Embarking

There is really no way to capture the passion we just heard from Christine Caine in notes on a blog.  This is a woman who, as she said, is still “old-school enough” to truly believe that that Jesus is the hope of the world.  She challenged us to live into this moment – our moment in which there are great needs in the world and to step up and be the church that God longs for.

I was moved when Christine was telling a story in which she was challenged by a woman who was just being rescued from sex trafficking slavery who said, “If what you’re saying about your God is true, why didn’t you come earlier?”  She said this amazing statement, and one we should all reflect deeply on:

It is not that God did not hear your cry; but I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to hear it.  I honestly cannot think of anything in my life that was so important that I shouldn’t have come earlier.

There is a great challenge – not only in terms of human sex trafficking – but in all the ways that God’s heart breaks for his world.  Isn’t it true that we are so often so busy with so many things that are merely much ado about nothing and are neglecting the very deep things that moved the Father to send Jesus into the world in the first place?

Towards the end of her talk, Christine talked about hope.  She talked about how courageous her little 4 year old becomes in the middle of darkness with a simple flashlight in her hand – with that little light, she’ll go in darker.  While they were in Walmart buying a flashlight, her daughter said, “Mommy, can we please go find some darkness?”  It doesn’t take much light to dispel the darkness, it simply takes the courage to step in for “Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.”

Z

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Last week I read And: The Gathered and Scattered Church by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, and am finally blogging a few of my thoughts.

I had heard of this book initially after a few friends were at Exponential this year.  I couldn’t go because I’d just been at the Q Conference in Chicago.  However, I probably should have been there because I’m in the throes of planting Fair Haven’s first multi-site right now called South Harbor Church (a week and a half from the first preview, with launch on 10.10.10.), but I couldn’t give up the Q experience.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, and will recommend it to several people – particularly certain chapters.  Let me begin with a critique, and end with some things I liked.

The premise of the book is basically to stop fighting over different models of the church and honor one another in our differences but seek to use whatever models work in seeking the kingdom.  The book talks often of mega and mini churches, and of missional and attractional.  These are important dichotomies on the one hand – and ones I’ve struggled with myself.  On the other hand, it’s too easy a division to hang a hat on and there are deeper issues than the book goes into.  Ultimately, I love title, but think the book got into too much about Adullam (Halter and Smay’s church), and only scratched the surface of these deeply ecclesiological issues of our time.

“And” does a good job of articulating the need for working together through various models with the same ends in mind, but in my estimation never gets to some of the deeper issues about how much a model influences the end goals.  For instance, Halter does a good job talking about moving people out of consumerism and into transformation and into dying to oneself for Christ.  He nails the issue that disciples are not consumers (chapter 3), but then never really deals with models of doing church these days that promote consumerism of a Christian sort.  In an effort to be unifying, Halter sometimes borders on not being critical enough where healthy critique is necessary.  Other times, though he says that both types of models are helpful, but then tends to tip towards favoring the missional impulse.  One question that would be more helpful to me would be around how the mega church can remain missional enough to be Christian and how does the missional church become attractional enough to stay alive and have an influence beyond a small group.  Overall, I think he tries to be balanced between multiple models, but speaks only out of the Adullum experience.  It would’ve been nice to see a balanced approach in this book with multiple models all expressing the unifying aspects of the gathered and scattered church.

Where “And” does hit the nail on the head in terms of what’s necessary for both the scattered and gathered, missional and attractional, mega and mini is the incarnational community.  Here is how it’s put on page 66:

“Whether you’re starting from scratch and moving down the missional flow or starting from an existing structure and moving up, you’ll notice that the center of the process is ‘incarnational community.’”

By incarnational community, they mean here bands of people with the missional heart of God integrating their lives with those who don’t know Him and are doing something intentional about.  Simplistic, yes, but true none-the-less.  Too many churches lose the core mission of God to reach his people far and wide and lose their very nature as church altogether.

