We have both previously written on this topic. To be honest, I don’t think that many people are really interested in a church like the first century church. I [...]]]> My wife Jody is again writing about the first century church. She wonders if we want to just visit it for one hour per week.

We have both previously written on this topic. To be honest, I don’t think that many people are really interested in a church like the first century church. I suspect it would be too demanding of our commitments, time, and resources. But isn’t that what God calls us to?

The question, I’m told, is what we should be doing and [...]]]> The tragedy of the American church is that we have the greatest resources ever in the history of Christianity and for the most part we’re sitting on them, doing nothing. When we are doing something, most of what we do is for ourselves.

The question, I’m told, is what we should be doing and how we should be doing it. A close second is how we motivate people to go into action and do whatever it is we should be doing.

But I think that’s the wrong question. If we’re going to be Christians, we know what we’re supposed to be doing, and it falls somewhere amongst the bad words I use in the title. The gospel commission in Matthew tells us to go and make disciples. It is repeated elsewhere in the New Testament in different words, but the essentials remain.

This is why I continue to insist on using the words “evangelism” and “missions” no matter how bad they may sound to some people. I’ve been told that I will turn people off by doing so. I’m well aware that there have been many things done under the heading of these words that have likely driven people away from Christ rather than drawn them to him.

There have been missionaries who spread a “gospel” of American culture rather than the Gospel of Jesus. There are been those who were very destructive to those with whom they came in contact. I’ve seen the occasional distant look, or heard the silence when I tell people my parents were missionaries. But I can tell you that my parents carried medical care and the love of Christ where they went, not American culture. The word (“missions” or “missionary”) is not the problem.

Similarly I continue to use the word evangelism, proclamation of the Good News. There have been many whose “good news” was that the hearer should come to my church, follow the norms of my “church culture,” and pay tithes into the church budget, thus avoiding hell. But that isn’t the Gospel, and we know it, whatever we may practice.

I have had a number of conversations with pastors who told me their churches looked good on paper. They had the right numbers. But at the same time, these pastors told me, things were not going well. The church wasn’t carrying out its mission. People were not becoming active.

There’s a great debate amongst Christian scholars as to whether missions should consist mostly of care for the physical needs of people or whether it should be primarily about their spiritual needs. The big problem here is that the debate is often conducted between people who are actually doing neither one. More importantly they represent groups and denominations who, in overwhelming numbers, are doing neither.

I would like to suggest that we don’t need a change of words. I want to say we need a change in the way we understand those words, and that our understanding should turn back to scripture. But that would be to get back into the very same debate. What I really think we need to do is replace the words with actions.

We often think we need to straighten out our beliefs first, and then base our actions on right beliefs. I believe that in many cases this process needs to be reversed. Obey the obvious commands, and the more obscure ones will begin to fall into place.

I was showing a pastor from overseas around the Pensacola area. He was a very activist evangelist in his homeland. He had planted many churches. He had built orphanages and schools. He had carried out both the mandates of caring for people’s physical needs and also addressed their spiritual needs. As we were driving he suddenly said to me: “You know, Henry, how you can hear the voice of God more often?” “How?” I asked. “Just obey what you’ve already heard and you’ll hear more from God.”

I think that could apply to following the commands of God received through Scripture. How can I learn more of God? Act on what I have already learned.

That isn’t a command for pastors, teachers, or for those who own publishing companies. It’s a command for all Christians. I often tell people that all Christians are witnesses. The question is what type of witness you’ll be. Will you be a good witness or a bad one. Even if you just warm a pew you are a witness. The testimony you give in that case is that Jesus is really not that important, and can be ignored by people who have serious things to do.

To be a missionary you have to go. It may be a few feet. It may be a few thousand miles. If you’re a missionary, you’re also going to be an evangelist. You’ll be proclaiming good news. It’s a commission you get when you accept Christ in the first place. If you’re part of the church, you’re called.

Because of this, I’m delighted that my company, Energion Publications, has just released a new book, Will You Join the Cause of Global Missions? by David Alan Black. I try to write a few notes on each book I publish. I view my business as a ministry, and there is a reason for the manuscripts I choose to publish, a reason beyond whether I think I can sell them. In this case I wanted to give some of my own thoughts on missions before discussing the book.

For this book I’ve worked closely with the author and planned the way we’d publish and market it to make sure we can offer it for the lowest price possible, especially in quantity. It’s just 32 pages including front and back matter. Quantity prices at Energion Direct get this down to $3.24 each if you’re ordering 50 or more copies. (I’ll tell you why you want to order in quantity below.) But right at the moment you can beat that price through B&N, which is still (February 9, 2012) offering the book for just $2.57.

Why do I emphasize the price? Because we’ve pared this price to the bone to make the book as accessible as possible. Over the next few days watch for a Kindle edition, and we’ll follow that shortly with one for the Nook. The Kindle edition will be sold for just 99¢.

So why buy this book in quantity?

