Jesus Manifesto
 7/12/10
Is Jesus Christ front and center to our faith as Christians? At first this may seem like a rather odd question. After all it is Christianity.. isn't it? Yet this is exactly what the writers of “Jesus Manifesto” are asking, and their rather interesting, even controversial conclusion is that much of modern Christianity, especially in the West, is not centered or focused on Christ as it should be. Their message is that many of today's believers are distracted by good, but lesser things. We may be in love with our vocation, our ministry, or some righteous or benevolent cause, but are failing to draw our direction, motivation, power, and strength for such things from an intimate, loving relationship with our Lord. In short, like the church in Ephesus, mentioned in the book of Revelation, we have forsaken our first love.
Some have challenged the author's claims with the idea that the knowledge and revelation of Jesus Christ is just the starting point of being a believer, and that in order to mature and grow one must move on to deeper things. Some argue that the West is already saturated with the message of Jesus Christ, and it doesn't appear to be having an effect. The authors reject these ideas and claim that we are immature not because we are failing to move on from the fundamentals of Christ, but because we are failing to receive, develop and nurture a fuller revelation of Him. They state the fact that Jesus is more than just the foundation of our faith He is the very essence of all life and creation, He is the beginning and the end of all things. They assert that attempting to find a deeper, more mature walk of faith without an increasing revelation of Jesus and who He is for us, in us, and through us, is missing the key that opens the door. They would also assert that the image of Christ which has saturated the West is such a weak representation that it has no hope or power of capturing the hearts and minds of those who are seeking truth.
Why are some struggling with this message of the centrality and preeminence of Christ? I believe there may be a few reasons for this. First of all there is likely some semantics getting in the way. Some may be taking the concept of “it's all about Jesus” to mean something that the authors do not intend. Perhaps they are taking the message to mean that all we have to do is sit in our churches and worship Jesus all day, and all will be good. They may fear that all this attention given to Jesus will distract us from important issues, and promote an inactive sideline faith. Maybe they believe that an emphases on relationship will distract people from pursuing a better Christian education and historical understanding of the faith. After all, in recent years “popular” Christianity has been overly focused on a personal relationship with God while many of these other important aspects of the faith have appeared to suffer.
My personal reaction to this type of reasoning is that we already have a problem with inactive sideline faith, as well as a failure to develop a healthy life of the mind. Perhaps we should consider that one of the reasons for this is a sideline Jesus. I believe the authors would attest to the fact that our failure to be proactive and wise in our thought life is directly linked to a lack of understanding of who we are in Christ, and that the power and motivation of an indwelling Lord would turn things around in those respects.
Another reason such ideas may be controversial is that they directly challenge a religious mindset. It seems we have growns rather comfortable with the status quo of modern Western Christianity, which tends to keep God at a safe and manageable distance. Putting Christ front and center puts all aspects of a personal, interactive God in a place we cannot ignore. Suddenly it's not so much about us and what we believe, but Christ and the work he wants to do in us. It becomes more about His desire to transform us into the people He created us to be so He can achieve His will in the earth through us.
For this reason people may resist a Christ centered gospel because it seems to demand a more difficult journey. This is in spite of the fact that Jesus himself told us His yoke was easy and His burden was light. Death to our own selfish burdens always seems more painful on the surface, but in truth it leads to freedom and liberty, enabling us to more fully become who we were created to be. Holding on to religion over relationship is about many things, but one thing it is certainly about is comfort and a sense of false security. That's one reason the West holds on to it so tightly. The underlying fear is that God will mess with our “comfortable” lives too much if we allow Jesus to become front and center to our faith.
Finally, I believe some of the resistance to this message stems from an attitude of unbelief. Jesus said that we would do even greater works than He did and the early church certainly lived up to this – turning the world upside down in just a short span of history. The early church was a place where the life of the Spirit and the supernatural element were the norm rather than the exception. They expected the miraculous to be a part of their lives and thus effectively lived out the continuation of Jesus' ministry on earth. They really believed that they were the remaining, proactive presence of the King on the earth, the very bride of Christ. Consequently, they acted like it by stepping out in faith and changing the world. Modern Christianity in the West is barely holding its own, even loosing ground, let alone coming even close to changing the world.
The fact is that we are unwilling to pay the price of obedience on the same level as the early Christians because we don't really believe that God will do these same things through us. Again, it comes down to an identity crisis. The authors proclaim that “What would Jesus do” is the wrong question to ask. I agree; after all, who could predict Jesus driving out the money changers in the temple, or putting clay on a mans eyes made from his own spit to heal his blindness? The real question is “How can I be obedient in the same spirit that Jesus was?” Such a question is much more difficult, demands self sacrifice, and opens us up to the possibility of humiliation and scorn.
