Many of my friends will understand Aja and my reasons for leaving traditional church settings, but I’m all too aware that to some we seem flighty or even just plain off. In light of this I want to write a little something to explain where we are coming from, if not to persuade others to join us, then at least to make them understand.
At the heart of our decision is a plain straight forward reading of the Bible. For those who don’t know me very well one of the main things that I can’t stand is compromise. I’m not talking about weakness because I certainly understand that. I’m talking about knowing something to be true and saying I don’t care I’m going to do something else. This is an issue with most of traditional Protestant church life. Take the church meeting itself for example. The New Testament gives us basic guidelines on what to do when gathered and why we should do it in the first place. In short, the reason we go to “church” (the statement itself showing you how far off we’ve gone) is to use our gifts to encourage one another. The only real rules are that the results of our participation have to be edifying and that everyone should be allowed to participate. God, on purpose, made up the church so that we would need everyone’s participation when we come together. Are these simple guidelines followed? No. Why not? I can’t answer that, but I would presume the answer is that that is not the way things have been done. And because we don’t understand the goal of the church in the first place (coming to the fullness of Christ, which requires the use of the gifts of the Spirit, which requires Biblical gatherings)
On another point, take the role of the pastor. Do we ever see a pastor participating in a church gathering led alone running the meeting in the Bible? No. Should they participate? Of course, but as part of the body. Why are 99% of churches run the way they are? Again I can’t answer that, but it isn’t ok. It hurts the leaders and it hurts the church. How did we go from shepherds caring for people to shepherds becoming administrators and charismatic public speakers?
Lets move to the teaching itself. When Jesus sent his disciples out he said “go and preach the gospel saying, ‘the kingdom of God has come near.’” Paul was accused of treason because of his gospel preaching. The gospel as preached in the churches I’ve been in has been something akin to “ask Jesus to come into your heart and you will be saved.” Do you see the difference there? We have gone from saying Jesus is the king of the world who is going to make everything right to offering Jesus as fire insurance.
The things I like most about leaving traditional church setting is that I get the Bible back and I get the believing community back. I can read the Bible for what it says and not for what it supposed to say. I get the whole story, not a list of random verses to support whatever teaching is popular in the blog/book circuit. And I am in relationship with people, not because we happen to sit in the same room for an hour and a half once a week, but because we are family in Christ. The point is no longer to grow an organization, but to worship God together and grow into the fullness of Christ.
I’m so excited. I just got this in the mail today. It’s what Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, who is my all time favorite guitar player, uses to make reverse reverb. If you don’t know what that is you can hear it on YouTube. I found it on ebay used for less than $200. It’s so cool to have the same gear as the pros use.
I was reading an old book on education today and came across this bit about what intelligence is:
“The word (intelligence) sends us back to a phrase of Plato. The person of intelligence is the one who always tends to “see things as they are,” the one who never permits his view of them to be directed by convention, by the hope of advantage, or by an irrational and arbitrary authoritarianism. He allows the current of his consciousness to flow in perfect freedom over any object that may be presented to it, uncontrolled by prejudice, prepossession or formula; and thus we may say that there are certain integrities at the root of intelligence which give it somewhat the aspect of a moral as well as an intellectual attribute.” By Albert Jay Nock in “The Theory of Education in the United States” (1931)
This is so important to grasp. We need to have this quality in ourselves and be able to tell if other people have it. I’ve learned that no amount of study or IQ can overcame pride and stubbornness. One can look into a subject very intensely, but unless that person is willing to change their long held beliefs and admit that their opponents might be onto something, the person might as well not have studied at all. They will continue to believe what they have always believed.
You see the affects of this lack of “intelligence” in every area of importance in life – theology, economics, biology, meteorology, political science. The bulk of what is going on in these fields is not open and honest inquiry. These fields are dominated by political maneuvering, desire for personal gain, and an unwillingness of those involved to admit when they are wrong.
Let’s make it our mission to be humble, open in our thoughts, and teachable; not critical and judgemental. Only then can we truly develop and grow as individuals.
Here’s a great post that says a lot of what I have been feeling for the last several years very well. I wish I could have written it.
http://www.studyinbrown.com/brush-strokes/2010/3/22/dear-christian-world.html
Ok so I’m not actually drunk; I’m just feeling very emotional right now so I’m going to say whatever I want like I would if I were drunk. I just got back from seeing “Dear John.” That movie is emotionally intense on so many levels, but what I’m thinking of now is the main character’s father, who is mentally handicapped. His son didn’t realize that he had mental problems so he was very hard on his Dad. He never told his Dad how he much he cared for him until his Dad was dying. One of my kids has some problems, not nearly that bad, but it’s still there so I feel a lot on this issue. I’m so tired of this world. There are so many hurting lonely people with no one to help them. I can’t wait for this to be over. Yes, my life is pretty good, but that doesn’t help the retarded kid who parents abuse him because they don’t know how to deal with it.
