Ownership

Well, here it is the middle of August, and I haven't posted a word since mid-June. As bloggers go, I'm afraid I've not been very diligent. But I do have something on my mind that might be worth sharing:

My wife wondered aloud this afternoon, as we left our Sunday morning assembly, "I wonder if there's anyone's toes you didn't step on today?"

She's probably right, though I didn't set out to offend. I've just got a bee in my bonnet about ownership. It's been a pet peeve of mine for some time. I cringe every time I hear someone saying that the way to motivate people in ministry is to give them ownership. This corporate culture notion of ownership is about as far removed from Scripture as you can get. And yet our culture is so enamored with ownership as a concept, that we tend to accept this advice with little thought.

Lately I've become frustrated with just how pervasive the notion of ownership has become. It occurs to me that the things we use to define church are all rooted in ownership. The things that frustrate me about organized religion: the focus on facilities, budgets, attendance, and hierarchy, all speak to our desire to own and control the church. Consider: If we speak of a church "closing its doors" the assumption is that congregation no longer exists. Its members must disperse to other places. Now, how is it that closing the doors of a building is so readily equated with ending the fellowship of a congregation? When did the external conveniences of church, such as an owned meeting place, become the church itself?

It goes much further than this, of course. Our denominational identities allow us to slap a brand name on the church, guaranteeing to some extent that we will be able to control membership and the content of our worship. This is exclusively about our ownership and control, as far as I can tell. Which is, I suppose, no big deal if the church is just a human religious organization, as so many people see it. But if it is of diving origin, then such attempt to own and control it are out of line.

I've not had much success pursuing this point of view, to be honest. I've no particular interest in being identified with any particular denomination, but some in our fellowship still experience strong ties to the denominational identity. What scares me about this is that I believe God's Spirit is quenched by our ownership and control. It's like we are asking God to work through our structure and our plans, rather than us responding to His.

Mission Mindset

We've just returned from a mission trip to the Navajo Reservation near Bluff, Utah. It was a productive and blessed week; the culmination of four years of relationship building. We finished construction of a hogan meeting house for a group of Navajo believers there, and we look forward to beginning a series of local service projects on the reservation, which we hope will also be a great blessing to our Navajo brothers and sisters.

Each year when I return from this trip, I am mindful of the challenges of translating missions into a local setting. On a mission trip, the team is fully focused and committed to the task at hand. They are blessed to serve, and anxiously await God's hand in things. Upon returning home to all our normal distractions, it is difficult to have that same kind of focus; the same openness to opportunities. And we've been lulled into thinking that God is not likely to act in powerful ways at home, in the same manner we've come to expect on these ventures to new places.

This year I am keenly aware of how slow and difficult a process it is to befriend many Navajo people. They are generally distrustful of outsiders—particularly white outsiders—and often with just cause. It's been relatively easy to go and build something or complete some job that needs doing. The relationships we've created over the years have been more challenging. They simply cannot be rushed. They take time and attention. I am thrilled that we have finished the hogan (a project three years in the making) but I am convinced the real victory here is that we've come to be loved and accepted by some of our Navajo hosts, and we very genuinely love them in return.

I bring this lesson home with me, and consider how our area is not all that different in terms of the challenge of relationship. It is not that difficult to create programs, host events, or complete service projects. It's another thing altogether to create genuine community with people. Evergreen and the surrounding area is filled with highly independent, rather postmodern and largely unchurched people. When they have questions about life, they do not seek answers from churches or from the Bible. They look on committed Christians with some degree of distrust, or write them off with the familiar, "That's great if that works for you but I'm not into the whole religion thing."

Of course, they are into religion. It may be nothing more than the religion of self or some generic spirituality, but people here are very religiously committed and fervent. What they are not so keen on is the truth, as allowing any singular truth to be defined is a threat to individuality, which here, and in American culture in general, is often considered the ultimate good.

Most churches here end up competing over the minority of residents already inclined to attend a church. They sponsor big programs and events to draw them in.

We have begun to operate on a different premise. We want to be in conversation with unchurched and dechurched people about life and faith. This requires that we invest a great deal of time and respect in building relationships with people. We can't expect them to come to us, and we cannot force Jesus upon them. We must go to them, build community with them, and let them open the doors to spiritual conversation.

Our culture is accustomed to immediate results and gratification, so building relationships without some evangelistic plan of attack feels a little open ended, but this is about letting people learn to trust and love us, even as we learn to love and trust them.

As an example, I've got a bunch of neighbors coming over this weekend to help me build a ramping bridge from my driveway to my front door. These people, at various levels of spiritual awareness and religious participation, are not coming to my house as my "target population" or "evangelistic prospects." They are coming as my friends. And I can say, with great honesty, that I love and appreciate each of them. We are becoming a community, and I am choosing to rely on them in my time of need. I strive to be, within the context of that community, a man of God, and I look forward to the times they trust me with their spiritual questions, but I do not try to steer conversations. As I see it, my job for now is to love them and invest myself in them. Their personal spiritual journeys are far more dependent on God's work in their lives than on mine.

