Meekness and Turning it Over to God in Prayer

I am daily, well at least today, earning the surprising power of turning a problem over to God in prayer. For example, today I had a problem at work that I turned over to God in prayer and said, ‘God, I cannot fix this. Please fix it. I give this to you”. To my amazement, God again has done for me what I cannot do for myself. God honors when we let Him do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. This is meekness. Meekness is giving the management of what we cannot control over to the One who is the manager of the uncontrollable in our lives.

I cannot control whether a door is open in the gospel. God controls this. I cannot control other people’s attitudes and when I ask the Lord for help inthese things that I cannot control. He goes to work. This is meekness.

This is a discipline of turning over to God our anxieties and asking Him to control things that I cannot control anyway. My children’s attitudes. My friends brokenness. My wife’s happiness. I cannot control these things and this powerlessness with respect to circumstances outside my control lead me to either try to force my will on others which is evil or to give it over to God and rest or to just stress out about the problem. Only one option is righteous and there is only one path to peace in such situations. This is the path of meekness.

In business this is a big source of stress. We need to learn to spot these anxieties and what we cannot control and respond with joyful hopeful faith filled prayers to our God who loves to act for the sake of the meek.

God Bless,
brad

miles davis and john coltrane

I have tried to post this video a bunch of times. If this works , I am going to go on a musicology binge and preach the gospel of music for a bit.

My Music: THELONIOUS MONK - Blue Monk

I know I haven't been posting much though a lot has been going on. I think I will post some of my favorite music as music is such a huge part of my experience and my loves. Here is the master of masters - Thelonious Monk playing "Blue Monk". Make sure you make it through the solo. It starts around 3:00. This is the best blues ever. UNREAL. We are truly wonderfully made. Pure mastery.

Christianity and the Problem of Existence

“This is life to know God” – John 17:3

Thesis: The problem that Christianity is mandated to solve is the problem of sin. Mankind falls desperately short of the glory of God’s moral perfections. The ultimate root cause of mankind’s sin problem is his alienation from God. Both of these points are agreed upon by all Christians. But where Christians differ is in their understanding of the Gospel’s role in solving the problem of our subjective experience of life, what I am calling "the problem of existence". In what follows, I will attempt to show that to solve the sin problem we must solve the “problem of existence” or the existential problem of fear, shame, guilt, alienation, powerlessness, and hopelessness. This problem of existence is only solved through conscious contact with God. In other words, the key to solving the sin problem is to solve the subjective experience of alienation from God and not just the objective reality of alienation from God.

Where Christians Agree – Our Problem is Spiritual
As Christians, our faith is that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. The good news, the salvation, that we preach is that the Kingdom of God is at hand and that the kingdom of God addresses the true root cause of the human dilemma. Our faith is that the true human problem is not a medical problem; it is not a political problem, BUT we preach that at the root cause of all of human misery is a spiritual problem. That spiritual problem is first and foremost that mankind is alienated and separated from God, our Father and our Creator. Upon being reconciled with God, the most basic and fundamental problem with human existence is addressed and the potential at least for a better existence is within reach. All Christians agree with this most basic gospel. Human beings are objectively alienated from God and Jesus Christ has provided the solution to this problem.

Where Christians begin to diverge in both theory and in practice is with respect to the extent to which the Gospel solves mankind's subjective experience of this alienation from God and the role that our subjective experiences of God play in overcoming the problem of sin.

The Conservative Evangelical Approach to the Human Problem
Before I begin this discussion, I would like to say that I do not think the labels conservative and charismatic are all that helpful. Nonetheless, I am going to use these terms to illustrate a distinction in approaches to the faith, and I think making this distinction is important to validate the role of experience in solving the problem of sin.
Speaking as a conservative evangelical, we might approach the human problem using the following line of reasoning.
Mankind's fundamental problem is the problem of guilt. The human being is guilty before God, and this guilt is an objective fact. Our subjective experience of guilt, if we are aware of it, is the consequence of a real objective guilt. We have within us an understanding of the will of God and the law of God. The law of God is written on our hearts as a consequence of being created in the image of God. This knowledge of the moral law of God is intuitive and essential to being human. In fact, it is this claim that our moral sense is a by-product of the metaphysical reality of God that new atheists, like Richard Dawkins, contend is not a metaphysical reality at all but is merely a by-product of evolution. In other words, morality is an evolutionary imperative not the imperative of our unseen and metaphysical nature.

The evangelical answer to how the gospel meets this fundamental problem is as follows. Faith is the acceptance that we are indeed objectively guilty and through faith alone in the biblical or apostolic understanding of the crucification of Jesus Christ reconciles us with God. The result of our faith is that we are positionally or objectively no longer guilty before God. Our status with God is objectively changed. What is key to this approach to the gospel is that the subjective problem of guilt is not the real problem and therefore the subjective problem of guilt is not the aim of the gospel. If one “feels” forgiven or not is not essential. If one “feels” forgiven is a secondary benefit but not essential to solving the human problem. This benefit is at best only partially experienced in this life but will be profoundly experienced only in the life to come. Here is the key difference between the charismatic/Pentecostal Christian and the conservative/non-charismatic Christian. The conservative believes that a profound change of character occurs through faith in the objective element of the gospel regardless of one's subjective experience of forgiveness and God's love. In fact to expect a profound subjective experience might lead one away from simple faith in the objective facts.

On the other hand, Charismatic/Pentecostal Christian agrees with the objective aspect of the Christian's salvation through faith alone but the more charismatic Christian adds that the Gospel fully intends the Christian to experience their reconciliation with God subjectively or in their conscious experience. In fact, in practice the Charimatic leaning Christian beleives that subjective experience through the Holy Spirit is necessary to have a profound change of character. (Note: I agree with the connection between experience and life transformation but I do not think the profound change of character lasts more than one day at a time. I find I only act truly beautifully when I am in that instance experiencing God's immediate presence.)

In this regard, and I hope I say this correctly, I side with more the Charismatic camp of the church. This distinction is absolutely vital, and is foundational with respect to our expectations of the Gospel and our methods in discipleship. Here is where I need to say this correctly.

The most basic difference between “charismatc/pentacostal” Christians and “conservative” Christians is the extent to which they directly address "the problem of existence”. By “the problem with existence”, I mean the problem of the “feeling” of fear, dread, insecurity, guilt, defeat, and shame, just to name a few. The real power of the gospel is it’s ability to directly address one’s subjective conscious experience of life. I am firmly find myself in this more spiritual or experiential approach to the Christian faith and I intend to argue and contend for this approach as the only path to a testimony of life transformation.

The "Conservative" and the “Charismatic” Approaches to the Faith
Let’s begin to look a little at the difference between these two approaches to the faith.

Both approaches, conservative and Charismatic, see the ultimate root cause of the problem as mankind’s objective alienation from God, but the extent to which the gospel directly meets and solves a person’s existential problem or the problem of existence is quite different in the two camps. For the conservative, and again I do not like these labels, the existential problem or subjective problem is not seen as within the chain of causes and problems that the gospel is directly addressing, or, stated even stronger, the subjective conscious problems are only solved when they are ignored. In conservatiev thinking, to confess and seek a better subjective sense of well-being can sometimes be seen as selfish. Furthermore, in some conservatiev Christian worldviews, the solution to the problem of temporal happiness is only expected to be experienced in the next life. On the contrary, in more experience focused approaches to the faith, it is the subjective problem of fear and guilt and shame that the gospel is meeting very directly. If we view the gospel as directly meeting the subjective or existential problem of fear and guilt and shame and hopelessness, then our ministry and our Christian practices are greatly influenced by an approach which places such a high value on experiences of God.

The Problem of Sin
The differences between these two perspectives on the gospel become very apparent as we begin to approach the problem of sin. Christian discipleship seeks as its fruit victory over sin. (Note, I think focusing on sin is very very appropriate and helpful.) The problem that the bible commands us to address is the problem of sin. I contend that the problem of sin is only solved when we solve, day by day, the subjective problem of fear, guilt, shame, anger and all the innumerable inner problems that we encounter as living, conscious, moral beings. Fear and shame and anger and hopelessness, the dread of existence, is only met by the immediate conscious knowledge of God. To know God in our experience is life.

When we discuss as a community what we are attempting to give to the thirsty sinner, my answer is always the presence of God or “the worship experience”. For example, a person is lonely. They feel helpless and hopeless. They seek to medicate this problem through innumerable dysfunctional means. We all desperately need to feel good about ourselves and our place in life. Most human beings simply ignore these problems and medicate to some degree. This intentional ignorance is called denial. This denial works well until we decide in earnest to tackle the problem of sin.

