May 28, 2010
Francis Chan Gives Up
“I cannot make someone fall in love with Jesus.”
In your new book you write, "I cannot convince people to be obsessed with Jesus, and that's why you need the Holy Spirit." When did you come to that realization?
Once you pastor for a while, it dawns on you that nailing a sermon doesn't mean lives will change. Or you'll meet a person who's surrendered everything to Christ, and you'll realize that your sermon wasn't even good and nothing you did caused him to become a believer.
There was a guy who had been in our church for 15 years. One day he told me my preaching hadn't changed him. He said I spoke too much about the "narrow road" and how everyone needs to be radical for Christ. But he said there's also a "middle road" where people like him can do a lot of good things. I was floored by that. He's sat under my teaching for 15 years and he still believes there isn't only a wide easy road and a narrow difficult road, but also a middle road? I've been told many times that my teaching is really helpful, that I make things simple for people to understand. And then you hear something like that.
That's when I remember, I cannot make someone fall in love with Jesus.
So what's the point of all the work, sermon prep, and programs if the outcome is out of our hands?
Some of our toil is wasted, because we're toiling believing that these things change people.
I believe a lot more of our work needs to be put into prayer, study of the Word, and trusting God. I could spend an extra ten hours on every sermon, trying to get every word just right, but my time would be much better spent out sharing the gospel with people and praying.
Now, I do study hard, because the Scripture tells me to and because I want to be accurate in my teaching. We should work hard "as unto the Lord," but we have to let our theology guide what we work hard at. And you have to be led by the Spirit on how much time to spend crafting a sermon and how much time to spend praying for a movement of the Spirit.
How can we know if our ministry is being empowered by the Spirit?
Churches that are built through our effort rather than the Spirit's will quickly collapse when we stop pushing and prodding people along.
Now we should push, prod, and persuade men, but I've learned to spend a lot more time praying and asking the Spirit to move and begging God to send forth laborers.
The more you look at Scripture, the more you realize that nothing happens unless God is behind it. Jesus is building his church. I just want to be a part of that. I'll keep doing my work, but the fruit is up to him. We can only pray, "Please, please, please let us see your Spirit at work. May it be like a mighty wind that moves us."
I equate it to surfing. Sometimes I'm out in the ocean and there are no sets coming in. I really don't want to paddle in, so I'll pray, "God, give me one nice set, one good wave to take me back to shore." I pray because I can't make a wave and I can't ask my friends to go further out and splash to create a wave. We're powerless. That's what I feel like in church. We think we can make waves, but in reality we're totally dependent on the Spirit.
Read the full interview with Francis Chan at LeadershipJournal.net.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at May 28, 2010 | Comments (36) | TrackBack
May 27, 2010
The Future of the Global Church
The Lausanne Movement, Saddleback, and Leadership host a conversation and you're invited.
On June 10, Leadership's managing editor Skye Jethani will be moderating a conversation at Saddleback Church on the future of the global church. The gathering is part of the 12 Cities | 12 Conversations tour in advance of the 3rd Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa, in October.
(You'll want to watch Rick Warren's video invitation for the psychedelic video effect of his shirt alone. Goodbye Hawaiian shirts. Hello Houston, we have a problem.)
Saddleback Conversation Video Invite from ConversationGatherings on Vimeo.
Even if you cannot attend the gathering you can still participate. Saddleback will be hosting a live video broadcast of the gathering on their website. Sign up for the event here. The panelists for the event include:
Kay Warren
Author and Activist, Saddleback Church
Kay Warren is a voice for those who suffer in the world’s HIV/AIDS pandemic. In 2002, Kay became, in her words, “seriously disturbed” by the suffering of the millions infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS. God has taken Kay from her own fears to a passionate place on the world’s stage. Kay has traveled to many parts of the globe to see firsthand how AIDS is destroying men, women, and vulnerable children, and today she is a powerful advocate on their behalf. She launched the HIV/AIDS Initiative at Saddleback Church in 2003 and hosts Saddleback’s annual HIV/AIDS conference, called The Global Summit on AIDS and the Church. Kay is also an accomplished writer. Her doctrinal study, Foundations, co-authored with Tom Holladay, won a Gold Medallion Award in 2004 and her first solo work as an author, Dangerous Surrender was released in November 2007. She has also written for CNN.com and has been featured in POZ, Guideposts, Today’s Christian Woman, Missions Mosaic, Sojourner’s, Seed, Good, and OC Metro. Kay attended California Baptist College and earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University, Los Angeles. She is mother to Amy, Josh and Matthew, and grandmother to Kaylie, Cassidy, Caleb, and Cole. She resides in southern California with her husband Rick.
