Evangelism reshaped.

The following is an article written by David Fitch that I have summarized a bit so that you can digest it.

Over the years now, I’ve come to understand the important task of nurturing communities into missional and communal rhythms. We must resist the churches desire “to do something!!” and instead cultivate missional rhythms among our people’s lives together for God’s Kingdom. I think pastors need to walk along with and among people being a “missional therapist” helping people imagine God at work in and around their daily lives. Along the way, they lead by consistently (and kindly) rejecting some old habits and directing the imagination towards other possibilities. This is the never-ending work of cultivating missional and community based habits among people. Here’s my list of what to reject (slowly retire) and what to direct (nudge forward) a churches imagination toward.

1.) Kindly Reject doing Outreach Events. Instead direct imagination towards ways of connecting with people where they are. Outreach events take up much time, planning and enormous “congregational capital” (if I may put it that way). In post Christendom outreach events rarely “work.” And you simply cannot compete with the local Park District or Megachurch event planning neutral site events. Instead, with little effort or cost, direct the people’s imagination towards seeing the ways you can connect with people in their everyday situations by going to the same place at the same time every day. This has personally revolutionized my missional life.

2.) Kindly Reject evangelism as a one time hit on a target with a preconceived outcome. Nurture imagination toward seeing mission as part of regular daily, weekly and monthly life rhythms where out of regular life God works to use your generosity and sacrifice to connect people with the gospel in unforeseen ways. There is no precision strike technique, instead we need to train our eyes to pay attention to our life rhythms and be ready to minister out of everyday life, where God is making relational opportunities available.

3.) Kindly reject building multiple use buildings as if by building a killer facility on the church campus we can bring people into the orbit of the church. We should build less structures, and inhabit more the ones already out there in our towns and citties.

4.) Kindly reject one-on-one evangelism and the techniques associated with such apologetic persuasion. Instead direct imagination for inhabiting places in two’s or three’s or more. Hospitals, the school systems, the park districts and places of hurt and pain too numerous to mention are all places where there are forces at work that can take under any one isolated Christian. But two or three Christians together become an undeniable force for the kingdom under the rule and leadership of Jesus.

5.) Kindly reject the Sunday morning gathering as an evangelistic event for it cannot be that in the new post Christendom cultures. Instead fire up imagination for communal gatherings that love others and love Jesus. It is simple, organic, takes a lot less planning than a mega show, and alot less money. And if any non-believers do happen to come, they won’t confuse this with a Tony Robbins event.

6.) Kindly reject coercive persuasion and argument in our witness. Instead stoke the imagination of your people for seeking “one person of peace” (Luke 10) among the lost of their neighborhoods. Look for that one who, though never having heard the gospel, is dispositionally ready (been readied by God) to receive.

7.) Kindly reject postures of power as we live our lives among those who do not yet know Christ. Instead direct the imagination towards the way Jesus always enters the human situation in humility. So don’t come to your neighbors as the one with all the answer. Come to your neighbors humbly and actively listening. Instead offering them a meal, find ways to participate in a meal with them. If you’re in the suburbs ask them if you can borrow their lawnmower.

8.) Kindly Reject problem solving – instead direct the imagination towards “appreciative inquiry.” We often approach church and the world through problem solving. What is wrong with our programs? What needs are we not meeting? What are we not doing right? This is negative, mechanical and lifeless. Instead, let’s direct our community’s imagination to noticing where God is working among us and around us, to recognize it, and jump it. We need to be adaptable people to join God in the spaces He opens up for us to minister effectively.

The Real Heresy

At Axiom we've been talking about Love as the greatest act of Holiness (Matt 22:37-29). I recently posted a blog on this a month ago titled "The Law of Love".

I stumbled on the following article written by Gregory Boyd. I am thrilled and intrigued by how he elevates unlove to the level of heresy.

The “Heresy” of Failing to Love

In what is hands-down the most amazing prayer ever recorded, Jesus prayed to his Father that his disciples “may be one…just as you are in me and I am in you” so that “the world may believe that you sent me” (Jn.17:21). In other words, Jesus was praying that we who profess Christ as Lord would together mirror the perfect loving unity of the Father and Son. Not only this, but Jesus’ expectation was that the world would be lead to have faith in him by witnessing this love! “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13:35).

Hearing this prayer makes me wonder how God feels about the Church right now. I honestly don’t think it requires much speculation. The Church has splintered into thousands of competing and sometimes angry factions. In some circles — and, unfortunately, they tend to be the most vocal and the most public — sisters and brothers who dare to color outside the lines are flippantly bid “farewell” and assigned the label “heretic” — or perhaps even consigned to hell. Though Jesus hoped the Church would be the proof that he’s for real, the Church today has become the best argument that he’s not! Instead of the means of getting people into the kingdom, the Church is the main obstacle keeping people out. Christians are known in the broader society for a lot of things, but their depth of love for one another — let alone for “sinners” and “enemies” — doesn’t make the list (see Kinnaman & Lyons, UnChristian). In this light, the beautiful vision of the Church that Jesus expressed in his prayer on the night he was betrayed — the vision of a Church that reflects the perfect love of the triune God — almost sounds comical.

