The end of last week, I was with the T.A.C.T. group, Theology and Culture Thinkers Group in Woodland Hills (LA) California. This is a group called together to deal with the crisis regarding the lack of discipleship in the evangelical church of North America. I was honored to be invited. I was honored to spend some time among outstanding concerned people of the Navigators and Leadership Catalyst among other organizations.

Dallas Willard spent some time with us. It was rich. I offer the following summation of just one of the many presentations he challenged us with.

Dallas asserted that there are "3 Gospels Heard at the Present"

1.) YOUR SINS WILL BE FORGIVEN and you will be in heaven in the afterlife if you believed that Jesus suffered for your sins
2.) JESUS DIED TO LIBERATE THE OPPRESSED and you can stand with him in that battle.
3.) DO WHAT YOUR CHURCH SAYS and it will see to it you are received by God.

Dallas said compare these 3 gospels with the following:
4.) Put your confidence and trust in Jesus and live with him as his disciple now in the present Kingdom of God (Matt 6.33; Rom 8.1-14; Col 1.13; 3. 1-4; John 3.1-8).
He said "Salvation is participating now in the life which Jesus is now living on earth - Of course that involves forgiveness and heaven afterward and much more."

Dallas made the point that in relation to gospel 1.) you have to trust something Jesus did .. not in Jesus.
In relation to 2.) you have to trust something Jesus said … not in Jesus himself.

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Now Dallas would never be one to devalue the works of social justice. But it is the characterization of the gospel 2.) here that peaks my interest. In regard to the (some?) gospel(s) of social justice, he suggests you have to trust something Jesus said … not in Jesus himself.

As I have been thinking about the upcoming Evolving Church Conference in Toronto, Dallas' point about gospel no. 2 above is a challenge. For I have been considering for a long time how social justice can just turn into another program, or become something we do because we're supposed to. Pretty soon, social justice dies the death of all human efforts made apart from God. It is only as a manifestation of the Kingdom of God that the powers, the institutions of evil and the machinery of death can be undercut and destroyed. Of course the missional churches have been saying that mission is not another program, it is our life, it is the joining in with God in what He is already doing.

Not surprisingly however, this is easier said than done. And so this question is important to me, how can we avoid the mistakes of no. 1, and no. 3 as we go about justice in no. 2? HOW CAN WE NOT MAKE JUSTICE into another works righteousness devoid of power and transformation, another thing we are supposed to do? How do we instead see justice come as the manifestation of the Kingdom breaking through into our lives into the world? Where do people become formed in Christ so that justice flows out of our lives as opposed to something we are told we should be doing (another layer of works righteousness).
It seems to me this failure was the problem of the last unsuccessful wave of protestant justice. It simply lost the power of the person and work of Christ, thereby losing the people and turning justice into a campaign that inevitably made people feel better about themselves. HOW DO WE ESCAPE THIS?
Of course Dallas' no.4 is key, the Kingdom of God is where we must start. We must see justice as a manifestation of the Lordship of Christ over all our social forms of injustice. But I believe the local church; human on human justice is also key. I believe all other justice that would transform the structures must see first a structure transformed, i.e. us, the church, the little guys. I believe also we must undergo a spiritual formation that shapes us for mission. yet I believe we must see that in mission we are shaped and transformed by God. All of these things are stuff I hope to sketch comments on for my upcoming conference presentation on "justice in but not of capitalism"

I was incredibly blessed to be among these people at T.A.C.T.

What practical things can we do to avoid the pitfalls of gospel no. 2 becoming the same as gospel no. 1, and .3?

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Don’t Forget! Doug Pagitt comes to the Up/rooted gathering tomorrow nite (Tuesday February 27) 7 p.m. at Life on the Vine . Come and meet some people. I'll be there. Plenty of others!

Hey all, our regional emergent cohort Uprooted is sponsoring a visit next week with Doug Pagitt. He'll be coming to the up/rooted north location at Life on the Vine in Long Grove Tuesday, February 27th at 7pm. Many of you know that Doug is a pastor of Solomon's Porch, author of Church Re-Imagined, among other writings. He is also a leader of emergent. I look forward to a stimulating conversation about everything missional. So come on up and join us. I'll be there. Geoff with be there. Jon Berbaum, our new coordinator for north will be there. LET'S TALK!!

