Frank Viola on Publishing

Frank Viola and I agree on a lot of things, and differ on a few. Mostly, we emphasize different but equally important aspects of the organic nature of the church (my opinion at least).

His latest blog post to aspiring authors is outstanding. So I thought I would mention it here (with a link) and twitter it out there.

There is nothing in the post that I could possibly disagree with. I do sometimes think that self-publishing is the only way for some good, but unknown writers to get their foot in the door (worked for me...and him). Frank isn't disagreeing with this, just pointing out that self-publishing doesn't produce as good a product as going with established publishers (and he's right).

Because Frank did such a good job with this I do not have to write much on the subject–I couldn't say anything any better anyway. If I could summarize my own thoughts about writing books in two sentences it would be:

The best distribution means I know of is to write such a good book that people can't help but tell others about it. If you write one that needs a strong marketing system to get it out, than it may not be worth distributing (or writing) in the first place.

Now, because Frank is a good writer he has inspired me to add a bit to the conversation as well. Aside from what he says in the post, I would also suggest that any aspiring author do a few other things:

1. Journal. Write something every day! Blogging is good for this as well, but it may be helpful to also journal which is just for yourself.

2. Occasionally write poetry, even if it isn't any good and you are afraid to show anyone...it refines your use of the language.

3. Read, a lot. Do your homework, especially if you are writing non-fiction. There is a lot of unsubstantiated fluff out there presuming authority it should not. Don't add to the white noise just to see your name on a cover. Vary your reading. Read classics, biographies, journal articles, cutting edge books and blogs. Read non-fiction too because it exercises your brain's creativity muscles (you may argue that there is no such thing, but I just proved there is by imagining it!). Learning is more important than writing, because learning makes for good writing.

4. Write a lot knowing that your best work will not get written until after all the bad and "so so" stuff gets out of the way. Frank mentions to wait until your 40, which is not bad advice. Really it is better to not wait, but write (just don't publish a lot of it). If you wait until you are 40 you will have better life experience and wisdom behind your words, but you may not have the craft as well refined unless you practice before your 40. I can't imagine Frank would disagree. My experience tells me that those who are meant to write couldn't wait anyway.

5. Think about your book as a combination of two parts: content and craft. These must come together to produce a good book. You can transcribe and publish a sermon series and sell a lot of copies, but that doesn't mean you've written a good book, just hit a hot topic with funny anecdotes. Blend both good content and good craft and you will have a good book. We need more of those books than the former. It is one thing to say something that is good, it is also another to say something well. Give yourself to doing both.

6. Learn to value and desire good editing. This is an acquired taste because at first we may not like someone tearing up our creative work, but good editors will make you seem much smarterer than you really are.

7. Finally, know what makes for success in publishing. There are two very different kinds of success in publishing books. One is the quick sale of many books, the other is the slow burn that builds. I personally think that still selling the book 75 years later is better than selling 75,000 in the first five years, though most publishing houses would disagree with me. Write a book with this perspective in mind. Not every book will meet the second kind of success, and that doesn't make it a failure...but the best books do.

Here is the link to an outstanding bit of advice from an experienced author:

http://bit.ly/gDrnBb

Well done Frank!

Neil

Constantine & The Institutionalization of Church

My wife and I spent a couple days in York, England recently. While there we saw a statue to Constantine erected just beside the main cathedral in the area--the York Minster. While beautiful and impressive in many ways, we were reminded by the cathedral of how far from the original intent of the church people had taken her.

The early church was organic and a movement for the first couple hundred years. Driven underground by waves of Roman persecution, it remained a viral movement that could not be contained or stopped. Though many tried to stomp it out all attempts only made it stronger.

All that changed in 313 AD when the emperor Constantine declared that the empire would not only tolerate Christianity but restore to the church all lost property. He was the first “Christian” emperor and Christianity went instantly from the margins to the mainstream and everything changed. Christianity became the state religion and the church did not change much from that point on. Our enemy, the devil himself, learned that if he cannot stop the church, he might as well join it and change it from the inside so that it is ineffective and less a threat. But for occasional breakouts of remnant expressions he succeeded. He used Constantine to launch this sinister attack.

