Simple Church Journal

Kevin Miller brings some excellent and constructive thoughtfulness (critique) to the emerging church.  In this interview, Miller is asked the question:

Is there any baby that you are concerned is being thrown out with bathwater?

Evangelical conviction. In order to avoid the hubris that often comes from the evangelical church, many folks are now getting squishy on things they should not be squishy about, including the authority of Scripture, the uniqueness of Christ, and the value of the Bible’s sexual ethic. If we lose those, we lose the Gospel.

This is a good challenge.  On the other hand, Miller also squarely challenges the larger Evangelical community with his answer to this question:

What do the Emergers have to teach the larger Evangelical Community?

1. “The world is changing.”

2. “Listen to people. Really.”

3. “You’re on the cutting edge of irrelevance to many.”

4. “Be a little more humble. Okay, be a lot more humble.”

The entire interview is at Next-Wave.

I consider Tony to be one of the great evangelical voices of our day.  So, naturally, I’m excited to see this article that was referred to me by TallSkinnyKiwi.  Here is an excerpt:

As we enter the 21st century, a vital new expression of Christianity is growing in the United States and worldwide. This movement even has a name. It is called "the Emergent Church."

This movement expresses what I call "progressive evangelicalism," because it emphasizes traditional evangelical beliefs – affirming the doctrines of the Apostle’s Creed, a high view of Scripture and the importance of a personal transforming relationship with a resurrected Christ – yet rejects the structures and styles of institutionalized Christianity.

The Emergent Church turns away from spending money on buildings. Instead, most congregations meet as "house churches" or gather in makeshift storefronts and warehouses.

Tony goes on to offer a great synopsis of the heart of what God is doing in this movement:

Emergent churches espouse a decentralized grassroots form of Christianity that rejects the hierarchal systems of denominational churches. Each emergent congregation makes its own decisions by consensus.

Leadership is fluid, with all members sharing authority and participating in the mission of the church. Task forces are assembled to undertake such specific programs as feeding the homeless, establishing a partnership with a Third World church, developing an after-school tutoring program for disadvantaged children or organizing people in a poor neighborhood to solve pressing social problems.

The missionary programs of such congregations are committed to direct involvement with those they decide to serve. These churches want little to do with bureaucratic organizations with professional administrators. Members of these congregations want to be involved personally with those in need. They want to know the names and faces of the people they serve.

Emergent congregations must not be confused with those nondenominational mega-churches that seem to be popping up increasingly in communities across the nation. In fact, the two are markedly different. Emergent churches often express a disdain for the "contemporary-worship music" heard in many mega-churches.

The worship in emergent churches often includes classical music, and such congregations often follow a more formal liturgical style that may even incorporate such ancient forms of praying as that of monastic orders. The people who join emergent congregations are often folks who have tired of what goes on in churches that have "contemporary services."

Tony goes on to describe a "postmodern mindset" that includes some agendas that are not necessarily shared by all… But, nevertheless, his article is excellent and you can read the entire article here.

From John Michael Talbot’s book on Francis of Assisi:

He Was Radical

For many people, being "Christian is roughly equivalent in time and emotional commitment to being a member of a neighborhood bridge club, having a regular seat at the local Elks lodge, or getting the familly car serviced every three thousand miles.  Unfortunately, this type of Christianity is often viewed as just another civic affiliation, acquired habit, or social ritual.

Not for Francis.  In him, the spark of divine love ignited a bonfire that burned away all his indifference and sparked a radical, uncompromising faith.  His was not Christianity Lite.  He worshiped at the altar of not watered-down deity.

Francis’s minute-by-minute desire was to follow God ever closer, as he wrote in this prayer to members of his movement: "Almighty, eternal, just and merciful God, grant us in our misery that we may do for your sake alone what we know you want us to do, and always want what pleases you; so that, cleansed and enlightened interiorly and fired with the ardor of the Holy Spirit, we may be able to follow in the footsteps of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and so make our way to you."

I suppose all of our church gatherings and "goings" will be just fine, regardless of how they look, if we are fired up by a radical love and uncompromising faith.  Amen to Francis.

From Andrew (TallSkinnyKiwi):

Did you know that the ants do not have a leader calling all the shots, but instead leave pheromone trails for each other to communicate? Of course you knew that – its in the Bible. No professional leadership, but emergence to higher level complexity regardless. Sometimes when i look at the emergent properties of bloggers, I see our hypertext links performing the suame function as pheromones – telling us where to go, where not to go, whats going on.

His whole post is here.

Robert Fitts sent out an article entitled "I Am Not An Eye."  In it he says that in finding our identity within the Body of Christ we must:

1.  Seek not a place of prominence or influence.  If it comes, do not run from it. Take your place as an eye if God has gifted and called you to be an eye.
2.   Seek not  a "ministry" but  rather  seek to minister. The world is full of people who need help. The spirit of a true servant does not clamor for recognition. A servant does not need a stage or a spotlight to do his work.  He only needs to love God and be willing to spend and be spent serving others…

So  the very first step in discovering our place and function within the Body of Christ is to renounce all self will and self determination and trust God to produce in us the divine motivation to function according to His predetermined purposes that He has ordained for us.

You can download the entire article here: Download i_am_not_an_eyefitts.doc .

Van S, over at MissionThink, raises this question that came out of a previous post here entitled "Too Much Focus On The Gatherings."  He says:

Chris raised a good point in response to a previous post, that it is foolish to assume that if we all just do outreach together, real community will form.  The opposite is also true; outreach doesn’t naturally flow out of community.  All that we are called to as the church has to be done with varying degrees of intention.

