You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2008.
People are posting their “Top” lists for 2008. Here are a few I thought were good:
Broken Stained Glass: books, blogs, music, & films
Steve McCoy/Reformissionary: books, photos, and Calvin
Stephen Murray: books, blogs, etc. (love the emphasis on Athanasius)
Review of Greg Beale’s We Become What We Worship: a biblical theology of idolatry
A number of years ago I attended a brown bag discussion with Tim Keller on Preaching, which followed the now famous Gordon Conwell Preaching Lectures on Preaching to the Heart. During this discussion Keller shared a number of extremely helpful thoughts for young preachers. One on his points was that young preachers won’t find their voice until they have preached 200 sermons, so don’t be so hard on yourself! There are, however, a number of things we can do to improve as we struggle to find our voice and reach the “200 mark’! My friend Josh Otte recalls that discussion and posts more of Keller’s advice here.
I’ve appreciated Frost & Hirsch’s previous writing, their willingness to look at Jesus, community, and mission from a fresh perspective. Although I struggled through The Forgotten Ways, I definitely found the struggle worthwhile. ReJesus offers the same fresh perspective but from a much better pen. Either Frost or Hirsch have improved in their writing ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church!
The thesis of the book is that the Western church has overlooked the wild side of Jesus and under-emulated it. Sounds like Wild at Heart repackaged, but hardly!Attempting to retrieve the humanity of Christ, they build upon the theological foundations of imitatio Christi, the imitation of Christ. The notion that we should imitate Jesus was jettisoned from theological reflection for several centuries due to its moralistic overtones. Frost & Hirsch seem to be aware of these dangers, but it will be interesting to see how they relate their thesis to Chalcedonian christology.
In order to sufficiently reJesus the Church, they propose a three-fold focus (and take us on a Latin tour!): missio Dei, participatio Christi, & imago Dei. They write:
Those taken captive by the sight of Christ must be prepared for a reintegration of the theological concepts of missio Dei, participatio Christi, and imago Dei. These three concepts are foundational for a rediscovery of missional practice in our time. They are also foundational for us to reJesus the church in the West.
They go on to claim that a fresh perspective on mission, Jesus, and church will release Christianity into a renewed level of impact. I’m excited to keep reading but concerned about some of the conclusions. Already they have mixed theological concepts that are at odds, affirming total depravity in one breath and prevenient grace in the next. Hopefully thier missiological creativity will not outpace theological integrity!
In an effort to recenter church methods debate back onto the gospel, I recently proposed that we should be debating the strength of our gospel, not the effectiveness of our methods. There are varieties of methods from organic house church to attractional mega church that have been used by God to advance the gospel. But what kind of gospel?
The 50/50 Gospel
I attempted to answer that question by suggesting that some church methods operate on a 50/50 gospel, an understanding of the good news that relies on 50% of our behavior and 50% God’s grace. This gospel assumes that people are good enough to chose Christ but that they simply need to be reminded how good Christ is. Broken marriages, patterns of sexual sin, deep-seated anger, and financial hardships are primarily the product of our failure to behave like Jesus. Enter the Church. The church can reminds us, exhort us, even train us to be like Jesus, to make good moral decisions, not bad ones. We need the grace of God’s example and a faithful commitment to behave accordingly. This is the 50/50 gospel, and it is anathema.
50/50 Concoctions: Morality, Community, & Mission
The 50/50 gospel relies, not on the power of grace, but on the power of morality. As a result, the Church becomes a half-way house between our moral failures and our moral successes. We rehabilitate our decision-making under the faithful instruction of a faithless institution. But the 50/50 gospel is sometimes mixed differently. Try 50% mission, 50% grace. We need the grace of Jesus example and the goal of Jesus mission. In this concoction, churches serve as a inspiring non-profit, moving us from missional failure to missional success. We soften our social consciences under the weight of a missional institution. And then there is the 50% community, 50% grace combo. We need the grace of God to become “like the early church,” to have real community, to jettison our individualism in order to truly become “the church.” The gospel becomes a quick-fix to our lack of community.
100 Proof Gospel
Each concoction of the 50/50 gospel is actually quite dangerous. They propose that churches should attract as many people as possible to their moral-laden messages, missional activities, and communal experiences. The goal of the Church is reduced to converting people to a better way of living, not to better God to be believing. What we need is a gospel that is 100 proof grace, the work of Spirit to violate our dulled taste for what it good, true and beautiful and to get us drunk on God. We need more than changed behaviors; we need changed hearts, new affections, from which a life of worship flows. We need churches that are more concerned about pointing us to the multi-faceted splendor of Jesus Christ, than the innovative ways we can be the church through community or mission. What we need is 100% gospel.
The Austin Stone and Acts 29 are hosting a Missional Community Leadership Conference on Feb 6-7 at Great Hills Baptist. This is the kind of conference that is long overdue and will deliver on Gospel, Community, and Mission for the practitioner.
Main Speakers:
Matt Carter: Leading your Community to spiritual health
Darrin Patrick: Leading your Community to gospel repentance
Alan Hirsch: Leading your Community to missional discipleship
Breakouts:
There are too many to list, but include topics like Missional Leadership, City-wide Networking, Discipleship, Communication & Conflict.
