Though I love the words of my friend Jason Coker in his parable, “The Death Rattle of Christendom,” Dave Fitch is right in saying that, “Christendom Ain’t Done Yet.”  But man oh man, I for one wish it would hurry up and die already so that we can stop having these painfully ridiculous arguments!

Do you catch the underlying assumptions in this conversation?

– Where there is talk of missiology, it’s church growth, and not God’s Kingdom mission that takes center stage.

– Where there is talk of ecclesiology, it’s the (male) preacher/act of teaching, and not the call on a community to make disciples that takes center stage.

These are both hallmarks of a Christian system which thrives on the power and privilege afforded it by Christendom.  But I say, “woe to us” when we think that leveraging the kind of “influence” that is talked about here has anything to do with what God would have us be about.

Mega and Multi-Site (thinking here of the video venue sort) churches, “work,” on account of our infatuation with celebrity and our predisposition to the passive consumption of information.

We must, must, must ruthlessly rip out of our heads the notion that our supposed giftedness gives us license to build our own personal church-kingdoms around it/us.

Christendom is not a neutral cultural condition, it perverts and distorts and the theology which under-girds this conversation is evidence of it. With no regard for the way in which the message we mean to impart is always embodied in the medium through which it is communicated, we are destined to continually miss the whole point of Jesus’ call to make disciples whose lives are consumed by a desire to fully participate in God’s mission in the world.

And let’s lay aside the distorted paradigm in which this conversation is even taking place for a minute.  Is anyone else concerned about the stark distinction between the ways in which Driscoll and MacDonald come across and carry themselves when compared to Dever.  I don’t know a ton about Dever, but his humility in contrast to the arrogance of Driscoll and MacDonald is evidence enough that what he has to say is bound to be more meaningful.

I watch stuff like this and I wonder to myself, “What will become of us when our power and privilege is stripped away?  What happens when there aren’t enough church-goers to shuffle around and we lose the illusion of all the influence we once believe we had?”

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Alan Hirsch.  The book he co-authored with Mike Frost, The Shaping of Things to Come, was the first I read that began to help me understand the angst I felt with the attractional model of church so prevalent in the US.

This is why I was so thrown a few days ago when I read that Alan Hirsch had asserted that American Christianity is the great hope for the Church in the West.  He made comments to this point in the opening remarks of his talk at a conference called “Verge” in Texas.  You can view the video (Session 2) here.  At one point he said,

If we don’t win the battle of the decline of the church here in the states, then it’s not going to come from anywhere else.  We will win or lose the battle over here in the states.

His rationale seemed to be that 1) the Church is the rest of the West is all but dead and 2) that Americans have a built-in entrepenurial (apostolic) sort of spirit.

On this count, I was surprised and disappointed on 2 levels.

First, he seemed to communicate a latent assumption that “the West” maintains a position of superiority in terms of global Christianity.  He admitted that Christianity is growing in non-Western parts of the world, but never suggested that our hope might lie in learning from what God is doing there.

Secondly, he referenced the American entrepreneurial spirit as the key factor in our ability to “win the battle of the decline of the church.”  I was blown away!  I was immediately reminded of a quote by Einstein, which, even more surprisingly, he referenced later, but totally misused,

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

It is American entrepreneurialism that got us into the mess of creating a church system predicated on the cultural values of individualism and consumerism.  Relying on the same characteristic is hardly a promising solution.

Over and above all these disappointments comes a more biblical/theological one, namely, that putting our hope in anything except for a willingness to sacrifice what is most dear to us, to listen to the voices of those on the margins, and to trust God with our future (which may very well mean the increasing marginalization of the church), is, in any sense, in keeping with God’s desire for the Body of Christ.

There was a 2nd major part to Hirsch’s presentation that really made me nervous.

He made the claim that the dominant expression of church in America, that of the seeker-sensitive/attractional model, has a market appeal to about 40% of the American population.  This yields what Hirsch called a “strategic problem” and a “missionary problem.”

The “strategic problem” is that 95% of the churches in the US are seeking to become the kind of church that appeals to this same 40% of the population.

The “missionary problem” is that 60% (and growing) of our population is being virtually ignored.

