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.

Why the wait?

I'm sure we've all fallen guilty to this, and I think I've been staring, motionless, at this for quite some time: the temptation to wait.

It's the plan/worry first, do second. Doing something crazy for God surely requires to be debt free...right? Or at least financially 'stable'? Or to have a life plan? I am having more and more trouble with this (perhaps because I am none of these things). But really...is it 'smart' to go off on some grandiose adventure to serve God when there's a nickel in your bank account?

I've found myself consumed in worry about money. It's the lens through which I view life. And I know, right now, after writing that, that the lens of money is a lens of slavery. It's a lens that's sinful. It displaces the lens of God. How can I help this guy when I'm broke? How can I start anything?

Part of me feels like if I could only be free from the 'bondage' of worry I could find joy. I think this is an American infection. At least a Western one.

I think my other reason for waiting is that I feel like the calling of God will overcome all of these fears, though I am afraid these fears muddy the call of God. Catch-22.

I read some of the Sermon on the Mount this morning, when Jesus preaches about worry and I was really challenged. I find myself so consumed in 'what to eat, what to drink, what to wear, how to spend' that I miss the what to do and wind up waiting. I've probably missed a thousand what to do's because I've waited. What's the fear? Do I not trust in God?

May God deliver us from these fears and may we hear the call.

bringing Christ.

I finally finished the Chronicles of Narnia. I've been told for the past several years that "the end was their favorite part" and now I can finally agree.

It paints an absolutely beautiful picture. Narnia is falling, clearly conquered, but the kids are still fighting, ever so hard, for what they know is true and beautiful...for Aslan. Though their fight is futile, though they have no shot at victory and many have turned against them, they stick it out to the end and are immediately delivered to Aslan at their deaths.

The New Narnia, Heaven, is more glorious than the last. It was clearly something worth fighting for, clearly something worth working to bring to the old earth.

Ross and I talked a bit a girl who had begun to doubt the purpose of Christianity after a mission trip to Africa. I believe this is a common stumbling block for a lot of people. Christianity seems so irrelevant when kids can't get to food and their parents are dying of AIDS or even curable diseases. How relevant is it trying to get a kid to pray the prayer?

I think that while bringing Christianity can seem irrelevant, bringing Christ is not.

That, after all, is what we're called to do. To be ambassadors for Christ, not Christianity. When we begin to make a choice to bring Christ to darkness, to bring hope to somewhere hopeless, we put ourselves in the middle of the fight. We have to choose the hard choice, to fight, when others say all is lost, when others don't see a reason for fighting, when fighting is 'uncool', but dressing like a warrior is.

So fight. Even though it's not cool. Even though it's not glamorous. Even though it's so EASY not to, and so EASY to ignore it.

And slow down and pray. It's hard to find a fight when you're going 60 miles an hour on your way to work, running five minutes late, in your Passat. Hard to even believe there IS a fight...but there always is.

The Art of Ancient Quotation

The great thing about the New Testament is that if you take all of the controversial passages out or all of the controversial books out (had their been stricter canonization or something like that) then nothing has changed. All of the books are really trying to portray the same Gospel message. You could even take out a whole chunk of the thing and the same principles would still be there in text. I find this amazing by the way.

Same goes for quotations (and translations for that matter). The exact wording is not important to the story of the redemption of God's people, Jesus' triumph over death at the cross. Basically, no matter how you swing it, you can't escape the Gospel in the New Testament.

But check this out. I was thinking about this while reading Luke recently.

Exact quotations don't seem very likely. After all, though we now think the Gospels were written within one generation of Jesus (i.e. the writers would have been able to interview eye witnesses) it's not like they were going to his sermons with pencil and pad like these days. They didn't take their recorder or replay it later that night on the podcast to make sure they got the wording correct. However, what if it were possible that these quotations were exact or even almost exact (at least in the Greek)?

We all know how shocking what Jesus said is to all us here today. And we understand that it would have been more shocking to his audience back in the day. So given the oral customs of the society and the shocking nature of what Jesus said, people may have actually remembered exactly what he said. Furthermore, the Gospel writers may have been able to even corroborate these quotes with other eye witnesses. How rad is that to think about? I think I just might have remembered exactly what the man said if I had been there and heard him speak once. How about that for the providence of God. So maybe all the Gospels have similar quotations and stories and what not because they all interviewed the eye witnesses. Whoa. That would pretty much ruin anyone who doubted the Bible's credibility. Or maybe they are so similar because of Q. Whatever.

