Simple Church Journal

Today is an unplanned post because I got an early look at Newsweek's cover (to the right) along with the cover story by Andrew Sullivan entitled, "Christianity in Crisis."

I reserve the right to be excited about this article without claiming to agree with every sentence or statement.  I know that some will discount the whole of what Sullivan has written because of not agreeing with this point or that point.  But I think that this misses the over-arching blessing of having this article written in the mainstream media.  There is so much in Sullivan's article that is good and I am therefore hoepful that it will add to the needed conversation of how Jesus is re-making His church today and stir up renewed interest among those who are seeking spiritual answers that Jesus is still the One worth pursuing.

Here are some notable quotes:

"Whether or not you believe, as I do, in Jesus’ divinity and resurrection—and in the importance of celebrating both on Easter Sunday—Jefferson’s point is crucially important. Because it was Jesus’ point. What does it matter how strictly you proclaim your belief in various doctrines if you do not live as these doctrines demand?"

"All of which is to say something so obvious it is almost taboo: Christianity itself is in crisis. It seems no accident to me that so many Christians now embrace materialist self-help rather than ascetic self-denial—or that most Catholics, even regular churchgoers, have tuned out the hierarchy in embarrassment or disgust. Given this crisis, it is no surprise that the fastest-growing segment of belief among the young is atheism, which has leapt in popularity in the new millennium. Nor is it a shock that so many have turned away from organized Christianity and toward “spirituality,” co-opting or adapting the practices of meditation or yoga, or wandering as lapsed Catholics in an inquisitive spiritual desert. The thirst for God is still there."

"I have no concrete idea how Christianity will wrestle free of its current crisis, of its distractions and temptations, and above all its enmeshment with the things of this world. But I do know it won’t happen by even more furious denunciations of others, by focusing on politics rather than prayer, by concerning ourselves with the sex lives and heretical thoughts of others rather than with the constant struggle to liberate ourselves from what keeps us from God."

"This Christianity comes not from the head or the gut, but from the soul. It is as meek as it is quietly liberating. It does not seize the moment; it lets it be. It doesn’t seek worldly recognition, or success, and it flees from power and wealth. It is the religion of unachievement. And it is not afraid. In the anxious, crammed lives of our modern twittering souls, in the materialist obsessions we cling to for security in recession, in a world where sectarian extremism threatens to unleash mass destruction, this sheer Christianity, seeking truth without the expectation of resolution, simply living each day doing what we can to fulfill God’s will, is more vital than ever. It may, in fact, be the only spiritual transformation that can in the end transcend the nagging emptiness of our late-capitalist lives, or the cult of distracting contemporaneity, or the threat of apocalyptic war where Jesus once walked. You see attempts to find this everywhere—from experimental spirituality to resurgent fundamentalism. Something inside is telling us we need radical spiritual change."

Full article here.

You can comment here.

(Note: this is a continuation of chapter 1 of the Irreligious Followers book I am working on.  The first part of this chapter is here, then here, and then here.)

Above all, followers of Jesus, by definition, are not clones of those around them.

Our cultures invite us to fall into lockstep and become clones of the habits, rituals, and norms of the system.

Our churches invite us to become like other church members and become good clones of their system.

Our nature is to play it safe by looking and acting like everyone else.  If we find something we admire or like, we want to become clones rather than followers of the One who created uniquely.

A few paragraphs earlier I mentioned someone who quit his job because he believed God told him to.  Don’t follow that story just because it’s easy or because you want to.  Just because someone finds God’s will by doing this or that, don’t simply do this or that.  Instead, follow Jesus.  In fact, in many developing countries where I work, the religious culture dictates that ‘ministers’ who are called to ‘preach the Gospel’ should quit their work and means of income and depend on others to support them.  This becomes the norm and it’s often a destructive one.  The fact is, in most settings, Jesus leads His people to take and make jobs to care for their families and others.  But there is still the issue of being a follower within that context.  Don’t just become part of the system, bring the Kingdom of God and the creativity of God into the systems you live within as Jesus leads.  When you take a job, expect to revolutionize that job and industry into a reflection of the Kingdom of God.  When you see a need, expect Jesus to use you to bring the Kingdom of God into the process of meeting that need.

The point is, I am hesitant to give any illustrations of what it means to be a non-clone follower of Jesus because the tendency will be to become clones around the ideas put forth by those stories.  Our tendency to fit into the norms and ideas of people around us is a strong one making it difficult to live as followers of the One.

