Monday, December 3, 2007

Pope John XXIII: A Spiritual Biography

Christian Feldman profiles Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (1881-1963) who became the 262nd pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He will forever be remembered as the man who humanized the role and opened the door to the renewal of the church. He explained: "We are not on earth to guard a museum, but to tend a blooming garden full of life."



One of my favorite anecdotes that demonstrates the humility and faith of Pope Roncalli is the following: On the evening when he announced the opening of the Ecumenical Council, the first one since 1870, he couldn't get to sleep. Finally, he called himself to order: "Angelo, why aren't you sleeping? Who's running the church, you or the Holy Spirit? So sleep." And he did.

Pope John XXIII began his mission by promising to be "a good shepherd." He was the first pope in history "to pay tribute to the part played by women in public life and to the growing awareness of their human dignity." Best of all with the convening of the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII set in motion a spirit of reform that took seriously the wild abandon of the Holy Spirit. In September of 2000, this son of Italian peasants was beatified.

Jewish sociologist and political scientist, Hannah Arendt, dedicates a respectful chapter to Pope John. She recalls a Roman chambermaid who, when Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli lay on his deathbed, told her in stunned surprise: “Madame, this pope was a real Christian. How is that possible? And how could a real Christian ever get to sit on St. Peter’s chari? Didn’t he first have to be made a bishop, then an archbishop, then a cardinal, before he finally got elected pope? Didn’t anyone have any idea who he was?” (Feldman:115).

One of his favorite sayings (ahead of chaos theory) was, “Without a breath of holy madness the Church cannot grow” (Feldman:132). An example of this holy madness was the way in which he launched Vatican II. He was talking with some cardinals when suddenly he blurted out, “So why don’t we have a Council?” And when someone objected that a thing like that would be impossible to organize by 1963, as the pope had suggested, John laconically replied: “Good, then we’ll have it in 1962!” (Feldman:129).

And finally, this can’t be said often enough: He trusted the Holy Spirit. If it was God’s will, the bishops gathered in Rome would just take of the freedom that was theirs. “Who is actually organizing the Council?” the Belgian Cardinal Suenens, a “liberal” mentor, asked the pope, in some cnocern. “Nessuno,” answered John.ba “Nobody.” (Feldman:138).

On October 11, 1962, 2,540 Council Fathers marched across St. Peter’s Square to the opening of the Council. For the first time in history the Church Universal was actually gathering in Rome, with Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans from the young churches of the Third World (Feldman:139).

Sunday, November 18, 2007

"Don't Know much about History" 1959 to 1962

Here is my current theme song: Don't much about history ... don't know much about the French I took...

The video below represents the period of time I am doing my Ph.D. research on: Catholicism from 1959 through the opening of Vatican II in October 1962 and the role of Castro and the Cuban revolution in influencing John XXIII and global Catholicism that they needed to come to terms with modernity. The main characters of this story? Fidel Castro, Pope John XXIII, John Kennedy, Nikita Kruschev...



...Cardenal Luis Concha Cordoba in Colombia, Cardenal Arteaga en Cuba, Archbiships Enrique Perez Serentes and others in Cuba... President Janio Quadros en Brasil was lurking in the background as was Vicepresident Joao Goulart. Enjoy Sam Cook's song and this historical video clips...

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Revolution! 1968

hi friends,

this blog has been inactive for a while. I plan to come back to this, sometime in the future when I have more academic/spiritual friends who are interested in discussing Faith and Reason ... but for the moment, the theme does not seem sexy enough and I only use this blog for posting and storing some of my ideas.

Our conversation has moved over to my other blog (or at least one of them) and we are having a lively and stimulating conversation with a young crowd about what it means to get out of the fish bowl into the ocean ... we also have some cool Beatles music video's on there!


KAIROS REVOLUTION


Where Kairos represents the Greek word for "the decisive time" (or the fullness of time) and Revolution means a total, radical paradigm change.

join us to talk about the Agape Revolution!

New discussion blog

hi friends,

this blog has been inactive for a while. I plan to come back to this, sometime in the future when I have more academic/spiritual friends who are interested in discussing Faith and Reason ... but for the moment, the theme does not seem sexy enough and I only use this blog for posting and storing some of my ideas.

Our conversation has moved over to my other blog (or at least one of them) and we are having a lively and stimulating conversation with a young crowd about what it means to get out of the fish bowl into the ocean ... we also have some cool Beatles music video's on there!


KAIROS REVOLUTION


Where Kairos represents the Greek word for "the decisive time" (or the fullness of time) and Revolution means a total, radical paradigm change.

join us to talk about the Agape Revolution!

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

The People themselves become priests and kings

“Protestantism is a democratic-federative movement. The Christian Protestant world is a vast federation of churches, governed democratically in conformity with the model laid down by the primitive church. The life of the local congregation is intense and greatly contributing to the incorporation of evangelical ideals into the life of the community. It tends to the creation of a people who themselves become priests and kings. The people themselves exercise the ministry of the altar... Roman Catholicism, in its organization, follows the model of an absolute monarchy....”

Manuel Carlos Ferraz, distinguished Brazilian jurist and President of the Appellate Court of Brazil speaking in an interview in 1944.
cited in Penyak, Lee M., and Walter J Petry, eds. Religions in Latin America: A Documentary History. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006: 227.

Monday, August 20, 2007

The Pioneering Protestants

Abstract:
According to cross-national research, Protestantism has significantly contributed to global democratization. While Protestantism does not inevitably cause democratization, it often generates social dynamics that favor it. Some of the most important of these are:

1) the rise of religious pluralism;
2) the development of democratic theory and practice;
3) the development of civil society;
4) the spread of mass education;
5) printing and the origins of a public sphere;
6) the reduction of corruption; and
7) economic development.

The article explores how Protestant groups, including Protestant missionaries, have promoted these dynamics in the past. It also argues that contemporary Protestant movements -- particularly Pentecostalism -- are continuing to do so in the present, though with less dramatic results.

Excerpt:
"The authority of Christ," wrote the Scots Calvinist divine William Graham in 1768, "removes all civil distinctions, and all superiority founded upon such distinctions, in his kingdom. All are upon a level equally, as they shall soon be before the awful tribunal of the great Judge." This stirring fusion of theology, eschatology, and politics not only characterizes Scottish Calvinism but also says much about the relationship between Protestantism and democracy. As an egalitarian religion profoundly opposed to hierarchy, Protestant Christianity would seem to enjoy a powerful affinity with democracy.

If the affinity between Protestantism and democracy is powerful, however, it is not automatic or uncomplicated. History and social science show that Protestantism has contributed to the development of democracy, yet they also show that the connections are often far from straightforward. After all, Protestantism has at times countenanced the establishment of brutal regimes and antidemocratic movements: The "righteous" dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell enjoyed the overwhelming support of English Puritans; the Dutch Reform Church of South Africa theologized in defense of apartheid; and while some German Protestants (especially in the Confessing Church) fought Nazism, many others gave Hitler their warm backing. Recently, Protestant evangelicals in the Third World have lent their support to "godly" authoritarians such as former Zambian president Frederick Chiluba.

In other words, opposing hierarchy and liberating individual consciences in religion does not automatically make one a foe of authoritarianism and a friend of liberty in politics. ... We argue that there is nonetheless compelling cross-national evidence of a causal association between Protestantism and democracy. At the same time, we emphasize that the association is not direct or automatic but mediated and contingent.

LINK: http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2072/pub_detail.asp

The Pioneering Protestants By Timothy Samuel Shah, Robert D. Woodberry Posted: Friday, April 16, 2004

ARTICLE Journal of Democracy Publication Date: April 15, 2004

Saturday, August 18, 2007

This is a statement on the limitations of democracy taken from a 1981 paper on Christianity and Democracy issued by the Institute for Religion and Democracy. IRB was formed by a group of Roman Catholics and Protestants.

The paper can be accessed in FIRST THINGS archives at the following link:

http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9610/articles/documentation.html.

"We readily acknowledge that democratic governance is unsatisfactory. Everything short of the consummation of the rule of Christ is unsatisfactory. For Christians, it is precisely the merit of democracy that it reminds us of this truth and sustains the possibility of humane government in a necessarily unsatisfactory world. There are tensions and contradictions within democratic theory and practice. Especially problematic are relationships between the individual and the community, between formal process and substantive purpose, between popular participation and power elites. We do not deny these and other problems. Rather, believing that democratic theory and practice is still developing, we would encourage in the churches a lively examination of the problems and their possible resolutions. Such an examination only begins with the basic outline of democratic governance set forth in this statement and should be informed by the maxim framed by Reinhold Niebuhr: "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."'

Friday, August 17, 2007

Why I believe in Democracy

Recently there was a pejorative (and undoubtedly playful) reference in one of our blogs to egalitarianism and democracy in local congregations. This motivated me to go back and restudy some of my material on Christianity and democracy.

I believe, along with Weber and Hegel, in the importance of ideas – ideas of cultural consequences. Weber showed in 1906 how ascetic Protestantism, particularly Calvinism, helped facilitate the rise of capitalism (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1958). British sociologist David Martin (Tongues of Fire, 1990) carries Weber’s analysis further in his study of industrializing England and the Weslyan Methodists. Some scholars are analyzing how the current Pentecostal explosion will alter the political and economic cultures of Latin America over time. Someone should be studying the same phenomenon in China.

The idea is that political culture of a nation is formed from pervasive religious beliefs over historical time. This political culture greatly influences the political structure of the nation and the corresponding values help determine the choices of the actors within this structure.

