The Unnecessary Tragedy of Artists and the Church

Posted on May 7, 2013 by shel

I haven’t reposted an Internet Monk post/re-post for a while – THIS ONE however will break that streak.

Len Wilson: The Unnecessary Tragedy of Artists and the Church

Note from CM: A regular reader emailed me about an article that impressed him, encouraging me to consider it for IM. So I went to Len Wilson’s blog and was likewise stimulated by his words and insights. I have added Len’s site to our Blogroll, and recommend that you check it out. He introduces today’s piece by saying, “This post is a tribute to my friend Dr. Paul Bonneau and a call for the church universal to understand the soul of the artist. I wrote it in response to the news that he’d passed away.”

Thanks, Len, for this fine contribution, and the permission to use it.

* * *

The Unnecessary Tragedy of Artists and the Church
by Len Wilson

It’s these little things, they can pull you under.
Live your life filled with joy and wonder.
I always knew this altogether thunder
was lost in our little lives.
- REM

My desire to create a space in the church for artists took on a new meaning today. A friend and colleague from my former church has unexpectedly passed away.

Paul was a pan-seared spirit, a conductor and musician perhaps born out of time. He was a dapper dresser, quick with a compliment or a snarky comment at my choice of shirt or shoes. Once he picked a piece of lint off my shoulder and told me I was too nice looking a person to walk around with fuzz. Every week in our worship meeting, Paul sat in his corner chair with coffee, mostly quiet but quick to bellow at someone’s gallows humor. When pressed he would engage in conversations that poked below the surface of church life, such as the relationship of faith and doubt.

Like any artist, Paul believed in honesty. It scared some pastors and churchy folks, but fellow artists among our staff and volunteer cadre of worship planners valued his low filter for lies and stupidity. Though I don’t know this for sure, I think that Paul struggled with depression. If so, it was perhaps related to the fact that artists abhor truth dissonance, and often have a hard time living in the suspended chord that is the body of Christ.

Of course, our cynical age covers truth in a vacuous veneer of detached irony. Paul was brilliantly maddening for his insistence on naming the mockery of much of our attempts at playing church. He had perhaps the purest junk filter of any artist I’ve ever known. And this was his tragedy, because while many of us are artists who can’t afford unfiltered honesty, Paul could accept no alternative.

Dishonesty is a subset of ugliness, and ugliness is an affliction to the artist. Because sin is ugliness, an artist who follows Jesus lives a wounded life, yearning for connection to the wholeness and truth of a Holy God, yet disconnected by the darkness within. We are all saints and we are all sinners.

This potent mixture, this “outrageous humanity,” as Pat Conroy calls it, vexes the church. Consider the film release Don Miller’s biopic about searching for faith, Blue Like Jazz, which while in production received some complaints from church leaders. It seems that some find the ambiguity of a search for faith troubling.

To use Plato’s virtues as oversimplified categories, people who want to respond to art with argument are Truth types. They seek the resolution of a right answer. They’re convergent. Artists, or to use another platonic virtue, Beauty types, are comfortable with mystery. They are divergent. Paul did not need a final answer to know the truth of something.

The church tries to treat the artist’s affliction, and the need for honesty is indeed an affliction, with analysis and apologetics, which is like taking a laxative for a flesh wound. They’re different parts to the body.

Some Truth types fear that to acknowledge sin is to condone sin, never recognizing their fear perpetuates sin by creating a fortress around Jesus. Beauty types want to explore our humanity, and through it to find a deeper truth than a surface set of facts.

There are also Goodness types, who live between these two poles, more concerned with what is loving than what is correct. When Paul and I worked together at Trietsch, our worship team had a healthy mix of all three. One of the great moments that arose from our mix, and there were many, was the Sunday in worship we hosted Ron Hall and Denver Moore of the number one New York Times bestseller, Same Kind of Different As Me. The book recounts the true story of a wealthy art patron who befriended a homeless man, and the changed life each man discovered. That formerly homeless man, Denver Moore, gave a classic call to Goodness in our worship service when he said, “Churches in America are full of people studyin’. What we need is less studyin’ and more doin’.”

The church needs all three. We as people are built for all three.

Yet the church has traditionally served Truth types best, and Goodness types second best, and Beauty types the worst. For centuries, artists have been finding one another as refugees in a wilderness of systematic theological thinking. It’s easy to retreat behind a screen door mesh of doctrine and moral code. We in the church think we’re safe there, protected from profane elements. But of course the screen door not only fails to protect us but is invisible to those on the outside, who stand in the rain and look with dismissive incredulity through our porous arguments.

Beauty opens the screen door. It invites people in from the rain, but it’s dangerous, because it exposes us church people to the elements. We get wet. We are reminded of life, and for many of us, it’s painful. Beauty is powerful and threatening. Most in the church fear it. And as I mourn the passing of my friend and colleague, our ecclesial deficiency of Beauty has taken on an increased urgency.

My father, a retired pastor, is a Beauty, and is in many ways representative of our age. I sensed his undiagnosed introspection throughout my childhood. Most of the time he kept it hidden underneath a cloak of Truth and Goodness. The cloak fit him alright, but occasionally I saw him take it off. My father is not a pianist, and didn’t doodle or play much for fun. Yet every once in a while he would sit down at our upright and recall a story through Stardust, or I Left My Heart in San Francisco. When he played, I heard a different person, one that I didn’t know. If only for a few minutes, he opened his screen door. Growing up, I failed to understand what those songs meant. He played them with a melancholy that even today makes my heart ache. I never thought to question how someone who supposedly didn’t play the piano could play these two songs so wonderfully.

My father wrote. He completed multiple novels and sent them into some agents and publishing houses in big manila envelopes with SASEs tucked inside. After he received rejection letters, he put the keyboard away. Later, I asked him about the novels, and he said that he wasn’t sure what had happened to them.

He also painted. I have a couple of his prints hanging in my house. One is an oil of a rusted out shell of a pickup, abandoned in a field and partially obscured by tall grass and a broken wooden fence. Though unable to articulate any reason for it, I liked that painting in my room. Now I look at it and see an artist, abandoned in a field, never given wheels to find expression.

Dad was surrounded by a church culture of Truth and Goodness. He was never told it was good to be a Beauty. The most important voices in his life told him that to be a good Christian, he had to learn the proper Truth and do the proper Goodness. Such is a tragically disaffirming life, forced to operate by disingenuous virtues.

Of course, people have their own stories, apart from the systemic environment in which they live. Yet I wonder if this same dynamic affected Paul, and occurs en masse whenever the church stands between pillars of Truth and Goodness, forcing Beauty types to watch from afar.

It’s all about soul
It’s all about knowing what someone is feeling.
- Billy Joel

I do not aim to disaffirm the need for Truth and Goodness. We as God’s creatures and as the Body of Christ need all three. But modern, western culture values Truth above all others, while Goodness has had its moments and appears to be on a bit of a comeback. But Beauty runs a distant third, and has since the Reformers threw out the icons five hundred years ago.