So far so good, but at one point Alan was commenting on attractional types of churches that are “reaching” the 40% of the American population and said, “Those who do this well should strive to do it better.”  Not change what they are doing, just do more of the same, better.

In affirming an attractional (or what he is now calling ex-tractional) model of church simply because it succeeds in drawing a crowd, he fails to critique the most devastating reality, namely, that these churches, on the whole, don’t make disciples. By and large, they facilitate the already pervasive nominal christianity that pervades at least 40% of the American population.

Let me try to summarize my push back on what I am hearing and seeing from Alan Hirsch as of late.

1) Putting our eggs in the basket (Easter week!) of the American church is futile, if not sinful.  This is exactly how we got where we are and trying harder ain’t gonna cut it.  It may very well be that God is at work killing off a defunct ecclesial trajectory and we would do better to repent and ask for mercy than to rely on any ability we think we possess to save the day.

2) Alan is right, there is a descent portion of the American population that has some natural affinity with the sort of church which thrives in Christendom.  But, merely because people will respond to an attractional model of church does not make it ok.  A pragmatic victory is almost never a biblical one.  Attractional models of church are built on the cultural values of individualism and consumerism and, save for the grace of God, are incapable of yielding the sort of disciples the world desperately needs.

I have a serious and growing concern regarding the temptation to make missional marketable.  The temptation is especially seductive to those who, like Alan, have a deep love for the church as the Body of Christ and want to see it thrive.  But, if God means for missional theology/ecclesiology to benefit the church, it will remain an invitation to repentance, sacrifice, and death.  This sort of invitation has never had much market appeal, especially in the US.

Click through to the site of you don’t see the video announcing the winners of the Better World Books gift certificate and Live by Giving donations.

Lifeasmission Readers,

Just a quick reminder of the video comment extravaganza I posted about last Sunday. So far we’ve got just two video comments – from my friends Ben and Joel (be sure to check out Ben & Joel’s blogs).

If you have a webcam or a way to make a short video, you can participate. You can get all the details in the short video below, but here’s the gist of it.

1) In the original post, leave a video comment (or link to a video) where you’re mentioning some way in which you are trying to make God’s desire for this season more important that the world’s.

2) As long as you leave the comment by midnight (CST) this Friday, you’ll have a chance to win 1 of 3 Christmas gifts that benefit others.

3) You’ll make my Christmas merrier by convincing me that this blog is not TOTALLY self-serving

Don’t forget, you are can make comment here if you want, but leave your video comments for this “contest” over on the original post.

Peace.

If you don’t see the video, click through to the site for the lifeasmission Christmas video comment extravaganza!

Previous Posts in this Series:

Preliminary Thoughts | The Root of the Problem

In my last post I made the claim that our current model of theological education, in assuming a Christendom context, is better-suited to train managers of Christian religious institutions than it is to prepare missional leaders.  If the root of the problem is Christendom, the binding of Christian witness and mission to systems of coercive power, we do well to ask what the fruit of the tree of our current system of theological education has been?

The version of Christianity which is bound to systems of coercive power within modernity has been powerless to resist the trajectory of that era.  Thus, features like individualism, consumerism, and reductionism have been uncritically adopted by local churches and systems of theological education alike and have had mutually related effects.  On top of this, there has emerged a rift between theological education and the ministry of the local church.

I’ve talked up a storm on this blog about what this has meant for the structure and ministry of local churches, but what about our systems of theological education?

Individualism.

For the most part, people make individual decisions to attend seminary and they are trained as individuals.  I’m not saying you can’t experience community in seminary education or benefit from peer interaction, but largely, you choose your courses as an individual, study as an individual, get assessed as an individual, and then decide where to go and what to do as an individual.  Not very good training for people who will then go on to be part of a staff team!  Even less conducive to a truly missional ecclesiology in which the theology, spiritual practices, and Christan life are all rooted in community.

Consumerism.

Seminary is freaking expensive!  I know I got some amen’s on that!  That’s because there’s a market for it.  Think about that for a second… There is a market (a system of coercive power if there ever was one) for being trained as a Christian leader.  Now, make sure you’re not hearing what I’m NOT saying.  I’m not saying it’s wrong for people to earn a living from educating others.  Nor am I saying that buying and selling is in and of itself a bad thing.  I am saying that this business of people needing to spend (or worse, go into debt) huge amounts of money to get a religious credential at an accredited institution is not only unsustainable as Christendom unravels, but has a negative effect on Christian leaders and those they lead.

