OMG, A Brewing Crisis!

Economists missed the brewing crisis. Now many are asking: How can we do better?

Maybe it’s because I was skimming blog posts at midnight, or maybe it’s because it was posted by a Canadian, but it took me several minutes to wrap my head around the fact that this link, shared by Jordon Cooper, does not have anything to do with beer.

Relax everyone, there is not a brewing crisis.  It’s all good.

(well except for the tanking economy that is)

Year-End Giving

• Giving to individuals in need does not usually result in a tax receipt.
• Individuals in need cannot provide a legal receipt for your contribution.
• Most giving to church congregations will not be used for individuals in need.
• However, you will be allowed to deduct your contribution to a church.
• There is nothing wrong with giving to a church organization.
• Do not assume that “tithing” is the equivalent of giving to those in need.
• Most giving to television ministries will not be used for individuals in need.
• However, you will be allowed to deduct your contribution to a TV ministry.
• Prosperity preachers would likely not be prosperous if not for their “ministry.”
• Many parachurch ministries use contributions to serve people in need.
• There are also secular agencies that serve people in need.
• Parachurch and secular agencies provide you with a receipt for tax purposes.
• Sometimes a tax receipt is not the most important consideration in giving.
• On heaven’s scales, obedience will be more useful than a tax receipt.

One Person Removed

The overly crowded parking lot was an accurate predictor of the longer-than-usual line I would find in the post office the busy week before Christmas. As I settled in to wait, I noticed the gal in front of the person in front of me. From my vantage point, one person removed, I observed.

She was about my height, but it was difficult to guess her age. She was wearing boy clothes – black denim jeans, worn and frayed at the heels, cowboy boots, a hooded Carhartt jacket – and holding a pair of work gloves in her left hand. Hair that had been obviously colored at one time, now lay limp and stringy, not having seen shampoo or a comb in many days.

Animated by a frequent facial tic, her expression was otherwise slack. Her eyes were slightly drooping and vacant and her chapped lower lip jutted lazily causing her mouth to sag open. When she spoke, her teeth revealed years of neglect.

The lady between us was petite and well put together. You could tell from her appearance that everything about her life was orderly. I could feel her discomfort when the disheveled girl turned around to engage her in conversation. After a momentary hesitation, she responded with enough warmth to be socially acceptable and enough distance to discourage further interaction.  This I observed from the safety of my position, one person removed.

Why did it surprise me that the girl in boy’s clothes seemed confident, intelligent, and unashamed? Maybe because I expected the downcast demeanor typical of those who suffer the ridicule and abuse of being socially different. She did not seem to realize that she was different, that she had breached an unwritten class boundary.

There really isn’t a point to this post except that here I am still thinking about her a few days later. I wonder why she doesn’t take better care of herself. I wonder why I felt the urge to clean her up. I wonder about those unwritten rules about who may talk to whom. I wonder why I feel so unsettled about the entire situation.

I wonder…what if I were not one person removed.

Wedded Bliss

In spite of the fact that we aren’t making out in the sand of an island beach today, my husband and I are celebrating our 27th wedding anniversary. With temps below 0F, it looks like we will be celebrating arctic style. Thanks honey for keeping me warm and happy for 27 years.

Other stuff…

If you click through, you can see that I have redecorated the blog. It was kind of like when you buy a new lamp, and the next thing you know, you are tearing down walls and buying new furniture. Anyway, I was simply choosing a header for a different blog, and the next thing you know, everything here had to change.

There is a good discussion on discipleship in the comments of the previous post. I hope to be able to either join the conversation or continue it in another post.

Disciplemaking

Following the attractional/evangelical/missional discussion the best that I can in the midst of a busy December schedule, the thing that stands out to me is the emphasis on disciplemaking. You can read my earlier thoughts about this in the post Disciples or Converts. Today I want to share a few related quotes.

From Alan Hirsch at Out of Ur:

Genuine fruitfulness, surely, cannot simply be measured by numbers but by ‘making disciples.’ How does one measure that? By all accounts, current churches are made up largely of admirers of Jesus but few genuine disciples/followers—this is not a biblical idea of fruitfulness!

This quote from a video of Ed Stetzer (ht Blind Beggar):

“We need to help people rediscover the nature of the christian life, that they are disciples sent on mission.

One of the greatest sins in our churches is that we have made it okay to sit and do nothing and call yourself a Christ-follower.”

The fruit of disciplemaking is measured in stories, not rosters or ledgers – stories of encounter, stories of missional engagement, stories of transformation, stories of deliverance, stories of justice, stories of reconciliation. As the gospel results in salvation and the expansion of God’s kingdom on earth, people have not only a single testimony of being born again, but many testimonies of the impact of the Spirit in their life and the lives of others.

