Church -- An "Organization" or "A Community of Disciple-Making Disciples"

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“If you had to draw a diagram that represented the ministry in your church,what would it look like? What if our mental image was not of an organisation or a structure but of the people God had brought together in our church? And what if the key question we asked was: Who is getting alongside each person to invest in their lives and help them grow towards maturity in Christ? This is a different vision of church—not as an organisation, but as a community of disciple-making disciples.”

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Trellis & Vine

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All Christian ministry is a mixture of trellis and vine.There is vine work: the prayerful preaching and teaching of the word of God to see people converted and grow to maturity as disciples of Christ. Vine work is the Great Commission.

And there is trellis work: creating and maintaining the physical and organizational structures and programs that support vine work and its growth.What’s the state of the trellis and the vine in your part of the world? Has trellis work taken over, as it has a habit of doing? Is the vine work being done by very few (perhaps only the pastor and only on Sundays)? And is the vine starting to wilt as a result?

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Charles Spurgeon Speaking of John Wesley

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The other day, I saw John Wesley’s diary, or rather, horary, for it had in it not merely an entry for every day, but for every hour; and not only for every hour, but usually there was a distinct occupation for every twenty minutes. The good man made his days to have many hours in them, and his hours seemed to have more minutes in them than most men’s hours have, because he did not waste any of them, but diligently used them all in his Master’s service.

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"Everyone Wants Better. No One Wants Change."

"Everyone wants better.  No one wants change."

"Everyone wants better.  No one wants change."

I love that quote.

I love the picture.

And I resonated with this as soon as I read it HERE and followed to the article on leadership HERE.  Because I want better and I don't want change.  I started off the year saying I was trying to read a book a month...but life happened and my time's gotten away from me.  I say I want to save up for a vacation for our 20th anniversary this year, but I don't put in the effort to squirrel the money away.  After all, I want my lattes.  I want to keep losing weight, but here I sit, still pondering the calories from my HUGE hamburger and fries from Red Robin restaurant last night.  Yes, I want better but I don't want change.

What's scary though is the fact that no one wants change.  Most everyone can visualize something better for themselves...or their family...or their church.  But we don't want to put in the effort to get to that better place or we don't want to suffer the change of location or the change of routine or the change of job or the change of habit that will get us to that goal.

But isn't that part of the role of Christian discipleship?  Getting persons to that better place, a more faithful place?

And here I am, change-resistant myself, called to lead persons in becoming new creations in Christ.

How's that supposed to work?

Jesus and the Exclusive (Yes, NOT Inclusive) Gospel

                Image via WikipediaThis is kind of a follow up the the previous C.S. Lewis quote, mentioning that Jesus' message wasn't Good News for everyone and that it caused people to be angry or frightened...in addition to leading to adoration in many as well.

We have this thing about Jesus, assuming that he's such a "big tent" kind of person that all persons are not only welcome to come along for the ride but that they are happy to join him.  Not so.  We can see clearly from Scripture that his message rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.  It rubbed them so wrong that they killed him.   Therefore all of our talk about the inclusivity of Jesus really is shallow.  While all persons are invited to follow, the life-change required was too much for many.  They could not follow.

Anyway, this is on my mind today and Allan Bevere, in a blog post, has fed me this morning.  He has a quote from Markus Bockmuehl's article, "The Trouble with the Inclusive Jesus."  I consider myself a pretty "inclusive" guy, cringing at some of what I hear from the more neo-Calvinist camps in Evangelicalism.  But, I need to hear what Bockmuehl wrote today.

However one parses the exegetical particulars, Jesus of Nazareth is (as Richard Hays puts it), not only the friend of sinners but also the nemesis of the wicked. Another way of putting this is to say that Jesus of Nazareth includes a remarkably wide diversity of the marginalized, yet he also marginalizes an uncomfortably diverse range of the religiously or socioeconomically included. That necessarily complicates any discussion of Jesus' "universalism" or "inclusiveness": Jesus, like Paul, appears to envisage the saved as well as the unsaved or the not-yet-saved … Our problem, then, is that the apparent smoothness and attractiveness of the "inclusive Jesus" hypothesis are acquired at a very high moral price. As we have seen, the structure of the argument typically follows the familiar liberal departicularizing of a Jesus who takes his stance over against the Judaism of his time: Jews were narrow, ethnic, culturally conservative; Jesus by contrast was universal, inclusive, and welcoming without exception. (p. 14, 17).

Bevere summarizes some of this thought quite well:

Current accounts of inclusiveness are indebted much more to modernity than they are to the New Testament. Richard Hays words need to be heard: Jesus is not only the friend of sinners but he is the nemesis of the wicked. The issue is not the truly inclusive nature of the Gospel, but the imposition of a broad and shallow modern inclusivism that does indeed come at a high moral price. Bishop William Willimon reminds us that during his ministry Jesus drove away more people than he attracted.

Sometimes, however, I wonder if Jesus would drive me away, too...if I paid closer attention to the call he makes on my life.

