The King's City Parish Model

Continuing with our discussion of cities...

So I was reading the posts that you guys have made and began thinking about the church and how frustrated I get with it sometimes. I started thinking about how I want to find a church in Birmingham that fills my needs. And it's not like the things I look for in a church are totally for my benefit only. I mean I want a church rooted in the Gospel, rooted in service, rooted in the community. But ultimately, I don't think that any of them have it just right. So...

I started flipping through some catalyst articles. Here is the first one I came across (from Mark Batterson in DC):
http://www.catalystspace.com/content/read/the_best_decision_i_made_this_year/

I'll summarize in case you don't feel like reading the whole thing. He basically challenges us to get in the word (nothing new there, heard that before). But he digs deeper...

He begins unpacking one of my favorite verses, Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

He describes how we can rewire our human operating system to be a more God-like operating system simply through reading. He uses a T.S.Eliot quote to further illustrate this point, “Everything we eat has some effect upon us. It affects us during the process of assimilation and digestion; and I believe exactly the same is true of anything we read.” Ergo we are what we read.

Then he gets to his chief complaint (a little doctor speak for you) - he says that if you're not getting fed (at your church) it's your fault. WHOA. That one sticks me right in the side. I'm pretty sure he was talking to me there.

He goes on, "Here’s a news flash: the Bible was unchained from the pulpit nearly five hundred years ago during an era of history called the Middle Ages...It’s not enough to hear the truth. You have to own it. Or more accurately, it has to own you."

I think the man is on to something.

Next article I came across. http://www.catalystspace.com/content/read/on_reaching_a_city/

This article addresses the urbanization of society and essentially puts forth a proposal for community sharing amongst congregations - having a common missional focus, a communal type of worship, and a common intimacy. I mean why is it that churches seem more like rivals these days. Why can't we move towards a model where we come together under our common creator? Wouldn't that be amazing !? What would that even look like...

I'll tell you.

Article 3 - http://www.catalystspace.com/content/read/the_king_of_leon/

you have got to read this. And don't just read it, but get engrossed in its story. And play the song with it to (if you don't have it listen to it on youtube or something).

Seriously read the article before you go on.

This is a beautiful portrait of what Christ's church should look like and COULD look like! The city is the key! And His Kingdom is here and now. What can we do to help it be glorified?

It is so easy for me to get bogged down in all the things the church does wrong, all the ways I would do it better. But really it shouldn't be a surprise to me that the church has so many problems. It has been run by a bunch of people, like me, who think they can do it better than the last guy. And so the church continues to be misguided because it is missing its key ingredient, Christ. The church is not going to be fixed by us but by Him. It is our jobs to introduce living water to the people of the city. And to infuse a few heavy doses of gospel and redemption to our churches.

America and Capernaum

I finished Scot McKnight's Embracing Grace this past week and it further emphasized to me that Jesus permeates believers and churches and bleeds into the community. It is a literal flow of love and grace with no boundaries or agendas. Why then, is mobilizing Christians such a difficult task?

I have been trying to talk up this both-hands approach of love and grace to people in my life, and the reactions have astonished me. Aside from those who already are behind me, it is the Christians I know who have such apathy towards a church living out the whole Gospel.

This week gave me two opportunities to discuss the full Gospel, one with a Christian, another with someone who is most obviously searching and finds church hypocrisy a hang-up.

The Christian was patronizing, responding with a mild interest, but mostly doubt. How would such a Church work? Have you seen a church do this (I felt like the unspoken was, if you have, why are you serving here?)? I would say that the reaction was nothing short of luke-warm...and that really frustrates me!

The searcher was intrigued. Wow, he thought. Now that's a church! I'd be a part of that! For him, the examples of Christianity were laced with gossip and selfishness, not love and selflessness.

So if churches want to grow, if they want to go where no others have gone before, if they want to appeal to non-Christians, why not just FOLLOW JESUS? What about helping others isn't appealing? How does community involvement NOT foster church growth?