Each of us is primarily one of these three virtues – Truth, Goodness, and Beauty – and secondarily one of the three as well. I am a Beauty, then a Truth. My wife is a Goodness, then a Beauty. Perhaps in this typology you see your own primary virtue.

Jesus has another way to refer for these virtues. When asked about the entirety of the Law, he condensed down 613 prescriptions into a stunning set of two simple expressions. The first acknowledges these virtues. When Jesus commands us to love the Lord our God with all of our mind, heart, and soul, he is affirming our need for Truth, Goodness and Beauty, all three.

While Truth and Goodness are doing just fine, the church needs to encourage experience and personal affect within the context of healthy spiritual growth. We in the Church are great at loving God with our mind. We have the ability to do great things for others with our heart. But we still don’t know what to do with our soul. This is tragic, because artists don’t have to live tortured lives.

I grieve my lost colleague and friend. The best way I know to honor Paul and other artists who suffer in and out of the church is to call for the church to learn to embrace Beauty.

UPDATE: I further explore the typology of Truth, Goodness and Beauty, and its relationship to personality, in the post Six Ways to Know Yourself and Others Better.

“I Am A Church Member” – A Conversation with Thom Rainer

Posted on April 25, 2013 by shel

“I Am A Church Member” – A Conversation with Thom Rainer by TREVIN WAX

Today, I’ve invited Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay and author of the new book I Am a Church Member: Discovering the Attitude that Makes the Difference to join me for a conversation about church membership.

This book carries a long list of endorsements from church leaders across the theological and methodological spectrum of evangelicalism. It is a brief book that challenges church members to shift their mindset from self-serving to self-giving.

Trevin Wax: I Am a Church Member began as a blog post that garnered a great deal of attention and response. What prompted you to write the initial blog post? What did you learn from the response to that post?

Thom Rainer: I wrote the initial blog post after noting that in my research that church conflict was increasing. Over one-half of the conflict issues dealt with church members arguing over their personal preferences.

I hoped and prayed the blog would cause all of us church members to rethink our attitude about church membership, and to understand we are there to serve, not necessarily to be served.

Trevin Wax: You write about plateaued and declining churches in North America as seen in declining evangelical influence in the culture. We are tempted to blame secular culture, national politics, or church leaders. But you believe church members should “look in the mirror.” Why?

Thom Rainer: If outside forces and culture were the reasons behind declining and non-influential churches, we would likely have no churches today. The greatest periods of growth, particularly the first-century growth, took place in adversarial cultures. We are not hindered by external forces; we are hindered by our own lack of commitment and selflessness.

Trevin Wax: You devote a chapter to encouraging members to pray for their church leaders. There’s a moving story about a busy pastor who has no time to grieve the death of his best friend. Do you find that many church members are unaware of the pressures of pastoral ministry? How can we be better “pray-ers” for our pastors?

Thom Rainer: Most church members have little awareness of the daily demands and pressures of a pastor. His calling is one of the most challenging a person can have. Indeed, it is an impossible task in the pastor’s own strength.

I encourage church members to pick a time of day (for me it’s noon) to pause to pray one or two minutes for their pastors.

Most church members evaluate the pastor through the lens of “what is he doing for me?” We need to ask how we can help our pastor serve others rather than ask what can he do for me.

Trevin Wax: What happens when church members are focused on their own preferences and desires instead of the church’s mission? How can we move from being self-focused to self-giving?

Thom Rainer: The self-focused church becomes a church in conflict. No church can satisfy all the preferences of all the church members.

I recommend strongly that churches have an entry point class (a new members’ class) so clear expectations can be established for church members, including attitudinal issues. I also recommend that every church buy and distribute hundreds of copies of my book

Trevin Wax: There has been a resurgence of interest in church membership in recent years. Where do you see the conversation about meaningful church membership going in the years ahead? What are the strengths and weaknesses of this movement?

Thom Rainer: I am encouraged about the resurgence of interest in church membership. I see the conversation expanding in the near future.

Most of the conversation today is about what we are supposed to do as a church member. Very soon you will likely hear more and more about the attitudes church members should have.

An action plan without a biblical mindset is worthless, if not dangerous.

Trevin Wax: What do you hope this book will accomplish?

Thom Rainer: I pray that my little book will contribute to the conversation about biblical attitudes about church membership. I am even bold enough to pray that God will use it to change hearts from self-serving to serving.

Church is the people/place of the primary manifestation of God through humans

Posted on April 7, 2013 by shel

Shel – This past week I went to the first Open Theology (I prefer coherent Arminianism, free-will or creative-love theism) conference for church leaders. I will share more about that later. I met many wonderful people. I also met people with a limited commitment to the messy local church community. Some conversations sadly reflected american attractional individualistic mindsets towards the local church. This of course was a huge disappointment because at it’s core open theology is about God being defined as love and commitment, risking a creation where that is possible. So of all people Free-will folks should be most active (yes critical too – but actively enmeshed) in the local church where theology is manifest. There were not many pastors there (given the hell I paid for embracing (within basic creedal orthdoxy) a form of Free-will theism in the past I can understand this. On the other hand, the fact that it does connect with people struggling with the local church is also immensely hopeful.

Here is a great article on church:

The first church unpacked

8 APRIL, 2013

By STEVE ADDISON

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord addedto their number daily those who were being saved.

Acts 2:42-47

Hard on the heels of the events of Easter came Pentecost and the formation of the first church in Jerusalem. Jerusalem became the centre from which the gospel went out to the rest of the world.
In Acts 2: 42-47 Luke provides and extensive summary of the life of that first church. I’ve been working through Eckhard Schnabel’s commentary on Acts. Here’s what he say about what we can learn and apply from Luke description, as we go out to make disciples and multiply communities of Jesus’ followers. Everywhere.

An authentic church is a church in which God is present.

The teaching of the apostles focused on the fulfillment of God’s promises in Jesus, Israel’s Messiah and Lord, and in the coming of the Holy Spirit.
The breaking of bread, when it includes the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, reminds believers of God’s plan of salvation, who sent Jesus to the cross in order that sins might be forgiven and the promised new covenant might become a reality.
The believers experienced the awe-inspiring presence of God in the miracles that happened through the apostles, which were direct manifestations of the merciful work of God in their midst.
The believers experienced God’s presence and invoked prayers of praise in which they thanked God for his blessings through Jesus.
They experienced God’s effective presence in new conversions and in the continued growth of the church.

An authentic church is a church whose priorities are set by the gospel.

