Last week Justin Taylor asked his readers to consider Wayne Grudem’s argument from seven years ago, that “egalitarianism leads to liberalism.’ He recited a long paragraph from Grudem’s book and then asked his readers to consider the “valid points” in Grudem’s logic. To me Taylor’s blog post , along with a series of other exchanges between Andrew Wilson, Scot McKnight, and D.C. Cramer, explains how both egalitarians and complementarians are caught in the same logic: the logic of hierarchy and the difference-sameness binary. To me this logic is an exercise in missing the point. And it keeps all parties from seeing just what is at stake in the New Testament church’s recognition and facilitation of women in leadership (alongside men) in full authority in the church. I’m for abolishing the whole thing: the entire logic behind both egalitarians and complimentarians. Allow me to explain.

1.) THE NEW TESTAMENT CALLS FOR OVERTURNING (THE LOGIC OF) HIERARCHY: The NT church is not about whether women should be “over” men or men “over” women. It is about eliminating the “over” entirely (this is the point of 1 Tim 2:12). It is about abolishing the politics of anybody being over anybody and instead we come together mutually under one Lord and the organization of authority is centered in the recognition of the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit at work regularly in the body of Christ under the one head – Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 12, Rom 12:3-8, Eph 4:7-16). This is the new community. Since God has poured out this Spirit on men and women alike (Acts 2:17ff) there is no discrimination in this authority. This is not a democracy, this is a pneumatacracy under the rule of one Lord. We are all invited, women and men, into the new community God is creating as a foretaste of his kingdom. If we wish to live out this new community, women must be equally invited into leading as men.

Too often however the complimentarian/egalitarian logic thwart this dynamic. The “complementarian” approaches to leadership keep hierarchy (and thereby patriarchy) in place thereby being unfaithful to eschatological reality that is the church. “Egalitarian” approaches to leadership often (unintentionally) become the means to ensconce “male dominant” ways/structures of leadership and then invite women into them. Egalitarians find themselves arguing for “equal” access into a leadership as presently conceived (i.e. in patriarchy/hierarchy) never dealing with the hierarchy in the system. But the NT calls for the abolishment of the entire thing. “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.” Mark 10:42-43.

2.) THE NEW TESTAMENT CALLS FOR A NEW WAY (LOGIC) OF BEING DIFFERENT.

Hierarchy/patriarchy is a remnant of sin (“and he shall rule over you” Gen 3:16). The patriarchal logic is overturned in the new relationship in Christ (“… submit yourselves one to another in reverence –submission to Christ” Eph 5:20)) where we are reconciled to each other and live in mutual submission one to another (where the husband is to also submit to the wife “giving up his life for her.” Eph 5:25). In the church and in marriage patriarchy has been abolished. But this is not to be mistaken for eliminating difference. Paul is forever reminding the over-enthusiastic excessive Corinthians that they are still married, that sex still matters (and the women is asked to recognize her femininity and her relationship to her husband as head before the congregation by wearing a head covering while prophesying 1 Cor 11:2-16). Women are to remain women and men, men. Women are not to become men, but instead bring all of what it means to be a women to the community in the full exercise of her new found authority in the body of Christ. “In Christ” therefore, there is still gender difference culturally and within marriage (much of this difference is worked out contextually within the various cultural challenges presented to each gender). The struggle in the New Testament is to maintain gender difference in marriage (that has not been abolished only transformed) in the midst of women’s full authorirty n the new Kingdom. This is where the majority of references occur in NT where Paul is calling for women in church authority not to abuse that authority within their marriages. This new dynamic of mutual submission in difference under one Lord both preserves difference while making us one.

Too often however the complimentarian/egalitarian logic thwart this dynamic. Complimentarians often miss how the NT church is calling for a new reconciled “mutually submissive” relationship between genders, not a maintaining of hierarchical management of gender roles. They assume giving up this “hierarchy” eliminates gender difference. Not so! Instead the genders maintain difference but enter into a mutually submissive relationship under and to one Lord. On the other hand, egalitarians often unintentionally diminish gender difference and the roles within marriage. Any sense of male headship at all is viewed as anathema. Yet in the NT these roles are not eliminated (for instance “the headship” of the male in marriage), they are transformed (headship becomes a form of service and a role lived in mutual submission ala the Triune roles within the Godhead). As we can see then, both complimentarians and egalitarians keep the prior logic of either maintaining gender management under hierarchy/patriarchy or eliminating gender difference making management of gender difference irrelevant. The New Testament calls for a new logic of maintaining difference in mutual submission and reconciliation between the genders in the “in between times (before marriage is done away with Mark 12:25).

