on January 5 2012

The End of Evangelicalism? A Year Later: Thanks To Many

Whoah. It’s almost a year since The End of Evangelicalism? was released (February 2011 to be exact). I just want to say “thanks!” to the many people who reviewed it. There were so many reviews, helped along by Todd Littleton, and the good folks at The Ooze, and Homebrewed Christianity,  Scot McKnight and others, that I lost count and couldn’t keep up with them on the book’s page on this website.

Just today, I got a question via e-mail asking why I am so obsessed with Marxist social thought.  To which I replied, I am not obsessed with Marx at all. I am however impressed with the study of ideology. There are multitudinous things to be learned in the study of ideology about the way we live our lives together (political formation, the church), why we say we believe one thing and do another (“the performative contradiction”), how we form into groups together in ways which work against the kind of politics that makes for life together in Christ. The study of ideology, like few other studies, I argue, can uncover motives and desires at work in the contradictions we insist on living from day to day.For the church today, a study like this is timely. Marx is the founder (in some ways) of the critique of ideology for sure, but I am by and large dis-invested in his economic theories.

One of my favorite lines from the book is: “Evangelicalism has become an ‘empty politic’ driven by what we are against instead of what we are for.” (xvi) I spend alot of time uncovering how we (I include myself as an evangelical) have got caught up in this kind of internal defining of ourselves over against someone or something we are against. I try to show how this is empty and self-imploding. I try to show how the ONLY way out of ideologizing is to source our life together in the Triune life grounded in the incarnate work of Christ (or how Anabaptist ecclesiology solves the problem of ideology).

All this to say, I know I crossed some boundaries in The End of Evangelicalism? The book can be easily mis-understood. It’s an academic read (sorry about that). Which is all the more reason for me to thank people who put the book in their Top Books 2011 like Dwight Friesen,  Scott Boren, Scott Emery , Mike Friesen, and of course Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed Books of the Year. Several tweeters twitted it as a favorite for the year. To all these people, I am grateful!

The book can still be purchased at a discount by going directly to Casade Books website and putting in the code as directed right here. You can get a free intro chapter on this page as well. You can buy the kindle version on Amazon’s site right here.

I apologize if I didn’t get your review up on my page yet. I’m working on it. And thanks for making what could have been an obscure academic book a wider read book. Hopefully for the furtherance of His Kingdom.

 

 

 

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on January 3 2012

Ekklesaphobia Post #2: The Protestant Principle

Warning: The following post is more theological requiring some interaction with theologians and church history.

My last post I started to explore the subtle fear and resistance to church practices so common in today’s missional church. I claimed there is often an out-sized reaction in and among the missional church against organizing people into practices traditionally associated with being the church: practices like worship gathering, teaching evangelism postures, ordination of clergy. I called this “ekklesaphobia.” I freely acknowledged that there are abuses and malformation in all of these practices so a healthy caution is good (a quick glance into the archives of this blog reveals I write a lot about this). We need a reformation of church practice in the West so as to shape a church into God’s missional life. Nonetheless, this phobia, I argue often goes too far leaving us lacking in sustainable formation of God’s people for His Mission as well as a dysfunctional leadership. I named 3 sources of this phobia. 1.) fear of colonialism, 2.)  fear of the protestant principle. 3.) fear of being abused again by corrupt authoritarian church structures as many of us have been in the past. I want to “riff” a little bit on these 3 fears in the next few posts. I want to start with the fear of “the protestant principle,” the most difficult of the three to describe and see at work.

The Protestant Principle argues that we must challenge the church (or anyone else for that matter) anytime it acts like it in any way owns the privileged place of God’s presence and authority.  Because when this happens, the church will eventually use this authority for corrupt ends. We are human after all. We are prone to ego and self-serving motives. On the other hand, without the church as  location for Christ’s social body in the world, we are basically left alone to be little Christ’s. We must be an authority unto ourselves (even if we do look to the Bible as a personal authority) in the world to do/participate in God’s Mission. As intuitively American as this is, this still leaves us to be absorbed into society’s structures even when they are bad/evil/corrupt. We get rid of the church as corrupt structure only to be absorbed into the social structures of society (which may be corrupt themselves, or at the very least lacking in the reconciliatory power of Christ).

Paul Tillich articulated the protestant principle as that theological principle which must challenge all historical representations of the divine. In other words, we cannot expect that the transcendent, almighty and perfect God would be located (or limited to being located) in a human institution like a church. For human institutions are by their very nature corrupt and imperfect. And so when we give divine authority to such a structure the worst things imaginable will happen. Human beings will claim to be acting on behalf of God (i.e. the Roman Catholic church and/or the pope). Even worse, divine salvation shall be limited to this structure and be controlled by human beings to their own benefit (i.e. the Roman Catholic church and the transubstantiated Eucharist). In the lineage of the European protestants who have gone on before us, therefore, we must protest whenever we see this happening. God cannot be controlled. God only comes in His own freedom to us (as individuals). The minute anyone associates (in any way!) a human institution as the place where God works, bad things happen! Whenever the church makes any “claims to absoluteness” (Tillich, Systematic Theology vol. 3 p. 245) in the name of Christ it rejects its own identity in Christ. For God in Christ cannot be contained or boxed in by the church or any other human organization. This principle was followed by H Richard Neibuhr, his brother Reinhold and carries on in many circles of American protestant church. (For more on the protestant principle see D. Stephen Long, who first introduced the concept to me,  Divine Economy 136ff. and my own The Great Giveaway note 17, in chapter 6).

