So, Now What?

I'm painfully aware of how presumptuous it is to assume one has a grasp of the problems, much less the solutions.  I've read more than a few of those church leadership and growth books, and thought I'd found some great answers, only to discover a few months later that the trend of the moment is rarely useful in the long run.  So now, whether I'm considering the problems or the solutions for the church, I try to stick close to the only reliable source we have, the Bible.

There is this really great scene in the series Firefly where River starts "fixing" the Bible to by removing and rearranging pages to something that makes more sense to her.  Shepherd Book, retrieving his Bible, explains, "You don't fix the Bible, the Bible fixes you."

I find that conceptualization helpful.  The Bible fixes us.  In that phrase rests some assumptions that define our faith.  First, we are broken.  And second, we need something outside ourselves to fix us.  It's my impression that the things that are off the mark about today's western church are the things we have done for ourselves in spite of Scripture.  We hold onto these things, even treating them as sacred and ordained, but they are from us.

So I have to think that discipleship, simple and organic, is the better answer to our challenges.  It sounds oversimplified, even to me, to say, "Oh yeah, all those problems could be redeemed by re-engaging the ancient practices of discipleship."  Nevertheless, I think it's true.  The self sacrificing nature of discipleship undermines the consumerism of western Christianity.  The multiplication nature of discipleship decentralizes leadership, thus discouraging celebrity and encouraging the exercise of diverse gifts by multiple believers in each fellowship.  The deliberate process of discipleship extends beyond our current educational models into an active and challenging journey that promises to facilitate genuine spiritual maturity.

I've been hammering away at the idea of discipleship for years, and I've often run into a problem with my conceptualization.  Christians tend to reject the idea that we are not already practicing discipleship.  Of course, I'm hardly the only or the most credible person to make this observation.  Nevertheless, we tend to so closely associate discipleship with Christianity that we think being one is the same as being the other.  Actually, I tend to agree, but in the opposite way.  Where most of the western church seems to be saying "If you are a Christian you are a disciple," I'm saying, in concert with Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Dallas Willard, and countless others, "If you are not practicing discipleship, you are not really living the Christian life."

The scary thing is that real life discipleship is foreign enough to us that most church leaders aren't really sure where to begin.  For that matter, I certainly can't claim any expertise.  I have enjoyed a dsicipleship relationship with certain mentors in my life and I have, with those who've allowed me, attempted to disciple others.  I've read just about everything I can find on the subject, and I've made a study of the concept in Scripture.

Nevertheless, I'm no authority on the subject.  But it strikes me that the advantage of discipleship is that it is not particularly dependent on expertise.  In fact, I think it kind of works against us to assume expertise.  The people I've tried to disciple, for example, are not people to whom I think I'm particularly superior in any way.  Christian discipleship is unique in this regard, because we don't seek to make people like ourselves, but like Christ.  And in regard to emulating Christ, we all share our human weaknesses.  So it actually works to simply share the journey with another, talk to them about what we have learned, and give them room to make their own mistakes.

I've been considering, for quite some time now, the implementation of a discipleship "experiment."  I'd like to gather some people who are willing and ready, and walk with them through a process in which my own leadership would be considerably decentralized.  There would be some instruction.  There would also be experiments with spiritual disciplines and missional activities.  There would be a whole lot of discussion and shared journey.

I've imagined this process because I think it mimics the experience of Jesus' disciples.  Certainly, there was instruction, which often challenged their status quo assumptions.  But discipleship was hardly limited to education.  It was an active process, wherein disciples participated in the spirituality and mission of Jesus.  And, very importantly, those who made the journey chose to make it.

Problems First, Then Solutions

In keeping with the spirit of my last post, the role of the critic is to use what may be wrong to point to and encourage what might be right.  So what's wrong?  I mean really wrong?  Not just the standard, "Oh yeah we could probably do better than that."  And certainly not the "Well, I can't prove that it's right or wrong but I prefer it my way."  I'm talking about where we really miss the mark.  In some things I think it pretty obvious.  In other things less so.  But the mark has to be set by the Bible, not by me, and not by the latest church growth strategy book.

