another perspective

restoration movement.... what does that phrase mean to you?

well, I have harped and ranted that it certainly cannot mean restoring the church of the 1950s...

if it is a grand enough vision to aspire to a restoration plea, it's gotta be that we try to restore the church of the 0050s...

but a good friend and partner in the Way recently shared his perspective with me, and I gotta say it made sense. At the very least, it made me rethink the whole idea.

If the restoration plea is one which purports to re-establish the early 1st century church, there is a problem or two with that.

as an example, my friend revealed to me that - in order to return to that Acts 2:42-47 model, we would have to live in that time. and, simply stated, we just don't.

we wanna say that a strong sense of community is what we need, what we want. But honestly, when was the last time someone was dragged away from your small group and thrown in jail?

When was the last time you were meeting in your home church and had to get quiet all of a sudden so that you wouldn't be heard talking or singing about Jesus?

Has anyone ever asked the question 'Hey, I wonder where Jim has been... he hasn't been with us in a while?' only to find out that Jim was taken from his home in the middle of the night and tortured to death for his faith?

my friend's point is simple and powerful: unless we are pressed like the first century churches, we cannot possibly understand what 'community' meant to them.

I have friends who have lived in tough places... places where it was forbidden to worship God or talk about Jesus... but most of them come home after their relatively short, temporary visits to places like China and other hostile environs.

(this is not about missionaries or foreign travel... this is about whether we can really model that first century church. here. today.)

So we would have to move our family to the far east to duplicate the kind of persecution which forged their specific bond and community.... and that sounds kinda ridiculous, right?

I don't think it excuses us. I believe we are called to be His Hands and His Feet.... I just wonder how realistic our restoration plea really is...

it's worth rethinking.

Blessings!

the God of YES!

Friends, consider this:

But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not "Yes" and "No."

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes."

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ.

And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God.

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

- Paul's 2nd letter to his friends in Corinth....

don't you absolutely LOVE that?!!???

yeah, me too!

Blessings!

routine is evil

I am a creature of habit. I love routine. I like sameness.

and that is anathema to spiritual growth and development...

simply put, routine is the antithesis of adventure.

and habit is the opposite of excitement.

and sameness is a spirit killer.

God calls you to a faith adventure, while routine calls you to comfortableness, rote memorization, liturgy and boredom... more often than not, I answer routine's call... and ignore God's.

and all of that leads me away from genuine, alive, 'Christ-community' living.

and THAT'S why so many of our worship assemblies are lifeless.... and our churches are dead or dying. because they are populated by people who are not on any type of faith adventure... instead they are filled with folks who, like me, are routine addicts. So we 'go to church' instead of 'being the church'. and, for a couple hours a week we act holy and sing the right words and recite the correct verses.... and punch the clock. and God is not glorified... He is sickened (see Amos 5) ...and we get emptier instead of filled.

our allergy to change will be our undoing.

our addiction to routine is the salve

that soothes while hiding the real illness.

and no, it's not about entertainment value. it's about challenge. it's about growth. it's about authentic Christ life. it's about letting God be in control and it's about letting His Spirit lead us...

and we are missing it. badly.

Every worship experience (public or private) should be alive, because it is supposed to be our response to the Giver of Life!

So how can we 'get out of the way' and let the Spirit lead? How can we remove ourselves and our habits so Jesus can work? What can we do to make sure God is glorified and Jesus is lifted up, and truly LIVE out our Faith Adventure?

surely there is a clue in our addiction to routine and allergy to change. for my part, I intend to run from routine and embrace 'newness' and change... maybe that's a step in the right direction...

Blessings!

portrait of authentic church

If we take all we can glean from the Bible picture of 1st century church, it wouldn't resemble our modern day church.

at all.