One of the reasons why the United States has had a successful democracy and a “democratic” political culture was the inability of any one state “Church” to establish its political “theocratic” preeminence in 1776. Roman Catholics in Maryland, Anglicans in Virginia, Puritans and Congregationalists in New England and Baptists in Rhode Island were forced to concede to separation of church and state because none of them had sufficient power to establish their own religious monopoly in the newly formed United States (not that they didn’t desire it). This religious “pluralism” forced the churches into a position of mutual respect, tolerance for opposition and the willingness to dialogue through the political process – all prerequisites for democracy. One might say, they were forced to take seriously Jesus’ instruction to “love their enemies.

In our church circles, it has always been fashionable to say “the kingdom of God is not a democracy.” Because we recognize Jesus is Lord, we have tended to also emphasize sovereign authority and to some extend dismiss democracy as a crass form of government of the people.

The more I study political cultures and belief systems, democratic and authoritarian, the more disturbing I find our easy dismissal of democratic values. The tendency among conservative Christians toward fundamentalist authoritarianism is a sign of our times, a reaction to the breakdown of modernity. Karen Armstrong, in The Battle for God, traces the rise of Jewish, Christian and Islamic fundamentalism and shows that all three stem from the same dynamics – the desire for control and certainty in the face of accelerating cultural and technological change.

I hope we will stop casually dismissing democracy and take a serious look at the congruency between the teachings of Jesus (especially the Sermon on the Mount) and democratic values of respect for the other, tolerance of opposition, willingness to limit and share power and the protection of human rights.

I have posted for discussion a document issued in 1981 by the Institute on Religion and Democracy on our Covenant Thinklings google discussion group, called Christianity and Democracy.

http://groups.google.com/group/covthinklings/

(go to the "FILE" link and select First Things Christianity and Democracy.doc)

It can also be accessed on-line at:

http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9610/articles/documentation.html.

Our ideas have long term consequences. Do we really want to dismiss democratic values in the name of authoritarian theocracy? Do we really want to give some religious hierarchy the power to determine the Will of God for State and Society? Lets think this over. That is exactly what we are opposing in the Middle East and particularly in Iran.

j

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Name Change

hey guys! I am back in Miami. Thanks to all of your kind and encouraging responses, and your thoughtful feedback on this issue of organic church planting, I decided not to delete my document, erase my blog, burn all of the jump drive back-ups, use the "F" word, and get a job as a truck driver for UPS. Instead, I am going to change the name of my paper: from "Organic Church Planting" to ....something like.... "Multiplying Communities of Faith" or "Planting and Nourishing Kingdom Communites Through Biotic Principles" or ..... feel free to offer me a suggestion...maybe... "99 ways to beat your head against the wall while you grow old and senile" (Just kidding -- maybe I should have posted this on my humor blog).

I am most definitely going to permanently drop the word "organic." -- too much baggage. I'll probably also drop the English word "church" for the same reason...although I still like the word "planting."

My thinking has continued to evolve rather radically since I wrote the "Organic Church Planting" paper in 2003, so, why keep pressing for something that I no longer exactly believe in myself the same way as I did in 2003?

On another note, I have been thinking, and I have decided that I am not terribly interested in ecclesiology apart from a clear connection to missional mindset (misiology if you will). It seems a little static to me without mission (especially mission in the U.S.A.). Or to put it another way, without living reproduction and multiplication, what is the point in keeping the body preserved and healthy? Mere survival?

By-the-way, if you have not read the passage below by Watchman Nee from The Normal Christian Church Life, I highly encourage you to take a few moments and read through it, even if for no other reason to better argue with me in the blogs and email. I think it is quite profound, and I regret that I did not follow his advice more closely over my last 20 years of church planting.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

"The Work and The Churches" by Nee

(Page 107)
One of the tragic mistakes of the past hundred years of foreign missions in China (God be merciful to me if I say anything amiss!) is that after a worker led men to Christ, he prepared a place and invited them to come there for meetings, instead of encouraging them to assemble by themselves. Efforts have been made to encourage the young believers to read the Word themselves, pray by themselves, witness themselves, but never to meet by themselves. Workers never think of reading, praying and witnessing for them, but they do not see any harm in arranging meetings for them. We need to show the new converts that such duties as reading, praying, witnessing, giving and assembling together are the minimum requirement of Christians. We should teach them to have their own meetings in their own meeting place. Let us say to them,

(page 108)
“Just as we cannot read the Word, or pray, or witness for you, so we cannot take the responsibility of preparing a meeting place for you and leading your meetings. You must seek out suitable premises and conduct your own meetings. Your meetings are your responsibility, and a regular assembling of yourselves is one of your chief duties and privileges.”

Many workers regard their meetings and the meetings of the church as one and the same thing, but they are not. (See chapter nine.) Therefore, as soon as a few believers are saved, we must instruct them to take full responsibility for their private reading, prayer, and witness, and also for the public meetings of the church.

As for ourselves, while we go on working and keep our work distinct from the work of the church, we must go and have fellowship with the believers in their various local gatherings. We must go and break bread with them, join with them in the exercise of spiritual gifts, and take part in their prayer meetings. When there is no church in the place to which God has sent us, we are only workers there, but as soon as there is a local church, we are brothers as well as workers. In our capacity as workers we can take on responsibility in the local church, but in our capacity as local brothers we go and meet with all the members of the church as their fellow members.

As soon as there is a local church in the place of our labors, we automatically become members. Here is the chief point to observe in the relationship between the church and the work—the worker must leave the believers to initiate and conduct their own meetings in their own meeting place, and then he must go to them and take part in their meetings, not ask them to come to him and take part in his meetings. Otherwise, we shall become settlers in one place and shall change our office from apostle to pastor; then when we eventually leave, we shall have to find a successor to carry out the church work. If we keep “church” and “work” parallel and do not let the two lines converge, we shall find that no adjustment will be needed in the church when we depart, for it will not have lost a “pastor,” but only a brother. Unless we differentiate clearly in our own minds between church and

(page 109)
work, we shall mix the work with the church and the church with the work; there will be confusion in both directions, and the growth both of the church and the work will be arrested.

“Self-government, self-support, and self-propagation” has been the slogan of many workers for a number of years now. The need to deal with these matters has arisen because of the confusion between the church and the work. In a mission, when people are saved, the missionaries prepare a hall for them, arrange for prayer meetings and Bible classes, and some of them go as far as to manage the business and spiritual affairs of the church as well. The mission does the work of the local church! Therefore, it is not surprising that in the process of time, problems arise in connection with self-government, self-support, and self-propagation. In the very nature of things, such problems would never have come up for consideration if the principles shown us in God’s Word had been adhered to from the very beginning.

Anyone who cares enough to be a Christian ought to be taught from the outset what the implications are. Believers must pray themselves, study the Word themselves, and assemble themselves, not merely go to a meeting place prepared by others and sit down and listen to others preach. Going to a mission compound or a mission hall to hear the Word is not scriptural assembling, because it is in the hands of a missionary, or of his mission, not in the hands of the local church. It is a mixture of work and church. If from the outset Christians learned to gather together according to the Scriptures, many problems would be avoided.

1932 - The Normal Christian Church Life by Watchman Nee
Pg 107-109 The Work and The Churches

Thursday, July 26, 2007

WHY ORGANIC? (part 6)

I have chosen the word, “organic” to describe a process that is not driven organizationally and operates through natural, God-given principles. Something that is natural, or organic may be compared to a living organism and should obey the laws of the creation mandate in Genesis chapter one to reproduce after its kind, when the soil and conditions are right.

Many, if not most 20th century methods of church planting could be described as organizational rather than organic: architectural rather than agricultural. Generally, successful church planting in the american church model, requires a large amount of start-up capital ($250,000 according to one source), full-time, trained staff (i.e. a church planter, a senior pastor and a secretary) and an advertising budget, not to mentioned a qualified worship director and children’s ministries director. It is no wonder that the average church finds reproducing itself in a daughter church a daunting task!

Obviously, if a church planter envisions starting a dynamic, growing mega church, there is a greater need for capital resources, both in finances and qualified people in the early stages of the start-up. Only large denominations, already existing mega churches or highly focused church networks are likely to be able to gather sufficient resources for this kind of church planting. Independent, entrepreneurial church planters and smaller, congregational type churches are unlikely to have sufficient resources for this kind of church planting.

What to do? We have already seen the desperate need for new churches, as well as the evidence that we need for a new kind of church. Some would argue that there is a clear scriptural mandate that every church should have the capacity to reproduce itself, if it is a truly living organism, part of the body of Christ. How can a typical American congregation with 95 people in attendance reproduce itself?

The answer proposed in this paper is might be called “organic church planting.” It is church planting in its most simple and basic form. It relies on using natural, creation principles for growth and multiplication, rather than an organizational paradigm. The goal of organic church planting is not to build an organizational structure nor is it to gather a large number of seekers in a worship service. The goal of organic church planting is to recognize and penetrate receptive social networks with the good news of Jesus’ rule and to produce highly committed followers of Jesus within these social networks, who will gather together in Jesus’ name to love and serve one another and to be light and a living witness to the rest of their social network.

In organic church planting, worship services, music styles, meeting facilities are all determined by the needs and cultural customs of the targeted social network. Organic church planting among some Gen-x and millennial generation groups of young people may require meeting informally in coffee houses, worshipping with spontaneous debates and discussions, with music that widely varies from one group to another. For example organic church planting among Muslims may require prayer five times a day with a heavy use of poetry and spirited conversations in coffee shops.