Jim Belcher
Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church (Newport Beach)
Jim BelcherJim Belcher (M.A., Fuller; Ph.D., Georgetown) is founding church planter and lead pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California. He is also the author of Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional (InterVarsity) and cofounder of the Restoring Community Conference: Integrating Social Interaction, Sacred Space and Beauty in the 21st Century, an annual conference for city officials, planners, builders, and architects.
Dr. Michael S. Horton
Professor, Westminster Seminary
Dr. Michael S. Horton has taught apologetics and theology at Westminster Seminary, California since 1998. He received his doctorate from the University of Coventry and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. In addition to his work at the Seminary, he is the president of White Horse Media, for which he co-hosts the White Horse Inn, a nationally-syndicated, weekly radio talk-show exploring issues of Reformation theology in American Christianity. He is also the editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation magazine. Before coming to WSC, Dr. Horton completed a Research Fellowship at Yale University Divinity School. A member of various societies, including the American Academy of Religion and the Evangelical Theological Society, Dr. Horton is the author/editor of twenty books, including a series of studies in Reformed dogmatics published by Westminster John Knox, whose final volume (People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology) was published in 2008.
Jena Lee Nardella
Executive Director, Blood: Water Mission
At the age of 22, Jena founded Blood: Water Mission alongside the band Jars of Clay. Jena has been featured in Sojourners Magazine, Christianity Today, Relevant Magazine, and the documentary film, Sons of Lwala. Her collaborative writing includes Hope in the Dark, Zealous Love, and The Revolution: A Field Manual for Changing Your World. She serves on the board for the Center for Nonprofit Management and the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health. Jena is a graduate of Whitworth University with a degree in Political Studies. She and her husband live in Nashville and travel often to Africa.
Miles McPherson
Senior Pastor, Rock Church (San Diego)
Pastor Miles McPherson played four years in the NFL with the San Diego Chargers from 1982-1985. During that time he became addicted to cocaine. After his second season in the NFL, he committed his life to Christ and stopped doing drugs in one day. Miles went to work as a Youth Pastor for Horizon Christian Fellowship in San Diego and enrolled in Azusa Pacific University’s School of Theology. He received his Master’s of Divinity degree in 1991. In 1992, McPherson founded Miles Ahead, a non-profit organization that reaches out to youth around the globe with the Gospel. Since its inception, more than 45,000 young people have given their lives to the Lord. In 2000, he started the Rock Church. The Rock has consistently been one of the nation’s fastest growing and largest churches, according to Outreach Magazine. Currently more than 12,000 people attend one of the Rock’s five weekend services. His newest book, DO Something is designed to equip people to take Christ’s love to the streets and make a difference in their community.
Dr. Soong Chan Rah
Professor, North Park Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah is Milton B. Engebretson Assistant Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, IL.
Rah is formerly the founding Senior Pastor of the Cambridge Community Fellowship Church (CCFC), a multi-ethnic, urban ministry-focused church committed to living out the values of racial reconciliation and social justice in the urban context. Soong-Chan was a plenary speaker at the 2003 Urbana Student Missions Conference, the 2005 Summer Institute for Asian American Ministry and Theology, the 2006 Congress on Urban Ministry, the 2007 ECC Midwinter Conference, the 2007 Urban Youth Workers Institute Conference and the 2008 CCDA National Conference.
Soong-Chan received his B.A. in Political Science and History/Sociology from Columbia University; his M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; his Th. M. from Harvard University; and his D.Min. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is a contributor author to Growing Healthy Asian-American Churches (IVP). He is the author of The Next Evangelicalism, on the changing face of American Christianity and on the cultural captivity of the American evangelical church (2009).
Skye Jethani
Managing Editor, Leadership Journal
Skye Jethani has served as a teaching pastor at Blanchard Alliance Church in Wheaton, Illinois and is ordained in the Christian & Missionary Alliance. Skye is the managing editor for Leadership, an award-winning journal for church leaders published by Christianity Today International. Skye helped Leadership expand its readership by managing the launch of the journal’s blog–Out of Ur. Skye is also an author and released The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity in 2009. He also contributes to web and print publications around the country on issues of faith and culture including Relevant and The Huffington Post, and he is a frequent commentator on both Christian and secular radio stations.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at May 27, 2010 | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 26, 2010
Small Churches are the Next Big Thing
Are intentionally small churches any better than intentionally big ones? It depends.
In a conversation last week about the virtues of small churches, a pastor friend of mine, Chuck Warnock, quoted a passage from John Zogby’s 2008 book The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream (Random House). Zogby prophesies that “The church of the future will be a bungalow on Main Street, not a megastructure in a sea of parking spaces. It’s intimacy of experience that people long for, not production values.”
On the face of it, I couldn’t be more pleased with that prediction. I’ve pastored two small congregations and am now a member and deacon in another, where my wife serves on staff. My experience with these churches has led me to believe that small congregations are uniquely positioned to carry the gospel into the world in the 21st century. Few things would make me happier than if the “next big thing” in Christian ministry conversations was the small church.