Specifically with respect to the account Dr Luke provides in the very last part of Acts 2, we don't even pretend to imitate most of his description:

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved"

So.... how am I doin' with that? how 'bout your 'church'... let's see:

• devoted to apostles doctrine and fellowship - not devoted, really
• communal living - no
• meeting and eating in each other's homes - occasionally
• outward focus, helping others - somewhat
• meeting daily for praise - no
• favorably viewed by the people - a little bit, maybe
• daily numerical growth - no
• 'turned the world upside down' (Acts 17:6) - hardly
  

so what do we do with that? is it important?

Maybe we could say that today's church is our 21st century version of that.

maybe... but even if we scrape away what we deem to be 'cultural' or completely unreasonable for us today, there is a LOT in the last half dozen verses of Acts 2 which we better pay attention to, right?

I mean, we gotta be more devoted and committed to the Jesus story (apostles doctrine)...

and we must have an outward focus (give to those in need)...

our addiction to our church buildings probably won't let us, but we might wanna consider the meeting in homes deal, right? (probably THE most important aspect of this whole 'authentic' thing, since building-based-religion is the antithesis of authentic 'church')

When we ask ourselves why God isn't blessing our church with the 'daily numerical growth' we read about here, don't we have to consider it's because we are not doing it right?

Does anyone have the courage to truly imitate this model? Obviously I don't. Otherwise I would stop writing and start doing!

Authentic Community is real and organic and natural. It is probably best depicted by the planting of a tree or shrub. think about it... how do we do that: I mean, how do we plant a tree or shrub or flower or squash plant? well, we cultivate the ground and place a seed in that tilled soil. we water it (or God does, if you live in Northern Arkansas during the past few days!). then... well, there's a lot of waiting... God provides the sunshine. And -remember this part - God has put in place tons of natural 'plant-growing' laws which most of us don't understand.... naturally occurring events which we have NOTHING to do with... we will do a lot cultivating... and we might clear away the weeds and keep away the critters... but God does everything else! naturally! and the plant grows.

beautiful!

Our model of 'planting' a church is so foreign to the organic 'planting' of a tree or shrub, it is unrecognizable as anything approaching 'natural'.

instead, we build a building, put our sign out, hire a preacher and, like Kevin Costner in 'Field of Dreams', we wait for them to come.

but sadly, this is not a movie... and though they do come (mostly in Pavlovian response to cultural norms, and sometimes in sincere response to the Spirit's tug to seek out 'something more'), the authentic nature of true Christian Community is never realized. ...and before long we are wringing our hands over those who have disappeared from our 'attendance roles'... we form visitation teams to visit those who have stopped coming to 'church'! And we wonder why their interest and excitement waned. (or, in an evil twist, we blame them for lack of commitment!)

and all along, we have no one to blame but ourselves... because these 'disappearers' were plugged in to religion and not to Jesus; we assimilated them into our denomination but not into authentic Christian community! We completely ignore the Acts 2 example of organic church.

all because we are trying to artificially create something that MUST happen organically! imagine trying to make the tree or plant grow faster... THAT'S what most of us are doing with 'church'. We add buildings and budgets and committees and programs... and rules to govern all that; we hire preachers and youth ministers and, oh yeah, it's time to add on or renovate the building, which affects the budget and requires more committees and rules... and probably more hiring of more people.... we argue over inane things like what songs to sing (or not sing) during our assemblies... we complain about the quality of 'preachin'... and we stagnate.... of course we do! after all, how 'organic' does any of that sound to you?

and before you know it, we are like every other 'church' in every other town in every other state in every other country in the world...

and the world remains unchanged. we are not turning anything upside down... how could we? we're doing it wrong. It's almost as if we got mixed up and decided to use the Old Testament 'church' model - Physical Temple Theology - instead of the New Testament model - Spiritual Temple Theology.

what would it look like if a dozen families committed to imitate this model for one year? if 12 courageous families devoted themselves to inviting friends (natural) into their home for food and prayer and study and fellowship....

what if, each week, those 12 'home churches' attracted (organically) a few folks to their gathering on, say, a Sunday night (or Monday evening, the day doesn't matter!)...

what if those 12 'shepherd/planters' would commit to meet with each other at least once a week to discuss weighty things about how their particular gatherings were progressing?

and, what if those 12 'house churches' decided to all meet together on Sunday for their 1st-day-of-the-week gathering and worshipped and shared and broke bread (in communion AND then a meal)?

what would it be like?