Teaching by the apostles. Its primary focus is on Jesus, Israel’s Messiah and Lord; on God’s salvation through Jesus’s death, resurrection, and exaltation; on the integration into the community of God’s messianic people; and on the significance of the Scriptures that are read, explained, and applied to the lives of believers.
Fellowship. The community of believes are “one” because they have all accepted Jesus as Israel’s messianic Savior and because they have all received God’s transforming Spirit. The church is a fellowship in that believers meet at one place, listen to the teaching of the Word of God, praise God, share meals, love each other, and share resources with fellow believers who are poor.
The breaking of bread. This includes sharing meals as an expression of belonging to one family, the family of God’s people. And it includes the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus, Israel’s Messiah and Lord. When Christians break bread, they praise God and remember Jesus’ sacrifice and thus are reminded of the needs of the poor and are challenged to help sacrificially.
Prayer. Constant and joyful prayer acknowledges the presence of God in the midst of his people. Personal transformation, which produces, for example, the willingness to sell property and give the proceeds to the poor, is possible only when God changes hearts and minds — and hand and feet that carry out the sale of possessions. Constant and joyful prayer acknowledges that only God can lead unbelievers to repentance.

An authentic church is a church that continues to grow.

Churches grow when the gospel is proclaimed. The priority of the teaching of the apostles includes evangelistic outreach to unbelievers — this is the primary calling of the Twelve as witnesses of Jesus, commissioned to preach the good news of Jesus from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
Churches grow when the church is a fellowship. Luke attributes the continued growth of the church to the believers meeting in the temple and in private homes, listening to teaching, sharing meals, sharing with those in need, and praising God in prayer. These meetings attracted unbelievers, who became willing to repent, to commit themselves to faith in Jesus, the Messiah and Lord of Israel, to be immersed in water, and to join the fellowship of the followers of Jesus.
Churches grow when they acknowledge the power of God. The continued and regular growth of a church is always the result of the work of God. It is possible for numerical growth to be nothing more than the attraction of popular entertainment. Numerical growth is authentic church growth only when people find faith in Jesus, the crucified, risen, and exalted Messiah and Savior, and when they receive the Holy Spirit of God, who visibly and powerfully transforms their lives.

How and Why I Stay in the Dysfunctional Family of God

Posted on January 29, 2013 by shel

shel – I hope you find this refreshing and helpful. #1 and #5 in particular!

How and Why I Stay in the Dysfunctional Family of God

from Storyline Blog by Donald Miller

I had dinner with a pastor here in DC recently who came over from Ireland a few years ago. I loved he and his wife. I felt like I was having dinner with one of the real disciples, that is a guy who follows behind Jesus like a pet dog, routinely getting distracted by the smells of the neighborhood, looking up every thirty seconds to search for the quick feet of his master. He was open, honest, self aware and came off like a fellow pilgrim. I’m not a regular attender of church, but the dinner reminded me the overwhelming population of the extended family of God is sincere, kind, humble and loving.

When I read the book of Acts, I see a bunch of guys who hardly knew what they were doing, routinely having their work rescued by the Holy Spirit.

If the Christian family were made up of only people like this, I’d be much more happy.

But then again, if it were, it wouldn’t be a real family. Real families are messy.

The harder family members to deal with are the emotionally and psychologically narrow uncles and cousins. I’m talking about the twenty-year old guys in Bible college who just read John Calvin and think they know everything or the forty-year old guys with the personalities of bitter old men who are always ranting about how much they hate the President.

I don’t like the Christian leaders who go around like territorial dogs peeing circles around everything. To me, that just makes everything smell like pee.

*Photo by Leigh Blackall, Creative Commons

Have you ever wondered if some of the people who are bringing the most people to Jesus are the same people who are pushing the most people away from Him? I’ve wondered that sometimes. Somebody ought to do a study about that.

Nevertheless, this is our absurd Christian family. I won’t pretend to like everybody and God knows they don’t pretend to like me. But we will spend an eternity with most of them.

So what do we do about the crazy uncles and cousins? How do we stay in the family of God when all our instincts tell us to leave?

Here are some paradigm shifts that helped me stick around:

1. I realized not all Christian leaders know Jesus. Jesus warned us about this. He said there would be very serious leaders who use His name and build His kingdom and even heal people who do not know Him at all. If somebody knows the Bible inside and out, pastors a mega church, writes bestselling books and so on but is consistently known as an arrogant person, chances are they don’t know Jesus. They are certainly influencing the family, but they aren’t in the family. I find that sad and comforting. I find it sad because it would be awful to think you know Jesus when really you’re just a religious guy who has the Bible memorized and uses it to build your own empire. How in the world would you ever figure out you really don’t know Jesus at all when you can debate just about anybody on the Bible? But I also find it relieving, because those guys make me, and anybody else who won’t submit to them, feel like garbage. And I don’t want to spend an eternity feeling like garbage. I hope they can figure it out and repent and come to know Christ.

2. I realized the family of God isn’t represented by a denomination. No denomination is completely right. Calvinism isn’t completely right. It’s just not. No human being has crammed all the right theology into their head. I stay away from people who claim they have. It just makes life easier. The truth is God’s church, as seen by God, is mixed and mingled with the church as man sees it, but is very, very different. I consider myself part of God’s church, not man’s church. And while I certainly believe right theology is important, I don’t believe God will conduct an entrance exam to get into heaven. I think He’s just going to say, hey, you, I know you!

3. I realized I’m a leader in the church, and so are you. While I do consider pastors and elders leaders, I see them more as guides and, not unlike the church in Acts, I report directly to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit spoke directly to the people then and He does the same now. Man has set up a kind of trickle-down system through which God’s word descends to the idiot masses, but you can bypass all that and drink from the source. God speaks directly to you and I because He considers us leaders. You and I don’t need anybody’s permission to serve God.

4. I no longer fear the judgment of men. I do not believe God will ever, ever, lean over and ask any other human being whether or not I should be let into heaven. It isn’t going to happen.

5. I stopped letting people control me. There’s a wonderful book by Harriet Braiker called Who’s Puling Your Strings that I recommend to anybody who grew up in a controlling religious system. If you work for a controlling personality, just read the book. Braiker shows you all the tricks controlling people use. And when controlling personalities are Christian leaders, they’ll compound all those tricks (mostly fear, shame and guilt- Shel: around here it’s more by fake niceness, conflict avoidance, and pretend we’re all ok)stating their will and God’s will are the same. If you want to save your faith, you’ve got to get away from folks like that. They’ll destroy your soul.

There are many more reasons I stay in the family of God. But once I understood these true but harsh facts, I was able to turn around and see it for what it was, a flawed, beautiful collection of people who are stuck with each other. And as cynical and judgmental as this post may seem, it was important for me to draw a very clear line between how God saw the church and the man-made construct that is so repellent to so many. These paradigm shifts, and many more, have kept me in the family of God. I consider them truths God gave me to, in part, keep me around.

I hope they’re helpful to you. And I hope you don’t walk away from your family. Whether we like each other or not, we’re all we’ve got. Let’s stick it out.

