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:

What Atomic Bombs and Ministry Have in Common

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atomic bombs, BBC, church, church planting, ministry, stephen fry, television

My favorite new show Stephen Fry in America may be uncreatively titled (what else would we expect from the BBC?!), but it provides a unique look at many aspects of on-the-ground American culture that I’d never otherwise notice. (Legit voo-dooists, “body farms,” etc.) Among the many questions it forces upon us: What did ever happen to those underground bunkers used to store active ready-to-launch missiles during the Cold War? (Safe bet you haven’t thought of that question yourself in a while!) Apparently one of them was purchased a few decades ago – for only $40,000! – by some hippies who turned it into their home and then started a profitable business helping other hippies do the same. (Yes, you really should watch this show.)

Anyhow, while walking Stephen through the missile storage hanger, the cameraman drew attention to a sign that read: No Lone Zone – Two-Man Policy Mandatory.  Hippie-missile-man explained that due to the sensitive, powerful, and potentially destructive nature of the room’s “contents” and the ever-present possibility of foul play, no one was allowed to be alone with this missile many times more powerful than anything we or anyone else has fired. Some things just can’t be trusted to a solitary human being.

And forgive me if this is a stretch, but I promise it was honestly my first thought. Ministry should be a “no lone zone” too. On top of the fact that serving together is a biblical model, it just makes sense that no one person be given too much unchecked authority over something so powerful as the gospel, something so admittedly potentially lethal as “religion.”

Now I realize that many (probably most) ministry situations don’t come with the inherent flexibility to just go and hire a team. But having a formal team probably doesn’t have as much to do with it as sometimes think. The issue is whether you have others with you keeping you honest as you go about your work. And not just someone who likes to whine, but a legit peer who loves you and has earned your respect. Who do you have like that who has the permission and the courage to tell you when your decisions are bad, your sermons are sub-biblical, and your character is slipping?

Many lives have been destroyed by loose cannon Christian leaders who enjoy too much power without the proper checks and balances. I know I don’t want that to be my story, so for me the “No Lone Zone” two-man policy is, indeed, mandatory.

Social Justice and the Lord’s Prayer

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church, discipleship, gospel of matthew, justice, prayer, social justice

Many Christians have recently rediscovered the part of our calling – or of our God, really – that moves us to pursue “social justice.” But some rightly fear that justice issues might eclipse other aspects of our gospel-centered identity and mission. (I say “rightly” because we’re liable to turn anything into an idol, especially something right and good and true.) The classic question is what should we give the proverbial hungry believer in a location where we can be pretty sure he doesn’t know Jesus: the gospel or a loaf of bread? Or perhaps more to our point, in the public square should we quietly work toward a living wage or look for opportunities to explain the truth about Christ?

My suggestion is that we pray the Lord’s Prayer. More specifically, that we pray all of it.

What does the Lord’s Prayer have to do with not turning justice into an idol? I’m thinking specifically of two phrases, one of which has rightly become a biblical battle cry for pursuing justice for the poor: May your kingdom come. Jesus’ gospel of God’s kingdom was nothing if not good news for the poor, no doubt in more ways than one. And the next phrase proves that this isn’t merely a future hope, for we are instructed to pray that God’s kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven. I agree and applaud all efforts to fully live out Jesus’ invitation to anticipate God’s future kingdom in the present.

But what does sometimes happen is that this phrase gets separated from what preceded it: hallowed be your name. Jesus cares not only about what we do, but that we do it in the right way, and part of doing the right thing in the right way is doing it so that God’s name is rightly honored. By all means, “preach the gospel everyday, and if necessary use words.” But know that using words will very soon become necessary if the gospel is to be preached. By all means, give the dude a piece of bread and work for a living wage, but do it in the name of Jesus for the glory of God. By all means, work for the inbreaking of God’s kingdom, but don’t be embarrassed by or shy about the fact that this is God’s kingdom or that it came and comes to the world in Jesus.

We haven’t been called to make or build a new world. We are called to live into the reality of the new world already begun in Christ.

In-credible Church

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church, ministry

In The Divine Commodity, Skye Jethani tells the story of an interview he did with a seasoned pastor. Jethani kept asking what he was most proud of during his decades of ministry, expecting stories of praying with drunks, loving mean old ladies, and so forth. But all the pastor wanted to talk about was building campaigns, and in particular the one he pushed through that gave them an asphalted parking lot.

In his own words, “Three years ago we put in a larger gravel lot, but I knew it wasn’t good enough. ‘We’ve got people around here driving BMWs and Cadillacs,’ I told them. They don’t want to park on gravel. People expect asphalt! A church that can’t provide asphalt isn’t relevant. It’s not credible. Eventually the elders came around. A respectable church simply couldn’t ask people to park on gravel.”

Seriously? So much for at least attempting to model our ministry mindset on the way of Jesus. This is embarrassing, and yet I’m haunted by the question of whether the only difference between this pastor and me is that he can actually articulate the thought process behind some of our decisions. In the end, I think I’d rather be literally in-credible than fall prey to this kind of pathology.

