Missionaries to Suburbia

I'm a church planter in a growing suburb of Northwest Knox County, TN. I guess you could say that my family and the families of Riverside Church are missionaries to suburbia.

Here are a few blogs that offer thoughts on suburban missiology:

The Suburban Christian

sub-text

Missio Dei Suburbia

The Church Is 'God's Demonstration Plot'

"The church is missionary by nature because God has sent it on a mission in the world under the leading of the Spirit. It is to bear witness to God’s redemptive reign. Just as God is a missionary God, so the church is to be a missionary church. It is to live fully within the active, redemptive, kingdom reign of God in the world as it is led and taught by the Spirit. It is to be a new community that expresses both the intent of creation design and the aspirations of re-creation as it anticipates the new heavens and new earth…

Growing up on a farm in rural Iowa provided me with and object lesson for understanding the church’s being missionary by nature. Each county in the state employed an extension agent to work with farmers. These extension agents were usually university graduates with degrees in agriculture. As new farming technologies, seeds, and fertilizers became available, the extension agents introduced these to farmers. My dad, like many farmers, was often hesitant to accept the innovations. One of the methods extension agents used to gain acceptance of these innovations was demonstration plots.

A strip of land, usually along a major roadway, was selected as a demonstration plot, where a new farming method, seed, or fertilizer was used to raise a crop. It was not uncommon for farmers to remain skeptical throughout the summer as the crops grew. But there was always keen interest in the fall when the crop was harvested. Invariably, the innovation performed better than the crops in the surrounding fields. By the next year, many farmers, including my dad, would be using the innovation as if it had been their idea all along. The church is God’s demonstration plot in the world. Its very existence demonstrates that His redemptive reign has already begun. Its very presence invites the world to watch, listen, examine, and consider accepting God’s reign as a superior way of living.”

- Craig Van Gelder, The Essence of the Church, pp. 98-100

Serious About The Gospel?

I've mentioned before that T. M. Moore sends out a daily email devotional called Crossfigell ("cross vigil") in which he quotes a Celtic saint and a related passage of Scripture followed by his own rich meditation on both. I'd encourage you to sign up to receive this free daily devotional at T. M.'s website My Paruchia.

I thought today's devotional "Serious About the Gospel?" was a great sample to share with you:

His mother in anguish begged him not to leave her. But he said, "Hast thou not heard, 'He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me'?" He begged his mother, who placed herself in his way and held the door, to let him go. Weeping and stretched upon the floor, she said she would not permit it. Then he stepped across the threshold and asked his mother not to give way to her grief; she would never see him again in this life, but wherever the way of salvation led him, he would go.

- Jonas on Columbanus, departing for Bangor, Irish, 7th century

"Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."

- Matthew 10.37-39

For most of us it never comes to this. We're not forced to make the choice between pleasing our parents or wives or children rather than following the Lord's leading in some particular direction. Columbanus literally stepped over his mother to follow the Lord's call to take up the work of the Gospel. In most cases, I suspect, our loved ones are happy, and maybe even proud, for us to engage in our ministry activities. Let us give thanks to God for this and rejoice in His gracious provision. Our deterrents are rather more subtle. But they are just as determined as Columbanus' mother to prevent us from being serious about the Gospel. We love our sleep rather than more time in prayer and meditation. We love our friends too much to risk losing them over the Gospel. We love our comfort, our diversions, our prosperity and ease, and the security of our jobs, and rather than risk any of these, we reserve our Gospel activities for "church" times and place, and we let our spiritual disciplines languish. We're so busy looking for life that we're actually in danger of losing it. The cross awaits us daily, stretched out across the threshold of our door. Many of us give it a pat as we go, like the members of a football team as they leave their locker room for the playing field pat a good luck mantra posted overhead. Others of us step over it, thinking nothing of leaving the cross at home, where, we suppose, it belongs. Yet the cross beckons us to take it up and bear it throughout the day, in every situation, at every opportunity, whatever the cost. When the neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, markets, and other public spaces of this land begin to be filled with cross-bearing believers, then we'll see the kind of revival that followed wherever men like Columbanus journeyed. Let us each reflect on the extent to which we are truly serious about the Gospel and the calling of the Lord.

