Reclaiming the Mission :: The Weblog of David Fitch

Blogger Len Hjalmarson said…

“Proving to be examples to the flock..” This is the killer for me. I’ve known many busy pastors, and while they are often examples of a moral life they are not examples of a well-lived and missional life. They have no time for family, and little time for friendship. I’ve known too many pastors who really have no friends at all. This if nothing else, should cue us to the reality that such churches are not biblical communities and therefore are not places of gospel wholeness. In such cases they function ok as business but are not really “ekklesial.”

David’s whole post is excellent but I really liked what Len said in particular - I have seen this in every single church I have ever been involved with and I have seen it happen to my husband and myself as well. (granted, I have never been actively involved in a mainline/liturgical church)

I know that being bivocational isn’t a popular solution but full time vocational ministry has yet to solve any of these problems, perhaps the definition of insanity applies here. If nothing else, if a pastor is full time vocationally (and I know many wonderful people who are friends of mine who are), he/she needs to have a support structure and encouragement to live life well, not just be a good, moral, christian pastor. If a pastor cannot model a kingdom gospel of wholeness, how are the members of the congregation supposed to “get it”?..esp. if a top down model currently exists.

I have been taking my girls to vacation bible school this week (using the same curriculum that my husband sells, the songs of which I have already heard WAY TOO MANY TIMES). I didn’t think they’d let Aliyah participate or if they did if she’d be willing to stay but she’s been having a blast. I signed them up at a church less than half a mile away with little care of what kind of church it was so that we wouldn’t have to worry about car arrangements. It’s a small Presbyterian church, creatively called Westminster Presbyterian. *smirk*

Today on our walk there I was musing about something that has always struck me as odd. When I was growing up, my parents would have NEVER allowed me to go to a religious service of a strongly different Christian persuasion much less another religion and would have been out for blood if an adult of another religion tried to convert me. And yet, we were encouraged on a regular basis to bring our “unsaved friends” to VBS, kids church, youth group, church camp, etc. where they would most assuredly be subjected to a pint-sized version of the 4 spiritual laws and asked if they wanted to “ask Jesus in their heart” upon which time they would join other little impressionable children at the altar and tearfully say the sinner’s prayer.

I find this odd… Let’s set aside the niceties, I find it unconscionable and I find it completely ridiculous that there is this double standard. At least be consistent. If you’re going to subject children to evangelism, you better allow your children to be, at the least exposed to other religions.

Now, seeing as we’re at a Presbyterian church, I doubt there will be any altar calls, so that’s refreshing.

Another thing that I will expose about myself that is probably a little odd is that I would be more inclined to send my child to a Buddhist children’s carnival than I would a conservative baptist VBS. I guess we all have our quirks.

Technorati Tags: vacation bible school, evangelism

Rose speaks to the issue of power more specifically in the evangelical church construct. Since I’m on that theme, I thought I’d share the love.

I believe when this kind of change is on the horizon, the people that hold the power must be willing to step aside and make room for those very ones that have been without access. This means when you have an all male board of directors, a few of them would give up their vote to qualified women. It means that if you are a woman with access to power in the existing system you lobby for the women who are as our founder would say are, “doing the stuff” and you hand them the mic so to speak. Does this come with a cost, you bet it does. This kind of change does not come without the cost of someone giving up their “rights” their “place” for the sake of the “other” think Jesus.I am hopeful that our movement can have the courage to make the necessary change structurally to give women access.

Rose Madrid-Swetman » Change, Power, Access | Random Thoughts, Stories of Life, and Questions About the Journey.

Tags: power, women, church

My frustration with the church is not unlike my annoyance with clowns. I like the person just fine until they put all that stuff on, then they sort of freak me out.

(I used to have that t-shirt by the by)

Tags: church

…hang with me y’all, it’s not gonna get kooky

My blog buddy hamo has a fantastic post that truly is inspired.

We really have to stop this nonsense talk about taking the world for Christ when most of us don’t even know our own next door neighbours. And we need to stop expecting God to do what we are too lazy or afraid to do ourselves.

I should say that I would love to be around if God ever did do something miraculous - if there ever was a genuine revival ala the Welsh revival. I’m sure that would be an incredible experience. But in the mean time - in the absence of the miraculous - I believe our job is not to pray God will pull his finger out and bring some pagans into church, but rather for us to get our own butts into gear and live the gospel in the worlds we are a part of.

