Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Hired Staff Won’t Solve Church Problems

    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
    Enhanced by Zemanta

  • The Dominionism Debate Continues

    Joel Watts and Peter Kirk are at it about dominionism, and now a book I publish, The Politics of Witness, is getting a place in the debate.

    I have a couple of problems with the title “dominionist.” First, in response to Joel, I think it is important to make distinctions between different viewpoints, even when we see some relations. Similarity is not the same as equality. I object when the right wing calls President Obama a socialist, because I think that blurs the distinction between his mixed approach to the economy and that of a real socialist. I also object when someone who thinks more Christians in office would be a good thing is equated to R.J. Rushdoony. I’ve read the latter; the two ideas are different.

    Second, my problem with the label “dominionist” is simply that I don’t see a reasonably defined movement that should all be painted (tarred?) with the same brush. It seems to me that the label is covering more people than deserve it, at a minimum.

    I’m going to write a bit more in a few days as I write one of my posts reflecting on publishing a new book, this time on The Politics of Witness. I am not favorable to the idea that we need to get more Christians in office. Personally, my voting is religiously neutral. There are many Christians for whom I would never vote. There are atheists for whom I would. I am never favorably impressed when a candidate puts his or her “born again” status front and center. I’ll explain why this is my position in that future post.

     

    Enhanced by Zemanta

  • Christian Carnival September 14, 2011 Posted

    … at Beyond Belief.

  • Unity of Love – Unity of Hate

    There are plenty of posts going up today commemorating the events of September 11, 2001. I do remember where I was. I was hoping to sleep in for some reason (usually late working or reading), and was awakened by being told there was something I just had to see. On the TV was a picture of smoke coming from the towers.

    I did not lose any closer friends or family on that day. There is that sense of national loss, but I would not compare that to the loss of those whose loss was personal and direct.

    In the days following I watched as our country pulled together, found a new unity, and came closer to God. I have also watched much of that unity evaporate, along with much of closeness and new spirituality that came out of the event. We saw heroes arise in unlikely (and some likely!) places: First responders of all varieties, our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines, and thousands of civilians who just happened to be at the right place.

    Good things can come out of evil deeds. They never justify the evil deeds. They are part of how we try to build and make a better world, part of how we deal with grief, fear, and the disruption of our lives.

    One thing that can result from a threat is unity. People who are under a common threat tend to grow together as they face it, at least as long as the threat is current and real. And unity is a good thing. At least it is some of the time.

    I’ve found that many vices are simply virtues that have gotten tainted by something else. For example, there is discernment, a good thing (Heb. 5:14). On the other hand, there is judgment (Matt. 7:1-5), which I think might be discernment mixed with pride or self-righteousness and directed at others.

    In the case of unity, there is that unity that comes of our love for one another, and that results in a loving group reaching out to others (1 John 4:7-21). This is the kind of unity we Christians are supposed to seek. You could call this a unity of inclusion.

    Then there is that unity in which fear brings us together to hold others at arm’s length or even to attack them and to seek revenge. You could call this a unity of exclusion.

    You could also call the first a unity of love, and the second a unity of hate.

    Now it happens I am not a pacifist. I am, in fact, a veteran, and proud to be able to say so. But violence, or any kind of force, is a blunt and dangerous activity. It has a tendency to go beyond itself, to breed new and greater dangers, and to fail to accomplish its intended goals. Remember World War I, the war to end all wars?

    I don’t believe that a unity of inclusion means an absence of defense. I believe there is evil, and there are evil people. Against such, action may be necessary. But my belief that violent action—by nature dangerous even to those who use it—may be necessary leads me to support a unity of inclusion even more strongly.

    I believe that it is only by rejecting revenge that we can successfully apply the necessary actions to evil people. Hate will rot out the good structure of unity and cause us to choose actions that are unnecessary and that only breed more problems. Hate will also change us in ways that are hard to predict, and never good. Hate may see true enemies; in fact, it often does. But it also makes us see enemies where there might be potential friends.

    Are there people who will hate us no matter what we do? I suspect so. But there are also people who may be angry at us for good reasons, and if we could look at ourselves closely enough and carefully enough, we might just be able to change that.

    I would like to see us reexamine ourselves as a nation and see if the changes we see after 9/11/2001 make us the people we want to be. For a few days right now we’re going to be more unified. We’ll see people like George W. Bush and President Obama on a platform together.

    But it won’t be long until we’re sniping at one another again. Peace and unity may only last for hours. So now is the time to ask ourselves this: Do we like what we are becoming?

    Enhanced by Zemanta

  • The Only Worshiper Who Got It

    At today’s church service there was something I wish I had caught on camera. I’m not really quick, even though I have a reasonably good camera in my cell phone.

