In Defense of Corporate Church

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american culture, church, church planting, ministry

I can be hard on the church sometimes, so let me switch gears today and offer some positive thoughts about the idea of “corporate” church. There are probably hundreds of ways it’s true that the church is not a corporation and no shortage of ecclesial deconstructionists to point this out, but I’ve noticed one aspect of this critique that feels a little – what’s the word? – lazy. I suppose I see this in two ways. The first is simply a quick dismissal of any principle of organization or interaction that we think is too wooden as “corporate.” If you’re going to make that claim, think things through enough to back it up.

For instance, I know I’m oversimplifying a bit but any venture can be analyzed by looking at “ends” and “means” – or in other words, what we’re trying to accomplish and what we’re doing to accomplish it. Corporations (or “the corporate world”) pursue some goals that are compatible with the church’s goals and others that aren’t; and they seek to reach their goals using some methods that are compatible with the church’s and some that aren’t. And vice versa. For instance, one of the church’s “ends” or goals is to make disciples of Jesus and teach people to do everything he commanded. For the most part, this will not be an end that corporations share. Corporations tend above all else to pursue a profitable bottom line; this is not a major goal that churches share.

But the lack of compatibility in some instances – okay, the far majority of instances – doesn’t mean there’s no legitimate overlap.

Catechism Making a Comeback?

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american culture, christendom, church, church history, church planting, conversion, discipleship, ministry

So my first takeaway from the Missio Intensive conference, which has taken me five posts to work through (here, here, here, here, & here), has to do with how we define and organize the church on a big picture meta- level. My second takeaway was the amount of thought they put in and structure they give to the process of assimilating new folks into these missional church communities. In other words, they are very intentional about how people join their church. We’re finally recognizing that the church is weird, and as such people need to learn and experience what we’re all about before deciding whether to become part of our family.

The old-school term for this is “catechism,” and it’s an idea I’ve long been saying we need to revisit. Catechism has been a core practice of the church since the early days, and I’ve blogged some about it in the past.

What we got at the Missio conference was one example of how this is being done today, specifically at Adullam. Hugh described two different processes, one for incorporating non-Christians into their church and the other for incorporating Christians. (They explain all this in their book AND, but I haven’t had the time to read it yet; I’m intrigued to see whether what I took away from the conference matches what they see in the book – we’ll see!) The former had a looser more organic feel, whereas the latter was more structured and intentional. They have their own pictures in AND, but I like mine better. Here’s the first one:

Legislating Morality? (from MLK)

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America, american culture, politics, sin

I didn’t want to lose this quote and it’s too long to micro-blog, so here you go…

From Martin Luther King, Jr:

“Now the other myth that gets around is the idea that legislation cannot really solve the problem and that it has no great role to play in this period of social change because you’ve got to change the heart and you can’t change the heart through legislation. You can’t legislate morals. The job must be done through education and religion.

“Well, there’s half-truth involved here. Certainly, if the problem is to be solved then in the final sense, hearts must be changed. Religion and education must play a great role in changing the heart. But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also.

“So there is a need for executive orders. There is a need for judicial decrees. There is a need for civil rights legislation on the local scale within states and on the national scale from the federal government.”

My Favorite Books on the Church / Ministry

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american culture, church, church planting, discipleship, new testament, real life church, small groups

As a follow-up to yesterday’s list of my favorite books on Jesus, here are my favorites on the church and ministry. Once again, I very much welcome your thoughts and especially your own favorites. These are the ones that have shaped me and that keep me on my toes.

1.  Jesus and Community by Gerhard Lohfink. I talked about this book in the Jesus list, but I wanted to include it here as well, mainly because (as I mentioned) it confirmed my conviction that the church was not an afterthought to the coming of Jesus the Messiah. On the contrary, core to Jesus’ ministry was the gathering of a body of people to continue God’s mission in the world. This book provides an excellent exegetically based theology of the church as just this very thing. Given that the church is full of sinful people (including me!) and can therefore be pretty frustrating at times, it has proved invaluable for me to remember that you can’t have Jesus without it. Or as William Willimon puts it, “The church may be a whore but she’s also your mother.” (Joey says Lohfink’s Does God Need the Church? is rockin too, and it’ll probably supplant this one when I do read it.)

Naming the Beast (Rev 13)

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american culture, apocalyptic, daniel, hermeneutics, new testament, politics, Revelation

Reflecting on the text (Revelation 13)

One of the most notable features of the book of Revelation is “the beast” in Revelation 13 (actually there are two of them). Since the beast is a central aspect of John’s work, we’re going to spend two days discussing it.