-- T. M. Moore

Franchising the Church

The Point Blog questions the growing church-franchising phenomenon. (Be sure to read the Wall Street Journal article mentioned.)

According to this article, many independent evangelical churches are copying Starbucks' marketing and branding strategies to expand their congregations, both in the US and overseas. Now that Starbucks recently announced that it would lay off more than 12,000 of its employees and close more than 600 of its stores, I hope this is a warning to these churches that brand or image doesn’t make one successful.

Read the rest of the post here.

Christian Bloggers as Prophets

If you've spent much time surfing the Christian blogosphere you've probably noticed that a blogger's bent is often toward what's wrong with the Church and her preaching, practices, worship, and witness. Some have noted that Christian bloggers can be the cyber equivalent of Monday-morning-arm-chair-quarterbacks, second-guessing the ministries and messages of front-line Christians on the field while they bask in the glow of their monitors in the comfort of their mom's basement. I'm sure there is some of this extreme Church-bashing going on out there, but perhaps there is room for rants and raves that are redemptive. A chapter in Dr. Michael D. Williams' Far As The Curse Is Found recently convinced me that the mission and message of Old Testament prophets might also (or should) apply to many Christian bloggers:

Prophets minister in times of crisis, sounding the alarm, warning Israel of impending judgment whenever it has failed to seek the Lord, calling it back to its mission in the world...The prophets are complainers. They rant; they rave; they threaten. The prophets rail against Israel's worship, the monarchy, the cultic institutions, and the general lifestyle of the people. They aim their criticisms at the habits and presumptions, the complacency and waywardness of Israelite society.

A student once asked me why the vast majority of my criticism in lectures targeted the contemporary church and Christian culture rather than the sins of the secular world. I answered that I was merely following sound biblical precedent. The prophets do not expend their critical energies complaining about the militaristic cruelty of the Assyrians. Nor does Jesus deliver scathing rebukes of the easy syncretism of Roman culture. Rather, both level their criticism at Israel, the people whom God had called to be his light within a sin-darkened world (pp. 188-189).

Like the prophets of old, perhaps there are some Christian bloggers who are called to rant, rave, and rail against the Church's worship, institutions, and "the general lifestyle" of her people. Perhaps we need someone who will "aim criticisms at the habits and presumptions, the complacency and waywardness of [Christian] society."

However, the prophet's ministry was not merely one of indictment, but also one of encouragement:

But the fact that the prophets focus on the covenant people of God shows that their complaints and threats have a positive purpose: to call the covenant community back to faithfully obeying the God who had redeemed them by his mighty deeds on their behalf...The problem the prophets address is not some failure inherent in the promises of provisions of God but the failure of Israel to respond rightly to God's gracious initiations. Rather than being characterized by faithfulness and love, rather than being a light to the nations through its embodiment of covenant life, Israel engages in idolatry, gross social injustice, and religious syncretism. There is no shortage of religion and ritual, but the people have forgotten the covenant. They have forgotten why Yahweh had delivered them from Egypt and elected them, why he had given them the land, and why he had given them his law...The situation calls for a policing of Israel's response to the covenant. the prophets assume this role. Thus we might think of them as covenant enforcers (pp. 189, 191).

So also Christian blogger-prophets ought not to merely criticize the Church, but also call the Church "back to faithfully obeying the God who had redeemed them by his mighty deeds [the life, death, and resurrected life of Jesus] on their behalf." Christian bloggers have a unique opportunity to be "gospel enforcers," to preach the good news of the New Covenant to the people in the pews as well as the preachers in the pulpits. God's people must be reminded that the root cause of the Church's failure to live out her calling to be and act like the New Covenant community of Christ is our failure to respond by faith to the New Covenant, the gospel (see Galatians 5:6).

Therefore, the Christian blogger should not insist on innovation in the Church as an organization so much as invite the Church as an organism to return to her first love. Williams reminds us that:

What the prophets denounce is not the institutions of Hebrew religion but rather what the Israelites had come to make of these things...The prophets are not confessional, political, or social innovators. Rather, they serve as heirs and interpreters of a tradition that goes back to Moses and Abraham. They call Israel back to its true character and calling, back to the law, back to the covenant (pp. 190-191).