Christians in the West have a desire to be respected and esteemed in the world. We have a fear of coming across as too radical, whacky, or extreme, so rather then being obedient to the unpredictable and sometimes seemingly bazaar request of the Holy Spirit we would sooner fight the fight in more “respectable” ways. The end result is that we end up operating in the flesh by fighting earthly battles with earth bound methods. In addition we often end up trying to appease and compromise with popular culture rather then proclaiming the Word and revealing the reality of the kingdom through our actions of obedience to the Father.
We don't see Jesus in all His glory because He is not our focal point, and without a growing revelation of that glory we can not grow in our revelation of who we are in Him. He is the hope of our glory, and we must filter all our theology, and methodology through Him. Being Christ centered means that we take our role as the continuation of the ministry of Jesus seriously, and we start acting like Jesus and doing the same things He did while on the earth. God does not distinguish the body of Christ from Jesus the head, we are one in the same as far as He is concerned, but we don't see ourselves in that same light. Becoming christocentric in our thinking is essential if we are to overcome our unbelief and addiction to religion.
Sunday's Coming
6/13/10
The link below will take you to an interesting video. There are a lot of comments below the video that are worth reading through. Take a look, but be aware that the link will open a new tag so when your done just click it off and you'll end up back here:
Sunday's Coming
In my estimation the comments seem to be missing the most important point. Maybe the makers of the video didn't even intend for this to be a point, I don't know. But my thoughts are that it really gets down to the heart of what is lacking in our worship. Though the makers are trying to make fun of “cool” church culture, which is well deserving of being made fun of, what they are illustrating even more is the fact that no matter how hip, cutting edge, well researched, and relevant to culture we attempt to make our worship services, human nature dictates that we will likely fall into some type of liturgy. And when you start falling into a specific pattern of worship you have liturgy, even if we don't think of it as such. It's quite easy to understand why many people are fleeing evangelicalism and heading for the more traditional churches that practice so called “high” worship. At least there is a depth to the liturgy in such cases, which is something that can not be said of most modern, evangelical worship.
My point is if we are to discover real, in depth, life transforming worship we have to do away with the formulas and learn total dependence on the Holy Spirit. Scary, and risky? Yes. But I think many people are fed up with safe, sanitized, formulaic Christianity. It's time our worship services reflect a life lived through the strength of Christ and the power of the Spirit. Such a life is not safe, boring, or ritualistic, it is challenging, unpredictable, and often down right dangerous. Are we willing for our meetings to be the same? Until we are we will just continue to repeat the same patterns that this video shows.
The Natural Christian Habitat
1/23/10
Some may confuse my blogs to be all about form and style. They are not. They are about mindsets. Their purpose is not to pose one style of Christian gathering over and against another, but to pose one particular mindset over and against another. The type of mindset we operate in will certainly have some effect on form and style, but they are not the real issue. It goes much deeper than that.
I believe there are kingdom based, heavenly mindsets, and I believe there are human, earth bound mindsets. We can choose to operate under either one of those spirits when we gather together. One is limiting in scope, the
other is boundless in it's possibilities. One will lead to a narrow focus and a dryness in certain areas, while the other encompasses all that is living, vibrant and eternal. One is marked by the life of the flesh, the other by the life of the Spirit.
Environment is certainly effected, for where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. If our gatherings lack a real sense of liberty and freedom to express who we are in Christ than we can bet our mindsets are still dominated by human, earth bound ideas. These blogs are an attempt to reach out, discover, and adapt a heavenly culture concerning our fellowship with other believers. In some sense they may come across as idealistic, but that, to some degree, is their very purpose. They are meant to increase the hunger, of both writer and reader, for community that is lived out in the Spirit, and to expose the limitations of remaining in the flesh. It's true that the full expression of what is ideal will never be realized in this life, but without a clear vision of what to reach for how can we hope to move forward?
If our attitude is that there is no real hope in this life to find a deeper Spirit led expression of Christian community, and the status quo (traditional expressions of the church) is the best we can hope for, then we are destined to remain in the state that we are in. Without a vision for such life we will slowly dry up more and more in the Spirit, and continue to be a part of communities that stand only because of the man-made structures that support them. These blogs are in part an expression of my journey in discovering what Spirit infused culture/community, where Christ is allowed to take his rightful place as head, should look like. For that reason they often speak of form and style, but if we only address form and style without dealing with our mindsets we will not get far. Until our minds line up with kingdom principles we will always fall back into old earth bound habits.