I was reading Matthew 10 and 11 today (very easy to swallow passages...ok, not really) and came across 11:20-24:

²⁰ Then Jesus began to denounce the towns where he had done so many of his miracles, because they hadn’t repented of their sins and turned to God. ²¹ “What sorrow awaits you, Korazin and Bethsaida! For if the miracles I did in you had been done in wicked Tyre and Sidon, their people would have repented of their sins long ago, clothing themselves in burlap and throwing ashes on their heads to show their remorse. ²² I tell you, Tyre and Sidon will be better off on judgment day than you.

²³ “And you people of Capernaum, will you be honored in heaven? No, you will go down to the place of the dead. For if the miracles I did for you had been done in wicked Sodom, it would still be here today. ²⁴ I tell you, even Sodom will be better off on judgment day than you.”

The cities inundated with Jesus' teaching (and probably also with Jewish teachings) were the ones that were so slow to turn to God. They thought they already had it figured out and didn't need any more help. They weren't living in such flagrant sin. They probably tried their communities and cities and found them just fine.

It was the cities that were so outwardly living against the grain of God that would find themselves in such a dire need of Jesus.

I think Americans and their churches think we're doing just fine. I think we're like Capernaum.

I think this is my greatest frustration on Sunday morning: that everyone looks at our church and says, wow, what a great church. No one sees anything missing. Ok, perhaps a missing family ministry, or married couples event. Yep. That's what's missing. Not one seems to notice the untapped potential of 3000 people descending on a population of less than 200,000. The fact that descending is even a valid word choice is frightening...perhaps we think we're too good for social work? Too good for getting our hands dirty? Too good for using our resources outside of ourselves?

So my prayer is two fold.

That the churches of America would begin to notice what and who is missing. That the unchurched would begin to find churches irresistible because they are trying to bring Heaven to Earth.

Second, that I would have the patience to deal with it, because I find myself getting increasingly frustrated and I'm convinced that that, too, is not the most effective way to solve this problem!

On a lighter note, God has used me so much as a bank teller. Seriously. I have been oblivious to it. I am here for a reason and I need to keep my head up and keep focused on Jesus.

Que mantengan la fe, hermanos!

For the Good of the City and the Glory of God

The biblical account starts in a garden, but it ends in a city. When the gospel first began rolling out it began rolling out in the cities, the big cities of the Ancient world. The gospel began to tear down all the walls that separate man from each other and create a new humanity.

Whether it was age, race, gender, socio-economic status, religious background, political persuasion...whatever it was that separated men and women from each the gospel tore it down, just blew it all the way up.

In what world do people from all over the map (on virtually every level one can possibly mean that) come to sit down together at the same table? In what world does a Fortune 500 business executive dine with a homeless city dweller? Where does the mother of four from Nebraska sit with the redeemed prostitute from Long Island? In the new humanity that is God's kingdom.

It all starts in the city. The gospel must blow up the city because culture flows out from the city today into the heartland. It is in the city where so many cultures, religions, and peoples collide on a daily basis and it is there where the gospel must be planted and unpacked for the people.

This looks different in every city, from Dallas to Seattle, Athens to Birmingham, London to Cape Town, but we all serve the same God, who calls us to love the city where He has us and serve the city for the good of the city and for the glory which is all God's.

-R.D.

vision and reality

So Bailey was reading My Utmost for His Highest and she read the July 6th devotion to me. I think you'll really enjoy this. It's entitled "Vision and Reality", something relevant considering the big dreams that we have and the reality that we live in.

Here's a link to it:

http://www.myutmost.org/07/0706.html

Ignore the tragic background.

Post your thoughts, as short as they may be!

Two quotes

"We do not approach a need with the idea [serving others in the community] that this really should be someone else’s job. If someone is hurting, then the Church should be the first to offer help."

- Dino Rizzo

"How wonderful it is that we need not wait a single minute before starting to improve ourselves and our world."

- Anne Frank

Amen and Amen.