In recent posts and comment interaction we have tried to expose a certain fruitlessness in the debate regarding church planting methods. To a degree, this debate ignores what is most critical in church planting—our understanding, articulation, and embodiment of the historic gospel of Jesus Christ.
Are methods entirely untethered to gospel? Are there certain, more biblically faithful understandings of the gospel that will produce certain, more theologically faithful churches? If so, what about the gospel needs to be debated? What misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the gospel are we in danger of succumbing to?
In his newest book, Christless Christianity, Michael Horton argues that it is a semi-pelagian understanding of the gospel that most endangers the American church. He claims that American Protestantism has been dominated by semi-pelagianism, what I’ll call a 50/50 understanding of the gospel—we are saved by fifty percent grace and fifty percent works—God’s assistance in our choosing.
This gospel unabashedly undermines the doctrine of original sin and total depravity. We aren’t enemies of God; we’re just wayward souls in need of redirection. But did Jesus die merely to redirect meandering people? Surely his teachings would have sufficed to correct our wayward morals. No, Jesus died to atone for our high treason, both inherited and enacted, against the Lord of All. We have deliberately refused holiness and sought therapy for our sin sick souls. If we are not truly sinners and need just the divine assistance of a kindly Christ, then the gospel is reduced to moral rehabilitation and spiritual highs.
How does a 50/50 gospel affect church planting? A fifty-fifty gospel will produce a thrifty, nifty church. Like a church building I pass every time on my way to Dallas, we will end up offering “30 minute worship, guaranteed!” Harmless, cheap, convenient, or your money back guaranteed. A 50/50 gospel will inevitably lead to no gospel at all and a church that is reduced to attracting people interested in an occasional dose of moral redirection and a quick spiritual high. We will produce addicts not disciples, events not churches.
In the end, a 50/50 gospel will result in churches that are mainly services, places where the weary moralist turns up for a fresh filling of “you can do its” in order to continue tickering along in his own strength for his own goodness. This kind of gospel is worse that diluted gas. The human engine will putter along without ever knowing the difference between 100 proof gospel and 50/50, puttering all the way to hell. If the American church is to faithfully embody the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will have to get our doctrine of sin and grace right, not just in our preaching but also in our planting.
The Q&A below is intended to provide some answers and stir up more insight regarding some burning questions in the current debates on Sunday gatherings, missional communities, and diaological preaching. This Q&A is adapted from an email exchange I had with Mike Edwards, who kindly lent me his permission to do so.
Dialogical vs. Monological Preaching
Mike: Where are the theological/biblical roots for monological preaching?
Jonathan: The Bible does not sanction one method of delivering God’s word over others. In fact, it advocates a variety of ways, monologue being just one of them. See the monological examples of Peter and Paul in Acts 2, 4, 17, and so on. Paul’s letters, which were read aloud were monologues, homiletical deliveries. Throughout the epistles we are told to preach, teach, correct, rebuke which strongly connote a direct address, not so much a conversation. However, I am open to and use dialogical approaches in different settings. Paul used dialogue in the synagogues, with individuals (Lydia), and even on Mars Hill.
The key here, I think, is to minister the Word diversely in ways appropriate to context and audience. Monologue has served the Western church well for some time in a post-Enlightenment, post-Gutenberg age. Yet, with the shift of the center of Globally Xty away from the West to the South and the East, and increase in postmodern values of conversation, changes in technology to visual, aural, and vibration experiences, dialogical increasingly makes cultural sense.
Missional Communities vs. Sunday Gatherings
Mike: If you start your church on missional communities, why have a larger gathering? What does that look like for your church?
Jonathan: Similar to my statement above, the Bible doesn’t sanction any one way. We need to have a dynamic ecclesiology that allows for contextualization; there are many biblically faithful ecclesiologies. That is the brilliance of the gospel and the incarnation; its translatability into community and culture. We started City Groups (Missional communities) before we started the weekend gathering/service. That was good for our context and good for our ecclesiology, gospel-centered, community-focused, and missional.
I think a launch/service model can cultivate good community and mission, but is often more difficult to do so. In suburbs it is difficult to even get a gathering to shepherd into CGs/MCs, so the launch model offers a gathering point. Pentecost was a dramatic launch model that spun out house churches. I am glad we did CGs first and service second. It has made a HUGE difference. Gathering doesn’t need to be weekly, but it should happen regularly to maintain the marks of the church and instructions in Heb 3 & 10 of not forsaking the assembling together. Also, somehow these groups would need elder oversight and auhoritative teadching and leadership for church discipline.
It is frequently noted that evangelism is local witness and missions is global (cross-cultural) witness. Does the missional church movement erase this distinction? If everyone is a missionary, then shouldn’t local churches reach local cultures? 80% of deployed missionaries are sent to already evangelized areas. Roughly 30% of the global population is unevangelized and largely untargeted by so-called missional churches.
In other words, missional churches aren’t really being missional. They are evangelizing locally but not globally. If the missional church movement is to truly participate in the mission of God, it must engage in cross-cultural missions in order to plant churches where no local witness exists. Consider re-upping your missional for 2009 by going overseas, supporting indigenous pastors, sending a cross-cultural missionary, or targeting unreached peoples in your city or town.
For more on this see Keeping the Global in Missional
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