What If You Couldn't?

Suppose - just suppose - for a few moments that you couldn't worship in a gathering of Christ-followers anymore.

I don't know why. War. Disaster. Takeover by a totalitarian foreign government. Imprisonment in an iron lung. Eighty-eight-dollar-a-gallon gasoline. Doesn't matter. You can't worship while gathered with Christians anymore. Just suppose.

What would that mean to you?

Would the quality of the singing or the sermons or the temperature of the worship center still be important to you? How about the paltry class offerings or the cold decor of the church or the ministry staff's salary? Would the style of the worship or the hat of the lady who always sat in front of you or the fidgety teens in the back still ruffle your feathers?

Could the length and redundancy of the prayers still tick you off? Or the guy who parked across two spaces? Or the little children running among the old folks?

Would the teacher who had always hinted around at what you consider heresy and false doctrine still stoke your smoldering wrath?

How about the deacon who kept pestering you to teach, or help with benevolence, or take communion to shut-ins?

Or all the fundraising drive and charity event flyers that people kept tacking to the crowded bulletin board?

Or the broken step at the back of the church building that nobody ever bothered to fix?

Or the babies crying that parents were slow to remove to the nursery?

Would you be glad to be rid of the songs you don't like?

Would you miss the cranky old people?

Would you miss Jesus?

Would you still worship alone, your way, the way you like, the way that speaks to you, the way God must like because He made you in His image and that's the way you like it?

Would you like it better alone? Would you bother to worship at all?

What if you couldn't?

If You're Here Today ...

It's one of those things preachers say.

Without thinking.

"If you're here today, and you haven't obeyed the gospel ...."
"If you're here today, and need the prayers of the church ...."
"If you're here today, and you wish you weren't ...."

Okay, I've never actually heard a preacher say the last one - but I've heard a hundred or more variations of the first two, even from preachers who are really good and who ought to know what they're doing.

"If you're here today"? In the days before recording sermons on cassette and then CD and then MP3 for podcasting, who was a preacher talking to when saying that? The folks who were there, of course. They already knew they were there. And if they weren't there, they weren't listening. So why say it?

And it's always a hanging "if," even today. If you're not here today, what do you do? Forget it? Sit there and feel suicidal? Shake it off and try to do better next time?

Well, that's my advice for preachers: ditch the phrase "If you're here today." Trust me. We are.

And if we aren't, and we're still listening, it's because we wanted to be there that day and ordered the cassette or the CD, or downloaded the MP3.

It's not world-class advice like the stuff at Milton Stanley's outstanding Transforming Sermons, but maybe it'll make a couple of you out there re-think the standard closer phrasing a bit.

That is, if you're here today ....

Where the Fault Lies

William Shakespeare put these words in the mouth of his character Cassius (sowing seeds of discontent early on, Act I, Scene II) in the play Julius Caesar:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

It is quoted - sometimes out-of-context - to the point of tedium.

But the Bard is right, you know, whether speaking of ambition in the world or desire to please God through churches like the seven stars of the Revelation to John.

The one like unto a Son of Man does not take them to task for their inconsistent church structure or their incorporation of Gentile traditions as well as Jewish in their gatherings. Neither does the apostle to the Gentiles. We know from what Paul wrote that churches differed from one time and place to another in all these matters. And he has no more toleration for those who would dilute the gospel with Jewish law than he does for those who would water it down with Gentiles' Gnostic-sounding fables and genealogies. He has no opposition to celebrating the Lord's Supper in a Greco-Roman dinner party setting as long as it is done with Christian equity at heart.

No, the one whose eyes were like blazing fire warns the seven churches about their tolerance of man's teachings, their loss of first love, their inactivity, their lukewarmness. Pretty much the same issues with which Paul, Peter, James and John concern themselves.

So when you read books about how Christians have forgotten the old ways or about how church has most or all its origins in evil Gentile tradition or about how Christian gatherings must be patterned by-the-book after those in century one and-here's-how-the-author-interprets-each-of-those-patterns or about how everything must change ... well, weigh them carefully.

