Donkeys sleeping in the bathtub
According to a commercial on the radio, there is a law in Arizona that makes it illegal to allow a donkey to sleep in your bathtub.
Also, apparently, in Minnesota, there is a law that makes it illegal to cross the Minnesota state line with a duck on your head.
While these laws seem funny and even ridiculous to us, there was probably a good reason for passing the laws in the first place. If we traced the history of these laws, we would probably understand why the laws are on the book. However, while the history may clear things up for us, history will not make the laws make sense today.
Why? Well, most people don’t own donkeys today, much less allow them to sleep in their bathtubs. And, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with a duck on their head.
But, of course, once a law is on the books, it is difficult to remove it.
The same thing happens with our traditions and practices and rules in the church. For very good reasons, the church begins doing things and begins doing them in certain ways. Eventually, the reasons disappear, but the practices continue.
Eventually, if we’re not careful, those practices become more important to us than who we are as the family of God in Christ. The way we do things becomes more important than the reason we started doing them in the first place. We become defined by our methods instead of being defined by our relationship with God and with one another.
I think we see this today in many aspects of our lives together as the church. We don’t know why we do the things we do or why we act the way we act or why we’re structured the way we’re structured, but someone must have had a good reason to start doing it this way, and we’re familiar and comfortable with these things, so we just let them continue.
But, the silly laws I mentioned at the beginning of this post – laws against donkeys sleeping in bathtubs and wearing a duck on your head – generally don’t affect people today. For many people, their lives will not be changed if the laws remain or are repealed.
But, it is completely different for the church. The things that we do day after day, week after week, year after year, simply because that’s the ways it’s been done, or the ways we’ve been taught, or the ways that have worked before, or even the ways that seem rational and logical… these things affect us as followers of Jesus Christ. They affect our relationship with God and our relationships with one another.
The things that we do or don’t do, the way that we’re structured or not structured, the way that we speak or don’t speak, all of these things work to either build us up toward maturity in Christ, or they hinder our development in Christ.
Laws against donkeys sleeping in the bathtub seem funny and ridiculous to us. But, I wonder if the way we treat one another as the church, the way we set up hierarchies among believers, the way we abandon our responsibilities toward one another and pay others to carry out our responsibilities… I wonder if these things seem funny to God.
Gospel, Community, and Beyond
Just over a week ago, in a post called “Total Church Principles“, I mentioned that I am reading the book Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. In that post, I discussed the first part of the book in which the authors discuss the principles behind the church as both gospel-centered and community-centered. In the second section of the book, they discuss practical implications of the church as centered on both the gospel and community. In this post, I will discuss the first four chapters in this section: Evangelism, Social Involvement, Church Planting, and World Mission.
I’ve decided to discuss these four chapters together because they all share something in common: they all focus on how the gospel-centered and community-centered church must reach beyond itself to impact the world. To begin, here are a few quotes that stood out to me:
Major events have a role to play in church life, but the bedrock of gospel ministry is low-key, ordinary, day-to-day work that often goes unseen. Most gospel ministry involves ordinary people doing ordinary things with gospel intentionality. Whether it is helping a friend, working at the office, or going to the movies, there is a commitment to building relationships, modeling the Christian faith, and talking about the gospel as a natural part of conversation. People often ask if they can come see our ministry at The Crowded House [the group of churches with which the authors are involved]. But all there is to see is ordinary people doing ordinary things. There are no projects, no programs, no “ministries”. (pg. 63)
We want to make three assertions about the relationship between evangelism and social action:
1) Evangelism and social action are distinct activities…
2) Proclamation is central…
3) Evangelism and social action are inseparable… (pg. 78-79)There need be no second-generation churches if the church is constantly reconfiguring itself through church planting. Second-generation “Christians” are those without their own living experience of the gospel. Second-generation churches are those who have lost their gospel cutting edge. It may be that a fiftieth church anniversary is not an occasion to celebrate the faithfulness of God but to lament the stagnation of his people. (pg. 96)
There are two main things that I take from these chapters… two things that I have not thought much about before, but that I’m thinking seriously about now.
