Open Mike

Unsubscribing from an Emerging Church Blog

Today I unsubscribed from another 'emerging church' type blog I started reading some years ago.  When they asked 'please tell us your reason' here was my reply:

"i became disinterested when your theological conversations led you to arrive at a boring, familiar vantage point - essentially that of mid-20th century mainline protestantism. yawn.  and I'm not talking about politics at all. I hope to keep emerging in a missional direction with others journeying along the two rails of biblical infallibility and historic doctrinal orthodoxy.  but i do wish you well"

I have been active to varying degrees in what came to be known as the 'emerging church' movement for a number of years.  In order to keep me and our church from being unhelpfully pegged with any particular stream of this movement, i mostly used the word 'experimental' the past few years. I used the word to describe aspects of Lake Forest Church that I felt were contributing to the international dialogue of the church's need to 'emerge' from a settled spot in Christendom ("I'm a Christian, you're a Christian, everyone's a Christian! So pick a church, any church!")  to a missionary-outpost-on-the-edge of post-Christian culture ("Christianity is one option among many to choose from, when people happen to notice their spiritual hunger in a pluralistic society").

In my humble opinion, the ascendancy in ministry circles of 'missional' as a renewed biblical theology for who the church is in the world has ended up being much more helpful and more rooted in Scriptural imagery, than the imagery of 'emerging.' Understanding that the church doesn't have a mission, but instead it exists for mission ("As the father sent me, so send I you" - Jesus) is bearing fruit across the Christian landscape.  Particularly, a missional understanding of the church is causing churches and leaders of all stripes to repent of church-centered ways of being, and creatively follow the Spirit into others-centered ways of being on mission with God to love the world.

On the other hand, many in the emerging movement have felt the need to keep the metaphor ever alive by  'emerging' past even the bounds of historic Christian theology and submission to the infallibility of the Bible, humbly shared by almost all Christians for 2,000 years.  It is this stream of 'emerging church' from which I am now completely unsubscribed.

Friends, if you engage with various theological and missional movements, enjoy.  Feel no need to judge or throw stones (that's why I'm naming no names in this post).  But I suggest you not commit your heart, your identity, or your best reading energy to journeying with other Christians who have strayed from historic Christian orthodoxy.  In my experience, the best way to know this is to find the writer's doctrine of Scripture and how it is authoritative.  "Infallible in all Scripture teaches" is a quick summary of the standard I hold myself and our church to.

A Kinetic Guide to Ash Wednesday

Sometimes I say that Lake Forest aspires to be an ancient-future church. Today is Ash Wednesday, and I'm preparing to lead six quiet, intimate services of communion and the imposition of ashes on our Huntersville campus.  One way I define ancient-future church is:

1. We are future oriented in mission - changing forms and methods of worship in order to speak the gospel effectively in today's language of ever-changing culture (technology, idiom, arts, servanthood through a toy store, instruments - including alternative adult rock at LFCH and indie rock at LFCD). 

2.We practice humility by being ancient in doctrine, as well as through time-proven spiritual practices like Lent and Advent, taking our grateful place in acknowledged succession from 2,000 years of faithful followers of Jesus.

For Lent this year, we are encouraging people to: *Worship on Ash Wednesday, *read a chapter of Proverbs per day (to jive with our new sermon series), *choose a Lenten fast for 40 days, *fast absolutely from Good Friday evening until Easter morning, and *celebrate in Easter worship and a feast afterward.

Here's a succinct, kinetic guide to the purpose and practice of Lent:

 

He's An On Time God

This gospel song by Dottie Peoples helped us focus on the HOPE in our house of blues yesterday.  We leaned into the opposite of naive, wishful thinking kinds of hope - the concrete hope in Jesus found in the African-American Christian experience. 

Its stated this way by Jan Willis:  I was part of a community of worshippers, who knew about hardship and knew that it did not last forever. This group knew that misery and joy can stand side by side. It is this very knowledge that black people call “the blues.” Here's Dottie singing "On time God" in church. Enjoy:

 

Why I Teach

Today I begin teaching the "Church Planting & Growth" class at Gordon Conwell Seminary.  I already have one job, so why, I asked myself at midnight last night while preparing, did I take this gig?  VERY briefly:

1. Jesus' Great Commission is a charge to plant churches.  When he says to 'make disciples...baptize...teach' the disciples understand that means to make disciples in groups called 'churches.' The entire book of Acts is evidence the original disciples, and then their disciples, understood Jesus telling them to plant churches.