I say all this so that the reader will not be tempted to believe that I am only dealing with surface issues. My hope has always been to get to the root, and I believe how we think is always at the root of our problems. In the blog entitled “God's Big Pipe” I discuss the desire God has to plug us into the unlimited amount of bandwidth represented by his Spirit. What prevents us from getting hooked up at that level is found between our ears. We filter everything God attempts to communicate to us through our minds. Until we clear our minds of earthly clutter, the fullness of life in the Spirit will not even began to be realized. These blogs are designed to shake us up, turn us upside down, and dump out some of the garbage that blocks the flow of that big pipe.
With that said, please allow me to delve into the main subject of this blog, “The Natural Christian Habitat.”
To sum up my last post, many Christians in the West don't seem to be properly focused on the source of their identity, Jesus Christ, and thus they suffer from an identity crisis. The consequence of this is a lack of spiritual growth and maturity, often resulting in lifestyles that tend to be no different from the world around us. Though we do come across as different in some superficial, often negative ways, we don't seem to have it where it counts. Our combined lives are not contrasting enough to have any significant impact on the world around us. The statistics are sobering. Moral failings in all areas are just as high among Christians as they are among non-Christians in our culture. In some demographics, even higher. Why is this so, when our faith should be moving us toward a higher standard? I have a bit of a theory about this.
Please humor me for a time as I draw some parallels between dysfunctional families and dysfunctional churches. My conclusions may seem obvious, yet apparently they are not because we seem to be missing them altogether. Perhaps the old analogy applies; we are unable to see the forest because of all the trees.
Let's start by asking a few simple questions. Does someone who is part of a vibrant, healthy community of believers have a better chance of developing into a mature, well-rounded person of faith, just as someone who grows up in a healthy family environment has a better chance of growing into a mature, well-adjusted adult? Doesn't common sense tell us that if we want to become spiritually mature then we necessarily need to be a part of an environment that stimulates growth? As in the case of a healthy family unit, is it possible that there are also certain elements - certain structures - certain environmental conditions that make for a nurturing faith community? Like I said, the answers are blatantly obvious.
Frank Viola calls such proper conditions the natural Christian habitat. It is a God-designed environment in which our faith is more likely to flourish. He uses wildlife as an example. Take a polar bear out of the Arctic and he may be able to survive if he is fed and housed properly, but he will certainly lose his ability to reproduce. Take the Christian out of his intended God-designed habitat, and you are likely to have a weak believer who will not grow past a certain point.
The natural Christian habitat is communal in nature, but in our individualistic Western culture the emphasis for growing spiritually has always been more on a personal relationship with God than on a dynamic interaction with a Christ-centered community. Not that seeking a personal relationship is not important as well. In fact, statistically, those who go on to find some level of spiritual maturity get there because they have certain disciplines that aid them in growing closer to God, things like a regular daily quite time, Bible study, prayer, fasting, sharing their faith, etc. It seems that these personal disciplines have more to do with spiritual growth than any other factor. In fact, statistically, the type of church one attends seems to have little impact on spiritual maturity levels. So what are we to make of this, and how do such statistics jive with my theory?
When taking into account the low number of mature Christians, I believe the answer to this is also clear. Western Christianity, in all its diverse forms, is highly dysfunctional, period. In other words, we are so far removed from the true, God-designed environment of Christ-centered community that even in all our multiple attempts at finding a better expression the result is still a lack of maturity and growth for most of those who are a part. Yet, as is the case of those few who come out of dysfunctional families, a small number of those who come out of dysfunctional churches are able to overcome. They are the ones who move on to maturity regardless of the environmental conditions they have experienced.
This is an interesting theory, because time and time again I've seen Christian leadership get frustrated with the lack of maturity they see with those they are trying to disciple. Leaders tend to be those who have been streched spirtiually by being persistent and/or have intentionally placed themselves in environments that have aided them in surging forward. They often don't understand why those they serve are not growing like they should. I find it rather revealing that such leaders tend to blame the people themselves for this, and are quick to poo poo the idea that the system they are a part of might actually be the greater source of the problem. Perhaps it is time to consider that it is not so much those rascally pew warmers who are at fault, but has more to do with the pews themselves. (I speak figuratively of course.) More precisely, it has to do with the fact that our Western ideal of church and church leadership is highly distorted and dysfunctional at its very core. It draws its pattern from mere human knowledge of what works, rather than from the example given to us by Jesus and the early apostles. We can tweak and play with such earthbound, limited systems all we want, but the heart of what they are remains the same. As a result, the fruit they bring forth falls painfully short of God's intended glory.