But the context of Zogby’s forecast gives me pause.
Zogby is a political pollster who checks the nation’s pulse during elections and that sort of thing. He has also worked in consumer polling—researching what kinds of products people like to buy. His book, The Way We’ll Be, is an account of the changing values of Americans as those are evidenced in voting and purchasing patterns. So when Zogby says that the “church of the future will be a bungalow on Main Street,” what he means is that religious consumers of the future will prefer small congregations. He isn’t making any claims about the inherent value of small churches, about intentional philosophies of ministry, or about the role of the church in God’s vision of redemption. He is simply talking about consumer patterns and preferences.
I don’t fault him for that; this is what he does. What concerns me is that it is easy to imagine how the consumer appeal of small congregations could quickly become a motive for keeping a congregation small. Right now, most of the conversation about organic and simple and house and, increasingly, traditional small churches is dominated by voices that advance theological and ecclesiological reasons for thinking mini instead of mega when it comes to ministry. But American Christians love polls; and when word gets out that the average church shopper prefers a small, intimate worship experience, it is very likely that we will lose sight of our theological and philosophical principles and start appealing to pragmatics. Instead of celebrating small churches because they are better positioned to reach people at the margins, better equipped to empower the laity for the work of ministry, and more inclined to cooperate, rather than compete, in ministry, we’ll be touting small size as a strategy to get people in pews.
This is already happening on a smaller scale. A couple towns southwest of where I grew up, there is an ever-growing megachurch led by a celebrity (well, at least a local celebrity) pastor. Ten or twelve years ago, they planted a satellite church near an upper scale neighborhood in my hometown. This is a gated community full of multi-million dollar houses. And just outside the gates there’s an upper scale shopping center, complete with boutique cheese shops, delis, and couture stores—you know, snooty places. This large church planted its sister site in this shopping center, and the little congregation (who hears preaching via satellite) fits in nicely with the other boutique stores. Now, I’m not judging motives but from an outsider’s perspective, this small satellite campus feels like an effort to attract a high-end clientele that would not be inclined to attend the larger church, made up of mostly middle class folk, but who are attracted to the boutique style of this small site.
My point is this: if we start favoring small churches because of their consumer appeal, we’ll be doing just what many of us accuse megachurches of doing—giving the people what they want. In this case, shifting from mega to mini ministry would require some changes in strategy, but no real re-thinking of our philosophy or theology of ministry.
In the interest of full disclosure, I agree with Zogby: I think that the future will belong to small churches. But I want to be darn sure that we begin to favor small church ministry for the right reasons and not simply because we think we’ve found a way to win a new share of the religious market. Some of the current shifts in consumer mentality spell good news for small churches, to be sure. People who value intimacy and authenticity, for example, will be drawn to smaller, local congregations. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But I hope we perceive these trends not as a strategic boon, but as an opportunity to reclaim a biblical vision for our ministry.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at May 26, 2010 | Comments (11) | TrackBack
May 25, 2010
Tuesdays with Tozer--Wounds
Why do so many Christians expect God to shield us from suffering?
It is amazing to me! There are people within the ranks of Christianity who have been taught and who believe that Christ will shield His followers from wounds of every kind.If the truth were known, the saints of God in every age were only effective after they had been wounded. They experienced the humbling wounds that brought contrition, compassion and a yearning for the knowledge of God. I could only wish that more among the followers of Christ knew what some of the early saints meant when they spoke of being wounded by the Holy Spirit.
Think for a moment about the apostle Paul. I suppose there is no theologian living or dead who quite knows what Paul meant when he said, “From henceforth let no man make trouble for me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus” (Galatians 6:17). Every commentary has a different idea. I think Paul referred to the wounds he suffered because of his faith and godly life.
–A.W. Tozer (Men Who Met God, p. 59)
I cringe when people suggest that becoming a follower of Jesus will provide a shield from hurt, pain, and loss. After all, Jesus was nailed to a tree, betrayed by a best friend, and stared death in the eyes. Yes, he triumphed, but he also never went numb. He felt. He sensed. He ached. He cried out.
We will, too.
Sometimes when I invite people to know Jesus I’ll tell them flat out: Becoming a follower of Jesus will not make you skinnier, richer, or more powerful. The words are usually met with nervous laughter, because everyone knows that it’s uncomfortably true. I’m grateful for Tozer’s timeless words.
What do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about becoming a follower of Jesus?
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at May 25, 2010 | Comments (8) | TrackBack
May 21, 2010
Will Preach for Food
National unemployment hovers around 10 percent. There are a lot of hurting individuals and households in the country as a result, but few have reported on the impact on clergy. The Wall Street Journal has released an article on the sharp rise in unemployment among pastors and the very hard realities of being an out-of-work church leader.
