Reclaiming the Mission » 2011

davidfitch on October 27 2011

The Mars Hill Seattle “Cease and Desist” Letter: Why Branding Is the Ultimate Anti-Missional Act

The part of the story I know goes like this: There was a church in Sacramento that named themselves “Mars Hill” several years ago. It is the same name as the well known Mars Hill church led by Mark Driscoll in Seattle Washington. A couple weeks ago the “Sacramento congregation received a “Cease and Desist” letter which came from attorneys representing the Seattle Mars Hill Church. They were told that the Seattle Mars Hill had copyrighted the name “Mars Hill” and they demanded that the Sacramento California Mars Hill church stop using the name and any logos with similar lettering.” These events were made known by a blogger/pastor in the area (see here). A storm was stirred up. Then the Mars Hill Seattle pastors contacted the Mars Hill pastor in Sacramento. There was some good discussion, apologies and reconciliation. Sacramento Mars Hill agreed to change its logo so there would be less confusion surrounding its identity with the larger Mars Hill church in Seattle. (These events are reported here, here and here)

So everything seems good. I’m glad this is over. Nonetheless I think there’s something that remains left for all of us (including Mars Hill Seattle) to think about. It is the question of branding. Should a church ever be concerned about its own branding? Is branding a sign that the branded church has now morphed from being a participant in God’s Mission to now becoming a builder of a church empire? When a church expands beyond its immediate locale and works for its recognizability across cultural boundaries and broad ranging markets, is this a sign the church is no longer about reaching people outside the gospel, but rather about attracting people in who already know the gospel, but now want a particular brand? IS BRANDING THE ULTIMATE ANTI-MISSIONAL ACT?

I offer this post as an opportunity to discuss this question. I think it’s an important discussion to have. I think a lot of us face this question regularly in one way or another every year. To start off this discussion then, here’s three reasons why I believe branding is the Ultimate Anti-Missional Act and Mars Hill Seattle (and the rest of our churches) should CEASE AND DESIST all branding.

1.) Branding Is Consumerist Attractional The cease and desist letter, despite the apologies etc., reveals that Mars Hill recognizes itself as a brand and wants to protect that brand name. It seems to me you brand a name in order to communicate to a “market” that when you go to Mars Hill you get such and such. A brand name in this case is useful in helping those who do not know you or your church understand through advertising and media what the church is, who the speaker is, what kind of specifics about this church differentiate it from other churches. It therefore enables already existing consumers of church to select your church over against others fro personal reasons. It seems to me once you do this you are openly admitting you are seeking to attract Christians from other locales, other churches, Christians who are moving, or discontented with their present church. Because after all, aren’t these the only people that would get up on a Sunday morning and “shop” for a church via the brand. Branding therefore admits you not seeking to engage those outside the gospel. It is the ultimate anti-missional act.

2.) Branding Promotes Competition: Branding differentiates one church from another. It says we offer preaching like this, we offer this kind of celebrity speaker, we offer this kind of worship, this kind of theology. Over against other church choices “We’re better at this”? I contend we should not be competing with other churches. Instead of counter branding, we should instead enter each context humbly, seeking cooperation, wisdom and guidance from/alongside other churches. We should work in cooperation with each other for the same Mission from locale to locale. We should be grounding the body of Christ in each locale for life with God in His Mission. In that church-branding works against this, I think we should consider once again how branding is the ultimate anti-missional act.

3.) Branding DeContextualizes: Based on 2.), the act of branding differentiates a church for a religious consumer. It brings a brand of church contextualized somewhere else (Seattle Washington) and lands it in a different locale (like say Albuquerque nm) and assumes the context is the same as the one it came from. It assumes this church, its message, its pastor’s sermons piped in via video screen, can respond to the contextual issues presented by a context hundreds of miles away. Branding therefore decontextualizes the church and the gospel. It assumes one size fits all. It does not listen to the context. It does not seek to understand what God is already doing in this different context and how to join in. In other words, this kind of branding is the ultimate anti-missional act.

