Top 50 Possible Reasons Why You’re Not Emergent

In the spirit of the new book, Why We’re Not Emergent, the accompanying website, and this post, I thought I’d present the Top 50 Possible Reasons Why You’re Not Emergent.

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50. They’re all a bunch of false prophets. Really, that’s what they told me

49. My mother will disown me.

48. I just don’t like Doug Pagitt. He scares me.

47. I heard from a famous pastor that Emergent is from the debil.

46. I don’t like Rob Bell’s hair.

45. The word Emergent is not in the Bible.

44. It’s just not allowed in the Vanderhoeven family.

43. I heard Calvin would simply not approve

42. Mark Driscoll told me I couldn’t.

41. I’m just not “certain” yet it’s the right way to go.

40. I heard from this guy who knew this lady who had a brother who was Emergent and he went blind doing it.

39. I enjoy being a skeptic.

38. I didn’t learn about Emergent in seminary so I’m not going to start now.

37. I like being on the bigger team.

36. I heard you had to take yoga.

35. I’ve heard from a famous prison ministry guy they don’t believe in the Bible.

34. Where would I be without absolute truth.

33. Tony Jones went to Princeton Theological Seminary…that liberal.

32. They didn’t teach this in Alpha.

31. I’m not white.

30. I’m over 40.

29. I don’t have any cool, black eyeglasses.

28. I don’t like coffee or Guinness.

27. It’s immoral to smoke pipes or cigars.

26. They haven’t yet come up with my denomination of Presbymergent

25. Emergents read unapproved books.

24. I’m allergic to candles.

23. I like Jesus but not Emergent.

22. Brian McLaren’s books are not theologically correct. I’m not sure why, I just know they are.

21. I like my Christianity strong and hot.

20. The orthodoxy police will bust me.

19. I’m not uber-cool. In fact, I don’t even know what “uber” means.

18. I don’t understand it and I don’t want to.

17. If it doesn’t have the letters SBC in it, I’m not interested.

16. All they want to do is love. Where’s the truth in that?

15. I’m a bullhorn type of guy.

14. I prefer Joel Osteen.

13. I just finally bought into fundamentalism and you want me to shift?

12. I don’t really want a generous orthodoxy.

11. I refuse to switch to Apple

10. I can’t. I go to John MacArthur’s church.

9. My friends will think I’m a heretic.

8. I already was a New (Kind of) Christian.

7. I refuse to grow a soul patch

6. Hell fire and brimstone works just fine, thank you.

5. I don’t like loud, rock music at church. It’s a sin.

4. Their hermeneutic of ecclesiology is unorthodox, fundamentally esoteric and meandering. It borders on epistemological ambiguity that is really troublesome. I’m afraid it will lead to heretical uncertainty of the most pernicious kind.

3. But then I might have to really have faith.

2. Brian McLaren is the debil.

And the number one possible reason Why You’re Not Emergent is:

1. The emerging church is so yesterday.

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Just in case you were wondering. The answer is yes, this is humor.

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Interview with Brian McLaren

Alan Roxburgh spent some time with Brian McLaren and interviewed him on video. He discusses his insights on the emerging church, his critics and then spends a good deal of time on his new book, Everything Must Change. You can see the interviews here.

Part 1 – Here – Alan Roxburgh sat down with Brian in a hotel room in Toronto at the end of September, days before the publication of Brian’s new book, Everything Must Change. In this first of a three part interview series about his book, Brian talks about dealing with the passionate responses his writing often elicits.

Part 2 – Here – In Part 2 of Alan Roxburgh’s Conversation with Brian McLaren, Brian and Alan talk about the stories and the biblical narratives that shape and sound the call that “Everything Must Change.” This is a continuing conversation about how we understand the challenge of being followers of Christ in these rapidly changing times.

Part 3 – Here – Part Three of Alan Roxburgh’s interview with Brian McLaren on his book, Everything Must Change brings this series to its conclusion. In this interview, Alan and Brian discuss issues that include our propensity for denying our past, other ways to peace, the need for our solutions to go deeper, our preoccupation with the church rather than the Kingdom, what Vaclav Havel’s story of the fall of communism has to say to the state of the church today, and Brian’s new Web site, Deep Shift.

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The Problem of Heresy

Can you feel it in the wind? It feels like we’re in this strange season where voices within the church are pulling the trump card called heresy. I guess this is to be expected with any movement. The old gives way to the new only through troubled means. But as I survey this territory, I find that it is not a road I want to traverse. Love still remains the better path.