Who can deny this? There is much truth here. Especially to those of us who have seen pastor-authority figures use the church for their own ends. And we must resist the notion that God works in, especially “only in,” His church. This is a big source of the problems we now face as a church incapable of being in the world where God is working.

BUT (please, hear me on this) we must avoid the other extreme in saying that the church is merely a group of individuals trying to be little Jesus’s, and we come together for mutual support, encouragement (and worse admiration). For this denies that God in history has chosen to reveal himself in the witness of a people before the nations. God in fact does come, in authority, to inhabit a people in a social and visible way WHEN HIS PEOPLE ARE IN SUBMISSION TO HIM AND RECEIVING OF HIM IN SOME BASIC CORE PRACTICES GIVEN TO US IN AND THRU JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF.

Here is a primary example: when people gather (as in Matt 18:15-20) to submit to Christ’s authority as King (“in my name”) and be reconciled (“agree on anything”), Christ’s authority is made manifest (“what you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven”). He becomes present in a special way (“there am I in your midst”). His presence, and that inbreaking authority is carried with us whenever we bring this reconciliation of God in Christ into our everyday relationships, vocations and neighborhoods. This is real flesh and blood (incarnational) Kingdom authority of Christ breaking in our lives and neighborhoods. We do not control it, we cannot possess it, only cooperate with it and be instruments of it. But this is a practice of being His people in His church where God exerts divine authority and becomes divinely present by the Son through the Spirit.

The same can be said of many other practices such as the Eucharist (Luke 22:29), the proclamation of the gospel (Luke 10), of the fivefold ministry (Eph 4), Kingdom prayer (Mark 9:29, Matt 6:9ff)) and so on.

These Practices, When Practiced in Submission to Christ, Extend His Reign.  By gathering in the neighborhoods, via these practices, we bring the Kingdom into visible manifestation as a witness to His Lordship and rule over the whole earth. “Witness” always means we do cannot control or possess this authority (Karl Barth’s work on “witness” comes to mind here – Barth Church Dogmatics IV.3.2 par.71 #4) Instead we point to it and allow it to be manifest in our lives together into the world. These core practices, birthed out of the death, resurrection and enthronement of Jesus Christ as King, become the means by which Jesus becomes present and His reign breaks in. They do not need to ossify a people (like they have in the past) as a people set apart over against society. Instead they become the means by which we materialize the Kingdom in a contextualized way, offering in our midst His reconciliation (Matt 18), hospitality (Eucharist), freedom from sin, death and evil (proclamation of the gospel), leadership into God’s work in the world (5 fold ministry). It is no secret that I have a whole book in process on how these practices, grounded in Jesus Christ Himself as sent one, released through the Holy Spirit, become missional practices when they are released from the captivity of the Christendom institutionalized church.

Til then, what do you think about the protestant principle? Have you seen it at work in your church? your ministry? Do you see it as a deterrent to ministry in your neighborhood? Do you see it as a deterrant to the formation of people into God’s Mission? (P.S. should I keep more theologically intense posts off this blog? keep them in more traditional outlets like journals etc.?)

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on December 28 2011

DON’T BE AN EKKLESAPHOBE

It happens on facebook when I give the slightest indication the church is God’s instrument in the world. It happens frequently when I am speaking and assert that God has empowered the church to extend Christ’s presence in the world. It happens when I coach church planters that are missionally oriented and ask them when they gather for worship. It happens when I engage my missional friends on one of the variants of the formula “missiology precedes ecclesiology.” It happens each time I meet someone who has been abused by the traditional church. Each time there is a out-sized reaction against organizing people into practices traditionally associated with being the church (this is especially true of the public worship gathering, or the ordination of clergy).

OF COURSE IT IS TRUE that in many cases the local church has become stuck in paying for buildings, “hell-bent” on attracting people into worship services at all costs, authority structures that gum up the works via the hierarchical clergy. It is true that the Church has abused the eucharist, has tried to colonize whole people groups into a specific enculturated way of being the church, thereby making the gospel a piece of Western propaganda. It happens every time a mega church pastor exerts control over his behemoth enterprise for his/her own personal glory. It happens every time the church has used spiritual authority to abuse people so as to enrich its coffers and expand its enterprise. I think I’ve written enough on all these things to convince you all that I am well aware of these dangers. I’m no fan of what has become of the institutionalized church (especially its mega church consumerist varieties). If you don’t believe me, read The Great Giveaway for example.

But, unfortunately, this wise caution against organizing people into Christendom-tainted-functions of the church has turned into a phobia, an unhealthy fear. I call this ekklesaphobia. And I believe it is time to ask whether such an ekklesaphobia is hurting the furthering of fresh expressions of the gospel over N America as the missional movement matures into its third decade. I say yes.

This ekklesaphobia manifests itself in dysfunctional leadership that cannot recognize the Kingdom authority invested by Christ in the 5 fold gifting structure of  leadership (although hierarchy is still bad IMO). It manifests itself when we cannot understand the forming event of the Eucharist where the presence and authority of the Kingdom breaks out and forms a community of the King to spread reconciliation and renewal of all things. It manifests itself when we cannot see the formational effects of true worship (read chapter 15, p. 217 in NT Wright’s Simply Jesus to get a taste of what I am talking about). There are no missional people apart from the place in which these people are formed into His Mission. Anyone who thinks this can be done solely individually one to one does not get the nature of how sociality under the King shapes people into the Kingdom.  For all these reasons and more, I have a new phrase when I see signs of ekklesaphobia manifesting itself. I say “DON’T BE AN EKKLESAPHOBE.”