To put it simply, this isn’t a book for you to read and put on your shelf. It’s a challenge to action, and it’s a tool for Christians to use in leading other Christians to become active. Let me quote a few lines:

“If churches in America were truly committed to the Great Commission, it would show in a lifestyle that matches our response to a lost and dying world” (8).

“The most important principle to keep in mind is to employ material things for the kingdom of God rather than for ourselves” (9)

“Kingdom Christians have found the pearl of great price. Like Jesus, they refuse to separate doctrine from practice, word from power” (10).

“Under God’s great grace, we are called to be one with one another. What can create this kind of community? Community cannot be preached. It can only be practiced and the place to start is with oneself” (16).

Now those are little snippets taken out of the context of a carefully planned presentation, but I think they give a taste.

But the book ends in an unusual way. It asks you, the reader, to sign on the dotted line. Will you join the cause of global missions? If so there is a specific commitment, and a place to sign and date your commitment.

Dave is a Baptist, and I’m a Methodist. I’m sure someone will find something “Baptist” about this book and point it out to me. That will be an excellent sign that they haven’t gotten the point. There is nothing in the commitment requested in this book that I, as a Methodist should not already be committed to. Dave doesn’t tell you in this book just what mix of social, physical, and spiritual you’re supposed to try for.  The Holy Spirit will guide you in that. And I’m convinced that, as that visiting pastor once told me, if you obey the clear things you already know, other things will become much clearer.

This isn’t about denominations or the numbers on church rolls. It’s not about the amount of money in the offering plate. I believe all of those things will be impacted by our obedience to the gospel commission, but I believe it is dangerous to make material things the goal. This is about being sent into the world as the Father sent His Son.

If you need a copy of this book to evaluate, let me know. If you’d like a copy to review, let me know that as well.

But above all, act on what you know.

Jesus Christ has called us to a way of life which demands sacrificial living, and this call is still an offense [...]]]> I rarely post a quote from a book I’m editing, but this one struck me today. It’s from the forthcoming book The Church Under the Cross by William Powell Tuck. Here it is:

Jesus Christ has called us to a way of life which demands sacrificial living, and this call is still an offense to us today. Oh, we don’t mind hearing sermons about the cross, as long as they tell us about what God did for us in Christ. We don’t mind hearing songs about the cross. We don’t even mind singing songs about the cross or depicting the cross in paintings, sculptures, stained glass windows, or wearing the image around our nicks or on our lapels. But when we begin to realize that the cross is supposed to be a way of life, it is even more offensive to us today. Few people really live a sacrificial kind of life. But Jesus has called us to the cross-like way of life (p. 65).

How easily we wear the symbol, often made out of gold (or gold-plated), but how difficult we find it to make the symbol a part of our daily life. I think we might well find it offensive to think that the symbol we wear or admire in art should change our lives.

While I don’t believe tithing is a command binding on Christians, my problem is not that it would demand too much, but rather that it demands too little, does so in the wrong way, and for the wrong reasons. But that’s another topic.

Many churches think they’ll find the solution to the problem of declining membership or financial problems by hiring just the [...]]]> Yesterday I posted one of my short stories over on my Jevlir blog. For those who don’t read that blog (its readership is quite low), I wanted to write a couple of notes here.

Many churches think they’ll find the solution to the problem of declining membership or financial problems by hiring just the right staff. But in most churches, the problems are much deeper than who is on the staff. In most declinining churches, I would suggest there is a need to change the church culture. You can’t hire a “Minister of Evangelism” and expect that to make the church grow. A “stewardship consultant” is only going to be able to go as far as the church’s commitment will take it.

The solution to declining membership, in my view, is discipleship. If you can’t get the church to commit to being disciples in all ways, then no number of paid staff is going to solve your problem. In order to change the culture of the church, you may have to lose even more members. Let the folks who don’t want to be disciples and who don’t want to be ministers (every member should be!) move on.

I don’t mean by this to sit in judgment on their discipleship. What I mean is to allow the self selection. If the church determines to be Christ in their community and to take this commitment seriously, then those who don’t want to go along will get annoyed and leave. Too frequently, our response to this is, “Oh no! We’re losing more members!” So we keep the problem alive by sacrificing discipleship to numbers.

I don’t have a problem with church staff when the purpose of that staff is to facilitate the ministry of the members. But in an overwhelming number of cases, the paid staff is expected to do the ministry, and the stewardship problem is to get the members to cough up enough money to pay the staff to do the things that they, the members, should be doing themselves.

The gospel fulfilled in discipleship is the only answer … not more paid staff to replace the ministry of the whole body.

Related articles

• Our Church is Shrinking (jevlir.com)
• Dashboards, Discernment, and Responsible Leadership (henrysthreads.com)
• Are large growing churches successful? (revdlesley.net)
• Six Key Tasks Of Pastors Who Make A Difference (via Will Mancini) (mgpcpastor.wordpress.com)

This is Discipling from The Foursquare Church on Vimeo.

(HT: Dave Black Online) Related Posts: Brueggeman on Justice Peter Enns on Evolution and Evangelicals Asked to Move in Church? Cooperative Missions Marks of a Unified Church Powered by Contextual Related Posts ]]> … This!