Wikipedia has a really great dialog about heresy.

“The word “heresy” comes from the Greek αἵρεσις, hairesis (from αἱρέομαι, haireomai, “choose”), which means either a choice of beliefs or a faction of believers. It was given wide currency by Irenaeus in his tract Contra Haereses (Against Heresies) to describe and discredit his opponents in the early Christian Church. He described his own position as orthodox (from ortho- “right” + doxa “belief”) and his position eventually evolved into the position of the early Christian Church.

Used in this way, the term “heresy” has no purely objective meaning: the category exists only from the point of view of speakers within a group that has previously agreed about what counts as “orthodox”. Any nonconformist view within any field may be perceived as “heretical” by others within that field who are convinced that their view is “orthodox”; in the sciences this extension is made tongue-in-cheek.” (From Wikipedia, Etymology)

The fundamental problem with heresy is that its a judgment people make about other people’s belief, spoken, written, or whatever. And the power behind the word is the assumption that the person is in grave error, such that they may not be under grace anymore. Historically, heresy is used to imply to someone is out of grace. This is the underlying insinuation.

“Heretics usually do not define their own beliefs as heretical. Heresy is a value judgement and the expression of a view from within an established belief system. For instance, Roman Catholics held Protestantism as a heresy while some non-Catholics considered Catholicism the “Great Apostasy.”

Heresy is an extremely powerful word. Many in history have died for it. When we use it we set ourselves up as the authority. We are the ones who “know”. And to speak against the one who has called out the heresy is to question the authority, which puts that person in the spotlight they likely never desired. Who are we to question authority? We dont’ have PhDs and MDivs. Luther, although well educated took great risk in taking a stand and holding to his beliefs. Yet, those in the reformed camp sit on the edges of his coat and embrace what was once heresy.

My concern is when authority bases their understanding on right belief as the nature of our grace. Imagine the fear that causes people. This fear has historically produces so much that we are now ashamed of. Is His kingdom built on fear? Man, I’m in trouble because then I have to wonder if I’ve got everything in line. And baby, I don’t. Thankfully we have Scripture and freedom of dialog. And we do have love and grace.

I find it really interesting that someone could actually make a judgment of heresy. Especially when every those who are typically attacked (McLaren, Bell, Pagitt), do actively speak that Jesus is the Son of God.

All of this brouhaha got me asking a very serious question. Do the people who give the claim of heresy believe faith is by grace alone? I ask this because the fundamental issue at heart here is the question, “Is a heretic (defined as someone who believes something wrong about Scripture) still in grace?” I would argue yes, with one exception. The fundamental ascent of the heart, as revealed by the Holy Spirit is the question, “Who we say Jesus is.” The Apostle John even provided a very simple test. The call to guard against apostasy in Scripture was to guard against those who wanted to add something to the work of Jesus, to go back to the law and move away from grace alone. This was the fight Paul wishes to fight. Our intellectual understanding of Scripture does not establish our grace. Jesus did.

My concern is that when we make the judgment that when someone is in error they are no longer in grace, we’ve crossed back over into apostasy ourselves. We’ve practiced the one exception because we’ve added to grace. This is Galatians revisited. If grace were the sum total of our belief systems then no one would make it. Why, because we’ve stepped back into performance (the law) as the defining factor of salvation. Children would be out simply for the fact that they don’t know everything.

Performance, or the establishment of a doctrinal set of beliefs as a criteria has always been about control, which is opposite love. Control is the domain of the enemy. And to be honest, why would anyone want to become the judge? Why would we want to be the one to establish the box people have to live in. Because once we establish the box, we have now established our own ruleset. This is what I love about grace. It destroys the box.

And sometimes I get why people make the judgment. I would suggest that Mark Driscoll and Johnny Mac, and those who make these claims have good intentions. They clearly love the Gospel. But I would suggest that before we make judgments we listen to the words of Jesus not to step into that arena. When we do we are the ones fighting each other and the enemy is in the stands laughing at us. I would suggest that Jesus understood that to make ourselves the judge is to create the standard in which we are judged. JR Woodward has a post that captures this well. This was the curse of the law. If we try to fulfill it, we are then defined by it.

I love Jesus’ own words on the subject.

