TILL HE COMES Blog

Did you see The 2008 TIME 100 list? Every year, TIME magazine compiles a list of of the 100 most influential people of the past year, divided up into categories like “Leaders and Revolutionaries,” “Scientists and Thinkers,” and “Artists and Entertainers.”

In previous years, I have noticed that at least one pastor made it onto the list. Several years ago Rick Warren was on the list (because of his Purpose Driven Life book). I think that Rob Bell made the list last year. This year, pastor Richard Cizik got half a spot, and an Eastern Orthodox leader, Bartholomew I, also made the list for his stand on environmentalism as a spiritual responsibility. Oh, and of course the Dalai Lama was on the list, as well as the Muslim leader Muqtada al-Sadr. The person I was most excited about was Isaac Berzin, especially when I go fill up my car with gas. Every nation in the world should be sending millions of dollars to Isaac.

I believe that if we, as followers of Jesus, are truly going to be living radical, missional lives of purpose, protecting the planet, healing the abused, giving water to the thirsty, feeding the starving, inventing new and better ways of doing things, and leading the way for global change, then every year we should see more and more Christians on this list. Of course, it is quite likely that many of the people on the list are actually Christians. For example, I think I read somewhere that Craig Ventner is a Christian, and he’s on the verge of “creating” life. Crazy stuff.

I’m not trying to be imperialistic here. I just think that if Christians are trying to live the Kingdom of God, then we should be the most innovative, artistic, and creative activists on earth! We need to be the pacesetters, the trend makers, the world shakers, the vision creators.

Erwin McManus, in his book An Unstoppable Force, put it this way:

The church was never intended to be a monolith but a movement creating moments that change history. …The first century church didn’t keep up with it’s time… The first century church changed time. It rewrote history. It radically impacted culture. The church was the forerunner, not the runner up. And out of the church’s influence came the greatest art, the greatest music, and the greatest thinkers (p. 66).

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What is the best program for making good disciples? In other words, how can a person be adequately trained and prepared to be a follower of Jesus?

If you check with the local Christian bookstore, you will find that the most common way to disciple someone is to take them through some sort of discipleship manual. This book or workbook is designed to teach the person some basic biblical and theological truths as well as some instruction on basic Christian disciplines like praying, reading the Bible, attending church, and tithing. This is why discipleship almost universally takes place in a “discipleship class” and is often a subset of the “Christian education” department.

I’m not against such methods…except that they don’t seem to work. Very few people who go through such programs actually end up acting much like Jesus. If the goal of a discipleship program is to help a person act like Jesus, then our discipleship programs are failing.

Discipleship = Serviceship
The best discipleship program is one that follows the actual method Jesus used in making disciples. Did He teach His followers the Bible, how to pray, and what to do with their money? Absolutely. But unlike most discipleship programs today, Jesus always taught His followers within the context of service. They would go feed 5000 people, and then He would teach them. They would go heal the sick and then He would teach them. He sent them out two by two, and when they came back, He would teach them. Teaching was almost never isolated from mission and service.

You want life transformation to result from your discipleship programs? Add mission. Add service. Don’t just teach; obey (Matt 28:20). I have often thought that a better word for discipleship might be serviceship, or better yet, apprenticeship. How does an apprentice learn best? By doing.

All Together Now!
And this service and mission is not a later stage or second step to discipleship. It’s not (1) learn, then (2) serve. Ideally, learning and service go together. However, we often banish new believers off into the endless cycle of Bible studies so they can learn basic Christian doctrine before we let them serve. And instead of taking the class, and then going out and serving, they often just move from one class to another. They emerge thirty years later with a well-worn Bible, bloodshot eyes, and a hyper-critical, judgmental, puffed-up personality and ivory-tower attitude that is no longer useful for service.

To maintain a soft heart, a proper discipleship program trains both the head and the hands.

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In Part 1 and Part 2 of this short series on the Future of the Church, I wrote about how the church needs to escape the attractional, church-growth model of the church, and become more missional. Doing so will enable us to prepare for the world-wide reawakening of the church that is coming.