2. After Jesus’ ascension to heaven, one of the key people through whom He built His Church in the first century was the Apostle Paul. The focus of Paul’s ministry was not merely on preaching the gospel to as many people as possible but on planting churches in every nation. In Acts 14:21-23 we read, “They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples … [and then] … Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church.”  Making disciples = starting churches for Paul.

3. The church is frequently called the 'Bride of Christ' in the New Testament.  Brides are radiant with beauty, reflecting their experience, identity, and joy from their beloved.  More radiant brides reflecting more love from the Divine Groom is better in this sometimes-loveless world.

4. America Has More People but Less Churches.  Each year 3,500 to 4,000 churches close their doors forever; yet only 1,100 to 1,500 new churches are started.  Even though America has more people, it has fewer churches per capita than at any time in her history. Although the number of churches in America has increased by 50 percent in the last century, the population has increased 300 percent. There are now nearly 60 percent fewer churches per 10,000 persons than in 1920.- Bill Easum
     

Number of Churches per Americans

1920 27 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.
1950 17 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.
1996 11 churches existed for every 10,00 Americans.

5. In 1820, there was one Christian church for every 875 U.S. residents. But from 1860-1906, U.S. Protestant churches planted one new church for increase of 350 in the population, bringing the ratio by the start of WWI to just 1 church for every 430 persons. In 1906 over a third of all the congregations in the country were less than 25 years old.

 ^{As a result, the percentage of the U.S. population involved in the life of the church rose steadily. For example, in 1776, 17% of the U.S. population was 'religious adherents', but that rose to 53% by 1916.}

6. Church attendance and adherence overall in the United States is in decline and decreasing. This cannot be reversed in any other way than in the way it originally had been so remarkably increasing. We must plant churches at such a rate that the number of churches per 1,000 population begins to grow again, rather than decline, as it has since WWI.

These reasons, and more, are why church multiplication matters to me, to Lake Forest, to our denomination, to theological educators, to every Christian who loves the world like God does and wants to see people know and follow Jesus.  I'm thankful I get to play a part, and pray that perhaps a future Billy Graham or Rick Warren-type may be in this class.

How I Use Sources in Sermons: 5 Stages of Grief

You may have heard the sayings, "Originality is forgetting where you heard it," and "plagiarism is using one source, using multiple sources is called research."  Last Sunday's sermon was one of my favorites in a while, because of the interaction I played out of an original idea combined with a powerful single source.

In Matthew 5:3, Jesus makes a definitive teaching about mourning. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."  There are many layers to this teaching (I ended the sermon applying it to our sin, death, and need for salvation).  Because our current series is looking to the Bible for how to love God and heal through loss, I applied it to loss.  So I spent a half hour leading the congregation to basically memorize Matthew 5:3 by returning to it over and over, as we fleshed out what Jesus mean by choosing the present and active verb tense of 'mourn.'  I chose to paraphrase it as 'blessed/abundant-lifed are those who actively-mourn their loss.'  Or, 'Blessed are those who don't skip any stages of grief.'

When Jesus brings up the subject of mourning, it happens to be something psychologists have spent a lot of time on.  What is typical/normal/abnormal/healthy/unhealthy in the ways humans grieve loss?  After much research, there is a grand consensus in the human sciences that there are 5 stages that best describe the healthy process of grieving a loss, over a long period of time.  And to get stuck at, or skip over any of the stages is bad and blocks healing.  We Christians would say it this way - social science has gotten good at observing and describing how God made us to 'work' when it comes to loss and grief.

So my idea was to apply Jesus' teaching of 'actively mourning' viewed through the lens of each of the 5 classic stages of grief.  But I used the standard source to describe the stages - the classic description written by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler.  And some of you noticed - I met yesterday with a physician in our church who is starting a new practice locally.  She said 'I loved how you made Kubler-Ross' 5 stages come alive through Scripture!'  At times I was quoting their document at verbatim, at times not (she never damned cats to hell, nor warned Lake Norman people about the quick fix of dating too quickly after a separation, divorce or loss).

Sometimes I name my sources if I think it will be helpful, many times I don't because it makes for laborious communication.  Excellent sources are one way of keeping my preaching and interaction with God's Word fresh and growing.  In this instance, I thought it would be helpful for you to 'see my work.'  For those of you interested, here is the original essay in full.  Its really good stuff.Download Stagesofloss