Here are some sobering stats:
Unemployed pastors in 2005: 2,000
Unemployed pastors in 2007: 3,000
Unemployed pastors in 2009: 5,000
30 percent of church attendees report reducing their giving since November 2009.
What makes matters more challenging for unemployed pastors is that because churches are not required to pay unemployment taxes, laid-off church workers can't collect benefits offered to other workers. In addition, the church sector may be one of the last to begin hiring again as staffing decisions are directly linked to giving, and giving is linked to the unemployment rates within the congregation. In other words, the people in the pews need jobs before they'll be able to hire someone to fill the pulpit. Pastors looking for a job may be looking longer than other workers and without the cushion of an unemployment check.
The article by Joe Light also reports that "some of the hardest hit by the recession have been megachurches." Light doesn't explain why megachurches have been harder hit, but one might speculate that larger churches simply have more pastors and therefore a downturn in giving will result in more layoffs. A 10 percent cut at a small church might mean moving the full-time youth pastor to part-time, but a 10 percent cut at a megachurch could mean laying off a dozen full-time workers.
Check out Skye Jethani's article on "Mission & Recession." What lessons should the church learn from the economic downturn?
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at May 21, 2010 | Comments (26) | TrackBack
May 19, 2010
The Hansen Report: Reflections of a Recent Seminary Graduate
Grad school establishes ministry patterns that don’t end on graduation day.
Spring weather means graduation is coming, ushering in a season of new beginnings for students finishing high school, college, and graduate school. After three years of seminary, I’m a master of divinity. At least that’s what the diploma will say. Supposedly I’m now prepared to enter full-time pastoral ministry. If anything, I’m increasingly aware of how much I don’t yet know about God, his Word, and shepherding his flock. Maybe that’s a healthy place to be.
That said, seminary has been an invaluable time of study and reflection. God has laid a foundation of learning that will support me through what I hope will be decades of faithful ministry, if he tarries. At the outset of this adventure, I benefited from the advice of wise pastors and seminarians who counseled me in how to make the most of this time of preparation. I heeded their charge to settle in a local church and invest myself in congregational ministry, immediately applying what I learned. I grew attached to a few professors who made time for students and cared sincerely about my spiritual and academic development. And I resisted the temptation to expect that a few hours of class per week over the course of a semester could teach me everything I needed to know about systematic theology, biblical Hebrew, or counseling.
A new book edited by Andrew J. B. Cameron and Brian S. Rosner, The Trials of Theology: Becoming a ‘Proven’ Worker in a Dangerous Business, captures much of this advice. Both Cameron and Rosner teach at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia, where John W. Woodhouse is principal. Woodhouse’s contribution to the book, an essay on “The Trials of Theological College,” elaborates on some of the most important lessons I learned in seminary.
Most importantly, I learned that knowledge about God cannot replace love for God. Nevertheless, learning about God through his Word should lead us to exult in who he is and what he has done.
“Knowing God is real, not abstract; personal, not just intellectual; and will be displayed in your character and conduct, not your cleverness,” Woodhouse writes. “That is why I think it is always helpful to link knowing God with loving God: we seek the kind of knowledge here that changes our affections.”
I sometimes wonder whether churches would be encouraged or discouraged if they sat in on a seminary class and observed us students. No doubt God has encouraged me through the students I’ve spent time getting to know as we shared our fears and dreams for pastoral ministry. At the same time, we graduate students have a fondness for flaunting our knowledge in front of classmates and professors. No one’s impressed, but we offenders probably won’t learn that lesson until confronted by a sweet old lady in our first church.
Even so, seminary provides pastors with a learning experience many Christians would love but could never find the time or money to complete. I have learned that seminary graduates have the privilege of plunging the depths of God’s wisdom so we might share nuggets of gold with fellow believers.
“We know God, not by a mystical experience beyond words, but by hearing the Spirit-breathed word of God,” Woodhouse writes. “This Spirit-breathed word of God is meant to be understood. It tells us the truth, and by his Spirit and through his word, God reveals to us himself, his promises and his purposes. …When the Bible says, ‘Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!’ (Rom. 11:33), we are not being discouraged from seeking to understand. Rather, we are being reminded that we can never think of ourselves as having finished our exploration and our growth in understanding. What happens next is quite striking. Once we grasp just a little of the ‘riches’ and ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ of God, all other thinking about everything is affected.”
Sometimes I wonder, though, how long the current residential model can work for seminaries, which are looking for ways to reach bigger audiences with the riches and wisdom of God. The financial pressures to adapt are extreme. It seems that fewer students today can afford to set aside a few years for full-time coursework. So seminaries expand their online offerings, bolster their satellite locations, and make their courses friendly to commuters.