In this post, I want to focus on a process by which you personally can prepare for this reawakening.

1. You must reimagine the church as the body of Christ. Forget everything, and I mean everything, you know or think you know about the church, what it is supposed to be, do, and look like. Then, start reading the Gospels with the understanding that Jesus is showing by example and teaching with words and works how His followers are to live and act. I believe that Jesus’ life is God’s dream for the church. If we are the body of Christ, then we must be the body of Christ now as He was 2000 years ago. When people say they want to get back to the early church the way it was in Acts, I believe they have not gone far enough back. They need to get back to the way Jesus lived and acted. He is our church model.

2. Follow up this study by reliving the life of Christ. In other words, try to live like Jesus lived. But here’s the key: You can’t do this by yourself, because you are not Christ, and you are not the Body of Christ. It is only “we” who believe in Him and follow Him who are His body, and so we can only live as He lived, and do what He did, in concert with other members of the body. So, find some other like-minded people, and together, start trying to be Jesus to the world. As the body, you can help the poor, set captives free, help the blind to see, heal the sick, feed the hungry, and show people the way back to God. And I don’t mean with miracles, though I don’t rule miracles out. It is amazing what a few people can do together who share a common desire to help others.

3. Don’t revert! When people start to join with you, and your numbers begin to grow, and people start coming to faith in Christ, resist the urge to protect what you have gained by reverting to more safe and common ways of doing church. Trying to become safe and protected is the beginning of decline and ineffectiveness. I’ll let you decide what this looks like in your context.

When you embark upon this process, you’ll notice that once you are able to discard everything you think you know about church, and begin the adventure of reimagining church (step 1), your life begins to spiral upward in some new and interesting ways (step 2), which then causes you to both seek more from Scripture (step 1) but also desire to run from risk and return to what is safe and known (step 3). So this is a constant process of going back and forth between reimagining (step 1) and reliving (step 2), while warding off the temptation of reverting (step 3).

I know because I’m right there. It’s a terrifying and thrilling place to be.

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In the book Back To Jerusalem three Chinese church leaders tell about their vision that God is going to use the Chinese church to finish the Great Commission. They note that in general, the church started in Jerusalem and moved Westward into Northern Africa and Europe. While there, it experienced several cycles of awakening and decline for about 1500 years.

Then it jumped the Atlantic and for about 500 years, the church has experienced several cycles of awakening and decline in North and South America. During the time, the church in North Africa and Europe has been in steady and steep decline.

In the last few decades, we have seen the decline of the church in North and South America while the westward moving “church wave” seemed to move into Asia. These Chinese leaders have recognized this, and are making plans to send out thousands upon thousands of missionaries into the Middle East to “finish circling the globe” and so get back to Jerusalem.

I believe these Chinese are exactly right and have seen what God is doing. I have also read that the Chinese Christians are not only sending missionaries to the Middle East, but also to Africa, Europe, Australia, and North and South America.

I am not sure if there is more to their vision than just getting back to Jerusalem, but it seems to me as I watch and learn and pray about what is happening worldwide, I am beginning to see signs of renewal and reawakening in all the places that the church has been previously. I am seeing exciting things happen in Europe, Australia, North and South America.

I believe that at about the same time the church “gets back to Jerusalem” there will simultaneously be a worldwide reawakening of the church. The world will explode one last time with the message of Jesus. And then, the end will come (Matt 24:14). The return of the church to the place it started will spark a worldwide renewal of the church.

What can we do to prepare for this? Live as missionaries right now, wherever we are, and whatever we are doing. More on that tomorrow.

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Thanks to a comment by Brad on yesterday’s post, I found the Missional Church Network blog. (See? Posting comments on someone else’s blog does work! If you make comments on the blogs of others, it helps people find your blog.)

I love everything written by Alan Hirsch, and so when I saw a post containing a YouTube Video by Alan from the Exponential Conference, I had to watch it. I have embedded it below, but here is what Brad wrote about the video:

When asked about church planting in America as compared to planting efforts in the UK or his own Australian context he states that church planting in the United States is ”too bonded to the church growth movement.” He goes on to say that the church in the West has not yet adequately considered the missionary nature of the church. 