Without This There Is No Church

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church, church planting, conversion, crucifixion, gospel, jesus, new testament, old testament, paul, salvation, theology

In the last post we highlighted the importance of defining the church properly by exploring the claim that what we believe about the church determines how we coordinate its life together. Today we’re going to dig further into the definition of the church rooted in teachings by the fine folks at Missio: The church is a networked family of gospel communities on mission. 

This definition requires further definition if it’s going to be helpful. What is the gospel? What is community? What is mission? Today we start with the gospel.

Contours of Paul’s Ministry

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church, colossians, conversion, discipleship, gospel, jesus, ministry, paul

I’ll flesh this out further in a future post as part of an upcoming series on Colossians, but I wanted to share a few things from Colossians 1.24-29. In this passage Paul cracks a window and gives us a glimpse of how he understood his own calling and ministry. I see eight contours of Paul’s (co)mission. It is:

• Thoroughly centered on Christ. In keeping with the rest of the letter, nothing derails Paul from his singular focus on Christ. Here he is the word of God in its fulness, the content of God’s now-revealed-mystery and therefore of Paul’s proclamation, the hope of glory, and both the context and definition of maturity.

• Marked by a willingness to suffer for others. Whatever else we can say about Paul’s strange words about filling up what is lacking of Christ’s afflictions, this much is clear: Paul has no problem suffering on behalf of the people he’s serving. He may even believe that his suffering somehow lessens the chance that they’ll experience their own. This extreme selflessness puts me to shame!

• Accomplished by teaching and admonishing. Teaching is clearly articulating the truth about Jesus, and admonishing is the followup task of straightening out fuzzy thinking and setting things in proper order. Both are crucial.

• Oriented by apocalyptic imagination. This section drips with apocalyptic hints and clues, which (among other things) means that in Christ God has revealed the meaning of history and brought his story to its dramatic climactic moment. Speaking of which…

• Grounded in the (hi)story of God. Paul never loses sight of the ways in which Christ is the one in whom God has brought all his past action and promises to fulfillment. Yes this story has entered its universal stage where all of us are invited to become a part, but this must be intentionally remembered for us to know what becoming a part actually means and looks like.

• Aimed toward full maturity. Paul here shows no contentment for mere conversion, and while no one would doubt his “evangelistic passion,” here we see that Paul rises above our silly debates about evangelism vs discipleship. Paul wants everyone to come to maturity, and he won’t rest until he’s done everything he can to that end.

• Attentive to every individual. Paul is communal to the core, but his passion for community does not hinder his commitment to the individual parts that make up the body. No person gets forgotten or let off the hook; all are intended and expected to grow into maturity.

• Fueled by the energy of Christ. Paul works his tail off (that’s a loose translation), not by his own power but by the energy of Christ at work in him.

Does it need to be stated that these markers provide a wonderful grid for thinking about our own ministries? This may not be a definitive guide, but it’s a pretty good start!

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.)

Ephesians 1.1 – Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus…

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church, discipleship, ephesians, jesus, new testament, paul, politics

Okay, so I’m not making any promises but I’m going to start blogging through the book of Ephesians verse-by-verse. I’ve actually been thinking about doing this for over a year now and started studying Ephesians in depth earlier this year. Then in his Wheaton Chapel Message, N. T. Wright challenged the students to memorize Ephesians by studying and committing to memory one verse a day. The idea is that if you learn what a verse means it will be easier to memorize, and if you memorize and meditate on it, what it means will actually take root in your life. Well, I’m going for it and we’ll see. Each day I’ll provide the TNIV translation of the verse, walk through it bit-by-bit (with moderate attention to detail), and then I’ll offer my own translation (which is meant to work alongside, never to replace, other translations).

Ephesians 1.1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (TNIV)

There is so much packed into this little verse. A year ago I decided to start blogging through Ephesians but when I approached this verse and saw how much would need to be said, I gave up!

Purposes of the Church

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church, church planting, discipleship, gospel, jesus

Every time I come back to work after a semi-long break (like the one I just enjoyed celebrating the birth of our daughter Claire!), I always need reminders about what it is I’m / we’re doing with the whole business called “church.” I confess that one of the questions I most often ask myself is, So what the heck are we doing anyway? So I usually revisit some list about aims or purposes of the church. No list is perfect or complete, but I spent about half of 2009 working on this and I figured it was finally time to share…

…

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1. To celebrate, embody, and proclaim the gospel of God’s saving reign inaugurated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.
2. To exclusively worship the God who is faithfully revealed in the story of Scripture as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
3. To form new creation communities of mutual care and sharing, friendship and hospitality, accountability and reconciliation.
4. To teach and train one another to take up our cross and follow Jesus in the way of cruciform faith, hope, love, joy, and peace.
5. To share the joys and burdens of ministry by exercising our Spiritual gifts under the guidance of consultative leadership.
6. To resist the forces of evil and death by exposing idolatrous lies and refusing conformity to the patterns of this world.
7. To suffer with and seek justice and healing for the physically, socially, economically, politically, and emotionally vulnerable and poor.
8. To reflect God’s image by cultivating creation’s fruitfulness in family, work, rest, play, art, poetry, and care for earth.
9. To honor but not idolize our children and to intentionally raise them to be radically faithful disciples of Jesus.
10. To practice the historic disciplines of prayer, fasting, meditation, study, simplicity, service, confession, submission, & direction.