Also, just to let everyone know. Next month, I'll be up at the The Evolving Church: Restoring Justice in Toronto (see logo on the right sidebar) with Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne and Ron Sider. Talk about a line-up. The date of the conference is March 24, 2007 at The Meeting House in Oakville. I'll be doing a seminar on "community in but not of capitalism" going beyond what I wrote in my book the Great Giveaway on the same topic. I'll be telling some stories, and talking about ways we have been subverted by late consumerist capitalism and how we can resist and witness to true justice in the world through alternative practices. In the next several weeks, I hope to post some snapshots of what I'll be presenting at the conference. If anyone is coming, please let me know and I'd like to connect somehow.

I leave tomorrow for TACT, the Theology and Culture Thinkers group in Los Angeles. We'll have Dallas Willard with us for some of the time. I'm honored to be going. I should have at least one post on spiritual formation from this stimulating time in LA.

At Life on the Vine, we recently added a fourth pastor. Some people told me such multiple leadership would never work. There would be no single face to attach to the vision of the church. Therefore the church would never grow.

Balderdash (is that a word?). The church continues to grow. Signs of healing, new mission, new souls finding God abound.

I now preach approximately half the time. On a typical Sunday morning, the preaching is approximately 25 minutes. But you should know that at our church the gathering does not gather to just hear the preacher. The worship gathering does not culminate and focus on the preacher delivering a masterpiece. Our time together is meant to be a gathering fully engaged with meeting and responding to God, all He has done, what He is saying. And then we are sent out from here collectively into mission. And so honestly, many times I think I've blown the sermon really badly, yet the time together did not miss a beat. The proclamation of the gospel reality over us all is important, but it is not the isolated core of the service. We come to worship to hear from and respond to God corporately.

Much has been written about Missional church leadership. Frost & Hirsch (and Dwight Smith) have advocated the APEPT model of leadership from Eph 4. Roxburgh has another brilliant description of these principles. I myself have argued that we must dump the CEO- pastor-leader that the church has too often modeled from the secular business. I have argued that "the CEO-pastor-leader" is a construction that only makes sense in the Cartesian worlds where man is in control (this world is misogynist if you ask me), where leadership is technique driven (ironically I would argue, that even Greenleaf makes NT servant-leadership into a technique to achieve desired results at the hand of the leader in control), and people are units in a sociological structure devoid of the organic nature that we see characterizes the gifted nature of the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12: 4-31). Because of all this I have argued that missional leadership must be multiple, organic, recognized and affirmed within and among a body (not determined from above in a smoke filled room by a CEO and board of the mega corporation it oversees).

Again, many have said this could not be done. But from the beginning at "the Vine" there has always been more people pastoring/leading than just me. I admit I was at the outset the most visible leader. But from the very beginning I've been bi-ministerial having other jobs and getting income from other sources than the church. This enabled us to quickly add many more leaders on the staff in a church that now has about 150 people (we started withy 10 people). And so the idea of a senior pastor at "the Vine" has never quite fit.

So out of our experience, here some reasons why the "senior pastor" role won't work at Life on the Vine church.

1.) Because it doesn't make sense to build a church around a personality. People start coming to hear that one guy (most often it's a guy) And as the crowds get bigger, this pastor becomes distanced from the congregation at which point he loses the ability to speak into people's lives that he knows. Instead, as the crowds get bigger, he must get less specific and more generic so as to optimize his speaking into more people's lives. Soon he becomes a talking head on a screen, a personality people come to hear almost like the proclamation of the gospel is some form of entertainment or consumption. And when he burns out or leaves, half the congregation splits as well, and the people who remain are left holding the bag for the big mortgage the personality left behind. If I left "Life on the Vine" as pastor, I believe it wouldn't miss a beat. In fact, last summer, when I didn't preach all summer the church grew by 20% over the summer.