The first day will be Reflecting on the Text, focusing on meaning of Revelation 13. The second day will be Living What We Learn, focusing on the application of Revelation 13.

Another way of looking it is that today we’ll be discussing who or what John has in mind when he talks about the beast. Later we’ll explore what John reveals about the beast, and how it applies to us.

Because the beast is such a controversial topic, we need to start by laying out some guidelines for an answer. If we are going to have the right explanation, it must fit certain criteria. More specifically, our answer must correspond to the genres of Revelation.

Do you remember the three genres of Revelation? They are letter, prophecy, and apocalypse (see Rev 1.1-6).

New Series – Conversion and Christendom (repost)

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America, american culture, christendom, church, conversion, new testament, salvation

[I started this series some time ago but never completed it. I think it is more than worthy of returning to, so I'm going to repost what I posted back then and then pick up where it leaves off.]

Over the next bit, I’ll be blogging through a little book called The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom by Alan Kreider. Here Kreider aims to better understand the changes that took place in the church during the fourth century (when the Christian faith was legalized and standardized by Constantine and his heirs) by examining their practice of conversion. If we look at how the process of becoming a Christian changed throughout early church history, especially with the beginning of the period called “Christendom,” perhaps we will better understand the larger transformation of the church during this time. (And, by extension, we will gain wisdom for our own time of transition back out of a “Christendom” situation.)

In the Introduction, Kreider lays out three goals:

“Political” Musings on the Fiery Furnace (4 of 4)

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America, american culture, christendom, crucifixion, discipleship, gospel, jesus, martyrdom, new testament, old testament, politics, salvation

“They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.” (Daniel 3.28b)

This is my final post offering reflections on the “political lessons” we learn from the very strange story in Daniel 3. See previous posts here,  here and here. So far I have claimed from this story that (1) Politics is a question of idolatry – that is, competing claims for allegiance; (2) Obedience to God sometimes requires disobedience to the government; (3) This “theo-political” showdown is often fought on the battlefield of symbolic ritual; (4) In the ancient world God’s people faced persecution due to their position as a minority outsider in an imperial world; (5) Loyal servants of idolatrous political powers often die needlessly and tragically; (6) Sometimes governments do acknowledge God’s superior power to save; (7) The “political idolatry problem” does not rule out participation in political affairs. Below are the final two of my nine reflections (the last one is my favorite!).

“Political” Musings on the Fiery Furnace (3 of 4)

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America, american culture, christendom, church, God, idolatry, old testament, politics

“They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.” (Daniel 3.28b)

This is the third of four posts offering reflections on the “political lessons” we learn from the story in Daniel 3 about  Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego being thrown into a fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. See previous posts here and here. I’m offering nine reflections in all, and 4-7 are below.

“Missional” Video – Thoughts?

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american culture, christendom, church, church planting, missional

No Obedience Without Resistance (Revelation 2-3)

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America, american culture, christendom, church, new testament, politics, Revelation

Let me ask you once again to recall the significance of seeing that Revelation is a letter. Because Revelation is a letter, we simply must keep in mind the original audience – the 1st century churches living in Asia Minor under the long reach of the Roman Empire.

We’re going to spend the rest of this week camping out in Revelation 2-3, which is composed of seven messages from Jesus to his churches. (The order in which these churches appear in the text actually follows the standard mailing route in Asia Minor.) The further we get away from Revelation 2-3 the easier it is to forget about them, so we must choose to constantly remember that Revelation was written to them first. God certainly wants to speak to us through this book, but we have to respect the fact that he spoke to them first. It was God’s word to them before it is God’s word to us.

The most important thing for us to know about the life situation of these followers of Jesus is that they were being seduced by the surrounding (imperial) culture to compromise their absolute allegiance to the kingdom of God.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? (Maybe this book isn’t so far-removed after all!)

As we’ve said, these followers of Jesus lived in the Roman Empire, which was unquestionably one of the most powerful nations that has ever existed, either before or since. (Of course “nations” is a bit anachronistic, but you get the point.)

According to the official cultural script, Rome had brought unity, peace, and security to a world that desperately needed freedom from political fear. And the people loved them for it. (Well, most of them. Of course those whose families they slaughtered in the securing of “peace” and “freedom” weren’t so fond.)