Along these same lines, God has opened another very interesting door. A few of us here, through a very interesting series of events, have come to host an "open mike night" at a local restaurant and tavern. This is not overtly evangelistic in the sense that we sing and play many secular songs, and there is no "come to Jesus" speech made at any point in the evening. But we do slip in a few songs that reflect our heart for God, and we are enjoying the opportunity to connect with local musicians and their friends.

We wait anxiously to see where God is going to take such opportunities.

Blessings,
Doug

Questioning Denominational Identity

I grew up in a fellowship that considered itself non-denominational. That was the ideal anyway. We wanted to simply be Christians, and not identify ourselves as anything but. Unfortunately, this sort of morphed over the years into a certain pride about our non-denominational status. We kind of went from being just Christians to being the only Christians. Our fellowship became very sectarian and exclusive.

This is ironic on several levels. I mean, how do you become prideful about your denomination if you are claiming you aren't one?

In spite of these problems, I am still drawn to the nondenominational ideal. I suppose some level of corporate organization in the church is inevitable, but whenever that organization starts to become the core of our identity I get nervous. Which is why I feel so strongly about this next pair of ideas:

Christocentric vs. denominational

All this really means is I think we need to stop putting our faith in the "rightness" of our human organizations and put our faith in Jesus. Though I will always be influenced by the particular Christian heritage of which I am a part, I don't want that heritage to define me or the fellowship of which I am currently a part. I'd simply like to, as best I can, be a follower of Jesus.

I realize that this is heretical talk to some. From about the third century on, the church has assumed, on one level or another, that it had the authority to redefine itself, and to manage its membership in accordance with a narrow spectrum of doctrinal beliefs. The proliferation of Christian denominations that exist today has its origin in the assumption that "my church is just a little more right than your church."

This makes me wonder: When did the church become "mine?" And where does the Bible give us the authority to segment and divide the church just so we can work and worship exclusively with people who believe exactly as we do? And why do Christians waste so much time insisting that if others were truly being faithful to Jesus they would believe "just as I do?"

It strikes me that a great many of our differences could be successfully accommodated if only we could remain focused on the core principle that Jesus is Lord.

Following Jesus

The next pairing of ideas I want to talk about - discipleship vs. membership - is something that has been on my mind a great deal lately. I often find, when I talk to Christians about restoring discipleship as a core practice of the faith, they stare blankly almost unable to comprehend what I mean. Discipleship is, in the simplest of terms, about following Jesus, and our experience of church has duped us into believing that if we keep the traditions of modern western Christianity, we are, in fact, following Jesus.

What Jesus said about it was, if we wanted to follow him, we would need to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him. At the time, this was taken quite literally. It meant you denied your own will and agenda to replace it with the will and agenda of Jesus, based on the belief that his will is superior to our own. It meant that you took on his mission, and thus his burden, even to the point of great persecution or death. And it meant that you followed him, allowing his life and the direction of his Spirit set the course for your life.

Oddly enough, today we don't often interpret these words as literally. When I hear Christians talk about the deny self, take up the cross, and follow passages, they somehow find a way to make this almost exclusively about dealing with their personal sin. Self denial is about dealing with our sinful nature. Taking up the cross is about fighting our sin just as Jesus fought our sin with his sacrifice. And following is about living your life by the moral standard of Jesus.

Sadly, there is no mention of our participation in mission, our role in building up the body, the use of our spiritual gifts, or our commission to take the message of Jesus to the world around us. In the age of the modern church, these are the vocation of professional clergy, missionaries, and a handful of committed lay volunteers. But the New Testament makes very clear that there is no such distinction between disciples who serve the mission of Jesus, and disciples who are mere members of the church. We are a priesthood of believers.

The original disciples, recruited to be "fishers of men" would be very surprised to hear that discipleship was merely a matter of personal moral improvement. It was a life directing mission and belief. Modern Christians believe in Jesus. Disciples believed Jesus was the only genuine source of life, meaning, transcendence, and salvation, and they lived accordingly.

True discipleship has been moderated to the point that if we attend Sunday services, give some of our money, sit through a few sermons, and possibly volunteer some time to a church ministry, we are living the life to which Christ called us. Oddly enough, many of the things Christians do to feel spiritual or Christ focused have their origin in human tradition and not in the life and ministry of Jesus. For a helpful book on this subject, check out Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices by Frank Viola and George Barna. While I differ with some of their conclusions, this is a very eye opening book.