Over the centuries, after Constantine, the Western church has evolved in many ways, but none have been a significant systemic change. There was the establishment of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodoxed Church and for hundreds of years there were very little changes. The Reformation split the Western church into the Roman Church and the volatile protestant church. But as an institution, in spite of the differences, the institutional system remained mostly unchanged. The Anabaptists were set lose by the reformation (and persecuted by it) but quickly would institutionalize as well.

Whether the church adapts to reach coal miners in the 18th century England or postmodern pilgrims in the 21st century, most of the changes have been minor shifts. Whether you are talking about high church or low, Pentecostal or Presbyterian the church has remained institutional in its approach. From Baptist to Brethren, from Mennonite to Methodist, the changes in the system are relatively untouched over the centuries. Music or no music? Pipe organ or electric guitar? Tall ceilings with stained-glass widows or meeting in a box building without windows, the actual system of church has gone relatively unchanged.

You have the priests or pastors, the Sunday service with singing and a sermon, the weekly offering, the pulpit with pews and the church building. These have been constants since the forth century. Even if you move the whole show into a house instead of a church building, if the system hasn’t changed you have only shrunk the church, not transformed it. Changing the style of music does not upgrade the system. Turning down the lights and turning up the volume is a simple patch to the same old system. Choirs and hymns or praise bands and fog machines, kneeling or standing the system is changed very little. Sermonizing with topical messages or expositional ones is not changing the system just making minor adjustments. Sunday Schools or small groups as secondary learning environments are not a systemic change at all, just a variation on the same old operational system.

Constantine was declared Caesar while in York in 306 AD. Today, near the spot where he was named the emperor is a statue of him beside a large cathedral, which I find quite symbolic. Constantine turned the church into an institution and in that state it remained for for 1700 years. He is now remembered beside a very institutional expression of what church is--the York Minster Cathedral. Today we are seeing a rapid shift back to organic and viral expressions of ecclesiology.

We should remember Constantine so as not to make the same mistake. We must begin to awaken once again to the true nature and expression of Christ's body, not as a building, a program, an event or an organization, but as a spiritual family called out on mission together. We must come to realize once again that the form of church is not the issue, but the way we relate--to God, one another and the world.

Just how sick we really are, Part 2

A relationship should not be defined by a calendar appointment, a task to complete, or a roster in an organization. Relationships should transcend all of these things. Compare your relationship with your spouse, parent or child to such minuscule things and you will see that these connection points do not make a family but simply acquaintances or fellow members of a group...not familial at all.

The core of relationship is devotion to one another. The fulfillment of God's entire law is to love one another. This is a commitment to each other in the face of anything and everything. If simply not maintaining an ongoing meeting is enough to sever the relationship it was not a true relationship built on love, but on convenience. Welcome to Christianity in the world today, a faith of consumerism and convenience.

I look forward to my buddies (Hirsch and Frost) release of their book on liminal experience called The Faith of Leap (April 2011) which I believe with help us understand how relationships are affected by missional experience. You see, when a relationship is tested in an adverse situation where we need to come through for each other, it becomes real, deep and lasting. If it cannot even endure the cancellation of a regular meeting it is not a relationship of depth in any degree.

We no longer bring our relationships into environments where we simply must depend on each other for survival. Instead we limit what our relationships are to easily managed but not very deep activities that do not develop beyond the level of acquaintance. Ironically, the very thing that can forge a true, deep and lasting relationship--mission--is feared because it is seen as a threat to our weak but convenient relationships.

It is when we take our relationships into mission that they become stronger, not weaker. By avoiding mission under the pretext that regular meetings are necessary to maintain a relationship then we do not have relationships worth maintaining in the first place.

When the flaming missiles whiz past your ears and your brother or sister is the one watching your back as you watch theirs, you become connected in the depth of your soul. You need each other, and when you are there for one another the relationship becomes deep and lasting. As you sacrifice for each other's success, you have learned what love truly is.

The young men who stormed the beaches of Normandy under a barrage of bullets, and who lost many comrades, have come to know a deep relationship with brothers that endures a lifetime. They may not see each other every day, every week, or even every year, but still many keep connected more than 66 years later. Their lives are tied together, not by convenience but by a deeper experience that transcends meetings, tasks or membership. When you know that you are alive today because of this other person's sacrifice, you value the relationship at the depth of your being.

