catalytic with a goal of making more and better disciples of Jesus Christ everywhere. It is a 24/7/365 activity engaged in by all Christians who have been prepared by their leaders (read: pastors) for such mission, one which is lived as a way of life. 21st Century pastors are missional leaders who train missionaries (Ephesians 4:11-12) – the people of the body, maturing them in Christ, equipping them for every good work (2 Timothy 3:17). These people become then The Ubiquitous Church – the church which is not a building, but a people who, as they engage in life, make disciples for Jesus Christ, everywhere they go, every minute of the day. Life becomes both the curriculum and means for discipleship, “as you go, make disciples” (Matthew 28:18-20).

Such missionary pastors should not see this as a financially lucrative career path. Ministry has never historically “paid well”, but it has likewise been understood that being a (foreign) missionary “paid” even less. But if we are to reach the West again for Christ we must adopt the mindset of a missionary and be willing to NOT be paid for the ministry we do! We can expect God to provide, but it may or may not come through the offering plate. Are you up to the task?

You're Not Pastoring Right

2008-11-14T11:20:00.002-05:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

As a young pastor, I was convinced that by being open, honest, and approachable, conflicts and difficulties could be resolved without the loss of relationship. In my youthful zeal was a quiet pride that believed I would be the first pastor to plant a church and not lose any of the initial people, while being able to manage the Board without major controversy. As I later learned, I was dead wrong. If the apostle Paul had problems with his churches, who am I kidding to think I won’t.

The events described below took place over about a year and a half in my first church plant. It was a quiet problem that festered and grew into full force after about six months. The major life of the conflict lasted about the same amount of time. The lessons I have acquired from the experience are enormous. I will discuss those at the end of the article.

The room was quiet and the faces somber. Once again, the Board of Directors found themselves smack dab in the middle of a rather heated discussion on my failure to pastor the church. We were a non-denominational church that had found itself growing and enjoying the blessings of our Lord’s favor. In the midst of our third year, the Board of Directors began to find itself divided over the issue of the church’s vision. One particular Board member, John (names have been changed), was deeply concerned that I was not carrying out the vision of the church. He was convinced this was the case because of personal issues I was not addressing. In his opinion, personal counseling was the only recourse for me, his senior pastor. What made the issue more painful for me was the friendship I had shared with John for the past eight years. He was not only an integral part of this particular church plant and a Board member, but was also with me in my previous ministry. For the past eight years, he was by my side as a support, prayer partner, and encourager. On top of this, he was a close friend.

Our Board of Directors was made up of myself - the senior pastor, the senior assistant pastor and Chairman of the Board, the head deacon, a congregational member (Steve), the head elder (John), another congregational member (who was our accountant), and sitting in without voting power was another assistant pastor. During this time of conflict, the Board was divided down the middle. The pastoral staff understood the problem to be personal. It was not so much that I was failing as a pastor, but John was hurt over the change in our relationship and was expressing it in the arena of theology, ecclesiologyand church philosophy.

John was able to convince Steve and our head deacon that something was wrong with my leadership and effectively spread the poison to some of our key leaders. Several people were commissioned by John to analyze my sermons and critique their content and spirituality. “Were they Biblical enough? Do the sermons feed you spiritually?” were the questions each person was asked to answer after every sermon. Quietly, but surely, a growing consensus developed that became concerned over my preaching and leadership. An unofficial task force to help me find my way back to personal wholeness and spirituality was created amongst this group of so-called concerned brothers and sisters. It was my worst nightmare in ministry. I already understood the issue of insecurity well enough without being scrutinized and challenged by my leadership.

The struggle lasted for over a year. At first, the Board meetings were only awkward. Over time, they became more discussion centered with little resolve. The meetings were like the cat who chases his tail. No matter how much we discussed something, we could never catch the tail. As the months passed, the meetings became more tense and confusing. Without question, it hurt the church’s direction for the year and realistically cost the church about two years of momentum. It is difficult to pastor a leadership when they are not sure they support you any more. No matter how hard I tried to mobilize our leadership during this period, a spirit of confusion and suspicion crippled my efforts. At this point, I began to doubt my ability as a pastor, often second guessing myself and hesitating on critical decisions.

“YOU ARE PREACHING MILK!”

In one heated meeting, John, with intense emotion, verbalized a pastor’s worse nightmare: “You are preaching milk to the congregation.” Although his words were not loud, the pain of the verbal blow was felt in the deepest fibers of my heart. I felt the emotion well up within me.

“Why was he was doing this?” was all I could think. I responded with a question, “Can you give me an example?” Before John could respond, Steve, one of our older Board members added another blow. He said, “Mike, it seems to me that your preaching is too deep and philosophical. Maybe you’re preaching too much meat; something seems to have changed in your preaching the past six months and I’m not sure what it is.”

If confusion was ever about us, it sure made itself present with his comment. “Which is it, am I preaching milk or meat that is too thick for our people to chew? I can’t be preaching milk and meat messages at the same time.”

John piped up and said, “You are no longer discipling people anymore. You have drifted away from the vision of the church.”

One of our staff pastors quickly interjected a question, “How do you define discipleship?”

“Well, it’s one-on-one mentoring, counseling, and teaching classes,” John replied.

I quickly, but gently asserted, “Isn’t that what we are doing now? After all, each of the pastors, including me, are discipling individuals, teaching classes, and counseling. Can you help me see where we are failing in the vision?”

John was speechless and slightly dumbfounded. He answered with slight resistance, “I guess you are doing it.”

Feeling relieved, but frustrated, I asked, “Then, what are you trying to say?” All he could do was answer with a generic criticism of something being wrong with the church.

“I QUIT”

Throughout this period of turmoil, I struggled deeply with my identity and ability. I was already quite familiar with an unwanted companion called insecurity before any of the conflict began. My greatest fear in life was that I would one day be exposed and found out to be far less than what people believed. All of the talent and giftedness people said I had would be discovered one day to be nothing more than a front for my weak and meager ability. The conflict began to awaken my fear in ways I had not known.

One day, I said to my staff, “I think I’m going to resign. It’s the only way I see to resolve the tension on the Board and keep the church from being hurt any more.”

My senior associate pastor quickly responded, “I don’t think you should resign. That would be a big mistake, Mike. You need to stand your ground and see this through. If any one resigns, John will need to.”

Those words stuck with me and gave me perspective during a time when I was having a hard time understanding why any of this was happening. We had been so effective in our communication with our leadership and Board members; so overly cautious in our relationships with our people; and quick to admit when we had made mistakes. “With all the honesty and transparency, why was any of this happening?”

A STRATEGY

This had gone on too long. I knew I was going to have to make a decision and act quickly. The only saving grace for me was my knowledge that John was hurt over the status of our relationship. I had taken this matter to him in private and even with some of my staff members. He admitted to some hurt, but would not agree that his hurt and personal counseling issues were clouding his perceptions.

He was a close friend who was in contact with me on a daily basis for some time. Unfortunately, due to the church’s quick growth, his recent marriage, and the birth of his daughter, our time together was drastically reduced to church functions and maybe a night out a month. It was clear not only to me, but the pastoral staff that this was the issue. Adding fuel to the fire was John’s recent struggle in his marriage that resulted in him going to counseling. Looking back, it would have been best to ask him to step down from the Board while he was in counseling. Mixing the pot with his personal issues and our relational change not only resulted in clouding his perceptions, but helped develop his conviction that I needed help too. He was convinced that I had personal issues that were affecting my ability to pastor. One of the issues was my inability to receive love or ask for help.

Understanding this to be the case, I decided to see how clear-headed John really was. I brought the pastoral staff together and told them of a plan to gauge his effectiveness on the Board. In our next Board meeting we were due to discuss salary increases for the pastors. John was well aware of how difficult it was for me to propose a raise for myself. I told the staff how I was going to propose everyone’s raise but mine to see if John would go for the bait. There was no question in my mind that I could manipulate him with this strategy to give me a raise. To keep myself accountable to my staff, I told them everything I was planning to do. I also made it clear to them that if John went for the bait I was going to have to remove him from the Board. The staff and I agreed that I can’t have someone on the Board who can be so easily manipulated.

A SAD SUCCESS

The Board meeting began with prayer. I reached for my notes and glanced quickly at my senior associate who nodded in support. I motioned that we proceed with staff salaries. Just as I had planned, I motioned for everyone’s increase, but mine. Much to my dismay, John took the bait hook, line, and sinker.

A gradual grin of pleasure was forming on his face as he said, “Wait a minute, I just happened to notice you did not motion for a raise for yourself.” He sat back in his chair with a look of satisfaction like a car thief who finds a car with the keys in the ignition.

“John, you know how hard it is for me to ask for a personal raise,” was my embarrassed reply.

“Then I motion to raise Mike in his salary,” John noted for the Board. Full of pleasure and self-satisfaction, he smiled and leaned back in his chair as if he had just proven his worth to me and the Board. He never wanted to be a “yes” man on the Board. With conviction and force he added, “You know, I’m not simply going to be a “yes” man to every thing. That was the original desire you had for the Board members and I’ll be sure to enforce it. And since, you have difficulty asking for a personal raise, I’m here to make sure we always do what is right and not always what you want.”

I sadly nodded my head in affirmation, conceding his apparent victory. The motion to raise the staff, including my raise was unanimously passed. I knew at that moment I had to carry out what was going to be a rather painful decision.

AFFECTS OF THE CONFLICT

Sadly enough, I had to ask John to resign from his position on the Board and as Head Elder. Of all the decisions I had made up to that point in my ministry career, it was the most painful for me personally.

The confusion caused by the past year had more impact on the people than I anticipated. For example, Steve came to my office one day ready to resign from his Board position. He was confused over how the Board was when it became evident to him and me how John had been influencing him. Over the course of the next few months, others in leadership came to realize on their own that the problem was John. However, we would lose our Head Deacon in the process. He turned in his resignation from the Board and as Head Deacon. With all that had happened, the damage to him was beyond repair at this point.

What made John’s position so ridiculous was his criticism of one particular woman in our leadership. She was someone who was being trained to be a counselor and working with our women. He felt she was spending too much time with me. He insinuated to many that I was playing favorites with her and that an affair was going on between us. She was one who demonstrated concern about me and was initially on John’s side. The affair accusation allowed her to see how convoluted John had become in his thinking. If the situation were different, I would have laughed over the false accusation. The only relief I could feel was knowing that people were beginning to see the truth for the first time in months.

I wish I could say the conflict came to a grinding halt when I served John the official papers from the Board that requested his resignation; such is sadly not the case. As anticipated, the request hurt him deeply. Reports of his dissatisfaction with the process and his attempts to rally dissenters and start a Bible study came across my desk. He was unsuccessful in gaining a following to support him in his position against me. Ironically, many in the church wanted to support him, but he would not receive it unless they saw things his way. My senior associate accompanied me in the meeting and comforted me after. It was the first time I broke down and cried at the end of a meeting.

It was difficult to continue pastoring after that ordeal. My passion for ministry diminished to some degree and my ability to lead was hesitant. Although, I did not harbor any bitterness or keep people at arm’s length; there was something in me that quietly removed itself from public access for the next few years. I could sense that something in me died. I had a two godly brothers and close friends that helped me process what had happened. They were a great support to me through wise counsel, friendship, and prayer. They helped me wrestle through the guilt of what felt like I had betrayed my friend and the frustration of failing as a pastor. The entire situation tapped my insecurity of not being good enough to handle the pastorate, or anything for that matter. Through constant dialogue with my friends and the Lord, I was able to release the hurt and allow the Lord to build me as a man of God. Ironically, as only the Lord can do, He took the situation and began to make life happen by working in the deeper recesses of my heart. From this, a new sense of confidence and passion began to spring up, coupled by a renewed vision to pastor.

To this day, contact between John and I is minimal. The rift has not been resolved to the degree I believe the Lord would desire. However, the wisdom I have gained from the experience is invaluable. The following is a summary of what the Lord taught me through this experience:

Conflict is not always about theological or philosophical issues, but often can be centered on hurts or disillusionment people have with a person(s) or within themselves. I would not call this “personality-centered conflict” as Keith Huttenlocker does, but “person-centered conflict.” By this, I am suggesting people project their own hurts and issues on to people or situations to work out their hurt or frustrations.
No matter how much you prepare your people to handle conflict, it is inevitable. Preparation helps a church work through conflict better and even overcome a great deal of it, but does not guarantee that all conflict will be resolved. Unfortunately, we live in a fallen world.
As pastors, conflict taps deep personal issues in us which can be the basis for our actions if we are not prayerfully aware of them. For example, my fear was that, over time, people would come to realize I was not very godly or gifted. John and Steve’s criticism of my preaching confirmed my fear. I could have responded to this by exercising my authority and removing them from the Board or shrunk back in defeat. Either choice would have been a reaction to my fear and not a response to a problem the church was having.
Facing a conflict is often about facing the issue or fear in our own souls as well as dealing with the present conflict.
Conflict often causes us to choose sides and release our grip on the pursuit of truth and righteousness. We tend to forget, especially when hurt, that what really matters is the Kingdom of God and our obedience to our Lord. Instead, we opt to get our point across at the expense of the Kingdom of God and His people. I have learned, it’s less important to be right on an issue than it is to be right in my heart. By this, I am not implying that right and wrong does not matter, but that our pursuit of being right must be internal (within our hearts) before we try and resolve issues between people.
Pastoring is not about how successful I am, but about pleasing our Lord Jesus. As a result, if I am not able to forgive people and release them unto the Lord, then I have radically missed the mark as a man of God.

The Pastor as Father

2008-11-14T11:16:00.001-05:00

by Benjamin Israel Robinson

“Your sons will take the place of your fathers; you will make them princes throughout the land.” Psalm 45:16, NIV

I remember the thrill of being a senior in college. I felt as though things were coming together for me, I was beginning to see connections between theology and psychology and science and history and I began to develop a sense of learnedness and expertise. This led to conflict between my parents and me. I was a free thinker, no longer constrained by their limited and shallow view of the world, and I was unafraid to assert myself at their expense.

On New Years Eve night, 1997, I was about to take my brothers to a youth rally in San Jose when my younger brother began to argue with my father. They went back and forth and the discussion grew more and more heated. I was getting frustrated because we were running late. Finally, I looked at my brother and said, “you’re dead wrong,” and then proceeded to tell him why. Then, in a rare moment of bold indignation, I pointed my finger at my father and said, “and you’re wrong too,” and then proceeded to tell him why. When I finished I looked at my brothers and said, “Get in the car, let’s go,” and so we went.

For a moment I felt righteous, as though I had done a great thing by setting them both straight. But that sense of righteousness quickly morphed into a sense of remorse and godly sorrow as the conviction of the Holy Spirit infiltrated my heart. I felt terrible all the way to our destination. When we arrived, I took my brother aside and told him that we needed to call dad and make up with him before going into the service. We found a phone and I spoke first. “Dad, I was wrong to point my finger at you and tell you that you were wrong. That is not my place and I sincerely apologize.” Then my brother took the phone and apologized also. It was a deep moment of reconciliation between us and our father.

When we went into the service, the pastor recognized us and said, “The Robinson boys are here. Why don’t you guys come up here and lead us in some worship!” My brothers and I took the platform – Mark on the drums, Joshua on the bass, and I on the keyboard – and we led the gathered congregation into a powerful time of worship. But I asked myself after it was all over, “how could I have gone up to that platform and led God’s people in worship if I had not first been reconciled to my father?”

This is a good example of the way in which the church is supposed to function. The church is a household, not a corporation. Households are governed by parents; corporations are run by administrators. The pastor functions in the church the way a father functions in a household. Paul would insist on this in his letter to the Corinthians: “Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.” (1 Corinthians 4:15, NIV)

Dallas Willard laments that the church of the West has omitted discipleship from the great commission and replaced it with conversion. He calls this The Great Omission, as his book is aptly titled. We don’t have to stretch our intellects to see his point; committed Christianity is at an all-time low in America. I read somewhere that the average ‘faithful’ American church attender goes to church twice a month. The epidemic of ‘church-hopping’ plagues American Christianity (can you imagine first century disciples Rabbi-hopping?) to the extent that true discipleship is practically non-existent in the church of America.

I see this in the congregation that I pastor and it makes my skin crawl. I had a guy come to me a few months ago and ask my permission to go through a particular process at another local church and I asked him why he felt he needed my permission. He responded, “because you’re my pastor.” I looked at him in disbelief and said, “I am? The only reason I ask that is because you’ve never allowed me to pastor you. You come to church once every three months, you have yet to submit yourself to any discipleship process here in the church, and now you’re asking my permission to submit yourself to a process at another church?” I didn’t say that to him to beat him up, but to encourage him to plug in at his new church and seriously commit to discipleship there.

But I must confess that there is a degree of anger and of indignation that I feel about the whole thing. What’s up with American, consumerist Christians? How many sermons do I have to preach on discipleship to convince people to do this thing right? At times I’ve found myself down-right pissed off at people who are content with a form of godliness, a shell of a Christian life devoid of any real substance. I call ‘em flash fried believers, they’ve been seared on the outside so they look cooked, but on the inside they’re as rare and uncooked as raw meat. They have experienced enough of the power of God to alter their outward appearance, but they haven’t allowed the heat of the gospel to cook them through and through.

One day I said, “God change these people’s hearts! Get a hold of these hard hearted, hecka fake, supposed Christians that don’t want anything deeper than their little pathetic wannabe Christian life.” God loves those complaining sessions, doesn’t he? When I look back on them, I picture him laughing. In my experience he never joins me in my criticism of others. He never jumps in and says, “Yeah, those people are fake, huh?” Instead, he always calls me to change. On this particular day he said to me, “Benjamin, your people will never submit to discipleship until you teach them that you are their father. You must teach them that you are their father!”

I was terrified by this prospect. Tell them that I am their father? How arrogant! How awkward! How presumptuous! I can’t do that. It’s not the way I roll. I would never take it upon myself to assume the role of fatherhood in someone’s life, even if I’ve been invited to do so. Matter of fact, there were already a few young men in the church who called me “Dad,” but I couldn’t bring myself to call them sons. I always responded with the egalitarian “brother.” It didn’t make any sense to me at all.

It doesn’t make sense unless you begin to see the church as a household. In a household it is imperative for the father to assert himself as such. If the father is unsure about his status in the house, the kids take over and order goes out the window. If the father doesn’t correct and instruct the children, the children begin to correct and instruct each other, and they even begin to correct and instruct the parents! At some point the father has to become secure enough in his identity to establish the order of the house. To do so is not controlling and tyrannical, but rather it creates a sense of safety and harmony in the household that everyone appreciates.

A few weeks after the Lord began to lay this on my heart, I got my first opportunity to test it. It was Sunday morning and at the close of the service one of the young women in the congregation came to the altar and began wailing and crying, as if in deep agony. I instantly received a strong impression that she was crying for her daddy and that I was to go over and put my arms around her and be that daddy. This was very awkward for me. I don’t put my hands on young ladies at the altar, and if I do lay hands, I do so very carefully and tactfully. I want to avoid the very appearance of evil. But I felt strongly that this was what the Lord wanted me to do. So I (fearfully and awkwardly) went over and wrapped my arms around her. “Father, allow her to feel that she is in your arms right now,” I prayed.