Of course the solution to all this is the gospel, but the church doesn’t know what the gospel is. Most evangelicals (people of the gospel) don’t know nor care what the gospel is. Even when you find people who get the gospel they don’t bother applying it. They get that there is more to the gospel than welcoming Jesus into our hearts. They get that Jesus in now Lord of the world and is restoring all of creation to peace and harmony with Jesus as the head. They even get God has begun that process through Spirit empowered believers. Unfortunately it doesn’t actually seem to happen in their world, nor do they expect it to. It’s like they hear Jesus say “go preach the gospel saying, ‘the kingdom of God has come near.’” But then stop listening when Jesus says “heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead” at the end of that sentence. It’s like the gospel is some nice theory.
I’m tired of Christians blaming God for how broken things are. I’m tired of safe thinking where we are open to God healing the people and fixing relationships but don’t believe it will actually happen. The Bible says the prayer of faith will heal the sick. Do you know what faith is? Faith is not being able to imagine that something is not true. So if I have faith for healing that means when I pray for someone I can’t imagine them not being healed. If our belief is that most of the time God does not want to heal the people we pray for, I’m sorry, but it is impossible for us to have faith. That is not God’s fault. That is our fault.
Yes, God did allow the world to become broken, but only so if could be fixed through Jesus. The Church must allow God to fix the world through his chosen instrument – Us. And, yes, we can block God (remember Paul saying “don’t quench the Spirit”) so don’t automatically blame God when God doesn’t appear to be doing things he said he would do.
Below is a very helpful done by Trevor Wax with NT Wright. If you don’t know NT Wright is one of the top NT scholars in the world.
http://trevinwax.com/2009/01/13/interview-with-nt-wright-responding-to-piper-on-justification/
I’ve copied the bit that I thought was most important (hope that’s ok).
Trevin Wax: What is at stake in this debate over justification? If one were to adopt Piper’s view instead of yours, what would they be missing?
N.T. Wright: What’s missing is the big, Pauline picture of God’s gospel going out to redeem the whole world, all of creation, with ourselves as part of that.
What’s missing is the big, Pauline view of the church, Jew and Gentile on equal footing, as the sign to the powers of the world that Jesus is Lord and they aren’t.
What’s missing is the key work of the Holy Spirit in enabling the already-justified believers to live with moral energy and will so that they really do ‘please God’ as Paul says again and again (but as Reformed theology is shy of lest it smack of smuggling in works-righteousness again).
What’s missing is an insistence on Scripture itself rather than tradition . . .
I had the best beer I’ve ever had this week. I was looking for something different at Hy-Vee and saw the name Pere Jacques. Pere Jacques is a Belgian monk who is famous for making great bear. Goose Island, which is a brewer in Chicago, made this beer as a tribute to him.
I don’t know anything about beer terminology, but this is dark but not black and is very complex. It comes with a date on the bottle and according to the label will improve for the next 5 years. I’ve never had a vintage beer before. At $2.5 a piece it is expensive as far as beers go, but if you get a beer at a restaurant it is that much for a mediocre one so to me it is worth it. So if you see it buy it. In fact buy all they have as it will only get better with age (apparently, I didn’t wait).
When I was a teenager my Grandpa used to tell me that the world was my oyster. I used to dream of being a famous soccer player or great musician on stage wowing the world. The problem was those dreams were totally unrealistic. Just fantasizing about something doesn’t make it happen. It comes through hours and hours of deliberate practice.
In “Talent is Overrated” Geoff Colvin talks about what people like Tiger Woods, Mozart, and Jerry Rice went through to achieve the levels they did. We mere mortals like to talk about how talented these people are, but really that is our excuse to not have to work hard. If we try something for a couple days and don’t get great results we throw up our hands and say we don’t have “the gift” and go back to watching other people do it. But the truth is that although great performers may have certain innate abilities that we don’t have, in most cases they just worked harder and smarter than we are willing to work. I would be willing to bet most of us could hit a golf ball pretty darn well if you had good instruction and spend 20,000 hours practicing.
One of my goals is to stop fantasizing and start doing. And not only doing, but doing intelligently. In Oasis’ “Fade Away” Noel sings “while we’re living, the dreams we have as children fade away.” I don’t want my dreams to fade away. I have new dreams now, and I want to see them come to pass. I don’t want mediocrity to be my portion in life.
Brilliant bit from “A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Slippery Slope” by Lemony Snicket
A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called “The Road Less Traveled,” describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used.The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely,and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn’t hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is now dead.
One of my favorite preachers and Christians was killed in a car accident this morning. He leaves behind his wife and 10 children. He was head of IHOP’s adoption ministry (the reason he has 10 children several of whom are handicapped).
I’m absolutely devastated by this news. Of all people to die young (he was 37). You can ask “why?” but we don’t know why. Why take someone who the church and his family needs and leave behind people like me? Who knows.
Yesterday Derek’s friend Randy Bohlenger wrote an incredibly timely post about living knowing that your time is running out.
http://randybohlender.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/dealing-with-limited-quantitites/