The sources of ekklesaphobia come from various places. I’ll just name 3 which I hope to expound upon in my next post. First, We’re afraid of repeating the colonialist mistake. Second we’re afraid of the protestant principle (a version of the ecclesial mistake of triumphalism in culture). Third, many of us have been abused by church authority and we’ll do anything to avoid that hell again :) . These fears lead us to throw out the practices (like worship, ordination, discipleship/baptism) by which God forms His people as the means to extend the presence of Christ in the world.

Of course, I have a fourth fear, and that is that once people are given permission to not fear the church practices anymore they will revert back to the default ways they have grown up with doing church. They will then repeat all the things that have gone wrong in N American ecclesiology these past 40 years (I’ve seen this way too often). I think therefore we must learn from each of these historical problems. So I will post some thoughts on each of these three fears in the next few weeks. Til then I urge people: Don’t Be an Ekklesaphobe :)

What do you think? Is there an eklessiaphobia in the missional church? What drives it? In what ways is it healthy? Is it unhealthy?

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on December 20 2011

My Top Ten Posts for 2011: With Comments and Personal Resolutions for 2012

It’s funny how a look back helps you understand what has happened in your life. That’s why I love blogging. A blog is a good record of the past year. Here’s my favorite 10 posts from the blog this past year, with comments and some resolutions for the coming year. Thanks to everyone who commented, everyone who sent me private notes of encouragement, everyone who read the blog.

1.) The Attractional Basis of Neo-Reformed Church Plants YES OR NO?: or Don’t try this at home if you live in the secularized North (Jan 2011) I admit I have a strong ambivalence to Reformed theology in many of its forms (I am a holiness anabaptist – what can I say). Neo-Reformed friends, please don’t hold it against me. I view my engagements as pushes for theological development and unity. In this post, I “accuse” my Neo-Reformed friends of founding churches based on a theology which is inherently Christendom (i..e attractionally based). There are elements in it which work against a missionary strategy. Next year I resolve to love my Neo-Reformed brothers (and sisters if there are any – “wink wink”) more generously and pick my fights with them with the Kingdom (only) in mind

2.) “God Used You to Destroy my World Today”: The Sign of a Good Sermon? (Feb 2011) I have a problem with people “enjoying the sermon.” I think its the wrong response. There’s some issues there that really run deep for me. I’d prefer people come up to the preacher and say, “nice sermon, God used you to destroy my world today.” Read this post and tell me if you agree. I resolve to preach for disruption as much as for encouragement in the year to come.

3.) Three Compelling (Theological) Questions – for the Shaping of the Local Church into Mission. (Feb 2011) I believe every leader/pastor should be able to answer three questions (Scripture, Gospel, Kingdom) for their context and lead their church in practicing life into these three realities. How we answer these three questions, and how we lead in the practice of their reality, determines the shape of a people into God’s Mission. I resolve to work as hard as ever on my teaching at Northern Semimary with this in mind.

4.) Rob Bell’s Frenzy: Why We Need Other Ways to Do Theology and Some Other Off-The-Cuff Observations (Mar 2011) I still think what happened around the publishing of Rob Bell’s Love Wins had much more to teach us about the state of church life in America than anything pastor Bell actually said in the book. As a result, I purpose to derive my writing/theology out of concrete real life ministry and letting God do with it what He will.

5.) When We Form Our Lives Around What We Are Against – Announcing “The End of Evangelicalism?” (Mar 2011) This theme has become a dominant one for me in my speaking in 2011. It has illumined so much of my work this year. Although I am in process of writing a much more popular book for January 2013 release, this year’s speaking/presenting has birthed another book to immediately follow. I resolve to doing my work as much as possible out of what I am for, not what I am against (even if the substance is “against” doing theology by what we are against which is technically a double negative and therefore a positive :) )

6.) 5 Excuses Seminarians make for NOT Getting A (“Real”) Job  (May 2011) I continue to push for a new paradym of ministry for the 21st century. The continued dissipation of Christendom in the West demands it. This is why I continue to write posts like this. I resolve to keep encouraging and learning from practicioners about new paradyms of ministry got the West.

7.) STOP FUNDING CHURCH PLANTS and Start Funding Missionaries: A Plea to Denominations (June 2011). Uh, this idea was simple but it resounded across the blogosphere. I take no credit here for being original, just a provacateur. This post led to this and then to this. I resolve to keep involved with organizations that promote mission in the neighborhoods.

8.) There’s A “Good Tired” and a “Bad Tired” (July 2011) I coach church planters alot. So every once in a while I jot down a reflection from that context. These are the more “pastoral” posts on the blog. They’re rare (and kinda personal). Maybe I should do more. This post received alot of positive e-mail. Thanks! In 2012, I resolve to live within a Good Tired and put aside the Bad Tired.

9.) The Incarnation: Some Clarifications on An Abused Term: Post #2 Marcus Borg and Brian McLaren (August 2011) I am supposed to be a theologian. And yet I don’t do alot of theology on this blog. The hits on this blog go way down when I explore the deeper theological issues of a current issue. Nonetheless, I resolve to do more of it. This post was one of a series on the incarnation. I continue to think the key missional ideas of Missio Dei, Incarnation, and Witness need much more theological work if they are to make sense in the practice of our everyday lives as the people of God.