So what should we do? Whatever else might be said, I honestly don’t believe we’ll even begin to move in the right direction until we resolve that loving one another (and everyone else) is a higher priority than proving, protecting and enforcing the rightness of our doctrines.

I’m almost certain someone just now had the thought — “Here we go again, compromising correct doctrine in the name of love. More fluffy, post-modern, sentimental garbage!” Was I right?

The thing is, there’s absolutely nothing fluffy, post-modern or sentimental about placing love above doctrinal correctness, for this conviction permeates the NT! Truth be told, we shouldn’t even contrast “love” and “doctrinal correctness” in the first place. We should rather regard the command to love as the most foundational doctrine of the church and thus the most important doctrine to be correct on! Peter says, “Above all, love each other deeply, for love covers a multitude of sins” (and alleged “heresies”? I Pet. 4:8, cf. Col 3:14). If love is to be placed “above all,” then there simply can’t be any other command or doctrine or agenda that competes with it for the top position. It must stand on top alone. Paul makes the same point, but even more emphatically, when he tells us it doesn’t matter how right we are, how spiritually gifted we are, how intelligent or wise we are, or even how much faith and service we display: if these aren’t accompanied by love, they are a noisy gong or clanging cymbal (I Cor 13:1-3). In other words:

Correct doctrine - love= worthless noise!

If we take this teaching seriously, it means that nothing – absolutely nothing! — matters if love isn’t present…which means that love is the most-important doctrine we can ever embrace…which means that our willingness to love is the most important criteria of orthodoxy…which means that, if ever it is appropriate to label anything “heresy,” it is the failure to love.

And now you have to wonder why millions of people have been tortured and murdered by Christians throughout history for espousing “heretical” views about baptism, communion, the church and a very long list of other doctrines, while not one person (so far as I know) has been officially disciplined — let alone accused of “heresy” — for failing to adequately love (as when they tortured and murdered others in Jesus name, for example). We can have all the right doctrine in the world, but if we fail to love as Christ loved us, we are all “heretics.”

And now I have to confess that I am guilty of “heresy.” I am. I haven’t consistently loved everyone like Christ loved me.

I suspect I’m not alone.

Which maybe should make all of us hesitant to slap the label on anyone else. Whatever “heresy” they’re guilty of, its nothing compared to our own (see Mt 7:1-3).

Reframing the Bible

I have long harbored the suspicion that in certain respects, in certain habits of thought, modern Christianity reads the Bible like an English manuel written in the 1900’s. I understand that the analogy is little rough. But I still think that the approach is wide spread amongst preachers, small groups and even in how we teach our children. We often come to the scriptures to look for a clear and accessible truth to abstract from it. This style of reading is often called the “plain reading of scripture”. To some this “plain reading” feels holier. I've heard numerous times in different ways “God says it, I read it, and that settles it for me”.

We hold to a western lens of “reframing” and it goes something like this: In order to address a problem or question I'm facing, our culture is facing, we take a chunk of scripture and first look to see how it can be applied to our modern issues. This process skips past the original frame in which the narrative of Scripture is written and instead unknowingly reframes. In doing this we barely make contact with the biblical narrative of a historically situated people. I would venture to say that when we do this we miss the meaning or truth intended by the author of the Bible.

There is a certain “re-authoring” that happens in the reading process when one assumes that a 2000 year old piece of literature, written to first century Judaism, translated into English, has a top level meaning we can access readily. Most teaching I hear does not do the hard work of reconstructing the Jewish timeline, idioms, hyperbole and cultural climate. There should always be a strong effort to return the language in the Bible to its original frame. To a Westerner in the year 2011, words have clear definitions but to a 1st Century Greek or Jew, words are symbolic. When we don’t intentionally reconstruct the original frame we widen the gap between the meaning in the original frame and the new frame into which it is inserted.

That would nail a lot of preaching and teaching today. Historically situated texts are extracted willy-nilly, with scant regard for narrative context, and made to serve some other purpose at the impulse of the preacher or teacher, who then maintains and declares that "this is what the Bible says." We make allowances for this practice because we think that no real harm is done by it, we think that no one in our churches is likely to care one way or the other, as long as people are moved or convicted.

We do need wise application to our modern issues. But first we need a strong effort to return to the original frame in our reading and interpretation. Once we have done that properly, we can start to ask what it would mean to be faithful in our living and thinking in relation to it.