SUMMARY

There is a tradition of ordaining women under these terms that is not based in the logic of either complimentarian or egalitarian thinking. It neither denies gender difference (on the logic that some texts are culturally obsolete) nor sustains hierarchy. Rather we follow Jesus into the cultural revolution of the Kingdom God He is ushering in. We do not restrain women from ordination based on a parallel understanding of men and women’s roles in marriage functioning in the church. There is an overlapping of the ages which must be honored. And women are encouraged to be women and men be men all the while respecting their marriages if indeed they are married (I have an extensive paper on this available on our church – Life on the Vine – website).  Nonetheless, even more so, all are invited to participate fully in the new authority of the Kingdom God is bringing in through Christ. These impulses have been carried out best within the Holiness/Charismatic Traditions (who base their life on the new work of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit in the church) and the Anabaptist traditions (which see hierarchy as abolished within the New people of God as founded in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ). Somehow these traditions get marginalized in these discussions. And us Anabaptist Holiness people get grouped in with the “liberals” ala Wayne Grudem because we affirm the full authority of women in the church. Hopefully this post makes way for another way.

I’m busy teaching a Doctoral seminar this week at Northern Seminary on “Missional Ecclesiology.” This is keeping me from blogging this week. Below are two ppt. slides we worked on today (Tuesday). We develop these rubrics to understand the assumptions that undergird our practices as “church” and the theology that drives them. Then, by re-examining our cultural and theological assumptions we can reshape the practices  of the church (which we lead from) for Mission. I’ll be back next week.

The SGM scandal (for those of you who need to catch up read this and this ) has been a excessively heated topic. It affords us an occasion to take a look at ourselves and our own church’s leadership. This post  is a brief riff off some reading today in Hauerwas’ The State of the University. The quotes from Yoder and Hauerwas can be found around page 155-157

John Howard Yoder believed that understanding the sinfulness of the church is essential for understanding “the politics of the church.” Yoder believed that the organization of the church must take into full account the sinfulness of the church. By our nature as Christ’s church, we are ever being converted, reformed and transformed. And so the way in which leadership is conducted, organization developed, and authority exercised is a matter of witness before the rest of the world to the work God is doing in Christ to redeem all things. The character of our corporate leadership and the manner in which we lead should point the rest of the world to the life being lived together in Christ, in His death, resurrection and reigning Lordship over our lives. We are ever bearing the death and resurrection of Christ, ever showing the world that sin does not have the final word, but instead when we sin, it is the occasion to turn from and live further into our baptism before the world. This means leaders will not put themselves above others when it comes to sin. We will always be ready to confess our sins and repent, seek reconciliation and renewal as part of God’s new kingdom in Christ. This is part of our witness.

Yoder suggests that “wholesome growth is not so much understood to be like branches from a tree but rather more like a vine.” There is a kind of “looping back” to test ongoing practices by the Lordship of Christ.  The progress of the body of Christ is akin to a “story of constant interruptions of organic growth” where pruning happens and the opportunity is made for new roots to spout.

One of the reasons why we have so much resentment in the church today is the loss of ability of leaders to submit their sinfulness to the church. To have our story interrupted. So many “parishioners” have been hurt or abused by the church. I don’t know what they were expecting from their leaders, but perhaps they were given false expectations. Perhaps they expected leaders to be set above the congregation. But we should not do that. We should always be expecting our story to be interrupted. Instead, in alot of our leadership structures,  the revealing of sin by a leader threatens the entire structure of authority. This to me is a sign we have lost the essence of what it means to be the church (as Yoder described above). It sets the church up for abuse instead of reform, its most charismatic leaders up for moral failure instead of constant growth through humility vulnerability and mutual submission. It prevents any and all interruptions, that which makes us the alive body of Christ.

I think the SGM scandal is one more occasion for all of us Christians to look at ourselves, ask what are we doing? and why the kind of leadership we are perpetrating has created so much abuse and moral failure? What structures and culture are we perpetrating? How long are we going to look the other way every time another mega church pastor has another moral failure? There’s something bigger going on here than just another isolated pastor who fell. We must ask whether our leaders have been set up on a false pedestal (this post makes me seriously wonder about this). We must ask whether we have set up structures and a culture where the leader loses his/her ability to confess sins and listen to one another (again, this post makes me wonder about this). This does NOT mean everybody gets to take his/her best shot – releasing his/her pet peave – against the pastor. No, there should be structures for discerning lies from truth (this takes a living community and time). But we must be alarmed when leaders are impervious to submission to their fellow believers in community and the hearing of their sins. Because when we lose this, we have all lost what it means to be the church, a place that recognizes our sinfulness and the need to be ever open to challenge, recognition of sin, and God’s work to transform.