The misconception that "doing the church thing" is the same as following Jesus spills over, I think, into our notions about Biblical study. In a recent conversation with some of our church leaders about our educational efforts, including Sunday school, small groups, Bible classes, and sermons, the consensus seemed to be that the purpose of these educational efforts was to encourage. Odd as this may sound, that really bothers me. I wish that we looked on Biblical studies as a source of transformation. I wish that we approached the Bible expecting it to undermine our human thinking and to defy our expectations. I fear that we approach the Bible expecting it to reinforce or perhaps clarify what we already believe. This is, I think, the result of our membership ideology. Since the call of discipleship is moderated to mean being a good and moral person who attends a particular fellowship, the use of Scripture gets moderated to include only personal moral instruction and reinforcement.

One of the things I really like about missional church thinking is that the mission is always directing my attention back to the Scriptures, not to reinforce my belief, but to seek real answers to missional problems. For instance, when people come to me with suggestions about how we can market the church or to advocate some leadership technique, I often find myself asking the question, "How is this reflected in the life and ministry of Jesus." With some regularity, I discover that the thing being advocated is little more than the latest in human thinking about corporate organizations. This doesn't automatically make it a bad idea, but it does cast doubt. If we are trying to live out a divine and organic reality, it serves to reason that many human and structural ideas may not apply.

The idea of discipleship I've proposed within our fellowship is that we would follow Jesus as literally as possible. I don't mean that we will start dressing in sandals and robes, but I do mean that when Jesus says he is the way, the truth, and the life, we reorganize our life around the idea that the ministry of Jesus is our roadmap for mission, the truth of Jesus is the truth that guides us, and the life of Jesus is the source of our hope. If we are true disciples, I believe our choices, priorities, daytimers and checkbooks will all reflect these truths.

Vision and Movement

Organic vs. Institutional

In talking about organic church, I am borrowing terminology from Neil Cole's wonderful book, The Organic Church. Cole talks about his experiences as a church planter, and proliferation of house churches and third place churches that result from a very organic approach to faith. This is a very oversimplified summary, and I would really encourage you to read the book if you haven't already.

For my part, I'm basically using the term to describe the church as it existed before it was an institution. It was a movement then, a seat of your pants, often persecuted movement, that could only exist if its proponents kept a clear focus on the vision of their leader, Jesus Christ. For centuries, it had no buildings, very little hierarchy, and no corporate identity.

I won't take the time to go through all of the history here, but in summary, there were various leaders in early Christianity who sought to control the church, but none were broadly successful until the conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine. While Constantine is often credited with bringing Christianity into mainline credibility, he also gave himself the authority to restructure the church. He gave it a hierarchy based on Roman governmental systems. He constructed elaborate church buildings. He contributed to the formation of various church policies. His reforms led to a distinct clergy-member separation, a divorce of the church from its Hebrew roots, and the institutionalization of what had been an organic, spiritual, community based movement.

The main problem with institutions is that they can continue to exist even after everyone involved has lost sight of what is really important. In other words, a movement can only exist so long as it maintains a vision. But incorporate that same movement into an institution, and the institution will continue to exist regardless of vision. This is, sadly, often the case in organized religion.

Organization and institutions have their place. But they are meant to be the tools of the church, not the church itself. The church is to be, very simply, a collection of disciples. And disciples are, quite simply, those who have devoted their lives to following a Rabbi. In this case, the Rabbi is Jesus.

The organic church accomplishes its purposes in an organic way. It grows, not by expanding its structures, but through disciples who build relationships and community connections. It is relational, like a family. It plants seeds of truth, and watches to see what happens. The original church was the result of a way of life, rooted in discipleship and faith in Jesus. The institutional church may use the language of discipleship and faith, but it has become invested in perpetuating its own structure and identity along with the Gospel.

Oddly enough, we've lived so long with the institutional church that many Christians think we can't live without it. At times, I'm not sure we can live with it.

Blessings,
Doug

A Turn Towards Mission

Well, I guess it's time I started to unpack some of those pairs. I'll begin with two that are closely related:

Community Focused vs. Internally Focused

The modern church has become a monument to itself. Its facilities, services, programs, and ministries are 90% focused within the church, to provide support, encouragement, inspiration, and community to its members. These are not bad things, but they miss the point. The collective mission of the church is to shine the light of truth into dark places; to share hope with the hopeless, and to just generally act and talk as Jesus would for the world's benefit.

When the people of Jesus lose sight of this core mission, they begin to focus, almost exclusively on themselves. The work of real ministry is replaced with the mounting responsibility of keeping happy church members who mistakenly think the church is supposed to revolve around them. At best, the internally focused church becomes isolated from its surrounding community. At worst, it becomes exclusive and self serving.

So the first step towards becoming a missional church is to learn to think outside ourselves; to reacquaint ourselves with the fact that we serve a purpose in the world, and not just within the walls of our facilities.