Summary

I think we have to discern carefully how to name our churches. Yes we need to name churches, we need to make them identifiable. We are here to make the works of God made manifest known (1 Peter 2:9). We need a public presence (not in the sense of the private/public distinction political theologians talk about). But we must discern carefully when doing this so as not to cross over the line into branding. Based on the above, I call upon Mars Hill Seattle (and the rest of our churches) to CEASE AND DESIST all branding!! Your thoughts?

P.S. Just a question. Does anyone know if I can get sued for using Mars Hill church’s logo on this post?

Tags: Incarnational, Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill Church, Missional. Consumerism

Filed under consumerism,Incarnational,Mark Driscoll 55 Comments

davidfitch on October 25 2011

On Seminary Getting a Bad Rap

The majority opinion among those under the age of 50 is that traditional seminary education is broke (monetarily and otherwise). It is part of an earlier time. Its structures best meet the needs of a Christendom church, a church that is slowly dying.

I’d be a fool to disagree. Yet I think the case is often overstated. Smaller seminaries are often among the most innovative and experimental educational institutions. They are trying all kinds of things. It is true that bigger schools tied to traditional paradyms and older faculty can be rigid. But for many facing the budget crisies of the past five years, who are facing declining enrollment, who are facing the changing nature of the ministry student – what we need is not more inventiveness, we need to think more carefully what we’re doing and why.

This Thursday at Northern we have an evening set aside to discuss these issues – it’s a free event and anyone is welcome to attend and contribute – register here. JR Rozko has spent time in this area and he has written some observations on his blog. He’s presenting a paper on the subject at Northern Seminary Thursday nite along with responses by Mike Breen and other people who have a stake in the subject. Since I won’t be able to get there until late, I thought I’d put a few thoughts out there. Maybe progress will be made on these issues just to name a few.

Seminary Education rightly gets a Bad Rap. Traditional seminary education is out of step. It teaches one person to do everything in the church as a professionalized clergy person. It is heavily cognitive. It trains people to be experts. It takes leaders out of their contexts to learn information. None of this works when the church finds itself largely dis-established, i.e. when the church is in a missionary situation. Here ministry must be organic and contextualized. Here ministry must be sustainable through being entrepreneurial in order to survive. As a result of all this, it is best done as shared ministry within multiple teams. It must be nurtured out or everyday life. Spiritual formation is therefore important. Seminary cannot be built of the model of a graduate school training for well paying jobs. (The thing that most irritates me is that seminarians often come out of seminary unable to think of life as anything but inside the four walls of a church building studying all day.) It must become more like a part time adult learning center training hundreds for the ministry one night a week/ plus a weekend a month (to name one option).

We Should However Not Throw Out The Baby With The Bathwater!

With all these problems, we must be careful to nuance Christendom and the various cultural conditions that have played into “professional” school type training. We must be careful not to throw everything out. I am positive leaders need to be grounded in the historical study of Scripture, history and doctrine. I’m telling you, I HAVE SEEN THE DIFFERENCE! To not be, eventuates in a pragmatized pastorate who has no sense of the depths of God’s movement in the world and in history. He or she will end up reducing the gospel to whatever cultural expediency presents itself. Lack of theology, history, context, and Scriptural integrity is one of the primary reasons the church has died in the past thirty years. It is also one of the main reasons any missional pastor survives. He or she is grounded in deep and gets what is at stake and how to navigate culture via the Scriptures within history.

Seminaries are a superior place for training in these ways. Yet we must make it affordable

We Need To (Can) Find a Way

We need then to find a way to morph seminary education into another form beyond the residence seminary 3 year M Div. It must be portable or at least doable without leaving your context. It must fit as a sustainable life rhythm within one’s already established work/ministry in context. It must be affordable. It must provide an education that shall ground someone in the very center of God’s mission so as to engage culture with gospel in integrity and social presence. It must teach the how’s and why’s of contextualization without itself becoming subverted by contextualization (i.e. overly pragmatised, diluted via the internet, etc). It must create places of conversation. It must be communal. It must be monastic without cloistering students away from his or her context (I know this sounds oxymoronish).