So how have we, as the church, diverted from Scripture?  Anyone who has read any of the many books on that subject will probably not be very surprised by my views.  There is nothing new about what I'm going to write here.  These problems have been well documented by Christian writers, thinkers, leaders, and scholars of many different backgrounds.  But I feel like I've got to clarify them for my own use, in order to then clarify my prayerful search for Biblical solutions.  So here goes, in short format:

Note: These are generalizations.  I know it.  Anyone with half a brain who reads this will know it.  For my purpose here, generalizations are helpful because they identify common trends.

The church has traded discipleship and its identity as the body of Christ for membership and consumerism.  The church has traded spiritual maturity for denominational indoctrination.  The church persists in its denominational identities in spite of clear instruction from Scripture to the contrary.  Discipleship, the only modality of the early church, is, in its original form, extremely rare today.  The leadership of the church has come to center around personality and high profile pastors, rather than the fivefold leadership gifts practiced organically within the body.  The church has, all too often, sanctified materialism, promiscuity, and other sinful behaviors, or pretended they are not problematic within our fellowships.  The church rarely practices confession, even though we've seen it's power when it is employed.  The church is more Roman than Jewish in its orientation and practice, even though Judaism is its true root.  The church is not global in its approach to poverty, nor is it local in its approach to fellowship.  Individual preference has replaced submission and calling.  What we want to do we label as God's leading, even if our direction is contrary to Scripture.  We have virtually nullified the need for grace by changing the definition of what it means to be a good person to something we are capable of achieving.  That is, we've lowered the standard to what we, and almost anyone, can accomplish rather that holding ourselves or anyone else to the standard of Christ.

Whew!  Not a fun list.  And many would contest me on it, I'm sure.  But this is what I see.  And, in keeping with the purpose of criticism, I going to try to identify some Biblical directions that contrast with these trends.

Towards Better Things

I've often thought that I might make a good film critic.  I'm a big fan of movies, but I have a critical nature that tends to unpack and analyze things.  I know some people can't stand critics.  They'd rather not think too hard about their entertainment, and to them a critic is like that English teacher in your life that can't help but bring your grammatical errors to your attention.  I have, as you might expect, a different view.

I believe that film critics have the potential to raise the standards of movie making.  They can, though they seldom do, hold Hollywood accountable for its excesses and irresponsibility.  They make very clear what's wrong with the movies we watch, but they also call our attention to the true gems.  It gets difficult, after all, to distinguish what is good, unless you are willing to identify what is bad.  If you praise everything, then what do you say when you encounter something genuinely praiseworthy? 

I think the common Christian view of the modern church is a bit like film reviews in a high school newspaper.  Everything gets five stars, even when it stinks.  Sometimes I get the impression that we believe that if we think highly of everything, it will actually be good.  Consequently, we rarely reconsider the directions the church has taken. 

When someone like me comes along, who is inclined to look at the church through a critical lens, people either find it refreshingly honest, or irritatingly pessimistic.  But any critique of the church has to be like a movie review, the intent behind finding what is wrong is the opportunity to recognize the really great things when they come along.

More specifically, a critique is not really helpful unless it suggests a new direction.  That is my intent, to seek out and implement solid Biblical directions that promise to fix what ails us.  Of course, if Christians reject the critique, they also reject the possible solutions.  We assume then, that we don't need to do anything or go anywhere new because what we were doing and where we were going are already just fine.  Or, sometimes, we recognize things are probably not what they should be, but we are resolved to the deficiency, believing the way things are is a dynamic we cannot overcome.

While many, maybe most, people find criticism inherently negative, it occurs to me that criticism exists because of the belief that something better is possible. 

Long Worship Service

This morning our worship service ran too long.  The director of our upcoming mission trip planned the service, and it would have been fine, except there were several people involved in presenting different things, and some of us, myself included, spoke longer than the few minutes we intended.  Anyway, the end result was the service was two hours long - forty-five minutes longer than normal.

