Become Good News People Again

Today’s world needs a revolution. Not a violent one; we’ve had plenty of those. We need a revolution that changes hearts and minds with love. That is what I believe Jesus came for. It is also what I believe he has sent us here for. And it is also what I believe the world is poised to receive.

Jesus didn’t come to earth just to change your Sunday morning routine and voting patterns. He came to change your life every day and in every way. The power of change is for every one of us, not just priests, pastors, and preachers. And everyone that is changed becomes a change agent.

Today the “evangelicals” are quickly being duped to support a bigoted, bombastic, bully who boasts of sexually conquering other men’s wives and who profits off of other's gambling addictions and objectifying young women. This tells us more about the state of evangelicals than the candidate they support. We are no longer good news to this world.

My friend Lance Ford says in his book Revangelical:

What evangelical is supposed to mean—bringer of good news— is completely different from what it has come to mean for many in our society: judgmental, misogynist, bigoted, homophobic. How did this happen? How did the “good news” people come to be widely regarded as bad news?

Evangelical literally means "gospel people" or good news people. The gospel itself is all about transformation—change. We should be the ones bringing a revolution of heart to the world. Instead, we spend our time debating theological stances, moral codes, and political issues. We quickly shout our offense at the world’s values and behaviors. We are people known for resisting change. How did we get here? What will it take for us to rise up again with a real revolution of love that the story of Christ truly merits?

Let’s face it: more of the same thinking will only produce more of the same activity. We need a change of mind—yesterday. We need to think and, consequently, respond differently if we hope to make any change in this world for the better. And that is what my new book One Thing: A Revolution to Change the World with Love addresses. 

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This post is from the introduction to One Thing.

Don't be a Stooge for a Political Cause

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An interesting thing occurred while I was editing my new book One Thing: A Revolution to Change the World with Love. Some dear friends read the book for me and offered feedback. They assumed what my view was on certain issues simply because I was not espousing their views. I was not at all saying what they thought I was. The patterns in their brain “filled in” information that I actually never wrote. I asked myself why this happened. I had one of my friends read a chapter three times and then went over it with him line by line until he saw what I was actually saying. We were not so far off in our beliefs after that. One can argue from this that I am not a good communicator, but I think there is more.

I believe we all have been programmed to hear with a bias that doesn’t always allow us to actually hear what is being said. We have been force fed by media only two options and challenged to choose a side. We are so accustomed to the same sound bites on both sides that when we hear something different from our point of view our brains automatically dump the voice into the opposite category without really listening. We’re programmed to defend ourselves and demonize others. We have allowed the propaganda to infiltrate our minds so much that we cannot grasp any other alternatives than the two heaped upon us constantly by media.

It is entirely possible that readers with left leaning will think that my book is too conservative. It is also probable that readers that are conservative will feel I am left-leaning in my thoughts. This is not bad news to me, but actually a sign of success. Why? Because you cannot put Jesus on a side. He does not fit into your categories or align with any political agenda. He will not be the Right’s mascot or the Left’s rallying cry. Jesus challenges all of us, wherever we are, to change. There are two sides: his or not his (Matt. 12:30). He will not be packaged to fit a typical pundit’s commentary or coerced to take our side on any issue (Jos. 5:13–15).

“It was for freedom that Christ set you free” (Gal. 5:1). Free your mind and free your soul so that you, too, can be different enough to make a difference. Do not be a mouthpiece for a cause beyond Jesus. Do not let rich old white men in a room full of cigar smoke and expensive Scotch determine what you believe. A fraternity of elites in ivory towers with utopian dreams and zero tolerance of any other point of view should not determine your choice. You have Jesus as your head. Jesus is not a Republican, and he is not a Democrat. Jesus is not a capitalist or a communist. He doesn’t need to vote; in fact, in the end he has the only deciding vote in his kingdom. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. Follow him and be different so that you can change this world.

The same old thing never changed anything. There is only one thing that can truly change this world, and his name is Jesus. You can’t have a one-thing spirituality and other things as well. By its very definition, a one thing is an “only thing.” Pursue the one thing at the expense of everything.

Welcome to the revolution. 

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These are actually the last paragraphs of my newest book One Thing: A Revolution to Change the World with Love available wherever books are sold.

What is an Organic Church? Part One: Multiplication Organizing

I have been a published author and pioneer of organic church movements for 20 years (yeah, I'm officially old). The term "organic" has come to mean many things in church world over those years. Often it has been hijacked from my original ideas and mutated to mean something less than healthy. It has become as suspicious as the same label used on food packaging at the grocery store.