How and Why I Stay in the Dysfunctional Family of God is a post from: Storyline Blog

What Would Jesus Make of “Passion” (Conferences)? Guest Blog by Austin Fischer

Posted on January 10, 2013 by shel

A repost from Roger’s Blog January 9, 2013: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/01/what-would-jesus-make-of-passion-conferences-guest-blog-by-austin-fischer

What Would Jesus Make of Passion? by Austin Fischer (Teaching Pastor, The Vista Community Church, Belton/Temple, Texas)

Hooray Excellence!

At the moment I’m writing this, there are 60,000 college students gathered inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. They are singing worship songs, listening to sermons, and gathering what will no doubt be a massive offering that will go towards combating human trafficking. It’s pretty unbelievable stuff, but the Passion conferences specialize in the unbelievable.

Cutting edge media, excellent musicians, famous speakers. If we’re going to be candid, it’s refreshing to see something “Christian” also be something of such exceptional quality. You could invite an agnostic friend to it and not blush at the prospects of asking him to pay a couple hundred bucks to attend something that feels like a home-school prom. I like excellence, you like excellence, we all like excellence, and I think Jesus does too. Hooray excellence!

That said, as I was reading the tweets of a number of my students who are at Passion, a question kept bouncing around inside my head. Maybe I was asking it of God or maybe God was asking it of me—I often can’t tell the difference. But either way, the question was, “What would Jesus make of Passion?”

Now I know, I know. The question is both loaded and brutally anachronistic, but it just kept asking itself to me. Spoiler alert: I have no idea what Jesus would make of Passion. But here’s some stuff I threw up against the wall. Maybe some of it sticks.

Thought #1…Temple = Georgia Dome

I remember the first time I went to a Passion conference. I was a senior in high school and together with my youth pastor and a few friends, we made the trek to Sherman, Texas. And from the beginning, the trip had a certain vibe to it, a vibe I’ve since learned is the anticipation of pilgrimage.

Religious pilgrimages—as far as I can tell—stretch back to the beginning of human history. There’s something primeval and elemental about the act of going on a journey to a place where we believe we will encounter something transcendent. In the Hebrew Bible, we see God commanding the Jews to make yearly pilgrimages to “appear before the Lord God” (Exodus 34:18-23). Once the Temple was built, these pilgrimages would culminate there, the place where heaven and earth came together. Indeed for a Jew, the Temple was the holiest place in the whole universe. They traveled there because God was uniquely there.

And by way of crude parallelism, it would appear that what the Temple was for an ancient Jew, the Georgia Dome is now for many young-adult, American evangelicals. They take a yearly pilgrimage to the Dome because they feel it is a place where God is uniquely present.

“Cleansing” the Temple?

So what do we make of this? The first thing that came to my mind was Matthew 21 and Jesus’ “cleansing” of the Temple. I put cleansing in quotations because contra popular belief, NT scholars point out that Jesus is not cleansing the Temple so much as he is shutting it down. Flipping over the tables of the money-changers and seats of the dove-sellers (21:12)—these are not acts of purification but condemnation. The exchanging of pagan coins for Jewish coins and the selling of animals for sacrifice were both essential for Temple worship. The Temple didn’t need rehabilitation. It needed to die.

But not because God hates buildings; rather, the Temple needed to die because Jesus was replacing it. Jesus was a one-man, walking Temple; the place where heaven and earth came together and God was uniquely present to his people. As N.T. Wright says, “What the gospels offer us is a God who is in the midst [of us] in and as Jesus the Messiah…Jesus himself is the new Temple at the heart of the new creation…And so this Temple, like the wilderness tabernacle, is a temple on the move, as Jesus’ people go out, in the energy of the Spirit, to be the dwelling of God…”[1]

Now from one angle it’s tempting to connect these dots. Jesus shut down the Temple because he was replacing it. The Georgia Dome has become a new Temple. Jesus would walk into the Georgia Dome and flip over the merch tables and slam Chris Tomlin’s guitar, Garth Brooks style. And while that sort of simplistic reasoning certainly won’t do, I do think it raises some interesting questions regarding the pilgrimage/Temple mentality that so clearly permeates the Passion ethos. So here go a few thoughts…

(c)hurch

Jesus didn’t shut down the Temple because it was evil. He shut it down because it was obsolete and no longer needed. God was doing a new thing, was making himself present to his world and his people in a new way, and the Temple didn’t have a place in this new creation. God was now present to his people through the Spirit and was present to the whole world through his Spirit-filled community = the church. And I put church in lower case on purpose. Local churches made up of normal people doing normal things…this is the God-appointed medium of God’s presence and grace to the world. Not a Temple. Not a yearly pilgrimage. And dare I say, not a trip to the Georgia Dome.

To be sure, many Passion attendees love their local church and their pilgrimage to the Dome is a noble period of spiritual refreshment. But I don’t mind going out on a limb and suggesting that for a great many attendees—perhaps the majority—Passion is the most spiritual moment of the year. It is the standard by which all other spiritual moments will be judged. They’ll have to wait a year to feel this close to God again because it’ll be a year before they’re back here, singing the resounding chorus to an awesome song, having just listened to a sermon from their favorite celebrity pastor, all while their eyes are dazzled by the glitz and glamour of it all. It will be a chore to wade through the ordinariness of actual church life for another year.

As I once told a college student, if Passion is the most spiritual moment of your year, a.) I feel bad for you…b.) you’re not going to be able to love and serve your actual church.

And that’s because your actual church actually has to be the church. It has to deal with crying babies, botched song transitions, average sermons by not-famous people, and a budget for the year that is half that for 4 days of Passion. It’ll never measure up and so you’ll probably bail and look for a church that will feed your Passion addiction (if only Passion could be a church…or wait…it is or you’ll stay and complain and never put down any real roots.

I inhabit and am thus aware of a rather small sliver of reality that I know as my life, and speaking from here, this is not hypothetical. I work with college students, I watch it happen, and I deal with the aforementioned phenomena. For the longest time, I didn’t quite know what to call it and I still don’t. But I know it involves a skewed understanding of the spiritual life in which a streamlined, hyper-spiritualized gathering has replaced the gritty reality of incarnation, of learning to be a human, among other humans, through whom God is reconciling the world to himself. It invigorates the spiritual life to be sure, but it does so by immersing them in something that just doesn’t seem to bear much resemblance to the real world.

And so as ironic as it may sound, maybe what Passion is doing is not progressive or ground-breaking so much as it is, well, antiquated. That’s hyperbolic to be sure but maybe, just maybe, Passion needs to make sure it doesn’t build something that Jesus already tore down. And I really hope it doesn’t build it on top of the church.

Thought #2…Going Vegan in a Steakhouse

Maybe you don’t buy the “Passion or church” thought above. Maybe you think you can have your cake and eat it too. I’m not so convinced most people can, but moving on, thought #2 is something I hope we can all agree on, even though it is uncomfortable.