Too many bloggers decry the practices of the Church as culturally irrelevant, suggesting that the solution to the Church's poor reputation in today's culture is a willingness to blend and bend a little. But, as Ezekiel 36:16-38 suggests, the problem is not that God's people are too different from their neighbors, but that they are not different enough. God's solution was the New Covenant, the promise that through Christ he would transform his people into a community that would bear and bless his name among the nations. so that they might see the difference and be drawn to it. Like Ezekiel, the blogger-prophet must help remind the Church of her true identity as God's beloved covenant people who by his grace flesh out the Royal Law of Love (James 2), serving as bondservants of their King in the place he has put them.

So, to sum up these thoughts, I'm suggesting that these descriptions of the Old Testament prophet might serve as a call for Christian blogger-prophets to speak from God in order...

• to point out the waywardness of God's New Covenant community, the Church, and
  
• to point the Church back to heart-rending, life-transforming belief in the New Covenant promises as they are proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ,
  
• being careful not to promote innovative change in the institution as much as proclaim Christ's invitation for the Church to remember their identity as his beloved bondservants.

One last thought: The OT prophets "spoke with divine authority" (Williams, page 194). They knew their message was from God. They did not presume to speak for or from themselves. Even as they rail against corruption and rally the Church to gospel-centeredness, Christian bloggers (including me) must remember Peter's encouragement in 1 Peter 4:10-11:

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks [or blogs], as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves [Christ and his Bride] by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

When The Church Is Really Parachurch

I have a good friend who thinks that what we typically refer to as our "church" is really just a parachurch organization. I tend to agree with him. Here's what he means:

Generally speaking, what we refer to as "the church" is an organization with a paid and volunteer leadership who develop and direct programs in which the members of the organization participate in a particular place or building. (Notice that this definition includes churches of all sizes, from the small, rural church with one bi-vocational pastor to the urban or suburban mega-church with a staff of hundreds.) But biblically speaking, the church is the body of Christ, the people, the organism that lives and moves and has its being within the structure provided by the organization.

Think about it. What do you and I call the place to which we travel for worship on Sundays? Have you ever said something like, "Our church is having VBS this week" or "When is the church going to replace those old choir robes with new ones?" or "Have you been tithing to the church?" or "There sure are a lot of churches in this part of town." True, we could be referring to the group of people who are members of our local body, but it seems all too easy to slip into the mindset that the organization is the church and not the people.

If the people of the church (the organism) are really the church, then the organization of the church as I have defined it is really a parachurch organization. Para- means "alongside" and parachurch is a term that has been given to groups and organizations who "come alongside" the church to aid her in her mission. We typically think of groups like Young Life, Chirstian schools and seminaries, and mission boards as parachurch organizations because they do not claim to be churches, but rather servants of local churches and of the Church at large.

So then, the organization with a paid and volunteer leadership who develop and direct programs in which the members of the organization participate in a particular place or building is really a parachurch organization. The structure that has developed in order to organize the life and activity of the organism is meant to come alongside the people to equip and encourage them to be the church. When we rightly define the people as the church, then it becomes clear that the organization that we commonly call "the church" is really parachurch.

This is an important disctinction to make because as I just mentioned, the purpose of the church organization is to serve the organism. However, all too often we pastors and church leaders treat the organism (the people) as if they exist to serve the organization (leaders and programs).

Why do we feel the need to pressure people to give or give more? Because if they don't give, the organization will not survive and our staff, missionaries, and bills won't get paid. Why do we so easily become numbers-centered and spend so much time and energy figuring out ways to get more people in the pews? Because if they don't come our programs won't run, our paid and volunteer staff will have nothing to do, and people will go to other "churches" whose programs "meet their needs." When the organization begins to depend on the organism to prop up or perpetuate itself, the church (the body, the organism) is in danger of being devoured. What might have begun as a church organism being served by its church organization quickly and subtly becomes a group of people who exist to serve the organization.