There are great programs already at work in seminaries. Check out Biblical Seminary’s Leap program and Tyndale in Toronto has the In-Ministry M-Div. We are working at Northern on a program launch here shortly.

All this is what they’ll all be talking about Thursday Night (See here for details – Come on over if you’re nearby) J.R. will be presenting his paper (He talks about it here). Some of our faculty/ staff will be responding. Mike Breen will be there. I’ll be coming late (sorry I can’t get there earlier.) If this is of interest. COME ON DOWN! And there’s still time to sign up for the Missional Learning Commons this weekend. I will be there!! Looking forward to meeting “the revolution.”

Filed under Theological Education and Mission 18 Comments

davidfitch on October 18 2011

“We Are Broken”: Overcoming the ideology that stymies the church’s encounter with the LGBTQ Community

Here’s a bold claim: the church should put aside all other declarations when it comes to engaging the LGBTQ issues of our day, and start by gathering around the affirmation “We Are Broken.”

I believe the LGBTQ issue is being ideologized in American culture as well as in the church ON ALL SIDES. A church’s or individual’s public position on the issue has literally become the moniker on whether you are in or out of the evangelical orthodoxy club. I understand why people on both sides would do this. There’s important things at stake. But ideologizing the issue: i.e making the LGBTQ into a concept that one is either for or against, extracting said concept from real lives and concrete communities, and galvanizing people around one side or the other, accomplishes nothing in the church for God’s mission.

Instead of all this, I suggest we start gathering people together around the affirmation “We are Broken.” Arriving at this posture, I suggest, is the starting point for the engagement of this issue. Of course it is the posture that must be re-inhabited by the community of Jesus Christ whenever she is confronted by any fork in the road that comes when a church body is confronted with a new and or conflictual issue in culture. This posture, labeled by the words “We Are Broken,” is always the starting point for the process of discernment in Christ. We come together under the common agreement “We are Broken” and then invite others to join in as we seek the way forward for healing, redemption and new creation.

Now I admit, big denominations and large mega churches are probably too far along the process of ideologization to go this route. When money is involved, when power is assembled, we gravitate towards hot button issues and get behind agendas. So, just maybe, it shall be the missional communities working in the neighborhoods who shall make way for a renewal of a different kind.

I therefore suggest that it might be up to missional communities, confronted with the issue of same sex relations (or for that matter other points of disagreement over how we shall lives our lives together as sexual beings) to begin by gathering in this way. Begin a conversation around the question “are we broken?” Not “are you broken?” but rather “are we broken?” The leaders of such a conversation should start by admitting “I am broken.” If the church leaders have led a perfect sexual life and never encountered issues in their own lives of sexual brokenness, then they should not be leading this issue in their local churches. They should look to others who have struggled with issues of sexual brokenness to lead. The discerning posture cannot begin until we all gather together in the place of “we are broken.”

By saying “we are broken” we are clearing the table. Arriving at our brokenness goes beyond whether one claims a heterosexual, bi-sexual, gay, etc. sexual orientation. When the leader confesses “I am broken” it forms the safety and the space by which we gather before the cross. Frankly, regardless of whatever sexual orientation we inhabit, if you feel like everything is perfect in your life in this regard, there simply is no need to discuss your sexuality in the church. Taking all particular sexual sins off the table, can we agree, together that WE ARE BROKEN? The gathering of people before Christ is for the broken. And …. “we are broken.”

By saying this is the place where we start, we are not (nor should we) denying the 2000 years of history in Christ, it’s time worn understandings of sexual redemption in Christ. But these understandings need to be furthered into our lives through discernment of Scripture in the Spirit. God must work to extend the depths of these understandings into our lives. None of this can happen apart from the mutual submission to Christ that comes from the place of mutual confession “we are broken.” By saying we are broken, neither are we denying the various understandings and histories of sexual identity each person brings. Again, we come with these histories and enter in to what God is doing here. But the LGBTQ person, and the rest of us, cannot enter in to this discussion if we cannot trust one another to be in the center of God’s work. This comes by first saying “we are broken.” Then we come to the cross, that place where we together confess our brokenness and come to submit our lives to what Christ would do.