So I’m told that at the beginning of this year’s Passion conference, Louie Giglio got up, surveyed the energy and buzz of 60,000 students packed into the Dome and said, “Is this not incredible?” He went on to talk about how Passion has become a global movement, impacting millions of lives and followed that up by telling the story of a student who had been addicted to drugs, but as a result of last year’s conference is a year clean. Louie then said, “The testimony of these days in the Dome will be, ‘I know that He is the Lord,’ and ‘I know He can do immeasurably more because He did it in my life,’ and ‘I don’t need an event, I don’t need a Dome, I need Jesus’.”

“I don’t need an event. I don’t need a Dome. I need Jesus.” Amen! See, Louie and company know it’s about Jesus and not an event. But let’s allow ourselves to sit with the irony for a moment. Louie stands before a crowd of 60,000 people, in the Georgia Dome, talking about how this is a global movement, telling a story about how this event helped a guy be sober for a year…and he says, “I don’t need an event, I don’t need a Dome…” But Louie, you’re in the Dome, at an event, hyping the event. We hear you saying something about not needing a Dome, but it’s hard for us to take you seriously when your face is being projected on that 5-story tall LED screen suspended in the middle of the Dome.

Perhaps it’s something like taking a group of people to the best steakhouse in town, providing them with a buffet of the finest cuts available, all the while telling them that eating meat is wrong and we should all go vegan. You can talk to people about the virtues of going vegan all day long, but as long as you’re feeding them steak, I doubt they’re really listening to you. And perhaps even more importantly, I question whether you really want them to listen to you.

Means = Message

There is a more technical way to say all of this: your means is your message. When delivering a message, our words are not the only things that communicate. Everything communicates, and in particular, the “way you do things” communicates, perhaps the loudest. I’ll borrow an example from an excellent book.

Kent Carlson and Mike Lueken were the pastors at one of those suburban, fast-growing, soon to be mega-churches. Fearing they were bordering on becoming a “seeker-sensitive” church, they started really emphasizing discipleship from the pulpit. But they noticed it wasn’t changing the culture of their church. It was still trending towards consumerism and impotent discipleship. What was the problem? In their own words, “We couldn’t merely change the words we used to communicate the gospel because there were too many other messages ingrained in the Oak Hills culture that would contradict our words.”[2]

In other words, you want to make sure you’re creating disciples and not voyeuristic consumers? Then you’re going to need more than words spoken in a context that contradicts everything you’re saying. It’s naïve to think we can hook people with a massive, consumer experience, and then not expect them to act like consumers. As Carlson and Lueken say, “Our attractional methods are not neutral. We are training people as we attract them.”[3]

Some Conclusions

So what would Jesus make of Passion? I don’t know. I think he’d enjoy hearing 60,000 people singing to him. I think he’d love a massive offering taken up to combat human trafficking. I think he’d rejoice in the refreshment and repentance taking place. And as mentioned earlier, I think he’d enjoy the excellence of it all. These are—in and of themselves—indisputably good things. But I’m not sure what he would think about the new Temple we’ve constructed, the celeb-pastor cults, or the Passion fever. But deconstruction is easy, so how about a little reconstruction.

I suggest this: Do some massive downsizing for Passion next year. Minimal media, no celeb-pastors or musicians. Get people who are good, just not famous…they’ll cost less. Maybe just leave the regular lights on. Maybe you could charge $50 instead of $200. By my calculations, that’s somewhere around $10 million dollars you’ll save the attendees. Then, challenge everyone who attends to put that $150 they saved at Passion towards their local church’s budget. Or if they really hate their local church and don’t believe in it enough to give $150, then give it to Compassion, International Justice Mission, etc. And then maybe Louie could stand up in the Dome in front of 60,000 people and say, “I don’t need a dome, I don’t need an event, I just need Jesus”, and we’d actually be able to hear him.

And one more thing. We Christians do have an unfortunate tendency to be cynical towards things that are doing well—especially when it’s not “our” thing. Whatever the psychology behind it, it’s all too easy to be swept away by some latent notion that if it’s Christian and successful/excellent than there must be something wrong with it. The success and excellence of Passion should be something we rejoice in. But success and excellence—from a truly kingdom perspective—are things only achieved through ruthless self-evaluation and continual repentance. Like most things, I don’t think the Passion conferences are all black or all white. Like most of us, they do some good things and bad things. So here’s to exposing the hype and nourishing the good.

[1] N.T. Wright, How God Became King, 239.

[2] Carlson and Lueken, Renovation of the Church, 57.

[3] Ibid., 67.

Bruxy Cavy on not giving up on the church

Posted on December 30, 2012 by shel

I.R.:Now, I have some questions that are not directly related to the book. What would you say to Christians who are not sure that attending weekly church services is helping them follow Jesus?

Bruxy: Find a church community that not only challenges you to grow, but that invites you to partner with them to reach out to others.

I.R.: How do you remain “irreligious” yet remain in the church?

Bruxy: Being “irreligious” is about a heart disposition that refuses to turn any one structure into an idol. No religious structures or systems of worship are sacrosanct. But that doesn’t mean that structure itself is wrong. Structure is a servant of the Church, the Body of Christ. To paraphrase Jesus, “Structure was made for us, not us for structure.” Being organized can be a good thing. But turning any one organization or organizational pattern into something untouchable in its centrality is fundamentally anti-Christ.

I.R.: There is a growing movement in our society of Christians who stop attending church services. Do you have anything you would like to say to this group of people?

Bruxy: If church is just about attending, then I would stop too. But it should be less about just showing up and more about living together, doing life together, challenging and supporting each other as spiritual family, and reaching out to the community as a force of radical grace and generosity. Church should include face-to-face fellowship and shoulder-to-shoulder partnership in reaching out to others in need. If it has just become a matter of sitting and listening and maybe singing, then something should change. That might mean leaving one church to find one that is a better fit, or it might mean becoming an agent for change and reform within your current church. Either way, don’t give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but continue to find ways to spur one another on to love and good deeds.

Read the rest here:http://eclecticchristian.com/2008/11/11/an-interview-with-bruxy-cavey/

Is Growth Always Good? Considering Church Growth Lovers and Haters

Posted on May 22, 2012 by shel

Shel Boese / Shelby Boese – Ed hits it head on. Great little summary.

Is Growth Always Good? Considering Church Growth Lovers and Haters

Tuesday May 22, 2012

I’ve always wanted to learn Karate so I could break boards in a ninja-like way (and I realize Ninjas don’t use Karate, but humor the dream of an eight year old wimpy kid). There is a helpful Karate principle that appropriately applies to life and ministry. It pertains to the ancient art of breaking boards (very important coming of age moment for young ninjas).