1) Evangelism should be a community activity. This doesn’t mean that groups should go door-to-door. Instead, it means that as I meet someone and begin introducing them to Jesus Christ, I also begin introducing them to the community. As the authors say, recognizing evangelism as a community activity takes seriously how the Holy Spirit uses and gifts people differently.
2) A church – as a Christian community – may not be intended to remain “together” forever. In fact, if it is our responsible to proclaim the gospel, and if that gospel includes community, then we must be willing to share both our words about the gospel and to share our gospel community. This may mean (and probably does mean) that our community will need to divide into multiple communities in order to reproduce itself.
I’m still enjoying this book very much. I’m especially enjoying thinking through the practical implications of the church being both gospel-centered and community-centered.
What do you think?
Why priests… again
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post called “Why Priests“. In that post, I included two reviews of a book by Hans Küng called Why Priests: A Proposal for a New Church Ministry.
Even though I couldn’t find the book in the school’s library, James at “Idle musings of a bookseller” was able to find the book. Here are excerpts that he’s posted over the last few days:
The Church and its credibility and effectiveness in society stand and fall according to whether it is the place where Jesus and the remembrance of him are to be found, whether it steps forward privately and publicly for the cause of Jesus Christ, whether is remains the advocate of Jesus Christ in the modern world and society despite failure in both word and deed.—Why Priests, page 18
“…a Church which bears the name of Jesus Christ, hears his word and is sustained by his Spirit can never be identified with a particular class, caste, clique or authority. Like Jesus himself, his Church too addresses itself to the whole people and particularly to the underprivileged. The Church, then, is the whole community of believers in Christ, in which all may regard themselves as people of God, body of Christ, structure of the Spirit. The decisive criterion of this community is not a privilege of birth, state, race, or office. What is decisive is not whether someone has an ‘office’ in the Church or what office he has, but whether and to what extent he is purely and simply a ‘believer’: that is, one who believes, obeys, serves, loves, hopes.”—Why Priests?, pages 27-28
“Unlike the pagan or Jewish cult, the Christian needs no priest as mediator at the innermost part of the temple, with God himself. Rather , he is granted an ultimate immediacy to God which no ecclesiastical authority can destroy or even take away from him. No one has the power to judge, control or command decisions which fall within this innermost realm. To be sure, the Christian faith does not fall directly from heaven; it is passed on in the Church. But ‘Church’ means the whole believing community which, through the proclamation of the gospel—often done more by the humbler folk than by the hierarchs and theologians, more by deeds than by words—awakens faith in Jesus Christ, invites commitment in his Spirit, makes the Church present in the world through the Christian witness of daily life and thus carries on the cause of Jess Christ. It is after all everyone, not just a chosen few, to whom the proclamation of the Christian message in all the different kinds of congregation is entrusted; an individual and social life according to the gospel is required of all, and to all are entrusted baptism on [sic] the name of Jesus, the memorial, thanksgiving and covenant meal and the word of forgiveness of sins; the ministry of daily life and responsibility for their fellow men, for the congregation and for the world is given over to everyone—in all these basic functions a community of liberty, equality, fraternity.â€â€”Why Priests, page 28
“Liberty is both a gift and a task for the Church. The Church may and should be a community of free people: as advocate of Jesus Christ it can never be an institution for domination or, still less, a Grand Inquisition. Its members are freed for freedom: liberated from slavery to the letter of the law, from the burden of guilt, from dread of death; liberated for life, for service, for love—people who are subject to God alone and therefore neither to anonymous powers not to other men. To be sure, faith in the crucified Christ cannot and is not meant to abolish law and power in society; the kingdom of complete freedom is yet to come. But this faith effectively subsumes law and power and completely relativizes them. Faith in the crucified Christ makes man become so free within the scheme of law that he is capable of renouncing a right for the sake of another person without recompense, and even of going two miles with someone who has made him go one. It lets him become so free in society’s power struggle that he is capable of using power to his own disadvantage for the sake of another person, and so to give not only his coat but also his cloak. The Christian message, for instance, the words of the Sermon on the Mount, supported by Jesus’ life and death, are not meant to set up any new law, to create any new juridical order. The are meant to free men from the law.â€â€”Why Priests, page 29