Let’s step back and reflect on Jesus for a moment.  He stepped into a particular national culture, a specific religious culture, and typical normative expectations of how to live.  Yet He walked outside of those boxes in many ways as He expressed God’s Kingdom and rule for his earthly life.  He offended the rule-keepers, ignored the standard-bearers, and refused to conform to the clone-boxes he was expected to fit into.  In fact, He so offended the box-guards by his success outside of their boxes that their envy drove them, eventually, to a murderous rage.  But even this did not cause Jesus to back down from living the life He was meant and called to live.

Followers of Jesus will surprise people because they don’t fit into the boxes, yet the blessing of God creates success for them and for those around them.  They bring God’s rulership (Kingdom) first into their life by their singular devotion to Jesus as they walk out family life, vocation, friendships, and every other aspect of life.   And they surprise people because they find success in each area even as they walk ‘not according to this world.’

Imagine when followers of Jesus get it that we do not live for the norms or expectations of man, but the will and purposes of an amazing God.  Imagine when the followers of Jesus are willing to step out of all the expectations of our societies (including our church/religious ones) to allow Jesus alone to guide, shape, direct, mold, and inspire our lives.

“Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.” Seth Godin

This post digresses from my book-writing to highlight an article that reminds us how important it is that we keep our own children and family at the heart of our church expressions and spiritual life.  The simple, Biblical model is that our church gatherings, as well as our whole walk with God, embrace the family naturally and experientially.

Rob Rienow writes in Mission Frontiers:

Evangelism and discipleship are in dire crisis, and it is a generational crisis. We’re losing more of our own children to the world than we are winning adult converts to faith in Christ. As a result, the percentage of Bible-believing Christians in the United States is in steady decline.

Rob backs this up with some sobering facts about the decline, generationally, of those who trust in Christ alone for salvation.  This is a sharp cry for the body of Christ in the U.S. to wake up!

But even more poignant is Rob's diagnosis of the problem:

Slowly but surely, we abandoned the biblical model of family discipleship and delegated the spiritual training of our children to “professionals” at church. I led this model at a large church for over a decade. One of the unintended consequences of my ministry approach which systematically separated children from their parents was that parents were free to remain spiritually passive at home. After all, they were making sure that their son or daughter was involved in a “great youth group.”

Just changing our church gatherings to simple/organic expressions will not solve this, but it can be a step in the direction of putting the family, as a whole, back in the center of our life with God.  I pray that we will continue to take many more steps until we see again that God is working powerfully through 'households' rather than simply individuals.

Read Rob's full article here.

Comment here!

(Note: this is a continuation of chapter 1 of the Irreligious Followers book I am working on.  The first part of this chapter is here and then here.)

The Predictable Way or the Jesus Way

We often love Jesus but, really, we love even more our comfortable religious boxes, our titles, our roles, and our predictable programs and routines.  It’s easier to stay in the boat of religion than to get out and follow Him.  We might fail.  We might look foolish.  We might get all wet.  We might not like the change.

But one thing is sure: if we don’t get out of the boat there is no chance that we will ever walk on water.

The life of the follower is still, and always will be, a life of faith.  Faith will always involve forsaking some comforts, even religious ones, in order to step out.

If you are going be a trapeze artist, you have to let go of one bar in order to fly through the air and catch the other bar.  In Hebrews 11 we see that people of faith acted in a way that was contrary to the comforts and sensibilities of others.  They went somewhere, built something, sacrificed, chose to suffer with others, gave something up… there was risk and action to their faith.  They let go of what they could grip to grasp hold of an experience with God.

Followers of Jesus are regaining the courage to risk when God is speaking.  We no longer want to settle for play-it-safe, cookie-cutter religion that has no life, teeth, focus, or power to it.

I know risk and faith can be used by irresponsible people to do irresponsible things.  Quitting a job, for example, because “God told me to” could be an act of the irresponsible not wanting to grow up.  But, on the other hand, let’s not write something off just because it offends our rules of comfort and sensibilities.  I have a young friend who recently did this very thing.  Honestly, I don’t know if God has spoken to him clearly or not.  But in our play-it-safe world, I’m excited to see what will happen and I’m excited that he is doing his level best, today, to follow Jesus.

It’s almost impossible to see God-things happen while we are playing it safe.

Most churches are playing it safe.  Many Christians are playing it safe.  Yes, risk can sometimes bring with it the element of danger.  But, then again, not risking when faith calls us forward could be even more dangerous!

