• Archive of "kingdom" Category

    Presentations & Dialogue About the Future of Theological Education – Join Us!

    October 6, 2011 // 3 Comments »

    Back in August I posted about a partnership brewing b/t Northern Seminary and 3DM as we share a vision for discipleship-oriented theological education.  I also intimated that I would be sharing about more work along these lines in the future.  I’m here to make good on that promise.

    We all know that 3DM is coming to Chicago to conduct a workshop on discipleship and mission at the end of the month, right?  This is happening on Friday, October 28 in the morning and afternoon.  Following this will be the annual Missional Learning Commons, which starts that evening and wraps up around 3PM on Saturday.

    Well, before all of this goodness, Northern will be hosting an event on Thursday evening during which 3DM will present a video and paper as a way to spark some conversation about the future of theological education.

    From Mike Breen’s blog,

    One of the things that has become abundantly clear in our work with pastors and leaders is that there is a devastating disconnect between the ways that our seminaries and theological schools train and equip leaders for ministry and the realities that these leaders are facing day in and day out.  Noticing this has caused us to begin asking (along with many others), “What is the future of theological education?”  While we don’t think we have all answers to that question, we do have some thoughts and would like to invite you to an evening of dialogue about this important topic in Chicago.

    So here’s your shot, if you have thoughts, questions, concerns, or ideas about the future of theological education, we’d love for you to join us and contribute to the discussion.  The video and paper will be made publicly available in November, but those who join us for this event will have some advance access to them.

    Note: We don’t anticipate this being a large event, but we really do want to advance the word to those who share a genuine interest in this topic, so please feel free to use the social sharing options below or your own avenues of social networking to let others know about this Thursday evening event as well as the workshop and Commons.  Here’s some additional details on the Thursday night event…

    Posted in 3DM, chicago, conference, kingdom, leadership, missiology, missional learning commons, missional theology, Northern Seminary, post-christendom, theological education, theology

    The “Mega-Problems” of Mega-Churches

    October 5, 2011 // 17 Comments »

    A couple weeks ago now I said that a few blog posts had caught my attention and driven me to some refelction.

    The first ones were by Mike Breen – about the relationship b/t discipleship and the missional movement.  You can check out his thoughts in Part 1 and Part 2.  My reflection on these posts came out here.

    The other post was by Ed Stetzer – a return to the whole “can mega churches be missional” debate. He still says they can, I still say they can’t.  But, as I’ve reflected more on this, here are the things that have become clearer to me, what I’ll call the “mega-problems” of mega-churches.

    I think it needs to be acknowledged that the problem isn’t size in and of itself. Who would possibly be against a huge church of fully devoted follower of Jesus on mission with God?! Not this guy. But here’s the thing, those of us who have icky feelings in our stomachs about mega-chuches do so because they tend to be built on characteristics and practices that actually work against this vision.  Here’s a few that came to mind…

    1) Consumer-Oriented Structures

    Very often mega-churches are mega because they emphasize meeting the needs, or at least captivating the interest of religious consumers of all stripes.  This will strike many of us as unfortunate right off the bat, but to take it a step further, I would highlight the even greater harm that is done when church leaders come right out and acknowledge that they do this (even if they prefer different language), but believe it to be in the service of the Gospel.  Here, we have baptized a market-driven strategy that treats people like objects and leads them to believe that they, rather that God, are what is of ultimate significance.

    2) Celebrity-Driven Culture

    Mega-churches tend to be personality driven.  There is generally one (almost always male) leader who leads as if they were a CEO of an organization rather than as a humble servant.  These are people who reflect our culture’s desire and drive for upward mobility while leading a community whose character is to be predicated on its downward mobility – becoming less and less so that Jesus might become more and more.  This aspect of mega-church culture is perpetuated as we get lulled into believing the cultural lie that a bigger platform is always a good thing for the kingdom.  Sadly, in baptizing this mentality, we have failed to remember that we follow Jesus, who refused exactly this temptation.

    3) Sunday-Cenricity

    Mega-churches tend to put the vast majority of their time, attention, and resources into weekend services.  Nothing wrong with gathering.  Nothing wrong with gathering with hundreds, even thousands of other believers.  Very much something wrong (from a missional perspective) with these gatherings becoming the driving point of our ecclesiology and the aspect of community life that eats up huge amounts of resources.  It doesn’t matter how compellingly you preach or teach on “being missional;” so long as that message is coming through the medium of a context that engenders passive involvement, it is rendered useless.