If one is attempting to break through a board and is aiming for a central spot on the board, he will almost always fail. In trying to process the goal, the brain understands the barrier– and the potential pain involved– and the physical reaction is that the ninja stops short of his goal.

In order to successfully break a board, the ninja must aim about 2-3 inches below the board. In so doing, the brain is able to see past the board towards the ultimate goal, and the board naturally breaks in the process.

In recent years, churches in the West have gone through various transformations in their focus and goals. Much has been said both positively and negatively about the Church Growth Movement, and I will publish some further thoughts on that in the coming weeks. While I do not totally jump on either bandwagon (love or hate), I think two important aspects to keep in mind are the goals of gospel fidelity and propagation.

More importantly: Growth cannot be the final goal.

While in many cases growth can be the byproduct of health and right focus, it is not always the best litmus test. I can think of very prominent, self-identified churches with tens of thousands of people coming each week who preach a loose gospel message of happiness, meeting personal needs, and positive-thinking. Some of those are growing quickly, yet I don’t think their growth is exclusively a sign of the favor of God. (Side note: most megachurches are more conservative biblically and have a higher level of involvement than smaller churches, but my point is that big is not necessarily more faithful.)

As I stated earlier, gospel fidelity and propagation are the goal and, as just every good ninja knows, when the goal is big enough, breakthrough can happen in the process. Aiming at the gospel results in men and women being redeemed– receiving new life in Christ– and can bring about Acts 2 movement where the Lord adds daily to the number of those being saved. It can also bring about alienation, persecution, and even death depending on where the gospel is being preached. The key is aiming at the proper goal and allowing God to determine the numeric outcome of the lives changed.

There seem to be two extremes with proponents and opponents of church growth, however. One extreme is overly captivated with growth. The other is overly cautious of growth. I don’t think either is the right course of action.

First, some are overly captivated with growth. One of the problems many have with the Church Growth Movement is that it has made growth the goal. Though fewer churches would identify themselves with the actual movement, they still are enamored with the same thing– growth is their central goal.

Several in the next generation are now seeing some of the problems of that aim and are reacting accordingly. They’re concerned, as am I, with some of the watered-down theology that can be present in the modern-day evangelical machine that can produce growth, but not necessarily the right kind of growth.

Second, some are overly cautious of growth. One of my main concerns with the second group is their reaction to the first group will be, well, an immature overreaction to their excesses. There can be a tendency to simply say, “If this is what organized, church growth is all about, then I don’t want anything to do with it.” That’s a wrong attitude.

To this overly cautious group, I would implore them to have the wisdom and maturity to chew the meat and spit out the bone. Let’s learn from leaders and thinkers who care about growth, but learn from them discerningly with biblical fidelity and evangelistic passion.

We can learn from others through research, glean what God is doing through their church to see what it can teach us, and seek to understand practical best practices. We can consider them through a biblical filter and a local context that leads to wise application.

Furthermore, as we focus on a goal of gospel fidelity and propagation, growth is often a byproduct– and a good one. Growth is something we should want, plan for, and often see flow from our church’s focus on the right things. Yes, we can and should make plans in such a way that can facilitate that growth– all while focused on gospel fidelity and propagation as the bigger goal and focus.

Balance is the key for a mature and healthy response to church growth…and for ninjas as well.

Pastor to Pastor: How’s Your Church Doing?

Posted on April 28, 2012 by shel

Pastor to Pastor: How’s Your Church Doing?

from thomrainer.com

By Bart Barber

It’s such a common question. It’s the perennial question that pastors ask one another whenever we assemble. It’s the ministerial equivalent of “How about this weather we’re having?”

It’s such a versatile question. One person may ask it out of concern, having already been “read in” about an ongoing problem. Another person may employ it pridefully, salivating at the chance to answer the inevitable reciprocal inquiry. To a third it may be a completely empty question, asked with no expectation of a real answer just to build rapport and get the conversation going.

It’s such an important question. Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for it (Ephesians 5:25). Pastors give up less for their churches than Christ gave, but most pastors still sacrifice profoundly for the sake of churches. We pastors are sinners covered by the grace of God. We’re trying to overcome a lot in ourselves—some of us are battling avarice, lustfulness, arrogance, hair-trigger tempers, domineering personalities, dysfunctional families, ingrained insecurities, overtaxed intellects, or exhausted emotions. Our bewildering variety of personalities and temptations notwithstanding, I’ve never met a pastor whose soul wouldn’t delight in the satisfaction of being able to answer (truthfully), “My church is doing GREAT! Thanks for asking.”

This question being so prominent, it amazes me that I’ve so often been entirely unprepared to answer it in a thoughtful and biblical way. How is my church doing? How would I know? Is that the same question as “How many people attend these days?” or “Are you going to make budget this year?” or “How many did you baptize last week?” For some of the people asking the question I know how THEY measure a church’s health, but how does God evaluate my church? Isn’t that the important question?

And so, while pondering that question, I decided to search the New Testament looking for those occasions where God gave a report card to a church. I’m not just talking about places where the Bible describes a church or even places where God evaluates an individual believer in the Bible. I’m talking about places where the Bible explicitly gives divine evaluation of a church.

The most prominent passage in this category occurs in Revelation 2-3, where Jesus delivered His sometimes-scathing, sometimes-sympathetic assessments of seven churches in Asia Minor. When God grades churches, what does He consider? As we grade our own churches, here are some questions we might ask.

How well does my church endure hard times?
The emphasis upon perseverance, endurance, and faithfulness through times of trial is easily the predominant theme of these letters. In every letter but the ones to Sardis and Laodicea, Jesus issued commendations to those who had been found faithful in difficult times. “I know…[that you] did not deny your faith in Me, even in the days of Antipas…who was killed among you.” (2:13, all quotations HCSB)

From reading these letters, one might understandably conclude (wrongly) that these early churches knew nothing but hard times. In homage to Charles Dickens, we could say of the first-century church, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” It was an age of persecution in some churches, as these letters make clear. It was also a time of explosive church growth and geographical expansion for the gospel. I find it remarkable that Jesus had not one word to say about evangelism and missions—neither in praise nor in condemnation—when addressing seven churches during the most productive century of evangelism and missions that Christianity has ever known! There were plenty of good times to talk about, with so many people coming to know Jesus in Asia Minor, but Jesus chose to emphasize trials and endurance.

Might I suggest one possible reason for this? Maybe the health and character of my church is revealed more by the difficult times that we endure than by the good times that we enjoy. Dear pastor, the hard times your church is enduring right now are the test question, not the grade.

How important is sound doctrine to my church?
Intolerance is a virtue in Revelation 2-3—no, not intolerance itself, as though God had an undying admiration for the curmudgeonly, but rather principled intolerance toward a few things that, in Jesus’ opinion, it is imperative for believers not to tolerate. Jesus complimented the Ephesians: “you cannot tolerate evil.” (2:2) He chastised Thyatira because “you tolerate the woman Jezebel.” (2:20) Pergamum and Sardis He upbraided for being tolerant. The intolerance that these letters applaud is intolerance toward breakaway sects and deviant doctrine.