Can we then agree among our missional communities that before anyone discusses this issue, goes public with a statement on the sexual issues of our day, before we get into the actual details, or any of the issues are to be determined, before we can even discern this among ourselves, before we can even examine ourselves before the Spirit, we must make way for a safe place that is comfortable, loving and supportive where we can mutually submit to one another and say “we are broken.” From here, we can love, care and have discernments about ANYTHING. But most importantly, from here we can submit one to another to Christ, allow His gifts, his discernments to take shape in a group. God by the Holy Spirit can work here.

Again, this kind of unusual place will probably have to happen in small missional communities (where you can avoid the ideology). Because we live in one of the most sexual charged, excessively sexually focused, sexually abused, sexually broken cultures (compare U.S.A. to Africa or even Europe), we will need to make way for these kind of places. And so to deal with any of this, we do not need a do’s and don’t’s list of what’s permissable and what is not. We need a place where the Holy Spirit can work in and among His people, a place of uncovering. Otherwise we will get no where in this mess.

So the first item for missional communities (and I would argue for the broader church as well) to accomplish in this day of controversy over sexual relations, is discuss how we can put ideology aside, and come together in small spaces where there can be redemption because “we are broken.”

Is this possible? Is this a pipedream?

Filed under Incarnational,LGBTQ Issues,Missional Leadership 33 Comments

davidfitch on October 11 2011

Is It Time For Evangelicals to “Occupy Wall Street”?

I believe that there is no such thing as pure capitalism. Purist capitalism is a myth. Every capitalist economy needs regulations, infrastructures and laws that make possible the conducting of business, even in the most capitalist of countries. The roads, the education systems, the penal systems are all socialist if we label them according to the roll of central government in governing them and paying for them. Yet capitalist systems need all these things and more to make capitalist economic organization possible. You see, it is not whether government will order certain parts of a country’s life, it is a matter of what it will order and to what degree. Most of what we talk about then when we say “capitalism,” by the media or Tea Party or the Left, is not a serious discussion of economics and capitalism. It is a hurling of terms like “capitalism” and “socialism” as ideological terms to stir up irrational fears and gain an edge against the other side. It is the modus operandi of American politics. It keeps us enslaved instead of having decent and needed conversations.

That’s why I am heartened by the “Occupy Wall Street” movements (I love some of Zizek’s comments at the rally). I don’t know enough about them. I haven’t studied them. I am sure there are examples of licentious activity going at these protests. But there are three things I like about what I’ve heard so far. I offer these three things as guidelines for your local church to have a serious discussion on how should the church of Jesus Christ respond to the “Occupy” movements in this country.

1.) They protest the corporate power taking over every aspect of our lives. I sense a broad realization by more and more people that large corporations are taking over every area of our lives. Food, education, healthcare, business, government is all being engulfed by corporate profit driven behavior. All these areas of life are more and more intertwined with huge corporate systems that are so huge we as individuals cannot help but be subsumed. Huge never-ending flows of dollars are going to elected officials. This combines with the illicit ways our officials are elected through largely unregulated campaigns fed by corporate money that pollutes our entire democratic system. It has been going on for years. It is the new socialism, corporate socialism with the corporate elite taking over our lives and Washington DC their puppets. And so, it is very difficult to escape. Corporatism – for me – is the new atheism. These are the powers and principalities.

We must realize that there are times in history when God’s people cannot participate in systems (even if they be God-ordained) because they have left the ranch, they have turned in rebellion against God and His purposes. They are past the tipping point. We should then withdraw from participation and resist. To me, this may be one of those times. This is what “Occupy Wall Street” is about. I am no socialist. I am no capitalist. I believe Jesus is Lord and so our discussion should revolve around whether participation in the current government-corporate structures is a denial of the Lordship of Christ over our lives. And so I call upon our churches to have this discussion in relation to “OccupyWallSt.” Discern whether to support them, join in with them, on this basis! We could bring a new perspective, the Kingdom of God, into the very center of this movement.