I thought that was good enough, but God wasn’t finished. “Tell her that you’re her father,” the Lord spoke to my heart. “And tell her that she’s your daughter.” I can’t tell you how much fear I felt at that moment. How can I just tell this woman that I’m her father? I’m barely old enough to be her older brother, much less her father! But God said to tell her that I’m her father! So I told her, “I know that you’ve never had a relationship with your father. But I want you to know that you’re not fatherless. I’m your father. I’ll be a covering for you.” With tears in her eyes she looked at me and said, “When I was at the altar I was crying out in my heart, ‘Lord, why won’t you hug me? I need you to hug me!’ Then you came over and prayed, ‘Lord let her feel that your love through my arms right now.’ For the first time in my life,” she continued, “I felt like I was being held by my heavenly father.”

That moment revolutionized my life. I always thought it was pride to assert my authority or position in the church. But in this situation I realized that had I not obeyed God and stepped forward to be the father that he’s called me to be, this young lady would have walked away from the altar as empty as she came. This situation confronted me with the fact that if I do not become secure in my identification with the fatherhood of God, a whole generation of sons and daughters will remain fatherless.

The calling of every pastor is to manifest the fatherhood of God in the lives of every member of the local household; the church. The one barrier that keeps us from doing so is insecurity. Insecurity is self-doubt that connects itself to my sense of identity. Insecurity means that I still need to be fathered – it means that I need a father to come alongside me and tell me who I am. Because I am still looking to be fathered, I can’t be the father that the members of my congregation need me to be. And so the fatherhood deficit in my own life gets transferred into the lives of every member of my congregation, and the sons and daughters never prophesy.

“Your sons will take the place of your fathers,” says God through the psalmist. To this point you have lived your life in search of a father. But now you will live your life in search of sons. Till now you have looked into the eyes of fathers and cried out, “Do you know who I am?” But from this day forward you will look into the eyes of sons and cry out, “Do you know who you are?” You have lived to be fathered, now you will live to be a father. You have longed to be made a prince, now you will long to make princes. There’s a whole generation of sons out there for whom the world is waiting. You will make them princes in all the earth! And it starts with the embrace of the calling; I am no longer a boy in need of a father. I will continue to be teachable and pursue instruction, but I will also recognize that God has done something in me that is reproducible now and he’s called me to reproduce. I am a pastor, and that means that I’m also a father.

Where's the Baby?

2008-08-22T10:56:00.000-04:00

by Mike Perkinson

Imagine a newly married couple moving into their home with dreams and aspirations of a joy-filled future. As they cross the threshold with life exploding in their hearts they stop in the entry to look at each other and dream about a home full of little ones running around, interrupting the quiet, disrupting the order and filling the home with vibrant life. The young wife wipes away a tear and her husband embraces her as they enter their new home with great expectation of life to come.

With great anticipation the young couple begins to plan for their new life. They make their way to the bedrooms and begin to think through how each will become a nursery. Each bedroom will house a little life and so the young couple begins to make plans for how each room will look, deciding that one will be for a boy and the other for a girl. After all, they’ve always wanted one boy and one girl. The décor is selected for each room, the clothes are purchased, the colleges selected and their careers are mapped out.

The young couple sits down at the end of a rather exhausting day of planning, systematizing and organizing. They look at each other with great expectancy and now wait for the life to come. Each day passes with no signs of a baby and as the months go by the couple adds to the nurseries, studies up on parenting, and prays daily for the life to come about. After months of waiting and now growing rather discouraged, they invest more in the décor of the nursery, in learning about babies and childhood development and even fast and pray in hope of life to come. All to no avail, the couple gives up on the pursuit and settles for their life without little ones. All of the efforts to make life happen were noble, right and highly organized. However, they forgot one very important part of the process. Life cannot be organized into existence.

In our ecclesiological nursery we find pastors and leaders dressing up the room, organizing the systems, learning theology and anthropology and every other -ology that exists – all in hopes of making life happen. Like the young couple, pastors often forget one very important thing. Life cannot be organized into existence. If we are not pregnant with life than no matter how much we decorate the nursery, organize the systems, study theology and fallen human nature, and market the dream, the baby will not come.

In America, we have some of the nicest and best-organized churches (nurseries) in the world. And yet, some are oddly missing the one thing that makes the nursery vibrant – the baby. The question of the hour is: Are we pregnant with the life of our God, bursting forth from our innermost being? Is there a baby on the way? If so, then by all means plan your nursery. After all, once life happens we then organize and facilitate systems that allow that life to grow and mature. Is life happening in you? Your family? Your leadership? Your spiritual community? Do we find the love of our Father compelling us to move out into the highways and by-ways and passionately and lovingly provide life to a broken and fallen world?

Life happens where the Incarnate One is present in the life of His people that love Him with all their hearts, love their neighbors as they love themselves and make disciples as they live life – being the ubiquitous church – the Church that is the Church anywhere, everywhere and all the time.

And so dear co-laborer, are you pregnant with life? After all, we can only give away the comfort we have received (2 Corinthians 1:3-4.) Maybe that is why so many of us have been reduced to giving formulas, systems and nursery décor because we have lost our relationship with our God as His sons and daughters.

Forgive me for being so simple but I’d like to encourage you to go back and commune with your Father and let His life and love nurture you and form the life of His Son in you. Let Him make you pregnant with His life that will express itself in our broken world, filling it with hope, salvation, restoration and love.

Those pregnant with life find themselves loving God whole-heartedly – making life in the Kingdom their aim, pleasing the One who makes life possible. Those pregnant with life love others as they love themselves, facilitating a life of relationship that gives birth to community that is based in reconciliation, restoration and hope. Those pregnant with life find themselves living the abundant life (John 10:10) that makes disciples, giving from the overflow of their relationship with God (Psalm 23:5.) May God create His life in us so that the world may come to know the life and power that is in our Christ and may our nurseries, systems and organizations help to develop and mature into fully devoted disciples of Christ. May God fill our nurseries with His life!

Generations

2008-08-22T10:50:00.002-04:00

by Tom Johnston

It is said that, in any nation, the Christian faith is always just one generation away from annihilation. If the parents of one generation fail to transmit the faith to those who follow behind them, then the witness for Christ in that land will evaporate, and dissipate like a mist. Are we in the West now on the brink of this reality coming to pass? Are we truly at (or past) the “point of no return,” where the Church will not thrive, but continue its massive decline until little, or nothing, remains of a once vibrant witness it held forth?

The statics are shocking to say the least. It appears that we have not even reached the numerical equivalent of our own children in this generation. Only three percent of the Millennial generation have a positive view of the Church – and it seems that number is the same for those young people inside the Church! The Vatican released figures a few months ago that those in America who claim Roman Catholic heritage born since 1980 have less than a 10% participation rate, with only about 4% of all Americans in this age group calling themselves “Christian.” Our own personal surveys and interviews with pastors and Christian leaders indicates that few, if any, pastors and leaders have a regular structured discipleship time with their spouse or as a family during any given week. However, while the statics are grim, all is not lost.

We are raising a call, not for a new generation of spiritual children, but of spiritual parents – men and women of faith who will take responsibility for developing in the faith those who follow behind, starting with their own families. That’s right, you don’t get to export it if it doesn’t work at home (1 Timothy 3:4, based on Deuteronomy 6:4-7.) The New Testament metaphor for leadership is quite often parenting: Jesus, Peter, James, John all refer affectionately to their spiritual “children,” not in any form of condescension, but in the sense of giving life to another. Being a life-giving spiritual parent is the call of every Christian, and is much more biblically aligned than the positional, titular corporate role functions most often embrace by leaders in the Western Church.

So, who are you giving life to, spiritually? Who are you fathering or mothering in the faith? Who are you strengthening and encouraging, building and nurturing? Who do you have relationship with that you desire to pour spiritual life into, like Paul did with the Galatians:

my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! (Galatians 4:19)

We will never have another generation of Christians in this country unless we take responsibility to disciple and mentor those who follow behind. We cannot subrogate our personal responsibility before God, passing it off to the institution of the Church, relying on someone else or some program to disciple our own children. Nor can we entrust the development of next generation leaders to the classroom alone. Timothy and Titus had Paul, not a DVD or a syllabus. Apollos had Pricilla and Aquila to “more correctly” instruct him in the Way (Acts 18:26.) It is through the “curriculum of life” that someone learns how to follow Christ in discipleship, how to treat their spouse, how to raise their children. It happens “on the way,” each and every day, as people walk together with Jesus.

So, what will it be? Will the Church in the West decline and fail? Will she become like Europe has? Indeed we will, unless each of us takes on the challenge of discipleship – first of ourselves, then of our families and then those whom the Lord leads us to through relationship. Be a life-giver. The time is now. The choice is yours.

What's Wrong With Legitimacy?

2008-08-22T10:38:00.002-04:00

by Mark Overmyer

Recently, I was thinking through some challenges with a church planter. In our conversation I was reminded how every baby church strives for legitimacy. Ninety nine out of a hundred people who ask the planter, “How’s it going?” are looking for indicators that would verify the viability of the new enterprise. The church planter realizes that his baby church is like a house of cards. And so not wanting to admit the truth, often the planter is left mumbling something about attendance at their most recent event and the inquirer is hopefully satisfied. Have you noticed how even the websites of baby churches can be deceiving? It’s always better on paper than it is in reality. Is this church going to make it? When visitors and attendees insinuate this question by asking about available programs and/or facilities, church planters encounter that familiar old knot in the stomach and the gulp that familiar gulp. Sure we trust that Jesus will build His church and this spiritual promise quenches the burning question for a moment. But often we are moved to do something about it as well. But what to do? We reason that, “If we could just have a quality children’s program we could attract families. If our audio & visuals were higher quality, visitors would return. If we had more people we could achieve ‘critical mass.'" And so we pursue, often with brilliant innovation and generous financial investment, all the factors that we’ve come to know will contribute to legitimacy. Not a bad approach, but I must say it’s a few degrees off-center of the Great Commission.

The bull’s-eye Jesus drew was different. It’s no wonder, because legitimacy was never a concern of Jesus. Viability was never in doubt for the Master. For him the target was fruitfulness (see John 15.) And to hit this mark, we can afford no distractions and no preoccupations with personal or corporate validation.

Think about how different “fruitfulness” is from “legitimacy” when it comes to the focus of a church planting team or a church leadership team. Legitimacy in a new church is marked by attendance, growth, and programming excellence. And, trust me on this; these can be achieved without any spiritual fruit. Fruitfulness is evidenced by the effects of the ministry of the Word and the Holy Spirit when the “branch abides in the vine.” Fruitfulness is the result of sowing eternal Gospel truth through conversation, music, study, preaching, serving, etc. The seed germinates, takes root, sprouts and grows. The effect (i.e. fruit) is repentance, healing, reconciliation, recovery, new priorities, sacrificial service, loving community.... essentially obedience. Brainstorm your own lists: What demonstrates legitimacy in a church? What demonstrates fruitfulness?

The Spirit led me to brainstorm these lists with my church planter friend. After we filled a page of two columns, I asked him, “Which of these did you sign up for when you were called to ministry?” and “For which of these would your leaders to give their lives?” Since that table conversation, I’ve thought of another question: If you could have only one or the other from a member of your church which would you want: attendance at church services or obedience to Jesus Christ? Clearly we want both. And some thoughtful readers are already asking why can’t we have both attendance AND obedience, legitimacy AND fruitfulness?

If legitimacy in a church plant is primarily affirmed by strong attendance and if fruitfulness is primarily affirmed in a church by obedience, then which is most important to you the church planter or church leader? Don’t say “BOTH!” Which one, really? The question is meant to challenge us to consider where we spend the most time, effort, money, research, planning, conference-attending, and intercession. If we are honest, we would have to admit that we are conditioned to lead toward legitimacy more so than fruitfulness. In order to have both (which I strongly desire and advocate) there is a chronology that works best. If you focus on fruitfulness it will tend to lead to legitimacy. Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35, NIV) But if you start with legitimacy, you may or may not end up fruitful.

Think about this. I’ve found this to be profound for me. So much of Jesus’ ministry example seemed to even undermine legitimacy. His ministry was a threat to the establishment. He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, in validating his messiahship the text says he is “like one from whom men hide their faces.” Think of the bag-lady of the inner city, the homeless man on the park bench. This was the class of human being that Jesus identified himself as – almost as a badge of his messiahship - “despised and rejected by men.” I love how every time he gathered a crowd he seemed to quickly retreat from the same. Then there was his ascension a mere 40 days following his resurrection. (Talk about killing the marketing momentum!) Legitimacy was securely in hand, and he seemed to let it sift away. Because he knew that the Holy Spirit would come and empower his Church to bear fruit.

How do we resist the subtle but real pressure to lead toward legitimacy and focus on fruitfulness instead? It takes vigilance, creativity and a commitment to always keep before your people the wonderful sense of adventure and risk that is inherent in following Jesus and being a partner in his enterprise.

I don’t know who he was, but I like what he said:
"If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." - Antione de Saint-Exupery

On the agenda of the leaders’ meeting at one of our churches is the need to mow the now jungle-like weed patch at the front of the property. No one would argue with the need. The impression left on passersby is that the people who worship here don’t care about the message their sloppiness sends. If a church’s legitimacy is important, then the leadership task includes recruiting, coordinating, and gentle coaxing of overworked deacons whose capacity for volunteering always seems to outstrip their follow-through. Pastors call this part of their job description “administration.” Few of them like it – but it must be done. The leader who wants to maintain a good impression in the community will recruit wisely, coordinate carefully and coax convincingly and may even offer to pick up an extra gallon of gas for the mower in order to prod lovingly. But how far will those efforts get the deacons down the path of fruitfulness? Look at the quote above again: don't herd people… don't assign them tasks… but rather teach them to long… What if the pastor instead taught them to long for Kingdom fruitfulness?

Follow me now: Since the most exciting part of ministry is life-change, how might the pastor teach even a deacon to make every effort to be on the front row with an unobstructed view of miraculous supernatural life change? You could paint pictures, share stories, or cast a vision for what kingdom ministry looks like. You could ask him/her, “Has anyone ever taken the time to value you through conversation? to include you by asking your opinion?, or to trust you by asking for your help? Who might you bless with the same? Can they run a string trimmer or drive a lawn tractor? Who might you share the mowing task with as a means for ministry? Could you imagine sharing a prayer before starting up the mower and the string trimmer? Could you imagine taking a lemonade break halfway through and asking some simple conversation launching questions?"

A vigilant, creative pastor might even offer to make the lemonade! But please, please leave out only two glasses. Let the deacon do the ministry and you pray while they talk.

When you focus on leadership toward fruitfulness, the strategizing and the planning takes a whole new tack. And when someone longs for the endless immensity of the sea, you can’t keep them away from the wood or the work, because to get out to sea, they must build a boat.

A Tale of Two Kingdoms

2008-06-27T14:51:00.002-04:00

by Tom Johnston

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:9, ESV)

Amazing, isn’t it? God the Father has delivered us from the spiritual chains of our own sin, freed us from our spiritual blindness. What amazes me more is that so many who claim Christ still walk under the sway of the dark dominion.

The previous several verses speak to the issue quite plainly:

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. (Colossians 1:9-12)

First, it seems that St. Paul considered that it was possible for us to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, in a way that is a blessing to him, in a way that bears both the fruit of the Spirit and the fruit of brining transformation to those who are yet to know Christ. To that end he prayed for his disciples in Colossae – who were confronted with heretical teaching. What he prays for is their ability to have spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that God’s will would be known. Such knowledge allowed the Colossians to live in a manner worthy of their calling in Christ. He also speaks the blessing of divine strength and power, allowing the Colossian Christians to maintain their joy as they walk in patient endurance. It seems that Paul is convinced that such discernment and empowerment was essential for the Colossians to walk effectively with Christ.

Discernment and empowerment. Interesting. Two things which it seems that the Church in the West lacks. This would explain a lot, as it seems many Christians have little ability to endure, to maintain their joy in the midst of trial and difficulty – and to stand amidst the swirl of ideas and influences in a culture dominated by the spirit of this age (2 Corinthians 4:4). This lack of wise discernment and accompanying absence of spiritual virility allows people who are positionally in the Kingdom of God to functionally be trapped in their thought patterns, attitudes and behaviors found in the dominion of darkness. Freed, but acting like slaves. Sons and daughters of the Most High God, but living like spiritual paupers. Having regained their sight, but living in a cloud of befuddling darkens. The “sins stats” in our culture bear this out – most Christians have lives which diverge little from the rest of the population. They remain as partial prisoners of self, of sin, of hell.

Like Paul we need to pray for each of us to have spiritual insight, the ability to make wise choices in every area of life. We need the Spirit’s transforming enlightenment and consequent empowerment to live a life which in its totality is an act of worship before God (Romans 12:1-2). Until people come to a deep understanding of who they are in Christ – their new-birth identity in Him, they remain heavily influenced by darkness. Where we are not renewed in our thinking and transformed in our hearts – in those areas hell can still hold dominion. This need not be.

Dozens of Christian people we know – friends, family, fellow church members – continue to walk as if they are still under the dark dominion. May God so move our hearts that we will pray for them without ceasing, that they may know the freedom which Christ has purchased for them. May God make us just bold and brave enough to go on some very necessary rescue missions, carrying on the spirit-liberating ministry of Jesus, bringing the light of God’s love, acceptance and forgiveness to darkened minds. This is the heart of the Revolution – no prisoners.

When Worlds Collide

2008-06-27T14:29:00.003-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

The Gospel of Mark paints a rather clear picture of two contrasting ways of life. Jesus sternly rebukes Peter at one point in the narrative for not thinking the things of God but of the things of men (Mark 8:33). Here we see the contrasting values set in opposition, two orientations of life: what God wills for people and what people want for themselves.

At the beginning of the journey to Jerusalem (8:22-10:52), Jesus teaches these contradictory standards to His disciples. The disciples resist the teachings at every point, but eventually come to submit to them. The journey can then be pictured as a clash of values between Jesus, who teaches what God wills for people, and the disciples who exemplify what people want for themselves. On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus prophecies three times to the disciples about his impending persecution and death (8:31-9:1; 9:30-50; 10:32-45). After each prophecy, the disciples demonstrate that do not understand the nature and depth of the prophetic word or accept his teaching. After each of these prophetic moments, Jesus takes some time to teach the disciples the values of the rule of God that underlie his words and actions.

Kingdom Values

After the first prophecy, Jesus says: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” (8:35) After the second prophecy, Jesus says: “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” (9:35) After the third prophecy, Jesus says: “And whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (10:44-45) Let me break them down for you:

1. In order to save your life you must lose it.
2. The pursuit of status is not the standard for God’s people.
3. To have power one must be a servant and relinquish the pursuit of power for oneself.