Focusing on sin and our character flaws and shortcomings surfaces our need for a change of our inner person and profound changes to our inner motivations. Over time as we continue to battle, if we are honest, we come to the conclusion that at the root of our problems is the problem of subjective alienation from God. We live out of a deep impulse toward self-preservation. Self-preservation leads to anger and resentments and a million other fors of self-centered fear. The call to live the cross becomes to us an impossible quest. Our carnal attempts to solve the problem of sin makes us aware of our inner motivations of fear and anger. we thirst for a better more holy existence where we can say we truly live in love and freedom instead of fear and resentment. We sin because we thirst and we thirst for God. The solution to the problem of sin finds its power in the conscious experience of peace and safety that come only from God. The solution to sin is in overcoming the subjective problem of alienation from God.

If this is our approach and our understanding of the disolution to the problem of sin, then we do all we can to help people experience God directly. Our worship practices are acts of seeking God. Our confession practices are not a duty but a means to obtaining eyes to see God. Our acts of service are a means to find God in doing good work with God. All of these disciplines are means to finding true freedom from the self-centeredness that characterizes all life apart from conscious contact with God.

My experience in my personal life and in ministry is that people, myself included, only act truly lovingly and selflessly when they are immediately aware of God. I only understand grace and mercy when I experience grace and mercy from God.

Picture a broken sinner and all his dysfunction. Is there any way for this person to have a profound change of character without a direct experience of God Himself? If he is alone and fearful and shattered by trauma and shame, how can we help? We cannot. We can only help to the extent to which God is present with us. It is only God’s voice that can tell this person that they have dignity. Only God can speak to the spirit of a person.

The Woman At The Well
Jesus’ ministry to the woman at the well is a wonderful text to understand how real salvation in this life works. The woman at the well was a religious sinner. Jesus cut through all this smokescreen of religion and asked her to "go get her husband". This question was intended to surface the SIN PROBLEM. Jesus went straight to the point and surfaced the sin problem. Then, what did Jesus offer the woman to solve this need for real salvation, salvation from the practice of sin. He said… “You come here because you thirst, I give a water that if you drink it you will no longer thirst”. Thirst is a subjective sense of pain. This thirst is the subjective problem of our existence. Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit meets us at the point of the problem of our existence. The holy spirit meets us in our fear and our dread and our hopelessness and purposelessness and He fills us with a joy unspeakable. Only a subjective experience of God that meets directly our "problem of existence" that solves the root cause of our natural life. It is only this blessed inner knowledge of God that leads to victory over sin.

Conclusion
Therefore, how are we to minister? We must understand that in order to meet the real spiritual need of people, we must offer them God Himself. We give to people the subjective existential experience of conscious contact with God as the only solution to their problem. We must focus our eyes on our sin to constantly place ourselves in a place of utter dependence and need for God. We must understand that the only power that we have over sin is the power of a conscious relationship with Jesus Christ.

God Bless,
brad

Organic Church and The Starfish and the Spider

I am a very slow yet thorough reader. So reading a book is a big investment for me. I am reluctant to invest time into reading when I could spend the time with a person.

That said for me to recommend books is a big deal.
So here are two book recommendations.

First,

Organic Church, by Neil Cole. My recent posts on The Necessity of Cell Groups of Two or Three Interacting Daily and The Church or the Kingdom were reflections on this book. I will re-read this book periodically to keep myself focused on what I believe God is doing in our lives.

Second recommendation...

The Starfish and the Spider, by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom

I opened this book this weekend and so much of what this book says explains how the early church functioned. I will definitely post on the ramifications of this book and the truth about leaderless organizations that Jesus commands when He said..."call no one on earth your leader".

God Bless, brad

The Necessity of Cell Groups of Two or Three Interacting Daily

All life consists of cells. The body is made up of living cells. If the body is not made up of cells, you cannot call it a body but a machine. Any organism that is not made up of cells is not actually alive. You can have a body that has dead cells, but it is necessary to remove the dead cells if the body is to live.

Jesus made disciples in small groups or in cells. Jesus never commanded us to make churches but only to make disciples. We make disciples in the smallest group level of 2-3 individuals walking with Jesus on a day by day basis. The best possible small group structure is 2-3. This structure of smallest groups is the foundation of all living bodies or living organisms. The foundational structure of the body is small groups of 2-3 that live together on a daily basis. Any other structure in the church is useful to maintain unity for greater city-wide purposes but only the cellular level is absolutely indispensable. It is disciple. We make disciples and equip the saints by teaching men and women to make disciples in the cell group level of the smallest groups.

How I think this works, at least in my experience, is that such intmate relationships that are focused on the teachings of Jesus and living them out surface our problems. We are broken people and our brokenness become apperant if we allow people to know us on a daily basis and if we allow them to speak into our lives. It is not that small groups work in themselves but that these relationships surface and make visible our weaknesses. Couple this surfacing of problems with the covenant to give and take spiritual direction and you are on your way to desperately needing the power of the Holy Spirit.

The training of leaders is training leaders to make disciples in the smallest groups of 2-3. many men and women are not called to provide spiritual direction in larger groups like house churches but all are called to provide leadership at the cellular level. Everyone is called to make disciples and this equipping is fueled when we develop a cellular structure of disciple-making relationships. By doing this we can release leaders like Jesus released leaders. Jesus recruited his church and ALL the members of His church were released into leadership. This is true for a few reasons. Most importantly Jesus only recruited fourth soil believers. Work only with people who are willing to be disciple-makers at the cellular level. Place all our effort at the cellular level where ALL the members are being equipped to be leaders of groups of two or three. This is the foundation of the church and the focus of almost all of our attention.

So principle #1 is that the primary group where all the actual work is being done is at the cellular level of groups of two or three that interact with each other daily.

This group of cellular discipleship interacts daily in one way or another. This discipleship is daily relationship of prayer, worship, confession, and contemplation of the teachings of Jesus.

Principle #2 is that leaders are released to lead intentional discipleship relationship that meet daily. Leaders are men or women who are capable of:
1. Meeting with one or two people daily.
2. Communicating the teachings of Jesus both the Sermon on the Mount and the parables from their own experience.
3. Have a practice of daily worship and prayer in private.
4. Are able to lay hands and pray for others.
5. Are equipped to teach others to make disciples.

Principle #3 – If your church is not made up of people in smaller groups of two or three, then you are not making disciples. The purpose of the church is to make disciples. The church exists to make disciples.
1. Everyone in the church is challenged to participate in daily smaller groups of two or three and to be equipped to lead these smaller groups.
2. If it is not a distinguishing mark of your church that everyone needs to be making disciples in daily covenant relationships, then your DNA is wrong. Somehow we haven’t set an example and articulated an example of a life transformation model that works. I am convinced that the only way to get victory over besetting character defects is to live in discipleship daily. I am not saying that daily discipleship works but that daily discipleship is necessary for human beings to live in faith. Such a faith is so aware of it’s weakness that daily confession has become the means of surfacing our weakness and abiding in Christ. If there are people in your church who think the weekly meeting is where discipleship happens, your DNA is wrong. Stop doing church and start over.

Think about it for a second. Jesus said, “If your brother sins against you 70x7 times a day forgive him.” This passage is speaking out of the context of living in community and how these relationships surface our brokenness. It is this process of surfacing our brokenness that leads to walking in weakness and grace.

Principle #4 – The purpose of larger groups is to equip the members in making disciples. This is accomplished primarily through teaching the teachings of Jesus and the scriptural commentary upon the teachings of Jesus.
1. Do not attempt to do the work of the group of two to three in the larger house church meetings of individual confession and prayer for one another.
2. The larger group is to teach the apostolic teaching and proclaim testimony of what is happening in the smaller groups (i.e. on the street).

God Bless,
brad

My Son - Kurt Cobain

The Church or the Kingdom

In our community, we are continually asking, “What can we give to people?”. The answer is often that we can give them a level of community that will teach them a new and healthy way of life. When community is the answer to how we help people, the mandate is to build community and to emphasize dialogue about real life problems and the principles that are foundational to functional living. Such an emphasis is a huge step forward compared to the come to church on Sunday and then you are on your own. With people like myself that are way to damaged to make it on my own, the Sunday and Wednesday routine just doesn’t work. For the sick, authentic community is an absolute necessity to a sane life. BUT!!!, this emphasis on COMMUNITY IS NOT THE ANSWER to the “What can we give to people?” question.