10.) Tim Keller’s “Gospel Ecosystem”: 3 Dangers In a Noble Idea Again Again, , in this post, I reveal my misgivings with the Neo-Reformed tendencies towards engaging culture (I tend to see their approach as elitest). Here’s an example of my take with a nod to the always compelling and intellectually gifted pastor Tim Keller. I resolve to keep generous and open conversations going like this one with my Neo-Reformed bros and sisters.

Honorable Mention: My post on Church Planter as Mythic Hero: 5 Reasons Not To Go This Route (Sept 2011) gathered alot of hits. I continue to think this approach to church planting is a waste of time. It might gather a bunch of disaaffected Christians from other churches. But the chance for real mission wanes with these dynamics. I resolve to keep asking questions about the how’s and why’s of church planting. And my post on “We Are Broken”: Overcoming the ideology that stymies the church’s encounter with the LGBTQ Community signals that I resolve to to delve into this topic more in 2011, because I believe it is a test case for how the church shall be reshaped for engaging the hurting/excluded peoples of post Christendom.

Blessings on the New Year.

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on December 13 2011

Leading Your Local Church Into Change (and the Church at Large): The Immanuel (God is With Us) Way versus the Posture from Above

Here’s a thought that I have learned from political theory: When seeking to bring change to an institution/social group we should go the way of “immanent critique” (from within the system) instead of arguing for the change via a posture from above the system as if we have a privileged knowledge of the truth.  Terry Eagleton describes “immanent critique” as follows: “rather than passing judgement … from the Olympian height of absolute truth, it (immanent critique) installs itself within the present in order to decipher those fault lines where the ruling logic presses upon its own structural limits.” (Ideology: An Introduction 131). Immanent critique always seeks to ask questions from within, probe and submit, and push the logical implications of what we believe so that their truth or false contradiction is revealed.  This in effect describes the way the Spirit works in the congregation to break logjams. This is the way of God Himself sending the Son into the world to live among us. He entered in to work salvation among the broken systems and sin stricken lives of humanity. He did not impose a solution from above. This is the incarnation. This “immanent” way describes the way of Immanuel- God is with us. This is the way of patience, the persistent speaking truth in love, the mutual confession and discernment that continually typifies the apostle Paul’s admonitions to his churches in his letters..

Again, to restate it, in regard to our churches and larger denominational organizations, this means that we will work patiently within our churches. We will work to push to the extreme the implications of our beliefs/ideas that congregations/organizations are holding so that the perverse contradictions once revealed (Zizek calls this “over-identification) draw us into repentance and reformation in the Spirit. For the Christian, this “immanent” way depends upon the reality of Immanuel – God is with us. It requires our confidence in the Holy Spirit’s work among us.

So the job of the change agent, whether that be a pastor, a regular church member, or the one who feels marginalized, is to

  1. Ask questions that push the full implications of the stated belief so that the obvious is revealed? When the belief is revealed to be inconsistent, even counter to everything else we believe, and of course Scripture, a time of self examination will be cultivated and nurtured from which change can happen.
  2. Sponsor activities, propose a group action, that is consistent with what we say we believe and when there is resistance, give space patiently for the antagonisms to be spoken. Let the antagonisms, fears and other false motivations reveal themselves. And in so doing, repentance will come, and those who are dug in won’t be able to handle the conviction and leave.
  3. Continually submit, repent, not as a tactic but as a reality. The change agent does not come from above bearing down on this congregation with a hammer that says I know everything and the rest of you are all wrong. It says I may be wrong, and through continual putting forth truth in love, submitting, we learn and grow and change and God moves us forward. This is the principle inherent in Matt 18:15-20.

It goes without saying, that this kind of leadership requires extreme patience and trust that God the Holy Spirit is at work in this body. It requires persistence and love because to walk this way can be really irritating unless we do it with love and a rejection of all control. It is to say I will be the instrument of God’s change not the dictator of God’s change. Such a change agent invites people into God’s work, not a controlled and manipulated “war.” Such a change agent always points to God and His Mission in the world and in our life together. Such a change process ultimately affirms that we are all seeking together the way forward into His mission. This is the way of Immanuel- God with us – the reality we celebrate together at Advent-Christmas.

What are the hurdles for you in entering this “immanent” way for change in your local church? To those who have left the church, did you forsake the “immanent” way? Why? Did you work for change from the posture from above and fail? I could give many examples of this kind of “immanent” leadership leading to change in churches and in our church.  But I’m trying to keep this short. If anybody understands what I just wrote here, could you tell us in a paragraph or two how this worked in your own leadership?

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on December 8 2011

I Love Asset-Based Community Development but it’s not the Church

I am a believer in Asset Based Community Organizing. I have learned much from John McKnight and Peter Bloch and others (read this for instance). When I was at Northwestern doing a Ph D, McKnight’s office was in the building right behind Garrett seminary. So I’m not an expert, but I’m familiar. I suggest Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) is one of those great studies of how to do things in cooperation with God and what He is already present pushing for. But having said all this, I still don’t think ABCD replaces the church. I love Asset Based Community Organizing, but it’s not the church.

Many times the church in effect look likes it is nurturing something that looks a lot like ABCD. The intersection between ABCD kind of activity and “body life” (church life) would make for a wonderful research study. The church’s natural life of reconciling people in the neighborhood, of advocating for resources, of nurturing leadership within the community, may/should look alot like ABCD. But there is still a difference between the two. I love Asset Based Community Organizing, but it’s not the church.