“As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.” (John 12: 47)

Let’s hold on to love people, and discover why turning the other cheek is so much more powerful. Let’s allow the Holy Spirit to be the one to convict those who need it and in the process love our brother so that we can earn the right to be heard.

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A Generous Orthodoxy All Over Again

Emergent Village is looking for feedback on developing a Greenbelt type festival. And as I was taking it they included the following demographic question: “Primary Theological Orientation”. And to a certain extent I looked at the list and identified with almost every one, which made me think about Brian McLaren’s, “A Generous Orthodoxy.”

I’m a former marketing guy so I get why they want to do this. But to be honest I surprised me that Emergent would seek out this information. Facetiously, are they going to stamp this on the name tag?

Spiritual but not religious: Yes, I am a spiritual person but I can’t stand oppressive religion.

Orthodox (Eastern Rite, OCA, Coptic, etc): Yes, I’m trying to be orthodox. Aren’t we all?

Roman Catholic: Yes, even though I have serious concerns.  I love the liturgy and art forms that are part of the history. The Apostle Peter was part of this church too.

Anglican (Episcopal, Anglican Church of Canada, etc) Yes, These are my brothers from up North. Need to know more though.

Methodist (UMC, AME, Nazarene, Wesleyan, etc) Yes, I love Wesley’s focus on discipleship.

Reformed (PCUSA, PCA, UCC, etc) Yes, I hope I’m reforming.

Lutheran: Yes, see “reformed”.

Anabaptist: Yes, I love the focus on Kingdom.

Pentecostal (Charismatic, etc) Yes, I truly believe the Holy Spirit is alive and well and leading for those who are listening.

Evangelical (Non-Denom, Vineyard, Southern Baptist, etc) Yes, I love the beauty of freedom and intimate worship and losing labels.

Contemplative Tradition (Quaker, etc) Yes, you bet. I need to remember to remember and reflect on the journey on a regular basis.

Metaphysical Christian (Unity, etc) Yes. It’s hard for me to knock anything that has the word unity in it. 😉

Other Religion (Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, etc.) Yes with an obvious asterisk. Jesus was Jewish and I have learned a tremendous amount from Hebrew culture, Buddhists and Muslims on commitment and conviction, but the real word here is human.

None: Yes, because it is hard for me to identify that I am simply one of these.

I’m being facetious with all of this to a certain extent.  But the list really got me thinking about the nature of the emerging church and our desire to move past traditional belief labels and find deeper distinctions that bring us together so we can learn from each other. I recognize that we don’t have these distinctions yet. But I’m not afraid to learn from my Buddhist friend or my Anabaptist brother. I can easily imagine God speaking through them just as much as he would through an ass. I made a decision a long time ago to be open to listening to the Spirit in what ever way He chooses. I have Scripture to help me sift.

I suddenly had a renewed appreciation for what Brian was trying to accomplish with his book. How do we begin to learn from each other rather than separate ourselves? How do we learn to connect as human beings rather than disconnect based on differences? Love calls us to move past these differences and see each other for who we really are, God’s beautiful creation. We may believe differently but it doesn’t mean they each of us doesn’t need love.

My end choice was “other” for this reason. It was a good exercise though.

Which one would you pick?

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Interesting Stuff 3

This is hilarious for all the conversation around mega-churches. What happens when a small church tries to be mega?

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Brian McLaren sharing his thoughts on what the Gospel is really about. I love the simplicity of what he is saying.

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Mark Lowry throwing out some great observations on women in the church.

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The Lesson From Mark Driscoll

When Mark Driscoll chose to pick a fight with the specific voices in the emerging church at the SBC conference, I really didn’t want to get involved. What would drive someone to do something like that when it wasn’t even what he was there to speak on? I did listen to his message for the sake of being informed and did comment. I even drafted a a lengthy response for this blog. But I never could hit publish with my response because I always felt like it was stepping into a fight I didn’t want to engage. I thought about it. The bully had swung and missed and I kept wondering what was the real reason for this urge to swing back. The more I thought about it, the more I kept wondering what the issue was in the first place.

I for one, and I’m sure many others, loved the wink idea as a response. Many of you got that it just wasn’t the fight we were interested in walking into. Brian McLaren and Rob Bell simply didn’t comment. Doug simply accepted his boot from the next SBC conference. Love it all.