I never used to pay attention to such things, but to keep the peace I've maintained a sort of unspoken social contract with the congregation.  I generally plan our gatherings so they will last about 75 minutes, and I'm pretty diligent about keeping it from ever exceeding 90 minutes.  Today was a rare exception, but I've already heard there were some pretty disgruntled people after the gathering.

Foreign missionaries often have this problem.  They are not accustomed to the hard scheduled time constraints we employ here in the states.  People here can get downright nasty if you allow your worship service to run beyond what they expect.  Of course, this morning's gathering didn't really need to run as long as it did.  Had I known it was going to, I certainly would have abbreviated my own contributions to the morning.  But it bothers me that this is such a big deal.

American Christians are very much accustomed to rigid limitations on the time and effort they are expected to expend on worship or ministry.  If you exceed these expectations, you often hear about it.  An hour and fifteen minutes seems to be about the limit for an organized worship gathering.  Ten hours a month devoted to a ministry and people start talking about "burnout."  Of course, we have lots of rationalizations for all of this.  We are busy people, with important things to do.

There is something about it, though, that eats at me...that makes me question our devotion.  I know that a worship service or hours spent in service of a particular ministry are not necessarily indications of our faithfulness, but it's also hard to believe we are really surrendered to Jesus if two hours of worship or two hours of ministry in a given week are enough to deplete us.

I've been feeling regret today for letting the service run so long, but I also regret that I'm conditioned to think it's a problem.

Biblical Integrity

Our situation is a little unique in the modern Christian world.  We are an independent congregation governed by local elders.  Thus, the authority common to the more predominant pastor led church model is not common to me.  As a minister, I can suggest a vision for our future, but I certainly cannot dictate it.  I don't have a problem with that, as I don't think it's healthy to build the local congregation around an individual.  But, having the authority to set direction in the hands of several is a bit complicated.

In our particular congregation, I've rarely been denied the opportunity to try things, but I've often been denied overt support.  That is, I've been allowed and even encouraged to try approaches, to attempt to influence people, and to teach on Biblical direction for contemporary ministry.  But rarely has the leadership identified and endorsed any specific direction for the congregation.  And, influence leaders in the congregation have, at times, subtly undermined things we've attempted to do by making dismissive statements in the background.  So, we've often found ourselves at an impasse in regard to a congregational vision.

Recent events began to change that, but at the moment it feels like we are a bit stuck again.  Of course, I know some of my critics will say I'm only complaining because I'm not getting my way.  And I am as subject to selfish desires as anyone.  But I find that those who complain the loudest about "my way" are primarily concerned that if I get "my way" they won't get "their way."  Though Christians tend to make their complaints using spiritual terminology, it is still, more often than not, a question of self interest.

Thus, when we dispute over our vision for the local church, we are, quite often, disputing, not over theological or doctrinal ideas, but over preferences and opinion.  This, in and of itself, I don't mind.  People have opinions and ideas, and should be free to express them, so long as we don't equate our opinions and ideas with the will of God.  Unfortunately, that happens all too often.

For me, the most disturbing thing about the church today is that the Bible does not seem to literally matter.  Most Christians will take exception to such a statement, but I'm convinced it is true.  In his book, Knowing Christ Today, Dallas Willard points out that western civilization, both secular and Christian, has so separated faith from knowledge, that when confronted with new knowledge, we are capable of rejecting it in deference to our faith.  Which indicates that our faith is not informed by knowledge.  So if our faith is rooted in the modern church, and knowledge of Scripture challenges the practice thereof, we favor our faith over that knowledge.

This is another way of saying that we have assigned authority to our own traditions, experiences, feelings, and religion.  The Roman church, after Constantine, assigned itself this kind of authority, and in spite of reformation, most of us still make the same assumption at some level.  It basically works like this:  We are the church.  Whatever we do and whatever we have experienced is indicative of what the church does.  If the content of Scripture appears to contradict what we do or what we have experienced, we can disregard it because... We are the church.