Conversion to the Church or Entrance into the Kingdom
The above scenario where a new believer enters a Christian community that meets daily and studies the teachings of Jesus is a good thing, obviously, but I have no interest in converting people to Christianized social work. We must be very self-critical and precise in what are we really offering people. What we are offering people is LIFE IN THE KINGDOM THROUGH THE IMMEDIATE POWER AND PRESSENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT THROUGH FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST. The answer to the question, “What can we give to people?” must be THE HOLY SPIRIT on a daily basis. We must beware of converting people to the church.

The Real Problem with American Evangelicalism
If you are reading this article, I am assuming you are looking for more than the mainstream church has to offer. When the mainstream church honestly answer the question, “What can we give to people?”, the answer is that we can offer good programs and clear bible teaching. We may say, “We offer relationship with Jesus Christ”, but if the by relationship with Jesus Christ we mean the immediate power and presence of the Holy Spirit then the mainstream church cannot honestly testify that we offer people a life of relationship with Jesus Christ. The daily power of the Holy Spirit has not been my experience of the life of the normal church-goer. No what the church offers is programs and teaching. In other words, the church offers people church. The real problem with the church in America is that we convert people to church and not the kingdom. BUT if we in the home church, simple church, organic church simply convert people to daily, authentic church as opposed to weekly superficial church, we are merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titantic. The problem with the mainstream church, and I believe the mainstream church is on its death bed in America, is that church life does not necessitate authentic spirituality and does not model the life in the kingdom. Life in the kingdom is living daily filled with the power of presence of Jesus Christ through the daily imitation of Jesus Christ in community.

The Emphasis of the Church Growth and Mega Church Approach
The church growth approach taught pastors to make sure that all the processes were in place to assure that people have a positive experience in church. The program of the church needs to be excellent to attract a crowd. The speaker must be entertaining. The music must be excellent. The programs must be fast paced and offer relationship with nice people and the parking must be sufficient. If we do this well, people will be attracted to the church and this will expose the masses to the word of God and the gospel. In this approach, we are really converting people to church attendance. The program takes most of the pastors time. He is the director of a presentation. This approach has led to the total carnality and impotence of the church. This is not how Jesus Christ made disciples. Only true spirituality and the offer of the power and presence of Jesus Christ in our daily lives demands everything from the baptized. We have made the gospel palatable in order to baptize people into the church. Such an approach caters to second and third soil hearts. Such an approach is total folly and bears no fruit that remains. If your pastor is concerned for even one instant about the flow of the service, I contend this is completely wrong headed. Jesus sent seekers who were not totally repentant away. Jesus said things that were totally offensive in order to separate the second and third soil people from the good and pure hearts. Our goal should be like Jesus’. We should try to offend people with the demands of the cross and the kingdom life. Only the call to live in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit daily demands everything from us.

The Necessity of Community
Even when the mainstream church offers, the power of the Holy Spirit, the mainstream church cannot deliver. When a seeker comes into the church and we offer them the kingdom life through the immediate power and presence of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, we cannot deliver on this offer without daily community meetings. Jesus Christ couldn’t deliver the kingdom without walking daily with the disciples. Are we so anointed that we can deliver bread that magically nourishes people for a week at a time? It is impossible to live by faith in the immediate reality of the kingdom without daily corporate prayer and worship and contemplation of the apostle’s teachings. The corporate life models for the new believer what it means to pursue God in prayer and worship. We teach how to confess and repent in the presence of God.

I once had a home churcher ask me sarcastically, “What we have to pray for it to be church?” My answer is “No, we have to pray passionately with true authentic repentance for it to be church!!”. Church is a group of people encountering God in spirit and truth. Church is not Christian potluck. In the book of Acts, the church met daily but they didn’t meet to have potluck. People are not afraid of potlucks. People were afraid to enter the early church and be double minded. God showed up at the meetings. People got healed at the meetings. The prayer and the teaching was 200 proof Holy Spirit. A new believer will not experience the life transformation that we call the kingdom without this type of community on a daily basis.

When we answer the “what can we give to people?”, we offer them a life in the power of God. In doing this, we must offer them to be immersed in the teachings of Jesus. We must offer them corporate meetings everyday BUT if we end with principles and community and do not lead people all the way into the presence of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, we still have merely converted them into the church. We do not baptize people into the Church, we baptize people into Christ. We are offering people a daily relationship with the living risen Jesus Christ. Jesus is alive. Jesus is powerful. Jesus delivers. Nothing short of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit will deliver those around us.

God Bless,
brad

Christianity by Total Immersion

Come and Walk with Us as We Follow Christ

In this post, I am going to attempt to answer the question, “What are we really trying to do in our faith community?”. The best answer to this question is that we want to be able to call people out of the world and into the kingdom way by saying “come and walk with us as we follow Christ”.

Last night, we had a meeting at our home. There was a nice sized group of people including a family who was visiting for the first time. I am sure the visitors went away thinking “that is a pretty nice group of people” BUT...that is no where near enough. As a community, we still lack the daily rhythm to call people out of the world and into the kingdom by simply saying “come walk with us as we follow Christ. Walk with us and you will come to know what it means to walk in the kingdom of God. You will come to know freedom from sin and true happiness….”

Baptism into a Daily Way of Life
As a good evangelical, I was taught that baptism really means immersion. The application of this etymological truth was that the proper mode of baptism was total immersion. It is true that baptism best symbolizes our life in Christ when we totally immerse new converts as opposed to sprinkle them, but we throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water if we miss the real point of baptism by total immersion. The application is that discipleship into the kingdom only comes through total immersion in the new language of the kingdom life. When we are baptized, this event is a symbol of our commitment to total immersion into the body of Christ. If the church is to honor the baptism of the new convert, we must be able to offer them Christianity by total immersion.

What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander
To be able to offer the kingdom to those we meet obviously takes a very “all in” lifestyle. We often say in our community that we minister as much for us as for those we minister to. When we realize that discipleship is by total immersion it is we who must go through the change of lifestyle so we can call others to come walk with us. The every day discipleship immerses our community in the language of the teachings of Jesus. Daily encouragement makes the insecure confident. Daily immersion in discussion makes the biblically illiterate biblically literate pretty fast. The point is to be able to call others into the process, or so we are told. But the benefit we reap ourselves is so great it is hard to say what is greater the benefit we bring others or the benefit we receive ourselves.

Boldness
We often ask ourselves, “should we wait until we are very consistent and strong in our meeting frequency before we start doing outreach to others?” I think the answer to this is no, not really. It is in the asking others to join us that we are forced to be more consistent. When we say, “Meet me at my house every night at 6:00pm”, we are pretty “all in”. Now we have to play the hand all the way out. We have to start being consistent because we have commitments to others that we need to honor. This boldness spurs us on to being more and more daily.

The end of it all is that total immersion is the biblical mandate. It is the meaning of our being immersed in the body of Christ in baptism. So many find they cannot find the kingdom and yet they have no total immersion model to follow and no total immersion community to join. If we find ourselves in this situation, risk is needed. Where ever two or three are gathered is church. Find one friend and challenge each other to live out discipleship by total immersion. Once we take this first step, we will find we are not far from the kingdom.

God Bless,
brad

The Art of Holiness and Spiritual Progress

As many of you know, our family has moved out of the more institutional approaches to the Christian faith into what is often termed a more organic or simple approach. I personally prefer to speak of our move as from a more academic approach to the faith to a more monastic or intentional community approach. Our current goal is to find like minded families who are interested in living in community in such a way that meetings are available every night in homes and that in these meetings the primary focus is how to live out and practice the teachings of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit. Though I would personally never attempt going to meetings every night, it is very helpful to have meetings available every night. Currently, we have families who are committed to opening their homes on Monday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday AM and Sunday PM. The primary learning technique is to allow the close proximity of our living to surface relational, emotional, and spiritual weakness in all of us. Let me begin by saying, this new simply approach to the faith has been quite fruitful with our children. Later in this post I will describe how we do church in our home.