    4) Inward-Focused Financial Structures

    Related to the point above, mega-churches tend to create financial structures that are designed to “keep the machine running,” thereby inhibiting a community’s ability to leverage financial resources that will benefit others – who may or may not ever be part of your church community.  Mega-churches require mega-staffs, mega-facilities, and mega-ministry budgets.  Once you have these things in place and people’s livelihoods become contingent on church growth, moving in a truly “missional direction,” becomes all but impossible.  If it does come, it will be at tremendous cost.

    5) Seating over Sending

    All of this works itself together to result in an ecclesiology that is more disposed to a focus on seating over sending.  And when I say sending, I mean sending – raising people up as mature disciples and skilled Kingdom leaders and releasing them… really releasing them.  Most of the “sending” that mega-churches do is about continuing to build their own little empire – multiple locations, video venues, franchises, etc.

    I fully recognize that you can embody all of these characteristics and not be, by definition, a mega-church.  This is precisely my point – it’s not really about size, it’s about the ecclesial characteristics and underlying theology that creates and drives this sort of church system. So when I say mega-churches can’t be missional, what I really mean is you can’t continue to be a sunday-centric, celebrity-driven church that engenders a consumeristic attitude toward Christian faith by creating inward focused financial structures and building your own personal church-brand empire.  Continuing to be this sort of church while using missional language and encouraging people to serve others more does not a missional church make!

    Am I off here?  Where’s the pushback?  What else would you add to this list?

    Posted in capitalism, culture, discipleship, Jesus, kingdom, missional, missional theology, money, preaching/teaching, theology

    By Far, the Best Anniversary Reflection on 9/11 I’ve Read

    September 11, 2011 // No Comments »

    Re-posted from CT in entirety without hesitation…

    On 9/11 I thought, For the most powerful, militarized nation in the world also to think of itself as an innocent victim is deadly. It was a rare prophetic moment for me, considering Presidents Bush and Obama have spent billions asking the military to rectify the crime of a small band of lawless individuals, destroying a couple of nations who had little to do with it, in the costliest, longest series of wars in the history of the United States.

    The silence of most Christians and the giddy enthusiasm of a few, as well as the ubiquity of flags and patriotic extravaganzas in allegedly evangelical churches, says to me that American Christians may look back upon our response to 9/11 as our greatest Christological defeat. It was shattering to admit that we had lost the theological means to distinguish between the United States and the kingdom of God. The criminals who perpetrated 9/11 and the flag-waving boosters of our almost exclusively martial response were of one mind: that the nonviolent way of Jesus is stupid. All of us preachers share the shame; when our people felt very vulnerable, they reached for the flag, not the Cross.

    September 11 has changed me. I’m going to preach as never before about Christ crucified as the answer to the question of what’s wrong with the world. I have also resolved to relentlessly reiterate from the pulpit that the worst day in history was not a Tuesday in New York, but a Friday in Jerusalem when a consortium of clergy and politicians colluded to run the world on our own terms by crucifying God’s own Son.

    Will Willimon, presiding bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church

    (ht: imonk for the image)

    Posted in anabaptist, christendom, church, culture, kingdom, non-violence, theology, war, western culture

    My (Ana)baptism

    September 7, 2011 // 19 Comments »

    Wrote this post for the blog of the good people behind the Anabaptist Missional Project.

    I’m an Anabaptist.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not Mennonite, Hutterite, Brethren, or Amish and my name is Rozko for Pete’s sake!, but I’m an Anabaptist nonetheless.  I may have been baptized in an Episcopalian church when I was a baby, baptized again in a Church of Christ in high school when my faith became my own, ordained in the Christian Church tradition, and I may be part of a church community that is part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination and work for an American Baptist seminary, but I’m an Anabaptist nonetheless.