This from Nate Woodward in a comment to this post at Out of Ur:

Clarifying the term missional can only happen if we reduce the jargon, not increase it. This is a plea for incarnational explanations: instead of making semantic distinctions, it would be much more helpful to me to enflesh these distinctions with stories of what it looks like to be missional.

And Brother Maynard throws out this teaser:

As well, it has been noted correctly that there is some degree of difficulty in gathering missional stories and accounts, and I can say that something toward this end took a big positive step forward today.

Perhaps we can rediscover the meaning of testimony as we encourage one another with missional stories of hope.

Attractional vs. Missional

Lots of ink spilled on this lately.

The simple version…

Come is not the same as go.

Just Wondering

Do you know why there was a picture of Jack Nicholson in my previous post?

A few random thoughts…

I am always glad when Christmas is over.

I have not decorated, baked, or shopped yet.

I plan on sending out a christmas letter for the first time in several years.

Both boys are squinting in the family picture, but the rest of us look pretty good.  Oh well.

My daughter is the sugarplum fairy in the Nutcracker ballet this weekend.

I am nervous and excited for her.  I might post pictures or video.

I’m ordering Sarah Palin glasses with progressive lenses. It was only a matter of time.

I might updo my hair and run for president.  You betcha.

My mind is all over the place and not necessarily on blogging.

But you’re all too busy to read much anyway, right?

Authority of Scripture

I wanted to write about this because it is a topic that keeps coming up in my reading and conversations recently. The book The Becoming of G-d emphasized the mystery of God and knowing Him through encounter. It talked about the bible as the stories of peoples’ experiences of God. However, it didn’t cross the line of saying that the bible is just a storybook.

The next book that I reviewed, Salvation Boulevard, was basically an apologetic for atheism. It approached the bible the way an accountant would approach an audit. From that calculating perspective, the author determined that the facts were out of balance and declared that therefore the bible isn’t true.

In some congregations, the assumed christian position on the facts of scripture is guarded with pitbulls and there is no acknowledgment of mystery, ongoing revelation, and the possibility that there are factual inconsistencies within the details of scripture.

Can one admit those inconsistencies and still believe that the truth of scripture is solid and foundational and that the word of God is alive and active, revealing Truth to our hearts?

Thinking on these things, one night I had to get up in the middle of the night and write down my position on the authority of scripture. This is what I wrote…

I believe in the narrative view of Scripture – that in its entirety, it is the grand narrative of God’s story. The individual books, as Scot McKnight describes, are like wiki entries within the bigger story. Overall, I see the Bible as the redemptive story of God’s people and their experiences with Him.

To interpret the Bible as a legal document or textbook tends toward distortion of details and a twisting of the big picture. When I hear, for example, of ministers attempting to apply prophetic scriptures to current events, I envision the kind of contortionist you might see in a circus, a freakish twisting into something completely unnatural.

The application of Old Testament stories and practices to current events often produces strange doctrine. The random cut and paste of New Testament verses to create proofs and arguments also produces strange doctrine and practices.

There are factual inconsistencies throughout the Bible. These inconsistencies often are due to an incomplete understanding of what the Spirit was saying to and through the writer at the time of writing. Frequently, the inconsistency is due to an inability to understand the setting and context of the writing of particular Scriptures.

Personally I believe completely in the truth of the written Word of God. I also believe that because of the lack of certainty in the interpretation and understanding of specific details, it is pointless to argue obscure details.

My approach to things that seem contradictory or inconsistent is simply to acknowledge that I don’t understand that particular passage or concept, yet. And I’m okay with not having everything nailed down to the letter. It gives me room to grow into the truth as God reveals it to me through His word and through the community of believers.

There are unarguable foundational truths that can and should be agreed upon. I am equally uncomfortable when the boundaries of orthodox creedal truths are dismissed. However, too often adjectives like scriptural, biblical, and truth are used as weapons to defend non-essential positions and add the weight of God’s approval to opinions.

The truth that is continually revealed and that must be sought within the Scriptures is the truth of who God is. While we should have a solid understanding of who He is according to what is already revealed in Scripture, it is also true that we do not yet fully know Him.

This puts me to the left of the nitpicking inerrant, sola scripturists and to the right of the wishy-washy, the-Bible-is-just-a-nice-story liberals.