    Our pastor, Geoffrey Lentz, was preaching the final sermon of his Summer in the Psalms series, this time from Psalm 150. He talked about exuberant praise, and suggested that if we could really get a vision of God’s grace we would doubtless be ready to sing and dance ourselves. He’s been using musical styles with his sermon, and today’s style was jazz.

    As is our custom, the offering comes immediately after the sermon. The offertory was jazz, with quite a catching rhythm. I was sitting near the back and looking across a congregation sitting quietly in their seats while the band rocked the house; well, would have rocked it had it been movable. And no, this is not about me. I was sitting in my seat like the rest.

    But a few rows ahead of me, close to the center of the sanctuary, there was a little girl, perhaps two years old. She was quite noticeable in a bright red dress. She was standing on her chair, dancing, waving her hands above her head, and clapping (mostly) to the music.

    I think she was the only one who got it!

     

    Enhanced by Zemanta

  • Bad Girls, Bad Girls

    Rachel Held Evans, in her Sunday Superlatives links, provides a link to a post by Sarah Bubar on The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood blog titled The Bad Girl’s Club.

    In this post are featured four women for this “bad girl’s [sic] club”: Julian of Norwich, Ann Hutchinson, Margaret Fell Fox, and Phoebe Palmer.

    Now it’s not my plan to explain how these four weren’t bad girls. Rather, I’m interested in just what Sarah Bubar thinks they have in common. Apparently, the real problem is that they all failed to bow to the proper authorities and thus came up with doctrines that are, perhaps, objectionable. I say, “perhaps” because I would have a different opinion on certain of these.

    There are two critical things in common between these women, as far as I can see. First, they all saw visions or emphasized spiritual experience. Second, they exercised, or tried to exercise leadership.

    I recall once discussing biblical inspiration with another man. At one point I asked how, if one hears a voice, does one know whether it’s from God or not. His response was, “We’re not talking about voices; we’re talking about the Bible.”

    Well, I’m afraid that if you want to read the Bible you are going to read things written by and about people who heard voices. In view of this post, I’d add that your going to read things by and about people who saw visions.

    And you’re also going to read about women who did all those things. So here’s my list of bad girls.

    1. How about Miriam, a prophetess? She was leading singing, but there must have been a reason she was called a prophetess. And yes, I know about her later experiences for challenging Moses; but remember she wasn’t the only one who had such problems (Exodus 15:20-21).
    2. How about Deborah (Judges 4:4), prophetess and judge? You may argue that Miriam was leading women, but Deborah went much further than that. You know, this prophetess thing pretty definitely indicates some kind of spiritual experience.
    3. How about Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-20), giving God’s instructions to the men of the temple in Josiah’s time? Visionary experiences and teaching the men, I’d say.
    4. Or Anna, a prophetess who affirmed Jesus (Luke 2:36-38). If women can’t speak with authority, why record her words for all Christian generations?

    But there’s another side. How many men who do not claim any special spiritual experiences go off track. We’ve had plenty of heresies started by men whose method for finding their own “new truths” was in searching through texts.

    The fact is that you can find good an bad examples of people of either gender in any time and place.

    And since I note that women in scripture exercised more authority than certain modern Christians believe is legitimate, I think there’s good reason to think that exclusions of women were, in fact, limited in terms of time and place.

     

  • Christian Carnival Posted

    … at Thinking in Christ. Find out about such diverse topics as Rowling’s ethics of magic and dating the synoptic gospels.

  • Dominionists, Dominionisimists, Theonomists and Political Labels

    If you’re expecting me to do a rundown on the definitions of all of these terms, then you’ll be disappointed. There’s plenty of writing trying to define the terms. Jeremy Pierce wrote the key post discussing “dominionismism,” titled simply Dominionismists. In it, he compares those who are concerned about dominionism with Birthers and Truthers. On the other hand Chip Berlet, (Inside the Christian Right Dominionist Movement that’s Undermining Democracy) amongst many others, sees this as a quite clearly defined movement that is “undermining democracy.”

    I don’t deny that there is a certain hysteria involved from time to time, but I think there is a much different sort of dynamic involved in mislabeling some people as dominionists, and even in trying to find a specific theological stream of movement that can properly be labeled “dominionist.” I would suggest that the fundamental problems here are different, and they are ones that regularly occur in discussing political and religious movements, doubly so when discussing a movement that is both religious and political.

    First, relatively few journalists or commentators have a serious understanding of theology or of the details of Christian movements. Even many theologians don’t really understand the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements all that well. Thus they have a hard time understanding things such as spiritual warfare or claiming dominion over territories in a spiritual sense, or what they mean by calling something demonic.