Weigh them in light of what scripture says. Weigh them by what the inspired writers criticized and applauded and recommended.

See if the vast majority of the themes scripture deals with are not corporate aspects of structure or governance or worship style, but are in fact the individual issues of everyday greed, ambition, jealousy, dilution of the gospel - and everything else that stems from self.

In an e-mailed response to a private comment on my blog, I recently wrote:

I don’t want to get into a spitting match over a book that has a lot to say – and I agree with some of it and disagree with some of it.

The assumption of the book is that everything churches do that comes of tradition that is not Jewish in origin is wrong and must be dispensed with. Yet I do not see that defended as an axiom; it’s just assumed as a basic truth.

This assumes that God could not/did not foresee the effects of incorporating Gentile culture into His church, and that the basic principles of being Christ in the world are not strong enough of themselves to overcome Gentile influence.

I resist that, as I find it to be an unscriptural assumption. What corrupts the attempt to be Christ in the world is not racial heritage or even tradition, but self and Satan.

I continue to be unable to believe that the most important thing Christians should be worried about changing is the trappings of what happens for one hour on Sunday mornings, when people God loves are starving for good spiritual and physical food; subsumed in a culture of self-satisfaction; and drowning in a cesspool of sin and its consequences in this world as well as the next.

If we are underlings and underachievers in our efforts to address those needs, does the fault lie in the way the seven stars meet or worship or conduct business?

Or in ourselves?

---

^{The Restoration paradigm, for me, is best phrased in a re-telling of the old preacher’s story about the boy and the makeshift puzzle his grandfather cut from a magazine page that was a complicated, detailed picture of a church, then challenged him to re-assemble it. The boy amazed grandfather by doing so in seconds. “How did you do it so quickly?” Grandfather asked. The boy had turned it over and found a much simpler picture of Jesus there. “When I got Jesus right, the church was right.”}

The New Patternism?

I just commented on Jay Guin's excellent blog (on the topic of George Barna/Frank Viola's Pagan Chrisitanity? and church autonomy):

Is it morally wrong to have (or serve under) a hierarchical system of church government? Is congregational - or even city-wide - autonomy morally superior?

I have another problem, and it’s with Pagan Christianity? (the new version; the only one I’ve read).

Why is the church model that Barna and Viola insist upon the one at Corinth? If we want to resort to true first-century primitivism, why not the church at Jerusalem at the end of Acts 2? Why not meet every day - at homes and at our places of worship? stick to the apostles' teachings, have fellowship, pray, break bread, and even sell our possessions and give to the poor?

To me, all of the debate over church structure falls into the category of time misspent. Go be Christ to the world, and let church be church … whenever, wherever Christians gather to worship and serve God. Let the shepherds lead by following Christ, and let the flock follow.

Apologies to Dr. McCoy in Star Trek VI, but this ain’t rocket surgery.

Yes, I think it's very interesting that all kinds of writers are returning to scripture - even at the cost of cherished church tradition - to seek out the way God wants followers of Christ to gather, worship, self-govern, structure hierarchy and a gazillion other things. And that some are coming to conclusions that are similar and sometimes identical to conclusions that Restoration leaders of more than a century ago formulated.

At the same time, I see a gathering danger that all it may lead to is Patternism, Wave II. (I pray I'm wrong.)

Face it folks, if we try to use scripture as some sort of blueprint to build a structure on our own foundation - or as a roadmap to a destination short of the one God intends for us, which is at home, with Him forever - we are tempting failure and arrogance and the lure of having the knowledge of good and evil ... and sin.

There is one pattern. He is Jesus, the Christ.

We are to follow Him. If that seems too difficult, we can follow evangelists like Paul, or shepherds who follow Him. They are to lead us to Him.