I encourage us all, not just my Neo-Reformed brothers and sisters, to NOT gloss over the events of  this most recent SGM scandal. But let’s also get beyond pointing the finger at another church scandal. Don’t’ be gleeful you all who have an axe to grind. Instead let’s use this moment to examine ourselves and our churches concerning our own lives, the structure and culture of leadership in our own churches.

Peace, reconciliation and joy of Christ.

Recently Life on the Vine and other churches  gathered as a group of church planters to discuss how we might lead our churches into our surrounding communities. I started the discussion with describing the difference between “Looking for a Project” in the neighborhood  and “Developing a Presence” in the neighborhood. We discovered just how fundamental the question of posture is to incarnational presence in the neighborhood. Here’s some of our takeaways.

The Difference Between “Project” versus “Presence”

Often a church seeks to engage the community by “looking for the Next Project.” We seek a “need” in the community where we can help, bring resources and the love of Christ. What can happen though with this mentality is we A.) come to the project out of a posture of “pretending not to need.” We come with resources from a distance, not listening to the lives of people very well. We come out of a posture of power, control. B.) We thereby unintentionally make the people/issue we are helping into a client/object. These dynamics work against the Kingdom.  C.) We often turn this into a volunteer effort/program where we contribute a few hours a week and it is separated from our everyday lives. D.) Since it is mainly “us” doing something, this approach eventually leads to church burnout. It leads to a continual diet of “projects” and we never get to developing a “presence.”

“Developing a Presence” on the other hand, A.) enters a space out of one’s own needs. We come to be “with” the people in our context. Think of how different the dynamics (to use a suburban example) are when a new parent joins a parents group in need of a place to share the loneliness/ tediousness of caring for a new born child versus a church that sets up a day care center, B.) We come out of a “mutual” relationship sharing in what God is doing, C.) We do not come into a context as “volunteers” offering a few hours a week. Instead, the hours we spend with people, working for justice, come from places we inhabit regularly as part of our everyday life. We hope to spend years together living life in the Kingdom, D.) We become conduits of God’s work, pointing out what God is already doing, or where there are already resources right here to help. We therefore never run out of gas. We are truly energized. Of course we will offer our own resources not as a solution but because we are friends, part of this social reality God is bringing into being.

When “looking for the Next Project” churches will often look for places of need in the local context. But that need will be seen through our eyes. We might even create a project or a program. When “Developing a Presence”  we seek to understand “need” and the dynamics surrounding that need from the eyes of those we are “with.” We look from within for what is happening. We ask a lot of questions, spend hours/days/weeks/years listening. We in essence then attempt to hop on to something already in motion. Development follows justice relationally.

Things we Might Do To Train/Disciple People into Presence in The Neighborhood

In trying to lead a people into developing a presence in the neighborhood, we came up with these ‘tactics.’

1. Individual Life Inventory: We can help each other inventory our lives and ask where we are already intersecting with people’s lives and become more aware of relationships and what God is doing around us. We can look at individual habits and locate where we are doing some things either as isolated individuals or with our church community that we could instead do in more public places, or with people in the neighborhood. The result should be that by adding no additional time or tasks to our lives we become more present in the neighborhood just out of living our everyday lives more intentionally.
2. Third Places: Churches can look at their neighborhoods and locate third places, places where people hang out. We can locate various places where basketball games, parent groups, park district clean-ups are already happening. And we can say, instead of doing these activities ourselves as a church, let us get involved with what others are already doing. We can look for places of need, homeless shelters, domestic abuse counseling centers, etc. where we have already interested people and “send” them there to be present in everyday life. We can in essence organize people to do things in programs already going on instead of starting them ourselves.
3. Bring the practices of the Kingdom: We must train people how to “bring reconciliation,” “proclaim gospel,” use the gifts of the Spirit in healing and renewal, “practice hospitality.” By learning how to embody these practices we are training ourselves to be present in a way that includes are being sent. Being “sent” means we witness to what God is doing and are ready, when the occasion erupts, to become the conduit by which God works to point others into the Kingdom
4. Do it in groups of two or three. We must train people how to invite others to be present with them when God is working in the neighborhood. We need to join with other believers from all churches. We need to invite those who do not yet recognize the Kingdom. We must become skilled into how to lead u=others into the practices of the Kingdom, including reconciliation, hospitality, gospel proclamation, being with those who have less, etc…
5. “Projects” out of our “Presence.” We must develop a mindset that projects develop out of presence and when they do we invite the larger church gathering to join in.  As a result, we must not be afraid of projects, just recognize that it is through developing a presence that projects can keep from becoming about us, and thereby resistant to Kingdom transformation in the community.