2.) Because there are no supermen(women). No one pastor has all the gifts. (1 Cor 12:14) Indeed most pastors have gaping deficits in their abilities to carry out the ministry. With multiple pastors, the whole ministry of the church is fed from the many gifts. And all are invited to participate in the empowerment of the gifts as modeled by the many faceted leadership. The fact that the ministry of the body of Christ is not one man/woman resists those who make church all about receieving passively from the ministry of one person. My personal belief is that there should be women pastors as well. Because there are things I could not ever see or understand that a woman can. In our church, I am strong on preaching for growth and sanctification, in training leaders for ministry, in leading a vision for a missional emerging church. I have deferred to and learned from those who have gifts of prayer, faith, preaching, teaching, organization, artistry, and mission. I see how Frost & Hirsch's APEPT model characterizes our ministry.

3.) Because isolated pastors can become blinded to their own lacks and get tunnel vision and become egomanical. But multiple pastorship in submission to one to another work against this. I can think of three times in the last two years where I was leading the church in a tunnel vision fashion and one of the other pastors called me on it and the resulting turn reinvigorated the church body. I never would have seen these things if I had not been in mutual submission to these other co-laborers in reverence to Christ as Lord.

4.) Because pastors cannot lead alone. The pressures and demoralizations are too great. But leading alongside others enables enormous edification, uplifting, carrying burdens and continuing discpleship of the leaders in community. I had a burn out last year. Geoff got me through. I'm doing great, the church grew stronger.

5.) Because pastors benefit from being bi-vocational … or should I say bi-ministerial (since being in the secular workplace is ministry). Pastors who have jobs outside the church can get to know non-Christians or spend time in non Christian setting and workplaces rather then being entirely bound to the church. Dan Kimball speaks to this in his new book (thanks to Scot McKnight's review on his blog). Up until last year, I had always worked outside the church. Now my other job is at a seminary. But I will forever be affected by the many years I spent working outside the church and I will ever be seeking non Christian connections.

6.) Because it models the diversity and interrelatedness of the Body. The same as number .2) but for a different reason. The notion of a senior pastor puts up a false impression that one person is especially qualified and elevated to ministry. But with multiple pastors, he/she does not stand alone. The whole body is with him/her one and the same, ministers of the gospel in and outside the church as a way of life.

7.) Because it keeps pastors from becoming fake images which inevitably leads to moral failure and/or disappointment. With multiple leadership in mutual submission to each other in Christ, there can be no temptation to put any of the pastors on a false pedestal as an image of the perfect Christian. For everybody knows too much. Given the mutual intersubjectivity of the leadership, and the smallness of the church, there is no reason to try to act like an archetype for everyone else to immitate.

9.) Because it is hard for pastors to foster servanthood when they are put on a pedestal separated from the people. All pastors should have to clean toilets, serve the poor, and vacuum floors after potlucks. We should see ourselves in submission to the Body of Christ not over it. (Mark 10:42-45). This "amongness" is not possible as a senior pastor.

10.) In summary, because the senior pastor position is an impossible position to live up to. Therefore by accepting this role, we are setting ourselves up (and the church) for inevitable failure.

I could think of other reasons. And I am sure that in other contexts and ways of being the Body of Christ, the senior pastor position may still have validity. But for our church, in seeking to be missional, these reasons seemed to siuggest the senior pastor position won't work. Are there other reasons? Can senior pastor make sense in emerging missional contexts? Are there some good examples out there.

For the furtherance of God's mission in Christ into the world ...

My last post was too academic and not clear enough. I'm trying to do a blog which boils academic conversation down for the work of missional/emerging church. And the last post didn't quite cut it. Jerry said it gave him a headache. So here is Take 2. It is less complete. But it’s more to the point. Thanks Jerry!
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Most evangelical Christians have considered pluralism a bad thing. For them, pluralism has been a problem that needs to be overcome, defended against and even defeated as part of our evangelism strategy. For evangelicals, the existence of other religions is a threat. Ironically John Howard Yoder thinks pluralism is the opposite. Pluralism is a good thing. It is a necessary thing that God has given us in order that we might better be the living church of Christ in the world.