(it might look like a church which began organically with small groups; it might look like our 1st Century counterparts...)

oh, well... just dreamin'

none of us (me at the top of the list) are likely to muster the courage to actually act on any of this.

so.... see you Sunday at 'church'.

leadership (cont)

...odd thing about the Bible picture of a church elder/pastor: it is an individual portrait and not a group photo... (I understand that Paul refers to appointing elders in the plural, and I happen to believe there is good reason to have several elders.....but a shepherd - by definition - is a one-man job)...

maybe there's a reason for that: I mean do you ever read of elder's meetings in the Bible? Probably doesn't prove they didn't meet as a group, right? or does it? dunno...

but if a church elder is to look like a shepherd, we gotta ask some obvious questions, right? like:

• where did we get the idea for 'elder meetings'? (think: 'shepherd meetings')
• how did we ever begin to refer to it as the 'office of an elder'? - that sounds a lot like a political position to be 'held onto', right? (think: 'office of a shepherd')
• when did we start calling the group an 'eldership'? and why? (think: shepherdship, as in a group meeting of herders of sheep)

OK, that was maybe a bit of a tangential stretch... but we gotta admit that, in today's world, we miss a lot of the meaning behind the shepherd example, right? (do you hang out with real live shepherds in your day-to-day? me neither!)

but the people who read these letters firsthand knew. they WERE shepherds, some of them... they knew actual herders of sheep! and they would likely find humor in the idea of a 'group' of shepherds leading a flock! because they KNOW shepherding is a lonely job of one....

(again, I believe the Bible model calls for a plurality of elders, with good reason! We have all seen the negative results of SOME local pastor-led efforts... and this particular post is NOT a defense of a one-man-pastor-led congregation. But we have devolved this plurality idea into an unhealthy decision-making board of directors, which is DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSITE of the shepherd model)

Could it be that our secular backgrounds cause us to crave the safety of a 'board of directors' mentality? I know of one church (and have heard of several more) which actually has an elder 'boardroom' complete with leather wing back chairs and a massive, curved-edge, mahogany-looking table! I mean, you could not tell any difference between it and the one at the local bank! Could that be because one of these men also served as CEO of the local bank?

How can we expect THAT environment to produce ANYTHING REMOTELY RESEMBLING true shepherding? Of COURSE the group which meets in such an environment will necessarily act like a decision-making board of directors!

I challenge us all to challenge those leaders among us to aspire to a Bible model of true shepherding... one devoid of budgets and refereeing and building maintenance and decision-rendering and policy-making... one that looks, above all, to the Great Shepherd as THE model and example.

after all, authentic church will not survive without it.

leadership is not pretty.

may God Bless us as we find our way together and figure this thing out... with patience and love and understanding, yes! ...and with challenging and exhorting and Bible study.

leadership is not pretty

it is a difficult thing, to lead. In my life, I have seen leadership modeled beautifully and I have seen leadership butchered.

I have observed it from afar and been in the very thick of it.

I have seen 'visionaries' and 'idea men' who understood strategy but had no ability to plan nor carry out their own ideas. I watch great tacticians and managers - they can execute a plan flawlessly - who have no vision whatsoever.... I see quiet leaders who command respect and deserve it...and I have seen precious few who are gifted with the 'leadership trifecta': vision, strategy and tactical skills...

I have been a leader and I have been a follower.

Admittedly, I find the latter more difficult than the former. I would like to think that's because I have some God-lent-giftedness toward leading... but it is more likely some huge character flaw - like being a control freak! - that makes me overestimate my worth and giftedness. I am likely a weaker leader than I perceive myself to be and a worse follower than I need to be...