There is a sharp line of demarcation that Jesus is drawing between acquisition (saving) and relinquishing (losing). Let me explain: people who follow the world’s standards seek to acquire status and power for themselves. This way of life is motivated by fear.

In contrast, people who follow Jesus’ standards receive the blessings of the Kingdom and are willing to relinquish life, status, and power in order to bring the good news of the Kingdom to others. This way of life is only made possible by faith and is motivated by love. It is through the empowering of the Holy Spirit that we find such a life possible. Mark portrays in rather dramatic fashion that only two ways of life are possible: “saving one’s life out of fear” or “losing one’s life for others.” The characteristics for these two opposing modes of life can be stated as follows in this diagram:

Jesus embodies “what God wills for people.” He brings healing, drives out the demonic, forgives sin, and ultimately dies for the mission. In stark contrast we find the religious leaders, who exemplify “what people want for themselves.” They are afraid of losing their position and aggrandize themselves at the expense of the people. The disciples, in Mark’s narrative, are caught in the middle and vacillate between the two positions. The dissonance they feel is due to their struggle in following Jesus to promote the good news of the Kingdom of God or following Jesus to acquire status and power for themselves.

May we become a people that are motivated by love and not by fear. May we choose to reject our human need to acquire status, reputation, and power for ourselves and give our lives to the One who gave His life for us so that His life, healing and salvation would shine through us, the Church, His Bride.

Relational Tidbits for the Revolution

2008-05-23T15:31:00.001-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

Ministry comes at us at hundred miles an hour with no give or grace or willingness to stop when we need a breather. It is easy for us to find ourselves swallowed by the machinery and demands of ministry and thrown into the vast wasteland of pastoral burnout. In my simple way of processing life and ministry, I have often wondered why that is for pastors and why it was for me.

One of the things I have come to believe is that 95% of all ministry issues fall into the landscape of personal. In other words, there is so much of what we do that is motivated by personal need, insecurity, guilt, and fear. There have been times in my ministry life that I have found myself not being able to say “no” to someone because of guilt and insecurity. There have also been times I have said “yes” because of a need to be needed and affirmed as a pastor. I have found myself wrestling with people’s suggestions because I interpreted them as a personal assault to my authority, ability and leadership. Rather than hearing their heart, I took up the offense and then proceeded to dismantle the theology and philosophy of the person, wounding them as I defended my wounded honor.

Is it possible that at the basis of most of our internal and relational conflict is this tension of taking up the offense and making it personal? Is it possible that most of our struggles are personal or relational? We then argue this out in the ring of theology or philosophy of ministry, with little success in reconciling the differences. Relationships break, the name of Jesus is marred in our faith community and neighborhood as we try to move on and proclaim a reconciling and loving God while we are not able to do the same with His people.

When we take things personally we make life about us. We seek to prove our position, defend our actions and demonstrate our rightness. When we make it personal we are choosing to take up an offense, to take what was stated, not stated, done or not done and make it more about us rather than about His Kingdom and His people.

But what do we do if it really is personal on the part of the other person? Well, first of all it takes two to fight and so if you are being summoned into the ring to square off, one of the greatest ways to stop a fight is not get in the ring. It’s like marriage, it only takes one spouse to stop the fight but it always takes two to fight.

Let me explain, if someone is personally hurt by you and they come to you to vent a concern about the church, your leadership style, theology, etc., then the wise and mature leader would hear the heart of the other more than the words they are conveying and choose to not take up the offense. It is good to remember that people tend to project their personal issues on theological or ministerial concerns. One of the clearest signs that you are dealing with a personal issue is when a person attacks your motives. The best we can do as human beings is assess the behavior of the other. Motive or heart is the place where the Holy Spirit deals with us. When someone attacks your motives, the first reaction is to defend it which only solidifies their suspicion about you. Rather than defend simply ask them why they would say that about you.
Keep in mind that you are dealing with people and not machines. People are quite able to think and process information, but when a personal offense is involved the processing becomes far less cerebral and far more personal. No matter how well you articulate the issue or defend your position, if the other person is hurt there will not be resolve on the matter.

I know of a man who left a church over a rather intense theological matter. The individual was an elder and on the board of this particular church. During one of the bible studies he attended for the eldership, he noticed a theological view of scripture that came to surface that was not in agreement with his. He approached the pastor, who is some 30 years younger than the gentleman, to discuss the issue. In their conversation, the theological matter gave way to what became, at least it was rather apparent to me, a personal matter. The issue of respect came up and the younger pastor did not feel the elder’s respect. In turn, the elder was rather shocked to be treated in such a way that diminished his personhood and dignity; after all he was an elder and older. The individual eventually resigned his position from the board and as an elder and left the church. As I read the letter of resignation that explained his reasoning for leaving the church what was most dominant was not the theological issue, although significant, but the personal one. The language of the letter was official, but it contained far more words of personal hurt than did it theological disagreement.

Let me take a moment and provide for you some practical application steps to consider as you live as a peacemaker amongst the people of God (Matthew 5:9, we are most like God when we are making peace).

Listen to your heart to see if there is hurt or reaction in you that is personal.
If so, repent and choose to not take up the offense even if the person is being rude. Out-love them.
Listen to their heart for any area of pain and ask, “Have I disappointed or hurt you in any way?” or “It sounds like you are disappointed or hurt by me, can you tell me how I have done this?”

Here are a few helpful phrases I have utilized to help us move into what the person is really saying, while it facilitates communication and Kingdom unity:

I’m so glad you came and took the time to talk to me about this.
One of the greatest aspects of Kingdom living is brothers/sisters dealing honestly and unifying around the stuff that matters.
Your tone seems angry, are you ok? Did I do something that made you angry?
You keep referring to stuff I’m doing or not doing, can you help me understand what you are saying?
What would you like to see happen? Different?
How would you feel if I was not able to do what you are asking?
You’ve made mention of my motives, help me understand the action you are talking about that makes you feel that my motive is what you say it is?

I pray we find ourselves released from those things that would lead to spiritual death and division in the body of Christ. May our hearts be enlarged to see the parameters of the Kingdom as God sees them; to pursue righteousness with a zeal that expresses inclusion and not exclusion to those of different persuasions or opinions; and an openness to consider the possibility that personal matters sometimes become more important than those of the Kingdom. May we all be so daring! So real! So holy!

Focus for Fruitfulness

2008-05-23T15:25:00.002-04:00

by Tom Johnston

In 2 Timothy 2:1-7, Paul advises Timothy, his son in the faith, how to transmit his faith in Christ to future generations of disciples. Five key principles of the pastoral ministry can be found in this passage:

Grace empowerment – the source of Timothy’s strength for life and ministry flows from the grace he has been given in Christ. It is on and through this grace that he can securely build his disciples and local church. This unique gift is central to his generational multiplication of disciples. Very often we try to emulate others who we see as being “successful” and we wander from the uniqueness that God has placed in us by His sovereign design. Stay in your grace!
Focus – Paul uses the analogy of military service to remind Timothy to maintain his focus and not to become distracted by other things. Focus keeps us in the pathway of Jesus, key to both the life of a disciple and the disciple-maker. Keeping the “main thing the main thing” is essential. With so much cultural encrustation on the church in the West today, and on pastoral ministry, it is easy to stray from the simplicity of the “Irreducible Core” of loving God, loving others and making disciples.
Parameters – An athlete has a certain set of parameters of competition within his or her sport. Similarly, the disciple and disciple-maker are also defined by a set of parameters: what a relationship with Christ requires of us, and what a relationship in Christ looks like, as described by the New Testament. These boundaries in our life and ministries keep us safe and keep us from sliding in directors Jesus has not called us to go.
Effort – Fruitful farming requires effort. Becoming fruitful disciples and seeing a harvest of souls demands the same. Effort is required for someone to grow in Christ – we must apply ourselves to pursuing Jesus. Making disciples requires a similar effort – involvement in the life of others. A church is not established by accident. In 1Corinthians 3:6, Paul planted the Corinth church, Apollos watered it, but God gave the growth. God reserves things for us to do that He will not do, and reserves things for Himself to do that we cannot do. Effort on our part is exponentially empowered by effort on His part.
Contemplation – Reflection on the part of a disciple brings wisdom into his or her life. Contemplation on the part of the disciple-maker brings God’s wisdom and insight on how to develop someone in Christ. Reflection by the church planter allows him or her to assess the planting project in the light of God’s Spirit, making adjustments as needed. Such reflection allows the disciple, the disciple-maker, and the church planter to anchor and secure his or her life and ministry in the only thing that is unchanging – the person of Jesus Christ.

As you process this, may the Lord show you ways to expand His tribe, and make you bear much fruit, and thereby glorify our Father in heaven!

Beyond the Wineskin

2008-04-16T13:51:00.001-04:00

by Tom Johnston

I don’t know about you, but I don’t go to Starbucks for the paper cup. I go for the coffee. For me, it’s all about the contents of that cup, not the 10% recycled cup or the 30% recycled sleeve. I will not buy more Starbucks if they make the cup more cool looking. In fact, by taking a minimalistic approach to the packaging of their product, Starbucks actually is making a bold marking statement: our product is so good you will pay way too much for our really good coffee in this simple paper cup. And they are right. In a society that focuses on the externals of life, the appearance of things, they have masterfully highlighted the quality of the content by the use of a simple package.

So, what’s with the Church in the West? Why are we so focused on the form-factor of our churches – how cool and relevant our services are, how hot the worship is, how high the production values are? Are we trying to “sell” people something based on package? And what is it that we are trying to sell anyway? Jesus? An experience with Him? Salvation? The Kingdom of God? Membership in our local church? Our spiritual goods and services? And why are we trying to “sell” or market anyway? Christianity is not a vendible commodity – it’s a relationship with the Living God. So, what’s with that?

In Matthew 9 Jesus uses the metaphor of the wine and the wineskin to discuss the form and content of the Kingdom. The focus is on the wine – the content – not the wineskin. What Jesus was doing was new, and he needed a new form-factor, the Church, to hold what He was going to do through the New Covenant. He didn’t want it lost.

Isn’t it ironic that the main focus on the wineskin today quite possibly emerges from the fact that we have lost the strong, potent, high quality, life-transforming content (read: vibrant life of Christ) originally given to us? We are trying to “market” heavily, focusing on the externals because the substance of Christ in our lives, our families and our churches is so watered down.

At Praxis, we feel it is time for the Church in the West to move beyond the “wineskin” and focus on the “wine” – seeing Christ formed in people (Galatians 4:19). We don’t think the New Testament validates any particular way of “doing church,” simply because the focus is on the wine – the Spirit-empowered abundant life of Christ flowing in every disciple. If we have such content in our people, families and churches, I doubt people would care about the cup we held it all in. How we do our services is totally secondary to who we are in Him. Big churches aren’t better. Small churches aren't better. Mega or Micro doesn’t matter. Postmodern or ancient tradition doesn’t matter. What matters is that better is better, and by better we mean churches which are aflame with the Holy Spirit, filled with the life of Jesus Christ. We think that this kind of content will draw people regardless of the packaging. Starbucks has this figured out; we hope the Church can get it too.

All this writing has made me thirsty. Time for a venti skinny White Chocolate Mocha with whip.

Organic Relational Assessment

2008-04-16T13:43:00.002-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

There are so many assessment tools for us to consider as leaders. The majority of these tools are good and helpful and we applaud any leader that desires to purify and enhance their ministry effectiveness.

Like any tool that is created for our use there are underlying presuppositions that frame the creation of the tool. The tool measures what it believes is important or vital for growth. For example, if you are interested in simple numerical growth, then seeing growth in one’s attendance and tithe quantifies the success of our ministry.

Another way of saying this is the value of our ministry objectives is most clearly observed by what we measure. What we measure reveals what we value. And what we measure determines whether we view our ministry as a product that we package for consumers or a process where we develop people into fully functioning disciples of Christ.

Now having said that let me also clarify that I do believe where an organism is alive and healthy, growth and multiplication is a natural by-product. Living organisms grow and multiply. However, living organisms do not necessarily continue to grow in size. Life always brings life.
Oddly enough one of the areas we do not assess is the spiritual development of our people – seeing Christ formed in them (Galatians 4:19) “that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28). Legalism assesses behaviors and verifies spirituality by completing a checklist of behaviors. Organic spirituality assesses the heart and motivation behind the behavior by looking at the fruit of one’s life as expressed in Galatians 5:22-23. North American Christianity has many believers that have mastered the behaviors of religion without the heart (Fruit of the Spirit) of our Father.

With that in mind, let me offer a simple criterion I use to determine if my ministry is growing.

Are people’s relationships with God growing? Before we can change the world, we need to see God change the world of individuals. More simply, are people loving God with their whole heart, basing their lives around the values of the Kingdom and seeking to honor God with every facet of their lives (Matthew 6:33).

Are people’s relationships with each other growing? Of course this means at home first. Our churches are only as strong as our families. Jesus tells us that we are most like God when we are peacemakers (Matthew 5:9). The children of God make peace and where there is peace, relationships flourish. We serve a reconciling God and have been given the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-20) and so, the greatest evidence of His transforming love in us is that we love one another (John 13:34-35; I John 4:7-8). “We are most like beasts when we kill. We are most like men when we judge. We are most like God when we forgive” (Anonymous). Scripture says “God is love.” Love is active and can best be described as giving and forgiving.

Is concern for the lost and broken increasing in our spiritual community? Are they beginning to reach out? Is their heart breaking over pain, sin, death, disease, etc.? Love is active and cannot refrain itself from acting out. For example, when a person falls in love their heart is quickly moved to find ways to be with the one they love. When a person is full of God’s heart they find themselves loving what and who He loves. His heart in us moves us to care for the broken, the lost, the blind, the sick, the hungry, etc. One of the phrases we use at our church is that we are called to “love the hell out of people.”

Are we beginning to reproduce ourselves? This will involve discipleship of Christians and non-Christians. Where the presence of the Lord is, life will happen. What this means is that if people are captured by God’s love they will find themselves wanting to pass on that love. Our role as pastors and leaders is then to “equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:12), helping our people pass on what has been given to them (2 Timothy 2:2).

May God help us return to the values of His Kingdom as we press on to see His Kingdom extended in our land as we simplify our lives around the “Irreducible Core” of loving God, loving others and making disciples. May you find a tremendous harvest as you make disciples.

Every Home a Church

2008-01-21T19:26:00.000-05:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

There is massive shift in our ecclesiological world today. New ideas, models and implementation strategies are being birthed in the hope of reaching the world for our King. I applaud such efforts. Also motivating our ecclesiological landscape is the apparent frustration of pastors and leaders and often fruitless ministry (at least when it comes to making disciples that follow Christ) as well as, the ever changing cultural climate.

All of this is leading many followers of Christ back to some basic and powerful practices like searching the Scriptures, praying, talking and confessing with other believers and partnering (koinonia) with other believers to see the Kingdom of God extended in our land. Good things always happen when the saints seek God, search the Scriptures, and pray.

One of the major and more unnoticed thrusts in our ecclesiological world is the quiet exodus of many followers of Christ from the traditional Sunday gathering to the house church format. One might call this our modern day monastic movement.

I whole heartedly agree with the house church movement. We all need to become a house church movement. Before you write me off here, read the rest of the article.

The church I pastor is in the midst of a capital stewardship campaign. That’s right - helping our people become better stewards of God’s Kingdom resources and asking them to pray for God’s mind on what they should give to our campaign to help us complete Phase 2 of our building project. But wait, you said you were a house church guy?

During our corporate worship service last November, I stated some bold and shocking words to our congregation in the midst of a passionate vision cast. I emphatically declared, “I am not asking you to commit to the church. Rather, I am asking you to be the church. As a matter of fact, I am hoping that we start a house church movement. That’s right, a movement where every home is a church. And for us to have every home become a church, our leadership is committed to equip you to become the priest and priestess of your home (I Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:5-6).”

My long time friend and mentor, Don Smith, married my wife and I a long time ago in a land far away. One of the things Don said at the conclusion of our ceremony was, “Mike is now the pastor of worlds smallest church of 2.” Those words burned into my soul as I realized that I am a priest of my home and my wife as well. Our home needed to become a sanctuary, a church, where we lived out Jesus day to day.

Every home needs to become a church, where moms and dads first live out the irreducible core (loving God, loving others and make disciples), being examples and models of Christ as we raise up our children in the ways of our God.

This means that every pastor and leader needs to equip the saints to become the priests of their homes and live Christ in the everyday world. I am suspicious that maybe more of our ecclesiological energy should be spent on equipping the saints to do this.

And so, I challenge you to not simply join a church or ask your people to join your church. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with this. Relationship involves a covenant as is most wonderfully modeled in the New Covenant written in blood. What I am strongly asserting is that we become the church and start with our homes.

May every home become a church, every child discipled first by mom and dad, every pastor and leader a disciple maker and every church a disciple making church.

Father God, release your Kingdom and your power for your glory and for your purpose as every home becomes a church!

More Than Skin Deep

2008-01-21T19:17:00.000-05:00

by Tom Johnston

The debate in church development circles often centers around what models of ministry, what programs and/or what church structures have the most pragmatic effect – in other words, what brings the most people into the general worship services of the church. These issues of “wineskin” drive much of the debate, and consequently our focus becomes the constant redevelopment and upgrading of our wineskin.

The pragmatic drive for results, informed by a consumer-driven worldview of marketing cause-and-effect, makes us focus on the externals of church life and ministry, rather than the internal life of Christ in the Spirit. It is the “new wine” of the Spirit’s work – rebirth/conversion, transformation/sanctification, empowerment for mission – on which we should be focusing. It is the reality of Christ being formed in us which must take preeminence, with finding culturally appropriate ways of “doing church” flowing from that. We place the cart before the horse, and in the case of the church, the wineskin before the wine. Our efforts to make the New Wine of Christ Jesus attractive to the American spiritual consumer has degenerated to attempts at upgraded packaging. Yet all we really need is a good vintage of the Spirit flowing within our local church community - the life of Christ richly abundant, displayed in our lives. Such a vintage is irresistible.

In a recent development session with a number of pastors, a friend of mine shared an observation about the Apostles in Acts 4. When challenged by the elders and the scribes to no longer speak of Jesus, they replied:

Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard. Acts 4:19b-20, ESV

They were so captivated by Christ, so inebriated in His Spirit that they could not help themselves – they had to talk about Jesus. So in love with Him, they could not keep their mouths shut. Their inhibitions gone, lost in Christ’s love, they didn’t care what would happen to them – rather they were compelled to speak of Him. We see, as an example of the outcome of this intoxication in the Spirit, what was already taking place in their community in the end of Acts 2, in verse 47:

praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

The outcome of their lives, overflowing with Jesus, was praise, the favor of others, and a rich and continuous harvest of souls. From there they made it work – they wrapped the structure around what they needed, they improvised a wineskin to contain the wine.

May the Lord shift our focus from manufacturing and upgrading our wineskins to a renewed focus on working with Him in producing the New Wine, in ourselves and our congregations. Such a life-giving vintage of the Spirit displayed in our church communities is irresistible to people, regardless of the packaging.