Final Comments

I hope the last point helps us see that we need not polarize Project versus Presence. Instead we see how one flows from the other.

In addition, I just want to suggest, especially for large churches, that it is best to start “developing presence” in the neighborhoods through small groups of 12. One small group of 12 learning how to be present in a neighborhood can change a whole church over time!

Blessings on all our efforts to lead our church to be present in our neighborhoods. Please tell us of your successes. What have been your hurdles? Have you any ways you’ve learned to disciple people into living their lives in the presence of the KIngdom?

Been thinking about the questions my life seeks to answer and I came across these two questions in a little book I’m reading by Jan Johnson, When the Soul Listens: Finding Rest and Direction in Contemplative Prayer. The words jumped off the page and stuck to the inside of my heart – God’s been incubating them in me since: 1. What must I do to be loved? 2. What must I do to be valued? How we answer these two questions will drive our decisions and shape our affections. Our answer to these questions determine the person we are and are becoming.

What must I do to be loved? What must I do to be valued?

Is love something you have, or something you lack? At the core of who you are – the deepest reality of ‘you’ – what is your belief about love? What makes you valuable? Do you have a scarcity or an abundance? Many of us feel chronically deficient in this area – so our fundamental posture is one of “I must find love; I must prove my worth” Others of us (for various reasons) don’t question that we are loved and valued. We live and move out of a deep, full awareness that love is at home in us and we are valued and have worth. We are loved.

Where are you? Below are some questions I ask to get at the core of how I’m living. Am I living from God’s love, or out of a lack of it? Am I trying to prove or assert my worth rather than rest in the reality that I am (and have) value(d):

1. Am I trying to please God and others? Doing things to receive admiration and accolades? Am I a people pleaser?
2.  Do I avoid things that I’m bad at because my value is tied to what I’m good at or produce? Am I a performer?
3. Does being wrong or having to ask forgiveness scare me? Am I avoiding difficult conversations and living with unreconciled relationships because I can’t risk being wrong or a failure? Am I a do-gooder?
4. When I sin, do I beat myself up? Do I tell myself I am someone other than who God says I am? Am I able to be gentle with my faults? Am I a critic?
5. Do I feel “safe” to come out of hiding with God and others and authentically reveal who I am? Am I an escaper?

Love – God’s love in Jesus Christ, the love that pursues us through the pages of scripture in the OT and becomes flesh in the NT – changes everything. Love is so high and deep and wide and long that it completely fills us with all God’s fullness (Eph 3.18-19) Love answers the above questions like this:

1.  Am I trying to please God and others? Doing things to receive admiration and accolades? Am I a people pleaser?“You please me because I love you – I am already pleased with you before you obey or disobey. Will you trust that love today?” (Heb 11.6)
2. Do I avoid things that I’m bad at because I can’t handle failure? Am I a performer? “My love for you isn’t compromised by failure – when you fail I will use it to teach you to trust my love – my success on your behalf – even more.” (1 Cor 12.8-10)
3. Does being wrong or having to ask forgiveness scare me? Am I avoiding difficult conversations and living with unreconciled relationships because I can’t risk being wrong? Am I a do-gooder? “It is now safe for you to be wrong because with me there is forgiveness of sins. In fact, the only way to rest and remain in my love is to give up your prideful pursuit to always be right, to win, and to justify yourself.” (1 John 4.18)
4. When I sin, do I beat myself up? Do I tell myself I am someone other than who God says I am? Am I able to be gentle with my faults? Am I a critic? “I was wounded for your transgressions, my beloved. By my wounds you are healed – why do you treat yourself in a way that denies the reality that I have paid your penalty in full? Your sin is another opportunity to surrender to my love.” (Rom 7.14-8.2) “There is an Accuser who is always pointing out your faults to me – when you beat yourself up and practice self-condemnation you sound a lot like him. And – I went to great pains to defeat his power in your life. Won’t you trust me in this? You will never be able to hate yourself enough to not sin – but if you trust my love, you may be able to love yourself and others enough to not sin.” (Rom 8.31-39)
5. Do I feel “safe” to come out of hiding with God and others and authentically reveal who I am? Am I an escape artist?“My love is only accessible through honest, open, unpretentious living. The more you pretend you’re someone you’re not, the less access you have to the love available to you right in the midst of who you really are.” (1 John 1.8-9; 4.9-10)

How we answer these two questions - What must I do to be loved? What must I do to be valued? - will determine our choices and shape our affections. Friends – in Jesus Christ the good news of God is that we are loved and of infinite worth. Yes, we sin. Yes, we’ve rebelled against God’s good created order. But we are a “splendid ruin” (as Dallas Willard says) that God seeks to save by demonstrating his love for – and redeeming his OWN precious image in – us. Our loveliness and value are relational gifts we receive through surrender and trust in Jesus

How do you know you are loved and of worth? 