The moment that some think is going to be really, really important, left me wanting and wondering if this is the best that we as a body of Christ can really come up with? Will this be a defining moment in the emerging church? I actually think so but for a very different reason than most. I for one think that this will be a moment Mark will regret what he did at some point in the future. Not because he was right or wrong, but because I think at some point in the future he’ll see that he got derailed.

And the reason I say this is because MoreThanMine posted a recap that included my comments. And as I was reading through the comments I made again, I recognized that at the end of his 1 hour twenty minute talk he spent about ten minutes talking about new forms and being incarnational. I really like what he said in these ten minutes. Other people liked it too.

And I realized that Mark had the unique opportunity to really inform a body of believers that would tend to be on the outside fo the emerging church, and to talk more about incarnational and open so many minds at the SBC. This is one of the hearts of the emerging church. How do we embody Christ in our everyday lives. He had the opportunity to provide positive steps forward for everyone who was interested in the emerging church conversation. This would have been so affirming and would have given everyone something to really think about. Instead of spending 50 minutes critiquing the church, he ended up throwing in incarnational as almost an aside.

And then I realized what the enemy does so well. He invites us to go after our own brothers. The enemy invites us to take the first swing because if he can get us to fight each other, we’re not fighting him. We become the enemy, and he finds his amusement from the grandstands.

I think about the allure of the word heresy. It has so much power, so much force and weight, It also has so much potential to make me look good. The crowd is on my side. If I’ve called someone a heretic I must know something they don’t or I wouldn’t possibly say THAT. The temptation to swing first is so present because it sure makes us look so good in the process. The enemy even gives us a bright, shiny banner with the words, “In the name of God,” written all over it. Who is going to argue when we’ve got (g)od on our side.

But, If I use the word heresy on someone, even for good reasons, it invites the other to defend themselves, to swing back. And if they do, now we have a fight that divides us. And if you and I aren’t speaking to each other, we’re not as strong. I’ve actually lost my brother who can’t watch my back. I’ve actually lost relationship with someone who can remind me what my Heavenly Father looks like.

All of this makes me realize there might have been a deeper wisdom to Jesus inviting us to, “Turn the other cheek.” How many times have we read that verse assuming it was only our enemy. Maybe Jesus knew we’d need that verse for our own brothers (and sisters) too, for the one’s that hurt us within the church.

The reality is that my brother is going to miss the mark sometimes. But if I go to him in secret, holding his dignity in love, he’ll know I really am his brother. I can listen to why he thinks this or that and say, “Oh I get it…but have you thought about this.” It’s just between the two of us. Jesus knew that love was the only response that worked. In a mission of restoration and reconciliation, I can’t do that if there are blows thrown.

Maybe Jesus knew that the moment someone strikes us is the moment we are being invited to destroy ourselves by striking back or running away. When someone hit us was actually the most defining moment of our lives. It was in this moment that life was demanding an answer to who we really are. Are we really the children of a living God?

You see the reason I think this will be a defining moment in the future is because love will win out in this one. The emerging church body will stand up and say, we don’t need to fight to win. We already have.

So my response to Mark is sorrow. My hope is that you will someday find the best in your brothers because that will be the best in you. That will be what your Heavenly Father is looking for in you.

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Is Willow Creek Going Emerging?

(ht) This is huge. It is one of the most fascinating and I would say important video’s I have seen in a long time in regards to the church. And it begs the question, “Is Willow Creek Going Emerging?” Yes, I said that. But let me explain. First, what Willow is doing is very important here. If you can get past the fact that this is a McKinsey (read: business) type approach to church, the findings are stunning. And they’ve backed it up with the evidence. They studied over 20,000 people in 30 different churches.

See it here. Make sure you watch the long version.

Greg Hawkins is the Executive Pastor at Willow Creek. It’s safe to say that Willow is one THE most influential megachurches in America. Is there impact waining? Maybe. But people still listen. Attendance is close to 20,000 on average every Sunday. They have the Willow Creek Association which serves and supports over 12,000 churches. I personally have attended a Leadership Summit and loved the opportunities for conversation. They basically invented (or made it known) the seeker sensitive approach. People follow Willow primarily because Willow has chosen to establish itself in a leadership role. But they got it wrong, and these are not my words.

Their basic strategy for spiritual growth was based on the idea that participation equals growth, a fairly large assumption within the modern church and Christendom. Willow offered the usual: services, classes, small groups, care, and service opportunities. He even calls them “activities and programs”. “Participation is a big deal. We believe the more people participating in these sets of activities, with higher levels of frequency, it will produce disciples of Christ.” The most ironic statement comes a statement or two later. He says, “I know it might sound crazy but that’s how we do it in churches. We measure levels of participation.”