    Second, there are quite a few things that might be regarded as demonic. I believe in trying to be conscious of variations in belief. Few beliefs really exist in binary form. You can almost always find a spectrum. There are those who believe in demons, and those who don’t. But between those points there are very different beliefs about the demonic realm. Some who believe in demons actually simply take them as a sort of short hand for evil tendencies of movements. Others see actual, intelligent spiritual beings behind almost everything that happens. Failing to differentiate between those views will result in mislabeling and misunderstanding.

    Third, political labels are dangerous. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those folks who things labels are unimportant. We have to use labels to communicate. The problem with political labels is not that they are a bad idea in general, but rather that they are normally used manipulatively. This shouldn’t be surprising, considering the political process.

    The reason I don’t like political labels and use four to describe myself in the header of this blog, is not that labels are bad, but rather because I don’t quite fit into a movement. I have aspects of the four labels I use in my belief system, but I haven’t invented a single term. “Passionate moderate” is the closest I can come to one.

    But in politics labels are used more as accusations. Again, using an example from my header, “liberal charismatic” was bestowed on me by an opponent who disliked me a great deal. He disliked both liberals and charismatics, and used the label to express the extreme dislike for my views. And, quite frankly, he was closer to right than he knew.

    But in politics, labels are extended by association. Let’s suppose we have a politician who is a Christian evangelical, and believes that the gospel of the kingdom should be preached in all the world. To him, evangelism is a good word. He believes everyone should have the chance to accept the gospel, and would be happy if they all did. Christian readers will recognize this as a fairly standard Christian view. For reasons that will become apparent, I’m going to label this guy X.

    So X has friends and associates, and he reads books. He reads books by people who are more conservative than he is. He goes to a church where the general position of the congregation is to his right. The members and the pastor believe that one should vote for people who are Christians or Jews, i.e. have a “Judeo-Christian ethic.” We’re going to call the pastor Y.

    Now Y also reads books and associates with various people, whose average position is to the right of X’s friends, though there is considerable overlap. He has a friend we’ll call Z who read R. J. Rushdoony in college (incidentally so did I, for that matter), and who recommends reading Rushdoony frequently and publicly. Z doesn’t actually agree with everything that Rushdoony has to say, but he agrees with many things, and things it’s a good idea for people to hear these ideas and give them consideration.

    So X runs for office, and the press starts looking through his record and associates, and they find Y and then they realize he also has a connection with Z. How many sermons has he heard that might have quotes from Rushdoony? Who really is X anyhow? Perhaps they even have a label that now includes all three.

    But despite going to a church pastored by Y, and perhaps even reading a book recommended by Z, X doesn’t believe that only Christians or even only Christians and Jews should hold office, nor does he accept a significant portion of Rushdoony’s positions.

    At the same time, people on the far right, which we’ll define for purposes of this post as people to the right of Z, have a very different agenda. They’re looking at Z and are wondering if he’s really on their side. They find that he goes to a church pastored by Y, who won’t recommend reading Rushdoony, even though he acknowledges having read some things by him, and they discover that he meets with X who, horror of horrors, says he might vote for a Muslim or an Atheist, provided he agreed with them on the important issues. So Z, who thinks only Christians should hold office, gets labeled as a leftist.

    Now whether “dominionist” is a good label or not, I’m not absolutely certain. Personally, I don’t need it, and don’t quite see how it could be properly defined. I’d like to find a group of people who actually espouse a label such as that. I can oppose people based on easier to discover issues. For example, those who oppose equal rights for gays and lesbians, espouse what I see as an extreme view on abortion laws, or oppose freedom of expression won’t get my vote.

    Some of those folks may fall into the category of “dominionist,” but I find it both much harder, and of much less practical value, to try to figure out the boundaries and the membership of such a group.

    Oh, and the big difference I see between this a Birthers or Truthers is that one is falsehood in clear black and white, while this tends to be more of a fogging of differences between various people.

     

    Enhanced by Zemanta

  • Reading Acts Series on the New Perspective on Paul

    I’ve written a bit about this before, but it’s hardly my main area of expertise.

    Philip J. Long has written a very nice introductory series on the New Perspective on Paul. Here are the links:

    Basics of the New Perspective –

    I link to this in detail because I think it is one of the best short introductions I’ve read, and it’s available right her in blog form. I am frequently asked for a short version of just what is the New Perspective on Paul. Now I have something easily available that I can recommend.

  • BLT = Bible * Literature * Translation

    There’s a new translation blog, and I’ve added it to my RSS reader. Check out BLT.