That is the purpose of scripture, too. If we can come closer to being Christ in this world, I feel confident that the rest will fall into place: God will govern us. He will be our King. We will serve in His kingdom. Absent clear, specific commandments in scripture - however we do that under His Kingship seems to have been left up to us, hasn't it? (It is a simple plan that has the virtue of never having been tried ... for about the last 1900 years.)

Trying to make a blueprint or roadmap out of scripture leaves us with a document that is full of holes and blank spaces, because that isn't its purpose. God could have easily filled in all the specifics we want to know about what to do, and how, where and when. (It would have been a GARGANTUAN document, yet He could have.) But He doesn't. He tells us who He is, and expresses His desire for us to seek Him.

The holes and blank spaces are part of His design:

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. - Genesis 2:19-20, emphasis mine

God could have foreknown what the man would name the critters, but He wanted to see. From the beginning, He gave us choice, in order to see what we would choose after having become aware of His goodness and love toward us.

So He doesn't answer every specific question about who, what, when, where or how we are to do.

He shows us Whom we need to be.

At the same time, God didn't give Moses a map of the wilderness and turn him loose to make the best sense of it that he could and somehow reach the promised land. No, God went with Moses and Israel (and led them in circles when they disobeyed) until He brought them where He wanted them to be all along.

He does the same with us - He gives us His very Spirit within to help us find His nature within a volume of collected works that is neither blueprint nor roadmap - but biography ... the story of God and us.

Why do we still think that searching the scripture in order to "do church right" will somehow lead us closer to God, rather than trying to be more like God in Christ, and just seeing where it leads us?

If we start filling in the holes and blank spaces the way we think they should be filled, where will that lead us?

Patternism presumes that there is only one "right" way to "do church" or anything else, and that God has encrypted it in scripture, and given us rational minds to correctly decrypt it and then follow it or else. There are no holes, no blank spaces. And silence gives condemnation.

Was there only one "right" name for each animal that Adam named?

Is there only one "right" way for groups of God's people to be governed under His sovereignty - centralized or autonomous? If so, which one is it?

On questions like these, patternism says we can and must know - and must condemn all dissenters - or be damned ourselves.

Grace says we can and must reflect God's love and righteousness.

We've been given choice. It's a simple one to make.

Ain't no rocket surgery.

Pray for Kinney

I wanted y'all to know I just read in an e-mail church bulletin from my church family in Abilene (Highland Church of Christ) a prayer request for:

"Kinney Mabry – son of Gary Mabry, chemistry teacher at AHS - in Kerrville hospital with double pneumonia, as well as being anemic"

... and I'm guessing it's our favorite preacherman. So I ask you to pray for our brother while he's ill and away from the keyboard.

I Will Get In Trouble For This

I just read the first two sections of Alan Hirsch's The Forgotten Ways, and I know I will have a difficult time proceeding.

There are plenty of books in the market today which analyze the market in which Christianity currently finds itself and each one's author feels certain that he or she has discerned the way in which Christians need to conduct the commerce of Christ in it.

The way.

And that's where I have the problem.

Superimposing what may have worked in one culture, time, or place - even in the first century - and concluding that it is the way for the church to work here and now.

As managing editor for New Wineskins, as a blogger, as a member of the support staff for the ministry at a good-sized metro church, as a dad and a husband and just as a follower of Christ ... I have read a few of these books. Many have superb points to make. Some may even be inarguable. A few might even be, dare I say, inspired - in some way, at least. Not all of them claim to be the way to do church in 21st century America, but virtually all leave that strong implication.

I admire the credentials of many of these authors. I cannot help but salute their attempts to write toward that goal. And I tend to believe that the motivation of most of them is pure - they truly, deeply want to help promote the story of Christ in a world that is increasingly unfamiliar with Him and uncaring about Him. Most are not in the business of writing these books to be in the business of making money writing these books.

Part of the problem is that I have a background in marketing, advertising, public relations, and journalism.