But then he admits that it is not working. His direct quote is, “Increasing levels of participation in these sets of activities does NOT predict whether someone’s becoming more of a disciple of Christ. It does NOT predict whether they love God more or they love people more.” This is a huge statement. Here is one of the largest and highest profile, teaching churches in America admitting that their fundamental strategy for spiritual development was not working. I would argue that his statement is one of the primary tenets of the emerging church. But it gets better.

He goes on to identify five segments of people within the church based upon their intimacy with Christ: exploring, growing, close, centered, and stalled. The sad part is that those who identify themselves as centered, or the most intimate in their faith are the most likely to leave. He said, “The people who love God the most are the one’s most disappointed.” Mail call. Are you just now getting it? And he goes on to say, “it wasn’t just true at Willow but in all the other settings they looked at.” I have to laugh because those within the emerging/missional church have been getting kicked around for soooo long for saying just that.

He ends with one of the most intriguing statements. He says, “Our dream is that we fundamentally change the way we do church. That we take out a clean sheet of paper and we rethink all of our old assumptions. Replace it with new insights. Insights that are informed by research and rooted in Scripture. Our dream is really to discover what God is doing and how he’s asking us to transform this planet.” Nice. If I told you Brian McLaren said that, you’d believe me.

Hats off to you Willow for taking steps in the right direction. It take leadership to admit you got it wrong. Well done for realizing the cracks in the facade. You have always been interesting in leading. Let’s hope this leads somewhere productive.

PS: You can also watch Hybels response here. He reveals that we must teach people to “self-feed”. It’s called discipleship and the priesthood of all believers Bill.

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The Churches R&D Department

In the famous School House Rock commercial “Conjunction Junction” the voice sings, “Conjunction junction, what’s your function?” The conjunction responds clearly, “Hooking up words and phrases and clauses.” He simply knows why he is there. So I began to ask, what is the purpose of the Emerging Church? What is it really doing?

If you read enough of my blog, you’ll eventually realize that I consider myself part of the emerging church. There are many reasons for this and a lot of good people I can thank who invited me into that space. I think to a great extent it is also the natural progression of the person I am and the larger era I find myself in. I have always been a risk taker and entrepreneurial. I like art and seeing new expressions that show the beauty of life.

We are in a time of great change and exploration. Some would call this the “liminal period”, or time in which everything is being scrutinized, prodded, and looked at. Liminal periods are rare in history because as human beings we like stability. Our bodies crave homeostasis. We don’t like change if we don’t have to.

It is my judgment, but fairly obvious, that this liminal period was created by the explosion of information age, much in the way the printing press did centuries ago. Our catalyst was the unprecedented access to constant streams of information through the Internet. This explosion has allowed our world to begin to reevaluate what we have been historically fed. For much of the last 1700 years, the church essentially controlled what people digested. You see, as little as twenty years ago, there was no Information Age, no world-wide-web, and no email. It’s funny to think that ten years ago there was no Google, Flickr, MySpace, or Youtube and yet these are now staples in our lives. In order to really critique the message we had to go down to the library to do our research. This was ridiculously prohibitive in terms of capacity (microfiche anyone) and the cost of doing so. This limited critical review to the scholars who critiqued for a living, who we had no choice but to trust. This lack of access helped support control of the message. There is value in controlling the message but this control is almost impossible now.

The Internet changed all of that. Email gave us ways to connect over long distances in almost instantaneous ways. The web essentially became our library as a depository of information. Sites like Wikipedia meant we no longer had to shell out a $1000 for a set of books that was outdated the moment the ink hit the page. Critical review was now possible for the masses. But it was the creation of blogs that I believe was the “tipping point” for the emerging church, allowing it to becomes a mass conversation. Blogs became depositories for that critical review. Suddenly everyone could comment on their own journey and experience and others could share or critique that view. And because of the nature of the web, anyone with access could join the conversation and provide a different point of view. This dialog, I believe, is one of the healthiest things to happen to the church. Suddenly people began to have ways of connecting to like minds in communities of dissent from the norm. There is something powerful in knowing that we’re not alone and that others feel like we do. But it is hard to do when we are dealing with the church.