I submit that whenever the church of God, Christ’s body, sent into God’s Mission, is present in a place, it brings something above and beyond what ABCD claims to be doing in a context (ABCD in its purest form claims to bring nothing to a context. They claim “everything is already there.”  This claim I suspect can be an overstatement but I understand what they’re saying and to some degree applaud it).  The church in effect carries the keys of the Kingdom.  It can be and should be the vehicle for God to extend the particular reconciliation, new creation, and/or justice made possible in Jesus Christ in ways that are only possible in the work of the Triune God at work in and through Jesus Christ.  Again, I love Asset Based Community Development. It is certainly God’s work, but on it’s own, it is not the church.

Wendy McCaig recently posted a response to my proposal for the Luke 10 Project  on her blog last week (read it here). She applauds a lot of things. She is less enthused on others.  After reading her blog and seeing her work, I‘m an admirer. From what I can tell (and I know very little about Wendy so far), Wendy is a community organizer who advocates “asset based community development.” I affirm asset based community development as God’s work, but I personally place more emphasis on planting local communities of Mission where people gather to witness to “the Kingdom” (it’s my calling, while still applauding those called to ABCD). Through the humble gospel presence of communities of Christ, we participate in what God is already doing in our local context to bring the Kingdom into visibility. Wendy argues that Kingdom work means “living out Jesus mission and continuing his work of bringing sight to the blind, good news to the poor, etc…” If a worship community forms out of that presence that is wonderful.” But even if there is no gathering, the Body of Christ still exists in that place. I disagree. I don’t think ABCD is the body of Christ. I think “the body of Christ” refers to a social reality formed in some basic core practices of participating in Christ’s inbreaking Lordship over our lives and the context we live in. I  agree with people like Kathy Escobar and the idea of “Kingdom Outposts” (mentioned here). I have used this way of describing church activotyu myself. Although, I strongly reject the way the forms of church have been reified in Christendom (and ensconced in power), nonetheless, the social practice of coming together under God’s reign in Christ births His presence into the world in a way ABCD does not.  I think we need more thought and reflection here on ecclesiology. Having said this, I agree with Wendy on many things. For instance:

 1.) Wendy disliked the idea that the Luke 10 Project “assumes the community (we are planting in) is lacking something.” Luke 10 Project needs to “learn to build on what God is already doing – they should learn to see the glass as “half full.” I agree with Wendy that we always should be present in a context assuming God is already working!! And so I regret not emphasizing that enough in the Luke 10 project.  I think I missed on that aspect a little bit. I did talk about how “the three” leaders inhabiting a place would seek to submit and connect with existing church leaders and seek to work with them, on invitation. I should have placed more emphasis on connecting with all community leaders. To me it is the very nature of the incarnation to inhabit by listening and discerning what God is doing.

 2.) Wendy disliked that the Luke 10 Project emphasized “relocation” and underemphasized “indigenous leader development.” I think I may have missed something here as well. I am very committed to raising up leaders in the community for both the building up of the body of Christ as a sign foretaste of the Kingdom, as well as for the prototype “community development” activities that feed Kingdom work in a community.  I think I have an established record on this for those who know me. But I can always learn more.

 3.) Wendy disliked the emphasis in my post on “gathering Christians.” In her next post Wendy argues that Kingdom work means “living out Jesus mission and continuing his work of bringing sight to the blind, good news to the poor, etc…” If a worship community forms out of that presence that is wonderful.” But even if there is no gathering, the Body of Christ still exists in that place.

It’s here where I think Wendy and I differ. It’s a tension I admit. But I believe the church is a social reality that releases God dynamic work of His Kingdom and authority into our midst. Community organizing is God at work. It is doing God’s work and participating in and among His people. But I want to press further on that. I want to argue that when people come together under His reign (in a local context) and are then sent into a local context (ala Luke 10) the authority of the reigning Lord is unleashed. There is posture God can use to enter in. It’;s much like the incarnation. It is this authority of Christ’s reign that overcomes sin, death and evil. This brings another dimension to the Missio Dei. I think this is what NT Wright is addressing in his new book Simply Jesus in chapter 7,9, and 15 and somewhat discussed by Scot McKnight in this post here. I think tis is what Lesslie Newbigin describes so well in ch 8 of his book The Open Secret.

I think therefore there is something to “being sent” that in humility and vulnerability brings an announcement of the Kingdom. But Wendy’s right in my humble opinion: we cannot enter as if where we go the people in this new context are somehow our clients. Quite the opposite, God is at work in every person.  But I push back on those who say the church is equal to community development work. God is working there, THERE IS AN OVERLAP WHICH SOMETIMES IS HARD TO DISTINGUISH, but it is not the church. CCDA is an excellent example of this overlap (I know CCDA from teaching alongside some of the key leaders in this movement – see here). I love the way CCDA describes the relationship between the church and community development. I think to not understand this distinction is to reject the very idea of “Sentness.” To all my community development friends, what say you? Again, I love Asset-based Community Development, but it’s not the church.

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on November 21 2011

Why Missional Leaders Need to Get Over White Man’s Angst

Over the past 5 to 10 years, I have kept encountering a problem with young white missional leaders. At the risk of stereotyping, I find many young white missional leaders inflicted with a kind of white man’s angst inherited from the American post 60’s generation. Ever since the seventies (and probably a little earlier), once education opened up to everyone and the industrial society morphed into a service economy, middle to upper middle class families (majority of whom are white) have bred children to believe they could choose their careers. They could go to college, get some grad school, get good at something, and then choose a satisfying career path from which they would get their identity and prove their self worth. Many of this generation think that they have to have this figured out by the time they are say thirty.