All that said, I believe I have a good idea what healthy leadership looks like. And with regard to leading a church, I have very strong feelings as to what a good leader is... most of my ideas in that vein derive from Peter's first letter, which paints a most beautiful portrait of what a church elder/pastor would look like (chap 5)... and, of course, from Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus (when taken in context instead of jerked out of it to create a man made checklist litmus test!)...

Lynn Anderson also penned a book 'They Smell Like Sheep' which should be a prerequisite for any person aspiring to lead a church.

I believe it was in this volume that I read something like this: "If you are leading and nobody is following, you're just taking a walk"

It occurs to me that there are several styles or methods men and women use to lead (most modeled after secular example)... here are a few that come to mind:

• consensus leadership - this leader will always try to build consensus, to do what most people agree would be right and good... there is sometimes persuasion involved, as this leader has some feelings as to direction, and this leader model seems pretty good and logical.... but it may sometimes result in this leader agreeing to things they personally disagree with...
• majority leadership - a close cousin to the 'consensus' model, this one also wants to do what most people want... but depends less upon persuading people and more upon reflecting what the majority 'votes' for.... this leader has fewer strong convictions than the consensus leader, and usually wants hard data to support the hue and cry of the masses, in case he is challenged.
• compass leadership - probably the most difficult model, and the least applied in most organizations today... it calls for the leader to have a strong compass which governs his heart and influences his decisions. This method requires a rare moral certitude and takes the most courage by far, because compass leading will always be offending someone - maybe large groups of someones... (I would note that history - Biblical and Secular - remembers these types of leaders as the very best ones!)
• squeaky wheel leadership - this one is weakest, because it has no compass and depends upon the negative.... and it relies totally upon volume: and more often than not, much greater attention is given to the volume (loudness) of complaints than the volume (number) of complaints... it also potentially ignores a very large group of 'constituents' who are neither negative nor loud

while there may be some good found in each of these models, they all smack of school boards and city councils and bank boards, and seem to completely miss the point of what true 'church leadership' is meant to be... at least with respect to the Bible picture of 'shepherd' leadership.

That's because church leadership is different than corporate leadership...

it is meant to be imitative of true shepherding, not bank boards. ...and I haven't seen this model very much, frankly. I have read about it, but it is rarely modeled in the church of today.

the Shepherd is the perfect picture of what churches desperately need... I mean, think of what a herder of sheep actually does...

• cares for, guards and feeds the sheep
• directs and leads and guides them
• operates from a selfless stance, always considering what his flock needs

and doesn't do:

• have you ever heard of a shepherd building consensus? Hardly
• and what kind of attention would a herder of sheep give to a 'squeaky wheel'?
• have you heard of a shepherd taking votes among his sheep about which pasture to visit or what food to eat?

of the worldly models, it would seem that a true shepherd most closely resembles the 'compass' leader, right? (Frank Viola wrote this about that: "a true shepherd-leader knows what the next step is" ...pretty simple yet insightful.)

but the most widely applied 'secular method' of 'eldering' that I have observed is the squeaky wheel model. …a terrible model for church leadership which guarantees terrible results.

for the true shepherd, however, the Word is his compass. and he gives proper weight to both the LOUD VOICE and the DEAD SILENCE of scripture...

and he spends more time tending the sheep than rendering decisions, doesn't he?

(to be continued...)

from the comfort of bondage to the blue jeans of chains

don't you LOVE the feel of your favorite pair of bluejeans?

You know the ones... they sorta fit you just right.... loose and tight in all the right places, but, above all, COMFORTABLE!


the children of Israel were held in torturous captivity in Egypt.

against their will, they were enslaved. Their freedom was taken from them.

they were forced to work long, hard, inhumane hours to make bricks for construction of whatever the Egyptian Pharaohs wanted to build.

what they were forced to endure - for generations - is almost unimaginable.

then they were liberated. By God through Moses.

you saw the movie, right, the Ten Commandments? yeah, you remember, don't you, how Moses presented Pharaoh with several chances to 'let my people go' only to have Pharaoh obstinately refuse to free his slave work force? ....all the while enduring epic-sized plagues too horrible to even think about today.

finally he relented, then reneged, then was thwarted by God when he attempted to recapture his slaves.