Missional vs. Attractional

Of course, not all churches become so internally focused. Some are very committed to service within their communities, and to reaching people with their message. We, however, are not only concerned with whether or not the church gets outside of itself, but how it does so.

The accepted standard for church methodology is to initiate benevolent or evangelistic campaigns with the intent of attracting people back to the church. Thus, the church's focus within the surrounding community is almost exclusively on getting people back into the church. The false assumption at work here is that real church and spiritual life take place nearly exclusively within church initiated and controlled environments.

Furthermore, once the church manages to attract someone, it begins to drive a wedge between them and the communities of which they are already a part. Thus, writers like Hirsch and Frost not only characterize these churches as attractional, but extractional, inasmuch as their intent is to attract people to the programs and resources they have to offer, then extract them from their other community relationships.

We believe this creates a bit of an ivory tower. Church people develop a certain arrogance about the distinctions between who is in and who is out of their group. And the mission is compromised in the sense that, in order for people to experience the good news about Jesus, they must enter into and submit themselves to our organized religion context.

In response, we are sorting out what it means to be genuinely missional, in the sense that getting people back to our facilities or into our programs is not a primary goal, and may not even be important. The missional church functions on a sending model. We are learning to see ourseves as sent out into the community, to connect with people, be a positive influence, and, when given the opportunity, to share the source of our hope.

We don't want to extract people from their current community ties. In fact, we would love it if they began to value Jesus themselves and share that discovery with others they know.

Church, then, becomes not a place to go to or a meeting to attend, but something that simply happens in the context of relationship and communities.

Blessings,
Doug

Outlining the Change

We are entering into a phase in our process where, it seems to me, recruitment is the order of the day. We need the help of mission minded people to move forward, and we are seeking them from the outside and the inside. From the outside, we are seeking what you might call "suburban missionaries;" people who will be invigorated by our missional call, and will join us in the endeavor, even if it means changing homes and jobs to do so. We might consider such a call extreme in a domestic context, where missional efforts are generally viewed as secondary to our "real life concerns." But we are looking at our context as no different than a foreign mission field. Relocating and developing your own means of support is not at all unusual for someone going to another country to serve, so why should it be different here? This mission field is in great need of such people; people whose presence is motivated specifically by the mission.

The arrival of missional people from outside our immediate fellowship will, we believe, also aid our efforts to recruit from within the fellowship. The problem, in short, is that we are all way too comfortable with church as we have known it. And that has not required of us much in the way of commitment or sacrifice. Again, the objective is to retrain ourselves to think as we would if we were missionaries in a foreign place. In that context, the work of the mission is front and center. Careers, accommodations and other resources exist in service of the mission. The church as we have known it has never held such expectations of us, and has often actually encouraged us to think of ourselves and our own selfish desires before the mission. Consequently, a great many well meaning Christians maintain the notion that "once I've obtained my arbitrary markers of personal success, I will be in a position to give, serve, etc." This is a sort of American ideal of Christianity: one in which I enjoy such personal affluence that whatever time or financial resources I commit to following Jesus does not really register as a sacrifice on my part. Such assumptions, I would argue, are incompatible with mission.

Recruitment raises a challenge for us, in that it requires that we be able to communicate the mission in a relatively succinct manner. On the surface, this may not seem like that big of a problem, but I've found it very difficult, because our experience of the church as we have known it is so second nature to us that we tend to filter all our information through it. So, if I say our goal is to be more missional, religious people tend to think of mission as they've known it: "My church supports missionaries in Thailand and Bolivia, and we sponsored a community outreach campaign last year." These may be good things, but they do not capture the spirit of what we mean by the term missional. Even my unchurched friends tend to filter what I am saying through the lens of their assumptions and experience of organized religion.

So, it simply isn't enough to state what we are trying to be; we really have to contrast what we seek to become against the status quo alternative. I've done some of that already in this blog, but now I feel the need to become more intentional about it.

What follows is not, at this point, a final draft of these notions, but rather a very rough draft of our emerging mission, as characterized by pairs of opposing ideologies and methodologies. In each pair, the first term represents the church as we believe Jesus intended, which is what we seek to become, and the second represents what the church as we have known it has generally been. Some of these terms I've talked about in earlier posts. The rest I will try to elaborate on in the future. Anyway, here we go. We seek to become:

Community Focused vs. Internally Focused
Missional vs. Attractional
Organic vs. Institutional
Disciples vs. Religious Members
Christocentric vs. Denominational
Incarnational vs. Indoctrinational
Adaptive and Contextual vs. Assumptive and Legalistic

At this point, I'm thinking these seven categories might capture it, but I'm fairly certain I will change my mind about that. As I build on these ideas, I would certainly welcome questions and suggestions.

Blessings,
Doug