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!!!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
On Being a Grain of Wheat
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?
“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?
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Shaping & Tending Creation
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!
Friday, June 18, 2010
Pastoring People
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 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.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
The Great Indivisible Commandments
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.
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
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).
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).
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Wave Generators and Church Growth
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!
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
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Pastoring Standing Still
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:
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
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The Keys to Church Growth: Trust & Obey
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.”
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
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
My Father
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.
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
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
The Time Has Come
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!
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
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Jesus Christ: Revolutionary, Liberator
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.
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.
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