“On the basis of this freedom which it has received and made concrete, the Church may and should be a community of fundamentally equal people. To be sure, we do not mean by this an egalitarianism that would put the multiplicity of gifts and ministries all on the same level; we mean rather that all members, whatever their differences among themselves, have the same fundamental rights. As advocate of Jesus Christ, it can never be the Church of a class, race, caste or officials. It is through a free decision that individuals have joined the community of faith or remain in it. Those who are unequal should be brought together here in a solidarity of love: rich and poor, high and low, educated and uneducated, white and non-white, men and women.”—Why Priests, pages 30-31
“As advocate of Jesus Christ, the Church can never have a patriarchal authority structure as its government. Here only one is the holy Father, God himself; all members of the Church are his adult sons and daughters and they must not be reduced to the status of minors. In this society men may set up only truly fraternal and not paternalistic authority. Only one is lord and master, Jesus Christ himself; all members of the Church are brothers and sisters. In this community the supreme norm is therefore not the patriarch, but the will of God, which, according to the message of Jesus Christ, is directed to men’s welfare—indeed, the welfare of all men…No one in the Church has the right to substitute for this brotherhood a clerical system’s paternalism and cult of persons and thus continue strengthening the rule of men over men.”—Why Priests, pages 32-33.
“Although various functions are mentioned in the New Testament, the problem of a Church office is never explicitly dealt with. Church ‘office’ is not a biblical concept. It came later after reflection and is not without its own difficulties. Evidently the secular words for ‘office’ were deliberately and consistently avoided in the New Testament in connection with Church functions. They express a relation of domination…
“Of course there is authority in the Church. But authority is only legitimate when it is based on service and not on power, prior rights and privileges from which the obligation of service is then considered to flow. We would therefore do better, if we want to speak in a precise theological fashion, to speak about Church ministry rather than about Church office. To be sure, it is not the word that counts but the way it is understood; talk about Church ‘ministry’ can also be misused to hide the realities if the exercise of domination in the Church is not abandoned at the same time…
“Power can be used well or badly. Even in the Church power cannot simply be abolished. But it can be used, when effectively channeled, to carry out functions that serve the common welfare. The unavoidable use of power is one thing; the use of it by individuals or groups to dominate is quite another. In the latter case it is a matter of retaining a privileged position or increasing one’s own power. Power can be used responsibly in the Church only in terms of service and is to be evaluated according to its quality as service; such power which comes from service is genuine (and primarily inner) authority. The opposition is therefore not between power and service but between the use of power to dominate and its use to serve.”—Why Priests, pages 39-40
What do you think?
How should we study the church?
Last weekend, during our seminar, I made the statement that we should study the church by beginning with Scripture, not by beginning with our current beliefs and practices. This is still an important distinction for me, just as it was three years ago when I started this blog. Here are two posts that I wrote during my first month of blogging that deal with this issue.
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How should we study the church?
This is one definition of ecclesology: the branch of theology concerned with the nature and the constitution and the functions of a church.
How should someone begin studying the nature, constitution, and functions of a church? I have found two distinct paths toward developing a biblical ecclesiology.
The first path begins with the contemporary church along with its nature and practices. The theologian then uses Scripture to justify the various roles, functions, and practices of the contemporary church. This method allows various theologians to justify different and divergent practices.
The second path begins with Scripture. The theologian examines the nature and practices of the NT church as recorded in the Bible. These “descriptions” are then used as “prescriptions” for comparisons to the contemporary church.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul encourages the church in Corinth to compare their practices to the practices of other churches (1 Cor 7:17; 11:16; 14:33-34; 16:1). We should compare our practices to those of the NT churches as well. We should not begin with our practices, then justify them with Scripture. We must begin with Scripture when we are developing our ecclesiology.