I'm not the first to use organic ideas to describe the church (that would be Jesus and Paul). As the person who published the book Organic Church ten years ago let me set the record straight on what "organic church" means.

1. Organic Church is not just a house church. Many people assume that is what I mean when I use the word, and I assure you it is not. I'm not against house churches but I'm also not against organized churches. Organic is not a descriptor of one kind of model, it is a description of a necessary quality for all churches. In fact, I often say every church is organic or it is not the church. Organic simply means it is alive and natural. It can also mean being void of artificial ingredients. As such, organic is more a quality of the church rather than the type of church. Some churches can be partly organic and partly inorganic. Our goal should be 100% organic. A house church can be completely inorganic, and a mega church can be very organic. So I would suggest we stop using organic to describe one model of church. That said, you cannot do church organically and skip intimate relationships with one another in a spiritual family. Actually one can argue that you cannot be a follower of Christ and skip that. Just because a church meets in a house doesn't make it organic, but one that never brings life into the home is less than organic.

2. Organic Church is a way of relating to God, one another, and the world. In our movement the DNA is the key component of organic church. Our life giving code is within each disciple (a result of internalizing and activating/obeying the gospel) and is the most important part of being organic. The DNA is Divine Truth (relating to God––The great commandment), Nurturing Relationships (relating to one another––the second greatest command) and Apostolic Mission (relating to the world––the great commission). Again, these are qualities every church should aspire to have. This DNA should be found healthy and whole within the smallest unit of church life––the disciple in relation to other disciples. Any church void of the whole DNA is unhealthy, and no amount of better musicians, buildings, programs, staff or sermons can make up for it's absence.

3. Organic Church is about the true life source and the development of that life within a church. Perhaps the most distinguishing mark of what is organic is the source of life and consequently how it grows, develops and reproduces. So much of churchianity is growth being perpetuated from an external source. This is the inorganic approach and is in fact a counterfeit gospel where we try to make people and churches grow with motivation from the outside. When we use guilt, shame and fear to coerce behavior we are being inorganic. When we try to entice people with glitzy entertainment and "motivational" talks, we are delving into less than organic practices. When dollars are required to bring growth inorganic church is the result.

As my mentor George Patterson described, such methods are like trying to make a corn stalk grow faster by grabbing it and pulling on it. Foolishness. We all know that the growth comes from within the plant as cells reproduce. Our life must come from Christ within and grow out because of the internalized good news. Anything else is futile. Christ in you is the hope of glory––and nothing else is.

Combining inorganic practices with organic ones simply nullifies the true with the false. You cannot add just a little poison to a casserole and expect it to be healthy just because all the other ingredients are natural. As I often say, "If the death, resurrection and indwelling of Jesus Christ is not enough to motivate you, a sermon and a song isn't going to be enough."

It is the life within that causes health, growth and reproduction. Every dollar spent in inorganic practices is an investment in the opposite of life and produces something less than real. Every type of church can release true life rather than suffocate it with inorganic methods. Movements have potential for release when we organize around life instead of thinking that we get life by organizing. It is life that produces healthy organization. Organization never produces life––but it can kill it.

I am now a part of a team launching new movements from a few established churches. It is called 100m (100movements). I am honored to be working alongside a team of exceptionally gifted and godly people, including Alan Hirsch, Will Mancini, Dave Rhodes and Jessie Cruikshank. [If you would like to sign up to find out more about 100m click this link. This is the first in a series of blog posts to shed light on what 100movements is all about.]

One of the six areas we work to bring health to an existing church is in the area of organic systems, which we call Multiplication Organizing. In order to release movements we must begin to allow the true life of Christ to burn bright within us. Organization must be built around life, and never the other way around. Good organization never produces life, but good life can produce healthy organization. Your own body is full of systems that make it structured and working properly. All those structures began with a single cell containing your DNA...then multiplying. Church can learn much from this form of organizing.

One symptom of being inorganic is if the organization and programs of the church take precedence over the simple obedience of God's people outside the church. If the life of the disciple is only about promoting the organization of the church everything is backwards. The life in the disciple should be more important than the organization of the church. If everything is about growing an organization than you probably have to pull a few inorganic weeds from your midst. In an organic church, the organization is to help the disciple produce and reproduce the life of the gospel in others. It doesn't really work the other way around.

 

I will be posting a series on how these six areas are a part of being organic, healthy and releasing movements. These six areas are important for all churches.

An Apostolic Example: Patrick

Early in the fifth century, an English teenager named Patrick was captured by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to the Emerald Isle. There he was forced to work through snow, frost, and rain as a herdsman. Though he was not a Christian at the outset, Patrick’s faith in God grew during this difficult time and he became accustomed to talking with God and hearing the Shepherd’s voice.