However, it is very difficult to instantly start doing all that the church ought.  It takes time and energy to build towards being an authentic body of believers.  Therefore, I would like to make the case that it is better to start with a sense of mission than it is to start with a sense of community.  In other words, I believe community flows out of mission.  Otherwise, all you are left with is affinity.  This idea, that community is formed out of a common mission, is what sociologists call the principle of the "superordinate goal."  A shared overarching goal requires cooperative effort.  And this cooperative effort begins to override people’s differences and creates a new sort of affinity–one shaped by the superordinate goal…

I have to confess to being doubleminded.  I have experienced much of my Christian life going around and around, it seems, from mission to community and then from community back to mission.  I wholeheartedly agree that there needs to be intentionality about both.  But on the question of which one to start with, I have seen both "work" and also "not work."

I have seen (and been involved with) a church that started with authentic community as the superordinate goal and then, out of frustration and desire, transition to effective mission.  This is not easy, but it can be done.  Obviously, there are also many examples of groups that never make this transition.

On the other hand, there is no question that a group with a missional thrust can transition to authentic community.  However, this is not a given either.  In fact, I find that the type of community that forms around a goal often develops into pseudo-community that lacks the true depth of authenticity and vulnerability.  Again, intentionality is required to transition a "mission group" into "community."

In a sense, I’m saying there is no right way to start.  The struggle to do both mission and community is at the heart of every living Kingdom group.  I believe that if we are effectively pursuing both there will be a pendulum swing from one side to another.  As long as the pendulum continues to swing, this may be as healthy as we can expect.

When I wrote the post, "Too Much Focus On the Gatherings," I was, in part, reacting to the frustration of myself and others in our churches that the pendulum has swung to the side of community and our hearts are now crying out for more mission.

Thanks to Van S for his thoughts.

Henri Nouwen has an awesome article entitled "Moving From Solitude To Community To Ministry."  The point is, no matter how we fashion church, ministry, or life, we need first and foremost… to be with God… alone with God.  Here is an excerpt:

Solitude is being with God and God alone. Is there any space for that in your life?

Why is it so important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It’s important because it’s the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you "my beloved daughter," "my beloved son," "my beloved child." To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being…

Solitude is where spiritual ministry begins. That’s where Jesus listened to God. That’s where we listen to God.

Sometimes I think of life as a big wagon wheel with many spokes. In the middle is the hub. Often in ministry, it looks like we are running around the rim trying to reach everybody. But God says, "Start in the hub; live in the hub. Then you will be connected with all the spokes, and you won’t have to run so fast.

John’s comments on the "Church Planting" post:

I like what you are saying here Roger. If I can just focus on where others are at spiritually and really care enough to (attempt to) make a difference in their lives, through relationship, prayer, charity or some type of help, then I have begun the work of sowing, investing. If I continue to build in relationship, I will meet with them. If I meet with them, I can hope to "gather" them to God, perhaps disciple them or nurture God in their lives. This is personal. All the building and the externals are really not all as necessary as we’ve made it. Yes, in fact we’ve made all that the focus. As Dallas Willard might say, "we’re flying upside down". It is the "My ministry" mantra. We don’t have a ministry, we minister in Jesus name! It’s His ministry we are to carry on.

Yeah… that’s what I’m trying to say here!

Thanks to Kevin for his comments on "More on Church Planting":

Breaking free from our "isolated cultures" requires a lot of work and personal cost. It has been much easier to invest our time and money into a once-a-week gathering and then claim "over commitment" as an excuse to bow out of relationships that are outside the Sunday Service. Jesus principle of "where your treasure is there your heart will be also" could be applied here. We don’t place enough value on relationships outside of the once-a-week gathering, therefore our heart is not in cultivating and tending to those relationships.

As I said this is not only a failing of the institutional way, but also my own personal shortcoming that I need to break free from.

Kevin has more to say at his website here.

My last post described three key starting places for "planting churches" which is really about planting Kingdom seed into the lives of people:

1. Take responsibility for my own spiritual life.
2. Carry others in intercession.
3. Care for and disciple others.

I would like to say a bit more about this last point.

I am, again, suggesting that we are not planting churches, but rather, caring for people.  As we care for people, God builds His church.  Our part is to be intentional about loving, lifting, and discipling others (go into the world and make disciples).

But we must be careful to make "discipleship" about relationship.  Jesus didn’t just teach his disciples, he related to them, loved them, spent time with them, modelled life to them, and thrust them into ministry situations.  That is discipleship.

Discipleship begins with good, basic, simple, caring for others… caring about others… relating to others… and being available to others… over a period of time.  It’s just not that complicated.  I’m talking about the basics: listening, really listening, paying attention to what’s going on in their lives, staying connected, following up on what’s going on, checking in…  I’m not trying to program this, it’s just that we, in our isolated cultures, often miss the simple, basic human caring that is vital.  Many, many people simply do not do this.  Even though we are around people day after day or week after week, there is no interest given to another person’s life.  We must care for people by simply being interested… by caring about the things that they care about enough to be in touch with those things.

Then, we can begin to look at ways to draw them out to the next level in their spiritual lives.  This is about people, not programs.  Where are they in their spiritual life and where is God moving them to as a next step?  We help facilitate this process, we don’t make it happen.  We point to resources that might be helpful, then we watch to see if it’s the right resource.

One of the best ways to help people in their growth, by the way, is to encourage them to help someone else in their growth.  Jesus wasted very little time before involving his disciples in hands-on ministry.  Virtually every person has something to offer others and will grow more by being thrust into ministry then by learning on their own.  Whatever resources we use to help people in their growth, it’s great to encourage them to turn around and give away what they are receiving as soon as possible.

Even though we are talking about "church planting" this is what it is really about: shepherding (loving) and relationally discipling people.  This is what Jesus told us to go and do.  When this is our focus, we will begin to be surrounded by people who need a time and place for simple, powerful worship and fellowship… and, voila, churches begin to spring up.