For me, chapter 4, “Spiritual Formation for Missional Churches” was the best chapter in the book.   This chapter really deals with how to move someone from being far from God through the discipleship and growth process to the place of mobilization in ministry (in their words from Observance to Preparation to Participation to Partnership).  This is such a key issue, and one that churches tend not to do well.  We call it a “people pathway” or a “people process” – but who wants processed people!  However, churches today desperately need a pathway of discipleship that includes evangelism, grounds people in the basics, and moves them towards influential leadership in the use of their gifts.  With studies like Reveal and churches realizing their lack of depth, discipleship pathways are getting popular.  Chapter 4 is all about how to go about that, focusing on the transitions in stages, and developing a clear pathway.  I like it. This chapter is one that I will recommend several people read.

Chapter 5 is also very helpful in describing the difference between modalities (structures focused on caring for those already in the church) and sodalities (those that push toward those on the outside).  This is a helpful chapter, finding its roots in the missiology of Ralph Winter.  This is where the book gets closer to living up to its name.  I think if the book had moved this chapter earlier (after the biblical foundation of Chapter 1) and then built upon it, dealing with the centripetal and centrifugal forces necessary for the gathered and scattered church to remain in balance, it would’ve felt more balanced and helpful.  This chapter is one that I will recommend several people read (like church planting interns, student and children’s ministries staff, seminarians, etc.)

I mentioned in an earlier post on the book “Multi-Site Road Trip” that I had the opportunity to meet Dave and Jon Ferguson several years back.  I remember meeting with them, and Dave Dummit, as they were considering a site in Brighton, Michigan.  They had graciously met with Dan Reeves and myself to share their wisdom then on multi-site and the Big Idea in a time when very few people were talking about it.  I later was able to hear from them again at Third Reformed in Kalamazoo (now CenterPoint), and also had a chance to visit the Big Yellow Box and bring some friends along while I was in Chicago back in 2005.  What’s been really cool is to see these guys stay so focused on the mission that God called them to long ago to reach the city of Chicago, and to do it consistently and yet creatively.  So much has changed in their movement in terms of the creative energy and leadership they’ve brought to multi-site, and yet in some ways, so little has changed.  The heart of the message to see people find their way back to God is consistent, persistent, and powerful.

All that to say that I’ve just finished reading Exponential:  How you and your friends can start a missional movement.

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This was a fabulous read for me.  First, something personal.  I’m embarking right now on Fair Haven Ministries’ first site called South Harbor Church that will launch on 10.10.10 in Byron Township in south Grand Rapids, Michigan(along with many others in the 10.10.10 Initiative).   In fact, this morning I’m headed to hand out free cookies and lemonade at a local Little League to meet people and learn about the community.  Anyway, this book right now for me is a God-send in the sense that it affirms so many things that God is doing out of our church right now and also gives incredibly practical handles for being lead by Jesus, leading and reproducing leaders, tribes, communities, and movements.  What I love about how Dave and Jon wrote the book, was that it’s written with deeply biblical values, immensely practical, tested, and proven in the trenches of missional multi-siting.  I also love the real-life stories of real people and real churches.  The story of Community Christian (and all it’s sites) and many of its leaders is woven throughout the pages and gives you a sense of the messy reality of a true movement as well as the powerful stories. This isn’t just ideas… it’s the real deal.

For the past 5 years, a couple of my responsibilities as a spiritual formation pastor at Fair Haven have been leadership development and small groups.  I’ve been to many conferences and read many books and tried to implement many theories and ideas in both of these areas.  What’s awesome in this book as well to see is how small group life really works in this church, and especially how the leadership development pathway is integrated with not only small groups, but also with missional communities and in the raising up of artists.

This is probably one of the best books I’ve read on the practical side of the church multiplication movement.  It’s a must read for any church that is serious about multiplying leaders, churches, sites, disciples, and influence.   This summer, we took on 4 interns in church planting and we also have an on-site venue with a Campus Pastor.  We just talked this past week about all of them reading this, and I hope we can make that a reality.

Here are a couple of great tid-bits you’ll find:

• Real practical help on the leadership development people pathway and the importance of apprenticeship.
• Great illustrations of vision and strategy on napkins!
• A wonderful passage on scripture reading and journaling and how it affects leadership and vision for Dave Ferguson (see my recent post on YouVersion and LifeJournals)
• A great chapter on coaching, its importance in leadership development, and practical questions and a format for coaching.
• Encouragement that you, too, can really be used by God to multiply disciples, leaders, teams, sites, and churches.
• A focus not just on church growth, but on being missional.
• Much more.