I contend our evangelical strategies towards engaging pluralism have been defined by what I shall call Political Liberalism (PL). This is the doctrine that says our country shall be governed by only stuff we can all agree on. PL will not allow, for instance, content from specific religions to determine public policy. For PL, religious knowledge is private - science and reason are public. I contend that this founding ideology of democracy influences the way we evangelicals engage other religious as Christians. For like the good Americans that we are, we either engage other religions through rational arguments based in neutral forms of reason, or we are tolerant and encouraging in allowing (implicitly) all religions to find their way. It is either a competitive argument, or a therapeutic conversation to find "your higher power."

Now, admitting that the discussion of the merits of PC is much deeper than this, and acknowledging that PC has been critiqued by and developed much further by people like Stout, Habermas, Taylor, Rorty, McIntyre, Coles and even Derrida, I wish to contend that John Howard Yoder shows us all the way forward as how to be missional in the tsunami of pluralism we find ourselves in. Yoder tells us we should not seek first one on one arguments based upon a common reason with folk of other religions (especially if they are coercive), neither should we seek tolerant conversation where we encourage the pursuit of each one's own spirituality (especially if said spiritualities are demonic), rather we seek to be open non-violent, hospitable and humble communities which seek to engage "the other" vulnerably in order to both learn from them and display the gospel before them all the while entrusting the world's salvation to the Sovereign Lord.

What makes possible such an open community? For Yoder, it is that God has chosen pluralism as the instrument for God to work for His truth in the world. In Yoder's "Meaning After Babel" (Journal of Religious Ethics 24, no.1 (Spring 1996):125-39) he argues that Babel (Genesis 11) was divinely ordained of God. Instead of a curse brought on by sin, the pluralism that resulted was divinely intended as "a providential occasion for clarification of the gospel." And so in a stunning way, Yoder tells us that pluralism is not a bad thing for the church. No, in fact pluralism is a good thing for the gospel that we simply cannot do without. For Yoder sees that Babel was the means God ordained to prevent people from taking God's will into their own hands. Instead God ordained that it would be through vulnerable interaction with other religions and other people that God would reveal His truth to us furthering the gospel in us, through us and in the world. Through the loss of one singular language at Babel, God enabled that we would be able to see something about the gospel that was not visible before. It made us an open community dependent upon each other to learn in submission to His Lordship in mutual vulnerability. Imagine I say! Pluralism is the condition for God to work out His truth in us over time in relation to other religions.

Now you may think that this means Yoder was a raging inclusivist thinking God works in all religions to bring us to Christ. You may think even worse of Yoder, that he is a religious pluralist believing God is bringing all people in all religions to their own god. But this couldn't be further from the truth. For Yoder actually shows how believing "Jesus is Lord" creates the condition for a non-coercive, faithful witness of the good news of Jesus Christ to the world. For who needs to worry when Jesus is in control. All we need to be at this point is faithful.

Yoder's writings on pluralism brilliantly combine several themes. He combines a.) what he calls "the epistemological preference of the poor" and vulnerable (THIS IS GENIUS!), b.) the proclamation that THERE IS NO OTHER GOD, c.) the noncoercive witness of the good news and d.) the weak, vulnerable, welcoming, open community living within the contingencies of history, to fashion a marvelous picture of a witnessing community that is vulnerable, hospital yet confident in its own history. It is this open community of Christ that is perfectly situated to bring the good news to the poor and the lost souls of pluralism.

I commend this approach to pluralism. As opposed to hand to hand combat with other religions where we seek to win on the turf of a mystical neutral rationality, as opposed to the ever tolerant conversations that assume everyone is going to the same god eventually, I propose we missional Christians engage in being open communities of Christ, interested and learning about other religions on their own terms so as to learn from them and minister to them in their moments of greatest need. We can do this because we know "Jesus is Lord" sovereign over all things, working for his truth in the very encounters we are vulnerable to. I propose we live boldly the salvation we have been given in Christ through love, justice, prayer, the saving of the innocent. Yet we never engage coercively for we believe all salvation comes at the initiation and work of the Holy Spirit, we are just to be faithful. We never engage in violence, excessive persuasive technique, or trounce on the weak for we believe truth requires no coercion, violence or undue defensiveness. It is in fact our vulnerability which reveals how grounded in truth we are as a community. It makes it safe and attractive for those seeking truth to come. We are called to be witnesses not prosecuting attorneys. This is just some of what I would call an open community of Christ amidst the pluralism of our day.