In other words we in the West are too centered on how to get our individual churches to grow, primarily through attractional means, rather than seriously considering how to think as a cross-cultural missionary focused on reaching those who have no interest in attending our church functions.

I can’t agree more. As we embrace a more missional stance to our culture, we will start to see some staggering results (more on that tomorrow). Thanks Brad (and Alan)! Here is the video:

Tomorrow I will share a vision of where I think the North American church (and the worldwide church) is going, and how you can play a part.

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Ok, I need to rant, but I’ll try to do so in love…

I listened to a message a while back by a famous pastor in Seattle who gave a message called “Building a City Within the City” in which he basically argued that God’s heart was for the city, because that is where culture and education and art and music all happen. Rural people, he implied, are trying to escape culture and remove themselves from what God is doing in the world. I remember getting quite upset at hearing this since some of the most godly people I know and have ministered with live in rural settings.

I thought about blogging about this, but then decided to let it go. I hate to be critical.

Then yesterday, I read at Chris Elrod’s blog that someone at Exponential stated that “Urban church planters care way more than rural church planters about cultural relevance…probably because they need to.” I love Chris and his blog, and he is only reporting what was said, but now I’m all fired up again! I get upset at the same sort of thinking that comes from urbanized politicians who view rural people as backward, Bible-thumping hicks. Some of the smartest, hardworking people I’ve ever met live out in the boondocks.

I pastored for five years in a rural setting and now three years in an urban setting. I can say with complete confidence that while the two cultures are very different, effective rural pastors care just as much about the culture as do effective urban pastors. And in fact, to be effective, I could argue that a rural pastor must care about the culture more than an urban pastor. Here’s why:

In a city, there are so many varieties of people, that any type of church culture will find connections with someone. In a city, even the most culturally ignorant pastor can still gather some people who like whatever “culture” is in that church.

In a rural setting however, the people are more culturally homogeneous, which means that the pastor must understand the culture to gather anybody. If a successful urban pastor tried to set up an urban-culture church in a rural setting, they would fail miserably. At the same time, if a pastor came from a rural church into the city, and brought the rural values with him, he will probably still be able to gather some people.

The bottom line is that to effectively pastor anywhere, whether in the city or in the country, the pastor  must be a student of that particular culture. Just because urban culture is more diverse (even that point could be debated!), this does not mean that urban pastors care more about cultural relevance than do rural pastors. And it definitely doesn’t mean that urban pastors care more about God’s mission and the kingdom of God than do rural pastors.

I can feel myself getting more worked up…I better quit here.

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I’ve been doing a lot of reading recently from all sides of the current “Emerging Church Movement” debate. It seems that those who oppose the Emerging/Emergent Church Movement have one primary concern/complaint. It is this:

The emerging church is headed toward syncretism. As they embrace/engage the post-modern, post-Christendom, emerging generations, all in an effort to contextualize the Gospel for the culture, they actually lose the Gospel itself, and become indistinguishable from the culture.

I find this critique highly amusing and terribly sad all the same time. Why? Christianity, as it is most often practiced today in the west, is a highly syncretistic brand of Christianity. So much so, that the average Christian in the average church is nearly identical in values and behavior from the average non-Christian. We are all given over to materialism, consumerism, greed, and selfish meism. Talk about syncretism!

The warning to emerging churches is a good warning, but it’s coming from a segment of Christianity that needs to remove a plank from it’s own eye.

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I almost submitted the following for the Blogging Tournament at PlantingSpace.com (You can see what I actually submitted by going there and voting.) I learned all of the following the hard way. At one point or another, I allowed people to be leaders based on one or more of the following characteristics, and lived to regret it.

“How to Pick a Leader You’ll Live to Regret”

1. Pick a leader based on how much money they give to the church.
2. Pick someone who has lots of influence in the city or in the church. (Note: Though leadership is influence, Godly leadership requires Godly influence.)
3. Pick a leader simply based on who wants to be one. (Note: Yes, it’s okay to desire leadership (1 Tim 3:1), but it seems that most who desire it are power hungry.)
4. Pick leaders based on who is initially very supportive of you. (Note: If they show up in church one day, and are supportive and encouraging…and want to be a leader, watch out!)
5. Pick a leader based on how talented they are at something you desperately need in church (like music, or children’s ministry).
6. Pick a leader because they talk a lot about their leadership skills. (Note: Leaders listen more than they talk, and are not proud or boastful.)