    “How’s that work exactly?” you ask.  Good question.  In fact, it’s the question behind this post which is itself the result of a conversation I had with my good friend Dave Stutzman (he’s my Anabaptist passport for those of you skeptics out there ;)

    Well, here’s my brief answer.  It works because I’m one of thousands of seminary-trained people between the ages of 25 and 35 who have been orphaned by the Christendom-shaped theology and ecclesiology that raised us.  Like many, many others, left to fend for ourselves among the cultural wilderness that is Post-Christendom, Anabaptism has provided me with the theological and ecclesiological shelter and nourishment that I needed to sustain and guide me as I’ve sought to make sense of the world and my personal and ministerial place in it. 

    To be a bit more specific, as Christianity has moved (been pushed?) from the center to the margins of our society, by and large, the responses of the Church have come in two types:

    1) Fight – here I have in mind the typical right-wing Christian response of scraping and clawing through powerful maneuvering and campaigning to “take back America for God” in order to regain a place of power and privilege believed to be, if not rightfully ours, God’s ultimate aim for his people.

    2) Ignore – here, there is either a complete lack of awareness (especially in the South) of the growing reality of Post-Christendom or an apathetic attitude toward what is simply dismissed as an inevitability.

    Anabaptism, I believe, presents a third way, a posture more faithful to a biblical (at least through the lenses of Anabaptist theology & ecclesiology) vision of what it means to be the people of God living under the reign of God in the midst of a world that, while fallen, remains deeply loved and addressed by God.  It was this humble and hopeful vision that drew me in.

    My initial touch points with Anabaptism came through a handful of professors at Fuller Theological Seminary such as Wilbert Shenk (anyone else think Wilbert needs to start a blog already?!), Nancey Murphy, and Glen Stassen (though there’s a palpable Anabaptist current throughout much of the school) and some time at Pasadena Mennonite Church.  These opened me up to the world of Anabaptist theology and (missional) ecclesiology, which has worked to powerfully shape both my identity and the contours of my life.

    Anabaptist theology has had a profound impact on my thinking and practice with regard to, among many other things, missional church, politics, preaching, theological education, and the Gospel.  In fact, it was these touch points and their consequent exposure to the unique features of Anabaptism that inclined me to further study with Wilbert Shenk and James Krabill as part of DMiss cohort at Fuller focused on Anabaptist Perspectives in Missional Ecclesiology.

    Interestingly, the one thing that my exposure to Anabaptism didn’t do, and I suppose this might be the real point of the post since it seemed to be one of the things Dave and I talked most about in our conversation, was incline me to seek out and join a (traditionally thought of) Anabaptist congregation.  I think there are 3 primary reasons for this.

    1) There are only a couple “denominationally-Anabaptist” congregations near me and they are all incredibly introverted and insular – a startling reality in light of the fact that the inherently missional dimension of all Anabaptist theology was one of the things I initially found so freeing.

    2) I have experienced and continue to understand Anabaptism as a theological and ecclesiological paradigm that defies denominational hegemony.  This of course relates to the first point, but personally, inasmuch as I have come to see Anabaptism as a theological (as opposed to denominational) tradition, I actually feel like I would be close to betraying my Anabaptist convictions to not seek to live them out in whatever other contexts it seems God has and is directing me.

    3) Lastly, I am surrounded by people who share my story – people who, while having no official exposure to or experience with traditionally thought of Anabaptist congregations, have discovered, through any number of different means (books, blogs, classes, friends, conferences, etc.), that Anabaptism is the theological tradition that best expresses their core convictions. Thus, I am far more inclined band together with these folks to see the Anabaptist vision carried forth and lived out across an array of denominational and other contexts rather than I am to isolate myself to one of the few traditionally recognized contexts.

    The point I suppose is this, there is a large and growing population of Christians who resonate with Anabaptist theology and ecclesiology.  It sure would be awesome if those who have been part of historically Anabaptist traditions were leading the way on this, but as of yet, that just doesn’t seem to be the case.  I don’t claim to have any divine insight or wisdom on this, but I think this much should be apparent: as Christendom continues to crumble, as denominational identity comes to mean less and less, and as more and more Christians/ministers have to figure out how to make sense of the world and their relationship to God and God’s work in it, there is a HUGE opportunity for those who espouse Anabaptist ideals to speak up and lead the way.  I represent a group of people who would gladly welcome the guidance!