Thank God for grace.

Oops! I Might Be An "Evangelical Reject"

Image via WikipediaLook, I think one of the things that comes through on this blog and in my reflection is that I have pretty good evangelical roots.  It's not something I got in New York so much.  I was 15 and under when I was there.  But it's something I got in my years in Indiana when surrounded by Wesleyans...not of the United Methodist kind but of the actual "Wesleyan Church" kind.  Evangelicalism was somewhat "in the water" of Indiana, inside and outside of the United Methodist Church.  And it was a pretty conservative sort of evangelicalism.

And, to this day, I really do believe that being an authentic follower of Jesus Christ requires one to have some type of conversion experience ("justification" for my good, old Methodist friends out there) and some type of growth in faith (regeneration or "sanctification" for said Methodists).  I believe in confession of sin and I believe that Jesus Christ is the only way for this to happen, and, therefore, it is right and good and important to share the message of Jesus and live in such a way that persons can see Christ's love through one's actions.  Saying all of this, I think,  makes me an evangelical in a pretty classic sense.

That said...I think there is a lot of room for interpretation in there.  There's a lot unsaid in all that's said above.  And, in spite of believing all of this, I know that my theology is sometimes questioned and sometimes questioned to my face...even believing all that I do about Jesus.

(Please note, this really isn't commonplace for me...the whole questioning thing.  I don't walk through life with persons shaking their heads every time I open my mouth.  I am surrounded by a bunch of people who know me and appreciate me and, I pray, see Christ working through me and can hear the depth of my faith in my preaching, my speaking, and in my writing.  But I do occasionally get the "head shake" or the "I'll pray for you."  Some base it on nothing other than knowing I'm part of the United Methodist Church.  And some within the United Methodist Church base their opinions on nothing more than my location, now, in the West -- a bastion of what some see as liberal Methodism.)

And so, I was more than a little amused as I stumbled over to The Pangea Blog and a post by Kurt Willems.  It's entitled "You Might Be an Evangelical Reject" and I resonated with many of his bullet points.  Clearly he has struggled with self-identity over the years, probably from a much more evangelical side of evangelicalism.  His points made me think and ponder...which is a good thing.  See the original post for a complete list of his bullet points.

In so far that evangelical means the belief in repentance and conversion into a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, the term describes me.  What I continue to find, is that such a central conviction is NOT enough to appease those who want the term to mean other things.  So, based on my experiences, I want to let you know that: You Might Be an Evangelical Reject If…

• You’re uncomfortable calling other branches of Christianity “apostate.”
• You have significant questions about controversial theological “hot button” issues of the days and are some-what comfortable with the subsequent cognitive dissonance.
• You read theologians from all across the spectrum.
• You think that science and scripture both reveal God’s truth in complementary ways.
• You think that what we believe about the so called “end times” actually matters for how we do mission today.
• You recognize culture wars as pathetic attempts for Christians to grab for power.
• You don’t use the word inerrancy to describe biblical authority because its too rigid a definition and a modernist categorical imposition on the Holy Spirit inspired Scriptures.
• You think women should do anything BUT be silent in the church. (Can I get an AMEN from my sistas?)
• You think that postmodern philosophy helps theology more than it hurts it.
• You drink alcohol sometimes (in public).
• You believe that there are significant parallels between the Roman Empire of the 1^st Century and the United States of modern day.
• You believe social justice is central to the gospel of the Kingdom.
• You’ve said “I’m not that kind of Christian…”
• You considered or actually voted democratic in the last two elections.
• You think that African American Activists have valid points when it comes to justice issues.
• You have gay friends.
• You’ve been in a conversation where the other was appealing more to the constitution of the USA than actually biblical theology.

Perhaps we can argue (rightfully so, I think) that his bullet points which claim him as an "evangelical reject" are not classic evangelicalism. Instead, evangelicalism has come to mean "conservative evangelical" or "politically conservative" or "socially conservative." It's gotten away from the the priority of the "evangel" or "Good News" and has come to mean a lot of other things along the way. But this has come to be the new understanding of "evangelical." And, by that, with Kurt Willems, I sometimes find myself outside of a circle I once dutifully drew myself in.

This IS Grace

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A family in my sister’s neighborhood was recently stricken with a double tragedy, when both the young mother and her three-year-old son were diagnosed with cancer. When Catherine told me about this, I could only say, shocked, “Dear God, that family needs grace.” She replied firmly, “That family needs casseroles,” and then proceeded to organize the entire neighborhood into bringing that family dinner, in shifts, every single night, for an entire year. I do not know if my sister fully recognizes that this is grace.

From Eat, Pray, Love

(HT/RachelHeldEvans)

Missionary God -- Missionary People -- Missionary Church

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We have a "missionary God that calls us to be a missionary people and in turn requires the church to be a missionary church."

HT/ Almost an M

WITH*

Ministry WITH* -- A new video by the General Board of Global Ministries, highlighting ministry with the poor of the world.