We also have to thank The Leadership Network for starting the movement. They had the insight to recognize that emerging generations no longer resonated with old forms of church. They had the wisdom to gather new leaders together and look for new ideas and thoughts. But blogs allowed us to take part in that conversation as well. We weren’t interested in simply deconstructing the message, which never really changed. We were interested in looking at new forms that would communicate in context, that would reach those who felt they could never step inside of the traditional church structure. We were interested in fresh perspectives that unleashed the Gospel from its historic shackles.

But some misunderstood this as the changing the message. It was not. It was exploring the message and asking questions about deeply held beliefs that even the church could not agree on. This questioning was an attempt to be honest about what we were experiencing in our faith. Brian McLaren’s book, “A New Kind of Christian” could be considered one the beginning dialogs on being honest about some of the issues people wanted to talk about. Donald Miller’s, “Blue Like Jazz” could probably be considered the second. Dan Kimball’s, “The Emerging Church” was the third. There are probably other’s you’d add but these books resonated on a level that is rarely seen. They took an honest look at the spiritual experience and asked hard questions. And this honesty released people to say, “I agree. There are cracks in the facade. Maybe we should take a look at what’s wrong.” I commend Brian, Don, and Dan for taking these risks, for which they have come under severe scrutiny.

Will some people get it wrong? Sure. But what if we get it right? What if this process produces something the world had been crying out for over the ages? What if the church discovers being the church takes place over a seven day week, not just on Sunday morning? What if we discover our identity as children of the Living God, ministers designed to bring love to the hurting? What if we discover our capacity to transform the world around us? What if we discover a message and a form that reaches into the spaces of each context in a way that speaks life? We’ve been content with good for so long that we’ve forgotten what great looks like.

To a great extent a liminal period can appear like an attack. Well meaning people, who really do love Jesus and want to see His kingdom be made real to people, have created forms that are their expressions (read: denominations/school of thought). Over time these expressions become traditions that have rich meaning and serve a great purpose. For a certain group of people they really do connect people to God in a way that is potentially the fullest realization of their faith. But the problem comes when these forms no longer fit the context for other people and those who created or espouse these forms assume the critique is a personal attack. I get this. Critique can often feel really harsh even when it is true. And when the form is a validation for the person who invented it or even espouses it, then it really gets confrontational. When these forms have existed for generations, even centuries, they becomes virtually impossible to tear down. To do so would be to call them into question.

And therein lies the rub. Progress sometimes looks like regress to some people, which is why I believe the Emerging Church is so valuable. We need people who are willing to take steps into the wilderness and look for what will speak to the emerging generations. We’re aware that the world has shifted to a global perspective. We’re aware that trust is a big issue and that authenticity is demanded. Pretty packages and emphasis on “show” only reveal a lack of belief in the message. We just don’t have time for phonies anymore. We can spot him six miles away and have a critical response in three minutes work on Google. Don’t expect us to simply fall in line because we now know we don’t have to. We live in an age where freedom of expression is expected. And these expressions exist because we’re each wired differently. Our expressions of faith don’t invalidate yours. It reveals the beauty of diversity. God created us differently. We have the thumb print to prove it. This is our creativity.

We’re informed about other religions for the sake of communicating with our neighbors who are Buddhist and Islamic or even atheists. We no longer connect to our grandparents belief that this is a Christian nation. It really doesn’t have to be because we know that God is bigger than our president or who ever else is in power. We know that His Kingdom is more powerful than anything we can create or legislate because His kingdom is built on love and redemption.

And central to all of this lab work is that we know our function. To engage God’s mission of restoration to all of creation. The emerging church, from my perspective, is serving much like a company’s R&D department. (This is a metaphor people, so don’t go postal on me about bringing business ideas into the church.) We’re in the lab looking for the forms that reveal our function and connect to our generation. We not afraid to explore the fringes of our faith because we’ve completely bought into the idea that we’re forgiven and living in grace. And this forgiveness allows us to live in the world but not be of it. It allows us to explore what it means to love our neighbor without worrying that he’s going to corrupt us. We’re more likely to restore him because we recognize how important he is in God’s creation. We’re not afraid that we’re going to fail because we know that is part of the process. But our mission defines the development. We’re looking for forms that communicate redemption and restoration. And central to the message is and always will be Christ birth, death and resurrection.