I'm not in any way suggesting that God has not, and will not continue to use such earthly forms of the church. But it's clear that if we are going to move beyond the current state of things, we need to rediscover the pattern of discipleship and Christ-centered community given to us in the New Testament. Though there is much room for diversity in style and approach, there is clearly a distinct way to go about it. There are certain patterns and structures that are grounded in kingdom principles. In other words, they are God-designed, full of godly wisdom and insight. Perhaps if we learn to pattern ourselves in this fashion we will be much more likely to see more growth and maturity among believers as a whole. I admit that this is a long, hard road to go down, that goes against the stream of our society, but it is necessary if we are going to break the current state of apathy.
Much of this goes back to my last post, in that it's vital that we start to see ourselves as the bride of Christ and put the groom front and center in our gatherings. When we allow him to take his rightful place in our midst, by giving him the role of head over his body, we will see more real transformation of lives and lifestyles. When we understand that the Holy Spirit is seeking free reign in our midst so that he may reveal the full glory of Jesus through each one of us, then we will be truly changed by such encounters. When we more accurately perceive that the Scriptures are trying to point us to the Living Word, making him the central focus of our meetings, then Jesus will get the full worship he deserves. And when our focus of worship is centered on the person who embodies all truth, we will find true freedom and liberty in and through our relationship with the truth.
As I have engaged in this discussion with others I'm finding many who reason, “Such gatherings go against the grain of human nature and the conditioning of Western culture. Isn't it a bit naive to believe that they are possible in the real world?” Actually... yes, I believe it is unreasonable to expect them to become a common reality. Frankly, they are next to impossible to realize, but this is actually where the beauty of it all resides. Of course they are impossible. If such things were possible to do through human strength, reason, and planning, God wouldn't be interested.
He has always desired, and has always achieved, the impossible through his people. After all, the Bible would be a pretty boring book without this being the common theme throughout. In God's way of thinking, anything short of the miraculous is not worth doing. Our thinking and attitude should be the same. Only when such an otherworldly attitude is nurtured and fostered will our meetings burst forth with the life and spiritual vibrancy that will once again turn the world upside down. Why? Because Jesus himself is running the show, and he is allowed to be witnessed through and above our human weakness and frailty. In short, it's all about him. The freedom we so desire, to fully live out who we were created to be, will only be realized once we stop focusing on our own needs and start focusing on his.
The Bride
11/23/09
Sometime back in 1995 I wrote the following about the state of modern Christianity in the West:
“In spite of all these different ideas of reform, few seem to be addressing what is the basic foundational problem. The body of Christ, in an age saturated by anti-Christian philosophies and institutionally inspired concepts of Christianity, has simply forgotten who she is. We are facing nothing more than an identity crisis. Until we rediscover our identity all other attempts at reform will be met with marginal results.”
I would tend to believe that there is an increasing awareness of this problem with many Western Christians, but it seems that most of us are still locked into a lack of confidence about who we are and how we should act. Apparently, even back then I had received some revelation on the root cause of the obstacles we face. Still, just as apparent was the fact that I had yet to grasp the real depth of the issue. Predictably, if anyone reads through the rest of my book, “A Religion of Irrelevance,” they will discover that I fail to actually deal with the identity crisis identified as the problem. The remaining 11 chapters do wade through the dark waters of the consequences, but I never address their root cause again.
Currently, even with a better understanding of that root cause, I still don't seem to be significantly closer to living out the fullness of who I am in Christ, or finding myself plugged into His community in a radical, life-transforming way. At least not in the way I'm seeking and believe to be the norm within the kingdom of God. The fact is, I still haven't found what I'm looking for when it comes to identifying with, and relating to, Christ and his body. And it seems that I'm not alone. A growing number of Christians, disillusioned by the state of the modern church, are asking, “Is this all there is”?
So what is it exactly that we are missing? Perhaps several things, but lets consider for a moment the issue of intimacy. Do we really believe that we are meant to have a bride/groom-
like intimacy with Jesus Christ? Are we not missing the fact that when we gather together as an ekklasia, (definition of ekklasia ahead) we should be encountering Christ on that level? Does it even occur to us that this should be our normal and frequent experience within Christian community? Yes, it's important that we learn about Him, who He is, and what He expects of us. Realistically there doesn't seem to be a lack of such teaching in most evangelical churches. What we are lacking however, is a consistent and regular experience of Him. We can learn everything there is to know about an individual through books and what other people tell us, but until we actually meet that person, spend time in their presence, and allow the essence of who they are to become a part of us, we don't really know them.