The awakening, audacious followers of Jesus are world changers because they are compelled to act according to their faith.  And where faith is engaged, God is revealed.

(Note: this is a continuation of the start of Ch. 1 of the Irreligious Followers book I am working on.  The first part of this chapter is the previous post.  Also note that much of this particular section of writing is taken from a previous blog post, so if it has a familiar ring, that's why).

Becoming Audacious Followers

Consider what the church really is meant to be:

• A reflection of Jesus’ power and love in a hurting world
• Change-agents for Jesus’ purposes to bring His Kingdom to earth
• Trend-setters who walk to the beat of the Creator of the universe
• Risk-takers and rule-breakers who are willing to do whatever Jesus is doing in any given situation
• Love-pioneers known for giving up all to love a few

For years we have talked about the need to get the church out of its wall and into the street.  The problem is: this is not enough!  We do have people leaving churches for the right reasons, seeking more organic expressions of church life, meeting in homes or workplaces, trying to shake things up in their traditional churches, yet the life of Jesus is still not seeping into the world they way we long for it to.

We may be moving in the right direction, but we need more…

We need “the church” to begin living their unique destiny as followers of Jesus audaciously.  We need people who are not sleep-walking in religion or incapacitated by the franticness of our Disneyland culture.  We need people who know who they are, who love Jesus more than life, who are willing to bring fresh and new ideas and innovations that change society.  We need people who influence, not toward religion or church-going, but toward Jesus, and life, and hope, and faith, and transformation, and the power of the Spirit.  We need people who have passion and are not afraid to step out and speak up about those things (including Jesus) that are burning on their hearts.

We need Change Agents for Jesus.  We don’t need evangelists, just Jesus-people who live and act in a way that brings about change, that lifts the hopeless, that cares for the tired, that releases the oppressed and that simply says—“this is Jesus at work.”  “Follow Him!”  Those that need to and want to, will follow Him.

We need a church that does not look like “church” in any way, shape, or form.  We need an uprising of “heretics” who break all the rules but glorify Jesus’ love and presence in the process.  We need followers of Jesus who do what followers actually do: they listen to Him—really listen to Him—on a daily basis and passionately follow.

We need people who are authentic and real and without the need for pretense.  We need people that others can relate to and see Jesus through—weaknesses and all.

We need to become the trend setters.

Religious people follow the traditions and rules.  Our culture mesmerizes us with faulty ideas of success and security.  We don’t need more of either of these.  Instead, we need people who lift others through their love for Jesus, their willingness to step out and do risky, compassionate things, and because of their new ideas, fresh ventures, and radical investment in the needy and in the needs of our world.

We need a church that’s out of the walls, out of religion, out of our culture’s drivel, and sacrificing everything to become everything that Jesus is and to do everything that Jesus says.

We need single-focused followers whose very lives are an invitation to others to become followers of Jesus.

We often do need to get outside of the church walls and we will talk more, in chapter two, about how our church practices can create many hindrances to the life-with-Jesus we are called to.  But just stepping out of some walls and becoming freed up from our religious, church-attending, church-programming baggage is not the answer.

We need Jesus’ audacious followers to show up and then join the adventure!

 Comment!

Mel Gibson, in the movie Braveheart, portrays the true story of the Scot revolutionary, William Wallace.  The common folk were poor and routinely stripped of their lands and treated with contempt by their overlords.  While the movie does not depict all that motivated this young man, he was surely impacted by two significant turning points: the death of his father in a scuffle with an Englishman, and the murder of his wife under the direction of the English sheriff.  He took up the family motto: “"Pro libertate" – "For Freedom" and become both an avenger, hero, and martyr for the cause of seeing his people set free.  Wallace’s life experiences and tragedies helped awaken him to the oppression and abuse as well as motivate  him to say, “Enough!”

In the same way, all revolutions, resulting in greater freedom, are preceded by an awakening.  People wake up to the stark reality that they are not living as they could.  They have succumbed to various states of oppression or depression or subjugation, and they wake up to the harshness of their condition and say “Enough!”

Today, there is an awakening in the church taking place and a new cry for freedom.  The liberating of the church is happening.  It’s happening en masse.  It’s happening not by someone’s design, but simply because person after person has experienced something that is causing them to more fully awaken to their condition and say ‘enough.’

