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!

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.

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

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."'

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

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.

"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

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/

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.