Loved the book, and look forward to re-reading it and reviewing it with more care for some direct implementation in our new site.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

I spent this past week in Miami a meeting with a number of Church Planting Networks and planters too look at the possibility of beginning a North American Network for city movements.  This gathering was catalyzed by the folks at Redeemer City to City and brought together people from  Renew South Florida, Acts29, the RCA, many from the PCA, the SBC, the GCM Collective, and others.  It was an awesome time to meet other folks who are passionate about reaching North America, particular through cities.  It was great to hear the unique challenges and opportunities that cities bring and present to the church.  The outcome of this gathering was that a group will be formed, likely to be called the City to City Collective for shared resourcing, networking, encouragement, and more.  It’ll be great to see what unfolds.

Tim Keller of Redeemer in New York was the keynote speaker, and I want to share just a few things.  In the first session, The Challenge of North American Cities, Keller said that the expense of cities, the complexity of cities, and the mobility of cities makes a church plant there very hard.  Knowing that, it’s important to see larger trends, and in that vein he spoke about the decline of cities from 1970-1990 in which cities were hollowed out at the core, with suburban flight the order of the day.  This left an urban desolation in many cases, with increased crime rates, devalued properties, and a cultural malaise.  The rich would commute from the suburbs and leave the urban poor in the central city.  From the 1990′s to today, there was been an upsurge in cities, a renewal of the urban core.  In many ways this was due to gentrification (young professionals re-locating to urban environments).  Crime went down, cultural productivity increased, and the core of cities have thus seen a resurgence.  However, the poor are also often displaced as property values increase and the city finds cultural and economic renewal.  Each era presents a different kind of opportunity, different needs, and different responses by the church.    The follow up question is, then, what is the future of the city?

Keller, then, offered his analysis of what the future holds for American cities.  First, he spoke of the following positive trends:

• North American churches are globalizing.  This is a positive trend because strong international connections create stability and prestige.  Because the era of America as an economic self-sufficient engine is over, globalization is important.
• North American churches are urbanizing.  By urbanizing, Keller was particularly speaking to the trend in cities towards smart growth, urban planning of  the New Urbanism kind.  He referenced the return to a walkable, mixed-use human settlement in cities, including places to work, live, shop, play, and learn within 10 minutes as opposed to the suburbanizing affect in which everything is about commuting and doing life with people that are not the same people you live with.  There are lots of great books on this, and I think he’s right on about not only emerging urban planning, but also that this is a positive trend not only for cities and human beings in general who live there, but also for the church because it creates a possible parish that is not merely made up of people commuting to their favorite church or speaker.

Secondly, he spoke of negative trends:

• The rise of great need:  Here, Keller focused on the recent recession and global financial meltdown, particularly in American cities.
• However, though this is a negative trend in some ways in terms of urban development, Keller rewinded to remind us that through our history lessons we learn that God has often used urban dysfunction to win the hearts of people.  When we are in times of great need, there is also great opportunity for the church to respond.

So, for Keller, the future of urban ministry looks good because of globalization, new urbanism, and increased need.

Lastly, in terms of cities, Keller mentioned the following future trends to expect:

1. Increasing hostility in the culture wars.  He was particularly on target when he said that we are fighting a Two Front War:  Secularists think Christians are too moralistic.  Muslims and Hindus think we are too permissive.  There will, then, be increasing hostility from secularists and increasing hostility from fundamentalists (of all sorts, including Christians).
2. More opportunities for justice and mercy.  This is true particularly because of the increasing needs in the global financial meltdown and the increasing gap between the rich and the poort.
3. Culture-making will be increasingly important, particularly with respect to the integration of faith and work.  People in the city will desire more and more the integration between multifarious worlds.
4. A new kind of apologetics.  This part was particularly poignant for me.  Back in 2000, I started a class called “Beyond Apologetics” because I was realizing that because of the shifts we are experiencing in late modernity or post-modernity, that a new kind of apologetics is needed.  This doesn’t mean that the classic apologetics are wrong or bad, but merely that we need a new apologetic for a new emerging culture.  In Keller’s words, “We need to answer questions people are actually asking” or in one of the bylines of my former church in Ann Arbor, “Ask questions worth answering; seek answers worth believing.”  Here are some of the points and reasons for a new apologetic:

• The world essentially says to Christians, “You are not good neighbors.”
• We need more cogent and powerful answers to questions that people are actually asking.
• The basic objection alongside of evil & suffering, etc. is that Christians are bad citizens of pluralistic cities because as we grow and if we grow, we will take away people’s rights and freedoms.
• We are completely outflanked in the public arena.
• We have to care for the whole parish, including our secular neighbors.
• The public narrative is that Christians are intolerant, and that is very powerful and makes it extremely hard to enter public discourse.