Hauerwas sums up this approach with some good words. Notice the non-coercion here. The rejection of extraneous judgments towards other religions we cannot possibly know enough to judge. Notice the ground of engagement is the life witnessed by and in the open community.

The command to be a witness does not entail apiori judgments about the beliefs and life of others - e.g. what is right or wrong with Hinduism or Islam - though such judgments after time may be appropriate, but rather witness derives from no other source than that which invites us to "look what manner of life has been made possible among us by the power of the cross and the resurrection of Christ." The invitation to join such a life is made not on the assumption that there is something wrong with the others' beliefs, but it is made because we are all sinners and through participation in this community we have the possibility of finding redemption. (Community of Character p. 105)

Sometimes I fear that the work emerging writers have been doing in this area argues too much or seeks to assuage arguments from a neutral plane of reason. Brian McLaren's Last Word, and Spencer Burke's Heretic's Guide help us understand and think through some doctrines we may need to think through. But in order to become the kind of witnesses that effect a society, that bring Christ's redemption, I believe Yoder is the next place we need to go. In the face of the dominant pluralisms of our day, we need to know how to nurture and lead communities that embody the life Christ has given us to share, the community, the fellowship, the justice, the servanthood, the nurturing and care of children, the reality of God, all He has done in Christ through the Spirit in worship, the hospitality and the invitation to those who are lost to find their way to the Triune God … For Yoder says it is in the presence of this open community in and among the pluralities of religions that all will be invited to look and see "what manner of life has been made possible among us by the power of the cross and the resurrection of Christ."

When I think of "open communities" I think of some churches I know in Baghdad whose sharing of the peace and love of Christ in the face of constant threats has won many souls in Christ's Kingdom. I think of some peaceful communities planted in impoverished gang infested territories of cities. I think of safe places planted amidst Mormon towns in Utah. I think in some ways all missional comunities must become open communities in the territories of post-Christendom most of us find ourselves in. We try to do book clubs, theology pubs to make safe third spaces for these kind of conversations.

What do you think about Yoder's open community approach to pluralism versus other approaches you've encountered?

WARNING - I HAVE RE-DONE THIS POST ABOVE ... IF NYOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN SOME OF MORE ACADEMIC DETAILS IN THIS POST

I teach this class at Northern on Christianity and Pluralism. In this class we examine one of dominant issues of our day for those of us seeking to be missional in the N. American context. How do we declare the uniqueness of Christ, the supremacy of His Lordship in a society based in tolerance and the pursuit of individual spiritualities?

We go through a.) the political history as to how we got here, b.) the shift in the way we understand truth and religious knowledge that happened from the Enlightment to post-the linguistic turn of Wittgenstein, Derrida etc., c.) the various approaches to political theory which underwrite how we relate to other religions. And then d.) we go into the theological understandings as understood down through the history of the church, as well as Scripture concerning the uniqueness of Christ and salvation. Hopefully we all come away with a sense of location and confidence for mission when we're done. if anyone would like to see the syllabus hit here, find the class in the schedule and then hit the title for the syllabus.

The ideology of pluralism that most of us are familiar with is born out of the political liberalism (PL) that came to flourish in the US post WW 2. It has its roots of course in John Lock, John Stuart Mill, the other founders. But John Rawls articulated it best in his Theory of Justice and later his Political Liberalism. Basically Rawls said we can expect no one to compromise in the public arena if their reasons for advocating something are based in their beliefs in/about God. We must therefore bracket out any such reasoning based upon such "comprehensive doctrines with transcendental elements" lest we bring back the never-ending conflicts of the Thirty Years Religious Wars of Europe. We must be tolerant. And we must bracket out all cultural and particular reasons when we come together in the public arena ("The original position"). These two basic ideas enforced a split between public/private, fact/value, religious/scientific that lingers to this day. This provides the foundation for the "reasonable pluralism" we all swim in today. This is the pluralism where we can all get along and of course honor the individual's right to pursue his or her own happiness.