One Rhode Island church planter from a Baptist background1 found that the most effective way to plant churches in the highly secular and intensely ethnic culture of New England was to begin with evangelistic Bible studies in the homes of people who were influencers of social networks. Using the home of the person with social influence as a base of proclamation, the entire network was often brought into fellowship with Christ.

This same church planter ran into major difficulties when he tried to incorporate these newly evangelized social networks into the local church. They tended to resist bonding relationally to the local church social network and tried to preserve their own “natural” social network. Often these family or social sub-structures disintegrated or caused church splits in the local church. The long-term solution that he finally discovered was to establish a new “church” in the social network itself, often the same home where the Bible study originated, rather than try to bring the new believers into an already existing church family.

1 The Rhode Island Fellowship of Church Planters. http://www.fcpt.org/fcpt/

Sunday, July 1, 2007

ORGANIC CHURCH PLANTING DEFINED (part 5)

Biblical church planting is not focused on getting people to commit to attendance to a weekly meeting. Nor is it focused on attracting disaffected Christians from other weekly meetings. Biblical church planting is focused on penetrating unredeemed social and family networks with the good news of the kingdom and calling people out of darkness into loving obedience to Jesus and into a committed relationship with other “Jesus” followers.

Transfer growth or new conversion growth?

Church planting that aims to draw “Christians” from other churches into a new church through nicer facilities, more contemporary music, better Bible exposition or excellent programming meeting “felt needs” is a more like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic than New Testament style church planting. One may successfully gather Christians together and call it a new church, but the overall church in a city or nation may suffer. Christians are moved around into different configurations and denominational brands, but the kingdom of God may not be advanced!

The purpose of church planting is not to provide a pastor with an income; the purpose of church planting is to find and convert lost people into committed followers of Christ and disciple them into a kingdom lifestyle that will be an attractive light to others in their same demographic social network. For that reason, in this paper, I am only dealing with church planting that focuses primarily on conversion growth.

Churches that are started with methods or strategies that seek to facilitate transfer growth from other churches rarely or never become effectively evangelizing churches and rarely reproduce themselves. On the other hand, churches that are started through effective and biblical (and relational) evangelism will likely reproduce and become effective in reaching out to secular people.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

THE STARTING PLACE [Organic CP #4]

How can we build disciple-making churches that rapidly and naturally reproduce themselves?

The Starting Place
In the New Testament we are not commanded to “go and plant churches.” The great commission is that we go and proclaim the good news (Mark 16:15), make disciples and to teach them the commands of Christ (Matthew 28:18) and be a Spirit-filled witness to the resurrection of Christ (Acts 1:8). Jesus did not have much to say about the church in the gospels. He did say “I will build my church…” (Matthew 16:18). We are clearly commissioned to announce and demonstrate his kingdom, and to go and make disciples of Jesus. Meanwhile, he will build HIS church.

Euripides said “A bad beginning makes a bad ending.” Whatever the DNA of a seed is will be revealed by the fruit. An apple seed will produce an apple tree, an orange seed will produce an orange seed. How we start a work or a church is the most powerful determinant of what the end result will be. If we make planting churches our starting point, we will end up with the wrong result. The starting point must be “preaching the gospel of the kingdom,” and “making disciples.” If we effectively proclaim the gospel of the kingdom to social networks and disciple them to Jesus, churches can naturally be formed.

If our starting point is planting a church, rather than kingdom proclamation and discipling, our focus will be on getting people to a meeting. Our priorities may become developing a good worship band, organizing a Sunday School program or effective advertising. However, if we focus on preaching the kingdom and making disciples, our first focus will be on getting people to follow Jesus and apply His principles in their lives and we leave Jesus free to build his church however he chooses.

Jesus never tried to plant a church. Instead he focused following the father’s initiative (John 5:30; 8:28), announcing and demonstrating the arrival of the kingdom by doing good, healing the sick and setting free the oppressed (Luke 4:18; Acts 10:38) and perhaps most importantly, on training a group of between twelve and seventy followers; teaching them to love and serve one another and sending them two by two to share the good news of the kingdom and heal the sick.

Church planting strategy must be built around the great commission; "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20).

Likewise, St. Paul never went into a city just to plant a new church and get people going to a meeting. He preached the kingdom and discipled the new believers. He then either baptized them, or had some of the new leaders baptize them and taught them to begin gathering together to love and encourage one another as they shared the kingdom and discipled others. The primary focus was not on the meeting, but on sharing the news of Jesus’ kingdom and making disciples. As the number of disciples grew in a city, they met from house to house for fellowship, prayer, teaching and mutual encouragement. The primary spiritual energy of the Pauline churches continued, however, to move through their social networks in the marketplace, in the streets, in the schools and in their homes as they shared the news of Jesus’ kingdom and called people to become followers of Jesus.

The result was the advancement of the reign of God in the city and the gathering of committed disciples around Christ. Jesus built his church! The primary focus was never only on attending a weekly meeting but a daily lifestyle of love and obedience to Jesus!

Thursday, June 7, 2007

THE NEED FOR A NEW KIND OF CHURCH [Organic CP #3}

It is not my desire to discourage faithful pastors in effective church communities who are heroically sharing God’s word and making disciples within their congregations. Nevertheless, the overpowering evidence indicates that a large number of struggling pastors are laboring in ineffective churches who are failing to reproduce disciples, often even among their own children.

Not only do we need new churches in the U.S., we also need a new kind of church. Just planting more of the same kind of churches is not the answer. Despite the faithful presence of many good churches, the “American church model”[1] has in many ways failed to be effective salt and light in our generation. Barna’s research has shown that there is statistically little difference between those who call themselves “Christians” and those who do not claim faith, in virtually every area of moral behavior that can be measured.[2] George Gallup concludes in his study on spirituality that, “faith in America is broad but not deep,” [3] and that “born again citizens are as likely as their counterparts to believe in astrology, consult astrology charts and to have consulted a fortune-teller.”[4]

The last two decades of the twentieth century saw a variety of innovative approaches to church life such as seeker churches, cell churches, purpose-driven churches, prophetic churches, G12 churches and mega churches. Despite this growing diversity of forms and styles of worship, church goers are voting with their feet in massive numbers and opting out of participation in organized church life as we know it. At the same time, those who continue to attend Christian services show little or no difference in their lifestyle from those who avoid affiliation with formally structured Christian churches. Not only are new churches needed, but a new kind of church is desperately needed [note: I wrote this before I was aware of the emerging church movement: I do not necessarily endorse the ECM as the answer to the problem I am presenting here, although I welcome any and all attempts to become more effective in mission and disciple-making to a new generation]

There is a need for churches that are centered on relationships rather than meetings. We need churches that are life-oriented rather than program-oriented; organic rather than organizational, spontaneous rather than highly structured. We need churches that produce committed disciples rather than meeting facilities and institutional programs; churches that focus more on sending than gathering; incarnation rather than attraction.

Pastors in record numbers are burning-out, dropping out or falling out. My wife just last month attended a women’s Prayer Summit in Miami. There were 22 pastor’s wives participating. Almost every one of the wives said that their husbands were discouraged and thinking about quitting the ministry. The American church model is no longer workable, and is quickly losing its leadership base.

In my opinion the most pressing need in United States is not bigger churches, more seeker churches or more purpose-driven churches. I say that with the deepest respect for the valuable contribution that spiritual pioneers like Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, Ralph Neighbor and Dr. Paul Yunggi Chou have made to church life at the end of the twentieth century. The research both Barna and Gallup show us that we need more “disciple-making” churches that effectively form men and women into highly committed followers of Jesus rather than simple church attendees or even lay workers in church programs.

We need churches that really do change people’s lives. Churches where people actually do encounter God and experience His active, transforming presence. Churches where people are challenged with scripture and held accountable for their moral behavior. Churches where people learn to serve and love one another. It my opinion, the formation of one single highly committed follower of Christ has a far more powerful effect on our society than gathering ten or a hundred “seekers” into a church meeting.

Not only do we need “disciple-making” churches; we need disciple-making churches that effectively reproduce themselves. Often, churches that focus on forming quality discipleship in believers do not seem to grow or reproduce. They turn inward and focus on perfectionism, always raising the standards of excellence but never reaching outward to those outside the circle of grace.

How can we build disciple-making churches that faithfully and naturally reproduce themselves?
[1] Phrase coined by Dr. Dow Robinson in lectures on New Testament church life. 1995
[2] George Barna, The Second Coming Of The Church (Word Publishing, Nashville: 1998) p. 6
[3] George Gallup, Jr. The Next American Spirituality (Cook, Colorado Springs, CO: 2000) p. 128
[4] Ibid, p. 131

Sunday, June 3, 2007

Lewis: A Christian Society

The New Testament, without going into details, gives us a pretty clear hint of what a fully Christian Society would be like. Perhaps it gives us more than we can take. It tells us that there are to be no passengers or parasites: if man does not work, he ought not to eat. Every one is to work with his own hands, and what is more, every one’s work is to produce something good: there will be no manufacture of silly luxuries and then of sillier advertisements to persuade us to buy them. And there is to be no ‘swank’ or ‘side’, no putting on of airs. To that extent a Christian society would be what we now call Leftist. On the other hand, it is always insisting on obedience—obedience (and outward marks of respect) from all of us to properly appointed magistrates, from children to parents, and (I am afraid this is going very unpopular) from wives to husbands. Thirdly, it is going to be a cheerful society: full of singing and rejoicing, and regarding worry or anxiety as wrong. Courtesy is one of the Christian virtues; and the New Testament hates what it calls ‘busybodies’.