I can anticipate those who might be thinking, “Oh, he's just speaking about experiential Christianity. We know what that's all about. Just another extreme approach to faith where one must leave ones mind at the door in order to enter.” Unfortunately, groups who have stressed the importance of experiencing Christ have often failed to balance out their theology with the knowledge of Christ. Equal measures of both are necessary for a healthy spirituality.
It would seem that some of us come to Christ by way of knowledge, others by way of experience, but if the knowledge person does not also experience Christ on a regular, consistent basis their faith will grow cold, sterile, and legalistic. Likewise, if the experience person does not also partake of the knowledge of Christ on a regular consistent basis their faith will grow shallow, fleeting, and ridiculous. In Western culture we rely mostly on our intellect when it comes to developing our relationship with God. I know some who may disagree with this assessment, arguing that Christians have actually abandoned the life of the mind. I would agree we have downgraded our learning and mental focus over the years, to the point that it may not seem like we are using our brains at all. But in reality we have not abandoned the mental approach, we have only grown lazy in how we apply it.
This is really quite humorous when one thinks about it. Here is a God who has created the universe, with wonders far beyond what we have even began to comprehend, and we think we can approach Him by relying on what we know about Him? The fact is that the most educated among us, if they are humble and honest, will admit that we are just scratching the surface of God's depth. Trying to approach God with our intellect is wholly inadequate, and I hope God also finds it a bit humorous and isn't just annoyed at our arrogance.
Not only is such an approach arrogant and fleeting, it is extremely frustrating for those who take it. Every time we think we have God figured out is the moment he will do something that completely astounds us, and our faith is thrown for a loop. Our relationship with God must grow from something deeper and more reliable than what we perceive with our mind, or we will live in an uncertain and chaotic state. We must become like little children in our level of trust, stepping out in directions that have emerged from the depth of our intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ. That means that we will often do things and go places that from our limited perspective seem to defy all logic and common sense. Not until we come to such an extreme point of trust, however, can God truly start to use us, both individually and corporately.
To put this in other terms, it seems that God is an incurable romantic, and His goal is to unite His Son and His people much like a bride and groom are united in marriage. We need to understand that His greatest desire is to share a level of trusting intimacy with us that goes beyond what our current common experience has been. We need to start to see ourselves as a beautiful women, a queen bride to be, a warrior princess. Unfortunately, our very Greek, Western mindsets have a hard time with such an idea. Such thinking is just too unpractical, too surreal, too emotion- and feeling-based, not to mention a little weird when you're a guy.
Nevertheless, the bride comparison is clearly something the Creator has tried hard to get us to understand. It is everywhere in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments. The prophet Hosea was even instructed to marry a prostitute, so that their tragic life together would be a testimony of God's relationship with Israel. Like a prostitute, the children of Israel were constantly unfaithful, even though God remained ever faithful and quick to forgive. Indeed, his desire has always been to have intimate fellowship with his people, similar to the way a man and wife have something special when they develop a healthy relationship and remain ever true to each other for life.
In order to experience that level of relationship there needs to be one important element: an intense focus on each other. The bride should be consumed with love and passion for the groom and the groom should be consumed with love and passion for the bride. There should be an irresistible desire to think about each other constantly, and a concerted effort to spend as much time together as possible.
From this perspective, if the body of Christ is also the bride of Christ, than what should be our focus when we gather together for corporate worship? Why is it that we are so often focused on other things? Whenever we gather together and are not focused on Christ (the groom) we are focusing on the wrong thing, and are not fulfilling our intended purpose for being together. This lack of proper focus is rampant in the modern church. We have countless programs, seminars, Bible teaching, and preaching all dealing with the consequences of our lack of intimacy with Christ. We are constantly applying practical, pragmatic fixes to issues that would not be issues at all if we would only fall madly in love with the groom.
An important key here, in case you haven't already figured it out, is to understand that no one on their own can be the bride. It takes a gathering of people who are focused on Christ. It is in those times, those moments when we gather as an ekklasia, (definition of ekklasia still ahead) that we start to take on the shape of a bride worthy of such a groom. It is in those moments that the groom shows up and reveals himself to his bride in powerful and life- transforming ways. Unfortunately, the modern church hardly ever thinks of itself in this way, and it's meetings are painfully reflective of this fact. The bottom line is if we, the body of Christ, are not consistently experiencing a trusting bride/groom-like relationship with Jesus, then we are going to fill that void with something else, and that something else is going to end up being religious rather than relational.