Reductionism.

There are a number of ways we could go with this dimension of modern Christendom, but what concerns me the most is how we have reduced theology to information and the leadership of local churches to those best able to convey it.  How else are we able to account for a theological system so heavily slanted toward lecturing, book reading, writing, and testing?  It’s nearly all about the grasping and repeating of concepts.  I’m not saying at all that there’s no place for this, but this feature of Christendom-based theological education has resulted in a form of Christianity that lives as though it’s possible to really believe something without embodying it.  The Bible knows nothing of disembodied belief, but this is the very thing that our current system of theological eduction allows for.

These are a few of the most obvious fruits of theological education rooted in Christendom that I am thinking of.  Are you thinking of more?  What are the angles and nuances that you see from your perspective that I’m missing?

In my next post, I aim to take a stab how a missional vision of theological education differs from one rooted in Christendom.

Earlier this month I began a series of posts on Bi-Vocational Ministry.  I talked about Bi-Vocational Ministry and the Missional Church and then the relationship between Bi-Vocational Ministry and Spiritual Formation.

For the last few days I have been participating in a seminar on “Ministry Partner Development,” led by my friend JR Woodward through Ecclesia, a missional church planting network.  So, naturally, I have been thinking about the relationship between bi-vocational ministry and support raising.  I am coming away from the seminar with 2 firm convictions.

1)  Support raising is a ministry in and of itself.  As a nation, we give 1-2% of our annual income to charitable causes.  As a subset of American Christians, conservatives slaughter that statistic at a whopping 3%!  Sad, really sad.  Those who raise support to do works of ministry are ministering to those that they ask to be partners simply by saying, “Hey, would you actually like to do something of eternal significance with your money?”  For a people that ought to be known for our generosity and our refusal to store up for ourselves treasures on earth, we’re pitiful and I am all for more and more and more people who have the courage to take steps of faith and ask others to financially support them.

2) Inasmuch as it is a ministry in and of itself and because I think our current model of theological eduction is largely missing the mark in truly preparing Christian leaders for the future landscape of the Church in Western culture, I think support raising is a necessary consideration. Leave aside for a moment the idea of support raising as a ministry to those who choose to partner, what other choice do people whose training is theological and ministerial in nature have if they want to practice bi-vocational leadership?  They aren’t really marketable in most of the non-church world and it will take some time if they are to acquire additional skills and training.  Perhaps worse, they take jobs in churches that are spiritually dead, but have some money, or they cave into the forms of church that are successfully marketing religious goods to a quasi-religious, Christendom population.  This is where I think support raising comes in.

Aside form the personal benefits of learning how to humbly depend on others, being able to pursue what God has put on your heart rather than choosing from the given options, and developing the disciplines necessary to do the work of support raising, developing a team of ministry partners can be a great way to free someone up to minister to those who have no concept of supporting pastors or those who, even if they “get it,” don’t have the means to do so anyway.  And it should go without saying that cultivating a ministry team that is supporting you not only through finances, but by diligent prayer and accountability is a blessing that far too many are missing out on.

When it comes to church ministry, I think support raising makes the most sense for apostolic and prophetic types of people.

Apostles are always on the move, charting new territory and plowing new ground.  Having a ministry team that sees and affirms that and says, “Here, we’ll pay your bills, you just keep on following where God leads!” are saints in my book.

Prophets get stoned and killed.  The quickest way to short circuit the ministry of those who God has called to point out how the Church is failing her calling, is to make them dependent on the giving of one congregation.  Like apostles, they do well to cultivate a team that acknowledges the church’s need for prophetic voices and says, “Here, be free to speak truthful words how the Lord leads.”

When it comes to bi-vocationality, I think one of the marks of a healthy church is its desire to financially support its leaders.  So, while I think support raising is a good idea in general for many and an excellent idea for some in particular, ultimately, for all the reasons I mentioned in my first post, I still think church leaders working in the community where they minister while being supported by the church they serve is something great to aspire to.

In my last post about bi-vocational church leadership, I tried to make the point that this approach derives its theological significance from a truly missional approach to theology and ecclesiology.