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Called into full-time ministry…
Yesterday, in discussing ecclesiology, I made the following statement:
We should not begin with our practices, then justify them with Scripture. We must begin with Scripture when we are developing our ecclesiology.
Today, someone mentioned being “called into full-time ministry.” From the context, I know that he did not mean that God has called him to serve others (minister) full-time, just as God has called all believers to serve and not to be served. Instead, he meant that God had called him to find a vocational position in a local church (probably other than his own local church) in order to earn a living. This is a normal understanding of what it means to be a preacher / pastor / minister – at least among the people that I know.
Did this understanding come from Scripture? Will reading Scripture lead someone to understand that God specially calls some people to stop working a “secular” job in order to be part of a paid staff at a local church? Does Scripture describe the pastor as someone hired from outside the body?
If this idea does not come from Scripture, then from where does it come? And, more importantly, why is this the “normal” practice in our churches today?
Keeping us thinking
Here are two good posts that help us keep thinking about the church:
Lew at “The Pursuit” with “Putting Church Before God“
Matt at “Kingdom Living” with “What is Church?“
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
I like Pink Floyd, but not in the same way that my friend (and co-worker) Gary likes Pink Floyd. He plays it often in the office. Last week, he played “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”:
Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there’s a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom,
blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,
rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!
I had heard this song before, of course, but I had never paid attention to the lyrics. I asked Gary about the lyrics, and he told me the story of Syd Barrett.
He was one of the founding members of Pink Floyd and played with the band from 1964 to 1968. However, as the band became more popular, the pressures on Barrett caused him to have emotional and psychiatric problems. These issues were compounded by his increasing use of hallucinogenic drugs (especially LSD). People reported seeing Barrett on stage playing one chord on his guitar for an entire concert, or not playing at all.
David Gilmour was asked to play along side Barrett (since Barrett wasn’t functioning on stage), until Gilmore finally completely replaced Barrett. In 1975, He returned to watch the band record the album (no, it wasn’t a CD at this time) Wish You Were Here, which included the song “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”.
As I read the lyrics, and heard Gary tell Barrett’s story, I couldn’t help but recognize the comparison between Barrett’s life with Pink Floyd and the life of the church. Just as Barrett got sidetracked, I think the church has been sidetracked. Just as Gilmour came in to work beside and eventually replace Barrett, other groups have come along side and eventually replaced the church (i.e. government, welfare, parachurch groups).
The church had a fascinated beginning. The people truly did “shine like the sun”, and their world noticed – either rejecting them, killing them, or embracing them. Today, the church seems irrelevant, and the world doesn’t care. The church has chased the wrong secrets (hierarchy, structures, philosophies, etc.) and has been “exposed in the light”.
Just as Pink Floyd was hoping for Barrett to return, I’m hoping the same for the church. I know the church is out there. God has never forsaken his church. The Lord is still leading his church. The question is, “Will the church be willing to turn away from the distractions and turn her eyes back toward Jesus? Will the church be willing to be seen once again as a raver, a seer of visions, a painter, a piper, a prisoner? Will the church shine?”
What do you think? Do you see a similarity? Is the church giving up its ability to shine? Can the church shine once again? If so, how?
Seminar in one week
The “Developing a Biblical Ecclesiology” seminar is next Saturday, March 21, from 8:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. in Roxboro, NC. It is hard to believe that the seminar is only a week away.
The work that I have to do to prepare for the seminar is to finish a couple of PowerPoint presentations. The presentations will be very simple, because I’m only coming in with an outline. My plan is to share what I’ve been learning about the church and interact with the people at the seminar. Thus, I hope to learn as much as I teach next weekend.
What are my goals for the seminar? I hope that everyone taking part in the seminar will think about the church again – and think about HOW they think about the church. Hopefully, God will help us all think about the church in his way, instead of in our way.