The net effect is that when the Bible establishes our direction for us, we are very slow to adopt that direction in actual practice.  Many who sincerely believe they are following Christ are actually following a mixture of their religious experiences, their impressions of Christ, and an unhealthy portion of selfish intent.

I'm not real big on the modern church "vision process."  It's been borrowed from the corporate world of commerce, which is another problem.  But I find the typical process incredibly self centered.  Often, we seem to be seeking our vision as informed by Christ, rather than Christ's vision as employed by us.  And the strongest indication of that is the fact that the Bible actually gives us some pretty clear directions that we disregard because they do not fit our religious experience.

A Welcome Chaos

After my last post I checked on a couple of other blogs I follow and found that they, too, had written about church plants.  Hugh Halter's blog and Neil Cole's blog both focused on it, with Cole's blog featuring a long list of the challenges involved.  Points well taken in contrast to my "church plants sometimes look like greener pastures" posting.

I have to say, however, the chaos of a missional church setting would be welcome to me.  Cole's blog talks about all the weeknight meetings training different groups as they plant home churches.  I'd really like to have at least one group of people prepared to be trained for such an endeavor.  That's something I'd really like to work towards.

My house is abuzz today with poultry.  I've been raising chickens as a sort of hobby, and today I have chicks hatching in an incubator, twenty-six new chicks and four goslings that just arrived from the hatchery, all in addition to my fifteen mature layers and my rooster, Stew.  My kids are extremely excited by all this, but to tell you the truth, so am I.

I'd love to feel that way about ministry.  I'd love to be caught up in the excitement of things happening at all levels, and life bursting out everywhere.  I've been trying for a long time to involve everyone in our congregation in everything we are trying to do, and I think I've only frustrated them and myself. At this point, I think I really need, for the sake of productivity and my sanity, to work intensely with a very small group of people who want to explore all the possibilities of what the church could be.

Church Plants

About ten years ago my wife and I seriously considered an opportunity to work with a then recent church plant up in Washington State. Ultimately, it didn't seem to be where God was leading us at the time, but I was certainly intrigued by the possibilities. I realize, of course, that church plants have there own challenges and difficulties, but for many in an established church ministry the thought of being in a setting where the church has not had time to accumulate any baggage is very appealing.

Some day I think I would like to be a part of a church plant, though as I've considered all the options and possibilities, I'd be most interested in some kind of home church network. It is my perception, at this point in the journey, that the effort to restore mission and discipleship to the local church is inhibited by the way we structure "church." I believe the home church format better lends itself to these.

One of the things I've learned from colleagues in church plants is it doesn't take long before established church folk start showing up, and bringing their baggage with them. The environment of a church plant is exciting, and inasmuch as American Christianity is very much about pursuing a feeling, that excitement is a draw. The problem is, these church plants often find themselves burdened with the dead weight of Christians who want that excitement but who are not particularly mission minded.

Hugh Halter at Adullam here in Denver is rather blunt on this point. He sees the missional church as made up of those checking out Jesus and those committed to serving him in a missional way. There is no in between. Hugh is rather unapologetic about the fact that the health of the missional church is often dependent on our willingness to invite people to leave if they've no intent to serve.

On the other end of the church spectrum, Saddleback church in CA requires its members to get involved in a ministry, or go worship somewhere else. I wonder how that really works in a mega church setting. I've often seen people sign onto a new ministry and then do nothing about it for years, so they must have some way of holding people accountable.

I know some will perceive of such things as overly controlling, but the American church is deeply afflicted by an audience syndrome. Paul often describes the church as a body, made up of many parts. Well, the American church is about three-quarters appendix. The appendix is a body part with an indefinite purpose, and when it's removed, you don't really notice its absence. That is the effect that audience has on the local church. A few members serve in the various ministries, and the rest observe.

I think that's what happens when mission gets misplaced. In the absence of mission, churches turn inward, and get focused on how we are feeling for Jesus rather than on what we are doing for Jesus. And it's not enough to merely support missions, we need our churches to be populated by people who share a strong sense of mission and calling on the local level.