Why Begin Outside the Church
The Benefits of Daily Community
The current misconceptions regarding how to approach Christianity and a lack of proper language in Christian circles to explain and train one another in the methods of sanctification and spiritual progress is so acute that I find it necessary to go outside of the majority Christian culture in order to develop what I understand to be a disciple making community. One element is the understanding of the need for community. Our approach as we are practicing it today sees community as a pre-requisite for spiritual progress. In the intentional community approach, the need for skills in conflict resolution, humble confession, giving and receiving spiritual direction, and forgiveness is absolutely crucial. Community surfaces our immaturity, and our weaknesses become opportunities to learn the teachings of Jesus. This progress only happens in the context of intentional community and in an all-in approach which embraces weakness and confession. In this context, mentoring and discipleship becomes an organic characteristic of our Christian life.
While our approach to the faith takes a daily practice of community as a prerequisite to spiritual progress, we also are developing a different model to our actual meetings which focuses on the learning of practices and spiritual disciplines more than the development of a worldview. In the institutional church, we are taught that Spiritual growth comes through the listening to and sometimes discussion of concepts when in fact spiritual progress is attained primarily through repetition of certain practices. Like any other activity, Spiritual progress comes through the development of certain talents and skills. Church meetings are modeled more after a sports practice than an academic classroom. Again, Christianity is learned more like gymnastics than geometry.

Ultimately, Christianity is not a body of truths to be intellectually known but a body of practices to be learned and skills and talents to develop. I think of the Martial Arts. In the Martial Arts, skills are learned, a certain type of kick or a certain type of stance. Or we could use the analogy of ballet. The result is a dance but the method of learning is repetitive practice of skills. Then the skills are put together like sentences in a story and the dance is developed. Church then is to be modeled after a ballet or Martial Arts lesson where we learn and practice skills as opposed to an academic exercise where we discuss and learn truths.

Our Family Church
In 2006, we began doing church differently. Though we have always led “small groups”, recently we began doing church in our home using a model where doing church was learning a skill and not a set of truths. To know Christianity is to know how to live a certain way in imitation of the life of Jesus Christ and not to develop a worldview or a theological system. It is difficult for me to explain how revolutionary this approach has been.

We began by asking ourselves what skills do we find essential to living a morally beautiful life. The conclusion we came to, my wife and I, was the practices of prayer and worship. Ultimately, it is affection and encounter with God Himself that is the foundation of all holiness and commitment to the ethical commands of Jesus Christ. If my children learn worship and pray, then I can trust the Holy Spirit to mold their affections.

So we are teaching our children not about prayer but actually how to pray. As a specific skill, we have been teaching our children how to use silence to adjust our attitudes and enter into worship and thanksgiving, reflection and confession, and preparation and petition. We begin in silence and thanksgiving. Next, we work together on some project like practicing music. In the course of the “band practice” there will inevitably be some conflict. After the band practice, we use the conflict as a teaching point to reflect on the teachings of Jesus. After discussion, we return to prayer and confess our weaknesses humble ourselves. This always ends in a wonderful time of worship and joy. We close by praying for the rest of the day and any people we are planning to meet that day.

The church time becomes a model of the daily cycle of morning prayer, daily work and evening reflection and worship. Our goal is to live this daily cycle every day and to teach this spirituality to our children.

So far, we are seeing spiritual growth both in ourselves and in the other folk who are taking this journey with us. We are hoping that as we learn this model through a few years of practice that we can bring our approach to the faith to those in the institutional church that are seeking to become and to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

Stuff We Ought to Know – The Fact-Value Divide under the Totalitarian Rule of Detached Objectivism

Recently there has been much talk about a war of civilizations. But, in many ways, a vital yet subtle war on human experience has been raging over the last 300 years. I consider myself a proponent of science but, at the same time, I find it essential that Christian thinkers learn to put science in its proper limited place. What is needed in our time, as much as anything, is a new popular understanding of what it means to know and what it means to have assurance regarding truth that resides outside the realm of detached objective fact.

Science, which over the last 300 years has become the dominant approach to knowing and learning, due to its detached and purely objective nature, de-emphasized as non-factual all human claims to knowledge which motivate commitments and statements of relative value.

If we were to be truly objective and placed no particular value on one reality over another, we would not even give a second thought to the study of human experience and the history of mankind as our planet is less than a speck in the context of the entire cosmos. But no one lives as if man is inconsequential because living at this purity of objectivity is absurd. Detached objectivism does not resonate with human experience and therefore, science is an incomplete method to come to know all there is to know as a human. The difficulty is in defining and justifying a epistemological system that does not end in the quagmire of doubt and nothingness of subjectivism.

The Copernican Revolution

The gravitas of the Copernican Revolution cannot be underestimated. In developing a mathematical model of the cosmos which proved to be true and yet was counter to human experience which sees the cosmos moving around the earth, Copernicus and his legacy inadvertantly set at odd the facts of detached scientific theory and the often deluding perspective of human experience and thus began the separation of fact and value. It is this separation which has relegated the pursuit of meaning and value to the realm of fantasy and has only permitted objective fact to be raised to the level of knowledge. Our values and perceptions are to be doubted as subjective while only objective fact, which can be proven without any regard for the experience of the knower, is to be given the honor of being called knowledge. We only know fact. All else is fancy. The public discussion of one’s personal commitments and wisdom to guide one’s experience became old-fashioned, bigoted, and private. Such commitment in that they are considered non-scientific are seem in public dialogue as subjective and therefore unworthy of value and commitment. In fact, such commitments are seen as dangerous and reactionary. The root of this response against personal value and claims of knowledge regarding things which are not scientific or purely objective is the result of the wholesale embrace of detached objectivism or science as the sole path to assured knowledge. The problem is human beings do not live in a detached manner. Life is experienced in the realm of commitments to things that we value and have affections for. Is all that is human living to be considered delusional or is there something incomplete and even debilitating about a detached and purely objective definition of legitimate claims to knowledge? But is there another approach to knowledge and a another approach to what is considered valid commitments to knowledge which can bridge the gap between human experience and objective reality? Is there a view of knowledge which can capture both the objectivism of science and also give validity to the commitments human beings hold as precious and valuable?

The Very Real and Historical Conflict between Previous Held Values and Supposed Objectivism

The power of the Copernican Revolution has so resonated with the public consciousness as to empower revolutionaries in all areas of life. The errors of human perception as codified in the Ptolemaic system became symbolic of the need to overthrow the entire system of human commitments and sentiment.

National Socialism and Fascism

It is precisely the unbalanced approach of pure objectivism which empowered the arguments of Hitler and his national socialism. To the public mind of mid020th century Germany, Hitler’s rhetoric was overwhelmingly compelling. The objectivity of Hitler’s revolution was argued as follows:

Does not reason tell us that survival goes to the fittest and the mightiest? Is not it merely human sentiment which holds a nation back from forcing its will on others and promoting its own survival? If mankind is to progress, we must no longer be held back by the sentiments of our values and commitments. Is it not our weakness and unwillingness to force our will on others which has led to our present suffering? If we as a people unify under the leadership of our monarch and as one force the national will upon the weak, we will survive and ultimately promote that which is truly good, our strength. Nature tells us that this is the true facts of life and all silly values which impede the power of our will must be crushed. Did not these values come to us from the weak who could only use these deluding ideas of sentiment for there own survival. The strong must live by the standards of the strong and remove from the face of the earth all these sentiments which only serve to protect the weak at the expense of the prosperity of the strong.

World War II was in many respects a battle between the commitments of the American and British nations on one front against the cold detached objectivism of the German Will to Power. The fact is that American and British commitments to a vision of life, an aesthetic, emerged victorious over the detached objectivism of National Socialism. We must ask ourselves why these sentiments survive through the centuries. It is said that facts are stubborn things but it must be accepted that human values and commitments to values and affection for beauty historically have proven still ore stubborn than detached objectivism.

Marxism and the Cultural Revolution

The Copernican revolution empowered in many ways all the ill conceived revolutions of the 20^th century. In the scientific naturalistic socialism of Marxism, all the commitments of the past were described not as the products of inferior or weak races, as in Fascism, but as the commitments of the upper classes to control the instincts of the masses for power and survival. Religious commitments to moral beauty were ridiculed as the opiate of the masses and as the oppressive instruments of the bourgeois. Marxism like National Socialism was surely a result of the one-two punch of the Copernican and Darwinian assault on human sentiment and religious commitments. Ideologies, under Marxism, were the tool of the ruling classes. All previously held ideologies, especially non-scientific commitments, were to be forcefully destroyed. The result of this detached objectivism, which pitted the survivalistic facts of life against all forms of human value commitments and sentiments, was the murder of all the religious, artistic and creative elements of those societies ruled by the totalitarian despots of scientific naturalism.