My middle ground…
(or “why I am a conservative, postmodern, emerging/missional believer”)

• I hold a narrative view of scripture, allowing for factual inconsistencies and misinterpretations.
• I believe in the mystery of ongoing revelation of the nature and person of God and know Him as the Way and the Truth through relationship and encounter rather than through a forensic grid of doctrine and prooftexts.
• I realize that postmodernism is the predominant worldview and culture of the people outside of the church today, and I understand that this is the culture in which I live.
• I attempt to live a life poured out for others as an outflow of the life of Christ within me because I believe that is what it means to be a follower of Christ.

So what’s the bottom line?

Is it possible to believe in the scriptures as true, alive, and active without embracing an inerrant position?

Is it possible to believe in a narrative view of scripture without relegating the truth of God’s word to the realm of non-authoritative fables?

Disciples or Converts

I have lots of thoughts swirling in my head about sterility, reproduction, and organic versus artificial life and growth.  Let’s see if I can pull them together into anything coherent.  I will start with a story…

When our kids were little, we raised butcher chickens so that they (the kids) would have daily chores.  In the spring, we would get a box of cute little chicks in the mail.  We kept them warm under lights and fed them high-octane feed.  In a matter of months, the chickens that survived were fully grown and plump.  Then we brought the chickens in crates to “visit” Fred.

These chickens were genetically engineered for fast growth.  I am not sure if they would be classified as hybrid or mutant.  My husband, Farmboy, says that in crops and grains, fast-growing hybrids also lack reproductive ability.

How this relates to discipleship

It is vitally important that we understand the genetic reality of spiritual life, the organic nature of spiritual growth, and the inherent reproductivity of the life of Christ, beginning with the reality that we are born of the Spirit and that all growth and reproduction is a function of the Spirit.

The gospel of the kingdom has been distorted in many ways. There is the evangelical gospel of personal salvation which reduces the gospel message to a guarantee of heaven and insurance from hell. The seeker gospel promises answers for our personal problems and felt needs. The prosperity gospel assures us that God only wants the best for us.

Church membership numbers are not necessarily an accurate reflection of growth in the kingdom. Megachurch member rosters are filled with transfer members. Counting decisions for Christ usually leads to exaggerated claims and coerced conversions. Not only that, it treats conversion as a single transaction and diminishes the ongoing nature and process of salvation, dismissing the reality that the journey to knowing God is a lifelong endeavor with many moments of decision and commitment.

So yeah, the missional church might not have large congregations of converts. Instead we are attempting to make disciples in a manner in which conversion is viewed in the context of establishing a long-term relationship with Jesus and with other believers which may not be reflected in the roster of a particular church organization.

This from David Watson:

Making disciples is about a relationship with Christ that results in a lifestyle of obedience to the commands of Christ which requires disciples to make more disciples.  Making converts is about adhering to the doctrine of a particular faction, church, denomination, sect or religion. One can convert without becoming a disciple of Christ.

Artificial additives

I think that we often circumvent the real life of the Spirit in conversion methods, discipleship methods, and in the way that we function together as groups of believers.  What are the ways that we tamper with natural growth and unintentionally cause lack of reproduction and other genetic deformities?

Sometimes, in a rush to notch our evangelism belt or perhaps our genuine fear of car and truck accidents, we rush people to a decision statement prematurely rather than trusting the work of the Spirit that is already occurring.

Then in a rush to transform our new converts into shiny, happy christians we train them into every aspect of cultural christianity rather than trusting the process of transformation by the Spirit that begins within before it becomes evident to others. The goal is to get them looking and acting like good christians as soon as possible.

So we feed them high-octane food in order to grow quickly.

Oops! Wrong story. Back to talking about church.

We give them high-octane teaching in order to grow quickly. Many formats for discipleship revolve around teaching which is evidence that we see growth as transfer of information and knowledge.

One of the things we have to ask ourselves is if our practices are effective in making disciples. Do our programs and services produce “fully devoted followers of Christ?” At what point did we begin interpreting that phrase to mean people who are committed to the needs of the church organization? When we disciple them into serving the programs of the church we are producing members, not necessarily disciples.

Organic growth – It isn’t pretty

(Cindy’s carrot)

Organic growth can be messy. It usually isn’t straightforward and doesn’t necessarily produce uniform results.

Are we willing to patiently allow the real work of transformation by the Spirit in a person’s life instead of expecting them to conform their behavior before it is an internal reality?

Will we ever trust that the Holy Spirit could catalyze and orchestrate community and gathering?

How insistent are we that individual and corporate lives look a certain way – uniform, ideal, polished?

How enamored are we with our methods?

If we were to admit the real lack of reproduction within the church, perhaps we would discover that the reason for our sterility is that we have abandoned our true genetic nature and failed to rely on the life of the Spirit for growth and reproduction.