If you cannot even maintain a relationship after a regular meeting has ended then the relationship was not much. Convenience is not the foundation of the Christian faith. Love is.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Love is not always convenient, but it is always true and faithful and for the benefit of others.

Paul's description of what a community looks like in the face of opposition and for the cause of the gospel reveals what our relationships should actually look like:

Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have. (Phil 1: 27-30)

Just how sick we really are

It has recently dawned on me that we really have no idea whatsoever what living in true community is. Perhaps the most telling symptom is found in the response so many of us receive when we speak of multiplying groups. It is quite common that people do not want to reproduce a group because they value the relationships they currently have and are afraid that if they start a new group they will lose the relationship. A recent review of Search & Rescue even mentioned that Life Transformation Groups foster short term relationships because they are to multiply frequently and discipleship must involve much longer relationships than LTGs promote.

Well, this is actually a glaring symptom of a much more serious issue: we do not have very good relationships! If our relationships cannot endure maturation and development over the years then they are weak and anemic.

For centuries church has been mostly defined by meetings. As a result we have settled into a superficial understanding of how we relate to one another that is completely limited to scheduled meetings together. The result is that we think if the weekly meeting changes the relationship is lost. This, my friends, is shallow and sick. A relationship is so much more than seeing one another at a weekly event. Church is so much more as well. I believe that church is to be a spiritual family on mission together, not a weekly meeting or religious event. We actually believe that when we send people out to start meeting in another group that we have lost or severely hurt the original relationships. Really? Is your relationship simply about meeting for a once a week Bible study, worship service or potluck? We must have stronger "ties that bind" than these.

Once we begin to see church as a family instead of a religious meeting everything changes. We are no longer restricted to a two hour scheduled meeting. Family is 24/7. Even when a child grows up and moves away they are still part of the family and thought of with affection and belonging, right? Of course. They will be missed and there may be more expensive phone bills, but the relationship is still strong and in tact. To be honest, when I look at old photos of my children as toddlers I miss them in that stage, but I am so glad I get to know them in all the stages of life. I look forward to the thrill of grandchildren, and I would never know this thrill if I somehow kept my own kids from maturing. And if children mature and become parents themselves, the family is stronger for it, not weaker. The fact that we are so concerned with a church giving birth to another indicates that we really do not understand church naturally--as a family. Imagine if you actually treated your own family they way we practice church. What would your family be like if you only saw each other once a week, seated in rows, with one person doing all the talking and another collecting the weekly offering. Then you sing a song and depart for the week not to see each other until the following meeting. That is not a strong family at all, nor is it a strong church.

I maintain strong relationships with people that have moved on to start new groups and reach new people. Our relationship matures over the years but doesn't diminish. We may begin to know each other in a Life Transformation Group, but when the group multiplies into two other groups our relationship has ended! No, in fact most of the time it matures into something better, not worse.

I think that the reason people cling to a group meeting with such desperation is because it is the closest thing to relationships in church that they have every known, which is quite sad when you think of it. We simply must develop stronger relationships that are not threatened by the thought of naturally birthing new generations. If in your own family you stuck together and never matured or allowed your children to grow into independent adults and parents themselves you would have an extremely unhealthy family. Grandchildren do not weaken familial ties, they tend to strengthen the family in almost every way.

Grow up church! Become the family you are meant to be. Celebrate the birth of the next generation and enjoy your grand kids! If you are too afraid to do it you will miss out on the best part of family.

A New Release is Coming, Well Sort of.

Friends, if you bought Cultivating a Life for God, and then Search & Rescue, you will notice that some of the two books have the same basic message. Search & Rescue is an update on the original, but also written with a different audience in mind. When I wrote Cultivating I was writing for Pastors, missionaries and church planters. When I wrote Search & Rescue I was writing for ordinary folk in the church that need to be inspired to do something courageous for Jesus---make disciples. There is, however, new material in Search and Rescue and every chapter is mostly new, so we continue to have both books in print. I personally believe that the chapter on motivations of a disciple in Search & Rescue alone is worth buying the book even if you already read Cultivating a Life for God.

Now Ordinary Hero is about to be released. I want you all to know that this book is Search & Rescue being released as a paperback under a new title. It is not a new book. I originally wanted the Ordinary Hero title, but Baker decided to go with Search & Rescue with the first release. Now they are trying out the original title I suggested.