Just a provocative thought I had.

A New Evangelism

Why are Evangelists among the most hated people groups in the world? I'm sure you have seen the statistics before, that evangelists are hated more than a number of horrible groups, and not without good reason I might add. But isn't the Gospel supposed to be the good news? Does the Gospel really inspire hatred? Not the Gospel I know. RD you mentioned the Gospel was something worth sharing, a source of hope and life through reconciliation and redemption. What the heck have these have evangelists been sharing with the world then?

One thing I realized early on in college, due largely in part to the wisdom of our Engage brethren, is that there is a big difference between conversion and redemption. And the church I grew up in was all about conversion, but not so much redemption. What I mean by that is that the marriage doesn't stop at I do and our job as a church doesn't end with this magical prayer we are always having people recite. You know the one...ask Jesus in to your heart, yada yada yada. We have dropped the ball on this big time. We seem almost more concerned with numbers than life change. Have you ever overheard a christian you didn't know talk about how successful their mission trip was. They say something about how they built 3 houses for local families to live in and built 2 genuine relationships with local leaders or influencers in the village and plan on following up over the phone right?

No not all. They actually say something like, we had 17 people give their lives to Christ the first night and then 21 the next night, for a total of 38, which of course was 3 more than Jimmy's group last summer. (Ok the last part there may be a little much but you know what I'm talking about). I'm not trying to downplay the importance of sharing Jesus with others. I just don't think that this is what the great commission meant when it said to make disciples. Making disciples is more than saying a prayer. We are just breeding spiritual halflings. Can we actually expect someone to experience a complete life change because of one encounter with God (well God is big enough to do that so there goes that arguement). But 6 weeks later has the effect faded? If so have we really accomplished anything? As a church we cannot just abandon people once "the prayer" has been evoked.

True redemption requires relationship, commitment, accountability. A perfect picture of this was our junior roommate, Derek. When he was over in Central America somewhere for a mission trip or vacation or who knows what, he had apparently put a roof on a guy's house. And every couple of weeks he would talk to him on the phone in spanish to check up on him and see how is family was doing. And every other month he would host a party or gathering to raise money for this guy and his family, so they could pay their electric bill, pay for house repairs, and have food every night for their kids. THAT is redemption. That is life change. He has turned this guy's life completely around. I don't think any of that will soon be forgotten.

Ergo, here is my idea. I call it the New Evangelism (well actually we should probably get away from that word wherever possible because of its extreme negative connotation but oh well). Maybe the best way to make disciples of all nations is not by having them convert or even trying to convince them that Jesus is Lord. After all, only God can bring them to a place of true repentence. We have no control over their heart (and need to stop acting like we do). And given the amount of damage that has already been done using this model and how misrepresented Jesus is within it, maybe we should take a different approach.

Craig Groeschel says that to reach people no else is reaching, we have to do things no else is doing (a motto for us perhaps. I vote yes).

Maybe our aim should be more directed toward getting people interested in Jesus and then following up through relationship (Ok so this idea may not be that revolutionary but it's a start). If we could just get everyone to take a deeper look, then God will do the rest. He will engage them where they are. The beauty of this approach is they may just be surprised by what they find when they seek.

As we all learned in our bible study on the hall, Jesus was one radical dude (one wild and crazy guy). People would be astounded as I am everyday by what Jesus actually says and not what we have been taught he says or what we think he says. We need to just let the man speak for himself.

Tim Kellar makes a great arguement for why everyone needs to take a look at Christ by pointing out that due to the magnitude of the claim (no one else in history has both been accused of being divine and claimed to be divine) you have to KNOW that he must be a fake. You can't just assume that he is a fraud or take someone else's word for it. You HAVE to see you for yourself because the consequences of the claims of Jesus are too great not just for eternity but for today (ridiculous sermon by the way, free on his website). Today, one of our biggest battlegrounds is the apathetic, those who don't want to bother thinking about it or don't have the time. Maybe all we have to do then to get them to take a deeper look is to show them the magnitude of the claim.