This is Discipling from The Foursquare Church on Vimeo.

(HT: Dave Black Online)

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, that’s a big collection of topics, but I think they’re connected. John Meunier links to an excellent post by Dan Dick, which you should read before you read this one. The topic here is the conference dashboards in United Methodist annual conferences, such as this one for the North [...]]]>

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, that’s a big collection of topics, but I think they’re connected. John Meunier links to an excellent post by Dan Dick, which you should read before you read this one. The topic here is the conference dashboards in United Methodist annual conferences, such as this one for the North Alabama Conference.

I do have substantial problems with the church dashboard, including a great deal of the way in which the statistics are presented. I also am concerned about numerical measures of success in the church. It’s quite possible to build up numbers and be missing the mission and ministry of the church, and the proclamation of the gospel message. Some people will leave a church that is aiming for full commitment and discipleship. At the same time, as Dan Dick pointed out, some people’s professed disdain for such numbers is the result of laziness. But all of this has been thoroughly discussed amongst the Methodist blogs.

It seems to me, however, that the use of these numbers on conference dashboards is just a symptom of a certain retreat from personal responsibility. I don’t mean by this that our United Methodist bishops are off trying to avoid hard decisions. Rather, we are systematically trying to codify and quantify so much of human behavior and organizational policy that not only can avoid taking personal responsibility; they must.

For example, in my district, the district superintendent has 53 churches for which he is responsible, and the conference as a whole has more that 600 pastors, for which our bishop is responsible. Each year, pastoral appointments are made by the bishop, with the advice of the cabinet and many people in the churches, for those 600 churches. I think the temptation is going to be very strong to put some kind of simplified set of numbers on performance. The more details you have to consider, the harder it is to make a choice.

What I wonder is how often a bishop could get by with ignoring the numbers because, let’s say, one pastor is making better disciples, even if his numbers (for some reason) didn’t look as good. Could the popular pastor with the watered-down message be overlooked in favor of the pastor with the harder message of sacrifice and service? I recognize here that the pastor with the good numbers may be an effective disciple maker. I know some pastors in that category. The pastor with the bad numbers may be either lazy, or much more likely simply too beat up by parishioners, the system, and the unrealistic expectations we have for pastors that he is, in fact, performing badly.

But can the leadership determine this with accuracy in all (or nearly all) cases? Would they be willing to send the less popular pastor to a larger church?

It seems to me that collecting statistics is valuable, though I think someone well qualified in analyzing data should rework the conference display. I sense a few cases of deceptive use of numbers. Most importantly, the numbers are not related to the nature of the existing church body and the community in which it is located. All of that requires personal knowledge such as cannot be collected remotely.

But what if such information was collected and available? Would our leadership be willing to act against popular pressure? I see this as a common problem in leadership, at least in the United States today. We have a problem making a decision and standing up for it. Of course, in employment situations, the decisive leader may well have to present statistics as evidence in court in order to justify a decision.

That’s one reason for “zero tolerance” policies in so many cases. “Zero tolerance” means that people in leadership don’t have to make responsible, nuanced decisions. But “zero tolerance” is just the extreme case of avoiding responsibility. Putting it all on a set of numbers is another one. It’s a trend I don’t like, even though I recognize it as a response to the other extreme–a complete lack of accountability. (I have tremendous respect for Bishop Willimon, for example, whose dashboard I linked as an example. Yet I’m still not happy with it.)

I ramble because I don’t know a solution, other than to say we need leaders to take responsibility, and we need to make sure we know who is responsible for what, so they can be accountable. I also think we need to bring leadership closer to the local church so that each person in leadership is responsible for a reasonable number of people and churches. That would allow individuals to seek out all those nuances that back up the numbers.

I don’t know the solution, and since I am neither a pastor nor a church administrator, and have avoided most church committees, I am probably the wrong person to propose one. What I do believe is that, though structural changes can help, the answer doesn’t lie in precisely how the church is organized. There are congregational style churches that are just as dysfunctional as any Methodist church whose bishop sent the “wrong” pastor.

What we do need is a change of our personal culture, from that of an organization that must maintain itself to one of gospel driven discipleship.

Related articles

• What does a pastor do? (johnmeunier.wordpress.com)
• Dashboard pros and cons (johnmeunier.wordpress.com)
• Pastors, Shepherds and Leadership (churchblogmatics.wordpress.com)
• Our Pastor is Lazy (jevlir.com – a short story)

Oh, well… I can’t do that now. I’m too young; I’m not really in control of my life – my actions. I’ll change after college, when I’m on my own. It’ll be a big turning point. That’s the perfect time to start being the Christian I [...]]]> Christian Girl at College has an answer: Now!

Oh, well… I can’t do that now. I’m too young; I’m not really in control of my life – my actions. I’ll change after college, when I’m on my own. It’ll be a big turning point. That’s the perfect time to start being the Christian I want to be.

…

As if that will be ever.

Read the rest!