This drives me nuts when these pressures are applied to ministry. Missional church planters/pastors viewing a life in ministry simply can not think this way. Not only is the economy NOT like this any more (no one has one job for a lifetime anymore), but ministry in general is not as well. We are caught in the shifts of post Christendom. Outside of the Christendom south (U.S.), and its enclaves in the north, ministry can hardly be viewed as the secure career path it once was. Even when there is this possibility, ministry is a poor long term career offering low pay, extremely long hours (in Christendom structures that is), susceptibility to lack of satisfaction (ministry as profession is hardest job I ever had) and good possibility of getting fired (or the pressure to keep everybody happy in your church so you keep a pay check). The only real career in ministry that works along these former ways of thinking is “the mega church pastor.” The “mega church pastor” is a limited skill-set (not many have it). And I wouldn’t wish that life on anyone. And yet, on and on it goes. Young white males, coming out of seminary, can’t deal with the identity crisis they get when they are asked to pursue another skill or vocation alongside the pursuit of ministry. Somehow, to dive in and learn another vocation for the long term that shall feed into one’s vocation of ministry – is a compromise.

Fellow pastor Geoff Holsclaw and I were talking about this yesterday and he called it “the white man’s place of privilege.” We (white males) are used to being masters of our own destiny. We are told we can do anything if we work hard enough. So to pursue a vocation other than ministry that shall be part of ministry is a compromise. It detracts from a singular focus on ministry. It throws open the future. It disrupts the question “will this job fulfil me?” because there is no way this question makes sense anymore when we enter into Kingdom life in this way.

And yet this is exactly the path I believe many of us are called into when looking at the church through the eyes of post Christendom.

In my experience, women and minority people in general have less of this angst for many reasons. The angst of the young white male is a recent development in history (where I grew up, in Hamilton ON, everybody’s dad was a steelworker, and everybody’s son was expected to be a steelworker, unless they became a pastor/missionary). Most people, prior to the 60’s were too busy responding to the immediate task of providing for family and needs. Planning a job/career was not on most people’s minds. Only the wealthy had this angst. Yet years later, as culture morphed into the service sector offering more choice, middle class white males felt the pressure first. “What career path will you choose?” “What are you going to make of yourself?” Then Caucasian women fell into this in the 80’s. Then various second generation immigrant groups coming into the country to fulfil the American dream felt this pressure. Other minorities, to the degree they have begun to enter into the economic mainstream of N America (including the black middle class), have also begun to feel this pressure. To all these groups, the temptation is to look at ministry as a career achievement track. On the other hand, minorities still caught within America’s poverty cycle, including much of Hispanic immigrant culture, still is driven by the need to find a job and take care of families much like it was in the early days of Euro immigration.

There’s a real sense that we are returning to these minority postures as far as the missional leader is concerned. We are in Newbigin’s words in a “missionary culture.” Christendom is shrinking. The established church culture is getting harder and harder to work in. Devoid of a secure career path in ministry, new missionaries must think in terms of “how am I going to feed my family?” They must be open to what lies in front of them, and respond to job opportunities openly, NOT FROM A POSTURE OF HOW WILL THIS AFFECT MY LONG TERM CAREER IN MINISTRY. Instead, take a job locally, band together in groups, and work out ministry in local contexts. And when, the demands of ministry require it, be prepared to go full time. But don’t think about that right now. You’ll get to that when you get to it.

I was sitting around a living room this past Friday with some people in our missional order dinner group and I told my story. It is a winding swerving crazy story from all counts. I weaved through a financial services occupation in which I became very good in the financial services industry. I engaged a wide open future knowing I would need to get very good at one thing where I could earn a living, and that would serve me well in the rest of my life in ministry. These jobs provided not only a salary but a vision for understanding the world. Yet, as I look back, I was basically put in a position to discern what God was calling me to do each step of the way. There was no master plan. I rejected the singular career in ministry early. I did not have the luxury of choosing a career path in ministry or teaching. Instead God led in and through many different journies. I was involved in church ministry when God led us to start a community. I pursued a PhD when I applied and it was largely paid for.  One thing led to another. By placing one foot in front of another each step along the way, God led to the shape of ministry he had for me. I think this is the way of the future, because the established church and seminary teaching are shrinking as options by the day.

The missional movement needs to come to grips with the young white man’s angst whether we are white, male or not. It is probably too late for the older generation. But the younger generation needs to reconceptualize what ministry will look like. We need to understand seminary differently. A whole new world of ministry is opening up, a revolution of sorts. And the next wave into the missionary context of the West demands flexible bi-vocational cultivators of the gospel. They will inhabit locales for many many years as missionaries leading missionary communities.  I’ve done it. It is not only possible, it is a wonderful intense way to live the gospel driven life .

What say you? Is the missional movement got white male angst in it? Have you got this white male angst? Even if you’re not white? if you’re not male? Can you relate? Is this angst holding the movement back? Holding you back? How? Comments please!!

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NOTE ON THE WHITENESS OF MISSIONAL MOVEMENT: In this piece I am discussing the angst of many white young leaders. Truth be told, much of the leadership in the missional movement is white (Caucasian). There are reasons for this. Over here I have argued (against Soong Chan Rah who to my knowledge- has never really addressed this issue) that the missional movement is a rejection of the consumerism, individualism and affluent Christianity most associated with the white evangelicalism of the post WW2 generations. This is where most of the missional movement originated from in N America. Most minorities, having yet to enter that mainstream economy, and in many cases coming to the United States for the express purpose of participating in this American affluence, can hardly see this affluence etc. as something to be resisted. They cannot relate to the terms as laid down by the missional movement for a new economics. This I admit is changing. The recent downturn in the economy is causing many to at least rethink the anti-Christian formation within the promise of United States capitalism.