Oh and if we want to redeem God's people, we have to follow up.

Hey Ross...

do you post?

incompatible.

I've heard a lot of messages lately that I frankly have no idea what to do with. Their implementations seem abstract, uber-practical, and, most often, overwhelmingly impossible.

What are we supposed to do with Rob Bell's Jesus Wants to Save Christians? What do we do with the prophets? What do we do with the book of Acts vs. the American Church?

Yes, privileged doesn't even begin to describe me. Yes, my computer is equivalent to 2 years income for over half of the world's population. Yes, I live (quite comfortably) in empire. Yes, my church is like a concert. Yes, if it wasn't people wouldn't come.

I frankly find it all very discouraging, like the system of churches that we've setup is not compatible with the real message of Jesus. That I'M not compatible with the message of Jesus.

But the message of Jesus is timeless. It is and forever will be 'universally compatible'. The message of Jesus is for Joe Six-Pack and for Somalians. It's for all of us.

So why does it seem so incompatible? Why is it so hard to be like Jesus in Anytown, USA but exceedingly easier to be like Jesus on a mission trip?

How can we put the compatible message of Jesus Christ into practice?

I know this is extremely vague and lacks the same implementation abilities that we had at the beginning of this post, but really...really...how do we do this? Do we keep what's in place (the church)? Do we start a new church? Why do we feel powerless when the HOLY SPIRIT lives among us? Really though...

Commentary requested!

The Gospel

What is the Gospel? Many people go around talking about it and throwing it around, but do they actually know what the gospel is? Could they actually unpack it if you asked them? It is important to continually unload the Gospel on people. There is rampant confusion about what it is, especially in the South.

Most people have some cursory understanding of the Gospel, but a lot of times they really have a misunderstanding or misconception of what the Gospel is. They believe it is about religion or morality, "doing good" or "being a good person", sometimes they can even throw around the hallowed "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" as a means of explaining the Gospel.

By doing this most people rob the Gospel of its meaning and power, reducing it to a laundry list of dos and donts and preventing it from transforming the lives of God's people. This is tragic.

The Gospel, at its essence (and in my mind) is actually not mainly about us. It is about God. The Gospel points, not to us, but to the trinitarian God. It points to what God has done in Christ. It is not about us. Certainly the implications of Christ's redemption means that we move from death to life, but to the Gospel is about what God has done for us, not what we have done for God. The Gospel is Christ-centered, God-exalting, Spirit-filled power, moving people form life to death. That is the Gospel that we must proclaim to people. A Gospel that moves people from us to God, from our issues to the Cross of Christ.

The Gospel is the good news that our sin, our brokeness is not the end of the story, but that God has sent Jesus Christ to ransom us from death and bring us into life. The Gospel is though we have earned death, God in Christ has provided us life. This is the good news, not that there are some amazing rules to follow or some R rated movies that we should never see...it is that God has reconciled us through Christ and that in that reconciliation we have true hope and life.

That is something worth sharing.

Sexy Doctrine

Doctrine.
I love it. It's sexy. It's hot. It's rich. It's beautiful. Sadly, most people today don't really scartch beyond the surface of Christianity. Doctrine is something that seems not worth the effort, the work, the struggle.
That is unfortunate. The deep and weighty truths of God's Word are rich and beautiful. We have to move beyond this idea that we love Jesus simply because that is what feel like we should. You love Jesus? Great. Which Jesus? There are so many versions of Jesus we have to get after which Jesus the Scriptures talk about.
If I go up to my girl, Sarah and get on my knees and just lavish her with words of love and praise then that would be a good thing.
I could tell her that I love her red hair and her blue eyes, and that would surely be a compliment, but it would fall short on one key point. Sarah has brown hair and green eyes, not red hair and blue eyes.
I love Sarah because I know about her, I know the real her, not just some idea of her. We must recover this in the Church of Jesus. Before we go off and send people to go change the world and "serve" and become "disciples" we need to point them first and foremost towards Jesus Christ.
Who is this Jesus? What is He about? We must learn about Him before we can go off to the ends of the earth...otherwise we risk just telling people about some random Jesus that we know virtually nothing about except that we "love" Him.
Get into the Word. Read the great giants of the faith.
Read Augustine. Read Calvin. Read Luther. Read Wesley. Read Spurgeon.
Read men who are stepped in the Word, who love it, and who spent their lives protecting it and fighting for it. Then doctine, the great truths of our faith become real to us, they transform us. They are not just academic ramblings of professors and PhDs, they are truths which transform our hearts and our minds and move us toward a deeper understanding of Jesus the Christ.
So let's recover doctrine. Doctrine that dances. Doctrine that is not dead, but that right doctrine, right theology, right thinking that challenges us to move towards the cross of Christ with greater and deeper understanding of the Jesus revealed in the Scriptures.