Is not our current Western culture experiencing a similar despotic reign of fact over value? No longer is a spokesman granted authority from one’s appeal to a common knowledge of what is beautiful. To allow oneself the indulgence of moral commitments is seen as self-deluding. We have become intoxicated by the bitter pill of detached objective fact. In so doing, we are unable to appeal to the values that we all know but have been deemed unspeakable.

What is needed is a new definition of what is considered valid knowledge? Such an epistemology must restore to its proper place personal commitments and affections for moral values and sentiments which are seen as universally beautiful by all sane actors. The pursuit of knowledge is the product of personal commitments to beauty and personal affections for the precious. It is this appeal to the universally beautiful which granted authority to the words of our heroes. Martin Luther King is a quintessential iconic example of the unabashed appeal to beauty and sentiment that maintains authority in the public consciousness. Dr. King boldly proclaimed the values to which we all hold commitments.

As the keepers of such commitments, we the faithful must hold in our arsenal a defense for these commitments as valid knowledge and as Truth. The preservation of all that we hold dear and all that we value relies on us who defend moral truth to equip ourselves with a defense against the bigoted epistemology of detached objectivism. istorVery

Christmas and the Generosity of God

This Christmas season I have had more than a few conversations with Christians who are anti-Christmas. It is true, Christmas has become pretty twisted. It seems to have become a celebration of greed and over indulgence. People speak of how to deal with the stress of the season. There is so much obligation to give to the greedy and prepare for the over indulgent that the giver can become quite over whelmed. So to some the option is to well, skip Christmas.

Not me. I like Christmas. As for me and my household, we will celebrate Christmas. The question is with all the twisted nonsense of a world gone to Nordstrom’s, “how can we keep Christmas spiritual?”. The key is to stick to the theme.

Don’t Get All Holier than Thou About Christmas
Some in attempting to keep Christmas spiritual teach the moral lesson that it is better to give than to receive. Of course it is true that it is better to give than to receive. But this moral lesson is not the message of Christmas. Neither is the message of the cross that we ought to love our enemies. The cross is about God’s love and perfect atonement for our sin. So too, the theme of Christmas is that our God is a generous and gift-giving God. God gives good gifts to His children. He sees our need and he provides salvation and wisdom and friendship. On Christmas, we celebrate God’s extravagant generosity.

The moralizing crowd, that tries to focus on the better to give than to receive principle, focuses on charity on Christmas. They say, “we all have so much. How about giving to the needy on Christmas?” Nice thought, but to this I say, “The poor you have with you always. There are 364 days to give to the poor. Give to the poor on those days. But on Christmas celebrate God’s generosity. Celebrate the singing of the angels to the shepherds. Celebrate the satisfaction of Simeon and Anna. Party and give good gifts to your children. Put up decorations and lights and make festive. Drink a little wine and eat a feast, for God is good and generous and there is a time to celebrate His gift giving.

So tell your children and tell them often: “During Christmas, we celebrate God’s generosity to us. We give good gifts to our children because our God gives good gifts to His children. We honor God by being happy and enjoying ourselves. And we worry about the dishes and the credit card bill – tomorrow.”

Merry Christmas

brad

Small Opportunities to Learn the Cross

A Note Before I start:
I realize I have not been posting much, but, WOW, we are having a great time in our new faith community. My current thinking on discipleship is around taking up our cross in the small things. As a community, we are meeting in church Monday, Wed, Thursday, and Sunday. These are very relaxed natural meetings of families, in homes, which involve our kids and are bearing great fruit. We all feel like we are closer than ever to having a culture that is heavenly and a wineskin that effectively teaches the ways of Jesus. Speaking of the ways of Jesus...

Small Opportunities to Learn the Cross
One of the big problems in learning discipleship is to miss the endless small opportunities to practice and learn the cross. We often expect something special and noticeable but the cross is first learned in a silent unnoticeable way.

Just this morning, I was car pooling with a friend and I was aware that I had not been practicing the cross with much intentionality this week. So I asked for an opportunity to learn from Christ. Immediately, I noticed how much we speak about other people in our work place. We are constantly complaining about people. To be aware of the insidious activity of “self”, we must have discernment. By simply becoming aware of the normal worldly talk and how it is harmful to other a whole new world of discipleship opens up to us. When this world is seen by us, we find we have to practice the cross all day. We are now practicing the cross for many hours every day. We will soon become quite proficient in the basic exercises of the cross. If we become aware that all talk that speaks poorly of another person or group of people is simply a violent activity of the flesh or the self, we will see before us a whole new world of walking in the Spirit, a way that is contrary to the desires of the flesh.

Here is a small matter or so it appears but, in reality, by holding ourselves to a standard of perfect love with our speech, we find an entire new way of life. If we say to ourselves that only speech that builds others up is acceptable, we find often 100 repetitions a day of denying ourselves and taking up our cross that we never saw before. If we now make it sinful speech to tear down another person, especially if they are not present, we will begin to notice how unclean our speech really is. We as Christians understand that we are not to curse. We are not foul mouthed, but what really is a curse? Is slang cursing or is complaining about another persons work ethic or reliability or character? We are cursing when we are not blessing a person. If that person was present would he or she feel blessed and built up or would he find the need to defend himself?

Our Lord has not taken us out of the world that we might be lights. It is in loving speech, perfectly loving speech, that blesses the good and the bad where we are given almost moment by moment opportunities to shine.

brad

What to do with our Luxury Time?

Let’s just pretend that you had the opportunity to have a great deal of free time for the rest of your life. Let’s say that you paid off your house or ran a business that did not take up all your time, and, therefore, you had time during the day that could be used according to your discretion. This is the plight of the retired or the well off financially. Let’s say that your free time can be any time during the day. For example, let’s say that you could be free from noon to 4:00pm every day. Maybe, your free time would be from 8:00pm to midnight. The point is that you have a significant portion of every day in which you have no absolute obligations to either make money or to the family. The question is “what would you or I do with the time?”

Daily Luxury Time!!!
The daily cycle.
In our daily cycle, we have some discretionary time. We may think we do not have any free time at all. But this is not true. We all have free time. Creating free time during the day is vital to a healthy daily cycle. The question is what do we do with our discretionary time. Do we relax? Do we tend to the garden? Do we read? Do we pray?

Some of us have more than others. If you are reading this blog, you have discretionary time, and you are using it quite wisely I might add. If you are retired or work for yourself, you probably have more discretionary time than most. So what are we to do with this time. I have been thinking about this a great deal lately.

So let’s take a little stroll down fantasy lane and consider, what would we do if we have four hours a day of luxury time?

First what do most people (worldly) people do with such luxury time?
Do Nothing
Most people either completely waste this time by relaxing. Most relatively wealthy people simple work a shorter day and slow down the pace of life. They take longer meals, get ready for work a little slower, come home a little earlier, stop at an acquaintances on the way home, take longer to prepare the dinner meal, etc.
Exercise
Most people couple this more relaxed pace with exercise. Exercise is the luxury of the rich. Looking good is the luxury of people with too much time on their hands. Many people take up a sport like golf or tennis. Today, people with luxury time often “work out” or go to the gym. Some people, knowing that extended aerobic exercise is the key to long life take up running. This is my personal tendency. I love to run long distances. Running is truly one of my joys in life though for the last fifteen years I have only been able to run like once a month.
Fiction Reading
These first two options in my mind are almost always pure hedonism. Admittedly exercise is a somewhat virtuous means to a virtuous end of living longer but a great deal of the motive is to look good and feel good which is total worldly motivated status driven hedonism. So in an attempt to better oneself and appear at least somewhat seeking something valuable people often pass the time by reading fiction. The rich join book clubs. We sit together and appreciate good art. Even as I write this I start to get nauseous. Somehow the ability to appreciate culture is seen as virtuous. This option feeds only our aristocratic pride. I can almost understand the motives of the Cultural Revolution. If I didn’t do my resentments inventory on a regular basis, I imagine I would be a mass murdering leftist revolutionary.

Next we get to options that I personally would consider.
Becoming an Intellectual and a Writer
I have on my self many very interesting books that I have not had the time to read. I have cracked the cover of many Daniel Boorstein books. I read Dave McCullough to my children. Here is the strange problem with becoming an intellectual (assuming one has the gifting). It is so much easier to be a pundit and commentator of history and the changing world than to be an actual doer. The world has too many books as it is. This is my conviction. One more great book is not going to solve the problems we face. It is helpful to write a book that chronicles one’s work in life. I appreciate “Organic Church” or Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Church” because these books are written after the work was done and are summaries of lessons learned so far in ministry. I can see writing a book like this but not until I and our church has learned how to expand the kingdom in our sphere. Then we can write a book that memorializes the lessons we have learned. But to write pure theory without practice, this is pure punditry and the world has far too many armchair quarterbacks. Whoa to any of us who say we know but do not do. So though I would love to write books, writing about the kingdom without doing the kingdom is of little value and holds little authentic wisdom.

