Steve & Mary-Anne's Weblog

Over at simplychurch.com, Jeff Gilbertson asks “What do missionaries do?”. He lists a number of activities which people mention when asked this question, but concludes that what they really should be doing is planting churches. I attended one of Neil Cole’s Greenhouse sessions last week (as did Mike Bischoff, who wrote a good summary (in German)). One of the things which I noticed – for the first time, as far as I can remember – is that the Great Commission does not even mention churches. Our job is to make disciples, and churches are the natural consequence of that. Now, we may spend quite some time making sure churches function well as support systems for the members, but our aim must be that those members grow in their faith.

Have I consumed too much Neil Cole recently?

I’ve finally got around to reading “The Shaping of Things to Come” – only just in time, because FocuSuisse is involved in organising the Forum Gemeindeinnovation, where Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, the book’s authors, are the headline speakers. Several people had recommended the book, so I was curious to find out what they had to say. It deals with the changes in society, and changes which the authors see as necessary if the church is to fulfill its commission.
The book starts off with a brief analysis of church history, examining how the current situation – “Christendom” – arose. The authors then ask what the church is supposed to be and do, in contrast to what it is and does. They constantly ask questions to make their readers think, and suggest new approaches, both methodical and conceptual. One major and very interesting part is an analysis of Greek and Hebrew spirituality.
It is our contention that by focusing on development of the speculative doctrines, the early church lost the vital focus on the historical and practical implications of the faith. Mission and discipleship as such became marginal to theological correctness. Orthopraxy gave way to orthodoxy… Many great theologians have “thought” rightly about Christian teaching, but their lives have not necessarily mirrored their beliefs… Seminarians’ minds are filled with propositional truth for up to four years and then they are sent to ministry in local churches. And while many have found that the shift from Christian living to Christian belief is a natural one, the opposite shift from belief to action isn’t quite so natural. (pp. 120-121, my emphasis)
I think we can all relate to the advantages of learning by doing. I generally find it easier to learn theory (or, in this case, theology) by doing something and discovering the relevant questions instead of first learning a load of theory, and then having to find some way to put it into practice.
One of the observations which particularly made me question my thinking was this:
The other main form of theological dualism was fought over the issue of whether Jesus was really a man or if he only seemed to be one… These doctrines seem strange to us, but they are still very much part of Christendom in various forms. Marcionite and Docetist assumptions abound in more subtle forms and in many ways. So many Christians struggle with the humanity of Jesus. For them Jesus was above humanity; he simply could not have had to go to the toilet and undergo the same humbling task of daily defecation. He couldn’t have any sexual stirrings at all, and therefore had never experienced sexual desires.
Although I’m certainly no Docetist, I still found these thoughts somewhat foreign. Does that reveal a difference between my intellectual and practical theology? It certainly made me pause for thought, and is something I need to beware of – perhaps something of which we all need to beware?
They mention that in Greek thinking, ‘truth’ is a concept, whereas in Hebraic thinking, it is an action. That links to Jesus’ words in John 14: I am the way and the truth and the life. That equates truth with a person, not action, but how do we assess people, if not on the evidence of their actions?
Is truth visible in our actions?

More on The shaping of things to come later.

In the house church or simple church movement, we often hear that full-time “church workers” are unnecessary, or far less necessary than in the “established” church. How true is this? And how much of this opinion is born from frustration, dissatisfaction, envy or arrogance? Frustration and dissatisfaction because we recognise the discrepancy between the church we see in Acts and our current experience; envy, because we’d like to be in full-time ministry ourselves, but see no opportunity; arrogance because again, we see the discrepancy, and blame the visible representatives of the existing system, rejecting both them and the workings of that system. However, we all see that some things require full-time work, or are significantly more efficient if we can focus our attention on them full time. Raising children is one example: either we do it full-time ourselves, home-schooling our children, or delegate a significant part of it to paid teachers.
In the simple church movement, we have to consider how to best organise ourselves so that the entire Body of Christ grows to maturity. Ephesians 4 tells us that God has given particular gifts in order that this happen. The question, of course, is how the bearers of those gifts are organised. Some of them may be called to “full-time ministry” for the good of the Body; others may be called to employ their gifts part-time. Perhaps the “error” of traditional church structures is the institutionalisation, putting particular people in particular positions for the long term. That tends to concentrate all tasks on that one person, or small group of people, because as the need in the area of their gifting decreases, they tend to assume responsibility in other areas. Most people tend to delegate as much work as they can (a synonym for “are lazy”), so if there is a full-time pastor, for example, who can do the preaching, counselling, teaching or evangelising, the other Christians can lay back a little, relax after work, watch a little more television, or whatever.
Perhaps, instead of criticising the traditional church structures and particularly the people in them, we should repent of our past laziness. If we have already done that, either explicitly through confession or implicitly by changing our actions, wonderful. (I suspect that those who have done so are also discovering that it takes time and effort, and requires sacrifice and reordering of priorities.) As Jesus said, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” Let’s not be hypocrites, but remove the plank from our own eyes first.
(Of course, there are also people who tell us that we shouldn’t be evangelising, counselling, teaching and so on. If we’ve listened to them instead of the Spirit sending us, we need to repent of that instead. Is it right to obey man, or God?)