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Filed under Missional Leadership,Uncategorized 19 Comments

on November 15 2011

Hangin Out at The National Church Planting Congress of Canada

I thought I’d have some time to post this week. Ain’t gonna happen. I’m here in Winnipeg at the national church planting congress of Canada put on by Church Planting Canada. I’ve been thinking through with several people these days what forms church-planting must take if we are not to repeat merely cannibalizing the church. In other words, much church planting is updating church for the Christians who grew up in older forms of church. How do we do church planting so we actually engage people outside the gospel? I hope to post some of these thoughts maybe in the next couple days. If not this week, I’ll get to it next week.

Meanwhile, I’m speaking on this topiv here at the Congress. My topic for the Wednesday night plenary (here at the CPC) is “The Ideological Cycle: How Not To Plant a Church.” My topic for the Wednesday afternoon plenary session is  “Planting a church thru Missional Practices: How “SENTNESS” Extends His Authority.” Come join us if you’re in the neighborhood.

Filed under Church Planting,Uncategorized 3 Comments

on November 9 2011

Scot McKnight’s King Jesus Gospel: Has The Gospel Coalition Caved?

A whole lot has been written about Scot McKnight’s latest book King Jesus Gospel. We probably don’t need another review of it. Nonetheless, since I received a free copy (in full disclosure) I need to say something :) . (Again in full disclosure, before I requested a copy, I already knew I would like it. I had a early preview).

I think pretty much everyone knows by now Scot McKnight’s contention that evangelicals equate the word “gospel” with the word “salvation.” Hence, according to McKnight, we evangelicals are really “soterians” not “evangelicals”. According to McKnight, the NT gospel should not and cannot be reduced to “our plan of salvation.”(39). Scot shows in King Jesus Gospel that the gospel according to the NT is best defined out of 1 Corinthian 15.  Here the Gospel is the telling of the whole Jesus Story as the completion of the Story of Israel, the lordship of Christ over the whole world. It is the summoning of people to respond to the completion of the promise to Israel in Jesus Christ as Lord.  Through the proclamation of the gospel, we are invited to enter into this grand work of God in history in Christ. Out of all this, we are saved and redeemed (here’s where salvation is part of the gospel but not to be equated with the gospel). Without the Story (of Israel), Scot says, there is no gospel (36). So Scot singularly does one thing in this book, he shows how “individual salvation” is part of the wider gospel. It is not the whole gospel. The salvation we as individuals receive is something we receive as we participate in the wider work of God in the world to bring in His Kingdom in and through Jesus Christ. Even this “personal” salvation is much bigger than “justification by faith” although it certainly includes that!

Scot does a good job unfurling this gospel as it appears in the Bible focusing on the apostle Paul’s 1 Cor 15, the four gospels themselves and the preaching of the apostles in the book of Acts.  He gives his quick take (and it is a quick one) on how the gospel culture of the first three centuries turned into what we have now, a salvation culture obsessed with individual salvation and getting people out of hell into heaven. It is all nicely done

I think this is a landmark book because it summarizes and communicates the important issues of New Perspective, NT Wright and the Kingdom/Paul debate for everyday Christian life in a way the average adult Christian can grab hold of. That’s a feat! I have been trying to teach New Perspective on Paul, NT Wright on God’s “making all things right,” for years. I have been trying to teach how the gospel is not an either/or – kingdom or justification. It is bigger than both and includes both. This book does what I couldn’t do. My student’s light bulbs have been going on this quarter and they are using this book with elders in their churches.

Of course, if there is one lack here in McKnight’s book, it is the thin offering on ecclesiology at the end of the book (ch.10). To me, the redescribing of the gospel according to the New Testament changes how we gather as a people in the world. It changes the way we “proclaim the gospel” at Sunday gathering, “proclaim the gospel as witness in our everyday lives”, how we engage everyday life as the places where God is at work to complete His Mission, how we pray and how we inhabit the world in Mission, how people are baptized into the kingdom (we return to some of the ancient rites). It’s probably too much to ask, but the last chapter on “Creating a Gospel culture” leaves us asking for much more. But this is a short book. I chalk it up to that.

So, all this leaves me with the one question that headlines this blog post. Has the Gospel Coalition caved in all of this? These friends, who have taken on the name “Gospel” and sought a re-invigoration of it (“the gospel”) as “justification by faith,” seem largely absent in challenging McKnight’s book. There are some good reviews out there by Reformed types. Michael Horton, for instance basically argues (here) with Scot over the innocence of Luther and Calvin on the individualizing of salvation. He himself seems to fall into the trap of saying McKnight is marginalizing “salvation” as the forgiveness of sins (just like many seem to accuse NT Wright of). See McKnight’s response here. But Horton is a classical Reformed theologian. He’s not in the Gospel Coalition/Neo-Reformed camp. Where are the serious disagreements from the Gospel Coalition/Neo Reformed bloggers? Even Neo-Reformed blogger Trevin Wax seems to demure to McKnight by subordinating (unintentionally?) “salvation” into part of what God has accomplished in Christ’s Kingship over the world. Is this not what Trevin is saying when he says here “I see the announcement of 1 Corinthians 15 as the gospel presentation by which we are being saved.” But even aside from Trevin, where is John Piper, Al Mohler, or Don Carson in response to this book? (I couldn’t find reviews by them?) Why the silence?