But we’re also going to succeed. We’re going to find the essence AND form in context of what it means to Love God and love our neighbor as we engage God’s mission of restoration. We’re going to be part of something bigger than ourselves as we bring love to a hurting world. We’re interested in restoring ALL of creation; our brothers in Africa and the people next door who are homosexual, or goth, or just like you and me. How we do this is still in development. But why we do this is never up for debate; because He chose to first love. He is bent on restoring what He started. And that is something I want to be part of.

As always, your thoughts are appreciated.

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Help – Which Denomination Was Jesus?

Last year I picked up and read “A Generous Orthodoxy” by Brian McLaren. I really liked the book for the reason that it explored the beauty of our differences. I appreciated listening to different traditions than my own. It helped me process the beauty in other ways of thinking.

My formative years were spent in a very loving but small Baptist church. It had the small chapel with the hard pews and the stained glass windows. From junior high through high school I went to a non-denominational church (which is a code word for we don’t want you to realize we really are a denomination) that was located in a former computer technology complex. The church was deeply influence by the Baptists but never said so. In college, I floated attending several high profile mega-churches in Southern California. I couldn’t remember what they were? Nothing really stood out to me other than they were really, really big and had 67,000 different programs that were entertaining.

After marriage, my wife and I chose to specifically find a small church, settling on a church that was from the RCA (Reformed Church of America). It was here that I got my first introduction to a true, distinct denominational mindset. It forced us to wrestle with issues of child baptism and women in leadership, etc. Loved the process. We visited a Lutheran church once for a Christmas Eve service and had to stand for the entire 90 minutes. My wife attended a Greek orthodox church with a friend and also had to stand for 2 hours while she suffocated under the potent fumes of the incense. (No slam intended). I went with the youth group to a Catholic church and appreciated the beauty of the building but don’t remember anything else. When my family moved, we found ourselves attending a small CRC (Christian Reformed Church), which is split from the RCA over the question of the masons. Then we chose to leave and attend a covenant church. I really like the evangelical covenant church. They have found a way to agree to disagree.

Which brings me back to McLaren’s Generous Orthodoxy. In each of the churches I attended, I found people who strongly believed they were right. They believed that their way was the correct way to believe. In a lot of cases the differences were minor (RCA/CRC). And in reading the book I began to ask, “What denomination would Jesus attend?” Would Jesus choose the Catholic church, with it’s strong emphasis on liturgy and reverence? Would he choose a protestant church with its strong emphasis on grace? Would he choose a charismatic church, with its strong emphasis on words of knowledge and communicating with God? Would he choose the Methodist church, hoping to find Wesley’s strong emphasis on going to the people and building leaders? Would he choose the Baptist church for its strong emphasis on salvation and baptism? Would he choose the Lutheran church with its rich historical protestant background? Would he choose from one of the other 30,000 denomination for their unique distinctives?

Which begs a couple of questions. How would he have the time to visit all 30,000 different denominations? If he visited every one on every Sunday, that would take 82 years. And would visiting one more than once validate that denomination above the other ones that he either visited once or never visited? Would it invalidate a denomination if he chose to leave the service early because he had to catch an early flight to the next location? Or would he choose to skip the big churches all together and worship in a house church?

And then I began to realize that maybe form is a product of our own need for validation? Maybe we separate ourselves into smaller and smaller camps to validate what we believe? Maybe we find the smallest of differences to argue about so that we can be right and others can be wrong, which elevates the individual above the other, at least in one’s own mind.

I keep thinking of how God chooses to identify himself. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.” (Deut 6:4) (emphasis mine) How do we find our way back to a shared community that is one, living with a sense of wholeness and togetherness, celebrating our differences yet working together? How do we find a way past our differences to His church?

Your insights are appreciated?

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Q2 – Belief vs Love

I was reading an interview about Bryan Mclaren and and the interviewer asked about a question McLaren asks in his book.

“In GENEROUS ORTHODOXY you raise a provocative question: “If Jesus were physically on earth today, would he want to be a Christian?” Would he?

The question got me thinking about what our interpretation of being a Christian is? Is our understanding of a Christian someone who believes the correct thing, or practices love? I don’t remember Jesus getting to far into deep esoteric theological conversations about the lately “…ology” Not that he didn’t have those. Maybe he did.

I find Jesus more interested in speaking to the poor, the sick and the brokenhearted. His mission was love, not to get someone theologically straight because love was theologically straight. It was simply the fullest expression of faith.

What’s your take?

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