Becoming a Student of Music
I love music. I cannot listen to music and talk at the same time. I am completely carried away by music when I hear it. In fact, I cannot do much of anything at all in life because I am so carried away by music that is only in my head most of my waking life. If I am not lost in thought; I am lost in music. Now, I can justify becoming a student of music and learning to play music with more excellence as a mean to mission. I love to party and play music at parties. I think music is a good means to inspire. Music is a good form of preaching and teaching. If we are both musicians and poets, then we can lead people to good works through music. Music is a step closer to doing than purely being an intellectual because music is played in the world. So having a good band and writing music is pretty close to a valid use of one’s luxury time. I would love to and I very well might become a student of the guitar. I am not a good solo note guitar player. Becoming a good solo note guitar player and using this to write music and preach through music and becoming more involved in evangelism and open air preaching through music is a pretty virtuous use of my luxury time. But only if the mission is actually being accomplished in the music. If the music doesn’t go out to the world, then the whole exercise is pretty self serving. So working on the sound of the band is a good option.

Becoming a Student of Jesus using Western Methods
By this I mean making it my life work to know and teach the words of Jesus. Let’s again imagine we have four hours a day of free time and we use this time studying the words of Jesus and teaching them to others. Would it not be a great work of devotion to spend one’s life being immersed in the words of our Lord. Ought I spend my life in contemplation of the cross and the words of the crucified savior. As John Piper is a student of the reformed approach to the bible and is a champion of a God-glorifying God-centered worldview, my passion is the teachings of Jesus. Would it not be an act of devotion to be the John Piper of the person and work of the Crucified Savior. Think if every person in the church spent the majority of their luxury time as a student of the words of Jesus and equipping themselves to teach others the way of the Messiah. It would but for one problem. Our emphasis in how we learn needs to be not through contemplation first but doing first and contemplation second. Here is the western problem. We teach the theory first and call this knowledge. Instead we should learn through a cycle of instruction in doing, practice of the principle and then contemplation and reflection. Which leads me to the highest use of one’s luxury time.

Worship
I know some people who would spend this time in contemplation of God. It is said of A.W. Tozer that he spent six days in heaven and one day telling us how it was. Surely, the knowledge of God is foundational to doing any actual spiritual good if like Piper says “God is the Gospel”. Is it possible to do any spiritual good if we do not know God intimately? Certainly at least a part of any time we have at our discretion needs to be spent in devotion to God and contemplation of His person and work.

Community – Being the Church
Lately in our faith community, the topic has been in what ways does living as community require death to self. In many ways, living in intentional relationships is an option which we take as opposed to just relaxing. We say I could just hang out at home or I could bring the family over to the Jones’. We take these intentional steps because by cutivating community with the Jones’, we create an environment where the seeker can see the kingdom and become part of the church in his daily routine. This simple act of making community is a positive and necessary part of our daily lives. The early church took meals together daily. It is not possible to make disciples unless we create such community. Our leisure time needs to be turned over to this purpose as well.

Becoming a Student of Jesus by Following Jesus into Good Works
So now we come to the last and I believe the highest use of our luxury time. We all have luxury time. The question is “how can we best use our luxury time?” I often leave the house at 8:00pm at night to spend time with like minded followers of Jesus. It is also possible that in the future I will have more luxury time. We all have weekends. What do we do with our weekends to make them productive? Do we tend to our lawn? Do we read books? Do we watch sports? Do we vacation with the family at the local park? Do we play sports? Do we study the bible? Or do we take up our cross daily and follow Jesus? As I consider the possibility of having luxury time, true repentance is to give this time over to doing good works by meeting the needs of others. This practice of compassion and charity is the ethic of Christianity that all our faith is working toward. The journey into the life of Christ is to think very immediately and consider what is my greatest ambition? This ambition comes out in how we use our free time. As I consider all the things I would like to do I land on what so obviously is neglected.

Jesus went about doing good. Do I know those around me who have needs. When we lose our religion and embrace just following Jesus, we have no obligations but to love. Here we are now truly free and our free time is spent not in attaining any position in the organization or community but in doing good.

brad

Faith and Strenuous Work

I have a few blog posts in my head. I would like to write a post on faith in which I contrast the faith as believes and faith for daily power. I am finding that the need for a continual awareness of our need for daily power, we are not ever going to walk in the kingdom. I also would like to write a post on heroic effort and the need for a sense of duty. In our generation, the idea of doing something out of duty is frowned upon but it is exactly this sense of duty to our God which motivates the effort and perseverance necessary to solve the difficult problems that face the church in or generation. This idea of great effort and great work, a renewal of a Christian work ethic for the sake of Christ, is much needed in this unstructured and undisciplined era we find ourselves in.

So which to write on.

I think I will write today on the need for strenuous work in our spiritual life.

My Heroes
One of my heroes is Albert Einstein. It is said of Albert Einstein that he thought of the same question for ten years. His mind was completely taken with a problem that he understood was essential to solve if we are to understand the mechanics of the universe on the scales of the infinite and the infinitesimal. Einstein suffered from exhaustion and seasons of depression during this period from the strenuous work of problem solving he endured. The product of his effort is one of the greatest intellectual feats in human history.

Another example of strenuous work in problem solving is the founding fathers. The founding fathers all worked in the service of the nation until their health would demand that they take a leave of absence. The result is the creation of a government based on the rule of law and a system of checks and balances that is the envy of the world. These pinnacles of human achievement are generated in the crucible of strenuous work. Anyone who has labored in the creative process understands this experience of inspiration and confidence and discouragement and depression. Problems like those facing the church today will not be solved without the enduring of a similar process of creativity.

For me, I am awed by the talent and expertise of great musicians. For this reason, I have great affection for the music and the passion of the work of John Coltrane. Such strenuous work produces dignity and honors God.

In our generation, many seem to feel that hard work and spirituality are contradictory approaches to life, but nothing can be further from the truth. Paul the Apostle said, “I worked harder than anyone else, but not I but the grace of God working in me”. Paul knew the experience of laboring in contemplation and the grace of inspiration that is the product of this co-laboring with the Spirit of the Almighty.

Today we face a great challenge. We live in an era when we have lost our understanding of how to walk in the character of God and how to teach others to walk in this way. We are called to re-build these age old foundations. This re-discovery of the way of discipleship will not just come upon us as we live in relaxed, “organic” conversation. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of princes to seek it out. God does not share His secrets easily but instead we are to seek wisdom like the greedy seek for gold. Such seeking and problem solving will take strenuous work.

One of the reasons I have not been blogging as much lately is the result of the strenuous work of the past few years. Being a bi-vocational pastor for the past three years took a toll on my health. In the back of my mind, I have not been willing to pursue such strenuous work again. We pursue such work out of faith. True faith in the promises of God motivates strenuous work and lately I have not had much faith.

True faith motivates great achievement and strenuous work. This is a good barometer for our faith. If we are not working like Paul but spend our time in leisure, then we do not have kingdom faith for the building of the kingdom on earth in the power of Jesus Christ. Faith causes one to rise up and pursue the promised land by faith. This pursuit is strenuous work.

Some of the Question that Need the Strenuous Work of Problem Solving
The strenuous work I am speaking of for myself is primarily contemplation and reflection upon the work that are doing in our faith community. Some of the difficult questions we face include:
1. How do we find the power of the presence of God in our every day life over our inherent self-centeredness and character defects?
2. How do we make disciples that really know and practice the principles of Jesus?
3. How do we teach a life of worship and prayer in such a busy culture?
4. How do we mobilize the church for mission?
5. How can we build a community that socializes the new believer into the principles of the kingdom?

The answer to these questions is hidden from us in our present time BUT we are called to discover these answers. This is our labor and our life and to build communities that live in the solutions to these problems and challenges will take strenuous work..

The discoveries that we will make along the way, as we contemplate discipleship and the way to renewal for Christ’s church, will be our most valued possessions. We will think Christ’s thoughts after Him. We will be wise. This too will take strenuous work.