For Whose Gain? Self-Sustained or God Sustained

2007-11-26T10:27:00.000-05:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

Josh McDowell, author and lecturer, says these revealing words about himself:

Almost every dysfunction is a truth out of balance. I had lost hope of ever being in control of my life. The dominant childhood feeling for me was to be important. My dominant fear was the fear of dying without being important. I believe it motivated me in a lot of the books, videos, films, to say ‘yes,’ and talk about myself. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says, ‘And He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ That gave me courage. If I always do what I’ve always done, I’ll always be what I’ve always been. I’ve asked God to bring me to the point where my outer ‘no’ will be an inner ‘no’, and my outer ‘yes’ will be an inner ‘yes’.

“God showed me I need to live this out, so that I can be a healthy person. I must deny myself, those patterns of response that are unpleasing to God. In the last few years, I’ve seen more things in my life that I don’t like, but I’ve never been more excited because I’m growing. I’m really becoming free. If we’re all supposed to be perfect, we wouldn’t need unconditional love. So often in the church, when you look good, when you have no problems, they applaud you. When you go to Alcoholics Anonymous, if you have a problem, they applaud you. In the church we often look good and get worse. In Alcoholics Anonymous you look worse, and get better. I’m getting better. It’s my response to mature in the Holy Spirit. I thank God that He’s alive and working in my life. (Taken from Alan Nelson, Broken In The Right Places, pp. 198-199)

One of the greatest struggles we face as leaders, for that matter as Christians, is that our fallen human nature, motivated by fear, causes us to lean upon ourselves and draw upon our own soul strength, upon our talent, gifts, knowledge, magnetism, eloquence or cleverness. All too often our ministry endeavors are self-serving as Josh McDowell so honestly states. We do it to feel better, relieve guilt, find identity, to feel important, be needed, etc. In contrast, ministry in its purest form give life rather than taking life. Ministry in Christ takes the attention off of oneself, providing life. However, neurotic service (takes life) indicates a desire or need for attention and may result from guilt or a need for approval rather than selfless love. Maybe we should call this the parasitic leadership. As Tom Johnston says, “a protégé wants what is in your heart and parasite wants what is in your hand.”

Recognizing that our inner worlds and outer worlds are not always in harmony is a challenge for all of us. Acting holy and mastering the behaviors is much easier than overcoming the internal world of motivation. For example, you know whether or not you’re really a servant by the way you react in your heart when you’re treated like one. As leaders, we embrace the ideology of being servants for Christ, understanding it conceptually. In reality, we tend to live from our fear and insecurity rather than the grace, freedom and love in Christ. The true test of whether or not we are genuine, authentic servants of God, and not just people who want a place for ourselves, is when we get down to the simple task of serving. Those who are servants are really interested in serving Christ by serving the other. The gain of the Kingdom is their objective. Jesus flows through us for His gain. Those who are not are more interested in how and where they serve, not to mention with whom they serve. Self-gain is baptized in scriptural language and is their objective. We use Jesus for personal gain.

Who am I when I am alone with God? Who am I when no one is looking? Is my inner world and outer world the same? Or, at least moving in the direction of being the same? Am I growing in Christ’s love or simply growing in my duties? How would our spouse’s truly describe our life in Christ? How would our children describe our life in Christ?

Our style of leadership, based in Jesus, is “incarnational.” An old adage typifies my point: “Every man has three names; one his father and mother give him; one others call him; and one he acquires himself.” What is the name you and I are acquiring for ourselves? Incarnational leadership means one must lead primarily out of who one is and not what one knows, who one knows, what one can do, or how one can do it. Henri Nouwen says it well: “Christian leadership is not a leadership of power and control, but a leadership of powerlessness and humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ, is made manifest. I, obviously, am not speaking about a psychologically weak leadership in which the Christian leader is simply the passive victim of the manipulations of his milieu. No, I am speaking of a leadership in which power is constantly abandoned in favor of love.” (In The Name of Jesus, p. 63) We are then, to be just like Jesus, who became a man, humbling Himself and being of no reputation, and being obedient to the point of death. Unless we allow the power of God to impact us, the reality of His presence will be circumvented. Jesus must be in us, in order for Him to be given away.

It is precisely the lack of humility (motivated by fear) before God that is the root cause of nearly all leadership problems. For example, if the power resources transcend the character strength of the individual, collapse or a moral lapse is inevitable. Simply, God does not work through us greatly until we recognize our impotence. The lyrics of an old song reinforce my point, “If you want to be great in God’s Kingdom learn to be the servant of all.”

All of this to say, we must be honest before God and before some trusted brothers and sisters in Christ, confessing our sins and allowing God to daily transform our hearts into the Image of His Son. It is one thing to be positionally saved through Christ’s atoning work. It is another to be relationally saved in Christ, abiding in the Vine daily as He stretches the capacity of our hearts to reflect His life, love and nature (Galatians 2:20; 5:22-23). And so, let’s abandon power in favor of love. Just in case it is not obvious enough yet, start at home. Live Jesus with your family. Our ministry begins with Jesus and me (son/daughter), Jesus and my family (servant), and Jesus and my calling (servant and steward). Redeemed life begins from the heart, resulting in a transformed individual radically in love with Christ, loving others as they love themselves, and reproducing the life and love of Jesus in others (making disciples).

Flow

2007-11-26T10:17:00.000-05:00

by Tom Johnston

When it comes to ministry, we try so hard. We want to “make it happen,” or “git `er done.” While I admit hard work is part of ministry – and life in general – the most fruitful times we experience are the result of not our action alone, but rather when we are acting in concert with God. I call it being in the flow.

There is a convergence which comes when, by our obedience, we are in the God-authored place/circumstance/situation of service and we are functioning in the grace empowerment on our life – that God-authored combination of our personal wiring, experience, spiritual gifting, and natural talents. When this happens, we are flowing with and in the Spirit of God, working seamlessly, and often effortlessly, with Him, and He through us. Jesus said it this way –

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. John 5:19-20 ESV

God’s grace on a life is not just for salvation, but for the empowerment of destiny – and produces the unique contribution to the Kingdom economy only that individual can make. This empowerment of God by His grace, and the consequent destiny should determine our assignment – the place of service we are engaged in. When it grace empowerment and assignment match, we can flow with the Spirit, doing the Father’s will, and bear much fruit for His glory.

So, how can we be “in the flow” consistently? Jesus gives us several keys, both from His words and His life-pattern. First, let’s take a look at how he wraps it all together. He sums it up in the Vine & Branches metaphor and calls it abiding:

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 14:4-5 ESV

The “abiding” is not action-oriented, but relationally-oriented. It is a state of being in Christ, not a state of doing for Christ. The vital life of Jesus flows into us from our regular and continual communion with Him as we abide in Him through the Spirit. This is Jesus’ pattern:

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons. Mark 1:35-39 ESV

Jesus went from one place of prayer, one place of communion with the Father, to another – and in between He spoke the truth, brought healing to the sick, forgiveness and acceptance to the “sinners,” broke demonic powers, delivered justice to the oppressed and spoke prophetic rebuke to the religious elite. He was always abiding, He was constantly in concert with the Father, constantly “in the flow.”

My encouragement is for us all to spend more time communing with Him through reflective prayer informed by the Scripture, so that as we move through our day, we can be in the flow, guided and empowered by the Spirit. I would also encourage us to reflect on our current ministry assignment – does it fit our grace empowerment, or is there some change needed – in us or the circumstance or way of ministry – that needs to come so that we can flow with the Spirit, bearing much fruit for the Father.

May the Lord teach you how you specifically can abide in Him, and may you flow in your grace for His glory.

The Clock is Ticking

2007-10-29T12:55:00.000-04:00

by Tom Johnston

Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. John 4: 35 ESV

This is an amazing scene: Jesus having had a dialog with the Samaritan woman, the disciples have returned from getting take-out food and are weirded-out by the fact that the Rabbi is talking to a woman – and not one of good reputation to boot! They are so wrapped up in the day-to-day of life and so stunned by Jesus breaking some serious social and religious taboos that they miss the fact that the entire village is now surging out of the town and coming up to see Jesus. They are so caught in their own moment that they fail to realize the work of the Father – Jesus’ “food” – which is at hand. They could not see the harvest before them, they were still looking for something in the future, specifically, the restoration of the Davidic Kingdom through Jesus. Looking for the Kingdom in the future, they missed the Kingdom in their now.

Are we like the disciples? Is the Church in the West so caught up in the concerns of day-to-day life (read: American Dream) that we miss seeing the harvest? Are we so caught up in the politico-religious Culture War in our country that we can’t see the white fields? Can it be that, looking to see people assured of eternity, we actually miss the opportunity to lovingly serve them in the now, and demonstrate for them the presence of God’s Kingdom rule on Earth? In many ways we need to have our eyes opened to see the potential harvest in our now.

It is our belief that in each generation there is a harvest of souls to be gathered, and it is Christ’s desire to see these people enter into His Kingdom community. But do we have time to see and engage the harvest? Are we so busy running like the rats in the proverbial race that we have no time for the harvest? As we shift our life from zero to 60 every morning are we zipping past the people whom Jesus is calling to Himself? Maybe we are plugging into our personal iPod-of-a-life and tuning everyone else out.

Or, are we placing are harvest hope (read: bets) on some cataclysmic future series of events which will drive people to Jesus? (Like His love isn’t enough to win their hearts?) Earthquakes, forest fires, tsunamis, stock market crashes, you know, God roughing us up a bit, so we get it. Sure would be a whole lot less work for us!

It could be we are still hoping to win the Culture War by electing the right candidates to office and passing laws which will Christianize everybody. Get the right people in the right places and – zingo – the next thing you know everybody is wearing a white shirt and tie and parting their hair on the right side of their head and it is 1957 all over again. God forbid we have to cross some social barriers to minister to unfriendly people who look different from us! Much easier to get the vote out and pass laws instead!

Here is the reality of it all – 7 out of 10 people within walking distance of you right now as your read this are not going to go into eternity knowing Jesus. You don’t need to meet anyone new to share Christ – you already know the harvest – maybe you just can’t see it. And those people that you know don’t need to be attacked by terrorists, struck by falling space junk or come to financial ruin so Jesus can get through to them. They just need us – Jesus’ people – His Church, to live like Him in front of them. His love embodied in our arms, our hands our words, our actions of service. Yes, some will still reject Him – but we will increase the population of the future Kingdom, and quite probably pull a little bit more of that future into our now.

The clock is ticking on this generation’s opportunity. May God open all of our eyes to see the harvest in our day – and that our harvest is ready now.

Servant Leadership

2007-10-29T12:48:00.000-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Mark 10:45

What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say. Emerson

Leadership Tension: One can do the right thing and do it poorly or one can do things right while doing the wrong thing. This is possibly why many ministries flounder.

It is said that a manager is one who gets things done right, while a leader is one who gets the right things done. Management follows good leadership. Let me use for example a group of people that are tearing up a field so that a baseball park might be built on it. No matter how good the management is, it is all worthless if the group of people are working on the wrong field. Leadership is the ability to find the right field. We are in great need of spiritual leaders; being busy is not our goal, but doing what is right and pleasing to the Lord for the benefit of the Kingdom is. As a result, the most effective leader is one who is willing to serve and be led by the Master Himself. We want people who are servant leaders and not leaders who simply want to be served. Keep in mind, we are never beyond a task (that is, above doing it). If our Master can lower Himself to the service of a slave as He washed the disciples’ feet; surely we can allow ourselves to not be above any task.

Five questions are in need of answering by us on a regular basis. They are:

What are we leading/managing? Too often we lead a structure and not people. We are more interested in building a ministry than doing ministry with people. Our focus is always to build people and not our ministry. I realize this is obvious, but people are the ministry. The following is the way I seek to build people (taken from Matthew 5:13-16):

“Light the lamp” -- Help people light their lamps through the Holy Spirit. This is the stage of salvation and healing. Many who come to you, even those who know the Lord, are dry and without life and in tremendous need of healing.

“Let your light shine” -- Help people practice individual spirituality in their private life. We want people to grow as Christians from the inside out.

“Set it on a lampstand” -- Help people share the reality of God’s work in their life to everyone they come in contact with by word and deed. This tends to come more naturally when people’s lives are changed. This sets us up for our “virus” approach to evangelism. We desire to infect people with Jesus. The best way to do this is to catch the “virus” of Jesus ourselves and be the church anywhere, everywhere, and all the time.

Why are we leading? This should be brought before the Lord on a regular basis. He will purify our motives as we grow as leaders. Practically, if you discover you are leading out of an incorrect motive, don’t quit. Let God purify you as you lead. The single greatest need of spiritual leaders today is to ignore the voice of flesh that beckons us to be noticed and successful and learn to hear the voice of God that beckons for us to be humble and for Christ to be noticed.

Where is the leadership going to take you? Do we really know where we are trying to take the people? Keep in mind, it is ludicrous that others can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there. This does not imply that you have to be an alcoholic to minister to alcoholics. Rather, it clarifies for us the key of being servants and broken before God. Are you actually living out what you are leading? The destination is more than systems and numbers, it is about character and the forming of Christ in people.

What are the values we embrace? And do they fall in line with what we are doing? All too often, people will do the opposite of what they profess to value. For example, they say they believe in servant leadership, but rarely serve when the opportunity comes. We know we are actually servants in our hearts the moment we are treated like one and we are ok with it.

Is the ministry growing? This is where the American success mindset has really impacted us. We tend to believe that growth is best monitored by numerical increase. Always remember, a large ministry does not mean anything more than a large ministry. It does not necessarily mean the people are growing in Christ. By this, I am not suggesting we do not want more people to get saved nor am I being critical of large ministries. Remember big is not better. Small is not better. Better is better. Our focus is not get to bigger, but to grow big people. We will let the Lord take care of the increase. Here is the criterion I use to determine if my ministry is growing or not:

Are people’s relationships with God stabilizing? Before we can change the world, we need to see God change the world of individuals.

Are people’s relationships with each other growing?

Is concern for the lost and broken increasing in the fellowship? Are they beginning to reach out?
Are we beginning to reproduce ourselves? This will involve discipleship of Christians and non-Christians. Where the presence of the Lord is, life will happen. As Acts 2:47 seems to indicate, people coming to Christ is a by-product of our relationship with Jesus – the lived way with Christ, with others and for others.

May we all become servant leaders, who desire nothing more or less than living our lives to the King and His Kingdom. To help us prepare our hearts for such I offer you this prayer.

THE SERVANT LEADERS’ PRAYER
Don’t give us blessings--give us grace to be unquestionably obedient to Your every last command and desire.
Don’t give us status--give us a place to serve.
Don’t give us things for our use--use us.
Don’t give us a mansion to live in--give us a springboard to take Christ’s love to the whole world.
Don’t give us good jobs--put us to work.
Don’t give us pleasure--give us perspective.
Don’t give us satisfaction--teach us sacrifice.
Don’t give us entertainment--enable us.
Don’t give us good salaries--give us strength to do Your will.
Our great joy in life is in pleasing our Lord--and there is no other joy comparable.
- Gordon Aeschiman

God raise up servant leaders!
Tell me what you think. Let’s talk about it.

Becoming What?

2007-09-24T11:47:00.000-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

Any developmental process must consider the aspect of becoming; that is, dealing with the growth of the organism from a single cell into multiple cells. In other words, it is not so much what an organism is that is critical but what it is becoming. The purpose of a thing defines the essence or the nature of a thing.

When it comes to church growth and leadership issues, the emphasis tends to fall towards function and the goals the group is pursuing. This is not to say that such consideration is wrong, but to assert that the old adage of “putting the cart before the horse” is often in play when it comes to building church leadership structures. What we are inferring is that the theological basis and purpose of the church is often assumed and left unclear, often misunderstood. The pastor or leader is pressed by competitive demands of success and financial pressures to produce something that is worthy of recognition – a product if you will. Without addressing the matter of pride and selfish ambition, the pastor naively pursues pastoring with an agenda to see people come to know the love of God but finds the demands of the organization and the product overtake the desire of the pastor to truly shepherd God’s people into a life of spiritual fullness.

The movement of our church age is more towards building bigger churches than it is building big people. Remember big is not better nor is small better – better is better. With such a system in place, one has to be suspicious of the underlying values and philosophical base that supports such a structure. All too often, at least in our opinion, we see powerful leadership structures, built within the holy walls of the church with great organizational skill and powerful results that resemble the things of the Kingdom in operation but lack in the deeper dimension of actual Kingdom life that is expressed most clearly in the Fruit of the Spirit.

To put it simply, we have worldly leadership systems and values baptized into the world of the church and pawned off as God’s wisdom and design. By this, we are not suggesting that worldly leadership structures are bad in and of themselves or that the church does not need assistance in organizational development. Instead, it must be acknowledged that the church is an organization that resembles the world’s organization and is in need of organizational assistance. However, the church is not a business, although it has many similarities, it is a design of our Father who, by His sovereignty, has ordained the church to be His primary vehicle of edification for the body of Christ. The church then needs to operate by the values and philosophical base that is set in the scripture regarding its existence and conduct. It is clearly defined in scripture who we are to be and how we are to function as the people of God. We need to be able to stop and consider “why we are” before we ask “who we are.” The “why” question answers the “who” question and releases us to find our purpose and our being at the same time. Once we have answered the nagging question regarding our existence, we can safely engage into the arena of life and function freely. Being always precedes doing and function always comes from life. Philosophically, it is impossible to separate being and function. Let me explain, will and function exist like two sides of a coin, both operating and carrying on a different role and yet, are uniquely tied to the coin. The coin is being (the state of “isness”). When we look at the coin, we can differentiate various elements of it like heads and tails or will and function. However, the various pieces make up the whole and that we call a “coin.” For there to be function we must have being just like heads and tails would not exist without the essence called the coin. (Obviously this illustration can be extrapolated further with more detail – for our purposes we simply want to illustrate the inter-connectedness of being and function.)

The church has fallen prey to the forces of our society in that it has embraced, almost unknowingly, the values of a success-driven society that puts function in front of doing; to the point of ignoring being all together. God is more interested in who we are becoming as persons. Our pathways for spiritual formation in the church should then be built upon the “irreducible core” of helping people develop in their love for God, love for each other, and the making of disciples as life is lived out.

And so, who are you becoming? What is church becoming? How do the ministry processes and systems in your church help you develop disciples that love God, love others, and make disciples? How are you doing in living out the “IC”?

May we all become the people God has built us to be reflecting His glory as we live life. After all, “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.” (Irenaeus)

The Leadership Bypass

2007-09-24T11:39:00.000-04:00

by Tom Johnston

Very often when we discuss the issue of leadership development in the local church we are really discussing how a particular church develops leaders to serve within the context of that specific church. Most of us as pastors are engaged in leadership development for the needs of our own ministry. Certainly, such leaders are needed, but let us suggest to you a broader view, a Kingdom view. Jesus said,

And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Luke 10:2 ESV

Leadership development in our churches must be about the harvest, not just about getting people to run our programs and church activities. Jesus’ concern expressed here is for the ingathering of people into His Kingdom, and not just the maintaining of those of the wheat who are already in the barn. As our good friend and mentor Dr. Bob Logan always says, we need to raise leaders from the harvest for the harvest.