“Okay, hold on a minute,” you might be saying, “how does that work?” “I thought we were talking about religion all along?” Well I think it's important to define just what I mean by religious in this case. I'm not talking about just a general belief in a supreme being as the dictionary would broadly define the word, and many might think of it. More precisely, I'm speaking of the element of such belief that has a tendency to rely on physical, external props to support it. In other words the relationship factor, if it is there at all, takes back seat to ritual, tradition, liturgy, self reliance, and sacred objects. Indeed the issues that I deal with in my book, the “consequences” that I spoke of earlier, are all about these religious props that we tack onto our belief system to somehow compensate for our lack of intimacy.
The story of Moses, the children of Israel, and the golden calf has some interesting parallels to this. When the children of Israel started to doubt that Moses was coming back down from the mountain, what was the first thing they demanded? Something tangible they could look at and touch, a physical object that they could direct their worship toward. A golden calf.
Earlier in the account, God had sought to come down and commune with all the people on an intimate level. In fact, the Hebrew word used to describe this meeting is the equivalent of the Greek word ekklasia. Thats right, God was seeking an ekklasia with the Israelites, (definition of ekklasia still ahead). But they rejected the idea because they didn't like the way it felt. In fact, it scared the living daylights out of them. So they pleaded with Moses to commune with God on their behalf. In essence they requested a mediator, rejecting the direct contact that God had offered to have with them. They would sooner have something between them and the Creator - a buffer, so to speak. In essence, they settled for religion over relationship. Having spent 400 years in a nation filled with idols it was very natural to gravitate toward a golden calf in the absence of Moses.
The obvious question then is, do we also have our versions of the golden calf? I believe we do, and to a large degree we are not even aware of them. We have unconsciously raised certain things to a level of being equal to or higher than a relationship with the groom, but because of their religious and cultural significance we don't recognize them as idols. They are as natural to us and our culture as the golden calf was to the ancient Israelites, and we entertain them for the same reasons.
The end result is that we are plagued by unbelief and stifled by a religious spirit. We too have rejected the concept of ekklasia, which by proper definition is a meeting were the Groom King comes and communes with us, where we share our heart, and he shares his. Instead, we invent all kinds of ways to avoid such intimacy. We don't like the way it shines the light of truth on who we are, revealing the deepest, darkest parts of us that need transformation. Until we grab a hold of, and whole-heartedly accept, the notion we are meant for this type of a bride like intimacy with Jesus, we will never get over this crises of identity, and we will remain earth bond by religion.
When it comes to other realities of who we are we seem to at least grasp the basic idea. For example, many believers are working hard to figure out what part of the “body” they represent. After all, everyone wants “the purpose driven life.” We also seem to get the concept of a “family,” to some degree, though in many cases the reality is a rather dysfunctional one. On second thought, the “house of God”... “living stones”... maybe those should be the subject of another blog. Actually, I have already addressed that one, somewhat indirectly, in an earlier blog, (See "It's All About Relationships").
But the bride thing... I don't think we are grasping that one at all. Do we really believe that God desires that kind of intimacy with us? Do we see ourselves the way the Father does through the completed work of Christ, and thus deserving of such a relationship? Do we see ourselves as beautiful and desirable to the groom? If everything we thought, did, and said, when we gather together, grew out of our love and passion for the groom, what would that mean? What would the results be? What would that look like? What would unbelievers witness when such an event occurred? How would that change our impact on the world around us?
We go to church, and we do the activities of church in a very religious modern sense, but a true concept of ekklasia is currently not a part of our common thinking? Discovering and embracing our role as the bride so closely ties into the reality of ekklasia, that without that foundation of identity our meetings will always fall short of their potential and purpose. Without the consistent experience of such intimacy many will continue to ask, “Is this all there is”?
Does hope for spiritual renewal in the Western world hinge on us accepting our role as the bride of Christ? Is it possible that until we see ourselves as a bride we will never grow past a certain point in our spirituality? Important questions to consider. After all, what we believe about ourselves will become the reality, even if it is not true. Looking at the current state of Christianity it is quite obvious that our view of ourselves has suffered greatly under the current dominate culture. This ties in nicely with my next blog which will deal with the fact that so called "Christian" culture is not showing itself to be any different than the culture around it. We may come across differently in some respects, (usually in a negative light) but not in the areas that count. Why is this, and what is the key to change? This will be the subject of my next blog.
Just a little footnote*
It's interesting that only after the account of the Israelites rejecting intimacy with God is Moses instructed to develop the whole elaborate system of the law, tabernacle, ritual, and animal sacrifice. It makes one wonder, was it because the people rejected direct contact that they were than given the burden of a religious system that brought them into bondage? It's as though they left the slavery of Egypt only to come under another slave master, the law. Of course God knew they could not handle such intimacy in there unredeemed state, that was the reason Christ had to come. What the system of the law proved was that there was a need for something greater than animal sacrifice (religion) to bring us back to the intimacy that God has always wanted with us. Clearly not an accident that it all parallels so nicely.