I'll give two examples of this organization-devouring-the-organism phenomenon: one broad-brushed and one in which I am the guilty party.

• When church growth experts tell us that we must build and maintain "excellent" programs for youth and children because that will attract and keep their parents, I believe we are in danger of sacrificing our children on the altar of church growth. We're using children to get something we really want...their parents in our pews. That's the organism serving the organization.

• A personal example: When I was a Middle School Youth Pastor in a large suburban church, I asked a certain couple to join our volunteer team of leaders in the middle school ministry. I wanted them on board because of their love for Jesus and for people. They said no, and in so many words explained that if they joined our team of volunteers they wouldn't have time to lead the weekly Bible study that they had at their home with friends of their middle school son. Yikes! It hit me hard. I was asking them to give up THEIR ministry to teenagers in their own sphere of influence so that they could serve in MY ministry to teenagers. I was asking the organism to serve the organization. What I should have done was ask them how I could help equip and resource them for the ministry that God had given them in their own neighborhood.

I have much to learn and unlearn. These thoughts are in process, not completely settled. I am not saying that the organization is bad or unnecessary, indeed it is necessary and good, but I'll save that thought for another post. However, I am more and more convinced that Jesus has called the organization to serve the organism and that I have spent most of the last 20 years operating the other way. The question becomes: how can the organization of our churches do a better job of coming alongside our people to equip them to do the work of their ministry? Are we willing to sacrifice the perpetuation of our organization in order to better serve the people, the church for whom Jesus sacrificed Himself?

What are your thoughts?

The Church's Greatest Evangelism Tool Is The Church

Wisdom from the preaching of Sinclair Ferguson:

I remember cringing a few years ago when the Mel Gibson Passion movie came out, and I noticed a number of ministers...making foolish pronouncements like 'This is the greatest evangelistic tool there has ever been in the entire history of the church.' When anyone uses that type of language you can be pretty certain that they know almost nothing about the history of the church.

What about the church? Doesn't Jesus teach us here [John 17:20-23] that His single greatest evangelistic agency is the church? And notice--I think this is significant--not the church simply as a random collection of individuals who have been converted, but the church as a new, counter-cultural community in which the fellowship of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit comes to expression in the unity, and community, and joy, and sense of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ among His people.

That's the reason, you know, in the New Testament there's hardly any instruction whatsoever about how to be a witness. And by contrast, in our evangelism manuals all the emphasis lies on 'How can you as an individual be a witness?' and 'Here are the questions you need to learn to ask.' Now what's that a sign of? That's a sign of the bankruptcy of the church, because when the church is full of the power of the Holy Spirit what happens is what Simon Peter describes in 1 Peter, chapter 3--that you're in a situation that you need to be ready to give an answer for the hope that's in you.

When the church fails to be the church, individual Christians need to learn how to ask questions that will make ungodly people think about godly things. But when the church is the church, the people of God simply need to answer the questions that the very character of the church is prompting the world to ask.

And that's what we desperately need. That is perhaps the single greatest need we have as a community of God's people. That there might be something about the very atmosphere of our fellowship together in the unity of the bonds of the Holy Spirit that makes people ask the question 'Where on earth, or in heaven, did that come from?' And if they're not compelled to ask that question about our church, it's an almost certain sign that there's very little that's heavenly about our community...

Now, I'm a middle-aged man, and so I am less cautious than I once was in saying what I'm about to say. Our churches have the key of making an extraordinary impact upon our society in our pockets, if we will just take that key out. What is it? Be the church.

--from a sermon on John 17 titled "The Church and Christ's Burden" given by Sinclair Ferguson at the EPC General Assembly on Thursday evening, June 19th, 2008.

Book Study: A Quest for More

Our church is reading A Quest for More by Paul David Tripp together this summer. Over the coming weeks, I'll post some quotes from and thoughts about the book, so stay tuned. [One way to stay tuned is to subscribe to The Cruciform Life by email. See the right hand side bar of this page.]

Dr. Tripp has made a brief but intriguing video introduction to the book that would be worth your time to watch. You can also read the first chapter for free here.