While the care, nurture and discipleship of existing Christians are essential parts of the church’s ministry, and as such requires devoted leadership, we have allowed our leadership development track, to a great extent, to be driven by the needs of those already in the church. In doing such, we have spiritually neutered our “leaders,” validating their attendance at meetings and the performance of tasks within ministry programs. We have not, by and large, had the expectation that those called “leaders” should be involved in spiritual reproduction – sharing their faith and making disciples for Jesus Christ. Many of our leaders are nothing more than mid-level program managers in our local church organizations. Could it be that we need to let our developing leaders bypass serving the church through the myriad of things we seem to find to do (and some which really need to be done) and let them directly engage the harvest? We need an HOV lane on our development pathway for leaders, allowing them to zip by the slow moving traffic of the church ministry and operations, and let them engage directly in the harvest.

Another way we need to create a “bypass” for our leaders is to use developmental processes and sponsorship structures that empower people to go beyond us. We often find churches where the pastor uses the “Undergrowth Principle” – “you can grow as long as you’re under me.” Can someone get by you to a fuller expression of their gifting and calling, perhaps surpassing you in fruitfulness and effectiveness? Do you have an open-ended leadership development process, or does their road come to an end at the inside of the metaphorical door of your church? Robert Clinton has suggested in several of his works that we often encounter problems with people in the churches we care for simply because we are in the way of their further spiritual development. He suggests that many of those we call “rebellious” are actually people who have out-grown the current opportunities to learn and serve in our churches, and if we could facilitate them into new opportunities for both – perhaps in an expression of church beyond our own local setting, we would be serving the needs of the Kingdom more completely.

None of us have enough leaders – and the harvest awaits. We need to establish our churches as “leadership development engines” and see our role not just as shepherds but as equippers of the saints – and cut those saints loose in the harvest fields. Make leaders – lots of them, and give them over to Jesus, and watch what He does with them – in your local church and beyond.

"Personal Change Precedes Corporate Change": A Church Growth Strategy or a Lived Reality?

2007-08-16T23:11:00.000-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

Leadership and serving God’s people can be a very burdensome task if not properly approached. Exhortations such as “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9) and “Strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed” (Hebrews 12:12- 13) embody the reality of growing tired in the arena of ministry and our responsibility to continue.

On top of this Satanic attack in all facets of our lives brings a level of frustration and tiredness all by itself. Questioning God, ourselves, and our ability to lead God’s people, all lead to the demise of ministry if we permit the evil one to have any foothold on our faith. The distractions the enemy places in our lives quietly drain from us the very life we are trying to offer people. Since, we cannot remove the distractions from this existence a more focused understanding of God’s call on our lives must be implemented and practiced daily.

Finally, ministry involves us as persons and so, we do the work of God as human beings who find some sense of fulfillment in obeying our Lord. In some way, we all minister in the areas of life where we are still working out our own understanding of God, theology, and brokenness. Frederick Buechner was not far off when he said “all theology is autobiography.” This is not to suggest such a subjective element is negative, but to simply make an observation. Now, combine this with the hedonistic model of life our society embraces and you have all the makings of a ministry that is centered on the self and personal fulfillment. Hence, the people become a means to an end and internal comfort is the utmost priority people tend to seek. One could say the highest moral reality is to feel good. I find such a philosophy difficult to digest when we read of Jesus and His personal torment surrounding the finality of His mission: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38). Following in the spirit of Christ, we find Peter making a bold declaration regarding the reality of suffering. He says:

But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. (I Peter 2:20-21, NIV)

It is intensely difficult to encourage people, in our day and age, to adopt a philosophy of life that is willing to give itself for the glory of God, the establishing of His presence in this world (Kingdom centered living which involves sacrifice), and the restoration of the Imago Dei (Image of God) in individuals (Paul tells us we have been given the ministry of reconciliation, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20). The type of people we often encounter in our church work are those who are trying to find a church to meet their personal needs (needs are not bad in and of themselves), rather than finding a place where they can glorify God and offer their service or gifts for the glory of God and advancement of the Kingdom on earth. I am not inferring that seeking God or a church to deal with one’s brokenness is wrong, but that the church never moves from existing as an oasis for personal fulfillment to an oasis that provides comfort to a lost and suffering world. Yes, there is a time for healing and rest, but many never want to move out of this stage in their lives. After all, the healing stage involves a tremendous amount of meticulous attention from others; being the center of the world is a wonderful feeling many do not want to give up. How do we overcome such a difficulty? Although, many are seeking truth in our day and age, the general populace is not interested in following Christ via the 'take up your cross and follow me' mode, but rather “help me to do what I want to do and I’ll attend your church” philosophy. The old Puritan adage is so true: “The truth will set you free, but it will kill you first.” Maybe this is what “personal change precedes corporate change” really means. Not the simple shift of a paradigm or a model to more effectively do church but a transformation that allows us to be the church.

THE PROBLEM

Sinfulness is a large problem and has been since the dawn of time. We are, unfortunately, creatures who want dominion in our lives and a God who will see to it that our wishes are honored. Religious devotion is the norm with very little concern for the element of holy living and the establishment of the Kingdom or reign of God in our hearts. The prophet Hosea spoke well when he uttered the charge against Israel:

Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites, because the Lord has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying. (Hosea 4:1-3, NIV)

A religious contract has been negotiated by many with God. A contract God has not agreed to in any way. This contract involves religious devotion (going to service and tithing and moral living) from the human side and blessing, peace, and happiness from the divine side. In other words, we give some praise strokes and in return He gives us happiness. Much like investment happy America, we want a maximum return for a minimum investment.

All of this makes me wonder if the slogan “personal change precedes corporate change” has been, at times, reduced to nothing more than a new and fancy slogan to help us “super size” our churches with very little emphasis on super sizing the saints. One would think that the greatest marketing tool we have in our repertoire is a transformed life living in the love and power of the Holy Spirit. Just a thought, but living as real and genuine Christians might actually allow us to truly impact our culture. Just a thought.

THE SOLUTION

Our nation is in dire need of repentance. The Church needs to turn from our religious playground and fall on our knees and cry out to God Almighty for grace and mercy. Much like the people of Hosea’s day, we assume God must forgive us, “He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds” (Hosea 6:1, NIV). As a result, repentance is optional and our great American ideology of entitlement tells us God has to forgive us because we are entitled to it. No wonder God says, “What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears” (Hosea 6:4, NIV). Our commitment to God is so flippant. God help us.

To point the finger at our nation is not adequate nor is it proper to simply adjust the direction of our finger and place the blame on the hard-hearted state of the Christian community. My heart breaks for the state of the nation and the Church. The increase of violence, terrorism, and apathy in our land only amplifies the predicament we find our world in. The prayer of Nehemiah is a model for all in leadership to emulate:

I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. (1:6b-7, NIV)

As strange as it might sound, the sin committed by our city and nation is also our sin. As a people of God, we too, have contributed to the sin of the nation by not turning our own lives to His ways. Joshua 7:10-15 records the reply of Yahweh to Joshua over the lost battle at Ai, where 36 men were killed because of sin in the camp. We know the story, Achan was the one who looted from the plunder and took some of the devoted things (7:20-21). Strangely enough, when Yahweh speaks, it is Israel, not Achan, who is indicted and punished.

Much like our physical bodies, when one part is out of sorts, the whole is impacted. We cannot turn our eyes from the nation and bury our heads in the sand of religious denial and pretend to be a holy people when injustice is taking place around us. Isaiah confronts us with his words:

When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. (1:15-17, NIV)

Our worlds are so limited, so small. As long as the problems and the demise of our cities are not a threat to us, we are minimally impacted. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. What keeps us from weeping over cities? Maybe what we need to do is repent personally over the disobedience we have been involved in. Is it possible we need to repent over a heart that really does not care for our neighbor, but only for the peaceful advancement of our own little world?

I am not suggesting we plunge into a social agenda only, but that we ponder what it means to be a follower of Christ in a broken and lost world that is much bigger than the small islands of existence we live upon. I invite you to ask the Lord what it means to glorify God in our personal worlds. We can’t touch the world at large until we touch the lives in our world. May God help us become people who have rivers of living water flowing from their lives (John 7:38), so that the world might know how good and awesome our God is! May personal change truly precede corporate change as we become the sons and daughters our Father intended us to be.

The Revolution: Of the Heart, From the Heart

2007-08-16T23:02:00.000-04:00

by Tom Johnston

The great harvest of souls we all seek – and Jesus desires – can only come as God works a great transformation in His Church. Not just a change of systems, or of formats, or of ministries and programs, or ways of holding services, but of true inward transformation of our hearts. We all know a revolution is needed in the Church so a revival can happen in the world. But this revolution is not simply structural, but takes place within the heart of every Christian leader and disciple.

I was confronted in my devotional reading recently by Luke 6:46 (ESV):

"Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?

Ouch. We need to own this one. I need to own this one. Jesus goes on to speak about how if we do what He says we will have a firm foundation for life, standing up to the floods which come. Amazing. The Church in the West is being washed away by the floods of culture and irrelevance, among other things. People in the Church have lives which are as much storm-damaged as those outside. The stats indicate little difference, or in other words – little true transformation.

But there is hope – all we need to do is return to the firm foundation of the commands of Christ. Now, I am not making some pitch here for some kinds of return to doctrinal “purity” or “orthodoxy” (whatever that means to you in your stream of the church - I hope you are already there!), or a certain perspective on Scripture. But rather a return to orthopraxy – actually doing what Jesus said to do. Seem too simple? Read on.

Here is my point. Jesus statement in 6:46 falls just after the Sermon on the Mount, the ethical teaching of Jesus – you know, care for the poor, treat others like you want to be treated, don’t be judgmental or critical, be forgiving, show love to those who hate you. That’s right, we know this stuff. But do we really, as the Church, do it? (And are we really the Church if we don’t? But that’s another article.) The real issue Jesus is pointing out here is the heart – when it is good, goodness flows from the life. When it is bad, rottenness flows (6:43-45). It is the heart issue which He is speaking to – not just the behavior. We so often seek to modify our own behavior and the behavior of those we minister to (Pavlov did this once with some dogs), but what Jesus is talking about is a heart which is devoted to the King and His Kingdom – “Why do you call me, Lord, Lord…”

The Revolution must first come to our hearts – we must be taken captive by the King:

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13-14, ESV)

From our hearts the Revolution of the Kingdom can spread to those around us in the Church, and then to the world. Goodness is infectious, hope contagious, love exemplified is unstoppable. Holy passion for people, birthed in us by the Spirit of Christ Jesus, will be what motivates us all to engage in His mission of reaching those who have yet to love Him. If the Church in the West can just become revolutionized in its’ heart, a spiritual awakening/revival/revolution will occur, and the West will be won (one?) again for Christ.

May your heart be revolutionized, again and continually, by Jesus. May you become a Kingdom revolutionary of goodness, of light, of love. May we all be empowered with such passion for Christ and from Christ that we live a simple and authentic faith, doing the good works of Jesus, living as an example to the world around us.

Just Say No

2007-06-20T15:15:00.000-04:00

by Tom Johnston

During the 1980’s there was the now-famous “Just Say No” campaign to teach teens and children that they could refuse the temptation of illicit drug use when such an opportunity was presented to them. The push for awareness did much to bring to the forefront the major issue we face with drug addiction in our country. Today, the Church in the West faces a similar scourge – we have an addiction of our own – and most of the pastors I know are enslaved to this poison.

What are we addicted to? Transfer growth. Yup, that’s it. We are driven by the need to see our churches “grow,” our “ministry expand” and our “community impact increase” (not to mention the desire to increase the church budget). We need the validation of more people attending our gatherings and services. Attendance at a service is the core metric of the church in our country, the one by which we measure success. This is how we “get high” as pastors. We get a “buzz” off our numbers, and we are addicted.

Rather than make our own disciples, which we validly do want more of, we are very content to let the wandering sheep from another flock nestle in with us. Think I’m crazy? With the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending on ministry each year in the US, the evangelism growth rate of the Church is still at only about 5-7%, meaning that 93-95% of our growth comes from people who are already Christians!

Still think I’m crazy? Then ask yourself this question: When was the last time you sent someone packing? I mean, not some problem folks you are dealing with in church discipline, but rather, say, a healthy, spiritually mature, financially well-off couple with 2.5 kids who have been long-term members at the church down the street. These folks show up at your doorstep as “visitors” for a few weeks – and you’re hoping that they are going to make your church their new spiritual home – you need the “workers” and the cash. And this “hit” makes you feel good because they are coming to your place!

Ever stop to think why they are visiting? What happened at the last place? Was there a problem which needs to be resolved? Is their motive consumer-oriented, and they are “shopping” for a new church? Your place is nicer, better worship, more programs? Or are they “cruise-imatics” always moving from church to church?

Whatever the reason, if you receive them into fellowship, you have the potential of doing several (negative) things: first, you may enable their dysfunctional behavior – the root of the reason for transition; second, you receive that dysfunction into your church by receiving them, and third; you could mar the Body of Christ, leaving issues unresolved, and mostly, you allow attendance to be your core metric, displacing a call to devotion to Christ, His Church and His mission. The focus switches from disciple-making to vending spiritual goods and services so people attend, and you feed the transfer cycle of the consumer-driven church.

Please do not believe the lies, either. What lies? The ones the Enemy whispers in the ears of the addicted pastor: “Their last pastor didn’t really understand them.” “I can help them in a way he couldn’t.” “They need our church to take the next step in their spiritual growth” “Our church is better.” Now, none of us would admit to the last one, yet most of us believe it. The fact is that you – and the church you pastor – are probably no better than the last ones, and any potential issues will remain unresolved.

Granted, there are valid reasons for people coming to your church who are already Christians. Maybe they have moved into the area and are looking for a church. Fine and dandy, no problem here – folks need a church family to be part of. Maybe they have had a valid issue with the last church leadership which wasn’t able to be resolved. Not an issue either, once you check it out in order to determine the validity. Or maybe they are truly called alongside you and your church to work together. No problem – simply have them go back to their pastor and get their pastor’s blessing and release, and receive them in as gifts from God. The problem is, most of the times we don’t follow through like this. We are so glad simply to have someone come that we see no evil and hear no evil. We praise God that our core metric has increased and the budget too. (Yesssssss, my precioussss, we mustn’t forgetsss the budget!)

The problem with the pattern of transfer growth is that it puts our focus on the wrong thing – attendance - and keeps us from engaging the lost, making more and better disciples of Jesus Christ. If the church is growing by transfer, there is less of a motivation for evangelism. All the resources (time, energy, money) then turn inward to care for those already attending. This pattern also weakens the discipleship of the individual and the church as a whole, as no challenges are issued to the individual to address relational conflicts or issues with past pastoral leaders, and on the corporate level, there is not cost of discipleship – one only needs to attend to fulfill their obligation.

As pastors, we can address this temptation we face, and subvert the cycle of transfer growth, seeing healthy disciples made for Jesus. We can be freed from our addiction. By simply building relationship with other pastors in our areas and opening communication with them when someone from their church comes, we can strengthen the Body of Christ as a whole. In one area I pastored in, fourteen churches were networked together for prayer and ministry, and the relational bonds established allowed us to successfully address this exact issue. From there, all you need to do is engage those visiting Christians around receiving a blessing. If they are willing to pursue such a blessing, then they can come, if they are not, then you need to “just say no.”

Just Say Yes

2007-06-20T15:10:00.000-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

The odd tension we face in serving our Lord within the sphere of pastoral ministry is the paradoxical nature of public ministry and our human state. You know the reality that while we seek to draw people’s attention to Jesus we do so by being visible, receiving attention ourselves. God seeks to display the wonder of His Son through human vessels. Complicating this paradoxical tension is the unfortunate reality that the mystery of the Kingdom is often lost within the confines of our understanding what makes a man or woman of God successful in ministry.

It is quite apparent that no matter how we slice it, what we score (attendance, buildings and cash) determines how we really define success and what we ultimately say “yes” to. The tension is that those who are called to this incredible privilege of shepherding God’s people struggle to make ends meet trying to obey the voice of their Father (saying “yes” to God) while trying to measure up to the human standards that tend to dominate our church world.

It’s that odd curiosity that surfaces when you are attending a pastor’s gathering - curiosity that wants to know just how big the other pastor’s church is. Of course we like people asking us how our church is doing when large numbers are getting saved, attendance is increasing, disciples are being made, and money is flowing in – ask away. However, when numbers are not increasing we tend to shy away from the question and when asked we oddly default to a biblical description. It might sound something like this, “Mike how’s your church doing?” Translated means how many are you running?

If my church is not growing numerically, I might answer with, “Well, we are growing deep in our love for God and each other, people’s lives are really changing and our hearts are breaking for the lost.” Isn’t that strange, we tend to default to a biblical response in the midst of perceived failure. Maybe that should be the response in every case?

A good friend of mine who pastors a great church once said to me, “It will be rather embarrassing when I get to heaven and talk with the apostle Paul and have to tell him that I could not grow the church or do what the Father wanted because I did not have an adequate parking lot.” Now please know that I am all for speaking our culture’s language and providing adequate parking and the like for people. However, my friend caught the essence of his struggle in ministry. He realized he was looking to external realities and the humanistic definition of success to drive him rather than what the Father had called him to do.

As the Church we tend to over-react to our problems and swing the pendulum to the opposite extreme. We often react by dealing with the wineskin (our form and structure) rather than taking a hard look at the wine. Is the life, love and grace of Jesus manifested in our lives, our families, our leadership community, our church, etc? Reaction is not the issue here but response, more specifically our response to God.

In my pastoral experience I have met many leaders who have dreams and aspirations that are from God Himself and yet are not living out that dream. Instead they find themselves caught in the machinery of church, serving the demands of the form and structure while seeking (often well intentioned) to bring people to Christ. Our scorecards only make this more difficult as the core matrix of success still hovers around attendance, buildings and cash. As my pastor said years ago, “Just because you have a lot of people does not mean you have a church. It just means you have a lot of people.”

And so, just say yes to the voice of our Father who called you and still desires to pour His life, love and grace in you and through you for the expressed purpose of extending His Kingdom in your life and the lives of those you are privileged to lead. Say yes to God!

Success and failure is not the issue in the Kingdom of God. God is not interested in how many we have or how effective we are as He is how obedient we have been, how faithful we have been as sons/daughters, servants, and stewards of the Kingdom. The issue for us as sons and daughters of the King is obedience and only doing what we see the Father doing. Success is best defined as obedience.

Are you doing what the Father is asking of you?
Are you waking up each day feeling like its Christmas because you get to partner with the King of Kings?
Are you more in love with Jesus today?
Are people pressing you and asking you about the hope that is within you? (1 Peter 3:15)

Just say yes to God, submit to His call and purpose in your life and be the son/daughter He has made you to be and seek out a mentor or coach to help you grow in your spirituality as well as grow in your ministry skill sets.

