Filed under: Activist, Church, Madison, Wisconsin, Mission Leadership | Tags: apologetic, apostolic, Church, Henri Nouwen, HIV/AIDS, Jesus Christ, Luther, Madison, Mission, New College, Partnership, Pope Innocent, prophet, Ravi Zacharias, reformation, university, UW, Vern Visick
Pope Innocent 12th, 1243 AD said, “Universities are rivers of knowledge that feed and fertilize the universal church.” The attitude of the church toward universities, including the UW – Madison, was at one time positive. “We do not want to repeat the errors that have come from not revisiting the theological and biblical underpinnings of our mission.” (Taylor 2001:7) The mission for the Church in Madison is to make disciples of all nations, including the powerful institution of the university.
“The way of the Christian leader,” Henri Nouwen writes, “is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross.” (Taylor 2001:9) The challenge of the cross today, is to enter the halls of the universities as reformers. Luther, a professor in a university, never intended to be a reformer. Christian professors at the UW may be unwilling, however these professors may be called to be the leaders in a reformation that is as significant for the university as Luther’s was for the church.
Prophetic engagement with the university is underway through various agencies, such as New College in Madison led by Vern Visick. The challenge is to allow that prophet call to stimulate apostolic response. The apostolic call to the Church in Madison is to engage global issues. With effective church partnership, for example, a challenge could go out to the Church in Madison in response to the global HIV/AIDS crisis: “If you adopt an HIV/AIDS orphan (of which there are over 10 million today), the church in Madison will sponsor that child’s education.” “If the Church of Jesus Christ rises to the challenge of HIV/AIDS it will be the greatest apologetic the world has ever seen,” writes Ravi Zacharias. The Church in Madison’s acceptance of a new apostolic call to engage the university with its influential role in the world, it will present a powerful apologetic of the love of God and the love of our global neighbor.
Filed under: Activist | Tags: Church, generation, Madison, Mission, poverty, reformation, revolution, Sixties, Students, university
We all want to change the world. Perhaps I’m just too old AND too young, but I’ve always disliked the word “revolution.” I was born in ‘58, just old enough to really dislike the impact of the 60’s Revolution. That period was probably really from ‘68 to ‘74.
I can’t say for sure if it was due to the radical ideas of the ’60s, but it was during that time my family ripped apart with divorce. I lived in Madison, Wisconsin then. I witnessed the student riots (another excuse to skip class?) and the bombing of Sterling Hall (killing an innocent person). I saw the “peace” marchers turn violent. What do you think? Did those Sixties radicals, the ones who wanted to change the world for the better, have any core beliefs? Where are they now? Some are journalists, some in government, and some are teaching the next generation of university students. We’re hearing those voices more and more.
The word revolution has made a comeback in recent years. Today’s students, many of them, are wanting to change the world again. That’s good. We all want to change the world. But why are Christians using the word revolution? I’m all for social justice as part of God’s mission to the world, but I’ve felt a huge disconnect with those who call for revolution today, those who march, sign petitions, and claim by doing so they can end poverty. The way Jesus taught his disciples to turn the world upside down was by dying to self with open-handed surrender. Perhaps, if we are going to use the word “revolution,” we should be clear in our definition. We should not promote the closed fist posture, demanding of rights, with marches on Washington.
The dictionary definition of “revolution” includes “forcible overthrow of government,” “class struggle,” and “political change through uprising.” If instead, today’s revolutionaries could re-interpret the word to mean reorientation, making Jesus the center of our reality, both spiritual and physical reality, then I could join in the call for a revolution. I want to see every person, every family, community, people group, and nation find their hope in Jesus. Some argue that Jesus is too exclusive, that Christians are too narrow in their beliefs. My reply is that Jesus is the most inclusive personality in the universe. Christians are not exclusive, their particular; they want everyone to meet the One who created everything and everyone with good intention.
What the Church often gets wrong, I think, is that they set up a “missions department,” as if the Church were the center of all things. This posture communicates to church-goers and the surrounding world that the task of reaching every person for Christ is just one of the many things the Church must do, a line item in their budget, a committee, something to remember at the annual missions conference.
Reformation, not revolution, is needed. I propose a different attitude and posture for the Church. The Church does not have a mission. God has a mission. The Church must once again apprehend the Misseo Dei, that God is on a mission. We should reorient the Church to join Christ’s mission. The Church is not the center, Jesus is the center. God has a mission and his mission has a Church. Now that is a revolutionary idea!
Filed under: Church | Tags: Bolger & Gibbs, Neil Cole, Organic Church, postmodern, reformation, Steve Taylor
Many evangelical churches operate with a programmed approach to ministry, coordinated primarily by the pastoral staff. Centrally coordinated programs weigh down the pastoral staff with the constant call upon members to volunteer to “serve the church.” If a pastor is unsuccessful creating space for others to do the work, the staff “ends up carrying the entire responsibility for the tasks of the congregation.” (See Bolger & Gibbs, Organic Churches) While many congregants faithfully attend Sunday meetings, too often they can remain unchallenged by its modern church form. The postmodern reformation of emerging churches is not only about structure; it is a rediscovery of the theology of James, that “faith without works is dead.” If churches restructure to “provide inviting experiences and pathways for people to move from being passive to active participants,” I believe spiritual and numerical growth will be the result.