After six years in captivity, Patrick managed to escape and make his way almost two hundred miles to a port city, where he was able to get on board a ship and return to his home in England. Now in his early twenties, he studied to become a priest like his grandfather.

One day, he heard a specific call in a vision to go back to Ireland to save the Irish people from their paganism. He returned to bring Christ to the very people who had once enslaved him. He preached the Good News, started churches, and refused to use the church or his position for personal gain at the expense of the movement. His work, and that of those who built on his apostolic foundation, is credited with saving Western civilization from the Dark Ages.[1] More than fifteen hundred years after his life ended we wear green once every year commemorating Patrick’s death on March 17.

In his own writing, Patrick, who is known as the apostle of Ireland, recounts his calling in a vision that came to him:

I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: “The Voice of the Irish.” As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: “We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.”[2]

This blog post is the start of chapter 9 of my book Primal Fire about the equipping gifts of Ephesians 4:11. Patrick, whom we honor today was a great example of the apostolic gift.  

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[1] Thomas Cahill, How The Irish Saved Civilization (New York: Anchor, 1996).

[2] Liam De Paor, Saint Patrick's World: The Christian Culture of Ireland's Apostolic Age (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1993), 100.

What is a Church, Part Three

Francis Chan has used an analogy to shake up our view of church. He says: “Imagine you were alone on a desert island and had no experience at all with Christianity, and a bible washed up on shore so you read it cover to cover. If you then decided you would do church, do you think you would do church the way we do it?” The obvious answer is of course not! What this tells us is that much of the way we do church is more wrapped up in church historical tradition than in what the Bible says.

The Greek word translated “church” is ecclesia, which means “called out ones” and is used to describe a gathering or assembly. The word morphs into greater significance as the NT progresses, Paul giving a far more detailed and elevated view of it. In Acts the word is used to describe an angry, confused and divided mob of pagans declaring allegiance to a false god (Acts 19:32). I’ve been to that church.

The Bible does not define the church. Instead it is described with helpful pictures: a flock, a field, a family, a body, a bride, a branch, a building made of living stones. Definitions are helpful, but descriptions can catch the heart and vision of people and are far more memorable and spreadable. People don't usually spread definitions around but they do spread simple and visible ideas that capture one's imagination. I firmly believe that the NT intends for the church to be spread like a viral movement.

If you were to try and describe today's church as we know it using pictures I believe we would have an entirely different list of descriptors. In fact, do a Google search of the term church and look at the images that pop up...all buildings. The church we have all experienced looks more like one of these: a building with an address, a concert with a motivational speaker, A public meeting with religious practices, a business that provides spiritual goods and services, an organization with bylaws and business meetings, a school teaching people about the Bible and its author, or a hospital for the sick and broken. Contrast those two lists. We have replaced an organic and life producing view with an institutional one that does not produce life but at best simply tries to preserve and contain it. 

 

Our common way of seeing the church today contains, conforms and controls God’s people. The biblical pictures of the NT are all about releasing and reproducing the life of the church, not managing and controlling financial interests.

Inorganic things can produce, but not reproduce. As Christian Schwartz points out so eloquently, “A coffee maker can make coffee (praise God), but it cannot make more coffee makers.” Jesus intends for his bride and body to be fertile and for his branches to bear fruit. Jesus didn’t use images of an institution, nor should we.

With much study, research, experience and time spent seeking wisdom from smarter men than us, we have come to understand church by this simple yet profound description:

“The church is the presence of Jesus among His people, called out as a spiritual family, to pursue His mission on this planet.”

While the bible uses a number of metaphors to describe the nature of the church, these metaphors have one very striking thing in common. They all imply that the church is a living thing. What about the building you might ask? Remember, it’s built with living stones and is a dwelling place for the Living God.

The church is alive, and the indwelling Spirit of Jesus is her life. What is a body without a Head? A corpse. What is a bride without a groom? A widow. What is a branch without a vine? Firewood. What is a building without a foundation? Rubble. What is a flock without a shepherd? Wolf-chow. Every New Testament picture of the church points to the living connection with Jesus as the most essential element of its being. As I said before, If you can define church without Jesus than you can do church without Jesus.

God’s presence is not only a necessary part of the definition of church; it is the most essential one. I am convinced that the world would love to come and experience Jesus. They are not so interested in experiencing us.

What is a Church, Part Two

I distinctly remember standing up in front of my denomination’s annual gathering giving a report on our church planting efforts. We didn’t plant a single church that year, so I was already uncomfortable. What I could positively report is that we, as a volunteer church planting board, had finally agreed on what a church is.