The Next Step in the Revolution
1/18/09
A couple entries back I wrote about a book called Pagan Christianity that made some serious waves in the Christian world. The main point of the book is that pagan influences have helped to shape how we practice our Christianity, and that those influences have stifled the full transforming power of what God intended for his people to experience within a local assembly of believers. If you haven't read the book yet, I would urge you to do so. The understanding gained through it will prepare you for the sequel, which I recommend above any book that I've read in a long time. It's called Reimagining Church, and is perhaps the most important and challenging book that the author of both books, Frank Viola, has written. Where as Pagan Christianity spells out the problem, Reimagining Church begins to point the way to a solution. It is certainly not the definitive and final word on the subject, as the author himself acknowledges, but it is a giant step in the right direction.
There is; however, a major problem with the solution Viola is asking us to consider. It requires more than just a few tweaks of the present system, more than a pragmatic realignment of church structure. It goes much deeper than that. What is needed is a complete overhaul of the way Western Christians think. Personally, I've been going through just such an overhaul in my thinking for a number of years, but after reading Reimagining Church, I realized that I still had a long way to go. I'm also guilty of falling back into old patterns of thinking, and a, “Oh well, that's just the way it is,” attitude toward the status quo.
Fortunately, there does seem to be a lot of acknowledgment within Christian circles that the author, and others who think like him, are raising some excellent points that can no longer be ignored. Yet to a large degree, most such recognition has only resulted in an adaptation of the language without connecting with and/or embracing the heart of the message. It seems obvious that though people recognize a ring of truth to what they are hearing, the full picture is not sinking in.
For example, the word “organic,” one of Violas favorite metaphors to help explain what a healthy assembly of believers should look like, is a common word among church planters these days. But the reality is that few seem to be grasping the signifigance of just how far a genuine expression of organic assembly would remove us from our present ingrained habits. Most attempts at building organic community end up being nothing more than the same old hash, reheated. Part of the problem, I believe, is that there is little to no understanding of the difficulty of the road, and the cost that must be paid before a group can experience genuine organic life that is both powerful and transforming. It's easier to fall back on old patterns that are familiar and comfortable.
In all candidness, I must confess that even though I've been on this road for a long time, when faced with a greater revelation of what it means, I find myself somewhat apprehensive. The fact of the matter is that I now better comprehend the cost of it, and it scares me. Yes, I'm comfortable to some degree with the way things are, because current popular church structure, in all it's diverse forms, can not possibly shake me to the core of my being like true organic structure will. Involvement in a healthy, multi-functioning, organic form of Christian assembly will necessarily reveal every part of me that God desires to transform. Every selfish tendency, insecurity, fear, and doubt will be exposed in such an environment. There will be no place to hide. Even worse is the prospect that I will be unable to escape being a catalyst for change in other peoples lives as well. Do I really want to be that intimate and forthright with my fellow believers? Sounds a bit awkward and messy to me.
Such discomfort and awkwardness is perhaps one of the reasons that man-made representations of the church developed in the first place. Those who have experienced true organic culture admit that it is indeed a messy way of living. Why go through such agitating struggles when one can fall back on the reiterative, well defined, limited parameters of an efficient, well oiled machine? Certainly, organic life demands its own brand of oil as well, even more than any institutionalized form. But it's not synthetic oil, or even a synthetic/organic blend that will do the trick; it must be the pure oil of the Holy Spirit. And that oil will not be neatly confined within the inner workings of the cogs in a machine. It will only work if it's allowed to splash out all over the place, running down the bodies and faces of those who get near. With organic community we never deal with machines, but with human beings who will clash, collide, and cause friction far greater than any apparatus. Without the lubrication of the Holy Spirit such a community will either explode or melt down, but with the proper lubrication the power created will cause it to go places that the well oiled machine has no hope of ever going.
The fact of the matter is that most modern Western representations of the church would have no need of the Holy Spirit to continue to function as they presently do. If He failed to show up on any given Sunday morning, most people wouldn't notice, and the machine would continue to run unhindered. That is not to say that He never shows up and never makes Himself known above the din of the current system. Many lives have been truly transformed, even in churches that seem dry and void of spiritual vibrancy. Fortunately, God is not limited by the mere pragmatic systems that we devise by human wisdom, but He longs for us to once again be completely dependent on His presence. He desires that we discover community on a radical new level of faith dependence and kingdom principles.