Church Stuff
I’m glad to see that other people are continuing to ask questions about the church and ecclesiology. Here are a few posts I’ve run across this week:
- Bryan at “Charis Shalom” in “Rethinking Church“
- Eric at “A Pilgrim’s Progress” in “Church Gatherings: Are All things To Be Done for ‘Worship’?“
- Douglas at “Douglas Weaver” in “What is the Church?“
There were other good posts, but I wanted to highlight these three.
Also, if you haven’t read it yet, make sure you read Strider’s (“Tales from Middle Earth“) latest story in a post called “What Can Pop Up At a Funeral“. Strider tells the story of a modern-day resurrection.
The seminar keeps getting better
Less than two weeks away (March 21) from the “Developing a Biblical Ecclesiology” seminar, and it keeps getting better. No, not my part of the seminar. But, the other parts of the seminar. Let me explain.
First, if you’re not familiar with the seminar, I’ve written about it in these posts: “Upcoming Seminar: Developing a Biblical Ecclesiology“, “Promoting the Developing a Biblical Ecclesiology seminar“, “A Relational Seminar“, and “What’s in a seminar name?” Also, Dave Black has written about the seminar a few times on his blog (you’ll have to search for the seminar).
Originally, we planned to meet together at a local restaurant Friday night (March 20) before the seminar for dinner. This was going to be a great time to meet people and get to know one another before the seminar itself. This dinner, along with several of us spending the night with host families Friday night, was very important for the relational aspect of the seminar.
But, now I’ve been told that a family has agreed to open their home for us on Friday night. Instead of having dinner at a local restaurant, we will be able to talk together in this family’s living room! They are also providing finger foods so we will be able to eat and talk. This will be a much more relational atmosphere than the restaurant!
As I explained in my previous blog posts about the seminar, the relational aspect is extremely important. In this family’s living room – overlooking a lake, I’ve been told – we’ll be able to talk to one another, get to know one another, learn about our hopes and fears and concerns, and talk about some practical aspects that we will not cover in the seminar. This Friday evening meeting will be foundational to building relationships and to the content of the rest of the seminar.
So, if you can be in the Roxboro, NC area Friday night (March 20), please plan to join us. If you can join us that evening, contact Jason Evans. The host family requested only a certain number of people come Friday night because of the size of their living room and amount of food. See the seminar brochure (here) for Jason’s contact info.
A review of From Eternity to Here by Frank Viola
Last November, when I was finishing Reimagining Church by Frank Viola, I had the opportunity to chat with Frank a few times about that book. (See my review “Reimagining Church“.) During one of those conversations, Frank said that his next book would unwrap some of the concepts in Chapter 7 which was called “Church Practice and God’s Eternal Purpose”.
From Eternity to Here is that book. In this book, Frank describes what he calls “the eternal purpose” of God. What is the eternal purpose of God? Well, it is three purposes combined into one, actually. And, Frank divides this book into three parts which each describe one aspect of the eternal purpose: 1) The Bride of Christ, 2) The House of God, and 3) The Body of Christ and the Family of God.
Let’s get the “bad” out of the way first. While I loved this book, and I agree with Frank, I disagree with some of the methodology especially in Parts 1 and 2 (but primarily in Part 1). While Frank finds the church described as the bride or Christ and the house of God directly in Scripture, in the first two parts of the book he utilizes a typological hermeneutic to flesh it out. Unfortunately, I think some of the typology stretches the narrative of Scripture.
This is a small point for me. Why? Because Frank also defends his claim from the direct statements of Scripture. Thus, Frank demonstrates that God is providing a bride for Christ and building a house for himself without the typology. Some will probably disagree with me on this point, and that’s fine. Now, on the good points of this book – and there are many.