Keller also spoke about the stages of development of the catachuminate which we need to revisit, and how the church is failing in its response to homosexuality.  That’s a long conversation for another time.

I’ll blog a bit more on this in the future if I can find the time, including some of his other sessions.

I’ve had about 10 books going for awhile, and I’m trying of focus on finishing one at a time. I just finished reading The New Monasticism: What it has to say to the church, “an insider’s perspective” by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. I’ve mentioned the new monasticism before, and I have a lot of respect for what they’re trying to do. The New Monasticism movement reminds me a little bit of the way George Hunger III described St. Patrick’s monastic project in the Celtic Way of Evangelism (a fabulous book, and a must read as far as I’m concerned.)  He talked about how the early missionary monks to the Celts moved into their cities and rural sprawl and created a kind of monastic island in the middle of these people.  These monastic communities had a strict rule of life, served the people in their community, offered hospitality to strangers, and sought to transform a culture from the inside out.

I really appreciate the 12 Marks of the New Monasticism.  Hartgrove gives a good basic understanding of how monastics have been a part of renewal in the church throughout various centuries.  He writes about how monastics seek not to separate from the church or become an alternative, but to bring renewal and reformation to the church by returning to some key roots such as hospitality, sharing all things in common, prayer, and serving others.  This is how Hartgrove begins, by sounding the call, “the church in America isn’t living up to what it’s supposed to be.  Somehow we’ve lost our way.”  The point of monastic movements is to remind the church of its true identity, and that’s true for the New Monastics as well.

I had a fabulous conversation with a gentleman from my church recently who’s feeling the same way.  He loves the church, and yet he feels like the church in America missing the point of the mission at so many levels by putting money and energy into too many things that are not the heart of the reasons for the church in the world on God’s mission.  In his words, “We’ve so boughten into the American dream, that we’ve forgotten what the church is supposed to be.”  Hartgrove writes about this very thing.

What’s unique about this movement is that it takes seriously the renewal of the church and the ancient practices of monasticism in a way that is both inclusive of married couples and families and is also deeply embedded within the cultures of this world, particularly urban settings.  These settings are often referred these days by many of us as “abandoned places of the empire,” referring to those places, particularly urban, that have been deeply affected by the contemporary empire’s of consumerism and progress.  I’ve appreciated everything I’ve read and heard from the many in this movement and am already seeing how they are affecting the church in dramatic ways, Shane Claiborne being one of the key players here.

The New Monastics have also, like many people I respect, been deeply influenced by John Perkins.  Years ago, I sent some students to learn from Perkins and his community, and it was a life-changing experience for many of them.  Particularly, his 3 R’s are foundational (Relocation, Redistribution, and Reconciliation) for only only the New Monastic movement, but for other renewal thinkers in the urban settings as well (ie. Christian Community Development Association).  The other thing I deeply value is people like this who are able to speak intelligently and passionately about justice issues, poverty, and concern for the least of these while also maintaining some of the evangelical commitments of the Scripture.  More and more voices are emerging that are neither conservative nor liberal, fundamentalist nor mainline, republican nor democrat but hold together the biblical truths which cross such narrow, dualistic, and truncated views of the Scripture.

Good read for anyone who is thinking about the emerging church, renewal of the church and culture, poverty, urban ministry, community, and what some consider a more “radical” Christianity, which I think is probably closer to the identity of the early church than many of the churches in America today.

These are some of my notes from the first part of the fifth session of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.  Thanks to Louis who helped me with this session while I answered a pager call.

Third culture is about adaptation.  Third culture is pain and discomfort because we interact with those who are different.  The Great Commandments are about third culture.