Now, after weeding out leaders with these seven “disqualifiers” if there is anybody left in our “potential leadership pool” Congratulations! You’ve found your leader!

And always remember…it’s okay to be “leaderless.” After all, if we have no leaders, it forces us to look to Jesus as our leader. And He does okay.

P.S.  If you are looking for leaders, the best place to look is in the silent servants of the church. Who shows up and just serves, not looking for recognition or glory? These may make you best leaders. We have ”Servant Leadership” backwards. We think that ”servant leadership” means that leaders should serve. Actually, when we look at what Jesus teaches about “servant leadership” He is saying that servants should lead and that leaders should be taken from the servants. So you want to find leaders? Look to the servants.

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We’ve all heard of Joel Osteen and Lakewood Church which I hear averages over 30,000 people on a weekend. I think this is the largest church in the United States. His sermons are on television and his book, Your Best Life Now has sold 3 million copies.

But Joel does not have the largest church in the world. Most give this “honor” to David Cho and his Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul Korea with about 830,000 members.

Of course, when it comes to buildings, nobody can top the most expensive church, The Basilica of our Lady of Peace in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). It cost $300 million to build. It also is recognized as being the largest by floor area (30,000 sq. meters!). I hear that it has it’s own airport. Top that one Joel!

But has anybody heard about “Uncle L”? He has no formal seminary education and no advanced degrees. You won’t find his sermons online, on the radio. or on television. He hasn’t written any books. He doesn’t have a website, or even a blog. He didn’t raise funds to help plant his church, in fact, his church doesn’t even have a central building. There isn’t even a church budget. He doesn’t have dozens of staff members. He is is not a “Type A” personality, with great leadership abilitites. He would fail most “church planter assessments.” No big deal, right? That’s true of a lot of pastors around the world.

True, but Uncle L is the “lead pastor” of a church of 3 million people. Yes, 3,000,000. (See Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, p. 150).

Uncle L is a soft-spoken, unassuming, older man, who has been to prison several times, and is quietly leading the greatest movement of Christians the world has ever seen.

So why haven’t you heard about him? He’s a church planter in China, and is only one of scores upon scores of such “successful” planters in that country. If they could read our “church planting books” and attend our “church planting conferences” and see that most of our planters want to spend several million dollars to have a church of 10,000, they would probably be amazed at how low we’ve set our sights, and how little we accomplish with so many resources and such amazing structures.

Maybe our resources and structures are part of the problem.

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I recently read John Burke’s book No Perfect People Allowed. This is another book that every Christian should read. In the book, he makes the statement that we no longer live in a postmodern era, we now live in a post-Christian era (p. 15). Apparently, Christianity has already lost the war against postmodernism. (I personally don’t think it was a war that ever should have been waged in the first place. Christians are to engage, embrace, and redeem culture, not fight against it.) In his book, John Burke explains how the church can operate and function in a culture that is “post-Christian.” I think he is exactly right on.

Ironically, as I was reading this book about how to live as Christians in a post-Christian era, I ran across an exchange between atheist Christopher Hitchens (who wrote the best-selling book God is Not Great) and Suchin Pak (correspondent for MTV news). She announced to him that our culture was becoming increasingly Christian. She said, “Our audience is more religious and conservative than we assume.” Hitchens replied, “I really hate to hear that the young are becoming more Christian. If that’s true, that’s the worst news of the night!”

So here we have two leaders, neither one being Christian, both coming to different conclusions about our culture. One says we are post-Christian, the other is alarmed that we are becoming increasingly Christian. I guess it’s like the debate over global warming. Some say the polar ice caps are melting while others, who note that this it the coldest year in a century, are predicting a new ice age.

So what do you think? What have you observed in your community and with your friends?

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