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I tried to make a comment on David Fitch’s blog but was not successful as the comment editor does not leave me enough room to draw some of what I wanted to say.
Read David’s post and then read this rambling reply of me doing theology on the run:
David,
I love your questions and thinking.
The use of Hauerwas is helpful but maybe we need to go back to the God question. Jesus was sent by the Father from the Trinity into the world, so the Church was sent by God from the people of Israel into the world. Both start with an act of God’s sending.
The epistemological issue is how do we know God? Well we know God through Christ mediated through the church and scriptures. So the knowing (al a Volf) comes from encounter with the church. “All members of the church create the ‘plausibility structures’ in which the communication of faith and life in faith become possible.”
This implies to me a twofold issue to use Len’s shorthand:
| > Church | |
| God | |
| > Mission |
Going to Trinitarian theology God the Trinity’s mission precedes Christology as there is no need to send Christ with no mission. Thus we have:
| > Church | |
| God’s Mission | > Christ |
| > Mission |
God’s Mission also creates more than just church it creates God’s people amongst whom Christ is incarnated and from whom his human identity is derived. Thus:
| > Church | |
| God’s Mission > God’s people | > Jesus Christ |
| > Mission |
Now the epistemological questions seem to disappear as it is in the what is the relationship of the Church and Mission to God’s people we get an answer. God’s people were always supposed to be on a mission thus:
| > Church | |
| God’s Mission > God’s Missioning People | |
| > Jesus Christ |
Maybe we need to summarise not as the church is a missiology but:
The church does not have a mission, the church is missional.
Epistemologically we may not be God’s people if we are not missioning.
Thoughts?
While many people I know are researching Pentecostals and Pentecostalism, many times Pentecostalism slips under the radar.
See this article by Lutheran Peter Berger on the sociological issues of Pentecostalism for a positive view on prosperity.
Today I am speaking to my homiletics class about being clear in their preaching. Clear as to their purpose and clear in their presentation. This was driven home to me by an interesting story we heard over the weekend when we saw friends of ours from Brisbane on Sunday night.
Unbeknownst to us our friends had visited our church here in Melbourne in the morning. Like usual they sent their daughter, who is about the same age as my super son, to the childrens program. When we were speaking to them we were saying how great the kids program is and that our super son talks about what he has learnt. They said they noticed for their daughter that the same happened. After they had taken their daughter to their church’s kids program they’d ask her what she did and not get much of a reply. I realised that somehow the kids program has a really clear message and that the message gets through.
My students need to understand the same principle – the message needs to get through and does so if it is clear rather than muddy.
So what sort of messages do you give?
I am writing this on Monday and have a feeling that the story of Mike Guglielmucci will most likely be on television tonight. It will generate a huge buzz, lots of introspection and some horrible comments about Christians by Christians. You see we do a good job of shooting our wounded.
In the past 12 months I am aware of numerous problems in the body of Christ. In the US there have been divorces of televangelists, others looked at for their use of money, the separation of Todd Bentley and his wife and now Mike Guglielmucci’s situation. I have not weighed in on these situations as I am not one to judge as I know what it is like to be a forgiven sinner.
There are a number of good posts about this but I want my readers to consider their hearts before rushing to judgement. How hard is it for you to resist temptation? When was there a time when you fell to some temptation? What impact did it have on your life and possibly has continued to have? You see I start from a place of knowing I need God first and then seeing my brother or sister in Christ and realising they need Christ too.
I have no question there are issues of compromised truth in these situations that needs to be dealt with but the first issue I need to face is about me. For those close to the situations they are the ones who need to deal with the individual, not me. We idolise from a distance and judge from a distance; neither is good. I need to ask myself “Would I now give this brother a cup of water in Jesus name? ” Many of us are so hurt by what has happened that we would say no. Yet Jesus’ words were “As you have done it to the least of these you have done it to me.”
Now remember these are people who have made a confession of faith at some point. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ. They would not be where they were today if God had not worked in their life at some point. It seems to me that God is less concerned, for a time, in what ways they have continued to struggle. Instead God works on their sin and mine in His time and sometimes situations happen where we see that sin revealed for all the world to see. This is when we load the shotguns and shoot our wounded; both barrels.