2.) They are nonviolent. The “Occupy” movements realize, I think, that the systems are so big we simply cannot go to the elected officials, through the election process. We will simply get more of the same. It is time to simply opt out of the corrupt powers, protest, point to the reality (in Scriptural terms we call this “witness”) and non violently resist. This little piece is part of our historic faith. Since the beginnings of the called out people of Jesus in Rome under Ceasar, we have believed that there will be reasons to join in with the state, and then sometimes there will be reasons to opt out (read Ch. 10 of John Howard Yoder’s Politics of Jesus on Romans 13). When the Christian says “Jesus is Lord,” he or she ultimately acknowledges there is the continual option of the Christian to withdraw in peace, resisting being absorbed, refusing to cooperate with a government at odds with the Lordship of Christ. (The lack of this option in Tim Keller’s Ecosystem was one of its blind spots that I talked about here). The fact then that “OccupyWallSt” is nonviolently opting out of polluted democratic structures plays into this Christian impulse. And we need to train our gathered people to recognize this is part of the Christian life. So let us gather in our churches to discuss the non-violent opt out option and whether it is time to live this in our society. For this reason, I urge all our churches to have discussions about “OccupyWallSt.” Because when we join in with them, we bring Jesus, the Lordship and Reign of Christ. This becomes an opportunity to participate/manifest the Kingdom into the world!

3.) They Are Reflective and Open to Self Examination: I have sensed in this group a desire for some serious discussion. They seem to want genuine reflection on what is happening in this country. We are all sick of the vitriolic prattle of political campaigns since Karl Rove. Yet few politicians have been willing or capable of going another way. The “Occupy” people are at least making a space for something else (read Chris Hedges piece here). I think however if Christians get involved, we could bring our unique wherewithal to begin with self-examination and forgiveness in Christ before the nation. We could model what is needed if this thing called United States is to come out of our sickening malaise. We could bring self examination (read this piece over at JesusRadicals). Again, I urge Christian churches all over the land to have your own discusssions about these things and ask what we can bring to these demonstrations by virtue of who we are in Jesus Christ. Let us discern whether we should get involved and how we might bring a confessing aspect to these protests. I believe if we did, the Kingdom of God, the Lordship of Christ might break in.

There are of course many caveats/misgivings to getting involved with the “Occupy” movement. “Occupy” DOES NOT EMULATE THE ASPIRATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. Yes I have noticed. Likewise, I recognize that if “Occupy” is to amount to anything, it must produce a substantive way of life lived counter to the goals and aspirations of wealth accumulation and control of power that so drives American life. Ultimately, this must push us towards local social expressions of life in obedience to Christ and His Kingdom. Yet are not these the things we bring as Christians? Is this not the opportunity to bring this witness? At the very least, does not this movement present to each of us (and our churches) the need to examine our own lives and what it is we are living for and whom/what we have become slaves to? Based on these reasons, I think “OccupyWallStreet” might be an occasion for the younger evangelicals to reshape the political presence of evangelicals in United States politics. If you’re an evangelical like me, and you don’t get the alliance of evangelicals to the politics of The Tea Party, this might be the opportunity to reshape the conversation under Christ’s Lordship. At the very least, this is an opportunity for witness to God’s Kingdom. It is an opportunity to proclaim the Kingdom of God, Jesus is Lord, over our money, our systems. Let us then get active. Let the discussions go forth in and from our church gatherings.

What say you? Should churches all over the country make this discussion a top priority? Yes or No? Why or Why Not?

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If anyone wishes to explore further the relationship between evangelicalism and the ideology of capitalism, see my book The End of Evangelicalism? and buy it cheaper here.

Filed under Incarnational,Justice,Uncategorized 41 Comments

davidfitch on October 4 2011

Put off the Launch!! When Going Public (with your Worship Service) is a Bad Thing

The word “ecclesia,” used in the New Testament over 100 times to describe the local gathering of Christians in each city, was a word that actually referred to the public civic assembly in Greco Roman culture. It was a very public gathering where people could gather and participate in the governing of their city. Using the word to refer to the Christian church gathering then indicates a public aspect to it. The Christian assembly is the called-out ones in each city who seek to be governed by the Lord of the universe.