The Greek word ekklasia, most commonly translated “church” by those who were determined to keep her tied to an earth bound power structure, is more accurately translated “assembly,” a word rich in meaning. To reduce it, as we have, to a word with institutional and religious connotations has robbed it of power. One of it's meanings, that has eluded me until now, is that Christ should be “assembled” in our midst. When such assembly takes place, those who are present will find themselves radically changed, because the word of God will come forth in power. As each member freely presents the aspect of who Jesus is for them into the group, Christ is revealed in his glorious fullness. This is somethng that can not come through the lips of one person, nor through the pages of a book. It can only come through the healthy, vibrant, and energetic interaction of the entire body, moving as one under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the headship of Jesus Christ. Literally, it is the Word of God reassembled (made flesh) in our midst. It is the only way that God's people can experience the fullness of Christ's transforming power.
What does that mean in practical terms? For the most part it means the end of the clergy/laity distinction. Instead, each member of the body will learn to function, within the assembly, as he or she was designed to function, using the gifts God has given. It will mean that old hierarchical forms of leadership are no longer recognized as being effective or legitimate, having no place of functionality in a community that represents the kingdom of God. It means that those with dominating personalities will learn to restrain themselves in gentle humility. It means that those who are more timid will learn to speak up with unhindered boldness. It means pride, prejudice, and judgementalism, will be purged from each participant, and there will be no place for intimidating or critical spirits. It means death to self, and that each personality will be freed from the confines of its selfish, limited experiences. It means unparalleled freedom to be who we were created to be, both individually and corporately. And most of all, it means that there can be only one head of the body, Jesus Christ, and that the whole purpose of our gathering together is to focus on Him who alone is worthy of our praise, our worship, and our undivided attention.
Leadership in such an environment becomes about who you know, not about what you know. Those who have learned to live intimately with the Father will find themselves functioning naturally, without pretense, in roles, that have traditionally been left to the professionals (clergy). Their leadership ability will be perceived and derived out of who they have become in Christ, not through title or status in worldly terms. It will come readily to those who are not looking for it or even desire it, but will allude those who seek it through traditional earthly channels. It will be recognized in those who teach first by example, not just in those who have extensive knowledge of Scripture, have received formal training, or speak well. It will fall to those who have learned to walk by the Spirit, and are not limited by mere human logic, reason, knowledge, and pragmatism.
The kingdom of God can not exist within the confines of the world, and when we try to build it using human understanding it can never flourish as it was intended to. Until we forsake such earth bond, unimaginative, limited systems, and plunge into the fathomless, uncharted waters of Spirit led community, we will remain tied down by the gravity of our unbelief and religiosity.
Perhaps this is the very problem with such a concept of Christian assembly in the West. We are so saturated with an unbelieving and religious spirit that we don't believe the type of community I just described can exist. It's too idealistic, too outside of our common everyday experience to be seen as tenable. It's just a pipe dream by those with their heads in the clouds. Frankly, we lack the faith that such a representation of God's kingdom can successfully function in the “real world.” This is confirmed by the fact that these types of communities, though often attempted, are rare. Those who are involved in planting such organisms acknowledge that it is a difficult road which few in our culture are willing to take.
Perhaps more than anything else, the stark reality of such rampant unbelief confirms to me that it is indeed the right road. Of course it's impossible! God doesn't care about the possible, he's interested only in the impossible. And he wants his people, who represent his kingdom, to start thinking and doing the impossible as well. As long as we remain tied to our Western mind-sets that are steeped in religion and unbelief, we will never see true organic assembly emerge.
This has gotten rather long for a blog, and I appreciate if you have stuck with me to this point. Let me close with an extensive quote from Reimagining Church that wraps it up well:
For centuries, astronomers in the West sought to understand the rotation of the stars and planets. Yet no matter how many times they sought to tweak the data they possessed, they couldn't make their calculations work. The reason was simple. Their point of reference was flawed. They were working with a geocentric model of the universe. They believed that the stars and planets rotated around a stationary earth. And upon that premise, they built their entire understanding of the universe.
An iconoclast named Copernicus came along and questioned the premise. He postulated the revolutionary idea the the planets and stars rotate around the sun. Copernicus's heliocentric view of the universe was vehemently challenged at first. But no one could dispute the fact that the new model made the data work far better than the geocentric view. For that reason, the heliocentric point of reference was eventually accepted.
In the same spirit, this book is a hearty attempt to present a new paradigm for the church. One that's built on the New Testament concept that the church is a spiritual organism, not and institutional organization. p.16
For a fantastic radio interview with Frank Viola click here.
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