This is the wrong reaction. We need to see God in the person before we see the accuser in them and allow him to become the accuser in us. There is no question that both are present but who is the greater? You know how you would feel if your sin was revealed to all the world, so the grace you would want is the grace you now need to give.
So what grace are you giving?
This week I was asked in my Homiletics class about the role of preaching in a missional church environment after someone else had spoken on a Reformed view of preaching in church. This was a good question. Recently we were at a restaurant we like, Captain Americas, and found out a while back they had 9 stores, now there are 1.
These two ideas are connected as I answered from last weeks blog. We are in a time of transition that the attractional church is picking up those non-churched who have an idea of church from their living in Christendom while the missional church is picking up other non-believers. I said to the class the period of time this transition may last is 200 hundred years. This was a figure plucked from the air but it does reflect my thinking that this transition is not necessarily a short period.
Now can you imagine a time when there are no McDonald’s restaurants or whatever is your favourite fast food chain? There was a time when no kid knew who Ronald McDonald was as he did not exist. I can imagine a time when parts of the fast food industry goes the way of food cooked on an open-fire spit eaten with your own knife at barbarian long tables. Things change, they sure have for Captain Americas.
I think it will be the same for the form of the church. The form of the church we are familiar with, the attractional model, will disappear over a period of time but not overnight. There was a time when you invited people to church because they had expressed a desire to fellowship with Christ, not because they wanted to hear a good sermon and make a commitment. I think this time will come again.
On occasion I have described this as a move from large churches to niche churches. I heard someone who did not like the idea talk about it as “But everyone still shops at <insert name of large department store> rather than going to a niche boutique. Niche boutiques have more troubles surviving.” This is true to a point but niche stores still survive and some of the big chains, like Starbucks this week, do sometimes close their doors in light of pressure from the niche or better established market.
Now in the end I do not thinking marketing metaphors are good description of church but I do recognise that change is in the air.
So what do you think is the lifetime of the attractional church?
I have been reading David Fitch’s The Great Giveaway and a few blogs about the emerging church. This particular post of David’s really got me thinking.
I have been trying to process the comment that David makes that attractional churches have a role to attract those who are still in Christendom. In the end my thinking now comes down to the following diagram:
What this is trying to say is that there was a time when the church just was missional. It moved through a transition to what I would consider we think of as “traditional” - church where the thinking of many is to be there for the state and/or the congregation. Some traditional churches, and this includes some Pentecostal churches, then moved to an attractional model whilst not changing much. Other churches started and were never “traditional” even though they have their own traditions, they were attractional from the beginning . Some churches though have also thought to move/return to a missional model.
I think we are in a transitional time. We are not quite at the end of Christendom as the diagram indicates that there is a point where we are in Christendom and then we are in post-Christendom. I think this is a inaccurate portrayal of a transition transition and thus in the time we are in we need both the attractional and missional churches.
So what sort of church do you think we need to be?
I looked at my blog statistics yesterday. I thought I was getting less readers. it turns out I was getting more – wordpress just modified the scale. So for me it is nice to know a small community of people read this blog.
The church my wonderful wife and I are a part of is interesting at all sorts of levels. It seems to consistently go against the stream on some things (its distinctives) and not against the stream on others (negotiables). One area which it seems to excel in is that even though it is a very large (officially mega-) church it maintains a sense of community. Let me explain.
A couple of weeks ago I was shopping at Dandenong Markets. I ran into my cell group leader there and we had a chat. Our cell was to have a social evening the same night a my wonderful wife’s birthday. They invited our super son to go along, by himself, and for the adults to have a night to themselves. We did not take them up on it as my wonderful wife wanted a family celebration of her birthday.
On Saturday then we woke up and my wonderful wife decided she needed to go to the doctor for some problems and would like me along and needed to see if we could get an appointment that day. We got the appointment and had discussed the idea that our super son becomes too distracted and distracting in the doctors surgery and wondered if we could leave him with our cell leaders who live across the road from us. Lo and behold the phone rings at 9:00 ish and its them saying the social night went till midnight-ish and they got to bed later. My wonderful wife asked about them having our super son, they said yes and we had a few hours to kill before the visit to the doctor. We had a breakfast to ourselves at one of our favourite places. It was a great experience overall.