I wanted to winnow that thought down a bit further and suggest that the biblical appeal for a bi-vocational approach to leadership (and in my opinion, the biblical appeal for anything that has to do with the church and Chirstian life!) has to do with spiritual formation.

Far too often people seek to defend their church structures and practices because of their supposed ability to, “grow the church,” “meet people where they’re at,” or “reflect people’s cultural expectations.” These have a ring of nobility to them but are far off the mark biblically speaking. Far worse is when we are forced to admit that we do what we do because, “that’s how it’s always been done,” “if we try to change things people will leave,” “so and so will stop giving if we stop doing things that way.”

As the Body of Christ, we should have a singular defense for everything we do, namely, its power to spiritually form people and communities into Christlikeness.*

Here’s why…

There’s a battle going on. The Church, as a foretaste of the Kingdom of God, through its formational practices and structures, wages war against the principalities and powers at work in the world which seek to “steal, kill, and destroy” all that God would have us be and do.

In Christendom, the Church equipped itself to fight the wrong battle. Within Christendom, so much is assumed about the nature and purpose of the church, that we tend to ask pragmatic questions. Does it work? But, for those of us who realize that Christendom is crumbling and/or think that it was never a good thing to begin with, these questions aren’t good enough. We need to ask deeper questions.

Biblical faithfulness is about mission, not models. As one helpful commenter pointed out in a previous post, the Bible does not prescribe one way to lead churches. There are several examples of what that looked like in the New Testament, but even these are not simply models to be copied as if we could then say, “We just do it like they did in the Bible.” The better way to understand biblical faithfulness is as an honest pursuit to join God in mission, not copy models. The Church is charged with the task of making disciples and is not given an exact blueprint for how to go about it.

This brings us full circle. Those churches whose structures and practices mainly serve the ends of church growth, cultural relevance, and even conversion, miss the mark. They are fighting the wrong battle biblically speaking.

I am advocating for a bi-vocational approach to church leadership, not because I can defend it as THE RIGHT biblical model or because it’s most effective (Christendom approaches), but because the tendencies in our culture toward consumerism and individualism are so thick that faithfulness to the mission of making disciples, forming people and communities into Christlikeness, make it the most appropriate option (missional approach).

Hopefully that serves to clarify my thoughts and intention some.

*I was greatly encouraged today while viewing this seminar online to hear Dr. Darrell Guder comment that, “It was not the mission of the apostolic church to save souls! The apostolic mission was the formation witnessing communities.” This is a far cry from how we commonly envision the role of church leaders, but something we badly need to recover.

As a pastor, I spend a lot of my time thinking about and actually attempting “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up,” – equipping.

Sadly, the extents to which ministry has been professionalized, consumerism and individualism have distorted our notions of the gospel, and Christendom has undermined the nature and purpose of the church, often serve to confuse us as to what this actually means.

In attractional models of church, many are satisfied with merely finding people to fill slots so that stuff gets done.  Others lay guilt trips on people for not serving enough.  But even when we do the right thing of helping people discover their giftedness and passions and then inviting them into opportunities where those life-giving things might find expression, we often have a view toward the external mastery and refinement of skills and talents so that their use of them will “attract others.”

I would never say that getting better at what you enjoy doing is a bad thing, but I would say that missionally, the equipping of others has mainly to do with cultivating spiritual maturity so that gifts and passions may be stewarded well not with being polished and excellent by socio-cultural standards.

Case in point…

Last night I and several others of my house group had the opportunity to serve at Calvary Rescue Mission in downtown Memphis.  This is an organization that serves homeless and displaced men by providing food, substance abuse recovery, and the deep love of Jesus.  When we go, we get to help serve food and one of us is invited to share a message.  Last night, my friend Sam had the chance to share.

On Thursday I called him and we talked a bit about what was on his heart and what he was planning on sharing.  He expressed some nervousness about feeling “qualified to teach form the Bible.”  To which I replied with something like, “That’s probably the very thing that actually does qualify you to do this.”