So my question is: is this silence real? (I could have missed some reviews – please help me here) Or maybe, just maybe, has Scot McKnight done the impossible? Has Scot given us the bridge to bring together – the “NT Wright-ests” with the “John Piper-ites”? -  for a re-invigoration of the gospel of the Kingdom in our times? Is this what is happening? or am I hearing crickets chirping in “the Gospel Coalition camp? Just asking :)

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Filed under Ecclesiology,Missional Discipleship,Missional Ecclesiology,Neo-Reformed,Soteriology,Uncategorized 24 Comments

on November 1 2011

“The Fifteen Hour Rule”: A Challenge to All Church-Planters – Quit Working More Than 15 Hours!! (on your churches)

The idea of the singular professional pastor running a church doing all 18 spiritual gifts (depending on how many you read in the NT etc.) has fallen out of favor. No one believes this is possible any more. This is a relic of the hierarchies of Christendom where such consolidation made organizational sense (if not ecclesiological sense).  Any pastor trying to do this will expire from burnout. It is a denial of the Holy Spirit’s work in the body (I Cor 12). (Should we then get rid of the M Div degree as well?)

Of course mega churches are able to keep the hierarchy going by building massive staffs which employ full time specialists in each gifting, and then they employ huge cadres of volunteers for massive programs which they then call “gifts.” (which is a complete misnomer – but that is a subject for another day. On this kind of false volunteerism read Bill Kinnon here and Jamie Arpin Ricci here). But this is another story of the prolongation of Christendom past its time.

Why then, WHY WOULD WE think about planting a new missional church with a singular leader/pastor at the head of the ship?  The only reason is if we are comfortable with the notion that we can recruit enough already existing Christians to be subservient to said singular leader and form a Christendom organization for managing and distributing Christians goods and services to them. But is this church planting or church reconfiguring? Is this Mission or Marketing?

This is why, when planting a missional church/community I prefer the leaders implement “the 15 hour rule.” The “15 hour rule” says that NO PASTOR/LEADER CULTIVATING A NEW MISSIONAL COMMUNITY SHOULD WORK MORE THAN 15 HOURS A WEEK ON MISSIONAL COMMUNITY ORGANZIATIONAL FUNCTIONS (including preaching, organizing, leadership, etc.).

Of course, this is heresy in the traditional world of evangelical church plants. Most assume the new pastor works 15 hours per week just on the sermon.  Over against this traditional model I believe “the 15 hour rule” works to do the following:

 1.) It says no one pastor/leader can nurture a Christian community. It requires a minimum of 3 pastor/leaders who know the inter-relationship of their giftings according to the Eph 4 APEPT schema – Apostles/Prophets/Evangelists/Pastors/ Teachers. These pastors must work together in mutual submission to one another modeling the life of submission one to another in Christ. I’m of the mind, you put three mature leaders who know their giftings in one place for ten years who can lead out of mutual submission to Christ and His Mission, and you will have a fresh expression of the gospel (not dependent upon already existing Christians) in that place 10 years later.

2.) It promotes bi-vocationalism. This is obviously a bi-vocational model where each pastor has a job sufficient to provide a level of support which can sustain these three pastors together in the work for 10 or more years to come. Yet this also reinforces the idea that to do bi-vocational ministry as a singular pastor is VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE!! To do bi-vocational ministry – 15 hours a week max – requires at least three leaders together on the ground, praying, discerning, leading.

3.) It prevents any pastor from thinking the work of the Kingdom is dependent upon how hard he/she work. Instead, I have 15 hours to give and that’s it.  It is God who will do this work not me. I do not have to worry about results, people in the pews, offerings because by and large I am being supported in and through a job and a community. I can exercise the patience necessary to see God work among new and unreached peoples.

4.) It promotes an active body dependent upon the Spirit discerning what God is doing. Because every one in the community sees “the body” modeled by the pastorate, this kind of leadership automatically fosters a “body mentality” in the rest of the church that regularly depends upon the Spirit. We become participants in the rhythms of God’s grace in His Spirit, no meglamaniacal leadership that has predetermined goals (financial and otherwise). The community therefore becomes the arena in which and around which the Spirit can work. Leadership does not control the organization. It fosters an organization of a different kind, an organization that post facto the Spirit facilitates what God is doing.

5.) It says that there should be more than one preacher, teacher. If it is true that it takes 15 hours of prep for a good sermon, then we need to rotate it among the three pastors (and others gifted as well) so that theoretically the fifteen hours are spread out over a longer period of time than one week. This keeps the mission from being centered around one personality.  It keeps the preaching grounded in the mission and life of the community (not a single person studying 20-30 hours a week for the most brilliant exegesis).

NOW LET US BE SURE TO RECOGNIZE that there will be times when “the fifteen hour rule” must go by the wayside. As the church grows, as one’s gifts become more fully recognized, as the fruit of one’s ministry dictates more devotion to the work on the ground in fostering the Kingdom, more hours will be appropriate. This happened all the time in the NT. But, I’m of the mind that every pastor, no matter how much he/she is working within the structures of the church, must always have the ability (i.e another job skill) to go back to “the fifteen hour rule.” Because it simply re-disciplines the church to be the arena of the Spirit from which it can participate in God’s Mission in the world.

Your thoughts on “the 15 hour rule”? Outrageous? Impractical? This Can’t Be Done?

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Filed under Church Planting,Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership,Uncategorized 42 Comments

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