Pivot Point for the Christian West

2007-05-17T15:15:00.000-04:00

by Tom Johnston

When the Emperor Constantine won the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 A.D. the emerging Christian Church in the Western world entered into a new central role in society and culture. While preparing for the battle, Constantine, who was not a follower of Christ, had a vision from the Christian God in which he saw the Cross – with the words written over it - in hoc signo vinces — "In this sign you will conquer." This was a pivotal point for the Western Church.

Painting a cross on the shields of his solders as a talisman, Constantine wins the battle. One year later he issues the Edict of Milan, legitimizing the Christian faith, ending persecution and restoring the property rights of Christians. This paves the way for the Emperor Theodosius I to make Christianity the official state religion of Roman Empire in 391 A.D. The rest is, as they say, history.

From the Fourth Century on we begin to see the emergence of something we have come to call Christendom – a geo-socio-political reality in which the Church became the central influence in politics, government, culture and everyday life. For more than a millennium this order grew in geographic scope and temporal power. The Christian Church became the central pole of the fabric of the life in the West, for nobles and commoners alike. Culture is a system of customs, values and beliefs, and for centuries the Church was the major influencer in all of things.

This began to change during the Enlightenment and the Protestant Reformation, where the power of the Church was questioned by empiricists and ultimately fractured by reformers, with its political role weakened along with the monarchies it supported – and which had supported it.

Even within Protestantism, the concept of Christendom lived on, now empowered by the new concept of democracy. This was all brought to the shores of the New World by the Pilgrims in their vision for a new social order based in their views of Scripture and a new awareness of their own political power, and embodied in John Winthrop’s City on a Hill. So, the Church in the U.S. is an inheritor of the concept of Christendom, which continued to exert influence in our nation into the Twentieth Century. Since the 1960’s the perceived division between the Church and the rest of society has grown, culminating in what is now termed “The Culture War.”

Many in the Church seek to fight to maintain the last vestiges of Christendom, seeking to re-exert cultural influence through political means. Those who seek to limit what they consider to be the archaic beliefs and restrictive rules of Christian faith push back – with both vaguely defined groups becoming “pro”-something while acting very “anti” in their words and behaviors.

But here is the truth – Christendom is dead. Let’s face it, the culture war has been lost – even the “sin stats” of the Church in America look like those of the non-professing segment of our society. The Church is no longer calling the shots, morally, culturally or politically. Statistics indicate that we aren’t even reaching a percentage of the population equivalent to our own children. So, what do we do? Give up? Run away? Turn inward? Many have responded in such ways, and many more will do so. Yet we have a great opportunity ahead of us, one which could see a rebirth of the Church in the West. But it will require yet another pivot point.

With the Church no longer being the center pole of the Western world, we must shift our thinking. No longer the cultural driver or universal center, we must become the resource of our society. We live in the midst of so much tremendous need in all areas, and we have the opportunity to bring the resources of the living Christ to bear on those issues. We must serve others – even those who we may consider to be like “Samaritans.” We must love our neighbors – unconditionally – just as God has first loved us – “while we were yet sinners.” We must be willing to resource local community needs, working alongside governmental and “secular” agencies. We must stop trying to compete for the “marketshare” of the American heart and minds, and bring the wholeness of Christ to those with broken hearts and troubled minds. We should not compromise our prophetic mandate to point out sin in the culture, but before we talk about their speck we have to first remove our log. We have to call sin what it is – sin, but words flowing from a heart full of God’s grace – which will be received when we do our own repentance. When we do this, and someone asks us why, it is then we can share the love and life of Christ with them, giving a defense for the hope that is within us.

So Christendom is dead, but the Church is very much alive. We have before us a great opportunity, but to take advantage of this we must no longer try to dominate and be the center, but rather we must serve and become the resource Christ would have us be to our society.

What are your thoughts?

People of the Treasure

2007-05-17T14:57:00.000-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

“God chooses agents who will make it evident that the power which brings the ‘dead’ to ‘life’ is not theirs but His. The minister is like an ‘earthen pot’: cheap, fragile, expendable, unrepairable.” - Jerome Murphy-O’Connor

Strained relationships and disappointments are not only a part of the life of the church in the 21st century it was clearly evident in the life of the early church. After a careful reading of the letters to the church in Corinth, one discovers that the Spirit-people at Corinth were not at all impressed with the apostle Paul. They wanted a leader with more charisma and in whose power and presence they could take pride. He, however, exhibited none of the qualities they desired. In addition to his unimpressive personality and mediocre preaching, his life was characterized by setbacks and failures and suffering. A resume that one would not want for a life of Spirit-empowered person, at least that was what Corinth thought. How could such a weak and fragile person be God’s agent in the salvation of humanity?

This apparently weak apostle utilizes the imagery of clay vessels or “earthen pots” to paint a picture of our walk with Jesus. What comes to mind from the first century context is the imagery of a wrestler who is in the grips with a more skilled opponent. Before a bout, wrestlers would oil their bodies. As they would begin to perspire, sweat now mixed with oil and after a few falls on the soft floor of the ring their bodies became encrusted with clay to the point where they looked like clay statues. Men made of the material that cheap household vessels were crafted.

We live in a world full of clay pots and vessels. The church often finds itself highlighting the clay pot (the wineskin - vessel) more than the treasure that lies within it. The problem is not our worship styles necessarily (although some our outdated) or how we do church. Leith Anderson makes this bold assertion:

While the New Testament speaks often about churches, it is surprisingly silent about many matters that we associate with church structure and life. There is no mention of architecture, pulpits, lengths of typical sermons [or sermons!], rules for having a Sunday school. Little is said about style of music, order of worship, or times of church gatherings. There were no Bibles, denominations, camps, pastor’s conferences, or board meeting minutes. Those who strive to be New Testament churches must seek to live its principles and absolutes, not reproduce the details. (Quoted in Renovation of the Heart, Dallas Willard, p. 235)

We, as a church, have successfully turned the focus to the vessel and away from the treasure that gives life. We are good at reproducing details without principles. Time and time again in our history, we see major movements begin and then fade. That’s why we use the description of “early” (Dominicans, Quakers, Methodists, etc.) when describing a movement. The vessel that emerged in the outbreak of a radical move of God gradually overwhelmed the treasure it initially served to convey. Eventually we add the new movement to our list of movements to be showcased in our museum of Christian history. There is a vast difference between people of the vessel and people of the treasure.

CHARACTERISTICS OF VESSEL PEOPLE AND TREASURE PEOPLE

LIVING AS PEOPLE OF THE TREASURE

If a revolution is going to take place then we must return to the simplicity of our faith, the Irreducible Core of loving God, loving others, and making disciples as we live life. We can live as people of the treasure by living out the following.

Give up your life and live as Jesus lived in every venue. There is no distinction between sacred and secular. Focus on the principles and absolutes of Scripture – the treasure—don’t major on the minors or details.
Make disciples – we are all apprentices of Jesus. The church is to be a place where people are shown and taught how to be disciples of Christ, becoming lights in a darkened world (Philippians 2:15).
Immerse yourself in the presence of God. That is, seek out God’s presence in every situation of life. The psalmist cried out, “The nearness of God is good.” (Psalm 73:28).
Transformed: Living lives that do not focus only on behaviors, but the heart. The natural outcome or side effect of a transformed life it to live like Jesus lived and love like Jesus loved. This is a revolution of “peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9). We are most like God when we seek to make peace. We invite you into a revolution that seeks to…

Be genuinely kind to hostile people, returning a blessing for a curse.
Be kind to everyone and especially to your family (Galatians 6:10).
Find someone to disciple you and find someone to disciple.

Go and live your life based in and around the King and the Kingdom of God, loving all He loves, and seeking to make disciples of all who submit their lives to the King!

Tell me what you think. Let’s talk about it.

A Gospel That Retreats And Isolates

2007-04-18T11:34:00.000-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson
April 2007

“Christians in the postmodern world will succeed, not by watering down the faith, but by being a counter-cultural community that invites people to be shaped by the story of Israel and Jesus.” (Dr. Robert Webber)

Being counter-cultural is no easy matter. It is hard to be a person who loves those who are full of hate and evil. The choice of retreat and building a Christian culture that lives in protected isolation is much easier. After all, it’s so hard to keep pure in this world. How do we keep our children from engaging in evil without allowing them the safety of retreat? What does it mean to be in the world but not of it? Aren’t we supposed to hate sin? Hard questions and this article will not provide an adequate answer. Instead of providing an answer, I wish to pose some questions.
There is so much talk in our Christian culture about “avoiding the appearance of evil,” which translated often means staying away from anything and anyone that is evil. The definition of evil is subjective and interpreted individually by each believer and the verse is oddly utilized in situations that seem to be nothing more than a statement of preference.

Exactly what is evil? If we are applying the biblical definition, the entire world is. After all, it is anti-God, full of self and engaged in a conspiracy that is led by Lucifer himself. If we are going to avoid the appearance of evil, then maybe we should pack up and retreat? Maybe, this is the time to ask the U.S.S. Enterprise to beam us up?

Who do we boycott? What do we allow or not allow? Just how tight do we close our eyes and ears to the cries of the world? Is it wrong to have friends who do not know Christ? If we are to avoid everything that is evil, then should we stop reading the Bible because it contains scenes of rape, drunkenness, witchcraft, murder, lust and sex? How far do we take this? Are we even asking the right questions? If so, then Jesus violated this very command of Paul by associating with those who were evil. As a result, He was indicted as being a drunkard and a glutton (Matthew 11:19). I am grateful He hung out with sinners and loved them. As far as I recall, I am one of those evil sinners He was willing to sit with. The pure Son of God was so pure that He could love someone like me. Maybe that is the question we should be asking. Are we so pure with our lives that we look nothing like Jesus? We worry far too much about how much sin might get in and not enough about how much love might get out.

Maybe the question is not how do we avoid evil or how much evil do we avoid? Rather, how do we love and serve an evil and lost generation? Evangelical Christianity is far too concerned about power: how to get it and how to use it for personal gain. I somehow think that is the opposite of what Jesus is all about. The primary question believers should be asking is “What can I do to serve you?”

The gospel is not about getting “saved” and isolating. It is about a God who came to a sinful world. No matter how hard you try to be neat, changing diapers is a messy business. I suspect, dealing with sin and sinful people is no different. The wise sage of Proverbs tells us that “Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest” (Proverbs 14:4, NLT). There is no question that life is much more defined, predictable and even safe when we disallow sinners into the mix. Scripture does not tell us to keep the stable clean, but to keep our hearts pure. And one of the characteristics of a pure heart is its willingness to change diapers. We can’t transform culture until we find ourselves transformed. Jesus said it this way: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean” (Matthew 23:25-26, NIV).

The life of faith is not about judgment and withdrawal from an evil society. It is about engagement and sacrifice – something like taking up your cross and letting your light shine in such a way that all might see your good deeds and give praise to our Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). As I write this article, I don’t hear too many people giving praise to God because of the good deeds of the church. God have mercy on us!

The revolution will come by way of incarnation, living out the reality of Jesus.

Tell me what you think. Let’s talk about it.

There Is No Box

2007-04-18T11:28:00.000-04:00

by Tom Johnston
April 2007

Quite often, when I discuss the spiritual revolution the Lord is fomenting in the West, people consider the ideas and concepts around the issue to be “outside-the-box” thinking. (Some have actually said “Tom, get back in the box!”) In reality, it is simply a journey of radical rediscovery of the basic, orthodox truths of the New Testament scriptures. The core principles of loving God, loving others and making disciples for Christ everywhere all the time are actually the simple heart of Jesus’ teaching. It just seems revolutionary to some, because of their framework, their worldview, their box.

In the 1999 smash movie hit The Matrix, the hero Neo, on one of his journeys into the computer-generated reality of the Matrix encounters a child who is, apparently, bending a spoon with his mind. Neo sees this, and knowing this is impossible, asks how the child is bending the spoon. The child replies – “there is no spoon” – the child knows that the spoon doesn’t really exist, as it is just part of the Matrix sim-world. He is not altering the spoon; having been freed from the superimposed reality of the Matrix, he is willfully altering his perception of reality. Neo, having been recently released from the machine imposed domination of the Matrix, is still having trouble comprehending his reality. In an earlier scene, another character explains the Matrix to Neo, as the “world having been pulled over our eyes.” (Sounds like the first couple chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans to me!)

Many in the Western Church live in a virtual reality, a sim-world of their own making, the First Church of the Matrix, if you will. Not a box of orthodoxy, but a self-imposed box of orthopraxy – how we apply right belief to life and ministry. We have so compartmentalized our Christian existence, so boxed it in, labeled it sacred and secular, right and wrong, proper and improper – that we have marginalized ourselves in the culture. Indeed, even the word orthodoxy used to mean “right worship” – not as an event, but as a way of life lived unto God. We have changed it to mean “right belief,” as doctrine has become our focus. Our doctrine and theology might be O.K. (we all know in part, no stream has it all right - sorry), but our ecclesiology – our understanding of what the Church is, is so fundamentally flawed in the West that we live ineffective lives inside our Matrix-like box.

But the truth is – there is no box. The cultural (and sometimes doctrinal) definitions of “Church” which we hold create the limitations on our worldview, preventing the fullness of the knowledge of Christ to come to us, and ultimately through us to others (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). For His eternal perspective, beyond time and space, God sees no limits on His Church. We are the ones inside the box, inside our Matrix. He only sees His people – He sees sons and daughters, not the programs, budgets, buildings, crusades, outreach events, services or revival meetings. Embracing the simplicity of the Gospel is freeing to the soul, embracing the Church being simply the people of God is freeing to the Gospel.

Unfortunately, for those who think such simplicity is too far outside the box, the only other alternative is to try to “bend the spoon,” or in our case bend the box. Drawing on Jesus’ metaphor, these people have a focus on embellishing the wineskin, rather than focusing on producing some really good, mature spiritual wine (Luke 5:37-39). It is the heart of American marketing and consumerism to accentuate the packaging to sell a marginal or inferior product. Tweak the box all you want – you're still trapped inside it.

Join us in the revolution. Be free from your box. Cast your religious inhibitions aside and pursue Christ and His mission with reckless abandon.

What are your thoughts?

285 Billion

2007-03-16T14:12:00.000-04:00

by Tom Johnston
March 2007

285 Billion

That’s what the American Church spends on ministry each year, on average (Dr. David Barrett). That’s right – $285 BILLION, not thousand, or even million. Based on this, if the church in the America was a single corporation, it would be the THIRD LARGEST in the world, right behind ExxonMobil and General Electric and just ahead of Microsoft. And yet, Christians as a percentage of U.S. population continue to decline.

Living in New Hampshire, a state with the highest per capita household income (2005), and one of the lowest charitable giving rates (ranked 50 in 2005, 47 in 2006), we have 2.4% of the population attending an evangelical church in any given week (www.theamericanchurch.org). Not sure about where you live, but up here in New England, it looks like we are losing some serious ground. In fact, nationally, the Church is in serious decline as far as attendance goes. While Christianity seems to be holding it’s own in some regions of the country, the fact is, we aren’t even reaching the percentage of population equivalent to our own children.

So, what’s it all mean? Well first of all, what we are doing doesn’t seem to be bearing much fruit either in making more disciples or impacting culture. Secondly, it doesn’t seem like we need to spend more money on church stuff! (Granted, we may need to spend it differently.) If we keep on this track, we will continue to see the decline of the totality of Christian witness in the West. This is all hard to see from within the “belly of the beast” of ministry. But it is time for a wake-up call – and a revolution.

Christians in America by-and-large are not risk-takers. We are extremely conservative in behavior and often focused on trying to maintain a connection to a preferred past – an idealistic (and inaccurate) view of or nation’s religious history. What we need to do is focus on God’s preferred future for us, not the past. And we need some serious risk-takers (read: people of faith) who will step out of the normal Christian experience and do something truly profound – live a life of simple devotion to Jesus Christ – so that God’s hope for the people of our nation can be realized. We need people who will build their life and faith around the simple construct we often present – the “irreducible core” of our faith – namely, loving God, loving others, and making disciples everywhere we go. A simple Christian faith simply lived out in front of others, a way of life, not a life full of religious activities which costs $285B and seems to have little impact - on us or the society around us.

If we are spending all this money on programs, buildings, evangelistic events – and losing the battle – we need to do a serious re-think on our life and faith. Let’s talk about it.

What Will It Cost?

2007-03-16T14:08:00.000-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson
March 2007

Saving One’s Life Out of Fear – or – Losing One’s Life for Others

The Gospel of Mark paints a rather clear picture of two contrasting ways of life. Jesus sternly rebukes Peter at one point in the narrative for not thinking on the things of God but the things of men (8:33). Here we see the contrasting values set in opposition, two orientations of life: what God wills for people and what people want for themselves. I realize this is a rather blunt statement, but is no less the picture Mark paints.

At the beginning of the journey to Jerusalem (8:22-10:52), Jesus teaches these standards to His disciples. The disciples resist the teachings at every point, but eventually come to submit to them. The journey can then be pictured as a clash of values between Jesus who teaches what God wills for people and the disciples who exemplify what people want for themselves. On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus prophecies three times to the disciples about his impending persecution and death (8:31-9:1; 9:30-50; 10:32-45). After each prophecy, the disciples demonstrate that they do not understand the nature and depth of the prophetic word or accept his teaching. After each of these prophetic moments, Jesus takes some time to teach the disciples the values of the rule of God that underlie his words and actions.

Kingdom Values

After the first prophecy, Jesus says: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (8:35). After the second prophecy, Jesus says: “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all” (9:35). After the third prophecy, Jesus says: “And whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (10:44-45).

Let me break them down for you:
· In order to save your life you must lose it
· The pursuit of status is not the standard for God’s people
· To have power one must be a servant and relinquish the pursuit of power for oneself

There is a sharp line of demarcation that Jesus is drawing between acquisition (saving) and relinquishing (losing). People who follow the world’s standards seek to acquire status and power for themselves. This way of life is motivated by fear resulting in self-protection and self-promotion. One wonders just how much of our current ministry practices are motivated by such.

In contrast, people who follow Jesus’ standards receive the blessings of the Kingdom and are willing to relinquish life, status, and power in order to bring the good news of the Kingdom to others. This way of life is only made possible by faith. It is through the empowering of the Holy Spirit that we find such a life possible.

Mark portrays in rather dramatic fashion that only two ways of life are possible: “saving one’s life out of fear” or “losing one’s life for others.” The characteristics for these two opposing modes of life are highlighted in one word - love. God’s way then involves risk – risking for others.

Let me illustrate, in the late 1980’s a volunteer approached a leader of the Sanctuary Movement in the United States serving refugees from Central America, and she asked to join in the work of the movement. The leader said to her, “Before you say whether you really wish to join us, let me pose some questions: Are you ready to have your telephone tapped by the government? Are you prepared to have your neighbors shun you? Are you strong enough to have your children ridiculed and harassed at school? Are you ready to be arrested and tried, with full media coverage? If you are not prepared for these things, you may not be ready to join the movement. For when push comes to shove, if you fear these things, you will not be ready to do what needs to be done for the refugees.” The woman decided to think it over.