The person in charge of starting churches wasn’t sure until that moment what a church even is. At least it was honest, so many never really address the issue. Church is one of those things that most people think they understand from their experience. It turns out that defining this entity that has had so many forms and expressions over the centuries is not as easy as it seems. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary definition will include a type of building where Christians meet above all else. The New Testament, however, does not understand church this way. So what is a New Testament understanding of church?

As I mentioned in my previous post, typically a list of ingredients from the New Testament are used to define a church. Here is a typical list:

1.     A group of believers who gather together regularly to worship.

2.     …that hear the biblical preaching of God’s word.

3.     …that consider themselves a church.

4.     …that have qualified elders.

5.     …that practice baptism, communion and (some include) church discipline.

6.     …that have an agreed upon doctrinal foundation.

7.     …and have an evangelistic purpose.

I already demonstrated that many of the things we put on such a list are not actually as core to a NT understanding of church as we once thought. In this post I want to look at something even more alarming, and that is what we failed to put on such a list. Here are three things not mentioned on the list:

1. The One Anothers. There are close to 60 commands in the NT for Christ-followers that contain the words “one another.” Not a single one made the list. Commands such as “love one another,” “give preference to one another,” “pray for one another,” “confess your sins one to another,” “teach one another,” and “bear one another’s burdens” are throughout the entirety of the New Testament, but not in our definition of church. More alarming is that very few of these important commands can be obeyed at a typical Sunday worship service, yet we all assume that is what church is.

Why are we so quick to include the preaching of a sermon in our definition of church and forego all the activities that we are supposed to do one with another? No wonder the church today appears more like an audience of consumers rather than agents of change in the world. So much responsibility is placed on the shoulders of qualified elders and preachers and so little on the shoulders of God’s people.

2. Godly Character Qualities. There are numerous lists of character qualities that Christians are expected to follow in the NT such as the beatitudes (Matt 5:1-10), the description of love (1 Cor. 13:1-13), the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), qualities to dwell on (Phil 4:8-9), qualities of an elder/deacon (1 Tim 3:1-13; Titus 1:5-9), but none make the list of ingredients necessary to be a church. Wouldn’t church be more attractive to the world if we did include such lists as a part of what we are supposed to be when we are together? The only inclination toward these godly characteristics in the definition of church is the description of “qualified elders,” which again means the leaders to do all the heavy lifting, even when it comes to being Christ-like.

3. Jesus. By far the most grievous oversight is that Jesus didn’t make the list! Some have commented that Jesus is assumed, because wherever believers are gathered there he is in their midst. My follow up question is, why then do you simply assume Jesus’ presence but you spell out the need for elders? Which is more important, Jesus or elders?

Is it really important that we include Jesus in our definition of church? Yes, I believe it should not just be one of the ingredients, but the most important element. Is that a Biblical presupposition? Yes, I think so.

In Acts chapter one we find all the previous ingredients present in the upper room. Church didn’t start, however, until Acts 2. What was the added ingredient? The indwelling presence of the Spirit of Christ! Church was born when Christ indwelt us. His presence is the only thing that makes church any different from another organization in this world. The ingredients listed above that supposedly make up a NT church can also be used to describe the Kiwanis Club.

Some would like to distinguish Jesus from the church, but I’m not sure that is wise or Biblical. You might as well try and sever your head from your body. Jesus clearly said, “Abide in Me and I in you…for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

Jesus only mentioned church twice in the gospels. In both cases His presence was the key ingredient. In Matthew 16 it is Jesus building His church, not us. In Matthew 18, He is present wherever we gather, even in groups of only two or three.

In Revelation Jesus actually addresses seven churches some were healthy, some were not. He warns the Ephesian church that if they do not repent he would remove them from His presence (represented by removing their lampstand), in essence they would cease to be. It is being in the presence of Christ that makes us a church and being removed from His presence that determines our demise as a church.

It is His presence that makes us anything good whatsoever. Why are we so quick to make church about us and not about him? Is it any wonder why the world is just not interested in church? Heck, even Christians are not so interested in church these days.

Imagine, for a moment that these three omissions are actually how we defined church. What if the way we loved one another and the godliness that comes from the indwelling Spirit of Christ was church. I think we would see a lot more people wanting to be a part of that!

Now read that list of seven ingredients above that “defines” church and ask yourself if your neighbors would like to come to that. Imagine you made a glossy flier with those ingredients featured as the attraction and went door-to-door inviting people to come. Who do you think that would interest? Why would anyone who is not a Christian want to go to a place full of Christians to have someone collect money, hear someone preach at them and then sing a bunch of unfamiliar songs in public? This is our strategy to reach the world? Seriously? And we have somehow convinced ourselves that this was God’s plan? Really?