Such a view of the need for human effort and even strenuous exhausting effort in the search for truth informs the manner in which we raise our children. I find many parents who do not teach this level of discipline to their children. Instead, we coddle our children. We do not challenge them in the sciences to think deeply and to wrestle with difficult questions.

This ethic of strenuous work is a high value in our home and I believe needs to be embraced in the church if we are to discover the wisdom needed to change the church and the world around us.

Religion or Spirituality – “Do Not Be Called Leaders” – How Organized Religion Undermines the Spirituality of Its Leaders

Some commandments of our Lord we obey and others we, Christians, completely ignore. In Matthew 23, Jesus made a statement that the church, myself included, has decided to completely ignore.

Jesus Christ made a very clear statement in Matthew 23 verse 10, He said, "Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.”

The previous verse, verse 9, we protestants obey. It says “Do not call anyone on earth your father”. That one, we obey. But verse 10, which is a parallel verse, we completely ignore. We have small group leaders. We call men “our pastor”. We say “Joe is called to leadership”. We may not technically say, “Joe is my leader”, but, in all practicality, the structure of the organized church is one of a few men preaching and teaching and a whole group of men and women listening to them. It is this dichotomous structure of teachers and listeners that Jesus Christ, our Lord, commanded that we DO NOT develop!! It is OK to listen to teachers, but do not try to be like them. Do not make it your ambition to obtain a position of teacher or a title of teacher or leader or father within the community of faith.

Now just a little aside. I can hear the purist saying, “but what about Paul’s statements about elders in Timothy?” Paul is talking about elders and deacons. Let’s just say, I believe in limited government. In other words, we need over sight and government in the church, but the role of government is very limited. The elders exercise discipline in very rare circumstances, and the role of the deacons is to make sure the bills get paid and that the wealth is distributed to the poor. But, for the real work of the community, there is no leadership. Actual discipleship work is totally worked out in peer to peer relationships. In all spiritual relationship and discipleship relationships, there must be no leaders or teachers for we have one leader Christ. So, for all the spiritual gifts of teaching and prophecy and mercy and hospitality and the work of building the kingdom, call no one on earth leader and do not let anyone call you a leader.

Second aside: I am fully aware that Paul also said, "Some are called to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers". My position does not contradict the reality of giftedness. I realize the answer is a "both/and" of no hierarchy in terms of status in the community and also of a place given for people graced by God to exercise and develop spiritual gifts.

The reason Jesus prohibits titles and hierarchical structure in His church is because ambition within the social structure of religion will undermine our spirituality and deceive us. This subtle ambition to be something in the structure of religion will prevent us from entering the Kingdom life of poverty of spirit, meekness, mercy, and purity. Lately, I have found this principle to be true not just in theory but in practice.
Let’s read the whole passage in context.

Matt. 23:6-15, Jesus, speaking regarding the religious leaders of His day, says:
6"They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, 7and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men.
8"But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.
9"Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.
10"Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. 11"But the greatest among you shall be your servant. 12"Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.
13"But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.
14"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.
15"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves."

How I found this to be true in practice
When I first became a Christian, I was immediately offered positions of teaching in the body. Within a month or two of accepting the truth of the gospel, I began teaching 2-3 bible studies every week. Fifteen months after my conversion, I entered seminary and, less than a year after entering seminary, I was on staff at a mega-church and leading a Christian discipleship home. The point is I have never known Christianity without the promise of a “calling to leadership”. Throughout my entire Christian life, I have been in a place where I teach and others listen. Here is the way it works. We are baptized into a culture that has a structure that calls men with speaking gifts, or who are educated, leaders. Someone with a talent for speaking is placed in a role that is intended to turn him into “the man”. This structure is completely contrary to what Jesus commands, and I am only now realizing that this structure does not allow men to enter the kingdom. As Jesus says in the context of the passage, a structure that calls men leaders, "prevents them from entering the kingdom". Oh God, help us!!!

Let me say this, the men who found me and made me "twice the son of hell as themsleves" are tender-hearted, prayerful, humble men. I love them for believing in me or at least believing in me to a point. These men were fathers to me and were great examples of integrity and simplicity. But, the system simply doesn’t make kingdom followers of Jesus Christ.

For me, I have for the first time completely stepped out of the system. I, now, have no ambition in the system because there is no system. I cannot hope to be a full time teacher and preacher because there are no full time teachers and preachers. I cannot hope to be a leader of a faith community because, we have no leaders but Christ. I am left with no ambition to be the man because there is no “man” position in the simple church. Without hierarchy, I can't seek promotion among men.

The Initial De-tox
What I initially found was that my first response to this freedom from religion was to cease being spiritual. Now that there was no religion to drive me to be spiritual, I found I was not motivated at all. In other words, my motivation to please people was what was driving my daily spiritual disciplines. Certainly while in the religious system, God honored my prayers and I had many wonderful experiences and learnings from all these years of study and preparation for teachings, but I could not help but have mixed motives. This process is very humbling but, obviously, very spiritually necessary.

Here is my definition of religion or organized religion.
Religion is the social structure that motivates certain religious practices.

This structure will motivate even the most pure man or woman. If the structure exists then religion will be part of our cultural identity and therefore part of our character. There is no avoiding the influence of religion on us if we are “baptized’ into a religion structure with leaders and teachers and hierarchy.

Spirituality is a life driven by Holy Spirit fueled affections of the heart and which results in morally beautiful spiritual practices.

Maybe we could say, spirituality is an affection driven relationship with God that motivates spiritual practices of love for God and man. I am finding that without losing my religion, I was never able to separate my religion from my spirituality and, therefore, was never able to work solely on becoming a spirit led follower of Jesus Christ. I was working too hard on being a pastor to follow Jesus with all my heart.


I am contending that all pastors are placed in this quagmire.

Now everyone has a mixture of both religious and spiritual motivations this side of the final consummation of the kingdom. But, until a teacher-type steps outside the structure of religion, I have found it is impossible to discern and be cleansed of our religious and pharisaical motivations. The culture of religion makes us hypocrites.

So where do we go from here?
The answer is to pursue the kingdom and the teachings of Jesus and refuse to be a leader in any structural way (at least for a good long season). What we will find is a change of motives. Today, I find that I need the power of the Holy Spirit not in order to stay inspired so that I can preach a good sermon but in order to have any real relationship with Jesus at all. If I do not pray and seek the kingdom, I end up without God in my life. So now the primary motive for spiritual disciplines is actual love for God. Do not fear the loss of false motives, if we are His, then our hearts naturally long for God. This grace-given affection is now necessary to have any Christianity at all. Christendom is gone and now all we have is the kingdom. We are placed at the crossroads. Will we enter the kingdom or simply fade away and spiritually die?

My second motivation is moral survival. Now that I have no social fears to protect me from my sinfulness, I find that, without God, I am just like every other sinful pig. All our sin comes to the surface. Our external shell of religion can no longer protect us from the world. Now and only now do I feel I am desperate for authentic power from God without which I am morally doomed to mediocrity and nominal Christianity.

Thirdly, I am motivated to live in the world but not be of it. It is a total paradigm from religious obligation to actual compassion and otherliness. When the obligation to religious practice is gone, all that is left is the creativity to find ways to love people in practical ways. There is no religions service left to justify that we are building the kingdom. If we are to build the kingdom, we are forced to do it through organic and authentic relationships. There is no show to assist us in doing the kingdom work. There is no show to maintain. There are no more events to plan or meetings to attend. All we have at our disposal is our ability to make relationships with people and love them.

If we lack real kingdom affections and real love of God and people, we will be like the whole in the donut. We are left with no spiritual life at all. The process of stripping ourselves of all religion is pretty revealing. It has revealed in me that so much spiritual discipline was motivated by social ambition and not love for God at all. But the great benefit is that now, I am forced to only develop true spirituality. There is no more cloak of religion to hide beneath.

The conclusion is that Jesus’ sayings are again the true path to life. So my fellow travelers, “let no one on earth call you leader or teacher”. As we obey this liberating command of our Lord, in no time, if we continue to seek the kingdom and His righteousness, we will find God will do for us immeasurably beyond anything we could ask or even imagine. Glory to God!!

God Bless,
brad

Adrian's Blog: BLOGDOM TODAY - The Effects of Preaching and Religious Experience

Adrian's Blog: BLOGDOM TODAY - The Effects of Preaching and Religious Experience

This is an important post on how preaching works. I believe preaching is an important part of church life and needs to be revived in the home church networks.