If there were such a society in existence and you or I visited it, I think we should come away with a curious impression. We should feel that its economic life was very socialistic and, in that sense, ‘advanced’, but that its family life and its code of manners were rather old fashioned—perhaps even ceremonious and aristocratic. Each of us would like some bits of it, but I am afraid very few of us would like the whole thing. That is just what one would expect if Christianity is the total plan for the human machine. We have all departed from that total plan in different ways, and each of us wants to make out that his own modification of the original plan is the plan itself. You will find this again and again about anything that is really Christian: every one is attracted by bits of it and wants to pick out those bits and leave the rest.

— from Mere Christianity (Klein:156)

Friday, June 1, 2007

THE NEED FOR NEW CHURCHES [Organic CP #2]

Like any living organism, every local church has a natural life cycle. Unless a church is able to reproduce itself in every new generation, it will go through a natural life cycle and die in one generation.

Right now in the U.S., there are approximately 340,000 churches [note: this is undoubtedly outdated. I don’t have the most recent figures, but due to the emphasis by Bill Bright and others such as DAWN, there has been an effort to plant house churches over the last four years. Plus, there is evidence that large numbers of people have stopped going to organized church services and have started meeting at home with the family and a few friends]. Three fourths of these churches are slowing dying and one fourth is growing[2]. Almost all of the increases of the 25% that are growing are transfers from the 75% that are diminishing.

Over the last twenty years, more than 3500 churches have closed their doors annually.[3] That translates to about ten churches shutting down every day. Only half as many are currently being started. Planting new churches in the U.S. is essential. If there is not a major focus on effective church planting, Christian faith in the U.S. may quickly become as culturally marginal as it is in Europe.

C. Peter Wagner has said that church planting is the most effective form of evangelism. Extensive research by Christian Schwarz of over a thousand churches in thirty-two nations shows that smaller and newer congregations are far more effective in evangelism than large churches. According to Schwarz, numerous churches far excel a single mega-church in evangelistic fruitfulness; “If instead of a single church with 2,856 in worship we had 56 churches, each with 51 worshippers, these churches would, statistically, win 1,792 new people within five years—16 times the number the mega church would win. Thus we can conclude that the evangelistic effectiveness of mini-churches is statistically 1,600 percent greater than that of mega churches.”[4]

If our prime directive is to make “disciples of the nations,” by persuading the unbelieving to trust and follow Christ, we must consider church planting as a mandate. If the church in the United States desires once again to be “salt and light” to U.S. culture, a sustained church planting movement must be launched. It must be the kind of church planting movement that easily and rapidly reproduces itself. If such a movement is to have a major impact on our society, it must not be “resource intensive” requiring multiple 10’s or 100’s of thousands of dollars and highly trained specialists to succeed. The term “organic” church planting communicates the image of something that spontaneously multiplies under natural conditions.

If the church in the U.S. is to continue to flourish in the future, we must also place an urgent priority on church planting among young adults. If the statistics are alarming about the pace of new church planting compared to dead and closing churches, the explosion of youth culture and the relative absence of a Christian influence is even more alarming. No where is the need for new churches more acute than among the millennial and Gen-X generations.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Organic Church Planting (2003)

Note: this is taken from a research paper I developed in 2003 for ACTS, and has provided a guiding philosophy of ministry for my work in South Florida over the last 4 years. I have made some significant changes in my views since this was written but I decided to publish it here as I wrote it with some addendums. The major shift is that I would no longer use the phrase "church" planting...I would look for something like "kingdom" planting. I have decided to repost this paper, one section at a time to make it more readable to and to invite discussion.

The great commission given to the followers of Jesus is to go into all the earth, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit, teaching them all that Christ has commanded us. What has Christ commanded us? He has commanded us to love and serve one another, to encourage and care for one another. The activity of making disciples and teaching them to love and serve one another leads to the church, the assembling or gathering together of committed followers of Jesus.

Church planting is the activity of the Holy Spirit through apostolic workers as they persuade men and women to become followers of Jesus and to gather together with other followers of Jesus for mutual service, encouragement and edification.

The Holy Spirit has provided us with a divine example of organic church planting in the relationship between Jesus and his disciples [note: I no longer feel that feel that "church planting" exacty applies to the activity of Jesus with the 12: it was more like forming an apostolic community -- or kingdom network] . We can also find principles of cross-cultural church planting through the example of the Saul of Tarsus and his apostolic team in the later half of the book of Acts. The more closely we follow the biblical pattern given us through Jesus and the twelve, with Paul’s apostolic band, the more likely it is that we will see the same quality of results that we see in the New Testament, as well as the same enduring nature of “fruit which remains” (John 15:16).

Most church planting methods during the last decades of the 20th century were focused on transfer growth rather than new conversion growth. New styles of ministry were developed in order to attract Christian dropouts from dead or dying churches. Sunday morning worship services were updated into the technological age of sound systems, overhead projectors and electric keyboards and then later to multi-media presentations with PowerPoint sermons and gourmet coffee hospitality. Dress became more casual and preaching styles more conversational as churches scrambled to compete to meet the “felt needs” of a dwindling number of Christian consumers.

As we enter into a new millennium, there is a general dissatisfaction with the kind of Christianity produced by contemporary churches in the West. The pastoral failure rate has never been higher. Despite the proliferation (and blessing!) of seeker and purpose-driven mega churches, overall church attendance from January 1997 through June 1998 dropped by 4%. This translates to 8 million Christians who stopped attending Christian services of any kind over an 18 month period.[1] As the Christian Church steadily loses influence not only among secular society, but even among Christians in the U.S. many people are coming to the conviction that the church must change in substance as well as style. The changes that the church will experience in the early decades of the 21st. century will go far beyond methods, style and strategies, to the heart of what defines the church; relationships and structure.

[1] Leonard Sweet, Post-Modern Pilgrims (Broadman and Holman, Nashville, TN: 2000) p. 39

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Lewis: Avoid Clarity

Upon learning that Wormwood's Patient has become a Christian, Screwtape illustrates techniques for confusion:

One of our greatest allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quiet invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with a rather oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print.

When he gets to his pew and looks around him he sees just that selection of his neighbors whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbors…Provided that any of those neighbors sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous. At his present stage, you see, he has an idea of ‘Christians’ in his mind which he supposes to be spiritual but which, in fact, is largely pictoral. His mind is full of togas and sandals and armour and bare legs and the mere fact that the other people in church were modern clothes is a real—though of course an unconscious—difficulty to him. Never let it come to the surface; never let him ask what he expected them to look like. Keep everything hazy in his mind now, and you will have all eternity wherein to amuse yourself by producing in him the peculiar kind of clarity which Hell affords.

--from The Screwtape Letters

Monday, May 28, 2007

WORSHIP, TECHNOLOGY AND JESUS’ DNA

For the context of the discussion, go to

Covenant Thinklings: The Heart of Worship

William, I liked how you expressed the modern church building mindset in a way that does not cast it as traditional. As Robert has often and correctly pointed out, we don’t want lose our appreciation for ‘tradition’ as in historic heritage…but some ‘modern’ mentalities may need to be altered in order to reach postmoderns. I like the way you describe that as relational communities. That is actually where our movement started out. When I first heard about the shepherding ‘community’ in Lancaster (where Dennis Coll currently serves), it was called Hope Community. As a hippie who had just planted several communes in New England, it lit the fires of my imagination…I remember telling John M. “I didn’t know Christians could do that!”

On the importance of corporate worship. I believe it was Émile Durkheim (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Durkheim), who in his study of cultures came to the conclusion that every community, human collectivity or tribal group has some form of worship. Even though he was not a believer himself, he believed that it was an essential part of developing a cultural or tribal collective identity (Robert: I love the quote by Peterson of Keillor—Brian got me reading the book).

Robert: on your question about the influence of electronics and other aspects of modern technology on worship. Excellent question! I remember being in a little Mayan Indian church in Guatemala once, with about 12 to 15 people attending. The amplifiers were each bigger than me…when they cranked up the “worship” I could actually feel my internal organs vibrating! That’s when I started rethinking some things.

George Patterson, a Baptist church planter in Central America tells a story that has some application. He found a jungle village of indigenous Hispanics who did not have a church, priest or the scriptures. He arrived in his Jeep with a overhead projector and showed them the “Jesus Film” and led the village elders to Christ. He then taught them that they need to begin to reach the outlying families around the village. When he returned several months (or maybe weeks) later, they had done nothing. When he asked them why, they told him that they could not evangelize because they did not have a jeep or an overhead projector. The next time he visited them, he was riding a mule with a bag of Bibles in Spanish (even the Bibles can be problamatic in such a context when people are often illiterate).

In Mexico, we once visited a little church associated with Sebastian Vazquez that could only be reached by foot, or by horseback. A three hour hike up the mountain. The Pastor’s house was falling down. When we asked how we could pray for them, they gave us a “shopping” list, they need a electronic keyboard, sounds system and an electric guitar. The old acoustic guitar they had was not adequate to bring them into God’s presence. They were not a “real” church without electronics. Don’t laugh….how many us feel we are not a real church without a powerpoint projection system!

This is why I started on a process of ‘descontructing’ the church (not our historic traditions – just some of the 20th century accretions). I posted something in this process on my blog: http://c-far.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html on May 6th called DECONSTRUCTING THE CHURCH. At some point along the way, I realized that I could not keep up with the pace of electronic technology and seeker oriented strategies for growing a church so I just completely opted out....got rid of most of the technology and went back to 'simple' (2 or 3). I have heard Charles talk about the need to ‘digitize’ the church and to find out what the basic ‘byte’ of church life is (hint: I think he thinks it is the cell – where two or three are gathered).