In the same vein, if the followers of Jesus are not ready to abandon or relinquish their status and power over others, then they will not be ready to proclaim the good news to others and the potential of a revolution will pass us by.

Maybe this is precisely why the power of the Gospel has been rendered relatively powerless in the West. We have become more consumed with our kingdoms, our reputations, our success than serving the King Himself with our very lives. The revolution is not about power, status or position. It is about Jesus and how the Christ in me is incarnated to a hungry and searching world.

May we all abandon our egos, our ways, our rights, and our agendas so that the reign of the Kingdom might manifest in our daily lives! May pastors, churches, denominational leaders, and denominations gather around the Irreducible Core with one set agenda of seeing the Kingdom of God lived out in word and deed!

Tell me what you think. Let’s talk about it.

The Fellowship of the Cross

2007-02-16T11:03:00.000-05:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson
February 2007

The biblical idea of koinonia is wonderfully illustrated in the first of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, “The Fellowship of the Ring.” In one scene the Council of Elrond gathers to discuss their plight with the ring, they come to the conclusion that they must take the ring back to Mount Doom where the ring can be unmade and its power broken. Heated debate quickly breaks out (where mission lacks, confusion reigns) on the danger of the mission and its impossibility when Frodo steps up and says “I’ll take the ring, although I do not know the way.” At this point real koinonia takes place as various members step up and partner in the mission as they offer their lives, talent and skill (ax, bow, sword). True koinonia is a partnership “in” the mission. It is here that the “Fellowship of the Ring” is formed – nine companions on a quest.

In the much the same way, we are the “Fellowship of the Cross”. A fellowship that has come together around the mission of Jesus centered in the grace and power of the Cross that has released us to a mission that continues to break the power of darkness in our world. We are committed to each other because of the mission. We have a “relationship with a reason” and that reason is the mission of loving God, loving others, and making disciples.

The Bible makes it quite clear that the early church was together (at least at Pentecost), living out the reality of the “Fellowship of the Cross.” Acts 1:14 tells us that “They all met continually for prayer.” Luke tells us that the early church shared all things in common (Acts 2:43-47). Even Peter’s inaugural sermon that gave birth to the church was not a solitary act. Luke adds a rather stunning fact that “Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles” (Acts 2:14). It would appear the early church understood “relationship with a reason.”

What we at times have forgotten is that the Church is in a war. Frodo knew he was in a battle. “Fate has chosen him. A Fellowship will protect him. Evil will hunt him.” (from the Lord of the Rings trailer). The Church in the West often finds itself in a war that is more with each other than the forces of darkness. Scripture makes it clear that we are in a war.

Then there was war in heaven. Michael and the angels under his command fought the dragon and his angels…But terror will come on the earth and the sea. For the Devil has come down to you in great anger, and he knows that he has little time. (Revelation 12:7, 12, NLT)

What Hell seeks to do is to weaken and destroy the fellowship by dividing it. The fellowship is meant to stand in such a way that it can be on mission while taking care of its members. This division is best accomplished when Hell takes the fellowship and moves them from standing together for the mission to turning from the mission to tear each other down. The fellowship is meant to be like a group of people that stand in a circle and holding hands – while facing outwards. We are to cover the backs of our brothers and sisters as we fight our spiritual battle, staying connected, always looking to receive the next person into our community. In this way whatever is coming to attack us will be picked up and stopped by our faithful brother who defends us with his life (a great picture of koinonia), while our eyes are facing outward to the mission. What Hell loves to do and can only do is turn the soldiers on each other. Since Satan has no power against the Church, all he can do is play on our insecurities, fears, and suspicions of one another, lying to each believer about the motives and intentions of the others. What takes place then is the soldier turns inward, no longer covering the other soldiers, and begins to make war with his own brothers and sisters. Each does the same and the army is incapacitated. Hell does all it can to move us away from the mission and being the “Fellowship of the Cross.”

We are most like beasts when we kill. We are most like men when we judge. We are most like God when we forgive. - Anonymous

I’d like to leave you with a few questions that might move us all to live out the reality of being the Fellowship of the Cross. Like the Council of Elrond, may we each offer our lives, our gifts, our talents for this incredible mission – companions who are the Fellowship of the Cross.

Who Is Willing? Who Will Go?

Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to my people? Who will go for us?” (Isaiah 6:8, NLT)

How Do I Start?

Share the Jesus that you know (Revelation 12:11), tell people about the Jesus that saved you and continues to save you
You may not know the answers of life but you know the answer to life. Share the answer you know.

Where Do I Start?

Jerusalem: Start at home and with the people closest to you
Judea/Samaria: People near but different from me
Ends of the earth: Everybody else!

How Do We Do this?

Together
Be a light (Matthew 5:14-16), simply let your light shine
Your light shines best when you live right and your life will testify to Christ (I Peter 2:12; Micah 6:8)
Live a life of love (John 13:34-35; I Timothy 1:5; I Corinthians 13:4-8)

When Do We Do this?

NOW! TODAY!
“Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.” (Hosea 10:12, NLT)

Tell me what you think. Let’s talk about it.

The Unity of the Cup

2007-02-16T10:59:00.000-05:00

by Tom Johnston
February 2007

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:1- 6, ESV)

Communion. The Eucharist. The Lord’s Supper. By whatever name you call it, this celebration of remembrance is built around the symbols of the body and blood of our Lord and Christ, pointing to His atoning death for our sins. Whatever you call this holy moment of realization and reflection, however you practice it, this “cup of Christ,” this meal of sacrifice binds all Christians together. We are not so different after all. We are all in need of grace and forgiveness, and we all find it in the same place – the person of Christ.

So, why then schism and factions, sects and denominations? Are the simply different tribes and clans within one holy nation? Yes, and no. Are they different expressions of the Church, the multifaceted wisdom of God displayed in different forms to a diverse human global community? Yes, and no. Could it be that the diversity of movements and groups within the Christian faith are just sociological incarnations based on the point of time in history and culture when they emerged; or the personality or doctrinal beliefs of a particular church leader? Yes, and no.

On the positive side, when we look at the global Body of Christ, the Church with a capital “C,” (whether it is Roman, Byzantine, Melkite, one of the ethnic Orthodox varieties, Coptic, or one of the hundreds of Protest-tant flavors) we see the diversity in the Church as a wonderful, cultural, historical, ethnic revelation of Christ in His kingdom community. This is the “yes” aspect to the questions posed. But there is a “no,” too. And the “no” is killing us.

Late in the ministry of Jesus two of His twelve sought out prominence (Mark 10:35-45, Matthew 20:20-28). Expecting an earthly dominion in which they would participate, James and John were looking for significant positions in the new world order. Their mother got in on the act, too. Already part of His inner circle along with Peter, these two make their power play, looking to secure their influence in the kingdom to come. Jesus indicates they have no clue what they are asking, and asks if they can “drink the cup” He will drink. In other words, He was asking them if they could walk the path He would walk. Indicating yes, the brothers think that Jesus is testing their commitment to Him, their loyalty to the cause, which they immediately affirm. But they didn’t get it. With the wonderful gift of hindsight, we see from our vantage point what James and John missed. Jesus wasn’t questioning their loyalty. He was questioning their heart. Knowing the Cross was before Him – His ultimate service to humankind, Jesus calls them on their heart attitude: you want power so you can rule as lords, but I came to minister as a servant. The text goes on to point out how the attempt at political posturing hurt the community of the twelve, causing the others to become indignant.

This is the true cup of Christ which we must all drink: the cup of sacrificial servanthood. And this is where the “no” response to the questions above comes in. Much of the division in the body of Christ is not God-authored, but based in the same human need for power and position expressed by James and John. We let our desire for self outstrip our mandate to lovingly serve one another. We think we are right/have the fullest revelation/are the original item or the church as it was meant to be. Such posturing breaks our unity, and therefore, our effectiveness. Yet, we have the same Lord, are endued with the same Spirit, and called with the same calling by the same Father.

We must choose to drink the cup of Christ, the cup of sacrifice and service, if we are to truly be His Church. Putting politics and posturing aside we must choose to embrace those who also drink this same cup, setting aside the non-essential differences, and modeling to the world what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

So, the next time you participate in that holy moment of Communion/The Eucharist/The Lord’s Supper – whatever your tribe calls it – remember this: when you drink the cup of the New Covenant, you’re committing to be a living sacrifice – one who serves others sacrificially, walking in love and humility towards others, living in harmony and unity in the Spirit. What a model of Christ-likeness we would be!

Go ahead, drink the “cup of Christ,” and embrace His sacrificial life – not just in remembrance, but in action. If we all did, Jesus would change the world through us.

What are your thoughts?

The Sacred Trust - The "Knee-High" Battle

2007-01-15T21:11:00.000-05:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson
January 2007

"This is a sacred trust - never treat it as common." This resounding thought was deeply engraved into my heart by the Spirit of God in 1997. This incredible moment of conviction began to pave the way for who I am today.

I have come to believe over the years that our over emphasis on the “wineskin” (model, technique, program, etc.) at the expense of the “wine” (content of Christ in our lives) or at least diluting it, has been costly for the Church in North America. Mind you, I am not suggesting that models, techniques, programs, etc. are bad. They are not.

I am reminded of Uzzah who attempted to steady the Ark of the Covenant from falling off the cart (2 Samuel 6:4-7) just after the oxen had stumbled. He did what any one of us would have done. I believe Uzzah like many of us are well intentioned when we seek to help God out in this enterprise called Church. Particularly when it would appear the Church is stumbling and needs a creative touch from us to stabilize it. It was Dr. Jack Hayford who said that we have church down so well that the Holy Spirit could depart from our services and we would not know it for three years.

The problem I face in ministry is not that I don't know what to do. My problem like so many leaders is that I do know what to do and like Uzzah can find myself touching the holy thing, helping God out when I don't need to. This article won’t resolve the issue of what we touch and what we do not, but will help facilitate an on going dialogue with each other and hopefully an ongoing dialogue with God.

Jesus told us “God blesses those who realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them” (Matthew 5:3, NLT). Wow, what a verse and what a promise. If I live a lifestyle of need, then the Kingdom of Heaven is given to me.

Our progressive inability to reach our culture has thousands of pastors back to a place of recognizing our need for Him - an absolute desperation is beginning to arise motivated by many factors but the need is rising. Because of this need, pastors and leaders are returning to a dialogue with God (prayer) and His Word for what to do next. We are, in effect, not touching the Ark and letting it be, as we trust that God might stabilize it Himself. Now, if I read my Bible right it says that good things tend to happen when people seek God, look to His Word and lean on the Holy Spirit. These are the ingredients of revolution.

I am encouraged by our spiritual landscape in North America. There are pastors by the thousands asking questions about effectiveness, why we are not reaching our culture, and what is the Church (maybe this is the question).

A revolution, like the revolution that sparked Pentecost in the Book of Acts, can only begin when people are broken enough to obey and pray. Maybe this is the beginning of the revolution that we return to being sons and daughters of God before we are pastors and leaders.

May we, like the followers of Christ in the Book of Acts, wait on Jesus as we look to see what the Father is doing in our neighborhoods, cities, states, etc. May we find the revolution so captivating that our lives are lived around the reality of this Kingdom where we love God with all of our heart, love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and make disciples as we live life.

We have been given a sacred trust and no matter how relevant or cool our ministries might be we have one thing the world can never give. We have Jesus. May you live Jesus, and from this life may the revolution grow.

Here are some questions for you to ponder in your dialogue with God.

In what ways do you struggle with helping God out? Helping stabilize the Ark if you will?
How has God facilitated a sense of need and desperation in you this past year?
How has dialogue with others and God increased this past year?
What do you see the Father doing in your home? Church? City? State? Nation?
What are you willing to endure to see this revolution come to pass?

Reformation Redux

2007-01-15T21:08:00.000-05:00

by Tom Johnston
January 2007

When Martin Luther started a dialog in October of 1517 around his 95 talking points, he didn’t intend to start a revolution. But he did. The Protest-tant Reformation was arguably the most significant event in Christianity’s second millennium. And boy, did it change things – and not all for the good. With the battle cry of sola gratia, sola fida, sola Christos and sola scriptura the forces of revolution swept Western Europe. And everything changed. Looking back from our vantage point, many today think the spiritual revolutionaries of the 1500’s went too far, some think not far enough, while others consider the Reformation one step in a longer journey. To be sure, the impact has had an irreversible, lasting effect on the Church universal. It all started with one man who wanted to talk about the issues.

A thousand years earlier Patricius (St. Patrick), a Roman Briton, took the church beyond the culturally-Roman world, to the Celts who were considered to be barbaric pagans. The standard practice was to Romanize/civilize before you tried to Christianize. By going to the Celts, Patrick went beyond that practice. What Patrick did in going to the uncivilized was truly revolutionary in his day. Many consider Patrick and those who followed after him to be the first true missionaries in the West since biblical times, crossing the boundaries of culture and language with the Gospel of the Kingdom. The Celts were reached for Christ, and incredible spiritual communities were formed, both as an outcome and as a means of mission. It all started with one man who wanted to share the life he had found in Christ with other people.

Spiritual revolutions in the Church are often started without the intent to do so, like Luther. Sometime they are started by the intentional action of someone, like Patrick. Always there is a passion instilled in the revolutionary (whether they come to the revolution by accident or intention) by the Holy Spirit for something beyond the current reality. They have a vision for a better country (Hebrews 11:16), and hope to realize at least some of it in the Church of their generation.

When such spiritual revolutions emerge, they will not be ignored. They have a way of demanding attention, and they are dismissed only at one’s own peril. When confronted by such radical shifts like those brought on by Luther and Patrick, church leaders are required to respond. Try to stop it, you might be crushed by its momentum. Try to ignore it, it might pass you by, leaving you in the dust of history. Try to control it, you might find yourself loosing everything. Try to nurture it and mature it, you might find yourself partnering with God.

There is a revolution coming in the Western Church. In fact, it is here now. You can’t stop it – don’t even try. You can ignore it – and lose out big-time. And don’t fool yourself – you can’t control it. Find out how to partner with God in it, bringing this emerging move of God to maturity. Maybe like Luther you have found yourself in the revolution by accident. Maybe you are like Patrick, and you are called to foster the revolution intentionally. Whatever you do, find a way to surf this wave of the Spirit, giving your heart fully to the work of the Lord, because like Luther and Patrick, you want to play your part. The revolution starts with you – let Jesus refresh the wineskin of your heart.

“But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.”

- Jesus, Luke 5:38

The Message of the Revolution

2006-11-16T14:51:00.000-05:00

by Tom Johnston

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:14-15 ESV

The message of Jesus is the message of the Kingdom. It is this message, the proclamation of a new ruling order, which is at the core of the Revolution. The coming of the Kingdom of God is what the Revolution is all about – the overthrow of one world order for another. Jesus is the ultimate revolutionary – and He is still at work.

When Jesus was declaring the “good news” He was speaking forth the euangélion – the glad tidings of a victory which has established the empire – and consequently – a new peace (Isaiah 52:7). Also, euangélion was proclaimed at the birth of a new Roman emperor - a time of great joy and celebration, as this meant to the people that the government and peace they enjoyed would continue unbroken (in reference to Christ, see Luke 2:10-14). This term was a Greco-Roman political term, and in understanding it, we understand what the message of Jesus is all about. Jesus came proclaiming God’s right to rule on earth, and to be Lord in the affairs of men. He came to proclaim the overthrow of a rebellious world order and the re-establishment of the Father’s unquestioned dominion.

The message He preached was the Gospel (euangélion) of the Kingdom. It might surprise some that he did not come preaching the Gospel of Salvation. Salvation for humankind is not the core of the Gospel – the Kingdom is. Salvation for us is a blessed outcome of God’s kingdom rule in our lives. No Kingdom rule re-established, no salvation for humankind. The Cross is God’s weapon of His warfare (Colossians 2:15) in reclaiming His universe – and His people. The message of Christ and His Cross is the message of spiritual revolution, overthrowing the kingdom of darkness and re-establishing the Father’s blessed realm.

It is this revolutionary message we preach – a Christ-centric message. We are not preaching a human-centered (read: self-centered) message: the Self-improvement Gospel, or the Health & Wealth Gospel, or the Social-welfare Gospel. We preach the Gospel of the Kingdom, the message of revolution, which demands all from those who would enter the Kingdom (Mark 8:34-38). In that Kingdom (which is now, but not yet fully here), as a result of God’s rule, our souls are enriched forever, every need is met in Christ, every injustice is set aright – in the “now” in part and completely in the “not yet.”

In Mark 1, Jesus proclaimed the emergence of a new universal order, one in which we are to trust completely. We are to trust it in such a way as to rely completely upon it, changing our heart and mind, reorienting life and ministry around the commands of the King. The time has come for us to embrace this revolutionary message afresh, in our own lives and in our ministry, and join the Revolution of Jesus.

For the Sake of the Gospel

2006-11-16T14:39:00.000-05:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

Maryanne Hannan states a rather bold assertion in an article entitled “The Discomforts of Discipleship.” She opens up her heart and confesses that “I write about a set of beliefs that I support but do not fully live. My own writing disturbs my conscience more than what I read of others’ writings. Because I am unworthy of the message, should I stop writing?” (Spiritual Life 46:4 Winter 2000: 197) What an honest confession and one I’m sure that our hearts resonate with. Such honesty opens up the questions and let’s us ponder before the Holy Spirit the deep issues of our life. How do we deal with the internal paradox? Are we really doing all “for the sake of the gospel?” “Do I really believe all this stuff about Jesus? God? The Bible?”

There is a lot of emphasis in our church culture on reaching the postmodern generation. It is driven by a heart that desires to see this unchurched generation find a relationship with our loving savior. I applaud all these attempts and ask God on a daily basis “to raise up more laborers for the harvest.”

Ironically, I find myself deeply challenged in this new day where old methods of reaching the unchurched find themselves rather impotent. I’m not challenged because of an inability to adjust and adapt to an ever-changing culture, but find myself asking the question that stuns me into reality. “Am I doing all this for the sake of the gospel?”

It’s easy to answer the question with a blatant, “yes!” However, if I allow the Holy Spirit to peruse my heart, I find that I am forced to ask whether I did enough for the sake of the gospel or whether I did everything for the sake of the gospel. There is a large difference. Paul emphatically and poignantly explains:

Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (I Cor. 9:19-23, NIV)

When I listen to the words of Paul I am confronted radically with the issue of motive. He lived his life “for the sake of the gospel” and did everything he possibly could for the gospel. Am I maintaining my stand for a postmodern church that effectively contextualizes the message of the cross for the gospel or for myself? Is my position determined more by a western Enlightenment autonomism (self-rule), or is it determined by what Paul Tillich called “christonomism,” the rule of Christ? Hard questions to ask and frightening at that, but questions that must be asked by the Church. If we are going to be a people that live out the gospel, then we need to be confronted by its message, transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit and living in the love and grace that Christ so wonderfully demonstrated for us. Contextualizing the message is right, but we must incarnate it – that is live it out in front of the world in honor of our God.