Do these above questions help you assess where your heart lies? 

Of the following: People-pleaser, Performer, Critic, Escape Artist, Do-gooder – how do you most often live outside of God’s love and value? 

What sorts of practices demonstrate we believe who God says we are? How do we bear fruit in keeping with repentance in these areas? What’s that look like for you?

Hey all, I’m heading for Cleveland for Cleveland’s first ever Missional Round Table. We’ll be there all day tomorrow. We’ll be talking the nitty gritty of church leadership/church planting in a society that is no longer culturally Christian. Church and Mission!The gathering will be small conversational and free! So, all the good peeps of Cleveland, join us if you can. Here’s a link to all the info.

Geoff Holsclaw and I are pleased our book Prodigal Christianity finally arrived these past few months. Now that there has been enough time for people to read and digest it, we’re launching a blog tour that will feature people’s reflections, engagements, and criticism of all 10 of our Signposts, beginning next Monday. Below is the schedule and then the biographies of those on the tour. If you are reading the book, won’t you join us in the discussion Geoff and I hope to be interacting with with every post!

Tim Stidham is the pastor of NewHope Community Church (NW Indiana). He is the adjunct professor of Homiletics at Olivet Nazarene University. He received his D.Min in Preaching from Association of Chicago Theological Schools (ACTS) and blogs at http://hdnazarene.com.

Robert Martin, by day, is a middle-aged software validation analyst in a small software company in Southeastern Pennsylvania. By night (or rather always), he is the Abnormally Anabaptist, trying his best to humbly follow God, examine life (his own especially), and seek to help others find and follow the King of Kings. He blogs at http://abnormalanabaptist.wordpress.com/.

Fred Liggins is a husband, father, friend, activist, coffee-drinker, beard-promoter, comma-lover, and bi-vocational pastor with Williamsburg Christian Church. He blogs at www.fredsforehead.com.

JR Woodward is the co-founder of Ecclesia Network and Missio Alliance, Director of Church Planting - V3, Author of Creating a Missional Culture, and Phd Student at the University of Manchester.  He blogs at jrwoodward.net.

Wende Lance, after seven years in ministry at a traditional church in Ashland, Ohio, resigned her position to pursue a more missional lifestyle. Currently, she co-leads a missional community, continues her DMin studies at Northern Seminary, works as a realtor, and blogs sporadically at www.wjlance.com.

Kevin Scott is co-pastor of a sustainable church plant in Noblesville, Indiana, acquisitions editor for Wesleyan Publishing House, and a frequent speaker on how God brings redemption and healing in pockets of the kingdom. Kevin writes about sustainable Christianity at kevinscottwrites.com and is author of the forthcoming book, ReCreatable: How God Heals the Brokenness of Life (Kregel, March 2014).

Seth Richardson is an Anglican with anabaptist proclivities. His home base is St. Andrew’s Church in Little Rock, Arkansas where he oversees discipleship-related things. Seth has also been an adjunct instructor of hermeneutics at Ouachita Baptist University, and sometimes he explores lived theology on his blog, This Place.

Joshua Lee Henry is a missional leadership coach and also leads several ministries with Pathway Community Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He blogs at joshualeehenry.com.

Kevin Williams is the Minister of Evangelism at The Branch Church in Farmers Branch, Texas. He has two degrees from Abilene Christian University, a BA and MA in Christian Ministry, and most recently an MRE in Missional Leadership from Rochester College. Kevin and his wife, Jill, live in Dallas, TX and he blogs at www.hipstianity.wordpress.com.

Josh Rowley is a pastor (teaching elder) in the Presbyterian Church (USA). For the past nine and a half years he has been serving with a church in San Carlos, California, and in June he will begin a new call in Vancouver, Washington (First Presbyterian). He have degrees from the University of Colorado, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and Fuller Theological Seminary (where he studied missional leadership under Al Roxburgh and Mark Lau Branson). I blog atwww.postyesterday.com.

Scott is an avid reader of both theology and culture who has been taught more by his special needs students than he is aware. He has been attempting to cultivate communities of Jesus-followers in his hometown of Syracuse alongside his wife and three daughters. Blog: https://scottemery.wordpress.com/