If nominal believers and unbelievers were welcomed into Commission Groups, they would find greater opportunity to participate, moving from “experiential to experimental to existential converts.” (See Steve Taylor, Out of Bound Church) Group participants will find it easy to invite nonbelievers to service projects outside church walls. This kind of participation also serves to equip new leaders through an “obedience-oriented education,” in simple reproducible groups. (See Neil Cole, Organic Church) By participating as producers, a typical evangelical church can create space for the kingdom to come in their midst.
Next week’s Emerging Church Pattern: Merging Ancient & Contemporary Spiritualities
Filed under: Church | Tags: Bolger, Church, community, Emerging Church, Gibbs, reformation, small group, spiritual growth, Steve Taylor, structure
As promised, I will now begin a discussion of the nine patterns of emerging churches, some of which many local churches are already practicing. First, I will propose a dynamic and flexible structure, how a typical evangelical church may re-structure to foster small groups as a new kind of emerging church.
Emerging churches are mostly small, dynamic, and creative communities, where innovation, intimacy, and spiritual growth are intensified. Emerging church leaders have yet to find a sustainable structure with “zero control, high accountability, and low maintenance.”(Bolger & Gibbs 2005: 209)
This is a proposal for a strategy to encourage the formation of new small groups as witnessing communities, which I am calling “Commission Groups.” I will maintain that this re-structuring will help local churches grow members to spiritual maturity, while also growing the community numerically through an outward focused posture. Servicing Commission Groups will help the members of local churches begin to re-imagine and transform into a people, “a love leaking community.” (Taylor 2005:109)
These new Commission Groups will help local churches embrace patterns of emerging churches, which will serve locally and partner globally. What is unique in this formation is the vital connection of new emerging church groups to a typically larger local church.
That vital connection is enhanced as the leadership team of the local church gives opportunity for these groups to periodically give leadership to segments of the Sunday worship event. This crucial element of this strategy is that Commission Groups will be encouraged to bring testimony to the weekly gathering of how they are doing as representatives of Jesus to their neighbors and the world. As Commission Groups begin to lead various segments of worship, including prayer, testimonies, multi-media presentations, and perhaps inviting a special speaker, the Sunday service will become a celebration of authentic community and witness to the greater glory of God.
Filed under: Church | Tags: Christ, Christian, Church, community, Mission, Purpose, reformation, structure, Transformation, Values, Vision
A great friend from over 20 years ago asked me this question: “Is the church to be a transformational community of believers or a reformational community of believers or both and if both which is to be first?” He writes: “Whatever is first will determine purpose, values, vision and mission.”
My reply:
I think the Church will always have a core of thorough-going martyrs, who’ve carried their cross to their ultimate death to self. Others are following from a distance, like Peter after his denial of Christ. They are conflicted, knowing they need a savior and willing to make personal sacrifice, but too often out of self-righteous motives. The trick is telling the difference between the core and the cultural Christians. Jesus spoke to 500 when he ascended to heaven, but then only 120 actually obeyed and waited in the upper room.
So, transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit through the community of the atonement, those who have taken up their cross to follow Christ. Reformation may only be outer adjustments, priorities, and structures. Still, reformation is necessary. Consider Christ’s declaration that he is the “Bread of Life.” That was a sort of reformation, causing many to refocus their priorities and perhaps become core believers.
Filed under: Church | Tags: Bolger, Christendom, Church, emerging, Gen-X, Gibbs, Keel, postmodern, reformation, theology
Gen-X churches are not Emerging Churches, but rather failed attempts to emerge from the Western church form. The Emerging Church is not trying to rebuild Christendom, as some might hear in the larger Gen-X churches. Gen-X gatherings began in the early 1990’s. Within a few years, large churches began to sponsor churches within churches for Gen-X youth as if they were not ready for adult church. By the mid-1990’s, Gen-X church leaders, committed to the rigorous study of theology and postmodernity, began to focus on a postmodern reformation. These emerging church leaders such as Tim Keel, Jacob’s Well, understand that theology is “local, conversational, and temporary.” Many have concluded that if God would not dwell in a temple, neither will He dwell in our theology. Meanwhile, Ryan Bolgers and Eddie Gibbs point out in their book “Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures,” that some are questioning “whether postmodern Christians could still be considered evangelicals.”
According to Bolgers and Gibbs, emerging church leaders are more apt to speak of “what they are emerging from more than …what they are emerging into.” Facing centuries of institutional and cultural strongholds, emerging church leaders are accepting the challenge to counter modernity and its controls through hierarchy, doctrine, or consumerism. These are major challenges that require humility and discernment. In their book, Bolger and Gibbs outline nine patterns, identified by their field research with stories collected from fifty emerging church leaders. Those nine patterns are: identifying with Jesus, transforming secular space, living as community, welcoming strangers, serving with generosity, participating as producers, creating as created beings, leading as a body, and merging ancient and contemporary spiritualities. In the following posts, I will examine these emerging church patterns and propose ways to adopt them for your fellowship.