Make sure you head over there and read it all. It was for Australia day but considering that Europe is already post christian and America is heading there I think it’s apropos for all of us. I cannot even begin to tell you how many people in my previous church world have the militaristic “take the world for Christ” and charismatic “pray for revival” mentality. Pray God they can hear these words from someone soon.

And then grace mixes it up and adds to it with some other great words of others.

God speaks. People speak. We just need to discern which is which. These friends are speaking the heartbeat of God.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Shane Claiborne, (ht) I’m laughing imagining a “prophet” in any one of my previous charismatic churches standing up and with all the pageantry of a good pentecostal saying this, turning around, walking back to his/her seat and sitting down. LOL

“Get ready, friends…God is preparing us for something really, really-small.”

Now that I’ve expressed my concern about friendship within church I want to add a thread of tension to the mix. I believe that we need to treat one another better in our churches, we need to show more grace, more forgiveness, more authenticity (i.e. stop pretending that you’re ALWAYS just oh so happy because God has blessed you with just oh so many wonderful blessings and God is oh so good and thanks be to him from whom all blessings flow when you know full well much of the time that’s a crock). We need to be quicker to forgive and not so quick to become angry. We need to listen more and be more accepting of differences.

But here’s my thread of tension - we cannot attend to our church relationships at the expense of all others. We MUST HAVE MORE FRIENDS OUTSIDE OUR LOCAL CHURCH. Our relationships need to be more eccumenical across the spectrum. “Friendship evangelism” is an awful term IMO (it just feels manipulative to me because of the connotations of the term evangelism), but the truth is that we need to accept that no one wants to learn from a Christian who just appears in their life to spout of spiritual platitudes on occasion. And no one wants a Christian in their life who can’t learn from anyone else. The era of people turning to distant authorities to learn and grow is fast ending. People want to learn from friends who happen to have some knowledge and experience in a certain area, they want to turn to friends when they are in need, not just professionals with whom they have no intimate connection.

But perhaps even more importantly - we cannot be good Christ followers if we do not learn from the other, if we do not open ourselves up to the reality that “the other” has something to show us about God because *gasp* God is actually present outside our own Christian world. We cannot be good Christ followers holed up in our churches because I can GUARANTEE YOU that Christ is walking “out there” and if we’re not “out there” we’re being left behind.

There are a few key dysfunctional patterns of relationships with Christians that I have experienced personally and seen in others (typically).

1. We have ONLY Christian friends and preferably only Christian friends from our own church (after all, how is a person supposed to have the space for other friends when they spend 3 days a week in meetings or services at their church)
2. We have Christian and “non Christian” friends but they are kept in exclusive networks that don’t cross (part of this is often that our Christian friends act so weird and only talk about churchy things that our friends who aren’t Christians are understandably freaked out by them or that they have been hurt by Christians in the past and are gun shy)
3. We have friends in and outside of the church but our church friends are kept at a distance because we can’t be real around them without getting ourselves in trouble which means they are no closer than our “friends” at work.

Most people don’t do any of this intentionally, it’s just what they know. It’s what’s been modeled to them and the reality is that it’s usually easier/more comfortable sticking with those you know. I get it, I really do. But if we’re really going to be missional - to join with the missio dei, the God of mission - we HAVE GOT to get over this. Because missional is not just stepping outside of the church to do evangelism or acts of charity or service every once in awhile. It’s also not just about making a few atheist friends and having drinks every once in a while. Part of missional is dissolving that dividing line altogether.

So yes, I believe we need to attend to the superficial friendship problem in our churches but we need to maintain that tension of also developing friendships beyond just our local church body and then working to fade the dividing line between the two “worlds”.

One of the things I’ve discovered in my time in the church world is that church friendships are almost exactly like work relationships, except people see each other even more infrequently. This applies perhaps even more so to leaders - even amongst each other. Which means you’re “friends” or at least “friendly” as long as you go to the church. Leave the church and you can pretty much bet that’s the last you’ll see of anyone at the church. I’m guilty of contributing to this and participating in it as much as any one but it must stop.

I believe this is one of the reasons so many people become disillusioned with church after awhile. This either needs to change or people need to appropriately shift their expectations. I personally would rather see it change.

“If people are equipped in the “BEing”, they won’t have to be coerced in the “DOing”.
Makeesha
January 2006

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