Has my church clearly identified doctrines that we will not compromise no matter what the cost? Are there things that we would not do or say even if doing them or saying them would double our attendance, pay off our note, and put me on a speaking circuit? Are we determined never to please men if it comes at the cost of displeasing Christ?

Is my church hard at work?
Repeatedly Jesus opened the letters by telling these churches “I know your works.” (2:2, 19; 3:1, 8, 15) Jesus’ proposed cure to the church at Ephesus for having “abandoned the love [they had] at first” was that they should “do the works [they] did at first.” (2:4-5) The first-century churches were hard at work, and their hard work paid off in the rapid spread of the gospel. From the frequency and position of these statements, we must conclude that Jesus is paying careful attention to every church’s works.

No, works don’t earn salvation, but the price paid for our salvation certainly earns a little of our work. Apart from the discussions about “the works of the Law” and miraculous works, work is a recurring theme in the New Testament. Jesus implored His disciples to pray for workers to be sent out into the harvest. Oh, Father, make me a pastor who is the leader of a team of workers!

Is my church pounding the pavement? Do we undertake the hard ministries, the difficult mission assignments, and the labor-intensive challenges? Are most of my people mobilized for service?

Does my church know how to repent?
When is the last time that your church repented of something? The Southern Baptist Convention has repented of racism in the past, but how many churches have done so? All systems of church polity have this much in common: They put the church into the hands of sinners. And so every church, even good churches, winds up offending the Lord and harming people sometimes. Is my church capable of acknowledging responsibility, owning blame, and saying that we’re sorry?

How often does it happen that a church needs to repent of something? Jesus called more than half of these churches to repentance. Maybe that’s an indication to us that, the way Jesus sees things, it needs to happen more than it does.

Of course, with so many people poised to find fault in churches, one can hardly wonder why we pastors spend more time reminding people what’s going right with our churches than what’s going wrong with them. Nevertheless, I believe that the reciprocity of forgiveness and repentance is the lubricating oil of human interaction. I pray that God will keep me from being so much of an optimist that I cannot see my church’s sins—my own sins—and be contrite about them in repentance.

There are other important things in those letters: love, moral living, authenticity. I haven’t given us an exhaustive list, but each of these four themes figures prominently in the letters. It strikes me that my friends and I often grade our churches by different standards than the one Jesus uses in these letters. Seeing my church the way Jesus sees it encourages me in some ways and challenges me in others, but in every way, it helps to make me a better pastor.

Bart Barber is the pastor of First Baptist Church Farmersville, Texas. He and his wife, Tracy, are the proud parents of Jim and Sarah. You can follow Bart on Twitter at @BartBarber and read his blog at Praisegod Barebones.

Regular Church Attendance

Posted on February 21, 2012 by shel

[Shel Boese / Shelby Boese - this is a statement from the A/G on church involvement weekly...I agree! bolding/underling is mine]

Why is regular weekly church attendance so important? Why can’t a believer stay at home and develop spiritually just through Bible reading and prayer?

Hebrews 10:25 gives the command in no uncertain terms: “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” In keeping with this instruction, the constitution of the Assemblies of God states that the church “shall represent, as nearly as possible in detail, the body of Christ as described in New Testament scriptures.” The New Testament church met faithfully on the first day of the week. Its members were instructed to bring their offerings to God on that day (1 Cor. 16:2).

A person’s reasons for going to church are usually influenced by his or her appreciation of the children of God. If worldly friends are more admired than godly saints are, then church attendance will fade in importance and attractiveness. If godly people are admired and appreciated as beautiful contrasts with the evils of the world, one will want to spend time with them worshiping God. Church services can seem boring when they are man-made, but God’s real presence is never boring to a true believer. Those who put on a spiritual facade but underneath prefer worldly pursuits are likely to avoid situations where God is present in His beauty and power. But apart from our feelings about personal church attendance, we must look at Scripture to see the importance God places on attendance in His House with fellow believers.

Throughout the Old and New Testaments, the necessity of setting aside a day each week to acknowledge God’s importance in our lives is not only stressed but commanded (Ex. 20:8). Jesus who is Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28) was faithful to the Sabbath law and was regularly found in the House of God during His earthly walk (Luke 4:16). If the Son of God felt the need to attend a house of worship regularly, we, His followers, should do no less. The Sabbath as an Old Testament tradition gives way in the New Testament to gathering for worship on the first day of the week as a commemoration of Jesus’ resurrection. The day, however, is not the essential; the gathering together is.

Relationships are an important part of human life. We were not created to live in isolation. Historically, some hermits have withdrawn from the world to meditate and have communion with God, but Scripture nowhere teaches permanent solitude as a lifestyle. Having understood the importance of fellowship with other human beings, our choice of associations is critical. Rather than finding our fellowship with people of the world, we can go to a church, even in a different city, and expect to find people of like beliefs and faith.

Not only is Christian fellowship in a local church good for our emotional health, it is essential to our Christian commitment. We are to encourage one another (1Thess. 4:18, NIV), comfort one another (2 Cor. 1:3,4), and bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2). Those who do not attend church regularly with fellow believers run the risk of failing in their Christian walk. We really do need each other. God wants us to fellowship with Him both individually and with other believers. Some followers of the Christian faith rationalize that once they have learned the basic lessons of the Bible it is no longer necessary to attend church. Others claim to be able to worship God alone without the distractions of the “hypocrites” who attend church. This logic reveals much about the spiritual health of the absent believer. It is not a matter of either going to church to grow spiritually or having devotions at home to grow spiritually. Both are essential to a healthy Christian life. And it is selfish to learn Bible truth at home and not share it with fellow believers to encourage and edify them as well as to receive edification. Paul told the Thessalonians, “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (1 Thess. 5:11). We cannot fulfill that instruction when alone.

…We believe in the operation of the gifts of the Spirit in public worship. The Holy Spirit manifests the gifts through various believers, as He chooses, for the edification of the assembled body. Meeting together is absolutely essential for such edification. “All these [Gifts] are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines. The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body” (1 Cor. 12:11,12).

Attendance at church with a body of believers is also essential to our fulfilling the command of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19,20). Although one can theoretically be a witness by himself during the week without attending church, in reality that does not happen. It is the dynamic of a group of believers, encouraging, challenging, and strengthening each other that will reach the lost for Christ.

We do not go to church regularly to be saved; we go because we are saved. The question is not “Can a believer maintain his Christianity and develop spiritually without attending church? Instead, the real question is “Can a believer afford to lose all the benefits and rewards that come from obeying the inspired command of Scripture not to stop meeting together with fellow believers?”