THEY WERE FINALLY FREE!!!!!

God uses this real-life story as a metaphor for us...I mean, the remainder of our Bible is replete with comparisons to our modern-day 'law-sin enslavement' and 'freedom in Christ'...

but the metaphor doesn't end with that, right?

because the real-life story doesn't end there....

I mean, we read in abject astonishment of the ungrateful Israelites who complain about the conditions of their new found liberty... the degree to which they complain is capsulized in the account of their outright rebellion as they build a golden calf to worship...

we scoff as Edward G Robinson portrays the chief complainer and incites people by saying things like 'at least we had a roof over our heads when we lived in Egypt'...

The entire old testament seems to be dominated by the story of His people falling away and God reconciling them to Himself.... over and over and over again, His people fall for the lie that is always told, convincingly, by routine and status quo: that IT (routine) is the way! and that IT (status quo, the old way) is the truth!

and, time and time again, God arrests His people's comfortableness to 'slap them back to their senses' and refocus them on His Way and His Will.

and we smirk at their ignorance and point fingers at their almost pathological habit of self-destruction... "how?" we wonder "how can they so thoroughly miss it? why do they keep making the same mistakes, reverting to type and returning to enslavement?... how can they be so blind that they don't see the obvious result of their addiction to the their comfort zones?"

but how similar are we?

as we are freed from the tyranny of Legalism, the ink on our release papers is not even dry before we are complaining about the conditions of our liberty and wishing again for the 'safety' of the jail cell of legalism.

so much so that we replicate the comfort of our old bondage by creating self-made chains of rules and laws which we bind on each other and everyone else... and we call it truth.

and before long we are miserably 'happy' again; steeped in the 'routine' of traditional legalism and resting comfortably in the blue jeans of 'what-we-know'...

and meanwhile God weeps for us as He sees what we could be. and He mounts plans to arrest our comfort to spur us on yet again to be His Church, His People.

We LOVE routine. We crave status quo. We want comfort.

and those things are the enemy of authentic Jesus life and real Christian community.

Thank God that the He is not only the God of Imagination and Lord of Creativity, but the Supreme Exemplar of Patience!

when will we learn?

we are free! He expects us to act like it!

right where he wants you

Ambition is great... goals are terrific... growth is admirable and necessary...

but never forget that God has you right where He wants you.

exactly, 100 per cent, no-doubt-about-it, precisely in the 'place' where He want you to be...

before time was time, God knew exactly what would be going on at this very second in time.... He knew what the political climate would be, He knew what the moral climate would be, He knew what the financial climate would be....He even knew what the climate climate would be!

and he plucked you out of all of eternity for just such a time as this!

and placed you - in His eternal plan - right HERE and right NOW!

so what do you DO with that?


ahh, that is THE question, isn't it?

when you feel like you are not 'where' you wanna be in this life, remember.... the God of the universe put you right here right now to live His Son in front of the people in your life.

that places the here and now in a little different light, doesn't it?


Blessings!

handling new information

I sell instructional software to public schools. I have been a sales rep for my entire adult life... it is my mission to try and learn all I can about my craft. So when I hear of a new idea or a different wrinkle in sales methodology, I try very hard to study it and decide if I can or should incorporate it into my sales habits... I love learning new ways to help people buy my product. and for me, it really is more than just 'selling' something. I gotta believe in what I have to offer...

nonetheless, I do enjoy learning about new sales tools.

What if I were still using the exact same method I used in the early 80s when I began my career? What if I had the attitude that I already had learned it all? what if I decided that there would never be a better way than my way? ....that there was no new information to apply nor knowledge to apply?

well, I would stagnate and stop learning and growing... and I would underachieve, drastically. and probably be looking for a different career!

while it is not exactly analogous, there is application which can be made to our understanding of God's Word and His Will for our lives...

for my entire upbringing, I was taught that God spoke to us only through the Bible, and the only way His Spirit 'led' us was through that written Word.