People are awakening from a tyranny that I place under the overarching term: religion.  Religion encompasses the dead spiritual systems that we substitute for life—life with Jesus.  Religion goes far beyond the oppressiveness of just legalism though that’s an important aspect of it.  It involves all of the forms of godliness—external and internal—that become substitutes and alternatives to real spiritual life and vitality.  These ‘forms of godliness’ can include:

• The religious routines we follow that replace a vibrant, risk-taking life of following Jesus.
• The church systems we set up that sustain themselves with activities and programs which many use to replace real relationship with Jesus and with one another.
• The motivations we fall into that are about serving our own ego-identities rather than, truly, God’s Kingdom and purposes.

Freedom is the goal of all revolutions and this one is no different.  God is awakening His people because He has destined us for freedom so that we, in turn, may bring freedom to a world that is deeply oppressed and in need of what Jesus’ life and only Jesus’ life can bring.

Let’s explore some of the many ways that God is freeing His people from religion and unleashing His bride to serve His glory, reflect His presence, and follow his purposes to bring about life in a decaying world… (More to Come).

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NOTE: This is a stab at setting the stage for the first chapter of the "Irreligious Follower" book.  I will share a bit at a time as I try to organize the flow of the book!

Comments Welcome!

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I am continuing to think through my next book with your help and collaboration.  Your input has been awesome!  For the background on this, you can go to my last post.

Now, I want to ask you for stories.  Your own stories (or maybe even others).  Real-life illustrations from real people walking out the truths of this book are needed!

Here are my key points for Chapter 1.  Can you share your experiences as they relate to these key points?

Chapter 1 Title: Jesus' Call to Uncompromised Followership

Point 1: God is always calling us to fresh encounters with Jesus

Point 2: Religion provides us a safe place to become ‘comfortable’ that can keep us from living out of fresh encounters.

Point 3: Breaking out of our comfort zones can mean facing the religious/cultural hindrances that we have become accustomed to.  This can be difficult!

Point 4: Desire is key.  How much do we really want to engage fully with the amazing Person, Jesus—no matter the cost.

Friends, I don’t know how this collaboration will work, but if you are open to sharing some of your own stories here as comments, what a gift to me and to others!

Comments (Stories) Here!

Based on your input (recorded here and here) and my own convictions, I have come up with my first attempt at a working title and thesis for my next book.  The word ‘working’ means that it’s still being worked on and is, therefore, NOT in final form.  This is why I bring it to you!

Working Title (as of today): Becoming & Making Irreligious Followers of Jesus

In short, you might say that this is a book on discipleship: the power and simplicity of being and making disciples.  I do believe that this is the heart of the ‘simple church’ movement and church planting movements.  More here from an earlier post.  BUT, I also believe that the terms and practices of ‘discipleship’ and ‘making disciples’ are vastly misunderstood which is why so many miss out.

So, with that title in mind, here is my working thesis (at this point):

1. The love and grace that Jesus has for us is bigger than we realize.

My note: I don’t think any book should be written that does not, in the end, call all of us to a deeper walk and relationship with Jesus.

2. The life of a follower (one who follows and makes followers) is a life of adventure, joy, and freedom far greater than we realize.

My note: This point goes to the core of what’s on my heart as I hope to fully explore the dynamics of being and making disciples.  We can discuss this further together and I attempt to clarify what I’m after and, again, get your input.

3. The religious traditions of our Christian culture continue to be a greater hindrance to the life God has for us than we realize.

My note: I know many of you share this ongoing concern that the life Jesus has for us must be engaged in without the religious encumbrances that so often dilute and/or distort His image in and through us.

Note that your input from the past couple of weeks here has greatly informed my outline!  Look forward to more insights from ‘the gang.’

Comments?

Two weeks ago I asked for your help in identifying the key hindrances in the Western church.  I did this to inform me with your insights as I work on my next book.

Your responses were many and amazing!

I have organized those responses into the three primary categories they seem to fall into.  Below is a mini-version of my notes.  You can download my full notes here.

Key Hindrances:

1. Our relationship with God

• Lack of intimacy with God
• Not listening
• We don’t know Him as He is
• We don’t know His word and/or we are lackadaisical about it

2. Our involvement in religious traditions and legalism

• Religious attitudes
• Man-made traditions
• Religion and pride
• Comfort-seeking in our church life
• Me-centered in our church life
• Consumer mentality as a Christian

3. Our followership (our walk as disciples)

• Lack of obedience to Jesus alone
• Lack of obedience to all of Jesus’ commands
• Not making disciples
• Not surrendered wholly
• No passion for the lost
• Compromise

Again, I only printed the first few responses and you can see the full list here.
Very, very helpful!  More coming…