CONCERNS:

It is the responsibility of local church leadership to plan and conduct services so that God can speak and manifest His presence to each individual gathered for worship. In the course of a service, each worshiper should be afforded opportunity to experience the loving call of the Lord to a complete commitment to the kingdom of God.

Unfortunately, there may be some local churches that do not experience such a presence and power of the Holy Spirit of God in their services. What should a disappointed believer then do? Rather than leaving the church and having no fellowship with believers, the dedicated believer will accept the situation as a spiritual challenge to intercede with heaven in behalf of the church. God responds to the persistent intercessory prayer of a righteous person (James 5:16). We are all part of the body of Christ, sent to edify the group He has placed us in. Faithfulness in church attendance and intercessory prayer will produce an exciting worship atmosphere.

Pastors – This is A Great Gut Check by Ed Stetzer

Posted on September 23, 2011 by shel

Shel Boese/ Shelby Boese – If you have read your NT well you understand that the Church Jesus is building is a sign, symbol pointing to the Kingdom of God – it’s a part of it – but not the Kingdom of God.

Furthermore there is NO “universal church” without the real and gritty – blessed and in process – “local church”. The local assemblies of believers covenanting to be church for one another and their city is most amazing, complex and simple part of the Kingdom you are CALLED to be part of.

It’s always under attack – particularly from the self-righteous set. But IT is what Jesus promised to build. Not simply some abstract cloudy idea of a universal church you cannot be a part of the universal church without being covenanted into – baptized into – a local church.

Should “Broader Interests” Preclude Pastoring? from EdStetzer.com by Ed Stetzer

I’ve noticed a pattern lately and I’m not the only one who has seen it. Christianity Today featured a story in the spring of 2010 about pastors leaving their churches to pursue writing and speaking opportunities. Francis Chan, Jim Belcher, N. T. Wright and, now Rob Bell, have left local church pastorates, some of which were churches they themselves had planted. This led CT to ask:

What’s going on? Is the local church becoming the “farm team” for full-time conference and book ministry?

Rob Bell’s announcement included the plan to pursue “broader interests” and that prompted this post.

(I am very aware that there are other issues regarding Rob Bell, but this is not a post about him. You can read my review of his book, Love Wins, in 3-parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. His departure from Mars Hill, however, sparked these further thoughts I now address.)

I try not to wag my finger at others, and every person involved needs to hear from the Lord and be obedient to his call, but I must say this move away from the local church confuses (and concerns) me a bit. Perhaps that is because I’m heading in the other direction.

Allow me to explain.

There are many broader issues I am passionate about pursuing. My day includes research, writing, consulting, and leading at LifeWay Research. I have responsibilities to oversee staff and lead other teams here. Like others who have been given a visible platform, I am regularly asked to speak at conferences and meetings. Yet, with all of this, I can’t get enough of the church.

So, yesterday, I turned to Rick Warren (perhaps you’ve heard of him) and asked why he has stayed at a local church. Rick’s “broader interests” are pretty big– poverty, adoption, politics, nation-building, writing and speaking. (Once he had to “run” from our phone call because Tony Blair was dropping by for a visit. Yes, that Tony Blair.) Yet, he is still connected to a local church. A while back when he invited me to hang out with him at Saddleback, I was fascinated by just how much that local church connection mattered to Rick.

Rick tweeted this which reinforces the point:

Screen shot 2011-09-23 at 1.26.50 PM.png

I asked him specifically to comment for this article, and he explained, “The local church has been, and always will be, the PRIMARY tool for God will in the world. Other ministries are important but secondary.”

I realize that the aforementioned men have not left THE church. On the contrary most of them would argue that their new efforts would ultimately encourage and strengthen many churches. But they have left pastoral ministry to pursue other interests whether writing, speaking or yet-to-be-determined avenues of ministry. Ultimately, Christian leaders– as all Christians should– must follow God’s call. I am entirely convinced, for example, that Francis Chan prayed and sought the Lord on this decision. Yet, I know many pastors who yearn for the conference circuit and to get out of the local church– so read my thoughts here more as concern than me “calling out” anyone.

For me, I am heading a different direction and planting a church in my free time.

Why, then, am I planting a church? It sure isn’t to grow a megachurch as I really don’t see that happening in the way we are planting. It isn’t to make more money since I’m unpaid by the church (and I’m not speaking at other churches that, well, did pay me).

Here are three reasons I’ve chosen to remain close to my local church and to serve the church as a pastor.

1. I love the church. I want to be in one, leading it, loving it–not leaving it. In a past time I wore myself out talking about how important the church was while not being closely connected to one. I plan to not let that happen again. Paul wrote that Jesus loved the church and gave Himself for her, and I need to love what Jesus loved. And not from a distance.

2. I need the church. Actually, my family and I both need the church. We need co-laborers on mission. I need a place to live out what I write and talk about. I need encourage and be encouraged. In short, I need to be in a community of people who are also on mission with God experiencing victories and defeats, trials and tribulations together. Christianity is, and always has been, a team sport. It isn’t tennis; it’s football (or soccer, take your pick).

3. I’m committed to serve. What is your calling? Are you called to be a pastor? Deacon? Evangelist? If that’s your calling, you should be using that gift. It really goes without saying that it would be easier to travel around, preach at a church or auditorium and then go home. But that is not reality.

Reality means accountability to some kind of leadership structure in the church and to body as a whole. Rick Warren alluded to this problem in a tweet that followed the Rob Bell announcement: “Speaking tours feed the ego=All applause & no responsibility. It’s an unreal world. A church gives accountability & validity” The last thing anyone needs is more to feed out selfish egos, but that is precisely part of the challenge associated with the speaking circuit.

Remaining a pastor in my local church is a lot more work, but it’s part of what God has called me to do…and saved me to be.

shelboese.org

news, thoughts, theology…

Category Archives: Theology – the Church

The Unnecessary Tragedy of Artists and the Church

Len Wilson: The Unnecessary Tragedy of Artists and the Church

“I Am A Church Member” – A Conversation with Thom Rainer

“I Am A Church Member” – A Conversation with Thom Rainer by TREVIN WAX

Church is the people/place of the primary manifestation of God through humans

The first church unpacked

How and Why I Stay in the Dysfunctional Family of God

shel – I hope you find this refreshing and helpful. #1 and #5 in particular!

How and Why I Stay in the Dysfunctional Family of God

Bruxy Cavy on not giving up on the church

Pastor to Pastor: How’s Your Church Doing?

Pastor to Pastor: How’s Your Church Doing?

Regular Church Attendance

[Shel Boese / Shelby Boese - this is a statement from the A/G on church involvement weekly...I agree! bolding/underling is mine]

Why is regular weekly church attendance so important? Why can’t a believer stay at home and develop spiritually just through Bible reading and prayer?

Pastors – This is A Great Gut Check by Ed Stetzer