It is out of experiences like that, the church we are part of reflects a sense of community. So how much sense of community is in the people you know at your church?
I have heard in the last few days of people getting engaged, others breaking up and a few relationships seeming to change direction for one reason or another. My wonderful wife and I were talking about one of the situations and she said something along the lines of they felt they weren’t compatible so they split up. This idea got me thinking about what makes a relationship really work.
You see many relationships happen because the two people are comfortable with one another. Whether it is the friend who you have known for years and suddenly say lets start dating or the office coworker who you share so much with that you suddenly decide to make something more of it. These are people who are comfortable with one another and decide to find out if they are compatible.
Now compatible to me means you are willing to spend quality time in one another’s presence. The emphasis is quality and time. Many people I know who do not espouse a Christian faith talk about the need to be sexually compatible. At the end of the day I am not sure what that means other than saying you have tried all the flavours of ice-cream in the shop and the one you like is vanilla. If all you are offered is vanilla what is the difference? Quality time means that you get to know each other more and work out ways to do things together. Not just when it is convenient but also when it is inconvenient.
Having decided you are compatible some people decide to be committed. This means that even when there is a disagreement you are both willing to work through the issues, keep the lines of communication open and not run away from the other person. This is where some relationships do break down quite horribly. The compatibility has been around for a long time but now you find out you are not willing to be really committed to working through everything.
So is this just a reflection on relationships or is there more theological thinking going on? Churches now days are looking for members, they want people not who they are just comfortable with or compatible with but committed to. They want people who will stick around when there are difficulties.
So what is you relationship to your church like? What issues do you need to resolve?
This week has been busy for me as has been obvious by the (lask of) posts. Today is no lighter just the necessity to keep writing is making me do this.
As part of all the meetings this week one person has confessed that God is convicting them of working in teams and having the other people around them to help and to sharpen them. This is not a message many of us like to hear from God as it makes us realise our own weaknesses “I am not a team player” and prejudices “I like to only work with organised people”.
The funny thing if I was to say to married people what drives you nuts about your spouse I think it would be the same issue. We are different and the differences feel so huge how can I work with this person? I know I have committed to them but how do I work on this? Funnily enough as i was thinking about this topic this morning there was a discussion on another blog concerning why romantic weekends are overrated and some of it gets down to working with the partners differences. The post is good enough to read just for the quotes from Alaine de Bottom.
I could say like usual it gets back to commitment but its not just that. If we have no positive reinforcment that we are connecting with people who are different to us then we will not engage. Jesus when he left did not say “just be committed to me it will be all ok” he said “When I go another will come”. We can not follow God out of a one way commited relationship. God also gives us reinforcement that He is part of our lives.
You see we need one another to be the Body of Christ and we need one another to be conformed to the image of Christ. Jesus did not leave us alone but left us his Spirit and his (spiritual) brothers and sisters. Commitment is great but practical strategies are needed as well.
While I may talk about more practical strategies next week one that works consistently is getting a mutually agreed third party involved. What I am effectviely saying is go to a counsellor together; don’t just have one of you go as that will breed distrust and resentment. Or find a third person who can help the two people not getting along to work together in the same room. That is one approach Jesus has given us – we all have the Spirit and He will help us get along as a body.
So where do you need to work with someone who is different?
My super son has decided that it is ok to say grace again. He used to bless us with wonderful brief graces before meals and then suddenly decided he did not feel well and stopped doing them.
Well they have started again and he seems to be telling us that important things are sleep, small group, kinder and occasionally food. These are the things he keeps thanking God for.
I am delighted that he wants to share his young spiritual life with us even when he seems to forget the purpose of the practice such as thanking God for the food. Yet I really want to encourage him.
You see in the end I think all Christians start off young. They don’t know the right words to say or have the language or the concept quite right. Yet if we allow these young Christians to share with us and affirm the good and try to downplay the bad we help form them in the communities we are part of.
So in the end I am thankful for my graceful super son and hope I can continue to learn to encourage little one to grow.
Who do you need to encourage to grow today?