Jesus didn’t say, “By this will all men know that you are my disciples, by the preaching of sound doctrines by qualified elders in a weekly worship service followed by eating crackers and a thimble of grape juice.” No. It is by our “love for one another” that we demonstrate we are His disciples.

If you can define church without Jesus you can do church without Jesus. Therein is our greatest shame. Church has become something we do, not what we are because of Christ living within us. I want to be a part of something that only Jesus can do. How about you? 

Paul wrote, "Christ in you is the hope of glory." Oh that we would allow that to be our glory rather than all the other stuff we do.

In my next article I will share what my own understanding of church is.

What is Church? Part One

Several years ago I hosted a retreat for pastors. The retreat was to address a single question: what is a church? You would think this to be an easy question for pastors to answer, like a convention of bakers gathering to define bread. Nevertheless, we all left the retreat without an adequate answer we could agree on…and that should make us all a little nervous.

It turns out that defining church is not as easy as you would think.

While in seminary, I was given a list of ingredients from the New Testament to define a church. Some lists have 5 ingredients, others go as high as “9 marks,” but they are all very similar. Here is a typical list:

1.     A group of believers who gather together regularly to worship.

2.     …that hear the biblical preaching of God’s word.

3.     …that consider themselves a church.

4.     …that have qualified elders.

5.     …that practice baptism, communion and church discipline.

6.     …that have an agreed upon doctrinal foundation.

7.     …and have an evangelistic purpose.

Such a list interests me for two reasons: 1.) What it chooses to include, and especially, 2.) What it does not include. Our church traditions have biases that come out in our theological definitions of church. In many cases, we choose to accept our tradition as biblical and then go back to the New Testament to prove it, rather than letting the Bible do the defining. In this post I will address the things mentioned on this list of ingredients. In the next post I will delve into the things not mentioned on the list. Finally, in a third post, I will explain my own view of what church is.

It is all too common for preachers to include the preaching of a sermon on the list of what makes up a NT church. It is extremely difficult to find a Biblical justification for this inclusion, but they find some verses taken out of context to put in parenthesis at the end of each line, knowing few will ever question it. In fact, the sermon has been made into a sacrament at the core of what church is, and functionally is treated more as a sacrament than baptism or communion. Even in baptistic circles where the elements in communion and baptism are taken to be merely symbolic acts to picture a sacred truth, the sermon alone is considered a means of actually receiving life changing grace of God (which is truly what it means to be sacramental). 

The usage of the Greek word kerygma, translated “to preach” is overwhelmingly used in regard to sharing the good news with an as-yet-unconvinced audience, not delivering a sermon to the saved. There are very few examples of sermons delivered to Christians in the NT. Those we find hardly constitute a model for weekly sermonizing; and the longest sermon we can find is about 15 minutes in length. There is nothing at all wrong with the practice, I’m in favor of it in many cases, but to make it a core ingredient to define church has more basis in church tradition than the New Testament.

There isn't any biblical support that believers have to consider themselves a church to be a church. Are we simply trying to separate parachurch from local church? There isn't any biblical support for the idea of parachurch either. A reactionary theological statement that has no grounds in Scripture will come to haunt us later if that is how we define a church. If you ask me, when Jesus thinks you are in His church, it really doesn’t matter what others think, including yourself.

There are examples of churches without elders in the NT. On Paul’s first missionary journey he started churches with Barnabas and then left them without elders. Later, he returned to those churches in order to appoint some as elders. You would be very hard pressed to say biblically that they are not churches prior to the second visit. While these are not a great example of churches (Galatians), they were churches nonetheless.

Why is it that we so often insist that elders are present in order to be a NT church but so rarely include deacons? The NT is equally as strong on both roles. I think it is because those determining such things are elders, and those considered to be deacons are usually not in the meetings that define theological limits. I'm in favor of having elders and deacons in church, but lets not make their presence or absence the defining ingredient of a church.

While I am a staunch proponent of baptism and communion and becoming more so with each passing year, I am not willing to make the statement that those who do not practice them are not a church. My Quaker brothers and sisters as well as my Salvation Army friends would take issue. This sort of thinking actually promotes the idea of parachurch as well. If a group of Christians that fellowship, worship, do evangelism and discipleship together simply avoid getting wet and eating crackers and grape juice they avoid being a church and are therefore not a threat of competition to the local church and can raise their funds. Sorry, but I don’t buy it.

I believe that it is this incomplete and inadequate definition of church that has given rise to the idea of parachurch, or at least has given it a theological justification.

Next post I will look at what failed to make the list to define a NT church.