I share in these financial struggles, but I want to advocate for considerate expansion. A master of divinity is no mere means to the end of pastoral employment. Spiritual formation must accompany this program. How can this happen if we neglect relationships with fellow students and professors and fail to set aside time to reflect on the massive volume of material we’re learning? Busyness is the enemy of meaningful thought and deep faith.
Seminary establishes patterns for ministry that don’t end on graduation day. A student who sees only the immediate becomes a pastor who responds only to the pressing. Churches can help seminaries by requesting pastors who are not merely credentialed and trained in practical ministry but also humble and reflective about how Christ rules his church by means of his timeless Word.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at May 19, 2010 | Comments (6) | TrackBack
May 17, 2010
Defending Organic Church (Part 2)
A prescription for those wrestling with the organic church model.
In the spring issue of Leadership journal, Brian Hofmeister wrote an article titled “The Dirt on Organic.” Neil Cole, also a Leadership journal contributor and the author of The Organic Church, was written a response to Hofmeister’s article. Part 1 of Cole's response seeks to diagnose the problems Hofmeister encountered with the organic model. In Part 2 he prescribes solutions to those still attracted to the de-structured approach to mission and discipleship.
Here is a simple prescription for those wrestling with what Mr. Hofmeister described in his organic church experience:
1. Make disciples, not organizations, and let Jesus build the church out of changed lives. A disciple is one who follows Christ and learns at his feet. Allow them to learn to follow Jesus. They will make mistakes along the way, but that is how we all learn. Protecting people from mistakes is to keep them from learning.
2. Lower the bar on how church is done and raise the bar on what it means to be a disciple. Look to invest in what’s proven rather than in potential. As people are faithful with small obedience present them with the opportunity for more. Start slower and smaller and let the growth generate by reproducing new life, rather than trying to grow something too quickly through attraction.
3. Life Transformation Groups (LTGs) are a simple method of empowering ordinary people, even brand new Christians, to connect to God’s word and obey without creating a dependency upon others who will tell them what to think and do. When the disciples are connected to Christ and following him, then the church that is gathered is strong and able to stand on its own without the unhealthy dependency that Mr. Hofmeister felt was needed. In an LTG people are reading a lot of Scripture repetitively and in context. They are also accountable to one another for confessing their sin weekly. Finally, they are identifying and praying for the souls of lost friends that need Jesus as well. I can trust people who are in such a relationship, and in a church made up of such people has the strength to grow, reproduce, and endure. (Search & Rescue is a book that explains how LTGs work and why.)
Years ago we had an opportunity to start a new church from a pocket of people. The church met in the home of a new believer we had encountered in a coffee house. She was young and had just recently given her life to Jesus, so we did not trust her alone to lead others. We had another team member who had been a Christian for some time, who came to us from another church, and was willing to lead. We set him down in a chair to commission him to start this new church. As I laid my hands on him a scripture immediately came to mind, “Do not lay hands upon anyone too hastily and thereby share responsibility for the sins of others” (1 Tim 5:22). I brushed the thought aside as my own imagination and prayed for the leader anyway.
He started the church that week, and slept that night with the young woman who hosted the church in her home. We had to confront him for the sin, but it occurred to me that I shared in the sin for not obeying the voice of the Holy Spirit in that moment when I commissioned this leader. Both the leader and the woman responded well to discipline, but to be honest we have suffered for that poor decision for many years and I myself take the blame.
Just because someone has been a Christian for a while, knows some theological information, and is willing to lead does not qualify him or her as a leader. Do not be so quick to recruit leaders from other churches, look instead to develop them yourself from the harvest. This takes longer in the beginning, but reproductive growth is always slower and smaller at the start. Be a patient farmer and let the harvest itself tell you when it is ready.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at May 17, 2010 | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 13, 2010
Segregated Churches and Immigration
The immigration debate is an opportunity we can’t afford to waste.
The national debate (or is it an argument?) about immigration has provided a huge opportunity for churches to proclaim and demonstrate the Gospel to an anxious country. However, rather than responding with courage and grace, many of us have either kept silent or responded in fear, nervous about an unknown future. Three recent stories reveal the weight of this cultural moment and show why churches need to engage the issue with increased wisdom, mercy, and justice.
On April 23, Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed into law the broadest anti-illegal immigration legislation in the country. The legislation has been celebrated by some and strongly opposed by others, because it instructs police to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.
Also in April, Alabama gubernatorial candidate Tim James released a television ad that quickly propelled him from YouTube sensation to a guest on The O’Reilly Factor. The ad promises to administer driver’s license exams only in English. “This is Alabama, we speak English,” the candidate says. “If you want to live here, learn it.” James claims his ad is not about immigration, but many are wondering who the “you” in the ad is if not non-English speaking immigrants.
Finally, on May Day, thousands of people—50,000 in LA, 25,000 in Dallas, and 10,000 in Chicago—gathered for rallies and marches calling for comprehensive immigration reform. Protestors carried signs like, “Fight Ignorance, Not Immigrants,” “I am not an alien,” and “Reform Not Raids.” Many of these protestors know well the hazards of even appearing to be an undocumented immigrant in America these days.