Some people prefer the term “liquid modernity” over postmodernity. One of the reasons we need to allow new churches to be organic “bytes” (without losing our connection to historic tradition) is to be able reconfigure and flow as needed in this liquid modernity. The church needs to be able “be the church” with an acoustic guitar (or no guitar) on the top of a Mexican mountain, or to use powerpoint and multimedia with 20,000 people in Chicago or LA without one or the other being more correct or more 'church'. The church also needs to show up, and be visibly present in the midst of darkness among the tribal vampire people at Stick & Stein’s in Homestead when my daughter is bar-tending. That is why I try to always take “one or two” with me.

I think that the DNA of the church (don’t get nervous Brian!) and the kingdom and for worship is uber-flexible. Jesus’ corporate DNA can go anywhere, and adapt to and infect any people group, culture, socio-economic lifestyle, technology (or lack thereof) or world view, and like a out-of-control virus begin to transform and uplift them into his eternal kingdom--as long we don’t try to box it up.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

C.S. Lewis on the Church and Culture

"People say, ‘The Church ought to give us a lead.’

That is true if they mean it the right way, but false if they mean it in the wrong way. By the Church they ought to mean the whole body of practicing Christians. And when they say that the Church should give us a lead, they ought to mean the some Christians--those who happen to have the right talents--should be economists and statesmen, and that all economists and statesmen should be Christians, and that their whole efforts in politics and economics should be directed to putting ‘Do as you would be done by’ into action. If that happened, and if we others were really ready to take it, then we should find the Christian solution for our own social problems pretty quickly.

But, of course, when they ask for a lead from the Church most people mean they want the clergy to put out a political program. That is silly. The clergy are those particular people within the whole Church who have been specially trained and set aside to look after what concerns us as creatures who are going to live for ever: and we are asking them to do a quite different job for which they have not been trained. The job is really on us, on the laymen. The application of Christian principles, say, to trade unionism or education must come from Christian trade unionists and Christian schoolmasters, just as Christian literature comes from Christian novelists and dramatists--not from the bench of bishops getting together and trying to write plays and novels in their spare time."

--from Mere Christinanity

Saturday, May 26, 2007

"The evangelical movement is evolving" NY TIMES

This from the New York Times:

"The evangelical movement, however, is clearly evolving. Members of the baby boomer generation are taking over the reins, said D. G. Hart, a historian of religion. The boomers, he said, are markedly different in style and temperament from their predecessors and much more animated by social justice and humanitarianism. Most of them are pastors, as opposed to the heads of advocacy groups, making them more reluctant to plunge into politics to avoid alienating diverse congregations....

Mr. Warren, along with Mr. Hybels, 55, and several dozen other evangelical leaders, signed a call to action last year on climate change. The initiative brought together more mainstream conservative Christian leaders with prominent liberal evangelicals, such as the Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners and the Rev. Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, who have long championed progressive causes. Notably absent from the list of signatories were several old lions of the Christian right, some of whom were openly critical of the effort: Mr. Falwell; Mr. Robertson, 77; and Mr. Dobson, 71, founder of Focus on the Family."

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Einstein interview on NPR radio

I heard a great interview today on NPR radio with Walter Isaacson, the author of a new biography on the life of Einstein.

You can access the audio file at http://wamu.org/programs/dr/

The author discusses how Einstein used his creative imagination to General Theory of Relativity. I have ordered the book from Amazon.com.

Einstein was humble but was confident in the “spirit” guiding the material universe. He did not believe that science and faith conflicted. He said science without religion is lame, but religion without science is blind. He was also a rebel and nonconformist.

Einstein believed in an absolute underlying reality, for this reason he was uncomfortable moral relativism. It was an interesting interview... the audio is available at the link above.

Here are some of my favorite Albert Einstein quotes:


"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." -Albert Einstein

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile." -Albert Einstein

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious." -Albert Einstein

"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them." -Albert Einstein


"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

BOOK REVIEW: Surfing The Edge of Chaos

Pascale, Richard T., Mark Millemann, and Linda Gioja. Surfing The Edge of Chaos: The Laws of Nature and the Laws of Business. New York: Random House, Inc., 2000.

Ibidem KW: future; living systems; chaos; business; complexity; church renewal


Several years ago, I was sitting in a hotel room in Colorado Springs with some good friends and colleagues. One of them mentioned a new book called Surfing the Edge of Chaos. I was taking notes on my laptop and there was a wireless hookup in the room. I logged on to Amazon.com, found the book, and ordered 6 copies to be delivered to everyone in the room at their home address. It only took 5 minutes. No trip to Barnes and Nobles, no wondering around to find the book. Welcome to the digital age.

I recently found the book under a pile of ‘books to read’ in my office. Another author I have been reading refers to livings systems and chaos theory and frequently drew from the case studies presented in Surfing. So…last week I finally began to read it (hey, better late than never!).

Surfing the Edge of Chaos presents recent research into Complex Adaptive Systems, a broad based inquiry into the common properties of living things—beehives, ant colonies, networks, enterprises, ecologies and economies. The authors find parallels between living systems or ecological systems and modern business organizations. They focus on conversion from the Newtonian “mechanical” view of the universe to the Einstein ‘relativity’ and quantum paradigm in which complexity, uncertainty and chaos are significant factors. Because of the success of the modern American business model in the twentieth century, business has been slow to adapt to the new scientific paradigms. The authors affirm that nature favors adaptation and fleet-footedness (Pascale, Millemann and Gioja:3), and believe that 21st century markets do the same thing.

Rapid rates of change, an explosion of new insights from the life sciences, and the insufficiency of the machine model have created a critical mass for a revolution in management thinking (Pascale, Millemann and Gioja:5).

The authors use the termite mounds in Africa as a stunning example of a complex adaptive system. The human immune system is a complex adaptive system. This book describes a new management model based on the nature of nature (Pascale, Millemann and Gioja:5).

This book distills four bedrock principles from the living sciences and demonstrates their managerial relevance in a time of disruptive change.

Four Laws of Nature

Equilibrium is a Precursor to Death
When a living system is in a state of equilibrium, it is less responsive to changes occurring around it. This places it at maximum risk. This jibes with a well proven law of cybernetics—Requisite Variety—which states that when a system fails to cultivate (not just tolerate) variety in its internal operations, it will fail to deal with variety that challenges it externally.

The Edge of Chaos is Where Adaptive Change Happens
In the face of threat, or when galvanized by a compelling opportunity, living things move toward the edge of chaos. This condition evokes higher levels of mutation and experimentation, and fresh new solutions are more likely to be found.

Emergence and Spontaneous Self Organization
When the right kind of excitation takes place, independent agents move toward what has been popularized as the “tipping point.” As a result of this disturbance, the components of living systems will self-organize and new adaptive patterns emerge from the turmoil.

Unintended Consequences are an Inescapable Byproduct
Living systems cannot be directed along a linear path. Unforeseen consequences are inevitable. The challenge is to disturb them in a manner that approximates the desired outcome. Traditional enterprises that are faced with discontinuous change are declining. Adapt or die: the choice is that simple and that stark (Pascale, Millemann and Gioja:6).


The authors of Surfing the Edge of Chaos bridge theory and practice through six in-depth case studies of living systems in the business and organizational worlds: British Petroleum, Hewlett-Packard, Monsanto, Royal Dutch/Shell, Sears and the U.S. Army. The authors believe that a “fresh and unorthodox brand of leadership” is necessary in any organization to initiate and “shepherd” an adaptive journey (Pascale, Millemann and Gioja:7-8).

In 1982, Tom Peters wrote In Search of Excellence with an emphasis on the importance of “organizational fit” and top down strategic planning. Peters and Waterman (the co-author) focused on the success of forty-three excellent companies. Within five years after the book’s publication, half of the forty-three companies were in trouble. At present, all but five have fallen from grace. IBM, one of the companies featured, “saw it coming”...but could not change or do anything about the rapidly changing market in computer technology (Pascale, Millemann and Gioja:23).

The authors of Surfing the Edge of Chaos show that a primary reason for business failure is the outmoded “social engineering paradigm” that has more to do with the Newtonian mechanical model than current living systems thinking. Besides IBM, Sears provides a case study in the negative consequences of equilibrium.

Here is their description of the traditional social engineering paradigm (see any applications for the church here?).


Social engineering paradigm:

1) Leaders as Head, Organization as Body. Intelligence is centralized near those at the top of the organization--or those who advise them.

2) The Premise of Predictable Change. Implementation plans are scripted on the assumption of a reasonable degree of predictability and control during the time span of the change effort.

3) An Assumption of Cascading Intention. Once a course of action is determined, initiative flows from the top down. When a program is defined, it is communicated and rolled out through the ranks. Often, this includes a veneer of participation to engender buy-in. That these familiar tenets of social engineering are not compatible with the way living systems works is probably self-evidents.

Social engineering as a context is obsolete--Period (Pascale, Millemann and Gioja:13).