Here are some comments about the book from Dr. Tripp's website:

Is Christ the center of your life?

Is He really your source, your motive, your goal, and your hope?

Is it possible that your Christianity may, in fact, exclude Christ?

“There really is no place for Christ in many people’s Christianity. Their faith is not actually in Christ; it is in Christianity and their own ability to live it out.”

Paul David Tripp expertly traverses the deepest recesses of the human heart and compassionately invites fellow Christian travelers to journey with him into God’s bigger kingdom. The author promises readers that they will be encouraged, excited, and motivated by hope as they learn how to set aside their “little kingdom” attachments which can expertly masquerade within the church as Christian activism, legalism, emotionalism, formalism, creedalism, and externalism; in favor of God’s expansive and soul-freeing eternal quest.

Tripp demonstrates through sound biblical principles how humanity is made by God to transcend far beyond the mere physical realm and is likewise created to be “glory junkies”—those whose visionary lives are governed by God’s grand purposes rather than existing only within their narrow self-interested confines. Writes the author, “It is a fundamental denial of your humanity to narrow the size of your life to the size of your own existence, because you were created to be an ‘above and more’ being. You were made to be transcendent.” Tripp then shows Christians how to “transcend” through daily, moment-by-moment, practical methodology that transforms individuals into the image of Christ.

As A Puppy Watches His Master's Hand

To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. Our soul has had more than enough of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.

Psalm 123 (ESV)

Whenever I read Psalm 123 I can’t help but think of our miniature dachshund, Luther. Two things will cause Luther to fix his eyes on my hands with laser beam focus: a toy to fetch and a treat to eat. When we play fetch, Luther never takes his eyes off of my hands until they launch the rope or ball. Then he runs full speed in the direction my hand moves to toss the toy. When Luther knows that I have a treat, he locks my hand in his sights, waiting for the good stuff to be delivered. As a puppy’s eyes are fixed on his master’s hand, anticipating a command or even a cookie, so I long to look to the hand of my Master, to receive His bidding as well as His blessing.

Like Luther, I want my eyes riveted on my Master’s hands, waiting to move in the direction He gestures, waiting for morsels of mercy to fall. I want to be a servant who watches and waits for his Master’s every move and mercy. I want to be ready to serve Him, accomplishing whatever He wills for me to do. But I also stand ready to receive mercy from His hand whenever He is pleased to give it. I must watch and wait for His hand to point me toward His will, to send me out to accomplish some task or pursue some relationship that will further the advancement of His Kingdom. But I desperately need His mercy in order to move.

I must anxiously look to Jesus’ nail-pierced hands for the undeserved kindness that provides the resources, both spiritual and physical, that I will need to accomplish His mission. I need to look to Jesus, who has lived and died in my place, has been raised to new life, and is now seated next to His Father “enthroned in the heavens.” From there He is subduing enemies who scorned Him with arrogant contempt and even now are harassing me. United with Christ by faith, I am seated with Him there in the heavenlies. Thanks be to God! Holy Spirit, fasten my eyes on Christ, on His nail-pierced hands, that I might run at His command and receive mercy for the mission.

Have mercy upon me, O Lord. Have mercy upon us!

Raised With Christ

“Jesus Christ did not rise alone. He rose as the head of a whole body of people elected to have faith in him, to benefit from him, and to extend his mission in the world.”

- Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Engaging God’s World (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 2002), 81.

[HT: Of First Importance]

Cruciform Ministry of Word and Sacrament

"The public ministry of Word and sacrament is first and foremost a vertical, eschatalogical event of the Spirit's disrupting grace that generates a horizontal extension of covenant succession in history while also drawing in outsiders by that same ministry.

Christ is serving us, building his kingdom, drawing people by his Spirit from the dominion of sin and death, leading them in ever-richer understanding of the gospel, extending that message and acts of love outward to the neighbor. The Triune God is the one creating a new world in the midst of this fading evil age, not simply keeping the old one going or dressing it up in perpetual innovation" (italics mine).

- Michael Horton in "All Crossed Up" (Touchstonemag.com)

[HT: Gospel-Driven Church blog]