Third culture leaders go after the misfits more than the masses.

• FAILURE IS SUCCESS to God
• Your failure, your pain, is your platform to humanity, it is what the World connects to you on it is what gives quality to your voice for the generation to connect to you
• Most of the world doesn’t understand America’s success, but they will understand suffering, maybe suffering is success
• Do we set aside time to listen to people’s story?
• Gifts are important and skills, but our narrative is key
• Walk slowly, see the people
• Do I see them?  Do I have the eyes of a follower?
• Weakness will guide us more than our strengths
• We often worry about how to quantify a vision… DON’T we already have a vision?  LOVE GOD LOVE NEIGHBOR
• RELATIONSHIPS TRUMP VISION!
• You can’t have great vision without a great relationship with God
• Jesus only did what he saw his father doing (JOHN 5)
• We need more relationaries not visionaries
• People to walk for a while people to talk for a while, where you feel the vibe
• Best discipleship happens with life on life not a process or program

Third culture leaders have a different set of metrics.

• CHANGE PRIORITIES
• Hang out with people different than us
• Read people different than us

Third culture leaders know that obedience is more important than passion.

4 Acts of Obedience of a Third Culture Leader

1. Deeper Collaboration
2. Communal LIving
3. Prayer
4. Radical sacrifice for the outsider

I’m not going to write much on this interview, even though Jessica Jackley was great.  She was very articulate and is clearly passionate.  Some of the best things at the Summit are these interviews, particularly with younger women who have done some extraordinary things (cf. one of my favorites, Catherine Rohr last year).  I think it’s awesome that Willow highlights young woman and gets behind their leadership at least in this way.  I’d like to see some more women keynote speakers, and not necessarily your standard Nancy Ortberg and Lynn Hybels (even though I like them.) I just think we have a lot to learn from some of the emerging young female leaders in the church today.

Also, just want to say that KIVA highlighted in Jessica’s talk is great, and micro-financing and micro-loans in particular is something that has taken far too long for the church to take notice  (I remember hearing first about these back at an Urbana Conference sometime possibly in ’99 or ’01) This is one of the best ways to get at financial and justice issues in terms of poverty and development globally that really doesn’t fit in either the category of trade or aid (the big debate in development).

I just finished reading A Magna Carta for Restoring the Supremacy of Jesus Christ aka A Jesus Manifesto for the 21st Century Church by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola.  I enjoyed reading it, and many things resonated with me.  Apart from potentially being a marketing tool to sell more books possibly suggested by the publishers (my cynic is always present), the manifesto essentially highlights the importance of Jesus the Christ over and above anything in his name – be it justice, being missional, good works, laws or any other thing.  It is a reminder that Jesus it the one important thing, not anything else.  True.  I think what stood out for me were a couple of phrases:

Christianity is the “good news” that Beauty, Truth, and Goodness are found in a person.

This connects to what I’ve always said that truth is relational rather than (or superceding) being objective.  Jesus – as a member of the Trinity – is truth, and truth is personal.

We believe that the major disease of the church today is JDD: Jesus Deficit Disorder.  The person of Jesus is increasingly politically incorrect, and is being replaced by the language of “justice,” “the kingdom of God,” “values,” and “leadership principles.”

I agree with this in principle, but also want to make the point that much of the [evangelical] church has for far too long ignored issues of justice and particularly the gospel focus on kingdom.  Some of the strong language in these directions is to recapture the biblical messages of Jesus in a more holistic fashion.  Agreed that Jesus himself is the point, but because he is the point, his kingdom and justice are important.  I’m not as big a defender of “values” and “leadership principles,” although I certainly do have both, and the bible speaks to both as well.

The center and circumference of the Christian life is none other than the person of Christ.

Those of you who know my story of conversion to Christ know that Paul’s statement in Colossians that “in Christ all things hold together” means a great deal to me both existentially and philosophically.

Christians don’t follow a book.  Christians follow a person, and this library of divinely inspired books we call “The Holy Bible” best help us follow that person.

Well said.  Many people never get through the book to Jesus the Christ.

Christians don’t follow Christianity; Christians follow Christ.