As the percentage of non-white people in America continues to grow, stories like these will only become more common. Many people accustomed to life in the majority are looking for ways to protect their “values” and “way of life.” Their reactions have been exceedingly painful and personal for many immigrants.
In a recent Time article, “The White Anxiety Crisis,” Gregory Rodriquez traces this current fearful upheaval to America’s history of privileging some and oppressing others based on race and ethnicity.
As much as Americans pride themselves on the notion that their national identity is premised on a set of ideals rather than a single race, ethnicity or religion, we all know that for most of our history, white supremacy was the law of the land. In every naturalization act from 1790 to 1952, Congress included language stating that the aspiring citizen should be a “white person.” And not surprisingly, despite the extraordinary progress of the past 50 years, the sense of white proprietorship—“this is our country and our culture”—still has not been completely eradicated.It is this “anxiety crisis” that I believe is causing many majority-culture churches to miss the opportunity to proclaim and demonstrate the Gospel at this unique historical moment. Unfortunately, much of American Christianity shares the nation’s history of privilege and segregation. So while the nation is in the throes of an ethnic identity crisis, most churches are silent at the very moment when our Gospel witness could be unmistakably heard.
Too harsh? Perhaps, but consider the missed opportunities to represent God’s boundary-breaking love to immigrants, whether or not they entered America legally. The undeniable need for comprehensive immigration reform does not cancel God’s repeated command to care for and protect the “aliens living among you.” Consider what might happen if majority-culture churches lavishly expressed the love we receive from Christ to our immigrant neighbors.
And it’s not just our recently arrived neighbors who would notice this kind of proactive compassion. Imagine the response from an increasingly cynical and post-Christian culture. During a recent interview on our local public radio station, the host was pleasantly surprised to learn that our church was advocating for immigration reform. This clearly wasn’t his expectation of evangelically-minded churches and his intrigue—“You believe the Bible is true and care about immigrants?”—was almost comical. Situations like these provide opportunities to explain our Gospel-motivation.
Thankfully, there are signs that fewer of these opportunities will be missed in coming days. Welcoming the Stranger (InterVarsity Press, 2009) by Matthew Soerens and Jenny Hwang is stirring up productive conversations in churches around the country about practical ways for majority-culture Christians to wisely engage this issue. Willow Creek’s Bill Hybels recently interviewed Soerens on his Defining Moments broadcast, demonstrating the significance of this cultural moment to thousands of pastors around the country. And earlier this year the National Association of Evangelicals issued a position paper calling for the reform of the current immigration system, including the challenge that, “immigrants be treated with respect and mercy by churches.”
There is no question that we live during a time of instability and change, and it is understandable that those used to living within the majority culture will respond with anxiety. But anxiety is a poor substitute for the sacrificial love, humility, and courage available to the follower of Jesus. I hope we will look back on these days as the time when the fear-defying Gospel of Jesus was exhibited to immigrants and skeptics alike.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at May 13, 2010 | Comments (34) | TrackBack
May 11, 2010
Ur Video: "Sunday's Coming"
Who says contemporary churches don't have a liturgy?
"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at May 11, 2010 | Comments (29) | TrackBack
May 10, 2010
Defending Organic Church (Part 1)
A diagnosis of Brian Hofmeister’s problem with organic church.
In the spring issue of Leadership journal, Brian Hofmeister wrote an article titled “The Dirt on Organic.” Hofmeister shared his experience as the pastor of a network of small, minimally structured, churches. While he celebrated the rich community and evangelistic vigor of his organic churches, Hofmeister was also honest about the struggles he faced. In the end he left his organic experiment for a more traditionally-structured church with paid fulltime pastors. Neil Cole, also a Leadership journal contributor and the author of The Organic Church, was written this response to Hofmeister’s article.
The issue Brian struggled with appears to be about finding qualified leaders in a fast growing work with conversion growth. Every missionary must face this and the solution is not to import seasoned leaders from other cultures into new works and thus create an unhealthy dependency. This will result in the establishing of a church culture rather than releasing a catalytic movement within a culture. The solution is to grow leaders from within the soil itself. Does this take time? Yes. It takes longer than a year. There are a few barriers that often prevent us from raising these leaders, and Brian apparently hit these barriers and chose not to continue.
Here is a diagnosis of the issues Hofmeister faced:
Recruitment of mature leaders. Recruitment of leaders for ministry is an epidemic problem in the Western Church. We all have more ministries than we have leaders. But recruitment is not the solution—in my opinion it is part of the problem. Recruitment is a consumer orientation that expects others to grow the leaders so we can benefit from them. When everyone is shopping for leaders and no one is farming we will soon have a serious demand and very little supply. If everyone buys bananas at the store and no one grows them at the farm, bananas will become very valuable and rare…even the lesser quality ones. This is the sort of leadership vacuum we face today in the Western Church.