Adrian quotes Edwards saying what is important in preaching is the experience in the moment not what you remember the next day. What Edwards is saying is that spiritual disciplines like prayer and worship and listening to inspired preaching transform the affections. We hear something beautiful and are sanctified by the experience of loving the beautiful. The memory of the content is not the main way we are sanctified by spiritual discipines.

The same is true of prayer. We rarely remember what we pray about later in the day BUT wow without prayer our affections get quite dull and we find ourselves without sensitivity to the our sin and to others. Prayer changes the affections and keeps us sensitive by the effect on the affections not the intellect. The same is true of preaching.

Those who are critical of the role of preaching and worship in song need to understand this vital truth to grant to preaching and worship in song in its proper value.

God Bless, brad

Alienation, Confession and Brokenness - Reflections on Ted Haggard's Confession

Many of us who love the church would like to simply chalk the Ted Haggard's moral failings up to an individual incident of sin that any of us could fall into and move along to other discussions, but such an approach simply once again ignores the root causes which allow such problems to arise. Fellow evangelicals, there is something deeply wrong with the way we do church and practice our faith and this public incident provides us with a symbol upon which to reflect and discuss what is not working in popular evangelicalism.

Certainly, such discussion is not based on mountains of data but on one point of data. Certainly, none of us are intimate enough with Ted Haggard to observe closely the nuances of his history and his discipleship process that allowed him to lead a double life. BUT the incident and the content of his confession reveal some general principles that provide insight into the tragedyof being a sinner and an evangelical at the same time.

The content of Haggard's confession that I would like to focus on is as follows:
"The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life," he said.

Alienation, Confession and Brokenness
As a pastor and a discipler, I have learned a very important phrase that I have to use with everyone at some time or another. In our discipleship method, we often say, “your problem is not unique”. Human beings have been covering up their nakedness for a long, long time. It is only in the safety of a gospel immersed people that a sinner can find the acceptance to tell his or her whole story. We do this in one on one relationships with some other totally broken idiot. I am sometimes privileged to be that broken idiot on the listening end.

The culture of Popular Evangelicalism is completely contrary to this level of open confession. In almost all instances people have to go outside the church to some special recovery program or to therapy to make a thorough and open confession. In other words, hearing good sermons, that happens in the church, but for discipleship, you need to go outside the church. For actual help with overcoming sin, we the church are almost totally lost. Something is desperately wrong here.

Magic or Method
The church offers two solutions that simply do not work. Both methods are more magic than method. In the Charismatic church, of which Haggard is a part, there is the Holy Spirit magic method. In these churches, you come forward for an alter call and a ministry worker lays hands on you and presto, problem solved. Of course, the problem is only solved until you go back to your seat when all your totally broken affections come rushing back in.
In the conservative churches, the method is exactly the same except you replace the Holy Spirit with the bible. Listen to a good message and have morning devotions and presto, problem solved. For total idiots like this sinner, that method led me to loneliness and debauchery not holiness and freedom.

We could discuss the entire system of beliefs and practices that maintain this magical approach. Let me just make a list
Individualism – the wrong headed belief that Christianity is the story of me and Jesus working out my salvation in fear and loathing. This American individualism only compounds the alienation and obsession that came to us in Adam. Individualism and its alienation and obsession is the problem so it cannot be the solution.
Celebrity and Spectator Church Services – The church as we practice in popular evangelicalism utilizes a system where one or two men climb up a social latter to success. The winner gets to be the face of the church. To be this face one better primp their entire life. Put your best foot forward. Don’t show anything other than controlled and calculated weakness. Polish you sermon. Polish your social skills. Polish your shoes. Don’t dress to up. Don’t dress too down. Play the part and study hard and you can be celebrated as a success. This works good unless of course you are an actual human being. In this system, there is no way to be totally honest with the people you are working out your faith with.
The Farce of Pastor to Pastor Accountability
In such situations, pastors go outside their immediate co-labors to make open confession. In other words, pastors cannot be honest with the people they are trying to disciple. Pastors have pastor to pastor accountability. Why?? Because it is too risky to be totally honest with the council and one’s co-workers. BUT IF DISCIPLESHIP IS BASED ON OPEN AND HONEST CONFESSION AND THE MODELING OF HONEST CONFESSION, THEN THE PASTOR, BY DEFINITION CANNOT MAKE DISCIPLES IN THE CHURCH IF HE GOES OUTSIDE HIS CORE STAFF TO MAKE OPEN DETAILED CONFESSION!!! My friends, the system is completely wrong headed. Unless pastors confess directly to the people the exact nature of their brokenness, they are discipling, there is no discipleship. Discipleship is modeling the process of over-coming sin through confession and repentance and the applying of the principles of death to self. My friend this is learned only when the student sees us do it before them. The foundation of this is rigorously honest confession. Detailed confession in gender specific discipleship relationships is step one to being a disciple-maker. If the pastors do not have these relationships with their staff they are not making disciples they are planning worship services and events.

Read on at your own risk!!!

Ok here goes…If a pastor has a penis obsession, he needs to say to his staff, “I have a penis obsession”. Have we never dealt with homosexuality before??? If we haven’t, we know nothing about human sexuality. Everyone has sexual problems. Everyone. There is no exception to the rule. Discipleship must deal in total honesty about sex. Piper says if a pastor doesn’t speak at least twice a year about sex from the pulpit, he is not a pastor but a professional. We are not professionals my friends. We are sinners who cling to grace and the power of the Holy Spirit in total brokenness. We live one day at a time by grace alone. We learn what our triggers are and we call our mentors when we are finding that we are losing our balance. Often this requires calling out ten times a day until the obsession goes away. The key is that our mentors confess that they have been through the same thing and they share their solutions. There is no condemnation when our faith communities are honest enough that everyone realizes that no problem is unique. Total honesty. Popular evangelicalism is the exact opposite of what the sinner needs to find peace and the Kingdom.

Do you really think that the red-faced alcoholic at your work is going to get healed and healthy at your church? He was molested as a child and has a masturbation obsession. Church as it plays out today makes real sinners feel more alienated not less. If he does get “saved” what will happen is, he will play the game; find his act to play; become a deacon and still be just as much of an emotional basket case as he ever was. We have all seen it and the world can see it too. We haven’t dealt with the real self-centered fear that comes from our human condition. Fellow evangelicals, “we travel the world to make one convert and when we find him we make him twice the son of hell that we are.” The system is not working!!!

A Process That Does Work

What does work is a process of totally rigorous confession and anaylsis of the nature of our sinfulness in the context of confessing relationship. Folks, are you desperate enough to do what ever it takes to find the kingdom. It is a narrow road paved with confession and honesty. Find a mentor who has what you want. This mentor must have been through a serious transformation process and understand confession.

I have mapped out this inventory process many times here at 21st Century Reformation. Trust me!! It works!!. Here is what happens. In almost every situation, where a person makes a thorough inventory and tells his story in every detail to God ad to another fellow traveler, he or she feels a connectedness to God and to another human being that he has never felt before. It is this connectedness that breaks the power of the loneliness and alienation that is at the heart of all our obsessions.

My friends is this the first principle and practice of your local church program. If not, I know one thing is for certain, your faith community might be doing church but you are not making disciples.
God Bless,
brad

First Reactions to the Ted Haggard Moral Failing

I am contemplating writing extensively about Ted Haggard's moral fall, but I am leaning against it. I have come to realize that my initial reactions are too emotion-laden to have much objective value. My initial response is pure fury and anger. I feel betrayed. Here at 21st Century Reformation, I seek to counter the superficiality of popular evangelicalism with a message grounded in the ethics of the cross and self-sacrificial love. My initial, albeit emotion-laden, reaction sees Haggard as responsible for mainstreaming prosperity and financial provision teachings which are diametrically opposed to my understanding of the person of Jesus Christ and the moral beauty of God that has captured my affections.

I have personally experienced the desire of a church for a charismatic leader with a popular message, and I have seen this desire for a "pastor-as-celebrity" church undermine what I see as the message of the Holy Spirit to the church in our generation. Haggard is the poster child for such celebrity and feel-good preaching that I passionately see as the source of all that ails us. Needless to say, Haggard and his lack of confession, while being a pastor, surfaces many emotions in me.

For me, all I can say is that it will take time for me to discern what is my anger and what is God's word to the church. One thing I know for certain is that we evangelical Christians need to soberly seek wisdom from God. Today, I stand more than ever in opposition to any preaching which claims that Godliness is a means of financial gain as it is in opposition to the moral beauty of the cross.

May God have mercy on us and may we respond to His discipline with humility and repentance.

peace,
brad