I don’t know how I missed this film before.  I appreciate the Ordinary Radicals and the New Monasticism and much of what they’re about.  For a good intro to these and similar movements, read The New Conspirators by Tom Sine.

Here are some of the discussion points from the floor of General Synod 2009 regarding the Belhar Confession:

• Language on reconciliation is not based strongly enough on the cross of Jesus Christ.
• The Bible does allow and require us to deny membership to the church in some cases.
• Belhar denounces the notion that one culture can have the power and rule at the expense of the many.
• The RCA has not stepped up to the challenges of reconciliation, unity, and justice in times in the past when we have had the opportunity.  Therefore, this is long overdue.
• The structure of the discussion has been framed over the past couple of dates has violated the value that all voices would be heard.  For instance, “Belhar is a gift,” “there are two roads,” “history will judge us by what we do with the Belhar.”  We were not given time for concerns or dissent.  How we discuss things is an important as what we discuss.  (this phrase was one phrase which opened General Synod)
• Confessing the Belhar will shape our children for the future.
• The Belhar says too much and too little.  Too much:  ”Therefore we reject any doctrine which explicitly or implicitly maintains that descent or any other human or social factor should be a consideration in determining membership of the church” the issue being with “human and social factor.”  Same issue as bullet 2.  Too little:  ”Anything which threatens unity may have not place in the church.”  Suggestion of an amendment was made to remove the first and to change the second to “Anything contrary to the word of God.”   This was ruled out of order by the President.  An argument was made that changing to inclusive language is a change, so why not these other pieces?  Response:  translation is different than modification.
• Motion to table the Belhar until next Synod to come back with a “Canon of Hope” instead.  Failed.
• Fear of the misuse of the Belhar is unfounded.  Example:  Canons or Dort antipathy against the Catholic church has not coerced the RCA agains the Catholic Church that could derive from the attitude espoused by the Canons of Dort.  Future General Synods can also lead us against any future coercive use of the Belhar if adopted.
• Two key doctrines mission:  The Belhar is missing total depravity as the locus and reason for sins or racism and division and that the cross of Jesus as the fountain of all reconciliation and unity, and so potentially minimizes the power and teaching of the cross.
• There are other ways to say not to racism without saying yes to the Belhar.
• Argument against the idea that God is God of the poor in a “special way.”  He is God of all.  ”We believe that God, in a world full of injustice and enmity, is in a special way the God of the destitute, the poor and the wronged…”
• Promotion of approving the Belhar alongside Song of Hope without accepting it as a doctrinal standard.  (this is one of the Overtures).
• Concern about being perceived as rejecting the Belhar from those who agree with it, but do not want to raise it to confessional status.
• Love your neighbor as yourself.
• Faith in Jesus Christ is the sole requirement for membership.  We have to ask questions of true ethics, but true faith in Christ is what matters.
• The poor have not greater claim to God’s mercy than those who are rich.  Yet once we are united to Jesus Christ, we are called to do what Jesus Christ does.  The opening sermon Jesus gives in Luke 4 says that he was anointed to preach good news to the poor.  Can we do anything less?
• Is this the time to pass the Belhar?  We’ve had world wars, apartheid, civil rights, and too often the church has been silent.
• Question regarding President Elect James Seawood’s comments that he doesn’t believe race exists but is a social construct… and that our continued talk about it increases our racism.  Seawood responded and says he supports the Belhar and hopes we will take a risk.  ”For me, the Belhar is very important because I believe that as we take a stand as a denomination to be more open, more multicultural, multiethnic, and open our doors for all of God’s people, this kind of standard will be the kind of thing that will be embraced by the people of God, by all of humanity, and it will put us at a new place among God’s churches.  I’m very, very excited about the Belhar and just pray that the holy spirit will move in this place today.” James Seawood.

PS – Some think that Belhar is a Trojan horse for the introduction of changes in our theological stance on homosexuality.  The two big phrases people who are concerned about homosexuality are these:

“Therefore, we reject any doctrine which absolutizes either natural diversity or the sinful separation of people in such a way that this absolutization hinders or breaks the visible and active unity of the church, or even leads to the establishment of a separate church formation” and

“Therefore, we reject any doctrine which explicitly or implicitly maintains that descent or any other human or social factor should be a consideration in determining membership of the church.”