Sam doesn’t have a Bible degree.  He’s relatively new to the whole church scene.  And he’s certainly not accustomed to preaching regularly.  But, Sam shared from his heart last night what God has been teaching him through his study of the book of James and the ways in which Jesus is becoming more and more real to him everyday.  Sam (and I’m sure he’s cool with me saying this) is not the sort of speaker that your average church community would put up on stage week in and week out, but sadly it has nothing to do with his not being spiritually equipped to teach.  Rather it’s on account of his inability to entertainingly capture the attention of celebrity-driven, linear thinking, consumer-oriented folks (I don’t excuse myself from often falling into this category).

In the same sort of vein, one of our friends from the mission sang a solo.  His voice was not good.  He had absolutely no stage presence.  And he wore a sweatshirt that read, “Jesus is Awesome.”  Again, this is not the sort of guy your average church would want leading others in worship, but is has nothing whatsoever to do with him not being spiritually equipped to do so and everything to do with our misconceptions of what it means to be equipped.

Despite their cultural-defined techincal inabilities, grace, hope and love overflowed from both Sam and our soloist friend.  All those present left encouraged and changed as Jesus met with us through the ministry of these two guys.  It grieves me to think of how often we miss out on the ways in which God uses those we would never expect (or perhaps more shamefully, prefer).

I have been looking forward to reading Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church by Paul Metzger for some time.  For the sake of an alternative context and experience, I was even more excited to read the bulk of it amidst my time in Africa and its deep seeded tribalism.

In Metzger’s words, his aim is to…

confront the ways evangelical-consumer or niche-church Christianity fosters racial and economic divisions, and I wish to offer an alternative theological paradigm to the one that is often embraced in the evangelical subculture. (11)

In my words, this alternative theological paradigm comes only by way of rejecting the version of the gospel which has led to a consumer-oriented faith/church and embracing one that prophetically strikes at the very heart of that reality.

In John Perkins’ words,

The only purpose of the gospel is to reconcile people to God and to each other.  A gospel that doesn’t reconcile is not a Christian gospel at all.  But in America it seems as if we don’t believe that.  We don’t really beleive that the proof of our discipleship is that we love one another.” (9)

I love that Perkins understands the gospel by what it does.  Like love, the gospel takes on its true nature only when it is enacted.

In the beginning of the book.  Metzger insightfully traces the various streams, characters, and events which have so vitally contributed to the dominant expression of Christianity in America.  From here, he probes into the ways in which “the dominant structure of the evangelical church today favors, fosters, and shapes its structures around the key ingredient of individual choice…” (79)  Key to understanding this tendency is his discussion of the popularization of the Homogenous Unit Principle (HUP) by Donald McGavran as a method for church growth.  The remainder of the book features insightful biblical and cultural reflections, helpful examples and a sustained discussion on the vitality of Scripture and sacraments for the formation of communities of reconciliation across racial and class boundaries.

Of Scripture, Metzger says…

We must move people with God’s word on Sunday mornings to move beyond their addictions to race and class affinity groups.  Authentic witness to Jesus is at stake, and we must stake our lives on it. (117)

– a quick aside here: just as the goodness of the gospel lies in what it does, so too the sermon is only good inasmuch as it results in changed lives.  Don’t ever tell a preacher his or her message was good unless you are prepared to also tell them how it resulted in your changed life

And I love that he includes Marva Dawn’s words on the Lord’s Supper…

How can we share the eschatological feast if we don’t participate in displaying God’s future, in which all will be equally fed and we will all join together in universal praise?  It seems to be that if we eat the body and blood of Christ in expensive churches without care for the hungry, the sacrament is no longer a foretaste of the feast to come, but a trivialized picnic to which not everyone is invited.

The end of the book is the author’s attempt to move into a discussion of partnerships amongst churches across racial and socio-economic lines.  His desire is for the church to…

re-envision its understanding of communal identity in view of its communal and co-missional God as involving solidarity with society at large…. This will entail a radical break from the dominant American individualistic mindset that keeps us separate from others.  It will require that we lay down our lives and die for our enemies rather than try to take back America from them. (149)

I found this to be a fantastic book.  A bit narrow at places where I though the discussion (at least by way of footnotes) should have been expanded, but definitely a much needed message for the American church.  I suppose the big question I am let with is how to think about local congregations that are seeking to incarnate themselves in places that are intrinsically homogeneous.  If anyone wants to weigh in, please feel free, I’d enjoy the discussion.