In our organic church movement, we see our entire leadership farm system as starting with lost and broken people, not already saved and committed folks. We believe that many of our greatest heroes of the future woke up this morning with a hangover in the wrong person’s bed. That broken life, transformed by the power of the gospel, actually will become the energy of a movement when released to affect others. To try and coral that energy and consume it with Bible study lessons by older Christians who are far removed from a changed life is to lose all the inertia of a movement. We need mentors who will release and empower rather than hold people back and create dependency.
Expectations of what maturity looks like. The church often has a checklist approach to evaluating maturity in leaders. It is as though we have a ceiling that must be broken through before we will call someone mature and grant them permission to lead. But this is an artificial ceiling that doesn’t actually exist. Maturity is not accomplished in a day, a year, or a decade…it is a process over a lifetime. We often say in our movement that you do not graduate until there is a flatline on the screen next to your bed…prior to that you are still in process. Because we have learned leadership in an academic institution (as did our fathers and grandfathers before us), we tend to evaluate maturity based on the amount of knowledge accrued. This has created the serious problem of being educated beyond our obedience.
We must evaluate simple faith with obedience to what God is saying, not just knowledge of it. In many cultures of the world you do not really know something until you are putting it into practice and teaching it to others, prior to that you are learning something theoretically rather than actually knowing it. In our Western church culture simply agreeing with something intellectually is enough, but the result is a theoretical faith rather than an actual one. Theoretical Christians will never change a culture. As a remedy we have adopted this understanding: Do not teach a second lesson until the first one is done, and a lesson is not truly learned until it is passed on to others.
Depending upon the church to make leaders rather than the other way around. In organic church life the flow of fruitfulness is from the inside out. In an institutional approach we try to form disciples from the outside in by using conformity and behavior modification practices. This will not work.
The goal should not be to plant a church, but to plant the seed of the gospel in good soil. Instead of seeing church as the agency of change we must see it as the outcome of changed lives. The Bible doesn’t say, “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten church.” Jesus is the savior, not the church, and we must plant Jesus rather than churches. A soul transformed by the presence of Jesus will affect the lives of others around them, and the growth of their own life will ultimately bear fruit. The world is searching for Jesus not the church, but our message too often is that they must come to church to get Jesus. The results are sad indeed. We must take Jesus to the world, and stop waiting for the world to come to church. Let those with little experience have influence over those who have no experience. As we mentor people one-on-one we will find that reproduction of disciples, leaders and ultimately churches is possible.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of Neil Cole's defense of organic church.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at May 10, 2010 | Comments (7) | TrackBack
May 6, 2010
Mission & Justice on Capitol Hill
Jim Wallis and Mark Dever go head-to-head on one of the hottest issues in the church today.
What a day. I woke at 4am this morning to catch a flight from Chicago to Washington DC. The purpose of the trip was to conduct an interview that we’ll feature in the summer issue of Leadership Journal (which hits mailboxes and screens in July). The focus of the issue is on the intersection of justice and evangelism. It’s going to be a fantastic issue with articles from Eugene Cho, Mark Labberton, Bethany Hoang, Jim Belcher, and others. But the main attraction is the interview I just wrapped at a coffee shop on Capitol Hill.
I spent two hours in conversation with Jim Wallis and Mark Dever on their understanding of the gospel, justice, and the local church. For those who don’t know Wallis and Dever and can’t grasp why having those two interacting on this issue is a big deal, let me fill you in.
Jim Wallis is the editor and founder of Sojourners—a magazine and community of evangelicals committed to social action. Wallis has been engaged in justice issues since the civil rights movement of the 60s, and proudly shares that he’s been arrested 22 times. He’s an outspoken critic of linking the church to either a politically conservative or liberal agenda, but has been an advocate for the poor, the unborn, the marginalized, and the oppressed. For decades he’s been reintroducing the justice teachings of the NT to Christians who’ve neglected them.
Mark Dever is pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church and one of the founders of the Together for the Gospel network. He’s big on Reformed theology and one of the visible leaders of the New Reformed movement that seems to be sprouting everywhere in the church. Dever has been a leading voice against expanding (and thereby losing) our definition of the gospel.
I don’t want to share too much about the conversation with Dever and Wallis (you’ll have to get the summer issue of Leadership for that), but I will share that I was really surprised by how much they agreed upon. Yes there were differences of perspective, but one thing was very clear—both leaders have no tolerance for a gospel or a church that does not include discipleship leading to love for others. I know that sounds like a no-brainer…but the implications are more radical than you may realize. Again, you’ll have to read the whole discussion in July.