    Posted in anabaptist, chicago, christendom, culture, discipleship, DMiss, Fuller Seminary, gospel, kingdom, missiology, missional, missional theology, Northern Seminary, politics, post-christendom, preaching/teaching, salvation, spiritual formation, theological education, theology, western culture

    “Going to Church” Is Not A Reality I Want For My Daughter

    July 26, 2011 // 6 Comments »

    I am one of those people who happens to believe in the importance of words.  While it’s a good thing to have a broad vocabulary, that’s not what I mean.  I mean that I think words are powerful.  Words aren’t just symbols and they certainly aren’t neutral.  Words actually DO things when we use them or hear them.

    Ever been called an idiot?

    Ever made a verbal promise?

    Ever double-dog-dared someone to do something?

    Yes?  Then you get what I mean.  Words are powerful tools.  I would even go so far as to say that words contribute to the shaping of our realities.  Just ask any teenager whose parent has told them on a consistent basis for years that they’re worthless.

    This is why I have abandoned the language of “going to church.”  This language reinforces a false reality.  A reality in which church is understood to be a place or an event rather than a Kingdom community or family of disciples.  I would submit that the idea of “going to church” is a chief hallmark of cultural Christianity, the sort of thing that, while having a ring of sincerity to it, actually reshapes our imaginations and our reality in ways counter to the biblical narrative and the purposes of God.  So, a few weeks ago, as Amy and I prepared to take our daughter to a gathering of our church community, she and I had one of our first father-daughter chats.

    I began to speak the kind of words to my daughter that I want her to grow up hearing – words that I want to shape her into the sort of person capable envisioning and receiving the story into which she has been born and invited – words that I hope will instill in her the sort of sorrowful/sick feeling that her father gets when he hears people relegate the Church to something we merely “go to.”

    I said to her,

    Daughter, you are a part of our family and our family is part of a very special group of people.  This group of people has a long, long history, filled with incredible stories that you will get to hear as you get older.  But here’s what you need to know.  God loves this world – everyone and everything in it.  He loves it more than we can even possibly imagine.  He loves it so much that he actually gave himself up for it – can you believe that?!  He did.  But lots of things are wrong.  Not everything is quite the way that it is supposed to be.  But don’t worry, God is at work.  He will see to it that in the end, all things will be made right again.  And guess what, God has invited us to join him on this mission.  He wants us to be a part of it with him as his people.  With God’s help we try to live out God’s dream for the world.  And because God’s own son, Jesus, did this better than anyone else ever did, we always try to follow his example.  That means that in many ways, the way we live is very different from the ways that other people live.  In fact, and this is difficult for me to say to you because I love you so much, it means that the more you live your life for God, the more likely it is that some people will not like you, maybe even hurt you like they did Jesus.  Even still…

    Like Jesus, we talk to God and listen as he speaks to us rather than living life on our own terms.

    Like Jesus, when people do mean and bad things, we offer forgiveness rather than hold grudges or try to get even.

    Like Jesus, when people are hurt or in need, we offer to help rather than let them suffer or assume that it’s their own fault.

    Like Jesus, we go out of our way to be friends with people who don’t like or make fun of rather than ignore them or do the same.

    Like Jesus, we give our money and things to people who need them even if they can’t pay us back rather than keeping everything for ourselves.

    Like Jesus, we will lay our lives down for our enemies rather than try to injure or destroy them.

    And that’s just the beginning!  These are just some of the ways that we get to enjoy God’s dream for the world.

    Now listen, there’s a special name for people who live this way together, they are called “Church.”  They are the people who have been called out of the ways of the way the world is, in order to live out God’s dream for the way the world should be and will be someday.  Some people think that Church is some thing that you go to, like going to a movie or a restaurant, only religious.  But that’s not what it is, not at all!  I know you won’t really understand all this quite yet, but the Church is a group of people who embody a whole new world!  Nothing you ever do will be more important than being part of this people and adventure.  Now, let’s go meet some of the people we’re on this mission with.

    The first of many more conversations I hope to have with my precious daughter along these lines.

    Posted in Amy, christendom, church, culture, discipleship, God, gospel, Jesus, kingdom, LOV, love, narrative theology, parenting, reconciliation, salvation, spiritual formation, stories, theology, truth

    The Place of Salvation in the Missional (Church) Conversation

    July 22, 2011 // 19 Comments »

    You have probably heard someone say at some point something along the lines of , “If you want to know a man’s heart or what his priorities are, take a look at his checkbook.”  The implication is that despite what we might say about our heart and priorities, how we live will always provide the true window into that reality.  We are what we do, not what we say.