The authors are advocating a change of thinking like mechanics or engineers to gardening. In the church world, I suppose this is reflected in the gradual change of terminology from ‘building’ churches, to ‘planting’ churches which began happening in the 1990s. Natural Church Development by Christian Schwarz in 1996 represented one of the early attempts to apply biological (or as Schwarz called it, ‘biotic’) principles to raising the quality of church life. Recent books like the Organic Church by Neil Cole (2005) and The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch (2006) represents further steps toward the application of livings systems principles to church life. I have to blow my own horn here, and mention that I wrote a 50 page research paper in 2003 called "Organic Church Planting" based on quasi-inductive study of the “Jesus and the twelve” model and exploring some of the ideas that Cole and Hirsch have carried much further since. To bad I didn’t publish it! It has provided the philosophy of ministry that has guided my outreach and gardening efforts in Miami since then.


http://c-far.blogspot.com/2007_04_29_archive.html

The authors of Surfing emphasize a Hebrew model of praxis (even though they don’t realize it): “As a general rule, adults are much more likely to act their way into a new way of thinking than to think their way into a new way of acting.” This accurately describes my last four years of experimenting with house churches, relational networks and redemptive light reflecting in academia. The authors assert that it is “Better to be a beehive than a bureaucracy”

How do we know that the old Newtonian model is giving way to the natural one? Two reasons. The marketplace leaves no choice, and the natural model is closer to the way we as humans really function (Pascale, Millemann and Gioja:14).

Many would say that the American church world is facing an adaptive situation today. Others would probably concur with a stronger word like “the edge of chaos.” How do we adapt? Do we change nothing and just keep doing what we have been doing? It was Albert Einstein who defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Some are advocating radical change while others believe that the answer requires a return to the historical legacy of the church, creeds and liturgy. Even in the radical change camp, there are a dozen different kinds of change from structure (house churches), style (pomo), politics and theology (emerging), and DNA and living systems (Hirsch and Cole). There are those who are reacting to the reactors and retreating into a sort of anti-emerging simplistic “I love Jesus” fundamentalism. Sounds like chaos to me!

To conclude this review of Surfing the Edge of Chaos: “living systems isn’t a metaphor. It is the way it is” (Pascale, Millemann and Gioja:15).

Although I have not completely finished the book yet, I highly recommend Surfing the Edge of Chaos for anyone involved in organizational leadership, whether in business or in the church world: after all, it is all the kingdom! I will probably send out a summary of each of the 4 major sections in the book and invite comments on my blog http://c-far.blogspot.com/.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Cardinal Ratzinger on Religious Dialogue

“If we are ever to attain a planetary consensus on the reasonableness of certain moral principles--such as that to which the Western tradition of natural law and nearly all other cultures once aspired--we will need to interact far more deeply than anyone as yet has done with the Indian tradition of karma, the Chinese tradition of the Rule of Heaven, and the Islamic tradition of the will of Allah.”

--Cardinal Ratzinger in 2004 in a debate with Philosopher Jürgen Habermas.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

THE USES AND MISUSES OF KARMA

Hi Mike, that was an intriguing statement. Would you care to expand on that?

Hey John, you are probably right. In learning how to swim in the secular pluralistic sea-change, I fumble a lot. It reminds me of when I was attempting to learn Spanish. After two years of study, and six months of living in Colombia, I got up to make announcements about a picnic in Spanish. What I intended to say, was “I want everyone to BRING extra drinks and food so that we can all have a good time.” I mispronounced the Spanish word for “bring,” (traer) and instead I used “get drunk” (tragar). What everyone heard was “I want you all to GET DRUNK and pig out so that we can have a good time!” oops.

Anytime we set out to learn a new language, worldview or culture, we must be willing to make lots of mistakes. There is no other way to learn to talk in Spanish or French, but to start out blabbing nonsense like a toddler…perfectionists never learn foreign languages, or if they do, they never use them.

I tend to be an extremist and to go overboard when I am ‘on the chase’, especially when it involves crossing cultural barriers. When I was learning Spanish, I read a Spanish bible, I watched Spanish movies, I listened cassette tapes of the Psalms in Spanish as I was going to sleep, I went to Mexican restaurants and eat tacos, I worshiped with Spanish worship music, and even read comic books in Spanish.

Now I feel that God has pointed me toward secular postmoderns. My method for learning to comprehend and speak in secular postmodern is basically the same. So, please bear with me while I learn to talk all over again like a two-year-old.

Having said that, there are a couple of points you raised that I would like to probe. In both of your emails, you used the word “unbiblical.” In my mind, unbiblical and biblical are tricky words, especially if we use them in black and white categories. A large portion of evangelical Christianity believes that speaking in tongues is unbiblical. A couple of centuries ago, slavery was largely considered biblical by the general public, and established churches. I would consider house churches as biblical, but not all my friends would agree with me.

I am not an expert on Eastern religions, so there are probably all kinds of theological implications of karma that I don’t know about, depending on which branch or school of Hinduism defines it (a little like Christianity don’t you think?). However, most of my secular postmodern friends don’t know anything about the actual theology of Hinduism either, they just use “karma” as “what goes around, comes around.” The law of reciprocity. Sowing and reaping.

I’m not sure that it helps to try to explain theological points about the work of Christ to secular postmoderns until there a communicative relationship is established. In fact, as soon as I wrote the previous sentence, I became quite sure that it does not help to explain theological points about Christ or his work in erasing bad karma without establishing a bridge of communication. Besides, right there, at that time and place in the Tampa airport, I had only one shot to establish rapport with that girl. After using the positive energy and karma metaphor, she gave me her email address and wrote a couple of times. She would not have done that if I had tried to go ‘theological’ or ‘Christian’ with her.

Sometimes in our attempts to “get out of the box” we just end up in a bigger box. In our attempts to get of an ‘evangelical’ box or a ‘church’ box, we can end up in the ‘Christian’ or “biblical’ box (here is where I might get myself in trouble). I don’t think we are called to be Christians, or to be ‘biblical’ … we are called to follow Jesus, even when he leads us into the middle of a bunch of new age Hindus or a bunch of radical _______ (like G. H.). I came across a great quote the other day, of all people by Garrison Keiller, of the Prairie Home Companion. He said, “Give up your good Christian life and come and follow Jesus.”

I heard Charles Simpson back in the late 1980s teach on the epochal change we are now in the middle of. He compared it to the dispersion of national Israel and the exile to Babylon. Daniel had to live, study and work with magicians, sorcerers, warlocks, and soothsayers. He had to learn to practice his faith without being adversarial in the pluralistic environment he was in. Some of the Jews were bitter (weeping by the river). They might have accused him of being unbiblical and un-Jewish.

We are in a similar situation today. We are surrounded by new agers, postmoderns, and secular people living in a spiritual void with a confusing hodgepodge of quasi-magical and mystical beliefs drawn from a half dozen world religions. We can try to correct their unbiblical use of spiritual terminology or we can try to understand the meanings behind the terms and use them to establish a relational communication process that may ultimately lead them to Jesus. Or, we can retreat into Christian ghettos and avoid having to learn their language.

I hope that helps clarify my intentions. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

THE BORDERS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

A major issue in our society since 9/11 is the border issue. How do we control our borders? What does it mean to be a nation if we allow open borders and allow anyone to enter our society who chooses to do so? Do we build a fence and keep out the poor Mexican who wants to work as a brick layer in order to feed his family as well as the Al Queda terrorist?

I have been reading a recent book by Brian McLaren, called The Secret Message Of Jesus. Just to give away a little of the plot, the Secret Message is the kingdom of God and Brian is exploring all the metaphoric quasi-hidden ways that Jesus described the kingdom without actually defining it. The title sounds like a good marketing ploy in the age of Dan Brown, but actually McLaren has a good point…by hinting at the kingdom, and allowing people to glimpse certain aspects of it, he was awakening interest and desire in people to pursue it, to engage it, and to think about it, rather than trying to shove it down their throats with 3 points and an invitation.

In one of this chapters, McLaren deals with how people cross over into the kingdom of God from the domain of darkness, and how we in the kingdom should guard our borders. He effectively shows that there are two possible errors: hostile exclusion and naïve inclusion. Here, McLaren is actually some significant theology about who can be saved and how they are saved. I am a complete novice in this issue but I promise I will read up on it and get back to better set of definitions. There are also some intermediate views.

Basically, the two errors that McLaren focuses on are those who attempt to close the borders and patrol the boundaries of the kingdom in order to keep out any but the most pure, the truly saved (according to the view of the kingdom sheriffs). On the other side are those who want to throw open the borders and let everyone in. This leads to a problem of identity: if everyone comes in, how will the kingdom be any different than the world? McLaren asks, “Can any meaningful kingdom, including the kingdom of God, exist with no boundaries, no outside?” (McLaren:163).

He finally comes down to an intermediate position: the kingdom invites marginal people—“It begins with the least—the sinners, the sick, the poor, the meek, and the children. Entry isn’t on the basis of merit, achievement, or superiority, but rather it requires humility to think again, to become teachable (like a child) and to receive God’s forgiveness and reconciling grace” (165). Nevertheless, the key requirement to cross the border and to become legal immigrant in the kingdom of God is a genuine change of heart. “a requirement that those who wish to enter the kingdom actually have a change of heart—that they don’t sneak in to accomplish their own agenda.”

This is in accordance with the example of Jesus’ tradition of “gathering in an inclusive community” (166). McLaren calls this “purposeful inclusion” and adds that “God seeks to include all who want to participate in and contribute to its purpose, but it cannot include those who oppose its purpose” (167).

McLaren concludes that it is clear that Jesus does not want us “judging, out-grouping, trying to shift between wheat and chaff, or holding people at arms distance” (168). But at the same time his challenge “to repent, to follow him and to learn from his humility and meekness” makes clear that the citizens of the kingdom must want to learn a new way of life and if they don’t pay the full cost, they will remain outside.