There is no such thing as a single, contiguous, uniform, universal, predictable, cross-sectionable, profilable, 21st century America. (Hirsch's work recognizes this, but it does not seem to deter him from coming to his conclusions - many of which I happen to agree with, so far.)

So the attempt to lock down the way to do church in 21st century America is like trying to manufacture one-size-fits all unisex underwear, or a single-color skin-tone adhesive bandage.

And the other main part of the problem I have with this genre of books is that I feel not only is the target missed, but that the wrong target is being aimed at.

The target they're aiming at - one way or another - is "doing church." Not always, but often. The emphasis is on analyzing and contextualizing and revolutionizing and rethinking and reparadigm-ing and reimagining.

What's the right target?

I think it's being Christ in the world. And many of the books I've read refer to this, though too many refer to it as a way that should form and inform doing church, as if that were the target - just as too many books of a previous generation refer to doing church right as the way to be Christ in the world. There's nothing essentially wrong with reading - or writing - about those things. But reading, writing, thinking, pondering, discussing, and debating is time-consuming. Could that time be better spent?

My friend David Underwood is always encouraging me to write a book. The reason I haven't been able to, David, is that I am afraid I will end up writing a book that is essentially no different in its target than any of the ones I've already read - and far less informed. Far too much of what I've written on this blog has been concerned with the way of doing church right.

There is one Way; one Truth; one Life.

We need to be living it.

I need to be living it.

If we do, church will follow. We'll gather because we can't help ourselves. We love each other; we love God through His Son Jesus, the Christ. Getting those two life passions together in our lives will be inevitable.

We'll worship Him because we simply can't avoid it. We'll spend time in His word in order to know how; what pleases Him most and we'll do it because it will become second nature to us. We'll accommodate what speaks to others in worship and they'll participate in what speaks to us in worship because we are completely given over to our love for God and His children. We'll get together in groups with whom we naturally communicate, and we'll be driven by our love for others with whom we don't - to the point where we'll get together in groups with them, too.

We will be unable to NOT worship, because our lives will be continual worship - giving of self to others out of devotion to them and to God.

This "method" isn't reductionism. It's just simple. It isn't doctoral-thesis-in-ecclesial-missiology stuff.

It's the nature of Christ and you can find it in any Bible.

And it's what we need to be all about.

The church at Philippi began differently from the church at Ephesus, or Jerusalem, or Corinth. They worshiped in different places: by the river then at Lydia's house; at a synagogue and then at a lecture hall; at the temple and from house to house; at a synagogue and then at the synagogue ruler's house. They may have worshiped differently: how often they shared the communal meal, in what way, how many spoke and for how long.

The plain fact is, there are modern ways of being Christ that work for modern people. There are post-modern ways of being Christ that work for post-modern people. The measure of effectiveness for any way of being Christ is not solely quantiative, nor is it solely qualitative. There are right ways to worship God, and there are wrong ways. There are right ways to communicate His Story to others, and there are wrong ways.

There is no single "right" way to "do church."

I know this is not the position that a lot of folks will want me to take. Some will want me to say that God has spoken clearly, we have understood perfectly, and if we do not worship Him as a church in the way we have "always" worshiped, we will go to hell and take innocent converts with us. Others will want me to say that we should be open to any way that one can worship - whatever works for any given person is okay with God even if it seems absurd to others; and too many souls are being lost because we don't encourage them to worship any way they want to - for instance, as gatherings of gay pride.

I can't say either of those things.

I can only recommend constantly referring to scripture - not as a cookie-cutter pattern, but as a guide revealing as much of God's will for us as we must have - and constantly supplicating the Holy Spirit - not as a magic 8-ball - but as the very presence of the God who wants us to have answers to our questions about serving Him, and also wants us to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.

On this Independence Day, I wish we could declare independence from the tyranny of both the idea that "the old way isn't working and must be changed" and the idea that "the way we've always done it is the only right way."

That's all I can recommend, whether I write a long, expensive book about it or a medium-long, free blog post:

Discernment.

And I will almost certainly get in trouble for it.