    I think this same logic applies to the Church.  Though it might be an unfamiliar frame of reference for us, I don’t think many would balk at the suggestion that our ecclesiologies – the way we understand and practice being the Church – are a direct reflection of how we understand the good news of God’s salvation.  I’m not merely saying that this should by the case or that we need to aspire more to this.  I’m saying that by definition, this always is the case.  As a man’s spending habits will give you insight into what he really cares about, so too will the life and practices of church communities give you insight into how they understand the good news of God’s salvation.

    This may seem simple enough, but it’s a paradigm that I would suggest gets little to no traction amidst all the chatter over the trouble in which the Church in Western culture finds itself.  There are two ways to address the issue of someone whose stated priorities and actual spending patterns don’t match up.  The first is to ask him to work harder on spending in line with what he says is important to him.  Though it has come in many different forms and packages, I think this has been our basic approach to the plight of the Church in Western culture (purpose-driven, mission-driven, gospel-driven, house church, cell church, simple church, etc., etc.).  The second way to address the issue goes deeper; it takes a look at the man’s spending patterns and rather than saying, “These need to change,” it asks, “What does this tell us about what your priorities really are?”

    I propose that, rightly understood, this is where the ultimate importance and value of the missional conversation lies – not by first suggesting a new paradigm for understanding the nature and life of the Church, but in offering visions of the gospel and salvation that are rooted in a missional understanding of God (missional theology) and a missional reading of Scripture (missional hermeneutics), which then lead naturally to a missional understanding of the Church (missional ecclesiology).  I don’t mean to be over-linear here.  There is definitely a reciprocal relationship between beliefs and behavior, I merely want to point out the side of that relationship that I think has largely gone ignored.

    I have some good friends doing some great work through the ministry of 3DM.  A couple of them have become fond of saying, “The Church doesn’t so much have a leadership problem or a missional problem, the Church has a discipleship problem.”  In a sense, I couldn’t possibly agree with this sentiment more.  But, as I offered by way of a comment on a great blog post by Mike Breen the other day in which he was asking why more churches don’t spend as much time innovating their approaches to discipleship as they do technology, I think the underlying reason that this problem exists is on account of a flawed understanding of salvation.  As I said there,

    As long as the gospel remains something that we primarily need to “believe” in the cognitive sense, then it actually makes perfect sense to spend the bulk of your time and energy on innovating technologically because the bottom line is ‘reaching’ [see a post I offered on this a few years ago] as many people as possible. Discipleship, in this vision, is optional, auxiliary to what it means to “be saved.” My sense is that it is only when people begin embrace the reality of the gospel as an invitation into a way of life (the Kingdom of God), and salvation as a way of describing the nature of life in the Kingdom, that they begin to understand the ‘biblical logic’ that leads to the shaping of an ecclesiology in which discipleship and innovative approaches to discipleship will begin to be of primary importance.

    So, if I might sum up.  I feel like I see enormous amounts of time and energy being invested in trying to help people revisit how they understand and practice being the Church.  Fantastic!  But, let’s be honest, so long as people cling to (what I would term) Christendom-shaped conceptions of the gospel, primarily understood as something (theory of the atonement?) to which I give intellectual assent, as opposed to an invitation into a new reality that reshapes the entirely of my life, and salvation, primarily understood as getting into Heaven after I die, as opposed to my participation in the saving work that God is doing right here and now, we aren’t really getting to the heart of the matter.

    I wonder if we’re ready for this conversation?  I mean, this is treading on pretty sacred ground, right?  We’re more than ok tweaking our language about the nature of the church or even jimmying a bit with our church programs and structures.  And while it’s one thing to talk about God as a missionary God (lots of people have hopped on board with that), it’s quite another to start talking about the implications of God being a missionary God for how we understand the nature of that God’s good news and that God’s salvation. Harder conversation, but I’m increasingly convinced that it’s the one we need to give more attention to fostering if the Church in Western culture is to respond faithfully to not just the situation we find ourselves in, but more importantly, to God and the ways in which God is at work in our midst.

    Posted in 3DM, christendom, church, discipleship, gospel, kingdom, missional, missional theology, salvation, theology, truth, western culture

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