Years ago I did a careful inductive study of Jesus’ method of evangelism in the four gospels, for a paper I was writing for Dr. Robinson. It was an eye opener for me as a life-long evangelical. I was unable to find a single example of a mourner’s bench, an altar call, a requirement to assent to a set of theological propositions or the sinner’s prayer. Instead I found a series of encounters between Jesus and lost and hurting people that never twice repeated the same formula but in every case changed their lives (I would imagine that encounter between the rich young ruler and Jesus eventually changed the rich young ruler’s life, even if it made him miserable).

I began to see that salvation was much more of a process or a journey with a series of decisions, rather than normatively a dramatic, one-time life changing even like Saul of Tarsus experienced on the road to Damascus. I saw that there was an element of mystery in the process of regeneration and conversion and that it was above all an entrance into a relationship.

A meaningful passage for me in my attempts to relate redemptively to those around me has been: "He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me (Matthew 10:40).

I have noticed that when secular people find out that I am a “spiritual” person, they either retreat or draw nearer in friendship. I am assuming that those who “receive me” are getting a “bug” uploaded to them: love for God and a desire to follow Jesus. IF they receive me (and if he has sent me), they are actually, in real time, receiving him. (Christ in you, the hope of glory).

How do I know when they have legitimately crossed the border into the kingdom? I can’t go on the sinner’s prayer any more….nor even always water baptism. And only God can see the inner change of their heart…so I suppose (and I actually processing this as I write) I must patiently wait to see the fruit in their lives that will indicate the condition of the heart.

In the mean time, it is not my job to stop them at the border or expel them from the kingdom. My job is too continue to be friends, to continue to feed them from the bread of life until they include or exclude themselves from the kingdom by revealing the condition of their hearts.
Any thoughts?

Sunday, May 13, 2007

TRANSLATING THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Since I have been spending time on a university campus, in a crash course on cross-cultural incarnational mission to secular postmodern young adults, I have been learning the language. The first step in understanding a culture is learning the language. The language is more than just words: it conveys the richness of meanings and symbols, values and worldview.

We did the same thing when God sent us to South America. I spent two years studying Spanish at Ohio State University, and another two years in Bogotá, Colombia, learning how to ‘think’ in Spanish and view the world through the cultural eyes of Colombians. It changed our lives—there are still some phrases that we can only express in Spanish because no English equivalent exists: words like inquietud, or like 15 different ways to say ‘hello” and almost as many to say “goodbye.”

Learning how to talk to secular young adults has almost been harder than learning Spanish (note: I am talking about secular young people, not ‘church’ kids – big difference). I am only now finding myself relaxing and able to connect fluently in my communications.

Along the way I have been looking for ways to translate biblical concepts into their vernacular. This is not as simple as it sounds, because it requires a good translation of the concept, not just the word. For example, I have found the best way to translate what we used to say in evangelicalism as “getting saved” into something like, “learning how to love God with all of your heart,” or “developing an interactive friendship with Jesus.” Having the “grace of God resting on your life” can be translated (you might not like this one--sorry), “having positive energy in your karma.” The nuanced explanations about the source of “positive energy” and “good karma” may have to come later.

One of the most important terms that I have been looking to translate is "the kingdom of God". The biblical concept of the kingdom of God is so central to the Old and New Covenant scriptures, even more so than the concept of ecclesia, at least in the gospels.

Even with evangelical baby boomers, “the kingdom of God” lost something in translation. We don’t have kings anymore, and almost all associations of Jesus with the kingdom of God lose the edgy, electric energy that must have been in that phrase in the time and place that he lived, with the Jews under the political dominion of the Romans, and looking for the coming liberator who would lead them to victory over the gentiles and restore the throne of David.

My friend, Dr. Dow Robinson faced this dilemma in translating the concept for Aztec Indians. They had no word for “king” or “kingdom” …only chiefs and tribes. He finally settled on “Father’s loving rule” in Nahuatl. Not a bad translation for us.

Out of the four gospel writers, John is the one who uses “the kingdom of God” the least. He only uses the phrase twice: both times in chapter 3. So how does he communicate the truth of God’s active and present leadership in our lives? He often uses the term “eternal life,” not in the sense of going to heaven and living a long time, but in the sense of a radically different kind or quality of life that is available to us now through Jesus. For John, eternal life = the kingdom of God.

Although the book of Acts makes it clear that St. Paul taught incessantly about the kingdom of God (see Acts 14:22; 19:8; 28:23; 28:31) he did not use the phrase very often in his letters. I only counted 9 times in all of his letters that the phrase is used, compared to nearly 50 times in the four gospels. Paul uses the concept of “life in the Spirit” or some variation such as “walk in the Spirit”, “mind set on the Spirit”, etc. to express the active idea of God’s rule or present leadership in our lives leading to healing, wholeness and liberation. In Paul’s letters alone, he uses the word “spirit” in some variation of life in the Spirit 126 times.

I have even looked at some of the other major world religions to see if there is any equivalent to the Judeo-Christian concept of the “Kingdom of God”. According to my nephew who is fluent in Arabic, istislaam lillah means submission to God and the closet phrase to our “kingdom of God” is hakayaat allah – the sayings or stories of God (referring of course to the Koran), which are equivalent to the rule of God for a muslim. How many of you know that the symbolic meaning of hakayaat allah might not be something we would find desirable, especially depending on which group of Muslims uses the term. But then of course, I don’t think I would want to live under “the kingdom of God” as defined by some portions of the religious right either.

I had started using the unwieldy phrase “moment-by-moment surrender to God’s leading” as my current translation based on my own recent experiences. My friend Michael Cook sometimes uses the phrase, “the eternal purpose” (Eph. 3:11) to describe God’s master plan for the universe. Another possibility was suggested to me recently in a conversation with Bob Mumford: “The Agape government of God”. Even better might be the “Agape Conspiracy”, or Bob's own phrase, the "Agape Road". Scot McKnight, in The Jesus Creed, suggests the “movement for good.”

Brian McLaren, in his recent book, The Secret Message of Jesus (2006), devotes an entire chapter to this issue of how to contextualize the concepts of the kingdom of God for the current generation. I really liked several of his suggestions, and I am going to summarize them for you below.

The dream of God. The Lord’s prayer: “May all your dreams for your creation come true.” I can invite my young grad-school friends to change their way of thinking and enter into God’s grand dream for the cosmos.

The revolution of God. When I was young, for a short time I belonged to the Socialist Workers Party and my hero was Che Guevara (please don’t tell anyone in Miami – especially my Cuban friends!). McLaren suggests that the concept needs a qualifier like: “the peace revolution of God,” “the spiritual revolution of God,” “the love revolution of God,” or the “reconciling revolution of God.” He also mentions favorably Dallas Willard’s term, the “divine conspiracy.”

The mission of God. This is probably my least favorite because of the tendency to view it as non-relational or task oriented. Of course, that is not how God views it. McLaren believes that it is of great value as a metaphor as long as we complement it with relational imagery. It might be a good antidote to the inward, self-referential focus of the attractional church.

The party of God. McLaren’s re-tells Tony Campolo’s story about throwing a birthday part for a 38-year-old prostitute who had never had a birthday party. When the owner of the donut shop asked him what kind of church he went to, Tony answered, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning.” The owner said, “If such a church existed, I would go to it”. Think of the father in Luke 15 when the prodigal comes home.

The network of God. This plays off of the idea of communication, interconnectedness and living systems in ecology: the metaphor of an ecosystem. God’s truth is in everything and holds all things together by the word of his power. Governing principle of God keeps the universe working.

The dance of God. There is a rich tradition in the early church fathers of comparing the relationships within the Trinity to a holy dance of creation and love. “The universe was created to be an expression of and extension of the dance of God—so that all creatures share in the dynamic joy of movement, love, vitality, harmony, and celebration” (McLaren:147). This metaphor for the kingdom of God is probably the one that would work the best with most of my new friends….they love to dance and to party and to experience the joy of life.

The Agape revolution/dance of God is here, now and is within us. We enter the agape revolution/dance of God with great tribulation, but we find righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Three cheers for the agape revolution/dance of God!!!

Apparently even Jesus felt that the depth and substance of the meaning behind the kingdom of God defied easy, linear definitions. Jesus said: "How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it?” (Mark 4:30). And then he proceeded to describe the kingdom of God (rather than define it) with parables comparing it to sowing good seed in a field (Matthew 13), a mustard seed, leaven hidden in three pecks of meal, a treasure hidden in the field, a merchant seeking fine pearls, a dragnet cast into the sea, and a little child (Matt. 18). Jesus never tried to define it, he just described it (in a dozen different ways), demonstrated it and invited people into it.

Perhaps the kingdom of God just simply cannot be defined. Perhaps that is why Jesus sent us out to announce its nearness (Matt. 10:7) and to show how it works (Matt. 10:8) rather than to explain it. I dreamed last night that I had finally learned how to dance.

Friday, May 11, 2007

NON-LINEAR POSTMODERN RAMBLINGS

I am no expert on postmodernism, although my adult children have been trying to get me up-to-speed for several years. I have read a smattering of Jacque Derrida and Michel Foucault and a lot of commentary about them. Lately, I have been buying books faster than I can put them on the shelves, let along read them, in my efforts to keep up with what is being written about postmodernism and the emerging church movement.

My young friend Patrick Currie wrote some excellent thoughts about postmodernism on his blog recently, LINK: Learning: a Modern Post, so I combed through my posts in some on-line discussions and pasted together the following non-linear thoughts on the subject. I promise I will come back to this with greater insight in the months and years to come. We have time. It is not going away.