Dr. Robert Webber writes; “Spirituality is essentially turning our backs on evil and embracing what it means to be fully human. God in becoming a man actually shows us what a true human being looks like . . . showing us what it means to be a true servant and a person of love, joy, and peace.” If it is true that Jesus has come to give us life and it abundantly (Jn. 10:10), then it only seems logical to assume that those in the church would be living a life that is a cut above the world. The church then should be full of people who are out living the world – we should be a model of what a human being really is. Jesus was that model for us and demonstrated what a life could do when it is fully submitted to God. As people look at our lives, are they reflections of a life that has been radically transformed – reflections of the heart and holiness of our Father? How do our lives reflect the love, joy and peace of our Father?

I often wonder if we, the Church, have somehow missed the essence of Jesus’ admonition to love God with all of our heart and our neighbor as ourselves. Our focus tends to be on the arena of external living. You know, memorize scripture (so that we can be right), stay away from evil (translated means “those awful and disgusting sinners”), pursue righteousness (often means run from the world and retreat in safety) and pray for the world (which often means we seek to find ways to force our personal agendas on others). There is nothing wrong with the practices just noted, I am in question about the heart that is practicing them.

The gospel is about freedom and a new life in Jesus. Paul pens these wonderful words in Galatians 5:1, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (NIV). It is rather apparent that the gospel can become many things, often serving the self-interests of those who are promoting its truths. Franciscan peace activist, Sr. Rosemary Lynch, tells how she is able to remain so cheerful and forge on with her difficult work. She tells a powerful story of how as a child she thought the actual words to the hymn “Oh Lord, I am not worthy” were actually “Oh Lord, I am not worried.” To the mind of a child it made sense – If we are loved by God then there is no need to worry. What this tells me is that when we realize how much we are loved by God, our hearts melt in humility and humanness finds its true expression. In other words, it all starts with the love of God as was so wonderfully and radically demonstrated on the cross.

Before I conclude let me say that this article is not an invitation to excessive self-scrutiny – after all such does not elicit true humility nor does it bring rest from the burden of life. And so, “am I doing everything I can for the sake of the gospel?” What a question – I like it because it forces me to sit at the feet of the one who knows. Something each of us should consider doing – after all, He is the one who brings definition and release to our existence. May we find the life He has for us and may we be the people that dynamically reflect the love, joy and peace of our Father!

May our prayer be:

“For the sake of the gospel, O God, that is my plea.
For the sake of the gospel help me to lay aside all pettiness And meanness of spirit.For the sake of the gospel let me find ways to overcome conflict and divisions.For the sake of the gospel may I not substitute what is not gospel for the gospel of compromise the gospel out of fear or betray the gospel out of self-interest.For the sake of the gospel help me to stand fast for the gospel.For the sake of the gospel help me to be faithful to the gospel.And finally, O God, for the sake of the gospel enable me, above all, to distinguish what is gospel from what is not the gospel.For the sake of the gospel enable me to discern the line I must never cross.
For the sake of the gospel enable me to know when to yield and when to stand fast.Through Jesus Christ, your gospel. Amen.” (E. Glenn Hinson, “Reconciliation and Resistance,” Weavings 15:6 Nov/Dec 2000 : 46)

Klingon Christianity

2006-10-19T17:20:00.000-04:00

by Mike Chong Perkinson

Life in Christ is full of twists and turns. Complicating this life of twists and turns is ministry – leading God’s people to the promised land of life and hope. One would think the journey would follow a straight line to the land of abundant life, peace, and joy. Oddly enough, our life in Christ, much like the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites, is filled with odd turns, twists, and character adjusting moments that result in agonizing flesh moments of anxiety, confusion, and fear – the pathway to trust and faith. You know, the questions that float to the surface: Why is the happening? Why isn’t my ministry going as well as Pastor Perfect? Why do I have to struggle so much while other leaders seem to coast into the Promised Land? Stop with the depressing honest questions – that’s enough reality for one day.

Maybe the problem many face in this day of self preservation and self-promotion is that we are way too much alive where we need not be and dead where we need to be alive. The leaders of God’s people tend to be just as busy, hurried, stress filled, anxious, mean, and angry as those without Christ rather than enjoying and living the abundant life of joy and peace Jesus promised. Is it possible the reason we are living so far below what God has promised is that we are dying poorly. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24, ESV) Is it possible that we remain alone and do not bear much fruit because we are way too much alive to our own agendas?

To help us here we turn to the world of Star Trek where we find some wonderful words of wisdom from the race of warriors called, the Klingons (If you are not a Trekkie our heart goes out to you and we will be praying for you). For the Klingon honor was held above life itself – honor – a word that is gradually disappearing from our vocabulary and practice. The greatest honor for the Klingon was to die in battle. In the Star Trek world it was not uncommon to hear a Klingon warrior say “Today is a good day to die.” Philosophically, the Klingon warrior lived his life in anticipation of victory in battle, willing to give his life. “A Klingon is always prepared to die.”

Like the Klingons, we are in a war, a spiritual war that involves a rather focused, angry, conniving, and evil opponent who has so powerfully been defeated by the all powerful Son of God. Strangely enough, he was beaten by the all powerful Son of God that was rejected, despised and killed. Jesus fought in a way that is foreign to our current mindset, but maybe is precisely the way the battle is won on our front. Jesus came to serve and not to be served (Mark 10:45), not counting equality with God something to be grasped (Philippians 2:6), serving the Father’s agenda and not his (John 5:19), using weapons of love, vulnerability and sacrifice that brought release and life to the captives (Luke 4:18-19).

Dear Pastor and leader maybe “today is a good day to die.” Maybe we need to rethink how we live and consider how we die. Maybe we need to redefine what success means and base it on the values of the Kingdom of God. Maybe we need to change our scorecards and assess our effectiveness differently. You know, not basing our success on the ABC’s of ministry (Attendance, Buildings, and Cash). Nothing wrong with being wise stewards of such but maybe we need new scorecards that assess our effectiveness based on how we are loving God, loving others as we love ourselves, and making disciples as we live life. Maybe we should score the transformations of people’s hearts in our ministries not just professions of faith.

Maybe we should regularly ask ourselves the question: “who are we becoming?” Ralph Waldo Emerson warns us, “A person will worship something, have no doubt about that…That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.” Do our lives reflect more today than yesterday the heart and character (fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22-23) of our Father?

Jesus wept over Jerusalem and was broken for her because she would not allow Him access into her heart. As leaders we tend to weep on Mondays because our attendance and tithes are low. Rather than weeping for our cities and neighborhoods because they are broken, poor, hungry, and lost without the greatest love in the universe. Again, “who am I becoming?”

It’s time that God’s servants die to human agendas and to live for honor. The honor of loving our God and doing what He asks (no matter what it is all a privilege); the honor of loving our neighbors with acts of kindness, mercy, patience, goodness, and faithfulness (loyalty). And finally, the tremendous honor we have to give away what has been given to us as we live life making disciples for our King.

Let’s honor our Master by becoming more like Him each and every day. May you discover what the Father is doing and then do it (true success). Fellow warrior, “today is a good day to die.”

And he called to him the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. (Mark 8:34-35, ESV)

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21, ESV)

Mutant Incarnation

2006-10-19T17:12:00.000-04:00

by Tom Johnston

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:17, ESV

The Eternal Word – God Himself, put on flesh and dwelt or “tabernacled” – literally “pitched His tent” – among us. This very same God continues His incarnational work in this world through the Church, which is His “body,” the fullness of Him that fills everything in everyway (Ephesians 1:22). This “body,” His people, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, becomes His hands which serve and heal, His arms which embrace in love and acceptance, His feet which carry the euangélion – the good news of the Kingdom.

Every living thing – everything with a body – has DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) which defines it. The DNA is the substance that informs the development of the living creature as it grows and reaches maturity. This “genetic code” determines what we will look like, how tall we could be; the color of our hair, our eyes, our skin. The Body of Christ, too, has a genetic code, but being spiritual in nature, this code is of the Spirit, and not of the flesh. At the core of the Christian live and experience is this spiritual DNA – what we at Praxis refer to as the “Irreducible Core” of the Christian faith – namely Jesus’ commands to love God, love others and make disciples (Matthew 22:34-40, 28:18-20). This “code” is like spiritual strands of DNA which inform what we should look like as we grow and mature as the Church – becoming like Christ (Ephesians 4:13-15). Wrap around this core, this spiritual DNA, the cultural elements in any land, of any people, and you can get a glimpse of what Jesus would look like in that environment – and what His Church should look like as well. That’s all good.

In biological life forms something unhealthy happens when elements not found in the DNA are added into the initial life-forming mix – or the DNA itself is tampered with or damaged. We get what is known as mutation – changes in an organism that results from chromosomal alteration. A mutant organism is one that has gone through such changes. Some such mutations produce birth defects, some of which are so severe as to cause major mental and physical dysfunction, and even death. I have one of these genetic defects, a condition know as Cystic Fibrosis, which kills most with the condition by age 30, and affects many aspects of my physiology. I guess that makes me a mutant (a fact that friends and close associates have known for years!)

It seems in the biological realm that all mutation is derived from the Fall – death entered the world, and organic life, broken by that alteration of our universal reality, in essence continues to replicate that brokenness by reproducing after its kind. All health care is focused on combating and rectifying the ongoing mutation in the human form. These mutations by and large are negative – not the kind we find in fantasy tales that enhance superheros like the X-Men with unique powers and special attributes. Quite the contrary – mutation is disempowering.

You can see where I am going with this, I’m sure. When applied to the Church in the Western world, the spiritual DNA within what we call “church” has been so radically altered – through both addition to and subtraction from – and mixed with other substances – like incompatible worldviews – that the “church” looks little like Jesus. Certainly, we would have to admit that we function in the West with a fraction of the effectiveness and fruit of the Church that Jesus founded. We’re mutants, plane and simple, a mutant incarnation that has the form of faith, but not the power of the living Christ. Our genes have been altered to such an extent that we are losing the power to give life – that life of Jesus Christ. We bear His name, but look little like Him. How can I say this? The ugly mutant statistics prove it – we spend more than $280 Billion on ministry in the USA every year, and our witness continues to rapidly decline as a percentage of the current population.

So, is all hope lost? Is the Church in the West locked into a death spiral, a flat spin from which there is no recovery? Not at all. The Church in the Western world is in serious trouble, but the Church of Jesus Christ is not. The Church in the West can become once again the Church of Jesus Christ through one simple process – spiritual gene therapy. We must have a fresh infusion of the Irreducible Core of the Christian faith, aligning our lives and organizations with this original DNA from the Maker. Church life and ministry practice must be once again driven by loving God, loving others and making disciples everywhere we go, all the time. Gene therapy is a difficult process in the natural, our technology for it is immature. However, spiritual gene therapy by the Maker and Builder of the Church is not as difficult, with the Holy Spirit of God reshaping and realign us with His original spiritual genetic code.

All we must do is admit our defects and embrace His spiritual realignment of who we are – individually and organizationally – and let Him make us whole. We must look in the mirror, admit we are mutant Christians, a mutant incarnation and embrace the re-implantation of His DNA with meekness. Being remade in His image, we can then truly reproduce disciples that look like the Master.

Sharing the Jesus You Know

2006-09-14T10:19:00.000-04:00

SHARING THE JESUS YOU KNOW
by Mike Chong Perkinson

So much emphasis has been placed in our evangelical culture on witnessing. On one hand, we wholeheartedly endorse it. While on the other hand, we are not sure that trying to get people saved is the same as living out the incarnation. More simply, living out how Jesus has impacted our lives – living and sharing the Jesus we know. What seems to happen is that we find it necessary to share about a Jesus we don’t know, memorizing facts, details, all in the pursuit of leading someone to Christ. As a result, we may share about a good and right Jesus, but it is a Jesus we do not know. For example, as a pastor I might be tempted to share the Jesus that Rick Warren or a Bill Hybels know. It is a correct Jesus but one that I have not experienced. As a result, I try to copy their systems and models that are predicated on the Jesus they know. The focus of such a practice leads us away from incarnating Jesus in our everyday lives. Instead, we share from knowledge rather than from a heart that has been transformed.

The man born blind (John 9) illustrates this rather dramatically for us. Jesus heals him of his blindness. The man is brought to the religious leaders after he has been healed and questioned about this Jesus that has healed him. The Pharisees ask him what he thinks of Jesus. They are of the opinion that Jesus is a sinner and not from God and should not be able to do these kinds of things. They were demanding that the blind man give glory to God and not to this sinner, Jesus. The blind man responds with all that he knows about Jesus, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” (John 9:25, ESV) The blind man later discovers Jesus’ true identity as the Son of God (John 9:35-38).

The blind man answers just as we should. He only tells of what he knows to be true, sharing what Jesus had done for him. Too many people try to answer all the questions of life: Why did God allow Katrina? Why pain and suffering? Why this? Why that? It might behoove us to answer more truthfully, “We don’t know. However, what we do know is that God is good and kind and I trust Him because of what He has done in my life. After all, I was blind and now I see.”

If we are going to be effective witnesses for our Lord then it would help us to understand just what a witness is. A witness is someone who testifies to that which he/she knows through direct knowledge or experience (I John 1:1-3; John 9:24-27). We can only testify to that what we know, have seen, heard, and experienced. Any other presentation is a second hand account. As Don Smith says, “I know God is doing well because I just had breakfast with Him.”

No one can tell your story better than you. You are the expert to the activity of God in your life. As witnesses, we are to live our lives in such a way that our way of life, speech, conduct, gives testimony to the hope within (I Peter 3:15). Our lives are lived so loudly that people ask us about the hope that is within (I Peter 3:15, ESV, “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you”). Think about it! When was the last time someone asked you about the hope that was in your life? Nothing wrong with sharing offensively, Peter is encouraging us to do precisely that, sharing offensively by our lives, then with our words.

What the enemy of our souls would love is to have the people of God no longer share their stories of how Jesus has saved and healed them. The book of Revelation makes it quite clear that the early saints overcame the evil one by these things:

And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. (Revelation 12:11, ESV)

One of the reasons we have lost our way or our impact in our culture today is that we have moved away from incarnating the Gospel to peddling the gospel. Instead of coming from our lives it tends to come from without, creating a religious system more than a spiritual life that continues to be transformed into the Image of His Son as it communes with the Father daily.

All of this to say, share the Jesus that you know. Tell people about the Jesus that saved you and continues to save you. You may not know the answers of life but you know Him who is THE ANSWER to life. Share the answer you know.

We can only give away that which we have received. Maybe this is precisely the problem – the joy of our salvation has been replaced by a system of propositional realities that systematize and organize our Jesus and domesticate our all powerful God. Systems and propositional realities do not bring the kind of comfort that comes by way of the presence and love of God. The apostle Paul writes, “who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Corinthians 1:4, ESV)

And so, we invite you to live out the Jesus you know. Give away the comfort that you have received. Tell your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers what God has saved you from. Be a witness to what and Who you know. Tell your story!!!

Tell me what you think. Let’s talk about it.

Another Kind of Pastor

2006-09-14T10:05:00.000-04:00

Another Kind of Pastor
by Tom Johnston

So, what is a pastor, anyway? There are a number of different definitions, most of which are cultural, some of which are biblical. The term pastor is found only once in the English text, In Ephesians 4:11 –

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ

The Greek here, poimen (poy-mane’), means shepherd, one who watches out for (oversees) and cares for the flock. Paul seems to link it here with teacher. Now, much has been written on the subject lately, so I don’t really want to try to create a whole theology or philosophy of pastoral ministry here. But I do wonder how what we have as a pastoral role in the Western Church might be going through some serious changes.

For the past century or more in our country, being a member of the “clergy” has meant that you were, in most cases, the primary, singular spiritual leader of a local community church. For the vast majority, it has also been seen as a vocation, and in the past 75 years or so, has been viewed as a profession, a desirable career track for one to pursue. In the past 30 years with the rise of the “Mega” church, pastors have been challenged to become a whole lot more than just shepherds. Leader, manager, financial wizard, vision-caster, promoter, communicator, and program manager are now part of the expectations of being a pastor.

With the American “bigger is better” mindset still prevalent in the Western Church, success or effectiveness is equated with the size of the church. And yet research continues to find that real church growth in America – via conversion growth – is still between 5-7 percent, with 93-95 percent of growth coming through transfer. So, maybe bigger isn’t really better. Maybe better is better. Hey, we all want to see the harvest come it – and it’s not – and we want to see churches grow – but through conversion, not transfer.

But I digress. The point is those Megas, (will we have Gigas soon?) and we are glad to have them, representing a tiny fraction of the total churches in America. But do they really represent “success”? Yes, and no.

Success in the Kingdom is obedience. Jesus tells a great story about obedience in Matthew 25:14-30, where He is talking about the talents. Three different people, three different levels of investment, two different responses. Two were obedient, one was not. Two traded with what they had been given, one buried what he had out of fear. So, if a Mega church pastor is someone with grace empowerment from Jesus at “5 Plus” talent level – then yes, their obedience would potentially produce something massive. For them that is success. But not for the rest of us. The fruit of our obedience will look different from one person to the next. What matters is that we are obedient to be who we are called to be, do what we are called to do, and that we bear much fruit, bringing glory to the Father, and proving to be Jesus’ disciples (John 15:8).

Is this an excuse for us to be lazy in pursuit of our mission? No way. If we did, then we would get the response from Jesus the one who buried the talent got – rebuked and kicked out of town. No, we have to press in to mission, being obedient to our calling, investing what has been invested in us by the Holy Spirit into the Kingdom economy.

But here’s the rub: The current paradigm of pastoring in the West, and the accompanying church system, limit who can be released into the pastoral role. We’ve built, or perhaps inherited, an expert-driven, professionalized system that spends $286 Billion per year on ministry – and we aren’t reaching our own kids (less than 5% of teens indicate faith in Christ). How can the one, two, three, or in my case, a zero-point-five talent pastor find expression of their giving and calling? Do we all have to be CEO’s? Is that what Paul was thinking when he wrote Ephesians 4:11? Are there more people with the ability to pastor 20, 30 or 50 people than there are who can pastor 500, 800 or 1000? I think maybe there are, and if we want to see a spiritual revolution, a Third Great Awakening, then we might need to figure out how to mobilize them, from the local church for the local church. And do it fast. We may need to let go of our preconceptions about what pastoral ministry is, and allow our structures to become more flexible, adapting to new pastoral roles, and consequently, new incarnations of church.

So here is my question for discussion: Is there room for another kind of pastor in the Western Church? Let’s talk.

So, what does "spiritual revolution" mean to you?

2006-06-15T20:47:00.000-04:00

So, the church is failing in the West. It is the only part of the world where Christianity is NOT growing. Something is SERIOUSLY wrong here. We need a radical rediscovery of the truth of the New Testament scriptures and what they have to say about church. Not in form, or models, or "wineskins" - but in the content. If we do that, things can change. To do that, we need a revolution.