Yes, I know I’m a tease. But it really was a remarkable conversation, and I really looking forward to sharing it with you. And this is what I really love about Leadership--the chance to bring together divergent streams of the church to engage the issues that matter most. Hopefully you'll find the outcome of the conversation today as helpful as I did. I was blessed by my time with both Mark and Jim, and I pray that God will bless both of their ministries.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at May 6, 2010 | Comments (6) | TrackBack
May 4, 2010
Tuesdays with Tozer- Repentance
What brings a person to a place of repentance?
There are many peculiar ideas about biblical repentance. I have talked with people who tried to tell me that repentance is necessary because “it makes you fit so that God can save you.” The Bible does not teach that, and it never did. No man or woman has changed the character or goodness of God by an act of repentance. All the repentance in the universe cannot make God any more loving, any more gracious, Repentance is not a meritorious act. God is eternally good, and He welcomes us into His love, grace and mercy when we meet His condition of an about-face so that we are aware of His smile.
Repentance means turning around from our evil ways in order to look to Jesus. The person who will not repent still has his or her back turned on God. Repentance is a condition we meet in order that God, already wanting to be good to us, can be good to us, forgiving and cleansing us. In that sense then, the man who loves his sin and hangs on to it cannot reasonably expect the goodness and the grace of God.
–A.W. Tozer (Men Who Met God, p. 45)
Yesterday a dear friend and Christian leader and I were engaged in a conversation about repentance. After we repent, change our ways, do a 180, how do we get those we work with to do the same? Or can we? Or is that the work of God’s Spirit?
I don’t think the work of true repentance can be forced or cajoled or manipulated. Though we might desire to see repentance in our own hearts (or those we love), we need the work of God’s Spirit in our lives to expose, reveal, challenge, and transform first. The log must be pulled before we can gain a right perspective of someone else’s splinter. Though we may hunger for repentance or change in the hearts of others, we must hunger for it first in our own. Then, and only then, can we ask for God to move in someone else’ s life in the humility and grace that such a request deserves.
What brings you to a place of repentance?
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at May 4, 2010 | Comments (5) | TrackBack
May 3, 2010
Dallas Willard on How We Assess Spiritual Growth
It is possible, but often not very encouraging.
How can churches know if they are being effective at making disciples?
Many churches are measuring the wrong things. We measure things like attendance and giving, but we should be looking at more fundamental things like anger, contempt, honesty, and the degree to which people are under the thumb of their lusts. Those things can be counted, but not as easily as offerings.
Why don't more churches gauge these qualities among their people?
First of all, many leaders don't want to measure these qualities because what they usually discover is not worth bragging about. We'd rather focus on institutional measures of success. Secondly, we must have people who are willing to be assessed in these ways. And finally, we need the right tools to measure spiritual formation. There are some good tools available like Randy Frazee's Christian Life Profile and Monvee.com, which John Ortberg likes.
In the past people grew through relationships with spiritual mentors and by engaging the church community. Is there a danger that these individual assessment tools will remove the role of community in formation?
Any of these devices must be used in a community setting. Assessment tools that work best are a combination of self-assessment and the assessment of a significant other who knows you well. They don't work with people who don't want to be assessed, and they should not be administered like individual personality tests that some employers use.
If you have a group of people come together around a vision for real discipleship, people who are committed to grow, committed to change, committed to learn, then a spiritual assessment tool can work. But there must be a deep fellowship of trust to support that work. I don't think any group should go into an assessment without that. I wouldn't advise a pastor to use one of these tools on his or her congregation without first establishing a clear commitment to discipleship. You can't take your average congregation and just lay one of these assessments on them.
Are you ever discouraged by how few churches have that kind of clear commitment to discipleship?
I am not discouraged because I believe that Christ is in charge of his church, with all of its warts, and moles, and hairs. He knows what he is doing and he is marching on.
But I do grieve for the people within the church who are suffering—especially the pastors and their families. They are suffering because much of North America and Europe has bought into a version of Christianity that does not include life in the kingdom of God as a disciple of Jesus Christ. They are trying to work a system that doesn't work. Without transformation within the church, pastors are the ones who get beat up. That is why there is a constant flood of them out of the pastorate. But they are not the only ones. New people are entering the church, but a lot are also leaving. Disappointed Christians fill the landscape because we've not taken discipleship seriously.
What can pastors do to change this dynamic?
Change their definition of success. They need to have a vision of success rooted in spiritual terms, determined by the vitality of a pastor's own spiritual life and his capacity to pass that on to others.
When pastors don't have rich spiritual lives with Christ, they become victimized by other models of success—models conveyed to them by their training, by their experience in the church, or just by our culture. They begin to think their job is managing a set of ministry activities and success is about getting more people to engage those activities. Pastors, and those they lead, need to be set free from that belief.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at May 3, 2010 | Comments (10) | TrackBack