Modernity is basically co-existent with the Protestant Reformation. Most of what we have inherited from the Reformation can also be viewed as part of modernity. The emphasis on the book, reading, individual interpretation, rationality and pulpit preaching are all "modern" and at the same time "Protestant." Professionalization of organizational structures is also both modern and Protestant (although the clergy as a religious profession apart from the people of God goes back at least to Constantine).

Alan Hirsch points out in his excellent book, The Forgotten Ways, that in the process of modernity, the over-arching religious worldview known as Christendom, gave way in the public sphere to primarily three institutions as the final arbiters of truth: the secular state, science and the financial markets (Hirsch:60-61). The church has been forced to retreat into the private sphere, although it did not go willingly or quietly. Postmodernism is critical of modernism (validly, in my view) but is not yet "for" anything. Another way of saying "postmodern" is to say "not modern any more". The church fought modernism, but finally gave in and began to adapt to modernism, especially among Protestants. Modernism began around the fourteen hundreds, and the Protestant fundamentalists were still fighting it in 1920. The Catholic Church did not make peace with modernism up until 1962 (Vatican II). Now many ‘modern’ Christian leaders are calling for a holy war on postmodernism. We don't have to do the same thing with postmodernity. We are neither pre-modern (Christendom), modern or postmodern, we are Jesus-followers, seeking the kingdom--a city not made with hands, swimming in the currents of modernity and postmodernity. If we ‘react’ to postmodernity, we will form a ‘negative focus’ and reproduce what we focus on, as the fundamentalists and Catholics did. Postmodernity can help us with our old enemy modernity but will not become our friend either. It is simply a cultural sea that we must learn to swim in (or sail if you have a boat). Learn the currents and the wind patterns, don’t fight them!

In response to a question Brian asked me about postmodernity and authority, I don't think postmodernism has anything to say about any kind of authority...at least nothing positive to say.

Postmodernism, as I understand it, it not FOR anything... it is against a quasi-religious faith in rationalism. It debunks the grand story of continuous human progress towards higher civilization through education and rationality. Post-modernism does not attempt to offer any solutions—only critiques. Postmodernism does a good job of pointing out hypocrisy, agendas, human pride and lust for power in modernism…but it does not offer any alternatives.

Postmodernism does a good job of delivering the ‘bad news’ and makes no pretense of offering any good news. That’s why it’s called POSTmodernism rather than PRO or PRE-something else. We don’t know what comes after modernism…(pre-Agape-kingdom maybe?) although we, as followers of Jesus, can be sure that God is guiding the world towards his loving rule and drawing it to himself. Postmodernism is just the disenchantment with what is… not the preview of what will be. That’s why I don’t think postmodernism is capable of saying anything positive to us about proper biblical or spiritual authority, although it has a lot to say to us negatively. However, make no mistake, postmodernism will let us know in a hurry if we try to work an agenda, build a tower, make a name for ourselves, pull a fast one, or impose our own authority for the wrong motivation. Postmodernism has a great B.S. meter. The only source of any true authority is Jesus. The only way to have authority is to submit fully to him. The more we submit our egos to Jesus and serve, the more authority will oscillate from him through us to others.

I want to throw out one more thought. I have not made up my mind entirely about postmodernism yet (heck, I don’t even understand it yet!), but one aspect of it that I can willingly endorse, is the desconstruction to expose the wrong use of coercive power and domination. Deconstruction can almost be viewed as a ‘prophetic’ function “There is an appointed time for everything …A time to tear down, a time to build up” (ECC 3:1-3). It seems to me that a constant lurking thread throughout church history, since Simon Magus, has been the issue of coercive power and political domination, the very opposite of the Spirit of Christ.

Despite the wonderful example of many dedicated servant leaders throughout the history of the church, there have been as many or more that have used church offices for positions of power, or even wealth. So…in our modern age, (or postmodern), if men are motivated by ambition for power and the desire for personal gain, why shouldn’t the women want to get a slice of the action? Why would a woman want that kind of authority over men? Easy… for the same reasons that most of men want authority or position….power, ambition, pride, money. If we are going to ask our sisters, wives and female friends to humble themselves, submit and serve, why shouldn’t we men lead the way by our own example?

Personally, I think the most important verse in chapter 5 of the letter to the Ephsians is verse 21: “…and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Learning: a Modern Post

Patrick Currie shares some 'modern' thoughts on postmodernism from the perspective of a 25-year-old follower of Jesus.

Learning: a Modern Post

Monday, May 7, 2007

THE DANGERS OF IDEALISM AND ELITISM

For the context of our original discussion, go to:
Covenant Thinklings: Scheduled for Retirement?


I want to respond a little more to Brian’s “high dudgeon” post (it is around 90 or 91 in the thread). It shook me a little bit and caused me to do some internal inventory.

Basically, I want to underscore my agreement with his points and highlight how important his comments were. There is nothing I personally dislike more than “insider” thinking and elitist attitudes. Next to that, what I most dislike is idealism, in the sense of romanticizing certain conceptual ideals as more ‘pure’.

It seems to me that this is always the greatest danger in times of transition and renewal. There is a legitimate dissatisfaction that comes at the end of an age, and a restlessness for what ever is coming in the new. The dangerous trap is to fall into a critical spirit toward what has gone before and is need of change, and to enter into the new out of a reaction to the old. When we try to do “new” out of reaction to the old, we will almost always end up reproducing what we don’t like in the old. Gothard calls that the power of a ‘negative’ focus.

Two key teachings in the last 20 years have impacted me in this area of transitions. One, by Charles Simpson, dealt with transitional leaders in periods of epochal change. He gave this series in 1986, and used the dispersion of national Israel with the Babylonian captivity as his chief example. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, and Nehemiah were all key transitional leaders, called to help lead God’s people through a brutal and abrupt change of epochs. Simpson talked about the dangers of shipwreck in navigating around the horn, because of the confusion that comes when two oceans come together with differing tides and wave patterns. I remember the emotional impact it had on me when he said “even experienced ship captains experience shipwreck in this transition.”

The second one was by Bob Mumford last fall in October, in Columbus, Ohio. He gave a brilliant talk on God’s “Five-Hundred-Year Steps in History” referring to the epochal changes with the coming of Christ, the Constantinian church, the rift between Eastern and Western Christianity at the end of the first millennium, and the Reformation of the church. In each period of change, according to Mumford’s thesis, God is having to release the kingdom of God from the stifling grasp of the old wineskin, in order to allow the kingdom to break out into the world. Mumford predicted that God was in the process of shaking the ‘modern’ church, in order to release the activity of the kingdom into the world once again, and to raise up a ‘postmodern’ church (his words, not mine).

These two series, plus all of the statistics compiled by Barna, Neighbors (where do we go from here), Gallup, David Barrett (World Christian Encyclopedia) The house church folks, Brian McLaren, Neil Cole and more recently Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, tend to persuade me that we are in another major period of epochal sea-change, both in our culture and in the church.

Brian’s warning about the danger of seeking ‘pure’ forms of “New Testament” Christianity and church life are well founded. All throughout history, groups have splintered off from the church and isolated themselves from the ‘universal’ church in their attempts to be ‘pure’ and to be ‘true’ New Testament churches. At worst, they have quite often fallen into spiritual pride (the worst kind), elitism, and insider thinking, or even sectarian heresy. At best, they have just stagnated and become irrelevant.

We were part of a group that fell into this kind of romantic idealism and reaction against the larger church in the mid-70s. To our credit, we listened to our critics and managed to humble ourselves and stay connected with the body of Christ. Brian pointed out the romantic idealism of the ‘family-values’ group. I would say the same thing about the house church movement. Most of them are people I would not want to spend time with because they are so negative toward the church and reactionary toward anything that they consider ‘traditional’ church.

Brian is quite right in pointing out that we do not know which spiritual DNA will prove healthy and adaptive for the church. It is a “living system’ after all, operating on the edge of chaos. None of us know if we have the right DNA. I am glad that Hirsch puts the “Lordship of Christ” at the center of the mDNA.

One other thing I will point out is the attitude of Jesus and the apostles to the Jewish religion during another huge epochal change. Although Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and brusquely confronted the religious leaders, he did not seem interested in attacking or challenging Judaism or the system of Synagogue worship. He was after the ‘fulfillment’ the law, not its destruction. Paul also honored Judaism and tried to fit in with it as much as he could without betraying his core convictions about the avenues of grace.

I probably am most critical of my own conservative Evangelical background because I have seen and experienced many of the shortcomings up-close and personal: in my own life and in my own family. Within that, I am also most critical of my own mistakes as a Evangelical-Charismatic missionary, pastor and church planter.

This has caused me to be more open to other expressions of faith, such as Catholicism and Orthodoxy. While I have serious reservations about the ultimate value of mega-churches, I was instrumental in helping my friend Bill Carp find a role in one of the best and most missional mega-churches here in Miami, and both Bill and the senior pastor, Kevin are very close friends. I highly respect their heart for the marginal and the hurting and they are making an impact on our city.

So here is the challenge that Brian brought to us. How do we discern those areas in the church that must adapt in order for the church to be effective in the new epoch, without reacting to the change? How do we experiment with new approaches, without making our friends in established congregations feel that we are questioning value of their experience of ecclesia?

How do we keep ourselves open to change and innovation while loving the whole body of Christ? How do we adapt to the changes in our culture, while cherishing and drawing from our heritage and our history? It may feel like walking on the edge of a sword, and yet we dare not fall off to the left or the right. We need to hear the sill small voice that says “this is the way.” As Robert and Brian have been rightly pointing out, this is a significant challenge in navigating through troubled waters and changing tides and seas.