But one thing bothers me: it does not mention on the front cover that this is a re-release of Search & Rescue. For that reason, I am putting this out to the blog world so that you don't buy the same book twice. If you read Cultivating, then Search & Rescue and then bought Ordinary Hero, I am afraid you will think I am trying to sell the same book over and over again. I am not.

I think you will find that the new title fits the content of the book better. Ordinary Hero is a great book to get for family or friends that want to be inspired to live more heroically for Jesus. If you have read Search and Rescue, however, there is no need to get Ordinary Hero. If you have never read any of my books, Ordinary Hero is a great one to start with.

Getting to the Bottom of the Deep Church: A Review of Jim Belcher's Book, Part Two

Jim Belcher, in his book Deep Church, sincerely feels he is offering a third way between the traditional and emerging church, but in the end it is just diving down deeper into the traditional church side of the pool. Which, by the way, is fine with me. Let me now share a couple concerns that I had with the book.

The first thing I struggled with is a dangerous idea espoused in the chapter on deep ecclesiology, though it is actually a running theme throughout the book. He summarizes the idea of a deep ecclesiology this way:

The Bible + Tradition + Mission = Deep Ecclesiology (p. 173).

Wow, see I told you he is honest (in part one of this review). Honesty aside, this recipe can produce a whole lot of bad stuff. This is actually the very formula that created the Pharisaical legalism that Jesus and Paul fought so hard against. The Old Testament (Bible) + the oral law or Talmud (Tradition) + Mission = Legalistic Judaizers. This formula can endorse doctrinal abuses such as purgatory, RC priesthood and sacraments, and even indulgences (selling a ticket to heaven) all with the same basis of authority.

The problem that Belcher will run into is that the creeds he considers the Great Tradition do not at all address church practice, which is actually where most of the frustration comes into play between the emerging and traditional churches. I do not find anything I object to in the three creeds he includes (I’m not too comfortable with the way the Athanasius Creed reads, but push comes to shove I agree with its content), so simply agreeing on these does nothing to bridge the vast difference Belcher and I have for what church is and how it works. At that point, Belcher is then forced to appeal to certain church fathers and practices that tend to have the greatest amount of acceptance by the church over the centuries. Frankly, I am very uncomfortable with that. We can all pick and choose which fathers we like best and it does nothing to bring us to consensus. We all find at the end of the day that church tradition lacks the authority needed to speak to the issues we are facing today.

The second thing I didn’t like was a blatant disregard of the Anabaptist non-creedal point of view. At first I wanted to just chock that up to naïveté, but as I kept reading Belcher proved to be too well read and thought out to be that ignorant. Perhaps in his devotion to finding a way to blend his passion for tradition with his learning in the emerging church world that he could only find a compromise in a world that accepts his Great Tradition. Unfortunately, there are many who are non-creedal doctrinally and that prevents such a compromise. Being non-creedal is actually a value for many, myself included. The Anabaptists wanted nothing to be held as authority but the word of God, and so even a well worded and agreeable creed is incapable of standing on the same ground as the bible. Scripture is universal truth that will not fade with time, but the doctrines and systems of men are not that way. As time progresses and culture shifts so does one’s perspective. Creeds are written by men in response to an historical context, and therefore bound by the culture in which they were written. They are not inspired by God and therefore by nature are capable of being erroneous, imbalanced or incomplete as we learn more things with progressive revelation. But perhaps more than that, when you put anything at the same level of Scripture two harmful things happen: the authority of scripture is weakened and the authority of the tradition is elevated to the status of the Bible. That is the most dangerous part, which leads to abuses over time.

Finally, I was a little put off by his reformed bias. Frankly, with the upsurge of reformed thinkers today there is a growing Calvinistic culture that borders on bigotry at times. Jim Belcher is not an arrogant or bigoted man, from what I read, but nonetheless the neo-Reformed view has left a residue on him that comes out at times. Perhaps the best example to demonstrate this is whenever he had nagging doubts about emerging church viewpoints, he called them “Calvinist misgivings.” What is wrong with this? Well trust me, having misgivings about philosophy that borders on (or crosses over into) relativism is not the exclusive territory of Calvinists! Calvinists are not the only ones smart enough to be troubled by this encroachment on truth.