By using the word ecclesia, the NT emphasizes two different aspects to the gathering. There is its public aspect to the gathering. These people are called to gather together to witness to the Kingdom before the watching world. Yet there is also the unique aspect to this gathering amidst the culture. These people are called “out” in order to witness that Jesus is Lord and not Ceasar. The ecclesia is a calling to another way of being governed– the Kingdom of God – which is at work in the world. Going public then is essential to its witness in the community. Yet it shall not be attractional in the sense of appealing to people’s immediate tastes, preferences, conveniences or needs. This is about God’s Kingdom under the rule of Christ.

All this to say it is important and essential to the witness of the gospel that a church eventually go public with its meeting. Yet, when starting a church, or as I like to refer to the process – seeding an expression of the gospel in a community – I think it best to move with caution when going public with the gathering. Take it slow. The time has to be right. Obviously, this goes against the majority of received wisdom on church planting where the so-called “launch” of the public gathering is actually viewed as the legitimating event, the founding moment – of the church plant. But I can think of at least 3 reasons to go slow.

1.) Going public too early can derail discerning God’s Mission together in this community. When you go public before a culture of mission has been established, the community can get derailed by the newcomer Christians who “come” to your church gathering. As we all know, new church plants attract disgruntled Christians looking for something new. The new church seedling can get caught up into knitting these new folk into a cohesive body of Christ seeking God’s mission, not their own perceived wants and needs from a church. This can set back a church’s development into mission. My advice: Resist at all costs building a church body around disgruntled Christians. Instead, one by one, relationally, through prayer, the study of Scripture, the sharing of the communty’s gifts, and discerning the context, work out together what God is doing among you and in your context, seeking where God is calling you into, in the first years of your community’s life. Then go public.

2.) Going public too early can change the focus of your gathering to numbers and success. I can’t explain why, but for some reason when a gathering is opened to the public, and numbers of people show up, leaders start to concentrate on “how many.” If you are not well ensconced in your mission you can get immediately distracted and start focusing on the numbers coming on Sunday morning and how you can keep them coming. THIS ALWAYS DEFEATS MISSION. As Courageous Church pastor Shaun King said “I sold my soul for church attendance in our first week and I could never quite get it back.” See his story here. This automatically sets back the ecclesia formation that needs to take place as now we are focused on keeping people/Christian happy. My advice: Resist at all costs the temptation to work to keep Christians happy and more people coming to your Sunday gathering. Focus on discipleship and mission. The church will be the outrgowth

3.) Going public too early can put the cart before the horse. A worship gathering should be a part of a rhythm of an already existing community. We should gather as part of a shared life the rest of the six days a week. It is a gathering and sending rhythm. There must be an integrity to our life together before we go public or else the Sunday morning gathering becomes a performance to attract people, as opposed to a coalescence for the celebrating of what God is doing among us and the shaping of our lives to understand it and participate in it.

It is very important to form good “political” habits in the founding of a new expression of the gospel. By “political” I mean the things that drive us to be together and live life together. There will be a correct time to go public but DON’T RUSH IT! Any stories out there of going public too early? Any other cautions we should consider when we go public with our church gathering in the world?

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Reminder! Oct 28 and 29 the Missional Learning Commons is coming to Chicagoland. We’re centering our presentations from real live missional practicioners on the issue of discipleship. What does the practice of discipleship look like in a missional church?? How do we cultivate a discipleship culture into God’s Kingdom? as opposed to just producing another program? We will hear from and have discussions built around on-the-ground practitioners. Mike Breen and the team from 3DM will be hanging out with us to share some of what they have learned and help facilitate our conversations.

You can register here to come to the Commons. It costs practically nothing (10 bucks) I pray God’s blessings on this year’s Missional Learning Commons!

Filed under Church Planting,Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership,Uncategorized 15 Comments