I now believe that not only did God indeed speak to us through Spirit-breathed Scripture, but that - according to that very Scripture, and my developing understanding of it - God's Holy Spirit ALSO indwells us and leads and guides us TODAY! ACTIVELY!

so, if I believe THAT... and THAT is NEW information to me...

what do I do with THIS NEW INFORMATION?

do I ignore it? Some do... frankly because it interrupts and upsets their previous understanding... new information invariably makes us uncomfortable...

but do we act as if this new information doesn't exist?

do we fight it? do we try and explain it away?

I believe we had better embrace it and try to apply it...

right?


God Bless us as we continue to learn and grow and change into His vision of us!

the cards, the hogs and the bombers

this is a great time of year! I love the fall... the air has lost its summer steam and has a crispness to it...

School is back in session and football is cranking up!

this weekend, my Hogs won handily and my Bombers beat Highland and my Cards took 2 of 3 from the Pirates.... life is good!

I know, Missouri State isn't very good, nor are the Rebels or Pirates... but my teams won!

Cannot wait for my Colts to take the field next Sunday against the Jags...

yep, I love this time of year!

Blessings!

what matters

so yesterday I got to spend the day with a very good friend.

We fished a little pond and caught some nice largemouth bass... we had some lunch - a barnbuster and a rack of fries at the Back Forty! - and then we waded the White at Shipp's Ferry and slayed some Rainbows...

wow what a day!

Stan is a far better Trout fisherman than I am.... but I am happy to report that I caught more bass than he did.... not sure what that means...

I am sure that it is one of those days I will not forget!

thanks, Stanley!

God Bless!

under assault... again

So you know I love to laugh, right? I love a good joke, and I admit that what I sometimes find really funny is maybe a little beyond the pale....

but I gotta say I am not laughing at this one:

"Minor-league baseball promotion cashes in on Tim Tebow's marketability" was the headline in the Orlando Sentinel late last week... the article told of a promotion by the Orlando Miracle (the local minor league affiliate of Minnesota Twins)... they planned to have a "What Would Tim Tebow Do?" night which was to be highlighted by a Tim Tebow double walking on water and the handing out of promise rings to each paid ticket holder, among other things.

Tebow, the Heisman trophy winning quarterback for the Florida Gators who has led them to 2 national championships in the last 3 years, is known for his outwardly Christian values; he speaks about abstinence, and says he is a virgin who is saving himself for marriage.... ESPN has even carried special stories showing Tim helping in a medical clinic in a Central American country...

and the 'Miracle' is making fun. openly.

I was a little heartened to hear a commentator on ESPN observe the following: "if this were ANY other religion but Christianity, there would be a public outcry, but it's ok to ridicule and make fun of Christians... where's the outrage now?"

and he's right. if Tebow were a Muslim or Buddhist, there's no way ANYONE would even THINK of having such a promotion...

I know, I know... I, too, get a little weary of every group under the sun claiming this right or that outrage... but I gotta say, this crossed the line for me.

I think it is a continuation of the assault on Christianity and, at the end of the day, on Jesus himself... it is persecution, plain and simple.

...humor is a funny thing (no pun intended)... it can easily cross the line, because it quietly marginalizes whatever the subject matter is... once you can laugh at something, it is hard to then take that something seriously, right?

it gets worse: These bunch of geniuses had even planned to have the same Tebow-stand-in perform a live circumcision on the pitchers' mound during the 7th inning stretch! I am not making this up! I couldn't make this up!

Thankfully the brilliant marketing minds from the Orlando Miracle were reigned in by smarter - or at least more sensitive people (probably sensitive to being sued, since they received certified letters from the University of Florida reminding them of the legal ramifications)... the promotion was toned WAY DOWN... they still had a character named 'TT' walk on water, and folks still got a TT promise ring...

some of y'all are probably thinking "can't you take a joke?"

yeah, I can... just not seeing any humor in this one...

Blessings!