Many of us know that Rawls and his PL has been beaten up pretty badly in the past twenty years. Postmoderns decry its enforcement of a sameness and a loss of all difference. They suggest this kind of democracy is the European white man's totalizing discourse. McIntyre has decried PL as a rhetoric which conceals the depth of our disagreements like a bad dysfunctional family who never talk about the deep angers that seethes beneath. Jeffrey Stout and others have seen PC's glaring weakness and sought to improve upon it by making democracy itself a viable tradition.

In the midst of it all comes John Howard Yoder. In his "Meaning After Babel" (Journal of Religious Ethics 24, no.1 (Spring 1996):125-39) where he is reviewing one of Stout's earlier works, he argues that Babel was divinely ordained of God. Instead of a curse brought on by sin, the pluralism that resulted was divinely intended as "a providential occasion for clarification of the gospel." And so in a stunning way, Yoder actually tells us that pluralism is a good thing for the gospel that we simply cannot do without. Through vulnerable interaction with other religions and other people, he says, we are able to see something about the gospel that was not visible before. Babel therefore was the means to prevent people taking God's will into their own hands. It made us an open community dependent upon each other to learn in submission to His Lordship in mutual vulnerability. Imagine I say! Pluralism is the condition for God to work out His truth in us over time in relation to other religions.

You may think that all this means Yoder was a raving inclusivist or worse yet a religious pluralist. Far from it. In a brilliant convergence of his many themes, Yoder actually shows how "Jesus is Lord" is the condition for a non-coercive, faithful witness of the good news of Jesus Christ to the world. He combines a.) what he calls "the epistemological preference of the poor" and vulnerable (this is a repeated theme of Yoder's that is absolute geniuss for our day!), b.) the proclamation that THERE IS NO OTHER GOD, c.) the noncoercive witness of the good news and d.) the weak, vulnerable, welcoming - the open community living within the contingencies of history, to fashion a marvelous picture of a witnessing community that is vulnerable, hospital yet confident in its own history that it brings the good news to the poor and the lost.

In Hauerwas' words, "The command to be a witness does not entail apiori judgments about the beliefs and life of others - e.g. what is right or wrong with Hinduism or Islam - though such judgments after time may be appropriate, but rather witness derives from no other source than that which invites us to "look what manner of life has been made possible among us by the power of the cross and the resurrection of Christ." The invitation to join such a life is made not on the assumption that there is something wrong with the others' beliefs, but it is made because we are all sinners and through participation in this community we have the possibility of finding redemption." (Community of Character p. 105)

This approach to pluralism is at home in the postmodern realities we face today. It is not dependent upon an Rawlsian individualism wherein we must either a.) contend for Christ coercively based upon publicly reasonable arguments that bracket historical claims of Christ, or b.) we encourage everyone to pursue their spirituality in hopes they will find the truth. It is an approach to pluralism that makes ultimate sense for the missional church effort many of us are involved in today.

Sometimes I fear that the work emerging writers have been doing in this area of pluralism have been too indebted to latent Rawlsian logic. Surely Brian McLaren's Last Word, and Spencer Burke's Heretic's Guide help us understand and think through some doctrines we may need to think through. They may give us some good insights which I too confess have many times agreed with, at least in regard to a lot of their insights. But in order to become the kind of witnesses that effect a society, that bring Christ's redemption, I believe Yoder is the one to follow here. We might need to parse our doctrines more carefully concerning hell, the destination of those who have never heard, and the intent of God to save the whole world. But in the face of the dominant pluralisms of our day, I believe we also need to think through the practice of becoming "open communities that witness the good news." We need to know how to nurture and lead communities that embody the life Christ has given us to share, the community, the fellowship, the justice, the servanthood, the nurturing and care of children, the reality of God in all He has done in Christ through the Spirit in worship, the hospitality and the invitation to those who are lost … For Yoder says it is in the presence of this open community in and among the pluralities of religions that all will be invited to look and see "what manner of life has been made possible among us by the power of the cross and the resurrection of Christ."

What do you think about Yoder's open community approach to pluralism versus Burke's, McLaren's, others? Are they different? What promise do they hold for the missional communities of the future?