watching the rain

Rain poured down today.  Tons of it.  

Walking outside before the storm I was bombarded with absurd gusts of wind.  It felt almost tropical, like perhaps the world's first winter hurricane was going to hit.  I don't know why this seems so important, but it was so refreshing and I just spread my arms out and took it. 

I got home just as it was spitting rain.  A few minutes later, it was an all-out downpour.  So I did what any rational person would do: opened the back door, pulled up a chair, turned on the flood lights and watched the rain.

I just sat there.  Watching it, contemplating whether or not to get my camera and just take pictures of rain drops.  I thought...you know what?  I'm going to try that stillness thing.  Just sit.

So that's what I did.  I sat, praying and thinking about what or where in the world God was calling me.

I've tossed lots of ideas around in my head.  Some big, some small.  Start up an NGO in Africa?  Latin America?  Get acquainted with inner-city Athens?  Start a business?  Find another job?  All of these things?  

I got what I didn't expect.  An answer.  And it was the most unexpected, beautiful, and decidedly romantic answer:

Pursue your wife.  

Wow.  Happy Valentines Day.  Love, God.  PS.  This year it's not just a Hallmark holiday.

It was an awesome calling.  So easy.  So perfect.  So divine.  And so deserving for Bailey.

And it makes so much sense.  As a married couple, we should be one in purpose, united in flesh and in Spirit.  We should be of the same spirit, desiring each other's goals for ourselves and the other.  Encouragement should be the hallmark of our relationship.  We should continually push the other to love God and to pursue Jesus.  

Listening to a Francis Chan talk, he mentioned that married couples should have the same mission.  This mission should be our focus and should be what we both pursue wholeheartedly and alongside one another.  An awesome image.

To be ready for that mission will take a marriage founded in nothing less than the grit and the essence of Jesus Christ.  So I'm going to do my part and spice up our relationship with a little bit of that Jesus love.

So perhaps the big be-all-end-all mission calling is coming.  But at least I know where to start.

tailgating Jesus | turning down the volume.

I yearn for a self-exodus: to flee my complacency, flee my worries, flee my doubts, flee my fears. 

I think it's my nature to try to flee these things myself.  I want to conquer complacency with ambition, worries and doubts with plans, and fears with disregard.  This, surely, is how I can get out of MY box.  With more me.  Brilliant.  But not.

But that's not how we're to do it.  That's not the way of an exodus.  In an exodus you're led out, like sheep...only I'm the runt lamb that thinks he can make it on his own.

I love Moses' response in Exodus 14.  Everyone's freaking out.  Pharaoh's army is on their heels.  And there's the...uh...Red Sea.  This was a bad idea.  And Moses just says...

"Don't be afraid! Just stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today.  The Egyptians you see today will never be seen again.  The Lord himself will fight for you!  Just stay calm".  vv13-14.

Awesome.  Yeah.  Ok.  I'm going to stay still.  That sounds good.

But it does!  It so does. 

It's amazing, too, how in their stillness God finds them and almost sarcastically is like..."Start walking through the Sea".  Duh.  

From this story it seems so simple.  All you have to do is be still and then...bam...God delivers.  

I don't think it's this simple.  But I don't think I've given it a shot.  Really being still.  Finding a place where I can just sit and find a way to fix my eyes on God's providence.  "Be still and know he is God".  I think we need to commit to being still at some point in our day, at least our week, and just sit and marinate on who God is and see if our problems don't start to dissolve.

It sounds so simple, but I know in my life, finding five minutes of quiet is something I rarely do.  Feel free to join me in 'turning down the volume'.