This Neo-Reformed group consistently draws lines that become boundaries and are often as committed to their bounded-set as any staunch traditional church “heresy hunter.” To help illustrate this point I am going to use an example from a friend of mine--Mark Driscoll (I think he can handle the controversy).

When explaining the same categories of the emerging church mentioned in the first part of this post, Driscoll (one of the prominent leaders of the Neo-Reformed movement) actually added a forth category: the Reformers According to Mark there are reformers (not changing structure or doctrine & reformed), Relevants (not changing structure or doctrine, not totally reformed), Reconstructionists (changing structure but not doctrine) and Revisionists (changing doctrine). The Reformers, according to Drischoll are the same as the Relevants except they also hold to a reformed doctrine.

My question then is do we also want to have Reformed Reconstructionists and Reformed Revisionists because there are reformed folk in those “camps” too. Why not have Dispensational Relevants and Dispensational Revisionists as well? It is quite common for these guys (and yes it is almost exclusively men) to cite as their heroes Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Kyuper, Spurgeon, Lewis, Schaeffer, Keller and Packer and any other very intellectual leader in church history as if the rest of us can’t claim them as our heroes. As a protestant I can tell you I have benefited from these people and consider them fathers of my Christianity as well, even though I do not sign off on all five pedals of the Calvinist tulip.

This is the sort of attitude I am bothered by. Driscoll draws lines in as bounded-a-set as one can. He goes so far as to describe the Reconstructionists (he actually uses me as an example of this "camp") as on the same highway, but not in the same lane. “We’re not going to run them off the road or do any drive by shootings against them, but were not in the same lane.” Frankly, speaking as one of the Reconstructionists, that is not a healthy way to work together as the body of Christ.

Don’t confuse Drischoll’s strong Irish fighter stance (I can say that because he does, and I am also Irish and a fighter) with Belcher, because Belcher’s tone is conciliatory, friendly and respectful. But on occasion, I felt like he was unaware of how much his immersion in the reformed subculture has rubbed off on him in ways that might come across to others as a little insulting. I'm sure that I have the same blind tendency from an Anabaptist tradition, and if so we both need to talk, and work together, not draw lines and ignore each other. It is not enough to simply not shoot at each other in a drive by shooting.

Frankly, I like Mark and have considered him a friend for many years now. Two times in my life I can connect a radical change in my life to hearing Mark preach a message, so as far as I am concerned I am one of his friends, but I am not a full-fledged, card carrying, Calvinist. I hope that the neo-Reformers can accept that and we can work together to change the world, even if we do not appeal to the Great Tradition to do it.

The Gifted Teacher, Part Two

All of us who have fulfilled the role of teacher are aware that we learn so much more by teaching than we ever did by being taught. In fact, one of the most frustrating realities of teaching is that you are not able to convey to the people all that you have been able to learn studying for the process. There is good reason for this. It is God's design for teachers to teach people to become teachers, for then they will learn the truths of God's word on much deeper levels.

This pedagogy has many benefits...

1. The people learn the truth on a far deeper level.
2. The people understand the truth, not just remember it.
   
3. The people are held to greater accountability to practice the truth they learned.
4. The people own the message, not just know it.
5. The people spread the core message to others, who in turn learn to own it and spread it themselves and the kingdom multiplies into a movement.

When you take a test you reveal what you remember from someone's teaching. When you practice what you have heard you demonstrate that your will is involved in the learning process and you are learning beyond a cognitive level. When you start to teach the subject to others you engage the lessons on a far deeper level and you have to reconcile the logic behind the facts, and not just remember the facts themselves.

When you pass on the lessons to others you demonstrate a greater level of ownership. Isn't that what we want? We do not want people who know facts about the Gospel, but apply them and then own them in the depth of their soul. We do not want only an audience, or even practitioners...we want agents of the Gospel. Change is not enough, we want change agents.

We have developed a learning system for systematic theology based upon this type of thinking. It is a one year learning process for proven leaders where they learn theology in a small community by teaching it in a highly reproducible manner. It is called TruthQuest and is available on our website. TruthQuest will not teach you what to think but how to think. The participants may not come out thinking the same as you, but they will come out able to think for themselves. I for one value that even more than simply agreeing with me.

http://www.cmaresources.org/node/80