My church community has been participating in Advent Conspiracy.  The response has been great and I am really proud to be part of a community that has been so willing to embrace a new take on the Christmas season by shifting our focus in some key areas, especially keeping in mind the poor and oppressed here in Memphis and around the world.

While the Christmas-specific dimension of Advent Conspiracy has been a beautiful thing, it’s my sincere hope that our community (and the numerous others that participated) will carry the spirit of the movement forward, that we’ll maintain our enthusiasm to change the way we live our lives all year round so that we are always seeking to change the lives of others.  In general, one of the best ways we can help others around the world (not to mention ourselves) is to simply consume less.  We think we need way more than we do and we have become accustomed to a lifestyle of excess.  We need to live simpler lives.  But, over and above this, when it comes to making purchases that are just a part of life, we would do well to consider how we can make these purchases in responsible ways.

I have mentioned Better World Books before, but I just came across this video which speaks of their new partnership with Invisible Children and was reminded of just how great an organization they are.  Please, if you need to buy books, forget Amazon and look to Better World Books.  You might even think about taking up some donations of books!

Beginning with Dan Kimball’s “Missional Misgivings,” there has been a recent flurry of discussion over the whole missional/attractional thing in the blog-o-sphere.  Responses by Hirsch here, Cole here, Fitch here.

A good bit of what is being said in response to the topic (much by patently reformed folks) has to do with “cultural appropriateness.”  Some seem to be suggesting that the seeker-sensitive/mega-church model of the church was a culturally appropriate model within Christendom and in a modern framework.  By implication, this would then be the preferred model of church for areas which still fit this description.  There is also an addition to the discussion pertaining to models for preaching and gathering.  Again, the argument seems to be that we need to allow the culture to determine the right model.  I submit that this the wrong approach to this discussion.  It may appear to be an incarnational approach, but it is anything but.

My friend Sam reminded me of a quote by Lesslie Newbigin recently,

…if we begin with culture we are never taken back to gospel, if we begin with gospel, we ourselves are transformed and enter into culture to put flesh on the gospel.

This is the way we need to understand what it means to be incarnational – gospeling a culture, not culturizing the gospel.

The primary question church leaders need to always be asking is not, “What is the culturally appropriate way to be the church?” but “What is the most formational way to be the church?” The first question lends itself to our ingrained consumeristic tendencies and begets attractional churches; the second invites us to consider a different goal altogether and serves to cultivate missional communities.

We ought to always do what we do as the church specifically because it helps people to become more like Jesus. Willowcreek was probably the best example ever of a church that did everything right in terms of cultural appropriateness only to announce to the world how horribly they had failed to actually help people become disciples (my thoughts on their REVEAL study here and Fitch’s here).

I hope this makes sense.  It is not my intention to question the motives and hearts of my well-intentioned brothers and sisters, but I beleive this to be a pivotal conversation for the future of the Church in the West and when the questions we seem to be asking have more to do with cultural pragmatics than faithful formation, I get nervous.

Let me end with a quick story.  I recently attended a church planting conference where a supposedly “missional” church planter told those in attendance,

…the south is home to some of the greatest preachers in the world.  If you are not a great preacher or teacher, you have no business trying to plant a church in the south.

I can’t even dream up a better illustration of what it means to so completely miss the point of everything missional is about.  For this guy, it’s the culture, not the gospel that determines what you do, how you do it, and who exactly it is that does it.  I just don’t think this is the best way forward for us.

I mentioned before that our church community is participating in Advent Conspiracy.  While I have some of the same reservations that Ariah does, it has been incredibly encouraging to see how many Living Hopers have embraced this new approach to Christmas and I see a lot of potential for the values we have been discussing being carried forward beyond the Christmas season.

For all my LH friends (and anyone else for that matter), I stumbled across this small list of some relational gift giving ideas that, in correspondence with what Matthew said this past Sunday (check here for the podcast of “Give More” when it’s up), would help us to give more presence – as opposesd to presents.

I am really proud to be part of a church that is participating in Advent Conspiracy this holiday season.  We have been talking and praying as a community about rethinking gift giving, generosity, and remembering the poor.  Here’s a short promo video for the movement.

And here’s something a few folks from Living Hope put together for our community.

A physical example of an all too pervasive spiritual reality. Our need for stuff is literally killing us…

and others.