Frank begins by reminding us that God is creating a bride for Christ – and the church is that bride. If we recognize the church as a bride, it will affect the way we think about ourselves and other brothers and sisters. For example, Frank says:
What is the Lord looking for? He is looking for a people who will take their stand in Christ. He’s after a people who will dare to believe that they are part of Christ’s beloved bride. A people who will defy what they see through their natural eyes and instead look through His eyes. He is looking for a people who see themselves as He sees them, through the prism of divine righteousness, part of a new creation wherein the fall has been eliminated. This is the necessary beginning to fulfilling God’s grand mission. To take any other view is to serve God out of guilt, religious duty, or ambition rather than out of love. (62-63)
This first part reminds us that God is creating a people to love, not because of what they have done, but because he desires to love them. As Frank says, this should remove the necessity of trying to impress God or trying to get him to love you. God loves his church; and we should live in that love.
In the second part, Frank describes the eternal purpose of God as God building a house for himself. As Frank reminds us, God does not desire a house built of brick and mortar, nor a house built on doctrine and theology. God’s house is his people; and it begins with the person of Jesus Christ. Frank says:
When Jesus lived on earth, the house of God was limited by space and time. It was also limited to one person, Jesus of Nazareth… But when Pentecost arrived, the ekklesia was born… (162)
God is building a house for himself through the church (the ekklesia). Now that the Spirit indwells each of God’s children, it is possible for God to dwell among his people. But, there is a problem, as Frank points out:
In this connection, I want you to imagine countless living stones scattered all over the earth. I want you to see innumerable living stones living their own individual Christian lives. I want you to see scores of living stones who love God, but who are isolated and independent of other living stones. They may attend religious services, but there’s little to no “building together” among the members.
That is precisely the situation we find ourselves in today. (169)
Just as God’s people must learn to live in his love as the bride of Christ, we also must learn to live together as God’s building – his dwelling place.
In the final part of the book, Frank describes the eternal purpose of God as making a new creation, which is the body of Christ and the family of God. He combines these two images to describe believers as new creatures. He says:
While Jesus never denigrated the physical family, He redefined its entire meaning. The Lord introduced the family of God, the very thing that the physical family was designed to portray. And you and I have been made part of that family. But that’s not all. We have equally been made members of Christ’s very own body. We are His limbs, His hands, and His feet… The body of Christ exists to express God on earth. (236-237)
Frank steps through the writings of Paul to demonstrate how we demonstrate ourselves as a new creation – Christ’s body and God’s family. As Frank told me when I talked to him about this book, this section is the most exegetical and least typological of the three.
Frank concludes with this:
The big sweeping epic of God’s timeless purpose is centered on a bride, a house, a body, and a family. These four elements make up the grand narrative of the Bible. The mission of God – the Missio Dei – is wrapped up with each of them.
God’s mission demands more than a theological head-nod of agreement. It demands practical expression. The Lord wants a people who embody the bride, the house, the body, and the family in every city on this planet. (281)
And, this gets to the heart of the matter.
Many people who disagree with Frank concerning the content of Pagan Christianity and Reimagining Church – that is, they disagree that the church should be more organic and less structured – will agree with Frank’s content in this book – if they read it. Why? Because this content is not new. Unfortunately, the understanding of the church as a bride, a house, a body, and a family is often wrapped in institutional clothing.
But, I believe that as people think about the church in these ways – really think about, not just give “a theological head-nod of agreement” – it will affect the way they think about the church and one another. Also, I believe these ideas offer a starting point in discussions about the church. Most will agree that the church is a bride, a house, a body, and a family. We can start there by asking what that means and how we live it out.
In fact, I believe these ideas are so foundational, that I’m beginning my seminar “Developing a Biblical Ecclesiology” with the idea that the church is a family. Why am I beginning with that concept instead of one of the others? Because, for the most part, while the other views are more metaphorical, the church is a real family. And we know what a family should look like. When we compare our actions and attitudes toward one another with the way we know we should act and think toward family, most people quickly recognize the problem.
Like I said, the ideas in this book are not new, but they are foundational. In fact, I would recommend reading From Eternity to Here, then Reimagining Church, then Pagan Christianity (yes, the opposite order from publication). But, regardless of the order in which you read them, I would recommend all of these books.